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A Series of Lessons in Mystic Christianity998
and then, with a wild shout of horror they began to scatter and fly, making a
wide pathway for the Man of Mystery who now strode through their ranks
with that awful gaze which seemed to pierce the veil of mortality and to
peer at things ineffable and beyond human ken. And with His eyes refusing
to look again upon the familiar scenes of His youth, He departed from
Nazareth, forsaking it forever as His home place. Verily, indeed, the Prophet
hath no honor in His own land. Those who should have been His staunchest
supporters were the first in His own land to threaten Him with violence. The
attempt of Nazareth was the prophecy of Calvary, and Jesus so knew it. But
He had set his feet upon The Path, and drew not back from it.
Turning His back upon Nazareth, Jesus established a new centre or home
in Capernaum, which place remained the nearest approach to home to Him
during the remainder of His Ministry and until His death. The traditions have
it that His mother came to live also at Capernaum, together with some of His
brothers. It is also related that his sisters and brothers, both those remaining
at Nazareth and those removing to Capernaum, were sorely vexed with
Him at His conduct at the synagogue, which they deemed not “respectable”
nor proper, and they accordingly looked upon Him as an eccentric relative
whose vagaries had brought disrepute upon the family. He was regarded
much in the light of a “black-sheep” and “undesirable relation” by all of
His family except His mother, who still clung to her beloved first-born. The
mother made her home with some of the brothers and sisters of Jesus, but
He was not made welcome there, but was looked upon as an outcast and
wanderer. He once spoke of this, saying that while the birds and beasts had
nests and homes, He, the Son of Man, had nowhere to lay his head. And so
He wandered around in His own land, as He had in foreign countries, an
ascetic, living upon the alms of the people who loved Him and listened
to His words. And in so doing He followed the plans and life of the Hindu
ascetics, who even unto this day so live, “with yellow-robe and begging
bowl,” and “without money or scrip in their purses.” The Jewish ascetic—for