Part 7

Then Hanan the High Priest leaned over to Caiaphas his son‐in‐law and spake some words to him. Then Caiaphas, rising, spake thus to Jesus: “Art thou the Christ, the Son of the Holy One, blessed be He?” Then Jesus raised his head, and gazing fixedly at the High Priest, said in a loud voice, “Thou hast said. And hereafter ye shall see the Son of Man sitting on the right hand of power, and coming on the clouds of heaven.” Then Hanan the High Priest rose and rent his clothes, as is our wont in time of mourning or when blasphemy is heard, and he called out in his keen, shrill voice, “What need we any further witnesses? Ye have heard the blasphemy; what think ye?” And he waved his hand to the captain of the guard, who removed the prisoner.

When the door was closed behind him, Hanan said, “What need we of further words? let us proceed to the judgment.” And glancing over to Chananyah ben Nedebai, he said, “Chananyah, thou art the youngest; it is thine to pronounce judgment first. Is not this man guilty of death for his manifest blasphemy here before us?” And Chananyah said, “Yea.” And so said all till Hanan had called upon thirteen to give judgment. Then said Hanan, “This man is for certain condemned to death, or at least to be handed over to the Roman Procurator: for already a majority of two have declared his death, even if all the rest were for an acquittal, as I cannot think possible. The Court will rise and reassemble at the time of the saying of the morning prayer, in order to confirm this judgment. Ye will not have long to wait, for even now I heard the crowing of the cock, and the dawn cannot be far off.”

Then the Court broke up, and many of the younger members met together and discussed the case. And I was somewhat surprised to find that very few words of compassion were raised for Jesus. The stubborn conduct of the prisoner had set them against him in the first place, and his wild outburst had confirmed their ill thoughts of him. But most of all they were influenced by the thought that this was but a preliminary trial, and could only result in handing him over to the Roman Procurator, with whom the last word would be. None of them had seen aught of Jesus but during the last few days in the Temple, when he had interfered with their order and prerogatives. I cannot say I was convinced, either by Hanan’s harangue at first, or by these men’s arguments afterwards. But I was somewhat perplexed, feeling myself in some wise an intruder in their midst, not being of the priestly order. And as is my custom in such cases, I went out into the open air down the steps into the atrium.

There I found a great fire had been lit in the court, for the night was chilly. Near the fire Jesus was seated, with the High Priest’s guard around him. As I came near, behold, one of the guard threw part of his mantle across the face of Jesus so as to blindfold him, and then struck him, saying, “Thou art a Prophet; prophesy who hath struck thee.” And all the soldiers laughed and jeered. Then sought I the captain of the guard and told him this, and he said, “They mean naught of ill—they be rude fellows; howbeit, I will stop them.” And he went up to them and reproved them. And I paced up and down the courtyard, with the silent stars above and the glowing fire beneath, till an apparitor of the High Priest summoned me, saying, “It beginneth to dawn at the back of the house; the Council will resume its sitting.”

When I entered the council‐chamber, I found all seated as before, but in the midst was a smaller table, at which was seated a scribe, with a roll in front of him. Then Hanan the High Priest came in, and said, “Ye have all had the time of deliberation prescribed by our sages in capital cases, or at least as much time as the urgency of the matter permits. We must proceed to the formal ratification of this man’s sentence, for I cannot doubt that ye will see fit to confirm the righteous judgment which your zeal for the Lord caused you to pass just now upon this man. And again I would bid you remember you are voting, not so much for this man’s death, as whether he is to be delivered to the Romans. Scribe, read the roll.” And with that the scribe began to read our names, and we all answered to them. Then said Hanan, “We will now proceed to the voting,” and called upon Chananyah ben Nedebai to record his vote. And he voted as before, for death. Then each in his turn, and all voted as before. And when my name was called upon I arose and hesitated, and Hanan looked over to me and said, “Thou speakest here by our courtesy, Meshullam ben Zadok; if thou disagree with the unanimous opinion of thy colleagues, thou hadst best instruct us in thy reasons. What sayest thou? Is not he guilty of death who is guilty of blasphemy against the Most High?” “Yea,” said I. “And was not this man Jesus manifestly guilty of blasphemy before us?” “Yea,” said I. Then said Hanan swiftly to the scribe, “He voteth for death,” and waved me down to my seat. And thereafter all the remaining members of the Council voted for death, finishing with Hanan as the oldest, who merely gave a grim nod to the scribe.

