Little by little the disciples became accustomed to Judas and ceased to
notice his ugliness. Jesus turned over to him the treasure chest, and
with it the household cares: his task was now to purchase the necessary
food and raiment, to distribute alms, and to prepare a lodging place
during their wanderings. All this he accomplished skillfully and in a
very short time he succeeded in gaining the goodwill of some of the
disciples who observed the pains he was taking. Judas, indeed, lied
incessantly, but they had become used to this also, for they failed to
find any evil deed in the wake of his lying, and it added a peculiar
piquancy to his tales making life appear like some absurd, and at times
terrible legend.
From Judas’ tales it seemed as though he knew all men, and each man
whom he knew had at one time or another in his life committed an evil
deed, perhaps a crime. Good people in his opinion were those who knew
well how to hide their actions and thoughts; but if one were to embrace
them, to set them at ease with caresses and, to closely question them,
he felt sure evil and falsehood would ooze from them like poison from a
suppurating wound. He readily agreed that he too was wont to lie now
and then, but affirmed with an oath that others lied even more, and
that if there was one person in the world foully imposed upon and
ill-used that person was Judas. Many people had deceived him, and more
than once and in divers ways. Thus a certain steward who had charge of
a nobleman’s treasure had confessed to Judas that for ten years he had
coveted the possession of the treasure entrusted to him, but feared his
master and his conscience. And Judas believed him, but lo! suddenly he
stole the treasure and deceived Judas. And again Judas believed him,
but he as unexpectedly returned the stolen goods to his master—and
again deceived Judas. And everybody was deceiving him—even the animals.
If he petted a dog, it would snap at his fingers; if he beat it with a
rod it licked his hand and looked into his eyes with a filial
expression. He killed such a dog once, buried the animal deep in the
ground and lay a heavy stone on the burial spot, but who knows? perhaps
because he had killed it, it became endowed with a more abundant life
and was no longer resting in its grave but merrily running about with
other dogs.
Every one laughed at Judas’ tales, and he himself smiled pleasantly,
winking his live and mocking eye, and smilingly confessed again that he
had lied a little: that he had never killed such a dog, but promised to
find it and surely kill it, for he hated to be deceived. And they
laughed still more at such words.
But sometimes in his tales he exceeded the limits of probability and
verisimilitude and ascribed to people tendencies such as are foreign
even to beasts and accused them of simply incredible crimes. And as he
mentioned in such connection names of the most respected people, some
were indignant at the slander, while others jestingly inquired:
“But thy father and mother, Judas, were they not good people?”
Judas winked his eye, smiled and shrugged his shoulders. And as he
shook his head his congealed wide open eye shook in its orbit and gazed
dumbly:
“And who was my father? Perhaps the man who chastised me when I was a
child, perhaps the devil, or a goat or a rooster. Can Judas know with
whom his mother shared her couch? Judas has many fathers. Of whom speak
you?”
But at this the ire of all was aroused, for they greatly honored their
parents, and Matthew, thoroughly versed in the Scriptures, sternly
repeated the words of Solomon:
“He who speaks ill of his father and his mother, his lamp will be
extinguished in utter darkness.”
And John of Zebedee inquired contemptuously: “And how about us? What
evil wilt thou say about us, Judas of Kerioth?”
But he, with pretended fear, threw up his hands, cringing and whining
like a beggar vainly praying alms from a passer-by:
“Ah! Wouldst thou tempt poor Judas? Mock poor Judas, deceive poor
guileless Judas?”
While one side of his face was distorted in apish grimaces, the other
seemed serious and stern and the never-closed eye peered mutely and
vaguely into space. Above all others, and most loudly, Simon Peter was
wont to laugh at his jests. But once it happened that with a sudden
frown he paused and hastily took Judas aside, almost dragging him by
his sleeve:
“And Jesus? What thinkest thou of Jesus?” he inquired in a loud whisper
bending over him. “But no jesting now, I pray thee.”
Judas looked up with hatred:
“And what thinkest thou?”
