by Brian Godawa
“Doctor Maccabaeus.”
Alexander turned to see Aaron and his squad of forty Essene warriors at the entrance of the theater.
“How can I help you?” he asked.
“On the contrary,” countered the monk, “how can we help you?”
“What do you mean? Are you not needed in battle?”
“Doctor, the war is lost. The temple is occupied, John of Gischala is dead, Simon bar Giora captured. It is only a matter of days before Rome burns the rest of the city to the ground.”
Alexander felt a sinking in the pit of his stomach. Aaron spoke with solemn resignation. “There will be no mercy.”
Alexander’s mind spun, trying to figure out a new plan.
Then Aaron said, “We will help you get these people to safety.”
“How? The only possible way is to hide out in the tunnels below Jerusalem and pray that the Romans do not find them.”
“Exactly” said Aaron.
“But the only tunnel I knew of was in the Lower City.”
Aaron smiled. “You are now in the Essene quarter. I know a secret tunnel in one of our old synagogues. It’s not far from here. You can hide there as long as you need until the Romans leave.”
“Won’t Titus occupy the city?”
Aaron remained sober. “There will be nothing left to occupy. Whoever the Romans don’t kill, they’ll enslave, then leave.”
“All right. Show me this secret passage.”
“I have one caveat,” said the Essene. “The tunnel is small and tight. You will not be able to bring any beds down there for those most in medical need. And we must maintain stealth.”
Alexander felt dread wash over him as he considered the implication. They would have to leave behind anyone who was too sick or wounded to carry themselves—and to do so quietly.
The monk said to him as if reading his thoughts, “Doctor, you have done everything you can do for these people. There is nothing more you can do.”
Still, Alexander’s thoughts searched for a way, any way to protect the hundreds who would be left behind to face the sword of Rome.
He muttered, “I haven’t given my life.”
Aaron said, “It wouldn’t save them if you did. But you can still save some.”
The monk was right. It had been Alexander’s driving goal this entire war: to save some, any whom he could rescue from the flames. He knew he couldn’t save them all. But for the first time he was facing the hard decision that until now he had been able to put off—the reality of finally leaving the city. Leaving those in need.
CHAPTER 65
Abomination of Desolation
The temple mount had burned out. The porticos around the court of Gentiles were smoldering ruins. Dead bodies were being removed and blood mopped up from the pavement. The Roman army now occupied the temple mount in preparation for taking the rest of Jerusalem.
But Titus had an important task to do. A symbolic task. In war, symbolism was everything. Symbolic behaviors struck fear into the heart of the enemy and energized the bloodlust of one’s own troops.
Titus had thought through this one. He had remembered the words of the crazy Jewish apocalypse confiscated from the Christians as well as the sacred prophecies of the Jews in Babylon that Josephus had told him about.
Titus had decided to do the very things that these religious fanatics feared most. Which was why he’d chosen not to bring Josephus or the Herods with him today. He didn’t want to dishearten them, seeing that they were going to be his liaisons in the aftermath.
He marched into the ruins of the inner temple escorted by a company of soldiers leading a tethered bull and a very specific captive. Legionaries were still carrying out chests and pallets of silver, gold, and other valuables hidden in chambers beneath the temple. The plunder, split as booty among the soldiers, was so great it was sure to bring the price of rare metals down throughout the empire.
Tiberius met Titus at the steps of the Holy Place. He saluted. “Caesar, the temple has been cleaned out of the debris as you requested.”
Titus looked up at the marble structural remains, blackened by soot. The golden roof had melted with the intense heat of the flames, the molten precious metal seeping into the cracks and joints between the stones.226
Tiberius added, “We found some priests hiding in chambers around and beneath the structure.” He gestured to his left. Titus saw thirty Jews with priestly garb in bonds, beaten bloody, and ragged.
“Excellent work,” said Titus. “Did you find a Torah scroll?”
Tiberius reached out his hand to a soldier, who handed him a holy scroll wrapped in blue cloth, its two golden handles sticking out on both sides.
Titus smiled, then ordered, “Bring the priests over here.”
Tiberius alerted the guards and waved them over. The priests had also chains on their feet, so that they had to hop with small steps like hobbled beasts.
They lined up before Titus, and he looked out over them. He thought what he might say to them, then simply pronounced, “I have killed the god of Israel.”
Titus gestured to his standard bearers to set up the Roman standards from each of the legions around the stone altar that stood to one side of a large bronze laver.
Some of the priests began to weep. The standards, or ensigns, were the banners of each legion attached to large staffs. Each was a different color designating the regiment’s number. They were emblazoned with the symbolic image of the legion as well as an image of Caesar. The standard was considered a holy representation of the emperor and was therefore defended to the death by the soldiers. The Jews considered them idols. So bringing them into the temple was a blasphemous sacrilege.227
This was only the beginning of blasphemies that Titus had planned for today.
