I found myself strangely troubled by the lack of resolve on the part of this spiritual leader of the Pharisees.
“If he should be the Messiah, are we to disown him? Why then my mission?”
“At least,” said Annas, “we will be able to watch him and come to a decision in due time.”
My curiosity had been piqued by the little I had heard. “Of what lineage is he?”
“The same as your own.” Annas’ thin lips formed a sardonic smile. “There must be ten thousand like this in Jerusalem alone, born of the House of David.”
“Born in Bethlehem near an ox and a donkey?”
He clucked his tongue impatiently. “I have no time for guessing games. The Sanhedrin’s Council of Five will decide, if and when a decision must be made.”
“Where is this man now?”
“In the Wilderness, south of Jericho. He baptizes at the ford at Bethabara, on both sides of the Jordan.”
“In Perea as well?”
“So they say.”
“Then he comes under the jurisdiction of Herod Antipas, as well as the Temple.”
Annas waved his arms airily. “It is all one. Herod rules Perea and Galilee at the sufferance of the Romans. His kinsman Agrippa has been supplanted by Sejanus and can no longer help him.”
I had a gnawing curiosity about this man the Sanhedrin was so concerned about. “By sacred prophecy this man should be born of a virgin.”
The High Priest gave me a pitying glance. “How could a man born of a woman be born of a virgin?”
Gamaliel was standing with an amused smile on his lips, as if enjoying this duel between his former pupil and the supreme head of the Jewish theocracy.
“The Pharisees,” said I, hoping to woo Gamaliel to my side, “believe in the angels of God and the resurrection of man. There is not one life but many. It is quite possible for the Prophets, even Moses, to be reborn if the God who made heaven and earth in six days so wills it.”
Annas was not impressed. “The Sadducees hold there is only one life, and it is of the flesh.”
Believing in reincarnation, from my Pharisee days, I was not easily put off. “Who were this man’s parents?”
Annas threw up his arms in disgust. “Is there no end to your questions?”
A pleased Gamaliel interposed helpfully: “The father was one Zacharias, a teacher in the Temple, a true son of Judah, and”—with a twinkle in his eyes—“a Pharisee, to be sure.”
“And the mother?”
“She was one Elizabeth, also a Judean.”
“And this was their only child?”
“Yes, it was thought she was barren, and could have no children, for she was long after the age when women normally bear. But, lo and behold, as with Abraham and Sarah in olden days, she gave birth wondrously to this boy. It was in the time of Herod the Great. To escape the wrath of this despot who slew three of his own sons in a frenzy of suspicion, the couple fled Jerusalem with their son. He was called John, the God-given, for only through God’s will, in their belief, could he have been born.”
I marveled that my old teacher, so absent-minded at times, should be so familiar with the child’s birth.
He laughed. “Zacharias had more reason to be grateful than most fathers, and therefore was more inclined to be talkative.”
The canny Gamaliel had read my hesitation correctly.
“None knows, of course, by what agency this child was conceived?”
“It is not a question one asks a teacher in the Temple.”
“Could it have been a virgin birth?”
“But Elizabeth was surely no virgin.”
“But could not the spirit have been planted in Elizabeth’s womb by the power of God?”
Caiaphas snorted his ridicule. “You must be mad.”
“Why call me mad?” I said. “Did not God make the first man?”
“You make no sense,” cut in Annas coldly.
“That is because you Sadducees do not believe in continuing life. But if it is God’s will for a child to be born of a virgin, what need has he of man? Is he not the creator of Adam, before whom there was no man?”
Gamaliel clapped his hands together in his pleasure.
“Your father would be proud of you this day.”
Annas stirred in his chair.
“It grows late,” he said, “and it is best we conclude this business. Can you begin your commission at once?”
“In two days,” I said. “Time enough to wind up my affairs.”
He sat down at a desk, and his quill raced over a sheet of the thinnest parchment. “Take this, it will serve as your credentials. But I suggest it be used only in unforeseen situations.”
