Constantine's Donation and its relationship to the Acts of Sylvester

This rather complex problem was first exposed by Nicolaus von Kues, Lorenzo Valla and the English bishop Reginald Pecock (in his writing against the Lollards). The whole background story of the donation is dependent on the Acts of Sylvester, which narrates the baptism of Constantine by Sylvester after the victory at the Milvian bridge (cf. Wilhelm Pohlkamp, Textfassung, Literarische Formen und geschichtliche Funktion der römischen Sylvesterakten, in Francia 19/1 (1992), pp.115-196; digitally accessible in the Bavarian State Library). The validity of these actus Sylvestri is in turn assured by the pseudo-Gelasian decretum,  a Gallic index of permissible books from the 6th century (cf Erich von Dobschütz, Decretum Gelasianum, in the series Texte und Untersuchungen zur Altchristlichen Literatur, Bd xxxviim 3m  Leipzig 1911, digitally accessible at the Internet Archive) that eventually made its way into the Gratian judicial corpus.

The core problem was that Eusebius of Cesarea, though later condemned as Arian, had himself been the Church historian of choice of Constantin, as Reginald Pecock pointed out, and had narrated no baptism of Constantine in Rome (neither after the battle nor due to leprosy), but placed that even in Nicomedia toward the end of the Emperor's life.

2020 Joseph Smith Papers Conference

The Church History Library in Salt Lake City is hosting its 2020 conference.

Panel 1: Interpreting

Spencer McBride: James Arlington Bennett as a supporter and future vice-president for his candidacy. Butterfield as representative of Joseph Smith Jr, original attorney for the US govt during the bankruptcy hearings. The core problem is avoiding the 2nd extradition request from Missouri.

Shannon Kelly Jorgensen: George Bachmann (sp?) in Carthage, Illinois, against John C Bennett.

Stephanie Steed, Brett D Dowdle, Angela Thompson and Stephanie Steed also participated.

Q&A:

• focus on JSJr is broadened by connecting him to women, people of color
• it's a tough place to start with the people being so many
• Joseph Smith Jr did meet with Indians in Nauvoo as they passed through

Panel 2: Power Networks

Paul Reeve, "I Dug the Graves" 

Afro-American Jane Elizabeth Manning was baptized 1842, followed by her brother Isaas Lewis Manning (+1913) that same December baptized, in Connecticut, but went to Nauvoo in 1843, eventually joined the RLDS in London, Ontario, then moved to Utah, rejoining Jane, and switched back to LDS, became baptized again.

Recollections about Nauvoo''s Mansion House, where they had lived during the first days in Nauvoo, gave them new clothes lost, hired to work at the Mansion house (laundress & cook), but called him a prophet and would have laid their life down for them.

Sister Sarah also joined, as well as brother Peter, but also mother and aunt.

About 25 black people were in Nauvoo at this point in time, in a city of almost 12,000 people. Smith Jr was convinced that blacks only had worse socio-economic situations, not genetic. But Smith Jr was not a racial abolitionist, later suggest reimbursing for freeing of slaves. Separation of the races in marriage had his support. Priesthood Ordination was rare, but it was not systematic back then and roughly 1/3 held that of the white men.

Manning dug fake graves for Hyrum and Joseph; the actual bodies of the two were in the basement of the Nauvoo Mansion house. Manning then helped Emma move the bodies to the old log house of the river.

"Uncle Isaac" and "Aunt Jane" was their names in the later articles in the Salt Lake Herald of 1899 in Utah ("First Negroes to Join Mormon Church"). Brigham Young had defined Manning's race as cursed theologically; but Manning's personal connection with the Prophet somehow undercut that notion.

Brian Stutzmann, Conflict with Warsaw

Warsaw, Hancock County, Illinois was the nemesis of Nauvoo. Demoine Rapids in the Mississippi required lightening the road. Thomas Sharp initially supported that railroad, as the cost was about 500k$ a year at that time. Nauvoo refused to participate because of the economic depression, after effects of 1837, Isaac Galen had only sold them on land only because of the no-money down; the railroad did not have such conditions.

Wrote a history of Warsaw, Illinois, quite hostile to Thomas Sharp, editor of the Warsaw Signal, an anti-Mormon newspaper.

Derek Sainsbury, Cadre for the Kingdom

Joseph Smith Jrs electioneers. Smith Jr advocated aristarchy (-> Council of 50) and theodemocracy.

Editorial in Times and Seasons, The Government of God July 15 1842 (Friday) in Nauvoo.

The Campaign, the Kingdom and the Assassination. Smith Jr wanted to be president in the US, or in Texas, California or Mexico, if necessary.

600 electioneer missionaries went out. Example Joseph A Stratton, electioneered in the East, hopefully thereafter England.

William I Appleby former judge, democratic Whig, saw in Smith Jr the solution to injustice and corruption, believed that the Mormons had been predicted by Daniel, published 2,000 copies of a 24-page book interpreting this.

Franklin Richards made a pillar of stone as a testimony to God's plans.

Q&A

• Smith Jr had to distance himself to abolitionism and race mixing initially (1836), but by the presidential platform was supporting open racial vision (1844), the former in AT and the latter in the NT; Brigham Young 1852 speech is racist, no doubt
• Smith Jr's attempt at presidency is a move for religious freedom, gave the president power to intervene if religious freedom was not protected; context of the Bible riots of Philadelphia, Wenton letter of 1842 was supportive but in 1844 the Mormons had been let down
• Sharp tried to recruit support for the Expositor (June 1844), supports a call to arm to defend the press in Nauvoo; almost every issue he was arguing against Smith Jr; the Warsaw library has the complete Warsaw Signal newspaper issues digitally online
• Marshall, Turning point of Thomas Sharp
• Century of Black Mormons (.org), first temple endowed of mixed-racial ancestry in 1845, probably passing as white

Panel 3: Financial Networks

Elizabeth Kuehn: Was JSjr bad at business?

Admits that the shares were HUGE for the time

Sharalyn Howcroft: The Red Store Book

Oct 1842 and Oct 1843 Emma Smith worked as a clerk at the store

Jeffrey Mahas: Labor Disputes and building of Nauvoo Temple

People who were exploiting build the temple were still happy to be exploited

No single critical question; all hunky-dory; so much for science 

Mildenberger über Heilsgeschichte

Mildenberger emphasizes that the term itself is of 19th century origin (Erlanger Theologican J. Ch. K. v. Hofmann), even if pietistic Biblizism in the style of J.A. Bengel and F.Ch. Oetinger as well as the Federationtheology of the 16th century prefigure the notion (sp.1584).

Mildenberger notes that the premise to such thinking is accepting all of history as one reality, which only begins to take place in the 2nd half of the 18th century (sp.1584). Here, Heilsgeschichte effectively replaces metaphysics for dogmatics (sp.1584) and has to find a profile in comparison to world history.

Already in Hofmann's work the curious move, that Salvation History has existence independent of any knowing subject surfaces here (p.1585). Key criticisms of this position are Bultmann [presumably Geschichte und Eschatologie?, 1955?] and O. Cullmann's Heil als Geschichte, 1965.

Salvation history finds use in conservative positions that insist on the verbal inspiration of the Biblical writings, coupled with a modern notion of history, which is then intended to counter the historical critical reconstructions of the Biblical narratives.

Hier ist die mehr oder weniger streng gefaßte Vorstellung der Verbalinspiration mit einem modernen Verständnis geschichtlicher Tatsächlichkeit verknüpft. (sp.1585)

 However, Mildenberger indicates the problems that this approach has.

Heilsgeschichte als Systematisierung des biblischen Erzählens von Gottes Handeln erweist sich ## darin als problematisch, daß sie die biblischen Erzählungen in einen diesen fremden Zusammenhang einer einzigen Geschichte bringen will. Dabei kommt ein dem biblischen Reden fremder Begriff von Tatsächlichkeit und zeitlicher Kontinuität ins Spiel, der die biblischen Erzählungen auf einen hinter diesen liegenden Tatsachenzusammenhang hin befragt. ... dieser konstruierte Tatsachenzusammenhang (soll dann, RCK) als Heilsgeschichte die objektive Grundlage des Glaubens sein.  Die moderne Geschichtskonstruktion tritt an die Stelle des biblischen Redens, wo auch die einzelnen Inhalte der biblischen Erzählung entnommen sind. (sp.1586)

No approach of Salvation History can escape the assumption that history can be interpreted at all as such a unified process (sp.1586).

Die Bestimmung der Gesamtwirklichkeit als Heilsgeschichte setzt voraus, daß Geschichte überhaupt als sinnvoller zielgerichteter Gesamtzusammenhang erfasßt werden kann. Das ist aber ein keineswegs selbstverständliches Wirklichkeitsverständnis. (sp.1586)

Mildenberger proposes to drop the use of the term altogether (sp.1586).

Bibliographie

Friedrich Mildenberger, Art. Heilsgeschichte, RGG4, Band 3, sp.1584-1586.

• O. Cullmann, Heil als Geschichte, 1965.
• R. Bultmann, Geschichte und Eschatologie, 1955?
• Karl Löwith, Meaning in History, 1949 (= Weltgeschichte und Heilsgeschehen, 1953).
• R. Koselleck, Art Geschichte, V-VII, GGB2, 647-717.

Momigliano on Ecclesiastical Historiography

Momigliano begins his sketch by pointing to the difficulties that 18th century Italian historiographers faced with respect to the Church hierarchy, in a century-spanning way.

