King Jesus (Penguin Modern Classics) (45 page)

When he reached the market-square John sat down in the dust beside a potter’s booth and began to scan closely the faces of passers-by. Since none pleased him, he arose and went down to the port. There he saw two fishermen preparing to hoist their sails and follow a shoal of fish which had been sighted at some distance off-shore. He recognized them, having baptized them at Beth Arabah not many weeks before. “Come at once !” he called.

At the sight of his white camel’s-hair garment they sprang overboard and swam ashore. Both were tall, rugged, excitable men, neither well read in the Law nor scrupulous in its observance, but members at least of a respectable synagogue. John cried : “Sons, look yonder! Here comes the Lamb of the Passover, born of a white Ewe, crowned with
gold, a sceptre in his hand. I charge you to follow him and attend him in his palace !” He pointed along the road towards Jesus, who came riding up as he spoke.

The fishermen were perplexed by these wild words, but John was a prophet, and prophetic meanings, they knew, are not readily discerned. They went forward and bowed low to Jesus, who asked them : “Friends, what do you want of me ?”

They answered in confusion : “Lord, where is your palace? We have been sent to attend you in your palace.”

“Are you disciples of John ?”

They looked around for John to prompt them, but he had disappeared. One answered impulsively : “Lord, I am now your disciple. I am Simon the son of Jonah ; the Greeks in our fleet nickname me Peter, the Rock. This is my brother Netzer whom they nickname Andrew, the Bold Fellow.”

“The Rock will serve as a sturdy pillar for my gilgal. So Simon comes. But you, Bold Fellow ?”

Andrew stood, twitching his fingers. “John commanded us both to go with you.”

“It is well. I will show you my palace.”

He led them out of the town towards a terebinth-tree growing on a rocky mound by the Lake-side. There he dismounted, with difficulty, told Judas to tie up the ass, and said : “Here is my palace, and you are my honoured guests. Look, my lords, together we pass up the broad flights of marble stairs to the great oaken gates. We stand and knock ; they open. We enter with heads erect, across the polished floors of serpentine and malachite, passing through a vast throng of my courtiers and servants. All are dressed in rich robes and are bowing low to us.” He called to Judas over his shoulder : “Bring perfumed water, Chamberlain! Bring a golden ewer and two silver basins for my guests’ feet! Is the banquet served? Where are the wreaths for their heads, and the ointment ?”

Peter began to laugh. Andrew said : “Lord, with my right eye I see a green tree on a rocky knoll, with my left I see the regal glories that you describe.”

“It is well, keep the two visions apart, the present from the future. Were you going out in pursuit of fish ?”

“Yes, lord, but the fish are patient and will excuse us.”

“I will instruct you in the art of catching men, not fish.”

“With a hook and line ?”

“Sometimes one at a time with hook and line ; sometimes by the hundred with a net.”

“Your hook is in our mouths. You may land us now with your gaff.”

They remained talking all day under the tree and at evening returned to the port ; but they did not yet know who he was, except that his name was Jesus of Nazareth and that he had studied with the Essenes.

In a boat moored to the quayside, mending their nets, he saw two men
of his acquaintance : James and John, the shy, suspicious, bold sons of Zebedee the fisherman. They had once transported timber across the Lake for his brothers. He sent Andrew to fetch them to him. Andrew, who knew James and John well, ran to them and cried : “Come quickly, brothers! I have found him.”

“Whom have you found ?”

“The man who can answer every question !”

They recognized Jesus and leaped ashore to greet him. Some simple words that he had spoken on the occasion of their former meeting had burned in their hearts ever since, though at the time they had not willingly accepted them as true. He had said : “The learned Hillel—his memory be blessed—made a shrewd judgement : ‘No man who is busied with trade can become wise.’ I would say more : No man who is busied with trade can love God.”

Now his words were : “James and John, I have need of you. Will you come with me ?”

