James of Safed

158:5.2When Je­sus had lis­tened to this recital, he touched the kneel­ing fa­ther and bade him rise while he gave the near-by apos­tles a search­ing sur­vey. Then said Je­sus to all those who stood be­fore him: “O faith­less and per­verse gen­er­a­tion, how long shall I bear with you? How long shall I be with you? How long ere you learn that the works of faith come not forth at the bid­ding of doubt­ing un­be­lief?” And then, point­ing to the be­wil­dered fa­ther, Je­sus said, “Bring hither your son.” And when James had brought the lad be­fore Je­sus, he asked, “How long has the boy been af­flicted in this way?” The fa­ther an­swered, “Since he was a very young child.” And as they talked, the youth was seized with a vi­o­lent at­tack and fell in their midst, gnash­ing his teeth and foam­ing at the mouth. Af­ter a suc­ces­sion of vi­o­lent con­vul­sions he lay there be­fore them as one dead. Now did the fa­ther again kneel at Je­sus’ feet while he im­plored the Mas­ter, say­ing: “If you can cure him, I be­seech you to have com­pas­sion on us and de­liver us from this af­flic­tion.” And when Je­sus heard these words, he looked down into the fa­ther’s anx­ious face, say­ing: “Ques­tion not my Fa­ther’s power of love, only the sin­cer­ity and reach of your faith. All things are pos­si­ble to him who re­ally be­lieves.” And then James of Safed spoke those long-to-be-re­mem­bered words of com­min­gled faith and doubt, “Lord, I be­lieve. I pray you help my un­be­lief.”

158:4.1It was shortly be­fore break­fast time on this Tues­day morn­ing when Je­sus and his com­pan­ions ar­rived at the apos­tolic camp. As they drew near, they dis­cerned a con­sid­er­able crowd gath­ered around the apos­tles and soon be­gan to hear the loud words of ar­gu­ment and dis­pu­ta­tion of this group of about fifty per­sons, em­brac­ing the nine apos­tles and a gath­er­ing equally di­vided be­tween Je­ru­sa­lem scribes and be­liev­ing dis­ci­ples who had tracked Je­sus and his as­so­ciates in their jour­ney from Ma­g­a­dan.

158:4.2Al­though the crowd en­gaged in nu­mer­ous ar­gu­ments, the chief con­tro­versy was about a cer­tain cit­i­zen of Tiberias who had ar­rived the pre­ced­ing day in quest of Je­sus. This man, James of Safed, had a son about four­teen years old, an only child, who was severely af­flicted with epilepsy. In ad­di­tion to this ner­vous mal­ady this lad had be­come pos­sessed by one of those wan­der­ing, mis­chievous, and re­bel­lious mid­way­ers who were then pres­ent on earth and un­con­trolled, so that the youth was both epilep­tic and de­mon-pos­sessed.

158:4.3For al­most two weeks this anx­ious fa­ther, a mi­nor of­fi­cial of Herod An­tipas, had wan­dered about through the west­ern bor­ders of Philip’s do­mains, seek­ing Je­sus that he might en­treat him to cure this af­flicted son. And he did not catch up with the apos­tolic party un­til about noon of this day when Je­sus was up on the moun­tain with the three apos­tles.

158:4.4The nine apos­tles were much sur­prised and con­sid­er­ably per­turbed when this man, ac­com­pa­nied by al­most forty other per­sons who were look­ing for Je­sus, sud­denly came upon them. At the time of the ar­rival of this group the nine apos­tles, at least the ma­jor­ity of them, had suc­cumbed to their old temp­ta­tion—that of dis­cussing who should be great­est in the com­ing king­dom; they were busily ar­gu­ing about the prob­a­ble po­si­tions which would be as­signed the in­di­vid­ual apos­tles. They sim­ply could not free them­selves en­tirely from the long-cher­ished idea of the ma­te­rial mis­sion of the Mes­siah. And now that Je­sus him­self had ac­cepted their con­fes­sion that he was in­deed the De­liv­erer—at least he had ad­mit­ted the fact of his di­vin­ity—what was more nat­u­ral than that, dur­ing this pe­riod of sep­a­ra­tion from the Mas­ter, they should fall to talk­ing about those hopes and am­bi­tions which were up­per­most in their hearts. And they were en­gaged in these dis­cus­sions when James of Safed and his fel­low seek­ers af­ter Je­sus came upon them.

158:4.5An­drew stepped up to greet this fa­ther and his son, say­ing, “Whom do you seek?” Said James: “My good man, I search for your Mas­ter. I seek heal­ing for my af­flicted son. I would have Je­sus cast out this devil that pos­sesses my child.” And then the fa­ther pro­ceeded to re­late to the apos­tles how his son was so af­flicted that he had many times al­most lost his life as a re­sult of these ma­lig­nant seizures.

