Chapter 11 — The Temple Officials Confer at Night

DTT.01_011,01 The rulers of the Temple had no such quiet night, for I intended these selfish and domineering men to be troubled by fears of all kinds. The high priest could not sleep for bitterness, anger and fear. What vexed him most was that the Roman judge had taken Me with him as an honoured guest. He kept sending his spies to the inn to bring him word of anything we might say to one another. But we said nothing.

DTT.01_011,02 The Temple officials talked all the more among themselves. They discussed how they might confuse Me the next day with questions of every kind and make Me appear quite foolish. Only the young Levite, who was about to become a Pharisee in his own right and ruler of a synagogue, spoke bluntly to the council, for he had seen and learnt much on his journeys as an emissary:

DTT.01_011,03 “None of you will get anywhere with this boy! In Nazareth I heard astonishing things about his eloquence. No scholar has ever got the better of him. I tell you quite openly that this boy’s tongue and his friend’s incomprehensible strength of will are powerful enough to subdue the whole world! In taking on this boy, we have put a mighty louse in our own fur, and we shall not easily get rid of it without harm.

DTT.01_011,04 “My opinion, for what it is worth, is this. Let him keep his view that the wonder-working boy might at least possibly be the promised Messiah, or might become so in time. After all, the prophecies point to him as well as to these times.

DTT.01_011,05 “Arguing with him in any way will get us no further. I think it would even be dangerous to anger him with a threat, for he knows everything with the greatest precision, and our deepest Temple secrets seem to be no strangers to him.

DTT.01_011,06 “It would be the very devil if he began to blurt out our most private secrets in front of Simon and the Roman judge, both of whom are so well disposed towards him! So we must be very shrewd, let him keep to his subject and encourage him in it rather than try to turn him away from his idea.

DTT.01_011,07 “We long ago threw all our old beliefs from Scripture overboard into the sea of oblivion. What does it matter to us whether there is a Messiah or there is none? It is better to be shrewd, keep our rule and live very well at the expense of the blind and foolish crowd than to claim powers we do not really possess and let needless worry and fear eat away at us.

DTT.01_011,08 “Yesterday our ill-judged airs of authority already put us in a bad light with the Roman, and the affair of Zacharias may still put us in great difficulty. The Gentiles are no people to trifle with. We need only treat the boy a little roughly tomorrow and we shall all land in the hottest of Roman water!

DTT.01_011,09 “So let us be subtle and cunning as foxes and make good yesterday’s mistakes as far as we can. I wager the Roman will drop the affair of Zacharias altogether. Otherwise, he will immediately turn it into a sharp weapon against us. What do you think of my advice?”

DTT.01_011,10 The chief priest, who had been awake throughout, said, “Yes, I quite agree with you. That may well be best. We must hear the boy and answer him, for he paid dearly for that right, and we cannot evade it. But I think we should give him a different panel from among our number tomorrow, one that will answer him more favourably than we did yesterday. What do you think?”

DTT.01_011,11 The young speaker said, “I do not agree with that! A new panel would have to be briefed to understand just whom it had before it. We know him now and know what he is really after, so we can answer him easily enough. A new panel would stand before the boy tomorrow like a young pair of draught oxen at the foot of a mountain. Even with the best briefing it would not know how to answer him.

DTT.01_011,12 “There is another very important point. How can we know that the boy will not insist on dealing with us? Simon and the Roman judge would then call us in, and we should have to answer the confoundedly clever boy. We should hardly cut a fine figure before the Roman, for it would plainly show that we had got the worse of our contest with the boy.

DTT.01_011,13 “I neither wish nor have the power to make a binding rule out of my opinion. But we can be quite sure of the outcome I have pointed out, and I doubt any of us would welcome it!”

DTT.01_011,14 The chief priest said, “I quite agree. We shall take your good advice as our guide. But what do you think, my son, of this confoundedly clever boy in general?

DTT.01_011,15 “It is enough to drive one out of one’s wits! We, the highest dignitaries in all Judaea, have to let a real Galilean swineherd thoroughly outwit us! We have to tremble before such a lowly worm in the dust of the street and do everything we can to rid ourselves of him in a way that will not reflect badly on us. No, no, nothing like this has happened within living memory!

DTT.01_011,16 “But tell me what you think of the boy. How and when could a boy of twelve have acquired such all-round knowledge?”

