The Gospel in Brief

Chapter Twelve THE SPIRIT’S VICTORY OVER THE FLESH

And therefore, there can be no evil for the man within the father’s will, who lives a life in common with others and not his own individual life. The death of the flesh is unification with the father.

FOR THINE IS THE KINGDOM AND THE POWER AND THE GLORY.

When Jesus finishes his speech to his students, he stands and instead of fleeing or defending himself, goes to meet Judas, who is leading the soldiers to apprehend him. Jesus approaches him and asks him why he had come. But Judas does not answer and the group of soldiers surrounds Jesus. Peter rushes to defend his teacher and begins to fight with a knife; Jesus stops Peter and says that whoever fights with a knife would himself perish from the knife, and commands him to surrender the knife. He gives himself up to those that had come to take him. All of the students scatter and Jesus remained alone.

The chief of the soldiers commands that Jesus be bound and brought to Caiaphus, the current bishop and the one who had come up with the argument that had justified the killing of Jesus. Jesus, feeling himself to be within the will of the father, does not resist, and does not fear as they lead him away. But Peter, who had just promised Jesus that he would not deny him, and that he would die for him, when he sees that Jesus is going to be executed, is scared that he would be executed as well, and disavows any connection to Jesus and leaves. Only afterwards, when the cock crows, does Peter understand everything that Jesus had told him. He understands that there are two temptations of the flesh: fear and violence, and that Jesus had been struggling with them when he prayed in the garden and invited the students to pray with him. He understands that he has now fallen into both of these temptations: he had wanted to defend the truth with violence, and he had not withstood the fear of suffering in the flesh by denying his teacher.

Caiaphus begins to interrogate Jesus, to see what his teaching consisted of. But Jesus knows that Caiaphus is not interested in the meaning of his teaching but is simply looking to accuse him, and so does not answer, but says, “If you want to know my teaching, speak with those that listened to it and understood it.” Jesus is beaten for this. Witnesses are brought in to demonstrate that Jesus had boasted about destroying the Jewish faith.

The bishop commands, “Tell me, are you the Christ, the son of God?” Jesus says, “Yes, I am a man, the son of God, and now, when you torment me, you will see that a man can be equal with God.” The bishop is overjoyed with these words because they proved Jesus’s guilt. The judges condemn him to death. And all of the people throw themselves at Jesus and beat him, spitting in his face and swearing at him. He is silent.

The Jews did not have the authority to condemn people to death, so they bring Jesus to the Roman leader Pilate, for him to sentence Jesus to death. Pilate asks them why they want to kill Jesus. They say, “Because he is an evil man.” Pilate says, “If he is an evil man, then judge him according to your law.” They say, “We want you to execute him because he is guilty before the Roman Caesar: he is an insurgent, he plants mutiny among the people, he forbids them to pay taxes to Caesar, calling himself the Jewish king.” Pilate calls Jesus to him and says, “What does this mean that you are the Jewish king?” Jesus says, “Do you want to know exactly what my kingdom means? Or are you asking me only for the sake of appearances?” Pilate says, “I am not a Jew and it is all the same to me whether you call yourself the Jewish king or not; I am asking you what kind of man you are and for what reason they are saying that you are a king?” Jesus says, “It is true that I call myself a king, but my kingdom is not an earthly kingdom, it is a heavenly one. Earthly kings kill each other, make battles and command troops, but you see: they have bound me and beaten me, but I am not opposing them. I am a king of heaven, I am all-powerful in spirit. Everyone who lives according to truth is free and is therefore a king. I live and teach only in order to reveal the truth to people that they are free in spirit.” Pilate says, “You teach truth, but no one knows what truth is. Everyone has their own truth.” Having said that he turned and walked away from Jesus, back to the Jews.

Pilate says, “I have not found anything criminal in this man. Why execute him?” The bishops say, “We must execute him because he is inciting the people to rebellion.” Then Pilate interrogates Jesus in front of the bishops; but Jesus, seeing that this interrogation was only for the sake of form, does not answer. Then Pilate says, “I cannot condemn him by myself; take him to Herod.”

