Testament

by Nino Ricci

  In the end, however, the matter resolved itself quietly: it seemed Kephas and some of the others went behind Yeshua’s back and convinced Simon to have the thing done. Yeshua was furious when he found out, railing at us that we were as simple-minded and faithless as the rest. Kephas took all the blame on himself, not daring to put up the least defence; but the truth was that he’d probably saved the lot of us, because once the word had got around that Simon had been circumcised, the tension at Yeshua’s gatherings dropped and the questions ceased. Even Yeshua, in the end, seemed content to let the matter rest—it wasn’t time, was his favourite refrain to us now, a sort of blanket forgiveness for our great ignorance.

  There was something slightly disturbing in this refrain, and in the hints he had begun to drop that there was some moment we were moving towards when all the criticism and misunderstanding that now confronted us would fall away. It was as if he could no longer bear his own contradiction, that he so openly courted controversy and dissension in all he did, seemed in fact to thrive on it, then counselled love and forgiveness towards those who hated us as a result. So he had hatched this notion that even our enemies, in the end, would be won to us. As I discovered, he seemed willing to go to some lengths to prove his point on the matter—a few weeks after my return, for instance, I learned that in my absence he had somehow worked a reconciliation with that same Aram who had earlier split with him over the question of force. It was only by chance that I heard of the thing, from Yohanan, who had always been my faithful informant but had kept somewhat shy of me since my return, on account of the grief he had suffered; as I understood the matter, Yeshua had managed to win Aram back mainly because of Aram’s fear, however unjustified, that Yeshua would turn him in as a rebel. So Aram had renounced his views and come meekly back to the fold, and Yeshua had been able to show his great mercy in accepting him. But to me it seemed a manipulation—surely Yeshua had merely preyed on his insecurities, which I myself had seen ample evidence of in my own frustrated overtures to him. Indeed they continued to manifest themselves even now: still unconvinced of my own trustworthiness, Aram kept well wide of Yeshua after my return, so that in the end I never even so much as laid eyes on him.

  I now understood, however, some of Yeshua’s coolness towards me, for Aram had surely told him of my attempts to contact him, which must have made it seem that I had been courting his enemies behind his back. If I had known of the thing at once, I might have found the way to smooth it over. Yet the truth was that I held the whole matter against him, and could not bring myself to go to him now as if in apology. At any rate, it was seldom that I found myself in private audience with him any more, on account of the women, who having rejoiced when I had gone, as they no doubt hoped for good, now found the way to keep him from me at every instant, and so to keep alive the disaffection between us.

  It was perhaps inevitable that in the light of these tensions I should begin to see Yeshua differently, and I wondered now if I had not earlier been as besotted with him as the rest. The contradictions in him that before had made a sort of sense now seemed held together only by the strength of his character; and his contentiousness, at first engaging, suddenly appeared so much theatrics, directed as it always was at petty local despots and leaders rather than at our true enemies. It was this that most struck me, though I still had the cold in my bones of my meeting with Rohagah and Yekhubbah, that I had deluded myself into believing I might find with him some better way. Perhaps it was exactly that I expected more of him now when before he had been merely a diversion, and so I judged him more harshly. Yet it was a bitter disappointment to have returned, as I thought, to a sage, and to have found instead someone arrogant and petty and vain. All the exhilaration I had felt in Caesarea had drained away from me—now I had neither one thing nor the other, nothing to hold me here with Yeshua yet nothing to return to.

  Yeshua’s growing popularity had made him increasingly bold. In the towns we went to there were a number of elders and teachers who had trained under Pharisees of the school of Shammai; and these Yeshua had begun to take a particular pleasure in baiting and goading. Yet while it was true that many of them, in those towns, took their superior learning as an occasion for condescension and sententiousness, others were among the most pious and respected members of their communities. Yeshua did not always take the trouble to separate the one from the other, nor was he without duplicity in decrying Shammai’s excessive legalism, which he seemed to use as an excuse for his own laxity towards the law. The attitude had begun to wear off on his inner circle as well, some of whom, for instance, openly flouted the sabbath now by travelling from their villages to join us for evening prayers in Kefar Nahum. When Yeshua was challenged over these matters, he shrugged them off.

