Page:Philochristus, Abbott, 1878.djvu/337

Rh CHAPTER XXVII.

How Jesus prophesied of Troubles, and of a Great Battle against Satan; and in the End the Victory of the Son of Man; but, first of all, his Death.

Jesus had made an end of denouncing the Pharisees, many of the young men with them and their servants were desirous to have laid hands on him; and they came near as if for that intent, but the older sort checked them. Yet was their wrath clearly to be read in their faces: and when I came out of the temple, being a little space behind the rest, Hezekiah the Scribe overtook me and said, "Young man, I warn thee that thou mayest with speed sever thyself from this blind shepherd: for lo, he hath today provoked war, and war shall fall upon him; for unless he perish we shall perish." But I made answer, that I should follow Jesus constantly even to the end. Then he spake again of the evil which, he said, had befallen that rash young man Barabbas; how that he had been taken ten days ago, by the Romans, on the road that goeth down to Jericho, while he was riding at the head of a band of Galileans that were raising sedition: and, said Hezekiah to me, "Thy friend of Jotapata is to be crucified, as I hear, two or three days hence. Take heed therefore unto thine own steps, lest thou also fall into the same destruction." I made him no further answer, but departed, sorrowing not a little for the sake of Barabbas; for I had not before heard how great an evil had befallen him.