At Herod’s court, Jesus likewise says nothing and does not answer the accusations of the bishops, and Herod, taking Jesus to be a fool, commands them to dress him in red clothing for comic effect and send him back to Pilate. Pilate is sorry for Jesus. He tries to convince the bishops to forgive Jesus in consideration of the holiday at least, but the bishops would not relent and they all, with the people behind them, cry for Jesus to be crucified on a cross. They say, “He is guilty of calling himself the son of God.” Pilate calls Jesus to him again and asks him, “What does it mean that you call yourself the son of God? Who are you?” Jesus does not answer. Then Pilate says, “How is it that you do not answer me when I have the power to either execute or free you?” Jesus responds, “You do not have any power over me. Power comes only from above.” And Pilate, for the third time, tries to convince the Jews to release Jesus, but they say to him, “If you do not execute this man, whom we have shown to be an insurgent against Caesar, then you yourself are no friend to Caesar, you are an enemy.” And hearing these words, Pilate capitulates and commands that Jesus be executed. Jesus is undressed, cut open and again dressed in ridiculous clothing; they beat him, laugh, and swear at him. Then they give him a cross to carry and command him to go to the place of execution and there they crucify him on a cross.

As Jesus hangs on the cross, all of the people curse him. He answers these curses by saying, “Father! Do not condemn them: they do not know what they are doing.” And then, when he is close to death, he says, “My father! I offer my soul to your power.” And bowing his head, he releases his spirit.

And after that Jesus said, “Now stand up and let us go, the one who betrays me is already approaching.”

As soon as he said this, Judas, one of the twelve students, suddenly appeared and with him, a large group of people with clubs and knives.

Judas said to them, “I will take you to where he is with his students. And so that you can distinguish him from all the others, watch for this: whomever I kiss first, that will be him.”

And right away he went up to Jesus and said, “Hello, teacher!”

And he kissed him.

And Jesus said to him, “Friend! Why are you here?”

Then the guards surrounded Jesus, wanting to take him.

And at this point Peter took the knife of the bishops’ servant and severed the man’s ear.

Jesus said, “There is no need to oppose evil. Leave it alone.”

And to Peter, he said, “Give the knife back to the one you took it from. Whoever takes up the sword will perish by the sword.”

After this Jesus turned to the whole crowd and said, “Why have you come to me, like bandits, with weapons? I have been among you every day, after all, at the temple, teaching you, and you did not take me then. Your time has come as has the power of darkness.”

Then, having seen that he had been taken, all the students scattered.

Then the chief commanded the soldiers to take Jesus and bind him. The soldiers bound him and took him first to Anan, who was the father-in-law of Caiaphus. Caiaphus was the high priest for the current year and lived in the same courtyard as Anan. This was the same Caiaphus who had devised the way to destroy Jesus. He had proposed that it would be beneficial for the nation to destroy Jesus because if they did not destroy Jesus, it would be bad for the whole nation.

And Jesus was taken into the courtyard of the home where the high priest lived. When Jesus was being taken there, one of his students, Peter, followed after him at some distance and saw where he was being taken. When they took Jesus into the courtyard of the high priest, Peter went in as well to see how it all would end.

And a certain girl in the courtyard saw Peter and said to him, “You were with Jesus the Galilean also.”

Peter was scared that he would be condemned as well, so he loudly said, in front of all the people, “I do not know what you are saying.”

Then, when Jesus had been taken into the home, Peter went with all the people into the inner porch. On the porch, there was a woman keeping warm by a fire as Peter approached.

The woman glanced at Peter and said to the other people, “Look at this man, it seems to me that he was with Jesus the Nazarene also.”

Peter was scared even more and swore that he had never been with Jesus and did not know who this man Jesus was.

A short time later, some people came to Peter and said, “But by all appearances you were one of these insurgents. We can tell by your accent that you are from Galilee.”

Then Peter began to swear and vow that he never knew and had never seen Jesus. And just as he said this, the cock crowed. And Peter remembered the words that Jesus had said when Peter swore that even if all the others denied him, he would never deny him, “Before the cock crows to end this night, you will deny me three times.” And Peter left the courtyard and cried bitterly. He cried because he had failed to raise his spirit high enough to avoid falling into temptation. He had fallen into the one temptation of violence, when he had begun to defend Jesus, and into the other temptation of fear before death when he had denied Jesus.

And the orthodox bishops, dogmatists and leaders all gathered together at the high priest’s home. And when they had all come together, they brought in Jesus, and the high priest asked him what his teaching was and who his students were.

And Jesus answered, “I have always spoken openly to the world and I am speaking that way now. I have never hidden anything from anyone and am not hiding anything now. Why is it that you are asking me? Ask those that listened to me and understood my teaching. They will tell you.”

When Jesus had said this, one of the bishops’ servants hit Jesus in the face, saying, “Do you know who you are speaking to? Is that how one ought to speak to a bishop?”

Jesus said, “If I said something wrong, tell me that I said something wrong. But if I did not say anything wrong, then you have no reason to hit me.”

The orthodox bishops attempted to accuse Jesus and at first they could not find the sort of evidence that would be required in order to sentence him. Then they found two witnesses.