I looked at it quickly before slipping it inside my tunic. I, Judah-bar-Simon, of a noble Judean family, was an agent of the Sanhedrin. It was enough to give one a nightmare, but it gave me my opportunity to seek out the Messiah wherever he was.
“You will report back to us from time to time, but tell no man. For yours is a most delicate mission. Dress plainly, be as nondescript as possible. Watch and listen, say nothing. Observe not only this Baptist, but his followers, and the temper of the crowds. You have it within your power to perform a great service for the nation.”
I would have been impressed had I not known him for a coldblooded, rapacious cynic.
“My only allegiance is to Israel.”
“Good,” said he, rubbing his thin hands together, “we shall have no trouble then.”
“To whom do I report?”
“The same that must review the actions of any claiming to be the Messias.”
“But the Messiah is sent by God. How can a Council judge God’s work?”
“We judge what is best for Israel.”
I saw the trap readily enough. “Whatever I find you can negate.”
“Your role is that of fact finder. On the basis of what is found, we will make our decision.”
Not for a moment was I simple enough to believe this. Still, if John the Baptist was the Messiah, if he were the God-sent Deliverer of our people, I would be the first to know it. If not, the search would turn elsewhere.
The High Priests had walked off to one side and Gamaliel was about to embrace me when, suddenly, there was a hue and cry from the court below. We ran to the windows. The massacre, incredibly, was being resumed. In the vast Court of Gentiles some of the wounded had managed to get to their feet and were advancing, unarmed, against Roman troops emerging from their fortress via a subterranean tunnel. The Romans attacked with cudgels and the flat of their broadswords, cutting down the battered pilgrims as if they were wheat.
“Pilate,” I cried, “must have his last drop of Jewish blood.”
The others had turned away shaken, save for Annas. He seemed almost pleased. “Pilate owes us this day,” he said softly.
My own feelings about the Galileans were mixed. They were certainly not our equals before the law, few being of the twelve tribes, but they were still Jews capable of bearing arms, and the aqueduct against which they had demonstrated was certainly a classic example of Roman tyranny.
An expression of disgust had turned down the corners of Annas’ fishlike mouth as the slaughter continued. “What fools these Galileans be.”
“Heroes, not fools,” said I, “brave men who need only to be armed to show how vulnerable Rome is.”
“You, Judas, are a greater fool than I thought. Do you think we would tolerate the Romans if there was any other way?”
“Spartacus was only a slave, yet with an army of slaves at his back, he kept the Roman legions at bay for three years.”
Annas gave a contemptuous grunt. “And where are Spartacus and the rest?”
“They were defeated only because they lacked the purpose of free-born men.”
“You talk like a child. The Romans would make short work of us. We are important to them, but not for ourselves. Israel is but an insignificant speck on their maps, but in all our insignificance we are the passageway
for the great caravans that ply daily from their storehouses in Egypt to Damascus, supplying their military. For this reason they tolerate us, but once let the peace be broken and we shall feel the iron heel that crushed Carthage into the dirt. Beware, Judas, you trifle with a sleeping giant.”
Chapter Two
THE TEMPLE
I WAS APPALLED by the havoc wreaked by the Roman soldiers. Even more disconcerting, not a helping hand had been raised in a Temple city of fifteen thousand shopkeepers and seven thousand religious functionaries. Was Israel so craven that it would not fight, or was only a leader needed to fan the flame of revolt? I threaded my way nervously through the throng of worshippers, which appeared to take courage with the carting away of the last bodies. I tried to think positively, sorting out my thoughts, to best take advantage of the opportunity’ that had been given me. I remembered enough of my Pharisee upbringing to know that God had a way of thrusting a man’s footsteps on the path marked by destiny. This meeting was indeed a stroke of fortune, even though it required a semblance of cooperation with the Sadducees and the Sanhedrin they clearly dominated. It also posed a problem or two. Obviously, the Messiah meant different things to different people. Could he be both a Warrior King and a Prince of Peace? Hopefully he could be anything, for was he not sent of God?