They did not understand at first what he was asking of them, but before nightfall they had become his disciples and were ready to go with him wherever he led. The Alexandrian Chrestians, in an attempt to identify James and John with the Greek heroes Castor and Pollux, pretend that he renamed them “The Sons of Thunder” ; but the truth is that his name for them was
Benireem
, “The Sons of the Antelope-ox”. This referred partly to a text in Job, according to which the shy, suspicious, bold antelope-ox is tamed only with the greatest difficulty, or not at all ; but partly also to a verse in the Blessing of Moses, where Ephraim and Manasseh, the sons of Joseph, figure as the two horns of the antelope-ox—for Jesus later called each of his twelve disciples after one of the tribes of Israel.

His first appearance at a public assembly after his coronation was on the following Saturday, in conformity with the tradition that the Messiah Son of David would first show himself on a Sabbath day. No trumpets or shouts heralded his approach ; and to Judas, the only man present who knew that Jesus was a king, the occasion appeared trivial and unworthy, though as a loyal disciple he abstained from comment. At the instance of James and John, who described him as “one most learned in the Law and the Prophets”, Jesus had been invited to read the Second Lesson in the smallest of the three Capernaum synagogues. He entered with the congregation, took his seat inconspicuously on a bench halfway down the aisle and joined in the prayers.

The passage that fell to him for reading consisted of the opening verses of the fifty-eighth chapter of the Book of Isaiah, in which Jehovah speaks to his prophet as follows :

Cry aloud insistently, raise your voice like a trumpet and show my people Jacob their transgressions and sins.

Indeed, they seek me daily and delight to learn my ways, as righteous people should who have not forsaken the commandments of their God. They beseech me to rule them with justice ; they delight in approaching me.

Yet they say : “We have fasted and you did not regard our fast. We have afflicted our souls and you paid no heed. How is this, Lord ?”

It is because when you fast you find no pleasure except in things which grieve your fellow-men.

You fast for the sake of strife and controversy, and in fasting you use your fists in wickedness. If you wish your voices to be heard in Heaven, a different spirit must rule you.

Is yours the sort of fast that I have ordered? Have I ordered a day on which to afflict the soul, to droop the head like a tufted reed and to sit in sackcloth and ashes? Can you regard this as a fast acceptable to me?

Is not my fast one on which to unbind the bonds of wickedness, to untie the heavy burden, to release the oppressed and free the slave?

A day on which to deal bread to the hungry, to invite the homeless poor to your house, and to clothe the naked—rather than a day for closeting yourselves away from your fellow-men?

After reading the eight verses aloud in their barely intelligible ancient Hebrew, Jesus began to expound them. The God of Israel, he declared, had ordained fasts, but not, as was generally supposed, in order to cause his people distress and misery. Fasting was instituted for three purposes : to purge the body of gross humours due to gluttony and over-drinking, to remind the faster of the nature of hunger, and to enable him to give the food that he would otherwise have eaten to those who needed it more than himself. The God of Israel was a merciful God, and to hold that he had ordained fasting as a proof of his severity or as a mortification of the excellent bodies that he had given to men was both erroneous and ungrateful.

Jesus preached without tedious references to what this rabbi or that had said, and on what occasion ; and made no parade of literary knowledge. He spoke simply and authoritatively, in a manner rarely heard in the synagogue. Almost every man and woman present—for in country synagogues men and women sit together indiscriminately—felt drawn up as if by a sharp hook and strong line and resolved to lead a more righteous life than before. A deep sigh of repentance was heard.

At last Jesus said : “A rich man fasts at Capernaum. The fast vexes him. His belly cries within him for venison-pasty and date-wine of Jericho ; his throat is dry, his mouth waters. In comes his Canaanite slave : ‘My lord, guests are here from Chorazin. What food shall I set before them?’ He spits in the slave’s face, and says : ‘What is that to me, dog? Tell them that I am fasting. They must wait until nightfall!’ His brother reproaches him : ‘Brother, that was not well done. To turn away a guest is to dishonour God.’ The controversy grows bitter, and at last the rich man calls the brother a fool and turns his back on him. He has kept his fast until nightfall, but at what a cost! Tell me —of what worth is such a fast in the eyes of our God ?”

At this a rich corn-factor, one of the synagogue officers, rose up, beside himself with anger, pointed with a finger at Jesus, and bawled : “Let us alone, Sir! What concern is it to you how we at Capernaum live, and
how we fast? It is said : ‘No good comes out of Nazareth!’ and from Nazareth you come. Go back to Nazareth ; preach to the sinners there !”

