CHAPTER XVII.
How Xanthias the Alexandrine said that the Philosophy of Jesus aimed at the Taking in of the Gentiles into the Kingdom, and at the Enfranchisement of Slaves; and how he found fault with Jesus for that he called himself the Son of Man.
Between the Feast of Passover and the Feast of Weeks I was not much with Jesus; for when I perceived that Jesus was in no instant peril, I returned to Sepphoris for a while, partly by reason of my mother's health, and partly to gather in the harvest. And during this time, when it was perceived that Jesus went not up to the Passover, neither made any levy of the people as had been expected, the Pharisees for a while ceased to lay snares for him; and the common people, though they murmured that he went not up to Jerusalem, nevertheless had him in honor. But the harvest being now over, when I went back to meet Jesus at Capernaum, I found there one of mine acquaintance, a merchant (whom I had known at Alexandria in my uncle's house), a Greek, learned in the knowledge of the Greeks. This man was not a proselyte; neither did he in any wise conform himself to the Law of Moses. But he spake of himself, at that time, as a seeker after truth; for he did not join himself to any of the schools of the Gentile philosophers, but chose forth from each whatsoever seemed to him useful or true. He had read our Scriptures, and was greatly given to the study of our psalms and prophecies; and when he had heard me
