re mormon temples in article may athos rutgers edu jwindley cheap cs utah edu jay windley writes there are other interpretations to christian history in this matter one must recall that most of what we know about the gnostics was written by their enemies eusebius claims that jesus imparted secret information to peter james and john after his resurrection and that those apostles transmitted that information to the rest of the twelve eusebius historia ecclesiastica ii this is curious i read in eh the lord imparted the gift of knowledge to james the just to john and peter after his resurrection these delivered it to the rest of the apostles and they to the seventy of whom barnabas was one eusebius ecclesiastical history it seems that the lord imparted the gift of knowledge not that the lord imparted secret information apostles interestingly enough eusebius refers to the groups which we today call gnostics as promulgators of a false gnosis eusebius op cit iii his gripe was not that thay professed a gnosis but that they had the wrong one i m afraid that i cannot find this portrayal in eh i don t see anywhere in where eusebius mentions that certain gnostics had the wrong gnosis the closest is when eusebius summarizes hegesippus statements whilst if there were any at all that attempted to pervert the sound doctrine of the saving gospel they were yet skulking in dark retreats now one can approach this and other such evidence in many ways i don t intend that everyone interpret christian history as i do but i believe that evidence exists favorably interpreted of course of early christian rites analogous to those practiced by mormons today favorably interpreted just in looking at two of the four references that you gave i have the eh handy irenaeus and the clemetine recognitions i will have to look for i see no room for such interpretations and any such interpretation still falls short of an equivalence to the temple ceremonies the links for jay s using eh for support are imparting the gift of knowledge imparted secret information being given secret signs and tokens to gain entrance to heaven but there is not enough equivalence between the the ideas for us to be able to call this favorable interpretation it appears to be closer to fabrication robert weiss psyrobtw ubvms cc buffalo edu
