NATHANAEL.
Can any good come out of Nazareth?
Can this be the Messiah?

PHILIP.
                        Come and see.

NATHANAEL.
The summer sun grows hot: I am anhungered.
How cheerily the Sabbath-breaking quail
Pipes in the corn, and bids us to his Feast
Of Wheat Sheaves!  How the bearded, ripening ears
Toss in the roofless temple of the air;
As if the unseen hand of some High-Priest
Waved them before Mount Tabor as an altar!
It were no harm, if we should pluck and eat.

PHILIP.
How wonderful it is to walk abroad
With the Good Master!  Since the miracle
He wrought at Cana, at the marriage feast,
His fame hath gone abroad through all the land,
And when we come to Nazareth, thou shalt see
How his own people will receive their Prophet,
And hail him as Messiah!  See, he turns
And looks at thee.

CHRISTUS.
                  Behold an Israelite
In whom there is no guile.

NATHANAEL.
          Whence knowest thou me?

CHRISTUS.
Before that Philip called thee, when thou wast
Under the fig-tree, I beheld thee.

NATHANAEL.
                                   Rabbi!
Thou art the Son of God, thou art the King
Of Israel!

CHRISTUS.
           Because I said I saw thee
Under the fig-tree, before Philip called thee,
Believest thou?  Thou shalt see greater things.
Hereafter thou shalt see the heavens unclosed,
The angels of God ascending and descending
Upon the Son of Man!

PHAIRISEES, passing.
                    Hail, Rabbi!

CHRISTUS.
                             Hail!

PHARISEES.
Behold how thy disciples do a thing
Which is not lawful on the Sabbath-day,
And thou forbiddest them not!

CHRISTUS.
                     Have ye not read
What David did when he anhungered was,
And all they that were with him?  How he entered
Into the house of God, and ate the shew-bread,
Which was not lawful, saving for the priests?
Have ye not read, how on the Sabbath-days
The priests profane the Sabbath in the Temple,
And yet are blameless?  But I say to you,
One in this place is greater than the Temple!
And had ye known the meaning of the words,
I will have mercy and not sacrifice,
The guiltless ye would not condemn.  The Sabbath
Was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath.

Passes on with the disciples.

PHARISEES.
This is, alas! some poor demoniac
Wandering about the fields, and uttering
His unintelligible blasphemies
Among the common people, who receive
As prophecies the words they comprehend not!
Deluded folk!  The incomprehensible
Alone excites their wonder.  There is none
So visionary, or so void of sense,
But he will find a crowd to follow him!

V

NAZARETH

CHRISTUS, reading in the Synagogue.
The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me.
He hath anointed me to preach good tidings
Unto the poor; to heal the broken-hearted;
To comfort those that mourn, and to throw open
The prison doors of captives, and proclaim
The Year Acceptable of the Lord, our God!

He closes the book and sits down.

A PHARISEE.
Who is this youth?  He hath taken the Teacher's seat!
Will he instruct the Elders?

A PRIEST.
                            Fifty years
Have I been Priest here in the Synagogue,
And never have I seen so young a man
Sit in the Teacher's seat!

CHRISTUS.
                         Behold, to-day
This scripture is fulfilled.  One is appointed
And hath been sent to them that mourn in Zion,
To give them beauty for ashes, and the oil
Of joy for mourning!  They shall build again
The old waste-places; and again raise up
The former desolations, and repair
The cities that are wasted!  As a bridegroom
Decketh himself with ornaments; as a bride
Adorneth herself with jewels, so the Lord
Hath clothed me with the robe of righteousness!

A PRIEST.
He speaks the Prophet's words; but with an air
As if himself had been foreshadowed in them!

CHRISTUS.
For Zion's sake I will not hold my peace,
And for Jerusalem's sake I will not rest
Until its righteousness be as a brightness,
And its salvation as a lamp that burneth!
Thou shalt be called no longer the Forsaken,
Nor any more thy land the Desolate.
The Lord hath sworn, by his right hand hath sworn,
And by his arm of strength: I will no more
Give to thine enemies thy corn as meat;
The sons of strangers shall not drink thy wine.
Go through, go through the gates!  Prepare a way
Unto the people!  Gather out the stones!
Lift up a standard for the people!

A PRIEST.
                                   Ah!
These are seditious words!

CHRISTUS.
             And they shall call them
The holy people; the redeemed of God!
And thou, Jerusalem, shalt be called Sought out,
A city not forsaken!

A PHARISEE.
                     Is not this
The carpenter Joseph's son?  Is not his mother
Called Mary? and his brethren and his sisters
Are they not with us?  Doth he make himself
To be a Prophet?

CHRISTUS.
                 No man is a Prophet
In his own country, and among his kin.
In his own house no Prophet is accepted.
I say to you, in the land of Israel
Were many widows in Elijah's day,
When for three years and more the heavens were shut,
And a great famine was throughout the land;
But unto no one was Elijah sent
Save to Sarepta, to a city of Sidon,
And to a woman there that was a widow.
And many lepers were then in the land
Of Israel, in the time of Eliseus
The Prophet, and yet none of them was cleansed,
Save Naaman the Syrian!