King Jesus Page 9

  “I scorn ruses and stratagems of whatever sort, and all who employ them.”

  “Come, Prince, that is too downright a declaration. It is to express contempt not only for Abraham and Isaac but for Jacob too, whose whole life was a network of ruses, and who did not hesitate to trick his old blind father in order to obtain the blessing destined for Esau. Yet Jacob became Israel, and you would be a hardy man if you dared to confess a scorn for Israel. After all, you are the King’s eldest son. The succession to the throne is yours by birthright, according both to Jewish and Roman law, and your father has already bestowed his blessing on you and made you his colleague. Why be so squeamish? Esau vexed his father by a foreign marriage ; but the marriage which I am counselling you to make is with a virgin of your own tribe, and it is the only marriage by which you can become the authentic King of Israel.”

  “Simon, your words are sober enough, but the suppressed vehemence of your tones does not escape me. Confess, you have some other motive for urging me to this dangerous course than a desire to see me happy ?”

  Simon did not reply at first. He took a sip of wine and twisted his fingers in his little beard.

  “Simon, now your eyes are shining as I have never before seen them shine. Your hands are trembling as you play with your beard. Tell me honestly what is in your mind. You are a philosopher and conduct your life according to strict philosophic principles. You keep hope and joy on the curb like unruly stallions, but they are champing and rearing and the white froth flies from their mouths.”

  “Prince,” said Simon at last in an uneven voice, “it is this. Jerusalem is at the meeting-place of continents, it is the fortress commanding the cross-roads through which all nations have marched and counter-marched since history began. Jerusalem lies midway between India and Spain, between the frozen White Sea of the North where the were-wolf Finns are found, and the insufferably hot deserts beyond Punt to the Southward, where the ape-men beat devilishly upon their hairy chests and East and West are confounded. Jerusalem is the centre of the known Universe ; here we are centrally situated in Space. And what of Time? The Egyptians reckon the life of a nation at eight thousand years, and in two years’ time, by our reckoning, Adam will have been born four thousand years ago.”

  “I have heard otherwise : I have heard that the fourth millennium ended a century and a half ago in the days of Judas the Maccabee.”

  “Judas misreckoned. We are at the meridian of Adam’s day. The fourth millennium draws swiftly to a close, and the close of each millennium has always been marked by some great event. At the close of the first millennium Enoch the Perfect One, Keeper of Books, was caught up alive into Heaven. At the close of the second, the Lord swore his covenant with Abraham. At the close of the third, King Solomon with great magnificence celebrated the dedication of the First Temple, at which time the All-Merciful granted him a visible sign of favour. Ah, Prince, does not your heart beat with pride and hope to think what the Lord in his bounty may hold in store for us at this four-thousandth year, this half-way house of destiny? Adam was true-born ; Enoch, Keeper of Books, was without sin ; Abraham obeyed the Lord with superb faith ; Solomon, when asked by the Lord in a dream what gift he most desired, chose wisdom. All these men are counted as patriarchs of our nation, and are reckoned in a single genealogical line. What if this latest millennium should close with the appearance of a King who combines all the qualities of his predecessors : true-born like Adam, sinless like Enoch, faithful like Abraham, wise like Solomon ?”

  A puzzled smile played over Antipater’s face. He said : “I never expected to hear you speak in this rapt millennial strain, Son of Boethus. And I do not know how to answer you, except by asking ‘What of Moses?’ For Moses is not reckoned in the same line of descent with the other patriarchs, yet nobody can deny him equal dignity with them ; and neither his birth nor his death nor any other event of his life coincides with the close of any of the millennia of which you speak. And what of the patriarch Noah, with whom a new age certainly began ?”

