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donkeys

8 paragraphs · about 5 minutes

Every paragraph the index cites under donkeys, once, in the order of the book. Beside each stand the entries that cite it.

Paper 122 · Birth and Infancy of Jesus

7. The Trip to Bethlehem

122:7.4Joseph and Mary were poor, and since they had only one beast of bur­den, Mary, be­ing large with child, rode on the an­i­mal with the pro­vi­sions while Joseph walked, lead­ing the beast. The build­ing and fur­nish­ing of a home had been a great drain on Joseph since he had also to con­tribute to the sup­port of his par­ents, as his fa­ther had been re­cently dis­abled. And so this Jew­ish cou­ple went forth from their hum­ble home early on the morn­ing of Au­gust 18, 7 B.C., on their jour­ney to Beth­le­hem.

122:7.5–6 · two paragraphs not cited here ·

122:7.5Their first day of travel car­ried them around the foothills of Mount Gil­boa, where they camped for the night by the river Jor­dan and en­gaged in many spec­u­la­tions as to what sort of a son would be born to them, Joseph ad­her­ing to the con­cept of a spir­i­tual teacher and Mary hold­ing to the idea of a Jew­ish Mes­siah, a de­liv­erer of the He­brew na­tion.

122:7.6Bright and early the morn­ing of Au­gust 19, Joseph and Mary were again on their way. They par­took of their noon­tide meal at the foot of Mount Sartaba, over­look­ing the Jor­dan val­ley, and jour­neyed on, mak­ing Jeri­cho for the night, where they stopped at an inn on the high­way in the out­skirts of the city. Fol­low­ing the evening meal and af­ter much dis­cus­sion con­cern­ing the op­pres­sive­ness of Ro­man rule, Herod, the cen­sus en­roll­ment, and the com­par­a­tive in­flu­ence of Je­ru­sa­lem and Alexan­dria as cen­ters of Jew­ish learn­ing and cul­ture, the Naz­a­reth trav­el­ers re­tired for the night’s rest. Early in the morn­ing of Au­gust 20 they re­sumed their jour­ney, reach­ing Je­ru­sa­lem be­fore noon, vis­it­ing the tem­ple, and go­ing on to their des­ti­na­tion, ar­riv­ing at Beth­le­hem in midafter­noon.

122:7.7The inn was over­crowded, and Joseph ac­cord­ingly sought lodg­ings with dis­tant rel­a­tives, but ev­ery room in Beth­le­hem was filled to over­flow­ing. On re­turn­ing to the court­yard of the inn, he was in­formed that the car­a­van sta­bles, hewn out of the side of the rock and sit­u­ated just be­low the inn, had been cleared of an­i­mals and cleaned up for the re­cep­tion of lodgers. Leav­ing the don­key in the court­yard, Joseph shoul­dered their bags of cloth­ing and pro­vi­sions and with Mary de­scended the stone steps to their lodg­ings be­low. They found them­selves lo­cated in what had been a grain stor­age room to the front of the stalls and mangers. Tent cur­tains had been hung, and they counted them­selves for­tu­nate to have such com­fort­able quar­ters.

Paper 125 · Jesus at Jerusalem

3. Departure of Joseph and Mary

125:3.2The Naz­a­reth trav­el­ers did not miss Je­sus be­cause Mary sur­mised he jour­neyed with the men, while Joseph thought he trav­eled with the women since he had gone up to Je­ru­sa­lem with the women, lead­ing Mary’s don­key. They did not dis­cover his ab­sence un­til they reached Jeri­cho and pre­pared to tarry for the night. Af­ter mak­ing in­quiry of the last of the party to reach Jeri­cho and learn­ing that none of them had seen their son, they spent a sleep­less night, turn­ing over in their minds what might have hap­pened to him, re­count­ing many of his un­usual re­ac­tions to the events of Pass­over week, and mildly chid­ing each other for not see­ing to it that he was in the group be­fore they left Je­ru­sa­lem.

Paper 172 · Going into Jerusalem

3. The Start for Jerusalem

172:3.4Hav­ing de­cided upon mak­ing a pub­lic en­trance into Je­ru­sa­lem, the Mas­ter was con­fronted with the ne­ces­sity of choos­ing a proper method of ex­e­cut­ing such a re­solve. Je­sus thought over all of the many more or less con­tra­dic­tory so-called Mes­sianic prophe­cies, but there seemed to be only one which was at all ap­pro­pri­ate for him to fol­low. Most of these pro­phetic ut­ter­ances de­picted a king, the son and suc­ces­sor of David, a bold and ag­gres­sive tem­po­ral de­liv­erer of all Is­rael from the yoke of for­eign dom­i­na­tion. But there was one Scrip­ture that had some­times been as­so­ci­ated with the Mes­siah by those who held more to the spir­i­tual con­cept of his mis­sion, which Je­sus thought might con­sis­tently be taken as a guide for his pro­jected en­try into Je­ru­sa­lem. This Scrip­ture was found in Zechariah, and it said: “Re­joice greatly, O daugh­ter of Zion; shout, O daugh­ter of Je­ru­sa­lem. Be­hold, your king comes to you. He is just and he brings sal­va­tion. He comes as the lowly one, rid­ing upon an ass, upon a colt, the foal of an ass.”

