What my studies of the ancient Christian writers revealed

[_Daheshist]

I joined the Church in later 1978. Ran into anti-Mormon books in mid 1979; which really changed my life forever. I'm sure I have OCD. No doubt about it. Let me tell you HOW I ran into anti-Mormon literature.

At Church, a Young Adult Ward, in Tacoma, Washington, I wanted to find where I could get some Mormons books. No, I did not know that there was such as thing as "Mormon" bookstores. I'm a convert. Nobody told me that. So, after priesthood was over, I asked a few guys "Where can I buy some Church books?" Remember, I'm a recent convert, and nobody has told me much of anything. I had no idea there were LDS bookstores. At the time I asked this, there was an LDS bookstore less than 5 miles away from the chapel.

Well, the two assholes I asked, were waiting for the girls to get our of Relief Society. One looked at me funny and said, "Oh, I don't know" and walked down the hall a little way and leaned against the wall again. I was not a young sexy female, and he didn't think talking a minute to help me was important. The other guy I asked looked like he was about to tell me, but he saw his honey bouncing out of Relief Society and he left to join her without even saying anything to me. Typical sex-centered young Mormon men.

So, the next day, I look in the phonebook under " books" and found "Dightman's Christian Bookstore". I figured they probably had a good Mormon section. The nearest Mormon bookstore was in Puyallup, but I was looking in the Tacoma Yellow Pages. Remember, nobody told me there was such a thing as an LDS bookstore. Nobody told me that Christian bookstores don't carry Mormon books. Nobody told me anything about anti-Mormon books. Anyway, I walk into the Christian bookstores looking for the "Mormon" section, and I found it, under "Cults/Occult". I spend three hours in there. I was DEVASTATED!!!

17 months later I returned to activity in the Church, only after discovering that Ed Decker and Walter Martin had lied about a number of things, and also just after the Brown's exposed "Prof. Dee Jay Nelson, the World's Greatest Egyptologist". I realized that I could no longer "trust" everything that anti-Mormons said or wrote. So, I was between a rock and a hard place. A few times I thought "Maybe they're both lying...the Church and the Anti-Mormons!" I dismissed that as impossible. Yet, looking back, that was in FACT the truth. The Church was lying to protect the Church, and anti-Mormons were lying to make money. There ARE honest anti-Mormons, but the most popular anti-Mormons are those who lie the most.

Anyway, the thought came to me: "If the Church is true, then I need to become active again, or I'll miss out on the blessings and Exalation, but if the Church is not true, I'll find that out eventually". So, I came back. And, yes, I did "find that out" eventually.

Anyway, I wasted my life on doing research. I spent tens of thousands of hours educating myself on Christian history, theology, world religions, etc. Enough time to get a B.A., M.A., and Ph.D., and THEN some! I did not get any degrees, because all my research was independent. It PAINS me to think of all the years I wasted doing this research. But, I was OBSESSED! Absolutely.....100%.....OBSESSED!!!

I decided to read all the works of the early Christians for the first 5 centuries. Millions upon millions of words. The "Early Church Fathers" and "the Ante-Nicean Fathers". Volumes upon volumes upon volumes of "tiny" printed words, tens of milliions of words. Everything that the Christians wrote outside the New Testament from the year 35A.D. to the 500s A.D. Everytihng in English. Every single "WORD". I wanted to see if they taught "Mormonism". This is what I found:

In the writings of the early Christians (first five centuries):

