The Crown and the Cross: The Life of Christ (34 page)

For this purpose, they chose a question which was hotly debated in the rabbinical schools: “Is it lawful to give tribute to Caesar or not?”

The question was not simply a point of debate, however. Conservative Judaism held that the right to coin money also involved the right to levy taxes and was in itself sufficient evidence of governmental authority. In accordance with this, the priest-kings of the Hasmonean house upon assuming power had coined money as a sign of their temporal, as well as religious, authority over the people. During the bloody reign of Herod the Great, few had dared defy the law requiring payment of a capitation tax of one drachma, or denarius, to the Roman authorities. But with the rise of nationalist spirit in recent years, the group whose most extremist members were the Zealots had begun to argue that paying tribute to Caesar was in fact acknowledging him as the highest royal authority, thus in a sense disowning Jehovah. The questioner sought to trap Jesus into making a statement resisting Roman authority, for which He could be thrust into prison, or offending a large section of the crowd who, whether or not they openly supported the radical Zealot cause, were certainly in sympathy with it.

Again, with His understanding of the motives behind the question, Jesus easily avoided the trap they had so carefully prepared for Him.

“Why do you tempt Me, you hypocrites?” He said scornfully. “Show Me the tribute money.”

One of the students took a coin from his purse and handed it to Jesus, who held it up for the crowd to see. “Whose image and superscription is this?” He asked.

The question could bring only one reply, “Caesar’s.”

“Give to Caesar therefore, the things that are Caesar’s,” He told them. “And to God the things that are God’s.”

The students were so taken aback by His answer that they had no more to say and withdrew to debate among themselves. But Jesus had not been merely evading the question. He had elevated it, as He so often did with questions of human conduct.

Rome had brought unquestioned benefits to the people of Israel, such as protection from hostile states, a marvelous system of roads, the famed impersonality of Roman justice in which every citizen had the right to carry his appeal even to the emperor himself, the Roman ingenuity for building cities with streets and sanitary facilities, the keeping of adequate records, and the protection of individual rights against preemption by others. For these benefits, the people should pay through taxation.

God, too, had brought them benefits, principally that of life itself and, if they proved worthy of it, life eternal. He had bestowed upon them the bountiful gifts of the world in which they lived, the
moreh
that brought new life to the soil in spring, the sun that drew the seedlings from the earth and caused them to grow into strong healthy plants, the seasons with their ever-changing pattern of growth and dying. For these things, too, they should pay tribute to the God whose divine love had created them.

Thus, Jesus had given the only logical answer to the question of the students, but since it pleased neither faction among them, they found no comfort in it and refused to understand its deeper meaning.

O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the one who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her!

Matthew 23:37

The week had been a bad one for Jonas. Many of the lime burners and the potters had closed their establishments and gone with their workers to the temple to hear the Nazarene prophet. It had taken Jonas most of the previous day to sell the wood he had been carrying into Jerusalem when he was stopped by the procession of Galileans. Now with the day almost gone, he had been able to get only half price for that morning’s load.

As he threaded his way through the crowd that jammed the street before the temple, Jonas saw Veronica on her mule with a basket of the exquisite little vases she painted. He started toward her but a portly man with a white beard and a heavily fringed robe almost knocked him down.

“Shalom, Elam,” Jonas said breathlessly as he clung to Eleazar’s neck for support. It was indeed his former master, and the Pharisee’s face was black with anger.

“Oh, it is you, Jonas.” Held back momentarily by the press of the crowd, Elam could go no further and acknowledged Jonas’s greeting with a grudging nod. “I am in a hurry to visit the high priest,” he added impatiently.

“Why are you so angry?” Jonas inquired mildly. Although his former master had cast him off when his usefulness as a servant seemed to be ended, he held no rancor against him.

“Who wouldn’t be angry?” the Pharisee exploded. “Don’t you hear Him?”

“My ears are not as good as they used to be,” Jonas admitted. “Hear who?”

“The Nazarene! The cursed agent of Beelzebub!”

A sudden hush had fallen over the busy street and in the midst of it Jonas heard a voice ringing out from the temple with almost a note of sadness in it in spite of the words themselves.

“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites!” the voice of the unseen man said. “For you shut up the kingdom of heaven against men and you neither go in yourselves nor suffer them that are entering to go in. Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you devour widows’ houses and for a pretense make long prayers. Therefore you shall receive the greater damnation.”

Elam’s face was suffused with anger and he was breathing heavily. “The man must be destroyed,” he choked. “He is making us a laughingstock before the people.”

As if the unseen speaker had heard and was answering, the words of condemnation rolled out over the heads of the silent crowd again. “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you pay tithe of mint and anise and cummin but have omitted the weightier matters of the Law—judgment, mercy, and faith. These you ought to have done, you blind guides which strain at a gnat and swallow a camel, and not leave the other undone.”

