hardly seen his friend. The night of Cornelius’ arrival from Galilee
with the Tetrarch’s party and his three Zealot prisoners, they had
talked briefly in the mess hall, but they were both weary from the
traveling and soon retired to their beds. The next day Pontius Pilate,
greatly pleased at the capture of the wily zealot chieftain, had ordered
Cornelius to take his century and scour the rocks above the Jericho road
into which the evening before the marauders had disappeared. He had
commanded the centurion to ferret out every member of Bar Abbas’ band
and either capture or kill him. “And follow them as far as Galilee if
need be, Centurion,” the Procurator had instructed him. “Capture any you
can, and bring them back here; we will crucify them during the Passover
festival, and for the thousands of rebellious, stubborn Jews who will
see them dying on the crosses it will be a salutary lesson. It may help
them realize what fate awaits those who thus oppose Rome’s authority and
power.”
Longinus wondered what success Cornelius was having. Evidently he had
been forced to pursue the fleeing revolutionaries a long way, perhaps
even as far as Galilee, where they might expect to find haven among
kinsmen and friends. No doubt the attackers of the Tetrarch’s party had
separated in their flight from the soldiers of Cornelius. It would be
particularly difficult, virtually impossible, in fact, to round up all
the revolutionaries Bar Abbas had been leading, Longinus felt. In all
probability, he reasoned, a number of them had slipped into Jerusalem a
few minutes after Cornelius had entered the city, perhaps even ahead of
his caravan, and were now safely lost among the tens of thousands
deluging the ancient capital.
Nor had Longinus had an opportunity thus far to spend any considerable
time alone with Claudia. Though Pilate had been keeping close to his
headquarters in the fortress during the day-time, he had been returning
to the palace at night, and his bedchamber was beside Claudia’s and
connected with it by a doorway. The Procurator, too, had issued orders
for all officers not on active duty to be quickly available; Pilate
seemed unusually restive. Longinus felt that Pilate was determined to
prevent any small turmoil among the Jews from developing into a crisis
whose handling by him might further jeopardize his standing with the
Prefect Sejanus and the Emperor. With so many Jews congregated in
Israel’s holy city on a festival occasion so characteristically Jewish
and one that so emphasized the peculiarly nationalistic spirit of the
Jews, the situation was always highly inflammable. A small spark, if not
snuffed quickly, could blaze into a holocaust.
One such minor incident that had taken place on the first day of the
Jewish week might have provided such a spark, had the principal actor in
it been of a mind to cause trouble. And, strangely, without having known
what he was seeing, Longinus had witnessed this small happening.
He had breakfasted early with several fellow officers and had come up to
his chamber this particular morning, when, to enjoy a stirring of the
already warming April air, he had stepped out onto the balcony. Down
below him the Court of the Gentiles was a hive of bustling activity. Out
beyond the eastern wall in the direction he happened to be looking the
slopes were alive with pilgrims preparing for the great festival. But up
on the balcony he was safe from the stir and seething and the
interminable chattering of excited Jewry, and a gentle breeze fanned
him. He sat on the wide stone railing of the rampart, and idly his gaze
went down the nearer slope to the Brook Kidron and along the meandering
road on the other side as it climbed past Gethsemane’s olive grove
toward the hill’s summit.
It was then that he noticed a procession moving slowly but with evident
enthusiasm downward over this road toward the city from the direction of
Bethany. Immediately his interest was attracted to the motley parade.
Above the harsh cries of the hawkers in the Temple courts, the
quarrelsome tones of bargaining, and the dull lowing of the cattle in
the stalls awaiting sacrificing on the Great Altar, Longinus could
distinguish the screamed hosannas of this unrestrained movement of
dancing, singing, joyous people. Many of them were waving green branches
they must have torn from trees and shrubs along the roadside.
Occasionally the centurion would catch sight of an erect, tall man
astride a white donkey. He adjudged the man to be tall, because his feet
were not far from the gravel of the road as he sat astride the beast.
And then he would lose sight of the rider as the shouting celebrants
swirled about him.
