The Galileans: A Novel of Mary Magdalene (35 page)

“How is she now?”

“As well as you or I. The Master instructed us to say nothing about it, but so many people had seen her when she was dead that it could not be kept secret.”

“Jesus Himself said she was sleeping, not dead, according to your story,” Joseph reminded him.

“That is true,” Jairus admitted. “But when I looked at her myself, I was sure that she was no longer among the living.”

“Then you believe she was really brought to life again?”

Jairus nodded solemnly. “Some scribes and Pharisees came here the next day, trying to make me say she was not dead, but I told them just what I told you. They would like to trap Jesus if they could, but they got no help from me.”

“Why would they want to trap Him?” Joseph asked curiously.

“The Nazarene preaches forgiveness of sins, as did some of the prophets,” Jairus explained. “But those who make a great to-do about the law seek to make Him say things that are contrary to it, such as that those who sin should not be punished. If they could get Jesus to speak against the law, they would take Him before the council and accuse Him of blasphemy.”

“But why would anyone seek to do Him harm when He seems only to do good?”

Jairus shrugged. “To the Pharisees, the law itself is greater than good deeds, for by obeying it they think to assure themselves a life after death. If the people come to believe that the Most High will easily forgive their sins, who would follow after the scribes and Pharisees?”

Joseph knew from his own experience in Jerusalem that Jairus spoke the truth. Narrow minds, obsessed with the stern codes of the law handed down on Mount Sinai and the many conflicting details of what was called the “oral law,” often overlooked completely the teachings of God in regard to loving each other and doing rightly. In their zeal, they would not hesitate to stone to death even the best of men if he did not revere the law as they thought it should be revered.

Joseph returned that evening to Magdala. It was like old times in the house of Demetrius, except that they all missed the old musician with his massive belly and his humorous slant on life. The next night, Simon Peter arrived in town and Mary and Joseph insisted that Simon have supper with them. For the first time in many years, the house of Demetrius rang with joyful music while Hadja played his cithara and Mary sang the songs of the poets who had loved this beautiful region of Galilee. After they had eaten and were sipping their wine, without which no meal was complete in that day, Mary asked quietly, “What is Jesus like, Simon?”

“The Teacher?” A note of reverence came into the fisherman’s hearty voice. “The thing you feel about Him is inside Him and inside you. It speaks without words.”

“When He spoke to me there before the crowd today, all my fears melted away,” Mary agreed. “It was as if He had opened the heavens and showed me the very throne of the Most High.”

Simon looked at Joseph. “What did you think of Jesus?” he asked.

“He saved Mary from the stones,” Joseph said simply. “If for nothing else but that, I would owe Him my life.”

Everyone was tired from the long day, and the dinner party broke up soon. When Simon and Hadja had gone to the Nabatean’s quarters where they would sleep, leaving Joseph and Mary alone in the garden, he drew her into his arms. “How good it is to be back home again,” she said softly.

“But will you be safe? They may make trouble for you again.”

“Jesus will protect me,” she said confidently.

“He has already left Magdala,” Joseph pointed out.

“I am going to Nazareth with Simon tomorrow, Joseph,” she said then. “When Jesus told me to ‘go, and do not sin again,’ I knew that I must follow Him.”

The announcement of her decision did not come as a real surprise. When he had seen the look in Mary’s eyes as he watched her from the crowd that afternoon, Joseph had known that something more than just the saving of her from stoning was taking place. “Does this mean we must set aside our own plans?” he asked.

“Some things must be put above human wishes.” Mary put her hand on his arm in a pleading gesture. “And we will both be happier in the end because we thought of someone else besides ourselves. Jesus is the Messiah, Joseph. Who else but Him could forgive my sins?”

Joseph knew the answer to his question then. He had found her—and lost her again.

Nazareth lay in a natural cup in the hills above the Plain of Esdraelon, just off the Via Maris. They found Jesus teaching in the marketplace, but only a small gathering was listening to Him, nothing like the great crowds that followed when He spoke in the populous cities along the shore of the lake. As they approached the crowd, Joseph noticed a little knot of men and women standing at the edge of the gathering, as if hesitant to come any nearer. They seemed distraught about something, and he realized the cause when a man came up to Jesus and said, “Your mother and your brethren are outside, asking for you.”