These witnesses said of Jesus, “We heard with our own ears what this man said: ‘I,’ he said, ‘will destroy this man-made temple of yours and in three days will build another temple to God—one made without human hands.’”

But these pieces of evidence were still not enough to convict him.

Therefore the bishop decided to challenge Jesus and said, “What is keeping you from answering their statements?”

Jesus was silent and did not say anything.

Then the bishop said to him, “Then tell us, are you the Christ, the son of God?”

Jesus answered him by saying, “Yes, I am the Christ, the son of God. And you yourselves will see now that the son of man is equal to God.”

Then the bishop shouted, “You are blaspheming against God! And now we have no need for additional evidence. We all can hear now that you are a blasphemer.”

And the bishop turned to the council and said, “Now you have heard for yourselves that he blasphemes against God. What sentence will you give him for this crime?”

And they all said, “We sentence him to death.”

And then all of the people and the guards fell upon Jesus and began to spit in his face and to slap his cheeks and scratch him.

They bound his eyes, hit him about the face and asked, “Well now, you prophet, take a guess: who is it that hit you?”

And Jesus was silent.

Having humiliated him, they took the bound man to Pontius Pilate, leading him to the administration.

Pilate, the ruler, came out to them and asked, “What do you accuse this man of doing?”

They said, “This man does evil, and that is why we have brought him to you.”

And Pilate said to them, “But if he does evil to you, then you should judge him yourselves according to your law.” But they said, “We have brought him to you because we want you to execute him; we are not allowed to kill anyone.”

And that is how what Jesus had expected came to pass. He had said that he must be prepared to die on a cross at the hands of the Romans, and not a natural death and not at the hands of the Jews.

When Pilate had asked them what they were accusing him of doing, they said that he was guilty of inciting the people to rebellion, that he had forbidden them from paying their taxes to Caesar and that he presented himself as the Christ and a king.

Pilate listened to them and commanded that Jesus be brought to him in his chambers.

When Jesus came in, Pilate said to him, “Are you this Jewish king?”

Jesus said to him, “Do you really suspect that I am a king or are you just repeating what the others have told you?”

Pilate said, “I am not a Jew. Accordingly, you cannot be my king, but your own people have brought you to me. What sort of man are you?”

Jesus said, “I am a king, but my kingdom is not an earthly one. If I were an earthly king, my subjects would be fighting for me and not surrendering to the bishops. But as you can see, my kingdom is not an earthly one.”

Pilate said to this, “But all the same, you consider yourself a king?”

Jesus said, “Not only I, but you also must consider me a king. I make this point only in order to reveal to everyone the truth of the kingdom of heaven. And everyone who lives by the truth is a king.”

Pilate said, “You say: truth. What is truth?” And having said that, he turned and went back to the bishops. He went out to them and said, “In my opinion, this man has not done anything wrong.”

But the bishops insisted, saying that he had done considerable evil and had incited the people to rebellion, that he had incited all of Judea, starting in Galilee.

Then Pilate began to question Jesus in front of the bishops, but Jesus would not answer.

Pilate said to him, “Don’t you see how they are condemning you, why do you not explain yourself?”

But Jesus continued to be silent and did not say another word, and as a result, Pilate was amazed.

Pilate remembered that Galilee was under the power of King Herod and asked, “Is he from Galilee?”

They said to him, “Yes.”

Then he said, “If he is from Galilee, then he is under Herod’s jurisdiction. I will send the man to him.”

Herod was in Jerusalem at that time, so Pilate, in order to extricate himself from these people, sent Jesus to Herod. Herod was very happy to see Jesus when he was led in. He had heard much about him and wanted to find out what sort of man he was.

Herod called him in and began to question him about everything that he wanted to know; Jesus did not answer him anything. And the bishops and teachers, just as they had done with Pilate, accused Jesus harshly before Herod and said that he was an insurgent. And Herod considered Jesus to be a foolish man, so, in order to ridicule him, he commanded that Jesus be dressed in a red garment and then sent him back again to Pilate.

Herod felt satisfied that Pilate respected him, having sent Jesus to him for judgment, and because of this the two made peace, whereas previously they had been in a dispute. And after Jesus had been brought back to Pilate, Pilate called the bishops and Jewish leaders in again.

And he said to them, “You already brought this man to me because he incites the people to rebellion, and I questioned him in front of all of you and saw no sign of him being an insurgent. I sent him with you to Herod, and now, as you can see, they did not find anything dangerous about him there either. So, in my opinion, there is no reason to sentence him to death, but it would be better to punish him and let him go.”