  “How can you fault them for coming to pray with their teacher?” he said.

  “They have teachers in their towns.”

  “And if the Messiah came,” Yeshua said, “would you tell them to keep to their towns rather than worship him?”

  This kind of provocation struck me as foolhardy, particularly as there was no shortage of fanatics attached to him now who might be inclined to take such statements literally. But while logic suggested that his insolence would increasingly marginalize him, in fact the opposite seemed to be occurring—the more brazen he became, the more the crowds grew, even if half of them came merely for the spectacle and many of the rest out of superstition, hoping that some good fortune would descend on them by being near him or that some ailment they had would fall away. So his rise had begun to resemble that of the usual charlatans and false prophets, for whom it could truly be said that the more outrageous their promises and claims, the greater their sway over the people. Yet with Yeshua there remained this distinction: that for all his irreverence there was always a core of truth in whatever he said. Perhaps even now this was why I did not simply leave him—there was still that sense at the back of my mind of some answer he might hold to me, like some intractable nut he had cracked open.

  Once, just among the group of us, Yaqob put a question to him about Simon’s circumcision, still troubled, as we all were, by how Yeshua had handled the matter. It was my suspicion that Yeshua’s views were even more radical than he had dared to say, or than any Jew could accept. But he answered Yaqob now by citing Hillel’s reply to the heathen who wished to learn all the law in an afternoon, that its sum was to do to others as you would have them do to you. It was one of the few times I heard Yeshua cite an authority, unlike those teachers who could not so much as put on their shirts without quoting the Torah; though it was typical that he should choose a teaching that even in its day had caused no small amount of bafflement, and that indeed had helped Shammai in gaining ascendancy over Hillel. Now, however, Hillel’s meaning seemed obvious enough—wasn’t there more virtue, in fact, in a single kind act than in the keeping of every covenant and code?

  With regard to Simon, anyone could see that circumcision or no, it would have been hard to find a more faithful proselyte: it was not only that he hung on Yeshua’s every word but that he set all his teachings into almost immediate practice, with an earnestness that would have put even the most pious of Pharisees to the test. It happened, for instance, that not long after he’d joined us he heard Yeshua in one of his sermons chastising those hypocrites who made a great public show of their praying; and for some time thereafter we could not get him to join us in our prayers on the beach, so frightened was he of falling into the same hypocrisy. To ward off the least possibility of pridefulness he even went so far as to deny that he prayed at all, though we would see him stealing off to some closet every morning and hear his whispered offerings. So it seemed true that his circumcision had not the least bearing on his piety, though it was the work of a Samson for any Jew to separate the two in his own mind.

  When Passover approached there was an assumption amongst Yeshua’s followers, many of whom had abandoned their teachers in the towns on his account, that he would lead their pilgrimage to Jerusalem. I
t was in my own mind, however, to advise him against any journey into the city, because I feared that the action Yekhubbah had hinted at was imminent, since it was always for the feasts that such things were planned, to take advantage of the crowds then. I travelled into Tiberias to see what news I might gather there and in fact was very troubled by what I heard. It seemed there had been a spate of assassinations in Jerusalem, though there was much confusion over these—some said it was the Romans who had hired assassins to root out any remaining rebels, others that the rebels themselves were purging their own ranks of those suspected of any betrayal during the reprisals. I did not know what to make of these rumours, what to discount in them and what to believe, or whether they showed us under siege or on the assault. On my own account, remembering my exchange with Rohagah, I had cause enough for concern—surely if they were attacking those under suspicion, I must number myself among the threatened.

