For over two thousand years, millennial hopes and aspirations have dominated the thinking patterns of large segments of mankind. Indeed, the prophetic hope of a new and better world has enabled various individuals from the times of Hebrew prophets to the present to endure brutalities encountered in everyday living. The Jews, aware of their prophetic destiny from pre-Exodus Days, waited confidently for that day when their afflictions would be alleviated, when their nation would become regenerated and delivered by Yahweh.1 During times of great affliction the apocalyptic became most intense. From the annexation of Palestine by Pompey in 63 B.C. until the war of A.D. 68–72, Jewish struggles were accompanied by fervent apocalyptic rhetoric.2
Millenarianism was also a dominant force in primitive Christianity.3 Jesus talked of a coming kingdom but His sayings [16] concerning the event give support to contrasting views. In Matthew 13 some of his parables suggest that the kingdom would be realized gradually, while Matthew 24 implies that cataclysmic events on a grand scale will accompany his second coming.4 After the crucifixion of Jesus, the millennial flame continued to burn. Many Gospel scholars feel that the Epistles of St. Paul and the Revelation of St. John reflect the millennialist orientations of their authors. Indeed, the book of Revelation along with the Old Testament book of Daniel became fruitful sources of millennial calculations for minority groups such as the Montantists and for individuals such as Irenaeus.5
It was St. Augustine who put millennialism under wraps and in doing so transformed Christian theology. By claiming that the book of Revelation was to be interpreted allegorically and by dating the millennium with the birth of Christianity, he, probably more than anyone, was responsible for moving millennialism from the front parlor to the back shelf.6 Augustine’s effectiveness was perhaps best evidenced by the decision made at Ephesus in 431 to declare belief in the Millennium to be a superstitious aberration.7 [17]
But millennialism would not die. No longer a mainstream tenet in conventional circles, it continued to exist “in the obscure world of popular religion.”8 Occasionally millennial outbursts surfaced as it did in the thirteenth century when Joachim of Flores predicted a new reign of Christ would commence,9 or again some one hundred years later in Germany when Konrad Schmid preached that self-flagellation was a means to prepare for the millennium which he prophesied would come in 1369.10
With the age of reformation and the accompanying break-down of Catholic authority in the sixteenth century, chiliastic fever again broke loose. Biblical works such as Daniel, Revelation, and Matthew furnished the fodder for numerous millennial time-tables.11 It was a concern of many Christians, orthodox or radical, a fact that has often been obscured because of the excesses of such groups as the Anabaptists.12 Lutheran or Anglican, scientist or churchman, millennial speculation and calculation became a respectable topic.
Millenarianism was a part of the religious heritage which the Puritans brought to America.13 The founders of New England avoided the fanaticism of left-wing Protestants who had tried to establish [18] the Fifth Monarchy in England, and concentrated on less extreme forms.14 Churchmen such as John Cotton, the Mathers, and John Davenport expended considerable gusto in speaking and writing about the Second Advent.15
It was in the early nineteenth century, though, that millennialism became an influential and prevailing force in American life. As one historian of religion has put it, “America in the early nineteenth century was drunk on the millennium.”16 This was an age when numerous sects put forth bizarre and spectacular millennial expressions. For Shakers the appearance of Mother Ann Lee as an incarnated second Christ had already begun the millennium. John Humphrey Noyes, founder of the Onieda Perfectionists, preached of a millennium that was immediately obtainable, and George Rapp of the Harmony society believed that the Kingdom was near at hand. Even Robert Owen, though quick to disclaim any religious or transcendant notions, used the words “millennium” in describing his projected heaven on earth.17
But millennialism was not restricted to the fanciful, utopian sects. Nearly all religious groups, conventional or perimeter, were affected by it. Congregational divines like Timothy Dwight found [19] the millennial torch useful in combating French infidelity, Deism, and disestablishment.18 Christian primitive groups, while objecting to the sectarianism and tension created by revivalists, also adopted chiliasm as a cardinal tenet.19 While New England was probably the scene of the most fervent apocalyptic, millennial stirs were common throughout the country.20
It is not surprising, then, that Joseph Smith, born and reared in New England and New York, would be affected by millennial currents. Belief in the Parousia became a major point of emphasis in the church he founded. The Book of Mormon, the ancient scripture that Joseph translated from gold plates, contained millennial themes,21 while the Doctrine and Covenants, a series of revelations he received during the formative years of Mormonism, teemed with allusions to the Second Advent.22 The Saints were also conversant with biblical passages dealing with millennial themes, a fact that becomes apparent when one browses through early Mormon periodical literature.23
