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 27 -
Suitability of the ten commandments of God for the nature of the soul, but their disregard by human (civil) laws.
The Lord: "I tell you: As long as the Jewish people were ruled by the Judges, who upheld only the laws of God, they complied - except for a few peculiarities - for a long time fully with the divine order. When later, however, they had the opportunity to see the splendour of heathen kings, how they resided in large, magnificent palaces and how their subjects bowed before them into the dust, the blind fools among the Jewish people liked this very much, and since they considered themselves to be the mightiest nation on earth, they demanded of God a king, too. God did not immediately want to grant the foolish wish of the people, but warned them and showed them the bad consequences they would have to put up with under a king. But God preached through the prophets to deaf ears. It did not help, the people wanted a king at any cost.
2
So God gave the people in Saul their first king and had him anointed by the old, faithful servant Samuel. When the people had their king, who promptly gave them hard to keep laws, they began to sink ever lower - right to the present state of utter depravity.
3
And what is the main cause of this? Behold, the inept laws that stem from men who did not know their own, let alone their fellowmen's, nature and with the awkward laws taking only their self-interest into account completely ruined all inner soul-life.
4
Ask yourself and consider well: If there were somewhere in existence an artful mechanism which had been in efficient operation for a long time in accordance with the designer's will, yet having stopped in the end due to some damaged part, whereupon some conceited person along to the owner, saying: "Hand the work over to me and I shall restore it", and the owner did so believing the loud-mouth to be an expert, - what shall most certainly become of the machine if the loud-mouth gets his hands on the machine? Will not this loud-mouth, bereft of all basic mechanical knowledge, trying only to get a few gold pieces out of the equally blind machine owner, not do the machine more harm than good? Will he not rather damage the machine to the extent where even the actual machine builder shall hardly be able to fix it?
5
If this necessarily would and has to be the case with a most rudimentary and clumsy machine whose parts can readily be seen, counted and grasped by hand withal, if an ignorant loud-mouth wanted to restore it, how much more would a human who is in all his parts the wisest and most artful life-machine, of whose total fitting together only God has full knowledge and insight, be harmed if an ignorant and most unwise, selfish law-giver were intent on reforming him through the most clumsy and counter-productive laws, where he has not the faintest notion for comprehending even a thousandth part what is required to just make one hair grow upon a human head!
6
Therefore, My dear friend Cyrenius, do leave your intended hundred laws at home, for you would not better anyone through them. Instead, let God's laws rule and sanction them, and through the observance of these you will be making true humans out of human machines.
7
Once they have become humans you can present to them the needs of the state, and as true humans they will voluntarily do more than they could ever have done as the gagged slaves of hard and awkward laws.
8
I say unto you: only that which man does out of free will and well-developed insight is truly done brings benefits one way or another; every coerced work or deed however is not worth a penny. Because alongside every coerced work or deed, anger and revenge against the enforcer are also at work and this shall not be a blessing for whatever labour eternally.
9
When you have thought through these My words, My dearest Cyrenius then it also shall become plain to you that I told you only the fullest truth!"
10
Says Cyrenius: "Most noble and godly friend, here truly I don't need much thought; for Your words are as clear and true as the sun at high noon, and I shall do as advised by You. I shall sanction Moses' Commandments anew and shall know how to make the people act accordingly! Noblest friend, if it should please You, then I shall also with Your secret spiritual assistance proclaim the well-known Mosaic Commandments to the Greeks for their strictest keeping! For that I should not be lacking even political reasons; because the constant frictions between the Jews and Greeks are notorious, forming from the differing faiths in God and the equally diverse concepts of Him. The Jews assert their thing, come murder or fire, whilst the Greeks, being way ahead of the Jews dialectically, with their smooth tongues so beat the dull Jews that the latter cannot give the Greeks one rejoinder in a thousand, escalating not seldom to bloody consequences, something that surely is not a desirable consequence for differences in faith and divine Commandments.
11
If therefore I give the Jewish divine Commandments to the Greeks as well, sanctioning them as said even for political reasons, then such disputations shall surely cease. Lord and Master, am I right to do so? And if I am to do it, then please tell me from Your unfathomable wisdom how to go about achieving the said result."