The Great Gospel of John
Volume 3
Jesus' Precepts and Deeds through His Three Years of Teaching
Jesus near Caesarea Philippi
- Chapter 126 -
Jarah recounts her experiences about the stars.
Jarah says, "Oh, very willingly - but you would hardly believe me! You, dear Mathael, know a lot about the stars; but I perhaps even more, which is certainly not to my credit, but instead a pure extraordinary favor from the Lord. Wait, I will ask you something! If you can give me a satisfactory answer, then you understand as much as I do; but if you hold back with an answer, only then will I be free to tell you some things that I know. What do you consider the small stars in the firmament to be?"
2
Mathael says, "My very dearest Jarah, this is a somewhat strange question! As far as the sun, the moon and other planets are concerned, I could perhaps give you a not unsatisfactory answer; but the eye of my soul has not yet penetrated to the fixed stars. I suppose that they are also far-off worlds, as the Lord once suggested; but how they were actually created, and what their nature and composition is, that I naturally cannot tell you and I would like therefore to ask you, if you want to give me some instruction about it!"
3
Jarah says, "Dear Mathael, if you cannot believe that I have travelled to some of these stars in my flesh and blood, then my telling is almost completely useless! But if you can believe it, I can then tell you something about it!"
4
Mathael says, "My very dearest child, faith is truly put to an extremely difficult test there, because the physical possibility for this is unthinkable. In spirit, in a type of ecstasy of your soul such a thing is possible, and I want to believe you, what you will tell me all about the far-off fixed stars; but when you say to me: in flesh and blood, there, dearest, I cannot believe the first thing, and the tale, perhaps quite true and correct in itself, loses much of its effective truth, as even the intention must seem purely impossible."
5
Jarah says, "Why should it be impossible then that I have been on some of these stars in complete flesh and blood? Are not all things possible for God?"
6
Mathael says, "Oh, in any case, for God nothing is impossible; but God has placed everything in a certain order, and this order is a law that He Himself observes most conscientiously and also must observe, otherwise the whole creation would no longer exist in the next moment. The Lord performs many miracles here, but nonetheless for the exact observer everything is constantly within His eternal, holy order.
7
When we wished that evening to have the day extended, He did not let the Earth or seemingly the real sun stand still - which in His own highest words would be against His order - and if He did such a thing, all life on the Earth would be in the highest danger of death. Whatever would not be destroyed by the too enormously powerful throw, would then all the more certainly find death in the waves flooding all the land.
8
You see, as I now know the Earth and the regions of the air, I know that at a height of only ten hours above us no being can exist any longer, just as no fish can live out of water, although a fish could still be kept alive out of the water for longer than a person a ten hours distance over the face of the Earth. Now think about the endless distance from this Earth to the next fixed star!
9
Even the distance of the sun from us, which my free soul can measure exactly, is something frightening; an arrow once shot would have to travel for more than fifty years at an even speed before it would arrive at the sun. But now according to the feelings of my soul, which are certainly not fully reliable, the next fixed star is ten times a hundred thousand times more distant from us than the sun, so the flight of a fired arrow would take more than a million times fifty years! But if a person could move as fast as a fired arrow, the air rushing against him would rip him apart in an instant; but what would happen to him first if he, namely a person, cut through the terrible space in a few moments?! What would happen then to his flesh and blood?!
10
You see, the laws of nature are also given by God and can only be cancelled by nature itself; but as long as nature remains, the unchangeable law of nature also remains. There can be no exceptions; for such a little exception would have to bring forth an unpredictable disruption to the whole nature of things, which all hang together like links of a chain. But it only takes one link to break and the whole chain is devoid of its binding effect! There you now have my reasons why it is not easily possible for me at the moment to believe that you seriously travelled to certain fixed stars in flesh and blood.
11
Truly very much is possible for God that I cannot see now despite all my wisdom; but your claim, my dearest Jarah, does go a little too far into the extraordinary, and I cannot accept it as true before you have clearly shown me in an understandable way the reasons for its possibility, which are in accord with the divine order decided since eternity.
12
But you don't have to be indignant about it, for nevertheless I do not fully deny it; only I cannot accept this as instructively true for the reasons I have just given you, which I have not pulled out of the air. Perhaps you have convincingly true proof, however, which I cannot know! If you do, then let me hear them, and I will then no longer doubt whatever you want to say to me!"
13
Jarah says, "Yes, yes, you are seriously a very wise and unusually clever man; but you do not see everything by a long shot! You see, if there was something that could be done with Raphael, he could bring me here some natural objects in a moment, which I took from these stars to this Earth as a souvenir and as proof that I was really there; but you can't do anything with him, and therefore I cannot deliver you such tangible proof. It is true, as a simple person of nature you could still doubt their genuineness; but your soul, filled with the divine spirit, would then at least easily recognize that the pieces of souvenirs that I brought with me do not belong to this Earth. For there is a splendor and value in them, in comparison with which everything that the Earth has of value is simple carrion. That would be an imperial piece of immeasurable value! But let's leave that now; it is beginning to dawn in the east! The Sabbath is approaching, and it is important to prepare us for this day of the Lord!"
14
Mathael says, "You are completely correct; but will we therefore not get to hear further proof today concerning your physical travel through several fixed stars!?"
15
Jarah says, "How can we do that? Your counter evidence is too solid and too well-founded in the existent, unchangeable divine order, and I cannot give you any other proof of my true visit to the fixed stars than this, that for God all things that still seem so impossible to the human mind are nonetheless possible.
16
Did you count and measure the time in which the Lord had Ouran's ships brought from the middle of the sea to the shore by my Raphael? Who's hair was even touched by such a very fast transfer? How much time did Raphael need to set up Ouran's great tents and all the possessions he had brought with him, which were in part very fragile, on the shore in the best order?
17
Didn't you notice Raphael's flash writing?! Doesn't that contrast with the natural laws, even only a little strictly speaking, and yet you saw it happen before your very eyes?! Can you then claim according to your own rationale that such a thing is impossible?!
18
You see, I can tell you, because I, as no other mortal on this Earth, have experienced physically that in the most endless space there are such enormously large suns which, if they were hollow, would have a greater space inside them than this whole heaven that you see here up to the fixed stars of first, second and third distance! These enormous suns, around which whole solar systems with their countless many central suns and planetary suns, move around an even more endlessly great central sun for the sake of sustenance, and the movement is so fast that you would not be able to even catch them with the speed of thought!
19
From here to every fixed star of first, second, third and even fourth distance the flight would hardly last seven moments, and we with our sun and our planetary sun, which makes exactly the same fast orbit as the previously mentioned and described central sun of the solar system, make quite completely the same movement, and that is certain according to natural laws and all higher accounts! Do you feel anything of it, or is some planet mistaken, or we ourselves, if we now in one instant fly through such an immeasurable distance of endless creation?
20
But if such enormous heavenly bodies can hurry on with such an unthinkable speed without damaging their essence, how much easier is it, if the Lord wills it, for a body such as mine!?
21
Do you now have a somewhat better grasp of the possibility that I in my body actually travelled to some of the nearest fixed stars?"
22
Mathael says, "Oh, child, a whole heaven of wisdom is in you, and I am only beginning now to believe the possibility of what you have just said in the strangest way! But now don't speak any more about it, for our souls are not yet extended enough to understand such great things; for that I myself need several years more, as open as my soul is now."