They said that sufficient time would not intervene before the festival day, and that there would be a tumult among the people.  The Sanhedrin alone listened to his proposals with some degree of attention.  After Judas had sacrilegiously received the Blessed Sacrament, Satan took entire possession of him, and he went off at once to complete his crime.  He in the first place sought those persons who had hitherto flattered and entered into agreements with him, and who still received him with pretended friendship.  Some others joined the party, and among the number Annas and Caiphas, but the latter treated him with considerable pride and scorn.  All these enemies of Christ were extremely undecided and far from feeling any confidence of success, because they mistrusted Judas.

I saw the empire of Hell divided against itself; Satan desired the crime of the Jews, and earnestly longed for the death of Jesus, the Converter of souls, the holy Teacher, the Just Man, who was so abhorrent to him; but at the same time he felt an extraordinary interior fear of the death of the innocent Victim, who would not conceal himself from his persecutors.  I saw him then, on the one hand, stimulate the hatred and fury of the enemies of Jesus, and on the other, insinuate to some of their number that Judas was a wicked; despicable character, and that the sentence could not be pronounced before the festival, or a sufficient number of witnesses against Jesus be gathered together.

Everyone proposed something different, and some questioned Judas, saying:  ‘Shall we be able to take him?  Has he not armed men with him?’ And the traitor replied:  ’No, he is alone with eleven disciples; he is greatly depressed, and the eleven are timid men.’  He told them that now or never was the time to get possession of the person of Jesus, that later he might no longer have it in his power to give our Lord up into their hands, and that perhaps he should never return to him again, because for several days past it had been very clear that the other disciples and Jesus himself suspected and would certainly kill him if he returned to them.  He told them likewise that if they did not at once seize the person of Jesus, he would make his escape, and return with an army of his partisans, to have himself proclaimed King.  These threats of Judas produced some effect, his proposals were acceded to, and he received the price of this treason—­thirty pieces of silver.  These pieces were oblong, with holes in their sides, strung together by means of rings in a kind of chain, and bearing certain impressions.

Judas could not help being conscious that they regarded him with contempt and distrust, for their language and gestures betrayed their feelings, and pride suggested to him to give back the money as an offering for the Temple, in order to make them suppose his intentions to have been just and disinterested.  But they rejected his proposal, because the price of blood could not be offered in the Temple.  Judas saw