The Great Gospel of John
Volume 2
Jesus' Precepts and Deeds through His Three Years of Teaching
Jesus in the Vicinity of Caesara Philippi (Matthew 16)
- Chapter 243 -
The young Pharisee's apology.
Julius however says to the otherwise forthright young Pharisee: "Verily, at the start I took you to be too wise and sensible to also regard this visibly purest angel for a possible Satan! Ah, this goes beyond everything! Can you not as a moderately reasonable man deduce from our conversations and actions that we are not of the devil? Is according to your doctrine the devil not someone whose intention it is doing useless evil? And we constantly abhor and punish evil? Has Satan ever proved mild and merciful towards anyone? We however are just, merciful and gentle towards all. How can we tolerate a Satan in our midst? Oh, you still blind fools! Have you never seen someone possessed by a demon? I have seen several but not one that was well-treated by his inhabitant! If however your crude foolishness regards us of the devil, for what do you take the Templers and yourselves, which as is well-known to the better world, is completely of lies and deception, and the most capricious malice, with you being its servants? You yourselves admit that the Temple could well serve as a school for Satan! And us, who do good upon good towards everyone out of our faithful and good hearts, you want to also regard as of the devil, because a spirit from the heavens has given you a small sample of his immense might and power? I would therefore like to hear from you about the manifestation of what is not of the devil!"
2
Says the Pharisee, somewhat more composed: "Now, now, most exalted Julius, you must not count this thing too much of a sin against us! For behold, a man is sustained by what he eats! Is the food good, then the sustenance also is so, but if bad, then the nutrition is also bad. A dilapidated person who in the end eats with the pigs, shall not excrete differently from pigs! And so it is with us spiritually. Our soul-stomach has been fed with swine-fodder for years, and the bad remnants in the soul-stomach are not so easily and quickly shed as some might think!
3
For our better views and insights, still mixed with a lot of excrement we have of course to exclusively thank our repeated contact with the Romans and Greeks. But on returning to Jerusalem, and particularly to the Temple, it is only fourteen days to stupify us again with all sorts of mystically wise-sounding phrases. Is it surprising if, with such extraordinary circumstances, phrases of our own emerge in our soul, like dark clouds in the sky over our already feeble sun of cognition or youth, momentarily darkening them to such extent that extraordinary appearances impress us like a wanderer at darkest midnight, who through sudden lightning indeed sees the many obstacles along his path, which however is then followed by still thicker night!!
4
Wherefore, be patient with us, and we shall make it after a while! But as said, it cannot happen spontaneously, and I and all of us are now very happy to start understanding why it actually is so, and cannot be otherwise, because no human form shall be sculpted with just a few blows of the chisel from a hard and rough block of wood.
5
We have of a truth read a fair amount about the angels of the heavens. The three strangers visiting Abraham were angels; there were angels with Lot; Jakob's ladder full of angels is familiar; Bilam's beast of burden prophesied to the prophet mishandling it, of an angel's presence; young Tobias' companion and guide was an angel; the Israelites saw the angel of death in Egypt going from house to house; angels were seen with the three youths in the fiery furnace; and there is yet much more in the Scriptures about angels of God, physically and visibly communicating with man of this earth. Why should it not be possible here?
6
But here the proven presence of an angel is so extraordinary, that one cannot of course or readily grasp it in its complete truth, the way one believes it about antiquity, witch is easy to believe because one always imagines times past as better than the present; which latter, out of a kind of piety, one considers too unworthy for such holy manifestations, without remembering that the Sodom and Gomorrah time may not have been so God-pleasing, or He would not have rained fire from heaven upon such places.
7
In short, you have to admit that this is quite an extraordinary thing, which to our knowledge the earth has not experienced yet! It will therefore be comprehensible that such peculiar tests of the angel's heavenly nature caused us to lose our composure a little, considering all our former life conditions. Hence, exalted Julius, do not count our momentarily foolish demeanour as of sinfully malevolent intent."