The Galilee Files (Part 1 of 2)

To his holiness, Caiaphas, High Priest of the Most High God:

Enclosed are my full reports collected over the last two years according to your command. I have given you a verbal report of some of these matters previously, but I wished to hold the written report until it was complete. I realize it is now too late to be used for the purpose for which it was originally intended, but as you read I think you will understand why I have chosen to allow it to be thus late.

First Report: Cana

I arrived in Cana around the ninth hour yesterday. The sun was sweltering and I spent most of the evening bemoaning my absence from Jerusalem. Besides being hot, Cana is noisy, dirty, and muggy, because of the nearby reed-swamp. I retained my good temper only by reminding myself of how much worse it might have been--I might have had to go to Nazareth.

By this morning, however, I was myself again and felt up to beginning my assignment. I only hoped my intelligence was up to date and I would find the man I sought here. The idea of chasing him all over Galilee certainly did not appeal to me. I felt certain, however, that if he were here, it would be easy enough to find him. Probably any stranger would make a stir in a provincial little town like this.

I was fortunate in my search--perhaps a little too fortunate. I found a rather garrulous woman who was more than willing to tell me everything I wanted to know and a good deal that I didn't. Still, though she was rather too informative, she did have valuable information. It seems that a nephew of hers, a young man by the name of Nathanael, was a follower of this teacher. From her description, I easily judged Nathanael as one of those simple, naive, idealistic youths who so easily fall prey to the clever patter of these traveling rabbis. She seemed a little uncertain about the matter, herself. On one hand, she seemed to distrust the teacher--perhaps there were gleams of common sense buried in her somewhere, though they must have been buried rather deeply--but she also claimed to have witnessed "miraculous" feats he was supposed to have done. She had been connected in some way to a marriage that happened here in Cana--I daresay an event like a marriage involves everyone in town around here. It seems this teacher and a few of his ragtag followers happened to be in attendance also. Supposedly, the family hosting the wedding ran out of wine and this teacher mysteriously conjured gallons and gallons out of nowhere. I mention this only to show how much a hold such superstition has already gained here in Cana. I may also add that the reports of supposed wonders done by this teacher in Judea had already reached Galilee and I had heard them reiterated over and over on my journey as I heard them again here.

When I could finally detach myself from the old chatterbox, I went in search of the teacher himself. My orders were to observe, not collect secondhand reports. I had obtained some information from the woman and, as I had speculated, it was not hard to find anyone in Cana. A few moments later, I found my goal in the center of a large crowd just outside the outskirts of the settlement. It was there that I obtained my first personal view of this new so-called rabbi: Jesus ben Joseph.

I had rather expected someone like John the Baptizer--a wild-eyed man of the wilderness, dressed in crazy clothes, waving his hands and shouting, stirring up the emotions and imaginations of people. The truth was rather anticlimactic. This man was almost painfully ordinary. There was nothing to his appearance that would set him apart from a hundred other men. When I was able to make my way through the crowd to get a close view, I saw that his hands were calloused, a fact which accorded my research which said that for years he had worked as a carpenter before decided to take up a career as a rabbi. His face and his clothes were roughened as if he spent much time outdoors, but otherwise, he was neat and clean in his appearance. My initial impression made me wonder if there were not more to the story than I knew. He seemed like the last sort of man one would expect playing the part of would-be miracle worker and teacher. Perhaps he was being manipulated by somebody. 'Like leading a lamb to the slaughter,' I thought idly.

I had obtained a place in the crowd very near to him and so was in a position to hear most of what he said. I will not record the actual content of his sermon--there was little there that I did not already know from reports of his preaching in Judea. "The Kingdom of God is at hand!" This formed the main burden of his sermon--as one would expect from one of these rabble-rousing pseudo-rabbis. As listened, though, there was something unique I noticed about his style of speaking. Though he was in appearance a painfully ordinary man, there was something in his manner and his words that was far from ordinary. In any other man, I would have called it arrogance, but it wasn't arrogance. He spoke and acted like one who has authority, with that easy assumption of right which is almost impossible to imitate. "You have heard it said... but I say unto you..." was a formula he used often. It was as if he were taking on himself the authority of the Most High to say what was right and what was wrong. And yet there was nothing of the bluster and braggadocio that usually accompany those who try to assume such authority. I am not surprised that he stirs the crowd. Were I an ignorant peasant, I would probably be stirred also.

