CHAPTER IV.
Judas purloined a few pieces of silver and the theft was discovered by Thomas who had chanced to note the exact sum of money given him. It was thought likely that he had stolen on previous occasions, and the indignation of the disciples knew no bounds. Bristling with wrath Peter seized Judas by the neck and half dragged him to Jesus. The pale and frightened culprit offered no resistance.
“Teacher, look. Our jester! Just look at him, the thief. Thou trustest him, but he steals our money. The rogue! If thou wilt but say the word, I shall....”
But Jesus was silent. Peter looked up curiously scanning the Teacher’s expression, and with flushed face relaxed his hold on Judas. The latter smoothed his garments with a sheepish mien and assumed the downcast appearance of a penitent sinner.
“What do you think of that!” growled Peter, and walked out of the room banging the door. Everybody was annoyed, and the disciples declared that on no account would they remain together with Judas. John, however, with a sudden inspiration quietly slipped into the room whence through the open doorway was now heard the gentle and apparently cordial voice of Jesus.
When John returned, his face was pale and his eyes were red with recent tears.
“The Teacher says ... The Teacher says that Judas may take all the money he likes.”
Peter laughed angrily. Swiftly and reproachfully John glanced at the impetuous disciple, and suddenly, all aglow, his tears mingling with his wrath, his joy mingling with his tears, he exclaimed with a ringing voice:
“And none shall keep count of the money which Judas receives. He is our brother and all the money is his as well as ours, and if he needs much let him take much, telling no one nor taking counsel with any. Judas is our brother and you have deeply offended against him,” thus sayeth our Teacher. “Shame on us, brethren!”
In the doorway stood Judas, pale and with a sickly smile. John with a quick movement approached him and kissed him thrice on the cheek. And after him, exchanging glances and awkwardly, came the others, James, Philip, and the rest. After each kiss Judas wiped his mouth, though he received the kiss with a resounding smack as if the sound afforded him much pleasure. The last to kiss him was Peter.
“We are all fools, Judas. We are all blind. One alone is seeing, One alone is wise. May I kiss thee?”
“Why not? Kiss,” assented Judas.
Peter cordially kissed him and whispered into his ear:
“And I almost choked thee. The others were gentler, but I seized thee by the throat. Did it pain thee?”
“A little.”
“I shall go to Him and tell Him. I was even angry with Him,” gloomily remarked Peter striving to open the door without noise.
“And how about thee, Thomas?” sternly inquired John who was watching the actions of the disciples.
“I don’t know yet. I must think.”
And Thomas thought long, almost the whole day.
The disciples had gone about their business, and somewhere behind the wall Peter shouted loudly and merrily, but Thomas was still thinking. Pie would have finished sooner, but Judas, whose mocking glance persistently pursued his movement, disturbed him. Now and then the Iscariot inquired with a mock curiosity:
“Well, how is it Thomas? How art thou progressing?”
Then Judas brought his treasure chest and loudly jingling his coins he commenced to count them, pretending to ignore the presence of Thomas.
“Twenty one, twenty two, twenty three. Look, Thomas, another false coin. What great rogues people are, they even offer false money unto God. Twenty four. And then they will say Judas had stolen it. Twenty five. Twenty six....”
Thomas resolutely advanced to him, (it was already towards evening) and said:
“He was right, Judas. Let me kiss thee.”
“Indeed? Twenty nine. Thirty. But it is all in vain. I shall steal again. Thirty one....”
“How canst thou steal if there is no more thine or anybody else’s? Thou wilt take what thou needest, brother.”
“And didst thou require all this time merely to repeat His words? Thou doest not value time, Thomas?”
“I fear thou mockest me, brother.”
“And think, dost thou act correctly in repeating His words? It was He who had spoken, and they were His words, not thine. It was He who had kissed me, but you defiled my mouth. I can still feel your moist lips creeping over my face. How disgusting that was, Thomas! Thirty eight. Thirty nine. Forty pieces of silver. Dost thou want to count it over?”
“But He is our Teacher. How should we not repeat His words?”
“Has Judas no longer a neck to drag him by? Is he now naked so that ye cannot seize him? The Teacher will leave the house, Judas may accidentally steal three coins, and will ye not again seize him by the neck?”
