eBook
Related collections and offers
Overview
One of the great dramas of the biblical era is brought to thrilling new life in this epic novel told from the unique perspective of Judas Iscariot himself. This is the story of Judas the myth, condemned by Dante to the most terrifying circle of Hell; Judas the man, the son of wealth and power who fought to suppress the lusts of the flesh and the sin of pride to become one of the twelve original disciples of Jesus Christ; and Judas the apostle, victim of a diabolical lie, history’s arch traitor, who sold his Lord for thirty pieces of silver, and sealed his fate with a kiss.
From Judas’s years as the young rebel of an affluent family undone by his own idealism to his victimization by Pontius Pilate to the crucifixion and Christ’s resurrection, I, Judas “read[s] like a modern novel of intrigue and thrills” (Chattanooga Times). The final entry, following Dear and Glorious Physician and Great Lion of God, in a trilogy celebrating key historical figures of the Bible, it is one of the most powerful and revelatory works of religious fiction ever published.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781504042963 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Open Road Media |
| Publication date: | 08/01/2017 |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 352 |
| Sales rank: | 226,786 |
| File size: | 3 MB |
About the Author
Jess Stearn (1914–2002) was a pioneer in the nonfiction field, treating with frankness the once-taboo subjects of homosexuality (The Sixth Man), and drugs (The Seekers). His book on yoga (Yoga, Youth and Reincarnation) helped to start a vogue in this country. And his Door to the Future opened the possibility of psychic phenomena to a previously unconvinced public.
Taylor Caldwell (1900–1985) was one of the most prolific and widely read authors of the twentieth century. Born Janet Miriam Holland Taylor Caldwell in Manchester, England, she moved with her family to Buffalo, New York, in 1907. She started writing stories when she was eight years old and completed her first novel when she was twelve. Married at age eighteen, Caldwell worked as a stenographer and court reporter to help support her family and took college courses at night, earning a bachelor of arts degree from the University of Buffalo in 1931. She adopted the pen name Taylor Caldwell because legendary editor Maxwell Perkins thought her debut novel, Dynasty of Death (1938), would be better received if readers assumed it were written by a man. In a career that spanned five decades, Caldwell published forty novels, many of which were New York Times bestsellers. Her best-known works include the historical sagas The Sound of Thunder (1957), Testimony of Two Men (1968), Captains and the Kings (1972), and Ceremony of the Innocent (1976), and the spiritually themed novels The Listener (1960) and No One Hears But Him (1966). Dear and Glorious Physician (1958), a portrayal of the life of St. Luke, and Great Lion of God (1970), about the life of St. Paul, are among the bestselling religious novels of all time. Caldwell’s last novel, Answer as a Man (1981), hit the New York Times bestseller list before its official publication date. She died at her home in Greenwich, Connecticut, in 1985.
Jess Stearn (1914–2002) was a pioneer in the nonfiction field, treating with frankness the once-taboo subjects of homosexuality (The Sixth Man), and drugs (The Seekers). His book on yoga (Yoga, Youth and Reincarnation) helped to start a vogue in this country. And his Door to the Future opened the possibility of psychic phenomena to a previously unconvinced public.
Read an Excerpt
CHAPTER 1
JUDAS
How can any Jew rest while the invader still stalks his land!
My own heart is aflame.
How long, O Lord, are we to bear this tyranny? How long shall the hand of the oppressor grind us into the dust and girdle our head with thorns? I grieve for the dead but more for the living who die a thousand deaths every day. Where is our ancient pride, where the Joshuas and Davids and Maccabees who subdued adversaries as hateful as Rome?
The city is appalled, but no hand is raised against the despot, nay, not even an outcry, so craven have we become. There are only dark mutterings by the great unwashed, the humble peasants and shopkeepers, the Amharetzin, whom no decent Pharisee or Sadducee would so much as spit at.
