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The angel Moroni () is an
angel An angel is a spiritual (without a physical body), heavenly, or supernatural being, usually humanoid with bird-like wings, often depicted as a messenger or intermediary between God (the transcendent) and humanity (the profane) in variou ...
whom
Joseph Smith Joseph Smith Jr. (December 23, 1805June 27, 1844) was an American religious and political leader and the founder of Mormonism and the Latter Day Saint movement. Publishing the Book of Mormon at the age of 24, Smith attracted tens of thou ...
, founder of the
Latter Day Saint movement The Latter Day Saint movement (also called the LDS movement, LDS restorationist movement, or Smith–Rigdon movement) is the collection of independent church groups that trace their origins to a Christian Restorationist movement founded by ...
, reported as having visited him on numerous occasions, beginning on September 21, 1823. According to Smith, the angel Moroni was the guardian of the golden plates buried near his home in western New York, which Latter Day Saints believe were the source of the
Book of Mormon The Book of Mormon is a religious text of the Latter Day Saint movement, first published in 1830 by Joseph Smith as ''The Book of Mormon: An Account Written by the Hand of Mormon upon Plates Taken from the Plates of Nephi''. The book is one of ...
. An important figure in the
theology Theology is the study of religious belief from a Religion, religious perspective, with a focus on the nature of divinity. It is taught as an Discipline (academia), academic discipline, typically in universities and seminaries. It occupies itse ...
of the Latter Day Saint movement, Moroni is featured prominently in its architecture and art. Besides Smith, the Three Witnesses and several other witnesses also reported that they saw Moroni in visions in 1829. Moroni is thought by Latter Day Saints to be the same person as a Book of Mormon prophet-warrior named Moroni, who was the last to write in the golden plates. According to the Book of Mormon, the angel Moroni was a pre-Columbian warrior who buried the golden plates. After he died, he became an angel who was tasked with directing Smith to their location in the 1820s. According to Smith, he then returned the golden plates to Moroni after they were translated and, as of 1838, Moroni still had the plates in his possession. Joseph Smith–History
1:60
Pearl of Great Price.


Angel's name and identity

Initially, when talking about his receipt of the golden plates, Smith referred only to "an angel" without identifying its name. Thus, in an 1831 letter from
Lucy Mack Smith Lucy Mack Smith (July 8, 1775 – May 14, 1856) was the mother of Joseph Smith, founder of the Latter Day Saint movement. She is noted for writing the memoir, ''History of Joseph Smith by His Mother, Biographical Sketches of Joseph Smith, the Pr ...
to her brother, she discusses Moroni as the person who buried the plates, but does not identify him as the unnamed "holy angel" that gave Smith the means to translate the golden plates. In Smith's 1832 (second hand, but officially authorized) history, he said he was visited by "an angel of the Lord", who mentioned the Book of Mormon prophet "Moroni" as the last engraver of the golden plates; however, that account did not mention whether or not the angel was referring to ''himself'' as Moroni. Smith identified the angel ''as'' Moroni in 1835, while preparing the first edition of the
Doctrine and Covenants The Doctrine and Covenants (sometimes abbreviated and cited as D&C or D. and C.) is a part of the open scriptural canon of several denominations of the Latter Day Saint movement. Originally published in 1835 as Doctrine and Covenants of the Chur ...
, in which he indicated a number of angels who would come to the earth after the
Second Coming The Second Coming (sometimes called the Second Advent or the Parousia) is the Christianity, Christian and Islam, Islamic belief that Jesus, Jesus Christ will return to Earth after his Ascension of Jesus, ascension to Heaven (Christianity), Heav ...
and drink
sacramental wine Sacramental wine, Communion wine, altar wine, or wine for consecration is wine obtained from grapes and intended for use in celebration of the Eucharist (also referred to as the Lord's Supper or Holy Communion, among other names). It is usually ...
with himself and
Oliver Cowdery Oliver H. P. Cowdery (October 3, 1806 – March 3, 1850) was an American religious leader who, with Joseph Smith, was an important participant in the formative period of the Latter Day Saint movement between 1829 and 1836. He was the first bapt ...
.. Among those angels, the revelation listed "Moroni, whom I have sent unto you to reveal the book of Mormon, containing the fulness of my everlasting gospel; to whom I have committed the keys of the record of the stick of
Ephraim Ephraim (; , in pausa: ''ʾEp̄rāyīm'') was, according to the Book of Genesis, the second son of Joseph ben Jacob and Asenath, as well as the adopted son of his biological grandfather Jacob, making him the progenitor of the Tribe of Ephrai ...
". Around this time, Cowdery was writing a history of Smith in which he identified the angel as the prophet Moroni from the Book of Mormon. In July 1838, Smith wrote an article for the church periodical '' Elders' Journal'', in the form of questions and answers, that stated the following:
Question 4th. How, and where did you obtain the book of Mormon?