Jesus answered at once, addressing not the man himself, but the evil spirit that possessed him : “Be silent, devil! Come out of that man !”

The corn-factor changed colour and began to whine in a changed voice, as it were the voice of the evil spirit. “Alas, I see who you are now—yes, I see who you are. You are the Holy One of God. You read our secret thoughts. You overhear our private talk. Are you come to destroy us ?”

“Come out of him, I say !”

The man uttered a long howl like a wolf’s and fell in a fit. Those who stood by caught hold of his arms to restrain him from self-injury, but he threw them off and beat his head against the solid benches.

“Come out, and never return to torment this man !”

He ceased to struggle, his limbs relaxed and presently he recovered his own voice. While the service continued, Jesus led him outside and spoke privately to him. He proved to be a man who had fallen into a despair that his sins would never be forgiven him. When Jesus confidently assured him of God’s pardon, a great burden was lifted from his heart. The sudden change in the aspect and gait of this morose merchant on his return to the synagogue astonished the congregation.

When the last prayers had been said, Jesus went for his midday meal to Peter and Andrew’s boat-house, which was also their dwelling-house. Here he found Peter’s mother-in-law lying on a pile of sails in a dark corner under the stern of the boat, groaning miserably. Peter apologized for this inconvenience, explaining that the old woman had a bout of fever ; but Jesus went over to her, took her by the hand and whispered in her ear. Then he lifted her to her feet, saying in a loud voice : “Woman, your fever has gone !”

He had instantly divined the truth. Peter’s wife was disturbed that Peter and Andrew had not fished that week, and had begun to fret : what would become of the household if they did not soon return to their trade? She dared not reproach Peter herself, knowing his violent temper and seeing how whole-heartedly he had given himself to his new master : so her mother had made the quarrel her own. Jesus understood from her interruptive groans that she was vexed not only with Peter but with himself as the cause of Peter’s idleness, and also with her daughter, who had humoured Peter by preparing a rich meal in honour of the occasion. She had decided to spoil the meal by taking to her bed and shamming a high fever. His whispered words were : “Mother, if you wish for salvation, forgive your son, honour your guest, spare your daughter shame !”

Peter and Andrew were astonished at the seeming miracle, and the old woman, now eating and drinking heartily, did not undeceive them. Her hostility to Jesus vanished when she found that he treated her with greater gentleness and respect than she had ever had from her son-in-law.

The news of these two spectacular cures spread quickly, and in the cool of the evening, when the Sabbath officially ended, a large number of sick people were brought to the boat-house for Jesus to heal. He was disconcerted by this turn of events, protesting that he had not come to Capernaum as a physician. But though he dismissed the sick people, they refused to go and insisted that he could cure them if he would. Some were incurable, and to them he could only speak words of solace ; others he encouraged by a promise of recovery if they did nothing to aggravate their condition—for he found it easy to diagnose sicknesses caused by physical excess ; on two or three of them he performed immediate cures. These last were cases in which the physical disability was caused by some disturbance of the spirit, and included one of long-standing paralysis in the leg. He allayed the disturbances, informed the sufferers that they were cured, and sent them away healed.

The most remarkable cure that he performed in the Capernaum district was on a leper—not a true leper but one who suffered from a vitiliginous face. The man came and knelt before him, saying : “Heal me, Lord. I know that your mother’s son has the power.”

Jesus touched the ravaged face, muttering a word of power, and then said aloud : “Be clean !”

As the five disciples watched, the white patches began to vanish from the leper’s cheeks and forehead. “In the fourteenth chapter of Leviticus you will find the regulations for your cleansing,” Jesus told him. “You must show your body to the priest of this town, and obey his orders strictly. When you see him taking twigs of marjoram, kerm-oak and cedar, and sprinkling the live bird with the blood of the bird killed over running water, remember this : your leprosy came in warning of your sin, the adulterous love you had for your brother’s wife. At first it was low on the ground like marjoram ; then it grew tall as a kerm-oak ; then it overspread the sky like a cedar.”