Chapter 26
The Burial
This chapter is extremely interesting. Narration goes on like in a
detective novel, like in a crime thriller; curiosity of readers gets heightened
every moment.
The chapter can be divided into following parts:
Aphranius sets the stage for Judas’
murder;
Pilate’s condition before and after
Judas’ murder;
Actual process of the killing of Judas;
Explanation about Judas’ murder;
Burial of Yeshua;
Pilate’s meeting with Levyi Mathew.
The
chapter begins with description of Pilate’s uneasiness. He is restless, he is scared…
“…
perhaps it was the twilight that caused such a sharp change in the procurator's
Appearance;
he aged, grew hunched as if before one's eyes, and, besides that, became
alarmed.
Once
he looked around and gave a start for some reason, casting an eye on the empty
chair with the cloak thrown over its back. The night of the feast was
approaching, the evening shadows played their game, and the tired procurator
probably imagined that someone was sitting in the empty chair. Yielding to his
faint-heartedness and ruffling the cloak, the procurator let it drop and began
rushing about the balcony, now rubbing his hands, now rushing to the table and
seizing the cup, now stopping and staring senselessly at the mosaics of the
floor, as if trying to read something written there ... It was the second time
in the same day that anguish came over him.
Rubbing
his temple, where only a dull, slightly aching reminder of the morning's
infernal pain lingered, the procurator strained to understand what the reason
for his soul's torments was. And he quickly understood it, but attempted to
deceive himself. It was clear to him that that afternoon he had lost something
irretrievably, and that he now wanted to make up for the loss by some petty,
worthless and, above all, belated actions. The deceiving of himself consisted
in the procurator's trying to convince himself that these actions, now, this
evening, were no less important than the morning's sentence. But in this the
procurator succeeded very poorly.”
Time and again Bulgakov is giving hints that Pilate is aware that he
has committed a grave mistake by executing Yeshua and that he is trying to make
up for it by ordering Judas’ execution…
He tried to sleep, and in his dream he saw that he was walking with
Yeshua along the moonlit way. He was trying to convince Yeshua that he was not
a coward…
“…the
present procurator of Judea and former tribune of a legion, had been no
coward
that time, in the Valley of the Virgins, when the fierce German had almost torn
Rat-slayer the Giant to pieces. But, good heavens, philosopher! How can you,
with your intelligence, allow yourself to think that, for the sake of a man who
has committed a crime against Caesar, the procurator of Judea would ruin his
career?
'Yes,
yes...' Pilate moaned and sobbed in his sleep. Of course he would. In the
morning he still would not, but now, at night, after weighing everything, he
would agree to ruin it. He would do everything to save the decidedly innocent,
mad dreamer and healer from execution!
`Now
we shall always be together,' said the ragged wandering philosopher in his
dream, who for some unknown reason had crossed paths with the equestrian of the
golden spear. `Where there's one of us, straight away there will be the other!
Whenever I am remembered, you will at once be remembered, too! I, the
foundling, the son of unknown parents, and you, the son of an astrologer-king
and a miller's daughter, the beautiful Pila.'
………….
Let’s see what Aphranius does after he leaves Pilate:
Bulgakov gives a vivid description
of Aphranius’s actions. Like a running commentary, no dialogue, no extra words…
“Just
then the procurator's guest (Aphranius - ACR) was in the midst of a
great bustle.
After
leaving the upper terrace of the garden before the balcony, he went down the
stairs to the next terrace of the garden, turned right and came to the barracks
which stood on the palace grounds. In these barracks the two centuries that had
come with the procurator for the feast in Yershalaim were quartered, as was the
procurator's secret guard, which was under the command of this very guest. The
guest did not spend much time in the barracks, no more than ten minutes, but at
the end of these ten minutes, three carts drove out of the barracks yard loaded
with entrenching tools and a barrel of water. The carts were escorted by
fifteen mounted men in grey cloaks. Under their escort the carts left the
palace grounds by the rear gate, turned west, drove through gates in the city
wall, and followed a path first to the Bethlehem road, then down this road to
the north, came to the intersection by the Hebron gate, and then moved down the
Jaffa road, along which the procession had gone during the day with the men
condemned to death. By that
time
it was already dark, and the moon appeared on the horizon.
Soon
after the departure of the carts with their escorting detachment, the
procurator's guest also left the palace grounds on horseback, having changed
into a dark, worn chiton. The guest went not out of the city but into it. Sometime
later he could be seen approaching the Antonia Fortress, located to the north
and in the vicinity of the great temple.
