by Ron Cooper
Joseph said that, according to the laws, we had to wait a day after the bath before we could go to the Temple. After another night in the crowded inn, we had nothing to do but amble through the city with the other gawkers, careful not to get too close to the Roman patrols. Like us, most of the pilgrims were peasants whose weathered faces rippled with mixtures of awe, humility, and fright. Grown men, their neck and arms thick and sinewy from a lifetime of hard work, shuffled along the streets like guilty children fearing a beating. The women dipped their faces into their shawls and tried to keep the children quiet.
Joseph grew increasingly grim and began to walk faster, as if he had a destination in mind. Mary mumbled what sounded like prayers in an unfamiliar language. Her hands darted in front of her chest like moths, probably tracing some superstitious Galilean diagram. James prayed, the Hebrew words in cadence with his steps. My younger siblings were fascinated by the crowds and the sounds. I looked in vain for anyone who looked Ethiopian, and I certainly saw no women wearing only lion-hide loincloths.
Jesus moved about at ease, sometimes stopping to speak with strangers. He would ask what their villages were like, how they made their living, whether they conducted religious rites in the same way as we did, and if they thought their visit to the Temple would hasten our deliverance from Roman oppression. Most would look at him in confusion or call him impudent. I had to pull him away several times so we could run and catch up with the others.
In a less crowded part of the city, Joseph seemed calmer, and we stopped at one of the large tents where many poor travelers slept on the ground. We were invited to share a fire to cook our flat bread from the same sack of flour Mary had used for all of our meals since leaving Nazareth. By the time we returned to the inn, the children were exhausted and complaining, Joseph and Mother were silent, and I began to wish we had never come.
The next morning, we went to the Temple. The outer walls must have been twenty cubits high, taller than any building in Nazareth, and enclosed an area not much smaller than my village. The entire world, I doubted, contained so much stone. Even more astonishing to a young stonecutter like me was the size of the stones. I had not known that slabs of more than fifteen cubits long and ten cubits high could be quarried and transported. To add to my awe, the pure, spring sunlight reflected off the white stone that was at once painfully bright and undeniably beckoning. Great numbers of people gathered agape, filled with awe and humility beside a structure unmatched in size and splendor. Some fell to their faces and wept; others turned their heads and hands skyward and babbled in ululating tongues. Jesus took my hand and gave it a slight squeeze. He nodded, as if to indicate his resolve about a grave mission.
I could see the tops of massive buildings beyond the towering walls, and I was eager to get inside the complex. We took our places in the lines, then ascended the south stairs through the double gates up to the Temple Mount. The stairs rose on a gentle slope, led through the wall, and emerged just before a long building with tall marble pillars before a deep stoa. People moved about the portico, pitching from table to table and bickering with the currency changers. Only Temple currency was allowed for the purchase of doves and lambs to be sacrificed, and travelers haggled with the many vendors over exchange rates and prices of the animals for sale. “Not enough!” some vendors shouted, while would-be buyers yelled, “Too much!”
“Let us hurry, Joseph,” Mother said. “I fear the children may be swept away by the crowd.” She bent and drew a sign in the thin layer of dust on the floor, and quickly brushed it over with one sandal, then the other.
James and Jesus began to argue.
“This place is flooded with Gentiles,” said James. “How can we perform our ceremonies when they are on every corner? They defile the city.”
“How can a city be defiled by foreigners, Brother,” asked Jesus, “unless its own people welcome the defilement?”
James’ eyes widened and his lips peeled back to show his clenched teeth. He looked like an angry dog about to bite. He had decided that Jerusalem was the true Israel, and I suppose he considered himself a specially adopted son.
“You sound like a Pharisee,” James said, batting Jesus’ ear.
Joseph returned before James could strike me just for being nearby. “Enough,” Joseph said. “Have you forgotten where you are? This is not the place for your squabbles. We must go to the Sanctuary now.”
James and Jesus walked ahead, still bickering. The closer we got to the tallest building, the louder the throng around us buzzed, like flies on a dog’s carcass. The people shifted among the booths, waving their hands and shaking their heads, much as I had seen fish buyers do by the water when we visited Bethsaida. I could not quite understand how the transactions worked, but Joseph pushed ahead to a table and appeared to know what he was doing.
“This is not what I expected,” I said to Jesus. “I thought this would be joyous or maybe solemn, not all this bickering and shoving and buying and selling.”
“Why would you expect anything else?” Jesus asked. “You don’t think these people are here for God, do you?”
“Then why are they here?”
“To escape God. They know this is the last place He would be.”
I did not then understand what Jesus meant, and I am not sure that he himself did, but those words scratched my heart like an iron nail across a clay tile. The rest of the day, I walked softly and squinted into corners, peered through windows and, like a man who believes a thief lurks in his house, searched the holy place for a glimpse of God.
Joseph disappeared behind the booths and soon emerged carrying a bag. We bunched together and crossed the huge courtyard. I was amazed at the buildings and columns all polished and glistening in the bright Judean sun. Joseph gave us no time to wait for this feeling of awe to pass but pointed in the direction of the Women’s Court and told Mother to take the girls there. He then took my brothers and me to the tallest building, the Temple Sanctuary itself.
