King Jesus (Penguin Modern Classics) (10 page)

Antipater barely wetted his lips with the wine which Simon offered him. He took up a handful of milky new almonds and began absentmindedly breaking them into pieces which he arranged on the broad edge of a golden salver in geometrical patterns. “Yes, Simon, I am troubled,” he said with a sigh. “For a man to be King in Israel, or the King’s son and deputy, is a poor thing when all his subjects despise him as an upstart. The orders which I give in my father’s name are obeyed, but without alacrity except by the baser sort of people, and by the governing classes with studied surliness. Just now, as I crossed the Court, the ironical salutations with which I was greeted by the grandees were like whips across my face. I knew what they were thinking : ‘What title has his father to the throne except that granted him by our enemies, the heathen Romans? And he himself is not even half Maccabee. He is the son of a heathenish Edomite woman, a grandniece of the accursed Zabidus.’ If I am stern with them, they hate me as an oppressor ; if indulgent, they despise me as a weakling. I know in my bones and blood that I am of their own race, and Jerusalem to me is home and the most wonderful city in the world. What I have come to ask you is this : how can I ever hope to earn the love and confidence of my people ?”

Simon might have been expecting the question, so readily came his answer : “I will tell you, Prince. Royalty lies in a consciousness of royalty, as liberty lies in a consciousness of liberty. Know yourself royal, and royalty blazes golden from your forehead. Believe yourself an upstart, and you defeat yourself with that leaden belief.”

“Cold comfort,” said Antipater. “I cannot alter my condition by wishing that my mother at least had been a Hasmonean Maccabee.”

Simon laughed dryly. “Prince, who are these royal Maccabees? Their ancestors were village joiners of Modin not more than a hundred and fifty years ago ; Maccabee, as you know, means ‘mallet’ and was the nickname of Judas, son of Matathias, who led the rebellion. His brothers were all similarly nicknamed by their father after tools in his joiner’s chest—for example, Eleazer was called ‘Avaran’, the awl. The Maccabee pedigree, if one searches back two or three generations beyond
Matathias the joiner, is as full of holes as a sieve. It is not even established that he was a Levite. Certainly he was not of the House of Aaron.”

“Nevertheless,” said Antipater, “by their courage and virtue the Maccabees advanced themselves to royal dignity.”

“Your father has done the same.”

“Yet the Temple grandees sneeringly call him ‘Herod of Ascalon’, and ‘Edomite Slave’, rejecting him as a foreigner and usurper. ‘The Maccabees,’ they say, ‘freed us from a foreign yoke. The man of Ascalon has fastened another yoke securely across our shoulders.’ ”

“Has your father never told you, Prince, that you are a thousand times better born than any Maccabee? That you stand in a direct line of succession from Caleb son of Jephunneh, who conquered Hebron in the days of Joshua ?”

“He has hinted that we are Calebites, but I took this for one of his fancies. When he has dined well his mind teems with strange fancies.”

“It is the truth, and he had it from me. Your great-grandfather’s grandfather was a Calebite of Bethlehem who took refuge at Ascalon ; as a child your great-grandfather was stolen from Ascalon by the Edomites, who honoured him as their prince.”

“You did not tell my father this merely to please him ?”

“Prince, I would even rather displease the King than forfeit my reputation as a scholar among my fellow-scholars.”

“I did not accuse you of lying. I wondered whether you were perhaps retailing an old legend without troubling to test it historically.”

“That is not my habit.”

“Forgive me !”

“I forgive you. But, before you can follow my argument, you must disabuse your mind of the notion that your ancestor Caleb was a Judaean —a great-grandson of Judah himself through the bastard Pharez. Caleb was a Kenite of Hebron, and Hebron in ancient times was the hearthstone of Edom. The genealogical table that is given in the Book of Chronicles, the second chapter, is an interpolation of recent times. The more reliable myth, which we have preserved in Egypt, is that Hur son of Caleb, who was the son of Hezron the Kenizzite, married Miriam the sister of Aaron, though she was “neither fair nor healthy” and died in the desert soon afterwards ; Hur assisted Moses in the Battle of Rephidim. Caleb was one of the ten champions sent to spy out Canaan before Joshua’s invasion ; passing through Hebron, then occupied by the Anakin, he visited Machpelah, the tomb of his ancestor Abraham, where he received encouragement from the priestess who interpreted the utterances of Abraham’s oracular jawbone. When the invasion began he conquered Hebron, drove out the Giants and married Azubah Jerioth, ‘the deserted woman of the tent-curtains’. Later he also married Ephrath of Bethlehem.”