The
guest did not spend much time in the fortress either, and then his tracks
turned up in the Lower City, in its crooked and tangled streets. Here the guest
now came riding a mule.
Knowing
the city well, the guest easily found the street he wanted. It was called Greek
Street, because there were several Greek shops on it, among them one that sold
carpets. Precisely by this shop, the guest stopped his mule, dismounted, and
tied it to the ring by the gate. The shop was closed by then. The guest walked
through the little gate beside the entrance to the shop and found himself in a
small square courtyard surrounded on three sides by sheds. Turning a corner
inside the yard, the guest came to the stone terrace of a house all twined with
ivy and looked around.
Both
the little house and the sheds were dark, no lamps were lit yet. The guest
called softly:
'Niza!'
At
this call a door creaked, and in the evening twilight a young woman without a
veil appeared on the terrace. She leaned over the railing, peering anxiously,
wishing to know who had come.
Recognizing
the visitor, she smiled amiably to him, nodded her head, waved her hand.
'Are
you alone?' Aphranius asked softly in Greek.
'Yes,'
the woman on the terrace whispered, `my husband left for Caesarea in the
morning.'
Here
the woman looked back at the door and added in a whisper: 'But the
serving-woman is at home.' Here she made a gesture meaning 'Come in'.
Aphranius
looked around and went up the stone steps. After which both he and the woman disappeared
into the house. With this woman Aphranius spent very little time, certainly no
more than five minutes. After which he left the house and the terrace, pulled
the hood down lower on his eyes, and went out to the street. Just then the
lamps were being lit in the houses, the pre-festive tumult was still
considerable, and Aphranius on his mule lost himself in the stream of riders
and passers-by. His subsequent route is not known to anyone.”
Niza changes her clothes, puts on a veil and comes out in the crowded
street. She starts off.
Just
at that time, from another lane in the Lower City, a twisting lane that ran
down from ledge to ledge to one of the city pools, from the gates of an
unsightly house with a blank wall looking on to the lane and windows on the
courtyard, came a young man with a neatly trimmed beard, wearing a white kefia
falling to his shoulders, a new pale blue festive tallith with tassels at the bottom,
and creaking new sandals. The handsome, aquiline-nosed young fellow, all
dressed up for the great feast, walked briskly, getting ahead of passers-by
hurrying home for the solemn meal, and watched as one window after another lit
up. The young man took the street leading past the bazaar to the palace of the
high priest Kaifa, located at the foot of the temple hill.
Sometime
later he could be seen entering the gates of Kaifa's courtyard. And a bit later
still, leaving the same courtyard.
After
visiting the palace, where the lamps and torches already blazed, and where the
festive bustle had already begun, the young man started walking still more
briskly, still more joyfully, hastening back to the Lower City. At the corner
where the street flowed into the market-place, amidst the seething and tumult,
he was overtaken by a slight woman, walking with a dancer's gait, in a black
veil that came down over her eyes. As she overtook the handsome young man, this
woman raised her veil for a moment, cast a glance in the young man's direction,
yet not only did
not
slow her pace, but quickened it, as if trying to escape from the one she had
overtaken.
The
young man not only noticed this woman, no, he also recognized her, and, having recognized
her, gave a start, halted, looking perplexedly into her back, and at once set
out after her. Almost knocking over some passer-by carrying a jug, the young
man caught up with the woman, and, breathing heavily with agitation, called out
to her:
'Niza!'
Niza
was a married woman whom Judas loved. They used to meet without the knowledge
of her husband.
Niza
asks Judas to meet her at the olive estate:
'Go to
the olive estate,' Niza whispered, pulling the veil over her eyes and turning
away from a man who was coming through the gateway with a bucket, 'to
Gethsemane, beyond the Kedron, understand?'
'Yes,
yes, yes...'
`I'll
go ahead,' Niza continued, `but don't follow on my heels. Keep separate from
me. I'll go ahead ... When you cross the stream ... you know where the grotto is?'
'I
know, I know...'
'Go up
past the olive press and turn to the grotto. I'll be there. Only don't you dare
come after me at once, be patient, wait here,' and with these words Niza walked
out the gateway as though she had never spoken with Judas.”
And what will Judas do now:
“Judas stood thinking up some lie, but in his
agitation was unable to think through or prepare anything properly, and slowly
walked out the gateway.
