Leading the procession was the chariot of the dissignator with six uniformed trumpeters marching before him to clear the way. Next came a double file of lictors and, behind them, the professional mourners, robed in white and chanting monotonously the solemn words of a dirge. Oddly in contrast to the mourners, many of whose faces were painted white and who beat their breasts in synthetic sorrow, were the dancers and pantomimists who followed. Some played on flutes while others portrayed in pantomime the triumphs of the deceased on the battlefield and in political life.
Next in the line was the elaborate chariot of Pontius Pilate himself. The procurator stood erect, cold and haughty in his uniform and medals, looking neither to left nor right as the vehicle rumbled over the stone paving. In a funeral conducted in the deceased’s home city, a long line of men would have followed in the uniforms of the deceased’s illustrious ancestors, each wearing one of the imagines, the death masks that reposed betweentimes in the alae opening off the atrium of his house. Thus the dead man would move to his funeral pyre preceded by a long line of his ancestors in effigy. But since the imagines of Gaius Flaccus’s line were in Rome, small placards bearing the names and more important accomplishments of his famous ancestors were carried by a number of officers behind the chariot of Pontius Pilate. After them the Lady Claudia Procula rode in Pilate’s own chair with the curtains partially drawn.
The elaborate sedan chair bearing the eagles of Rome was followed by Gaius Flaccus’s favorite stallion, resplendent in golden trappings with an empty saddle on his back, led by the commander’s equerry. A column of soldiers marched behind the battle charger, bearing the dead man’s insignia and memorials of his trophies and his feats of arms in battle. And after the parade of the insignia strode fifty additional lictors, their fasces pointing downward, followed by another group bearing flaming torches, although it was daytime—relics of the old Roman custom of burying at night.
Next rumbled the funeral chariot itself, carrying the open bier. The embalmers had been skilled in their craft. Lying there, resplendent in full military uniform of the rich purple color favored by high officers, Gaius Flaccus might have been merely asleep.
Mary had chosen to walk with the other slaves who had become freedmen, as was customary, by the will of their dead master. She wore black and her hair was covered completely, but such was her beauty that she stood out among the others like a precious jewel in a pile of glass baubles. Joseph did not walk in the procession but followed along beside the slaves at the edge of the crowd.
The people of Galilee had not loved Gaius Flaccus, and so there was no mourning as the procession passed. Had there been less show of military might, some might have dared to jeer, but all were silent until the slaves and Mary came along. Then, to Joseph’s surprise, a murmur of resentment ran along through the crowd, like a ripple in a pool. And as Mary passed, one woman spat out a word he had heard first applied to her years ago on the streets of Tiberias, “Meretrix!”
“Why do you call her that?” he asked the woman, a shrewish-looking housewife. “She is a slave like the others.”
The woman looked at him suspiciously. “Are you a stranger in this region?”
“I am a physician from Jerusalem,” he said truthfully enough.
“The woman in black there is called Mary of Magdala,” his informant explained. “But she is no slave. She is a Jewess, a former dancer who chose to follow the Roman instead of living with her own people.”
“How do you know this?”
“All Galilee knows it. Did not the tribune Gaius Flaccus boast in the drinking houses because he knew the Jews would be ashamed to know that one of them is an adulteress?”
“But she walks with the slaves,” Joseph protested.
“It is only to hide her sin now that the man she lusted after is dead. Mary of Magdala should be stoned like any other wanton.”
Mary had gone on while Joseph was talking to the woman and the Roman troops were passing in review now, the thunder of their leather-shod feet upon the stones drowning out any further conversation. Century after century passed in full military equipment led by the centurions, captains of a hundred. And after them rode the cavalry with pikes upraised and colorful pennons fluttering from their points. Last of all creaked the siege trains, massive machines called ballistae that could hurl a stone ball of half a man’s weight an eighth of a mile, the onager and the catapulta, giant bows that hurled great blazing arrows for long distances, and other equally formidable machines.
It was indeed an impressive spectacle, but Joseph was too concerned by what the woman had said about Mary to appreciate it. Had she come safely to freedom through the death of Gaius Flaccus, he wondered, only to have more trouble because the people whose very relatives she had probably saved in Alexandria still thought evil of her? It was a disquieting thought.
At the cemetery outside the city gates, a great funeral pyre had been erected. Here the body of the dead man would be consumed by the flames and his ashes gathered and returned in state to Rome to rest in the columbarium housing the remains of his ancestors. As the funeral party reached the cemetery, it deployed according to the directions of the dissignator before a platform erected in front of the pyre. From this platform Pontius Pilate gave a lengthy oration of praise for the dead man, shrewdly adding a warning that the might of Rome thus displayed could also be used to bring the Jews to heel if they chose to rebel against Roman authority. The lesson was all the more pointed because, directly visible across from the cemetery, was the slope where Judas the Gaulonite had been crucified with two thousand Jews within the memory of many who watched and listened.
When the oration was finished, the elaborate bier was carried to the top of the pyre and set in place. At a command from the dissignator the chair of the Lady Claudia Procula was borne away, followed by the women of Gaius Flaccus’s household. Pontius Pilate himself cast a flaming torch into the tinder prepared at the bottom of the pyre. It caught at once, and the flames raced through the dry wood, turning it into a fiery holocaust in a matter of seconds.