  Simon answered very gravely : “Spoken like a sage! Indeed, were it not for Noah and Moses you might well dismiss my argument as in conclusive; but their cases make it irresistible. The fact is, that the close of this fourth millennium coincides with a Phoenix year. As you know, the residue of hours of the solar year that exceed three hundred and sixty-five days add up every 1460 years to an entire year, which in Egypt is called the Phoenix year or Sothic Great Year : for then the Celestial Bird is consumed upon his palm-tree pyre at On-Heliopolis and from his ashes rises the new Phoenix. Moses worshipped the Almighty in Heliopolis, and when he removed from that city with his fellow-priests the Phoenix age ended which had begun with the patriarch Noah—with Noah who, like Enoch, was judged worthy to walk with the Lord. A new Phoenix age was then inaugurated on Sinai with the institution of the Mosaic Law ; this age in turn is all but completed—the old Phoenix must die and a new Phoenix be born. Here, then, we stand at the cross-roads of Space, but also at the cross-roads of Time : not only at the meridian of Adam’s day but at the precise point where the Phoenix line intersects with the Millennary line. Is it any wonder that I should wish the eldest son of my King to undertake a fortunate marriage, a marriage which promises a shower of the greatest possible blessings for Israel and all mankind ?”

  “Nevertheless I am an Edomite, and Esau sold his birthright to Jacob for a bowl of red lentil-porridge, and forfeited his blessing too.”

  “Esau was famished and would have died but for that meal. Jacob did evil in making Esau pay for the hospitality which was his guest-right. The blessing, too, was stolen by Jacob ; and it is written that a thief must restore fourfold. That neither the blessing nor the birthright was permanently forfeited in the judgement of their father Isaac is made clear in the twenty-seventh chapter of Genesis where Isaac says :

  Your brother came with subtlety and took away your blessing. Nevertheless, though you serve your brother at the first, the time will come when you shall have the dominion over him, and break his yoke from about your neck.

  And Isaiah enlarges on this prophecy in the sixty-third chapter of his book, the Vision of the Messiah, when he writes : ‘Who is this that comes from Edom with dyed garments from Bozrah, glorious in his apparel, travelling in the greatness of his strength?’ Back comes the answer : ‘It is I—I who speak in righteousness, mighty to save.’ Isaiah asks again : ‘Why are you red in your apparel, like one who tramples in the vine-vat?’ The answer comes again : ‘I trod the vine-vat alone’ —that is to say, without my brother Jacob—‘for the year of my redeemed has come.’ ”

  “Who is the redeemed ?”

  “Edom is to be redeemed. The meaning is that the Edomites, not the Israelites, are the original people of Jehovah. When Jacob supplanted Esau, Jehovah adopted the Israelites as his children and showed them wonderful kindness ; but they rebelled against him. Now the Edomites call themselves to his remembrance and cry to him through the mouth of Isaiah : ‘We are yours. You never were their God. They were not at first called by your name. They trod down your sanctuary.’ ”

  “Then is the promised Messiah to be an Edomite ?” cried Antipater in astonishment.

  “How else can he be the Second Adam? For Edom and Adam are the same person, the Red Man of Hebron. Or how else can he be the Second David? But his mother is to be of the tribe of Levi, a daughter of Aaron. Thus since Caleb, the royal part of Edom, is now reckoned to Judah, it is foretold in the Testament of the Twelve Patriarchs that ‘the Messiah shall be raised up from the Tribe of Levi as High Priest and from the Tribe of Judah as King : in person sacrosanct’.”

  His breast heaved for emotion and he began to declaim from the Testament of Levi :

  Then shall the Lord God raise up a new priest

  To whom his very words revealed shall be :

  Judgement of righteousness to execute

  Upon this earth for multitudes of days.

  His star shall rise in Heaven like to a King,

 
Lighting up knowledge as the Sun the day.

  He on this wide earth shall be magnified,

  And like the shining Sun darkness dispel.

  Peace universal shall attend his days,

  Heaven shall exult and all the earth be glad.

  Glory of the Most High shall speak for him,

  Wisdom and holiness on him shall rest.

  He shall present the Lord God’s majesty

  Unto his sons in truth for evermore.

  None shall succeed him of the race of man.

  His priesthood shall instruct all men on earth

  And that enlightenment through grace begin,

  The end whereof shall be the end of sin.

