King Jesus (Penguin Modern Classics) (55 page)

Among these elder children was myself, Agabus the Decapolitan, the son of a Syrian father and a Samaritan mother. When Jesus spoke these words, my heart cried : “It is true !” My world at that time was lit by a soft inexplicable radiance, which gave a sheen, or nap, to the commonest objects on which it shone, but which has never shone since I became a man. To me he gave no blessing, since I dared not pass myself off as a Jew ; but I saluted him respectfully and he smiled at me in return. Since this was the first and last time that I saw Jesus, it is not unfitting that I should here record his appearance.

He was below the middle height and broad-shouldered, his eyes were deep-set and shining like beryls ; his face pallid and much lined ; his lips full and pouting ; his teeth even ; his forked beard well trimmed, red inclining to black like his hair ; his hands broad ; his fingers short. He limped and supported his weight either on an almond-wood staff carved with fruit and flowers, or on another carved with plain bands. When he sat down and laid the staffs on either side of him in the dust, what took my eye was the variety and beauty of his gestures ; he spoke with his hands almost as much as with his lips.

My father pondered for a long while after Jesus had passed on to the next village, saying constantly : “Something in his face is familiar, and yet strange, but what? Where have I seen it before? Perhaps only in a dream, though I cannot think so. Does it seem a strange face to you, my dearest Antinoë? Strange, yet familiar ?”

My mother answered : “To me it seems the face of one who converses familiarly with the gods, or with demons. Such grief and beauty I never saw before, except once. It shone in the face of the nobleman’s son in the great house this side of Pella—Meleager was his name—a master of the lyre and a soothsayer, but an epileptic.”

My father gave an impatient sweep of his hand. “That is not what I am asking, wife. It is someone whom I saw very long ago—” Then bewilderment clouded his face as at last he recalled the man. “It was King Herod himself !” he cried. “By all the gods, it was old Herod himself whom I saw in my own childhood, sixty years ago, before his
hair turned white. Now, how in the world does this come about? Jesus of Nazareth resembles our old benefactor more closely than do any of his own sons !”

Jesus came to Jerusalem. He preached in the fruit-market and in the brazier-market and at the City gates with much the same success as had attended him during his first visit to Capernaum. The people recognized the authority in his voice, and his feats of healing confirmed it. Since his doctrine was considered sound in the Pharisaic sense, he was invited to preach at several of the poorer synagogues—there were two or three hundred of them in Jerusalem at this time—and the attendance was always large. But the Sadducee priesthood, mistrusting him because he preached the imminent approach of the Kingdom of God, kept him under constant observation, and were ready to arrest him on the slightest suspicion of revolutionary activity.

The Pharisees, who had succeeded the ancient prophets as the recognized guardians of public morality, had reached a tacit understanding with the Sadducees. Since the High Priest was a Roman nominee and, by virtue of his office, President of the Great Sanhedrin, they agreed that the suppression of revolutionary doctrine was solely his concern ; in return, the Sadducees agreed that the suppression of heretical doctrine was solely the concern of the joint-Presidents of the Pharisaic High Court, who not only were the heads of the Jewish judicial system which dispensed the Mosaic Law but co-ordinated synagogue-worship throughout the world. The judges of the High Court had no direct dealings with the Roman Governor-General and used the Great Sanhedrin as intermediaries ; they were still represented in the Great Sanhedrin by a few members, such as Nicodemon son of Gorion and Joseph of Arimathea, but this was principally an insurance against Sadducee doctrine being misrepresented to the Romans as the doctrine of the people at large. Shammai’s precept : “Love work, hate office and be not known as a friend of the Government” made quietists of the Pharisees. They had a proverb : “When arms clash in the street, retire to your chamber”, and profoundly as they dissented from the Sadducees in religious theory, especially in the vexed doctrine of resurrection, they agreed with them at least in deprecating Messianic fervour as being always hottest among the idle, ignorant and impatient. A Sage, they said, should never be unprepared for the coming of the Messiah, but should shut his ears to wild cries of “Lo, here !” and “Lo, there !” When the hour came, and with it the Messiah, the celestial signs would be unmistakable.

