movement of the priests and the assembled throngs, many of them pilgrims
returned from every province in the Empire, as these earnest Israelites
performed the traditional rites of the ancient festival of worship. On
her first morning, Claudia had arisen early and had stepped out onto the
balcony. The sun was just lifting above the Mount of Olives, but already
the Temple was astir, and pilgrims in their many colored robes were
swarming into the Court of the Gentiles, the nearer Court of the Women,
and the other more sacred precincts permitted to them. In their hands
they carried leafed branches.
Claudia stared in rapt fascination at the spectacle below. As she leaned
out over the balcony, she scarcely heard Tullia’s footsteps approaching
behind her.
“Good morning, Mistress.”
“Good morning,” Claudia replied, turning to greet the girl. She pointed
downward. “You were right about this offering much in the way of
entertainment. It’s nearly as good as our Roman games.”
Tullia laughed. “Who knows, perhaps you, too, Mistress, may become a
convert to our ways.”
“Hardly.” Claudia shook her head with a wry smile. Then she turned and
looked thoughtfully down again at the bustling crowds in the Temple
courts. “There’s one thing in particular, you know, that I can’t
understand about the Jewish religion, little one.” The half-smile had
been replaced by a perplexed frown. “Unless I’m mistaken, the Jews
contend that their Yahweh is all-powerful, that he’s the only god there
is, and that he rules over all peoples; yet they call him the God of
Israel and seem to believe that he has no interest in anyone else. Down
there, for example”—she pointed toward the Temple—“there are signs
warning foreigners not to enter, under pain of death, certain of the
sacred places. How do the Jews explain that? It seems to me that they
make their Yahweh a sort of tribal god, one having less authority even
than our Jupiter. If Yahweh is the god of all the world, how can the
Jews claim him as exclusively theirs? And on the other hand, if he is
the god and father of all peoples, doesn’t that make all peoples
brothers?” She shrugged. “I see little sense to ... all this.” She broke
off with a quick sweep of her hand toward the procession of priests and
pilgrims moving down the slope toward the waters of Siloam.
“They do say that such is the teaching of Jesus, that our Yahweh is the
father of all peoples, even the pagans who have never heard of Him,
that....”
“Jesus?”
“The Galilean. The carpenter, Mistress, of whom the Prophet John
declared himself to be the forerunner, you know. He’s been teaching down
there at the Temple; he came up from Galilee, though he wasn’t here at
the beginning of the feast, it was said. The priests are bitter toward
him, especially Annas and Caiaphas and the Temple leaders; they say he
is corrupting our religion.”
“Hah! Annas and Caiaphas talk of corruption! I should think they
wouldn’t have the nerve. But have you seen this Galilean, little one?”
“No, Mistress, but I should like to. They say he speaks with great charm
and clarity.”
“By the gods, I would like to hear him myself. He’s the one, isn’t he,
who Cornelius contends healed his little servant boy? Maybe we could
prevail on him to do some other feats of magic.”
“But his followers, so I hear, deny that he works magic. They say he
does such things of his own power and authority, as the Messiah of God.”
“So Cornelius believes, according to Longinus; he thinks the Galilean is
a man-god and that he really healed the little boy, but Longinus wasn’t
that naïve. I wish Longinus were here to see the carpenter and hear his
discoursing; I’d like to know _his_ opinion of the man.”
But Longinus was not in Jerusalem. Cornelius had failed in his promise
to bring the centurion to the Feast of Tabernacles. Hardly a week before
they were to leave Tiberias, Cornelius had received a message from
Longinus saying that the Prefect Sejanus had sent him instructions to
board ship at Tyre for Antioch, where he would have business with the
Legate Vitellius. What the nature of the business was, Cornelius told
Claudia, had not been revealed. Nor had Longinus indicated how long he
would be away. Had she known he would not be in the Judaean capital,
Claudia told her maid, she herself would have remained in the provincial
capital on the coast. That would have given her two weeks of freedom
from Pontius Pilate, at any rate, for Pilate, with a maniple of soldiers
and a retinue of servants, had come up with her to the festival and
would probably remain in Jerusalem until the final ceremonies were
completed and all the withered booths had been removed.
In late afternoon the Procurator’s wife ate an early dinner, and as the
sun dropped behind the western walls, she stood again with Tullia at the
balcony’s parapet and looked down upon the animated movement within the
Temple’s courts.
