The Great Gospel of John
Volume 3
Jesus' Precepts and Deeds through His Three Years of Teaching
Jesus near Caesarea Philippi
- Chapter 116 -
Mark's joy over the chastisement of the priests.
Here Helena awoke again from her most gentle and blessed slumber of love and was quite shocked when she noticed the heavy activity among the people on the mountain and at the same time the city in flames. But Jarah took her immediately by the hand and explained to her the whole event, at which Helena quickly calmed down again and said, "A good hour ago just before the quick disappearance of the false sun it seemed to my mind that this city stood before such an unavoidable fate; and look, it is the realization of my somewhat hazy foreboding before my eyes and ears! You, Lord, have certainly predicted such a thing with the false sun and now the actual reason comes onto show why You let it shine!"
2
I say, "Yes, yes, My dear little child, things may well have been so! A light that I placed in the firmament has always a number of good purposes and not only because of the light, which is actually only a very subordinate side-effect.
3
Look at the light of the sun! The light in itself would be something extremely little; but just observe all the free and captive creations on the Earth according to their external nature, and you will discover the effects of the light and the warmth of the sun, of which no natural wise man on the Earth has ever dreamed! All effects of the sunlight!
4
This Earth has so many and various miraculous effects of the sunlight, that in many thousand years you would not be able to survey them with your fleshly eyes and even less count them!
5
But around this sun, whose light calls forth such great miracles on this Earth, circle many other and greater planets, on which the same light calls forth very new and on this Earth unimaginable wonders, and on every planet lit by this sun quite new and not occurring on any other planet! And look, everything is the reason and effect of one and the same light!
6
And so you can assume very certainly that I also did not let the false sun shine simply because of some longer light! What do you think of that, My most beloved daughter?"
7
Helena says, "Oh Lord, You great one, You only Holy one, every human opinion stops here for all eternity! For You are too endlessly great and wise, and who can fathom the depths of Your omnipotence?!
8
It is certainly something endlessly great that I can love You above all else and can be blessed in such love, which my heart is eternally not fully worth! But to want to investigate your holy divine inscrutable being further, that I would consider the greatest rage of a human heart! That, oh Lord, is my opinion!
9
Truly, You are to be loved above all else, and that I consider to be the greatest blessing; but You are not to be investigated by any spirit in eternity!"
10
After these words by the beautiful Helena, still drunk with her great love for Me, old Mark comes and says, "Lord, I suppose the many and beautiful fish that I gave the priesthood as a tithe will be nicely boiled and roasted as well on the fire!? You know, oh Lord, that I am hospitable from all my heart towards everybody as far as I am able. Truly, I always had perhaps more joy as donor, if I could provide someone with something, than the recipient; but the tithe for the Pharisees has annoyed me right to the soul! And as I notice, most of the Jewish priests" houses are in flames! That is a good repayment for these unscrupulous idlers and deceivers! I prefer that to if someone had given me ten of the most beautiful houses in the city! I have truly never been a gloater; but this time - forgive me, oh Lord - I am totally so!
11
For to give to someone who is in need is a blessing for a good human heart, and to give a worker the deserved wage and more is the holy duty of a person. And to pay the measured lawful taxes to a sovereign is also the holy duty of every honest citizen; for the sovereign has great worries and expenses for the order and security in his land, and the subordinates are obliged through love for the neighbor to do everything gladly that the regent sees as healing and demands from the subordinates.
12
There may of course be selfish tyrants who fully bleed the nation dry, but after a tyrant there is usually a good regent and soon the nation recovers again.
13
But the priesthood remains the same; it tyrannizes like a vampire the nation for thousands of years, taxes it often in an unheard-of shameful way and gives the nation nothing in return but the greatest deception, and that in every possible direction! Yes, an honorable person must praise God the Lord if He ever lets a judgment come over these seven fold haters and fraudsters of the people! And so it is like balm to my heart if I see the beautiful houses and synagogues particularly of the Jewish Pharisees covered by the most beautiful flames and in addition on the day before the Sabbath! Tomorrow is the Sabbath, and the boys are not allowed to gather or do anything else; oh, these old, never-satisfied villains have deserved this beautiful lesson for a long time!"
14
I say, "But do you know that the illumination of the city is meant precisely for the Pharisees and also the pagan priests?"
15
"Oh," says Mark, "I was just downstairs and have ordered something for tomorrow for the poor who are probably going to visit me tomorrow, and there came three young Greeks to whom I had bread and wine given, and they told me in passing what is now happening to the city; and I would have paid them a great pearl for every word, such a joy I had at this! The false sun brought this beautiful effect to pass!"
16
I say, "But tomorrow you will nonetheless have to pay for your joy; for many of the Pharisees will come to your table."
17
Mark: "Very willingly, for this joy I will feed the lads for eight days, perhaps one or other of them will become a human being; - with You, oh Lord, all things are possible!"