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?”
“O Excellency, the Procurator must know that the ancient laws of Israel, now that Rome has become master, no longer apply in every detail. Should our Sanhedrin find this revolutionary Galilean guilty of base crimes and sentence him to death, it would still be powerless to carry out its sentence without the approval of Rome. I am here, O Excellency, to petition the Procurator to approve our verdict and sentence. And I urge you to do this quickly, in order that the man may be executed while it is yet early and before all Jerusalem, and the Galileans in particular, are astir. Then much commotion and bloodshed would be prevented and,” he added with a suggestive smile, “there would be no necessity of any report’s going to Rome.”
“But you wish me to condemn a man to death before he has been tried?” Pilate’s anger showed plainly in his frown.
“Indeed, no, Excellency,” the High Priest replied calmly. “We only wish you to approve and order into execution the sentence of the Sanhedrin in the event that after he has been tried, he is judged guilty.”
Pilate shook his head. “No, I shall send no man to the cross or to death by stoning until I have tried him. To do so would be an unspeakable breach of Rome’s system of justice.”
“But, Excellency, would you show your scorn of Israel’s highest court?”
“I would show only my determination to uphold Rome’s laws and procedures. If you wish this man tried, then bring him before me at the Procuratorium.” He bowed coldly. “And now, if the High Priest will excuse me....”
The High Priest stood up as though to leave. “Indeed, Excellency, I too am greatly fatigued,” he said, “but one more point detains me. A moment ago, Procurator Pilate, did I not hear you say that on the morrow you were sending Bar Abbas to the cross? If so, Excellency, have you not already convicted him?”
Pilate’s smile was contemptuous as he, too, rose to his feet. “I did say that, and I have no doubt that he will go to the cross. But not, O High Priest, until he has been given trial, before he has been confronted by witnesses who will testify to what they saw and heard as concerns those charges that will be placed against him. I presume that many will appear against this Bar Abbas and that he will be convicted. But I do not say now that he will. I say only that he will be given a fair trial.” He lifted a heavy fist and brought it forcefully down upon the surface of his desk. “And so, by all the gods, will your Galilean!”
43
... The knocking is insistent. Can it be that the Praetorian Guardsman has been there a long time pounding on the door between the atrium and the peristylium while I slowly awakened? Bona Dea, what can old Sejanus want this time? Will he never cease hounding Longinus and me?
... Longinus. By the Bountiful Mother, maybe it’s Longinus returned from Germania. Maybe he’s at the bedroom door opening on the peristylium....
“Just a moment, Centurion, until I get my robe!” Claudia sat up in bed, rubbed her eyes, and shook her head to clear it. A narrow slash of natural light showed through the not completely drawn draperies. It was dawn. And burrowed in the pillow beside her was the close-cropped head of the Centurion Longinus.
Now the knocking had begun again. But it came, Claudia realized, from the other side of the door between her bedroom and Tullia’s. And though insistent, the knocking was not loud. “Mistress! Mistress! Oh, Mistress!”
She recognized her maid’s voice; Tullia was trying to awaken her without making too much noise in the early morning stillness of the Palace of the Herods. “Just a moment, little one,” she called out softly. At the door she slid back the bolt. “But, Tullia,” she demanded, keeping her voice low so that she would not awaken Longinus, “what are you doing back so early? It must be hardly daylight. Why, little one....” she paused, seeing the maid on the verge of tears.
“Oh, Mistress, he’s in grave danger!” Tullia burst out. “They’ve seized him. We fear great harm may befall him. That’s why I have come back to seek your help for him.” She was making an obvious effort to gain control of herself; somewhat calmed, she continued. “I started from Bethany at the first glimmering of light, almost as soon as we heard that he had been taken. We’re so afraid, Mistress, that great harm will come to him unless....”
“Let’s sit down”—Claudia’s tone was soothing—“and then quietly you can tell me why you’re so afraid he’s going to suffer great injury. And who, Tullia? You haven’t even told me his name.”
“The Galilean, Mistress; I thought you knew. Sometime during the night some Temple guardsmen came and seized him in the Garden of Gethsemane; he’d gone there with his little band to rest after eating the Passover meal at the home of Mary of Cypress. They say it was one of his own band who betrayed him, who told the Temple priests where he could be found and arrested without there being a big stir. Of course there would have been a great commotion if they had tried to take him anywhere near the Temple; they wouldn’t have dared to do such a thing if....”
