The Great Gospel of John
Volume 8
Jesus' Precepts and Deeds through His Three Years of Teaching
The Lord and His adversaries
- Chapter 195 -
The desire of the Arabian.
Now another Arabian came to Me and asked if also the Arabians could be forgiven their certainly many sins if they also would act according to what I have now taught the Essenes.
2
I said: "Everyone can receive the baptism of the Spirit from God if he recognizes the only true and eternal God, actively believes in Him, who will then love Him above all and his fellowman as himself and will act as it was revealed from God's mouth. But whoever loves women more than God, will remain in his sins."
3
When the Arabian, together with several tribesmen, who were present, heard that from My mouth he was at first astonished but he soon took courage and said: "Yes, wise and mighty Lord and Master, You have spoken very clearly and I can perceive the truth of Your words, but that truth is in our earthly life not so easy to follow as one imagines at first sight. To love God above all and also to actively believe in Him and therefore also to love his fellowman more than himself, that would be very easy and at the same time be something very blissful if only the right and true knowledge of God should not have to precede all that. But how can one know the one and only true God and have an idea of how He is and where He is?
4
We are - as the Jews are calling us - pagans from birth and have never heard anything about a one and only true God, except from one or the other Jew in very incomprehensible language. That is why we have continuously kept the teaching that was handed over to us by our forefathers and we live according to the manners and customs in which we were educated since our birth, and no one and only true God can make us accountable for that.
5
The fact that we love our women very much is true. But what must we do? They are simply there, and with their mouth, their gestures, their figure and nature they demand love from us, and our nature itself commands us to love the beautiful and tender women. So we would have considered it as sin not to love the women, especially when they are still young and beautiful. But to love some one and only true God above all would never have been possible to us because for us, apart from the sun and the light of each fire, there has never been a recognizable and perceptible God.
6
We also have priests and magicians who can do all kinds of extraordinary things, who say that they can do these things with the help of the secret powers of the big nature and its spirits, and that they are therefore also immortal. But even these priests and magicians know as little about some one and true God as we do. They do not know Him, so they can also not believe in Him and still less love Him above all, because that which hardly exists for us men can also be impossibly loved above all.
7
The sun, the greatest benefactor of the Earth and its creatures, exists, and we worship it, as well as the fire, without which there would be just as little human life as without water and bread. And so we also have to love women because they are there to bring people into the world for us and to take care of them during their childhood as mothers with all love, care and tenderness. In a certain way they are the creators of people and this causes them great need and much effort and they deserve therefore also all our love and attention.
8
We all have learned this already since our childhood, and then we also have come to realize with our intellect that it is so, and that is why we have lived according to that teaching and we cannot help it if this was not correct.
9
But if ever there was one true God, who existed since eternity and who has made Himself known to the Jews, then He also could have made Himself known to us Arabs, the Persians, the Indians, the Egyptians, Greeks and Romans and still many other nations, which as far as I know has never been the case. And therefore a God who did never exist to us cannot hold it against us as sin if we did not live and act according to His will, which was maybe at one time or somewhere revealed.
10
Very mighty Lord and Master, make known to us now the one and true God and make Him known to us in such a way that no doubt would remain in us concerning His existence, then we will not only actively believe in Him but also love Him above all and certainly comply very faithfully with His will if this will be made known to us. But as long as this will not happen, we cannot love the one and only true God above all and comply with His will that has never been made known to us.
11
If You are that one and only true God, as this was not so difficult to conclude from many of Your words and also from Your active power, then tell and show us still clearer, then we actively will believe in You, love You above all and just like these Essenes comply very precisely with Your will that will be made known to us. But that which I am desiring must happen first."
12
I said: "You have spoken now very wisely, and already tomorrow your desire will be satisfied. However, your allegation that God had until now never revealed Himself to you is not correct. God has also revealed Himself truly, faithfully and openly to your forefathers and has made known His will, but the ever increasing love for the world of their descendants, and their self-love has very soon made the knowledge of the only one true God to sink down. It became weaker and weaker, and together with that, the action according to God's revealed will sank also because it became too uneasy and too sour for the people who were continuously turning externally to the world.
13
Then soon people appeared who did not believe at all but were lazy and who still wanted to live in this world as good and as noticeable as possible at the expense of their fellowmen. They taught the credulous people what was more gratifying and pleasant to them instead of knowing the one true God and the action according to His will, for the action according to God's will demands great self-denial without which no one can love God above all and his fellowman as himself.
14
Look, this is how things actually are, but your idea, namely that the one true God has only revealed Himself to the Jews is not correct."