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 193 -
The approaching ship with the bailiffs.
With this cue the woman headed with the many children into the hut again and began to praise the great Zeus at her work with the children for such an extremely great mercy, but nonetheless made the remark to the children that from the land in which the gods appeared nothing good was to be expected, but instead sheer bad things like war, hunger, disease and great floods.
2
But the children said, "But these gods look very friendly! We will ask them tomorrow not to impose too terrible an evil on the Earth!"
3
The mother said, "Just be calm and silent now! The fathers will soon sort that out with them; for we do not understand it enough."
4
Then it became silent in the huts and we consumed our evening meal with Aziona and Hiram, which both of them very much enjoyed, quite particularly, however, the wine and the bread, both of which Hiram could not praise enough. When the fish had been consumed, Aziona got rid of the basket, came back to us, and we remained sitting there with bread and wine at the table and no one felt in the least bit sleepy. Until one hour before midnight we spent the time with all sorts of rather unimportant tales.
5
Only this time having passed, Hiram rose, stared out over the bay for a while, and then said with a certain trepidation, "My friends, it seems weird to me, so as if we are threatened by a great danger! I see a ship heavily manned with warriors and pursuers steering into the bay! Truly, they have nothing good in mind! You, friend, who have created this light so orderly, extinguish it so that they will lose direction and in the night drive up upon a sandbank! Tomorrow we will then ask them what they want here, and should they become a good prize for us, we will let them pay us a visit in friendly intention."
6
Said I: "Let's just leave the light to shine! Soon you shall see miracles of our power! But first they must come to us entirely; only then will we show them what according to your saying the gods can perform!"
7
With this Hiram was satisfied; but Aziona said, "Look, dear friends, I asked you whether you were being followed by some enemies! But you said: Not at all! If you had only told us something about it "truly, we would have soon soured their arrival in this bay in such a way that they would have had enough to think about for thirty years!"
8
I said, "I knew indeed what would happen without our fault; however, if I had told you immediately, you would have lost your necessary rest. You would have made a very great effort to block up the entrance into this bay "and what for? I have the highest power in abundance for more than a hundred thousand such enemy ships! What would be the use of such preparations? The prize along with the ship belongs in any case to you, and that will not be insignificant! They are carrying great sums of bribes and other money for their good provisions and another amount of other earthly valuables which will come very handy to you in your great poverty. I have foreseen everything very secretly in Myself and have therefore most of all for that reason not said anything to you all about it.
9
If you had taken the ship as prize through your trickery and force, which also could very easily have been possible, you would have very soon received a ten times greater, more hostile visit from Jerusalem and you all would have been treated as murderers. Alone, that you do not have to fear in the least; for I Myself will be with you in the spirit, if not in the person, always protect you and not let anything evil happen to you.
10
But now the truly miserable tartars are indeed approaching and will now straightaway come on land along with the two fishermen who betrayed us; pay attention to what will happen to them!"
11
Aziona said, "Let us hope they do not carry arrows with them!"
12
I said, "Oh no, they have only a few spears, lances, swords and chains with them; but now quiet, My dears!"