  Afterwards I was unsure how to proceed. While I wished to protect Yeshua from risk, I did not want to bring any more to myself or to break the oaths I had made to the movement by revealing what I knew. But in the end it was Yeshua who one night took me aside from the others—it was the first time since my return from Caesarea that he’d sought me out in this way—and led me out to the lakeshore to speak. It was a moonless night and pitch black, but he insisted on rowing out onto the lake in one of Kephas’s fishing boats, which struck me as peculiar and even frightened me a little. I had the instant’s foolish thought that he intended me harm in some way, as if I had misunderstood him until then; though the truth was that for all that he preached peace, there had always seemed this side to him that was volatile and unpredictable and slightly sinister.

  He rowed us out in silence a little ways from the shore. In darkness that lake had something of the oppressive to it, since you were still somehow aware of the mountains pushing in on every side, with only the small light of lamps here and there from the shore.

  He said to me, “We did not expect you back from Caesarea.”

  I did not know how to respond.

  “And yet I’m here,” I said.

  It seemed some matter weighed on him but he wouldn’t broach it.

  “You didn’t go down to Jerusalem.”

  “No.”

  “Is there a warrant for you there?”

  I was surprised at this. So it seemed that was his concern, that I would compromise him should I travel with him to the city.

  “Surely if there were a warrant,” I said, somewhat arrogantly, “they would have made the day’s journey to fetch me here.”

  We were silent. I was angry now, and had lost the will to warn him of what I knew. There seemed something unreasonable in this and yet I thought surely he knew what I was when he asked me to join him.

  Finally I said, “I hadn’t planned to accompany you on your pilgrimage,” which was the truth, given my situation then.

  After this he tried to make light of the matter. He asked me about Jerusalem, but only to flatter me, I felt, broaching subjects that I thought were of no concern to him—who the power-brokers were in the council, what the mood of the people was. But then he asked about the troubles in the city, of which he’d heard, and I could not feign ignorance.

  “They say the rebels are killing their own,” he said.

  “Whatever the killing,” I said, “there’s sure to be more of it soon enough.”

  But I didn’t go on, nor did he press me, rowing us back to shore in silence.

  In the night I repented that I had not given him a clearer sign of the danger to him in Jerusalem, since whatever anger I bore him, I couldn’t wish on him the massacre that might result should there be an uprising. But the following morning he surprised us all with the announcement that he would not be going to the city for the feast after all but rather into retreat, giving as his excuse his wish to worship free from the crowds. He would be taking with him only his usual retinue, Yaqob, Yohanan, and Kephas; the rest of us should feel free to celebrate in our own homes, since, as he said, God didn’t live only in the temple that he could only be worshipped there.

  His followers didn’t know what to make of this, and were greatly disappointed, while his detractors were quick to denounce him and to say he preached sacrilege against the temple. But I wondered if he hadn’t understood more than I had thought, and had taken my warning without however pressing me into betrayal. It occurred to me now that perhaps it had been concern for my own safety rather than his that had made him ask after the warrant against me. But still I couldn’t find the way to make amends to him before his departure, so that when he left there remained the same strain between us that there had been ever since my return from Caesarea.

  As it happened, the feast passed with no report of insurrection. But when Yeshua and the others returned to Kefar Nahum I learned in secret from Yohanan that Yeshua had led them into Jerusalem after all. They had put up in Bet Aniah with one of Kephas’s cousins, and any time they had gone into the city Yeshua had made them cover themselves with their cloaks lest they be recognized by any of his followers. All this might have seemed sensible enough, and in line with whatever warning he’d understood from me, except for some peculiarities in his behaviour that Yohanan described to me. For instance, there were many parts of the city Yeshua avoided as if he had enemies there; and then at the temple he had refused to inscribe himself in the rolls for the temple tax, claiming exemption because he carried no coin. On that occasion he had argued so fiercely with one of the temple priests that they had nearly come to blows, and Yohanan and the others had had to spirit him away to save him a beating from the crowd. Afterwards he had not entered the temple grounds again, and it had been left to Yohanan and the rest to bring the lamb for its blessing.