While chiliastic notions were common among nearly all religions in nineteenth-century America, the nature of the millennial [20] hope varied greatly from sect to sect. Mormon millennialism consisted of three major components, none of which was singularly unique, but together resulting in a millennial package different from most others. The three were (1) a reluctance to pinpoint the Parousia; (2) a belief in premillennialism; and (3) a conviction that they had to help usher in the millennium by organizing a Kingdom of God on earth.24
While, understandably, some of the early adherents to Mormonism talked of an immediate parousia, Joseph Smith was reluctant to deal in millennial specifics. Most evidence suggests that the Prophet thought the Second Advent would occur a few years before the turn of the century. In 1835 at Kirtland, Joseph observed that even fifty-six years would wind up the scene.”25 In 1840 Smith corrected some elders who predicted Jesus would come in ten or twenty years, pointing out that the Lord would come in about fifty years.26 Two years later while [21] “praying very earnestly to know the time of the coming of the Son of Man,” he heard a voice utter the following: “Joseph, my son, if thou livest until thou art eighty-five years old, thou shalt see the face of the Son of Man; therefore let this suffice, and trouble me no more on this matter.”27 The Prophet’s refusal to set a date undoubtedly disappointed calendar watchers but probably saved his movement from the embarrassment and demist that attended groups like the Millerites.
A belief in premillennialism was not unique to Latter-day Saints. This doctrine holds that Christ will come and usher in the millennium. The wicked will be removed, Satan’s power will be curtailed, and the righteous will enjoy one thousand years of bliss. At the termination of this era, Satan will be loosed for a season, the earth will be renewed, and a final judgement will take place.28
Unlike other premillennialists, however, Mormons taught that a literal kingdom would need be established before Christ would come.29 Commensurate with the development of the Mormon Kingdom would be the destruction or degeneration of all other earthly kingdoms. The presiding leaders of the Mormon Kingdom or Kingdom of God would be Mormon priesthood leaders. These individuals would rule the earth in premillennial times, an era which would be characterized by various [22] cataclysmic, apocalyptic events, all geared to prepare the earth for Christ’s coming.30
The seeds for this belief can be traced back as early as the New York period of Church history.31 Over the next decade the somewhat vague and visionary concepts evolved into a “concrete social and political entity.”32 The proclamation of impending disasters for those who refused to align themselves with the Kingdom of the Saints was in part responsible for the persecution heaped upon the Mormons in Missouri and Illinois.33 In 1839 the itinerant preacher Peter Cartwright claimed that Joseph said, “I will show you sir, that I will raise up a government in these United States which will overturn every other form of religion in the country.”34 Governor Thomas Ford also noted the kingdom expectations of Church leaders.35
Brigham Young, Joseph’s successor as president of the Church, was committed to the kingdom-building designs of his predecessor. On April 6, 1845, he, along with eleven other apostles, issued an announcement that the divine government envisioned by Joseph Smith [23] had been established. The proclamation declared that “the kingdom of God has come, as has been predicted by the ancient prophets . . . even that Kingdom which shall fill the whole earth and stand forever.” World leaders were further warned that they could not “stand idle and disinterested spectators of the scenes and events which are calculated, in their very nature, to reduce all nations and creeds to one political and religious standard, and thus put an end to Babel forms and names and to strife and war.”36
The details as to exactly how the Saints were to gain political control have never been clear. One gets the impression from reading Quest for Empire by Klaus Hansen that Church members would supplement any divinely-caused catastrophic happening with whatever was required of them to bring about the Kingdom. In other words, they were prepared to take positive steps to bring something about. Certainly there was a ring of militancy in some of the utterances of Sidney Rigdon, Joseph’s first counselor, and others when they talked about future events. However, Marvin Hill, professor of history at Brigham Young University, has emphasized that the Saints were intent on building a Kingdom but a rather passive one. Hill asserted that Mormons were uncomfortable in pluralistic, fast-paced, nineteenth-century American society and saw only ruin in following that kind of course. They sought to remedy the situation by establishing a place of refuge where unity rather than stratification and diversity [24] would prevail. To ensure this, political control was deemed necessary.37
Whatever the case, it seems safe to assert that by the 1850s most Mormon leaders were convinced that they would become “empire leaders” through the “back door.” There would be no need to form armies, establish alliances, or take overt actions of any kind. They felt that wickedness was increasing at a pace that would ensure God’s intervention in the form of disaster and pestilence. Corrupt peoples and leaders would fall, chaos would reign, and the Saints would inherit governmental reins by default.
