Page 250 - New English Book L

249

i ) A Scribe, that is a learned man, says, “I will follow
thee wheresoever thou goest.” Jesus (pbuh) answers: “The
foxes have their holes; the birds of heaven their own nests;
but the Son of Man has no place where to lay his head.”
[1] In the verse following, he refuses one of his followers’
permission to go and bury his father! You will find not
a single saint, father, or commentator to have troubled
his head or the faculty of reasoning in order to discover
the very simple sense embodied in the refusal of Jesus
(pbuh) to allow that learned Scribe to follow him. If he had
place for thirteen heads he could certainly provide a place
for the fourteenth too. Besides, he could have registered
him among the seventy adherents he had [2] The Scribe in
question was not an ignorant fisherman like the sons of
Zebedee and of Jonah; he was a scholar and a practised
lawyer. There is no reason to suspect his sincerity; he was
led to believe that Jesus (pbuh) was the predicted Messiah,
the Son of Man, who at any moment might summon
his heavenly legions and mount upon the throne of his
ancestor David. Jesus (pbtuhem) perceived the erroneous
notion of the Scribe, and plainly let him understand that
he who had not two square yards of ground on earth to lay
his head could naturally not be “the Son of Man”! He was
not harsh to the Scribe; he benevolently saved him from
wasting his time in the pursuit of a futile hope!

ii) Jesus Christ (pbuh) is reported to have declared
that the Son of Man “will separate the sheep from the
goats.” [3] The “sheep” symbolize the believing Israelites
who will enter into the Kingdom but the “goats” signify
the unbelieving Jews who had joined with the enemies
of the true religion and were consequently doomed to
perdition. This was practically what the Apocalypse of
Enoch had predicted about the Son of Man. Jesus (pbuh)

[1] Matt. viii. 20.
[2] Luke x. 1.
[3] Matt. xxv. 31-34.