The Three Days in the Temple
Conversations of the twelve year old Jesus
- Chapter 22 -
The Roman judge's words of acknowledgment to the Boy Jesus, and His speech about the state laws of order, and the divine law of charity.
ON this, the judge said: "You loveliest Boy come straight from the Heavens; in very truth, even now you are wiser than all the wise men that have ever lived upon the earth! What will you grow to be in the end? Yes, yes, you are by all means the true Messiah (Mediator between God and man)! For never yet has any wise man so clearly shown the differences between matter, soul and spirit, and this with as few words as you! Truly this instruction alone deserves a special reward, for there has never yet been such a thing!"
2
I said: "O let that be, noble friend! What reward could you really give Me which I could not at once return to you a thousandfold? Truly, I tell you, whoever shall do good to one of his fellowmen out of true, pure Love of God and man, he will do it unto Me, and he shall be repaid a thousandfold. But even equally so will it be with everything wicked and evil that anyone does to his fellow men!"
3
The judge said: "How would you more closely designate the wicked and evil that one should not do to one's fellowmen? I should very much like to know it, because being a judge, I often come into a position where I have to do very wicked and evil things to my fellowmen, of course very often against my will; but our law is an iron one, and knows no exceptions; no, not even for your own children! Therefore tell me something concrete!"
4
I said: "If you had made the laws, you could also change them: but they are the old, well-weighed will of the people, and you are placed there justly to punish sinners against this will of the people. If however you do conscientiously and justly what the law prescribes, you do thereby no wrong, but only right.
5
For every one who lives as a member of a great community of men has to accommodate himself to the laws of order, and to make them to his own rules of life: if he does not want to do so, he, standing alone, and as being evidently the weaker one, must consent to the necessarily bitter consequences of being obstinate against the people's general law.
6
And the judge installed by the people, or its ruling representative who is a king or even an emperor, who exercises strictly and justly the law known to him, in every detail cannot do anything but what is right for he is cleansing the field of human seed from weeds. Now if you do that you fulfill your duty, and you are a benefactor to men who love order, and are assiduous in enforcing it.
7
But that you as judge give special care that before all else, a man having gone astray, should not so much punished by justice as made better by it - this is a virtue out of the Heaven in your heart: for you fulfill the eternally true principle of charity which runs thus: 'What you reasonably do not wish that one should do to you, do it also not to your fellowmen.' Now with that, you are right before God as well as before men, and need not trouble at all about what is really good and what is wicked.
8
If those who now sit upon the seat of Moses and Aaron would act and had acted thus, they would never have been subdued by you Romans: but as they no longer remained faithful to the old law which was given for all men alike, but made for themselves laws according to their own desires, God consequently turned away His Face from them, and has delivered them unto the heathens and their sharp rod of correction, and under it they shall be left because of their great and gross obstinacy.
9
You are a heathen and recognize Me: these are Jews and should be children of Jehovah but they do not recognize Me, and will only with difficulty do so! Now what do you think of that? It seems to Me that as a prophet once said, (but of course already then to deaf ears): 'He came unto His own, and His own did not recognize Him nor accept Him!' But let that be as it may, I have now shown you the right state of things, and it is time to look more closely at those texts found by the chief priest, which are said not to fit Me."