The Great Gospel of John
Volume 3
Jesus' Precepts and Deeds through His Three Years of Teaching
Jesus near Caesarea Philippi
- Chapter 142 -
Further examination by Cyrenius.
Herme says, "Lord, lord, over there ten feet from this table stands with a young girl a man of a wonderfully friendly and also highly wise appearance; a very sweet and warmhearted young girl is talking to him, and if he says something, she shows an indescribable happiness! Who is this very dear man then? How noble is this person's form in such a wonderfully magnificent figure! Almost all eyes are directed at him! Judging by his clothes he is a Galilean! Can you tell me something about this man? Oh gods, the more I observe the man, the more I become positively in love with him! I don't hold it against my wife and my three daughters that they almost cannot divert their eyes from him! I would bet my life on it that this man is a good, honest and wise person! But who, who, who and what is he? Tell me about him, lord, lord, and we will then immediately begin to work on the main villains! Oh, they will not escape from us in any case; only we must not take their statements into consideration at all!"
2
Cyrenius says, "Friend Herme, as far as that man is concerned, I will tell you for the moment only that He is as good as a god among us people! He is for the moment only a practitioner from Nazareth - but what a practitioner! This Earth has never borne anyone similar! You will learn everything else later! But now let's get down to business and in the future do not say to me: Lord, lord any longer, but friend and brother!
3
Herme says, "Very good, I know how to respect every order and I would like to die of thanks for this in the very highest reverence and love for you! But now tell me first, high friend, who is that so beautiful youth near the practitioner? Is that his son and the girl his daughter?"
4
Cyrenius says, "Yes, yes, friend, you have already judged correctly, but now down to business!"
5
After these words Cyrenius has the head Pharisee come close again and asks him whether he knows the messenger.
6
The first one says, "Who does not know the famous singer and zither player? We have often taken great enjoyment from his songs! It is only an eternal shame that he cannot be moved over to the religion of our fathers; truly he would be superior to our great David! He is an extremely honest, trustworthy and sensitive person; only he is not disposed to us, which we willingly overlook however, since we cannot demand that he should understand our often very severely inhuman-seeming statutes in their spirit!"
7
Cyrenius says, "This Herme, however is your harshest critic and has now confirmed to me only too directly for the second time what a most believable witness said about you previously! You now stand before me as a very shameful and mean criminal, but you still have the most despicable cheek to demand from me compensation for the fact that you have become the most depraved and wily arsonists through your own highly evil greed! What do you say to that?"
8
The head Pharisee says quite relaxed, "As far as Herme is concerned, we have absolutely no quarrel with him; for we have long known that a person who does not possess even a very little knowledge or other about a thing cannot judge differently than how the thing seems to his limited understanding. Who could ever be filled with wrath against a person who falls from the roof and thereby kills a person sitting under the roof? If the good singer Herme now wants to be our enemy, so be it; but we will nonetheless never become his enemies! Basically everything that he has said about us is true. But there is supposed to be a dangerous point in the sea in Europe near Sicily which is call Scylla and Charybdis; whoever sails through the Scylla without misfortune is swallowed up in the Charybdis! But we tonight also floated in a true moral Scylla and Charybdis and we ask you now: What should we actually have done that would have been fully justifiable to you Romans?"
9
Cyrenius says, "But if you know what the matter was in yesterday's occurrence, why didn't you explain to your flock the true content through which all the minds would have been calmed?! Why do you lie to the people and create a reason for the greatest ruin and confusion and present rebellion against yourselves?! Why do you blackmail the most unheard-of and very most tyrannical sacrifices from the people since you know what the appearance was and that it hides no trace of the prophecy of Daniel?!
10
Give me information about it and justify such unheard-of behavior on your part against the poor and blind people made foolish and superstitious!"
11
The head says, "I have just informed you about your Scylla and Charybdis; however, you seem not to have understood the issue! You see, when the sun yesterday brightened the evening unusually long as in Joshua's days, it struck many of our most eminent believers. They came to me in the synagogue, asked me about it and also informed me that all the Jews were filled with much consternation about it. I spoke to them as well as I could right from the first visit and explained the occurrence as something very natural at the time of the approach to the time of equal hours of day and night. They went, but could not calm the people; for they said that they had seen stars falling in the sky in the east and immediately pointed those calming them to Daniel's prophecy. At the same time the people became threatening if such a thing was being kept a secret from them! But after a time the sun or the light appearance suddenly disappeared and to our terror it became as black as pitch. But now attempts to calm them were futile! Now it had to be the end of the world; a word on our part against this would have instantly meant our end!
12
You see, that was our Scylla. We were therefore obliged by such circumstances to preach Daniel fully and to demand the severest atonement in accordance with the gravity of the situation in order to keep at least some hope among the people of God's care in the people's minds! But we saw very well that we would end up in the Charybdis in today's pure harmony; but if one has to choose between two evils, one rather chooses the first and rather lesser seeming evil than the second which must immediately bring our downfall. We therefore acted according to the circumstances that had arisen without our asking correctly and justly, because it was impossible to act differently. How can you then, as a just Roman, want to judge us for that? Explain that to us!"
13
Cyrenius says, "Yes, yes, that may well be true; but the question remains, what did you do with all the sacrifices you took?! For the end of the world, for which you demanded and took the sacrifices as prevention, did not come today, as we can see! Would you ever have given them back to the poor people?"
14
The high Pharisee says, "High master! That is truly a strange and superfluous question! It goes without saying that it had to happen with all cleverness and care for the sake of the blindness of the people; but now just ask the question to the fire, which consumed all the sacrifices and all our stores, what it will do now!
15
Because of our sermon, demanded through circumstances and necessity, of Daniel's prophecy it was not necessary to burn our houses and synagogues, which happened to us because of your wise companions in faith out of wrath against us. We came therefore, not because of us, but to ask for our people, in that we have now become beggars without our own guilt. How might or how can you now judge us, instead of helping us, and even want to punish us?! Consider the whole situation, the reason and the facts and you must be in the greatest darkness if you then consider us guilty!"