“I think that He is the Son of the living God.”
“Then why askest thou? What could Judas say whose father is a goat?”
“But dost thou love Him? It seems that thou lovest no one.”
And with the same odd malice-reeking manner the Iscariot snapped out:
“I do.”
After this conversation Peter for a day or two loudly referred to Judas
as his friend the octopus, while the other clumsily and wrathfully
sought to escape from him into some obscure nook where he would sit and
sulk, while his white never-closed eye gleamed ominously in the dark.
Thomas alone regarded Judas’ tales with seriousness. He was incapable
of understanding jests, pretensions and lies, plays of words and of
thoughts, and in everything sought the substantial and positive. All
stories of Judas concerning evil people and their deeds he interrupted
with brief business-like questions:
“Can you prove it? Who heard this? And who else was present? What was
his name?”
Judas shrilly protested that he himself had heard and seen it all, but
the obstinate Thomas persisted in questioning him calmly and
methodically until Judas confessed that he had lied or until he
invented a more plausible falsehood over which Thomas would pore for
some time. Then discovering the deception he immediately returned and
quietly exposed the liar. Judas on the whole aroused in him an intense
curiosity, which brought about a queer sort of a friendship between
them, noisy, full of laughter and vituperation on the one hand, and
characterized by calm and insistent inquisitiveness on the other. At
times Judas felt an irresistible contempt for his unimaginative friend
and piercing him with a poignant glance he would inquire with
irritation and almost pleadingly:
“What else dost thou want? I have told thee all, all.”
“I want thee to explain to me how a goat could be thy father,” insisted
Thomas phlegmatically and waited for an answer. Once after listening to
such a query Judas relapsed into silence and scanned the inquirer from
head to foot in amazement. He saw a man of erect and lanky stature, of
grey countenance, transparently clear straightforward eyes, two massive
folds starting at the nose and losing themselves in the evenly trimmed
rough beard, and observed with conviction:
“How stupid thou art Thomas! What seest thou in thy dreams? A tree, a
wall, an ass?”
And Thomas blushed in confusion, finding no answer. But just as Judas’
living and unsteady eye was about to close in sleep, he suddenly
exclaimed (they both now slept on the roof):
“Thou art wrong, Judas. I do see evil dreams sometimes. How sayest
thou, is a man responsible for his dreams?”
“And who else sees them but the man himself?”
Thomas softly sighed and lapsed into musing. Judas smiled
contemptuously, tightly shutting his thievish eyes and calmly yielded
himself up to his rebellious dreams, monstrous visions, and mad
imaginings which rent to pieces his illshaped skull.
When in the wanderings of Jesus through Judea the pilgrims approached a
village, the Iscariot was in the habit of relating evil things
concerning the inhabitants thereof and predicting calamities. But it
generally happened that the people whom he denounced met Christ and His
friends joyously, surrounded them with attentions, and the treasure
chest of Judas grew so heavy that he could hardly carry it.
And when he was twitted with his mistake he shrugged his shoulders in
resignation and said:
“Yes, yes. Judas thought they were wicked and they are good. They
believed quickly and gave us money. And again they deceived Judas, poor
trusting Judas of Kerioth.”
But once having departed from a village where they had been cordially
received Thomas and Judas had a violent dispute, and in order to settle
it they chanced to turn back. A day later they caught up with Jesus and
the disciples. Thomas looked confused and saddened, but Judas bore
himself triumphantly, as if waiting for the others to come and
congratulate him. Coming near the Teacher, Thomas announced:
“Judas was right, Lord. Those were stupid and wicked people. Thy seed
fell upon rocky ground.”
And then he related what had happened. Soon after Jesus and His
disciples had gone an old woman discovered the loss of a kid and
accused the strangers of the theft. The villagers argued with her, but
she obstinately insisted that nobody else could have stolen it but
Jesus. Many believed her and talked of pursuing the strangers. But soon
the kid was found (it had become entangled in the bushes). The
villagers, however, decided that Jesus was after all a deceiver and
perhaps a thief.
