If the temple ceremony was simply taken from Freemasonry, then why do temple-like patterns appear in ancient Christian texts that Joseph Smith did not have access to?
The Pistis Sophia is one of those texts.
It is not Latter-day Saint scripture. It should not be treated as doctrinally pure. It contains material that Latter-day Saints would not accept as authoritative. Doctrine and Covenants 91 gives a careful rule for approaching apocryphal writings: they may contain “many things” that are true, while also containing things that are not true, and readers need spiritual discernment. That warning cuts both ways. It warns against careless proof-texting. It also warns against careless dismissal.
What Is the Pistis Sophia?
The Pistis Sophia is an early Christian apocryphal text preserved in the Askew Codex. NASSCAL notes that it survives only in Sahidic Coptic, that a Greek original is commonly assumed but debated, and that scholars have proposed the second and third centuries as possible dates for its composition. NASSCAL also notes that the work “lacks homogeneity” and appears to be a compilation from different texts or traditions.
Britannica identifies the Pistis Sophia as a third-century Coptic Gnostic text concerned with salvation and conversations of the risen Jesus with His disciples.
This is not a modern Latter-day Saint source trying to force temple symbolism backward into Christianity. It is an ancient Christian text, preserved in Egypt, that presents Jesus giving post-resurrection instruction to His disciples. NASSCAL summarizes the narrative as beginning with Jesus teaching His disciples after His death and resurrection, then revealing further information about the “Mysteries.”
The Temple-Like Pattern
In Chapter 136 of the Pistis Sophia, the risen Jesus is depicted with His disciples after His resurrection. The scene includes Jesus standing at an altar, disciples arranged around Him, women disciples present, prayer or invocation, orientation toward the four directions, and linen garments.
The scene includes:
- Sacred clothing.
- An altar.
- A gathered group.
- Men and women disciples.
- Repeated prayer.
- Instruction from the risen Christ.
- A concern with heavenly ascent and salvation.
That is not just “generic religion.” It sounds like the kind of sacred ritual world that modern critics insist did not exist in early Christianity.
FAIR’s discussion of early Christian and Jewish rituals notes this same scene, describing Jesus standing at an altar, surrounded by apostles and women disciples in linen garments. FAIR also points to related Coptic material involving signs, names, guardians, veils, and entering the presence of the Father. Scripture Central likewise discusses the Pistis Sophia in the context of ancient temple prayer, including Jesus at the altar, linen garments, hand signs, and passing beyond angels to enter the presence of the Father.
The Pistis Sophia shows that ancient Christians could imagine salvation, sacred instruction, prayer, clothing, altar symbolism, veils, heavenly passage, and the presence of God in ways that sound much closer to temple worship than modern day Christian worship services.
The Timeline Problem
If an Anti-Mormon saw this text and all the conclusions, they would instantly conclude, “Joseph Smith stole the Temple from the Pistis Sophia.”
But this theory has some problems. The surviving manuscript is known as the Askew Codex. G. R. S. Mead’s introduction states that the manuscript was purchased by the British Museum in 1785 from the heirs of Dr. Askew.
That means the manuscript existed before Joseph Smith.
But existence is not access.
The first English edition by G. R. S. Mead was published in 1896. The Internet Archive catalog identifies Mead’s 1896 edition and describes it as “now for the first time Englished” from the only known Coptic manuscript, using earlier Latin and French work. The revised Mead edition appeared in 1921. Joseph Smith died in 1844.
So, if Joseph Smith supposedly borrowed temple ideas from the Pistis Sophia, where did he get it?
Not from Mead’s English translation. It did not exist.
Not from a popular American edition. There was none.
Not from a text circulating among frontier Latter-day Saints in Nauvoo. There is no evidence for that.
A critic can still argue that Joseph borrowed from Freemasonry. But the Pistis Sophia complicates the claim that temple-like ideas must have originated in modern fraternal ritual. Some of these patterns have ancient Christian witnesses. And the temple like worship that the Pistis Sophia describes, might demonstrate the origins of where modern Freemasonry derived from
What This Does to the Freemasonry Claim
The Church does not deny that there are similarities between some Masonic symbols and the Nauvoo endowment. The Church’s own history topic on Masonry states that early Saints recognized similarities, but also testified that the endowment came by revelation. It also says that focusing only on outward similarities “obscures significant differences in their substance,” and that the endowment “did not simply imitate the rituals of Freemasonry.”
That is the key distinction.
Freemasonry may help explain some outward forms, teaching methods, or symbolic vocabulary available in Joseph Smith’s environment. But it does not explain why the restored temple is centered on creation, fall, redemption, covenant, priesthood, sacred clothing, heavenly ascent, and returning to the presence of God.
The Church’s own explanation of the endowment says it teaches the Creation, the Fall, redemption through Jesus Christ, and the journey back to God’s presence. It also centers on covenants of obedience, sacrifice, the gospel, chastity, and consecration.
That is not merely a fraternal ceremony with religious language attached.
It is a covenant map of salvation.
The Narrow Point
The existence of the early Christian temple worship mentioned in the Pistis Sophia challenges a shallow explanation.
If Joseph Smith invented the endowment from Freemasonry, why do ancient Christian texts contain temple-like scenes with sacred clothing, altar prayer, veils, mysteries, heavenly ascent, and entrance into the presence of God?
And if Joseph borrowed from the Pistis Sophia, how did he borrow from an English translation that did not exist until more than fifty years after his death?
A more reasonable explanation is that temple worship was not invented in Nauvoo. The Restoration brought back ancient sacred patterns that had appeared in scattered, partial, and sometimes corrupted forms across Jewish, Christian, Egyptian, and apocryphal traditions.
Freemasonry may have preserved fragments of symbolic ritual culture. But fragments are not the foundation.
The foundation is older.
The temple points to creation, fall, covenant, redemption, priesthood, ascent, and returning to the presence of God. That is exactly the kind of pattern we should expect if Joseph Smith was not inventing temple worship, but restoring sacred truths that ancient Christianity had largely forgotten.
How do you explain temple-like language about sacred clothing, veils, mysteries, prayer circles, and returning to the presence of God appearing in ancient Christian texts like the Pistis Sophia long before Joseph Smith and long before modern Freemasonry?