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Alma 54

Two Letters, Two Worlds — Moroni and Ammoron Exchange Epistles

Alma 54: c. 63 BC, the commencement of the twenty-ninth year of the reign of the judges. Ammoron, the Lamanite king, sends to Moroni proposing an exchange of prisoners. Moroni rejoices — not chiefly to recover his soldiers, though he wants them, but because the Lamanites hold many Nephite women and children, and he holds only warriors; so he resolves on a stratagem, demanding a whole family — a man, his wife, and his children — for each single Lamanite prisoner. He sends his terms in a blistering epistle that preaches the justice of God and the hell awaiting murderers, names Ammoron and his dead brother as such, and closes with a threat of total war: blood for blood, life for life. Ammoron answers in kind. He claims the war as vengeance for his murdered brother Amalickiah; he rehearses the ancient Lamanite grievance — that the Nephite fathers robbed the Lamanite fathers of their right to the government; he offers peace only on the terms of Nephite surrender to 'those to whom the government doth rightly belong'; he vows a war that shall be eternal, to subjection or extinction; and he denies God outright — 'we know not such a being; neither do ye.' He signs himself a descendant of Zoram and 'a bold Lamanite.' The chapter is a study in two letters: two men, two readings of the same history, two gods — or, in Ammoron's case, none.

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Witnesses on the page:Amalickiah & Ammoron,Captain Moroni

Where we are

For two chapters the war has been told in movement — marches, decoys, the wall of Bountiful rising, the stripling sons enlisting. Alma 54 stops the movement entirely and gives us two documents. Ammoron writes proposing a prisoner exchange; Moroni answers; Ammoron answers back. Nothing happens, in the sense of battle. And yet this may be the most revealing chapter in the whole war, because Mormon — who could have summarized the negotiation in a sentence — instead copies out both letters in full, so that we can hear the two men think. A battle shows you who is stronger. A letter shows you who a man is. Mormon wants us to see, in their own words, the two souls this war is being fought between, and the chapter is built so that the letters answer each other line for line, worldview against worldview.

The occasion is mercy, or something that could become mercy. Ammoron proposes to exchange prisoners, and Moroni felt to rejoice exceedingly at this request (v. 2) — partly for hardheaded reasons (the exchange frees provisions and returns soldiers), but chiefly because of an asymmetry he means to exploit. The Lamanites have taken many women and children; Moroni holds only warriors, not a woman nor a child among all the prisoners (v. 3). So he resolves on a stratagem — he will demand a whole family, a man and his wife and his children, for each single Lamanite soldier he returns (v. 11). It is a hard bargain dressed as a generous one: by valuing each enemy combatant at the price of a Nephite family, he recovers the maximum number of his most vulnerable people. The mercy and the cunning are braided together, as they so often are in Moroni — the same man who held prisoners as a ransom in Alma 52 now turns the exchange itself into an instrument for bringing women and children home.

But the prisoner terms are almost a frame for the real content, which is the collision of two minds. Moroni's letter is saturated with God — his justice, his wrath, the hell that awaits murderers, the cause of our God the Nephites will maintain. Ammoron's letter answers every point and ends by denying the premise of all of them: concerning that God whom ye say we have rejected, behold, we know not such a being; neither do ye (v. 21). The chapter sets a man who fights under God against a man who fights as though there were no God to fight under, and lets their letters make the argument that the rest of the war will settle.

The chapter has three movements.

  1. The exchange proposed and the stratagem formed (vv. 1–4). Ammoron sends to propose exchanging prisoners; Moroni rejoices and, seeing that the enemy holds women and children while he holds only warriors, resolves on a stratagem to recover the maximum number of his people.
  2. Moroni's epistle (vv. 5–14). Moroni writes preaching the justice of God and the hell awaiting murderers, names Ammoron and Amalickiah as such, demands a family for each prisoner, and closes with a vow of total war if refused — blood for blood... life for life.
  3. Ammoron's reply (vv. 15–24). Ammoron answers in anger, claims the war as vengeance for his brother, rehearses the ancient grievance that the Nephite fathers robbed the Lamanites of the government, offers peace only on terms of surrender, vows an eternal war, and denies God's existence — signing himself a descendant of Zoram and a bold Lamanite.

The verses that carry the chapter are these. Verse 3 names the stratagem's mercy — Moroni acts because there was not a woman nor a child among his own prisoners but many among the enemy's. Verse 10 names Moroni's ground — we will retain our cities and our lands; yea, and we will maintain our religion and the cause of our God. Verse 17 names Ammoron's grievance — your fathers did wrong their brethren, insomuch that they did rob them of their right to the government. And verse 21 names the gulf between them — concerning that God whom ye say we have rejected, behold, we know not such a being; neither do ye. The chapter exists to let two letters reveal two souls, and to show that the deepest division in the war is not over cities or government but over whether there is a God whose justice the combatants must answer to.

