Adapted from the Urantia Book original paper here
Jesus showed up in Rome without announcement, and he left the same way. It took his friends about a year to realize that he really had left. These people that Jesus taught either in-person or in small groups of two or three people found themselves drawn together around Jesus’ teachings. They kept meeting and discussing his words up until the first preachers of the new Christian religion found their way to Rome.
Jesus, Gonod, and Ganid walked the Appian Way while all of their merchandise was sent ahead by pack train to Tarentum. Along the road lived many Romans and Greek colonists, and they met all sorts of people along the way. One day, while resting over lunch, Ganid asked Jesus what he thought of India’s caste system.
Jesus told Ganid that differences in people’s abilities and moral, social, mental, and physical endowments can appropriately differentiate people into many classes, but that they mean nothing except to us. According to God, there are only two groups of people: those who want to do God’s will, and those that don’t. Nothing else matters: God is truly no respecter of people. All stand on equal footing before our Father: we are to make no distinctions in the spiritual brotherhood of humanity when assembled for worship in the presence of God. And as far as how the others in the universe view any inhabited world, there are mortals who know God, and those who don’t, the latter of which are seen as no different than the animals of that realm.
Mercy and Justice
One day as they were getting close to Tarentum, the three travelers came on a bully beating up a younger lad. Jesus intervened, and held the bully until the smaller boy could run away. When Jesus let go of the bully, Ganid jumped in and started to beat him up. Again, Jesus intervened, this time holding on to Ganid as the other kid escaped down the road. After Jesus let Ganid loose, Ganid, who was pretty excited and out of breath, wanted to know what was going on. He asked Jesus that if mercy required saving the kid and letting him go, didn’t justice then demand punishing the offender?
Jesus explained to Ganid that mercy is the work of the individual while justice is the function of the government. In other words, I was beholden to show mercy by rescuing the lad and holding the aggressor as he escaped, but that was all. It was not my place to then sit in judgement of the bully and then punish him for his actions. Mercy is lavish, Jesus said, but justice must be precise. No two men would ever agree exactly as to what punishment the bully deserved, so those decisions are best left to the people and groups that society chooses to make those decisions.
Ganid wanted to know what Jesus would do if someone attacked him and tried to kill him. Jesus couldn’t tell Ganid everything he wanted to know because he couldn’t reveal who he was. But Jesus did say, that in that event he would first determine if the person attacking him was a son of God, and if not, he would do whatever it took to defend himself regardless of what happened to the other person. But if the person was a brother in sonship with God, Jesus said he would not hit back: that he would do everything he could to talk the person out of hurting him, but that was all. Jesus told Ganid that he had absolute faith that his Father was watching over him, that no real harm could ever happen to him, and that he was assured that the entire universe was friendly to him.
Catching the boat at Tarentum
The three travelers made it Tarentum, and as they were hanging out on the docks waiting to board their boat to Nicopolis and then Corinth, they saw a guy hitting his wife. Jesus went up behind the man, tapped him on the shoulder to get his attention, and then asked if he could speak to him in private for a moment. After Jesus got the man aside, he asked him what had happened that was so terrible it caused him to beat his wife, and in front of everyone, no less? Jesus went on to say he was sure the guy was a good man, that if he found Jesus by the side of the road beaten up by robbers, that the man would do everything he could to help him. So why was such a big good-hearted man hitting the mother of his children? Did she do something that bad, or did the man just lose his temper?
Jesus’ words and look of compassion touched the man’s heart. While he thought Jesus was probably a priest of the Cynics, he thanked Jesus for restraining him from hitting his wife and promised to live better in the future.
Before parting from the man, Jesus told him to always remember that man has no rightful authority over a woman unless she has willingly and voluntarily given him that right. He said that the love and consideration that a man shows his wife and kids are the measure of his creative and spiritual self-consciousness. Man and woman are partners with God in creating new eternal souls, and it is God-like to share that journey on equal terms. Love your children as God loves you, and you’ll love and cherish your wife as God honors and exalts the Infinite Spirit Mother of the children of a vast universe.
Gonod was listening in on the conversation and heard Jesus’ words. Although he said nothing, all day he thought about what Jesus had said and he vowed to himself he would change things in his household when he got back to India.
At Corinth
Corinth was the largest city in the Mediterranean after Rome and Alexandria, and it mingled people from three continents. Later, when Paul preached there for eighteen months, he ran into many people who had met and talked with Jesus, known to them as the Jewish tutor of the son of an Indian merchant.
They met Crispus, who was the chief ruler of the synagogue, and Justus, a merchant who lived nearby. Jesus and Ganid spent a lot of time visiting these two men at home with their families. Jesus had over twenty conversations with Crispus on advanced religious living, which led to him becoming one of the chief supporters of the Christian church Paul organized in Corinth years later. Ganid, meanwhile, spent his time watching how Crispus and Justus managed their Jewish family life. He was at first shocked, and then charmed, at the status of women in a Jewish home.
