19. PARABLE OF THE FATTENING BULL
SAID Ahab, after supper: ‘It goes without saying that I am
clear about Your nature since Jesaira, and there would have
been no need for such immense signs for either myself or
the likes of me, to convince us all abundantly that You are Jehovah
Himself, acting through a physical body, borrowed as it were from
this Earth. But I am curious about whether the 5 Pharisees,
seemingly upright people, in all earnest do not sense who might
the One who healed their sick in a truly miraculous way. If they
had but the faintest clue, they would have to be capable of grasping
by hand that an ordinary human could not possibly accomplish
this in all eternity. In my opinion, one should go and sniff them out
a little and it should quickly transpire as to what they actually
make of You.’
[2] I said: ‘Friend, you will surely not doubt that I know what they
think of Me. So I don’t consider it necessary to interrupt them in
their deliberations. Therefore, tomorrow is another day on which a
few initiatives can be taken in that respect. Let us leave them to
some real fermentation overnight. Because just as cider needs
fermenting to become a spiritual wine, just so every man’s
emotions need fermenting, if he is to transcend to the truly
spiritual.
[3] See, if a man has everything that he needs, then he feels quite
snug. He cares about nothing, does no work, takes it easy and
inquires little about the existence of God or life after physical
death, or whether man is more than the animal, or vice versa.
Mountains and valleys are the same to him, winter and summer
don’t concern him, for in summer he has shade and cooling baths,
and in winter well-heated fire-places and warm clothing.
[4] Neither does he care whether the year was plentiful or not, for
he is provided firstly with all stores for ten years and secondly with
plenty of money for acquiring anything he lacks.
[5] See, such a person then enjoys the leisure of a fattening ox in
the stable, prone to little more thought than the ox, and is therefore
no more than a hedonistic animal in human form.
[6] If you came to such a man to preach the Gospel of the heavenly
kingdom, he would do to you what the ox in the stable does to the
blowfly, swinging his tail over it to make it take off or be killed or
at least suffer considerable harm.
[7] And see, such carefree glutton shall direct his servants, who
also are no more than the carefree hedonists’ fly chasing and
repelling tail, to chase you away. You obviously shall quickly turn
on your heels, and at a safe distance contemplate the effect of your
gospel on the glutton.
[8] But I know how to give such oxen quite a different
introductory sermon. I let one terrestrial accident after another
overtake them. This fills them with all sorts of troubles and fears,
causing them to think, seek to find out and ask how it is possible
for them to now be beset by all sorts of extremities, since they had
never been unjust to anyone, having always been orderly and
respectable citizens.
[9] This however is only on account of the necessary fermentation.
[10] When such people then undergo a proper fermentation, they
long for friends who could bring them comfort. Go to them then to
preach the Gospel, and they shall hear you and not raise their
furiously swinging tail against you.
[11] And see, for this reason it is good for these guests to undergo
real fermentation this night; this shall make them internally more
spiritual, and your work shall be easy with them tomorrow. Do you
follow this?’
20. A LATE-RISER WILL SOON AGE
SAYS Ahab: ‘O wisdom, o wisdom. See your grasp of the
exalted and true, and how immensely stupid the likes of us.
It is an eternal truth that nothing can arise without a
struggle, yet I was going to hurry over to the Bethlehemites to
start enlightening them. O, centre of stupidity that I am. Do not
the Greek wise men say: Every activity is generated from struggle,
and every effect its outcome. Yet I did not see this. Why do I see
it now?
[2] Indeed, if there is no preceding contention between the inner
life-elements in man, then all external efforts with man are futile.
[3] I am now in the clear about human instruction, and could
almost pronounce a life-fundamental, without straying too far
afield.’ I said: ‘Let it be heard. I intend not to review it within
Myself until you have voiced it.’
[4] Ahab says: ‘What man has not initially acquired himself from
the properties given him at the outset, no God can give him
without ruining him. To God, of course, all things are possible, but
thereby man does not gain anything.
[5] Who does not know himself first, how can he know another
and, finally, even God? That would be my principle. Am I far off
the mark, Lord?’
[6] I said: ‘No, friend Ahab, you have in truth hit the nail firmly on
the head. Thus it is. What man does not acquire for himself
independently with the abilities bestowed on him, God cannot and
may not provide without judging him.
