This History is about the journey of a [good] Christian soul from this world to eternal life [and] the journey of bad souls to eternal damnation and the death of their soul.
It is an important history which has been taught by teachers and monks since the time of our earliest fathers. This history is a guidance for all Christians to protect themselves from sin and be saved by doing good when they live in this world.
[A Christian] must learn the five secrets of [creation] and the thriteen sufferings of the cross to understand the one and three nature of the Trinity, ressurection and the exsistence of salvation and damnation. Our saviour, Eyesus Kristos has said, "...He who listens to my words and believes in him who has sent me, [shall have eternal life] he will go from death to life and will not be condemned." [John 5:24]
This history was given under the Leadership of His Eminence Abuna Yesehaq with the understanding of it's importance to Christians. January, 1984
If it is asked what is the Journey of the Soul? It is this: When a human being is created [conceived] in their mother's womb, God assigns for the person two guardian angels to stand on their right and left. These angels whose duty is to write all the good and bad things which the person does in every hour and day of their life will stay on their right and left side until they die.
When the person dies, the two angels will present the biography of the person they each wrote before God. The Angel on the right is from the Angels of Light and the Angel on the Left is from the Angels of Darkness. When the person does good, the Angels of Light will be closer to them, and the Angels of Darkness stay 40 Kind [about twenty meters] behind. When the person does bad, Angels of Darkness stand closer to him and Angels of Light stand 40 kind [about 20 meters] away from him.
The Angel on the right advises him to learn religion, to do good, to observe Senbet Sunday, to go to church, to pay tithe (to the church) proudly, give hospitality to stangers, to fast the seven fasts and pray, not to go to blasphemous magicians, to love your brother and sisters, to be polite, not to kill, not to cut [legs] not to burn a house, not to steal, not to fornicate, not to take by force, not to break boundary, not to tell a lie and not to tell a lie as a witness, and do not discriminate a person.
[He tells him] to confess his sin on the day it happens. As the book of Sabbath [Sunday] says...... he advises him to give alms while he is alive for his money will not follow him when he dies. If the person does what the Angel of Light [the angel on the right] told him, he will write his good deeds in the book of life.
The angel on the left [the angel of Darkness] will advise him: not to do the things which the angel on the right, the Angel of Light, has told him to do. He makes him work on Sabbath [Sunday] by telling him that he will not be rich just by working on regular work days. Again, he tell him not to go to church by convincing him that he is tired from hard work and he needs to sleep, rest and relax.
From the time of childhood until old age, he advises him not to give alms by telling him that he needs the money for himself and that if he gives to the poor or needy he would end up poor himself and begging. Instead he tells him to save his money.
[This sentence is in Geez language which I cannot translate]. Again, the angel on the left tells him, you say you confess your sins to your confessor but if he tells you to fast and pray, you cannot fast; if he tells you to prostrate [bow], you have no strength; and if he tells you to give alms you have no money.
Instead, he tells him to tell all his sins to his father confessor when he dies and let him worry about it Thus by doing so, he prevents him from repenting. If the person does all he is told not to do by the angel on the left, the angel of darkness, he will write it, record it, in the book of life. [Geez Language].
Believing in the name of the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, we shall now briefly write about the ordeal and suffering of an condemned man's soul [which is separated from the body by death] as it travels....... As one always returns to his home at the end of a day, so shall he die at the end of his life either by accident or by illness.
If the man had worshipped in witchcraft, betrayed God, has not fed the hungry, has not given drink to the thirsty, has not given clothes to the naked, has not recieved guests in his home, and has not visited the sick, three angels of darkness will be sent to him when his soul is close to separate from his body. [Geez language, unable to translate]. These three angels of darkness will sit on the dying person's head, heart and leg. The angel of darkness sitting on the dying person's heart will bite him with his teeth from above and the angel of darkness sitting on his leg will bite him from below.
The angel of darkness sitting on the dying person's head will write the dying person's sins telling him it was him who had prevented him from Worshipping God, who made him worship in witchcraft and who made him commit sins in his life time. As King David said..."when the dying person sees the sin he loved as the milk from the breast of his mother writen before his eyes, he shall hate it". [Geez language]. Again, the soul trembles when it sees the angel of death standing tall from horizon to horizon with his mouth wide open teeth showing and his eyes glowing.
The length of his teeth is 68 arms [about 34 meters] in the arm of an angel. The length of his length of the angel's one arm is equal to the length of 44 human arms. It will take three and half years to travel from one side of the angel's one eye to the other side, and two and a half years to travel from one side of his other eye to the other side. Together, the width of his eyes will take 7 [sic] years to travel from one corner of his eye to the other corner of the eye. After that, the angel of death will take three steps and stand in front of the dying person....... when, with eyes open and his teeth reaching out, the angel of death tells the soul to come and recieve the prize of the sin she has done while she was alive, she begins to tremble.
She will then jump out of the body and sits on top of the corpse. The angel of death will then stick his nails in her and brings her to his mouth to chew. After chewing her three times, he then spits her out. He does this to tell her that she has not recognized the one and three nature of the Trinity.
When the angels of light come to see the condemned soul, they will find her being seven times darker than the darkest bird. She will not allow them near her. The angels of light will feel sorry for her and stand far from her saying "Oh, soul, you were created for heaven but you ended up in hell with Satan". The angels of death will take the condemned soul to the ocean of fire. The ocean of fire is like this: the right side is an ocean of fire and the left side is the abyss cliff of fire. Between the two is a road narrower than a thread which allows only one foot to stand on it.
The angels of death will tell the condemned soul to cross between the ocean of fire and the abyss of fire by walking on that narrow road. The condemned soul replies the angels of death thus"...my lords, the right side is an ocean of fire and the left side is an abyss of fire, how can I cross between these two walking on a road narrower than a thread which does not have enough space to stand or something to hold?".
[The angels of death say to the condemned soul that] she should have been a good person when she had the chance by feeding the hungry, by giving drink to the thirsty, by providing hospitality to the needy, by giving clothes to the naked, by visiting the sick, by helping the release of a prisoner and keeping the laws of God. They will push her to the ocean of fire. The condemned soul walks on the road which is narrower than a thread by falling into the ocean of fire and the abyss of fire by burning itself like a [wax] in a fire. After passing between the ocean of fire and the abyss of fire, she will wake thinking about her expulsion from heaven and worried about her condemnation to hell like a rebel who worries about his fate when he is being taken in chains to face the king after his capture. The Lord; who alone cuts, hangs and kills will wait for her with a frightening reverance. The condemned soul will come and stand before him. The guardian angel will tell her to bow to God who has created it in his likeness.