Jesus Triumphant (Chronicles of the Nephilim Book 8) (6 page)

They waited in the vacuum of silence.

The Nephilim were the Fallen Ones, the Seed of the Serpent, and because they were heavenly hybrids, when they were killed in the Flood and thereafter, their spirits became disembodied demons. Now they were being called up
en masse
to finish the war they had started in primeval days, but this time as unclean spirits who inhabited the land and the people.

Demons could only possess those who invited them in. But unfortunately for Israel, many Jews violated the first commandment of Yahweh’s Ten Words from Sinai, and worshipped the Canaanite gods. This failure gave the spiritual forces of this present darkness a grip of influence over Israel. She was infested with demons.

Another rumble, followed by the reverse of the sucking wind, and a gust of unimaginable force blew out of the pit, like a huge corpse reviving with breath. The gods fell to the ground before the whirlwind. It was like opening a crypt that sucked the surrounding air and began to breathe.

And then, it all stopped dead.

A new rush of sound took its place. A myriad of thousands of whisperings came out of the deep recess like water overflowing a cup. They washed over the Ob and the gods like angry waters. The ears of the summoners were pierced with the painful cries of violent Nephilim spirits suppressed for millennia, now freed to roam the earth.

The gods stood. Asherah belted out, “Come forth, my children! Fill the land with your presence!”

Ba’al added, “Inhabit its people and every dark corner! Messiah has come to claim the land and crush the head of the Serpent. But you must take hold and fight back! You must strike his heel!”

The whirlwind of voices kept coming like a flood, passing over them on their way out to the land. A deluge of demons in search of bodies to inhabit.

Demas felt uncomfortable being a member of an audience. He was used to being the sole entertainer in the ring with thousands cheering him on. Other than the pain of battle wounds, his heroic animal baiting seemed to be the only other thing that made him feel alive in his dark reality.

Now, sitting in the theater of Scythopolis, amidst seven thousand cheering idiots, he felt the meaningless despair of being but one of a myriad of passive onlookers, manipulated and carried away by the pathos playing out on the stage before them.

The Greeks and Romans loved their entertainment. They spent so much time in the theater, the amphitheater, and the hippodrome, amusing themselves with sport and entertainment. Amusement was the way to avoid thinking about the sword of Damocles that hung over them all, waiting to drop at any moment and take their lives. The fools.

The theater was the largest in the Decapolis. It was built semicircular with stone seating that rose high above the stage on the hillside upon which it was built. Down below, between the audience and the stage, an orchestra played the music that stirred the pathos of the soul, while the chorus sang the logos of narration that captured the mind. The proscenium stage was three hundred feet wide with a massive “scene” backdrop behind it, constructed as the façade of a building. Various painted backdrops were hung to provide change of story location.

The audience seats were organized and separated by social rank, the plebeians naturally finding their place toward the rear. Since Demas was related to the lead actor on the stage, he found himself in the enviable location just behind the senators, equestrians and knights of the few front seats.

He didn’t care for the theater, and he rarely attended, but tonight, his brother had requested it. Thank heavens pantomime had become more popular than the boring philosophical pontificating of the Stoic plays. Seneca was the worst. They amounted to little or no action with characters standing around giving speeches. Demas knew that the fine art of rhetoric could twist words to justify any immoral behavior known to man, from the anarchy of lawless barbarians to the tyranny of empire. But if they were going to do so, at least provide some kind of interesting visual and dramatic entertainment along with it.

Pantomime on the other hand, was wildly popular with the masses as its actors performed silent drama and dance to the accompaniment of narrating chorus and musical instruments. The audience wanted spectacle. If they wanted a sermon, they could go to synagogue. This evening’s program was fortunately interesting to Demas: The Labors of Hercules. The story went that Hercules was required to serve penance for murdering his family, by engaging in twelve epic labors in service to King Eurystheus. Each episode was an astonishing feat such as slaying the huge Nemean lion or the many-headed Hydra, capturing a monstrous boar, or the Cretan Bull among others.

Demas related to the god-man hybrid protagonist Hercules. He too felt hated by the gods and cursed with the labors of his life. Every victory over monsters in the arena made Demas feel as if he was one step closer to that ever elusive sense of purpose. But he never arrived.