Joseph did not stay for the end of the ceremony, but hurried back to the city in the wake of the chair bearing Claudia Procula and the slaves who followed it. The press of the crowd was still great and he made slow progress, so that by the time he reached the villa Mary had gone to rest in the partly enclosed garden that was a prominent part of the houses in this pleasant climate. Dark shadows lay under her eyes and weariness showed in her face when he found her, for it had been a long hard day. But the smile she gave him as he came into the garden quickened his heartbeat. When she held out her hands to him, he knelt and carried them to his lips. “You are free, Mary,” he cried. “Free at last.”
“Dear Joseph.” She came into the circle of his arms as if she had longed to be there for all the months since he had left Alexandria. “What would I do without you?”
“You need never be without me,” he said, kissing her gently.
“You don’t know what it will mean to have someone to look after me and care for me again,” she whispered. “How much simpler it all would have been if I had listened to my heart back in Magdala when we first knew we loved each other. But then,” she added, “you might have stayed in Magdala as a village physician and never have become medicus viscerus of the temple and the most famous physician in Judea and Galilee.”
“I would give it all up today if you wanted me to. Come back to Jerusalem with me now,” he begged, “or I will stay in Magdala, whichever you wish. Nothing must ever separate us again.”
“What did you hear today that has disturbed you, Joseph?” She looked at him keenly. “Is something wrong?”
“It is nothing. Idle gossip.”
“I heard them in the crowd saying I lived with Gaius Flaccus because I am a wanton. It is not the first time they have said it.”
“Those who know you would never believe it.”
<
br /> “Yes,” she agreed. “Anyone who knows me would understand. And as for those who do not, it does not matter what they say.”
“Then you will come back with me now?”
She shook her head gently. “I will come back with you for a just a few days, Joseph. But then I must return here. Being a Jew, you know what it is to be unclean. I must cleanse my body and my soul with prayer and meditation after the manner of our people. When Hadja and I return to the house at Magdala, I will live quietly through the winter and pray that I may be made whole again and understand God’s will better. Besides, I want to listen to the teachings of Jesus, for they seem to bring peace to the soul. When spring comes to Galilee, we will be wed as we might have been years ago. Then we can decide where we shall live.”
“But, Mary . . .”
“Give me these months to purify myself of the defilement I have known,” she pleaded. “Then I can come to you clean and whole again, as I would have done had fate and the Most High left us in Magdala.”
He argued no more, for he understood the real reason for her wanting to wait. It was because she could not bring to him in marriage just now a body which had been contaminated by the seed of evil.
“Will you be safe in Magdala alone?” he asked.
“Hadja will be with me,” she assured him. “And you know there is nothing to idle talk; it will blow over as soon as they have something else to gossip about. Are we going to Jerusalem tomorrow?”
Joseph nodded. “Yes, and then I can escort you back here to Magdala because Pilate has asked me to investigate the raising of Jairus’s daughter from the dead.”
“Why?”
“I think he wants to be sure he was right in not letting Pila be taken to Jesus. After all, Pilate is human and he loves the boy.”
“If Pilate would let Pila be taken to Jesus, it might help to settle the quarrel between him and Procula,” Mary said thoughtfully. “I know she could forgive him his cruelty and moodiness, but not if he deliberately deprives Pila of a chance to be well. Try to find out the truth, Joseph,” she begged. “If Jesus did truly raise the girl from the dead, there may be hope for Pila, and for Pontius Pilate as well. Then he would have to believe in the mercy of the Most High.”
VII
The next morning, Joseph, Mary, and Hadja returned for a brief stay in Jerusalem. After a good meal and a good night’s sleep, Joseph went out early to follow up on several of his patients. A few hours later, as he made his way on a street near the temple, Joseph realized that something out of the ordinary was happening. The streets were strangely deserted, and he could hear the roar of voices shouting. Suddenly apprehensive, he pushed on and soon came to the edge of a crowd in the temple courts.
No one seemed to know exactly what the excitement was about, but as with all mobs, the tension was rising to a high pitch and could soon be dangerous for anyone against whom the fickle emotions of the crowd was directed. Finally, when he could get no farther, Joseph managed to attract the attention of someone standing on a cart in order to see over the crowd. “What is happening?” he asked, tugging at the hem of the man’s robe.
The man looked down and, seeing that Joseph was expensively dressed, answered respectfully, “The scribes and Pharisees have taken a woman accused of adultery and are inflaming the crowd against her.”
“Who is she?” Joseph cried, remembering what he had heard in the crowd at the funeral of Gaius Flaccus.
“I know not, but her hair is as red as the copper of Cyprus. They went to a house and dragged her here.”
“Mary!” he cried, suddenly overcome with apprehension. Had she escaped from slavery, only to face the fury of a mob of Jews ready to punish an infraction of their precious law? This was what he had been fearing. Quickly Joseph took a gold denarius from his purse and pressed it into the hand of the man on the cart. “Tell me all you see,” he said. “Have they started to stone her yet?” Stoning was the traditional method of execution for infractions of Jewish law, just as crucifixion was a practice peculiar to the Romans.
