The Galileans: A Novel of Mary Magdalene (34 page)

“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.”

“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.”

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 condemned 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.”

During the usual refreshment of wine and spice cakes, Joseph said casually, “I hear that your daughter has recently been ill.”

“What seek you here, Joseph?” Jairus looked at him keenly. “Are those who govern the temple in Jerusalem concerned about the miracles performed by Jesus of Nazareth?”

“We have heard of Jesus in Jerusalem,” Joseph admitted. “But I have another purpose in coming here. If the Nazarene truly raises the dead, as I have been told, He may be able to help the son of Pontius Pilate.”

“The boy with the twisted foot? Yes, I can see that Pilate would want to know. But Jesus heals through faith in the Most High. Does Pontius Pilate have such faith?”

“I think not. But he asked me to come.”

“The procurator overlooks nothing that happens to the Jews, whether in Judea, Galilee, or elsewhere. Are you sure he has not sent you to spy upon the Teacher of Nazareth?”

“I am no spy,” Joseph said indignantly. “I seek only to know how Jesus cures the sick and if He can indeed raise the dead.”

Jairus nodded. “You have the name of being a good man, Joseph of Galilee,” he agreed. “What do you wish to know about my daughter?”

“Did Jesus of Nazareth really raise her from the dead, as I have been told?”

“You have asked me a question I cannot truthfully answer,” Jairus admitted. “Let me tell you what happened and you can judge for yourself. My daughter was sick with what seemed to be a fever that made her sleep much of the time. You remember the physician Alexander Lysimachus, don’t you?”

“Very well. I was his apprentice in Magdala.”

“Yes. I remember that now. Then you know that he is a skilled physician and an honest man. Alexander Lysimachus could give us no hope for my daughter’s life, so I went to where Jesus was teaching by the sea, intending to ask Him to come and heal her as He had healed others. When I got to the Teacher, I fell on the ground at His feet and said, ‘My little daughter is at the point of death. Come and lay your hands on her so that she may be made well and live.’”

“What did He answer?”

“He said not a word,” Jairus admitted. “But He looked at me as if He were seeing into my very soul, and then He smiled and stepped down from the rock where He had been teaching. He seemed to know just where to go, too, although He had never seen me before.”

“The crowd knew you, since you are a ruler of the synagogue,” Joseph pointed out. “He could have merely let them lead Him.”

“That is true,” Jairus admitted. “I do not say that He knew the way, only that He seemed to know. Before we reached the house, some of those I had left there came to meet us, crying that the child had died.”

“Did Alexander Lysimachus pronounce her dead?”

Jairus shook his head. “The physician was not here then. Those who were watching said life had departed from her, but when Jesus saw her, He said, ‘Why do you make a tumult and weep? The child is not dead but sleeping.’”

“Are you sure those were His exact words?” Joseph asked quickly. Here, it seemed, was what he was seeking.

“I have told you just what He said. It is strange,” Jairus continued. “I knew Jesus when He was working in Nazareth and Sepphoris as a carpenter and builder. Then He was like any ordinary person, but now the very power of the Most High seems to have come upon Him. The people in the house laughed at Him when He said my daughter was not dead, for they had already drawn the sheet up over her face. But when He took her by the hand and said, ‘Little girl, I say to you arise,’ she got up at once and walked.”