The Presidents of the High Court sent their eloquent secretary, Joseph of Arimathea, to Caiaphas the High Priest to discuss Jesus’s case with him. Joseph urged Caiaphas to leave Jesus alone : “He is a simple and, I think, pious man. He hopes to redeem from destruction Israelites who for various reasons are either not qualified to attend the synagogue or have been expelled for misbehaviour : criminals, tax-collectors, prostitutes and so on. To my mind, this is valuable work. Last year there was
friction between him and the men of Capernaum and Chorazin, but you must be aware how narrow-minded and intolerant provincial elders can be. If I had been in their position, I should have given him a free hand and my blessing. Granted the difficulty of admitting penitents with a bad history into a respectable synagogue ; yet his converts were numerous and a separate synagogue could doubtless have been built for them somewhere or other by public subscription—which would have been pleasing to Heaven and also a valuable contribution to political stability.”

“No, no, friend Joseph : from what I hear of Jesus, I doubt whether your solution would have been acceptable to him. He attempts to force the unclean on the clean in a most offensive way, and my sympathies are wholly with the Capernaum authorities. Yet, in general, I incline to agree with you. If we leave him alone, the mob will tire of his rantings, and the synagogue elders when they find out what sort of company he keeps will soon close their doors to him. Inform your learned and pious Presidents with my compliments that I shall refrain from any disciplinary action against this miracle-monger until he forgets himself one day and bawls out some anti-Imperial nonsense of which I am forced to take cognizance. By the way, do you not think that he has a touch of insanity? Does he perhaps believe himself to be the Messiah? I ask because of the cry with which he interrupted last year’s solemnities on the Day of Willows.”

Prophets who continually preach the coming of the Kingdom in the name of our God are liable to become confused in their minds ; it is a dangerous profession. John the Baptist behaved very strangely towards the end. Yet I cannot think that Jesus nurses any grandiose delusions ; in general, these are betrayed by an affectation of military glory, with shouted orders, banners, trumpet music, and the like. I am grateful to you, Holy Father, for your obliging attitude.”

“And I to your learned and pious Presidents for having sent you to see me.”

Jesus’s preoccupation with the outcasts of the synagogue has led many Gentile Chrestians to suppose that, in his view, the greater the sinner the more acceptable his repentance and therefore the greater the reward laid up for him in the Kingdom of God : that, in fact, a man who could present Enoch, the recorder of Heaven, with a roll of frightful crimes redeemed by a complete, if hasty, repentance would be awarded a higher seat in the Kingdom than the devout God-loving Pharisee who never swerved a hair’s breadth from the Law. This is an absurd travesty of his teaching. He was set on converting the outcasts because they were outcasts, not because their sins recommended them to his esteem. In his view the Kingdom could not come until all Israel repented, and he had no fears for the salvation of the mass of synagogue-goers. “They have the Law and the Prophets ; they need only listen with care and, when the Day of the Lord dawns, they will share in the general repentance.
But the outcasts lack instruction in the divine will. Hillel’s judgement—his memory be blessed—‘The ignorant man sins with a clear conscience.’ ”

He is not recorded ever to have looked on a sinner with love, though on one occasion, it is said, he looked with love on a rich young man who had kept the Law in every respect since boyhood. This was the man to whom he said : “Only one thing remains : to sell all your goods and distribute them among the poor.” As the young man went off, debating sadly whether he could take this advice without cutting himself off from his friends and doing an injustice to his many dependants, Jesus sighed and asked his disciples : “Have you ever seen a stranger to Jerusalem trying to haul a well-laden camel through the Needle-eye Archway? So it is with a rich man and the Kingdom of Heaven.” To a synagogue elder who reproached him for wasting his spiritual labour on the dregs of the City he said : “You have a custom here at Jerusalem of making one convert to the faith every year from a new city or nation and of publicly rejoicing over him ; that the world may know that the Law is offered freely to all men whatsoever who desire to serve the Lord. But will the Lord be pleased to see you scouring the deserts of Mauretania or the shores of the Caspian Sea to catch, circumcise and instruct next year’s painted savage? Not while you neglect the masses of our fellow-Israelites who have the first claim on your love and zeal.”

