Part 37

And for a time the wisdom of the stay-at-homes, taken root in their native countryside like moss on a stone, was vindicated. The fishermen returned. The fishers of men appeared again in Galilee and once more took the old nets into their hands. They had received the order of Him who had drawn them away from there that they should be witnesses to His shame and to His glory. They had not forgotten Him and they could never forget Him: they always talked of Him among themselves and with all those who were willing to listen to them. But Christ on His return had said, “We will meet again in Galilee.” And they had gone away from ill-omened Judea, from the mercenary city ruled by its murderous masters, and they had trod once more the road back to their sweet, calm fatherland, whence the loving ravisher of souls had snatched them away. The old houses had a mellow beauty, with the white banners of newly washed linen, and the young grass greening along the old walls, and the tables cleaned by humble old hands, and the oven, which every week spat out sparks from its flaming mouth. And the quiet fishing-town had beauty, too; with its tanned naked boys, the sun high over the level market-place, the bags and baskets in the shadow of the inns, and the smell of fish which at dawn was wafted over it, with the morning breeze. But more beautiful than all was the lake: a gray-blue and slate-colored expanse on cloudy afternoons: a milky basin of opal with lines and patches of jacinth on warm evenings; a dark shadow flecked with white on starry nights: a silvery, heaving shadow in the moonlight. On this lake which seemed the very spirit of the quiet, happy countryside, the fishermen’s eyes had for the first time discovered the beauty of light and of water, nobler than the heavy unlovely earth and kinder than fire. The boat with its slanting sails, its worn seats, the high red rudder, had from their childhood been dearer to them than that other home which awaited them, stationary, whitened, four-square on the bank. Those infinitely long hours of tedium and of hope as they gazed at the brilliant water, the swaying of the nets, the darkening of the sky, had filled the greater part of their poor and homely lives.

Then came the day when a Master, poorer and more powerful than they, had called them to Himself to be workers with Him in a supernatural, perilous undertaking. The poor souls uprooted from their usual surroundings had done their best to be lighted by that flame, but the new life had trodden them out like grapes in the wine-press, like olives in the olive crusher in order that their rough hearts should yield up tears of love and pity.

It was only after the Cross had been raised on Golgotha that they had wept with true sorrow: and only after the Crucified Leader had returned to break bread with them that they had been kindled anew to hope.

And now they had come home, bringing back only a few recollections, and yet those recollections were enough to transform the world. But before beginning the work which He had commanded, they were waiting to see Him whom they loved in the place which He had loved. They were different men from the men who had gone away, more restless, sadder, almost estranged, as if they had come back from the land of the lotus-eaters and saw from beyond with purer eyes a new earth indissolubly united with Heaven. But the nets were there, hung up on the walls, and the boats at anchor swayed up and down on the water. Once more the fishers of men, perhaps out of nostalgia, perhaps out of material need, began to be lake fishermen.

Seven Disciples of Christ were together one evening in the harbor of Capernaum, Simon called Peter, Thomas called Didymus, Nathanael of Cana, James, John and two others. Simon said, “I go afishing.”

His friends answered, “We also go with thee.”

They went into the boat and put off, but all that night they caught nothing. When day came, a little depressed because of the wasted night, they came back towards the shore. And when they were near they saw in the faint light of the dawn a man standing on the shore, who seemed to be waiting for them. “But the disciples knew not that it was Jesus.”

“Children, have ye any meat?” called the unknown man.

And they answered, “No.”

“Cast the net on the right side of the ship, and ye shall find.”

They obeyed and in a moment the net was so full that they were scarcely able to draw it in. And they all began to tremble because they had guessed who it was awaiting them.

“It is the Lord,” said John to Simon.

Peter answered nothing, but hastily drew on his fisher’s coat (for he was naked), and cast himself into the sea that he might be first on shore. The boat was scarcely two hundred cubits from the land and in a few moments the seven Disciples were about their Lord. And no one asked Him, “Who art thou?”—because they had recognized Him.

On the shore there were bread and a lighted brazier with fishes broiling on it, and Jesus said, “Bring of the fish which ye have now caught.”

And for the last time He broke the Bread and gave to them and the fish likewise. After they had finished eating Jesus turned to Simon and under His look the unhappy man, silent till then, turned pale: “Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou me more than these?”

The man who had denied Him, when he heard this question full of tenderness, but for him so cruel, felt himself carried back to another place beside another brazier with other questions put to him, and he remembered the answer he had made then, and the look from Christ about to die and his own great lamentation in the night. And he dared not answer as he wished: “Yes” in his mouth would have been boasting and shamelessness: “No” would have been a shameful lie.