An event of the fifth century [i.e. Emperor Vallentinianus III giving the pallium to the bishop of Ravenna, as part of raising Ravenna to an archbishopric, RCK] as told by a local ecclesiastical historian of the ninth century [i.e. Agnellus of Ravenna, author of a Liber Pontificalis, RCK] still had practical implications for the eighteenth century---and not only in Ravenna, but everywhere in Christendom. (p.136)

This precedent-directed connection is glossed by Momigliano as follows:

The very continuity of the institution of the Church through the centuries makes it inevitable that anything which happened in the Church's past should be relevant to its present. (p.136)

[[RCK: That argument of course only holds because of the conservative nature, as a structure that cannot reform, only re-explicate or rephrase. Institutions such as companies that re-innovate themselves every couple of years do not have these problems at all; the fact that IBM used to make meat scales has zero impact on their current foundational physics research.]]

Clearly Momigliano is right, that even across the denominational ditches,

A Church that consciously breaks with its original principles and its original institutions is inconceivable. (p.136)

The Church knows a return to the principles, not a break with them. (p.136)

 Momigliano argues that this both simplifies and complicates the task of the ecclesiastical historian.

[The Church historian, RCK] ... has to write the history of an institution which began in a precise moment, had an original structure, and developed with clear changes. It is for him to judge where the change implies a betrayal of the original purposes of the institution. On the other hand the historian of the Church is inevitably faced with the difficulty of having continuously to relate the events of the individual local churches to the corpus mysticum of the Ecclesia universalis. (p.136)

Momigliano believes that secular historians can focus on retelling the past, without the chance of much challenging of their results (pp.136f).

The historian of the Church knows that at any point he will be challenged. (p.137)

Church historians prepare for these challenges by rigor in the documentation of their retellings of the past. (p.137)

[[RCK: The argument that historians have few challenges to their retellings, presumably outside of their discipline, is only true if they work on a topic whose connection to the present is unclear. In general, Momigliano seems to work with an inverted arrow of time; the question is the applicability to the present times, and it is the principles' impact on the present time that are at issue, not the relationship of these principles to the past. A biography of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, or the other founding fathers is no less challenged in the present day US, because their principles project forward, because the history of politics in the US is interpreted as an unfolding of the original Declaration of Independence and the original Constitution plus Amendments. A biography of Sam Houston, outside of Texas, or of Davy Crockett, has no such projections.]]

We have defined what seem to us some of the essential elements of ecclesiastical historiography: the continuous interrelation of dogma and facts; the transcendental significance attributed to the period of the origin; the emphasis on factual evidence; the ever present problem of relating events of local churches to the mystical body of the Universal Church. (p.138)

Momigliano points out that this is but an enumeration of the features of the first Church history of Eusebius of Caesarea, who is effectively without predecessor in his creation of his ecclesiastical history.

Momigliano explains the analogy between Eusebius' endeavor and the "secular" historiography of the pagan contemporaries.

... the succession of the bishops in || the apostolic see represented the continuity of the legitimate heirs of Christ; whereas the preservation of the purity of the original teaching of the Apostles gave internal unity to the Church. Apostolic succession and doctrinal orthodoxy were the pillars of the new Christian nation [i.e. the Church, RCK]; its enemies the persecutors and the heretics. Thus ecclesiastical history replaced the battles of ordinary political history by the trials inherent in resistance to persecution and heresy. (pp.139f)

Though Eusebius was inspired by the Acts of the Apostles for the spreading, the Old Testament and Flavius Josephus for the Holy Nation, and the Books of Maccabees for the struggle against persecution, his conception was novel (p.140).

Momigliano believes that Eusebius was inspired by Diogenes Laertius and his history of the philosophical schools, where the term diadoche denotes the notion of "succession", and the distinction of orthodoxy and heterodoxy, as well as thorough antiquarian documentation (p.140). Momigliano points to similar documentation in Flavius Josephus and Maccabees, and to the rabbinic tradition of succession as similar parallels (pp.140f).

Momigliano sees the very difficulty of Eusebius in his departure from a point where the Roman state and the Christian nation are two separate entities, a model that would no longer hold when what was Caesar's and what was Christ's would become indistinguishable (p.141).

There was a very real duality in Eusebius' notion of ecclesiastical history which was bound to become apparent as soon as the Christians were safely in command of the Roman state. (p.141)

Thus, the problem was spelled out for all followers of Eusebius:

... how to deal with this divine institution's very earthly relations with other institutions in terms of power, violence, and even territorial claims. (p.141)

A Church in power can hardly separate itself from the State in which it exercises its power. (p.141)

... wherever Church and State tend to coalesce, it is difficult to separate heresy from political rebellion, dogmatic differences from court factions. (p.141)

In fact, none of the other ecclesiastical historians of Late Antiquity mentioned to get past this problem, using the succession of the emperors rather to structure their work chronologically, instead of the succession of bishops or metropolitans (p.141).

Momigliano cites some of the immediate successors of Eusebius and shows how they deal with the amalgamation, both positively and negatively. Sozomenus---student of Socrates, another immediate successor of Eusebius---openly invites his emperor, Theodosius II "to revise and censor what he has written" (p.143). Theodoretus, a provincial involved in the Nestorian dispute, "warns the emperors that if they fail in their duty to orthodoxy they may be punished by God on the battlefield" (p.143).

As a corrective view, Philostorgius is useful, as he embodies the same principles in an non-orthodox way, as he was "an Arian of the Eunomian variety" (p.144).

... his Ecclesiastical History started with the origins of the Arian controversy .... He adopted clear apocalyptic tones and liked to believe that the disaster of Adrianopolis in 378 was not unconnected with the persecution of the Arians. He saw the importance of the sack of Rome in 410 ... [which goes almost ignored by the orthodox Church historians, RCK]. (p.144)

Momigliano sees the ecclesiastical history after the Latin condensation, the Historia Tripartita of Cassiodorus and Epiphanius (p.144), as as complicated by the fact that the illusion of a Universal christianity could not longer be maintained, and that all state history had become local too. The restoration of the Eusebian program did not really happen, inspite of the excellent work of Otto von Freising, Adam von Bremen, Beda Venerabilis and Hugo of Fleury, (p.146), Flodoardus of Rheims, Ordericus Vitalis of Normandy (p.148), until the Centuriae of Magdeburg in 1559 (p.146): Luther had studied the Rufinian translation; Caspar Hedio reissued parts of the text in his Chronica of 1530, which drew upon Eusebius and the Tripartita; and Flacius and the centuriators "knew their Eusebius by heart" (p.149).

[[RCK: The Centuria by Matthias Flacius and Johannes Wiegand of Magdeburg, among other achievements, exposed the Pseudo-Isidorian Canones that had become part of the Decretium of Gratian, through source critical methods, in an attempt to show the Catholic Church as the departure and the Lutheran Reformation as the Restoration of the true church. They were therefore, just as Momigliano would have predicted, busily appealing to the mystical body of the ecclesia universalis and using documentary evidence to make their case.]]

What both Protestants and Catholics wanted to prove was that they had the authority of the first centuries of the Church on their side. Consequently, the ecclesiastical history that the religious controversies of the sixteenth century demanded was a history of the Universal Church---not a history of special [i.e. particular, RCK] churches. (p.150)

Not only had the "standards of precise documentation" evolved since the time of Eusebius, but the latter "had no suspicion that the very course of events of the first Christian centuries could be disputed and that there might be more than one interpretation of basic events" (p.150).

This focus on the original Church dropped the Christian nation by the wayside.

They [i.e. Flacius, Baronio---the Catholic historian of the Counter-Reformation, cf. Vol 3 in German translation from the Baroque---and their followers, RCK] were concerned not so much with the Christians as with Christian institutions and doctrines. (p.150)

Throughout the seventeenth and the eighteenth century, this focus on the Universal Church,  whether from the Protestant or the Catholic side, is not lost.

Even the revolutionary Gottfried Arnold, who sees the real church outside every existing denomination, does not yet doubt that the true ecclesia exists somewhere. (p.151)

Momigliano nominates several candidates for having shaking the consensus of "the existence of the invisible, Universal Church" (p.152). Momigliano points to Johann Lorenz von Mosheim's Institutionum historiae ecclesiasticae of 1755; Ferdinand Christian Baur, a student of Hegel; or Max Weber's religious sociology, which "put the Christian Church on a level with any other religious society---or perhaps with any other human society" (p.152). Momigliano's favorite is Pietro Giannone, who wrote a sketch in prison in the 1740s that could not be published until 1859, the Istoria del Pontificato de Gregorio Magno (p.152). [[RCK: Giannone had earlier written a History of the Kingdom of Naples in two volumes, which was how he aligned the political with the religious.]]

Momigliano reminds his audience that the first historian to write a history of the origins of Christianity, who was not a theologian, in Germany was Eduard Meyer in 1921 (p.152).

Momigliano draws the two irresolvable different positions, which he considers beyond mediation.

Those who accept the notion of the Church as a divine institution which is different from other institutions have to face the difficulty that Church history reveals only too obviously a continuous mixture of political and religious aspects: hence the distinction frequently made by Church historians of the last two centuries [i.e. 19th and 20th, presumably, RCK] between internal and external history of the Church, where internal means (more or less) religious and external means (more or less) political. (p.152)

By contrast, the historians of the Church as a worldly institution have to reckon with the difficulty of describing without the help of a belief what has existed through the help of a belief. (p.152)

Bibliographic Record

Arnaldo Momigliano, Ecclesiastical History, in: Arnaldo Momigliano, The Classical Foundations of Modern Historiography, (= Sather Classical Lectures Vol 54), University of California Press (Berkeley-Los Angeles-Oxford) 1990, pp.132-156.

The Cox - Knox controversy at Frankfurt

During the reign of Queen Mary, Richard Cox and John Knox both had to hang out in Europe. They eventually got into each others hair with the problem of how to accept the common book of prayers into their doctrinal issues (see also Richard T. Hughes, C. Leonard Allen, Illusions of Innocence: Protestant Primitivism in America 1650-1875, Chicago (University of Chicago Press) 1988, esp. pp.7-14; for a quick summary of the story, see here.)