Now he
changed his route, he was no longer heading towards the Lower City, but turned
back to Kaifa's palace. The feast had already entered the city. In the windows
around Judas, not only were lights shining, but hymns of praise were heard. On
the pavement, belated passers-by urged their donkeys on, whipping them up,
shouting at them. Judas's legs carried him by themselves, and he did not notice
how the terrible, mossy Antonia Towers flew past him, he did not hear the roar
of trumpets in the fortress, did not pay attention to the mounted Roman patrol
and its torch that flooded his path with an alarming light.
Turning
after he passed the tower, Judas saw that in the terrible height above the
temple two gigantic five-branched candlesticks blazed. But even these Judas
made out vaguely. It seemed to him that ten lamps of an unprecedented size lit
up over Yershalaim, competing with the light of the single lamp that was rising
ever higher over Yershalaim - the moon.
Now
Judas could not be bothered with anything, he headed for the Gethsemane gate,
he wanted to leave the city quickly. At times it seemed to him that before him,
among the backs and faces of passers-by, the dancing little figure flashed,
leading him after her. But this was an illusion.
Judas
realized that Niza was significantly ahead of him. Judas rushed past the
money-changing shops and finally got to the Gethsemane gate. There, burning
with impatience, he was still forced to wait. Camels were coming into the city,
and after them rode a Syrian military patrol, which Judas cursed mentally ...
But
all things come to an end. The impatient Judas was already beyond the city
wall. To the left of him Judas saw a small cemetery, next to it several striped
pilgrims' tents. Crossing the dusty road flooded with moonlight, Judas headed
for the stream of the Kedron with the intention of wading across it. The water
babbled quietly under Judas's feet. Jumping from stone to stone, he finally
came out on the Gethsemane bank opposite and saw with great joy that here the
road below the gardens was empty. The half-ruined gates of the olive estate
could already be seen not far away.
After
the stuffy city, Judas was struck by the stupefying smell of the spring night.
From the garden a wave of myrtle and acacia from the Gethsemane glades poured
over the fence.
No one
was guarding the gateway, there was no one in it, and a few minutes later Judas
was already running under the mysterious shade of the enormous, spreading olive
trees. The road went uphill. Judas ascended, breathing heavily, at times
emerging from the darkness on to patterned carpets of moonlight, which reminded
him of the carpets he had seen in the shop of Niza's jealous husband.
A
short time later there flashed at Judas's left hand, in a clearing, an olive
press with a heavy stone wheel and a pile of barrels. There was no one in the
garden, work had ended at sunset, and now over Judas choirs of nightingales
pealed and trilled.
Judas's
goal was near. He knew that on his right in the darkness he would presently
begin to hear the soft whisper of water falling in the grotto. And so it
happened, he heard it. It was getting cooler. Then he slowed his pace and
called softly:
'Niza!'
But
instead of Niza, a stocky male figure, detaching itself from a thick olive
trunk, leaped out on the road, and something gleamed in its hand and at once
went out. With a weak cry, Judas rushed back, but a second man barred his way.
The
first man, in front of him, asked Judas:
'How
much did you just get? Speak, if you want to save your life!' Hope flared up in
Judas's heart, and he cried out desperately:
Thirty
tetradrachmas!' Thirty tetradrachmas! I have it all with me! Here's the money!
Take it, but grant me my life!'
The
man in front instantly snatched the purse from Judas's hands. And at the same
instant a knife flew up behind Judas's back and struck the lover under the shoulder-blade.
Judas was flung forward and thrust out his hands with clawed fingers into the
air. The front man caught Judas on his knife and buried it up to the hilt in
Judas's heart.
'Ni
... za ...'Judas said, not in his own high and clear young voice, but in a low
and reproachful one, and uttered not another sound. His body struck the earth
so hard that it hummed.
Then a
third figure appeared on the road. This third one wore a cloak with a hood.
`Don't
linger,' he ordered. The killers quickly wrapped the purse together with a note
handed to them by the third man in a piece of hide and criss-crossed it with
twine. The second put the bundle into his bosom, and then the two killers
plunged off the roadsides and the darkness between the olive trees ate them. The
third squatted down by the murdered man and looked at his face. In the darkness
it appeared white as chalk to the gazing man and somehow spiritually beautiful.
A few
seconds later there was not a living man on the road. The lifeless body lay
with outstretched arms. The left foot was in a spot of moonlight, so that each
strap of the sandal could be seen distinctly. The whole garden of Gethsemane
was just then pealing with the song of nightingales.