“Yea, Lord; thou knowest that I love thee.”

He made no claim for himself but “thou knowest that I love thee,” Thou who knowest all and seest into the most hidden hearts. “I love thee”: but he had not the courage to add “more than these” in the presence of the others, who knew what he had done.

Christ said to him, “Feed my lambs.”

And for the second time He asked him: “Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou me?”

And Peter in his trouble found no other answer than, “Yea, Lord; thou knowest that I love thee.”

Why dost Thou still make me suffer? Dost Thou not know without my telling Thee that I love Thee, that I love Thee more than at first, as I have never loved Thee, and that I will give up my life to affirm my love?

Then Jesus said, “Feed my sheep.”

And for the third time He insisted, “Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou me?”

He was drawing from Peter three affirmations, three new promises to cancel his three denials at Jerusalem. But Peter could not endure this repeated suffering. Almost weeping, He cried out, “Lord, thou knowest all things; thou knowest that I love thee!”

The terrible ordeal was over, and Jesus went on, “Feed my sheep. Verily, verily I say unto thee, When thou wast young, thou girdest thyself, and walkedst whither thou wouldest: but when thou shalt be old, thou shalt stretch forth thy hands, and another shall gird thee, and carry whither thou wouldest not.”

That is, to the cross, like the cross where they nailed me. Know, therefore, what it means to love me. My love is brother to death. Because I love you, they have killed me: for your love for me, they will kill you. Think, Simon, son of Jonas, what is the covenant which you make with me, and the fate which is before you. From now on, I shall not be at hand to take you back, to give you the peace of forgiveness, after coward fallings from grace. From now on defections and desertions will be a thousand times more serious. You must answer for all the lambs which I leave in your care and as reward at the end of your labors you will have two crossed beams, and four nails as I had, and life eternal. Choose: it is the last time that you can choose and it is a choice for all time—irrevocable. For an account will be asked of you as a servant left in the place of his master: and now that you know all and have decided, come with me.

“Follow me!”

Peter obeyed, but turning about saw John coming after him and said, “Lord, and what shall this man do?”

Jesus said to him, “If I will that he tarry till I come, what is that to thee? follow thou me!”

For Simon the primacy and martyrdom; for John immortality and endless waiting. He who bore the same name as the precursor of Christ’s first coming was to prophesy His second coming. The historian of the end was to be persecuted, a solitary prisoner, but he was to live longer than all the others and to see with his own eyes the crumbling of the stones, not one left upon another, of the ill-omened hill of Jerusalem. In his sonorous blue desert, in the midst of the blinding light and the immense blackness of the midnight sea, in his vision of the great deeds of the last day he will rejoice and suffer. Peter followed Christ, was crucified for Christ and left behind him the eternal dynasty of the Vicars of Christ: but John was not permitted to find rest in death: he waits with us, the contemporary of every generation, silent as love, eternal as hope.

THE CLOUD

Once more they returned to Jerusalem, leaving their nets, this time forever, travelers setting out upon a journey, the stages of which were to be marked by blood.

In the same place where He had gone down to the city glorified by men, in the shade of blossoming branches, He was to rise again after the interval of His dishonor and His resurrection, in the glory of Heaven. He remained in the midst of men, for forty days after the resurrection, for as long a time as He had remained in the desert after His symbolic death by water. Although His body seemed human, His life was transfigured into the ultimate sublimination of humanity and He was ready to enter as pure spirit, into the spirit of the Father from whom He had been separated thirty years before, that He might cast a gleam of heavenly light upon the shadow-darkened world.

He did not, as before, lead a life in common with the Disciples, because He was separated now from the life of living men; but He reappeared to them more than once to confirm His great promises, and perhaps to explain to those most capable of receiving them those mysteries which were not written down in any book but were passed on, under the seal of secrecy, through all the apostolic period and the following periods, and were imperfectly set down later under the title of Arcana Disciplina.

The last time they saw Him was on the Mount of Olives, where before His death He had prophesied the ruin of the Temple and of the city and the signs of His return, and where, in the darkness of night and of anguish, Satan, before his final defeat, had left Him wet with sweat and blood. It was one of the last evenings of May and the clouds in that golden hour, like golden celestial islands in the gold of the setting sun, seemed to rise from the warm earth towards near-by Heaven, like incense from great fragrant offerings. In the fields of grain, the birds began to call back the fledglings to the nests, and the cool breeze lightly shook the branches and their drooping, unripened fruit. From the distant city, still inact, from the pinnacles, the towers and the white squares of the Temple rose a smoky cloud of dust.

