The Great Gospel of John
Volume 3
Jesus' Precepts and Deeds through His Three Years of Teaching
Jesus near Caesarea Philippi
- Chapter 145 -
Cyrenius' gravely serious speech.
Here the leader is meditating and is very unsure whether he should step into the daylight with the truth or not. Only after quite a while he says, "High master! Many dogs are the death of a hare! I am convincing myself more and more that now the witnesses are gathering against my word like mushrooms after the rain. What more do I want than what you want to know and claim to know to bring evidence of my conviction?! Yes, I may not say anything against my conviction, and No is useless to me! Therefore accept your witness and I will make no further effort to remove any just or unjust accusations on the part of the many witnesses! If you find me guilty, well fine, you have all the power to punish me as you wish; I have no power as a totally poor person to place against you!"
2
Cyrenius says, "It is written in your books: Woe to him who attacks one anointed by God! Therefore I also know, as long as it is possible, to respect your law.
3
Saul, your first anointed king, was at the end a doer of all evil, and David, as the second anointed by Samuel to king of Israel, had Saul often in his power and could have destroyed him; but the spirit of God spoke from David's heart: Woe to you if you attack the head of My anointed one!
4
And behold, although I am a Roman and a heathen respectively, I also hear the same voice of the spirit which says: You can try My anointed ones and if they have slipped from the recognizable path, then lead them back to the correct way through advice and deed; but woe to you if you try to judge any one of them!
5
If the arch-angel Michael did not dare to judge Satan himself for the lost threeday fight, but instead gave him over to the Lord's judgment, how should I dare in the face of God to judge you; but I want to investigate you, show you the great deeds devoid of all conscience and all love against your brothers and then set you on the correct path in life! But since you know that I only want this, why do you not speak openly with me?"
6
The leader says, "If you in any case know everything, then I truly don't see why you demand now another open admission from me! I saw you before very moved by my certainly very open confession, because I was not able to give the same valid evidence about the familiar Nazarene as you were, who have already made his acquaintance; and so I will just stop giving you any more open confessions! I have already told you everything and you said it yourself, that you know everything; why should we lose more empty words?!
7
What I know about the Nazarene is not in my field and I could not tell you anything but what I have heard myself from others! Now that I heard another witness from you, I am now thinking differently about him! Or should I do something else?! Who can prescribe to me to say something good about a person if only evil and no good things have come to my ears about him before? But since only now the best information about the Nazarene has come to me, I can now bear as good witness as you, and I think now as you do about the Nazarene. Is that now not good enough for you yet?"
8
Cyrenius says, "Yes, that would be correct if your heart spoke as your mouth does; but your heart, if one could hear it, speaks another language! For your Pharisee-hood is only too familiar to me! I know certainly that you like the Essenes do not actually believe, but for your material benefit you want to make the people believe everything that comes into your heads so that they will pay you interest.
9
Now if a man comes who has an inner true light from God, and shows the people who stumble around in night and darkness the correct and light way of life, where it cannot be avoided that your old deceptions become common knowledge, you will become angry with such a prophet of light from God and seek him in every possible way to destroy him; for this is an old shameful reputation of yours, that you with the exception of Elijah and Samuel killed all the prophets sent to you by God throwing stones at them and thereby preached to the people that you have done a good service for God.
10
Only after a hundred years you accepted the prophet- but never for your sake, but only because you could use his sayings to terrify the people very well - and have painted and adorned his grave, whether genuine or not, that was all the same!
11
You see, that was always your way of acting that is only too familiar to me! If things happen this way according to the truth, how can I possibly give your words even the least faith?! Tell me whether things have ever happened differently to you concerning the truth! Do you believe in your heart even a jot of what you preached to the people?"
12
NB.: That Cyrenius could speak in this way came from the fact that I had laid the words in his heart and mouth; so what he said then was as good as spoken by Me, but in Cyrenius? individual way.