“Whether he can amicably or not, I’d wager that he’ll be bringing
Herodias to Tiberias as Tetrarchess. Then Claudia can visit her and you
can meet her there. And marry her and keep her out here until you’ve
completed your tour of duty.” Cornelius winked and playfully nudged his
friend with an elbow. “By the gods, maybe that’s what you and Claudia
have planned all along. Is it, Longinus?”
“No, we haven’t planned any such thing.” Longinus stared thoughtfully
out at the shore before them. “But I’ll contrive some reason for getting
up to Tiberias. And we’re bound to meet in Jerusalem during one of the
festivals; they bring in the troops then, you know. Or perhaps some
mission will bring you to Caesarea; at Tiberias, after all, you’ll be
nearer us than we will be to Jerusalem.” He clapped a hand on his
friend’s shoulder. “My love, and the blessings of the gods—including
your Yahweh—to your family.”
Cornelius stood at the “Palmyra’s” rail as the vessel slipped away from
the wharf. When it was nearing the rounding of the breakwater, he heard
Longinus’ sharp command, and the century moved off smartly. The tapping
of the legionaries’ heavy boots in rhythmical, perfect cadence came
clearly to him across the water. Longinus turned and lifted his arm high
in salute; Cornelius returned it, as the century, swinging along the
cobblestoned way, gained a street corner and turned, then began to be
swallowed up into the maze of stone buildings beyond the piers.
The sun was dropping low into the Great Sea when the “Palmyra” sailed
into the port at Joppa. Relieved and happy that the long voyage was
safely ended, the passengers disembarked to seek refreshment and rest
for the night. Early on the morrow Herod Antipas with Mary of Magdala
and the others of his company, escorted by Centurion Cornelius and his
century, would set out on the forty-mile journey southeastward to
Jerusalem.
11
Centurion Cornelius pointed to a horseman hurrying toward them along the
narrow road east of the river. “The advance guard must have run into
trouble, maybe Bar Abbas and his gang or some other waylaying zealots.”
“Then you’d better send out a patrol to overtake and destroy them,”
Herod Antipas scowled. “I have no patience with those rebel cutthroats.”
The caravan trudging up the deep trough of the Jordan had paused for the
midday refreshment. Four days ago it had descended the Jericho road from
Jerusalem to encamp for the night on the plain before the city. Horses
had been provided for the Tetrarch and certain of his household, but the
soldiers of the century, with the exception of the small advance and
rear patrols, were on foot. Heavily loaded carts and donkeys transported
the supplies, gear, and tents. The journey had been made without
incident; another day of uninterrupted progress would bring the caravan
to the Sea of Galilee, or, if they were lucky, perhaps even as far as
Tiberias.
Cornelius stood up and signaled the approaching rider. The horseman rode
straight up to him, reined in his mount, and saluted. “Centurion,” he
reported, “up ahead at the river crossing there’s a motley crowd of
about a hundred persons, most of them men. Judging by their appearance,
they must have traveled a long way. They appear to be peaceful, but
there’s a wild-looking, hairy fellow haranguing them, and they’re
drinking in his every word; they hardly noticed me when I joined them.”
“What was the fellow saying, Lucilius?”
“I couldn’t understand him, Centurion. I’m not familiar with the speech
of this region, which I presume it was. But I thought he might be one of
those Galilean revolutionaries trying to incite the crowd against our
Roman rule.”
“One of those zealots, you mean? No, hardly, Lucilius. Those rebels
don’t stand up delivering speeches; their way is to thrust a knife
between somebody’s ribs and then slink quickly away. More than likely
this fellow’s a religious fanatic, and I would guess his language is
Aramaic. There’s probably no harm in him, but you did well to report. I
understand Aramaic; I’ll return with you and investigate.”
“I believe I know who the man is, Centurion,” the Tetrarch volunteered.
“There was a desert fellow from the Wilderness country beginning to
cause a stir here when I was leaving for Rome. I had reports then that
he was thundering invectives against everything, even the Tetrarch and
his house. He may be inciting the people against Rome. At any rate, I
want to hear him, and perhaps you should, too.”
Mary of Magdala, seated near-by, had overheard. “I, too, would like to
hear the strange prophet.”
“But surely even your irresistible charms would not tempt this mad
Wilderness preacher.” Antipas winked at the centurion.
