GNOSTICS, CATHARS, AND HERETICS OF THE RESTORATION A Word of Apology This paper should have been written by an historian-scholar with the command of ancient languages and the access to literary sources of a Hugh Nibley. But after waiting fifty years with no one else stepping forward to assume the task, the author is doing so with only the linguistic tools of French, German, Spanish, a smattering of Mandarin, Romanian, and Old Norse -- and no access, where this is being written, to a significant reference library. The Gnostics Little is known in detail of the beliefs of the Gnostics. They were early Second Century Christian, or quasi-Christian, heretics who, history tells us, were infected with the beliefs of Near-Eastern mystics that matter is evil and that the pure human soul has been imprisoned in flesh by a cruel God as a form of punishment. To defeat the evil intent of this devil-God, and to assure return to the higher "good" deity, man should if at all possible remain celibate in order to defeat the evil one's aim, keeping as many souls as possible free from the contamination of the physical world. This, at least, is the story as told by the enemies of the Gnostics, principally the prelates of the emerging Catholic Church who were trying to impose their own views of orthodoxy on the still somewhat diverse beliefs of the early Christian Church, and who eventually got the kings of Europe, who depended on the Church for their annointing and hence their control over their people as rulers by "Divine Right", to declare a crusade against the Cathars, eventually wiping them out root, branch, and stock. But the Bas Pyrenees region remained a rich ground for heresy against Catholicism, and when Catharism disappeared, the Huegenot version of Protestantism arose to take its place, writing a rich chapter in French history as the Huegenot successor to the throne of France accepted Catholicism, saying "Paris is worth a mass". The new king Henry IV, who retained his Huegenor sympathies, adopted the Edicte of Nantes as one of his first acts of state, thus extending toleration and access to military commissions and high office of state to Protestants for the first time in French History. A sad day, and one which set the stage for the Revolution of 1789 was the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes by Henry IV's grandson Louis XIV in 1685. An alternative view, that of the Gnostics themselves, was that they were heirs to the "higher knowledge" of the Apostles and early Church Fathers who were in possession of rites assuring salvation available only to the most disciplined and holy of Christ's followers. The Gnostics viewed themselves as a noble handful fighting a desperate rear-guard action to prevent the apostasy of the early church against the demands being made on it by the leaders of the new state church of Rome -- Catholic Christianity.* * For fascinating speculation regarding a possible relationship between the Knights Templars (whose Order was, for reasons not fully understood by historians, on October 13, 1307 destroyed overnight by all the Seneschals of France acting in concert in accordance with a lettre cachet of Philippe le Bel of France), and Gnosticism -- and today's Masonic Order -- see Lawrence Durrell's Monsieur, Viking Press: NY, 1974, p. 244 ff. *See also paper On Priesthood Power and Personal Revelation in this series. There is a possible third interpretation: i.e. that the most deteriming element of early Gnostic belief was not its concept of the evil nature of the flesh -- though that clearly became of prime importance later on. The essential element of early "Gnosticism", as reflected in the very name of the movement itself, was that there did indeed exist in the Primitive Church a "higher knowledge" made available to only the most disciplined and worthy members, and that this endowment of special knowledge was essential to salvation (or, more properly speaking, to exaltation). That such a body of special instruction existed must have been more or less known by hearsay among newer members of the Church is evident. One of the most significant, yet underreported and unappreciated events of the New Testament , occurred when Christ took apart the Three Senior Apostles whom he had chosen to head the Church upon his departure Mark , chapter 17, vs. 1-2 tells us, "And . . . Jesus taketh Peter, James and John his brother, and bringeth them up into a high mountain apart, And was transfigured before them; and his face did shine as the sun and his raiment was white as light. And, behold, there appeared unto them Moses and Elias talking with him. . . . While he yet spake . . . a bright cloud overshadowed them: and a voice out of the cloud said This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased; hear ye him. . . . And as they came down from the mountain, Jesus charged them saying, Tell this vision to no man. . . ." Latter-day Saints will understand that this was one of the rare examples of an "endowment of knowledge" from on high being accorded outside of a dedicated Temple of the Lord, as is permitted in days of the poverty of the Saints when they have neither wealth nor temporal power to provide otherwise. And quite in accordance with practice, those participating in the endowment were cautioned not to speak of it before the uninitiated. One is thus justified