“I will have faith when I see Him use thunderbolts to destroy the enemy,” Judas said heavily. “Caiaphas and Pontius Pilate are scoundrels, and so is Elam the Pharisee. If Jesus does not act soon, they will think up some way to throw us all into prison.”
“It would be folly to arouse the crowd,” added Simon the Zealot, “unless Jesus is going to lead us and use His miraculous powers.”
Judas started to speak again, then closed his lips firmly. Had Peter been looking, he might have been warned by the look of calculation in Judas’s eyes, but he said nothing more and the impromptu meeting dispersed.
Peter did not return immediately to the house with the others but took a winding path through the garden. He was not to have the solitude he sought, however, for before he neared the house, a familiar voice spoke to him from the shadows.
“Simon.” It was Mary of Magdala. “What were you men discussing?”
“Nothing that concerns women,” he said a little shortly.
“Does it concern Jesus?” Mary was not offended at his tone for they were old friends. She knew Peter well and understood why he was troubled.
“Why—yes.”
“The Zealot and Judas want the Master to name Himself king at once, don’t they?”
“Yes,” Peter admitted reluctantly.
“And you?” Mary came out of the shadows now and stood beside him.
“I don’t know,” Peter admitted. “One part of me says He must name Himself king. The other part doesn’t know what to believe.”
“He is not going to be king, Simon—at least not in the way they think. He told you that again yesterday.”
“It was a parable.”
“You know better. Jesus was telling us what is going to happen here in Jerusalem. Raising Lazarus should have convinced everyone that He is the Son of God sent to save the world. It didn’t convince them, and now He sees that the only way to make the world know He is the Son of God is to let them kill Him and He will then rise from the dead. When He triumphs over death personally, not even Caiaphas will be able to deny that He is the Messiah.”
“You are dreaming, Mary,” Peter said, but without much conviction for she had expressed almost exactly his own doubts. “Why should He allow Himself to be killed when He has the power to destroy Jerusalem if He wishes?”
“Jesus has no wish to triumph through the power of God. He must triumph through the faith of those who love and follow Him.”
Peter felt himself wavering, yet refused to be swayed; the idea was preposterous. It could even mean that if Jesus were killed, all of them could be killed with Him. And who among them, save the Master, possessed the power to rise from the dead? “Say no more,” he said harshly. “And do not talk of this to the others. You will only make them doubt.”
“You love Him, Simon,’’ Mary said sadly. “If you do not understand, no one else will.” She turned and went into the house, leaving Peter to his thoughts.
The morning was bright and clear. A crowd gathered early to escort Jesus into Jerusalem and it was easy for Simon Peter to tell himself that his doubts of the night before had been foolish, as foolish as Mary’s fancies. Jesus was the Son of God with all the infinite power of His Father at His command. Possibly He was waiting for the last days of the Passover week to announce it.
Peter’s spirits rose with every step toward the city, especially when he saw the fig tree which Jesus had cursed the previous morning. The free was now dried up from the very roots as if these had been cut, proving once again that Jesus did possess the power of life and death.
“Master,” Peter called to Jesus, who was walking a little ahead of him on the road. “The fig tree You cursed has withered away.”
Jesus stopped and turned to face the disciples. “Have faith in God,” He told them, “for truly I say to you that whoever shall say to this mountain, ‘Be removed and cast into the sea,’ and shall not doubt in his heart but shall believe that those things which he says shall come to pass, he shall have whatever he says.
“Whatever things you desire,” He continued, “when you pray, believe that you will receive them and you shall have them. And when you stand praying, forgive if you have aught against anyone, that your Father also which is in heaven may forgive you your trespasses. But if you do not forgive, neither will your Father which is in heaven forgive your trespasses.”
He said no more then, but continued on into the city and the Porch of Solomon from which, as a recognized rabbi, He had always taught.
II
Caiaphas was a clever man. He had been angry when the crowds, particularly the stalwart Galileans who followed Jesus everywhere, made it impossible to arrest the Nazarene publicly. But having vented his anger upon the luckless Abiathar, he was able to consider other ways to combat the threat to his own regime posed by the Nazarene’s presence in Jerusalem.
At all seasons of the year Jerusalem was filled with the priests and Levites who came to serve in the temple, swelling the large corps permanently stationed there for the ritual worship. Caiaphas had at his disposal, therefore, a great number of spies and when, by the third day of the Passover season, they reported that the size of the crowds which followed Jesus had dwindled, the high priest could at last devise a plan of attack. Jesus was safe from arrest only when He was surrounded by crowds. Caiaphas now intended to destroy their loyalty, leaving Jesus alone and relatively defenseless.
The right to teach was jealously guarded in Israel by the people as well as by the rabbis themselves. Since Jesus was not a product of any of the current rabbinical schools, having gained His title of teacher largely from His earlier experiences in Galilee, Caiaphas decided to attack His eligibility to speak from Solomon’s Porch where there was always a large audience, particularly during the religious festivals.
