by Ann Swinfen
‘Now, surely, rabbi,’ said Yôhânân, ‘we are on the threshold of the new kingdom.’
As he so often did, he had pushed his way forward to walk in the privileged place next to my brother. Hearing the murmurs of agreement amongst the others, Yeshûa stopped and waited while they gathered around him. I could see that he was about to tell another of his stories.
‘You think we are on the threshold, Yôhânân?’ he said. He thought for a moment.
‘Suppose a landowner gets his labourers to plant a fig tree in his vineyard. One of those wealthy absentee landowners, like those who own the estates in Galilee, where we travelled amongst the destitute amê hâ-’erets. After a while, he comes from his fine house in Jerusalem, to avoid the heat of midsummer in the city and spend some time in the country. After a good dinner, he goes for a stroll in the vineyard. “I’ll sit in the shade of the fig tree,” he thinks, “and enjoy some of the juicy fruit.” So he seeks out the fruit tree and—what! Not a fig to be seen.’
He paused, and we waited expectantly.
‘He looks around for his steward. “Yeshûa!” he bellows. “Where are you, you idle scum! This tree was planted three years ago, and there’s not a fig to be seen. Cut it down! It’s completely useless, just like you.” ‘
Susanna giggled when he named the steward Yeshûa, but clapped her hands over her mouth. He grinned at her and went on.
‘Now this fellow Yeshûa was one of the amê hâ-’erets himself, but had risen to be steward through hard work and a handy way with the orchard and vines. “Please, Lord,” says he bravely, “I think we should leave it a while longer. One year more. I’ll dig in some manure around it, and keep an eye on it. If it bears fruit then, why that’s all well and good. If not, I’ll cut it down and we’ve lost nothing by waiting.” ‘
Yeshûa turned on his heel and walked on.
‘What does he mean?’ Susanna whispered to me.
‘He means we must be patient. Just as it sometimes takes longer for one plant or one tree to be fruitful, so the turning of men’s hearts to righteousness will sometimes take longer than we hoped.’
She was silent for a little, digesting this.
‘Do you mean that the new kingdom will be a long time coming?’
‘Possibly. Probably. We must be patient. But every sinner saved and turned to good is a small step on the road. Another fig tree bearing fruit.’
‘You explain things more clearly than Yeshûa, Mariam.’
I made a face. I had no wish to be compared with my brother.
As luck would have it, we arrived in Capernaum on the day the special tax was to be paid, which was a contribution to the rebuilding of the Temple. It amounted to half a shekel for each adult male, that is: twenty-six silver dinars altogether for our group. There are four dinars to a shekel. We were penniless. Yehûdâ had just one silver dinar left in the common purse. Yeshûa was anxious not to cause trouble by refusing to pay the tax.
‘Shim’ôn,’ he said, ‘cast a fishing-line into the Lake. When you hook a fish, it will have a coin in its mouth. Give it to Yehûdâ, and with the dinar he has in his purse, he can pay the tax.’
Shim’ôn looked startled, but fetched his fishing gear from his house. Yehûdâ raised his eyebrows and shrugged, but sat down beside Shim’ôn to wait. I’ll humour him, his expression said.
Leaving Shim’ôn to his fishing, the rest of us dispersed amongst the various houses of the town, we women going with Salome to Zebedee’s house. I did not know what to make of Yeshûa’s instruction. Perhaps he meant simply that Shim’ôn should fish until he had earned enough to pay the tax. Later, we heard that the first fish caught had indeed been found to have a coin in its mouth.
This is not as odd as it sounds. These fish, found only in Gennesaret, have strange habits. The male fish swims around holding the eggs of the infant fish in his mouth till they have hatched and can survive on their own, then he spits them out. Until it is time for him to repeat this curious practice, he will pick up a pebble—or a coin—and carry that in his mouth instead. Now it is quite possible that Shim’ôn caught a fish which had picked up a coin instead of a pebble. But is it not strange that my brother should have known that that particular fish was carrying around a coin? And that the coin would be a chrusous stater, worth twenty-five drachmae or dinars? Which, together with our single dinar, was exactly twenty-six dinars. Enough to pay the tax.
