NEUOFFENBARUNGDeutscher Text · Volume contents
The couple and the lying spirit
[1] You should not be surprised if your eyes would this time be challenged somewhat, for we are going towards the north and to where it becomes increasingly darker. Yet, for ourselves, we will have sufficient light that nothing will escape us.
[2] Do you not yet hear something in the distance? You say: We indeed hear something, but it is much different to a human voice; it rather sounds like the rattling of wagons in the distance. It also sounds like the thunderous noise of a great, distant waterfall. You ask what it means. Let us follow our couple, then we will soon get there.
[3] Can you not yet discern something vaguely reddish, a glow as of a softly glowing iron? Look in this direction, for there is awaiting us an important scene.
[4] Listen, it is coming closer and the peculiar noisy rattling is changing more into natural, raw, human voices. But we will stand still, for the multitude is moving right up to here as you see, also they, our mutually very loving leaders, came to standstill.
[5] Look how fearful he is for what is coming and retreats in his great anxiety and fear. She grabs him by the arm, though, and pleads him with all that is dear, to only listen to and stay with her this one more time, for this is exactly the fortune she has predicted which he needs to get acquainted with, to convince himself whether she is right or wrong.
[6] He asks her what is approaching them that seems so horrible. She says to him: What it is, what it is?! Purely deep thinking people whom you would soon clearly see with your own eyes and clearly hear with your own ears.
[7] And now look, he is content with this and waits upon the approaching, deep thinking group. See, the great company is almost there. Our couple approaches them out of decency. We should do the same also, even if it is not out of decency, but with another purpose.
[8] Look, they now meet and greet each other with the greatest possible courteousness. We will also go closer not to miss anything.
[9] You will see that from the middle of the group is coming to a knobby and emaciated manly figure and comes closer to our couple. The woman receives him exceptionally lovingly and benevolently. Also, the man of the woman bows deeply before this manly figure.
[10] The manly figure says: Highly esteemed lady, it pleases me greatly that the special fortune has befallen me to again call you one of us, for with your mind and your exceptionally amiable demeanor, you are greatly honoring our company and indeed gives us the most beautiful ornament. Well, my dear lady, would you have anything on your tender heart, it would be the greatest bliss if you would entrust such a sweet wish of your heart to me.
[11] She says: My highly appreciated and above all very much honored friend, you see, this man here to my side, is my tenderly beloved earthly spouse. He has acted in every way upon earth exceptionally just, good and profitable, that I can say in all earnest that our marriage truly was very happy. For what can a woman ask more in her marriage, than to have a husband which fulfills all the desires of the female heart? In this regard, I would, with exception of a few trifle things, have no objection.
[12] But now comes an important issue about which we never could reach consent and because of which there often was discord between the two of us. I will explain to you the reason for this discord as well as a woman can, and you, honored friend, would certainly be so good to whisper a few words to my husband which would completely heal him.
[13] The figure says: I implore you, my very much esteemed lady, you are much too good! I give you the assurance that it would be a great honor and bliss if I could say to myself that I could have served such a loving lady with my little person. Therefore, I ask you to entrust the issue which you bear on your heart to me. She says: Oh, my very much appreciated friend, you are much too good and too modest and exactly this is what inspires so much trust in me, that I will hold nothing back; be thus so good to me to listen to me.
[14] See, regarding this fatal issue I can candidly say that my otherwise good and loveable man is a Bible and thus also a Christ-fanatic. The reason though, why he had thrown himself into the arms of this laughable sect, is because he grew up poor. Therefore, he was ingrained from the crib, as it usually is the case with the poor classes, this old beggar's philosophy. But how difficult it becomes over time to get this nonsense, which was nursed in with mother's milk and thus became his own flesh out, you most honored friend, would know even more than I. With this beggar's philosophy have my yet much-appreciated husband also ended up here in this kingdom where the primordial powers of nature rules, as you already have explained to us most kindly. But it does not get through to him! He still is attached to his Christ and even wants to part himself from me to search for this probably nowhere-to-be-found Christ. Now my learned and much-honored friend, I have briefly presented my problem and I, therefore, ask you if you would have mercy on my, in this respect poor, man of mine.
[15] The figure says: Oh, if it is nothing else, we will here, in the kingdom of the naked truth, find each other quickly and easily. Now the figure turns to the husband, offers him the hand and say: Best friend, is this what your lovely spouse has just bemoaned before me, truly your earnest?
[16] The man says: Esteemed friend, I must honestly admit that I truly do not believe that we will, however beloved and dear my spouse is to me, can find consensus on this subject. For no matter how things will fare, I am solidly resolute to cling to my faith in Christ forever! I am also absolutely convinced that this Name has often given me much consolation and still is my infallible, happy and leading star. Have I ever gone onto a wrong track, it was solely because I did not hold on to Christ with steadfastness. When I then again turned myself toward Christ, I was often helped again as if magic!
