With every passing year this great and portentous story becomes more and more familiar and more frighteningly like our own. It is an exciting thing to discover that the man Lehi was a real historical character, . . . but it is far more important and significant to find oneself in this twentieth century standing as it were in his very shoes. The events and situations of the Book of Mormon that not many years ago seemed wildly improbable to some and greatly overdrawn have suddenly become the story of our own times.

—Hugh Nibley[1]

It must needs be that the riches of the earth are mine to give; but beware of pride, lest ye become as the Nephites of old.

—Doctrine and Covenants 38:39

As President Russell M. Nelson has pointed out, the Book of Mormon deals with a classic theme of historiography—the rise and fall of civilizations: “The Book of Mormon chronicles the classic rise and fall of two major civilizations. Their history demonstrates how easy it is for a majority of the people to forget God, reject warnings of the Lord’s prophets, and seek power, popularity, and pleasures of the flesh.”[2]

Many recent titles demonstrate the perennial popularity of this theme:

• Jared Diamond, Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed (2005)
• Daron Acemoglu and James A. Robinson, Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity, and Poverty (2012)
• Ian Morris, Why the West Rules—for Now: The Patterns of History, and What They Reveal about the Future (2010)
• Brian Fagan, The Great Warming: Climate Change and the Rise and Fall of Civilizations (2008)
• Guy D. Middleton, Understanding Collapse: Ancient History and Modern Myths (2017)[3]

Each of these works has an implicit, if not an explicit, warning to its readers about the future and potential pitfalls that should be avoided if we want civilization to survive. Perhaps the most common admonitions today concern the environment. Ian Morris refers to the “five familiar figures” that recur throughout history: climate change, famine, state failure, migration, and disease.[4] In addition to these in-depth works of historiography, there have been countless ”prophets” of various classes, writers, historians, and philosophers in the last century who have, to one degree or another, viewed the world as being in catastrophic decline.[5] Such viewpoints form a dramatic contrast with those commentators who emphatically view the modern world as being in a state of perpetual improvement or progress.[6] Although all these analyses might be described as dealing with secular rather than religious issues, they are all attempts to draw moral lessons on a broad scale from the past.

Mormon’s message is explicitly religious and explicitly moral. Yet as I have argued in this book, his overt sermonizing should not be seen as simple moralizing but needs to be viewed in the context of his ancient sacral worldview. In the modern world, we have built a “wall of separation” between secular life and religion, not only in the realm of politics but all aspects of modern life. Our lives are controlled not by God but by impersonal, natural law; when disaster strikes a nation, we look to such practical causes as poor economic or political administration or simply bad luck (e.g., drought). Not so for Mormon, who viewed a people’s relationship with God as the most important, most fundamental portent of its prospective fate, in both the immediate and distant future. In antiquity, as we discussed in chapter 2, the concept of pax deorum, maintaining a positive relationship with deity, was of the utmost importance for any society, while failure to do so was to risk misfortune, even calamity. For the Israelites in particular, and even more explicitly for the Nephites, this required the people not only to maintain the proper rituals but to keep the covenant, including the moral law, in all its particulars. When misfortune occurred, the obvious cause was God’s displeasure, and the only solution was to change the nation’s behavior—that is, to repent.

What, then, in Mormon’s view caused the fall of his people?

Mormon and Moroni both contend that the secret combinations played a key role in the destruction of both the Nephites and the Jaredites (Helaman 2:13; Ether 8:21). Yet what was it about these conspiracies that proved so fatal to two civilizations? In neither case does it seem that a direct political revolution is in question. In other words, it was not that these groups completely undermined the existing governments, causing them to collapse. Instead, they should be seen more as an indirect cause, leading to the corruption of the people as a whole. This can more easily be seen in the case of the Jaredites. Moroni tells us repeatedly that the purpose of joining such a conspiracy organization was to gain power and wealth:

Wherefore, O ye Gentiles, it is wisdom in God that these things should be shown unto you, that thereby ye may repent of your sins, and suffer not that these murderous combinations shall get above you, which are built up to get power and gain. (Ether 8:23; compare 11:15; 8:15, 22)

And Akish did administer unto them the oaths which were given by them of old who also sought power, which had been handed down even from Cain, who was a murderer from the beginning. (8:15)

And they were kept up by the power of the devil to administer these oaths unto the people, to keep them in darkness, to help such as sought power to gain power, and to murder, and to plunder, and to lie, and to commit all manner of wickedness and whoredoms. (8:16)