Where
the two who had stabbed Judas went, no one knows, but the route of the third
man in the hood is known. Leaving the road, he headed into the thick of the
olive trees, making his way south. He climbed over the garden fence far from
the main gate, in the southern corner, where the upper stones of the masonry
had fallen out. Soon he was on the bank of the Kedron. Then he entered the
water and for some time made his way in it, until he saw ahead the silhouettes
of two horses and a man beside them. The horses were also standing in the
stream. The water flowed, washing their hoofs. The horse-handler mounted one of
the horses, the man in the hood jumped on to the other, and the two slowly
walked in the stream, and one could hear the pebbles crunching under the
horses' hoofs. Then the riders left the water, came out on the Yershalaim bank,
and rode slowly under the city wall. Here the horse-handler separated himself,
galloped ahead, and disappeared from view, while the man in the hood stopped
his horse, dismounted on the deserted road, removed his cloak, turned it inside
out, took from under the cloak a flat helmet without plumes and put it on. Now
it was a man in a military chlamys with a short sword at his hip who jumped on
to the horse.
He
touched the reins and the fiery cavalry horse set off at a trot, jolting its
rider. It was not a long way - the rider was approaching the southern gate of
Yershalaim.
Under
the arch of the gateway the restless flame of torches danced and leaped. The
soldiers on guard from the second century of the Lightning legion sat on stone
benches playing dice. Seeing a military man ride in, the soldiers jumped up,
the man waved his hand to them and rode on into the city.
The
city was flooded with festive lights. The flames of lamps played in all the
windows, and from everywhere, merging into one dissonant chorus, came hymns of
praise. Occasionally glancing into windows that looked on to the street, the
rider could see people at tables set with roast kid and cups of wine amidst
dishes of bitter herbs. Whistling some quiet song, the rider made his way at an
unhurried trot through the deserted streets of the Lower City, heading for
the Antonia Tower,
glancing
occasionally at the five-branched candlesticks, such as the world had never
seen, blazing above the temple, or at the moon that hung still higher than the
five-branched candlesticks.
Pilate is eagerly waiting for the report on Judas’s execution. When
Aphranius informs him that he could not save Judas and that he has been killed,
Pilate wants to know about the money that was given to Judas; and also whether
that money was returned back to Kaif. The explanation given was as follows:
Pilate is informed that Judas was paid 30 tetradakhms, and explains
where he might have been killed:
“ It's
impossible to put a knife into a man secretly in the street. That means he was
lured to a basement somewhere. But the service has already searched for him in
the Lower City and undoubtedly would have found him. He is not in the city, I
can guarantee that. If he was killed far from the city, this packet of money
could not have been dropped off so quickly. He was killed near the city. They
managed to lure him out of the city.'
'I
cannot conceive how that could have been done!'
'Yes,
Procurator, that is the most difficult question in the whole affair, and I
don't even know if I will succeed in resolving it.'
'It is
indeed mysterious! A believer, on the eve of the feast, goes out of the city
for some unknown reason, leaving the Passover meal, and perishes there. Who
could have lured him, and how? Could it have been done by a woman?' the
procurator asked on a sudden inspiration.
Aphranius
replied calmly and weightily:
'By no
means, Procurator. That possibility is utterly excluded. One must reason
logically. Who was interested in Judas's death? Some wandering dreamers, some
circle in which, first of all, there weren't any women. To marry, Procurator,
one needs money. To bring a person into the world, one needs the same. But to
put a knife into a man with the help of a woman, one needs very big money, and
no vagabond has got it. There was no woman in this affair, Procurator.
Moreover, I will
say
that such an interpretation of the murder can only throw us off the track,
hinder the investigation, and confuse me.'
'I see
that you are perfectly right, Aphranius,' said Pilate, 'and I merely allowed
myself to express a supposition.'
'Alas,
it is erroneous, Procurator.'
`But
what is it, then, what is it?' exclaimed the procurator, peering into
Aphranius's face with greedy curiosity.
'I
suppose it's money again.'
'An
excellent thought! But who could have offered him money at night, outside the
city, and for what?'
'Oh,
no, Procurator, it's not that. I have only one supposition, and if it is wrong,
I may not find any other explanations.' Aphranius leaned closer to the
procurator and finished in a whisper: 'Judas wanted to hide his money in a
secluded place known only to himself.'
