May 30th, 1917
Received by James Padgett.
Washington D.C.
I am here, St. Peter, Apostle of Jesus.
I have seen what you were reading (Luke's Gospel) and must inform you that many of the supposed miracles of healing and raising of the dead and the controlling of the laws or expressions of nature never occurred.
No, these accounts are not true and are the results of the imaginings of men who attempted to add to the book that Luke wrote. Of course there is a true foundation for some of these alleged miracles, but as to others, there is no foundation in fact. Jesus did heal the sick and cure the blind and the deaf and the withered hand and the palsied man and resurrected the supposed dead, but not in the way described in the New Testament; and it is not good for men to believe in the truth of all these miracles.
Well, that incident never occurred, for Jesus in casting out evil spirits would have had no authority or power to permit them to enter into the swine, and it would not have been in consonance with his love and ideas of what was just, to have allowed the swine to receive these spirits and thereby perish as the account says. And besides, the result of such an happening would have been, that the property of the innocent owners was taken from them and lost.
In all Jesus' performance of miracles or in any of his teachings did he ever do or say that which worked wrong to a human being. All men were to him the objects of his love and the salvation which he came to earth to show men the way to. Sometime, I will consider these miracles in a message, and inform you of those that he actually performed and those that are the mere fancies of some of those eastern teachers who had a very wonderful imagination and used them in adding to the truths of Luke's original writings.
Well, there is some little truth in that for we were in a storm and were afraid and he slept, and we awakened him, but he did not rebuke the storm and the waves and cause them to subside, but rather he allayed our fears by his talk and example and to us it became as if there were no storm, for when fear left us it was as if we were not sensible of the storm so far as the dread of drowning or perishing was concerned. No, this is another interpolation and should not be believed.
Many wonders ascribed to Jesus were never performed, although it appeared to us as if there was no limit to the powers of Jesus. But sometime I will come and write fully on this matter. I must stop now.
Your brother in Christ,
Peter.