The Amharetzin made up in noise what they lacked in numbers.
“What do you say,” one shouted, “to the corruption in the Temple?”
I now saw a familiar face among these untouchables who observed none of the dietary laws and scorned clean kitchen vessels for the holidays. It was Adam the Tanner, and he was surrounded by his cutthroat friends with the high-blown names.
The guards had moved to silence them but thought better of it when they saw the ruffians were armed with swords and daggers.
Ezra gave them a look of horror. “They are worse than Samaritans,” he cried. “They mingle meat and milk products at the same meal in defiance of the law, and feed on swine contrary to Moses.”
This drew gales of laughter from the tanner and his band, and I assumed they were already sotted with wine.
“One plate and one pot,” cried the tanner, shaking his fist in the air. “Let Jesus speak. We’ve heard enough of these vultures.”
The Master had listened with a frown, and I could see he liked these Amharetzin no more than he did the Pharisees.
“I tell you all,” said he, “worry not so much what you put in your mouth as what comes out of it. There is nothing entering into a man that can defile him. For it passes not into his heart but into his belly. It is from the heart that come evil thoughts, adultery, deceit, and murder.”
The tanner’s crew looked mystified by the implied rebuke, for had they not been with those who hailed him King?
“We call you King,” said the tanner, “and you damn us in the same breath with your enemies.”
“Why do you behold the mote in your brother’s eyes but do not consider the beam in your own eyes?”
Adam the Tanner was even more bewildered than before. “But we are for you, and the Pharisees hate you.”
“The means by which we do things, Adam, are as important as the ends.”
“Are you not the promised King of Israel? Is this not end enough?”
“The end is not yet here.”
I could well understand the tanner’s confusion.
“Did you not ride on the donkey. Son of David,” he cried, “so that men would know that by the word of the prophet you were King of the Jews?”
I could almost hear Jesus’ sigh. “There is no kingdom,” said he, “greater than God’s kingdom. To this Heavenly Kingdom you make your obeisance.”
Ezra listened impatiently, then proceeded with his attack.
“You set yourself up as a lawmaker and put yourself ahead of Moses.”
Jesus gave him a scathing look.
“I put myself ahead of no man, Ezra. But I see clearly what is in your heart and what comes out of it. You do well to call yourself a truth watcher, for all you do is look at the truth.”
Ezra flushed but went on with a new accusation. “You break the law by touching the lepers, who are forbidden the city, and thus hold all up to contamination.”
Jesus arched his brows in mock wonder.
“Would you have me deny them the help of God?”
“God has made them unclean,” shouted Ezra.
“Why do you object then when he makes them clean? Surely, you do not credit me with the healing.”
Ezra’s venom grew in his frustration, and he returned now to familiar ground.
“You have encouraged your disciples to plant and sow wheat on the Sabbath.”
Self-righteousness and pettiness infuriated the Master, for they were the false badges of piety.
“Hypocrite,” he cried in a voice that caused even Ezra to shrink. “You Pharisees style yourselves good Jews because on the Sabbath you will not tie a knot or eat an egg laid that day. You take pride in not wearing your false teeth or even cutting the branch of a tree, nor will you walk more than a half mile in any direction on this day. You fast, wearing a long face, trusting that all in the synagogue know of your piety. But you are hypocrites ten times over. For God asks love, and you give him rubbish. Has this generation of vipers not read what David did when he was hungry? He went into the House of God and ate the consecrated bread intended only for the priests, and the Lord favored him.”
Ezra bounced right back. “It is blasphemy that you should speak for God.”
Jesus’ eyes were like gimlets. “Did God so speak to you? I tell you, Ezra, that God cannot enter your hardened hearts. The prophet Isaiah, whom you say you revere, has prophesied of this time: These people will hear you, but understand not. And see, but perceive not. For if they see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their heart, they would convert and be healed.’ Isaiah, knowing your hearts, said wearily: ‘O Lord, how long?’ And the Lord answered: ‘Until the cities shall be wasted without inhabitants, and the houses without man, and the land be utterly desolate.’”