What matters that these dead are Galileans? They are still blood of our blood, soul of our soul, worshipping the same God. They were defenseless, unarmed, unsuspecting. Some huddled over their young, others threw themselves between the soldiers and their wives and sisters. The Romans spared nobody, young or old. There was no resistance. How does one resist in God's own place of worship?
The bodies, grotesquely sprawled on the cobbled pavement, were strewn not only over the Court of Gentiles, but even into the Court of Israel, where some had scurried for refuge.
The massacre occurred only that morning, and many of the bodies were still warm. The Levites who toiled in the Temple were carting away the corpses and ministering to the wounded. The moans assailed my ears, and I gritted my teeth. Shaking my fist, I looked up from the littered courtyard to the Fortress Antonia and saw the red-cloaked myrmidons of Rome idly chatting. What is Jewish sorrow to these pagans? I saw a tall, commanding figure, his hairless dome of a scalp gleaming in the sun, looking down on the hell below. I could almost see the smile on the thin cruel lips. Pontius Pilate, the Procurator of Judea, was enjoying his day.
Walking rapidly, to put the melancholy scene behind me, I passed through the Court of Israel, into the Court of Women, and finally the Court of Priests. I turned past the Temple guards and moved into an antechamber, where a guard let me through at mention of my name.
My summons had come from Joseph Caiaphas, High Priest by virtue of his marriage to the daughter of a High Priest. Though I had little in common with these collaborators of Rome, I responded at once, out of curiosity if nothing more.
I paused before a gilded door. In a moment it was flung open by a Levite attendant. A man considerably shorter than myself was standing at a window, looking out on the courtyard below.
"A pretty sight, is it not?" I said.
He faced me without any warmth or seeming interest. "Come, let us talk," he said coldly. I ignored the proffered chair and we stood staring at each other, the High Priest with a faintly ironic gleam in his dark eyes.
"I have a mission for you, Judas-bar-Simon," he said finally.
I regarded him mistrustfully. "What does a Sadducee friend of the Romans want with me?"
He had lost some of his customary aplomb, and one had only to look out the window to understand why.
"Normally," he said defensively, "the Romans allow us to manage our own affairs."
"Of course," I said. "On the holiest of holidays, the Day of Atonement, the High Priest must beg the Romans for the sacred vestments with which he performs his office. And this is independence!"
The color rushed to his cheeks. "We must learn to live with Rome. The rest of the world does. We have our own courts, administer our own religion, and collect our own taxes."
"Yes," I said, "and we bury our own dead."
A ripple of impatience ruffled that haughty face.
"We have privileges. This is the only province which need not serve in the armies of the Emperor. But if we Judeans do not maintain the peace, the Romans will maintain it for us. Yes" — he shut me off with a wave of the hand — "yes, just as they do today."
His high-bridged nose wrinkled in disdain. "I warned the Galileans, knowing the temper of Pilate, but they only smiled in that idiotic way of theirs." His voice rose angrily as if by their imprudence they had created a problem that justified the fate that had overtaken them.
"What business was it of theirs that Pilate took the money from the Temple treasury to build his aqueduct from the Bethlehem Pool to his fortress when the pools outside the city ran dry?"
"Solomon's Pool is sacred to all Jews for its healing waters, and so this was no provincial matter."
Caiaphas laughed harshly. "Pilate mistook them for Judeans. Naturally, he couldn't tell one Jew from the other."
"The Galileans have courage."
"This is no time for courage," he said darkly.
"You speak to one whose namesake drove the invaders into the seas."
"The Romans are not Syrians, and there is no Judas Maccabee on the horizon."
I ignored his Hellenized version of Judah, for so they did with every name, even the Messiah. "There is one greater than the Maccabees who will restore Israel to its ancient glories," I said.
He sneered. "I have known a dozen Messiases. They sprout like the winter wheat, these false prophets, and harvest only trouble for the nation."
How could he mock what all Israel was pining for? "Isaiah told us where to look for him, and when."
