The Didymus Contingency (19 page)

Jesus looked at David with an amused eyebrow raised.

“C’mon, hit me with it!” Tom shouted. “Hit me oh Lord and I shall believe in thee—”

Whump!
A man blindsided Tom and both fell to the ground in a sprawl of arms and legs. David and Jesus nearly burst out laughing, but moved in to see if the men were all right.

Timothy stood up quickly, dusting off his robe and apologizing quickly. “Sorry masters. Sorry.” He was about to continue running when Jesus stopped him. “Timothy, wait.”

Tom heard the name as David helped him up. He looked over and saw Timothy. As their eyes met, Tom realized that they were connecting; Timothy was looking Tom right in the eyes. Timothy was seeing! Tom nearly fell back down, but David held on tight. Tom later thought that his shocked facial expression must have been confusing to Timothy, who had never seen before, but right now, he was distracted by a sudden shift in Timothy’s eyes. Timothy was no longer staring at Tom. He was looking just beyond Tom, and his demeanor became that of a scared rabbit.

Tom followed Timothy’s eyes and saw a large, angry crowd, led by Tarsus, Simeon and Silas. Tom didn’t know who these men were, but they looked important. He looked to David, planning to ask, but kept his question to himself as he noticed David’s body language; David was stepping back, away from the crowd.

Jesus dusted Timothy off with a pleased expression, as though the encroaching mob did not exist and quipped, “Your eyes are working and still you walk like a blind man.”

“Sorry, Master, I—” Timothy said, as he tried to move away.

But Jesus held him still and asked, “Do you believe in the Son of Man?”

Timothy stopped trying to move. He stood still and looked Jesus in the eyes.

“Who is he? Tell me and I’ll believe,” Timothy said, having not yet recognized Jesus.

“You have seen him,” Jesus said. “In fact, he speaks with you now.”

“Jesus...?” Timothy’s face beamed as he recognized the man who had healed his blind eyes. “Lord, I believe!” said Timothy, as he knelt before Jesus and bowed his head.

Tom had little time to hypothesize about what had happened before he was snapped out of his daze by Jesus’s loud voice addressing the crowd, who had stopped only a few feet away, “For judgment I have come into this world, so that the blind will see...”

Jesus looked Tom in the eyes and continued, “And those who see will become blind.”

“Are we blind too?” Simeon asked with as much intimidation as he could muster.

“If you were blind, you would not be guilty of sin; but now that you claim you can see, your guilt remains,” Jesus replied with just the hint of a smile.

The Pharisees got a strange look on their faces. Tom could see that they had been defeated in verbal combat as quickly as he was normally. He knew that for these men to continue the conversation would be futile and would reveal to the crowd that Jesus had beaten them. It seemed the strangers knew this too. It took ten seconds for one of them to speak.

Simeon squinted. “Are you the one called Jesus?” Simeon asked, changing the subject and dodging a bullet.

“I am.”

“We’ll be seeing you again,” Tarsus said, as he and the other Pharisees turned and pushed their way through the crowd, which dispersed quickly for lack of action.

Jesus nodded in agreement, then turned and walked away. Bewildered, Tom turned to David and said, “I don’t think I understand half of what that man says.”

David smiled. “I don’t think they do either,” he said, as he watched the three Pharisees pound away. He turned to Tom and said, “You should hear it in the King James Version.”

Tom smirked and looked at the retreating Pharisees, “Who are they?”

“Pharisees.”

“They seem to be on the same page as me,” Tom said.

David’s eyes grew wide. “Stay away from them, Tom. I mean it.”

“Why?” Tom asked.

“Think of them as ultra-right wing Republicans,” David said.

“
You’re
a Republican,” Tom pointed out.

“That’s not the point,” David said. “Left or right doesn’t matter. What does matter is that they’re the legalistic fringe of the current culture. They’re well read, well spoken and intelligent, but clouded by tradition and will defend their beliefs to the point of violence.”

“So they’re evil?”

David sighed and said. “No. Maybe some. ‘Misguided’ might be a better word. But others choose a different path. Look, let’s just say that nothing good can come from you speaking to
those
Pharisees.”

“Afraid they might help me?”

“Aren’t you forgetting something?”

“What?”

David looked at Timothy, who was talking with Jesus.

“Timothy can see,” David said.

“I was set up,” Tom replied without pause, as though it were a forgone conclusion.

