For, behold, he appeareth in these records of him by his own followers in far other wise than he showed himself to us in public at Jerusalem. In all his public acts among us he was full of scornful rebukes; among his own followers he was tender and loving. Scarcely ever could we get him to speak out to us plainly his views about matters of public concern. He would always give us an answer full of evasion and enigma, but to his followers he would explain all his meaning over and over again, illustrated with parable. There at Jerusalem he almost always turned to the people his harsher side. I saw him on every occasion on which he appeared in public in Jerusalem, and, save only in his sermons, he was always rebuking one or another, just like the prophets of old. And the manner of his rebuking towards us was as with scorpions, whereas among his own he would mingle tenderness even with his reproaches. Nor, saving his sermons, which few heard but those who already followed him, had he aught novel to tell us about the things of life. He seemed to us as if he would destroy the temple of our faith, nor in his public actions did he give any promise of building it up anew. Yet to those with him he would continually be telling what to do and how to do it, till, behold, a new manner of life, fair and seemly, stood before them, fulfilled of Jewish righteousness, with a tender mercy which was the man’s very own. I need not detail to thee, Aglaophonos, what these acts and words were which have given me an altogether new light as to the character and thoughts of the man Jesus. From certain words of thine in thy letter, which I understood not then when I first read it, I can see now that thou must have had some such account of the life and death of Jesus before thee as this which Rufus hath shown unto me. Now I can understand wherefore thou hast inquired about this Jesus with such eager insistence. And to thee as a Gentile the revelation of his character would come with more attractive force than to us that be Jews. For in almost every way this Jesus fulfilleth the idea of a Jew as we have it in these later days. Working with his hands, yet teaching with his voice; obedient to the Law, yet ever eager to take a new law upon himself; doing acts of love among men, yet rebuking in love their ill acts, and doing all things as in the presence of the Glory;—in all this Jesus was as the best of our Sages.