Tempting the Saints: The Enemy Has a Body, A Confidential Memo

New intelligence on physical embodiment for young tempters

Tempting the Saints is an on-going feature highlighting the special trials and techniques of those demonic figures who have been assigned to tempt the Latter-day Saints.

My beloved Bilewort,

Your report on your patient’s anger towards his university has brought a smile to my face. He has been long overdue for an angry episode. The frustration of both your man and the counselor led to a most deliciously unproductive meeting, where both left the appointment complaining to their respective friends and family about the unreasonableness of the other. As you know, encourage your patient to associate this one bad experience with their overall view of the university. The residual aggravation will be delicious to your tongue, my Niece.

Of course, I have not only written to congratulate you. No. I have written to you with more dire intent, and to keep you on the lookout for upcoming changes to our duties. I believe we have fallen for our own propaganda. Yes, I know. I can see your look of disbelief as I am writing to you now. The truth shall soon be sent out abroad by our superiors. Since you have already graduated, and no longer review the curriculum of the Tempters’ Training College For Young Devils (a neglectful choice, I will add), you will not have caught the subtle shifts in our publications and research. Recent articles, published in Beelzebub’s Weekly, point to the idea that we have misunderstood the very nature of the enemy for nearly two millennia.

In the obituary of one Blunderpug (his name says it all), a peculiar account is given that hints at our recent revelation. Having lost his patient to heaven, the account reports that while watching his patient be embraced in the arms of the enemy, Blunderpug stepped back and slipped on the beads of the patient’s rosary lying on the floor. As he fell, he made direct eye contact with the enemy. The poor fool was in flames before he hit the floor. But, before his passing, came the dreadful words, “Eyebrows! Knees! And cuticles! Both of them!” Did this filth come from confusion and pain? Or does it hint toward truth? It is the latter, I am afraid. By this report, we believe Blunderpug saw two beings, both with tangible bodies. One was embracing the patient, the other standing nearby. Based on his description, both had specific, bodily features like the vermin. If anything came of Blunderpug’s undoing, it is that he has prepared the way for the truth.

We have had many descriptions of the enemy that circle the same spiritual concept of oneness in being. Is the enemy, as the delightfully devilish Screwtape believed, to be “three as well as one?” That is what we have believed. There have been thousands of descriptions that originated from thousands of creeds, which we still perpetuate. Yet there is one description that we buried two millennia ago into such depths of obscurity that even we lost sight of it. It is the idea of an embodied God, one covered in resurrected slime, and a separate person from his sleazy son.