The Great Gospel of John
Volume 1
Jesus' Precepts and Deeds through His Three Years of Teaching
On Mount Morgenkopf near Kis
- Chapter 159 -
The fourth day - the right cognition in the heart.
1
'When man's cognitions therefore surround man from all sides and are progressively lit up and warmed by the love-flame which they had fed, then man correspondingly grows in strength and the capacity to act.
2
In this state God again comes to man - in Spirit of course, and as love eternal speaks to man's love in his heart: 'Let the earth bring forth vegetation, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after its kind, whose seed is in itself, upon the earth!'
3
Upon such Commandment from God in the heart, man gains a firm will, strength and confidence and goes into action.
4
And behold! His right cognitions take off like rain-laden clouds above the ordered sea and move over the dry land, moistening and fructifying it. And the earth begins to turn green, bringing forth all kinds of grass and herbs with seed, and all kinds of fruit trees and bushes and seeds, yielding fruit, i.e., that which the right intellect, translucent with heavenly wisdom now regards as fully good and true, then also desired forthwith by the love in man's heart.
5
Because just as the seed laid in the earth soon sprouts, bringing forth manifold fruit, just so is the effect of the right cognitions if laid in the life-giving soil of the heart.
6
The seed however acts in the manner of awakening the love-force dormant in the soil, and this then gathers increasingly around the seed-grain, effecting the unfolding of the latter to growth, yielding fruit. In short, the right cognition moves to action only in the heart, and from the action all kinds of works emerge; and it is of this that, out of deep wisdom, Moses speaks in Genesis, and that as already rendered verbatim, from chapter 1, verses 11 and 12.
8
Says one of the Pharisees, 'Exalted and wisest friend and master! I for my part underwrite every one of your words, addressed to all of us, since they are totally true and must be so. But move to Jerusalem and explain Genesis to the Temple in this way, and you shall be stoned together with all your following, unless you defend yourself with your evidently divine power! But should you encounter the Templers with this might, then they are judged forthwith and it may differ very little from annihilating them with lightning and fire from heaven in the first place!
9
As said, it would in any case be a most daring task, in spite of such truly all-wise and penetrating explanation of the first three days of creation, as described in Genesis, being quite straightforward and without a word of self-contradiction. But now comes the fourth day, on which according to the text, God evidently created sun, moon and stars! How can you explain this differently? To all intents and purposes sun, moon and stars are with us and no man knows a beginning to these large and small lights on the firmament other than what one reads in Genesis.
10
Question: where is the key to the correspondence by which this fourth day relates exclusively to man?!'
11
Say, 'My friend, have you not often heard and experienced it yourself that there are far-sighted and short-sighted as well as half and totally blind people, and those blind as bats, in the eye of the flesh? The far-sighted see well at a distance but badly at close range; the short-sighted on the other hand see well in the vicinity but badly at a distance; with the half-blind it is half night and half day, i.e. they indeed see objects quite well with one eye, but because the other eye is blind it is self-evident that such seers can only see everything at half light. The fully blind no longer see any object, neither during the day nor at night, although there is a feeble glimmer during the day so that they can tell day from night. Those blind as bats do not have a glimmer and can no longer distinguish day from night.
12
Behold, just as men are so diversely constituted in their flesh-vision, just so but much more markedly diverse are they constituted in their spiritual sight. And even you yourself have a strong visual defect and much more strongly in your soul-sight than in the eye of the flesh. Verily I say unto you: the short-sightedness of your soul is extraordinary!'