Killing Jesus: A History (11 page)

Since Augustus declared Herod the Great’s son Archelaus unfit to rule twenty years ago, four other Roman governors have been in charge of Judea.

The fifth has just arrived. His name is Pontius Pilate.

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As John the Baptist is preaching on the banks of the Jordan River and Jesus of Nazareth is about to end years of self-imposed silence about his true identity, Pontius Pilate steps ashore in the seaside fortress town of Caesarea to fill the role recently vacated by Valerius Gratus.

Thickly built and prone to arrogance, Pilate is a member of the equestrian class and a former soldier from central Italy. He is married to Claudia Procula, who accompanies him to Judea. It is a dismal appointment, for Judea is known to be a very difficult place to govern. But if her husband excels in this remote diplomatic posting, the powers in Rome might make sure that Pilate’s next assignment will be somewhere more prestigious.

Pilate is no friend of the Jews. One of his first official acts is to order Roman troops in Jerusalem to decorate standards
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with busts of Emperor Tiberius. When the people rise up in protest of these graven images, which are forbidden by Jewish law, Pilate responds by having his soldiers surround the protesters and draw their swords as if to attack. The Jews refuse to back down. Instead, they bend forth and extend their necks, making it clear that they are prepared to die for their beliefs.

For the first time, Pilate sees with his own eyes the power of the Jewish faith. He orders his men to stand down. The standards are removed.

Pilate now finds a new strategy for dealing with the Jews. He forms an uneasy bond with Caiaphas, the most powerful high priest in the Jerusalem Temple. Caiaphas is from a family of priests and lives in a lavish home in the upper city. He has complete power over religious life in Jerusalem, including the enforcement of Jewish law—even if that means condemning a man or woman to death.

Of course, while Caiaphas may be able to pass sentence, it is the Roman governor who decides if it should be carried out.

Pilate is a Roman pagan. Caiaphas is a Jew. They worship different gods, eat different foods, have different hopes for their future, and speak in different tongues. Pilate serves at the behest of a divine emperor, while Caiaphas serves at the behest of God. But they share a command of the Greek language and a belief that they are entitled to do anything in order to stay in power.

In this way, state and faith keep a stranglehold on Judea. And now it is Caiaphas who plays his role in their partnership, sending a team of religious authorities out into the wilderness to cast a critical eye on the ministry of John the Baptist.

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“You brood of vipers,” John screams at the Temple priests who have come to the river to question him. “The axe is already at the root of the tree, and every tree that does not produce good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire.”

All eyes turn to the shocked religious authorities and then back to John, eager to hear what he will say next. For although it is known that some of these learned men are enormously hypocritical, no one dares criticize them in public. But John defiantly commands the Pharisees and Sadducees either to be baptized or to burn in an eternal fire.

The clerics are stunned by John’s words. They say nothing.

John returns his focus to the throngs who have come to be baptized. Farmers, craftsmen, tax collectors, and soldiers—they all respect John’s monastic lifestyle and his outspokenness and energy. There is a fearless independence to his behavior that many long to mimic. He seems immune to the threats of Rome. Some in the crowd are curious whether John pays his taxes—and, if not, what will happen to him.

Most of all, each and every one of these people, deep in his heart, wonders if John himself is the coming Messiah of whom he preaches.

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The answer comes the following day.

Once again John stands in the Jordan. The village of Bethany is behind him, on the far bank. As usual the day is hot, and long lines of believers wait their turn to be baptized.

In the distance, John spies a man walking down to the river. Like the Baptist, Jesus of Nazareth has long hair and a beard. He wears sandals and a simple robe. His eyes are clear and his shoulders broad, as if he is a workingman. He looks younger than John, but not by much.

Suddenly a dove lands on Jesus’s shoulder. When Jesus makes no move to shoo it away, the bird is quite content to remain there.

