by Brian Godawa
Jesus watched them spread out into the darkness as they approached the high place.
A strange ethereal noise, sounding like a bull in agony, rose from the Temple of Ba’al.
Jesus closed his eyes and prayed to the Father with the pain of what he knew was happening.
He wiped the tears from his cheek, turned around, and whispered up the stairs, “Simon. Come on out. I won’t hurt you.”
Simon stepped out from behind the pillar at the top of the stairs like an embarrassed urchin caught with his hand in the honey jar.
Jesus made his way back up the steps of the causeway bridge.
“I am sorry, Rabbi,” said Simon.
Jesus said to him, “I think it is time I explain to you what the Community of Qumran failed to understand.”
• • • • •
Ba’al and Asherah had indeed been awaiting the inevitable confrontation that now descended upon them. They were ready for it. They had completed a mass sacrifice of ten children in the belly of the Brazen Bull just moments before the angels had approached the temple.
The Brazen Bull was a large, cast bronze image of a life-sized bull, the symbol of the Canaanite high god El, and his calf-son, Ba’al. The device had been imported from Carthage by the Phoenicians. It had a hollow center with a hinged latch that would allow the insertion of a human locked into the belly. Fires below the bull would then roast the victim alive inside the beast. A special bronze acoustic apparatus caught the sounds of the dying victims and projected them through the throat and mouth of the brazen statue, creating the strange bull-like sounds that Jesus and the archangels had heard upon their approach.
Human sacrifice empowered the gods with the spiritual life source of their victims. Ba’al and Asherah were full of strength and ready to strike. They stood in battle stance in the large marble sanctuary surrounded by pillars. Asherah had a live python wrapped around her body armor like a living protector. She prided herself on her fusion of fashion with fury. She readied her battle shield and gripped her sword tightly. The python licked the air, smelling the presence of approaching intruders.
Ba’al needed no shield. His favorite battle dress was a mere loin cloth with leather belt. His musculature was so massive it could frighten an archangel. His preferred weapons were the mace and battle net. But this evening, he held a huge battle hammer in his hands. He had used this very one in the war with Ashtart at the Battle of Nine Kings outside Sodom in the days of Abraham. No angelic armor could withstand its crushing force.
The Brazen Bull had been removed to the back room of the holy place. The fires of a tophet were stoked high in the circular fire pit at the head of the sanctuary, before the massive bronze image of a seated humanoid Ba’al. His head was that of a bull, his arms outstretched before him. This tophet was another form of sacrifice where the victim would be placed in the arms of the image and would roll off into the flames to be consumed for atonement. Ba’al stood on one side of the image, Asherah on the other.
The temple priests and prostitutes would be useless in this supernatural battle, so the gods cleared them all out.
Ba’al and Asherah stood defiantly behind their incense censers that filled the room with a smoky haze of opiate intended to slow down their enemies and obscure their vision.
Seven determined and focused spiritual warriors entered the sanctuary like cloaked wraiths of doom. They whipped off their cloaks to reveal full battle regalia underneath. Their cloaks floated to the marble floor at their feet.
Uriel muttered, “The stench is disgusting.”
Gabriel retorted, “I think that’s the intent, Uriel.”
Uriel said, “I’m going to have to wash the smell out of my clothes after this.”
A deep voice bellowed as if from all around them, “Do not be so quick to assume victory, archangel.”
Mikael nodded to the others. They spread out before approaching the altar at the front. But before they could move forward, a large muscular being emerged from the smoke.
The archangels took defensive stances.
Ba’al raised his huge battle hammer overhead with all his might and slammed it down onto the marble floor of the temple.
An earthquake convulsed the temple and island. Pillars shook. Loose marble fell from overhead. A huge opening cracked the floor and split the temple, separating angels from gods with a chasm that now belched up churning water from the sea.
The angels fell to the floor with the impact.
Mikael was the first to figure it out. He yelled, “We have mere minutes! Archangels, attack!”
