The Great Gospel of John
Volume 3
Jesus' Precepts and Deeds through His Three Years of Teaching
Jesus near Caesarea Philippi
- Chapter 2 -
On the appearance of higher beings.
1
(Julius) "In the same way we Romans are familiar with enough historical traditions to know, for example, that Socrates, Plato, Aristides and a lot of other wise men always had a guardian spirit with them who taught them and constantly gave them wise teachings and in emergencies sound advice according to the capability of their heart; and whichever of them did not follow the advice surely had also to face the terrible consequences.
2
Now however, if we know this, partly from history and partly from our own personal experience, then such a figure as has appeared to you here cannot seem so inadmissible. In brief, we know from the numerous traditions and from the experience of the present that higher beings come down to us people not at all as rarely as some think, and they reveal themselves to us in numerous ways and give us information one moment about this, the next about that; but now if this is so, then our angel is certainly not such an unusual appearance as one is accustomed to consider him to be at first glance.
3
But that such a perfect spirit possesses powers incomprehensible for our mind and therefore can carry out very rare miracles for us, I find nothing extraordinary in that.
4
I once had the opportunity to see people from Rear Egypt[Sudan, Ethiopia?] and to talk to them through an interpreter. They were complete naked and didn't even cover their private parts. They considered us Romans to be higher, heavenly beings and wondered greatly about the great and most magnificent buildings of Rome, about the beautiful clothes and our shining splendor; they considered everything that they saw which had been made by the hands of men to be works of the gods which they considered us to be, and asked me if we also constantly ruled over the sun and the stars as well as the moon, and directed everything according to our whim, or whether there were other gods to do this.
5
Of course we corrected them, and before a year was out they knew very well that we were also only people, and they learned very many things from us, finally clothed themselves and experienced great joy when they had learned to make cloth themselves and to make all sorts of clothes out of it, male and female. After a few years they returned to their homeland again equipped with all possible knowledge and there they have surely founded schools and in such a way brought a little light to their natural wilderness.
6
So, if we in our still very great spiritual ignorance see a perfect spirit working, then we certainly must wonder to the greatest degree how such a thing is possible; but when our spirit becomes just as perfect then we will also surely be able to do higher things and we will not wonder as we do now if a spirit splits a stone into all its elements with the power we have seen.
7
But that we are capable of an unlimited perfection in our spiritual sector, that is proven to us by thousands of examples; and at this table sit people who were allowed to be quite close to the angel and yet one was allowed to be considerably superior to the angel, as you have heard before about the practitioner from Nazareth.
8
So from now on throw yourselves principally into the greatest possible education of your spirit, and you will then be able to dissolve not only a stone but even a whole mountain into its primary elements!"
9
At this Julius turned to the angel and said, "And you, Raphael, tell me if I have said even one false or untrue word in my rather long-winded speech?!"