Matthew the Evangelist and John step up to Me, look at Me and say to Me: ‘Lord! But surely this deed should be recorded, for it is too extraordinary and too purely divine!?’
I say: ‘Did I not accomplish the same in Sychar; did I not only a few days ago supply My house in this way, just as I did the house of My disciple Matthew? You wanted to record all this too, and I did not allow it, because I have My most cogent reason for it; why should the deed, entirely the same as the earlier ones, suddenly be recorded now?! Let it be; I alone know best what the world needs, and shall therefore tell you what and when you should again record something of a new deed (Matt. 10:1)! And your turn, My brother John, will not come for a long time yet.
‘But now I wish to choose some from among you, My dear disciples (Matt. 10:2, 3, 4), some of whom I shall send into the cities of Israel even now, to preach to the peoples about the kingdom of God. Simon Peter, you are the first; you, Andrew, Simon’s brother, are the second; James, son of Zebedee, you are the third, and you, John, his brother, the fourth; Philip, you are the fifth; you, Bartholomew, the sixth; you, Thomas, the seventh; and you, Matthew the toll collector, are the eighth; you, James, Alphaeus’s son, are the ninth; and you, Lebbaeus, who are also called Thaddaeus, are the tenth; you, Simon of Cana, are the eleventh; and you, Judas Iscariot, are the twelfth.
‘I give you twelve the power to drive impure spirits out of people and to heal all kinds of plagues and other diseases. Everywhere you should proclaim the kingdom of God; but about certain particular deeds you should remain silent.’ (Matt. 10:5)
After this choosing, the twelve chosen disciples asked Me where they should immediately turn?’
(After this question I gave them the following lengthy answer, which the twelve chosen ones did not find very palatable, and only after My ascension did they make full use of this summons.
But the summons was also given so that it referred mainly to the time after My ascension, for only then did what I made known to the twelve happen to them—or rather, to all those spreading My teaching at that time.
But before I proceed to the lengthy command to the twelve, for a more exact understanding of the whole I must mention that the Gospels, Matthew’s as well as John’s, as they now lie before you in the various tongues, are only extracts from the primordial Gospel, and therefore do not by any means contain even everything Matthew and John wrote down. Here and there, however, a small addition by the later compiler and copyist appears, which plainly could only have been introduced later, as for example here in Matthew, chapter 10, verse 4, where an appended clause stands beside the twelfth apostle, Judas Iscariot, reading thus: ‘who afterwards betrayed Him.’ But at the time of the choosing, Matthew, who wrote his Gospel in My presence, knew not a syllable of this yet, and therefore could not have added such a clause. A copyist did that afterwards, at a later time.
Therefore, in both Hebrew and Greek Bibles, the following notice always stands at the beginning: ‘Gospel according to Matthew, John, and so on.’
So no one should take offense if, when reading Matthew and John, he comes here and there upon similar passages that the actual Evangelist could not record at the time he wrote the Gospel, because the event indicated by them happened only much later. Here, however, everything is reproduced in the strictest order; and so that, in time, the brooding reasoners should make no skewed remarks, I have mentioned this circumstance here in the most fitting place.
But, as before, explanatory insertions will also occur here and there in the course of this communication, which is all the more necessary because, through the copies, some important things were either not recorded entirely correctly, while some things appearing too little authentic to the copyist were perhaps also omitted altogether. For at that time a multitude of records were made, partly by eyewitnesses, partly merely from hearsay, and because of this it was a decidedly difficult matter for entirely honest copyists to remain wholly faithful everywhere to the full truth.
And so the two Gospels according to Matthew and of John are, apart from individual small matters, the purest.
From the standpoint of critical reasoning one might well ask here and say: where, then, has the actual original gone? Is it no longer available anywhere on earth? And with the multitude of people then enlivened and permeated by the Holy Spirit, should it have been impossible for God to bring the primordial Gospel to light again entirely word for word?!
Let this serve as the answer: the originals were most wisely removed for the exceedingly simple reason that idolatry should not be practiced with such relics in a short time. Such things do still happen now even with false and fabricated relics, although all such practices are strictly forbidden by My true and pure teaching, with the earnest warning against the leaven of the Pharisees. Now just take a relic historically proved to be genuine! I tell you, far more idolatry would be practiced with it than with the so-called Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem, to which, apart from the location, not a single genuine grain of sand still adheres. Therein, then, lies the palpable reason why all the originals have been removed.
But as to the second question, the Spirit that lay in the originals has also been retained completely in the copies; the letter is of no importance anyway, but only one and the same Spirit. Or is there perhaps a difference in the Spirit of God—that is, necessarily in Him Himself, since there is only one Spirit of God—when as one and the same Spirit He already works here on this earth in endlessly manifold ways into the most dissimilar forms, and in still more endlessly manifold ways upon a sun?! Look, it is and nevertheless always remains one and the same Holy Spirit.
It is the same with the copies of My word: however dissimilar they may look outwardly, in their innermost being they are nevertheless filled with one and the same Spirit, and nothing more is needed!
For good measure, take also the religions of foreign nations, for example the Turks, Parsees, Gebers, Hindus, Chinese and Japanese! How very different they are from the religion that I gave only to the children from the heavens of all heavens! And yet the same Spirit of God also governs in them, though much more deeply hidden;
but that all kinds of filth and all kinds of worms and insects, which grow solely out of the bark, are found on and in the often very thick and very weathered bark, which many unfortunately take for the tree itself—the bark too has something of the tree’s life within it, and it is therefore understandable how in it and from it so many worms and all kinds of insects find nourishment for life, though of course only of a most external and transient kind.
Wars, persecutions and devastations are carried on only upon the lean bark, poor in life, while the wood of the living tree remains fresh and healthy. Therefore let no living wood concern itself with what goes on in the bark, which is really only dead after all; for the bark will be discarded when the wood is gathered!
This intervening explanation was necessary so that what follows could be understood more easily and thoroughly; and since no doubt can prevail about it for the present, we can now return to the main matter in quite good spirits.)