These troubles were written up after the fact by someone, possibly William Whittingham, though some have argued against that, and published.

A Brief Discourse of the Troubles at Frankfort,... (an older version, tough to read: A brieff discours of the troubles begonne at Franckfort in Germany, Anno Domini 1554)

Some of the quotes therein, especially this one, shows the continuity of concern between the Reformation and the Restoration.

For what greater treasure, or sweeter comfort, can a Christian man desire than to have a Church wherein he may serve GOD in purity of faith and integrity of life; … (p.26)

May 1837 complaint against Frederick G. Williams

In the First Minute Book, p.226, there is an interesting complaint against Frederick G. Williams and several other members of the church leadership from May of 1837, when the banking crisis was hitting the US hard.

On the gift of speaking in tongues.

Middleton in his A free inquiry into the miraculous powers makes it clear that the gift of tongues, while most famous from the apostles' Pentecostal action, ceased almost immediately, as gifts became suspect for the establishing church, and then were en bloc rejected by the Protestant Reformation.

Middleton is willing to make this the decisive gift, the one that people need to show or shut up about.

Middleton then goes on (p.123) and sees the loss of moral superiority and spiritual quality when the Church becomes part of the Roman Empire, but that's of course the Protestant strategy of dating the split, when the true light was lost, providing the target to which the Reformation can aim back.

The problem with the "popish legends", as Middleton called St Augustin's narration of miracles (p.140), was that they were on the verge of crossing over into reliques on the one hand (Middleton mentions St Steven) and had all the odium of this quintessential anti-Protestant issue as well.

Of course, the sources, e.g. Chrysostomos, were just as disappointed in some sense that the miracles had ceased, and were blaming lack of faith as the reasons---thence the claim about St Paul's handkerchief (p.131).

In general the Protestant criticism was, specifically mentioning Cardinal Robert Bellarmine (who was notorious to English Protestants due to his involvement in the Oath of Allegiance debate of James I), that once Christianity had become state religion, the Church would no longer pray for but curse the princes that were in her way (p.157).

Thus, Middleton can write (p.162), in good Protestant stance (though he is paraphrasing the Church fathers' position at that point):

The History of Gospel, I hope may be true, though the History of the Church be fabulous.

The miracles are unhelpful because they take away from the the calm of the Christianity.

[The, RCK] ... sole tendency [of miracles, RCK] is to recommend, as a perfect pattern of the Christian life, the most extravagant enthusiasm and contemptible superstition, that any age or history perhaps has ever produced. (p.173)

The story of the tongues cut out by the Arian princes from the confessors who can then still speak is scientifically relativized by the description of two cases where people, who were born without tongue or lost it due to small-pox induced ulcers, were yet able to speak (p.184f).

Yet the humble testimony of this single Physician, grounded on real experiment, will overturn at once all his pompous list of dignified authorities, and convince every man of judgement, that this pretended miracle, like all other fictions, which have been imposed upon the world, under that character, owed it’s [sic!] whole credit to our ignorance of the powers of nature. (p.185)

Campbells Essays on the Ancient Order of Things (Part 1)

Alexander Campbell wrote a series of essays having to do with the Restoration of the Ancient Order of Things, by which he means the apostolic Church or the New Testament religion, in his The Christian Baptist.

The series of the A Restoration of the Ancient Order of Things essays starts with (CB Vol II.7 1825-02-07 127:2). Here. in essay number one, Campbell argues against reformations, which are still human things, and for restorations, which bring back the divine.

Just in so far as the ancient order of things, or the religion of the New Testament, is restored, just so far has the Millennium commenced, and so far have its blessings been enjoyed. For to the end of time, we shall have no other revelation of the Spirit, no other New Testament, no other Saviour, and no other religion than we now have, when we understand, believe and practice the doctrine of Christ delivered to us by his apostles. (CB Vol II.7 1825-02-07 128:2)

The second essay starts at CB Vol II.8 1825-4-7 133:1 pointing to the impossibility of improving upon the religion inaugurated by Jesus Christ, given his maximal foresight and philanthropy (133:2). Campbell then begins to describe that creeds and "compilations of doctrine in abstract terms" did not exist back then, and thus need to be discarded (133:2).

1. If the creeds or doctrinal compilations would best the NT, then men would either be wiser than God or more benevolent. Campbell then underscores his point by sampling the Westminster Creed (134:1). 
2. The creeds cannot contribute to the unity, since the Church was united before them and has not been since (134:1). Inferences upon inspired words never become inspired words themselves (134:2). And Campbell believes that the Christian unity is the precondition to the conversion of the pagans in large numbers (135:2). 

Campbell and Rigdon in Richardson 1870

Richardson (2:43) points out that in the aftermath of the Walker debate, the "undenominational independence of belief" [that stemmed from Alexander Campbell's anti-creedal attitude, RCK] was a big problem for the Baptists.

Bentley and Thomas Campbell had once met on the way from Philadelphia without proper introduction (2:43) around 1809.

Bentley had organized Baptist ``ministers' meetings'' in the Western Reserve, from which on August 30, 1820, the Mahoning Baptist Association was born (2:44). In 1821, Bentley read the Walker Debate, and decided to visit Campbell as soon as possible. When he and Sidney Rigdon, then the great orator within the Mahoning Association, were on the road on association business, they took a day's ride detour to stop over in Kentucky and converse with Campbell, thus becoming part of the reformation project (2:44; Hayden 1875, p.19). In turn, Alexander Campbell began to attend the association meetings, starting with the summer of 1821 (2:47).

Sidney Rigdon and Adamson Bentley of Warren Ohio were brothers-in-law, being both married to daughters of Mr. Brooks, of Warren (2:47).

(2:47) believes that Alexander Campbell's continued influence with the Redstone Association and preaching in Baptist churches helped Sidney Rigdon to receive a call from the Pittsburg Baptist church in 1822. At the same time (2:48), Campbell wanted Rigdon and Walter Scott, who was a New Testament lecturer at Mr Forrester's church,  to join forces. Campbell wanted the congregations to merge as well, but the communities resisted this idea.

By late 1822, weakened from the labors of the Buffalo Seminary, Alexander Campbell closed the school and switched to a mode of supporting the Reformation that took a cue from the success of the publication of the Walker debate (2:48). After consultation with his father, Thomas Campbell, and Walter Scott, Alexander Campbell issued a prospect for The Christian Baptist in the spring of 1823 (2:49f). Campbell built his own printing office on his farm ``near the creek-fording, at the foot of the cemetery hill'', purchased type and press, hired skilled laborers and published some 46,000 volumes of his own writing over the next seven years (2:50f).

In May 1823, a Presbyterian minister and former lawyer, Mr [William L., RCK] McCalla, from Augusta, Kentucky, began to correspond with Campbell regarding a new debate on infant baptism (2:51). They settled on Washington, Kentucky and October 14th, 1823, as place and time for their debate. Campbell humorously reminded McCalla that even the Archangel Michael had not railed against the Devil when they both contested the body of Moses (cf. Jude 1:9).

In October 1823, with the Ohio too low for steamboat navigation, ALexander Campbell travelled by horseback to Kentucky to debate Mr McCalla (2:70). He was accompanied "by the pastor of the Baptist church in Pittsburg, Sidney Rigdon, who wished to be present at the discussion".

After the debate, which did not go well for McCalla, who could not refrain from demonizing Campbell (2:86) and did not give reply to his arguments (2:80), Campbell was glad that he had participated.

And we are fully persuaded that a week's debating is worth a year's preaching, such as w generally have, for the purpose of disseminating truth and putting error out of countenance. (2:90). 

However, Campbell was unhappy about being misread as supporting the Baptists, rather than baptism. As he mentioned to a group of Baptists in the evening, after a heavy day of debating McCalla:

For let me tell you that I have almost as much against you Baptists as I have against the Presbyterians. They err in one thing and you in another; and probably you are each nearly equidistant from original apostolic Christianity. (2:88)

Upon arriving home, Campbell began immediate work on the publication of the McCalla debate, using not only his own notes, but also those kept by Sidney Rigdon for the occasion (2:95).

[[RCK: McCalla published his own response, in 1828 in Philadelphia, where he had moved; cf. William Latta McCalla, A Discussion of Christian Baptism, Philadelphia 1828, Volume I & Volume 2. For a more general appreciation of Alexander Campbell's debates, cf. Jesse James Haley, Debates that made History: The Story of Alexander Campbell's debates ...,  St Louis, 1920, one volume.]]

After the Redstone Association meeting of 1823, Walter Scott and Sidney Rigdon collaborated more closely with regards to their congregations, and a union was established in 1824 (2:99). Campbell's congregation at Wellsburg, Virginia, was received into the Mahoning Association that same year, sending Campbell as their messenger to the meeting at Hubbard, Trumbull county (2:100). The questions submitted showed an increase of interest in the primitive Church.

In 1825, Alexander Campbell published his Essay on the Ancient Order of Things in the Christian Baptist, vol 3, Nr.9, p.360 (2:127), arguing for the appropriateness of reimbursing the bishop for their work.

The abuses of the principle have led many to oppose even the principle itself. (2:128)

 Sidney Rigdon at the same time returned to Ohio, while Walter Scott was still teaching school and getting married, but in 1826 he moved to Steubenville, where he started an academy (2:128). At a meeting in Warren, Ohio, where an even more aggressive push for the primitive church was urged (2:129), Campbell considered the need for an evangelist (2:130), as he wrote in the Christian Baptist, Vol 4, p.37.

In the fall of 1826, Alexander Campbell attended the Mahoning Association meeting at Canfield (2:163), and when he preached, Sidney Rigdon and Thomas Campbell were invited to a seat, as was Walter Scott, who was visiting the Western Reserve for the first time (2:164).