“But how do you know all this?” Claudia interrupted. “Maybe you’re getting yourself upset without good reason.”
“No, it’s true, Mistress. Jesus and those of his immediate company, along with his mother and certain other relatives, have been staying in the Bethany neighborhood during the festival period,” Tullia revealed. “Jesus himself lodged at the home of Lazarus and his sisters. But yesterday afternoon the Master and the twelve men of his band went into Jerusalem. That’s the last time Mary of Magdala saw him.” Her face was a mask of pain and apprehension. “Then, early this morning, we were awakened by several of his band who had come running back to Bethany in great panic to report what had befallen him. All of them forsook him in the garden when the soldiers appeared; even Simon, after he had slashed out with his sword at one of the guardsmen, turned on his heel and ran, too, they said.”
“But where did the soldiers take him?” Claudia asked. “And why have you come to me?”
“They said there was talk that he was being taken before the High Priest or else old Annas, Mistress. And we’re afraid that he may suffer a terrible fate if he falls into the hands of the Temple priests. They’re determined to kill him, Mistress.” She paused, eyes tearful. “I knew no one else to whom I could turn for help, no one but you. I thought that you might speak to the Procurator and he might rescue the Galilean before they have him killed.”
“But don’t you know that they have no authority to execute the death sentence until the Procurator has given approval?”
“Yes, but they’re so inflamed against him, Mistress, that they might risk it. But if you could send a message to the Procurator....”
“He was probably up late into the night. To awaken him now with a message might offend him, and that would be doing the Galilean more harm than good. But Pilate usually returns to the palace before beginning his morning duties; as soon as he does, I’ll lay before him this matter of the Galilean’s arrest. Certainly no harm can come to him before Pilate has had an opportunity to sit in judgment on him.”
44
This Passover season there would be only three burdened crosses on top of the desolate Hill of the Skull, but they would be enough. The ugly spectacle would provide a frightful ending to the Jews’ annual great festival.
In other times in Palestine, Centurion Cornelius had been told, Rome had moved swiftly—and with far more terrifying effectiveness—to dramatize the utter futility of any province’s attempt to contend against the mighty conqueror. In Galilee they still talked, though even now in carefully guarded conversations, of that dreadful day at Sepphoris hardly more than twenty years ago when the Roman general Varus had crushed a rebellion and crucified two thousand Jewish insurrectionists.
Perhaps Pontius Pilate, who a week ago had sent him chasing the rebels of the now leaderless Bar Abbas band, had tired of awaiting the centurion’s return with more captives for the crosses; perhaps he had already ordered to slow and agonizing deaths the revolutionaries’ leader and the two followers captured with him. It might be that even now countless pilgrims up for the Passover, drawn by a morbid fascination, were gawking at the scourged, torn, and broken, unimaginably desecrated bodies of the captured robber-Zealots. But Cornelius would provide no additional victims for those crosses on the Hill of the Skull.
“And I’m glad,” he said aloud.
“What, Centurion? Glad?” Decius, riding beside him, had heard.
“I was just thinking aloud about this business of crucifying slaves and depraved criminals. I was glad those four revolutionaries we cornered in the Ephraim hills chose to fight to their deaths rather than surrender. It’s better not having to take anybody back to Jerusalem to be nailed up on a cross.”
“It’s not one of the most pleasant assignments a soldier gets, being on a crucifixion detail,” Decius agreed. “I’ve been on three, and I’ll never forget those poor devils, the first one especially, maybe just because he was my first. He was a boy in Germania, hardly sixteen, but a sturdy, strong fellow. I can still see him, Centurion. He was fair and his hair was the color of ripened grain, and his eyes were as blue as the sky. He had killed one of our soldiers, they said.”
“Probably after our soldier had killed the boy’s parents and raped his sister.”
