Adam-God Discourses of President Brigham Young

The Adam-God Discourses of President Brigham Young

The Adam-God doctrine has sometimes been characterized, by critics and by historians who never read the underlying record, as the product of a single sermon. The historical record is otherwise. President Brigham Young taught this doctrine on numerous occasions across more than twenty-five years — in public and in private, before the Saints in tabernacle and bowery gatherings, before the Quorum of the Twelve in council, and before President Young’s closest Priesthood associates in sacred prayer-circle settings. The teaching was witnessed by his Counselors, by the Apostles, by his clerks, and by hundreds of ordinary Saints, and the same doctrine was reaffirmed at his final formal witness — the Lecture at the Veil — in February 1877, a few months before his death.

The principal recorded discourses are listed below, with their primary witnesses, in chronological order. The list is not exhaustive. The materials underlying President Young’s teachings are widely scattered across roughly two hundred different sources, including stenographic reports, the Office Journals, contemporary diaries, Council minutes, and journal entries that have not yet been brought into a single collection. Fred C. Collier’s preface to President Brigham Young’s Doctrine on Deity (XIV–XV) acknowledges that even the comprehensive treatment in that volume does not represent the sum total of all the available evidence, and new sources continue to surface from previously uncataloged archival holdings. What follows are the key sermons and discourses for which the textual evidence is most secure.

Pre-Public Revelation: March 14, 1852

Before the public Proclamation of April 9, 1852, President Young taught the doctrine in a prayer circle with his closest associates in the Priesthood. The relevant entry is in the Historian’s Office Journal, volume 15 (1851 December 1 – 1853 January 16), 106.1 The manuscript entry is mostly longhand, with many abbreviations and a few shorthand notations; the conservative normalized reading printed in The Complete Discourses of Brigham Young is used here:

“Brigham Young rolled out revelation upon revelation in regard to the creation of the world. Adam came to the Earth when he assisted to form it, he then partook of the fruits of the Earth and became Earthy, and they which are after shall receive our resurrected bodies and shall all have the privilege of going as Adam’s to form an Earth and do likewise.”
— The Complete Discourses of Brigham Young 1:487

The substance is the same doctrine that would be proclaimed publicly less than a month later: Adam came to this earth as a being who had assisted in its formation, partook of the fruits of the earth, and so became earthy — and his posterity would follow the same eternal pattern. The April 9, 1852 sermon was therefore not anomalous oratorical speculation but a public declaration of doctrine already opened in President Young’s private Priesthood teaching.

The Public Proclamation: April 9, 1852 (evening)

President Young preached the public version of the doctrine in the General Priesthood Conference held in the Tabernacle, on the evening of April 9, 1852. The discourse began at 6:00 p.m., in the evening session of the conference. It is the most-cited single record on the doctrine, and multiple independent witnesses preserve substantially the same teaching:2

“Now hear it, O inhabitants of the earth, Jew and Gentile, Saint and sinner! When our father Adam came into the garden of Eden, he came into it with a celestial body, and brought Eve, one of his wives, with him. He helped to make and organize this world. He is Michael, the Archangel, the Ancient of Days! about whom holy men have written and spoken — He is our Father and our God, and the only God with whom we have to do.”
— President Brigham Young, Journal of Discourses 1:50 (April 9, 1852, evening)

December 11, 1853, Salt Lake City

President Young’s December 11, 1853 discourse supplies one of the important teaching contexts preceding the great October 1854 Tabernacle sermon. There he taught that Adam and Eve understood the necessity of the Fall because they had already passed through an earth before:3

“Adam and Eve knew that they would be tempted and fall. They had been on an earth before, and they knew it would be necessary for them to fall; they understood it perfectly. … We once was in the presence of God in heaven. … Then it is for our good and benefit that good and evil exist that we may be tried in all things, that we may obtain the glory which Adam has obtained.”
— President Brigham Young, December 11, 1853 (Complete Discourses 2:740)

February 19, 1854 Sermon

One of the most theologically explicit Adam-God discourses, in which President Young settled before the Quorum and the Saints the question of who begat the Son of God — explicitly identifying Adam/Michael as God the Father, and explicitly distinguishing the Holy Ghost as a separate person; Michael has both a Father and a Mother of His own. It is preserved in The Complete Discourses of Brigham Young 2:763.