And once again the Disciples asked Jesus the question which they had put to Him in the same place on the evening of the two prophecies. Now that He had come back as He had promised, what else were they to await?

“Lord, wilt thou at this time restore again the kingdom to Israel?”

They may have meant the Kingdom of God, which in their minds, as in the minds of the Prophets, was one with the Kingdom of Israel, since the divine restoration of the earth was to begin with Judea.

Christ answered: “It is not for you to know the times or the season, which the Father hath put in his own power. But ye shall receive power, after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you: and ye shall be witnesses unto me both in Jerusalem, and in all Judea, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost parts of the earth.”

And having said this, He lifted up His hands and blessed them. And while they beheld, He was taken up from the earth and suddenly a shining cloud as on the morning of the Transfiguration wrapped Him about and hid Him from their sight. But they could not look away from the sky and continued to gaze steadfastly up in their astonishment, when two men in white apparel spoke to them: “Ye men of Galilee, why stand ye gazing up into heaven? this same Jesus, which is taken up from you into heaven, shall so come in like manner as ye have seen him go into heaven.”

Then having prayed in silence, they returned to Jerusalem, glowing with melancholy joy, thinking of the day just begun: the first day of a task which, after two thousand years, is not yet accomplished. They were alone now, alone against that innumerable enemy called the World. But Heaven is not so cut off from the earth as before the coming of Christ; the mystic ladder of Jacob is no longer a lonely man’s dream, but is set up on the earth, on this earth which we tread, and above there is an Intercessor who does not forget the ephemeral beings destined to eternal life who, for a time, were His brothers. “Lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world” had been one of His last promises and the greatest. He had ascended into Heaven, but Heaven was no longer merely the barren dome where swift, tumultuous storm-clouds appear and disappear; where the stars shine out silently, like the souls of saints.

He is still with us, the Son of Man, who to be nearer Heaven ascended mountains, who was light made manifest, who died, raised above the earth towards the blackness of Heaven, and rose from the dead to ascend into Heaven in the peacefulness of evening, and who will return again on the clouds of Heaven. He is still present in the world which He meant to free. He is still attentive to our words, if they truly come from the depths of our hearts, to our tears if they are tears of blood in our hearts before being salt drops in our eyes. He is with us, an invisible, benignant guest, never more to leave us, because by His wish our earthly life is an anticipation of the Kingdom of Heaven, and is a part of Heaven from this day on. Christ has taken to Himself as His eternal possession that rough foster-mother of us all, that sphere which is but a point in the infinite and yet contains hope for the infinite; and to-day He is closer to us than when He ate the bread of our fields. No divine promise can be blotted out: the May cloud which hid Him from sight, still hovers near the earth, and every day we raise our weary and mortal eyes to that same Heaven from which He will descend in the terrible splendor of His glory.

INDEX

Abba, Father, 302

Abnegation, 309

Abraham, 42

Achilles, 100; Priam and, 117, 120

Adam, 127

Adulteress, 223

Adultery, 101, 210

Adversary. _See_ Satan

Agrapha, 12

Aim of this book, 13, 14, 17, 20

Ajax of Sophocles, 118

Alabaster box, 224

Alms, 109

Andrew, 82

Angels, 62, 74, 212

Anger, 100

Animality, 98, 123

Animals, 22

Annas, 251, 313

Anointing, 224

Anti-Christ, 4

Anxiety for the morrow, 109

Apostles, 85, 178. _See also_ Disciples

Aquinas, Thomas, 185

Arcana Disciplina, 406

Aristophanes, 198, 199

Aristotle, 119, 136

Art, 124

Ascension, 241, 405, 407

Asking and receiving, 156

Ass, 22, 116; Jesus riding on, 244

Augustus, 204

Author of this book, his coming to Christ, 18

Authority, 13

Avarice, 111

Awakened one, 30

Babylon, 44

Balaam, 22, 23

Banks and bankers, 250

Banquet of the Kingdom, 153, 154

Baptism, of blood, 300; of Jesus, 57, 60; John the Baptist, 54; second baptism of Jesus—the tears of the woman who was a sinner, 228

Barabbas, 341

Barns, new, 174

Beatitudes, 87, 93; last and greatest, 395

Beauty, 15

Beggars, 80, 154, 193

Behold the man!, 346

Belief, 73, 74, 395

Benevolence, 113

Bestiality, 62, 73, 92, 323

Bethany, 140

Bethlehem, 24, 25; babies, 28

Bethpage, 244

Betrayal, 281

Betrayal of women, 102

Birth of Jesus, 21

Blasphemy, 322

Blindfolding Jesus, 325

Blindness, 133

Blood, scourging of Jesus, 345; sweat and blood of Jesus in Gethsemane, 306; water and, from body of Jesus, 375; wine and, 298

