SAUL THE PERSECUTOR CHAPTER TWENTY - Page 2

THREE DAYS BEFORE Passover, Annas and Caiaphas sent an urgent message for Saul to come to the palace for a special meeting. There Saul was told that Judas, one of Jesus' own disciples, had come uninvited and offered to guide the Temple Guards to the place where they could take Jesus prisoner for blasphemy.

Saul's heart leaped with excitement. He has always insisted that the Temple Guard was the proper force for dealing with blasphemers. Not Rome, nor Herod. "Why do you need a guide?" he asked eagerly. "Let's take a force and arrest him now."

Caiaphas smiled and shook his head. He spoke in an imperial manner, slowly, and with exaggerated enunciation. "Jerusalem would explode in a way that you have not lived long enough to appreciate, young man. The people cheered this imposter when he tore up my father's market."

Old Annas nodded from his throne behind the throne.

"They gave him a king's parade," Caiaphas continued, but he stopped to share a private chuckle with his father, "though all he could afford was a borrowed donkey and a ragtag welcome from the rabble. Some king. Be that as it may--if my soldiers now take him, that same rabble will come back at me in a full scale riot. No, we must take him quietly at night, so that we do not add to our burden, and that is why we need a guide to show us where he is sleeping. My goal is to take care of this matter and have him put to death before the Sabbath begins, but that will take all of my political skills, I assure you. We must move quickly. Judas told me that after Jesus and the disciples have their Passover supper, they will go across Kidron to Jesus' favorite retreat in the Garden at the foot of Mount Olivet. When they go, Judas will come here and lead us to him. We can then bring him before our own Council, and we can accuse him of blasphemy, and condemn him to die. Then I have--"

"--And the council will stone him?" Saul asked sharply.

"No, Saul. Rome has the only powers of execution in the empire now."

"If we condemn him by our law then we must kill him by our law," Saul insisted, "otherwise, what is the law? You make it of none effect--" suddenly realizing the size of his insult, he backed off; "--Or, or so it seems."

Caiaphas had risen in rage. Behind him Old Annas tapped his ornate gold and ivory cane against the floor.

"Do you lecture the High Priest?" Annas rasped.

"No, begging your pardon," Saul said. "I forgot myself and I do humbly apologize before these witnesses." He bowed low but in his heart he knew the battle for true reform was lost on these two reprobates. Corrupted by money, these High Priests would play the subtle schemer instead of dispatching the duty of ridding the land of blasphemy with a full and holy reverence for the law and the traditions.

Slowly Caiaphas reassumed his seat. "I brought you here, Saul, knowing that you have some extreme views. I took that chance. Yet, everyone tells me that your heart is in the right direction. I implore you to respect your High Priest as he shows you how the judgment of God can be executed through the fingers of Rome. No more outbursts."

Saul nodded silently.

"We must have the cooperation of Pilate," Caiaphas explained. "This will require the greatest skill since the two of us got off to such a bad start. Of course, that due to no animosity on Pilate's part, but through simple ignorance of our Jewish customs. You may recall when after Augustus died, I think you were a student then, Saul, with Gamaliel. Well, Pilate came to Jerusalem to replace Valerius Gratus and brought a cohort of legionaries to the Tower of Antonia who wore those golden shields with the likeness of Tiberius on them. Somehow the word got out and the whole countryside erupted in riots. Our people, like you Saul, would have none of this Roman idolatry here. Unlike you, Saul, they were not wise enough to be pacified with a higher understanding of it. So, our religious problem became a political problem and I, as High Priest, was forced to confront Pilate in person on this matter. I played my hand carefully. There was no way around the situation and the contest of our power went all the way to Rome. Tiberius, being the new emperor at the time, determined to keep the peace of his stepfather Augustus, ordered Pilate to back down on the subject. Pilate has never forgiven me. So you must be asking yourself, how will Caiaphas go to him now and persuade him to kill Jesus?" Caiaphas smiled to himself and stifled another chuckle. "I have a plan, but it requires the subtlety of Solomon, not the impulsive religious demands of a reformer." He fixed Saul with a daggerlike stare. "Do you understand me?"

