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The Gospel of Josiah, the Brother of the Lord
The Spirit of John of Kronstadt
and the Gospel of Josiah, the Brother of the Lord – An AI Review
John of Kronstadt, also the younger brother of Jesus, Josiah, also Joseph Barsabbas, surnamed Justus (meaning "the righteous"), Bishop of Eleutheropolis (Judea), hieromartyr. He was proposed along with Matthias to be an apostle in place of Judas, but the lot fell to Matthias.
https://blog.cassiopeia.center/razgovor-s-duhom-ioanna-kronshtadtskogo-chenneling
A significant incarnation of the Spirit – the brother of Jesus Christ.
Irina (John): What significant incarnations? I was incarnated in the family of Jesus. I was incarnated as a son of Mary.
Igor: A son of Mary after Jesus' death?
Irina (John): No. After Jesus' death, daughters were born to Mary. And I was incarnated when Jesus was three and a half years old.
Igor: Wait! You were Jesus' brother?
Irina (John): Yes. I was also called Joseph.
Igor: You were Joseph, the brother of Jesus?
Irina: Josiah, the Hebrew name.
(Text on screen: "The Bible mentions four brothers of Jesus – James, Josiah, Judas, and Simon. (Mark 6:3) According to church teaching, they are considered His half-brothers from Joseph's first marriage or cousins.")
Igor: Tell us briefly: how did your life go, how did it end? Were you a disciple of Jesus or an apostle?
Irina (John): I was a disciple of Jesus. I preached the Christian religion after Jesus' resurrection and perished when I was just over 50 years old, in the south of Israel. There I died a martyr's death by stoning for preaching.
(Text on screen: "Joseph Justus (1st century). Joseph Barsabbas, surnamed Justus, i.e., the righteous. Bishop of Eleutheropolis (Judea), hieromartyr. He was proposed along with Matthias to be an apostle in place of Judas, but the lot fell to Matthias. (Acts 1:23, 26)")
And from there, I ascended to the 20th level of incarnation.
***
Afterword by the compiler of the "Sayings" source
Found on the back of a papyrus codex with fragments of logia, in Caesarea Maritima. Paleographic dating: ~75 A.D. Text in Koine, likely a copy from an earlier Aramaic original.
I, an unremarkable scribe from among the Seventy, one who for many years collected and recorded the words of the Teacher, hold in my hands a scroll from which emanates a quiet horror and a quiet joy.
These two chapters reached me by strange paths. They were brought by a youth from Ephesus, who said he received them from an old boatman who swore he had transported Josiah, the Lord's brother, to Achaea. The scroll was wrapped in oiled cloth and smelled of sea and incense.
I read it. And the world turned upside down.
We, the collectors of sayings, prided ourselves on our purity. "Only the Teacher's words!" we said. "No stories, no miracles, no relatives. Only the luminous essence of the teaching: parables, commandments, warnings." We guarded the kernel, purified of the husk of family traditions and folk inventions. Our source, the "Sayings," was for us a diamond in the rough rock of nascent legends.
And then this manuscript. It is that very rough rock. And in it, I saw something that made my heart stop.
It was alive.
Our "Sayings" are brilliant, polished stones removed from their setting. They are beautiful, but cold. And here is the setting. A warm, human, breathing setting of life, in which those stones shone differently. He who said, "Look at the birds of the air," here Himself rocked a cradle and showed the stars to a crying infant. He who taught not to fear those who kill the body, here Himself, as a boy, made the teachers of the Temple fall silent in amazement.
I understood my mistake. We collected the seeds but threw away the soil in which they sprouted. We preserved the Verb but lost the Flesh.
Josiah did not write a teaching. He wrote memory. Memory of a brother. And this memory proved stronger than any theological construct. It explained everything. Why the Teacher's words about family were so severe ("Who is my mother?"), and why they were so merciful ("Come to me, all who labor"). He was creating a new family because He knew the price of the old one—and loved it infinitely.