Blood-offering, 29

Boyhood, 32

Bread, as the body of Christ, 296, 298; breaking, 297; eating, as communion with God, 295; fishes and, 146; material and spiritual, 66, 133, 146; unleavened, 295, 297

Bridegroom, 155

Brothers, 161, 168, 207; anger toward, 100; love for, 114

Buddha, 95, 198

Buddhism, 114

Burial of Jesus, 379

Business as a God, 250

Business men, 79

But I say unto you, 100

Cæsar, faith, 148; images, 327; things which are Cæsar’s, 202, 204, 330

Cæsarea, 233

Cain, descendants of, 255

Cainites, 282

Caiaphas, 243, 251, 278, 287, 310, 315, 318, 348; adjuration of Jesus, 321; rends his garment, 322

Caligula, 270, 271

Camel and needle’s eye, 181

Cana, 141

Canaan, 43

Capernaum, 74, 76

Capital punishment, 356

Carpenter, 35; Jesus as, 36

Catalepsy, 139

Catholic Church, 12

Celibacy, 211

Centurion, 352, 355, 356

Cerinthus, 268

Chaldea, 24

Charity, 173, 265

Chastity, 211, 212

Children, 216; Bethlehem, 28; Jesus’ love of, 217; Moses and, 215; old law and its reversal by Jesus, 218

Christ, Jesus declares himself, 247; living to-day, 6, 408; memory, 5; modern opinion of, 19; second coming, 259, 262; Thou art the Christ, 235. _See also_ Jesus; Second coming

Christian era, 6, 71

Christian martyrs, 269

Christianity, precedents for, 119

Christs, false, 260, 267

Church, 396; Catholic, 12; Peter and, 237

Circe, 122

Claudia Procula, 333, 376

Cleopas, 384, 385, 387

Cloud, Jesus’ glorification, 405

Clovis, 369

Cock crow, 315, 317

Commerce, 250

Communion with God, 295

Confucius, 113

Conversion, 73; in Jesus’ life, 58

Converted sinner, 59

Corinthians, letter to the, 397

Cost, counting, 153

Country, 39

Courage, 106

Court of the Gentiles, 248

Courtesy, 113

Covenants, 40

Crates, 198, 199

Criticism, 8, 12

Cross, 304, 305, 352; Jesus and the two thieves carrying, 353; Jesus nailed to, 360; superscription, 351. _See also_ Crucifixion

Crown of thorns, 346

Crucifixion, 359, 367

Crucify him!, 338, 340, 343, 347

Cynics, 198

Cyrenian, 353, 355

Daniel, 271

Darkness, at the crucifixion, 367, 370; Jesus’ hour of, 310

David, 43, 116

Day of the Lord, 262

Dead, raising, 138

Death, 133; Egypt’s obsession, 31; Jewish views, 399

Death of Jesus, authors and accomplices, 242, 243; foreknowledge, 241; His prayer, Abba, Father, 302. _See also_ Crucifixion

Deborah, 43

Debts, forgiving, 171, 230

Defilement, 104

Demons, 137, 175

Desert, 61, 68, 69

Devil. _See_ Satan

Didymus, 392

Disciples, 176; duty, 189; earliest, 75; first four, 82; foretold of Jesus’ death, 242; instructions to, 188; mystic identity with Jesus, 192; persecutions, 268; reappearance of Jesus to, after the resurrection, 403; at resurrection of Jesus, 388, 389; speaking in the light, 190; warnings to, 180

Discord, 206

Dismas, 363, 367

Divinity, 123

Divorce, 210

Doing versus hearing, 158

Dositheus, 268

Doubt of Thomas, 392

Earthly kingdoms, 63, 65, 67, 72

Earthquakes, 270

Easter, 243, 295

Edification, 14

Education of the human race, 98

Egypt, character, 31; death and mud, 31; exile in, 32; flight into, 30; Jews in, 42

Egyptians, 114

Elder son, 167, 169

Elders, 242

Elias, 240, 373

Eloquence, 16

Elxai, 268

Emmaus, 384

End of the world, 262, 266

Enemies, Egyptians and, 114; Greeks and, 117; hatred of, 126; Jewish treatment of, 115; love of, 121

