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 81 -
Raphael's person and nature as contrasted with earthly human beings.
Raphael says, "My friend, you have to speak so because you do not know me; but if you knew me, you would find all that as natural as you find that you have only consumed hardly an eighth of the lamb despite your hunger!
2
I am just as much a person as you, and for the meantime I do not lack any sense or limb according to the body; but my body is quite a different one to yours; yours is still mortal, but mine is not! You as soul and spirit cannot move out of your body whenever you want, dissolve it and disappear into the blue into your spiritual element; but I can and may. I am actually purely spirit, despite this seeming body of mine; but you are still almost pure flesh and will still have a lot to do for yourself, before you begin to feel like a mature and free soul in your body.
3
If you have eaten something, it takes time for what has been eaten to become blood and flesh in your body, and you do not and will never know how such a metamorphosis happens inside you. You do not know the very smallest details of the organic make-up of your body; but for me however, every atom of my and also your body is so well-known very clearly that there can be nothing clearer in the whole world! For I must form and maintain this present body of mine from atom to atom, nerve to nerve, fiber to fiber and from limb to limb; but from the beginning you have not known what your body consists of, and who constantly forms it and maintains it.
4
Your body is conceived, born and grown against your recognition and against your will "mine was created against my knowledge and desire! Your consciousness of existence is still asleep, and your knowledge, recognition and desire is a dream in your sleeping existence; but I find myself in the brightest and very most awake life of the most perfect eternal day of life. I know what I am saying and doing and know the true and deepest reason for it "and you do not even know how, through what and why all sorts of thoughts arise in you! And so then I also know why I, as long as I am walking among the mortals, can and must take a significantly greater meal than you and all your companions together. Yes, I cannot yet make the reason clear to you, because you would not understand it with your present knowledge; but later there will come a time in which you will understand all that very well that I have now thrown at you.
5
But that you suppose that I, because of my too great desire to eat, might in the end even attack you all like a hyena or like a wolf, which is a little petty of you! I think that my spiritual form and my visible wisdom should teach you something better! I can not only consume a stone in the way that I have now convinced you; I could also carry out the maneuver with whole mountains and planets, for which I have ample power! Alone if I were unwise and had the strength that is my own, then I would act according to some blind passion, and you would certainly no longer be safe at my side in your existence and life! But the eternal wisdom of God, from which my whole being is actually formed, orders me above all to maintain all the things created through the strength and omnipotence of God, of which eternally no atom may get lost and nor can it get lost, because the all-seeing eye of God's will and being immediately penetrates and works through the whole eternal and endless space from the greatest to the smallest thing; and so your fear of my supposed desire to eat you is fully vain! Roklus, have you understood these words even a little?"
6
Roklus says, "There can never be any talk of actual understanding; but I can take this much, that we do not have anything to fear at your side, and that is very much for us for the moment! But where do you put such great masses? Do you have a type of ostrich stomach, which as far as I know digests even the hardest stones? Even the hardest metals are supposed to be a positive favorite meal for it! But let him be as he will "you are and remain an amazing being!
7
The Jews speak of certain original created messengers from heaven (angels), we Greeks and Romans have our genies and the so-called half-gods; perhaps you are such an angel in disguise or at least such a genius or half-god?! For me as a man of the Earth your whole appearance is too tender and subtle; for no chaste vestal virgin could compare to you as regards physical tenderness and beauty. You struck me earlier very much, and would not be mistaken if I secretly considered you to be a type of magical phantom! It always seemed to me that you were on the one hand something, but then on the other hand nothing other than a speaking light image of the very highest divine being, which lends you form, content and the necessary wisdom and power only for a certain time. But if you are no longer necessary for him, then things are completely over for you! I thought, felt and perceived at least as much silently."
8
Raphael says, "Apart from the complete nothingness of me you have come quite close to the truth about me. Only there is a great problem with the full nothingness with me; for behold, a long time ago, unthinkable to you, before a world ever began to float and shine in the most endless space, I was already a quite perfected servant of the very highest spirit of God! I am still that and will remain so for eternity, if perhaps somewhat changed according to the measure of the Lord, according to whom now every perfect spirit strives and will strive. But therefore I will nonetheless still remain what I am, only in an even more changed measure, for which reason I have now made for this pre-school of material life through the mercy of the Lord. But for now I still remain who, how and what I am! Have you now understood me a little better?"
9
Roklus, raising his eyebrows, says, "Ah, well yes, as I thought! You are "as one says "only an AD INTERIM supposedly embodied spirit, and indeed from heaven, here, in order to serve the Lord of Magnificence for a while and to perform His will?! Yes, so, aha, aha, yes, that is certainly an enormous difference between us, and another earthly word cannot be spoken with you!"
10
Raphael asks quickly, "And why not then?"
11
Roklus says, now making a very serious face, "I suppose of your certainly unlimited wisdom that you will also see the reason even better than I without my little-saying explanation; but because you secretive spiritual beings always demand an explanation from us poor mortal humans, I must then tell you "whether you in any case already know in advance every word that I will pronounce! And so listen to me:
12
On this Earth there are certain relationships and situations which never compare laudably. A molehill for example beside the high Ararat is certainly a very laughably awkward relationship, a pig-sty beside the emperor's palace in Rome, a fly house beside an Egyptian pyramid, a flea beside an elephant, a drop of water beside the great ocean! But these mentioned relationships are much better than the relationship between us and you; also a nightly shining glow-worm beside the sun would look obviously much better and more comfortable! What is my speech before you? A very stupidest threshing of a perfectly empty straw; for what I am now saying you have already known since the beginning of eternity word for word! But I am not speaking here for your sake, but instead for my sake and for the sake of my companions, so that they will learn out loud how I now think in this position! Equals are suitable for equals: the average person for the average person and the high and powerful for the high and powerful.
13
The scales give us here the correct measure. A speck of sunlight has certainly also some weight, otherwise it would not fall to the Earth in time. But would even a true ox be moved to laughter if someone laid a speck of sunlight before his eyes on the scales against ten thousand pounds, in order to see how much lighter the sunlight is than the great weight of ten thousand pounds?! And so is it that you are as little suitable for our company as we for yours.
14
You are according to the Jewish scriptures one of the greatest in heaven, and we stand on this Earth hardly at the edge of the cradle life, and we are still missing a terrible amount before we achieve the spiritual maturity on this Earth! We ask you therefore to leave us, because we now must look on at your side for nothing! You can certainly not gain anything from us, and we, in comparison with what you are and are capable of, also gain as much as nothing!"