Chapter XII: The Story of the Tablets

The designers and executors of the picture writing were of the Accadians, as indicated by the names affixed to the tablets, as was also Elib the scribe of the inhabitants of Elim, and so in a long line of writers on the tablets could be discerned the Accadian origin of the names. It was they who brought from their homes to the eastward of the Tigris the knowledge of their system of hieroglyphics, half ideographic, half phonetic, that helped to make Babylon the seat of learning and power, and preserved for the world the story of their development and glorious civilization.

The story was taken up where it was left off by Elib the scribe as recorded on the parchment.

For many long years after the landing of the ten tribes upon the Western continent, they led a simple pastoral life, growing rich in flocks and herds and gradually drifting to the southward, but fitting out yearly an expedition to Ophir for gold with which they purposed in due time to build a temple that should rival Solomon’s. The beautiful and fertile valley of Mexico allured them at last to permanent settlement where they could, in their scriptural language, water the ground with the foot, typifying the ease with which irrigation could be practiced there, and a settled purpose grew upon them to make this region the center of their dominion and the site of a temple of worship for all their people.

I have since traveled over this interesting region, finding abundant evidence to corroborate that of the tablets, and I have no doubt that at Palenque in the State of Chiapas, Mexico, is the site of their settlement, and of the first great temple on the Western continent devoted to the worship of the living God.

I have also visited Palestine and gleaned all the information possible from that source; and a glance at the Temple of Palenque suggests the oriental style of architecture, and further investigation proves it to have been an almost perfect imitation of Solomon’s temple, with its various consecrated places of worship, its courts, cloisters, and cells for the priests, with magnificent porches supported by pillars, ornamented in stucco work.

The inner walls had been once elaborately decorated with inscriptions cut in hieroglyphic characters in the rock, and there were ruins of a great altar, with the figure of a wedge (a prominent figure on the brick tablets as well as on the rock pictures, appearing to have been an object of worship).

For twenty-three miles the country was strewn with the ruins of splendid palaces, temples, and dwellings, richly decorated with ornaments of gold and silver in the likeness of flowers so perfect in form as to rival the natural ones represented; and the walls of many of the finer structures were ornamented with the very net work or basket work that Solomon used in the palace of cedar that he builded for Pharaoh’s daughter. Subterranean chambers underlay the palaces, used seemingly as sepulchers. In one was discovered large quantities of gold and silver, supposed to be the public storehouse, used in the building of the temple.

But to return to the narrative.

“In the land of Ophir to the southward toward the sea, was builded the temple of the living God,” and here it was stated they dedicated themselves together with this earthly temple to allegiance to Jehovah, solemnly binding themselves to eschew forever all kings but Jehovah, and reinstating all their tribal usages and laws as delivered to them by Moses, to resume the tribal and patriarchal government, and to acknowledge God alone as the Supreme Ruler of their temporal as well as spiritual affairs.

Here in the city of Ophir, which they had founded, they began to build the magnificent temple the ruins of which to-day possess far more absorbing interest to the archæologist than those of Egypt or Babylon; so that Americans need no longer cross oceans and continents to pursue the study of the cuneiform picture writings. But the tribes were weakened by desertion at Babylon, and three generations passed away before the temple was completed in all its details of substantiality, and decorated with vases and scrolls, and gold and silver flowers among foliage of emeralds and other precious stones. Insects and bees poised above the flowers so life-like in form and position that one could almost imagine they heard the hum of their wings, and serpents seemed actually to glide among the lilies in the pools of Solomon.

Luxury and learning grew apace in the young city of the West. Numbers and knowledge increased in equal ratio, and public works of a permanent and beneficial character were undertaken and carried to a successful issue. Stone aqueducts were built to conduct the water from the foothills, spanning valleys and gorges, and built so strongly as almost to defy the ravages of time. Public baths and walks were built, parks and groves and amphitheaters sprang up to satisfy the demand of the Elimites among them for amusements, whose skill in architecture and picture writing, as well as their capacity as scribes upon parchment, gave them great and growing influence in the affairs of the tribes.

Generation succeeded generation, and centuries multiplied upon centuries marking the progress of an active, aggressive, and intellectual people toward the climax of human power. The Accadians or Elimites were tenacious of their influence, tireless in their zeal in all the pursuits of learning and advancement. The priesthood came to be recruited largely from their ranks. The tribal judges were many of them either of the Elimites or closely allied to them by marriage. In letters and architecture they were the superiors of their adopted people.

