16
For five days the roads into Caesarea from Jerusalem and central Judaea were clogged with a motley throng of Jews pushing relentlessly toward the Procurator’s Palace. Here and there in the multitude rode a man or woman on a donkey, but countless hundreds trudged on foot, dust-covered and weary in every bone but more outraged in spirit.
Then the dam that was Caesarea’s gates was inundated, and the flood of disgruntled Jewry, sweating, travel-soiled, frightened but still undaunted in its anger despite the long and tiresome journey, poured through the city to fill its market squares and surge upward toward Pilate’s house. The angry flood had burst upon the port city hardly two days behind the messengers sent by Sergius Paulus to warn the Procurator of the multitude’s approach.
The Jews, the messengers informed Pilate, were swarming toward Caesarea to protest with all the vigor they could command his profanation, they called it, of their holy city through the display at the Tower of Antonia of the Roman army’s ensigns, including even the likenesses of the Emperor Tiberius. The morning after the Procurator’s departure, they revealed, the Jews had awakened to behold with horror the flaunted banners. But their vehement protests to the commander of the fortress had been unavailing. Sergius Paulus had told them with firmness that only a command of Pilate could restore the flame above the tower and once again sheathe the offending ensigns.
So, alternately beating their breasts with loud lamentations and angrily calling down their Yahweh’s curses upon the invading Edomites, as they termed the Romans, they had surged into the roads and pushed northwestward to demand of the Procurator himself an end to the profanation of their Jerusalem.
Five days ago these Jews had arrived at Caesarea, but five days of protesting, of threatening, of pleading, and of threatening again had not moved Pontius Pilate. “Rome is master,” declared the stubborn and proud Procurator to the Jews’ spokesmen; “the emblems of Rome’s mastery will not be removed or sheathed. My orders stand.”
But the sons of Israel, too, were unyielding in their demands. “Your Emperor Augustus, your Emperor Tiberius”—Pilate took notice that they did not say “our” Emperor—“have respected our laws, which forbid the display of such emblems, and have been strict in honoring our religion,” the spokesman insisted. “Your Emperor Tiberius cannot but be angered by the refusal of the Procurator to respect in the same manner our ancient traditions.”
“Go home!” Pilate ordered. “Get you back to Jerusalem. I, not you, speak for Tiberius. I was sent out by him to govern this province, and by the great Jove, I will govern it!”
But the Jews did not go home. Hungry, discouraged, exhausted, they were not defeated. They swarmed about Pilate’s palace, they fell in their tracks on the marble of the esplanades to sleep fitfully when sheer exhaustion overtook them; they crowded the market places, they slept in rich men’s doorways. But they would not turn their backs on Caesarea.
On the morning of the sixth day, Pilate called Longinus to the Palace. “Centurion,” he said, his face livid with anger, “since Sergius Paulus continues at Jerusalem, I wish you to take command of the troops here and put into execution the orders I am about to give you. Send out couriers to summon these Jews to come together in the Hippodrome; say that I will meet them there. In the meantime, disguise a sufficient number of your soldiers and place them about the amphitheater in advantageous positions so that should disorder arise among the Jews, you will be ready immediately to put it down.”
Claudia had been listening to her husband. “But, Pilate, aren’t you creating a situation that will produce fighting between our troops and these Jews?”
“And if there is bloodshed?” Pilate’s eyes flashed sudden anger. “Haven’t I been patient with these obstinate rebels? If they choose to get themselves run through with swords, isn’t it their own doing?” Then quickly he recovered his poise. “Claudia,” he said quietly, “I have given them every opportunity to return peaceably to Jerusalem. Have I not?”
“Yes. But you have not agreed to have the ensigns sheathed. And until you do....”
He turned upon her, his countenance flaming, his mood changed completely. “Do you stand with these stubborn provincials against Rome? Are you with them, or are you with me?”
“Before you interrupted me, Procurator,” Claudia’s voice was as cold as her smile, “I was going to observe that in displaying the army’s emblems, you are really breaking a tradition, so far as I have been able to understand it, and this tradition may very well be a long-standing order of the Emperor and, indeed, of Augustus before him. I care not a fig about these Jews. Nor do I care about their High Priest or their Yahweh. I am concerned only with what will be the attitude of the Emperor and the Prefect Sejanus toward the Procurator as a result of this unprecedented breach of the established order.” She turned away, her head high. Pilate seemed taken aback; he looked at her somewhat sheepishly and licked his lips as though he were about to speak. But he said nothing. Instead, he turned abruptly to Longinus. “I take responsibility for the orders I give,” he said tersely. “My orders to you are unchanged.”
Longinus saluted, then without a word turned on his heel and withdrew.
By early afternoon the great concourse had filled with excited, chattering Jews. Their determined stand, they felt confident, had defeated the Procurator; their reminder that the Emperors had honored the Jews and their Yahweh and that Tiberius might not approve a course taken in defiance of the long-established tradition had frightened Pilate. He was calling them together, wasn’t he, to announce that he was withdrawing the hated emblems and to ask them to return home victors?
But they had judged the Procurator wrongly. And they discovered their mistake as soon as he began to address the throng from his box high in the stands of the great oval.
