Monday, June 13, 2022

George Reynolds and Janne M. Sjodahl on the Post-1830 Fulfillment of 2 Nephi 10:14

 

                                                                        No King Against the Lord

 

For he that raiseth up a king against me shall perish, for I, the Lord, the king of heaven, will be their king. (II Ne. 10:14)

 

These are given us as the words of the Lord through Jacob, the son of Lehi. The prophet tells us, that the Jews will be restored to the land of their fathers, while his descendants and those of his brethren will inherit America. And then he says that this land shall be a land of liberty to the gentiles as well, and that he that fighteth against this land—Zion—shall perish; also that he who raiseth up a king here against the Lord, shall perish, for the Lord Himself will be the "king" of this country.

 

When reading this really remarkable prediction, one cannot but remember Montezuma II, the head of the Aztec confederacy at the time of the arrival of Cortez in the Valley of Mexico. True, he was not a "king" in name, but he was a despot of the worst kind. His predecessors had succeeded in forming an alliance with Tezcuco and Tlacopan, for the purpose of plundering and killing the neighbors who refused to pay tribute. Like the Lamanites of old, his forces sallied forth from their strongholds, the chief of which was Tenochtitlan, and carried off whatever they could lay their hands on, and especially human beings needed for sacrifices. Montezuma was the head of this plunderbund. When the Spaniards came, it had extended its sway over thirty or more cities and was threatening the outlying settlements in every direction. But the time had come for the fulfilment of this prophecy. Montezuma was captured by the Spaniards, deposed by his own people, and then killed in a battle, probably by being struck down by a stone thrown by an Aztec soldier. In 1520 his rule of blood came to an ignoble end.

 

The Aztec version of the death of this unfortunate ruler is somewhat different. According to this source of information, Montezuma was a prisoner. He had trusted in the good faith of the Spaniards. But when the final trial of strength came between the Indians and the Spaniards, Montezuma was true to his blood. He refused to bend to the Spaniard's demand. So they killed him. They killed him by a sword thrust that was so directed as to render his death agonizing beyond comprehension and degrading to a man of royal blood, and when the king at last was dead the conqueror threw his naked body into the street.

 

"There is your king," they cried to his royal subjects.

 

It was then that the fifty Spanish captives were sacrificed. Their furious comrades saw them led to the summit of the pyramid that then occupied the center of what is now the plaza in front of the national palace. On its summit was the altar to the Sun god. The Spaniards, from the buildings they used as a fort, could see their friends led up the steps of the pyramid. They saw their naked bodies flash white in the sun. One after another they were thrust down upon the stone of sacrifice, and the priests made the ritual slashes in their breast and held the palpitating hearts up toward the sun.

 

But even according to this version, the word of the Lord was wonderfully fulfilled in the tragic end of Montezuma.

 

The Incas of Peru were less brutal in their military operations, than the Aztecs. They made war, not to obtain human victims for their altars; nor, even, for the sake of plunder. Like the followers of Mohammed, or the soldiers of the medieval "defenders of the faith," they went out to fight in the interest of a more humane religion and a further advanced civilization than their neighbors had. But they were, nevertheless, despots, and their government soon developed into absolute despotism. It, naturally, created class distinction of the worst kind, a condition against which the history of the ancient Americans contains a solemn warning. (Alma 32:2; IV Nephi 25, 26) For themselves, the Incas claimed divinity, as the sons of the sun—that is, as they understood it, of God; and they exacted submission to their word as if it had been a divine decree. They had not learned—or, if they had, they had put aside and forgotten—the fundamental principle of true religion which our Lord stated in these words:

 

"The kings of the gentiles exercise lordship over them; and they that exercise authority upon them are called benefactors. But ye shall not be so; but he that is greatest among you, let him be as the younger; and he that is chief, as he that doth serve." Luke 22:25, 26)

 

Having no regard for this great law, the Incas created a wide gulf between themselves and the people, no less impassable because it was imaginary. For themselves they claimed every privilege that almost unlimited wealth and power could procure; to produce this wealth was the chief end and purpose for which the people existed. They were part of the assets of the Incas, just as were the beasts on the hill sides, and fishes in the brooks, the trees in the valleys, the grain in the fields and the store houses, and the metals in the mountains. To be sure, under good and wise rulers, the subjects were well cared for; and so were the beasts of burden and the birds and other animals; but, though human beings, they were, strictly speaking, nothing but "property." This was the condition of about eight million human beings under the Incas in this "land of liberty," at the time of the arrival of the Spaniards. It was put to an end with the assassination of Inca Huascar at Cuzco and the pretender Atahualpa at Caxamarca, in 1533.

