reach that the end
of the world was approaching and that men must repent, for God willed
him to preach these things. His teaching was true when he was the
teacher, but when I became his disciple his teaching became false; it
turned me from my natural self and into such great harshness of mind
that in Nazareth when my mother came with my brothers and sisters to the
synagogue I said, woman, I have no need of thee, and when Joseph of
Arimathea returned to me after a long attendance by his father's bedside
(his father had lain in a great sickness for many months; it was through
Joseph's care that he had been saved from death, Joseph was a good son),
I told him he must learn to hate his father and his mother if he would
become worthy to follow me. But my passion was so great in those days
that I did not see that my teaching was not less than blasphemy against
God, for God has created the world for us to live in it, and he has put
love of parents into our hearts because he wishes us to love our
parents, and if he has put into the heart of man love of woman, and into
the heart of woman love of man, it is because he wishes both to enjoy
that love.

I fear to think of the things I said at that time, but I must speak of
them. One man asked me before he left all things to follow me if he
might not bury his father first. I answered, leave the dead to bury
their dead, and to another who said, my hand is at the plough, may I not
drive it to the headland, I answered: leave all things and follow me. My
teaching grew more and more violent. It is not peace, I said, that I
bring to you, but a sword, and I come as a brand wherewith to set the
world in flame. I said, too, that I came to divide the house; to set
father against mother, brother against brother, sister against sister. I
can see that my remembrance of him who once was wounds the dear brethren
with whom I have lived so long; I knew it would be hard for you to hear
that an Essene had broken the rules of a holy order, and it is hard for
me to stand before you and tell that I, who was instructed by Hazael in
all the pious traditions of our race, should have blasphemed against
God's creation and God's own self. You will thrust me through the door
as an unworthy brother, saying, go, live in the wilderness, and I shall
not cry out against my expulsion through the hills and valleys, but
continue to repent my sins in silence till death leads me into silence
that never ends. You are perha