“See, Mistress!” Tullia pointed. “They all carry unlighted torches. It
will be beautiful, the illumination of the Temple. This is the great
event of the festival; it is called the ‘Joy of the Feast.’ When the sun
goes down, a watchman on the western wall of the Temple will give the
signal and the candelabra will be lighted. See how high they are,
perhaps thirty cubits. The light from them will illuminate the whole
Temple area. It will be like nothing you have seen, Mistress!”
“Yes, Bona Dea, I agree it will be different. And in Jerusalem, Tullia,
you’re different. I do believe I’ve never before seen you so excited.”
The service began with a great company of priests and Levites
alternating in the antiphonal chant of the Psalms and other sacred
Hebrew scriptures. Then, as the shadows lengthened and the quick murk of
descending night began to envelop the vast edifice and the thousands
massed within it, one of the priests, bearing a long lighted taper,
moved through the Court of the Priests and down the steps to the Court
of the Women.
“Look, Mistress! See the priest carrying the lighted taper,” Tullia
said, her enthusiasm mounting. “With it he will light the great
candelabra.”
The advancing priest paused. “Arise, shine!” his voice suddenly rang
out, “for thy Light is come! And the glory of the Lord is risen upon
thee!” Deliberately, with all eyes upon him, he lighted first the
central candle in the great stand, and then as quickly as he could with
the uplifted long taper he touched the flickering flame to each of the
three on either side of the central one; when he had finished his task
before the first great candelabrum, he crossed with measured tread to
the other and lighted it. As he touched the last candle and the flame
caught, a great welling up of excited, triumphant song was lifted to the
two on the balcony above, one the pagan daughter of Roman emperors and
the other, her slave maid, daughter of ancient and buffeted Israel.
“What does the song mean, Tullia?” Claudia asked. “It seems to have a
tone of triumph, of victory. Yet how can the people of Israel boast of
their victories, if that is what they are doing?”
“It _is_ a song of triumph, Mistress,” she replied. “It speaks, like the
Feast of Tabernacles itself does, of the days when our fathers were led
by the God of Israel out of bondage in Egypt. The song recalls, like the
flaming candelabra, the long and wearisome journey upward into the
promised land when the pillar of cloud led by day and the pillar of fire
by night. It is more of the lore of our people. But look! The procession
of light is beginning! See the torches!”
First came the Levites. In procession they passed the flaming
candelabra, and as each man came opposite the blazing, darting fire, he
mounted the steps, lifted high his torch, and touched it to the flame.
Soon the torches of the Levites, followed by those of the pilgrims, had
transformed the entire mountain of the Temple into a blaze of fire.
For a long moment, silent, Claudia stood at the balcony’s parapet and
studied the procession of torchbearers; their voices, raised in song,
filled the night. “It’s amazing,” she said finally. “I’ve always thought
that the Jewish religion had no joy in it; I thought it was the worship
of a stern, vengeful, morose god who was quick to punish any violator of
his strict and senseless laws, who demanded bloody sacrifices and
fasting and permitted no indulgence in pleasures. But these Jews seem to
be having a grand time, almost as though they were devotees of Isis or
Moloch.”
“Yes, but without the orgies of Isis and Moloch,” Tullia explained.
“Many persons who are not of our faith do have that opinion of the God
of Israel. But we believe that although He is stern and demands that we
uphold His laws, He is also a loving God who wants His people to be
happy. Some will be dancing here as long as their torches burn,
Mistress.”
“Well, you may stay out and watch them as long as you like, Tullia, but
I’m going to bed.”
“One more thing, Mistress,” the slave girl asked. “If I may, I should
like at sunrise tomorrow to slip down into the Temple courts for the
early service.”
“Of course, little one,” Claudia smiled. “But be careful. And perhaps it
would be best if you made no mention of being in the Procurator’s
household.”
36
Faintly at first and from afar off the silvery notes of a trumpet
floated into her bedchamber. As she seemed to rise slowly upward out of
a deep cavern of slumber, she sensed a stirring beside her.
“The morning watch at Castra Praetoria,” he said, as in the dim light of
breaking day he raised himself on an elbow to look into her face, “and I
have early duty.”
“But, Longinus,” she began a murmured protest, “must you forever be
leaving...?”
