The two men stopped on the road, and Nicodemus looking into Joseph's eyes, said: I asked him if he were going up to Jerusalem for the Feast of the Passover, and after speaking a few words on the subject he broke out, coiling himself like a diseased panther meditating on its spring, and as if uncertain if he could accomplish it, he fell back into a chair and into his dream, out of which he spoke a few words clear and reasonable; and then with a concentrated hate he spoke of the Temple as a resort of thieves and of the priests as the despoilers of widows and orphans, saying that the law must be abrogated and the Temple destroyed. Until then there would be no true religion in Judea. It is like that he speaks now; the one-time reformer sees clearly that the Temple must go. And would he, Joseph asked, build another in its place? I'm not sure that he would. I put the question to him and he was uncertain if the old foundations could be used. The old spirits of lust, and blood, and money would haunt the walls, and as fast as we raised up a new Temple the spirits would pull it down and rebuild it as it was before. We are forbidden by the law of Moses to create any graven image of man, of bird or beast. Would that Moses had added: build no walls, for as soon as there are walls priests will enter in and set themselves upon thrones. The priests have taken the place of God, and I have come, he said, to cast them out of their thrones, and to cut the knot of the bondage of the people of Israel. I come, he said, with a sword to cut that knot, which hands have failed to loosen, and in my other hand there is a torch, and with it I shall set fire to the thrones. All the world as ye know it must be burnt up like stubble, for a new world to rise up in its place. In the beginning I spoke sweet words of peace, and they were of no avail to stay the sins that were committed in every house; so now I speak no more sweet words to anybody, but words that shall divide father from son, and mother from daughter, and wife from husband. There is no other way to cure the evil. What say I, he cried, cure! There is none. The evil must be cut down and thrown upon the fire, and whosoever would be saved from the fire must follow me. The priests hate me and call me arrogant, but if I seem arrogant to them it is because I speak the word of God.