King Jesus (Penguin Modern Classics) (63 page)

“There remains the well-established incident at the Basilica on the previous morning, which we discussed at our last meeting. I confess that I took a less serious view of it than subsequent events have warranted ; and it is greatly to be regretted that my son the Chief Archivist and the Captain of the Temple were yesterday unable to check his impertinence in the Court of the Gentiles. However, we now hold him under close arrest and, I trust, will have no difficulty in sentencing him to the maximum penalty of lashes for a scandalous breach of the peace ; and if my venerable father Annas or any others of the elders of Israel consider that we should press for a capital charge, I should be the last to challenge the view.”

An elder rose, to ask whether any life had been lost at the Basilica.

“No loss of life has been reported, but Phaleron, the head of the Money-changers’ Guild, is suffering from severe shock ; and the case has been aggravated to-night by the brutal attack made by one of the prisoner’s disciples on the informant who helped us to make the arrest. A Levite halberdier intervened and, for his pains, had an ear sliced nearly off with a sword. In the confusion the rascal managed to escape.”

“Was the prisoner himself armed ?”

“No arms were found on him.”

“Well, let us examine him at once,” said querulous old Annas. “Passover
Eve is always a tiring day and I wish to resume my interrupted sleep as early as possible.”

“March the prisoner in,” said Caiaphas, and presently Jesus appeared, escorted by an unarmed warder, and was led to the witness-stand.

“You are Jesus of Nazareth ?”

“Of Bethlehem.”

“Do you mean the Galilean Bethlehem ?”

“I mean Bethlehem of Ephrath.”

“I believe that to be correct,” the Chief Archivist interposed hastily, “and after all the point is immaterial.”

The clerk of the Court read out the first charge : “Jesus of Nazareth, you are accused of a breach of the peace, committed about noon on the twelfth day of the present month Nisan, in that you incited certain persons to riot in the Basilica of King Herod, wrecking the tables of the money-changers, and releasing the doves, pigeons and lambs of the livestock-dealers. You are further accused of the use of insulting language and of wielding a plaited cord and therewith striking Phaleron the money-changer on the head, causing him grievous bodily harm.”

Caiaphas asked : “Do you plead guilty or not guilty ?”

“I have seen the
Mezuzah
on the door-post of this Chamber.”

Caiaphas flushed angrily at this reminder that, though he was High Priest, the Court that he had convened had no authority in the eyes of any pious Jew.

He repeated : “Guilty or not guilty ?”

Jesus made no reply.

“It is clear that he is a Galilean, not a Judaean. Galilean criminals always take refuge in dumb insolence.”

Three witnesses to the events in the Basilica were called, and the Court found Jesus guilty of incitement to destroy property but, by a small majority, not guilty of incitement to murder.

The next charge was that of influencing a certain person unknown to do grievous bodily harm to Malluch, a halberdier in the High Priest’s service, while the said Malluch was assisting the officer charged with making the arrest. Though Jesus put in no plea, the charge failed. Malluch, with a bandaged head, himself testified that the prisoner’s behaviour had been correct. He added : “If it please Your Holiness, this man Jesus appeared greatly disturbed by the incident. He touched my ear where the sword had sliced it, muttering some words which I did not catch.”

“With what object, do you suppose, Malluch ?”

“He wished to heal the wound, Holy Father.”

“Indeed! And with what success ?”

“The pain ceased, Holy Father. The ear is in a fair way to heal, the surgeon tells me ; he says that I must have remarkably quick-healing flesh.”

Caiaphas said to Annas : “Venerable Father, with your consent I propose to leave to the last the most serious charge against the prisoner,
that of seating himself on the Messiah’s throne in the Chamber of the Hearth.”

“It is well.”

The next charge was that of using language calculated to foment popular disorder in the Temple Courts. Various witnesses were called, but the first three or four could charge him with nothing more serious than having glorified the reigns of King David and King Solomon in somewhat extravagant terms, and having encouraged his hearers to be worthy sons of their fathers. One of them quoted Jesus’s injunction against paying God what was Caesar’s, or Caesar what was God’s ; but Annas and Caiaphas reluctantly agreed that, whatever rebellious intention might underlie the words, in themselves they were unexceptionable.