There was an inexorable struggle between fate and human will in the Stoic tragedies that Demas also understood deeply. They enacted stories of enduring heroes with upright spirits achieving victory over internal and external evil. Thus the solution to the universal dilemma of evil could be found not in the gods above to save humanity, but in man freeing himself from the ignorance of passionate excess and emotion. Demas’ Jewish heritage however filled him with an opposing emotional passion, gusto for life, and righteous anger for justice. He felt as if two spirits fought within him for dominance, and these plays triggered that gladiatorial combat.

On stage, Gestas performed as Hercules achieving his twelfth and last labor, capturing alive the three-headed demon dog, Cerberus, the guardian of the Gates of Hades. Demas watched his brother wield his sword dramatically against various Shades of the dead in the fiery darkness. He observed with a critical eye because he had taught Gestas how to fight so that his acting would carry authenticity as well as prepare him for the dangers of real life. Six men operated the large monster suit of the hound of hell that frightened the female observers in the audience. As musicians played and narrators sang, Hercules captured the monster and dragged him out of the underworld offstage.

Demas wondered what the world of the dead was really like. All nations and peoples had their myths and stories of just what the “Land of No Return” held out for the destinies of men. Ancient Sumeria and Egypt told stories of gods who died and returned from the dead as mythical representations of the cycle of nature. Many other narratives of heroes like the Babylonian Tammuz or the Greek Odysseus, told tales of those who descended into the underworld in order to free a loved one from death. They all tended to portray a gloomy dark world where the unrighteous dead suffered in one form or another. The righteous dead, however were taken away to garden paradises, or “Isles of the Blessed.”

Demas preferred the contrary voice of the Stoics. Although they were terrible entertainers with their plays, they were nevertheless more insightful with their rational philosophy. Hellenistic thinkers like Zeno and Seneca considered such myths of descent to be mere imagination, attempts to placate fears and speculate about what no one could possibly know. No one had in fact ever come back from the dead to reveal what happened to the soul upon its escape from its prison house of the body. Aeschylus the Greek Stoic playwright wrote, “Once a man dies and the earth drinks up his blood, there is no resurrection.”

Demas decided he would not stay to watch the mimes. They would mock the Jews in their audience by parodying their religious observances. He got out of his seat during intermission to wait for his brother back stage.

“What did you think?” Gestas asked Demas, as he disrobed from his costume backstage.

“I think you need work on your swordplay,” said Demas.

Gestas shook his head with a smile. “Come with me, and you’ll get your wish. But we have to hurry. We are already late.”

“Where are we going?” said Demas.

“To the scribal collegium,” said Gestas.

The collegium was not the gym where they could practice sparring, but the school where scribes practiced and teachers educated students.

Demas continued confused, “What do scribes have to do with fighting?”

“More than you realize,” said Gestas.

The sun was already setting when they arrived at the collegium in the upper class district of the city. They snuck in the back way so as to avoid being noticed. They slipped past large Corinthian columns into the atrium in the center of the school. No torches were lit. It was a secret meeting. Fifty Jewish citizens from all kinds of social classes and backgrounds filled the benches where students usually sat. Blacksmiths, carpenters, an equestrian and even a politician listened with rapt attention to the charismatic speaker before them.

Demas and Gestas stayed back in the shadows of the pillars. They watched the orator, a clean-shaven young man in his late twenties, with a handsome square jaw, long wavy black hair, and intense eyes. He was clothed in ruffian garments and armed with sword and dagger. A distinctive scar crossed his left cheek from his ear down to his chin, an obvious battle wound. But he spoke with eloquence and education, which was strange for a brigand and rabble rouser. He gave a rousing exposition intended to inflame his audience’s passions. An immediate concern for Demas.

“The nation of Israel has been the slave of Gentile pagan forces for far too long. The Assyrians, the Babylonians, the Greeks, the Medes and the Persians, and now the Romans. My brothers, do you not remember Phinehas the priest during the time of the Exodus? The people of Israel were committing idolatry and playing the harlot with Ba’al at Peor. They were whoring with the daughters of Midian. And one man dared to bring a Midianite woman into the holy congregation. Yahweh’s anger burned against Israel until Phinehas went and thrust through the man and his woman with a spear. This holy action of zeal atoned for the sin of the people. Yahweh withdrew his anger and made covenant with Phinehas to be a perpetual priesthood. Phinehas is our example of the zealots we must all become.”

Demas and Gestas were familiar with the Torah story of Phinehas. They had heard it in synagogue while growing up. Demas leaned in and whispered to his brother, “Who is this man?”

“Shh,” hushed Gestas. “Just listen.”