“How do you read this account ?” asked Antipater.

“I read it as meaning that the Calebites were Kenites of Edom—the Kenizzites are a branch of the Kenites—who originally possessed Hebron
but when driven out by an invading tribe of tall Northerners took refuge with the Midianites of Hezron, at the border of the Sinai desert, who like themselves worshipped the Goddess Miriam. Miriam, also known as Rahab, was the Goddess of the Sea, whose sign is the scarlet thread. On the arrival of the Children of Israel from Egypt under Moses, the Calebites became their allies and later joined with them in the invasion of Canaan ; but the Midianites would not share in the adventure and the alliance with them was dissolved. After reconnoitring the ground, the Calebites reconquered Hebron, and once more intermarried with the priestesses of Abraham’s oracle, whom the Giants deserted in their wild flight. Eventually they extended their rule a few miles northward to Ephrath, which is the region about Bethlehem. I hardly think that you will dispute the common sense of this explanation ?”

Antipater looked troubled.

Simon continued : “But just as the Calebites of Ephrath were later swallowed up by their allies the Benjamites, so were those of Hebron by their allies the Judaeans ; and a century or two after Hebron had been incorporated in the Jewish Kingdom by David the Calebite—for David traced his descent from Hur—the tribal genealogy was adjusted to make Caleb a descendant of Judah, and by a further interpolation Kenaz, the eponymous ancestor of the Kenizzites, was absurdly reckoned a son of Caleb. The Calebites, however, still obstinately regarded themselves as Kenizzites, and Children of Edom. The unfavourable Judaic view of this tribe’s history is expressed by the Chronicler in the names of the children begotten by Caleb on Azubah Jerioth : namely, ‘Upright’, ‘Backsliding’ and ‘Destruction’. It is clear that they resisted all attempts to make them conform with changes in the Jewish faith, and being still a tented people they avoided the Babylonian Captivity by escaping in a body to Edom, whence they soon afterwards returned with an armed following of Edomites. Moreover, one of their clans, that of Salma, went on to reoccupy Ephrath. The Salma chieftain married the priestess of Bethlehem, and you, Prince, are lineally descended in the elder line from this chieftain.”

Antipater took another handful of almonds and began arranging them in five-pointed stars. He said slowly : “I cannot disprove your argument, but I am loth indeed to think that there are interpolations in the Scriptures.”

“Is it not better to believe that interpolations have crept in than to accept an historical untruth? Well, I have told the King this much and proved his pedigree by research at Ascalon, Dora, Hebron and Bethlehem, and confirmed my findings with genealogical material submitted to me by my colleagues at Babylon, Petra and Damascus ; but I cannot persuade the Pharisee Doctors to accept it, their prejudices against Herod being so strong. Yet there is another point of great historical importance which I have never raised with him, and which I do not propose to raise.”

You mean that you will, however, raise it with me?

“Only under a pledge of secrecy : you must not divulge the information to a soul while your father lives.”

“You whet my curiosity. But why are you willing to tell me what you conceal from my father ?”

“Because your father seems perfectly content with his title to the throne, whereas if he knew what I know he might become restless and be tempted into dangerous action.”

“I doubt whether I should listen to you. Am I less likely to ruin myself by this knowledge than he ?”

“As you will. But you can never have ease in your mind until you acquire this knowledge, which concerns your title to the throne.”

Antipater flushed : “Simon,” he said, “as my father’s friend you have no right to put me into this dilemma. I do not wish to be told State secrets which I must conceal from my father.” He took his leave abruptly.

Simon returned to the citron-wood table and studied the dish decorated with the interlaced triangles and stars of Antipater’s almonds. He hurriedly disarranged them with his hands lest one of his servants should mistake them for a magical spell. “Alas, if he should go to the King and report what I have said !” he muttered. “But, please God, he will not. The hook is in his lip, of that I am sure. Please God, my line will hold !”

Two days later Antipater returned, fretful and pale. “I have come to take the oath of secrecy of which you spoke, Simon. Your words have preyed on my mind and prevented me from sleeping.”

Simon said : “Prince, I was greatly at fault ; I should have restrained the impulse to speak. No, I require no oath. Your bare word is sufficient pledge.”

