JESUS OF NAZARETH


JESUS OF NAZARETH
Adapted from the French of Paul Demasy by Frank Morlock
ABOUT THIS TRANSLATION 
ACT I 
  PROLOGUE 
  SCENE I. THE DESERT 
  SCENE II. THE PRISON IN THE FORTRESS OF MACHAERUS 
ACT II 
  SCENE III. THE RESURRECTION OF LAZARUS 
  SCENE IV. THE SANHEDRIN 
  SCENE V. THE GARDEN OF OLIVES 
ACT III 
  SCENE VI. MARY MAGDALENE 
  SCENE VII. GOLGOTHA 
  SCENE VIII. THE PILGRIMS 
This Etext is for private use only. No republication for profit in 
print or other media may be made without the express consent of the 
Copyright Holder. The Copyright Holder is especially concerned about 
performance rights in any media on stage, cinema, or television, or 
audio or any other media, including readings for which an entrance fee 
or the like is charge. Permissions should be addressed to: Frank 
Morlock, 6006 Greenbelt Rd, #312, Greenbelt, MD 20770, USA or 
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http://www.cadytech.com/dumas/personnage.asp?key=130

Etext transcribed by Dagny
This translation is dedicated to John Langford who knows why.
ABOUT THIS TRANSLATION
I am describing this as an adaptation rather than a translation because I've 
taken more liberties with the text than is my normal practice when translating a 
play. While the work remains very faithful to the original, I've felt necessary 
to omit a few lines and include others for clarification purposes. I've also 
removed or changed a few references that might be taken as racist or 
anti-semitic. I do not believe that was the author's intent, so removing this 
material is like removing a smudge or blemish on a larger work of art. Their 
presence detracts, their removal enhances. I'm speaking of no more than a half 
dozen lines. Probably, they would go unnoticed; but given the political 
circumstances of our times and rising anti-semitism I've chosen to suppress 
them. This is not, as with obscenity, something that is merely offensive to 
some. Racism has political consequences and I do not wish to add even a droplet 
to that poisoned stream. The political climate a few years ago was calmer and my 
decision might have been different in those days or in more happy times to come. 
In any event, the changes were extremely minor. THE TRANSLATOR 
PERFORMING THIS PLAY This play is almost two plays. Act One is mainly about John 
The Baptist. Acts Two and Three about Jesus and Judas. The personality of Jesus 
is the linchpin which ties them together. This is a play which may be better in 
its parts than as a whole. Act One might be performed separately as a play about 
John the Baptist. All or part of Act One might be omitted from the second play 
which is about Jesus and Judas. Act Two or Act Three might be played separately 
as well or individual scenes as separate one act plays. It's a rich banquet 
which will provide many a feast. THE TRANSLATOR 
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

CHARACTERS IN ORDER OF THEIR APPEARANCE:

ELEAZER
NATHAN
CLEOPHAS
SIMON PETER
ANDREW
BARZILAI
A PHARISEE
JESUS
DANIEL
SARAI
NICODEMUS
JOSEPH OF ARIMATHEA
JOHN THE BAPTIST
KANTHERA
CENTURION
FIRST SOLDIER
SECOND SOLDIER
A PUBLICAN
A SOLDIER
A JAILOR
HEROD ANTIPAS
THE EXECUTIONER
JUDAS 
CAIAPHAS
ANNAS
PHAROS
JOEL
JOHN
JAMES
LAZARUS
SELOMITH
FIRST LICTOR
SECOND LICTOR
A PHARISEE
ANOTHER PHARISEE
HERODIAS
SALOME
MARY MAGDALENE
MARTHA
VERONICA
JONATHAN

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

ACT I
PROLOGUE
SCENE I. THE DESERT
The desert near Jordan. A grotto. 
The crowd arrives in groups, men, women, children. Among them, Andrew, Simon, 
Eleazer, Jonathan, disciples of John. 
JONATHAN: They are coming in greater numbers every day. 
ELEAZER: They are coming from everywhere. From Moab, from Ephron and even 
Idumea. And Jerusalem isn’t slow to send its children. 
JONATHAN: They couldn’t come with greater difficulty. Isn’t it strange, this 
fascination with the desert and with the voice which shouts in the desert? 
SIMON: Tell me, Jonathan, are there rich men and savants among them? 
JONATHAN: See, Simon. 
ANDREW: The ones over there are Jews. They are priests and doctors, Pharisees 
and Sadducees, that Jerusalem is sending to question John. Yesterday, others 
came. Ah, Simon, new disciple, dear Brother, if you heard the Master call them 
"Race of Vipers" and "White Sepulchres"! Mantles of hypocrisy. 
A MAN: The seer will speak today, Lord? 
ANDREW: He will speak if God commands him to speak. 
MAN: I have my wife and my son and we made a long journey to hear him and be 
baptised. 
ANDREW: From where are you coming, brother? 
MAN: From Nazareth, in Galilee. 
ANDREW: Barzilai! 
MAN: That’s my name! You know me? 
ANDREW: And you don’t recognize, Andrew, son of Jonas, the fisherman of 
Capernaeum? And my brother, Simon? 
BARZILAI: I recognize you now. And you are coming like us? 
ANDREW: We are disciples of the seer. And we baptise like him and by his order. 
And he directs us to consecrate our lives to repentance because the Messiah is 
approaching. 
BARZILAI: The Messiah is coming! 
A MAN: The Messiah is coming? 
ANDREW: So says the seer! 
THE CROWD: The Messiah! He says the Messiah is going to come. He says the 
Messiah is going to come. The Son of David! The King who must not die! He is 
coming. The one who will save us. The exterminator of the Romans. The Day of 
Israel! Messiah! Messiah! 
BARZILAI: Jesus Barjoseph! The seer is announcing the Messiah is come. Be happy, 
man! Do you know the sons of Jonas, Simon and Andrew? 
JESUS: I know them. 
BARZILAI: You will be able to announce the good news, carpenter, to Mary, your 
mother, and to the brave Joseph who is the best Israelite that I know. Are you 
coming to get yourself baptised, too? 
JESUS: I came for that. 
BARZILAI: That’s very fine, young man. Tell me, for indeed you please me a bit. 
Aren’t you yet thinking of marrying a brave woman? I assure you, cousin, that I 
have not had to repent of being married. Imbecile that I am! Where’s my head? 
Excuse me! I was forgetting that Mary made you a Nazarene! I had lost sight of 
you for a while. I hadn’t taken note of your hair! That good Mary. At least you 
are not going to trouble her by becoming a disciple of the seer. You owe her a 
little, cousin! 
JESUS: I was hers for thirty years. 
BARZILAI: Thirty years! You are already thirty years old. How time passes. It 
reminds me again — (they pass on) 
THE CROWD: Messiah! Messiah! He’s come. The Saviour of Israel. 
SIMON: But this credulity you smile at contains in its power all the troubles. 
It’s the tree of revolt on which Rome’s thunder will fall. Let’s keep an eye on 
these agitators. How they dress, besides, like Tolmai, with wool, or like this 
one in camel skin. There are as many perils for Jerusalem in the revolt of a 
leather belt and an unwashed head of hair as in the furor of a self styled 
enthusiast for the crown and laurels. 
THE CROWD: Jehovah! Jehovah! Be propitious to your people! You see our ills. 
Make health rain! Baptism! Baptism! And let the Messiah rule! Son of David! We 
implore you! Praise to Jehovah! God of Israel, sole God! Before whom tremble the 
idols and the Dominations. Send your Christ, God of Abraham, our father, God of 
Jacob, God of David! 
SIMON: Shut up, ignorants, wretches!! Don't you know that Elijah must succeed 
first, before the Messiah comes? And when he appears, the prophet vows you will 
hear his terrible voice before having seen his face. Silence! Pray, fast, be 
charitable if you want God to act. It’s not to the desert that God speaks, and 
you know where his temple is. The desert makes you senseless. Go find reason 
again, if you ever had any, in Jerusalem, in the Synagogues. You have priests 
and doctors. We are there to instruct you, blind troupe. Fulfill the Law! And 
you will shine on the Day of God. Stupids, why do you come to dispute with the 
jackals their dwelling place? What is it that attracts you from the depths of 
your small towns, with women and children? What will of the wisp? A man who 
howls like a wild beast? A madman who eats locusts? Or the hope of a little 
water on the head or an immersion in the Jordan? But you have rivers everywhere 
and all purifications; the misfortune of the weather and the heat of the Sun and 
the wrath of Jehovah come where there is an abundance of lunatics, and legions 
of possessed! Go away! When Elijah comes we will inform you. We will give you a 
meeting at the Temple on the day we enthrone the Messiah over all Israel. 
JOHN: (appearing in the doorway of the grotto) Well then, what have you come 
seeking here, Pharisee? In the desert of Jehovah? And if you scorn the eater of 
locusts, why are you coming to listen to him? Ah, you also felt the suffering, 
the burning air, the wind of wrath to come. You smell death even in your 
synagogues, and like a troupe of the blind you seek the company of those 
possessed by God; you seek health from lunatics, you wait for him to reassure 
you. Rabble! Hear what the lion of Israel says! "Your incense stinks to me. Your 
sacrifices and your prayers fall back on the soil like a ball thrown by the weak 
hand of a child! Tribe of Levi, I had instituted you to be the shepherd of 
Israel! You have led it to bitter pastures where it only browses to its 
perdition. I no longer see in Israel anything but Sodom and Gomorrah and forests 
of idols." Enthrone the Christ! Receive the prophet! Ah! Ah! Ah! You have gold, 
incense, marble and harps, but your heart is named luxury, your spirit 
domination, your body sin. Live in sin, your hands smell of death and it's not 
on your gold incense burner and harps that Jehovah implants the throne of 
Christ. At the sight of the Messiah, your faces will become like ashes and all 
your science, doctor, will vanish, just as the green fire of fireflies will be 
extinguished in the living fire of the day of Truth. Your death is coming and 
the day of Gehenna, you bandaged mummy, so that you, too, beating your breast 
with your fist, and failing to look at your rotting soul, you will present 
yourself at the Jordan, baring your flesh, nourished on vice, the fruits of 
death and pride, bowing before the gestures of the Eater of Grasshoppers or the 
most ignorant of his disciples. Be humble, Pharisees, doctors, priests and 
scientists, you pride of Satan. Return into yourselves and try not to die of 
terror! If you were to see as I see, you would think: Is this me? This vomit and 
this malady? Is this me, this worm shrivelled on the embers? And if you could 
see yourself with the eye of the Eternal, with that exacting, meticulous and 
pitiless eye that nothing obscures, the shadow of the most subtle and delicate 
cloud, O Pharisee, colossus of pride and self satisfaction, you would collapse, 
melt like a slug under a pinch of salt, like snow by a burning lens, you would 
bellow out a sob to move the brass of heaven. But you laugh, saying to yourself, 
"This man is demented from living amongst the sand and stones, he’s taken on the 
nature of the hyena and vipers’ venom has fanged him. He’s no longer a man!" You 
brother, you hear me, I am your brother, miserable and filthy like you, but a 
miserable one who weeps and a filthy one who blushes. And as for me, Pharisees, 
and as for me, too, Sadducees, I came to the desert because my eye had ceased to 
please itself at what made yours delight, and my deafened ear, deafened by your 
canticles, no longer heard the interior murmur, the bitter psalm of repentance. 
At that time I tore off the dress which hid my infirmity, the pride of life 
which blinded me, and all the sensuality of a happy animal. He judged me worthy, 
he, Jehovah, to hear his word and to understand naked, without the commentary of 
the Temple. And I am no more than a voice which cries, swelled by the Eternal 
Word of the Eternal! Prepare the way for him who is going to come and who will 
baptise, by fire and by spirit those that he finds purified; for him who will 
be, like you a son of man and of woman, but having abdicated the rags of vain 
glory and the turban of vanity through which you think to distinguish your 
humanity from the brute. He’s coming, the new David, with neither turban, nor 
mitre, but with an unbearable star blazing in his face, the King, the Judge, 
before whom all impure flesh liquefies. The God man who knows neither tears, nor 
laughter. The Messiah of Israel, but who will destroy Israel if he doesn’t find 
it perfect. 
THE CROWD: Baptise us! Baptise us! I repent. I abjure my sin. Purify us. 
Prophet, tell us what we must do! 
(Enter a litter born by slaves and an escort of soldiers commanded by Kanthera.) 

KANTHERA: Make way! Make way! 
ELEAZER: The Herodias. 
JONATHAN: The King. 
THE CROWD: Baptism! Baptism! 
NICODEMUS: He speaks like the prophets. 
JOSEPH: My heart leapt to hear him. There’s more truth in him than in us. He’s 
got the people inspired. 
NICODEMUS: It’s not eloquence, it’s more than that. 
JOSEPH: Nicodemus, he’s the word of life and the breath of God. 
KANTHERA: Make way for the Queen! 
A MAN: Down with the Herodians! 
CROWD: Messiah! The Baptist! 
HERODIAS: (appearing) Kanthera, what is it? 
KANTHERA: Queen, it’s a sort of hairy beast who is preaching and haranguing the 
people who hear him. 
JOHN: Ah, Jezebel, you dare to approach the cave of the Lion! What are you 
coming here to do, prostitute? 
HERODIAS: It’s John. I see him at last. Show yourself, Salome, we are going to 
hear pretty insults! Slaves, lower the litter! (Herodias and Salome get out of 
the litter) Salome, those there are not Romans. 
SALOME: Who are they then? 
HERODIAS: Jews; my people and yours! 
SALOME: With what an eye this animal looks at us! 
JOHN: Israel! Behold your Queen! Herodias! Such is the name of prostitution 
seated on your litter. Herod Antipas, of the tribe of Edom, the grandson of the 
Temple sweep, Tetrarch of Galilee, by the grace and the might of Rome. Antipas, 
the adulterer called them, she and her daughter from Rome; he winked and she 
left the bed of Phillipus for the bed of the brother of Phillipus, and she 
brought her daughter that Rome had educated in luxury, and who knows how to 
dance in dives to amuse the man from Machaerus, starving for a new lechery. 
Behold your masters, Israel! Adore them! And behold the Christ that you deserve, 
the new Ahab, and the new Jezebel. And here, all decked out, people and 
Pharisees, vice and pride and ignominy that you hide from all except God! 
Israel, behold yourself revealed to yourself! Here you are unmasked. You think 
yourself beautiful, Herodias, and what you denominate your beauty is the only 
book you want and know how to read. But, because learned in this perishable 
science, painting your wrinkles, perfuming your skin to hide the beast and 
bestial odor, masking your arse, adorning with diamonds your breasts, and 
carrying your head high with a golden smile, you have charmed Antipas, who 
you’ve dispossessed of his wits, turning him thus away from the Arab girl he 
married; and thus reigning over the human debris. You await from Rome the title 
and the tiara of Queen. Do you think to stupefy a standing man the way you’ve 
enchanted a man in bed? The man of the desert laughs to see the slut standing on 
her feet, whose natural posture he knows is to march on her hands and knees, 
closer to the ground, smelling the odor of mud. And Jehovah who created you for 
what mysterious and terrible ends, O dancing girl, perfumed corpse, man trap, 
and tomb of his strength, O shameless harlot of Israel! Jehovah, when animating 
you with his thumb, was already looking at the ash heap where your puny bones 
will be pulverized along with your less corruptible jewels and the myriad of 
worms feasting on your flesh. Yuck! I prefer the odor of my excrement to the 
stench of your armpit, the tannery of the bear to the room where you sleep, and 
the corrosive fire of the mid-day sun to the heat of your breast. You laugh, 
Herodias, with the little demon at your side? You laugh adulteress, you laugh 
incestuous one, you laugh murderess? But these are the last days of your 
laughter, for behold the whirlwind which swallows Machaerus, the fortress of 
your debauches! And behold the King whose Queen you will no longer be. He lives, 
understand me? The Son of David, that your fathers were expecting. The days of 
Antipas are numbered. Tell him that. The Tetrarch will no longer be king. 
Another at this moment is breathing, amassing in his breath the immortal wrath. 
I see him, I feel him, I divine him. He’s coming, calm and sure, and Machaerus 
is no more than a ruin haunted by nocturnal carrion. Antipas, a cadaver, his 
Jezebel, I don’t know what I can call her, but on whom the jackal will feast! 
HERODIAS: Kanthera, seize him! The Tetrarch will not let me be outraged. The 
rest of you arrest him! 
KANTHERA: This crowd will hurl itself on us. Can’t you hear it grumble? 
HERODIAS: Let’s return. 