In the 1840s, however, Joseph’s projected Kingdom which would eventually govern the earth was too weak to withstand the harassment and persecutions of Gentile neighbors in Illinois. In 1847 the first company of Saints arrived in a new location, a largely uninhabited, Mexican-owned, portion of Upper California. Here they would again attempt to construct their Kingdom, not in the fertile eden that was Jackson County Missouri, nor around the bend of the Mississippi in Nauvoo, but in the tops of the Wasatch mountains in what later became Utah Territory.
Interestingly, although it seems clear that Joseph had predicted that Christ would not come until around 1890, some of the [25] Saints that trekked to Utah felt the Parousia was not that far off.38 Soon after the immediate concerns of food and survival were resolved, the Saints set about to do their part about hastening that great day. Millennial offings were very much in evidence. Thomas Bullock observed in 1852, after “the most glorious Conference of the Saints of the Most High in these, the last days,” that “all are steadily preparing themselves for the day of the coming of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.”39 Later in that same year, Heber C. Kimball, first counselor to Brigham Young, noted that the people of the world “are in confusion, and so dispirited they know not what to do.” “The idea strikes me,” observed Kimball, “that the day of the Lord is approaching, and nearer than you think it is.”40 Orson Pratt, one of the most outspoken of the Saints regarding an imminent Second Coming, stated in December 1852 that “the time is drawing nigh for these things [times of trouble, war, lamentation, etc.] to be fulfilled; for this nation have rejected the Book of Mormon, . . . the Church of Christ, . . . and have scourged the Saints.”41 [26]
Many of the fourteen general Epistles issued between 1849 and 1856 alluded to a second coming that could not be too far off. The epistles, written by the First Presidency, were issued largely to keep scattered Saints informed on developments taking place in the Church, especially in Utah. The Fourth Epistle mentioned that “the signs of the times are highly portentous of a mighty and short work in these last days.”42 The Fifth Epistle, issued in 1851, observed that the many cataclysmic, tragic, and unexplainable events which were transpiring at what Church leaders considered to be an accelerated rate provided further evidence that the Parousia was near:
The increasing convulsions of the nations; the multiplied wars and rumors of wars; the internal dissensions which threaten the disunion and overthrow of the best governments on the earth; the increasing plagues and sickness in new and diversified forms, baffling the skill of the ablest physicians, and causing the wisdom of their wisest to perish; the increasing divisions among professing Christian parties, and members of the same party, showing daily a greater and greater want of that union which must exist to secure the perpetuity of the principles of righteousness among any people, and without which God’s kingdom cannot exist on earth or in the heavens; the increase of whirlwinds, hurricanes, tornadoes, and earthquakes; . . . all, all these signs, and multitudes more of a like nature, now existing are the fulfillment of the prophecies, not only of the ancient prophets, but more particularly of . . . Joseph Smith . . . who prophesied and bore witness that all these and many more like things should come to pass in this generation as signs of the second coming of the Son of Man, which is near at hand.43
It was the Millennial Star, the Latter-day Saint periodical in England, that was a major conveyor of millennial themes. Editors noted that “during each successive year the contrast between the ways of God and man is being astonishingly increased,” and that [27] “signs of the times clearly indicate that the period is fast approaching when peace shall be taken from the earth.”44 Any plague or natural disaster seemed to increase the millennial impulse. Thus, cattle plagues in Texas and fruit and vegetable diseases in Italy and England were hailed by calculating Mormon observers as portentous of things to come.45
