Eber

164:2.1Je­sus had at­tended the feast of taber­na­cles that he might pro­claim the gospel to the pil­grims from all parts of the em­pire; he now went up to the feast of the ded­i­ca­tion for just one pur­pose: to give the San­hedrin and the Jew­ish lead­ers an­other chance to see the light. The prin­ci­pal event of these few days in Je­ru­sa­lem oc­curred on Fri­day night at the home of Nicode­mus. Here were gath­ered to­gether some twenty-five Jew­ish lead­ers who be­lieved Je­sus’ teach­ing. Among this group were four­teen men who were then, or had re­cently been, mem­bers of the San­hedrin. This meet­ing was at­tended by Eber, Mata­dor­mus, and Joseph of Ari­mathea.

162:2.6Ac­cord­ingly, Eber, the proper of­fi­cer of the San­hedrin, with two as­sis­tants was dis­patched to ar­rest Je­sus. As Eber made his way to­ward Je­sus, the Mas­ter said: “Fear not to ap­proach me. Draw near while you lis­ten to my teach­ing. I know you have been sent to ap­pre­hend me, but you should un­der­stand that noth­ing will be­fall the Son of Man un­til his hour comes. You are not ar­rayed against me; you come only to do the bid­ding of your mas­ters, and even these rulers of the Jews ver­ily think they are do­ing God’s ser­vice when they se­cretly seek my de­struc­tion.

162:2.7“I bear none of you ill will. The Fa­ther loves you, and there­fore do I long for your de­liv­er­ance from the bond­age of prej­u­dice and the dark­ness of tra­di­tion. I of­fer you the lib­erty of life and the joy of sal­va­tion. I pro­claim the new and liv­ing way, the de­liv­er­ance from evil and the break­ing of the bond­age of sin. I have come that you might have life, and have it eter­nally. You seek to be rid of me and my dis­qui­et­ing teach­ings. If you could only re­al­ize that I am to be with you only a lit­tle while! In just a short time I go to Him who sent me into this world. And then will many of you dili­gently seek me, but you shall not dis­cover my pres­ence, for where I am about to go you can­not come. But all who truly seek to find me shall some­time at­tain the life that leads to my Fa­ther’s pres­ence.”

162:2.8Some of the scoffers said among them­selves: “Where will this man go that we can­not find him? Will he go to live among the Greeks? Will he de­stroy him­self? What can he mean when he de­clares that soon he will de­part from us, and that we can­not go where he goes?”

162:2.9Eber and his as­sis­tants re­fused to ar­rest Je­sus; they re­turned to their meet­ing place with­out him. When, there­fore, the chief priests and the Phar­isees up­braided Eber and his as­sis­tants be­cause they had not brought Je­sus with them, Eber only replied: “We feared to ar­rest him in the midst of the mul­ti­tude be­cause many be­lieve in him. Be­sides, we never heard a man speak like this man. There is some­thing out of the or­di­nary about this teacher. You would all do well to go over to hear him.” And when the chief rulers heard these words, they were as­ton­ished and spoke taunt­ingly to Eber: “Are you also led astray? Are you about to be­lieve in this de­ceiver? Have you heard that any of our learned men or any of the rulers have be­lieved in him? Have any of the scribes or the Phar­isees been de­ceived by his clever teach­ings? How does it come that you are in­flu­enced by the be­hav­ior of this ig­no­rant mul­ti­tude who know not the law or the proph­ets? Do you not know that such un­taught peo­ple are ac­cursed?” And then an­swered Eber: “Even so, my mas­ters, but this man speaks to the mul­ti­tude words of mercy and hope. He cheers the down­hearted, and his words were com­fort­ing even to our souls. What can there be wrong in these teach­ings even though he may not be the Mes­siah of the Scrip­tures? And even then does not our law re­quire fair­ness? Do we con­demn a man be­fore we hear him?” And the chief of the San­hedrin was wroth with Eber and, turn­ing upon him, said: “Have you gone mad? Are you by any chance also from Gal­i­lee? Search the Scrip­tures, and you will dis­cover that out of Gal­i­lee arises no prophet, much less the Mes­siah.”