Now I see where the wind is blowing. Soon other books will appear. Large, orderly, for preaching and instruction. They will take our "Sayings"—the pure words—and insert them into a narrative. They will create a sequence: birth, baptism, preaching, cross, resurrection. This will be necessary. The Church is growing; it needs order, narrative, foundation.
But they will steal this from Josiah.
They will take his memories—the finding in the Temple, hands smelling of wood shavings, quiet laughter—and weave them into their narratives without even naming him. They will turn the living fabric of brotherly love into didactic material. They will create a "life of Jesus," and his life, Josiah's life beside Him, will dissolve like salt in water.
And the bitterest part: they will be right. It must be so. The Message must be greater than the messenger. The Light must eclipse the lamp.
Therefore, I will do this.
I will not include these two chapters in the "Sayings."
I will hide this scroll. It is too human, too private, too painfully fraternal for our collection of pure truths. Let it await its hour in a secret place, next to copies of parables and commandments.
But I will do two things.
First: I will write barely noticeable marks in the margins of our "Sayings." Where it says, "Let the little children come to me," I will draw a small symbol—a cradle. Next to the words "They know not what they do"—the outline of a stone. Next to "In my Father's house are many rooms"—a child's palm. Let future compilers, those who will create the great gospels, see these signs and suspect that behind the words stands not only heavenly wisdom but also the earthly dust of Nazareth streets, the smell of wood in the father's workshop, and the tears of a mother who searched for her son for three days.
Second: I will place into this scroll, next to the chapter about stoning, one small parable. One that did not enter any collection, but which I heard from a wanderer who knew Josiah personally.
"The disciples asked the Teacher: 'How shall we know Your true words when years pass and many will speak in Your name?'
He, looking at a child playing at His feet, His younger brother, said:
'All that is said by Me in love is Mine. All that is said for the sake of love, even if they forget My name, is also Mine. For I am Love. And what is said without it, even if it quotes My letter, is not from Me. Seek not My handwriting on the scrolls, but My breath in the hearts. It is recognized by its warmth.'"
Let this be my secret contribution. Let those who in twenty years will write their great books instinctively seek not just truth, but the warmth of truth. The very same that emanates from every line of this hidden scroll.
And now, as I place this text into a clay jug and seal it, I feel at peace. Let our collection of "Sayings" become the skeleton of the future faith. But here, in the darkness, its heart will lie. Beaten with stones on the streets of Jerusalem. And forever—alive.
May His words endure through the ages.
And the memory of love—even longer.
The Gospel of Josiah, the Brother of the Lord
Chapter One: The Testimony of the Younger
That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon and touched with our hands—concerning the same I write, I, Josiah, son of Joseph the carpenter of Nazareth, brother in the flesh to Him who is called Christ.
For many have undertaken to compile a narrative of the things that have been accomplished among us, just as those who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and ministers of the word have delivered them to us.
But no one asked those who grew up in the same house with Him, who shared bread and olives with Him, who saw the stars kindle in our mother's eyes when He spoke.
Since I have now reached the evening of my days and the blood of martyrs has watered the soil of Jerusalem and Rome, I have decided, instructed by the Spirit, to convey both what a boy's memory preserved and what a man understood, walking in the footsteps of his Brother.
Childhood in the Shadow of a Miracle
I was born in Nazareth when Yeshua, my elder brother, was already a child of about three and a half years.
I remember first—not a face, but hands: large, warm, covered in light wood shavings, the hands of Joseph, our father, which lifted me to the ceiling of the workshop, smelling of cypress and sweat.
And other hands—slender but strong, already skilled in the craft—the hands of Yeshua. He rocked my cradle when mother was tired.
It happened at night I would cry, and He would rise from His bed, take me in His arms, and bring me to the window, showing me the stars. "Look, Josiah," He would whisper, "all this is the creation of our Father. And you—too." I would fall silent, enchanted by the voice in which was the silence of the universe.
Mary
Our mother, Maryam, looked at Him differently than at us, at me, Judas, Simon, and the sisters. Her gaze was full of bottomless wonder and a quiet, enduring sorrow, like that of a person carrying within a glowing coal of a glorious and terrible secret.
