Chapter 18 — The Mystery of the Boy Jesus’ Omniscience

DTT.01_018,01 The boy Jesus said, “It is now exactly two years since you were going about in Damascus, is it not? At the time about twenty-seven magicians arrived from India. They made great announcements that on the third day after the new moon they would perform the most extraordinary wonders in the great grove outside the city.

DTT.01_018,02 “Among their many announcements was this: ‘Five of the chief magicians will use only their little fingers, without exerting any physical force, to pull out a stake weighing over 1,000 pounds and buried more than seven feet deep, over half its length. They will make it float freely in the air for several moments. They will do the same with a rock weighing over 10,000 pounds, a load that 300 of the strongest men could not move a hair’s breadth with their bare hands. Finally a dead camel will be restored fully to life for a few moments, and even a statue will be brought to life for several moments.’

DTT.01_018,03 “On the appointed day almost all Damascus came to the great grove to marvel at the announced wonders. You were among the first to get close to the magicians. You saw everything very well and were astonished beyond measure.

DTT.01_018,04 “You were already fairly familiar with many of the earlier feats. But when the last ones were performed with the most astonishing precision, you opened your mouth and eyes wide, clasped your hands above your head and cried out, ‘This is unheard of! It has never happened before! These cannot be human beings. They can only be gods and ought to be worshipped!’

DTT.01_018,05 “You made that exclamation chiefly for the sake of the many highly esteemed Gentiles who were well represented at the performance. But secretly you thought of Beelzebub all the same, and it made you feel very uneasy.

DTT.01_018,06 “Now you also say that My wonders make you very uneasy. What difference, then, do you find between My wonders and those you saw in Damascus two years ago?”

DTT.01_018,07 Barnabe was very embarrassed and only after a while said, “Tell me, dear, incomprehensible boy, how could you possibly know this? You were not in that city at the time, and to my certain knowledge no one from your part of the country was there either. Apart from a few colleagues in the Temple, I have told no one about that strange display. How did you learn the closely kept secret of what I witnessed?”

DTT.01_018,08 I said, “Set your mind at rest about that. I know what lies behind everything, but I never put obstacles in anyone’s way on that account. Everyone is and remains free to act according to the law or against it. The consequences depend not on the power of My will but on the order and sanctity of the laws given both in nature and in the moral dealings of people with one another.

DTT.01_018,09 “How and from where I know all this is a secret too. Only in some twenty years will light be given to the world on this, as on My other wonders. If you believed that the spirit of the Messiah dwells in Me in its fullness, you would soon understand how I came to possess such unprecedented abilities and where they come from. If you cannot accept and believe that, you must wait for the time I have just named. Then you will understand it, but you will never be able to do as I do!”