Jesus In India — Page 47
CHAPTER ONE 37 his body was placed in his custody. Since Joseph was a respected personality, the Jews could not quarrel with him. Thus, he took charge of Jesus, the Messiah, who had been declared dead whereas he was actually in a swoon. Following Pilate's instructions, he took Jesus to a room with an opening which was used as a grave according to the prevailing custom of the time, and was beyond the access of the Jews. All this took place in the midst of the 14th century after the demise of the prophet Moses, and the Messiah was the divine reformer who was to revive the Jewish faith in that cen- tury. Although the Jews themselves were awaiting the Promised Messiah in the fourteenth century, and the prophecies of the ear- lier prophets testified to his coming, it is a pity that the unwor- thy clerics of the Jews did not recognize the person and the time and denounced their Promised Messiah as an imposter. Not content with this, they also called him an apostate and a heretic, pronounced a verdict of death against him, and dragged him to court. This shows that the fourteenth century has the inherent quality of making people's hearts callous, and causing religious clerics to become wholly inclined to worldliness, blind and averse to the truth. A comparison between the fourteenth century after Moses and the fourteenth century after the Holy Prophet, may peace and blessings of Allah be upon him—who is the similitude of Moses, will show, first, that in both of these centuries there was a man who claimed to be the Promised Messiah, and that it was a true claim, made on the authority of God. We also know that the religious leaders of the two peoples declared both of them to be apostates, denounced them as unbelievers and Antichrists, and pronounced verdicts of death against both. They were both taken