The Great Gospel of John
Volume 4
Jesus' Precepts and Deeds through His Three Years of Teaching
Jesus near Caesarea Philippi (cont.)
- Chapter 44 -
Zorel's concept of property.
Says Cyrenius: "How much do you wish that I should give you?"
2
Says Zorel: "Not too little, but also not too much; if I can only reinstate what has been lost, I have been covered!"
3
Says Cyrenius: "Are you also familiar with the laws of Rome, which has been given to the nations to protect their acquired property?"
4
Says Zorel: "O yes, - not all like a legal scholar, but I know about some of them! Against those which I'm familiar with, I never have sinned. A sin against unknown laws is in anyway zero!
5
By the way I'm Greek, and we Greeks have never taken the strict mine and yours too seriously, since we are more for a communal property than for a single owner property. Because communal property produces friendliness, brotherhood, true and durable honesty and unimperiousness among the people, what surely is a good thing! However, single ownership always produces greed, envy, poverty, theft, robbery, murder and the most extraordinary imperiousness, from which finally all earthly evil arises for mankind like from a Pandora's box!
6
If there would be no excessively sharp laws in favour of single ownership, there would also be far less theft and all kind of fraudulence. I say and maintain, that the single ownership protective laws are the fertilized ground, on which all conceivable vices are flourishing to ripeness, while with communal property neither envy, imperiousness, envious addiction, backbiting, deception, theft, robbery, murder, nor any war and other misery could ever establish itself!
7
Since I always recognized the laws for the protection of single ownership as a horror of devastation for a friendly and brotherly society and still recognize, I - at least regarding smaller things - never was bothered much by a conscience, if I have acquired them in an illegal manner; if somebody has lend something from me in the same manner, he surely would never be pursued by me.
8
My hut and my land are legally mine; now, - with that what was in it as my moving property, I never looked at it too precisely, because of the cited true reasons and because I'm a Spartan. Who knows Sparta and its old and wisest laws, to him it is clear, why I never had any special conscience because of a so called small theft. Both sheep, the goat and my donkey were actually not bought, but also not really stolen goods of my property; since I found them in the woods grazing like game, not all at once, but nevertheless one by one. The owner of those large grazing fields in the woods, is also the owner of many thousands of the same animals. The small loss certainly did not caused him a lot of harm, - while to me it was extremely useful!
9
By that I surely have not sinned too severely against the Roman property protection laws, particularly since I have found the mentioned animals in the large hourly long and -wide woods as individually wandering around and as such regarded as lost by their legal owner! The secondary harvest is even allowed by the Jews, who have a law from the highest God Himself in this regard. Why then should it be a criminal act with us Romans?!
10
Only with the sword in the hands of the earthly powerful, this means by the power of wild bears and lions, can such absurd single owner protection laws be defended, but never by reason! Even if all ten-thousand gods are in favour of it, I still be against it for as long I live with the ability to think purely as I have done now and always have thought!
11
You, high ruler, carries the sword of power and can punish me poor beggar as it pleases you, but the straight lines of my life principles you will not be able to bend with all the weapons of Rome; but if you have other and more convincing reasons for a strict legal property, I will listen to them and adapt my future way of life accordingly!"