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The Greatest Story
Ever Told
A TALE OF
THE GREATEST LIFE
EVER LIVED
Other books by Fulton Oursler
BEHOLD THIS DREAMER!
SANDALWOOD
STEP-CHILD OF THE MOON
POOR LITTLE FOOL
THE WORLD'S DELIGHT
THE GREAT JASPER
JOSHUA TODD
A SKEPTIC IN THE HOLY LAND
THREE THINGS WE CAN BELIEVE IN
THE PRECIOUS SECRET
A HISTORY OF PROTESTANT MISSIONS
The Greatest Story
Ever Told
A TALE OF
THE GREATEST LIFE
EVER LIVED
by
Fulton Oursler
GARDEN CITY, N.Y.
Doubleday & .Company 9 Inc.
1949
COPYRIGHT, 1949, BY FULTON OURSLER
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES
AT
THE COUNTRY LIFE PRESS, GARDEN CITY, N. Y.
I have two friends, man and wife, 'who in their lives, privately and
professionally, exemplify the teachings of Jesus Christ more truly
than do any others I know. Their modesty prevents me from record-
ing even their initials, but to them I dedicate this imperfect work
in affection and gratitude.
FULTON OURSLER
Preface
THIS is the story of Jesus. It is a chronology of events from the
betrothal of Mary and Joseph to the days after the Resurrection, and
the episodes are taken from the four Gospels. What is imaginative in
the narrative is largely detail to fill in chinks left open in the Bible
accounts; nothing has been included that did not seem a reasonable
assumption from the records.
In writing anew the wonderful life of Jesus, the author has had
but one thought in mind, and that was to induce readers to go to the
Gospels and hear the story at firsthand. It was Rabbi Solomon B.
Freehof, of a great Jewish temple in Pittsburgh, who said to me at
dinner one evening that the unspoken scandal of our times was the
hidden fact that Bible-reading had been largely given up in America.
Later, as I traveled around the country and talked to many differ-
ent kinds of men and women -f ellow passengers in Pullman and day
coach, stenographers, lecture committee chairmen I made casual
allusions in conversation to biblical passages. I soon discovered that
references which in my boyhood were cliches of front-porch talk
had no meaning whatever for these later companions. Even such
obvious phrases as "Thirty pieces of silver" or "The talent buried in
a napkin" or "The angel that troubled the waters" left many listeners
with blank stares. Yet when I explained the meaning, their interest
was clear j a sample from the great history invariably roused the
appetite for more.
These experiments helped me to come to a long-considered resolu-
tion. Ever since my first visit to Palestine, in 1935, I had been
tempted. A tour of Galilee, Samaria, Judea, and Trans) or dania had
evoked again in me a deep interest in Christianity which had filled
me up when I was young. Now, after twenty-five years of contented
agnosticism, I was stirred up again. I began to read various chronolo-
gies by which Catholic and Protestant theologians bad sought to
Vlll PREFACE
straighten out the apparent confusions and contradictions in the
Gospels. This book follows none of the established time and sequence
formulae but draws from several, in what seemed to the writer the
most natural and probable line.
The book is not offered as an explanation or an interpretation. It
is rather an attempt to tell, faithfully, just what the four Apostles,
Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, assert to have happened in those
thirty-three years of the life of Jesus. It is, further, an effort to
state the believing Christian's understanding of the meaning of those
years. There is no intention here to rationalize or to hunt out a sym-
bolism. While sometimes dramatized, the story is completely faith-
ful to the literal statements of the text.
While I was still at work on the manuscript I found myself on
a sponsored radio program negotiated for me by a producing agency
of which Mr. Waddill Catchings was chairman. During this associa-
tion of more than three years I became well acquainted with Mr.
Catchings, and in 1943 I suggested to him that die manuscript on
which I was working would provide stirring material for a radio
presentation of episodes in the life of Our Lord and dramatizations
of the Christian teachings.
Where many another radio producer might have been frightened
off, Mr. Catchings was attracted at once. Together, in many con-
versations, we explored the difficulties. Could we please both Catho-
lics and Protestants with such a presentation? Would those of other
faiths protest? Could any sponsor be found to take the risks implied
in those questions? Would the general public be shocked at the
sound of an actor's voice impersonating the Master?
To these and many other problems we felt eventually that we
had found the solutions, and soon Mr. Catchings began to approach
possible sponsors. Here our path was for a time full of discourage-
ment. More than once, after prolonged negotiations, we had reason
to believe that a contract would be arranged, only to have the plans
fall through at the last moment. But never did either of us lose hope.
This confidence was justified when, through the efforts of Mr.
Catchings and the bold enthusiasm of Mr. James H. S. Ellis, head of
Kudner Agency, Inc., the Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company
expressed an interest. Mr* Paul W. Litchfield, head of the firm,
wanted to be shown how our plans would be materialized in actual
performance.
It had seemed to me from the first that the parable of "The Good
PREFACE IX
Samaritan," with its deathless dramatic action and its basic lesson
against intolerance, would make an ideal beginning. Here, in a most
exciting story, was the Christian teaching on racial hatred.
Accordingly a script was prepared. Step by step I outlined the
story and my friend, Henry Denker, took that skeleton and with
dialogue and sound effects clothed it with exciting life. Then Mr.
Marx Loeb, radio dramatic director, began to assemble a cast of
Broadway actors. All of us Catchings, Ellis, Denker, and myself
sat with Loeb, listening to brief recordings of scores of voices, pick-
ing not only the actor to portray Jesus, but all the other figures in
"The Good Samaritan." And Mr. William Stoess was enriching it
all with his special arrangements of music.
Yes, Mr. Litchfield said, when he had listened to the recorded per-
formance of our experiment; yes, he believed in it thoroughly. But
he had one reservation: Could we do as well in all the shows to
follow?
"If you can do one more show as good as the first, I will be
convinced," he said.
For the second experiment I selected the parable of "The Unmer-
ciful Servant." Mr. Litchfield heard it and signed the contract. To
his everlasting credit let it be said that while spending near to a
million dollars a year on the program he refused to take any of the
time for advertising. Because the laws require it, the name of the
sponsor must be mentioned at opening and closing. So one hears:
"The Greatest Story Ever Told presented by the Goodyear Tire
and Rubber Company." That is all, until it is repeated at the close.
The program began in January 1947. Since then, week after week,
Sunday evenings at 6:30 P.M. over the network of the American
Broadcasting Company, we have presented "The Greatest Story
Ever Told." Many of the half-hour dramas have been original stories
modern parables if that is not too bumptious a term but illustrating
always some text from the New Testament. The plots for these I
brought to Denker and he, with skill and inspiration, transformed
them into vivid scripts. But also we frequently drew our material
straight from this book, notably the five weeks of the Nativity scripts
and the three episodes at Easter. The mood and method of this book
have always been the basis and spirit of the radio program.
Each script was read, corrected, and approved by Monsignor
Joseph A. Nelson, of St. Patrick's Cathedral staif in New York; Rev.
Dr. Samuel Shoemaker, rector of Calvary Protestant Episcopal
X PREFACE
Church; and Rev. Dr. Paul Wolfe, minister of the Brick Presbyterian
Church, New York. With them has been associated Mr. Otto Frank-
furter, brother of Justice Felix Frankfurter of the United States
Supreme Court. Nothing has appeared on the programs without the
approval of these four.
There have been no clashes; the program has gained in favor ever
since it began. I cite one of many collateral miracles: In the spring
of 1947 the General Tire and Rubber Company, a competitor of
Goodyear, took page advertisements in newspapers throughout the
country urging the public to listen to its rival's radio program. The
Christian influence makes itself quickly felt. A little leaven leaveneth
the whole.
With much help and counsel I have told here the great story once
more the story of the greatest event in human history. For once
upon a time and long ago it actually happened, according to the
faith of true believers, among which the author counts himself.
God, who had fashioned time and space in a clockwork of billions
of suns and stars and moons, in the form of His beloved Son became
a human being like ourselves. On this microscopic midge of planet
He remained for thirty-three years. He became a real man, and the
only perfect one. While continuing to be the true God, He was
born in a stable and lived as a workingman and died on a cross.
He came to show us how to live, not for a few years but eternally.
He explained truths that would make our souls joyous and free.
This is the story of Jesus the greatest story ever told.
Contents
Preface vii
Book One
A CHILD IS BORN
1. The Man Who Waited i
2. The Betrothal 7
3. The Unknown Messenger n
4. No Dreams Tonight 22
5. Hail, Mary! 25
6. What a One, Think You! 28
7. When Half-Gods Go 33
8. Joseph Dreams a Dream 38
9. Command from Rome 42
10. The Long Journey 46
11. Shepherds at the Back Door 52
12. Two Pigeons, Please! 55
13. The King and the Child 61
14. Kill Them All! 68
Book T<wo
A BOY IN NAZARETH
15. By the Nile 71
16. Herod's Last Night Alive 72
17. Behind the Masquerade 76
18. Jesus Barabbas So
xi
Xli CONTENTS
19. Where Is My Son? 83
20. Strange Word from the South 88
Book Three
THE PREPARATION
21. The Voice in the Wilderness 91
22. New Friends 96
23. The Caterer Is Amazed 101
24. The Wicked Queen 105
25. The Woman at the Well 108
26. What Have We to Do with You? 112
27. Peter's Mother-in-law 116
28. The First Clash , . , 120
29*. A Tax Agent Resigns 123
30. John Had to Know 128
31. A Young Girl Dances 132
Book Four
THE FIRST YEAR
32. Chosen 137
33. The Second Step 139
34. The First Box of Ointment 145
35. The Woman Who Understood 147
36. The Teller of Good Yarns . 148
37. A Time of Wonders 154
38. Not Without Honor 157
Book Five
THE SECOND YEAR
39. Barley Loaves and Fishes 159
40. The Conspirators Return 163
41. Transfigured 166
42. Tribute to Caesar 173
CONTENTS X1U
"Book Six
THE THIRD YEAR
43. You Must Have a Devil 177
44. A Real Investigation! 182
45. That Better Part 185
46. The Dinner Tables of the Mighty 187
47. Urgent Teaching 190
48. Come Forth! 194
49. A Political Setback 197
50. The Great Feast 199
51. Palm Sunday 203
52. The Great Clash 206
53. The Political Boss 210
54. The Upper Room 220
55. The Parting 226
56. The Bargain 229
57. A Visit to Pilate 233
58. We Are Ready 235
59. The Dark Garden 236
60. The Prisoner 240
61. Denial 244
62. The Judges 245
63. On Trial 248
64. Prove It! 256
65. The Affirmation 257
66. Pilate's Fireplace 261
67. Claudia's Dream 263
68. The Drunken King 270
69. Crucify Him! 275
70. The Dolorous Way 280
71. Finished! 283
72. Why Do They Not Care? 290
The Greatest Story
Ever Told
A TALE OF
THE GREATEST LIFE
EVER LIVED
Book One
A CHILD IS BORN
Chapter i THE MAN WHO WAITED
PEOPLE in Nazareth said that Joseph was like his great ancestor, the
favorite son of Jacob. It was true that the carpenter of Nazareth,
with his small golden beard, so different from his black-haired neigh-
bors, was a dreamy, quiet-spoken man, looking more like a scholar
than a craftsman.
His uncle who brought him up had taught the orphan boy his
trade. With those great knotty hands of his Joseph could build a
house or a fence, fashion a chair or a bench, hang a door, mend a.
wheel, build a new plow or yoke. On the high street in Nazareth,
his little shop with its earthen floor had a clean, constant smell
of shavings and sawdust. In the back was a cot and near by a grate
on which Joseph, the bachelor, cooked simple meals. On long eve-
nings he would sit on his heels at the open door and sew a rent in
his smock or stand outside and breathe deep of the cool air. Later,
by the yellow flame of a 'rush burning in an oil lamp, he would
read for hours from borrowed scrolls.
The golden-bearded Joseph with the prematurely bald head was
called a visionary because he refrained from gambling with travelers
of passing caravans; he avoided tavern women, and found his pleas-
ure in good talk with a few neighbors. Among Nazarenes these were
queer habits, for generally they were a rowdy lot.
This town lying hidden in the mountains was near a post on a busy
trade route between Europe and Asia, so there was often excitement
in the neighborhood, a tide flowing back and forth of cartels and
baled merchandise pungent fragrances and spicery and rainbow
silks of the East, skilled manufactures of the West, win& and oils,
the barter and trade of Alexandria and Damascus. At night caravans
often rested in the fields, and the rocky hillside gleamed with golden
tongues of camp fires. The townsfolk got their news from those
2 THE GREATEST STORY EVER TOLD
travelers, and day and night lived in an atmosphere of the new, the
strange, and the exciting. They were rough men, these merchants
and camel drivers, and the people of the town were rough, too,
ready to take offense, ready to brawl, to gamble and haggle ready
for anything!
Late one afternoon Samuel of Cana stood in dark silhouette on
the threshold of Joseph's shop, at the end of the Street of the Copper-
smith. The young merchant was tall and powerful against the fad-
ing light.
"The Lord be unto you," he said politely.
Joseph put down his hammer, separated his bare feet which he
had been using as a vise for a board, brushed sweat from his forehead
with the back of his hand, and grinned at his friend.
"And peace be with you, Samuel, Come in. Your chest of good
Galilean oak and sycamore is finished and I am about to eat. Join
me?" '
"No, I have just eaten at home. But thank you."
The giant Samuel sprawled on the shavings litter of the floor,
while Joseph, forsaking chisel, adze, and saw, squatted on his bare
heels and spread out a repast of bread and curds and a cup of
milk.
"Who fixed you such a dainty meal?" asked Samuel suspiciously.
"When a man is an orphan and has no wife, he must learn to do
for himself."
"You are lonely, Joseph?"
"Sometimes."
There was a moment's pause as the carpenter smeared his bread
with the curds.
"I have a cure for loneliness," murmured Samuel, a gleam in his
inkberry eyes.
Joseph chuckled with private amusement.
"I can guess!" He laughed.
"No," Samuel cried vindictively. "IVe long ago given up trying
to make an adult out of you, Joseph. No amourettes, no little love
affairs for you! Of course you don't know what you're missing, but
that's not what I was thinking about at all. My thoughts for your
future were elsewhere."
"Where then?"
"Jerusalem!"
Are there not enough carpenters in the big city?"
A CHILD IS BORN 3
"Carpenters, bah! Joseph, don't you ever have a thought beyond
your work?"
Joseph blinked self-consciously.
"Why, yes, Samuel, I think about many things that have nothing
at all to do with my work,"
"What, for instance?"
"Oh-the law."
"Bah!"
"Bah!" repeated Joseph with a wag of his bald head. "Bah is not
an argument, Samuel. It is a noise."
"It has a meaning just the same. It means that I and many like me
are tired of being taught about the patriarchs and the judges and
the prophets-the history of Israel We are tired of more than that.
We have had enough of being ruled by foreign powers; we are all
slaves, run by Herod for the benefit of Rome, and what has Rome
to do with us? We want to be free!"
"Oh," said Joseph. "That again! Better lower your voice,
Samuel."
The danger was real. Roman spies were everywhere. It was folly
to take part in political discussions, with the police listening, holding
the downtrodden people in a misery of fear. One learned not to
speak ideas aloud. In the last century there had been a series of
hapless rebellions in the land; fierce and fanatical men still roamed
the hills of Galilee, striking at Romans when they dared. Some of
the best of the young men of the province, healthy and strong ones,
enthusiastic ones, had perished in those feeble and foredoomed re-
voltsthousands of patriots dying for Israel during the one hundred
years the Romans had held Israel. Not only Galilee of which Naza-
reth was one of the chief towns did they hold, but Judea, too, with
Jerusalem, the golden capital. All the territory that once had known
the valor of Joshua, the power of David, the wisdom and glory of
Solomon was now paying tribute to the Emperor Caesar Augustus.
Ah, Samuel could tell Joseph, conditions were getting much worse.
Rich and powerful men of their own nation were collaborating
with the invaders, fattening their fortunes by betraying their own
people. How long must they endure slavery with treason thrown
in? Did Joseph realize that in every village young men were once
more plotting to throw the Romans out and make the people free?
Why would Joseph not join?
Ever since Joseph could remember impetuous youths in Nazareth
4 THE GREATEST STORY EVER TOLD
had been planning a secret, melodramatic resistance against the Ro-
mans, but it never came to anything more than talk.
"Don't you love your own country?" prodded Samuel reproach-
fully. "Aren't you one of us in spirit, at least?"
Joseph's smile was quizzical. Poor workman that he was, he be-
longed to the house of David and his line ran back, clearly indi-
cated in the scrolls of the Nazareth synagogue, all the way to Jacob
who was of Isaac, who was of Abraham; and farther than that, even,
to Seth who was of Adam, who was of God.
The smile deepened as he patted the knee of his impetuous friend.
This revolutionist really did want to save Israel But how? By up-
rising, by blood, by death. In the holy books prophets had promised
liberation salvation for the people who had known the terrors of
war, the slavery of Egypt, the wanderings in the wilderness, the
captivity of Babylon, and now the Roman occupation. But salvation
was to come, according to these ancient writers, when a messenger
was born, the long-promised Messiah, who would lead the nation to
peace. Joseph believed his books, therefore a good man must not
turn to blood and death to hasten salvation. And Joseph was well
aware that every son of the house of David was being watched.
"But have you heard the news from Jerusalem?" demanded Sam-
uel, impatient of books. "I have been talking to some camel drivers
who arrived only this morning. Bang Herod has murdered more
of his family he has already* murdered one wife, as you remember
and every day of his life he kills our own innocent and helpless
people, according to his whims. As a sensible man, how can you de-
pend on promises made hundreds of years ago, when today "
"When today," Joseph interrupted, "the God of Israel is still the
same Lord. We must rely on him, and, Samuel, don't let me hear
you say bah to that, for that would be blasphemy."
"Bah!" insisted Samuel fiercely, "Go and report me. Let them
put me to death for blasphemy I would rather die than live like
a slave."
Joseph stood up, brandishing his saw over his head, but his grin
belied the violence of the gesture.
"This saw is a tool without soul or conscience," said Joseph. "It
can be used to cut open a Roman's skull, or it can help make a cradle
for a Nazarene baby. That's up to the man who uses it. Every man
has tools; the whole world would be better off if we used them for
peace rather than war."
A CHILD IS BORN 5
"You mean that we should go on submitting to unspeakable Herod
and Rome and do nothing?"
As he spat out these contemptuous words, Samuel scrambled to
his feet and confronted his friend.
"The ruin of our people," Joseph retorted, "has always been to
depart from faith and depend on their own powers. We know that
a deliverer will come and we've just got to wait."
"Do you think the Messiah is coming tomorrow perhaps the
next day?"
"Who knows?" asked Joseph simply. "Violence, revolution, all
these secret schemings are tricks learned from aliens who have forty
gods, and all forty are not enough, and any one of them too many,
to give them peace."
"I would still like to know," persisted Samuel, "whether you ex-
pect to live to know the Messiah."
Joseph chuckled. What a fanciful idea!
"A workman like me know Him? What would a poor carpenter
know about such great affairs? No, I look forward to a quiet life,"
"And lonely, Joseph. You said so."
Joseph waggled a great forefinger amiably.
"Not at all. I do not expect to be lonely forever. Like .any other
man, I want a wife in my house . . ."
"And children?"
"Many, I hope; a houseful; I would enjoy them."
Samuel's burning eyes softened a little.
"Well, I hope you find the girl of your heart, my friend. She will
never have to fear a thrashing from the gentle kind of husband you
will make her."
Joseph did not seem to be listening. He stood very thoughtful,
with a touch of sadness in his manner. His eyes were on the door-
way; he was staring out into the street as if he were expecting some
wonderful vision. Only his right hand, huge and flexible, reached
out and seized the other by the elbow.
"I have already found her," he confided. "She is very young and
very different from all other women in the world."
"Come out of your trance, Joseph, and tell me how this girl is sb
different."
"She is not as any of the others are; that is all I know how to tell
you. Look, Samuel, I was sure of it she is coming toward us now.
See her, with the empty red jug on her head?"
6 THE GREATEST STORY EVER TOLD
Samuel strode to the doorway and shaded his eyes with his hand.
"Don't stare," admonished Joseph severely.
"I will admit that her walk is more than ordinarily graceful," an-
nounced Samuel over his shoulder.
"Everything about her is more than ordinary," murmured Joseph,
taking a place near to the hulk of his friend, who nearly filled the
doorway. The carpenter's head was turned to one side, and he was
looking under the upraised arm of Samuel, and there was still that
distant look in the blue eyes as if he were enraptured by the strains
of music.
The shadowed street was almost empty as a girl came toward them
down the narrow pavement. Dark hair framed the pale face above
the light blue mantle and the intense blue eyes set so wide apart.
She walked in grace.
"Joseph," said Samuel, lowering his voice, "there may be some-
thing in what you say. That girl is somehow different* Yes, she is.
Can it be the expression? It is most unusual; it is, why . . . look . . *
it has me stammering, man ... it is ..."
Samuel lowered his hand.
"Never have I seen such serenity on any face," he acknowledged.
"It gives me, my friend, a strange sort of feeling."
He looked after the girl searchingly as she passed, eyes straight
before her, arms lifted gracefully, fingers spread against the red
water jug.
"What can it be that sets her apart?" the merchant fumed. Then
he shook himself and with forced heartiness turned into the shpp
again.
"No wonder you won't go with me to Jerusalem," he barked.
"Tell me, has that maiden promised . . ."
Joseph sank dismally on the bench.
"I have never even spoken to her," he admitted.
With a boisterous laugh Samuel walked over and laid a hairy hand
on the bald head.
"Shy as ever, Joseph," he teased. "You have to pluck up your
courage, boy. You're not too young, you know! And the bucks of
this village are not blind. Don't be losing time."
Joseph looked up with -an air that gave a sudden strength to his
face.
"I am not afraid," he said quietly.
A CHILD IS BORN 7
Samuel snorted loudly. It came to him then with a sense of ob-
scure annoyance that the gentle people of this world are a strong
and obstinate mystery. There was conviction in the words of Joseph.
"At least tell me one thing. You don't know her parents?"
"Not yet. They have just come here from Jerusalem."
"Have you never learned her name?"
"Her name?" Joseph looked up. "Oh yes, I know that."
"Tell me, then, before I go."
"Her name," said Joseph, "is Mary!"
Chapter 2 THE BETROTHAL
FOR this night's negotiations Joseph had made great preparations.
Behind the curtain at the back of his shop he scrubbed all the sweat
from his stocky body. The muscles of Joseph were strong as those
of any Nazarene bully. He could put his shoulder under a Roman
axle and lift a broken chariot from the mire. Thoroughly he cleansed
himself and trimmed his beard and washed the sawdust out of the
stiff tangles of his curls. Carrying a gift of Damascus sweets, he set
off through the crowded Street of the Coppersmith.
Now Joseph turned to scan the crowded street. There, up and
down, in an unending stream, a noisy crowd of men and women
tramped in the ooze of the unkempt thoroughfare. Unruly Galilean
workmen, some in sandals but most of them barefoot, and all in a
hungry hurry, so it seemed, shouldered and elbowed their way home
as if rudeness with them were a purpose in life. The air was clamor-
ous with insults in a variety of languagesGreek and Roman for
the strangers and piercing, passionate tones of home talk a frenzied
fluency of Aramaic Chaldee. The babel of all three tongues mingled
with the bleating of lambs and goats, the hoarse sneezing of camels,
and the soft, incessant clonking of their desert bells. And everywhere,
underfoot and in corners and doorways, homeless scavenger dogs
were snuffling for garbage.
Just at the edge of the town, about a mile from Joseph's work-
shop, on a shoulder of a hiU stood the house of Mary. It was some-
what more substantial than the average dwelling and much more
charming to die eye than the shacks of sun-dried bricks in which
THE GREATEST STORY EVER TOLD
lived so many of the valley people on the floor of Sharon and the
great plain below.
Mary's home was made of the mountain stones. It was covered
with plaster, and the white half -ball dome at the top had a square
terrace all around it on which fruits and vegetables were drying
tonight. The flooring of that dome-shaped roof was on a slant to
pour the scant rain down into a rocky cistern in the rear; the parched
land of Palestine hoarded every raindrop.
The door opened into the one large chamber of the house. The
house's mighty walls were of rough-dressed stones, four feet thick
to keep out the heat, and smoked by old fires; in the hollow height
of the roof pigeons cooed and fretted in the dark. At the rear was
a high platform that was really the family home an elevation of
masonry ten feet above the entrance on the ground floor. It was
raised on stone arches and reached by a steep stairway the heart
of this household, where the family ate, slept, and lived.
Near the front opening the ground floor was cluttered with the
family's livestock: sheep and goats, a rooster and his hens. When
the family had company overnight Mary had to sleep on this floor
level, near the warm animals, and she always enjoyed the adventure.
Joseph was greeted at the door by Joachim. Inside were Anna,
Mary's mother, and a strange woman he had never seen before. This
was Elizabeth, kinswoman of the family.
Once, sometimes twice a year, they had a visit from Cousin Eliza-
beth, daughter of Anna's much older sister. Between Mary and
Elizabeth there was a difference of more than forty years; it was
like being cousin to your own grandmother. Most of these forty-
years the older cousin had been married to a country priest in a vil-
lage not far from Jerusalem; his name was Zachary, and the town
they lived in was called Ain Karim.
Cousin Zachary was even older than his wife; his back was so
stiff that he found it hard to stoop over and trim his toenails. About
the aging pair there was a settled feeling of taut dignity, as if they
had dutifully made friends with sorrow.
They were very poor, and the village of Ain Karim where Zach-
ary labored in the synagogue was small and obscure. There he
served the townspeople, married and circumcised them, advised
and buried them a busy and peaceful life. Elizabeth had arrived with
news. Soon Zachary was to be pulled out of his obscurity. To any
litde village priest the honor might come. Now Zachary was called
A CHILD IS BORN 9
again, after years, as a priest of the line of Abia, if you please, to
celebrate the sacrifice at the holy place, in the Temple of Jerusalem.
"You tell me this? Great news indeed!" Anna closed her eyes
and remembered the glory and the magnificence of the great tem-
ple. That good old Zachary should wear the white-and-yellow robes
and the blue tassels before all the worshipers and send up smoke to
the very nostrils of Jehovah!
"Oh, Elizabeth, aren't you happy?"