“I can’t say as to that; you could be right, Centurion. But our commander ordered him to the cross, and I was put on the detail. We took that boy and tied him to the low stake and scourged him until he was a bloody pulp, Centurion. I can still see those bone-tipped whips slashing that white skin and flicking off bits of flesh, and one of them got him in the eye and knocked the ball out of the socket; it was hanging down when we nailed him up.” Decius shook his head ruefully. “By the gods, Centurion, do you know that boy even then fought us and cursed us as long as he had a hand or foot loose, and when we got all four spiked down he tried to butt us with his head. He was a strong one, that fellow; I remember he didn’t die until well along in the second day, and then he was spitting at us and cursing us almost to his last breath.” Decius stared thoughtfully for a moment at the road unwinding ahead. “Many times I’ve dreamed about that boy, Centurion, and I can still see him plainly and hear his screaming and cursing. It’s not a pleasant dream. I’d rather dream about those yellow-haired women in Germania.”
Cornelius nodded his head solemnly. “Yet we Romans call ourselves modern and civilized people.” They rode on in silence for a few moments. “Maybe we did well in being away from Jerusalem most of the week of the feast,” Cornelius finally commented. “Maybe we escaped being assigned by the Procurator to a crucifixion detail.”
“I hope so; I’ve no stomach for serving on one again,” Decius agreed. “You know, Centurion, I’ve just been thinking that very likely many of Bar Abbas’ cutthroats are right up there in Jerusalem in that Passover crowd. It wouldn’t surprise me if some of them should try to rescue those three Zealots.”
Cornelius nodded. “It wouldn’t surprise me either. I suspect that most of them, in fact, doubled back that night and beat us into Jerusalem and got themselves quickly lost in the surge of Passover pilgrims. And only the gods know how many other Zealots are swarming all over the city with their daggers sharpened for our throats.”
It was almost midday when they moved through the defile between the boulders where a week before they had been waylaid by the Zealot chieftain. This time Cornelius sent a scouting party ahead to reconnoiter. But no marauder was encountered.
In the level beyond the rocks the century paused to eat and rest. But not for long. Soon Cornelius gave the order to reassemble in marching formation. The sun was straight overhead, and the air was warm and heavy; a stifling stillness presaged a violent storm. “I’d like to get into Antonia before it breaks,” the centurion observed to Decius, as they mounted their horses. “Look.” He pointed off toward the southwest where an immense angry black cloud hovered low. “By mighty Jove, it must be already dark in Jerusalem.”
45
The tall Galilean arose from the steps before the Beautiful Gate and bending over, caught the hand of the prostrate, frightened woman. “Neither do I condemn you, my sister,” he said gently, as he helped her to her feet and she lifted tearful, penitent eyes to him. “Go, and sin no more.”
“He is truly a good man, Tullia, a noble man of warm heart, a generous, forgiving, good man. But a god? No, little one.” They were watching the woman as she neared the corner of the Chel toward the Fortress of Antonia. “There are no gods.”
The woman went out of their sight around the Soreg. They turned to look again toward the Galilean at the marble steps.
But the steps had disappeared, and the Beautiful Gate, and beyond it the Great Altar. Only the man stood there, and his arms were bound behind him now, and where the Chel had been was the Procurator’s tribunal. Solemn but unafraid, he faced the judge. At his back the Temple leaders who a moment ago had dragged the poor woman before him were shouting execrations upon him and demanding of the Procurator his crucifixion. “Crucify him!” they were screaming. “Crucify him!”
And in the magistrate’s chair ... by the Great Mother, there was Pontius Pilate!
Pilate, his round face livid with anger, was remonstrating with the priests. “But shall I crucify your King? Shall I crucify the King of the Jews?”
Crucify Jesus of Galilee?
“No, Pilate! No! No!” She was running toward the Procurator to stand beside the Galilean. “No, my husband, have nothing to do with this good man!”
... But Pilate does not see me or hear me. Nor does the Galilean. Am I a disembodied spirit? But there are no spirits. Oh, Tullia. But Tullia neither hears nor sees me....
“Then take him yourselves and crucify him. His death be your responsibility.” Pilate was speaking again. “I am free of his blood.”
“No! No! No, Pilate! You are sending an innocent man to his death! You can never disavow responsibility! Oh, hear me, my husband! Hear me!”
But the Praetorium and its tribunal, the tall, bound Galilean, the railing priests and their blood-hungry supporters were suddenly vanished.
