The Transition Years

134:3.1On the way to the Caspian Sea, Je­sus had stopped sev­eral days for rest and re­cu­per­a­tion at the old Per­sian city of Ur­mia on the west­ern shores of Lake Ur­mia. On the largest of a group of is­lands sit­u­ated a short dis­tance off­shore near Ur­mia was lo­cated a large build­ing—a lec­ture am­phithe­ater—ded­i­cated to the “spirit of re­li­gion.” This struc­ture was re­ally a tem­ple of the phi­los­o­phy of re­li­gions.

134:3.2This tem­ple of re­li­gion had been built by a wealthy mer­chant cit­i­zen of Ur­mia and his three sons. This man was Cym­boy­ton, and he num­bered among his an­ces­tors many di­verse peo­ples.

134:3.3The lec­tures and dis­cus­sions in this school of re­li­gion be­gan at ten o’clock ev­ery morn­ing in the week. The af­ter­noon ses­sions started at three o’clock, and the evening de­bates opened at eight o’clock. Cym­boy­ton or one of his three sons al­ways pre­sided at these ses­sions of teach­ing, dis­cus­sion, and de­bate. The founder of this unique school of re­li­gions lived and died with­out ever re­veal­ing his per­sonal re­li­gious be­liefs.

134:3.4On sev­eral oc­ca­sions Je­sus par­tic­i­pated in these dis­cus­sions, and be­fore he left Ur­mia, Cym­boy­ton ar­ranged with Je­sus to so­journ with them for two weeks on his re­turn trip and give twenty-four lec­tures on “The Broth­er­hood of Men,” and to con­duct twelve evening ses­sions of ques­tions, dis­cus­sions, and de­bates on his lec­tures in par­tic­u­lar and on the broth­er­hood of men in gen­eral.

134:3.5In ac­cor­dance with this ar­range­ment, Je­sus stopped off on the re­turn trip and de­liv­ered these lec­tures. This was the most sys­tem­atic and for­mal of all the Mas­ter’s teach­ing on Uran­tia. Never be­fore or af­ter did he say so much on one sub­ject as was con­tained in these lec­tures and dis­cus­sions on the broth­er­hood of men. In re­al­ity these lec­tures were on the “King­dom of God” and the “King­doms of Men.”

134:3.6More than thirty re­li­gions and re­li­gious cults were rep­re­sented on the fac­ulty of this tem­ple of re­li­gious phi­los­o­phy. These teach­ers were cho­sen, sup­ported, and fully ac­cred­ited by their re­spec­tive re­li­gious groups. At this time there were about sev­enty-five teach­ers on the fac­ulty, and they lived in cot­tages each ac­com­mo­dat­ing about a dozen per­sons. Ev­ery new moon these groups were changed by the cast­ing of lots. In­tol­er­ance, a con­tentious spirit, or any other dis­po­si­tion to in­ter­fere with the smooth run­ning of the com­mu­nity would bring about the prompt and sum­mary dis­missal of the of­fend­ing teacher. He would be un­cer­e­mo­ni­ously dis­missed, and his al­ter­nate in wait­ing would be im­me­di­ately in­stalled in his place.

134:3.7These teach­ers of the var­i­ous re­li­gions made a great ef­fort to show how sim­i­lar their re­li­gions were in re­gard to the fun­da­men­tal things of this life and the next. There was but one doc­trine which had to be ac­cepted in or­der to gain a seat on this fac­ulty—ev­ery teacher must rep­re­sent a re­li­gion which rec­og­nized God—some sort of su­preme De­ity. There were five in­de­pen­dent teach­ers on the fac­ulty who did not rep­re­sent any or­ga­nized re­li­gion, and it was as such an in­de­pen­dent teacher that Je­sus ap­peared be­fore them.

134:3.8[When we, the mid­way­ers, first pre­pared the sum­mary of Je­sus’ teach­ings at Ur­mia, there arose a dis­agree­ment be­tween the ser­a­phim of the churches and the ser­a­phim of prog­ress as to the wis­dom of in­clud­ing these teach­ings in the Uran­tia Rev­e­la­tion. Con­di­tions of the twen­ti­eth cen­tury, pre­vail­ing in both re­li­gion and hu­man gov­ern­ments, are so dif­fer­ent from those pre­vail­ing in Je­sus’ day that it was in­deed dif­fi­cult to adapt the Mas­ter’s teach­ings at Ur­mia to the prob­lems of the king­dom of God and the king­doms of men as these world func­tions are ex­is­tent in the twen­ti­eth cen­tury. We were never able to for­mu­late a state­ment of the Mas­ter’s teach­ings which was ac­cept­able to both groups of these ser­a­phim of plan­e­tary gov­ern­ment. Fi­nally, the Mel­chiz­e­dek chair­man of the rev­e­la­tory com­mis­sion ap­pointed a com­mis­sion of three of our num­ber to pre­pare our view of the Mas­ter’s Ur­mia teach­ings as adapted to twen­ti­eth-cen­tury re­li­gious and po­lit­i­cal con­di­tions on Uran­tia. Ac­cord­ingly, we three sec­ondary mid­way­ers com­pleted such an adap­ta­tion of Je­sus’ teach­ings, re­stat­ing his pro­nounce­ments as we would ap­ply them to pres­ent-day world con­di­tions, and we now pre­sent these state­ments as they stand af­ter hav­ing been edited by the Mel­chiz­e­dek chair­man of the rev­e­la­tory com­mis­sion.]