“Indeed?” said Peter, distending his nostrils. “Lord, say the word and
I shall return to those fools.”
But Jesus, who had kept silence all this time, glanced at him sternly,
and Peter stopped and hid himself behind the backs of others. And no
one else spoke of the incident, as if nothing had happened, as if he,
Judas, had proved to be in the wrong. Vainly he strove to show himself
from every point of view, laboring to impart to his twofold predatory,
birdlike beaked face an appearance of modesty. No one looked on him,
except to cast a casual, very unfriendly and even contemptuous glance.
And from that day the attitude of Jesus towards him strangely changed.
Until then it had somehow seemed as though Judas never spoke directly
to Jesus, and as though Jesus never addressed him directly, but still
the Teacher had frequently looked at him with a kindly glance, smiling
at some of his conceits, and if he missed him for any length of time he
was wont to inquire: “And where is Judas?” But now he looked on Judas
without noticing him, though as heretofore His glance sought him out,
and even more persistently than formerly, whenever He began to speak to
His disciples or to the people—but He either turned His back to Judas
as He sat down or cast His words at him over His shoulder or else
appeared not to notice him at all. And whatever He said, though it may
have been one thing to-day or another the next, though it were the same
thing that Judas himself had in his mind, it seemed as though He always
spoke against Judas. And unto all He was a tender and beautiful flower,
the fragrant Rose of Lebanon, but for Judas He had only sharp thorns—as
though Judas had no heart, as though he had no eyes or nostrils, as
though he were not better able than all others to appreciate the beauty
of tender and thornless rose leaves.
“Thomas, lovest thou the yellow Rose of Lebanon that has a swarthy face
and eyes like a hind?” he once asked of his friend and Thomas
indifferently replied:
“The Rose? Yes, its odor is agreeable to me, but I have never heard
that roses had swarthy faces or eyes like hinds!”
“How? Dost thou not even know that the many-armed cactus which
yesterday rent thy garment has only one red flower and only one eye?”
But Thomas was ignorant of this also, though the day before a cactus
had actually gripped a portion of his garment and rent it into shreds.
He knew nothing this Thomas, though he inquired about everything and
gazed so straightforwardly with his clear and transparent eyes through
which one could see as through a Phoenician glass the wall behind him
and the plodding ass hitched to it.
Before long another incident occurred when Judas again proved to have
been correct. In a certain Judean village which he had severely
criticised and sought to have left out of the itinerary, Christ was
received with much hostility and after He had preached and denounced
the hypocrites, the populace was aroused to a wild remonstrance and
thought of stoning Him and His disciples.
The opponents were numerous and they would have surely succeeded in
carrying out their design if it had not been for Judas of Kerioth.
Seized with a mad fear for Jesus, as though perceiving already the
drops of crimson on His white robe, Judas blindly and frenziedly cast
himself against the mob, menacing, screaming, pleading, and lying, and
thus gave Jesus and His disciples an opportunity to escape. Amazingly
agile, as though scurrying on dozens of feet, ludicrous and terrible in
his frenzied pleading, he rushed madly before the crowd and fascinated
it with some strange spell. He screamed that the Nazarene was not at
all possessed of the devil, that He was a mere deceiver, a thief, a
lover of money, like all of His disciples, like he, Judas, himself,—he
shook the money chest in their faces, distorted his features and
pleaded with them casting himself to the ground. And gradually the
wrath of the mob turned into laughter and disgust and the arms that had
held the stones sank to their sides.
“Unworthy, unworthy they are to die of an honest man’s hand,” exclaimed
some, while others musingly gazed after the speedily vanished Judas.
And again Judas expected congratulations, praises, and thanks, and made
a show of his rent garments and falsely claimed that he had been
beaten, but again he was inconceivably deceived. Filled with wrath
Jesus walked ahead taking large steps and silent, and even John and
Peter dared not approach him, while the others coming across Judas,
with his rent garments, his face aglow with excitement and triumph
though still a little pale with recent fright, drove him away with curt
and angry remarks. As if he had not saved them, as if he had not saved
their teacher whom they loved so much.
