THE GREAT GOSPEL OF JOHN
VOLUME 5
Jesus' Precepts and Deeds through His Three Years of Teaching
The Lord in the house of Simon Peter. Gospel of Matthew, Chapter 18
- Chapter 245 -
The explanation of the parables of the annoyances.
With these words of Peter's all the other apostles except for John agreed. But this one however took up the word and said, "But, dear brothers, how can you all now get so worked up about this as if the Lord had given us quite a new religion! Do you not remember then the words of the Lord on the mountain in Samaria! Then the Lord spoke about the stumbling blocks almost the same way and also gave us the correct light on it. Then you all understood everything in the right way; how then not now?"
2
Said Peter: "It now indeed seems to me as if there has already been a mention of it; but about how it is to be taken and understood, I know just like surely the other brothers no syllable more, and it would be very desirable that this would be explained to us one more time."
3
Said I: "Such words were even written down like just now these words which I have now said about the disadvantages of stumbling blocks are to describe so that you do not forget them again so easily.
4
But what does a human hand correspond to? The action, whether it is good or bad, is an action which is represented in the correct correspondence through the word and image 'hand'; but the firm will is the axe, with which alone you can separate your bad activity from yourself for ever. But how can you now be so foolish and think that I commanded the physical mutilation?
5
I spoke commandingly also about a foot that annoys you. Who indeed will ever be able to really cut off their own foot? And how foolish would I Myself be to order such a cruel mutilation of the own body so that the soul would be saved from hell!
6
But just as the body must have feet in order to proceed and to be able to be active in the right place, so the soul must have love and desire for something so that it will become active in it and for the purpose of its comfort, however characterized.
7
If now love and desire of the soul are not according to My teaching, which is clear to be seen, then it is bad and annoys your whole body, and if you take the sharp axe of will again and cut off such love and desire and change and act then alone with good love and desire, you will then very easily enter the kingdom of heaven on these new feet of the soul!
8
Thus it is basically to be understood thus: Every person on this world has of necessity a twofold love and a desire issuing from it. One is - and must be so - material, since without it no one would till the soil or take a wife. For man on this earth to do this, he must have a material love and outward desire motivating and carrying him to such an action. If such a love and desire for the material world becomes too mighty, it offends the whole man and makes the soul languish because the soul is pushed too deeply into matter. It is then high time for man to take courage and, with a firm will, free himself completely of such a love and desire and strive with all his might only for that which is purely of the spirit. If this is the case, it is in itself sufficient to gain the Kingdom of God, although he should, on account of the proper order of things, do both for the sake of neighborly love.
9
There are now already, and in the future there will be even more who will completely turn away from the world and its work and alone strive for that which is of the spirit. I do not say that they will thereby one day be completely justified. But, as I said, they are still much better off than to be, as offended material men, sucked in by the opposite pole of life about which I spoke at the fisher Aziona's, which means as much as to go, or be thrown, into hell.
10
By the tearing out and casting away of the eye is to be understood the worldly intellect of man. It is an eye of the soul, with which the soul beholds and judges the things of the world and compares them with the things of the spirit. Whenever the eye turns too much to the world and completely away from that which is of the spirit, hardly remembering God, the soul is badly offended, since thereby it also passes totally into matter. It is then high time to renounce the mere worldly wisdom and, for the sake of heaven, think purely of that which is of God, the spirit and the soul.
11
Whoever does that will also stand there justified and behold the countenance of God. But such blessed spirits of those who have raised their worldly wisdom through words and deeds to a divine level will yield significantly to them.
12
I now think that you all will have indeed understood this now, and if I in future should come back to this topic again, do not ask Me any longer about the meaning of such parables which I am giving you thus clothed, because they are purely placed there for the soul, which now is clothed for every person on this Earth through the flesh from every fleshly eye! For it is one thing about a teaching concerning the whole man, and another about a teaching which is concerned only with the soul. Do you understand all this now?"