158:4.6As the apos­tles lis­tened, Si­mon Ze­lo­tes and Ju­das Is­car­iot stepped into the pres­ence of the fa­ther, say­ing: “We can heal him; you need not wait for the Mas­ter’s re­turn. We are am­bas­sadors of the king­dom; no longer do we hold these things in se­cret. Je­sus is the De­liv­erer, and the keys of the king­dom have been de­liv­ered to us.” By this time An­drew and Thomas were in con­sul­ta­tion at one side. Na­than­iel and the oth­ers looked on in amaze­ment; they were all aghast at the sud­den bold­ness, if not pre­sump­tion, of Si­mon and Ju­das. Then said the fa­ther: “If it has been given you to do these works, I pray that you will speak those words which will de­liver my child from this bond­age.” Then Si­mon stepped for­ward and, plac­ing his hand on the head of the child, looked di­rectly into his eyes and com­manded: “Come out of him, you un­clean spirit; in the name of Je­sus obey me.” But the lad had only a more vi­o­lent fit, while the scribes mocked the apos­tles in de­ri­sion, and the dis­ap­pointed be­liev­ers suf­fered the taunts of these un­friendly crit­ics.

158:4.7An­drew was deeply cha­grined at this ill-ad­vised ef­fort and its dis­mal fail­ure. He called the apos­tles aside for con­fer­ence and prayer. Af­ter this sea­son of med­i­ta­tion, feel­ing keenly the sting of their de­feat and sens­ing the hu­mil­i­a­tion rest­ing upon all of them, An­drew sought, in a sec­ond at­tempt, to cast out the de­mon, but only fail­ure crowned his ef­forts. An­drew frankly con­fessed de­feat and re­quested the fa­ther to re­main with them overnight or un­til Je­sus’ re­turn, say­ing: “Per­haps this sort goes not out ex­cept by the Mas­ter’s per­sonal com­mand.”

158:4.8And so, while Je­sus was de­scend­ing the moun­tain with the ex­u­ber­ant and ec­static Pe­ter, James, and John, their nine breth­ren like­wise were sleep­less in their con­fu­sion and down­cast hu­mil­i­a­tion. They were a de­jected and chas­tened group. But James of Safed would not give up. Al­though they could give him no idea as to when Je­sus might re­turn, he de­cided to stay on un­til the Mas­ter came back.

158:5.1As Je­sus drew near, the nine apos­tles were more than re­lieved to wel­come him, and they were greatly en­cour­aged to be­hold the good cheer and un­usual en­thu­si­asm which marked the coun­te­nances of Pe­ter, James, and John. They all rushed for­ward to greet Je­sus and their three breth­ren. As they ex­changed greet­ings, the crowd came up, and Je­sus asked, “What were you dis­put­ing about as we drew near?” But be­fore the dis­con­certed and hu­mil­i­ated apos­tles could re­ply to the Mas­ter’s ques­tion, the anx­ious fa­ther of the af­flicted lad stepped for­ward and, kneel­ing at Je­sus’ feet, said: “Mas­ter, I have a son, an only child, who is pos­sessed by an evil spirit. Not only does he cry out in ter­ror, foam at the mouth, and fall like a dead per­son at the time of seizure, but of­ten­times this evil spirit which pos­sesses him rends him in con­vul­sions and some­times has cast him into the wa­ter and even into the fire. With much grind­ing of teeth and as a re­sult of many bruises, my child wastes away. His life is worse than death; his mother and I are of a sad heart and a bro­ken spirit. About noon yes­ter­day, seek­ing for you, I caught up with your dis­ci­ples, and while we were wait­ing, your apos­tles sought to cast out this de­mon, but they could not do it. And now, Mas­ter, will you do this for us, will you heal my son?”

158:5.3When Je­sus heard these words, he stepped for­ward and, tak­ing the lad by the hand, said: “I will do this in ac­cor­dance with my Fa­ther’s will and in honor of liv­ing faith. My son, arise! Come out of him, dis­obe­di­ent spirit, and go not back into him.” And plac­ing the hand of the lad in the hand of the fa­ther, Je­sus said: “Go your way. The Fa­ther has granted the de­sire of your soul.” And all who were pres­ent, even the en­e­mies of Je­sus, were as­ton­ished at what they saw.

158:5.4It was in­deed a dis­il­lu­sion­ment for the three apos­tles who had so re­cently en­joyed the spir­i­tual ec­stasy of the scenes and ex­pe­ri­ences of the trans­fig­u­ra­tion, so soon to re­turn to this scene of the de­feat and dis­com­fi­ture of their fel­low apos­tles. But it was ever so with these twelve am­bas­sadors of the king­dom. They never failed to al­ter­nate be­tween ex­al­ta­tion and hu­mil­i­a­tion in their life ex­pe­ri­ences.

158:5.5This was a true heal­ing of a dou­ble af­flic­tion, a phys­i­cal ail­ment and a spirit mal­ady. And the lad was per­ma­nently cured from that hour. When James had de­parted with his re­stored son, Je­sus said: “We go now to Cae­sarea-Phi­lippi; make ready at once.” And they were a quiet group as they jour­neyed south­ward while the crowd fol­lowed on be­hind.