[7] Therefore, all of you should not be just idle hearers of My
Word, but diligent doers, only then will you begin to notice its
blessings within you.
[8] For life is action and not stagnation of the powers on which life
depends. And so life must be preserved even for eternity through
the constant activity of all its powers, for in the lying-down-to-rest
there is no permanent life.
[9] The certain feeling of well-being you gain from rest is nothing
else but a partial death of the powers needed for living. The person
who then increasingly enjoys the inactive rest, especially of the
spiritual life-powers, thereby also slides ever more into the arms of
actual death from which no God will easily free him.
[10] O yes, there does also exist a proper rest full of life, but that is
in God and for everyone an indescribably blissful feeling of
contentment to be active in accordance with God’s will.
[11] This most blissful feeling of contentment and the clearest
realization to have always truly acted according to the order of
God is that proper rest in god which alone is full of life because it
is full of energy and respective action. Every other rest that
consists in the ceasing of the life-powers is, as already mentioned,
an actual death to the point to which the various life-forces have
withdrawn from activity and no longer resumed it. Do you
understand this?’
[12] Says Judas Iscariot: ‘Lord, if so, then man should flee
sleep like the pestilence, for also sleep is a rest of a number of
life-forces, although external ones.’
[13] I said: ‘Certainly. Because of that late-risers will never reach
a particularly great age. Whoever grants his body 5 hours of sleep
in his young days and 6 hours in his old age will usually reach a
great age and look youthful for a long time, whereas a late-riser
soon ages, gets a lined face and gray hair and at a somewhat
advanced age walks around like a shadow.
[14] And just as the body gradually dies off through too much
sleep, in the same way, but on a larger scale this applies to the soul
if it increasingly slackens in its activity according to My Word
and will.
[15] Once idleness has made itself at home in a soul there soon
follows also depravity. For idleness is nothing else but a selfindulging
love which all the more flees any activity for someone
else’s sake because it basically want only one thing, namely that all
others should work for its benefit.
[16] Therefore, beware particularly of idleness, for this is an actual
see for all kinds of vices.
[17] The various beasts of prey may serve you as an example.
Look, these beasts become destructively active only when driven
by burning hunger. Once they have captured their prey and
satisfied their hunger, they again return to their lairs where they
rest often for days, especially snakes.
[18] Now look at a robber or murderer. This man who shuns all
work, who is actually a devil in the flesh, lies often for days in one
of his dens. Only when his pies tell him that a rich caravan is due
to pass his den, he lies in wait together with his accomplices,
ruthlessly attacks and robs the caravan and kills the merchants to
prevent them from betraying him. And that is a fruit of idleness.
[19] Therefore, I say once more: Beware above all of idleness, for
it is the road and the wide door to all imaginable vices.
[20] After the work has been done moderate rest is good for the
limbs of the body, but excessive rest is worse than none.’
21. REST AND ACTIVITY
IF someone has walked a long distance and finally reaches
a shelter he will, if he does not go to bed immediately, but
continues with small movements and on the following day
is on his feet already before sunrise, not feel any tiredness all day,
and the longer he will thus continue his journey the less tired it
will make him.
[2] If, however, someone after a day’s march arrives quite as tired
at a shelter, immediately throws himself on a bed and maybe
leaves it only at noon on the following day, he will be continuing
his journey on completely stiff feet and with a totally drunk head.
After having covered a certain distance, he will from utter
exhaustion long for a rest, and it can even happen that he collapses
on the road and perishes there if no one comes to his aid, which
can easily happen.
[3] And what has caused it? His own too great desire for rest and
the delusion that rest strengthens a person.
[4] If someone wished to achieve a great, amazing accomplishment
in one or the other art where a high degree of skillfulness of hands
and fingers is required, then I ask you: will he achieve it if instead
of constant diligent practice every day he idly strolls around day by
day with his hands in his pockets motivated by a kind of anxious
concern not to tire his hands and fingers to prevent them from
getting stiff and unfit for the striven-for accomplishment?
[5] Truly, even I Myself with all My boundless wisdom could
not make a prophet and determine the time when such a disciple
of art will become a virtuoso. Therefore, My dear friends and
brothers, I repeat:
[6] Only activity upon activity for the common good of people
brings you salvation. For all life is the fruit of God’s constant,
never tiring activity and therefore can only be maintained and
preserved for eternity through proper activity whereas nothing but
death does and must result from inactivity.