He looked at Ezra grimly as my heart leaped with expectation. Were the days of conciliation over? Was he now ready to be the leader the country wanted him to be?
“My Father is everywhere. He works on the Sabbath day, glorifying the flowers, the trees, and man himself. And the Son of Man does the Father’s work on the Sabbath.”
Ezra drew back in horror.
“You must be deranged to speak of God as you do.”
“I only speak what I know,” said Jesus, “and you speak of what you do not know.”
Ezra sneered. “You give yourself such airs for a Nazarene, and a carpenter at that.”
The Amharetzin, who had been quiet since Jesus’ rebuke, now sent up a great clamor.
“What is wrong with being a carpenter?” cried the tanner. “Does he not give an honest day’s work, so that he can support the Temple rogues in their luxury?”
Ezra was beside himself with fury, but the Temple guards appeared not to notice, for only the High Priests had authority in the Temple area.
“You see,” he cried in his exasperation, “how you make rebels of these men?”
“I only call them to my Father’s work, that they should see and do no evil.”
Ezra stamped the ground in his rage. “Your Father, your Father. How dare you call him Abba, the child’s fond address to his own father?
“Are you his child?”
Jesus shrugged. “You have said.”
In his impotence Ezra took a threatening step forward, but a restraining hand was laid on his shoulder and a silken voice whispered in his ear. I would have known that face anywhere, and that twisted little body, no better than its mind.
Sadoc approached the Master with a smile.
“Some think that you teach the way of God, and the truth, as you see the truth, and that you have no ambitions of your own.”
Jesus smiled. “Speak your mind, friend of God.”
Because of Jesus’ popularity with the people, some Sadducees thought it politic to shift the jurisdiction of his guilt to the temporal authority. Pilate well knew how to quash dissension.
And so it came as no surprise when Sadoc inquired: “Is it lawful. Rabbi, to give tribute to Caesar or not?”
“Show me the tribute you speak of,” said Jesus, holding out his hand.
One of Sadoc’s company brought him a Roman copper.
Taking it, without looking at it, Jesus asked quietly: “Now whose image is on this coin?”
“Why, Caesar Augustus’,” said Sadoc. “His name and legend are on the older coins, and Tiberius’ on the new.”
“You are well versed in Roman coinage,” Jesus observed ironically.
Sadoc persisted. “You have not answered the question, Rabbi.”
“But I shall.” He held the coin up in the light, turning it over in his fingers. “It has two sides, and both signify the power of Caesar where he has established that power. Therefore, I say to all here in God’s house, render unto Caesar the things which are Caesar’s, and unto God the things that are God’s.”
I could have embraced him on the spot. With this deft stroke he had not only turned aside the malice of Sadoc but manifested his independence of Rome. For all knew
that the Roman coinage was worthless in the Temple, having value only when traded with the money changers for Jewish silver or copper.
Sadoc was quick to see that the trap he had sprung had closed instead on him. But he only moved his crooked shoulders slightly and became even more ingratiating than before. He now sat himself down comfortably before the Master.
“I have only a few more questions,” said he in a wheedling tone.
“I have received your questions before,” Jesus replied with his chin in his hand. “Do you not also set yourself up as the arbiter of truth in Israel?”
“I know the law and the Prophets,” said Sadoc with assumed modesty.
“Then you have not the blind man’s excuse for not seeing?”
Again, his guile was no match for the Master’s simplicity. Sadoc’s eyes became thin slits. “Let us proceed from the Prophets of old, with whom you claim special kinship.”
“Proceed then.”
“You tell the people to give up what they have and follow you. If all do so, who will be left to maintain the community and contribute the services by which all survive?”
“It is in the spirit I bid them follow me, for in work there is also salvation if it is of the spirit.”
“You speak of things,” said Sadoc with exaggerated respect, “that not even Moses dwelt upon.”
