Serapatatia

75:3.1Adam had just fin­ished his first one hun­dred years on earth when Ser­a­p­ata­tia, upon the death of his fa­ther, came to the lead­er­ship of the west­ern or Syr­ian con­fed­er­a­tion of the Nod­ite tribes. Ser­a­p­ata­tia was a brown-tinted man, a bril­liant de­scen­dant of the one­time chief of the Dala­ma­tia com­mis­sion on health mated with one of the mas­ter fe­male minds of the blue race of those dis­tant days. All down through the ages this line had held au­thor­ity and wielded a great in­flu­ence among the west­ern Nod­ite tribes.

75:3.2Ser­a­p­ata­tia had made sev­eral vis­its to the Gar­den and had be­come deeply im­pressed with the righ­teous­ness of Adam’s cause. And shortly af­ter as­sum­ing the lead­er­ship of the Syr­ian Nod­ites, he an­nounced his in­ten­tion of es­tab­lish­ing an af­fil­i­a­tion with the work of Adam and Eve in the Gar­den. The ma­jor­ity of his peo­ple joined him in this pro­gram, and Adam was cheered by the news that the most pow­er­ful and the most in­tel­li­gent of all the neigh­bor­ing tribes had swung over al­most bod­ily to the sup­port of the pro­gram for world im­prove­ment; it was de­cid­edly heart­en­ing. And shortly af­ter this great event, Ser­a­p­ata­tia and his new staff were en­ter­tained by Adam and Eve in their own home.

75:3.3Ser­a­p­ata­tia be­came one of the most able and ef­fi­cient of all of Adam’s lieu­tenants. He was en­tirely hon­est and thor­oughly sin­cere in all of his ac­tiv­i­ties; he was never con­scious, even later on, that he was be­ing used as a cir­cum­stan­tial tool of the wily Cali­gas­tia.

75:3.4Pres­ently, Ser­a­p­ata­tia be­came the as­so­ciate chair­man of the Edenic com­mis­sion on tribal re­la­tions, and many plans were laid for the more vig­or­ous pros­e­cu­tion of the work of win­ning the re­mote tribes to the cause of the Gar­den.

75:3.5He held many con­fer­ences with Adam and Eve—es­pe­cially with Eve—and they talked over many plans for im­prov­ing their meth­ods. One day, dur­ing a talk with Eve, it oc­curred to Ser­a­p­ata­tia that it would be very help­ful if, while await­ing the re­cruit­ing of large num­bers of the vi­o­let race, some­thing could be done in the mean­time im­me­di­ately to ad­vance the needy wait­ing tribes. Ser­a­p­ata­tia con­tended that, if the Nod­ites, as the most pro­gres­sive and co-op­er­a­tive race, could have a leader born to them of part ori­gin in the vi­o­let stock, it would con­sti­tute a pow­er­ful tie bind­ing these peo­ples more closely to the Gar­den. And all of this was soberly and hon­estly con­sid­ered to be for the good of the world since this child, to be reared and ed­u­cated in the Gar­den, would ex­ert a great in­flu­ence for good over his fa­ther’s peo­ple.

75:3.6It should again be em­pha­sized that Ser­a­p­ata­tia was al­to­gether hon­est and wholly sin­cere in all that he pro­posed. He never once sus­pected that he was play­ing into the hands of Cali­gas­tia and Dali­gas­tia. Ser­a­p­ata­tia was en­tirely loyal to the plan of build­ing up a strong re­serve of the vi­o­let race be­fore at­tempt­ing the world-wide up­step­ping of the con­fused peo­ples of Uran­tia. But this would re­quire hun­dreds of years to con­sum­mate, and he was im­pa­tient; he wanted to see some im­me­di­ate re­sults—some­thing in his own life­time. He made it clear to Eve that Adam was of­ten­times dis­cour­aged by the lit­tle that had been ac­com­plished to­ward up­lift­ing the world.

75:3.7For more than five years these plans were se­cretly ma­tured. At last they had de­vel­oped to the point where Eve con­sented to have a se­cret con­fer­ence with Cano, the most bril­liant mind and ac­tive leader of the near-by colony of friendly Nod­ites. Cano was very sym­pa­thetic with the Adamic regime; in fact, he was the sin­cere spir­i­tual leader of those neigh­bor­ing Nod­ites who fa­vored friendly re­la­tions with the Gar­den.

75:3.8The fate­ful meet­ing oc­curred dur­ing the twi­light hours of the au­tumn evening, not far from the home of Adam. Eve had never be­fore met the beau­ti­ful and en­thu­si­as­tic Cano—and he was a mag­nif­i­cent spec­i­men of the sur­vival of the su­pe­rior physique and out­stand­ing in­tel­lect of his re­mote pro­gen­i­tors of the Prince’s staff. And Cano also thor­oughly be­lieved in the righ­teous­ness of the Ser­a­p­ata­tia project. (Out­side of the Gar­den, mul­ti­ple mat­ing was a com­mon prac­tice.)