Some popular rabbi with his people coming up to Jerusalem for the
Passover, Longinus surmised, as he watched the writhing column approach
the Brook Kidron crossing. Soon it disappeared under the walls down near
Dung Gate, but presently it emerged again into his sight; he followed
its progress through the cavernous alleys of Ophel, sometimes seeing it
crossing a narrow opening between huddled buildings but hearing without
interruption its lively shouts and chantings, until it came into clearer
view at a stairway in the street pushing upward along Mount Moriah
toward the Temple now resplendent in the morning sunshine.
Inside the Court of the Gentiles, which the strange little caravan of
one rider and his evidently unorganized but plainly joyous adherents had
reached by coming in through the Gate Shalleketh, the tall man
dismounted, and someone quickly led the little animal away. In another
moment the shouting and hosannas had ceased, and soon the centurion lost
the rider in the press of the Temple throng.
Later that day in crossing the Court of the Gentiles to go out through
the Gate Shalleketh and onto the bridge over the Tyropoeon, which was
the easiest way to Mount Zion from the fortress, Longinus learned that
the man on the donkey was the rabbi from Galilee. Many of his followers
had expected the rabbi, whose fame by now had spread throughout Judaea,
to come into the precincts of the Temple, proclaim himself Yahweh’s
Messiah and the ruler of the world, and call down legions of heavenly
angels utterly to destroy every vestige of Rome’s dominion. Now these
followers were deeply disappointed and utterly chagrined. The tall one
from Galilee in whom they had put their trust, the one who would be
Israel’s new David to deliver it from its mighty enemy, had failed them.
But what if this Jesus had really fancied himself a man ordained to lead
his little nation in throwing off the yoke of Rome? What, reasoned the
centurion, if he had been as visionary, as passionately though unwisely
patriotic as countless other Jews assembled here in Rome for Israel’s
great celebration? In this tense, highly inflammable atmosphere of
Passover week in Jerusalem, with great numbers of his followers
believing that he possessed supernatural authority and powers, the
rabbi’s willingness to allow himself to be proclaimed Israel’s king
would have resulted in fearful bloodshed. But this Jesus at the last
moment had either lost his courage, or else he had never contemplated
leadership of Israel except in some vague, religious sense that
Cornelius perhaps would term spiritual. At any rate, Longinus concluded,
the Galilean was no threat to Rome and of no concern to the Empire. In
his report to Sejanus, he would make no mention of the rabbi, unless in
some manner Pontius Pilate might become involved with the man from
Galilee. He wondered if Pilate had even been informed of the little
procession that had come to such an inglorious ending within the Temple
court. He wondered if Pilate, in fact, in his harried administration of
the affairs of Judaea had ever heard of this Jesus.
41
Claudia sat on a small stone bench facing one of the fountains in the
garden of the Palace of the Herods. All about her the grass was a
luxuriant green and the flower beds, fed, she had been told, with blood
drained through subterranean pipes from the overflow of the Great Altar,
were already ablaze with color. Birds skipped and twittered in the rich
foliage, and now and then some venturing small animal would skitter
across an open patch of bright sunshine to disappear beneath the
branches of a flowering shrub. The bench, shaded by a gnarled great
olive, was invitingly cool despite the day’s warmth and heaviness, and
the gentle babble of the spraying water ordinarily would have lulled one
sitting there into a mood of peaceful contemplation, if not pleasant
slumber.
But this afternoon the wife of the Procurator felt neither peaceful nor
pleasant. She watched the fountain’s waters lifting and arching and
falling and draining away in an undeviating pattern of movement and
allowed her own thoughts to wander with it.
_... There is the picture of my living. Like the water that is the
thrust-along prisoner of the pump, or the ram which again and again
lifts it and sends it spurting upward only to fall back and sink down
and be forced up again, I am the prisoner of some malign power that
pushes me along through a dull monotony of_ _days that I am powerless
even to protest against; I am swirled about but held fast like that
water in a routine of existence I dare not even challenge...._
She leaned forward with her head upon her hands and glared, hardly
seeing it, at the captive, dancing water. How, by Bona Dea and all the
good and gentle gods, the kind and happily ministering gods, how, by
Pluto and all his evil soot-begrimed and blackened imps, could she
escape the treadmill of this deadening monotony, this unending,
bedeviling frustration? Granddaughter of the great god Augustus,
stepdaughter of the great god Tiberius, granddaughter of the
almost-great god Mark Antony and the great great goddess Cleopatra, wife
of the mighty Procurator of Judaea, daughter through Augustus of Jove
himself, princess of the blood....