And when the bishops heard this, they all shouted, “No, execute him, execute him in the Roman style, stretch him out on a cross.”

Pilate listened to this and said to the bishops, “Well, all right, but consider your tradition of forgiving one criminal every year for the Passover holiday. Here, in my prison sits Barabbas, the murderer and insurgent. So, one of these two must be acquitted: should it be Jesus or Barabbas?”

Pilate wanted to help Jesus, but the bishops had influenced the people so that they all shouted, “Barabbas! Barabbas!”

And Pilate said, “So what should I do with Jesus?”

Again, they shouted, “Hang him on a cross as the Romans do, hang him on a cross!”

And Pilate began to try to persuade them. He said, “For what reason are you so opposed to him? He has done nothing that would warrant sentencing to death. He has done no evil toward you. I will release him because I see no guilt in him.”

The bishops and their servants shouted, “Crucify, crucify him!”

And Pilate said to them, “If that is how it must be, then take him yourself and crucify him, but I see no guilt in him.”

And the bishops answered, “We demand what the law requires. According to the law, he must be executed because he has made himself the son of God.”

When Pilate heard these words, he became confused because he did not know what these words, the son of God, meant.

And, returning into his chambers, Pilate again called Jesus to him and asked him, “Who are you and where do you come from?”

But Jesus did not answer him.

Then Pilate said, “Why are you not answering me? Don’t you see that you are here in my power and that I can either crucify you or release you?”

Jesus answered him, “You do not have any power. Power comes only from above.”

Nevertheless, Pilate still wanted to release Jesus, and said, “How is it that you want to crucify your king?”

But the Jews said, “If you release Jesus, then you are demonstrating by doing so that you are a disloyal servant to Caesar, because this man who calls himself a king is an enemy to Caesar. Our king is Caesar! Crucify him.”

And when Pilate had heard these words, he understood that it had already become impossible for him to avoid executing Jesus.

So Pilate went to the Jews and took some water, washed his hands and said, “I am not to blame for the blood of this righteous man.”

And the whole crowd shouted, “Let his blood be on our hands and our children’s.”

And this is how the bishops overwhelmed him.

Then Pilate sat down in his sitting place, and commanded that Jesus be flogged first.

When they had flogged him, the soldiers who had done the flogging placed a wreath on his head and put a stick in his hand and threw a red cloak on his back and began to ridicule him: they bowed, laughing, at his feet and said, “Rejoice, it is the Jewish king!”

But then they beat him on his cheeks and on his head and spat in his face.

The bishops shouted, “Crucify him! Our king is Caesar. Crucify him.”

Then Pilate commanded that he be crucified.

They then took the red garments off of Jesus, put his own garments back on him and commanded him to carry the cross to the place called Golgotha, so that they could crucify him there. And he carried his cross to the place called Golgotha.

And there they stretched (crucified) Jesus on a cross, and two other men as well; the two on either side and Jesus in the middle.

When they had crucified Jesus, he said, “Father! absolve them: they do not know what they are doing.”

And once Jesus had been hung on the cross, the people surrounded him and swore at him.

They approached, shook their heads at him and said, “Now then, you wanted to destroy the temple of Jerusalem and rebuild it again in three days. So now, free yourself: get down from the cross.”

And the bishops and pastors stood there and made fun of him, saying, “He saved others, but he cannot save himself. Now show us that you are the Christ, come down from the cross and then we will believe in you. He said that he is the son of God and said that God would not abandon him. Well, what now? God seems to have abandoned him.”

And the people, along with the bishops and soldiers, swore at him and even one of those being crucified alongside him cursed him as well.

One of the thieves, cursing, said to him, “If you are the Christ, why not save yourself and us.”

But the other thief heard this and said, “You have no respect for God: you are hanging on a cross yourself and you are still cursing at an innocent man. We are being executed for something we have done, but this man did not do anything wrong.”

And turning to Jesus, this thief said to him, “Lord! Remember me in your kingdom.”

And Jesus said to him, “And now you will be blessed along with me.”

In the ninth hour, Jesus, entirely exhausted, spoke out loudly, “Eli, Eli, lama sabachthami?” That means: My God, my God, to what have you abandoned me?

And when they had heard this in the crowd, they started to laugh and said, “He is calling Elijah the prophet; let us see whether or not Elijah appears.”

Then Jesus said, “Drink.”

And one man took a sponge, doused it in vinegar (a bottle of it was standing nearby), stuck it on the end of a reed and offered it to Jesus.

Jesus sucked on the sponge and said in a loud voice, “It is done! Father, I offer my spirit into your hands.”

And bowing his head, he surrendered his spirit.