The Artifact (59 page)

“You are probably one of the most experienced fighters of all the Jews in Palestine.”

I waited for her decision in silence.

“I would not be able to hold my head high among Jews if I attempted to discourage you from this. Do it Shimon. It will make me proud.”

At that point in our lives, I never knew which way that wonderful woman would turn, but during the years after, I learned. That conversation took place one evening as we lay in our bed in the darkness before sleep. I turned to embrace her in appreciation of her loyal support of my obligation. Her response warm, her whisper chiding. “The next time you have a momentous decision to contemplate, I should learn of it immediately.”

All things being relative, the years following our private wedding at which James officiated, were the happiest and most fulfilling of my life.

Yentl rightly reasoned that the city of Jerusalem itself might not be the best place for us to settle, for it would contain too many memories of my brother’s death. His followers there would surely badger me about joining their midst; in addition to which, it was the seat of power of the Sanhedrin, with a high concentration of Roman troops and functionaries, all of whom would keep me under close scrutiny, none of which would be conducive to my peace of mind, nor possibly, my safety.

Tel Gezer, a modest town at the crossing of two trade routes was our choice of residence, where Yentl chose a spacious house in the countryside that would serve as our home, accompanied by land on which to construct outbuildings for the planned expansion of her garment business.

Shortly after we arrived, I made the half-day journey to the capital to the east under the pretext of advising James of my new address, but actually to allay my disquiet regarding a letter I had received some months ago from a man named Saul. After searching James out at his duties in the Temple, we strolled through the various courtyards in family gossip until I broached the subject of my concern.

“What do you know of this Jesist sect that continues the preaching of Yehoshua?”

“They prefer the Greek word, ‘
Christianoi’.
”

James appeared embarrassed in answering. “Saul persecuted
Christianoi
ferociously before being struck blind outside Damascus, claiming to have seen and spoken to the risen Jesus. When he regained his sight he became an ardent apostle of our brother’s teachings.”

“He came back to Jerusalem some months ago to converse with Peter and others about the true interpretation of the preaching of Jesus.”

I could not restrain my laughter. “A man who never met him, never heard him speak is interpreting the meaning of our brother’s spoken words?”

“He possesses a greater intellect than most of the original disciples.”

“He wrote a letter to me suggesting that as his younger brother, Yehoshua must have appeared to me also. He urged that I desist from my materialistic endeavors and join the sect to proselytize Yehoshua’s teachings, and contribute all my wealth to converting new followers.”

James sense of humor was evident in his barely suppressed grin. “The man is not shy.”

“I think this
Christianoi
group insult’s his memory. An attempt to convince the masses to embrace the teachings of a crucified rebel they claim has risen from the dead will make him look a fool in history.”

James changed the subject. “What of your association with Judah? Cowardly
Sicarii
who stab and run.”

“Judah and his Zealots may be doing more for the memory of Jesus than your
Christianoi
.”

“Of course. His chosen people upon whom He has descended plague, famine, flood, defeat, egregious taxes and poverty. Have I left anything out?”

James reached a hand out to my shoulder to show me no malice in his words. “You have always been contentious, Shimon, angry at God. I have considered the teachings of our brother long and carefully. It is a path of hope toward an ultimate peace I find comforting to follow.”

We walked in silence for a time, comfortable in our physical company, awkward in our divergent beliefs. It has always been a wonder to me that members of the same family, born under one roof, raised by the same parents, exposed initially to the same opinions, schooling and environment can often emerge as adults with such differing philosophies.

When we stopped for a cup of tea at a food vendor in the Upper City, I was still preoccupied with the letter from Saul, and pressed James for additional information about this upstart who seemed intent upon mocking Yehoshua’s life. James revealed that Saul had returned to Arabia for several years after his ‘vision’ before coming to Jerusalem to seek out Peter, who at that time had returned to his family and fishing business in Capernaum. Instead, he found James, from whom he essayed to learn the teachings of Jesus from one who had known and heard him. The story of this so-called resurrection seemed to be an embarrassing, closely-held secret by the followers of Jesus only, never in my lifetime acknowledged by the general population. In fact Josephus, the defected Jewish general/historian, alluded to Jesus only once in a tract written in the mid-70s, some forty years after my brother’s execution. That entry merely stated that the rogue rabbi had been crucified, nothing more.

Saul was somewhat of a fanatic, James told me, who seemed intent upon embellishing our brother’s words with his own ideas and searching for proof of his mysterious contention that Jesus was the Son of God, the Messiah promised in the Torah, who had in fact risen from the dead. I scoffed at that, but James did not venture an opinion, which eventually became our way of remaining at ease with one another, preserving the sibling love our mother had instilled within all of her children since birth.

James and I supped together in Jerusalem whenever I passed through on business, brought our families together on holidays, and for an occasional two or three day visit to my home. Both Yentl and I enjoyed my brother, his wife Elizabeth and their children who often remained with us for several weeks in the summer. I frequently inquired of him in private regarding the
Christianoi,
who were then still considered to be a new sect within the narrow spectrum of Judaism. Due to his filial relationship with Yehoshua and high standing in the Sanhedrin, James was somehow able to act as one of the prime leaders of that newborn movement without conflict as a priestly keeper of the sacred Torah. I listened with curious attention to his discourse about this incredible movement apparently flourishing on the memory of a failed healer ignominiously executed as a seditious criminal, while refraining from negative comments. And James rarely questioned my activities for Judah’s clandestine rebel organization in which I had ascended to the ranks of leadership.