  Chapter Six

  The Apparition

  ANTIPATER was in the Court of Israel, praying. It was his custom to go across the valley to the Temple every day at dawn for his devotions. As he prayed, in Jewish fashion, on his knees he became suddenly aware from the confused noises behind him that some terrible event had occurred. He turned and saw grave elders hurrying up dressed in sackcloth, wailing aloud, with their heads sprinkled with ashes ; they whispered their news to those already present, who gaped with horror and began to rip the seams of their beautiful garments. Soon the wailing arose on all sides.

  Antipater hurried to the nearest of his acquaintances, Reuben, Joachim’s adversary, whom he found in earnest conversation with Zacharias the Zadokite. He asked : “Son of Abdiel, what is amiss? What disastrous blow has descended upon us ?”

  Reuben did not reply. He turned away and began to wail with the rest, calling loudly upon Jehovah to be avenged on his sacrilegious foes. Zacharias followed his example.

  Antipater left them and went out into the Court of Women, where the same bad news was current. Everyone avoided his glance and he began to have the disagreeable sense that the wailing and the imprecations which accompanied it were in some degree aimed at himself.

  “Should I mourn too ?” he wondered. “No, not until I know what has happened.”

  In the Court of the Gentiles he found Carmi the Captain of the Temple, who had arrived with the Levite Guard to keep order. He spoke sharply : “Carmi, what is the meaning of this uproar? I can persuade nobody to answer me. I hear the words ‘desecration’ and ‘abomination’ shouted, but they mean nothing to me. These good people seem to be accusing me of participating in some act of sacrilege, and I resent it. My conscience is clear both towards the Lord and towards men. If I have offended unwittingly in anything, may the Lord pardon me !”

  Carmi saluted with punctilio. It was seldom that this tall, lean priest, notorious as one of Herod’s creatures, looked anxious, but he looked so now. “Majesty, a nonsensical rumour is running round the city that thieves have broken into the tombs of King David and King Solomon. Some of these shameless dogs even dare to accuse your royal father of having headed the party.”

  He spoke in a loud voice so that everyone present should hear him.

  Antipater was shocked. The Lord grant that the tombs remain unviolated !”

  A shrivelled hag came hobbling up and caught hold of Antipater’s sleeve. “Oho,” she squeaked, “you are altogether innocent, are you? This is the first news you have had of it, is it not? Very well, let me tell you that last night a certain Edomite slave, the author of an unholy edict against house-breakers, led a pack of uncircumcised Greek dogs into the royal tombs. A line of mule-wagons was waiting at the entrance, and a thousand talents’ weight of silver ingots was presently loaded into them and driven back to the Palace. What other treasures were taken off is not known, for they were stowed in sacks. It is said that among them were sixty shields of gold and seven bronze basins ; but the silver ingots at least were seen and counted. Confess, what is your share in the loot to be, Son of the Slave ?”

  She was marched away under arrest, laughing discordantly and crying : “The old goat has despoiled the living, now he despoils the dead. But the Lord will assuredly judge him according to his own unholy edict, and fling him head over heels from this kingdom into the bottomless abyss !”

  When he reached the Palace again, Antipater discovered to his surprise and chagrin that nobody at the Palace troubled to deny the report, though it was generally agreed that the King had not broken the seals of the burial-chambers : he had merely stripped the adjoining treasure-rooms. Herod himself made light of the matter. He said to the deputation of Zadokites who came to him to protest : “O you hypocrites. Am I the first who has borrowed silver from the treasure-house of David and Solomon? Answer me that !”

  Zacharias, the spokesman of the deputation, answered frankly : “No, Majesty. The same was done before when this City was besieged by Antiochus the Syrian. King Hyrcanus the Maccabee bought him off with three thousand silver talents taken from the tomb of King David. But that was done at a time of national distress, and done publicly.”

  “I wonder at your insolence, priest. Hyrcanus took three thousand silver talents from the tomb to buy off an invader, instead of trusting to the might of his God and to the strong hearts of his men, and you applaud it as a righteous action! I borrow less than one-third that sum from the tomb to pay the workmen who are rebuilding the Lord’s Temple and you howl at me as if I were a pickpocket. Since when, Zacharias, have you become a Pharisee ?”

  “The Lord forbid that I should ever become such a thing.”