“For five days, and this is now the sixth, you have kept our Caesarea in turmoil. You have been obstinate and insubordinate and have shown little respect to the Procurator, who represents the Emperor and in this province personifies the power and majesty of the Empire. You have threatened him with reprisal, saying that he has flouted the orders of our Emperor. You were not only inhospitable in refusing to welcome the Procurator to Jerusalem, you were actually hostile. In being hostile to us, you have shown yourselves contemptuous of Rome and enemies of our Empire; in being stubbornly hateful to me, you have shown yourselves no friends of the Emperor.”
Pilate paused, his face suffused with color as his anger grew with his listing of their offenses. Then he stood back on his heels, squared his shoulders, and held up his tightly clenched fist. “Now hear me, men of Judaea!” he shouted. “I have asked you to disperse and return to your homes. Stubbornly you have refused to heed my command. I am asking you again to abandon this unreasonable, senseless, and ill-advised effort and get yourselves outside the gates of Caesarea and on the roads that lead homeward. Hear me, by great Jove! This is my last command to you.” He leveled a shaking forefinger toward the multitude. “I have stationed my soldiers in disguise among you, and they are heavily armed. They have been instructed, upon my next command, to spring upon you and run you through with their swords.”
But in the vast oval of the colosseum not an Israelite moved to obey him. Stolidly, calmly, they faced the Procurator; silence was heavy upon the great throng.
Pilate’s face was twisted with wrath. “Then I must give the order, men of Judaea?” He shouted the question.
Not a man moved.
Then from the ranks nearest Pilate a man stepped forward a pace and held up his hand to speak. By his dress it was evident that he was one of the Temple leaders. “O noble Procurator,” he said in a loud voice, “though your soldiers run us through with swords until each of us has perished, we cannot submit to the profanation of God’s holy Temple; we cannot countenance without protest the treading into the dust of our God’s commandments. Before we agree to Rome’s profanation of our holy places and her flouting of our God’s laws, O Procurator, we will bow our necks to the Procurator’s soldiers. We will die, and gladly, for our God!”
“Profanation! Profanation! All I hear is Rome’s profanation of your traditions. By all the gods, in every other land our Emperor is honored, his banners and his emblems, his likenesses paraded on our staffs, all these are hailed with shouts and acclamations! And yet you Jews....”
Suddenly Pilate paused. The priestly leader who had just addressed him had fallen on his face in the dust of the great stadium, and beside him and behind him others now were prostrating themselves. Within moments every Jew in the place was lying face down upon the ground before the Procurator of Judaea. Mouth open, eyes darting from one area of the great concourse to another, aghast, Pilate stood silent. Then quietly he spoke to Longinus, who was standing near him. “Centurion, I cannot order men on their faces ran through with swords. It would be massacre.”
“So it would be, Excellency, on their faces or standing, since they are defenseless.”
Pilate turned back to face the prostrated multitude. “Stand on your feet!” he commanded. “I shall withhold for the moment at least my command to the soldiers.”
Without a word being said, without a change of countenance even, the Jews rose to their feet and faced the Procurator. “Now send me your High Priest and his father-in-law the former High Priest Annas,” Pilate commanded. “No harm will be done them; this I swear by the great Jove.”
Hours later Caiaphas and Annas returned from the conference with the Procurator at the palace. Mounting the rostrum from which Pilate had previously addressed them, Caiaphas held up his hand for silence. “Men of Israel, we have just concluded our meeting with the Procurator Pilate,” he announced. “An agreement has been reached. Now you may return in peace to your homes. The offensive emblems of Rome, the Procurator has assured us, will be removed so that they will no longer profane our holy places. The God of Israel, He is One!”
“The God of Israel, He is One!” The multitude of suddenly exultant Jews echoed his words in a great chorus, and a hosanna of shouts swept wave upon wave across the immense arena. Then, laughing and chattering, the people began pushing toward the Hippodrome’s exits.
And in all the throng not a man ventured to inquire of the High Priest what the terms of the agreement with Pilate had been.
17
An hour before the “Actium” was to sail out of the harbor at Caesarea on the return voyage to Rome, Centurion Longinus went aboard and handed the captain a heavily sealed communication addressed to the Prefect Sejanus.
“This is an army message of great importance,” he announced. “It must be delivered in person to the Prefect. He is expecting it, and if it is not delivered immediately after the docking of your ship, he will begin to inquire why he has not received it.” Actually, the centurion knew that Sejanus was not expecting a message from him on the returning “Actium,” but telling the captain so would insure the message’s getting quickly into the hands of the Prefect. The captain might well think that the centurion’s letter was in reply to a message brought him from Sejanus by the Tetrarch Herod Antipas.
The “Actium” two days before had brought the Tetrarch and his new wife Herodias and her daughter Salome to Caesarea, and from the wharf they had been escorted by Longinus and a detachment of his century to the Procurator’s Palace to be guests of Pilate and Claudia while resting a few days after the long voyage out from Rome. From Caesarea they planned a short visit to Jerusalem, and then they would travel northward through the Jordan Valley to the Tetrarch’s gleaming white marble palace at Tiberias.