"He said that we would not know him when he came."
"The Sadducees have no faith in the Prophets," I said.
He had recovered some of his aplomb by now.
"We have an interest in the Messias, but we must be sure of him."
"Without faith how can you be sure? 'And so he came and we knew him not.' But he will be known, as he leads Israel in triumph over all nations."
His eyes held a glint of curiosity. "How will you know him?" "He shall have been born in Bethlehem, of the House of David. His mother shall be a virgin, and though a King in bearing and tradition, he shall ride meekly into Jerusalem on an ass."
Caiaphas shook his head in mock despair.
"This drivel is for the poor and the shiftless, the Amharetzin and their ilk. Who can take the son of Simon of Kerioth seriously when he speaks like a shopkeeper?" "I am not my father's son in all things. I am a Zealot, and care not who knows it."
"Speak not so freely," said Caiaphas, lowering his voice, as if fearful even to be seen with somebody of this party.
"We are zealous for Israel, zealous for the Messiah, and zealous against Rome," I said, enjoying myself thoroughly. "Is there any crime in this?"
He motioned significantly toward the window. "What crime was there in that?"
"To demonstrate is one thing, to talk another. The Romans understand the importance of action. For this reason they rule the Greeks, who call them uncultured, and the Jews, who think them barbarians. Give the Caesars their blood money, rattle no sabers, and you may talk day and night."
My nerves were still taut from what I had observed in the courtyard, and I was drawn irresistibly to the window once more.
"Pilate will pay dearly for this one day," I cried.
"Remember, they are only Galileans, and, as our fathers said" — his voice contained that familiar sneer — "what good comes out of Galilee?"
"Anyone who opposes Rome is my friend."
"Waste no tears on these clods. They are not of any tribe, but mere converts, who speak only the language of Syrian Aram, and that not well."
"I care not about their Aramaic tongue. They suffer because they are Jews like us."
"Like us?" The heavy eyelids, blackened with kohl, widened sardonically.
"What have Sadducees and Pharisees to do with Galileans?"
The gulf I felt was not that great. "Someday they will stand side by side with the Zealots, from Dan to Beersheba."
Caiaphas gave me a pitying glance. "And how will this be accomplished?" "The Messiah will lead us."
"What makes you so sure that he even lives?"
"There was a Sibylline prophecy told to Herod the Great on his deathbed that his line would be superseded by a newborn King of Kings. Before he expired Herod ordered the execution of every male under two years in Judea. This massacre of the innocents was in the reign of Caesar Augustus thirty years ago. And that child should now be ready for his ministry."
Caiaphas shook his head incredulously. "Even so, what assurance do you have the child survives?"
"The Prophets tell us that the child was spirited off to Egypt by his parents and raised there till it was safe to return."
We stood looking at each other, with thinly veiled hostility, I wondering why he had summoned me, and he, no doubt, thinking the same. The silence was broken by a rustling at the door. Two men slipped quietly into the chamber. I would have known them anywhere.
"We have come from Pilate," said the older man, whom all of Israel would have known from his gray forked beard and tall conical hat. "For once he realizes he has acted hastily."
This was not the Pilate I had observed in his tower, but I saw no point in arguing the matter.
"Peace unto you, O Annas," I said, barely touching his hand.
His companion came forward and offered me an embrace.
"And how," said the teacher Gamaliel, "does it go with the son of my dear Simon?"
"My father would be surprised," I said stiffly, "to find his Gamaliel in this company on so dark a day for Israel."
"Judah, Judah," he cried, "one day your impulsive nature will do you great harm. Is it any sin for the young to listen to the gray beards?"
Though short and slight, the Rabbi Gamaliel radiated a grandeur beyond even his position as head of the Sanhedrin. He had an air of openness, but there was a glint of steel under that easy exterior. Annas showed him a certain deference in overlooking my remark.
