by Bear, Robert
“But isn’t that just legend, Papa?”
“No, son. Pirro has been there. He described Ictis perfectly, exactly as my grandfather described it to me. And he told me the Dumnonii are just as eager to avoid trading through the Belgae and Cantiaci as I am. You see? We will travel the ancient tin route and profit both the Dumnonii and ourselves. No longer will we be at the mercy of the Cantiaci who monopolize all the trade between Britain and Rome and who squeeze to the bone both miners and honest merchants such as me.”
“But doesn’t all trade in Britain have to go through the Cantiaci?”
“That is not a restriction imposed by Rome. They just hate to travel across open ocean, so they are willing to pay the price to cross the Oceanus Britannicus within sight of land. Under Roman law, I can conduct my trade anywhere. The Cantiaci won’t be gentle if they get their hands on us, and the crossing to Britain will be more hazardous where the ocean is wider—but those are the risks we take.”
“Have you concluded your deal with Pirro, Papa?”
“Yes. He will receive one-third of the profit from this expedition and show me the route. That should give him enough to fund his own expeditions in the future. If this works, there will be plenty of trade for both of us.”
“So where do we go from here?”
“We head west across the hills to the River Liger. The road will be steeper, but it is not far. Pirro and I have already hired oxen teams, and I have sent an agent ahead to hire a flat boat to take us downstream. We can buy our wine along the way.” Papa paused and finished the last piece of bread. “So, tell me more about what happened with Jesus.”
Daniel related Jesus’s vision to his father, and how the prophecy in the psalm, saying his bones would not be broken, had comforted Jesus.
Papa bowed his head and shook it sadly. “Oh, you foolish boys! Do you think the Romans always break the bones of such victims? They do that only to hasten death when it suits their purposes. Sometimes the victim is left to suffer on the cross for days, and dies with all his bones intact. Do you have that scroll of psalms with you?”
“Yes, Papa. Here it is.”
Papa turned to the twenty-second psalm, also composed by King David. He pointed out the middle verses to Daniel.
Dogs surround me, a pack of villains encircles me; they pierce my hands and my feet.
All my bones are on display; people stare and gloat over me.
They divide my clothes among them and cast lots for my garment.
But you, Lord, do not be far from me. You are my strength; come quickly to help me.
“Does this not set out the vision Jesus had of his crucifixion?”
Daniel silently nodded in the affirmative.
“There is nothing in this psalm that speaks of rescue from the brink of death. See this lament.”
My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Why are you so far from saving me, so far from my cries of anguish?
My God, I cry out by day, but you do not answer, by night, but I find no rest.
“I say this to you truly, my son. If Jesus’s vision is true, the prophecy does not call for God to rescue him, but for God to be glorified in the end. If Jesus’s fate brings him to the cross, he will come to his death there. As one who has studied the prophecies of Scripture, there is no doubt in my mind on this.”
Daniel began to weep.
“But no one can know God’s purpose in these things. Perhaps Jesus is destined for great things. Right now, I fear for the strength of his faith in God. Jesus’s faith rests upon a slender reed, if he believes that God will rescue him triumphantly at the end. I fear for what will become of his obedience and faith once he learns his true destiny.
“But let that be between Jesus and God,” Papa continued. “God will know when Jesus can handle that. He is not ready to learn this now, Daniel. Maybe God will let his purpose be known to Jesus and give him the strength and wisdom to handle the full truth when that time comes. Let us not be the ones to reveal to Jesus anything. Let him be at peace until God reveals the awful truth. Swear this to me, Daniel.”
With heavy heart, Daniel swore to his father that he would never be the one to reveal to Jesus the true prophecy of actual death on the cross.
Chapter 4
A Perilous Passage
Joseph
Gone was the painful vibration of the road, replaced by the bobbing of the river. Joseph rested comfortably as the flat-bottomed barge made its way down the Liger River. Summer was just beginning, and everything was pleasant. The sun percolated through the treetops. Cool zephyrs moderated the heat, and when breezes failed, a dip in the water provided quick relief. Tethered to the barge by thirty feet of line, two horses plodded along the towpath; but with the slow-moving current pushing the barge along, the horses barely needed to pull. Their hooves sounded a steady, reassuring rhythm, punctuated by the laughter of their eager riders, Jesus and Daniel.