KANTHERA: The Tetrarch knows him and leaves him free, fearing a revolt. 
HERODIAS: He’s provoking it by leaving this man alive! Go on! 
KANTHERA: (whispering to her) Hear me. 
JOHN: O God, pity on me! I haven’t tongue and I haven’t breath! Give voice to 
this Sun, these palms, these mountains! What do you want of me, reed, and what 
word to utter to move this eyeless, earless and unintelligent people? A strange 
hunger rages in my belly. To be the lightning and to speak so as to cleave these 
hard skulls, which knowledge ravishes, and to put blood in these locked hearts! 
I am ill with your spirit and suffering all the sorrow of childbirth. Horror! 
Shall I say the word? And do you want me to condemn Israel? (Herodias and her 
escort have gone) People, hear what Jehovah, the Eternal, has commanded me to 
tell you. Israel has never known me. Israel is not my people. It nourishes idols 
in its breast. Israel entrusts itself to the descendants of Abraham, as if I 
could not make pebbles of the sons of Abraham, stones in which I would find 
greater docility and true belief! Israel has allowed itself to be saddled and 
bridled and has allowed foreign cavaliers to ride on my back. For golden oats in 
mangers of marble, it has given itself over to Kings who blaspheme my name, 
erecting altars and turpentine trees in all the high places and Pharisees who 
have blindfolded Israel’s eyes and who amuse Israel with peas shaken in a 
bladder, and because Israel has rejected the cavalier Jehovah, who rode it 
bareback, without bridal or bit, guiding it only with the pressure of his knees, 
teaching it little by little the tireless allure which must give it the world 
and lead it surely to Eden, whose only path there is known to Jehovah alone. 
Because Israel has preferred many masters to a single master, Jehovah has 
humiliated it under many yokes, he’s rendered it puny, emaciated, ridiculous 
among nations; in a manner that at present Israel with its sparkling Jerusalem 
on its hill finds its exact image in this mare, Herodias, in this Jezebel, 
rawboned, painted, who whinnies at Machaerus, under a diseased rider! But you 
have exhausted my patience, says Jehovah! You have even exhausted my laughter, 
Jerusalem; the agony of Israel soothes my heart. I am going to send you a 
Messiah you weren’t expecting, sick man! And the nations will rejoice over the 
one who will be the terror of Israel. You thought you were called, but it’s been 
a long while, since I, Jehovah, repented! Did you take me for a complaisant 
spouse accepting the surplus profits of your prostitution? Thief, did you expect 
to find in me the accomplice of your illicit commerce, taking the tithe of your 
usury from the blood and sweat of the poor? Did you think to corrupt me with 
your incense, with your Temple, with your music? Am I a god to be flattered, 
caressed, slept with? I am the God who made the Leviathan. I hold life in my 
right hand and death in my left. I have a whip of a hundred straps for the 
rebellious people. War and famine and all the plagues, I abandon to their will, 
I set them free. Let it snort its science and its sensuality. I laugh to see it 
bathe itself in death. Go, do your will, Israel. Go dance some more. I already 
hear the lugubrious laugh of the hyena living alone in Galilee, reigning in 
Jerusalem alone, and the howlings of the coyote who feasts in the ruins of the 
Holy of Holies. 
CROWD: Pity! Pity! 
JOHN: From North and South, from East and West, it’s coming and rushing on; war, 
purveyors of vultures; in the turned up flap of her dress, she holds murder, 
arson and devastation. She sows, the good planter, the only grain called by your 
labors. Here she is, the companion of Christ, she’s coming, she’s coming, the 
servant of the Messiah; she’s coming one day, the bold woman, into your houses 
and your hovels, she’s coming to do the work of cleansing that you have too long 
deferred, rich and poor of Israel! And only the dwellings of those marked by 
sheep's blood will be spared. And here, War, will increase the roaring of widows 
and mothers, and the hymn of all nations glorifying the Christ by admiring your 
punishment, as Zion bleeds to death amidst the moving shroud of sand. 
THE CROWD: Pity! Pity! Baptism! Ah, God! Ah! God! 
JOHN: It’s vain for you to clasp your infants to your hearts, O mothers, or to 
hide them in the arms of your husband, O wives, to raise your arms to heaven, 
old geezers, to scream pity, young girls. With a violent hand they will be torn 
from you, those children, those spouses, those lovers, and the burning breath of 
simoon that is running through the confines of the desert cannot hide from its 
grasp nor from its burning all this virile flesh which had eyes only for you, 
hands only for you, heart only to adore you, will only in the service of your 
swooning, that never puts on its glory except to make you scream with 
sensibility and to burst into weeping with lovers that have never known a shiver 
of fear except at the creaking of your sandals and the soft rustle of your 
skirts. Pity for you, women? Pity for them? Pitiless couple, couple absorbed in 
yourself, you never had pity for yourself nor for the man engulfed by your 
pleasure! Seeing you in your distress Adam fell. You would never have come close 
to your companion except with trembling, and you would have wept, shouted to God 
to see the terrible nursery of your work. O Israel, carefree people, you have 
begot children without bothering yourself to assure them the cares and vigilancy 
of a paternity less precarious than yours; and you taught them there is no other 
God except man, and that there is no other society but that of man, no other 
security but that of Kings, no other sweetness except in the embrace of a woman. 
Then perish Israel for neglecting to adore on your knees, face in the dust, the 
imperishable force. 
THE CROWD: (prostrate) Jehovah God, pity! 
JOHN: Jehovah God, I seek your face!! How will I see the splendor of your 
Christ, how will I see him come down from the mountain enveloped by dawn, 
enshielded with light! Jerusalem of the pure, I admire you, Royal Zion, 
reverberating with canticles, immutable throne of a God who is the conqueror of 
death. Blessed Earth, Earth fecund in joy, immortal Canaan, sojourn of an Israel 
purified by fire, regenerated by spirit, behold my repenting flock, that I drive 
toward your pastures, and toward your shining waters! O nameless sweetness of 
living! Very sweet and musical face of a shepherd. Behold the humble ones I 
bring you! So as to give them incorruptible nourishment, here are the lamenters 
of Israel that I am bringing you to dry their tears and so you may make kings of 
them! (he comes down) 
THE CROWD: Baptism, O prophet, Baptism. 
JOHN: Then descend into the Jordan and we will baptise you by the grace of 
Jehovah! Simon, Jonathan, Eleazer, immerse all those who present themselves to 
you. But know indeed, people, that Jehovah God is not a man to disappoint and 
that he demands, for admitting you to the elect of his Christ, complete 
repentance. Absolute subjection, without reserve, to his laws. Forget your will. 

(Eleazer, Jonathan and Simon and many others leave.) 
A PUBLICAN: What must I do to be saved, Master? 
JOHN: Who are you? 
PUBLICAN: A contemptible man, a publican, a collector of taxes for the Romans. 
JOHN: Practice your profession without fraud and may the money that soils your 
hands not attach itself to your heart. Keep yourself from being harsh to your 
brothers so that Jehovah won’t be pitiless to you. 
A SOLDIER: Master, will I be saved? What must I do? 
JOHN: Soldier, earn your wages by serving those who pay you. Do exactly what is 
commanded but don’t lend your arm to the wish for blood. For you, in the 
baseness of your condition, O mercenary, there are great reasons to hope. 
SIMON: Who are you, you who baptise and insult your betters? 
JOHN: Pharisee, I am a Jew like you, like you a son of Abraham, but not 
believing myself, as you do, justified and worthy of being messiah from the 
simple fact I am a Jew. 
NATHANIEL: But who are you? The Messiah? Certainly not, you are too ignorant. 
JOHN: The Messiah? I am not worthy of undoing the laces of his boots. But, as 
for me, my ignorance doesn’t give me satisfaction, and I am not speaking of 
enthroning the son of David, nor do I flatter myself with the hope of being his 
first minister or his high priest. 
JOSEPH: You know that the Messiah must be preceded by Elijah the prophet? 
JOHN: I know it. 
NICODEMUS: Then, are you Elijah? 
JOHN: I am a voice that cries out in the desert. 
NICODEMUS: But still? 
JOHN: Do you know what you are? Do I know what I am? Perhaps God has designated 
you to be his interpreter and commentator on his law. He only told me, "Announce 
what is going to happen and exhort Israel to mend its ways." I wasn’t placed 
here by my own will, but a will is in me which orders me to cry out like the 
wind shaking the reeds of this Jordan river. 
SIMON: He’s a fool. Come, we are wasting our time. 
NATHANIEL: He’s possessed of the devil; his name is frenzy. 
(They exit.) 
NICODEMUS: For my part; obstinacy or perhaps a fatal hardening of heart. 
JOSEPH: I don’t know what shame keeps me from asking him for baptism. 
JOHN: (to Barzilai and his wife) Ploughman, may your spirit not be completely in 
your fields. It’s not you who impel the ear of corn. You owe your sweat to the 
earth, but only your sweat; receive from Jehovah God all the rest. Know how to 
pray; observe the repose of the seventh day; this day will nourish your soul. 
All the others nourish only the body. 
JOSEPH: He’s orthodox. 
NICODEMUS: His heart is eloquent, too. 
BARZILAI: Now, indeed, cousin, are you coming? What are you waiting for? 
(Jesus approaches.) 
JOHN: And you? Andrew, we will come down. Oh! Oh! This one here. This face. I’ve 
seen him. Am I sleeping? Am I myself? You are still here, Pharisees? It’s only a 
vision. He’s no longer there. Behold Machaerus, black on the heavens, Is he 
still there? Is he dead? 
ANDREW: Master, won’t you speak to this man? He’s Jesus, he’s a Nazarene like 
you. He’s coming from Galilee. 
JOHN: A little later. 
ANDREW: He’s waiting, master. 
JOHN: Have you noticed nothing in him? To compare him to other men or to me? 
ANDREW: I don’t know. 
JOHN: Rabbi, what do you want from me? 
JESUS: Baptism. 
JOHN: Baptism is for the impure. 
JESUS: Baptise me then. 
JOHN: You are pure. 
JESUS: With this flesh? 
JOHN: It’s I, it’s I who ought to ask baptism of you. 
JESUS: Let us each do what is commanded of us. You are hesitating, John. And at 
first you turned away from me. Obeying, I came. Can you refuse yourself to a son 
of man? The furor of God has stirred you up, lion, against the rebel will. Is 
there still in you some fragment of will? 
JOHN: Is it for me to baptise the son of David? 
JESUS: And since it pleases the Father that you baptise the son of David? 
JOHN: I will baptise you then, but I’ve recognized you. 
JESUS: Happy are you, John, that God makes you so clearly confident. 
JOHN: Mine eyes have seen the day! O Israel, I sense dancing on the earth! The 
day! The Day! And no more night! Andrew, and you others, Pharisees, the King. 
JESUS: Shut up, John. Let Jehovah God choose his hour. Eyes won’t be opened by 
your joy. Don't scandalize the creature. 
JOHN: Andrew! Andrew! This is the one that must be followed. 
JESUS: Are you forgetting those you called to baptism? And who are awaiting you 
with tears? 
JOHN: Desert — here is glory! (Exit Jesus) O you, all the dead, quicken with 
cheer. All sepulchres sing! Let all be life and joy and psalms! Enslaved Israel, 
even your ashes, may they exult, and let there be only one Israel, triumphant, 
with millions of mouths singing and millions of lyres. 
(Exit John and Andrew.) 
NICODEMUS: I am confounded. All that I’ve seen and heard today, this crowd, this 
voice which makes you shiver, and this taciturn man. 
JOSEPH: I need to reflect on all this. We will talk about it, friend, with a 
rested mind at your place or mine. One mustn’t accept or reject everything 
rashly. 
NICODEMUS: I shall return. I begin to think there is more wisdom in the desert 
than in the synagogue. 
JOSEPH: Prudence, friend, prudence. 
(They leave. Kanthera and soldiers enter.) 
KANTHERA: This is it. Nobody. Explore this cave. (two soldiers enter the grotto) 
Who’s watching the horses? 
A SOLDIER: Iacim. 
KANTHERA: The Tetrarch forbids mistreating him. 
SECOND SOLDIER: They are all there splashing around in the river. 
(Soldiers come out of the grotto.) 
THIRD SOLDIER: No one. Mathan found a book on a bed of dry leaves. 
FOURTH SOLDIER: Here it is. 
KANTHERA: Give it here. "I will sow your bones around your altars. The day of 
Jehovah is approaching. There will be only a single pastor, my servant, David; 
they will know I am Jehovah.—" Stupidity of these Israelites! Fanatic nation! 
that used to live in Babylon. What good was Jehovah when you were living in 
Babylon? (tossing the book away) The dog always returns to its vomit. As for me, 
I’m Jehovah. Yuck! Baal’s worth more and Astarte; there’s some humanity in these 
gods. 
SECOND SOLDIER: The beast is coming. 
KANTHERA: Alone? 
SECOND SOLDIER: With two others. 
KANTHERA: Hide. You’ve got the rope? 
THIRD SOLDIER: Here it is. 
KANTHERA: No blows or wounds. I will whistle. Be prompt. Go. (the soldiers 
leave) Nebuchadnezzar was similarly housed during seven years of his madness. 
Beast to sorrow, man. I don’t know what philosopher said that. He has the 
appearance of being beside himself. Is this one here a saint or a monkey? (he 
hides) 
JOHN: And what do I care what Barzilai says? They are always the son of 
somebody. The tree is judged by its fruit. And didn’t Saul find a crown, tending 
the asses of his father? And wasn’t David a shepherd? 
ELEAZER: We know your work; and this Jesus didn’t open his mouth. He only made 
an appearance and behold, Andrew, your favorite, and his simple brother Simon, 
left you to follow him. 
JOHN: Many others yet will leave me. As he grows, so must I diminish. And when I 
shall be all alone here, and all Israel shall have forgotten the way to my 
cavern, as for me, I will disappear, to speak, to sing, to dance, like David 
before the ark, without fear that the savage beasts and the gazelles be 
scandalized, as Michael once did. 
JONATHAN: You won’t leave us? 
JOHN: I won’t drive you out. But soon there will echo the resounding, strident, 
the cry of the trumpet. And you will have wings to run to Jerusalem. Prepare 
your ears to hear it. For in those times the desert will return to its 
legitimate inhabitants, the wild beasts, while Israel is eating with its king in 
his dwelling and under his lighted pavillions. 
KANTHERA: Lovely trio of idiots! (he whistles) Is it you they call John? 
JOHN: It’s me. 
KANTHERA: Bind him! (the soldiers tie John) Excuse my impertinence, prophet! 
Tetrarch’s orders! Herod Antipas demands the privilege of hearing you and wants 
to be alone to rejoice in your conversation. The cage is prepared; no need to 
yell and scream. None are deaf at Machaerus, and Antipas is benevolent. Thus the 
chagrin of knowing that another Daniel is celebrated in his provinces and not 
sleeping every night on feathers. Is it done? Make way, you others! March! 
JOHN: For him to increase, I must diminish. 
KANTHERA: That’s well said. You are resigned — about time. 
JOHN: Antipas is really imprudent. 
KANTHERA: It’s not bathers in the Jordan who will take Machaerus. Antipas defies 
a siege. 
JOHN: (carried away) One doesn’t defy God, man, one doesn’t defy God! 
(They leave.) 
ELEAZER: This is done by Israel! 
JONATHAN: Let us follow, brothers, let us follow. 
CURTAIN 
SCENE II. THE PRISON IN THE FORTRESS OF MACHAERUS
A cell. 
(John is asleep, enchained. The Jailor enters.) 
JAILOR: The master is coming. Get up, animal! On your feet! 
(Enter Antipas.) 
ANTIPAS: What a stench! Where is he? 
JAILOR: Here before you, master. 
ANTIPAS: Go open the airhole. 
JAILOR: You intend to remain alone with him, master? 
ANTIPAS: Isn’t he chained? Go. (Jailor exits) John, listen to me. Are you 
sleeping? 
JOHN: I am listening. 
ANTIPAS: Can’t you hold yourself up? I came to talk to you. My Roman guests are 
sleeping. I am only thinking of you, without hate, tormented by knowing that the 
message you have for me, and that you are going to communicate to me in a 
reasonable language and no longer in the barbarous style in which you flagellate 
your half-witted auditors by the Jordan. I am listening to you and here are my 
questions. Who are you? Who is this Messiah that you are announcing? What does 
your baptism signify? And why did you say to my wife, "The days of Herod Antipas 
are over."? Answer me without rage in the way I am questioning you. If you are a 
prophet, say so, and I will honor you as such. Prove to me that you come from 
Jehovah and in an hour you will be free. Free to insult me, more free than I am. 
