A Young Priest in Capernaum
Of Jesus the Magician
HE WAS A magician, warp and woof, and a sorcerer, a man who bewildered
the simple by charms and incantations. And He juggled with the words of
our prophets and with the sanctities of our forefathers.
Aye, He even bade the dead be His witnesses, and the voiceless graves
His forerunners and authority.
He sought the women of Jerusalem and the women of the countryside with
the cunning of the spider that seeks the fly; and they were caught in
His web.
For women are weak and empty-headed, and they follow the man who would
comfort their unspent passion with soft and tender words. Were it not
for these women, infirm and possessed by His evil spirit, His name would
have been erased from the memory of man.
And who were the men who followed Him?
They were of the horde that are yoked and trodden down. In their ignorance
and fear they would never have rebelled against their rightful masters.
But when He promised them high stations in His kingdom of mirage, they
yielded to His fantasy as clay to the potter.
Know you not, the slave in his dreaming would always be master; and the
weakling would be a lion?
The Galilean was a conjuror and a deceiver, a man who forgave the sins
of all sinners that He might hear Hail and Hosanna from
their unclean mouths; and who fed the faint heart of the hopeless and
the wretched that He might have ears for His voice and a retinue at His
command.
He broke the sabbath with those who break that He might gain the support
of the lawless; and He spoke ill of our high priests that He might win
attention in Sanhedrim, and by opposition increase His fame.
I have said often that I hated that man. Ay, I hate Him more than I hate
the Romans who govern our country. Even His coming was from Nazareth,
a town cursed by our prophets, a dunghill of the Gentiles, from which
no good shall ever proceed.
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