The Crown and the Cross: The Life of Christ (4 page)

Now after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of Herod the king, behold, wise men from the East came to Jerusalem.

Matthew 2:1

The king of Israel was afraid.

A determined man, utterly without scruple where he considered his own welfare to be involved, Herod had never been sure of his throne though he had reigned longer in Israel as king under Rome than had any other for a long while. One reason for his fear was the fact that he was not even a Jew by heritage or a member of any royal house in Israel or Syria.

Oppressed by both Herod, an alien king, and Augustus, an alien emperor, the Jews looked back longingly over almost exactly a thousand years to the glorious days of David and Solomon. David, the shepherd boy who became king, had united the loose confederation of families and tribes, descendants of those who had come storming across the Jordan behind Joshua to unlock the rich treasure chests of Canaan when God had sent the walls of fortress Jericho tumbling to the plain. For a brief period Israel had known a golden age, but the division of the kingdom following Solomon’s death had made the nation the victim of a series of conquerors.

Israel as a nation and Judaism as a religion might actually have been destroyed during these trying years but for the Persian insult in deporting a large portion of the Jewish people to Babylon. There in servitude, as during the stay in Egypt a thousand years before, their unity of spirit and purpose through worship of the single God who had selected them as his own, was crystallized into the driving force that was to animate the Jews ever after, no matter how far they might be scattered abroad.

The prophet Ezekiel had fanned the flame in Babylon. When the Jews had finally been allowed to return to the homeland through the generosity of Cyrus of Persia, their poverty in numbers had been more than compensated for by their fervor of spirit and their confidence that God would once again raise up His kingdom for them with a glory exceeding even that of the days of David and Solomon. Peopled by only a few thousand of the fiercely devout who had returned from captivity in Babylon and governed by a high priest and a
gerousia
, or senate, Judea was at first only a city-state under the domination of nearby Syria.

The conquering tide of Alexander the Great had swirled about the walls of Jerusalem when he laid siege to Tyre on the seacoast to the north, but he had graciously spared the city, even, it was said, making a sacrifice in the temple. Greek tolerance proved in many ways a greater enemy of Judaism than Alexander’s armies, however, for it introduced the pagan philosophy of life called Hellenism. Greek cities sprang up all over the neighboring area, Greek influences penetrated Jerusalem and soon infiltrated into the very worship of the temple. Nor did Alexander’s untimely death change this situation, for the rulers who succeeded him were Greek as well.

Hellenistic influences, and the inevitable reaction against them by the inspired core of Judaism in Jerusalem, soon altered the character of the worship in the temple. Opposed to this change, a group of pious men known as the Sopherim sought to keep intact the inheritance of Judaism from Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Organized as the Great Synagogue, they concentrated on the Torah, a history of God’s dealings with His own people, and the Law handed down from Moses. From them came the most influential and most determinedly religious group in all of Israel, the Pharisees.

For a brief period under Syrian rule, however, Hellenism triumphed in Israel, and the high priest became hardly more than a Greek puppet, even participating in the worship of Greek gods. Antiochus IV entered the city and desecrated the temple in a vain attempt to destroy Judaism’s remaining opposition to the Greek philosophies. The result was a period of national scourging for Israel from which a hard core of resistance emerged, strengthened in its determination to lead the people back to the old faith. Calling themselves the Chassidim, these “pious ones” chose death rather than allow the few copies of the Torah they possessed to be destroyed.

In the midst of this period of national chastening, a new hope arose, manifested in a mixture of poetry, song, and prophecy known as the apocalyptic writings. God, the pious Chassidim believed, would soon send them a deliverer, the “Anointed One,” “Messiah,” or “Son of Man” to set up the kingdom of the Most High on earth. Thus, in degradation and despair as once before in servitude in far-off Babylon, the Jews were buoyed up and given courage to resist paganism by the promise of delivery from oppression. As it happened, they were delivered, for the time being, by a group of their own leaders, sons of a priest called Mattathias.

When Appeles, an agent of Antiochus, ordered a heathen sacrifice at the town of Modin in the hills of Judea, an old priest named Mattathias killed the Jewish priest who was carrying out the insult to their God. The five sons of Mattathias—John, Simon, Judas, Eleazar, and Jonathan—killed Appeles and led with their father to the mountains, where they quickly gathered a small band of the Chassidim who had been driven out of Jerusalem by the forces of Antiochus, as well as by others who hated Syrian rule.

Under the leadership of the Maccabees, a name given the sons of Mattathias from the nickname “hammerer” of Judas, the great military leader of the group, what was actually a holy war began. Pitted in the struggle were the Hellenized chief priests in Jerusalem and the Syrian forces of Antiochus on one side, against the Maccabees, who came to be known also as the Hasmoneans, with their followers on the other.

A series of almost incredible victories followed for Judas Maccabaeus. One year later, he and his forces entered Jerusalem victorious, and three years from the day the first desecration of the holy altar had occurred, a sacrifice to the Most High God was offered upon it.

The military success of Judas Maccabaeus led him and his brothers, who successively ruled as priest-kings of Israel, to embark upon a program of conquest and expansion which almost restored the glories of David and Solomon to the land. Practically all the territory from the hills north of Galilee to the border of Egypt on the south and from the deserts of Arabia on the east to the seacoast on the west came under control of Israel, although its grip upon this broad area was never complete and constant fighting was required to maintain it.

During the rule of John Hyrcanus, many of the Chassidim began to have reservations about high priests who spent more time wielding the sword than worshiping God. Particularly hated was the Idumaean, Antipater, who had become the chief adviser of the Hasmonean house.

