The Great Gospel of John
Volume 2
Jesus' Precepts and Deeds through His Three Years of Teaching
First journey of the Lord: Kis - landing place at Sibarah - Nazareth
- Chapter 26 -
Hints for law-givers.
Says Cyrenius: "It is good for me to know this; the rest shall transpire. Since they don't accept Your doctrine I shall fix them another. I shall acquaint them through Faustus and his servants with imperial decrees which were sent to me already a half year ago from Rome, already sanctioned for my examination. Perhaps the Gospel from Rome will elicit more respect from them than Your Gospel from the heavens. The decree contains a hundred items as laws, each backed by the cross and the scourge; polygamy is abolished, fornication and whoring punished by most severe scourging, adultery by the cross, robbery and deception by the cross, smuggling with the scourge and a hundred pounds of silver, besides a host of property laws whose transgression is followed by the scourge and a hundred pounds of silver. Travelling without a passport shall be strictly forbidden; a passport however shall be obtainable for a hundred pounds of silver. - Yes, this I shall do and implement these laws most strictly especially in these Galilean cities and see whether no conscience at all is to be discovered or awoken among these people!"
2
Say I: "This goes with your governing sphere, and I can respond to that with neither a no, nor a yes. Do as you see fit; but do not therewith complicate travelling for Myself and Mine!"
3
Says Cyrenius: "Definitely not; for artists, physicians, wise men and prophets are excepted. Their references, deeds and rhetoric serve them as fully valid passports, and the death penalty imposed on anyone hindering them. For Yourself I shall have a certificate issued forthwith, and no one shall stop You if You produce the certificate."
4
Say I: "Your perpetually good will pleases Me; but save yourself the trouble nonetheless. Because for as long as I wish to travel about, no power shall be able to stop Me! If, however I shall once desire to sacrifice Myself for mankind in aggregate, then no power in the world shall be able to protect Me either; and even if they offered Me such, I would not accept it. Because, friend: Him Whom heaven and earth obey will surely be mightier than all men upon this earth, which latter would hardly serve Me as a footstool! Hence do whatever you see fit, but not much thereof shall come to fruition. For you may bring out an ever so tight law and soon you will see how skillfully men circumvent the law, and you shall be able to do nothing.
5
God's Commandments, which were given to the people through Moses, surely are as exhaustive as anything perfect can be; yet men, as these times show, saw fit to quite cleverly transform God's Commandment into their most truly own evil ordinances that contemporary mankind has no compunction about transgressing God's Commandment so long as they fulfil those worldly ordinances!
6
If people can do so with green wood, what shall they not do with a withered block from Rome? Hence do indeed as you think fit, and it shall be right by Me; but I also say unto you:
7
The more laws, the more criminals, for whom with time your crosses and scourges shall not suffice by far!"
8
Says Cyrenius: "All that You have said to me so far is irrefutably true; but for my very own instruction I would yet ask; what can one do about the stubbornness of men who in the first instance, like these Nazarenes, believe in no God nor any longer in Revelation from on high, making the most obvious mockery of God's Commandment with everyone of their deeds? Should one even then leave them with any most severely sanctioned laws, that they may fearlessly indulge in loosest hedonism to their liking, as it would please them, having for such a long time already been without any divine Commandments starting to deal among themselves and with their neighbours in a manner far worse than the rapacious beasts of the desert and forest? Here it is my view that strict worldly laws would be well placed in order to return such people gone completely wild to some order and from such lead them back to a recognition of God!"
9
Say I: "Quite so; because no way other than coercion through worldly law is thinkable. But it there depends overwhelmingly on what kind of laws mankind is to be given!
10
For this, an exceedingly deep knowledge of human nature is needed; and the law-giver must not lose sight of the fundamental reason mankind was led into degeneration, or he would resemble a physician who wants to heal all human sicknesses with the self-same medicine, not thinking that the most diverse sicknesses befalling man's body are of an entirely different nature each having a different origin. Such physician shall indeed find here and there a sick for whose problem the medicine works, and the sick gets well; but a hundred other sick whose problem is of a different nature not only don't improve with such medicine but get much worse and even die!
11
If it is difficult to determine the right medicine even for a sick body, which surely every doctor can see and touch, how much more difficult is it to find the right medicine for a sick human soul!
12
The law indeed is the medicine, provided that the right doctrine, as to how and why it is to be kept is given in conjunction with it; consider however:
13
Here you have an ill-tempered soul, there a timorous, over there a status-seeking, a jealous, a mean and a deceiving soul; furthermore you find an investigative, next to a lazy and sleepy one; inside one house are four obedient and humble ones, in another, five stubborn ones - and so forth with countless attributes, weaknesses and vices.
14
Then you bring the one law for all these countless diversely natured souls; how will it avail them? The timorous shall despair, the ill-tempered plot vengeance and overthrow, the lazy remain lazy, whilst the exploring one shall lose courage and pause in his good work. The mean will get meaner, the haughty shall plot with the angry and the clever offer his services to both!
15
Now consider these and thousands of other results that must go forth from an unwise and clumsy law, and you shall besides that the need for a law other need, namely its close examination as to whether it shall correspond beneficially to all natures or not!
16
If a law about to be decreed is not proved thus, it should not be presented to the public for observing, as it would obviously have to cause more harm than good in general.
17
Behold, God, the wisest Creator, has as it were found in the depth of His wisdom only ten commandments that are suitable for all human character types, and they can be easily observed by everyone who is willing, If, however, God Himself finds only ten commandments which fully and beneficially correspond to the nature and peculiarity of every human soul, how can a pagan Emperor in Rome find a hundred laws from the observance of which the human souls are to gain their salvation?"