There had been thunderstorms, sandbars, and several rapid stretches, but now nothing disturbed the tranquility of the lazy river. For the first time on the journey, Joseph could truly relax.
The sudden change of plans in Lugdunum had cost him some time and money, but that had been unavoidable. He still grimaced when he thought about the extra expense of rehiring and reloading the carts, but replacing the horses with oxen had been necessary; and once they reached the Liger River, Joseph had found the boatman ready to load up and go.
The hire for the barge, its captain, and the horse team had been cheap—a fixed price to take them all the way to Nantes at the river’s estuary. Fish and game were abundant. Pirro was skillful with bow and fishing spear. The boys were eager to learn, and soon they were bringing in fresh fish and small game. Seeing to the slaughter and dressing of the game in accordance with Jewish dietary law gave Joseph something to do. For all practical purposes, time could stand still. If the trip took longer than expected, that was now the captain’s problem, just as the captain stood to gain if they arrived earlier.
They were now in the land of the Three Gauls, the region Julius Caesar had conquered some sixty-five years before. Bacchus, the barge captain, was an enterprising and amiable fellow; short, heavy set, but muscular. Despite his Greco-Roman name, there was no mistaking his Gallic-Celt family origins; his Celtic dialect was unmistakable. It seemed that he had to play the part of a Roman because he catered to Roman merchants. His face was clean-shaven and his brown hair closely trimmed in the Roman fashion. That and the worn Roman toga made him look a bit absurd, as someone pretending to be what he is not. Nonetheless, he seemed to know every sandbar and rapid. Plying the steering oar from the stern, he certainly had the skill to steer the barge past these obstructions.
The barge had a relatively shallow draft to navigate through the sandbars and a much wider beam than the typical river boat, to make up for the lost displacement. The cabin at the stern was just big enough to sleep the three men. A tiled fireplace allowed them to build a small fire next to the cabin. For the boys they lay planks over the cargo, and on this deck set up a tent. Often as not, however, Jesus and Daniel slept under the stars.
One evening as they made the barge fast to the side of the river, Bacchus yelled to the boys, “Set the horses out to graze.”
Crew and passengers enjoyed a dinner of freshly caught fish, which they ate together, with some bread and wine that Joseph purchased in the nearby village.
“You know, Daniel,” Jesus said, picking up a piece of cheese, “our dietary laws remind me of my Israelite identity whenever I eat.” He took a bite.
Daniel laughed. “Really?”
Joseph lifted the cup to his lips and sipped the wine. This was a perfect opportunity to test the boys’ knowledge. “Does it not bother you at all, then, that we drink wine purchased from pagans? Is that not contrary to our laws, the traditions of our people, and the teachings of our rabbis?”
“But, Papa,” Daniel said, “there are no Israelite winemakers to be found. We haven’t been near any community of our
people since we passed Massilia. Surely God will forgive us when there is no other way of finding drink for our meals. We cannot obey every single law of our people while we travel so far away from home.”
“Aha. That’s what I like to hear!” said Bacchus. “A Jew who thinks in practical terms at last.” Pirro joined in the laughter, and even Joseph smiled. “I have not forgotten how we lost a day stuck on that sandbar because you and the boys would not help dislodge the barge on your Sabbath day.”
“We cannot compromise the law of God, but I do not think drinking this wine actually violates it,” Jesus said.
The law was not always clear, particularly for a Jew traveling among Gentiles. As a younger man Joseph had known Rabbi Hillel, who had risen from his roots in Babylon to become one of the Zugot, the scholars of the temple. Joseph had asked Hillel’s advice about adhering to the dietary laws when on his travels. Drinking wine made by pagans had troubled him, as that was contrary to what he had been taught from the oral traditions of the fathers. Rabbi Hillel had set Joseph’s mind at rest. It’s all well and good for scholars sitting in Israel to say a devout Jew should purchase wine only made by Israelites, he had said; but a Jew traveling far from the community, needed to understand the basis of the law from the more fundamental Torah, the first four books of Scripture.