“We Pharisees keep the whole Law!” Elam shouted indignantly. “We tithe and we fast and we give to the poor. What right has this—this madman—to call us hypocrites?”

Jonas did not answer, for the habit of obedience to Elam was with him still. But to himself he could not help admitting that so far the Nazarene had been describing his former master perfectly.

“Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites!” the denunciation continued. “For you make clean the outside of the cup and the platter, but within they are full of extortion and excess. You blind Pharisees! First cleanse that which is within the cup and the platter so that the outside of them may be clean also.”

“He speaks truth—that one,” a man in the crowd said to another. “Look at the Pharisee there.” He pointed toward Elam. “See how he flinches.”

“You lie!” Elam shouted, but when the men around the speaker began to move toward him, he tried to push his way through the crowd to escape them.

“I am going to the high priest,” he shouted at them. “He must silence this—this Galilean!”

Before the men could reach Elam, Jonas managed to place himself and the mule in their path so that they were blocked from his former master. Meanwhile, as if in answer to Elam, the voice from the temple porch continued. “Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whited sepulchers which indeed appear beautiful outwardly, but are full of dead men’s bones and of all uncleanness. You also outwardly appear righteous to men but within are full of hypocrisy and iniquity.”

A murmur from the crowd drowned out the speaker’s words for a moment, and Jonas pushed forward in order to hear, holding Eleazar’s lead rope in his hand. When once again the voice of the Nazarene came to his ears, it was now a cry of pain more poignant than any Jonas had ever heard.

“You serpents! You generation of vipers! How can you escape the damnation of hell? O Jerusalem! O Jerusalem! That kills the prophets and stones them who are sent to you! How often would I have gathered your children together, even as a hen gathers her chickens under her wings, and you would not! Behold, your house is left desolate, for I say to you, you shall not see Me henceforth till you say, ‘Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord.”

The voice stopped speaking and shortly afterward the Nazarene and His disciples appeared at the head of the temple stairs, moving in a compact group. As Jesus passed, Jonas was startled to see how ravaged His face had become since He had seen Him a few days before on the road leading into Jerusalem. The group passed several paces from where Jonas stood and he heard one of the disciples comment on the richness of the temple buildings.

Jesus did not pause but His voice was heard by hundreds who stood in the street or followed Him down the steps. “Truly I say to you,” He declared, “there shall not be left here one stone upon another that shall not be thrown down.”

Then He was gone and the crowd swirled after Him.

With the street somewhat less jammed than before, Jonas was now able to see Veronica again and he moved toward where she sat on her mule, the basket of vases in her lap.

“Shalom, Jonas,” she said, and when he brought Eleazar alongside she reached out to scratch the old animal’s ears. “I see you sold your load today.”

“Only two this week, and both at half price.”

“I haven’t done much better,” she admitted, looking down at her vases. “There is so much excitement over Jesus that nobody wants to buy. The merchants are grumbling everywhere that He will ruin their business if He stays in Jerusalem any longer.”

“He sounded just now as if He were leaving for good.

“You heard how He overturned the chests of the money-changers and the booths of those who sell animals, didn’t you?”

Jonas nodded. “The people are excited now, but I have seen them this way over others who called themselves prophets. When the Nazarene leaves, it will be the same. The Pharisees will oppress us with the Law and the publicans will collect the temple tribute, with something to spare for their own purposes. Nobody helps the poor, Veronica, nobody but themselves.”

“I think Jesus will help them. You heard what He said just now about the Pharisees?”

“Yes. But the only difference between Him and the others is that He doesn’t seem to be afraid to say what we all think.”

Veronica laughed, and just then Jonathan came running down the steps of the temple. “The guards are dispersing the crowd,” he cried. “We must get out of the way.”

Jonas pulled on the lead rope to get Eleazar away from the commotion that now was boiling around the steps of the temple. Veronica waved to him as she and Jonathan disappeared down the street.

Abiathar’s burly figure appeared at the head of a party of guards, pushing a rabble of beggars and others down the steps. “Get back, you vermin!” he shouted. “Don’t keep honest people from the temple!” Cries of anger and indignation sounded on every side but the crowd moved under the impetus of the temple guards, no one wanting to be the first to feel the prick of a sword point.

“He must be going to arrest the prophet,” Jonas said half to himself and half to the mule. “I knew Elam would not let Him go unpunished.”

Zadok came swinging his deformed body along the street with his powerful arms and spitting vituperation at the guards. His eyes were bright and his sallow face was flushed with excitement.

