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 94 -
The priest's plea for restoration of the idols. The holy lake.
And the Minerva priest as the most courageous and also scientifically the most well learned, came to Me and said: "Lord and God-person, or who you might be, I have noticed from your few words to our pert wives, that you are a good, wise and highly reasonably thinking man, to whom one probably can speak a reasonable word! And since I assume this as a certainty, I ask you to kindly listen to me with some patience. See, I know it that what you are going to give us to replace this old pagan junk, will be inexpressively better than even the very best we can produce from our sphere of recognition; but this is not what is important here, it concerns something completely different, and it is therefore that I actually have asked you to patiently listen to me!
2
See, it firstly concerns the possible maintenance of the state laws with the help of all kinds of good teachings about the existence of extrasensory forces and powers of nature, which we in general call gods! To visualize them to the people, we have presented them in corresponding pictures before their eyes in pure, artful forms. The people, from already the cradle on, got used to them and when looking at the idols were always edified and quite surely have made good and devout considerations thereby. For us priests it was also quite easy to provide the people with some good and useful teachings by referring to the elated pictures, which surely would be a quite difficult task without these pictures.
3
If the people on a certain day would gather here and will not see the old habitual three god pictures anymore, I really don't know how the story will end. We certainly would quite animatedly and with the most fiery words make excuse for your actions; but where will you be as a foreign traveller during that time? Fortunately of course we will have here highly respectable witnesses; but eventually also they will not be of any use if the common people were starting to run wild, and therefore I most beseechingly implore you for a temporary reinstatement of the three statues for the sake of a good case, which I'm sure will be quite easy for you to accomplish. However, we nevertheless will accept your teaching with the most thankful disposition and also will convey it to the people and thereby make the three gods here quite superfluous, of this you can be assured of; but now all of a sudden and with one blow, the matter will be very difficult to handle or in fact not at all!
4
Hence, good God-person, grant me this my sincere request, what will be just as easy for you to do as you have done earlier with the three idol pictures! I know quite well that we have offended you earlier, by denying your revelation of the three speakers, - but we thereby did not meant to cause any evil or harm; for we did not know who you are. Your miracle taught us of course quite differently; but it was already too late. But since you are still here, forgive us our earlier hastiness and most mercifully grant us the request which I have put to you on behalf of all of us!"
5
Said I: "Yes, what should I do with you blind? If you rather prefer the night than the day of life, then you can have your idols back! But this you also will experience, that soon the time will come, when the people themselves will come here and destroy the idols, - but also you! But if you firstly with the support of these reliable witnesses and secondly with also My invisible help, have accepted what I for the time being briefly indicated to you, you would have been saved; but if despite all this you still prefer your gods, they will immediately put be back on their places!"
6
Said the speaker: "Lord and God-person, allow us a little time to consult with each other and we will loyally inform you about our decision!"
7
Here said the tax collector: "My dear people, then consult with each other and come later into my house and we will clear this matter; since here we feel already more abandoned than in an Egyptian catacomb!"
8
The priests agreed to this and we moved on, where there was a small lake which however was very deep, which was nearly always the case with Asian lakes.
9
When we came to the lake, Jored said: "Lord, see, this is truly a strange occurrence in our area! At night, especially in summer, one can see a lot of little lights swimming on the surface of the water; some move slower others more quickly. Now, to investigate the matter more closely is not that easy, for one cannot get close to the lake because of its marshy shores. The priests know quite well how to exploit this phenomenon, since this lake still falls inside their holy grove area; they hold great speeches about the arrival of geniuses from Elysium, who appear to give mercies to the people. They have chosen only this lake because it is the purest in the whole world.
10
That the lake has a very clean water is easily understandable since nothing can get into it what could make it cloudy -; but the geniuses from Elysium are certainly a little far fetched! The appearance would be nothing unusual and it certainly will be a quite natural occurrence; but the priests who are very skilful speakers, know to make something from it, that one finally - at least for the moment - is totally amazed, especially at night time where one always is magically more excited than during day time. The strong boundary around the lake has its advantages. Since to venture only a few steps past the set poles and barriers is not at all advisable to do; since who sinks into the mud would certainly be lost.
