The Great Gospel of John
Volume 4
Jesus' Precepts and Deeds through His Three Years of Teaching
Jesus near Caesarea Philippi (cont.)
- Chapter 63 -
Zorel's parentage and family relations.
But Zinka comes from behind touches him on the shoulder and says: "Now, friend Zorel, will you now accept the maintenance from Cyrenius or not? Since it seems to me, that your life maxims, as good as they originally even sounded to me, have all in all fallen into the well!"
2
Says after a while Zorel: "Yes, yes, only the Saviour is right! I now recognize my nonsense quite brightly and clearly, and everything is exactly as he has stated it about me. But how could he know all this?! Yes, everything is true, and unfortunately just too true! But, where should I begin, what should I do?"
3
Says Zinka: "Nothing else, than asked for the right instructions, listen to them and act accordingly; everything else leave to those who want your well being and can help you and also will, if you do what I have advised you to do!"
4
Hereupon Zorel immediately falls on his knees before Me and asks me for instructions, and I refer him to the apostle Johannes for it. Zorel asks me know very respectfully, why I do not want to give him any further instructions.
5
But I say: "If a lord for a matter has all kind of servants and attendants around him, is he wrong when assigning also work to them according to their good abilities? It is not necessary that he does everything with his hands himself, to complete it; the lord's spirit is sufficient and the work will nevertheless be completed by the skilful hands of the servants. Therefore just go to him, to whom I have referred you, and you will also find in him the right man! It is him, at the corner of the table, who wears a light blue coat over his loins."
6
After these My words Zorel rises and hurries to Johannes. When arriving at Johannes, he says to him: "You loyal servant of this exceedingly wise man over there! Even if you have heard, who I am and how I am constituted, give me for my complete betterment the teaching, which will make me worthy to be accepted among those, who are with a true right calling themselves people! For becoming a true human being, I do not demand any supplies anymore, but only for the sake of the truth, do I want to hear the full truth from you!"
7
Says Johannes: "In the name of this Man over there you will get it! But first you have to give me the assurance to completely change your life in future and make good any harm which you have caused to other people against their will; even the merchant in Sparta must be refunded with his two pounds of gold! In addition you have to completely let go heathenism and become a new Jew; since your grandfather was a Jew from the tribe Levi. Forty years ago he moved to Sparta to preach the only true God to the Greek and to convert them in spirit to Jews; but in the end he himself was persuaded and with his whole house became a silly and very blind heathen, and you were the same since you only came into this world in Sparta. But your brothers who are living now in Athens, even became heathen priests because of their good ability to speak and still to this hour consecrate their empty services to Apollo and Minerva, and your only sister is the wife of a merchant, who is loosely trading with Ephesergods and -pictures and alongside also conducts quite profitable business with all kinds of pleasure girls and harlots, partly by selling but mainly by coupling. This is your brother-in-law, once also a Jew, and now what I just have told you."
8
Zorel was completely overwhelmed by everything Johannes knew about him, which he himself, because of very specific reason, would never have mentioned to anyone; therefore he couldn't think otherwise of the man from whom he just heard all such information, that he must have been in Greek and knew about everything what happened there and still occurs right now.
9
Hence Zorel asks Johannes a little hastily by saying: "But why repeating everything in front of all these people? Isn't it enough that you and I know such things?! Why must all surrounding us hear this?"
10
Says Johannes: "Be calm about it, friend! If I did this to harm your soul and body, I would be a bad person and would be worse off before God than your loose brother-in-law in Athens; but for the sake of your well being I have to completely reveal you before the people, so that you do not stand in front of anyone as something which you are not! If you want to become perfect, you must discover yourself, and no secrets are allowed in your soul; only if all disorderly is removed from you, you can start working on your perfection. You could also in quietness by yourself renounce all your many sins and become a better person, so that the people could respect and honour you for that; since they only would knew the good about you and nothing bad, and many would follow your good example! But if after a while they would hear from a credible witness what coarse and big sinner you have been in secrecy, with what doubtful eyes they, who respected you as a pure person and followed your example, would look at you?! All your virtues would turn into a sheep's fur, behind which they would be imagining a tearing wolf, and despite all your flawless virtues they would flee from you and avoid your otherwise instructive company.
11
From this you can see, to be perfect, you must not only avoid the being of evil, but also the seeming of evil, without, it will be difficult to really be useful to your neighbour, what finally must be the main occupation of every person, since without it, no truly happy society is thinkable on this earth!
12
What use would it be for a society of people, if every person by himself is perfect, but keeps himself hidden from his neighbour? Then one would start to distrust the other, and if a single mosquito is humming around the head of a harmless neighbour, one would see many flying dragons and elephants! But if all are getting familiar with you regarding who you are and what have you been before, what you have done and how you have lived before, and you better yourself and become another person full of insight of your previous evils and full of true and lively disgust against them in front of all eyes and ears, then every person will recognize you with sincerest trust and goodwill and love you as one pure brother loves his other pure brother. Therefore everything must be revealed, before you can actively take on a new teaching.
13
Many things have already been revealed, but not all, and since confessing is not easy for you, I make it easier for you, by telling on your behalf completely faithful to the word and sense everything of your life which is brightly clear as the sun to me!"
14
Ask Zorel: "But how is it possible for you to know all such things? Who revealed it to you? Never before have I seen or spoken to you!"