The Great Gospel of John
Volume 3
Jesus' Precepts and Deeds through His Three Years of Teaching
Jesus near Caesarea Philippi
- Chapter 29 -
Cyrenius' speech about his wisdom and Mathael's response to it.
Cyrenius says, "Oh yes, now I have a very good idea, and that is all the easier since I have heard just in this night a very similar explanation of Moses" story of creation. The matter will be like this; but it is too wise for me and I do not want to exert myself to understand something in depth. The thing must be easy for me if it is to be useful; if it goes too deep and too wise then that is the end of my understanding!
2
In short, what I said was: you will be looked after by me and you will have every opportunity to probe into your wisdom and to bring humanity onto the correct path - although I openly admit that probing too deep in the being of life in general is rather disadvantageous than advantageous.
3
Just look at yourselves and ask yourselves if all your truly extraordinary knowledge and wisdom makes you happy! Yes, the human spirit can probe into endless depths of wisdom and in the end bring forth wonderful things; but only the person who is simple can be happy, and who is devoted to God in all things and keeps his commandments. But if God wants to give him wisdom like Solomon, he should gratefully accept it and use it with a cheerful mind. But if the wisdom given to man makes the person only unhappy, then I would rather foolishness through which the human heart is made cheerful.
4
I live only once and now know that I will live eternally, and the way to the achievement of a happy eternal life is known to me; what more should I want?!
5
If you share my opinion, you will be happy on this Earth; but with your deepest quest for wisdom you will hardly feel the value and the luck to be a human being!
6
Thus follow my advice, even if it doesn't stem from the chamber of deepest wisdom; but it comes from a friendly and surely not loveless heart, and even before God that has a high value! Why should it be of no value to you?
7
Wisdom is not what gives us life, but love; if we remain with love, we will not lack life and its happy perception! You see, that is my wisdom, and I would like to claim that it is more useful to the life of a person than all of your deep wisdom!"
8
Mathael says, "Oh yes, oh yes, you are quite right! See, as long as the water in the pot does not get to the fire, it has a good and calm existence; but if it then comes to the fire things look quite different. It must be broken some time!
9
Whatever you want to become, you must have the necessary knowledge. If you want to be a general, you must have all the knowledge for such a position, otherwise you will be a poor general; if you want to be an apothecary and healer, you must have the necessary knowledge for that!
10
Now, you want to have eternal life. However, if you don't want to investigate and recognize life itself, how will that be possible?
11
You see, if I wanted to take a wife but I fled every opportunity to get together with a maiden; I truly don't know how I and a woman would ever come together!
12
But in the end you want an eternal life but you"re afraid of the small effort to investigate this earthly temporal life a little deeper and to ask about its roots!
13
Yes, you dear friend, if eternal life depended only on a god giving it to me like you give me a piece of bread, then your life philosophies would be much preferable to ours; but the preparation and achievement of eternal life is given to us alone!
14
We have to do and act and must truly go through water with our water of life and through fire with our love fire of life; only then our water of life on the fire of the inner love towards God, towards our neighbor and finally to ourselves begins to simmer and boil, and we are only then aware that there is an indestructible life force in us which from the first moment on begins to recognize itself as such and seizes the correct means and uses it, to hold onto it for eternity!
15
So, for the time being, forget about a so-called comfortable life, which is similar to a sweet sleep; instead one has to work and fight and investigate without rest or repose!
16
Only when one has won a full victory over the life which longs to sleep and die can we speak of any blessing.
17
You appear to us as a person who desires to sleep longer in the morning, whose friends start to wake him, which at first greatly annoys him; only when he wakes up with a certain effort, he sees the benefit of being fully awake and rejoices in his light and free life.
18
We are in the right with our wisdom - but you are not at all! Only when you awake will you also see how completely right we are."