"Yes, my loved one, I am very happy."
Joachim entered and cleared his throat.
"This is Joseph," the husband announced awkwardly. "He comes
to tell you how much he loves our child."
Anna sank to the floor and crossed her legs and shook herself
from side to side and made a sad, low, crooning sound as if an adum-
bration of sorrow had fallen upon her.
"Mourning," exclaimed Joachim reproachfully. "There should be
no sadness in all this."
"You are right! I know it I know!"
Anna lifted a tear-stained face*
"I trust your judgment, beloved. I do not mean to make sadness.
I am sure Joseph must be a fine young man because he has so
touched Mary's heart that she is really foolish in her thoughts of
him beautiful, foolish thoughts of love and pretty dreams. I want
Mary to have happiness. To know deep love and kindness and sweet-
ness as we have always known it, Joachim. I am sure you know best."
Joachim spread out his arms, palms to the roof.
"Then why is she crying?" he demanded of the universe.
"I don't know. I really don't know. We are an unusual family,
Joachim; we have strange feelings at times "
"You have been dreaming?"
"No. It's just a fearlike a pain in my heart that portends some-
thing and won't go away as if our Mary will know too great a
misery because of this. The feeling has been there ever since I saw
her this afternoon come home from the well* They had seen each
other there. I don't know what I fear, Joachim. All I know is that
there is pain, this foreboding . . . something that makes me deathly
afraid."
She made a hopeless gesture and scrambled to her feet.
"There! I will have done with such feelings. Bring in the young
10 THE GREATEST STORY EVER TOLD
man," she said in an altered voice. "He is very determined, as you
say. And he does have a handsome beard. One has to admire that."
The worry in her heart was lessened when Anna met Joseph for
the first time. Later she admitted to her husband that the carpenter
made a good impression the moment he came through the door.
Such devotion as Anna had for her child carries with it a kind of
prescience: she divined something warming and good and trust-
worthy in the awkwardness of the workman; in his placating smile
she sensed a guarantee of honor. As she led the visitor up to the
household platform, it came to Anna that Joseph was a gentle but
very strong man.
There was a certain ceremoniousness in the beginning of the in-
terview: the drinking of a traditional cup of hospitality, passed from
hand to hand, and an embarrassed discussion of weather, of crops,
and of burdensome taxes. Then they came to a complete stop, and
after a silence Joseph blushed and said bluntly:
"I love your daughter Mary. I saw her on the first day you moved
into this town. I have seen her every day since, except that sad time
when she was ill with a cold and you kept her in bed."
"You knew about that?" gasped Anna, then turned her head sus-
piciously. She had heard what the others had not the distant tin-
kling sound of young laughter. Where was that Mary? She had gone
to the roof with Cousin Elizabeth. Wherever she was now, she was
listening. Anna remembered that she, too, had listened when Joa-
chim had made his formal call upon her father.
Joseph told them how he was the son of Jacob Heli, who had
died long ago and who was the son of Matthan, and that the book
of his generation carried his family back to Abraham.
"All this I have inspected in the scrolls at the synagogue," Joachim
told his wife. "He is the son of Abraham and the son of David."
"Mary is also of the house of David," nodded Anna.
Joseph further explained that the uncle who brought him up had
been dead for three years; the suitor stood alone in the world, with-
out aunt or uncle, brother or sister or cousin.
"I am lonely and I want Mary to be my wife. I have come to es-
pouse her, if it will be your pleasure to have it so," he finished, a
little frightened of the high-sounding words.
Anna and Joachim exchanged nods, and the mother walked with
dignity to the door leading to the open roof.
"Mary!" she called.
A CHILD IS BORN II
And presently Mary, light blue mantle over her shoulders, came
barefoot into the room and stood before Joseph. Elizabeth followed
and put her arms around Anna. The father took the young man's
hand and placed it in the hand of his daughter, and gave them his
blessing.
The future bridegroom thanked the mother and father but kept
looking at his promised one; so young and strong and dreamy was
Mary that night.
"You are espoused," said Joachim.
"You are betrothed," said Anna*
"Peace be with you," said Joachim and Anna.
"And the Lord be with you," murmured Joseph and Mary.
Tomorrow all Nazareth would have the glad information. Why,
thought Joseph, as he laid his other hand over hers, this is almost as
official as being married. In this province of Galilee, and indeed in
all Palestine, once a couple were engaged, only the most serious
circumstances could justify man or woman in breaking off.
And Joseph chuckled at the ridiculousness of the notion that he
could ever be minded to break his engagement with Mary!
Chapter 3 THE UNKNOWN MESSENGER
OF COURSE Joseph was invited to go along with the family to attend
Cousin Zachary's proud occasion in the Temple.
The prospect was tremendously exciting. In all his life Joseph had
never been more than ten miles outside the town of Nazareth, and
now, at last, he would behold the city and the Temple a lifetime ex-
perience!
One brisk day in the Palestinian spring Mary and Anna mounted
rented donkeys, and Joachim and Joseph, reins in hand, started off,
leading them oil foot, for the three-day journey to Jerusalem. It was
a journey of contentment all the way, free of accident or misfor-
tunea time of long talk among the four. After that experience
Joachim and Anna loved Joseph as if he were their son; the* family
ties were bound before the marriage in the intimacy of their trip
down the great southern road, until at the close of the third day
they came in view of the capital.
12 THE GREATEST STORY EVER TOLD
"Oh!" gasped Mary, whispering in Joseph's ear. "This is all so mag-
nificent."
With the double delight of a country boy on his first long jour-
ney and a well-read man who knew the history of where he was
and what he was seeing, Joseph beheld Jerusalem. The sight of the
mustard-colored walls, the bastions and indented parapets, the bat-
tlements and towers roused in the carpenter a kind of tranquil
ecstasy the state he had sometimes known in prayer.
Soon, less exalted, but not less interested, they passed through
the gate and made their way down the noisy darkness of the roofed
streets, stepping gingerly to avoid the filth of the paving stones and
lifting their noses helplessly. The reek and feculence and foulness,
the unutterable stink of the Jerusalem streets, were in their nostrils
even as they stared at the ivory and gold glories of Herod's palace
on the western hill, his amphitheater for games and his castle, An-
tonia, named for his great chum, Marc Antony.
A broad area, this place of the Temple, with its still unfinished
colonnades. The eyes of Joseph bulged. Its great rectangle was at
least four hundred yards the long way and three hundred yards
east and west a vast plant of worship and sanctuary and market
place for ecclesiastical supplies. As they came nearer to it Joseph
began to see signs warning Gentiles to keep out of the inner courts
on pain of death.
Now they were entering the outer and lowest court, first ap-
proach to the sanctuary where Cousin Zachary was to appear in his
hour of glory, chief performer at the sacrifice just before sundown.
Already thousands of worshipers filled the rectangle within the
five gates of this mighty edifice with its courts and double galleries,
its marble pillars fifty feet high, and its roof made of blood-red
cedar from Lebanon.
Mary's heart was filled with wonder; she had the odd feeling that
she had been here before. Actually, as a very little girl she had been
brought here by her parents, but she had been too young to re-
member it. Yet today everything seemed vaguely, frighteningly
familiar the outer square, cluttered with tables of the money-
changers; the clamor of people counting their coins, and the brattle
and brangle around the cattle stalls where shrill voices of bargaining
men and women mixed with the cooing doves and the bleating of
lambs destined soon to die in smoking sacrifice.
Without delay Anna and Elizabeth and Mary proceeded to the
A CHILD IS BORN 13
Court of the Women, beyond which they might not go. Joseph
and Joachim, mounting the farther steps, paused at the entrance to
the inner court to take it all in. The rays of the evening sun poured
down fiercely on their heads; the service was soon to begin.
And now Joseph had arrived at the very spot where David had
built the altar and where Solomon had reared the wonderful Temple
that had stood here for nearly 400 years until it was destroyed by
Nebuchadnezzar. The imaginative workman from Nazareth was
almost swooning with an awesome feeling that blanched his face
and tightened the muscles by which he swallowed.
For this present Temple at Jerusalem was a symbol to Joseph as it
was to all the people. When his enslaved ancestors had at last
straggled back from the captivity in Babylon they had beeft able to
build themselves only a poor substitute on the site of vanished glory.
That second temple, too, had passed, and in its place now stood the
most magnificent of all three a gift to the people from their detested
ruler, King Herod.
A gift of appeasement it was, but it failed of its purpose. No
tyrant in history ever was more hated than Herod was hated by the
people who worshiped here. He was not of their blood; he was an
Arab from Ashkelon, a tribal warrior, ferocious enough to win many
a battle, shrewd enough to be an expert politician, but no true king
of theirs.
By turns Herod had tried being cruel and kind. Having despoiled
their treasury, and with the very money he had filched from them,
he built this magnificent house of God. The people took his new
Temple to their hearts but they barred him from entering any part
of it.
Joseph reflected on all that had come to pass here since the Baby-
lonians sprang down like wolves, sacked the city, and left it, as they
boasted, "a haunt of jackals"; of all the other wars that had oppressed
the capital, and the thirty-eight sieges of Jerusalem. It did seem to
the country carpenter that there was something in this city of im-
mortal and indestructible destiny.
There would always be a Jerusalem, he thought, as long as Jeisa-
lem remained true to the ideals of those altars of old, when fee people
were free under their own kings.
But would that time ever come again? Now that^ as hk friend
Samuel had said, the very leaders of Israel played 'a secret game with
Herod?
14 THE GREATEST STORY EVER TOLD
On one side of the high altar before them sat a short, watchful
man with a goatlike beard, a priest in his early fifties who kept his
eyes fixed on a small doorway. As Joseph looked at this little man
he felt for a moment the pang of a curious presage; he forgot all
about Cousin Zachary in the contemplation of this grim figure.
Suddenly he heard an irreverent chuckle close to his left ear, and,
turning, beheld the incorrigible and yet friendly face of Samuel,
the merchant, the revolutionist. Samuel winked elaborately and
turned a lowered thumb toward the grim figure on the altar and
whispered:
"That man you were watching is Annas! Famous and mighty
Annas! It is very unusual for him to be at such a service as this."
To the provincial workman from the north the name meant little,
but Samuel, with a baleful glance up at the altar, explained that
Annas was the High Priest of the Temple; then Joseph felt very
much awed. But the gossip, shaking his head and still further lower-
ing his voice, insisted that Annas was not a godly man at all but a
mere politician; in fact, he did not even believe in a future life nor
in the resurrection.
"The important thing about Annas," whispered Samuel, "is that
he is the political boss. It is Annas who bargains in secret with Herod
and then comes out and tells the people just what to do. His enemies
say that he has betrayed his own people for years."
It was Annas, Samuel declared, who controlled the banks and set
up the money-changers at their tables in the Temple; he also owned
the concessions for the selling of birds and animals for the sacrifice.
The money-changing and the selling of doves and lambs were two
branches of the same business; in controlling them, Annas and his
crew bilked everybody and through their cheating became among
the richest people in the world. A powerful friend, an implacable
enemy, a man with a long tooth that was Annas, the High Priest.
"I wonder," Joseph was thinking, "why I feel so afraid of this
Annas?" He looked around, but Samuel had vanished. The young
revolutionist had strange comings and goings.
Even from far off Joseph could see the iceberg-blue eyes of Annas,
and wondered if those glittering eyes ever melted or if that straight,
hard mouth could ever relax in a tender smile. It was strange, in-
deed, that Joseph should feel warned of Annas. What had a little
peasant carpenter to fear from the High Priest of the Temple?
"Ah," sighed Joachim, "there comes Cousin Zachary now. Joseph,
A CHILD IS BORN* 15
look; that is he! Cousin Elizabeth must have sewn that wonderful
robe for him!"
Why, old Zachary looked young in his fine raiment. How erect
he stood in the gorgeousness of ceremonial robes, stiff and straight
and chin up for all his seventy years. A bright gleam was in his fad-
ing eyes as he lifted his arms, a sign that the people were to cleanse
their hearts with prayer in readiness for the rubric of the sacrifice,
the performance of his sacred office. Standing beside the altar of un-
hewn stone, Zachary closed his eyes, and all the people prayed.
Of the thousands praying in the rectangular courts only Cousin
Elizabeth knew of one special intention this old priest would be in-
cluding in his prayers this afternoon. But Joseph could guess from
what Mary had already told him. Zachary's faith was tenacious and
humble; some of his relatives called it fanatical and preposterous that
though he was past his threescore years and ten he still asked God
dutifully every day that Elizabeth and he might have a child.
Now the priest turned and faced the congregation. Hanging from
a chain in his right hand was the censer from which silver smoke
plumed upward, and the sweetness of burning spices was carried on
chill winds blowing from the desert of the Dead Sea. All priest and
servant of the living Lord, Zachary held his censer high and let the
south and east winds carry off the smoke while he began to mount
the twelve steps, one for each of the tribes of Israel, Lifting the tem-
ple veil with his left hand, he disappeared into the tabernacle, the
little holy place, where minor priests came closest to the presence
of God.
With bowed heads and closed eyes the crowd waited. For a long
while there was no sound, not even a cough. Then, presently,
Joachim opened one eye and glared at the altar. What was keeping
Zachary within? No one was to be seen on the platform except the
grim, observant figure of Annas. Joachim gave a puzzled look
around at Joseph. Zachary had already stayed much too long in the
holy retreat. Something must be wrong. There was not much for
him to do in there; the priest was to stand only for a moment in
silent prayer. He must look up at the golden candlesticks and down
upon the cakes made of wheat and barley with oil of honey; upon
the twelve loaves of the showbread he must look and then, in a pro-
longed moment of silence, he was supposed to swing the censer three
times. After these actions were performed Zachary was meant to
1 6 THE GREATEST STORY EVER TOLD
back out of the holy place, face the reverent multitude, and offer up
the final prayer.
By now five minutes had gone by and there was still no sign of
Zachary*
"Something is strange/' Joachim murmured to Joseph. Had the
old village priest fallen ill in his hour of glory? Did anyone dare go
to see, past the veil and into the holy place?
Then suddenly Zachary came out in a wild rush from the sanctu-
ary, and something very serious was wrong with him the whole
multitude could see that Swaying dizzily down the twelve steps, he
staggered to the rim of the open part of the altar. As Zachary tot-
tered there, Annas, the High Priest, leaped forward and put strong
arms around him. In the stillness of the sunset air they could all hear
the crisp voice of Annas asking for an explanation. But Zachary,
cheeks pale, eyes glittering, hair mussed, could only stamp his right
foot and wave his arms in frantic movements, pointing to his open
mouth as if he had swallowed the mystery and therefore could make
no sound.
There was nothing to be done but for Annas to leave him stand-
ing there by the altar of unhewn stones while he, as High Priest, took
over the service, made the final prayer, and dismissed the people.
Then and then only could Elizabeth get out of the Court of Women
and beat her way to the outer square where Joachim held Zachary
waiting, The old wife sheltered her man in her arms.
"We're going home, Zachary," she murmured. "Don't weep. Don't
try to talk. We will go home now."
Not until they were back home in Ain Karim and the curious vil-
lagers had been shooed away, leaving the weary little family to them-
selves, did Zachary divulge the facts. He sat at the table, motioning
for parchment and quills; Zachary would talk with them by writing;
the first great fact was that he had been stricken dumb.
"Ah! Ah! For once in his life he could celebrate the sacrifice in
Jerusalem and he was stricken dumb! " Elizabeth sobbed and groaned;
surely they were under a curse of God.
But Zachary admonished her with uplifted finger. His glaring eyes
seemed to remind her that this was not the first time in the history of
the earth that a man had been stricken dumb. There were much more
important matters.
"Ah! Ah!" cried Elizabeth, "my husband is right; my husband is
always right. What has he to tell us?"
A CHILD IS BORN * IJ
Slowly, and forming the inky characters with great exactitude so
that his meaning could not possibly be mistaken, Zachary wrote on
the parchment:
"I have been listening to an angel!"
When she read these words, Elizabeth gave a low moan and began
pacing back and forth, beating her fists against her temples and
sighing disconsolately. Zachary had not only been stricken dumb;
he had gone mad. See what he had written. Ah! Ah! It was blas-
phemy. Tear it up before someone reported it to the High Priest; a
man could be put to death for such dangerous thoughts.
But Zachary rose up, too, and stood in the way of his wife so that
she couldn't go on pacing up and down and crying; he was dumb
but he was not deaf; he heard it all and it made him impatient.
Writing again, he declared he was still master in his own house.
Let her call him mad if she pleased, but would she first have the kind-
ness to receive what he was trying to tell her; what the angel said?
Stop f the tears! Would she listen?
The house of Cousin Elizabeth was a noisy place just at that mo-
ment; everybody except the scribbling Zachary seemed to be talk-
ing at once. Anna was trying to comfort Elizabeth, and Joachim was
taking his stance in the middle of the floor to speak his mind.
"Since when," Joachim reproached them, "has it been madness to
believe that angels can talk with men? Are we to deny the Scriptures
of Moses? And since when, Anna, have you forgotten, or you,
Elizabeth, that we have always known that ours is a remarkable
family? Since our great ancestors we have had strange dreams and
always obeyed the will of God. Does Zachary look mad to you,
Elizabeth? Let us be quiet and ask him what actually happened in
there!"
Zachary lowered his head gratefully to the towering and suddenly
authoritative figure of Joachim. He sank wearily in his chair; he was
an aging man and it had been a day to try the stoutest nerves. He
pointed again at the line he had written:
"I have been listening to an angel."
The others nodded solemnly. The priest picked up his pen and
wrote again:
"I entered the sanctuary. A figure was standing there. He stood
with folded wings and looked at me. I was terribly frightened and
almost dropped die censer. My brain felt numb. My body was cold.
My knees . . "
1 8 THE GREATEST STORY EVER TOLD
"I can guess how you felt, beloved," urged Elizabeth. "But did
the angel speak to you?"
Zachary nodded emphatically.
"Then please write what he said."
Zachary bent over the parchment and his hand moved faster and
faster:
"He spoke in a deep tone unlike any voice I ever heard, and he
said: Tear not, Zachary* Your prayer is heard!' "
A chill went down the spine of Elizabeth; her thoughts whirled.
Could it have been the secret prayer that Zachary had made just
before he mounted the twelve steps? She bent over and saw that the
old man was still writing; still quoting the winged messenger.
" 'Your wife, Elizabeth, shall bear you a son.' "
Elizabeth began to weep again, and Anna and Mary with her,
while practical Joachim, his hands clasped, leaned over Zachary's
shoulder reading word after word as the old priest scribbled on, now
in a frenzy of writing:
" 'And you shall call his name John.' "
"John!" cried Elizabeth. "John! John! That means the gracious
gift of God!"
Zachary nodded to her. His face was still white as the parchment
under his hand; his chin bobbed up and down in confirmation. Yes,
they were to have a son and they would call his name John. And he
wrote again:
" 'And you shall have joy and gladness. Many shall rejoice in his
nativity and he shall be great before the Lord. He shall drink
no wine or strong drink and he shall be filled with the Holy
Ghost
Zachary's hand stopped, the same question agitating all. What
could be the meaning of that strange phrase? A baby coming to
them. The very thought made Elizabeth put her hands against her
breasts and croon aloud. But what could those queer words mean:
the boy was to be "filled with the Holy Ghost"? None of them
knew.
It was all hard to believe, yet look at Zachary! That guileless and
pious old man, who scorned lies and pretense, could not be acting a
part. And how would anyone err about seeing an angel? Zachary
was dumb and that must be a sign. Why was he not permitted to
speak?
Zachary still had to tell them the answer to that question. En-
A CHILD IS BORN 19
treating them with shaking hands to be quiet and to hold back their
questions, he went on writing his account. The angel had not fin-
ished when he said that the man-child, John, would be filled with
the Holy Ghost. He went right on speaking in that same bass, un-
earthly voice, to predict that the son of Elizabeth and Zachary
would grow up to bring many of the people of the country to the
worship of the Lord their God. More, the angel declared that John,
who was yet to be born, would have the spirit and power of the
ancient prophet Elias. At this the others could keep quiet no longer.
"Do you realize what you are writing there?'* gasped Elizabeth.
"The coming of a prophet!" murmured Anna. "I told you we are
a strange family. We always 'were a strange family."
"Wait until it happens!" replied Elizabeth cautiously. It was plain
to see that she felt it necessary to remain skeptical. But the speechless
priest was writing furiously:
"I mean what I say. Every word of it. I saw the angel. I heard
his voice. Once and for all I insist that you remain quiet and hear the
whole story."
Silence again as he continued:
"The winged messenger with whom I held this interview finished
his first remarks with these words: 'He shall turn the hearts of
fathers unto their children and the incredulous to the wisdom of the
just, to prepare unto the Lord a perfect people/ "
The priest looked around him at the strained faces and shrugged.
"Then I felt a little better," he wrote, "because I recognized the
quotation. It was from the Book of Malachi, the last of our prophets.
But here I made a serious blunder. Since the familiar quotation made
me feel more at ease, more like myself, I suppose I lost a little of the
awe I felt. I am afraid I was a little disrespectful to this angel. At least
I plucked up enough courage to speak for the first time and asked
him a question. I spoke with great humility but I felt I had a right
to know, and so I simply asked: 'Whereby shall I know this? For I
am an old man and my wife is advanced in years.' "
"And what did he say to that, Zachary?" The words burst uncon-
trollably from Elizabeth.
"He answered me at once," wrote Zachary. "He simply said that
he was Gabriel."
Gabriel! Their faces paled with fear at the very idea. Gabriel was
the celestial messenger who had visited the proptiet Dtoiel oae of
the four archangels of die heavenly host.
20 THE GREATEST STORY EVER TOLD
Zachary nodded solemnly; sensed their awe.
"That is what he informed me," Zachary continued writing. "He
told me that he stood before God habitually and that he had been
sent to the holy place just to bring me these glorious tidings. But
his manner was much more serious and reproving now, let me tell
you. He had not liked my doubts. I felt sure of that by his manner.
He told me that I was not going to be allowed to talk any more.
'Behold, you are dumb,' he said to me. And he said I was not going
to be allowed to speak again until the day when these things come
to pass 'because,' he added, 'you have not believed my words.' "
And Zachary dropped his pen, looked helplessly around him, and
pointed to his open mouth, while he grew red in the face trying to
make a sound which would not come, not even a groan.
"Did he say anything else?" breathed Elizabeth.
Her husband shook his head and wrote again:
"I closed my eyes and prayed a moment. When I opened them
again, the angel was gone. That was when I staggered out of the
holy place and found that his words were already proved true:
I could not speak."
Had the old man dreamed these things in a vertigo, a sudden
stroke? Such things had happened within their experience. With
all the faith in the world Zachary might be imagining the whole
story. Elizabeth insisted on calling the flea-bitten physician of the
town who prescribed a purgative and a diet of warm barley soup
and figs. Moreover, the patient must remain flat on his back for
three or four days. Of course the doctor was not told the Temple
story; that was for the ears of the family alone. Soon after the doctor
left Zachary fell into a deep sleep.
Late into the night the others talked the marvel over. Elizabeth
found it hard to believe it was anything more than the phantasy of
a sick and tormented mind. Anna was puzzled. Joachim stubbornly
remained the believer. In the face of the realism of the womenfolk
he argued mystically: such visitations were not uncommon in the
olden times; why should people assume, then, that the age of miracles
had passed? Was there ever a time when people were more in need
of miracles?
Joseph kept his own counsel, and no one asked Mary what she
thought. In their eyes she was still a child whose views were not
sought in family counsels. But before they went to bed Mary said
to Elizabeth:
A CHILD IS BORN 21
"Cousia dear, you have prayed a long time. I believe in your
prayers, Elizabeth. Why should we be surprised if God has heard
them and will answer them? Why not wait and believe?"
And that, as time was soon to prove, was the wisest thing said in
the family that night.
Curiously, though, the next morning there was not much talk about
the mystery of the priest and the angel. By unspoken agreement
they avoided the topic. Human beings, when confronted with the
strange and inexplicable, have an immediate instinct to get back to
the accustomed and the normal. We do not hug our miracles close;
we put them hastily away, preferring the commonplace to live
with. It is as if some compulsive hand wipes clean the wall on which
the handwriting appeared.
At breakfast Joachim and Anna and Mary and Joseph talked
about the weather and the crops and the taxes, and Joachim decided
they must be starting home that afternoon.
Even on the return journey they spoke only once or twice, and
that briefly, about Zachary's experience. More and more they were
relieved to put the whole matter out of their minds. But when they
were all back in Nazareth and Mary carried a hot lunch down to
Joseph at the door of the carpenter shop, she sat with him there, in
wood chips and sawdust, her bare feet tucked under her skirt, light
blue mantle tossed back, and they talked together.
"Do you believe it will come true, Joseph?" Mary asked, as if this
were the moment when she would be told how she should think
about it thereafter.
Joseph was slow to reply. He leaned his bearded chin on his palm
and stared off into vacancy, as if there were some hint in his heart
that the words he spoke now might someday bind him like a
vow.
"Zachary is a good man. He wrote clearly and distinctly; his
thoughts weren't confused or wandering; he didn't ramble like a
drunken man. He should trust a messenger from God."
"Oh yes, Joseph. You saw that he was as rational as you or I."
The frown left Joseph's face and he turned to her fondly.
"Look at it this way," he argued. "Zachary is not only dumb; he
is also committed by a prophecy to prove himself a man who has
talked with an angel, or else one who has a delusion. There is no
escape from that. Either he and Elizabeth are to have a son or he
has told a demented tale. No man in his right senses would put him-
22 THE GREATEST STORY EVER TOLD
self in such a position with his wife and relatives unless he believed
it with all his heart and soul. Now would he, Mary?"
And Mary, sighing with admiring happiness, said: "No, Joseph.
Why hadn't I thought of it that way?"
And she rejoiced at how fortunate she was to be engaged to a
man who saw things so clearly and so wisely. After that conclusion
they had themselves to talk about. Over the months the exciting
episode receded in their minds until one day, by caravan messen-
ger, a note was brought to Anna.
"Peace be with you, my beloved one," Elizabeth had written.
"God has heard our prayers, indeed, and the promise of the holy
archangel is fulfilled. Anna, my darling aunt, listen and tell Joa-
chim and dear Mary and that fine young man, Joseph listen, be-
lovedat my age I am going to have a child!"
