The Great Apostasy, Considered in the Light of Scriptural and Secular History

by James E. Talmage

9. Judaistic opposition to the Church was predicted. While Jesus ministered in the flesh He specifically and repeatedly warned the apostles of the persecution they would have to meet. In answering certain inquiries Christ said to Peter and others: "But take heed to yourselves: for they shall deliver you up to councils, and in the synagogues ye shall be beaten: and ye shall be brought before rulers and kings for my sake, for a testimony against them."—(Mark 13:9; compare Matt. 10:16-18; 24:9-13; Luke 21:12.)

10. Shortly before His betrayal the Lord repeated the warning with solemn impressiveness, citing the persecutions to which He had been subject, and declaring that His disciples could not escape: "If the world hate you, ye know that it hated me before it hated you. If ye were of the world, the world would love his own; but because ye are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you. Remember the word that I said unto you, The servant is not greater than his lord. If they have persecuted me, they will also persecute you."—(John 15:18-20.)

11. The extreme of depravity to which the bigoted persecutors would sink is set forth in these further words of the Savior: "They shall put you out of the synagogues: yea, the time cometh, that whosoever killeth you will think that he doeth God service. And these things will they do unto you, because they have not known the Father, nor me."—(John 16:2, 3; compare 9:22, and 12:42.)

12. These predictions had speedy and literal fulfilment. From the time of the crucifixion, Jewish malignity and hatred were directed against all who professed a belief in the divinity of Jesus Christ. In the early stages of their ministry several of the apostles were imprisoned—(Acts 5:18; compare 4:3.) and the priestly leaders sought to take their lives.—(Acts 5:33.) Stephen was stoned to death because of his testimony;—(See Acts 6:8-15; 7:54-60.) and the persecution against the Church became general.—(See Acts 8:1.) James, the son of Zebedee, was slain by order of Herod,—(Acts 12:1, 2.) and Peter was saved from a similar fate only by a miraculous intervention.—(Verses 3:10.) The scriptural record informs us as to the ultimate fate of but few of the apostles; and secular history is likewise incomplete. That Peter would be numbered with the martyrs was made known by the resurrected Lord.—(See John 21:18, 19.) Paul sets forth the fact that the apostles lived in the very shadow of death—(I Cor. 4:9.) and that persecution was their heritage.—(Verses 11-13; see also II Cor. 4:8, 9; 6:4, 5.)

13. Not only did the Jews wage relentless persecution against those of their number who professed Christ, but they sought to stir up opposition on the part of the Romans, and to accomplish this end charged that the Christians were plotting treason against the Roman government. Even during the personal ministry of the early apostles, persecution of the saints had spread from Jerusalem, throughout Palestine and into the adjacent provinces. In this evil work the Jews sought to incite their own people living in the outlying parts, and also to arouse the opposition of the officers and rulers of the Roman dominions. As evidence of this phase of the persecution, partly Jewish and partly pagan, instigated by Jews and participated in by others, the following quotation from Mosheim may suffice:

14. "The Jews who lived out of Palestine, in the Roman provinces, did not yield to those of Jerusalem in point of cruelty to the innocent disciples of Christ. We learn from the history of the Acts of the Apostles, and other records of unquestionable authority, that they spared no labor, but zealously seized every occasion of animating the magistrates against the Christians, and setting on the multitude to demand their destruction. The high priest of the nation and the Jews who dwelt in Palestine were instrumental in inciting the rage of these foreign Jews against the infant Church, by sending messengers to exhort them, not only to avoid all intercourse with the Christians, but also to persecute them in the most vehement manner. For this inhuman order they endeavored to find out the most plausible pretexts; and therefore, they gave out that the Christians were enemies to the Roman emperor, since they acknowledged the authority of a certain person whose name was Jesus, whom Pilate had punished capitally as a malefactor by a most righteous sentence, and on whom, nevertheless, they conferred the royal dignity."—(Mosheim, "Ecclesiastical History," Cent. I, Part I, 5:2.)

15. In the latter half of the first century, the scene of Judaistic persecution of the church had shifted from Jerusalem to the outlying provinces; and the cause of this was the general exodus of Christians from the city whose destruction had been decreed.—(See Note 4, end of chapter.) Our Lord's predictions as to the fate of Jerusalem and His warnings to the people—(See Luke 21:5-9, 20-24.) had been very generally heeded. Eusebius—(Eusebius, "Ecclesiastical History," Book III, ch. 5.) informs us that the body of the Church had moved from Jerusalem into the provinces beyond the Jordan, and thus largely escaped the calamities of the Jews who remained.

NOTES

1. Persecution in Different Dispensations. It may be argued that, judging from the history of the re-established Church in the present dispensation, may tend to strengthen rather than to weaken the Church, and that therefore violent opposition in earlier times cannot be considered a true cause leading to final disruption. In reply it may be said that the present is the dispensation of the fulness of times,—a period in which the Church shall triumph, and during which the powers of evil are limited and restrained in their opposition; whereas the period of the apostasy was one of temporary victory for Satan. Our belief in the eventual triumph of good over evil must not blind us to the fact that evil is frequently allowed a short-lived success, and a seeming victory. The permanency of the Latter-day Church has been not less surely predicted than was the temporary duration of the Primitive Church. Satan was given power to overcome the saints in former days, and the persecutions he waged against them and the officers of the Church contributed to his passing success. It has been decreed that he shall not have power to destroy the Church in the last dispensation, and his persecution of the saints today will be futile as a means of bringing about a general apostasy in these latter times.

2. Persecution as a Possible Cause of Apostasy. "Let it not be a matter of surprise that I class those persecutions as among the means through which the church was destroyed. The force of heathen rage was aimed at the leaders and strong men of the body religious; and being long-continued and relentlessly cruel, those most steadfast in their adherence to the Church invariably became its victims. These being stricken down, it left none but weaklings to contend for the faith, and made possible those subsequent innovations in the religion of Jesus which a pagan public sentiment demanded, and which so completely changed both the spirit and form of the Christian religion as to subvert it utterly. Let me further ask that no one be surprised that violence is permitted to operate in such a case. The idea that the right is always victorious in this world, that truth is always triumphant and innocence always divinely protected, are old, fond fables with which well-meaning men have amused credulous multitudes; but the stern facts of history and actual experience in life correct the pleasing delusion. Do not misunderstand me. I believe in the ultimate victory of the right, the ultimate triumph of truth, the final immunity of innocence from violence. These—innocence, truth and the right—will be at the last more than conquerors; they will be successful in the war, but that does not prevent them from losing some battles. It should be remembered always that God has given to man his agency; and that fact implies that one man is as free to act wickedly as another is to do righteousness. Cain was as free to murder his brother as that brother was to worship God; and so the pagans and Jews were as free to persecute and murder the Christians as the Christians were to live virtuously and worship Christ as God. The agency of man would not be worth the name if it did not grant liberty to the wicked to fill the cup of their iniquity, as well as liberty to the virtuous to round out the measure of their righteousness. Such perfect liberty or agency God has given man; and it is only so variously modified as not so thwart His general purposes." (B. H. Roberts, "A New Witness for God," pp. 47, 48.)