1. There is nothing about any Melchizedek Priesthood other than Christ was of the "order" (i.e. type) of Melchizedek. Nothing about the apostles had it, or that Christian men were supposed to hold it. Nothing. An "Elder" was simply an older Christian man, over age 49, usually who owned property.
2. There is nothing about Christian "high priests"
3. There is nothing about secret rites "except" something called "Disciplina Arcana" which is secret doctrine and not "rites. There was a "Rite of the Inner Chamber" that included anointing with oil, baptism in the nude, and turning to renounce Satan, but nothing more than this.
4. There is nothing about God the Father once being a man.
5. There is nothing about eternal marriage other than Iranaeus stating that martyred Christian women would bear children in the resurrection.
6. There is nothing about Masonic like rituals or secret handshakes etc., other than the Apocalyse of Paul wherein he must gives "signs" to certain angels in order to get to the 7th heaven (but the signs are not explained). There is NOTHING that Christians must learn certain secret words or handshakes.
7. There is NOTHING about Peter being the first Pope or Rome, or that a priest can transform the bread and wine into the body and blood of Christ...the most ancient lists, list Linus as the first Bishop of Rome, with no mention of Peter as a bishop at all.
8. There are TONS of material that men may become "gods" but nothing that says these gods will be polygamist, nor that they will create their own planets.
9. There is NOTHING about blacks being cursed or the children of Cain.
10. There is NOTHING about saying any "Sinner's Prayer" in order to be saved, or that a mere belief and a mouth confession that Jesus is Lord is all that is required for salvation.
11. The authors tend to believe that "salvation" has already been accomplished, and Christians are simply those who recognize that Christ has saved all men, and that all men are judged by their works, and there are three degrees of salvation in the Resurrection.
12. There is nothing about baptism for the dead, other than the Marcionites practiced it for Catechumens who had died without baptism (a Catechumen was an unbaptized Christian "student"...one had to be a Catechumen for one year before being baptized).
13. There is nothing about a plurality of gods that is not a reference to pagan beliefs and condemned.
14 There is nothing about a Heavenly Mother except for some Gnostic writings about Sophia (the Wisdom of God) as God's "daughter" and sometimes "companion". But the "Early Church Fathers" hold no such position, only some Gnostics did.
15. 98% of Gnostic writings are BIZAAR and things that Mormons would not possibly accept. Only about 2% of Gnostic materials Mormons would agree with.
16. Some early Christians, like Origen, did believe in the pre-existence of the soul. That was a Platonic doctrine, and many early Christian intellectuals were Plantonists (followers of the school of Platonus). But even the Origenists did NOT believe that God "begot" spirits, or that God begot our spirits wth a "Heavenly Mother".
17. They did NOT believe that Apostles could ordain other Apostles, and that the apostleship was on-going like it is in the LDS Church. They believed that the Apostles ordained bishops, and that the bishops (plural) were the successors of the Apostles.
18. They believed that all the bishops had one equal vote, including the bishop of Rome, who had one equal vote in all "Catholic" (Latin: "General") councils of the Church. There was no such thing as a "Pope" who had universal authority over the Church.

Basically, from my many years of study and reading the Early Church Fathers, I had to conclude:

1. They did NOT believe in what is now called "Mormonism"
2. They did NOT believe in what is now called "Evangelical Christianity"
3. They did NOT believe in what is now called "Roman Catholicism"
4. Their writings and beliefs corresponds BEST to the "Orthodox" Churches: Greek, Syrian, Antiochian, Russian, Coptic, etc.

"Mormonism" cannot be found in the writings of the Early Church Fathers, NOR in the ancient Gnostic writings. It cannot be found in the early Church.

[_Username]

I conducted the exact same study of the church fathers and found the same thing about the Orthodox. I also examined the latest research on the nature and theology of Jewish first temple rites and discovered those rites are the pattern on which the Orthodox Divine Liturgy is based. Whoever the first Christians were, their direct descendents are the Orthodox. That's why a few years back I became an Eastern Orthodox catechumen within the Antiochian jurisdiction.

[_Daheshist]

The Orthodox churches DO seem to carry on original primitive Christianity. "Mormonism" is not a restoration of the original Church, not even the Gnostics.

I am a Daheshist because Jesus returned as Doctor Dahesh, the miracle-working Prophet of Lebanon.

I conducted the exact same study of the church fathers and found the same thing about the Orthodox. I also examined the latest research on the nature and theology of Jewish first temple rites and discovered those rites are the pattern on which the Orthodox Divine Liturgy is based. Whoever the first Christians were, their direct descendents are the Orthodox. That's why a few years back I became an Eastern Orthodox catechumen within the Antiochian jurisdiction.