Fifth Gospel: A Novel (Rosicrucian Quartet) Paperback

by Adriana Koulias

  These years he had followed Jesus’ doings and had grown more and more concerned for him. He had come today to see for himself what had become of his pupil and friend.

  Saul, who was beside him now, had also been his pupil in those early days. Soon he would be chosen by members of the Sanhedrin for ordination into the office of Rabbi and Gamaliel could not prevent himself from pondering the parallels between the two men. However, among the similarities there were also great distinctions. Saul did not have the depth of feeling and understanding for the suffering of others that had been the guiding force of Jesus’ life. Saul might have a brilliant mind but it was full of stern impatience. He sensed that Saul’s restless heart could either be guided towards the channels of wisdom, love and devotion, or fired up by zeal into a blaze of wrath that was merciless in the judgement of others.

  Now Gamaliel wondered how Saul would judge Jesus.

  When Jesus began to speak the Pharisees entered the court enclosure. Having heard that he was returned to the Temple this day they had turned out in full force against him.

  ‘You have no authority to teach, son of a carpenter!’ said a scribe, ‘You are no scholar, you are no rabbi. Who has given you the right?’

  From the sea of people one man called out, ‘His plumb lines and saws have given him the right!’

  Laughter rang out in the Temple and was reflected from its walls causing a great din.

  Jesus waited for quiet. ‘I will tell you by what authority I say these things,’ he said, serenely. ‘But only if you will answer me one question: Was the baptism of John inspired by a man or inspired by heaven?’

  This threw the Pharisees and scribes into turmoil. Gamaliel knew the measure of his old pupil’s wisdom. The Pharisees would be reckoning that if they said that John’s baptism was from heaven, this in itself was an acknowledgement of Jesus’ authority, for John had baptised him and recognised his mission, then again if they said that John’s baptism was not inspired by heaven they would be disavowing John the Baptist, whom the people counted as a great prophet.

  They shook their heads and shrugged their shoulders.

  ‘You don’t answer for fear of saying the wrong thing. You see how dishonest you are?’ Jesus said to them.

  The people nodded and smiled to themselves, for they too had seen it.

  ‘For this reason I shall not discuss with you further by what authority I do these things!’

  Jesus turned to the people now and told them a parable, which made plain to all how God would overlook the priests and seek out others who were more worthy.

  The Pharisees, in their cunning, took another tack. They asked him if a Jew should give tribute to Caesar.

  Gamaliel was breathless in anticipation for his answer, for if he answered yes he would be going against Judaic law, and if he answered no he would incur the wrath of Rome.

  ‘Why do you tempt me with such questions, which are only snares? Give me a coin that I may see it.’ Jesus said. When he had inspected it he returned it to the scribe. ‘Whose image is it on this coin?’ he asked him.

  The man said, ‘Caesar Tiberias.’

  ‘Well then, give unto Caesar Tiberias the things that are his, and to God the things that are God’s.’

  There was a great murmur.

  One Pharisee said, ‘Jesus son of a Carpenter are you not from the line of Nathan? The Messiah is not destined to come out of the line of Nathan but from Solomon’s line!’

  Jesus said, ‘The Messiah is the son of which man?’

  The scribe replied, ‘The Messiah is destined to be the son of David!’

  Jesus looked at this a moment. ‘Well then…if what you say is true, how can David call the Messiah his Lord, if the Messiah is also his son?’ He waited for an answer and none came. ‘You do not know how to answer because you do not see that the Messiah is not only a man born of a blood line, but that he is also a God born into a man through the spirit!’ Then to the people he said, ‘Beware of the Sadducees, the Scribes and the Pharisees who are hypocrites and liars and distort the scriptures to suit their means! They tell you to do as they say but not as they do, since they say much and do nothing themselves! They burden all of you with heavy oaths and vows but they do not live by them because they are not concerned with the goodness of their hearts, but only with how good they look in their rich fineries, and whether they are given the best seats in the synagogues, and the uppermost rooms at feasts! Woe unto you, Scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites!’ He pointed to them. ‘You shut up the doors to the Kingdom of Heaven because you don’t want to concern yourselves with it and yet you bar the way for others so that they cannot enter! Woe unto you Scribes and Pharisees! You beautify the outside of the cup, but within it is ugly and full of filth…don’t you realise that God can see into your hearts?’

