ps asking yourselves why I returned here:
was it to hide myself from Pilate and the Jews? No, but to repent of the
evil seed that I had sown that I returned here; and it was because he
wished me to repent that God took me down from the cross and cured me of
my wounds in Joseph's house and sent me here to lead the sheep over the
hills, and it was he who put this last confession into my mouth.

It seems to me that in telling this story, brethren, I am doing but the
work of God; no man strays very far from the work that God has decreed
to him. But in the time I am telling I was so exalted by the many
miracles which I had performed by the power of God or the power of a
demon, I know not which, that I encouraged my disciples to speak of me
as the son of David, though I knew myself to be the son of Joseph the
carpenter; and when I rode into Jerusalem and the people strewed palms
before me and called out, the son of David, and Joseph said to me, let
them not call thee the son of David, I answered in my pride, if they did
not call it forth the stones themselves would. In the days I am telling,
pride lifted me above myself, and I went about asking who I was, Moses,
Elijah, Jeremiah or the Messiah promised to the Jews.

A madman! A madman, or possessed by some evil spirit, Paul cried out,
and rising to his feet he rushed out of the cenoby, but nobody rose to
detain him; some of the Essenes raised their heads, and a moment after
the interruption was forgotten.

A day passed in the great exaltation and hope, and one evening I took
bread and broke it, saying that I was the bread of life that came down
from heaven and that whosoever ate of it had everlasting life given to
him. After saying these words a great disquiet fell upon me, and calling
my disciples together I asked them to come to the garden of olives with
me. And it was while asking God's forgiveness for my blasphemies that
the emissaries and agents of the priests came and took me prisoner.

At the touch of their hands the belief that I was the Messiah promised
to the Jews rose up in my heart again, and when the priests asked me if
I were the Christ, the Son of the Blessed, I answered, I am, and ye
shall see the son of man sitting on the right hand of God; and it was
not till I was hanging on the cross for upwards of two hours that the
belief I had come down from heaven to do our Father's will faded; again
much that I had said seemed to me evil and blasphemous, and feeling