Well? Are you dead? There are no chains except on your members. Your tongue 
isn’t. Man, I do not have a lot of time. Vitellius is going to have me called. 
Speak as you wish or as you can. What’s become of your audacity? Has inspiration 
deserted you? This man, overcome by his chains, is he the man who put Herodias 
in a fury and made the Synagogue tremble? On such a fine occasion to speak, and 
then scorn it. Jehovah has abandoned you? Or rather how must one interpret your 
silence? Is your silence also prophetic? Is it the scorn of an ascetic for the 
man enslaved by the flesh? But if you are from God, as I am tempted to believe, 
you cannot scorn a sinner even if he is Tetrarch. All sinners have a right to 
the pity of the just; for the most just of mortals is not just enough to set 
himself up in judgment, and you are mortal and a man. The odor of your cells 
proves that. And if your silence is from condemnation, it is I who will condemn 
you on the last day. You don’t wish to speak? You think me uncurable? You are 
thinking, Herod is the prisoner of his vice. God has hardened the heart of this 
new Pharaoh, the Egyptian plagues won’t lead him to repentance. He’s a dead man 
and one cannot revive the dead. But if you are a prophet recall the widow of 
Sarepta and the prophet who revived her dead child. Is it something impossible 
to God? And aren’t you conceiving some hope from the fact I voluntarily came 
down to this shadow? That’s fine. Your guardian will inform me if some day you 
desire to speak to me. You are the master of your fate. Prophet, you are free. I 
will protect you and no one will attempt your life in the province of my power. 
Impostor or madman, it’s indeed necessary that you expiate the boldness of your 
tongue. (starts to leave and returns) You are not a prophet. It’s written. "The 
prophet is recognized by the fulfillment of the prophecy." It reminds me, that 
is written. You said, "The Messiah is come!" Where is he? Indeed, you know that 
he hasn’t come, and it’s your lie that grasps your throat. If the Son of David 
had appeared, Machaerus is not so far from Jerusalem that I wouldn’t have heard 
the voice of his precursor. And what have I heard from my walls? Only the 
drumming of caravans and the reverberant echo of your howling! Your silence — 
where was my head in trying to explain it otherwise? Your confusion causes me 
pity. Israel has not yet any other king than Caesar; the seat of the precursor 
is still vacant at each Israelite table, and the Temple is still waiting for the 
Son of David! 
JOHN: (standing) I have seen him. 
ANTIPAS: Don’t shout! Is it with this furious tone the truth is spoken? 
JOHN: The one who is struck by lightning, doesn’t see the flash. Jehovah is 
blinding you and deafening you to strike you the more surely. You see nothing, 
you hear nothing, because your eye and your ear, all enchanted by sensuality, 
obstructed by luxury, and the flesh, at the vapid and cruel odor, weaves around 
you a thick vapor, heavy like the night. There is no spirit to hear spirit or to 
see spirit. For example, do you see me? No, you see a hairy beast who bears 
himself in a grotesque or terrible manner. Are you hearing me? No — you are 
hearing only words without consequences, a thunder of discordant noise. How then 
will you see the Christ and how will you understand him? At the very time his 
light pierces the opaque cloud you will be stinking in the mist in which you are 
rolling like a drunkard in the mud. Before you have a chance to ask, "What’s 
this light?", you will be dying, you will cease to be, absolutely, if one can 
name being this seething agitation of shapelessness, this total absence of 
spirit. You will be on the ground, mouth still full of meat, asking yourself, 
"What’s happening to me?" See the Christ! You won’t even see a man, when, 
looking at me, you see only a beast, or looking at yourself in the steel of a 
mirror you admire a Tetrarch. But if the blindfold falls from your eyes and I 
could surgically remove from you this unheard of cataract, seeing there all of 
us, the man, the beast, and the Tetrarch, you would recognize at your cost, the 
King, the Precursor, and you must seek a name which doesn’t exist to name what I 
see, and the sight which made me ill. 
ANTIPAS: You have spoken at length and you haven’t responded to one of my 
questions. 
JOHN: Didn’t I tell you that you are deaf? I announced the Christ; the Christ 
has appeared, yes, the son of David, the King, the Messiah and you are condemned 
to death if you don’t repent and don’t stop the adultery. 
ANTIPAS: Prove that the Christ has appeared. 
JOHN: I saw him, I tell you. 
ANTIPAS: But no one else but you? 
JOHN: Many others beside. 
ANTIPAS: Who? The Doctors? The Pharisees? Machaerus is full of them; they 
haven’t announced the event to me. 
JOHN: It isn’t from blindness that the blind will ——- 
ANTIPAS: Come on! Come on! The Messiah must be recognized by all. 
JOHN: My disciples have recognized him. They had only to see him and they 
followed him. 
ANTIPAS: But at least the works of the Messiah must publish his arrival. The 
Tetrarchy is calm; no emotion in Judea is discernible. 
JOHN: Authorize those who wish to see me to enter your fort and even my cell. 
Before entering I charged two of my disciples to observe and report the deeds of 
Christ and his actions. You will be able to hear them enumerated; acts that will 
make Caesar blanch! 
ANTIPAS: You haven’t been prisoner for a day. No one yet has presented himself 
to see you. And I repeat to you that Judea is calm, so also is Galilee. The 
ploughman at his harvest, the drover with his flock, the artisan in his shop, 
the doctor in his Synagogue, the Priest in the Temple. Not a soul that exists 
from Damas to Hebron suspects the existence of the prophesized King. I want to 
believe in your sincerity. But truly, you are prey to an illusion. What’s his 
name? The one you think you saw. 
JOHN: Does one ask the name of Jehovah’s Christ? 
ANTIPAS: But where’s he come from? 
JOHN: From Galilee. 
ANTIPAS: But the Messiah must come from Judah. Are you unaware of the 
scriptures? 
JOHN: I didn’t ask him the place of his birth. 
ANTIPAS: But then? 
JOHN: I saw his face and I trembled. And I recognized the Son of David. 
ANTIPAS: And what did he say? 
JOHN: Nothing. 
ANTIPAS: And what was he going to do at the Jordan? Is it you he was seeking? 
JOHN: Me, and the baptism of repentance. 
ANTIPAS: Baptism? The Messiah asked you for baptism? And you, you baptised the 
Messiah? 
JOHN: I baptised him. 
ANTIPAS: Mockery. 
JOHN: I am not one of those who dispute the command of God. 
ANTIPAS: And you believe? 
JOHN: Yes, I believe, I believe! Get behind me, Satan! Go ask your sluts, 
oracles who you cannot doubt. Question your Pharisees. In a thousand years they 
will tell you that the Messiah is yet to come? They only believe in a Messiah 
who is a scholar like themselves, ignorant like themselves, quarrelsome like 
themselves, and who will allow himself to be taken in by their humbug piety. One 
who will shut his eyes to their domestic debauches and who will crown their 
pride. And you can only believe in a Christ who’s friends with Caesar and who 
will allow you to remain in Machaerus and be merry at your pleasure. 
ANTIPAS: And you — ? 
JOHN: I believe in a Christ who demands a rigorous account from me; who 
incarnates the Law, who rewards and punishes according to justice, who sees the 
heart and tests the depths, and who contains in himself and transfigures in 
himself the virtue of Abraham, of Joseph, of Samuel, and of David and all of 
ancient Israel. 
ANTIPAS: And that one won’t demand baptism of you, and he won’t come from 
Galilee, and he won’t allow you to rot in the bottom of a pit? 
JOHN: He will do his will. But I have faith in his justice; he won’t forget me 
in this darkness, and he won’t let me die without having seen his glory. 
ANTIPAS: What must I do to see him, me too, and be spared? 
JOHN: Return me to the desert, to your brother, his wife, and comprehend the 
enormity of your crime and the scandal. 
ANTIPAS: Too many crimes flourish in Israel for it to be scandalized by mine. 
Phillip? He lives in Rome and he cares for his wife the way I do for his 
mistresses or freedmen. Why should I return to him what he doesn’t ask for or 
want? And you speak easily of freeing you, who never possessed anything and 
might envy a poor man his dog. Flesh, love, sensuality, what are these to you 
except words, words and cadavers of flowers! You don’t know what the sweetness 
of the bosom or the heat of a shared bed is, of embracing —, in swooning between 
two fragile and beautiful female flanks. You’ve never done anything but look in 
the stars, slept on a stone, known other kisses than the sting of a mosquito. 
Have you ever laughed? You are only a primitive man, so simplified that you 
cannot understand the needs, the thoughts, the sorrows of men. You shrug your 
shoulders? Companion of tigresses, you advise me very easily to send away the 
woman who crossed the sea and desert to rejoin me, and who brings me all that 
the savage, the taciturn daughter of Arabia can never give me. 
JOHN: Lucky still to have only such a feeble duty. To have only to cut yourself 
away from a vice! 
ANTIPAS: But my vice belongs to me! Can I repent of being who I am and coming 
from a luxurious blood? Rather repent being born. Are we responsible for 
paternal sins? Go, you know nothing of man and you are only a wild beast. You 
are creating the Messiah in your own image. But as for me, I say to you the 
Messiah will be a man or he won’t speak unintelligible language, eat 
grasshoppers, become crazy because of his solitude. If you had known ambition or 
drunk wine, or caressed the least prostitute, you would know how to speak to 
human weakness. 
JOHN: Antipas, you make me feel pity. Your chains are heavier than mine. Come, 
return me to the desert, so I don’t die and the people won’t cry out against 
you. 
ANTIPAS: She doesn’t wish it. 
JOHN: Tell her I will no longer open my mouth against her or against you. 
ANTIPAS: She wants you dead. 
JOHN: What’s it to her if I live or die? 
ANTIPAS: But you will continue to announce the King? 
JOHN: It’s necessary! It’s necessary. What’s holding you back? Release me! Do 
you know what you are doing by opposing Jehovah? Let me go or my word will bring 
ruin on you and all Machaerus. Do you think whatever may be the art of your 
mason it prevents these stones from being disjoined? I say to you it is God. Let 
him extend his arm and your dwelling is only a ruin. Your Herodias wants me to 
die? The same Jehovah who laughed seeing Machaerus grow, this heap of stones, 
made my body and he made the knot which links my body and my soul, and to 
disjoin them it takes another will than that of your wench and another axe than 
that of your executioner. I tell you this. I cannot die before having seen the 
glory of Christ and the fulfillment of his word that I have prophesized. Let me 
then go, from fear that Jehovah, to loosen my chain, may not be constrained to 
loosen all Machaerus! And do you think you can prevent him? 
ANTIPAS: You’ve seen the son of David? 
JOHN: I’ve seen him! I’ve seen him! 
ANTIPAS: You won’t call out outside? 
JOHN: It’s necessary I see his glory and that I purify his people. 
ANTIPAS: I will authorize your messengers to bring you news. And your disciples 
will end by purifying the people. 
JOHN: Begone! I am weary of speaking to a sepulchre. (lies down) 
ANTIPAS: In a sepulchre, you mean. (Jailor enters) What is it? 
JAILOR: Master, a man has just been arrested, who succeeded, no one knows how, 
in sneaking into the fortress; questioned, he said his name is Jonathan and only 
came to see the prisoner. 
JOHN: Antipas, make him come! Ah, ah! Curious to hear news of Christ, bring this 
Jonathan down if you dare! He’s one of those I sent. 
ANTIPAS: Bring this man. (the Jailor exits) 
JOHN: Herod Antipas, here is my deliverance and your death. If you have ears, 
hear! And if you are afraid, you must indeed have dungeons deeper than these? 
The time has come for you to descend into it. Ask the entrails of rock to open. 
I fear now that Jehovah won’t remove you from your nest yet. He has a sharp eye 
and an astute ear. He knows better than I how to shock your heart against your 
sides, and he sees the worm attack the heap of your vertebrae. With senses less 
acute, I only hear the chattering of your teeth as they clash. Repent, man, 
repent, simplify yourself. Here’s news of the one who simplifies in the extreme, 
the most complicated life, the best dressed, the best disguised. (enter Jonathan 
with the Jailor) Speak, Jonathan, speak. And don’t be upset by the presence of 
this Tetrarch. Don’t make him languish. 
JONATHAN: Rabbi, I haven’t been able to join the man of Galilee. And, after 
having discussed with Simon and Andrew who followed him I no longer care to 
approach him; I was anxious about your fate, more than seeing or hearing about 
this Jesus! 
ANTIPAS: Ah! 
JOHN: What do you know about him? 
JONATHAN: He said that the kingdom is not of this world and that no one, if not 
reborn from water and from spirit can enter the kingdom, and he boasted if the 
Temple were to be destroyed to rebuild it in three days. 
ANTIPAS: John is no longer listening to you. Answer me if you wish to live. Who 
is this man? 
JONATHAN: His name’s Jesus; he’s the son of a carpenter from Nazareth in 
Galilee. 
ANTIPAS: Fine. You don’t think he can be the Messiah? 
JONATHAN: The Messiah! Certainly not! Would the Messiah speak of a kingdom not 
of this world? It’s fine for Simon and Andrew to think that a Galilean like 
themselves could be the Messiah. 
ANTIPAS: But as for you? Who do you think he is? A prophet? 
JONATHAN: There’s only one prophet: John. I beg you to set him free. 
ANTIPAS: We shall see. Come with me. You will eat your fill. You have pleased 
me, and I will give the order to let you communicate with your master if you 
wish. Come. Goodbye, John. You make me pity, man. 
(Jonathan, Antipas and the Jailor leave.) 
JOHN: (prostrated) A a ah! Ao ah! Jehovah, why have you abandoned me? O divine 
treason and more than human mockery! It’s really you, I recognized you! Pouncing 
on me like a vulture you’ve torn my flesh, you’ve planted me in the sand and 
commanded me to bellow his coming! He’s coming! You haven’t released me. You’ve 
dried my eyes and desiccated my heart, and you filled me with great power to 
shout ceaselessly, like a beast with burning entrails. You’ve driven me from 
life, you’ve given me the desert to live in and you’ve said to me, "Parade about 
like a cloud between heaven and earth to shock men by your horrible appearance 
and your thunderous spittings, ruminate without end the bitter grass of my word! 
And when Israel will come and you have indeed despaired of it, you will depict 
to it the source of the oasis and the face of the Messiah and they will be 
deceived like a caravan by a mirage; and I will laugh with you and at them, as I 
laughed having driven Adam from the garden, saying, ‘Behold, Adam has become one 
of us through knowledge of good and evil.’" And you placed at the garden of Eden 
the Cherubins and the flaming sword whirling so that the man, dressed by you in 
the garb of animals, would never approach the Tree of Life. O misery of created 
man, immense, incurable, eternal! And this Jesus, naive like me, full like me of 
a great dream; to what cell, to what gibbet, to what bitter disillusionment have 
you reserved for him, this child who only wanted to do your will? O lamentable 
Israel, it was useless to tell you in a sweeter and more fraternal voice. O 
millions of my brothers in distress, blind suffering multitude that I didn’t 
love enough and to whom I was announcing a tyrant worse than Herod! What are we, 
O my people, ploughers of arid soil, workers from birth, only a lost flock under 
the storm cloud trumpeting Messiah! In the dark of an eternal shadow! O message 
of a reign of glory, phantom child of solitary ardor and the laughter of God! 
Carnal dream of a stunning Christ, of a new David and of a terrestrial Jerusalem 
that I wanted to prefigure, and I intended to suggest the attitude of your 
immutable will toward it, Jehovah! But your light is our shadow and your Christ 
will not establish his domination according to the fashion of our imaginations. 
Wouldn’t it have been better for me to have divined this; this Galilean saying, 
"The Kingdom is not of this world."? Pride of man that boasts of having no 
pride. It’s necessary that I diminish! As if I were higher than my brothers. And 
by what right then do I have this arrogant, chiding tone? Equal in ignorance, O 
our misery! To love, to love! Is that what you want, obscure Master Jehovah? 
Yes, that’s it. And you’ve pulled me out of it, put me in the dock because I 
didn’t give you satisfaction! Give me life, Eternal one, give me life, even for 
a short while! Bad luck to whoever doesn’t love! Bad luck to the hard heart that 
doesn’t open to the thundering voice of love! O God! You compel it at the point 
of the sword, you shut it in the prickly haircloth, on all sides, bloodying it. 
(Jonathan returns.) 
JONATHAN: Master! Master! 
JOHN: Free, Jonathan? You are weeping? Herod? I summon you to speak. Is it the 
tears of wine already? What have you to tell me that’s so funereal? 