“Another man is with the woman,” his informer called down, “and the accusers seem to be arguing their case before Him. I can see Him well now,” he added excitedly. “It is the Teacher they call Jesus of Nazareth. They must be asking Him to judge her.”
Joseph could understand how Mary would make a perfect case for those who sought to trap Jesus, since the Jews believed that she had lived with Gaius Flaccus of her own accord, thus labeling herself truly an adulteress. Someone must tell the people the truth, he realized, and that could only be Mary, Hadja, or himself. They would hardly listen to Mary or Hadja, but Joseph of Galilee was widely known and they might let him speak in her defense.
Joseph pushed his way through the crowd until he found himself looking upon a strangely dramatic tableau.
Mary’s head was covered with a shawl. Although she faced an angry and accusing crowd, no sign of fear showed in her face and she did not remove her gaze from Jesus during the commotion of Joseph’s arrival. A strange look was in her eyes, a light of adoration, worship, and utter trust.
This was the first time Joseph had seen the young Teacher, but Jesus was so like the description by Nicodemus that he felt as if he were looking at a familiar face. And he understood at once now why Nicodemus had said, “It is not just the teachings of Jesus that make you want to follow Him. It is something about the Man Himself, something that cannot easily be put into words.”
Jesus was standing quietly beside Mary, listening to the impassioned oration of a tall man whose fringed robe labeled him a Pharisee. Jesus was slender and slightly over middle height, with a face that was intelligent and kind. But the most distinguishing feature was His extremely brilliant eyes, as if the fire of the soul within His body burned more brightly than in ordinary men. As He listened to the angry tirade from the Pharisee, Jesus’ expression was thoughtful, with no hint of either censure or resentment at the half-contemptuous manner of the man who was denouncing Mary.
“Teacher,” the Pharisee argued, “this woman was taken in adultery. Now in the law, Moses commanded us to stone such. What do you say about her?”
Jesus did not immediately answer. Instead, He did a strange thing. Stooping, He began to write with the end of His finger in the dust on the ground, as if He had not heard them and had quite forgotten where He was. The accuser craned his neck to see what the man of Nazareth was writing, but he was unable to decipher it and repeated impatiently, “What do you say about her?”
Jesus continued to write a moment longer, then straightened up and shook the dust from His fingers. When He spoke, His voice was low, yet such was its peculiarly penetrating power that the whole crowd heard the words. “Let him who is without sin among you be the first to throw a stone at her,” He said gently. And stooping again, He began to write once more in the dust.
The Pharisee who had acted as prosecutor stared at Jesus for a moment in bewilderment. Then he looked uncertainly at those who had joined him in pressing the charge, as if asking which of them dared announce himself free from sin and cast the stone. The look of bewilderment on his face was so comical that someone in the crowd laughed at the discomfiture of the men who, a few minutes before, had been so arrogantly certain of trapping the Teacher of Nazareth. And with one of those lightning-quick changes of emotion that happens to mobs, a roar of merriment rose from the onlookers.
One of the accusers started to sneak away, and at this the mirth of the crowd grew even louder and more pointed. The scribes and the Pharisees, realizing their cause was lost, started to move away from the crowd, anxious to get away from this man who could, with a few simple words, set at naught their most elaborate schemes. And since the drama was ended, the crowd followed, until soon Joseph was left with Mary, Hadja, the Teacher, and His disciples.
Jesus looked up then and said to Mary, “Woman, where are they? Has no one con
demned you?”
“No one, Lord,” she said in a low voice, and He said quietly, “Neither do I condemn you; go, and do not sin again.” And turning, He walked away, followed by His disciples.
Mary remained just where she had stood throughout the whole dramatic episode, her eyes upon the slender figure in the rough robe of homespun with the sunlight shining like a halo upon His uncovered head. Only when Jesus had disappeared did she turn, and Joseph saw that a great glory and a great wonder were in her face.
Joseph realized that Mary would probably be safer back in Magdala than in Jerusalem, so the next morning the three of them returned to Galilee. Leaving Mary at the house in Magdala with Hadja, Joseph set out early the next afternoon to visit Jairus. It was only a short distance down the sloping hillside from Magdala and along the shore of the lake to the sprawling town of Capernaum. He found that he still remembered the way to the house, a few doors from the great synagogue of Capernaum, where Jairus lived. As one of the oldest and therefore the wisest men in the Jewish congregation, he was numbered among the elders, often called the “rulers of the synagogue,” who sat upon an elevated platform of honor above the congregation itself. Respected and honored by all because of their piety and wisdom, they were often consulted by Jews outside the synagogue on matters of conduct and problems pertaining to observance of the law.
Jairus was at work in his shop when Joseph came in, but he courteously led the young physician to a shady arbor in the small garden around which both house and shop were built. “We here in the lake region are very proud of your success in Jerusalem, Joseph,” the old man said gently. “Particularly so because you are a Galilean.”
The Galileans: A Novel of Mary Magdalene Page 28