[7] Place your hands on your heart and feel how it is constantly
active day and night. The life of the body depends solely on such
activity. Once the heart stops, that would mean the end of the
natural life of the body, I should say.
[8] And just as the rest of the physical heart obviously constitutes
the total death of the body, this same rest of the soul’s heart is the
death of the soul.
[9] The heart of the soul, however, is called love, and its pulsating
expresses itself in true and full love-activity.
[10] Thus constant love-activity is the never wearying pulse-beat
of the soul’s heart. The more actively the heart of the soul pulsates,
the more life is generated in the soul and once thereby a
sufficiently high degree of life, this awakens therein the life of the
divine spirit.
[11] This spirit – being pure life because it is the untiring supreme
activity itself – then flows into the soul that has become equal to it
through love activity, and everlasting imperishable life has fully
begun within the soul.
[12] And look, all this arises from activity, but never from idle
rest.
[13] Therefore, shun rest and seek full activity, and eternal life will
be your reward.
[14] Do not imagine that I have come to bring peace to mankind
on this Earth. O no, only the sword and war instead.
[15] For, men must be impelled to all kinds of activity through
distress and hardships or they would become lazy, fatted oxen that
fatten themselves for eternal death.
[16] Distress and hardship bring about fermentation upon
fermentation in man from which in the end something spiritual
could develop.
[17] One could, of course, say: “Through distress and hardship
also anger, vengeance, murder and manslaughter arise, also envy,
hardheartedness and persecution.” That is indeed true, but bad as
all that is, the result is nevertheless better than from idle rest which
is dead and brings neither good nor bad results.
[18] Therefore I tell you: let a person be really warm or completely
cold where I am concerned, but a lukewarm one I will spit out
from My mouth.
[19] I prefer an energetic enemy to a lukewarm friend, for the
energetic enemy will challenge Me to full activity, so that I
may either win him over or make provision to prevent him
from harming Me. Beside a lukewarm friend, however, I
become lukewarm Myself and if I should get into difficulties, will
the lukewarm friend be of any use to Me?
[20] Therefore, also a lukewarm ruler is a pest for his people, for
then the nation’s spirit decays and the people all turn into
voracious oxen and beasts of burden. But a severe and even
tyrannical ruler causes the people to be alive and there is activity
everywhere so as not to incur punishment. And if a tyrant goes too
far the people will rise in great numbers and rid themselves of their
tormentor.
[21] I think I have now said enough about the value of activity and
am convinced that all of you have understood this lesson.
Therefore, if someone wants it and feels a need for a sleeping rest
for his body, let him seek a bed, but who wants to sit up with Me
through the night, let him remain here.’ There they all said: ‘Lord,
how could we sleep when You are sitting up? Only the mother
Mary seems to need a rest for her body, and so You could send her
to bed.’
[22] But Mary, although she had dozed a little in an armchair
behind Me, heard these words, sat up and said with great
friendliness to the speaker: ‘Friend, you who usually speak for
your fellow-disciples, I tell you that your concern for me is rather
futile. For, see, for the sake of my Lord I have sat up for probably
hundreds of sleepless nights and am still alive – and if it is His will
I will again go through as many sleepless nights and not lose my
55
life. Therefore, do not concern yourselves about me all of you, it is
sufficient that One looks after me.’
[23] These words had been addressed to Thomas and he came to
Mary and asked her not to regard his good intention unkindly.
But Mary comforted him and was very kind about his concern for
her, and Thomas felt easier in his mind and soon, quite relieved,
resumed his seat.
[24] For a while there was now silence. No one spoke, for they all
pondered on what had been said and found the truth of it shining
ever brighter.
[25] Only Matthew said after a while to himself: ‘Tomorrow at
daybreak this teaching about activity and rest will be recorded as
best as possible on a special tablet, for this so extremely important
lesson must on no account be lost to the world.’ And when soon it
began to dawn, Matthew kept his word, and this lesson was
preserved for a long time and through Jonael and Jairuth reached
also Samaria, but in the course of time was considerably distorted
and, therefore, also got lost. But while it was still around the
people knew it under the name of “the night-sermon.”