 

Atahualpa, as is well known, was promised his liberty, if he would pay a large ransom. He did pay, but the Spaniards, fearing to set him free, decided to take his life as well as the ransom. They proposed to strangle him instead of burning him to death, if he would let them baptize him first. Having obtained his consent to this, they "baptized" him and then choked him to death.

 

"The treatment of Atahualpa," says Prescott, "forms undoubtedly one of the darkest chapters in Spanish colonial history. There may have been massacres on a more extended scale, and executions accompanied with greater refinement of cruelty. But the blood-stained annals of the Conquest affords us no such example of cold-hearted and systematic presentation, not of an enemy, but of one whose whole deportment had been that of a friend and a benefactor."

 

For the murderous, perfidious conduct of the Spaniards both in Mexico and in Peru, there can be nothing but condemnation. At the same time, the history of their exploits is the record of the fulfilment of a remarkable prophetic utterance in the Book of Mormon.

 

This prediction has also been verified in later times.

 

In May, 1822, Augustus Iturbide proclaimed himself emperor of Mexico, and was crowned the following July under the name of Augustin I. His empire included, in addition to the Mexico of today, large portions of the United States and the Central American countries. But the Mexicans soon drove him from the throne into exile. The country treated him liberally, in recognition of former patriotic service. An allowance of $25,000 a year was voted for him, provided he would remain abroad. But some power seemed to prompt him to return. He arrived in Mexico in 1824, and was killed as an enemy of the country on July 19, that year.

 

Those who were engaged in the efforts to establish Archduke Maximilian, or Hapsburg, a brother of the late Emperor Francis Joseph, of Austria-Hungary, on a Mexican imperial throne, fared no better. The proposition, in all probability, came, with the consent of the pope, from Napoleon III, who, at any rate, furnished the military force for the enterprise. Marshal Bazaine was the commander of those troops. The outcome of it was one of the great tragedies of history. Maximilian, abandoned by Napoleon and betrayed by some of his generals, was captured and shot to death, June, 1867. His wife, Princess Carlotte, a sister of King Leopold, of Belgium, became insane. Napoleon early in the war with Germany, 1870-71, was captured at Sedan and died in exile. Bazaine was captured with a force of 173,000 men, and he was, subsequently, tried by a court martial and condemned to degradation and death, although the death sentence was commuted to life imprisonment. Verily, "he that raiseth up a king against me"—in this land of liberty—"shall perish."

 

There is, perhaps, no more tragic experience in all history than that of Maximilian and Carlotte. When Louis Napoleon 3 of France in 1863, decided to step into the imbroglio in Mexico, a committee of Mexican nobles went to Miramir and asked Maximilian to become their emperor. He hesitated, and Carlotte is said to have made the decision for him. They entered Vera Cruz harbor in 1864 on a French cruiser and were well received. The United States, having emerged from its Civil War troubles, made a vigorous restatement of the Monroe Doctrine, and Louis Napoleon hurriedly withdrew his troops. Bereft of his patron's support, Maximilian saw the scattered bands of guerillas become a united army, directed against his throne. Carlotte, foreseeing doom, fled to France to plead with Napoleon to return his troops and support her husband.

 

How she humbled her pride before the French sovereign and subsequently pleaded in vain for aid from the Vatican form the most dramatic episodes of her long life. Her interview with Napoleon was held secret, but at its close an attendant heard her shriek: "I ought never to have forgotten what I am and what you are! I ought not to have forgotten that there is Bourbon blood in my veins! I should not have disgraced my descent by lowering myself before a Bonaparte and being led away by an adventurer!"

 

Louis Napoleon left in the midst of her tirade, and attendants found her swooning on the floor. Some accounts have it that her mind failed her then, but the fact remains that her will drove her to the Vatican, where she also created a scene.

 

After this fruitless appeal in her husband's behalf, she is said to have been found wandering the streets of Rome, washing her hands in the fountains and babbling incoherently. Accounts differ as to whether Carlotte ever knew that Maximilian was betrayed and captured, or that he died with her name on his lips before a firing squad at Queretaro, on June 19, 1867.

 

Such is some of the testimony of secular history to the truth of the Book of Mormon. (George Reynolds and Janne M. Sjodahl, Commentary on the Book of Mormon, 7 vols. [Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Company, 1977], 4:268-72)

 

Further Reading:

 

Resources on Joseph Smith’s Prophecies