(end of Chapter 11 from) The Last Temptation of Christ
                       by: Nikos Kazantzakis

    "I may be thickheaded," he said to the son of Mary, "but speak  
I'll understand. Who are you? What do you want? Where do you come
from? What are these tales that surround you on every side: a
flowering staff, a lightning staff, the fainting spells which seize
you while you walk, the voices you're said to hear in the darkness?
Tell me, what is your secret?"
    "Pity, Judas, my brother."
    "For whom? Whom do you pity? Is it yourself, your own wretchedness
and poverty? Or perhaps you feel sorry for Israel? Well, speak! Is it
for Israel? That's what I want you to say, do you hear? That and
nothing else. Are you being devoured by Israel's suffering?"
    "By man's, Judas, my brother."
    "Forget about 'man,' The Greeks who slaughtered us for so many
men, curse them!   they're men. The Romans are men, and they're still
slaughtering us and soiling the temple and our God. Why care about
them? It's Israel that you should keep your sights on, and if you feel
pity, it should be pity for Israel. All the others can go to the
devil!"
    "But I feel pity for the jackals, Judas, my brother, and for the
sparrows, and the grass."
    "Ha! Ha!" jeered the redbeard. "And for the ants?"
    "Yes, for the ants too. Everything is God's. When I bend over the
ant, inside his black, shiny eye I see the face of God."
    "And if you bend over my face, son of the Carpenter?"
    "There too, deep down, I see the face of God."

		-Nikos Kazantzakis
		 (end of Chapter 11 from The Last Temptation of Christ)