by Ron Cooper
According to Judas, Nathan was a member of the Zealots, a rather widespread faction more organized than the nameless, rural insurrectionist bandits. The Zealots had begun an open rebellion against the Romans about ten years earlier after a census resulted in increased taxation. They soon switched to more covert tactics, often forming alliances with bandit groups to launch stealth attacks upon soldiers and travelers.
The Zealots and bandits were encouraged by many of our people, but some accused them of being more interested in robbing the rich than in liberating any of us. Others believed their activities only aggravated the Romans in the region. Soldiers rounded up and executed accused bandits every day, often killing them on the spot instead of first arresting them and taking them before a government official. Some of our people feared that the Romans would soon tire of these amateur assailants, who did occasionally succeed in killing a soldier, and wage a large-scale sweep of our entire land, killing all men who appeared to have the minimum strength to lift a sword against them. When we were younger, Jesus, Judas, I, and a few of the other Nazarene boys our age would pretend to be Zealots, dark heroes fighting for our country and our Lord, and we’d run about the village with wooden swords Jesus and I had made, slashing at imaginary legions.
One day, Nathan and his fellow brigands, full of wine and themselves, attacked a detachment of Roman soldiers. Nathan was carried into town on a plank with a sword wound in the chest—or maybe his stomach―but either way, I had never seen so much blood, even when a sheep was killed. He had shat on himself, and I wondered how much of the stench came from the shit and how much from the bile and blood.
Most of the village gathered to watch him quiver. He looked as if he were freezing, his face white and gnarled like curdled milk. Sarah and her mother knelt in dirt beside him and wailed. James took Sarah by the shoulders, but she slapped him away. Nathan’s incessant screams finally reduced to moans after what must have been an hour, and I hoped he had gained enough control over the pain that we had seen the worst of it. Jesus and I were among the first at the scene and so were standing beside Nathan when he held out a dagger and said, “Take this. It cannot serve me now.”
Jesus raised the knife before his face and squinted as if trying to read an inscription on the blade. He hefted it a couple of times as you might test the weight of a hammer. “Did it serve you before?” he asked.
“I shall make it serve us,” said Judas as he sprang forward and snatched the dagger from Jesus. Judas had just returned from the fields tending his father’s sheep, and he was wild-eyed and jumpy, probably as horrified as I to see a young man in such terrifying agony, or maybe he was actually excited to see the bloody result of the battles he’d fantasized about.
Nathan’s mother cradled her son’s head and wept the entire time, unable to utter a word. At last she begged, “Can anyone help him?”
Jesus was the only one in the crowd who appeared undisturbed, and he answered Nathan’s mother, “Perhaps the Romans have already done that.”
Shocked, I said, “Brother! Nathan may be dying, and you’re talking like a smug sage.”
“We’re all better dead than living under Roman heels,” said Judas.
“There are many ways to live,” said Jesus, “even under the Romans. There is the life of the slave, the life of the collaborator, and the life of the bandit, but they are also the ways of death. We must seek a new way.”
“What would that be?” I asked. “Should we retreat to the desert like the Pure Ones?”
“No,” said Jesus. “Even they have chosen a slave’s life.”
I felt something hit the top of my foot. I looked down to see a red spot. Another drop of blood fell from Jesus’ fingertips. His hand must have been cut when Judas snatched the dagger from him.
Nathan gave a final gasp, shuddered, and died. Sarah sobbed into James’ shoulder. “Sarah, we must take him inside the house now to be prepared for burial,” James said.
Jesus whispered to me, “Do you hear our brother, Thomas? He speaks of caring for the dead while he knows nothing of the living.”
“And what is it that you know?” I asked. I had never watched someone die. Despite his foolishness, Nathan had been a brave young man, hardened beyond his years and the best wrestler in Nazareth; yet one deft stroke of a blade from an unjust hand had shown me how futile these bandit efforts were.
