He kissed Him the final kiss, as though he were bidding Him farewell, then panted, casting away thirty pieces of silver, like one casting away coals that burn him. And when his breast grew tight he returned to himself, choking, and went panting after a rope, that perchance, if he wrapped it around his neck, it might deliver him and release him to a world that would hide him so he would not see the face of Jesus whom he had betrayed. His thought betrayed him, and he did not remember Jonah, who fled from God to the depths of the whale that it might conceal him; and when he arrived, he thought that God no longer remembered him, but God appeared to him, kindling a light for him in the entrails of the whale. But this fool journeyed to a world in which there is no face except the face of Jesus, transfixed.
And the soldiers who fell upon him like wolves of the forest did not slaughter him as they slaughtered the suckling infants in Bethlehem. And as though the child who fled to Egypt from the fangs of the old fox was exhausted by weariness, he threw himself into nets to be caught — nets that grow too narrow for him, for no net, even of imagination, can contain God. Yet He made room for the nets of the soldiers when His time drew near and approached, and He cried out: I am He; come, take me and give me rest, O my companions, for I am the grain of wheat in the depths of the soil, my fruit and my spirit.
In the judgment hall there gathered around Him a band of judges, of priests and men of religion, as though those who judge Him are of the lineage of the tyrants mentioned in the leaves of the Torah — their fathers from among the sons of the gods who married the daughters of men and begot the giants. And the tyrants, if you do not understand, my friend, are those who loved power and married it and begot the mighty, and became suspended in the path of the wind — neither of the race of the gods nor of the tribes of men. Keep this from me, my friend: he who has suckled from the breasts of power becomes a monster, neither jinn nor human. And to this day, in the East, our rulers are still of their lineage.
They came to him to judge him, to try him, as though he were a sinful slave. But it is man who tries God, not for a sin He committed; they try Him because they were unable to mold Him into their image, or to make Him after their likeness, or to create Him in their form. Or perhaps they try Him because they did not become like Him — gods of the human race. Had Christ turned the stones into bread and fed them, they would have been satisfied and bowed their necks to Him; or had He worked a miracle to gratify their vanity, they would have feared Him, worshipping Him; or had He prostrated His final prostration in the sanctuary of power on the summit of the mountain of temptations, He would have become a king, and they would have stamped the image of His face in place of Caesar’s face stamped on the denarius, and given what is Caesar’s to Christ — and He would have escaped judgment, as the ruler escapes justice in our lands even if he kills a thousand thousand suckling infants.
They banded together to try Him, seeking false witnesses to lie, to fabricate, that perchance they might testify that He is a blasphemer, but they did not succeed. Then the chief priest cried out at Him: speak, utter it, say it and give us rest — I adjure You by God! For since You were born among us, no eyelid of ours has closed and we have not slept. Since those Magi came from the East proclaiming Your coming, Jerusalem has been troubled, and we pant, searching for You in the porticoes of the temple, in the streets, and in the forests; we pursue You in the lines of history, in the leaves of books; we turn over the ancient ledgers searching for Your traces, and whenever we find You, we lose You. We believed for a moment that You died in the cradle by the sword of Herod, but You survived. Declare to us: are You the Son of God? I adjure You by God — give us rest.
And He answered: I am. And the chief was destroyed with rage and seethed, and tore the garment of his authority over the blasphemy of God. But in the depths he rejoiced: we have found Him, this God who from of old rules over us, and whenever we built a Tower of Babel anew He demolished it. This heir of the vineyard — if He dies, we inherit, and there is for us a name that rises above the heavens, and we sit drinking wine at the table of God. Then Jesus made His final declaration in their assembly: today you will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of Power and coming in the clouds of heaven. Jesus declared the fulfillment of the saying in which He had told His disciples of His awesome coming, saying: “And then the sign of the Son of Man will appear in heaven, and then all the tribes of the earth will mourn, and they will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven.”
And Jesus was judged after one of the guards of the thrones struck Him, and He said: if I have spoken evil, bear witness of the evil; but if well, why do you strike Me? And at that moment Jesus, in the court, became the judge, and the earth was condemned when they condemned Him, and judgment was passed upon the giants among men when they judged Him, and the judgment was present before the time was fulfilled upon the cross.
But these impotent ones did not see the Son of Man reclining, nor coming in the clouds, as Stephen saw the heavens opened. The scales did not fall from their eyes as the scales fell from Saul’s eyes at the gates of Damascus; but they were unanimous that they should see Him reclining upon the cross, as one dead, deserving of perishing, like wood that perishes in the fire of the firewood.
Then He fell silent in their hall after the final transfiguration revealed among them that He had come, and left them, tearing at His body with their words, with their unbelief, with their torment. They spat upon His radiant face, then struck Him with blows as moist wheat is pounded for flour, that perchance they might satisfy the thirst of a humanity that cried out: we will build a Tower of Babel and sit at the table of the gods, and make for ourselves a name above every name. But they did not, and the thirst for the divinity to which they yearned was not quenched. So they drank upon the blood of Jesus a cup of wrath, and danced the final dance like the daughter of Herodias, and were not quenched, nor was the savage cup sated, whose mouth turned to devour them and swallow everyone who drinks in it the wine of the trial of God.