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 115 -
Nature and content of a shell globe.
Our Mathael finally says one more time, "Lord, those are truly like strong Scythian villages which exist almost as little as not at all, and of which one cannot make any comprehension! You can certainly speak well of Your endlessly great creation; but we, who do not even really know how great our Earth is, and what form it has, cannot listen to what You have informed us so well or so understandably.
2
I indeed understood some things in my very vivid imagination, but only as if guessing at something great in a fleeting dream. Yet very many of my companions consider that to be a type of incomprehensible drivel, out of which no natural, no matter how healthy person can ever make head or tail. For in order to be able to understand such things only a little more clearly, we must be very thoroughly familiar with counting and old Egyptian astronomy and be perfectly competent in their great counting system! But since we are lacking the scientific elements almost entirely, such present grandiose explanation of Yours cannot be clear to us in any case.
3
It is indeed true that You have really spoiled us a little earlier with glimpses of Your great creation; but at least for me there were still a few questions to ask. Now You have announced in more detail namely the material part of Your creation; but that is not of much particular use to us. For it is indeed clear and easy to accept that we cannot possibly fully understand such things, since we are lacking in all the basic elements of comprehension.
4
In order to understand all this only a little better, we would have to likewise have knowledge of one of the named shell globes and the various forms of the suns and central suns dominating in it. If that were the case, we could then imagine the whole countless many other shell globes and central sun systems, areas and space a little more clearly; but there is a snag even with the single shell globe, not to mention the many others, of which certainly each has quite a different set-up and a very different purpose.
5
How are things then actually with the planetary suns and further with the stories of the central suns of the solar system, the solar area, space and finally even the primordial central sun, of which the very famous Ptolemy and Julius Caesar, who was also somewhat of an astronomer, never dreamed?"
6
I say, "My dear Mathael, I notice that you are becoming a bit annoyed, partly because I have now shown you things that you either do not understand at all or understand very little, and partly at yourself, since you, who otherwise have a great erudition in very many things and various very respectable experiences and insight, cannot quite understand very well what I have now said. But look, all that is not quite right of you; for man does not become wise alone from what he hears and immediately fully understands, but instead mostly from what he hears and does not understand!
7
Whatever someone already understands, no-one will ever think it over again or investigate it; for what one has already, one no longer seeks to gain or to achieve with effort and rests very comfortably on what one already has in hand. But whatever one has not found as yet have, particularly if it is of great value, one certainly seeks with great zeal until one gets at least some of it.
8
You see, if I would want to make you lazy thinkers in the end, it would be an easy thing for Me to place a shell globe in the air before your eyes, and you would understand the whole system of a shell globe that we have just been speaking about as easily as that two staters and another two staters certainly make four staters! Since I want to keep you active in your thinking, I showed you something by way of explanation that will rouse you from your sleep."
9
But I have already told you something about this before which you certainly have not understood very clearly for the very same reason, and so I could now say this to you without counting on the fact that you will fully understand it, but instead that you will think it over many times at good opportunities, particularly on clear starry nights.
10
But in order to make the thinking just a little easier, I will make you aware of similar events on this Earth. Look at your military institutes and you already more or less have the set-up of a shell globe with its central and original suns! There stands a leader of only ten to thirty soldiers "there stands another, even greater leader, who has more than ten leaders of the first order under his command. The first leader resembles a planetary sun, and the ten to thirty very common soldiers represent the planets which circle a sun. The second, higher leader of the ten abovementioned crews resembles a first central sun of the solar area system around which a number of planetary suns move at varying distances with their often many planets. These planetary suns moving around a great central sun make up a solar area which you have to remember for now in order to be able to understand the following more clearly.
11
Now we will move on to an army leader of the third class! This once again has some ten leaders of the second class under him and has to direct them and as well to lead them. The commands of this third leader, whom we will name 'captain', are only given to the subordinated cohort leaders, and they then announce them to the smaller crew leaders, and only they then give them to the individual soldiers. We have just spoken about one solar area, and it goes without saying, that there will be several other solar areas which in their turn must have a general even greater leading body.
12
Let's call the military team under a captain a squadron and imagine now ten to twenty squadrons once again under a higher ruler, who for example is a colonel and usually has command over a legion which mostly consists of ten to twenty squadrons! Such a legion is then already a very considerable force and makes up a very powerful part of a whole army. We can now suitably compare a legion with a sun universe [galaxy]. But as several legions stand in their turn under the orders of a commander, so then the sun universes also stand under an even greater and more powerful central sun, which we, in order to distinguish between it and the previous ones, will call 'central sun of the sun universes'.
13
But now all the many armies stand under a single monarch, and likewise the numerous sun universes under the general main central primary sun, which naturally must be of a most colossal size, in order to attract to it all the many sun universes likewise the planetary suns their individual planets along with their moons, and to allow them to circle them in wide paths of distances immeasurable for you. Such a true sun monarchy I call with good reason a shell globe.
14
It is a globe due to its fully round form "but all the planets in it are shells (husks) because they all contain an judged spiritual life, and because in the end this carrier (globe) is itself a universal shell, since in it eons upon eons of suns appear to maintain a certain order as totally enclosed. Tell Me, Mathael, whether you have understood Me now more clearly than before!"