Soldiers led the tethered bull they had brought up the ramp to the top of the stone altar and tied it down. One of them announced with a loud voice, “We sacrifice this bull to the glory of our savior and god, Caesar!”
One of the other soldiers took a large machete he had confiscated from the temple slaughterhouse and brought it down upon the neck of the beast, nearly severing its head. It made a sickening death squeal and fell to the floor of the altar. Its blood poured out and into the drains at the edge of the altar.
Titus turned to the soldiers guarding the priests and commanded, “Bring them in.”
He entered the Holy Place.
The interior stank of smoke and charred wood that had been pushed to the sides of the chamber. They had even swept the floor for Titus. Excellent.
He walked up to the Holy of Holies, now, a bare small stage without a curtain. He ordered the soldiers, “Line up the priests for the show.”
They obeyed, and the fearful Jews looked at one another, wondering what abomination he had planned.
“Bring me the harlot.”
One of the soldiers brought forth a Jewish captive they had brought along. Titus had deliberately chosen a harlot to match the symbolic language of the Apocalypse.
She ascended the steps and met Titus at the top.
“Tiberius,” he called out.
Tiberius walked up the stairs with the Torah scroll. Titus gestured to the floor. The Prefect placed the scroll on the floor and unrolled it like a carpet.
The Jewish priests gasped at the horror of placing the holy Scripture on the ground.
Oh, I’m just getting started, thought Titus with a smile.
He turned to the harlot and said, “Take off your clothes and lay on the scroll.” She dutifully obeyed. Titus then removed his undergarment beneath his battle skirt and proceeded to fornicate with the harlot on top of the scroll in the Holy of Holies.
The priests wept. Some fainted.
All was lost.228
After he had finished his abominable symbolic deed, he handed the woman to Tiberius. “Burn her on a pyre.”
The woman whimpered and squirmed hopelessly in Tiberius’s grip. He stiffened in obedience. “Yes, Caesar.”
The Jews trembled with shock.
One of them cried out, “Mercy, Caesar! Mercy!”
Titus turned to the audacious priest and announced, “The time for pardon is over. You deserve to perish with your holy house.”
He marched past the soldiers and their captives as they all drew swords and hacked the Jews to death.229
He muttered to himself, “Ask your god for mercy.”
CHAPTER 66
Alexander had not managed any sleep. The sounds of war outside the Upper City wall kept him awake, and nightmares of atrocities woke him if he did close his eyes. The Romans had invaded the Lower City and enslaved thousands more Jews. They had also slaughtered the weak and elderly, just as Alexander had expected.
He stood on the wall of the Upper City looking down upon the field of slaughter. Bodies were stacked in the streets like cordwood. The Romans were demolishing all the buildings and burning everything to the ground. The rest of the legionaries were now completing their earthworks ramp to take their final objective: the Upper City, where the last of the Jewish soldiers and refugees had fled.
One of those Jewish soldiers next to Alexander said, “You’d better return to your loved ones and say your prayers. We are all going to die. Or be enslaved. I can’t honestly say one is better than the other.”
Alexander left the city wall to return to the theater.
On his walk back, the words of Aaron haunted him. You can still save some.
The Essene knew what he was talking about. His was the sole surviving group from Qumran after that community had been wiped out. The Christians would have suffered the same fate had they not left Jerusalem over three years ago.
Alexander had to focus not on those he could not save, but on those he could, those few innocents well enough to escape and the last of the Christians in the city.
When Alexander arrived at the theater, he called together all the Christian assistants to gather around the patients for his announcement.
“The Romans are at the walls of the Upper City. They will breach it shortly, and they will burn this city to the ground. I’ve seen it with my own eyes in the Lower City. I will not give you false hope. None of you are safe. They will most likely kill us all.”
The crowd burst out in frightened chatter. Some wept.
“But there is hope for some. The Essene warrior has shown me a secret entrance to a tunnel beneath the city.”230
Now the chatter became a buzz of excitement.
Someone shouted out, “Can we carry the beds there?”
Alexander hesitated. He didn’t want to say what he said next. “No. The entrance is not large enough to accommodate beds, and we must be inconspicuous. So only those who can walk of their own accord will be able to go.”
Horrified gasps and cries for the Lord broke out.
“Please, quiet down!” When they did, he continued. “Because the Romans have surrounded the city, we cannot leave the tunnel. We must hide out down there until they leave. With our lack of food, we still don’t stand much of a chance.”
Someone shouted out, “You are leaving us to die!”
Another yelled, “It’s not fair!”
The crowd became riled. Patients argued amongst themselves. Alexander’s heart dropped. He didn’t want to leave any of them. But if the able didn’t leave, then they would all die.
If he could only save some…
A whistle penetrated the cacophony. Everyone settled down when they saw who it was. A young ten-year old boy, dark skinned, wavy black hair. Alexander recognized him as Samuel, the son of the father Alexander had saved months ago with a tracheotomy and a skull drill. The doctor was sure the father wouldn’t last two days with his wounds, but he did. And he was still alive today.
