He went up to Capernaum that morning for a little bit, and talked to the people in the village synagogue. "I am the Bread of Life," he said, "except ye eat the flesh of the Son of Man, and drink His blood, ye have no life in you." This was too much for their small understandings--not a soul knew what He meant. "This is a very hard saying," His hearers answered. They puzzled their brains over it a little; loss of faith was seizing on them. Some of them commenced leaving Him. Then He said something harder still, "If this about the flesh and blood startles you, what would you say to see me ascending up where I was?" Now, still, the mystery had deepened; more people left Him. In a tone of overwhelming sadness He asked His twelve apostles "if they too would leave Him"? The storm of hatred was breaking everywhere. Enemies surrounded Him; only a few seemed absolutely faithful. The rabbis, the scribes, and the big doctrinaires at Jerusalem had their spies everywhere, watching for His smallest word to ensnare Him. They surely, earnestly, believed Him a foe to all their Jewish church. He was teaching people to despise their great prophet, Moses, and to follow the vagaries of a new, unheard of religion. He was to them worse than the heathens across the border. What a change it all was! Even here in His own beautiful Capernaum they began to deny Him. Pharisees, Sadducees, and every conceivable enemy of the new faith are concentrating in crowds to traduce Him. Once more they demand a sign from Heaven--again, a clap of thunder, a sudden earthquake, or something, if He wants to prove that He is really the Christ. To their insolent demands He naturally makes no reply. Then more than ever conspiracy to destroy Him is rapidly being set on foot everywhere. Shortly He will leave this people by Galilee and their hypocrisies and falseness forever. Of course, His immediate friends all around Lake Galilee and His disciples are mostly sticking to Him, but not all of them--many have gone back on Him. One day walking on a country road He asked His disciples who the people really said He was? They answered that some thought Him one of the old prophets, risen from the dead. Herod up at Jerusalem believed Him to be John the Baptist, whom he had murdered to please a dancing girl that night in the castle by the Dead Sea. Herod was much alarmed about it all, too. "But who do you say that I am?" the Master asked again--and Peter said, "Thou art the Christ." "Tell no one this," continued Jesus, and then He explained to them privately His coming sufferings and death. They were all astounded. But these sufferings simply "had to be"; likewise His death. It seemed impossible.