Yeshûa had decided that he would not follow the direct route to Jerusalem, south on the main road along the Jordan valley. If either Antipas or the Romans should be looking for him, it would be in this well-travelled area, especially during the period leading up to Pesah. Instead, we would start by heading west through Samaria and only cross the border east into Judaea much further down. Then he wanted to travel over to visit Jericho, as he had told us in Tyre, before we turned back at last and headed for Jerusalem. Jerusalem! I could not believe I was to see the Holy City at last. As a girl growing up in our village, I had never expected to travel more than a few miles from home.
Jerusalem! The very sound of it sang with the names of kings and heroes. I was filled with excitement, but also with dread. Ever since our stay in Tyre, my brother had been talking of death in Jerusalem. I clung to the hope that the Holy City itself, with all its glories, would change his mind.
So the journey to Judaea took us through Samaria, the land inhabited by those who have fallen away from faith in the Law. They claim to worship Yahweh by going up to their mountain tops, and say that this is more faithful to the practice of Moses than the rituals practised in the Temple at Jerusalem. Like all pious Israelites I had been brought up to abhor the Samaritans, though my brother sometimes told stories of kind and generous acts carried out by Samaritans when Israelites had failed in their duty of loving kindness to their neighbours. Nevertheless, we made speed through Samaria, Yeshûa trying to avoid recognition, and I was glad when we crossed the border into Judaea and were once again amongst our own kind.
We had travelled long and hard that day, and as we approached the first village I think we were all simply hoping that some hospitable villager would give us food and shelter, for we were still uncertain of our reception in Judaea. Somehow, word of our coming must have flown ahead of us, spread, as they say, by the bird’s wing, for there on the outskirts of the village was a crowd of women and children, the women smiling and calling out a welcome to us, the children hopping up and down and dodging about amongst the legs of the adults.
‘Lord,’ the women said timidly, ‘bless our children, we beg you!’
Some of the shelîhîm tried to hustle them to one side, for we could all see how exhausted my brother was, but he remonstrated with them.
‘We’re in no haste.’
He sat down at once on the low wall beside the village well, and the women brought their children to him one by one. Yeshûa had always cherished children. In some ways, for all his learning and his complex ideas, he was like a child in the loving simplicity of his heart. I remembered how he had comforted my childish woes, and played with me, despite the difference in our ages.
As the women came diffidently up to him, he cradled each baby in turn, laying his hand on each small head while saying a berâkâ. And the babies who were crying or fretful ceased their clamour and gazed up at him with trusting eyes. The older children he took on his lap, and he talked to them. Some of them put their arms around his neck and whispered in his ear. Some were shy and said nothing, but their faces lit up when he spoke to them.
At our meal that evening, provided by one of the village elders, the talk turned to the injustices that existed between the rich and the poor. Some had lives of ease and comfort, while others laboured for small wages, suffered illness and persecution, and often died young.
‘Ah,’ said Yeshûa, ‘but if the poor are righteous, they shall inherit the kingdom.’
‘But what of a man who is born rich?’ one of the guests asked. ‘If he lives a good life and obeys all the Commandmen
ts, has he no hope of a place in the kingdom?’
‘Riches,’ said my brother, ‘are a curse to him who possesses them, for they turn his mind to the trivial objects of this sinful world. Does a man need to eat from a golden bowl? No. His food will taste the same from a wooden platter, or even scooped from the cooking pot with his fingers. Does he need garments dyed with murex and embroidered with pearls? No. He is clothed as comfortably in a simple tunic of unbleached wool. If a rich man would follow me, let him give away all that he has to succour the poor, and follow me with nothing but a peasant’s garb and sandals on his feet.’
I saw that the village elder and his other guests, none of whom appeared to lack a shekel or two, looked uncomfortable at this, and they turned the conversation to other matters. None chose to follow him. The next day Yeshûa preached his message in the village and healed the sick who were brought to him, before we went on our way again.
