motioned to us that that was so; and he also bade us be silent, for stories of miracles have a great hold upon the human mind, and Jesus wished to teach some young men who had come to ask him how they were to live during these last days.  But myself, consumed with desire to hear the man’s story, mingled with the herdsmen who had brought in the cattle, and inquired how Shamhuth had lost his eye.  None could tell me, and I failed to get tidings of him till I came upon an Alexandrian Jew who told me a strange story.  Shamhuth’s money came from his friend’s wife, whom he married after causing him to be killed by hirelings; and when his senses tired of her he persuaded her daughter to come over to him in the night.  Shamhuth always walked praying aloud, his eyes cast down lest they should fall upon a woman, and his wife did not suspect him.  But one night she was bidden in a dream to seek her husband, and rising from her bed she descended and opened the door very softly, not wishing to disturb him in his sleep.  The sight that met her eyes kindled such a great flame of hate in her that she returned to her room for a needle, and placing her hands upon her daughter’s mouth she quickly pricked out both her eyes, and then, approaching her husband, she pricked out his right eye, and was about to prick out the other, but he slid from her hands and escaped, blind of an eye, to Jerusalem, bringing with him great sums of money in the hope that he may purchase a miracle, which is a great blasphemy in itself, and shows what the man really is in his heart.

Such was the story that the Alexandrian Jew, who knew him, told us; and as soon as these abominations became known in the Temple a riot began, and somebody cried:  the adulterer must be put away.  Whereupon Phinehas, seeing the large profits he had expected vanishing, turned to Jesus and said:  it is thou who hast brought this disaster upon me, lying Galilean, who callest thyself the son of David, when all know ye to be the son of Joseph the Carpenter.

Son of David!  Son of David!  How can that be? the people began to ask each other, and in the midst of their questioning a great hilarity broke over them.  In great wrath Jesus overturned Phinehas’ table, and Phinehas would have overthrown Jesus had not Peter, who had armed himself with a sword, raised it.  The people became like mad:  tables were broken for staves, some rushed away to escape with a whole skin, and the frightened cattle dashed among them, a black bull goring many.  And in all the mob Jesus was the fiercest fighter, lashing the people in the face with the thongs of the whip he had taken from a herdsman, and felling others with the handle.  The cages of the doves were broken, the birds took flight, and the priests, at their wits’ end, called for the guards to come down from the porticoes, and it was not till much blood had been spilt that order was restored.  Joseph asked how Phinehas came out of all this trouble, and heard that he had escaped without injury.  Merely losing a few shekels, not more, though he deserved to lose his life, for he placed his money above the Temple, not caring whether it was polluted by the presence of an adulterer, only thinking of the great profit he could make out of the man’s sins, differing in no wise in this from the priests and sacristans.