“I am not interested in charming him. But if this is the man you think
he is I have heard much about him. I would like to observe him for
myself.”
Cornelius turned back to Antipas. “If the Tetrarch wishes, I’ll send up
a patrol to be near-by in case of any trouble. But I think, Sire, you
should disguise yourself. Then you will be able to mingle safely with
the throng, and the preacher, not knowing the Tetrarch is hearing him,
will talk freely.”
Antipas, agreeing, quickly exchanged his purple mantle for the simple
Galilean garment of one of his servants and wrapped about his
Roman-style cropped head a bedraggled scarf to form an effectively
concealing headdress. The servant cut a reed to serve as a walking
staff. Mary, too, changed garments and veiled her face in the manner of
a Galilean peasant woman.
Cornelius sent a patrol ahead. “Stop this side of the ford,” he
instructed Lucilius, “and try to avoid being noticed by the throng down
there. But keep on the alert for any commotion that might develop.” Then
he, Antipas, and Mary all mounted horses and rode toward the place where
the multitude had assembled. At a bend in the road some two hundred
paces from the ford the three riders dismounted behind screening thick
willows that came up from the river bank; from there they quietly made
their way down to the ford and slipped unobtrusively into the crowd.
Every burning dark eye seemed to be focused on the gesticulating,
fiercely intent preacher. He stood in the center of the circled throng
on the river bank, and his words came to them clear and sharply
challenging, angry and pleading, denunciatory and promising.
“You generation of vipers!” he thundered, shaking a gnarled fist in
their teeth, “have I not warned you to escape from the wrath that is
coming? Do you contend that because you are Abraham’s seed you are
secure from the judgment of a righteous God?” He lowered his voice,
strode two steps forward, and dramatically wheeled about. “What are
Abraham’s descendants to God? Could he not raise up from these very
stones”—he pointed toward the smoothly rounded small rocks lining the
water’s edge—“children for Abraham? And is not the ax ready at the foot
of the tree to cut down every one that does not bear fruit?”
Cornelius nudged a bent Jew, his face streaked with perspiration that
ran down in soiled small beads into his grizzled beard, his whole frame
seemingly so absorbed in the speaker’s thundering words that he had not
even noticed the centurion’s arrival beside him. “That man, who is he?”
The old fellow turned incredulously to stare. “Soldier, you have been in
Galilee long enough to speak our tongue, and yet you do not know _him_?”
“But for many weeks I have not set foot in Galilee,” Cornelius replied.
“I am just now returning, by way of Jerusalem, from Rome.”
“He is the Prophet John, soldier, the one sent of God to warn Israel to
repent and be baptized.” The old man turned back to give his attention
for the moment to the preacher. Then, his face earnest, he confronted
Cornelius again. “He is not concerned with Rome, soldier. He preaches
only that men should cleanse their hearts of evil and walk in the way of
our Yahweh.” Once more he turned to stare at the prophet whose eyes were
wildly flaming in his burnt dark face; ignoring Cornelius, the old man
leaned forward and raised a knotted hand to cup his ear.
John was tall, and his leathery leanness accentuated his height. The
prophet, it was immediately evident to the centurion, was not a man of
the cities and the synagogues; he was a son of the desert and the
wastelands of Judaea, and the sun and wind had tanned his skin to the
color and hardness of old harness. Nor did he appear any more afraid of
the proud and opulent Pharisees and Sadducees who confronted him with
their disdainful smiles than he must have been of the wild animals of
his Wilderness haunts.
“Repent! I say unto you. And bring forth fruits worthy of repentance.
Try not further the patience of God. Forswear evil and do good.”
“But what are for us fruits worthy of repentance? What must we do?”
The questioner, his countenance heavy with pain, stood at the river’s
edge facing the prophet. His garb revealed him to be a man of means, but
it was evident also that the thundering words of the baptizer had
stirred him deeply and that he had asked the question in all humility.
John thrust forth a lean forefinger and shook it sternly. “You are of a
calling unloved in Israel, and justly so. You have sold your birthright
as a son of Israel to join your heel to the conqueror’s to grind
Abraham’s seed into the earth. You are a publican; I know you, and I
know the publican’s heart.” His voice was almost a hiss, and around the
clearing beards nodded in agreement with the prophet’s harsh appraisal.
“I call upon you to repent!”
“But what, Rab John, are the fruits of my repentance?” The perspiration
was running freely down the man’s face and dripping into his beard.
