Chapter 13 — What Would You Do If I Really Were the Messiah?

DTT.01_013,01 At this firm objection from the Roman judge, they all returned to their places, visibly resentful, and remained silent for a while. When it seemed that no further question would be put to Me,

DTT.01_013,02 I stepped among them and said, “Listen. Since you will not honour Me with another question, I shall take the liberty of asking you a small one. Tell Me quite frankly what you would do if I really were the promised Messiah who was the chief subject of yesterday’s discussion!”

DTT.01_013,03 A surly old zealot of high rank in the Temple said, “Boy, boy, take great care what you argue and say here in Jehovah’s Temple, on holy ground! Beware of committing a grave offence!”

DTT.01_013,04 I answered him, “You and all your companions had better take care yourselves that you do not turn the house of the Lord into a den of murderers. In asking what you would do if I were after all the promised Messiah, I do not profane the Temple in the least. Anyone may put such a question to you without sin or fear. You may give Me a conditional answer, just as I have put a conditional question to you!”

DTT.01_013,05 Then Joram, the wise old Talmudist and great Kabbalist, rose and said, “With God all things are possible. But we human beings must be very watchful. We should accept a promise of such supreme importance as true only when all the circumstances that must attend its fulfilment in the manner described are so plainly evident as to be almost tangible before everyone’s astonished eyes.

DTT.01_013,06 “Now, my dear boy, as far as your birth is concerned you do have a couple of verses in Isaiah partly in your favour. But how much else that prophet foretold about the promised Messiah who is to come fits you no better than it fits me! I too am descended from David, and I am distantly related to your father Joseph. I did more than anyone else to see that Mary, who was brought up in the Temple, became his wife.

DTT.01_013,07 “I have not seen this couple, dear as they are to me, for more than eleven years. I had never seen you, who are evidently Joseph’s firstborn of his second marriage. So far I know only what I heard yesterday from your own lips and from our Levite Barnabe, who is also from Nazareth.

DTT.01_013,08 “According to reliable reports, your remarkable abilities far surpass any open miracle ever performed by even the most perfected strength of will and faith. They would certainly be grounds for paying particular attention to the one who possesses them. But as you will understand, there can as yet be no question of any settled certainty about what they attest, even though, as I say, no clear-thinking man and priest can disregard them.

DTT.01_013,09 “The Messiah will in any case be a human being like ourselves, though His qualities and abilities will be divine. The qualities you already show in childhood would lead one to expect something extraordinary when you are a man. But I am a very old man and have seen much. More than once I have found abilities and qualities even in very young children that led me to think Jehovah had surely raised up another great prophet for us. Yet as those children grew older, all their brilliant qualities vanished as though they had never been, and they became ordinary people like me. I know only what years of diligent and often laborious study and experience have taught me.

DTT.01_013,10 “So in me, as in countless others, the words of Scripture have proved true: ‘In the sweat of your brow you shall eat your bread.’ Perhaps it will happen to you too one day, my dear cousin. Perhaps it will not. We human beings can never know such things for certain beforehand. Man may propose many things, but God disposes. Now, my dear young cousin, you may make your observations again. I shall gladly answer you!”

DTT.01_013,11 I said, “You are the dearest to Me of all your panel. This very night you spoke a good and honest word for Me to the high priest. You opened his eyes a little on the question of Satan as a person, so that for the first time in his life he caught at least a faint notion of the all-important doctrine of correspondences. He began to see that deeds like Mine cannot possibly be done with the help of an evil power.

DTT.01_013,12 “From this you see that even what you discussed so quietly and secretly with the chief priest is not hidden from Me. You can therefore imagine that I know exactly what the deeply embarrassed chief priest is thinking now. He is greatly afraid I shall disclose something disagreeable to him. But his fear is groundless.

DTT.01_013,13 “If I did My deeds with Beelzebub’s help, he would long since have been exposed and judged. But I do all My works by the strength and power of God within Me, which forever wills only good and never evil. The chief priest therefore has no need to fear Me. Not a hair of his head shall be harmed by Me.

DTT.01_013,14 “But we have frittered away our time talking of many needless things and have left the main matter entirely aside instead of pursuing it!”

DTT.01_013,15 Joram asked, “What, then, is that main matter? Speak frankly now, and we shall be fair in our judgement, for we have found you to be very fair yourself!”