THIS MAN WHO fills your day and haunts your night is repellent to me. Yet you would tire my eyes with His sayings and my mind with His deeds.
I am weary of His words, and all that He did. His very name offends me, and the name of His countryside. I will none of Him.
Why make you a prophet of a man who was but a shadow? Why see a tower in this sand-dune, or imagine a lake in the raindrops gathered together in this hoof-print?
I scorn not the echo of caves in valleys nor the long shadows of the sunset; but I would not listen to the deceptions that hum in your head, nor study the reflections in your eyes.
What word did Jesus utter that Halliel had not spoken? What wisdom did He reveal that was not of Gamaliel? What are His lispings to the voice of Philo? What cymbals did He beat that were not beaten ere ever He lived?
I hearken to the echo from the caves into the silent valleys, and I gaze upon the long shadows of sunset; but I would not have this man's heart echo the sound of another heart, nor would I have a shadow of the seers call himself a prophet.
What man shall speak since Isaiah has spoken? Who dares sing since David? And shall wisdom be born now, after Solomon has been gathered to his fathers?
And what of our prophets, whose tongues were swords and their lips flames?
Left they a straw behind for this gleaner of Galilee? Or a fallen fruit for the beggar from the North Country? There was naught for Him save to break the loaf already baked by our ancestors, and to pour the wine which their holy feet had already passed from the grapes of old.
It is the potter's hand I honor not the man who buys the ware.
I honor those who sit at the loom rather than the boor who wears the cloth.
Who was this Jesus of Nazareth, and what is He? A man who dared not live His mind. Therefore He faded into oblivion and that is His end.
I beg you, charge not my ears with His words or His deeds. My heart is overfull with the prophets of old, and that is enough.
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