Jesus Of Nazareth Part 4

ANNAS: Brothers, where have your wits gone? Surely, we intend to satisfy the Law. There will be an interrogation, and an appearance of judgement and hearing of witnesses. But how dare you for a single instant take this dreamer from Galilee seriously? I would blush deeply if the shadow of a suspicion flowered in me that this Jesus could be the representative of Jehovah; that this ignorant man was the enunciator of His Will; and I would be overcome with shame on myself if I had for the millionth part of a second believed that this charlatan was the Messiah-King, the Son of David, the Expected One of Israel.

CAIAPHAS: If one of us, Pharisee, priest, or doctor, one day found in the midst of his meditations on the Scriptures, a doubtful prophetic spirit, that would be would be in ever so small a degree, comprehensible; or if I imagined myself, Me, Caiaphas, high priest, maddened by my genealogy to be the Expected One of Israel, madness, but excusable madness. We are close enough to G.o.d's thought to experience such vertigoes; but for an unknown, emerging from the depth, head swaddled with shadows to have the pretension of making himself adored not only by the rabble, but by us, Nicodemus, and you, Joseph, could you seriously think that his case deserved examination? I have trouble understanding your att.i.tude. If we, the brain of Israel, set ourselves to stray, nothing surprising if the people rave wildly with this unanimity in dementia!

NICODEMUS: Our knowledge is then so certain?

SARAI: Intolerable!

ANNAS: Is Nicodemus on the point of promulgating some new heresy?

NICODEMUS: If he doesn't come from G.o.d, by what means does he accomplish such prodigies?

ALL: Through Satan! Enough! He's mad! Silence!

SEMEIAS: What prodigies?

JOSEPH: The blind man he cured?

ALL: Charlatanism! Imposture! He was no more blind than I am! He was possessed by the devil.

CAIAPHAS: In short, where do you propose to go?

NICODEMUS: I want him to be examined.

CAIAPHAS: He will be examined. Is that all?

NICODEMUS: And that, in any case, there will be no question of condemning him to death.

CAIAPHAS: I am stopping you! Nicodemus, don't persist. You will incur excommunication.

ANNAS: This is from madness! Can't you see that if we allow such impostors to roam free, provoking sedition, we are exposing ourselves to the wrath of Rome?

Aren't you instructed by events. To spare an agitator do you want to destroy us all?

JOSEPH: But if he is innocent?

ALL: Enough! Exclusion.

CAIAPHAS: Guilty or innocent, it's better for one man to perish than the whole people! And when that man is only a magician of little ability SEMEIAS: The fact is they tell strange stories (Enter Joel.) SARAI: I have heard tell that he cures the possessed solely through the imposition of his hands and a fixed look in their eyes.

PHAROS: They told me that a paralytic was able to run and walk without help from others on his order.

NICODEMUS: He has a great ascendancy over crowds. Inexplicable, but that cannot be denied.

CAIAPHAS: Oh! The crowds! The story of their credulity will never end.

DANIEL: For my part, I heard tell JOEL: You've all heard tell. As for me, I've seen CAIAPHAS: Joel! What have you seen, Joel? You seem troubled.

JOEL: Caiaphas, you would be, if you had seen what my eyes have seen. It's of this Galilean that you were speaking, right?

ANNAS: Yes. Of the carpenter from Nazareth.

JOEL: I am going to tell you very simply what I saw, not dreaming, but awake; if we are awake when we go about and talk, if we are awake here at this moment; and I didn't sleep from the moment of this vision that I had and this moment speaking to you.

ANNAS: You are expressing yourself strangely, brother.

JOEL: Annas, listen to me. It's difficult to express the inexpressible. Which of you doctors knew my cousin, Lazarus of Bethany?

SEMEIAS: Who died recently? I did, Joel.

ANOTHER: And I.

JOEL: If you would like to come with me tonight, or tomorrow to Bethany, Semeias, and you, who knew Lazarus, you will see him living.

SEMEIAS: What are you saying?

CAIAPHAS: Joel, you're dreaming!

JOEL: Answer me! Am I alive?

CAIAPHAS: Certainly.

JOEL: Well then, I am not dreaming, Caiaphas; I am as clean of spirit as you all.

ANNAS: Unfortunately, we are not all.

JOEL: Are you, Annas?

ANNAS: Every man has moments of distraction. I guarantee you healthy and lucid and I consecrate this moment to hear you. Go on, speak. Don't you see the point to which you've aroused our curiosity?

JOEL: It's despite myself that I am speaking. Yesterday evening I was in Bethany trying to console Martha, my cousin, that I had with other relatives accompanied to the sepulchre of her brother. A man came, the same one you were speaking of when I entered this hall.

CAIAPHAS: Ah! The Galilean.

JOEL: Some disciples followed him. Poor folk, who, it appeared had forsaken wealth and family to attach themselves to his person. An Iscariot among others.

Mary, Martha's sister, a poor creature, escorted the Galilean. Like you, I knew him by reputation, like you, my brothers, I scorned him.

ANNAS: He was then an acquaintance of your cousin Lazarus?

JOEL: They told me they were bound in friends.h.i.+p.

CAIAPHAS: You are not going to pretend JOEL: I'm not going to pretend anything. I'm recounting. I observed this Jesus and, at first, I blushed for the conduct of these two sisters, my cousins.