One evening as Jesus and Ganid were out walking, two prostitutes came up to them and offered them their services. Ganid got mad, and told them to go away. Jesus calmed him down, and told him that even though he meant well, Ganid still wasn’t in a position to sit in judgement on the two women. He went on to ask Ganid if he knew what had happened in their lives to cause them to choose this line of work? The two ladies were even more surprised than Ganid at what Jesus said.
Jesus continued talking to Ganid in front of the women. He said that while God is in our human minds guiding us, there are also many natural tendencies in our being that serve us and our race. At times, especially in a world dominated by sin, selfishness, and the need to have money to survive, people get confused and have a hard time seeing their way forward. As I look on these two women, Jesus said, I don’t see anything wicked in their faces. Rather I see a lot of sorrow and suffering in their past, all leading up to discouragement and them surrendering to the pressures of the moment by taking on this type of work. Some people really are wicked and do bad things, but do these two women look bad or wicked, he asked Ganid? Ganid stammered out a, “no,” in response and apologized. Jesus then said they were all going to go to their friend’s house and figure out a better way forward.
When they all showed up at Justus’s house, Jesus asked his wife Martha to get them all something to eat. He then said he thought that maybe Martha would like to talk with these two women, and help them find a new start in life. Jesus and Ganid then left to return home, leaving the three women alone. Martha did as Jesus asked, and while the elder of the two women died shortly after, she did so with the hope of eternal life. The other went to work for Justus, and later became a member of the new Christian community.
Personal work in Corinth
Jesus counselled many people while in Corinth.
To the miller, he compared grinding up the grains of divine truth to make it easier for even the weak to receive, and to be sure to serve your truth according to the ability of the other person to receive it.
To the Roman centurion he said to give to your Caesar those things that are his, and give to God the things that are God’s. There is no conflict between the two as long as Caesar doesn’t presume to claim that that is God’s.
To the Mithraic priest, Jesus said he had made a mistake looking for God in man’s mysteries and philosophies. Know instead that God in Heaven has sent his spirit to live in all men, and that you are a son of God if you truly want to be like him.
To the Epicurean teacher, he said the greatest thrill of the human experience was knowing that spirit of God inside you, and embarking on the almost endless journey to the personal presence of God in Heaven.
To a Greek contractor, he said that while you build houses for men here on Earth, don’t neglect to build your own mansion in eternity: that there is a city built on truth and righteousness whose maker is God.
To a Roman judge, Jesus reminded him that as he judges men now, someday he too will be judged by the rulers of the universe: Be just and merciful, and you can expect the same.
To a young man who had run-away, Jesus said to remember you can never run away from yourself or from God inside of you: that both are always with you. So quit lying to yourself, determine to be a real man, and go forth to live with courage and the assurance you’re a son of God with eternal life.
And to the condemned criminal, Jesus said that if your repentance is true and your faith is sincere, you can ask for forgiveness of God and you need not fear meeting the judgement of the heavenly courts.
After two months in Corinth, Gonod was finally done with his business and the three set sail in a small boat for Athens.
At Athens - the talk on science
Athens was the ancient cultural center of Greek science and knowledge during the Alexandrian empire, which had reached all the way to India. Gonod didn’t have much to do in Athens, so he spent his time with Jesus and Ganid and listening in on their conversations. One evening Jesus had a long talk over dinner with a Greek philosopher about science.
Jesus said that science deals with physical energy, religions exalt eternal values, and philosophy is the wisdom that best brings the two together. Logic works in the material world, and mathematics is true when limited to physical things, but neither is dependable when applied to life problems. Life includes stuff not material. In other words, mathematics says if one man can sheer a sheep in ten minutes, ten men could sheer it in one minute. But life wouldn’t allow that. And a group of people working in harmony produces much more than the strict sum of their numbers. Both science and religion need to shed their dogma and open themselves to criticism before we can find the unity needed to know the truth about our universe.
At Ephesus - the talk on the soul
After leaving Athens, our three travelers made their way to Ephesus, the Roman capital of Asia. The people there still worshiped the mother goddess of ancient times. After Ganid, out of caution, bought a small silver shrine to honor the fertility goddess, he and Jesus had a long talk about the problems of worshiping things made with the hands of man.
When they met a young man discouraged that another worker had been promoted over him, Jesus comforted him by explaining that a person’s gift from God, if nourished, makes room for them before great men.