“What must I do?”
“Demand only that which is legally due you.”
“I swear that this I shall henceforth do, Yahweh being my helper. By the
beard of the High Priest, I swear it.” The man sighed deeply, and from
the fold of his robe pulled forth a kerchief with which he mopped his
forehead, his whiskered cheeks, and the dampened long beard.
“But we are not great ones,” ventured a gnarled and grizzled fellow who
leaned twisted on his staff, “neither are we publicans. We are the plain
and the simple and the poor of Galilee. What shall we do worthy of
repentance?”
“You have two coats, though they be worn and patched with much wearing?
Then give one to him who has none. And you have food, though it be
coarse and not plentiful? Share what you have with him who is hungry.”
Cornelius had noticed, standing not far from the prophet but somewhat
withdrawn from the throng as if to avoid contamination with these men of
earth such as the one who had just questioned John, a knot of
resplendently robed Israelites, their beards oiled and combed and
carefully braided, their fingers heavily ringed. Now one of these men,
his hands clasped in front of his rounded, sagging paunch, stepped
forward a pace and bowed. “Rabbi, we are priests and Levites sent by the
rulers in Jerusalem to hear and observe your teaching. We perceive that
you speak with great authority. Tell us, Rabbi”—his smile was as
unctuous as his beard was oiled—“are you that great One for whom we are
looking?”
“I am not the Messiah,” John answered evenly.
“Are you then the Prophet Elijah returned to us?”
“I am not he.”
“Then, Rabbi, who are you? We have been instructed to come and see and
carry back our report to the Temple rulers. What then shall we say of
you, who you are?”
“Say that I am:
“The voice of him that crieth in the wilderness,
“Prepare ye the way of the Lord,
“Make straight in the desert a highway for our God.
“Every valley shall be exalted,
“And every mountain and hill shall be made low:
“And the crooked shall be made straight,
“And the rough places plain:
“And the glory of the Lord shall be revealed,
“And all flesh shall see it together: for the mouth of the Lord hath
spoken it.”
“You speak the words of the great Isaiah,” the pompous questioner
declared.
“Yes,” John agreed. “And other words he said also.
“The voice said, ‘Cry,’
“And he said, ‘What shall I cry?
“‘All flesh is grass,
“‘And all the goodliness thereof is as the flower of the field.
“‘The grass withereth, the flower fadeth....
“‘But the word of our God shall stand forever.’”
“Then you, like we, yet look for the coming of the Messiah of God?”
John raised a lean and burnt arm and the haircloth robe slid down along
it to his shoulder. He pointed a darting forefinger toward the Temple’s
emissary, and his countenance was solemn. “I tell you, that One is now
among us, though you have not recognized him as the Messiah of God. And
though he comes after me in time, he ranks before me; indeed, I am not
worthy to stoop down and unloose his sandal straps. I baptize you with
water, but He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire!”
“Then, Rabbi, why do you baptize with water?” The unctuous one smiled
broadly and, pleased with his cleverness, looked from one member of the
delegation to another.
“It is a sign that those who enter upon it have repented and been
cleansed in their hearts.” He looked the man in the eyes. “Have you
repented, my brother? Is your heart changed? Are you ready for the
coming of Him of Whom I have this moment spoken?” John whirled about,
and his lean arm described an arc that embraced the multitude. “Repent,
ye men of Israel! Ye who dwell in great houses, repent! Ye men of earth
who know not where your next mouthful will be found, repent. For the
clean in heart do not all dwell in palaces or attend upon the Temple
worship, nor do they all go about hungry and naked and shelterless.”
As the prophet paused, he looked toward the centurion and the disguised
Tetrarch, who stood beside Mary and within a few paces of the portly
questioner from Jerusalem. Cornelius wondered what Herod was thinking of
this strange Wilderness preacher, this fiery denouncer of evildoers. But
in that same moment John resumed his discourse. “No, sin and wickedness
abide in the high places; evil reigns even in the great marble pile
built above the graves at Tiberias where the Idumaean pawn of the
conqueror despoils and seduces the people of Israel! He, too, my
brothers, even he must repent his wicked ways; he must seek the Lord
while yet He may be found, or he and his evil associates will be cast
into outer darkness!”