172:3.5A war­rior king al­ways en­tered a city rid­ing upon a horse; a king on a mis­sion of peace and friend­ship al­ways en­tered rid­ing upon an ass. Je­sus would not en­ter Je­ru­sa­lem as a man on horse­back, but he was will­ing to en­ter peace­fully and with good will as the Son of Man on a don­key.

Paper 172 · Going into Jerusalem

5. The Apostles’ Attitude

172:5.5John Zeb­e­dee came some­where near un­der­stand­ing why Je­sus did this; at least he grasped in part the spir­i­tual sig­nif­i­cance of this so-called tri­umphal en­try into Je­ru­sa­lem. As the mul­ti­tude moved on to­ward the tem­ple, and as John be­held his Mas­ter sit­ting there astride the colt, he re­called hear­ing Je­sus one­time quote the pas­sage of Scrip­ture, the ut­ter­ance of Zechariah, which de­scribed the com­ing of the Mes­siah as a man of peace and rid­ing into Je­ru­sa­lem on an ass. As John turned this Scrip­ture over in his mind, he be­gan to com­pre­hend the sym­bolic sig­nif­i­cance of this Sun­day-af­ter­noon pageant. At least, he grasped enough of the mean­ing of this Scrip­ture to en­able him some­what to en­joy the episode and to pre­vent his be­com­ing over­much de­pressed by the ap­par­ent pur­pose­less end­ing of the tri­umphal pro­ces­sion. John had a type of mind which nat­u­rally tended to think and feel in sym­bols.

172:5.6–7 · two paragraphs not cited here ·

172:5.6Philip was en­tirely un­set­tled by the sud­den­ness and spon­tane­ity of the out­burst. He could not col­lect his thoughts suf­fi­ciently while on the way down Oli­vet to ar­rive at any set­tled no­tion as to what all the dem­on­stra­tion was about. In a way, he en­joyed the per­for­mance be­cause his Mas­ter was be­ing hon­ored. By the time they reached the tem­ple, he was per­turbed by the thought that Je­sus might pos­si­bly ask him to feed the mul­ti­tude, so that the con­duct of Je­sus in turn­ing leisurely away from the crowds, which so sorely dis­ap­pointed the ma­jor­ity of the apos­tles, was a great re­lief to Philip. Mul­ti­tudes had some­times been a great trial to the stew­ard of the twelve. Af­ter he was re­lieved of these per­sonal fears re­gard­ing the ma­te­rial needs of the crowds, Philip joined with Pe­ter in the ex­pres­sion of dis­ap­point­ment that noth­ing was done to teach the mul­ti­tude. That night Philip got to think­ing over these ex­pe­ri­ences and was tempted to doubt the whole idea of the king­dom; he hon­estly won­dered what all these things could mean, but he ex­pressed his doubts to no one; he loved Je­sus too much. He had great per­sonal faith in the Mas­ter.

172:5.7Na­than­iel, aside from the sym­bolic and pro­phetic as­pects, came the near­est to un­der­stand­ing the Mas­ter’s rea­son for en­list­ing the pop­u­lar sup­port of the Pass­over pil­grims. He rea­soned it out, be­fore they reached the tem­ple, that with­out such a demon­stra­tive en­try into Je­ru­sa­lem Je­sus would have been ar­rested by the San­hedrin of­fi­cials and cast into prison the mo­ment he pre­sumed to en­ter the city. He was not, there­fore, in the least sur­prised that the Mas­ter made no fur­ther use of the cheer­ing crowds when he had once got in­side the walls of the city and had thus so forcibly im­pressed the Jew­ish lead­ers that they would re­frain from plac­ing him un­der im­me­di­ate ar­rest. Un­der­stand­ing the real rea­son for the Mas­ter’s en­ter­ing the city in this man­ner, Na­than­iel nat­u­rally fol­lowed along with more poise and was less per­turbed and dis­ap­pointed by Je­sus’ sub­se­quent con­duct than were the other apos­tles. Na­than­iel had great con­fi­dence in Je­sus’ un­der­stand­ing of men as well as in his sagac­ity and clev­er­ness in han­dling dif­fi­cult sit­u­a­tions.

172:5.8Mat­thew was at first non­plused by this pageant per­for­mance. He did not grasp the mean­ing of what his eyes were see­ing un­til he also re­called the Scrip­ture in Zechariah where the prophet had al­luded to the re­joic­ing of Je­ru­sa­lem be­cause her king had come bring­ing sal­va­tion and rid­ing upon the colt of an ass. As the pro­ces­sion moved in the di­rec­tion of the city and then drew on to­ward the tem­ple, Mat­thew be­came ec­static; he was cer­tain that some­thing ex­traor­di­nary would hap­pen when the Mas­ter ar­rived at the tem­ple at the head of this shout­ing mul­ti­tude. When one of the Phar­isees mocked Je­sus, say­ing, “Look, ev­ery­body, see who comes here, the king of the Jews rid­ing on an ass!” Mat­thew kept his hands off of him only by ex­er­cis­ing great re­straint. None of the twelve was more de­pressed on the way back to Beth­any that evening. Next to Si­mon Pe­ter and Si­mon Ze­lo­tes, he ex­pe­ri­enced the high­est ner­vous ten­sion and was in a state of ex­haus­tion by night. But by morn­ing Mat­thew was much cheered; he was, af­ter all, a cheer­ful loser.