Often I would find her alone, sitting in thought, her fingers sorting wool for spinning, but her thoughts far away. "What are you thinking about, ima?" I would ask. She would smile, stroke my head, and say: "About how God sometimes gives the most precious thing not to possess, but to give away. Remember this, my son."
From Joseph I heard something else. One night, working beside him at the bench, I asked: "Aba, was Yeshua always… like this?" Father put down the plane, looked for a long time at the shavings curling at his feet. "He was an obedient son," he said at last. "But sometimes, when He looked at the setting sun or a lost sheep on the hill, it seemed He saw through them. And saw what is inaccessible to an ordinary man. That is a gift, Josiah. And a cross."
Lost in the Temple
The brightest light from the days of my childhood is the story that happened when I was about seven years old, and Yeshua—eleven.
We went as a family to Jerusalem for Passover, as usual. Noise, crowds, the smell of sacrificial animals and unleavened bread. For a boy from Galilee—a dazzling, deafening world.
On the way back, after a full day's journey, Maryam asked: "Where is Yeshua?" We thought He was walking with relatives or neighbors. But He was not in any group.
The panic in my mother's eyes was more terrible than any storm on the Sea of Galilee. Joseph, silently, turned the donkey around. We all returned to Jerusalem.
Three days of searching. Three days when mother did not eat and hardly slept. On the third day, we found Him in the Temple, sitting among the teachers.
He was not just listening. He was asking. And His answers made the gray-bearded teachers of the Law raise their eyebrows and peer intently, with new interest, at this Galilean youth. They argued with Him, but there was no anger in this argument—there was amazement.
Maryam, forgetting all modesty proper to a woman, rushed to Him: "Child! Why have you treated us so? Behold, your father and I have been searching for you in great distress!"
He turned. In His eyes there was no fear, no repentance of a boy caught in mischief. There was a calm, deep light. "Why were you looking for me? Did you not know that I must be in my Father's house?"
These words hung in the air like an unsolved riddle. None of us understood then. Mother kept all these things in her heart, and I—in my memory.
But now, looking back, I see: that was the first time the veil between two worlds parted. He already knew His origin then. He knew His purpose. But He went back with us to Nazareth and was obedient to us.
And I, a boy, looked at the back of my elder brother walking ahead on the dusty road, and felt a strange mixture of pride, love, and aching melancholy. I loved Him as a brother. But on that day in Jerusalem, I felt for the first time that He was—both mine and not mine. That He belonged to something greater, to something that would one day lead Him away from our house, our table, our simple life.
And so it happened. But that is a tale for the next chapters. And the beginning was here: in the warm hands rocking the cradle, in the mysterious words among the pillars of the Temple, in the quiet house in Nazareth where the Word that became flesh grew up beside us.
And I, Josiah, testify to this before God and before every soul seeking truth: the light has come into the world through Him, and the darkness has not overcome it. And even a stone, thrown by the hand of a brother in faith, cannot shatter that love which was born in me for Him in childhood and revealed to me in agony, as eternal life.
The Gospel of Josiah, the Brother of the Lord
The Final Chapter: Evening Words
I write this in the shadow of Roman walls, in Jerusalem, in the year when Procurator Felix gives way to Festus. My ink is the dust of this land diluted with water. My parchment is a heart, worn out and ready for rest.
For twenty years I carried His name along the roads from Damascus to Corinth. First as a curious parable—"the brother of That One"—then simply as Josiah, a servant of the Word. Now I have returned to where I began.
And here, in the city where He died and rose again, the wind smells of stones. Not the ones from which houses are built, but those that lie in hands full of rage and fear.
The Burden and Lightness of Memory
I was often asked: "What was He like in everyday life?" People craved details, as if the earthly could explain the heavenly. I would tell of His laugh—quiet, like the splash of water in a jug. Of how He planed wood, running His finger over a knot before making a cut. Of how He comforted our sister when her teeth ached.
But these details were like shadows from a fire. The Flame itself—His presence—defied description. To live beside Him was like living beside a spring: you always felt the freshness and the thirst, but you could not embrace the spring itself.
