The Great Gospel of John
Volume 3
Jesus' Precepts and Deeds through His Three Years of Teaching
Jesus near Caesarea Philippi
- Chapter 127 -
Conversations about the unusual incidents.
At this Mathael is silent in quiet contemplation of what Jarah said, and Helena and Ouran observe Jarah quite silently, seized by the deepest amazement; Jarah, however, is watching the still fiercely burning city and waiting with great longing for My return. It is now fully silent on the mountain, only in Mark's house it is lively for the announced foreign guests, namely for Cornelius and Faustus, and the morning becomes brighter and brighter.
2
Thus it was quite calm on the mountain for around a good hour, except, as already mentioned, that in Mark's house things were very active because of the new guests announced, but also because of the new arrivals who were certainly to be expected from the wrecked city.
3
But during the quiet towards the morning several fell asleep. Even Cyrenius, Julius, the boy Josoe and several high state officials present here with Cyrenius fell asleep; but the thirty young Pharisees who were watching the fire in the city most attentively, remained awake and discussed the happenings and what was heard, likewise the twelve with Suetal, Ribar and Bael.
4
Mathael, Helena, Jarah, Ouran and at Mathael's side his four companions, Rob, Boz, Micha and Zahr also remained awake and were full of great thoughts; but they were all silent and thought about everything that Jarah had said to them, and they did not dare to ask her about anything else. But Jarah also considered whether she had not said too much to these people at once.
5
Only after a long while, as the horizon already began to redden, the otherwise very taciturn Rob opened his mouth and said, "Dear friends, I still cannot find any peace in myself with all my thinking. Everything here is truly so extraordinarily strange that it always seems as if one is dreaming, and one can do whatever one wants, but one can never accustom oneself to everything that has been seen and heard so that one feels at home in this knowledge! And this ever-growing feeling of foreignness is still the most natural thing that a thinker's thoughts can occupy themselves with. Everything is nothing but wonder upon wonder of the most colossal sort!
6
You, brother Mathael, have here become king of a great land, and we to your consuls! The great, holy Master only has to look out over the wide Earth and it shakes like a child before the whip! Then in addition the young head magician comes from heaven and performs things before which our hair stands up like mountains! Now this maiden comes as well and again tells things that could make one crazy without any effort whatsoever! Tell me whether it is possible to come to terms with these things in some way!
7
But where has He been for so long? It must be a good three hours ago that He left us, and still He has not retuned!"
8
A second of Mathael's four companions, who is called Boz and was also no talkative person, says, "What you feel, I feel also, and I cannot begin to feel at home here for everything in the world! Everything that happens seems to me as unexpected as possible, and in its own way it is always so eccentrically great that one cannot imagine anything greater. Every deed, every word and every tale beats everything that the human ear has heard before and that the eye has seen so much into the dirt that nothing remains, including Moses and all his miracles, but dust.
9
There is not the slightest doubt that through the most remarkably good and great Master, who, born in Nazareth, is in his body a son of the carpenter there, the complete fullness of the divine spirit is working. But which mortal can feel at home beside such immensity? If He speaks, it is not He who is speaking, but the eternal spirit of God in Him, and if He acts, then I would like to hear from a great wise man what God is supposed to be able to do over that which He can do! He is completely God in word and deed, His will commands most actively the whole of infinity, and yet He walks as a simple man before and among us and eats and drinks like we do!
10
Where are all the sayings of wisdom of Solomon, who said at the dedication of the temple: Lord, I truly know that heaven and Earth cannot encompass You - where all creation ended, You are still eternally and infinitely powerful - but nonetheless we have built You, oh Lord, a house, in order to meet with pure and regretful hearts, in order to thank You, oh Lord, for all Your favors and blessings and to tell You in hardship of our affliction and our misery. (1 Kings 8: 12 on.)
11
Even if that is not word for word what is written there, it is nonetheless the brief sense of what the wise builder of the temple said in great, wise words at the dedication of such; would he also have spoken in this way, if he had seen and talked with him and got to know our Master, born in Nazareth, as we have?
12
For His personality the temple is still several thousand times too large, and the all-powerful will of our Master that rules everywhere is not the Master, God Himself, but only an incomprehensible strength of one and the same Master whom we can see, hear and speak to and nonetheless thereby get to know His personal extent as well as we know our own. How does He do that, that His will reigns over all infinity and eternity and His eye and His ear are fully present for everyone? You see, those are all things that no spirit can fully understand, and the consequence is that one cannot feel at home in it!
13
Yes, if the spiritually great divine Master was a Samson or Goliath, things would be somewhat more familiar, for one could say: an all-powerful spirit must also have a corresponding body; but our Master is rather smaller than big, as far as His person is concerned, and yet His spirit plays with infinity as a boy with an apple! That is the incomprehensible thing, and all wise men with their teachings about the being of God suffer here the very most violent shipwreck; but although we have been taught differently here, we nevertheless cannot now feel immediately at home!
14
In short, I am now actually dreaming much more than feeling fully awake and at home. My soul now sees a lot, yes, I can see the whole formation of the world, my gaze penetrates right down to the deepest depths; I see the moon as a very sad, miserable, small world, designated for even smaller and more pitiful people and other creations; I see Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn and in addition other similar planets, big and small. Saturn looks strangely wonderful; it is much greater than our Earth and floats in the exact middle of an enormous ring, above which, let's say, seven moons, greater than ours, buzz around like bees around their hive; I also see the wonderful, widespread realms of the great sun; but with all this I feel not nearly as foreign here as in the strangest vicinity of the Creator of all the countless worlds and its wonders!
15
Perhaps you others feel more at home, since you perhaps do not perceive this thing as calmly and deeply as I and brother Rob; but if one begins to observe the issue correctly with calm and in the greatest depth possible, compared with everything that one has ever seen or heard in the world or read in the old books, then one begins to feel even more strange. Yes, one becomes so absorbed in the end in one's own existence that it seems like a very perceptible nothingness! Tell me whether I am right or not!"
16
Micha then says, "You are both correct, and I also have the same feeling, but I feel very much blessed nonetheless."
17
Rob and Boz say, "Yes, there is no talk of that! It blesses us also very much and above; but that does not cancel out the feeling of complete foreignness in this issue! God is and remains God, and we can think and feel however we want, but we will never fill in the rift!"