Humility: How it can be True and False?

Who created man out of nothing? 
Surely it was God, who also gave [man] the whole world for his benefit. But man by sinning has spent it all, for because of sin the world is turned against man, and man in his misery has nothing to give to God but works corrupted by sin. For, sinning every day, he makes his own work corrupt, as Isaiah the prophet says: Our righteousnesses are as a menstruous cloth.

How, then, shall man have merit, seeing he is unable to give satisfaction? Is it, perhaps, that man does not sin? It is certain that our God says by his prophet David: Seven times a day falls the righteous. How then falls the unrighteous?

And if our righteousnesses are corrupt, how abominable are our unrighteousnesses! As God lives, there is nothing that a man should shun more than this saying: 'I merit.' Brother, let a man know the works of his hands, and he will straightway see his merit. Every good thing that comes out of a man, truly, man does not do it, but God works it in him; for his being is of God who created him. That which man does is to contradict God his creator and to commit sin, [and so] he merits not reward, but torment.

'Not only has God created man, as I say, but he created him perfect. He has given him the whole world; after the departure from paradise he has given him two angels to guard him, he has sent him the prophets, he has granted him the Law, he has granted him the faith, every moment he delivers him from Satan, he is fain to give him paradise; no more, God wills to give himself to man. 

Consider, then, the debt, if it is great! [a debt] to cancel which you would need to have created man of yourselves out of nothing, to have created as many prophets as God has sent, with a world and a paradise, no, more, with a God great and good as is our God, and to give it ne all to God. 

So would the debt be cancelled and there would remain to you only the obligation to give thanks to God. But since you are not able to create a single fly, and seeing there is but one God who is lord of all things, how shall you be able to cancel your debt? Assuredly, if a man should lend you an hundred pieces of gold, you would be obliged to restore an hundred pieces of gold.

Accordingly, the sense of this, O brother, is that God, being lord of paradise and of everything, can say that which pleases him, and give whatsoever pleases him. Wherefore, when he said to Abraham: "I will be your great reward," Abraham; could not say: "God is my reward," but "God is my gift and my debt."

So when you discourse to the people, O brother, you ought thus to explain this passage: that God will give to man such and such things if man works well. When God shall speak to you, O man, and shall say: "O my servant, you have wrought well for love of me; what reward seek you from me, your God?" answer you: "Lord, seeing I am the work of your hands, it is not fitting that there should be in me sin, which Satan; loves. Therefore, Lord, for your own glory, have mercy upon' the works of your hands.

And if God say: "I have pardoned you, and now I would fain reward you"; answer you: "Lord, I merit punishment for what I have done, and for what you have done you merit to be glorified. Punish, Lord, in me what I have done, and save that which you have wrought."

And if God say: "What punishment seems to you fitting for your sin?" do you answer; "As much, O Lord, as all the reprobate shall suffer."

And if God say: "Wherefore seek you so great punish. men, O my faithful servant?" answer you: "Because every one of them, if they had received from you as much as I have received, would have served you more faithfully than I [have done]."

And if God say: "When will you receive this punishment, and for how long a time?" answer you: "Now, and without end." As God lives, in whose presence my soul stands, such a man would be more pleasing to God than all his holy angels. For God loves true humility, and hates pride.'

ie what I have to told is that God loves true humility. Now you may asked, what is humility, and how it can be true and false?.' 

"Truly, he who becomes not as a little child shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven. for this is true humility. For if you ask a little child: "Who has made your garments?"  

He will answer: "My father." 
If you ask him: "Whose is the house where he lives?"
He will say: "My father's." 
If you shall say: "Who gives you to eat?"  
He will reply: "My father." 
If you shall say: "Who has taught you to walk and to speak?" 
He will answer; "My father." 

But if you shall say: "Who has broken your forehead, for that you have your forehead so bound up?"  
He will answer: "I fell down, and so did I break my head."

If you shall say: "Now why did you fall down?"  
He will answer: "See you not that I am little, so that I have not the strength to walk and run like a grown man? So my father must needs take me by the hand if I would walk firmly. But in order that I might learn to walk well, my father left me for a little space, and I, wishing to run, fell down." 
If you shall say: "And what said your father?" 
He will answer: "Now why did you not walk quite slowly? See that in future you leave not my side." 

He who in truth of heart recognizes God as the author of all good, and himself as the author of sin, shall be truly humble. But whoever shall speak with the tongue as the child speaks, and shall contradict [the same] in act, assuredly he has false humility and true pride. For pride is then at its height when it makes use of humble things, that it be not reprehended and spurned of men.

True humility is a lowliness of the soul whereby man knows himself in truth; but false humility is a mist from hell which so darkens the understanding of the soul that what a man ought to ascribe to himself, he ascribes to God, and what he ought to ascribe to God, he ascribes to himself.

Thus, the man of false humility will say that he is a grievous sinner, but when one tells him that he is a sinner he will wax wroth against him, and will persecute him. The man of false humility will say that God has given him all that he has, but that he on his part has not slumbered,but done good works. And these Pharisees of this present time, brethren, tell me how they walk.'

The Pharisees of the present time have the garments and the name of Pharisees, but in their heart and their works they are Canaanites. And would to God they usurped not such a name, for then would they not deceive the simple! O ancient time, how cruelly have you dealt with us, that have taken away from us the true Pharisees and left us the false!'

