The messiah did not omit to display great views in this conference: he informed his hearers in dark language, that it would not perhaps be impossible to shake off the Roman yoke. But either through fear, or that they did not believe such a man in a condition to effect so great a revolution, they affected not to comprehend him. Piqued at finding the doctors and pharisees so dull and opiniative, he called them children of the devil; he affirmed that he was older than Abraham. In short, he broke out in a manner so unreasonable that the people, declaring against him, were about to stone him. Jesus, perceiving his folly when too late, concealed himself until an opportunity offered to escape.
From this time his miracles became more rare, and the zeal of the people subsided. It was therefore necessary to rekindle it: Jesus accordingly performed a miracle by curing a man born blind with a little earth moistened with spittle. This man was a well known mendicant, whom they could not suspect of any artifice. Yet they would no longer tolerate him after he had received his sight; an incident which no doubt diminished the alms he was in use to receive. But, perhaps, he was made a disciple. Some legends, indeed, assert, that after the death of Jesus he came into Gaul, where he became a bishop or inspector; which at least presupposes good organs of vision.
This prodigy coming to the knowledge of the Pharisees, the beggar underwent an examination; he openly confessed that one called Jesus had cured him with a clay of his composition and some bathings in Siloam. On this occasion, the bad humor of the pharisees went a little too far. They made it a crime for the physician to have composed his ointment on the Sabbath, and formed the project of excommunicating whoever should countenance him.
This resolution made Jesus tremble. He knew the power of excommunication among the Jews; he found himself crossed in all his designs; and dared not venture to preach in Jerusalem, or show himself in any other place. Every thing, even his miracles, turned against him, and it was not without some difficulty that he had escaped from the capital. At a little distance he knew of an asylum in Bethany, where his friend Lazarus possessed a house. He accordingly took the resolution of retiring thither; but though it was a large house, the party that accompanied him might have incommoded their host. This determined Jesus to send seventy of his disciples on a mission to Judea, to whom it appears he now gave very able powers; for on their return we find them applauding themselves, and overjoyed at the facility with which they expelled the devils.
Scarcely had Jesus arrived at Bethany, when in order to receive him in a becoming manner, they prepared a banquet. But the voluptuous Magdalane, content to devour with her eyes her dear Saviour, left Martha her sister to superintend the arrangements in the kitchen while she herself continued at his feet. Peevishness, and perhaps jealousy, got the better of Martha; she came and scolded Magdalane; but the tender messiah undertook the defence of his penitent, and asserted that she had chosen the better part. Brother Lazarus, who came in unexpectedly, terminated the squabble by ordering them to their work.
This little altercation was the cause why Jesus did not tarry long at Bethany. When about leaving it, a pharisee through pure curiosity invited him to dinner. The messiah accepted his invitation; but our unpolished Jew had not the civility to give his guest water to wash with. This occasioned him a fine lecture on charity and filled with marvellous comparisons, which, however, we shall omit, as our orator so frequently conned over the same lesson, and as this dinner appears to be a repetition of one we have already mentioned.
From this period till the feast of the dedication of the temple, our hero wandered in the environs of Jerusalem with his disciples, whom he incessantly entertained with the grandeur of his aerial kingdom, and what it was necessary to do in order to enter it. It was, according to Luke, on this occasion, and according to Matthew in the sermon on the mount, that he taught the apostles, who could not read, a short prayer called since that time the Lord's prayer, which (injurious as it is to the Divinity, whom it seems to accuse of leading us into temptation,) Christians still continue to repeat.
Meanwhile time passed away without any advantage. The cessation of prodigies and preaching occasioned that of alms. Jesus again hazarded a sermon in a village; but although it attracted the admiration of the people, it produced no effect. Towards the end of our hero's mission we see the crowd no longer running after him. If he wished to perform a miracle, he was under the necessity of calling those he wished to cure. For eighteen years an old woman of this village had been quite bent. It was, according to the language of the country, the devil who had kept her in this inconvenient posture. Jesus called her and exclaimed; "Woman, thou art loosed from thine infirmity." The old woman made efforts to become straight; she approached the feet of the messiah with the pace of a tortoise; he laid his hands on her and immediately she walked upright like a girl of fifteen. At this time the devil spoke not a word; on which it has been remarked, that Satan always followed the opinion of the spectators of the Saviour's miracles, and marvellously coincided with them in acknowledging or rejecting him. This analogous conduct of the spectators and Satan was perhaps the result of the excommunication fulminated against all who regarded Jesus as the messiah.
The reputation of John Baptist still subsisted on the banks of the Jordan. To excite the primitive zeal, or, perhaps, with an intention to induce the disciples of John, who had borne him such flattering testimony, to follow him, Jesus turned towards that quarter. But the attempt was fruitless: he succeeded no better in curing a dropsical person that chanced to be in the house of a pharisee who gave the Saviour a dinner. His cures were admired, but he spoiled all by his extravagant arguments, so offensive were they to the greatest part of his hearers. As a last resource, he endeavored to attach publicans, officers, and such like disreputable persons to his party; but these were only feeble props, and their familiarity made him lose the little esteem which others still entertained for him.
The sight of punishment has often occasioned the loss of courage even to the most determined hero. Ours, agitated by a crowd of untoward events, imagined that nothing being dearer to men than life, and nothing more difficult than to come back after leaving it, the people of Jerusalem, notwithstanding the clamors of the priests, would declare in his favor if he could succeed in making them believe that he had the power of raising the dead. Lazarus the intimate friend of Jesus appeared to him the fittest person for presenting to the public the spectacle of a dead man brought to life. When every thing was properly concerted, Jesus set out for Bethany. Learning this, Martha and Magdalane went to meet him, and publicly informed him that their brother was very sick. Jesus made them no answer, but speaking loud so as to be heard, "This sickness," said he, "is not unto death, but for the glory of God." This was already telling too much.