This is the beginning of the climactic vision in the Revelation to Saint John. The trumpets have sounded, the bowls have been poured out, the harlot city has been destroyed. There is an air of expectancy, as creation awaits the revelation of the bride. For when the bride comes, the marriage supper will begin.

History is the story of a marriage, the story of a courtship. From the beginning of creation, God has been moving history toward this great climax, the climax that we anticipate here in this feast. We are already at the end of history; we already share in the marriage supper of the lamb.

Jesus is the Lover who comes to win His bride, rescue her from the dragon, suffer indignity and death, triumph over the grave, all to bring her finally to this feast. The incarnation, life, death, and resurrection of Jesus is the greatest romance in history because it is the great romance that is history.

Jesus’ courtship of His bride shows us what the story of Adam already showed us, that the way to gain a bride is through death and resurrection. Adam went into deep sleep, was torn in two, and the rose from the dust to find a bride. Jesus goes into the deep sleep of the tomb, yet rises to gain a bride. This meal not only points to the end of history but to the means of achieving that end, for at this table, we proclaim the death of our Risen Lord, until He comes.

This table, then, gives shape to our own romances and marriages. Our own stories of courtship are not isolated oddities in God’s world, out of step with the deepest nature of things. Our own romances share in the depths of God because they symbolize on a small scale the movement of the whole of history. In Christ, our own stories of courtship are caught up in the grand story of Jesus and His bride.

Sacraments, the early fathers thought, are mysteries, and they are mysteries in part because they concentrate and manifest the mysteries of the world. This table is a great mystery, the sacramental mystery of Christ and His church, the great mystery of a man with a maid.

It’s true that many lives have been transformed by the original 12-step program created by Alcoholics’ Anonymous. But the craze for formulae assumes life is simple and unmysterious.

Agur the son of Jakeh thought differently.

He puzzled over four things in the world, “The way of an eagle in the sky, the way of a serpent on a rock, the way of a ship in the sea, and the way of a man with a maid.” For Scripture, love is one of the great mysteries of life, and we shouldn’t think we can pin it wriggling to the wall.

I am not suggesting that we do nothing. As Pastor Sumpter will explain later this morning, young men need to make and execute plans for marriage; young women need to prepare themselves to be brides, wives, and mothers; parents need to direct and guide their children through the volatility that is adolescence and young adulthood.

Everyone has something to do, but since we’re dealing with mysteries we can do things well only if we recognize the limits of our understanding and control. We can do it all well only if we trust firmly in God’s promises, His love, and His kind care for us.

For God Himself is wonderful, and He understands what is too wonderful for us, including the way of a man with a maid.

Chapter 23 departs from the normal style of the book of Proverbs, not only in the fact that the Proverbs in this chapter are lengthier but also in the sense that several of them are more riddling than other portions of Proverbs. At least, so it seems. The first section (vv. 1-3) appears to commend suicide as a solution to being tempted by intimacy with a ruler. Better to cut your own throat than to be seduced by the delicacies of a king’s table. A healthy warning for activist Christians trying to shoulder their way to the king’s table. But the message is not entirely obvious.

The section we’re looking at is a series of prohibitions, a series of commandments and explanations. That actually starts in 22:22, and continues through chapter 24. This section of Proverbs reads less like “wisdom” than like “law,” but that’s not surprising. The word “Torah” means “instruction” more than law, and the Torah is also a kind of wisdom literature. Many of these prohibitions have direct analogues in the law (22:22 with Exodus 23:6; 22:28 and 23:10 with Deuteronomy 19:14).

