The Great Gospel of John
Volume 4
Jesus' Precepts and Deeds through His Three Years of Teaching
Jesus near Caesarea Philippi (cont.)
- Chapter 179 -
The people of Abyssinia and Nubia.
1
(The Lord:) "Most of you are familiar, at least according to legend, with the old-famous Egyptian's Land.
2
Behind the great waterfalls of the Nile lies a very fertile and large mountain land, and has the name hAbi ie sin (this is Son of hAbi). This hAbi is a descendent of Cain and not Noah; these highlands, like also other counties of the earth, were spared by the great flood during the times of Noah.
3
The son of this hAbi was, like Nimrod, a mighty hunter. He invented the club and the bow, and all animals, never mind how tearing, fierce and wild, already from far away fled from him; since he was a giant. His voice made rocks shake, and with his mighty club he smashed rocks, and with his bow he shot ten pound arrows over a distance of a thousand steps; and at whatever he aimed, he surely hit and made it his prey.
4
Simultaneously being a master of all the animals, also all his weaker brothers and sisters obeyed him. He was very serious, but never cruel towards the people, yes, not even hard: but what he instructed, had to be executed.
5
He believed in a far away, almighty God, who originally made all things. But this God has uncountable many and exceedingly mighty servants, visible and invisible. Some had to rule over son, moon and all the stars, some over the earth, some over the water, some over the fire and so forth, some over the gras, over the trees, some over the waters above and in the earth, some over metals, some over the birds in the air, some over all the animals in the water and some over all the animals walking and creeping on earth.
6
These invisible servants and often visible servants had to be highly honoured by the mortal people, by strictly obeying and following the laws which they from time to time give to the people. They always punish disobedience in a most severe manner by all kinds of catastrophes which they send over the disobedient people, which do not respect them, does not follow their laws and also behave in an unfriendly manner among each other.
7
In short, this son of hAbi was the first ruler of this ancient little nation and at the same time the first priest, who taught them the scanty concepts of God and other spiritual beings, and was in line the sixth descendent of Cain and the seventh of Adam.
8
He taught them to get to know the tame animals, and to use them in their households and was therefore the first founder of a shepherd's colony and also taught them how to use some fruits as food, and to grow, maintain and ennoble them in a garden; he also taught them to build huts from rocks, palms and clay and use it as a save residence.
9
He himself cleaned the whole, large country from tearing, wild beasts. Already his equally gigantically mighty sons reaped the blessing from the restless efforts of their powerful father. During the course of a few hundred years, this black skin little nation grew to a large and mighty nation and had good customs and a quite effective governmental arrangement, even cleverer and better than Egypt itself under the first head shepherd (pharaohs).
10
However, this rather happy nation blockaded all possible entrances, that even the foreign wild animals found it almost impossible to visit and cause harm to the rich herds of this wide extended large country, which was five times the size of the Promised Land. Because of that reason, until this hour no foreign enemy penetrated the green fields of this country, although the nation has expanded far beyond the old borders. Also the borders of the newly occupied lands were to such an extend blockaded by this nation, that it was not that easy for any enemy to penetrate the boundaries of such lands.
11
Towards Egypt, where the last and quite coarse feet of the Komrahai Mountains start, they have the only access road. It is a very terribly narrow pass, which after four hours walking through many deceiving windings and mainly underground, ends in the most upper part of Egypt and leads through a very narrow cave, - which exit was only found, during the times of Moses, by the natives, who actually were fugitives and as great state criminals fled the feared punishments. When pursued, they fled into a hole in the rocks to hide. When they advanced for about five-hundred steps inside the cave, armed with bows and arrows, they discovered daylight on the opposite side and ran towards it; they soon reached it and were very happy getting away from their pursuers. On the other side, reaching a never seen open land, they closed off the exit with rocks, so that it would not be possible for their pursuers to ever reach this wide, beautiful, free land.
12
The number of fugitives counting seventy heads, among them thirty-six men and thirty-four women; the one not having a wife, they made him the leader because he was the most experienced; and one was still too young to have a wife and was therefore chosen as a servant for the leader.
13
The fugitives lived in this land for a year and a half. However, they were not able to master the cleaning of the area, although spending most of their time hunting tearing beasts. After expiration of the aforesaid time, they moved along the Nile northward and after a few weeks reached the Cataracts, which, from Egypt seen, are called the second. There they encountered many troubles and a lot of work to make any progress.
14
On the right shore of the Nile they would have made easier progress, but they were on the left shore, and there the area is very cleft and does not have a shortages of all kinds of animals, which are not quite friendly towards people. Since the difficulties of the way forward did not ended, they wanted to return to the earlier land, when a large herd of cattle and sheep followed them also to the north. This appearance made them believe that their pursuers had tracked them down. They therefore moved onwards as fast as possible and after a troublesome day's travel they finally reached a beautiful, large and exceedingly fertile land.
15
There were an abundance of dates and figs, and there were large herds of sheep and cattle which moved around and grazed completely without owners. But those herds which forced our black people society to move forward, was lost in the gulches of the cataracts and did not followed them anymore, which pleased our society a great deal, since they thereby believed that the supposed pursuers did not follow them anymore.
16
In this new land the society searched for the best place to live, fortified it and settled there. It was a beautiful, smooth hill alongside the Nile and covered with dates, figs and beautiful palms; except for a few monkeys there was no trace of any tearing beasts to be found.
17
Here those people multiplied and within a few hundred years developed into a considerable nation, which seized all of the free herds and build huts and even villages and lived quite well. But all had the believe and all the customs and uses, which the son of hAbi had introduced.
18
This large, once very beautiful and fertile land the black inhabitants called with the name 'Noua Bia', which translated means 'New Dwelling'.
19
In time this nation also made its acquaintance with the Egyptians, which later made every effort to subjugate these first black people, in which they, however, not succeeded altogether. This were also the first completely black people which the Egyptians became to see.
20
In the beginning the Egyptians regarded these people as big apes; only after they discovered that these people spoke a language close to their own, they started to regard them as true people, bought cattle and sheep from them, and in return these black people learned all kind of arts and sciences from the Egyptians, which they could use quite well, especially regarding the preparation of metals, of which they until now had no knowledge.
21
With these people their old religion and all their old customs and habits which they took over from the son of the hAbi, remained until today.
22
In this year a seer has risen among the people and has revealed to his brothers and sisters an extraordinary vision, which he had seven consecutive times. He described to them the way he had to go, to reach the place where He could be found, who would teach the people the truth and the great unknown God.
23
And see, this seer from Noua Bia will arrive with quite a considerable society before midday here in the area of Caesarea Philippi; we therefore will send a messenger to them, so that he can bring them here! They have come on many camels and have brought many treasures and will, what they are consuming here, pay with gold and precious stones.
24
You, Marcus, see to it that these Nubians are looked after quite well! Because when you yesterday evening ask Me to stay for another day, I adhered to your request, otherwise I and My disciples would have left already this morning before sunrise to meet the caravan who are searching for Me. I, however, stayed and this stay will provide a lot of work for your house: nevertheless, you will be payed well."