in assuming that following Christ's death, others of the most tried and faithful among the leadership of the Saints were similarly endowed with the special instructions and knowledge imparted by Moses and Elias to the apostolic leadership on the high mountain apart, but that despite instructions to keep these sacred rites secret from those unworthy of them, partial and inevitably distorted versions of the ceremony leaked out -- as they have of the temple endowment in our day. As the Apostles and their immediate co-workers in the ministry died, and Catholicism, operating as an arm of Roman state authority, supplanted early Christian beliefs with Neo-Platonism and Roman forms of Church government, this authentic "higher knowledge" was lost. Upon which, fringe groups, piecing together what bits they could from hearsay and gossip, recreated what they believed to be this inner doctrine and undertook missionary work to spread it among the most dedicated Christians they encountered. But the Gnostics had not been called by qualified authority to receive these sacred rites, and well- intentioned as they may have been, had no authority to re-invent them or to pass them on to others. And whatever their notions of the "higher knowledge" they professed to possess, it did not constitute a valid temple ceremony. It is indeed possible however that some highly distorted version of the rite was acquired, and this may even have become the source of the Masonic rites of today. A contemporary example is the decision by the RLDS Church, which after rejecting the restored temple ceremony for over a hundred and fifty years, finally decided to build a temple in Independence, Missouri, but not knowing quite what to do with it, have announced that it will be "a house of meditation and prayer". The Cathars Another early Christian heresy was that of the Cathars. Cathar is derived from the same Greek root as Catherine -- meaning "pure", or "holy". The Cathars (or Saints?) seem first to be known to history as they emerged in the Bas Pyrenees region of southern France. Like the Gnostics , the Cathars , pretended to a "higher knowledge" -- and they, too, ended up believing that the material body was evil and that the highest form of saintliness was to remain celibate, defeating the devil's aim of imprisoning pure human spirits in fallen form. One can readily identify the doctrines of the fall, and of Lucifer's dominion as God of this World. But what happened to the doctrine that the hardships of this Second Estate are intended as a test of worthiness to enter upon godhood, and that the experience of begetting and rearing children is a temporal experience in the powers of creation and governance in which all are expected to participate? The story of the emergence of the Cathars (or Albigenses, as they were also known from the town of Albi , which was one of their chief centers of activity), has not been traced very deeply into history. One possible source of the movement , though this has not as yet been established, might be the arrival of Mary and one or more of the children of Jesus following the crucifixion -- and the threat to Christ's progeny as heirs to the thrown of Israel, as related in the review of the book Sang Real et San Greal in this volume. It is certain that the elements of this story are deeply imbedded in the folklore and traditions of the Bas Pyrenees , as determined by the author and his wife during a trip to the region. The authors of the referenced book convincingly establish that a strong religio-political movement arose early in the Second Century in the region, and that this movement contained all the elements of a belief in a "higher", alternative form of Christianity than that of the Catholic Church and an alternative view of legitimate secular rule. Both the Catholic Church and secular kings must have felt themselved seriously threatened by a set of deeply held beliefs so contrary to the version of the relationship of Church and State they had jointly succeeded in establishing throughout the Western World: i.e. that Christ was not only unmarried, but had established celibacy as the highest form of holiness; that the Pope, as successor to St. Peter, was superior to all secular authority and that when validated by the Pope's unction, the rule of secular kings was legitimated. On the contrary, the Albigenses seem to have believed that only an inner group of those who had received the consolamente ( a secret anointing by a high Cathar priest) were assured of salvation. Cathar beliefs about marriage and secular authority are not clearly known. There are several versions of each. It may well have been however that they bore some relationship to the view of legitimate governmental authority held by the Restoration, as outlined below. The present author, based in part on materials contained in Sang Real and San Greal believes that they did. If so, Catharism was as much a threat to secular rulers as to the Supreme Pontiff, probably contributing to their willingness to undertake a crusade against the movement from as far away as England and Germany. Heretics of the Restoration Perhaps the most significant element of the Restoration was the temple ceremony. Without being able to say much about it in detail, enough is known of its general nature as a result of publication of books showing the murals on