I, Judas

by Taylor Caldwell

  “How dared the rabble touch him, speak with him, walk in his footsteps, importune him, follow him, hold up their miserable children for his blessing, put their hands on his garments? How dared they ask him to cure their sick? Among them were the very Roman centurions and their officers, and even the judges and the Scribes, and often, to my amazement, my fellow Pharisees. How dared the humble offer him wine and fruit and dates and bread and fish and meat? It was an offense that cried to God for punishment for the sacrilege. Why did he condescend to walk into the houses of the tax gatherers, the oppressors hired by the Romans to afflict starving Israel, those who took the very bread from the mouths of the Jews? They were criminals, these tax gatherers, who, for a few shekels, drove their fellow Jews to penury and despair. Yet he suffered them and had compassion for these jackals, these most accursed of God—these whores of the Romans!

  “Would God have pity on those who afflicted his people? Once I spoke of this, and he said: ‘The righteous have their own reward in their souls, but the evil must be lifted from darkness and delivered to the light.’ Then he gazed at me, and there was great sorrow in his beautiful eyes.

  “When he was arrested by the Romans and the Temple guards, I rejoiced, for I said in my heart: ‘Now he will repulse them. Now he will reveal himself! Now he will expand in his majesty and all will know him! I have forced his hand! If they touch him they will die! Angelic hosts will descend to guard him and bear him away! God will not permit his Son to be befouled by the hands of men!’

  “But he went with them meekly. I saw his degradation, his whipping, heard the revilements of the mob, heard the laughter of the rabble. I also saw the aristocratic sneer of Pilate, his lifted lip, his shrug. I pondered Pilate’s obscure remarks before he turned away.”

  All this now poured out of my love for him, and my sorrow, and it was comforting that at last I found someone who would listen, even if he was but a traitor.

  I looked up finally and saw that bar-Abbas had not moved. His head was bowed, and he seemed to be staring at the floor. He had not heard a word.

  “Do you hear me?” I cried.

  He barely shrugged. “But who hears me?”

  You cared not for him, nor even for Israel, or you would not have traded his life for your own.”

  He groaned. “He did not die for me. If not I, it would have been another.”

  I started at his words, for this his mother had said, and this I had been telling myself. It was small comfort when I heard it from the lips of a knave excusing himself.

  “He looked farther than Rome, bar-Abbas, beyond this speck our minds had made a mountain. We were preoccupied with petty principles, and he would have none. In this way, I suppose, he betrayed us. For when we asked him to kill Romans and deliver us from them, he said: ‘I go to deliver them who through fear of death are all their lifetime subject to bondage.’

  “He promised he would come again, to show there was no death, but if he is as powerless as before, what more can he do in a cruel, spiteful world? You were there, bar-Abbas, when I questioned him about his coming back. Don’t you remember what he said? ‘And it shall come to pass in that day, that the Lord shall set his hand again the second time to recover the remnant of his people. And he shall set up an ensign for the nations, and shall assemble the outcasts of Israel, and gather together the dispersed of Judah from the four corners of the earth.’”

  Bar-Abbas gave me a dull stare.

  “You look for forgiveness, Judah, but you will find none. For the one man that would have forgiven you is he whom you killed.”

  How dare this traitor speak like this, for if I erred it was only in good faith.

  “Will you manufacture yourself another Messiah?” I said, stung into recalling the words spoken at this very spot.

  With a cry like a wounded animal, bar-Abbas leaped to his feet, and without a word flung himself out of the building. I chased after him, but it was to no avail. He had disappeared into the night, having done his evil and too late repented. The Garden of Gethsemane seemed to hem me in. I could barely breathe. I found myself in the very olive grove, under a gnarled old tree, where I had last kissed him. I looked up at the strong branches. Was it on such a tree, I wondered, that Rachel had hanged herself? It was all over with me as well, that I knew. What can a man do but die when an encompassing dream is destroyed in one moment? When a man has devoted his life to that dream, and there is none other, not wife or children, not parents or kin, not joy in life, not celebration of living, not even the miserable reality of the world and its dark wisdom, and that dream dissolved in the ashes of nothingness, is there aught for him but oblivion and endless unbeing? How can a man endure when his life has lost its meaning and there is nothing but a trackless desert remaining all of the years of his life?