Waltke describes part of this section as a “Decalogue.” Between 22:22 and 23:12, there are 10 prohibitions, and they are framed by warnings against mistreating the poor and vulnerable and an assurance that Yahweh will take their case (22:22-23; 23:10). The prohibitions do not obviously match the original Decalogue, but there are some intriguing analogies. Especially at the beginning of chapter 23, the Proverbs seem to match some of the 10 Words. The instruction to cut your own gluttonous throat is in the slot for the sixth commandment; the warning against pursuing fleeting wealth is analogous to adultery; eating the bread of the evil eye is a form of stealing; speaking to the fool is a form of false testimony; and going into the field of the fatherless is in the 10^th Word slot, the prohibition of covetousness. These are clear enough to suggest that the first 5 instructions also match the Decalogue. The links here are definitely more obscure, if not non-existent: Robbing the poor is a form of idolatry; associating with an angry man is like bowing down to images; giving surety bears the name lightly; moving the boundary stone is Sabbath-breaking. Interestingly, the Proverb in the “fifth commandment” slot (22:29) is not a prohibition but simply an observation, stated positively.

One theme running through this entire section is that of appropriate court behavior. The assumed audience is the audience of Solomon’s palace, those who might be dining with a king, who have power to oppress or deliver the poor, who might be able to move boundary markers with impunity.

PROVERBS 23:4-5

The second section of the chapter also contains a riddle, though one that’s not always obvious in English translation. Proverbs begins, of course, with commendation of wisdom, prudence, and intelligence. Proverbs are designed to give “understanding” (1:2), and we are told to cry after knowledge (2:3), to gain instruction and understanding from our father (4:1, 5), and to get understanding with all our getting (4:7). Proverbs also regularly mocks the sluggard who refuses to work. Proverbs promises rewards for those who follow the precepts of wisdom.

But 23:4 subverts these regular themes: It begins with a negative command: “Do not labor [do not be weary],” and then adds “cease from your intelligence.” Gaining wealth, it turns out, is wearisome. In a pithy chiasm, Solomon tells us to give it up: “Labor not to-enrich, from-understanding cease.”

Proverbs 23 is, of course, not contradicting the earlier wisdom. The sluggard is still a fool, and understanding is still a good. But Solomon is also warning, as he does over and over in Ecclesiastes, against “wearisome” pursuit of gain, whether material or intellectual. Put it aside, he said. Don’t work so hard. Cease from your pursuit of understanding.

The reason has to do with the nature of wealth, which is the nature of life. Life flies away (Psalm 90:10). The antecedent of “it” in verse 5 is unclear: Is the “it” the wealth at the beginning of verse 4, or the understanding at the end of the verse? Verse 5 is silent, never using the nouns again. The nearest antecedent would be “understanding,” but I suspect Solomon intended the ambiguity to work to encompass both wealth and understanding. Whether the wealth we “set eyes on” is material or intellectual, it’s quickly gone.

Verse 5 provides an intriguing image. The NASB begins with “When you set your eyes on it,” but the verb is ‘uph, “fly,” the same word for what happens to the eagle at the end of the verse. It might be translated: “Will you fly your eyes on it and it is not, for making it will make for itself wings like an eagle and will fly toward heaven.” The structure is roughly chiastic:

Your eyes fly

It is not

It will make wings like an eagle

And fly toward heaven.

The combination of “eyes” with “fly” is unique to this passage, so far as I can determine. In the immediate context, the link with the flying eagle is most important. The eagle flies away up to the sky as soon as your eyes fly toward it, and the implication is that our eyes are a skittish as the eagle himself. Our eyes flit from here to there, looking for a place to land. Eyes are organs of judgment in Scripture, and here seem to be particularly organs of value. Our eyes light on things that we think valuable, but if it’s riches or understanding, it flits away as quickly as our eyes settle down on it.

The first significant reference to eagles in the Bible is in Deuteronomy 32:11, where the Lord says He hovered over Israel like an eagle over its young. The language is suggestive of the Spirit hovering over the waters of creation, and the link here with Proverbs 23 perhaps indicates that wealth is like the Spirit, which blows where it lists.

We gain life by losing it; things come into our hands when we let go; understanding comes when we cease to weary ourselves with it; the Father feeds birds and clothes the grass, and so we need not weary ourselves for wealth.

