The city that yielded Him to judgment was given unto destruction; and in the Judgment Hall where He was tried and sentenced, the owl hoots a dirge while the night weeps the dew of her heart upon the fallen marble.

 

 

And I am an old woman, and the years bend me down. My people are no more and my race is vanished.

 

 

I saw Him but once again after that day, and once again heard His voice. It was upon a hill-top when He was talking to His friends and followers.

 

 

And now I am old and alone, yet still He visits my dreams.

 

 

He comes like a white angel with pinions; and with His grace He hushes my dread of darkness. And He uplifts me to dreams yet more distant.

 

 

I am still a field unploughed, a ripe fruit that would not fall. The most that I possess is the warmth of the sun, and the memory of that man.

 

 

I know that among my people these shall not rise again king nor prophet nor priest, even as the sister of my father foretold.

 

 

We shall pass with the flowing of the rivers, and we shall be nameless.

 

 

But those who crossed Him in mid-stream shall be remembered for crossing Him in mid-stream.

MANASSEH

On the Speech and Gesture of Jesus

 

Yes, I used to hear Him speak. There was always a ready word upon His lips.

 

 

But I admired Him as a man rather than as a leader. He preached something beyond my liking, perhaps beyond my reason. And I would have no man preach to me.

 

 

I was taken by His voice and His gestures, not by the substance of His speech. He charmed me but never convinced me; for He was too vague, too distant and obscure to reach my mind.

 

 

I have known other men like Him. They are never constant nor are they consistent. It is with eloquence not with principles that they hold your ear and your passing thought, but never the core of your heart.

 

 

What a pity that His enemies confronted Him and forced the issue. It was not necessary. I believe their hostility will add to His stature and turn His mildness to power.

 

 

For is it not strange that in opposing a man you give Him courage? And in staying His feet you give Him wings?

 

 

I know not His enemies, yet I am certain that in their fear of a harmless man they have lent Him strength and made Him dangerous.

JEPHTHA OF CAESAREA

A Man Weary of Jesus

 

This man who fills your day and haunts your night is repellent to me. Yet you would tire my eyes with His sayings and my mind with His deeds.

 

 

I am weary of His words, and all that He did. His very name offends me, and the name of His countryside. I will none of Him.

 

 

Why make you a prophet of a man who was but a shadow? Why see a tower in this sand-dune, or imagine a lake in the raindrops gathered together in this hoof-print?

 

 

I scorn not the echo of caves in valleys nor the long shadows of the sunset; but I would not listen to the deceptions that hum in your head, nor study the reflections in your eyes.

 

 

What word did Jesus utter that Halliel had not spoken? What wisdom did He reveal that was not of Gamaliel? What are His lispings to the voice of Philo? What cymbals did He beat that were not beaten ere ever He lived?

 

 

I hearken to the echo from the caves into the silent valleys, and I gaze upon the long shadows of sunset; but I would not have this man’s heart echo the sound of another heart, nor would I have a shadow of the seers call himself a prophet.

 

 

What man shall speak since Isaiah has spoken? Who dares sing since David? And shall wisdom be born now, after Solomon has been gathered to his fathers?

 

 

And what of our prophets, whose tongues were swords and their lips flames?

 

 

Left they a straw behind for this gleaner of Galilee? Or a fallen fruit for the beggar from the North Country? There was naught for Him save to break the loaf already baked by our ancestors, and to pour the wine which their holy feet had already passed from the grapes of old.

 

 

It is the potter’s hand I honour not the man who buys the ware.

 

 

I honour those who sit at the loom rather than the boor who wears the cloth.

 

 

Who was this Jesus of Nazareth, and what is He? A man who dared not live His mind. Therefore He faded into oblivion and that is His end.

 

 

I beg you, charge not my ears with His words or His deeds. My heart is overfull with the prophets of old, and that is enough.

JOHN THE BELOVED DISCIPLE

On Jesus the Word

 

You would have me speak of Jesus, but how can I lure the passion-song of the world into a hollowed reed?

 

 

In every aspect of the day Jesus was aware of the Father. He beheld Him in the clouds and in the shadows of the clouds that pass over the earth. He saw the Father’s face reflected in the quiet pools, and the faint print of His feet upon the sand; and He often closed His eyes to gaze into the Holy Eyes.

 

 

The night spoke to Him with the voice of the Father, and in solitude He heard the angel of the Lord calling to Him. And when He stilled Himself to sleep He heard the whispering of the heavens in His dreams.

 

 

He was often happy with us, and He would call us brothers.

 

 

Behold, He who was the first Word called us brothers, though we were but syllables uttered yesterday.

 

 

You ask why I call Him the first Word.

 

 

Listen, and I will answer:

 

 

In the beginning God moved in space, and out of His measureless stirring the earth was born and the seasons thereof.

 

 

Then God moved again, and life streamed forth, and the longing of life sought the height and the depth and would have more of itself.

 

 

Then God spoke thus, and His words were man, and man was a spirit begotten by God’s Spirit.

 

 

And when God spoke thus, the Christ was His first Word and that Word was perfect; and when Jesus of Nazareth came to the world the first Word was uttered unto us and the sound was made flesh and blood.

 

 

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, who 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 the mind but rather in the spirit. The mind weighs and measures but it is the spirit that reaches the heart of life and embraces the secret; and the seed of the spirit is deathless.

 

 

The wind may blow and then 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 for evermore.

MANNUS THE POMPEIIAN
TO A GREEK

On the Semitic Deity

 

The Jews, like their neighbours the Phoenicians and the Arabs, will not suffer their gods to rest for a moment upon the wind.

 

 

They are over-thoughtful of their deity, and over-observant of one another’s prayer and worship and sacrifice.

 

 

While we Romans build marble temples to our gods, these people would discuss their god’s nature. When we are in ecstasy we sing and dance round the altars of Jupiter and Juno, of Mars and Venus; but they in their rapture wear sackcloth and cover their heads with ashes – and even lament the day that gave them birth.

 

 

And Jesus, the man who revealed God as a being of joy, they tortured Him, and then put Him to death.

 

 

These people would not be happy with a happy god. They know only the gods of their pain.

 

 

Even Jesus’ friends and disciples who knew His mirth and heard His laughter, make an image of His sorrow, and they worship that image.

 

 

And in such worship they rise not to their deity; they only bring their deity down to themselves.

 

 

I believe however that this philosopher, Jesus, who was not unlike Socrates, will have power over His race and mayhap over other races.

 

 

For we are all creatures of sadness and of small doubts. And when a man says to us, “Let us be joyous with the gods,” we cannot but heed his voice. Strange that the pain of this man has been fashioned into a rite.

 

 

These people would discover another Adonis, a god slain in the forest, and they would celebrate his slaying. It is a pity they heed not His laughter.

 

 

But let us confess, as Roman to Greek. Do even we ourselves hear the laughter of Socrates in the streets of Athens? Is it ever in us to forget the cup of hemlock, even at the theatre of Dionysus?

 

 

Do not rather our fathers still stop at the street corners to chat of troubles and to have a happy moment remembering the doleful end of all our great men?

PONTIUS PILATUS

Of Eastern Rites and Cults

 

My wife spoke of Him many times ere He was brought before me, but I was not concerned.

 

 

My wife is a dreamer, and she is given, like so many Roman women of her rank, to Eastern cults and rituals. And these cults are dangerous to the Empire; and when they find a path to the hearts of our women they become destructive.

 

 

Egypt came to an end when the Hyskos of Arabia brought to her the one God of their desert.