Under Tiberius

by Nick Tosches

  “Shut up and sit down,” he told the tick.

  The others ate and drank, with little enthusiasm and less talk.

  “Are there any words that you will gift us with?” asked one of them.

  Jesus needed no time for thought, and he did not hesitate, but simply, straightforwardly, and straightaway said:

  “If you bring forth what is within you, what you bring forth will save you. If you do not bring forth what is within you, what you do not bring forth will destroy you.”

  He then ceased to speak, and would say no more. Such was our Pesach feast in Jerusalem. I ate the last of the olives, drank the last of the wine, and stood. Jesus, too, rose and stood. We walked from the room, saying nothing to those we left behind. None of them followed, and there was no sound but the creaking of the floor beneath our footsteps.

  We made our way to Gethsemane under the light of the full paschal moon. The host of stars were in array. My eyes became lost for a while in the Big Bear, trying to see the leopard that he saw in those stars.

  A big gray long-eared owl with yellow eyes looked at us from his bough, and we looked at him.

  Peter, who had returned with us to the gardens every night since we arrived here, was not with us tonight. We were alone.

  “It is over now,” he said. “Come morning, we can leave for Caesarea. Then to Rome. I am done here. It is a new life that I want.”

  I was soothed to hear this. I was very soothed to hear this. I breathed the good night air, freely and deeply. It was the first peaceful breath I had drawn in a while.

  “You said some nights ago, as he lay sleeping nearby, that Peter would betray you. I thought you to be speaking fancifully. But when you spoke of betrayal again tonight, I saw that you were speaking plainly and without fancy. How could you foresee that Peter would betray you?”

  “I saw him speak twice, covertly, to authorities at the Holy Temple. He did not suspect that, while I could not be seen, I was nearby, watching him, hearing him, trying to make out what was being said.

  “From these authorities, he sought to discover if there was a price on my head. It was bounty, reward, that he sought.”

  “We should have dispatched him to his grave with a cup of dark wine. There is still opium in the packsaddle of Faith, enough of it to kill him twice over.”

  “In the morning we shall be gone. Enough of death.

  “Enough of God. Enough of the Word and the Way. It is done, behind us, all of it.”

  “He showed nothing tonight. The tick, Andreas or Judas or Judah or whatever be his name, was like a mechanism whose gears, cogs, spindles, and pins were all awry. But Peter, or Cephas or Simon or Petros or Petrus or Simon Petros or whatever his name be, was as cool as a fish in the sea.”

  “Would that he were a fish in the sea, with a jagged iron hook deep in his gullet.”

  “I mistrusted them all, but him no more than the others. He seemed merely a simple fool of a fisherman, benign and gentle.”

  “Between what something seems to be and what it is, there often lies a chasm. How many harmless brown spiders is the deadly long-legged recluse fatally mistaken to be?

  “But enough. May he be curst. May they all be curst. May they be taken as mares by the prefect’s stallions. May they be trampled by them. I am done with them all. It is over, all of it.”

  “If you truly have been betrayed, and the authorities decide to make a scapegoat of you, or to punish you to set an example before the people, would it not be safer, just to be sure, to put distance between this place and us tonight, to leave for Caesarea now?”

  “No one would be apprehended during the Pesach, unless it were for murder or robbery or some other violent crime. No. I have given thought to this. No man would be seized by the Sanhedrin during the holy Pesach unless he did great harm to another man.”

  My gaze returned to the stars, the bear and the leopard who were one. We entered the garden, and tethered Faith, Hope, and Charity to the same twin-trunked pomegranate tree to which we had tied them every night that we spent in this garden. As we did this, we looked to the tree, as we did every morning and every night, hoping to see a sign of flowering, the first early peek of red blossom, the first early peek of minuscule fruit. We saw nothing. Maybe in the morning, before we left.

  “I am beginning to see the leopard,” I told him.

  There was more of exhaustion than of anything else in his soft and all but silent laugh.

  “And I, the great bear,” he said.

  We felt no need for a fire that night. The moon was full. We were not hungry. We wanted only sleep.

  I drowsed pleasantly, feeling sleep come over me. Sleep was always sweet, even if the dreams it brought were not.

  My eyes shot open. There were unfamiliar sounds about. I heard movement on the path, then a brief thrashing through the rosemary bushes where the path narrowed. My heart beat fast at the prospect of a wild boar or lion. I saw that Jesus too was sitting upright, his eyes open and alert.

  Then I knew, by the nature of the sounds, that it was no wild beast that approached. It was a more dangerous creature; and it was not one, but several. The sounds were those of men moving in stealth. They were the sounds of men trying to make no sound. We stood and looked toward where the pathway ended, at the garden’s edge.

  The sounds of men trying to make no sound grew closer and more pronounced, and then there were figures before us in the moonlight.

  Three enforcers of the Sanhedrin. A Roman legionary. And close behind them, cowering as if they might not be seen, the older fisherman and the younger.

  The temple enforcers wore robes and turbans of black. From their wide leather belts hung sheathed daggers, slings, pouches of shot, and coils of rope. The legionary wore a military tunic and belt, from which hung the scabbards of his dagger and sword. The fishermen, besides their usual ragged garments, wore only cowardice and shame.

