When I returned to Sepphoris, I applied myself to labour and to study, if perchance I might settle my thoughts; but I could not, for I was divided between two minds. At one time I was minded to obey John and his teaching, and to set no store on the teaching of the Scribes, nor to give heed to what were called the “light precepts” of the Fathers, such as those concerning tassels and fringes, and the purification of vessels, and the observance of the Sabbath for things without life, and the like; and it seemed nobler to cast these things away, and to say that mercy, and judgment, and truth, and kindness, were the great commandments, and whoso observeth these, observeth all. But then at other times, when I considered with myself how frail and fitful a thing is man, how impotent for all good ends, and how easily led aside from the right path by passion and by ignorance, then I trembled at the thought of casting down the fences which had been raised by the generations of the wise; for I feared lest I should be guilty of presumption, and should fall, and be swallowed up with an utter destruction. But in the minds of other men (and not in me alone) there was at this time much unsettlement and many searchings of heart. For many others in Sepphoris became ill‐content with the teaching of the Scribes, and with the performance of the precepts of the Law. Some men even said that, when the Messiah came, there should be no more Law. So, if, even before, men had been expecting the Messiah and looking forward to the Redemption of Sion, much more did they do so now, after the preaching of John the Prophet; insomuch that the whole of Galilee became as dry fuel ready for the flame: and nothing was wanting save a spark of fire from heaven to kindle the whole into a great blaze. By this time I had numbered thirty‐four years, or something more; and it was the fourteenth year of the Emperor Tiberius. CHAPTER V Now it came to pass that about this time, at the beginning of the fifteenth year of Tiberius Cæsar, very early in the spring, the only son of my mother’s eldest brother died in Alexandria; and my mother’s brother (whose name was Onias) sent to my mother desiring her that she would suffer me to come to Alexandria to visit him during his affliction. He was a shipwright and a man of great wealth, possessing many corn‐ships; and he was desirous to have adopted me for his son. But to this I would not consent, nor did my mother urge me thereto. Howbeit out of love for her brother, and because she thought it would be for my advantage, she desired me to visit my uncle for a time. I had no mind to remain in Alexandria, nor to leave my mother for long. But at my mother’s bidding I was willing to go to my uncle for a season, if perchance I might comfort him a little.