THE GREAT GOSPEL OF JOHN
VOLUME 5
Jesus' Precepts and Deeds through His Three Years of Teaching
Jesus in the region of Caesarea Philippi. (cont.) Gospel of Matthew, Chapter 16
- Chapter 150 -
The stupidity and blindness of the Pharisees.
The Pharisee says, "Very highest and most strictly correct ruler! We are scribes and have studied the chronicles; therefore I believe that we cannot then be supposed to be all that stupid!"
2
Cyrenius says, "Look, even this remark of yours was as foolish as possible and just as foolish were your ways and means to catch the holy man of Nazareth! For you could indeed well have thought with even just an ounce of understanding that we Romans would distinguish between a Jew disguised in even very poorly-made Roman clothing and a real Roman and would understand only too quickly that a very refined mean trick is hidden behind it all! Thus you could well have thought also that I would recognize certainly Herod's signature only too well! Thus you could also have well imagined that you would be seen through and recognized by me on the spot in your vicious intention, and that therefore your undertaking was a highly foolish and risky one, which could have killed even your little bit of fleshly life, which is your greatest sanctum! I tell you all: Truly a child comforted by mother wit could tell you with certainty what will happen to your undertaking! But now it's enough to make you obey! Your highly wise scribes have not been capable of seeing that in advance!
3
But do you know the reason for this? I will tell you: The indulging splurger, whose stomach has never felt emptiness, cannot possibly imagine the sensation of a hungry stomach; it never even enters the head of a deaf person how a person feels hearing the harmony of a perfectly pitched Aeolian lyre; thus neither can a completely blind person form any comprehension of the impression of seeing and looking and it seems to his feelings that all people are blind. And likewise and actually even worse is it for a spiritually blind and truly foolish person! He not only considers all people to be as foolish as he is himself, but instead, to be even much more foolish; for he does not consider himself to be foolish at all, but only to be very wise. He cannot understand at all how B could possibly be just as comprehending and wise as he, A, feels. And there actually lies the reason why such highly imagined foolish people seize things so foolishly during some undertaking as you have just brought only too tangibly clearly to light before me here.
4
But because you are so foolish, you cannot possibly understand either the unspeakably great signs of these times, as you, despite all your so highly praised knowledge as scribes, have no idea at all, what Moses and all the other seers of these recent times have prophesied and namely about the Messiah of the Jews and His kingdom on Earth. This, just like the present undertaking of yours is therefore only the consequence of your too great and crude spiritual blindness; for with some spiritual light you would have to then realize, for the sake of your Jehovah, that nothing can ever eternally be done with success on your part against a power such as ours, and even less against a man filled with the most all-powerful spirit of God, who only needs to desire it very slightly and the whole Earth will disappear out of existence in an instant!
5
Truly I say to you: Five times a hundred thousand such people as you I would not fear with a hundred thousand experienced warriors; but what good would a thousand times as many warriors do me against the all-powerful will of such a man? One thought from him and they will no longer exist! And you with your deception and state wisdom want to catch such a man of God and even kill him "and that is without having any valid reason for it? Tell me now very honestly whether you do not yet see your very great and crude foolishness and now can grasp at it with your hands!"
6
The Pharisee says, "If I am allowed to speak openly to you, I also wanted to say some things to you which perhaps might open your eyes a little, highest ruler, in this affair; but one cannot speak to you and argue such as we wise men of the temple tend to do among ourselves! But if I were allowed to speak to you without punishment quite honestly then perhaps you would also begin to raise your eyebrows!"
7
Cyrenius, almost with a sort of concealed smile, says, "Truly, I allow you to speak quite freely; no punishment shall follow your words!"