the walls of several temples, with explanatory texts by one or another General Authority, that it can be asserted that the ceremony consists of a dramatic presentation of man's progress from the Pre-mortal existence through earth life from the creation of Adam and Eve to death and the final judgment. Along the way, one is instructed that the only legitimate form of government is the righteous family, linked generation by generation (with unworthy progenitors being skipped over), these unbroken family units being sealed eventually to Jesus Christ, the King of Kings, from whom all worthy family heads (of both sexes) are endowed as "kings and queens, priests and priestesses, to rule and reign forever and ever". In the initial version of the endowment, these blessings are pronounced provisionally, conditioned upon one's faithful adherence to the commandments ( honesty, industry, chastity, and dedication of time, means, and talents to the building up of the Kingdom of God). But, the initiate is instructed, at an appropriate time, he will be called up to have these provisional blessings confirmed. That is, to become a King and Priest unconditionally for Time and all Eternity. This procedure, commonly spoken of as the Second Endowment, was apparently practiced quite widely in the early days of the Restoration. It was certainly quite widely known that the Second Endowment existed. But it also soon became the experience that even those who appeared fully tried, true, and dedicated, sometimes fell short as the tests of life continued, sometimes becoming more severe than even those unconditionally endowed with authority and power were able to withstand. And here we come to the tales of a few such. Samuel Brannan Sam Brannan, as is reported in somewhat greater detail in A Little Known Sidelight of US/Mexican/Mormon History in this volume, was apparently recipient of the Second Endowment. Considering himself ordained by God Himself as unconditional King and Priest set apart to rule and reign on this earth, when he arrived in Yerba Buena with a shipload of Latter-day Saints, he seems to have considered himself authorized to decide for himself that San Francisco was an appropriate location for an established Stake of Zion.* And he settled down with those he had brought around Cape Horn, and over whom he had been called to preside while still in New York. When President Brigham Young sent messengers to invite him to bring his people to the Salt Lake Valley to assist with the settlement of the Great Basin, Brannon demurred. And when Brother Brigham sent auditors to look into Brother Brannon's tithing accounts, Brannon said he'd account to Brigham for the San Francisco tithes when Brigham accounted to him (Brannon) for the Salt Lake accounts. Brannon was excommunicated in short order. He went on however to become Mayor of San Francisco and one of the richest men in California, before being brought low for his hubris. Clearly, here are all (or most) of the elements of Gnosticism and Catharism : belief in a "higher knowledge", belief that secular rule depended on anointment by religious authority (though not the Pope), and belief that one unconditionally endowed with such religio-secular authority was subject to no higher religious or secular power (either Pope or king). Lyman Wight Almost the same story can be told about Lyman Wight, one of the leaders of the Adam on Diahman stake in Missouri. When the Saints went West under the leadership of Brigham Young and the Twelve, Lyman Wight insisted on completing the mission on which he said he'd been called by Joseph Smith to explore the new Territory of Texas as a possible settling place for some of the Saints. Wight led his Missouri group to Texas where he located appropriate land on which to settle and, again, apparently having been given his Second Endowment, commenced rule over his followers. When a delegation from Brigham arrived to tell him it had now been decided that the Saints were to settle in the Great Basin instead of any of the alternative sites earlier considered (California, Vancouver Island, Upstate Michigan, Texas, and certain Pacific Islands to which explorers for the Church had been sent), Wight, too, refused to relocate and ruled his schismatic group of Mormons as absolute ruler for the remainder of his life. James J. Strang James J. Strang was another tough-minded, Mormon mustang, who once given his Second Endowment proved impossible to bring under control. More literal minded than some of his other heretical peers of the Restoration, Strang made a big noise of having himself ceremoniously and publicly crowned as ruler of his own Kingdom of God on Earth. Having been less prominent in the pre-martyrdom Church than some others, e.g. Brannon or Wight, he started out with fewer followers and attracted few additional during his life. But because of his bombast and insistence on feudal-type rule, he has been more written about in off-beat American history. Addison Pratt Addison Pratt was the less-known, younger brother of Apostles Parley and Orson Pratt. Relatively little is known about Addison, but it can be imagined that being a member of the Pratt family, his gifts for speaking, preaching, and innovative thought must have been something on the order of his brothers. This is confirmed by his success as a missionary and Church administrator. Addison