Then Jesus lifted his head, and seeing no one but the woman, said to her: "It seems that no one has condemned you?" She answered, "No one, Lord."
"Then neither do I condemn you," said Jesus. "Go, and sin no more." luke IX. 52-6; John VUI. 3-U.
XXV.
Jesus taught the people that all men are children of one Father, and that therefore the whole law of God is to love God and one's neighbor.
And one lawgiver, knowing this, and wishing to catch Jesus in his words, and to show him that all men are not equal, and that men of different nations cannot be equally the sons of God, asked Jesus: **You teach us to love our neighbor. But who is my neighbor?"
Jesus answered him by a parable, and said:
"There was a rich Jew, and it happened that once, as he was returning home, he was attacked by robbers, who beat him, robbed him, and left him by the roadside. A Jewish priest passed by, and saw the wounded man, but passed on without stopping. And another Jew, a Levite, passed and he also saw the wounded man, and went by. Then a man of another nation, a Samaritan, came along the road, and he saw the wounded man; and—without considering that the Jews did not look upon Samaritans as neighbors, but as foreigners and enemies—he pitied the Jew, lifted him up, and took him on his ass to an inn. There he washed and dressed his wounds, paid the innkeeper for him, and only left when the Jew could do without him.
"You ask, Who is one's neighbor?" said Jesus. "He in whom there is love considers every man his neighbor, no matter what nation he may belong to."
Luke X, 25-37-XXVI.
The teaching of Jesus spread more and more; and the Pharisees grew more and more angry with him. They said to the people: "Do not listen to him; he is deceiving you.
If you were to live by his commandments there would be more evil than there is now in the world."
Jesus heard this, and said to them:
"You say that if I teach the people not to seek for riches, but to be poor; not to be angry, not to demand an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth, but to bear all things and love everybody—I do away with evil by evil, and that if men followed my teaching their life would be worse than it was before. You say that in place of the old evil there would be a new evil. That is not true. It is not I who put one evil in place of another, but it is you who drive out evil with evil. You wish to destroy evil by threats, executions, oaths and by killing. But evil still does not get destroyed. And it cannot be so destroyed, for no power can destroy itself, I do not drive out evil by such means as you use. I destroy evil by good. I destroy evil by calling on men to fulfil those commandments which will save them from all evil." Matl. ХП, 24-8.
XXVII.
One day his mother and brothers came to Jesus, and could not get to him, because there were so many people around him. And a man noticed this, and came to Jesus and said: "Your relations, your mother and brothers, are standing out there, and wish to see you."
And Jesus said: "My mother and my brothers are those who know the will of the Father, and do it,
"For every man the will of God his Father should be more important than his father, his mother, his wife, his children, his brothers or his sisters, or than all his property, and even than his bodily life.
"In worldly matters every reasonable man, before he
begins doing anything, reckons out if what he means to do is profitable, and if it is profitable he does it, and if not, he does not do it. Any one who wishes to build a house, before beginning, sits down and counts how much money will be needed, how much he has, and whether it will be enough to complete the house; so that it should not happen that, having begun to build, he is unable to finish, and has only wasted his strength and his time. And every king, if he wants to go to war, first considers whether with 10,000 men he can fight against 20,000. If he reckons out that he cannot, he sends messengers to make peace, and does not fight.
"So every man must understand that all that he looks upon as his: his family, his property, and his bodily life itself, will be taken from him to-day or to-morrow, and that the one thing that is his, and can never be taken from him, is his spiritual life, and that he can and must care only about that."
Hearing this, a man said: "It is well if there be a spiritual life; but how if we give away everything, and there is no such life ?"
To this Jesus replied:
"Every one knows that there is a spiritual life, and that it alone does not die. You all know that, but you do not act on what you know—not because you doubt it, .but because you are diverted from real life by false cares."
And he told them this parable:
"A master prepared a feast, and sent his servants to invite the guests; but the guests refused to come. One said, 'I have bought some land, and must go and see it.' Another said, 'I have bought some cattle, and must go and plough with them.' A third said, '1 have married, and it is my wedding-feast/ So the servants returned, and told their master that no one would come. Then the master sent to
invite the beggars. The beggars did not refuse to come, and they feasted.
"In the same way, only when men are free from bodily cares do they know the spiritual life."
Luke Vin. 19-21; Matt. XII. 46-50; Luke XIV. 26-33, 15-24.
XXVIII.
Once a young man came to Jesus, and knelt down before him, saying: "Good Master, tell me what to do to get eternal life."
Jesus answered: "Why do you call me good? No one is good but God. You know the commandments. Keep them."
And the young man asked: "Which ? There are many commandments."
Jesus answered: "Do not kill, do not commit adultery, do not lie, do not steal, do not oiTend any one, and honor your father and mother."
And the man said: "I have kept these commandments ever since I was a boy."
Jesus looked at him and felt fond of him, and said; "One thing you lack. Go, sell all you have, and divide it among the poor."
And the young man was troubled, and went away without replying, for he was very rich.
And Jesus said to his disciples:
"You sec how hard it is for a rich man to enter into the Kingdom of Heaven!" The disciples were dismayed at these words, but Jesus repeated them, saying, "Yes, children ; it is very, very hard for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of God. It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a iseedle than for a rich man to enter the Kingdom
of Heaven." And they were still more dismayed, and said among themselves: *'How can one live, if one must not have anything? One would freeze and starve." But Qirist said: "It only seems frightful to the physical man; but to the spiritual man it is easy. He who believes and tries it, will see that this is true."
Mark X, 17-27; Matt. XIX, 18.
XXIX.
Jesus also said: **You cannot serve two masters at the same time: God and riches; the will of the Father, and your own will. You must choose between the two; and serve the one or the other."
The Pharisees, who liked riches, heard this, and laughed at the words of Jesus. And he said to them: "You think that because men honor you for your riches, you are really honorable? No! God does not look at what is outside, but at the heart. Things that men think much of are worthless in God's sight. It is not the rich, but the poor who enter the Kingdom of Heaven."
Jesus knew that the Pharisees believed that after death some people go to hell and some to heaven, and he told them this parable about riches:
"There once lived a very rich man; he feasted, dressed in fine clothes, and made merry every day. And in the same place there lived a scabby beggar, called Lazarus. Lazarus came into the rich man's courtyard hoping to get some of the scraps left over from the rich man's table. But he got none, for the rich man's dogs ate up the scraps; and they also licked Lazarus' sores. The rich man and Lazarus both died. And the rich man, in hell, saw Abraham in the distance, and scabby Lazarus with him. And the rich man said: