John Ballou Newbrough - Oahspe

6. The Lord spake, saying: Because I desired to preserve the genealogy of my chosen, ye have applied the law to things that are worthless in my sight. Ye have built a babble, a tower of words, so that your tongues are confounded one with another. Ye strove to reach to heaven with a multitude of words, but made food for hada (hades).

7. The Lord said: Come, now, into murdhan (a spirit circle), and I will deliver you. So the people sat in crescent, and the Lord came betwix the horns, saying: Behold, ye are Tau, but I am the S'ri (Spirit). My word shall stand against all the world.

8. Hear, then, the commandments of God (Hautot). Because ye have built a tower of words, ye are confounded. But I come not in anger, but to deliver you. Neither will I write more, nor teach written words, for they are only folly, save to the learned.

9. By mouth-words will I teach, and ye shall repeat after me. And these shall be sacred words to the end of the world.

10. So the Lord taught orally in the temple, face to face with the people, and they learned the words and the meaning thereof.

11. And those who learned the best, the Lord named Ritvij, because he made them teachers over others. The Lord said: Because ye have confounded the language of the ancients, I will give you a new language, and it shall be vede (perfect), against all my enemies; nor shall any man more meddle with the words I give.

12. Hirto (Lord) said: Love thy Lord God only, and with all thy soul. Turn thy face away from the angels who come to thee; they are the emissaries of Anra'mainyus.

13. Hirto said: Love the sun and moon, and all things on the earth, for they are the Lord's gift. What is spirit? It flieth away; it is nothing.

14. Smite the druj (spirits) that prophesy. They are nothing but lies; they are Anra'mainyus' emissaries.

15. Learn to prophesy by the sun, and by the moon and by the stars. They tell no lies.

16. The Lord then gave the signs of the zodiac (the horses, and cows, and lions, and sheep, and birds) that rule upon the earth, and upon the winds of heaven, and on the heat and cold, and the sun, and moon and stars, and spring and summer, and fall and winter. But these things are here omitted in this book, because they are known in mortal histories to this day.

17. The Lord saith in this day, the kosmon era: Behold, O man, in the time of Osiris, I, the Lord, raised up many philosophers on the earth, and inspired them not only to fulfill the legends of the ancients, but also to write books of disputation, in order to turn man's mind away from the consultation of familiar spirits. After this manner did I inspire men to write, to wit:

18. Touching the matter of the egg, and also of Anra'mainyus, they appear never to have been proven, neither are they given on the authority of Hirto, the Lord of earth. It is reasonable to suppose that the Great Spirit divided up the worlds amongst His Gods and Lords, and that the earth (Bhu) fell to the portion of Hirto; whilst the stars, which are also worlds like this, fell to other Lords and Gods. But as for evil Gods, like Anra'mainyus, who hath ever seen one?

19. As for Hirto, the Lord, I have seen him myself, and so have thousands of other honest prophets. But when the Lord spake it was not about foolish stories, but to teach man how to live, that he might be happy himself and a glory to the Great Spirit. Neither did I ever hear the Lord assert that he was more than the spirit of a man risen from the earth. In my opinion, therefore, the Lord is the captain over the earth, and over all other spirits. But even to know this, is not so great a good truth as to know how to do righteously.

20. Of all things, therefore, man should learn, especially of what he can see, and hear, and prove, rather than of spirits whom he cannot prove, nor find when he wanteth them.

Table of Contents

1. THE Lord said: As a farmer planteth wheat in one field, and rice in another, and flax in another, so I, the Lord, inhabit the earth with the seed of man. Neither shall any wise man say: These things came by chance; that it so happened that one people settled in Jaffeth (China), another in Vindu (India), and another in Arabinya (Arabia). Such is the argument of my enemies, saith the Lord. Not perceiving wisdom in my work as it seemeth for a day, they fail to extend judgment into the thousands of years of my plans, and so, stubbornly, shut themselves up in ignorance, saying: There is no God.

2. For I foresaw the breadth of the earth, and that it should be subdued for the glory of man; and in the early days, I divided my armies with wisdom.

3. To Ham I allotted the foundation of the migratory tribes of the earth. And of the tribes of Ham, behold, I selected many colors of men; whereof I fore-ordained the name Ham to stand as a living testimony to the end of the world. For I foresaw that the time would come when the nations would look back for histories of my peoples, and I erected certain words and signs which should be testimony in the later times of earth.

4. Of all colors (black, white, yellow, copper, red and brown) were the tribes of Ham; nevertheless, they were I'hins (Faithists), having flat nails and short arms, and of such as desired to acquire knowledge. And I brought them to a country of sand fields and of fields of rich pastures interspersed, where lived but few natives, the dark people, with short hair. Neither omitted I even the hair of the head of man without providing testimony of my word.

5. Of the I'hins, I provided testimony in all the divisions of the earth, with long hair belonging to the tribes that worshipped Jehovih, that man of the kosmon era might perceive that the land whence they sprang is not above the water.

6. Behold, the multiple (Yi-ha) language of the tribes of Shem! Side by side with the tribes of Jaffeth raised I them. And, behold, the latter use the derivation of the Panic language to this day.

7. For I gave unto the tribes of these two different lands my ten commandments and ten invocations, to be not written, but spoken and taught from mouth to ear, to be sacred in the language given.

8. Wherein man shall perceive that the same stories of the egg, and of the origin of evil in the world, could not have been communicated by mortals.

9. For I locked up sufficient of the Panic language in Jaffeth as a testimony to be discovered in after years; showing that, unlike Ham and Shem, a mighty nation could retain one language for thousands of years.

10. For I forsaw that philosophers would try to prove that languages were of mortal origin, and that they would change according to the growth of knowledge amongst men.

11. Behold, I gave scriptures unto all my people, enjoining some to adhere to the text; and, so, I preserved the work of my hand.

12. The tribes of Ham were previously ordained with characteristics to make them love to emigrate westward; and the tribes of Jaffeth and Shem with characteristics to make them love to stay within their own countries. And the tribes of Guatama with characteristics to make them love to go eastward. For I set a boundary to the tribes of Guatama, that they should not reach the ocean on the east.

13. The Lord said: Having designed Ham for teaching the barbarian world of me and my dominion, I also prepared them that, through their seed, men and women should have hair neither straight nor short, but long and curled, and red, and white, and brown, whereby might be traced in after ages the genealogy of nations.

14. Now, in the midst of three great countries, Jaffeth, Shem and Ham, was the chief place of the I'huans, where they founded a new nation; and the Lord called them Parsi'e, signifying, warrior Faithists, because he created them as a shield, to guard his chosen, the I'hins.

15. The difference betwixt the I'huans and the Parsi'e was that the I'huans lived near and about the I'hins, but the Parsi'e'ans lived in a nation by themselves.