The Great Gospel of John
Volume 8
Jesus' Precepts and Deeds through His Three Years of Teaching
The Lord and His adversaries
- Chapter 177 -
The peculiar appearance on the island Patmos.
I said: "My friend, your flesh did not reveal this to you. But let us no more talk about this for now. Later on we will go back to it. But tell us now, Kado, about an event that you experienced 2 years ago on Patmos."
2
When I had said that to Kado, he said: "Dear Savior, Lord and Master, that which happened to me 3 times in a row on Patmos - more precisely on our big estate - is truly in itself very memorable and remarkable, but each word out of Your mouth is still unspeakably more memorable and more remarkable than 1.000 experiences as the one I had, no mater how well and truthfully they may be related. If I would relate this event somehow extensively, I would deprive You of the time in which You, in Your mercy, can give us a lot of life-awakening things."
3
I said: "The most important has already been said by Me, and we also will find the time for many other things, because we have 5 hours the time before it will be necessary to give our limbs some rest. Thus, you can relate your experience very openheartedly and extensively, for I know that you are a good speaker."
4
Kado said: "Because You, o Lord and Master, want it, so be it, in Your name. In order to represent this matter to all those present more illustrative and clearer, it will be necessary to tell also something more about the region where this strange thing has happened to me, since some of those present have probably no idea of the island, which is for the greatest part still our property. And now let us come to the point.
5
Although this island, to which I was referring, belongs to the small ones, but it is still big enough to feed very well several hundred active people. It is true that this island is mountainous, just like many other Greek islands, but it is fertile when it is well cultivated. The wine is good and also the figs, dates and still a great many other fruit trees. It does not look so good with the agriculture and dairy farming, but instead of that, the fishing is very rich around the whole island. So this was a general preview of the island Patmos.
6
Our main landowning on this island is in the southeast. It is a small village that is completely built along the sea, which has a small bay there. Inland behind the village are mountains, which are neither high nor steep, and which for the greatest part are planted with grapevines and olive trees. On the east side it becomes higher, and where it reaches completely unto the sea it is highest and slants quite steeply towards the sea.
7
Upon this height is an old and still extremely strongly built tower that is also our property. We have partly changed it into a very comfortable home, and we rebuilt its subterranean, very spacious cellars into a wine cellar.
8
The tower was probably built by the Phoenicians. For what they have used it is somewhat difficult to guess because judging from its form it could have been a lighthouse or a temple, or maybe a kind of prison for criminals, and likewise a storehouse for all kinds of robbed goods. In short, it already belongs now to a gray past, and it hardly would be worth to find out why the Phoenicians have perhaps ever built our tower.
9
But, as said, now by its new arrangement it gives firstly a beautiful view far over land and sea and serves for this reason as a very pleasant home, and secondly it is used for the preservation of wines and also other fruits. Upon the highest point, a big light dish of bronze was placed that is filled with pitch and naphtha that is lighted during dark and stormy nights, so that the skippers in distress can see already from afar in which direction they have to steer in order to reach the safe bay that is almost never afflicted by storms. This was a necessary description of the region. And so now I can start to relate about the rare event that I experienced.
10
2 years ago, in about the same season as now, I was with my family and several servants on the described spot and had just brought the greatest and best part of the good harvest under the roof. And since after the finished work there has to be a good rest, so we also rested on a nice evening on the spacious terrace of our tower house and watched from there the sea with its play of waves and the fishing boats that were floating about, of which some of them were strongly rowing with their catch to the shore. And so, still many other peculiar things could be watched at during the setting sun, and were richly provided by our sea.
11
So we were very cheerfully sitting together until the night had fully stretched out its starry garment over sea and land. At that time, the sea became also completely quiet, so that we from far away could see in its calm mirror the stars shining almost quite as purely as they could be seen at the high and wide firmament. Since it became somehow cool now, my family entered the house. I myself stayed however still with a couple of servants on the terrace and spoke with them about all kinds of matters and activities, which the following day would offer us.