I winced at the stains where the bodies had fallen, the crimson mercifully fading under the feet of the milling crowd. I recalled that somewhere the prophecy stated that the Promised One would first purge the Temple, and surely not a moment too soon. This was more a marketplace than a place of worship, defiled not by the heathen, as in the Maccabeans’ time, but by the very priests chosen to consecrate it to God. To every Jew the Temple represented not only his oneness with God but the political integrity of the nation. Essentially, we were a theocracy, founded with God’s blessing, with every aim and aspiration modeled by prior allegiance to that God.
“God chose us,” said Gamaliel, “so we have no choice but to choose him.”
Where was that wrathful God now? Certainly the Temple was not his habitat. Perhaps the Romans were the instruments of his vengeance and these sins must be washed from the body of the nation before the liberator would come. As I wended my way, I wondered how the Temple could have been so ignobly prostituted and demeaned. Everywhere there was a stall or a shop, more than three thousand in all, arranged by commodity for the shoppers’ convenience. There was one area for ironware and kitchen utensils, another for wool and clothing, livestock, bread and grain, fresh fruits and vegetables. Even alcoholic beverages had their place, and from their manner these merchants seemed to have liberally sampled their own wares.
I saw the vendors haggling over their goods and marveled at God’s patience. Was it not plain who the culprits were? Without the sanction of Annas and Caiaphas, this desecration would not have existed, for there was no stall, however small, that did not pay its tithe to the High Priests of Israel. The Levites hovered about the stalls to sanctify the foods as pure, but as far as I could see, this food was no different from the unsanctified, except a mite costlier because of the rite performed over it. How the God of Israel must frown in his abode in the sky. Was it any wonder he was sending his Messiah, this wonderful leader whom the prophet called the Elect of God?
“In him dwells the spirit of wisdom and the spirit of enlightenment, the spirit of knowledge and of strength, and the spirit of those who have fallen asleep in justice. He will judge all nations, punishing those who have oppressed the just. At his coming, the dead will rest again, heaven and earth will be transformed, and the just become heavenly angels, will abide with him through life everlasting.”
But even now, amid the rankest materialism, there was heartening evidence of the common man’s devotion to the augury of the Messiah. It all became bearable, even the red-cloaked soldiers sneering in the great square, when the faithful considered their nearness to the Promise. The smell of the animals became sweet then as the pilgrims paid their tribute to Jehovah. Only a few feet away I could hear a pilgrim as he kneeled in prayer while the sacrificial lamb he had just purchased was led to slaughter. There was a break in his voice as he beat his breast and cried:
“Blessed be Israel, unto that day the Promised One delivers us from our enemies.”
Not to some tarnished Israel would the Messiah come but to a land of milk and honey, cleansed by proper penitence before the Lord.
I took a while getting through the Court of Gentiles, for this was the teeming center of public activity. It was as much a crossroads of the Empire as Damascus and Alexandria. For here the people of the world forgathered, and the cosmopolitan and sophisticated rubbed elbows with the Scribes and Talmudic scholars, the legatees of those whose eyes had dimmed over Holy Scripture long before the wolf cubs had climbed out of the Tiber marshes.
My eyes rested for a moment on the elegant beauty of the Portico of Solomon. Its Greek columns were laid out in three spacious aisles so that the rabbis could sit comfortably in the shade and discourse leisurely on the Talmud. Their pupils were legion, for during the holidays, of which there seemed no end, the pilgrims descended on the Temple by the tens of thousands. On the slopes of the Mount of Olives and Mount Scopus, I could see the tents covering every available patch of ground. How wonderful if, instead of pilgrims, these were warriors, and instead of walking sticks there were swords. I saw still other pilgrims, wandering for weeks from the profaned cities of the Diaspora, sinking to their knees and reverently planting their lips on the rough stone. Their shrill cries sent a surge of excitement through me. “If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget her cunning. If I do not remember thee, let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth.”
