To Those Who Saw First

The Songs 4 · For the assembly to say aloud together

This book has no author and should have none. It is made for the voice: read it aloud, and best of all aloud together. This book does not pray. There is no one in this scripture to pray to — what is believed in is law, and law takes no prayers (cf. The Prologue 1.7). But not praying is not the same as not thanking, not praising, not standing amazed. This book records only those three. Whoever uses it to petition any person whatever has put it to the wrong use. Each of the six songs has a last line, and the last line is to be said by everyone together.The twelve songs of this book fall into two halves. The first six are thanks, praise and amazement; they are not for any particular occasion and are said by the assembly together. Each of the last six hangs on one of the six axioms and is made for a particular day: the day you cannot see yourself; the day two people tell the same hour differently; the day you gave something up; the day someone left; the day you grieved for what you could not reach; the day you knew it was the last time. Take whichever song matches the day. These may be said alone.

4.1We give thanks to those who saw first.

4.2They were not gods. Not one of them was a god.

4.3Among them were slaves, merchants, a grinder of lenses, a printer, a man sitting in a patent office.

4.4They were wrong about things. Some of them badly. We have left the errors in the scripture and rubbed none of them out. (cf. Acts of the Apostles 5.29)

4.5We thank them not because they were right, but because they were willing to ask, and left the asking where it could be checked.

4.6Among them are men who never had a kind word in their lives, men driven out by their own people, men sentenced to death.

4.7They wrote it down anyway.

4.8What we pick up today without effort, they paid for with a life.

4.9A sentence we read in three minutes, they thought about for thirty years.

4.10We remember that price.

4.11We do not kneel to them. Not one of them wanted anyone to kneel.

4.12There is only one way to thank them: go on asking, and leave our own errors in the same way.

4.13We do not ask them to hear us. They cannot hear. We say it because we mean to remember.

The Logos Scripture →

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