  I had no idea what to make of this behaviour and wondered why he had travelled to the city at all, or why, after the pains he had taken to conceal himself there, he should then have risked a public argument. As it was, a number of his followers who had gone to the city on their own had recognized him and could not understand why he had deceived them. But Yeshua held to the story of his retreat, saying he had been to Mount Tabor. As Yohanan told me, there was at least some truth in this—they had spent the night there, on their return.

  All of this seemed the sign of a creeping strangeness in Yeshua, one that was all the more alarming because it appeared finally to have attracted the attention of the authorities to him. Until this point he had seemed protected by the relative insignificance of his following and the apparent respect in which the Roman captain Ventidius held him. But now it grew clear that someone had taken note of him, whether because of his altercation in Jerusalem or simply on account of his increasing brazenness, because it happened that certain narrow-eyed sorts who had obviously been sent out from Tiberias began making appearances in Kefar Nahum, asking questions here and there or lingering at the edges of the crowd when Yeshua preached wearing an air of innocence that seemed exactly to trumpet their sinister intent.

  In Jerusalem such matters were handled much more delicately, the knife already inserted and removed before the least suspicion was aroused. But these men seemed hardly to bother to mask themselves. Indeed, when I slipped a few coins to one of them, he admitted at once that he had been sent by Herod Antipas, to keep an eye on the upstart Yeshua. Clearly what had happened was that Antipas, who was not known for keeping an eye on the happenings of the Galilean countryside, had finally got wind of Yeshua’s ministry, and was anxious now to head off the rise of another holy man whom the Romans might later compel him to kill.

  For my part, I believed there was a real danger from Herod’s men. But Yeshua played with them in a way that seemed unwise, saying any number of things that could be used against him should someone have a mind to twist his words. Antipas was not some village elder, whom he could get the better of by a clever turn of phrase; and Pilate and Rome stood behind him, who not all the peasants of Galilee could stop should they decide to remove him. It had been easy enough,
after all, to do away with Yohanan, who had had a greater following and not so many enemies.

  But when I brought these concerns to Yeshua, he dismissed them.

  “They hire scribes to write down what you say so it can be used against you,” I said, which I had seen one of them do.

  “Should I stop telling the truth, then?”

  “The truth has nothing to do with it. You provoke them.”

  “Why are you so timid,” he said, “when you are the one who wants to chase them all into the sea?”

  So he made the thing appear simply a matter of staying true to his beliefs. But the fact was the more he was threatened, the more he became reckless. This seemed especially the case since his return from Jerusalem, so that I suspected there was more to what had happened there than Yohanan had been able to tell. I remembered Yeshua in Tyre, how ill at ease he had been with the crowd, and thought perhaps he had travelled to Jerusalem on his own so that he might again test himself outside the world of fishermen and farmers. But it seemed he had fared even worse in Jerusalem than he had in Tyre.

  As part of their strategy, Herod’s spies spread many calumnies about Yeshua, some of which had a sufficient element of truth to take hold. So, for instance, they began to cast aspersions on his morals, on account of the women in his group. I had often warned Yeshua of the ill-advisedness of going about like some desert chieftain, with all his wives in tow, and he had laughed off my criticisms as if it did not matter to him what people made of these women. Yet it was exactly the accusations against them now that seemed the thing he took most to heart. In his typical way, however, he did not simply counter them but rather raised the flag higher, and ensured that the women were always with him now whenever he appeared in the streets. This had the odd effect of once more increasing the size of the crowds who came to see him, as many were anxious to catch sight of the eccentric holy man and his concubines; and again, in the unpredictable way of these things, the rumours of his indiscretions seemed only to raise his authority with much of the peasantry, particularly the Syrians, who apparently had begun to see in him some remnant of the fertility cult they had had in their Asherah before the Jews had forced them to abandon her.