Leah appeared at Sarah’s side and knelt in the pool of blood. Perhaps she had been nearby all along, and I hadn’t noticed. I remembered that she was Sarah’s and Nathan’s cousin. Sarah turned from James and leaned into Leah’s embrace. The two of them cried together while Nathan’s mother stroked his lips as if trying to entice a breath. I felt enormous grief for him and for his family, for our people, and for the generations that might never trod this land. The terrifying prospect that any and all of my people’s assaults against the Romans were as doomed as Nathan’s slapped me in the face, and I could not understand why this had not occurred to Jesus as well.
A few cubits from us, Judas sank to his knees and vomited.
I grasped Jesus’ shoulders and drew him close to me. “You do not have a new way. No one does. But something must be done—maybe not Nathan’s way, but at least he tried something. How many more Nathans will die while you spout proverbs? If you devise a plan, I’ll follow you. But now is not the time for empty talk.”
Jesus tightened his face in confusion and placed his hand upon my lips as if examining the strange source of my sharp words. I knew even then that a plan was taking form in his mind, a plan that Jesus himself would never fully understand. I knew even then that I had been wrong. His talk was anything but empty.
“Thomas,” Leah said. “Help us.”
James was holding Nathan under his arms. I took the body by the ankles, and we carried it into the house where Sarah and her mother lived. Sarah and her mother spread a sheet upon the table, and we laid the body on top. Leah, her mother, and grandmother entered to help with the preparations. The women, now calm, began to undress Nathan with the same disinterest they might show at a loom.
Leah noticed me lingering and came to me. “Thank you, Thomas.” She touched my cheek, and my face went numb as if from a bee sting. I imagined her naked, and I longed for her arms around my back, and my lips at her throat. I trembled but did not feel guilty for the impure thoughts. Did she have any idea what I was thinking? She nudged my chest with both hands. “You must go now, Thomas.” I backed out, my eyes locked onto hers, and left James inside.
The street had cleared except for a clutch of five or six men staring at the dirt while shaking their heads and clucking their tongues. I saw Judas down the street walking towards home. Jesus stood alone, watching me approach.
When I got to him, he kissed my cheek. “You are right,” he said. “Now follow me, Brother. Home.”
We had grown up in a climate of fear, having heard countless stories of Roman cruelty. We had seen our people humiliated by the soldiers in Jerusalem. On that day, though, we witnessed the bloody, vivid horror of occupation. Jesus and I walked home in silence, one of many times in which words would have been crude.
Chapter Five
Verse One
At twenty years of age, Jesus and I were skilled stone-cutters. Joseph, on the other hand, could hardly shape a decent block, and even then his corners were never sharp. When the services of my brother and I were contracted for, Jesus would bargain to get a common laborer’s job—fetching water and stone, holding planks as they were sawed—for our father. The first time he did this, I questioned him.
“Why can’t we just leave him home? I’d rather be away from him and, if anything, he slows us down.”
“He is still our father, Thomas. You know nothing makes him as irritable as being out of work. He is a proud man. Wouldn’t you rather put up with him at the job site than come home in the evening and find he’s been brooding all day?”<
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“No. That’s ten hours at work but only maybe two hours at home.”
Jesus raised an eyebrow and made a slight frown, like a teacher suggesting disappointment in a student. “What are you forgetting, Thomas?”
I thought for a moment. “He’s with Mother all day.” I realized how selfish I’d been, but I was relieved to think that Jesus was more concerned with Mother than with Joseph. We tried to keep these arrangements secret from him, but I suspect he must have known.
Occasionally, when things were slow, contractors could not hire both Jesus and me for the same job. That meant, of course, that they also could not hire Joseph.
Once, a man named Zebulun stopped me in the street as I was on my way home from the market. “Why are you here?” he asked. “I just left you to work at my house.”
“That was not I,” I said. “It’s my twin brother. You’re Zebulun, right? Jesus told me that he was to begin working for you today. Now I must take this flour and oil to our mother.”
“You lie,” he said. “I recognize you.”