It was when Longinus learned that the “Actium” would be returning directly to Rome that he decided to dispatch a report to the Prefect. The report related in considerable detail the events of the Procurator’s recent visit to Jerusalem, his flaunting, in disregard of Sergius Paulus’ warning, of the cohort’s banners from the Antonia ramparts, the subsequent storming of Caesarea by the irate Jews, and Pilate’s yielding to them, after a conference with Caiaphas and Annas. Longinus advanced no suggestion concerning the probable terms of the agreement between the Procurator and the Temple leaders. The centurion was confident, however, that the astute and suspicious Sejanus would infer from what he had left unwritten that Pilate had profited handsomely. Longinus concluded the message with an avowal that the report was factual and uncolored.
From the “Actium” Longinus returned to the headquarters of the cohort and that evening was a guest, along with Sergius Paulus, of the Procurator and his wife at a small, informal dinner honoring the Tetrarch, his wife, and her daughter. When they had finished the meal, Herodias and her hostess retired to Claudia’s apartment, and Salome went to her chamber. The four men remained reclining at the table, where after a while, as they drank wine and nibbled grapes and figs, the inhibitions of Pilate and Antipas, each vain and domineering and jealous of the other’s authority, began slowly to disappear. Gently at first Antipas chided the Procurator for his profanation of Jerusalem by flaunting the ensigns of Imperial Rome from the Tower of Antonia.
“Profanation! Profanation! All I hear in this contentious province is profanation. I am sick of the word.” Pilate wiggled a forefinger at the Tetrarch. “Do you consider Rome’s display of her honored emblems profanation of Jerusalem and this province, I ask you, Tetrarch?”
Antipas studied the fig he held between finger and thumb. “I don’t consider it profanation, nor do the Emperor and the Prefect, but I do agree with the Emperor and the Prefect that it is a wise course not to offend unnecessarily the people of Israel who do so hold.” It was a clever answer, and Antipas, knowing it, pressed the point. “It would be politic if the new Procurator learned to uphold the traditions of this land,” he continued, “so long, of course, as they do not seriously conflict with the interests of the Empire and certainly”—he smiled—“so long as the Emperor and the Prefect uphold them.”
Pilate was quick to strike back. “I was sent out to this province to rule it,” he declared, his eyes flashing indignation. “I was not sent here to cower and truckle, to lower Rome’s ensigns at the demands of your obstinate, cantankerous Jews,” he hissed. “I came to rule....”
“But you did lower Rome’s ensigns when those obstinate—Jews bared their necks to your swordsmen and refused to obey your command to return home,” Antipas interrupted. Then suddenly, as though seeking a truce, he changed his tone. “But I don’t blame you, Procurator. In fact, I admire you; you’re a very intelligent man. Living in this province must be trying to one who has never lived here before, and of course it’s unrewarding unless there are ... ah ... extra benefits, shall we say ... not provided by Rome. And there is much gold in the Temple’s coffers, I am told. It seems that no matter how much is withdrawn, a great deal still remains for the use of the Temple leaders, hmm?” He smiled appreciatively. “And no doubt the Prefect will approve, too, provided....” Grinning, he left the observation unfinished. “And with no Jewish blood shed by your soldiers, there will be nothing to explain to Tiberius, Excellency.”
Pilate glared, mouth open. But he did not deny the Tetrarch’s thinly veiled charge. “Profanations! Violated traditions!” He hurled across the room the grape he had selected from the silver dish of piled fruit and pointed a quaking finger at the Tetrarch. “And how dare you, Antipas, speak of my violating the traditions and offending the religion of the Jews, when you have just taken to bed your brother’s wife! Is that not a heinous offense for a Jew himself...?”
“Excellency!” Sergius Paulus, palpably fearful of what the exchange might quickly be leading to, jumped to his feet. “The hour is growing late, and the Centurion Longinus and I must be getting back to headquarters. Please excuse us, sir. We’ve enjoyed your hospitality, and we beg you to express our thanks to your wife.” He glanced toward Longinus, who nodded agreement. “And I thought, Excellency, that the Tetrarch perhaps might honor us by going with us—we have a sedan chair at the door—to inspect our cohort headquarters, should you, sir, be willing to excuse him.” He looked questioningly toward the Procurator and then the Tetrarch.
“Should the Tetrarch wish....”
“I shall be happy to accompany you,” Antipas interrupted. Carefully he pulled the stem from the fig. “It will be a change of air.” But he was smiling, and his manner was jovial; the tension of the moment had been dispelled.
“When you have finished with him, Sergius”—Pilate had calmed, too, and no rancor was revealed in his tone—“have him brought back, properly attended. He and the Tetrarchess are always welcome at the Procurator’s Palace.”
But Longinus knew, as the three prepared to leave the great dining hall, that relations between the Tetrarch and the Procurator were still strained; he suspected that they would remain so. The temperaments of the two men, coupled with the situations in which they had been placed, would demand it. In his own dealings with them, in his observation and appraisal of them and their activities, he told himself, he must bear this always in mind.