  A Pharisee called out, thrusting his aged head at him, ‘Who are you?’

  He looked at the man, ‘You read the face of the sky and of the earth, but you cannot recognise the Messiah, for whom you have so long prepared! You have prayed for deliverance, you have mourned and called out to God and you have beaten your breasts and ripped at your clothes for a Messiah and now that he stands before you, you do not know him! You do not know how to read this moment, which you have longed for, so how can you escape your own damnation?’

  There was a thunder in the heavens. All looked up to see if the world would soon end.

  Gamaliel’s eyes were opened then, and for a moment he saw the sky part over Jesus. He saw wings and eyes and thrones and lights and he could taste honey on his lips, a sweetness in his soul. What a mighty thing was this?

  He laughed, happy as a child.

  ‘The Christ in me must die!’ Jesus said then, ‘But when I am lifted up from the earth I will draw all men with me!’

  ‘How can you say that you are Christ and that you must die and be lifted up, when they say that the Messiah will live forever?’ a man cried out.

  Gamaliel, near overcome with his own visions, now turned to look at the man who had said it. It was Saul.

  Jesus regarded him with a grave face, ‘Life on earth is but a passing moment to you, but life on earth for me shall be eternal and it will only come when I die. I have chosen to make the earth my heaven. I will light up the earth, for I am the light of the world!’

  The people were hushed by these words.

  ‘And while you have the light before you, believe in it, so that you can also one day have the light in you!’

  Gamaliel’s eyes were full of light! He looked to Saul and realised that he was full of stern hatred. He was appalled and said to him, ‘Saul, did you not hear it? Did you not see it and hear it and know it in your heart the voice of God?’

  Saul let his dark eyes fall upon his teacher a moment, before he answered, ‘I heard nothing except arrogance and blasphemy! Look at him! Boasting about being the Messiah! If he keeps up this show he will train the stupid people to forsake the faith of their fathers when they should be preparing for the true Messiah! If I had it my way I would have this pretender stoned!’

  Gamaliel held those eyes full of rage and he remembered Jesus’ words to him on that day of parting so many years ago. He had told him that the Messiah would not be recognised by the rabbis if they continued to create an image of him in their minds that did not fit the truth. Gamaliel could see now the veracity of those words, for Saul would never see the Messiah in Jesus, since Jesus did not fit the image of an awesome, angry God come to pronounce judgment on all those who did not follow the law!

  The realisation of this warning, spoken so long ago by his old pupil, made Gamaliel full of despair, for it made him realise something else – what lived in the heart of Jesus, that light of lights, was the Kingdom that was promised! This was Christ, the hope of all Jews and the consolation of Israel!

  Gamaliel remembered cautioning Jesus that the priests could unmake him with just one word, and his answer resounded now in his heart,

  ‘The priests may unmake me a
nd perhaps they will…that’s true, but they can never unmake the truth…that, rabbi, is imperishable.’

  Gamaliel fell to his knees.

  56

  BETRAYAL

  Caiaphas the high priest and chairman of the Sanhedrin sat among his priests and rabbis in the cold room lit by torches and bothered by draughts trying to prevent himself from scratching the terrible itch, which like worms crawled under the skin of this back.

  His physicians were all bent in the direction of the Pharisees, he was sure of it, for they all agreed his itch was due to transgressions of the law: he had either eaten honey not blessed separately, or crumbs from the table of a gentile, he had either kindled the incense before entering the sanctuary or worst of all spilt the water of libation upon the altar on the Feast of Tabernacles.

  Incantations had not worked, nor had the poultice of onion, aniseed and saffron, which he had worn day and night for a year, whose smell being combined with his natural perfume, caused revulsion in all those who came near him.