  The eyes of the three temple law-men passed over me, then were fixed on Jesus.

  “Is this the one?” asked the foremost of the black-robed men.

  There came a hesitant affirmation from behind him. It was difficult to tell whose voice it was.

  “Step forward, both of you. Identify him properly.”

  The betrayers came reluctantly into the open. Their heads were slightly turned and downcast, and they averted their eyes from the eyes of Jesus.

  “Look at him,” ordered the black robe. “Is this the man who would be brought to trial in the Hall of Hewn Stones? Is this your Jesus of Nazareth?”

  The fishermen stole glances at each other. “Speak! Identify him or forfeit your reward.”

  The tick rushed forward, no longer shunning the eyes of Jesus. He pointed a shaking finger at the man with whom he had so tried to ingratiate himself, the man whom he had so eagerly called his Lord.

  “And you?” the black robe demanded of the other betrayer, who did not come forward.

  “It is him.”

  “The night is dark. Put your eyes close to him.”

  And when the fisherman did this, Jesus whispered low to him:

  “My curse on you is strong. You will die most terribly, and soon.”

  “It is him,” said the fisherman.

  From the fold of a black robe, a hand brought forth two paltry cloth pouches of coins and tossed them toward the fishermen. They fell to the dirt with little sound.

  I spoke to the legionary in Latin. One of the temple-men asked us to speak in Greek, that our words might better be understood by all present. The legionary looked at the black-robed man in a manner that showed displeasure at being interrupted. He glanced with mean ridicule upon the man’s turban, then resumed speaking in Latin.

  The legionary was of long-standing experience in these parts, and answered directly and only to Pilate, who, as the provincial governor of Judea, was also the legate and commander of the forces of the Roman military here. This military presence in Judea consisted only of one cavalry unit and five cohorts, or about three or four
thousand troops at any given time. Most of the troops here were auxiliaries, and most of these auxiliaries were Jews, recruited from the native population. The Roman standing before me was proud to say that he was a legionary in full, and honorably decorated.

  After introducing myself by name and rank, I told him that I was a former member of the court of Tiberius, and that I knew Pilate from our private meeting at the Palace of Herod, in Caesarea. I told him that, as Pilate knew, I traveled with a document of identification bearing the seal of the princeps.

  I told him that this man, Jesus, was my slave, whom I had acquired to serve and guide me in my journeying through Judea. He was a good and faithful slave, and a good man, I told him. I explained to him that it was my plan to bring my good slave to Rome with me. I was, in fact, preparing to leave with him for Caesarea in the morning.

  My good slave had done no harm or wrong. His accusers were jealous and driven by mendacity and petty greed. They were liars and not to be trusted or given the merest credence.

  The fishermen now hurried away into the night.

  “See how they flee with their little bags of dirty coins,” I said to the legionary.

  “Jews” was all he said.

  This was a word of Latin that the temple-men knew, and the tone of voice in which it was said was one that all men knew.

  The foremost of the black-robed men informed Jesus that he was hereby charged with blasphemy, sedition, and demonic acts.

  “I am guilty of none of these things,” said Jesus. “I have sought to bring men closer to the truth of their God. I have sought to have men render unto Caesar that which is Caesar’s, and unto God that which is God’s. I do not even understand what you mean by ‘demonic acts’; but I can assure you that I do not believe in demons.”

  “You can save these claims for your trial. They will be heard.”

  “And what of God’s law against bearing false witness? Is it now to be rewarded rather than punished by the protectors of God’s law? And what of covetousness? You let the transgressors escape freely, and I am detained to defend myself from the crime of their lies, and not from a crime of my own, for I have committed none.”

  Nothing was said. There were only the crickets. Then one of them spoke:

  “Shall you come with us peacefully, or shall you be bound and led?”

  “I am a man of peace. Even when trespassed against, I am a man of peace. Please lead the way.”

  So, having come from Jerusalem for what we believed was the last time, we were brought back to it, with Faith, Hope, and Charity in sluggish tow, their tether-ends gathered in the fist of my right hand.

  “This is absurd,” I said to my fellow Roman. “This man is innocent. Furthermore, he is my property.”

  “You will have him back. The men in long beards and black rags tied round their heads will have their little pantomime with him, then impose on him a few lashes and a fine. Then you will have him back.”

  “I should much rather just pay the fine now, and get it over and done with. Here. Now. Without the pantomime. Without the lashes.”

  “That is not how they do things here. And we must allow them to do things here as they do them here.”

  The pebbles and pine needles of this familiar path appeared in the light of the full moon as they had not appeared before. In this light, they seemed to shine.

  I thought it best to remind Jesus that he should now be playing the part of my slave; but this had already occurred to him, for he called to me over his shoulder:

  “Please tell me, good master, what do you see in the stars tonight, the great bear or the leopard?”

  “I see, my good servant, a beast of indeterminate nature,” I called back to him.

  The Roman was curious about this, and I explained that our Ursa Major was seen by the Jews as a great leopard in the nighttime sky. He grimaced his acknowledgment of what he took to be an enlightenment of some interest.

