Chapter III: Part 3

“Because they fill a place, supply a need, Longinus. It’s the nature of man to look to some higher power, isn’t it, some greater intelligence? Else why would one invent these gods; why would primitive peoples carve them from wood and stone; why would we and the Greeks and the Egyptians raise great temples to them?”

“Do you contend then that people worship these carved sticks and stones as symbols of some higher intelligence and power rather than the carved objects themselves, even primitive peoples? Is that what you’re saying?”

“Yes, that’s exactly what I’m saying. Some—many, in fact—have become confused, of course, and in seeking to worship this mysterious divinity they go through a form or ceremony of worshiping the symbol. But what I’m trying to say, Centurion, is that it is the nature of mankind to look to something higher, something more intelligent, more powerful, better, yes, than man himself, better even than such an exemplary man as our beloved”—now his tone was sarcastic—“Emperor, or his most worthy Prefect. And if man seeks such a being to worship—and all men, mind you, even savages, even those wild tree worshipers in Britannia do it—doesn’t it stand to reason that there should be such a being?”

The “Palmyra” had entered the smooth bending of the Tiber and was moving rapidly toward the river’s nearest approach to Janiculum Hill, Rome’s Jewish quarter on the west bank of the stream. Longinus pointed to the steep rise of the hill and the plane before it cluttered with the densely massed homes of thousands of Jews, many of them born in the capital, others newly settled there. “It seems to me, Centurion, that you’ve become an adherent of the Jewish one-god religion.”

His words amused Cornelius. “Other Romans at our post in Galilee have charged me with the same thing. It came about, I suppose, from my helping the Jews at Capernaum build their new synagogue.”

“Then surely you must be a member of their fellowship or synagogue ... whatever they call it?”

“No, I’m no convert to the Jews’ religion, Centurion. I don’t belong to the synagogue. I helped them, I told myself, in order to promote good relations between the Jews in Galilee and the members of our small Roman post. But maybe I had other reasons, too. There are many things about their one-god religion that seem sensible and right to me. But there are also practices among the Jews that I don’t approve of at all, practices that seem cruel and senseless. Their system of sacrifices, for instance. I can see no act of proper worship in slitting the throats of innumerable sheep and cattle to appease an angry god....”

“I agree. But we do the same thing. Doesn’t the Emperor dedicate the games by slitting the throats of oxen?”

“Exactly. But what is the good of such worship or ceremony or whatever you may choose to call it? If there is a god to whom the sacrifice is being made, what good does it do him, what pleasure could he possibly receive from it?”

“I see nothing to any of it, Cornelius. Roman, Greek, Egyptian, Jewish, forest worship in Britannia, whatever the system is; it’s all superstition, delusion....”

“I grant you, maybe it is. But, Longinus, don’t you feel deep down inside yourself that there must be some intelligence, some power, far above man’s very limited intelligence and power, that created the earth and the heavens and controls them? Else how did they get here in the first place?”

“I don’t know, Cornelius. You’ve gone ahead of me, my friend. I never gave much thought to matters like this.” The lines of his forehead wrinkled into a frown. “But even if you _should_ feel that way, how could you ever _know_? Have you seen a god, Centurion? Have you ever felt one or heard one speak?”

“I’ve never seen one, Longinus. But I think I have felt and perhaps heard one. There have been times when I was confident that I was communicating with one.” Cornelius watched the spume thrown up by the flashing oars as they cut into the muddy waters. He turned back to face Longinus. “That’s the difficulty, you know, communication. How can one get a grip upon a god—the god, if there be but one, and the way I see it that is the only sensible answer—like those slaves down there grip the oar handles? How can one hear a god, see him, taste him? Obviously, one cannot, for this god, whether there be one or many, must be different from man; he must be a spiritual being rather than a physical one. But if he is a spirit, how can we of the physical world communicate with him and he with us? There, my friend, is the problem.”

Longinus shook his head. “You’ve got me, Cornelius. I cannot imagine a spirit, a being without a body, a something that is nothing.”

“Many persons can’t, Centurion. And that’s the main difficulty in accepting the Jews’ Yahweh, their one god. He is a spirit, they say, without physical form or substance. They believe in him, but how do they know him, how do they learn what he’s like? In a word, if he does exist, how can he be made comprehensible to man?”

Longinus smiled indulgently. “But you say you think you have felt one and maybe heard one. Why?”

“I don’t know if I can explain. Maybe it goes back to the fact that my first lessons were taught me by a Greek slave. He was purchased by my father from a lot brought to Rome after one of those early rebellions. This man was one of the wisest I have ever known. I shall never forget his teaching concerning the gods. When we would speak lightly of our Roman gods, old Pheidias would scold us. ‘Don’t speak disparagingly of the gods,’ he would say, even though he himself did not believe in them. I can still remember his words. ‘The gods,’ he said, ‘are symbols of man’s efforts to attain a higher life, a more noble plane of living. The good gods are the symbols of the good attributes in man; evil gods symbolize the base passions. Therefore, hold communion with the good gods, and seek to avoid contact with the evil ones.’”

“But how does that teaching explain what you feel?”