11
Now, Lord and Master, an explanation would be necessary, namely firstly: Why must such a dangerous and actually useless lake exist on the face of the earth? No ship can sail on it and there never have been produced only one fish from it. It does not have any visible inflow and equally so no exit and therefore cannot be used for the irrigation of the area. And secondly, according to your given holy teaching, it serves only idolatry through its truly magical light appearances, against which I cannot really say anything, but with regard to a moral issue, quite a lot. Since now also the three ungainly statues have been removed by your miraculous, life masterly wonder power, idolatry will continue like before. Would it not be an equally easy thing for You to do, to end the existence of this idolatrous lake like the three statues?"
12
Said I: "O, quite so, and I also will do it since it is your wish based on a good reason! But this lake does not have such an unimportant reason for the earth than you might think, for it is connected to the inner organism of the world body and has a depth from the surface to its bottom of over three-hundred hours walking. It is a cooling shaft above a very hot heart vein of the earth, which is the reason why the water is so cold.
13
The lake has an underground inflow but no outflow because its access water is always consumed by the inner heat through continuous evaporation, which is just as necessary for the inner mechanical animation as the evaporation of the food juices in the human stomach, and therefore this lake has of course no external earthly use, but nevertheless even a greater inner earthly use.
14
You now may of course say: 'Yes, but why must it be located precisely here in this otherwise fertile, beautiful valley? Could it not exist somewhere in a desert!" Yes, in that you are not completely wrong; but this area was nearly two-thousand years ago also a desert, which was made liveable and fertile only by the diligent work of the people banned to these flats.
15
Now, this can happen with many deserts of this earth, in which often 20 to 30 such lakes occur! If thus those deserts are made liveable, then also those people will ask: 'Why must this dangerous lake exist precisely here?' I can tell you nothing else than: Because it is extremely necessary for the support of the mechanical life of the earth, and therefore it has to be somewhere on this earth, and according to the order of God's wisdom, it is by chance here and several thousands are in the same manner somewhere else and the bulk of them are under the sea and under the high mountain ranges.
16
Now, regarding the light phenomenon occurring mainly in the Julius-Caesar-moon, it is nothing else than shining insects who at night time soak up the light vapours rising from the water to feed themselves. Go to India and you will discover many other nightly appearances!
17
Only, all this together does not matter, because the lake can be safely fenced off, which then cancels its danger, and even to the people the certain light appearances can be adequately explained; but since we want to remove everything out of the way for the sake of these priests, whereby they can easily deceive the people without a lot of trouble and guide them even deeper into all kind of misapprehensions, we will cover this lake to a depth of a thousand man-heights with solid earth and connect its necessary opening somewhere else with another large lake, and thereby you are aided and the mechanical life of the earth is not harmed. And thus it happens!"
18
At this moment nothing of any lake could be seen anymore and everything was solid earth. The shore of the lake could only be measured by the leftover barrier.
19
That this caused a great sensation with all who were present, is easily understandable. When we in the process of leaving but were still in the vicinity of the lake, since some wanted to test the solidness of the new earth with their feet, also the five priests arrived, for they already at the temple observed that we also might wanted to visit the holy lake.
20
When with hurrying steps they arrived where the lake was located before, they clasped their hands over their heads together and shouted: "But for the will of all gods! What has happened here? First the three main gods are gone - and now also this most purest and holiest lake! Woe us; for now we are lost! The great gods must have been badly offended and therefore they allowed a main magician to do this to us with the power they have provided to him. O, when only the lake would have been left to us! O, who will help and feed us now?"
21
Said I: "Go now with Jored; there we will talk about it further, - here is not the place and the time for it!"
22
With that the five priests were quite content and went with us to Jored's house, where already a copious midday meal was waiting for us.