_Was_ he a villain lost to sense of shame? Ay, so say John and Peter and the rest; And yet--and yet this tale that Lysias tells Weighs with me more the more I ponder it; For thus I put it: Either Judas was, As John affirms, a villain and a thief, A creature lost to shame and base at heart-- Or else, which is the view that Lysias takes, He was a rash and visionary man Whose faith was firm, who had no thought of crime, But whom a terrible mistake drove mad. Take but John's view, and all to me is blind. Call him a villain who, with greed of gain, For thirty silver pieces sold his Lord. Does not the bribe seem all too small and mean? He held the common purse, and, were he thief, Had daily power to steal, and lay aside A secret and accumulating fund; So doing, he had nothing risked of fame, While here he braved the scorn of all the world. Besides, why chose they for their almoner A man so lost to shame, so foul with greed? Or why, from some five-score of trusted men, Choose him as one apostle among twelve? Or why, if he were known to be so vile, (And who can hide his baseness at all times?) Keep him in close communion to the last? Naught in his previous life, or acts, or words, Shows this consummate villain that, full-grown, Leaps all at once to such a height of crime. Again, how comes it that this wretch, whose heart Is eased to shame, flings back the paltry bribe? And, when he knows his master is condemned, Rushes in horror out to seek his death? Whose fingers pointed at him in the crowd? Did all men flee his presence till he found Life too intolerable? Nay; not so! Death came too close upon the heels of crime, He had but done what all his tribe deemed just: All the great mass--I mean the upper class-- The Rabbis, all the Pharisees and Priests Ay, and the lower mob as well who cried, "Give us Barabbas! Christus to the cross!" These men were all of them on Judas's side, And Judas had done naught against the law. Were he this villain, he had but to say, "I followed Christus till I found at last He aimed at power to overthrow the State. I did the duty of an honest man. I traitor! you are traitors who reprove." Besides, such villains scorn the world's reproof.