“Wait,” Cornelius smiled, then continued. “Sometimes Pheidias would confide in us and talk in more intimate terms of his own philosophy. At such times he would tell us that his own gods were merged into one omnipotent and omniscient good god, a spirit without a body, everywhere present. This one god was a synthesis of the good, the true, and the beautiful. And though he could not be felt, as I feel this rail here”—Cornelius ran his hand along the ship’s rail—“and though he was not to be seen or heard as one sees or hears another person, he was nevertheless even more real. ‘For the only things that are real,’ my tutor would say, ‘are the intangible things, and the only imperishable things are those that have no physical being. Truth, for example. Truth has no body. Who can hold truth in his hand? And yet truth is eternal, unchangeable, indestructible. And love? Who can destroy love; who can defeat it? Yet can you put love in a basket and carry it from the shop? And who can measure a modius of love or weigh out twelve unciae?’” Calmly he regarded Longinus. “And I ask you, my friend, who can? What, after all, is more indestructible, unchangeable, immortal than the intangible?”

The “Palmyra” was moving around the river’s bend now and gaining speed as it came into the straight stretch at a point even with the right-angled turning of the city’s south wall. “But forgive me, Longinus,” Cornelius said lightly. “I hadn’t meant to be giving you a lecture on the nature of the gods or the one god.”

“It has been entertaining and enlightening, my friend. And it has convinced me that you do hold with this one-god idea. Those Jews at Capernaum, cultivating the plant that came up from the seeds that old tutor sowed in your childhood, have brought it along to blooming.” He laughed and tapped the rail with the palm of his hand. “Well, perhaps it’s an advance—from the Roman gods to the Jews’ one god—in superstition.” But then the patronizing smile was gone, and he was serious. “I don’t know, Cornelius. This one-god scheme does have its merits, I can see. I would like to believe, and I wish I could, that such an all-powerful, all-wise, all-good being rules the universe. But”—he paused, and a heavy frown darkened his countenance—“Cornelius,” he began again, “I keep thinking of those slaves back there on the Emporium docks, countless slaves all over Rome and throughout the Empire, beaten, maimed, killed at the whims of their masters, yes, and that baby thrown into the Tiber, numberless unwanted babies exposed to die—drowned, thrown to the beasts, bashed against walls—and yet you say that one good god rules, one all-powerful and all-knowing god, one _good_ god.” He thrust forth a quivering, challenging forefinger almost under his friend’s nose. “Then tell me, Cornelius, why does your good one god send all this ignorance, this stupidity, this cruelty, this despicable wickedness on the world? Tell me why; give me one logical, sensible reason, and I’ll fall down at the invisible and intangible feet of your great one god and worship him in utter subjection.”

“I can’t tell you, Longinus. That very question has troubled me, too. I have wondered, and I’ve tried to explain it for myself. I don’t know how old Pheidias explained it, or even if he did. I don’t recall our ever challenging him on that point. But it may be that this one god—if there be one, mind you—does not ordain all the things that happen in the world. It may be that he is even sorrowful, too, because babies are thrown into the Tiber, because men are cruel and heartless toward other men....”

“Then if he is all-powerful, Cornelius, why does he permit it? You say he doesn’t will it. Then why does he allow it?”

Cornelius looked across the deck to the shore line on the starboard side and for a long moment silently considered his friend’s question. “I cannot say, Centurion; it’s a mystery to me. Could it be, though, that the answer, if there be any answer, lies in this god’s determination to give man his freedom? Could it be that even though he is hurt when man abuses the freedom given him, he feels that his children must be free, nevertheless, to work out their destinies? Maybe some such reasoning might explain it. I don’t know.” He shook his head sadly. “What do you think?”

“I disagree, Cornelius. You say that this one god would not order an infant thrown into the river. I agree, but that is not enough. A good god would not permit it.” His grim expression relaxed, but he was still serious. “No, when one sees the condition in which countless men live, the utter unfairness of things, one cannot logically believe in the existence of such a god as you have described. Indeed, it is more logical to believe in our Roman gods than in the god of your old tutor or the Yahweh of the Jews, in our good ones contending with the evil ones”—he shrugged—“with the evil ones usually winning. But it is even more logical, Cornelius, to believe in no gods at all.”

“You have a good argument, Longinus. But it seems to me that we invariably come back to what I said when we started this gods discussion. If there is no higher intelligence, no supreme power, then how did all this”—he swept his arm in a wide arc—“how did we, the world, the sun and moon and stars, everything, how did it all come into existence in the first place? By accident? Bah! And if not by accident, how? Answer me that, Longinus.”

“I can’t answer you. But why should I? What difference does it make? If this good god does exist but does not rule, if he does not enforce a good way of living among men, if he does not protect helpless babies or captured peoples—and obviously he doesn’t—is the world any better off than if no gods existed in the first place?” He smiled complacently. “But, Cornelius, I have no quarrel with your attachment to your tutor’s strangely Yahweh-like god. Some day when I visit you in Capernaum I may go with you to the synagogue or even the Temple at Jerusalem. I may even,” he added with a grin, “offer a brace of doves for the sacrifices. Or would your Yahweh insist on my offering a young lamb?”

“_My_ Yahweh? But I’m no Jew, Longinus. The god of old Pheidias has a greater appeal to me than Yahweh. Yahweh is too stern, too unbending, as they interpret him. But maybe they interpret him wrong, the priests who lead the worship, or maybe I interpret their interpretation wrong. It may be that the true one god”—he smiled—“if there be one, my friend, has never been properly interpreted to man. Maybe we just don’t know him, what he’s like.” He shrugged and stepped away from the rail. “But I think we’ve had enough of gods for one day, don’t you agree? Let’s go inside. I’ve got some work to do before we reach Ostia; you probably have some, too.”

As they started toward the cabin, Longinus turned to look back. Rome was entirely behind them now, off the port stern, but still clearly in sight. Above the city wall and the Aventine Hill beyond and now lifted clear of the Circus Maximus, the sprawling great Imperial Palace atop Palatine Hill flaunted itself in the sunshine.

