The Great Gospel of John
Volume 4
Jesus' Precepts and Deeds through His Three Years of Teaching
Jesus near Caesarea Philippi (cont.)
- Chapter 260 -
The conversation of the Nubian versed in the animal language with Mark's donkey.
Says the old Marcus to Me: "Lord, should I bring a donkey, but one of my natural ones, to here? Since the two newly created ones could give rise to prejudice!"
2
Says I: "Yes, yes, do this; since from this there will follow a quite important teaching!"
3
Marcus quickly went away and returned with a donkey and said with a smile to the black: "There is one of your world-wise; do with him as you please!"
4
The black called his servant. He immediately directed with a voice of a donkey all kind of questions to the animal, and see, the animal told him many things about the household of Marcus, as well as about its earlier very crude owner, his name and many astonishing facts, what the black servant could not normally have known, which astounded Marcus in the highest degree. Finally the servant ordered the donkey to walk three times around our table and at the end let hear everyone quite loudly seven times the 'j-a'. The donkey immediately obeyed and after that left by himself.
5
Upon this the black leader asked our society if this was an unbelievable fable.
6
And Cyrenius, overwhelmed by amazement, said: "No, no, friend, this is no fable; but I nearly want to believe that also our famous fable composer, Aesop, could speak to animals! Lord, this is again a new property of the blacks, of which we had no idea earlier on! Yes, if this continues, it will take quite a while until we are finished with these blacks. It is coming better all the time, increasingly more unbelievable and incomprehensible! In the books of your script I once read about a donkey who spoke to the prophet Bileam who mistreated him too much; but what is this where this black is being classically told the whole biography of this quite harmless donkey! And that this was no poetry of the black, the old Marcus can vouch for!
7
This and that is quite alright and I have nothing against it, if I together with all the other wise teachings which I heard up to now, could only imagine a little this new miraculous phenomena, namely how is it possible to converse with animals by linguistic means! The well-being of humanity will not depend on this explanation; but since the highly extraordinary miraculous appearance, going forth from the human side, is there, I would like to know a little more about the how and whereby! How can animals converse with people linguistically, and how a person with animals? - Lord, give us just a few short hints in this regard!"
8
Says I: "People who are able to do this are therefore not more advanced than you are who cannot do this; since the closer any person's soul is to animal souls, the more it has the ability to converse with them, of course only in its life orderly, fully purified condition. If she merges too much with the flesh, she loses these properties and the dark laws of matter take its place, and the soul is then harmed by everything what also can harm the flesh."