“In what places of the Holy Scriptures did the accused look into the mystery of the Holy Trinity?”
Again there is a secret little understanding that exists between the defendant and his interpreter, invisible to any other eye. Moliwda had taught him this once, Jacob remembers it well. And those lessons turn out now to be useful. First he mentions a passage from Genesis 1:26: “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness,” and Genesis 18:3, where Abraham says to the three men as though to one: “Lord, if I have found favor . . .” Then he goes to the Psalms and points to a passage in Psalm 110: “The Lord says to my Lord: Sit at my right hand.” Then he gets lost, he has his books in Hebrew with him and turns the pages, but then he finally says he is tired and would need time to find the right places.
So they ask him the next question: Where in the Scriptures does it say that the Messiah has already come, and that he is Jesus Christ, born of the Virgin Mary and crucified 1,727 years hence?
For a long time, Jacob is silent, until they have to prompt him to answer. Jacob says he was once clear on this, back when he was teaching. But after his baptism he lost that clarity of his mind, and there are certain things he doesn’t need to know now, for now he and the others are guided by the priests.
Sometimes his quick reflexes amaze Moliwda. This answer, against all expectations, is to their liking.
“Which are the places in the Holy Scripture from which he was able to arrive at and lead others to the fact that the Messiah, Jesus Christ, is the true God and Creator and consubstantial Father?”
Jacob rummages around in his books but doesn’t find the right passage. He rubs his forehead and finally says:
“Isaiah. ‘And shall call his name Immanuel.’”
Inquisitor ?liwicki won’t give up that easily. He harps on about the question of the Messiah.
“What does the defendant mean in saying that Christ will come again? Where will he come? How will that be? What does that mean that he will come to judge the living and the dead? Is it true that the defendant has maintained that he is already in the world in some human body and will appear suddenly, like lightning?”
?liwicki’s voice is calm, as if he were saying ordinary, common things, but Moliwda can feel the silence thickening, as everyone listens carefully for what Jacob will say. When he translates the Jesuit’s question for Jacob, he adds in a little word: “Careful.”
Jacob catches that word and speaks slowly, cautiously. Moliwda also translates slowly, waiting until Jacob finishes his sentence, turning the words over in his mind a few times.
“I never thought the Messiah would be born again on earth in human form, and I never taught that. Nor did I think he would come as some rich king who would bring down judgments among people. That he is concealed in the world is what I had in mind, that he is hidden in the guise of bread and wine. And that is what I understood at some point myself, deeply, in church in Podhajce.”
Moliwda exhales but in such a way that no one will notice. He can feel that the light elegant ?upan he is wearing underneath his kontusz is sopping at the armpits and down his back.
Father Szembek interjects now: “Does the defendant know the New Testament?”
“Have you read the books of the New Testament? And if so, in what language?”
Jacob says he has not, that he has never read them. Only in Lwów and here in Warsaw has he read anything from the Gospel of Saint Luke.
Father Szembek is interested in why he wore a turban and attended mosques. Why did he receive a ferman from the Porte that allowed him to settle as if he were a new Muhammadan? Is it true that he converted to Islam?
Moliwda is close to fainting—so they do know everything after all. He was an idiot to expect otherwise.
Jacob answers immediately, as soon as he understands the question. Through Moliwda’s lips he says:
“If I believed that the best religion was Muhammad’s, I would not have turned to Catholicism.”
And he goes on to explain that the Talmudist Jews turned the Porte against him and were giving them bribes so that the Turks would apprehend him.
“Because I was persecuted, I was forced to accept that religion, but I only did it superficially, in my heart I did not have that faith as the true one even for a moment.”
“Why do you write in your supplication to the sultan that you were poor and persecuted, while you told us you are wealthy, with a home with a vineyard and other properties?”
Triumph sounds in the questioner’s voice—here he has caught the defendant in a lie—but Jacob does not see anything wrong about it. He responds carelessly that he was told to do this by the mayor of Giurgiu, a Turk, who saw that he could make some money that way. And what could be wrong with that? Jacob’s tone seems to be saying.
Father Szembek rummages around in his papers and finds something of evident interest, since he interrupts before the Jesuit can get back to asking his questions.
“One of the men we interrogated, one Nahman, now called Piotr Jakubowski, said that you revealed to him the Antichrist in Salonika. Did you believe that?”
Jacob answers with Moliwda’s lips.
“No, I never believed it. Everyone said it was the Antichrist, so I passed it along, like a tidbit.”
The Jesuit gets back to it:
“Did the defendant speak of the Final Judgment as being near? How could such knowledge have been obtained?”
Moliwda hears:
“Yes, the Judgment is near, and that conviction can be found in the Christian Scriptures, that although we do not know when it will happen, it is near.”
And he explains:
“To awaken the others, I cited the words of Hosea 3 and told of how for so many years we Jews had no priest and no altar, while now, we, the sons of Israel, are converting to the Lord God and seeking through that faith the Messiah, son of David. Having accepted the Christian faith, we already have priests and altars, so these must already be the last days according to that prophet.”
“Was the accused aware that some of his students took him to be the Messiah? Is it true that, sitting on a chair and consuming coffee, and smoking a pipe, he permitted others to worship him while they cried and sang? Why would the accused allow this? Why would he not prevent his students from calling him ‘Lord’ and ‘Holy Father’?”
Father ?liwicki is becoming increasingly belligerent, although he does not raise his voice at all; he asks his questions in a tone that suggests that in a moment he will rip off the veil and reveal to the world some terrifying truth, and the tension in the room increases. Now he asks why Jacob selected twelve students. Jacob explains that there were not twelve to begin with, but fourteen, and two of them died.
“Why did they all choose, at their baptisms, the names of the apostles? So that Frank is as if in the place of Our Lord and Savior?”