_Had Claudia arisen? Was she now in her bath or in the solarium having her hair dressed or her nails manicured? Was she in the peristylium or on the couch in the exedra? Was she making preparations, not too reluctantly perhaps, for her wedding with Pontius Pilate?_

_... Yes, and back there somewhere in that press of humanity were Pontius Pilate and the Prefect Sejanus, by all the gods. By all the gods, indeed. Good gods and evil gods, good to Pilate, evil to me...._

Longinus abruptly faced about. Ahead, straight over the bow of the “Palmyra,” gaining momentum now in a channel clearing of the jam of traffic within the city’s walls, was Rome’s port of Ostia, where the great mainsail would be hoisted aloft to catch the winds that would help speed the vessel eastward. Ahead and many days and long Great Sea miles distant were the coasts of Palestine ... and Caesarea. Ahead, too, despite all the gods, real or fancied, and despite Sejanus and Pontius Pilate, was Claudia.

Palestine

10

Longinus and Cornelius strolled over to the port bow rail as the “Palmyra,” its mainsail sliding slowly down the mast behind them, swung around the end of the north breakwater and skimmed lightly across the harbor toward the docks at Ptolemaïs.

“I thought Caesarea would be our first stop.”

“We’re putting in here only long enough to drop some passengers and a quantity of goods Herod’s brought from Rome,” Cornelius revealed.

Longinus looked up in surprise. “Herod’s goods?” he asked.

“Furnishings for the palace at Tiberias—bronze tables, chairs, decorative pieces, of Herodias’ choosing, I suspect. In fact, some of it probably came from her house, favorite things to make her feel more at home in Tiberias. Putting those crates ashore here will save us the trouble of carrying them on to Joppa and Jerusalem.”

“But when the Tetrarchess discovers that Herodias had a hand in selecting the things....” Longinus grimaced, laughing. “Say, are you letting your men go ashore here?”

“Only for a few minutes, just to let them stretch their legs while the vessel’s unloading. Don’t worry, they’ve been told to stay in the wharf area. If they were to get near the taverns and brothels, we’d be here all night!”

Already the soldiers of the two centuries, impatient to get ashore ever since they had first spotted Mount Carmel towering above the promontory jutting out from the Phoenician coast, were lining the “Palmyra’s” rails. Cornelius beckoned to one of his legionaries.

“Decius, call out a detachment—twelve men should be enough—to be ready as soon as the ‘Palmyra’ docks to take charge of transporting the shipment of goods the Tetrarch Herod is sending to his palace at Tiberias. His steward Chuza will put several of the palace servants to unloading it and will arrange for obtaining carts and beasts to move it. You will be concerned only with guarding the caravan. But be on the alert every moment, Decius. See that you aren’t surprised by some lurking band of thieves lying in wait for you. If anything should happen to this shipment, by the gods, we’d never hear the end of it; word would get back to Rome and the Prefect himself would know about it.” Upon delivering the goods at the Tetrarch’s palace, he added, Decius should take the detachment to the garrison post and there await his arrival with the remainder of the century, which would be escorting Herod to Jerusalem and from there northward to his Galilean capital.

When some two hours later the unloading had been completed and the other legionaries had returned to the ship, Decius stood with his detachment beside the piled crates and casks and waved good-by to his comrades as the “Palmyra” moved slowly away from the wharf and then, gaining speed, headed on a straight course toward the harbor mouth. The next day the vessel cleared the long breakwater thrust far out into the Great Sea to provide a safe harbor at Caesarea, and Longinus and his century went ashore. While the legionaries were assembling their gear, Cornelius stood with him on the pier.

“Come visit us at Tiberias, Longinus. You can contrive some mission that will warrant your being sent, can’t you?” he asked, then added, “Herodias will probably be coming out from Rome before long. I suspect Herod will be going back for her as soon as he can arrange with the present Tetrarchess for her to be supplanted....”

“If he can—which I doubt.”

“Whether he can amicably or not, I’d wager that he’ll be bringing Herodias to Tiberias as Tetrarchess. Then Claudia can visit her and you can meet her there. And marry her and keep her out here until you’ve completed your tour of duty.” Cornelius winked and playfully nudged his friend with an elbow. “By the gods, maybe that’s what you and Claudia have planned all along. Is it, Longinus?”

“No, we haven’t planned any such thing.” Longinus stared thoughtfully out at the shore before them. “But I’ll contrive some reason for getting up to Tiberias. And we’re bound to meet in Jerusalem during one of the festivals; they bring in the troops then, you know. Or perhaps some mission will bring you to Caesarea; at Tiberias, after all, you’ll be nearer us than we will be to Jerusalem.” He clapped a hand on his friend’s shoulder. “My love, and the blessings of the gods—including your Yahweh—to your family.”

Cornelius stood at the “Palmyra’s” rail as the vessel slipped away from the wharf. When it was nearing the rounding of the breakwater, he heard Longinus’ sharp command, and the century moved off smartly. The tapping of the legionaries’ heavy boots in rhythmical, perfect cadence came clearly to him across the water. Longinus turned and lifted his arm high in salute; Cornelius returned it, as the century, swinging along the cobblestoned way, gained a street corner and turned, then began to be swallowed up into the maze of stone buildings beyond the piers.

The sun was dropping low into the Great Sea when the “Palmyra” sailed into the port at Joppa. Relieved and happy that the long voyage was safely ended, the passengers disembarked to seek refreshment and rest for the night. Early on the morrow Herod Antipas with Mary of Magdala and the others of his company, escorted by Centurion Cornelius and his century, would set out on the forty-mile journey southeastward to Jerusalem.

