King Jesus (Penguin Modern Classics) (7 page)

“For one of so wild and petulant a nature,” said Cleopas, “a Certain Man has shown surprising patience in the development of his plans. How many years is it now since he first was set in authority over us ?”

“It must be more than twenty-five years.”

“It seems longer. Almost I could admire him for his political skill and the energy of his rule, which has brought peace and a sort of prosperity to Israel, did I not hate him so sincerely as a secret enemy of our God.”

“Prosperity ?” cried Joachim. “The shadow of prosperity, not the
substance : the palace enriched at the expense of the hut, the robes of State dyed in the life-blood of the peasant. Peace? A Roman peace, imposed on the remnant who survive the slaughter.”

Cleopas agreed. “To be sure, we must never forget his impious assault on the Holy City, how the madmen under his command (though he made a pretence of restraining their fury) reddened their swords in the narrow streets on the aged, on children, even on women. We must never forget the principal men whom he murdered for remaining loyal to King Antigonus the Maccabee, and whose confiscated treasures filled his coffers. Forty-five of them he murdered, among them my own uncle Phineas. The passage of time cannot wipe out the blood. But is it not strange that though in our hearts we know the Edomite to be an enemy of our God, there are so few open breaches of the Law with which we can reproach him? The Alexandrian Doctors whom he employs to justify his actions are more cunning than foxes or serpents.”

“I hear that he has won another legal victory, in the matter of the edict about house-breakers.”

“He has indeed.”

“Tell me about it, my dear Cleopas. It has come to me only as vague gossip, brought in by the servants.”

“There were, as you know, numerous cases of daylight house-breaking reported in Jerusalem during Passover week, all the work of a single powerful gang, and then more at Purim. The thieves made some wonderful hauls while the householders and their families were away at the Temple, usually having left only some old crippled servant to guard the house. In festival times, of course, there are so many strangers in the streets that detection is almost impossible once the thieves have left the house with their spoil. The victims of these robberies, as it happened, were all either Edomites, Greeks or Egyptian Jews of That Man’s party. Naturally this discrimination vexed him : last week he issued an edict ordering convicted house-breakers to be stripped of all their goods and permanently banished from his dominions. The Presidents of the High Court were shocked. They sent delegates to protest that this was dead contrary to the Law of Moses.”

“They were right. The punishment for theft is that the convicted person must, with certain exceptions, restore fourfold what he has taken ; and if he cannot do so, then he may be sold into slavery for no longer than six years, but sold to a Jew, not a foreigner, so that he may continue as a member of the congregation.”

“The delegates,” continued Cleopas, “pointed out that to banish the offender from this kingdom is to cut him off from the congregation and to prevent his return even in festival time, when it is his duty to join in public devotions.”

“Exactly.”

“And ‘Exactly,’ said That Man too. ‘Exactly,’ he said. ‘The robberies are all committed on holy days, which is the very time that thieves must be forbidden the City, My edict is directed against the Sons of
Belial who instead of religiously joining in public devotions break irreligiously into the houses of those who do.’ ‘But,’ the delegates further protest, ‘to banish the offender from the kingdom without a penny is equivalent to selling him into foreign slavery, which is dead contrary to the Law.’ ‘Not so,’ says he. ‘In the time of Moses there were no Israelitish communities outside the boundaries of the desert camp. But now there are as many of the Lord’s people resident outside my dominions as inside, or more ; if any one of them is forbidden to worship the Lord in his ancestral manner that is no fault of mine. I have intervened often and successfully on their behalf. Let the thieves go to your kinsfolk of Alexandria or Damascus or Babylon or Pontus or wherever they please, but I will not tolerate them in the kingdom.’ The delegates exclaim : ‘Well did David say that he would rather be a janitor of the Lord’s House than dwell comfortably in the tents of the heathen!’ Herod answers : ‘And what honest man would not? But the Eighth Commandment is positive : “Thou shalt not steal.” And theft is there listed with Sabbath-breaking, adultery, murder, idolatry, blasphemy, witchcraft, false-witness—all sins that are punished with death. Learned men, do you not think it an anomaly that the Eighth Commandment should be the only one of the ten which may be broken without fear of death or disgrace ?” Then the delegates bow so low as nearly to knock their heads on the floor and ask humbly : ‘Who are we to question the wisdom of the Law?’ Herod says : ‘Menelaus, fetch me the ancient roll of the Law! Find me the passage about thieving.’ ”

“You imitate him to the life.”

