temptation

156:5.5“But let me warn you against the folly of un­der­tak­ing to sur­mount temp­ta­tion by the ef­fort of sup­plant­ing one de­sire by an­other and sup­pos­edly su­pe­rior de­sire through the mere force of the hu­man will. If you would be truly tri­umphant over the temp­ta­tions of the lesser and lower na­ture, you must come to that place of spir­i­tual ad­van­tage where you have re­ally and truly de­vel­oped an ac­tual in­ter­est in, and love for, those higher and more ide­al­is­tic forms of con­duct which your mind is de­sirous of sub­sti­tut­ing for these lower and less ide­al­is­tic habits of be­hav­ior that you rec­og­nize as temp­ta­tion. You will in this way be de­liv­ered through spir­i­tual trans­for­ma­tion rather than be in­creas­ingly over­bur­dened with the de­cep­tive sup­pres­sion of mor­tal de­sires. The old and the in­fe­rior will be for­got­ten in the love for the new and the su­pe­rior. Beauty is al­ways tri­umphant over ug­li­ness in the hearts of all who are il­lu­mi­nated by the love of truth. There is mighty power in the ex­pul­sive en­ergy of a new and sin­cere spir­i­tual af­fec­tion. And again I say to you, be not over­come by evil but rather over­come evil with good.”

• offer to found school in Damascus

128:4.1The last four months of this year Je­sus spent in Da­mas­cus as the guest of the mer­chant whom he first met at Phil­a­del­phia when on his way to Je­ru­sa­lem. A rep­re­sen­ta­tive of this mer­chant had sought out Je­sus when pass­ing through Naz­a­reth and es­corted him to Da­mas­cus. This part-Jew­ish mer­chant pro­posed to de­vote an ex­traor­di­nary sum of money to the es­tab­lish­ment of a school of re­li­gious phi­los­o­phy at Da­mas­cus. He planned to cre­ate a cen­ter of learn­ing which would out-ri­val Alexan­dria. And he pro­posed that Je­sus should im­me­di­ately be­gin a long tour of the world’s ed­u­ca­tional cen­ters prepara­tory to be­com­ing the head of this new project. This was one of the great­est temp­ta­tions that Je­sus ever faced in the course of his purely hu­man ca­reer.

128:4.2Pres­ently this mer­chant brought be­fore Je­sus a group of twelve mer­chants and bankers who agreed to sup­port this newly pro­jected school. Je­sus man­i­fested deep in­ter­est in the pro­posed school, helped them plan for its or­ga­ni­za­tion, but al­ways ex­pressed the fear that his other and un­stated but prior obli­ga­tions would pre­vent his ac­cept­ing the di­rec­tion of such a pre­ten­tious en­ter­prise. His would-be bene­fac­tor was per­sis­tent, and he prof­itably em­ployed Je­sus at his home do­ing some trans­lat­ing while he, his wife, and their sons and daugh­ters sought to pre­vail upon Je­sus to ac­cept the prof­fered honor. But he would not con­sent. He well knew that his mis­sion on earth was not to be sup­ported by in­sti­tu­tions of learn­ing; he knew that he must not ob­li­gate him­self in the least to be di­rected by the “coun­cils of men,” no mat­ter how well-in­ten­tioned.

128:4.3He who was re­jected by the Je­ru­sa­lem re­li­gious lead­ers, even af­ter he had demon­strated his lead­er­ship, was rec­og­nized and hailed as a mas­ter teacher by the busi­ness­men and bankers of Da­mas­cus, and all this when he was an ob­scure and un­known car­pen­ter of Naz­a­reth.

128:4.4He never spoke about this of­fer to his fam­ily, and the end of this year found him back in Naz­a­reth go­ing about his daily du­ties just as if he had never been tempted by the flat­ter­ing propo­si­tions of his Da­mas­cus friends. Nei­ther did these men of Da­mas­cus ever as­so­ciate the later cit­i­zen of Ca­per­naum who turned all Jewry up­side down with the for­mer car­pen­ter of Naz­a­reth who had dared to refuse the honor which their com­bined wealth might have pro­cured.