Mercy braided with cunning (verses 1–4)

And it came to pass that Moroni felt to rejoice exceedingly at this request... Now the Lamanites had taken many women and children, and there was not a woman nor a child among all the prisoners of Moroni, or the prisoners whom Moroni had taken; therefore Moroni resolved upon a stratagem to obtain as many prisoners of the Nephites from the Lamanites as it were possible. — Alma 54:2–3

The first thing to notice is why Moroni rejoices, because it tells us where his heart is. He wants his soldiers back, and he wants to stop feeding enemy prisoners — those are stated. But Mormon places at the center of his joy a different fact: the Lamanites hold women and children, and Moroni holds none. His prisoners are all armed men who chose the field; theirs include the helpless who never did. And so the exchange, to Moroni, is chiefly an opportunity to recover the people who most need recovering. The stratagem he forms — demanding a whole family for each single warrior — looks at first like sharp bargaining, and it is. But its aim is not advantage for its own sake; its aim is to bring home as many wives and children as a single prisoner can be made to buy. This is the same instinct we have watched in Moroni since Alma 48: a war-craft bent, at every turn, toward the preserving of the vulnerable. He will drive a hard bargain — but for tender ends. The cunning serves the mercy, never the reverse. It is worth holding this in mind as his letter turns blistering, because the severity that follows is not cruelty; it is the same protective love wearing its other face.

Moroni's epistle: war under God (verses 5–14)

Behold, I would tell you somewhat concerning the justice of God, and the sword of his almighty wrath, which doth hang over you except ye repent and withdraw your armies into your own lands... yea, I would tell you concerning that awful hell that awaits to receive such murderers as thou and thy brother have been, except ye repent. — Alma 54:6–7

Moroni's letter is not a diplomat's letter. It is a prophet's letter wearing a general's armor, and the first thing it does is reframe the entire war in terms Ammoron never raised. Ammoron wrote about prisoners; Moroni writes about the justice of God. He will not discuss the exchange until he has placed the whole conflict under heaven's judgment — the sword of his almighty wrath hanging over the unrepentant, the awful hell awaiting murderers. And he names the murder plainly: such murderers as thou and thy brother have been. This is the heart of Moroni's worldview, and it is the exact thing Ammoron will deny. To Moroni, the war is not a contest of competing claims to be negotiated; it is a moral reality with a God who sees it. Amalickiah was a murderer; his war was murder; and murder answers to God whether or not any army stops it. Moroni's threats of earthly force (our armies shall come upon you) are real, but they sit underneath a larger threat that no army delivers — the wrath of that God whom you have rejected (v. 9). He fights as a man who believes his enemy will one day stand before a Judge, and he says so.

...I will close my epistle by telling you that I will not exchange prisoners, save it be on conditions that ye will deliver up a man and his wife and his children, for one prisoner... yea, even I will arm my women and my children, and I will come against you... yea, and it shall be blood for blood, yea, life for life. — Alma 54:11–12

When Moroni finally reaches the prisoner terms, the demand is stark — a man and his wife and his children, for one prisoner — and the threat behind it is total: if Ammoron refuses, Moroni will arm even his own women and children and pursue the war to the Lamanites' utter destruction, blood for blood... life for life. It is fierce, and a reader who has admired Moroni's restraint may flinch. But two things hold the fierceness in its proper frame. First, the demand for whole families is, as we have seen, mercy in disguise — the recovery of the helpless at the highest possible rate. Second, the threat is conditional and defensive to its core: Moroni's stated cause throughout is that ye have sought to murder us, and we have only sought to defend ourselves (v. 13). The blood for blood is not a thirst for vengeance but the lawful warning of a defender who will not be destroyed without resisting to the last child. And the letter's signature is the whole man in five words: I am Moroni; I am a leader of the people of the Nephites (v. 14). No title beyond leader, no claim of right beyond the people he serves. He defines himself by the people he protects. Hold that signature in mind, because Ammoron's will define him by a dead man he means to avenge.

Ammoron's reply: war over a grievance, under no God (verses 15–24)

I am Ammoron, the king of the Lamanites; I am the brother of Amalickiah whom ye have murdered. Behold, I will avenge his blood upon you... For behold, your fathers did wrong their brethren, insomuch that they did rob them of their right to the government when it rightly belonged unto them. — Alma 54:16–17

Ammoron's letter is a masterpiece of a certain kind of mind, and it is worth reading slowly, because almost every line is the photographic negative of Moroni's. Moroni signed himself a leader of the people; Ammoron opens I am Ammoron, the king of the Lamanites, asserting a title and a right. Moroni named murder; Ammoron renames it — my brother... whom ye have murdered — converting the lawful killing of a usurper into a crime crying for vengeance, casting himself as the avenger of innocent blood. And then he reaches for the oldest weapon in the Lamanite arsenal: the grievance. Your fathers did wrong their brethren... they did rob them of their right to the government when it rightly belonged unto them. This is the ancient story the Lamanites had told themselves for five centuries — that Nephi stole the birthright and the rule from his elder brothers Laman and Lemuel, that the Nephites are usurpers and the Lamanites the wronged rightful heirs. It is the same grievance Zeniff's record preserved (Mosiah 10:12–17), the inherited myth by which every Lamanite king justified every war. Ammoron picks it up as if it were his own.

