Template:Gospel12
THE GOSPEL OF THE HOLY TWELVE
A.K.A. The Gospel of the Perfect Life
Translated from the original Aramaic and edited by the Rev. Gideon Jasper Richard Ouseley[1]
Lection XLI
Iesus Setteth Free The Caged Birds
1. AND as Jesus was going to Jericho there met him a man with a cage full of birds which he had caught and some young doves. And he saw how they were in misery having lost their liberty, and moreover being tormented with hunger and thirst.
2. And he said unto the man, What doest thou with these? And the man answered, I go to make my living by selling these birds which I have taken.
3. And Jesus said, What thinkest thou, if another, stronger than thou or with greater craft, were to catch thee and bind thee, or thy wife, or thy children, and cast thee into a prison, in order to sell thee into captivity for his own profit, and to make a living?
4. Are not these thy fellow creatures, only weaker than thou? And doth not the same God our Father-Mother care for them as for thee? Let these thy little brethren and sisters go forth into freedom and see that thou do this thing no more, but provide honestly for thy living.
5. And the man marvelled at these words and at his authority, and he let the birds go free. So when the birds came forth they flew unto Jesus and stood on his shoulder and sang unto him.
6. And the man inquired further of his doctrine, and he went his way, and learnt the craft of making baskets, and by this craft he earned his bread, and afterwards he brake his cages and his traps, and became a disciple of Jesus.
- ↑ The explanatory preface referred to an ancient source manuscript "preserved in the Monasteries of Thibet" which has never been produced or proven to exist. In subsequent editions, released during the early 1900s, the anonymous Editors revised their claim by stating that the text was "communicated" by departed mystics "in dreams and visions of the night". "It appears that Ouseley created The Gospel of the Holy Twelve in support of animal welfare and vegetarianism." Richard Alan Young, "Is God a Vegetarian?"