by Brian Godawa
“Ah, yes,” said Gischala. “We have Antiochus Epiphanes to blame for that strategy.” In the days of the Maccabees three hundred years ago, the Greek ruler Antiochus had defiled their temple, set up a statue of Zeus in it, used the holy altar to sacrifice to pagan gods, and tried to force the Jews to go against their own religion. It had become the model of abomination that Jews considered the highest unholy crime possible by Gentiles.
Gischala said, “But I am afraid that we both have a common problem in this city that will not go away. The Two Witnesses.”
He saw Aaron sigh with regret. The two so-called prophets had been spewing their hatred for the past three and a half years in Jerusalem. Because of the incident of the fire from heaven, Gischala considered them more dangerous than Simon.
Gischala went on, “I believe they may be in collusion with Rome, feeding Titus intelligence on our forces to aid him in the overthrow of the city.”
Simon appeared to be thinking the accusation through. He said, “They have spoken of Yahweh using the Roman military as his anointed means of purpose.”
Gischala nodded.
Simon said, “I have avoided them at the behest of my lieutenant.” He gestured to Aaron. “My soldiers are afraid of them, the rumors surrounding their unexplained powers. The drought, the plagues.”
“Sorcery,” said Gischala. “We have left them alone, thinking they would go away or be ignored. But have you noticed that since the war began, their message has become stronger, more unrepentant. We have allowed demons to fester in our midst. We must exorcise them and free ourselves from their collusion with Rome.”
Simon glanced at Aaron for his input. The young monk said, “Whether they are demons, magicians, or deceivers, they are dangerous. They may try to claim to be the two messiahs that the prophet Zechariah foretold, a kingly one and a priestly ally. The scrolls of my community predicted the same.”152
Gischala knew the prophecy he was referring to. Zechariah had foretold the Day of the Lord when all the nations would come against Jerusalem, ruled by an anointed king and a priest.153
‘Thus says Yahweh of hosts, “Behold, the man whose name is the Branch: for he shall branch out from his place, and he shall build the temple of Yahweh. It is he who shall build the temple of Yahweh and shall bear royal honor, and shall sit and rule on his throne. And there shall be a priest on his throne, and the counsel of peace shall be between them both.” ’
Zechariah 6:12-14
Aaron continued to explain, “If the Two Witnesses should claim themselves anointed as the king and the priest, they would have the last three and a half years of signs and wonders to back up their claims. We could see them quickly turn from madmen howling in the wind into messianic pretenders with a large following.”
Excellent, thought Gischala. These Essene delusions fit right in with my plans.
“Gischala, will you join with me against these enemies within and without?” Simon asked.
Gischala could see Simon’s jaw tightening. It must have taken everything in him to suppress his true feelings and make that offer. Gischala knew the hatred that boiled below the surface. He carried it as well.
He said, “I will consider it. After you deal with the two demons within your own domain of the city.”
He could see the concern that came over Simon. Addressing the Two Witnesses was about the only unknown danger in this campaign. Gischala decided not to tell his potential “ally” about his own experience doing so. How the fire from heaven had almost burned him alive with an entire two centuries of soldiers. He would let Simon discover that for himself. And maybe Gischala would never have to bother with Simon again.
Simon said, “I will deal with them,” and he left with his Essene and bodyguard.
“Or they will deal with you,” muttered Gischala to himself.
CHAPTER 37
The streets of the Mishneh Quarter by the western wall of the temple were empty. The night winds blew through the Tyropoeon Valley, and the stars above glittered like the gods. A shadow moved through the alleys of the marketplace. A cloaked figure on a mission.
The figure reached up to the awning above an inn and tied a red cloth to one of the timbers. It was small but certainly visible should anyone look for it.
The shadow character then moved on down the street for a new location with a cluster of additional red cloths in hand.
• • • • •
At sunrise, Simon was called to the second wall by his lookouts. When he and Aaron arrived, they saw that the catapults and ballistas had been wheeled into the New City and were now preparing to target the Mishneh Quarter with their stones and arrows. The damage would be devastating.
Many of the survivors from the New City had found refuge behind the second walls—those few thousand who had not already fled or been taken captive by Titus.
Aaron said with irony as he gestured toward the enemy lines, “And I thought we could not be more pulverized.”
Simon saw that the Romans had wheeled in a large battering ram the size of a small house. Its structure was covered with a brass-pounded triangular roof, and a huge timber post with an iron ram’s head at the fore. The catapult stones would be like pebbles compared to the damage that a battering ram of this size would do to a fortification.
And the Jews were about to find out quite soon what that damage would be.
Aaron held up a Roman arrow with an attached message to it. He handed it to Simon.
“Indeed,” said Simon as he read. “Titus will not bombard the temple with his catapults out of respect for our religion.” He crumpled the message in his hand and said with a sarcastic edge, “The rest of the city, however, will not fare so well.”
“How gracious a beast,” echoed Aaron.
• • • • •
In the unseen realm, Apollyon and Marduk overlooked the second wall from behind the Roman lines. The gods of the nations stood behind them awaiting his command.