PROVERBS 23:6-8

Eyes are again part of the theme of verses 6-8. We are warned against eating the bread of a man with an “evil eye.” Again, the eye has to do with judgment and valuation. The man with an evil eye is one who judges and evaluates wrongly. The NASB has “selfish,” and though that translation is not as open as the Hebrew it captures one part of the evil eye. A selfish man overvalues wealth; he wearies himself with wealth; his eyes judge the value of wealth wrongly, and so it is dangerous to receive his gifts.

The initial prohibition of verse 6 is strangely phrased. The verb is lacham, from the same root as the object, “bread.” The verb can mean “fight,” but here is best translated as “eat.” To bring out the verbal play one might translate, woodenly, “Do not bread the bread of the evil eye.” Interestingly, the phrase “delicacy” is used only in Proverbs 23 and in Genesis 27 in the entire Old Testament. In Genesis 27, it refers to the savory food that Rebekah instructs Jacob to take to his father Isaac in order to receive a blessing. This might suggest that Jacob is a man of “evil eye” who brings delicacies to Isaac, which Isaac should resist. But I think the story moves in the opposite direction. Isaac is the one with bad eyesight; he’s so blind he can’t tell a faithful son like Jacob from the belly-ruled Esau. Esau is the one who desires savories, and gives up his birthright for it. Or, Esau is the man with an evil eye, who judges and values wrongly, and Isaac desires his delicacies.

There is an implicit table of Yahweh/table of demons contrast. The man of evil eye presides over a dangerous table, but there is bread and savory food at the Lord’s table, the table of wisdom.

In Proverbs 23, the reason for refusing the bread and savories of the man of evil eye is because his words do not match his heart. The verb “think” in verse 7 means “divide,” or “cleave,” or “set a price on.” What he calculates or assesses in his heart is the true man, whatever his words. He invites you to eat and drink, offers his food generously, it seems, yet his heart is not with you. His hospitality is a sham hospitality. But the warning is also against the greed of the guest, who is warned not to eat the bread of the evil eye.

Because the hospitality is not genuine, whoever eats at the table of the evil eye is going to give up when they receive. “Vomit” is used of the land vomiting out the inhabitants who commit abominations, and in Job 20:15, the word refers to a man who swallows down wealth and then is forced to vomit it back up. The sweet or pleasant words spoken in the setting will go to waste. You will lose them.

PROVERBS 23:9

Jesus says not to cast pearls before swine, and Solomon tells us something similar here. Speaking in the ears of the fool is useless. He won’t listen to wisdom and will despise your words. At times, of course, words can turn the simple into a wise man, and can even restrain a fool. For both Jesus and Solomon, however, there are fools who are not worth wasting breath over.

PROVERBS 23:10-12

This Proverb seems at first blush to encourage conservatism: Do not remove the ancient (or even eternal) boundary. Keep the property lines in place; keep the old laws and old ways. As the Proverb continues, however, it becomes clear that the interest is elsewhere. Instead of being primarily about preserving ancient ways and rules, it is about maintaining the protections of the orphan and helpless. Moving the ancient boundary in context seems to mean setting aside the protections of the poor and preying on their fields. The fields of the wealthy are open for gleaners, but the fields of the poor are to be protected. In this section, the Proverb envisions moving a boundary to incorporate the field of the fatherless into the fields of a wealthier and more powerful man (like Ahab and Naboth). Jubilee and Sabbath legislation was designed to protect the legacy of the poor; even if their land was taken into the land of another, it was a temporary sale and would revert to the family of the original owner in the year of release. Yahweh does take up the cause of the vulnerable when He sends Israel into exile; part of the reason for the exile is to discipline Israel for her failure to practice the Jubilee laws.

Verse 11 warns that the redeemer of the fatherless is strong and will plead his case. The NASB capitalized “Redeemer,” and that seems plausible, considering the way the law and prophets speak of Yahweh as the kinsman of the widow and orphan. Yahweh will take up the cause against those who move the boundary that protects the poor, and he won’t lose his case. The verb and object in verse 11 are from the same root: He will rib His rib against you. This Yahweh’s “case” against His people – He brings the charges and will be victorious in His suit. Human justice is bound to fail at points. There may be no near relative to take up the case on behalf of an oppressed orphan. But the Lord fills the gaps; He is the final guarantor of justice.

