The Galileans: A Novel of Mary Magdalene (42 page)

“Why do you say that, Mary?” Nicodemus asked.

“Jesus’ success here in Jerusalem is great, perhaps greater than it ever was in Galilee,” Mary said. “But who comes to Him? The Pharisees who seek to trap Him. The priests of the Sadducees who hate Him. The sick who want to be healed. And the Zealots, who see in Him a Messiah to lead them against Rome. Only a few follow Him because He teaches a kingdom greater than anything that could be established on earth—the kingdom of God in men’s hearts.”

The men were silent, for no one could deny the force of her logic. “Once before,” she continued, “Jesus went away when they would crown Him king in Galilee. I think He will do the same again. Unless—” She stopped, and a look of great sadness came into her face. “Unless He knows He can show men the meaning of the kingdom of God only by dying for it Himself.”

“Being the Messiah, He must know it,” Nicodemus said logically. “If that is what must take place.”

“He has predicted it Himself,” Joseph pointed out. “And you have all heard Him say a prophet should not die outside Jerusalem.”

“This must all be part of a pattern,” Mary said thoughtfully. “Being the Christ, Jesus could save Himself if He would. But having decided that He must die to make people understand why He came to earth, He will not use that power.”

“Then we can do nothing,” Joseph said sadly.

“You may be right,” Mary agreed. “But I will speak to Him as soon as I can. Perhaps He will tell me what is to happen.”

“In any event, Caiaphas dares not arrest Him now,” Nicodemus added. “So we will have time to make plans to protect the Master if He refuses to leave the city.”

But there, as it happened, Nicodemus was in error.

Joseph and Mary both felt that it was important now to have someone they could depend upon in the temple city to keep informed about what was happening there. “Take care, Joseph,” she begged as they were saying good-bye. “You have made a bitter enemy in Caiaphas by saving Jesus. He may try to punish you.”

“I think not,” he assured her. “Jesus answered the Pharisees this morning and proved that there was no blasphemy in what He said. Remember last winter when they were trying to arouse the crowd to stone Him, so they could get rid of Him without being blamed for His death? Caiaphas would have to bring me before the Sanhedrin, and then it would come out that he tried to have Jesus murdered by the crowd.”

He stopped, but Mary saw that something was troubling him and asked, “What is it, Joseph?”

“One thing troubles me,” he admitted. “The Christ could have stopped that riot and walked through them without being touched, but Jesus made no move to do so. It is not so much that I doubt, Mary. I only want to understand what really happened.”

“Cleansing the temple may have been His last act in Jerusalem before putting the city behind Him,” she said. “Remember that He did not object to leaving Jerusalem, so He must have been ready to go.”

“But the prophecy—”

“That He would be killed in Jerusalem? Yes, I have thought of that too. But remember, He did not say when. He merely said, ‘The Son of Man will be delivered to the chief priests and to the scribes, and they will condemn Him to death, and deliver Him to the Gentiles; and they will mock Him and spit upon Him and scourge Him and kill Him.’ We cannot always understand the will of God, Joseph, but we can obey it because it is always just and right.”

The next day Joseph received a cryptic summons to the apartment of the old high priest Annas. Correctly surmising that he was to go before the political Sanhedrin, Joseph took the precaution this time of taking Nicodemus with him, lest Caiaphas and the others try to trap him on some minor point in the law.

The same group was waiting, but it was the high priest Caiaphas, cold-eyed and furious, who opened the attack upon him even before the short exchange of greetings demanded by courtesy was finished.

“Why did you not stay with the blasphemer they call Jesus of Nazareth?” he demanded.

“I heard no blasphemy uttered by Jesus,” Joseph said stoutly.

Caiaphas brushed his denial contemptuously aside. “You are a spy sent back here to keep contact with the Zealots who plot with the Nazarene. What will your friend Pontius Pilate think when I send him word of this?”

“Pontius Pilate knows I speak only the truth,” Joseph said quietly. “He will believe me when I deny such a false charge.”

Caiaphas whitened and bit his full upper lip until it seemed that his teeth would penetrate the flesh.

To ease some of the tension Elias asked, “Where has Jesus of Nazareth gone, Joseph?”

“I believe His is staying with friends in Bethany.”

“Jesus did not have to leave unless He wished,” Nicodemus said quietly.

“Why?” Caiaphas wheeled upon him.

