The Great Gospel of John
Volume 4
Jesus' Precepts and Deeds through His Three Years of Teaching
Jesus near Caesarea Philippi (cont.)
- Chapter 183 -
The curse of the excessive culture of the Egyptians.
1
(Oubratouvishar:) "In front of this palace were standing two tremendously big columns, completely freestanding, which were on all sides fully written with all kinds of signs, figures and scriptures; also in front of the large column hall were similar two columns constructed.
2
With shy steps we entered the house of the high priest and had to walk for a while before coming to the living rooms. O, in there it was so marvellous beautiful, leaving us completely speechless.
3
In the spirit I compared my poorest hut at home with this residence and said to myself: 'Why are we blacks so amazingly poor in our knowledge and recognition? Why can't we produce such buildings? Why are we still not able to produce metals? We still have no other cutting tools than those, which we exchanged from the Egyptians for our raw nature products! How wretched are our looms, how badly finished our clothes! Among us there is no spirit, no talent, no zeal; we are hardly on a little higher level than our monkeys!'
4
When I was lost in such thoughts, my heart broke, and I started to cry and said loudly: 'O, why are we blacks not entirely animals, who can neither think nor feel anything?! What marvellous things can true humans, these true earth gods, create, while we black half people and half animals can do nothing compared to this! And still we have to mightily feel about all these marvellous things, which the true humans have created!'
5
Then the governor said to me: 'Don't be bothered by that! We already have become old men for whom these marvellous things cannot provide joy anymore, since we have already over-lived ourselves; but you are still children full of strength and full of increasingly more and more awakening zeal. For this world we already have completed our lives, our crowns are lying wilted in the grave of oblivion, our palaces are collapsing, and our present knowledge and recognition is worse than very bad. Here we have just a few smiths and a few weavers left; all our technological needs we have to satisfy either from Rome or from Greece.
6
Yes, once a few thousand years ago, in this country there lived of course more gods than humans and erected works, about which the later descendants of this earth will still be amazed! But what we currently produce, is equal to destruction only, physically as well as in the soul. But you are still an unspoiled, primordial grown and young and strong nation, can think and want, and therefore soon can become greater in your works than the people of this country ever were.
7
But if you as people want to really live happily on this earth, stay with your old simplicity! Firstly it costs you little troubles and work, and secondly you only have very few needs, which are easily covered. Your cattle breeding on the rich gras lands makes you have little worries and problems, and your agriculture, which you only do on a very limited scale, is anyway accounted for as nothing; also your clothes are simple and easy to produce. You therefore need only very little time to serve your physical needs, and therefore can engage more and exclusively in spiritual considerations! And see, this is much more valuable, than to build such palaces with the bloody sweat of hundred-thousand times hundred-thousand human lives, so that time, the tooth of destruction, has thousands of years to gnaw on it!
8
And finally, what is such an artificially heap of rocks placed on top of each other, compared to only a blade of grass, which was build by the great spirit of God? I say to you: nothing! Every blade of grass, every tree is a building of God, grows out of the dear earth without our troubles and work, and within a short time refreshes our palate with a sweet fruit. But which troubles and frightening work does such a palace costs the people! And what is it they gain from it afterwards, when their work after many bloody years is completed? Nothing as a wretched nourishment for their haughtiness, the awakening of jealousy of foreign nations, leading in time to war and all kind of pursuit!
9
Truly, you my dear black friend, this is the wretched fortune of my people, who were so stupid to cover their most beautiful and most fertile gras lands with such dead palaces, on which otherwise many hundred-thousands of the most fertile trees could pour their noble fruit into the lap of the people living in very simple huts! See, on the land on which this city is build, ten-thousand people together with their large herds could easily find enough space to live; where currently of course a hundred-thousand people live in these damaged walls! But what a live have most of them!
10
Previously, as the history of this country teaches us, this land was a breadbasket, from which, in time of need, foreign nation were supplied with bread; now, not seldom we have to transport the grain from far away countries and nations! Our herds are in a most terrible condition. Thousands of people in such a city does not work at all because of their little gold and silver, day after day idly walking around, keep venal prostitutes and not seldom converse with them in a lowest, animal like manner; this always produces a lot of illnesses, - something that you don't know about at all. During the day, as long as the sun shines, you will see this large city completed depopulated; only when the cooler night has come, they come out their artificial rock caves like predators and talk to all kinds according to their desires. And see, you simple son of nature, these are the blessings which the people earn from their great stone culture!'"