The Great Gospel of John
Volume 7
Jesus' Precepts and Deeds through His Three Years of Teaching
The Lord on the Mount of Olives. (cont.) Gospel of John, Chapter 8
- Chapter 4 -
The conversion of the slave trader.
Only after the crowd had totally dispersed, did I, along with Raphael, Agrikola and Lazarus approach the trade leader and say to him in his native tongue: "Who gave you the right to sell human beings and your children as a merchandise on the markets of the world and thereby turn them into slaves of tyrannical, lustful buyers?"
2
Said the trade leader: "If you want to buy them, I will show you that I have the right thereto; but if you don't buy them, only in front of the governor I will tell you that I am entitled to do this. I myself had been sold as slave, but my master whom I served faithfully, gave me my freedom and a large sum of money. I moved back to my homeland and trade now with the same merchandise, as I myself was forced to serve someone else twenty years ago. I became fortunate by being a slave; why not they?! In addition this is a quite old custom in our country, and our wise men have never questioned us about it. We therefore do not sin against the law of our country and in your country we are paying a trade fee; and therefore we do not have to explain ourselves in front of anyone!"
3
I said: "But thirty days ago you went to mountains and sacrificed thirty sheep, ten oxen, ten cows and ten calves and your fortune teller said to you: "If you see no lightening and hear no thunder on your trip, then you will be fortunate!" You interpreted this to your advantage, because you thought that during this late time of the year no storms with lightening and thunder will occur, and together with your colleagues you went on a long trip. But now, nevertheless, it had been thundering with preceding lightening strikes! What are you going to do now?"
4
The trade leader looked at me with surprise and said: "If you are only a man like me, then you cannot know that! Foremost you have never been to our country and secondly, no one in the whole world knows the place where the foremost and most famous fortune teller lives. Nobody could have told you either, because for all the treasures in the world we do not betray one another. Therefore, how could you have known about my deepest secret? Friend, just tell me this and all these slaves belong to you!"
5
I said: "Did your fortune teller not tell you once, that there is a greater God of whom he himself had only heard through old, secret writings? But this is for mortals too great and incomprehensible, and therefore they should not concern themselves further about this matter! - Did your fortune teller not tell you this?"
6
Now the chief trader was even more surprised and said: "I said it once and I say it again: You are not a man, but - You are a God! And how should I, a weak worm of the earth, go against You, if You can destroy me with one breath?! It is true, earthly speaking I'm doing bad business! But even if I had a thousand times more slaves and would have bought them truly for a large sum of valuable money, they would have been all yours! You know, my great and incomprehensible sublime Friend, we in our country to a large extend realise what the problem is; but we can't help ourselves! Help us, Friend, - and not only these, but thousands more, and above them as many as you want, belong to You; because You are not a man, but a complete and most true God!"
7
I said to all bystanders: "All of you take this as an example! These are slave traders of a very grim kind, and how soon have they recognised Me! Up there stands the temple which David and Solomon built for Me at great expenses, - but what an immense difference between these slave traders, who only sell the bodies of people, and those soul traders who sell the souls of people to hell!
8
See, these slave traders are Eliases compared to those assassins of souls up there! Therefore, one day Sodom and Gomorra will be better off before Me then those wretched spawn of hell up there! If what has happened here would have happened in Sodom and Gomorra, they would have done penance in sack and ashes and would have become blessed. Only, here I Myself am present, and they try to kill Me!
9
See, here to My right stands My favourite angel Raphael, and I say it to you: There is more resemblance between him and those slave traders then between him and those servants of God up there! I say to you: This slave trader is already an angel; but they up there are devils!"
10
Here I again turned to the slave trader and said: "Friend, how much do you want for all these your slaves? Speak!"
11
The chief trader said: "My God, what should I weak, mortal person want from You? All these and a thousand times more I give to You, if You consider me to be worthy of Your mercy, to tell me, what we quite actually lack and what are our true shortcomings!"
12
I said : "Thus release them all, and in exchange I shall give to you the eternal freedom of your souls and everlasting life!"
13
The chief trader replied: "The deal is made and completed; since with Gods it is easy to trade. Free all slaves; since now we have made the best deal! In advance I'm convinced that our slaves will not be treated badly. We ourselves has made the biggest profit; because thereby we have bought from God everlasting life. - Are you, my colleagues, in agreement?"
14
All said: "Yes, Hibram, never have we made a bigger profit! But this time our fortune teller was very wrong; since it was the lightening and thunder which brought us the greatest fortune! - Free all the prisoners and they will become the non refundable property of this pure God! But we will be on our way home straight away!"
15
I said: "O no, I certainly accept the prisoners, - but you yourselves will stay here for another three days, however, not at your expense, for I will pay for you temporarily and eternally!"