And it came to pass that there arose a rebellion among the people, because of that secret combination which was built up to get power and gain. (11:15)

Among the Nephites, the goal of the band of Kishkumen and the Gadiantons was identical to that of Akish and his followers:

It was his [Kishkumen’s] object to murder, and also . . . it was the object of all those who belonged to his band to murder, and to rob, and to gain power. (Helaman 2:8)

Yet as dangerous as the combinations themselves were, it was not so much the groups themselves that were the problem but the effect they had on the people. Killing a few chief justices or other officials, although utterly despicable and evil, does not bring a nation down. Instead, it is clear that the effect of these secret societies and their political and financial machinations was that they led to a general corruption among the people:

For so great had been the spreading of this wicked and secret society that it had corrupted the hearts of all the people. (Ether 9:6)

The people did not all join the secret society of Akish and participate in its nefarious schemes; rather, Akish and his followers were able to co-opt the broader population by appealing to their desire for wealth:

And it came to pass that Akish begat other sons, and they won the hearts of the people, notwithstanding they had sworn unto him to do all manner of iniquity according to that which he desired. Now the people of Akish were desirous for gain, even as Akish was desirous for power; wherefore, the sons of Akish did offer them money, by which means they drew away the more part of the people after them. And there began to be a war between the sons of Akish and Akish, which lasted for the space of many years, yea, unto the destruction of nearly all the people of the kingdom, yea, even all, save it were thirty souls, and they who fled with the house of Omer. (Ether 9:10–12)

It came to pass that the people repented not of their iniquity; and the people of Coriantumr were stirred up to anger against the people of Shiz; and the people of Shiz were stirred up to anger against the people of Coriantumr; wherefore, the people of Shiz did give battle unto the people of Coriantumr. (15:6)

Among the Nephites, also, Mormon tells us that “Satan did stir up the hearts of the more part of the Nephites, insomuch that they did unite with those bands of robbers, and did enter into their covenants and their oaths” (Helaman 6:21). It is doubtful that Mormon is stating here that the majority of the people actually became members of a secret society—how could a secret society exist among the majority of the people and remain secret? In any case, the important point is that the corruption had spread from a small, determined group to the broad population. They “seduced the more part of the righteous until they had come down to believe in their works and partake of their spoils, and to join with them in their secret murders and combinations” (v. 38).

They accomplished this by appealing to their desire for wealth (Helaman 6:17) and arousing their hatred and anger. This technique of “stirring up the people to anger” is of course very familiar to the reader of Mormon’s record; Nephite dissenters commonly did this with the Lamanites. What was their purpose? To persuade the Lamanite armies to attack the Nephites, unwittingly supporting the dissenters in their political ambitions (see, e.g., Alma 43:8; 46:30; 47:1; Helaman 1:17; 4:3).

Thus the end of this corruption, again and again, is war. We have already seen repeatedly how prone the Nephites were to contention and war. The civil war of the Amlicites resulted in the deaths of tens of thousands in only a year. In the great war in the time of Moroni, the people were clearly motivated by noble motives of protecting their family and country, but it was at a time when the people were “lifted up in their hearts, because of their exceedingly great riches” (Alma 45:24). Moreover, Mormon insists that “their quarrelings and their contentions, . . . their murderings, and their plunderings . . . brought upon them their wars and their destructions” (50:21).

The million-dollar question is how the Jaredites and Nephites became so hardened. It did not happen overnight, nor did it stem merely from general worldliness or run-of-the-mill wickedness. To understand what happened, it is useful to consider the nature of the sin of pride. President Ezra Taft Benson taught that “the central feature of pride is enmity—enmity toward God and enmity toward our fellowmen. Enmity means ‘hatred toward, hostility to, or a state of opposition.’ It is the means through which Satan wishes to reign over us. Pride is essentially competitive in nature.”[7] This definition points to the link between pride and warfare—indeed, how pride, anger, hatred, vengeance, contention, bloodshed, and war are all related. Pride is an attitude of competition—not a healthy competition based on respect toward one’s competitor but on a feeling of superiority, whether financial, moral, or otherwise. If one has feelings of superiority toward others (pride), it leads to hostility and enmity—the state of viewing the other person as one’s enemy. It also leads to self-justification: if I am superior, I have the right to dominate and thus feel justified in seeking power and wealth. Prosperity can easily lead to the conclusion that one is inherently superior, that one has a natural right to dominate those who are less talented and successful.

