CHAPTER IX.
"THE EVERLASTING GOSPEL"
Probable Origin of the Idea of a Bible on Plates--Cyril's Gift from an Angel and Joachim's Use of it--Where Rigdon could have obtained the Idea Prominence of the "Everlasting Gospel" in Mormon Writings
Having presented the evidence which shows that the
historical part of the Mormon Bible was supplied by the Spaulding manuscript,
we may now pay attention to other evidence, which indicates that the entire
conception of a revelation of golden plates by an angel was not even original,
and also that its suggester was Rigdon. This is a subject which has been
overlooked by investigators of the Mormon Bible.
That the idea of the revelation as described
by Smith in his autobiography was not original is shown by the fact that a
similar divine message, engraved on plates, was announced to have been
received from an angel nearly six hundred years before the alleged visit of an
angel to Smith. These original plates were described as of copper, and the
recipient was a monk named Cyril, from whom their contents passed into the
possession of the Abbot Joachim, whose "Everlasting Gospel," founded thereon,
was offered to the church as supplanting the New Testament, just as the New
Testament had supplanted the Old, and caused so serious a schism that Pope
Alexander IV took the severest measures against it.1
1 [John W.] Draper's "Intellectual Development of Europe," Vol. II, Chap. III. For an exhaustive essay on the "Everlasting Gospel," by Renan, see Revue des Delcx Mondes, June, 1866. For John of Parma's part in the Gospel, see "Histoire Litteraire de la France" (1842), Vol. XX, p. 24.
The evidence that the history of the "Everlasting Gospel" of the thirteenth century supplied the idea of the Mormon Bible lies not only in the resemblance between the celestial announcement of both, but in the fact that both were declared to have the same important purport -- as a forerunner of the end of the world.-- and that the name "Everlasting Gospel" was adopted and constantly used in connection with their message by the original leaders in the Mormon church.
If it is asked, How could Rigdon become acquainted
with the story of the original "Everlasting Gospel," the answer is that it was
just such subjects that would most attract his attention, and that his studies
had led him into directions where the story of Cyril's plates would probably
have been mentioned. He was a student of every subject out of which he could
evolve a, sect, from the time of his Pittsburg pastorate. Hepworth Dixon said,
"He knew the writings of Maham, Gates, and Boyle, writings in which love and
marriage are considered in relation to Gospel liberty and the future
life."2 H. H. Bancroft, noting his appointment as Professor of
Church History in Nauvoo University, speaks of him as "versed in history,
belles-lettres, and oratory.3 Mrs. James A. Garfield told Mrs.
Dickenson that Rigdon taught her father Latin and Greek.4 David
Whitmer, who was intimately acquainted with the early history of the church,
testif ied: "Rigdon was a thorough biblical scholar, a man of fine education
and a powerful orator."5 A writer, describing Rigdon while the
church was at Nauvoo, said, "There is no divine in the West more learned in
biblical literature and the history of the world than he."6 All
this indicates that a knowledge of the earlier "Everlasting Gospel" was easily
within Rigdon's reach. We may even surmise the exact source of this knowledge.
Mosheim's " Ecclesiastical History, Ancient and Modern" was at his disposal.
Editions of it had appeared in London in 1765, 1768, 1774, 1782, 1790, 1806,
1814 and 1826, and among the abridgments was one published in Philadelphia in
1812. In this work he could have read as follows: --
"About the commencement of this (the
thirteenth) century there were handed about in Italy several pretended
prophecies of the famous Joachim, abbot of Sora in Calabria, whom the
multitude revered as a person divinely inspired, and equal to the most
illustrious prophets of ancient times. The greatest part of these predictions
were contained in a certain book entitled, 'The Everlasting Gospel,' which was
also commonly called the Book of Joachim. This Joachim, whether a real or
fictitious person we shall not pretend to determine, among many other events,
foretold the destruction of the Church of Rome, whose corruptions he censured
with the greatest severity, and the promulgation of a new and more perfect
gospel in the age of the Holy Ghost, by a set of poor and austere ministers,
whom God was to raise up and employ for that purpose."
2 "Spiritual Wives," p. 62.
3 "Utah," p. 146.
4 Scribner's Magazine, October,
1881.
5 "Address to All Believers in
Christ," p. 35.
6 Letter in the New
York Herald.
Here is a perfect outline of the scheme presented
by the original Mormons, with Joseph as the divinely inspired prophet, and an
"Everlasting Gospel," the gift of an angel, promulgated by poor men like the
travelling Mormon elders. The original suggestion of an "Everlasting Gospel"
is found in Revelation xiv, 6 and 7: --
"And I saw another angel fly in the
midst of heaven, having the everlasting in gospel to preach unto them that
dwell on the earth, and to every nation, and kindred, and tongue, and people,
"Saying with a loud voice, Fear God, and give
glory to him; for the hour of his judgment is come: and worship him that made
heaven, and earth, and the sea, and the fountains of water."7
7 "Bisping (after Gerlach) takes Rev. xiv. 6-11 to foretell that three great events at the end of the last world-week are immediately to precede Christ's second advent: (1) the announcement of the "eternal' Gospel to the whole world (Matt. xxiv. 14); (2) the Fall of Babylon; (3) a warning to all who worship the beast. . . Burger says this vision can denote nothing but a last admonition and summons to conversion shortly before the end." -- Note in "Commentary by Bishops and Other Clergy of the Anglican Church."
This was the angel of Cyril; this the announcement
of those "latter days" from which the Mormon church, on Rigdon's motion soon
took its name.
That Rigdon's attention had
been attracted to an "Everlasting Gospel" is proved by the constant references
made to it in writings of which he had at least the supervision, from the very
beginning of the church. Thus, when he preached his first sermon before a
Mormon audience -- on the occasion of his visit to Smith at Palmyra in I830 --
he took as his text a part of the version of Revelation xiv, which he had put
into the Mormon Bible (I Nephi xiii. 40), and in his sermon, as reported by
Tucker, who heard it, holding the Scriptures in one hand and the Mormon Bible
in the other, he said, "that they were inseparably necessary to complete the
everlasting gospel of the Saviour Jesus Christ." In the account in Smith's
autobiography, of the first description of the buried book given to Smith by
the angel, its two features are named separately, first, "an account of the
former inhabitants of this continent," and then the fulness of the Everlasting
Gospel." That Rigdon never lost sight of the importance, in his view, of an
"Everlasting Gospel" may be seen from the following quotation from one of his
articles in his Pittsburg organ, the Messenger and Advocate, of June
15, 1845, after his expulsion from Nauvoo: "It is a strict observance of the
principles of the fulness of the Everlasting Gospel of Jesus Christ, as
contained in the Bible, Book of Mormon, and Book of Covenants, which alone
will insure a man an inheritance in the kingdom of our God."
The importance attached to the "Everlasting
Gospel" by the founders of the church is seen further in the references to it
in the "Book of Doctrine and Covenants," which it is not necessary to
cite,8 and further in a pamphlet by Elder Moses [Martin] of New
York (1842), entitled "A Treatise on the Fulness of the Everlasting Gospel,
setting forth its First Principles, Promises, and Blessings," in which he
argued that the appearance of the angle to Smith was in direct line with the
Scriptural teaching, and that the last days were near.
8 For examples see Sec. 68, 1;
Sec. 101, 22; Sec. 124, 88.