But in matters of religion the Israelites were their tutors, competent to lead and instruct. The religion of the Elimite was the worship of Belus or Baal closely allied to, if not identical with, the worship of the sun, and while so far advanced in other lines of knowledge their attainments in religion were so meager as to class them as a nation of idolaters, with all the difference that is implied in the respective terms, between them and the worshipers of a Supreme Ruler whose followers did not limit his dwelling to a temple of human building, or ascribe to him the malevolent as well as the beneficent attributes. Their historians, as they succeeded each other, as they chronicled the main events of their times, drew unconsciously a picture of great vividness, showing how boundless for good was the influence of the Elimites in all intellectual affairs, and how baleful their examples and precepts in morals. So while the crafty priests and ambitious judges outwardly conformed to the Jewish form of worship with great apparent devoutness, they secretly despised the religion of Moses and merely bided their time, cultivating meanwhile all the voluptuous passions of highly civilized life, encouraging the finer arts and sciences, bringing the decorative arts especially to such perfection as set the city of Ophir on the pinnacle of glory among the nations of the world, from which they had so completely isolated themselves.

Gradually the number of the judges was increased, the priesthood swarmed with devotees to sacerdotal orders, and as the offices of emolument and honor increased, a corresponding increase was made in the number of scribes and doctors of the law. All these officers came to be recruited almost entirely from the ranks of Elim, and natural tastes and interests drew them together socially, so that they soon formed a distinct and privileged class.

The wily priests gradually insinuated new ideas of the Supreme Being, and the form of worship most pleasing to him, beginning by inspiring in the minds of the Israelites a feeling of awe for the fiery orb of day, until at length as their ideas began to be received they grew bolder, and taught that the sun was the all-seeing eye of Divinity, taking note of the actions of men by day, and delegating his power to the lesser gods whose twinkling eyes watched over the world by night.

The lawyers and judges being in full sympathy with this doctrine, construed the Mosaic law to suit it, and slowly but surely Israel was growing to be a nation of worshipers at the shrine of Belus or Baal. False religions and despotic power go hand in hand, and at the end of the tenth century of national existence since the Babylonian captivity, the ten tribes were not only worshipers of Baal with all the revolting and licentious orgies that marked it as the vilest form of religion in the known world, but the restless ambitions of the Accadian rulers were already set upon making Israel an absolute monarchy. Religious frenzy is a powerful factor in ruling the world. It can rock kingdoms like toys and shake nations like aspens. But to overturn and destroy it needs but to combine forces with another passion more subtle, more powerful, and of more universal application than the wild frenzy of creed.

And the name of that passion that sways the world like a leaf is Love.

Voluptuous and effeminate as the splendid city of Ophir had become, cringing as the masses of Israel were to the more accomplished Elimites, the latter might not brave the fierce opposition that existed against monarchy without appealing to the baser passions of the people. The plan by which they hoped to gain complete ascendency in creed and government was to introduce the last sensual step into the rites of their worship, and so make religion to pander to lust, and lust in turn to bind men more closely to their worship of the sun.

The judges deliberately planned to make Jokim, a Jewish Accadian, King of Israel, because in all essentials necessary to their purpose he was an Elimite, and also because of his Jewish origin he had long wielded practically unlimited influence over the Jews. Jokim, who was an artful, ambitious, self-contained man, had looked forward for years to such a consummation and had diligently courted the favor of all classes of people in Israel, by a show of great interest in their humble affairs, and great apparent sympathy for the traditions of the nation. But he knew full well that the slightest hint of his aspirations would be fatal to his power with the people, and he cast about him for means to bring about, in his time and for his benefit, the union of two human passions that would overrule all opposition, and place him upon the throne with power as absolute as that of Solomon, and as he dreamed, with circumstances of glory that might even transcend that of the Wise Man.

The plan, which was carefully discussed among the patrician classes, was to introduce into their worship the office of a feminine deity, the wife of the sun whom they called Metyta, or the Goddess of Generation. The patricians boldly determined to work upon the credulity and superstitions of the people through the agency of a beautiful woman whom they resolved to clothe in the eyes of the people, with all the majesty and power of deity, to represent her as the goddess of the moon descended directly from that silvery orb, to teach truth to the children of men.

With their knowledge of astronomy and the art of magic it was an easy task for the blind leaders to lead the blind.

Jokim was not at a loss for a fit person to carry out his plans of perfidy. Corinthia was a young woman of Ophir whose dazzling beauty of form and feature has given her a fame upon the Western continent as great as ever was enjoyed by the innocent cause of the Trojan war, or by the Egyptian queen whose allurements caused Mark Antony to forget all his ambitious plans and sacrifice all his glorious career to the consuming passion which lured him to her feet.

As the mistress of Jokim, Corinthia’s career had been public enough to excite the greatest admiration of the lordly class, shameless enough to school her for acting such a part as was proposed for her, and gorgeous enough in her natural beauty, decked out in the costliest wardrobes that skill and wealth could provide, to completely blind the Israelites themselves to her unscrupulous character. Besides, the cunning of their choice was shown in the fact that the Elimites foreswore their national prejudice, that they might carry out their infamous scheme, by choosing this same Corinthia, whose mother was well known to have been a Jewess, and thus had a strong claim upon both classes of people. In order to give prestige to her name, and insure obedience to her mandates, the judges determined to induct her into regal power by a series of supernatural events or miracles that should fill the minds of the Jews with superstitious fear of her power and overawe all opposition that might arise.