• on Mount Hermon

134:8.6Near the end of the moun­tain so­journ Je­sus asked his Fa­ther if he might be per­mit­ted to hold con­fer­ence with his Sa­ta­nia en­e­mies as the Son of Man, as Joshua ben Joseph. This re­quest was granted. Dur­ing the last week on Mount Her­mon the great temp­ta­tion, the uni­verse trial, oc­curred. Sa­tan (rep­re­sent­ing Lu­cifer) and the re­bel­lious Plan­e­tary Prince, Cali­gas­tia, were pres­ent with Je­sus and were made fully vis­i­ble to him. And this “temp­ta­tion,” this fi­nal trial of hu­man loy­alty in the face of the mis­rep­re­sen­ta­tions of rebel per­son­al­i­ties, had not to do with food, tem­ple pin­na­cles, or pre­sump­tu­ous acts. It had not to do with the king­doms of this world but with the sov­er­eignty of a mighty and glo­ri­ous uni­verse. The sym­bol­ism of your rec­ords was in­tended for the back­ward ages of the world’s child­like thought. And sub­se­quent gen­er­a­tions should un­der­stand what a great strug­gle the Son of Man passed through that event­ful day on Mount Her­mon.

• on Mount Hermon

134:8.9On an af­ter­noon in late sum­mer, amid the trees and in the si­lence of na­ture, Mi­chael of Neb­a­don won the un­ques­tioned sov­er­eignty of his uni­verse. On that day he com­pleted the task set for Cre­ator Sons to live to the full the in­car­nated life in the like­ness of mor­tal flesh on the evo­lu­tion­ary worlds of time and space. The uni­verse an­nounce­ment of this mo­men­tous achieve­ment was not made un­til the day of his bap­tism, months af­ter­ward, but it all re­ally took place that day on the moun­tain. And when Je­sus came down from his so­journ on Mount Her­mon, the Lu­cifer re­bel­lion in Sa­ta­nia and the Cali­gas­tia se­ces­sion on Uran­tia were vir­tu­ally set­tled. Je­sus had paid the last price re­quired of him to at­tain the sov­er­eignty of his uni­verse, which in it­self reg­u­lates the sta­tus of all rebels and de­ter­mines that all such fu­ture up­heavals (if they ever oc­cur) may be dealt with sum­mar­ily and ef­fec­tively. Ac­cord­ingly, it may be seen that the so-called “great temp­ta­tion” of Je­sus took place some­time be­fore his bap­tism and not just af­ter that event.

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.

34:7.6Not­with­stand­ing this dou­ble dis­as­ter to man’s na­ture and his en­vi­ron­ment, pres­ent-day mor­tals would ex­pe­ri­ence less of this ap­par­ent war­fare be­tween the flesh and the spirit if they would en­ter the spirit king­dom, wherein the faith sons of God en­joy com­par­a­tive de­liv­er­ance from the slave-bond­age of the flesh in the en­light­ened and lib­er­at­ing ser­vice of whole­hearted de­vo­tion to do­ing the will of the Fa­ther in heaven. Je­sus showed man­kind the new way of mor­tal liv­ing whereby hu­man be­ings may very largely es­cape the dire con­se­quences of the Cali­gas­tic re­bel­lion and most ef­fec­tively com­pen­sate for the de­pri­va­tions re­sult­ing from the Adamic de­fault. “The spirit of the life of Christ Je­sus has made us free from the law of an­i­mal liv­ing and the temp­ta­tions of evil and sin.” “This is the vic­tory that over­comes the flesh, even your faith.”

156:5.4“It is not strange that you ask such ques­tions see­ing that you are be­gin­ning to know the Fa­ther as I know him, and not as the early He­brew proph­ets so dimly saw him. You well know how our fore­fa­thers were dis­posed to see God in al­most ev­ery­thing that hap­pened. They looked for the hand of God in all nat­u­ral oc­cur­rences and in ev­ery un­usual episode of hu­man ex­pe­ri­ence. They con­nected God with both good and evil. They thought he soft­ened the heart of Moses and hard­ened the heart of Pharaoh. When man had a strong urge to do some­thing, good or evil, he was in the habit of ac­count­ing for these un­usual emo­tions by re­mark­ing: ‘The Lord spoke to me say­ing, do thus and so, or go here and there.’ Ac­cord­ingly, since men so of­ten and so vi­o­lently ran into temp­ta­tion, it be­came the habit of our fore­fa­thers to be­lieve that God led them thither for test­ing, pun­ish­ing, or strength­en­ing. But you, in­deed, now know bet­ter. You know that men are all too of­ten led into temp­ta­tion by the urge of their own self­ish­ness and by the im­pulses of their an­i­mal na­tures. When you are in this way tempted, I ad­mon­ish you that, while you rec­og­nize temp­ta­tion hon­estly and sin­cerely for just what it is, you in­tel­li­gently redi­rect the en­er­gies of spirit, mind, and body, which are seek­ing ex­pres­sion, into higher chan­nels and to­ward more ide­al­is­tic goals. In this way may you trans­form your temp­ta­tions into the high­est types of up­lift­ing mor­tal min­istry while you al­most wholly avoid these waste­ful and weak­en­ing con­flicts be­tween the an­i­mal and spir­i­tual na­tures.