The Galileans: A Novel of Mary Magdalene (38 page)

“I say proclaim Him king tomorrow,” a deep, angry voice said. “Philip is weak and will not oppose us. Before he knows what has happened, we will have gathered enough of a force to descend on Galilee and take it by storm.”

“But if the Master refuses?” Simon asked.

“Can He refuse to be king in Israel when we set the crown upon His head?” the deep voice said.

“I tell you, Jesus does not want to be king.” Joseph started, for it was Mary’s voice. “Can’t you even try to understand His purpose?”

“He must be king,” the deep voice said positively. “Is it not written in the Psalms of Solomon:

Behold, O Lord, and raise up to them their king, the son of David,

At the time in which thou seest, O Lord, that he may reign over Israel, thy servant.

And guide him with strength that he may shatter unrighteous rulers.

And that he may purge Jerusalem from the nations that trample her down to destruction.

With a rod of iron he shall break in pieces all their substance.

And shall destroy the godless nations with the word of his mouth.

“It would seem that we do have the promise of the Most High that Jesus shall be king,” Simon admitted.

Joseph had realized by now that he was eavesdropping upon a plan to force Jesus into becoming king in Galilee, preparatory, no doubt, to marching upon Jerusalem itself. He knew that, as an outsider, he had no right to listen. But Mary was in there, and what concerned her, he told himself, concerned him.

“It would seem,” the deep voice parroted sarcastically. “Is your faith so small, Simon, that you doubt Jesus is the Messiah?”

“No man can name me disloyal to the Master,” the fisherman shouted angrily. But before he could go on, Mary said firmly, “Simon called Peter followed Jesus long before Simon the Zealot. Neither of you have a right to settle this. The Master Himself must decide.”

“But He has said He will go into Tyre,” the man called the Zealot objected. “It would be disastrous to leave Galilee now. The people are ready to crown Him king.”

Suddenly Joseph felt an iron hand grip his shoulder. At the same moment the sharp point of a dagger penetrated his robe and pricked the skin. “Make no move,” a harsh voice ordered.

He could not see his captor, nor did he dare cry out to Simon Peter and Mary inside the house, lest the man who held the dagger plunge it into his back. “Who sent you?” the harsh voice asked. “Herod Antipas?”

“My name is Joseph of Galilee,” the young physician managed to stammer.

“You are of the
sicarii.
Else why would you listen when honest men speak among themselves?”

“Take me into the building,” Joseph begged. “Mary of Magdala and Simon Peter know me well.”

“Walk, then,” his captor directed. “But make no false move.”

When they went through the door Joseph got a glimpse of the man who held the dagger. He was a Jew, and tall, with prominent cheekbones, a jutting beak of a nose, burning eyes, and hair already turning a little gray at the temples. It was not a face easily forgotten, especially when met under these circumstances.

Mary was the first to see them and moved quickly to seize the tall man’s arm. “Put up your dagger, Judas of Kerioth!” she cried indignantly. “Joseph is my betrothed and a friend to all of us.”

Simon stared at them in amazement, but it was to the other man that Joseph’s eyes turned. The man called the Zealot, or “Zelotes,” no doubt to distinguish him from Simon the fisherman, was short and thickset, with broad shoulders and long arms. His neck was short and his head small, giving him an oddly formidable appearance. He got to his feet now with a muttered curse. “What is this, Judas?” he demanded.

The man Mary had called Judas of Kerioth sheathed his dagger reluctantly. “I found him listening outside the door,” he explained.

“Then he heard everything we were saying,” Zelotes growled. “Are you the Joseph of Galilee who is
medicus viscerus
for the temple and a friend of Pontius Pilate?”

“Joseph does not eavesdrop upon other people’s conversations,” Mary cried indignantly. “He can explain anything he was doing.”

“Hadja and I had come from where Jesus was teaching by the lake,” Joseph explained. “He went looking for you, Mary, but I heard yours and Simon’s voices from this building and started over to speak to you. When I realized that you were talking to someone else I didn’t come in.”

“But you remained outside where you could hear,” Simon Zelotes pointed out. He turned to the other Simon. “What if he goes to Pontius Pilate?”

“Joseph is no informer,” Mary insisted. “But I almost wish he were. What you are plotting is evil. The Master will tell you what to do; you will not tell Him.”