In comparison to my life before marriage, the years following our move to Tel Gezer were calm and ordered. I came to know Yentl as my wife, partner and companion, developing a deep affection for that remarkable woman, with a profound concern for her well-being. For her part, although it was never mentioned, she realized her advanced age might eventually tempt me in other directions, so kept her body as firm as a woman many years her junior and continued to pleasure me in bed until the very end.

Perhaps calm is not an accurate description of my peripatetic wanderings, especially thru the Galilee. I traveled on a regular basis as far as Be’er Sheva in the south, to Hurfeish in the north, selling Yentl’s robes, togas,
stolae
and tunics to local merchants and wealthy families from a covered wagon driven by a trusted freedman and his wife, the woman particularly suited to dealing with female clients. Toward the end of those journeys I carried a great deal of money, my sword and
Pugio
worn at my belt serving as visible deterrents against thieves. Those weapons also made a serious statement when I addressed a local gathering for the purposes of recruitment to our forthcoming rebellion. Although my personal and business circumstances were largely without incident during that period, all of Palestine seethed in an undercurrent of disaffection and upheaval.
Sicarii
-led and independent peasant skirmishes were launched with increasing frequency against traveling groups of Roman soldiers, their smaller encampments and wealthy Jews. Rebel forays against Gentiles sympathetic to the Empire flared throughout Palestine, especially the Galilee. My attempts to coordinate separate rebel bands initially met with contention for supremacy among their leaders, requiring my repeated visits to cajole headmen and their respective insurgents to come together under one man with designated officers as an effective fighting unit. Jews have always been renowned for our explicative and argumentative nature, whether discussing the everyday laws of our religion or the number of steps it takes to walk from house to latrine. The difficulties I encountered in forming an offensive militia to do battle with Roman legions did not augur well for success.

A second undercurrent also gaining strength after the death of Yehoshua were the many followers who proselytized his teachings. A Greek-speaking Jew named Stephen, who like Saul preached that my brother was The Messiah and would return at the imminent End of the World to initiate the Kingdom of God, was brought before the Sanhedrin, to whom he angrily denounced Jews who did not embrace Jesus as Messiah, deprecating the Temple and Torah in the process. The man was found guilty of rejecting Judaism and sentenced to death by stoning.

Not only was all of Palestine in a state of upheaval, but also Rome and many other of her provinces across the Empire. Pilate caused several altercations with his Jewish subjects after sentencing my brother to death, until finally sending soldiers to disrupt a Samaritan Prophet, whom they killed along with many of his leaders and followers. When Samaria complained to Roman authority that Pilate had slaughtered unarmed pilgrims, the Emperor Tiberius recalled him to Rome and a fate I have never learned. Marcellus, the Procurator who replaced Pilate, discharged Caiaphas as high priest and a false tranquility settled over Judea until the death of Tiberius. Then the emperor’s succession by a malevolent youth, Gaius Caligula, who attempted to place his statue in our Temple, resulted in large-scale protests in the Galilee and Judea until that mad young hedonist rescinded his order. Assassinated after less than five years on the throne, Caligula was succeeded as Emperor by Claudius, who installed Agrippa as Procurator of Judea, upon whose death Palestine reverted to its original kingdom under the administration of Procurator Cupas Fadus.

Because of frequent rebel attacks in the Galilee, Rome was wary of any large gathering of Jews, reacting swiftly to silence religious prophets such as Theudas, who preached to many in Judea until an army contingent sent by Fadus slaughtered his followers and brought the prophet’s head back to the Procurator. The stimulus for retribution continued for the next decade with the murder of Galilean pilgrims as they passed through Samaria, the slaughter of a prophet known as the ‘Egyptian’ and his followers by the Procurator Cumanus, constant egregious offenses to our religion, and increasingly heavy taxes sent to Rome to fund a treasury depleted by the lavish personal extravagances of the Emperor Nero. That particularly sadistic emperor instructed his soldiers to scour the provinces for
Christianoi
whom he sent into the Coliseum by the thousands to be ravaged by the starving beasts I had handled in the arenas.

Saul had written several additional letters to me over the years citing my sibling obligation to join the followers of Yehoshua, urging me to join him, Peter and James in promulgating his teachings in preparation of his second coming. I discarded those parchments as the ranting of an idiot and never responded, until he sought me out during the later part of the two decades between his ‘conversion’ and preaching to Gentiles in travels to Syria, Turkey, Greece, and even Rome. At our first encounter, that intense little man provoked one of my most vituperative denunciations of the
Christianoi.

Saul, having adopted the Greek appellation of ‘Paul’ in renunciation of his former castigation of the Jesists, found me on the north coast of the Sea in a hostel where I had stopped for the night. It was a meeting that I remember well. Standing somewhat taller than my own height, with unruly gray hair circumscribing his baldpate, bushy brows, gray beard, a tiny flat nose between piercing close-set eyes, Saul was broad of shoulder with thick arms, his protruding paunch belying a gluttonous appetite. With his disgusting habit of leaning forward to expel his foul breath when speaking in confidence, I could not understand how that man could persuade anyone of anything, whether goatskin tent or outrageous belief.