Have I done mortal wrong? My heart is troubled And my soul haunted by a thousand doubts. But a short year agone, across the Lake Straight from Capernaum on the other side, Near to Bethsaida-Julias, on the grass, After a term of teaching and much toil, Healing and pointing out the Heavenly Way, Time passed in pinioned flight till evening shades Stretched lengthening eastward, and the night was near, When Christ, discerning the great multitude, More than five thousand eager followers, All absent from their homes, and much an hungred, Ordered provision to be spread for them, Fitly, and there, along the greening slopes;
Poszczególne księgi poematu noszą tytuły: The Betrayal, Arrest, and Hearing before Annas, Before Caiaphas, Before the Sanhedrin, Before Pilate, Before Herod, Again before Pilate i The Crucifixion. Epos poprzedzony jest obszernym wstępem. W pierwszych słowach wprowadzenia autor przedstawia genezę poematu: For many years I have contemplated writing, in the form of a poem, what seems to me, beside the meager details given in the Gospels, the probable, or at least not improbable, facts of the procedure and the language