The Great Gospel of John
Volume 1
Jesus' Precepts and Deeds through His Three Years of Teaching
On Mount Morgenkopf near Kis
- Chapter 164 -
Judas Iscariot reports on his journey through the air and asks useless questions. The Lord's answer and Thomas' reprimand.
Says Judas Iscariot, 'Lord! This is a tough Commandment! Who shall be able to strictly keep it?'
2
Say I, 'God also had made dying into an imperative and unalterable law and does not in spite of much human misery retract His holy Word! You may, right now, talk and argue as much as you like, yet you have to in the end die! Only in the beyond will you realise how such dying was most essential.
3
And behold, just so it is with every Commandment coming from the mouth of God! Making it into your own commandment, you shall be able to keep it quite easily. But if you prescribe yourself a commandment other than the one I give you, then it shall be hard for you to keep My Commandment. Because where one commandment is counter to another, there abiding by the one or the other shall be difficult or in the end impossible. Do you understand that?
4
I say unto you! Take care indeed and see to it earnestly that a counter-commandment does not arise in you with time, which could become death within you!'
5
Judas says, 'But what is this to mean again? You do indeed perpetually speak in accordance with Egyptian hieroglyphics, which hardly a wise man can still read, let alone understand! What basically is a counter-commandment? I can either abide or not abide by it and this is up to my free will and not a counter-commandment!'
6
I reply, 'I say unto you, if you remain as foolish as you are now, then it is better for you to return to Bethabara; because that way you are annoying and repulsive to Me!
7
Where do laws come from? From anywhere other, perchance, than from the will of him who has the power and authority to give and sanction laws?! But does not each man have complete power to do as he will? If he wants to make the eternal laws his own, then he is sure to easily keep them; if he does not want that, then he has his own will as counter-commandment and has in the end to put up with sanction of the external law.'
8
Judas, although cutting a sour face to this explanation, nevertheless says, 'Well, now I understand the thing and it is good so. But when You often speak in a veiled fashion, then I get fearful and worried and then I always have to ask until the thing is clear, especially when it concerns a commandment which it may be quite hard for some of us to keep and for myself, which I am not afraid to admit. But see, Lord, when anyone else asks You, then you answer them most amicably at once; yet when it is I that asks, You always get unfriendly and I then hardly dare to ask You again, may it be ever so important to do so.
9
Behold, I still can not get over my peculiar journey through the air the day before yesterday and that with unbelievable speed, so that one could not make out anything on the ground other than a band shooting past at immense speed; here I want to find out from You how this was possible. Because I was possibly the furthest one from here and that far behind the far sea-coast and would have needed four or five days to walk.
10
I had just finished preaching at a Greek village, but had unfortunately not found very sympathetic ears and hearts, in spite of healing some of their sick; I became cross and left the stupid nest. But when finding myself all alone some thousand paces from the village - because brother Thomas did not want to accompany me to Greece, - there came a whirlwind towards me and before I knew it I was high up in the air. Thereupon an indescribable gust of wind pushed me in this direction and that with the said speed, so that, as said, I could not in this flight make out in the least anything on the earth's surface - not even the sea itself more than a flash of lightning. I did not even have time to think how I would go if a cliff should be in my path, against which I should have disintegrated into many hundreds of thousands of droplets! But how astonished I was, oh Lord, to be set down so gently unto the ground before You after such draft!
11
Hence I would like you to just tell me a few words on how such was possible.'
12
Say I, 'Friend! If you know Who I am, how can you ask how such is possible to Me, or by what means this was carried out? Are not all things possible with God? Behold, the clouds! Who carries them? You heard Me before, explaining to everybody the nature of the earth, the moon, the sun and many other stars which for your concepts are endlessly great suns.
13
Behold, these large and hence immensely heavy heavenly bodies float freely through the ether spaces, endlessly stretched out in all directions, having a speed of movement fantastic for your imagination!
14
Question: Who is carrying these countless ones within an unchangeable order through the free, endless spaces? Think about it and you shall soon see the foolishness of your question! And hence this question is answered for you with sufficient clarity!'
15
Thomas steps up and says, 'If only you could for once come up with a question worthy of the Lord! Did not all those of us who were sent out go through the same aerial journey to here? We know however that He wanted it that way and hence, although a most unusual journey over here through the air, it therewith is fully explained to us! If you more strongly believed What and Who our Lord and Master is, then such question could not occur to you even in the worst and most foolish dream!'
16
Says Judas, 'Have you got me again? Well, let you have me, if it gives you pleasure! At least I am not upset this time because I myself realise that I have bothered the Lord with a very foolish question - which however I am sure not to do again in future.'
17
Says Thomas, 'Then we shall also be quite good friends and brothers and I shall not counsel you again.'
18
Say I, 'Quieten down for a while, as Kisjonah has prepared a meal and we shall afford our body some necessary fortification! After the meal it shall transpire what else there shall be to do. And so let it be and stay so!'