When John the Baptist came to ordain Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery to the Aaronic Priesthood on 15 May 1829, he indicated that this priesthood “holds the keys of the ministering of angels, and of the gospel of repentance, and of baptism by immersion for the remission of sins” (D&C 13:1; Joseph Smith History 1:69). Though keys are never associated with John in the biblical account, a Christian document from Ethiopia, thought to date to the fifteenth century but containing older concepts, speaks of “John the Baptist unto whom was given the key of baptism.” 1
Joseph Smith declared that “John was a priest after his father, and held the keys of the Aaronic Priesthood, and was called of God to preach the Gospel of the kingdom of God... John was a priest after the order of Aaron, and had the keys of that priesthood, and came forth preaching repentance and baptism for the remission of sins” ( History of the Church 5:257-8). On 23 July 1843, the prophet said that “John held the Aaronic Priesthood, and was a legal administrator, and the forerunner of Christ, and came to prepare the way before him... The Levitical Priesthood is forever hereditary—fixed on the head of Aaron and his sons forever, and was in active operation down to Zacharias the father of John. Zacharias would have had no child had not God given him a son. He sent his angel to declare unto Zacharias that his wife Elizabeth should bear him a son, whose name was to be called John. The keys of the Aaronic Priesthood were committed unto him.” 2
An early text preserved by the Mandaeans, who claim to be descendants of the disciples of John the Baptist (whom they call by his Arabic name Yahya), sheds further light on this subject. Called Haran Gawaitha , the text says of John that “when he was seven years old, [the angel] Anush c Uthra came and wrote the ABC ( a ba ga ) for him, until when he was twenty-two years old, he had learnt all the priestly-craft ( nasirutha ).” 3 According to another Mandaean text, John was taken away as a child by uthras (angels) to be raised to the age of 22. There, “They clothed me with vestures of glory and veiled me with cloud-veils. They wound round me a girdle, of [living] water a girdle, which shone beyond measure and glistened. They set me within a cloud, a cloud of splendour, and in the seventh hour of a Sunday they brought me to the Jerusalem region.” 4 The investiture in priestly clothing resembles the account in Testament of Levi 8:2-10, in which the Baptist's ancestor tells of being visited by seven angels who washed, anointed, and dressed him in priestly robes, ordaining him to be a priest. 5
The idea that at a young age John the Baptist was visited by one or more angels who ordained and trained him in the priesthood is in general agreement with D&C 84:28, where we read that John “was baptized while he was yet in his childhood, and was ordained by the angel of God at the time he was eight days old.” An extract from the Life of John , written by Serapion, indicates that John the Baptist was orphaned at an early age by the death of his parents Zacharias and Elizabeth. Distraught at learning of the death of her cousin Elizabeth, Jesus' mother Mary wanted to bring John to live with her family in Egypt. But the boy Jesus told her, “This is not the will of my Father who is in the heavens. He [John] shall remain in the wilderness till the day of his showing unto Israel. Instead of a desert full of wild beasts, he will walk in a desert full of angels and prophets, as if they were multitudes of people. Here is also Gabriel, the head of the angels, whom I have appointed to protect him and to grant to him power from heaven.” 6 Qur'an 19:12 has God saying that he had endowed John the Baptist with wisdom while yet a child and gave him the heavenly book.
As noted at the beginning of this chapter, Joseph Smith held John the Baptist to be a “legal administrator” of the Aaronic priesthood, the keys of which he conferred on Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery (Joseph Smith History 1:69; D&C 27:8). The Lord told Joseph Smith that only the firstborn line of Aaron “holds the right of the presidency over this priesthood, and the keys or authority of the same” (D&C 68:17) and that this constituted the office of bishop, which only a firstborn descendant of Aaron or a high priest after the order of Melchizedek could hold (D&C 68:14-21; D&C 107:13-17, 68-76).