Apollyon said to Marduk, “Go, my victor. Split those gates as you split Tiamat.”154
“Yes, Master.”
Marduk got off the chariot and marched down to the closed gate.
Azazel, the guardian Watcher of Titus, gave Apollyon a jealous look.
The Angel of the Abyss said, “Do not worry, ancient one. My plans for you remain. You’ll have your glory soon enough.”
A company of Romans pushed the wheeled ram toward the gate, chanting in unison, “Here comes Victor! Here comes Victor!”155
Aaron understood Latin. He said, “So the Romans name their phalluses with a confident pride.”
Simon didn’t hear him. He was wondering why Titus was not first engaging in a catapult storm to provide cover for the ram. That was unusual. The general always sought to pound the will of his enemies before such an attack. He had promised he would not bombard the temple. But the city was still fair game. Was Titus trying to avoid mistakenly hitting the temple?
Aaron broke his concentration. “General.”
Simon shook himself out of his thought and yelled to his men, “Archers! Release!”
A line of archers launched their missiles at the men pushing the ram from behind. Some Romans fell. But others carried large shields of wickerwork to protect the rest. The ram kept coming like a predator with its eyes focused tenaciously on its prey.
The battering ram arrived at the gate and began to immediately swing back and forth, smashing away at the huge brass-covered wooden gates. It would not take long.
In the unseen realm, Marduk pounded on the gate with his war mace. There was no pagan deity mightier than this denizen of Mesopotamia. And Apollyon enjoyed the poetic touch of using the most high god of Babylon, the same city that Yahweh now symbolically called Jerusalem.156
Apollyon telepathically spoke to the deity at a distance. Welcome home, Marduk.
In the earthly realm, Jews on the walls poured boiling oil down upon the roof of the battering siege engine. Some legionaries were scalded inside, but the remain
der continued to bash away with the iron ram’s head.
Back and forth it swung. With each hit, the sound of creaking, cracking timber increased.
Pounding. Pounding. Pounding.
Victor was unstoppable.
A fiery arrow set the oil ablaze, and the ram began to burn. But the housing kept the men inside safe enough to finish their task.
Pounding. Pounding. Pounding.
Simon was still trying to figure out the strategic purpose behind the Romans’ lack of prior bombardment. He wondered aloud to Aaron, “Why has Titus withheld the catapults?”
• • • • •
Tiberius Alexander, Titus’s right hand, waited in silence with a long line of several hundred legionaries in a single tunnel beneath the city. They had entered the secret passageway according to the directions of Agrippa and Josephus and were now below the Mishneh Quarter behind enemy lines.
They heard the pounding of the battering ram assaulting the gates somewhere up above.
Tiberius announced, “That’s Victor! Let’s move!”
He led the long line of armed soldiers to an exit above. The men behind him marched silently, malevolently.
Tiberius pushed aside a board that covered the tunnel entrance and led the men out. They exited in the midst of a garbage dump behind a marketplace.
He held the line when a small boy no more than four or five stood up right in front of Tiberius. The lad looked sickly and malnourished, dressed in rags. He had been scrounging for food. But now he just stood still with mouth frozen open in silence at the sight of the tall tribune standing before him.
Tiberius smiled down at the boy.
He gently raised his hand to pat the boy’s head.
Then without warning, he snapped the child’s neck.
He tossed the broken body into the garbage and led his company out of the alley.
He halted again at the opening to the street. The line of three hundred legionaries stayed stone-silent behind him, two by two, following command.
Tiberius peeked out and saw what he was looking for: a small, red cloth tied to the timber of a porch awning in the marketplace. It was their signal for direction. He waved to his men, and they moved out into the empty streets, drawing their swords.
He looked for the next red cloth to guide him to their target: the second wall gate inside the Mishneh Quarter.
• • • • •
Victor was making headway. The gate yielded beneath the relentless pounding of the ram. Its bar braces cracked.
But the ram was burning out of control, and the Jewish archers on the walls hindered Roman reinforcements with their relentless missiles.
Inside the wall, a contingent of several hundred Jewish warriors were ready to rush through the gates as soon as they opened. Their goal was to tip the ram over and meet any arriving Romans with a sledgehammer, led by the mighty Simcha.
Up above, it finally came to Simon. The reason why Titus did not assault them with catapults was to protect something inside the walls. Sabotage.
Before he could alert his soldiers, he saw a line of legionaries fill the square.
“BEHIND YOU!” he shouted to his men.
The Romans hit them like a flash flood. The battle for the gate was on.
Outside in the unseen realm, Apollyon saw Marduk pushing on the gates with all his strength, his feet digging into the ground behind him, his muscles bulging with exertion.
The bronze was bending, the wood cracking open. The mighty deity stopped pushing and withdrew his mighty cleaver that he had used on Tiamat. This would split open heaven and earth.
But up above the raging deity, clouds swirled like a whirlpool of fury.
Apollyon knew what that meant.
The heavens were opening.
He shouted to Azazel, “Hold the line!” He whipped his chariot horses and charged for the gates.
Behind the second wall, Simon jumped to the ground with Aaron and others. They engaged the Romans with a crash. Simcha was a one-man battering ram, swatting Romans aside with his sledgehammer like Samson of old.
