_Jerusalem--Third Morning after the Crucifixion._
My Dear Father:
On the day on which the wonderful events took place which I have
detailed at large in my last letter, the chief priests, at the head
of whom was Annas, met Pilate as he was riding forth from the city,
attended by a score of men-at-arms, to survey the deep rents made by
the earthquake, and to hear from the mouths of all the people the
particulars of the marvels which attended the crucifixion of Jesus.
When they came near him, they besought him that he would command his
soldiers to take down the bodies, as the next day was a high-day, and
that it was contrary to their customs to have criminals executed or
left hanging on that day.
"What think ye?" demanded Pilate, reining up and soothing his Syrian
war-horse, which, startled at the dead bodies that lay near (for they
were crossing the place of the opened tombs), had for some time
tramped and plunged madly. "What think ye, priests! Have ye crucified
a man or a god? We think these mighty wonders tell us that he was more
than a man!"
The priests looked troubled, and seemed unable to answer. But Terah,
chief priest of the house of Mariah, answered and said:
"My lord, these were wonderful phenomena, but they would have happened
if this Nazarene had not died! Here is a famous astrologer from Arabia,
who studies the skies, who says that this darkness was caused by an
eclipse of the sun! The dark cloud was but the smoke of the sacrifices,
while the earthquake was but a natural and usual occurrence!"
"Stay, sir priest," answered Pilate; "we at Rome, though called
barbarians by you polished Jews, have some scholarship in astrology.
We know well that an eclipse of the sun can take place only when the
moon is new! It is to-day, on this eve of the high-day, at its full,
and will to-night rise nearly opposite the sun! It was no eclipse, sir
priest, and thy Arabian is a false astrologer. These events occurred
because that divine man, your king, has been executed."
Thus speaking, the Roman Procurator spurred on towards the place,
followed by his body-guard; now avoiding an open grave, now leaping one
of the freshly opened chasms, now turning aside from some body cast up
by the earthquake. When he came in front of the crosses, he saw that
Jesus hung as if dead, while the thieves still breathed and from time
to time heaved groans of anguish, although partly insensible from the
effects of the opiate which had been administered to them.
"Think you, Romulus, that he has any life in him?" asked Pilate,
in a subdued tone of voice, gazing sorrowfully, and with looks of
self-reproach, upon the drooping form of his victim.
"He is dead an hour ago," answered the centurion. "He expired when the
earthquake shook the city, and the flaming sword was unsheathed in
the air above the Temple! It was a fearful sight, sir, and the more
wonderful to see it change in the shape of a cross of fire. I fear,
sir, we have crucified one of the gods in the shape of a man."
"It would appear so, centurion," answered Pilate, shaking his head. "I
would it had not been done! But 'tis past! The Jews desire their bodies
to be removed before their great Sabbath. Let them have their desire."
Pilate then turned his horse and rode slowly and sadly away from the
spot. Romulus gave orders to his soldiers to remove the bodies. When
the soldiers came to Jesus they saw that he was already dead.
"Let us not break his legs," said one to the other; "it were sacrilege
to mar such a manly form."
"Yet we must insure his death, ere he can be taken away," responded the
other. "I will pierce him to make sure!"
Thus speaking, the soldier directed his spear to the side of Jesus,
and cleaved the flesh to his heart. John, who stood near, and saw and
heard all, upon seeing this done bowed his head to the earth in total
abandonment of hope!
When he raised his head to gaze upon his crucified Master, he saw
flowing from the rent in his side two fountains together, one of
crimson blood, and lo! the other of crystal water! He could not believe
what he saw, until the soldiers and the centurion expressed aloud their
wonder at such a marvel.
"Never was such a man crucified before," exclaimed the centurion.
In the meanwhile, Rabbi Joseph, the counsellor of Arimathea, who stands
high in favor with Pilate, met the Governor as he was skirting the wall
of the city with his cohort, and asked him if, after Jesus should be
pronounced dead, he might take down the body and give it sepulchre.
"Go and receive the body of this wonderful man," said Pilate. "Methinks
thou art one who knew him well. What thinkest thou of him, Rabbi?"
Joseph perceived that Pilate asked the question with deep interest,
seemingly very greatly troubled in mind, and he answered him boldly:
"I believe that he was a Prophet sent from God, your excellency, and
that to-day has died on Calvary the most virtuous, the wisest, and the
most innocent man in Cæsar's empire."
"My conscience echoes your words," answered Pilate, gloomily; and
putting spurs to his horse, he galloped forward in the direction of the
Gethsemane Gardens.
Proceeding to the cross, Joseph, by the aid of Lazarus, Simon Peter,
Mary, Martha, and Rabbi Amos, took it out of the socket in the rock,
with its precious burden, and gently laid it upon the ground with the
body still extended upon it.
In the still, holy twilight of that dread day, the west all shadowy
gold and mellow light, the air asleep, and a sacred silence reigning
in heaven and on earth, they bore away from the hill of death the body
of the dead Prophet. The shoulders of Nicodemus, of Peter, of Lazarus,
and of John, gently sustained the loving weight of Him they once
honored above all men, and whom, though proved by his death, as they
believed, to have fatally deceived himself as to his divine mission as
the Christ, they still loved for his sorrows so patiently borne, for
his virtues so vividly remembered.