Still, it would be inaccurate to conclude that Mormons were preoccupied with millennial fervor. Most Church leaders recognized that the Saints had some work to do before that blessed day. Brigham Young, while expecting to participate in the final millennial windup operation, felt that much needed to be done, that there were “prophecies yet to be fulfilled before that event takes place.”46 Ever cognizant of Joseph’s blueprint regarding the establishment of an actual Kingdom, Young realized that the righteous needed to be gathered and assimilated into the main body of Saints. He also realized that the entire Mormon Commonwealth needed to reach a higher level of unity and obedience if God was to entrust them with the leadership of the Kingdom. After all, this Kingdom would in all probability be the only available haven for those who expected to avoid coming judgements. According to Apostle Franklin D. Richards, [28] at least three distinct groups of people would eventually seek safety within the confines of the Kingdom:
Now there are three distinct classes of persons in the kingdom of God—the Holy Priesthood, the members of the Church, and those who “bow the knee” and “confess with the tongue,” or, in other words, submit to the government of the Lord Jesus Christ, but are not members of His Church. St. Paul speaks of three different glories—the celestial, terrestrial, and telestial, typified by the sun, moon, and stars. The positions held in the kingdom of Great Britain by the nobility and gentry, the middle classes, and the working classes, may represent to you, though imperfectly, the three grades in question in the Kingdom of God.
The Holy Priesthood holds and exercises executive, legislative, judicial, and administrative power for, and in the name of, Jesus Christ. The members of the Church, who hold not this authority, are admitted to privileges and blessings denied to those who are without. As the Kingdom grows, and increases in power and influence, and His judgements thicken among the nations of the wicked, multitudes of people of every religions and irreligious persuasion or belief are and will be anxious to find a place of rest and safety, where they can dwell in peace, honouring the laws of the country, but still retaining respectively their peculiar faith. The Kingdom of God, or Zion, is and will be the only such place of security, for the Lord has said by His ancient Prophets that the people of Zion, or the Latter-day Saints shall be the only people not at war with one another. Seeing this, would it be God-like, would it be humane even, for the Latter-day Saints to repel from them, merely for difference of faith, all who flee to them for a place of safety, though such may be honourable, upright, industrious, and peaceable men? No, such is not the disposition of the Saints, not the genius of the Kingdom of God. The kingdom is set up to save men, physically and morally, temporally and spiritually, and to afford all the pure in heart an asylum from the judgements drawn by a corrupt world from an offended God, and a refuge from the uncontrolled passions of the wicked, who neither fear God nor regard man.47
Such were the lofty aspirations of the Latter-day Saints. Not only did they have responsibility for the spiritual guidance of [29] mankind, but they were obligated to provide eventual political leadership as well. Salt Lake City was to be a center of political direction as well as a spiritual capital. While such schemes and plans might seem grandiose and naive today, the Saints of the 1850s believed that the construction of the Kingdom, the gathering of the Saints and other God-fearing peoples to the Kingdom, and the subsequent coming of the Savior were events that would likely transpire in their own lifetimes. The fulfillment of such lofty objectives was contingent upon the Saints doing their part. They would be required to be united to live the commandments, to follow the dictates of their leaders. Surely Brigham Young must have reasoned that in the isolated region of the Great Basin this grand design could become a reality. [30]