“And that greasy cemetery-hog Menelaus waddles to the book-case and fumbles about among the brittle papyrus-rolls and presently in his snuffling voice reads out a text from the twenty-second chapter of Exodus which none of us have ever heard before, to the effect that any man who breaks into a neighbour’s house on a Feast day shall surely die, for he dishonours the Lord besides wronging his neighbour. Herod then dismisses the delegates, saying : ‘You have heard the words. And is not my roll of the Law of greater authority than yours, learned men? Read the title. Does it not date from the reign of King Hezekiah? Was it not brought to Egypt by Onias the High Priest, from whose lineal successor I had it as a precious gift? I fear that your rolls have become defective by rough handling and careless copying from a tattered original.’ So his edict stands. Nobody dares accuse the King of forgery, or publicly plead on behalf of the house-breakers that the spoiling of Egyptians is no crime, and that over Edom the Lord has cast his shoe to enslave it.”

Joachim said warmly : “Brother, it is as well that such puerile pleas are not raised. Our learned teacher Hillel has warned us to distinguish between particular and general commandments of our God. A particular commandment was given to our ancestors for the despoliation of those who had robbed and enslaved them ; but to interpret it as a general licence to cheat and steal from Egyptians to-day, is that not monstrous? The text about Edom is also quoted shamefully out of context ; that the
anger of the Lord was kindled against Edom centuries ago does not license house-breakers nowadays to carry off the goods of individual Edomites. Well, as for the edict, we shall see whether it has the deterrent effect that its author hopes. But I dislike the innovation. I should even prefer to see the rascals stoned to death for a breach of the Sabbath—to force one’s way into a locked house is undoubtedly work, just as fighting is, and fighting on a holy day is forbidden. That they should be banished for theft is intolerable.”

“But why, Brother Joachim, do you call him the Edomite? You must know as well as I do that, though born in Edom, he is no more descended from Esau than I am.”

“I call him an Edomite to avoid the necessity of using a more honourable name. Yes, I am aware that his grandfather was captured as a child by Edomite brigands in their sack of Philistine Ascalon—the son of a priest of the abominable local Sun-god, and that the priest was unable to pay the immense ransom demanded, so that the child was brought up as an Edomite. But if a mere Philistine slave, why was his ransom set at so high a figure? Why was he given high rank by the Edomites and afterwards courted by King Alexander Jannaeus the Maccabee? The child’s father was a Slave of the God, which in Philistia usually means a member of a captured, or refugee, priesthood. Can you positively declare that he was a Philistine? Nicolaus of Damascus writes that the ancestors of That Man returned from Babylon with Ezra, being Calebites of Bethlehem.”

“Nicolaus of Damascus is a liar !”

“Nicolaus as an eminent barrister has no conscience in his handling of a brief, but I have never known him to tamper with historical facts. And is it impossible that a Certain Man is indeed a Calebite of Bethlehem and that his fathers served idols of the Abominable One in the days of our disgrace? And that during the Maccabean Wars the priesthood fled with their idols to Philistia, where they were welcomed by their co-religionists ?”

Cleopas grunted doubtfully. “Be that as it may, it was an evil hour in which King Alexander Jannaeus befriended the grandfather of That Man, who has cut off the last male remnants of the House of Maccabee, one by one.”

They pondered the matter in silence. After a while Cleopas said again, recalling the death of Herod’s Maccabean wife Mariamne : “I was present at the execution of a Certain Man’s lovely wife. Oh, who can describe her beauty, the last brilliant flower of a heroic race? The Rose of Sharon was a weed compared with her. Yet a worm lay in the bloom. Her own mother, condemned on the same occasion, heaped reproaches on her for having involved both of them in ruin by her wantonness. And though it was thought by some that Alexandra spoke as she did in hope of saving her own life at the expense of her daughter’s honour, alas, in my ears the words rang true! Mariamne walked too scornfully for innocence. Oh, Joachim, adultery is a sin that cannot be
either palliated or pardoned. Granted that Mariamne’s husband had been responsible for the death of her father, her brother, her uncle and her venerable maimed grandfather, and that he had twice given provisional orders, when setting out on a dangerous mission, that she should be dispatched if he failed to return ; yet let us be just to him. He never raised his voice or hand against her, and her duty was clearly towards him as her husband and the father of her sons. A woman must obey her husband and be faithful to his bed, whatever the provocation. For she is only a woman, though the best of women ; and he is at least a man, though the worst of men.”

