The Painted Messiah (42 page)
Caligula's spies began to converge on them as soon as Cornelius and Procula turned back from the house and entered the plaza. They came slowly at first, carefully encircling their prey like hungry wolves wary of a trap. Two slipped in behind them, two others approached from either side. Three came at them directly. Their circle tightened at the centre of the plaza.
Cornelius seemed not to understand the danger at his back. He watched the men before him with the steady gaze of a man who has faced many battles, but Procula knew the men behind him would make the first move.
Why, she wondered, had he chosen an open plaza for his last fight?
The ambush that hit Caligula's men came silently, half-a-dozen arrows whistling down from various rooftops. The assault left three men writhing on the paving stones. Before their companions could even understand what had happened Cornelius struck one of the men behind him, the move so quick Procula did not even see him pull his sword.
The three still standing did not wait for a second volley from Cornelius's archers but turned and ran for their lives.
With the Praetorians searching wagons and carriages at every gate of the city, it took twelve hours to spirit Procula out of Rome. In the end, Cornelius's companions - People of the Way, as he called them - used a rope and basket and dropped her over the city wall. At the coast his friends arranged for a cargo ship to take them as far north as Genoa. From there they travelled north into the Alps. The journey was arduous and slow, but along the way they always found friends. One night Procula might sleep in a barn, the next in a mansion.
In Helvetia Procula took Pilate's ashes to a remote mountain and spread them across an alpine marsh. That evening she returned to the village quite late, but Cornelius begged permission to speak with her
in camera
. A matter of some importance, he said.
After she had let the old man enter her modest rooms, Cornelius pulled a small panel painting from beneath his coat. 'Do you remember this man?' he asked.
Procula took the painting from him and studied the image. She could still hear the raucous laughter Pilate's joke excited among his Roman visitors - the king of the Jews with his own
imago
standard!
'I remember.'
'When Pilate ordered me to destroy this, I took it into my chambers instead. Morning and night I found comfort in the calmness of his eye and the purity of his spirit. When I touched the image, I felt something within me begin to kindle that has not yet burned away.'
Procula let her fingers touch the waxy surface and could imagine that same kindling in her own breast. She studied the features of the Jewish Messiah more closely. He certainly didn't look like a god - or even a king, for that matter. He wore no crown of any sort, no insignia at all. He seemed . . . more the sort of fellow to run the harvest or build a temple. In the company of his friends he would speak plainly and when he made a bargain, he would keep it.
'Tell me,' she said. 'Was he really such a man as this?'
'Take this and keep it with you. I think in time you will know the answer better than anyone, what sort he was.'
Procula was startled by the centurion's proposition and tried to hand the image back. 'I am not worthy of such a gift! If you must give it to someone, seek out a person who is truly good.'
'I led him to his death without a flicker of conscience. His friends hid in fear on the only occasion when he ever really needed them. The man he called his Rock denied knowing him, and his most zealous follower
sold him to the priests of the Temple for a few pieces of silver. Tell me, Lady, where am I to find anyone who is
truly
good?'
Procula shifted her gaze until she was looking at the great round ugly face of the centurion. This was not a gift of kindness. Cornelius, she realized, was asking her to take a burden from him. This was the only image ever painted of this man, a man some now were calling the son of God. To keep his image safe was to keep it secret from everyone. That was burden that only grew heavier as time passed, unless it was given away or shared.
'I will not take it from you, my friend,' she said, 'but this I will do for the sake of your kindness to me. I will help you keep it safe. So long as we travel on the same road, let it be
our
responsibility. Who knows? Perhaps the good that was in this man will remind us that there is always some good things that need to be done - no matter what the cost. But I ask one thing in return, and it is not a small matter.
'Ask it and it is yours.'
'I want you to take me to the people who walked with this man. I want to know what they heard and what they saw when he walked among us.'
Procula was in Corinth hoping eventually to travel on to Jerusalem when she learned of Caligula's assassination.
Her first thought was a practical one. It was now safe for her to go back to Rome. In fact, she was quite confident that Claudius, the new emperor, would see that Pilate's property and fortune were restored to her.
That meant no more laboring for others and counting coins out at the marketplace for a bit of food. A second marriage would even be possible, if she wanted it. She was still young enough and would certainly be rich enough to attract the most prominent men in the city.
The thought of her fortune stopped her. How many people had Pilate robbed for the sake of his gold? How many Jews had he murdered to build an aqueduct for the pleasure of a rich man's bribe?
She had turned her face away from Pilate's crimes all her married life. She had told herself it was not her choice to do these things but having lost everything, Procula knew the truth. With Pilate's earnings came Pilate's sins, and so long as she possessed his fortune or had hope of possessing it or gave in to the occasional regret at losing it, she was bound to every crime he had committed.
In Jerusalem she would be without resources, but she would be among those who had heard the words of Jesus . . .
'I will see that you get back to Rome safely,' Cornelius told her, 'if that is where you want to go.'
'I am not going to Rome,' she answered.
And saying it Procula let go forever the world of the Caesars, fixing her gaze instead on distant Jerusalem, with her prophets, her apostles . . . and her risen Messiah.
The historical scenes and those details of history discussed within the novel are all based on actual or reported events. Josephus and Philo give somewhat different accounts of Pilate's handling of the Jewish protestors in Caesarea. Josephus describes the encounter in Jerusalem that ended in a massacre, and there is quite possibly a reference to this in the New Testament with the mention of blood on the Temple steps. Simon Magus was a Samarian magician who sold his image in various guises to the credulous with the promise that if they prayed to it they would live forever and never grow old. Nicodemus was the richest man in Judea during the reign of Tiberius. There was also a wealthy Nicodemus who was a friend of Jesus.