  But, as I stand here below the tree under which I will die, I cannot help but wonder. Is he indeed the Messiah? Is he indeed the hope of man, the Promise of God? Have I deceived myself, or is he the Truth?

  In death only is the answer. My question may be answered. It may not. In any event, I will be at peace.

  As I moved, my hand rubbed against my tunic, and I recalled the scrap of parchment that had dropped out of his hand at Calvary. In the light of a candle, by which I had been feverishly writing, I saw, with a feeling of disappointment, that it was but one of the psalms. I would have wanted more to remember him by. Even as I looked up again at the tree, and tied my tunic into a knot, I wondered why he had carried these words to the cross with him.

  “The Lord is my shepherd,” I read, “I shall not want.

  “He maketh me to lie down in green pastures, he leadeth me beside the still waters. He restoreth my soul, he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name’s sake.

  “Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for thou art with me. Thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.

  “Thou prepareth a table before me in the presence of mine enemies.

  “Thou anointest my head with oil, my cup runneth over.

  “Surely, goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.”

  And so perished he whom the prophet called Wonderful, the Counselor, the mighty God, the everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace. But let no man put his death on my head. And let he who calls me traitor first search his own heart well, for each time a man sins he puts another nail into that cross on the hill of Golgotha, known by the Romans as Calvary.

  I go forward hopefully, for the prophet said that of the increase of Christ’s kingdom there would be no end. And so, hoping to join him, I wait for that time when the earth shall shake and the very mountains fall into the sea, and we shall see his sign once more in the sky.

  Then we shall know that he is with us, and all mankind will rejoice, even amid the desolation, for the last battle will be fought at a place called Armageddon, and the last enemy destroyed shall be death itself. For all men will know then that he ascended the cross for the salvation of us all, and to show life everlasting. This is my last testament, and if any man take away from any part of it, so shall as much be taken from his own life. I come quickly, dear God, as even so came Jesus. Accept me. Lord, for I sinned in my pride, and in that pride, I knew not what I did. May Jesus Christ be with all, as he was with me. Amen.

  EPILOGUE

  The Testimony of a Certain Disciple by His Own Eyes and As Given to Him By Mary of Magdala, Sister of Lazarus and Martha, and One Who Knew Jesus of Nazareth As the Lord and Loved Him More Than Life Itself.

  Mary of Magdala had not slept since the execution two days before. Her grief and desolation were complete; she was numbed by sorrow. Clouds of thoughts and anguish blew through her mind like dust; she could never gather them into order and coherence. She would sit on her bed gnawing her knuckles, her head bent, her hair falling about her face like a burnished curtain, her features as blank as a desert stone which had been scoured by harsh winds and sand t
hrough the centuries. She had not, since that terrible day before the Passover, eaten or drunk. Her soul was in abeyance, dulled and empty. The sun came, the sun departed; there were voices outside her little house, the querulous complaints of camels, the skittering of donkeys’ hoofs, the call of a distant trumpet, men’s laughter, children’s insistent demandings, women’s scuffling on the stones. A few times there were knocks on her door; she did not heed anything at all. The lantern beside her bed flickered, then went out, and darkness crept into the chamber. She sat in the gloom and did not notice. The sun returned glittering through the coarse curtain across the window. It struck her wringing hands and she did not see or feel it. The apathy of despair had brought her a living death. There were hours when she was aware of nothing, not even of herself, as if in a swoon.