“Take me to your house and you’ll see.”
We arrived at Zebulun’s home shortly, but Jesus was not there. “You liar! Do you not want to work?” Zebulun asked. “I’ll tell others not to hire you, for you do not honor your duty.”
“Sir, my brother is not like other men,” I said. “He shall do the work he promised you, but sometimes he honors duties that other men do not know. If he is not about, then he has found a higher duty for the moment, or at least as it seems to him. Show me what you had him do, and I’ll do the work until he returns.”
The truth was that Jesus sometimes wandered off on his own. It wasn’t that he was easily distracted, but that he liked spending time alone. Usually, he never let this penchant for solitude interrupt his work, though, and I worried that maybe that day he had.
Just then we heard voices from the outside. We left the house to find Jesus by the man’s back gate talking to beggars. “Away from here!” Zebulun yelled to the beggars. They stood, but Jesus gestured for them to sit.
Zebulun said to me, “So, you tell the truth. You have a twin, and he is not like others, for he attracts dogs that other men kick and scorn.” He turned to Jesus and said, “Why have you called these thieves to my gate?”
“They hunger,” said Jesus.
“So do thousands more,” Zebulun said. “You can spend your whole life feeding the hungry, and do you know what you’ll get? Even more of them! Let them feed themselves.”
“I have flour and oil,” I said. “We can make bread for them.”
“My employer is right, Thomas,” said Jesus. “They should feed themselves, but bread is not enough.”
“But we have no other food,” I said.
“There is food for the body, and there is food for the soul,” Jesus said.
Zebulun laughed. “Not satisfied with empty bellies, are you? You have to feed empty souls, too? Ha!” He curled his face into mock curiosity. “How is this food for the soul prepared?”
Jesus talked to the man about many things: about the soul that dwells in the body as we dwell in our land, about how one can become lost in one’s own land, about how one can give up one’s land to invaders or roam about the land seeking nourishment from leaves and roots. As Jesus talked, Zebulun became quiet and serious and sat with the beggars. After a few minutes, he went into his house and returned with bread, figs, and olives for all. “You have fed our souls, young man,” he said. “Now I shall feed our bodies.”
When all had eaten and the beggars had thanked Zebulun and left, I helped Jesus with his work. We finished by sundown, and the man paid us handsomely. “How did you become so wise, young man?” Zebulun said to Jesus.
“What is wisdom?” Jesus asked. “Is it not finding what one already has?”
Jesus spoke almost constantly in this strange fashion. The more cryptic his words, the more his listeners seemed fascinated. Some came to our house to hear him, to try to understand what they believed to be his subtle wisdom, and they called him a prophet.
Others snarled and said he spoke in mere riddles and called him a trickster.
To me, his voice became like beautiful songs, and I called him a poet.
I looked deep into my breast to try to find those words within me, but could not. We were two hatchlings from a single egg, but one soon flies and the other falls to the ground. Who can explain why they differ?
*
When James was about twenty-eight years old, he left home to live in Jerusalem. I was happy to see him go. He had become increasingly ill-tempered, starting political discussions but becoming furious with anyone else’s opinion. I suppose he was right to be impatient with the fatalism of most of our fellow villagers.
Our father was both pleased and worried. He’d encouraged James to be studious, and was happy that his son wanted to be close to the Temple. Joseph believed that the Temple should lead our nation, but he also said that the leaders had lost their piety. The Lord would restore things by and by, he said, but for now, we could only pay our taxes, cause no trouble, and wait for the Lord to rebuild his house.
James argued that our people suffered not from impiety but impurity. He was angry at the Romans not so much for being invaders as for being Gentiles. “They cover our land like boils,” James said. “As long as they walk our ground, we are like lepers of the spirit.”
“We are not the lepers, James,” I said. “The Temple cult collaborators whom you admire so much—they’re the afflicted ones. They’re the traitors.”
