The Great Gospel of John
Volume 3
Jesus' Precepts and Deeds through His Three Years of Teaching
Jesus near Caesarea Philippi
- Chapter 173 -
Cornelius' question to Jarah.
Jarah is satisfied with that, and Cornelius begins to scan his brains; but still he cannot find anything suitable.
2
Finally, after a while something occurs to him, and he asks Jarah about the following, saying, "Well, now I have found something, and so tell me what actually is the sun, and which elements does it consist of, since it pours out over the face of the Earth such a very strong light and a hardly believable heat! If you, blessed Jarah, are in a position to tell me something about this, I will reward you regally, if you will accept it!"
3
Jarah says somewhat ironically, "Do you know, high master, in this way one fetches the rotten fish out of a pond and wants to purify it in this way because the rotten fish make the water stink and make it impure and therefore also unhealthy! Understood, lord leader Cornelius?!
4
If you have superfluous treasure, you will find the poor, particularly here in this city which has been destroyed by fire, in a great number, whom you can give your regal support! But I do not need a reward from anyone on this Earth; for I have all the love of the Lord, and this is my only and highest reward!
5
Oh yes, I will answer your question, I do not want to remain in debt to you for anything; but therefore I will not let myself be rewarded by you at all - least of all in a worldly fashion! For I consider such a thing to be one of the greatest sins; for first of all I would be taking it away from the truly needy poor, and secondly I would have taken away the opportunity for you to do something truly good, especially since I am not a poor child of the Earth in any way, and basically I even possess material treasure which you could not pay for with all your great kingdom, which I actually need just as little as the regal reward which you have just offered me.
6
But do not believe that any sort of arrogance is speaking through me, but instead the quite purest and most harmless truth; for if I possessed even the smallest spark of pride in myself, I would not sit in this place beside the Lord of lords and beside the Master of masters! That, my otherwise very dearest friend Cornelius, was a little bit of a failure!
7
You see, people who possess mercy from the Lord as I do, if through and through undeservedly, must be judged and treated quite differently to the people of nature and the world!
8
You thought that I as a young, barely fourteen year-old girl would be of as vain a nature as the other maidens of the world and would even have the greatest joy in being dressed in regal clothes; alone such vanity is further from me than the smallest star in the firmament that your eye can discover from this Earth, and that says a lot! Therefore take your offer of reward back quickly, otherwise I will not answer your question in any case!"
9
Cornelius says, "Well then, because I ended up with such a sharp retort, I will take it back very willingly according to your wish and will then do what you advised me to do; but you must answer my question to you out of friendship!"
10
Next Jarah began to gather herself and said, "You now want to learn from me what the sun is and which elements it consists of, since it pours out such a strong light and such powerful warmth over the Earth?
11
Well, I can give you quite fully true information about this; but what good would that do you?! You can well believe me, as a blind man believes someone who tells him that a flower is beautifully red. Will the blind man be able to convince himself that that flower is truly so wonderfully red? That would be very difficult in this life, and in the next life the free soul will certainly worry very little about it; for in any case it will in a better position to see more in one instant than can be learnt here in fifty industrious years of every effort."
12
Cornelius says, "Most blessed girl, there you are quite right! I will never ad personam mean (personally) be able to convince myself about the things you have told me about the sun, and that the things you have just said are seriously true; but I also know now that you cannot lie to me, because everything that you know you can only know from the Lord. And therefore I can accept everything that you might ever say about the sun as the perfect and undoubted truth!"
13
Jarah says, "Well then, good! I will see whether you begin to shrug your shoulders! And so listen to me!"