When Ba’al had used his thunder hammer to crack the earth on land near Sodom, it had the effect of inducing an earthquake of immense magnitude. Mikael realized that the use of that hammer on this island created an earthquake that displaced the ocean floor below. There was one titanic effect from such a cause: a tsunami.
The water on the shoreline of Tyre drew back out toward the sea, enlarging the shoreline by hundreds of feet. The water was being sucked away into the ocean. It would only last minutes. A mile or so off shore, all that displaced water now headed back toward the island in the form of a ten foot high tidal wave with the unstoppable speed of over a hundred miles an hour.
The angels had little time to achieve their goal, the capture of the gods. They each had an armband made of white, thread-thin indestructible Cherubim hair to be used as a binding. It was the only thing that could hold these monsters in order to capture them and imprison them in Tartarus, the lowest region of Sheol.
But the gods would not be bound easily.
Suddenly, the python flew through the air from behind the angels, thrown by Asherah hiding in the shadows of the pillars.
It hit Remiel and wrapped around him like a bolo tourniquet, squeezing the life out of him. He dropped his sword. Angels could not die, but they could be incapacitated.
The others turned to face Asherah. Two of them, Raguel and Saraqael, engaged the battle maiden. She lashed out with mad fury, throwing them off their footing. She was fighting for her eternity. Her shield stopped the strikes of her foes. She pushed them backward, toward the crevice.
Mikael, Uriel, Raphael, and Gabriel leapt over the ten foot chasm to chase their muscle-bound quarry. Ba’al had pulled back into the murky haze. Uriel slipped away for his appointed task to steal the Tablet of Destinies.
Raguel and Saraqael pushed back at Asherah. They could not help the entwined Remiel, struggling to get his hands free from his serpent entrapment.
Uriel circled behind the back of the towering image of Ba’al. The Tablet was almost certainly hidden in a secret compartment of the idol. But where? His hunch was confirmed when a cadre of sacred priests attacked him with spears. They were pathetically easy targets to take down. He wanted to keep one alive to find out where the compartment was.
Mikael, Raphael, and Gabriel pulled down the censers. The stands crashed to the floor, extinguishing the incense and its ability to veil the movements of their enemy. They moved cautiously, in search of the hidden Ba’al.
Gabriel shouted out, “Come out, you coward, and face your destiny like a Son of God.”
Mikael looked out through the thinning haze and pillars, and saw the ten foot wall of water almost upon the island. It wasn’t huge, but it was big enough to wash over the entire small rock with its wave.
Raguel and Saraqael rushed Asherah and wrestled her to the ground in a grappling match of titans. Asherah was powerful, but she was not a good match for the two archangels who now dragged her to the crevice. They pulled her kicking, flailing form past the pieces of a chopped-up python. Remiel was now free. He joined them, with a line of Cherubim hair ready to bind her.
Gabriel had made an error when he called out his insult to the storm god. It gave their hidden foe a pinpoint for their location. Before they could spread out, a huge battle net burst out of the last of the smoky haze and enveloped them like a spider web.
All three angels struggled to free themselves from th
e tangled snare.
The gargantuan Ba’al broke through the fading mist with his battle mace. He pummeled the archangels with furious rage.
Behind the large idol, Uriel gripped the neck of a high priest in his hands.
Raguel, Saraqael and Remiel had Asherah in position to bind her and plunge her into the crevice that lead to the Abyss below.
Out by the causeway, a horn blew, alerting the Tyrians of the impending deluge about to hit their walls. Jesus and Simon ran back up the stairs and headed for the gate that was already almost closed.
The tsunami hit the small island and blanketed the surrounding buildings with tons of crushing seawater. The main island’s walls held firm against the tide. The inhabitants within remained safe.
Jesus and Simon did not make it back to the gate in time. They were locked out on the causeway bridge, thirty feet above the water, but in the path of the wave. Simon said, “A miracle might be appropriate right now.” The bridge shook with the force of the water hitting it. But it held strong and the wave was not high enough to reach them.
