I tried to act annoyed, slapping the grass in exasperation. “You Jews call the Romans a heathen people because of their abundance of gods, and yet your own supply of prophets is unlimited. One can always be paraded forth whose words will fit any condition. What did your Daniel say, please tell me?”

“Daniel had many visions regarding our people. After one of these, he said, ‘I saw in the night visions, and, behold, one like the Son of man came with the clouds of heaven, and came to the Ancient of Days, and they brought him near before him. And there was given him dominion, and glory, and a kingdom, that all people, nations, and languages should serve him: his dominion is an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away, and his kingdom that which shall not be destroyed.’ ”

“Is that a good description of what the Jews expect from their Messiah?”

“There are many different expectations from the Messiah.”

He was much tougher than he looked and had obviously been through this sort of interrogation before. “Are you suggesting that Jesus imagined himself to be the ‘Son of man’ of Daniel’s prophecy and that he purposely used that phrase as some sort of secret code that he knew would be recognized by those he wanted to rally to his cause without placing himself in any danger from Pilate or Herod?”

A furtive glance passed between Matthew and Joseph.

“But that makes no sense at all,” I argued. “Wouldn’t the uneducated masses be as unlikely to recognize or understand the hidden meaning behind those words, if there was one, as any spy of Pilate or Herod?”

“Perhaps,” Matthew agreed reluctantly.

“And yet it was before those who were unschooled in the words of most prophets that Jesus taught and preached, nearly every day of his public life. How do you explain this?”

“He loved the poor and—”

“Yes, yes,” I interrupted, “but if he loved them so much and wanted to lead them to a better life, why didn’t he just come out and tell them he was their long-expected Messiah—or even, as many now claim, the Son of God? Why did he hide behind mysterious pronouncements of old prophets or speak in complex parables with messages so disguised that even you, who were so close to him, have admitted that you did not understand many of them?”

Matthew, at least on the exterior, remained undaunted by my badgering. He replied, “Jesus told us, once, when we asked him why he spoke in parables, ‘Unto you it is given to know the mysteries of the Kingdom of God: but to others in parables; that seeing they might not see, and hearing they might not understand.’ ”

“Hardly the best way to prepare the masses for a new kingdom,” I said maliciously.