Tacitus gives a full account of Tiberius and Sejanus - that partnership which went awry as Sejanus became increasingly ambitious. Tiberius gets bad press from Tacitus and Suetonius as a profligate and pedophile (he apparently took up his wicked ways sometime in his old age, having been sexually virtuous to that point). Tiberius was a world class alcoholic and a very competent scholar (especially of Homer). He was also the most politically astute individual of his age - after his mother, Livia, the wife of Augustus, had passed away.
While Sejanus and Tiberius agreed on most issues, we do know that with respect to Jerusalem Tiberius wanted to maintain the policies of Augustus, while Sejanus preferred to raze the city and sow the earth with salt. This latter policy was essentially carried out within forty years of the Crucifixion of Jesus and changed the course of history.
Senator Publius Vitellius, who makes only a brief appearance in this story, is a curious figure in the story of Tiberius and Sejanus. Having served as the second in command under Prince Germanicus, Vitellius was politically aligned against Tiberius up until the unexpected death of Germanicus (most believe Tiberius had the prince poisoned); however, Vitellius saved the emperor in the aftermath of that event and became one of Tiberius's most trusted friends. After the fall of Sejanus in AD 31, Vitellius took his own life, presumably because he had shifted his alliance away from the emperor and was working with Sejanus.
It is generally assumed that Pilate was fluent in Greek, since every educated Roman would study Ancient and classical Greek. I have suggested the contrary from my own experience with the language. It is one thing to read classical Greek, quite another to speak it or for that matter the
Koine
of the New Testament. Moreover, I doubt some administrators could even read Latin, there being no such thing as a pair of glasses - or even glass, as we know it. I have therefore given Pilate difficulties with Greek and have him insist on good old Latin. Pilate, being only human, would naturally have had the occasional run-in with interpreters.
Pilate's venality is a matter of less contention. While he is not specifically mentioned as being especially corrupt, the custom of the day was to return to Rome quite rich after an assignment in the provinces. It was said Tiberius kept his administrators in place for long periods of time so they would not feel obliged to build their fortunes too quickly.
It is almost a cliché to call Judaea a backwater but I find no evidence of it. The East, as it seems to me, fed Rome financially, culturally and, yes, even literally. Caesarea, as we now know, was an extraordinary city - a model of Roman engineering, second only to Antioch of Syria in its ostentatious display of wealth. The Temple compound in Jerusalem was one of the great creations of the ancient world - and Rome did not pay for it. The Jews did.
While it is generally assumed that Caiaphas was the power in Jerusalem, he in fact owed allegiance to his father-in-law, the former High Priest Annas (aka Annanus). Caiaphas was probably appointed not by Pilate but by his predecessor, Gratus, after the prefect quarreled with Annas. Caiaphas's marriage to the daughter of Annas came immediately after his appointment (obliging him to answer to his father-in-law). It is a virtual certainty that the spur to the Jerusalem aqueduct was paid for with Temple funds.
There are a number of ancient accounts about Pilate's wife - all the stuff of legend. Other than her dream in the Gospel of Matthew, we know nothing about her - including her name. Legend calls her Claudia Procula, making her a Claudii. In the Orthodox tradition she is a saint. We know wives did travel with Roman administrators. Many set up shadow courts and became as powerful as their husbands. Tradition gives Procula two children, but many Roman patricians at this time were childless - often by choice.
Cornelius, the centurion, is mentioned in Acts, and is said to be the first gentile to convert to The Way (the terms
Christianity
and
Christians
had not yet been coined, this being before the conversion of Paul). Cornelius had a vision of Christ (perhaps on the Cross) and may even have been the same centurion who participated in the Crucifixion. Peter brought him to the faith in Caesarea.
The existence of Pilate's Portrait of Christ is mentioned in the second century by Irenaeus - after which I can find no further historic reference to the painting. Irenaeus says the Gnostic sect in possession of this panel believed that whoever prayed to it (the mood of the verb suggests continuously or regularly) would live forever and never age.
The history of the Holy Face of Edessa is far more complex, a mix of verifiable fact and undeniable legend. In one tradition Jesus sent a cloth he had touched to his face to Edessa to heal the king of leprosy; when Abgar (aka Agbar) saw the cloth, he also saw the face of Jesus and was healed. In another account, Paul sent a panel (?) painting 'made by no human hand' to the King of Edessa. Both of these stories (along with a Syrian text telling the tale somewhat differently) predate the discovery of the actual image or painting buried inside Edessa's city wall in AD 525.
Some believe the image of Christ that was found in Edessa was the Shroud of Turin (taken to France by the Templars and kept now in the Italian city of Turin); others speculate that a cloth with Christ's image was sent to Constantinople and then on to Rome, where it became known as the Veil of Veronica. A third theory is that this image inspired one of the famous icons of the Russian Orthodox Church, and still another theory associates the Holy Face with the oldest known icon of Jesus, the 6th century painting now in the monastery of St. Catherine on Mt. Sinai. The idea that it was Baphomet, the image the Templars worshipped, is so far as I know wholly original.
To my knowledge no one has connected Baldwin I, the first king of Latin Jerusalem from 1100 to 1118, to the Holy Face, the Grail, or the legend of the Fisher King - though he does fit the bill perfectly.
During the nineteenth century, the Arsenal Library in Paris contained the Vatican Archives (courtesy of Napoleon), including every known work on magic and all of the Templar records and artifacts. This made the Arsenal ground zero for the occult revival - which saw public and private acts of necromancy (raising spirits) and the birth of modern magic and occult belief. Both Oscar Wilde and his wife maintained strong ties with occult groups throughout their lives, though in his last hours Wilde converted to Catholicism - in my opinion a genuine conversion that was years in the making.