'A
very subtle explanation. That, apparently, is how things were. Now I understand
you: he was lured out not by others, but by his own purpose. Yes, yes, that's
so.'
……………
'Ah,
yes! I forgot to ask,' the procurator rubbed his forehead, how did they manage
to foist the money on Kaifa?'
`You
see, Procurator ... that is not especially complicated. The avengers came from
behind Kaifa's palace, where the lane is higher than the yard. They threw the
packet over the fence.'
"With
a note?'
'Yes,
exactly as you suspected, Procurator.'
……..
“To my question whether anyone had been paid
money in Kaifa's palace, I was told categorically that there had been nothing
of the sort.'
'Ah,
yes? Well, so, if no one was paid, no one was paid. It will be that much harder
to find the killers.'
'Absolutely
right, Procurator.'
`It
suddenly occurs to me, Aphranius: might he not have killed himself?"
'Oh,
no, Procurator,' Aphranius replied, even leaning back in his chair from
astonishment, 'excuse me, but that is entirely unlikely!'
'Ah,
everything is likely in this city. I'm ready to bet that in a very short time
rumours of it will spread all over the city.'
Here Aphranius
again darted his look at the procurator, thought for a moment, and replied:
'That may be, Procurator.'
Aphranius understood what reason for
Judas death should be propagated.
And thus Bulgakov brings back the readers to the information provided
in the Gospels that Judas committed suicide.
Then Aphranius gives report about the burial of those executed during
the day. He tells that Levyi Mathew had taken Yeshua’s body into a cave and did
not want to part with it. He was convinced that Yeshua would be given a proper
cremation and thus the process was completed.
Pilate meets Levi Matthew and discloses as follows:
'What's
wrong with you?' Pilate asked him.
'Nothing,'
answered Matthew Levi, and he made a movement as if he were swallowing something.
His skinny, bare, grey neck swelled out and then slackened again.
'What's
wrong, answer me,' Pilate repeated.
'I'm
tired,' Levi answered and looked sullenly at the floor.
'Sit
down,' said Pilate, pointing to the armchair.
Levi
looked at the procurator mistrustfully, moved towards the armchair, gave a
timorous sidelong glance at the gilded armrests, and sat down not in the chair
but beside it on the floor.
'Explain
to me, why did you not sit in the chair?' asked Pilate.
'I'm
dirty, I'd soil it,' said Levi, looking at the ground.
'You'll
presently be given something to eat.'
'I
don't want to eat,' answered Levi.
'Why
lie?' Pilate asked quietly. 'You haven't eaten for the whole day, and maybe
even longer.
Very
well, don't eat. I've summoned you so that you could show me the knife you had
with you.'
`The
soldiers took it from me when they brought me here,' Levi replied and added
sullenly:
'You
must give it back to me, I have to return it to its owner, I stole it.'
'What
for?'
To cut
the ropes,' answered Levi.
'Mark!'
cried the procurator, and the centurion stepped in under the columns. 'Give me
his knife.'
The
centurion took a dirty bread knife from one of the two cases on his belt,
handed it to the procurator, and withdrew.
'Who
did you take the knife from?'
'From
the bakery by the Hebron gate, just as you enter the city, on the left.'
Pilate
looked at the broad blade, for some reason tried the sharpness of the edge with
his finger, and said:
'Concerning
the knife you needn't worry, the knife will be returned to the shop. But now I
want a second thing - show me the charta you carry with you, on which Yeshua's
words are written down.'
Levi
looked at Pilate with hatred and smiled such an inimical smile that his face
became completely ugly.
'You
want to take away the last thing?' he asked.
'I
didn't say "give me",' answered Pilate, 'I said "show me".'
Levi fumbled
in his bosom and produced a parchment scroll. Pilate took it, unrolled it,
spread it out between the lights, and, squinting, began to study the barely
legible ink marks. It was difficult to understand these crabbed lines, and
Pilate kept wincing and leaning right to the parchment, running his finger over
the lines. He did manage to make out that the writing represented an incoherent
chain of certain utterances, certain dates, household records, and poetic
fragments.
Some
of it Pilate could read: '...there is no death ... yesterday we ate sweet
spring baccuroth ...'
Grimacing
with the effort, Pilate squinted as he read: '... we shall see the pure river
of the water of life ... mankind shall look at the sun through transparent
crystal...' Here Pilate gave a start. In the last lines of the parchment he
made out the words: '... greater vice ... cowardice...'
