Jesus the Son of Man

Jesus the Son of Man
by Kalil Gibron

This book is classic Gibron poetic prose.  It reads like a journalist mosaic of Jesus Christ through the testimony of those who were enchanted by his word and deed as well as those who despised him.  This book reads like an investigative journal. Yet the words are Gibran's. How close to true does he come? I found that the testimonies of love were more poetic and notable.  I captured snap shots worth sharing.  I took these snap-shots to reflect Gibran's writing style.  It is Prose in written presentation but oh so poetic in cadence and metaphors.  I added comments along the way.

Gibron quotes Mary Madeline in his conclusion and here I will capture the jest “But I know what I know, and that is enough.”



James Son of Zebedee

Page 2: said Jesus "But there is a kingdom beyond  that you behold, and therein I shall rule.  And if it is your choice, and if it is your desire, you too shall come and rule with me.

Page 5;  Jesus said " my kingdom is not of earth, My kingdom shall be  where two or three of you shall meet in love, and in wonder at the lovingness of life, and in good cheer, and in remembrance of me.

My comment: this is consistent with Christ's words at the Last Supper where he claimed to be at the same time master and servant.  Master of his own spirit being while serving his brother on earthly terms.

Anna Mother of Mary

Page 8: [Anna speaks of of the Kings of orient, Persia]. But at parting they spoke to me and said: “The child is only but at day old, yet we have seen the light of our God in His eyes and the smile of our God upon his mouth.

My comment: kings of Persia at the time of Christ would be Zoroastrian 
in their religious theology,

Assaph: Called the Orator of Tyre

He seemed to spin them [his stories] out of the seasons, even as time spins the generations.  They [the Orators of Greece, Alexandria, and Rome] saw life with eyes only a little clearer than yours and mine. He [Jesus] saw life in the light of God.

Mary Magdalen

And then I said to Him, "Will you not come to my house?" And He said, " Am I not already in your house?  I did not know what He meant then, but I know now.  For mind you my friend, I was dead. I was a woman who had divorced her soul. I was living apart from this self which you now see.  I belonged to all men and to none.  And then He looked at me, and the noontide of His eyes, and He said,”You have many lovers, and yet I alone love you. Other men love you for your nearness.  I love you in your self.  I alone love the unseen in you.

My comment:  To the phrase let that of this earth belong to Caesar and let that of God belong to me; it applies here.  Jesus in the transcendent world is already sharing his house, his kingdom of heaven, with Mary.  Mary testifies herself that since her encounter
that she too sees the earth  world in a new light.  Not separate but in unity of mind and soul.

A Persian Philsopher In Dascus

There is no depth beyond the soul of man, an the soul is the deep that calls unto itself; for there is no other voice to speak and there are  no other ears to hear.

But this man Jesus, this Nazarene, He has spoken of a God too vast to be unlike the soul of any man, too knowing to punish, too loving to remember the sins of his creatures.  And this God of the Nazarene shall pass over the threshold of the children of the earth, and He shall sit at their hearth, and he shall be the blessing within their walls and a light upon their path.

My comment: Christ's virtue is not his person but his word.  It is with the limitation fraught upon man's nominalist nature to struggle with the difference and default to the God like character of the messenger and totally miss the message.

David One of His Followers

I did not understand until His words took living forms before my eyes and fashioned themselves into bodies that walk in the procession of my own day.

My comment:  is this the true aspect of a nominalist making it real?  The key words that suggest so are 'fashioned' and 'my'.

John The Son of Zebedee

The Christ is the flame of God that dwells in the spirit of man.  His is the first Word.  His voice is the innermost and the height, who walks with man towards eternity.

Joseph of Arimathea

And He would say, the lilies and the brier live but a day, yet that day is eternity spent in freedom.

One evening he said behold the brook and listen to it's music. Forever shall it seek the sea, and though it is for ever seeking, it sings it's mystery from noon to noon.

And he would say, " Your neighbor is your unknown self made visible.  His face shall be reflected in your still waters, and if you gaze therein your shall behold your own countenance.

"I am with you.  Tomorrow I go westward; but ere I go, I say unto you that your neighbor is your unknown self made visible.  Seek  him in love that you may know yourself, for in that knowledge shall you become my brothers.