Verse 12 is a fairly generic Proverb, but in the context it takes on a specific force. Verse 12 links back to verse 9: Solomon commands us not to speak to a fool, and also positively instructs us to apply our hearts to discipline and knowledge. Specifically, we are to apply ourselves to wisdom concerning the fatherless and their Redeemer and protector. By “discipline,” Solomon means the disciplinary instruction that comes from watching what happens to those who oppress the fatherless. Watch, and beware.

Possibly, verse 12 is the beginning of a new section, hearkening back to 22:17, which seems to begin the section of prohibitions with an exhortation to hear the words of the wise.

Because God is incomprehensible, He fascinates, and whatever fascinates draws us forward, draws us ever beyond the limits we thought were there.

The conclusion is characteristic Barth: God remains Lord in His self-offering and revelation, and any account of the Trinity that reduces God to an It-object that can be dominated by creatures is an offense against God.  How he gets to that conclusion is not entirely clear.  Subordinationism obviously and explicitly makes the Son and Spirit creatures, but Barth insists that it makes the Father creature too, or at least draws the Father into the “creaturely sphere.”  The key point seems to be that the idea-manifestation relation is “comprehensible,” and therefore potentially under human control.

There are also some anti-Feuerbachian things going on in the use of “projection.”  If we can take some comprehensible creaturely relation and project it onto the Father, then we are drawing the Father into creaturehood.  If God is Lord, He is incomprehensible, and His relation to the Son and Spirit must likewise be incomprehensible.

The terminology of the passage is interesting.  Verse 27 speaks of those who are “uncircumcised by nature (phuseos),” picking up the language of 2:14: “the nations who have not the law by nature.”  Both are talking about those who are “naturally” Gentiles, Gentiles by birth. The contrast of “inner/outer” is perhaps better translated as “secret/manifest” (phaneros/kruptos).  That does imply some sort of inner/outer distinction but  differently colored than many have suggested.

The upshot is that the passage is about the Jew/Gentile distinction.  The true Jew is the one who, in the power of the Spirit, keeps the Law; the true Jew is the one who has entered into the new covenant reality of the Spirit, with the law written on his heart.  The contrast is not anthropological in the first instance, but redemptive-historical.

Helm states his conclusion at the outset:

“‘Cambridge’ events are not events, and a fortiori cannot stand in a relation of dependence to other events, whether of causal or non-causal dependence.”

His reasoning is first that “whatever events are, they happen to real individuals, and not to possible but unactual individuals. They are part of the life-history of individuals.”  Yet, “Cambridge events” can happen to non-existent beings: “I can, by begetting a child, make my long-dead father into a grandfather. My father no longer exists, but certain relational propositions become true of him that were not true of him previously. But these cannot properly be described as events. Events happen to things, but they cannot happen to non-existent things. If a merely ‘Cambridge’ event can happen to a non-existent thing a merely ‘Cambridge’ event cannot be an event.”  Events happen to things, and Cambridge events can happen to nothings; therefore they are not events.

He also argues that Xanthippe’s widowhood is the logical consequence of the event of Socrates’ death, not a separate event caused by the event of Socrates’ death: “It is because one description ‘the death of Socrates’ describes an action or event, and the other ‘the widowing of Xanthippe’ describes the logical consequence of the action or event, given a certain relation between Socrates and Xanthippe. A widow (or widower) is something someone can become only by some- thing really happening to someone else. The logical consequence of the event of Socrates’ dying is not another event.”