75:3.9In­flu­enced by flat­tery, en­thu­si­asm, and great per­sonal per­sua­sion, Eve then and there con­sented to em­bark upon the much-dis­cussed en­ter­prise, to add her own lit­tle scheme of world sav­ing to the larger and more far-reach­ing di­vine plan. Be­fore she quite re­al­ized what was tran­spir­ing, the fa­tal step had been taken. It was done.

75:4.1The ce­les­tial life of the planet was astir. Adam rec­og­nized that some­thing was wrong, and he asked Eve to come aside with him in the Gar­den. And now, for the first time, Adam heard the en­tire story of the long-nour­ished plan for ac­cel­er­at­ing world im­prove­ment by op­er­at­ing si­mul­ta­ne­ously in two di­rec­tions: the pros­e­cu­tion of the di­vine plan con­comi­tantly with the ex­e­cu­tion of the Ser­a­p­ata­tia en­ter­prise.

75:4.2And as the Ma­te­rial Son and Daugh­ter thus com­muned in the moon­lit Gar­den, “the voice in the Gar­den” re­proved them for dis­obe­di­ence. And that voice was none other than my own an­nounce­ment to the Edenic pair that they had trans­gressed the Gar­den covenant; that they had dis­obeyed the in­struc­tions of the Mel­chiz­e­deks; that they had de­faulted in the ex­e­cu­tion of their oaths of trust to the sov­er­eign of the uni­verse.

75:4.3Eve had con­sented to par­tic­i­pate in the prac­tice of good and evil. Good is the car­ry­ing out of the di­vine plans; sin is a de­lib­er­ate trans­gres­sion of the di­vine will; evil is the mis­adap­ta­tion of plans and the mal­ad­just­ment of tech­niques re­sult­ing in uni­verse dishar­mony and plan­e­tary con­fu­sion.

75:4.4Ev­ery time the Gar­den pair had par­taken of the fruit of the tree of life, they had been warned by the arch­an­gel cus­to­dian to re­frain from yield­ing to the sug­ges­tions of Cali­gas­tia to com­bine good and evil. They had been thus ad­mon­ished: “In the day that you com­min­gle good and evil, you shall surely be­come as the mor­tals of the realm; you shall surely die.”

75:4.5Eve had told Cano of this oft-re­peated warn­ing on the fate­ful oc­ca­sion of their se­cret meet­ing, but Cano, not know­ing the im­port or sig­nif­i­cance of such ad­mo­ni­tions, had as­sured her that men and women with good mo­tives and true in­ten­tions could do no evil; that she should surely not die but rather live anew in the per­son of their off­spring, who would grow up to bless and sta­bi­lize the world.

75:4.6Even though this project of mod­i­fy­ing the di­vine plan had been con­ceived and ex­e­cuted with en­tire sin­cer­ity and with only the high­est mo­tives con­cern­ing the wel­fare of the world, it con­sti­tuted evil be­cause it rep­re­sented the wrong way to achieve righ­teous ends, be­cause it de­parted from the right way, the di­vine plan.

75:4.7True, Eve had found Cano pleas­ant to the eyes, and she re­al­ized all that her se­ducer prom­ised by way of “new and in­creased knowl­edge of hu­man af­fairs and quick­ened un­der­stand­ing of hu­man na­ture as sup­ple­men­tal to the com­pre­hen­sion of the Adamic na­ture.”

75:4.8I talked to the fa­ther and mother of the vi­o­let race that night in the Gar­den as be­came my duty un­der the sor­row­ful cir­cum­stances. I lis­tened fully to the recital of all that led up to the de­fault of Mother Eve and gave both of them ad­vice and coun­sel con­cern­ing the im­me­di­ate sit­u­a­tion. Some of this ad­vice they fol­lowed; some they dis­re­garded. This con­fer­ence ap­pears in your rec­ords as “the Lord God call­ing to Adam and Eve in the Gar­den and ask­ing, ‘Where are you?’” It was the prac­tice of later gen­er­a­tions to at­trib­ute ev­ery­thing un­usual and ex­traor­di­nary, whether nat­u­ral or spir­i­tual, di­rectly to the per­sonal in­ter­ven­tion of the Gods.

75:5.1Eve’s dis­il­lu­sion­ment was truly pa­thetic. Adam dis­cerned the whole predica­ment and, while heart­bro­ken and de­jected, en­ter­tained only pity and sym­pa­thy for his erring mate.

75:5.2It was in the de­spair of the re­al­iza­tion of fail­ure that Adam, the day af­ter Eve’s mis­step, sought out Laotta, the bril­liant Nod­ite woman who was head of the west­ern schools of the Gar­den, and with pre­med­i­ta­tion com­mit­ted the folly of Eve. But do not mis­un­der­stand; Adam was not be­guiled; he knew ex­actly what he was about; he de­lib­er­ately chose to share the fate of Eve. He loved his mate with a super­mor­tal af­fec­tion, and the thought of the pos­si­bil­ity of a lonely vigil on Uran­tia with­out her was more than he could en­dure.