Nathaniel

What man yielding and soft would say, “I am life, and I am the way to truth.

" I am in God our Father; and our God the Father is in me."

" He who believes not in me believes not In this life nor in life everlasting.

“He who is without sin, let him cast a stone.

Saba of Antioch

The Nazarene would have us live the hour in passion and ecstasy.

The man of Tarsus would have us be mindful of the laws recorded in ancient books.

My comment:  So herein the reader finds Gibran of the same mind as Jefferson; that Paul added to the story of Christ and gave the Catholic church it's fitting in rules and ritual built off of a mystic telling of Christ's story.

Thomas

Now a man who loves with his heart yet holds doubt in his mind, is but a slave in a galley who sleeps at his oar and dreams of his freedom, till the lash of his master waked him

The shadow of my grandfather was still upon me, and always I would have truth made manifest.  I would even put my hand in my own wound to feel the blood ere I would believe the pain.

Doubt is a pain too lonely to know that faith is his twin brother. For doubt will not know the truth till his wounds are healed and restored.

Yesterday I doubted Jesus until He made his wounds manifest in me, and thrust my own hand into His wounds.

Then indeed I believed, and after that I was rid of my yesterday and  the yesterdays of my forefathers.


My comment:  Where Gibran earlier in his book appears to have at least critiqued the physical resurrection of Christ, this story of Doubting Thomas brings the debate back to a level playing field. I must now know the original author. Was it genuine Thomas?  Or was it Paul putting words in to Thomas' mouth, as Jefferson may have charged him.

General comment:  Now I find in Luke through Taylor Caldwell, in Jesus who called Jews hypocrites, in Jefferson who separated Jewish law from Jesus' morals, and now Gibran in numerous cases include sections that marks Jews as wrongfully self-righteous.

Rumanous a Greek Poet

He knew the mountains as eagles know them, and the valleys as they are known by the brooks and streams.  And there was desert in His silence and a garden in His speech,

My comment: I took this snap-shot of Gibran's writing style.  It is Prose in written presentation but oh so poetic in cadence and metaphors.

Melachi of Babylon
An Astronomer

There are no miracles beyond the seasons, yet you and I do not know all the seasons.  And what if a season shall be made manifest in the shape of a man?

In Jesus the elements of our bodies and our dreams came together according to law [universal laws of nature] All that was timeless before Him became time-full in Him.

Perchance blindness is but dark thought that can be overcome by burning thought... They say He raised the dead to life.  If you can tell me what is death, then I can tell you what is life.  And for ever shall age seek youth.  In me know it is knowledge that is seeking youth.

My comment;  It is knowledge seeking timelessness.  Eternity, knowing what is, is.  Lovingly accepting the universal laws of nature.  In this science and religion, minus there dogma, come together.

Nicodemus the Poet
The Youngest of the Elders In the Sanhedrim

They wonder the He who said "My kingdom is not of this earth," said also, Render unto Caesar that which is Caesar’s; and know not that if  they would indeed be free to enter the kingdom of their passion, they  must not resist the gate-keeper of their necessities. It behooves them gladly to pay that dole to enter into that city.

His mother and His brothers would have had Him live in the shadow of death, but He Himself was challenging death upon yonder hill that He might live in sleepless memory,

He indeed said that He was the way and the life and the resurrection of the heart; and I myself  am a testimony to His truth.

And behold me now, a man who walk with life and laughs with the sum from the first moment it smiles upon a mountain until it yields itself to bed behind the hills.

My comment:  once again Gibran demonstrates he is a deist along in league with Christ and Jefferson before him.

Barca
A Merchant of Tyre

I believe that neither the Romans nor the Jews understood Jesus of Nazareth, nor did his own disciples.  The Romans slew him and that was a blunder.  The Galileans would make a god of him and that was a mistake.  Jesus was the heart of man.

Jesus [through the vice of a merchant parable] said 'Little is your faith.  To barter and lose is better than not go forth.  For even as the wind scatters her seed and waits for the fruit, so must all merchants.  It were fitter for you henceforth to serve others.’ When Jesus spoke thus, though he was no merchant, he disclosed the secret  if commerce.