JONATHAN: Herodias’ daughter danced — 
JOHN: Salome? I know she dances. Otherwise than the women of your village, 
otherwise than the angels. 
JONATHAN: May the Eternal curse her! 
JOHN: Shut up! The Eternal is not at your orders. Perhaps she danced for my well 
being. 
JONATHAN: For your ruin. 
JOHN: Speak then. Are you a prophet, too? 
JONATHAN: Antipas shouted, "Ask half my kingdom, I swear to grant it to you." 
JOHN: Jehovah, I recognize your hand. 
JONATHAN: The daughter ran to her mother and she came back saying, "O Master" —. 

JOHN: O God! 
JONATHAN: "I want you to give me the head of John the Baptist." 
JOHN: Ah! 
JONATHAN: Shocked, I came in horror to hear Herod’s reply. Oh! Salome! I will 
see her dance until my death; I will die of having seen her. She is beautiful! 
And all the looks that possessed her under her veils. Oh, Master! The patience 
of Jehovah! They are coming. She! He consented. 
JOHN: Salome? Salome, here? 
(Enter Salome with a basin, the Jailor and the Executioner with a naked blade.) 
JAILOR: Don’t come in, Mistress. This is not a sight for your eyes. 
SALOME: I want to see him. 
JOHN: It’s God who sends you, Salome, to hear me. Obedient to the maternal order 
you asked for my head, obedient to the order of Jehovah, Salome, you will demand 
my life. You are Jewish, right? Jewish like Esther, Jewish like Judith and your 
God, like the God of Esther and Judith is Jehovah. Daughter of Israel, it’s up 
to you to save Israel one more time. O Salome, your dance, it is our God who 
taught it to you to save his prophet. Israel dies if I die. I who know the words 
of life. You will dance once more before Herod, and for reward you will demand 
the salvation of Israel, that I, and I alone, can save. What happiness would you 
gain from my death, right? And Jehovah himself, recalling your dance, if you 
don’t turn it to the salvation of his prophet. You know that I must announce the 
Messiah and prepare all the people for his reign. Otherwise, Israel will be 
entirely lost, overthrown — and with Israel, you, Salome, your mother, and 
Antipas — if the last prophet were to die without having spoken. Life is nothing 
to me, Salome. If the Messiah had appeared, I would give myself up to the knife 
without a word. But Jehovah’s getting impatient with my silence, and it is he 
who presses me to do his work. In his name, I adjure you, Salome, more beautiful 
than Esther, stronger than Judith, — by dancing, nothing but dancing, and not by 
the lengthy prostitution of Esther, nor by handling of the sword for which your 
childish hands would be too delicate, by dancing before a new Asahareus, what 
glory will fall to you, Serving Girl of the Eternal, and with what honor you are 
going to surround the Messiah-King, the one who is coming, the Son of David! Go 
back, Salome, dance once more, and revoke the order of death that God will 
avenge on your posterity — if his rage wills you to have posterity! 
SALOME: I am much too weary to dance. I don’t know Jehovah, nor Esther, nor 
Judith. 
JAILOR: Strike, Manassah. The Master’s going to get impatient. 
JOHN: Stand back! Salome, go tell Antipas that he has nothing to fear from me. 
Let him live! Let him jubilate! What does his lechery matter to me! May my 
tongue dry up if I speak against him again! It has other words to say! Don’t 
approach, brute, or I will crush you with my chains. Take a step, I command hell 
to open beneath his feet! Salome, go back or I will curse you! Obtain my life! 
Go, prostitute yourself, practice Sodom and Gomorrah, but don’t soil yourself 
with human blood! Jehovah! Jehovah! Make known your will. Well, go on, brute! Go 
on little girl — 
VOICE (From outside) Get back! Let me pass! 
JOHN: Eleazer! 
(Enter Eleazer.) 
ELEAZER: Master, I’ve seen the Messiah! I’ve spoken to him. 
JOHN: Jesus of Nazareth? 
ELEAZER: That’s him! On your behalf, I asked him, "Are you the one who must come 
or must we wait for another?" And at that moment he had cured the ill and the 
possessed. And he said to me, "Tell John what you have seen and heard: the blind 
can see, the crippled are walking, the lepers are purified, the deaf can hear, 
the dead revive, the poor are evangelized." Oh, John and then he said — 
JOHN: (to the Executioner) Hold on a minute, brother. Sister, tell him to be 
patient for a moment. 
ELEAZER: "The one who believes in the Son has eternal life and the one who 
doesn’t won’t have life, and those baptised by John have justified God, for whom 
John is a prophet, the greatest of the sons of woman." 
JOHN: It’s him! It’s him! I saw him. For him to be believed it’s necessary for 
me to be diminished, for me to disappear. The hope of the earth is accomplished! 
The scream of my bowels is exhausted. 
ELEAZER: And he said, "He who loses his life on account of me will be saved." 
JOHN: Then no tears! Brother, take my head. Let the child take it to her stupid 
mother on the plate. 
SALOME: He’s laughing and those there are weeping. 
(The Executioner brandishes his sword.) 
ELEAZER AND JONATHAN: Jehovah! 
CURTAIN 
ACT II
SCENE III. THE RESURRECTION OF LAZARUS
Bethany, in front of the house of Lazarus. 
Judas enters. Magdalene comes from the house. 
MAGDALENE: You, Judas? Alone? 
JUDAS: Your brother? 
MAGDALENE: Dead. 
JUDAS: What? 
MAGDALENE: Lazarus is dead. 
JUDAS: When? 
MAGDALENE: Day before yesterday, in the morning. 
JUDAS: This is a prophecy. 
MAGDALENE: Is the Master coming? 
JUDAS: He will see the invisible. 
MAGDALENE: Judas! 
JUDAS: He cannot prevent it. He can do nothing to prevent it. 
MAGDALENE: The death of Lazarus affects you to this degree, Judas? 
JUDAS: Surely. Where is Martha? 
MAGDALENE: By the sepulchre, weeping. 
JUDAS: And you are staying at the house? 
MAGDALENE: Some one has to. The Master will come, Judas. 
JUDAS: He’s coming with Simon, John and Andrew. 
MAGDALENE: When will he be here? 
JUDAS: Before evening. So many folks on the way are stopping him. But will you 
be able to receive the five of us tonight? I don’t understand why he made me ask 
you that. Hospitality is not required of two women in mourning. 
MAGDALENE: He is always welcome. Even if we may not sleep tonight, my sister and 
I, you five will all repose. 
JUDAS: Great love! 
MAGDALENE: It would be nice to see the Messiah rejected at our door, consolation 
disdained. 
JUDAS: Words! 
MAGDALENE: The only ones that are not vain, his words. The only ones which tears 
obey. 
JUDAS: Listen to me. 
MAGDALENE: I am going to inform Martha. 
JUDAS: Can’t you hear other words than his? 
MAGDALENE: You, who follow him; do you hear other words than his? 
JUDAS: He no longer says anything but obscure things that scandalize, that make 
one suspect he may be the One who we believed — 
MAGDALENE: The Messiah. 
JUDAS: The Messiah-King, the Foretold-One; if he is, why does he speak so often 
of death? Is this a mortal king we are expecting? Mortal and poor? I have no 
more than three deniers in the common purse. After three years, the Pharisees 
and the great have not recognized him. Only the very low, the weak — 
MAGDALENE: You love him less, Judas — 
JUDAS: It’s well enough for you to love. As for me, I think. 
MAGDALENE: O Judas, don’t go back. You renounced everything to follow him and 
from that day, by possessing nothing, you possessed everything. If I were living 
like you, his friend, in his shadow, if I constantly heard his word, the only 
one that seems living and certain among dead and dangerous words, I would be 
happy, peaceful, like a little child, without many memories, without desires, 
without thought. The rest of you men love badly; you never forget yourselves. As 
for him, Judas, he always forgets himself. 
JUDAS: A man ought never to abandon himself. What a dupe! You and I, we are not 
made of the same material. Before being a servant girl in your brother’s home, 
for money, you were a servant girl for every man. If the Nazarene had begged you 
for love you would not have refused, so today, indeed, you content yourself with 
pretty words. 
MAGDALENE: He knows us too well to beg us for love. Rather to love a flower or 
the innocent animal. My heart would laugh to see men trembling before my face. 
JUDAS: You are weeping? 
MAGDALENE: As for him, when he looked at me, I saw myself quite wretched, 
completely sinful, eaten by worms. And seeing me, such as I was, he did not turn 
away in disgust. He neither cursed me nor condemned me. 
JUDAS: By what right? He’s neither priest nor doctor. You are imagining things. 
MAGDALENE: You no longer believe, Judas. 
JUDAS: I believed; my misery believed. He enrolled us with promises. He must 
establish the kingdom. He appeared to be someone mysterious; nothing ought to be 
impossible to him. They expected much of a man who only had to look at you to 
know your thoughts. He sees, perhaps, he knows everything; but he can prevent 
nothing. He saw the death of Lazarus; three days ago as we were walking in the 
country, he stopped and said, "Lazarus is dead." 
MAGDALENE: It was three days ago. 
JUDAS: He sees his own death; he doesn’t prevent that either. He is unable to 
prevent anything. All he has is words. The poor folk are satisfied with them. 
The others laugh and shrug their shoulders. He can do nothing, nor can he undo 
anything. He’s only a beggar who speaks, who cannot prevent the world from going 
its way. Whoever has a hope, a wish, intelligence, let him avoid meeting this 
persuasive beggar, this seducer without hearth or home; he will conceive a hope 
not out of proportion to his small hope, a desire that will turn him away from 
his small desire and from thoughts capable of bursting his small intelligence. 
He will deliver himself to his care to conduct him, and he’ll permit himself to 
be led down roads without end, into the unknown, into the void. Further, always 
further from all desire, from all hope, from all that the hand can touch, from 
all that reason can conceive, far from the smiles of women, far from the society 
of friends and family, far from the warmth of the group — towards the misty 
image of vain kingdoms, towards nothingness. I don’t want that; I say no. I’m 
stopping myself. I am not the mule nourished on food for thought. Dreams are for 
the night; I am awake. I will seek the way to reconcile myself with the living, 
interesting myself in their affairs and interesting them in mine. 
MAGDALENE: Why continue to follow him? That’s not honest, Judas. 
JUDAS: That’s my affair. 
MAGDALENE: O sad heart! To be with him, isn’t that the kingdom? (enter Jesus, 
John, Andrew and Peter) Rabbi, your serving woman. 
JESUS: Rise up, woman. 
MAGDALENE: Lord, if you had come in time, my brother would not be dead. 
PETER: Then it’s true? Lazarus is dead? 
MAGDALENE: For three days already, regretting not being able to hold your hand 
in his. 
ANDREW: He’s weeping. 
PETER: How he loved him. 
MAGDALENE: Will you come again, Master, now that we are here alone, two poor 
women who had only him? We had no relatives and I don’t know what’s going to 
become of us. As for me, I will go to work at the homes of foreigners; but my 
poor Martha, Master. Don’t abandon that child. 
JESUS: Where is she? 
MAGDALENE: By the sepulchre. Some friends of Lazarus came and are keeping her 
company. Ah! Master! There are not many brothers who love their sisters the way 
Lazarus loved us! But you were much more dear to him than us, Lord. 
JESUS: And God, much dearer still, Mary; if I didn't owe myself to all our 
people, if there were no more sick people in Israel, no more despairing, no more 
blind, I would say to you, "Here, I’m stopping." Would you treat me like a 
brother? I will work for you. That is forbidden to me! I wasn’t born for the 
happiness of one or two. You and Martha, Mary, you’ve heard the word of life! 
It’s necessary that all hear it. It’s necessary that all be revived; that the 
prophets be justified; that all the distress of this people may see coming to it 
He who will separate it from its bitterness and tear it from death’s claw. Mary, 
your tears are not the sour tears of the blind, and you know in what fountain to 
wash your eyes. How many as yet know only how to howl like a beast when its 
young are taken from it? You have a father and you know how to speak to him. I 
belong to all the orphans. Magdalene will you lead me to the tomb where Lazarus 
is sleeping? 
MAGDALENE: Where he’s sleeping, Lord? 
JESUS: Yes, where he’s sleeping. You are looking at me, John, son of thunder! 
Don’t you know yet that for God, death does not exist? Judas, don’t be 
scandalized by what I am saying: the most ancient dead of Israel, in the most 
long forgotten sepulchres haven’t known death if they’ve known God. Those 
living, who breath and plot evil are more dead than the ashes of Jacob. Mary, 
your brother is sleeping, and they were in too much of a hurry to put him aside. 
Lead me to the place of his slumber. 
MAGDALENE: Master, I am your serving girl! And since you say so, I believe that 
Lazarus is sleeping. 
(All leave except Judas.) 
JUDAS: What’s he mean and what’s he intend to do? If he’s going to —- Lunatic! 
It’s not a slumber, even a sleep of three days. He must feel. He is indeed dead 
and I am Judas. He cannot revive Lazarus any more than he can make me a believer 
like the sons of Jonas and Zebediah, or like this woman with her mad eyes. 
"Those living who breath and meditate evil —" he’s a clairvoyant "are more dead 
than the ashes of Jacob." But he cannot prevent anything. Let him free himself 
from the hands in which I am going to put him. That will be the sign. What’s he 
going to do at this tomb? It’s well that I learn what he meant. 
(Exit) 
CURTAIN/BLACKOUT 
SCENE IV. THE SANHEDRIN
JERUSALEM: THE SANHEDRIN OF THE PHARISEES 
CAIAPHAS: (to Selomith) You’ve quite understood me? If you find him alone or 
very few about, you will corner him with your men, and having commanded him to 
follow you, you will lead him here by a roundabout way. If not, you will wait 
until the people are dispersed. It’s necessary to act without uproar or scandal. 
I count on your intelligence to seize the opportunity. Go. (exit Selomith) 
Indeed, we are all agreed, aren’t we? We will deliver him to Pilate and we will 
demand the execution of Jesus. 
NICODEMUS: We are putting too much passion into this affair. After an appearance 
of justice, we are going to demand the death of a man we cannot reproach with 
anything precise. 
DANIEL: Are you, you too, of his disciples? 
NICODEMUS: No, Daniel, but I am trying to be fair, and I ask myself if it is 
just to condemn this Galilean that the people call a great prophet. 
SARAI: No prophet ever came out of Galilee. 
JOSEPH: You are forgetting Jonas. 
PHAROS: Joseph, you are committing an error. 
SEMEIAS: All the prophets were Jews. 
SARAI: This Galilean a prophet? This ignoramus? This son of a worker? 
DANIEL: Was a prophet ever seen to address himself to the little folk? 
PHAROS: To banquet with publicans and lost women? 
ANOTHER: His disciples are unlettered; they don’t know how to read and write. 
SARAI: Fishermen. 
CAIAPHAS: Listen to us, Nicodemus. I am curious to know how you will defend a 
man who openly violates the Sabbath, choosing that day of all days to accomplish 
his pseudo-cures, who pardons adultery, who arrogates to himself to remit sins, 
who reduces the law to nothingness. What prophet ever did that? By authorising 
all that is forbidden by the Law; and haven’t I been repeatedly told that he 
allows himself to be called the son of David and Messiah by the troupe of 
fanatic imbeciles that he drags about everywhere with him? 
ANNAS: The Messiah won’t give the lie to Moses; he will crown the law, justify 
the faith of Abraham and the predictions of the prophets; he won’t abrogate the 
Law. This Galilean speaks against us, against the Temple; he’s trying to shake 
up sacerdotal authority. Are these the characteristics of the Messiah, 
Nicodemus? 
NICODEMUS: Let’s question him; let’s not condemn him without hearing him. 
SEMEIAS: Nicodemus — what have you done with your science? 
SARAI: Nicodemus, what have you done with your reason, man? 
JOSEPH: Are we losing our reason to want to give fair play? 
DANIEL: And you also, Joseph of Arimathea, you believe this Galilean is a 
prophet? 
ANNAS: Brothers, where have your wits gone? Surely, we intend to satisfy the 
Law. There will be an interrogation, and an appearance of judgement and hearing 
of witnesses. But how dare you for a single instant take this dreamer from 
Galilee seriously? I would blush deeply if the shadow of a suspicion flowered in 
me that this Jesus could be the representative of Jehovah; that this ignorant 
man was the enunciator of His Will; and I would be overcome with shame on myself 
if I had for the millionth part of a second believed that this charlatan was the 
Messiah-King, the Son of David, the Expected One of Israel. 