Consider the following description of the Nephites:

For behold, the Lord had blessed them so long with the riches of the world that they had not been stirred up to anger, to wars, nor to bloodshed; therefore they began to set their hearts upon their riches; yea, they began to seek to get gain that they might be lifted up one above another; therefore they began to commit secret murders, and to rob and to plunder. (Helaman 6:17)

The final collapse of the Nephite church and government before the coming of Christ began with gross divisions and inequalities:

And the people began to be distinguished by ranks, according to their riches and their chances for learning; yea, some were ignorant because of their poverty, and others did receive great learning because of their riches. . . . And thus there became a great inequality in all the land. (3 Nephi 6:12, 14)

This notion of inequality runs throughout Mormon’s record, and even in the small plates.[8] Jacob accuses the people of inequality with a clear definition of the concept:

And the hand of providence hath smiled upon you most pleasingly, that you have obtained many riches; and because some of you have obtained more abundantly than that of your brethren ye are lifted up in the pride of your hearts, and wear stiff necks and high heads because of the costliness of your apparel, and persecute your brethren because ye suppose that ye are better than they. . . . Do ye not suppose that such things are abominable unto him who created all flesh? And the one being is as precious in his sight as the other. (Jacob 2:13, 21)

Inequality owing to riches is key to the contention that follows the Amlicite civil war, the first conflict that convulsed Nephite society after the conversion to the judgeship.

The people of the church began to wax proud, because of their exceeding riches, and their fine silks, and their fine-twined linen, and because of their many flocks and herds, and their gold and their silver, and all manner of precious things, which they had obtained by their industry; and in all these things were they lifted up in the pride of their eyes, for they began to wear very costly apparel. Now this was the cause of much affliction to Alma, . . . for . . . the people of the church began to be lifted up in the pride of their eyes, and to set their hearts upon riches and upon the vain things of the world, that they began to be scornful, one towards another, and they began to persecute those that did not believe according to their own will and pleasure. (Alma 4:6–8)

Indeed, it was this “great inequality” (v. 12) among the Nephites that so greatly distressed Alma that he decided to step down from the chief judgeship so he could devote himself to calling his people to repentance (Alma 4:15–20). Later, the same desire that fueled the Nephites’ lust for wealth and power over people lay at the root of the Gadiantons’ nefarious cause. Mormon relates that as the Nephites fell into increasing wickedness (Helaman 6:34–35), those among them who “began to commit secret murders, and to rob and to plunder, that they might get [further] gain” had allied themselves with Gadianton’s band (Helaman 6:17–18).

This is also at the core of Moroni’s warning to the modern world:

And I know that ye do walk in the pride of your hearts; and there are none save a few only who do not lift themselves up in the pride of their hearts, unto the wearing of very fine apparel, unto envying, and strifes, and malice, and persecutions, and all manner of iniquities; and your churches, yea, even every one, have become polluted because of the pride of your hearts. For behold, ye do love money, and your substance, and your fine apparel, and the adorning of your churches, more than ye love the poor and the needy, the sick and the afflicted. . . .

Why do ye adorn yourselves with that which hath no life, and yet suffer the hungry, and the needy, and the naked, and the sick and the afflicted to pass by you, and notice them not? Yea, why do ye build up your secret abominations to get gain, and cause that widows should mourn before the Lord, and also orphans to mourn before the Lord, and also the blood of their fathers and their husbands to cry unto the Lord from the ground, for vengeance upon your heads? Behold, the sword of vengeance hangeth over you; and the time soon cometh that he avengeth the blood of the saints upon you, for he will not suffer their cries any longer. (Mormon 8:36–37, 39–41)

* * *

We commenced our journey with the question “What is the Book of Mormon really about?” I began by emphasizing that I was looking at the historical, not the theological, content of the book and that a central part of Mormon’s message was historical. And yet, of course, he was still a prophet, and so ultimately the message comes back to theology—but it is a theological message that emerges from the history. When regarded from a historical point of view (i.e., the story that Mormon is telling), one might say that the ultimate meaning of the book is the basic need for repentance. It is a story about the fall of the Nephite people, and the reason they fell is that they stopped repenting. Throughout their history they engaged in contentions, wars, and other sins. Yet they always came back, and the Lord forgave them. The principles of repentance, mercy, and forgiveness recur again and again.

