The Great Gospel of John
Volume 3
Jesus' Precepts and Deeds through His Three Years of Teaching
Jesus near Caesarea Philippi
- Chapter 176 -
The fate of the divine teaching.
Cornelius says, "Yes, Lord, what You say is filled with truth which has never existed before according to the measure of pure human life; for if it had ever been spoken or had ever been here before, certainly some people would have accepted it as what it is and lived by it strictly, and the effect of it would certainly not have fallen by the wayside.
2
But to my much encompassing knowledge it has never been here before, but instead there was quite the opposite among us heathens; and therefore Socrates, Plato, Plotin and Phrygius are to be greatly admired, as well as several great men of Rome, who through sheer heroic efforts and pains against the laws of polytheism nonetheless managed quite successfully to find the path to You, the one and only true God.
3
Plato found that the one and only true, if unknown, God must be pure love. The more he thought about the unknown God, the warmer it became in his heart; and when he found that this benevolent warmth was growing, and a doctor told him that this was an illness, Plato laughed and said: If that is an illness, then I desire even more of such an illness in my heart; for it makes me feel much better than any highly-valued health!
4
And Plato loved the Unknown One more and more and told how he had seen this God in the highest moments of his love for the unknown God, as if fully united with him, and what an indescribable bliss he had felt at this.
5
The other great wise men tell similar things; their teaching would have been very comforting for people if the familiar servants of God had not stood in the way of spreading it with all manner of abominations.
6
But it was always so, and it will probably continue to be so. The pure truth can never find take hold because over time its closest servants themselves, led by highly mean interests, stand in the way. They put it in a labyrinth and then bend the original ever straight and open path into thousands of crooked ways which, surrounded by a gloomy wall, never allow the seeker to find the centre, where the old temple of truth once stood.
7
Lord, one day Your religion will also suffer the same fate, if only one priest will excel himself in it! There must certainly be teachers, but there is surely one rowdy in ten who incites the others only too soon, and then the truth already has a flaw!
8
Moses, the wisest man in Cairo, the adopted son of the Pharaoh's daughter, indoctrinated in everything, wrote the divine truth on marble tablets and ordered with the power of God to announce it to the people and obey it despite all the hardest punishments, to live according to such a religion and to act accordingly; hardly a thousand years have passed since him, and how do things look now for the holy religion of the marble tablets?! There is no trace of it any longer except for the name! Where is the old Ark of the Covenant, the wonderful, fruit- and life-bearing Ark? Where are the original tablets that Moses wrote with his own hand as if for eternity? You see, Moses? followers have destroyed everything, simply because of their evil worldly interests!
9
Therefore I say, without by any means being a prophet: As it always was, it still is and always will be if You, oh Lord, lay Your religion in the hands of men for safe-keeping. In a thousand years things will look very crooked, and people will be allowed to seek the truth in it like Diogenes on the clearest day, but never find it.
10
Ah, the full truth will certainly remain with some individuals; but in general there will be nothing further left than what remains of the children of Abraham in the times of Moses, namely vessels and empty names! Who understands any longer the spirit of Moses? statutes?
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Therefore I say, and remain by this: Man was always so, and with small differences will always remain so.
12
Something new will always make them curious and excited; but once the people have got used to it a little, even the most eminent thing will soon become every day, worthless and indifferent to them! If there is something attractive in it still, it must often be refreshed with all sorts of rarities, and some change must always occur, of course not harming the main issue, otherwise humanity begins again, out of sheer boredom and under constant thunder and lightning, to form golden cows again and to dance around them in amusement.
13
Yes, even some priests are to be excused for selling the people, instead of the real goods, the most miserable junk as something purely divine; for if the current of darkness has become too powerful, swimming against it is impossible, and the best-intentioned priest, even if he possesses in secret some correct idea of the truth, must swim with the current NOLENS SEU VOLENS (whether you want it or not), otherwise he will immediately go under!
14
Lord! As old as the humanity of this Earth is, evil was always its faithful companion, which can never be denied; can man ever be healed totally and radically from this old evil? For I see no reason why man should constantly be ruined time and again!"