NEUOFFENBARUNGDeutscher Text · Book contents
29 December 1843, evening
[Ste.01_006,01] Here again you may freely choose a passage. Choose, then, and we shall see whether it too serves as a central sun for the matter before us.
[Ste.01_006,02] ‘And when they saw Him, they worshipped Him, but some doubted.’
[Ste.01_006,03] You chose this passage and have once again hit the nail on the head. Truly, this passage might be regarded as one of the chief central suns!
[Ste.01_006,04] ‘When they saw Him, they worshipped Him.’ Whom did they see, with what did they see Him, and how did they worship Him?
[Ste.01_006,05] They saw Me, the Lord. With what? With their eyes. And how did they worship Me? With their mouths. Why, then, did they worship Me? Because from the miracle they knew who I am. They knew that I am the Lord. How did they know? They knew through My teaching and through My deeds and through the miracle of My resurrection.
[Ste.01_006,06] Now we shall see whether you do likewise!
[Ste.01_006,07] You do not see Me with your eyes, yet you see Me all the more with your ears and with the eyes of the soul, which are your sound understanding. Seeing with the eyes is the least of it, since the images that fall upon them are very fleeting and do not endure. The old saying is right: ‘Out of sight, out of mind!’
[Ste.01_006,08] But what you perceive with your ears lasts longer. At any time you can repeat a word you heard as faithfully as you heard it. But try the same with an object you have seen. Even a very skilful sculptor or painter will not readily succeed in reproducing an object as faithfully as he saw it.
[Ste.01_006,09] But objects, images and concepts the ear has received remain fixed, and with great fidelity. Because of this fidelity you can speak, and in different tongues too. You can faithfully reproduce what you once heard or read, and even what you saw, just as you heard, read or saw it, without the slightest blurring of the impression even after a considerable time. By the light of your eyes, however, you cannot even copy a picture lying before you as faithfully as you see it.
[Ste.01_006,10] It follows clearly that seeing with the ear stands incomparably higher than seeing with the eye. To hear the sound of a word intelligibly likewise stands much higher than to behold the outward form of an image.
[Ste.01_006,11] A blind person may very well become wise, but a person who cannot speak will not easily reach that point, for inability to speak is the usual consequence of deafness. And yet those who cannot speak usually have a much sharper eye than those who hear and therefore can speak.
[Ste.01_006,12] It follows again that seeing with the ear stands far higher than seeing with the eye. Seeing with the eye may delight and surprise someone, especially when objects of great rarity appear. But the ear alone takes in the teaching.
[Ste.01_006,13] From this it follows once more that it is better to hear than to see. What enters through hearing enlightens and orders the understanding. What enters through the eye often throws it into great confusion.
[Ste.01_006,14] Suppose, for example, women were only to hear from afar about a new fashion in dress and never see anything of it. Their minds would remain in order, and a woman would hardly hang a new foolish fashion on her body. But when she sees pictures of it too, these confuse her good, simple mind and very soon turn her into a vain, foolish dress-up doll who vexes Me more than ten thousand inmates of a madhouse.
[Ste.01_006,15] This again shows how much better hearing is than seeing in every respect.
[Ste.01_006,16] So you too see Me daily, through the ear of your body when you read My Word and through the ear of your soul, which is your better understanding. Because you see Me thus as I rise again among you too, you know Me well and worship Me with your understanding and then with your mouths.
[Ste.01_006,17] But now I ask: was what those who saw and worshipped Me after the resurrection did already enough for them thereby to receive eternal life?
[Ste.01_006,18] The three questions Peter received from Me about whether he loved Me show more than sufficiently that merely seeing and worshipping afterwards does not suffice to enter My kingdom and with it eternal life, just as it does not suffice merely to say, ‘Lord, Lord!’
[Ste.01_006,19] In just this way you too behold Me when you read My Word and worship Me through the understanding and attention with which you read it. So you too can say, ‘We see You and worship You!’
[Ste.01_006,20] But I appear once more and ask you Peters, more often even than three times, ‘Do you love Me?’ Your mouths say, ‘Yes!’ Yet when I look very closely into your heart, I often see it like a dreary autumn day, shrouded in all sorts of filthy worldly mists. For all the mist, I cannot see whether that Yes truly stands written in glowing letters in the ground of your hearts. It may indeed be written there. But why all the mists that often darken the heart so much that this living inscription of love for Me can hardly be made out?
[Ste.01_006,21] Away with these mists, then! Away with mere beholding and worship, so that this inscription, which is a work of acting according to the Word, becomes wholly and visibly alive. Then in the ever brighter light of this hallowed, living inscription in your heart, I Myself will become visible at last!
[Ste.01_006,22] What use is so much reading and understanding, then, if the deed never comes? What use is it to see and worship if you still have to be asked continually, ‘Peter, do you love Me?’
[Ste.01_006,23] Magdalene saw Me too, but I did not ask her, ‘Magdalene, do you love Me?’ I had to hold her back for sheer love, for at the first sight of Me her love awoke all too mightily. ‘Do not touch Me!’ I had to say to her whose heart blazed up in the brightest flames at first sight.
[Ste.01_006,24] But to Thomas I had to say, ‘Put your hands into My wounds!’ And I had to ask Peter whether he loved Me. ‘Do not touch Me!’ would not have been fitting there. Neither in Peter, and still less in Thomas, did a heart like Magdalene's beat towards Me.
[Ste.01_006,25] So I need not say to you either, ‘Do not touch Me!’ Rather I say even more to you than to a Thomas: ‘As it were, put your hands not only into My wounds, but put your eyes, ears, hands and feet into all My creation, into all My heavens and into all the wonders of eternal life that I have unveiled to you. Then believe that it is I who give you these things! And I ask nothing of you for it except that you love Me!’
[Ste.01_006,26] But I still see Peter on the shore of the sea within you, continually letting himself be asked, ‘Peter, do you love Me?’ You are Peters in your faith, but as yet by no means Magdalenes or Johns. I did not ask John whether he loved Me either. I knew very well why he followed Me, even though I did not say to him as I said to Peter, ‘Follow Me!’
[Ste.01_006,27] Peter followed Me because I told him to follow Me. John followed Me because his heart impelled him to do so. Which is better here?
[Ste.01_006,28] Peter grew jealous of John, since he thought him less than himself. But I defended John and at the same moment assured him that he might remain. That is more than ‘Follow Me!’ The person to whom I say, ‘Remain as you are!’ is better off than the one I command to follow Me.
[Ste.01_006,29] So too true, active love is better than believing, beholding and worshipping, and better than reading much of Me and understanding much while loving little!
[Ste.01_006,30] I think this too will be clear. Even so, more central suns will follow!