In the fall of 1827, the Mahoning Association met in New Lisbon (2:173). Campbell met with Walter Scott in Steubenville, who was working on a prospectus for a monthly paper to be called Millennial Herald (2:173)., but Campbell talked him into coming to the meeting. There, Walter Scott and Sidney Rigdon were asked to sit in the association (2:173), and in the evening (2:174) Sidney Rigdon delivered a discourse on John 8. Walter Scott was elected evangelist (2:174) and an initial collection of funds taken up, netting $11.75 (175). [The Christian Baptist was $1 per issue. RCK]

During the fall months of 1827, Margaret Campbell knew that she was succumbing to her sickness and entreated her husband to marry her friend Miss Bakewell after her departure (2:176).

Bibliographic Record

Dr Robert Richardson, Memoirs of Alexander Campbell, 2 volumes, Philadelphia (J.B. Lippincott & Co) (Volume I 1868, Volume II 1870).

How Campbell's Mother in Law had a run-in with the Indians

Richardson (1868), p.358 cites the kidnapping in 1789 of Mrs Brown by Indians from Doddbridges' Notes on the Settlement and Indian Wars of the ... (pp.226ff) [in the 1912 edition]. Mrs Brown was the stepmother of Alexander Campbell's first wife, Margaret, whom Alexander first met in 1810. Thus, only some 20 years before Campbell lived in the Western part of Virginia, the place had still been wild frontier and a locale for bad interactions between the white newcomers and the indigenous population.

Criddle on similarities Mormonism and Campbellites

In trying to establish that Sidney Rigdon was the author of the Book of Mormon (Sidney Rigdon: Creating the Book of Mormon), Criddle would be much supported by showing that the Book of Mormon held theories that only a Campbellite could hold.

As part and parcel of this view, Criddle argues

Walter Scott took Campbell's idea of a restoration a step further, even calling for a "new Bible." Hayden described Scott's preaching in the winter of 1827-1828 this way: "He contended ably for the restoration of the true, original apostolic order which would restore to the church the ancient gospel as preached by the apostles. The interest became an excitement; ...the air was thick with rumors of a 'new religion,' a 'new Bible.'" [not an entirely different Bible, but rather, Alexander Campbell's 1820's edition of the New Testament].

First, let's look at the quote from Hayden (1875) in context (p.120).

He contended ably for the restoration of the true, original apostolic order which would restore to the church the ancient gospel as preached by the apostles. The interest became an excitement. All tongues were set loose in investigation, in defense, or in op- position ; which foreshadowed good results. Nothing so disastrous to the sailor as a dead calm. Let the vessel heave under a tempest, rather. The Bibles were looked up, the dust brushed off, and the people began to read. " I don't believe the preacher [i.e. Walter Scott, RCK] read that Scripture right." "My Bible does not read that way," says another. The book is opened, and lo ! there stand the very words ! In the first gospel sermon, too — the model sermon — as what "began at Jerusalem" was to be " preached to the ends of the earth." The air was thick with rumors of a "new religion," a "new Bible," and all sorts of injurious, and even slanderous imputations — so new had become the things which are as old as the days of the apostles. (Hayden 1875, p.120)

So Criddle makes a mistake in attribution. Walter Scott, though he supported the Campbell effort for a better bible, no doubt, was not here arguing for a new Bible.  Hayden indicates this to us by writing "The book is opened, and lo ! there stand the very words !" This is not a difference between the Campbell translation and the KJV that Hayden is focusing on.

Rather, people who were surprised to read their Bible afresh were insinuating that Scott was using a different translation; that what Scott was preaching them was not their old religion from their old Bible, but a new religion from a changed Bible. This is why Hayden uses "all sorts of injurious, and even slanderous imputations" --- that's not a compliment!

In fact, for someone who is trying to perform a Restoration, the ultimate insult is that it is "new". It would never be something that Walter Scott were actively calling for.

Hayden is trying to make an argument of estrangement, so the rumors must be false for that argument to work.

Sorry, Criddle.

Richardson's Memoirs of Alexander Campbell (Part I)

Robert Richardson proposes (p.4f) to reconstruct Campbell's relationship with the Secession movement and other denominations not as a pre-description of the context, but at the moment of the contact with Campbell. For the Secession movement, Richardson made use of the biographies of Robert and James Alexander Haldane, as well as the Church history by John McKerrow's History of the Secession Church (Vol I, 1839; ...).

Alexander was born in Ireland (p.19),  his father Thomas of West-Scottish extraction (p.21), his mother of French Huguenot (p.21). Though Episcopalian in upbringing, Thomas felt the Scottish church lacking in vitality, and prefered the Secession Church as well as the Covenanters (p.22). Thomas was very worried about his salvation, asking his friends for comfort, until he had a conversion experience while walking alone in the fields which left him with a feeling of consecration to the divine plan (p.23). Thomas' father Archibald preferred the Church of England, wanting to "serve God according to act of Parliament" (p.24) and did not support his son entering the Secession Church (p.24); but through the patronage of his friend Mr John Kinley (p.25), Thomas was permitted to study at Edinburgh, where he studied divinity and medicine. Richardson comments,

… it being regarded proper for ministers to have, in additional to a knowledge of their particular profession, such an acquaintance with medicine as would enable them to render necessary aid to their poorer parishioners who might not have the services of a regular medical attendant. (p.25)

(For the lecture plan of divinity at the time, including examinations in Greek and Latin proficiency, plus a short biography of Dr Bruce, the divinity school headmaster, see (p.26).) After meeting his future wife, Thomas took a position at Rich-Hill, near Lough Neagh (p.30), and this is where Alexander spent his early childhood (p.31).

The waters of the lough [i.e. Lough Neagh, RCK] are celebrated for their power of petrifying wood and other organic substances placed in its waters or buried near its shores. (p.30 Fn *)

Boarding with a Mr Gillis to attend the elementary school in Market Hill, and staying with his uncles in Newry, where they were running an academy, Alexander was nevertheless mostly interested in sports and averse to confinement (p.31), making it difficult for his father to teach him. Attempts to add French to his schedule at age nine, for example, failed (p.31); and so he ended up working with the farm hands instead, which he enjoyed very much (p.32). It was only when fully grown, that Alexander developed his taste for reading and began studying with the determination to become one of the best scholars in the kingdom. Richardson praised Thomas' parenting wisdom for taking this route (p.33).  Alexander was a fast memorizer--60 lines of blank verse in 52 minutes--and became proficient in the poets and philosophy, esp. John Locke (p.33). Richardson stressed that this did not eliminate the love for the outdoors and physical activity, which expressed itself especially in fishing and hunting (p.34); cf. Footnote * for the anecdote on attempting to produce his own gun powder.

Following the instructions of the synod (p.35), Thomas read and sung and prayed twice a day with his family, and taught them catechism once a week, encouraged twice daily secret prayer, and an observance of the sabbath. The children would learn age appropriate amounts of Bible verses by heart and recite them at evening prayer (p.35). After attending church, the children were not only expected to remember the text, but also the discourse, down to the leading points of argument (p.36). Alexander himself noted that his mother was an especially outstanding specimen of the female sex (p.37) [apparently even surpassing Alexander's own wife, RCK], and that he owed it to his parents that he knew Ecclesiastes & Proverbs, as well as the Psalms (which he attributed to Solomon and David, respectively), by heart already as a child (p.37).

Alexander also observed his father's reverence for the Bible, noting as a child already that only the Bible and the concordance would be on his father's writing desk; all other books would remain on the shelves (p.39). Thomas Campbell was also a good example as a preacher (p.40). In the political turmoils of Ireland, between Orangemen and United Irishmen, Thomas Campbell steered clear of all of them (p.41), especially condemning secret associations (p.42), a stance that Alexander inherited (p.45). Thomas' handling of the situation brought him the offer of tutoring children of the nobility, but Thomas preferred the relative poverty of his ministerial position (p.43).

With the increasing family, Thomas Campbell was hard pressed to feed the mouths with his income as a minister (p.46) [see Footnote * for details on reimbursement funds for ministries in Ireland, RCK]. Thus Thomas opened an academy, with Alexander, then 17, as the assistant, to teach his own children and those of the parish, at the town of Rich-Hill, requisitioning a two-story house on the main square (p.47). The academy quickly attracted students (p.47). netting £200 per annum (p.48) while being regarded as a key contribution to the neighborhood. The father had already previously noted (p.47) "evidences of increasing seriousness" (p.47), which now that Alexander was teaching (p.48) found expression in being “much more thoughtful upon religious subjects” and in having “a deeper religious feeling” (p.48).

As his convictions deepened, he underwent much conflict of mind, and experienced great concerns in regard to his own salvation, so that he lost for a time his usual vivacity, and sought, in lonely walk in fields and by prayer in secluded spots, to obtain such evidences of Divine acceptance as his pious acquaintances were accustomed to consider requisite; …. (p.48)

Richardson then cites a longer statement by Alexander, admitting that it hailed from a later point in time ("he himself gave, many years afterward, the following account" (p.49).

“From the time that I could read the Scriptures, I became convinced that Jesus was the Son of God. I was also fully persuaded that I was a sinner, and must obtain pardon through the merits of Christ or be lost for ever. This caused me great distress of soul, and I had much exercise of mind under the awakenings of a guilty conscience. Finally, after many struggling, I was enabled to put my trust in the Saviour, and to feel my reliance on him as the only Saviour of sinners. From the moment I was able to feel this reliance on the Lord Jesus Christ, I obtained and enjoyed peace of mind. It never entered into my head to investigate the subject of baptism or the doctrines of the creed.” (p.49)

In preparation for the ministry, a choice that was at this point mainly his father's and not yet Alexander's own, Alexander studied ecclesiastical history and marveled at the divisions inside the faith (p.49).

While thus engaged [i.e. his studies of ecclesiastical history, RCK], he was filled with wonder at the strange fortunes of Christianity, and at the numerous divisions or parties in religious society. (p.49)

Richardson then enumerates the stances that Alexander developed with respect to the different religious parties available at the time in Northern Ireland.

