The Great Gospel of John
Volume 3
Jesus' Precepts and Deeds through His Three Years of Teaching
Jesus near Caesarea Philippi
- Chapter 202 -
The effects of the Lord's deeds on the Persian Jews.
This event, however, made the right impression on our Persians. Now this was the last straw and our Shabbi looked first at Me, then at the risen, felt their pulses and asked them diligently whether they had really been dead, and whether they could not remember something about what had happened to them!
2
But the man said, "Ask this stone, and he will be in the same position to give you an answer as I am! I now know only that a powerful current of water pulled me with it to the sea and then made me so unconscious and then dead that I do not know anything from this moment on what happened to me. I only remember this - but only in the soul - that I quite sadly found myself with my daughters soon after the drowning in the deadly tides on a great meadow and did not know why I was actually so sad. But soon a light cloud came upon us from all sides and I felt so blissful in this light! But we saw no-one except for ourselves, and a sweet sleep came over us in this bliss of ours, and we awoke from that sleep here. Now you know everything that I can tell you - judge for yourselves!
3
There is surely as little doubt that I was dead as that I am now alive! For if you step into the depths of the sea, remain there more than two full hours under the water, and I guarantee you that you will be completely dead in the body after this!"
4
Shabbi says, "Yes, yes, you were completely dead, and the miracle-worker raised you again, simply through his all-powerful word! No, no, the Earth has ever experienced such a thing before! But what now?!"
5
Jurah now calls Shabbi and says to him, "Well, friend Shabbi, what do you say now at this event?"
6
Shabbi says, "What should, or what can one say to this?! Jehovah's power is working here and nothing else! For that goes too endlessly far over every horizon of human experience and no knowledge has ever scaled this terrible height. Now I am becoming really confused!"
7
I say to Shabbi, "Well friend, how do things look now for the story of the Messiah which the famous wise men from the orient made known in your lands thirty years ago? Do you still consider it to be a fairy tale of astrologers?
8
For behold, that person who was born then to a tender virgin in a sheep pen in Bethlehem and to whom the three wise men, who you call kings of the stars, brought gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh is Me - then a new-born child and now a fully-grown man! How do you like the strange coincidence of circumstances, and how do things look to you?
9
There are two other very living witnesses here of the fact that I am certainly the same; one is the Captain Cornelius, the youngest brother of Caesar Augustus, and the other is the supreme governor Cyrenius, who led and assisted My flight to Egypt and who is an older brother of Caesar Augustus! Now that you know these things, tell Me now what you think about the Messiah whom the three astronomer kings announced to you! Is there something in it, or is there nothing in it?"
10
Shabbi says, "Yes, now there is everything in it; but then it certainly seemed like a star king fairy tale! For one must only know our kings of the stars, and one will quite easily understand how they know how to use every new appearance in the sky to their advantage. Firstly they are completely familiar with all the scriptures of their own land and of other lands. They know the Jewish prophets as well as the Indian ones; they know the Sen scrit and Sen ta veista of the Persians, Gebers and Burmese as well as they know our books; they also know the schools of the heathens and their books. Secondly however, no star exists in the sky that they do not know and was not named by them a long time ago.
11
If any star unknown to them appears, for example a comet, well, it is used for all sorts of prophetic interpretations; if the inhabitants do not believe the interpretation, it is taken abroad and will find a place there where the story creates a stir. We enlightened ones know that all too well, and thus the reason is given why at the time the announcement of the prophesied and new-born Messiah of the Jews made no particular impression on us. It was to the material advantage of the astronomer kings, who announced it to us when returning home with terribly great pomp. They took things very seriously; but we have an old saying: He who cries wolf too often will never be believed, even when he speaks the truth!"
12
Who would ever have dreamed then that the astronomer kings could actually finally have discovered something true?!
13
Now the story has become something quite different, and You in Your wisdom will not count our unbelief in those days as a sin, would You?!