The Silver Cross; Or, The Carpenter of Nazareth

'I cannot find fault with the fellow for being fond of wine,' said Pontius Pilate, laughing, and extending his cup to his slave. 'Drinkers are not dangerous men.'

"But this is not all," said Caiphus, the high priest: "not only does this Nazarene outrage law, authority, and the possession of riches; he attacks no less audaciously the religion of our fathers. Thus Deuteronomy explicitly says, 'You shall not lend in usury to your brother, but only to strangers' – remark well this, 'but only to strangers.' Well, despising the precepts of our holy religion, the Nazarene arrogates to himself the right of saying: 'Do good to all, and lend without expecting anything;' and he took care to add: 'You cannot serve God and Mammon.' So that religion declares formally that it is lawful to obtain a profit for one's money from strangers; whilst the Nazarene, blaspheming the holy scriptures in one of its most pre-eminent dogmas, denies what it affirms, and defends what it permits."

'My condition as a heathen,' replied Pontius Pilate, more and more good-humored, 'does not permit me to take part in such a discussion; I will inwardly invoke our god Bacchus. Some wine, slave! some wine!'

'Nevertheless, Seigneur Pontius Pilate,' said the banker, Jonas, who seemed with difficulty to restrain the rage which the indifference of the Roman caused him, 'even putting aside whatever sacrilege there may be in the proposition of the Nazarene, you will admit that it is one of the most outrageous; for, my seigneurs, I ask you, what would then become of our commerce?'

'‘Tis the ruin of public wealth!'

"What would they have me do with the gold in my coffers if I made no profit from it; if I lend 'without expecting anything,' as this audacious reformer says? It would make one laugh if it was not so odious."

'And it does not even concern an isolated attack, directed against our holy religion,' said Caiphus, the priest. 'With the Nazarene ‘tis a settled plan to outrage and undermine at its base the faith of our fathers; here is a fresh proof: lately the sick were plunged into the pool of Bethesda.'

'Near the Gate of the Lambs?'

'Precisely; and the day was the Sabbath. Now you know, seigneurs, how sacred and solemn is the prohibition against doing anything whatsoever on the Sabbath day.'

'For a religious man, ‘tis doing a terrible impiety.'

'Now judge of the Nazarene's conduct,' continued Caiphus: 'he goes to the pool, and observe, too, that by a cunning villany, and in order to ruin the physicians, he never receives a penny for cures, for he is deeply skilled in the healing art.'

'How could you imagine, Seigneur Caiphus, that a man who respects nothing would respect even the physicians?'

'The Nazarene arrives at the pool, then; he finds there, amongst others, a man whose foot was dislocated; he replaces it for him.'

'What! on the Sabbath day?'

'He dared!'

'Abomination of desolation!'

'Heal the sick on the Sabbath day!'

'What sacrilege!'

'Yes, seigneurs,' replied the high priest, in a mournful voice; 'he has committed this sacrilege.'

'Now, if the young man had not healed the sufferer,' said Aurelia to Jane, smiling, 'I could understand their rage.'

'Such an impiety deserves the worst punishment; for it is impossible to outrage religion more abominably!'

'And do not imagine,' continued Caiphus, 'that the Nazarene dissembles the sacrileges or blushes at them; far from it; he blasphemes to that degree as to say that he laughs at the Sabbath, and that those who observe it are hypocrites.'

A general murmur of indignation acknowledged the words of the high priest, so abominable did the impiety of the Nazarene appear to the guests of Pontius Pilate; but the latter, emptying cup after cup, appeared to trouble himself no further as to what was being said around him.

'No, Seigneur Caiphus,' said the banker Jonas, with an air of amazement; 'if it were not you who affirmed such enormities, I should hesitate to believe them.'

'I speak to the purpose, for I had the happy idea, I think, of bribing some very artful fellows who feign to be the partizans of this Nazarene; they therefore make him speak; he yields without suspicion, converses frankly with our men, and then these come immediately and report all to us.'

'‘Twas a most excellent idea of yours, Seigneur Caiphus,' said Jonas the banker: 'honor to you!'

'It is, therefore, owing to these emissaries,' continued the high priest, 'that I was informed that the day before yesterday this Nazarene pronounced inflammatory words capable of inducing the slaves to cut the throats of their masters.'

'What a wretch!'