Pilate
rolled up the parchment and with an abrupt movement handed it to Levi.
Take
it,' he said and, after a pause, added: `You're a bookish man, I see, and
there's no need for you to go around alone, in beggar's clothing, without
shelter. I have a big library in Caesarea, I am very rich and want to take you
to work for me. You will sort out and look after the papyri, you will be fed
and clothed.'
Levi
stood up and replied:
'No, I
don't want to.'
'Why?'
the procurator asked, his face darkening. `Am I disagreeable to you? ... Are
you afraid of me?'
The
same bad smile distorted Levi's face, and he said:
'No,
because you'll be afraid of me. It won't be very easy for you to look me in the
face now that you've killed him.'
'Quiet,'
replied Pilate. Take some money.'
Levi
shook his head negatively, and the procurator went on:
'I
know you consider yourself a disciple of Yeshua, but I can tell you that you
learned nothing of what he taught you. For if you had, you would certainly take
something from me. Bear in mind that before he died he said he did not blame
anyone.' Pilate raised a finger significantly, Pilate's face was twitching.
'And he himself would surely have taken something. You are cruel, and he was not
cruel. Where will you go?'
Levi
suddenly came up to the table, leaned both hands on it, and, gazing at the
procurator with burning eyes, whispered to him:
'Know,
Hegemon, that I am going to kill a man in Yershalaim. I wanted to tell you
that, so you'd know there will be more blood.'
'I,
too, know there will be more of it,' replied Pilate, `you haven't surprised me
with your words. You want, of course, to kill me?'
`You I
won't manage to kill,' replied Levi, baring his teeth and smiling, 'I'm not
such a foolish man as to count on that. But I'll kill Judas of Kiriath, I'll
devote the rest of my life to it.'
Here
pleasure showed in the procurator's eyes, and beckoning Matthew Levi to come
closer, he said:
'You
won't manage to do it, don't trouble yourself. Judas has already been killed
this night.'
Levi
sprang away from the table, looking wildly around, and cried out:
'Who
did it?'
`Don't
be jealous,' Pilate answered, his teeth bared, and rubbed his hands, 'I'm
afraid he had other admirers besides you.'
'Who
did it?' Levi repeated in a whisper.
Pilate
answered him:
'I did
it.'
Levi
opened his mouth and stared at the procurator, who said quietly:
`It
is, of course, not much to have done, but all the same I did it.'
And he
added: 'Well, and now will you take something?'
Levi
considered, relented, and finally said:
'Have
them give me a piece of clean parchment.'
An
hour went by. Levi was not in the palace. Now the silence of the dawn was
broken only by the quiet noise of the sentries' footsteps in the garden. The
moon was quickly losing its colour, one could see at the other edge of the sky
the whitish dot of the morning star. The lamps had gone out long, long ago. The
procurator lay on the couch. Putting his hand under his cheek, he slept and breathed
soundlessly. Beside him slept Banga.
Thus
was the dawn of the fifteenth day of Nisan met by the fifth procurator of
Judea, Pontius Pilate.
…………
Please pay attention to the geography of the place where Judas and
Aphranius were seen moving and we shall get the key to our puzzle:
Judas passed
by the Antonia Tower, glancing occasionally at the five-branched
candlesticks, such as the world had never seen, blazing above the temple, or at
the moon that hung still higher than the five-branched candlesticks.
Antanio
Tower with five branched light is nothing but the Kremlin Towers of Moscow.
That means that the action was taking place not in Yerushalem but in Moscow.
The temple tower of Yerushalem has seven candles and not five.
It
means that Yeshua was not real Yeshua, but an ordinary thinker, symbolizing intelligentsia
in the early thirties of XX Century, and Judas was any judas, treacher who
would convey false news about honest intelligentsia.
Who is
Pilate? Bulgakov describes him as son of astrologer-king (korol’-Karl- Karl
Marx?) and a miller's daughter, the beautiful Pila (Pila is ‘saw' – symbolizing
a worker). Thus Pilate is a combination of communism and working class - dictator
of the proletariat. So, we can say that Kaif is representative of communist
ideology. Hence the tussle here is between the intelligentsia, common man;
Dictatorship of the proletariat and the communist ideology who don’t like each other.
Caesar symbolizes Stalin who is above everyone.
So the
episode about Yeshua – Pontius Pilate represents the struggle between these
three and nothing else.
