Chapter 8
These chieftains had long been friends on other worlds, and pledged to join in an adventure on some new corporeal world, to raise sons and daughters up to Jehovih. Now it was being fulfilled in the Lord and God, remotely situated, and this visit much looked forward to.
And so God and the Lord came forth, saying: In Jehovih’s name! Met at last! And they embraced and reassured each other that it was really true, that which they had talked of a thousand years before.
And then all the hosts of God and the hosts of the Lord came forward, and knowing one another, saluted and embraced also. After that they proceeded to the house of the Lord, which mortals had been inspired to build of wood and clay. And when they were within, they joined in prayer and thanks to Jehovih, and they sang and danced, and rejoiced to their souls’ content.
At sunrise the next morning the mortal priests and priestesses, led by a prophet, went into the house of the Lord, to pray, sing and dance as they had been taught by inspiration from the Lord, but many people lingered outside, saying to one another:
Ta hop! Ta hop! (I fear! I fear!) For last night I saw lights in the house of the Lord, and I heard sounds like singing and dancing before the altar of God!
Nevertheless their companions persuaded them, and they went in and sang and danced also.
After a time of rejoicing, followed by quiet, the Lord said: Behold, O God, the follies of judgment, and the vain calculations of even Lords and Gods! We look upon the mature man, saying: Alas, he is stubborn in his own way; we cannot convert him. Then we desire the immature, saying: Him I will raise up in my own way, and he shall not depart from my judgment. But we tire of his immaturity and slow growth.
God said: On that hangs the highest testimony of the Person of Great Jehovih. He created man the nearest blank of all the living, purposely unlike all the rest and devoid of sense. Whereas, according to the order in the others of the animal world, a newborn babe should be already wise.
Jehovih says: I have provided all the living with certain paths to travel in; but man alone I created new out of all things dead and dissolved, and he shall grow forever. To the beast I gave an already created sense (so-called instinct); to man I allotted angels. And even these angels I have provided with others above them; and yet others above them, forever and ever. Thus the first of man, the newborn baby, I created a blank in sense and judgment, so that he may be a witness that even he himself was fashioned and created anew by My hand. Nor did I create him imperfectly, that he should re-enter a womb and be born over again. That which I do is well done. ||
The Lord said: You are wise, O God. The opposites prove Jehovih. Water runs downhill, but man walks up the hillside; the tree grows up out of the ground while it lives, but after death it falls. Man stands on the earth, but the earth rests on that which is lighter than the earth. Jehovih says: The life of the tree is of Me; the unseen that holds the corporeal earth in its place, is of Me. ||
And yet, O God, who can attain to know Jehovih? The mortal says: When I am dead and risen in heaven I shall see the Great Spirit; but he fails, still being helpless, yes, as helpless in his place as he was helpless on the earth. Then he says: When I am strong and wise, like Lords and Gods, and can traverse the wide firmament, then I will see Jehovih. But when he rises and can course his vessel through the whirlwinds of the vortices of heaven, and he is called Lord or God, lo, he finds the arcs and the ethea standing before him still. More and more he is appalled at the thought of the Great I AM Who lives still beyond.
He hurries down to the corporeal earth, to teach mortals and spirits of Jehovih and His endless worlds and exalted heavens. But lo, the darkness of men! They say: I do not see Him; I do not hear Him; I do not believe in Him. He is merely like the wind, going without sense; as water goes down the hill, so is He; He is dead. He is nothing.
And the Lord invents ways and means; yes, he teaches man to pray and sing to Jehovih, so that the sounds may lead his soul upward. The Lord tells him to wear clothes and hide his nakedness from the Lord; and the Lord sends angels to reward him for his good deeds. And the angels of the Lord lay plots and stratagems in man’s pathway to stir him up. Yes, Jehovih gave man sleep, so that his corporeal-bound spirit could see and hear heavenly things. But man loads his stomach, and debauches on intoxicating smoke and drink till his soul is buried in darkness.
And the Lord cries out in despair: How weak I am, O Jehovih, before You! I took it upon myself to be Lord over men on the earth, to learn my lesson in the government of worlds. But O Jehovih, I know I fail in Your sight. What will Your God say when he sees my little good? What pity do the archangels have for Your struggling Lord of earth?
God perceived the sorrow of his friend, and he said: O Jehovih, You Who are Almighty, how keener You have made our sense of our own weakness, than those who look upon us! Your Lord is my God in the glories he has wrought out of such crude substance, and I sing to his praise and love. Lo I have looked upon the naked men and women of this great land, crawling on hands and feet, with no thought but to eat, and I have seen them raised up by Your Lord and his ashars, to walk upright and use words of speech, and to wear clothes and skins to hide their nakedness. Yes, O Father, I have cried out with great joy, and I called aloud to You, O Jehovih, saying: Who knows the labor of the Lord! Will man ever forget to sing praises to the Lord God?
But Jehovih says: I will keep some of the tribes of men in darkness till the last days; for man in his conceit shall be confounded; for he shall perceive that the tribes of darkness cannot put away their own darkness. Yes, man shall bow down in reverence to My Lords in the early days of the earth. ||
In this way God and his Lord conversed, as they went forth to see the work of the Lord, and to find the mortals who had given up the places of asu and came to live in villages and cities. Over the continent of Jud they traveled for many days and nights. And when God had seen all the work of the Lord, he said:
Behold it is good. Your toil and seclusion away from the Lords of the upper heavens are severe, but you are fashioning the love of millions, who shall bless you.
Now while God sojourned here, his hosts regaled themselves with the company of the ashars and asaphs in the kingdom of the Lord, and great was the love and rejoicing among them.