172:5.9–11 · three paragraphs not cited here ·

172:5.9Thomas was the most be­wil­dered and puz­zled man of all the twelve. Most of the time he just fol­lowed along, gaz­ing at the spec­ta­cle and hon­estly won­der­ing what could be the Mas­ter’s mo­tive for par­tic­i­pat­ing in such a pe­cu­liar dem­on­stra­tion. Down deep in his heart he re­garded the whole per­for­mance as a lit­tle child­ish, if not down­right fool­ish. He had never seen Je­sus do any­thing like this and was at a loss to ac­count for his strange con­duct on this Sun­day af­ter­noon. By the time they reached the tem­ple, Thomas had de­duced that the pur­pose of this pop­u­lar dem­on­stra­tion was so to frighten the San­hedrin that they would not dare im­me­di­ately to ar­rest the Mas­ter. On the way back to Beth­any Thomas thought much but said noth­ing. By bed­time the Mas­ter’s clev­er­ness in stag­ing the tu­mul­tuous en­try into Je­ru­sa­lem had be­gun to make a some­what hu­mor­ous ap­peal, and he was much cheered up by this re­ac­tion.

172:5.10This Sun­day started off as a great day for Si­mon Ze­lo­tes. He saw vi­sions of won­der­ful do­ings in Je­ru­sa­lem the next few days, and in that he was right, but Si­mon dreamed of the es­tab­lish­ment of the new na­tional rule of the Jews, with Je­sus on the throne of David. Si­mon saw the na­tion­al­ists spring­ing into ac­tion as soon as the king­dom was an­nounced, and him­self in su­preme com­mand of the as­sem­bling mil­i­tary forces of the new king­dom. On the way down Oli­vet he even en­vis­aged the San­hedrin and all of their sym­pa­thiz­ers dead be­fore sun­set of that day. He re­ally be­lieved some­thing great was go­ing to hap­pen. He was the nois­i­est man in the whole mul­ti­tude. By five o’clock that af­ter­noon he was a silent, crushed, and dis­il­lu­sioned apos­tle. He never fully re­cov­ered from the de­pres­sion which set­tled down on him as a re­sult of this day’s shock; at least not un­til long af­ter the Mas­ter’s res­ur­rec­tion.

172:5.11To the Al­pheus twins this was a per­fect day. They re­ally en­joyed it all the way through, and not be­ing pres­ent dur­ing the time of quiet vis­i­ta­tion about the tem­ple, they es­caped much of the an­ti­cli­max of the pop­u­lar up­heaval. They could not pos­si­bly un­der­stand the down­cast be­hav­ior of the apos­tles when they came back to Beth­any that evening. In the mem­ory of the twins this was al­ways their day of be­ing near­est heaven on earth. This day was the sat­is­fy­ing cli­max of their whole ca­reer as apos­tles. And the mem­ory of the ela­tion of this Sun­day af­ter­noon car­ried them on through all of the tragedy of this event­ful week, right up to the hour of the cru­ci­fix­ion. It was the most be­fit­ting en­try of the king the twins could con­ceive; they en­joyed ev­ery mo­ment of the whole pageant. They fully ap­proved of all they saw and long cher­ished the mem­ory.

172:5.12Of all the apos­tles, Ju­das Is­car­iot was the most ad­versely af­fected by this pro­ces­sional en­try into Je­ru­sa­lem. His mind was in a dis­agree­able fer­ment be­cause of the Mas­ter’s re­buke the pre­ced­ing day in con­nec­tion with Mary’s anoint­ing at the feast in Si­mon’s house. Ju­das was dis­gusted with the whole spec­ta­cle. To him it seemed child­ish, if not in­deed ridicu­lous. As this venge­ful apos­tle looked upon the pro­ceed­ings of this Sun­day af­ter­noon, Je­sus seemed to him more to re­sem­ble a clown than a king. He heart­ily re­sented the whole per­for­mance. He shared the views of the Greeks and Ro­mans, who looked down upon any­one who would con­sent to ride upon an ass or the colt of an ass. By the time the tri­umphal pro­ces­sion had en­tered the city, Ju­das had about made up his mind to aban­don the whole idea of such a king­dom; he was al­most re­solved to for­sake all such far­ci­cal at­tempts to es­tab­lish the king­dom of heaven. And then he thought of the res­ur­rec­tion of Laz­a­rus, and many other things, and de­cided to stay on with the twelve, at least for an­other day. Be­sides, he car­ried the bag, and he would not desert with the apos­tolic funds in his pos­ses­sion. On the way back to Beth­any that night his con­duct did not seem strange since all of the apos­tles were equally down­cast and silent.

Onward

Cited alongside: Joseph (father of Jesus)