Pharisees present! Tell me something about it and I will give up frightening you! Do you want that?” [9] Roclus says: “Why not? I do not know much, it is true; but what I know has head, hands and feet and deserves all belief. Only I ask for a very little patience for me to gather myself!”
49. WHAT ROCLUS HEARD ABOUT THE NAZARENE AND HIS OPINION ABOUT IT
[1] After a short pause Roclus says to Raphael: “Dearest, young, truly wise friend! I am now fully composed in order to tell you what I however have heard only recently from some traders from Nazareth and Capernaum, whom I have unconditionally truly given all faith as regards the facts, because they are people whom one can believe. But I do not know a single syllable more, of course, than what I have heard from these business partners of mine to be faithful and true – and so listen, if you will! [2] In the little town of Nazareth, situated on the upper Jordan, not in the area of the same name in the mountains, there lived a carpenter and had conceived a son with his second wife whom he named Jesus. This son was also a carpenter until his thirtieth year and always a quiet, great thinking but little speaking man. He was otherwise an extremely civilized man; one never heard him quarrelling and also never saw him pay homage either to any attractive Venus or just as little to the Bacchus. [3] A constant and most modest sobriety was the dominant character trait of his life. Besides this he was always very humble and compassionate towards the poor and for his always excellent carpentry he demanded only a very small payment, which he always delivered highly conscientiously to his parents. But on the day that he became exactly thirty years old, he laid all his tools aside and no longer touched either an axe or a saw. [4] His brothers and his mother, still living, all perfectly honest people, asked him for the reason and he is supposed to have given them the following highly mysterious-sounding answer: 127