by Ann Swinfen
I realised that, behind the façades of marble, away from the streets where the priests and pilgrims walked, there lurked another, grimmer, reality.
Up ahead, a man suddenly shouted out, ‘Stop, thief!’ A quick-fingered robber had slashed the thong securing his purse to his belt and was running down towards us. Shim’ôn thrust out a strong arm and caught the thief as he passed, twisting the knife from his hand. It flew through the air and landed in the ditch beside the pomegranate, where a young boy seized it and made off down the alleyway. Shim’ôn forced open the thief’s fingers and freed the purse, which he tossed to the victim, then kneed the thief in the back and sent him scrambling away down the alley after the boy. It all happened so quickly I hardly saw the man before he was gone.
The robbed man came puffing up to Shim’ôn.
‘I thank you, friend, for saving my purse, but we should have handed over the miscreant for punishment.’
Shim’ôn shrugged his burly shoulders.
‘He has gained nothing by it. Be thankful you have your gold and enjoy the festival.’
When the man had gone, still grumbling, away, my brother clapped Shim’ôn on the shoulder.
‘That was well and neatly done, my Rock!’
He had dismounted from the donkey now, and was on foot like the rest of us. I saw that Ya’kob, brother of Yôhânân, was holding the animal at the side of the street, and not looking very happy about it.
‘Has he told you what he plans to do today?’ I asked Yehûdâ, when I could come close enough to speak to him.
‘I’m hoping he is merely looking about him, scouting before the battle, as it were.’
‘I don’t like your comparison,’ I said.
‘No. A poor choice of words. Look, Shim’ôn and Andreas have cleared a way through the market for us. The others are heading for that inn.’
We sat down under the awning outside the inn, like any other pilgrims, and called for fruit juice and little cakes. Perhaps, after all, the fears that Yehûdâ and I had been entertaining were just our own fevered imaginings.
I had hoped too soon. Before we had even finished taking our refreshments, a crowd had gathered round us and was begging Yeshûa to speak to them. He drained his beaker and stood up. I shifted my stool a little closer to Shim’ôn and Yehûdâ.
My brother spoke quietly, so that people had to strain forward to hear him.
‘We are all come here as pilgrims to the Holy City, my brothers and sisters,’ he said, ‘to the heart of our nation, the holy of holies. In a few days’ time, we shall celebrate the blessed festival of Pesah. When Our Lord spared us in the land of Egypt, he did so because we were the Chosen People. Should we be complacent that we were given such a title? What have you done . . . or you . . . or you, to deserve it? What have I done?’
He paused, looking down at his clasped hands.
‘To be favoured, to be singled out by Yahweh, does not mean that we should assume we are born better than the rest of mankind. No, it means we have been offered the chance to become better, to gain favour in the eyes of the Lord, and to enter into his kingdom. But only if we strive with hearts and minds, and in every daily action, to be worthy of it. It is a gift. Treasure it.’
Some of the crowd shifted uneasily, where they were sitting on the ground. Some avoided his eye. But some looked dazzled, as if lit with unexpected hope and understanding.
He went on to speak briefly of peace and love. There was nothing in what he said that could have offended the authorities: neither the most rigid and zealous Pharisee with his fastidious rituals, nor the most powerful Sadducee aristocrat, ruling in the Sanhedrin.
However, I noticed a group of men standing to one side, who gradually moved closer to us. They looked neither shamed nor inspired. Instead their faces all wore the same expression of sly calculation. From their immaculate dress and their way of holding themselves apart from the crowd, so that not even the edge of a robe might brush against some unclean person, I knew at once that they were Pharisees. And I knew with equal certainty that they would try to trap my brother. I was suddenly sick with fear. A barbed remark from an obscure Pharisee in some remote village in the north could do him no harm. But a group of Pharisees—wealthy men, all of them, by their appearance—here in Jerusalem . . . if they could trick him into saying something which could be taken as blasphemous or seditious, they could bring down the Temple guards on him before we could escape from the city.