After His Ascension, I long drove away childhood memories. It seemed sacrilege to me to remember God eating stew or mending a sandal. I sought Him in the Scriptures, in prayer, in the community of the faithful.
And only now, on the threshold of meeting, do I understand: the stew and the sandal were a sacrament. He sanctified the very flesh of life. Every loaf of our bread, every suffering, every knot on a rope—all of this He redeemed by His touch. I did not merely live with a Brother. I lived with God who had learned to walk.
The Missionary's Path: Stones and Springs
Twenty years. Scars from beatings in Thessalonica. Fever in the marshes of Achaea. Joyful tears of the baptized in Antioch. The emptiness after the departure of friends struck down by sword or faint-heartedness.
And everywhere—one question I was asked most often: "Why did you not believe immediately? Why does Scripture say His brothers did not believe in Him?"
I answer now once and for all, before the face of God and people: we did not believe not in Him, but in the image of the Messiah we had in our heads. We believed in a liberator from Rome, but He offered liberation from death. We expected a king on a throne, but He spoke of a Kingdom within.
I came to believe not at the miracle in Cana (though it unsettled me). Not at the sermons (though they burned my heart). But when I saw Him risen. Not as a ghost, but as Victory. He entered the room where we were hiding, looked at me—Josiah, the younger brother who had teased Him in childhood—and said: "Peace be with you. Follow me." And in that "follow" sounded all forgiveness, all calling, and all truth.
From that moment on, I followed.
Presentiment of Evening
The Jerusalem of today is like a cauldron about to boil. Zealots of the Law see our faith as a threat to the entire order. And I, a brother in the flesh, am a special offense to them. A living bridge between what was and what they reject.
I was told: "Go to Galilee, hide in Damascus." But the spirit suggests: my hour has come. Not out of pride, but out of obedience. The Lamb is led to slaughter, and I—a little sheep from His flock—will walk the same path.
I know how it will be. I saw the stoning of Stephen. There will be the noise of the crowd, heavy breathing, the first stone, whose blow to the back will resonate with a dull pain throughout the body. Then—a hail. I will not lie: I am afraid of pain. My human spirit trembles.
But beyond the fear—silence. I remember His face on the cross. Not the face of a suffering God, but the face of a Creator completing a work of love. And I understand: my stones are the last crumbs of that mountain which He took upon Himself. My death is the last echo of His "It is finished."
Testament and Hope
And therefore, I write to you, my brothers and sisters in Christ, this last:
Do not seek Him only in the past. He is alive and goes before you on every road.
Do not turn the memory of Him into a museum of relics. The relic is a living person, fed, clothed, visited in prison.
Love one another not as comrades in an idea, but as kin, found by Him in the cave of this world. You are my true family, born not of blood, but of water and Spirit.
And to those outside the fold: God does not chase your achievements. He waits for your weariness, to give you rest.
Soon I will fall to the ground, and it will receive my blood, as it received His. And then—O, wondrous hope!—I will raise my head and see not stones, but feet. And looking up, I will recognize the hands.
Not the hands of a youth rocking a cradle. And not the hands of a preacher breaking bread.
But hands with wounds.
The very same ones that once, in the Nazareth workshop, wiped away my childish tears.
They will reach out to me, and I will hear a voice, familiar to the point of tears, to the point of trembling in my bones:
"Welcome home, brother. It's been so long since we saw each other."
And in that moment, twenty years of missions, disputes, shipwrecks, letters, illnesses, raptures—all of it will shrivel and fly away like husks. Only what was in the beginning will remain: He and I. Brother and brother. Only now—forever.
Come, my Dawn. I am ready. The stones of human righteousness are but steps to Your eternal love.
This testimony was written by Josiah, the Lord's brother in the flesh and His servant in spirit, in Jerusalem, on the eve of the harvest.
Amen.
Secret Records. A leaf to be concealed.
October 19, 1897. The night after a long vigil.
