The Great Gospel of John
Volume 3
Jesus' Precepts and Deeds through His Three Years of Teaching
Jesus near Caesarea Philippi
- Chapter 219 -
Where to look for the truth.
I say, "Friend, if you have lost something and you then seek it in a foreign place where you have lost nothing, and stop there however if you do not find the lost item and you wonder why you after such long searching and all industriousness and much sacrifice nonetheless have found nothing - even if you are a clever and sober man, in this case you would truly not be it!
2
Behold, right at the beginning of your recognition you found Moses and all the prophets quite empty, spiritless and truthless, you considered them to be something like a vain work of man, you had never even taken the time to look into the spirit of the Scriptures, you preferred to waste time and money in order to seek the truth where it never was not to be found!
3
So you found yourself deceived everywhere and found nothing but lies, hypocrisy and thickest deception. Your many experiences were therefore also necessarily bitter and were no good to you up until this day, except that they made you even hate life and took away all your love and respect and honor for God.
4
But if you had sought the truth only in the right place, you would have certainly found it long ago, just as many before you found it!
5
Believe Me, the truth does not demand any belief in the way that you call it belief, also no empty, insubstantial hope, but instead it creates in the innermost life a confidence as bright as the sun, and lets no tiny doubt over the coming life! The fullest and most tangible conviction lives in your spirit, if it becomes awake through the love for God and for your neighbor!
6
But of course neither in the heathen school in Korak in Egypt, nor even less among the old fools in India can such a thing be found!
7
That all lies much closer to man and is for every industrious seeker very easy to achieve; but he must seek it there where it can be found - otherwise every effort and work is in vain! One never harvests grapes and figs from thorns and thistles, and the corn does not grow in puddles and quagmires.
8
You also said that you owe God neither love nor fear nor even thanks, in that you have never asked Him to give you existence! If your spirit were already awake, it would certainly have shown you what you owe God, the Father of all people. Your flesh and your blood know truly just as little of it as your tunic knows when you are hungry.
9
Here at this table however you will find a certain Philopold from Kane in Samaria. He thought just like you several weeks ago, and his words resembled yours too. Discuss with him, and you will come into some light; but then I would like to give you the right light, and it will then be seen whether God is worth any true and faithful love from you or not! But there opposite Me sits the man with whom you should talk! Go over and follow My advice; he will certainly do you more good than the school at Korak!"
10
Murel now heads towards Philopold, going round the long table, and says, "The master has now sent me to you in order to have some light shed on something by you that worries me very much. Tell me therefore something good and true!"
11
Philopold says, "Friend, I have heard everything that you have said before us all in the face of the Lord! I recognized that I once did not think and speak much differently; but the reason lay in me myself. I also sought where I had never lost anything; but where I had lost something, I did not seek there and therefore found nothing either. Only when this Lord and Master from above and from eternity came to us, my eyes were opened! I realized who I am and why and I also realized what man is at all, and why he is there! And now, friend, everything is light in me, and no dubious doubt shadows my brightly-lit being any longer! Therefore it will certainly soon be the same with you!"