I half rose from my seat and tugged at his arm.
‘Yeshûa!’ I hissed. ‘Be careful!’
He put my hand gently aside and smiled at me. I realised that he too had recognised the Pharisees.
‘From whom do you claim power, Yeshûa of Galilee?’ one called, hoping to catch him out in blasphemy.
But my brother was too clever for him. He answered with another question.
‘Who do you say gave power to Yôhânân the Baptiser?’ he asked. ‘Was it from Heaven or from men?’
The group of Pharisees looked at one another in consternation. What could they say? If they said that Yôhânân’s power came from the Lord, they would acknowledge him as a sanctified prophet. If they denied it, the crowd would turn on them, for since our cousin’s execution the people believed in him, if anything, more devoutly.
Then another tried to manoeuvre my brother into treason.
‘What do you say—should we pay taxes to Caesar?’
Yeshûa smiled at him sweetly and said, ‘Show me a coin.’
The man handed him a silver denarius and Yeshûa held it up for all to see.
‘Whose face is on the coin?’ he asked.
‘The Emperor Tiberius!’ several people shouted.
Yeshûa flipped the coin with his thumbnail, so that it spun, flashing, up into the sky, then fell back neatly into the Pharisee’s hand.
‘Give unto Caesar,’ he said, ‘what belongs to Caesar. Give unto God, what belongs to God.’
After that, they asked no more questions, but I saw that they took note of all my brother said. They were particularly agitated when he spoke of the coming of a new kingdom, and when the crowd dispersed they made off in the direction of the Temple. For although there was much ill feeling between the Pharisees and the Sadducees (who made up most of the Sanhedrin—the council ruling under the high priest), yet if both factions of powerful men felt themselves threatened by a man whom the common people hailed as king, I knew that they would unite. I had learned much in the years I had travelled with my brother. Oh, I was no longer that green girl who had run from her home, clutching a bedroll, stumbling in the wake of her brother and her betrothed, towards an unknown future. Now, I was wiser. And I was afraid.
Later in the afternoon, Yeshûa rode out of the city and we followed. When we reached Bethphage, he dismounted and sent the colt back to its owner. Together we all walked on to Bethany. Over Martha’s good dinner, I could see Yeshûa had relaxed and was talking to Shim’ôn about the fine buildings of Jerusalem as if he had never spoken of his fears about what might happen there.
When the meal was over, however, and the dishes cleared away by Martha and me, he became restless. He began to pace about the room, muttering to himself. I watched him nervously, for his behaviour in recent days had become more unpredictable. Finally, he signalled to Yehûdâ with a nod to withdraw with him into the back room. After a few minutes, I followed them. Yeshûa was sitting with his elbows on his knees and his head in his hands, while Yehûdâ stood before him, leaning forward, as if he had just been urging some point. They both jumped as I closed the door behind me.
‘What is the matter?’ I said. ‘It went well today, didn’t it? There was no trouble. You out-foxed those Pharisees.’
‘Just what I have been telling him!’ said Yehûdâ, striding off to the far end of the room and back again. Something unspoken crackled in the air between them.
‘Yeshûa?’ I said.
He simply shook his head.
I knelt on the floor beside him and
gently drew his hands away from his face. His eyes looked bruised and desperate.
‘Yeshûa? What is it?’
‘It is not enough,’ he said in a choked voice.
‘I don’t understand.’
‘A few people heard me, but did they listen? Did I even begin to touch their hearts? I don’t think so.’
‘It will take time,’ Yehûdâ protested. ‘You cannot expect to convert Jerusalem in a day!’
‘There is no time. The priests and the Romans will not allow me time, they will come after me. Sooner or later, they will take me. A few people here and there—it is all taking too long. I have to do something to make them listen, to make them understand. Tomorrow we will go to the Temple and I will make them listen!’