Slowly the little group wound their way along the rocky surface of
Golgotha, the last to leave that fearful place in the coming darkness.
Their measured tread, their low whispers, the subdued wail of the women
who followed the rude bier of branches, the lonely path they trod,
all combined to render the spectacle one of touching solemnity. The
shades of evening were gathering thick around them. They took secret
ways for fear of the Jews. But some that met them turned aside with awe
when they knew what corpse was borne along, for the impression of the
appalling scenes of the day had not yet wholly passed away from their
minds. At length they reached a gate in the wall of the garden attached
to the noble abode of the wealthy Rabbi Joseph, who went before, and
with a key unlocked it, and admitted them into the secluded enclosure.
Here the thickness of the foliage of olive and fig trees created
complete darkness; for by this time the evening star was burning like
a lamp in the roseate west. They rested the bier upon the pavement
beneath the arch, and awaited in silence and darkness the appearance
of torches which Rabbi Joseph had sent for to his house. The servants
bearing them were soon seen advancing, the flickering light from the
flambeaux giving all things visible by it a wild aspect, in keeping
with the hour.
"Follow me," said Joseph, in a low voice, that was full charged with
deep sorrow, as the servants preceded him with their torches.
The sad bearers of the dead body of Jesus raised their sacred burden
from the ground, and trod onward, their measured foot-falls echoing
among the aisles of the garden. At its farther extremity, where the
rock hangs beetling over the valley, and forms at this place the
wall of the garden, was a shallow flight of stone steps leading to a
new tomb hewn out of the rock. It had been constructed for the Rabbi
himself, and had just been completed, and in it no man had ever been
laid.
The servants, by command of Joseph, rolled back the stone, and exposed
the dark vault of the gaping sepulchre.
"How is it, most worthy Rabbi," said a Roman centurion, suddenly
apprizing them of his presence by his voice, "that you bury thus with
honor a man who has proved himself unable to keep the dazzling promises
he has allured so many of you with?"
All present turned with surprise at seeing not only the centurion, but
half a score of men-at-arms, on whose helmets and cuirasses the torches
brightly gleamed, marching across the grass towards the spot.
"What means this intrusion, Roman?" asked Rabbi Joseph.
"I am sent hither by command of the Procurator," answered the
centurion; "the chief Jews have had an interview with him, informing
him that the man whom he had crucified had foretold that after three
days he would rise again. They, therefore, asked a guard to be given
them to place over the sepulchre, till the third day, lest his
disciples secretly withdraw the body, and report that their master is
risen. Pilate, therefore, has commanded me to keep watch to-night with
my men."
"We bury him with this deference and respect, centurion," answered
Rabbi Joseph, "because we believe him to have been deceived, not a
deceiver. He was gifted by God with vast power, and therefore doubtless
believed he could do all things. He was too holy, wise, and good to
deceive. He has fallen a victim to his own wishes for the weal of
Israel which were impossible by man to be realized."
The body of Jesus, wrapped in its shroud of spotless linen, and
surrounded by the preserving spices of Arabia, was then borne into the
tomb, and laid reverently upon the table of stone which Joseph had
prepared for his own last resting-place. Simon Peter was the last to
quit the side of the body, by which he knelt as if he would never leave
it, shedding all the while great tears of bitter grief. John only, at
last, drawing him gently forth, enabled the centurion and soldiers to
close the heavy door of the tomb. Having secured it evenly by revolving
it in its socket, the signet-bearer of the Procurator, who had come
with the soldiers, placed a mass of wax, melted by a torch, upon each
side of it over the crevices, and stamped each with the Imperial
signet, which to break is death!
The Jews who were present, seeing that the sepulchre was thus made sure
by the sealing of the stone, and by the setting of the vigilant Roman
watch of eighteen men, took their departure. Rabbi Joseph, Nicodemus,
and the rest of the friends of Jesus, then slowly retired, leaving a
sentinel pacing to and fro before the tomb, and others grouped about
beneath the trees or on the steps of the sepulchre, playing at their
favorite game of dice, or gazing upon the broad moon, conversing, or
singing their native Italian airs; yet with their arms at hand, ready
to spring to their feet at the least alarm or word of alert.
(Something fearful must this instant have happened, for the house has
just shaken as if with an earthquake. What can be the meaning of these
wonders?)
This morning Mary and Martha, with others, have gone to visit Jesus'
tomb in Joseph's garden (as I have already said), for the purpose of
embalming the body, and on their return we are to go to Bethany for
a few days, until the violent hostility of the Jews to his followers
subsides.
I hear now the voices of Mary and Martha, in the court of the street,
returning from the tomb. They are pitched to a wild note of joy! What
can mean the commotion--the exclamations--the running, and shouting,
all through the corridors and court? I must close, and fly to learn
what new terror or wonder has occurred.
In haste, your affectionate daughter,
Adina.