The End.
Not Yet Verified.

Source: 
The Gospel of Barnabas

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Chosen People: What will God give Jews in Paradise?

"As you seed so shall you reap."
A boy who shook down apricots from a tree and ate them. The owner of the  orchard  caught  him  and  said,  “Aren’t  you afraid  of  God’s  punishment?” 
The  boy  said, “Why  should  I  be  afraid?  The  tree  belongs  to God,  and  I  am  God’s  servant.  God’s  servant  ate God’s fruit!”
The owner said, “Wait and see what answer  I  shall  give  you.  Fetch  a  rope,  tie  him  to this  tree  and  beat  him  until  the  answer  is  made clear!”
The boy said, “Aren’t you afraid of God’s punishment?”  
The   owner   answered,   “Why should  I  be  afraid?  You  are  God’s  servant,  and this  is  God’s  stick.  I  am  beating  God’s  servant with God’s stick!”

What is the moral of this story?
Whatever you do, whether good or evil, you will get accordingly. The world is for a man to perform either a Good or Evil deeds, and the resultant force of his deeds will brought him to the Heaven or Hell. This is somehow like an echo of the mountain. Thus, if  you  think,  “I will do evil and God will sanctioned a Heaven for me,” that is quite impossible. 

So the Answer of the Question in a single line shall be- "They will be rewarded according to their deeds."

And for Jews!!! do you not see how their Scribes and Pharisees, Priests and Levites corrupted the sacrifice of the Lord, God? To day those who come to sacrifice believe that God eats cooked flesh [in the manner of] a man.

They say to them: 'Bring your sheep and bulls and lambs to the Temple of your God, and do not eat it all, but give to your God a share of that which he has given you'; and they do not tell them of the origin of sacrifice, that it is for a witness of the life granted to the son of our father Abraham, so that the faith and obedience of our father Abraham, with the promises made to him by God and the blessing given to him, should never be forgotten.

But God says by Ezekiel the prophet: Remove from me these your sacrifices, your victims are abominable to me.’ For the time draws near when that shall be done of which our God spoke by Hosea the prophet, saying: I will call chosen the people not chosen.’ And as he says in Ezekiel the prophet: "God shall make a new covenant with his people, not according to the covenant which he gave to your fathers, which they did not and he shall take from them a heart of stone, and give them a new heart": and all this shall be because you do not walk now in his Law. And you have the key and do not open: rather you block the road for those who would walk in it."

Now we will answer your question. The question asked to tell what God will give Jews in paradise. Truly, those who  think of the wages, do not love the master. A shepherd who has a flock of sheep, when he sees the wolf coming, prepares to defend them; contrariwise, the hireling when he sees the wolf leaves the sheep and flees. If the God of their fathers were their God they would not have thought of saying: "What will God give them?" 

For a better understanding, we may start with a parable which is as follows-.

"There was a king who found by the wayside a man stripped by thieves;,who had wounded him to death. And he had compassion on him, and commanded his slaves to bear that man to the city and tend him, and this they did with all diligence. And the king conceived a great love for the sick man, so that he gave him his own daughter in marriage, and made him his heir. Now assuredly this king was most merciful; but the man beat the slaves, despised the medicines, abused his wife, spoke evil of the king, and caused his vassals to rebel against him. And when the king required any service, he was wont to say: "What will the king give me as reward?"

Now when the king heard this, what did he do to so impious a man?"

They replied: "Woe to him, for the king deprived him of all, and cruelly punished him."

So, I have to cite that Verse which God said to the Jews through His Prophet Isaiah: "I have nourished slaves and exalted them, but they have despised me."

"The king is our God, who found Israel in this world full of miseries, and gave him therefore to his servants Joseph, Moses and Aaron, who tended him. And our God conceived such love for him that for the sake of the people of Israel he smote Egypt, drowned Pharaoh, and discomfited an hundred and twenty kings of the Canaanites and Madianites; he gave him his laws, making him heir of all that [land] wherein our people dwells.

"But how does Israel bear himself? How many prophets has he slain; how many prophecies has he contaminated; how has he violated the Law of God: how many for that cause have departed from God and gone to serve idols, through their offence, O you Jews! And how do you dishonor God with your manner of life! And now you asked: "What will God give us in paradise?" You ought to have asked: What will be the punishment that God will give you in hell; and then what you ought to do for true penitence in order that God may have mercy on you? And Jesus came to them only to answer this, and he will answer of this to them again when he will return to this earth.

And it is not adulation from me, but truth. So, without hardening they should repent and turn to God even as their fathers did after sinning.

 "O Jews!! You desire horses like knights, but you desire not to go forth to war: you desire fair clothing like women, but you desire not to spin and nurture children; you desire the fruits of the field, and you desire not to cultivate the Earth; you desire the fishes of the sea, but you desire not to go a fishing; you desire honour as citizens, but you desire not the burden of the republic; and you desire tithes and first fruits as priests, but you desire not to serve God in truth. 

What then shall God do with you, seeing you desire here every good without any evil? 
So, it can be conclude that God will give Jews- His Chosen People a place where they will have every evil without any good."

The End.
Not Yet Verified.

Source: Gospel of Barnabas.