Machiventa Melchizedek

93:8.1It was shortly af­ter the de­struc­tion of Sodom and Go­mor­rah that Ma­chi­venta de­cided to end his emer­gency be­stowal on Uran­tia. Mel­chiz­e­dek’s de­ci­sion to ter­mi­nate his so­journ in the flesh was in­flu­enced by nu­mer­ous con­di­tions, chief of which was the grow­ing ten­dency of the sur­round­ing tribes, and even of his im­me­di­ate as­so­ciates, to re­gard him as a demigod, to look upon him as a super­nat­u­ral be­ing, which in­deed he was; but they were be­gin­ning to rev­er­ence him un­duly and with a highly su­per­sti­tious fear. In ad­di­tion to these rea­sons, Mel­chiz­e­dek wanted to leave the scene of his earthly ac­tiv­i­ties a suf­fi­cient length of time be­fore Abra­ham’s death to in­sure that the truth of the one and only God would be­come strongly es­tab­lished in the minds of his fol­low­ers. Ac­cord­ingly Ma­chi­venta re­tired one night to his tent at Salem, hav­ing said good night to his hu­man com­pan­ions, and when they went to call him in the morn­ing, he was not there, for his fel­lows had taken him.