A DIALOGUE BETWEEN JUDAS AND THE DEVIL
Or
(The Hermit and the Pilgrim)
It was growing incredibly late, and this, mixed with his already restless thoughts, produced in Judas a rather morbid state of mind. He began pacing anxiously across his small but well kept room, occasionally stopping to stare distractedly into to the corner for long stretches of time before he would resume to pacing. It is doubtful that he was actually thinking of anything in particular, more likely he was experiencing swarms of half articulated thoughts bombarding from all sides his already fatigued mind. He had stopped pacing and was again staring hard at nothing when he was suddenly torn awake by a sharp knock at the door. He hesitated for a brief moment before crossing the room to answer the door. Opening the door he found in front of him not his three expected guests but rather one entirely unknown stranger.
The man standing before him was of a somewhat smaller stature, old but with an amiable smile stretched across his face. He asked in a voice as sweet and radiant as his smile if Judas might not take an old pilgrim in for the night. Judas thought it over for a moment, then agreed on the condition that should his expected visitors arrive the old man would at once be sent to the back room in which Judas normally slept. The old man delightedly agreed to the conditions and without further ado entered, taking a seat in a small wooden chair by the table.
“I’ve been walking for many days now,” he prattled out, seizing the opportunity to engage someone in conversation. “My feet are terribly sore,” he went on almost gaily. Judas only looked the man over, not bothering to respond, and continued once more to pace the room. The old man however made no notice of the fact that such blatant rudeness and hostility were being directed at him and went on speaking in a most friendly manner. “I’m heading to the village where I was brought up, about two days travel from here, for the annual festivities. It begins with a morning of prayer and silence which lasts until
Judas shot the man a sidelong glance, this time however, without the annoyance and malice that shone through before. A smile suddenly broke upon his face as he turned and disappeared behind a small doorway. He emerged a moment later with a couple of roles and a bottle of wine. “Behold you have turned my water into wine!” shouted the old man playfully. The irreverence of the old man’s statement somehow relieved him and put him at ease. Judas put the requested treats upon the table and sat down across from the old man to share in the makeshift meal.
“Ah, how good of you sir, to be so inclined as to break bread with such a humble old pilgrim as myself, speaks wonders of your noble spirit. You know, I have heard it said that two noble spirits will recognize each other no matter what garb they may be attired in. It is like recognizing a long lost brother that one happens upon in the streets. It’s a certain gleam in the eye, a nod of the head, that tells of their true identity.”
“Come now old man,” replied Judas, who had begun to take a great interest in this old man who now sat before him, “is not age supposed to bring with it wisdom? What folly is this, that you should speak of noble spirits? In all your years of wandering these barren plains, have you still not taken notice that all that surrounds you is the cold desolation of eternity? Your nobility of spirit is nothing more then a comfort for those who cannot stand up to the isolation of being that is inherent to life.”
“You speak a hard truth my boy, but you should be wary of who you speak such truths to. There are many who will not forgive you such a truth as this. It is a cry that can be uttered only by one who has spent countless years wandering in the deserts of life. It is a bitter shock for one unaccustomed to the sting of scorpions.”
“Yet, you will forgive me, won’t you? For it seems to me as though you are one who is accustomed to the scorpion’s tail. That is if I am not mistaken, though I do not think I am.”
“Listen friend,” replied the old man. “You and I, we are a rare breed, alien to whatever soil we chance to grow from and this is as it should be. For the truths we carry would be too great a burden for most. Ah, you smile because you think that I am merely boasting out of vanity. And it would be a most vain ass indeed who would boast of his burden; for to expect recognition and admiration on account of one’s isolation through suffering is sheer folly.
“Now listen closely and I will tell a truth which I have judged you to be in the most need of and for that very reason it will also be the hardest for you to accept. Do not suppose, my young friend, that standing apart from the masses means standing above the masses. It means only that you stand apart. So you have grown sick of their customs, you have left them to find yourself, and what you have found is the terrible weight of isolation. Do you think bearing such a weight to be virtuous? But how can you believe this? You, I surmise, have given up on any hope of virtue in this world, and then of course you don’t believe in other worlds. And yet you bow to this bit of self-flattery, this small self-deceit that allows you to put yourself a step above the rest of humanity.”
“Ach, truly old man, your words are the scorpion’s tail and I can see that you yourself have fought long and hard with this idea. But how is it that you presume to dissect my soul when you have not yet known me an hour?”
“Have my judgments then strayed from the facts or do you merely deny what offends your pride and sensibility?”
