Chapter summary
On Mount Golgotha, under unbearable heat, three condemned men await death on their crosses: Dismas, Gestas and Yeshua Ha-Notzri. A double cordon of Roman soldiers, the infantry above and the cavalry below, keeps the onlookers away, and more than three hours have already passed since the execution. Gestas has gone mad from the flies and the sun and sings to himself; Dismas suffers more because he does not lose consciousness; and Yeshua, who fainted several times and lost consciousness, is the most resigned of the three. Only one man remains near the hill, seated on a stone on the north side: Matthew Levi, the former tax collector who followed Yeshua. He could not accompany him earlier because he fell ill on the night of the day Yeshua went alone to Yershalaim, two days before, and only recovered at dawn on Friday; he arrived late, could not break through the cordon to kill Yeshua with a knife and spare him the suffering, and now, without courage or means to act, scribbles on a parchment that death does not come. Seized with fury against himself and against the silence of heaven, he throws the stolen knife to the ground and curses God, whom he calls a black god, god of bandits.
A storm forms on the horizon, the commander of the cohort climbs the hill and speaks in a low voice to the centurion Mark, who summons two executioners; these are the orders of the hooded man, which the two carry out to shorten the suffering of the three. One executioner gives Yeshua a drink from a sponge soaked and fixed to the tip of a spear, and Yeshua asks that Dismas be given a drink too. Then the executioner thrusts the spear into Yeshua's heart with the formula "Glory to the generous Hegemon!", and Yeshua answers "Hegemon..."; the executioner does the same to Dismas and to Gestas. After the hooded man confirms that the three are dead, the storm breaks and the soldiers come running down. Levi climbs the hill alone, cuts Yeshua's ropes and vanishes with his body; only the bodies of Dismas and Gestas and three empty crosses remain on the summit.
Analysis
Levi goes to Golgotha not to watch, but to kill Yeshua with a knife and spare him the suffering. He arrives too late: the cordon has already closed, and the stolen knife has become useless. With no means to act, what consumes him is impotence, which turns into a curse against heaven. The only form of love the chapter leaves him is, after the storm, to climb up and carry away the body.
The most resigned of all was Yeshua.
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