THE GREAT GOSPEL OF JOHN
VOLUME 5
Jesus' Precepts and Deeds through His Three Years of Teaching
Jesus in the region of Caesarea Philippi. (cont.) Gospel of Matthew, Chapter 16
- Chapter 162 -
Cyrenius reveals the Pharisees' opinions on the miracle works of the Lord.
Cyrenius, seeming a little unwilling, says, "If you had spoken quite honestly, you should have spoken to me just as you spoke there by the sea to old Mark and with your colleagues! Indeed you could not quite hide your insides from me, and some things slipped out of your inner thoughts; but you still think quite differently within and you have also spoken quite differently to Mark and to your colleagues.
2
It will certainly be very unpleasant for you if I now recite what you said, and even more, what you actually thought, but may the issue be very unpleasant for you, you will now have to hear it all the same from out of my mouth! And so listen to me with your dear companions!
3
When you were marveling at the ships and the construction of the harbor down at the sea and old, honest Mark asked you what you would say now to all that, you shrugged your shoulders in thought and said: Either very much, or in another respect very little can be said about it. Very much, if this in the end is no miracle despite all the high claims and statements of witnesses, but instead a very natural work; and of course very little or even nothing at all if all this is nonetheless seriously supposed to be a miracle! That I and all my companions cannot accept this as a miracle despite all the high assurances however, every thinking person can see tangibly that we ourselves were not witnesses of it and have not seen or even less set foot in this area for a good ten years. What all could have happened in this isolated corner since that time through the cleverness of Rome! Through spies it is known that we are making a movement in this country to investigate everything that is undertaken against us, and also in order to find out the people who are in the most active movement against us. It was certainly known that we are at the sea of Galilee, sailors were sent out after us and brought us here, where a main camp of the Romans has been set up.
4
It will hopefully be very easily understandable that this was very surprising to us, if one notices that the Romans do not understand a joke in any way and nothing serious can be undertaken with them. We have noticed for a considerable time now that the Romans only barely halfway tolerate us for the sake of the people, but in secret give the Essenes every advantage, who naturally take the greatest pleasure in digging us a hole on all sides. We know the blind fooling around of the Essenes and know about their fraudulent miracles; but we are not allowed to stir and must allow things to happen to us which are directly against our religious institutions, like for example the national census, personal taxation and the introduction of customs and tolls. And although it is said in their Code that the children of Israel were free in the land, there is nonetheless no consideration of this, and the children of Abraham are caught before the toll booths just as much as the foreigners.
5
Even we priests must pay the toll stater, we who were declared free from all taxes by Moses and even have the right to take a tenth from the children of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, since we are never allowed to have any property! Well, whoever should not find the most decided antipathy of the Romans against us must truly be beaten with the seven-fold blindness! Since we have no joy any longer in the grand rule of Rome and no power to shake off this very most oppressive burden, in the end nothing is left for us except to move like the trodden worms and to seek as far as is possible to save ourselves from the clearly signed enemies of our institute and wherever possible to bring them to silence.
6
The Nazarene in question, obviously a very eminent scholar of the Essenes, is only too well known to us as a main opponent of our college and a decided enemy of the temple "in addition the son of a builder. He has already made totally renegade a number of colleagues who were exposed here and there Galilee, partly through the power of his speech, and even more so through his miracles in disguise "not to mention the people who are supposed to run after him in droves. Accordingly a reasonable person will not be amazed if we finally take a stand and begin to strive to put such misery to best use for us.
7
They have even set traps for us here through violence or through guile in order to separate us from the affairs of the temple, and have shown us a miracle of an instant for this purpose, for whose establishment however one could very well have spent several years in secret, and they seek to topple us with this now. Since we however are also people of some experience that will seriously be somewhat difficult! Before the blind people it is easy to perform miracles "but very difficult before a sharp-sighted Pharisee! We know what we are, and what the world is, and how they know how to act to their advantage with the means of all sorts of means, and say therefore: This bathhouse along with the extremely magnificently constructed garden and this harbor gives the lords of Rome as Non- plus-ultra- Architects high honor in any case, even without being seen as an instantaneous miracle!"