The Great Gospel of John
Volume 3
Jesus' Precepts and Deeds through His Three Years of Teaching
Jesus near Caesarea Philippi
- Chapter 50 -
The twelfth doubt about the person of the Saviour.
But now at My bidding Jarah walked with Raphael and with Josoe and discussed with both of them Mathael"s wisdom which had so suddenly appeared, and so the twelve were doubly unsure which of the two men surrounding the maiden was I. But at the same time they thought of me as being a man, and with Jarah there were only two boys of about 12 - 14, according to appearances, and so the twelve could not put the parts of the story together. And one of them says to Suetal, "Friend, you have rejoiced in our name a little too soon this time! The maiden, who is probably a young daughter of the great innkeeper Ebahl from Genezareth, because we highlanders from the area have often seen her in the inn if we had something to do in the area, is walking between two boys, probably sons of the Supreme Governor. These boys, either one or the other, will not be the Savior of Nazareth. But that now begs the question: Which is it? I tell you, brother, with our wisdom we will not work it out at all; so for the moment silence is undeniably our best means!"
2
Suetal says, "I now completely agree with you; but here the high lord Julius actually had us fooled a little, which we actually deserved; by the way; why do we have to open our mouths all the time! Silence, hearing and seeing is truly the best, and in a certain way the beginning of all wisdom!" After these words the twelve are silent, and their souls are full of all sorts of thoughts.
3
Now I go to them and ask Suetal, "I have heard everything of your earlier conversations because I have very keen ears; but since you have already spoken much about the certain Savior of Nazareth amongst yourselves with wise Mathael and Captain Julius, but through it all your whole face has remained constantly covered, I would like to learn quite openly from you who you actually consider him to be in your mind. Only speak openly without shyness; for I guarantee you that nothing evil will happen to you because of it! For I know the Savior too well for him to let harm come to you, if you give Me unashamedly as one of his nearest and best friends your innermost insight!"
4
Suetal says, scratching himself a little behind the ears, "You seem to be a Greek by your clothing, but to judge by your hair and your beard, you are a Jew. It is true, the Romans say not too favorably about the Greeks: GRAECA FIDES, NULLA FIDES[Greek trust is no trust]; but your face seems to be much too honest for that, and as a man of certainly some wisdom you will surely see that people like us cannot behave quite so thoughtlessly at such an extraordinary appearance!
5
Everything, which even the wisdom of Mathael gave us to understand about the Savior, accepted immediately as the complete truth, is for people like us no little thing and our judgments about him will likewise be very inadequate; until now we have only ever heard him speak, and the four highlanders from the area of Genezareth have felt extraordinary power and might from him, but they too have not yet seen him or spoken with him.
6
We ourselves have experienced the extraordinary healing of the five evil madmen, and we were told about it here; but even there we were also not eye-witnesses, but only the healed themselves gave us the certainly tangibly clear and true account, as well as the tale by the captain and by the healed themselves.
8
But whether we as people without science or wisdom are finally on the correct path with our image, our thoughts and ideas! But who can and will present it at least for us, blind to science and wisdom, so that through it either the one or the other becomes as clear as the midday sun?
9
You see, the science of man has already progressed very far in our times, and no-one has yet set limits to the wisdom of man, and so a person in Nazareth can very well, supported by particular spiritual abilities, have found some sort of stone of wisdom about which the world has never thought until now! He can therefore do incredible things, beside which we must stand like oxen on a hillside; he can move mountains and freeze the sea in summer, yes, he can wake the dead and make thousands pass away through his will, those are all things which were made to happen by people long before him!
10
In Egypt this sort of thing is not unheard-of; here with us such a thing is somewhat rarer, particularly because all conjuring is strictly forbidden to us Jews, and so in the end every extraordinary occurrence which is made to happen by a person, even through perhaps quite natural means, is damned as conjuring and the conjuror, if he is a Jew, is stoned or even burnt alive, as a foreigner he is exiled far beyond the border; he would only have to pay a significant fine to the temple and he would be allowed to perform his art and his conjuring secretly to the Greeks and Romans alone. We see nothing of it in Jerusalem; but as an apostle of the temple travelling to a foreign land for the conversion of foreigners to Judaism, one got to see things which were supposed to remain inexplicable to people like us.
11
So now the famous Savior of Nazareth likewise performs all unheard-of things, also concerning the healing of all sorts of sick people, yes, he is even supposed to be able to wake the dead! But I say this, that all that is no valid proof by a long way of any sort of particular divine nature in him and gives no uncontestable evidence.
12
For people like us, performing wonders in word and deed is no great art for those who are capable; for it is easy to preach to the blind about colors, but the seer does not need much of a sermon in any case, since he can distinguish between the colors even without any sermon.
13
By the way, the Nazarene Savior could be a very good and extraordinary prophet as well, anointed in all seriousness by the spirit of God - like Moses, Joshua, Samuel and Elijah - and may carry out his works through the pure divine spirit in him, which we consider to be more likely since he is a Jew and as such certainly could never have the opportunity to visit the most secret school either of the Essenes or of the Egyptians.
14
If such a thing was provable on him, it would then not be too difficult to guess from where he received all his secret knowledge; for the Essenes wake dead children in their dozens, of which I have convinced myself completely! And God knows what sorts of illnesses they are able to heal!
15
From this you, as a Greek who seems to understand correctly, will be able to judge for which reason we are penetrated to our insides by all manner of thoughts for and against, despite all the extraordinary things that we have heard here.
16
To accept everything as the truth would be just as crazy as to reject everything right from the beginning; waiting, hearing, seeing and testing everything exactly is all one can do, and we will then see whether we should go with the PRO or the CONTRA; for we never buy doves in a sack, since it could then happen that we would be sold vultures instead of doves! Tell us now whether we are right or not!"