"Do what you will, you have power over the body, but I have the Faith over which you have no power." So the days and the nights passed, and though the prayer came up in feeble tones, it was born of a mighty spirit and it rang in the ears of the tormentors as the voice of an angel which they had no power to silence, appealing from them to the tribunal of the Throne of God Most High.
Day by day, also, the rabbis and the elders began to congregate together at evening before the house of Lazarus and to talk with him and with each other, debating how they might break the endurance of his son and bring him again into the synagogue as one of themselves.

Chief among them in their councils was Levi, the Short-handed, devising new tortures for the frail body to bear and boasting how he would conquer the stubborn boy by the might of his hands to hurt.

Some of the rabbis shook their heads.
"He is possessed of a devil," they said.

"He will die and repent not." But others nodded approvingly and wagged their filthy heads and said that when the fool had been chastised the evil spirit would depart from him.
Once more the cloud of passing time descended and was lifted.

Then the walls of the house were opened and in a low arched chamber the rabbis sat about a black table.