Yea, and as often as my people repent will I forgive them their trespasses against me. (Mosiah 26:30)

Behold, he sendeth an invitation unto all men, for the arms of mercy are extended towards them, and he saith: Repent, and I will receive you. (Alma 5:33)

Thus we may see that the Lord is merciful unto all who will, in the sincerity of their hearts, call upon his holy name. (Helaman 3:27)

And the people began to repent of their iniquity; and inasmuch as they did the Lord did have mercy on them. (Ether 11:8)

But as oft as they repented and sought forgiveness, with real intent, they were forgiven. (Moroni 6:8)

O all ye that are spared because ye were more righteous than they, will ye not now return unto me, and repent of your sins, and be converted, that I may heal you? (3 Nephi 9:13)

As Hugh Nibley once said, “Who is righteous? Anyone who is repenting. No matter how bad he has been, if he is repenting, he is a righteous man. There is hope for him. And no matter how good he has been all his life, if he is not repenting, he is a wicked man.”[9] And so, what Mormon shows us is that the reason for the Nephites’ ultimate destruction is that they ceased repenting and began to rebel against God.

And they did not dwindle in unbelief, but they did wilfully rebel against the gospel of Christ. (4 Nephi 1:38)

And I did endeavor to preach unto this people, but my mouth was shut, and I was forbidden that I should preach unto them; for behold they had wilfully rebelled against their God. (Mormon 1:16)

But I was forbidden to preach unto them, because of the hardness of their hearts; and because of the hardness of their hearts the land was cursed for their sake. (Mormon 1:17)

For the Lord redeemeth none such that rebel against him and die in their sins; yea, even all those that have perished in their sins ever since the world began, that have wilfully rebelled against God, that have known the commandments of God, and would not keep them; these are they that have no part in the first resurrection. (Mosiah 15:26)

Mormon hammers on this principle in describing his own times:

For their sorrowing was not unto repentance, because of the goodness of God; but it was rather the sorrowing of the damned, because the Lord would not suffer them to take happiness in sin. (Mormon 2:13)

I saw that the day of grace was passed with them, both temporally and spiritually; for I saw thousands of them hewn down in open rebellion against their God, and heaped up as dung upon the face of the land. (Mormon 2:15)

And because this people repented not after I had delivered them, behold, they shall be cut off from the face of the earth. (Mormon 3:15)

It is by the wicked that the wicked are punished. (Mormon 4:5)

But behold, I was without hope, for I knew the judgments of the Lord which should come upon them; for they repented not of their iniquities, but did struggle for their lives without calling upon that Being who created them. (Mormon 5:2)

They will sorrow that this people had not repented that they might have been clasped in the arms of Jesus. (Mormon 5:11)

O that ye had repented before this great destruction had come upon you. But behold, ye are gone. (Mormon 6:22)

We find the same principle in the end of the book of Ether. The Lord held out the possibility of repentance to the Jaredites unto the end, but they refused to take it.

Yea, they [the prophets] did prophesy that the Lord would utterly destroy them from off the face of the earth except they repented of their iniquities. And it came to pass that the people hardened their hearts, and would not hearken unto their words; and the prophets mourned and withdrew from among the people. (Ether 11:12–13)

And . . . there also came many prophets, and prophesied of great and marvelous things, and cried repentance unto the people, and except they should repent the Lord God would execute judgment against them to their utter destruction. (Ether 11:20)

The word of the Lord came to Ether, that he should go and prophesy unto Coriantumr that, if he would repent, and all his household, the Lord would give unto him his kingdom and spare the people—otherwise they should be destroyed, and all his household save it were himself. (Ether 13:20)

And it came to pass that Coriantumr was exceedingly angry with Shared, and he went against him with his armies to battle; and they did meet in great anger. (Ether 13:27)

It’s important to keep in mind as well that Moroni describes the Jaredites toward the end as an extremely blessed people:

And never could [there] be a people more blessed than were they, and more prospered by the hand of the Lord. And they were in a land that was choice above all lands, for the Lord had spoken it. (Ether 10:28)

As we discussed previously, the Lord also held the Nephites to a higher standard because of the extraordinary blessings of light and knowledge (not to mention prosperity) they had received. Thus, although the Lamanites rebelled as badly as the Nephites, they were not utterly destroyed.

And now behold I say unto you, that if this people, who have received so many blessings from the hand of the Lord, should transgress contrary to the light and knowledge which they do have, I say unto you that if this be the case, that if they should fall into transgression, it would be far more tolerable for the Lamanites than for them. For behold, the promises of the Lord are extended to the Lamanites, but they are not unto you if ye transgress; for has not the Lord expressly promised and firmly decreed, that if ye will rebel against him that ye shall utterly be destroyed from off the face of the earth? (Alma 9:23–24)

It is notable that Coriantumr finally decides to pay attention to the warnings of Ether and begins to repent of the evil he had done. He even offers his kingdom to Shiz if he would spare his people. But it is too late, and the people have by now been stirred up in intense anger against their enemies.