The great throne room of the Imperial Palace in Rome was strangely darkened. She could hear the voice of the Emperor, but she could hardly distinguish his features. Was he her stepfather Tiberius, incredibly old now, or a younger Emperor? The voice was somewhat strange, too. “You have failed miserably,” the voice was saying. “You have been rash and stubbornly determined to govern in accordance with your own whims, you have not only permitted, but you have, through your intemperate governing, created much turmoil and insurrection within your province; in short, your rule has been a travesty of Roman administration.” The voice paused. “But I shall not order you executed, as you deserve. Instead, I decree that you be banished, forthwith and forever....”
The voice had faded out as the light came up, and she saw standing with bowed head, old and bent and his once round face thinned and haggard and hopeless, Pontius Pilate.
“No! No! If you had only listened....”
But no one heard her, and the great chamber was dark, and not a sound came to her out of the stillness.
“Oh, by the Great Mother! By all the gods, great and small. Oh, Galilean!”
Now as she stood immobile and weightless in the blackness and silence, she began to sense a luminosity thinning the darkness below, and looking down she saw a great way off a point of light that spread and lifted and came up in ever widening circles to illuminate the heights about her. For she was standing on the summit of a great mountain, higher even than the sun-baked granite bluffs on which Machaerus sat above the Dead Sea, and far below she could discern the imprisoned, restless waters of a mountain-rimmed small lake.
Then, as she raised her eyes from the waters and looked across toward an opposite peak, she saw him. He stood, bent and shrunken and old with the weight of centuries, on a jagged thrust of rock that came out from the mountain to overhang the agitated surface of the lake. He was looking down at the waters; the light was reflected from a head completely bald, and it played on cheek bones guarding cheeks long sunken, so that his head even in life appeared to have dried away to a skull, and only long dewlaps hanging down showed signs of animation.
“No! No! It cannot be!”
But she knew it was, though Pontius Pilate had shriveled into a pitiful husk of the vain and pompous Procurator he had been.
In the same moment she heard voices, and looking around, she saw people on the slopes of the mountain, coming up, pushing outward, swelling, and growing until all the mountain was filled with people, and they were of all races and times and colors and tongues. But strangely enough, she could understand their words, Roman and Greek and Egyptian and the tongues of the yellow-haired sons of Germania and the dark-haired women of Gaul, and even the babblings of the barbarians in faraway Britannia, and the curious utterances of the many unborn strange peoples of places beyond the as yet uncharted seas. And each in his own way was saying what all the others were saying.
The man on the precipice appeared not to see or hear the people; he seemed preoccupied, fearful, oblivious of everything about him, and struggling with the burden of some monstrous inner distress. He raised his hands and held them before his face, and then it was that she saw they were red to the wrists with the color of blood freshly spilled; he rubbed them together, as though struggling fiercely to scrub the blood away; he lowered them as if to dip them in a basin, then lifted them again to study them, his bloodless face, in contrast to the hands, a shade of ashen horror.
But the frenzied washing had done no good; the hands shone fiery red. Despairing, Pilate dropped them to his sides and stepped to the very edge of the yawning gulf. “I didn’t know!” he cried. “By all the gods, I didn’t know.” He raised his cavernous face and with eyes wide looked into the void. “O God of the Jews”—his shrunken head swayed on the wrinkled neck—“had I but known. Had I but known....” His words whispered into silence, and he closed his eyes.
“Don’t! No! No!” she screamed. “No, don’t!”
She forced herself to look down.
Pilate’s lean frame was dropping, slowly turning and twisting, toward the angry waters; his bony arms and legs were thrust out stiffly from the shroud of his too large toga, which streamed above the plummeting body, flapping furiously in the wind. Rigid with horror, staring into the abyss, she saw the body strike, heard the sickening blob, and watched it gradually disappear.
But the waters would not grant oblivion. Angrily they flung the broken, thin body back to the surface, and to Claudia, watching in frozen fascination, it seemed to be twisting and eddying in continuous agitation above the seething waters. Looking more closely, her eyes rooted to the scene in morbid horror, she saw white arms thrust upward and hands still reddened, cleansed not one tint by their plunge into the watery depths. Now suddenly the hands seemed detached from the stiffening arms, and alive; like wounded rodents seeking haven in a dark fissure among the rocks, they were feeling their way along the ascending stony slope toward her, and in that dreadful instant there lifted to her also the babble of countless voices in many tongues blending once again into a swelling chorus. The light breaking slowly above the mountain showed the plain below and the steep rises teeming with a multitude drawn from all races and nations.