11

Centurion Cornelius pointed to a horseman hurrying toward them along the narrow road east of the river. “The advance guard must have run into trouble, maybe Bar Abbas and his gang or some other waylaying zealots.”

“Then you’d better send out a patrol to overtake and destroy them,” Herod Antipas scowled. “I have no patience with those rebel cutthroats.”

The caravan trudging up the deep trough of the Jordan had paused for the midday refreshment. Four days ago it had descended the Jericho road from Jerusalem to encamp for the night on the plain before the city. Horses had been provided for the Tetrarch and certain of his household, but the soldiers of the century, with the exception of the small advance and rear patrols, were on foot. Heavily loaded carts and donkeys transported the supplies, gear, and tents. The journey had been made without incident; another day of uninterrupted progress would bring the caravan to the Sea of Galilee, or, if they were lucky, perhaps even as far as Tiberias.

Cornelius stood up and signaled the approaching rider. The horseman rode straight up to him, reined in his mount, and saluted. “Centurion,” he reported, “up ahead at the river crossing there’s a motley crowd of about a hundred persons, most of them men. Judging by their appearance, they must have traveled a long way. They appear to be peaceful, but there’s a wild-looking, hairy fellow haranguing them, and they’re drinking in his every word; they hardly noticed me when I joined them.”

“What was the fellow saying, Lucilius?”

“I couldn’t understand him, Centurion. I’m not familiar with the speech of this region, which I presume it was. But I thought he might be one of those Galilean revolutionaries trying to incite the crowd against our Roman rule.”

“One of those zealots, you mean? No, hardly, Lucilius. Those rebels don’t stand up delivering speeches; their way is to thrust a knife between somebody’s ribs and then slink quickly away. More than likely this fellow’s a religious fanatic, and I would guess his language is Aramaic. There’s probably no harm in him, but you did well to report. I understand Aramaic; I’ll return with you and investigate.”

“I believe I know who the man is, Centurion,” the Tetrarch volunteered. “There was a desert fellow from the Wilderness country beginning to cause a stir here when I was leaving for Rome. I had reports then that he was thundering invectives against everything, even the Tetrarch and his house. He may be inciting the people against Rome. At any rate, I want to hear him, and perhaps you should, too.”

Mary of Magdala, seated near-by, had overheard. “I, too, would like to hear the strange prophet.”

“But surely even your irresistible charms would not tempt this mad Wilderness preacher.” Antipas winked at the centurion.

“I am not interested in charming him. But if this is the man you think he is I have heard much about him. I would like to observe him for myself.”

Cornelius turned back to Antipas. “If the Tetrarch wishes, I’ll send up a patrol to be near-by in case of any trouble. But I think, Sire, you should disguise yourself. Then you will be able to mingle safely with the throng, and the preacher, not knowing the Tetrarch is hearing him, will talk freely.”

Antipas, agreeing, quickly exchanged his purple mantle for the simple Galilean garment of one of his servants and wrapped about his Roman-style cropped head a bedraggled scarf to form an effectively concealing headdress. The servant cut a reed to serve as a walking staff. Mary, too, changed garments and veiled her face in the manner of a Galilean peasant woman.

Cornelius sent a patrol ahead. “Stop this side of the ford,” he instructed Lucilius, “and try to avoid being noticed by the throng down there. But keep on the alert for any commotion that might develop.” Then he, Antipas, and Mary all mounted horses and rode toward the place where the multitude had assembled. At a bend in the road some two hundred paces from the ford the three riders dismounted behind screening thick willows that came up from the river bank; from there they quietly made their way down to the ford and slipped unobtrusively into the crowd.

Every burning dark eye seemed to be focused on the gesticulating, fiercely intent preacher. He stood in the center of the circled throng on the river bank, and his words came to them clear and sharply challenging, angry and pleading, denunciatory and promising.

“You generation of vipers!” he thundered, shaking a gnarled fist in their teeth, “have I not warned you to escape from the wrath that is coming? Do you contend that because you are Abraham’s seed you are secure from the judgment of a righteous God?” He lowered his voice, strode two steps forward, and dramatically wheeled about. “What are Abraham’s descendants to God? Could he not raise up from these very stones”—he pointed toward the smoothly rounded small rocks lining the water’s edge—“children for Abraham? And is not the ax ready at the foot of the tree to cut down every one that does not bear fruit?”

Cornelius nudged a bent Jew, his face streaked with perspiration that ran down in soiled small beads into his grizzled beard, his whole frame seemingly so absorbed in the speaker’s thundering words that he had not even noticed the centurion’s arrival beside him. “That man, who is he?”

The old fellow turned incredulously to stare. “Soldier, you have been in Galilee long enough to speak our tongue, and yet you do not know _him_?”

“But for many weeks I have not set foot in Galilee,” Cornelius replied. “I am just now returning, by way of Jerusalem, from Rome.”

“He is the Prophet John, soldier, the one sent of God to warn Israel to repent and be baptized.” The old man turned back to give his attention for the moment to the preacher. Then, his face earnest, he confronted Cornelius again. “He is not concerned with Rome, soldier. He preaches only that men should cleanse their hearts of evil and walk in the way of our Yahweh.” Once more he turned to stare at the prophet whose eyes were wildly flaming in his burnt dark face; ignoring Cornelius, the old man leaned forward and raised a knotted hand to cup his ear.

John was tall, and his leathery leanness accentuated his height. The prophet, it was immediately evident to the centurion, was not a man of the cities and the synagogues; he was a son of the desert and the wastelands of Judaea, and the sun and wind had tanned his skin to the color and hardness of old harness. Nor did he appear any more afraid of the proud and opulent Pharisees and Sadducees who confronted him with their disdainful smiles than he must have been of the wild animals of his Wilderness haunts.