The wall of water hit the temple structure smashing much of it to pieces. Pillars came crashing down around the combatants.
The three angels binding Asherah had just plunged into the crevice when the water filled it in.
The three netted angels could not untangle themselves before they were swept away in the flood of seawater.
Ba’al rode the wave like a shark surfing just below the crest. He was on his way to the mainland. He had escaped his binding by mere moments.
The statue of Ba’al was buried in the rubble of the collapsing marble—with Uriel beneath it.
Then, just as quickly as the water had devastated the island, it was gone. The receding waters drained back into the ocean, along with the decimated ruins and bodies of the few inhabitants of the sacred isle.
Jesus and Simon ran back down the stairs and waded through the rubble and debris left in the wake of the tsunami.
Simon complained, “My lord, you calmed the storm on the sea of Galilee. Why did you not stop this wave?”
Jesus said, “I have my reasons for why I allow these things. You just follow me.”
They approached the marble ruins that had been the temple and sought for any sign of life.
There was none to be found.
Finally, a figure crawled out of a pile of rock. He was bruised and battered, but he was free.
It was Uriel. He limped up to Jesus and Simon. He handed Jesus a stone tablet the size of a large wineskin. He coughed up some water and said, “The Tablet of Destinies. Do I not deliver?”
Jesus asked, “What happened to the others?”
“Asherah is on her way to Tartarus. But Ba’al got away. He netted Mikael, Gabriel and Raphael like a school of tuna. They were washed inland somewhere.”
Jesus replied, “Uriel, I do not want you crowing over Gabriel. Do you have ears to hear?”
Uriel mumbled downcast. “Yes, Adonai.”
“We have to get on the road as soon as possible,” said Jesus. “We have to catch up with Ba’al.”
Simon looked at him curiously. “You know where he is going?”
“I have a good idea,” replied Jesus.
Chapter 11
Longinus followed Herod Antipas through the dressing room of the extravagant palatial bathhouse of the Herodian fortress of Machaerus. The black and white mosaic floor annoyed him with its dizzying effect.
“Come on, Longinus, join me,” said Antipas.
“Not today,” said Longinus. He kept his toga and sandals on, as Antipas stripped naked and led him into the tepidarium to receive a royal rub down.
“Suit yourself, centurion.”
The indulgence of the royal class disgusted Longinus. Their lazy, leisurely excess resulted in the fat, weak bodies like that of Antipas before him. He wouldn’t want to be caught dead joining in on such aristocratic decadence.
Antipas lay on a table. A masseuse rubbed him down with body oils and perfume ointments more suitable for his effeminate appearance than for the masculine leader he should be. The metaphor that came to Longinus’ mind was that of a worm.
Longinus had to wait for the rigorous pat down of the fleshy worm to finish before Antipas could talk.
Antipas got up from the table and they continued on into the caldarium, or steam room, with Longinus dutifully following.
Antipas touched the steaming waters of a personal bath. He whimpered. “Ow, that is scalding hot.”
Longinus thought this was the limit of pain and suffering that such soft-bodied, weak-minded royalty had to endure. He thought, I would like to see you last two minutes in the desert heat of a Roman march, you subhuman slug.
Still, Longinus was thankful he was in his lighter toga. The steam room was heated from below by hot water pipes that would have caused heat exhaustion, had he been wearing his full officer’s uniform.
Antipas lowered himself into the steaming liquid and finally said, “What is it you want to know that is so important to Pilate?”
“He has commissioned me to track down some insurrectionists caught in seditious acts against Caesar.”
Antipas groaned, “Another uprising? Jewish rebels are like cockroaches. You stomp them out, but they keep breeding and returning. Those cursed sons of Judas the Galilean, James and Simon, are still running around the hill country, causing me great pains.”
Longinus said, “One of the brigands that I am trying to find, I understand, was a well-known actor in Scythopolis, a Gestas Semaras. Do you know of him?”
