The Great Gospel of John
Volume 3
Jesus' Precepts and Deeds through His Three Years of Teaching
Jesus near Caesarea Philippi
- Chapter 197 -
The Persians' difficulties in converting.
I say, "Have you never heard then in your land how thirty years ago in Bethlehem, the old city of David, the king of the Jews was born to a virgin in a stable?
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Three wise men from your oriental lands saw a star and asked their spirit what this unfamiliar star meant. And the spirit called them to follow the star; it would lead them to the new-born king of the Jews, who will establish a kingdom on Earth which will eternally have no end.
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The wise men took gold, frankincense and myrrh, mounted their pack animals with a great and shining entourage and followed the star, which did not rest until the birthplace of the new-born had been reached. There the three asked after the new-born and came to Herod, who also could give them no information, but instead sent them back to Bethlehem again, where the wonderful star was resting, and urged an industrious investigation with the plea to report back to him immediately so that he could come and pay the new-born his respects.
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When the wise men then found the new-born and brought him their sacrifices, a spirit from heaven immediately warned them not to announce their discovery to Herod, at which they then took another road back to their land.
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Tell Me whether and what you have heard about this!"
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The representative says, "Yes, yes, you remind us of something which made everyone talk from Persia right to India; for the three wise men, as there are many on the border with India, made much noise about the event, so that such things even came before the king, who however did not think much of it, because he knows the wise men, who always tend to make a mountain out of a mole-hill! Such things never make a particular impression on us, just as in higher places all the miracles of conjuring have lost all their particular and extraordinary value, because people of better places already have knowledge of all the miracles of conjuring. One still looks at well-chosen and successful conjuring tricks if one is in a good mood, and then laughs in addition when some droll things happen - but, as we said, such conjuring is quite without value to us.
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Only pure truth proven with figures is valid for us; all other miraculous enthusiasm lost their value for us a long time ago, and we, quite frankly, think nothing more of them! There may be very true things hidden here and there; but these are so hidden in all mysticism that no human reason can bring them into the undeceiving daylight, and you, eminent friend, will see yourself that it is more sensible to direct all your senses towards the pure truth than to pay homage to such great poetic fancy!"
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Here Cyrenius says to Me silently, "Lord, as it seems to me, nothing can be done with these very valuable people for our cause; they are too deep in their truth of numbers and decide against everything that we tend to call religion! Likewise they seem to be positive enemies of any performed miracle, which is always used by You in extreme circumstances as the most undeniable proof of full divinity.
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You will hardly be able to get close to them with a miracle, in order not to make them completely unwilling, and other proof as explanations of the texts in the prophet Isaiah and in David and Solomon which make reference to You will do nothing for them, because the prophets have a bad reputation for them; and so I seriously do not know any other option! For with the means of numbers it cannot be proven that You are the actual Messiah, and otherwise they seem to be quite inaccessible!"
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I say to Cyrenius to one side, "Just let things be, that is My concern! If we have corrected Mathael and the leader Floran, we will also be able to correct these people. But the most persistent was the leader Stahar, and he is now in the best order - these honest people will be brought to the correct order all the more easily and sooner!"
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Cyrenius says, "I do not doubt that all things are possible for You alone; but for my still very human understanding things are not at all so easy to fulfill."
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I say, "In any case, but therefore not completely impossible; one must only give them the opportunity first to express themselves completely. Only afterwards, when they are finished with the expression of their innermost thoughts and are at an end, a new fruit can be laid in the purified garden of their hearts!"
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While I exchanged these few words with Cyrenius, the Persians whispered to each other secretly and our spokesman, who was called Shabbi, said to his companions, "It seems to me more and more as if we were standing on glowing coals! The story of the Messiah must be very common here. The fine-nosed Romans have surely heard something about it and are now probably investigating every corner of the Jewish kingdom in order to get hold of that man who here on Earth should establish an eternally indestructible and also unconquerable kingdom, to the obvious disadvantage of the world rulers. Therefore we must be terribly clever here in order not to get trapped by the Romans!
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The man who has just spoken quite secretly to the supreme governor is obviously a very fine examiner of Rome, anointed with all ointment! If we only believed even a little in the coming Messiah and we would be as good as sacrificed! Therefore we must remain with the stereotype of mathematicians, listen more than we speak, and if something is mentioned again about the Messiah, we know what we have to say for common appearance for the sake of our earthly salvation! We already know for ourselves what we as Jews have to think about the prophets; but we do not need to place that before the nose of this supposed hero! The judge and examiner has gone through our Scriptures from A to Z through all our scribes and could catch us out; but we are also clever and wise, and he will not succeed, despite the fact that we were saved by this wonderful man from certain drowning. Therefore let's just stick to our mathematics and we will escape quite safely with our skins! But the least comment against it could throw us into great misery!"
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The others all agree with Shabbi, and promise him to behave all the same and not betray a single syllable of everything that they believed concerning the Messiah.
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But now I step among them again and say to the representative, "But Shabbi, why do you think so badly in your hearts against Me and against the harmless Romans?!
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Do you think then that it has escaped Me what you have just decided secretly with your companions? I tell you: not a syllable was hidden from Me! For He who saw and knew when you were in great danger, otherwise He could not have let any help come to you, now sees the depths of your hearts! Since He means well and quite honestly with you, however, why will you not trust Him?"
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Shabbi says, "You are truly very clever and wise; but what good will your wisdom do for us? But we are nobody's fool either, and we believe that we can see you through! The highest Romans at your side - not far from here Roman soldiers are camped, probably in order to seize someone somewhere if one gave a message through all sorts of clever questions and speeches!? But you do not need to seek that with us; for you will never find anything!"
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Cyrenius now says to Me again to the side, "Ah that is so strange with these people! Now even a unique type of disguise comes to light! Who would have sought such things with these people?! But now they are really nailed up and barricaded, and so that they cannot be tackled from any angle! What shall we do now with these people?! They have a fixed, totally false idea of us, which unfortunately has penetrated them so much that we actually cannot meet them. That leaves only the question, what can we do with them?"
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I say, "There will be a lot that we can do; now they stand much closer to their goal than before! Secretly they have always had this caution since the beginning, because they saw you Romans here! For terrible stories have spread for some time now among them: In the Jewish lands the Messiah has really appeared in all seriousness and is doing great things, but the Romans have heard about it and are now persecuting the Messiah in the cruelest way; for they have not only attacked the Messiah sharply, but also anyone who shows even a trace of a belief in a coming or already arrived Messiah. And look, that is the whole reason for their pretence, which we will soon cope with!"