Then a witness testified that Jesus had said in the Court of the Gentiles during the previous Passover season : “Destroy this Temple, and in three days by magic I will build another as grand and beautiful.”

At this Judas, who had been called as a witness and was waiting at the back of the Court, volunteered to go on the witness-stand, and gave the correct version : “Destroy this Temple, and by God’s grace I will build him as acceptable a dwelling-place in three days ; for your servant is a carpenter. Israel was great when our God was worshipped as dwelling in an ark of acacia-wood.” This disposed of Jesus’s alleged claim to magical powers, and though the saying incensed the Sadducees beyond expression, Caiaphas was obliged to admit that the charge was not proved, because of a conflict of evidence. He was passing to the last charge, when a door-keeper entered with an urgent message for him. “The personal aide-de-camp to His Excellency the Governor-General desires an audience with Your Holiness.”

The aide entered with a clatter, grinned amicably, and gave the Court a perfunctory salute. He was a foppish, effeminate, very young man named Lucius Aemilius Lepidus, who was chiefly distinguished by being the great-grandson of the Emperor Augustus. In a loud, drawling, drunken voice he delivered his message : “The compliments of His Excellency the Governor-General of Judaea. He understands that one Jesus of Nazareth has been arrested by order of this Court and is now under examination. He wishes it to be understood that he has a strong personal interest in the case and that no action must be taken without reference to himself.”

Caiaphas was startled. He asked Lepidus how the Governor-General had received such early intelligence of the arrest, which had taken place hardly two hours before. Lepidus laughed, and replied confidentially : “Between you and me, High Priest, it was someone whom you did not see fit to invite to your club-meeting, and I gather that he suspects you of trying to put out of the way a good friend of the Emperor’s. No names, mind, and the Governor-General only dropped me a gentle hint ; but, by my Divine Great-Grandfather, you may take it from me that you must mind where you tread to-night. I may look somewhat of a
fool, but my guess is as good as the next man’s. Old Pilate would hardly have pulled me out of bed at this godless hour to send me down here to you fellows unless he meant what he said, now would he? Especially as he knew that I was not sleeping alone. I mean, in fact, that there must be something in this case that interests him, somehow or other : money probably, or perhaps a woman, or else you have arrested one of his best secret agents, or—well, you never know with the Governor-General.”

Caiaphas replied with dignity : “His Excellency may rest assured that neither on this or any other occasion will he have cause to question either our justice, our discretion or our loyalty.”

“I hope you are right,” said Lepidus. “Is that poor fellow over there the prisoner ?”

“He is the prisoner.”

“A fine-looking man, but a little frightening, eh?—he reminds me of the stories that my pedagogue used to tell me about the magicians in Egypt : they would wave their sticks at you in a sort of slow pattern—like this, watch!—and hypnotize you, and when you awoke you would find yourself in the crocodile pool! But before I send you all off to sleep, I simply must get back to bed myself, or I shall get into trouble with—well, with someone. Good night, and remember the Governor-General’s message.”

They bowed ; he waved his hand, blew a kiss, grinned and clattered out again.

“Nicodemon !” said Caiaphas. “It will be Nicodemon. I—” then he stopped short, realizing that the Court had not been cleared, and ordered the clerk to read out the last charge.

“You are accused of an act of sacrilege, committed towards evening of the thirteenth day of Nisan, in that you did insolently and impiously seat yourself, in disregard of the warning of the Temple sentry there on duty, upon the throne reserved by tradition for the Blessed One, the Messiah Son of David.”

“Do you plead guilty or not guilty ?”

Jesus did not reply.

The sentry was called as first witness, and reported the incident veraciously enough, except that he doubled the number of his assailants.

Judas, called as a second witness, deposed that he had not been in Jesus’s company at the time that the alleged incident took place ; and all efforts on the part of the Court to make him alter his statement were unsuccessful.

Caiaphas looked round the Court and shot out his lip at Jesus. He hoped to repair the lack of any second evidence by startling him into a confession. He said, with ironical courtesy : “Perhaps since you were good enough earlier in this trial to confess to your identity, you will now do us the favour of answering this question too. Are you by any chance the Blessed One, the Messiah Son of David ?”

