Sunday evening, my family and I were reading Joseph Smith–History in a not-quite-too-late bid to keep up with the Sunday School reading. And, although I’ve read the first 26 verses plenty of times before, something whetted my curiosity this time.
See, in v. 19, the Personage tells Joseph that all of the creeds were an abomination and that “those professors were all corrupt.” A few verses later, Joseph talks about how his story “excited a great deal of prejudice against me among professors of religion.”
I’d always taken for granted that these professors of religion were religious elites, presumably teachers at seminaries or colleges–the caretakers of institutional religion at the time. After all, that’s kind of how we collectively teach and read these passages. (Don’t believe me? Well, the footnote to “professors” in v. 19 references “False Prophets” in the Topical Guide, which at least implies some degree of authority and religious eliteness.)
But here’s the thing: I’m pretty sure that reading is wrong. I’m pretty sure that when Joseph wrote those passages, he wasn’t thinking of a tenured professor in a college department of religion. Rather, I’m pretty sure he meant professor to be a synonym for believer or for Christian.
Why? Well, first I looked at Webster’s 1828 dictionary. It defines “professor” to mean:
PROFESS’OR, noun [Latin] One who makes open declaration of his sentiments or opinions; particularly, one who makes a public avowal of his belief in the Scriptures and his faith in Christ, and thus unites himself to the visible church.
1. One that publicly teaches any science or branch of learning; particularly, an officer in a university, college or other seminary, whose business is to read lectures or instruct students in a particular branch of learning; as a professor of theology or mathematics.
So the tenured college instructor connotation of “professor” certainly existed at the time, but the person-who-professes-belief meaning comes first. And I think that connotation fits better with the story Joseph is telling. As best I can tell, there probably weren’t a lot of colleges and universities around Palmyra at the time. (In fact, my Google search suggests that there still aren’t.) So where would these [college] professors be coming from?
On the other hand, in Joseph’s own words, there were a lot of people professing religion. And those people, again in Joseph’s words, were contending with each other about their professed faith’s truth. It would make sense that those people–believers deeply engaged with their beliefs–would react to a local boy’s claim that their preferred religion was not only untrue, but an abomination (and, for that matter, that they were corrupt).
And a lot of roughly contemporaneous writing uses “professor of religion” in the sense of “people who profess religion.”
For example, an 1830 missionary who was trying to recruit people to go west wrote:
We want, also, more pious laymen; not professors of religion merely, nor men who have simply a good report of those who are without; but men of character, and reputation, and influence. . . . We want active Christians, men devoted to the cause and interest of their Redeemer
Here, “professors of religion” seems to mean, not the elite, but people who do more than merely profess their religion.
In 1832, J. Barfett wrote The Question, “Ought the Professors of Religion to Interfere With Politics?” Considered in a Letter to a Friend. In the creatively-named pamphlet he asks the “Christian professor” essentially about his motives in choosing to vote for somebody. These various questions, he says, “claim the serious attention of the professors of religion.” Again, his pamphlet seems addressed to Christians, not to teachers.
And in 1835, the Rev. Daniel Clark wrote The Duty of Professors of Religion to Consecrate Their Property to the Spread of the Gospel. Again, it’s aimed to convince Christian believers that all things are God’s and that, thus, they should consecrate everything they have to God.
And what does reading “professors of religion” to mean believers, not only elite teachers, do to our reading of Joseph’s history? Honestly, I think it changes our reading significantly and makes it a lot more poignant. This isn’t Joseph being persecuted by elites; while the Methodist preacher told him he was wrong, he couldn’t take comfort in his community or his neighbors. Sure, the elites didn’t believe him, but neither did the Christian believers. His neighbors, perhaps his friends, ostracized him. The prejudice didn’t come just from above–it came, too, from beside.