The fleeting thought came suddenly to the centurion that the prophet had
recognized the large man in the soiled Galilean robe, and perhaps the
notorious woman of Magdala as well. But then would he have dared utter
such a denunciation? Was the desert preacher really a man of dedication
and courage, as people said? Perhaps. Cornelius scrutinized Herod’s
face. The Tetrarch’s normally pale complexion had turned an ugly shade
of red beneath the twisted turban, while beads of perspiration ran down
his heavy jowls. But Mary, though little of her face showed because of
the veil, appeared more amused than angered.
The prophet’s interrogator from Jerusalem was still unsatisfied. “But,
Rabbi,” he began again, “you say that the Messiah of God is already
among us. Why then has he not declared himself, why has he not consumed
with holy fire the Edomite who possesses us and tramples into the dust
of utter subjection our ancient land?”
John’s eyes flashed angrily, but he controlled his tongue. When he spoke
his voice was calm. “It is not for me to explain or defend the will and
works of the Messiah. I am but His messenger who goes ahead to announce
His coming, to call upon His people Israel to repent that their eyes
might be whole to see Him when He comes, that their hearts might be
clean to know Him!” With bronzed fist he smote the palm of his left
hand, his ardor mounting. “You leaders of the people”—he stabbed a lean
forefinger toward the haughty group from Jerusalem—“cleanse your own
hearts; let fall from your eyes the scabs of greed and hypocrisy so that
when He comes you may recognize Him!”
Cornelius felt a gentle tug on his arm; it was Mary. “The Tetrarch is
going back,” she whispered. “He’s furious at the man’s denunciation of
him. If it hadn’t been for the fact that he would have had to reveal his
identity in doing it, Antipas would have had him arrested. But he didn’t
want those puffed toads”—she inclined her head to indicate the Jewish
delegation—“carrying stories back, and he wished to avoid provoking a
commotion; so he overlooked the....”
“Behold, the Lamb of God!”
Cornelius and the woman, her report to him startlingly interrupted by
the prophet’s ejaculation, faced about quickly to look in the direction
toward which he was pointing. In that instant the others had whirled
about, too. Cornelius and Mary strained forward, trying to see above the
heads of the multitude.
“He is the One of Whom I have been speaking!” shouted John. “Behold, the
Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world. Yonder is the Messiah
of God!”
They saw coming along the path that led down from the road above the
river, walking with long, easy stride as he descended the grade toward
the clearing at the ford, a tall, sunburned young man, well-muscled but
lithe, broad of shoulders, erect. He wore a plain, brown, homespun robe,
belted at the waist with a length of rope, and coarse, heavy sandals. He
was bareheaded; his reddish brown hair fell away from a part in the
center of his head in locks that curled almost to his shoulders. In his
right hand he gripped a long staff cut from a sapling. As he strode down
the pathway and across the open space toward the prophet, he seemed deep
in thought, almost insensible to the throng about him. He walked
straight up to John. Cornelius and Mary could see the two talking in
subdued tones, but they could understand nothing of what was being said
by either man.
“What are they saying?” It was the bent old Jew; he still stood near-by,
and he had cupped his palm to an ear lost in grizzled earlocks.
“Soldier, can you hear them?”
“No, not a word,” Cornelius answered. “They aren’t talking loudly enough
for us up here.”
At that moment a youth who had been down at the water’s edge standing a
few feet away from the prophet approached them. He heard the old man’s
question. “They are arguing about baptizing the tall one,” he explained.
“He wants the desert preacher to baptize him, but the preacher claims it
should be the other way around; he says he isn’t worthy to baptize the
Messiah.”
“The Messiah!” The old man had been peering intently at the tall young
man standing calmly beside the prophet. “Is that the one the prophet
called the Lamb of God, the one long expected of Israel?”
“Yes, the tall one.”
“Why do you ask?” Cornelius inquired of the bent one. “Do you know the
man?”
“Do I know him?” The old man chuckled. “Soldier, I come from Nazareth.
Many’s the day I have worked with Joseph, that boy’s father, planing one
end of a beam while he was shaping the other end. But Joseph’s dead now,
been dead a long time. That boy there lives with his mother, the widow
Mary.”
“What does he do?”
“He’s a carpenter, too, like his father before him. And he’s a good boy
and a hard-working boy, soldier. But Jesus ben Joseph the Messiah of
Israel....” The old fellow, both hands braced on his gnarled stick,
shook his head incredulously. “Soldier, my faith in that John the
Baptizer is weakening. He must be”—he removed one hand from the stick
and with bent forefinger tapped his forehead—“a little touched.”