“Today is very important,” he went on, unheeding. “I must meet the
Prefect there to begin our journey down to Capri for an audience with
the Emperor. Sejanus is going to recommend that Tiberius recall Pontius
Pilate and banish him to Gaul and then name me as Procurator. But you
are not to go with him into banishment. Instead, you will marry me
and....”
“By all the gods! Longinus! Oh, by the Bountiful Mother! So long have we
waited....”
She sat up from her pillow. The light was seeping through the narrow
window beyond the foot of the bed; the chamber was bursting now with the
sound of trumpets. Sleepily, though she was fast coming awake, she felt
for the centurion and sought to hold on to the dream, but she knew he
was not there. And in a moment’s hush between the trumpetings she heard
from the room adjoining hers, through the doorway connecting the
chambers, the sonorous, heavy snoring of Pontius Pilate.
“Tullia!” she called, keeping her voice down. But the door to the maid’s
smaller chamber on the side opposite the Procurator’s was open; she had
hardly expected Tullia to be there. The trumpets below were calling
Israel to the sunrise worship, and somewhere in the milling throng of
Jerusalem dwellers and pilgrims was her devoted maid.
She pushed down the covering, swung her feet around to the floor, and
stood up. Drawing her robe about her, she stepped into her sandals and
tiptoed out onto the balcony. Down below in the Temple courts a few
torches sputtered sporadically in the strengthening light, and several
still burning in the two giant candelabra offered more twisting
blue-black smoke than illumination.
But there was a glory in the east; behind the rounded crest of the Mount
of Olives a giant hand spread fingers of orange and gold and salmon and
pink, and as the aureole fanned out higher and wider and its vivid
colors swam together in one blazing brightness, the sun ventured to peek
above the hilltop. In that instant the golden dome of the Temple flamed,
and the topmost stones around the city’s western wall caught fire.
A blast of trumpets, silvery, melodious, triumphant, saluted the sun’s
rising. And then another, and another. Looking down into the Court of
the Priests, from which the sound had come, Claudia saw two lavishly
caparisoned priests, carrying trumpets and walking abreast, marching
toward the lower Court of the Women. They were going down the steps
between the two courts when suddenly they paused and, lifting their
instruments to their lips, once again blew three blasts. Then they moved
austerely down the remaining steps and into the court, where they paused
and blew three blasts again.
“Can they be sun worshipers, by all the gods?” Claudia murmured as she
watched the priests offering what appeared to be homage to the newly
risen monarch of the heavens.
The two priests, pacing steadily eastward through the great Court of the
Women, stopped near its center and once more blew sharp blasts and then,
lowering their trumpets, marched straight toward the Beautiful Gate, the
eastern entrance to the court. But before the huge portal they stopped
and faced about, so that now their backs were toward the sun.
“Our fathers, who worshiped likewise in this place, turned their backs
upon the sanctuary of the Lord and their faces to the sun,” they said in
chorus, and the words came up distinctly to Claudia, who was able to
understand their meaning though she could not comprehend their
significance. “But our eyes are turned toward the Lord!”
“Then at least they do not worship the sun,” she said to herself,
“although I look upon the sun as being more godlike than their puny
spirit one god.”
She stood another moment watching the pageantry below; then her eyes
swept beyond the Temple walls to survey the tabernacled city and the
area outside its protective walls. Today, she remembered, would see the
ending of the Jewish autumn festival, the Israelites’ traditional Feast
of Tabernacles. And it was well that it should. Already the little green
bough shelters were beginning to wilt in the October sun. The pageantry,
too, must be losing its luster, even to the people of Israel.
_... And Longinus could not come to Jerusalem...._
Turning from the parapet, she crossed the balcony and entered her
chamber. Taking off her robe, she slipped back into the inviting warmth
of the bed.
37
The opening of the bedchamber door awakened Claudia; she sat up in bed.
“I’m sorry, Mistress,” Tullia said apologetically as she closed the door
behind her. “I thought perhaps you had gone out.”
“It’s all right. I’ve slept enough. Those early trumpets awoke me, and I
went out on the balcony and watched the services beginning. That was
probably just a short while after you left. Then I came back to bed. But
why have you returned so soon? Surely that water-pouring ceremony isn’t
finished yet.” She paused and studied the slave maid. “By the gods,
Tullia, something’s happened. I can see stars in your eyes. And you’re
all out of breath; you’ve been running. Quickly, tell me, what is it?”