Chapter 4 NO DREAMS TONIGHT
AT THE close of the day's work Joseph sat in the back of his shop
and emptied a palmful of coins from a crock taken down from a
tall shelf. Farthings and pence and two gold pieces he had there
a fragile fortune, but it would soon be enough. Ever since he had
fitst seen Mary he had saved every mite against his wedding day,
which would not be long.
"Almost enough for everything," he congratulated himself. "And
my wife won't have to skimp and scrape."
Wife! What a magical word for a lonely man.
"Tonight," he resolved, "I will tell the family that we do not have
to wait any more."
It was spring in Nazareth and the warmth of April was in Joseph's
heart. The green hillsides all around the town were spread with
little blue and yellow and crimson flowers, their petals richer than
the incredibly bright carpets that came in bales on Arabian camels.
You could even taste the flower sweetness in the wind blowing
through the door of the shop.
It was good to step abroad after the long day's work. Good to
feel himself a living part of the town. A Roman soldier strode arro-
gantly by, leading an officer's white horse, a pampered animal fed
A CHILD IS BORN 2J
only on barley and chaff. But Joseph did not hate the Roman; he
did not hate anything in this soft April dusk. His heart was happy.
Through the gloaming and the untidy crowds he made his way with
confident haste. Now and then the carpenter was saluted by a cus-
tomera farmer, a shepherd, a blacksmith and he relished every
greeting with a sense of peaceful security. To be known and liked
gave him a sense of belonging a feeling of maturity. Soon he would
be a married man and a householder in Galilee; a workman with a
good trade, a home, and a family; a part of the very backbone of
the community.
Oh yes, he knew now that in Jerusalem sophisticates looked down
on the countrified Nazarenes, yokels with a ridiculous northern ac-
cent. Travelers whose broken wheels he mended told how in the
stadium shows of the capital comedians often imitated the rude ways
and provincial dialect of the Nazarenes and that a favorite jest on
the Jerusalem streets was the question: "Can anything good come
out of Nazareth?"
But Joseph, with all his fellow townsmen, felt that the people of
Jerusalem were unnatural and overcivilized. Anyway, he was proud
of his home town and expected to be very happy there with Mary
and children and work. What more could any man ask? Let Samuel
have his Jerusalem and his revolutions too.
A psalm of David came to his lips as he marched on through the
crowd. Everywhere around him were noisy people, enveloped in
their own errands. Once he passed a knot of excitable citizens sur-
rounding two old rabbis, all talking at once. For a hasty moment
Joseph's lighted lantern lit up their beards and caps. Dark-skinned
men, some with oily curls, tall bodies wrapped in street-stained
robes, they were engaged in a sidewalk arbitration. A husband who
had been penalized demanded to know the precise kind of meat
offering he must bring to the synagogue for his atonement. A be-
reaved father complained that he had been overcharged by the
funeral minstrels. Men and women and children all in a clamor about
their own affairs! But their numbers grew less as Joseph trudged on,
and the streets thinned and the crowds fell behind.
Just ahead of him was a lane, and at its turning was tie toese of
Joachim and Anna, white dome ghostlike in the dusk. At one side
of it ran a staircase daat-led to the roof, and looking up there Joseph
saw- Mary, She had a lantern in her, hand and &e"'Vrts bending over,
collecting dates: and figs that had been spread out to dry in the hot
24 THE GREATEST STORY EVER TOLD
sun. Knowing his footsteps, she straightened up and waved her hand.
Then Joseph passed into the house with the freedom of one who
feels himself already a member of the family. Anna was busy over an
earthen pot filled with live coals; she would spread the outside with
freshly kneaded dough and the heat would bake it into bread.
Joachim strode forward, the two men bowed ceremoniously, and
the younger man kissed the father's beard.
"Welcome the more for coming early," said Joachim heartily.
Joseph seated himself beside the older man and plunged at once
into his business. He had saved his money, he had improved the liv-
ing quarters behind the house, he was ready to buy a goat and hens
and a rooster; he wanted his wife. Why should there be any delay?
"Who makes delays?" demanded Joachim.
The carpenter glanced uneasily at Anna.
"No, Joseph," said Mary's mother, looking over her shoulder as
she patted the dough, "I will not stand in your way. I know now
that you love Mary and that she loves you. There is really no sense
in waiting. I am forced to agree with you about that; it will be bet-
ter so. Have you fixed a date in your mind?"
"I want to marry her yesterday," jested Joseph, and they all
laughed. "But no, I have not fixed any date. I want to talk with Mary
after supper tonight. I would like it better that way."
To this Joachim made no comment, but his glance was a little
puzzled. In his married life he made all the decisions; at least Anna
had succeeded in making him believe so.
Later, in the damp darkness of the Nazareth road, Joseph and
Mary strolled and talked. They were full of their plans and felt a
little awed by them. Completely occupied with a dozen small and
enchanting details about their wedding, they were oppressed that
soft evening with no foreboding. The clover-laden night winds car-
ried no warning of what was in the air, and once, when the pair
stood silent together and looked up at the lean and golden scimitar
of the new moon and the hiving, glittering stars, and all earth seemed
hushed for them to listen, they did not hear the faintest rustle of a
wing.
Minds and hearts filled only with their personal plans, it was late
when they were ready to say good night, but they had come to a
decision. Within three months they would be married. Joseph would
have liked it earlier but Mary pointed out that there was still sewing
to do and a few more shekels her father wanted to accumulate, she
A CHILD IS BORN 25
knew, to fill out her modest dowry. Three months would not seem
so long, now that the date was fixed.
"I hope I see you early tomorrow," said Joseph when it was time
for him to go home.
"Very early, Joseph. When I go to the well for the morning
water," she promised.
Their hands clasped and they parted. Joseph strode off bravely to
his carpenter shop; he flung himself down on his pallet with a happy
sigh and buried his head in his arms and thought how fortunate he
was among Nazarene men; how happy he was and how much hap-
pier he was going to be. Soon he fell asleep. Sleeping, he dreamed
only of the slight, inconsequential phantasmagoria that all men
dream of: Mary's blue mantle blowing in the clover-laden wind and
Mary's dream-laden eyes.
No grand dreams, such as his ancestors, the prophets, had known
in olden days. No foreseeing of what was on the way, marching in
a mighty silence toward the earth. And no more than Joseph did
Herod the Great and his kingdom of Judea with him, nor Caesar
Augustus in his Roman palace, dream that night that the world was
about to roll another way. None even to feel one cosmic hint that
near at hand was a social and moral revolution, coming without
harp or cymbals but in the deep soundlessness of this night. . . .
Early the next morning Joseph awoke to know that something had
gone amiss. He heard a pounding on the door and his name being
shouted. As he opened sleepy eyes he beheld Joachim standing, pale
and distrait, distracted hands uplifted.
"Peace be unto you, Joachim," Joseph muttered, embracing him*
"What is it? Tell me, what is wrong?"
"The Lord be with you, Joseph," groaned the father, laying a
heavy hand on Joseph's shoulder. "Listen, my son. Mary has disap-
peared."
Chapter $ HAIL, MARY!
MARY, the young betrothed, the blue-eyed, black-haired girl who
loved Joseph heart and soul had fled Nazareth because within five
minutes after she had said good night to her beloved her life, her
body and soul, had undergone a change*
26 THE GREATEST STORY EVER TOLD
It was an experience shattering to the very roots of her being. For
hours after it happened she was unable to speak; she could scarcely
breathe. It was so inexplicable, so dazing and frightening that for
the time she could not force herself to tell her mother or father or
even Joseph.
How could she ask them to believe that she had actually known
such a wonder?
Yet she bad known it. Without one instant's preparation she had
walked into it, immediately after that tender good night at the gate.
Joachim and Anna had been chatting up on the roof; they, too, had
much to talk about. The hens and rooster were perched and fast
asleep; the dog was out barking behind the garden, and the sheep
and goats were dozing.
Feeling a little chill, for the night was damp, Mary had crossed
the lower floor inside the house and mounted to the inner terrace.
As she went up the steps to the platform she realized that she was
not alone. A tall figure was standing near the farther wall!
A stranger. An odd and altogether different stranger! Because he
seemed to stand in light where there was no lamp, and a kind of
silvery mist enveloped him as if the light were his cap and gown.
Mary opened her mouth to speak, to demand who he was and what
he wanted there, but he anticipated her with an unexpected greeting.
"Hail, Maiy!"
The voice was kind and fathomlessly deep; such a voice as Mary
had never heard before bass and yet tender.
"Full of grace!" the voice continued.
Hail, Mary, full of grace! She felt embarrassed and even more
frightened.
"The Lord is with you. Blessed are ypu among women."
She folded her hands and she knew then how she was trembling
in every muscle. The stranger saw.
"Fear not, Mary."
She bowed her head. She must not be afraid. She knew she could
trust this deep and tender voice. But she could not still her quaking.
She closed her eyes and listened to the astounding words this
stranger was speaking. She had found grace with God. She would
conceive in her womb and bring forth a son.
She too! That was akin to the message that had come to Zachary
for Elizabeth. Cousin Elizabeth was to have a son and his name must
be John.
A CHILD IS BORN 2J
"And you shall call his name Jesus!"
"Jesus! He will be my son. Jesus! Jesus, son of Mary! I shall
bring him forth and hold him in my arms and sometimes I shall give
him to Joseph to hold too!" Her mind was a place of wild, birdlike
thoughts; yet she must listen to all that the stranger continued to
tell her: her son Jesus was to have the throne of David, his father
"And of all his kingdom there shall be no end*"
Then came her instant need for reality. The very human impulse
that had made Zachary question his angel and lost him his speech as
penalty now possessed Mary, too, for there was in her, as in us all,
an insatiable necessity for die actual in the midst of the marvelous.
Who this stranger was she did not know; yet the maiden who heard
his words felt bound to question him.
"How shall this be done?" she asked in a whisper. "Seeing I know
not a man?"
But there came no frown on the austere and shadowy face of the
stranger. Instead, in the starry blaze of his eyes she read only com-
passion. He took a step nearer and she saw the folded wings and
knew him for what he was.
His voice lower and deeper still:
"The Holy Ghost shall come upon you. The power of the Most
High shall overshadow you and therefore also the Holy which shall
be born of you shall be called the Son of God."
Mary felt stifled, suffocated, as she heard these incredible words.
She to be the mother of a son who would be called the Son of God?
How could one little Nazareth girl take all that in?
The voice of the stranger was lowered into an intimate whisper:
"Your cousin Elizabeth . . "
He paused until she nodded, and then he went on:
"She also conceived a son. In her old age! This is the sixth month
with her that is called barren. Because with God nothing shall be
impossible!"
TMs was the reality she needed. For the angel had spoken truth
as she knew it. It was true about Elizabeth. Well, then . . .
She looked up at him plaintively, her eyes half closed, her words
coming so softly that she could barely hear herself speak.
"Behold the handmaid of die Lord. Be it done unto me according
to your word,"
As if by incantation the angel vanished; one instant he was there,
gone the next. Ami Mary, swayii^ and 'immuring crossed the
28 THE GREATEST STORY EVER TOLD
floor and sank to her knees and lay upon her pallet and closed her
eyes and wept and prayed. Too much to understand! She wanted to
scream for Anna and throw herself into those strong, stout arms
and cry to her mother what had just happened. But she could not
bring herself, even in the first agony of that hysteria, to risk cer-
tain disbelief. They thought of her as still a child, anyway. They
would say she had imagined this thing because Elizabeth was having
a child and Zachary had said he saw an angel.
Mary lay there quietly while Joachim and Anna tiptoed down
from the roof. They went to their bed after their prayers. But Mary
could not sleep. She stole up from her bed after two hours of rest-
lessness; she wrote her mother a note, made herself a bundle, and
set off alone down the long road.
There was one other person in the world to whom she felt she
must first confide the experience.
She was walking to Cousin Elizabeth.
Chapter 6 WHAT A ONE, THINK YOU!
"WELL, Joseph?" demanded Joachim, something like truculence
in his voice. "Now you've heard. What do you say?"
Joseph shook his head slowly and turned to the washbasin. From
a jug that Mary had filled with water for him only the night be-
fore the carpenter poured a splash into the basin and dashed a hand-
ful on his face. He wet his hair and beard and, panting a little, dried
himself with a bundle of hay.
"Mary had a good reason," was his answer. "Be sure of that."
Joachim's face softened.
"She must have had," he agreed. "But can you imagine what it
would be? This is an unheard-of thing, Joseph. A girl does not run
off from her parents."
"And from her espoused one,"
"And, of course, from her betrothed," Joachim agreed. "Why,
only last night you two were setting the date for the wedding. Do
you suppose she got a little giddy; overexcited, I mean? She is a very
young girl."
"No, not Mary," declared Joseph firmly. "There was never an-
A CHILD IS BORN 29
other so composed as she. As serene. And," he added with an elo-
quence of words not usual in him, "unshakeable in her purposes. She
loves me. She is going to marry me. Last night we made great plans.
Something happened after I left her, I am sure of that; something
good; we must believe when we do not know."
But the same thoughts were in both minds. The great southern
road was long and difficult.
"If," sighed Joseph, answering his own doubts, "she had wanted
me she would have called me. And God will protect her," he added,
his voice breaking.
Joseph's faith was fully justified. As one under special protection
Mary traversed the weary distance. She had walked only a few
miles when a small caravan overtook her and offered her a donkey
to ride to the next town. Most of the whole way she was carried by
kindly strangers; three successive nights she found shelter with
friendly travelers glad to share with her their hospitality. In her
bundle was food enough but she need not have brought it along;
everyone offered her food.
Brooding she was, all the way; the wayfarers were struck by a
feeling of special separateness that distinguished her. One of the
least of them, a bearded old tatterdemalion who had journeyed east
and west on the backs of camels for more than forty years, a rake-
hell from the Damascus bazaars, gave her a cup of flavored water late
one night and whispered:
"Where have you found such peace?"
There was no mirror for Mary to study; it would be days later
before the peasant girl would notice for herself the pallor that was
coming to her face and neck, arms, and the backs of her hands, like
cream over strawberries; the blood-red natural color of strength
and youth was giving way to some newer and purer force taking
possession.
Without a mirror she realized that something had taken hold of
her and changed her. She felt as if she were a new person, a stranger
who keeping all previous memories was nevertheless different; a
mixed awareness of glory and humility. She felt small and weak
and yet powerfully protected. She walked with a new assurance
in which there was not pride but a profound sense of pamcipatioti
in the universal flow of life; kinship with all nature. The sap rising
in the twisting trunk of a sycamore tree was also in her blood; the
very sight of dewdrops on the morning grass seemed enough to
30 THE GREATEST STORY EVER TOLD
slake her thirst; the warmth of the sun itself was stored within her
being and shone from her as well as upon her from the sky. Not
a glisten in the eyes of a weeping child but became a part of the
love in her thoughts, and the singing of birds, the softness of winds,
the good taste of milk, everything good and useful made a unity in
her, a oneness, a celestial unwearying sense of belonging.
This was the way she had felt ever since the Annunciation of
the Angel. These were her sensations, waking and sleeping; her
thoughts were simple and almost like the thoughts of someone else:
ideas hatched on some distant star and only vaguely related to pres-
ent place and time. And this was so, even while thoughts of reality
persisted; they were of Anna and Joachim a little, and of Joseph
a little more. How could she tell him? What could she say to him?
Cousin Elizabeth must advise her.
The image of Cousin Elizabeth was uppermost in her mind and
sustained her through the seventy-five-mile journey. It was nearing
sunset of the third day when she found herself four miles east of
Jerusalem, back in the tiny suburb of Ain Karim; ahead only a short
way was the squat house of Zachary and Elizabeth, and there was
her cousin, six months big with child, sitting on the dooryard stoop.
Now Mary had come all the long distance to Elizabeth, not be-
cause she doubted the angel but because she believed in him. Only
for a moment during the shadowy interview had she questioned
the message. There was never again a doubt in her mind; she had
acted on the message with prompt faith. Yet even the trust of Mary
was startled at the confirming greeting she received.
"Hail, Mary!" cried Elizabeth happily*
The elderly and pregnant woman did not seem at all astonished
at seeing her young cousin. The stern face was flushed with pleasure
as she got to her feet and waved both hands, and as Mary came
nearer she cried out:
"Blessed are you among women! "
The dusty figure of Mary stopped short in the road. Those very-
words she had heard before from the angel!
"And blessed is the fruit of your womb!"
"You repeat the angel's words to me, Cousin Elizabeth. How did
you know?"
Elizabeth embraced her, and then whispered:
"For look, as soon as the voice of your salutation sounded in my
ears, the infant in my womb leaped for joy. And you are blessed
A CHILD IS BORN 3!
because you have believed, because those things shall be accomplished
that were spoken to you by the Lord."
With a sob of relief Mary flung herself into the arms of Elizabeth.
For what seemed an eon, an incalculable period of time, she stood
there quivering in that comforting embrace. Then, speaking very
softly, she uttered the words of her Magnificat, all unaware that the
world would sing those words and pray them for thousands of
years, but pouring them out for the first time in the consolation of
her communion with Elizabeth;
"My soul doth magnify the Lord; and my spirit hath rejoiced in
God my Savior. Because He hath regarded the humility of His hand-
maid; for behold from henceforth all generations shall call me blessed.
Because He that is mighty hath done great things to me; and holy
is His name. And His mercy is from generation into generations,
to them that fear Him."
As at last Elizabeth led her into the house, she whispered:
"Do you realize that you are pregnant already?"
Mary's eyes entreated her.
"I have not known a man." She trembled.
"Of course, beloved!"
For the first time tears rolled down Mary's cheeks.
"You believe me. You know," she quavered. "But how can anyone
else ever believe me? Will not Joseph be sure to think . . ."
"What would any man think in his place?" asked Elizabeth. "But
God, Who has shown us these things, will surely show us how to
talk with Joseph. Come in now. You are tired and dusty and hungry.
No more deep talk until you have rested."
So Mary had a good rubdown by Elizabeth, who was a practical
nurse and often helped the sick of the village. With strong, well-
oiled hands she rubbed Mary's arms and back and thighs and eased
them of travel aches and pains. Then, having washed the feet of
her guest, she gave her bread to eat and cool goat's milk to drink
and bade her lie down. Almost before she closed her eyes, Mary was
asleep.
The kindness with which she was received on her arrival never
once wavered in the months that followed. In her advancing preg-
nancy Elizabeth was not strong enough to do the housework and
so Mary remained to be a maid to her until the child was delivered.
At once she wrote notes home, e^laiaing this as her intention. She
also told her mother that she had passed throtigh an experience of
32 THE GREATEST STORY EVER TOLD
which it was impossible for her to write. When she came back to
Nazareth she would confide everything.
To Joseph she sent a dutiful and tender note, telling him that the
time was soon coming when she would explain to him why she had
to' leave so suddenly. No mention of the day they had set for their
wedding; indeed she did not dare to speak of their marriage at all.
For Mary was perfectly well aware that any man might refuse to
believe her and cast her out. This was her only source of unhappi-
ness in those first three months. She was busy, she worked hard,
and she retained within herself that supernal sense of universal be-
longing, of general participation with earth and stars in the mystery
of life.
She remained in Ain Karim until the great day when pains of the
womb brought Elizabeth moaning to her couch. The midwife and
Mary succored her through long and weary hours of labor until
at last her child came into the world. As the angel had predicted,
a man-child, more than ten pounds in his birth weight, screaming
of voice at the age of one minute he was, and red and wild-eyed
and with a look of outrage at the behavior of the world on his broad
and wrinkled little face.
And, true even to the last prophetic accent of the angel, Zachary
immediately found his voice again. For the first time in nine months
the village priest could speak. Friends and relatives and neighbors
clamored around him, exclaiming at the wonder and drowning out
his own long-postponed tones, refusing to listen to him but rejoicing
at the top of their own lungs that Zachary could talk again, which
he could not, not until they quieted down and gave him a chance.
When he was alone with his family, Zachary wonderingly re-
peated the words of his neighbors:
"What a one, think you, this child shall be? For the hand of the
Lord was on him."
And delighting in the musical resonance of his own tones he raised
them an octave and cried out:
"Blessed be the Lord God of Israel."
Later, when baby John was washed and rubbed with ointment
and his already unruly hair smoothed with a little oil, Mary carried
him in and laid him in the arms of his father. On the rugged face
of the priest there was a look of almost juvenile delight as he gazed
down upon this child of his old age.
A CHILD 'IS BORN 33
"John!" he murmured teasingly, as if the child should already
know his name. "John, our gift from God! John!"
Perhaps there was a touch of sadness in his voice. Perhaps Zachary
was oppressed with the realization that he had not much longer
to live; that he could not remain another lifetime on earth to guide
the career of his little son. But he consoled himself that this was
probably a saint he had brought into the world. The wildest, rough-
est, toughest, and bravest of saints! Even from his little boyhood
John would be different; he would not play as other children. Shun-
ning companionship, he would be drawn to the gaunt, parched gul-
lies that go down to the desert, and the steep, blistering hillsides of
the Judean wilderness. John would even turn aside from the spice-
flavored lentils of his mother's kitchen; he would refuse goat's milk,
and grow up to prefer locusts and wild honey.
The baby, less than two hours old, nestled peacefully now in the
arms of his old father while Mary looked down, pale and smiling,
upon him. John was to know less than most men of love and merci-
ful tenderness, yet he was to open the gates for the coming of love
into the world.
Chapter 7 WHEN HALF-GODS GO
SUDDENLY Samuel, the trader, returned from Jerusalem and called
on Joseph.
"I think," the carpenter said, "I notice a change in you, Samuel"
"No, I am just the same."
"Let be, then."
"Please, Joseph, what kind of change did you think you saw in
me?"
"Well, then, if you will not be offended . . ."
"I promise not to be,"
"Your speech has changed, for one thing. You no longer sound
like a Nazarene."
Samuel grunted smugly. Far from being offended, he was flattered.
"Of course, 51 he agreed. "In the big city they laugh at the way
we talk. Some of them can even tell a man from Lower Galilee from
34 THE GREATEST STORY EVER TOLD
a man from Upper Galilee just by his accent. In Jerusalem you soon
learn to talk as other educated persons do."
Joseph nodded, not without admiration. Like most country people,
he disliked the vices of the metropolis, yet he took a certain pro-
prietary pride in its vastness and busyness; he liked to think that
he understood the best and the worst about the great place.
"Is it only my accent that has changed?" asked Samuel carefully.
Joseph shook his head slowly.
"It is a little more than that. When you lived here in Nazareth
you were a merchant and you acted like one, even when away from
your bazaar."
"And how does a merchant act?"
"Very politely, Samuel. His voice is low and trustworthy if it
were not, the customers would distrust him. And there is a kindly
look in his eyes . . ."
Samuel began to laugh.
"And I come back looking like a criminal, is that it?"
Joseph again shook his head.
"You don't look like a ruffian at all, Samuel. But you do look
hunted. And furtive! And frightened!"
Samuel instantly became serious.
"There is never a moment when I am not in fear of my life. Go
on working, Joseph; no reason for you to lose a day's earnings be-
cause I am here. But let me talk to you a little while you do your
sawing and chiseling. The last time I talked to you, I thought I
knew all about the wickedness of Reb Naamaan. But now . . *"
"Who is Reb Naamaan?" asked Joseph innocently.
Samuel cupped his hands around his mouth and whispered in his
friend's ear.
"King Herod. We never dare mention his real name when we
talk. The sound of that name in your mouth will bring a spy to
your elbow instantly; if they misunderstand you, it may cost you
your life. So we never mention him except in code. Joseph, his deeds
would shame a tiger."
"More beast than man, then?" asked Joseph in a sad tone. He put
aside his tools and sat down for a moment on a sawhorse.
"Oh, don't underestimate him," cried Samuel. "He is a brilliant
leader . . ."
"Herod? You call such a man brilliant?" asked Joseph, thoroughly
shocked.
A CHILD IS BORN 35
"The truth must be told even about Beelzebub himself. Herod
has brains. He has a kind of military genius. And he has bravery*
But he has the hardest heart, the most unused conscience this side
of Sheol. He and his ghastly sister . . ."
"You mean the one they call Salome?" asked Joseph hesitantly.
"The same. They work together in a kind of satanic partnership
to increase the misery of our people. Imagine! He is fifty-nine years
old, with nine wives . . ."
"Nine wives!" groaned Joseph. "Nine wives, indeed."
"And only God knows how many concubines," snarled SarnueL
There was a moment's silence and then Samuel came nearer Joseph,
towering above him, and clamped both palms on his shoulders.
"Joseph," he cried, "hasn't the time come for you to change your
mind? How goes it with you? The last time I was here you were
mooning about marrying some girl you had never met But I see
by the look of the premises that no one lives here but you. You* re
still a bachelor. Her father refused you, then? Come with me to
Jerusalem . . # "
"She accepted me!" protested Joseph, leaping to his feet. "We
are to be married in a few days."
"A few days. You mean that?"
"Yes. We set the time almost three months ago today."
"Then where is she? Where is the excitement? Where are the
wedding preparations?"
Joseph looked distressed.
"You see, Samuel," he explained, "she has a cousin who has not
been in the best of health. She went to see that cousin. I am ex-
pecting her back any day."
"You're still hard to figure out," Samuel grumbled. "But look
here, Joseph. I am with a caravan that rests in Nazareth tonight
We are taking, along with our merchandise, a troop of Roman min-
strels who will make a tour of eastern cities, singing the Roman
songs. Come down with me this evening to the camp fire. Let's have
supper together. And sing a few songs for old time's sake. And
talk more about our affairs. Will you do that?"
Sunset found Joseph at the camp with his friend by a small fire
of dried twigs. They ate bread and cheese and listened to the roister-
ing voices of the minstrels, who sang to the accompaniment of a
stringed instrument on which the musician played with little padded
hammers. One sang an ode of Pindar, the lyric pod: of Greece.
36 THE GREATEST STORY EVER TOLD
Another chanted of Dionysos, god of wine and the drama, who had
changed his name to Bacchus and made himself a Roman. Pagan
songs, yarns, and dithyrambs about the gods of Rome and how they
mated with mortal women, breeding half -gods who always stirred
up a lot of trouble in the world.
"Now you're hearing something," gloated Samuel. "Not those
sickening old psalms. Did you hear that song of the god and the
woman?"