But it is not only the peasants who are affected. I had almost completed my observations and was preparing to return home, when there was a stir in the crowd. I was just glancing around to determine the cause, when the crowd parted and a man came rushing up to Jesus. As he approached, I recognized him as Chuzas, a nobleman of some important under Herod Antipas. I had had opportunity to form his acquaintance on a previous occasion. I knew he was presently living in Capernaum and so was rather surprised that he would turn up here in Cana. Though it is not much more than a day's journey, I couldn't imagine what could have dragged him to this out of the way spot, especially as he seemed to have traveled alone, without any servants. Moreover, I knew him as a generally reserved and distant man, but now his whole demeanor clearly showed great mental uneasiness. 

The reason was soon explained. I would have talked to him myself, but it was clear his interest was only in the Rabbi and as soon as he opened his mouth, I found out why. His son had contracted a strange fever and was desperately ill. Chuzas had hired the best doctors, but they had come finally to the conclusion that there was nothing that could be done and had given the boy no more than a day or two more to live. I knew that Chuzas, for all his cold and distant demeanor in public, was very attached to his family, and such news would make anyone a little unhinged. Of course, like everyone else in this area, he had heard the rumors and reports about the rabbi's supposed miracles, and he was desperate enough to try anything.

As he begged Jesus to come down to Capernaum and heal the boy, I noticed a ripple of excitement in the crowd. Though the people had heard about the rabbi's power, they personally  had not actually seen him do anything spectacular. (Of course.) This, they realized, might be a supreme opportunity. If the rabbi had said he would go back to Capernaum with Chuzas, I seriously believe the majority of the crowd would have tagged along after him to see him heal the boy.

I was interested to see how the rabbi would react. I felt sure that he would be impressed by such favorable attention from someone as important as Chuzas, but he would have to find some way to avoid actually doing anything. But I was surprised, for he hardly seemed to notice Chuzas. Instead, he turned to the crowd, seeming to sense their excitement, and said (his voice quiet but full of authority and rebuke), "Unless you see signs and wonders, you will not believe."

It was a good thrust, I thought, but I was still surprised at the cavalier way he seemed to almost ignore Chuzas and his request. "Sir, please," Chuzas pleaded--I could hear the passion in his voice-- "you must come down quickly or my son will die."

"Go your way," commented the rabbi looking at him but speaking in an almost expressionless voice, "your son is cured."

There was a moment of stunned silence. He had spoken this stupendous sentence so naturally and with such confidence that it took us all a moment to take it in. Chuzas, naturally, seemed the most floored by it, but suddenly he raised his head and returned the rabbi's look. "Thank you," he said quietly, and then turned and walked back through the crowd.

I left the crowd then and returned here to my lodgings to write my report. I shall have to admit--I was very upset by what I had seen. I knew that Chuzas, perhaps out of desperation, did really believe that the rabbi had somehow cured his son. And I can't help thinking how heart-broken he will be when he reached to Capernaum to find his son still sick or even dead. Of course, I fell sure this rabbi would find some way of wiggling out of it. Probably he will say that Chuzas had not had sufficient faith or something and so the miracle hadn't occurred.

I believe I have made a sufficient study of this rabbi's character. My only question is whether he is a deceiver or is truly deceived himself--he certainly talks and acts as if he believed in his own power, and he does not seem the type of a deceiver. But I suppose it makes little difference.

Having made this study here in Cana, I am going to travel to Capernaum tomorrow. I have some business which must be transacted there. I think I have learned all I can here. From there, I shall probably return to Jerusalem to deliver this report.

Second Report: Capernaum

I hope my hand does not shake unduly as I write this. My nerves have been troubled, exceedingly so for me. I left Cana early this morning and arrived here in Capernaum less than an hour ago. My purpose here was personal business and I did not expect to gain any further information regarding Jesus ben Joseph. But I did receive some information, information that I hardly know how to explain.

I had wanted to look up Chuzas while I was here, out of sympathy for his loss. I passed his house on the way into town and I stopped by it, expecting to hear the sound of mourning and wailing or the deathly silence of a house of sickness. Instead, I heard sounds indicative of celebration and joy. Puzzled, I had my servant talk to some of Chuzas's servants and found some curious facts, facts which I later confirmed with Chuzas himself.

His son did not die--in fact, he has so completely recovered that one would never know he had been sick. That would be remarkable enough on its own, but fevers are tricky things and we know very little about them. The remarkable thing is that the recovery came very abruptly and without warning. Chuzas's family was ecstatic of course, and when Chuzas returned he immediately heard all about it. His first question was to ask when the recovery occurred. And he found out it was roughly the same time he was speaking to the rabbi in Cana.