was early sent as Presiding Elder to the Missions of the Pacific. He had substantial success in Tahiti (see article in Church News , July 16, 1994 p. 8 ff.) where several hundred natives were converted to Mormonism under his direction. While the record is spotty, it appears that Brother Pratt succumbed in part to the temptations of wealth, power, and secular authority, and when the time came for him to be released from his calling and return to Salt Lake City, he declined his release and carried on his own Church, securing the tithes to himself, as presumed secular ruler by divine right. It took several years of ardent work among the Polynesian Saints by other missionaries before the great majority were salvaged for the Church. Indeed, this being the era of "gathering", a goodly number of Pacific Saints gathered to the Great Basis, most of the Hawaiians settling in the Western Utah town they called Ioseppi (or Joseph) after the Prophet. When Hawaii passed from being an independent kingdom to a Territory of the United States, Brother Pratt's imposition over his Polynesian converts waned and he gradually floated away into historic obscurity, another excommunicate because of his grossly heretical misunderstanding of the nature of the temple endowment. Fortunately, it seems that the breach with Elder Pratt was eventually overcome and he was, unlike Brannan, Wight, and Strang, restored to all his blessings. William Godbe The story of William Godbe has received perhaps the most detailed coverage of all early Mormon Independent King heretics because Godbe's defection took place in Utah, close enough to the center of the Church and surrounded by Church membership that it threatened Church administration directly. Godbe, whether he had received his Sedond Endowment or not, was apparently aware of the Priest/King doctrine taught in the temple ceremony, and taking advantage of a movement by some younger Church members for greater cultural freedom than had been convenient under the more rigorous conditions of colonization, withdrew from the Church and set up an independent settlement in what is now Uintah, at the mouth of Weber Canyon. Governor Young (making a judgment call which fortunately for him and the Church proved less catastrophic than Mayor Joseph Smith's order to the City Police to suppress as a "nuisance" the anti-Mormon newspaper the Nauvoo Expositor , which set off a whirlwind of "freedom of the press" agitation in Carthage, unleashing the train of events which led to Joseph's arrest and murder in Carthage jail), sent the Territorial Militia to put down what the Governor termed a "rebellion". Suffice it to say, that Godbe -- as Brannan, Wight, and Strang, seems to have been motivated by a grossly perverted understanding that he had the same unqualified, God-given authority as the President of the Church (and Governor of the Territory) to rule temporally and spiritually over an independent flock. T. B. H. and Fanny Stenhouse T.B.H. Stenhouse and his wife Fanny were early British converts to the Church. Stenhouse was an outstandingly persuasive and effective missionary in a day when converts were expected to remain in their home country for a time, demonstrating their dedication to the cause through local missionary work before "gathering to Zion". Also a gifted administrator, Stenhouse was eventually called to serve as President of all missions in Europe -- a position held until his time by one or another of the Apostles. At last released from his calling, Elder Stenhouse and his wife were permitted to "gather", soon showing up in Salt Lake City society. Based on his service in Europe, Stenhouse apparently anticipated an early call to the apostleship -- or other high Church position. The call never came. Disappointed at finding themselves just another couple among the thousands of British converts in the Salt Lake Valley, the Stenhouses lost their convert enthusiasm for Mormonism and were soon penning a "tell all" confessional called Rocky Mountain Saints , one of the most vicious of all anti-Mormon tracts. The thrust of the Stenhouse book was that Mormonism consisted of two distinct levels of teaching: the simple story of a Great Apostacy from the Primitive Church, leading to the Dark Ages, followed by a glorious Restoration of the Gospel in the Dispensation of the Fullness of Times, as purveyed to the unsuspecting converts abroad; and the secret doctrines of Plural Marriage, abject spiritual and temporal subjugation to Priest/Kings under blood oath, and the threat of murder by Danite bands set to patrol the borders of the Territory to prevent those who had left their homelands for the isolation of the Great Basin Kingdom having second thoughts and deciding to return to what they had left behind. They also purported to be shocked beyond description by their temple experience, Fanny making absurd assertions about obscene ceremonies carried out naked in mixed company and dreadful oaths demanded under immediate threat of death. (The "two levels of doctrine" charge reflects a startling parallel to the similar beliefs of the early gnostics and charges made by the Catholic Church about Cathar practices.) The Stenhouse book, one of the first to contain a somewhat detailed account of the temple ceremony, was sufficiently distorted to do the Church maximum political harm at a time when Governor