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246 moving as if in prayer. But when Jesus at last opened his mouth to speak, he said nothing at first such as we had expected and dreaded. For he neither rebuked us nor prophesied evil, but only asked us touching himself (calling himself by that familiar title whereof I have made mention above) what the common people considered him to be, saying, "Whom do men say that I the Son of man am?" Straightway all the disciples began severally to make answer, saying that most men in that region deemed him to be Eli as risen from the dead; but that others supposed him to be the prophet concerning whom Moses had prophesied, and others again called him one of the prophets. These several answers we made to Jesus readily and promptly, for our hearts were lightened because we supposed that this was the question that he had had so long in mind, for which we had all been waiting. But Jesus, as I noted, listened to our speech as a mother listeneth to the prattle of her children. For his lips still moved as if in prayer, and his eyes were fixed upon the temple on the rock before him; and his mind was not with us nor with our words, but with something that still was to come from the depths of the future.

And lo, while we were still reporting this and that, touching the opinions of the common people, Jesus turned himself round and set his eyes full upon us who were sitting before him, but most directly (as it seemed to me) upon Peter, who was face to face with him: and he opened his mouth and said, "But whom say ye that I am?" As he spake these words, he looked at us for an instant as if he could read our inmost hearts, and as if he knew that we could not and would not deceive him. Then he turned from us again, as though to leave us to our own thoughts, because he would not constrain us nor draw forth from us any word that was not our own: and