He was suddenly angry. Yehûdâ and I exchanged worried looks. What was he planning to do? But he would not tell us.
As we went to rejoin the others, he threw a final remark over his shoulder.
‘A man must be prepared to die for what he believes in. I will prove by my death that the message I bring is the truth.’
I tried to hold him back, to make him explain himself, but he became suddenly urgent, calling for torches, saying that the rest of our party must be sent for, together with all who wished to follow him.
When everyone was gathered in front of Lazarus’s house, he began to speak, standing beneath a flaming torch whose sparks streamed like the tail of a comet behind his head, and this time it was not about love and brotherhood.
‘The Temple will be cast down, its very stones ground to dust!’ he cried. ‘The vengeance of the Lord will fall upon Israel, and the wicked shall be condemned to everlasting punishment! Those who do not believe shall die a thousand deaths, they shall wish they had never been born! I bring you the Sword of Righteousness!’
He seemed incandescent with anger, as I had never seen him in my life before, and I was terrified. Was this my gentle brother? The man of peace? Most of the people listening, though, after some initial unease, began to catch light from his eloquence. Oh, he could work miracles with his voice, my brother! I truly believe if he had asked them, at the height of his passion, to follow him into a raging fire, they would have gone, as obedient as a flock of sheep.
The next day we returned to Jerusalem, walking back along the dusty road all the way, and this time Yeshûa walked with us, calm now, and cheerfully resolute. At first he had not wanted the women to come, but suddenly, with a shrug, he had yielded.
‘Women shall be the equals of men in the new kingdom,’ he said. ‘It is right that they too should bear witness.’
I was more at ease, for nothing untoward had happened in Jerusalem on the previous day, apart from my brother’s strange wish to ride a donkey into the city. He had dealt calmly with the Pharisees, and they had caused him no trouble. Indeed, we had not caught sight of any soldiers or priests, and had not even gone to the Temple, though I understood that we would go there today. I suppose we were all excited at the thought, for the Temple is the most sacred of places for all Israelites. At one time, when we were not so dispersed, people were able to attend the Temple for worship regularly. Now that many of us lived far away, some people never visited it at all, or no more than once or twice in a lifetime. Certainly the fishermen from Capernaum had never been there; they had been awed on the previous day by the great walls of the city and the civic buildings we had seen.
Everywhere in Jerusalem you seem to climb. I was never able to get the shape of it into my head, but it seemed to me that if you did go down one narrow, stepped street for a little way, then immediately afterwards you climbed up another twice as far. As we made our way to the Temple we seemed to climb and climb. The streets were very narrow and crowded, and they were paved with uneven cobbles, which made them more treacherous than the dirt tracks I was accustomed to. As a consequence, I was watching my feet as we climbed until I heard the Magdalene gasp beside me.
‘Oh, Mariam!’ she cried, grabbing my arm. ‘Look!’
Before us a great complex of courtyards and buildings arose, towering tier upon tier until its innermost and highest building seemed to touch the very heavens. I could not believe that the hand of man could have built such a place. Yet it was quite new, some parts still being completed, for the holy Temple of Solomon had been destroyed long ago. The new Temple had been started in my father’s youth by Herod, him they call ‘the Great’—great in wickedness, certainly, for he slew one of his own wives and several of his sons. But a great builder, also. Despite its newness, the Temple was awe-inspiring. From the outside, it looked more like a fortress than a place of worship. A place very different from the simple village kenîshtâ I had known.