Meanwhile, lounging comfortably on Claudia’s large couch, pillows at their backs, the two women had been exchanging news of their own activities since they had last seen one another in Rome, and, more interesting to Claudia, Herodias had been revealing tidbits of gossip involving the more lively set in the Empire’s capital city. But soon the discussion narrowed to their own changed circumstances. Claudia was frank. “Yes, it’s just as I told you it would be that day you came to return my call. I said marrying Pilate would make no difference. Remember? Well, it hasn’t.” A cloud passed across her countenance. “Of course, we will have to be patient, though, and wait for things to work out.”
“But until they do, must you never...?” Herodias paused.
“No, it isn’t that bad,” Claudia hastened to reply, smiling. “We can see each other and we can be together ... more and more hereafter, I hope. We have been together already, for hours, in fact, both here at Caesarea and in Jerusalem at the Herod’s Palace, while Pilate conveniently, I do believe, busied himself at the Antonia Tower.” She shook her head. “Really, Herodias, I don’t know whether the man is stupid, quite wise, or just indifferent. But whatever he is, his being the way he is will help Longinus and me to arrange things.”
Herodias’ large dark eyes were bright now with scheming. “My dear, you have never been in Galilee, have you? It’s a beautiful land, especially now that spring is beginning to break, so much more interesting than this barren Judaea. We have so many flowers, and willows and oleanders and bright-blooming shrubs along the watercourses. I remember Galilee in the spring from my childhood days and on occasional visits since. So”—her eyes were dancing now—“you must go with us to Tiberias. We can contrive to have Longinus escort us. And in the Palace there”—her voice dropped to an intimate whisper—“you will have no one to disturb you.”
“But Antipas’ other wife? What would she say if I should go with you?”
“I am the Tetrarchess of Galilee and Peraea,” she said evenly. “As soon as we get there, Antipas is going to divorce her and send her back to old Aretas.”
18
Before they reached the bend in the road roughly paralleling the Jordan, whose banks were beginning to color now with the awakening of willows and oleanders to advancing spring, the Tetrarch recognized the voice.
“By the beard of the venerable High Priest!” Antipas exclaimed. “This isn’t the place where he was making his stand when I came this way before, but it’s the same fellow, that mad prophet of the Wilderness. I’d know his haranguing anywhere.”
Longinus was riding beside the Tetrarch. Herodias and Claudia, with lively Salome a few paces back, were following in the narrow column, and just behind them rode Neaera, Tullia, and several other servants of the two households. Soldiers were in the vanguard and at the rear.
Antipas turned to Longinus. “Centurion, I wonder if we shouldn’t go another way and avoid encountering this fellow. I’d rather not see him or hear more of his ranting.”
“But I want to see him.” Herodias had ridden abreast of the Tetrarch. “He must be the one I’ve just been hearing so much about in Jerusalem. Everybody was talking of his ability to sway the multitudes and his fearlessness in denouncing the Temple priests.”
“Yes, he’s the one. But, my dear Herodias,” the Tetrarch began to protest, “he’s likely to say something that will offend you, too. The fellow has no respect for the Tetrarch’s office or authority and no bridle on his loose tongue.”
“By the gods, then, that’s all the more reason I want to hear him.” She laughed gaily, then quickly grew sober. “And certainly the Tetrarch should be concerned,” she added, “if the man flouts the Tetrarch’s authority.” She signaled to Longinus to resume the march. “Let’s ride down and join his audience. After the boredom of our journey, this should at least provide a diversion.”
Antipas shook his head grudgingly but offered no further protest. “She’ll regret it as soon as she hears him, by the gods,” he muttered to the centurion as they started. “But I warned her.”
At the bottom of the slope the group dismounted, and on Longinus’ summons, soldiers came up to hold the horses. The servants remained behind with them except for Neaera and Tullia who followed their mistresses as the Tetrarch’s party quietly slipped around a screening clump of willows to join the throng about the gaunt and weathered speaker. To Antipas, John seemed little changed since that day when they had come upon him at the ford farther up the Jordan. His clothes looked the same; fleetingly the Tetrarch wondered if the haircloth mantle had ever been cleaned since he had last seen it.
Although the Tetrarch’s group had slipped unobtrusively into the rim of the crowd, Antipas was quickly recognized, and soon a murmur moved through the multitude and heads began to nod as intent black eyes shifted from the fiery prophet to study the newly arrived ruler of Galilee and Peraea.
“It’s old Herod,” Longinus heard a beak-nosed, thin Jew whisper to the man beside him. “And that woman, she must be the new wife he’s fetched from Rome, the one he took away from his brother, and that must be the brother’s daughter beside her.” Both men turned to stare, then smile. “I wonder what John will say to that!” one said to the other as they turned back to peer again at the thundering prophet.
John, too, had recognized the Tetrarch, Longinus was sure; yet the prophet made no immediate reference to his presence. Instead, he continued preaching on the necessity of repentance and on the use of baptism as a sign of Yahweh’s forgiveness. The man was a powerful speaker; he had native ability, Longinus immediately perceived, to command attention and sway his hearers. The crowd listened, entranced, to his every word; now and then one would step forward and, crying loudly in repentance, ask for baptism.