He spent the months of December and January at Jerusalem, secretly financed by Nicodemon, but never once visited the house of Lazarus, aware of Mary’s hostility to him ; and Lazarus, pained by this neglect, did not seek him out in the market-places. At the midwinter Feast of Dedication—the anniversary of the resanctifying of the Temple after its desecration by Antiochus Epiphanes—Nicodemon sent his son to ask Jesus privately : “If you are the Messiah, why do you not declare yourself? If not, who are you ?”

Jesus answered : “Tell your father that I am a shepherd busied with the feeding of my flock. I have no concern with ‘if’s’ ; ‘if’s’ are wolves that tear the flock of the hireling shepherd.”

As the winter drew on, Caiaphas the High Priest was disturbed to learn from his spies that Jesus’s influence was increasing rather than waning. A deputation from the Jewish Temple at Leontopolis was reported to have visited him early in February and afterwards to have returned in haste to Egypt. Caiaphas was disquieted by this report, though he could not make much sense of it, and without troubling to consult the Presidents of the High Court, summoned the Captain of the Temple and told him : “Let your Levites throw no stones at the miracle-worker from Nazareth ; I have promised the High Court not to molest him.”

The Captain understood exactly what was meant. He passed on the message to his Levite sergeants, who went to the Old Quarter and informed the faction leaders of the Jebusites : “Jesus of Nazareth is no longer under the High Priest’s protection. If stones fly at the Fish Gate
this evening and he is driven out of the City, none of our people will be there to make arrests. Nevertheless, let no murder be done.”

Thus licensed, the Jebusite street-gangs assembled in force that evening at the Fish Gate, and as soon as Jesus appeared let fly at him with a volley of cobble-stones and rotten fish. He showed no sign of alarm and was not touched by the missiles, though he made no movement to avoid them. He contented himself with saying to his disciples : “When stones are cast at prophets, they remove ; and every stone rebounds as a curse against the man who has cast it.” He calmly led them out through the Fish Gate, and then down the road towards the Jordan.

For a time he made Beth Nimrah in Transjordania his centre, and went to preach in all the neighbouring villages ; but about the middle of March the evil days of his life suddenly began, and he was forced to return across the Jordan.

A messenger had come to him from his Queen, Mary daughter of Cleopas : “Come to Bethany : my brother Lazarus is sick. You can cure him.”

He sent the messenger back : “Tell the woman that I am not a physician. Are there no physicians in Bethany? Is there none in Jerusalem ?”

The messenger returned three days later. “Come at once ; my brother Lazarus is sick to death. You alone can cure him.”

He sent the messenger back : “It is not I who perform cures. If your brother is sick to death, let him call upon the Lord’s name ; he will save.”

He was resolved not to see Mary, suspecting that the summons was an excuse to bring him to her house. He confided to Judas of Kerioth : “The hand of the Female is in this.”

“How so ?”

“She strikes at a man through his loved ones.”

“Who is the witch? Is it Mary the Hairdresser ?”

“All women are daughters of the Female ; and the Female is the mother of all witches.”

On the next day another messenger arrived, wearing mourning garments. “Lazarus is dead,” he reported.

“How can that be? There is a sleep that is as deep almost as death. Surely Lazarus is sleeping.”

“He is dead,” the messenger repeated. “His breath does not stir the dove’s feather. Only the trumpet of Gabriel will ever wake him.”

After a long and dreadful silence, Jesus said : “Children, let us return to Bethany.”

“Bethany is close to Jerusalem,” said Matthew. “The stones were a warning.”

But Thomas : “Are you afraid, Matthew? I go with the Master though it were to my death.”

Even so, Jesus made no haste to return, but spent the whole of that day in prayer and the next in preaching.

They came to Bethany towards evening of the third day : Jesus waited in an orchard about a mile from the town and sent Judas forward to fetch Lazarus’s sister Martha to him. When she came he asked her calmly : “Is my brother Lazarus yet awakened from his sleep ?”

Martha was very angry. “Why did you not come when you were summoned? Now it is too late. My brother is dead and buried these four days ; by now his body is putrefying. O Jesus, Jesus, beware of my sister! She has a heavy accusation against you.”

“Bring her to me.”

Martha ran back to her home and there whispered in Mary’s ear : “He has sent for you.”

Mary excused herself to the mourners who filled the house : “Do not take it ill if I leave you and go alone to weep at his tomb.”