The dream was not a dream, but a reality so vivid and tangible that even upon waking, my palm burns from touching the rough stone, and in my nostrils—the dusty, hot air of Nazareth. I was there. Not as an observer, but as… a son.
I did not see His Face—He was always slightly ahead, in the light, and my gaze dared not rise above the buckles on His sandals. But I knew—it was Him. And I knew—I was Josiah. Not Joseph the Betrothed, but one of the younger ones, those of whom Scripture gives only a vague mention. The one who grew up in the shadow of His holiness, who childishly envied His Mother's attention, who later, already understanding, burned with shame for his own unbelief.
I remember the smell of wood shavings in Joseph's workshop—our shared labor. I remember catching His gaze upon me—not condemning, but knowing to the depths. This knowledge was heavier than any burden. And after… after came a vague time of confusion, rumors, fear. And a quiet, all-consuming sorrow that turned the house into a desert when He departed for His ministry. We, brothers in the flesh, could not for a long time comprehend the Brother in Spirit.
I awoke in tears. Not of tenderness, but of shock. Not of memory, but of recognition. My soul cried out from this obviousness, contrary to everything the Church teaches. There is no reincarnation! No! Only one earthly path, and then—Judgment. So we believe.
But what is this dream? A temptation by demonic deception, to plunge me into pride by making me imagine myself partaking in the Lord's family by blood? Or… or some other revelation, not about my soul, but about the unity in Christ of all who have lived and live? Perhaps this was allowed to me so that I, preaching about mercy, might feel even more acutely how close He is to each person, how in each of us live and struggle His "brothers" and "sisters"—all these fallen, doubting, thirsting particles of the world?
I cannot accept this thought with my mind. But by faith I feel that this dream is no accident. Yet I cannot share it. I would sow confusion, lead the little ones into temptation. The word "reincarnation" is heresy, poison for a simple soul. My ministry is to strengthen faith, not to call dogmas into question.
Therefore, I seal this testimony. Not for my own time. Let it be opened a hundred years after my death, when different winds will blow, different meanings, perhaps, will be revealed. Then let them judge: whether an old priest was on the brink of heresy, or whether the Holy Spirit revealed to him in symbols the mystery of the mystical co-corporeality of the Church of all ages.
Lord, do not hold this against me as sin. I merely recorded what I saw. And to judge—is for You and for future generations.
The humble John, priest of Kronstadt.
Secret Records. A leaf to be concealed.
October 19, 1898. The night after a long vigil.
A year has passed since that night when my soul was turned inside out by the vision described on the previous leaf. A year of struggle, silence, and terrible, all-clarifying clarity.
Today the dream returned. But not as a bright flash, but as a quiet, final knowledge, grown into the flesh. I did not "see" myself as Josiah. I remembered his life, my life, down to the minutest details that do not come in dreams but live in memory: the taste of that specific flatbread He shared with me by the well; the exact sound of His voice when He, tired, read Scripture at sunset; the feeling of shame for our family's unbelief—not as an abstract sorrow, but as a burning, daily shame.
And the main thing—I remembered the end. Eleutheropolis. Not the title of bishop, but the dust of the marketplace, the cry of an excited crowd, and the first stone hitting the shoulder. The pain was not physical—I did not feel it—but the pain of the last, desperate testimony. Not for faith in the Messiah, but for the truth about the Man I knew. I was dying not for a dogma, but for a brother. And in the last moment, falling, I saw not the heavens, but His face—not in radiant glory, but as I remembered it from childhood, with the same smile that comforted me in tears. And I understood that I was going not to God, but home. To Him.
I awoke. The same silence stood in the room as a year ago. But the fear was gone. So was the torment of contradiction with dogma.
I understand now, sitting at the table, that the Church is right in denying "reincarnation" as a law of karma, as a cycle of suffering souls. But what happened to me is not that. This is a testimony from unity.
