Free The Kingdom of the Wicked by Anthony Burgess Page B

who is, by God's grace, a cripple no longer. Power and authority? These come from Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified, as you will remember, and whom God raised from the dead. Now there is a line in one of the Psalms of David, which one I cannot recall, not being a man of book learning, and it goes like this: "The stone which the builders rejected is become the head of the corner." There is salvation only in him. There is no other name under heaven by which we can be saved. The making whole of this beggar here is a testament or testimony, I am not sure of the right word, being ignorant, of his glory. I say no more.'
           There was a good deal of muttered arguing and ocular daggers aimed at Peter and John which missed their targets. Then Caiaphas ordered that the two disciples be put outside so that the muttering could be augmented into open, though secret, plain speech.
           'Well, look, holy fathers and reverend gentlemen,' old Annas said, his parchment face scored as by claws and his wattles wagging, 'I can give you only the fruits of my experience in this sort of business. I have, as you know, no authority here.' He beamed hideously at them all. 'Belial and Beelzebub and the rest of the devils don't cure cripples, they make them more crippled, so you can get diabolic power out of your heads, it won't work. The whole city, I gather, is talking about this piece of thaumaturgy. Of course,' he said, appraising the limbs of the beggar, who could not remain still and so walked the length and breadth of the court without rebuke, 'we could always have his ankles broken and say that the cure never happened, but I think that would be gratuitous cruelty.' Some of the Sanhedrin nodded agreement. 'The God of our fathers sometimes effects prodigies which no man of learning is able to explain. What we have to do is to separate the act from the alleged spiritual force behind it. The thing to do is to say to these men that they have to stop propagandizing in the name of the Galilean. My son-in-law here didn't actually put him to death, he left that to the Romans, but he must find it acutely embarrassing that an amateur rabbi carpenter should now be proclaimed as the resurrected son of the Most High.' He grinned maliciously at Caiaphas. 'And the source of undeniable miracles.'
           'You won't stop them,' Jonathan said. 'They either should not have been arrested at all or they should be stoned now for blasphemy. But that means stoning all of them, and the converts they're making will turn against us more than they have already. It's an awkward situation. What is needed is somebody like Rabban Gamaliel — why isn't he here by the way? — who can spin new words and theories and make out that this Jesus was a genuine minor prophet acceptable to the priests and the people.' He was shouted down.
           'You must be careful,' Caiaphas warned. 'No compromise is acceptable. It's the claim of messiahship that's dangerous, along with what many will take to be proof of it. One thing at a time. Threaten them with dire punishments if they preach the Galilean again.'
           'Apeile apeilesometha,' Annas mouthed with relish. 'Threaten with threatening. Not really a tautology. All we can threaten with is threats.'
           'Let them go then? With a warning?'
           'That's right. Till the next time.'
           Peter and John arrived for the day's baptizing late. Peter relieved Bartholomew, who needed to seek his own relief behind a bush. The Roman bucklers to the west drank the new sun. 'Your name?' Peter said to the young man before him.
           'Stephen.'
           'And what sins have you committed, Stephen?'
           'The ordinary human sins. Lust, though lust unenacted. Impatience and anger. Prolonged failure to see the light.'
           'But now you see it?'
           'I see it.'
           'I baptize you, Stephen, in the name of the Father and of the Son and