[17] You as a thinking and wise man will, therefore, see for yourself that it would be very unreasonable of me to remove myself far from such a benefactor, especially now that I need Him the most, as it appears to me. Therefore, esteemed friend, do not exert any effort for my sake, for I assure you openly that you will achieve nothing with me. I've been long enough the foolish slave of the charm of my wife. After her death, I learned in Christ my Master to endure it and I hope that it will not influence me here, especially because the marriage with my former wife was severed because of the death of her body. Should she follow me, then she will always stay valuable and beloved. But I will never give up Christ for her sake, even if they would drag me with a mighty force into the middle of some of the other hell! If she is content with this that I can be with her unhindered with my Christ, then I do not want to sever the old ties of love with her, but if it is not, then I have just spoken my last words in her presence.
[18] The figure says to the man. Best friend, I have listened patiently to you from beginning to end and I can only say with all earnest about your words, that I deplore it sorely. For you to know with whom you are dealing (here the figure is taking refuge in a lie), I tell you that I am the great teacher Melanchton, about whom you certainly must have heard about on earth! The man says: Oh yes, but what do you want to say with that? The figure says: Esteemed friend, nothing but that I would know better what Christ is than would you, for I have worked till the last hour of my existence with exceptional zeal in the so-called Christian vineyard and I would certainly even have died, if necessary, for the sake of the Christ. I have not only purified the Roman, but also the more pure teaching of Luther of all vestigial burdens; I lived literally according to the word of this teaching and what was the result? This I do not need, esteemed friend, to explain to you in words, for one glance at my whole being would show you the result of my life according to the so-called purest, abbreviated content of Christianity. I do not need to tell you more. Let it then be according to the old “experyetia docet” [no substitute for experience], then I am convinced of it that we will, if everything shall go well, meet one another again after one hundred years exactly like we are now standing over against each other. You, my friend, is still a completely new arrival here and do not know how one lives in the kingdom of the central primordial powers. When you would have been chased around and hungered by this eternal night for decades, then would more solid and practical insights certainly bereave you of all worldly folly and find more room in you than now.
[19] The man says to the figure: Most esteemed friend, if you are in possession of so much well- founded knowledge on this terrain, let me hear it. I am not averted to listening to you, but will nevertheless stay with my conviction if you could not convince me completely.
[20] The figure says: Good, my friend, first I want to draw your attention to the fruit of Christianity on earth. The Romans were a great people as long as they remained in their Godly logical teaching. All their work was great and full of wise meaning. Their principles of justice still are the basis of all state and national judicial laws. But when Christianity sneaked in, death sneaked in together with it into the great Roman people. Now, in the place where once lived the greatest and most heroic nation, lazy, indolent priests, a lot of miserable rabble and a great number of thieves and robbers lay watching along the roads with rosaries in the hand, where no pedestrian has an assurance of his life anymore. See, this is the fruit out of the garden of Christianity! Take a journey through beautiful Spain and look at this nation out of old and then look at it again in the Christian middle ages; it would not escape your eye how, through pure Christian blessing, thousands upon thousands have bled and yet more thousands upon thousands have burnt to ashes upon flaming stakes, breathed their last breath in doubt! Look at the touching import of Christianity under Carl the Great, how he had by this blessing, chased thousand and again thousands by the cutting edge of the sword! Journey from there to America; look up their history and you will see countless, most pitiable and sorrowful examples of the Christian blessings which happened there! Go from there to my time and look at the blessed atrocities of the thirty-year border war. You can scrutinize the ancient history of all peoples and you will be able to show me similar gruesome scenes, then I oblige myself to carry you in my arms forever.
[21] I do not want to focus your attention on the multifarious blessings of Christianity of other times but would only like to let you see the conditions of other current peoples who do not yet know Christianity, like the almost eternally peaceful Chinese and other significant nations in Asia and on the not yet discovered islands. You indeed must be completely blind if you could not yet, at first glance, see the difference between Christianity and the true wisdom of the older, more experienced people. Yet I tell you, that all these great, harmful deficiencies of Christianity or even more of the new Jewry could be made good if one would say: these historical facts are indeed all true, but Christ have never taught them that and therefore He could impossibly be blamed for all the horror which the spreading of His teaching has brought with it, for His teaching was, in fact, pure and especially humane. Best friend, this is seemingly very plausible and because of that was I also during my whole life upon earth a zealous defender of Christianity. Only here, in this teaching, have I seen the true poison for the nations in it and this is the clear reference to laziness and indolence. Man, having an inborn inclination towards laziness, finds in this teaching the best defense for this inclination, for it is clearly taught to him to do nothing other than to search after a certain spiritual kingdom, where the roasted birds would fly into his opened mouth. You see, various sages do not need much time to become convinced that nothing would come of these roasted birds. They, therefore, reach out to other means, namely, the trusty old sword, leave the Christianized people in their blindness and then serve him roasted birds with the sword in the hand. Friend, think about it as you like, you will, regarding Christianity, impossibly reach another conclusion, despite all other higher, spiritual experiences one gains here in a purified condition as in my case after the passing of many centuries. Worthy friend, I am done now and you can do what you want. Be still assured of my high esteem and my friendship; it will be my pleasure if we would meet again after a few centuries. Look, the others depart and move on with the whole company and our couple is left behind alone. The effect of this 'neat speech' and the exceptionally humane instruction, we will experience next time. Thus, enough for today.