Philochristus: Memoirs of a Disciple of the Lord

by Edwin Abbott Abbott

Hereat Jesus stayed, and turned round and looked at Judas, methought, to have rebuked him; but when his eyes fell upon our “little flock,” as he was wont to call us at this time, not a score in all (for herein had Judas spoken truly), then it seemed as if his thoughts for us drove out the thought of Judas: and he paused as if he would have questioned us: “Do ye also say as Judas saith?” But then he turned again and went before us, beckoning to us to follow a little behind; and so he continued his journey, steadfastly looking toward the north, where the Mount Hermon rose up before us all glorious to behold. But so far as I could gather from some words that I heard, he still spake to himself concerning the “congregation:” and once I thought I heard him praying for us with great passion, and beseeching God that he would bring us out of the horrible pit, out of the mire and clay, and set our feet upon the rock.

When I spake with one of the disciples concerning that which was to come, and how the Kingdom was to be established, now that all Israel was against us, he would fain have kept silence; and when I urged him, he said, “What know I? Sometimes I am lifted up in my soul, and I know and am sure that the Kingdom shall [pg 253]come; but at other times I know not what to think, nor can I understand why Jesus would work no sign in heaven. But then again I say unto myself that whether he be the Redeemer of Israel or no, he is of a surety the Redeemer of my soul. For in his presence I find life: but to be absent from him is death. The sum is, that I trust in him to-day, for I know not what else to do: but as for the morrow and what it may bring forth, behold, all things are uncertain and unshapen in my mind.” The like also said others of the disciples, albeit not in such plain terms, for almost all spake unwillingly. Yet could I not but perceive that the most part had been sorely shaken in their faith, because Jesus had denied to work a sign in heaven: and it was even as Jesus had warned us; the leaven of the Pharisees and of the Sadducees had entered into our souls. Wherefore, although we all still called our Master, as before, the Christ or Anointed, and the Redeemer, or at the least, the Prophet, yet inwardly we were wavering in our hearts; and a breath would have moved us this way or that way, towards belief or towards unbelief. For indeed we were being driven down, as it were, from our former faith, whereby we had believed in Jesus as a worker of wonders or fulfiller of prophecy; and we were falling (as it seemed, but in truth we were rising) to another and a new belief in Jesus as a man, full of tenderness, and suffering, and patience, and withal of a goodness that could not be deceived nor disappointed; and this perchance was the very thing whereat Jesus aimed, to wit, that we should believe in him as the Son of man, conquering through weakness. For our former belief was as the mire or shifting sand, because it could give no firm footing: but [pg 254]our new belief in the Son of man was to be as the rock whereon we and all others were to stand immovable for ever. But we, at this present, being, as it were, still on the sand, and not yet aware of the Rock, how nigh it was at hand, we, I say, knowing in our minds that we wavered, were notwithstanding desirous to keep our wavering secret; insomuch that we spake little on this matter one to another, yea, we would scarce confess it each man to himself: so greatly did we tremble at the very thought of severing ourselves from Jesus. Yet, for all our dissembling, Jesus knew our thoughts; even as though he had been seated in our hearts.

By this time the aspect of the country shewed that we were leaving the region of the lake. For the thickets of oleander, which but yesterday we had seen blossoming thickly with red blossoms, were here, in these northern and higher parts, still green and in bud. Now also the snows of Hermon seemed very nigh, even over our heads; and we were not far from the town called Cæsarea Philippi. The grass was everywhere green under our feet as though the land knew not drought; and trees of diverse foliage shaded us overhead; and as we drew nigh to the town, we heard the sound of many rushing waters.

Yet though all things shewed thus fair around us, our hearts were sad, yea, all the sadder for the beauty of the place, which seemed to rejoice while we sorrowed. Jesus himself looked not now (as he was wont to do) on the glories of the mountainous country, but rather on our faces; neither did he take note of the cedars, and the olives, and the groves of oak-trees; nor of the great plains of green grass; nor even of the Mount Hermon, [pg 255]the top whereof, all covered with snow, waxed daily larger and yet larger as we journeyed still northward. Ever and anon he turned to us as if he would have said some new thing to us; but as often, he turned again, as if still perceiving that the hour was not yet come.

We were now nigh to the outskirts of the town called Cæsarea, even at the place where the fountain of the Jordan floweth forth; and here Jesus bade us sit down. If we had had leisure to admire, there was much cause for admiration. Before us, just above the spring, was a cavern wherein the inhabitants worshipped a certain false god of the Greeks, which haunteth thickets and forests, and he is called Pan: whence also the town in former times had been called Paneas. Higher up, on the summit of the cliff, stood a temple of marble, white and fair to look on, built by Herod in honour of Augustus Cæsar. Below, from the foot of the same rock, there flowed forth, under cover of poplars and oleanders, many little rills of pure clear water, which, meeting together, made a rushing stream, the noise whereof was exceedingly pleasant. This stream it is which passeth through the lake called Merom, and, flowing southward, becometh our river of Jordan.

