The Great Gospel of John
Volume 3
Jesus' Precepts and Deeds through His Three Years of Teaching
Jesus near Caesarea Philippi
- Chapter 179 -
Cornelius' memory of Jesus' birth.
Cornelius considered for a while and finally said full of the greatest wonder, "Lord, Lord, yes, very good, yes! But there is still the fact that if You entered under the roof of my house I could never be worthy of this! For You alone are the One about whom the great king of the Jews, David, whose psalms I read in my youth, prophesied, when he said, "Lift up your heads, o gates, and be lifted up, o ancient doors, that the king of glory may come in! Who is the king of glory? The Lord strong and mighty, the Lord mighty in battle!" (Psalm 24: 7-8)
2
As I said, I have known these things since my youth, and strangely: it had to be so that I was a witness of Your birth in Bethlehem and at the same time the one who showed Your earthly parents a way to flee from the cruelest persecution by old Herod.
3
But then I was only twenty-five years old, and I am now a good thirty years older, I have lived through much in this time, seen much and heard and experienced much; but despite everything the strange words of David and Your birth and all the accompanying events float as vividly before my eyes as if I had experienced them firsthand, as one says, only yesterday or the day before. And in the meantime I hear again and again, "Lift up your heads, o gates, and be lifted up, o ancient doors that the king of glory may come in! Who is the king of glory? The Lord strong and mighty, the Lord mighty in battle!"
4
And in secret I said this text to myself even before Your birth, and when You, oh Lord, healed my servant and I then had the greatest mercy to meet You, I said this verse to myself in my heart which reveres and loves You above all else! And so I now say and bear witness that You alone are the great, eternal King of Glory, about whom the wise king of the Jews sang in his prophetic spirit! And if You were not that King Zebaoth, how could You say such things about the people of this Earth as You have just spoken?!
5
Yes, if Your holy words will only remain firm in the memories of the likes of us! But unfortunately my memory was never my strongest point; however, the main thing, the core, remains in me all the same! But what You have now told us goes far beyond all human understanding, and although I understand more or less what is said, things are nonetheless like a bright dream, and I will at home have a lot to do to explain things to my house as clearly as possible, because my memory cannot retain all the points as well as they came out of Your holiest mouth."
6
I say, "Oh, that can soon be easily helped! You see, we have the angel Raphael; give him a few pages of good leather paper, and he will immediately write down for you this whole speech of Mine, which is of a very powerful importance!"
7
With the greatest joy in the world Cornelius immediately calls his servants and has them bring about twenty of the best pages of parchment, some ink and a golden writing pen.
8
The angel only touches the paper with the pen which has been dipped in ink, and in an instant all twenty pages are filled to the same degree.
9
Next the angel gives the twenty pages to Cornelius to look through, and Cornelius cannot wonder enough how the angel was possibly able to put it all down on paper so endlessly quickly. For Cornelius had not been witness before when our Raphael had brought proof of his fast writing to light on other occasions, therefore he wondered all the more that this angel was finished so quickly with the writing down of the words I had said, and in addition in Greek and in Latin, and so true to word that there was not a dot missing.
10
But then Kisjonah, Faustus and the mentioned Philopold also became very attentive and full of wonder, and the highly inquisitive Philopold began to ask Raphael about the possibility of writing something down at such enormous speed.
11
But the angel says, "Friend that is very easily possible for the likes of us at any time and with the help of the Lord - but purely impossible to explain to you how. For this is a characteristic which every perfect spirit possesses, not only such writing, but also to complete any great act in an instant. If you want to have a whole long mountain range destroyed or annihilated, or a lake dried out, or sea turned to land, or a whole Earth destroyed or the sun which is a thousand times a thousand times greater, or if you wanted to send me to one of the very furthest stars and demanded at the same time a sign that I had actually been there, that would also happen in the shortest moment that you would not be able to perceive with your senses that I had been even the slightest bit absent. Well, how this happens, and can possibly happen, can only be understood by a pure spirit!
12
Once you are reborn again completely in the spirit, you will understand it, see it and make a comparable image; but as long as you have not been reborn in the spirit, you cannot possibly recognize such characteristics of the pure spirits, even if I were to show it to you quite clearly uncovered! But just ask yourself how your thought can be in Rome or in Jerusalem in the shortest instant and back here again! If you can explain that to yourself, my friend Philopold, you will also soon understand my speed."
13
Philopold says, "Yes, yes, you magnificent, wonderful angelic being, the thought is going to and fro, and no-one can measure its speed; but nothing comes of the thought, it is a highly fleeting image. If someone wants to realize his thoughts, he must become very active with his hands, and a long time is needed until the image of the thought becomes visible in reality; but the thought is already a wonderfully completed work for you. You see, that is the very powerful difference between my thoughts and yours!"