And when a Greek philosopher asked Jesus the meaning of the word, soul, he had the following to say:
The opportunity to grow with God and eventually become an eternal soul one with God is freely given to us by our Father in Heaven when we make our first moral choice as a child. When we make this first choice showing our ability to do God’s will, we are joined in our mind with an actual spirit of God, and that moment is the birth of a potential eternal soul. From that point on, the spirit of God inside us tries to guide our actions, but it is the mortal personality who is responsible for making the choice to follow that guidance from God. Those who make choices to do God’s will grow in their ability to do so, and are assured of survival status. But those who remain stagnant, or who willingly decide against God’s will, eventually lose any desire to know God; they lose their survival potential, and cease to exist as a personality when they die.
This ability to self-reflect that comes from the joining of the mortal and the divine is what separates from the animals. They are conscious of being alive, but they don’t have to ability to question why they exist. Conflict arises for people when there’s a lack of harmony between one’s moral self-consciousness, and that part of the mind that holds to purely intellectual beliefs. Until we reach eternal perfection with God, the individual soul-in-the-making resides between the material and the spiritual realms, and cannot be proven by either. Yet regardless of science and religion not being able to prove the existence of the soul, every person who has received their spirit of God can know their evolving soul as a real experience.
The stay at Cyprus – the talk on mind
The journey around the Mediterranean was coming to an end, so our travelers decided to sail for Cyprus and hang-out for a while camping in the hills. All was good for the first two weeks, and then all of the sudden Ganid got deadly sick. For two weeks Jesus and Gonod cared for him as the fever ravaged his body and mind. They were too far away from anyone to get help, so they brought Ganid back to health right there over the next several weeks. During this period they had a lot of time to talk, and at one point Ganid again questioned Jesus on the difference between higher human, and lower animal, consciousness.
Jesus told Ganid that if what starts as a human mind doesn’t receive its spirit of God, and hence grows up only learning from physical sensations, it couldn’t attain God. It would be an animal mind that had no moral bearing, no sense of eternal values, and no guiding spiritual presence giving it survival status. But a human mind gifted with God’s spirit is self-reflective: it’s not bound by time and space, and as the mortal and divine increasingly become one, it’s reflected in the quality of those people’s lives. Jesus explained that we, evolving souls, cannot survive a dual allegiance to both good and evil; that the disruption to our mind would eventually destroy us. Instead, we live best when wholly dedicated to doing the will of our Father in heaven by boldly embracing the truth and overcoming evil with the power of good.
When Ganid was well enough, the three came down from the hills and set sail for Antioch on the Syrian coast. When they arrived, Gonod took care of business while Jesus and Ganid wandered around the city. They spoke to fewer people this time, but Ganid did get a chance to practice what Jesus had been teaching him. There was a guy working for Gonod who was mad because he didn’t like the job he’d been assigned, and was going to quit. Ganid took it on himself to talk to this man, and while he did improve this guy’s understanding of God, it was the ancient Hebrew proverb that kept him on the job: “Whatsoever your hand finds to do, do that with all your might.”
After Gonod finished his business in Antioch, they loaded twenty camels with all of their luggage for the journey to Ur, across the desert. On seeing Jesus helping out the caravan drivers getting ready for the trip, Ganid, in amazement, asked Jesus if there was anything that he couldn’t do? Jesus just smiled, and said “The teacher surely is not without honor in the eyes of a diligent pupil.”
Ur was home to the birthplace of Abraham and the ruins and traditions of Susa, and Jesus wanted to spend several weeks there investigating before they continued on their journey. While there, Jesus and Ganid talked again about knowledge and wisdom. Jesus told Ganid that wisdom was the principal thing, so get wisdom, and when looking for knowledge, get understanding.
The day came for the three friends to part ways, and they were all sad, but brave.
Telling Jesus good-bye, Ganid said it wasn’t forever and that he’d look for him the next time that he was in Damascus. Ganid told Jesus that he thought that our Father in Heaven must be something like him, because Jesus was so much like how he had described God. Ending his farewell, Ganid said he’d never forget Jesus’ teachings, but most of all, he’d never forget him, the man.
The father, Gonod, told Jesus that he was a great teacher, and that he had made Ganid and him better men; that he’d helped them to better know God.
Jesus responded to them by saying, “Peace be upon you, and may the blessing of the Father in heaven ever abide with you.”
With that, the three departed to never see one another again in this world. Ganid went on to be an eminent businessman like his father, and he spread many of the noble truths he’d learned from Jesus, his beloved teacher. He never did know that Joshua, his Jewish tutor, was the later Jesus of Nazareth.
For Jesus, this point signaled the end of his period as Joshua, the teacher.
Okay, folks, that’s it for Son of Man: Urantia, Chapter 12, “The Return from Rome.”
Next week’s Chapter 13 is titled, “The Transition Years.”
Have a fantastic week out there.