The boy helped his father to stand and kept him from falling. The man still had a head bandage and his voice was not strong, having only partially healed from the tracheotomy. It had the effect of piquing everyone’s attention.
“Without this man and those who helped him, most of us would be dead already. I would be dead. They have sacrificed everything to help us. But the time has come when there is nothing more that can be done. How dare you try to pull down with you those who have protected you as long as they could. Now is their opportunity. And I for one will not betray them. God bless you, Alexander Maccabeus, and all the Christians who have helped us. May the Lord bless you and keep you. May his face shine upon you and protect you.”
The silence of the crowd penetrated Alexander. He could see the remorse in the eyes of those closest to him. He could feel their shame. And he knew that this man had just saved the lives of those who still had a chance.
But the father still wasn’t done. He raised a rag that was wrapped around something. He said, “You will need food and water to survive in the tunnels. Here is a piece of bread that I have saved for a moment like this. I want you to have it.”
Alexander could not speak. His eyes filled with tears.
Then the silence was broken by another voice coming from a palette. An elderly woman with a broken leg. She raised a piece of vegetable in her hand. “I want to donate my food as well. Thank you, Alexander Maccabaeus. You did everything you could.”
All over the theater, feeble and wounded patients reached under their pillows and mattresses, pulling out scraps of food they had hoarded away from the scant rations they’d been provided, raising them in the air as food offerings.
“Me too,” came a voice.
Another, “Thank you, Alexander!”
And another, “God bless Alexander, and God bless the Christians.”
Alexander could not stop the tears. Neither could the other Christians who had served by his side. This was the hardest thing they had ever done in more than three years of war. And now it was as if all they had given was being given back to them.
It didn’t make the loss any easier.
The rest of the day was spent with much crying and saying goodbyes. Alexander spent as much of it as he could spare from preparations away from everyone in his small area, praying and worshipping the Alpha and Omega, apart from whose will not a single sparrow fell to the ground.
So many sparrows.
Those words of his wife Cassandra filled Alexander’s heart with deep sorrow and pain. He missed her so. But he would see her again one day. Hope was all he had left.
When the time had come, Alexander gathered those who were able to care for themselves, about a thousand of them. They would move through the back alleys under cloak of night in groups of twenty or so in order to avoid detection. Every person carried water skins and whatever scraps and crumbs of food they had left along with what had been given to them.
They might end up being starved out after all.
Alexander led the first group to show them where the tunnel entrance was. He moved swiftly through the Essene quarter to the place where Aaron had shown him earlier. His twenty followers moved noiselessly like phantoms in the dark. The entrance was hidden in an Essene synagogue that had been destroyed by the catapults. This was a good thing, because the Romans would be less likely to search through rubble looking for such escape plans.
He found the building, half the walls still standing, the other half piles of debris. He led them up to the corner of a stone wall and gestured to a large boulder.
Two men moved it aside, and the group descended into a secret passageway. Aaron had told the truth—it was indeed a small opening. As undernourished and scrawny as the group now was, they had no difficulty squeezing through. But a large, well-fed man would find it a tight squeeze, and it would certainly be impossible to maneuver beds or even pallets through the tunnel’s low, narrow expanse.
Alexander used a small lamp they had carried along to light a series of other lamps and some torches in the passageway. Following Aaron’s meticulous directions, he made some turns until he arrived at a larger hallway with several co
njoining tunnels.
“You can comfortably fit a couple hundred or so down each of these passages,” he told his companions. “That should do it.”
With a few others, he made his way back to the theater to organize the rest of the groups of refugees for the exodus.
CHAPTER 67
September 26, AD 70
45 Days after the cessation of sacrifice
And from the time that the regular burnt offering is taken away and the abomination that makes desolate is set up, there shall be 1,290 days. Blessed is he who waits and arrives at the 1,335 days [45 days later].
Daniel 12:11–12
Upon completion of the earthworks ramp, the Romans had battered their way into the Upper City, pushing the remaining rebels back into Herod’s palace, where they too were eventually overtaken.
On this day of September 26 in the second year of Vespasian’s reign, Titus had won Jerusalem. The war was over.231
But not so his dealings with the Jews.
Titus had moved his headquarters into the temple complex. He convened a council of advisors in his war tent to discuss what to do with the holy temple.
“Destroy it,” said Tiberius. “These hard-nosed Jews will simply not learn their lesson unless you take everything from them. Leave one stone standing, and they’ll cling to that tiny piece until they can rebel again.”
Josephus sat beside Agrippa and Berenice, listening intently to the arguments, forming his response.
Another tribune spoke up. “We’ve lost too many legionaries because of their fanatical devotion to this unholy house. You may lose the respect of your troops if you don’t allow them satisfaction of total destruction.”
“On the other hand,” said another tribune, “the temple is an extraordinary work of human achievement. If preserved, it might furnish evidence of Roman moderation. If destroyed, it could serve a perpetual proof of Roman cruelty.”