Jesus lifted His head. “Who are my mother and my brethren?” His voice came to them quietly across the crowd.

The man who had brought the message looked at Him incredulously, as if any man who did not know His own family, in the very city where He had grown up, must be demented. But Jesus only lifted His hands in a gesture that seemed to draw the crowd to Him. “Here are my mother and my brethren,” He said. “Whoever does the will of God is my brother, and sister, and mother.”

When He made no further move to go to His family and greet them, some of the crowd began to murmur against Him. Their voices were low, but Jesus seemed to possess an uncanny faculty of hearing even a man’s thoughts, for He said in a voice of gentle reproof: “A prophet is not without honor, except in His own country and in His own house.”

The morning was hardly half gone when Jesus finished His teaching and, followed by His disciples, started along the road leading back to the Sea of Galilee. The crowd was disappointed, for they had expected some of the miracle-working about which they had heard from people who had seen it in Capernaum and the other cities around the lake. But He did nothing to impress them.

“We must be going, Mary,” Simon said. “Are you coming with us?”

She turned to Joseph, and her eyes were wet with tears. “I must,” she whispered. “You know that I must, don’t you?”

He could only nod, for the pain of knowing that he was losing her again would not let him speak. Gently he kissed her on the forehead and held her hands tightly for a moment before letting her go. Simon and Hadja had gone on a little way, and as she ran to catch them, Joseph thought of the last time they had been separated, seemingly forever. Then he had been carried away by the Roman soldiers from the stage of the great theater at Alexandria, leaving Mary standing there between Gaius Flaccus and Plotinus. And closing his eyes, he prayed silently to the Most High that, having brought them together again, He would not let this parting be for long.

The synagogue of Nazareth stood just off the marketplace in the cool shade of some tall trees. The appearance of Jesus’ family at the edge of the crowd that morning and the Teacher’s apparent disowning of them had stirred Joseph’s curiosity. Now that he was alone, it occurred to him that the
chazan
of the synagogue might be able to enlighten him about this strange happening and perhaps help him decide just what information he should bring to Pontius Pilate about Jesus.

An old man was puttering about just inside the synagogue. At the sound of Joseph’s step upon the vestibule, he came to the door and peered into the bright sunshine. “I am Jonas, the
chazan
,” he said courteously to Joseph. “Do you come to pray to the Most High?” The
chazan
was sometimes also called the “apostle” of the congregation and was their spiritual leader.

Joseph introduced himself, and the two men chatted courteously for a few moments. Then the young physician asked, “What do they think of the Teacher called Jesus here in Nazareth?”

The old man sighed. “That one has brought much pain to His family. Just today they came to me to ask what they should do about Him.”

“What do you mean?”

“Some of them believe He is demented and wish to shut Him up somewhere, lest He come to harm. You must have heard that John the Baptist was killed by Herod because he stirred up the people. The family of Jesus fears that the same thing may happen to Him.”

“Then He is not called great here in Nazareth?”

The old man shrugged his thin shoulders. “Jesus grew up as a carpenter with but little learning. Where did this man get this wisdom He is reported to have? And how does He do the mighty works He is said to have done?”

“Some believe Him to be the Messiah,” Joseph pointed out.

The
chazan
shook his head. “It is written in the Book of the prophet Daniel,
‘Know therefore and understand that from the going forth of the word to restore and build Jerusalem to the coming of an anointed one, a prince, there shall be seven weeks. Then for sixty-two weeks it shall be built again with squares and moat, but in a troubled time.’”

“I remember the passage,” Joseph admitted.

“This man called Jesus of Nazareth is a carpenter’s son and not a prince!” The old Jew’s voice rose with indignation. “Is not His mother called Mary? Are not His brethren James, and Joseph, and Simon, and Judas? And are not all His sisters with us?”

“I saw Him first only yesterday and know nothing about Him except what I hear,” Joseph explained.

