The daughter says: ‘Yes, yes, now I remember completely clearly again that I was very ill; but in the illness a sweetest sleep came over my eyelids. I fell asleep and had a wonderfully glorious dream. Wherever I turned, there was light and nothing but light! And in the light a wonderfully glorious world took shape; indescribably glorious gardens became visible, bathed in the brightest light, and one glory after another arose. But no living being seemed to inhabit these glories; and as I contemplated these great glories in wonder and still no living being would ever appear, I began to grow more and more anxious amid all the indescribable glories. I began to weep and call; but from no direction would even a faintest echo give me any semblance of an answer! Then I grew sadder and sadder amid the ever increasing glories.
‘As I sank down in this sadness of mine and began to call urgently for you, my father, look, this friend suddenly came out of the gardens, took my hand and said: “Rise, My daughter!” Then all the glories that have made me sad suddenly disappeared, and I awoke as this friend still held me by the hand. At first I could not immediately recall everything I had seen; but when full awareness was given back to me as though purely from the heavens, I remembered again everything I had seen and experienced in the dream, just as I have now told you.
‘But now it seems exceedingly remarkable to me that, judging from this bed, I was truly dead to this world, and yet have gone on living in the dream! And it is still more remarkable that this most glorious friend, who came to me in the dream, is now here exactly as I saw him in the dream!
‘But now I ask you, my dear father, whether this life of mine that he has given me anew does not belong to him? My heart is most deeply moved, and it seems to me that I could never give my love to any man besides him!? May I love him above everything?! More than you, my father, and more than everything in the world?!’
Cornelius grows embarrassed at this question and does not know what he should say in reply?! But I say to him: ‘Let the daughter feel as she feels now; for that alone will first give her all fullness of life!’
Cornelius says: ‘If so? Then by all means love this friend above everything. Whoever could give you, who were dead, life out of His strength and power can surely never harm you; for if you died again, He would certainly give you life again?! So you may indeed love Him above everything, as I too love Him with all my strength.’
I say: ‘Whoever loves Me also loves the One who is in Me, and this One is eternal life! Even if he died a thousand times in love for Me, he will nevertheless live in eternity.’ Many who hear this say to themselves: ‘How, what is this? Can a human being say this too? But can a human being also do what he does?!’
A Roman who was staying as a guest with Cornelius at this time says: ‘Friends! A wise man said: there is no great man whom the gods have not filled with their breath; but if ever a man might have been most strongly breathed upon by the gods, it is precisely this Jesus, who in earthly terms seems to be of very lowly birth. But the gods do not love the splendor of the earth; rather, whenever they set foot on earth, they always conceal themselves in the lowliest outward appearance possible and let mortals perceive who and what they are through their deeds alone! And that must also be the case with this otherwise most unassuming man? You may certainly think and suppose what you wish; but I regard Him as a god of the first rank! For no mortal raises a dead person again!
‘But even if some son of Aesculapius revives an apparently dead person by means of all kinds of balsams, oils and ointments, someone thus revived is nevertheless not as fresh and healthy as Cornelia here, who now seems fresher to me than she ever was. That is what I think, and I am entirely convinced within myself that it is so! But you may think as you wish!’
I say: ‘Whoever is right also believes that it is right thus; but I tell you and ask of you only the friendship that all of you who have heard and seen this remain silent about it for the present and say nothing of it to anyone; for you know well how evil the world is?’ They promised Me that they will keep all this strictly to themselves.
They did remain silent for the few days I stayed with My disciples in the colonel’s house. (Matt. 9:26) But when I went away from there, this event soon became known throughout Galilee, which I could certainly have prevented had I fettered the freedom of the human will, something that would have been most easy for Me. But because I must respect the human being’s free will, without which the human being would become an animal, I of course had to tolerate what was not in order and brought no benefit to the cause.