And it came to pass that the people repented not of their iniquity; and the people of Coriantumr were stirred up to anger against the people of Shiz; and the people of Shiz were stirred up to anger against the people of Coriantumr; wherefore, the people of Shiz did give battle unto the people of Coriantumr. (Ether 15:6)

Shortly thereafter Coriantumr again offers Shiz the kingdom if hewould spare the people. But the people were not interested; their hearts were hardened like flint. They preferred total annihilation to reconciliation with their enemies.

But behold, the Spirit of the Lord had ceased striving with them, and Satan had full power over the hearts of the people; for they were given up unto the hardness of their hearts, and the blindness of their minds that they might be destroyed; wherefore they went again to battle. (Ether 15:19)

Moroni lumps together the modern inhabitants of the land of promise with its ancient inhabitants. The modern peoples, like their ancient counterparts, will be held to a high standard:

For behold, this is a land which is choice above all other lands; wherefore he that doth possess it shall serve God or shall be swept off; for it is the everlasting decree of God. And it is not until the fulness of iniquity among the children of the land, that they are swept off. And this cometh unto you, O ye Gentiles, that ye may know the decrees of God—that ye may repent, and not continue in your iniquities until the fulness come, that ye may not bring down the fulness of the wrath of God upon you as the inhabitants of the land have hitherto done. (Ether 2:10–11)

And that, in a nutshell, is the historical message of Mormon’s record. Whether we choose to give heed to it is another question.

Notes

[1] Hugh Nibley, The World and the Prophets, ed. John W. Welch, Gary P. Gillum, and Don E. Norton (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book; Provo, UT: FARMS, 1987), 125.

[2] Russell M. Nelson, “Hear Him,” Ensign or Liahona, April 2020, 89.

[3] Other titles of recent vintage include Peter Zeihan, The End of the World Is Just the Beginning: Mapping the Collapse of Globalization (New York: Harperbusiness, 2022); Pablo Servigne and Raphaël Stevens, How Everything Can Collapse (Cambridge: Polity, 2020); Naomi Oreskes and Eric M. Conway, The Collapse of Western Civilization: A View from the Future (New York: Columbia University Press, 2014); Elizabeth Kolbert, The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History (New York: Henry Holt, 2014); William Ophuls, Immoderate Greatness: Why Civilizations Fail (CreateSpace, 2012); John Darwin, After Tamerlane: The Rise and Fall of Global Empires, 1400–2000 (London: Bloomsbury, 2008); Cullen Murphy, Are We Rome?: The Fall of an Empire and the Fate of America (Boston: Mariner, 2007); Nicholas Hagger, The Rise and Fall of Civilizations (Iff Books, 2008); Paul Kennedy, The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers (New York: Vintage, 1987); and Otto Friedrich, The End of the World: A History (New York: Fromm International, 1986). The classic title is of course Edward Gibbon’s History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, first published in 1776. Other classic works on this theme include Brooks Adams, The Law of Civilization and Decay (1895; repr., Whitefish, MT: Kessinger, 2007); Arnold J. Toynbee, A Study of History, 12 vols. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1934–1961); and Oswald Spengler, The Decline of the West, 2 vols. (1918, 1922; repr., New York: Oxford University Press, 1991).

[4] Ian Morris, Why the West Rules—for Now: The Patterns of History, and What They Reveal about the Future (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2010), 598.

[5] See Arthur Herman, The Idea of Decline in Western History (New York: Free Press, 1997).

[6] For example, Steven Pinker, Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress (New York: Penguin, 2018). For discussions of the dual themes of progress and decline, see Robert A. Nisbet, History of the Idea of Progress (New York: Basic, 1980); and Christopher Lasch, The True and Only Heaven: Progress and Its Critics (New York: W. W. Norton, 1991).

[7] Ezra Taft Benson, “Beware of Pride,” Ensign, May 1989, 4.

[8] See the discussion in Hugh Nibley, Since Cumorah (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book; Provo, UT: FARMS, 1988), 357–60.

[9] Hugh Nibley, “Funeral Address,” in Approaching Zion, ed. Don E. Norton (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book; Provo, UT: FARMS, 1989), 301–2.