Saul nodded. He understood the man to be completely unworthy of his religious title. Inside himself, his struggle was with the question of whether or not he would help at all in this intrigue. He wanted to distance himself from it because it represented nothing but civil law and politics, not the Halakah and Levitical statutes. Still, the prospect of Jesus being removed from the scene in Israel seemed worthy. His followers would finally be shamed to silence and have no one to rally them. Not even John the Baptist. Still, he seethed inside knowing that it could be otherwise if he were in charge. He would conduct the religious trial and execution by stoning on the same night. The members of the Sanhedrin would have to show the weight of their convictions by weilding the stones themselves, giving Rome no part of it. Then, if politics were required to quiet the protests in the aftermath, let the High Priest do his duty. The more he thought about it the more he despised these men whose moral judgment had obviously fallen beneath their lust for money.

Caiaphas and his old father-in-law Annas were now visibly excited.

"Jesus must die before the Sabbath," Annas reiterated, pushing his voice with great effort through an age-withered throat. "If he is to be crucified, that leaves us little time. Our law will not let us leave his body on the cross on the Sabbath Day, and this day marks the beginning of the Passover. If we cannot accomplish a complete death to Jesus immediately, then nothing can be done to him for the next seven days, when the Passover is observed. Who knows what his followers may do in rallying around him during the Passover when so many thousands are here in Jerusalem?"

When Saul left the palace of the High Priest, he decided on his way home not to tell Esrom exactly what the High Priest had said. But he would tell him that the plan was in motion. Recalling Esrom's comments that if Jesus died, he would rise again, Saul dismissed such a thought as not even being worthy of attention. Anyone going to that extreme in their beliefs would deserve violent correction.

But Saul was disappointed and confused again, when he shared with Esrom that the plan for Jesus' death was in motion, and that it now involved one of his own disciples. Esrom seemed troubled by this remark. He secretly wondered if Saul had been properly informed about it, knowing that Saul was too strictly moral to lie about it.

"I believe he came to die," Esrom said, "but I did not know that such a betrayal would be involved."
"I predict that it won't be many days following his death that we can see this whole movement dissolve and pass from the scene," Saul said. "What a relief it will be when we can look back on this time and put it in perspective. I will be glad to be in harmony with my sister and her husband once again."

That night Saul could not sleep. As he tossed restlessly, he seemed to see the agonized faces of Miriam and Esrom. Saul placed his hand over his eyes, seeking to block them from the vision of his mind. He thought, When they see him condemned, and beaten, and crucified, their compassion for the One they followed, and the hopes they placed in him will be completely dashed to the ground. It is a necessary pain so that they will never follow heresy again. But if they think that I favored this treatment of Jesus, or even worse contributed to it, they will not be able to tolerate my presence in their home, and who could blame them? After all, it is the home they will inherit from Aunt Hulda, not me.

As the first rays of dawn began to seep through the shutters of his bedroom window, Saul struggled to come to a decision. What would his next move be? He could not share his thoughts with Shallum. If he could not reach his own personal resolution, certainly Shallum would be of no help. It seemed his only alternative to solving the problem of avoiding his sister and her husband was to leave the home and the city. He would think up some excuse, he decided. But then changed his mind. In his heart, an excuse was a form of a lie, and he had prided himself to seek the truth at any cost. He decided simply to leave without telling anyone he was going. He would not tell Caiaphas or anyone else that could find him.

That afternoon when Esrom and Miriam were both away from the home, Saul placed some extra clothing and necessary articles, along with some food, in a travel bag, and made his way to the road leading to the Judean desert. The streets were crowded with the thousands still arriving for the annual Passover. Once Saul passed through the Gate of the Essenes, he had the road to the desert to himself. He breathed easier.

When Esrom and Miriam returned home Miriam found a note on the table written by Saul. "You read it, Esrom. I am too nervous."

"It says, I have reason to be absent from the city for the next few days. Saul."

"Is that all he says?" Miriam's face was pale.

"I think it says a lot, Miriam," Esrom answered. "He did not need to say more than that. The plan is in motion."

"Does he say when he will be back?" Miriam questioned.

"No, he does not say that in so many words. But I know when he will return."

Miriam looked at her husband with a curious expression. "When?"

"When Jesus is dead," replied Esrom softly. "When he is dead."