The Great Gospel of John
Volume 1
Jesus' Precepts and Deeds through His Three Years of Teaching
In the fisherman's house at Bethabara
- Chapter 117 -
The young Roman's severe but true addressing of the Pharisees. Example in the creation of Adam. Reference to the murder of Zacharias and his son John the Baptist. Commendable testimony to the Lord.
And the young man who had previously spoken so well, said through the attic: 'I wonder whether the High priest in Jerusalem can bring this about, even with a thousand oxen, ten thousand donkeys and a hundred thousand sheep?'
3
Says the speaker: 'Friend, this certainly would be the concern also of priests, if only they were capable of bringing it about. But because they are for all the treasures of the world incapable of doing so, they have to in the end admit with proud mien and say, 'This is no concern of priests, who are called upon to only care for man's spirit!' But I say, if it is possible for a physician to give back the spirit and soul of a young maiden who died after a high fever right before our eyes and hence from a malady from which no man ever even half died, then this surely is also going to be a very powerful spiritual care too?!
4
When God created Adam merely from the dust of the earth, then this creation was a merely material one and there was nothing spiritual, besides God Himself.
5
When later however God breathed into the dead form a living soul and into same a thinking spirit, then this was not a material but a highly spiritual work of God, upon the first man of the earth! And if here right before our eyes this wonder-physician Jesus of Nazareth carries out the same upon the little daughter of the principal, then this surely would be a most spiritual work and care?!'
6
Says the scribe: 'This is something you don't understand, hence you should be quiet!'
7
Says the young man: 'If I were still a Jew, I should indeed be quiet. But since I am a Jew no longer, but an honest Greek and follower of Socrates' glorious teaching, I see no reason for being silenced by Jewish priests, whose current and exceedingly stupid teaching I unfortunately know only too well.'
8
Says the scribe: 'And what should you heathen find stupid about the old, purely divine teaching of the Jews? Are Moses and the prophets perhaps insufficiently exalted for you and do you find their teaching stupid?'
9
Says the young man: 'No, Moses and all the prophets who spoke that of you which I now say, I regard as exceedingly and purely godly-wise men! But your statutes, of which neither Moses nor any of the prophets ever dreamt of, I regard stupid to full excess!
10
How do you serve God? Dung, excrement and filth you burn upon the alter consecrated to God, whilst the fat oxen, calves and rams you consume yourselves, offering them to your omnivorous paunches. The purely divine part of your teaching you have discarded and whoever among you dares to teach the pure, to such you do what you have always done to your prophets!
11
How long is it since the days you murdered Zacharias in the Temple?!
12
At Bethabara, his son preached the truth, exhorting you treacherous blasphemers in the Holy of Holies to repent and to return to Moses and his most pure teaching; what did you do with him?! Where did he get to?! He disappeared, - as far as I know he was taken away by thugs at night!
13
Now at Nazareth, Jesus has been awoken by God as a prophet, accomplishing deeds which are possible only to the almighty gods, yet you watch Him with Argus eyes! Let Him beware if He should dare to, like myself, hold forth with even one word against your own most obscene teaching, not initiated by Moses! You would at once accuse Him of the ultimate crime of blasphemy and out of gratitude for resurrecting your dead and making straight your cripples, stone and even bind Him to the cross!
14
Because what you are on about is ruling and to at the same time luxuriate in the fattening of your paunches! Whoever would restrict you therein or turn you back to Moses is your enemy and you have the means to get him out of the way!
15
You all I despise like a decayed, stinking ass, because you are and will remain actually, the greatest enemies of God and all his people. I am a heathen, yet I recognise the purely divine power in the man Jesus, the fullness of which the world has not experienced to this day!
16
Not his flesh effects these unheard of deeds, but the almighty, pure spirit of God, which must be indwelling in Him in all its fullness.
17
Behold, this do I recognise as a heathen, declared blind by you! What however do you recognise in Jesus, Who through the mere word, without any medicine, resurrects your dead and makes our cripples leap like young stags?
18
And I ask you blind ones; Who must be He Whom it takes only a word of will, and storms and winds are silenced, the dead arise and the lame start leaping as if transformed to stag-nature?!'
19
Through this really true and bold speech he had brought the Pharisees and scribes one and all to such rage that they would have torn him to pieces if they could have laid hands on him. But this was not possible and no proposition, because the people were jubilant about this young man, who had at last the guts to thoroughly rub the full truth into the noses of the swollen-headed Pharisees and scribes.