He is without knowledge of us or the world around him.  But why does he turn aside from our dwelling preferring to lie with his dogs under the rocks?  It is for that our dwelling reminds him of Joseph.  It was here he saw him last, Manahem replied.  It will be well to leave him to wander at will, giving him food if his grief allows him to come for it; any restraint would estrange him from us, nor may we watch him, for when the mind is away man is but animal; and animals do not like watchful eyes.  We may only watch over him lest he do himself bodily harm, Eleazar said, There is no harm, Manahem said, he can do himself, but to walk over the cliffs in a dream and so end his misery.  We would not that the crows and vultures fed on Jesus, Caleb answered.  We must watch lest he fall into the dream of his grief....  But he lives in one.  Behold him now.  He sees not the cliffs over yonder nor the cliffs beneath.  Nor does he hear the brook murmur under the cliffs.  Grief is a wonderful thing, Manahem said, it overpowers a man more than anything else; it is more powerful even than the love of God, but it wears away; and in this it is unlike the love of God, which doesn’t change, and many of us have come here so that we may love God the better without interruptions.  It is strange, Eleazar said, that one who loves God as truly as Jesus, should abandon himself to grief.  Eleazar’s words caused the Essenes to drop into reveries and dreams, and when they spoke out of these their words were:  his grief is more like despair.  And in speaking these words they were nearer the truth than they suspected, for though Jesus grieved and truly for Joseph, there was in his heart something more than mortal grief.

It often seemed to him as he sat gazing across the abyss that his temerity in proclaiming himself the Messiah was punished enough by crucifixion:  the taking from him of the one thing that crucifixion had left behind often put the thought into his mind that God held him accursed; and in his despair he lost faith in death, believing he would be held accursed for all eternity.  He forgot to take food and drink; he fed upon his grief and would have faded out of life if Caesar had not conceived a dislike to his keeper and run bleating among the rocks till he came upon Jesus whom he recognised at once and refused to leave, thrusting a nozzle into Jesus’ hand and lying down by his side.  Nor could the brethren beguile the lamb from Jesus with milk, and Jesus taking pity on the faithful animal said:  give me the feeding bottle, I will feed him.  Whereupon Caesar began to bleat, and so cheerfully, that all conceived a new affection for him, but he had none for anybody but Jesus, whom he followed about the cliffs as a dog might, lying down at his side.

The twain strayed together whither there was scarce foothold for either, and the brethren said as they watched them:  if Caesar were to miss his footing and fall over the edge, the last link would be broken and Jesus would go over after him.  But sheep and goats never miss their footing, a brother answered.  It is fortunate, another replied, that Caesar should have attached himself to Jesus.  He seems to say, I get happier and happier every day, and his disposition will react on Jesus and may win him out of his melancholy.