DTT.01_011,17 The young speaker said, “Dear lord and patron, highest in rank after the high priest, there is nothing new in this in Galilee. Everyone in Galilee trades, comes into contact with people from every nation, has a thousand kinds of experience, learns different languages and deals with Greeks, Armenians, Egyptians and many other peoples. So it is understandable that in the towns, small settlements and villages of Galilee one often meets children whose penetrating intelligence astonishes anyone who goes there from Jerusalem.

DTT.01_011,18 “As you know, I myself was born near Nazareth. In my twelfth year I knew the whole of Scripture better than I do now, for I have forgotten a good deal since then. I was also familiar with many other writings and subjects. Why should our fair-haired, curly-headed boy be any different? His quickness of mind does not particularly surprise me, though it is remarkably penetrating.”

DTT.01_011,19 The chief priest continued, “Yes, an able boy educated from an early age would be nothing so extraordinary. But how do these people come by Scripture, when the only authentic copy is kept in the sanctuary of the Temple and, apart from the high priest, only the chief priest and the scribes may read from it?”

DTT.01_011,20 The young speaker said, “My lord, that has no longer been true since the Romans conquered our realm. Every arrangement of the Temple and all its books had to be disclosed to the conqueror for inspection. For three years the most faithful copies were made of everything.

DTT.01_011,21 “There are now so many faithful copies among the Romans and Greeks, in every tongue, that for a few pieces of silver one can buy a copy in whatever language one pleases. If that is so, why should it be so hard to find in a gifted Galilean boy a true scholar of Scripture, a non plus ultra?”

DTT.01_011,22 The chief priest said, “Now you throw in Latin words, though you know I am a mortal enemy of everything Roman! What does non plus ultra mean?”

DTT.01_011,23 The young speaker said, “My lord, as a Galilean I speak Greek and Latin as well as Hebrew. I also understand Syriac, Chaldaean, Armenian, Persian and Old Arabic, which one also needs to understand as an emissary. In the flow of speech, a foreign tongue often slips into my mouth almost of its own accord.

DTT.01_011,24 “The expression non plus ultra is now common among us Jews for its brevity and concision, so much so that one finds it rather hard to use the long and tedious Hebrew equivalent. Here it means that the boy is unsurpassed in his knowledge of all Scripture.”

DTT.01_011,25 The chief priest said, “Very well, it is of no consequence. For reasons you can easily understand, I am no friend of the Romans and therefore no friend of their language. But leave that aside and tell me whatever you know of that wonder-working boy in Nazareth. I know his father as well as his mother.”

DTT.01_011,26 The young speaker said, “My lord, that is a very delicate point. I think I saw him a few years ago in a group of boys who resembled one another more closely than twins. I was told which one he was, but the boys were moving about among one another so lively and so constantly that I could not keep my eye on the right one. So I saw him, and yet in another sense I did not.

DTT.01_011,27 “The boy who is stirring up so much trouble for us now was certainly in the group. With him was a boy who looked very much like him and, as I now recall, had an even more serious face. The boy who is troubling us did not caper about. The two seemed almost to be in command of the others, who appeared to move entirely as they wished.

DTT.01_011,28 “I could not tell what game the boys were playing as they moved about in that lively jumble. I had never seen anything like it. It did not seem aimless, for if one watched long enough one could plainly discern some order. But no one with me could explain what it represented. I was told that the boys always amused themselves in a way never seen before in Nazareth, but that no one understood the meaning of their unusual play.

DTT.01_011,29 “That is all I know of the boy from personal experience. But I have since been told extraordinary things about him that border on the utterly incredible. It would take at least ten days to tell them all, so I shall give you only the broad account.

DTT.01_011,30 “All the elements literally obey this boy, or rather that wonder-working boy. Even the sun, moon and all the stars are said to be visibly subject to his will. He need only wish it and the sun and moon give no light. And if he then says earnestly to the sun or moon, ‘Shine again!’ the light returns at once.

DTT.01_011,31 “With a word alone he is said to give those blind from birth sight as keen as a cat’s, which can see its prey quite well even on the darkest night.

DTT.01_011,32 “One of his playmates recklessly climbed onto a roof frame, fell and lay dead, his body shattered. In front of many witnesses the boy is said to have restored him to life by his word alone. The boy came back to life and stood there, healed of all his wounds, as healthy and cheerful as though nothing bad had ever happened to him. The wonder-working boy did, however, warn him very sternly never again to be so reckless and disobedient, or he would not help him again.

DTT.01_011,33 “In general people speak of the wonder-working boy’s extraordinary virtue and the great wisdom and power of his speech. Only one thing sounds rather strange. He never asks anyone for anything, and if someone gives him something, he never thanks them for it. He is always very serious. He is often seen praying, and even weeping quietly, but never laughing.

