Thus far had I written to thee, Aglaophonos, as to what I knew of that
Jesus the Nazarene about whom thou hast made so earnest inquiry. I had
minded to hand it to Alphæus ben Simon, my cousin, who goeth this week in
the galley to Cyprus, and thence would have passed it on to thee by the
hands of one of our brethren who visit Greece from year to year. But there
has happened to me an event which has given me much to think of with
regard to this very matter of Jesus. It chanced that the day before
yesterday I went from the Jewish quarter in this city of Alexandria for my
usual walk along the Lochias, which adjoins it. There it is my custom to
catch the sea air and to watch the vessels put into the Inner Port. Now,
it chanced that as I came upon the Lochias, the vessel of Joppa had just
hoved‐to in the Inner Port, and the passengers were being landed up the
Broad Steps. Now these, by their _talith_ and their faces, I knew to be
Jews, and I went up to them, and greeted them with the greeting of peace.
But among them one came to me with the look of recognition in his eyes,
and said, “Knowest thou me not, Meshullam ben Zadok?” And, behold, it was
Rufus ben Simon, whom I had known before I left the Holy City. So I
welcomed him, and brought him home to this house of mine. And here he
remaineth till the morrow, when he starteth forth to go to Cyrene.
Now, in my inquiries about old friends left behind, and new things that
had happened since I went away, I failed not to ask about the followers of
the Nazarene. To my wonder, I found that this Rufus had become one of
them, even though he was but a child when Jesus died. Yet is he a good Jew
in all else. He eateth only our meat, and keepeth our Sabbaths and
festivals. But he avers that the Anointed One, whom we expect, has already
appeared, and that he was Jesus the Nazarene. And upon my inquiry how he
could know aught of Jesus but from the common talk, he put in my hand some
Memorabilia of him, written down in Hebrew by one of his chief followers,
Matathias.(12) This have I read again and again, and pondered much
thereon. Nor have I been able to sleep these two nights for the new
thoughts about Jesus that have come to me from reading these memoirs of
him.
For, behold, he appeareth in these records of him by his own followers in
far other wise than he showed himself to us in public at Jerusalem. In all
his public acts among us he was full of scornful rebukes; among his own
followers he was tender and loving. Scarcely ever could we get him to
speak out to us plainly his views about matters of public concern. He
would always give us an answer full of evasion and enigma, but to his
followers he would explain all his meaning over and over again,
illustrated with parable. There at Jerusalem he almost always turned to
the people his harsher side. I saw him on every occasion on which he
appeared in public in Jerusalem, and, save only in his sermons, he was
always rebuking one or another, just like the prophets of old. And the
manner of his rebuking towards us was as with scorpions, whereas among his
own he would mingle tenderness even with his reproaches. Nor, saving his
sermons, which few heard but those who already followed him, had he aught
novel to tell us about the things of life. He seemed to us as if he would
destroy the temple of our faith, nor in his public actions did he give any
promise of building it up anew. Yet to those with him he would continually
be telling what to do and how to do it, till, behold, a new manner of
life, fair and seemly, stood before them, fulfilled of Jewish
righteousness, with a tender mercy which was the man’s very own.
I need not detail to thee, Aglaophonos, what these acts and words were
which have given me an altogether new light as to the character and
thoughts of the man Jesus. From certain words of thine in thy letter,
which I understood not then when I first read it, I can see now that thou
must have had some such account of the life and death of Jesus before thee
as this which Rufus hath shown unto me. Now I can understand wherefore
thou hast inquired about this Jesus with such eager insistence. And to
thee as a Gentile the revelation of his character would come with more
attractive force than to us that be Jews. For in almost every way this
Jesus fulfilleth the idea of a Jew as we have it in these later days.
Working with his hands, yet teaching with his voice; obedient to the Law,
yet ever eager to take a new law upon himself; doing acts of love among
men, yet rebuking in love their ill acts, and doing all things as in the
presence of the Glory;—in all this Jesus was as the best of our Sages.
“Wherefore, then, did ye suffer him to be killed?” thou wilt ask me, and
indeed I ask myself. If I were to answer thee in the way Jesus was wont to
answer us, I would say, “Why did ye Hellenes condemn Socrates to the
hemlock?” For he was as much the Ideal of the Hellenes as Jesus of the
Jews. Every Hellene would be eloquent and reasonable, and that was
Socrates. Every Jew would be wise and good and pious, and that was Jesus.