CAIAPHAS: If one of us, Pharisee, priest, or doctor, one day found in the midst 
of his meditations on the Scriptures, a doubtful prophetic spirit, that would be 
would be in ever so small a degree, comprehensible; or if I imagined myself, Me, 
Caiaphas, high priest, maddened by my genealogy to be the Expected One of 
Israel, madness, but excusable madness. We are close enough to God’s thought to 
experience such vertigoes; but for an unknown, emerging from the depth, head 
swaddled with shadows to have the pretension of making himself adored not only 
by the rabble, but by us, — Nicodemus, and you, Joseph, could you seriously 
think that his case deserved examination? I have trouble understanding your 
attitude. If we, the brain of Israel, set ourselves to stray, nothing surprising 
if the people rave wildly with this unanimity in dementia! 
NICODEMUS: Our knowledge is then so certain? 
SARAI: Intolerable! 
ANNAS: Is Nicodemus on the point of promulgating some new heresy? 
NICODEMUS: If he doesn’t come from God, by what means does he accomplish such 
prodigies? 
ALL: Through Satan! Enough! He’s mad! Silence! 
SEMEIAS: What prodigies? 
JOSEPH: The blind man he cured? 
ALL: Charlatanism! Imposture! He was no more blind than I am! He was possessed 
by the devil. 
CAIAPHAS: In short, where do you propose to go? 
NICODEMUS: I want him to be examined. 
CAIAPHAS: He will be examined. Is that all? 
NICODEMUS: And that, in any case, there will be no question of condemning him to 
death. 
CAIAPHAS: I am stopping you! Nicodemus, don’t persist. You will incur 
excommunication. 
ANNAS: This is from madness! Can’t you see that if we allow such impostors to 
roam free, provoking sedition, we are exposing ourselves to the wrath of Rome? 
Aren’t you instructed by events. To spare an agitator do you want to destroy us 
all? 
JOSEPH: But if he is innocent? 
ALL: Enough! Exclusion. 
CAIAPHAS: Guilty or innocent, it’s better for one man to perish than the whole 
people! And when that man is only a magician of little ability — 
SEMEIAS: The fact is they tell strange stories — 
(Enter Joel.) 
SARAI: I have heard tell that he cures the possessed solely through the 
imposition of his hands and a fixed look in their eyes. 
PHAROS: They told me that a paralytic was able to run and walk without help from 
others on his order. 
NICODEMUS: He has a great ascendancy over crowds. Inexplicable, but that cannot 
be denied. 
CAIAPHAS: Oh! The crowds! The story of their credulity will never end. 
DANIEL: For my part, I heard tell — 
JOEL: You’ve all heard tell. As for me, I’ve seen — 
CAIAPHAS: Joel! What have you seen, Joel? You seem troubled. 
JOEL: Caiaphas, you would be, if you had seen what my eyes have seen. It’s of 
this Galilean that you were speaking, right? 
ANNAS: Yes. Of the carpenter from Nazareth. 
JOEL: I am going to tell you very simply what I saw, not dreaming, but awake; if 
we are awake when we go about and talk, if we are awake here at this moment; and 
I didn’t sleep from the moment of this vision that I had and this moment 
speaking to you. 
ANNAS: You are expressing yourself strangely, brother. 
JOEL: Annas, listen to me. It’s difficult to express the inexpressible. Which of 
you doctors knew my cousin, Lazarus of Bethany? 
SEMEIAS: Who died recently? I did, Joel. 
ANOTHER: And I. 
JOEL: If you would like to come with me tonight, or tomorrow to Bethany, 
Semeias, and you, who knew Lazarus, you will see him living. 
SEMEIAS: What are you saying? 
CAIAPHAS: Joel, you’re dreaming! 
JOEL: Answer me! Am I alive? 
CAIAPHAS: Certainly. 
JOEL: Well then, I am not dreaming, Caiaphas; I am as clean of spirit as you 
all. 
ANNAS: Unfortunately, we are not all. 
JOEL: Are you, Annas? 
ANNAS: Every man has moments of distraction. I guarantee you healthy and lucid 
and I consecrate this moment to hear you. Go on, speak. Don’t you see the point 
to which you’ve aroused our curiosity? 
JOEL: It’s despite myself that I am speaking. Yesterday evening I was in Bethany 
trying to console Martha, my cousin, that I had with other relatives accompanied 
to the sepulchre of her brother. A man came, the same one you were speaking of 
when I entered this hall. 
CAIAPHAS: Ah! The Galilean. 
JOEL: Some disciples followed him. Poor folk, who, it appeared had forsaken 
wealth and family to attach themselves to his person. An Iscariot among others. 
Mary, Martha’s sister, a poor creature, escorted the Galilean. Like you, I knew 
him by reputation, like you, my brothers, I scorned him. 
ANNAS: He was then an acquaintance of your cousin Lazarus? 
JOEL: They told me they were bound in friendship. 
CAIAPHAS: You are not going to pretend — 
JOEL: I’m not going to pretend anything. I’m recounting. I observed this Jesus 
and, at first, I blushed for the conduct of these two sisters, my cousins. 
Because Martha prostrated herself before him and called him. "Master," and Mary 
went on repeating with inexhaustible tears, "If only you had come, he would not 
have died." He was motionless and mutely looked at the sepulchre. The rest of 
us, the witnesses were observing silence — terrifying! And he, mute, looked at 
the sepulchre. And as for me, keeping my eyes riveted on his face, I suddenly 
saw his eyes heavy with two tears, which were not followed by other tears, two 
tears which rolled down his pale cheeks and which he did not wipe dry. And he 
said, "Raise the stone." I heard someone reply, "It’s been three days since he 
was there; he must be stinking." The man repeated, "Raise the stone!" And the 
stone was raised. The tomb was yawning, black. Without any gesture but in a firm 
voice, he uttered, "Lazarus, come!" My eyes leapt from my head. Something white 
was moving in the crevice of the rock, and the cadaver appeared in the opening 
standing in his shroud, all rigid in his bandages. 
ALL: Ah! 
JOEL: The man said, "Unwrap him and let him go." The bandages were cut; we saw 
the living face, the eyes open, blinking; and there he was standing before us 
and coming towards us. And his sisters and his disciples were prostrated before 
the one who was looking at heaven. My knees were shaking and I heard the 
chattering teeth of someone near me, the Iscariot! 
DANIEL: Insanity! 
SARAI: There are some strange slumbers. 
SEMEIAS: He’s telling us a dream. 
NICODEMUS: He comes from God. 
JOSEPH: I believe he is the Messiah. 
ANNAS: Joel, return to Bethany; you won’t see Lazarus. You had a vision. 
CAIAPHAS: First of all, return home and get some rest; then go to the home of 
your cousins. You will see nothing has changed in Bethany. 
JOEL: I saw. Others saw. You can have Lazarus summoned. 
CAIAPHAS: So be it. Then he was sleeping. 
JOEL: You can sleep for three days? 
PHAROS: There are insects whose bite — 
NICODEMUS: But which of us would have dreamed that a man buried for three days 
was only asleep and could be awakened at the command of an ignorant man such as 
this Galilean who is not a healer so far as I know. 
ANNAS: Now there’s our other dreamer! 
PHAROS: Coincidence! 
ANOTHER: One thing is certain: one cannot revive the dead. 
DANIEL: No man can revive the dead. 
JOSEPH: Eli and the child of the widow of Sarepthah. 
NICODEMUS: Elisea and the son of the Sunamite. 
DANIEL: Prophets! Men of Jehovah! And who begged Jehovah saying, "O God, won’t 
you return life to this child?" 
SARAI: While this one, in an imperious voice and without praying to Jehovah, 
commanded Lazarus to arise. 
ANNAS: That is precisely insufferable. This Galilean is conniving with the 
spirit of evil. 
NICODEMUS: The Galilean would reply to you, "Does the spirit of evil sometimes 
do good?" 
CAIAPHAS: Nicodemus, evil dresses sometimes in the appearance of good. There are 
beautiful flowers whose perfume kills; and beautiful fruits whose flesh is 
poison. I say to you that this man must die, in whom Satan is contriving the 
destruction of Israel; and he will die, I repeat, because it is better one man 
die than an entire people. 
JOSEPH: But if this man is possessed, let’s at least try to exorcise him. 
A PHARISEE: There’s only one efficacious exorcism. A good cross! 
DANIEL: How can you speak of exorcising a seditious person who is shouting 
everywhere, "Pharisees, race of vipers and whitened sepulchres!" 
SARAI: Let him die! 
ANNAS: Pilate is only awaiting an opportunity to employ. By delivering to him 
this demagogue we will furnish an indubitable proof of our loyalty and our good 
will. 
CAIAPHAS: As the witnessing of Joel must be accepted, this resurrection is an 
unexceptionable sign of the power conferred on this man by the Evil Spirit. As 
soon as the rumor of it spreads among the people, there will be only one voice 
to proclaim him king. And at the same time unleashing on us the Roman eagles. 
NICODEMUS: And if he were the king? 
ANNAS: Let him come to have his title examined. 
CAIAPHAS: And his genealogy. 
DANIEL: And his knowledge. 
SEMEIAS: Let’s not waste time. 
SARAI: They are very late. We allowed his fangs to grow and we smiled too much 
at his audacity while we were arguing with the Sadducees. The people lost 
interest in our scholastic debates for whom they lack charm and coalesced around 
this maker of prodigies. 
PHARO: Not the people! The scum! 
ANNAS: Yet another resurrection like that of Lazarus and Israel will be all 
scum! 
SEMEIAS: It’s got to be stopped. 
CAIAPHAS: Are we unanimous? 
ALL: Let him die! 
(Enter Selomith.) 
ANNAS: Selomith! What is it? 
SELOMITH: There’s a man at the door who insists on entering. "I have to see the 
high-priest," he says obstinately. He pretends to give you the means of seizing 
the Galilean. 
CAIAPHAS: And you kept him at the door? O Selomith, be bold, lead this man in! 
(Exit Selomith.) 
JOEL: O baseness! O mystery of rogues! 
ANNAS: What’s wrong, Joel? And with whom are you angry? 
JOEL: If this is the man who I think — (enter Judas with Selomith) It’s him, the 
Iscariot! What are you coming here to do, purulence? 
CAIAPHAS: Joel, it’s up to me to question him. 
JOEL: I blush to be a man and the brother of this sick beast. 
SELOMITH: Here’s the man! 
CAIAPHAS: That’s fine. Go and don’t let us be disturbed. Come forward. 
(Exit Selomith.) 
ANNAS: Now there’s a corrupt face. A diseased beast; that’s well said. 
CAIAPHAS: Who are you? 
JUDAS: Judas Iscariot. 
DANIEL: An Edomite. 
ANNAS: Long live Edom, if Edom gets us out of our trouble. 
CAIAPHAS: You wanted to speak to us? Speak. 
JUDAS: I can tell you where Jesus the Nazarene can be found tonight. 
CAIAPHAS: Well. 
JUDAS: I am able to lead soldiers to the place where he can be arrested. 
CAIAPHAS: Who told you we wanted to arrest him? (to Annas) The treasury is not 
rich; I am feigning indifference. (to Judas) What makes you suppose we want to 
arrest this Jesus? 
JUDAS: The soldiers of the Temple on the outer sanctuary just now — 
CAIAPHAS: You questioned them? 
JUDAS: I heard them. 
CAIAPHAS: Aren’t you a disciple of this Galilean? 
JUDAS: He deceived me, the impostor! 
CAIAPHAS: Ah! How? 
JUDAS: He’s not the Messiah. 
CAIAPHAS: You thought him? 
JUDAS: Many believed it, who no longer believe it. He said to us this evening 
while eating the Passover, "When I shall have left you." Can the Messiah die? 
"Do this in memory of me." Mustn’t the Messiah always dwell with us? And he 
often says, "Woe to you, Jerusalem." Can the Messiah curse Jerusalem? 
CAIAPHAS: And may he not be a prophet? 
JUDAS: He said, "You will see heaven open over the Son of Man and the Angels 
descend to surround him." And no one has ever seen angels. And there have never 
been any except the poor surrounding him; to whom he commends me to give all the 
money in the common purse. He is generous because he possesses nothing and is 
much received in their houses, like this Lazarus. 
CAIAPHAS: You are shaking? Didn’t he revive Lazarus? Answer. 
ANNAS: We’re not back to that story. 
JUDAS: He’s the devil! 
JOEL: The wretch! 
CAIAPHAS: Silence! Judas, you know that if you give up your master, he will die? 

JUDAS: Let him die. 
CAIAPHAS: You are ferociously disillusioned. 
ANNAS: He already sees himself as royal treasurer or grand butler: somebody in 
Israel. 
CAIAPHAS: He’s falling from on high. 
JUDAS: He has seduced only the wretched and the women. 
DANIEL: And what women! 
JUDAS: He makes them love him; he says he belongs to no one. When they came to 
him to announce that his mother and his brothers were coming to see him, he 
pointed to us, his disciples, saying, "Behold my mother and my brothers." He has 
no guts. When a rich man asked him for advice he said, "Leave everything, 
abandon all, and follow me. Poverty saves the soul." Because he is poor and poor 
folk relinquish their bread to him and share their bread with him. And who gave 
him rights over the dead? Lazarus was sleeping contentedly. Will a man ever be 
sure of sleeping in peace? He’s a tyrant. He knows quite well he must die; he 
knows it. Then why did he come? To preach the impossible? For one must be mad to 
undo oneself and ruin one’s children; and one cannot love everybody, nor return 
good for evil, nor protect a woman who misbehaves, nor, struck on the right 
cheek offer the left. And earth is made for man to enjoy, and woman for man to 
enjoy, and riches for man to enjoy, and one cannot tear out one’s heart, nor 
tear all desire from one’s heart, nor close one’s eyes to everything. And he 
says the kingdom is not of this world and that Jerusalem is not the true 
Jerusalem! The impostor! 
PHAROS: These then are his doctrines! 
SEMEIAS: A variety of Essenism. 
SARAI: Nothing astonishing that the rabble delight in him. 
JUDAS: Give me soldiers. Tonight I will give him up to you. 
CAIAPHAS: Well, you will have them. 
JUDAS: But I want my wages. 
CAIAPHAS: What? 
JUDAS: The price of blood. 
CAIAPHAS: He hasn’t been condemned; we will hear him first. 
JUDAS: Well, summon him then! Arrest him yourself. 
ANNAS Insolent. 
JOEL: Abominable traitor. 
CAIAPHAS: It’s essential that he be judged this very night. 
JUDAS: I want fifty sheckels. 
ANNAS: Bandit! You are killing us! 
JUDAS: I can continue to follow him; I will eat every day at the table of his 
dupes. 
CAIAPHAS: The service is insignificant. You will have twenty sheckels. The 
Temple is not rich. Be Jewish from conscience. 
JUDAS: I am an Iscariot. Give me forty sheckels. In two hours he will be in the 
hands of your soldiers. The skin of the worst of wretches is indeed worth forty 
sheckels. 
CAIAPHAS: By giving him up you are only doing your duty as an honest man. You 
will have twenty sheckels. Rehabilitation cannot be bought; don’t you have any 
conscience? 
JUDAS: Leave my conscience out of it. Poorer men than you give us greater alms. 
I’ve seen a woman anoint his feet with balm worth triple what you are giving me. 
I want thirty pieces of silver. 
ANNAS: You will have them. 
CAIAPHAS: But earn them honestly. 
JUDAS: Give me them. 
CAIAPHAS: Fifteen before, fifteen after. Phaniel, count him fifteen sheckels. (a 
servant goes out and returns with Selomith) Phaniel, is it counted? Is the 
Galilean accompanied, Iscariot? 
JUDAS: By sheep. 
CAIAPHAS: No weapons? 
JUDAS: Two or three old swords. 
CAIAPHAS: How many soldiers will be necessary? 
JUDAS: A dozen if there are only his disciples. Thousands if — 
CAIAPHAS: If? Why this reticence? 
JUDAS: If God meddles with it. 
CAIAPHAS: Damnation! You are mad. Selomith, have someone replace you and take 
fifteen men. You know Jesus, the Galilean. 
SELOMITH: By reputation. 
JUDAS: He’s the one to whom I will give the kiss of peace. I will explain as we 
go. 
CAIAPHAS: Where is he? 
JUDAS: In Gethsemane. 
CAIAPHAS: The hill of olives. Fine. Go and be diligent. As for us, we will eat 
the Passover. Selomith, a word. Keep an eye on your guide. If you don’t bring 
the other, don’t allow this one the least chance to escape. I’ll make him return 
the money. Get going. (Judas and Selomith leave) Brothers, I am counting on you 
so we’ll have witnesses. Joel, will we have your revived man? In four hours you 
can go to Bethany and be back. You have good mules. 