  He asked me if it was true that my slave had preached and made pronouncements through the land. I answered that in my free time I had taught him something of oratory and rhetoric; that he had a natural gift for it; and that he had made some little orations here and there, based on tales from these people’s Book. I said that I soon would begin teaching him Latin as well, for I anticipated his being of increased value to me in Rome. I reiterated my indignation at this confiscation of my property, my time, and my dignity. It was unconscionable, this whole matter.

  My outrage, though based not on what I pretended it to be, was real, and it was long-winded:

  “How can the property of a Roman citizen of rank, in a province of Rome, be stolen from him and brought against his will to a court governed by the corrupt provincial priests of a barbaric provincial god?”

  “Jews” was all he said.

  I looked at the back of Jesus, flanked by the two black-robed men who followed the foremost of them. I looked for the yellow-eyed owl on his bough, but he was gone. It was the part of the night given to the hunting of prey. The temple-men had theirs. The owl, his field-mouse; the Jews, their Christ. I looked at the pebbles and pine needles that shone in the light of the moon.

  32

  WE WERE LED TO THE PALACE OF THE HIGH PRIEST, Caiaphas, on the Maccabean Path. Here the priest lived with his family, which included his father-in-law, Annas, who had been high priest before him, and who some said still controlled the Holy Temple through him.

  Awaiting us at the palace of the high priests were some of the temple elders, Sadducees and Pharisees, who left soon after Jesus was delivered. They studied him with their eyes as one might view a strange and exotic animal, but they said nothing.

  When they had left, Annas appeared, and did with his eyes as the others had done before him. He took the jaw of Jesus in his hand, turning it to the right and to the left, as if examining the features of a slave he was about to buy, or a whore he was about to procure. He removed his hand from the jaw of Jesus and walked away, passing two shadows at the far end of a hall. One of these was Caiaphas. The other, we soon found out, was the chief justice of the Sanhedrin, whom the black-robed officers addressed as nagid, which meant “ruler” or “prince.” He was very old and very tall. He seemed to hate all the world except for himself, and there seemed to be little love lost there either.

  “You are Jesus of Nazareth?” he said.

  “I am,” said Jesus.

  “You are accused of blasphemy,” said the prince.

  Jesus opened his mouth and made a slight sound, as if about to say something. But the prince of the Sanhedrin was already on his way to the door, which was opened for him by one of the palace attendants. It was then that Caiaphas appeared. He was even shorter than he had looked to be in public. He had seemed taller just a moment ago, as a shadow in the distance. He conferred in Aramaic with the officers of the Sanhedrin. Then he spoke in Greek to me.

  “Your slave has caused much distress,” he said.

  “My good servant has done no wrong to any man,” I said to him. “He is without blame, and no blame can be laid on him.”

  “You are a Roman, and you know little of this place and its ways.”

  “I know enough to know that, under their ostentations of piety and endless suffering, they are people like all others.”

  “Ah, but there you are wrong. They are not people like all others. They are Jews. And what seem to you to be ostentations are not. As empire is to you, so God and our history are to us. It is your arrogance, your Roman perspective, that causes you to misunderstand us, and that will prevent you always from understanding us.”

  There was not the least hint of harshness or hostility in what he said. He spoke with grace, in a manner that was genteel but not at all haughty. He seemed sincerely to want to correct me, to enlighten me, and nothing more.

  “Do you truly believe this man, who is my devoted servant, to be guilty of anything?” I asked.

  “I know nothing of him, but for what I have been told,” he said.

  “And
, knowing nothing of a man, you would believe what you have been told.”

  “It is not a matter of what I believe.”

  “But you are the high priest of your people. Surely you would have them be led to the truth, is that not so?”

  “It is so. But it is not always I who lead them. There are times when I must allow them to lead me. I must place their happiness before all. A priest is a servant of God, and therefore servant as well as shepherd of God’s flock.”

  It now was clear to me that, for all his cultivated grace and genteel manner, he was a most devious and treacherous man. I decided it was best that I say no more to him. But he would not let our conversation end there. He would have it end in a way befitting the powers of darkness in the night that surrounded us.

  “Surely, there is one thing about our ways that, as a Roman, you do understand.”

  “And what is that?”

  “The principle of expiation.”

  I looked at him. He smiled and recast his words: “The need for sacrifice.”

  Only then did he look long and well at Jesus, and with sudden violence the high priest summoned phlegm from his lungs and spat into his face.

  He laughed as he turned his back to us and walked away, down the hall, becoming a shadow once again. Jesus watched after him, wiping the priest’s spit from his face with the sleeve of his tunic.

  There was no sound for some time, except for a few words muttered between two of the black-robed officers. The legionary and I exchanged glances. Jesus and I exchanged glances. Night became day. There was the crowing of a cock.

  Jesus was grasped by both arms and led from the palace. As we passed through the courtyard gardens in the faint early morning light, I saw him look down into the ravine of the Hinnom Valley, then to the sky, then straight ahead.

  “I am behind you,” I called to him, as I followed with the donkeys through the quiet streets.

  There was no movement of his head as he was led forward, and he said nothing.