“We know now, Judas. We understand.”
“But have not all disciples a poor memory? And do not the disciples deceive their teachers? The Teacher lifts the rod, the disciples cry: ‘We know the lesson!’ The teacher lies down to sleep and the disciples inquire: ‘Is not this what our teacher taught us?’ And here this morning thou didst call me thief, but now callest thou me brother. What wilt thou call me on the morrow?”
Judas laughed, and picking up with one arm the heavy and jingling money chest he continued:
“When the wind blows strongly it raises the dust and the stupid people see the dust and say: ‘Behold, the wind bloweth.’ But it is only dust, my good Thomas, the refuse of asses, trodden under foot. There it strikes a wall and is now humbly lying at its foot, but the wind is flying further, the wind is flying further, my good Thomas.”
Judas pointed in illustration over the wall and laughed again:
“I am glad that thou art merry, Judas,” replied Thomas. “Pity it is that in thy merriment there is so much malice.”
“How should not a man be merry who has been kissed so much and who is so useful? If I had not stolen three pieces of silver, how should John have known the exaltation of joy? Is it not pleasurable to be a hook whereupon John hangs his mouldy virtue to dry and thou thy moth-eaten wisdom?”
“I think it is best for me to go.”
“But I am merely joking. I am jesting, Thomas. I merely wished to know if thou didst really long to kiss the old and repulsive Judas who had stolen three pieces of silver and given the money to a sinful woman.”
“A sinful woman?” echoed Thomas in surprise. “And didst thou tell our Teacher this also?”
“There, doubting again, Thomas! Yes, to a sinful woman. But if thou only knew what a miserable woman she was. She must have gone without food two days.”
“Knowest that this circumstance for a certainty?” inquired Thomas in confusion.
“Of course. I had been with her two days myself and saw that she had eaten nothing, for she merely drank wine, red wine. And she reeled with exhaustion and I fell with her.”
Thomas leaped to his feet and walking a short distance away, turned and remarked to Judas.
“Apparently Satan has entered thy body.”
And as he departed he heard the heavy money chest jingle mournfully through the gloom in the hands of Judas ... And it seemed as though Judas were laughing.
But the very next day Thomas had to admit that he had been mistaken in Judas: so gentle, simple and at the same time serious had become the Iscariot. He cut no more grimaces, refrained from malicious jesting, no longer cringed before people or insulted them, but attended to his household tasks quietly and unobtrusively. He was as agile as ever: as though he had not two legs like the rest of the people, but dozens of them. Now, however, he scurried about noiselessly, without squealing and screaming or the hyena laugh that had characterized his previous activity. And when Jesus now commenced to speak he sat down in a corner with folded hands and his large eyes assumed such a gentle expression that everybody noticed it. And he ceased to speak evil of people, keeping silence in preference, so that even the stern Matthew found it proper to praise him, which he did in the words of Solomon: “The fool speaketh scornfully of his neighbor, but the wise man is silent,” and he raised his finger as if recalling the former proneness of Judas to speak evil. And the others also noted this change in Judas and rejoiced over it. Only Jesus still viewed him with the same look of estrangement although He in no manner expressed His disfavor. And John himself, towards whom, as the beloved disciple of Jesus and his protector, Judas now manifested a most deferential demeanor, even John’s attitude towards him was softened and he occasionally held converse with him.
“How thinkest thou, Judas,” said he once condescendingly, “which of us twain, Peter or I, will be nearest to Christ in His heavenly kingdom?”
Judas thought for a moment and replied:
“I think thou wilt.”
“And Peter thinks he will,” smiled John.
“No. Peter’s shouting would scatter the angels. Hearest thou him? Of course, he will dispute with thee and will strive to come first and occupy the place, for he claims that he too loves Jesus. But he is growing old, while thou art young. He is slow, while thou art fleetfooted and thou wilt be the first to enter with Christ. Am I not right?”
“Yes. I shall never leave Jesus’ side,” assented John.
That same day Simon Peter addressed the very same question to Judas. But fearing that his loud voice would be heard by others he led Judas to the furthest corner of the house.