On questions concerning the Law and its interpretation, the rabbis were considered the highest authority, subject only to review by the Sanhedrin in individual cases. Most of the leading rabbis of Jerusalem also sat in the Sanhedrin, so the court rarely reversed its pronouncements. In determining rabbinical authority, it was believed that authoritative teaching had to be based on earlier interpretations. Rarely did any teacher dare to put forth a new truth or a new interpretation of an old one, unless he could find ample authority in the old for the new. Thus rabbinical teaching had been stifled for centuries by ancient interpretations of the Law.
The nature of rabbinical authority was accepted without question by the people. If Caiaphas could succeed in proving that Jesus lacked the authority to be a teacher, the crowd itself would turn upon Him and eject Him from Solomon’s Porch. To arouse the people, the high priest sent with the rabbi Jochai a number of the chief priests who were to discredit Jesus publicly.
Jochai and the priests who made up the delegation were members of the Sanhedrin and well known to the crowds in the temple. When they approached the spot where Jesus was speaking, the people parted respectfully to let them through. Jesus wore the homespun robe and sandals that were his usual garb. The contrast of His simple dress with the rich garments of the priests and the fringed robes and phylacteries of the others might have been to His disadvantage but for the quiet air of royal authority that He radiated.
Jesus recognized at once the purpose of the delegation but waited courteously for them to question Him. Jochai was the first to speak.
“By what authority do You do these things?” he demanded.
The question was cleverly worded. In demanding to know by what authority Jesus taught, they appeared to be questioning only His authority as a rabbi. Without waiting for an answer, Jochai added, “Or who gave You this authority?” implying, as the Sadducees had often tried to do before, that Jesus was an agent of Beelzebub.
Jesus answered with a question, always a disconcerting method of attack in any debate. “I will also ask you one thing,” He said. “
Which, if you tell Me, I will likewise tell you by what authority I do these things. The baptism of John: whence was it? From heaven or of men?”
Jochai and the priests withdrew a little way to discuss the question before answering. “If we say, ‘From heaven,’” one of the priests pointed out, “he will say, ‘Why did you not then believe him?’’’
“But if we say, ‘Of men,’” Jochai went on, “people will stone us, for they believe John was a prophet.”
After a while they came back to Jesus and said, “We cannot tell.”
Then Jesus said to them, “Neither will I tell you by what authority I do these things.” He did not stop at that, but added: “A certain man had two sons and he came to the first and said, ‘Son, go work today in my vineyard.’ He answered and said, ‘I will not,’ but afterward repented and went.
“And the man came to the second and said likewise and he answered and said, ‘I go, sir,’ but did not go. Which of these two did the will of his father?”
“The first,” Jochai answered immediately.
“I say to you that the publicans and the harlots go into the kingdom of God before you,” Jesus said sternly. “John came to you in the way of righteousness and you did not believe him, but the publicans and the harlots did believe him. And you, when you had seen it, did not repent afterward that you might believe him.
“Hear another parable,” He told them. “There was a certain householder who planted a vineyard and hedged it around and dug a winepress in it and built a tower and rented it out to husbandmen and went into a far country. And when the time of the fruit drew near, he sent his servants to the husbandmen to receive the fruits of it.
“But the husbandmen took his servants and beat one and killed another and stoned another. Again, he sent other servants more than the first and they did likewise to them. But last of all he sent to them his son saying, ‘They will reverence my son.’
“But when the husbandmen saw the son, they said among themselves, ‘This is the heir; come, let us kill him and let us seize his inheritance.’ And they caught him and threw him out of the vineyard and slew him. When the lord therefore of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those husbandmen?”
The priests could give only one answer: “He will miserably destroy those wicked men and will rent out his vineyard to other husbandmen who will render him the fruits in their seasons.”
“But did you never read in the Scriptures,” Jesus said, “the stone which the builders rejected is become the head of the corner?”
There was no triumph in Jesus’ voice at having bested the priests and the rabbis in their attempt to discredit Him, only a great sadness at their failure to see the truth when it was revealed.
III
Caiaphas and his agents so far had sought to convict Jesus only of breaking the Law of Moses, a crime over which the Sanhedrin, which he and his party dominated, had complete authority. But when the chief priests and leading rabbis failed to trap Jesus, Caiaphas decided upon another tack. This time he sent a group of students called the Herodians, brilliant young men from whose ranks would come the leading teachers and legal minds of the next generation, to try to maneuver Jesus into a statement that could be made the basis for charges against Him before the Roman authorities.
For this purpose, they chose a question which was hotly debated in the rabbinical schools: “Is it lawful to give tribute to Caesar or not?”