  How he hated the Pharisees! He hated them because he was a Sadducee and it was only natural that a Priest of the line of Levi should hate such a mongrel breed; for they were a plague on the earth with their endless laws and their predilection for religious concerns. It was ill fortune indeed the Sanhedrin was composed of both Sadducees and Pharisees in somewhat equal parts, since it forced him to be conciliatory and amicable to these upstarts! Meaning he must live always with one eye keenly upon the Romans, to whom he owed his office and its privileges, and the other upon those Pharisees, who hated all things Roman, and would, by the by, subject even the light of the Sun itself to their laws!

  In truth he did not put them beyond causing his itch with their evil eye!

  But it was not only his eyes that were made to stretch to unnatural performances. Caiaphas’ ears, too, were also pulled in diverse directions. One ear was reserved for his father-in-law, the bilious Ananias, whose intrusions, disapproval and superior scorn he suffered day in and day out, while the other ear was reserved for his wife, the old man’s daughter, whose only trace of womanliness was her constant nagging.

  He surmised that his itch came, therefore, from a stretching of his soul in every direction at once! A stretch that his poor skin was forced to follow! Of course he prickled and broke out in sores!

  Oh the hour was late! And beyond his bodily distress his head was also full of inconvenience. Still, he could blame no one but himself, for he had called this council together at this hour so that it might be held in secret. For only this way could the exclusion of those members of the Sanhedrin known to be sympathisers of that annoying Jesus of Nazareth be guaranteed. Joseph of Arimathea, Gamaliel and Nicodemus, had succumbed to Jesus’ soft words an he knew they would have proved unhelpful to his plans.

  For his part, Caiaphas had grown a special hate over the years for the arrogant Nazarene, a hatred that had fired up the festering wounds on his back whenever he thought of him. Two nights ago, quite alone, he betook himself to the sanctuary to consult his priestly oracle. He threw the sacred stones over the altar and in their patterns he had discerned death for Jesus of Nazareth at the hand of Jerusalem’s enemy. He made a resolve, then and there, to side with power: he would sneak in first and make a present of the insurrectionist.

  Afterwards, he had sent his guards to seize Jesus, but the stupid men had returned time and again saying that many spoke like Jesus and looked like Jesus, so they had not known whom to seize!

  Now in the cold hall a sudden raised voice brought him to this testing moment.

  ‘Caiaphas! This man does too many miracles! He raises the dead from the temple sleep in broad daylight and the people are in a frenzy over it! Something must be done!’

  The council erupted in agreement:

  ‘Blasphemer!’ said an ungainly Pharisee.

  ‘Devil!’ said a Sadducee with sheep’s eyes.

  A crusty old rabbi shook his fist. ‘Conjuror of magic tricks!’

  ‘No, he is more…he is the son of Beelzebub!’

  The roar of their words was so fierce that Caiaphas thought their vehemence had seized the torches at that moment to make them flap.

  ‘What will he do next?’ said a pale priest with no teeth, ‘If we let this man go on his way the people will believe in him and what will that mean for us?’

  ‘I’ll tell you what it shall means, Jeroboam!’ answered another. ‘The Romans won’t stand for it and our temple and nation will be taken from us!’

  Supporters of this rang out their loud approval.

  A Pharisee tried to rise above the din, ‘All week he is at the temple! We’ve tried to trap him and make him speak blasphemy, but he twists our laws around his tongue!’

  A Sadducee called Simon, snarled, ‘That’s because, you have so many laws, that loopholes can be found everywhere – loopholes big enough for thieves and murderers to crawl through!’

  Rabbi Tolomei, said, ‘Without laws, we are no better than animals! But you would not know it, being an animal yourself!’

  ‘Listen to me, to rid ourselves of this animal, we have to forget laws!’ The toothless priest countered.

  The room broke out into a tirade of disagreement and insult. When a representative of the Pharisees spoke, a representative of the Sadducees countered it, and so the meeting degenerated into a free for all.

  ‘He healed a blind man on the Sabbath! This is enough to convict him!’ said one.