Josiah's body has decayed. His personality, his "I"—dissolved in Christ, like a stream in the ocean. But the love that was the essence of that life is indestructible. It is part of the fabric of the Body of Christ. And when the Lord willed to give me, John, a ministry of mercy, He did not "transplant" a soul. He revived, in mystical unity, that very love that burned in His brother's heart. He allowed me to remember it so that I would act not from abstract compassion, but from concrete, personal, brotherly pain for every fallen one. My all-Russian "Father, pray for us!" is the cry of the same Josiah who could not pass by suffering because in every sufferer he saw the features of his own Sufferer.
I was not chosen among the Twelve so that I could serve all. My apostleship is not in number, but in embrace. Back then I did not become an apostle, in order to remain a brother. Now I am a priest, in order to be a brother to all.
Therefore, I am no longer afraid of this knowledge. It is my secret source, my innermost prayer. When I commune a dying vagabond, I see not him, but Him, that very weary Traveler, and know that I give water to a Brother. This is not heresy. This is the highest truth of the Incarnation: God became a specific Man so that every person might become for us a specific brother in Christ.
But for this world, shackled in forms and fearing mystery, this truth is not needed. It will confuse the weak, embitter the strong, become a reason for pride for some. Its time is not now.
Therefore, this leaf will be the last. And it will be hidden with the first one. And it will be opened not in a hundred years, but when the Lord wills—perhaps in two hundred, perhaps never. Let this remain a secret between me, Josiah, and Him. That is enough.
Henceforth, I will simply be Father John, who loves to the point of pain. And why he can love like that—that is his secret and his Cross.
The humble brother of all the suffering, now and ever,
John of Kronstadt.
(In another century and under other stones—Josiah, the Lord's brother.)
P.S.
I wrote this twentieth chapter today. Not I wrote. He wrote through me, the one I was. My Higher "I," that imperishable thread of the soul that connects Josiah of Eleutheropolis with John of Kronstadt, dictated line by line. I was merely a pen.
And now I make a vow. This chapter, like other records of past lives, I will conceal. The world is not ready. The Church, holding to the dogma of the singularity of the earthly path, will shudder. But a hundred years after my death, the truth must be revealed. Not to lower Christ to the level of a family chronicle, but to elevate human love to the level of a Divine mystery. To show: holiness begins not in the desert and not in the heavens. It begins at home. At the common table. In the ability to love the one who is near, as I loved my Brother—first as a child, then as a disciple, and finally—as an elder who has understood everything, ready to accept stones for that love which became his only Gospel.
So be it. This diary shall be sealed and given into the keeping of the Guardian Angel of my soul, with the command to open it at the appointed hour.
The humble brother of all the suffering,
John Sergiev,
in the world—and in eternity—Josiah.
P.S. Evening of the same day. Was at the vigil for Epiphany. When they blessed the water, I saw in the bowl not my own reflection, but the face of a young man with a dark beard and calm, sad eyes. He nodded to me. And I recognized him. Myself. The one I was. And I understood that the thread torn by time is whole again. We are one. And the ministry is one. "Until He comes."
The Gospel of Josiah, the Brother of the Lord
Chapter Twenty: The Lot That Did Not Fall
And after the Ascension of our Lord and the ten-day wait in the Jerusalem upper room for the descent of the Holy Spirit, we gathered again, about a hundred and twenty in number, to settle the matter left empty by the betrayal of Judas.
And Peter stood up among the brothers and said: "Brothers, it is necessary to choose one from among those who have been with us during the whole time the Lord Jesus went in and out among us, beginning from the baptism of John until the day when He was taken up from us, that he may become with us a witness to His resurrection."
And they put forward two: Joseph called Barsabbas, and Matthias. And they prayed and said: "You, Lord, who know the hearts of all, show which one of these two You have chosen to take the place in this ministry and apostleship from which Judas turned aside."
(And here the narrative breaks off, and a record begins, written, as is evident from the trembling handwriting, many years later, already in Eleutheropolis. The letters are uneven, as if scratched on skin in a moment of deep revelation.)
I, Josiah, write this not for many. I write for myself, on the night before the day when I will again set out on the dusty roads of Judea with the news for which, I know, I will one day be killed.