The coincidence seems too great to be merely a coincidence. But it is surely too much to suppose that this backwoods rabbi would truly have such incredible power. How could any one man have an effect on another man a day's journey away? My first thought was that the whole thing was an elaborate hoax, but I simply cannot believe Chuzas could pull off such a stunt even if he wanted to. Tomorrow, I will do some further investigation to satisfy myself about the reality of the boy's illness. In the meantime, I must suspend any judgment.

*

Two days have passed since I wrote the earlier portion of this report. I have spoken to various members of Chuzas's household, as well as to the various physicians whom were attending on the case. I have come to the definite conclusion that there was no trickery involved. The boy was really sick and now he is really well. What connection does this have to Jesus ben Joseph? Is it possible it was just some sort of freak accident? It seems incredible, but so does the idea of such 'miraculous' healing. 

Chuzas is quite convinced. He believes that the rabbi is truly a prophet, and miracle worker, and very possibly even the Messiah. Even in his belief, he is somewhat reserved, but his wife Joanna is very demonstrative about her faith and I wouldn't be surprised if she became an actual follower of the rabbi.

I have completed my business here in Capernaum. My plan had been to return to Jerusalem to present my report to Caiaphas, but I have changed my mind. Tomorrow, I am going to return to Cana and try to pick up the trail of the rabbi. I cannot complete my report while there is still a question, and there is now a rather large question in my mind.

Third Report: Nazareth

I have been in Nazareth for three days now. It has not been as bad as all the reports led me to believe. Very provincial, of course, but there is a sort of rustic charm about it and the landscape is quite pleasing. Still, my work here is done, and I will be leaving tomorrow. Will I return to Jerusalem or not? My mind is still undecided.

My mind is very unsettled on many things. I have been following the wandering rabbi, Jesus ben Joseph, for some time now, ever since the supposed healing of Chuzas's son. I have seen and heard a great many things that are difficult to explain. But at least they all had a possibility of explanation. It is possible, though it seems on the surface very unlikely, that he is truly a prophet, a man of God, and works miracles through the power. It is possible, though I find it hard to believe, that he is in contact with some sort of occult power and performs miracles in that way. It is possible--and part of my wants very much to believe--that he performs his miracles through some quite rational though unknown art that he has discovered. None of those seem very likely, but at least they are explanations. But today I witnessed a scene which seemed to have no explanation. Whether his power comes from God, the Devil, or himself, I cannot imagine why things would have happened as they did.

The rabbi reached this town on Friday, as did I. He seemed to have a quite ordinary joy in returning to his hometown and meeting his family. I discretely observed his meeting with them and I thought I detected a certain coolness in his brothers towards him. They, at any rate, seemed to disapprove of his new career as a wandering rabbi. His mother's position is more ambiguous. She seems to respect her son with something almost amounting to awe. But she also seems very easily influenced by the other children; I rather think she is a little afraid of them. This is understandable as she now has to depend on them with her husband dead and her eldest son playing the part of a prophet. 

I saw little more of the rabbi on Friday, but I knew that on the Sabbath I would see him in the Synagogue. Throughout our time on Galilee, I have never known him to miss a Sabbath service and he usually uses it as an opportunity to preach. This day was no exception.

As the scroll was handed to him and he began looking for a certain place, I felt a stir of excitement go through the crowd. Of course, the rumors of the Rabbi's remarkable acts and reputation had reached his hometown by now. I couldn't tell whether the attitude was skeptical or not, but it was certainly interested. Everyone was prepared for something.

And then he began to speak, in his even but authoritative voice. The reading was from the book of the Prophets, from the writing of Isaiah. "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised, to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord." Then he re-rolled the scroll and handed it back to the servant who had charge of the scrolls. As he did this, I could tell that nearly every eye in the place was fixed attentively on him. Everyone was waiting.

And again he spoke, his voice even and calm, almost quiet, but filled with a certain power and resonance. "Today, this scripture is fulfilled in your ears."

He paused and for a moment, you could have heard a pin drop. For just an instant, it seemed as if no one understood the import of his words. I did--for I had been looking for this thing ever since I first met him at Cana. Here was a more-or-less explicit claim to be the Messiah. This was the kind of evidence I had been sent to gather. The truth dawned on the others a second or two later. "Who does he think he is?" muttered a man next to me in amazement. "He's only Joseph's son. And he would claim--"

But he didn't get a chance to speak more than, for the rabbi was continuing with his sermon. The sermon was only a continuation of his basic premise and I will not bother to record it here. I only remark that I was impressed by the method in which he preached it. There was something very gracious about his words. He did not rant like madmen and would-be prophets usually do. Nor did he speak with diffidence as a man trying to advance a lie. There was a deep sense of confidence and graciousness in his words. I could think of nothing like it that I had ever heard--it were almost as if he really were an ambassador of the Most High with the confidence of his office and yet also the grace and compassion that sometimes goes with such an office.