Benjiman the Scribe.

I have heard him say, “The birds of the air and the mountain tops are not mindful of the serpents in their dark holes.

"Let the dead bury their dead.  Be yourself among the living, and soar high."

Jesus was the beginning of a new kingdom upon earth, and that kingdom shall remain.

We knew it was in His power to be born with all who are not yet born [awakened, enlightened] and ti bud them to see, not with their eyes but with his vision.

My comment:  Again Gibran quotes the word of Jesus proclaiming that the kingdom of heaven is found here on earth.  In the context of all I will include the notion that it is through the awakening of your spirit self.

Zacchieus

You believe in what you hear said.  Believe in the unsaid, for silence of men is nearer to the truth than their words.

My comment:  To this I reflect on Emerson’s essay on nominalists.  I also reflect on what Church quoting Jefferson saying "it's not of his word that counts but of his deed".  Christ using no word gave of his life as the ultimate deed.  Perhaps someone missed the forest for the trees.

Hanna of Bethsaida
The Year of 73

Then she lifted her hand skyward and spoke again, and she said, "But He shall be slain only in body".

"In the spirit He shall rise and go forth leading his Host from this land where the sun is born, to the land where the sun is slain at eventide".

John the Beloved Disciple
In His Old Age

Jesus the Anointed was the first Word of God uttered unto man, even as if an apple tree in an orchard should bud and blossom a day before the other trees.  And in God's orchard that day was an aeon.

We are all sons and daughters of the most High, but the Anointed One was his first born, when he dwelt in the body of Jesus of Nazareth, and He walked among us and we beheld Him.

All this I say that you may understand not only in then but rather in the spirit.  The mind weighs and measures but it is in the spirit that reaches the heart of life an embraces the secret; and the seed of the spirit is deathless.

The wind may blow and the cease, and the sea shall swell and then weary, but the heart of life is a sphere quiet and serene, and the star that shines therein is fixed forever more.


My comment:  This speaks directly to what has been coalescing in my mind and apparently my heart since Christmas, this being the ninth day hence. I had been sorting out the story of the resurrection of Christ.  In reading this, I reason that it doesn’t matter if you accept the testimony of those who witness the walking of a deceased man.  It is His Word that is the seed if a spirit that is timeless.  It is the Word upon a mind that weighs and measures.  It is only possible to absolutely experience this Spirit through the transcendence of  thinking without the benefit of words.  Hence the prepatory phrase in 
all transcendental meditation 'clear your mind.'  Yet for nine days I weighed once again what I already knew.

A Rich Man

The whole piece along side the Merchant makes a lot of sense.  I recommend getting the book simple for this section.

My comment: The question is, is this the voice of Gibran or Jesus?  Surely Gibran wrote this book, so simple analysis says it's Gibran's voice.  I very primitive Christian student  cannot recall any of the Bible that promotes capitalism as Gibran does here.  I conclude that it’s a case of 1900 years for the syntax to evolve  in conjunction with translation from Aramaic to English that could build a bridge that associates Christ’s apostles with capitalistic ideas. 

Annas
The High Priest

He made sport of our laws; He mocked at our honor and jeered at our dignity.  He even said He would destroy our temple and desecrate the holy places.  And for this He had to die a shameful death.

For this I had him crucified, and his crucifixion was a signal and warning unto others who are stamped with the same damned seal.

I know well I have been blamed for this, even by some of the elders in Sanhedrim.  But I was mindful then as I am mindful now that I am the one and should die for the people rather than the people be led astray by one  man.

My comment:  This book reads like an investigative journal. Yet the words are Gibran's. How close to true dies he come? If remotely true, one cannot treat the crime casually.

Mary Magdalen
Thirty Years Later

There is a gulf that yawns between those who love Him and those who hate Him, between those who believe and those who do not believe.

But when the years have bridged that gulf you shall know that He who lived in us is deathless, that he was the Son of God even as we are  children of God, that He was born of a virgin even we are born of the husbandless earth.

It is passing strange that the earth gives not to the unbelievers the roots that would suck at her breast, nor the wings wherewith to fly high and drink, and be filled with the dews of her space.

But I know what I know, and that is enough.