[I have not done evil to] mankind.

I have not oppressed the members of my family,

I have not wrought evil in the place of right and truth.

I have had no knowledge of worthless men.

I have not wrought evil.

I have not made others perform excessive labours for me.

I have not made to be the first consideration of each day that excessive labour should be performed for me.

I have not brought forward my name for exaltation to honours.

I have not ill-treated servants.

[I have not thought scorn of God.]

I have not defrauded the oppressed one of his property.

I have not done that which is an abomination unto the gods.

I have not caused harm to be done to the servant by his chief.

I have not caused pain.

I have made no man to suffer hunger.

I have made no one to weep.

I have done no murder. I have not given the order for murder to be done for me.

I have not inflicted pain upon mankind.

I have not derauded the temples of their oblations.

I have not purloined the cakes of the gods.

I have not carried off the cakes offered to the Khus (Sanctified Spirits).

I have not committed fornication.

I have not polluted myself in the holy places of the god of my city nor diminished from the bushel.

I have neither added to nor filched away land.

I have not encroached upon the fields [of others].

I have not added to the weights of the scales [to cheat the seller].

I have not misread the pointer of the scales [to cheat the buyer].

I have not carried away the milk from the mouths of children.

I have not driven away the cattle which were upon their pastures.

I have not snared the feathered fowl of the preserves of the Gods.

I have not caught fish [with bait made of] fish of their kind.

I have not turned back the water at the time [when it should flow].

I have not cut a cutting in a canal of running water.

I have not extinguished a fire [or light] when it should burn.

I have not violated the times [of offering] the chosen meat offerings.

I have not driven off the cattle from the property of the gods.

I have not repulsed God in his manifestations.

I am pure. I am pure. I am pure. I am pure.

--Excerpted from Thebes by Giorgio A. Livraga (translated from Spanish to English by Julian Scott) 

Endnotes:

Maureen, as petite as she was, had to stand to see inside the box. She saw that the cover was plain, apparently a type of animal hide—perhaps the pergaina skins she had read were used in ancient Greece. She touched the cover and felt nothing for a moment, but as she rested her palms flat on the skin, they began to tingle. The sensation ran slowly up her arms and moved through her entire body. She closed her eyes as this happened, and saw behind them the vision of Easa from her dream. She heard him then, as she had heard him before:

You are my daughter in whom I am well pleased, but your work is not yet finished. Behold, the Book of Love. You must share it with the world and fulfill the promise that you made. Our truth has been in darkness for too long. And be not afraid, for I am with you always.

The fear drained from Maureen's body as she lifted the Book from its resting place in the jeweled casket. She could hear Easa's voice in her head, speaking rapidly now, in phrases from his own writings.

Fear and faith cannot exist in the same place at the same time. Choose one.

Maureen chose faith.

She opened the book, determined to cherish this moment of holding something so sacred, in spite of the circumstances that surrounded her. Ignoring the old priest and his henchmen completely now, she ran her fingers over the faded pages in reverence. She could not read the ancient writing: some of it looked like Greek; some of it appeared to be Aramaic; some of it was definitely Hebrew. But it didn't matter. This was not a question of reading the words, for something else was happening as Maureen held the Book of Love. As in her dream, the pages began to grow brighter, letters shimmering with indigo light, blue and violet patterns on the heavy, linenlike paper. The light grew brighter as it emanated from the Book, filling the room now, seeming to swirl with special intensity around the statue of Our Lady Under the Earth. The light penetrated Maureen's body; she could feel its heat and radiance filling her. And as it did, she was absorbing the Book of Love. She did not need to read it or to see it in translation. She was becoming it, embodying the teachings in their entirety as the vibrant blue light ran through her.

Visions came in rapid succession: Solomon and Sheba, Jesus and Magdalene, his mother Mary and his grandmother Anne, his daughter Sarah-Tamar. She saw the little girl in Orval—I am not who you think I am—followed by the ethereal and ultimately feminine apparition of the Holy Spirit in Knock. And then came an understanding so clear that it brought her to her knees, clutching the Book to her heart. Jesus had written this Book of Love as a celebration of the women in his life, their wisdom and grace. This was his tribute and his monument to the lost feminine principle of spirituality that had brought him to this truth: that our father and mother in heaven are One in their union, that they love us, their children, and that as the time returns, we come back in all our forms as our Creator made us in their holy image, male and female, to experience love over and over again.

It was the Nazarene mission of Jesus and his followers to bring the balance back, to restore Asherah to her throne beside her beloved El, and to reunite humankind in an understanding of that love here on earth. Jesus died trying to make the world understand the Book of Love, while resurrecting the divine element of feminine spirituality in balance with the divine masculine.

The light grew brighter, the room spun faster, as Maureen clung to the Book, listening, feeling, understanding everything that Easa was conveying to her: Love, and only love, is real. Everything else is an illusion that keeps us from the purity of the experience that our parents in heaven created for us. And Jesus did not mean for us to create a new religion about him. He meant for us to reclaim the truth as it had been distorted over time. A truth that was simple and beautiful and about love in all its forms: romantic, parental, filial, neighborly. It wasn't so much a New Covenant as it was the original Covenant coming back to us in his hand, with him as the messenger: him, and his family of spirit. Us and our families of spirit.