“How was Jesus supposed to know what you had planned?”

Tom paused and then said, “You warned him...didn’t you? You knew I would try something and came to the same conclusion I did, that if I chose a person for Jesus to heal, someone that wasn’t working with Jesus, that he couldn’t heal that person. But you warned him and he had this Timothy pretend to be a blind man along the route he knew we’d take through the city! He knew I’d pick the first beggar we came to!”

“Ugh. Now you’re being paranoid!” David fumed as he shook his head and stormed away.

“I’m not paranoid... I’m... I’m...” Tom became distracted by the three figures walking away, their ornate robes dancing in the wind. These Pharisees might be useful. They were the only people who seemed to make sense in this backward culture. Tom decided to find out more about them. Maybe they could reveal the chink in Jesus’s armor?

—FOURTEEN—

Beginning

30 A.D.

7:25 A.M.

Jerusalem, Israel

Tom was up and moving at the crack of dawn. He knew it was the only way he could see the Pharisees without being noticed or questioned extensively by David. Tom worked his way through the streets of Jerusalem, which he was proud to say he had nearly memorized. Finding his way to the upper-city, street-side home of Tarsus was no problem.

Not having been to the upper city too often, Tom forgot how stunning it was. Not at all like the lower city, full of beggars, blind men and the pungent odor of filth. Here it was clean. The homes were spaced apart nicely, with landscaping and statue decorations. It was like stepping out of the middle ages and into the glory of Rome.

A pang of guilt struck Tom in the stomach as he approached and admired the smooth marble home. He had convinced himself he wasn’t betraying his friends. He wasn’t plotting against them, just gathering information. David was always one step ahead of Tom and it was time to educate himself. He would learn from his own sources what the future was going to bring. Tom knew that by the way David glared at the Pharisees whenever they crossed paths, they must have something to do with a resistance to Jesus’s claim to be God. He figured they must know something that David didn’t. They must know and perhaps be able to prove that Jesus was a fake. Tom was convinced of it.

Tom knocked on the hand-carved wooden door. No answer. He banged harder and thought he heard some movement inside.
Crash!
Something fell over and seconds later, the door flung open. “What? What is it?” Tarsus asked with his eyes half shut. “Every time I send Silva to the market...”

“Sorry, did I wake you?” Tom asked.

“Yes, yes. Now what do you—Wait, I know you... I’ve seen you with—”

“Jesus, yes, I’ve been traveling with him.”

“Yes. One of his intolerable disciples! Be gone with you or I’ll fetch the Romans!” Tarsus fumed.

“Wait, please, hear what I have to say.” Tom said. “I think we have some opinions in common.”

Tarsus eyed Tom, “Meaning?”

“I’m as unconvinced by Jesus’s claims as you are,” Tom said.

Tarsus scrunched his lips together. “Explain yourself. How would you account for the miracles people say he does?”

“Sleight of hand, deception, some might call it magic,” Tom said as though it were nothing impressive.

Tarsus upper lip snarled. “Magic! The black arts! You mean to tell me, you, a disciple of this man believes him to be demon possessed?”

Tom wasn’t sure how Tarsus had made the leap from simple magic to demon possession, but reckoned these primitive people had yet to be introduced to the illusionary arts that were more science than magic. But if the modern day equivalent of a magic-using con artist was demon possession, so be it. “Yes,” Tom said plainly.

Tarsus smiled a toothy grin, “Indeed... Perhaps you would like to speak with some colleagues of mine as well?”

“I would,” Tom said.

“Come in, come in. Let me dress and I will take you to them,” Tarsus said with a full-blown smile.

Tom stepped into the home and closed the door behind him.

*   *   *   *   *

Tom managed to sneak back without waking anyone up. He had learned a lot, but not enough. He arranged to meet with the Pharisees again, and they had all agreed to keep their meetings a secret. Tom acted like nothing was different, but he felt different, somehow. He felt like everyone was watching him, like everyone knew. Maybe David was right; he was being paranoid.

Tom was sitting on the hard stone floor of Solomon’s Colonnade, which was a row of columns on the East side of the Temple. He had come to the Temple with David, Peter, Matthew, Judas and Jesus, but he had remained distant. He now sat ten feet away, leaning against one of the tall columns, admiring the view, lost in thought. Every time Tom came to the Temple, he found himself captivated by the beauty of the structure. Truly, his ancestors were master craftsman. Tom felt that if there were a God and God actually needed a house, this would be it.