So Joseph challenged Jesus to see whether he understood. “How can you say that? Didn’t the rabbi in Nazareth teach you from the scholarly traditions?”
“I know the rule from those traditions, Uncle,” answered Jesus. “But traditions handed down by rabbinical scholars by word-of-mouth are not accepted as law by the Sadducees. Learned scholars developed these traditions over many centuries, but the Sadducees might say that accepting them as law runs against the book of Deuteronomy, which prohibits adding to or taking away from the law of the Torah. On the other hand, the traditions can help people abide by the Torah by giving them clear guides to keep them within the bounds of the law.”
Joseph almost dropped his cup. Could the boy have learned Hillel’s teachings?
“Does the Torah differ from the traditions on purchasing wine from pagans?” asked Daniel.
“Deuteronomy condemns those who drink the wine presented by idolaters in their false worship,” said Jesus. “The traditions go further to say that we should not drink any wine from any gentile, not just a particular libation that has been offered in idolatry. When we are at home among our own people, it is an easy choice to follow the traditions to assure our obedience to the law. But when we travel so far from home, the only wine we can buy is from pagans, which the traditions did not take into account, so we can only ask the seller if the wine came from a temple of some kind. When we do this we are doing all we can to keep the scriptural commandment to avoid idolatry.”
“But if your god condemns what you call idolatry, aren’t you taking the risk that pagans might invoke their idols while growing the grapes or making the wine?” Bacchus asked. “That could happen in the vineyards of Greeks, Romans, and Celts alike.”
“The sin of the idolater does not pass to the righteous man simply because the righteous man purchases his wares,” answered Jesus. “Those condemned in the passage from Deuteronomy drank the wine of the pagan sacrifice itself, and that seems to me a direct participation in the pagan ritual. We cannot help it if a pagan decides to pray to false gods while making something to sell. Purchasing what he offers is not the same as participating in his false prayers.”
“I don’t know about your god,” said Pirro. “He tells you what you may eat and what you may not eat. Then he tells you how you eat it. And even so, you still have to find a wise man to figure out what he wants. He seems very demanding.” The way Pirro raised his eyebrow accentuated his crooked nose. He seemed like a thin shadow of a man. His coal-black hair was tightly wound in curls, and he had allowed it to grow out a little in the Greek fashion.
Jesus finished his wine. “Some say Israelites are the chosen people of God,” he said, “not because we are so high but because we so are low. Only a humble people would accept such laws.”
All except Joseph smiled at Jesus’s words. Joseph was too flabbergasted. He had been listening in amazement. Rabbi Hillel, a learned rabbi, had taken hours to locate the relevant passages of Scripture and analyze them, yet Jesus needed only seconds, working from memory, to draw the fine distinctions among the nuanced words to analyze the problem. The old rabbi had agonized at the thought of going against the oral traditions, even to arrive at a deeper truth. Mary had said her son knew no fear when it came to proclaiming the truth as he saw it. If Jesus was not even going to let the scholarly traditions get in the way of that, was there anything that would?
After supper, Jesus cleared away the dishes while Daniel and Bacchus got the barge underway to make use of the waning daylight.
With the others occupied, Pirro approached Joseph. “Your nephew is quite a know-it-all.”
“I am thankful that he is a good and devout boy.”
“I saw the way you looked at him just now. As if he were some sort of elder wise man. Your son is almost fully grown, and you tell me that he’s two years older than Jesus, but they act as if Jesus were older. Perhaps I should have negotiated my deal with the boy.”
“My nephew is intelligent, and he has been well taught in Scripture. I do respect that, but I know he’s still a boy. You need not concern yourself with Jesus. Just show us the way to Ictis, and there had better be tin for us to buy when we get there, like you told me.” How could Pirro be jealous of someone so young?
