The Great Gospel of John
Volume 3
Jesus' Precepts and Deeds through His Three Years of Teaching
Jesus near Caesarea Philippi
- Chapter 161 -
Floran's confession before the Lord and testimony about the temple.
With slow steps we now come to the fifty, who immediately bow to us deeply. I command them to stand upright as men, and they then immediately straighten themselves up completely.
2
And I ask them, saying, "Do you believe that I am He about whom all the prophets have foretold?"
3
They all say, "Lord, none of us doubt it; but since You are He, how can You then ask us about it, since You know our most secret thoughts before we have even begun to think them?"
4
I say, "May none of you be annoyed with Me because of it; for it is not a matter of what I have, of course, known since the beginning of eternity, but instead a matter of your verbalizing! You will not be able to understand Me before your interior has become your exterior!
5
You can certainly see Me with your eyes and hear My voice with your ears; but nonetheless your heart cannot hear or understand Me in the spirit and in all truth! And therefore I ask you questions; and the answer that you give Me has quite a different effect on your whole life than the one that you give to a person tarred with the same brush as you.
6
Therefore I now ask you once again whether you truly believe quite without a doubt that I am He whom Moses and all the other prophets foretold! Tell Me now without fear what you think in your hearts!"
7
Floran says, "Lord, You understand our nature better than we do! Everything happened so suddenly: the second sun yesterday and its sudden disappearance; the result is still smoking and hides the whole area in clouds; our loss - we have still heard nothing about our wives and children! We fled here, were arrested and brought before the judge; and then the angel's miracles and now You Yourself - and all that in eighteen hours! It is truly no joke, and yet one cannot rid oneself of every previous thought at one go!
8
It seems like a dream to me, and surely to all my companions as well! Everything is true and correct, and nothing that happened here can ever be disputed; but so many extraordinary things happened in a short time that one cannot comprehend it all at once. We believe firmly what is and happens here; and we are as sure and certain that You are clearly the Messiah of whom all the prophets foretold as we are quite sure and certain that the old Roman is the Supreme Governor of all Asia, that is, as far as it has been conquered by the Romans. But we will need a long period of time before we accept that into our lives!
9
One cannot fell a tree with one stroke, and nor can we quite fully understand such a thing in one go; but we will certainly make every effort and strive above all else to value in all depth of correct understanding everything that happened here namely for our sakes, and what we experienced! No man can experience more profound or higher things anywhere on this Earth!
10
Thus we all believe firmly and without a doubt that You are the prophesied Messiah, despite Your more or less known unsightly parentage, as far as earthly possessions are concerned. Your earthly parents are poor, and Your father was a carpenter in Nazareth, as far as we know. We do not know about Your mother's background, and it is therefore all the more extraordinary that the Savoir of all mankind as announced even to the first people of this Earth could come into this world in such most extraordinary humility and poverty, since in the spirit He must have had all the advantages of a noble birth at His disposal right from eternity.
11
If You had come into the world from the lap of an empress and did such deeds, where would there be a nation on this Earth that would not be subservient to You in all things!? But as the very highest and greatest person, yes, even as the only God Himself in human form, to enter this world to such a lowly birth is something which will annoy many people very much! Certainly that does not matter to us any longer, and we are therefore more satisfied; but not all people will think as we do now - by no means the proud Jerusalemites, and least of all the templars! For we know them; they know only one person in the world whom they love and revere - everything else is rubbish - and this person, for every templar without the least exception, is himself! He alone is loved and honored above all by each person, every other, even if he were a god, is extremely despised; only at times an extraordinary external gleam can impress them a little.
12
If You, oh Lord, would come to Jerusalem today and allow it, they would kill Your flesh in the first three days; for the Templers recognize no-one - except someone from among themselves. One may well kill the other; but since one is useful to the other to achieve his highly selfish purposes, one mutually tolerates the other under the mask of the most feigned friendship.
13
No-one trusts the other further than he can throw him; but nonetheless each person feigns towards the other an unconditional trust. But if he needs him for any business, his neighbor cannot place enough bond money on him so that he is obliged to act honestly. But even the bond is of no use! If he who is entrusted with a business errand sees himself at an advantage despite the bond placed on him, he will forfeit the bond money and put the much greater advantage nicely into his pocket.
14
There is much that can be said about people there; but since You, oh Lord, will anyway be very familiar with all that, every further word from my mouth would be idle madness, and I tell You therefore that we believe quite firmly in You; for You had to come in order to put an end to all these atrocities for all time."