By this time it was quite light, and all the Council and many of Hanan’s household joined together to say the morning prayers. After prayers most of the Council, with Hanan and Caiaphas at our head, followed the soldiers who guarded Jesus down from the Mount of Olives. As we came near the Brook Kidron, behold, a man with haggard face darted out from the shrubs by the wayside, and rushing up to Hanan the High Priest, dashed down at his feet a bag which chinked, and then disappeared into the wayside again. But Hanan only motioned with his finger to the bag at his feet, and the captain of his guard lifted it up and poured out its contents into his hand, and, behold, it was a number of new shekels from the Temple treasury. Then Hanan smiled grimly, and bade the captain put them aside. Thereupon we resumed our march, and soon came to the Aldgate. There we inquired where the Procurator was, and learnt that he had taken up his dwelling at the Palace of Herod, so that he might be in Jerusalem during the Passover, as was his wont, for fear of a rising at that time. Then we marched across and halted in front of the palace. And on our way the rumor spread throughout the city that Jesus the Nazarene was being carried before the Procurator, and soon our procession was joined by all who were free from household duties. I have explained to thee, have I not, how that for those of the older opinion this sixth day of the week was the day on which the Paschal lamb was to be sacrificed, and for all good Jews the morning would be devoted to the final search after the leaven. That morning, therefore, all the householders of Jerusalem and all the heads of families were occupied in the search after leaven, or in preparation for the Paschal sacrifice, and it was only the younger men, and those who cared not for acts of piety, who followed our procession on the way to Herod’s Palace.

Now, all those of the Council were of the older opinion as to the Paschal sacrifice, and were about to perform it on the evening of that day. Wherefore it behoved them not to enter the dwellings of the heathen during that day, since it is their custom to bury the bodies of men in their gardens or in their houses, which render them a defilement to us Jews. Therefore on the day of a sacrifice no Jew may enter a heathen’s house, above all the High Priest, upon whose sanctity the holiness of the nation depends. When, therefore, we came within twenty paces of the Procurator’s dwelling, Hanan caused our procession to halt, and a summons to be sounded upon the trumpet. Thereat a lictor appeared, who asked our business, and to him Hanan gave a message to the Procurator. And here for the first time since he had been arrested I could see the countenance of Jesus near me, and it surprised me much to observe that all traces of anxiety and weariness had disappeared from it. He seemed relieved and resigned, and paid no heed to what was passing around him, seeming only to commune with himself, or perhaps, I should say, with some inward friend and comforter.

Then Pontius Pilate came forward and spake to Joseph Caiaphas the High Priest, and asked him what he would with him. And Caiaphas answered and said, pointing to Jesus, “This man have we captured and brought unto thee, finding that he was perverting the people, and declaring that he was the Anointed One of Israel, and therefore the rightful King of the Jews. Him therefore have we brought to thee, seeing it is a matter which toucheth our master the Emperor.” Thereupon Pontius Pilate turned round, and said something in the barbarian tongue, and the guard of Roman soldiers came forward and took Jesus from the High Priest’s guard, and took him with them up the steps of the palace. Then Pilate courteously invited the High Priests to enter the judgment‐hall with him; but they, in answer, pointed out that on that holy day they dared not enter to any house but their own and the house of God. Then Pilate turned his back with scanter courtesy, and reëntered the palace, and we and the common people remained outside waiting.