He found the Catholics, numerous in his own country, for the most part an ignorant, priest-ridden, superstitious people, crushed, as it were, to the earth, as well by their own voluntary submission to an unrestricted spiritual despotism, as by the pressure of the social and political burdens resting on them, … (p.49) 

The young student, in contemplating the whole system of Romanism and its superstitions, its ceremonies, its spirit and its practical effects, conceived for it the utmost abhorrence—a feeling which remainder with him through life. (p.50) 

On the other hand, the lordly and aristocratic Episcopalians, who looked down upon the dissenters, and seemed, with some exceptions, to have but little piety, and to be fond of enjoying the pleasures, fashions and follies of the world, were, notwithstanding their Protestantism, scarcely less disliked as a religious party. (p.50) 

It was, however, when he came to consider the history of the Presbyterian Church, with its numerous divisions, in one of which he was himself a member, that he was enabled to form a clearer conception of the power and prevalence of that party spirit which it became afterward the labor of his life to oppose and overthrow. (p.50)

Richardson then reviews the Scottish history of the Reformation to put some of the stances into context (p.50f). With the "Claim of Right" of 1690, the Scottish Presbyterians managed to secure their stance and abolish all Prelacy, but with devastating moral effect.

When Presbyterianism had thus attained the supremacy it so long had sought, it began, in a short time, to furnish a fresh illustration of the fact that all established national religions, whether Greek or Mohammedan, Papal or Protestant, have in them the essence of Popery—the principle of absolutism. (p.51)

Richardsons then runs through the various schisms of the Scottish Presbyterians (pp.51-56), before concluding,

Schooled amidst such schisms in his own denomination, and harassed by the triviality of the differences by which they were maintained, it is natural to suppose that one of so catholic a spirit as Thomas Campbell conceived the greatest antipathy to party spirit in all its workings and manifestations, and that his son Alexander fully sympathized with him in these feelings. (p.56)

Richardson now turns to the American context, comparing the Puritans and the Methodists to buds in the animal kingdom, who remain connected to their parents long after they have begun separating---the parents here being the Church of England (p.59). Following the principle of "occasional hearing", Thomas Campbell sometimes on Sunday evening visited the local Independents (p.60). Richardson discusses how these various splinters related to each other and attempted to influence each other.

Roger Williams, for instance, the founder of the Baptists in America, held that it was wrong for professors of religion to hold worship with the unconverted, or to sit at the communion table with those who did not perfectly agree with them in religious sentiments. (p.61)

Though the Independents had been run out of England by religious persecution, they turned the tables and became repressive once they arrived in America.

It is a singular fact that these exiles [i.e. Plymouth Brethren, RCK] had no sooner obtained possession of power than they began to exercise the very same system of persecution of which they themselves had been victims. || They whipped, branded, banished or executed Quakers and others who refused to conform to their views, thus affording another proof that a state or national religion is necessarily Popish in its spirit, for at that time, in these Puritan colonies, the Church was essentially the State. (pp.62-63)

Thus, those with other opinions such as Roger Williams, had to go elsewhere; Williams established Rhode Island as his colony, founding the first Baptist church there. As Richardson notes:

In 1162 he [i.e. Roger Williams, RCK] obtained a second charter from Charles the Second, in which it was declared that “religion should be wholly and for ever free from all jurisdiction of the civil power”; so that to Roger Williams belongs the high honor of having founded the first political State in Christendom that embraced, in its constitutional provisions, the principle of universal toleration—a noble grant, the germ of civil liberty in the United States. (p.63 Fn *)

Thus, as Richardson points out (p.63 Fn *), when Locke published his celebrated Letters on Toleration in 1693, such toleration was already established law in Rhode Island.

Richardson then observes that the three categories of Christian denominations---the Episcopal (which includes Roman Catholicism, or the Romish, as Richardson calls them), the Presbyterian and the Congregational (which includes the Baptists)---differ in their view of authority of interpreting the scriptures (p.64). Only the Congregational allow the individual members to interpret the scriptures for themselves (p.65).

With the Independents, however, the right of every member to judge for himself as to the meaning of Scripture is the great distinguishing feature, and the basis not only of their congregational form of government, and their entire repudiation of the authority claimed by Presbyteries, Synods, Assemblies, Conventions or other church-courts, but also the reason of that tolerant spirit they so strikingly manifested when attained to political power in England. (p.65)

Already under the Protectorate of Cromwell, the Independents via their role in the Army were able to put their toleration into effect.

Opposed as well to Presbytery as to Prelacy and Popery, and regarding each congregation as independent and supreme in its jurisdiction, their [i.e. the Independents] views naturally made them republican in civil affairs, while their principle that every one should enjoy the right of private judgement in religion, released them from that spiritual despotism which all the other systems labored to establish. (p.66)

For, to take the Presbyterian system as an example, their idea of a complete church is not by any means that of a single congregation, but of a number of congregations, with Sessions, Presbyteries and Synods sufficient to constitute a General Assembly. (p.66)

And Richardson illustrates the submission of the individual member under that hierarchy by remind the reader of the way in which Andrew Melville addressed King James I, namely not as a king or a lord, but rather as a member subjugated under these ecclesiastical jurisdictions of "Christ's kingdom", as the Presbyterians referred to the kirk (p.67 Fn *). When faced with a raging chancellor and king, the same individual kept his cool.

Mr Andrew, never a whit dashed, said in plain terms that they were too bold, in a constitute Christian kirk, to pass by the pastors, prophets and doctors, and to take upon them to judge the doctrine and to control the ambassadors and messengers of a greater than was here. (p.68 Fn *, continued)

Richardson then relates that Alexander Campbell observed the power and conservative stance of the Presbyterians at first hand, by the way they rejected his father's proposal to celebrate the Lord's supper more often than twice a year (p.69).  While the discussions between the Independents and various other groups continued in Campbell's hometown, concerning issues such as whether to celebrate the washing of feet or the frequency of the celebration of the Last Supper (p.71), that collaborator of Wesley, Whitefield, preached the Gospel of Christ without getting into any distracting disputes, e.g. about church governance (p.72). When Mr Whitefield was granted access to the pulpits of several ministers of the Church of Scotland, a veritable revival broke out (p.72).

Great excitement and extraordinary manifestations of swoonings [sic!], convulsions and cataleptic seizures attended Mr. || Whitefield’s labors, especially at Cambuslang, near Glasgow, where at one time the assemblage was estimated to consist of at least thirty thousand persons. (pp.72-73) 

These singular cases had previously occurred under Mr Weasley’s preaching; and have several times since been noted, as in the revivals under the preachings of Jonathan Edwards in New England, and of James McGready, B.W. Stone and some other Presbyterian preachers in Kentucky, in 1801. (p.73)

By the turn of the century, though, the English north had become equally "Burnt Over" as New York State would 20 years afterwards.

The intense religious interest awakened in Great Britain and Ireland by Wesley, Whitefield and their coadjutors, had, toward the close of the century, given place to a great degree of indifference and worldly conformity. The diffusion of infidel principles from France, political commotions [i.e. French Revolution, RCK] and a variety of circumstances connected with the American and French wars, seem to have been chiefly instrumental in inducing a change which was deeply lamented by the pious and earnest men in the different religious communities. (p.73)

In collaboration with the Haldanes of Scotland, an Evangelical Society was organized, a “considerable missionary society” (p.73), with members of the Episcopal Church in England, and Thomas Campbell sympathized with them, joined and assisted the society. 

In this species of mission there was something very pleasing, and certainly the position of such laborers was highly favorable to a fair and effective presentation of the general truths of the gospel. (p.74) 

Thus Richardson raises the important point that the plurality of issues was just as unsettling as the call to repentance itself.  

It was, however, impossible to them, consistently with the nature of their mission and their views of religion, to recommend any very definite or particular course to anxious inquirers. (p.74) 

The nature of faith; how Christ could be put on by faith; how the sinner could obtain an assurance of justification, — these were questions of the highest practical importance, to which different parties gave conflicting answers, and which, with matters of ecclesiastical organization, constituted the burden of polemical discussions and the ground of party differences. (p.74) 

Richardson insists that the Evangelical Society was successful in their effort

... to break down the prejudices of religious society and to depreciate the value of those speculative theological dogmas and go || those sectarian distinctions by which pious believers were separated and alienated from each other. (pp.74-75) 

Having thus outlined the upbringing of Alexander Campbell, Richardson concludes:

The effect of the whole [of observing the described fights between the groups and denominations, RCK] was to increase his reverence for the Scriptures as the only infallible guide in religion, to weaken the force of educational prejudices, and to deepen his conviction that the existence of sects and parties was one of the greatest hindrances to the success of the gospel. (p.75)

Alexander Campbell during this time of his youth worked basically non-stop, going to bed late at night and rising at 4am to study his books. There was almost no hope of attending university (p.76), given the six siblings, and in addition to the teaching position at his father's academy, Alexander began to provide private tutoring to the daughters of the Honorable William Richardson, the lord of the manor, in whose garden Alexander's sisters like to take their evening walks (p.77).

A few years later, the strenuous duties of his office as minister and headmaster had so weakened the health of Thomas Campbell (p.78), that the doctor prescribed an extended sea voyage (p.79). Under Alexander's entreaties, this turned into a scouting trip for moving the family to the New World, as so many of their friends were then emigrating. Thus, in early April of 1807 Thomas Campbell travelled to the New World with "the ship Brutus, Captain Craig, master, bound for Philadelphia" (p.81). Richardson contextualizes this health remedy turned into emigration.

Bibliographic Record

Dr Robert Richardson, Memoirs of Alexander Campbell, 2 volumes, Philadelphia (J.B. Lippincott & Co) (Volume I 1868, Volume II 1870).

