By whatever definition we hold, Jesus was a mystic of mystics. It has been said that a mystic is one who is no longer mystified—by religions, by theologies, by doctrines. The Temple rulers were mystified by Jesus’ mysticism, and they were mystified by their own creeds. Now these men were sincere people. The Temple was the repository of the accumulated facts about God, and the body of this kind of knowledge was tremendous. The rulers were the keepers of the keys, as it were, the defender of a faith that they did not understand. How then could they understand one who did?