“I speak the truth,” the
chazan
said with conviction. “Where did this man get all this? And how can the Prince of Peace come out of such a city as this?” The old man paused for breath, then went on, “Some see in everyone who lifts his voice in the marketplace a savior for Israel, because they look for God to speak to them through their ears and not through their hearts. But they forget the Books of the Law and the Prophets which foretell the true coming of the Expected One exactly as it shall be. Is there anything else you wish of me, young man?”

Joseph shook his head. “You have told me all I need to know. Shalom!”

“Shalom, my son! May the Most High give you wisdom and deliver Israel from false prophets.”

It was late afternoon when Joseph reached Pontius Pilate’s villa in Tiberias. The procurator received him in the garden overlooking the lake. “I expected you yesterday,” he said abruptly. “Did you see Jairus?”

“Yes,” Joseph told him. “But I wanted to see what I could find out about the Teacher, Jesus of Nazareth, so I went to His home city of Nazareth this morning.”

“What did Jairus say?” Pilate demanded impatiently. “Was the girl really raised from the dead?”

“There is a difference of opinion,” Joseph explained. “Jairus and the people watching the sick girl are sure she was dead. But when Jesus came, He told them, ‘The child is not dead but sleeping.’ And then He raised her up.”

A look of relief came into Pilate’s face, and Joseph understood now why the procurator had been so much disturbed. Had Joseph brought news that Jesus had indeed raised the girl from the dead, Pilate would have been forced, by his love for Pila and his wife, to take the boy to the Healer, placing himself in the position of begging a Jew to help his son. To a proud Roman, this would have been a hard thing indeed.

“Tell me the whole story in detail,” Pilate ordered. “And be sure that you omit nothing.”

Joseph gave a complete account of his talk with Jairus in Capernaum. “The girl was alive, then,” Pilate said firmly. “The words of the Teacher Himself prove it.”

“Unless Jesus was trying to keep the people from realizing what He had done,” Joseph interposed. “Jairus says He cautioned them to say nothing about it.”

“Would any healer want to keep people from knowing He could raise the dead?” Pilate snapped. “It was because the child was not dead. He is a charlatan; what you have told me leaves no doubt of it.”

“Jesus is not just another fanatic, I am sure,” Joseph objected. “He has a strange power over people.”

“Any zealot who climbs upon a high place and shouts to the people of Galilee will get a following,” Pilate said contemptuously. “Look at the way the Jews flocked to the man called John the Baptist. I hear some even called him the Messiah that you are always talking about, but he could not save his head from Herod’s ax.”

“Is it true that John was killed to please a woman?”

Pilate shrugged. “John had to die. His following was too large, and he had begun to criticize Herod himself. But there were ways of getting rid of John the Baptist without putting him in prison or handing the man’s head on a plate to that slut Salome. We can have no divided loyalties in those who live under the rule of Rome, Joseph. When people follow a leader who is not a deputy of the emperor, that leader must be destroyed.”

“Does that mean Jesus, too, will have to be condemned?”

“Eventually, if He continues to gain a following. But this time I hope Herod will be wiser. Prison and martyrdom are no fate for zealots.” He smiled thinly. “You have heard of the
sicarii,
of course.”

Joseph nodded. The professional assassins, called
sicarii
, were renegade fanatics. Many of them were remnants of the following of Judas the Gaulonite, and not all, by any means, were Jews. They infested the entire country and were a source of constant contention between the Romans and the Jewish authorities.

“Then you know that the daggers of the
sicarii
are at anybody’s service for a fee,” Pilate continued. “Herod’s mistake was to have imprisoned John in the first place. If he is clever, he will have this man Jesus disposed of much more simply.”

Early the next morning, Joseph departed for Jerusalem along the valley highway that followed the western shore of the lake and the Jordan River to the south. A few miles south of Tiberias he passed through Hammath, whose medicinal hot baths were famous throughout the entire region. Already the sick, many of them bent and crippled by inflamed and stiffened joints, were making their way painfully toward the rock pools of the baths. Farther north, near where the city of Capernaum nestled against the shore, Joseph could plainly see the sparkling gush of water from the rocks called the Seven Fountains, a favorite watering place for travelers along the Via Maris.