On the faces of some she read swift anger and deep hate, and their fists were lifted skyward and their voices raised in execrations; others revealed only indifference, and their words were but the prattled monotony of chanted creed; but here and there on the level and along the slopes she saw those whose words fitted without disharmony into the growing chorus but whose faces as they uttered them revealed sorrow, deep pity, and a forgiving spirit.
She closed her eyes against the vision of the myriad chanting faces, but she heard their voices and she understood their many tongues ... “Crucified by Pontius Pilate ... Crucified ... suffered under Pontius Pilate ... suffered ... suffered ... Pontius Pilate....”
“No! No!” She opened her eyes to see the mountain cleared of the people, the vision gone, the voices silenced. But there on the ledge at her feet, rubbing one against the other, endlessly, eternally, fruitlessly seeking to be cleansed, were the two gory, dismembered hands.
“No! Back! Back! Go back!” She whirled about to rid herself of the frightening apparition, and burying her face, eyes shut, against her crossed arms, she leaned down upon the cool hardness of the boulder beside her. “No! No!” she sobbed. “Get back! Go! Please go!” Would those hands, the horrible thought came suddenly to her, come closer? Would they attempt to exact vengeance upon her? Might they even now be creeping upon her to fasten cold, bloody fingers about her neck, to choke the life...?
“Get back! No! No!” she screamed, as she freed an arm to beat frantic fist against the stone. “Don’t touch me! Tullia! Longinus! Oh, Longinus....”
“Claudia! By great Jove!” The centurion, sitting up fully awake, shook her hard. “Claudia! Wake up, woman! Wake up! Come out of it! What on earth....”
She opened her eyes. “Longinus! Oh, by all the gods, it was terrible, terrible!” Nor was the terror completely dispelled; in her eyes, wide, staring, her fear still spoke. Her shoulders shook in an involuntary shudder.
He pulled her up into a sitting position and grasped her hand. “But it was only a nightmare, Claudia. You’re all right. You were just dreaming.” She blinked and ventured a thin smile. “You were screaming like a wild woman and beating the bed with your fist.” His excited concern gave way to a grin. “It must have been a bloodcurdling dream.”
“Oh, Longinus”—she clenched her eyelids tightly against the light streaming in through the window—“it was the most horrible dream I ever had, the most frightful thing anyone could imagine. I dreamed ... oh, it’s too horribly near; I can’t tell you now.” Still shaking, she turned to snuggle within the haven of his arms. “Bona Dea....”
A sudden light knocking on the door interrupted her. Tullia entered to ask softly if anything was wrong.
“It was only a nightmare, little one,” Claudia answered, leaning back on her pillow. “It was so vivid, so frightening. But I’m all right now. I’ll call you when I need you.”
“Was it about what I told you, Mistress, the Galilean?” Her question and tone of voice betrayed Tullia’s deep concern.
“Yes ... about him and Pilate; horrible, horrible. I....”
“Oh, Mistress, could it have been a message to you, a vision sent...?”
“From your Jewish Yahweh, perhaps?” Claudia affected an uneasy laugh. “No, it was a dream, little one, that’s all. Get back to your bed; you must still be weary.”
Claudia saw Longinus’ look of puzzlement. “Tullia returned late in the night from Bethany and reported that the High Priest had schemed the arrest of the rabbi of Galilee. She was afraid he might prevail on Pilate this morning to agree to the crucifixion of the Galilean.”
“Crucifixion? By all the gods, on what charge?”
“That he seeks to overthrow Rome.”
“The Galilean? But he’s no revolutionary. Surely Pilate knows that.”
“Yes, surely he must.” She frowned. “But you know how Pilate fears the High Priest and his Temple crowd, how he’s always afraid they’ll send reports to Sejanus.”
“And you dreamed that he had sent the Galilean to the cross?”
“Yes. It was all confused, all horrible.” She sat up precipitately and looked toward the window. “Bona Dea, it must be late. And Pilate begins his trials soon after daybreak. Mother Ceres, I do wonder....” She sprang from the bed and drew on her robe. “Tullia!” she called. “Fetch me a wax tablet and stylus! Hurry, little one! I must send Pilate a message.”