“Repent! I say unto you. And bring forth fruits worthy of repentance. Try not further the patience of God. Forswear evil and do good.”

“But what are for us fruits worthy of repentance? What must we do?”

The questioner, his countenance heavy with pain, stood at the river’s edge facing the prophet. His garb revealed him to be a man of means, but it was evident also that the thundering words of the baptizer had stirred him deeply and that he had asked the question in all humility.

John thrust forth a lean forefinger and shook it sternly. “You are of a calling unloved in Israel, and justly so. You have sold your birthright as a son of Israel to join your heel to the conqueror’s to grind Abraham’s seed into the earth. You are a publican; I know you, and I know the publican’s heart.” His voice was almost a hiss, and around the clearing beards nodded in agreement with the prophet’s harsh appraisal. “I call upon you to repent!”

“But what, Rab John, are the fruits of my repentance?” The perspiration was running freely down the man’s face and dripping into his beard. “What must I do?”

“Demand only that which is legally due you.”

“I swear that this I shall henceforth do, Yahweh being my helper. By the beard of the High Priest, I swear it.” The man sighed deeply, and from the fold of his robe pulled forth a kerchief with which he mopped his forehead, his whiskered cheeks, and the dampened long beard.

“But we are not great ones,” ventured a gnarled and grizzled fellow who leaned twisted on his staff, “neither are we publicans. We are the plain and the simple and the poor of Galilee. What shall we do worthy of repentance?”

“You have two coats, though they be worn and patched with much wearing? Then give one to him who has none. And you have food, though it be coarse and not plentiful? Share what you have with him who is hungry.”

Cornelius had noticed, standing not far from the prophet but somewhat withdrawn from the throng as if to avoid contamination with these men of earth such as the one who had just questioned John, a knot of resplendently robed Israelites, their beards oiled and combed and carefully braided, their fingers heavily ringed. Now one of these men, his hands clasped in front of his rounded, sagging paunch, stepped forward a pace and bowed. “Rabbi, we are priests and Levites sent by the rulers in Jerusalem to hear and observe your teaching. We perceive that you speak with great authority. Tell us, Rabbi”—his smile was as unctuous as his beard was oiled—“are you that great One for whom we are looking?”

“I am not the Messiah,” John answered evenly.

“Are you then the Prophet Elijah returned to us?”

“I am not he.”

“Then, Rabbi, who are you? We have been instructed to come and see and carry back our report to the Temple rulers. What then shall we say of you, who you are?”

“Say that I am:

“The voice of him that crieth in the wilderness,
“Prepare ye the way of the Lord,
“Make straight in the desert a highway for our God.
“Every valley shall be exalted,
“And every mountain and hill shall be made low:
“And the crooked shall be made straight,
“And the rough places plain:
“And the glory of the Lord shall be revealed,
“And all flesh shall see it together: for the mouth of the Lord hath
spoken it.”

“You speak the words of the great Isaiah,” the pompous questioner declared.

“Yes,” John agreed. “And other words he said also.

“The voice said, ‘Cry,’
“And he said, ‘What shall I cry?
“‘All flesh is grass,
“‘And all the goodliness thereof is as the flower of the field.
“‘The grass withereth, the flower fadeth....
“‘But the word of our God shall stand forever.’”

“Then you, like we, yet look for the coming of the Messiah of God?”

John raised a lean and burnt arm and the haircloth robe slid down along it to his shoulder. He pointed a darting forefinger toward the Temple’s emissary, and his countenance was solemn. “I tell you, that One is now among us, though you have not recognized him as the Messiah of God. And though he comes after me in time, he ranks before me; indeed, I am not worthy to stoop down and unloose his sandal straps. I baptize you with water, but He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire!”

“Then, Rabbi, why do you baptize with water?” The unctuous one smiled broadly and, pleased with his cleverness, looked from one member of the delegation to another.

“It is a sign that those who enter upon it have repented and been cleansed in their hearts.” He looked the man in the eyes. “Have you repented, my brother? Is your heart changed? Are you ready for the coming of Him of Whom I have this moment spoken?” John whirled about, and his lean arm described an arc that embraced the multitude. “Repent, ye men of Israel! Ye who dwell in great houses, repent! Ye men of earth who know not where your next mouthful will be found, repent. For the clean in heart do not all dwell in palaces or attend upon the Temple worship, nor do they all go about hungry and naked and shelterless.”

As the prophet paused, he looked toward the centurion and the disguised Tetrarch, who stood beside Mary and within a few paces of the portly questioner from Jerusalem. Cornelius wondered what Herod was thinking of this strange Wilderness preacher, this fiery denouncer of evildoers. But in that same moment John resumed his discourse. “No, sin and wickedness abide in the high places; evil reigns even in the great marble pile built above the graves at Tiberias where the Idumaean pawn of the conqueror despoils and seduces the people of Israel! He, too, my brothers, even he must repent his wicked ways; he must seek the Lord while yet He may be found, or he and his evil associates will be cast into outer darkness!”

The fleeting thought came suddenly to the centurion that the prophet had recognized the large man in the soiled Galilean robe, and perhaps the notorious woman of Magdala as well. But then would he have dared utter such a denunciation? Was the desert preacher really a man of dedication and courage, as people said? Perhaps. Cornelius scrutinized Herod’s face. The Tetrarch’s normally pale complexion had turned an ugly shade of red beneath the twisted turban, while beads of perspiration ran down his heavy jowls. But Mary, though little of her face showed because of the veil, appeared more amused than angered.

