Chapter 24 — Joram Speaks about the Nature of God

DTT.01_024,01 The judge’s sharp words had utterly disconcerted the Temple officials and frightened them so much that they could only stammer. Joram was the most composed. He rose from his chair, bowed deeply to the judge and said:

DTT.01_024,02 “Exalted, stern and most just ruler and judge over all Jerusalem and far beyond! It is difficult for us to form a true conception of God’s nature, for Moses expressly forbids us to form any tangible conception of Him or any idea of Him that is even half pictorial. You will therefore find no image in our Temple from which the outward senses can form a concrete idea of the Godhead.

DTT.01_024,03 “Yet the fathers, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, repeatedly had visions in which they always saw God in perfect human form and spoke with Him, although Moses later says, ‘No one can see God and live. God is a consuming fire and dwells in unapproachable light!’

DTT.01_024,04 “Nevertheless, Moses once wished to see God even if it meant instant death. At Sinai God said to him, ‘Hide in this cave. I shall pass by. When I call you, come out of the cave and you will see My back.’

DTT.01_024,05 “At one point God has a form, and at another He has none, even by strict law, and on pain of punishment one may not ascribe one to Him. It becomes very hard, and in time almost impossible, to form any idea or conception of God. Yet the human heart longs for a God with a form, and strictly speaking one cannot blame the Gentiles too much for picturing Zeus as a perfect human being. We have only the word ‘Jehovah’, and beyond it very little.

DTT.01_024,06 “As for myself, simply as a human being, I find this boy good and powerful enough to be a god, just as you do. But consider the people who cling to the teaching of Moses and the prophets. The Temple has long been the centre of their hope of blessedness. There they bring their wishes and hopes and believe themselves near to their God, who hears them through the high priest’s ear and answers them through his prayers and those of his assistants. Take that from the people all at once and put this divine boy in place of the Ark of the Covenant, and you will soon have a general revolt throughout the country.

DTT.01_024,07 “We are fools because we are compelled to be. If it were otherwise, and our lives and the welfare and peace of the people did not depend on it, we would have ceased to be fools long ago. Do you think it so easy to present something to the people as existing when it does not exist and even with the best will in the world one can form no conception of it?

DTT.01_024,08 “For my own part, I think of the boy what you think of him. Before the people I must nonetheless carry on the old folly and give not the slightest hint that inwardly I hold a wholly different belief from the one I outwardly display.

DTT.01_024,09 “If in time the boy’s power succeeds in drawing the people’s attention to him as it has drawn ours, so that they recognise and accept him for what he is, he will easily deal with the whole Temple. But an old institution in which so many interests are entangled cannot be set aside like an old cupboard that one can throw out and break up without trouble and replace with a new one.

DTT.01_024,10 “That is my view, and surely the whole Temple shares it. I hardly think anyone will contradict me!”

DTT.01_024,11 The judge said, “For now there is indeed little to say against that view. One thing may nevertheless be said. If you believe in the boy’s mission, surely you can draw the people’s attention to him in a suitable way and show them what has now come into the world?”

DTT.01_024,12 Joram said, “That is plainly a fair request, and perhaps something can be done about it. But it will still be a very bold undertaking, likely to cause both us and the good boy a great deal of difficulty.

DTT.01_024,13 “First, the boy will certainly not remain in the Temple. His parents will take him back to Nazareth perhaps today and certainly tomorrow. It is rather too far away to send everyone who asks after him.

DTT.01_024,14 “Second, hundreds of thousands would begin asking us in earnest why, if he is who the prophet said he would be, he does not take up residence in the house that is his by right, the Temple.

DTT.01_024,15 “What reason could we give the people for his preferring Galilee and Nazareth to the city of God? The people would soon say, ‘The city and Temple must have committed some grave wrong. It must be investigated and atoned for!’

DTT.01_024,16 “In short, however we went about it, we should rouse great agitation among the people and make much trouble for ourselves. So I think it wiser for now to say scarcely a word of it to the people and leave the matter entirely to the boy and to time itself.

DTT.01_024,17 “Whatever may come, we at least will have been prepared by these three days and can prepare ourselves still better and more deeply. Let the boy himself now speak and say what he wants, for it will be hard to resist his will!”