“Oh, Mistress,” Tullia burst out happily, “he’s down there! He’s down
there right now, in the Court of the Gentiles. I ran back to tell you.”
“Longinus!” Claudia scrambled to her feet.
The stars dimmed. “I’m sorry, Mistress, I hadn’t meant to disappoint
you. But yesterday you said you’d like to see him....”
“The Galilean?”
“Yes, Mistress, and he’s down there right now. Do you remember that
woman who came with the Tetrarch Herod to Rome, the beautiful one called
Mary of Magdala?”
“Yes, of course. Why do you ask?”
“I was in the Court of the Women, Mistress, during the early service,
when I came upon her. I recognized her, and I knew she was a follower of
the Galilean. So I asked her to tell me if he had come to the Feast. She
said he had and that even then he was in the Court of the Gentiles over
near the Shushan Gate; today, she said, he would be teaching there, no
doubt as soon as the service of the water pouring is finished. Soon the
procession will return from the Pool of Siloam; it may be that it’s
already back. If you’d like to eat, Mistress, and then go down to the
Court of the Gentiles....”
“But I need not eat just this minute, Tullia. We’ll go now. Here,” she
said, holding out her robe, “help me get dressed. I really would like to
see that man and hear him speak”—she smiled—“and witness any feats of
magic he might be prevailed upon to perform.” But quickly her expression
sobered. “Tullia, you’ll have to fix me so that no one would even dream
he was looking at the Procurator’s wife.”
“Yes, Mistress, but a veil and simple stola will serve that purpose.”
Claudia peeked into the adjoining bedchamber. It was empty. “Pilate no
doubt has gone to the Praetorium,” she said. “He needn’t know I’m going
down into the Temple precincts.”
With Tullia’s aid, she dressed, and they descended to the ground level
and went out through the great vaulted doorway on the south side of the
Tower. A moment later the two women, heavily veiled, entered the Temple
enclosure through the North Gate of Asuppim and headed toward the Soreg,
a lacy latticework of carefully carved and interwoven stones four and a
half feet high surrounding the Temple itself. From there they turned
left and strode eastward through the vast Court of the Gentiles with its
jam of worshipers and the idly curious.
“Mary said that he usually sits over there”—Tullia pointed toward the
cloisters along the eastern wall of the Temple—“near the Shushan Gate.”
The Shushan Gate was at the northern end of the wall, directly east of
the Beautiful Gate. Steps led up from the Court of the Gentiles to the
Chel, a corridor running between the Soreg and the walls of the Temple
proper, in which sat the resplendent, great Shushan Gate. The Court of
the Women, in turn, was several feet higher than the Chel. At the
western end of the Court of the Women, centering the wall, was another
large opening, the Gate of Nicanor, and directly west of this gate and
on a still more uplifted platform, stood the Great Altar. A person at
the Gate of Shushan could look above marble steps ascending from one
court level to another to the priests performing their orders before
this tremendous and imposing pyramidal altar of burnt offerings.
As Claudia and Tullia neared the eastern end of the Soreg they could see
the Shushan Gate, but no group was knotted about it. They could look
across the cloister and out through the gate to the rise of the Mount of
Olives beyond the Brook Kidron far below. “He’s not there,” Tullia said,
her tone revealing disappointment. “Perhaps he went with the procession
to the Pool of Siloam and has not yet returned. Surely he will be here
soon.”
But as they turned the corner to their left, the two women saw a motley
throng pushed together in a half circle about the steps that led up to
the Chel. “Maybe Jesus is there,” Tullia exclaimed, keeping her voice
low, for now they were nearing the outer edge of this crowd. She turned
to confront a lean and bearded tall Israelite. “We have just come here,”
she said. “We wonder why all these people are gathered about. Is some
rabbi expounding the law?”
“Yes, the Galilean whom some hold to be the Messiah of God. The priests
and the scholars have been trying to confuse him, but he has thrown
their words back into their teeth.”
They moved forward into the outer fringe of the group and eased their
steps toward the man sitting before the Beautiful Gate until soon they
had an unobstructed view of him. From where they stood they could also
see through the wide portals of the Beautiful Gate across the Court of
the Women and the Gate of Nicanor to the Great Altar, upon which the
High Priest Caiaphas, with two other Temple dignitaries assisting him,
had tipped the golden ewer of water from the Pool of Siloam as a
libation to Yahweh. Many of those now listening to the discourse of the
Galilean had been present for the ceremonies of the water pouring,
including a small knot of lavishly robed Israelites whom Tullia
immediately recognized as the men who had been attempting to confound
Jesus with their hate-inspired but politely phrased questions.
