As Moroni continues to describe practice, he also gives us hints about organization. Among the Nephites there was a priesthood organization that had at least two levels of hierarchy, and three of function. The terms disciples and apostles are used interchangeably in Mormon and Moroni’s writings. In the New Testament we see a similar conflation of terms, where at times the disciples are the apostles:
Matthew 10:1
1 And when he had called unto him his twelve disciples, he gave them power against unclean spirits, to cast them out, and to heal all manner of sickness and all manner of disease.
The reason for this conflation of terms in the New Testament is that the original meanings were not as rigidly fixed as we use them in current religious vocabulary. For us, the apostles are uniquely the twelve specifically called to a particular function. In the New Testament, the apostles were those who were sent, referring to their capacity as missionaries. The world apostle is not a technical term in Greek. It has become the technical term through usage, not because of its original application.
In the New World there is a similar combination of the disciples as a generic term for those who follow Christ, and the twelve disciples indicating the specifically designated quorum. It would appear that the existence of this set of twelve specifically chosen men had the same regularizing effect in the New World as the Old, and a term was created or adopted to distinguish them. The selection of the term apostles is obviously due to Joseph’s English understanding. We have no way of knowing what the Nephite terms were that might have functioned comparably.
All indications from the Book of Mormon are that this quorum of twelve were considered the leadership of the church. Moroni calls them the elders of the church. There is never any indication of any authority greater than the twelve. Of course this contrasts to the modern situation where there is a first presidency in addition to the twelve, but in an administrative capacity higher than the twelve. For the Book of Mormon, there is no indication of any higher authority.
The only other indication of religious functionaries is the set of priests and teachers. Moroni mentions them here, and we saw them very early in Nephite history:
2 Nephi 5:26
26 And it came to pass that I, Nephi, did consecrate Jacob and Joseph, that they should be priests and teachers over the land of my people.
While we can certainly see a hierarchical relationship between the twelve and other religious positions, there is nothing that can tell us if a similar hierarchy of authority separated the priests and teachers. Neither are we able to discover any particular functions of the two positions other than those that may be surmised from the name. The priests would officiate over the sacrifices during the times of observance of the Mosaic Law, but we have no specific information on how they would have functioned during the time of the Christian law. Teachers, of course, would be most logical to have the function their title imputes to them. We might suppose that the ability to officiate was seen as a higher responsibility than that of teaching, but there is no particular evidence for this assumption. We so frequently find them mentioned together that the text seems to treat them as dual necessities for the proper functioning of public religion (2 Nephi 5:26; Jacob 1:18; Jarom 1:11; Mosiah 23:17; Mosiah 25:19; Mosiah 27:5; Alma 4:7; Alma 14:18; Alma 15:13; Alma 23:4; Alma 30:31; Alma 35:5; Alma 45:22-23; Helaman 3:25).