They stood and wept unashamedly, and secretly I wept with them for the lost glories of Solomon and Saul. And yet the Herodian Temple was twice Solomon’s and infinitely more grand. Huge walls had been flung against the hills to support the four courts rising on successive plateaus to the Sanctuary. After forty-six years, Herod’s Temple was not yet finished, and priests trained as masons still toiled in chambers forbidden to the laity. But outside, the money changers cheerfully rattled their coins, and the pilgrims swarmed over one another to obtain their sacrificial offerings. Priests occupying booths vied with the merchants, selling tokens to be converted into goats, calves, sheep, birds, even oxen. Doves, normally a few pennies, cost twentyfold during the holidays, and the regulars bitterly protested this legalized larceny.
“Robbers,” a middle-aged man shouted to a one-eyed vendor.
“Sir,” the thief replied, “is it not worth anything that your wife bear you a son?”
He held up a dove which squirmed to get away.
“With the blood of this beautiful love bird, she will become fertile enough to bear twins.”
The pilgrim gave him a jaundiced look. “Six months ago a dove like this cost but a few pennies, and there was still no child.”
It was no wonder that the reformists inveighed against the Temple. How did one find God amid all this grubbiness and confusion?
Every so often the silver trumpet signaled a sacrificial offering. From their mournful looks, the animals seemed to know they were about to become inspirations to the faithful. My nostrils were assailed by the stench of frightened animals. The noise was deafening, the screams of the vendors drowning out even the braying of the donkeys. I hated every minute spent threading through the clamorous throng, watching the haggling and bickering, the money changers taking their usurious five percent for converting the unholy Roman coinage into holy Jewish shekels, good for any rug or robe, bird or beast.
I was in no mood to tarry, brushing aside the badgering mendicants, who, like the others, paid the priests for the privilege of begging inside the Temple walls. The merchants were as bad, jumping out of their stalls at passersby. Had I seen anything I wanted, I still would not have bought it, so incensed was I by this mockery of worship. And so I was thoroughly upset when a rude fellow threw himself in front of me, blockin
g my passage. I moved aside, and he moved with me. There was a smile on the dirty, hook-nosed face and a filthy, grimy hand thrust a bottle of horrible smelling Syrian whiskey under my nose.
The leering face drew close to mine.
“This nectar for a prince,” cried this rough fellow with the pocked countenance of a sponge.
“What manner of Jew are you?” I asked.
“I am a Samaritan, sir.”
“You are not permitted in the Temple then,” I said, drawing away as if he were a leper.
“But I am a good Samaritan,” said he. “My ancestors were of the twelve tribes of Israel, returning to the land of their fathers after the prophet Daniel made his peace with the Babylonians and the Persians ended our time of slavery.”
“You speak falsely. No true son of Israel has counted himself a slave since the prophet Moses led his people out of bondage in Egypt. Even in Babylon our fathers kept their customs and spoke their minds.”
“We Samaritans are as good Jews as any,” he said in his wheedling voice, “and our temple on Mount Geritzim, in a place blessed once by Moses, is equal to your own temple in splendor.” He winked slyly. “And besides, we have only one whale’s mouth to feed, not six or seven, like some.”
I noticed that the Roman seal on the whiskey was broken.
“If the tax collectors see that broken seal, my man, you’ll be flogged within an inch of your miserable life.”
Without taking offense, he rummaged around for a moment in his filthy bag.
“I see from the fringe of your cloak, sir, that you are a pious Pharisee, and a Scribe at least, who knows something of the law.”
There was something about the fellow’s persistence that stirred my curiosity. When he straightened up I could see that he was of a good height, and his shoulders were strong and supple under the rough brown muslin. He had shaken off his cringing manner and blandly showed me a tunic of silk with the initial “M” plainly embroidered in Hebrew rather than the ordinary Aramaic.
“Why do you show me this?” I demanded.
He drew up close, his foul breath reeking of garlic, causing me to take a backward step. After looking around at the shoppers preoccupied with their own errands, he leaned forward and touched the inside of my sleeve.
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