  Then, as if she had heard an imperative and beloved voice, she awakened from her stupor and looked about her. It was becoming dark again; the lantern was cold and dead. She stood up, throwing back her tangled hair. She still had no thoughts, no purpose. She saw her soiled hands and felt the grit of sand between her teeth. She washed without thought in the warm and stagnant water in the bowl near her bed. She was like a wooden-jointed figure on a tiny stage, the amusement of the Romans which she had seen in the bazaars, a figure moved by a will not her own and without volition. She lit the lantern; it was as if they were dreaming. But the echoes of the imperative voice moved in her hollow mind, and she obeyed without thought. The lantern gave off a foul and smoky odor, and its wan light roved restlessly about the little chamber, as if seeking it knew not what. There was a knocking on her door and her heavy legs moved to answer. But there was no one outside, only the darkness and the distant red flickering of torches and the endless movements of lanterns through the streets. A woman, or a child, was wailing nearby.

  Still moving heavily, she picked up her lantern and left the house. The darkness was becoming deeper, the torch and lantern light more vivid. She glanced up at the sky, blinking; the moon was declining in the west. In a very few hours it would be morning. Morning, she thought, sluggishly. What is morning to me, who am dead? How much time had passed? Was this the second or the third day since her Life had died, when the universe had become only a skull, uninhabited? Her feet moved without her will, in a direction she had not consciously taken. The houses about her were lightless and closed, and now there were no voices, no running feet. She dimly heard the trumpets of the Romans sounding on the walls of Jerusalem, counting the hour. There was a drumming, like thunder, from the Roman garrisons.

  Her head bowed, her feet moving wearily, she went on. She did not know how long this was; there were only shadows about her, capering with the torches in their apertures along the walls. Even her bones were like lead, and it exhausted her to stir her body. The lantern wavered in her hand; her cloak fell about her like the garments of the dead, the hood hiding her expressionless face, which seemed carved of unsentient marble. For a long time she walked, like a shade without substance and without life. Then, abruptly, she came alive and the world rushed in on her, huge with sound and being, and faintly she cried aloud in pain. She almost dropped her lantern.

  She was standing in the wild and dark and lonely garden, not far from the tomb where her Life had been laid in cloths pungent with oils and spices. How long ago had that occurred? Eras ago, ages ago? The Roman soldiers, jesting and sweating, had rolled that enormous stone before the aperture of the somber tomb, and she had watched despairingly with the others, and at length had turned away with them, weeping but without speaking; and in silence, they had dispersed, one by one.

  She stood still, staring about her with new agony and awareness. The bloated moon, which had turned to a bright yellow over the western hills, jaundiced the black cypresses, the leafing sycamores, the karobs, the scattered and half-wild silvery olive trees, the broken walls, the myrtles with their purple flowers, the faint gravel paths, the wind-struck palms, and sent long dense shadows over the tangled high grass. Here all was desolation and loneliness; not even a night bird cried. It was very still, as if the world had caught a deep breath and was holding it in fear. She could see the saffron walls of the city, winding and ancient, and the far pillars of the Temple, all citron-tinted under the moon.

  Terror seized her, but she could not compel her body to retreat She stared into the distance toward the tomb. Was it only her imagination in that haunted place that she saw a shifting white illumination through the trees? She knew that Roman soldiers were guarding the tomb lest the followers of her Lord steal away the body and then proclaim that he had risen. But only she knew, in her suffering, that not even his disciples and Apostles believed truly in his divinity. Had they not slept when he had pleaded for their comfort and company in the Garden of Gethsemane? Had they not, in weariness or sloth, deserted him? On what frail earth had he raised his altar? She shivered and whispered to herself: “Do I believe?” She had no answer. She continued to stare at the distant illumination which seemed to gather strength and breadth. It was not red or fluttering therefore it was not the fires and the torches of the soldiers, and it was not the light of the lemonish moon.

  She found herself helplessly moving toward it. The scent of disturbed grass rose, but the trees remained rigid, like groups of guardians, watching. Now the light became more intense; trunks of trees seemed to ripple in it. She could hear her own heartbeat in her throat and her ears; her flesh trembled. Now she was not so fearful of the light. It drew her, impelled her. She reached the edge of the clearing in the wild garden—which was without the gates of the city—and what she saw stupefied her and filled her with both awe and dread.