12
Now when I was still speaking, but at the same time was glancing over the wide quiet plain of the sea to see if perhaps I could discover anything that was worth a greater attention, I saw from the east a snow-white little cloud that came quickly to our island. And the more it came closer, the more it became brighter and bigger. Very close to the island it became so bright that the sea became so strongly illuminated in the wide environment that everything was more accurately distinguishable than by the light of the full moon.
13
When the mentioned little cloud had reached the island completely, it suddenly lifted itself up at the same point where our tower house was located. However, at the moment it lifted itself up it was still extremely far away from our tower house, so that 1 hour would be needed to reach the place above which the little cloud of light was, which was now quietly floating at a stand still.
14
However, the little cloud was only standing still for a short time. After that it moved again, came straight to our tower house, which did not give me and my 2 servants a pleasant feeling, and we thought it would be advisable to flee away from the house as quickly as possible and to wait what would finally be the result of this appearance.
15
We hardly had reached the big room when the little cloud had already reached the tower house and was spreading by its strong illumination a light - which was almost as clear as bright daylight - into the whole house that was completely enveloped by the little cloud. We were many in the house, all courageous people with strong nerves, and still nobody dared to go outside to see what was happening with that strange little cloud. Yes, curiosity and inquisitiveness urged us to go outside and to examine how far the little cloud had spread over the house, but still we could not master our fear in order to satisfy our curiosity and inquisitiveness.
16
The strange little cloud was now floating unchangingly around our house and did not move nor to the left nor to the right, and we became very frightened so that we did not dare to take the prepared evening meal.
17
An old, loyal servant of my house who knew the sea very well and its different phenomena, said after long reflection: 'Something comes to my mind. A skipper from Palestine, who had anchored here to load wine and sweet water into his ship, told me 1 year ago that it seemed that now in the kingdom of the Jews the old god Zeus with all other gods wanted to leave the Olympus and take up his residence somewhere over there.'
18
He himself, the skipper, saw men in a place in that kingdom and had also observed them, and he said: 'Whatever these men want and speak out, happens also immediately. Only by the word they can heal the most malicious diseases, blind ones become seeing, deaf ones become hearing, lame and crippled and those who suffer from gout, young and old, receive straight limbs and jump around as deer and gazelles, and even deceased people receive a new life. Besides that, still thousands of other deeds of wonder that were never heard of, are accomplished, only by the will and the word of these men of God.
19
Who else could these people be than only the high gods? The earthly men in our time have lost every belief in the gods, and the prominent ones have already since long thrown themselves into the arms of various philosophers and wise men, and they turned every existence of the gods into an empty fable that has even become hardly suitable for the common people. But the high gods are now probably caring again for the blind and unbelieving people, and have now descended to the Earth in human form to the still most believing kingdom of the Jews to show them that they, the eternal ones, continue to exist despite the fact that they are now already completely denied by countless many philosophic atheists. A lot of Greeks and Romans travel now to that place and convince themselves now of this wonderful truth.
20
Well now - said my old, loyal servant - could it not be so that the gods, who are now seated in the kingdom of the Jews, have now in this little cloud of light send us one or the other spirit of protection - for we still possess something of the old belief and are also still practicing it as far as possible - in order to give us also a sign of their existence on Earth? This is now my opinion, and it also can be already considered as a full truth because the story of that skipper has come to my mind now for the first time in 1 year, while otherwise I hardly would have ever remembered it. This little cloud has obviously awakened my memory.'
21
When my servant had finished talking, we regained courage and went outside to look at our little cloud. But we hardly were outside when the little cloud lifted itself up and went back very quickly to where it came from. We watched the little cloud as long as it disappeared in the far distance from our eyesight. Then we entered the house again in a meditating mood, we ate our meal cheerfully and went then soon to rest."