  ‘But it is permissible to pour wine over the eyelids on a Sabbath!’ said another. ‘Since it’s considered washing!’

  ‘On the eyes, yes, you fool! But not in the eyes! And not with spit, since that constitutes a remedy and remedies are forbidden on the Sabbath from the neck upwards. Besides, he made clay with his spit and applied it to the eyes – this is work!’

  ‘He has transgressed the Sabbath many times!’

  ‘But the people love him!’

  ‘Even the proselytes, those hateful Greeks, are spellbound! What shall we do?’

  ‘Cut his throat!’ said a priest.

  ‘This is above the law!’ said a rabbi. ‘I will not stand for it!’

  ‘Can we not appeal to Rome?’ asked another priest.

  ‘If we bring Rome into it, you idiots, what shall the people say – that we are licking the skirts of our enemies!’ retorted a rabbi.

  ‘This is no good! You are all fools, the people will revolt against us, for they love him!’ snapped another.

  Caiaphas was fed up. He stood but no man noticed it. Finally, he yelled, ‘Silence!’ And there was quiet. ‘We can pay men to hate him and those that love him shall not wish to do so when they learn that I shall impose the highest excommunication extending to all places and all persons on any man who comes forward in support of Jesus. Meaning that such a man must be considered dead by his relatives, for he shall never again have intercourse with his family and his people. He shall be shown the road out of the city and told never to return again to the temple. Who would risk such a fate to defend a blasphemer?’

  There was a sudden silence.

  ‘But how can you do this?’ the toothless priest said, ‘Since any accused man has the right to answer to accusations and to witnesses who can speak on his behalf without fear of excommunication!’

  Caiaphas waved it away, ‘Yes yes…we shall listen benevolently to our little heretic and it is my guess that if the right questions are asked, he shall profane the name of God again. He must do so before the crowds, so that thereafter it is clear that whoever confesses that he is the Christ is likewise profaning the name of God and shall suffer the same fate he suffers!’

  ‘What you speak of is unlawful to my ears!’ cried the ugly rabbi. ‘Such doings are evil!’

  Caiaphas bore down his condescension over the Pharisee and said, quite plainly, ‘Is it not fate that this man should die? Is not everything foreordained to the Pharisees?’

  Another spoke out against it, ‘If we do not follow the law this council shall b
e defiled!’

  Caiaphas stamped his foot and brought down his crosier at the same time. ‘Silence! In this Jesus is right…you Pharisees are hypocrites! You say that pure water does not lose its purity, despite the vessel, and yet you cannot see how this council will not lose its purity for having dirtied its hands to cleanse itself of a defiler!’

  A great commotion erupted, one side against the other, until Caiaphas, irritated and itchy, stood and raised his crosier.

  An uneasy quiet fell again.

  He felt a chill in his kidneys. ‘No matter how you see it, that man will bring our nation to unrest and possibly to its ruin! Shall an entire nation perish because of one man? No! One man shall die for a nation! We will take him, trial him, and let him answer our questions. In this way our conduct will be lawful.’

  The room broke out again.

  ‘But how do you propose to take him, Caiaphas? No one knows which one he is, for he and all his followers look the same and they speak the same way, one moment one speaks and then another?’

  ‘Kill any one member of his group and you will put fear into them all!’ answered an old Sadducee.

  At this point Ananias interjected with his thin voice, ‘I disagree! If we take the wrong man Jesus will continue to foment the people. Even our guards are deceived by him!’

  The elders consulted with one another and the room was again abuzz with conversation.

  One man stood and said, ‘How are we to know with certainty which is the right man?’

  Caiaphas sat down full of satisfaction, since this man had asked the question he had been waiting for. ‘Only one of the disciples, one close to him can say which one he is. And one of his disciples has come and is now among us!’

  The gathering of elders looked to where Caiaphas was pointing, to the cold shadows of one of the yawning arches. From it emerged a man, dark of hair and eye and red of beard. He moved out of the inky hollow like a wild beast coming from a thicket, looking about him with the cold eye of suspicion, not knowing if a snare or an arrow awaited him.