  For the tomb glowed with white radiance while all about it lay uncertain and shifting darkness. Every pebble and stone in the clearing was struck with light, and treetops and trunks reflected the brilliance which lay on the tomb, almost as bright as the sun. She took several steps toward it, fascinated and quivering, until her foot struck against something and she fell back in terror. She saw now that the soldiers lay in the grass, fallen as if struck by lightning, the brilliance catching an iron-shod boot here, a wristlet there, a helmet flung aside, a shield on the earth, the hilt of a sword, the side of an unconscious cheek, a glimmer of breastplate. She had touched a soldier with her foot in the darkness, but he had not awakened. Her first confused thought was that they lay sleeping from drunkenness, but a young profile just before her was that of a man deep in a trance, scarcely breathing.

  She lifted her dazed eyes and saw, for the first time, the black aperture of the blazing tomb, and she saw, disbelieving, that the stone had been rolled away from it. She gasped, putting her cold hand to her mouth.

  She suddenly found herself running, fleet and random as a rabbit, away from the tomb and into the darkness, her arms flung out to keep herself from falling, her hood on her shoulders, her hair tumbling behind her, her eyes distended and glittering. Without consciously directing herself, she ran wildly, seeking the house of Simon Peter, where he sat in mourning with the disciple who was beloved of the Lord and the youngest of them all. Stones and pebbles bruised her feet; broken thorn branches clutched at her cloak. Now only the yellow light of the moon illuminated her way. Cold drops ran down her cheeks; she was weeping and moaning.

  She came upon the rambling little street where Simon Peter stopped in a miserable house. A ragged curtain almost concealed the window; she saw lamplight around its edges. Frantically she beat her fists on the splintered door, calling out: “Simon Peter, Simon Peter! Open!”

  There was muttering within, frightened muttering, then the door was cautiously opened to show the strained face of Simon Peter with its coarse black beard, and his rough tunic and leather belt. Beyond him she saw the slight and youthful John sitting on the bed in an attitude of absolute dejection, his handsome boy’s face scoured with grief and tears. He lifted his head to stare at her in the dim lamplight and half rose.

  “Mary!” said Simon Peter, and rubbed his dry lips. “What is this? Why are
you here?”

  She cried out: “They have taken away the Lord out of the sepulcher, and we know not where they have laid him!”

  Simon’s hand dropped from his lips. He gazed at her as at a madwoman. “How do you know this?” he demanded.

  “I was there, in the garden, and I saw the tomb—” Her breath choked. She wrung her hands. “There was a great light on it—I could see! The soldiers—they were asleep, or drunk, or dead—! And the stone—the stone—had been pushed aside—It was not at the mouth of the sepulcher—they had moved it!”

  “Who had moved it?” said Peter. His browned cheeks had become pale.

  She wrung her hands again, frenziedly. “I do not know!” she exclaimed. “But they have done this thing. They have taken away the Lord—!”

  Confused and silent now, Simon turned to look at the young disciple, who had risen and was coming toward them. Then they both looked at the distraught young woman and her agonized white face and her tears.

  “Surely,” said John in a voice roughened by sobbing, “this cannot be.” He looked about him as if searching for something in a dream. “He is dead. What use could they have for his body? A jest—an evil jest.” His hand reached for a lantern and he lit it from the lamp. Its feeble gleam illuminated their distracted and benumbed faces. “Let us go to the sepulcher,” he muttered.

  The three ran together through the dark and hilly streets, past closed shutters and hidden windows. There was a sudden howling of pariah dogs and jackals from the steep banks beneath the walls of the city. A Roman trumpet sounded the hour. An aromatic wind was rising, filled with warm dust. John, younger than Peter, soon outstripped him. Simon’s sandals pounded heavily on the stones, which glistened under the moon. She, disheveled and panting, stumbled behind them, her sandals flapping on her feet.