The question was not simply a point of debate, however. Conservative Judaism held that the right to coin money also involved the right to levy taxes and was in itself sufficient evidence of governmental authority. In accordance with this, the priest-kings of the Hasmonean house upon assuming power had coined money as a sign of their temporal, as well as religious, authority over the people. During the bloody reign of Herod the Great, few had dared defy the law requiring payment of a capitation tax of one drachma, or denarius, to the Roman authorities. But with the rise of nationalist spirit in recent years, the group whose most extremist members were the Zealots had begun to argue that paying tribute to Caesar was in fact acknowledging him as the highest royal authority, thus in a sense disowning Jehovah. The questioner sought to trap Jesus into making a statement resisting Roman authority, for which He could be thrust into prison, or offending a large section of the crowd who, whether or not they openly supported the radical Zealot cause, were certainly in sympathy with it.
Again, with His understanding of the motives behind the question, Jesus easily avoided the trap they had so carefully prepared for Him.
“Why do you tempt Me, you hypocrites?” He said scornfully. “Show Me the tribute money.”
One of the students took a coin from his purse and handed it to Jesus, who held it up for the crowd to see. “Whose image and superscription is this?” He asked.
The question could bring only one reply, “Caesar’s.”
“Give to Caesar therefore, the things that are Caesar’s,” He told them. “And to God the things that are God’s.”
The students were so taken aback by His answer that they had no more to say and withdrew to debate among themselves. But Jesus had not been merely evading the question. He had elevated it, as He so often did with questions of human conduct.
Rome had brought unquestioned benefits to the people of Israel, such as protection from hostile states, a marvelous system of roads, the famed impersonality of Roman justice in which every citizen had the right to carry his appeal even to the emperor himself, the Roman ingenuity for building cities with streets and sanitary facilities, the keeping of adequate records, and the protection of individual rights against preemption by others. For these benefits, the people should pay through taxation.
God, too, had brought them benefits, principally that of life itself and, if they proved worthy of it, life eternal. He had bestowed upon them the bountiful gifts of the world in which they lived, the moreh that brought new life to the soil in spring, the sun that drew the seedlings from the earth and caused them to grow into strong healthy plants, the seasons with their ever-changing pattern of growth and dying. For these things, too, they should pay tribute to the God whose divine love had created them.
Thus, Jesus had given the only logical answer to the question of the students, but since it pleased neither faction among them, they found no comfort in it and refused to understand its deeper meaning.
Chapter 31
O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the one who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her!
Matthew 23:37
The week had been a bad one for Jonas. Many of the lime burners and the potters had closed their establishments and gone with their workers to the temple to hear the Nazarene prophet. It had taken Jonas most of the previous day to sell the wood he had been carrying into Jerusalem when he was stopped by the procession of Galileans. Now with the day almost gone, he had been able to get only half price for that morning’s load.
As he threaded his way through the crowd that jammed the street before the temple, Jonas saw Veronica on her mule with a basket of the exquisite little vases she painted. He started toward her but a portly man with a white beard and a heavily fringed robe almost knocked him down.
“Shalom, Elam,” Jonas said breathlessly as he clung to Eleazar’s neck for support. It was indeed his former master, and the Pharisee’s face was black with anger.
“Oh, it is you, Jonas.” Held back momentarily by the press of the crowd, Elam could go no further and acknowledged Jonas’s greeting with a grudging nod. “I am in a hurry to visit the high priest,” he added impatiently.
“Why are you so angry?” Jonas inquired mildly. Although his former master had cast him off when his usefulness as a servant seemed to be ended, he held no rancor against him.
“Who wouldn’t be angry?” the Pharisee exploded. “Don’t you hear Him?”
“My ears are not as good a
s they used to be,” Jonas admitted. “Hear who?”
“The Nazarene! The cursed agent of Beelzebub!”
A sudden hush had fallen over the busy street and in the midst of it Jonas heard a voice ringing out from the temple with almost a note of sadness in it in spite of the words themselves.
“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites!” the voice of the unseen man said. “For you shut up the kingdom of heaven against men and you neither go in yourselves nor suffer them that are entering to go in. Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you devour widows’ houses and for a pretense make long prayers. Therefore you shall receive the greater damnation.”
Elam’s face was suffused with anger and he was breathing heavily. “The man must be destroyed,” he choked. “He is making us a laughingstock before the people.”
As if the unseen speaker had heard and was answering, the words of condemnation rolled out over the heads of the silent crowd again. “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you pay tithe of mint and anise and cummin but have omitted the weightier matters of the Law—judgment, mercy, and faith. These you ought to have done, you blind guides which strain at a gnat and swallow a camel, and not leave the other undone.”
“We Pharisees keep the whole Law!” Elam shouted indignantly. “We tithe and we fast and we give to the poor. What right has this—this madman—to call us hypocrites?”
Jonas did not answer, for the habit of obedience to Elam was with him still. But to himself he could not help admitting that so far the Nazarene had been describing his former master perfectly.
“Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites!” the denunciation continued. “For you make clean the outside of the cup and the platter, but within they are full of extortion and excess. You blind Pharisees! First cleanse that which is within the cup and the platter so that the outside of them may be clean also.”
The Crown and the Cross: The Life of Christ Page 35