The Great Gospel of John
Volume 7
Jesus' Precepts and Deeds through His Three Years of Teaching
The Lord on the Mount of Olives. (cont.) Gospel of John, Chapter 8
- Chapter 79 -
The people disclose the atrocities of the Pharisees.
1
(The innkeeper:) "Upon this the priest said, that neither he nor his fellow priests had ever killed a prophet.
2
The people again started to shout and said: 'You are a priest for already forty years and you want to tell us that you were not present when the devout Zacharias had been strangled by furious hands about twenty-five years ago between the sacrificial altar and the sanctum?!
3
Hardly a year has past when in the desolate area along the Jordan River John, a son of Zacharias who was strangled by you, was arrested by the henchmen of Herod, because of your efforts and payments. But Herod, who quickly realized that John was a wise man and that the spirit of God was rising out of his words, treated him more than a friend and allowed the disciples of the prophet free and unhindered access. But Satan has brought you the news about such good circumstances of John, and you planned day and night by which means you could persuade Herod to kill the devout prophet. After much planning and many council meetings you found in the evil mother of the beautiful Herodias, whom Herod loved very much, a very suitable means to get the prophet out of the way. And by so doing you also have killed this prophet, because he too made you very aware of your atrocities in front of the people.
4
Currently another prophet lives and teaches, who came from Galilee to us, and John himself said that he is not worthy to loosen his shoelaces, and that he himself was only a crying voice in the desert, to prepare the way for the great prophet, of whom is said in general, because of His teachings and deeds, that He is the promised Messiah.
5
But what are you saying about this? You say it is written, that out of Galilee no prophet can arise, and everyone who believes in Him is damned.
6
But we say: Although it says that no prophet can arise out of Galilee, according to our knowledge nothing is written which says that the Messiah cannot arise out of Galilee!
7
And this great prophet has only recently taught at the celebrations in the temple, and in such wise manner, that even your evil servants who were supposed to arrest Him and bring Him before you, were in the end forced to give Him the testimony, that never a man has spoken in such a way. But your fury rose higher and higher. And when He in a proper divine, mighty way flung the truth into your face, you became so infuriated, that you immediately wanted to stone Him. But He became invisible and you, fully annoyed, were forced to put the rocks back on the ground.
8
Lazarus, the man from Bethany, was a member of your council and as one of the richest persons of the whole Jewish country, gave the temple large sacrifices. But when all his great sacrifices were still not enough for you, and you plagued him day and night about it, it became too much for him, especially since in all seriousness you told him, that it was better and more useful for him to rather give everything to the temple than to give anything to the poor; since the poor rabble should only work and eventually will get something to eat, as it doesn't appeal to God if the rich people turn poor people into useless idlers by their unwise mercifulness. This is what you have told him, as we have heard it out of his mouth.
9
Now Lazarus in the end even went to some extend along with this; but in accordance with his two sisters he decided by himself and said: 'We still own a lot of unused land. I shall stop giving free alms for the sake of the temple; but instead I will ask all the poor people coming to us, except for the sick, if they wouldn't like to work for us according to their strength for a good wage.' Lazarus did that, employed many workers and cultivated his very vast and extensive land. He still gave the temple large sacrifices, what we just know too well. It didn't take long for you to find out what he did, but you couldn't say anything substantial against the good man, because he obeyed your will regarding the main issue, but secretly his many workers were again a thorn in your evil eyes, and soon you went through great trouble to apply all conceivable means which were available to you, to lure his workers and servants away from him.
10
By way of your trusted servants you soon went here and there and said: 'How can you work there? Don't you know that this is a damned piece of land, whose former ungodly owner in his high spirit refused ten times to pay to the temple the proper one-tenth?!'
11
But the workers ignored this and answered your temple servants: 'This may be the case, although it is nowhere written; but now this land belongs to a man, who never has refused his tenth to the temple, and will also not refuse the tenth from this piece of land once it starts producing. Therefore let us work, and we shall see if Jehovah will refuse to bless this land!'
12
When your messengers were not successful along this route, they went to another property of the good man and tried by other means to lure his workers away. You even spread a curse over his Mount of Olives, because he didn't wanted to just give it to you, - and you would have sold it for a large sum of money to a wealthy Greek or Roman.
13
Was all this done according to the will of God, who through and to Moses has said: 'Do not lust for what belongs to your neighbor!'? In the end, because the good man very energetically prohibited you your activities, you wanted to show what power you had against him. But the good man was cleverer than you: soon he and all his property became Roman subject and a Roman citizen, he now stands under full Roman protection, pays them a lot less taxes, and admission to all his properties by your messengers and servants is prohibited by Roman guards and lately also through large and vicious dogs. Only now and then some of your older and somewhat more honest Pharisees and scribes are allowed to visit him.
14
And tell us now, you dull and weak preacher, what have you achieved by this? Was your right in anyway enforced by a Roman court? This is the reason why God has shown to you in this night, what He rather sooner than later will do with Jerusalem and the temple. Speak now against us, if you can and want to! How many treasures, money and goods of the poor widows and orphans have you already squandered and promised them that you will take care of their temporal and everlasting welfare. But once in your claws, they have been provided for by you for eternity. In which way, we know to the greatest part quite well, and in your conscience you will know this even better!
15
If you knew about a poor virgin or about a young woman, you dressed up a temple cleric, and he went to deceive the virgin for your lecherous addiction or tempted the young woman into adultery, so that she, under threat of stoning, for ever remained your whore. O, such a great disgrace and such great atrocities of the temple!
16
For already a very long time, you of course do not believe in a God anymore and have therefore adopted the cheeky right to represent the place of God in whom the people still believe, and have in the name of Jehovah given laws to the people to serve your insatiable lust for power and excessive gluttony, to such an extend that in the end even the gentiles became disgusted by them. But in this night the old God has reappeared again and has shown to you and the people with extraordinary and clear signs, that He is still very much the same, as He was during the times of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.
17
And now we, the people, have before God and before you, the fullest right, to openly say to your faces, that not we, but you are the conceiver of all sins, which in time became by your ungodly laws common practice among us; since you have driven us into sin, so that we had to sacrifice more for our sins, in order to get rid of them by your lazy burnt offerings and by your completely empty power-sayings. Now, because you are assuming to be powerful before God and the people, deal with God in front of us, so that we can know what God will do with you and with us!'
18
See, Lord and Master, this is literally how the people spoke to the very fearful and embarrassed preacher, who listened silently and without moving, like the statue of the golden calf, to everything and in the end couldn't reply anything else to the people than: 'For such people I'm too weak, here a teacher of the law is required!'
19
And the people said: 'Just let him come, and we will also show him, that the voice of the people is by far more the voice of God, than the stupid and empty and any right devoid word of a power-hungry and greedy temple cleric!'
20
With that the speaker disappeared, and we had to wait nearly half an hour, until the announced teacher of the law appeared."