The Master gave him a mocking smile. “If you do not heed Moses, why would you listen to me? But I tell you again, so that your blindness will no longer excuse you, that the law and the Prophets prevailed until John the Baptist, and since that time the Kingdom of Heaven is preached.”
Now rejoining the fray, Ezra appealed to the Temple birds.
“This carpenter from Galilee, with no learning that we know of, would put himself above the law.”
Jesus gave him a withering glance. “I come not to change the law,” he said with a majesty that made me proud, “but to add to it.”
Ezra sneered. “And are you the King of the Jews? We have no King.”
This was more than I could brook.
“Who then are Tiberius, and Sejanus, and Pilate even, but Kings of the Jews?”
“Hear, hear,” cried the Amharetzin, but the Master silenced them with a gesture.
“If you continue in my word, then you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.”
The people looked at one another, bewildered. For the truth was ephemeral, and like the wind.
Sadoc answered for the doubtful faces.
“Abraham’s seed, as even you know, is not in bondage to any man. So why do you say: You shall be free’?”
Jesus gave him a disdainful smile. “I know you are Abraham’s seed, but you still seek to kill me because I have told the truth, which I have from my Father.”
Sadoc hid his wrath with a smile.
“And what is this great truth, Nazarene, that you have had from your Father? Was he not the carpenter Joseph, and did he not die when you were still a young man?”
“I repeat, if a man finds the Father through me, he shall overcome wickedness and never see death.”
Sadoc’s derision was reflected in the faces of the others.
“Abraham, our father, is dead, and the Prophets are dead. And so how do you, Galilean bred, say there is no death?”
Jesus’ blue eyes flared.
“You say that we have the same God, but I would be as false as you to say that you know him as I do. Even Abraham rejoiced in the knowledge of my coming.”
The Pharisees and Scribes laughed till their sides split, and even the Amharetzin showed their puzzled faces.
“You are not thirty-five years old,” mocked Sadoc, “and you have seen Abraham, dead some hundreds of years?”
Jesus gazed at his adversaries scornfully.
“I tell you,” said he, “that before Abraham was, I am. This you do not understand. For you do not truly worship the Father but only your skins.”
On being told they were not good Jews, the Pharisees and Scribes picked up stones and ran at Jesus menacingly. Simon Zelotes and I came between them, but he sternly brushed us aside.
“Let them be,” said he, “they have a devil,”
They stopped in their tracks, for they regarded him as a magician who might cast a spell on them. And indeed, his eyes held that hypnotic stare that had transfixed crowds before.
The Amharetzin, to their credit, had taken out their swords and formed a phalanx to safeguard him from violence. But Jesus only shook them off.
“It has been said, an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth. But I say unto you, here and now, love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despite-fully use and persecute you.”
Adam the Tanner and his rogues looked at him in disbelief.
“You say yourself they would kill you.”
“Let it be on their heads then, not on yours.”
As they stood, arms poised, he turned on his heel and stalked off.
I was stunned that he should withdraw before such contemptible adversaries and then saw indeed that he was advancing with purpose on the religious procession then turning into the courtyard from the Probatic Gate. Side by side, holding aloft the torch of light, and proudly enshrined in their sacred vestments, the High Priests Annas and Caiaphas walked slowly as if relishing each step. As the sun had not yet set ushering in the holiday, the bazaars and money tables were doing a frantic last-minute business. Annas smiled amiably as he saw the crowds wrangling in the narrow stalls and trading their shekels at the money changers’ tables.
Their route took the priests directly between a shop hawking whiskey and wines and a wooden table where a money changer was berating the throng for not stepping up fast enough. With a tolerant glance, Annas was about to pass when his path was suddenly blocked by a lean but muscular stranger. He smiled tentatively, then put out a hand as if to remove the trespasser from his path. But something in the stranger’s eye stopped him. Caiaphas’ eyes flew to the Temple guards. But these worthies were hemmed in by the Amharetzin who had followed after the Master.