“Bah!” She said it aloud. But there was nobody near-by in the garden.
She sat back against the coolness of the stone. “By all the gods, why
couldn’t I have been a wench serving tables in a tavern, a strumpet down
in the Subura, and had my freedom!”
_... Why, by all the gods, can’t old Tiberius die? He’s past seventy
now, and of what service is he to the Empire? And Sejanus, the old rake,
must be past sixty. If someone would give the Prefect a neat sword
thrust...._
She stood up and walked over to the fountain, held out her hands to the
spraying water and lifted wet palms to her flushed cheeks. The afternoon
was still and depressing. She raised her eyes and saw above the trees
and the turreted nearest corner of the great palace rounded soft white
puffs of clouds, like newly lifted fresh curds in a deeply blue
overturned bowl. “A storm,” she said to herself, “one of those swiftly
arrived, quickly gone, fierce Judaean storms. But it will clear the air
of this blanket of heat, and it will serve to break for a while the
monotony of another fruitless day.”
But she did not go inside. She sat down again and watched the gathering
puffs of clouds. Never had she been afraid of storms, even ominous
thunder and the swift, sharp streaks of lightning. She remembered that
once in her early childhood when a governess had warned her against
staying outdoors and running the risk of being struck by one of Jove’s
hurled mighty bolts, she had remarked, “If old Jove is clever enough to
strike me with a bolt outdoors, why can’t he throw one right through the
roof and hit me while I’m inside? I don’t believe he can hit me whether
I’m outside or inside.”
Her blasphemous words had woefully shocked the governess, but Claudia
had never seen cause to retract them. One thing had led to another; from
denying Jove’s power she had soon come to deny his very existence, and
with his, the existence likewise of the entire pantheon of lesser gods
and goddesses.
She was still seated on the bench when a palace servant came out to
announce that a soldier had arrived from Fortress Antonia with a message
for her.
“Then bring him here,” she instructed the servant. Could it be, she
wondered, that the man is bringing a message from Longinus?
But the legionary had been sent to her by the Procurator. Pilate, he
reported, would not be returning to the palace either for the evening
meal or to spend the night. He begged to explain to his wife that he had
had a very trying day and that he would be engaged until late in the
evening. He had agreed to give an audience to the High Priest Caiaphas,
and their meeting might well be extended into the night. He had decided,
therefore, to forego the privilege and pleasure of dining with the
Procuratoress; he would have supper in his quarters and after he had
ended his long day’s duties would spend the remainder of the night
there.
Her first thought was of getting a message to Longinus. She would write
it, seal it fast, and send it by the legionary.
“Thank you,” she said to the soldier. “I shall want you to carry a
message to the Fortress.” She stood up. “I’ll go inside and prepare it.”
But would it be a discreet thing to do, sending a message to Longinus by
this legionary? What if by chance it should fall into other hands, even
Pilate’s? “No, there’s no need of my writing it,” she said. “Just tell
the Procurator that I thank him for informing me and that I shall see
him at his pleasure tomorrow.”
But she would find a way of notifying Longinus. Tullia. Of course.
Tullia was one person upon whose loyalty and good judgment she could
always depend. When Tullia returned, she would send her to Longinus.
A soft breeze had sprung up and was pushing the storm clouds gently
away; the air had cooled; the storm seemed to have been averted for the
day. Claudia rose from the bench and returned to her apartment in the
palace.
When a few minutes later her maid returned, she was carrying a small
wicker basket. “Mistress, I found these in one of the markets near the
Temple,” she said, beaming as she held out the basket to Claudia. “I
thought you might enjoy them.”
“Fresh figs? And so early?” She picked one up. “It really is a fresh
one, isn’t it?”
“Yes, and I’ve washed them. You can eat it right now. I was surprised to
find any this early, but the man explained that in some of the warm
coves on the protected side of Olivet they often have figs ripening in
early April.”