This is a counter-intuitive conclusion, though.  Ask Xanthippe, What was the most significant event in your life during the year 399 BC? and I suspect she would say, “I became a widow.”  And Helm’s argument depends on a strangely reductive notion of “thing,” a notion that excludes relational properties as definitive of a thing in any sense.  Events happens to things - but a “wife” apparently is not a thing. “Wife” is a relation, and so no events happen to wives, but only to the women who happen to be wives.  But if events can’t happen to wives, they can’t happen to a lot of things.  Is the fall of Rome an event?  It doesn’t seem so, on Helm’s view, because Rome is not a thing.  The event is the Goths marching down streets, setting fire to buildings, raping and pillaging and destroying.  But the fall of Rome is not an event.

Weberman more sensibly argues “Cambridge changes” are not bogus but real in relation to “emergent properties” and “emergent entities.”  He defines these as “entities or properties that are physically embodied but because of their complexity or novelty not reducible or fully explainable by their physical properties.  Emergent properties include social properties (such as having monetary value, being an uncle or a U. S. citizen), historical properties (such as being the beginning of a new epoch or the beginning of a new species), and aesthetic properties (such as manifesting originality).  Emergent entities include social objects and phenomena (such as money and prime ministers), historical objects and events (such as wars and revolutions) and aesthetic objects (such as artworks).”

Weberman doesn’t think that every relational change is real: “An emergent entity undergoes a genuine relational change when that relational change involves change in relational properties that bear o the way the entity is identified and individuated.”  Thus, Xanthippe becoming a widow is a real relational change, and a real event.

David Weberman finds this “perfectly consistent,” but concludes that “it offends our sense of economy and good common-sense to suppose that I and everything else change in virtue of a butterfly’s slightest move.”

Yes, it is an offense to common sense.  But I wonder if that “sense of economy” is simply a passion for control. If everything changes when anything changes, then there’s no way we can conceptualize it all, no way to capture it all in a theorem.  If infinite change happens, then perhaps the world manifests the infinity of its Creator.  And we can’t have that.

Lake says that as a result Whitgift developed as “laconically distances view of the membership of the visible church” and the visible church’s role in “that process whereby God was reunited with his elect was also emptied of much of its positive religious significance.”  He thinks there is continuity between Whitgift’s version of Calvinism and his endorsement of pluralism and non-residence among the clergy: “Once the minister had preached the word and some of his flock had responded, he could quite legitimately and with a clear conscience go off and expound the word elsewhere, secure in the knowledge that his first set of converts were all right - if they were elect they would not fall; if they were not, well, that was hardly the minister’s fault.”

As Pastor Sumpter has pointed out, there is a liturgical structure to this episode in Luke 7. Jesus is in a house at a table. The woman comes in and offers her oil to Jesus and mourns her sins. Jesus teaches Simon about his duties as host, pronounces the woman forgiven, and then sends her away in peace. It’s all there: Gathering at a table, offering and mourning, teaching, absolution, benediction. The woman is renewed by her contact with Jesus.

One of the focal points of the story is hospitality. Simon the Pharisee has Jesus to his home, but doesn’t offer him welcome in the traditional way. He doesn’t give him water to wash his feet; he doesn’t kiss him in greeting; he doesn’t anoint Jesus. The woman does; she is the better hostess, even though it is not her house.

We can put these two dimensions of the passage together. The story is ordered liturgically; it is about hospitality. That means our worship is hospitality. It is true that God is welcoming us into His home. But it is equally true that in worship we, the palace servants of the Lord, prepare a suitable place for Him and welcome Him into our presence.

In this way too, our liturgy sets the pattern for our homes. Our calling is to make our homes places where God is comfortable. We are to make our homes a hospitable environment for the Spirit. Our lives together should be such that Jesus would be happy to be among us. Because He is.

The incident in Luke 7 takes place at a table. Here especially we are to welcome Jesus our Lord, Jesus our Host, even as He welcomes us. And having welcomed Jesus here, we are sent out to our homes, so we can welcome Him there. Make your home a place where you can sing, as you do here each week, “Blessed is He who comes in the Name of the Lord.”

Yahweh promised Abraham that he would be the father of many nations, and gave the sign of circumcision to mark the people that would be the agent for His blessing. Jesus is the true Seed of Abraham, who blesses to every nation of the earth, and the story of history since Jesus is the story of the fulfillment of that Abrahamic promise.