Cornelius laughed. “I don’t know much about this Messiah business, but,
I agree, he must be.” Then he turned to Mary. “Are you ready to go? I
mustn’t let Herod get too far ahead. I’m responsible for his arriving in
Tiberias, you know.”
They started retracing their way along the path to the road; where it
joined the broader way, they turned southward. When a moment later they
came out from behind a clump of shrubs grown up in an outcropping of
small boulders, Cornelius glanced over his shoulder toward the ford and
the throng. He caught Mary’s arm and pointed.
The haircloth mantle and the brown homespun robe had been thrown across
small bushes at the river’s edge. In the center of the little stream,
with the water up to their loincloths and their faces lifted heavenward,
stood the gaunt Wilderness prophet and the tall bronzed young man from
Nazareth.
12
The Procurator’s Palace sat high on a promontory overlooking the harbor
at Caesarea. A marble-paved esplanade led from the cobblestoned street
up to the palace, and on its west side facing the Great Sea an immense
terrace of colored, polished stones went out from the peristylium.
In the days when King Herod, father of Antipas, determined to build here
on the Palestinian coast a fabulous port city to honor his patron, the
Emperor Augustus, the place was an insignificant town called by the
unusual name of Strato’s Towers. Then there was virtually no harbor. But
at tremendous cost in the lives of slaves and artisans and money wrung
in taxes from his already poor subjects, Herod built of huge stones sunk
in twenty fathoms of often rough water a tremendous mole that went out
and around like a protecting arm to form a safe shelter for countless
ships of every type.
Quickly old Herod had transformed Strato’s Towers into a beautiful and
busy city more Roman than Jewish. A stranger unfamiliar with the region
and just landed from a trireme in the harbor at Caesarea, in fact, would
hardly realize that he was in a Palestinian city. Not only were its
great public buildings and lavish homes Roman—its Procurator’s Palace,
its immense hippodrome for athletic sports and gladiatorial combats, its
theater, its gleaming marble temples to pagan gods—but Roman, too, were
many of its people. Its population actually was of varied
nationalities—Roman, Greek, Syrian, Idumaean, Ethiopian, and many
others; there were countless slaves from conquered provinces—Germania,
Gaul, Dalmatia, even here and there one from Britannia—a motley
multitude from every region on the rim of the Great Sea and even from
lands farther away. Caesarea was a metropolitan city set down upon the
coast of this ancient homeland of the Samaritans and their more
peculiarly Hebrew cousins the Judaeans.
Today the newly arrived Procurator Pontius Pilate and his wife sat in
the warming sunshine on the terrace and looked down upon the busy harbor
and the Great Sea stretching westward into the blue haze. Obliquely
facing them, so that he could see both the harbor and a portion of the
maze of buildings pushing one upon the other from it, sat their guest,
the Centurion Longinus.
Claudia pointed to a large merchant ship being tied up at one of the
docks below. “This is a tremendous harbor, rivaling Ostia’s, isn’t it?
Look at all those vessels, and that one that has just sailed in. Judging
by its size, I’d say it was an Alexandrian grain ship.”
“It is a great harbor, and wonderfully protected. In fact, I was amazed
to find Caesarea such a modern city.” Pilate smiled broadly. “I had
feared that it would be another typical provincial outpost.”
“On the contrary, Excellency, it’s quite a metropolis,” Longinus
observed. “You’ll discover people here from every part of the world, and
far fewer Jews, I suspect, than you had anticipated finding. Of course,
you’ve hardly had time yet to learn much about the city.”
Pilate laughed, but with little humor. “The fewer Jews the better. I’m
glad the capital of the province is here rather than at Jerusalem; it
would be galling, I suspect, to be forced to spend most of one’s time in
that nest of Jews. Speaking of Jerusalem, Centurion, I plan to visit the
city shortly and have a straight talk with that High Priest. I wish it
known at the very beginning of my Procuratorship that I intend to
demonstrate clearly and forcefully, if that be necessary, that Rome
cannot be trifled with by these obstinate and pestiferous Jews. You, of
course, have been to Jerusalem?”
“Not since I came out this time. But on many occasions previously,
including visits during the festivals. If you go there during Passover
week, you’ll see Jews from every part of the world.”