46
The sun was lifting above the Mount of Olives when Pilate’s orderly awakened him from heavy sleep. “Sir, the High Priest Caiaphas and others of the Temple leadership,” he said apologetically, “insisted that I inform you that they have arrived with the prisoner about whom he spoke with you last night. They said that they were most anxious for you to proceed at once to dispose of the case.”
The Procurator sat up in bed and blinked his heavy-lidded eyes. “Insolent Jew!” he muttered. “He would not only tell the Procurator what to do, but when to do it! By the great Jove, I may surprise him!” He threw back the covering and rose ponderously to his feet. “Go tell the High Priest to have his witnesses ready. I shall be there shortly.”
The great Fortress of Antonia, Rome’s bastion in the Jerusalem region, consisted actually of four straight-walled, high buildings joined together by corner towers to compose an impregnable stone structure some fifty by one hundred paces on the outside walls. The space within the inside four walls had been paved with great stone slabs to form a tremendous courtyard reached by huge gateways, one on each of the edifice’s four sides. Massive gates guarded the fortress against sudden attack; when opened, they admitted a flow of nondescript traffic into the courtyard.
Along the southern side of the fortress there was another paved court from which a wide flight of stone steps led up to a terrace; the terrace, in turn, led into the interior courtyard. In a high-ceilinged chamber on the ground floor of this structure, Pontius Pilate had set up his Praetorium. A Roman praetorium, or trial place of a praetor, consisted of a semicircular dais on which the curule, or magistrate’s chair, had been placed.
In the rear of this chamber was a small doorway, and it was through this doorway that Pilate, shortly after the orderly had reported to High Priest Caiaphas, came into the Praetorium.
The Procurator strode straight to the dais, mounted its several steps, and sat down on the curule. Frowning, he glanced toward the tall, manacled prisoner. Flanking the man on both sides were several guards, all Roman soldiers, who had been assigned to the Temple detail. Though a throng had already assembled in the court beyond the gateway, the Procurator could see from where he sat on the tribunal that not a Jew had followed the prisoner inside the vaulted chamber. “What charge is brought against this man?” Pilate snapped. “And where are his accusers?”
The captain of the guard saluted. “High Priest Caiaphas commanded me, Excellency, to bring the prisoner before you with instructions that he has been tried before the Jewish Sanhedrin and found guilty of crimes punishable by death. He said you, O Excellency, were to confirm the verdict of the Jewish court and order its sentence put into execution.”
Anger suffused the Procurator’s round, usually bland face. “And why hasn’t the High Priest come himself to bear witness to the Sanhedrin’s action? Why has this man no accusers confronting him?”
The captain was plainly ill at ease. He shifted his weight from one foot to the other, started to speak, then swallowed. “The Jews, O Excellency, will not enter the Praetorium for fear that to do so will be a profanation, that it will render them unfit to eat of their Passover evening meal,” he finally revealed. “They will come no nearer than the steps”—he pointed—“out there.”
Pilate, as the captain had expected, was furious. “Profanation! Profanation! All I hear in this rebellious, proud province is profanation! Hah! They would profane themselves by entering a Roman hall of justice!” His already flushed cheeks were purpling. He stood up quickly, strode down the steps of the tribunal, and stalked forward to the stairway; from there he could survey the mass of excited, chattering Jews, who quieted perceptibly on seeing him emerge from the Praetorium.
“The prisoner,” he said, motioning with his head toward the chamber from which he had just come, “what charge do you bring against him? And where are his accusers?”
The multitude was silent. Eyes turned toward a group near the foot of the steps; in the center of the knot stood the High Priest. He advanced a pace and bowed to the Procurator. “O Excellency, this man has been tried by our Sanhedrin and found guilty of grievous crimes. If he had not been found to be a criminal of desperate wickedness, then we would not have brought him before the Procurator to be sentenced.”
The bold insolence of the High Priest’s reply did not escape Pilate. “If you have tried him then and found him guilty, why don’t you also take him and execute upon him your sentence?”
Caiaphas stood silent for a moment. “But the Procurator must know, O Excellency,” he replied at length, a humorless smile lifting the corners of his mouth, “that under the dominion of Rome the Sanhedrin has not the authority, however heinous the criminal’s deeds may have been, to execute upon him the sentence of death. Therefore, O sir, we petition the Procurator to order executed upon this vicious criminal the sentence of death which the Sanhedrin has found him so fully to deserve.”