“It is a severe law and lays a great burden of responsibility on a father in the choice of a son-in-law. I am glad to be quit of the burden in the case of my daughter Miriam : Simon the High Priest is to choose a husband for her.”

“Simon, for all his faults, has a good conscience towards the Lord and men, and you may be sure that you will not be disgraced in your son-in-law. But we were speaking of Mariamne’s infidelities.”

“Some declare that the Edomite loved her so dearly that he could not bear to think of her lying in the arms of another even when he was himself dead, and that this was why he gave the provisional order for her dispatch. They recall the extravagant signs of grief that he showed after her death, and there is even an obscene story current that he preserved her corpse in myrrh with necrophilous intention. Yet they forget that he appeared no less afflicted and distraught after her brother had been drowned in the Bath at Jericho, as if by accident, but, as we know, at his express order. Such grief is feigned as much to placate the dead person’s ghost as to distract public inquiry. He never loved her. He married her to benefit from the popular esteem in which the Maccabees had for so long been held in Israel. Yet one by one he rooted them out, and finally he destroyed her too, without pity—as, mark my words, he will destroy the handsome sons whom she bore him and to whom he pretends such fatherly affection.”

“I will mark your words,” said Cleopas, “but I cannot believe that he is such a wild beast that he would kill his own sons merely because their mother was a Maccabee. Besides, if he did not love her passionately, why did he trouble to order her dispatch in the event of his death ?”

“He feared, I suppose, that she would marry some enemy of his and found a new dynasty upon the issue of the marriage. He could not bear to think that the heirs of his body would not reign over Israel for as many generations at least as David’s did.”

“Why then do you suppose that he is intent on killing Mariamne’s sons? Does he doubt their paternity? They certainly resemble him closely.”

“They are nothing to him. He hates to think that we say secretly of them : ‘They are well-born on one side at least.’ But he has other sons. Do not overlook his eldest, Antipater, who is marked out as the future king. It was for his benefit that Mariamne was to die, and later did die ;
it will be for his benefit that Mariamne’s sons will die in their turn. Let no one underrate Antipater’s claims. Herod may even make him co-ruler with himself one day, in the Egyptian style.”

“I had forgotten his very existence. What sort of a man is he, kinsman ?”

“Though I have inquired closely, I cannot pretend that I have yet heard one evil word spoken against him by those who know him well. He is reputedly studious and generous, without ambition or malice, punctual in payment, scrupulous in his observance of the Law, besides being a wonderful huntsman of the desert ostrich, the antelope and the wild-ox. Nevertheless, even if this account is true, such good qualities are wasted on his father’s son ; and for all I know he may be as false a dissembler as ever wore sandals. But I will not reveal my worst fears to you until That Man’s plots have matured. When you hear news that the sons of Mariamne are dead, come to my house again, and I will sing you a further prophecy. Meanwhile, I will give you a clue to my fears. Do you recollect the story of the golden fetish of Dora ?”

Cleopas smiled. This trophy had been taken from the Edomites by King Alexander Jannaeus in the wars, the hollow head of an onager, or wild-ass, made of pure gold, with red jewels for eyes and teeth of ivory : it was thought to be of ancient Egyptian workmanship. Alexander Jannaeus had captured it from the Edomites of Dora or Adoraim, a city close to Hebron, for while the Jews were in Captivity, the Edomites had reconquered their ancient territories in Southern Judaea. They set great store by this fetish, which they called the Mask of Nimrod. When it was brought back in triumph to Jerusalem, an Edomite named Zabidus who pretended to be a traitor to his country had come before Alexander Jannaeus and said : “Do you not know your good fortune? By means of this mask you can utterly defeat Kozi, who is called Nimrod, the Abominable God of Dora, and expel him from the whole region.”