Answer. Moroni, the person who deposited the plates, from whence the book of Mormon was translated, in a hill in Manchester, Ontario County, New York, as a resurrected being, appeared unto me, and told me where they were; and gave me directions how to obtain them.

However, on May 2, 1838, a few months before Smith's statement in ''Elders' Journal'', Smith began dictating a church history that included a more detailed account of his visits from the angel. In this text, Smith's scribe erroneously identified the angel as " Nephi", which is the name of the Book of Mormon's first narrator. Smith's 1838 identification as "Nephi" was left unchanged when the 1838 history was published in 1842 in '' Times and Seasons'', which Smith edited himself, and in '' Millennial Star''. In the latter, an editorial referred to the 1823 vision and praised "the glorious ministry and message of the angel Nephi". In 1851, after Smith's death (1844), the identification as "Nephi" was repeated when
the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, informally known as the LDS Church or Mormon Church, is a Nontrinitarianism, nontrinitarian Restorationism, restorationist Christianity, Christian Christian denomination, denomination and the ...
(LDS Church) published its first edition of the Pearl of Great Price. It was also repeated in 1853 when Smith's mother
Lucy Mack Smith Lucy Mack Smith (July 8, 1775 – May 14, 1856) was the mother of Joseph Smith, founder of the Latter Day Saint movement. She is noted for writing the memoir, ''History of Joseph Smith by His Mother, Biographical Sketches of Joseph Smith, the Pr ...
published a history of her son. As a further complication, Mary Whitmer, mother to one of the Three Witnesses and four of the Eight Witnesses, said she had a vision of the golden plates, shown to her by an angel whom she always called "Brother Nephi", but never clarified or indicated whether she believed this was the same angel that Smith and others later reported as Moroni. Nevertheless, based on Smith's other statements that the angel was "Moroni", and based on both prior and later publications, most Latter Day Saints view Smith's 1838 identification of the angel as Nephi as a mistake on the part of the transcriber. In the version of Smith's 1838 history published by the LDS Church, as well as the portion canonized by that denomination as the Pearl of Great Price, the name "Nephi" has been changed by editors to read "Moroni". The
Community of Christ Community of Christ, known legally and from 1872 to 2001 as the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (RLDS), is an American-based international church, and is the second-largest denomination in the Latter Day Saint movement ...
publishes the original story, including the identification of "Nephi", but indicates "Moroni" in a footnote.