XVI. CONDEMNATION AND EXECUTION.

And after a while of waiting, Pontius Pilate reappeared, and coming down to Caiaphas said, “He hath confessed; he shall join the other criminals that are to be executed this day.” Then one among those who were waiting in the crowd came forward unto Pilate, and said unto him, “Master, it is a grace of our lord the Emperor that at our Passover there be released unto us one of the prisoners that are condemned to death.” And Pilate answered and said, “That is so: whom will ye that I release?” And many of those in the crowd called out, “Jesus.” And Pilate stepped back, and summoned to him a lictor. And shortly after soldiers came forward in the portico, bearing with them Jesus the Nazarene. Upon him was a purple robe of royalty, and upon his brow had been placed the faded rose‐wreath of some reveller which had been put on in haste, and some of the thorns had torn the flesh, and blood was trickling down. When the people saw him, many cried out, “Not this Jesus, but Jesus Bar Abbas.” And one man among the crowd called out, “Better Jesus Bar Abba(10) than Jesus Bar Amma;”(11) and laughter and jeers followed. Then Pilate seemed puzzled, and called to him one of his lictors, who spake earnestly to him for a time, and then received an order from him. And going up the steps, he entered the palace. And shortly afterwards there came forward the man Jesus Bar Abbas of Jerusalem, of whom I have spoken to thee before. Now, he had been very popular among the folk, and had lost his liberty in a rising against the Romans, in which a Roman sentry had been slain. And there stood the two Jesuses—the one that had risen against the Romans, and the one that had told the people they should pay tribute to their Roman lords. It was manifest that the new‐comer, who had done naught against the Romans, was more in favor with Pilate the Procurator, while the folk who had welcomed him on the first day of the week, on this the sixth day reviled and despised him because he had refused to lead a rising against the Romans as the other one had done. Then Pilate called out to them and said, “Whom will ye that I release unto you: Jesus who is called Bar Abbas, or Jesus who is called Christ?” And almost all the multitude cried, “Jesus Bar Abbas! Jesus Bar Abbas!” Then Pilate gave command, and the soldiers took tack Jesus the Nazarene into the palace again, while others removed the fetters from Jesus Bar Abbas, and he came down the steps and disappeared among the crowd.

After a while, there came forward from the side gate a company of Roman soldiers, who took their stand in front of the steps of the palace, moving the crowd away therefrom. And shortly after, other soldiers brought down from above three men, each carrying two pieces of timber, one fixed across the top of the other, like unto the letter _tau_. One of these was Jesus the Nazarene, clad once more in his own garments, and without the rose‐ wreath; yet couldst thou see the mark of the thorns upon his brow. The others were, as I learnt, malefactors that had been condemned for robbery.

Just at this moment one touched me on the shoulder, and, turning, I found it was one of the servants of my household, who spake unto me and said, “Meshullam ben Zadok, thy father would speak with thee.” And as the house was not far off, I went with him and spake to my father, who would have me accompany him on the search for leaven on that morn. For at that time I was betrothed, and next year I should have a house of my own, and would have to conduct the search for leaven as a master of a household. So I went round the house with my father—peace be upon him!—and searched for the leaven.

By the time the search for the leaven had been concluded, the hour had come for the mid‐day meal, at which all the members of my family assembled. But I hurried forth, as soon as the grace after meals had been said, to ascertain what had been the fate of the Nazarene. I could not go to the place of execution, for it is not seemly for a member of the Sanhedrim to attend an execution. I soon learnt that the Roman soldiers had conducted Jesus and the two others to the Hill Golgotha, somewhat apart from the place of stoning, where our Jewish executions were held.

