Bartholomew in Ephesus
On Slaves and Outcasts
THE ENEMIES OF Jesus say that He addressed His appeal to slaves and
outcasts, and would have incited them against their lords. They say that
because He was of the lowly He invoked His own kind, yet that He sought
to conceal His own origin.
But let us consider the followers of Jesus, and His leadership.
In the beginning He chose for companions few men from the North Country,
and they were freemen. They were strong of body and bold of spirit, and
in these past twoscore years they have had the courage to face death with
willingness and defiance.
Think you that these men were slaves or outcasts?
And think you that the proud princes of Lebanon and Armenia have forgotten
their station in accepting Jesus as a prophet of God?
Or think you the high-born men and women of Antioch and Byzantium and
Athens and Rome could be held by the voice of a leader of slaves?
Nay, the Nazarene was not with the servant against his master; neither
was He with the master against his servant. He was with no man against
another man.
He was a man above men, and the streams that ran in His sinews sang together
with passion and with might.
If nobility lies in being protective, He was the noblest of all men. If
freedom is in thought and word and action, He was the freest of all men.
If high birth is in pride that yields only to love and in aloofness that
is ever gentle and gracious, then He was of all men the highest born.
Forget not that only the strong and the swift shall win the race and the
laurels, and that Jesus was crowned by those who loved Him, and also by
His enemies though they knew it not.
Even now He is crowned every day by the priestesses of Artemis in the
secret places of her temple.
Back to Jesus the Son of Man main page