Sometimes a man would interrupt the prophet to seek an answer to some deeply perplexing problem. But no one yet had spoken openly of the Tetrarch’s presence among them.
Then a tall, narrow-faced Jew, unkempt, ill-clothed, evidently a man of the earth, stepped forward and held up his hand. “This repentance of which you speak,” he questioned, “is it necessary for the rich man in the same manner as it is for the poor and dispossessed, for the man of authority as well as for the servant? I ask you, does the measuring rod measure the same for all men, or is there one rule for one man and another rule for another?”
“Repentance is necessary for all men, my brother,” John replied calmly. “The same measuring rod measures for both the man of authority and the servant who serves him, for both the rich man and the man of earth.”
John paused. Then slowly his dark eyes moved from the face of his questioner to that of the Tetrarch. “The same measuring rod measures for the Tetrarch of Galilee, my brother, that measures for you, and it is the same for even the lowliest servant in that iniquitous marble pile above the graveyard in Tiberias!” The prophet’s eyes were blazing now, and he raised his gaunt, sun-bronzed arm to point a lean forefinger directly at Herod Antipas. “Repent, O Tetrarch, repent!” His voice was thunderous now, and the finger darted forward like the tongue of a serpent. “Repent while yet there is time! Repent of the evil you have done, and seek in true penitence the forgiveness of our God Whom you have scorned and despised!”
Antipas stood silent and stared straight ahead, looking as though suddenly he had been turned to stone. But Herodias, though amazed, had not been rendered speechless by the torrent of the prophet’s denunciation. Calmly she turned to her husband. “Do you intend to stand here and allow this madman to vilify you? Are you going to stand patiently while...?”
“And you! You evil woman!” John’s shout interrupted her. Now the angry hand was pointed directly at her. “You call me a madman,” he said. “Yes, I am a madman. I am a madman for our God. And I call upon you, too, to repent. Repent before our God turns His face from you forever. I call upon both you sinners to fall on your faces and cry out to the God of Israel, imploring Him for forgiveness.” Then the prophet’s stern eyes turned again toward the Tetrarch. “Herod, cast this foul woman from you! Have you not stolen her away from the bed of your brother? You cannot have her, O Tetrarch! Does not God’s holy law forbid a man from taking to bed the wife of his living brother in the flesh? Adulterer! Repent! And you, evil woman, you adulteress”—John’s eyes were fiery now with a wild zeal as he faced Herodias, whose flushed cheeks and lips drawn into thin lines revealed her fury—“neither shall you have him! Get you back to the bed you have deserted, if the husband you have abandoned has the grace to forgive and receive you! O Tetrarch”—John lifted his gaunt arms toward the heavens—“cast her from you before your grievous sinning brings ruin down upon the land. Send her back to your brother, and humbly beseech the forgiveness of our God! Repent, O Tetrarch, repent! Repent!”
Still Herod Antipas stood staring, unmoving, rooted.
“By all the great and little gods, Antipas”—Herodias, infuriated, whirled upon the Tetrarch, grabbed his arm and shook him—“will you stand there like a statue and permit that fanatic to insult and intimidate you and your wife before this crowd?” Scornfully she measured him, and her lips curled with disgust. “Are you indeed the Tetrarch of Galilee, or are you a frightened mouse?” She stood back, taunting him with her shrill laugh.
Her challenging words and her mirthless laughter broke the spell the prophet had cast. “No, I am not afraid of him,” Antipas replied slowly, as though he were arguing with himself. “Nor can I any longer permit this abuse to go unpunished. He has not only vilified your Tetrarch and his wife”—Antipas was now addressing the crowd rather than Herodias—“but he has challenged my honor and authority. His words are a call to insurrection. I can no longer permit the preaching of rebellion.” He turned to confront Longinus. “Centurion, arrest this man. Have him taken at once to the Fortress Machaerus and there placed in its dungeon. Order him held until I pronounce judgment.”
Without even a glance toward the now silent but calm and seemingly untroubled prophet of the Wilderness, Herod turned and started along the gentle rise toward the horses.
19
As they approached the southern shore line of the Sea of Galilee, Longinus sent riders ahead to notify Chuza of the impending arrival of the Tetrarch and his party at Tiberias. So the steward, with household servants to handle the baggage, was waiting at the palace gate when the caravan entered the grounds.
But Chuza, though he greeted them warmly and with profuse smiles, was obviously troubled, and Antipas quickly drew the man aside to question him. “Sire, you will not find the Tetrarchess here to welcome you,” the steward explained, his tone apologetic and his expression patently pained. “She has departed from Tiberias. I suggested that she might wish to delay her leaving, Sire, until your return, but she insisted on going at once.”
She had received a message, she told Chuza, that her father, King Aretas of Arabia Petraea, was desperately ill and that he had summoned her to his bedside. Although the steward had seen no messengers, he had not been disposed to question the Tetrarchess. She had prepared for the journey very quickly. The Centurion Cornelius had provided her with a detachment of soldiers to escort her to her father’s capital in the country southeast of the Dead Sea, beyond the Fortress Machaerus; she had taken with her, in addition, her best raiment and many of her choicest personal possessions.