JOEL: I will bring him. 
ANNAS: If you find him alive, of course. 
SARAI: Ah! Ah! If not, let him sleep in peace. 
(All leave except Nicodemus and Joseph.) 
NICODEMUS: Fatal rush! 
JOSEPH: They won’t dare. His doctrine is pure. 
NICODEMUS: And we are not pure enough to understand it. I’ve argued with him. 
JOSEPH: You? 
NICODEMUS: Once. Shortly after the death of John the Baptist. A word from him 
among others struck me. "No one, who is not born anew can see the kingdom of 
God. What is born from the flesh is flesh; what is born from the spirit is 
spirit. The wind blows when it wishes; you hear its voice and you don’t know 
where it is coming from, nor where it is going. Thus it is with someone born of 
the spirit." I remember, I remember, and since then I haven’t stopped thinking 
of his words, and now, listening to this Judas, I think I understand. Come 
Joseph, we must talk. I have I don’t know what confused notions in my soul. I am 
extraordinarily troubled. Let’s go to my home, if you like. You will be my guest 
tonight. We won’t allow a prophet to be murdered, right? 
JOSEPH: Prophet or not: the cruelty of condemning him without sure proofs would 
be enormous. And I believe him just. 
NICODEMUS: He is! He is! More than we. Let’s go. 
(They leave.) 
CURTAIN 
SCENE V. THE GARDEN OF OLIVES
JESUS: Keep me company. Let’s sit here. 
PETER: You are very weary, Lord. Stretch out and sleep a little, while John, 
James and I, we will watch. 
JESUS: It’s not the body that is weary, Simon Peter, it’s the soul which refuses 
to sleep. 
PETER: Where will we spend the night, Master? Won’t we go to Bethany? 
JESUS: Should I go to prepare such a mishap for Judas? Those who are looking for 
me tonight must find me. 
JAMES: The Iscariot will betray you, Lord? 
JESUS: He will betray me if my father permits it. 
JOHN: Lord, wouldn’t it be better to hide yourself? 
JESUS: Where must one go, John? 
JOHN: Out of Judea where they hate you. No one would pursue you in Galilee. 
JESUS: Where Antipas reigns, who caused John the Baptist's death. There is no 
longer any safe place for me anywhere. Any more than for David fleeing before 
Saul whom the prophet nonetheless commanded to remain in the kingdom. No prophet 
has commanded me to remain. My soul alone, and my Father who says, "Don’t desert 
your people, don’t abandon the flock I have confided to you." Who to talk to 
anyway, in the Arabian desert? I belong to this soil and it’s not mine to take 
across the frontier. And as for Galilee, is there one of its towns, one of its 
cities where I have not planted the seed, one of its Synagogues where I have not 
unveiled God, one of its ill that I have not cured, one of its wretches that I 
have not pointed out the way of salvation to? Bethesda, Capernaeum, Corazin, the 
countryside, the shores of Tiberaide, it’s only right up to the great sea and 
the confines of Syria where I haven’t breathed life, combated death and revealed 
the Spirit. I have nothing more to do in Galilee. I have no more business except 
in Jerusalem and I cannot avoid it. 
JAMES: They wanted to stone you, Master. 
PETER: Today again, to arrest you. 
JESUS: And, this very night, Judas made a bargain with the Princes of Priests 
and the Elders of the people. 
PETER: But their plans will be baffled, for you are the Messiah and the Father 
won’t allow them to put a hand on you. 
JAMES: And you are in safety everywhere, Master, because the Father protects you 
everywhere. 
JESUS: My soul is sad to death. 
PETER: Oh, Lord! The Son of David cannot die. 
JESUS: Back, Satan! What do you know of the will of the Father? 
JAMES: Master, don’t you have words of eternal life? 
JESUS: They have not understood me! O John, as for you, did you understand that 
death is only an appearance? 
JOHN: I believe it, Master, without understanding it. 
JESUS: Children! Isn’t it necessary for the buried seed to rot for the olive to 
grow? O God, Master, Father, Wisdom, did you will this? Have I sown in the sand? 
Will I depart having vainly paraded fire and light in these shadowy humans? 
PETER: Master, you always speak to us in parables which is why we don’t 
understand. 
JESUS: Would you understand me if I said: I come from the Father and I must 
return to the Father having passed through death, and it is necessary for you to 
do as I have done, that you be tortured as I will be tortured, for you to speak 
as I have spoken, fearing nothing, no one and that you accept to live and die 
very bitterly before rejoining me by my Father? 
PETER: To die for you, that is very easy, Lord. 
JESUS: Very easy? You will have renounced me three times when the cock crows. 
Easy to die? Yes, when indeed death has a pretty face — or indeed when coming on 
wolf’s feet it grasps you from behind, with both hands, shutting your eyes, or 
when it is made to accompany glory. I see a different sort of death coming which 
is not that of a warrior, nor that which leans over the bed of an old geezer, 
premature death. 
JAMES: Lord, you who revived Lazarus, you can give death its dismissal if it 
comes without your permission: you are its master. 
JESUS: Shut up, James, shut up! There’s perhaps another obstacle between you and 
the light beside me. The Messiah you comprehend hides from you, perhaps, the 
veritable Messiah; my flesh and my bones, O my Father isn’t that the trap and 
the scandal of Israel? Will you make it adopt me when you’ve taken me away and 
will you raise up the spirit which justifies the Son of Adam? 
PETER: Lord, there are few persons who love you more than I do. You know it, for 
you see my heart. You know the feeling of each man before he speaks. I cannot 
believe you would think of leaving us. That would be hard for me and the others, 
too. 
JESUS: Peter, you are speaking like a woman and like a child. Is your faith so 
weak? Have you lost God, when you lose your brother? And is man ever abandoned 
when God remains with him? What did I say to you tonight while breaking bread? 
"Do this in memory of me." Once I’ve disappeared, have I also disappeared from 
your mind and your heart? Have I spoken only dead words? Will you forget me as 
you forget a dream? I did not come to be the friend and companion to Peter, 
James and John. If it pleases God to break me, I who am his instrument, and to 
achieve without me the salvation of Israel, is it for us to complain? And will 
you end by accusing God of it, men of little faith? The love that I am preaching 
to you is not a carnal love. What are you and what am I? Men, images, shadowy 
copies of the Eternal Face. And we will go on to love, to give ourselves 
entirely to one another, brother to brother, wife to spouse, son to father, in 
accordance with the flesh; man to friend of his choice? What an abyss is between 
and me that you don’t understand the things I say? What is a friend, a spouse, a 
father or a brother if not transported by infirm flesh to the titles of the 
Eternal? There is no other love than the love of the Father! You love me, love 
me more, it’s God that you love in me. Your loves? Vapors of dreams or screams 
of bestial blood, if you don’t know how to discover the love of the Father. You 
love your wife with ardor and jealousy; your mother so long as you have need of 
her protection; your friend because it’s nice in life to have a confidant. Let 
the spouse, the mother and the friend die; if you haven’t taken God to witness 
your loves, of what will you complain if he leaves you in prey to your mourning 
and if he has no ears for your wailing? I came to tell you this and to show you 
that a man can do what I say and do what I do without any father but God, and 
without possessing what makes for pride and the sin of all men, no science, nor 
concubines, but only certainty that one thing is necessary and not two. To do 
the will of God, cost what it may, and what ever may be the tremblings of our 
fragility. If I’ve made of you men of this faith, if I’ve been able to prune 
away your dead wood, to burn your thickets in the fire of this conviction, it 
matters little to me if I die today rather than tomorrow. You three alone have 
the ability to speak the language that I am speaking by recreating me in each of 
your actions in the manner of saying yes or no, in your self denial, in the 
serenity of your adversity, in the perpetual repetition of the prayer I taught 
you. "May your name be sanctified; may your reign come, may your will be done!" 
Nothing except you three and the world. You are no longer listening to me. They 
are sleeping. 
JOHN: I heard you, Lord. 
JESUS: What’s that noise? Didn’t you hear anything? 
JOHN: Nothing, Master. 
JESUS: Peter, James! Wake up! 
PETER: I am not asleep, Master. 
JAMES: "One thing alone is necessary — " 
JESUS: You can’t keep awake a moment with me? Death prowls tonight, and Satan is 
alert. Let’s not let ourselves be surprised. Is this all your friendship? I tell 
you that my soul is sad to death: will I ask you in vain for the comfort of a 
prayer? 
(He moves away.) 
JOHN: Let’s pray then. 
PETER: Let’s pray. 
JAMES: For him. 
PETER: Let’s pray as he taught us. Our Father who is in heaven, may your name be 
sanctified — 
JOHN: May your reign arrive — 
JAMES: May your will be done, in heaven and on earth. 
PETER: In heaven and on earth. 
JOHN: Give us today our daily bread. 
JAMES: Our daily bread— 
JOHN: Don’t let us succumb to temptation. 
JESUS: Nothing except a wall of silence and impalpable shadows. 
JOHN: But deliver us from evil. 
JESUS: No other opposition except hellish carnality. And this silence is 
unbroken as if I had not spoken; the gauze of shadows, I haven’t torn it, I have 
not been able to impose servitude on the flesh. Who says that? The witness of 
the carnal eye which sees nothing in the night, and does it see better during 
the day? The eternal plan is realizing itself unaware that my eyes and my ears 
do not perceive anything of the march of ceaseless activity; for you are 
working, O Father, in the silence and the least action of the least creature: a 
word, a gesture, a breath, the shadow of a thought, has reverberations foreseen 
by you who wed our destinies to your will. If I’ve done your will, if I’ve 
really understood, if I’ve served with an exact obedience, if I’ve placed the 
cornerstone of the true Jerusalem of salvation, and that you’ve reserved for 
those who will follow me to build completely, remove me from the world, O my 
father! You won’t find me rebellious. But at least, if it pleases you, spare me 
from this bitter chalice of violent death, for I fear weakening and suffering 
flesh doesn’t know any longer what it is saying. All the sadness of the world is 
in me, motionless, heavy, and I’ve been unable to shake it off except by seeking 
your face and you alone know, you alone know. My God! Isn’t this enough? So many 
solitary tears, of nights without name, of days without consolation, all spent 
dragging the cadaver of human sin. Is that not yet a sufficient example nor a 
sufficient expiation? What more have I to give? Must I experience in my body all 
the evil with which my soul was lacerated? If it’s possible, my Father, make my 
death like the death of Elijah and of Moses and let me be spared drinking the 
bitter dregs of the wine you’ve made me drink. They are only unfortunate, right? 
They won’t be placed beyond mercy! My God! My Father! If I am your child, don’t 
expose me to such a rough temptation; keep this chalice away from me. I have 
confidence in you, my Father. They’re coming. It’s the wind in the leaves. I 
feel death coming. Father, see my agony. Is it thus that I shall die and will 
you be content with this sweat of blood? Gethsemane, my tomb? Is it the end? 
Peter! 
(The Disciples approach.) 
JESUS: Asleep! Peter! James! And you, too, my John? Can’t you watch an hour with 
me? At this hour even, they are not sleeping. Pray with me that their plans be 
rendered vain. The enemy never sleeps; we must pray to frustrate his malice. 
PETER: We will pray again, Lord, but the night is so calm. 
JESUS: Is it calm? Then I hear noises you don’t hear? Evil is at work, I tell 
you! If we see morning, it’s to our prayers that we will owe it. And perhaps we 
will go into Galilee. A few minutes yet, one short prayer again and we will 
leave. 
JAMES: The night is chilly, Lord. 
JESUS: Yes, we are going to leave. Yet one more moment, a fervent prayer and we 
will leave together, rendering thanks to our father. (he moves off) 
PETER: The Master seems to sense a danger. But who will come here to seek us? 
JAMES: You have your sword and I have mine. We would die defending him. 
JOHN: Let’s pray, since he asks us to pray. 
JAMES: It’s cold. It would be better in a nice bed. 
JOHN: Will we be more demanding than he? 
PETER: In a few minutes it will go away. 
JOHN: Our father who is in heaven — 
JAMES: Always the same prayer? 
JOHN: It’s the one he always says. I’m not tired of it. But it is indeed 
necessary to meditate on it. One could spend one’s life repeating this prayer. 
PETER: It’s true, John. If all men knew it and recited it every day they would 
be happier than they are. 
JAMES: We are really happy now, John. 
JOHN: Why do you say that, James? 
JAMES: To think that he is there, he who is the Messiah, the Saviour of Israel 
and he has chosen us to be the first in his kingdom. 
JOHN: If we are worthy of it. 
JESUS: And as for me, if I think there is no necessity to die? What benefit 
would my death be for Israel? Must there be yet another shower of blood so that 
this sterile people will bear fruit? Then, when my life was so powerless will my 
death be more efficacious? Wouldn’t it be better, appearing in the sun, 
brandishing a sword forged by your angels and completely armored in gold to 
descend on Israel at the sound of awakening trumpets of the dead and followed by 
a sparkling cohort of just men, revived, encircled by a radiant and terrifying 
guard of angels, to forcefully establish the City of God, the Reign of David 
that will never end, the imperishable Jerusalem? It’s in me to ask you this, my 
father, it’s in you to grant it to me; it requires gold, lightning and glory to 
dissipate this deafness, to make these blind eyes see. Shall I say the word? 
Will I be King after having been the pastor? Shall I at last write the first 
page of divine history? God, do you consent, from tonight, to the resurrection 
of man? Those torches in the valley. Your response, my Father? It’s not the hour 
of glory, only the hour of death. May your will be done. What is going to follow 
doesn’t concern me any further. I deliver my body into your hands. Ah, at last, 
action is over, willing is over. Only submission, easy task, an absence of work. 
(approaching his disciples) Sleep, brothers. But now, I don’t have the right to 
waste a single lamb that the Father has confided to me. Peter, arise! The hour 
has come. 
PETER: To leave, Lord? 
JESUS: For us to part. For you to go refit your boat and repair your nets. For 
me to confront the Pharisees. 
JOHN: We won’t leave you, Master. 
JAMES: Is there some news? Someone has come. 
JESUS: Someone is coming. We are encircled by torches. (Judas enters) And here’s 
the one I was expecting. 
PETER: The Iscariot! What are you coming here to do, traitor? 
JUDAS: Leave me alone. 
JAMES: Bandit, you are no longer one of us. 
JESUS: Predestination! Who are you seeking, Judas? 
JUDAS: You, Master. 
JESUS: Greetings. It was you who led them here? 
JUDAS: Me? 
JESUS: Who are you looking for? 
SELOMITH: Jesus of Nazareth. 
JESUS: That’s me. 
PETER: Help me, James. (he strikes a soldier) 
SOLDIER: I am wounded. 
JESUS: Peter, sword in scabbard. He who strikes with the sword will perish by 
the sword. If I wanted to be defended I could make a legion of angels shower 
down, a whole divine army, bustling with lances. Watch me and wait until I say, 
"Help me!" — Who are you seeking? 
SELOMITH: Jesus of Nazareth. 
JESUS: That’s me. 
SELOMITH: In the name of the Sanhedrin, I arrest you. Seize him. 
PETER: Lord, command your angels! 
JESUS: My Father! The word is burning behind my teeth. Peter, John, James, go 
away, until God stops them. — Who are you looking for? 
SELOMITH: Yourself, if you are Jesus of Nazareth. 
JESUS: That’s me, I tell you. Is it for me to give myself up? You have come with 
spears and sticks as if to seize a thief or a murderer. If I were that, would I 
have waited for you? And if you fear that like Eli the Thesbite, I won’t call 
the fire of heaven on you, the same that consumed the soldiers of Ochosias, of 
what use do you think your sticks and swords would be? I said a word very low: 
God alone heard it and you cannot take a single step; if I say another little 
word the earth will open and bite you! Know God and the one you wish to arrest. 
And now, seize me; there’s no longer a barrier. Do it quickly. 
SELOMITH: This is the order of the High Priest. 
JESUS: Do it. (the soldiers bind Jesus) But allow them to go. 
SELOMITH: I must arrest only Jesus of Nazareth. Let the others go. (the 
disciples flee) This is the one who denounced you. 
JESUS: I know. For how much? 
SELOMITH: How much did they give you, man? Answer. 
JUDAS: Thirty sheckels. 
SELOMITH: Yes, I believe it. 
JESUS: I know. 
SELOMITH: You will easily justify yourself. 
JESUS: God knows it. 