From the colonnade, Tom could see the outer walls and columns of the Court of Gentiles, which he knew was full of merchants selling doves, sheep and cattle for sacrifice. There would be Jewish pilgrims from all over Israel and the Roman Empire, moneychangers, scribes and Pharisees. Tom calculated that the entire area took up around thirty-five acres of land. Beyond the Court of the Gentiles, no non-Jew was allowed.

Just beyond the Court of the Gentiles, was the Court of the Women, which was surrounded by beautifully carved columns. On the east side of this court were thirteen trumpet shaped containers, which Tom had learned were for voluntary money offerings. The floors were smooth with two-foot square tiles that led toward a grand, curved, fifteen step staircase. At the top of the staircase was the showstopper of the Court of the Women, the Nicanor Gate, which, when opened, led to the Court of Israel, where only Jewish men were allowed. The gate was a twenty-foot tall, arched doorway with shimmering, solid bronze doors, the glow of which could be seen reflecting on other portions of the temple.

However pleasing to the eye the temple was, there was always an ominous sign of the times, looming high above and attached to the temple. The Antonia, a Roman fortress, which towered above the temple, was constantly patrolled by spear wielding guards whose steel, scale armor and blood-red military cloaks could be seen from a distance. The fortress was plain in appearance but built of thick stone bricks. From its four towers, an enemy army could easily be kept at bay. During recent years, Tom learned it was where Pilate, the local Roman governor was housed. Tom wondered how people could worship or even believe in God while under such an obvious show of Roman power. Where was their God now?

“Tom, come join us,” Jesus said.

Tom stood up, not wanting to act any guiltier than he already had and approached his laughing friends, who were sitting on the ground, leaning against the smooth, white columns, engrossed in conversation. “And that works?” Judas asked Matthew.

“Without fail!” Matthew replied. “One look at the girth I lug around and most people believed I was capable of the act!”

“Your pockets must have been heavy with riches!” Judas said, wide eyed.

“It’s true, they were. But that was the life I lived before,” Matthew said, looking slightly ashamed. “Now I’m...” Matthew paused and seemed transfixed by something behind Judas. “...hoping that mob isn’t going to be trouble.”

“What?” Judas asked, perplexed by the statement.

Matthew stood to his feet quickly and pointed toward the Court of the Gentiles. A crowd was quickly approaching. Peter and Matthew jumped in front of Jesus, forming a formidably tall and wide wall. They had become experts at it over the past years. The mob stopped at the human blockade.

“State your business and be quick about it. You’re interrupting my time in the sun,” Matthew said.

A man from the crowd yelled, “We’ve come for Jesus, the demon possessed man!”

Matthew and Peter couldn’t help but smile. “I’m afraid you’ve come to the wrong place,” Peter said. “No one here is demon possessed.”

Another man from the crowd, less convinced then the first said, “You see! I told you demons couldn’t heal the eyes of the blind!”

“We know you are his disciples,” the first man said. “Let us see him with our own eyes. Let him tell us he is not possessed.”

“I tell you the truth,” Jesus said, as he walked around Peter and Matthew, into the view of the crowd. “I am not possessed.”

An honest looking man stepped from the crowd instantly, but was blocked from moving too far forward by Matthew’s thick hand. The honest man stopped and said, “The countryside is torn. How long will you keep us in suspense? Please, if you are the Christ, tell us plainly.”

Tom turned to David and whispered, “See, I’m not the only one who can’t understand the man.”

Cautiously scanning the area for hidden dangers, Tom’s gaze fell on David. Tom watched, as David remained silent, studying everything about the situation. He observed David’s facial expressions change from confusion to enlightenment. He could see in David’s eyes that he knew what was happening, what was going to happen. Before he could ask David what he knew, the crowd regained Tom’s attention when their words became familiar. They had called Jesus demon possessed.

The words he was hearing, the confusion of these people, were seeds he had planted. Apparently, the secret meeting with the Pharisees had gone well and they had taken his advice. The fact that Jesus was so hard to understand to a large number of people might be the evidence that Jesus was a magician. Upon hearing this from Tom, they translated magician to demon possessed, and while Tom did not believe in demons as much as he did not believe in God, he let them believe what they wanted. As long as they could mobilize people into proving it was true.