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 42 -
A miracle by Raphael.
Raphael picked up a ten pound stone from the ground and said: "I think this stone will be large and heavy enough, to give you a good little proof!"
2
Said the Greek: "Indeed; but are you going to do with it?"
3
Said Raphael: "So that you do not hold me for an absurd magician, you can take this stone into your own hands and your companions too should hold this stone in their hands, so that also they can convince themselves that this is a real, solid stone as it occurs only in this area! So take the stone into your hands and examine it!"
4
Here the Greek took the stone into his hands and examined it, and his companions did likewise.
5
After they had convinced themselves that this stone was a very natural stone, they gave it back to the angel and the Greek said: "This stone is completely stone, none of us have any doubt about that; but what are you going to do with this stone?"
6
Said Raphael: "Take this stone once more into your hands and pick up more of these stones, only then you will get to know our divine strength! But you should not be afraid, as not a single hair of yours will be harmed!"
7
Thereupon they searched for many similar stones and held them in their hands, as if they wanted to stone the boy.
8
And the angel said to them: "You see that I'm not touching any of the stones in your hands even with a single finger of mine. The moment I say with my will: "Dissolve into your ethereal primeval substance!", not a single dust particle of these stones will be left in your hands!"
9
Said the Greek: "Young friend, this is only a play of words from you! A dust particle of these stones will of course not be left in our hands, but very much so all the whole stones, and they will also be dissolved, since we ourselves 'dissolved' them from the ground, and they will also go into the ether, since we already hold them in our hands in the air-ether. Am I right or not? Are you, young Jewish god, going to allow us to throw these stones at you, after you have dissolved them with your will and thereby completely destroyed them?"
10
Said the angel: "O, for sure, just keep throwing them! But be careful that the stones does not vanish, otherwise you have nothing to throw at me! I now want that the stones should vanish! - And now you can throw your stones at me, if there are any left in your hands!"
11
Here the thirty Greeks looked at each other in greatest amazement and the first said: "Listen, my sweet boy, you understand more than we very experienced Greek who have seen many things, are able to comprehend! Verily, for that you need a agathodemonic ( good spirit, charitable protective spirit) inner power; this cannot be done by natural means. Within one moment all the stones were completely gone. How is this possible?"
12
Said the angel: "The 'how' you will not understand for a very long time; but I have said to you before, that you are dealing with true and unspoilt Jews and as such children of God, and they possess a divine power in them and are thereby masters of the whole natural world and are immortal. Therefore I said to you, that we as gods do not fear any enemy and are masters of the whole world. And whoever wants something from us, must know how to ask earnestly, otherwise he will get nothing from us. - Do you understand this better now?"
13
Said the Greek: "But how did you become gods but still are human just as we are?"
14
Said Raphael: "Because our endeavours were focused solely on the pure and true knowledge of the only true God and we did not strive after the futile and dead treasures of this world! And thereby we have obtained from the only true God the real and living treasures of the spirit and its powers and not the dead treasures of matter of this world, wherein everything is transient, whereas the treasures of the spirit can forever not be lost but will keep growing into eternity.
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But in order to obtain the living treasures of the spirit, you must have received from the only true God the ways and the means, which with us Jews has already happened through the first patriarchs and later mainly through the great prophet Moses, as well as many other prophets and teachers. The Jews who completely applied the provided means to himself and has followed the indicated routes, has thereby become worthy to be child of God and simultaneously received the inner power of the spirit. But this is still not the case with you, and hence you do not know anything about the only true God, nothing of the children of God in this world and also nothing about the things they are able to achieve. - Do you understand this?"
16
Said the Greek: "Yes, yes, this may be the case with you; but if this certain one true God has given to the Jews such means and showed them such ways, - why did he not did that to us, since we are just as well people as you Jews are? We Greeks also have reason and a mind and have at all known times been acknowledged as one of the most intellectual advanced nations on earth. That we lag behind you regarding the inner spiritual powers, we can not verily be blamed for it! If this certain, only true God has revealed himself to the Jews, - why not to us Greeks?"
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Said Raphael: "My friend, this is not remotely the case as you imagine it yourself, but very different! Also the Greek, the Romans and the old Egyptians were once on the same level as are now are still a few Jews. But they have left the only true God, just as many Jews are now leaving Him completely and turning away from Him voluntary; but those who left the only true God, the only true God also left them and left them to their own futile worldly delights.
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Should they one day wish to return to Him in their hearts, He will accept them and will show them once more the old ways and means, whereby they can again become true Jews and children of God. At the right time messengers and teachers will be send to you and all the other nations on of the world who will show them the old means and ways. Happy are they, who will take advantage of it!"
19
Said the Greek: "Why does this not happen right now?"
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Said the angel: "Because right now you are still full of all kinds of worldly things! If you rid yourselves more and more of these and become ripe for something more spiritual, then what I have mentioned, will also come to you. But now I have told you enough and showed you enough; perhaps we can speak tomorrow again about this!"
21
Said the Greek: "Yes, tomorrow I and all the others wanted to depart again, since we have sold everything we brought with us; but for your sake I will stay here until tomorrow afternoon, in order to ask you for a few more spiritual treasures which I can take with me to Greece. Perhaps tomorrow I will learn from you something regarding the preparation of your truly divine tasting food!"
22
Said the angel: "Now, now, we will see about that! But I think, for the time being you will understand our manner of preparing food just as little as my former destruction of the hard stones. But this doesn't matter too much; here are many more things you can get familiar with, and they will be of much more use to you to know, than the preparation of our food. If you are content with that, you can come again tomorrow; but it is not necessary to come about the preparation of the food again, since I already told you about the circumstances in this respect."
23
Said the Greek: "About the preparation of food I do not want to say another word, if I can learn something else which can be more useful to all of us. And as such we will go now and will come back tomorrow around noon, after all the guests have gone down to the city. As later on it might become darker than now, and the mountain is quite steep."
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Said the angel: "There will be sufficient light on the mountain, so that you will easily and without danger get down, and with that you may go in the name of the one, true God!"
25
After these words from the angel the Greeks departed and reached soon and easily their huts, where they spent the night as usual. But they slept only very little; since they thought the whole night about the destruction of the stones and argued to and fro, yet nobody was able to give the other an explanation. Because the phenomenon excited them so much that nobody could find any rest in his soul and could not wait until the next day when they would obtain a light regarding the phenomenon they had experienced.
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The next morning they packed their belongings and made everything ready for their departure. But all of them delayed their departure until the next day; since they all decided that they had to get to the bottom of this miraculous matter at all cost. They also decided to completely dedicate this upcoming day to this matter. And thus they could hardly wait for midday.
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But for now we will leave these thirty Greeks to think and judge and will go with Raphael, Lazarus and the innkeeper into the large dinning hall, where we all sat at our tables and enjoyed our food and drink.