The high priest, who had listened to this speech with great attention, says, ‘Now all is well and good, and in my estimation I understand pretty much everything. But there is still one thing I must point out to you: the Master actually spoke only of tearing out the right eye and chopping off the right hand. In my zeal to investigate, I then swept the feet in along with everything else, and look, you have now explained chopping off the feet to me just as you explained the eye and the hand, of which alone, to my knowledge, the Lord spoke. But you said that correspondence exists only in the word of the Lord, who speaks to the human spirit. How, then, did you also find correspondence in my addition?’
Nathanael says, ‘You are mistaken! The Lord also spoke of the right foot; He merely gave the scribes a sign to leave out the part about the foot. For those who have once turned their inner sight toward heaven and put their will of love—which in correspondence is understood by the left arm, as the hand of the heart—into action according to God’s will, after having removed from themselves the right arm or right hand, by which the purely worldly impulse to act is understood, no longer need expressly to remove the right foot as well. For once the eye is in the right light and the hand, or rather the will, is in right action, progress into the regions of eternal life is already there of itself; or the right foot, which signifies progress in the world, has already come away of itself, and no special effort is needed anymore.
‘But you Samaritans could appropriately begin with the foot, for although your sight is now turned toward the divine and your hands perform a right deed, your foot, or your craving for progress, is nevertheless directed entirely out into the world! For you expect something quite different from the Messiah than what, according to the prediction of all the prophets, you should expect from Him. And spiritually understood, that is your right foot, which you are to chop off in order to take the right path to God’s kingdom. That is why the Lord spoke to you of the right foot solely for your sake, but did not have this written down, because the later followers of the Lord’s teaching will surely know where and in what the Messiah’s kingdom consists, and what one must do to enter it. Do you now have any further objection?’
The high priest says, ‘Now everything is clear to me, as far as it can be clear to me at all. But despite all my present understanding, I must add that your teaching, in the form in which it is given, is a harsh teaching, difficult to understand, and you will find that very many will take offense at it!
‘I do not wish to be a prophet of ill for you, but I nevertheless tell you this: among the high-flown Jews you will not achieve with it what you have achieved among us despite our manifold stupidity. We now believe, even if still as in a dream, but the great Jews will not believe you in this way! They will demand signs and in the end even persecute you because of the signs. But we demanded no signs from you, yet you performed them voluntarily.
‘But we now believe you not because of the signs, which human beings too can perform in part, but purely because of the teaching, since you have explained it to us. You should therefore remain with us as well, for among the exalted Jews and Greeks you will do poor business.’