“I have known Joseph of Galilee for a long time,” Simon Peter agreed. “If he has heard anything he should not and we ask him to keep it to himself, he will do so.”

“Whatever I heard will be told to no one,” Joseph said. “I swear it by my honor as a physician.”

Grudgingly the other two men accepted Joseph’s word, but he knew that their suspicions were not entirely allayed. Judas of Kerioth was also known, he learned, as Judas Iscariot. Both he and Simon Zelotes belonged to the group of Galilean fanatics called the Zealots, many of whom had been with that other Judas, the Gaulonite, who had brought down the wrath of Rome upon the city of Sepphoris. Joseph wondered if he should reveal to them that Pontius Pilate knew their intentions already, but decided that to do so would only increase their suspicions of him. Perhaps Mary might be able to convince Jesus that He should not follow them upon what must inevitably be a foolhardy course. And yet he was somehow sure the gentle carpenter of Nazareth was quite able to take care of Himself.

The camp was filled with tension that night. Judas and Simon Zelotes were waiting for Jesus to return to urge upon Him their projected uprising, and Simon Peter was of more than half a mind to support them. Then a thunderbolt struck. James and John, the sons of Zebedee, returned from Bethsaida with news that their leader had sent them back and had gone up into the hills to pray. And they also revealed that the Teacher was adamant in His decision to go into the region of Tyre, near the seacoast.

When the evening meal was over, the others went away for a conference on this new development, but Simon remained behind for a while with Joseph and Mary.

“I saw Jesus on the shore this afternoon,” Joseph said. “What has happened to Him? He seemed to be sad.”

“He is disappointed because His disciples do not understand Him,” Mary said promptly. “They think in terms of earthly kingdoms, but Jesus wants only to change men’s hearts.”

“But He is the Christ,” Simon insisted. “The Messiah sent from God to free the Jews from oppression.”

“What proof do you have, Simon, that Jesus is really the Expected One?” Joseph asked.

“What proof do I need save His own words?”

“He told you that Himself?”

Simon nodded. “Some time ago, when we were just north of here, in Caesarea Philippi. Jesus asked us, ‘Who do you say that I am?’ And I answered, ‘The Christ, of God.’ Then He commanded us to tell this to no one.”

“Why did you say just that?” Joseph asked.

“It was something I knew,” Simon said simply, “like I know that I am sitting here with you and Mary tonight.”

“I feel it too, Joseph,” Mary said. “The very first time I saw Him, I knew who He was in my heart.”

“But if Jesus is really the Messiah,” Joseph protested, “why does He not announce it publicly?”

“Until now the time had not come,” Simon explained. “But we are ready. If the Master had not left us, we would proclaim Hking and march on Sepphoris and Tiberias tomorrow. Jerusalem would be next, and then the Anointed of God would reign over all of Israel.”

“Then you think Jesus really plans to establish an earthly kingdom?”

“Why else would the Messiah come?” Simon looked at him in astonishment. “Is it not written that He will free the Jews from bondage and set them over all the people of the world?”

“But the soldiers of Rome—”

Simon stood up, his face suddenly flushed with anger. “Take care, Joseph,” he warned. “When you say the power of the Most High cannot prevail over any earthly power, even Rome, you blaspheme against God.” And without waiting for an answer, he stalked from the room.

Joseph started to rise and follow Simon, but Mary put her hand on his arm. “You can’t argue with him,” she said. “He and Simon Zelotes and Judas Iscariot and the sons of Zebedee think of nothing but setting up an earthly kingdom.”

“I know you don’t agree. Why?”

“The Pharisees once questioned Jesus about when the kingdom of God would come. He told them, ‘The kingdom of God is not coming with signs to be observed. Nor will they say: Lo! Here it is! Or, There! For, behold, the kingdom of God is in the midst of you.’ The message of Jesus is not for our eyes or our ears, Joseph,” she said. “It is for our hearts.”

He was tempted by her calm conviction and his love for her to agree. And yet the man he had heard speak from the rocks beside the shore that afternoon was utterly different from what he had been taught since childhood to expect of the liberator who would be known as the Christ.

“Come walk with me by the shore, Joseph,” Mary said, getting to her feet. “Jesus may return later. If He does, I must be here to wash His feet and anoint His head with oil and see that a fresh robe is ready for Him in the morning, but we can have a little time together until He comes.”

