There once was a distinguished gentleman whom the townsfolk respected as a holy man, for his actions and words were always in good form, blameless, the picture of virtue. Yet despite his efforts, the lower elements of the town increased continually. One day, this purported holy man was walking with his daughter to the market when they were held up by bandits, who immediately recognized the famed man. They asked the man where he was headed, and he replied, “The market,” and they asked him why, and he, knowing the purport of their inquiry yet bound to his conviction to never lie, replied, “To buy, sirs.” At that, they knew he must be carrying a significant sum of money and summarily beat and robbed him. Then, they asked him about his daughter: “Who is this woman to you?” Again, he replied honestly, “This is my daughter.” “I see. Is she married?” they replied. Again seeing the purport of their inquiry yet resolved not to lie, he replied, “No, sirs, she is a virgin, but I beg of you in the name of all that is good to not lay a finger on her.” The bandits laughed at the man and gagged him and made him watch as they raped his daughter. Adrenaline surged through the man’s body and he saw an opportunity to steal one of the bandit’s guns while they were distracted, but instead, he turned his eyes to heaven, prayed, and asked his God to spare them and move the bandits’ hearts to mercy. When the bandits finished with the man’s daughter, they shot her, turned, shot the man, and escaped without detection by law enforcement.
The man and his daughter found themselves in a dark corridor dimly lit by torches ensconced in increasingly shorter intervals until they reached the Chamber of Judgment and stood before Anubis and the Scales of Maat. When the man’s heart was removed and weighed upon the scales against a feather of Maat, the scale sank under the weight of his heart, and he protested that his heart was pure, as his actions were blameless and virtuous even until the bitter end. Anubis retorted that the man’s actions were not virtuous but only appeared to be virtuous, “For, how can your heart be as light as Maat when you have not been an agent of Maat (order) but have increased the disorder of the world, allowed it, and failed to stop it? And now you argue with a God Himself? You are a blind and foolish man.” “But, my Lord,” replied the man desperately, “would You have had me lie, steal, and kill to stop those bandits?” “Precisely,” said Lord Anubis, his black maw showing his sharp teeth, “for this is virtue when it is just and good. Did not Horus Himself kill Seth to establish justice? You have failed to see this, because you have not reflected on virtue but have rather been concerned with dogmas and self-aggrandizement.” And with that, Lord Anubis destroyed the man’s spirit and sent the cleared soul back to the Source of the Great River.
Trembling, his daughter stepped up to the scales and placed her heart upon it. As the scale began to dip beneath the feather of Maat, the young lady desperately began to recite her negative confessions: “Hail, Hail, Usekh-nemmt, who comest forth from Anu, I have not committed sin. Hail, Hept-khet, who comest forth from Kher-aha, I have not committed robbery with violence—"
“Enough, child,” Lord Anubis smiled, “Fear not, for though your heart is not as light as Maat, it does not weigh heavily upon the scale: It is not enough to confess what you have not done, but rather I expect you to also recite what good you have done, and I can see you have done but little. You will not inherit the spiritual reward of heaven, for you have not lived a spiritual life, yet your life was not a bad one either, simply vacuous and insignificant: Your spirit will not be destroyed, but you must undergo the pain of rebirth and renewed ignorance and struggle. Do try to remember to do something with your life next time, and do not let yourself be led to ruin by the ignorance of a father.”
