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 164 -
The religious philosophy of the Pharisee.
1
(Cyrenius) "Then Mark said to you: 'Friend, I see from this long speech of yours that you are of an already extremely hardened heart and it will be difficult to advise you and to help you! For if a person can no longer give a real faith to the greatest authorities of truth and considers and declares everything on the Earth to be a deception, then everything has stopped in him which could serve him along his path of life towards a better light! Tell me, or think to yourself, what use would it be to us if we put you in a better light? We have treasures of the most colossal type in an indescribable number; of gold, silver and the most valuable jewels there is no lack; also our chambers are full of corn and the cellars are full of the noblest grape juice, as you have already tasted in a wonderful way "of which you now no longer seem to want to know anything! We have therefore no need of gaining anything from you and speak through ourselves and thorough amazed witnesses impossibly anything other than the purest truth! Why then will you not believe us?
2
You see, only the very most despicable selfishness holds you and your companions back, for the sake of which you even allowed yourselves to be used for the greatest human abominations according to your words: 'We can be used for any constant greater advantage in life!' So even for murder and robbery? No, I have to say: Truly, your open admission is not bad at all and quite suitable for making the greatest honor for even a worst devil! And such people are teachers and educators of the nation! Well, then it will be indeed easily comprehensible for every even somewhat more humane thinker why we truth-seeking and truth-loving Romans always must be become more and more averse and hostile regarding your institute. What should happen to the humanity which stands under you all in a short time at such a method of instruction? Yes, yes, friend, it is high time to set some quite appropriate boundaries for your terrible business "otherwise very soon all the Jewish lands will sink into the mud of death!
3
At this very cogent remark by old, honest Mark you said nothing for a while "but in yourself you thought: Damn! Now I have burnt my fingers! That's it with the measly truth! As long as one lies through ones' teeth, one gets through the world quite well; but only one true word mixed in among an otherwise very well-placed lie "and the hyenas already sit in wait! What can I do now to get rid of the Romans' severity? I will now take on another shade just like a chameleon, and there will be a devilish affair if I cannot bring the old Roman fox to a better conviction of us, otherwise this foolish talk could bring us into the greatest embarrassment! He will now be lied to by me left and right with the most honest face in the world, and I bet that he will greet us as his newly-won friends in the friendliest way! But there is just one question "how to start a conversation with him again?! It should not be too hard; for he also seems to be thinking how he could somehow win us and transform us for his affair with even more cogent proof!
4
You see, those were your thoughts in the harbor, and indeed on one of the five great and new ships! Soon you gathered courage and said to Mark: You seem to be angry about my previous comment! You see, I wanted to be dishonest and as sly as a fox; then I obviously would not have spoken quite so openly with you and nor would I have shown you what I actually think and how I actually am in my innards! For we Pharisees know very well how to turn coats in the wind; but since you meant it honestly with us nonetheless as we noticed and despite your somewhat limited realization from your childhood, then it would truly be too despicable if I had shown myself before you in a God knows what sort of a pious and believing mask! Would it then have been a hard thing for us to supposedly believe everything exactly that you told us about the Nazarene? You see, you would have been satisfied with that and would have led us then before Cyrenius as fully converted people! On its own, one honesty demands another; I spoke therefore quite directly and there was not a jot which I held back from my inner thoughts and judgments.
5
To believe things as they are supposed to have happened here, without personally being a witness of them, is indeed something extremely difficult for a person of an awakened common sense, especially since this would stand alone as something that has never existed before, that one would have to throw all the better experiences that one has made purely into the sea. For until now there has never been anything similar on the whole known Earth which was created by a man throughout all time, and we know the familiar miracles and conjuring, and also how there were carried out. There were people everywhere who excelled among many hundred thousands of their fellow man through their acumen. They recognized more deeply the powers of the great nature, made use of them and alongside were respected and formally worshipped as people of a higher sort, as prophets or half-gods. Such a genie also soon had certainly a number of knowledge-thirsty disciples around him who made every effort to walk in the footsteps of their spiritually rich master. In his day those were only disciples, later necessarily teachers and later masters themselves, who along with their disciples showed the original master a great honor also according to his present earthly demise, and all the more so since the teachings and works of the original master prove themselves to be ever more benevolent to the people. With time the later masters became priests who made their original master at least into a half-god.
6
We Jews made such original and arch-masters into prophets. The Egyptians, Greeks and Romans made their half-gods and with time ascribed supernatural miracles to the certainly very most honorable original masters in order to present them more easily and comfortably to the blind mass of people and to get sacrifices. They then often exist many centuries until again some even greater genius slipped out of the lap of an enlightened mother and revealed the lost actions and deeds of a priesthood in such a way before the eyes of a long-deceived nation so that they immediately had to achieve the indubitable opinion that they were deceived left and right and that their priests and at the same time their servants of God were the very worst daylight robbers and deceivers of the people. They either hardly knew anything more about the original purity of the true teaching of their original master or even that which they still know about it they withhold for very wise reasons of state from the poor comfort-less and knowledge-thirsty people, and thus fed them with every possible refuse instead of gold and pearls.
7
Yes, if such a new great master does open the eyes of the people with little effort, who in any case have become already extremely distrustful of their priests, the old priests are as good as done and can only hold on for a while through all sorts of political attempts to seize power; but in the minds of the people they are as good as fully dead. That now threatens us a lot. The great master has already stepped into the, for us, sad reality, and thousands are turning their backs on us forever. You will surely understand that we cannot be indifferent to what the storm was created over, and also that we must be prepared to save what can still be saved. And thus it would truly be somewhat strange of you, otherwise such an eminent man, if you wanted to become angry at us about this, if we have exchanged some very unveiled words with you, since it was quite our free choice to try to deceive you as much as possible!'"