“Then you think that she is not planning to come back to me? Is that what you’re suggesting, Chuza?”
“Sire, I am suggesting nothing. I am relating only what I saw and heard. I have no opinion as to what plans the Tetrarchess....”
“The Princess Herodias is Tetrarchess now, Chuza,” Antipas interrupted.
“Indeed, Sire”—Chuza bowed to the Tetrarch and then to Herodias—“the former Tetrarchess....”
“But when did she depart, Chuza?” Antipas interrupted again.
“A week ago, Sire. The escorting soldiers have not yet returned.”
“Had she heard that I was returning from Rome with a new Tetrarchess?”
“She said nothing to me about it, Sire, but I am confident that she knew of the Tetrarch’s marriage. Passengers coming ashore at Ptolemaïs from the vessel on which you and the Tetrarchess sailed out from Rome brought to Tiberias word of the new Tetrarchess. I myself heard it, and surely the report must have come also to her ears here at the palace.”
“Very well, Chuza; think no more of it.” By now they had entered the lofty, marble-columned great atrium. A faint smile crossed his heavy face. “Do you know, I believe she must have suspected all along?” He turned to Herodias. “By all the gods, my dear, she has made our course all the easier.”
Longinus declined the invitation of the Tetrarch and Herodias to take a chamber in the palace during his stay at Tiberias. He had promised Cornelius that he would be his guest when next he came to Galilee. Tempting though the Tetrarch’s invitation had been, Longinus reasoned that it might be wise to assume that the watched might also be the watching.
Besides, Claudia had been assigned an apartment which, the centurion had observed, looked out upon a broad terrace facing the Sea of Galilee. A door from Claudia’s bedroom conveniently opened onto the terrace. Longinus smiled as he reviewed the details of the arrangement.
The sentry at the palace gate, he also knew, would be a Roman soldier.
20
Cornelius shook his head solemnly. “Herod will regret it. Arresting the prophet was unwise, Longinus.”
“But the fellow is an insurrectionist, Cornelius; certainly it can’t be denied that he’s been inciting rebellion against the Tetrarch’s rule. You should have heard what he called Antipas and Herodias.” A wry smile twisted the corners of his mouth. “Of course, just between you and me, I think he was right. But that doesn’t absolve him from agitating against the Tetrarch, and in this province, of course, the Tetrarch represents Rome.”
“But I don’t think that the prophet’s a revolutionary,” Cornelius insisted. “He lambasted the Tetrarch that day we came on him at Bethabara, too, but he wasn’t challenging Herod’s authority as Tetrarch; he was denouncing his wickedness as a man and calling upon him as a man to repent just as others were repenting. There’s a difference, Longinus, even though it’s hard for us Romans to understand that. We bundle our religion—if we have any, which few of us do, I suspect—and our imperial government into one packet. But the Jews keep their religion and their government, or rather our enforced government over them, separate. And their religion is predominant. In ordering John imprisoned, therefore, Herod is allowing the government to invade the Jews’ religious precincts, just as Pilate did when he had the army’s ensigns flown from the ramparts of Antonia. He’s likely to find himself in the same sort of situation that Pilate faced. It will do him no good; John at Machaerus will likely have more power over the people than he would have had if Herod had left him unmolested.” He glanced quizzically toward his friend. “Don’t you think so?”
“I’ve never thought of it. Nor do I care, by the gods, what becomes of that Wilderness fellow, or....” He paused and glanced about.
“There’s no one to hear us.”
Nor was there. From the early evening meal, eaten in the stuffiness of the garrison’s mess hall at a table with the other officers, Cornelius had brought his guest to the flat roof. Up here they would escape the heat and the heavy odors of food and wine and sweating soldiers and at the same time catch any vagrant breeze that might be stirring from the sea. Nor would there be any ears to overhear.
“I was going to say that I cared little what happened to him or Antipas ... or, by great Jove, even Pontius Pilate.”
“Both Herod and Pilate have blundered. And I’m sure Sejanus will be hearing about it; that is, if he hasn’t heard of it already.”
Longinus nodded, then casually changed the subject. “By the way,” he commented, “that reminds me; what ever became of that carpenter you said the desert preacher hailed as the Jews’ Messiah? Has he begun yet the task of wrecking the Roman Empire with his hammer and chisels?”
“It’s just possible that he has, though not with any hammer and chisel.” His smile was enigmatic. “Certainly the Empire, if I understand him, isn’t built on any plan that he approves.”
“By all the gods, Cornelius!” Longinus, who had been sprawled in his chair with his feet propped on the low rampart, sat up with a start. “What do you mean?”
Cornelius held up his hand. “Now wait,” he said calmly. “There’s nothing to be alarmed about. You won’t need to report to Sejanus about the carpenter. But since I saw you last he has gained a great following, even among some of the more influential people. You remember that beautiful woman Herod took with him to Jerusalem, the one called Mary of Magdala?”
“Who could forget her?”
“I agree. Well, she’s a disciple of the carpenter now, and a different woman, they say; she’s forsworn the Tetrarch’s bedchamber.”