“Who did beget him? His Father, and his father is our God, and the Father of our spirits, and he is the framer of the body, the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Who is he? He is Father Adam. Michael, the Ancient of Days, has he a father? He has. Has he a mother? He has. Now to say that the Son of God was begotten by the Holy Ghost, is to say the Holy Ghost is God the Father, which is inconsistent, and contrary to all the revelations of God both modern and ancient.”
— President Brigham Young, February 19, 1854 (Complete Discourses 2:763)

October 8, 1854, Salt Lake Tabernacle (among the most documented)

The October 8, 1854 discourse in the General Conference is among the most comprehensively documented Adam-God sermons. The Watt stenographic report alone is approximately twenty-five pages; three independent diary accounts corroborate it.4 This is the discourse in which President Young gave the testimony that fixes the doctrine of our Mother in Heaven alongside the Father:

“I tell you, when you see your Father in the Heavens, you will see Adam; when you see your Mother that bore your spirit, you will see Mother Eve.”
— President Brigham Young, October 8, 1854, Salt Lake Tabernacle (Teachings of President Brigham Young 3:363; Complete Discourses 2:844–46)

October 7, 1857, Salt Lake Bowery (afternoon)

President Young’s defense of the doctrine before the gathered Saints, in plain terms, on Wednesday afternoon October 7, 1857:

“Some have grumbled because I believe our God to be so near to us as Father Adam. There are many who know that doctrine to be true.”
— President Brigham Young, October 7, 1857 (Journal of Discourses 5:327)

The Quorum-Level Attribution: April 4, 1860

On April 4, 1860, in a Quorum of the Twelve meeting addressing Orson Pratt directly on doctrinal matters, President Young gave the most explicit single attribution of the doctrine to Joseph Smith. The shorthand transcript records President Young naming President Heber C. Kimball and Willard Richards — both of whom had received Joseph Smith’s most sacred private teachings in Nauvoo — as additional witnesses to the same teaching from the Prophet. The longhand version of the same meeting is preserved in the Office Journal of President Brigham Young, 1858–1863, Book D, edited by Fred C. Collier.5

The dedicated April 4, 1860 source page provides the shorthand transcript. The longhand companion record is preserved in Office Journal Book D, edited by Fred C. Collier.

October 8, 1861, Salt Lake Tabernacle (morning)

On the morning of October 8, 1861, President Young deliberately returned to the doctrine and warned the Saints to store it carefully, not to treat it lightly:

“I will give you a few words of doctrine upon which there has been much inquiry and with regard to which considerable ignorance exists. … Some years ago I advanced a doctrine with regard to Adam being our Father and God. … It is one of the most glorious revealments of the economy of heaven, yet the world hold it in derision.”
— President Brigham Young, October 8, 1861, morning (Complete Discourses 3:1913–14)

August 25, 1867, Provo Bowery

At Provo on August 25, 1867, President Young again placed Adam and Eve before the Saints as celestial beings who came to earth and underwent the change connected with the Fall:

“The bodies of Adam and Eve were pure and after the Celestial order until they partook of the forbidden fruit when their bodies were changed with the things of this world. Adam helped organize this world for an inheritance for himself and posterity.”
— President Brigham Young, August 25, 1867 (Complete Discourses 4:2485)

June 8, 1873

On June 8, 1873, President Young gave one of his fullest late summaries of the doctrine, explicitly saying that God had revealed it to him and that Joseph Smith had taught him the key:

“How much unbelief exists in the minds of the Latter-day Saints in regard to one particular doctrine which I revealed to them, and which God revealed to me—namely that Adam is our father and God—I do not know, I do not inquire, I care nothing about it. Our Father Adam helped to make this earth, it was created expressly for him, and after it was made he and his companions came here. He brought one of his wives with him, and she was called Eve, because she was the first woman upon the earth. Our Father Adam is the man who stands at the gate and holds the keys of everlasting life and salvation to all his children who have or who ever will come upon the earth. … I could not find any man on the earth who could tell me this, although it is one of the simplest things in the world, until I met and talked with Joseph Smith.”
— President Brigham Young, June 8, 1873 (Complete Discourses 5:2971)

The Lecture at the Veil — February 7, 1877, St. George Temple

President Young’s final formal witness to the doctrine was the Lecture at the Veil, delivered in connection with the dedication of the St. George Temple in early 1877 — a few months before his death. The Lecture was incorporated into the Endowment ceremony in the most sacred setting of the Restored Gospel.