At any rate, the main importance of the sermon came at the end. He had obviously noted the excitement and anticipation which had filled the congregation earlier and so he commented, "I know you will repeat the proverb, 'Doctor, treat yourself.' Do the same things here that you have done in Capernaum." He paused and I could almost feel the people nodding their heads. That was exactly what the people were thinking. A little uncanny, in fact, for I had been thinking particularly of Capernaum myself. "But I tell you the truth," he went on, "A prophet is never accepted in his own home. There were many widows in Israel in the days of Elijah when the heavens were shut up for three and half years, when there was a great famine throughout all the land--but it was not to any of them that Elijah was sent, but onto Zarephath a city of Sidon, to a widow there. There were also many lepers in Israel in the days of Elisha, but none of them were healed--only Naaman the Syrian."

I have never felt the temper of a crowd change so quickly. Whether these yokels could really follow the logic of his argument or not, they certainly got the main point. At least, they got this much--that he had no intention of satisfying their curiosity and doing any miracles there. And though I'm not sure they understood the rebuke, they knew they had been rebuked.

I knew the people were upset and I knew something was going to break, but I wasn't quite prepared for what followed. Almost as if one man, the whole crowd swept forward. Before I knew what was happening, we were all outside and rushing along like a great sea. The rabbi seemed to be carried with them, but I couldn't quite determine his attitude. I personally would rather not have been in the middle of such a crowd, but one might as well try to turn back the wind as to escape from a mob like that. I just rode along and tried to stay out of the way as much as possible. I noted the rabbi's disciples in the crowd, evidently trying to stop what was going on--particularly Simon Peter, the most hot-headed of them--but they were too few and too scattered to make any impact. I also noted that it seemed to be James ben Joseph, the rabbi's eldest brother, who was leading the crowd's attack.

At first, I didn't know what they intended, and I'm not sure they knew either. But soon one cry echoed through the mob, "To the cliff! Throw him over! He is a blasphemer!"

I don't think blasphemy was really the thing most on their minds, but it sounds good to shout loudly. This, I thought grimly as we rolled along, would be a test of the rabbi's power. If they did manage to push him over the cliff, I would know definitively that he had just been a great pretender all along--not that, once he was dead, it would really matter anymore. But if he could escape from them, if--like Elijah--he called down fire from heaven and destroyed us all, I would know he truly had miraculous powers. (It did not strike me at the time that if that happened, I would be dead and so my knowledge would be irrelevant. Perhaps I hoped the heavenly fire would take into account that I was not there by choice.) 

All this takes a long time to describe, but it seemed to be but a few moments to happen. Before I knew it, they had reached the abrupt precipice. I had observed it on the preceding day and knew that if they did succeed in pushing the rabbi over it, it would be the end of him. 

And then--and then he turned and walked away. I cannot explain it--I can barely describe it. All I know is that one moment he was on the verge of the precipice, with the entire crowd pushing to throw him over--the next, he walked through the midst and disappeared somewhere behind us. Everyone tried to stop him, yet somehow nobody did.

The event was so strange that it put a damper on the crowd and everyone suddenly became very quiet and they all slunk away home without further trouble.

And so--so I am unsettled in my mind. The events of the day seem inexplicable except on the grounds that the Rabbi actually possesses some sort of supernatural, or at least paranormal, power. I am not a credulous man and I have always considered myself a Sadducee and far removed from such ideas as miracles, but one would have to be a stubborn fool not to admit the possibility at this point, after all I have seen. So let us admit it; let us admit for the sake of argument that the rabbi does possess some sort of power beyond that of an ordinary man. Why then did he merely walk away? His authority and ability were publicly challenged; his own people tried to kill him. If he could use supernatural power against them, then why didn't he? What man who could do the things I have seen him do, wouldn't do something more than just walk away? Whether his power comes from Earth, Heaven, or Hell, this seems inexplicable.

And therefore the mystery is not solved. I still cannot pass a definitive judgment upon the rabbi and his work. So perhaps I will continue here in Galilee a few weeks longer before going back up to Jerusalem--trying to solve the mystery.