o into the
tomb and carry Jesus out of it ... if he were not dead. He slid down
from the rock again, and no sooner did he reach the ground than he
remembered having left Galilee to keep his promise to his father; but,
despite his obedience to his father's will, had not escaped his fate. In
vain he avoided the Temple and refused to enter the house of Simon the
Leper.... If he were to take Jesus to his house and hide him he would
become a party to Jesus' crime, and were Jesus discovered in his house
the angry Pharisees would demand their death from Pilate. If he would
escape the doom of the cross he must roll the stone up into the entrance
of the sepulchre.... A dying man perceives no difference between a
sepulchre and a dwelling-house. He would be dead before morning; before
the Sabbath was done for certain; and Mary and Martha would begin the
embalmment on Sunday. He would be dead certainly on Sunday morning, and
dead men tell no tales, so they say. But do they say truly? The dead are
voiceless, but they speak, and are closer to us than the living; and for
ever the spectre of that man would be by him, making frightful every
hour of his life. Yet by closing up the sepulchre and leaving Jesus to
die in it he would be serving him better than by carrying him to his
house and bringing him back to life. To what life was he bringing him?
He could not be kept hidden for long; he could not remain in Jerusalem,
and whither Jesus went Joseph would follow, and his bond to his father
would be broken then in spirit as well as in fact. A cold sweat broke
out on his forehead and for a long time his mind seemed like a broken
thing and the pieces scattered; and as much exhausted as if he had
carried Jesus a mile on his shoulders, he stooped forward and entered
the tomb, without certain knowledge whether he was going to kiss Jesus
and close the tomb upon him or carry him to his house about a
half-an-hour distant.

As he drew the cere-cloths from the body, a vision of his house rose up
in his mind--a large two-storeyed house with a domed roof, situated on a
large vineyard on the eastern slopes of the Mount of Olives, screened
from the highway by hedges of carob, olive garths and cedars. And this
house seemed to Joseph as if designed by Providence for the concealment
of Jesus. The only way, he muttered, will be to lift him upon my
shoulders, getting the weight as far as I can from off my arms. If he
could walk a little supported on my arm.