“Well how thinkest thou?” he inquired anxiously. “Thou art wise. Even the Teacher praises thy wisdom. Thou wilt tell me the truth.”
“Thou, of course,” the Iscariot replied without hesitation. And Peter indignantly exclaimed:
“I told him so.”
“But, of course, even there he will try to dispute the first place with thee.”
“Of course he will.”
“But what can he do if he find the place already occupied by thee? Thou wilt not leave Him alone. Did he not call thee a Rock?”
Peter laid his hand on Judas’ shoulder and fervently exclaimed:
“I tell thee, Judas, thou art the wisest among us. Pity thou art so malevolent and sneering. The Teacher does not like it. And thou couldst be a beloved disciple no less than John. But even unto thee I shall not yield my place by the side of Jesus, neither here on earth nor over there. Hearest thou me?” And he raised his hand with a threatening gesture.
Thus Judas sought to please both, the while he was harboring thoughts of his own. And remaining the same modest, quiet and unobtrusive Judas, he strove to say something agreeable to all.
Thus he said to Thomas: “The fool believeth every word, but the man of wisdom takes heed of his ways.” But to Matthew who loved to eat and drink and was ashamed of this weakness he cited the words of Solomon.
“The righteous shall eat his fill, but the seed of the lawless is in want.”
But such pleasant words he spoke rarely, which lent to them a special value. Now he remained silent for long periods and listened attentively to others, though he kept thinking thoughts of his own. Judas in his musing mood had a disagreeable and ludicrous, and at the same time a disconcerting appearance. While his cunning live eye was mobile he appeared to be genuine and gentle, but when both of his eyes assumed that fixed and rigid look, and the skin on his forehead gathered into queer wrinkles and folds, one received the disquieting impression that within that skull there swarmed very peculiar thoughts, utterly strange, quite peculiar thoughts that had no language of their own and they enveloped the cogitating Iscariot with a shroud of mystery so disturbing that the beholder longed to have him break the silence quickly, to stir a little or even to lie. For even a lie uttered by a human tongue seemed truth and light in the face of this hopelessly mute and unresponsive silence.
“Lost in thought again, Judas?” rang out the sonorous voice of Peter, suddenly breaking through the dull silence of the Iscariot’s musing. “What art thou thinking of?”
“Of many things,” replied the Iscariot with a quiet smile. And observing the unpleasant effect of his silence upon the others, he began more and more frequently to separate himself from the disciples, taking lonely walks or spending hours alone on the flat roof of the house. More than once Thomas collided on the roof with a grey bundle out of which suddenly disentangled themselves the ungainly limbs of Judas and was startled by the well known mocking accents of the Iscariot’s voice.
Only once again the man of Kerioth oddly and abruptly recalled to the memory of the disciples the Judas of former days, and this occurred during the dispute concerning the first place in the Kingdom of heaven. In the presence of the Teacher, Peter and John hotly and with mutual recriminations defended their claims to the place nearest to Jesus. They enumerated their merits, compared the degree of their love of Jesus, shouted angrily and even abused one another incontinently,—Peter, all flushed with wrath and thundering, John pale and still, with trembling hands and stinging words. Their dispute was fast becoming unseemly and the Teacher was commencing to frown, when Peter chanced to look up at Judas and laughed out exultingly. John also glanced at Judas and smiled contentedly. Each remembered what the wise Iscariot had told him. With the foretaste of certain triumph they both summoned Judas to be their judge, and Peter cried out: “Hey, thou wise Judas. Tell us who will be first and nearest to Jesus, he or I?”
But Judas was silent. He breathed heavily and fixed his gaze longingly, questioningly, on the deep and calm eyes of Jesus.
“Yes,” condescendingly agreed John, “tell him who will be the first and nearest to Jesus.”
With his glance still fixed on Christ, Judas rose slowly to his feet and replied calmly and gravely:
“I.”
Jesus slowly dropped his eyes, while the Iscariot, beating his breast with a bony finger sternly and solemnly repeated:
“I! I shall be near Jesus.”
And with these words he went out leaving the disciples dumbfounded by this insolent outbreak. Only Peter, as if suddenly recollecting something, whispered to Thomas in an unexpectedly quiet tone:
“This is then what he is thinking about. Didst thou hear him?”