"Yes. These men are simply pagans, worshipers of false gods, in
whom they do not really believe, anyway. But their gods are not
real. Their stories are false. They are just inventions. The singers
themselves laugh at them."
"Of course, Joseph. And does that not have a personal meaning
for you?"
"I do not follow, Samuel. You must speak clearly."
"Didn't you tell me a year ago that you would not fight for the
freedom of the people?"
"I remember."
"But do you remember what reason you gave me?"
"Certainly* I said we must put our trust in the promises of God,"
"And He promised to send a deliverer, wasn't that it?"
"Right."
"Who was to be God's own son, and born of a virgin? Am I not
now quoting the prophecies?"
"Yes, Samuel."
"And it is on those very prophecies that you were relying?"
"Yes."
"Well, then "
Samuel crept forward. He was lying on his stomach, his vast legs
lost in shadow, but his face, resting in his palms, was reddened by
the fire.
"Can't you see, Joseph, that it is all just an old wives' tale told
in every language? Every silly religion teaches the same thing. You
talk to the Indoos from India and the Iranians from Persia. Or, for
that matter, talk to the Greeks. They all have the same story of
gods having children by mortal women,"
He paused, and when Joseph did not speak, he prodded his friend:
"Don't you see?"
"See what?"
Joseph was showing unexpected stubbornness.
A CHILD IS BORN 37
"That you are making your decision on a fairy tale. You are be-
lieving in a universal nonsense."
Joseph leaned forward, and now the light was on his face.
"In universal truth," he replied with the same tranquil conviction
that always annoyed Samuel with its force. "Even though some
people worship these false gods, and believe in myths, the Messiah
will not come just for our people, but for all for everybody!" -
"What's that, Joseph? Watch yourself. You will be uttering a
blasphemy."
The two men laughed, but Joseph finished what he had to say.
"God is not just a little tingling like Herod. Not just the God of
our people alone. He is God of every people; of every human being
living in this world. No matter what others believe, I am sure the
Messiah will come not only to us, but to the Romans, the Indoos,
and Persians, as well as everybody else."
Samuel clucked his tongue.
"I think that is both nonsense and blasphemy." He sighed. "There's
something rather pretty about it though. It would be glorious if
anybody could believe it."
"Our people have believed it for a long time."
"Oh, I know. I went to school as well as you, Joseph. I'll admit
that I wasn't so interested. I remember that God made the promise
to redeem the race of Adam, after the flood."
Joseph cut in earnestly:
"Was there ever a time in history when we needed the Messiah
more?"
"This Messiah has become an obsession with you," objected Sam-
uel. "And with too many other people. It is what is holding us back.
I will admit that we need a leader. I went to Jerusalem to join the
revolutionary movement and was ready to put my services at the
command of someone who could use them. But I could find no real
leader of the resistance. That is what we have to have. We want a
superior military genius. Do you expect your Messiah to be a great
general?"
Joseph shook his head.
"I fear," he smiled, "that you are incorrigible. You want a soldier
Messiah. That is so he can attack Herod, throw out his soldiers and
the Romans. A puny country like Palestine against the empire of
Rome! That is a man-sized undertaking, even for a messiah. But
still not enough for you. After he has thrown out the foreigners,
38 THE GREATEST STORY EVER TOLD
put Herod and his supporters to death, he will then have to tran-
quilize our own people, and unify them. After a military genius,
you want next a Messiah who is also a political master. Before long
you will be asking for a great financier too!"
Joseph laughed softly at his own words.
"Perhaps not you, Samuel, but a great many expect the Messiah
to be all those things and more, and I fear that they will be greatly
disappointed because I do not think he will be any of them."
"And what do you think he will be like, then?"
In the waiting silence a driver, suddenly befouled by the beast he
had just fed, screeched a malediction on the whole tribe, and swear-
ing that when God had finished designing all the other animals,
he made camels from the scraps. And then before Joseph could
answer Samuel a hand was thrust from the darkness behind him
and tapped the carpenter on the shoulder. Startled, he turned swiftly,
looking up into the face of Joachim.
"Peace be with you," the young man breathed, aware of sudden
fear.
"And the Lord be with you, Joseph. I came over here to ask you
to come to your shop. Mary is there, waiting for you. She says she
wants to talk with you at once. Alone."
Chapter 8 JOSEPH DREAMS A DREAM
ON THE wooden table the rush lights were lit and fluttering, and
the shadows were like jumpy phantoms on the white plaster of the
wall. Mary was standing before the door, and the lambent yellow
flames of the candles inside were playing over her face in shivering
light. But the sportive light only showed clearer to Joseph how
much Mary had changed; she looked like a phantom of the girl he
remembered.
She was so pale now that she might have been a specter, not of
the dead but the living. She whose cheeks had been ripe orchard
red with the warmth of health; whose strong arms could swing the
household baskets, heavily burdened, and take pleasure in her own
strength; whose stride was young and free and full of the energy
of earth* was now a wraith of her former self, yet she had growa
taEer. There was a primrose pallor in her skin. Especially the en-
A CHILD IS BORN 39
larged glow of her eyes startled Josephit summed up the mystical,
frightening change in her.
"Mary!"
"Joseph!"
"Peace be with you!"
"And the Lord be with you."
"Beloved, are you ill?"
"Beloved, don't come nearer to me. Not just yet. There is some-
thing I have to tell you."
He stood, straight and tall, twisting his cap nervously in knotty
fingers, his brow heavily creased.
"Say it at once, Mary, beloved, whatever it is. I am listening."
"Then, Joseph, beloved . . ."
"Yes?"
"I am with child."
If the world had broken into two parts and dropped away into
bottomless space, her words could not have sounded more unlikely.
She had spoken softly; all her talk was soft, with a new and dignified
strangeness and sweetness which he noticed vaguely and wondered
if, having been away from Galilee, she was losing the country ac-
cent of the people, like Samuel, but it was more than that: it was a
new and singular dignity in her voice and the remote music of it,
the authority in it.
Mary with child!
Joseph stood, unmoving; the fingers stopped playing with the
cap; it was as if he had fallen into a catalepsy. Mary running off.
Mary staying away. Mary coming back. Mary with child.
"Joseph!" she faltered. "Speak to me."
"But you have not known me," he spoke in a far-off whisper.
"I have not known man."
"But you say you are with child!" he cried, and in his wounded
tone was the pain of a man who cannot believe his own anguish.
"Yes, Joseph."
"Whose child?" he groaned.
"Not the child of any man," she answered, her pale face clear be-
fore him.
"What is this you say?"
And he mumbled her words, repeating them twice over, trying
to grasp the incomprehensible.
"It is from God," she insisted. "It is not from man but from God.
40 THE GREATEST STORY EVER TOLD
The angel Gabriel, who came to Zachary, came also to me. Eliza-
beth's child is born and he is a man-child and his name is John, just
as the angel declared. And now I am the handmaid of the Lord and
shall be the mother of the Promised One!"
"Mary! Do you know what you are saying?"
"Yes."
"If the elders hear you, they will have you put to death."
"Still it is true, Joseph."
He threw his cap to the ground and flung himself after it on a
pile of chips and sawdust.
"Tell me this strange thing," he invited glumly. "I shall listen and
no more interruptions."
Step by step Mary rehearsed for him the incredible proceedings.
From the moment when they had bidden each other good night
she took up the story: the meeting with the stranger on "the inner
terrace of her home, the annunciation, the folded wings, the vanish-
ing of the angel whom she knew to be Gabriel. She explained why
she could not come at once to Joseph, nor to her parents; she felt
only Elizabeth would understand. And Elizabeth had understood;
in fact, Elizabeth had learned of it all in advance in a dream and
had greeted her with the same salutation as the angel. She had
remained with her cousin until John was born; had conceived and
of the Holy Spirit. She was a virgin and she was going to bring a
child into the world.
And then there was a long silence. At last Mary said:
"You are thinking deep thoughts, Joseph."
"I am thinking," muttered Joseph, slowly scrambling to his feet,
"it is a curious thing that no angel came to me."
He exhaled a vast and hopeless sigh.
"Surely I have a right to be shown the truth of this matter!" he
cried. "Am I expected to take this shocking story casually? I have
no wish to quarrel. The Lord knows that I have loved you, Mary,
with all my mind and all my heart and all my soul. I have no eyes
for any other only you. Since I first saw you, my whole" life has
been shaped around you. I counted on you. But if this thing has
happened, why is it that no angel reassured me? Is that so unreason-
able? Don't I count at all?"
She wept. It had not occurred to her that he had been neglected
by the angel. But it was true. Joseph had only her word for what
had happened. And that was a great deal to ask of any man.
A CHILD IS BORN 4!
"Have you told your mother?"
"No; nor Father, either. I felt I must tell you first."
Joseph went to her slowly and she noticed how his shoulders
were bowed, how sagging the line of his small golden beard, how'
stricken his eyes. A wave of mothering pity went through her; she
wanted to gather him in her arms and croon to him.
"I must think," said Joseph. "Tomorrow we will talk more."
"Then peace be with you, Joseph."
"And the Lord be unto you, Mary."
He heard the rustle of her mantle as she gathered its folds around
her and walked, face toward the starless sky, out of the shop and
into the Nazareth night.
That was a dark night for Joseph. Sleepless he lay with misery
darkening his soul; he tossed back and forth on the straw pallet,
groaning in disappointment and grief, beating his fists against the
rough walls; he was ready to scream to the top of the city's heights,
yes, and to the invisible stars. Tearfully he recited old psalms and
prayers, hoping to quiet the storm in his heart. What was it his
lovely betrothed asked him to believe? That a virgin was to have
a child; that she was still as pure and innocent as he had known
her to be the day they promised each other to be husband and wife.
She asked him to accept God as the sole Father of her son. Then
she was asking him to believe something even more irrational
that their son no! not his son, but hers was to be the Deliverer
for which the people had been waiting for thousands of years; that
Mary was bringing into the world the Messiah. With a shudder he
remembered the Roman songs of the travelers around the camp fire:
Lord, God of Hosts, bring peace to my soul!
But peace seemed far off. In the gentle. soul of Joseph stirred a
new possibility a way by which he might escape from this anguish;
he might run off with Samuel and join the revolutionary movement
and forget Mary and the child. Forget by learning how to kill.
These were momentary notions. They were not welcome to
Joseph's spirit. He admonished himself: he must be wise and calm
in the disaster. He would not raise a scandal. There must be no dis-
grace. Joseph was minded to put away Mary privately. That was
by far the best way. Somehow things could be managed without
gossip. There was always a way to manage that, in Nazareth as every-
where else in the world.
When she came home, he would many her* He would ask no
42 THE GREATEST STORY EVER TOLD
more questions, raise no more doubts, accept the situation and stand
by her; he still wanted her. And then, having decided all this, Joseph
broke into stormy sobs and the little moans of a man's heartbreak.
His face was wet when at last he fell asleep.
Like his great ancestor, Joseph, son of Jacob, the young carpenter
of Nazareth dreamed a dream.
It was not a vivid, waking experience, such as Zachary and Mary
had known; it was a man's dream in his sleep, but it was so real, so
complete that on him it had all the effect of reality. In the dream the
angel of the Lord came to Joseph too; spoke kindly to him, almost
paternally, and told him not to be afraid to make Mary his wife;
that the child had been in truth conceived of the Holy Spirit, that
the name of the child was to be Jesus, and that he was to save the
people from their sins. Then the dream ended.
Slowly Joseph wakened. The darkness all around was so deep
that it was as if he lay in the womb of grief. Eyes open, staring into
black vacancy of space, Joseph found himself muttering a prophecy
from old Scripture-the words of the great Isaiah:
"Therefore the Lord himself shall give you a sign. Behold a virgin
shall conceive and bear a son,"
And then Joseph turned a little cold at a new thought that rushed
upon him. He would marry Mary, yes, and help bring up her super-
natural son.
Joseph did not know it, but even as Mary changed, so he was
changing now; changing into a great man. He could do that be-
cause he possessed what is called the gift of faith. He would marry
Mary. And he would be her most chaste spouse! Lying there in the
immeasurable dark, Joseph renewed his betrothal vows.
Chapter 9 COMMAND FROM ROME
JOSEPH watched over his young wife with ever-deepening and guard-
ian concern. And Mary, with unresting love for Joseph, cooked
his meals and scrubbed and mended his clothes, never tiring of keep-
ing that little house and shop shining and clean.
It had been a very simple wedding in Mary's house; afterward,
Joseph, arm around his bride, led her down the long and muddy
street and proudly through the open door.
A CHILD IS BORN 43
From their first moment alone together they knew perfect com-
panionship. Theirs was a marriage based on the yearning of soul for
soul, unbound to the earth; they were profoundly in love, so that
they felt closer than any union possible to mere bodies, knowing a
richness of delight that lay beyond the reach of flesh.
They worked all day; they visited with Joachim and Anna and
neighbors and friends in the evening; at first they went on a few
outings with friends. To the town they seemed a normal and or-
dinary couple.
But when they were alone together, they often talked of the won-
der that had altered their lives.
How very curious, Joseph sometimes found himself thinking.
While all Israel was in trouble, the people hoping and praying for
the promised Deliverer, Mary was carrying in her womb a miracu-
lous child.
"Ah, if it should really be so, Mary "
"God will show," she whispered, hushed and scared. "We must
wait!"
Only that afternoon new tales had come from Jerusalem of the
scheming of Herod to lay new taxes on the backs of the people.
"How can we pay?" a traveler railed. "We are starving already.
Our herdsmen tend lambs that they cannot eat. We are all under-
nourished. More, now, this Arab king is thinking about/'
How had he heard about Herod's secret plans? The traveler
winked at Mary and Joseph. The workers of revolution had ways
of finding out everything that was going on. Their spies scrubbed
and dusted in the very bedchamber of Herod and his wives. Watch
and see!
And then this same traveler told of how he had visited recently
with Elizabeth and Zachary. He gave a great account of their little
son John. That was the strongest boy baby he had ever seen; his
little hands had incredible strength, and he could already walk, long
before his time. But so far John had not uttered a word
Not long afterward Joseph learned that this visitor had known
what he was talking aboutthe news came just when Joseph had
begun to worry about Mary's condition. The village midwife and
Anna both agreed that the time was not far off for her child to be
born, and Joseph was insisting that Mary must not do any more
housework; she must lie down a great deal and rest. He had all a
young husband's terror of tke first ordeal of motherhood.
44 THE GREATEST STORY EVER TOLD
It was then that the word spread through every street in Naza-
reth of a new fiat from Rome: there was to be an empire-wide
census. The word had an ominous sound in Israel; the people had
an ancient, almost superstitious aversion to being counted.
But the orders for this colossal undertaking came down straight
from the Emperor himself; an imperial command from Caesar Au-
gustus: every one of his subjects was to be enumerated.
"And for what?" asked the little dyer in his shop down the street
from Joseph. "Why? Because they are going to increase the taxes
and no one must get out of paying."
Get out of paying? Joseph laughed. You could get out of the
world quicker than that The Romans by their land tax took one
tenth of every man's corn and two tenths of his grapes and fruit.
And then there was the poll tax; one per cent from everybody. And
all the other taxes. Now, more!
Soon the news was blazoned and proclaimed throughout all the
provinces. Jerusalem, it seemed, had been ignored in making the
arrangements; Caesar Augustus did not trust his puppet, Herod.
From the throne the word came that the people of Israel were to be
counted as an all-Palestine group, under the management of the
ranking emissary in the area, Cyrenus, governor of Syria. And Cyre-
nus had already announced stern penalties for any person living in
Palestine who did not obey this positive and authoritative command.
The most disturbing fact to Joseph was that it meant a long
journey for him when he felt he was needed at Mary's side. To re-
main in Nazareth and be counted was impossible, because under the
ruling each person must be registered in the city headquarters of
the tribe to which he belonged. For Joseph, that meant he must go
all the way down to Bethlehem.
."Not only you," he was told by one of the elders of the Nazareth
synagogue. "Your wife must also go to her rightful headquarters
to be counted."
Joseph's incredulous look was full of sudden fear.
"How can Mary go?" he protested, "Don't you know she is going
to have a baby any day?"
"What do Romans care about Jewish wives or babies?" the elder
returned with a shrug. He did agree, at Joseph's urgings, to make
an appeal; to see if an exception could be made in this case. The an-
swer .came back swift and certain, "No!"
They must leave at once to be in Bethlehem on the appointed day!
A CHILD IS BORN 45
Bewildered at such inhumanity and injustice, Joseph scarcely-
heard the clamor of talk around him; in the synagogue there was
sorrow in many a heart. "We were counted once by Moses; why
should we be counted again?" Not much logic in the question, but
no one was feeling logical; they were thinking with their nerves,
with their emotions, above all with the galling sense of power ex-
erted by empire's force upon them.
Later, Joseph talked long with Mary about it. He reminded her
how, in the second year after the flight from Egypt, Moses had
mustered the tribes, all except the priestly caste of Levi, who were
exempted from military service and taxes. From then on, according
to those tribal divisions set up by Moses, their ancestors had marched,
pitched their tents, and made their offerings. And ever since the
branches of family trees had been faithfully preserved in or out of
captivity, under generals, kings, and judges. Some records in the
Nazareth synagogue and the family traditions made it clear that
both Joseph and Mary must go to Bethlehem, because that was
David's city, and they were both of the house of David.
"Why should it have to be?" demanded Joseph, who was pro-
foundly shaken by the danger to his young wife. "Our priests have
their own way of arriving at these things and it is good enough.
When they want to count, they have only to add up the passover
lambs and multiply by ten."
"And why by ten, Joseph?" asked Mary, delighted as always
with his knowledge.
"Because from ten to twelve persons may eat a passover lamb.
Then we have to make an allowance for the lepers and the other
unclean outcasts. But we know pretty accurately just how many of
us there are. This journey to Bethlehem! Oh, Mary, I am afraid . . ."
But Mary smiled confidently.
"Joseph, my beloved," she said, "remember what the angel said
to me?"
" 'Do not be afraid, Mary!' " he quoted.
"And what did he say to you in that dream?"
"The very same words."
"Then we should not be afraid. And there is something else. I
have been listening to the Scriptures in the synagogue; the rabbi
does not know how eagerly, Joseph. There are prophecies."
"About the Messiah, Mary?"
46 THE GREATEST STORY EVER TOLD
"Yes. That he was to be born in Bethlehem. Had you forgotten,
Joseph?"
He gasped.
"No, Mary I had not forgotten. It confounds me now to re-
alize , . ."
"Should we be afraid, Joseph?"
"No, Mary, my beloved. We shall go to Bethlehem,"
The next morning they began their journey.
Chapter 10 THE LONG JOURNEY
FROM Nazareth it is a distance of seventy-five miles to Bethlehem
of Judea. For Joseph and Mary and Anna and Joachim the aged
father and mother also had to go down to be counted that made
a three-day journey. The two women rode on stubborn little Gali-
lean donkeys, while their men trudged alongside and held on to
the reins.
They went by the way of the great pilgrim road, running north
and south, crowded with other families, on donkey and traveling
afoot. Wayfarers by the thousands cluttered the highway, all leav-
ing their homes because the Emperor of Rome had said that they
must. Resenting the edict, most of them, nevertheless, made a holi-
day of the excursion; friendly bands kept together and camped and
cooked and at night pitched tents around wood fires; they slept on
blankets spread upon the ground.
During the heat of the day they sang lustily from the psaltery:
the brave and happy songs of David; several men had brought along
little harps and plucked at the strings as they marched. So it was
not a lonely journey and Mary did not suffer. Her light blue mantle
was tucked back like a high collar rising behind her head and the
wind played with her hair; she was pale and her face was much
thinner, but her eyes were quiet and she remained very still; not
once did she join in the singing; she seemed to be listening and wait-
ing-
Joseph tried to beguile her. Only once before had he ventured
from his home town, and he had an unaccustomed traveler's eager-
ness to find out all about the places through which they passed and
then to tell his wife what he had learned. Casting a learned eye on
A CHILD IS BORN 47
the fertile fields and orchards that lined the road, he recounted what
farmers had told him of prospects for the harvest. But soon the
farms were left behind and their way led through rocky 'Galilean
hills and red earth weathered from the hard limestone of the high-
lands; the fields now were like deserts broken with fragments of
black stone.
"Mary, beloved, we are coming near to Shiloh."
"Is Shiloh a big place, Joseph?"
"Not so very big. Except in history. The teacher in the synagogue
says it was there that the mother of Samuel came to pray for the
gift of a child."
"Ah, she certainly had an answer to her prayers. We must keep
on praying like that, Joseph."
"Yes, we must."
And a little later:
"Now we are coming into Gilgal."
"Gilgal? I have heard the name. What happened there, beloved?"
"That was where Samuel judged our people more than eleven
hundred years ago."
"It seems too far off, that time, to be real."
"Yes. I suppose history is always like that to modern people like
ourselves."
With Mary sitting on the donkey and Joseph pulling at the bridle
rein, they passed through the tall defile of rocks that was known in
legends as the Valley of Tears. They laughed their way through
its gloomy shadows; Anna had driven up and was riding abreast
of her daughter, and now old Joachim began to tell stories of his
boyhood.
They talked, too, of the great events of old that seenxed as near
to them now as the historic regions they traveled Gibeah, where
once was the palace of the fierce and arrogant King Saul; and not
far off Bethel, where Jacob made his prayer and the backsliders
sounded their cymbals before the golden calf.
"And there," added Joseph thoughtfully, "Amos made his proph-
ecyof the Messiah!"
Hearts were lighter the third morning because they expected to
reach their journey's end before nightfall. Joseph was apprehen-
sively watching his wife all day; he *had been wakeful during the
night arid heard her sighing in dreams, and he kept praying con-
stantly that they would get safely to Bethlehem.
48 THE GREATEST STORY EVER TOLD
"Bethlehem!"
A shout went up. Throngs of the pilgrims began to sing the psalms
of David again and others, tired as they were, danced with joy in
the dust. But a most solemn feeling came over Joseph when he saw
the white roofs and greenery of the little town. He took Mary's
hand and they looked together; slanting golden light on white plaster
houses topping the green hillsides, where flocks of sheep were graz-
ing drowsily.
This. was the city of their tribal ancestors. And Mary recalled the
old story of how the great millionaire Boaz came down this very
road on his camel one day and saw a poor woman moving about
in his field. The reapers had long since gone, but this lovely and
hungry young woman was laboring for spillings of grain they had
left behind them on the ground. Ruth and Boaz! They were among
the ancestors of Mary and Joseph!
The pair rested on the road for a few minutes as they gazed upon
the serene landscape, the tall spurs of the hills, the wheat fields, the
olive clumps, the fig trees and many other trees tall, strong in
their green reach against blue sky and puffy white clouds.
"Those trees are wonderful, are they not?" asked Mary. It was
her way of being casual in these last desperate hours. She knew he
had a carpenter's eyes for such things and easily named for her the
poplars and live oaks, the pines, the firs, and the tamarisks.
"Are those the ones you told me were cut down for the ships?"
asked Mary.
"Right, my. beloved. They are used for masts and keels; the Medi-
terranean Sea is full of such things from Bethlehem."
And as they renewed their steep climb into the town Joseph kept
determinedly talking. He had noticed a tightening of his wife's hands,
a whitening of knuckles.
"The child must be coming," he told himself. "I will get her to
a bed as quickly as possible. Meanwhile I will try to keep her mind
busy with other things."
And so he chattered on about the noble respect in which all men
held this city of their ancestors. It was from here that Saul had set
out to find his father's cattle and laid the foundation of the king-
dom. Here Jesse, son of Obed, son of Ruth, had pitched his tents,
and here his youngest boy, David, had watched his sheep; David
the poet, the soldier, the king, had lain on these same grassy hill-
sides and heard the morning stars sing together.
A CHILD IS BORN 49
Presently a well-intentioned traveler tried to join in the travel
lecture of troubled, anxious Joseph. Blandly this talk-hard seized
Joseph by the wrist.
"Over there!" he pointed, "Where the olive groves meet with
the road? That solid little building of small rocks with the white
plaster roof. See it?"
"I see it!" acknowledged Joseph, with the sigh of a man who has
other matters to see to.
"That is one of the most ancient sights in the world. Inside there
is a great boulder, all shiny smooth worn that way by the kisses
of women for a thousand years, my friend women who weep and
wail."
"Why do women kiss and weep in that place?"
"Because it is poor Rachel's tomb!"
Joseph shuddered and drew his wife quickly away from this mor-
bid stranger. He had forgotten that it was here the great tragedy
had befallen Rachel; here she lost her life in giving birth to Benja-
min.
Now they entered the streets of Bethlehem, and the press of pil-
grims was so great that the pair could scarcely move forward; no
one would even listen to Joseph when he asked the way to a hotel;
one urchin laughed in his face at such a question. Five hostelries
they tried but all were filled up. Joseph kept on doggedly; he forced
his way through the door of the last tavern and demanded to talk
to the host.
"My wife is ill," pleaded Joseph. "Her baby is about to be born."
The innkeeper was a stout and grumpy man with an enormous
stomach. He had rolls of fat under his chin, and little dumplings
hanging under his eyes, and oily gray curls.
With red hands clasped in front of him, he gaped at these four
Nazarenes, and it seemed to Joseph as if all mercy fled from his little
eyes. For a moment he said nothing; then he curled fat fingers around
his mouth and bawled hoarsely:
"Sarah!"
His wife, just as stout as he was she might have been himself
in women's clothes came shuffling from the back of the house.
"What you want?" she demanded, hoarse voice a replica of his
own.
"Look at this woman."
"Which?"
50 THE GREATEST STORY EVER TOLD
"The young one, not the old one,"
"I see her, yes."
"Is she having her baby now or is this a scheme to get lodgings?"
The greasy wife leaned forward, hardening the creases in her neck.
"This one," she announced, voice even hoarser with fright, "is
having the baby now. I know. I have had ten."
"Please," implored Joseph, "for the love of God "
"Don't you realize," growled Sarah, "the place is full? All Bethle-
hem is full. There's not a bed in the town tonight. But she can't
have a baby here on the floor. We've got to do something. Gabriel!"
"Hah?" answered the innkeeper obediently,
"There is one warm and comfortable place where we haven't put
anybody yet."
"Is there now? Where? Just where?" demanded Gabriel.
"In the stable!"
"The stable!" echoed Joseph miserably, and Anna put her arms
around Mary, But the young wife looked gratefully at the innkeep-
er's wife.
