While I thus meditated, I saw the High Priest Hanan, whom ye Hellenes call Annas, enter into the court of the Gentiles with his guard. Thou rememberest the man, Aglaophonos—how his tyranny extended over all the city. He was still called High Priest, though Valerius Gratius, the Procurator, had deposed him years before, lest haply he might regain the regal power of the Maccabæans. Still, even after his deposition, he had sufficient power to get his sons or sons-in-law named High Priests. It was one of the latter, Joseph Caiaphas, who at that time held the office; yet the people still called Hanan High Priest, and he himself wore on high days the bells and pomegranates round his tunic as a sign of his dignity. Thou must remember his keen-cut face, his nose like an eagle’s, his long white beard, bent neck, and sinewy hand. Was it thou or I that first called him “the Old Vulture”?
He had heard of the insult to his dignity by the removal, without his orders, of the money-changers and others to whom the people paid the fees from which he and his made such display in his grand dwelling on the Mount of Olives. “Where is he? where is he?” he cried, as he came bustling up, with neck extended, and looking more than ever like a bird of prey. He soon found that the man he sought had gone; but he had given his orders, and before I left the court, I saw the money-changers reënter and the cattle driven back. I had to attend a meeting of the Sanhedrim, for that year I had risen to the third and highest bench of disciples who sit under its members when they give judgment. Next year I was elected of the Seventy-One myself in the section of Israelites. It must, therefore, have been in the sixteenth year of Tiberius the Emperor, nearly five-and-twenty years agone, that I thus saw for the first time Jesus the Nazarene.
II.
THE UPBRINGING.
Thou canst imagine the wonder and excitement in Jerusalem at this bold deed of the Nazarene. Not even the oracle of Delphi is regarded with so much reverence as our sacred fane, and none in our time had dared to interfere with its regulations, which have all the sacredness of our traditions. And of these none was regarded by the priestly guardians of the Temple as of greater weight for them than the right of sale of beasts of sacrifice. It is from this, as I have said, that the priestly order gain their wealth, and no more deadly blow could be struck at their power than to deprive them of this. Hence had the Pharisees protested against this right, but none had hitherto dared to carry out the protest in very deed. All the poor and all the pious would have been glad if they could buy their offerings to the Lord wheresoever they would.
But more than all, men of Jerusalem [pg 24]were amazed at the daring of the Galilæan stranger in opposing the High Priest Hanan. This man had been the tyrant of the Temple and of the city for the whole span of a generation of men, and no man had dared say him nay for all that time. Even the Romans, who had deposed him from his position as High Priest, had not dared to interfere with him otherwise. Yet had this rude countryman, who had never been seen, never been known to set foot in Jerusalem before, dared to strike at the root of his power and wealth. Thou canst not wonder that men were curious to know what manner of man he might be who had dared this great thing, and busy rumor ran through all the bazaars of Jerusalem, asking, Who is this Jesus of Nazara? All that I learnt of his kindred and early life I learnt at this time, and I here set it forth in order.
It was natural that I should first direct my inquiries as to his birth, for the insulting cry of the money-changers still rang in my ears. Thou knowest our pride of birth; I learnt from thee to abate it. Every man in Israel taketh his place in [pg 25]the nation according as he is a son of Aaron or of Levi, a simple Israelite, or a proselyte that fears the Lord; each man knoweth his own and his neighbor’s genealogy. The greatest slur upon a man is to accuse him of “mixture,” the greatest insult is to call him “bastard.” Why had the money-changers cast this slur upon the Nazarene? Thou and I, Aglaophonos, who boast to be citizens of the Kosmos, would not think the worse of him if the taunt were true. Yet thou canst understand how great, even if he only thought it to be true, would be the influence of such a slur on this mans mind and on his career. If in after-days he showed himself so careless of the nation’s hopes, may it not have been that he felt himself in some way outside the nation?
Now I found, upon inquiry among the Galilæans settled in Jerusalem, that some such scandal had arisen about his birth. There had even been talk that Joseph ben Eli would have put away his wife, but for the stern penalties which our Law inflicts upon the misdoer. Yet there may have been naught but suspicion in the matter, [pg 26]for the two lived together, and Miriam bore several children to Joseph after this Jesus. But between him and them there was never good will, and I have heard things told of this Jesus which seem to show some harshness in his treatment of them, and even of his mother. Once when he was told that his mother and brethren were without, and would see him, he as it were repudiated them, saying, “Who are my mother and my brothers? Whosoever doeth the will of God, the same is my brother and sister and mother.” Again, when once his mother came to him and would speak to him, he said to her, “Woman, what have I to do with thee?” The man whom I had seen so tenderly thoughtful to a little child could not have spoken thus unless he had felt himself placed by some means outside the natural ties of men.
Of Jesus’ upbringing I could learn little. When he was at the age of thirteen, when each Jewish male child becomes a Son of the Covenant (Bar Mitzva), and, as we think, takes his sins upon his own soul, his parents brought him to Jerusalem. On [pg 27]this occasion, as some still remember, he showed remarkable knowledge of the Law, when, as is customary, they read the portion of the Law set down for the Sabbath reading next after his birthday, and he was examined in its meaning by the learned men present. Yet he fulfilled not this promise of devotion to the Law as he grew in years. I cannot learn that he dusted himself with the “dust of the wise,” as the sages have commanded.[4] Not having sat at the feet of any of the holders of tradition, he could not pronounce decisions of the Law.
His father brought him up to his own trade, that of carpenter. With us manual toil is not despised, as among you Hellenes; there is a saying among us, “Whoso bringeth not his son up to a handicraft traineth him for a robber.” Jesus was a good and capable worker, and devoted himself especially to the making of yokes and wheels at Capernaum, where [pg 28]he had settled, some five hours’ journey from his native place. Here he would often read the Haphtaroth, or prophetical lessons, in the synagogue, and explain it after the manner of the Hagada.