Troubles finding the Millennial Harbinger

Archive.org only has the Volume 3 (1832) of the Millennial Harbinger of Alexander Campbell. Thereafter, it is mostly volumes from the new series, dated from the late 1830s and so on. This is unfortunate.

Interactions between Alexander Campbell and Sidney Rigdon (Part 2)

(continued from Part 1)

Chapter 11: Churches in Mantua, Hiram and Garrettsville (pp.237-266)

After establishing itself in January of 1827 (p.237), the Church in Mantua grew to just about thirty members by its first year (p.238) and had Sidney Rigdon as its occasional minister. February 1828 Walter Scott visited and converted many in Nelson, Hiram and Mantua. In May, Thomas Campbell visited, which not only stabilized the community but brought Symonds Ryder into the fold.

In April 1829, the church in Hiram formed, and a group from Mantua went to Shalersville. By 1830, led by ministers with youth but little experience (p.239), and assisted by a seasoned Baptist, Oliver Snow, who found much fault with the young men, the young community in Mantua, was sorely tried by the incursion of the Mormons. Atwater, with whom Hayden corresponded here in 1873, felt that Sidney Rigdon's popularity helped the Mormons. Atwater also believed that Sidney Rigdon knew ahead of time that the book of Mormon was coming (p.239), having talked at Atwater's fathers' house about the Indian mounds and other American antiquities (p.239), and was looking forward to a book to be published on these accounts (p.240). Under the influence of Rigdon Oliver Snow, Symonds Ryder, Ezra Booth, and others joined the new dispensation, with Eliza Snow leading the way.

Then Symonds Ryder returned to the disciples, "and exposed Mormonism in its true light",  working with the community to restore it. Marcus Bosworth continued to preach for Mantua. From 1840-1841 (p.241), A.S. Hayden worked in Mantua. Hayden then sketches Atwater's life (p.242), who had prepared for the ministry in the academy at Warren (p.242) and then married into the Judge Clapp family (p.243). When his first wife died, he married the daughter of Marcus Bosworth (p.244). 

Symond Ryder was the key elder for the church at Hiram (p.244), drawing upon the funeral oration of him preached by President B.A. Hinsdale of Hiram College (p.244) on August 3rd, 1870. A Mayflower descendant from Vermont (p.246). After serving his apprenticeship he went west, "missing" the British burning of Buffalo on December 28, 1813, arriving in Hiram, a Vermont colony, on January 6, 1814. Here he bought land and developed his property. In the Winter of 1814/5, Symond returned to Vermont to bring his family. In terms of his religion, he had brought the "severe puritanical sort" of "teachings and impressions of religion" "which prevailed in New England during the last [i.e. 18th, RCK] century" (p.247). When the Church of Bethesda, in Nelson, an 1808 member of the Mahoning Association, evicted over a dozen members on heresy, these remnants organized under Darwin Atwater and "adopted the advanced views of Campbell and Scott".

In 1828, Marcus Bosworth preached in Hiram, and Symonds Ryder was pleased with the sermon (p.248). After poring all week over the NT to understand Bosworth's discourse, Ryder managed to catch Thomas Campbell in Mantua (p.248) and was converted (p.249) (p.238). Ryder was first overseer of the Hiram Nelson church until 1835. Ryder was content as a disciple in all things save one.

He [i.e. Symond Ryder, RCK] read in the New Testament of the gift of the Holy Spirit; and, in his mind, it was in some way associated with the laying on of hands, and with some special spiritual illumination. These words, "the signs shall follow them that believe." seemed to him not yet to have been comprehended or realized. (p.249)

Then, in late 1830, Sidney Rigdon joined the Mormon movement in northern Ohio. Ezra Booth, a Methodist preacher of Mantua (p.250) and his wife, joined after an interview with Joseph Smith Jr in Kirtland, where Mr and Mrs Johnson were present and where Joseph Smith Jr healed her rheumatic lame arm, so that "on her return home the next day she was able to do her washing without difficulty or pain" (p.250). President Hinsdale emphasized the cognitive relief that the supposed resolution of the twin problem of the lost tribes and the origins of the red men gave (p.251) to "students of sacred and profane history".

When Ezra Booth addressed the Hiram community after a Ryder sermon (p.251), Ryder himself became unsure, eventually converting when an earthquake hit Peking, as predicted by a young Mormon girl.

Shortly after this, he openly professed his adhesion to the Mormon faith; but he and Ezra Booth, who were most intimate friends, promised that they would faithfully aid each other in discerning the truth or the falsity of the new doctrine. (p.251)

Famously, Ryder was turned off by a commission to be an elder in the Mormon church that misspelled his name (p.252).

His commission came, and he found his name misspelled. Was the Holy Spirit so fallible as to fail even in orthography? (p.252)

Since Ezra Booth had been similarly buffeted by the journey to Missouri to help set up Zion [cf. (Howe 1834, Chapter XV, pp.175ff), which letters were partially addressed to Edward Partridge, another friend, RCK], they both left the Mormons in September of 1831, and focused on stemming the tide, a difficult task, given the "large number of the citizens of Hiram [htat] had given in their adhesion to the doctrines of Smith and Rigdon" (p.252).

Hinsdale then reminds the listeners that Mormonism of 1870 in Utah was quite a separate matter from Mormonism in 1831, and correctly points to the intellectual climate of that age.

... it was a formative period in religious history; new ideas were fermenting in the minds of men; and, considering the facts before stated, it is not inexplicable that so strong a nature [as Symonds Ryder, RCK] should have given way to the fanaticism. (p.252)

Hinsdale then points out the succession problem the church of Hiram had faced (p.254) when Ryder could no longer be there: "no suitable provision was made for a new and different age" (p.254).

Hinsdale then speculates that, given the size and constitution of Symonds Ryder, it was the size of the pioneer tasks that he undertook that robbed him of the few years.

He was one of the most laborious men of that generation which bore off upon its broad shoulders, as Sampson did the gates of Gaza, the heavy forest which covered this land---the generation which performed the most wonderful work of the kind that history has witnessed; for in no age, and in no country, has the face of nature been so suddenly transformed as in the Northern States of the American Union. (p.255)

After the conclusion of the funerary oration reprint, A.S. Hayden returns as the host of the reader. It turns out that A.S. Hayden was co-elder with Ryder for the Eclectic Institute in Hiram (p.259), an institution that had been dear to Hayden's brother William as well--cf. pp.260ff.

Chapter 13: Great Meeting in Austintown 1830 (pp.295-310)

Hayden finally turns to the Great Meeting in Austintown of 1830 (p.295), which axed the association in place of an annual meeting (p.296). It was only on recollection that the loss of the evangelical preachers, which had been tied to the association but could not be to a meeting, was observed (p.297), and eloquently expressed in the Millennial Harbinger of 1849 by Alexander Campbell (p.297), who cautioned against reformation and annihilation as synonymous terms (p.298). 

Hayden now comes to the showdown between Rigdon and Campbell. Rigdon argued that the model of the church at Jerusalem of a community of goods required those who wished to imitate the apostles of the New Testament to imitate that example as well (pp.298f). Campbell "saw at once the confusion and ruin that would result from such doctrines", and rejoined, to which Rigdon replied however in zeal (p.299). Campbell then destroyed the argument in three points by observing that the early Church had ended the community system after Ananias and Sapphira, as the passages in the Pauline letters show, thus indicating that the "community system" in Acts was "formed not to make property, but to consume it, under the special circumstances attending that case" (p.299). 

This put an end to it. Rigdon finding himself foiled in his cherished purpose of ingrafting on the reformation his new community scheme, went away from the meeting at its close, chafed and chagrined, and never met with the Disciples in a general meeting afterward. (p.299)

Venting to Brother Austin afterwards in Warren, Rigdon observed

I have done as much in this reformation as Campbell or Scott, and yet they get all the honor of it. (p.299)

Hayden then turns to the community of Farmington, which was inspired by the great reformatory movement in Kirtland under Bentley and Rigdon in 1828 (p,306).

The Church in Shalersville received discourses preached in 1828 by Thomas Campbell and Sidney Rigdon (p.334). Ebenezer Williams, former Universalist, had preached there as well, as recounted previously (pp.155-157). Shalersville is a good example of a community that needed no full time minister.

... the church, like most of the congregations, had learned to "edify one another in love." This reliance on the talent of the church quickens the zeal and develops the abilities of the members; and if it is not depended on to the exclusion of preaching, it is a direct and powerful means of imparting strength and permanency to the churches. (p.336)

Chapter 15: Awakening in Perry (pp.346ff)

In August of 1829, Sidney Rigdon organized the church in Perry (p.346). The precipitating event had been the exclusion of David Parmly from the Baptist fellowship for communing with "Campbellites" (p.347). The new church mopped up those Baptists "who saw too clearly the spirit of the inquisition" (p.347).

Painesville [home of Eber D. Howe, RCK] received impulses from Mentor in 1828 (p.349), and had Clapp, Collins, William Hayden and Moss preaching there.

Chapter 16: Gospel in Ravenna, Aurora, etc (pp.369ff)

The church in Ravenna had been started by Marcus Bosworth and expanded by Ebenezer Williams (p.369). William Hayden sustained them through 1830 (p.370). In the summer, Walter Scott preached there, comparing the creed to a small coin that, if held close enough to the eye, can block out the sun (p.370). In 1831, Campbell came to Western Reserve, to help check Mormonism, and preached at Ravenna against it (p.371). 

A.G. Riddle, in his romance The Portrait: A Romance of the Cuyahoga Valley, contrasted Campbell and Rigdon, in allusion to a 1831 meeting in a grove in Aurora, Ohio (p.377).

