The Great Gospel of John
Volume 4
Jesus' Precepts and Deeds through His Three Years of Teaching
Jesus near Caesarea Philippi (cont.)
- Chapter 149 -
The spirit apparitions at the accident. The suicide of the Essenian who was cursed by the temple.
1
(Mathael:) "Simultaneously the father ask me, if I have seen anything else about the boy.
2
In Greek I said to him: 'The large two bats have unified above his chest, namely in the form of a very sad looking monkey, and are trying to separate themselves from the body, but it appears if they still strongly attracted by it, so that it is for the time being not possible for them to completely separate from the body; but the longer their efforts lasts, the more they become one, and - there, now they are as a volatile being freed from the body! It still crouches and jumps around the body as if it is still looking for something!'
3
'This will not be the soul of the boy?' said my father
4
Said I: 'Yes, this I truly don't know myself! Should such a neglected boy in all seriousness not have a better soul?! Now this strange being still sits at the bleeding smashed head and acts as if licking the blood from the large wound. But it does not succeed at all! It only slurps the barely visible blood steam and by that obtains a little more of a human appearance, - but now carriers arrive who probably want to take the corpse away! I am curious if this monkey-like being will accompany it!'
5
In this moment four bearers with quite a long pole arrived, bound the corpse with linen cloth to the pole, lifted it up and carried it away.
6
Said I: 'However, the being stays and looks around like someone in a large emptiness, where he can see nothing. It appears that it cannot see us bodily humans. It now crouches at the place where the boy has fallen from the tree, and gives the impression if it wants to go to sleep. In all seriousness, it must be the soul of the boy!'
7
Said the father: 'Now, fortunately the scapegoat slaughter proceedings are nearly completed! Only the aphorism (judgement) over those, who are because of their too evil sins have been excluded from this general cleansing and it will be over! Like all the years: always the same old story, - for me without blessing, power and use, and I believe, also for everybody else!'
8
Thereupon the father was quiet, listened to the judgement and was quite annoyed when the first curse was imposed over the Samaritans, only then over all the heathens, over the Essenes, Sadducee and, and in a lighter way also over unrepentant incestuous persons, brother-, father- and mother murderers, animal violators and adulterers and - with a severe judgement - at the end over the critics of the temple and its sanctums.
9
After this certainly not edifying ceremony, at which each curse caused the garment of the high priest an immense tear, all retreated back to the city; only one person, who was probably more deeply effected by the well-meant curse judgements, kept standing at the pond, which was not far away from us and was a deep hole created by the Jordan river, of which some fools drivel that this hole with a diameter of about one-hundred man-lengths, drained all the water from the Great Flood from the whole earth within one year and a few days. That this pond is very deep, is true, - but it will surely not be without a bottom.
10
My father was quite suspicious about the way this person was looking so very glassy and confused into the black pond from a protruding rock. He ask me if I could see anything unusual around this man.
11
I said as it was the full truth: 'I can't see anything, however, I cannot deny that I do not like the person at all! I believe one does not go wrong in saying: He will soon, with his very own body, investigate how deep the pond is!'
12
I give it to you as faithfully as I have said it at that stage, although my father never approved of it, when I started to joke a little about very serious matters, - for what I had quite a special talent. Therefore, o Lord, be also merciful with me, if I use the same words here which I have used at that time!"
13
Says I: "The way you speak is right; since I want it like that, and besides, I Myself place so to speak the words in your mouth! Just continue to speak; all are listening to you with great attention!"
14
And Mathael continued to speak and said: "I nearly haven't finished speaking the last word, when the person raised his hands and said loudly: 'The high priest has damned me because I was an Essene and have left the temple, to learn another and better wisdom, which I, however, did not found there just as little I couldn't find in the temple of Jerusalem either. But I have ruefully returned to the temple and have prayed and sacrificed; but the high priest rejected my sacrifice, scolded me a worst kind of temple desecrator and cursed me forever, by tearing his garment seven times. Now, through this general cleansing I hoped for an alleviation of his curse; I only waited in vain for this! He only confirmed more so the old curse and made me a damned person before God and the people! Hence, I am cursed! - So be it that I am cursed!' - with these words which he screamed exceedingly loud, he threw himself from the cliff into pond and drowned."