We joined the throng of pilgrims entering through what I was told was the Court of the Gentiles, an outer court to which even gôyîm are admitted, long before one reaches the inner and sacred parts of the Temple. As we walked across the great open space, I sensed more than ever that the Temple was like a fortress or even a city, self-contained within the city of Jerusalem. At the far side we were face-to-face with Solomon’s Portico, through which we passed into another open secular area. What had seemed like a fortress from the outside, now appeared to be a vast, crowded and stinking marketplace. It smelled of dung and blood and, I regret to say, of too many unwashed bodies, for the people who transacted their daily business here were far from ritually pure. This was the hanûyôth, the merchants’ quarter, and there were men of every nation to be seen, many of them gôyîm, though they were not permitted to enter the sacred areas, on penalty of death. Roman soldiers strolled about, keeping an eye on the crowds, but also buying from the stalls which sold everything needed for sacrifice—birds and animals, oil, precious unguents, wine, incense, grain—and a myriad other goods besides. Many of the traders were not Israelites, but Syrians, Phrygians, Nubians, Egyptians, and men whose high cheekbones and slanting eyes showed that they came from far to the east. There were even stalls selling trinkets such as travellers buy, to remind them of their visits to holy places: small pieces of stone that were said to be fragments of Solomon’s original Temple, jars of local honey, tallithim woven in the Holy City itself, and therefore all the more efficacious when worn for prayer. At the time, I believed what the stallholders claimed for their goods, but later, I doubted. If the pieces of stone had been selling for forty years at the rate I saw them selling that day, they would have been enough to build three Temples. And the weaving looked to me like poor foreign stuff.
In pride of place amongst all this noise and dirt and stench were the stalls where sacrificial animals and birds were sold, and where moneyers exchanged all types of coinage into Tyrian silver zuzim, the only coins considered pure enough for Temple offerings and taxes. Yeshûa, with sudden energy, strode into the midst of these.
‘My house shall be called of all nations the house of prayer,’ he shouted, quoting scripture, ‘but you have made of it a den of thieves!’
With that, he seized the edge of a moneychanger’s table and tipped it up. Coins of every nation bounced and rolled in all directions. After a second’s stunned silence, people began scrambling about the courtyard, grabbing the rolling coins and stuffing them into their belts and purses. Scuffles broke out, and men punched each other to reach a handful of denarii. The moneychanger was wailing and beating his breast, calling for the soldiers. Yeshûa went calmly on, cutting the tethers of the lambs and kids, so that they ran bleating and frightened amongst people’s feet, tripping them up. Some of the animals fled out of the gates, others ran in confusion towards the sacred places of the Temple. Now my brother was unlatching the cages of doves and flinging them into the air, crying, ‘Go free, brother!’
The more unruly of the disciples, including the sons of Zebedee, had joined in the tumult. They ran from table to table of the moneychangers, overthrowing them gleefully and shouting, ‘A den of thieves!’
‘We have to get him out of here.’ It was Yehûdâ, close beside me and speaking to Mattaniah, who was also look
ing on, appalled.
‘Mariam!’ Yehûdâ turned to me. ‘Take the women and go straight back to Bethany. Don’t stop.’
‘But my brother?’
‘We’ll bring him. And as many of those hotheads as we can.’
In fact, at the sound of trumpets, calling the Roman soldiers together, many of our followers has realised it was time to leave. They were melting away in different directions, slipping out of this outer court of the Temple. As I shepherded the women away, I saw Yehûdâ and Mattaniah take Yeshûa firmly by each arm and hustle him after us.
That night, everyone was shocked and subdued. Despite Yeshûa’s fiery address the previous night, I do not think anyone had expected him to initiate any really physical violence. They had somehow dreamed of a mystical intervention from the Lord, not an undignified scuffle with a crowd of dirty traders.
‘Why did he do it?’ I demanded of Yehûdâ and Mattaniah, who were conferring together in the garden after dinner. ‘Was this what he meant last night? A violent gesture, to make the world pay attention and listen to him? Will it achieve that? Or will it just get him arrested?’
‘Yehûdâ thinks he wants them to arrest him,’ said Mattaniah uncertainly.
‘But why?’ I insisted. ‘What will that accomplish? It will stop him carrying out his mission.’
‘None of us are privy to that,’ Yehûdâ said. ‘But you heard him. He feels that our mission has stalled. The new kingdom will not come without some terrible act of sacrifice.’