Yet each of these men, if I read their lives aright, died the death of a
criminal, because he cared not for that which his fellow‐countrymen cared
for most. Socrates died because he would force his countrymen to examine
by their reason the ideas and ideals which they all accepted. Jesus died
for the same reason, but also for another—for that he cared naught for our
national hopes. We were all panting for national freedom; he would have
naught of it. Whether it was that he felt in some sort to be not of our
nation, I know not; but in all his teaching he dealt with us as men, not
as Jews. It is this, I can see, that has attracted thee to his doctrine,
whereas thou wert always scornful of our Jewish pretensions, as thou
calledst them.
Yet herein again was he at one with the best thoughts of our Sages. Our
God is the God of all, and his Law shall be one day the Law of all. If we
yearn for the universal realm of the Messiah, it is as much for the sake
of the world as for ourselves. But methinks I see in the thoughts of this
Jesus an idea quite other than ours as to what the Anointed One shall be
and shall do. We hope for him as a Deliverer and a Conqueror with force of
arms by God’s aid. Now, Jesus seemed not to think of the Anointed One in
any way like this. His mind seemed to be filled rather with the picture of
the Servant of God as drawn by the Prophet Esaias. Thou knowest the
passage, Aglaophonos; I remember thy laughter when first I read it thee,
that men could look forward to contempt and hatred as a good. Truly the
idea is far different from the saying of the barbarian, “Woe to the
conquered!” And surely to us all, Jew and Gentile, Greek and barbarian,
the greatest of joys is this—to worst an equal foe in fair fight. But to
Esaias the prophet, and to Jesus the Nazarene after him, the higher
victory is with him that is worsted in the battle of life. That will come
as good tidings to nine out of every ten of men.
Therefore, if Jesus thought of himself as the Anointed One, it was as
being anointed with the woes of the vanquished, with the sweat and the
blood of the lowly and despised. Now I know why he seemed so sad when he
was greeted at Jerusalem as a victor. He had spent his life in trying to
impress a new ideal upon his people, and they had welcomed him only as the
fulfilment of the old ideal which he desired to replace. None of thy poets
have given a drama with more of _eironeia_ in it than this.
Yet why did he remain silent before us as to these ideas of his? If,
indeed, these were his ideas; for even with the new light given by the
Hebrew Memorabilia, I can see his thought but dimly. Why spake he not his
own thought to the people in Jerusalem, and tell us no longer to hope for
worldly dominion as the best means for spreading the Law of the Lord, but
rather to be as servants of God, even as Esaias the Prophet hath spoken?
Was it that he wished to carry out the description of the prophet even to
every iota of his text? For, behold, the prophet sayeth, “He let himself
be humbled, and opened not his mouth.” If so, then was the death of Jesus
but a sublime suicide.
For surely by this silence he has committed a grievous sin against us his
people. For if we committed aught of sin and crime that handed him over to
the Romans as a pretender to empire, he indeed shared our sin and crime by
his silence. Ye Hellenes were at least greater in fault than we in the
matter of Socrates; for ye condemned him after he had spoken his whole
mind and made known his whole thought to his people; whereas we condemned
one who, I make bold to say, was even greater than thy Socrates, mainly
because of what seemed to us his sullen and arrogant silence, broken only
by a confession of guilt when he knew he was not guilty.
But yet, let me not be as harsh in judgment upon him after his death, as
perhaps I was when I allowed the sentence to be declared against him
without protest. He, least of all men, could have died with a lie upon his
lips. In some sort and in some way he must have combined the thought of
the triumphant Messiah and of the despised Servant of God. For in those
Memorabilia of him which have come into my hands during the last days as
being a message from him that is dead, I find these two things combined.
He speaketh ever of the blessedness of the poor and the humble and the
despised, even as the Ebionim speak. So that if a man would be blessed, he
would choose a lowly career, even as did Jesus. Yet withal he speaketh oft
of himself as the Son of Man, and every Jew that heard him would think he
knew what he thereby claimed. For in the Prophets Daniel and Enoch it is
clearly said that the Son of Man would come in victory over the world; and
what other could this universal victor be than the Anointed One whom the
prophets had foretold? If Jesus put another meaning upon the prophetic
words, why spake he not his meaning fully unto the people? All we may have
gone like sheep astray, but he that might have been our shepherd went
apart alone with God.
O Jesus, why didst thou not show thyself to thy people in thy true
character? Why didst thou seem to care not for aught that we at Jerusalem
cared for? Why, arraigned before the appointed judges of thy people, didst
thou keep silence before us, and, by thus keeping silent, share in
pronouncing judgment upon thyself? We have slain thee as the Hellenes have
slain Socrates their greatest, and our punishment will be as theirs. Then
will Israel be even as thou wert, despised and rejected of men—a nation of
sorrows among the nations. But Israel is greater than any of his sons, and
the day will come when he will know thee as his greatest. And in that day
he will say unto thee, “My sons have slain thee, O my son, and thou hast
shared our guilt.”