The Household of God
Volume 1
The early history of mankind
- Chapter 72 -
SETHIAHEM'S AND ASMAHAEL'S WISDOM
Upon hearing this, Sethlahem fell down before Enoch and said: O Enoch, your great wisdom has destroyed me and I now feel as if I no longer existed; but I notice that in my devastation I now understand more than I did before in my wisdom. And so receive my gratitude for your great patience and for not becoming annoyed at my great folly which made me bold enough to step up to your love-illumined face and argue with you who are a living tool in the hand of the almighty, holy Father.
2
"Behold, although you have blinded my eyes and I do not as yet see what is right, I perceive within me another light showing me a new path. So far this is only faintly lit, but it is a path, which in a moment will help me, progress further than the futile light of my eyes has done in many years.
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"O Enoch, if on this new path my foot should tread on a very unstable spot, allow me to come to you so that you may show me whether I am on the right road"
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"O Enoch, do call out to me if you see me take a wrong step in my blindness! Amen."
5
And Enoch replied: "O Sethlahem! You have an honest will and are full of a good zeal for which you deserve praise. But there is still one thing that needs to be censured, namely, that you seek from me, who am also only a weak man that which only God, our most holy Father, can give to His children. Thus you are praising the tool instead of the Master.
6
"Do you believe that I am more easily moved by entreaties than the eternal, holy Father's boundless love and mercy? O Sethlahem, do not allow the secret foolishness of your heart to delude you and do not ever turn to men before you have in your innermost turned full of love and remorse to God. And if your prayer is not granted for quite some time, do remember that compared with God the very best people are bad and loveless and that God will give you everything long before the most compassionate human eye will even glance at you.
7
"But as far as we are concerned, we have come to you anyway at the bidding of God, our most holy and best Father, and owing to His love within us will never turn our eyes away from you. Therefore, lift up your heart and love the holy Father with all your might, and you will live. For such love will teach you more in a moment than all the best and wisest people in hundreds of years. Behold, now you have all you need for the time being, act and walk within the love for God! Amen."
8
After this speech, Sethlahem bowed to the patriarchs, stepped back gratefully and, beginning to feel great joy, praised Me in his heart.
9
Thereupon Enoch turned to Adam and said: "Dear father, do not hold it against me that I have kept you here longer than you had planned for me, but the Lord does not arrange His gifts of love according to our measure of time; He gives when He wants to give, and to Him, the great, most holy Giver, be all thanks, praise and glory! Amen."
10
And Adam replied: O dear Enoch, do not let that worry you; we all know that what the Lord does is always well done. Amen."
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Also Seth voiced his agreement and, finally, added: "And always at the most suitable time! Amen."
12
Then Adam rose again and, turning to Enoch, said: "Enoch, let us now allow Asmahael to begin, so that he may first fulfill his number and then tell us what he thinks of this beautiful region and, finally, how he has comprehended all this. After that we shall proceed with our journey, briefly submit our invitation to the children of the evening and those of midnight and then return home. Amen."
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So Enoch bade Asmahael begin with his speech.
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And behold, the beast with its rider came forward. But the children of the midday were discussing various things with each other aloud, whereupon the beast roared three times in succession so forcibly that all were mightily scared and fell silent.
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With order restored, also the beast was silent and Asmahael began with the following exceedingly strange, pleasant-sounding speech, saying:
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O most worthy fathers of the earth's fathers! What shall and what might I, who only recently escaped from the dark depth of death, speak on these hallowed heights where everything - full of wonders, full of grace, full of life - benumbs the most forcible word on my trembling tongue.
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"As for the beautiful formations of this region, truly, how should one who cannot speak holy words of life out of himself describe with his trembling tongue and portray such glorious beauty?
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O fathers of the earth's fathers, I have hardly dared as yet to fully open my eyes to behold the wonders of the hallowed heights, and now I, a poor blind and dead being, am expected to portray them before you who full of grace, life, might and strength have probably already long ago beheld and seen through these things with their strange forms to their innermost core.
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"What are these grassy plains, surrounded by sky-high towering rock faces and peaks if their great significance must remain hidden? Does not any little stone rank infinitely higher for me and everyone who can fully understand it than all the earth's mountain ranges and heights and the earth with them?
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"How easy it is to say: 'One has just to see that there in the morning region a steaming, sky-high towering king of the mountains rises boldly as if to dominate the earth.' Indeed, also the beasts' eyes may see that. But if I ask myself: 'Do you understand this immense formation, Asmahael? It speaks in the night of my heart: 'How is the dead to understand the dead? Your life is but illusion and deception of your senses. Your pliant tongue is all that distinguishes you from the animals.'
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"O fathers, since I have felt like this, think how inscrutable the formations of the hallowed heights are to me!
22
"Over there, between morning and midnight, I see a mountain shining more gloriously than the sun in the sky, which sends us only plain rays, whereas the mountain, confounding the sun, uses the light of all the stars and flowers in mighty streams. But when I ask myself: 'How come and whence and why?', oh then the grass as well as all the stones call to me with well comprehensible signs: 'O you fool, why do you laboriously ponder on the wonders of light? Can then the light, which has flowed from God, be seen?
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"'O you fool, behold, the almightiness of the Creator once created the sun only for giving light and not for contemplation. And if you were given the ability for thorough thought, do not ponder on thought which would be as foolish as contemplating the sun.
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"Thoughts are lights of the soul illumining the tangle of physical life, but you are not meant to use them exclusively for that How could you comprehend the external wonders whilst you have to flee from yourself, the closest of the wonders?'
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"Oh look, you most worthy fathers of the earth's fathers, once one necessarily learns this from silent nature, it is hard to relax on the lightful heights.
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"I was not brought here to give light, no, only to be enlightened was I guided to you by the shining Abel! Therefore, do let me hear your speeches full of light and life, for not yet for a long time am I ready to speak. Who could find words like those full of power and life from above flowing from Enoch's tongue, where every single one is weightier than earth's heavily burdened nature in all its depth. For where the spoken word does not just present itself solely as an exuberant and pleasing sound, but successfully and blessedly extricates life from the lethal hidden depths within man, oh listen, such a word is surely more weighty and greater than anything the eye is capable of beholding and the physical senses of weighing.
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"And so, you most worthy fathers of the earth's fathers, allow me poor dead one now to be silent, for it does not behoove a dead one to speak to those who in their hearts carry a life out of God in the brightest light, from where every word with a blessed tongue disseminates life, as does the sun its wavering light.
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"Therefore, O fathers of the earth's fathers, let me end my empty sounding words, for time has been made for better things than idle chatter.
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"Though the region as a reflection of life is attractive, it is better to strive for life itself. Oh truly, I feel that only a drop of life, contained in the most confined space, is more beautiful for him who has faithfully discovered it than if he gazed with the keenest sight into the endless spaces full of suns and death!
30
"O Enoch, my wisest teacher thanks to grace and love from on high, forgive me my idle chatter and be forbearing with the dead one in his blindness! Listen, the dead and blind one am I! Amen."