What's In A Name?

The more I have researched the matter, the more persuaded I am that the angel Mormons came to know by the name Moroni was actually Gabriel. As Nick Literski recently discussed in a lecture on Joseph Smith as a ceremonial magician, one of the five angelic symbols to appear on the Joseph Smith, Sr.'s Holiness to the Lord lamen, the document I believe lies at the foundation of Mormon temple cultus, is that of the angel Gabriel. (I don't think it is a coincidence that all Mormon temples bear the inscription "Holiness to the Lord.") Dr. Literski also reminded me of another interesting fact: Gabriel is associated with nighttime, whereas to Michael belongs the day. I dug into this a little further, and I saw that Gabriel is associated with the Moon, Monday, that his throne lies on the first heaven or lunar sphere, and that he is a teacher.

All of these facts correspond very well with our understanding of the angel later known as Moroni. This angel gave instructions to Joseph to prepare him to receive the plates. Gabriel is a teacher. The angel appeared to him at night. Gabriel rules the night. Joseph sought to get the plates at the new moon. Gabriel is associated with the moon. The new moon and the full moon are sacred to Gabriel. Joseph Smith sought the plates during the new moon at the autumnal equinox. Interestingly, it was also on the tail end of Virgo, whose angel is Raphael, and the "Holiness to the Lord" parchment has the symbol of Raphael in the very center of it. September 22 of 1827, when Gabriel handed the plates to Joseph, also happened to be Rosh Hashanah, the Feast of Trumpets.

Why, then, or how did Gabriel become Moroni? Up to the present, we have not sufficiently appreciated Joseph Smith's sophisticated, indeed esoteric, understanding of names and their significance. He saw names as very significant and he also saw them as changeable. A figure that is known by one name may at another time bear a completely different name, and someone can have a name that is emblematic of their divine function or calling. The name Elias is a perfect example. From a scholarly point of view, it is easy to dismiss Smith's misunderstanding of Elias as different from Elijah, when Elias is merely the Greek form of the Hebrew name Elijah. To focus on such matters, however, is to miss the sophistication of what Smith did with the name Elias.

In D&C 27:6-7 Smith revealed that Elias visited Zacharias to promise him a son, who would be filled with the spirit of Elias! We know, from the Gospel of Luke, that it was Gabriel who visited Zacharias, and so Joseph Smith was clearly applying the name Elias to Gabriel, knowing full well that he was talking about Gabriel. Fred Collier, well known Fundamentalist Mormon scholar, argued on this basis that it was Gabriel who appeared as Elias in the Kirtland Temple. According to D&C 27:6, this would seem to be the case, since it was to this Elias that God "committed the keys of bringing to pass the restoration of all things." Of course, if my argument about Moroni is correct, then Gabriel/Elias also helped bring to pass this restoration by delivering the gold plates to Joseph on September 22, 1827, What more can we learn about the identity and role of Gabriel/Elias?

According to History of the Church (3:386), the Prophet Joseph Smith also taught that Gabriel had been the diluvian prophet and savior of humanity, Noah. Notice how one figure now has as many as three names. Elias is Gabriel. Noah is Gabriel. And these three names are associated with the ends and beginnings of new dispensations of human history. Now we can bring in Moroni. Moroni was the final prophet of the ancient American dispensation, one that lasted almost exactly one millennium. Surely that chronological span is not coincidental. We might hear the voice of Moroni whispering, "Après moi, le déluge." As in the days of Noah, Nephite civilization was wiped off of the American continent because of its wickedness and Moroni, the final prophet of that dispensation, buried its record. Could we not say that Moroni was a kind of Noah? Or, if we were Joseph Smith, who saw integral connections between these names and functions, that Moroni was Noah, or Gabriel, or Elias, and they were he?

So when Joseph Smith starts to refer to the angel as Moroni in the period ca. 1834/1835, this might not be a far out innovation or a liar's changing tale. It may instead represent a kind of revelation of knowledge he already possessed, based on a belief he already had, a theology regarding the significance of names. Doctrine & Covenants 27 was first revealed in August 1830, and therein Elias is the name he is applying to the Gospel of Luke's Gabriel. This suggests that Joseph already possessed an understanding of names that would allow one figure to go by more than one name in 1830, and it would not be unreasonable to think that he already saw Moroni as a Noah figure, who could be a Gabriel figure in his post-mortal existence. Or, as also seems possible, Joseph Smith could have believed that Noah, Gabriel, and Moroni were in fact the same person. Which is more likely the case?

The short answer is "I don't know." Recall that in D&C 27 the angel Elias (Gabriel) visits Zacharias to tell him he will have a son, and then that son is filled with the spirit of Elias. What does that mean exactly? We are taught practically by osmosis to think of this in purely metaphorical terms. Somehow the announcement of Elias as delivered by the angel to Zacharias imbues the child John the Baptist with an Elias calling or influence. What if, however, being filled with the spirit of Elias is to be taken more literally? What if Elias/Gabriel should be understood to be John the Baptist in a new incarnation? The Joseph Smith Translation of the transfiguration of Jesus at Mark 9:3 reads as follows:

"And there appeared unto them Elias with Moses, or, in other words, John the Baptist and Moses: and they were talking to Jesus."

The LDS Bible Dictionary makes a hash out of this, trying to claim that Joseph had intended to say that Elijah, Moses, and John the Baptist were present, but I think there is little doubt that this is a misguided apologetic exercise on the author's part. No, the "in other words," which is so often an explanatory marker in Joseph Smith's revelations, is very straightforward. According to the JST, Elias is John the Baptist, plain and simple.

And here is where things get really, really complicated, or, if viewed in a different light, perhaps very, very simple. Joseph Smith claimed that John the Baptist conferred on him the priesthood. Of course, we know he already had the patriarchal priesthood, because he was born with it (see D. M. Quinn, Mormon Hierarchy: Origins of Power, 32-33), so something else has to be going on here. If Elias is John the Baptist, and Elias is Gabriel, then Elias/Gabriel/John the Baptist/Moroni, all being the same figure, entrusted to Joseph Smith the "keys of bringing to pass the restoration of all things" (D&C 27:6), and Joseph Smith, who already had the priesthood, received from Elias/Gabriel/John the Baptist particular keys appertaining to the priesthood he held.

The multiplication of stories about Gabriel, Moroni, Elias, and John the Baptist may be Joseph Smith communicating the truth of his encounter in different ways over the course of his ministry. He may have seen all of these figures as the same person when he had these encounters, or he may have come to understand, as early as 1830, that his different encounters had been with one figure at/by that time. Finally, I would add that we really need to think about what the possible doctrine of the reincarnation of Noah/Gabriel/Elias in the child of Zecharias means, and whether this applies to other people--we do know the Michael/Adam connection--including Joseph Smith, who famously said, "No man knows my history."