“No,” he said recovering his full voice, “but his blasphemy did. To pretend to forgive sins is a grave offense against God and punishable under our laws by death through stoning. I immediately dispatched messages to many Temple associates and priests who live in the north country, requesting that they keep me informed of exactly what this man said as well as what he did. Our supreme court here, the Sanhedrin, has no authority outside this province of Judaea. However, I wished to be prepared for the time when Jesus came to Jerusalem, as he was certain to do for the feast days.”

“In the months that followed, what did you learn about his activities?”

“In truth they were a mixture of good and evil. We would hear that Jesus had cured a leper and two blind men, and all the while he was eating and drinking with publicans and sinners. He would make a dumb man talk and cure one possessed of demons, and then he would harvest corn on the Sabbath and sea without washing. Once he even cured a man with a withered hand—and he was brazen enough to do it before a crowd on the Sabbath!”

“But wasn’t he chastised for his Sabbath activities on both occasions by the Pharisees, and didn’t he respond to them with such logic that they were unable to deal with his reasoning, so they went away and began plotting how to destroy him?”

Caiaphas looked at me aghast. “What are you saying?”

“Didn’t your reports tell you that when the Pharisees criticized Jesus and his disciples for picking corn on the Sabbath he reminded them of David, who, when he was once hungry, went into the Temple’s sacred altar and ate the holy shewbread and also gave some to those who were with him? Jesus said that the Sabbath was made for man and not man for the Sabbath. And then, when he cured the man with the withered hand on the Sabbath, he asked those who chastised him if it was lawful to do good on the Sabbath or to do evil, to save a life or kill—and the Pharisees could find no answer to give him.”

“How do you know these things? How long have you been collecting such information?”

I started to say twenty years. That would have lowered the curtain on everything in a hurry! “For many months, off and on. Tell me, Caiaphas, did you ever initiate a more active investigation into his activities?”

“Active investigation?”

“I mean did you ever instruct any of your priests or others who were proficient in your law to try to entrap Jesus into responding to their questions with answers that would condemn him as a lawbreaker or, at the very least, turn the people against him?”