Justus (Jewish merchant of Corinth)

• Justus (Jewish merchant of Corinth)

133:3.5Je­sus and Ga­nid were of­ten guests in an­other Jew­ish home, that of Jus­tus, a de­vout mer­chant, who lived along­side the syn­a­gogue. And many times, sub­se­quently, when the Apos­tle Paul so­journed in this home, did he lis­ten to the re­count­ing of these vis­its with the In­dian lad and his Jew­ish tu­tor, while both Paul and Jus­tus won­dered what­ever be­came of such a wise and bril­liant He­brew teacher.

133:3.6When in Rome, Ga­nid ob­served that Je­sus re­fused to ac­com­pany them to the pub­lic baths. Sev­eral times af­ter­ward the young man sought to in­duce Je­sus fur­ther to ex­press him­self in re­gard to the re­la­tions of the sexes. Though he would an­swer the lad’s ques­tions, he never seemed dis­posed to dis­cuss these sub­jects at great length. One evening as they strolled about Corinth out near where the wall of the citadel ran down to the sea, they were ac­costed by two pub­lic women. Ga­nid had im­bibed the idea, and rightly, that Je­sus was a man of high ide­als, and that he ab­horred ev­ery­thing which par­took of un­clean­ness or sa­vored of evil; ac­cord­ingly he spoke sharply to these women and rudely mo­tioned them away. When Je­sus saw this, he said to Ga­nid: “You mean well, but you should not pre­sume thus to speak to the chil­dren of God, even though they chance to be his erring chil­dren. Who are we that we should sit in judg­ment on these women? Do you hap­pen to know all of the cir­cum­stances which led them to re­sort to such meth­ods of ob­tain­ing a liveli­hood? Stop here with me while we talk about these mat­ters.” The cour­te­sans were as­ton­ished at what he said even more than was Ga­nid.

133:3.7As they stood there in the moon­light, Je­sus went on to say: “There lives within ev­ery hu­man mind a di­vine spirit, the gift of the Fa­ther in heaven. This good spirit ever strives to lead us to God, to help us to find God and to know God; but also within mor­tals there are many nat­u­ral phys­i­cal ten­den­cies which the Cre­ator put there to serve the well-be­ing of the in­di­vid­ual and the race. Now, of­ten­times, men and women be­come con­fused in their ef­forts to un­der­stand them­selves and to grap­ple with the man­i­fold dif­fi­cul­ties of mak­ing a liv­ing in a world so largely dom­i­nated by self­ish­ness and sin. I per­ceive, Ga­nid, that nei­ther of these women is will­fully wicked. I can tell by their faces that they have ex­pe­ri­enced much sor­row; they have suf­fered much at the hands of an ap­par­ently cruel fate; they have not in­ten­tion­ally cho­sen this sort of life; they have, in dis­cour­age­ment bor­der­ing on de­spair, sur­ren­dered to the pres­sure of the hour and ac­cepted this dis­taste­ful means of ob­tain­ing a liveli­hood as the best way out of a sit­u­a­tion that to them ap­peared hope­less. Ga­nid, some peo­ple are re­ally wicked at heart; they de­lib­er­ately choose to do mean things, but, tell me, as you look into these now tear-stained faces, do you see any­thing bad or wicked?” And as Je­sus paused for his re­ply, Ga­nid’s voice choked up as he stam­mered out his an­swer: “No, Teacher, I do not. And I apol­o­gize for my rude­ness to them—I crave their for­give­ness.” Then said Je­sus: “And I be­speak for them that they have for­given you as I speak for my Fa­ther in heaven that he has for­given them. Now all of you come with me to a friend’s house where we will seek re­fresh­ment and plan for the new and bet­ter life ahead.” Up to this time the amazed women had not ut­tered a word; they looked at each other and silently fol­lowed as the men led the way.

133:3.8Imag­ine the sur­prise of Jus­tus’ wife when, at this late hour, Je­sus ap­peared with Ga­nid and these two strangers, say­ing: “You will for­give us for com­ing at this hour, but Ga­nid and I de­sire a bite to eat, and we would share it with these our new-found friends, who are also in need of nour­ish­ment; and be­sides all this, we come to you with the thought that you will be in­ter­ested in coun­sel­ing with us as to the best way to help these women get a new start in life. They can tell you their story, but I sur­mise they have had much trou­ble, and their very pres­ence here in your house tes­ti­fies how earnestly they crave to know good peo­ple, and how will­ingly they will em­brace the op­por­tu­nity to show all the world—and even the an­gels of heaven—what brave and no­ble women they can be­come.”

133:3.9When Martha, Jus­tus’ wife, had spread the food on the ta­ble, Je­sus, tak­ing un­ex­pected leave of them, said: “As it is get­ting late, and since the young man’s fa­ther will be await­ing us, we pray to be ex­cused while we leave you here to­gether—three women—the beloved chil­dren of the Most High. And I will pray for your spir­i­tual guid­ance while you make plans for a new and bet­ter life on earth and eter­nal life in the great be­yond.”

133:3.10Thus did Je­sus and Ga­nid take leave of the women. So far the two cour­te­sans had said noth­ing; like­wise was Ga­nid speech­less. And for a few mo­ments so was Martha, but pres­ently she rose to the oc­ca­sion and did ev­ery­thing for these strangers that Je­sus had hoped for. The el­der of these two women died a short time there­after, with bright hopes of eter­nal sur­vival, and the younger woman worked at Jus­tus’ place of busi­ness and later be­came a life­long mem­ber of the first Chris­tian church in Corinth.