“Facts?! What facts? Here I thought we were speaking of truths! Truth has as little to do with fact as it has to do with beauty or conviction. Any devil can produce a fact, twist it this way and that, and make of it what ever he so desires. What then shall we speak of, fact or truth?”
“Truth, of course truth. I apologize, I was not aware you had such an impassioned distaste for facts. May I presume then, that your convictions are based around…let’s not say faith, for that has certain connotations which do not fit your character (if I may be so bold)…let’s call it intuition?”
“You’re quite observant old man. Indeed, faith has many faces, most of them repulsive to my tastes; yet something is needed to fill the vacuum left in the wake of science. However, the word you have chosen to replace it also leaves a foul taste in my mouth. It reeks of quackery and mysticism. When spoken from the mouths of fools, it is more nauseating than the blind stupidity of faith and more paralyzing than the blind necessity of fact. And yet there remains some need of it.”
“Yes! ‘Some need of it,’ what a wonderful little expression. It is not something wanted or desired but rather some inconvenient need.”
“Yes, some need of it…I must say I am rather surprised by your enthusiasm for these four words in particular. I mean, really, I would have expected you to focus your sights on ‘the vacuum left in the wake of science,’ as this pertains more to the difference between fact and truth as I see it.”
“Ah yes, but you see it is precisely in connection with this that I have taken such an interest in that. For what are these facts if not a blind necessity; an inconvenient need. But come, tell me how is it that science leaves behind a vacuum in its wake and what exactly is the difference between fact and truth as you see it? I have my own reasons for agreeing with you in some respects, but all the same I should like to hear it in your words.”
Judas sat for a few minutes looking intently at the old man as he tried to collect all his thoughts and prepare to give an impromptu speech on a subject about which he had often thought but never yet dared to speak aloud and in company. He had long felt the cold mechanism and materialism of science to be repulsive but struggled to find a way around them. This had been an especially hard point for him as he refused to use metaphysics as a back door out and would not be coaxed into any supernatural explanations. He continued to stare at the old man who in turn gazed smilingly back upon him. Finally Judas got up and began once more to pace the room.
The old man leaned back in his chair and, taking a sip of his wine, watched with a kind of merriment which Judas could not understand. For a moment Judas’ thoughts turned black. “Why does the old man smile at me? Is it not perhaps contempt that bids him smile thus? But what kind of pilgrim is it that comes into a man’s house, begins to complain of his feet, asks for food, heaps insults upon his host and finally spits upon his own humility? Surely this is no pilgrim but a devil. A cursed, cynical old devil. And what would such a devil as this want with the truth? No, he mocks me! Look there, a quiver of malice just passed his lips.” All this however remained only a half articulated flash in the back of Judas’ mind. And, in fact, no quiver of malice passed across the lips of the old man, though there had been a certain amount of mockery which had become habitual with the old man in speaking with others and which he could not deny himself the pleasure even now. Judas’ dark mood passed as quickly as it had come and a moment later he had again taken his seat opposite the old man. He began his explanation.
“All is transient. Form is transient, feeling is transient, perception is transient, mental formations are transient, consciousness is transient.’ This is the noble truth of Siddhartha Guatama. Do you know what this means? It means that we are nothing more than an accident, some incidental piece of chance which in the end can only come to nothing. It means that life is but a momentary farce, carried on the jeers and jabs of witless fools and that when the curtain falls upon the stage no one shall remain to laugh or give applause. All that shall remain is the frigid silence of eternity…”
“This is a truth that can shake a man to his very foundations,” interrupted the old man who was roaring with laughter as he spoke, “and it may drive him to incredible lengths in search of a more comforting lie. Still you will forgive my butting in, in order to point out that Siddhartha had four noble truths of which that is but a small part of one. Furthermore, I asked you to explain the difference between fact and truth and here you are expounding upon Buddhist philosophy.”
“It is his only truth; the whole of what follows is only empty, hollow-eyed religion. He could not bear this truth and knew that others would not be able to bear it either and so he gave it the sugar coating of hope. ‘Furthermore’ you asked me a question and then interrupted me before I even began to speak. Now, shall I go on or shall we stop now and spend the rest of the night engaging is meaningless chatter and small talk?”
“Please go on,” said the old man in a kind of thinly feigned somber humility.
“Damned you, you old devil! Your smiling lips mock my every word and now you so thinly veil your mockery and contempt that the only possible effect can be to worsen the offense. And this, it seems, is your very intent. Why else would you engage me in such conversation only to turn around and scoff at everything I say?”
