A Roman Lawyer in Jerusalem | Page 6

too great to bear, And pressing madly on to death's abyss; This was no common mind that thus could feel-- No vulgar villain sinning for reward!
Was he a villain lost to sense of shame? Ay, so say John and Peter and the rest; And yet--and yet this tale that Lysias tells Weighs with me more the more I ponder it; For thus I put it: Either Judas was, As John affirms, a villain and a thief, A creature lost to shame and base at heart-- Or else, which is the view that Lysias takes, He was a rash and visionary man Whose faith was firm, who had no thought of crime, But whom a terrible mistake drove mad. Take but John's view, and all to me is blind. Call him a villain who, with greed of gain, For thirty silver pieces sold his Lord. Does not the bribe seem all too small and mean? He held the common purse, and, were he thief, Had daily power to steal, and lay aside A secret and accumulating fund; So doing, he had nothing risked of fame, While here he braved the scorn of all the world. Besides, why chose they for their almoner A man so lost to shame, so foul with greed? Or why, from some five-score of trusted men, Choose him as one apostle among twelve? Or why, if he were known to be so vile, (And who can hide his baseness at all times?) Keep him in close communion to the last? Naught in his previous life, or acts, or words, Shows this consummate villain that, full-grown, Leaps all at once to such a height of crime.
Again, how comes it that this wretch, whose heart Is eased to shame, flings back the paltry bribe? And, when he knows his master is condemned, Rushes in horror out to seek his death? Whose fingers pointed at him in the crowd? Did all men flee his presence till he found Life too intolerable? Nay; not so! Death came too close upon the heels of crime, He had but done what all his tribe deemed just: All the great mass--I mean the upper class-- The Rabbis, all the Pharisees and Priests Ay, and the lower mob as well who cried, "Give us Barabbas! Christus to the cross!" These men were all of them on Judas's side, And Judas had done naught against the law. Were he this villain, he had but to say, "I followed Christus till I found at last He aimed at power to overthrow the State. I did the duty of an honest man. I traitor! you are traitors who reprove." Besides, such villains scorn the world's reproof.
Or he might say--"You call this act a crime? What crime was it to say I know this man? I said no ill of him. If crime there be, 'Twas yours who doomed him unto death, not mine." A villain was he? So Barabbas was! But did Barabbas go and hang himself, Weary of life--the murderer and thief? This coarse and vulgar way will never do. Grant him a villain, all his, acts must be Acts of a villain; if you once admit Remorse so bitter that it leads to death, And death so instant on the heels of crime, You grant a spirit sensitive to shame, So sensitive that life can yield no joys To counterbalance one bad act;--but then A nature such as this, though led astray, When greatly tempted, is no thorough wretch. Was the temptation great? could such a bribe Tempt such a nature to a crime like this? I say, to me it simply seems absurd. Peter at least was not so sensitive. He cursed and swore, denying that he knew Who the man Christus was; but after all He only wept--he never hanged himself.
But take the other view that Lysias takes, All is at once consistent, clear, complete. Firm in the faith that Christus was his God The great Messiah sent to save the world, He, seeking for a sign--not for himself, But to show proof to all that he was God Conceived this plan, rash if you will, but grand. "Thinking him man," he said, "mere mortal man, They seek to seize him--I will make pretence To take the public bribe and point him out, And they shall go, all armed with swords and staves, Strong with the power of law, to seize on him-- And at their touch he, God himself, shall stand Revealed before them, and their swords drop, And prostrate all before him shall adore, And cry, 'Behold the Lord and King of all!'" But when the soldiers laid their hands on him And bound him as they would a prisoner vile, With taunts, and mockery, and threats of death-- He all the