The Great Gospel of John
Volume 6
Jesus' Precepts and Deeds through His Three Years of Teaching
At the Sea of Galilee (John 6)
- Chapter 104 -
The learned women's doubts in the afterlife.
Said the women and also their already quite grown up children: "O you great Lord and divine Master, if their would only exist another, everlasting life after the death of the body in some beyond for us mortal people! Of course everybody wishes this, irrespective if he is young or old; but where, where are the certain and infallible proofs for this?! The wise of all nations and times have spoken and written a lot of pro and contra about it; time however, has devoured them all and nothing was left of them, except only their in our time already quite mutilated works, in which the present nations discover nothing else than many insoluble and uncomprehensible riddles.
2
Truly, you great and divine-filled Master, our Greek wise, the famous wise in the barrel (Diogenes) has until now discovered the fullest truth of our human life the best, by presenting the not-being of man before birth and after death with many examples in the clearest manner, and until now we all fully shared his opinion, although among ourselves we often thought about Plato, Socrates and even the old Egyptian wise Moses, whose scriptures we also were able to read when we were still in Sidon. Yes, we even read the scriptures of the Indians, Birmanese, the Parsens and Gebers; but everything in vain! For our teacher in Sidon, someone thoroughly familiar with all scriptures, proved to us with many thousand most compelling words and examples how the certain soul of man continues to keep on living by itself indestructible after the death of the body in a better or even worse world, and he swore to us with everything holy to him, that he, if he would die before us, would return to us as spirit and thereby provide for us with the greatest and most infallible proof for the truth of his teaching.
3
And see, he died; but until this hour he still owes us the promised proof. Yes, we often dreamt about him and we then asked him when he would come and make good his promise. And he said and reaffirmed as animated as in real life: 'I cannot come to you in any other way!' But then we woke up and realized that only our always alert and active imagination produced his talking image in us, which however was nothing else than an animated thought about him! Since dreams are nothing else than visual thoughts of the brain which have a volatile existence for as long as the eyelids of a person are closed; but once people are completely dead and their hearts does not pulse anymore, then also their thoughts and their dreams have come to an end for all times of times.
4
And as such we can be consoled with anything else but a life of the soul after death of the body! Everything is possible; but until now we truly did not received any other than only word-proofs from people still living on this earth!
5
Nobody from the countless who went over to the other side, has come back and showed that he continues to live on, on the other side! For as long this will not take place, the believe in a life in the beyond will always be very weak and be as good as no believe at all. Of course, since human memory until now, nobody was there who resembled You, divine-filled Master and if You say something to us, we will have every reason to fully believe You; but it nevertheless is strange that no being wants to come back from the beyond and say: 'Friends, who still carry the heavy flesh like a tired pack-animal its heavy load, see, I happily live, - there exists no death anymore and we countless live so and so!' This would be quite easy! But no, something like this never ever exists in such a manner, which could convince us people quite easily that it is so and not otherwise!
6
God-fullest Master, if there exists a life of the soul in the beyond - upon which in the quickest and surest manner all moral endeavours of the people of this earth could be properly arranged -, why then does absolutely nothing happens from any spirit world retrospectively on us mortal people?! No person is guilty of being born into this world; but once he is there and must exist as a reasonable being, then this highly wise power who called him into being against his will, should also sufficiently provide for him that he is taught about a somewhere existing spirit world and telling him why he is there and what he has to expect.
7
See, You God-filled Master, we are only just women; but we are not without reason since we always have learnt a lot, and to speak with us, every wise may in time find a little difficult. We are good and respect every person; since we commiserate with everyone whole heartedly that he is also in this world to be slaughtered to become food for the voracious and insatiable time. But it is not good that any higher, everlasting, omni-ruling powerful God cares so little about the people of this earth than we as people are caring about the excrements we exuded from our bodies when still children. But what should we weak do?! God's power effectuates above the stars in infinitive greatness and does not care about the crying and complaining worms of this world! Therefore we ourselves have to console and strengthen the people for as long until death exterminates them from this earth; then comes the rest in the everlasting non-existence, which forever is the poor people's final and greatest fortune.
8
You are now a most God-powerful person and master; but after some centuries the world most probably will not know much about you anymore, other than that you have been there. At least our descendants, as we have already said, will remember this event most vividly, although in your words blows a spirit which is more than your miracle deeds and which provides a great testimony of a God-spiritual being. But there were already many great spirits as people in this world, and also their quite incomprehensible great miracles provided proof that they were more than just plain common people; but also they died and nobody could be seen as a spirit living forever, that he thereby could confirm the fullest truth of his teaching which he quite often has given to the poor people under thunder and lightening.
9
Now you have come to us poor mortal people and also has promised us an everlasting life in the beyond! We do not doubt for one moment that you will also prove such to us in a very comprehensible manner, - but most likely also just for as long as we live in this world! Once we have died, now, we do not need such proofs anymore; for if we continue to live, every proof is superfluously - and if we do not live on, it is even more superfluously! The main thing is that we poor people only for our life on this earth are kept under the fixed idea at least by way of a blind faith; since this at least adds some flavour to the hand-span long life of some people on this earth and makes their suffering bearable. The best off are always the fools and blind-believers and with the deepest conviction one can say that the gods had to hate those humans very much, whom they gifted with wisdom.
10
Perhaps it is better with you, who is equipped with all wisdom and power, than many of your great predecessors, which we however doubt very much! But we also do not want to regard the issue as entirely impossible and wish to learn more about this from yourself and not from our husbands. If it pleases you, we would like to listen to you!"