“Dost thou wish to see a pack of fools?” he remarked to Thomas who
musingly plodded by his side. “Look how they walk along the roadway,
like a herd of sheep, raising the dust. And thou, clever Thomas, art
dragging along behind; and I, noble and beautiful Judas, am also
trudging in the rear like a filthy slave not fit to walk by the side of
his master.”
“Why callest thou thyself beautiful?” inquired the surprised Thomas.
“Because I am handsome,” replied Judas with conviction and began to
relate to him, with many additions, how he had deceived the enemies of
Jesus and laughed at them and their stones.
“But thou didst lie!” remarked Thomas.
“Of course I lied,” agreed the Iscariot in a matter-of-fact tone. “I
gave them what they asked and they returned to me what I needed. And
what is a lie, my clever Thomas? Would not the death of Jesus have been
the greater lie?”
“Thou didst wrong. Now I know that thy father was the devil. He taught
thee this, Judas.”
The Iscariots cheek blanched and seemed to overshadow Thomas, as though
a white cloud had descended and hidden the roadway and Jesus. With a
lithe movement Judas suddenly seized Thomas and pressed him to himself
with a grip so tight that he could not move and whispered into his ear:
“Good. The devil taught me? Good, Thomas, good. And I saved Jesus,
didn’t I? Then the devil loves Jesus, then the devil needs Jesus and
Truth? Good, good Thomas. But my father was not the devil, he was a
goat. Mayhap the goat needs Jesus? Hey? And you, do you not want Him?
Do you not want the Truth?”
Angered and slightly frightened Thomas with an effort released himself
from Judas’ slimy embrace and walked ahead swiftly, but soon slowed
down in order to ponder over what had just happened.
But Judas plodded on quietly in the rear, falling back little by
little. The wanderers had merged into one motley group in the distance
and it was impossible to tell accurately which of the little figures
was Jesus. Now even the tiny figure of Thomas changed into a grey dot,
and suddenly they were all lost to sight behind a turn in the road;
glancing around Judas turned aside from the roadway and with mighty
leaps descended into the depths of a rocky ravine. His robe inflated
from his swift and impetuous flight and his arms stretched upward as
though he soared on wings. There on a steep decline he slipped and
rapidly rolled down in a grey heap, his flesh torn by the shaggy rock,
and leaped again to his feet angrily shaking his fist at the mountain.
“You too, curse you!”
And suddenly forsaking his swiftness of movement for a sullen and
concentrated deliberateness he chose a spot near a large rock and
slowly seated himself. He turned around as if in search of a
comfortable position, pressed the palms of his hands close together
against the grey rock and heavily leaned his head upon them. Thus he
sat for an hour or two without stirring, deceiving the birds,
motionless and grey like the rock itself. Before him, behind him and
around him rose the steep sides of the ravine cutting with their sharp
outline into the azure sky; and everywhere rose immense stones, rooted
into the ground, as if there had passed over the place a shower of
rocks and its heavy drops had grown transfixed in neverending thought.
The wild and deserted ravine resembled an overturned decapitated skull
and each rock therein seemed a congealed thought, and there were many
of them, and they all were brooding heavy, limitless, stubborn
thoughts.
There a deceived scorpion hobbled amicably past Judas on his rickety
legs; Judas glanced at him without lifting his head from the stone, and
again his eyes stopped rigidly fixed on some object, both motionless,
both covered with an odd and whitish film, both seemingly blind and
dreadfully seeing. Then from the ground, from the rocks, from the
crevices began to rise the calm gloom of night; it enshrouded the
motionless Judas and swiftly crept upwards to the luminously pallid
sky. The night was advancing with its thoughts and dreams.
That night Judas failed to return to the lodging, and the disciples
torn from their thoughts by cares for food and drink murmured at his
negligence.