"You are very kind to think of it," she said. "A stable is warm.
And it will be Hke home, because often I slept downstairs with the
sheep and the goats." She turned to Joseph. "These people would
surely take good care of their animals. And we will be alone there."
She turned quickly back to the old woman.
"You will not rent it to anyone else besides us?" she pleaded.
"No," smiled Sarah slowly, with a reluctant chuckle. "And I
will help you. God knows we women have got to help each other."
The stable was in a roomy cave that extended under the whole
building of the inn. Joseph held Mary's hand as he led her down
twisting stone steps to an earthen floor; in his free hand he held a
lantern that threw against the rough walls the magnified shadows of
Anna and Joachim and Mary and himself.
"Where are we going to put her down?" cried Anna distractedly.
Heaving and puffing, the stout Sarah came clumping down the
stairs behind them, and after her Gabriel, puffing even louder than
his wife, both clasping fresh bundles of straw. They laid a bed
against the inner wall, which was warmer and not so damp, and they
brought linen and a coverlet and a pillow for Mary's head.
Then Gabriel and Sarah had to leave them, for business was brisk
upstairs, but both of them paused to give a hoarse: "God be with
you tonight!" As their footsteps died away the four at last felt re-
A CHILD IS BORN 51
lieved, if only to be alone. Anna helped Mary to undress, and then
she went upstairs in search of jars of heated water, while Joseph
stood near brooding.
"Why do we have no sign now?" he was asking himself. "Where
is the angel? Why doesn't Anna hurry back?"
Anna soon came back with the water. She briskly exiled Joseph
and Joachim through a rear door in the stable, bidding them to stay
out until they were sent for. It was dark outside, the night air moist
and cold.
Meanwhile Anna, with the wisdom of old wives, urged Mary
not to lie on the straw but to get up and walk. Mary obeyed. Back
and forth in the stable she walked, amid the braying of donkeys
and bleating of sheep, her nostrils filled with the sweet, pungent
odors of barley and oats and hay. To and fro she walked.
And Joseph was trudging up and down in the dark area behind
the stable. Again and again he tightened and then loosened the frayed
girdle around his travel-stained robe. He fingered the pouch that
held his store of coins and wondered whether he had enough money
to see them through. The hours dragged on. Joachim had sat down
on his haunches and soon fell asleep. But Joseph walked on like a
man in a nightmare, waiting, praying until at last and suddenly he
heard the sound a child's first cry.
In the dimmish light he knelt beside the bed of straw where Mary
ky, pale and weak but wide-eyed and with a small, brave smile for
him.
"See!" she murmured.
Joseph was on his knees. Mary held out firm hands, lifting up her
son, wrapped in Grandmother Anna's swaddling clothes lifting him
up adoringly, the fate of the world reposing in the chalice of her
hands.
Even in the first instant of seeing the child Joseph was aware
of something extraordinarily different about him. Somehow he knew
that this newborn baby, whose face was not red and crinkled but
smooth and white, and whose expression was of such potent inno-
cence and affection, had come into the world to get nothing and to
give everything.
52 THE GREATEST STORY EVER TOLD
Chapter n SHEPHERDS AT THE BACK DOOR
MARY had fallen asleep, and there was quiet in the stable. Anna and
Joachim made a bed for themselves, far back in the shadows. And
Jesus, the baby, lay asleep in his first bed, which was the food box
of the donkeys and the cows a manger which the foster father had
hastily filled with fresh hay and barley oats that smelled sweet and
clean.
For Joseph, sleep was impossible. His mind, his very soul, was too
tremulous and excited. Again he paced in a kind of march around
the stable, stopping regularly to see that Mary and her child still
breathed, which they did, quite naturally. There was glee in Joseph,
a sacred rippling joy in his blood, a bounce to his muscles; his only
regret was that he had no one to talk to. Joseph in that dark hour
could have poured out his heart in rapturous conversation.
"The oddest thing about it,'* he told himself, in the absence of any
companion, "was the feeling I had when I looked into that little fel-
low's eyes. I seemed to have known him all my life. He wasn't a
stranger!"
Was that a special fact because Jesus was a special child? Because,
after all, Joseph was not the child's father, and even now he did not
allow himself to forget it. Yet he felt a tender closeness to the baby,
deeper and truer than fatherhood itself. He still felt baffled that
there was no further sign.
A long time had passed while Mary carried her baby, with no re-
assurance from supernatural beings. Nine months since the angel
had stood with folded wings in the Nazareth house; the day of the
Annunciation. After that the dream message had come to Joseph;
then silence; months of commonplace reality. Was it not strange
that the baby had been born without some demonstration? Here
was the child; where were the angels?
He listened for a rustling of wings and heard only the sleepy
bleat of a yearling lamb. That, and presently a low rumble of distant
voices, the shuffling of feet outside the house and, at the lower back
entrance of the stable, the knocking of a staff.
With a gasp of concern that Mary would be awakened, Joseph
A CHILD IS BORN 53
hurried to the door. Unfastening the latch, he opened the upper half
of the door, then put a finger warningly to his mouth. A group of
bearded faces were staring in at him. One man held up a lighted
lantern. Behind them was still the night, dark and clear, with the
sparkle of unaccountable and extraordinarily brilliant stars. Joseph
had not seen those stars until now.
"Peace!" breathed Joseph. "This is no time to make noise."
"The Lord be urifo you," returned one of the men in a low, pla-
cating voice. "We have not come to make any trouble at all"
"Who are you, then?"
"We are shepherds from the hills outside this town. We have
been tending our flocks."
"The hour is late," insisted Joseph firmly.
He would have closed the door but the speaker held up his staff.
"Wait. Only one question. Has a child just been born in this
place?"
A quiver of alarm passed through Joseph. Was something wrong?
Their papers not in order, perhaps? Had they broken the law in
taking shelter in the stable? No one ever knew what queer laws
might be declared by King Herod.
"Why do you ask, shepherd? How is it your business about a
child?"
"Don't be afraid of us, man. We are friends."
"Well, then yes. A child has been born here."
"Only a little while ago?"
"True. Within two hours."
*
Low exclamations came from the bearded mouths of the shep-
herds. They turned and patted one another on the back and one of
them whispered:
"It is true, then."
And the first speaker laid a kindly hand on Joseph's shoulder.
"Tell me is it a man-child?"
"It is."
"And could it be possible that you have laid the child in a man-
ger?"
<c Yes," answered Joseph, feeling the tears gather in his eyes.
"There was no cradle, you see. The town is overcrowded; there
was nowhere else I could take my lady . . ."
"Then God be praised!" murmured the shepherd fervently, and
the others muttered agreement in their beards.
54 THE GREATEST STORY EVER TOLD
"Listen, man," cried the one with the lifted staff. "We five men
have just seen a marvelous sight. An unbelievable sight And it has
to do with you,"
Marvelous sight! And unbelievable. Hope sprang up in Joseph's
thoughts.
"Believe this thing we tell you. We were all tending our flocks
tonight, minding our own business. The night was clear, air cool,
stars bright, everything going along just as usual. Suddenly Jonas
here interrupted our talk and pointed at the sky."
"That I did," confirmed Jonas. "There was a great big bright
light in the sky and the shape of it like an angel bigger than the
world. And I heard a voice . . ."
"We all saw the light," declared the first man. "And we all heard
distinctly that voice from the sky."
"What did the voice say?" asked Joseph eagerly.
"It told us not to be afraid."
"Yes. It always begins that way. And then?"
"And then it said it brought us great news. The Savior of the
world was being born. I remember the very words; how can I ever
forget them? Tor this day is born to you a Savior who is Christ the
Lord.' "
"Christ the Lord," whispered Joseph.
"Yes, friend. That's what the voice said* It told us the child was
being born right here in this town and that we would find it,
wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger,"
Here another shepherd pushed himself forward.
"You can never imagine what happened then," he broke in ex-
citedly, "The whole heaven seemed to open up. The curtain of the
stars was split like a tent, and through the opening we saw a host of
.angels that filled the sky and they were all singing at the top of
their voices . . ."
"And do you know 'what they were singing?" demanded Jonas,
again interrupting. "The words were: 'Glory to God in the highest
and on earth peace . . ,' "
And then the shepherds seemed to lose their tongues. The sound
of their own story seemed to subdue them. Strong, out-of-doors
men, who smelled of grass; practical men, and yet they had told
the story with something of the frenzy of poets. Now came the re-
action.
Their leader lowered his lantern and sighed deeply.
A CHILD IS BORN 55
"Of course," he said with an apologetic air, "we can't expect you
to believe all this."
Then his eyes flashed open and he looked straight at Joseph.
"But it is true," he averred, as if he were taking an oath, "I saw it.
I heard it."
Joseph wrung their hands. He believed them utterly, as they went
on to tell how they forsook their fat-tailed sheep and ran into Beth-
lehem. Of every dark straggler on the streets at such an hour they
had asked questions. Where could they find the newborn baby?
And when they found this house then they must know if it were
lying in a manger. Someone had sent them to the stable of the inn.
The tale of the shepherds brought peace to Joseph. The sign
had come at secondhand, which was better. These men, panting
and out of breath and sweaty, full of strength and humility, had
seen the gates of another world open up and had heard singing from
on high, the heavens rejoicing at the birth of Mary's child. Humble
workingmen of the fields were the first to come and visit the new-
born Jesus.
Joseph received them with open arms and one shepherd after
another kissed his beard. On tiptoe they followed him as he led them
straight to the manger, where they looked down and then knelt be-
side the sleeping figure of Mary's son.
Soon they were gone, and Joseph resumed his unsleeping vigiL
But now his heart was calmed. The sign had come. In his mind's ear
he could hear the unnumbered hosts of the servants of God, singing
to the ages: "Peace on earth to men of good will."
Chapter 12 TWO PIGEONS, PLEASE!
"JOSEPH, my friend, are you going to have this child circumcised? 1 *
asked Samuel, who had come to the stable when at last he had found
out where the family stayed.
"But of course. Why not?"
"You yourself say that he is not born like other children."
"That is correct. But whatever is done that is out of course of
natural ways is not to be done by me, Samuel. I love this child more
56 THE GREATEST STORY EVER TOLD
than I love my own life, but I must remember my place. I am only
his foster father. And I have thought a lot about that, Samuel. It is
a terrific responsibility for an ignorant carpenter like myself."
"Not so ignorant," interrupted Samuel, with a loyal shake of his
rough hair.
"Mary and I have made up our minds," pursued Joseph, "to bring
Jesus up very carefully and the very best we know how. Every-
thing that should be done will be done."
"Fine, Joseph, but . . ."
"So of course he will be circumcised. I am going to follow the
law of our people with him in everything. Scrupulously. The law
says that every little boy baby must be circumcised on the eighth
day of his life. That doesn't mean the seventh or the ninth."
Samuel gave a little snort.
"The eighth day, and not the seventh or the ninth," he scoffed.
"Why would such meticulousness be important to a great gentle-
man like God, who runs the whole world?"
Joseph shrugged.
"I haven't the faintest idea," he admitted calmly. "And I doubt if
I could understand, even if someone explained. But I do know what
is written in the scrolls and that's enough."
Samuel squinted at his friend. He loved this gentle carpenter, and
yet there was something in their chemistry that was opposed; the
boisterous Samuel was impatient of all obedience. He did not want
to hurt Joseph, and yet something urgent in the heart pressed him
on to bait and heckle.
"And, no doubt, Mary will be purified?" he asked?
"Why not?"
"Why should any woman have to be purified of motherhood?"
"Be careful of blasphemy!"
"Bosh! For seven days a woman is supposed to be unclean after
her baby is born. There is no other word for it than bosh. You
have to wait three and thirty days while she is allowed to touch
nothing that is hallowed and a lot of other silly rules."
"We obey them," said Joseph ^crisply.
"But, Joseph. Isn't it still true that you think the Holy Spirit was
the father of the child?"
"I tnow it is so."
"Was that sin?"
. "No."
A CHILD IS BORN 57
"It was sinless? Your wife was still a virgin when this child was
born?"
"Before God, yes!"
"Then, if she is sinless, why must she be purified? Answer me
that, Joseph?"
The husband of Mary laid his hand on the shoulder of his friend
and smiled patiently.
"It was not our doing that the law of nature was altered so that
this child could be born," he answered simply. "We could not have
done that if we wanted to. We are not lawmakers and therefore
we cannot be law changers. Our business is to try to understand the
laws and obey them, not find out the reasons for them, not try to
make exceptions for ourselves. I haven't brains enough to fathom
God, Samuel. And pardon me, old friend neither have you. So we
just act according to our lights."
And thus according to their lights Jesus and Mary and Joseph
and Anna and Joachim left the stable under the inn on the eighth
day after the Nativity and rode their donkeys six miles up the steep
heights that led to Jerusalem. The air was warm and a pleasant
breeze was fluttering through the abundant sunshine; the hills were
green, and the trees moved gently, and the world looked beautiful
to the mother with her child in her arms.
Their eyes were turned upward to take in the great glory of the
capital, the proud city of walls and towers on its bold south prom-
ontory of the bleak limestone ridge.
"Think of it, Mary," remarked Joseph. "Some of the old residents
I talked to in Bethlehem have never seen this great city, so near at
hand. Think of that! Living so close and never bothering to go over
and see,"
"I think Nazareth is a very much pleasanter place," Mary an-
swered.
With this the others agreed. They said that Jerusalem was a great
pkce to visit but they would never want to live there. But the
height and sweep and power of the great city stirred their imagi-
nation, willy-nilly. As they came up from the gorges, the ravines
and gashes in the earth, the gullies and deeps of old geological catas-
trophes and the walls of the city came more plainly into view they
felt again a surge of pride in such a big place.
Now they were approaching the level of the high, irregular city
wall; it was the color of a yellow cat, its great tawny stones piled,
58 THE GREATEST STORY EVER TOLD
course on course, thirty feet high. As far as the eye could see the
wall continued, with its eight gates and sixty watchtowers each
guarded by Herod's cutthroats. They entered that morning through
the Sheep's Gate. In the shadow of the archway Mary looked down
into the baby's face; his eyes were open, and there was a focus to
their gazean intelligence that startled her; it was as if this baby
mind understood his first entrance into Jerusalem, and that he would
come here again, and more than once, and at last to tragical ends!
But the baby's eyes soon closed and he dozed off, unmindful of
worldly wonders. The others looked about them with eager inter-
est, seeing the white arches of the stadium, called the xystus, where
young men were encouraged by Herod and the Romans to
strengthen themselves by athletic drills for prowess in battle.
"Jesus must never be a soldier," was the instant prayer in Mary's
heart.
And she turned quickly from this gladiatorial training ground to
the theater where heathen plays were produced. All manner of
filthy drama was shown there, its intellectual degradation matched
only by the physical filth of the streets. The gentle country folk
were bewildered anew at the violent contrasts in poverty and riches
on every hand; great houses and mud hovels; wide plazas and dark
curling streets full of disease and crime, and high on a nearby ter-
race, close to the Temple itself, the dazzling palace of Herod and
its three military towers, filled with the soldiers of the apprehensive
king, who more and more lived in fear that the people would rise
up and give him his just deserts.
Samuel had told Joseph about the lavish iniquities of that palace;
of the king's couch, made of gold and ivory and white velvet; of
his wives and concubines and maidservants and manservants and
cooks and minstrels and dancing boys and the unending round of
entertainment in its halls and peristyles and banquet chambers.
The four grownups on their mission of devotion saw the signs of
wealth and pleasure on one hand and also the want and teeming dis-
content, unwashed pavements slippery with mortal slime and excre-
ment, lying at the base of the rich people's glory; there was barely
enough water to drink in this Jerusalem and palaces where vice
played all day and all night and laiies where hunger and leprosy
crouched together.
They were glad when they reached the outer gate of the Temple
area and found a little knot of relatives waiting to welcome them:
A CHILD IS BORN 59
Zachary, joyous and very talkative beside the radiant Elizabeth, who
had brought little John in her arms. Strutting forward and back,
they found also the mocking but very friendly and companionable
Samuel
It was not the first time that Elizabeth and Mary had met since
the birth of Jesus; three times in the last week Elizabeth and Zach-
ary had made the journey over to Bethlehem. Now they all moved
inside the Temple walls with happy faces and halted in the outer
court to buy their ritualistic offerings. And here Mary looked to
Joseph, wondering what he was going to decide.
According to the law they could purchase a one-year-old lamb
for a burnt offering and a young pigeon for a sin offering, or Jo-
seph could choose the less expensive course of buying two turtle-
doves or two young pigeons, depending altogether on his conscience
and his purse.
Feeling that he could not afford anything better, for Gabriel and
Sarah had charged them plenty for the use of the stable, Joseph de-
cided to buy two plump pigeons. He picked out one and Mary the
other, and Joseph carried them in his hands as he proceeded toward
the inner Temple. Looking about him, Joseph felt again that sense
of belonging and continuity of race and, history of which this
Temple was the symbol Herod might have paid for it, but the
people's architects designed it, the people's labor built it, and here
the people drew to themselves apart from tyrants and overlords;
here they remained most peculiarly themselves, uncontaminated by
any intrusion from the outer world. And here, in spite of Roman
armies and puppet Arab king, they persisted in adhering to the last
meticulous detail of their faith. Within earshot of Herod, who was
not deaf, they came regularly not only to praise the Lord, God of
Hosts, but to entreat Him to deliver them from their conquerors.
That was the principal prayer raised in the Temple their oppressor
had built for them.
But as Joseph and Mary were about to cross the court, where the
offerings would be turned in and ceremonies performed t there came
a startling interruption.
Mary, with the sleeping Jesus against her breast, was walking a
little behind Joseph, when a shadow fell across than; a withered
figure swayed out from under a pillared archway; a purblind old
man tottered before than in die sun.
"What's he want?" asked Samuel hastily.
60 THE GREATEST STORY EVER TOLD
But Zachary, the priest, who knew his way about the Temple,
lifted his hand reassuringly.
"Don't be worried," he said, out of the side of his beard. "It's
only Simeon. Everybody around the Temple knows old Simeon.
He's harmless."
"He's old enough all right," agreed Samuel.
Indeed, Simeon was so decrepit that it seemed a wonder he did
not fall apart, from sheer inanition and decay.
"He is a devout and just man," remonstrated Zachary, "and he
tells everybody that once he was visited by the Holy Spirit. The
angel promised him that before he died he was to see the Messiah
in the flesh."
Samuel looked warily at Zachary. The priest's face was set in an
ivory calm. The others stood back while the tall, ragged figure of
Simeon crept nearer, toward Mary and Joseph with the child.
There was a moment of curious silence as he halted and lifted up
his hands and croakingly thanked God. At last, he groaned aloud,
he could be allowed to die. A chill ran even in the spine of Samuel
when he heard that prayer. The whole group stood still, as other
persons came hurrying down the courtyard; a crowd collected, all
watching as Simeon leaned forward and his emaciated face of a
thousand wrinkles came close to the young mother.
"This child is set for the fall!" he gasped. The sunken eyes
gleamed again straight at Mary. "And for the resurrection of Israel,"
he went on huskily.
His bony right hand raised, the lean, misshapen forefinger
pointed crookedly at the mother's heart.
"And your own soul a sword shall pierce!" he predicted.
As tears gathered in Mary's eyes, he added:
"Out of many hearts thoughts shall be revealed."
Now Simeon swayed back, waving both hands haplessly, as if say-
ing farewell to a life he had never enjoyed; as if this moment were
a tremendous relief to him and he was glad to lose himself in shad-
ows.
Before anyone could speak, there came a new voice the sound
of crying and out from under the same arcade appeared a woman
crawling on her knees.
"She, too, is incredibly old," muttered Zachary. "Even older than
Simeon. Her name is Anna. For eighty-four years she has been a
widow. Since the day the Temple was built she has never left it"
A CHILD IS BORN 6 1
"And what is she saying? " snapped Samuel
"Listen!" said Zachary.
Anna was struggling to stand up in front of Mary. Looking down
into the face of the sleeping child, she found her voice, so clear that
even the dying Simeon could hear what she was saying:
"Here, indeed, is the deliverer of the people!"
Chapter 13 THE KING AND THE CHILD
OF COURSE dark-brown Herod heard of these matters. Ever since
Zachary had been stricken dumb on the altar there had been rumors
of queer happenings in Jerusalem, and Herod's spies, hearing every-
thing, reported all the gossip, including whispers from the north
that a virgin of Nazareth was going to have a baby. The shepherds,
too, had naturally babbled about their supernal experience. When,
right out in the courtyard of the Temple, old Simeon then declared
the child to be from God and promptly died, after having conspic-
uously and publicly waited so many years, and when the old crone
Anna added her testimony, Herod quite reasonably began to feel
vexed.
"Is the king going to arrest us?" asked Joseph, when Samuel told
him about it.
"Very likely, I'm sorry to say," grunted Samuel. "This Herod is
now afraid of his shadow. But he is a lot more afraid of a rival to his
throne. And that's what he is likely to consider your child, if he
takes the stories seriously."
Spies of the revolutionary movement, still working as servants in
the Herodian palace, had heard with their own ears and seen at
firsthand exactly what had happened. First the agents of the king,
diligent every day, reported the strange stories, but had to admit
that the tales were vague; they had learned nothing circumstantial,
not even the names of the father and mother. Rumors had been dis-
torted and multiplied and spread in profusion; some had it there
were twins, others that it was a girl child; so far, th&nk God, Herod
did not know that Joseph the carpenter of Nazareth and Mary his
wife were the ones he sought, nor that they were still quartered
with the child in a Bethlehem stable.
62 THE GREATEST STORY EVER TOLD
Herod had a turbulent scene with his spies.
"What kind of service is this?" he roared at them. "Get me facts!"
They came back with alarming facts. Three wise men from the
East had arrived in the capital. They had no caravan; merely four
camels, the extra beast loaded with bales and boxes which they kept
ever near them at the khan. Gossip said they were kings, traveling
incognito.
"Three strangers and four camels at the inn," Herod said to his
spies. * What kind of men do they pretend to be? Merchants? Am-
bassadors with gifts for me? Or what?"
"They are called magi," the spy reported.
"What are magi?"
"Magi are wise men," was the answer. "Yet these three do not
seem to be so very wise. They have gone up and down Jerusalem
from the stadium to the Temple, saying nothing wise at all but in-
stead asking questions of everybody."
"What questions?"
The spies gulped and flushed and cleared their throats.
"What questions, fools? Speak up or I'll have you flogged."
"They are asking about the birth of a fabulous child who is to
take the throne of Israel. They say they have seen his star in the
east and have come to worship him."
With armored fists Herod struck the two men down. He kicked
them with his boots. He screamed and ranted and ordered them car-
ried out and put to death. He drank two goblets of foaming wine
and ordered music and dancing girls and Egyptian singers and
dancers, and then as soon as the music began, he cleared the apart-
ment of them with one scream of mortal rage. Gasping, he lay on a
couch for an hour, fanned by a tamarisk boy, who was a spy of
Samuel's resistance group.
Later, when he felt calmer, Herod talked with Nisus, his secre-
tary, who knew more about magi than the spies.
"They can do wonders, those people," Nisus declared.
, "Sorcerers?"
"Holy men in their own land. Priests of Eastern occultism. They
are capable of understanding the past and of foretelling the future."
"So!" exclaimed Herod, and the tone came from the belly. "Bring
Annas and the chief priests and the scribes to me."
But when these worthies responded, he decided to talk with
Annas alone. They understood each other.
A CHILD IS BORN 6j
Even in those early days Annas, already the political boss of
Jerusalem, was hated by the people because they knew he had sold
out to Herod and Rome. If a revolution were ever successful,
Annas, leader of the forty richest families in the land, would have
been the first to be put to death. The people well knew how he had
come to terms with tyrant and invader. He had asked Herod: What
does the Empire want of Palestine? Taxes and tranquillity was the
answer.
"Taxes we will get for you, tranquillity we guarantee" such was
the bargain Annas had made. "Only we must keep order ourselves,
and we must collect the taxes."
Then Annas and his friends hired the collectors and taxed the
people almost double, keeping the unjust half for themselves. They
had their own secret police to ferret out rebellions and punish up-
starts. Annas and Herod perfectly well understood each other.
Herod began the interview with a crafty grin.
"Annas," he said, "I have been having a dispute with some of my
friends in court here. I sent for you to settle it."
Annas spread his palms toward the ground and inclined his head
forward.
"I hope I can help your brilliant majesty," he replied with com-
posure. He had no fear of Herod, but he was careful to observe
every detail of court punctilio. "You have only to command me,"
he added, in court etiquette. "My very life is in your august
service."
Herod laughed. He always relished flattery and servility, even
when it was purely formal; he fed on adulation, though he had
not tasted many sincere compliments.
"It's about your religion."
Annas sucked a hollow tooth.
"Your Majesty is interested in our religion?"
"Of course I know nothing whatever about it. And I don't want
to learn, either."
"No, Majesty?"
"All I want is to settle a dispute. Is it true that you have scrip-
tures that predict the coming of a deliverer of your people~a Mes-
siah, as you call it?"
"Majesty, that is correct."
Herod, who had the bulging eyes of a hyperthyroid victim,
leaned forward, truculent and roiled
64 THE GREATEST STORY EVER TOLD
"You realize that can mean deliverance only from my royal
authority," he snarled. "You realize that is sedition?"
Annas turned his head to one side and smiled composedly
through his goatlike beard. He appeared quite unperturbed.
"Majesty," he said, "you will forgive me if I correct a tiny mis-
take. These prophecies were made about the time of our captivity.
When we were in Babylon. Hundreds of years ago."
Herod sat back a little relaxed.
"But your people still go on believing in them," he complained.
"Some of them do," agreed Annas, with disarming frankness.
"But, Majesty, is it not the same in every religion? The ignorant
take things literally. Why undeceive the stupid masses of people-
especially if it keeps them on their good behavior? No intelligent
person believes in any of the wonder stories of the old Scriptures,
and certainly not in the prophecies,"
"Don't you, as a priest, believe in them, Annas?"
"No, sire. I am a Sadducee. We don't believe in such things. We
don't even believe in a future life or a resurrection."
"Neither do I," barked Herod irritably. "We live today, we die
tomorrow, and that's all there is. Anybody who believes anything
more is a fool."
"Precisely, Your Majesty."
