The Great Gospel of John
Volume 3
Jesus' Precepts and Deeds through His Three Years of Teaching
Jesus near Caesarea Philippi
- Chapter 37 -
Julius' concerns about interrogating the other criminals.
At this Cyrenius asks, "Lord, what should happen now to these five? Look, they are more than half naked! Should I clothe them? I have clothes with me; but they are official clothes which no-one but Rome"s officials may wear. Therefore they cannot be used. I also have Roman servants" tunics; but these five seem to me too eminent for such tunics, with their tangible high wisdom; what should we do here?"
2
I say, "A tunic has no other significance than that it covers the nakedness of the body, whether it is an official tunic or a servant"s tunic; it is of no matter whether you cover the five with an official tunic or a servant"s tunic. A servant"s tunic seems better to me than an official one, so give them the servant"s tunics; for in an official"s tunic they will be the joke of the world due to the tunic and they are too good for that, although actually no-one in the world is good! In time they will have to suffer enough ridicule in my name and I don't want them to be ridiculed before time."
3
When Cyrenius hears this, he immediately sends several servants to fetch the best servants" tunics. In a few moments the tunics are brought and Cyrenius has them distributed among the five.
4
But the five say to him with gratitude, "The great one among us will reward you! For in our torn rags we were hardly able to hide our private parts from the world; so our most friendly thanks to you for this!"
5
After this the five take off their old rags behind a bush and then appear as good-looking Roman court servants. When they come up to us quite satisfied, we turn to the other political criminals who already awaiting us with great longing.
6
When we get to them, they immediately fall on their faces in the earth and beg for mercy. There are actually eight of them; but there are some more that had just travelled with them and thus were arrested along with them.
7
Here I say to Julius, "Friend, it is your business to listen to them and then to bring them to responsibility in the correct way!"
8
When Julius hears this he says, "Lord, although such business would not cause me any headaches, nonetheless I"m beginning to get a bit dizzy with this. You here, an angel here, Cyrenius here, Your extraordinarily wise disciples here, the thirty young Pharisees and Levites also here - and now the five here; and I don't even want to mention the wise Jarah! And Lord, the five, oh, the five! And I should listen to these political prisoners standing in front of us in front of all these? Oh that will not be easy! The best of the whole thing is just that I don't really know ex fundamento (basically) why they were captured and brought here in chains! The whole thing consists in them being envoys of the temple and must have spread evil rumors about Rome under temple orders. But there is no witness here! How can we bring them to confess?"
9
Mathael, standing behind Julius says, "Don't be afraid! What concerns the witnesses, we five are here, but not to their disadvantage, instead only to their advantage. You see, we ourselves witnessed and heard how these had to take on the order so they could avoid drinking the accursed water; for we know them all the better, at least externally, since we were sent to the Samaritans almost at the same time as them. As innocent as we five are in everything that happened to us, these must be just as innocent. Now you know enough and you can now begin your examination in all peace and do not have to be embarrassed by our inner wisdom."