Then said Caiaphas: "Dost thou also speak in this wise? Is it not known everywhere how he desecrated the Sabbath; how he has misled the people by his seditious speeches? Hath he not also as a deceiver worked his pretended miracles by the aid of Beelzebub? Has he not given himself out as a God, when he is nothing but a man?"
"You hear that?" cried the priests to Joseph. He remained standing and continued saying: "Envy and malice have misrepresented his words and imputed evil motives to the noblest acts. That he is a man come from God his God-like acts testify."
"Ha," cried Nathanael, with a laugh of scorn, "now we know thee. Already for a long time hast thou been a secret follower of this Galilean! Now, thou hast shown thyself in thy true colors!"
Aged Annas, without leaving his seat, remarked: "So, then, we have in our very midst traitors to our holy law, and even here has the deceiver cast his net."
"What do ye here, apostates?" cried Caiaphas. "Be off to your prophet, to see him once more, before the hour strikes when he must die, for that is irrevocably determined."
"Yes," cried all the priests. "Yes! die he must; that is our resolve."
Then said Nicodemus, "I curse this resolution; I will neither have part nor lot in this shameful condemnation."
"And I also," said Joseph of Arimathea, "will quit this place where the innocent are condemned to death. By God, I swear that my hands are clean!"
Gathering their robes together, Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimathea walked slowly out of the Sanhedrin.
Then said Josue, "At last we are rid of these traitors. Now we can speak out freely." Caiaphas, however, profiting by the protests of Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimathea, said to the assembly: "It will certainly be necessary that we should sit formally in judgment upon this man, to try him and to bring forth witnesses against him, otherwise the people will believe that we have only persecuted him from envy and hatred."