A As Others Saw Him (Volume 54); A Retrospect (Paperback)

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: III. EARLIER TEACHING. SERMON IN THE SYNAGOGUE OF THE GALILEANS. It must have been a year after I had first seen Jesus that I saw him again the second time in Jerusalem. It fell out in this wise: I was proceeding one morning to the meeting of the Sanhedrim, when, as I came near the Synagogue of the Galilasans in the Fish- Market, I found a crowd of men entering in. I asked one of them what was going forward, and he said, " Jesus the Nazarene will expound the Law." So I determined to take the morning service in this synagogue rather than with my colleagues in the Temple, and went in, the people giving way before me, as was my due as a member of the Sanhedrim. Now, this synagogue of the Galilasans differed in naught from the rest of the synagogues of the Jews. It cannot be that thou hast not visited one of these when thou wast in the Holy City, but perchance thy memory is dim after all these years, and I will in a few words explain to theeits arrangement. In the wall at the west end was the cabinet containing the scrolls of the Law, with a curtain before it, for this is, as it were, the Holy of Holies of the synagogue. The men go up to this, on to the platform before it, by three steps. Then comes a vacant space, in the midst of which stands a dais, with a reading-desk whereon the Law is read: this we call by your Greek name bema. Then in the rest of the hall sit the folk, arranged in benches one after another, somewhat as in your theatres. Now, as I came in, they had said the morning psalms, and most of the Eighteen Blessings, and shortly after the reading of the Law began. The curtain was drawn aside from the holy ark, the scroll of the Law was taken thence, to the singing of psalms unto the bema. Then, as is customary, the messenger of the congregation summoned first ...