The Great Gospel of John
Volume 4
Jesus' Precepts and Deeds through His Three Years of Teaching
Jesus near Caesarea Philippi (cont.)
- Chapter 154 -
The poisonous outer life sphere of the widow.
Mathael bows and immediately begins to tell the following memorable death case; and the story is as follows: "In a small place between Bethlehem and Jerusalem lived a strange widow. She was married twice. The first husband already died after one year. With him she had one daughter, who, however deaf and dumb from birth, was otherwise fresh, healthy and very cheerful, which is seldom the case with deaf and dump persons.
2
After being a widow for one year, a second quite strong man courted for her hand and married the widow, who was at stage still very beautiful. But the man did not last much longer with this woman than his predecessor; since he lived only for two years and a few month and died just like the first one of the general emaciation.
3
This scarred off all the other men, so that in future nobody dared to court for her hand. With the second, quite strong man, she did not have any child at all, while the deaf-mute daughter grew up strongly and already in her fifth year she was big and strong like nearly no other girl in its twelfth year, had a very beautiful face, and every man looked at this deaf-mute girl with great and often already quite desirable pleasure.
4
The widow lived afterwards for another twenty years, remained very beautiful and even quite attractive, and her daughter enchanted every man; since something more beautiful and more attractive did not likely existed in the whole Jewish country! This girl was at the same time quite intelligent and quite well educated and by way of sign language knew how to communicate with everybody quite well, and always in a really artistically elegant manner, that every man was very happy to have communicated with her. Many wanted to marry the girl, but since according to law deaf-mute people were excluded from marriage, of which a sensible reason still eludes me, nothing could be done in this regard.
5
The widow was quite wealthy and owned extended properties, and as such many servants and maidens, and was towards poor people very charitable. The woman would have liked to be married again; but since nobody courted for her hand anymore and the woman also did not dare to look at anyone, out of fear and good will at the same time, not to become the murderess of a third man, she stayed single, led quite a moral and withdrawn life and was the comforter of many people in distress.
6
At one stage a Greek doctor arrived and wanted to cure her from her odd peculiarity; but she send him away and said - as she has told my father at a later stage, and if my otherwise good memory does not deceives me, with the following words -: 'My parents were good and godfearing people, and as a girl I was known as an example for living puritanically. Prior to my first marriage I never have recognized a man. How such a bad property could have entered my otherwise well formed body, is a riddle to me; I am, however, - Jehovah be praised above all! - otherwise very healthy and therefore does not need any medicine. It is thus God's will, which I will endure with pleasure! You, pseudo Aesculapius (Aesculapius was the Greek and Roman god for the art of healing), can go, otherwise I breathe at you, and you are also hopelessly lost, irrespective that you are a doctor and want to help me, but as I can see, you are not even able to cure yourself from the hideous cervical goiter, as well as the limping of your left foot! A doctor should himself be a flawless and healthy person, if he wants to help the sick! The freshness and full healthiness of the doctor must give the sick person a certain confidence, so that he can believe that the doctor knows something; but if the doctor is standing there as a cripple himself and wants to help a healthy person, he should be laughed at hundredfold and if he becomes obtrusive in a home, he should be expelled immediately!'
7
When the doctor received such a praising, he left the house growling and grumbling, but returned after one year, enquired about the condition of the beautiful widow and started to court for her beautiful hand.
8
The widow, however, became impatient and breathed from a distance of three steps towards the doctor and said: 'Go and do not come closer! Since you walk into this breath, you are child of death; not one year will go by and you will be rotting in the ground!'
9
The doctor however laughed and slurped the ejected breath with joy and desire, to show the beautiful widow how little he was afraid about the trifling poison, since he was convinced that it would not harm him at all. The best about it was, that also the widow herself did not believed the slightest what she was saying, but only used it as a threat, because the people were spreading such rumours and therefore nobody dared to come too close to her.
10
However, the people were not so wrong after all. If this our widow was not passionately excited, her breath was good and healthy; but as soon as she got a little agitated, it was not possible to keep up with her. Whoever took in too much of her breath, did not lived longer than a year and was a child of death. He became a kind of emaciation and could take whatever any proven wonder doctor could possibly prescribe to him, it did not serve any purpose; the sickness progressed with an iron perseverance and the sick person infallibly became its victim! And this also happened to our Greek doctor; soon afterwards he started to waste away and within eight month he became a most wretched and totally emaciated corpse, against which a by three-thousand year old Egyptian mummy would still look quite well fed!
11
Our widow soon found out about it and from several sides it was whispered to her that she will be taken to court. The widow was very much disturbed in her heart by this; finally she herself began ail and send for my father, who of course took me, his indispensable seer with him, to get to know something about this strange woman through my seer gift. With some care we came to the house of this strange woman and found her lying completely exhausted in a bed. Her deaf-mute but otherwise in all seriousness heavenly beautiful daughter and a few maids were with her and supported her.
12
It should be noted here, that her strange breath only effected men, but was not harmful to any women or maidens.
13
My father said, when he came in to the room holding a little his breath: 'Here stands the called doctor from Jerusalem; what does the lovely widow wish from me?'
14
Said the widow: 'What else does a sick person wants from a doctor, except that he should make her well?! Help me if you can!'
15
Said the father: 'Allow me to observe you for a while, then I will know if you can be helped or not!'
16
Said the widow: 'Do what you think is right!'
17
Thereupon the father said in Roman to me: 'Pay attention if you are able to see anything around here; since her illness must have a very special reason!'