'But what does he want?'

"Seigneur, here are his words,' said Caiphus, 'listen well: 'The disciple is no more than the master, nor the slave more than his lord; ‘tis enough for the disciple to be equal with his master, and for the slave with his lord.'"

A fresh murmur of furious indignation was heard. 'Only see the fine concession this Nazarene deigns to make to you,' exclaimed the banker Jonas. – 'Really, ‘tis enough for the slave to be equal to his lord! You concede us this, Jesus of Nazareth! You permit the slave not to be greater than his lord: many thanks!'

'And mark,' added the doctor of law, 'mark the consequences of these frightful doctrines, if they were ever published; and we may speak thus between ourselves, now that our servants have quitted the festive hall; for, in fact, the day on which the slave shall think himself the equal of his master, he will say to himself: if I am the equal of my master, he has no longer the right to keep me in servitude, and I have the right to rebel. Now, my lords, you know what such a revolt would be! It would be the end of society!'

'The end of the world!'

'Chaos!' exclaimed Doctor Baruch; 'for chaos must succeed to the unchaining of the most detestable popular passions, and the Nazarene only flatters them in order to unloosen them; he promises mountains and marvels to these miserables, to make proselytes of them; he flatters their hateful envy by telling them that at the day of judgment, the first shall be last, and the last shall be first.'

'Yes, in the kingdom of heaven,' said Jane, in a mild but firm voice: '‘tis thus I understand the young master.'

"Ah! really?' said the Seigneur Chusa, her husband, in a sardonic tone, 'it simply alludes to the kingdom of heaven? You think so? Why then, some time ago, did one named Peter, one of his disciples, I believe, say to him in plain terms, 'Master, if we abandon all and follow thee, what shall we have in return for it?'"

'This Peter was a cautious man,' said Jonas the banker, in a tone of raillery; 'this worthy didn't like working for nothing.'

'To this question of Peter's,' said Chusa, 'what did the Nazarene reply, in order to excite the cupidity of the brigands, whom sooner or later he will make his instruments?'

"He replied in these very words: 'He who abandons house, brothers, sisters, father, mother, children and fields for me and for the gospel, shall receive for the present a hundred fold more than he abandons, and in future ages, life eternal.'"

'For the present, that's quite clear,' said Doctor Baruch, 'he promises for the present to the men of his band a hundred houses in lieu of one they quit to follow him; a field a hundred times larger than that they abandon; and, in addition, for the future, in after ages, he assures these miscreants a life eternal! Now where will he obtain these hundred houses for one?' continued Jonas the banker: 'yes, where will he get them; these fields promised to the vagabonds? He will take them from us, the possessors of wealth, us, the camels, for whom the entrance to Paradise is as narrow as the eye of a needle, because we are rich.'

'I think, seigneurs,' said Jane, 'that you do not rightly interpret the words of the young master: they have a figurative sense.'

'Really!' exclaimed Jane's husband in a tone of irony: 'well, let us try this wonderful figure.'

'When Jesus of Nazareth says, that those who will follow him shall have for the present a hundred times more than what they abandon, he means by that, I think, that the consciousness of preaching good news, the love of our neighbor, the compassion for the suffering and the feeble, will compensate fourfold for the renunciation we have imposed on ourselves.'

These wise and gentle words of Jane were but ill received by the guests of Pontius Pilate; and the high priest exclaimed:

'I pity your wife, Seigneur Chusa, for being like so many others, blinded by the Nazarene. He simply requires good materials; for here is something a little stronger. He has the audacity to send the vagabonds, whom he calls his disciples, to establish themselves, to eat and drink as they like in houses, without paying anything, under pretence of preaching in them his abominable doctrines.'

'How, seigneurs,' said Gremion, 'in your country such violences are possible, and remain unpunished? People come to your house and establish themselves by force, and eat and drink there under the pretence of holding forth?'

'Those who receive the disciples of the young man of Nazareth,' replied Jane, 'receive them voluntarily.'

'Yes,' said Jonas, 'some of them; but the majority of those who harbor these vagabonds yield to fear, to threats; or, according to the orders of the Nazarene, those who refuse to lodge these idle vagabonds are doomed by him to eternal fire.'

Fresh clamors arose at the narration of the further misdeeds of the Nazarene.

'‘Tis an intolerable tyranny!'