Because Martha prostrated herself before him and called him. "Master," and Mary went on repeating with inexhaustible tears, "If only you had come, he would not have died." He was motionless and mutely looked at the sepulchre. The rest of us, the witnesses were observing silence terrifying! And he, mute, looked at the sepulchre. And as for me, keeping my eyes riveted on his face, I suddenly saw his eyes heavy with two tears, which were not followed by other tears, two tears which rolled down his pale cheeks and which he did not wipe dry. And he said, "Raise the stone." I heard someone reply, "It's been three days since he was there; he must be stinking." The man repeated, "Raise the stone!" And the stone was raised. The tomb was yawning, black. Without any gesture but in a firm voice, he uttered, "Lazarus, come!" My eyes leapt from my head. Something white was moving in the crevice of the rock, and the cadaver appeared in the opening standing in his shroud, all rigid in his bandages.

ALL: Ah!

JOEL: The man said, "Unwrap him and let him go." The bandages were cut; we saw the living face, the eyes open, blinking; and there he was standing before us and coming towards us. And his sisters and his disciples were prostrated before the one who was looking at heaven. My knees were shaking and I heard the chattering teeth of someone near me, the Iscariot!

DANIEL: Insanity!

SARAI: There are some strange slumbers.

SEMEIAS: He's telling us a dream.

NICODEMUS: He comes from G.o.d.

JOSEPH: I believe he is the Messiah.

ANNAS: Joel, return to Bethany; you won't see Lazarus. You had a vision.

CAIAPHAS: First of all, return home and get some rest; then go to the home of your cousins. You will see nothing has changed in Bethany.

JOEL: I saw. Others saw. You can have Lazarus summoned.

CAIAPHAS: So be it. Then he was sleeping.

JOEL: You can sleep for three days?

PHAROS: There are insects whose bite NICODEMUS: But which of us would have dreamed that a man buried for three days was only asleep and could be awakened at the command of an ignorant man such as this Galilean who is not a healer so far as I know.

ANNAS: Now there's our other dreamer!

PHAROS: Coincidence!

ANOTHER: One thing is certain: one cannot revive the dead.

DANIEL: No man can revive the dead.

JOSEPH: Eli and the child of the widow of Sarepthah.

NICODEMUS: Elisea and the son of the Sunamite.

DANIEL: Prophets! Men of Jehovah! And who begged Jehovah saying, "O G.o.d, won't you return life to this child?"

SARAI: While this one, in an imperious voice and without praying to Jehovah, commanded Lazarus to arise.

ANNAS: That is precisely insufferable. This Galilean is conniving with the spirit of evil.

NICODEMUS: The Galilean would reply to you, "Does the spirit of evil sometimes do good?"

CAIAPHAS: Nicodemus, evil dresses sometimes in the appearance of good. There are beautiful flowers whose perfume kills; and beautiful fruits whose flesh is poison. I say to you that this man must die, in whom Satan is contriving the destruction of Israel; and he will die, I repeat, because it is better one man die than an entire people.

JOSEPH: But if this man is possessed, let's at least try to exorcise him.

A PHARISEE: There's only one efficacious exorcism. A good cross!

DANIEL: How can you speak of exorcising a seditious person who is shouting everywhere, "Pharisees, race of vipers and whitened sepulchres!"

SARAI: Let him die!

ANNAS: Pilate is only awaiting an opportunity to employ. By delivering to him this demagogue we will furnish an indubitable proof of our loyalty and our good will.

CAIAPHAS: As the witnessing of Joel must be accepted, this resurrection is an unexceptionable sign of the power conferred on this man by the Evil Spirit. As soon as the rumor of it spreads among the people, there will be only one voice to proclaim him king. And at the same time unleas.h.i.+ng on us the Roman eagles.

NICODEMUS: And if he were the king?

ANNAS: Let him come to have his t.i.tle examined.

CAIAPHAS: And his genealogy.

DANIEL: And his knowledge.

SEMEIAS: Let's not waste time.

SARAI: They are very late. We allowed his fangs to grow and we smiled too much at his audacity while we were arguing with the Sadducees. The people lost interest in our scholastic debates for whom they lack charm and coalesced around this maker of prodigies.

PHARO: Not the people! The sc.u.m!

ANNAS: Yet another resurrection like that of Lazarus and Israel will be all sc.u.m!

SEMEIAS: It's got to be stopped.

CAIAPHAS: Are we unanimous?

ALL: Let him die!

(Enter Selomith.) ANNAS: Selomith! What is it?

SELOMITH: There's a man at the door who insists on entering. "I have to see the high-priest," he says obstinately. He pretends to give you the means of seizing the Galilean.

CAIAPHAS: And you kept him at the door? O Selomith, be bold, lead this man in!

(Exit Selomith.) JOEL: O baseness! O mystery of rogues!

ANNAS: What's wrong, Joel? And with whom are you angry?

JOEL: If this is the man who I think (enter Judas with Selomith) It's him, the Iscariot! What are you coming here to do, purulence?

CAIAPHAS: Joel, it's up to me to question him.

JOEL: I blush to be a man and the brother of this sick beast.

SELOMITH: Here's the man!

CAIAPHAS: That's fine. Go and don't let us be disturbed. Come forward.

(Exit Selomith.) ANNAS: Now there's a corrupt face. A diseased beast; that's well said.