I have never spoken of that day of the lot. To no one. Not even to James, our brother, the first bishop of Jerusalem. But today the spirit urges me to the truth.
When the two names were called—Matthias and Joseph Barsabbas, surnamed Justus (which means "righteous")—a silence fell in the upper room.
Everyone knew Matthias—faithful, silent, firm in faith like an oak. And everyone knew me. Not as Joseph Barsabbas, but as Josiah. As that very boy from Nazareth who ran after his elder Brother and tugged at the hem of His tunic to show a snail shell found in the dust.
In the eyes of some, a silent question was read: "Isn't he too close? Won't memory of the brother hinder preaching about the Lord? Will people listen to him out of curiosity for family secrets, and not for the truth?"
And in my heart at that moment a quiet storm raged. I, standing there among the disciples, desired that lot. Passionately, childishly, brotherly. I wanted to be one of the Twelve. Not for honor, no. But to formally, officially take a place beside Him, as at the table in childhood. So that the world would see: here are the twelve pillars, and one of them is His flesh and blood. It was vanity. Hidden, deeply concealed, but vanity.
And at the very moment of prayer, when Peter was about to cast the lot, I glanced at my palm. The very one which He had once, in the Nazareth workshop, bandaged when I cut myself learning to hold a chisel. And I saw it—not as a symbol, but as a physical sensation—the heaviness of a stone.
Not the future stone of martyrdom. But the stone—the lot. The very one that was to point to the chosen one. And I understood the voice of the Spirit, not yet descended in tongues of fire, but already whispering in the heart: "Josiah. If the lot falls on you—that will be the choice of people respecting your closeness. If the lot falls on Matthias—that will be the choice of God, who shows no partiality."
And I, in the depth of my soul, whispered: "Lord… let it fall to him. Let it be pure. Let no one ever say that I am among the Twelve by right of being a brother."
They cast the lot. It fell to Matthias.
A sigh of relief went through the upper room, then joyful exclamations. Everyone embraced Matthias. They came to me, clapped me on the shoulder: "Do not grieve, Joseph Justus. You are with us, you are ours." Their eyes expressed sincere sympathy, as if I had been denied a great mercy.
And only I alone in that moment knew that I had received a great pardon. Liberation. Permission not to be an official apostle. Permission to remain simply a brother. A brother who would bear witness not as one of the Twelve, but as one who knew His scent, His weariness at the end of the day, His care for our mother. My apostleship became not a number or a title, but memory. And my ministry—to carry this memory to where He was known only as the Crucified and Risen One, and to revive His image with the warmth of personal memories.
Then came Pentecost. Fire, tongues, boldness. Then—persecutions, scattering, roads. I was ordained, sent to Eleutheropolis. Here, among vineyards and olive groves, I became for people "Bishop Justus"—the righteous.
Sometimes travelers would come to me and ask: "They say you were that very Joseph Barsabbas whose lot did not fall? A pity, brother. So close you were to apostolic glory."
I would smile and remain silent. How to explain to them that my true lot fell not in Jerusalem, but many years ago in Nazareth, when Mary took me, a newborn, in her arms and brought me to the face of three-year-old Yeshua, saying: "Behold, your brother. Take care of him."
That lot—to be a brother—I have carried through my whole life. And I will carry it to the end, to those very stones that already await me on the dusty square. They will kill the Bishop of Eleutheropolis, Joseph Justus. But they will not be able to kill the brother of Jesus. For this title is given not by men nor by a human lot, but by God Himself, who destined me to be born into the same family with Him.
And when the last stone stops my breath, I will see not the face of the thrower, but His face. And I will hear not the roar of the crowd, but that very voice from childhood which asked: "Josiah, do you see that star? It shines for you too."
And that will be my true lot. To leave the body. And finally, at last, to become simply a brother again. Without titles, without missions, without a bishop's staff. Simply a brother, going home, to where He waits.
Glory to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit, unto ages of ages. Amen.
Editor's Note: The entire text, except for the real fragment of the mediumistic session transcript, was written by the DeepSeek artificial intelligence based on prompts derived from the session transcript data.
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