The Great Gospel of John
Volume 7
Jesus' Precepts and Deeds through His Three Years of Teaching
The Lord and his adversary. Gospel of John, Chapter 9
- Chapter 191 -
A new plan of the temple servants to catch the Lord.
Through a few spies who hid themselves among the people, it came to the ears of the Pharisees that I was teaching the people this way. These were deliberating among themselves to know what they could undertake in order to catch Me and to bring Me to ruin.
2
However, the more temperate ones said: "Of course, you can do what you want, but we can assure you in advance that you can do nothing against Him. Because first of all He has many followers among the people, and secondly He possesses an indescribable magic power by which all the powers of nature and the spirit world seem to obey Him. And thirdly He is so well versed in the Scriptures, that we, compared to Him, are all bunglers. Fourthly, the highly ranked Romans are on His side, because they surely take Him for a half-god. Also, He has those wondrous Egyptians, Persians, Arabians, Indians and still other men from the east around Him, and therefore it will be very difficult to undertake anything successful against Him. And in case you do not want to believe me, then you should go outside to be informed about everything and to convince yourself of it.
3
Did those two very reliable Pharisees not go to Emmaus, together with two of our smartest Levites? Where are they now? We do not know. The day before yesterday we have sent our most reliable spies and haunters after them and have insisted that they should inform us before evening to know what they had come to know, but until this hour nobody has come back. Where are they? How terribly embarrassing were those appearances to us during the night of the day before yesterday. Who is responsible for that, except Him and His accomplices?
4
Today 3 rising suns have put us and the whole people in great confusion. Also this seems to be caused by Him. Everything that we have come to know elsewhere about Him and His deeds seem to be confirmed by Him, and therefore it is useless to make plans to do violence to Him. If ever He were the least afraid of us, He surely would not think about it to appear openly in the temple with His teaching, for He knows as well as we do how severe we are against such people. So this is our sober opinion, but because of the majority of your votes you still can do what you want. In no way we will hinder you.
5
However, if we think - as always - soberly, we do believe the following: if ever His mission would perhaps secretly be ordained by God, we will not be able to stop Him. But if it is only the work of men, then it will disappear of itself in the dust of forgetfulness. If our word can do nothing against Him, even less will our deeds."
6
Now an arch-Pharisee of the group of Caiphas said: "If all this is true, as you have well-meant brought forward, then, according to you, what can we do for the best? Because these things, which will cause our downfall, we cannot allow to happen."
7
Upon this, the more temperate one said: "If we cannot unmask Him in front of the people and the Romans with intelligent and well worked out questions and words, and make Him suspect, then we are as good as finished. By deeds, we absolutely will not be able to harm Him. This is our firm and well founded opinion."
8
Upon this, the arch-Pharisee said: "This advice sounds good and we can indeed try it out, because we still have enough of those clever, intelligent and good orators, although lately we already have lost quite a few very competent orators, which is probably thanks to that notorious Nazarene. Then who of us thinks that he is able to take this task upon him for a big reward?"
9
Now a scribe and a Pharisee, who also knew the Roman laws very well, began to speak, and both said: "Let us carry out this task, then we can catch Him fast and easily, because nobody was yet too smart for us."
10
The whole counsel agreed on that, and Caiphas said with great seriousness: "Good. Then disguise yourselves, so that the people will not recognize you. Enter the temple through the big gate of the people, and do your job well, then me and God will be well-pleased with you."
11
Now, as Caiphas told them, they both disguised themselves and went into the temple where I still was teaching the people about the love for God and fellowman. But the high priests (chiefs), Pharisees and still a few scribes did not totally trust the two, and they also disguised themselves and went after them into the temple in order to witness how those two would work on Me. They were joining them in the temple.