« I was rich and powerful. If God had not decided to preserve me for a purpose of His, I would have surrendered myself to despair and perished when I was persecuted and a leper. I would have acted harshly against myself… Instead a new wealth, which I had never possessed before, descended upon my desolation: the wealth of a conviction: “God exists”. First… God… Yes, I believed, I was a faithful Israelite. But mine was a faith of formalism. And I thought that the reward of my faith was always inferior to my virtue. I took the liberty of debating with God because I felt that I was still something on the earth. Simon Peter is right. I, too, was building a tower of Babel[1] by praising myself and satisfying my ego. When everything collapsed around me and I was like a worm crushed by the weight of all this human futility, then I no longer debated with God, but with myself, with my stupid self and I ended up by demolishing it. And as I did so, by making room for what I think is the God immanent in our earthly beings, I gained a new strength and wealth: the certainty that I was not alone and that God was watching over man defeated by men and by evil.»
«According to you, what is God, “the God immanent in our earthly beings” as you said? What do you mean? I do not understand you and I think it is a heresy. God is the One we know through the Law and the Prophets. There is no other God» says rather sternly Judas of Kerioth.
«If John was here he would tell you better than I can. But I will tell you as best I can. God is the One we know through the Law and the Prophets. That is true. But in what do we know Him? And how?»
Judas of Alphaeus exclaims: «Little and badly. The Prophets, who described Him for us, knew Him. The idea we have is a muddled one, as we can just see through a mound of explanations piled up by sects…»
«Sects? What do you mean? We have no sects. We are the children of the Law. We all are» the angry aggressive Iscariot says.
«The children of the laws. Not of the Law. There is a slight difference. Plural, not singular. In actual fact, we are the children of what we created, no longer of what God gave us» retorts Thaddeus.
«The laws derive from the Law» says the Iscariot.
«Also diseases originate in our bodies, but that does not mean that they are good» replies Thaddeus.
«But let me hear what this immanent God of Simon Zealot is.» The Iscariot, who cannot argue against the remark of Judas of Alphaeus, endeavours to take the discussion back to where it started.
180.3
Simon Zealot says: «Our senses need a term to catch an idea. Each of us, I am referring to us believers, believes, by the virtue of faith, in the Most High Lord and Creator, Eternal God, Who is in Heaven. But every being needs more than such bare, pure, incorporeal faith, which is fit and sufficient for the angels who see and love God spiritually, as they share with Him a spiritual nature and can see God. We have to create a “picture” of God for ourselves, which picture is made with the essential features that we ascribe to God, to give a name to His infinite absolute perfection. The more a soul concentrates, the more it succeeds in achieving an exact knowledge of God. That is what I say: the immanent God. I am not a philosopher. Perhaps I have applied the word wrongly. In short, I think that the immanent God is to feel, to perceive God in our spirits, to feel and perceive Him no longer as an abstract idea, but as a real presence, bestowing strength and a new peace upon us.»
«All right. But, to sum up, how did you feel Him? What is the difference between feeling by faith and feeling by immanence?» asks the Iscariot somewhat ironically.
«God is safety, boy. When you perceive Him, as Simon says, by means of that word, which I do not understand literally, but I understand its spirit — and believe me, the trouble is that we understand only literally and we do not understand the spirit of God’s words — it means that you are able to grasp the idea of the terrible majesty, but also of the most sweet paternity of God. It means that, should all the world judge and condemn you unjustly, you would feel that One only, He, the Eternal One, Who is your Father, does not judge you, but absolves and comforts you. It means that if all the world should hate you, you would feel over you a love greater than any this world can offer. It means that if you were isolated in jail or in a desert you would always hear One speak to you and say: “Be holy, that you may be like your Father”. It means that for the true love for this Father and God, Whom at last you perceive as such, you accept, work, take and leave without any human consideration, as you are concerned only to return love for love and to copy God as much as possible in your actions» says Peter.
«You are proud! To copy God! You are not entitled to» declares the Iscariot.
«It is not pride. Love leads to obedience. To copy God seems to me a form of obedience because God said that He made us in His own image and likeness» replies Peter.
«He made us. We must not go higher up.»
«You are a poor wretch, my boy, if that is what you think! You are forgetting that we fell and that God wants to take us back to what we were.»
180.4
Jesus begins to speak: «Even more, Peter, Judas and you all. Even more than that. Adam’s perfection was still susceptible of improvement through love, which would have made him a more precise image of his Creator. Adam without the stain of sin would have been a most shining mirror of God. That is why I say: “Be perfect as your Father Who is in Heaven is perfect”. Like your Father. Therefore like God. Peter is quite right. And so is Simon. I ask you to remember their words and apply them to your souls.»
Peter’s wife almost faints from joy on hearing her husband being praised thus. She weeps behind her veil: she is quiet but happy.
Peter blushes so much that he seems to be having a stroke of apoplexy.