Part 29 (1/2)

The Roman taking of the census was an abomination. Yet it had to be done, for it was the basis of taxation. But there it was again. Taxation by the State was a crime against their law and G.o.d. Oh, that Law! It was not the Roman law. It was their law, what they called G.o.d's law.

There were the zealots, who murdered anybody who broke this law. And for a procurator to punish a zealot caught red-handed was to raise a riot or an insurrection.

Everything, with these strange people, was done in the name of G.o.d. There were what we Romans called the _thaumaturgi_. They worked miracles to prove doctrine. Ever has it seemed to me a witless thing to prove the multiplication table by turning a staff into a serpent, or even into two serpents. Yet these things the _thaumaturgi_ did, and always to the excitement of the common people.

Heavens, what sects and sects! Pharisees, Essenes, Sadducees--a legion of them! No sooner did they start with a new quirk when it turned political. Coponius, procurator fourth before Pilate, had a pretty time crus.h.i.+ng the Gaulonite sedition which arose in this fas.h.i.+on and spread down from Gamala.

In Jerusalem, that last time I rode in, it was easy to note the increasing excitement of the Jews. They ran about in crowds, chattering and spouting. Some were proclaiming the end of the world. Others satisfied themselves with the imminent destruction of the Temple. And there were rank revolutionises who announced that Roman rule was over and the new Jewish kingdom about to begin.

Pilate, too, I noted, showed heavy anxiety. That they were giving him a hard time of it was patent. But I will say, as you shall see, that he matched their subtlety with equal subtlety; and from what I saw of him I have little doubt but what he would have confounded many a disputant in the synagogues.

”But half a legion of Romans,” he regretted to me, ”and I would take Jerusalem by the throat . . . and then be recalled for my pains, I suppose.”

Like me, he had not too much faith in the auxiliaries; and of Roman soldiers we had but a scant handful.

Back again, I lodged in the palace, and to my great joy found Miriam there. But little satisfaction was mine, for the talk ran long on the situation. There was reason for this, for the city buzzed like the angry hornets' nest it was. The fast called the Pa.s.sover--a religious affair, of course--was near, and thousands were pouring in from the country, according to custom, to celebrate the feast in Jerusalem. These newcomers, naturally, were all excitable folk, else they would not be bent on such pilgrimage. The city was packed with them, so that many camped outside the walls. As for me, I could not distinguish how much of the ferment was due to the teachings of the wandering fisherman, and how much of it was due to Jewish hatred for Rome.

”A t.i.the, no more, and maybe not so much, is due to this Jesus,” Pilate answered my query. ”Look to Caiaphas and Hanan for the main cause of the excitement. They know what they are about. They are stirring it up, to what end who can tell, except to cause me trouble.”

”Yes, it is certain that Caiaphas and Hanan are responsible,” Miriam said, ”but you, Pontius Pilate, are only a Roman and do not understand.

Were you a Jew, you would realize that there is a greater seriousness at the bottom of it than mere dissension of the sectaries or trouble-making for you and Rome. The high priests and Pharisees, every Jew of place or wealth, Philip, Antipas, myself--we are all fighting for very life.

”This fisherman may be a madman. If so, there is a cunning in his madness. He preaches the doctrine of the poor. He threatens our law, and our law is our life, as you have learned ere this. We are jealous of our law, as you would be jealous of the air denied your body by a throttling hand on your throat. It is Caiaphas and Hanan and all they stand for, or it is the fisherman. They must destroy him, else he will destroy them.”

”Is it not strange, so simple a man, a fisherman?” Pilate's wife breathed forth. ”What manner of man can he be to possess such power? I would that I could see him. I would that with my own eyes I could see so remarkable a man.”

Pilate's brows corrugated at her words, and it was clear that to the burden on his nerves was added the overwrought state of his wife's nerves.

”If you would see him, beat up the dens of the town,” Miriam laughed spitefully. ”You will find him wine-bibbing or in the company of nameless women. Never so strange a prophet came up to Jerusalem.”

”And what harm in that?” I demanded, driven against my will to take the part of the fisherman. ”Have I not wine-guzzled a-plenty and pa.s.sed strange nights in all the provinces? The man is a man, and his ways are men's ways, else am I a madman, which I here deny.”

Miriam shook her head as she spoke.

”He is not mad. Worse, he is dangerous. All Ebionism is dangerous. He would destroy all things that are fixed. He is a revolutionist. He would destroy what little is left to us of the Jewish state and Temple.”

Here Pilate shook his head.

”He is not political. I have had report of him. He is a visionary.

There is no sedition in him. He affirms the Roman tax even.”

”Still you do not understand,” Miriam persisted. ”It is not what he plans; it is the effect, if his plans are achieved, that makes him a revolutionist. I doubt that he foresees the effect. Yet is the man a plague, and, like any plague, should be stamped out.”

”From all that I have heard, he is a good-hearted, simple man with no evil in him,” I stated.

And thereat I told of the healing of the ten lepers I had witnessed in Samaria on my way through Jericho.

Pilate's wife sat entranced at what I told. Came to our ears distant shoutings and cries of some street crowd, and we knew the soldiers were keeping the streets cleared.

”And you believe this wonder, Lodbrog?” Pilate demanded. ”You believe that in the flash of an eye the festering sores departed from the lepers?”