“I apologize, really I do. But you see, an old cynic such as myself cannot help but smile at the foolishness of your youth. I can see by your face that you both doubt my sincerity and take offense to my calling you a foolish youth … but perhaps these words are better left for later. Please continue with what you were saying, I will not interrupt you again, I promise.”
“I thank you, and I myself apologize for my outburst. It was a foolish indiscretion on my part and you have my word that it will not happen again. Now, as I was saying, all is transient. This is Siddhartha’s truth and it is his only truth. But nowhere will men accept a truth such as this one. In its stead they place empty little facts, which they then try to puff up with metaphysics and moralizing. This truth, you see, remains for them an inescapable labyrinth, a sea of confusion which they dare not enter for fear of losing their way or drowning. But what they do not understand, nor want to understand, is that in reality they have already lost their way and have been drowning all their lives. They cling to whatever debris happens to float by them and imagine that they have found land and a solid footing on which they can build their quiet, happy little lives. This debris they call fact. They mock and persecute anyone who is willing to accept his surroundings and learn to swim rather than spend his days dreaming of a paradise that will never be. They despise those who gaze into the depths in search of problematic truths. Here stands the Sphinx with his eternal riddle; to be carried on the lips of Pilate in his fatal question ‘what is truth?’”
“Please accept my most sincere apologies sir. I have told you that I would not interrupt you and yet here I must, for I have a question which must be answered if we are to continue our little discussion here.”
“Then by all means ask away. Only, then you must promise to interrupt me no more or else this whole conversation shall be put to rest.”
“My question is this. What, in your view, makes a truth…well, true? To put it another way, is a stone more true or less true than the idea of God?”
“As an atheist, I must say that I hold the view that the stone is truer than the idea of God, for the stone has existence where God has none.”
“So you are a materialist then, no?”
“I am a reluctant materialist, yes.”
“A reluctant materialist, why that’s fantastic! Not sir, that you have been dragged against your will to believe in something which you do not desire to believe, but only that you have titled yourself as the reluctant materialist; that is what cheers me and compels me to shout fantastic. Never have I heard it put such a way. But really, were you dragged against your will and forced to accept a system of belief which ran counter to all your convictions?”
“Indeed I was, though you’d scarcely be obliged to believe it. You see, there’s nothing more dear to me, no hope more beautiful than the hope that one day I may shed this serpents skin and believe with all the conviction of some blessed fool. I want more than anything else in the world to fall on my knees, singing God’s praises. And yet, here I stand, consumed by this terrible thought, the weight of which I feel as though I cannot endure. You see, I look all around me, I look at the pretty girls and the laughing children running playfully through the parks, I look at the pompous businessmen as they leave their storefronts, the lovely housewife happily cooking dinner for her family, I look at all this. And do you know what I see? I see a passing moment destined to fade away into that same dark oblivion from which it came. All around me I see only a momentary farce destined to be consumed by the cold, unyielding hands of time.”
“Aha! So that is it. Let me tell you something. I have been down this path before, seen every ideal crumble before me, leaving me lost and uncertain. It is the uncertainty that eats you away. It consumes you and forces you to seek refuge – and so you come upon this truth, something that you can grab onto and claim as your own. You clutch it with all of your might; you make this your certainty, your bearing and your foothold. But this is a rotten truth and a poison to the soul. For your certainty is the certainty of death. Your truth – that existence itself is an accident not born of necessity, and though everything hence has been clockwork it shall end as meaningless as it began.”
Judas leapt up from his chair, “You understand me! By God, you have somehow peered into the innermost depths of my soul and brought to light the darkest of truths…”
“But wait. Please allow me to finish, for I have not yet said what is most important concerning the salvation of your soul. Oh please do not misunderstand me when I speak of the soul. I am not speaking of some ephemeral object lasting throughout all of eternity, to be saved or damned according to the judgment of some capricious god. These are the ridiculous tales told by idiots and housewives to pass the time and help put their minds to ease. (It is not right that men should put so much stock into these mythic fairy-tales.) But rather, it is the culmination of all your deepest thoughts, feelings, and intuitions; your highest most noble character. For no man is born with a soul. The soul is cultivated throughout one’s life and when the body dies so the soul dies too. But that is something of which you are obviously already most aware.”
“Yes, of course” Judas replied, nearly in a state of rapture.