The dove changes everything.
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In that instant, the rage that so often fuels the Baptist’s words disappears. In its place is wonder, brought on by the awareness that his vision has now become a reality. As the crowd of pilgrims looks on, an awestruck John motions toward Jesus. “Look, the Lamb of God. I saw the Spirit come down from heaven as a dove and remain on him. I would not have known him, except that the one who sent me to baptize with water told me, ‘The man on whom the Spirit will come down and remain is he who will baptize with the Holy Spirit. I have seen and I testify that this is the Son of God.’”

The believers drop to their knees and press their faces into the earth. Jesus does not react to this sign of worship. He does nothing to discourage it, either. The Nazarene simply wades down into the water and takes his place alongside John, waiting to be baptized.

John is dumbstruck. “I need to be baptized by
you
, and yet you come to me?”

Jesus does not clarify his identity. He is a simple carpenter, a builder who has labored his whole life. He has memorized the Psalms and Scripture. He pays his taxes and takes care of his mother. To a casual observer, he is just one of many hardworking Jews. There is no obvious sign of his divinity.

In the Jewish culture, to proclaim you are God is a capital offense. So now, speaking softly with John the Baptist, Jesus does declare who he is. Bowing his head to accept the water, Jesus tells John, “Let it be so. It is proper for us to do this to fulfill all righteousness.”

John places one hand on Jesus’s back and slowly lowers him into the water. “I baptize you with water for repentance,” John says as he submerges Jesus in the current.

He then lifts Jesus to his feet.

“I have seen and I testify that this is the Son of God,” John cries out.

“Son of God” is a regal title indicative of one’s being a Messiah, a title attributed to King David. It is believed that when the Messiah returns, he will be king of the Jews, in keeping with David, the perfect king. The people looking on understand “Son of God” as a Davidic title, the anointed one, who is coming as ruler and king.
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The crowd remains on its knees as Jesus steps onto the shore and keeps on walking. He is headed alone into the desert to fast for forty days and nights. It is a journey he makes willingly, knowing that he must confront and defeat any and all temptation in order to make his mind and body pure before publicly preaching his message of faith and hope.

John the Baptist’s work is now done. But along with that, his fate has been sealed.

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John is that rarest of all prophets: a man who lives to see his predictions come true. The people still desire to be cleansed of their sins through baptism, and huge crowds continue to follow John wherever he goes. If anything, his following is growing even larger. And while there is no longer a need to prophesize the coming of a new Christ, John has a powerful gift for speaking. He is not the sort to remain silent about immorality and injustice. So when he learns that Herod Antipas has divorced his wife and then violated Jewish religious law by taking his brother’s former spouse for his new bride, he cannot remain silent. Walking the countryside, John the Baptist loudly decries Antipas wherever he goes, turning the people against their ruler.

Antipas orders the spies who have been keeping an eye on John to arrest him. John is chained and then marched fifteen miles over hot desert terrain. Finally, he sees a vision in front of him. It is Antipas’s mountaintop fortress at Machaerus. John is then forced to walk three thousand feet up to the citadel, which is surrounded on all sides by rocky ravines. Antipas has sought to make this castle impenetrable. He fears attack from Arabia, which lies to the east, so he has enhanced these natural fortifications by erecting sixty-foot-thick walls and corner towers ninety feet high. “Moreover,” the historian Josephus will one day write of Antipas’s designs for Machaerus, “he has put a large quantity of dart-throwers and other machines of war into it, and contrived to get everything thither that might any way contribute to its inhabitants’ security under the longest siege possible.”

The view from the palace, which lies at the center of the fortified structure, is stunning. If John were allowed to enjoy it, he might be able to see the slender brown curves of his beloved Jordan River snaking through the valley so far below. And perhaps John does pause for a final glimpse as he is marched through the great wooden doors that allow entrance to the citadel. But those doors close behind him all too quickly. Still in chains, he is marched into Antipas’s throne room, where he stands defiant and fearless before this man who says he is king of the Jews. And even when given a chance to recant his charges, John does not. “It is not lawful,” he tells the ruler, “for you to have your brother’s wife.”

The woman in question, Herodias,
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sits at Antipas’s side. With his charges, John is not only condemning her husband but her as well. Still, Herodias sees that Antipas is actually fearful of John and is afraid to order his death. Herodias, however, is a patient woman and knows that she will find a way to exact her revenge. How dare this unkempt savage insult her?