Young was pressing for early admission as a state, while being sufficiently prurient to assure high sales, setting the authors up for a series of money-making lectures around the United States. It is true that early missionaries were cautioned to preach neither polygamy nor blood atonement abroad, these being considered heavy fare for new converts. But it is unlikely in the extreme that having served as President of the European Mission of the Church for a number of years, and having associated with any number of General Authorities during this time, several of whom took plural wives while living in Europe, that either Stenhouse or his wife could have remained ignorant of at least the doctrine of plural marriage. The effective, if not the proximate cause of the couple's apostacy was clearly hubris: The expectation of future high calling based on Brother Stenhouse's service as European Mission President, a position theretofore filled by Apostles. Sister Stenhouse, accustomed to the deference accorded the wife of a high church official in Europe, likewise, undoubtedly had difficulty adjusting herself to the harsh life in still-abuilding Salt Lake City where she was just another convert immigrant. To be sure, this was also the period in which Protestant ministers were arriving in the Salt Lake Valley, seeking to detach the disaffected from the LDS Church, encouraging them to write anti-Mormon tracts to make trouble with Washington politicians to defeat Governor Young's efforts to achieve statehood. The Stenhouse book was one of the most mischievous of all such tracts. It is interesting that while Pratt, Strang, Wight, and Brannon were all led into heresy, based on a similar, if not identical, misinterpretation of the temple ceremony, other apostles with their feet more firmly on the ground, and more spiritually attuned to the Lord's will, rather than their own (i.e. to the guidance of the prophets succeeding Joseph Smith in the Presidency), zealously carried out equivalent, and ultimately far more successful and lasting colonization efforts in the far reaches of the Intermountain West, Canada, and Mexico. One or another General Authority, given a specific calling and armed with priesthood authority, settled the valleys up and down what is now Utah and Western Colorado, major parts of Central Idaho, founded towns in Alberta, Canada, settled southeastern Washington state, the Big Horn Basin in Wyoming and parts of Montana, pushed south as far as the Salt River in Arizona Territory (and later into Sonora and Chihuahua, Mexico), founded Reno and Las Vegas (when these were still parts of Utah Territory), and helped with the early settlement of San Diego (which was intended to be Deseret's seaport, avoiding the long overland trek to Salt Lake City from New York or New Orleans). A similar group of LDS, under assigned leadership, also founded San Bernardino -- which was to be a recruiting station for those on their way to the Valleys of the Great Basin from San Diego. Contrasting the Utah experience with that of Addison Pratt, James J. Strang, Sam Brannon, and Lyman Wight, one can discern a virtual re-play of the Great Apostasy, the Restoration being saved not because Modern Mormons were necessarily more virtuous than the Saints of the Primitive Church, but because of the Rocky Mountain redoubt and modern communications (telegraph, the railway) which enabled top leaders in Salt Lake City to maintain contact with the Church's far-flung leadership of groups and branches of the Church abroad (with the exception of the few noted here who took the bit between their teeth). Strang, chose to follow the strategy of the Catholic Church, adopting the robes and panoply of secular rule against which Paul warned (2 Thess. 2:4 ) -- though he failed to find a powerful secular authority under external threat which saw advantage in allying itself with his movement, which might have assured his survival -- as was the case with the Catholic heresy under Imperial Rome; Brannon succumbed to the lure of wealth and worldly acclaim; Wight and Pratt appear to have faltered essentially because of stiff-neckedness and unwillingness to acknowledge higher authority. To the latter group might possibly be added Joseph's brother Samuel, another apostle who refused to move West with the Saints (and later became an adherent of the "Reorganization", apparently because he felt he was not given enough deference as the Prophet's kin (but, it must be acknowledged, also because his mother and the Prophet's wife Emma felt they could not undertake the difficult trek into the wilderness). The story of Samuel Smith is not included in this account because he never made a serious effort to start a counter-movement in his own name, and because he never publicly proclaimed himself to be an anointed king and priest. But it was probably essentially the same misinterpretation of doctrine which kept him from moving West and gave him the notion that he (and the half dozen who con sorted with him in founding the "Reorganization") possessed unqualified authority to carry on a parallel religious movement. What can excommunication mean to one who knows that he has been unconditionally "consecrated a king and priest to rule and reign for ever and ever, worlds without end." Even Truth, carried to an extreme, can be a source of the most profound error.