Latter-day Saint Temples/Inverted Stars on LDS Temples

Criticism

Some extreme critics of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints claim that the inverted five-pointed stars that decorate some LDS temples are occultic or even Satanic in nature. These detractors also argue that since the disciples of Jesus Christ have never used this ‘evil’ emblem in the past, its prominent display by the LDS Church is yet another evidence that “Mormons” aren’t Christians.

Source(s) of the criticism

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Response

These charges can be easily dismissed by taking a careful look at historical records.

The Early Latter-day Saints

The Prophet Joseph Smith informed William Weeks, who served as the architect for the Nauvoo Temple, that he had seen that building in a vision and intended to construct it according to the “pattern” that he had been shown. Wandle Mace, who was the foreman for all of the framework in the Nauvoo Temple, describes the pattern that the Prophet saw in his vision. He states, The order of architecture was unlike anything in existence; it was purely original, being a representation of the Church, the Bride, the Lamb’s wife. John the Revelator, in the 12 chapter [and] first verse of [the book of Revelation,] says, “And there appeared a great wonder in heaven; a woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and upon her head a crown of twelve stars.” This is portrayed in the beautifully cut stone of this grand temple.

Figure 1. Detail from original Nauvoo Temple architectural drawing. The starstones on the Nauvoo Temple are unique because their bottom rays are elongated. This exact same style of star was used to decorate the towers of the Logan Temple. James A. Leishman, who was present in 1880 when one of the starstones was secured in its place on the east tower of the Logan Temple, reveals what this symbol meant to the 19th century Saints. He said, “Carved upon the keystone is a magnificent star, called the Star of the Morning, being in an elevated position, it looks out in bold relief upon the rising sun.” It is interesting to note that after John the Revelator saw the vision of the woman who represented the heavenly Church he also heard Jesus Christ call Himself “the bright…morning star.” The writings of early Latter-day Saints confirm that they recognized Jesus Christ as the Morning Star and they also reveal that for them the star that heralds the dawn (Venus) was a symbolic harbinger of the thousand-year span when the Savior would reign personally upon the Earth. In 1840 Parley P. Pratt of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles wrote in a Church periodical: “Now the bright and morning Star / Spreads its glorious light afar / Kindles up the rising dawn / Of that bright Millennial morn.” Thus, even before the Nauvoo Temple began to rise out of the ground the Latter-day Saints viewed the Morning Star as the Millennial Star and associated it with the Lord Jesus Christ. Far from being an emblem of evil, President Brigham Young commented that “the ‘stars’ [would] add much to the beauty of the [Nauvoo] Temple.” Once Brigham Young had led the Saints to the Salt Lake Valley he decided to decorate the Salt Lake Temple with the same type of symbolic emblems that had adorned the exterior of the Nauvoo Temple, with some modifications. The earliest architectural drawings for the Salt Lake Temple (1854) show that initially the plan was to utilize the elongated star design but it was ultimately decided that the star rays would all be equal in length. Despite this decision, in 1859 President Young adorned the Eagle Gate that led into his property with the elongated star design from the Nauvoo Temple. CULTURAL CONTEXT It should be noted that during the lifetimes of Joseph Smith and Brigham Young, the inverted five-pointed star was utilized in American society without any association with the occult or with Satan. Some anti-Mormons might be shocked to learn that from 1777 to 1876 a variety of American flags displayed inverted five-pointed stars on them. Of particular interest is the “Great Star” flag that flew from 1837 to 1845. This flag displayed a large upright star in the center of the blue field with numerous smaller stars around it that were arranged so as to create one enormous inverted star.

Figure 2. “Great Star” flag (1837–1845). Also relevant to this discussion is the fact that in 1861 the inverted star design began to appear on some of the uniforms of the United States Navy. Then in 1862 it was decided that the inverted star would be the most prominent feature on the Navy’s Medal of Honor. Today this design has also been incorporated into the Medal of Honor for the Army and the Air Force.

Figure 3. United States Medal of Honor.

The Early Christians

Some critics of the LDS faith emphatically declare that Christians have never used the inverted five-pointed star as a symbol—but this is simply not true. The early Christians believed that Jesus Christ was the “Star” that was prophesied to rise out of the House of Israel. After 312 A.D. the Emperor Constantine had the Chi-Rho cross engraved on one side of his official royal seal—a symbol he claimed to have seen in a vision—and on the other side he placed an inverted five-pointed star.

Figure 4. The royal seal of Emperor Constantine. While it is not known why Constantine chose to combine the cross of Christ with the inverted five-pointed star, it is interesting to note that the official seal of the city of Jerusalem from 300–150 B.C. also displayed an inverted pentagram. Perhaps there is a connection between these two seals since Jesus Christ’s crucifixion took place in the city of Jerusalem.