When we arrived, the Sanctuary seemed to float upon a slab of marble at least five cubits thick. Lines of kneeling and mumbling men curved before its steps. We stepped around them and made our way into the Sanctuary and through to a room filled with men standing and rocking and praying. Their tongues sounded rather familiar—I suspect they were varied dialects of Hebrew and Aramaic.
Something was happening at the far end, but I could not see around the men in front of me. Joseph reached into the bag and removed two pigeons. Their soft heads stuck up between his scaly fingers—an unexpected image for me―I’d never seen something so rough touch any living thing with such tenderness. He stretched out his arm to a man in white with a tall hat who took the pigeons and gave them to another man, who placed them upon a long stone table.
There he and more men held them beside lambs and, with smooth, swift motions, wringed the birds’ necks. They then took more of the birds and dispatched them with the same speed, ease, and detachment I had seen when Mother removed lentils from their hulls. These images grow dark to the mind of an old man, but the dying cries of those broken and knifed creatures will forever sound in my ears. I was at once fascinated by the efficiency of the process and repulsed by the massive slaughter demanded by our Lord (though I had many times witnessed sheep, cows, and goats killed in similar fashion). Why would the Almighty God require so much death? Was I to believe that we were actually feeding Him?
Amid the carnage, the thought emerged in my soul: I am standing before the great altar, the destination for this sacred journey, and the closest I will ever get to God. Was this the lesson I should take from the Temple, that the presence of God is accompanied by death? At the edge of my vision, I saw Joseph whisk Joses and Simon away, and I broke from my contemplation to follow them through a door into a courtyard.
Joseph seemed eager to get out quickly, and we left the Temple, my little brothers clinging to my hands among a flow of people, passed betwee
n more buildings and through a courtyard until we went through a gate decorated with peculiar symbols—serpents and rams and stars—and down stairs, after which we stopped beyond the outer wall. Hundreds of women and girls sat in the sun, waiting for their men and boys to emerge. I didn’t know what they had done in their portion of the Temple complex, but I was happy that my sisters had been spared the bloody sights of the sanctuary. We walked among scores of scampering little girls until we found Mother waving for us.
Mother jumped to her feet and took my sisters by their hands. We left the Temple area together and were nearly back at the tents (where we were to cook our bread) when Mother halted, spun around, and strained her neck, searching. “Where is Jesus?” she asked, gasping and crossing her arms over her head. She must have thought him lost forever, for she collapsed to her knees and pressed her face to the ground, wailing like the old women at funerals. With her finger, she traced a circle in the dirt and pulled at my leg. I obediently drew a triangle inside the circle, then stomped in the center. Another of her superstitious rituals that I had participated in many times, this one was supposed to prevent an impending tragedy, which she foresaw with great frequency.
Joseph asked, “Where is James?”
“I shall find them,” I said, suspecting that Jesus had just tarried behind on his own as he sometimes did, and I didn’t care where James was. I retraced our steps, expecting to find them not far behind us, but I had to go all the way back to the Temple, weaving through the women and girls outside, squeezing against the stream of bodies coming out the gate, and darting around the men exiting the altar room.
Inside, Jesus and James were speaking with four white-robed priests. One looked particularly old, and he placed his thin hand upon Jesus’ shoulder, then turned to me. “Ah, you have a twin!” he said to Jesus. Looking to me again, he added, “Are you filled with the same ideas as this one?”
“Sir, I must take my brothers to our family,” I said.
“We must free ourselves from these troubles,” said Jesus, “or we shall have no families.”
“And how shall we become free?” another priest asked.
“Freedom is not found in this Temple,” Jesus said. “Too many among you act as if they belong to the Temple and not as if the Temple belongs to them.”
The man who held Jesus’ shoulder smiled. “You are a clever and forthright boy, but you must be careful how you talk in the house of the Lord.”
“The Lord’s house is much larger than this,” Jesus said. “It is where we dwell in emptiness—empty hearts, empty stomachs, empty pockets.” Two of the priests drew back their heads and pursed their lips as if they’d smelled something foul. Another’s eyes narrowed and his head tilted as if doubting what he had heard.
The old priest jerked his hand from Jesus as if it had been burned. “Emptiness?”
“The Lord dwells here,” said James. “Torah says—”
The old priest reached out to place a skinny finger to James’ lips. His eyes had not left Jesus’ face. “Is this Temple empty?”
I saw James clench his fists, and I heard his teeth grind. Jesus was stealing all the priests’ attention, and certainly not in a manner that would please James.
“Let’s go,” I said, pulling my brothers away. Outside the gate, James ran ahead, probably so angry that he couldn’t bear to look at Jesus. I was glad he left us, but I was surprised he hadn’t first struck us both in the stomach.
“What were you doing in there?” I asked Jesus.
“I don’t know. I felt compelled to talk to them. Who knows when I’ll have another chance like that?”
“You were making them angry.”
“Thomas, why would they think they have anything to fear from me?”