DTT.01_011,34 “That, in brief, is everything noteworthy I have learnt about the wonder-working boy. I know no more. How and by what means he does such wonders is far beyond my knowledge and my limited wisdom to judge. I leave that to you, the oldest and wisest rulers of the Temple. I have spoken.”

DTT.01_011,35 The high priest said, “By what power other than that of Beelzebub himself? God never works miracles through children or unruly boys, and even through devout men wholly devoted to Him and mature in years, such as we are, He does so only very rarely. If a twelve-year-old boy in Nazareth does such things, then it is plain that he can do them only with the help of Beelzebub! That is my view. If anyone has another and a better one, let him rise and speak.”

DTT.01_011,36 An elder rose and said, “In my view, you grant Beelzebub rather too much power. Strictly between ourselves, Beelzebub is only an allegorical figure by which we represent the whole of what is evil and bad, which lies solely in the perversity of the human will.

DTT.01_011,37 “It has long been established that when a society of many people acts together in contempt of every good law, it produces among itself a so-called Beelzebub, who thereafter lets nothing good arise in it. Such an evil spirit is like a moral pestilence. It continually poisons the hearts of those living in such a society, so they can never improve by their own efforts.

DTT.01_011,38 “Even that is due to children being brought up in a wholly misguided and harmful way from the cradle. No personal evil spirit called Beelzebub is responsible. Such people gain no conception of an almighty and all-wise God. In all other branches of knowledge and learning they lag far behind civilised peoples and can therefore be overcome by them soon and easily.

DTT.01_011,39 “But consider the extraordinary education of the boy in question. We know his deeply devout and learned parents only too well, and we should bear in mind his extraordinary benevolence. Even in my worst dream it would never occur to me to claim that such a boy acts in close alliance with the chief of all devils, who are incapable of allowing even the slightest thought of light to take root within them.

DTT.01_011,40 “Or, as we see things, can absolute evil ever achieve even a seemingly good end? I have yet to hear of it. Do any of you know of thoroughly wicked people ever performing a good and praiseworthy act? Can anything truly good ever be shown to have been achieved by the worst and most depraved means?

DTT.01_011,41 “If our wonder-working boy uses a strength of will we cannot comprehend to perform only the best and noblest deeds, with the best and most lasting results, how could he possibly be using the most thoroughly wicked means? I ask you for a convincing explanation.”

DTT.01_011,42 Several elders and scribes agreed with the speaker. Only the chief priest and his rather small following disagreed. The chief priest stood up and addressed the defender of the wonder-working boy:

DTT.01_011,43 “I gathered from your argument that you deny that Beelzebub is a person and likewise deny that the devils under him are persons. If your argument is right, then explain in your own way who fought the archangel Michael for three days on Mount Nebo over the body of Moses, and won!

DTT.01_011,44 “Who was that figure of light who was allowed to venture before God’s throne to ask leave to put Father Job to the test? Who was Eve’s serpent? Who was the evil spirit of Saul, whom the boy David drove away with the sound of his harp? Scripture gives many more accounts, especially in Daniel, who mentions the great dragon and the great harlot of Babylon more than once. How will you, philosopher that you are, explain all this in your own way?”

DTT.01_011,45 The wise elder and scribe who had spoken before replied, “That would be easy for me if your understanding had reached the degree of learning needed to grasp it, but in its complete darkness your mind cannot grasp such things of light. I would only preach a useless sermon to someone deaf and blind, and it would have no effect. So I shall leave it alone.

DTT.01_011,46 “Those who wished to understand me and could do so understood me already. Preaching to a stubborn will is like putting a stone in water to make it soft. Have you never read the greater Kabbalah, the work of a great mind? It explains at length the correspondences between images in speech and writing and the reality they represent.”

DTT.01_011,47 The chief priest said, “I have read the lesser one, but not the greater.”

DTT.01_011,48 The speaker said, “Then I can hardly discuss it with you. The lesser one has a different author and is not worthy of being called even the poorest abridgement of the older, greater one.

DTT.01_011,49 “Before God there is no Satan and no devil, and therefore nothing absolutely evil. All powers and forces must obey Him, and none can act beyond its own bounds.

DTT.01_011,50 “Is fire not an element of great power, full to the utmost of the harmful and destructive? Does that make it a product of Satan if it destroys whole cities and turns them to dead ashes when human ill will or criminal negligence unleashes it?