The Lord further declared that “The power and authority of the lesser, or Aaronic Priesthood, is to hold the keys of the ministering of angels, and to administer in outward ordinances, the letter of the gospel, the baptism of repentance for the remission of sins” (D&C 107:20; see also D&C 84:26-27).
Bearing this in mind, the following statement from the Epistle to the Smyrnaeans 8 written by the late first-century Christian bishop Ignatius sounds very much like the way the restored Church views the role of the bishop: “It is not lawful without the bishop either to baptize, or to offer, or to present sacrifice, or to celebrate a love-feast.” 7 Tertullian (ca. A.D. 160-230) later echoed this in his On Baptism 17. 8
The Syrian bishop Ephraim wrote that “prophecy and priesthood, which were given through Moses, were handed down, both of them, and reached to Simeon” a priest in the Jerusalem temple, and that “Simeon presented our Lord, and in Him offered both these things; so that that which was given to Moses in the wilderness, was received from Simeon in the Temple [Luke 2:25-35]... priesthood from His hands and prophecy from His lips,” so that Jesus held “priesthood and kingdom and prophecy.” Thus, “when he gave Him to His mother, he gave along with Him the priesthood; and when he prophesied to her concerning Him... He was outwardly wrapped in swaddling clothes, but secretly He was clothed with prophecy and priesthood. Whatsoever then was handed down from Moses, was received from Simeon, but continued and was possessed by the Lord of both. So then the steward first, and the treasurer lastly, handed over the keys of priesthood and prophecy to Him who has authority over the treasurer of them both.” Later, “the keys which He had received from Simeon the priest, them He gave to another Simeon the Apostle,” who came to be called Peter [Matthew 16:15-19]. At his baptism, too, “because John also was the treasurer of baptism, the Lord of the stewardship came to him to receive from him the keys of the house of reconciliation” ( Homily on Our Lord 51-53). 9
Notes
1 Sir Ernest A. Wallis Budge, The Book of the Mysteries of the Heavens and the Earth and Other Works of Bakhayla Mika'el (Zosimas) ( Oxford, 1935), 105.
2 Joseph Fielding Smith, ed., Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith (Salt Lake City: Deseret, 1979), 318-9, citing a discourse from a manuscript in the Church Historian's Office.
3 E. S. Drower, The Mandaeans of Iraq and Iran (photomechanical reprint, Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1962), 4.
4 G. R. S. Mead, The Gnostic John the Baptizer: Selections from the Mandaean John-Book (London: John M. Watkins, 1924), 57-8.
5 The passage reads: “And I saw seven men in white clothing, who were saying to me, “Arise, put on the vestments of the priesthood, the crown of righteousness, the oracle of understanding, the robe of truth, the breastplate of faith, the miter for the head, and the apron for prophetic power.” Each carried one of these and put them on me and said, “From now on be a priest, you and all your posterity.” The first anointed me with holy oil and gave me a staff. The second washed me with pure water, fed me by hand with bread and holy wine, and put on me a holy and glorious vestment. The third put on me something made of linen, like an ephod. The fourth placed. . . around me a girdle which was like purple. The fifth gave me a branch of rich olive wood. The sixth placed a wreath on my head. The seventh placed the priestly diadem on me and filled my hands with incense, in order that I might serve as priest for the Lord God.” James H. Charlesworth, The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha (Garden City: Doubleday, 1983), 1:791.
6 Wilhelm Schneemelcher (translator R. McL. Wilson), New Testament Apocrypha (revision, Louisville, KY: Westminster/John Knox, 1992), 1:468.
7 Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson, Ante-Nicene Fathers (reprint, Peabody, MA: Handrickson, 1994), 1:90. The translator's note indicates that some scholars believe that the “love-feast” denotes the Lord's Supper. In the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, it is the bishop who authorizes the administration of this sacrament.
8 Ibid., 3:677.
9 Philip Schaff and Henry Wace, Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Second Series, 13:328-9.