Jesus answered : “You will know who I am—may it be before this
very day is over—when you see the Son of Man coming with the clouds of Heaven and seated on the right hand of Power. This holy mountain shall bear the imprint of his foot.”

Caiaphas rose and tore the blasphemy-seams of his robe. He cried : “Need we call more witnesses? We have heard blasphemy pronounced in open court !”

The Court then retired to a lobby to discuss procedure. One of the elders said : “In normal circumstances, I should advise the transfer of this case to the High Court. They are empowered to inflict the death-penalty for blasphemy ; whereas thirty-nine strokes are the most that can be inflicted by the Sanhedrin in punishment of the only charge that has been proved against this man. As the Holy Father has himself pointed out, we cannot allege any violence or incitement to disorder either in the prisoner’s historical review of the departed glories of Israel, or in the action which he is alleged to have taken in the Chamber of the Hearth. The only objection to this course is that it would be extremely difficult to persuade the High Court to convict him.”

Caiaphas took up the point. “My learned friend is right. It can hardly have escaped him that, by a ridiculous High Court ruling, blasphemy is not a capital offence unless accompanied by the Name of God. Technically, since the prisoner used the word ‘Power’ as a synonym for the Name and did not positively claim to be the Blessed One, the Messiah, he is guilty only of a misdemeanour which the High Court cannot punish by more than these same thirty-nine strokes. It is a most provoking situation. Has anyone any advice to offer ?”

Annas said : “There is nothing for it but to refer the case to the Governor-General. I do not know how seriously we should take the suggestion made by the Governor-General’s puppy that the prisoner is a secret agent of Rome. No use of provocative agents, as distinguished from spies, has been reported in Judaea since old Herod’s days ; but Pilate is not too nice to employ them, and if the man really is a provocative agent, we must be all the more zealous in bringing him to justice. It will be enough to produce the evidence of the riot and the evidence of the prisoner’s Messianic claim—evidence which, though unfortunately not good in Mosaic Law, will be good enough to satisfy the Governor-General. I move that we should also mention the prisoner’s reply to the last question, which to anyone but a devious-minded Pharisee is plain blasphemy and deserving of death ; and that we should ask the Governor-General’s permission to have him stoned to death outside the City as an act of popular justice. His Excellency will doubtless accede to our wishes, the prisoner being a proved trouble-maker, and I will let him know privately, through his Oriental Secretary, that we are setting aside certain Pharisaic legal rulings in the interests of peace and the original Law. The stoning had best be unofficially entrusted to the Fish Gate factions ; they gave him his warning on the last occasion that he made trouble in the City. One last word : unless we adopt this course at once, we will be unable to dispatch the business before to-morrow
evening, when not only the Passover but the Sabbath begins. I need hardly remind you that a death-sentence cannot at the best of times be pronounced in the High Court on the same day as the trial, and that no Jewish Court has power to detain a prisoner in custody during Feast days on which it is not in session. But Roman justice is conveniently short and swift.”

Annas’s motion was approved with only three dissentients, none of them members of his own family. The Court returned to the Council Chamber, and Caiaphas announced : “This Court orders the case to be referred with a summary of evidence to the Governor-General of Judaea. Witnesses are required to hold themselves in readiness to proceed to the Residency when summoned. The Court must be regarded as still in session until that event. Warder : remove the prisoner to the anteroom.”

F
OILED
in his attempt to kill Judas, Peter hurried back to the City. He went at once to the Galilean quarter, where he knocked up the local headquarters of the Zealot party—the militant nationalists—and announced the arrest of Jesus. Holding a naked sword in his hand, he urged all brave men present to follow him in an assault on Annas’s house : Jesus must be rescued, and Judas the traitor hacked in pieces, for the honour of Galilee. He convinced the Zealot leaders that Jesus had dropped his mask of meekness and taken up the sword at last for the liberation of all Israel. Word was passed round to hostels and clubrooms frequented by party-members, and soon twenty men, emboldened by Passover drinking, came in with arms concealed under their mantles and swore either to set Jesus free or die in the endeavour.