This is the story of baptism as well. We see so many baptisms around here that they become humdrum, rote. We need to remember that every time we see a baptism, we see the promises of God fulfilled right before our eyes. In every baptism, the Seed of Abraham claims yet another child of Adam from among the nations to be His own.

That, I say, is true of every baptism. But we have a particular privilege today to witness a baptism that demonstrates that with special clarity. Typically, we are witnesses to baptisms of Americans, citizens of a nation that has been Christian since its founding. That is dramatic, and it enacts the promise of God.

Today we see something different, even more dramatic. Jung Jin and Sung Hee are Koreans, not American-Koreans but Koreans. They are part of an increasingly Christian nation.

Korea is far older than America. Its history reaches back into the third millennium BC, but Christianity arrived in Korea only in the 18th century and Protestants only in the 19th. Until the middle of the last century, the Korean church grew very slowly, but since then Korea has become one of the places on earth where God’s promise to Abraham is being fulfilled in spectacular fashion.

Today, we get to see that firsthand. Today, Jesus Christ reaches across the globe to mark this Korean baby as a daughter of Abraham.

Isaiah tells us more about what this means. He repeats the promise to Abraham, and describes it as the Lord’s promise to sprinkle many nations. According to Isaiah, this sprinkling is the act of the Servant of Yahweh. Like Israel, this Servant is despised and rejected and marred.

But Isaiah says that the Suffering Servant is also the exalted Servant. By His suffering and death, the Servant of Yahweh who is the Seed of Abraham is raised up to rule. And he exercises this rule by sprinkling the nations, cleansing them and claiming them. Today, that Servant, Jesus, exerts His authority and power today before our eyes by claiming this Korean baby as his own.

When the Servant sprinkles the nations, Isaiah says, the nations will stand back in awe. Kings see the Servant of Yahweh at work and they will stop their mouths in wonder. They will be astonished as the Servant of Yahweh sprinkles them, showing that He is King of kings and Lord of lords.

Every baptism fulfills the promise to Abraham, and so every baptism is a moment of astonishment. Jung Jin, Sung Hee, this moment should lead you to give thanks and praise to the Servant of Yahweh, who is making your daughter His own. You should be filled with wonder and be glad.

For all of us, this baptism is awesome in the most literal sense. Because today, at this moment, in this baptism, we see God do what He has always intended to do: We see Him filling the earth with the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea.

“Be filled with the Spirit,” Paul writes, “speaking to one another in psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord.”

The Spirit is the music of the Trinity, the breath that gives melody to the Word of the Father. When we’re filled with the Spirit, we sing.

Just like David.

When the Spirit departs from Saul, it comes to rest on David. Immediately, Saul’s servants call David to come to the palace to play the harp to drive the evil spirits from Saul. As at Pentecost, the Spirit loosens David’s tongue and hands and inspires music. More specifically, He inspires music that puts demons to flight.

That’s what we’re doing every week in worship. We come together to sing in the Spirit. When we sing with vigor and energy and volume, we’re scouring the land, chasing demons away. The Spirit trains our hands and our tongues for musical warfare.

Pastor Sumpter will be preaching about the family later this morning, and it’s striking that Paul’s exhortation to sing in the Spirit comes immediately before his teaching on husbands and wives in the home.

If the Spirit has filled your home, it will be a home full of song. And when the home is full of song, the devils cower. On the other hand: If you’re not singing in your home, ask yourself: Are the fruits of the Spirit there? Or does your home seem more demon-infested than Spirit-filled?

So, sing in the Spirit and make melody, and don’t give the devil an opportunity.

