The Great Gospel of John
Volume 10
Jesus' Precepts and Deeds through His Three Years of Teaching
Der Herr im Jordantal
- Chapter 244 -
The innkeeper criticizes the Jewish priests.
On this the innkeeper said: "You did not speak wrongly, but I nevertheless must make the remark that we, pure Romans, who are called gentiles by you, never heard a good thing about your Jerusalemite priests. For you are full of pride, full of selfishness and lust for power, and you persecute everyone who dares to face you with the pure truth, and I am strongly of the opinion that your prophets, whom you yourselves have stoned because they told you the truth, were not wrong when they predicted your ruin because of your not very praiseworthy qualities.
2
For as far as I know, many things that they predicted about you came true, and many other things are still waiting for you and will also come true, because your worship of religion only consists of the fact that you have a temple that is richly provided with all kinds of treasures, an altar and a so-called Holy of Holiest, provided with the so-called Ark of the Covenant which is supposed to be from Moses and Aaron while you removed the old one and put a new one instead that is without power and effect, which is known by many Romans. Then I as a Roman, who loves the truth, ask: why do you not stay with the truth and why on the other hand do you cheat and lie to the people and push them with force into the darkness of a real superstition while you yourselves do not believe one jota of what you teach the people?
3
Would it then not be wiser from your part, since you saw that the old Ark of the Covenant lost its power, to say to the people: 'Our God took His mercy away from us because of our many sins. So let us all do real penance and pray to God till He may again have mercy on us.' But look, you did not do that. You preferred to cheat the people because of your worldly good life and worldly honor instead of returning with your people to your God.
4
Look, this is not the case with us Romans. There are many kinds of superstition with us, but a true Roman keeps to the truth, and when he meets someone who thoroughly knows and is initiated in all kinds of truths, he accepts him in a friendly way and enriches himself with the spiritual treasures of that man who is full of truth and wisdom.
5
Because spiritual treasures are immensely much more valuable than material ones, for all material treasures are perishable and will once decay but the spiritual ones will go on and on and bring good things among the people. And therefore, the good and true things must always increasingly progress as long as this Earth is inhabited by human beings.
6
But when human communities are formed that, out of pride, lust for power and selfishness as well as laziness, resist what is good and true with all the means they have at their disposal, it is easy to understand that such people and their followers will day after day sink deeper into darkness and persecute the men that are awakened by the deity and dare to face them with the truth. And I have the impression that with you Jews this is not only the case now but pitifully already for a long time, persecuting all those men who wanted to introduce again the ancient divine truths to you.
7
If we Romans were not as powerful as we are, your pride and your lust for power would have driven us out of your country already a long time ago. But we are a great and courageous people now and respect also your Moses and your prophets, but we do not fear you and despise in you what already had to be despised a long time ago. And I want to say that we will not tolerate your deceitful game much longer, and when we will return with the weapons in our hand it will not be as easy for you as in the beginning when we penetrated into your country the first time and dominated you.
8
For when we will come back, we will not spare your cities and synagogues as we spared them before. That is why I advice you not to persecute wise and truthful men but to accept them with love, to listen and conform to them, then we easily will agree.
9
I very gladly would like to meet that Galilean and give half of my riches if He would give me the honor to visit this inn of mine. And so I am of the opinion that you Jerusalemites should do the same. It certainly would be better for you if you would think and wish the same as I and accept that wise Galilean very kindly, listen to Him, and after that would also do the good and true things that He tells you. And I say to you, my dear friend: all what is good and true will finally reward itself, but the opposite will also punish itself.
10
Look, these are my opinions that I gathered in all my traveling in our Roman Empire. Be you also of the same opinion and have the same motivation like me, then you will be better off than when you will hold on to your hard lust of persecuting all those who can impossibly agree with you - as this is basically wrong in itself - and persecute the wise men, no matter from where they come, just like almost all of your companions and colleagues persecute them. Do you agree with me or not?"
11
On this, the Pharisee said very embarrassed: "My dear innkeeper, from your point of view you can be right. One must especially search for the truth and for what is good, but where can it be found? Finally, man is and will remain always limited in one or the other belief, and up to now no one was able to lift your veil of Isis. That is why we are of the opinion that it is better to leave a people in their system of faith - whether its basic principles have much or little truth - instead of informing them too much with new truths that they finally cannot completely grasp and will furthermore leave the old faith and will then start to hate and persecute the old leaders of that faith."
12
The innkeeper said: "You are very wrong in this. If no one will search for the truth anymore, everything that exists on this Earth will turn to some sort of rotting and decay..."