We found our family back at the tents. Mother threw her arms around Jesus and sobbed. James joined us more than an hour later. I saw him approaching before the others did, and I tried to make him feel bad.
“Mother was worried about you,” I said. “The whole family was.”
“Your mother,” he said. “Your family. You should all tend to yourselves.” He shoved me aside. As he walked past, I stumbled to the ground, and threw a pebble that hit his back, but he didn’t acknowledge it.
I was sleepless that night. I wasn’t sure exactly why I felt so disturbed. Perhaps I was just overwhelmed by the size of the crowds. Perhaps it was being among so many Romans and afraid that at any moment I might be the recipient of a random blow from a soldier’s lance. Maybe the inscrutable Temple rituals seemed to me like just so many empty words and meaningless, yet no less powerful, operations.
On the journey home the next day, I tried to make sense of it all in my child’s mind and was vowing to myself that I would never return to this city when my mother took me aside and asked me why Jesus had lingered inside the Temple. I told her what I’d heard him say.
“You are a gentle boy, Thomas, and so is Jesus, but he’s strong-spirited and doesn’t understand the ways of the world. You are more worldly than he. He needs you to care for him. Can you do this for me?”
“My brother is a riddle to me, Mother, and I sometimes think he has no concern for the ways of the world. He is as dear to me as my own breath, but how shall I care for him when I cannot understand him?”
“People don’t want to think about things as he does. Jesus doesn’t see that. His talk with the priests at the Temple—he could get into trouble for saying things like that. Keep him safe, Thomas.”
“I shall, Mother.” In the ignorance of my youth, I was sure I could protect him. Yet how could I have foreseen the horror toward which he projected himself? Even knowing all I do now, could I have done any better?
So many nights I have lain awake and cursed myself for not seeking some way to silence him instead of supporting his insane vision. Was I mad too? Is this relentless questioning my punishment for failing to keep my promise to my mother?
Chapter Four
Verse One
My memories seem clearer the farther back I look into my youth. From my childhood, I see the weathered faces, hear the sharp whacks of mallets and dull drags of saws, and feel the weight of Roman occupation like a centurion’s sandal upon the neck. In images from more recent years, faces are less distinguishable, and sounds are smoothed to murmurs, but the foot of the Empire is no less heavy.
Perhaps the pall of despair fostered our mischief. Judas was usually the instigator. We were probably still about twelve when he talked Jesus and me into trying to peek in on the women’s bath. As Galileans, some did not comply with all the purity rituals, but most of the women still spent their unclean times of the month at the bath away from their families. “They take off all their clothes when they enter,” Judas said. “We can watch from inside Bazak’s shed.”
The shed smelled as if Bazak had not cleaned out the sheep dung for months, but it would be a small price to pay if the scheme paid off. We peered through the slats that formed the back of the shed. The bath looked like a small house with a rounded roof, as if it were meant to resemble a cave. It was made mostly of mud and reeds, like material for roofs, and was at the edge of one of the springs where the Nazarene women washed clothes. A ditch had been dug into which spring water flowed where the women sat. A couple of old women came and went carrying jars that probably contained food for the women inside.
“This is silly,” Jesus said. “We can’t see inside, and no woman is going to undress on the outside.”
“Leave if you like,” I said. “I’m staying.”
Jesus lay back and napped while Judas and I took turns keeping watch. After about an hour, I sat leaning against the shed when Judas nudged me. “Someone’s here.”
I spun around and looked through the slats. Two women stood at the bath entrance with their backs to us. They wore sheer, white gowns. One of the old women emerged and spoke to them. The two women dropped their
gowns around their ankles.
The loose, peasant garments Nazarene women wore gave me no hint that such astonishing contours lay beneath. Their backs, cleft by the gentle crease of their backbones, sloped down to narrow waists. Their bottoms mounded like bread loaves. I had seen boys’ bottoms when we swam or bathed together, but the women’s bottoms were rounder, curving outward and under, and were as firm as pomegranates. I felt a stir in my loins, as if I had to piss. I thought about waking Jesus but couldn’t bring myself to break my gaze.
As she turned to speak to the taller one, I saw the shorter woman’s face. Leah!
“Damn me!” I said. Judas clasped his hand over my mouth.
Jesus awoke. “What?”
“Shhh!” Judas said.
Leah and the other woman, whom I think was her friend Rebekah, entered the bath, out of sight.
“Who were they?” Judas asked.
“I don’t know,” I said. “Let’s go.” I ran home, delighted yet embarrassed. I had thought of Leah as a mere girl, not yet ready to join the company of women.
After all, I was still a boy.
Verse Two
When Jesus and I were sixteen or seventeen years old, James courted a beautiful and kind girl named Sarah. I was baffled that any girl would spend a minute with such a bore, but as he sat on the floor and rocked and recited scripture, she would stare silently at him for hours, as if he were a charmed snake. Like her parents and a few other Nazarenes, she was oblivious to the political war happening around them. She did not even know that her brother Nathan, who, like James, was eighteen or nineteen, ran with bandits who attacked wealthy Judeans as they passed through the wilderness.