The Great Gospel of John
Volume 6
Jesus' Precepts and Deeds through His Three Years of Teaching
At the Sea of Galilee (John 6)
- Chapter 66 -
The avaricious chief of Capernaum.
Said I: "Not much of particular importance! However, let him come and tell you himself!"
2
The innkeeper then came to us and said: "The chief of the synagogue of Capernaum send someone to collect the tenth of the fish, of which he heard that I have made a rich catch and did not inform him about it, and as a well-earned punishment I should give him three times the tenth of the noble fish. The good thing is that he doesn't know that the fish was caught in the evening of a Sabbath; if someone would tell him this, he would certainly take all the fish away! Pity that earlier chief has left, - he was quite a good man; but the current one is a real plague for us and treats the people as if all of them were his slaves! O Lord, could this evil not be mitigated?"
3
Said I: "O yes, and this in a quite peculiar manner! Send a messenger to the chief who should tell him that he first has to send someone who should count the fish in your container, so that you are not giving him too much or too little of the prescribed threefold penalty tenth. He then soon will arrive with his officials and start to count the fish, - but he will find none! Since the fish were created by Me, I can make them disappear again and then create them again. If he gets agitated by it and accuses you of taking the fish away when informed about his instructions, then ask him for witnesses for it, or you are going to place yourself under Roman protection. If he hears this, he will leave and not insist on the penalty tenth any longer. Do this and everything will work out quite well!"
4
Said the innkeeper: "But now also the midday meal is ready! Should we not first consume it, so that we are not disturbed by the chief?"
5
Said I: "We will consume the meal totally undisturbed, - even if hundred chiefs are busy outside with counting fish! He even can come to us if he wants to, and he will be glad to be leaving with a healthy skin for home."
6
When the innkeeper heard such from Me, he was very glad, send immediately a messenger to the chief and we went to our meal and were quite cheerful, especially about the escape of the many morning guests because of the storm.
7
But after the meal I said to the innkeeper: "He is arriving now; but have a prior look at the container and you will see what fish the chief will find in it!"
8
The innkeeper quickly went outside and was horrified when discovering the giant snake, which was seen earlier on during the storm, swimming around instead of the large noble fish.
9
The chief also did not want to hear anything about any fish counting anymore, when he saw the monster. It is thus understandable that our innkeeper, given the mentioned circumstances, was soon and easily finished with the chief; since from the monster he did not wanted to have the normal tenth and even less so any triple penalty tenth.
10
When seeing the monster, he hastily rebounded and said: "It looks like if the monster has already taken the tenth instead of me! I would have loved to have seen some of these noble fish on my table, but since nothing is there anymore, it of course must be good as it is. Where there is nothing, there also is no law or right, and thus we are good friends again; however, if you again make such a catch of noble fish, let me buy some from you for money! For if you not catch more then ten fish, the tenth falls away anyway. But now let us make sure to get away from the sea as far as possible; because the monster could move onto the land and consume us all like a fly! For it has a pharynx to devour houses!"
11
Thereupon he hastily went home and was not seen at the sea for quite a long time, since he became a mighty respect for the monster.
12
As soon as the chief had left, also the monster of a giant water snake swam in large bends out to sea while being watched by the innkeeper, until it could not be seen anymore because of the high waves.
13
Thereupon the innkeeper looked again into the large fish container and it was as full as before with the most beautiful noble fishes. He then came full of joy back to us, ate and drank at our table and told us what he has seen and how he got along with the chief quite well. At the same time he also asked in which part of the sea such monsters are primarily living, so that one could avoid them; because it would not be pleasant to somewhere collide with them.
14
Thereupon I said: "Don't worry about that! This monster lives at the greatest possible depth of the sea and comes about every hundred years during severe great storms to the surface, which originate under the water, but is a very rare occurrence on the inland seas. Now and then, when these monsters are driven by hunger, if they are getting too little food at the bottom, they come on land and hunt for sheep, lambs and calves, also donkey colts and pigs; people and larger animals are very seldom or not at all attacked. But from now on it will not be seen ever again; for its life time has come to an end; therefore you do not need to be afraid about it anymore. Only after a couple of days, send one of the noble fish to the chief, and he will be very content. - But now anybody can ask a question again if there is anything unclear to him; since from tomorrow we will rest for a couple of days here and will not speak a lot about spiritual matters!"
15
Said all: "Lord, there is hardly anything we still could ask You about; for we already have received from You the most wise teachings anyway!"
16
Said I: "Thus rest, and think about the received teachings!"