The prophet’s interrogator from Jerusalem was still unsatisfied. “But, Rabbi,” he began again, “you say that the Messiah of God is already among us. Why then has he not declared himself, why has he not consumed with holy fire the Edomite who possesses us and tramples into the dust of utter subjection our ancient land?”

John’s eyes flashed angrily, but he controlled his tongue. When he spoke his voice was calm. “It is not for me to explain or defend the will and works of the Messiah. I am but His messenger who goes ahead to announce His coming, to call upon His people Israel to repent that their eyes might be whole to see Him when He comes, that their hearts might be clean to know Him!” With bronzed fist he smote the palm of his left hand, his ardor mounting. “You leaders of the people”—he stabbed a lean forefinger toward the haughty group from Jerusalem—“cleanse your own hearts; let fall from your eyes the scabs of greed and hypocrisy so that when He comes you may recognize Him!”

Cornelius felt a gentle tug on his arm; it was Mary. “The Tetrarch is going back,” she whispered. “He’s furious at the man’s denunciation of him. If it hadn’t been for the fact that he would have had to reveal his identity in doing it, Antipas would have had him arrested. But he didn’t want those puffed toads”—she inclined her head to indicate the Jewish delegation—“carrying stories back, and he wished to avoid provoking a commotion; so he overlooked the....”

“Behold, the Lamb of God!”

Cornelius and the woman, her report to him startlingly interrupted by the prophet’s ejaculation, faced about quickly to look in the direction toward which he was pointing. In that instant the others had whirled about, too. Cornelius and Mary strained forward, trying to see above the heads of the multitude.

“He is the One of Whom I have been speaking!” shouted John. “Behold, the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world. Yonder is the Messiah of God!”

They saw coming along the path that led down from the road above the river, walking with long, easy stride as he descended the grade toward the clearing at the ford, a tall, sunburned young man, well-muscled but lithe, broad of shoulders, erect. He wore a plain, brown, homespun robe, belted at the waist with a length of rope, and coarse, heavy sandals. He was bareheaded; his reddish brown hair fell away from a part in the center of his head in locks that curled almost to his shoulders. In his right hand he gripped a long staff cut from a sapling. As he strode down the pathway and across the open space toward the prophet, he seemed deep in thought, almost insensible to the throng about him. He walked straight up to John. Cornelius and Mary could see the two talking in subdued tones, but they could understand nothing of what was being said by either man.

“What are they saying?” It was the bent old Jew; he still stood near-by, and he had cupped his palm to an ear lost in grizzled earlocks. “Soldier, can you hear them?”

“No, not a word,” Cornelius answered. “They aren’t talking loudly enough for us up here.”

At that moment a youth who had been down at the water’s edge standing a few feet away from the prophet approached them. He heard the old man’s question. “They are arguing about baptizing the tall one,” he explained. “He wants the desert preacher to baptize him, but the preacher claims it should be the other way around; he says he isn’t worthy to baptize the Messiah.”

“The Messiah!” The old man had been peering intently at the tall young man standing calmly beside the prophet. “Is that the one the prophet called the Lamb of God, the one long expected of Israel?”

“Yes, the tall one.”

“Why do you ask?” Cornelius inquired of the bent one. “Do you know the man?”

“Do I know him?” The old man chuckled. “Soldier, I come from Nazareth. Many’s the day I have worked with Joseph, that boy’s father, planing one end of a beam while he was shaping the other end. But Joseph’s dead now, been dead a long time. That boy there lives with his mother, the widow Mary.”

“What does he do?”

“He’s a carpenter, too, like his father before him. And he’s a good boy and a hard-working boy, soldier. But Jesus ben Joseph the Messiah of Israel....” The old fellow, both hands braced on his gnarled stick, shook his head incredulously. “Soldier, my faith in that John the Baptizer is weakening. He must be”—he removed one hand from the stick and with bent forefinger tapped his forehead—“a little touched.”

Cornelius laughed. “I don’t know much about this Messiah business, but, I agree, he must be.” Then he turned to Mary. “Are you ready to go? I mustn’t let Herod get too far ahead. I’m responsible for his arriving in Tiberias, you know.”

They started retracing their way along the path to the road; where it joined the broader way, they turned southward. When a moment later they came out from behind a clump of shrubs grown up in an outcropping of small boulders, Cornelius glanced over his shoulder toward the ford and the throng. He caught Mary’s arm and pointed.

The haircloth mantle and the brown homespun robe had been thrown across small bushes at the river’s edge. In the center of the little stream, with the water up to their loincloths and their faces lifted heavenward, stood the gaunt Wilderness prophet and the tall bronzed young man from Nazareth.

12

The Procurator’s Palace sat high on a promontory overlooking the harbor at Caesarea. A marble-paved esplanade led from the cobblestoned street up to the palace, and on its west side facing the Great Sea an immense terrace of colored, polished stones went out from the peristylium.

In the days when King Herod, father of Antipas, determined to build here on the Palestinian coast a fabulous port city to honor his patron, the Emperor Augustus, the place was an insignificant town called by the unusual name of Strato’s Towers. Then there was virtually no harbor. But at tremendous cost in the lives of slaves and artisans and money wrung in taxes from his already poor subjects, Herod built of huge stones sunk in twenty fathoms of often rough water a tremendous mole that went out and around like a protecting arm to form a safe shelter for countless ships of every type.