“Abiathar is driving out the beggars because they listened to the Nazarene!” he cried. “Put me on the mule, Jonas, before the crowds trample me under foot.”

Jonas tugged at the cripple’s body until he could get his hands on Eleazar’s back and swing himself up. “Are they going to arrest the prophet?” he asked.

Zadok shook his head vigorously. “Not now. The people would tear the guards to pieces. But they will take Him right enough. After what He said about the scribes and the Pharisees! Abiathar will do it at night; that is Caiaphas’s way.”

The guards had reached the street level now and were driving the beggars and onlookers before them. “Off with you!” Abiathar shouted. “The temple is no place for thieves and beggars! Clear the streets!”

“The Nazarene was talking about you, Abiathar!” Zadok screeched from his vantage point on Eleazar’s back. “You whitewashed tomb filled with dead men’s bones!”

The captain of the guard wheeled, sword in hand. “You’ll feel my sword, impudent scoundrel,” he roared, then saw who it was that had spoken. “So it is you, half-man? I should have known.”

“Take a word of advice from a friend, Abiathar,” Zadok called. “Leave the Nazarene alone or the Galileans will gut you the way they do the fish!”

“You don’t scare me, you freak,” Abiathar said contemptuously. “We’ll take care of the Galilean in good time.” He looked at Jonas. “You there, woodseller. Keep better company if you want to stay out of trouble.”

The crowd had scattered now. “I might as well ride home with you, Jonas,” Zadok said. “Beggars will get little more today.”

As they moved through the streets, the cripple chattered happily, for his nimble tongue was rarely silent long. “Abiathar is worried. I could see it in those pig’s eyes of his. And that means Caiaphas is worried too. This Nazarene is a brave man—and a foolish one—to speak out against all of them at once. Now the Pharisees will join the priests in seeking to kill Him.”

They reached the beggars’ warrens outside the gate without incident. Across the Kedron Valley Jonas could see a small party of men ascending the slope of the Mount of Olives toward the public garden called Gethsemane. It was common knowledge that the Nazarene spent the night at the house of Lazarus surrounded by the Galileans who served as his bodyguard, but the lovely garden of Gethsemane was not far off the road to Bethany. Zadok went into his own hovel while Jonas busied himself rubbing Eleazar down with a piece of cloth and a little oil. The old mule’s coat was getting thin from age and his skin tended to become irritated. While he worked, Jonas talked, half to the mule and half to himself, as he often did when the two were alone together.

“Only two loads of wood sold this week, old friend,” he said. “We’ll both be hungry at this rate.”

Eleazar twitched an ear as if he were listening intently.

“Everything the Nazarene said was true,” the woodseller continued. “The Pharisees
are
self-righteous and the priests are fat and prosperous from what the sellers and the money-changers pay for letting them cheat the pilgrims. But nobody ever does anything for people like us.”

The rubdown completed, Jonas poured a measure of grain and gave it to the mule. “I’ll be glad when the Passover is over and the Prophet goes back to Galilee,” he continued. “Though I can’t help wishing He would heal Veronica and let her walk again.” He glanced toward the doorway of Zadok’s hovel and saw that the legless man was sitting there, munching bread and goat’s-milk cheese with a few dates. “They say He raised Lazarus from the dead, so He might even be able to heal Zadok.”

The cripple popped out of his hovel, his eyes wide with indignation. “I heard that, hunchback,” he said. “Keep your prayers for yourself, or for those that are asking for help.”

“I only said it would be nice if Jesus of Nazareth would heal Veronica—and you, too.”

“Why should I want to be healed?” Zadok snapped. “What do I want that I don’t have?”

“But—”

“I have what money I want. People give it to me so I won’t put a curse on them. I have food and a house to live in.”

“But if you could be whole—”

“Then I would have to work as you do, or go hungry because I was too proud to beg. That way I would be nobody, but as I am, everybody knows Zadok the half-man. Even Abiathar is afraid of me.”

“I never thought of that,” Jonas admitted.

“That’s why the people will never really follow the Nazarene,” Zadok said. “He wants to change everything and most of them are satisfied with things as they are.”

Judas of Kerioth was troubled as he followed Jesus and the others across the bridge spanning the Brook Kedron that flowed between Jerusalem proper and the Mount of Olives. Its waters were turbulent from the winter rains and heavily tinged with red from the blood of the sacrifices which were sluiced off through an opening beneath the great altar and directed by way of a tiled drain down beneath the temple and into the stream. The others, he knew, were excited by the forthright way in which Jesus had attacked His enemies that afternoon, but Judas was not sure that the Master’s actions had been what they all considered them to be, a prelude to the final assumption of authority tomorrow or the next day. These were the only remaining days before the Passover itself, when any such action would be unthinkable.