“The name is familiar.”
“He ingratiated himself with some of your family, and sought to burrow his way into the aristocracy through marriage.”
“I do remember something of that. My wife, Herodias had me ban the marriage.”
Pathetic cuckold, thought Longinus. Manipulated by his controlling bitch wife. Longinus said, “What can you tell me?”
“Nothing that will be of help to you, I am sure. But Herodias can tell you everything about it. She revels in such court intrigue and romance.”
Longinus wiped sweat from his brow. “I understand you have a prisoner, here. John the Baptizer?”
“Ah yes, the Baptizer. Let me tell you about that son of a whore. Talk about troublemaking brigands! He has quite a following. And while he is a fiery prophet, he preaches no armed revolution, so I cannot just kill the little insect. He would become a martyr.”
Longinus asked, “Why have you imprisoned him, then?”
“Oh, he was causing quite an uproar by spreading his self-righteous moralizing about my marriage to Herodias. The Jewish law forbids marrying the wife of one’s brother as incest. Herodias is the wife of my brother, so I am sure you can see that was not good for political gravitas in my kingdom.”
Kingdom. The little twat was a prince of the tetrarchy of Galilee, not a king. He used kingship of himself as a means of self-flattery.
Antipas kept spewing. “Now, I do not know what to do with the Baptizer. If I kill him, I make a martyr and may cause an uprising. If I let him go, he will return to spreading his poison of political dissent that may still lead to an uprising.”
“I would like to talk with him,” said Longinus. “I want to see if he has any connection with the Zealots that my outlaws seem to be a part of.”
“Zealots,” complained Antipas. “Like I said, back like cockroaches.”
Longinus thought, Like Herods.
“I tell you what,” said Antipas. “Today is my birthday, and I have a feast prepared. Why don’t you join me as my guest? Herodias can fill you in on all the gossip you want to know about your actor outlaw. You can visit the Baptizer in his cell afterward.”
“I cannot afford delay on my quest. I would prefer….”
“Nonsense,” interrupted Antipas. “You need to eat. It will not hurt you to rest before your long journey back to Galilee. Please accept my offer as a form of gratitude to Caesar.”
Longinus sig
hed. This lazy, soaking worm was insufferable. But Longinus did have a grueling two-day journey back from this palace on the eastern shore of the Dead Sea.
“I insist,” said the worm.
Longinus felt uncomfortable amidst the excess of conspicuous consumption that marked the feast in Herod’s palatial banquet hall. Like all of Herod’s rebuilt structures, this desert palace was Greco-Roman in style and lay atop a sixteen hundred foot tall rocky prominence, five miles east of the northern tip of the Dead Sea. The banquet hall sported a mosaic floor and purple curtains from Tyre. The food set before them was lavish in display and forbidden by Jewish standards—from roasted boar to shell fish to other, rich, exotic foods prohibited by their Torah. Antipas had no sense of honor or discipline. Of course, such taboos were nonsensical to Longinus. But for Antipas to so defy his own cultural codes of conduct just meant the hypocrite could not be trusted on any level, even by Romans.
Yet, he simply carried on the legacy of his royal family from the past hundred years. A legacy of lies, intrigue and betrayal. The taboo marriage of Antipas was only the beginning of his incestuous interests. For the moment, Longinus had to endure an erotic “dance of the seven veils” performed by Antipas’ own step-daughter by Herodias, a young girl named Salomé. She appeared barely of marrying age. She writhed and wriggled like a nubile seductive serpent. She stripped off her seven veils one by one to the music until she was stark naked before the tetrarch and his company. Antipas watched her with lascivious eyes and clapping hands.
Longinus conversed with Herodias, to try to avoid the disgusting sight, but he found Herodias engaged in her own lascivious flirtations—with Longinus. These people had no limits to their debauchery.
He whispered to Herodias, “Did you know anything of the actor’s political entanglements?” He was referring to Gestas Semaras.