The speaker continued. “Zeal for Yahweh. That is what I speak to you about tonight. We must all be zealots for Israel’s holiness. For the prophecies have all pointed toward Messiah coming to free us from the yoke of the Kittim.” Kittim was a derogatory reference that Essenes used of their Roman oppressors.

“The prophet Daniel spoke of this day. He said that there would be seventy weeks of seventy years from the decree of Cyrus to rebuild Jerusalem until the time of Messiah the prince. Seventy times seven years decreed to finish the transgression, to put an end to sin, and to atone for iniquity, to bring in everlasting righteousness, to seal both vision and prophet, and to anoint a most holy place. My brothers, that prophecy was four hundred and ninety years ago. Seventy weeks of seventy years.”

A rumbling went through the audience of men, indicating agreement. Demas however was not so agreeable. This man sounded a little crazy. And dangerous to have such control over his sheep-like hearers.

“My brothers, do you not remember the Maccabees? When that despicable king, Antiochus Epiphanes, dared make our traditions illegal and tried to force our people to eat swine and violate our Sabbath. And worst of all, he set up his image in the holy temple, an abomination of desolation. But Mattathias Maccabeus refused to bow the knee and killed his own countryman who would worship false gods. His son, Judas the Hammer led a revolt that destroyed the pagan temples, and reinforced the Jewish covenantal sign of circumcision. He entered Jerusalem in triumph and cleansed the temple of the abomination of desolation, returning authority to Yahweh. The Maccabees pushed back their Greek oppressors like Leviathan the sea dragon, and Yahweh’s inheritance was returned.”

Demas knew that story well. It was the origin of their festival of Hanukkah. But now he saw the agenda. He shook his head and muttered, “Interesting. Will he mention the more recent uprisings of Judah ben Hezekiah and Judas the Galilean?”

Gestas gave him a sour look. But Demas would not back down. “Those revolts ended in thousands of Jews crucified.” Such failures were not so inspiring to cite, but they happened, and more recently than the Maccabees.

The speaker continued. “My brothers, everything that the Maccabean revolt gained for us, the purity, the holiness, the zeal, was lost when the Herods took over the priesthood. The Herodians are the betrayers of our countrymen. They are not even true Jews. They are Edomites, sons of Esau. Pretenders and betrayers. They rob the common Jew and control the majority of the wealth of Israel. They conspire with Rome to keep us enslaved while they sit in their extravagant palaces drinking wine and eating pig. I ask you, do such rulers deserve their riches? Do they deserve to live when so many of us die?”

Demas knew Gestas had special hatred for the Herodians. That, no doubt, was what drew him to this eloquent desperado. They were the ruling class of Judea and Galilee. From Herod the Great to his sons who currently reigned as client kings of Caesar, the Herodians masqueraded as Jews, but were Romans in their loyalty. When Gestas was spurned for his attempt to marry into that aristocracy, he had gained a bitterness that plagued him and now blinded him to the maniacal dangers of this charismatic outlaw with a silver tongue and bloody hands. Demas became agitated. The speaker kept saying “my brothers, my brothers.” But when such a man incited violence against their own kinsmen who would not join their cause, that man was dangerous indeed.

The speaker concluded. “I was a scribe. An Essene. I have spent my whole life studying the Scriptures and the holy texts, my brothers. I am telling you, the War of the Sons of Light against the Sons of Darkness has arrived. Are you ready? Will you be a zealot with me or will you stay chained in your slavery to Rome? Will you join the fight against our Herodian traitors or will you be cowards? I already have hundreds of followers hiding out in the wilderness. Join our band of Zealots and share our holy calling, “No king but God.”

Ah, there is the reference to Judas the Galilean
, thought Demas. Stripped of all reference to his failure, but promoting the slogan Judas became known for. No king but God. It was a call to revolt and return to their Mosaic theocracy, the rule of God. Caesar had pretended tolerance in allowing subjugated peoples to worship their own gods, just so long as they also worshipped Caesar as their ultimate King of kings and Lord of lords. This cunning brigand was trying to revive a movement begun by Judas and he had even given it a name: Zealots.

The speech was over and the men milled about. Gestas grabbed Demas. “Come with me. I want to introduce you.”

Demas reluctantly followed his brother up to the charismatic speaker.

They were the first to approach him. Others seemed intimidated by the man’s presence.

Not Demas.

“Gestas,” said the speaker with a delighted look, “I see you have brought your famous brother.”

Demas cringed. A master of flattery as well.