But Pilate was obdurate. “You would ask a Roman magistrate to find a man guilty and send him to the cross, even though no accusation had been made against him and no witnesses had confronted him,” he declared. “Don’t you know that were I to do so I would violate every principle of Roman justice?” He jabbed a pudgy forefinger toward Caiaphas. “Would you, O High Priest, ask the Procurator thus to violate his oath as Rome’s regent in Judaea?”
The Procurator, however, had failed to gauge the High Priest’s cunning. “Indeed, O Excellency, of course I would not seek to lead the Procurator into violating his oath to uphold Roman justice.” He smiled and bowed, mockingly. “Nor would I stand silent and unprotesting while the Procurator released a clever though iniquitous criminal who seeks not only the demoralization of Israel’s religion and the perversion of her people but also the overthrow of Rome in this province and the establishment of himself as King of Israel.”
The High Priest’s answer was not only a skilful parry of the Procurator’s question but it was, moreover, a well-aimed thrust of his own most effective weapon. Caiaphas knew that Pilate lived always in mortal fear of being reported to Rome; he knew that the Procurator would not dare to ignore any situation in Judaea, or even the hint of it, that might be fostering incipient revolt against Roman rule.
But Pilate maintained his composure; he would not yield obsequiously to this hateful symbol of Jewry’s stubborn pride of race and nationality and her cold scorn of everything Roman. He studied the group for whom the High Priest professed to be speaking; it was a nondescript assemblage, Temple hirelings, a knot of Pharisees, and surrounding the High Priest himself, his own Sadducean coterie; the others were, for the most part, sunburnt fellows who might well be, the thought came to him suddenly, Galilean and Judaean revolutionaries come in for the Passover feast from their mountain and Wilderness strongholds. Scowling, Pilate confronted the cynically smiling Caiaphas. “You say this man is guilty of heinous crimes, you declare he would set himself up as King of Judaea, but, O High Priest, you have made before me no accusation, you have brought no witnesses to testify against him.” He turned to point with a sweep of his arm toward the Galilean, standing calmly beside his guards. “There stands the prisoner before the tribunal. I ask you again, O High Priest, what charges do you bring against him? Where are his accusers?”
Caiaphas realized that the Procurator was refusing to admit what he had assumed, at last night’s meeting, had been a tacit agreement, that a retrial of the prisoner would be unnecessary; perhaps he was fearful that Rome would disapprove such a disposition of the case. At any rate, reasoned the High Priest, further verbal sparring would mean delay in sending the upstart Galilean to the cross, and he wished this Jesus dead and taken down before the beginning at sunset of the sacred Sabbath. Too, the longer they delayed, the more likely it was that other hot-blooded Galileans would get noise of the trial and come storming to their leader’s support; they might even succeed in effecting the fellow’s release. He would not, therefore, challenge Pilate further.
“O Excellency”—Caiaphas raised his hand and the rays of the morning sun flashed in the gems of his rings—“we charge that this fellow not only sought to lead astray the people from the true worship of our God of Israel, but that he did also forbid them to pay tribute to Caesar, and that he did declare that he himself was rightful King of Israel and would so establish himself!”
Pilate would give no consideration to the first charge, the High Priest was sure, but, he reasoned, the Procurator could not ignore the other two. And the soundness of his reasoning was immediately demonstrated. Pilate turned his back upon Caiaphas and the crowd and returned to the Praetorium, where he mounted the tribunal and sat down. “Are you”—he pointed toward the prisoner, who still, though weary, stood erect and calm—“the King of the Jews?”
“Do you ask this of your own desire to know”—the trace of a smile lightened the solemn countenance—“or has someone else said it of me?”
The Procurator shrugged his heavy shoulders. “Am I a Jew?” he asked sarcastically. “Your own nation, your High Priest, and the others of the Temple leadership have delivered you unto me. What have you done?”
“I am a King,” Jesus replied calmly. “But my Kingdom is not a worldly kingdom; if it were, then my servants would fight against my being delivered to these leaders of the Jews. The Kingdom I rule is not of this world.”