Annas was hoping they would not have to pursue the conversa-
tion, but apparently Herod was still not satisfied.
"Was there anything said in those old books of yours about where
the Deliverer There was some title for him, too, wasn't there?"
"Yes, sir-the Christ."
"Ah, yes, that's the term I heard. Was there anything said about
when or where the Christ was to be born?"
Annas heaved a sigh and scratched his head. His confession was
thoroughly honest.
"Yes, there was, Your Majesty, but I am sorry to say I have for-
gotten it. That should show you how important it seemed to me."
"Well, couldn't you have it looked up for me?"
"At once."
"Then come to me at the same hour tomorrow and give me place
and date. Have I made myself clear?"
"Perfectly, Your Majesty."
No sooner was Annas gone than Herod commanded that the three
wise men be brought to the throne room.
A CHILD IS BORN 65
For this interview he arrayed himself in his kingliest robes to im-
press the savants and rulers from the lands beyond the Euphrates.
A frontlet of diamonds and rubies gleamed on Herod's forehead, the
diadem of Judea, and from it rose a tufted egret that was like a
little rainbow springing from his gray hair.
It was a curious meeting. The august travelers from the East be-
haved admirably before the king, observing all the proprieties of a
throne-room audience. Then, rising, they announced their names-
Caspar, Melchior, and Balthazar.
Herod looked upon them with a bkndiloquent smile, affable and
suave.
"We are curious to know," he told them, "why it is that we are
honored by a visit from such great dignitaries."
They told him very simply that they were following a star.
"A star?" repeated Herod. His spies had mentioned something of
this, but vaguely; there was the court astrologer, Marto, waiting now
in the rear. Herod beckoned to Marto.
"Listen to this carefully, Marto. Was it a large star, friends, that
you followed here?"
The Magi nodded. It was a large star, in the east and very bright.
They had been following it for many days.
"Would you know what it is, this star, Marto?" demanded the
king, chafing at having to go on pretending to be amiable.
Marto explained that there had recently appeared a most remarka-
ble conjunction of Jupiter, Saturn, and Mars a condition that would
not recur in more than a million years. But that fiery display had
faded away more than a week ago.
"Then you three have seen a star that my astrologer has not found,"
reflected Herod aloud. The wise men said nothing.
"Well, at any rate, what do you say this star portends?"
The Wise Men were very wise, indeed, because they merely shook
their heads and said they could not tell fortunes. But did they not
know what it meant for the future of Israel? No, they could not be
sure of anything in the future; the star led them on, that was all.
"But," persisted Herod, "what do you expect to find under this
star?"
Then Balthazar told him.
"A child," the old traveler answered, closing his eyes.
"A child?" Herod's voice was creamy with interest. "And what
about this child?"
66 THE GREATEST STORY EVER TOLD
Melchior answered that they were not free to talk until their er-
rand was complete.
"Very well, then," growled Herod. "Where do you expect to
find him?"
"Bethlehem!"
"Bethlehem. Such a place?"
Again they shrugged. They could only follow the star. With the
coming of night they would resume their journey. Herod saw that
it was, useless to bring mere force against wisdom, and turned a
cunningly smiling face upon the three.
"Then this is what you must do," he dissembled. "Go find the
child and then come back and tell me and I will go worship him
too."
Lifting a sweating hand to his brow, Herod allowed them to de-
part. No sooner were the doors shut behind them than he gave the
signal to his spies; they were to follow the Wise Men and search
everywhere else besides; find the child that had been born under
a magical star.
But in the darkness of that night Caspar, Melchior, and Balthazar,
with their extra laden camel, eluded Herod's pursuers. The Wise
Men rode by an inside lane, on to Bethlehem, as if there was noth-
ing in the world of human cunning that wise men had to fear. They
found the town, the inn, the stable. They knelt, and their eyes were
full of worshipful glory as they gazed upon Mary's baby.
Then the Wise Men embraced Joseph, kissed his beard, and
bowed ceremoniously. Having bestowed their gifts, they departed
from the stable, but not to return to Jerusalem. The waiting Herod
was never to see them again. Having bedded down at another inn,
all three Magi went promptly to sleep and dreamed the same dream.
Because of that dream, they rose in the middle of the night and got
away on their camels, completely outwitting several searching
bands from the palace. By another way they headed for their own
country and so, obedient to their own vision, they jogged out of
history, never to reappear.
It was a night of dreams powerful in meaning. The visit of the
Wise Men had come at a time when Mary and Joseph felt troubled
and bewildered, for this was the night of the day that they had car-
ried the baby to the Temple.
The incidents of the morning had been shocking to the simple-
hearted family, and the terror of those two encounters lingered
A CHILD IS BORN 67
the old man Simeon squeaking down the long range of pillared
arches that at last he could die, having seen the face of the Savior of
all the people of the world. And after Simeon, the fasting and pray-
ing widow of eighty-four years, Anna, who had crept out of the
shadows of a marble pillar and called him the Redeemer.
The dream that followed in Joseph's sleep was even more upset-
ting.
Once again the foster father of Jesus found himself face to face
with the same bright angel that had come to his bedside in Nazareth
and told him to marry Mary without distrust, for, the child in her
womb was miraculous. This time the bright angel gave Joseph new
instructions:
"Arise, and take the child and his mother and fly into Egypt; and
be there until I shall tell you. For it will come to pass that Herod
will seek the child to destroy him."
But how? How get to Egypt? It would take money to travel so
far, and only a few coins were left.
It was a most tormented Joseph who stood in the dark stable thus
early in the morning, accepting to the full the stern warning of his
dream yet penniless to obey.
What to do?
Almost instantaneously he learned there was nothing needed for
him to do at all; the money for the long trip to Egypt was already
provided. For now he saw, moving toward him in the gloom, the
bent figure of his father-in-law. Joachim, too, could not sleep. So he
had busied himself usefully, unpacking the gifts the Wise Men had
left for the child.
"Flasks of perfume," Joachim whispered to his son-in-law. "Frank-
incense, the most perfect of all; an ointment made from olive oil,
sweetened with spices, fragrant gums, odors of pressed flowers, and
in the second package, another stuff called myrrh they told me it
was an aromatic gum taken from a thorn tree!"
Joseph laid a hand on the shoulder of his father-in-law.
"Joachim," he sighed, "we have now to think of other matters."
"And this third gift," the old man rumbled on, "is the smallest
and the heaviest of all the Wise Men's bounty. Guess what is in this
bundle, Joseph?"
"What, Father-in-law?"
Joachim shook the package and a heavy clinking sound echoed
to the vaulted roof of the cave.
68 THE GREATEST STORY EVER TOLD
"It's gold!" whispered Joachim. "They brought us frankincense,
myrrh and gold. They must have known we would need it!"
"Glory be to God. Praise His Holy Name," gasped Joseph, and
fell to his knees.
Chapter 14 KILL THEM ALL!
HEROD was livid when he learned that the mysterious Wise Men
had escaped his clutches.
Which way had they gone? His spies galloped all the roads. Down
through Jericho and across the plains of Transjordania; up through
the northeastern provinces, through Samaria and the two Galilees,
and on through Syria to the distant east. Which way?
Outriders with spears were charged to bring back the Wise Men
but came home empty-handed. It was then that the fears of Herod
broke like an explosion in his soul; he was lost in a demoniacal panic.
"In spite of hell I will find this miraculous child!"
That was the one frenzied thought that batted around in his brain.
The one clue he had was that the child was supposed to be in Bethle-
hem. But crowded Bethlehem was full of babies. How find the right
one?
A horrible notion occurred to him, and for a cautious instant even.
Herod hesitated. No. He would better not try that idea! After all,
he had already been rebuked seven times by Rome for his cruelties,
In the old days Rome had never been afraid of cruelty, but now,
apparently, there were limits under this peaceful-minded Augustus.
The one thing the dun-skinned Herod cared about was his throne.
Because the child was a menace to his reign, he meant to get rid of
it. But he must act carefully. Or must he? Was he the King of Judea
or was he not?
"I have always been strong and now what does it matter? I am
an old man. Soon I shall die. No. No. I have a long time to live yet.
I will be sitting on my throne when this upstart child has a beard.
No. I am not going to die soon. I must get rid of this child. He must
never live to grow a beard!"
His face blanched at his own scheme. But terror smoked again
in his brain, and fright was roaring in his ears. A queasy turn of his
A CHILD IS BORN 69
stomach set him trembling and sweating with weakness. He clapped
red palms together. When his captains came, he spoke to them
crisply, briefly, firmly, his right fingers scratching at the poniard in
his belt. It was his last resort, but if it had to be, it had to be.
"Do aU as I have told you!"
Those captains had to go out of the palace and lead troops to
Bethlehem to do his atrocious bidding. They surrounded the city,
occupied the streets, rushed into the houses with drawn short swords
and uplifted spears. By the order of the king, they cut to death
every boy baby in the town. Not one of those holy innocents was
sparedonly the infant Jesus.
And that was so only because Joseph and Mary and Jesus obeyed
the messenger and had already left behind them the city of this
massacre. They had bade fond farewells to Anna and Joachim. Then
Joseph put mother and child on the donkey's back, their precious
goods, the gifts of the Magi bundled and tied to the sides of the little
beast. Staff in one hand, Joseph seized the donkey reins with the
other and in the middle of the dark the family started out from
Bethlehem.
Before them lay the Sinai Desert where for forty years their
ancestors had wandered after the escape from Pharaoh.
They were taking the road back to Egypt.
Book Two
A BOY IN NAZARETH
Chapter 15 BY THE NILE
HEROD'S SPIES sought them even in Egypt. Had anyone seen a bald-
headed carpenter with a small golden beard turning silver and his
blue-eyed dark-tressed wife, little more than a child herself, with
an indescribably lovely infant whose smile was like the warm light
of the sun? More than once these spies came uncomfortably near,
when their trail led them past the stone obelisks set up by Cleopatra
in the gilded city of Heliopolis; there the Nazareth family had
settled. Some day those obelisks would be set up in Paris and Lon-
don and New York and Constantinople and other great cities then
not even thought of, for unborn eyes to see stone monuments that
Mary and Joseph and the baby Jesus had also seen.
The family learned, too, that there was an intense and senseless
dislike of their people in the land. Joseph and Mary learned about
anti-Semitism in Egypt.
At the very time when Jesus was taken there some of the haters
of the race in Alexandria were reviving a vicious old lie. They
spread the tale that all the children of Israel, who had been led by
Moses into the desert, were nothing more nor less than lepers; that
was the only reason why Pharaoh had let the people go. In this
atmosphere of ancient and persistent racial hostility Mary and Joseph,
displaced persons of a very long time ago, had to care for the little
son.
Surrounded by such hatred, Jesus learned to lisp His first prayer
in a pagan town, committed to the idolatry of a whole gallery of
mythical gods. During the first years of His life He lived among
Egyptians parading before gigantic stone images of Ra, the deity
of the midday sun; Isis, the mother; Osiris, the father; Horus, the
son; before horned bulls of holiness, too, and the sacred cat of
Bubastes in the very midst of such ignorance and fear the baby
72 THE GREATEST STORY EVER TOLD
Jesus was taught by Mary, His mother, crooning at her cradle, to
say:
"Hear, O Israel! The Lord, our God, is one God!"
Their new home in HeKopolis was some ten miles away from the
Pyramids; here there was less prejudice than they had found in
Alexandria. Whenever he had the time, Joseph, who had obtained
work at his trade, sought out travelers from Palestinian provinces,
hoping for news from home. None of the news was ever good; the
excesses of Herod grew worse.
Thus nearly two years passed before Joseph had another super-
natural experience, but at last it came.
Once more the angel interrupted their quiet lives with a sign
from the other world; one last dream for Joseph, a vision with great
news, the angel declaring:
"Arise and take the child and go into the land of Israel For they
are dead that sought the life of the child."
They are dead! They meant Herod! He was king and spoke plu-
rally of himself as "we" this and "we" that, and of him the angel
spoke plurally, too, in proclaiming the end of him.
With no question in their minds Joseph and Mary, the most per-
fect believers in history, obeyed the directive. From his sleep Joseph
sprang up and began to pack at once. Taking the child and mother
on a donkey, he turned again to the gray and yellow desert that lay
between them and home.
Chapter 16 HEROD'S LAST NIGHT ALIVE
As THE long desert days passed and the little family drew nearer to
their own part of the world, other travelers in wayside camping con-
firmed the news.
Yes, Herod the Great was dead and what a death! .
"He must have been mad to kill all those babies in Bethlehem,"
one wayfarer remarked. "Their bodies had scarcely begun to rot
in their graves before their murderer had to follow them in death-
Yon can have no idea what it has been like in Jerusalem the last two
years. His own son tried to poison Herod. Did that news reach
Egypt? And how Herod had him killed?
A BOY IN NAZARETH 73
"Oh yes, we have had evil's own time of it. Secretly the whole
population of Jerusalem was praying every night for Herod's death.
And every day there were old women's tales of birds squeaking in
the rafters of the palace; vultures winging lower, as if nosing a feast
that was soon to come. Omens everybody was whispering about
omens.
"The servants in the palace, of course, kept the rest of us con-
stantly informed. So we know that Herod suffered the most awful
agonies. There was a slow fire inside him that seemed to get hotter
and hotter. Queer too; it gave him a vehement appetite. He couldn't
stop eating. But his entrails were ulcerated and the worst pain of all
was in his bowels. So he would eat, and then soon began to scream,
and that went on many times a day. His feet were swollen with bags
of a transparent fluid that settled there and squashed as he walked; it
got so that he could not put his feet down.
"And what a time the king had breathing during that last year!
The stench of his breath filled the palace and he snorted all the time.
Every now and then he would have convulsions. And here was the
singular part of those convulsions: they gave him an inhuman kind
of strength, so that he could fling strong men across the room and
break skulls against the walls.
"Yet almost until the very end Herod still tried to believe that he
was going to get well again, as he had so often done before. He
had a hundred doctors from every part of the world. He did every-
thing they told him to do, some of those things being silly and
ridiculous, but nothing helped. Only a few months ago he was car-
ried on a litter all the way beyond the river Jordan and bathed him-
self in the warm baths at'CalHrrhoe. Another time they lowered his
entire body in a vast vessel full of oil. He fainted then, and we all
hoped he was dead. But the servants' screams of joy at his supposed
death brought him back to life.
"That was when he began to fear that nothing could save him.
So for a little while he began to be kind. He gave orders that every
soldier should receive a bonus of fifty drachmas. Much larger sums,
of course, he gave to the commanders and to his friends. But later
he seemed to go out of his mind again; he screamed and ranted
against our people and then finally hit upon a most hideous and hor-
rible scheme against us which he at once put into execution,
"One morning he called in his prime minister and gave orders
that all the principal men among our people two hundred of the
74 THE GREATEST STORY EVER TOLD
Jewish leaders-should be arrested. He ordered workmen to put up
a great fence and make a camp Inside and in that barracoon, that
concentration camp, he caged them alive for a while. But that didn't
satisfy him; he changed the orders and had them confined in the
hippodrome at Jerusalem. And when the prime minister asked what
he intended to do with those two hundred prisoners, all scholars
and leaders of our people, Herod told the prime minister to get out*
He sent for his sister Salome and her husband Alexis, and this is
what he said to them, as taken down behind a curtain by one of our
own:
" 'My sister and brother-in-law, I shall die in a little time, so great
are my pains; death ought to be cheerfully borne and to be wel-
comed by all men. But what troubles me principally is this: I know
that I shall die without being lamented. Because I have always
done my duty as a king, no one is likely to weep for me when I am
dead. There will be no mourning of the people. They all hate and
despise me and will rejoice at my passing. So, curse them all, I have
formed my own plan to outwit them. The minute you see that I am
really dead and make sure of it, sister act swiftly and discreetly*
Let no one know that I am no longer living. Keep my death a pro-
found secret. Call out the soldiers and send them to the hippodrome.
Kill every Israelite leader that is imprisoned there. Sky all two hun-
dred without allowing one to escape. Kill them! Then all the people
of this wretched country will mourn and weep for their own that
we have killed, and when that lamentation is well started, then you
can announce my death. And what can they do about it then? I will
have had sorrow at my death! Is it not a good scheme, sister?'
"That, my friend, was how it was! Five days later the rapacious
King Herod died. But not before he had caused the death of his own
son Antipater. He died, but the captives in the hippodrome were not
slain, according to his instructions. His people did not obey that last
command, that wicked thing, fell, barbarous, hideous. His rule of
thirty-seven horrible years is at an end. People say that he stole to his
throne like a fox, ruled like a tiger, and died like a dog. A man he
was of great barbarity toward all men equally. He was a slave to his
passions. His reign was one of plunder and rapine. Yet fortune
favored him for a long time. I wonder why?"
Joseph and Mary shuddered with horror at the awful end of
tfaeir powerful enemy. They listened to vivid descriptions of how
be ms carried on a golden bier to be buried in high state on the
A BOY IN NAZARETH 75
ridge above Jerusalem. The air along the route was full of talk
of politics and state affairs and what would happen next in the
capital.
From another traveler they learned that Herod's will had been
opened; the last will, indeed, for in his illness Herod had torn up
his previous will, written a new one, torn that up, and written an-
other new one which he died without a chance to destroy. The
effect of this will was to make Joseph at once alter his plans.
By his final testament, a compromise in his palace of conspiracies,
Herod carefully broke up the little jigsaw empire he had put to-
gether in a long, arduous lifetime. To his son Archelaus he be-
queathed Judea with the precious title of king. The troops had
given Archelaus homage as soon as the will was read, now all the
world knew he was the new ruler in the capital. But not of Galilee!
To Herod Antipas, another son, Herod bequeathed Galilee, with
Perea, and with the title not of king but of tetrach.
What would life be like in Jerusalem or any part of Judea
under the new king? Joseph had often heard that of all the sons
Archelaus was most like the wicked Herod. He decided not to settle
in Judea as he had been planning for the last two years to do. Who
could say whether Archelaus in inheriting Herod's throne had not
also inherited his fears which had led to the massacre at Bethlehem?
Already the gossip of desert caravan men was that Archelaus had
gone to Rome to have confirmed by the Emperor his succession
and crown under the will of his father and already, while he was
gone, some of his friends had tried to do him in.
Mary and Joseph, crossing the sands of Sinai, took counsel to-
gether on these reports and decided not to settle near Jerusalem, as
they had thought of doing, but to go back to Galilee, back to Naza-
reth, where Joseph had a good trade as a carpenter.
Thus the period in their two lives of the supernatural, of wonder
and danger and flight and strangeness came to pause. For Joseph that
period was never to be renewed. Nearly thirty years of peace and
quietude lie before mother and son, sheltered from the world, before
the signs wiU come again, multiplying and beckoning them into dan-
ger.
By that time Joseph will have passed on.
THE GREATEST STORY EVER TOLD
Chapter 17 BEHIND THE MASQUERADE
WHEN Jesus learned to toddle, he followed His mother around the
house and sang with her at her work. He played with chips of wood
and little boats that Joseph carved for Him. He had a companionable
smile, sharing every moment in unspoken felicity, and yet from in-
fancy He took time out to be alone, for what seemed reveries and
daydreams.
Time to pause, bread in hand by the open door and look know-
ingly into the sky and the soaring, creamy clouds. To lie in the
field on a dewy morning, and press the cool, moist grass against His
cheek. To listen at the night window as if the very wind spoke in
whispers that only He could understand; to smell Mother's hand,
kneading the dough, and to taste, in long, slow mouthfuls, the cool
innocence of a cup of milk.
There was in the child Jesus from the very beginning an acute
sharpness of all the organs; His were the first perfect faculties since
Adam, and by them and through them he received a fulness of sensa-
tion not known to those around him. The sounds He heard, the
colors He saw, smells and tastes and feelings were rapturous with a
completeness and intensity, an ecstasy even, possible only to the
mortal whose soul and body are perfect to receive the gifts of nature.
"He sees more than we do, no matter what He looks at!" Joseph
would muse, and Mary would smile, as if to answer;
"And why not?"
Nor was the mother surprised at the friendliness the birds and
animals showed Him, nor that He was tender and full of concern,
even for ugly little red worms; His sympathies at home with all
living things.
Nevertheless Mary and Joseph saw to it that Jesus was strictly in-
structed in the stern school of Shammai. Sitting on the floor of the
synagogue, Jesus was taught from the beginning the Scriptures and
the prophets of His people. In His home teaching Mary and Joseph
proceeded with awe-filled and secret care. They depended on the
grace of God to show them how to bring him up. He must be taught
His lessons, His manners, His skills. So mother and foster father
A BOY IN NAZARETH 77
prayed for light, and meanwhile they had their own resources of
kindness and common sense.
But often they were baffled.
"I don't know what to think sometimes," Joseph confided one
night when Jesus was fast asleep and they were preparing for bed.
"Already He looks far beyond our little town."
That was after Joseph had dutifully tried to impart to the boy a
sense of old tribal closeness, of intimate and binding family loyalty*
Somehow, although He remained silent, Jesus seemed to be nourish-
ing richer and larger loyalties. It was not that the boy seemed far
away from His mother and foster father or His relatives; it was, in-
stead, that He showed a friendliness, a willingness to be affection-
ately close to everyone else too. That broadness of affection was new
to Joseph,
But when the carpenter talked to Mary about it, her serenity was
undisturbed. From the first she meant to hold on to a complete as-
surance in the supernatural destiny of her Son. She could never for-
get how He was conceived, and how bora.
Nevertheless, strict rules of family life were completely observed
in the household. They faithfully obeyed the laws. Like all their
neighbors, they would rather be stoned to death than eat unclean
food; they kept to the letter the Levitical ceremonial laws, just as
they observed conscientiously all the customs and festivals, days
when they might labor and days when they might not. They recited
prayers and sang psalms; their lives were consecrated to an exact
fulfilment of the Pharisees' regulations. Thus Jesus grew up in an
atmosphere of regimented duty where the things one was allowed to
do, could not do, and must do, were regulated almost from hour
to hour.
On the Sabbath, for example, in the house of Mary and Joseph,
one could not light a fire or put one out. A man could not peel a
fruit. A woman could not knead her dough. A boy could not wash
his dog. A girl could not plait her hair* An old man could not tie a
knot in a string. No one could write or cross out what had been
written. All was forbidden, except, of course, that a man could go
to the help of a bogged cow or a trapped sheep.
Jesus obeyed those laws as a child, but in spite of the grim regime
He enjoyed his boyhood. He was lean and strong of body, fleet of
foot, unafraid of climbing heights, especially the blunt shoulders of
Mount Tabor, only five and a half -miks from the town, or of
78 THE GREATEST STORY EVER TOLD
descending into hillside caves; He could shout as loud as the next
boy and laugh as gleefully* No matter what happened, He was never
known to snivel or accuse, to cry and run at the nose or complain.
But Jesus had no taste for triumph. If one thing set Him apart from
his playfellows, it was a lack of interest in the rewards of competi-
tion. He loved to run, but He cared nothing for a racer's laurel. He
would contend in boyish trials of strength but took no pleasure in
lording it over His defeated partner; there was joy enough in the
mere exercise; joy in the full use of life forces and what good the
trophy?
That was true also in His studies, in which He effortlessly ex-
celled, His friends hated the whole idea of school, but boys in Naza-
reth had to go whether they liked it or not. Nearly two thousand
years ago education in that hillside town was already compulsory,
and there was a Nazareth school board that saw to it that no child
played hooky after he was sk years old.
Invariably Jesus read quickly and easily the scrolls the teachers
lent Him, mostly the works of Moses and the prophets; it was as if
He already knew the Scriptures and now refreshed His memory,
In a short while He knew the writings by heart. Ask Him a question
out of Leviticus or Deuteronomy and He could answer it instantly;
as Josephus was kter to write of most boys and girls of that day, "It
, ' was graven into the very soul.*'
Sometimes Joseph would take Him on a picnic to the top of the
Mghest hill above Nazareth and show the little boy the whole cir-
cuitthat, Joseph explained, was the meaning of the word "Galilee"
fifty miles from north to south and thirty-five miles from the sea-
coast to the boundary line. As they looked out to the distant blue of
die Mediterranean Sea, Joseph would point to the long crouch of
the Carmel ridge and thence on around the horizon to the peaks of
forbidden Samaria. Yonder, in a vast declivity, lay Joseph's favorite
vista, the broad sweep of the plain of Esdraelon, carpeted with wild
flowers to obliterate the bloodstains of its ancient battles. They
could see far into the Jordan Valley, all the way to Gilead and,
turning the other way, behold the Sea of Galilee, the mountains of
Lebanon, and the snow like a chain of pearl around the high throat
of Mount Hermon.
Tired of the grand sights, and of recalling the tales of how Gideon
defeated the Midianites and where Saul and Jonathan died together,
Joseph and Jesus would open Mary's picnic box and munch awhile,
A BOY IN NAZARETH 79
c. I then lie supine on the grass, forgetting the wide scene of gray-
rocky hills and green pastures, forgetting the storied past; lying on
their backs, they would know the communion of silence which is a
strong binder of the affections of men.
But 111 His daily life Jesus was also looking around Him; he was
learning a great deal through His own observations. Already He was
beginning to challenge in His own thoughts the tyrannical power
exerted by the religious authorities. The people of Nazareth had to
be constantly running to the synagogue for advice in the simplest
of household affairs. Whatever one wanted to do must be done only
on the advice of the priests and with their consent; they settled
everything. As a Nazarene lad Jesus was supposed to perform,
promptly and obediently, any task set Him by a scribe; He must
carry the fellow's bundles, run his errands, water his donkey, sweep
out his dirt. The mild eyes of Jesus betrayed no insubordination;
His thoughts, in those years of boyhood, were never spoken except
once! And that was some years later on.
Jesus also found the religious services prolonged and tiresome.
Everybody had to stand during interminable pray ers^ petitions to
God in which the same thing was said over and over again. The day
was to come when Jesus would teach a simple, noble prayer of His
own in which there would be none of those "vain repetitions" which
so wearied Him as a child.
Actually for Jesus, as for every Nazarene boy of His time, the
synagogue was the school of life. There was very little of the world
that one could know outside one's own household and synagogue.
But the still very young Jesus saw through the imposing masquer-
ade of ecclesiastical services to the atrocious fact that all too often
only the letter of the law was being kept while its living spirit was
being droned away.
