The Nazarenes heard with indignation. Their wonder at his gracious words
was changed to bitterest wrath. The very beams of their ugly religion
were party-spirit, exclusiveness, and pride in the fancied favour of God
for them only of all the nations: to hint at the possibility of a
revelation of the glory of God to a stranger; far more, to hint that a
stranger might be fitter to receive such a revelation than a Jew, was an
offence reaching to the worst insult; and it was cast in their teeth by
a common man of their own city! 'Thou art but a well-known carpenter's
son, and dost thou teach _us_! Darest thou imply a divine preference for
Capernaum over Nazareth?' In bad odour with the rest of their
countrymen, they were the prouder of themselves.

The _whole_ synagogue, observe, rose in a fury. Such a fellow a prophet!
He was worse than the worst of Gentiles! he was a false Jew! a traitor
to his God! a friend of the idol-worshipping Romans! Away with him! His
townsmen led the van in his rejection by his own. The men of Nazareth
would have forestalled his crucifixion by them of Jerusalem. What! a
Sidonian woman fitter to receive the prophet than any Jewess! a heathen
worthier to be kept alive by miracle in time of famine, than a
worshipper of the true God! a leper of Damascus less displeasing to God
than the lepers of his chosen race! It was no longer condescending
approval that shone in their eyes. He a prophet! They had seen through
him! Soon had they found him out! The moment he perceived it useless to
pose for a prophet with them, who had all along known the breed of him,
he had turned to insult them! He dared not attempt in his own city the
deceptions with which, by the help of Satan, he had made such a grand
show, and fooled the idiots of Capernaum! He saw they knew him too well,
were too wide-awake to be cozened by him, and to avoid their expected
challenge, fell to reviling the holy nation. Let him take the
consequences! To the brow of the hill with him!