SELOMITH: As for me, I am only obeying. Come on! March! (they all leave) 
JUDAS: That’s the way it must end. A little sooner, a little later. That money 
was still good to take. It’s the end of a nightmare. They will return to their 
boats. In a week the whole world will have forgotten him. Lazarus? Brr! It’s 
cold among the olives. And Magdalene? What to say to her when she learns? I want 
to tell her. And then as I go to the right or the left with my money I will make 
interesting friends. But I know what they cling to. I know what it costs to have 
a disinterested friend. Let's march. And henceforth may this be on all the roads 
of the world! 
(Exit.) 
CURTAIN 
ACT III
SCENE VI. MARY MAGDALENE
Bethany, in front of the house of Lazarus. 
(Enter Cleophas and Nathan.) 
CLEOPHAS: This is it. 
NATHAN: They must be asleep. Shall we awaken them? 
CLEOPHAS: It must be done. They have to know. (he raps) 
NATHAN: Sinister messengers, the two of us. 
CLEOPHAS: It’s less troubling to have to inform a friend than the mother. Peter 
and John have reserved the most difficult mission. (Lazarus enters) Peace be 
with you, Lazarus. 
LAZARUS: Peace be with you, Cleophas and with you, Nathan. You are welcome. 
NATHAN: Don’t wish welcome to misfortune. 
CLEOPHAS: Speak much lower. Martha and Magdalene will soon enough learn the 
news. Lazarus, if he wishes will see to informing them. 
LAZARUS: I hear you. It’s about the Master, isn’t it? 
NATHAN: Yes, Lazarus. 
LAZARUS: Well? 
NATHAN: He’s been arrested. At this very hour, he’s answering his judges. 
LAZARUS: Who assumes the right of judging him? 
CLEOPHAS: The Sanhedrin, naturally. 
LAZARUS: What complaint? 
CLEOPHAS: What do I know? Who can know? 
NATHAN: How will this end? 
CLEOPHAS: With his death. 
NATHAN: Cleophas, you think? 
CLEOPHAS: From the moment he is only a man like us, and that he is not the 
Messiah and the King. Who now will be able to save him from their claws, him, 
the Galilean? We have only to return to our homes and not boast of having known 
him. 
LAZARUS: Cleophas, Nathan, this was your friendship? 
NATHAN: We had faith in his word. Why, if he is King, is he allowing himself to 
be seized like a thief! A sheep without rage. He didn’t even show surprise. 
LAZARUS: O my Master! 
CLEOPHAS: And you are not astonished, either? 
LAZARUS: Your astonishment does him injury. You are truly men of little faith. 
NATHAN: You who lived in death and live today in life through the will of this 
man, don’t you know any more of him than we know? 
LAZARUS: He lives. 
CLEOPHAS: In what a poor vacillating life henceforth, which leans towards death 
and whose good deeds for the living have ceased! 
LAZARUS: For him a word suffices to calm the sea, a look to attach it to him. 
And I can no longer detach myself from him. In the cell, in the tomb, he lives, 
his word lives and I can no longer hear anything but it amidst the uproar of the 
world. The word pierced the rock, and death, and my dead flesh and my inert 
soul. (Judas has come in) 
JUDAS: Will you be of an equal help for him? 
NATHAN: Judas, what have you learned? 
JUDAS: They condemned him. I am coming from Jerusalem. They are going to demand 
from Pontius Pilate the execution of the sentence. 
LAZARUS: You have seen him, him, the Master? 
JUDAS: Meeting him as he left the house of Caiaphas, amidst torches. Mistreated 
by the soldiers, mocked by the servants of the Temple, absolutely treated like 
the worst of criminals, he made me feel pity. I wouldn’t have thought that he 
could descend to that; that he consented to the infamy of such punishment. If he 
is innocent, why does he so placidly accept outrage, and if he is the prophesied 
King, why doesn’t he make his bonds snap off? I was ashamed for him and for us. 
We are besmirched by this derision; despite my pity for him, I wanted to scream: 
It is well done! 
LAZARUS: Cleophas, Nathan, do you permit your ears to hear this? 
CLEOPHAS: There’s some truth in what he says. 
NATHAN: He’s ruined our reputation. 
JUDAS: And you, Lazarus, he saved you from the tomb only to give his execution 
one more shameful witness; and to better confound and overwhelm you. 
LAZARUS: Do you come from hell? And you were one of his disciples. 
JUDAS: Yes, I come from hell, if you mean the hell that travels in his 
entourage. (to Cleophas and Nathan) You were his only in name, in heart and from 
a distance. You couldn’t know what he made us endure; we who left everything to 
follow him. You’ve only heard tell of his cures, of great crowds enchanted with 
his voice and the tracks of his feet, of our intoxication and exclamations. 
Hosanna! Son of David! Vain and paltry triumphs which fill these simple souls 
with joy and courage, my fishermen companions, these souls of mules, that, 
having once conceived a fable and the vision of the kingdom and the glory, a 
nothing, the applause of villagers suffices to reinflame their chimera and to 
make them forget the weariness, the rebuffs, the sneers of the great; the 
bleeding feet, the nights of sleet, the burning days. And they delight 
themselves, these beastly hearts, to caress with their swollen fingers, in a 
vision, the hot and sweet fleece on the steps of the future throne. We 
city-folk, we don’t have these tenacious rural illusions, right, my friends? You 
remained prudently at a distance, not neglecting your business, full of a firm 
and healthy suspicion. 
NATHAN: Full of faith and confidence also, Judas, hoping indeed not to die 
before seeing him on the throne of Israel, gloriously raised above the nations 
and ridded of Roman legionaries, magnified as in the days of David. 
JUDAS: Surely. And as for me, I too had a firm confidence, but each day made a 
gap and could no longer repair the weight of the feeble purse which was owed to 
the swollen popular enthusiasm. And it’s we who were right and the 
country-bumpkins now look at themselves confused. Simon Peter, the son of Jonas, 
and those of Zebedee; they don’t understand and they will never understand how 
their Messiah — ah! ah! ah! — found himself to be one day nothing but a fine 
rogue, that tonight or tomorrow we are going to watch hang on a cross; and his 
death will be more profitable to us than his life, if we know how draw profit 
from the lesson and reverse our judgements. 
LAZARUS: It’s not possible that the Master did not perceive your spitefulness, 
Iscariot! 
JUDAS: Oh! surely, revived he knows all. He sees spirits, he sounds hearts, but 
he can’t prevent anything. 
CLEOPHAS: There’s nothing left for us to do but go home. 
JUDAS: Nothing more to know. Peace be with you, Lazarus, and with that sister of 
yours who didn’t change her life. You were really good to take back the other 
one. Watch her for fear she doesn’t commit some new folly with the money she 
earned at Magdala. 
NATHAN: Peace be with you, Lazarus. 
(Magdalene enters.) 
LAZARUS: Did we awaken you, Mary? 
MAGDALENE: No. It’s day. 
LAZARUS: Already. 
MAGDALENE: You didn’t sleep tonight, Lazarus. 
LAZARUS: Nathan and Cleophas have come. 
MAGDALENE: The peace of the Lord be with you, Nathan and Cleophas; and with you, 
Judas. (greetings) Can I know, brother? 
LAZARUS: Awaken your sister, Mary. You and I will go down to Jerusalem. Cleophas 
and Nathan bring us bad news. The Master has been arrested. 
MAGDALENE: The Messiah! Arrested? 
JUDAS: The Messiah! What are you babbling to us about the Messiah, poor 
madwoman! 
LAZARUS: Silence, Judas! Don’t further scandalize — 
JUDAS: The Magdalene scandalized by a word? Yes, woman, Jesus was arrested. And 
what is more, tried, and what is more, condemned. 
MAGDALENE: Condemned! Him! Judas, you are lying, right? You have never inspired 
me with confidence. Cleophas, Nathan, Lazarus! 
LAZARUS: Let’s go to Jerusalem. We will know. 
JUDAS: Don’t go if you are sensible. You will only see lamentable things there. 
Do you really want to see a man die so much? 
MAGDALENE: Die? 
NATHAN: The hate of the Sanhedrin is great. 
CLEOPHAS: He didn’t spare the doctors and the priests in his speeches. 
MAGDALENE: You believe that they will kill him? 
JUDAS: They will put themselves out to do so. 
MAGDALENE: Oh! Let’s go! Let’s go. All to witness for him. And with us, all the 
disciples. 
JUDAS: Now there’s a dangerous madwoman! Compromise ourselves? Us? And for an 
impostor, a sorcerer? Thanks. As for us we don’t push love to that point. Go 
witness. You, if you wish, with your brother, the resurrected. Perhaps with your 
see-through dress from Magdala and him with the shroud of the sepulchre, you 
will make an impression on the tribunal. Or on Pontius Pilate, the Procurator. 
Witness? Us? On what pretext? On the pretext of dupes. I can hear the laughter 
when we, morons, will say, "It’s we who believed he was king." Let’s go, 
Cleophas, come on, Nathan. I would sooner see you howl with wolves. It’s been 
long enough that we followed the shepherd’s crosier of this pastor from hell! He 
was leading us to the slaughterhouse. Let’s be gone; they breathe dementia 
around this one who returned from the tomb. Rather, let’s seek out the company 
of people of mud and sin; we will find someone to talk to. 
CLEOPHAS: I shall return home. 
NATHAN: I am returning to my business. Goodbye, Lazarus. 
MAGDALENE: Cleophas, Nathan; you aren’t going to abandon him like this! Him, the 
Christ, the King, the Great Friend who loved us so much; you are truly thinking 
of abandoning him in an hour so dark and bitter? 
CLEOPHAS: If he is the Christ? 
NATHAN: Yes, why this dark hour? 
MAGDALENE: It’s a test! It’s a test! 
NATHAN: A test ? 
MAGDALENE: Wouldn’t a king have the right at the moment of introducing his 
friends into his kingdom to test their friendship? We pretended to love him. Who 
knows if this humiliation is not so he can distinguish among us those who love 
him in truth, and those who love him only with their mouth, their heart being 
solely occupied with a brilliant greed? Don’t you feel remorse or trouble when 
you speak of returning to your business? You lower your eyes. You see indeed you 
cannot abandon such a friend in distress. Is there someone other than him? Is 
there a brother, a relative, a mother you have ever spoken to as he spoke to 
you? You yourself, Judas, somber heart, I know that all the words you utter 
against him are returning against you and bite you like serpents. His generosity 
is more terrible than the wrath of the Eternal One. He who speaks against 
generosity sharpens the swords which devour him and is preparing for himself a 
bed of burning coals. Cone on! Let’s all go to Jerusalem. 
CLEOPHAS: But what can we do for him? As Galileans we will be scorned. Our 
testimony will not be received. They will stone us if we raise our voice in his 
favor. The Pharisees won’t forgive. What are we? 
MAGDALENE: Well, at least we will be there. The Master will recognize us. 
Indeed, won't you be pleased to have friends at the bed of your last fever, to 
hide from you the terrible face of death? Indeed, isn’t there merit for us to 
endure some small tortures so as not to leave him all alone amidst the terrors 
of the day prepared for him. 
NATHAN: Well, let’s go down to Jerusalem. 
JUDAS: I’m not going there. It’s not rendering him a service by imposing on him 
the sight of those he deceived. Your presence will be a reproach to him. An 
overwhelming reproach. I won’t go. I don’t like seeing a man die; and this 
death, were it of my best friend or the worst swindler. 
MAGDALENE: Come, Judas, come, too. It’s not necessary that he have a traitor 
amongst the twelve that were dear to him. It’s necessary that he see you all. 
JUDAS: A traitor? Why do you say a traitor? If there was a traitor amongst us it 
was him! None other! You don’t have the status to judge, to judge me. Who are 
you to judge me? 
MAGDALENE: O Judas, I don’t judge you. I am only a wretch who sins, who is 
remorseful. Don’t come if you don’t wish to come, Judas. 
JUDAS: No, I won’t go. If I went there I couldn’t prevent myself from shouting, 
"Christ, you who saved others, save yourself!" And when I shall see him on his 
cross I fear my furor would exclaim — "Christ, come down from this wood then, 
you who resurrect others! Maker of prodigies, now is the hour of your prodigies 
— or never! Triumph! prove your royalty! Defend yourself or perish!" 
MAGDALENE: While he’s living, don’t defy him, Judas Iscariot. 
JUDAS: While he’s living? Is he still living? And, if he’s living, it’s a life 
so enchained that he’ll much prefer to be dead. 
MAGDALENE: And who tells you that during the hour of death the hour of glory 
won’t thunder? And aren’t you dismayed by being excluded from it, you who lived 
to possess it? You know quite well he commands death. Look at this one, my 
brother. You are not dreaming. Here’s the sun and he has not vanished. I feel, I 
know, Oh, I know, I divine! You, today, you dread to hear burst out the very 
voice which commanded Lazarus to arise. He is living! He is King! He can do what 
he wishes! At this moment, even when you outrage him, and the sun rises, 
Jerusalem sees, perhaps unheard of things and echoes with Hosannas! 
NATHAN: Let’s go; let’s all go! Woman, you have restored my faith. 
CLEOPHAS: Let’s go! For the day won’t end without a great miracle having 
appeared. 
JUDAS: They are mad! I tell you, he is bound, condemned. He knows it, he foresaw 
it. He can do nothing to prevent it! I could tell you — 
LAZARUS: Judas, you can only hurt us. You speak from a troubled heart. I pray 
the Eternal to give you peace. Goodbye, Judas. Mary, we are leaving. Go wake up 
your sister. 
(Magdalene exits.) 
JUDAS: I am leaving you. Don’t believe that I hate him. But he deceived us. I 
have difficulty understanding that you take it this way, this reversal, this 
malice, this — this betrayal. Yes, and that you could still believe in the face 
of this disaster. 
LAZARUS: No disaster. All disaster is for one who doubts. 
JUDAS: As for me, I don’t doubt. As for you, I could tell you — Perhaps, you 
could understand me. 
LAZARUS: I understand you enough to pity you. 
JUDAS: No. Ah! Pity me! As for me, I’m safe. As for me, I am bathing in 
jubilation! It’s I who pity you. Resurrected because you are a fool; the 
sepulchre has rendered you mad. Madness germinates beneath the feet of the 
Nazarene; it’s born from his voice. Life ceases to be angry with itself. It 
almost makes me mad like you, like your sister who hopes to see impossible 
things one day. What then? The heavens open? The angels of Jehovah in the 
streets of Jerusalem? She won’t see anything but a man hanged; about whom no one 
will speak further tomorrow. And you will be confounded with your madness. 
Remember what I say to you, me, Judas. And when you are cured, I will tell you 
to whom you owe your health! Goodbye. We will speak of it again. 
(Exit Judas.) 
NATHAN: If we are mad, I beg the Lord that he never make me sane like that man. 
(The women appear in the doorway.) 
CLEOPHAS: Let’s go! We are in God’s hands. 
LAZARUS: Let’s go. Life isn’t on this side of the tomb. 
(Exit all.) 
CURTAIN 
SCENE VII. GOLGOTHA
(Enter Judas.) 
JUDAS: He rises and I fall. We didn’t have any choice. He was born to be just; I 
was born to — for what? Nothing. How foolish it is; no one can disobey the demon 
who receives us as we leave the maternal womb. Jehovah, who created the two of 
us said, "This one will speak as a prophet and die as a prophet. This one will 
follow him for a while blindly; and then the scales will fall from his eyes and 
he will choke in his last sin." David appeared. From the first day of his life, 
light was his share and fate. And Saul, strong and valiant and handsome as he 
lived in shadows and died in shadows. Here he is unrecognizable. Him! Scarlet 
and crowned — with what? The King. I did that! No. There’s the Eternal, Jehovah, 
who knows what he’s doing; we are in his hands to execute the decisions of his 
mind. Yes — Earth! Oh! He’s scratching out my eyes. He can’t see me bent over 
like that. He can see nothing blinded by blood. Flee! To be the innocent stones 
which roll under his feet; innocent! Not to hear the voice which dazzles in my 
ears, the bitter voice of despair. Strike! Strike him! He’s going to fall. 
Strike! Jehovah is mute. Nothing budges. I will gorge my heart with this vision 
and let it die in its pleasure. 
(He hides in the trees. Enter Jesus, the Centurion and some soldiers. Simon of 
Cyrene, Magdalene, Veronica, Martha, and other women. John, Nicodemus, Joseph, 
Daniel, soldiers and servants of the Temple, Cleophas and Nathan.) 
CENTURION: Come on! Hurry, man! You aren’t moving. 
JESUS: Abba! Abba! 
CENTURION: March! 
JESUS: My Father, have you abandoned me? (fainting) I can’t do any more, 
brother. Pity! 