Once we had walked a little way from the village, some of the shelîhîm, perhaps troubled by his talk of children and rich men the day before, began to ask him what they should have, as a reward for giving up their ordinary lives and following him.
‘We have forsaken everything,’ Shim’ôn said, ‘and followed you. What shall we have?’
Yeshûa stopped in the middle of the road and faced them.
‘Everyone who has forsaken houses, or brethren,’ he said, ‘or sisters, or father, or mother, or wife, or children, or lands, for my name’s sake, shall receive a hundredfold, and shall inherit everlasting life.’
He gazed along the road ahead, that led towards Jericho.
‘But,’ he said at last, somewhat curtly, ‘many that are first shall be last, and the last shall be first.’
Then he walked on.
Amongst the shelîhîm I heard murmurs.
‘When?’
‘What does he mean? Are we the first or the last?’
Perhaps because of their grumbling, Yeshûa was in a sad mood that evening. Despite our warm welcome into Judaea, he began foretelling his death again, saying that we would go to Jerusalem, where he would be betrayed and killed. Nothing we said could shake him out of this gloom.
In Gallia, the broiling sun has dropped at last below the western horizon, and the breeze has strengthened a little, bringing with it the scent of the sea. Mariam has fallen asleep in her chair and slumped sideways, her mouth slightly open.
‘Mother?’ Sergius leans over her, shaking her shoulder gently. ‘Mother? It is time for the evening meal.’
Mariam opens her eyes slowly. They seem unfocused and look through and beyond him. Then she sighs deeply and straightens herself painfully until she is sitting upright.
‘Could we not eat out here? It is so long since we sat out on the terrace, the whole family, to eat together. Do you remember how we used to eat here, on summer evenings, when you were a boy?’
Sergius knows that Fulvia is tired and hopes to go to bed as soon as the meal is finished. He also knows, what Mariam has not yet been told, that Fulvia is with child again, after nine years of waiting. And he knows that the meal, which is already laid in the triclinium, will have to be carried out here with great trouble. A table and benches will have to be moved, all the dishes brought. But he does remember those long, peaceful family meals on the terrace when he was young. They were times of great contentment at the end of his father’s long day of labour, when he had time at last to talk quietly to his wife and sons.
‘I’ll see whether it can be done,’ he says, ‘if you are sure you are not too tired.’
Mariam gives him a wan smile.
‘I do not suppose I will have the opportunity for many more family meals.’
As he turns away and starts for the house, she calls after him.
‘Sergius?’
‘Yes, Mother?’
‘I am glad you are here.’
Jericho must be one of the most beautiful places on earth. Approaching it through the barren, hostile terrain of Judaea, which seems like a place no man would ever choose to inhabit, the traveller descends into the Ghor, the great chasm through which the Jordan runs and which here seems to split the very world in half. A little way to the south lies Qumrân, and beyond it the Sea of Sodom and the unspeakable desert where my brother fasted and was visited by demons and terrible visions. But Jericho lies at the heart of an oasis, a paradise of springs and lush vegetation that stretches five hours’ walk in length, a little to the west of the Jordan.
The whole town was shaded by huge palm trees, taller than any I had ever seen before, which provided shade in every street and square. And shade was needed, for there is rarely any breeze here, because the town lies so deep in the earth. But so lush, so fertile! Most of the almond blossom had fallen, but still lay like pink snow in heaps upon the ground. The citrus trees bore fruit and flowers together, and the flowers had the same sweet sharp scent as the fruit. Pomegranates glowed amongst the leaves, plumper and redder than I had ever seen before.
‘What is that wonderful scent?’ I asked Yehûdâ in a whisper, for something about the beauty of the place made whispering natural. I knew that he had been here several times before, and would not find it as strange and wonderful as I did.
But he smiled and reached out as if to take my hand, then remembered the others. He must not touch me. His hand fell back by his side.
‘It is balsam,’ he said. ‘Do you see the orchard there, on the right? Behind the wall? They are gathering the sap.’
