1. Acts 22:6–11. All references to the Bible are taken from the Jerusalem Bible.

2. The first known use of the term Christian can be found in Acts 11:26—“It was at Antioch that the disciples were first called Christians.”

3. It is Islam that recognizes the pointlessness of the death on the cross (and even the resurrection): Isa goes straight to heaven (his movement from human to divine did not require death). The difference between Islam and Christianity is precisely the movement of his name: in Islam, Isa does not move from a singular into a universal, but from an individual name to a universal title.

4. There have also been interpretations that Saul was in the centre of the light—it “shone around” him (Acts 22:6). Even if this were so, it does not change the fact that the cause of his blindness was not so much the light but something other than that.

5. Acts 22:14–15.

6. Luke 22:48–49.

7. If there was no love, then it would merely be an act of complicity to murder. It is only with love that it is a betrayal, for in every betrayal, there is the break of a previous commonality, singular-plurality (where two singular persons were linked by a common idea, goal, belief). In this sense, the betrayal is always a double betrayal, of the other person and also of the idea, and in this double betrayal, love itself is shattered.

8. In a way, this was the logic that was explored in Jesus Christ Superstar (music and lyrics by Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice): in the musical, it was Judas who realized that Jesus was becoming too much of a superstar, and hence had to betray him in order to save Jerusalem (which was Jesus' intention in the first place).

9. Avital Ronell, The Test Drive (Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 2005), 310. An excellent meditation on loyalty, betrayal, and love in Brutus and Cordelia from Julius Caesar and King Lear, respectively, can be found in The Test Drive, 307–310.