“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.