About this time a new group among the Pharisees, the scribes, arose. Highly versed in the Torah and in interpreting the Law, they began to assume an important place as teachers or rabbis and the true religious leaders of Israel. Meanwhile the wily Antipater was steadily conniving in the background, playing off various members of the royal Hasmonean house against each other.

When Rome, during the period of expansion spearheaded by Julius Caesar, conquered the old Seleucid kingdom, Syria was made a province, and Pompey moved south to seize Palestine, ending the brief period of the Jews’ independence. The Greek cities of the Decapolis across the Jordan and beyond the Sea of Galilee were cut off from Judea. Samaria and Galilee were put under the rule of Syria and the thriving Greek cities along the Mediterranean coast were made independent. Hyrcanus II, a Hasmonean, served as the tetrarch of Jerusalem but Antipater was now the real power behind the considerably diminished throne of Judea.

Herod, the son of Antipater, served the Romans as well as had his father. Appointed first as governor of Galilee, he shortly came into virtual control of Judea and eventually was designated by the Emperor Augustus as “King of the Jews,”

Doubly hated, both by the Hasmoneans and their supporters because he had attained the throne for himself, and by the Jewish nationalists because of his service to Rome, Herod set about to endear himself to his subjects by building the great new temple which quickly began drawing Jews from all over the world to reconsecrate themselves to the worship of their God. It also brought money to Jerusalem, both in tribute and in business, and the whole area entered upon a season of unparalleled prosperity.

Prosperity for the Jews, as for many another people in history, had the effect of lessening nationalistic fervor. Weakening the opposition to Rome and Herod, it at the same time encouraged religious conservatism. A few zealots, often called
sicarii
because they carried daggers and occasionally used them, sporadically demonstrated against the foreign rulers with short-lived uprisings, but were put down ruthlessly.

Evidence of Herod’s greatness as a temporal king, if not of his subservience to the Jewish God whom he at least pretended to worship, was everywhere: in the glorious beauty of the temple, the great arenas and amphitheaters that dotted the land, beautiful cities like Sepphoris, Sebaste, and of course the new city of Caesarea, erected upon the site of what had been called Strato’s Tower, with a fine harbor formed by extending a great stone mole into the sea. But though honored by Rome and valued as one of the most dependable of the secondary rulers by Augustus Caesar, Herod found no peace in his latter days. His body wracked by illness, he was forced even on his sickbed to keep a constant watch for those who plotted against him, including his own sons.

Small wonder was it then that Herod felt the cold hand of fear gripping his heart when word was brought to him one day that three wise men from Arabia sought audience inquiring, “Where is He who has been born King of the Jews?”

Herod’s pale, almost colorless eyes were unmoved as he heard his chamberlain repeat the question of the wise men. He had killed thousands in order to erase all who might have a claim to the throne he occupied, at one time destroying forty-five members of the highest court, the Sanhedrin, including many prominent members of the Hasmonean dynasty which had furnished kings to Israel. With this record of treachery and murder behind him, he would have no hesitation in putting to death, if he could locate Him, any newborn king.

For many hundreds of years the Jews had longed for the coming of the one they called the Messiah, or the Lord’s Anointed, but no two of them seemed to have the same opinion concerning this Expected One. That He would be among the descendants of David was generally accepted, since the bloodline of the first really great king of Israel was the noblest and most honored among the Jews.

“Before the first oppressor was born,” the ancient writings said of the Messiah, “the final Deliverer was already born.” This could only mean that the leader would be a true “Son of the Living God,” another Moses sent to free Israel from the present oppression as truly as it had been delivered from slavery under Pharaoh and led out of Egypt. News of the birth of a new king indicated to Herod that this might possibly be the expected Messiah; hence his fear.

“Shall I send the wise men on their way, noble Herod?” asked the chamberlain who had brought word of them.

The king shook his head. “Bring them in. I will question them myself.”

Tall and dark-skinned, richly dressed and assured in manner, the men were far different from the rascally soothsayers of Arabia and the countries east of the Jordan who thronged to Jerusalem to prey upon travelers. They bowed courteously before Herod, showing the homage due him as king of Israel.

“What question would you ask me?” Herod inquired.

The tallest and eldest of the ambassadors answered for the group. “We would know where is He that is born King of the Jews.”

“I am King of the Jews.”

The soothsayer shrugged. “It is written, ‘No man shall live forever.’”

“My sons shall rule in my stead,” Herod insisted.

The question might well have been asked whether Herod would have any sons when the time came for the scepter of kingship to pass on to another. He had married many women and had many offspring by them, yet his constant fear that one of them would assassinate him and seize the throne led him to destroy many of his own offspring, while sending others into virtual banishment.

The tall Magus did not belabor the point. “We have seen His star in the East,” he said quietly, “and have come to worship Him.”

Herod shuddered and his body seemed to shrivel beneath the mantle of Tyrian purple about his shoulders. The seers of the East knew the stars like the streets of their own cities. If a new one had appeared and guided these men across the desert from the land of Yemen, whose kings also professed the Jewish faith, it could mean that the birth of the king they had announced was indeed no ordinary event but a sign auguring the coming of the Anointed One.

“What of this star?” Herod demanded.

“We are not of one opinion concerning its nature, noble king,” another of the Magi admitted. “Some of us believe several bright stars are lying close together at this particular time. Others think it is a new star of unusual brightness.”

“When did you first see it?”

“More than a year ago.”

Herod frowned. If the men spoke truth, and he had no reason to believe they did not, valuable time had been lost and he must waste no more in finding out where this King of the Jews had been born.