“Maybe”—Longinus grinned—“that’s because Herodias has moved in.”
“Could be; I don’t know. But the report is that she’s given up all her amatory pursuits in order to follow him. All up and down the seaside, in fact, the people are swarming to hear him and beseech his help.”
“But insurrection, Cornelius....”
“Oh, it isn’t that, Longinus. The Galilean isn’t concerned with the government, as I understand his teachings, though I’ve seen little of him myself; I get my information from some of the Jews in the synagogue at Capernaum”—he smiled—“who secretly, I suspect, are followers of the man, though many others among the Jews are hostile. I think he wants to change people as individuals, not their governments; he wants to help them. I’m sure he’s never given any thought to fomenting rebellion against Rome.”
Longinus relaxed and sat back. “Then he’s just another of these religious fanatics, isn’t he? Well, I’m relieved to hear that, though Palestine seems to have more than its share of these charlatans.”
“Charlatan? I wouldn’t say that. Let me tell you a story, and then you can deduce what you wish. It happened only a few weeks ago. When you see Chuza, Herod’s steward....”
“I saw him today.”
“When you see him again, ask him to tell you what happened to his son. Everybody in this part of the country has heard about it; the news swept through Galilee like flames across a parched grassland.”
“Well, by the gods, Cornelius, what did happen?”
“Chuza’s young son had come down with a fever. In this low country along the lakeside, you know, fevers are pretty common, but they’re not often dangerous. So Chuza and Joanna—she’s his wife—weren’t alarmed at first. But when days passed and the boy didn’t improve—in fact, his condition grew worse—they became concerned. One physician after another was called in, and they exhausted all the treatments they knew how to give. But the child was failing fast, and Chuza and Joanna were frantic; it looked as though their son wouldn’t live much longer. The fever was consuming him. What could they do? Where could they get help?
“It happened that on the last day, when it appeared that the boy was about to die, a Jewish fisherman who had occasionally been supplying the palace came to Chuza. He and his brother and two other brothers with whom he frequently fished had made a heavy catch, and this Simon had come to inquire if Chuza would buy a mess for the Tetrarch’s household.
“But a servant came to the door and told him his master could not discuss business; the steward’s son, he explained, was dying.
“‘In that case, I must see him,’ the fisherman said to the servant. ‘I can tell him how his son’s life may be saved.’
“But the servant told him that the physicians had despaired of saving the child and that the parents were momentarily awaiting his death. He ordered Simon to leave.
“The fisherman, a headstrong fellow, insisted, however, on being shown into the chamberlain’s presence, and the argument grew so loud that Chuza heard and came out to discover what was taking place. The fisherman Simon then told the Tetrarch’s steward of the Galilean carpenter’s amazing ability to effect miraculous cures, and he suggested that a servant be sent on horseback to find this young man, whom Simon referred to as ‘the Master.’ ‘And when the servant finds him,’ he said ‘have him bring the Master here, and he will heal your son.’
“Of course Chuza protested,” Cornelius continued, “that skilled physicians had been unable to cure the child. ‘Only try the Master,’ Simon then implored him. ‘Only have faith in him and ask him to heal your son, and he will heal him.’
“And suddenly the thought came to Chuza that surely he had nothing to lose by seeking out the Galilean mystic. The child was already on the verge of death; certainly this Jesus ben Joseph, whatever he might do, wouldn’t further endanger the boy’s life. So he asked Simon where his master might be found and whether he would come at once to his son’s bedside.
“The Galilean was visiting friends at Cana, a village a few miles west of the little sea. And Simon assured Chuza that he would come.
“So Chuza decided to seek the carpenter’s aid. But he sent no servant for him. Instead, he had three horses saddled, one for Simon, one for himself, and one for this Jesus ben Joseph.
“‘As we rode westward toward Cana,’ Chuza told me, ‘I felt a growing hope that the strange Galilean might really be able to restore my son to health, and I was possessed by an overpowering urge to find the man. Soon Simon and I were racing along the dusty road. When we reached Cana and found the house, we discovered this Jesus seated with his friends at the noonday meal.’”
Cornelius got up from his chair, sat down again on the rampart, and looked out toward a small fleet of fishing boats coming in to shore with the day’s catch.
“By the gods,” Longinus asked, “what happened then? Go on; it’s a good story.”
“When he looked into the understanding eyes of the young man from Nazareth, Chuza told me, a strange warmth, not physical warmth from the hard riding but a sense of eased tension, of peace, perhaps, something he said he couldn’t describe to me and didn’t entirely understand himself, took possession of him. He knew then, he was utterly certain, he said, that the young man smiling at him had the power to heal his son, if he could but get him to Tiberias in time!”
Once more Cornelius paused in his recital to study a fishing boat unloading a heavy catch. Then he resumed the narrative.
“Chuza said he didn’t remember what he said to the man, except that he blurted out his plea for help and begged the stranger to return with him to the boy’s bedside. He and his wife loved their son so much, he pleaded, and the little fellow was dying. If only the carpenter would intervene to save him, he knew the child’s life would be spared.