“You need not worry about finding tin in Ictis.” Pirro walked away to the other side of the barge.
Joseph was glad to be left to his own thoughts. That Greek is beginning to annoy me.
By now Jesus had finished with the dishes, had made his way to shore, and was riding with Daniel on the horses. Joseph walked to the bow. The boys were laughing and joking with each other. They have become best friends. They look like any other boys right now, but Jesus is truly extraordinary. The Greek is right about one thing; Daniel looks up to the younger Jesus, when it should be the other way around. My son saw something in Jesus from the very beginning.
When dusk fell, half a dozen bargemen drew their boats together in midstream. Bacchus greeted his fellow captains cheerily. The boys hobbled the horses alongside those of the other bargemen and returned to the ship.
“Why do we gather the barges like this every night?” Jesus asked.
Bacchus tossed a line to another boat, and caught the one thrown to him. He crouched to tie it to a bronze cleat. “Rafting the boats together protects us all. Safety in numbers.”
“Might we be unsafe?” Jesus asked.
Bacchus stood. “Thievery is not unknown, lad. Living aboard ship minimizes the problem. And we’ll take turns keeping watch overnight.”
Daniel joined them. “Are there pirates?”
The captain laughed and walked to the opposite side of the ship. “Barges move too slowly. A pirate could never escape the Roman garrisons using that road.” He pointed to the road that ran parallel to the riverbank.
Bacchus turned out to be a well-known storyteller. Several of his friends joined him, and his passengers gathered around the fire at the stern of his barge to hear another tall tale. Bacchus began with his usual protestations that he had no more stories to tell and was too tired to tell one anyway.
“Perhaps you could just tell us about Lugh for now,” Jesus asked. “I’ve been wondering why the Romans would name their provincial capital after him when they despise the druids so much.”
“I cannot tell you anything of what the Romans do, but I can tell you something of Lugh,” Bacchus began.
He told the story handed down through the teachings of the druids of how the world entered its present age in the Battle of Mag Turied. In that battle, the Tuatha Dé Danann, gods who laid claim to the Celtic lands of Europe, and the previous inhabitants, a race of giants called the Fir Bolg, fought against each ot
her. Allied with a different race of giants, the Fumor, and led by their King Nuada, the Tuatha Dé Danann gained the ascendency over the Fir Bolg in the First Battle, but then were oppressed by their Fumor allies, setting the stage for the Second Battle, in which the gods of the Tuatha Dé Danann freed themselves.
Bacchus focused on the eve of the Second Battle, when Lugh first appeared. “King Nuada prepared a magnificent feast, but decreed that all who entered must demonstrate a unique art. Lugh responded that he was a carpenter, to which the porter replied that a carpenter was already present. Lugh then ran through a variety of arts of which he was master: warrior, poet, healer, magician, blacksmith, and so on. In each case, a master of that art was already present. Lugh commanded the porter to ask King Nuada if there were any present who could do all these things. Although forced to admit that no such master of all arts was present, King Nuada subjected Lugh to several tests, all of which he passed, to the ultimate shame of the king. The king was compelled to stand for thirteen days before his own throne as Lugh sat in triumph. Lugh then led the Tuatha Dé Danann to victory in the final battle against the Fumor, in which King Nuada was slain.”
The party listened with rapt attention. Then Jesus posed a question. “When he arrived at the banquet, was Lugh a man or a god?”
“He was both a god and a giant. His paternal grandfather was the greatest healer god of the Tuatha, and his maternal grandfather was a formidable warrior giant of the Fumor. He possessed the graces and powers of the Tuatha gods, while at the same time he could take on the great strength of the Fumor giants by raising his eyelid, just as his grandfather did.”
“That seems very strange to me, maybe because I do not understand pagan religions,” said Joseph. “In your tale the Fumor seem to represent forces of chaos and darkness. Yet Lugh is one of them while at the same time he is one of the enlightened Tuatha. It’s like having a being who is both god and man. It is absurd; the God I know is all-perfect and all-powerful. Men, like giants, are imperfect and spiritually weak by nature. A true god could never be both.”
