Chapter 49
Osiris then instructed king Thothma to drive out of the land of Egupt all the Faithists who could not be made slaves of, especially the shepherd kings.
Thothma impressed an army of two hundred thousand warriors, and drove off the shepherd kings, putting to death more than three hundred thousand of them. And he took from the Faithists all their possessions, such as houses and lands, and did not allow them to hold any mortal thing in possession; neither permitting them to till the soil, except as servants, nor to engage in any other labor except as servants. And to escape the tyranny of Thothma, there went out of the land of Egupt, three million Faithists, including the shepherd kings, the unlearned. And in regard to the Faithists who remained in the land of Egupt, Osiris, through king Thothma, made the following laws:
You shall not possess any land, house, ox or any beast of burden, nor cow nor calf, nor shall your people possess an altar of worship, temple, or place of sacred dance. But you shall be a servant and a servant of servants all the days of your life. But in your sleeping place and in the sleeping place of your family you shall do worship in your own way, nor shall any man molest you there regarding that.
You shall not openly profess your doctrines under penalty of your blood and your flesh; and you shall no longer teach in the schools or colleges; nor shall your children receive great learning. And of your arts, of measuring and working numbers, you shall no longer keep them secret, or your blood shall be upon you.
And if you say: Behold, the Great Spirit; or Jehovih, the Ever Present, you shall suffer death, and your wife and your children with you. And if a man questions, to try you, asking: Who created the world? You shall answer: Behold, God! And if he asks further: Do you think the Creator is Ever Present? You shall say: No, he is like a man who has finished his labor, he sits on his throne in heaven. And if he asks you further: Where is God? You shall answer: On the Mountain Hored, in heaven. And if he asks you still further: Is the Ever Present a Person? You shall say: No, the Ever Present is void like the wind; there is only one ruler in heaven and earth, even Osiris, who is Lord the God, Savior of men.
Whoever does not do these things shall be put to death; whoever does not bow to Thothma, my earthly ruler, shall not live, says God. ||
These laws were entered in the libraries of Egupt, and also proclaimed publicly by the scribes and seers. And yet even with these restrictions upon them, more than two million Faithists remained in the land of Egupt.
And it came to pass that Thothma began the building of the TEMPLE OF OSIRIS (pyramid), and he impressed two hundred thousand men and women in the building of it, of which number more than one-half were Faithists. And these laborers were divided into groups of twelves and twenty-fours and forty-eights, and so on, and each group had a captain; but for series of groups of one thousand seven hundred and twenty-eight men and women, there were generals, and for every six generals there was one marshal, and for every twelve marshals there was one chief, and these chiefs were of the Privy Council of the king.
And the king allotted a separate work to every chief; some to dig canals, some to quarry stone, and some to hew the stones; some to build boats, some to provide rollers, and others timbers, and yet others capstans.
In two places the surveyors found stone with which to build the temple, one was above the banks of the great river, Egon, at the foot of Mount Hazeka, and the other was across the Plains of Neuf, in the Mountains of Aokaba. From the headwaters of Egon a canal was made, first to Aokaba, and from there it descended by locks to the Plains of Neuf, and then on to Gakir, the place chosen by the king for the temple to be built.
And as for the logs used in building, they were brought down the waters of Egon, from the forests of Gambotha and Rugzak. These logs were tied together and floated on the water to the place required, where, by means of capstans, they were drawn out of the water ready for use.
Now the stones of the temple were hewn in the region of the quarries. And when properly dressed, they were placed on slides by capstans, and then, by capstans, let down the mountainsides, to the water, upon which they were to float to the place required for them.
The floats were made of boards sawed by men skilled in the work, and were of sufficient length and width to carry the burden they were designed for. And at the bottom of the floats were rollers, gudgeoned at the ends. Now when a stone was let down from the place of its hewing on to the float, it was ready to be carried to its destination. And when the float arrived near Gakir, ropes, made of hemp and flax, were fastened to the float, and by means of capstans on the land, the float was drawn up an inclined plane out of the water, the rollers of the float answering as wheels.
When all things were ready for building the temple, the king himself, being learned in all philosophies, proceeded to lay the foundation, and to give instructions as to the manner of building it.
These were the instruments used by the king and his workmen: the gau, the length, the square, the compass, and the plumb and line. Nor were there any other instruments of measure or observation used in the entire building of the temple. And as to the measure called A LENGTH, it was the average length of a man, after measuring one thousand men. This length was divided into twelve parts, and these parts again into twelve parts, and so on.
After the first part of the temple was laid, the builders of the inclined plane began to build it also, but it was built of logs. And when it was raised a little, another layer of the temple was built; then again the inclined plane was built higher, and another layer of the temple built; and so on. Thus the inclined plane, which was made of wood, was built up as the temple increased in height.
The width of the inclined plane was the same as the width of the temple, but the whole length of the inclined plane was four hundred and forty lengths (of a man). The floats carrying the stones were drawn up this inclined plane by means of capstans, and by men and women directly pulling also.
Thothma spent twenty-four years building the temple; and then it was completed. But it required another half a year to take away the inclined plane used in building it. After that it stood free and clear, the greatest building that had ever been built on the earth or ever would be.
Such, then, was Thothma’s TEMPLE OF OSIRIS, THE GREAT PYRAMID.
Jehovih had said: Suffer them to build this, for the time of the building is midway between the ends of the earth; and now is the extreme of the earth’s corporeal growth; so let it stand as a monument of the greatest corporeal aspiration of man. For from this time forward, man shall seek not to build himself everlastingly on the earth, but in heaven. And these things shall be testimony that in the corporeal age of the earth, man was of like aspiration; and in the spiritual age of man, in an opposite condition of corporeal surroundings; for by the earth I prove what was; and by man prove what the earth was and is at certain periods of time.