Theorized origin of the name

Commenting on the name of the angel Moroni, Grant H. Palmer speculates that Smith had read of the city Moroni on the island
Comoros The Comoros, officially the Union of the Comoros, is an archipelagic country made up of three islands in Southeastern Africa, located at the northern end of the Mozambique Channel in the Indian Ocean. Its capital and largest city is Moroni, ...
from either a map or tales of Captain
William Kidd William Kidd (c. 1645 – 23 May 1701), also known as Captain William Kidd or simply Captain Kidd, was a Scottish-American privateer. Conflicting accounts exist regarding his early life, but he was likely born in Dundee and later settled in N ...
, popular at the time. According to Latter-day Saint scholar
Hugh Nibley Hugh Winder Nibley (March 27, 1910 – February 24, 2005) was an American scholar and member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church) who was a professor at Brigham Young University (BYU) for nearly 50 years. He was a prolif ...
, the use of "mor" in the Book of Mormon is an Egyptian word, and means "beloved, good, everything nice and desirable."


Description

In one of Smith's histories, he described him as an "angel of light" who "had on a loose robe of most exquisite whiteness. It was a whiteness beyond anything earthly I had ever seen .… His hands were naked and his arms also a little above the wrists .… Not only was his robe exceedingly white but his whole person was glorious beyond description". According to Smith's sister Katharine, the angel "was dressed in white raiment, of whiteness beyond anything Joseph had ever seen in his life, and had a girdle about his waist. He saw his hands and wrists, and they were pure and white".


Appearances to Joseph Smith and others

Smith said that on the night of September 21, 1823, Moroni appeared to him and told him about the golden plates that were buried in a stone box a few miles from Smith's home. Smith said that the same angel visited him various times over the course of the next six years; Smith also said that the angel visited him to retrieve the golden plates after Smith had finished translating a portion of the writing on the plates into the Book of Mormon. In addition to Smith, several other early Mormons said they had visions where they saw the angel Moroni. Three Witnesses said they saw the angel in 1829:
Oliver Cowdery Oliver H. P. Cowdery (October 3, 1806 – March 3, 1850) was an American religious leader who, with Joseph Smith, was an important participant in the formative period of the Latter Day Saint movement between 1829 and 1836. He was the first bapt ...
, David Whitmer, and Martin Harris. Other early Mormons who may have said they saw Moroni include: *
Hyrum Smith Hyrum Smith (February 9, 1800 – June 27, 1844) was an American religious leader in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, the original church of the Latter Day Saint movement. He was the older brother of the movement's founder, Jos ...
* Luke S. Johnson * Zera Pulsipher, later disputed. * W. W. Phelps; * John P. Greene and his wife Rhoda * John Taylor * Oliver Granger * Heber C. Kimball * Lucy Harris *Harrison Burgess Mary Whitmer may also have seen Moroni, although she referred to the angel she saw as "Brother Nephi".


Mortal life of Moroni the prophet

According to the Book of Mormon, Moroni was the son of
Mormon Mormons are a religious and cultural group related to Mormonism, the principal branch of the Latter Day Saint movement started by Joseph Smith in upstate New York during the 1820s. After Smith's death in 1844, the movement split into several ...
, the prophet for whom the Book of Mormon is named. Moroni may have been named after Captain Moroni, an earlier Book of Mormon figure. Before Mormon's death in battle, he passed the golden plates to Moroni. Moroni then finished writing on the plates and concluded the record, presumably burying them in the hill Cumorah in western New York. He is the namesake of the Book of Moroni in the
Book of Mormon The Book of Mormon is a religious text of the Latter Day Saint movement, first published in 1830 by Joseph Smith as ''The Book of Mormon: An Account Written by the Hand of Mormon upon Plates Taken from the Plates of Nephi''. The book is one of ...
.


Theological significance

Because of his instrumentality in the restoration of the gospel, Moroni is commonly identified by Latter Day Saints as the angel mentioned in , "having the everlasting gospel to preach unto them that dwell on the earth, and to every nation, and kindred, and tongue, and people." The image of the angel Moroni blowing a trumpet is commonly used as an unofficial symbol of the LDS Church. Moroni appears on the cover of some editions of the Book of Mormon. Statues of the angel stand atop many LDS temples, with most statues facing east. In 2007, the LDS Church stated that an image of the angel Moroni in an advertisement violated one of the church's
registered trademark A trademark (also written trade mark or trade-mark) is a form of intellectual property that consists of a word, phrase, symbol, design, or a combination that identifies a product or service from a particular source and distinguishes it from ot ...
s.


