The Great Gospel of John
Volume 3
Jesus' Precepts and Deeds through His Three Years of Teaching
Jesus near Caesarea Philippi
- Chapter 107 -
The zodiac in general.
Mathael says, "Oh my very dearest Helena! Your question is really very short; but a complete answer would demand from me more than a full year! Therefore we will postpone this answering of this short question of yours to a later opportunity and for now just say that the names of all the constellations have quite the same origin as the twelve great zodiac signs, which Greek sounding name of this cycle is quite wrongly named the Animal Cycle, because people and things also occur in it, of course only in name.
2
According to the old Egyptian tongue, the syllable Zo or Za means "for", dia or diaia "work" and kos "a part", also the "separation"; and Za diaia kos (also kose)means when well translated : division for work.
3
you see now that the thing can never behaved differntly in the beginning, and so my explanation to you of the Zadia-kos (Zodiakus) must be completely correct! For in the beginning the elders divided the great cycle according to the periodic events in their work; but the later descendents decided afterwards their work according to the already divided cycle; for every constellation that occurred warned the egyptians in advance with which work they had to occupy themselves in the next period. And in this way the naming of the cycle was also quite correct - but only not in the false sense of the Greeks and Romans.
4
But the way that the elders named this cycle and its images corrcetly, they also named many, even if not all the other constellations, and also were the first discoverers of the planets known to you apart from the sun and the moon, which are basically, at least for our Earth, not at all planets, in that the sun does not go round the Earth, but the other planets along with the Earth go around the great sun in different spaces of time, under which we are not to understand the seemingly daily orbital time which stems from the turning of the Earth itself around its own axis, but that which the Earth makes in a year, which Venus and the rarely seen Mercury make in an even shorter time; but Mars, Jupiter and Saturn need a longer time for their orbit than the Earth.
5
But the moon in any case belongs to the Earth and moves with it once in a year around the sun, while as a constant companion of our Earth it moves in addition every 27 to 28 days once around the Earth at a distance of one hundred thousand hours away.
6
Alone those are things that you cannot understand; but if the spirit of God is awake in your soul, then you will recognise that and many other things without any external, clumsy teaching.
7
Therefore there is above all only one thing lacking, and that is: to recognise oneself and God and love Him above all else, everything else then comes of its own accord.
8
In any case we both have spoken more than enough, and it will be very good if we now rest a little, so that the other friends who are much wiser than us can also make a few good remarks about us.
9
One must never speak too much about one thing, but instead let others speak and listen to them; for no person on the whole Earth is so wise that he cannot learn some times something from a less wise person, not ot mention from someone more wise - than oneself! And so you, very dearest Helena, will forgive me if I do not speak myself for some time, but instead I will listen to the others - naturally assuming that they want to say something."
10
Then Helena says, "Oh, very good, very good! Now just rest a little; for you have now spoken for a few of hours without a break.
11
Perhaps at this opportunity someone will tell us something more about the great Master who is now among us and yet hardly lets us know that He is who He is!"