Aleksander Krawczuk

 

A Pagan Prophecy

 

A time will come which will show how futile the pious faith of the Egyptians was and all the sacrifices made by its faithful. The worship of the gods will cease, and the gods themselves will depart and go back to heaven. They will abandon the land of Egypt forever. This land which has been for so many centuries the cradle, mainstay, and abode of true religion, will be stripped of divine presence, orphaned, made empty. Foreigners will occupy its farmland. And not only will the holy faith come to be ignored, but—how much more painful it is to think of it!—something claiming to be the law shall be imposed which will forbid the observance of the principles of true religion, of piety, and of worship by threatening the most severe of punishments.

This venerable land, this seat of gods’ altars, will thenceforth be filled only with tombs and corpses. O my Egypt, my Egypt, my love! Only myths and stories will remain in the ages to come as a testimony to your faith, but to posterity, they will appear to be mere fairy tales. Only the words engraved in stone will stand as a witness of your pious deeds. A Scythian or an Indian, or one like them, some barbarian from the frontier lands, will settle all this land. Darkness will be more loved than light, and death will take priority over life.

Believe me, it will finally come to this that the death penalty will be imposed on those who dare to profess Divine Reason. And in such a painful way, a separation of gods and men will be accomplished. Only evil angels will remain in this land. And they will stay to drive the unfortunate to the worst crimes of pride: to wars, rape, looting, fraud. To everything that is the opposite of the true nature of the human soul.”[1]

 

[1] Pseudo-Apuleius, Asclepius, 25.