And so it is that John is hurled into the dungeons of Machaerus, there to rot until Antipas sets him free—or Herodias has him killed.

Meanwhile, a far greater threat to Antipas is beginning to emerge. Jesus of Nazareth has now embarked on a spiritual journey, a mission that will challenge the world’s most powerful men.

CHAPTER SEVEN

VILLA JOVIS, CAPRI
A.D. 26
NIGHT

Far away from Galilee, the Roman who considers himself to be the stepson of god is on the move. Life in Rome has been hard on Tiberius Julius Caesar Augustus—or so he thinks. So he has exiled himself to this mountaintop island fortress on Capri to live out his days in pleasure and privacy. Now he reclines in his bedroom as nude handmaidens and young boys copulate in front of him. They were handpicked for their beauty and brought from the far-flung reaches of the Roman Empire against their will to perform erotic sexual acts for “the old goat,” as the sixty-eight-year-old Tiberius is called behind his back. Some days the children might be asked to dress as Pans and nymphs, then flit about the royal garden, offering themselves to one another and to the emperor’s invited guests.

Tonight the orgiasts remain inside this sprawling palace with its marble floors, erotic statues, works of art, and stunning views of the Mediterranean Sea far below. In case the performances of the young girls and boys ordered to submit to the jaded, pockmarked emperor lack imagination, explicit sex manuals from Egypt are on hand for instruction.

The young performers can’t help but sneak a glance at Tiberius. If all goes well, he will join in, perhaps selecting one of the teenaged boys or girls for himself. But if they fail, and if Tiberius doesn’t find their contortions stimulating, the emperor will not simply leave the room. He will do something far worse. There is a good chance he will hurl their bodies off “Tiberius’s Leap,” the thousand-foot cliff alongside the palace. From that height, it doesn’t matter if a person lands in the sea or on the rocks jutting out into the Gulf of Naples. There is no surviving the fall.

Which is just as Tiberius designed it. Perversely, just as he enjoys sex and watching others have sex, he also finds delight in watching his victims scream for their lives.

The truth is, almost all of tonight’s players will suffer the terrifying fate of being thrown off the cliff. Tiberius cannot abide the thought of rumors about his debauchery making their way back to Rome. The best way to keep these children silent is to kill them after he uses them.

But the young players don’t know this. They actually believe they will one day make it out of Villa Jovis alive and return home to their villages. So they perform as if their lives depend upon it, succumbing to any whim or want of the vile Tiberius.

Meanwhile, the aging emperor—a man who once knew true love and happiness—reclines on a pile of pillows, a cup of wine always within reach, his eyes glazed and his skin mottled from eczema and boils. Tiberius is a man without a conscience.

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It could have been the deaths of his two sons that brought Tiberius to Capri. Or perhaps it was the unbearable presence of his mother, the scheming Livia, widow of the great Caesar Augustus. Maybe it was the dreadful crowds of petitioners who besieged him each day in Rome, reeking of desperation as they begged for this favor or that. It might have been the fear of assassination, because court intrigue in the form of angry lieutenants, jilted spouses, and distant nephews with their sights set on his throne seemed to grow more pervasive by the day.

Or it might have been something as simple as Tiberius being tired of people whispering that he drinks too much. He has long worn the mantle that comes with being born into a lifetime of power, with its expectations and judgments. Whatever the reason, he has escaped to a hilltop castle in beautiful Capri, over the sparkling waters of the Mediterranean, an otherworldly turquoise, where he can eat what he wants, sleep with whom he desires, drink as much as he wants, and rule Rome from a distance.

So that he knows what fates the gods will bring, Tiberius has brought along the one man he trusts above all others: Thrasyllus, the royal astrologer. In addition to the baths, cisterns, great hall, private suites, and lighthouse Tiberius built to make life on Capri as comfortable as possible, he also constructed the special observatory that will allow Thrasyllus to make sense of the stars each night.