I saw that men on ladders were cutting gashes in the branches of the trees with pieces of sharp flint, then holding bowls beneath, into which the trees wept dark red tears, like blood.
‘It thickens,’ he said, ‘and turns into precious balm.’
‘Why do they not use knives?’
‘It’s said the trees will not give up the balm to iron. It must be stone, as when our ancient forefathers made their sacrifices with a stone knife.’
‘They are cutting off the smaller branches,’ I said.
‘Those are boiled, and the syrup mixed with olive oil.’
‘That is aromatic oil?’
‘Yes.’
A little further on, a boy of five or six ran up and gave me a bunch of dates, larger than any I have seen before or since. Their taste, too was different.
‘They taste of honey!’ I said. ‘Try them.’
I shared them with Yehûdâ and Susanna and the Magdalene, who were walking with me.
On the outskirts of town, a blind beggar touched Yeshûa’s robe and asked for help. My brother cupped his hands over the man’s eyes, murmured a prayer, and the poor fellow began to caper with joy, crying out that he could see once more. He kissed the hem of Yeshûa’s robe, then ran off ahead of us as we made our way along the road.
Word of our coming thus went ahead of us, cried out by the blind beggar, for as we reached the centre of the town we found a large crowd waiting. They greeted us with shouts of joy. Every face was smiling, and soon we were surrounded by a mass of eager people calling out for my brother to speak to them. Suddenly, it was like the early days again, when Yeshûa had first preached in Capernaum. I felt a surge of relief. This lovely town, these welcoming crowds! The long months of exile and rejection and loneliness and doubt were swept away.
Yeshûa spoke briefly to the crowd about the new kingdom of joy and hope, but only briefly, for it was near sunset and many would be heading home for their evening meal. He began some of the easier cures, telling others to return the next day, when there would be more time to treat them. While he was working, I noticed a disturbance at the edge of the square. Some people looked embarrassed. Others were hiding smiles behind their hands. They all kept looking up at a fig-sycamore, which was shaking violently. A shower of leaves cascaded down, and I saw a bare, skinny leg slip suddenly out of the branches, to be hastily drawn up again. Then I saw an anxious face peering out between the leaves.
‘Who is the little fellow up the tree?’ I asked a woman standing nearby, with a bab
y on her hip.
She giggled.
‘That is Zaccheus, the tax collector. Seems he’s eager to see the rabbi and his cures.’
My brother noticed the man and walked over to the tree.
‘Zaccheus!’ he called, tilting back his head and addressing the bare leg which had again slipped into view. He grabbed the bare foot, from which the sandal had fallen, and tickled it. ‘Make haste and come down, for tonight I will stay in your house.’
There was a general gasp of astonishment at this, for it seemed that tax collectors were no more popular in Jericho than in Capernaum. Zaccheus slid to the ground, tugging his robe down around his scratched legs, and bowed formally.
‘Master, you do me honour.’
He looked around at the poor and the sick who had gathered around my brother and shook his head in sorrow.
‘I did not know there were so many needy in Jericho.’
‘And what will you do for the needy, Zaccheus?’ my brother asked.
‘I will give them half my substance,’ he said earnestly. ‘And for the rest, I will repay fourfold any man who thinks I’ve taxed him unfairly. Come with me now, master, and you yourself will see it done.’
‘Will he do it, do you suppose?’ I whispered to Yehûdâ, as the man slipped his bare foot into the fallen sandal.
‘Let’s watch and see. Your brother can turn even a scrawny little tax collector into a benefactor of the poor. I shall enjoy this!’
We followed the little man through the streets of Jericho to a lovely quiet square shaded with palms and pomegranate trees. A vine arbour arched over the gateway to Zaccheus’s house, and a small garden laid out in the Roman style lay before it. Tax collector he might be, but he was as good as his word. He opened his strong box and drawing out several bags of coin, returned to his gate. Here, with the help of Mattaniah, Philippos and Tôma, he dispensed alms to the poor who crowded round, hands outstretched, while his wife and his maidservants bustled about preparing food for our large party. Yehûdâ looked at me across the little man’s head and winked.