]]> http://www.leithart.com/2008/08/31/exhortation-33/feed/ http://www.leithart.com/2008/08/29/palin/ http://www.leithart.com/2008/08/29/palin/#comments Sat, 30 Aug 2008 00:50:26 +0000 Peter J. Leithart http://www.leithart.com/?p=4259 Noemie Emery gives a 14-point analysis of what Palin does for McCain over on the Weekly Standard web site.  Number 14 is: “Counter-intuitively, makes the issue of Obama’s light resume more potent than ever. Her lack of experience is no more than his is. And he’s–to use a term from Alaska, and the Iditarod–their lead dog.”

I see a few moves in this direction in biblical studies, but not nearly enough.  Girard does something like this, but is too eccentric; his theory masters every text he looks at.  Perhaps biblical studies just doesn’t attract minds like those of Vernant and Detienne.

First, in contrast to Bentham’s circular prison, the Roman gaze was reciprocal: “in republican Rome entire social groups are engaged in reciprocal acts of watching and evaluating, with the stakes highest (and most evident in our souces) at the highest levels of the political hierarchy.”  Romans were seen; but they also watched.

Second, Bentham’s panopticon was designed form prisoners while Roman visual politics operated among an elite.

Finally, “the panoptic gaze is purely assessing, purely judgmental.  There is no sense of glory in being the object of its focus, no room for triumph or for the display of family lineage, no assignment of exemplarity to be handed down for posterity.  At Rome, these were the rewards for subscribing to the shared values of the community and performing them in the flesh - at least during the republican period.  One of the most salient aspects of the transition to empire was precisely the breakdown of these rewards and the breakdown, too, of the reciprocity f the gaze.  Along with this went a breakdown in the distinction between safe and unsafe forms of visibility.”

No wonder the Pharisees envied Jesus for the throngs that surrounded Him.

“Judas . . . was the son of Jewish parents living at Jerusalem: his father’s name was Reuben, his mother’s Cyborea. One night Cyborea dreamed that she was about to conceive, and that her child was destined to become the destruction of the whole Jewish race. In great anxiety she related her dream to Reuben, who advised her to pay no attention to such matters-they came from the evil spirit. In due time, however, a son was born; the memory of the dream returned, and in fear lest possibly it might come true, the infant, Judas,was set adrift on the sea in a small chest. Wind and wave brought him to the island of Scariot – whence his name. . . .

“Here the Queen of the island, who had no children and was eager for a young prince to succeed to the throne, discovered the babe, which was very handsome, and, sending word throughout the land that she was with child, had Judas secretly nursed until she could proclaim him as her own. Thus Judas was brought up in royal fashion, as heir to the kingdom. But it came about before very long that the Queen had a son by the King. The two children grew up together, but after a time the wickedness that was in Judas’s nature began to come to the surface, and he frequently beat and otherwise abused his putative brother.

“In spite of the Queen’s remonstrances he continued to maltreat the true prince, until finally in a fit of anger the Queen made known to him his irregular origin. In wrath at learning this Judas seized the first opportunity to kill his brother, then for fear of the consequences took ship and fled to Jerusalem. There his courtly manners and evil instincts secured him a place in Pilate’s retinue. One day Pilate, looking into his neighbor’s garden, was seized with an irresistible desire for some fruit which he saw there; and Judas agreed to procure it for him.

“Now, although Judas was ignorant of the fact, the garden and the fruit were the possession of his own father, Reuben. Before he succeeded in gathering this fruit Reuben appeared; an altercation followed, which developed into a fight; and finally Reuben was slain. Since there were no witnesses to the murder, Reuben was reported to have died suddenly, and Judas, with Pilate’s connivance, took in marriage the widowed Cyborea, together with her house and property.

“The bride was extremely unhappy and sighed frequently. Being asked one day by her husband the cause of her grief, she related enough of her story to enable Judas to recognize his double crime of parricide and incest. Both were afflicted with great remorse, but on Cyborea’s suggestion Judas resolved to go to Jesus and seek pardon and forgiveness. He soon became a favorite disciple, and was made steward of the Twelve. But again his evil nature asserted itself, and he betrayed his Master to the Jews for thirty pieces of silver: thereafter he again suffered remorse and, having returned the money, hanged himself.”