d of her
he persuaded her daughter to come over to him in the night. Shamhuth
always walked praying aloud, his eyes cast down lest they should fall
upon a woman, and his wife did not suspect him. But one night she was
bidden in a dream to seek her husband, and rising from her bed she
descended and opened the door very softly, not wishing to disturb him in
his sleep. The sight that met her eyes kindled such a great flame of
hate in her that she returned to her room for a needle, and placing her
hands upon her daughter's mouth she quickly pricked out both her eyes,
and then, approaching her husband, she pricked out his right eye, and
was about to prick out the other, but he slid from her hands and
escaped, blind of an eye, to Jerusalem, bringing with him great sums of
money in the hope that he may purchase a miracle, which is a great
blasphemy in itself, and shows what the man really is in his heart.

Such was the story that the Alexandrian Jew, who knew him, told us; and
as soon as these abominations became known in the Temple a riot began,
and somebody cried: the adulterer must be put away. Whereupon Phinehas,
seeing the large profits he had expected vanishing, turned to Jesus and
said: it is thou who hast brought this disaster upon me, lying Galilean,
who callest thyself the son of David, when all know ye to be the son of
Joseph the Carpenter.

Son of David! Son of David! How can that be? the people began to ask
each other, and in the midst of their questioning a great hilarity broke
over them. In great wrath Jesus overturned Phinehas' table, and Phinehas
would have overthrown Jesus had not Peter, who had armed himself with a
sword, raised it. The people became like mad: tables were broken for
staves, some rushed away to escape with a whole skin, and the frightened
cattle dashed among them, a black bull goring many. And in all the mob
Jesus was the fiercest fighter, lashing the people in the face with the
thongs of the whip he had taken from a herdsman, and felling others with
the handle. The cages of the doves were broken, the birds took flight,
and the priests, at their wits' end, called for the guards to come down
from the porticoes, and it was not till much blood had been spilt that
order was restored. Joseph asked how Phinehas came out of all this
trouble, and heard that he had escaped without injury. Merely losing a
few shekels, not more, though he deserved to lose his life, for he
placed his money above the Tem