But for all these sights we had at that time no leisure; or if we noted them, they brought no delight to our eyes, being unto us but as signs and tokens that we were exiles. Our great river Jordan, the river of Joshua and of Gideon, a river of mighty works and wonders of the Lord, how exceeding small did it appear, even as a mere rivulet, in this land of the Gentiles where it [pg 256]first arose! The cavern of Pan also and the temple of Augustus filled us with sad thoughts, to think how all the world was covered with the worship of false gods as with a net; so that, save in one little corner of Syria, the true God was not known. The name of Augustus also, yea, and the very names of the town whereon we looked, Paneas and Cæsarea Philippi, these all but spake aloud, testifying unto us how great was the power not only of the Greek worship, but also of the Roman kingdom, inasmuch as our own princes built these temples and towns, and called them by the names our conquerors. Wherefore it was not possible that a son of Israel, fresh from Galilee, should look on such sights as these and not feel downcast.

Jesus stood a while, steadfastly beholding the temple; then he sat down amid the rest of us. Our speech among ourselves had, even before, become less and less while we waited for that which was to come from Jesus: for we had all perceived these many hours that he purposed to say unto us some new and strange thing. But now, because we knew that the time was at hand, none dared so much as to open his mouth; and a deep silence and a great fear fell on us; and we saw the lips of Jesus moving as if in prayer. But when Jesus at last opened his mouth to speak, he said nothing at first such as we had expected and dreaded. For he neither rebuked us nor prophesied evil, but only asked us touching himself (calling himself by that familiar title whereof I have made mention above) what the common people considered him to be, saying, “Whom do men say that I the Son of man am?” Straightway all the disciples began severally to make answer, saying that [pg 257]most men in that region deemed him to be Elias risen from the dead; but that others supposed him to be the prophet concerning whom Moses had prophesied, and others again called him one of the prophets. These several answers we made to Jesus readily and promptly, for our hearts were lightened because we supposed that this was the question that he had had so long in mind, for which we had all been waiting. But Jesus, as I noted, listened to our speech as a mother listeneth to the prattle of her children. For his lips still moved as if in prayer, and his eyes were fixed upon the temple on the rock before him; and his mind was not with us nor with our words, but with something that still was to come from the depths of the future.

And lo, while we were still reporting this and that, touching the opinions of the common people, Jesus turned himself round and set his eyes full upon us who were sitting before him, but most directly (as it seemed to me) upon Peter, who was face to face with him: and he opened his mouth and said, “But whom say ye that I am?” As he spake these words, he looked at us for an instant as if he could read our inmost hearts, and as if he knew that we could not and would not deceive him. Then he turned from us again, as though to leave us to our own thoughts, because he would not constrain us nor draw forth from us any word that was not our own: and so he remained, gazing steadfastly on the rock and waiting for our answer, for as long, I suppose, as one would take to count ten very slowly.

I have read in a certain story of enchantments how a prince was caused by a magician to plunge his head into a vessel of water and to hold his breath, and behold, [pg 258]while he was holding his breath beneath the water, he seemed to himself to have travelled long journeys and to have been shipwrecked and to have had many other adventures, and to have married a wife and reared up children, and to have passed through a life of many years even till he had reached old age, and all this within the compass of a single breath. Even so was it with us while Jesus was waiting our answer. For we seemed in that moment to be summing up all our past life and all the life that lay before us, in order to answer this question of Jesus aright. For we dared not lie to him nor flatter him; yea, rather we would have displeased him sooner than have flattered him. Such a constraint lay upon us to speak the truth at all times in his presence; and especially now. But what the truth might be we knew not, and searched through all the past and groped in the future, if perchance we might light upon it.

A few Sabbaths, before, we should have been very ready with an answer; for then all men said that Jesus was the Redeemer, the Christ; and we had often said the same thing. But now many stumblingblocks lay in our path. The Scribes and the pious and the learned, all, save a very few, had rejected Jesus. The patriots had joined themselves to him for a long time, but they too had cast him off; yea, and even the rest of the men of Galilee had been led away with them. The poor, as well as the rich, were now against us. In fine, none were now on our side except a few of the lowest of the people, sinners and tax-gatherers and the like. Besides all this, John himself, a prophet, and one whom Jesus had called the greatest of the prophets, [pg 259]even he seemed to have wavered in his faith in Jesus; and when he had besought help in prison, Jesus had helped him not. Yea, and Jesus himself of late seemed to have cast off faith in himself. For when he had been challenged to work a sign in heaven, which seemed an easy thing for a prophet to do, he had refused to do it. Also, he had fled from the face of Herod and from the Pharisees, and seemed to have become a wanderer rather than a deliverer. Else, why were we, children of Abraham and inheritors of the Land of Promise, sitting there like exiles, looking on the temples of false gods in a foreign land? Even in the words wherein he had questioned us, Jesus had spoken of himself as the Son of man. Might it not be indeed that he was, and knew that he was, naught more than one of the common sons of man? When had he called himself the Redeemer? Never.