Figure 5. Official seal of Jerusalem. The letters YRSLM begin at the right of the bottom ray and move around to the left. Another example of the inverted star being associated with the Christian cross can be seen in the architectural portfolio of a man named Villard de Honnecourt (1230 A.D.). This man, who worked for the Cistercian Order of monks, drew a “tabernacle” in his sketchbook that encloses an inverted star with an elongated ray on the bottom. This shrine is surmounted by the three crosses of Golgotha, which implies the inverted star was considered an orthodox Christian symbol.

Figure 6. Villard de Honnecourt portfolio. There are other examples connected with mainstream Christianity, as well. For instance, there is an enormous, and intricately carved, inverted star in the center of the north transept rose window of Amiens Cathedral in France.

Figure 7. Amiens Cathedral, France. This house of worship was built between 1220 and 1410 A.D., and surely those who constructed it would be considered disciples of Jesus Christ. As would the residents of Hanover, Germany who, during the fourteenth century, placed a huge inverted (and encircled) five-pointed star on the steeple of their Marktkirche, or Market Church. And then there are the numerous inverted stars that surround a statue of Mary and the Christ child in Chartres Cathedral (circa 1150 A.D.). Why would the ancient Christians place this symbol in such close proximity to the Savior if it was an emblem of evil?

Figure 8. Chartres Cathedral, France. Certainly anti-Mormons cannot ignore early Christian artworks that depict the Star of Bethlehem (the “Star in the East”) as an inverted pentagram. The interlaced star depicted in the “Berthold Missal” is a particularly striking example. It was drawn in a Benedictine Abbey in Weingarten Germany sometime between 1200 and 1232 A.D. Another inverted nativity star can be seen in the sculpted capital of a cloister pillar from the twelfth century A.D. What did the inverted five-pointed star mean to the early Christians? A clue may be found in some of the artworks of the Greek and Russian Orthodox churches. In some paintings that illustrate the Mount of Transfiguration, various artists from these denominations show Jesus Christ standing before a large, inverted five-pointed star (some with an elongated bottom ray). The apostle Peter said of the three apostles who witnessed the manifestation on this mountain that they received the “more sure word of prophecy” and because of this the “day star” arose in their hearts. Both the NIV and NASB translations of this verse render “day star” as “morning star.”

Figure 9. Mount of Transfiguration.

The Inverted Star and the Devil

How did this ancient Christian symbol become associated with Satan, the arch-enemy of Jesus Christ? It appears that the person who made the first formal connection between this symbol and the Adversary was a Frenchman named Alphonse Louis Constant (1810–1875). He was ordained a deacon in the Roman Catholic Church in 1835, but he had to abandon his plan to be ordained a priest the next year because he was defrocked. This drastic action was taken against Alphonse because he was deeply involved in studying the occult. Alphonse eventually decided to give himself a pseudonym (Eliphas Levi Zahed) and publish books on occultic subjects. Alphonse indicates in his writings that he was aware of the Day of Atonement ritual where goats became symbols of sin and when he published his first book in 1854 he used this biblical imagery to take a jab at the Roman Catholic Church. In this volume he printed a drawing of a priestly hand making “the sign of excommunication” and fashioned it so that its shadow looked like a demonic goat’s head and vaguely followed the outline of an inverted five-pointed star. The first time that Alphonse made a written connection between the inverted five-pointed star, the goat, and Satan was in a book he published in 1855 and the first time that he made a pictorial connection between Satan and the inverted star was in a book he published in 1861. Even though Eliphas Levi is consistently credited with being the first person to associate the inverted five-pointed star with Satan, one commentator makes this important observation: “The inverted five-pointed star, with its single point downward, originally had no demonic meaning, but over the centuries it has mistakenly come to represent evil.”

Conclusion

The information presented in this paper leads to the conclusion that Latter-day Saints cannot be excluded from calling themselves Christians simply because they use a symbol whose history anti-Mormons do not understand. The inverted five-pointed star had a sacred meaning among the ancient Christians and it also has a sacred meaning among the Latter-day Saints.

Further Reading

• Barker, Marilyn C. The Legacy of Mormon Furniture. Salt Lake City: Gibbs-Smith, 1995, 22.
• Brown, Matthew B. Symbols in Stone: Symbolism on the Early Temples of the Restoration. American Fork, Utah: Covenant Communications, 1997, 102–103, 113–114.
• Quispel, Gilles. The Secret Book of Revelation. London: Collins, 1979, 44.
• Wilson, Christopher. The Gothic Cathedral, 1130–1530. London: Thames and Hudson, 1990, 195.