Quickly old Herod had transformed Strato’s Towers into a beautiful and busy city more Roman than Jewish. A stranger unfamiliar with the region and just landed from a trireme in the harbor at Caesarea, in fact, would hardly realize that he was in a Palestinian city. Not only were its great public buildings and lavish homes Roman—its Procurator’s Palace, its immense hippodrome for athletic sports and gladiatorial combats, its theater, its gleaming marble temples to pagan gods—but Roman, too, were many of its people. Its population actually was of varied nationalities—Roman, Greek, Syrian, Idumaean, Ethiopian, and many others; there were countless slaves from conquered provinces—Germania, Gaul, Dalmatia, even here and there one from Britannia—a motley multitude from every region on the rim of the Great Sea and even from lands farther away. Caesarea was a metropolitan city set down upon the coast of this ancient homeland of the Samaritans and their more peculiarly Hebrew cousins the Judaeans.

Today the newly arrived Procurator Pontius Pilate and his wife sat in the warming sunshine on the terrace and looked down upon the busy harbor and the Great Sea stretching westward into the blue haze. Obliquely facing them, so that he could see both the harbor and a portion of the maze of buildings pushing one upon the other from it, sat their guest, the Centurion Longinus.

Claudia pointed to a large merchant ship being tied up at one of the docks below. “This is a tremendous harbor, rivaling Ostia’s, isn’t it? Look at all those vessels, and that one that has just sailed in. Judging by its size, I’d say it was an Alexandrian grain ship.”

“It is a great harbor, and wonderfully protected. In fact, I was amazed to find Caesarea such a modern city.” Pilate smiled broadly. “I had feared that it would be another typical provincial outpost.”

“On the contrary, Excellency, it’s quite a metropolis,” Longinus observed. “You’ll discover people here from every part of the world, and far fewer Jews, I suspect, than you had anticipated finding. Of course, you’ve hardly had time yet to learn much about the city.”

Pilate laughed, but with little humor. “The fewer Jews the better. I’m glad the capital of the province is here rather than at Jerusalem; it would be galling, I suspect, to be forced to spend most of one’s time in that nest of Jews. Speaking of Jerusalem, Centurion, I plan to visit the city shortly and have a straight talk with that High Priest. I wish it known at the very beginning of my Procuratorship that I intend to demonstrate clearly and forcefully, if that be necessary, that Rome cannot be trifled with by these obstinate and pestiferous Jews. You, of course, have been to Jerusalem?”

“Not since I came out this time. But on many occasions previously, including visits during the festivals. If you go there during Passover week, you’ll see Jews from every part of the world.”

“I have already seen enough of them for a lifetime,” Pilate said, scowling. But quickly he smiled again. “Centurion, I am going to the cohort’s headquarters; I wish to talk with Sergius Paulus.” He clapped his hands, and a slave came running. “Summon my sedan bearers,” he commanded. “May I take you to your quarters,” he asked Longinus, “or will you stay longer and entertain Claudia?” He turned to his wife and smiled warmly. “A familiar face, and a Roman one, is particularly welcome in this strange outpost of the Empire, isn’t it, my dear Claudia?”

“Yes, indeed, Pilate.” She reached over and put her hand lightly on the centurion’s arm. “Longinus, do stay and talk. You can give me instructions on how to act out here in this strange region, strange to Pilate and me, at any rate.”

In a few minutes the servant announced that the sedan bearers were awaiting him, and Pilate excused himself. When he was gone, Longinus moved his chair nearer Claudia. “I wonder why he invited me to stay,” he said. “Does he suspect us, do you suppose? Or,” he added with a wry smile, “is there no longer any occasion for his doing that?”

“I don’t think he suspects us, although I haven’t yet learned how to weigh his words or actions. But what if he does?” She shrugged. “With me everything is just as it was before you left Rome. But maybe”—coyly she looked up at him from beneath her long lashes—“you have discovered some woman out here....”

“No. And I haven’t looked. But I wonder how much he knows or suspects.” He told her of his last conversation with the Prefect, of the determination of Sejanus to keep her happily away from Rome, of that wily rascal’s invitation—in fact, almost command—to do whatever might be necessary, including the invasion of the Procurator’s bed, to detain her in contented exile. “But I don’t think he suspected then that we were planning to get married almost immediately. And I’m sure Pilate didn’t.” His forehead wrinkled in deep study. “By any chance, Claudia, have you let slip...?”

“About us, to him? Of course not.”

“To anyone... Herodias maybe, the gods forbid. I wouldn’t trust that woman as far as I could throw that grain ship over there. Could you, without realizing it, have let slip...?”

“Yes, I did tell Herodias. She does know that you and I were planning to marry and come out to Palestine. But I’m sure neither she nor Antipas has said anything to Pilate about it ... if they’ve even seen him since. And certainly they haven’t talked with Sejanus.”

“Anyway, Claudia, we must be doubly careful. So long as Sejanus thinks I’m simply keeping you ... satisfied, he called it, it’s all right. But should he get the notion that I might be planning to take you away from Pilate and back to Rome ...” he broke off, scowling. “And here there’ll be other eyes and ears watching and listening, too. But when Pilate goes to Jerusalem, can’t we arrange...?”

“I’ll be going, too,” she interrupted. “And so must you. We can contrive some excuse for your accompanying us.” Her eyes were bright with smoldering fires, he saw, and her lips warm, he knew, and red and eager, and he remembered the taste of the Falernian upon them. But adamantly he turned his eyes away to look toward the great harbor. “And in Jerusalem, Longinus, beloved”—her hand had caught his arm and was squeezing hard—“we’ll find some way.”

13

Sergius Paulus, who commanded the legionaries escorting Procurator Pontius Pilate and his party to Jerusalem, halted his column several hundred paces west of the great market square outside the Joppa Gate.