Claudia pulled the fig open and nibbled at the firm reddish flesh
inside. “It’s delicious,” she said, “and such a surprise.” She saw that
Tullia’s eyes were ablaze with an excitement, however, that no discovery
of fresh figs could have provoked. “What is it, little one? What
happened? Whom did you see?”
“Mistress, I was looking at the figs when I heard a familiar voice
speaking to the merchant. I looked around; it was Mary of Magdala.”
Jesus and his little group, she had told Tullia, had come down from the
Ephraim hills for the Passover. Her master was spending his nights with
Martha and Mary and Lazarus out at near-by Bethany; during the day he
came into the Temple courts to teach.
“Perhaps, then, he will proclaim himself the Messiah of Israel and
establish a new government,” Tullia said she had said to Mary. But the
Magdalene had answered that Jesus seemed to be insisting instead that he
would not become Israel’s temporal ruler, that he would even die as a
sort of Passover sacrifice, an offering for the salvation of his people.
“But surely,” Claudia commented, “you Jews would never so debase
yourselves as to offer a human sacrifice, as do those who worship
Moloch.”
“It wouldn’t be that way, Mistress. But ... I don’t believe it will ever
happen anyway.”
Mary had asked Tullia to spend the night with her in a cottage out at
Bethany near the modest home of Lazarus and his sisters. She might be
able to see Jesus and even talk with him. They would meet, if Claudia
should be agreeable, at Shushan Gate before sunset and go out to
Bethany.
“Then you’d best be going soon,” Claudia observed. “But before you meet
Mary, I want you to go by Fortress Antonia and tell Longinus that the
Procurator will be spending the night there.” She told the maid of the
message Pilate had sent her. “And tell Longinus I’ll accept no excuse
for his failing to come.”
42
The lean, blue-jowled ascetic face of Joseph Caiaphas, High Priest of
Israel, warmed into a disarming smile, and the flames from the chamber’s
wall lamps danced in his sharp, dark eyes.
“Excellency,” he said, “you must be exasperated at my coming to you at
this late hour.” He faced the Procurator across the ornate, heavy desk.
“I know you are tired, and I appreciate the fact that the strain you’ve
been undergoing ever since your arrival in Judaea has been intensified
during these recent inflammable days of the Passover season.” He leaned
nearer Pilate. “I realize, too, Excellency, that you must be determined
to prevent the repetition of events in Palestine that might result in
the dispatching to Rome of further damaging reports”—the Procurator’s
florid round face darkened, but Caiaphas pretended not to
notice—“challenging the excellence of the Procurator’s administration of
the affairs of this province.”
“I am tired; I’ve had a long day.” Pilate’s tone revealed irritation.
“Perhaps if the High Priest would proceed at once to the business he had
in coming....”
“Indeed, Excellency,” the High Priest interrupted, “and I shall require
little of your time, so that shortly you may go to your well-earned
couch. A fortunate event of the day has facilitated the early
satisfactory disposition of the business; if the Procurator will
co-operate in disposing of it we shall quickly rid ourselves of a
grievous threat both to Israel’s peace and to the Procurator’s rule. I
have just come from a lengthy session of the elders of Israel,
Excellency—that explains my late arrival here—at which we have
agreed....”
“But what is the business you would lay before me? And how would it
affect the Procurator’s administration of the government in Judaea?”
Pilate’s impatience had put a sharp edge on his voice. “If it is a
question of the alleged violation of certain religious laws of the
Jews....”
“It is that, Excellency, but it is more.” Caiaphas leaned forward, and
the light of the lamps flashed in the gems of his rings. “Not only would
this man destroy our religion, but likewise would he destroy the rule of
Rome in Palestine.”
“This man? Are you speaking of one Bar Abbas? He has been seized, with
two of his fellow revolutionaries. They go to the cross tomorrow.”
The High Priest shook his head. “It is not that one, Excellency. The man
is a Galilean, one Jesus bar Joseph, not a robber like Bar Abbas, but a
far more dangerous revolutionary, whom his misguided followers—and their
number is growing, Excellency—are proclaiming not only the Messiah of
God but also the next King of Israel. Were noise to get back to the
Prefect Sejanus or the Emperor that such a person was being permitted to
advocate and plan Rome’s overthrow and your Excellency’s
supplanting....”
