These words quickened fear in the hearts of the ignoble guests and soon they were thanking their hosts and making their hasty exits.
Claudia was relieved, for they seemed to take a pall of evil with them. For his part, her husband called for his primus pilus, Cassius Longinus, his senior centurion and adviser. This was that same man who followed her when she ventured into the streets. Now, from the shadows, Claudia heard Pontius tell Cassius to look for the man called Jesus of Nazareth, and to report back to him on the man’s doings.
That night Claudia was troubled in her sleep. She dreamt strange dreams in which the faces of the priests and Herod and Salome came and went and in which the name Jesus of Nazareth was repeated over and over.
In the morning when she woke she knew she had to do something. So she took herself to the fortress of Antonia, to that centurion and informed him that she wished to accompany him on his journeys to the whereabouts of the man, Jesus of Nazareth. The Centurion, dumbstruck by this request, did not know how to answer.
For her part Claudia considered his silence his affirmative reply.
35
THE ARREST
It was midsummer, the sun would soon begin its diminishing days and John was not surprised to see Christ Jesus come again to Ainon.
Followed by his disciple he remained a time with him and they kept a quiet company. Moon after moon passed, sun-full days, rain-full days, sitting in the huts or by the hearth. The two men had no need for words for their hearts conversed in the silence, and in those moments John basked in the heart-light that lived in Jesus, and let his own, overgrown heart, retreat little by little into the horizon of his soul.
Some of Christ Jesus’ disciples had taken to baptising along the Jordan and he had gone with them. John’s followers approached him saying that these men were upstarts, and would take from him his doings. John told them that it was right and fitting for soon he would no longer be among them. When he said it out loud however, a deep, inconsolable sadness struck him. It was true, he was not destined to walk side by side with the long awaited one! He would not hear His words, or share His meals or sleep under the stars with Him for long. This is what it meant to stay behind and to diminish!
On a day when the sun-drenched land bore the last heat-throws before winter, a great portion of Herod’s army arrived to take John by force. The multitudes that were gathered around him made to prevent it, but John admonished his followers not to defend his person but to go to Christ Jesus instead, for his time was over.
After that, John allowed himself to be seized by the guards, and gave his hands to be clapped into chains like an animal. He braced his heart, for they were headed across the river and over the old roads to Herod’s country of Perea.
He knew this road. It was the way to the fortress called Machareus.
36
THE LORD OF THE SABBATH
Jesus taught in the synagogues. He walked up and down the countryside speaking to those who lived in the areas outside the larger towns in Galilee. In the evenings, when the sun was blood red and a shiver of light stood on the horizon, he preferred to go to places where he could heal those who came to him and where he could cast out the devils that lived in the souls of the weak.
Judas followed his every move, observing with one eye all his miracles and his healings, while the other eye measured the man, Jesus, for the pluck of a king.
He found him wanting.
He was meek and spoke of meekness, he was mild and preached mildness; even his healings were made without majesty or regal authority. How could such a man lead a people to a renewal of the Jewish kingdom? He had envisaged a Messiah who would make fiery speeches, calling all men to arms. Not a man who spoke of turning the other cheek and of loving even those who hate you. In truth, his doings were few, dotted here and there among long intervals of silent, inward gazing. The others despaired whenever he retreated into his seclusions. For his part, Judas observed it with a growing feeling of disillusionment and impatience.
Near to the Feast of the Trumpets, Judas followed in his train to Jerusalem. It was a long, painful march and along the way Jesus taught those who came to hear him. Some listened, some walked away waving their hands at his preaching of love and tolerance and at his parables, which they did not understand. Those who listened to him were mostly a mixture of defiled Jews, Samaritans, gentiles, publicans and tax collectors - a band of ragamuffins. Such a band would not do Jesus much good. They would ruin his reputation and make true Jews reticent to support him. This became all the more obvious the closer they came to Jerusalem.
In Jerusalem itself Jesus led his band of followers to the Temple and here he spoke to the people on the steps, as was the custom in those days. His words found willing hearts in some quarters of the populace but in others it did not. The Pharisees and scribes would not accept him, they remembered him from that puzzling incident at the Temple some months ago, when he overturned the tables and cursed the moneychangers. Now, they took the opportunity to rebuke him publicly and to cut him down to size before the people.