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 109 -
The exchange of opinions between the scribe and the priestess.
This quite vicious remark of the priestess made our scribe to change his attitude and he now realized how awkward his Roman proverb was and how pointless applied here.
2
He gathered himself and said: "Now, now, dear friend, it is not how I meant it, but only, since you know absolutely nothing about a soul and a life of the same in the beyond after the death of the body and also about an only true God, and only preaches to us the everlasting death, that it doesn't befit you to speak like that as if you alone had all the wisdom of the world in you, while we know it ten-thousand times better, and as if you wanted to teach us your old Diogenes-junk as if we never heard something about it, whereas we want to give you, poor blind, something better; and only regarding this point it was not befitting for you, what however is befitting for us towards you! You only must listen to us but not we to you, since we only know too well where you are standing and what your inner wisdom of Diogenes consists of, which is our task to sweep it from you. And therein lies more or less the meaning of my proverb."
3
Said the priestess: "Let the meaning of your proverb be as it wants, but you, according to appearance, a Greek who should have a high regard for education, arts, culture and humanity, have nevertheless applied it here like an uncivilized Jew. Only I say to you this, so that you can see, that we are moving here on a more civilized level than perhaps you, people of God in Jerusalem, are moving.
4
It would be truly worth the trouble, to get to know the God who chose such a little nation as his own! Truly, this I say to you: this God must have been a very unfortunate being! If you want to teach us and sweep Diogenes from us, you must start to speak completely different with me, otherwise you will as just a disciple of the great Master - and this surely not the most preferential - not make much progress with us! Thus pull yourself together a little more!"
5
Said the scribe: "Leave this now and let us move immediately to the main issue! Can't you see that we disciples believe in a true God and in the immortality of the soul of man? Yes, why thus not you? We are fully convinced of it and are only people just like you! Why is it then that you have absolutely no conviction about all this which is a self-evident matter and thoroughly recognized by every only a little deeper thinking person?
6
See, I can tell you what the reason is for this: it is a punishment by the true God of Israel for you, that you are always plagued by the terrible feeling of everlasting death, because you withheld the higher truths of life, which once you knew quite well, from the people, and instead of giving them the pure truth you have served them all kinds of lies and deceptions for the sake of living in great comfort!
7
You have presented yourself to the people as the true servants and immortal friends of the gods and amongst others sometimes demanded great and even quite cruel sacrifices from the poor people which you have lied to and deceived through and through; therefore God has taken away from you the inner, convincing feeling of a soul-life and instead has placed the feeling of everlasting death in you and therein consists now your great wisdom that you feel and clearly perceive that everlasting death dwells in you!
8
For this reason you cannot find out anymore, where the still continuing interaction between the people still living here on earth and the souls who passed away, still continues to exist like it always has existed with people who remained in the old truth.
9
But now something else be said to you! The exceedingly ridiculous stupid paganism has now been swept away from you and you hopefully will not ever rebuild it again; accept therefore the teaching, which you will learn from your good husbands, into your hearts and live and do accordingly, and the convincing feeling of the life of the soul after death of the body will return again and will make you recognize the one, true God and Lord, who created you for an everlasting life but not for an everlasting death, provided you want to make yourself worthy for life along a completely different wisdom than your most stupid Diogenes! - Have you understood me?"
10
Said the priestess: "O yes, quite well! You have spoken quite clever, but unfortunately only words like we have heard similar quite often from our deceased mentor! The words are quite good, - unfortunately they contain no convincing strength and power for us! If somewhere in the past, about a thousand years ago, our parents have turned away from a true God, we impossibly can be guilty of it, that the one and true God can still hate us innocent descendants of those transgressors and still punishes our dispositions with the feeling of everlasting death! Now, if so, we say thanks but no thanks for your one, true God! Then our Diogenes with the teaching of expected everlasting destruction gives us a much bigger consolation than you have given us with the prospect of reinstating the feeling of everlasting life of our souls! No, this would be a nice all-wise and almighty God, who could have hold on to such uncontrollable rage against a creature, which all the many thousand past winters were not able to cool down!
11
I could only imagine a true God under the concept of the highest and purest love, because love is the actual all producing and animating element; but to imagine God under a concept of most extreme wrath would be completely impossible and unthinkable for me! We heathens also have gods of wrath, - but as symbolic pictures they have their seat in the underworld, because from there seldom something good appears; for in the underground holes and caves normally live snakes, dragons and tearing wild beasts, as well as sulfur and tar and a terrible all destructive and consuming fire has its dwelling there. Because of the evil things dwelling there, we have placed all the bad and evil desires under dark caricatures into the underworld.
12
However, our concepts of the good gods are all such that they all could be quite easily derived from pure love. Mighty and wise seriousness coupled with love, is what we envisage as a valid concept for a god who lives somewhere in or above the stars and for the concept of ugly rage we have the symbol of furies. And as such my friend, we pagans still have a better and by every pure human reason more sensible idea of a true God-being! - what are you saying to this?"