“Then,” Cornelius went on, “the Nazareth carpenter said a strange thing. He turned his intent, kindly gaze from Chuza to glance at those at the table with him. ‘Always you must have signs and wonders,’ he said. ‘Can’t you believe without actually seeing these things done before your eyes?’
“Chuza didn’t understand the man’s words, but he didn’t try to find out what they meant. His son was dying, his need was desperate. Once more he begged the carpenter for his help. ‘O, sir, my boy is dying,’ he pleaded; ‘he won’t last out the day unless you go to him. Won’t you leave with us now, sir, and restore him?’”
Cornelius paused again. Longinus, his forehead creased in heavy concentration, seemed absorbed in the doings of several fishermen down at the water’s edge as they struggled with a heavy net. But he turned quickly to confront his friend. “Pluto blast you, Cornelius! Why do you keep stopping? Did the carpenter return with him or didn’t he?”
“No, he didn’t. He laid his hand on Chuza’s shoulder. ‘Return to your son,’ he said. ‘The fever has left him. He has been restored.’”
“And I suppose when Chuza and the fisherman got back, they found that the boy’s fever had actually broken?”
“Yes, he was fully recovered. And when Chuza asked Joanna what time it was when the fever broke, she said it was the seventh hour, which was exactly when the carpenter had told Chuza that the boy had been restored.” Cornelius smiled and stood up. “That’s the story, Centurion ... Chuza’s story, not mine. What do you make of it?”
“A good story, and ably told by you. I’d call it an entertaining account of a remarkable coincidence.”
“Only a coincidence?”
“What else could it be? Surely you don’t believe that this carpenter fellow, without even going to the sick boy, drove out the fever? You know that fever victims either get well or die and that once the fever reaches a certain point, it goes one way or the other; it’s either death or a very rapid recovery, and the odds are about the same.” He shrugged his shoulders. “After hearing Chuza’s story the carpenter probably calculated it was time for the fever to break, and he simply gambled on the outcome.” Then he was suddenly serious, his eyes questioning. “Cornelius, don’t tell me you believe the carpenter actually cured the boy?”
“I don’t know, Longinus. But I’ll say this: I don’t disbelieve it. And I do know that the boy is alive and well today.” Cornelius stood up and stretched. “After all, to Chuza and Joanna that’s the important thing. When you see Chuza, you might ask him what he thinks of the Galilean.”
“If that carpenter did cure the boy in the manner you described, Cornelius, then he’s bound to be a god. And would a carpenter be a god, and a Galilean carpenter, at that? To me the whole idea is preposterous. But I’m just a Roman soldier; I haven’t been exposed, like you, to these eastern workers of magic.”
“This Jesus is no magician. In fact, he seems reluctant to perform these—what did he call them—‘signs and wonders.’ But the sick and the crippled continually besiege him to heal them, and his sympathies for the unfortunate appear to be boundless.” Cornelius sat down again on the parapet. “Tell me, do you remember that day we were sailing down the Tiber, standing at the ‘Palmyra’s’ rail talking about the various gods, and you said that you could never comprehend a spirit god, something that was nothing, you said, a being without a body?”
“Yes, and I still feel that way.”
“But what about a god that does have a body, a god-man? If a god should have a physical body and be in every physical respect like a man, would that make sense to you? Could you comprehend such a god?”
“By Jove, Cornelius, you’ve been out here with these Jews for much too long. You’ve been listening to too much prattle about their Yahweh. A god without a body, a body that houses a god. Bah! I put no credence in any of these notions. As for that carpenter, I’d say he’s another Wilderness preacher, not as fanatical perhaps, not as desert-parched and smelling of dried sweat as John, but certainly no god—whatever a god is, if there is such a thing, which I most seriously doubt. A carpenter from Nazareth, that hillside cluster of huts! Cornelius, I’ve been to Nazareth, as I’m sure you have. I ask you, would a god choose Nazareth to come from?” He stood up. “Nevertheless, the story you told was entertaining. Maybe to some it would be convincing. To me, though....” He shook his head slowly. Then suddenly a wide grin lighted his grim countenance. “How is it that you and I inevitably get around sooner or later to a discussion of the gods? And where do we invariably end? Nowhere. Talk, that’s all. And talk is all it can ever be, isn’t it? It’s all too nebulous, intangible....”
“But, Longinus, if this all-powerful, all-wise, all-good god that old Pheidias envisioned, this supreme one god, in order to communicate with his earthly creatures”—Cornelius held up his hand to stop Longinus, who had been about to interrupt—“should decide to take the form of a man, an ordinary man....”
“By all the small and great gods,” Longinus did interrupt, “do you think then that he would choose to be a carpenter from Nazareth?”
Cornelius stared at the fishing boats, now pulled up on the beach; the lengthening shadows had already begun to obscure them. “I wonder,” he said.
21
Herod Antipas was in a bad mood; he said little and appeared preoccupied during the meal. When they had finished he announced that he planned to spend the remainder of the evening conferring with his ministers. “I’ve been out of the country for a long time,” he explained casually. “I suspect there will be many trying problems awaiting consideration.”