“Good, then I shall continue. You see this life as a farce because it is so momentary or `transient’ as you so eloquently stated a moment ago. You are tormented by this transience of being. It consumes you like the flame consumes the candle’s wax. Is this not so? For what else is existence if not a candle quietly burning itself out; destined to consume itself, leaving only the cold, silent darkness of oblivion? But my question to you is this, why should the absolute transience of life thereby make life so unbearably absurd? Can you not see that it is precisely this constant destruction of the moment that makes life the miracle that it is? That it is only in the moment that the miracle is even possible? For it is only in the momentary that we come to face the mystery.
“Do you deem a purpose so necessary? Then here, now I shall give you one. The purpose of life is to point to the mystery of being, to learn to embrace it and be thankful for it. You told me a few moments ago that you were a `reluctant materialist,’ well then here is your way out. It is the mystery of being that frees man from the deterministic world, for in the mystery of the unknown man is given the chance to posit his own meaning, his own purpose. Here lies the whole of your freedom. Furthermore, I shall tell you that it is of the utmost arrogance and hubris not only to think that existence should “make sense” but to even want it to. Who are you that you should desire that life be anything other than it is?
“I told you that I have been down this very path before, do you doubt this to be so? No, wait. Do not answer yet. I have one more thing to tell you… one more observation concerning the state of your soul.
“You have always known precisely what I just told you about the mystery of life. Who knows, perhaps you even put it into exactly those words when speaking them to yourself. But this is only a small hint towards all that you know on this subject. You have already scavenged the depths of all these deeper meanings given to us by the mystery of being. And for a time these depths gave you a certain sense of peace that you mourn for the loss of. But this peace could not keep you and the tyrant truth sent forth his hounds to torment you once more. But now I must stop and take the opportunity to ask for the third and final time (for if you do not answer this time I shall henceforth remain silent on this particular subject), that is to say -- what is truth?”
“Ah yes, truth. This is the third time you asked you say? Ah well, so up until now I was not yet prepared to answer that question; such a daunting task! But you, my dear old man, have provided me with the answer yourself. It is precisely that which, as you say, I have known all along. You see, truth is the veil laid before man’s eyes. It is the mystery of existence, of birth and death. It is in the cry of every new born babe. It is the lively steps of the pretty young girl as she dances with the young boy that she likes so very much. It is the precious piece of art hanging on the gallery wall, but it is the wall too! But that’s not all. Truth is suffering. It is the thoughts of the dying soldier as he lay upon the blood-soaked battlefield, staring up into the infinite sky. It is the anguish of the young mother as she watches her infant starve to death for no other reason than the fact that she has no money for food. It is the scamp as he freezes to death on the streets for want of a roof. You ask me what truth is? Truth is existence as such. It is a mystery because we are submersed in it. It is illogical and often absurd, yet it remains the most precious thing a man can possess, though it is impossible that a man should ever possess the truth.”
Judas was visibly shaken and nearly to the point of hysterics. He tried to sit down but was unable to stay seated for more than a moment. He got back up and began pacing the room once more. His face was pale and beads of sweat ran down his temples. A moment longer and it’s possible that Judas would have erupted in tears, so long had he waited to speak openly to another human being. Too much had been stored up inside him for too long, now he was on the verge of bursting with emotion. The old man, perhaps sensing this, began to speak again, this time with a little more compassion towards our hero.
“I tell you once more I have been down this path before. And I can tell you this as well, however unbearable your path may become, however hateful the world may appear to you, you must endure. Often will the solitude become too much, making one feel lost and forgotten by man and God; and yours is the burden of eternal solitude. However, you must not let this give rise to despair. Though your suffering and loneliness ever verge upon the edge of despair you must never allow yourself to give in. Here you must stand at the very edge of your abyss, and facing the depths which at every moment threaten to swallow you, you must shout for all of the earth and heavens to hear, “I will not succumb to this!” Such defines the challenge set forth to all who would carry the burden of truth.”
When the old man had finished his brief tirade, his whole face had turned bright red, and a sudden look of confusion spread across his gaze. It lasted only a moment, but for this one brief moment the old man glanced about him as though he could not quite make out exactly where he was. His words gave way to silence, as he sat back down at the table and gazed blankly at the wall directly before him.
“Come now, old man!” cried Judas, as he ran over to his new companions side. “You have been over stimulated by a little wine, and too much talk of the truth. Let me help you to my bed so you can get some rest.”
“Of course, yes” the old man replied, showing Judas, once more, that same serene smile the old man had given him upon entering. “You truly are a kind soul.”
1 comment:
I have always had a particular afinity for this story, and am s happy you posted it. More! More stories!
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