But here is the thing that exposes him, and Mormon surely means us to catch it. Ammoron is not a Lamanite. He says so himself in the next breath: I am Ammoron, and a descendant of Zoram, whom your fathers... brought out of Jerusalem (v. 23). He is a Nephite dissenter, Zoram's descendant, a man of Nephite blood who has taken up the Lamanite cause and the Lamanite grievance and calls himself a bold Lamanite (v. 24). The grievance he wields with such conviction is not even his inheritance. He has adopted a wrong done to other men's ancestors in order to justify a war he wages for his own ambition and his brother's. This is what grievance does when it is severed from truth: it becomes a costume anyone can wear, a borrowed wound brandished to license whatever one already wanted to do. Amalickiah wanted a throne; Ammoron wants vengeance and a throne; and the five-century-old story of the stolen government is the rationale they both reach for, though neither descends from the brothers supposedly wronged. The chapter quietly demolishes the grievance not by arguing against it but by revealing who is using it and why.

And as concerning that God whom ye say we have rejected, behold, we know not such a being; neither do ye; but if it so be that there is such a being, we know not but that he hath made us as well as you. — Alma 54:21

And then comes the line that is the chapter's true climax, the place where the two worlds finally and fully part. Moroni had grounded everything in the justice of God. Ammoron answers by denying that there is any God to ground anything in: we know not such a being; neither do ye. It is not merely that Ammoron worships a different god; it is that he has reasoned his way out of God altogether, and — note the move — he insists that Moroni has no real knowledge of God either (neither do ye), as if his own unbelief must be the universal condition and Moroni's faith only a pose. This is the deepest thing the letter reveals. A man who acknowledges no God above him acknowledges no justice above his own will. Murder is not murder if there is no Judge; the war is not wrong if there is no God to call it wrong; blood for blood means nothing if blood is just blood. Ammoron's atheism is not an abstract philosophical position — it is the foundation that makes his vengeance, his grievance, and his vow of eternal war (to the subjecting the Nephites to our authority or to their eternal extinction, v. 20) feel to him like simple realism. Remove God, and ambition becomes its own justification. Notice even his small hedge — if it so be that there is such a being, we know not but that he hath made us as well as you — which sounds almost reasonable until you see what it does: it flattens the moral universe, putting murderer and defender on the same footing before a God too vague to take sides. That is precisely the comfort the unrighteous have always wanted from religion — a Maker with no preferences, who made everyone and therefore judges no one. Moroni's God has a sword of almighty wrath and an awful hell for murderers. Ammoron's god, if he exists at all, has no opinion. Between those two gods — the just Judge and the indifferent Maker — the whole war is, at bottom, being fought.

How the chapter is built

Alma 54 is built as a diptych — two panels facing each other, meant to be read together so that each interprets the other. Mormon could have paraphrased the negotiation; instead he gives us both letters whole, and he arranges them so that Ammoron's reply answers Moroni's point for point, which means the chapter's meaning lives not in either letter alone but in the space between them. Moroni opens with God's justice; Ammoron closes by denying God. Moroni names murder; Ammoron renames it vengeance. Moroni signs himself a leader of the people; Ammoron signs himself a king and a bold Lamanite. Moroni grounds his cause in our religion and the cause of our God; Ammoron grounds his in the rights of his fathers — a grievance that, the chapter quietly reveals, is not even his own inheritance. The architecture is a controlled collision, and Mormon trusts the reader to hear how completely the two letters fail to meet. They are not negotiating; they are confessing. Each letter is its author's whole soul set down in ink.

And the chapter is built to locate the war's true fault line, which is deeper than anyone in the story names aloud. On the surface the dispute is about prisoners, then about government, then about ancestral wrongs. But Mormon arranges the letters so that the reader arrives, at verse 21, at the thing underneath all the others: we know not such a being; neither do ye. The whole long contrast of the war chapters — Moroni against Amalickiah, the freemen against the king-men, faith against ambition — comes to rest here on a single question, whether there is a God whose justice the combatants must answer to. Moroni's entire conduct of the war, his restraint, his ransoms, his mercy to the surrendered, his refusal to delight in bloodshed, makes sense only if there is such a God watching. Ammoron's entire conduct — the vengeance, the grievance, the vow of eternal war, the indifference to whose blood is spent — makes sense only if there is not. Mormon places the atheist's confession at the chapter's climax because it is the root of everything: remove the just God, and ambition needs no further justification than its own desire. The chapter's last word is given to the man who denies God, and Mormon lets it stand unanswered — because the answer is the rest of the war, in which the God Ammoron knows not delivers the sons who do not doubt.