The Great Gospel of John
Volume 4
Jesus' Precepts and Deeds through His Three Years of Teaching
Jesus near Caesarea Philippi (cont.)
- Chapter 189 -
Oubratouvishar describes his native country Nubia.
1
(The Lord:) "Earlier I have asked you if you are hungry and thirsty, and I was asking you this, because I can only see too well that you are full of hunger and thirst; the day is already four hours long, and since yesterday noon you haven't eaten nor anything to drink; on the ship you could not have any milk, and the water was already scale and as such bad. And therefore My immediate concern for you is, that you should receive bodily strengthening; since without it you could not take up the required rest, which is necessary to take up the spiritual food more long-lasting. Because to preach someone the Gospel, where the hunger and thirst comes out of his eyes and ears, before feeding him, would be the crown of human self-loving foolishness! Therefore also you should first be fed bodily; only then we will look after the Gospel!
2
However, here, you will have to be content with My table, contrary to your custom, and your moth-eaten dates and figs for your camels to eat. Therefore sit at the tables over there which are empty, and soon you will be provided with sufficient food and drinks! You, Oubratouvishar, sit here; since also you are a real king for your people, and this is a table for kings, who have to decide among each other how to lead their people and develop them to become true human beings!"
3
Everybody obeys to what I said, and our Marcus with the help of invisible helpers is at once ready with a sufficient quantity of the best fishes; and when the blacks were sitting at the tables, fish, bread, salt and wine is placed on the tables, and it is indicated to the guests, that they should consume what has been placed in front of them. Soon they started to eat the still steaming fishes, took bread and wine, and found everything very good and good tasting.
4
The leader who already had more courage, said: "Lord of my life, such good tasting food has never before touched my palate! At times we also eat fish at home; but this is penance food for us. Who behaved disobediently against the existing order, have to eat fish; if we could prepare them like this, truly, they would cease to become penance food!
5
What kind of water is this, what we are drinking here? This tastes indescribable good; one could drink this without being thirsty and keep on eating this honey sweet bread! In Memphis I sometimes also got a piece of bread to eat from the governor, but this wasn't by far not as sweet as this. However, above all I admire this water! Where is the spring of this water? Can one buy it here from you? I want to take some of it to my fatherland, so that they can taste a water from the earth of this heavenly country.
6
The earth is also much more beautiful here than with us! Here exists an extraordinary variety! Everywhere there is an abundance of growth of herbs, brushes and trees; with us there are only certain fields which are grown like that, - otherwise everything is bare, desolate and blank. Here most of the mountains are covered up to the top with the most beautiful trees and look quite softly; with me at home they are naked rocks, only on a few places covered with some grey-red moss. They look as if destroyed and weather-beaten. Their colour is mostly burned red and dark-grey, and in most cases they are so steep that one climb them only here and there under the biggest endangerment of ones life. Once you have reached the top, one cannot endure the heat, in the afternoon not at all; since then the mountain tops begin to glow, so that fishes placed on the rocks are cooked within a few moments through and through, also the meat of lambs and goats. In the afternoon even the eagles cannot sit on a mountain top, and the ibexes climbing down to the fields and the rushing of the Nile.
7
O, we live in a very hard and extremely hot country, where in times it is quite difficult to be and live as a person! Especially during the after-summer, it would be quite impossible to live far away from the Nile; since then there are days when the rocks and the sand begin to melt, - especially if in the afternoon the wind begins to blow from midday. Then one almost can see flames rolling over the wide sand desert floor, and people and animals have no other choice then to hug the good Nile, which miraculously is a very cold stream in our region.
8
Towards the last three month of the year, before the rain month arrives, it is the most terrible time of all, because then the fire storms are coming. It becomes dreadfully muggy. Clouds like incredible flame columns are rising from behind the mountains and finally cover the whole sky, and countless lightning strikes come crashing down from the grey-black blanket of the sky with the most fearsome thunder roaring and causing great terror to people and animals. Although they are not causing a lot of damage, because they dissipate high up in the air; however, it is no joke, to have to listen to this cracking, roaring, hissing and thundering for sometimes forty days and nights and also living with the fear to be horribly burned by one of the lightening strikes coming too close to earth, - which happens so now and then, especially to those people, who during that time do not diligently smear their bodies with fat.
9
If the fire time is over, it starts to rain and rains for about four to six weeks or moon change times. The rain falls thinly but dense, and on some of the mountain tops it sometimes snows. Towards the end of the rain season it often gets sensitively cold, so that we have to warm ourselves at the fire. This is also not particularly pleasing, but nevertheless better than to live during the after-summer.
10
This is our life and how we live and do things! We have to endure a lot of hardship and have only very few pleasantries. O, what heaven are these regions compared to ours! How much joy must there be to live in these true heavens on earth, and how desolate and sad does appear our country in comparison! But You, o Lord, wanted it like this, that we, stuck in our black skins, should not have it otherwise, and it will be perfectly alright as it is, and never ever has anybody grumbled against such Your divine arrangement!
11
Our coal-black skin is in some regard quite a burden for us; since firstly it attracts, according to our manifold experience, heat by far more than any more brighter colour, and secondly we are deterrent ugly compared to your white appearance. For example how beautiful is this heavenly form of this here present maiden, and how ugly a maiden with us! We see and feel it, and still we cannot change our colour! What beautiful hair you have, and what ugly, totally twisted, black short wool we have to embellish our heads! But we do not grumble and are content with everything, what You, o Lord and Master, have given us!
12
But now I must show you my beautiful natural statue, and You, o Lord, will mercifully determine its value!"