“Because He is the Christ,” the lawyer said simply. “Jesus could have stricken you and your hirelings dead where you stood if He had wished.”

“We know where this man comes from,” Caiaphas thundered. “He is a carpenter of Galilee. When the Christ appears no one will know where He comes from.”

“Have you forgotten the prophecies of Isaiah?” Nicodemus reminded him.

Caiaphas shrugged. “Is the Christ to come from Galilee?” he demanded. “Do not the Scriptures say that the Christ is descended from David, and comes from Bethlehem, the city where David was?”

“Many prophecies refer to the coming of the Messiah,” Nicodemus pointed out. “Some we understand, some we do not. How can you say He can be only of one place and not of another, when you cannot be sure of the meaning?” It was a telling point, for even the most learned Pharisees often quarreled over the meaning of many things in the Books of the Law and the Prophets.

“Jesus is a blasphemer,” Caiaphas said flatly. “That is enough to earn Him a sentence of death.”

“Why did you not bring Him before the council then,” Joseph asked, “instead of sending men to inflame the mob and have Him stoned? Does our law judge a man without first giving him a hearing and learning what he has done?”

“You are from Galilee,” Caiaphas sneered. “Search and you will see that no prophet is to rise from Galilee.”

“You accused Joseph just now of being a spy, Caiaphas,” Nicodemus said evenly. “It is a charge not lightly made. Let us take him before the Great Sanhedrin and have all this brought to light. There are many just men among the council who will not like to hear that you sent your hirelings among the Pharisees to stir up the crowd against Jesus. To bring about a man’s death outside the law is murder and punishable by death. Even the high priest is not immune from the justice of the Most High.”

Caiaphas blanched before this threat. He knew well that Nicodemus, as one of the most respected among the doctors of the law, and Joseph, the
medicus viscerus,
would be heard carefully and their charges thoroughly weighed by the Sanhedrin. “I—I spoke in anger,” he admitted lamely. “No one charges Joseph of Galilee with breaking the law. You may both go.”

“Be careful, Joseph,” Nicodemus cautioned when they were outside the building. “The high priest is a venomous man and he is close to Pontius Pilate. We have no way of knowing what lies he will tell the procurator, or what plots he will make against you.”

It was the week of the Feast of the Unleavened Bread, which would culminate with the Passover celebration. The whole city was preparing for the greatest of all the religious celebrations, for which Jews had been arriving in Jerusalem by the thousands from the farthermost cities of the empire. It was during this time that the children of Israel traditionally buried any differences they might have had with each other in a common giving of thanks for their deliverance from Egypt centuries before. Called the Passover because it commemorated the sparing of the firstborn when God passed over the houses of the Jews in Egypt and took the sons of the Egyptians instead, the holiday was characterized by eating unleavened bread, symbolizing the deliverance from Egypt according to the promise made by God to Moses, their leader, and bitter herbs, a sign of the bitterness that had been the lot of the children of Israel as slaves of the pharaohs.

In the temple and in the synagogues the ceremony of worship would include a prayer of thanks and recitations of praise to
“Him who wrought for us and for our fathers all these miracles. He brought us out from slavery to freedom, from sadness to joy, from mourning to festivity, from darkness to great light, from oppression to deliverance.”

And as always before the Passover, Pontius Pilate returned to Jerusalem with a large reinforcement of the normal garrison of Roman troops, lest the excitable Jews, stirred to a new fever of nationalism by this week of celebration, in which they were reminded daily of the time when they had freed themselves as a nation from the heavy hand of another oppressor in Egypt, be tempted to revolt.

Joseph paid a call upon the procurator as soon as he was installed in his palace. The discomforts of the journey from Tiberias had stirred up Pilate’s gout, even though he had ridden in the royal chariot, and he was, even more than usually moody and irascible. While Joseph applied leeches to the swollen toe, Pilate fumed against Herod Antipas, the population of Jerusalem, and this part of the world in general.

“I trust the Lady Claudia Procula is in good health,” Joseph said courteously when Pilate paused for breath.

“She has spent a better winter than usual,” Pilate admitted. And then added testily, “But she attributes it to faith in the Teacher, Jesus of Nazareth, instead of the climate, which has been more favorable than for a long time.”

“I have noticed that those who are calm in spirit are ill less often than those who are distraught.”