The time returns.

She heard him whisper it, and now the phrase reverberated with new meaning. The time returns was the most sacred of the prophecies because it foretold the second coming. But the second coming was not the physical return of Jesus. It was the return of his message and his teachings through a global effort of love and service.

We are the very people that we have been waiting for; and we always have been. We are the second coming.

Maureen was lost in the visions as she came to another understanding: that she had seen this specific, beautiful, radiant blue light very recently—in the stained glass right here in Chartres Cathedral. She knew then without any doubt that the builders of this temple to love had seen this light themselves and reproduced it so that it would shine on each individual who entered, blessing them with a fraction of what she was experiencing now.

Her mind was spinning with all she had seen on the exterior of the cathedral. Solomon and Sheba, the tragic and lovely Modesta, the many Marys, Saint Anne, the countless, nameless women who were celebrated in bas-relief. The sculptures flashed through her consciousness in rapid succession. What did they all have in common?

Maureen saw now, in her mind's eye, the filtered light from the stained glass in the main cathedral as she had walked the labyrinth earlier that morning; it shimmered around her as she was lost in the vision. When she took this turn, she could see the window of Mary Magdalene with her true story told in elaborate and careful detail. All the while, the great western rose shone its sacred blue light into the center of the labyrinth. She walked faster now, in rhythm with the escalating beat of her heart, as other windows in the cathedral came to life: Saint Anne was aged and wise; the majestic Blue Madonna was strong and compassionate; lives of saints and martyrs danced around her as she continued in the circuits of the labyrinth. She was being drawn to the center by a force that was extraordinary and magnetic. Her pace quickened and her heart pounded as the blue light pulled her into the central temple, into the tabernacle, into the place where the voice of God can be heard for those with ears to hear.

Oh, sweet Easa. Is this what you've been trying to tell us all along? Could it have always been this simple?

She saw him now, standing in the center of the labyrinth with his kind, dark eyes. In his hands he held the tools of the master mason, the compass and the square. Easa held them out together so that they formed the elongated  diamond shape that represented the sacred union of beloveds. Behind him now appeared his own beloved: Mary Magdalene, a vision of auburn hair and ethereal beauty, arriving at his side.

They looked at her in the vision, across time and space, and Easa said once more, as he gestured around him to indicate the entire, massive structure of the cathedral, "Behold, the Book o f Love. You must share it with the world and fulfill the promise that you made. Our truth has been in darkness for too long."

The sob that broke through Maureen's body echoed through the ancient stone of Chartres. She raised her head and the kaleidoscope of stained glass prisms from her vision swirled past her through her tears. Finally, she understood.

It wasn't that the Book of Love was in Chartres Cathedral. It wasn't that the Libro Rosso was in Chartres Cathedral. The most holy teachings of Christianity, perhaps of all humanity, weren't hidden in Chartres Cathedral.

They were Chartres Cathedral.

The cathedral had often been called "a book made in stone" by the many writers through history who had celebrated its grandeur. How right they were.

Maureen saw clearly now the master architect in her vision, and this time he was a man with a terrible zigzagging scar across one side of his face. He was guiding the sculptural program that would encase the Book of Love in stone for all humanity to learn and celebrate for all time. The teachings of the Order lived on here, and the tradition of the Master lived with it.

The entire Libro Rosso had been built into the facade and the stained glass of Chartres Cathedral, an eternal book in stone that could never be destroyed by the Church, as the Church would never destroy itself. It was an utterly brilliant strategy. The labyrinth was installed at its center as the starting point of initiation for all pilgrims who would have eyes to see and ears to hear. Walking the labyrinth allowed the heart and spirit access to the codes that enshrined the Book of Love within this unparalleled temple.

Maureen was still on the ground, on her knees with the Book of Love clutched against her. She was reeling with the light and the visions but beginning to feel that she was coming back into her body once more. She had to get out of here, had to find a way to let the world know that the Book of Love was embedded in the stone and glass of this astonishing monument to the truth, that it was available to anyone who wanted to view it, experience it, feel it—and it always had been. The most valuable wisdom in human history had been hidden in plain sight for eight hundred years. And the Church knew it. By covering the labyrinth, they hoped to obscure the tool that was needed by the average person to crack the code and read the book.

She looked up and saw that the henchmen were still in place, although they stood back from her more than before. Because of their menacing hoods, it was impossible to determine where their eyes were, but they both appeared to be looking at the ground, not at her. As she climbed slowly to her feet, Maureen caught a glimpse of Father Girolamo de Pazzi. He was staring into space, past her, with a most haunted expression on his face. Maureen heard Easa one final time as she came into her full, waking consciousness. His melodic voice in her ear said simply, "Love conquers all."