75:5.3When they learned what had hap­pened to Eve, the in­fu­ri­ated in­hab­i­tants of the Gar­den be­came un­man­age­able; they de­clared war on the near-by Nod­ite set­tle­ment. They swept out through the gates of Eden and down upon these un­pre­pared peo­ple, ut­terly de­stroy­ing them—not a man, woman, or child was spared. And Cano, the fa­ther of Cain yet un­born, also per­ished.

75:5.4Upon the re­al­iza­tion of what had hap­pened, Ser­a­p­ata­tia was over­come with con­ster­na­tion and be­side him­self with fear and re­morse. The next day he drowned him­self in the great river.

75:5.5The chil­dren of Adam sought to com­fort their dis­tracted mother while their fa­ther wan­dered in soli­tude for thirty days. At the end of that time judg­ment as­serted it­self, and Adam re­turned to his home and be­gan to plan for their fu­ture course of ac­tion.

75:5.6The con­se­quences of the fol­lies of mis­guided par­ents are so of­ten shared by their in­no­cent chil­dren. The up­right and no­ble sons and daugh­ters of Adam and Eve were over­whelmed by the in­ex­pli­ca­ble sor­row of the un­be­liev­able tragedy which had been so sud­denly and so ruth­lessly thrust upon them. Not in fifty years did the older of these chil­dren re­cover from the sor­row and sad­ness of those tragic days, es­pe­cially the ter­ror of that pe­riod of thirty days dur­ing which their fa­ther was ab­sent from home while their dis­tracted mother was in com­plete ig­no­rance of his where­abouts or fate.

75:5.7And those same thirty days were as long years of sor­row and suf­fer­ing to Eve. Never did this no­ble soul fully re­cover from the ef­fects of that ex­cru­ci­at­ing pe­riod of men­tal suf­fer­ing and spir­i­tual sor­row. No fea­ture of their sub­se­quent de­pri­va­tions and ma­te­rial hard­ships ever be­gan to com­pare in Eve’s mem­ory with those ter­ri­ble days and aw­ful nights of lone­li­ness and un­bear­able un­cer­tainty. She learned of the rash act of Ser­a­p­ata­tia and did not know whether her mate had in sor­row de­stroyed him­self or had been re­moved from the world in ret­ri­bu­tion for her mis­step. And when Adam re­turned, Eve ex­pe­ri­enced a sat­is­fac­tion of joy and grat­i­tude that never was ef­faced by their long and dif­fi­cult life part­ner­ship of toil­ing ser­vice.

75:5.8Time passed, but Adam was not cer­tain of the na­ture of their of­fense un­til sev­enty days af­ter the de­fault of Eve, when the Mel­chiz­e­dek re­ceivers re­turned to Uran­tia and as­sumed ju­ris­dic­tion over world af­fairs. And then he knew they had failed.

75:5.9But still more trou­ble was brew­ing: The news of the an­ni­hi­la­tion of the Nod­ite set­tle­ment near Eden was not slow in reach­ing the home tribes of Ser­a­p­ata­tia to the north, and pres­ently a great host was as­sem­bling to march on the Gar­den. And this was the be­gin­ning of a long and bit­ter war­fare be­tween the Adamites and the Nod­ites, for these hos­til­i­ties kept up long af­ter Adam and his fol­low­ers em­i­grated to the sec­ond gar­den in the Eu­phrates val­ley. There was in­tense and last­ing “en­mity be­tween that man and the woman, be­tween his seed and her seed.”

76:2.9And so Cain de­parted for the land of Nod, east of the sec­ond Eden. He be­came a great leader among one group of his fa­ther’s peo­ple and did, to a cer­tain de­gree, ful­fill the pre­dic­tions of Ser­a­p­ata­tia, for he did pro­mote peace be­tween this di­vi­sion of the Nod­ites and the Adamites through­out his life­time. Cain mar­ried Re­mona, his dis­tant cousin, and their first son, Enoch, be­came the head of the Elamite Nod­ites. And for hun­dreds of years the Elamites and the Adamites con­tin­ued to be at peace.

75:2.4It was far­thest from Eve’s in­ten­tion ever to do any­thing which would mil­i­tate against Adam’s plans or jeop­ar­dize their plan­e­tary trust. Know­ing the ten­dency of woman to look upon im­me­di­ate re­sults rather than to plan far­sight­edly for more re­mote ef­fects, the Mel­chiz­e­deks, be­fore de­part­ing, had es­pe­cially en­joined Eve as to the pe­cu­liar dan­gers be­set­ting their iso­lated po­si­tion on the planet and had in par­tic­u­lar warned her never to stray from the side of her mate, that is, to at­tempt no per­sonal or se­cret meth­ods of fur­ther­ing their mu­tual un­der­tak­ings. Eve had most scrupu­lously car­ried out these in­struc­tions for more than one hun­dred years, and it did not oc­cur to her that any dan­ger would at­tach to the in­creas­ingly pri­vate and con­fi­den­tial vis­its she was en­joy­ing with a cer­tain Nod­ite leader named Ser­a­p­ata­tia. The whole af­fair de­vel­oped so grad­u­ally and nat­u­rally that she was taken un­awares.