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 203 -
Hiram's notion of the Messiah.
1
(Hiram) "Yes, indeed, a true Messiah of the nations would consist in a pure teaching through which the people could recognize themselves in their whole inner being and only thereby God as the most wise, mighty and loving cause of all being, and strive above all to keep such knowledge alive for their descendants! But it is the chronic cancerous evil of the world that no teaching, however pure, can survive in its purity for even 500 years, and this because it is only too soon perverted through the many false and impure precepts. Besides, with every new teaching, no matter how pure and true, only too soon certain elders and superiors arise who form a caste of priests. These no longer lay their hands on a plough or spade, but the only thing they do is teach, whereby they gain more and more power and, thus, lead a carefree and good life. Well, the examples of all nations now known to us show us how such a privileged caste then handles the pure religion, and it would be a shame to waste even one more word about it! And so I am of the certainly not authoritative opinion in comparison with your wisdom that a person such as you are, or even like this young man here, could actually be the correct Messiah of the people, because you all possess the correct true-to-life wisdom and the power that comes from it more than in abundance.
2
But for that end certain great provisions would have to be made! Firstly a sifting of all people who are basically corrupted, then secondly a total obliteration of all present temples, schools, prayer houses, priests and teachers! Not a trace of the presently existent cultural state should ever remain! Only people like you and here and there some others should still remain and above all carry the greatest responsibility for the pure maintenance and transmission "let's say "of your teaching, which sets everything else of this Earth to one side according to our examples. So all people could truly be helped in time by such a true Messianic movement. But all other types of improvement and patching up are and remains in general a fruitless effort for the good of humanity.
3
Yes, here and there greater and smaller societies will indeed be formed which will accept, understand and also keep your teaching pure for a time; but soon either powerful worldly tartars, as we saw here a few hours ago, will fall upon it and spoil it, or the societies will set up new teachers and protectors of this teaching, out of which in time quite the same priests will develop, as we can now observe in many thousands everywhere.
4
But above all, for the fruitful acceptance of your teaching a total turning away of the human mind from all material and worldly advantages, however they may be, is necessary. The people should never want to raise themselves above the plough, spade, axe and saw for the preparation of the most necessary needs of life and should lay no value on anything but alone on the purely spiritual, inner formation of life; then it could work. But where is that now possible with the present worldly culture of the people?! Who would abandon the countless material worldly interests?
5
Yet if your ever so divinely true and pure teaching is sown into this old, worldly quagmire, I wonder what masses of weeds will crop up among its noble young shoots. Truly, if we could have a country of our own, far from all other people and inaccessible to them, with us the teaching would be safely preserved in its purity for the longest time, but I doubt if it will fare so well in the rest of the world.
6
This, as mentioned before, is my opinion about the Messiah, whom the Jews are expecting in vain, in their own way. I may have made a big mistake there; but since, according to your word, every man can reach the perfection of his life only through his own activity, that is, through the cultivation and proper conduct of his heart and inner life, he needs no other Messiah but one just like you, namely, a true teacher who is knowledgeable and thereby most wise in all spheres of life. Everything else is a poetic chimera and stands alone without any trace of truth just like a rose bush full of buds and thorns, whose fruit is as good as none at all, because it gives the people no nutrition and is little or not at all suitable for anything else. What is your opinion then of this view of mine?"