Then a highly respected man from the region of Capernaum steps forward and says, ‘Most honored servant of Jehovah in the temple at Jerusalem! The Jesus whom you have now mentioned before us in your question is, so to speak, a native of this region and town. He has always behaved properly and at all times with exceedingly great fear of God. He was very often seen praying at length; no one had ever yet seen him laugh, but he was often seen weeping in secret, quiet places which He frequently used to visit.
‘Even in the earliest period of his life, strange things happened with him; and now, having actually set out on a journey as a true physician who has no equal on earth, he brings about, by the mere word, healings of a kind that Jehovah alone would be able to bring about!
‘All the deeds from Moses down to our time are to be regarded as almost nothing beside these! He instantly makes cripples who have been entirely withered for years completely well. Every fever, however severe, must bow before his word. Those mute, deaf and blind from birth speak, hear and see as perfectly as any of us. He drives away the worst leprosy at once; from the possessed he drives out legions of devils with a mere word. He calls the dead, and they rise, eat and drink, and then walk about as though nothing had ever been wrong with them. Likewise He commands the elements, and they obey him as though they were his most faithful and willing servants.
‘But His teaching, generally speaking, is this: that one should love God above all and one’s neighbor as oneself in deed.
‘But since he performs such deeds and proclaims the purest teaching to his disciples, we consider him a quite extraordinary prophet whom Jehovah has now sent us, as once He sent Elijah, as though from the heavens in our greatest distress. That is all that I and many others know of this glorious Jesus, and we cannot thank God enough for having once again remembered His poor people, oppressed beyond all measure.
‘Many consider him the promised great Anointed One of the Lord. For my part I am neither for nor against this. Yet I nevertheless ask whether Christ, who is to come, will one day perform greater deeds!?’
The priest says, ‘You speak as a blind man judges colors! Where is it written that a prophet will ever be raised up from Galilee!? We tell you that this Jesus of yours is nothing but an evil sorcerer who ought to be destroyed by fire. His teaching is a mask behind which he conceals his blasphemous mischief! He performs his miraculous deeds not with God but with the chief of all devils, and you blind people even consider him the great Promised One! Truly, for that reason all of you, together with him, deserve death by fire!!!’
But the man stands firm and says, ‘Yes, as far as you are concerned, if we were not Galileans, and I in particular not a full-fledged Roman, and if you rather than the Romans were still our masters, we would have been burning long ago! But fortunately your lordship over us Galileans ended long ago. We are fully Roman subjects and therefore have nothing to do with you, except at most to expel you entirely from Galilee if you should dare lay hands on even the least of us Romans.
‘But concerning our great prophet Jesus I now tell you this as well: woe to you if you should take it into your heads to lay your evil hands upon him in this country!
‘For to us He is a truest God. Before us He did things that can be possible to God alone!
‘A God who does good to poor, suffering people must be a genuine and true God. But a god such as yours, who can be appeased only with gold, silver and all manner of other fat sacrifices, and who does and gives almost as much as nothing for long prayers paid for at an exorbitant price, is thoroughly evil, just like you who call yourselves his servants, and deserves, like you, to be thrown out of the country!
‘You said Jesus was a ravening wolf in sheep’s clothing. What are you, then!? Truly, it is you yourselves who are, in the fullest measure, what you say of Jesus, this man as gentle as a lamb!
‘You hear our complaints with a friendly expression, but in your breasts you brood on the most implacable revenge against us complainants, and if you could, you would already like to destroy us with Sodom’s fire from the heavens!? But nothing of the kind, you evil viper vermin and scorpion brood! Here we Romans are the masters, and we shall know how to show you the road from here to Jerusalem if you do not immediately set off of your own accord!’
This speech had naturally put the three scribes into a most fiercely burning fury; but they now dared say nothing more before the numerous people, and therefore sought escape through a little back door, namely onto the road towards Capernaum, where most of the Pharisees and scribes from Jerusalem were staying and, entirely unhindered, indulging in every imaginable vice of fornication and every possible fraud.
When the three had thus vacated the synagogue, another man stepped forward and conveyed to the speaker the general thanks from the mouths of all the delegates and individual complainants present here. But at the end he added and said, ‘If we do not do as the Samaritans do, we shall have no peace from these beasts! Their names must become more contemptible to us than those of Gog and Magog, and Jerusalem must be a place for us to piss on; otherwise we shall never be rid of this plague, which is worse than any pestilence.’
They all agree with him and say, ‘If our miracle-working Jesus could be found anywhere, He would have to come here immediately, and we would make Him our sole valid teacher and high priest?’
The speaker says, ‘That would be my intention too, but beforehand we would nevertheless have to inquire of the Roman governor in Capernaum whether he would agree to it. For the Romans do not have an easy position here alongside our priesthood, since the temple is said to be in constant, entirely secret correspondence with the king of Rome!?’
All agreed with this proposal and then, one after another, left the hall in which the synagogue was.