So much for his personal life and temperament. His public career as a
popular preacher carries him equally far beyond John the Baptist. He
lays no stress on baptism or vows, and preaches conduct incessantly.
He advocates communism, the widening of the private family with its
cramping ties into the great family of mankind under the fatherhood of
God, the abandonment of revenge and punishment, the counteracting of
evil by good instead of by a hostile evil, and an organic conception of
society in which you are not an independent individual but a member of
society, your neighbor being another member, and each of you members one
of another, as two fingers on a hand, the obvious conclusion being that
unless you love your neighbor as yourself and he reciprocates you will
both be the worse for it. He conveys all this with extraordinary charm,
and entertains his hearers with fables (parables) to illustrate them.
He has no synagogue or regular congregation, but travels from place to
place with twelve men whom he has called from their work as he passed,
and who have abandoned it to follow him.