I looked to Simon Zelotes, for like me, he carried a flat sword under his robe. He was already standing over the Master’s shoulder.
I will say for Annas that he never lost his composure. His haughty eyes moved over the assembly, held mine for a moment, without a glint of recognition, then returned to the man so boldly confronting him. In that instant, as the heavy lids drooped over those crafty eyes, I saw that he knew who this interloper must be.
“By what right, sir, do you halt this sacred procession?”
Jesus pointed disdainfully to the money changers and merchants, who had only now ceased their commotion and were gaping with dropped jaws.
“You call this sacred? What is good comes out of good, and evil comes only out of evil. And so how say you this procession is sacred, when this evil prevails in God’s place of worship?”
My heart swelled with pride, for with all his splendor the High Priest of Israel looked like a jackal next to this Lion of Judah.
Caiaphas’ eyes snapped, and he was about to raise his hand when Annas waved him off.
“Let us hear what this good man has to say,” he said in the bland voice that all Israel mistrusted. “I have been waiting a long time to hear the Nazarene.”
Only then did Caiaphas realize who stood before him. But even as his eye searched about for the guards, the wily Annas shook his head. Folding his hands with a show of patience, he said mildly: “Give us a reason, Jesus of Nazareth, that you deter us from God’s sanctuary?”
I had never seen the Master so angry. “Sanctuary,” he cried. “Do the Sadducees know that God warned of this day through the prophet Jeremiah? ‘Go and proclaim these words toward the north, and say, Return, thou backsliding Israel; and I will not cause my anger to fall upon you. Only acknowledge your iniquity, that you have transgressed against the Lord thy God, and have scattered thy ways to the strangers under every green tree, an
d have not obeyed my voice. Turn, O backsliding children, and I will give you pastors according to my heart, who shall feed you with knowledge and understanding.’”
Caiaphas could submit no longer.
“Out of our way, scoundrel, before I have you lashed to within an inch of your life.”
Annas’ voice cut in. “Let the man speak.” For he hoped that by his own words he would destroy himself.
Jesus’ voice carried Jeremiah’s message to the far corners of the vast courtyard, and not a soul stirred in the great assembly.
“In vain, as the prophet said, is salvation hoped for from the hills, and from the multitude of mountains. In the Lord our God is the salvation of Israel. For shame hath devoured the labor of our fathers from our youth. We lie down in our shame, and our confusion covers us. For we have sinned against our God, from our youth even to this day, and have not obeyed his voice.”
“Now,” said the High Priest Annas in his silkiest tones, “may we pass?”
Jesus’ eyes traveled down the long procession to the vessels and urns of incense and wine and costly sacrifices borne into the Temple for the ceremonies of the sacred altars.
“I have come to finish Jeremiah’s work, and John the Baptist’s, whose life you claimed.”
At the angry stirring in the crowd, Annas gave a signal for the parade to move on.
“We shall meet again, Nazarene,” said he with a smile.
“You see me now in this mockery of God’s house.”
Annas led him on. “Would you tear down this Temple?”
“This Temple I can restore in three days once it is destroyed.”
“What rubbish this man speaks,” said Caiaphas. “Out of our way, knave.”
“In this place,” rejoined Jesus, “there is one greater than the Temple, and he has been mocked long enough.”
He turned from the priests and with an incredible fury began dashing the vessels from the hands and shoulders of the bearers.
The Amharetzin began to cheer lustily. “Hosanna, hosanna, for the King of the Jews.”
At this salute, Jesus’ frown grew deeper than before.
But nothing would deter him. With his supporters surging around him, he approached the nearest table and quickly overturned it, scattering coins over the marketplace. Adam the Tanner and his crew joyously entered into the occasion, smashing one table after another. They followed him into the shops, where he stormed at the shopkeepers, and joined in flinging out their wares. They were the vultures at the holy feast.
I, Judas Page 23