At a glance he [i.e. Alexander Campbell, RCK] took the measure and level of the average mind before him---a Scotchman's estimate of the Yankee---and began at that level; and as he rose from it, he took the assembled host with him. In nothing was he like Rigdon; calm, clear, strong, logical, yet perfectly sim- || ple. Men felt themselves lifted and carried, and wondered at the ease and apparent want of effort with which it was done. (pp.377f)

Chapter 20: Euclid (pp.408ff)

In 1820, a Baptist Church had been established in Euclid, and Luther Dille was its deacon (p.408). His wife was a Disciple from Mentor and frustrated by her inability to commune with her husband. Requesting Sidney Rigdon's support during a visit to Mentor (p.409), Rigdon came to Euclid in the fall of 1829, and converted a rump church. Then Rigdon asked Luther to be the caretaker of the young converts, and Luther converted as well (p.409). Later (p.410) the church was visited by Thomas Campbell and J.J. Moss. 

Rigdon's fall staggered many, but Mormonism never made a convert in Euclid. This is much owing to the presence of Moss. (p.410) 

Chapter 24: Abbreviated Account (pp.465ff)

Rigdon, together with Clapp, founded the church in Birmingham, Erie County, in 1829 (p.465). During the same tour, the church of Elyria, in Lorain County, was established by Rigdon and Clapp (p.467).

Other Interests

Chapter 23: Lessons (pp.454ff)

Lesson II (p.455) The evangelical work cannot be the only one (p.455); "thoughtful men predicted" "the absence of a system for holding and training the converts" (p.456). As a result of this discrepancy between the evangelical and the pastoral, both members and congregations fell away (p.457). 

If the due adjustment of these two agencies had been suitably disposed at the beginning, it would have resulted in far greater strength and prosperity. (p.457)

Lesson III (p.457) recognized that it "was a mistake to start so many churches. This error was a result of the exuberance of evangelical zeal already noticed" (p.457).

Is it surprising that intelligent, discerning citizens, casting about for a "home", turn from a people where they see evidences of looseness in plan, and weakness in system, and yield themselves up in membership to organized bodies who conduct their enterprises systematically and successfully? (p.458)

Lesson IV (p.459) bemoans the lack of records that were kept, especially after 1828, when both the authority and the restriction of freedom to maintain even member lists was missing (p.459). And Hayden blames scriptural over-interpretation for it.

So, as the Scriptures gave no instructions about church records the whole matter was ruled out of order, and out of the church. (p.459)

What would we not give now for a continuance of the records of the Mahoning Association, which met two years under that name after the records ceased? Why were there no records of our yearly meetings? What rich and abundant materials for future history and instruction? (p.459)

Oh that Scott had kept a diary! that our earlier men had written as well as talk! (p.460)  

 [[RCK this really underscores the insights of Joseph Smith Jr, especially given the fact that the Millennium was considered to be coming.]]

Lesson V (p.461) says that it is not optional for the associations to combine their efforts to advance the gospel. Because the delegates had selected the evangelists, the "churches felt bound by the action of their delegates" (p.461). The field of labor had been determined, the compensation arranged. Consequently, the churches provided material support (p.462).

Bro. Campbell was the prime mover and the active leader in this scheme of associational effort to bring an evangelist into the field. (p.462)

The replacement of the association system by the annual meeting system wreaked havoc on the evangelist work, for the meetings were no substitute (p.462). Retroactively re-instituting cooperation was blasted by the suspicion of priest craft or sectarianism (p.462). Substituting for this cooperation was in fact one of the tasks of the Eclectic Institute, in whose formation Hayden was crucially involved.

Lesson VI (p.464) is that all the success that was achieved stems from preaching the word.

We must "preach the word," not something about the gospel, but the gospel itself. (p.464)

Bibliographic Record

A.S. Hayden, Early History of the Disciples in the Western Reserve, Ohio, Cincinnati (Chase & Hall) 1875 (Internet Archive copy here).

Religious Community Founding at Kirtland

There is a complex of revelations that together form the founding charter of the religious community that Joseph Smith Jr was setting up the Mormons and Campbellites in Kirtland to be.

The precondition had been D&C 38 (JS Papers version) given at the Fayette Church conference in New York, January 2nd, 1831, just before the departure (which had been established in D&C 37 (JS Papers version) as a response to the harassment of the Church in NY).

D&C 38 established (v18) that the Church members had been promised a land of "milk and honey" as part of the new covenant with God, which they would keep in eternity (v20). There they could segregate themselves from the wicked and their enemies (v31; v42) and live under God's law and be endowed from up high (v32). The revelation also announced that there would be several men (vv34-36) to take care of the poor and the needy, selected from among the Church members by the Church members--a foreshadowing of the role of the Bishop).

D&C 41 (JSP version) of February 4th, 1831 and D&C 42 (JSP Version Part 1, vv1-72, and Part 2, vv73-93) of February 9th and 23rd, 1831, respectively, together form the founding document of the religious community.

D&C 41 begins by recapping the expected revelation of a law for the religious community. It then provides for a home "to live and translate" in for the prophet (who had been working on an improved Bible translation, cf. D&C 37, v1), and a room for Sidney Rigdon (later amended to "should live as seemeth him good"). The remainder summarily calls Edward Partridge to the role of a bishop, leaving behind his "merchandise", without specifying any details concerning the task of bishop, "see to all things as it shall be appointed in my Laws in the day that I shall give them".

D&C 42 (in its two parts) establishes the community rules. In the earliest extant copy, the revelation is headed with "The Laws of the Church of Christ[,] Kirtland[,] Geauga [County,] Ohio".

The first part, after an opening (vv1-3), gives the call for the elders to go in pairs and preach the imminent Kingdom of God (vv4-9), with restrictions for Joseph Smith Jr and Sidney Rigdon (who are busy with the fullness of the Gospel, cf. v15), until Zion is revealed (at which point it is either too late to join or there is no point in building up congregations at other locales) (v9).

The exposition continues with the criteria of authorization to teach within the community (vv11-17). [(v10) which re-iterates the call to service of Edward Partridge as bishop, would have been castigated as an insertion by a later scribe in every other hermeneutic context, and the scribe called a dolt for missing the fact that the Laws of the Church of Christ as general rules of guidance are somewhat at odds with a particular temporary appointment. The closing formula of "Amen" would suggest that it had been a self-contained pronouncement previously.]

Next comes the exposition of the church rules in a more constrained sense (vv.18-29). [The emphatic "I speak to the Church" in (v18) is somewhat clumsy.] While the contents is very similar to the Ten Commandments,  the focus is on the possibility of obtaining forgiveness for the transgression---a key issue in an apocalyptic and millennial context, as the consequence is to be removed from the elect and thus to be counted among the lost. Furthermore, all the issues raised are inter-personal issues, and thus affect community cohesion.

Next comes the law of consecration proper (vv.30-39), with its notion of stewardship and the role of the Bishop's storehouse and the accumulation of residues. The exposition covers the logistics of the exchange (vv.30-32), the purposes of the storehouse contents (vv.33-36), and the how to handle the exit condition in the case of a casting out (vv.37-38). (v.39) is intriguing, as it suggests that the WASP Americans will even out the socio-economic status of the Indians.

The next section (vv.40-42) covers everyday behavior within the community, exhorting them to work and morally good exterior. Then (vv.43-52) the process for dealing with sickness in the community is outlined, and the success of the charismatic healing is tied to the faith of the individual (but not of the elders). The outcome of death in the case of laying on of hands is explained (vv.44-47), and the point raised that dying without a hope of resurrection is the worst (v.45).

The following sction (vv.53-55) returns to the problem of stewardship and represents a rejection of specific forms of communitarianism, by insisting on private property and intra-community trade (v.54) and directed all surplus again to the storehouse [of the Bishop] (v.55).

The next section (vv.56-69) talk about the role of scripture in guiding the behavior of the community members, and how the knowledge of Zion will be given, and mysteries that will be revealed to those that obey the commandments. [Confusingly, after earlier demanding that the missionaries go westward (v.8) and build up churches in all the regions there, the missionaries are now told to go eastward and get the converts to move West, to escape the secret combinations (v.64). For the future, missionizing in all cardinal directions is prophesied (v.63).]

The next section (vv.70-73) returns to the problem of remuneration of people from the storehouse, having the bishop and the counselors and the elders and the high priests either supported thence or provided with just remuneration.

The second part, originally revealed two weeks later, begins with adultery one more time (vv.74-83), before going into a distinction between the law of the Land and the law of God and how different deeds lead the miscreant to be turned over to one law or the other (vv.84-93). Thus stealing, lying and robbing are to be dealt with by handing over to the Law of the Land. These then are the rules of the religious community for expelling members into the broader social context without treating the expulsion as exculpation. But community internal things are to be regulated in the minimal context possible, even to the point of preserving secrecy (v.92).

Doctrine and Covenants 38 and the Fayette Church Conference

D&C 38 promises a land of milk and honey to the members of the young Church in New York, just about to move on to Ohio, and protection for that land. It also contains the notion of God finding in the arms of the saints His own fighting force.

Also uses the odd phase "the enemy is combined", which is interesting, because the KJV never has "combined" or even "combine".

A New Plan of Attack (Part 1)

In the mid-1820s, when Joseph Smith Jr grew up, the United States found itself in a period of convulsive change. The Revolutionary War and its aftermath, the war of 1812, had severed the cords to what had been the cultural place of origin of the majority of the settlers: Western Europe. Issues were complicated by the remaining large groups of Native Americans and the rising number of African American slaves.

The rapid expansion in productive land use, the wealth to be obtained in these areas, and the potential for living comfortably was an impetus that did not always fulfill itself. It was part of the Puritan inheritance of New England and its settlers, that questions of economic success translated almost directly into questions of identity. Thus, any reversals, be they of the meteorological or the financial type (market saturation in Ginseng, for example), caught the young Nation on shaky ideological feet.