By supernatural insight, His alone, He was looking already be-
yond the boundaries of family, of village, town, and nation, and be-
holding a world that should be one world, one home for people and
all the people, children of God.
80 THE GREATEST STORY EVER TOLD
Chapter 18 JESUS BARABBAS
THE boys of the village liked to talk everlastingly about deliverance
of the nation from foreign tyranny. At heart they were all little
revolutionists. Their games, like cowboys and Indians of today, were
of Zealots and Romans, patriots and tyrants. On street corners,
around fires in the field, on the steps of the synagogue, their elders
toopeddler, shepherd, everybody talked of a king who was to
come one day and free Israel by force of arms. But Jesus showed
scant interest in the boys* games of revolution though He heard
every day about the crimes of government.
And indeed the years of His childhood were no improvement for
Israel over the sway of the kte King Herod. The acute misery of
the people brought about a rebellion in Galilee when Jesus was
eleven years old.
That abortive uprising began and ended in the town of Sepphoris,
only four miles away from Nazareth. There was a patriot called
Judas of the forbidden Zealot party, and he led a desperate crew
of whom Joseph's old friend Samuel was a vigorous lieutenant on
a madman's enterprise. Those were the days when the secret coun-
sel ran through the province: by blood and sword "the holy simple-
ton,** Judas, was going to save everybody, free everybody from
Roman tyranny. "No Lord but Jehovah" was the rallying call; "no
tax but to die Temple; no friend but the Zealot." So Judas, the Gali-
lean, raised an army of rebels, a rag, tag, and bobtail valiant crew who,
following his bidding, raided the king's armory in Sepphoris and
then began to march. Soon enough the Roman colonial troops, under
General Varus, cut the army of Judas to pieces, and Sepphoris was
burned to the ground.
Jesus would always remember the smell of the cremated city
which filled the nostrils of Nazareth. Those inhabitants of Sepphoris
who did survive the fire were sold into slavery.
That was a time of panic for the Nazarenes: Judas beheaded on
tie field of battle, the rebel soldiers in flight and hiding, perhaps in
his own cistern. AH the neighbors of Joseph had stood on die heights
and watched in despair the fury of Roman punishment. Two thou-
A BOY IN NAZARETH 8 1
sand men, suspected of complicity in the schemes of Judas the Gali-
lean, were crucified in the open country two thousand crosses with
hanging victims between Sepphoris and Nazareth. Those two thou-
sand crucifixions some of the victims men He had run errands for
were among the early memories of the boy Jesus.
In the midst of such civil clashes there was the gravest anxiety in
Joseph's mind, when one day a long-bearded stranger in Syrian dress
walked into the shop and whispered a name. Then Joseph knew the
stranger was Samuel in disguise. Samuel, who had survived the
broken rebellion and escaped the Romans; Samuel, who now, very
casually, dropped in to tell of new, even more desperate plans.
"King Archelaus is worse than Herod but not so smart," Samuel
told Joseph late that night as the two stood talking in hushed voices
near the front door. In the dim light Joseph looked at his old friend
with misgiving. Formerly Samuel, wild as he was, his blackholly
eyes full of rebellious zeal, had always in his voice a ring of idealism.
Now he sounded tired and disillusioned.
"Have you heard the news, Joseph?"
"What is it now, Samuel?"
"The new king's cruelty has stirred up the people so that they
have sent a committee to Rome secretly, of course to complain
against the puppet ruler to the real boss the Emperor!"
"The Emperor!" Joseph repeated, and clucked his tongue. He was
no politician, but he knew enough to realize that great Caesar Augus-
tus on his throne would not be pleased at -such reports. Already he
had mastered the world; now he meant to keep it in order and, as
he had said, wherever possible in an atmosphere of intellectual lib-
erty. His ambition was to make Rome a light to future history. And
it was true that before Octavius, now called Augustus, had come to
power, the old republic had been torn with dissensions. As Emperor,
he had healed th'e hatreds, and for forty-five years he had reigned in
comparative peace while Virgil composed his epics, Livy wrote his
histories, and Ovid the Metamorphoses.
What, then, Caesar was likely to ask, was all this disorder in the
land of Israel? He was certain to be most majestically annoyed, was
he not?
"That is just how it turned out," agreed Samuel "The committee
is back and we know now what is going to happen."
It seemed that the Pharisees on the committee had leagued with
envious relatives of Archekes and fell at the Emperor's feet to re-
82 THE GREATEST STORY EVER TOLD
port vastly exaggerated accounts of the only disturbances left in his
empire.
"This will never, never do!" complained the Emperor angrily,
according to Samuel's reports. "I am going to see to it that after this
there shall be peace in Palestine f orevennore."
"That is an admirable idea," agreed Joseph ironically, "How can
it be done?"
"By order of the Emperor, the king will be banished and we will
get a new one!"
"A new one! Another one? Is that a remedy? Why cannot the
Emperor learn that peace in Palestine can come only from God?"
"From scribes?" scoffed Samuel. "Like Hillel, you mean?"
"Alas," Joseph said, "Hillel is no more."
One of Palestine's earnest seekers after peace, the famous Rabbi
Hillel had died only a few weeks before. His maxims were quoted in
every synagogue. Once he said to a Gentile who had sought to un-
derstand the laws of God:
"That which is unpleasant to you, do not to your neighbor. That
is the whole law and all the rest is but its exposition."
"Dead or alive," the insurgent Samuel retorted, "Hillel was of no
help. He counseled peace. There can be no peace. It is as I have
always told you Israel must fight, fight to the death. The trouble
has been that we have had no leaders. Well, at last I am going to be-
come a leader. Joseph your hand.
"I am going away from Nazareth and you will know me never
again. My old self dies tonight. I shall haunt the caravan roads,
pounce and rob and plunder and slay when I have to; I shall stop
at nothing to finance a new rebellion* My old name is forgotten;
Samuel is no more."
The brave lift to Samuel's chin, now exposed by moonlight, was
slighdy adolescent. He saw himself, like any small boy, a rogue, a
picaroon adventurer, a patriot. And Joseph saw that nothing could
be done about it,
"Alas, my old friend, will nothing stop you from this craziness?"
"Nothing, Joseph* Someday the people of this land will have to
choose between your views and mine."
"Your new name? Have you chosen it? What will it be?"
*1 have chosen it. Only you may know because I can trust you.
My new name will be Bar-Abbas! "
"I owimend you to God, Bar-Abbas!"
A BOY IN NAZARETH 83
"To freedom, if you please! And, Joseph, kiss the little Son for
me. Tell Him I have also taken His name. Hereafter I shall be known
as Jesus Bar-Abbas!"
And Samuel rushed down the road. Joseph was never to see him
again. But Mary was to see him in the darkest hour of life.
"If he would only put his trust in the promises of God," mur-
mured Joseph. "In the Messiah. And yet, he did ask me to kiss our
little boy!"
Chapter 19 WHERE IS MY SON?
MEANWHILE, in His school and in conversation Jesus heard more and
more of the Messiah who was to bring freedom to the people:
"A prophet like unto rne will the Lord raise up to thee."
Writers and haranguers at the crossroads constantly assured the
tax-ridden people that the long-awaited Christ would soon be with
them. The most popular book at the time, one that Jesus often heard
discussed, was by an unknown author and was called The Praising of
Enoch. It emphasized the old promises of deliverance. More than
once Jesus was to mention the book as he preached through Pales-
tine. This and the prophetic book of Daniel were the best sellers of
His boyhood.
Everywhere men were quoting from the prophets to anticipate
just how the Son of God would come to earth.
"There will be a great star in the heavens to announce His birth,"
said one.
"He will be born into the line of the house of David in Bethlehem,
but He will live in Galilee," said another.
Naturally Joseph and Mary had told Jesus of the three Wise Men
who brought Him gifts and said that they had seen His star in the
east ( and had come to worship Him. Also He knew that He had been
born in Bethlehem and that Joseph and Mary were both of the
princely house of David,
But very early in life Jesus learned what the people were expect-
ing from their Messiah, and He knew that they were wrong. There
was coming to them no Savior with supernatural genius for war and
government. No Messiah was to lead them m revolution, free than
84 THE GREATEST STORY EVER TOLD
and make them in turn masters of the whole world. God would not
send His Messenger to earth merely to rally the glory of David and
Solomon. It was in vain that the people waited for such a Messiah
a trinity of patriot, general, and king.
Already more than one man had falsely proclaimed himself as the
expected Messiah. Jesus heard much talk of one called Thedeaus.
The Jews demanded a sign from the pretender, so he boldly led
them up to the Mount of Olives and commanded the walk of Jerusa-
lem to fall down. When the walls stood firm, Thedeaus was left
alone.
Such adventures merely emphasized the people's need for a real
leader; there was a slow ferment in every heart, a turbulence, an
anguish, that threatened to turn into mass hysteria and that would
be restrained by Roman spears.
Such was the state of the world, of the Roman empire, Judea,
Nazareth, when Mary and Joseph decided to take the twelve-year-
old boy on a visit to Jerusalem for the Passover. Year after year the
family made this journey, but this was the first time they would
take Jesus with them.
In Jerusalem again Mary's growing boy looked around him, fasci-
nated by the splendor and the squalor of palaces and slums, the
penury in the midst of magnificence, and especially the beauties of
the Temple, with its walls of cedar and marble. As He walked with
Mary and Joseph through the Gate that was called Beautiful, Jesus
carried a few coins that His foster father had given Him: mites and
pennies knotted in the hem of His robe; with these copper pieces the
boy paid His own way into the Temple courts.
That was when Joseph explained to Him about money in the Tem-
ple* Because Judea was a prisoner state and occupied by legions of
the Imperial Army, only empire money, coins bearing the head and
sign of Caesar, could be used for buying and selling. But the older
Jewish coins, by special concession could be (and must be) used
within the area of the Temple. When one came to the ancient prom-
ontory to worship God, one carried with him the coinage of Rome,
but while one was still in the outer area of the Gentiles, the fore-
court outside the sacred precincts, one must make an exchange of
that silver into Jewish money.
"And," the gentle Joseph added sadly, "a man invariably loses
money on the transaction. For this Roman piece he gets less than
A BOY IN NAZARETH 85
half in the people's own money, because he has to pay the agio, the
premium for changing cash; that is how the money-changers around
the Temple get rich! Men like Annas and his friends!"
But why did anyone need money for obligations in the home of
God? Why? For to buy sacrifices! One had to pay for doves and
lambs, for burnt offerings on the altar. And for these little birds
and beasts one was charged five times what they were worth* The
profit of that also went to Annas and his friends.
On learning this the Boy Jesus became very pensive. And what
thoughtful mind could fail to remember that this city of dreadful
contrasts in human existence was the birthplace of Jeremiah that
great prophet to whom the boy felt so close; that singer and saint,
who could look into the wrongs of the state and then lift his gaze
straight into heaven. And Jesus could remember also the persisting
legend that Jeremiah, having been proved right to the people he
tried to save, was exiled into Egypt to die a martyr* The world has
a way of punishing its friends.
By this time Jesus and His father had crossed the outer court*
And still the Boy was remembering, too, that Isaiah the prophet
had also once walked these streets, telling the people: "Cease to da
evil; learn to do good; seek justice, relieve the oppressed; judge the
fatherless, plead for the widow . . ,"
Toward the northwest corner of the court there was the terrace,
divided into three parts or elevations, one for His mother and the
other women, another for the men and boys like Joseph and Him-
self, and, closest of all to the Sanctuary, a court for the priests*
That was where thirteen years before Zachary, now dead, had been,
stricken dumb. The boy Jesus counted the twelve steps down which
the dumbfounded old priest had fled, and admired the gilded door-
way and hanging on its gilt rod, the veil of the Temple, a many-
colored curtain woven in Babylon during the captivity. Gold spikes
on the flat roof reflected the glitter of the sunset, and just over the
doorway was a gleaming bunch of golden grapes*
Wherever Jesus looked there were priests. On that very day
twenty thousand of them were registered in the Temple and got
their living from it. The pkce swarmed with men in ceremonial
costume Levites with pointed caps and large pockets in which they
carried the books of the law; Pharisees with their broad pWIacteries
and deep white fringes on purple gowns; solemn Essenes in white
robes and with than from Gailee ai^d Judea and die land beyond
86 THE GREATEST STORY EVER TOLD
Jordan crowds of earnest believers who came to buy lambs or
pigeons and lay them on the altar to be burned; women after child-
birth, sick people after recovery, grateful men and women and those
who hoped soon to have cause to be grateful Jewish Parthians and
Medes with close-cropped beards, Elamites, the dwellers in Meso-
potamia and Cappadocia; Israelites from Egypt and Libya and Rome
uncounted hundreds and thousands of them- Bargains were being
struck, greetings exchanged, psalms sung; genuflections all day long,
the smell of burning flesh, the smoke of incense.
Jesus was gripped with this spectacle of color and noise and move-
ment The voice of the Temple choir, the sounding trumpets, and
the music of the sweet-stringed harps of old King David softened
the intensity of His dark eyes. He watched the people kneel and wor-
ship and heard the phrases of the priests and the intoned responses
of the congregation; presently there was in all their hearts a mys-
tical sense of communion as they sang the Sixty-sixth Psalm:
"I will go into thy house with burnt offerings: I will pay thee my
vows,
'Which my lips have uttered, and my mouth hath spoken when I was
in trouble . . .
"Blessed be God, which hath not turned away my prayer, nor his
mercy from me."
But why did they burn the animals? Why did they imagine God
would be pleased when altars bled and smoked? Why did the poor
have to spend their money to buy animals? Why must they buy
them only from the priests? What did the priests do with the money?
Did not such absurdities detract from the dignity and goodness of
the Idea of God?
What was it that Amos, the prophet, had said?
"I hate, I despise your feasts. And I will take no delight in your solemn
assemblies. Yea, though you offer me your burnt offerings and meal
offerings, I will not accept them; neither will I regard the peace offer-
ings of your fat beasts. Take thou away from me the noise of your songs;
and I will not hear the melody of viols*
"But let justice run down as iwter^ and righteousness as a mghty
stream"
Why had no one carried on the fight for, the realities of religion
that old Amos had begun years before?
Seized suddenly with a great warm rush of zeal and a surge of
socfa pe$tions, Jesus stood up, while Joseph remained praying with
A BOY IN NAZARETH . 87
closed eyes. Burning with eagerness, the twelve-year-old strode into
an offshoot shelter of the inner Temple where the Fathers of Israel
sat with the rolls of Scriptures around them and debated the texts
of judges and prophets. A circle of admiring intellectuals was lis-
tening in awestruck silence.
Into this ring of professors of the sacred teachings walked the boy
from Galilee and His tongue was on fire with the questions He now
put to them. He seemed eager to learn from these sages, but they
recoiled from His honest inquiries.
Were ever such questions put to these brains before? Never,
never! He was not there to higgle and dispute about trifling matters.
The savants of the law listened first with scorn and irritation, then
with incredulity, with astonishment, friendly, but with awakening
alarm. Who was this radical child that dared to question and chal-
lenge the recondite technicalities and the established order of a
thousand years? And why did He continually seek to bring these
scholarly minds back to the troublesome problems of human be-
havior?
Day and night came and the fifteen men still tried to answer the
questions of this unknown stripling. New judges took the place of
weary elderly ones, and the debate went on with the unwearying lad.
It was impossible by logic or tergiversation to dislodge Him from
the simplicity of His position; He merely kept reminding them of
the beauty of their own neglected teachings, quoting every now and
then from the magnificent simplicity of Micah, the prophet, when
he demanded:
"What does Jehovah request of you but to do justly, and to love
kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?"
The new recruits to this famous debate had taken no note of the
passing of time until Jesus, looking over the heads of His antago-
nists, saw the pale face of Mary. Tears glistened in her reproachful
eyes; for the first and only time since He was born she seemed not
to comprehend.
"Son, why have you done so to us? Behold, your father and I
have sought you sorrowing."
At once Jesus made His farewell to the groggy teachers; even
the newest arrivals were worn out with the unwonted exercise He
had given their brains. Around Mary's shoulders He wrapped the
cloak of deeper blue that she wore now, and took her hand and led
her toward the gate^ and as they walked together, die told Him what
88 THE GREATEST STORY EVER TOLD
had been happening while He was immersed in his first mental joust
with order, custom, and the way people have always done things.
It seemed that Mary and Joseph had started on the journey back
to Nazareth, feeling sure that Jesus was following with a troop of
other Nazareth boys. But when they began to search for him, Jesus
was not to be found. That was why, as soon as the sun was up, Mary
and Joseph turned their faces back toward Jerusalem. There, at last,
after weary search, they found Him arguing the law with the elders!
Looking into Mary's eyes, Jesus said with a tender smile:
"How is it that you sought me? Did you not know that I must
be about my Father's business?"
Did she not know? Why should He think she would know? And
then Mary remembered that dark night when she had fled Naza-
reth. When the supernatural had awakened her, she could not call
mother and father and hope for their comprehension of her incom-
prehensible experience in the conception of this child. Did you not
know, Mother?
For that moment it was Mary and Joseph who felt like children
and Jesus their instructor. But only for that moment then He was
their boy again. With an impulsive gesture He embraced His mother
and kissed the gray and golden beard of Joseph. They had no
further cause to worry. All the rest of His youth Jesus obeyed them.
Mary watched Him grow up into strong manhood, advancing in
wisdom.
Chapter 20 STRANGE WORD FROM THE SOUTH
FOR eighteen years, until Jesus was thirty, He and Mary lived in
NazaretL In that long period of obscurity Joseph died, and so did
Mary's parents, Joachim and Anna. For His mother and himself
Mary's son earned a living carrying on the work in the carpenter
shop.
As a young man He was a solitary figure in a boisterously so-
ciable community. What He saw in Nazareth was a miniature of
the whole sorrow and bitter poverty and bewilderment and op-
pression. He saw the people exploited by their own leaders, betrayed
by their own flesh and blood, despoiled by thieves in high places,
A BOY IN NAZARETH 89
and ordered around by superstitious old men who split hairs over
rules and regulations. Yet He saw, too, that the men and women
of Nazareth had f ortitude and courage. They had hopes and dreams.
They had good instincts as well as bad* He not only pitied them but
loved them. Humanity was worth saving!
The day was coming, as He had known from the beginning, when
He must drop his carpenter's tools, leave mother and home, and
devote the remainder of His life to bringing light to the bewildered
and frightened. No one else would or could offer them new Ufe
of hope, in this world or the next.
Thus long before He left the shelter of Mary's home Jesus saw
Himself in opposition to the priestly classes, the rich and the power-
ful, who used religion for their own ends. The clash was sure to
come. His fate was sealed the day Jesus began to look around Him
and do His father's business, which was to bring light, to expose
the darkness of evil to the light of truth, and to teach the poorest
man the rich meaning and possibilities of life.
And what would He teU about the meaning of life? The reason
for it? He had listened to the talk of oriental travelers through Naza-
reth, chattering about Nirvana, the denial of individuality. From
them He knew the Vedic holy books of India, and the Sutras, and
tales of their sacred Mahabharata. As they believed, one human life
was like a drop of water falling into the ocean; men are still assur-
ing other men of that same fallacy, and other men are still believing
it; all identity to be lost, a man being nothing. Jesus would recall
to them the truth. Man, individual man, with his infinite capacity
to know the bliss of growth, the joy of action, the wonder of beauty,
was the creature to whom He would address Himself; to man, who
had immortal individuality.
So the maturing Jesus, now nearly thirty years old, and brooding
on the tribulations of the world, was ready to offer it joy. No dreary
servitude, but a new way of living, a great search to be entered
upon to find the kingdom of God. Not the kingdom set up by
overthrow and revolt and independence; not the sort of thing Sam-
uel, His foster father's friend, now called Jesus Barabbas, would
hope for, but the Father's kingdom, not of this world as yet but
one to be brought here by love. Of such unbounded capacity would
the subjects of that kingdom become tihat man or woman could ask
what they would and they should have it. All that men and women
of good will had ever hoped and dreamed of good could come true*
9O THE GREATEST STORY EVER TOLD
Not the shadow but the substance. Only they must first seek the
truth and the truth would make them free* And that was a free-
dom where men were just to other men, kind to their fellows, lov-
ing and brotherly, adoring God, their Father. Such freedom in
which war could not exist. Not only a world of one God but of
one family with God as its Father. Let man love God first and then
his fellow men; that summed it.
The torment of the world all around Him made clear how urgently
the message was needed. What respect could the people of Galilee
feel for the national life when they beheld their tetrarch, Herod
Antipas, stealing his brother's wife and making her his queen? That
recent and shocking indecency was doing more than rousing in-
dignation; it was causing people to lose heart, to ask if anything
mattered any more.
In the high hills around His home Jesus the workman slowly
dreamed into objective form the message He had been born to de-
liver. Now His heart was on fire with a dangerous purpose. He
had reached sturdy manhood; His hair was long and soft and golden
brown and hung around His shoulders; He had His mother's glorious
dark eyes; His muscles were strong from hard work. His face was
paler than the skin of most men. . . .
Suddenly a strange word came to Narazeth word of a strong
man from the wilderness of Judea, a man who was preaching in
various towns down south and blessing people by dipping them
in the water of the Jordan River; a new man named John.
"That John," the widow Mary told Jesus, "is your own cousin;
he is the son of Zachary and Elizabeth."
And the same John was telling great crowds that he was the herald,
the forerunner, preparing the reception for the Savior of the world!
His message was that the Messiah was coming at last.
Book Three
THE PREPARATION
Chapter 21 THE VOICE IN THE WILDERNESS
JESUS was profoundly moved by what He learned about his cousin
John.
The story was brought down by traders from the capital how
John was creating a furore, not only in Jerusalem but in all the
countryside* The old-age child of Zachary and Elizabeth had grown
in thirty years to be a giant. From birth John had been strong and
powerful, as Mary well remembered. During childhood he had been
brought to Nazareth on occasional visits, but in early manhood,
after his father and mother died, the youth had vanished. For years
his relatives heard little about him, although there were reports
that he lived in a rocky cave in the blistered valley below Jerusalem
near the Dead Sea, and that he ate only locusts and wild honey.
Now, suddenly, he had emerged as a public character, and al-
ready he was suspect in the eyes of the Temple police. Perhaps
that was because he was different from ordinary men. Around his
loins, so Jesus was told, John wore a girdle made from the skins
of wild beasts; his cloak was of camel's hair, and his own hair and
beard were long and tangled. Bronzed arms upraised, John would
stand day after day on the outskirts of towns and shout to the
crowds that the time had come for the people to repent of their
bad lives.
To people who had neglected and then virtually forgotten the
stern ideas of the prophet Isaiah these words of John had a startling
sound.
"Do penance!" he shouted. "The Kingdom of Heaven is at hand-"
His audiences were not quite sure what he meant by the King-
dom of Heaven. But they knew, well enough, that they had plenty
to repent of. To their amazement this wild-haired John was not
accusing merely the poor* Uke themselves, alone, as the priests and
92 THE GREATEST STORY EVER TOLD
the scribes had generally done. No, John, fearless, fiery apparition
from the desert, laid about him on all sides, sparing no one; not
mighty Caesar who reigned in Rome, nor Pontius Pilate who was
the Emperor's official agent in Jerusalem-not even Herod Antipas,
the cruel son of the great Herod, and builder of Tiberius, whose
title was Tetrarch and who still ruled the province of Galilee, after
thirty years of discord.
Such effrontery as John's made sensational news even in the
cynical streets of Jerusalem. From out of the capital great crowds
streamed, toiling down steep and rocky defiles, out into the parched
and desert plains, to listen to this new man's voice crying in the
wilderness.
"You offspring of vipers!" John shouted imprudently at the ar-
riving hordes. "Who has warned you to flee from the wrath to
come?"
Instead of getting angry at the abuse, many of them lifted their
robes and waded into the water, doing just as he asked which was,
as a sign of penance, to submit to baptism, a cleansing rite in which
remorseful men were splashed and blessed.
More than one of his puzzled followers had asked John if he were
the expected Christ, the promised Deliverer and Savior of Israel.
His answer, repeated around camp fires of resting caravans and over
bake stoves and cook pots in a hundred towns, was:
"I, indeed, baptize you with water. But there shall come one
mightier than I the latchet of whose shoe I am not worthy to loose.
He shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost and with fire!"
When these tales were talked over in Mary's kitchen, she was
reminded of the words of Isaiah, the favorite prophet of Jesus:
"A voice of one crying in the wilderness; prepare ye the way
of the Lord; make straight his paths . . .*'
It was when He heard these tales of John that Jesus sighed, laid
down His carpenter tools, and after a tender farewell to Mary
started off alone, on foot, going from Galilee to the wilderness to
see for Himself.
For most of the journey His way led him along the same road that
He had traveled with His mother and Joseph often before. After
days of lonely trudging He came to a desokte region: bare mountain-
sides and limestone ravines where nothing grew; ancient rock tombs
everywhere; pebbles and broken stones, emptiness and death. Hur-
rying on, He reached the lower part of the Jordan Valley, welcome
THE PREPARATION 93
sight with tamarisks, reeds, and willows. Near the bank of the nar-
row muddy river He saw a crowd of people in a trap of silence as
they hearkened to John. Harsh and distinct, His cousin's voice re-
sounded in the hot, dry air:
"And now the ax is laid to the root of the trees!"
Without difficulty Jesus made His way to the front; presently
He stood calmly before John. For the first time since boyhood the
cousins were face to face; John hulking, vociferous, sweating with
earnestness; Jesus, taller, gaunt, and pale, in perfect tranquillity.
A long moment and neither spoke, while the crowd watched curi-
ously amid a low buzz of speculation. In that historic meeting
though doubts were later to assail the mind of one both Jesus and
John were sure. They knew their mission; knew, too, that they
were doomed men.
In a voice so low that only John could hear, Jesus said that He
had come to be baptized by his cousin. John was shocked.
"But it is I who ought to be baptized by you," he objected* "And
you come to me?"
Jesus lifted His head and replied with a disarming smile:
"Permit it to be so nowfor so it becomes us."
Then John bowed his wild head, that head so soon to be severed,
and the two cousins walked together into the tumbling Jordan. There
Jesus submitted his body to the rite of baptism that perfect body
that was soon to be nailed to a cross.
When the simple ceremony was over, Jesus, looking up through
dripping eyes, saw a white pigeon flying over His head, hovering,
pausing, with fluttering wings. The bird lighted on His shoulder
and in it He knew that the Spirit of God had appeared to Him.