“Those you call collaborators,” said James, “are our only protection for our Jewish identity. Were it not for the Temple, you ignorant Galilean, you would now be wearing a tunic and carrying Tiberius’ shield.”
“Is Tiberius’ shield worse than the Temple’s coins?” I asked. James leapt from his chair to strike me, but Joseph, for whom age had been most unkind and now walked with a cane, reached out to stop him and fell.
Jesus helped our father back to his chair. “Fools!” Jesus said. “You think you can instruct each other when you have misled yourselves! You are more interested in bickering than in seeking the truth. Perhaps our father is right. Nothing can be done if I am to rely upon you to do it.”
“Forgive me, oh my wise brother,” I said, “oh my king who thinks he knows all that is best for people. You can rely upon me. Tell me what is to be done. Just tell me. Who are you today? Amos? Isaiah?”
I’m sure I hurt Jesus’ feelings, but when I was caught up in a moment of anger, the very confidence I often admired in him seemed more like sheer smugness.
“Watch me now, and you will know,” said Jesus, but then he said no more and went out into the night. When he returned the next morning, James had already left.
Chapter Six
Verse One
One of my mother’s many cousins was being wed in Cana to a man who owned a sizable fig farm. This would make her the wealthiest member of the family, and the wedding was sure to be the most extravagant we had ever witnessed. Jesus and I accompanied our mother and our younger brothers and sisters to the festivities. Judas and his family also came. The wedding house was four times as large as our sorry shack, and splendidly decorated: wool drapes embroidered with dancing sheep-eyed girls, feather-pillowed chairs with yellow silk tassels, and polished oil lamps hand-tooled with stars and diamonds.
Food was abundant—spicy roasted goat; fish marinated in honey wine; date and almond-stuffed chicken; and sticky sweetmeats that I could not identify but could not eat enough of. Musicians played and children ran about twirling ribbons.
Jesus, Judas, and I filled our plates and sat outside with men who were our distant relations. Most were dressed in peasant linen like ours, but a few wore fine cotton. I had never eaten with anyone having the slightest measure of wealth. One of the cotton men lacked front teeth—kno
cked out by a blow, he said, from the butt of a centurion’s sword when he had refused to bow. Another said that his son had joined a group that followed some militant leader by the Jordan River. He had not seen his son for three years and feared him captured and enslaved in some fashion by the Romans.
Judas pointed to a woman in the doorway. “Who’s the one with the long hair and striped dress?”
“She is Mary from Magdala,” said one of the men. “She’s a friend of the bridegroom’s family.”
“I should have known,” said Judas. “Too beautiful to be from our family.”
A ruckus started inside. We squeezed through the door and saw the married couple’s respective fathers yelling into each other’s red faces, spit forming at the corners of their mouths. Their wives waved their arms around, poked out their necks, and screeched like cranes. The poor bride squatted and wept into her hands. The bridegroom paced behind her and shook his head as if he heard something rattling inside it.
Most of the guests stood in nervous silence, but some began to get excited. “That’s a lie!” some yelled. “Disgraceful,” said others.
We asked our mother what was the matter. “They have run out of wine,” she said. “The families are blaming each other for ruining the ceremony.”
Judas and I found the affair hilarious, but Jesus looked grim, and I knew he was about to get involved. Before I could try to restrain him, he stepped up to the fathers. “Gentlemen,” he said, “why do you fight at this celebration? We have what we need right here.” He reached for a cup of water and offered it to the groom.
The groom stared at the cup, then looked to the bride, who nodded. He drank. Jesus continued: “Is wine not a life blood? We drink, and the blood is strengthened.” He then offered the cup to the bride, and she drank. Jesus said, “And does water not also nourish the blood? Marriage is not a joining of only the flesh, but also of the blood and of the spirit. Even as I speak, even as this water flows past your lips, your spirits are flowing together. You, woman, are the life moving through your husband’s veins and you, Nathanael, are the pulse in your wife’s throat. Put your hand to her neck, and feel yourself flow in a new body.”