189. About the temple
Then said Iesus:
'This is true, because I am assured thereof by God. Wherefore, that every one may know that this is the truth, in the name of God let the sun stand still, and not move for twelve hours!' And so it came to pass, to the great terror of all Jerusalem and Judaea.
And Iesus said to the scribe:
'O brother, what seekest thou to learn from me, seeing thou hast such knowledge? As God liveth, this is sufficient for man's salvation, inasmuch as the humility of Haggai, with the charity (of Hosea) fulfilleth all the law and all the prophets.
'Tell me, brother, when thou camest to question me in the temple, didst thou think, perchance, that God had sent me to destroy the law and the prophets?
'Certain it is that God will not do this, seeing he is unchangeable, and therefore that which God ordained as man's way of salvation, this hath he caused all the prophets to say. As God liveth, in whose presence my soul standeth, if the book of Moses with the book of our father David had not been corrupted by the human traditions of false Pharisees and doctors, God would not have given his word to me. And why speak I of the book of Moses and the book of David? Every prophecy have they corrupted, in so much that do-day a thing is not sought because God hath commanded it, but men look whether the doctors say it, and the Pharisees observe it, as though God were in error, and men could not err.
'Woe, therefore, to this faithless generation, for upon them shall come the blood of every prophet and righteous man, with the blood of Zechariah (son of Berachiah) whom they slew between the temple and the altar!
'What prophet have they not persecuted? What righteous man have they suffered to die a natural death? Scarcely one! And they seek now to slay me. They boast themselves to be children of Abraham, and to possess the beautiful temple. As God liveth, they are children of Satan, and therefore they do his will: therefore the temple (with the holy city) shall go to ruin, in so much that there shall not remain of the temple one stone upon another.'