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ask him: 'Art thou he that should come, or do we look for another?' (11, 3). The impression that the Nazarene - with all his concentrated charisma - made on John during the baptismal ceremony seemed presumably an evangelist! Jesus went about 'all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues' (4:23), which housed the schools in those days. Synagogues came under priests and scribes. No one could just decide ex cathedra to teach there: he had to be examined by the scribes and recognized as one of them. Where did Jesus get the audacity to criticize this guild on which his teaching activity depended: ‘Except your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, ye shall in no case enter the kingdom of heaven’ (5:20). In his Gospel Matthew records speeches of Jesus which raise jestinabis doubts about his meekness. One recommendation from the mouth of the Son of God says: .- but whosoever shall say, Thou fool, shall be in danger of hell fire.’ (5.22). If all Christians who cursed when they were angry were treated like? that, hell would be one gigantic crematorium. In Chapter 5 Matthew quotes counsels that to the best of my knowledge even the most devout Christians of any age have never followed and, although they were divine commandments, could not follow: And if thy right eye offend thee, pluck it out and cast it from thee (30) ... whosoever shall smite thee on the right cheek, turn to him the other also (39). And if any man will sue thee at law, and take away thy coat, let him have thy cloak also (40). and whosoever shall compel thee to go a mile, go with him twain ...' (41). Iam always amazed when distorted quotations by the master are put in the appropriate passage of a ‘story taken from everyday life’ and then believed as 'God's word’. I have not met a single preacher who has taken these words literally. Jesus repeatedly urges his hearers to speak clearly, they must never be ‘lukewarm’: 'But let your communication be, Yea, yea: Nay, nay: for whatsoever is more than these cometh of evil' (8:37). The Nazarene himself certainly does not follow his own advice for he speaks in veiled parables. For example, when Jesus healed a leper by laying his hands on him, he said (8:4): 'See thou tell no man’, but adds in the same breath: '... go thy way, show thyself to the priest.' The original command to keep silence was pointless, because ‘great multitudes’ (8:1) were present at the miraculous cure. Yea-nay? Nea! But according to Matthew, mercy is in short supply, because Jesus threatens even for minor sins: '... the children of the kingdom shall be cast into outer darkness: there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth’ (8:12). Love one another - love thy neighbour as thyself ... are the slogans under which the Christian churches have presented their doctrine to the people from the beginning down to today. Why and wherefore so lasting that it is difficult to understand his lapse of memory. Let us consult Matthew, the toll collector (9:9) of the Sea of Genezareth, later an apostle and Jesus asserted that he had not come to summon the righteous but the sinners to repentance: 'I will have mercy and not sacrifice.’