The Great Gospel of John
Volume 10
Jesus' Precepts and Deeds through His Three Years of Teaching
Der Herr in der Stadt am Nebo
- Chapter 191 -
The true worship of God and pagan worship.
I said: "You can leave this out, for My temple is everywhere, especially in the heart of men who believe in Me, who love Me above all and keep My commandments.
2
Look at the Earth with everything that it bears and contains, and also the firmament. All that is also My temple that I built Myself. Therefore, I do not need a temple that is build by human hands. But if you belief that I am the Lord, then turn away from your idols and your temples that are made by human hands. If human beings made their gods with their hands and built temples for them in which they offered and made promises to people who also offered, and they do not even possess the power to let grow the very smallest of moss plants out of the soil, then what power must your gods and temples possess that were made by them?
3
But the priests possess a bad power, namely that of deceit, and the power to awaken a very dark superstition in the mind of the people. That power comes from the chief of the devils who knows how to darken the hearts of all men by means of his secret ways in order to then enrich and expand his kingdom with them.
4
But woe to those who well know that what they teach the people is worthless but who nevertheless lead the people into darkness in order to let them work for them in the sweat of their face to acquire a very good worldly, effortless and careless life from the offerings that they want from them.
5
I tell you that I will look after the poor deceived people, but never after those who deceive, for these know what they do but the others do not know.
6
You yourself never believed in one of your gods, but you nevertheless forced other people to believe what was to you already for a long time a pure fable of the elders.
7
If you want to save yourself from downfall, then turn your back to all your gods, instruct the people who were deceived by you about the one, true God of the Jews. Then you also will once partake of My Kingdom that is not of this world but of the spiritual world of the beyond of which you have no knowledge."
8
On this, the Apollo priest said: "O Lord, Master and God, that will be a hard task for us. For the people are still too much permeated by the old error that our gods really exist, and if we would instruct them the opposite, we will be in danger to be persecuted and mistreated by the people."
9
I said: "If you yourselves believe in Me, that faith in Me will give you the power to also easily make the impossible possible."
10
The Apollo priest said: "We have seen now that by Your will nothing is impossible. If You wish, You can destroy our idol temples in one moment. Then we will not have to give account to the people and it will then be easier for us to speak to the people about You. Because witnesses are not lacking here to testify what You are. Firstly our supreme judicial city officer is a completely valid witness. Then the innkeeper and his personnel and also those Jews over there."
11
I said: "That could be done but it is better that you first instruct the people about Me on good opportunities, and that the people themselves turn their hands against the temple and the sacred forests around it, which are rather dry brushwood than important sacred forests."
12
On this, the Apollo priest said: "Master, Lord and God."
13
After this exclamation I said to him: "When you speak with Me, then call Me only Lord and Master, but call Me only God if you realize in yourself what the deity is. Now you can talk further."
14
And the Apollo priest spoke, saying: "But how did all those gods exist? I do not want to speak about the little gods, the secondary gods or demigods, neither about the female gods, but those male principal gods that, as far as we remember, were already worshipped by the old Egyptians. There must be something about it because these gods could not have formed out of nothing into the imagination of men. You, o Lord and Master, will certainly entirely know about this."