Accordingly it was given out by the priests that visions had been seen by them at various times, and with increasing frequency admonishing them that the time had come when it pleased heaven to give the people of Israel a ruler who should bring light and joy to the face of the earth, but whose departure from the moon where she had long dwelt as the wife of the sun, should cause that placid orb to hide her face in bitter anguish.

It was expressly revealed to the priests that on a certain day, she, upon whom heaven decreed the queenly spirit should fall, should see her name in flaming letters on the wall of the temple, and she was to be crowned queen of Israel and the goddess of the moon by the most impressive and solemn rites. It was found on consultation that all the priests had received such instructions, there being but little difference in their versions of the vision, except that one or two of them understood themselves as being pointed out as spiritual advisers and confidential agents to the queen.

The day set for the selection and coronation of a queen by high heaven was not far distant, and great excitement prevailed, and great speculation as to whom the scepter should be given to. All Israel thronged the city of Ophir on the day appointed, which was also a Sabbath day, and at the hour of worship the temple gates were choked with an eager crowd that filled the outer court to suffocation and overflowed far back upon the adjacent streets.

The solemn rites of the Jewish worship were observed with unusual unction. An air of subdued piety marked the ministrations of the priests, and a hush of expectancy was over all the throng as the services drew to a close, and at last when they were finished an oppressive, brooding silence fell upon all.

Suddenly it began to grow dark, though the afternoon was but half spent. Expectation gave way to fear in the minds of the ignorant multitude, and they cowered and trembled in abject terror at this, as they supposed, direct intervention of Providence.

Deeper and more deeply fell the gloom until the terror-stricken faces of the crowd were hardly discernible to each other, when a pious ejaculation from a priest who stood near the altar gazing upward, attracted universal attention to a pale glow upon the draperies overhanging the altar, and, as they all gazed, it brightened and took form until it resembled live coals of fire, forming with fearful distinctness the word “Corinthia.”

The priests prostrated themselves before the altar, and gave fervent thanks for the signal favors bestowed by a kind Providence in thus signifying his will so plainly to his people, and then harangued the people on their happy lot to be thus led by the hand in the green pastures of divine love, and exhorted them to beware of disobeying the heavenly vision, or of being unfaithful to the duties that it involved upon them as subjects of the lovely, wise, and virtuous queen whom the will of heaven proclaimed at once as the daughter of heaven, the wife of the sun, and queen of Israel.

As timely as the entangling of Abram’s ram for a sacrifice, by providential coincidence, Corinthia, in her loveliest attire but deeply veiled, was discovered among the throng, and all the wild thrills of awe and all the hush of expectancy in the crowd reacted in vociferous clamors of “God save Queen Corinthia.” The fickle mind of the rabble full of deep-seated prejudice against a monarchy was turned in a moment, and now flowed at flood tide in the channel carefully prepared for it as the mold for the molten metal and as plastic in the hands of the artful sons of Elim as is sand in the hands of the artisan who shapes the mold.

Corinthia was hastily led forward by a high priest, her veil removed, that her beauty might have its due effect upon the assembly; there she was made to kneel down by the altar, and a crown was placed upon her head, fitting it as perfectly as though molded to her temples, and glorifying her wondrous beauty till exclamations of admiration fell from every lip.

The ten judges advanced to the altar, and laying their hands upon hers invested her with the scepter of power over Israel, acknowledged their joyful allegiance to her in the name of their respective tribes. The high priests besieged heaven in her behalf that wisdom and moderation might be hers, and in behalf of Israel, that they might see clearly in this demonstration of the Divine will that His pleasure would follow their dutiful allegiance to the young queen and His heaviest displeasure be visited upon those who should dishonor or disobey him in her person.

Then as mysteriously as the crown was evolved from nonentity came a gorgeous gold-clothed chair of state in the semblance of a throne; the ten judges ranged themselves beside it, and Jokim, as the most venerable and influential of them all, bowing himself humbly before her, conducted the paragon of maiden beauty and virtue, and the plain choice of heaven to the throne, seated her upon it, and did himself the honor of being the first to prostrate himself before the first Queen of the Ten Tribes of Israel.

He was quickly followed by the other nine judges, who likewise paid their respects to the queen. Jokim and the others, now bowing low, and facing the throne, gradually withdrew from the immediate presence. The priests invoked anew the blessings of Providence upon their nation, the ceremonies were done and the assembled multitudes broke forth into wild shouts of enthusiastic professions of eternal allegiance to Queen Corinthia.