THE GREAT GOSPEL OF JOHN
VOLUME 5
Jesus' Precepts and Deeds through His Three Years of Teaching
Jesus in the region of Caesarea Philippi. (cont.) Gospel of Matthew, Chapter 16
- Chapter 101 -
Roklus and Floran in conversation about Stahar.
Stahar pulls a gloomy face at this and then says no further word; for Floran's words have indeed secretly made the fellow think in a somewhat better way.
2
But Roklus, who had listened to this exchange with the most interested attention, rose and straightaway hurried over to Floran, tapped him on the shoulder and said, "I praise you! You are just the man for me! I will accept you into our institute, which now stands under the true protection of God and under the protection of Rome. What you have now said was given to you by the Lord; it was as if spoken from out of my soul! Ah, such words are a balm for my mind, which only wants good for the people! I only do not understand how Stahar, who as far as I know is not altogether stupid, can allow any doubt to sprout up in his chest at the such extraordinary deeds that he has seen and the teachings of the Lord he has heard and understood?!
3
For me, who has now spent several hours here, what has been seen and heard so far is much too much "and Stahar has seen and heard so much, and yet it still occurred to him to accuse the Lord of all infinity of devilry! Whether wine or not, I have also enjoyed the wine and perceive very clearly in myself that my courage has also become significantly greater; but my convictions that have been formed do not waver and neither would they waver even if my limbs began to waver a little. But with the old know-it-all Stahar the old Roman saying: IN VINO VERITAS! may well be put to use; for wine has the strange effect that it often airs the dark veils of politics among the people and loosens the tongue of a person despite himself. And on such occasions one often learns some things which for very well-calculated, selfish reasons would otherwise be taken to the grave with a person.
4
Previously Stahar, despite his diamond-hard Pharisee-hood, had certainly been very much driven into a corner. He regarded himself with his contradictions as being lost and finally gave in because he could not find any open hole into which he could escape; but deep in his very innermost being he remained still the old diamond-hard Pharisee. Now, however, he had committed the great foolishness of enjoying a little too much of the noble grape juice, and he fetched the old, arch-Pharisee out of his innermost hiding place and made him speak for himself. Once the scent of wine has subsided in the fellow, he will certainly very much regret that he has betrayed himself so beautifully.
5
It was not for nothing that people wrote poetry about the female Bacchantes, so that quite often they prophesied to the people future things and events and great value was placed on their statements. The wine also had a wondrous effect on them. It is also said about David, the great king of the Jews, that he wrote and sang many of his Psalms himself under the influence of wine.
6
If the wine accordingly has such a particular effect, it can be quite certainly accepted that the old leader of the Pharisees has now revealed himself yet again, for our general best and despite his previous feigned total conversion, to be the same and unchanging genuine Pharisee, a type of person for whom even the wildest beasts of the forest have their due respect, not to mention a poor sinner standing under their yoke! Am I right or not?"
7
Floran says, "Yes, dearest friend, in a certain respect you are quite right; but yet there is another point which can be taken into consideration! Look, if you want to bend a young tree which has grown crookedly, your efforts will soon be blessed with success; but if you try the same with an old, crooked tree, you will firstly have to put all sorts of powerful machines to use in order to make the older tree straight, which has already grown very stiff, and secondly you have to have no lack of patience! You will only be able to exert a very small pressure from day to day, and for as long as it takes for the tree to become straight; but if you wanted to straighten it with all your strength all at once, you would break the tree and thereby kill it, which would certainly not be any blessed success for your great efforts. The love and wisdom of the Lord in this affair also seems to observe this principle.
8
Our Stahar will now be brought to a position where he in his ancient Jewish enthusiasm for Jehovah will feel very annoyed. How many things his superstition considers a sin, which according to common sense can never be a sin, neither before man, nor even less before God! According to his morals, a richer enjoyment of wine or speaking to a virgin, who according to his ideas could not yet be fully mature, also belong in this category! Well, if he is quite sober, obviously he passes over these trivialities; but he has downed several beakers of wine himself, and the natural spirits of the wine have found in his innards such very old, hardened remains of the old, totally blind Pharisee-hood, animated them and brought them into a certain up-rising. On its own it is basically hardly worth wasting a word over this whole event!
9
But in any case I have already told the fellow my well-founded opinion quite coherently, and he is now thinking about it in his doze. Tomorrow he will certainly be quite a different person "and if it were not as I have just said to you, the Lord Himself would already have said something to him; but the Lord, knowing well what is going on in this issue, seems to take no notice, however little, of it at all. But if He and the high heads of Rome have fully ignored the whole thing, we can also both be fully assured that there was nothing more to this event than what I have just described to you. But beyond that I must thank you from the bottom of my heart for your very friendly proposition, and indeed with the, for me, very encouraging assurance that I will make a very unconditional use of the same.
10
For there cannot be anything more blessed on this Earth for an honest person than to live and to work in a true community of people whose motto is 'love and truth', where the human value of a person is mutually recognized as the holiest pledge of our being and fully as that which he is through God, and where all members recognize the Lord most actively as if with one heart, and love Him and give Him alone all honor and also say as if with one mouth: The Lord alone is all in all, and we, however, are all brothers among one another, of whom none imagines himself to be even in the slightest higher or more preferred than his neighbor; and should there be any differences in the community, these should only consist of one striving to be a greater friend to the other, in order to be of use to all people in the fullest truth with united strength!
11
Yes, friend Roklus, that is the truest and very real, heavenly calling for man on this Earth; to help all those oppressed and those suffering physically and mentally, wherever any help is somehow still possible! And that is also the extremely clearly pronounced loving will of the Lord; whoever follows it faithfully will certainly never end up empty-handed! Don't you fully share my opinion?"