DTT.01_011,51 “Is Satan in water because it can kill people and animals who fall into it? Is Satan in a stone, in the height of the mountains, in poisonous animals and plants, or in everything that can bring death to us when used foolishly? Look, everything on or in the earth can be full of blessing and at the same time full of a curse, depending on whether people use it wisely or foolishly.

DTT.01_011,52 “What, then, was the famous struggle of Satan with the archangel Michael over the body of Moses?

DTT.01_011,53 “The devout among the Jews, who revered Moses as a god, thought he would not die even in the flesh. For it was said, ‘Those who strictly observe the laws of God will not die, but will live on for ever, and worms shall not eat their flesh.’ Yet Moses grew weak in the end and died like anyone else.

DTT.01_011,54 “Among the Jews there were a wise man and a physician.

DTT.01_011,55 “The wise man said, ‘Let the body be carried to the top of a high mountain, where the purest life-giving air blows. Moses will come to life again and lead his people into the land promised to them.’

DTT.01_011,56 “The more discerning physician said, ‘Once the soul has left the body, the body will never come to life again.’

DTT.01_011,57 “The wise man said, ‘If Moses does not come to life on the mountaintop within three days but remains dead, you will have defeated me and my faith, and I shall be your slave for life.’

DTT.01_011,58 “But the physician said, ‘I know beforehand that I shall prevail. You need not become my slave on that account. I shall remain what I am and you what you are. You will see that the prince, or power, of death keeps its victim and never lets go.’

DTT.01_011,59 “Moses was carried with great ceremony to the summit of Mount Nebo. Many thousands of the most distinguished Israelites accompanied the body. When the summit had been reached with great difficulty, Moses was exposed to the open, life-giving air. For three days every conceivable means, spiritual and material, was tried to revive him. All was in vain. The great prophet’s eyes never opened again to the light of this world.

DTT.01_011,60 “On the fourth day the wise man said indignantly before the people, ‘Behold the power of Satan, people of God! For three days Michael, the power of heaven, fought Satan, the power of death, over the prophet’s body, and Satan defeated him. But Michael said, “God will judge you for this!”’

DTT.01_011,61 “This was a speech addressed to the people. It was figurative, or symbolic, but nevertheless necessary and, at its deepest level, very true.

DTT.01_011,62 “When the physician afterwards spoke privately with the wise man and reminded him how right he had been, the wise man replied:

DTT.01_011,63 “‘Unfortunately, you are right. Yet it is still sad for us that Jehovah makes no exception even for His greatest prophet, but in the end strangles and kills him just as He would any ordinary animal. He could have kept Moses alive and shown the people that Satan no longer had any power over one He had sanctified through and through.’

DTT.01_011,64 “The physician said, ‘You do not judge Jehovah fairly. See, He has marked out a path for all flesh and another for the spirit. The path of the flesh must come wholly under judgement so that the path of the spirit may remain free for ever.’

DTT.01_011,65 “While the two were still exchanging words, the spirit of Moses suddenly came between them and said, ‘Peace be with you! God’s order is unchangeable, and all He does is good. Even though the body dies, the spirit does not die. Keep the laws and do not contend over my body, for I, Moses, live on for ever, even if the body I wore had died a thousand times!’

DTT.01_011,66 “The spirit then disappeared, and the two were reconciled.

DTT.01_011,67 “Now, my dear brother in Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, what do you say to that? Where is your Satan as a person? What I have just told you is the plain historical truth. The account written in the book is only an image, given in poetic verse like all such accounts. It can be understood only through the science of correspondences in the natural world. What do you say to that, as a scribe yourself?”

DTT.01_011,68 The chief priest said, “Yes, yes, there is much to be said for it and it sounds quite plausible. Yet it rests on faith and allows no proof beyond that. Still, there may be something in it. Once it rests entirely on faith, in the end it hardly matters which account I believe, and it is always easier to believe something natural than something supernatural. So let us leave the matter. The night is over, and they will be expecting us in the hall!”

DTT.01_011,69 The young man who was not yet a full Pharisee said, “I am truly curious what turn the matter will take today! For our own good, I ask only that you give a little thought to my advice, which is prudent on account of the Romans. It really matters very little whether, between these four walls, we appear to go part of the way towards accepting what the boy actually wants. Otherwise we shall surely make the Romans even greater enemies than they are already.”

DTT.01_011,70 The chief priest said, “Do not worry, my son. Whatever can be done will be done, for today we plainly understand our position better than we did yesterday.”

DTT.01_011,71 After these words a Temple attendant came in and reported, with his usual profound deference, that the Roman commissioner and the boy were in the hall, together with Simon of Bethany and several other gentlemen.