But Simon’s numbers were not enough to overwhelm his enemy.
These Romans seemed to be handpicked fighters with superior skills.
They were pushing forward, cutting down Jews with astonishing ease.
Simon thought, This is it. We have lost the second wall.
Outside the gates, Apollyon raced toward Marduk’s position. He saw him suddenly surrounded by a company of heavenly host, malakim.
Why were they here? He had been assured that Yahweh’s protection had been withdrawn. It didn’t make sense.
It was just like Yahweh to break a covenant. No respect for the rules of engagement. Just like the holy wars of Joshua’s conquest.
He screamed into the wind, “When this is over, Yahweh, I’m charging you with war crimes!”
Marduk’s demon horses plowed through the line of angels, crushing them beneath their hellion hooves. They were no match for his mighty stallions of the Apocalypse.
“Get on!” he yelled to Marduk.
The behemoth jumped onto Storm Demon, and Apollyon bolted out of the battle zone before the malakim could regroup and attack.
At the same moment behind the gates, just as Simon was sure the wall was lost to the Roman invaders, he was shocked to see Gischala leading a force of horsemen from the temple behind them.
The first thought that came into Simon’s head was that Gischala was ambushing Simon like before.
Instead, the Zealots attacked the legionaries from behind, catching them in a wedge.
The numbers and strategy had just turned against the Romans. They began to buckle.
Gischala had obviously reconsidered his demands to Simon for joining him. The time for infighting was over. Gischala had placed a condition of becoming allies upon Simon confronting the Two Witnesses. But before Simon had a chance to do so, Gischala must have decided not to wait this time.
Thank God, thought Simon.
Then he saw other Jews joining the fight as well with pitchforks, hoes, and hammers. The citizens were joining their fellow soldiers in a desperate bid for survival.
The braces to the gates broke open beneath the flaming ram. The gates swung inward.
But the Romans inside were so overwhelmed that they bolted for the opening to run back to their camp.
They would not be leading their comrades inward to victory after all.
• • • • •
In the unseen realm behind the enemy lines, the seventy gods ran toward the gates to join the heavenly battle and defend their Master.
But they weren’t prepared for the seven archangels and a legion of malakim who rose from their hidden positions beneath the debris of the annihilated New City. Five thousand angels.
Watcher, malakim, and archangel clashed on the spiritual field of battle. Malakim were no match for the gods. But archangels were.
Watchers fought like cornered rats, brandishing their heavenly weapons with furious rage against their adversaries, cutting down hundreds of angels with divine fury. They were fighting for their lives.157
But the numbers were simply not equal.
And their confusion over the presence of the heavenly host threw them off. The angels were not supposed to be here.
In the earthly realm, Titus saw the fleeing Romans exiting the gates, chased by the Jewish defenders.
He yelled out to his bowmen, a contingent of Jewish archers under Agrippa’s command, “Archers! Defend the legionaries!”158
The archers lined up to release their arrows.
They were about to slaughter their fellow Jews. But these soldiers had long ago overcome their hesitation when they helped wipe out the Jewish cities of the Land on their way to Jerusalem.
They launched a volley into the air and pushed back the Jews from catching the fleeing Romans.
And they captured a good number of those Jews, wounded and not, as the battle had been stayed.159
•
• • • •
Apollyon and Marduk had raced the chariot away from the front lines of battle along the wall to escape the angelic ambush. Malakim could not stop Storm Demon and its four trampling horses from hell.
But when he circled back to his generals, Apollyon discovered only three of them still there. And they were beaten bloody from battle.
Azazel, Zeus, and Ares approached the chariot as it stopped, its horses snorting the smoke of their furious ride. All around them were broken and hacked bodies of malakim, taken down by the Watchers in defense.
“It was a trap, my lord,” said Zeus, breathing with the exhaustion of battle.
Ares explained, “The archangels led a legion of malakim against us. We held them off as long as we could, but we were severely outnumbered.”
“I thought Jerusalem was ours to plunder,” said Azazel. “Why would Yahweh do this?”
Apollyon had an idea, but he kept it to himself.
Zeus asked, “Michael and his heavenly host were supposed to guard the Christians, in Pella. Is Michael rebelling from Yahweh?”
“I don’t think so,” said Apollyon thoughtfully. Then he changed the subject. “Where did they take the captives?”
“Out of the New City,” said Azazel, pointing to the demolished gate.
Apollyon sighed and closed his eyes tight with revelation. “I know exactly where those godlickers took them. Follow me.”
He snapped the reins, and the chariot launched for the gate out of the city.
• • • • •
Titus cursed as he looked over his Jewish captives from the battle. A hundred of them. He ordered Tiberius, “Get them ready for the punishment we talked about.”
Titus had decided it was time for psychological warfare that would raise the stakes on these obstinate rebels.
• • • • •
Behind the gates, Simon and Aaron considered their strategic options as soldiers tended to the wounded and replaced the broken wooden braces with heavy iron ones. They would reinforce the gates against any future attempts to replay this near-successful breach.