The Childhood of Jesus
The Gospel of James
Biographical Gospel of the Lord
- Chapter 104 -
For Every Man I Created Only One Woman
THIS NOBLE LANGUAGE on Tullia's part quite inspired Cyrenius, and he stepped over to Tullia, who was still holding the Baby upon her arms, and said to the Baby with the greatest feeling,
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'O my Life, o true God of my heart - since You have already united me with this girl so graciously I, a poor sinner, also entreat You for Your blessing, to which I shall remain faithful for the rest of my life.'
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And the Baby thereupon sat up and replied: 'Yes, My dear Cyrenius, you I will bless with your wife Tullia.
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But that woman to whom you were wed until now, you must give her to Me for that.
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For if you did not do that, you would remain in the sin of adultery before Me; for you loved the woman and still love her greatly.
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But if you surrender the woman and completely give her up and sacrifice her to Me, then you have also given Me your sin.
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That is why I came into the world, that I might take all sin of mankind in the world upon Myself and efface it through My Love before Its divine countenance forever! So let it be.'
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At this demand Cyrenius at first hesitated somewhat, for his spouse was an extremely beautiful Greek slave whom he had bought at a high price.
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He loved her very much because of her great beauty, although he had no children by her.
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And although this Grecian woman was already thirty years old, she was nevertheless so beautiful that she was worshiped by the lesser pagans as a veritable Venus.
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Therefore this demand was a bit steep for the good Cyrenius and he would much rather not have had it made at all.
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But the Baby did not allow Himself to be swayed by this and remained adamant in His demand.
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Since Cyrenius saw that the Baby would not recede from His demand in the least, he appealed to the Baby, saying,
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'O my Life! See, my spouse, the beautiful Eudokia, is grown very dear to my heart and I shall miss her greatly.
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Truly, if it were possible, I would rather let You have Tullia than give up the ever so beautiful Eudokia!'
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At this the Baby smiled at Cyrenius and asked him: 'Do you hold Me to be a trader?
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See, that I certainly am not! Or do you hold Me to be a Being that allows Himself to be bartered with concerning a spoken word?
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Oh, there I will tell you this: If you said to me: Let pass away the entire visible heaven and the visible earth - I would sooner listen to you than take back one once-spoken word.
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Truly I say to you: Sun, moon and stars and this earth will pass away, like a garment they will age and become nothing; but My words eternally never!
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For that reason you will also promptly have Eudokia brought here and only then receive Tullia, blessed by Me.
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But if you resist, I will let Eudokia die on you - and then will never give you Tullia.
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For what you do you must do freely; any activity done contrary to one's free will has no value before Me.
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If Eudokia dies, then you are already judged with her death and cannot become Tullia's husband any more.
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But if you offer up Eudokia to Me, then you are truly free and Tullia can be your rightful wife!
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But two wives you cannot have according to My order - for in the beginning only one man and one woman were created.
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Therefore do as I now have spoken to you, so a judgment will not come upon you!'
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These words of the Child brought Cyrenius to the sudden decision to have Eudokia brought from the city,
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for he had taken her along from Tyre but allowed no one to see her, so that absolutely no one should be captivated by her great charms.
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But even now he did not entrust her to anyone else than only to the oldest son of Joseph and to Maronius Pilla.
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These two, accompanied by the bodyguard of Cyrenius, went over into the residence of Cyrenius and very soon brought the beautiful Eudokia into Joseph's house. Eudokia was greatly surprised at this and did not know how it came to be that Cyrenius for the first time had her brought by strange men.