Then he confided to Antipater a most unorthodox historical theory : that in Israel every ancient chieftain or king had ruled by woman-right : namely by marriage with the hereditary owner of the soil. Adam by marriage with Eve ; Abraham by marriage with Sarah, Hagar and Keturah ; Isaac by marriage with Rebeccah ; Jacob by marriage with Leah, Rachel, Bilhah and Zilpah ; Joseph by marriage with Asenath ; Caleb by marriage with Ephrath and Azubah ; Hur by marriage with Miriam ; David by marriage with Abigail of Carmel and Michal of Hebron ; and every subsequent king of the line of David by marriage with a matrilineal descendant of Michal. He also told Antipater that at the extinction of the monarchy the female line of Michal was engrossed by the House of Eli, the senior line of priests descended from Aaron, who were on that account styled the Heirs of David, or the Royal Heirs.

He ended solemnly : “Prince, what I have not told your father Herod is this, that no king has a true title to rule in Israel unless he is not only a Calebite but also married to the Heiress of Michal ; and that the heiress inherits by ultimogeniture and not by primogeniture—that is to say, she is always the youngest daughter of the line, not the eldest.”

Antipater was incredulous at first. He objected : “There is no word about this theory either in the Scriptures or the Commentary.”

“Except for those who can read between the lines.”

“It seems a strange and unlikely notion to me.”

“You are aware that in Egypt, for example, the Pharaoh always marries his sister.”

“Yes ; but I have never troubled to ask why.”

“That is because the ownership of the land properly goes from mother to daughter. It was the same once in Crete and Cyprus and Greece. It was the same at Rome under the Kings.”

“I know nothing of Crete or Cyprus or ancient Greece, but it was certainly not so at Rome, according to the school histories.”

“The object of all school histories everywhere is to enhance the glory of existing institutions and efface the memory of superseded ones. Well, I will show you what I mean. Do you remember the story of the expulsion of the Tarquin dynasty and the inauguration of the Roman Republic by Lucius Brutus? Probably you were asked to compose a set speech on the subject for your tutor while you were studying Latin oratory ?”

“Yes, every student is given the task. Let me see! Tarquin the First was succeeded, was he not, by a certain Tullius who had married one of his two daughters, although Tarquin had a grown son, Tarquin the Proud …”

“Well, why did Tarquin the Proud not immediately succeed Tarquin the First? Why had no single early King of Rome ever succeeded his father? Simply because the title was carried through the female, not the male, line. The king was the man who married his predecessor’s younger daughter ; and since marriage with a sister, though permitted in Egypt, was considered incestuous at Rome, the king’s son customarily married a foreign princess and said goodbye to his native land. The case of Tarquin the Proud was unusual. He eventually succeeded to the throne in virtue of his marriage to Tullius’s daughter Tullia.”

“The historians say that Tarquin the Proud regarded Tullius as an usurper.”

“That is natural. And that Tarquin the Proud killed Tullius with Tullia’s assistance was nothing remarkable either. On the contrary, every king of this antique sort expected to be killed by his son-in-law when his term of office expired. But by an unlucky accident Tullia was defiled by her father’s blood and obliged to retire into private life. Thus Tarquin lost his title to the throne, which could only be renewed by marriage with the next heiress-at-law, namely Lucretia, the wife of his cousin Collatinus, who was descended from a sister of King Numa’s wife. It was not Lucretia’s beauty but her title that attracted Tarquin ; except for his sister Tarquinia, who was the mother of Lucius Brutus and who was now past child-bearing, and Tullia, who was defiled, Lucretia was the only surviving heiress of the ancient royal House of Carmenta. Tarquin carried Lucretia off and forced her to become his wife ; but she committed suicide to spite him. So both Collatinus and Tarquin were now without a title to the throne and the monarchy
became extinct, for Tarquin had no daughters, and neither Brutus nor Collatinus had sisters. Tarquin was then driven out by his enraged people, and Brutus and Collatinus became co-rulers of Rome—Brutus as the son of Tarquinia, and Collatinus as the son of Egeria, a descendant of King Numa’s sister of the same name. But they could not call themselves Kings because they lacked the necessary marriage title ; instead, they called themselves Consuls, or Consultants. Lucretia had killed more than a woman when she committed suicide : she had killed Carmenta.”