"You are here because of the Reb Gamaliel," he said coldly. "He feels the fruit does not fall far from the tree."
I was not to be led off by flattery. "It is unlawful for the tribes to have anything to do with another nation. And the Sadducees dine and wine their Roman friends, and do their bidding in all things. We call ourselves Jews and our capital cities are Caesarea and Tiberias. We worship in Hellenized synagogues, and are governed by a Hellenized Sanhedrin. Small wonder that the Pharisees have greater respect from the people as interpreters of the Torah."
Annas' face grew grim. "You were not summoned to lecture the rulers of your state."
"What rulers and what state?" I cried. "If not for the peasants I see in the streets, I would think I was in Rome."
Annas turned with a sardonic smile to my old mentor. The Pharisee leader spoke to me gently.
"Pharisees and Sadducees," he said, "must keep a common cause if we are to survive long enough to greet the Messiah promised by the prophet Daniel."
"That time is already here. Even the Romans know of the coming of the King of Kings."
"They have already found their divinity," said Annas drily. He flipped a Roman shekel out of his purse, and held the inscription to the light. "Caesar Augustus, son of the God."
I whipped out a coin, a Jewish silver shekel, which I held up in plain view. On one side it said clearly: "Jerusalem the Holy." On the other were three lilies, and the legend: "I shall be as the dew unto Israel. He shall grow as the Lily."
Annas managed a bleak smile. "Do we have three Messiases to deal with?"
"I know not the meaning of this trinity. But he shall come and the people shall adore him."
Caiaphas had not spoken for some time. He turned querulously now, appealing to the others. "How can this hothead be trusted with so delicate a mission?"
"We can use some of that fire, properly transmuted," said Gamaliel with a tolerant smile.
He rested his hand on my shoulder. "We share the same desire," he said softly, "that same burning excitement over the prospect of the Messiah. The whole land is eagerly awaiting him. Some say he is already here, others that he will be shortly."
"It cannot be too soon."
"It has been too soon," Annas put in wryly. "Judas the Galilean called himself the Messias and two thousand Jews died for his folly. The Romans make short work of revolutionaries."
"True," acknowledged Gamaliel, "there are the false prophets, but one day there will be that one."
Annas gave him a speculative glance. "Our law stipulates that any presumed Messias must be examined by a Council of the Sanhedrin. Otherwise, he has no standing and is to be prosecuted as an impostor or worse. Better for one to die than a nation to perish."
"The High Priest is right," said Gamaliel. "The Romans are not ones to brook uprisings. The Galilean summoned five thousand to arms under the Maccabean banner: 'To God alone belongs dominion.' The bands attacked the legions, and drove the tax collectors out For a spell, they savored the sweet smell of victory. But the long arm of Rome brought reinforcements from Parthia and Syria, and the broadsword triumphed as usual. The Galilean's forces were hunted down like animals in the mountains and caves. The leaders were nailed to the cross. Others were carted off to the slave markets and the galleys. This lesson the Romans repeat every so often. Let us not provide them a new opportunity."
The conversation suddenly struck me as amusing. "We sit here and chatter about things we all know and Pontius Pilate does as he pleases."
"Pilate," said Annas, "is no ordinary governor. In the thirty provinces of the Empire, only one procurator is permitted the company of his wife abroad."
"And of what moment is that?"
"Some say Claudia Procula is the natural daughter of Julia, Augustus' daughter and late wife of the Emperor Tiberius. This marriage to a Roman knight is a mark of the high favor in which Pilate is held in Rome."
"He is no more than a glorified tax collector," said I, "and would topple in a moment if there was a rising."
"You speak too boldly," chided Annas. "Nothing would suit Pilate better than a full-scale revolt. It would give him the opportunity to show Rome, by ruthlessly putting down the revolt, how valuable he might be elsewhere."
Gamaliel broke in soothingly. "We have nothing to fear from Pilate so long as we are discreet."