Ennœa, 267

Entreaty, 156

Epileptics, 135

Erudition, 13

Eternal life, 264, 400

Eternal punishment, 264

Eternity, 71

Evangelists on the Resurrection, 398

Evil, flight from, 105; root of, 100

Evil for evil, 105

Exaggeration, 100

Exile in Egypt, 32

Expiation, 279

Faith, 132, 133, 136, 148

False Christs, 260, 267

False witnesses, 319

Family, 103

Farmers, 79

Father, real, 34; universal, 45

Fatherhood of God, 37

Father’s business, 33

Fathers and sons, 213

Fatted calf, 167

Feast, 153

Feed my sheep, 404

Feet, washing of, 292

Fig tree, accursed, 144

Fire, 207; from heaven, 184; prophet of fire, 54

First and last, 180

First covenant, 40

Fishermen, 78; earliest disciples, 82, 84; return to the sea, 400

Fishers of men, 83

Flesh, conquest of, 212; one flesh, 209

Flight from evil, 105

Flight into Egypt, 30

Flogging, 343, 344

Flood, 41

Florence, 20

Forgive them, 356, 358, 363

Forgiveness, 170; of sin, 231

Forsaken, on the cross, 372

Forty days, 62

Fourth Covenant, 43

Frankincense, 25

Friends, Jesus and Judas, 285; laying down life for, 294; posthumous, 376

Friendliness, 75

Fulvia, 334

Galilee, 69, 71, 401

Gardeners, 78

Garments of Jesus, division, 361

Gate, narrow, 156

Gentiles and Jerusalem, 262

Gethsemane, 181, 183, 302

Gnostics, 268

God, 122; as Father, 37; imitation of, 123; likeness to, 123; reign of, 71; will of, 309

Gods of Greece, 64

Gold, frankincense and myrrh, 25

Golgotha, 357

Good Friday, 350

Good thief, 363

Good tidings, 74

Gospel, 74

Gospels, 6; authenticity, 11

Greatness, 177

Greek gods, 64

Greeks, treatment of enemies, 117

Happiness, 95, 97, 154

Harvest, 175

Hasmonæans, 27

Hatred, of enemies, 126; of others, 111; of ourselves, 124, 125

He is risen, 381

Health, 134, 138; of soul, 102

Hearing versus doing, 158

Heaven, 73, 407. _See also_ Kingdom of Heaven

Heights, 130

Heresies, 267

Hermon, Mount, 238

Herod Antipas, 335; Jesus before, 337

Herod the Great, 27, 325

Herodias, 336

High Priests, 242; plot against Jesus, 277, 278

Hillel, 117

Holiness, 122, 205

Horace, 26

Hosannas, 246

Hosea, 274

House on a rock, 158

Human nature, mystery, 234

Human race, education, 98

Humility, 125, 172, 293

Hungering after justice, 90

Husbandman, good, 175

Hypocrites, 255

Ideas of Jesus, antiquity of, 112

Imagination, 15, 16

Immortality, 399

Inasmuch, 264

Incest, 336

Inferno, 35

Inheriting the earth, 88

Injustice, 91

Innocents, slaughter of, 28

Insults, 92, 314, 324, 354

Intellectualism, 124

Intelligence, 87

Introduction, 3

Jairus’ daughter, 139

James, 83, 183, 184

Jericho, 172

Jerusalem, desolation, 261; destruction, 44, 45, 271, 272; last journey to, 244; Passover 32; worldly, 69

Jesus, attempts on his life, 241; baptism of, 57, 60; birth, 21; blindfolded, 325; as the Christ, 233; condemnation, 322; crucifixion, 359, 367; deeds, 130; foreknowledge, 49; foreknowledge of death, 241; friendliness, 75; hatred and condemnation for, 275; healer, 138; Herod Antipas and, 334; liberator, 299, 384; nailed to the cross, 360; nature, 233; Pilate and, 329, 338; Pilate’s question, 330, 332; poverty, 193; prosecution, 315; resurrection, 381; road to Emmaus, 384; second crucifixion, 3; sinlessness, 58; spat on and struck, 324; under the cross, 353; the wanderer, 75, 76; what men said of him, 233, 235. _See also_ Christ

Jewish State, reëstablishment, 274

Jews, dispersal, 44, 272; history, 40; in Egypt, 42; wanderings, 43

Job, 116

John, 83, 183, 184, 185, 315, 318; at the crucifixion, 371; at the sepulcher, 383

John the Baptist, 54; beheading of, 336; imprisonment and death, 69; Jesus’ answer to him in prison, 137, 138

Jonah, 131

Jordan and John the Baptist, 54

Joseph, 34, 286

Joseph of Arimathea, 318, 377

Joshua, 43

Judas, 186, 202, 243; Jesus’ understanding of, 284; kiss of, 311; at the Last Supper, 290, 301; mystery of, 281; sinning woman and, 229; wasted ointment and, 232