Evidently one of these men, a stout Pharisee from the looks of his garb,
had just so challenged the Galilean. But if Jesus was perturbed, he did
not indicate it. He was speaking calmly, and his resonant but gentle
Galilean Aramaic came clearly to them above the din of the cattle in the
stalls along the northern cloisters. “He doesn’t speak with the fire and
thunder of that Wilderness prophet,” Claudia observed in whispered
comment. “He seems not to be the fanatical type, and I’m surprised. He’s
handsome, too, and I’m even more surprised at that. I thought he would
be another lean and burnt, arm-waving, shouting fanatic, one with a long
messy beard, flaming eyes, and soiled clothing—a generally anemic look.
But this one’s a strong fellow, though his manner’s gentle enough. Even
so, there’s something odd about this. I wonder....”
But suddenly she stopped speaking, for the rabbi had raised his bronzed
hand, long forefinger extended, to point to one of the Pharisees who had
been questioning him. “You say that I am but testifying to myself and
that therefore my testimony is invalid. But I say unto you, my brother,
that my testimony is valid. Is it not written in the law that the
testimony of two witnesses establishes the fact? Then my testimony is
true, for I bear witness and likewise my Father that sent me bears
witness. That makes two witnesses; that establishes the truthfulness of
the testimony I have borne.”
“Who is this father of whom he speaks?” asked a man standing near the
two women. “Is he not the son of a carpenter of Nazareth long dead? How
then does he say that his father’s testimony corroborates his own?”
“He’s not speaking of his natural father,” another man standing near-by
replied. “He means the God of Israel as his father.”
“But isn’t that blasphemy? How can a man call himself the son of
Israel’s God?”
“But if indeed he is the Messiah....” The second man paused, his hand on
the questioner’s arm, for Jesus had arisen and, turning, was pointing
toward the high altar before the Holy of Holies. “Behold, I am the water
of life! If any man thirst, let him come unto me and drink.” The
Galilean spoke in calm tones but with warmth of feeling, and in the
pause that followed none of his hearers spoke. Again he pointed, this
time toward the giant candelabra below the Gate of Nicanor in the Court
of the Women; last night the great court and all the environs of the
Temple had been ablaze with light from the candelabra and the hundreds
of flaming torches. “I am the light of the world!” he declared. “He that
follows me shall not walk in darkness but shall have the light of life!”
Claudia nudged her maid. “What does he mean, Tullia?” she whispered.
“I’m not sure I know, Mistress,” the girl answered. “But I take it he’s
using a kind of symbolism that the Jews can understand. He must be
referring to the ceremony of water pouring and to last night’s
illumination of the Temple.”
But the carping Pharisees and the other Temple leaders pretended
likewise not to understand.
“The water of life, the light of the world. And your father being a
witness to the truthfulness of the testimony you present. These things
are incomprehensible to us,” one of them declared. “Rabbi, wasn’t your
father a carpenter in Galilee? And where is he to support your witness?
Isn’t he dead? How then can you say that you and your father make two
witnesses? We have not seen your father, nor have we heard him speak.”
“You speak the truth when you say that you have not seen my Father.” His
voice was calm, even gentle, but his eyes were filled with fire.
“Neither have you seen me. For if you had seen me, you would likewise
have seen my Father, for the Father is in me and I am in the Father. My
Father and I are one.”
“Is he speaking of the God of Israel as his father?” A portly Pharisee
near the two women had turned to speak with one of his colleagues. “Is
that the meaning of his strange utterance?”
“I think so.”
“Blasphemy!” declared the questioner. “He makes himself one with God!”
But Jesus had heard.
“No,” he declared, looking the fat one full in the face. “Only truth.
And if you knew me and were willing to live by my teaching, you would
know the truth, and the truth would make you free. You would not walk in
darkness, but in the light of the world, in the fullness of life.”
“But, Rabbi, we are free. We are children of Abraham. We are not slaves.
How can you say that we would be made free? We have never been slaves to
any man.”
“Any man who sins is a slave, and no slave is a son of the house; yet if
the son of the house sets him free, he is no longer a slave.”
“But we _are_ sons of Abraham. We are no bastards. We are the children
of the God of Israel.”