The Great Gospel of John
Volume 3
Jesus' Precepts and Deeds through His Three Years of Teaching
Jesus near Caesarea Philippi
- Chapter 227 -
The nature of the Lord and humankind.
My disciples were probably the first to fall asleep, the Romans were also tired; everyone made a pillow of their arm, lent on the table and slept as if on the softest bed. But our Murel and Philopold did not go to sleep, but instead they withdrew a little and discussed the whole night everything that had happened.
2
Our Mathael also joined the two and said, "I cannot possibly sleep now after all I have experienced and seen here in the last two days. Just think, three days ago I was still possessed by a legion of devils and was, although certainly unknowingly, the most feared bandit!
3
Wherever I was suspected of being, no caravan would dare to cross the path, and whoever fell into my hands, certainly did not continue his bleak journey on unhurt! And now I am the son-in-law of king Ouran and co-regent of the great land on the Pontus up to the kingdom of the Scythians! The kingdom reaches from the Pontus to the Caspian Sea over a great mountain range. Is that not a wonder above all wonders?! Yes, things happen here that no man anywhere else on Earth can understand!
4
But there is now a great question to be asked, and this consists quite simply of this: Will people understand it and keep it pure, the people who either live very far away from here, or who will live very far away from now according to time? For even if the religion is so pure and true, one will probably consider it to be the expression of a great prophet - but to accept that God Himself in the flesh and blood of a person taught this, that will be a heavy and shaky doctrine, especially since He is supposedly the natural son of a certain Mary, who later became the wife of a carpenter called Joseph! Well, such things have been known manifold among the people, and it is therefore difficult to give the nation the certain human feeling concerning the Lord, although there is no longer any doubt in us.
5
We are completely convinced that there is nothing in Him which resembles us natural human beings except for His external form alone; body, soul and spirit is God! For one can say: In Him is the fullness of the Godhead in physical form! For He only needs to desire something and it happens in an instant.
6
The greatest and most tangible proof for His divinity, however, lies in His words and in the angel who constantly stands in His service and who commits deeds before the eyes of all those present that are less explicable for a mortal than Philopold's explanation of the world of stars.
7
In short, for us, who see, it is the holiest extraordinariness in broad daylight; for we have the screaming proof in greatest abundance!
8
But this will not be able to happen everywhere or always that way. But I already noticed here that some people still have difficulty, despite all the screaming proof, to see the divine being of the Lord and to understand; and I also saw that the clarifying word always works more wonders concerning the realization of the Lord and His purely divine majesty than the greatest miracle. The reason seems to lie in the fact that we are already so used to the ever puzzling real or artificial miracles in these days that they actually demand no particular amazement any longer.
9
In particular in the last circa sixty years since the Romans became our masters the land has simply been swarming with magicians and miracle-workers! The person who is inexperienced in secret magic now throws a true and an artificial miracle quite easily together in the same cooking pot, makes no distinction between true and false - and nor can he, because he is lacking in all the elements needed to recognize it. So it happens very easily then that a miracle can never make the same effect as a clear word.
10
In brief, one obviously has a greater effect through the correct awakening of human understanding than through any sort of miracle!"