“Sheathe the cohort’s emblems!” he commanded, and quickly down the line of march the soldiers began covering the banners of the Second Italian—the likenesses of the Emperor Tiberius, the screaming eagles, the fasces with their bundled arrows and axes, everything that flaunted the proud victories of this cohort of Rome’s conquering armies.

“But Commander Sergius,” Pilate began to protest, “by whose orders must Rome thus bow to these haughty Jews? Is this, by any chance, _your_ scheme for forestalling possible disorder?”

“No, Excellency, the sheathing of the emblems in Jerusalem is not of my devising; it follows a long established custom, started, I believe, by the Emperor Augustus as a result of a pact with the Jewish leaders and continued by the Emperor Tiberius through orders transmitted to us by the Prefect Sejanus.” His smile was coldly professional. “I assure you, sir, covering our emblems before the gates of Jerusalem is as distasteful to me as it must be to the Procurator, but this is an order I dare not violate.”

The round face of the helmeted Procurator reddened with fury. He shook his head angrily and banged his heavy fist against the apron of the chariot in which he stood beside his wife. “I am not accustomed to seeing Rome display humility—abject humility—which is what this action seems to me to be. But I shall not countermand the order you have given, though to me it is both humiliating and exasperating that our legionaries are forced thus to yield to these outrageous Jews.” He raised his hand to signal. “When you are ready, Commander, let us proceed into the city.” Then he turned to address Longinus, who had halted near the Procurator. “Centurion, will you exchange places with my driver? Claudia and I are entering Jerusalem for the first time; would you be our guide and point out the principal places of interest?”

Quickly the exchange was accomplished, and the detachment, its emblems shielded now from view, resumed its march. Crossing the market place at the gate, a suddenly stilled large square that a moment before the Romans’ arrival had been a hubbub of shouts and shrill cries of bargaining, the procession moved through the gateway to enter a narrow cobblestoned street also strangely deserted.

“But where are the people to welcome us?” Pilate inquired, his balding high forehead creased in anger and consternation. “Why this unnatural calm?”

“They have retreated inside their shops and houses and closed the shutters; right now they are peering at us through lattices and from the roof tops, Excellency. This is the way they show their scorn for their conquerors. It will be our good fortune if we are not pelted with rotten vegetables and fruit thrown from the house tops, or even tiles from the roofs.” He smiled, not too happily. “The Jews, Excellency, don’t have much affection for us Romans.”

The veins in the Procurator’s neck swelled as though they might burst, and his countenance was livid. “In every province in which I have formerly entered with our troops,” he declared, “the populace has welcomed us thunderously, often with flowers and branches of trees thrown in our way, and many times they have even prostrated themselves before us.” He knotted his fist again. “By all the gods, I shall teach these Jews better manners. Nor shall I delay long in setting them to their lessons!”

Claudia laid a soothing hand on her husband’s arm; with the other she pointed to the right. “Those huge buildings! Longinus, they appear to be towers. And what tremendous stones. I didn’t know these Jews were capable of raising such structures.”

“Yes, on the contrary, the Jews are good artisans, and old Herod, who built many great edifices here as well as at Caesarea and other cities, also employed many foreign workers of great skill. He evidently wished to emulate Augustus in raising magnificent public buildings.” They were coming now to a great square tower, one of those to which Claudia had pointed. “This first one is the Hippicus Tower, named, I have heard, for a friend of Herod. The next one, in the middle, is Phasael, called that in honor of Herod’s brother. But that one”—he pointed in the direction of a third—“is the most famous, perhaps because he built it to the memory of the only wife he really loved. It’s called the Mariamne Tower, after the one he had killed. They say that the old reprobate almost went insane with grief after he’d executed her. Claudia, this Mariamne was the grandmother of Herodias and her spendthrift brother Agrippa. Mariamne was a member of the ancient Hasmonean line of Israelite rulers. Very soon now we’ll be passing the old Hasmonean Palace; it’s over near the viaduct that connects Zion Hill with the Temple.”

“But, Longinus, where is the Procurator’s Palace?”

“Yes, Centurion, I’d be interested in seeing it.”

“It’s behind that wall joining the three towers, sir. And it’s a tremendous place, too, with fountains and flowers and grass and trees—you will love it, Claudia—it serves as headquarters of the Procurator when he visits Jerusalem, though it’s called Herod’s Palace. When the Tetrarch is in Jerusalem, especially if the Procurator is here at the same time—for instance, during Passover feasts—the Tetrarch usually stays at the Hasmonean Palace. Excellency”—he faced the Procurator again, for he had been busy with the reins in an attempt to dodge a heavily loaded cart being pulled by a trudging donkey—“do you plan to stop here at Herod’s Palace, or will you stay in the Procurator’s quarters at the Tower of Antonia?”

“What was the custom of Valerius Gratus? Where did he stay?”

“He usually lodged here, I believe. It’s more comfortable, of course, and perhaps will be quieter than the quarters at Antonia.”

“Perhaps”—Pilate faced Claudia, his expression questioning—“then we should stay at Herod’s Palace. But, pray the gods, why should it be called Herod’s Palace now? The Herods no longer have authority in Judaea.”

“It was built by old Herod, sir, and the name persists. Things change slowly out here; tradition and custom rule in Judaea. I’m sure you’ll realize that more the longer you remain in Palestine.” They were nearing a gate in the high wall that gave admittance to the palace. Several guards at the gate, seeing the procession of Roman troops, straightened and raised their arms in salute. Longinus lifted the reins to halt the chariot.