The moon had already risen above the precipitous hills to the east where lay the Greek cities of the Decapolis. A broad band of silver lay upon the water, broken occasionally by thousands of tiny wavelets when a fish leaped to shatter the mirror-smooth surface. Joseph took Mary’s hand and they walked along the shore close together both in body and mood.

“Do you remember when we last talked by the water?” she asked.

“It was at Alexandria by Lake Mareotis, in the garden of your villa.”

“You tried to persuade me then not to kill Gaius Flaccus.” She lifted his hand and put it to her lips. “Dear, good Joseph,” she said softly. “If I had only listened . . .”

“You could have been one of the richest women in the world.”

“But then I might not have known Jesus.”

“Is knowing Him worth giving up everything you might have had?”

“If I were as rich now as I was in Alexandria,” she said simply, “I would still give all of it in exchange for the privilege of serving Jesus. Deep down inside me, in my very soul, I know this is what I was intended for.”

“Teach me to know Jesus as you do, Mary,” he begged impulsively, but she shook her head.

“I can only show you the way to see for yourself, Joseph. Today you are like those of whom Isaiah said,
‘You shall indeed hear, but never understand.’
Perhaps only a woman can really understand the inner heart of Jesus,” she continued. “The love He has for the world is like that of a mother for her child, a thing that all women feel inside them.” She turned her eyes to the hills back of Bethsaida. “Somewhere up there He is alone, Joseph, praying, to His Father that men’s eyes shall be opened so they can see Him for what He is. So many look to Him only to be healed, and the Pharisees seek a sign from heaven, while Simon the Zealot and Judas only see Him leading the Jews to triumph over Rome. None of them seem able to realize that through believing and following Jesus, their very hearts can be changed until they see the glory of the Most High here on earth itself.”

“Then He has failed in His mission?”

“No, Joseph. The Messiah cannot fail, but those He loves have failed Him. His family name Him a madman and would shut Him away. His disciples—even Simon Peter, whom He loves more than the others—can think of Him only as an earthly king. And Pontius Pilate and Herod Antipas call Him a criminal but dare not arrest Him because they fear the consequences.”

“What can He do then, except go away?”

“I don’t know,” Mary admitted. “But I am sure He has come to some sort of decision and that our going away from Galilee at this time is a part of it. He told us not so long ago, ‘The Son of Man must suffer many things, and be rejected by the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised.’”

“What sort of man prophesies His own death?” Joseph asked incredulously.

“Who could prophesy it? Who else but the Son of God?”

Jesus did not return to the camp that night, and early the next morning a messenger came from Him bidding the others follow along the road to Tyre. Joseph watched them break camp and start the march northward. Judas, the two Simons, and the sons of Zebedee were angry, but they could do nothing except obey the command of their leader. To proclaim a king when there was no king to crown would have been worse than folly.

Joseph bade Mary good-bye and turned his camel toward Capernaum and the road to Jerusalem. He had not gone far when he noticed that he was being followed. Obviously Simon Zelotes and Judas of Kerioth were taking no chances that their plans would be betrayed to Herod Antipas or Pontius Pilate.

All that morning the zealot rode behind Joseph. Only when he was well into the Plain of Esdraelon on the Central Highway and past Sepphoris, did the other man stop. Watching the distant figure, sitting on his mule on a little hill where he could see him on the road, Joseph thought with a sudden flash of insight that Simon and the rest of the band of revolutionaries called the Zealots were a far greater threat to Jesus of Nazareth and the seed He was trying to implant into the hearts of men than Herod or Pilate could ever be.

Winter was a busy time for a physician in Jerusalem, and particularly for the
medicus viscerus
of the temple. The stone floors of the great sanctuary were cold and damp, and the feet and legs of the priests, usually corpulent men addicted to feasting, often swelled and cracked open. This condition, known colloquially as “temple foot” or “priest’s foot,” was an exceedingly painful one. Joseph had been outstandingly successful in treating it with snug bandages and soothing balms, but the bandaging took time and had to be replaced often, so he spent long hours in the quarters of the priests. The winter climate in Jerusalem was damp and raw much of the time, too, and there was much sickness in the city, particularly among the pilgrims who came here from warmer climates and were ill dressed for the weather.