Pilate shot him a surprised glance. “Even with such a thing as a gouty toe?”

“It is possible.”

“Absurd!” Pilate snapped. “What possible good can it do to go mooning around about eternal life and doing good to others? Power is the only thing that counts in this world, or any other that I know of.”

Joseph was familiar with Pilate’s way of thinking and wanted nothing less than to get into an argument over his philosophy of power. To change the subject he asked, “Did the Lady Claudia Procula come with you to Jerusalem?”

Pilate shook his head. “Yes, she is.” Pilate looked at Joseph quizzically. “While in Jericho awhile back she saw Jesus. Is what I have heard true, Joseph? Are you really one of His followers?”

“Yes,” Joseph admitted. “I am sure the teachings of Jesus are the best way of life for all men.”

“I am not talking about His philosophy,” Pilate said testily. “Many others have said the same things. Do you believe He is the Christ that you Jews have been expecting?”

“I don’t know,” Joseph admitted.

“Did you ever hear Him claim to be the Messiah?”

Joseph shook his head. “No, I have not personally heard him say that.”

The procurator stared at him speculatively, his lips pursed. “You would not lie to me, Joseph,” he said, “I am sure of that, and whatever they say about me, I am a just man. If I listened to Caiaphas, I would arrest Jesus and execute Him tomorrow for proclaiming Himself king of the Jews. Yet if He does make that claim, I have no choice. There can be but one ruler in Judea or anywhere else, Joseph: the emperor in whose name I govern.”

“I am sure Jesus does not desire to be king of the Jews,” Joseph said earnestly. “He is only trying to change the hearts and souls of men, not their political beliefs or their government.”

“What you say may be true of the man Himself,” Pilate admitted. “To me He is just another fanatic, like the one Herod killed. But the Zealots were ready to proclaim Him king in Galilee last fall when He suddenly withdrew into the hills. And they were preparing to do the same here in Jerusalem at that heavily symbolic entry He made the other day. But then He just left the city!”

“You seem to know a great deal about His actions.”

“It is my business to know such things. Judea has had peace for many years because I usually know what is going to happen before it happens.”

“Does not Jesus’ withdrawal at these times prove that He does not wish to be a temporal leader?” Joseph suggested.

“Perhaps.” Pilate shrugged. “But you could also argue that His followers had become too enthusiastic before the time was yet ripe for the rebellion they plan.”

“What are you going to do?” Joseph asked, trying to make his tone noncommittal.

Pilate laughed. “You would never make a conspirator, Joseph. Your thoughts show in your face. But you may tell Nicodemus and the rest of those who follow the Nazarene that I have no desire to destroy Him, so long as He is not so foolish as to let the hotheads among His disciples proclaim Him king. Then I would have no choice. Emperor Tiberius rules in Judea, Joseph, with Pontius Pilate as his deputy. Always remember that.”

With the Feast of the Passover only day away, Jerusalem teemed with travelers and pilgrims from every part of the Roman Empire. The lodging places within the city were quickly filled, and the overflow of travelers spilled out into the surrounding villages—Bethphage, Bethany, and others, even as far as Emmaus, about seven miles away. Here Nicodemus had a country villa, a lovely place at the head of a small valley, to which he liked to go in the spring when the flowers and the fields were just beginning to awaken to new life. When Joseph received a call to visit his friend at Emmaus, he was glad to have an opportunity to get away from the clogged streets of the city and the constant babble of voices in every language that characterized Jerusalem at Passover time.

Nicodemus was not very sick. Joseph’s diagnosis was merely one of the intermittent fevers that came and went here, often being worse in the spring with the onset of warm weather. He prescribed a bitter draught and hot spiced drinks to bring on a sweat and lessen the fever, and then started back to the city, for he still had many patients to see that afternoon.

The hills were covered with the flowers of spring as Joseph rode along. Daffodils bloomed everywhere, interspersed with clumps of sea leek, the “flower of Sharon” with its star-shaped blooms of purest white. Occasionally a patch of “cuckoo flowers,” with blossoms shaped like a lady’s smock, set the bright color of lilac against the white. And everywhere were the thistles and the burnet, with its thorns and tiny leaves of darkest green and red blossoms like drops of blood. The burnet was both useful and beautiful, for it was used to make the hot blast of the lime kilns as well as to heat the cooking fires upon the rude hearths of the countryfolk.