This drama of identity played out at multiple levels, including the scientific, where efforts like the expeditions of Lewis and Clark, the scientific description of the American fauna and flora, or the mapping of the local antiquities, as well as the founding of museums for both artistic and scientific purposes were attempts to connect with the European establishment in these disciplines.

Equally, this state of socio-economic flux was mirrored at the level of the religious. The Puritan consensus of the majority of the early New England settlers had disintegrated during the Revolutionary War, where the Colonies could not afford to deny voice to compatriots, however different their religious convictions might be. Presbyterians, Baptists and Methodists on the established side of the spectrum, and a bewildering variety of millennial, revival and socially-utopian communities on the radical side of the spectrum, vied for the role of explaining what everyone was experiencing. This exasperated the situation instead of providing balm for the bruised identities.

One classical Protestant move was to go back to the Scriptures, widely and continuously read by the majority of the target audiences of these religious efforts, and to separate, once again, the unsoiled core of Christianity from the dung of accretion over the centuries.  One cannot underestimate how little was certain and how much was up for discussion at that point in time. Reformers like Alexander Campbell had no qualms of ditching the inherited religious symbols, including the creeds that had formed the common understanding of diverse denominations such as the Catholic, the Protestant and the autocephalous churches.

Though the critical analysis of the Scriptures, in the style of a Spinoza or the English Deists, had not yet made much impact on the American continent, the Scriptures themselves raised enough puzzles: How complete was the Bible? After all, there were over a dozen books mentioned in the Bible that were not in the canon.  Which in turn raised the disturbing question: Had it been handed down accurately? Why were there so many translations of it? If the Bible was God's definitive word, why was it insufficient to settle the theological questions of the day, such as the appropriate form or phase of life for baptism? And how were the citizens of the young republic supposed to find themselves in these stories of kings and priests of the ancient Fertile Crescent? The very fact that the Indian mounds and artefacts, which the prominent antiquarians were busily chronicling, found no mention in the Bible, must have given pause.

It was in this time of identity ferment that Joseph Smith Jr reached his religious maturation. The son of a family of once comfortable religious seekers, who had been demoted through speculation, family sickness and the agricultural catastrophe of 1816 to the level of day laborers, grew up in Palmyra, NY, where he witnessed the religious commotion and the economic upheavals in the boom and bust cycle of the Erie canal construction first-hand. Smith Jr's personal response to this situation was the Book of Mormon.

At this point, an aside is necessary. Like many other endeavors, the history of early Mormonism has a couple of tar pits that can consume all of a researcher's resources. The first amongst these is whether Joseph Smith Jr was sincere or a scoundrel. The next is the exact relationship between the Golden Plates and the translation of the Book of Mormon. The third is the question of the reasons behind the introduction of polygamy. All of these are questions of the form "what actually happened" and therefore belong in the realm of fiction rather than history. Hercules Poirot and Sherlock Holmes, within their worlds created by Dame Agatha Christie and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, will tell us what actually happened. Historians as scientists can only definitively say what did not happen, and then tell stories that stay within these limits of the impossible, knowing full well that there are other stories, bounded by the same limits, equally good or perhaps even better.

In the case of the Book of Mormon, whose mention sparked the aside in the first place, the solution is to invert the question.  In order to settle the issues that needed settling in the minds of Joseph Smith Jr and his contemporaries, any addition to the canon had to satisfy a number of criteria.

First of all, as Jan Shipps has pointed out, it had to be about the New World, that is, it had to describe the Antiquities of the New World and thus show the continuity of the Salvation Narrative of the ancient Fertile Crescent with the new republic. One way to achieve that was to hook the Native Americans, whose identity with respect to the Israelite tribes had been a long-standing issue of research in the Americas, into the genealogy of Jacob. Structurally, this was accomplished via the obscure prophecy of the House of Joseph being a fruitful bough, a branch that reaches over the wall (Gen 49:22-26). This passage dominates the biblical references in the Book of Mormon with over ten references.

Furthermore, the extension to the canon had to sidestep all of the issues of translation that had proven to be such fountains of confusion, insecurity and dissent. Thus, the Book of Mormon was translated in a spiritual fashion, using divinatory devices, thereby guaranteeing the correctness of the translation, as Wunderli pointed out (An Imperfect Book). It was translated from sources that, though witnessed to exist, were not accessible to anyone else, thereby eliminating the possibility of revision. These sources were necessary, because they formed the material arc of continuity between the American antiquities and the beginning 19th century. And finally, the sources were authored in an unknown language, which eliminated the possibility of any alternate expert witness arising from, say, the academic world, to so much as challenge the wording. Reconstructed in this way, we can now understand the terror of the lost one hundred and sixteen pages better: Now there were two translations where there should have been only one. Never was there a book more intended to be unambiguous than the Book of Mormon.

In addition, the extension of the canon had to be in a shape that satisfied the expectations of its Bible-saturated recipients. 2 Kings 22 gave the expectation that covenants and laws of the Lord with his people could be rediscovered. Daniel (Dan 12) had been instructed to seal up his visions in books. Such books were expected to be inaccessible to the learned, e.g. Isaiah 29:11. And Habakkuk (Hab 2) had been instructed to write his vision onto tablets, so plates of metal (gold or brass) was within the range of possibility. Equally, the sticks of Judah and Ephraim (leading Israel) from Ezechiel seemed in support of such a canonic extension.  In general, the Bible was used to shape expectations of interactions with the divine that are remote to present day Bible readers, because the expectations for the contributions of the Biblical books differ. (Even the inclusion of Joseph Smith Jr himself into the book of Genesis, during the Bible revision project, as a prophecy for a son of a Joseph, has a weak precedent in the prophecy of King Josiah of the House of David in 1 Kings 13,  where the name of the predicted child is given.)

With a book structured to settle disputes and reconnect the American churches to the salvation history of Abraham and the early Church of Acts, in a manifestation of the then rampant Primitivism, it would have been folly not to settle other doctrinal issues. As Alexander Campbell pointed out in his famously dismissive pamphlet, this dated the Book of Mormon more than anything else; but again that is looking at the problem from the wrong angle. From the point of view of the Mormon converts, it reinforced the sensation that God was concerned about their questions and had authoritative answers for them that would settle the issues. Campbell, who campaigned so hard for Christian unity, should have appreciated the underlying sentiment more.

Among the primitivist movements, the Mormons were unique in including the Native Americans, in however unflattering a form, into their salvation history. The inclusion of the New World and the explanation for the American antiquities however came at the price of going much farther into the Old Testament than many other Christian denominations and sects had found necessary. This resulted in the importation of theologoumena that set the Mormons at variance with the other Christian denominations, such as temples, priesthoods (whether of Melchizedek or Abraham), and eventually even polygamy. It also imported attitudes that corresponded to the clan- and tribe-centric ethics of the Old Testament, which found expression in notions such as the avenging angels or Danites, and in the expectation for the spoils of the Gentiles. Admittedly, that flame was fanned by the generally retributive stance of the apocalyptic literature, no matter which part of the Bible the specific text came from. As a result, it may not be possible to draw the line between the millennial expectations and the Old Testament matrix correctly for any individual point at hand. But the overall spirit is decidedly less meek and more combative than the majority of the New Testament texts. And this drawing upon Old Testament models is not, as Jan Shipps had assumed, because the Mormons saw themselves as Israel; they always knew that some of the Lamanites and the hidden tribes behind the ice and stone of the poles were the lost tribes of Israel. It was because the Old Testament was part of their inheritance as well, and more helpful in the fights of rejection with the local communities than the pacifist stances of the Gospel.

In setting up his solution in this fashion, Joseph Smith Jr created several problems for himself and his movement, both at the level of the theory and the level of the contents. The monolithic salvation history worked fine for the context of its discovery, and is only problematic now, where great narratives that span the centuries are suspicious in general, because of our increased understanding of how they limit voices within the experience. We prefer our histories, and especially our salvation histories, pluralistic.

The theoretical problems that plagued Joseph Smith Jr during his life-time already were related to his insufficiently developed theory of revelation. His notion of the "burning of the heart" was effectively a popularized form of Spener's pia desideria. Spener had developed that notion precisely to reject the grasp of the governmentally controlled orthodoxy of 17th century Germany, emphasizing the role of the individual over the establishment. Unlike Spener, Smith Jr was not trying to make a free space for personal piety in a socially controlled space, but was trying to externalize and validate a personal experience for the social space. For this, the burning of the heart was an ill-suited tool, leading to continuous charges, even from within the ranks of the converts, that Smith Jr's revelation were too damn convenient to be external to himself.

Furthermore, the reduction to the "burning of the heart" meant that there were no external checks and balances on the contents of revelations. This in turn undermined the monolithic nature of the Book of Mormon that had been built up so carefully. The Mormon convert of 1843, who looked at the condemnation of the concubines of David and Solomon in the Book of Mormon (Jacob 2:24) and the revelation given for the Shakers, to have a wife and to cleave unto her (D&C 42:22) on the one hand,  and then at the revelation regarding Plural Marriage (D&C 132), was once again reduced to trying to sort out the contradictory indications without the help of a canonical scripture. It is not surprising that some of the critics were willing to accept the Book of Mormon as true, while taking a decidedly more critical stance with respect to Joseph Smith Jr's claim to continuous prophecy.

For the continued success of early Mormonism, though, Joseph Smith Jr's ability to reshape the kerygma continuously was unavoidable and possibly a source of its success. Because of the lack of development and penetration of historical criticism, Joseph Smith Jr could not know that he had laden himself with theological models that were not tried and true patterns of action. The description of the early apostolic church in Jerusalem in Acts was an ideal type, constructed by the author as a foil for self-evaluation of the early Christian congregations; not a recipe for running a church qua organization. Joseph Smith Jr learned that early when faced with the charismata of the Campbellite converts in Kirtland, Ohio, and even more so when trying to develop the law of consecration into a funding model for the church.

(See Part 2 for the remainder of this text.)