s man must quickly come to ruin. For the poor, who willingly gave
up their last possessions, must become poorer, and the rich, who
pursued their advantages, must become still richer, which implied that
not the rich but only the poor would accept the Prophet's teaching,
since we know that Jesus especially called on the rich to alter the
tenor of their ways, and always for the benefit of the poor. But, they
answered: The rich will not alter the tenor of their ways, they will
consume the gentle disciples of Jesus, as the wolf the sheep. Many
were impressed by that view, and lost courage: The Prophet means well,
they reflected, but nothing is to be gained by adopting His methods.

Then it became known that Jesus had allowed Himself to be anointed. To
allow Himself to be anointed meant that He regarded Himself as the
Heaven-sent Messiah! And that was hostile to the existing order of
things, to the king. So said the preachers in the synagogues, the
houses, and the streets, but they were silent over the fact that the
anointing was the work of a poor woman who desired to heal His sore
feet. In fact, the preachers cared nothing for the people or the king
but only for the letter of the law.

When the woman who had anointed His feet saw that He was despised
because of her, she went silently apart by herself. No human being
cared so much for Him, and none left Him so calmly. She did not go
back to the old man she had married out of pity, and forgotten--out of
love, but she went to relations at Bethany. Since the Prophet had
raised her up before all the people, her relatives no longer closed
their doors to her, but received her kindly.

Jesus was aware how His native ground tottered under His feet, how the
people began to shun Him more and more, how the inns made difficulties
about receiving Him. So He went, with those who were true to Him, out
into the rocky desert of Judaea. He gained new adherents on the way,
and people came from the surrounding places with pack and staff to hear
the wonderful preacher. Some had had enough of the barren wisdom of
the Pharisees, others were disgusted with the bad administration of the
country, and with the fine promises of the Romans, they were ruined by
the agricultural depression, or in despair over the low level of men's
minds, over the barbarism of men. There were some, too, who had fled
before the robber bands of Barabbas which infested the desert to their
undoing. They came