“But does the High Priest know where this man is? Does the Sanhedrin
have him in its custody?”
Calmly Joseph Caiaphas stroked his oiled and braided long beard. “He is
in Jerusalem at this moment, Excellency, or within the close environs of
the city. It is possible that already he has been seized by the Temple
guard. He has been at the Feast since the first day of the week when he
entered Jerusalem riding on a white donkey, which among the Jews is a
symbol of royalty, Excellency. It was then that he had planned to enlist
the Passover pilgrims, led by his fellow Galileans, in proclaiming him
the new David, the King of Israel suddenly freed of Rome’s domination.
He lost his courage, though, or in some manner his plans failed of
materialization. But”—his hand stabbed out again at the Procurator—“the
fellow is still intent on seizing power, and his countless misguided
followers are determined to see him established on the throne as King of
Israel. They will plunge our ancient land into revolution, Excellency.
Blood will flow freely throughout Judaea and Galilee. Many Roman
soldiers will die before the rebellion is crushed, unless”—his forehead
wrinkled in heavy concern—“this fellow is quietly slain, Excellency,
before his followers can rally.”
“You say that perhaps he has been arrested already. How could he be
taken without alarming these supporters of whom you speak?”
The High Priest leaned back in his chair and folded his long arms across
his chest. “The God of Israel has favored us, Excellency. He has
delivered this blasphemer into our hands through his betrayal by one of
his own band. This man came to us and after seeking pay told us he would
point out where the man might be found and taken with little commotion.
We gave the fellow thirty pieces of silver. By now no doubt he has
delivered his leader into the hands of the guardsmen....”
“You say this man’s a blasphemer. Don’t you know that the Procurator is
not concerned with violations of your religious code? What is it to Rome
if your Yahweh is blasphemed? We will not enter into the religious
quarrels of the Jews. I presume you have come here to ask me to try the
man and find him guilty. I say, O High Priest, try the man yourself.”
Caiaphas smiled indulgently, but then his brow furrowed again and he
scowled darkly. “That is true, Excellency. Rome has no concern with
Israel’s worship of our God. But is not Rome concerned when a man, under
the guise of teaching a new religion, declares openly that he will
establish a new government in Israel? Would not Sejanus and the Emperor
consider then that Rome was concerned ... and deeply concerned?”
The High Priest’s clever thrust had made its mark; Pilate’s face
flushed; his tone, when he replied, was petulant. “Of course, the
Prefect and the Emperor would be concerned; so would the Legate
Vitellius, and so would the Procurator; so, in fact, would any loyal
Roman.” Now the Procurator extended his own finger to point. “But how do
you know that this Galilean advocates the overthrow of Rome? Has he come
to trial? Has he faced witnesses against him? What would the High Priest
have me to do, send a man to his death without trial? Certainly the High
Priest must know that Rome is ruled by law, that no man under the rule
of Rome may suffer death until he has been adjudged guilty, and that any
such judgment can come only after a fair trial in which the man has been
confronted by witnesses against him.”
“Indeed, O Procurator”—Joseph Caiaphas held up a soothing palm—“we well
know that and approve. We, too, would never consent to sending this
revolutionary to his death without trial, even though his crimes against
Israel and against Rome have already been conclusively established. But
he is being brought to fair trial, Excellency, before the great
Sanhedrin of Israel. Perhaps he has already been apprehended in the
Garden of Gethsemane, where he had planned to conceal himself with
certain of his followers, as we learned from the traitor who came to us.
He will be examined, no doubt before my beloved father-in-law Annas,
known for his piety and his wisdom, learned in the laws of Israel”—he
smiled warmly—“and strong in his devotion to the Prefect and the
Emperor. And then, Excellency, as soon as the dawn of the new day makes
it legal under our laws to conduct such a trial, the Galilean will be
brought before the Sanhedrin, confronted by witnesses against him, and
given proper trial.”
“Then why has the High Priest,” Pilate asked in exasperation, “come to
me?”