"Pilate takes pleasure in mocking us. He set the tone of his government on his arrival, flaunting in our faces the effigies of the Emperor in contradiction of our law. He gave in only when the protesters dared him to cut them to pieces."
"Yes, he gave in," said Gamaliel, "but he does what his ambitious master Sejanus, the new favorite, would have him do. All one has to do is look out the window."
All I knew of Tiberius' first minister came from the grapevine. As chief of the palace guard he had gained the confidence of a doddering Emperor by stealthily carrying out his darkest designs. He was as great an enemy of the Jews as Haman, having banished all Jews, except for Roman citizens, from Rome itself. And Pilate was his man.
"Pilate was dispatched to rid Israel of its customs," I said. "I have that from the younger Agrippa, Herod Antipas' brother-in-law, but it is apparent in any case. Pilate not only marched into Jerusalem flying the colors of the Twelfth Legion but put the figure of a Roman eagle over the gates of the Temple. He broods in his palace at Caesarea, and comes to the Fortress Antonia only when he means mischief to Judeans."
"The Romans," said Caiaphas, "care not how anybody worships so long as there is no resistance to their authority."
"They are very much aware that too much freedom here sows dangerous ideas in the remaining provinces."
Caiaphas gave me a sly glance. "There are other ways of conquering a people. The Romans are as much Hellenized as we."
"Agreed, and that is the danger."
"Yes, Judas." He accented the second syllable of my name.
I felt the blood rush to my face. "I call myself Judah, my Hebrew name, but cannot help what others do."
He continued to eye me sardonically. "I admire your flowered tunic of fine linen. I have seen no finer in Athens or Rome."
"What difference what we wear? It is our hearts that count."
"You, Judas, or should. I say Judah"— he smiled mockingly — "mentioned the subversion of our customs. So they call the Messiah the Messias and the Anointed, the Christ. Is this what you object to?"
Two could play the same game. "Now I hear they are considering a ban against circumcision, through the device of forbidding mutilation."
Caiaphas' eyes narrowed. "They will not interfere with Jewish worship so long as the people remain orderly and pay their taxes."
"It would surely be a scandal if the sons of the pious were not circumcised into the covenant of Abraham the customary eight days after birth."
"This is only talk. It gives Pilate pleasure to bait the Judeans."
"If the rite were proscribed," I said, "it would mean a considerable loss to the Temple."
His face quickly clouded. "The hierarchy is concerned with more basic things than money. First and foremost, we must keep Israel one."
Whatever happened in Rome was soon common gossip in Jerusalem, borne on ready tongues of the collaborators.
"There is some strange tie between Sejanus and Pilate," said Gamaliel thoughtfully, his eyes squinting into the late-afternoon sunlight. "After the convenient death of Germanicus, the next in line, Pilate, married royally and was made a Roman knight."
A thoughtful look crept into Annas' cunning face. "He was rewarded with one hand, and with the other sent to an obscure province."
(Continues…)
Excerpted from "I, Judas"
by .
Copyright © 1977 Taylor Caldwell and Jess Stearn.
Excerpted by permission of OPEN ROAD INTEGRATED MEDIA.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
Table of Contents
FOREWORD,
One JUDAS,
Two THE TEMPLE,
Three THE BAPTIST,
Four JESUS,
Five THE ZEALOTS,
Six THE MIRACLE WORKER,
Seven THE VIRGIN MOTHER,
Eight THE DISCIPLES,
Nine COMING EVENTS ...,
Ten MARY OF MAGDALA,
Eleven THE DIE IS CAST,
Twelve THE MAN WHO WOULDN'T BE KING,
Thirteen THE DEAD LIVE,
Fourteen THE PLOT,
Fifteen PILATE,
Sixteen THE SUPPER,
Seventeen THE CONFRONTATION,
Eighteen THE CROSSING,
EPILOGUE,
About the Authors,
Related Subjects
Customer Reviews
Explore More Items
