What thou dost, do quickly
The phrase "What thou dost, do quickly" (John 13:27) is a recurring biblical quotation in Shusaku Endo's Silence, used by Sebastian Rodrigues to frame his relationship with the betrayer Kichijiro and to meditate on the nature of Judas's role in the Passion. The phrase becomes a central motif for the novel's exploration of betrayal, weakness, and the silence of God, as Rodrigues struggles to reconcile Christ's command with his own inability to forgive or understand the betrayer's actions.
Biblical Origin and Theological Context
The words are spoken by Jesus to Judas Iscariot at the Last Supper, just before Judas leaves to betray him. In the Gospel of John, Jesus says, "What thou dost, do quickly" (John 13:27), and the disciples misunderstand, thinking Judas is being sent to buy provisions or give something to the poor. The phrase marks the moment when Jesus knowingly sends his betrayer to fulfill his destiny, a moment that has long troubled Christian theology: why would Christ, who is love itself, not only allow but seemingly command the act of betrayal? Rodrigues, as a seminarian and later as a priest, had asked many priests about this problem, including his teacher Christovao Ferreira, but he could not recall Ferreira giving any real solution . The phrase thus carries a weight of unresolved theological tension that the novel will dramatize through Rodrigues's own experience.
Rodrigues's First Use: The Betrayal by Kichijiro
Rodrigues first applies the phrase to his own situation after Kichijiro betrays him to the authorities. When Kichijiro, having led the guards to Rodrigues, receives a handful of silver coins thrown contemptuously into his face, Rodrigues is dragged away . Later, as he is paraded through the streets of Nagasaki, he sees Kichijiro following the procession like a whipped dog, and a black and cruel emotion rises from the very depths of his being. He whispers in his heart, "Go, what thou dost do quickly" . This is not a moment of divine command but of human anger and contempt. Rodrigues, exhausted and humiliated, cannot bring himself to forgive the man who has sold him for three hundred pieces of silver—ten times the price of Judas . The phrase becomes a weapon of resentment, a way of dismissing Kichijiro as irredeemable.
The Struggle to Understand Judas
Throughout his captivity, Rodrigues wrestles with the meaning of the phrase and the figure of Judas. He recalls the scene at the Supper and wonders what emotion filled Christ's breast when he ordered away the man who was to betray him for thirty pieces of silver. Was it anger, resentment, or love? If it was anger, Rodrigues reflects, then Christ excluded Judas from salvation at that instant, allowing one man to fall into eternal damnation . But he cannot believe that. Christ wanted to save even Judas, or he would never have made him a disciple. Yet why did Christ not stop him when he began to slip from the path of righteousness? This problem had never been solved for Rodrigues, and now, facing his own betrayer, it becomes agonizingly personal . He recalls a conventional answer he had heard: that the words were not uttered in anger or hatred but in disgust—like a husband betrayed by his wife who continues to love her but cannot forgive the fact of the betrayal itself. But this answer had never satisfied him, and it does not satisfy him now . He even entertains the thought that Judas was no more than an unfortunate puppet for the glory of the drama of Christ's life and death .
The Reversal: Christ's Voice from the Fumie
The final and most radical reinterpretation of the phrase comes at the moment of Rodrigues's own apostasy. As he stands before the fumie—the copper image of Christ that he must trample—he hears the voice of Christ speaking to him from the plaque. The Christ of the fumie, worn down and hollow by the constant trampling of Japanese feet, says: "Trample! Trample! I more than anyone know of the pain in your foot. Trample! It was to be trampled on by men that I was born into this world. It was to share men's pain that I carried my cross" . Later, in the darkness of his house in Nagasaki, Rodrigues recalls this moment and asks the Lord: "But you told Judas to go away: What thou dost do quickly. What happened to Judas?" And the voice of Christ answers: "I did not say that. Just as I told you to step on the plaque, so I told Judas to do what he was going to do. For Judas was in anguish as you are now" (E01333-E01334). This is a stunning revision of the Gospel text. The phrase is no longer a command of dismissal or a judgment of condemnation; it is an expression of compassion for the betrayer's own suffering. Christ, in this vision, does not reject Judas but acknowledges his anguish and permits him to act, just as he permits Rodrigues to trample. The phrase becomes a word of mercy, not of wrath.
Thematic Significance: Betrayal, Weakness, and the Silence of God
The evolution of Rodrigues's understanding of "What thou dost, do quickly" mirrors the novel's central theological movement. The phrase begins as a source of intellectual confusion and moral outrage, then becomes a weapon of personal resentment, and finally transforms into a word of divine solidarity with the weak and the betrayer. This trajectory is inseparable from the novel's critique of a triumphalist, heroic Christianity. Rodrigues, who had imagined himself a martyr like the saints, is forced to confront his own weakness and his inability to love Kichijiro as Christ loved Judas. The phrase, in its final form, suggests that Christ's silence in the face of betrayal is not abandonment but a sharing of the betrayer's pain. The novel thus reimagines the Passion not as a drama of glorious sacrifice but as a story of God's presence in the midst of human failure and anguish. The phrase "What thou dost, do quickly" becomes, in the end, a word of permission and companionship for all who, like Judas and Kichijiro and Rodrigues, find themselves trapped in the terrible necessity of their own actions.
