The Great Gospel of John
Volume 4
Jesus' Precepts and Deeds through His Three Years of Teaching
Jesus near Caesarea Philippi (cont.)
- Chapter 134 -
Mathael comes to the dying father of Lazarus. The strange natural phenomenon on his way to Bethany.
Says Mathael: "Lord, am I also allowed to mention the strange phenomena of nature, which I and my accompanying father observed in the middle of the night towards the east when travelling to Bethany?"
2
Says I: "Certainly yes; since it has a strong relation with the occurrence which you have experienced seventeen years ago in Bethany! Therefore you can start right now!"
3
Says Mathael: "Lord, I see, that nothing is unknown to You in the whole of the infinitive sphere of creation! For You I certainly do not have to tell the story; but for the sake of the other friends and brothers it pleases me to tell such higher things, especially where I can see that I believingly being listen to. Everything which I will tell you now has a very mystically and magnificently looking character; nevertheless, everything is true what you will hear, and as such pay me your attention once more!
4
Listen! It was already late autumn of the year. The high mountain peaks were covered in fog, and a quite unfriendly north wind whirled the dry leaves of the trees through the air; only in the east there were still some places, where the lovely stars looked down to earth like crying, which was a nature scene which I and my father, who was a great friend of nature also regarding its unfriendly workings, observed until midnight. When we got ready to go inside to take our rest, we discovered a person walking hastily towards our house with a lantern, made from the urine bladder of a sheep, in his hand, and it didn't take long and a quite sad, but still quite young man stood in front of us.
5
Recognizing my father immediately as a doctor, he said in a wistful tone of voice: 'Friend and doctor! I'm coming from Bethany; my name is Lazarus and I am the son of the old Lazarus, whom I love above all! Quite suddenly he fell ill today, and it looks very bad with him! Our rabbi, who in an emergency is also a little of a doctor, does not know what to do with my father! He himself send me to you, since you are an extraordinary doctor and brought help to ill people in cases where no other doctor could find any remedy. Come and cure, if still possible, my suffering father!'
6
Says my father: 'If another doctor has brought an ill person close to death, we have to perform miracles! Everything would be alright, if it would be possible to do this immediately and everywhere! I will with this my only son, who must be at hand since he has the gift to see spirits and also in extreme cases can speak to them, go with you and see what can be done; if you had brought some horses which would have brought you quicker here and us more quickly back, an easier cure could be performed. But if the Hippocratic signs of death have already shown with him, there is no cure possible; since against the power of death no herb has grown, not on the Alps and even less so in any garden!'
7
The messenger Lazarus was contented with this answer and regretted it badly, not having taken any horses along. Nevertheless, with a great hurry we started our journey; since with good feet it was about an hours time to reach our destination.
8
When we, absolutely quiet and deep in thoughts, walked our way, the fog in the east disappeared completely and it became lighter and lighter, - yes, after about a quarter of an hour it was so light like half an hour before sunrise. This has taken up our attention to such a degree, that we, despite all the hurrying, had to stand still to see where this strange light was coming from.
9
Finally it became completely daylight and above the eastern horizon almost a real sun rose, but with a much greater speed as the ordinary one, or - as one is used to say - the daily sun. But with this quickly rising light appearance, the lower end of the eastern horizon did not started to appear.
10
This light phenomenon turned into a column of light, which within a few moments pushed its head up to the midday line and soon spread such light and heat, that we were forced to go underneath a still dense leafed fig tree, not to go blind because of the light and not to perish from the heat. But soon this column of light became thinner and thinner and the light and the strong heat produced by the column of light, disappeared.
11
After a very small quarter of an hour the light phenomenon was gone, but also our sight; since afterwards, when the light disappeared completely, it was so dark and our eyesight was so weakened, that we were not able to properly discern the lantern of our messenger.
12
Only after about thirty moments our eyes started to win back the necessary eyesight, and we could again barely see the road by the very weak light of the lantern, during our walk. The whole story nevertheless delayed us with a good half an hour time and my father immediately asked me, if I had seen any spirits during the light phenomenon.
13
And I said to him according to the fullest truth: 'In the light, which was in anyway much less to look at as the sun during midday because of its extraordinary brightness, nothing could be seen, but certainly with us on earth. A great number of figures were becoming halfway visible, - but all like a very busy movement towards the west; their movement was thus homogeneous with the light appearance. Only one single spirit figure which came very close to us, was entirely visible, had a serious, old-manlike expression and appeared to have a great joy about the light appearance. But when the light phenomenon began to disappear from the sky, also the spirit figure disappeared quickly, and as it appeared to me, also to the west, but more so in the direction of Bethany!' I didn't saw anything else and therefore could not report anything further to my father.
14
Our guide was surprised about my seer's gift and believed my statement; since he thought that my phantasy and power of imagination could impossibly have reached such intensity, that I could so easily produce something like that. In this he was right; since I was never very inventively and as a boy and youth I had almost no phantasy or imaginative powers, but I had a lot of talent for learning foreign tongues.
15
During these little small talk considerations we finally arrived in Bethany and there at the very respectable house of Lazarus and found the sick person in his last convulsive minutes, of which it is said that for this no herb is grown.
16
Around the bed were standing two crying, but otherwise very lovely daughters of the dying person, and also quite a number of other relatives who sobbed and wept as it was customary at such opportunities. Our guide, as son of the house, also wept and because of all the sadness forgot to ask my father if it was still possible to help or not.
17
Only the little rabbi came to my father and ask if there was still anything one could do for the old man to regain his consciousness for at least a short while. My father did not answered the question immediately but asked me in all quietness how it was going with the old man and if the soul was already starting to rise from the body.
18
But I said to the father quite harmlessly what I saw: 'The entire soul floats already half the size of a man above the body in a horizontal position and is only connected to the body by a hair-thin light thread which according to our experience will not likely lasts more than sixty moments; it will shear any moment. However, it is strange that the immense column of light which we saw on our way with the eyes of the flesh, is again present above the head of the soul, has the same powerful light and also exerts a very wholesome feeling heat. The soul does not turn its eye away from the light column and it appears if the soul has a great feeling of well-being in it."