As I have explained to thee, Aglaophonos, our Sages have mercifully interpreted the words of the Law relating to the four modes of capital punishment among us—stoning, burning, beheading, and strangulation. For stoning they have substituted throwing down from a height after the criminal has been made to feel naught by drinking a mixture of frankincense, myrrh, and vinegar, which the ladies of Jerusalem supply as one of their pious duties. The criminal condemned to be burnt is in reality strangled, and then a lighted wick placed for a moment in his open mouth. In every way the aim of the Sages is to shorten the sufferings of the condemned man. But the Romans, at least in their execution of all but Roman citizens, seem rather to aim at the opposite of this; for they have selected, as their method of execution for slaves and criminals that are not citizens, suspension on a cross, by which all the organs of the body are strained and tortured till some vital organ gives way. It was this cruel form of punishment that the Romans were dealing out to Jesus the Nazarene. It happeneth oft that men live for two or three days on the cross, till they die even of hunger. I learnt to my dismay that Jesus had refused, with words of menace, to take the draught of myrrh and wine which the ladies of Jerusalem, as I have said, prepare for all men condemned to capital punishment, so that they may not feel the pain and torture.

I could not go to the place of execution, as a member of the Sanhedrim. I hurried, therefore, to the northern slopes of the Temple mount, whence one can see Golgotha. At first I could discern naught, for sombre clouds covered all the heights of Scopus. But suddenly a flash came forth from them, followed by a dull roll of thunder, and I could see for a moment three crosses raised side by side on the top of Golgotha. Which of these held Jesus I knew not. I only knew that there was dying one who had seemed born to do honor to his nation, to help to deliver Israel from the men who were now torturing him to his death. Since the night before, events had so hurried past me that I had had no time to think of their import till now, when I sat me down in the purple shadow of Antonia, and gazed upon the hill of execution, where from time to time flashes showed me the three crosses on the hill.

This, then, was the end of the hopes connected with Jesus of Nazara, and of the empire which he had wielded over men’s minds! But five days agone welcomed as a king, to‐day executed with the ignominy reserved for the basest slave. Each day of his sojourn in Jerusalem he had made another and yet another class of the nation his enemies. First he threatens the power of the priests; next he insults their opposites, the Pharisees; and then he puts to naught the hope of the common folk that he would help them rise against the Romans. Between Sabbath and Sabbath he had lost every friend; not even his immediate followers stood by his side in the hour of trial.

And yet no man had appeared in Israel for many generations endowed in so high a degree with all the qualities which mark us Israelites out from the nations around. He was tender to the poor; and which of the nations has given thought for its poor, their feelings as well as their welfare, like unto Israel? He bare the yoke of the Law willingly, yet as a son, not as a slave, of the Most High. God was to him, as to all of us, as an ever‐ present Father, to love, to chasten, and to reward; not as a harsh taskmaster or as a boon‐companion, as with the commoner minds of thy people, Aglaophonos; nor as a vain figment of the reason, as with thy higher minds.

Even in what thou regardest as defects in our nation, this Jesus seemed also to share. Thou makest us the reproach that we give no thought to the beauties and grandeur of nature, and in nothing that I had seen and heard of him did the Nazarene differ from the rest of us in this. Thou complainest that we look upon life with all too much seriousness. “Ye cannot see the smile upon the face of things,” thou saidst once to me. In this surely Jesus was a Jew of the Jews. We never saw him smile, still less heard him laugh. Thou wouldst hold up to me as a model Socrates thy teacher, who taught the Hellenes truth with a smile. That man there, dying upon the cross, had tried to teach Israel the truth with tears and threats.

Herein he followed the exemplar of our prophets. Only in Israel have the men who have led us farthest reviled us most. As our God, who has been to us a Father, has chastened us while he loved us, so our prophets have rebuked us their brethren. Many generations of men have passed since the last of the prophets spake his words of loving reproof. Now has appeared this Jesus, who again takes up their work.

