As I sit at my table, underneath the trees, at Peter’s home, I write as if I were writing about someone else, a friend perhaps. I write without prejudice. I am shaken by man’s corruption and yet my lack of faith in man does not influence my writing. I was left in the hands of guards and palace servants and then I was led into a room where my hands were roped behind me. I was thrown on the floor and beaten and kicked and spat on. Men placed me in a chair and covered my eyes and asked me to guess who struck me, everyone laughing. I fell asleep on the floor and was wakened for a trial before priests, elders, scribes, in a marble-floored room, Roman insignia on the wall, the room icy, airless, officers and soldiers at one end, one of them in battle gear—to impress me, I thought. But I was scarcely able to stand, scarcely able to think. My hands on the back of a chair, I put my mind to work: I singled out my home, its doors, its windows, the grass growing in the street. I forced myself to visualize my mother and father. Though I was in pain I remembered my little friend, Amos: we were kneeling in the dust before my house, playing marbles: dust flipped as we shot. I was asked if I was the son of God. The trial was not a trial. There were no witnesses. Temple officials conferred. Roman authority was not involved. A judge or priest condemned me to death. Such authority had been denied forty years ago by the Romans. Being aware of this added to my resentment; I tried to speak out but was silenced. From the courtyard I was marched to the paved square called Babbatha; troops lined the square, spectators gathered. The sun’s warmth lessened my pain. One of the guards, secretly, gave me bread. I saw Judas with Pontius Pilate; Pilate was accompanied by councilors, guards. I felt I had been hurled into a wholly alien world—enemy world. Pilate, stepping forward in his robe, asked Caiaphas the nature of my crime. I will remember that scarlet robe. Caiaphas, annoyed, said: “If he were not a malefactor we would not bring him before you.” Pilate understood the evasion. He responded: “Take him, judge him according to your law.” A priest declared: “We found this man saying he was Christ the King.” Perhaps Pilate was remembering his troubled past, the servitude of his ancestors, some problem, for he hesitated, suspecting a ruse, that the priests were deceiving him. He must have known that I had not preached revolt. “Are you king of the Jews?” he asked, motioning me to come closer. “Your people have brought you here. What have you done?” “My kingdom is not of this world.” “Are you a king?” “I was born to bear witness to the truth.” Pilate shrugged. “What is truth?” He resumed his seat. I did not respond. “What is truth?” he repeated. He waited a little while and then said, looking at me closely: “I find no fault in this man.” Spectators and priests protested. Someone shouted: