The Return from Rome

133:9.1The car­a­van trip across the desert was not a new ex­pe­ri­ence for these much-trav­eled men. Af­ter Ga­nid had watched his teacher help with the load­ing of their twenty camels and ob­served him vol­un­teer to drive their own an­i­mal, he ex­claimed, “Teacher, is there any­thing that you can­not do?” Je­sus only smiled, say­ing, “The teacher surely is not with­out honor in the eyes of a dili­gent pupil.” And so they set forth for the an­cient city of Ur.

133:9.2Je­sus was much in­ter­ested in the early his­tory of Ur, the birth­place of Abra­ham, and he was equally fas­ci­nated with the ru­ins and tra­di­tions of Susa, so much so that Gonod and Ga­nid ex­tended their stay in these parts three weeks in or­der to af­ford Je­sus more time to con­duct his in­ves­ti­ga­tions and also to pro­vide the bet­ter op­por­tu­nity to per­suade him to go back to In­dia with them.

133:9.3It was at Ur that Ga­nid had a long talk with Je­sus re­gard­ing the dif­fer­ence be­tween knowl­edge, wis­dom, and truth. And he was greatly charmed with the say­ing of the He­brew wise man: “Wis­dom is the prin­ci­pal thing; there­fore get wis­dom. With all your quest for knowl­edge, get un­der­stand­ing. Ex­alt wis­dom and she will pro­mote you. She will bring you to honor if you will but em­brace her.”

133:9.4At last the day came for the sep­a­ra­tion. They were all brave, es­pe­cially the lad, but it was a try­ing or­deal. They were tear­ful of eye but coura­geous of heart. In bid­ding his teacher farewell, Ga­nid said: “Farewell, Teacher, but not for­ever. When I come again to Da­mas­cus, I will look for you. I love you, for I think the Fa­ther in heaven must be some­thing like you; at least I know you are much like what you have told me about him. I will re­mem­ber your teach­ing, but most of all, I will never for­get you.” Said the fa­ther, “Farewell to a great teacher, one who has made us bet­ter and helped us to know God.” And Je­sus replied, “Peace be upon you, and may the bless­ing of the Fa­ther in heaven ever abide with you.” And Je­sus stood on the shore and watched as the small boat car­ried them out to their an­chored ship. Thus the Mas­ter left his friends from In­dia at Charax, never to see them again in this world; nor were they, in this world, ever to know that the man who later ap­peared as Je­sus of Naz­a­reth was this same friend they had just taken leave of—Joshua their teacher.

133:9.5In In­dia, Ga­nid grew up to be­come an in­flu­en­tial man, a wor­thy suc­ces­sor of his em­i­nent fa­ther, and he spread abroad many of the no­ble truths which he had learned from Je­sus, his beloved teacher. Later on in life, when Ga­nid heard of the strange teacher in Pales­tine who ter­mi­nated his ca­reer on a cross, though he rec­og­nized the sim­i­lar­ity be­tween the gospel of this Son of Man and the teach­ings of his Jew­ish tu­tor, it never oc­curred to him that these two were ac­tu­ally the same per­son.

133:9.6Thus ended that chap­ter in the life of the Son of Man which might be termed: The mis­sion of Joshua the teacher.