se:short-story z3998:fiction">
Annas the High Priest
He was of the rabble, a brigand, a mountebank and a self-trumpeter. He appealed only to the unclean and the disinherited, and for this He had to go the way of all the tainted and the defiled.
He made sport of us and of our laws; He mocked at our honour and jeered at our dignity. He even said He would destroy the temple and desecrate the holy places. He was shameless, and for this He had to die a shameful death.
He was a man from Galilee of the Gentiles, an alien, from the North Country where Adonis and Ashtarte still claim power against Israel and the God of Israel.
He whose tongue halted when He spoke the speech of our prophets was loud and earsplitting when he spoke the bastard language of the lowborn and the vulgar.
What else was there for me but to decree His death?
Am I not a guardian of the temple? Am I not a keeper of the law? Could I have turned my back on Him, saying in all tranquillity: “He is a madman among madmen. Let Him alone to exhaust Himself raving; for the mad and the crazed and those possessed with devils shall be naught in the path of Israel”?
Could I have been deaf unto Him when he called us liars, hypocrites, wolves, vipers, and the sons of vipers?
Nay I could not be deaf to Him, for He was not a madman. He was self-possessed; and in His big-sounding sanity He denounced and challenged us all.
For this I had Him crucified, and His crucifixion was a signal and warning unto the others who are stamped with the same damnèd seal.
I know well I have been blamed for this, even by some of the elders in the Sanhedrin. But I was mindful then as I am mindful now, that one man should die for the people rather than the people be led astray by one man.
Jesus was conquered by an enemy from without. I shall see that Judea is not conquered again, by an enemy from within.
No man from the cursèd North shall reach our Holy of Holies nor lay His shadow across the Ark of the Covenant.
A Woman, One of Mary’s Neighbours
On the fortieth day after His death, all the women neighbours came to the house of Mary to console her and to sing threnodies.
And one of the women sang this song:
Whereto my Spring, whereto?
And to what other space your perfume ascending?
In what other fields shall you walk?
And to what sky shall you lift up your head to speak your heart?
These valleys shall be barren,
And we shall have naught but dried fields and arid.
All green things will parch in the sun,
And our orchards will bring forth sour apples,
And our vineyards bitter grapes.
We shall thirst for your wine,
And our nostrils will long for your fragrance.
Whereto Flower of our first Spring, whereto?
And will you return no more?
Will not your jasmine visit us again,
And your cyclamen stand by our wayside
To tell us that we too have our roots deep in earth,
And that our ceaseless breath would forever climb the sky?
Whereto Jesus, whereto,
Son of my neighbour Mary,
And comrade to my son?
Whither, our first Spring, and to what other fields?
Will you return to us again?
Will you in your love-tide visit the barren shores of our dreams?
Ahaz the Portly
Well do I remember the last time I saw Jesus the Nazarene. Judas had come to me at the noon hour of that Thursday, and bidden me prepare supper for Jesus and His friends.
He gave me two silver pieces and said: “Buy all that you deem needful for the meal.”
And after He was gone my wife said to me: “This is indeed a distinction.” For Jesus had become a prophet and He had wrought many miracles.
At twilight He came and His followers, and they sat in the upper chamber around the board, but they were silent and quiet.
Last year also and the year before they had come and then they had been joyous. They broke the bread and drank the wine and sang our ancient strains; and Jesus would talk to them till midnight.
After that they would leave Him alone in the upper chamber and go to sleep in other rooms; for after midnight it was His desire to be alone.
And He would remain awake; I would hear His steps as I lay upon my bed.
But this last time He and His friends were not happy.
My wife had prepared fishes from the Lake of Galilee, and pheasants from Houran stuffed with rice and pomegranate seeds, and I had carried them a jug of my cypress wine.
And then I had left them for I felt that they wished to be alone.
They stayed until it was full dark, and then they all descended together from the upper chamber, but at the foot of the stairs Jesus tarried awhile. And He looked at me and my wife, and He placed His hand upon the head of my daughter and He said: “Good night to you all. We shall come back again to your upper chamber, but we shall not leave you at this early hour. We shall stay until the sun rises above the horizon.
“In a little while we shall return and ask for more bread and more wine. You and your wife have been good hosts to us, and we shall remember you when we come to our mansion and sit at our own board.”
And I said: “Sir, it was an honour to serve you. The other innkeepers envy me because of your visits, and in my pride I smile at them in the marketplace. Sometimes I even make a grimace.”
And He said: “All innkeepers should be proud in serving. For he who gives bread and wine is the brother of him who reaps and gathers the sheaves for the threshing-floor, and of him who crushes the grapes at the winepress. And you are all