But in one thing, and that a great thing, he differs from our prophets. All these spake never but as messengers of the Most High. This man alone of the prophets speaketh in his own name: therefore he hath been a stumbling‐block and an offence unto us. He spake as one having authority, and it seemed to us as arrogance. And when we would speak with him in the gates, and know his own thought, he evaded our questionings and eluded our testings. He seemed aloof from us and our desires. All Israel was pining to be freed from the Roman yoke, and he would have us pay tribute to Rome for aye. Did he feel himself in some way as not of our nation? I know not; but in all ways we failed to know him.

And as I was communing thus, the sun shone forth from a rift in the clouds and illumined for a space the crown of Calvary, and I stretched forth my hands to the figures on the cross, and cried aloud in my perplexity, “Jesus, what art thou?” And then I bethought me, and my hands fell to my side, and I said, “What wert thou, Jesus?” Naught answered me but the distant rumbling from the gloomy clouds.

But the sun was setting over Israel, and I turned to my father’s house, there once more to celebrate the Feast of the Deliverance from Egypt.

EPILOGUE.

Thus far had I written to thee, Aglaophonos, as to what I knew of that Jesus the Nazarene about whom thou hast made so earnest inquiry. I had minded to hand it to Alphæus ben Simon, my cousin, who goeth this week in the galley to Cyprus, and thence would have passed it on to thee by the hands of one of our brethren who visit Greece from year to year. But there has happened to me an event which has given me much to think of with regard to this very matter of Jesus. It chanced that the day before yesterday I went from the Jewish quarter in this city of Alexandria for my usual walk along the Lochias, which adjoins it. There it is my custom to catch the sea air and to watch the vessels put into the Inner Port. Now, it chanced that as I came upon the Lochias, the vessel of Joppa had just hoved‐to in the Inner Port, and the passengers were being landed up the Broad Steps. Now these, by their _talith_ and their faces, I knew to be Jews, and I went up to them, and greeted them with the greeting of peace. But among them one came to me with the look of recognition in his eyes, and said, “Knowest thou me not, Meshullam ben Zadok?” And, behold, it was Rufus ben Simon, whom I had known before I left the Holy City. So I welcomed him, and brought him home to this house of mine. And here he remaineth till the morrow, when he starteth forth to go to Cyrene.

Now, in my inquiries about old friends left behind, and new things that had happened since I went away, I failed not to ask about the followers of the Nazarene. To my wonder, I found that this Rufus had become one of them, even though he was but a child when Jesus died. Yet is he a good Jew in all else. He eateth only our meat, and keepeth our Sabbaths and festivals. But he avers that the Anointed One, whom we expect, has already appeared, and that he was Jesus the Nazarene. And upon my inquiry how he could know aught of Jesus but from the common talk, he put in my hand some Memorabilia of him, written down in Hebrew by one of his chief followers, Matathias.(12) This have I read again and again, and pondered much thereon. Nor have I been able to sleep these two nights for the new thoughts about Jesus that have come to me from reading these memoirs of him.

For, behold, he appeareth in these records of him by his own followers in far other wise than he showed himself to us in public at Jerusalem. In all his public acts among us he was full of scornful rebukes; among his own followers he was tender and loving. Scarcely ever could we get him to speak out to us plainly his views about matters of public concern. He would always give us an answer full of evasion and enigma, but to his followers he would explain all his meaning over and over again, illustrated with parable. There at Jerusalem he almost always turned to the people his harsher side. I saw him on every occasion on which he appeared in public in Jerusalem, and, save only in his sermons, he was always rebuking one or another, just like the prophets of old. And the manner of his rebuking towards us was as with scorpions, whereas among his own he would mingle tenderness even with his reproaches. Nor, saving his sermons, which few heard but those who already followed him, had he aught novel to tell us about the things of life. He seemed to us as if he would destroy the temple of our faith, nor in his public actions did he give any promise of building it up anew. Yet to those with him he would continually be telling what to do and how to do it, till, behold, a new manner of life, fair and seemly, stood before them, fulfilled of Jewish righteousness, with a tender mercy which was the man’s very own.