of his looks.  Isn’t that so, Bartholomew?  And they all acquiesced, and Bartholomew nodded, saying:  yes, we were afraid of his looks.  It was then that Simon the Leper opened the door, and Joseph, remembering his promise to his father, laid his hand on Nicodemus’ shoulder:  I may not enter, he said.  I have come thus far but may not go into the house; but do you go in and tell him, Nicodemus, that in spirit I am with him.

On these words Nicodemus passed into the house, leaving Joseph in the centre of a small crowd of apostles, disciples and sympathisers in several degrees, all eager to talk to him and to hear him say that they had but to follow Jesus to Jerusalem and the Scribes and Pharisees would give way before them at once.  You that are of the Sanhedrin should know if we are strong enough to cast them out of the Temple.  But, my good men, I know nothing of your plot to clear the Temple of its thieves, Joseph answered, and there’ll always be thieves in this world, wherever you go.  But the Day of Judgment is approaching.  When may we expect his second coming? somebody shouted from out of a group of men standing a little way back from the others, and the cry was taken up.  He is coming with his Father in a chariot, one said.  With our Father, somebody interrupted, and an eddying current of theology spread through the crowd.  I’ve come from Galilee, from my father’s sick-bed, and know nothing of your numbers and have not seen him these many months, Joseph said.  He is the true Messiah, and we believe in him, was an unexpected utterance; but Joseph was not given time to ponder on it, for a woman, thrusting her way up to him, cried out in his face:  he can destroy the Temple and build it again in three days.  And when Joseph asked her who had said that, she told him that Jesus had said it.  He turned to Peter, John and James to ask them the meaning of these words.  What did Jesus mean when he said he could destroy the Temple and build it again in three days?  He means, said half-a-dozen voices, that the priests and the Scribes are to be cast out, and a new Temple set up, for the pure worship of the true God, who desires not the fat of rams.  Joseph understood that the rams destined for sacrifice were to be given to the poor.

If you don’t mind, will you be telling us why you refuse to go up with Nicodemus to ask Jesus to delay no longer, but to lead us into Jerusalem? he was asked, and perforce had to answer that Nicodemus wished to talk privily to Jesus, at which they pressed round him, and from every side the question was put to him:  is he going to lead us into Jerusalem?  And then Joseph began to understand that these people would find themselves on the morrow, or perhaps the next day, fighting with the Roman legions, and, knowing how the fight would end, he answered them that the Romans would be on the side of the priests and Scribes.  Whereupon they tore their garments and cast dust on their heads, and in his attempt to pacify them he