Chapter 2

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 while submitting--then his dream Burst into fragments with a crash: aghast The whole world reeled before him; the dread truth Swooped like a sea upon him, bearing down His thoughts in wild confusion. He who dreamed To open the gates of glory to his Lord, Opened in their stead the prison's jarring door, And saw above him his dim dream of Love Change to a Fury stained with blood and crime. And then a madness seized him, and remorse With pangs of torture drove him down to death.

Conceive with me that sad and suffering heart If this be true that Lysias says--Conceive! Alas! Orestes, not so sad thy fate, For the Apollo pardoned, purified-- Thy Furies were appeased, thy peace returned, But Judas perished tortured unto death, Unpardoned, unappeased, unpurified. And long as Christus shall be known of men His name shall bear the brand of infamy, The curse of generations still unborn.

Thus much of him: I leave the question here, Touching on naught beyond, for Lucius waits-- I hear him fuming in the court below, Cursing his servants and Jerusalem, And giving them to the infernal gods. The sun is sinking--all the sky's afire-- And vale and mountain glow like molten ore In the intense full splendor of its rays. A half-hour hence all will be dull and grey; And Lucius only waits until the shade Sweeps down the plain then mounts and makes his way On through the blinding desert to the sea, And thence his galley bears him on to Rome.

_Salve et vale!_--may good fortune wait On you and all your household! Greet for me Titus and Livia--in a word, all friends.

End of Project Gutenberg's A Roman Lawyer in Jerusalem, by W. W. Story