The Kingdom of the Wicked by Anthony Burgess

here before, weren't you, never listened to the solemn words of sacerdotal admonition, most disobedient, very unwise. Point them out, you, one by one.' He meant Saul, temporarily appointed, in the absence of Ezekiel, who was sick with belly cramps, a sort of clerk to the court. 'Two Jameses, I see. Who's that old frowning one? Don't frown at me, sir, we do the frowning here. Matthias I know well, you were a secular pillar of the faith, Matthias, sorry to see you arraigned on this charge, the charge being the same as before. A very ordinary-looking crew, I would say. Let's get on with it.'
           'One moment,' Rabban Gamaliel said. All prepared to listen with grudging respect to the great Pharisee, chief of the school of Hillel, rabban, no mere rabbi. 'There has been too much talk about the allegedly disrupting influence of the Nazarenes. I think it ought to be made clear that, though they are undoubtedly a cause of the impaired tranquillity of the leaders of the Jewish people, they have been in no wise an inflammatory element in our public life. There is too much talk, I say, about their supposed connection with John the Baptist and zealotry. They have not been shouting the need for the breakdown of the established order and the need for insurrection. What happened in Samaria and could happen here, I mean insurrection and the brutal frustration of insurrection, has been wholly political. The followers of the man Jesus seek the cultivation of charity to all, what we may term a quite unpolitical quietism.'
           'Nobody has made the connection,' Caiaphas said.
           'Are you sure? Am I not right in saying that the Sanhedrin has become very eager to convince the Roman power that it is the willing agent of the pax Romana, and that it abhors both zealotry and the Nazarene cult as cognate manifestations of unrest and unreason?'
           'The Romans,' Caiaphas said, 'are unable to see much difference between the enthusiasm of religious heretics and the ah furor of political activists. However, let us stick to the point at issue, which is that these twelve here arraigned have been preaching heresy and performing blasphemous acts.'
           'Healing the sick, for instance?' Gamaliel said.
           'Whether they heal the sick or not,' Caiaphas said, 'is hardly to the point. They foment superstition. There are some who seek to have their ailments cured by standing in the shadow of this man Peter, a common fisherman. As for their teaching, they have already been warned not to preach in the name of the proven criminal Jesus. Can you,' he said to Peter, 'deny that you have gone contrary to our ordinance? You have filled the synagogues with your blasphemies.'
           'They want to bring that man's blood upon us,' muttered a Sadducee named Jonah.
           'Enough of that,' Caiaphas rasped. 'You,' to Peter, 'what do you say?'
           'This, sir,' Peter said. 'We must obey God rather than men. The God of our fathers raised up Jesus. As for you, you killed him. You nailed him to a tree.'
           'We did not,' Jonah cried. Others cried too, others murmured, some went aaargh as though blood were mounting into their throats.
           'God,' Peter said, 'exalted him at his right hand to be a prince and a saviour — to give repentance to Israel, and remission of sins. And we are witnesses of these things, and so is the Holy Spirit, whom God has given to those who obey him.'
           'With such blasphemy,' Caiaphas cried, 'you put yourselves in peril of the final penalty  —’
           'The final penalty, as you call it,' Peter said, 'is in the hands of the Romans. As you know well. The Romans find no fault in us.'
           'In that you challenge the authority of this sacred assembly, which is answerable to the occupying power  —’
           'That,' Peter said, 'is not good thinking. All you can do is to set men with stones on us. Kill us if you want to. As