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 88 -
The words of Nicodemus to the temple servants.
The Lord: "How much Nicodemus was offended with these words, you very well can understand.
2
After a while of deep thinking, he (Nicodemus) said: "Yes, dear friends, that is something about which I can hardly say anything, and still less give advice. You yourselves have experienced lately in the temple that when you saw the Nazarene and you wanted to stone Him because He said that He existed before Abraham, He became totally invisible in the middle of the temple, upon which you had to lay your stones aside again. I have thought about everything very calmly and after serious reflection I concluded that for such a Person for whom nothing is impossible - I myself was convinced about that, and also as mayor had to convince myself about it - nothing can be achieved with violence. And because I know a lot that you cannot know, I wisely will guard myself against being hostile against such a Man. My advice in this is then also: do not be hostile against that Man in any way, but wait quietly to see what else may come from it.
3
For if it is something that is only of a divine nature, then our resistance against it is useless. If however, it still seems to be something human from this Earth, then it also will disappear of itself. If in time to come, this Man would become politically dangerous to the Romans, then the shrewd Romans will soon arrest Him. But until now, politically He has not been dangerous in any way, and according to my best knowledge He is highly esteemed by the Romans and they like Him very much. As long as this is the case it would be very unwise trying to anticipate the mighty Romans, which will always be in vain.
4
I do not destroy the spark on which I do not get burned. Very rightly you have mentioned your opinion that the signs of last night were probably accomplished by the Nazarene, and I can tell you that already on this night I immediately had that idea. But now that this is probably so, I am asking you in all reasonableness: what is finally the use of this blind persecution-anger with respect to this Nazarene? On the other hand, He will bring you in even greater embarrassment than was the case until now, while you can do nothing to Him, of which now already since 2 years you were able to convince yourselves. How much money and how many men have you already sacrificed because of Him? And what did you accomplish by that? You are still at the point where you were 2 years ago.
5
Now again, you have sent 20 of your best servants of the law to Him. Where are they? Probably they underwent the same fate as most of those who were sent out by you in order to trace Him up. I am asking you: be reasonable and stop persecuting a Man to whom you cannot - as experience shows - do anything. But on the other hand can totally destroy us, without being able to resist Him in the least. Not with words, and even less with ropes you can catch Him. Then why your deliberations and all this restless trouble?
6
When you were walking through my fields out there, you should have seen a pillar, on which certainly no human hand has ever worked. Who else then - undoubtedly - the Nazarene has brought this from somewhere to that place. Because previously it was not there, and this morning it was there. Certainly no human strength put it down there. If ever this were so, then everything had to be driven flat all around the pillar, because putting such a huge pillar down needed hundreds of human hands. Now if the Nazarene is undoubtedly capable of such things - only by wanting it - then what do you want to achieve with your might and power?
7
If He is performing this through an inner power or by a new kind of magic, it does not matter because we cannot fight against Him in no matter what way. So it is advisable to you not to continue fighting against Him, or else we all could miserably come to our end. I will be very careful not to undertake anything against Him. Frankly, this is what I am advising now to you, and I ask the two Romans here if I am right or not.'
8
The two Romans said: 'Yes, we also are of that opinion. No material earthly power can achieve anything against men who possess any inner, wonderful strong willpower.
9
Once when we were in Upper-Egypt - 2 days of traveling above Memphis - we came in the region were we met a man who indeed had a brown Egyptian tan but still, he was not really a Moor. Our travel caravan consisted of 200 persons, only men, and our goal was to search for the home country of the black people.
10
When we came to a place of the Nile that was narrow and difficult to pass through, the above-mentioned man, who was clothed very scantily, came out of a cave and stood before us. His figure impressed us and his glance paralyzed our feet immediately, in such a way that we were unable to move one step forward or backward. He spoke to us in fluent Greek and said: 'What are you searching here in this deserted and desolate place?'
11
One of us said: 'We want to search the country of the black people to see how they are residing and living, and what kind of manners and customs they have, and if eventually we can do business with them in certain rare nature products.'
12
The man said: 'That country is still many days of traveling away from here if one is progressing with the same speed as you are. But with me, this is of course possible in a much shorter time because nature powers are at my disposal, which are unknown to you. But I say to you, Romans who are thirsty to conquer, that, as long as I am guarding this place, you will never set foot in that country that is still completely happy and innocent. Even if you still were with a 1,000 times more men than you are now, then you still would not be able, just like now, to set one step forward against my will. Therefore, I advise you to turn around and turn back to where you come from, or else I will leave you here nailed to the ground, and then my lions and eagles will feed themselves with your flesh.'
13
Well, these words from the strange man, which did not tolerate any contradiction, made such a deep impression on us, that we, despite all the weapons we had brought with us, did not dare for all the gold in the world to move even one step further.
14
But because the man was then looking at us in a more friendly way, one of us spoke to him very humbly and said: 'Dear mysterious mighty man, be so kind to listen to us just once, and tell us who you are and how you managed to possess such a mighty willpower. After that, we will follow your wish and will go back immediately."