Too Long; Didn't Read

Here must this history have an end. But I marvel how smoothly and easily the relation seemeth to have ascended from Jesus on earth to Jesus in heaven, as if by some ladder of easy ascent, and as though there were not seven heavens between. And perchance men would marvel the more, if I had been able to set down exactly the image of Jesus as he appeared to me at the first in my mother’s house at Sepphoris, or when he sat with us in the fishing-boat on the lake; so that the image of Jesus as he seemed then, might be compared with the image of Jesus as he seemeth now. But I know that I have not been able to do this. For my pen hath still outrun the story: and in adventuring to describe Jesus as he appeared to me on earth, I have often failed of my intent, and have described him, not as he appeared to me on earth, but as he was hereafter to appear to me from heaven. Oftentimes, musing on the difference between Jesus, as he was in deed and in truth, and Jesus, as we in Galilee supposed him to be, I have questioned myself and said, “Whence this waste of the life of the Lord Jesus? For if it be good for us to know him, and if the knowledge of him be eternal life, as we believe; then how [pg 425]much better had it been that we should have known him while he was alive, and not to have tarried for the knowledge till death had taken him from us?” Now, looking back, I seem to discern a reason for our ignorance, or, at the least, a certain wholesome fruit springing therefrom. For methinks, had we known the Lord Jesus as he was, and all his greatness and glory, and all that was to betide him, and his resurrection, and his ascension, even then when he sat with us at meat, and went in and out with us throughout the villages of Galilee; I say, had we known even then that Jesus was to be raised from the dead, and to sit at the right hand of God, methinks we could not have loved him so dearly, nor have spoken with him so familiarly, nor have questioned him so freely, revealing unto him all our infirmities, and trusting him as a friend, yea, loving him as a very son of man, even one of ourselves. But the Lord so ordained it that we should come to Jesus as to a great and good man, becoming infected with his spirit and imbued with the love of him as of a mortal being; and then, when he had caught our hearts as it were by guile, so that he had made himself now needful unto us even as the very breath of our lives, then began he to say unto us, “Whom say ye that I, the Son of man, am?” And lo, trying our hearts, we began to perceive that this same Son of man, who had so given life to our souls, could be none other than the very Son of the Living God. Hence it came to pass that, when he departed from us, and when we felt a void in our hearts, and when we questioned ourselves what it was that we had lost, and what it was that we most loved and trusted and revered, [pg 426]yea also, and what it was that we most worshipped as divine; then behold, searching our hearts, we found that there was nothing in heaven above nor in the earth beneath, nor in the waters under the earth, no, nor in the host above the heavens, that could compare with Jesus of Nazareth. And so it was that, when we worshipped him as the Son, it seemed not unto us as if we were honouring him by calling him God; but (if I may speak as a child) it seemed rather as though we were striving to honour God by saying that God was one with Jesus. For saying this, seemed all one with saying that God was Love. Therefore if any put this question unto me, “Why believest thou not that Romulus is God, and Liber, and Amphiaraus, and Elias, and Enoch (who all are said to have escaped death), and yet thou believest that Jesus of Nazareth is God?”: my answer is this, that I believe Jesus to be God, first, because God is Love, and Jesus is Love; secondly, because God is Might and Jesus is Might; and lastly, because, if Jesus was not indeed divine, then must he needs have been a poor deluded creature, unfit and unable to do any great work for the children of men. For certainly, albeit he was the most humble and lowly of men, yet did he ever speak of himself, not as one of many redeemers, but as the redeemer of men, the refuge of the wretched, the forgiver of sins, the source of life and truth.