Pilate’s round face betrayed bafflement. “Then you profess to be a king, but in another realm, the world of magic, spirits...?”
“I was born into this world to bear testimony to the truth,” Jesus answered. “Everyone who is of the truth will understand and acknowledge my Kingship.”
Then this man was, as Pilate had suspected all along, in no sense a revolutionary planning Rome’s overthrow; he was but another of these eastern mystics, dreaming of the imponderable and intangible. Hadn’t Herod Antipas beheaded another such fellow because of his slurs against Herodias, slurs undoubtedly deserved at that? The man before him, Pilate realized, was simply a religious leader, someone whom, perhaps, Caiaphas feared as a possible rival, who Caiaphas felt might even supplant him in the office of High Priest. Of course, reasoned the Procurator, the fellow might well be a little addled through too long immersion in this utterly foolish and depraved one-god religion of Israel. “Those who know the truth,” the fellow had just proclaimed, “will recognize me, acknowledge me as their king.” Hah!
“Truth”—Pilate shot forth his finger toward the prisoner—“what is truth?” He hunched his shoulders and waved his hands, palms up, in a gesture he had borrowed from the Jews. And without looking toward the man of whom he had asked the question, he stepped down from the tribunal and strode out to the High Priest and his restive throng.
“I have examined the prisoner as to the charges you have brought against him,” he announced to Caiaphas. “I find nothing criminal in him. He’s a religious man, a dreamer, but he is no revolutionary.” He was glad to be rid of the man, though, he confessed to himself; he was happy to wash his hands of this Jesus, Caiaphas, and the rest of them; if he could only be freed of all Palestine, if he could never lay eyes again upon another Jew. “I find no fault in the man; I shall release him.”
“No! No! O Excellency, no!” Hands were waving wildly in the air. “No! O Pilate!” The Procurator, scanning the throng, saw the priests fomenting the agitation into a swell of shouted disapproval of his verdict. Once more the High Priest stepped forward a pace or two from the front ranks. “The man is amazingly clever, O Excellency,” he declared, smiling agreeably, “as he has just demonstrated in thus deceiving the Procurator. But he is a criminal, and one of the most vicious and depraved order, O sir. And he is a revolutionary. Beginning in his native Galilee, he has deceived and perverted the people, and by his dangerous and evil perverting, his criminal teachings in opposition to our religion and Rome’s government, he has brought into Peraea and Judaea....”
“Beginning, you say, in Galilee? Then this man is a Galilean?”
“Indeed, O Excellency, and one of the worst of the Galilean revolutionaries, one of the most dastardly clever,” He smiled sardonically. “He smites with words rather than a dagger.”
... A Galilean, by great Jove! Then send him to Herod Antipas. Let the Tetrarch dispose of this case. He assumed jurisdiction over that fanatical Wilderness prophet and ordered him beheaded. Well, this man, too, is a Galilean. Let Herod stand between this persistent, obstinate High Priest and old Sejanus. Let the Tetrarch, for once, bear the brunt of any reports sent back to Rome; this time Sejanus may not overlook what he considers a mistake of administration in this gods-abandoned province. If there’s to be a mistake, let the Tetrarch make it....
“Then this man,” he said to the High Priest, “is a subject of the Tetrarch Herod Antipas. He should be remanded to the Tetrarch for trial.”
Pilate returned quickly to the Praetorium. “Captain of the Guards,” he commanded, “conduct this prisoner to the Tetrarch Herod Antipas. Bear to the Tetrarch the Procurator’s compliments and say to him that the Procurator is sending him the King of the Jews”—a sneering smile for an instant pushed away the scowl on his round face—“a Galilean. It may be that the Tetrarch will wish to examine the prisoner concerning the charges that have been brought against him by the High Priest Caiaphas. At any rate, the prisoner, being from Galilee, is a subject of the Tetrarch and under his jurisdiction.” He nodded curtly. “Go.”
Quickly the guards formed about the tall prisoner and led him from the Praetorium, down the steps into the Court of the Gentiles. Leaving the Temple area through the Gate Shalleketh, they crossed the bridge above the Valley of the Tyropoeon and arrived shortly in front of the sprawling Xystus. A few moments later they paused before the gate giving admittance to the gloomy and forbidding ancient stone residence of the Hasmonean kings.