Sculptors

The Nauvoo Temple was the first Latter Day Saint temple to be crowned with a figure of an angel. This angel, not officially identified as Moroni, was a metal weathervane with gold leaf on the trumpet. It was designed by William Weeks (architect of the Nauvoo temple) and installed in January 1846. This figure was positioned in a flying horizontal position holding an open book in one hand and a trumpet in the other. Cyrus Dallin sculpted the first angel which was identified as Moroni. This angel was placed on the
Salt Lake Temple The Salt Lake Temple is a Temple (LDS Church), temple of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints on Temple Square in Salt Lake City, Utah, United States. At , it is the Comparison of temples of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Sa ...
during the capstone ceremony on April 6, 1892, one year to the day before the temple was dedicated. Dallin's design is a dignified, neoclassical angel in robe and cap, standing upright with a trumpet in hand. It stands 3.8 meters high, was molded in hammered copper from the plaster original, and was covered with 22-karat gold leaf. On March 18, 2020, the trumpet held by the statue of Angel Moroni on the Salt Lake Temple fell to the ground as a result of a 5.7 magnitude earthquake. Torleif S. Knaphus fashioned a replica of the Dallin angel in the 1930s, but the casting of his angel wasn't placed on a temple until many years later. In 1983, castings of this angel were placed on the Idaho Falls Temple (8th operating temple) and the Atlanta Temple (21st operating temple). Millard F. Malin's angel, which was placed on the Los Angeles Temple in 1953, is known as the second Angel Moroni statue. His angel was cast in aluminum, stands 4.7 meters high, and weighs 953 kilograms. It has Native American features, wears a Mayan style cloak, and holds the gold plates in its left hand. Avard Fairbanks sculpted the third Angel Moroni statue, which was placed on the Washington D.C. Temple, dedicated in 1974. This angel was created as a one-meter model which was sent to Italy where it was enlarged, cast in bronze, and gilded. The finished statue is 5.5 meters high and weighs over . The Seattle Washington, Jordan River Utah, and México City México temples each have a 4.6 meter casting of this statue. Karl Quilter sculpted his first Angel Moroni in 1978. Two sizes were made, one three meters high, the other just over two meters. These statues were designed to reduce the cost and weight of the previous Angel Moroni statues, in order to become a standard part of the temple architecture. The Quilter angels are made of fiberglass and covered with gold leaf. In 1998, with the construction of many new smaller temples, Quilter was commissioned to create a new angel. This angel was similar in design to his previous angels, but he gave Moroni a slightly larger build, with his left hand opened and his body turned slightly to show more action. The Bern Switzerland Temple's Angel Moroni is patterned after Quilter's 1998 design. Quilter's Angel Moroni is now on over one hundred temples around the world.


See also

*
List of angels in theology This is a list of angels in religion, theology, astrology and magic, including both specific angels (e.g., Gabriel) and types of angels (e.g., seraphim A seraph ( ; pl.: ) is a Angelic being, celestial or heavenly being originating in Anci ...


Notes


References

* *. *. *. *. *. *. *. *. *. *. *. * . *.


Further reading

*
References to Moroni2
Index, ''Book of Mormon'' (LDS edition)


External links

* *The text of at
Wikisource Wikisource is an online wiki-based digital library of free-content source text, textual sources operated by the Wikimedia Foundation. Wikisource is the name of the project as a whole; it is also the name for each instance of that project, one f ...
. {{DEFAULTSORT:Moroni, Angel 1823 in Christianity 1827 in Christianity Angelic apparitions Angels in Christianity Book of Mormon prophets Christian symbols Doctrine and Covenants people Individual angels Works by Cyrus Edwin Dallin