The original text is preserved in Fred C. Collier’s Unpublished Revelations of the Prophets and Presidents of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, volume 1, Section 75. (See the Adam-God page for the full historical sequence and the primary-source citations for the Lecture’s removal from the Endowment ceremony in the 1902–1905 era.)

The Discourse Catalog

The fullest single chronological catalog of President Young’s Adam-God discourses, with witness lists and cross-references for each, is in:

  • President Brigham Young’s Doctrine on Deity, Appendix C — the principal recorded discourses on Adam-God with witness lists.
  • President Brigham Young’s Doctrine on Deity, Appendix D — the corroborative testimony of President Young’s associates in the Priesthood, including statements from President Heber C. Kimball, Joseph F. Smith, Edward W. Tullidge / Eliza R. Snow, Erastus Snow, Orson F. Whitney, Anson Call, and others.
  • The Complete Discourses of Brigham Young, ed. Richard S. Van Wagoner (Salt Lake City: Smith-Pettit Foundation, 2009) — an extensive compilation of President Young’s sermons. The bulk of the textual material in this edition derives from research files originally compiled by Fred C. Collier across decades of archival labor.
  • The Quorum of the Twelve Apostles minutes for the periods 1835–1893, 1894–1899, 1900–1909, and 1910–1951, which contain references and contemporary entries on the doctrine across the relevant decades.
  • The Teaching of President Brigham Young, 1852–1854, ed. Fred C. Collier — Fred’s source-text edition for the early 1850s.
  • The Office Journal of President Brigham Young, 1858–1863, Book D, ed. Fred C. Collier — the longhand record of the 1860 Orson Pratt before the Twelve meetings, among other materials of the period.
  • The Nauvoo High Council Minute Books of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, ed. Fred C. Collier — the early Council records of Nauvoo.

Additional primary sources continue to be brought into the corpus as archival research progresses. The above is the most complete inventory currently verified for publication here.

For the doctrinal exposition itself, see the Adam-God page. For the Hebrew/scholarly evidence, see Nature of Deity. For the framework distinguishing the Creation Trinity from the Godhead Trinity, see Two Trinities. For the corresponding doctrine of our Mother in Heaven, see Heavenly Mother.

Notes

  1. The March 14, 1852 entry is in the Historian’s Office Journal, volume 15, 1851 December 1 – 1853 January 16, 106, Church History Library, CR 100 1, Online Catalog image 114. The normalized reading quoted above is printed in The Complete Discourses of Brigham Young 1:487. ↩
  2. The April 9, 1852 evening discourse is preserved in four independent witness accounts: George D. Watt’s stenographic report (the version published in Journal of Discourses 1:46–53 and reprinted in Latter-day Saints’ Millennial Star 15:769–70 (November 26, 1853), Zion’s Watchman 1:137–39 (September 16, 1854), Latter-day Saints’ Millennial Star 23:651–54 (October 12, 1861), and Deseret News 38:19–21 (December 29, 1888)); Wilford Woodruff’s journal entry (Wilford Woodruff Journal 4:127–30); Samuel Holister Rogers’s diary entry of April 16, 1852 (Samuel Holister Rogers Diary 1:179); and Hosea Stout’s contemporary diary entry of April 9, 1852 (Diary of Hosea Stout 2:435). The four parallel accounts are reproduced in full in President Brigham Young’s Doctrine on Deity, Appendix C, with corroborating cross-witness commentary. ↩
  3. The December 11, 1853 discourse is reproduced in Fred C. Collier’s The Teaching of President Brigham Young, 1852–1854, and in The Complete Discourses of Brigham Young 2:740–45. ↩
  4. The Watt stenographic report and the cross-corroborating diary witnesses are gathered in President Brigham Young’s Doctrine on Deity, Appendix C, and in The Complete Discourses of Brigham Young 2:844–46 and the surrounding pages. Only volume 3 of Fred Collier’s Teachings of President Brigham Young was ever published; citations to TPBY on this site refer to that 1852–1854 volume unless otherwise stated. ↩
  5. The original shorthand of the April 4, 1860 meeting is preserved in the Church History Library Catalog item documenting Orson Pratt before President Young and the Twelve. The longhand companion record is in Fred C. Collier, ed., The Office Journal of President Brigham Young, 1858–1863, Book D. The April 4, 1860 meeting is also discussed in The Complete Discourses of Brigham Young 3:1733–38. ↩