  “You do not, then, believe in the resurrection ?”

  “I am a Sadducee and the son of a Sadducee.”

  “But if David and Solomon are not to rise again, what use have they of silver ingots and shields of gold and bronze basins? Everything that I have taken from the tomb is for the use of the Ever-Living God. Did not David himself confess in his psalm that naked he came from his mother’s womb and naked he should return to the earth? The rich furnishings of his tomb are clean against Scripture. I removed the treasures privately in order to cause no offence. If I had done so publicly you would have complained all the louder of my shamelessness. Be off now, stiff-necks, and trouble me no further.”

  Seeing that the Pharisees present were smiling at his discomfiture, Zacharias asked : “Majesty, had I been a Pharisee and believed in the resurrection, how would you have answered my protest ?”

  Herod flushed angrily, and Menelaus the fat librarian stepped forward to reprove Zacharias. “Is this an honest way for a subject to address his King’s But let me speak on the King’s behalf, to such of you as are Pharisees. At the last day, when King David and Solomon his son arise together in glory, they will claim credit with Enoch the book-keeper, pointing with their fingers at the Temple and saying : ‘These massive walls, these fair courts—do you know how the cost of their building was defrayed? Was it not with money which we lent without usury to our son who reigned after us, and who piously completed the work which we began ?” ’

  Zacharias asked : “Can dead men lend money ?”

  “The money that a man owns he can lend,” Menelaus replied. “And if dead men cannot own, then King Herod has done David and Solomon no injury in removing treasure from their tombs.”

  The Pharisees could not resist a murmur of satisfaction ; and once a religious problem could be reduced to a dispute between Pharisee and Sadducee, Herod had no reason to fear a general revolt.

  It became known that two of the men who had gone with Herod into the tombs had not returned. Some Jews said that in trying to open the stone chest containing the bones of Solomon they had been killed by a sudden dart of fire. Others said that Herod had killed them himself because they had seen what they should never have seen. However, both men were Celts and the death of Celts did not grieve the Jews. What caused both surprise and scandal was the white stone monument which Herod set up at the entrance to the tomb ; it bore no inscription but was cut in the conical shape of the altars erected in honour of the Great Goddess. But the Greeks and Syrians whispered to one another : “Wisely done! It is to the Great Goddess, to Hecate, that the souls of dead men return. The treasure that accom
panies dead kings to their grave is an offering made to her, and any man who robs Hecate of a thousand silver talents will be wise to pay her a high fee in compensation : doubtless the King killed those Celtic soldiers to placate the Dog-headed One. Very wisely done !”

  The Jebusites of the Fish Gate were in a fever of excitement. Had Herod rifled the tombs merely because he was in need of money? It was rumoured that no bullion had been found in the tomb—Hyrcanus had removed it all—and that the supposed ingots in the carts were nothing more valuable than large stones put there to deceive. Had Herod’s intention been to seize the golden sceptre from the coffin of David and the golden dog from the coffin of Solomon? And had he succeeded? They said nothing to their Jewish neighbours, and it was not for a year or two that prodigies began to be reported in the streets of Jerusalem with which they naturally connected the despoliation of the royal tombs.

  Most of these prodigies took place at night—men in white armour and mounted on white horses galloping in pairs at break-neck speed through the streets and disappearing as suddenly as they came ; prophetic cries and knockings from under the Courts of the Temple itself ; unexplained outbreaks of fire on the roof of the Royal Palace which made the whole building seem ablaze. Similar prodigies were reported from Bethlehem, Hebron, Samaria and elsewhere. Swords were seen at night glittering in the sky among the western stars ; desert rocks dripped with blood ; and a young crocodile with a jewelled necklet was caught on the banks of the Jordan near the Dead Sea, though crocodiles had hitherto been supposed peculiar to the Nile.

  The people grew nervous. Strange dreams were dreamed and visions seen, the most persistent of which were battles fought in the clouds between phantom armies. There was a sense of impending wonders with which the name of the Messiah was freely connected ; yet the kingdom was at peace, the harvests were abundant, the seasons equable, no remarkable news came from Italy, Egypt or the East.