CENTURION: March, I tell you! 
JESUS: Pity, brother! This cross is heavy and blood is blinding me. Let me rest 
a short moment on my hands and knees. I am weak and I think I am going to faint 
or die! 
CENTURION: Up there! Come on, one more effort and we will be there. 
A SOLDIER: March! Do you think we are going to carry the King of the Jews on our 
shoulders? 
CENTURION: Let him breathe a minute. 
DANIEL: You see! Now behold the one who gave himself out as the Son of Jehovah 
God! There’s the Messiah that you were following! He bleeds like a man and he 
weeps like a woman. 
THE CROWD: Death to the Messiah! The Impostor! The Liar! 
CENTURION: They don’t love you, your subjects. 
JESUS: They don’t know what they are doing, 
CENTURION: As for you, you know even less. What were you doing to have deserved 
a promenade like this in the heat, with a hundred pounds on your back and a rest 
that’s awaiting you on the summit? All the same, you don’t seem like a bad man 
to me. 
A SOLDIER: A lunatic. 
ANOTHER: Who are these women here? Unveil yourselves a little, gorgeous! Do we 
interest you? 
CENTURION: Or the King on all fours! What do you want, my pretty? 
VERONICA: I beg you Lord, allow me to wipe the face of the poor condemned. 
CENTURION: He’s one of your friends, my child? 
VERONICA: Lord, he never did evil to anyone. Indeed, will you —? 
CENTURION: Do it, child. It’s curious to be hated to this degree by men and 
loved so grandly by women. Listen to them weep and sob under their veils. You’d 
say there were no more mothers, or sisters, or mistresses, all these statues of 
desolation? See how she tenderly wipes the face of this Adonis. By Venus and the 
Graces, it’s touching. 
DANIEL: It’s a scandal! Make him move, Centurion. 
CENTURION: Are you jealous, old man? Calm yourself. Things won’t go on much 
longer. In less than an hour they won’t be able to admire him any more, all 
naked on his wood. 
A SOLDIER: Flavius, pass me your gourd. I am dying of thirst. 
WOMEN: Ah! Lord! Ah, God! Alas! 
JESUS: Women, don’t weep for me. Weep for yourselves and for them! The time is 
near when mothers will envy those whose entrails are sterile. Weep for 
yourselves, daughters of Jerusalem. For a man who is dying today you will mourn 
tomorrow for having given day to man. (to Simon) Thanks, brother. Let’s go so 
that everything may be accomplished. 
CENTURION: March! Women, get back! You’ve been warned not to have children! 
SOLDIERS: Ah! Ah! Now’s the moment to give oneself over, since after us, the end 
of the world. 
(Exeunt Jesus and the Roman soldiers.) 
DANIEL: I am returning to the city, Selomith. Be present at the execution of the 
sentence together with the soldiers and the servants of the Temple. Then come 
give us an account of the last moments of this rogue and the attitude of the 
people. For my part, I am edified. Having seen what I’ve seen I don’t have the 
least doubt as to the justice of the sentence. Nicodemus, Joseph, are you 
accompanying me? 
NICODEMUS: Excuse me, Daniel; however cruel the spectacle may be, I intend to 
see it. Pilate recognized that this was a just man. I intend to see how the just 
die. 
JOSEPH: It’s just not every day a just man dies in Jerusalem. 
NICODEMUS: Where ten men die daily. 
(They leave in different directions: Nicodemus, Joseph, Daniel and the Jews.) 
JOHN: I will follow him. I will have his last look. 
CLEOPHAS: And if he was only an impostor? 
JOHN: I loved him. 
NATHAN: Let’s follow him to the end. I no longer believe; I cannot believe. 
CLEOPHAS: What, Nathan? 
NATHAN: That all powerful Jehovah won’t perform a miracle. I cannot believe that 
Jesus is dying. 
CLEOPHAS: Alas, didn’t I hear it, that sigh? "Father, have you abandoned me?" 
JOHN: All flesh is weak, Cleophas. The flesh sighs but the spirit, the spirit 
soars. 
(Exeunt the women and the disciples.) 
MAGDALENE: Martha, will you be as strong? 
MARTHA: Unto death! 
MAGDALENE: Come then, sister. Lean on my arm. 
JUDAS: (entering) Stay, Magdalene; I have a word to say to you. 
MAGDALENE: Well, accompany us up there, Judas. 
JUDAS: My place isn’t up there and I must speak to you. Refuse: I am dying. 
MAGDALENE: You have a strange look. Go, Martha, rejoin Veronica. I won’t be 
long, but there is a charitable duty here. 
(Exit Martha.) 
JUDAS: Why do you want to go up there? It’s not a spectacle for your eyes. 
MAGDALENE: My eyes have seen so many spectacles that weren’t for them. 
JUDAS: What’s the good of wanting to weep? 
MAGDALENE: One doesn’t get one’s salvation by laughing. Laughter agreed with the 
frivolus girl of Magdala; it doesn’t set with the serving girl of Jesus. 
JUDAS: But he’s dying. You don’t owe him any more service — if you ever did owe 
him any. 
MAGDALENE: Women like us, we don’t forget those that we loved. Watch, Eternal 
One, Our Father, take me from the world the day I shall forget him. 
JUDAS: You owe yourself to the living. 
MAGDALENE: So long as I will live, and so long as my brother and my Sister live, 
I will willingly serve them. In the name of Jesus, their friend, they gave me 
mercy, without any reproach, and they pardoned me as he pardoned me. 
JUDAS: They pardoned you! Martha and Lazarus only pardoned you with their mouth; 
they haven’t opened their door to you, keeping their hearts quite shut. And the 
one who wished to be loved didn’t love anybody, didn’t give himself to anyone. 
MAGDALENE: Judas, he’s dying for us. 
JUDAS: What? 
MAGDALENE: I feel he’s dying for us. 
JUDAS: Madwoman! He’s dying because he didn’t know how to cheat death. And at 
the last moment, when he names his father, Jehovah hasn’t aided him. Neither he 
nor anyone can know the obscure will of Jehovah. The Just and the Unjust go to 
death by ways unforseen; if this one had been able to see that his preaching 
would lead him to Calvary and crucifixion, do you think he would have played the 
role of the Son of David? He believed in that kingdom and that Jehovah would 
help him to found his kingdom. Jehovah only wanted to see one more prophet die. 
MAGDALENE: Oh! Judas. The cross is up. 
JUDAS: Bearing its fruit. Stop and don’t look that way. Tell me, if it only 
required a word to save him, wouldn’t you say that word? 
MAGDALENE: Oh! Yes! If I were to die of it. 
JUDAS: He will die regardless of what you say! And your death won’t enable him 
to walk on earth again. As for me, I said a word to save you. I saw you were in 
love with a shadow; mad over a dream; lost because of a dream king. And, 
scorning my soul and the peace of my of my soul, and the peace of my future days 
and what you name salvation, I said: Let him die! This vision that you see. It’s 
necessary for a human being to tell me, to excuse me, to absolve me. 
MAGDALENE: Judas! Unfortunate! Have I really understood you? 
JUDAS: Yes. His death is my work. Let’s be humble: the work of Jehovah and the 
Iscariot. 
MAGDALENE: O treason! O treason! O treason! 
JUDAS: And Jehovah, the author of this treason, of all the other treasons of the 
Book, and all the deaths of the prophets and the crimes of the kings. 
MAGDALENE: You are Cain! 
JUDAS: Son of Adam; Son of God! But this one is not Abel. A liar, an impostor 
who deceived the Israelite people, and again disappointed a grand hope. The 
Messiah and he’s dying? May all those perish who mislead us and lead us to the 
slaughterhouse! They are great criminals. 
MAGDALENE: Your friend! He was your friend! 
JUDAS: I know nothing; I don’t want to hear anything. The vapor and the scream 
of blood are filling all the chambers of my skull; my ears are buzzing as if I 
were drowning. I’m perishing. Save me! 
MAGDALENE: May God pardon me; I can only regard you with horror. 
JUDAS: He deceived me; I betrayed him. 
MAGDALENE: You never loved him. 
JUDAS: I don’t know how to love. It’s not a question of loving in the Law or in 
the Prophets. I would have been able to obey him if he had commanded. The 
Ancient Lord of Israel, the All-Powerful, knew how to make himself obeyed. As 
for me, I am a Jew, not a Samaritan, not a Galilean with a tender heart. A Jew 
with a hard skull and a rough neck. You’ve got to speak to me in thunder claps. 
They promised us Canaan and we forced the frontiers at the point of the sword. 
The Eternal kept all his promises; there’s only one left. We must rule all the 
nations with a Messiah; a king is owed us. That’s promised. The Eternal cannot 
perjure himself. How can I pardon this Galilean who has only multiplied 
prodigies the better to deceive us? I cannot pardon; I don’t know how to love. 
The Law commands an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. This one makes us 
offer the left cheek after the right cheek is smitten. He contradicts the Law. 
To annul the Law you must be above the Law. He is submitting to it at this hour. 
He was not the Messiah. Jehovah, The Eternal, doesn’t know him. Indeed, I don’t 
know how he was able to seduce so many poor folks. But he speaks as if he were 
the truth. But it’s a voice too sweet for my ears. I tell you for me he needs to 
thunder, and the column of flame and the pillar of fog must be visible. Woman, I 
haven’t betrayed. It was something which outstrips me. I could only obey. Woman, 
why don’t you understand me? I could love you, yes, you, despite your pale mouth 
and the starry wrinkles in the corners of your eyes, and your fat body, certain 
that I could possess an object of desire, a living reality. I cannot love him 
because he only awakened in me an impossible desire, for a perfection, for a 
purity, for a triumph that isn’t inclined toward my spirit, that my hands cannot 
and never will be able to grasp. Thinking of it, this drives me mad. I cling to 
the earth by my entrails. Woman, woman I confess my crime. I killed him. I don’t 
know why. Don’t flee me scornfully or I will die. 
MAGDALENE: Come with me up there. Come ask pardon of him, from him. 
JUDAS: He’s only a man! I don’t care about his pardon. His pardon would be a 
shower of fire to me. But me, you have sinned; understand my sin. 
MAGDALENE: Come up there. 
JUDAS: No. 
MAGDALENE: Goodbye. 
JUDAS: Magdalene. 
MAGDALENE: Jesus! I’m coming. Away from me! Don’t touch me, accursed! 
(Exit Magdalene.) 
JUDAS: Repulsed! By the worst of men, by the worst of women. Down! Down! Soil, 
absorb me! Shadows, engulf me! Death, you, you alone, final wish. Oh! This 
intolerable light, the grasshoppers. Cursed be my father and my mother, and you, 
Jehovah! And you, Galilean! And the priests and Israel! And myself. This money, 
let them take it back. Yuck! No need for money to purchase death. A rope, a 
ruined tree. I vomit life, I vomit myself. The Sun (the stages darkens to 
shadows) is dead! May God be cursed! May the world be cursed! 
CONFUSED VOICES: Ah! ah! ah! ah! 
JUDAS: More nothing! Emptiness! There’s no more of anything. I am the last man 
living among ghosts. Let me find a tree. Let me return this money. 
CONFUSED VOICES: Ah! ah! ah! ah! 
BLACKOUT 
SCENE VIII. THE PILGRIMS
(The shadows slowly dissipate. The hall of an inn can be seen. A door open on 
the twilight. Cleophas, Nathan and a stranger enter.) 
CLEOPHAS: No, Emmanuel, dear traveling companion, don’t leave us. We will sup 
together and we will spend the night in this inn. 
NATHAN: We were full of trouble and sadness since Jerusalem. Your words have 
strangely comforted us. But doubts remain in my mind. 
STRANGER: What? 
NATHAN: You’ve shown us that all these events had to come about; that all we 
witnessed in Jerusalem was announced by the prophets, and that Jesus was indeed 
the Messiah expected by Israel. But how will Israel be saved by this long 
foretold death? 
CLEOPHAS: We the living, will we see in our own time the idols beaten down as 
predicted by Ezekial? And will we see Jesus reign over the Jews and the Gentiles 
as King David announced? 
NATHAN: And is it true as Magdalene and Peter found his sepulchre empty, that we 
will see Jesus resurrected? 
STRANGER: Men of little faith, wasn’t it necessary that the Christ die the least 
honorable death so that you, his disciples and all those you will convert may no 
longer fear those who will persecute you. Because the most relentless enemy, if 
he can do everything to the body can do nothing to the soul. They can nail flesh 
to wood, but how will they murder the teaching, if the crucified flesh doesn’t 
consent to blaspheme the spirit? Did the one of whose death you told me renounce 
life, blaspheme the spirit and curse his doctrine? 
CLEOPHAS: He said only, "Everything is consummated." 
STRANGER: No renunciation then. You must imitate him to that degree, You must 
communicate to your brothers the words of life, the secret of immortality. If 
you are still afraid, after having seen him die; if possessing the truth, you 
refuse to spread it, to divulge it, you will not be worthy to be called 
disciples even were it made the price of your repose, of great sufferings, of 
universal hate and all of your blood. And you won’t be of the numbers of the 
elect of your kingdom. Know him! Elected for all the glory, you are elected for 
all the sorrow of the world. The world will never pay you for your works. Your 
task is to resurrect this Jesus in your faithful heart, first of all in your 
wounds and in your tears and in your teachings, and in your death. Thereafter, 
vanquishers of the sepulchre to stir it up, imperishable, among the immense 
conflagration of souls illuminated by your hands from the flame that he himself 
ignited in your hearts. Make of the world a burning coal of inextinguishable 
light, where men, on an immense altar no longer sacrifice characteristic animals 
of the old Law, but the inner idols, those of the flesh and the intelligence and 
the three great luxuries. As for me, I too have seen the horrifying and 
prodigious misery of mortal man; and seeing it, I measured Satan. And if your 
testimony is true of the life, actions, and death of Jesus of Nazareth, I tell 
you that Death and Satan are overthrown; that the salvation of man has come. A 
man had to come, who, by lowering himself over the abyss, who by experiencing 
all the evil, all the poverty, all the sorrow of life, a man that Satan tested 
in his flesh, in his heart, in his intelligence, a man who dared to struggle 
with all the temptations of the world, by drinking the chalice to the dregs, by 
draining all the bitterness of death, by sounding even to vertigo all the 
infirmities of man, by weeping when confronting childhood misery, the wife and 
its poor love which is an admission of distress, lame manhood, black and 
despairing, and all the terrible powerlessness, and all the terrible and 
ridiculous pride of this chaos and this vanity, the human man! He appeared, 
according to your testimony, and said, "Man is nothing, God is everything, and 
between Man and God, I will be the intermediary." And he named God "Our Father" 
and untangled the confused skein of our destinies. He rediscovered the thread 
and twine of life which reunites man to God, and through which Life, the air, 
the light, nourishment are communicated to the shadowy child. Nothing lives in 
man; everything lives in God. And all will pass except this word; heaven and 
earth will pass and this word will not pass. Recognize this and you will live; 
your feet are still in darkness but your face is bathing in light. And this 
Jesus who was made all man, and did not succumb to the shame of being a man, and 
knew how to find God again, it seems to me that you would be able, by his very 
living even in the phantom of his person and his mortal features to discern the 
face of the Eternal, who made man and this man in particular according to the 
Eternal plan and who won’t drag the human race through the mud only to return to 
the mud. O disciples, didn’t he say to you, watching his death, he had broken 
the bread thus, that he blessed it thus, and that he had given to those who 
shared it a supreme meal? 
CLEOPHAS AND NATHAN: Lord! 
(The Stranger vanishes.) 
CLEOPHAS AND NATHAN: Him! It was him! Disappeared. 
NATHAN: O Cleophas! My heart burned hearing him. 
CLEOPHAS: Joy! Joy! He’s resurrected. 
NATHAN: Christ is resurrected! O Cleophas! Say it! Say it! Speak! Sing! 
CLEOPHAS: And if he had to die — 
NATHAN: There is no more death! There is life, my brother. 
CLEOPHAS: Love! Truth! There’s God! 
NATHAN: And all men, all the millions of men that must be led to God. 
CLEOPHAS: To joy. O blind men that we were. 
NATHAN: I seen now! Brother, it’s necessary that all our brothers know the news. 

CLEOPHAS: And if they crucify us —? 
NATHAN: We will be imitating him to that point. 
CLEOPHAS: What does death matter? 
NATHAN: What does life matter? 
CLEOPHAS: There’s an eternal life. 
NATHAN: Which doesn’t know death! Where Christ reigns. 
CLEOPHAS: Where Christ reigns! 
CURTAIN