Many in the watching crowd asserted that they heard a voice from
heaven say:
"This is my beloved son, in whom I am well pleased."
This brief ceremony over, Jesus pressed John's hand in farewell.
Telling no one what He intended to do, He made His way alone
back into the wilderness. He was both led by the Spirit of God
and driven by it; impelled and compelled to a great and lonely test
This parched and arid place was to be His place of testing; here,
with red-tailed buzzards wheeling overhead, He was to endure a
hideous experience none the less frightful because He deliberately
invited the trial upon Himself.
On a hillside He f otmd a cavern and there He made his solitary
94 THE GREATEST STORY EVER TOLD
camp. His sole reason for retreating to this grotto was that he must
become acquainted with human suffering and temptation. He had
to know them at first-hand and altogether before He "could begin
His work which John had just welcomed. He must overcome temp-
tation Himself as a man, not as God before He advised other men
what they must do.
That was why Jesus made His way into this gigantesque waterless
region one day to be called Quarantaria an inchoate place like a
piece of creation begun but not finished; abandoned by all except
fanatics and madmen and a sect of queer ascetics called Essenes
who had no property except in common in the dead lands where
they lived a mountainous expanse of stone ravines, blistering hills,
and beds of crumbling shale, where no birds ever rooted except the
birds of prey; a lonely, scorched, and gloomy place fit only for
panthers and wild boar.
Here Jesus forced upon Himself a grueling discipline of fasting
and solitude. For forty days He remained there eating nothing. And
during those forty days the little home at Nazareth and the blessed
face of Mary His mother seemed very far away.
It was only after those forty weakening days and nights that
Jesus was subject to the ordeal of temptation. Not until He was
faint and exhausted did the temptations come at a time when He
felt weakest, most lonely, and friendless.
He stood on the height with evil itself* Around Him lay a scene
like the panorama of the world: near at hand the dead yellow rock
baked in the merciless heat of this forsaken valley, down which, in
clear view, a lion stalked a stag. Oif in the southern distance lay
the plain of Zoar and Sodom and Gomorrah, fit backdrop for this
bitter temptation. To the north the hills of Moab behind the poison-
ous mists rising out of the Dead Sea; sand and gravel casting up
heat; torrid air and vicious smells, desolation and to the heart
of the man Jesus was offered now all the beguilements and blan-
dishments and cajoleries that have, since Eden, plagued the human
race uttered more often than not in quotations from the Scripture;
Satan is a great repeater of God's words.
Why not abandon His great mission to help the suffering people?
Why not think, instead, of Himself? After all, did the Son of God
have to go on with this unnecessary farce? He who had the power
to bring a feast ready to hand if He but gave the word! And an-
other thing why remain a lonely, obscure man, a carpenter about
THE PREPARATION 95
to turn wayside preacher? If the miraculous signs of His birth were
to be trusted, then He had the power of God, and all the world
would have to serve Him, and He would know such titanesque
glory as no conqueror in history had ever known not Darius, Alex-
ander, Caesar. All mankind would adore Him.
Why not?
His answer He drew from Scriptures of long ago:
"The Lord, your God, shall you adore and Him only you shall
serve not in bread alone does man live, but in every word that
proceeds out of the mouth of God. Get you behind me, Satan!"
In his deliberately weakened condition evil had not been easy
to resist. No temptation ever is. But now Jesus, who in addition
to being really God was also a real man, had experienced the tor-
ments that come to men. And He had banished the temptations by
the example of sheer devotion.
When the torturing forty days were over, haggard Jesus walked
slowly back toward the Jordan River. It was good to come out
again from the hot region where Cousin John had spent most of
his life; good to feel the bracing, invigorating wind blowing on His
perspiring face as He trudged nearer to the river. Dates in His sun-
burned hands, He walked as He broke the long fast.
His cousin John He found preaching to crowds even greater
than before. As Jesus stood on the fringe of the multitude and lis-
tened to the crowd's chatter, it became clear that in Jerusalem the
authorities were already deeply disturbed about John the Baptist.
He could pick up what the Temple politicians had been saying:
"This John is a violent man who at any moment may incite the
people themselves to violence."
"He mocks our authority; he reviles Pharisees and Sadducees as
hypocrites."
So, it seemed, the priestly leaders had just appointed an investi-
gating committee. A deputation had been ordered to go down to
Bethania, beyond the Jordan, where John was currently preaching,
to ask certain questions. Their hope was that the Baptist's answers
would form the basis, later, of an indictment against himself.
So here were the members of the committee now, near the very
elbows of Jesus; their leader coldly facing John and demanding to
know whom he claimed to be. And John, who saw instantly what
Was bothering them, answered:
'1 am not the Christ*"
96 THE GREATEST STORY EVER TOLD
'What? Then are you the reincarnation of the old prophet Elias?"
This, because the people had a prophecy that Elias the prophet
was to return from death, reincarnated just before the coming of
the Messiah.
"I am not!"
"Well, who are you, then?"
"I am the voice of one crying in the wilderness" thus, by quot-
ing an old prophecy, he identified himself as the herald of the Christ
to come.
But he baptized, which was a ceremony supposed to cleanse men
of sin. How dare he do that if he were not the Christ?
"I am baptizing with water. But there has stood one in the midst
of you . . ."
John paused. His bold and searching gaze had picked out the pale
face of Jesus. There was a moment of utter stillness. Then John re-
sumed:
". . . whom you know not. The same is he that shall come after
me. Who is preferred before me! The latchet of whose shoe I am
not worthy to loose!"
The glum deputies from Jerusalem shook their heads and departed,
shoving against Jesus without a glance in His direction and unknow-
ing whom they had jostled. The crowd again engulfed John, and
Jesus went on His own way.
Chapter 22 NEW FRIENDS
THE next morning Jesus took a walk and came face to face with
the Baptist. At the sight of his cousin, worn and thinned from desert
hardship, John threw up his hands and murmured:
"Behold Him who takes away the sins of the world! This is the
Son of God!"
That day and the others that followed Jesus lingered, watching
John and listening to his speeches and talking with him in lonely
walks at night. But soon came a bright morning when the two were
to part, never to meet again in this life.
That was when John was standing with two friends, a young
man with the Greek name of Andrew and die other a good-looking
THE PREPARATION- 97
northerner, also called John. These two Galileans rented boats in a
fisherman's guild at Capernaum, also called Copharnaum, on the inland
sea. Good friends they had been since boyhood, yet no chums were
ever more unlike. Andrew was a sturdy, hardheaded man, proud of
his sound business judgment On the other hand, John was excitable,
imaginative, and full of curiosity. He had a stormy nature, too, and
those who thought him over-gentle or effeminate were preposter-
ously mistaken. A day was to come when John, feeling that Jesus
had been insulted, would plead with the Master to call down fire
from heaven upon His foes.
This Andrew and this John were frowning and puzzled as they
stood talking with the Baptist. For some days they had lingered in
the neighborhood, listening attentively to all John had to say, but
this was the first time they had ever spoken to him privately.
"You are fishermen from the North Lake?" John asked in sur-
prise. "Why did you travel all this long way just to listen to me?"
Andrew put it very succinctly:
"We earn very little money and most of that goes for taxes. We
can't even afford to eat the fish we catch in our own nets. A dog's
life is better. What can we do? Jump into the sea and end it? Then
someone tells us a man is preaching down south, near Jerusalem,
and that he has the secret of a happy life. A desperate man will try
anything . . ."
And here the Galilean gave a wintry smile, as his companion added:
"So we tried you!"
"And have I helped much, John?"
At the directness of the question the two fishermen were em-
barrassed. Before they could find speech the ragged Baptist pointed
over their shoulders, where Jesus was walking toward them; he
whispered to the two bewildered fishermen:
"Look! There is the real Lamb of God!"
This was a profound utterance, which his two groping inquirers
fully grasped; it was an immense tribute to Jesus. As the Lamb of
God, He became the living reality of which the Passover lamb was
a symbol in the religion of Israel; by the same token, fulfilling the
prophecy of Isaiah and Jeremiah. It was a statement to stun the two
men.
"I saw the Spirit of God descend on him when I baptized him
with water," testified John. "He it is who baptizes with the Holy
Ghost. This is the Son of God!"
THE GREATEST STORY EVER TOLD
There was no mistaking the urgency in the Baptist's words. Per-
haps no odder pair ever stood together than Andrew and John that
morning: fishermen away from the water, and from their nets and
hauls; concerned only with the hard mystery of the world and
the misery in their own lives. Not philosophers and mystics, they
were interested less in truth than in their daily problems; these two
practical young men from the Capernaum beach were consumed
with a desire to find out whether it was worth while to go on liv-
ing the hard life which was all they knew. Instead of imparting
to them some magical secret, or merely telling them to return to
their work in Galilee and lead pious lives, the Baptist pointed to
the approaching Jesus and described Him as the Lamb of God. That
might even mean the Messiah!
More, he prodded the two young men to follow this stranger,
now walking past and on toward the end of town, if they wanted
to learn the true meaning of life.
With hasty and grateful glances the Galileans hastened after the
lithe figure, already crossing the sunlit square of Bethania. At the
sound of overtaking footsteps Jesus slowed down and looked over
His shoulder; then, halting at once, He turned and faced them.
They saw a lean, clean-washed man of thirty, pale but muscular,
with a brief golden beard and flowing yellow-brown hair and im-
mense dark eyes. He laid a hand on Andrew's shoulder and smiled
at John.
"Looking for someone?" He asked. His winning manner told
them that somehow He understood their plight disheartened men,
almost completely discouraged. In the springtime, now that the
rains had ceased, they had tramped a long way with their still-unan-
swered questions: Was life worth living? Why toil and die in a
world without any visible purpose or sense to it? Was life only the
tragic, mixed-up mess it seemed to them?
Jesus, looking through space and time, could foresee the fate of
this earnest young Andrew one day to be tied like a letter "X"
to a blazing cross; that would be in Patras. The future of John, too,
who, in old age, was to behold visions and write the Book of Revela-
tion*
To this pair of confused men Jesus spoke with bold directness t
explaining that He was planning a tour of all the Palestinian region
a long series of roadside discourses to the people, trying to answer
just such questions. He would need helpers immediately, but he
THE PREPARATION 99
did not want hasty enthusiasts who might abandon Him just as
hastily. Not quick converts but firmly convinced ones were neces-
sary. Before inviting them to be the first to join His mission He
would require long discussions and debate with them; hours, even
days of sharp questions as many as they could think up* He in-
sisted that they must use their brains; He would not accept obsequi-
ous assent to His ideas but logical, innermost conversion, because
He was not merely asking them to give Him a part of their time.
He needed their lives! Their souls! So they must make sure. In the
end, if they believed in His message, they could join together and
look for other disciples.
To all of which the fishermen repeated their words;
"Master, show us where you live and we will go there with you
right now!"
"Come and see! "
Jesus led the way to lodgings in one of the temporary booths out-
side the town, and from the twilight of the crow to the twilight of
the dove, as dusk and dawn were called, the three sat together, and
never before had John and Andrew heard talk like His.
Again and again Jesus insisted that they must question Him
thoroughly. They were perturbed men, out of balance, full of a
frustrated sense of insecurity and injustice. When He spoke of a
free, new vision of kindness and sacrifice, the overwhelming sweet-
ness of His personality struck their hearts like lightning. Under
the spell of His power they were quickly convinced, but Jesus re-
fused to accept their hasty conversion. First they must try Him
out, face Him with every doubt, confound Him if they could for
they must feel not only His love in their hearts, they must, He
reiterated, also be logically persuaded. He wanted their good sense
as well as their faith, because for the work to which He would at-
tract them a man must be so sure (as well as enraptured) that he
would leave home, family, life itself to follow in His steps. A con-
vert must not only have the gift of faith but logical conviction as
well.
If they could think of no more doubts, He would point out the
objections they had overlooked. Night and day they asked and lis-
tened and asked againbut there came a time when they could think
of no more to ask. They accepted all that He had offered them,
knowing, too, that even sterner phrases of the trath would come
later.
IOO THE GREATEST STORY EVER TOLD
Even so, they were enthusiastically ready to join Him. They felt
immensely thrilled and impressed* There was no arrogance in this
teacher's manner and no formality; already in those brisk hours
they had come to feel as if they had known and loved Him of old.
Andrew posed a final question:
"Master, all that you propose for the world, a life of sacrifice and
inner communion with the Father in heaven, sounds wonderful to
us. But have you come to change the kw of Israel?"
Jesus shook His head slowly.
"No, Andrew, I come, not to change the law, but to fulfill it!"
Instantly the two fishermen turned to each other. Did He mean
what that answer might hint? That He was the Messiah? He had
not said so. They did not ask; their hearts were burning now with
a great exhilaration; merely being with Him had filled them with a
sense of peace.
"Master," said John, "we shall go with you in this undertaking.
You have warned us that these ideas are dangerous. Let them be so!
They are worth dying for!"
Later Andrew confided that he had a brother that he would like
the Master to meet, and ran off to find him. Meanwhile Jesus and
John discovered that they, too, were distant cousinsstrange as it
seemed, this younger John was the son of Zebedee and of Salome,
who was a grown-up sister of Mary. Until this time the cousins
had never met.
Busy washing big, clumsy feet at the town fount, Simon the elder
brother of Andrew looked tired and exasperated. He was a tall,
broad, bulging man with robust shoulders and a rugged, healthy
beard; eyes bright and fierce; face perpetually disgruntled.
"Simon!"
"Hey? Oh, so it's you. Laggard! What makes you heave and grunt
so, Andrew?"
"I'm out of breath, that's all, Simon. We have found Him! And
I ran all the way to tell you about Him!"
"Who has found "
"John and L"
"John and you have found what?"
*1 hesitate to say it, but I actually believe we have found the most
wonderful new teacher in the world. He knows the answer to every
qiiestion you can think of."
a What are you blabbering about now, Andrew?"
THE PREPARATION IOI
"We have found a Messenger of God. I am sure of It."
Simon milked his beard and shook his bald head and wrinkled his
freckled nose.
"Don't believe a word of it," he growled* "You two strike me as
getting sillier all the time. First you run after John the Baptist. You
think he's the one. Then he tells you in plain words he is not. Now
you fasten on somebody else "
"Come and take a look for yourself."
Simon finished drying his enormous toes. He knew that Andrew
was a careful man, and a conservative, often keeping Simon himself
with both feet on the ground.
"All right/' he yielded, "I will go with you and set you right!"
It was dusk when the two brothers came to the booth where
John still sat listening to Jesus. As the great hulk of Simon filled
the entrance and his shadow a shadow that was one day to heal
diseases fell at the feet of Jesus, the Nazarene's face seemed to
light up in richer welcome for the bald and bearded fisherman. Again
the Master of timelessness with inner vision could perceive the fu-
ture: lighted gardens in Rome and a cross turned topsy-turvy, with
this same impetuous, baldheaded, square-bearded braggart, crucified
head downward and burned alive,
Jesus embraced him enthusiastically, exclaiming:
"You are Simon, son of Jona! But you shall be called Peter."
All were stunned at this extraordinarily friendly reception. The
Master spoke with immense feeling in His simple words, as if He
meant much more than He was saying. Simon, to be called Peter, and
his brother Andrew, and John their friend, all waited for Jesus to
say more.
Chapter 23 THE CATERER IS AMAZED
BUT after that greeting Jesus changed the subject. He proposed
that they set out together and He would explain His message to them
during the journey; since they were all natives of Galilee province,
they would all walk home. To this the three were glad to agree.
But the long trek up the stony northern roads had hardly begun
when their number began to grow. The first recruit was a friend
102 THE GREATEST STORY EVER TOLD
of Andrew, a wayfarer like himself with a Greek name, Philip, whom
they overtook on the highway.
This shy, thoughtful Philip, although he had been born in Caper-
naum, had lived for most of his life in a watering place called Beth-
saida. Now he was determined to get out of the town once a simple
port of fishermen, it had lately become a resort for carousing Ro-
mans, and no decent native could tolerate the open drunkenness
and roistering lust and lawlessness of the soldiers.
Jesus welcomed the young fugitive with instant approval, and
Philip not only agreed to join the party and hear about the new
teachings and the plans for spreading them, but he offered to try
to enlist another friend. Begging a free ride on a passing camel, he
hurried some miles forward until he spied the friend who was named
Nathanael Bartholomew lying under a fig tree and staring at the
sky. The skeptical young fellow was wondering what a philosophic
man could possibly do with his life in a land of oppression like
this one.
"Nathanael!" called Philip, forsaking his mount. "We have found
a most wonderful teacher. He is so wonderful, he might even be the
man Moses promised. And the one the prophets promised too!"
"Really, now!" mocked Nathanael with a noisy snort. "Wonder-
ful, wonderful. Well, gullible, who is he?"
"His name is Jesus."
"Yes, and from where does this Jesus sprout?"
"From Nazareth."
"From Nazareth?"
"Yes!"
NathanaeFs laugh was lazy and patronizing.
"Can any good thing come from Nazareth?" he jested.
*TTou better come and see!" ordered Philip, yanking his old play-
mate unceremoniously to his feet. And he forcibly led Nathanael
down the road, until they caught sight of the approaching Master.
"Look!" called Jesus, waving to Nathanael from a distance. "An
Israelite indeed, in whom there is no guile."
All the others smiled, as Jesus added:
"Before Philip called you, when you were under the fig tree, I
saw you."
Nathanael blinked. He bad been under the fig tree. But that was
Dales beyond, where Jesus could not possibly have seen him. He
stammered:
THE PREPARATION 103
"Master . . ."
But Jesus put a friendly arm around him.
"Because I said to you that I saw you under the fig tree, you be-
lieve!"
His bearded chin toward the sky, he calmly promised:
"Greater things than these you shall see."
Once again Jesus had seen far beyond, not merely the present
time and immediate space, but into the future of this Nathanael
Bartholomew, the son of Talmai of Cana, in Galilee-the future in
Arabia Felix where this innocent and simple man, who always con-
sidered himself a skeptic and a sophisticate, would one day be flayed
alive; and nearly a score of centuries deeper into the future, when
his bones would be venerated in the Church of St* Bartholomew
on an island in the Tiber.
But on that faraway day in Judea Nathanael Bartholomew could
not see an hour ahead; he only felt convinced he had found this
greatest and truest friend, and that was enough!
When, with his five new followers, Jesus came back home to
Nazareth, He found His own household in a happy dither. It hap-
pened that a daughter of friends of Mary was getting married. The
family lived in the village of Cana, Nathanael Bartholomew's home
town, and Mary was planning to go over to help in serving the
feast; in the midst of her scurrying Jesus and His new friends reached
the house. Eyes shining, the gray-haired mother gave them all a wel-
come. Although Peter, Andrew, John, Philip, and Nathanael made
a handful in the little home, whatever Jesus did was right in Mary's
eyes; His friends were her friends, and she made room for them.
More, she suggested they all come with her to the wedding. So,
although the newcomers were a little weary, they all walked five
miles more down the highroad from Nazareth until toward sunset
they came into Cana of Galilee. Then, as now, it was a mere form-
less jumble of stone houses and mud huts; a few gardens of the well-
to-do, with cypress trees and olive groves. The narrow streets were
overrun with burnoosed men straddling camels, veiled women on
donkeys, and underfed children, scales on their eyes, scabs on their
faces, carrying lambs upside down by their forefeet throiigh streets
of noise, filth, stench,
This evening there was a great stir of elation because of the wed-
ding. Jesus did not often attend parties of this kind; He was too
thoughtful, too studious, too solitary for such festivities. But to-
104 THE GREATEST STORY EVER TOLD
night He had a happy time. He and the five disciples put aside all
their intricate discussions and enjoyed themselves like everyone else
at the happy affair. The fun was at its height when Mary beckoned
to her son.
Quietly the mother whispered a story of their hosts' sudden em-
barrassment. More guests bad come than had been expected Jesus
and His five friends among them! and now the wine was about to
give out just when the festivities were at their peak; the caterer was
in despair.
"I want more wine!" squealed one curly-haired guest, holding
up a large, wide-mouthed goblet a beaker which he turned up-
side down,
Jesus took His mother's hand, his face full of a meaning tender
and intimate. There was a note of challenge in his voice as he ad-
dressed her in the respectful phrase of that day:
"Woman! What is that to me? And to you? My hour is not yet
come/'
All around was song and laughter. In the corner where mother
and son talked there had come suddenly, stardingly, one moment of
significance for all the rest of history a moment in which He, the
son, and she, the mother, were partners. Do you realize, He was
really saying to Mary, what it will mean if I do as you ask? You
are asking me to show before the eyes of men and women, merely
for the success of this convivial affair, the unlimited power of Al-
mighty God. If I do what you ask, if I show this power, do you
know what will happen? The story will fly over the land. All pri-
vacy, all quiet, all further time of preparation will be gone. My
ministry must begin immediately. And when that happens, I take
my first step and you go with me to the cross. All this that wed-
ding guests may have more to drink?
She knew His thoughts, she, who kept so many things in her
heart. She knew that by woman death had come into the world,
and she believed that she had been given Eve's second chance,
through this son, to bring salvation. For her, as well as him, this
was the moment their faces turned to Calvary.
Both knew what it meant. Their handclasp tightened; then she
turned away, and went to the waiters, and told them:
^Whatever He tells you to do do it!"
Jesus turned and walked to the back of the room. There He
f <mai the six stone water pots which were a part of the furnishings
THE PREPARATION 105
of every well-appointed home where frequent religious purifying
ceremonies had to be held. Beckoning the attendants, Jesus asked
them to fill the jars with water. Puzzled but polite, they did as He
requested, filling the pots to the brim. Next, at His direction, they
dipped up some of the fluid in a ladle. Then they screamed and
shouted. The color had changed! The water was red! Indeed, It
was no longer water at all it was wine!
The hired caterer rushed up, tasted the wine, glared around him
furiously, and swaggered up to the bride's father. What, he wanted
to know, was happening here? Any sensible man served the best
wine at the beginning of the feast and then, when everybody had
had plenty to drink, he would serve the inferior stuff. But this late
wine was the best the steward had ever tasted in all his forty years
as a caterer in Galilee.
Soon everybody in the room was talking about the wonderful
wine, but Jesus and His disciples, in deep, reflective silence, were
already walking back to Nazareth.
Chapter 24 THE WICKED QUEEN
THE following day Jesus and His mother set out with His disciples
to visit their home town of Capernaum and meet their relatives and
friends. Again they trudged the five miles to Cana and then con-
tinued on, down and round a mountain with two humps, where one
day Jesus was to preach His greatest sermon.
And still on they trudged, past many of the bloodiest old scenes
of Israel. Yonder were the caves of Endor, where Saul crept to have
his future told by a witch. On, far below the level of the sea, where
beside the lake of Galilee stood Capernaum.
A great sight on the day they arrived, this lake port, seething with
energy, overrun with men and women of all nations* Mother and
son looked around them, startled and interested and a little sad at
all the scurry of the pkce. It was a town rich, busy, and corrupt,
one of the chief stations on the great route from Damascus to the
Mediterranean ports of Egypt; a market where silver hordes of fish
were carted through the streets, where wine from climbing grape
arbors stained the bare feet of farm girls, and there were so many
106 THE GREATEST STORY EVER TOLD
olive groves that a man could take a bath in oil. Through its high
streets the caravans moved north and south, and one could buy
and sell wheat and silk and ivory; well-paid artisans walked through
the bazaars with hands stained blue from the indigo dyes made in
next-door Magdala.
When Jesus and His mother came to Capernaum with the five
new friends, the city was called the Queen .of the Lake, the Majesty
of Galilee. In rich glory it stood below desert mountains of yellow
limestone, but immediately behind the town the hillsides were cov-
ered with a profusion of fruit and nut and fig trees and red blooming
oleanders.
Here the bluff, excitable widower Peter became a guide, just to
show Jesus and Mary around. First, Peter brought the Master and
mother into his own home a one-story structure surrounded by
a courtyard and presented his mother-in-law, a feeble old lady.
Peter, the widower, took good care of her.
And of course Peter knew the whole fifteen-mile length of the
lake with its almost unbroken ring of cities and towns. He had
fished this lake water all his life and now he introduced Jesus to
other fishermen, showed Him on the beach the miles of drying and
mended nets with the little lead weights the very same kind of
nets and weights are used at Capernaum to this dayand showed
Him, too, how the fish were pickled in barrels and sold to the mer-
chants of Caesarea and the Syrian Jews.
But more than lake and town and synagogue with Roman pillars
Jesus saw on this first visit. Most important, He perceived that this
crossroads of the east and west worlds was a strategic place from
which He could speak to humanity. Here in this metropolis of
travelers where men were forever in the midst of excitement and
talk of new tricks of government, great events of war, crimes of
Rome, and scandals of Jerusalem, here was a perfect platform, an
incomparable rostrum from which to utter a message that would
be carried to the farthest places.
That was why Jesus there and then decided that Capernaum was
to be the headquarters of His work. He would make it His own city,
the home center from which He would carry out His Father's work.
Yet, having made this decision, He did not at once settle there.
There were more immediate tasks back home in Nazareth: first,
lojig days of talk and explanation to His first five disciples. In those
begmnmg days Jesus took time to get acquainted with the hard,
THE PREPARATION 107
logical Andrew; the thoughtful, almost cynical Nathanael; the eager,
goodhearted Philip, and the always loyal, but explosive, quick-
tempered Peter. They and John must be taught slowly, molded to
work together, before others could be added to the company. And
all must begin to understand the deeps of the startling ideas they
were soon to hear Him preach.
In those days they were just beginning to feel acquainted with
Him, to relax within the warmth of His unbounded charm and
understanding, to know Him as friend and brother as well as leader.
At this time they did not suspect the vastness of the differences
that separated Him from them. Some hoped that He might be the
Messiah, but doubted it more than they believed. Sometimes they
thought of Him as a great teacher, even a divine messenger, a little
lower than an angel. That he was the Son of God, part of God,
God himself as an expression of a Holy Trinity they did not, for
a moment, dream. Not until He came back to them from death
would they fully realize the being that He really was. Jesus could
liave told them; He kept His secret, and only gradually over the
next three years He initiated them into those mysteries. Had it been
otherwise, they would have been too awed, too paralyzed with
dread, to have known Him in His human nature and so learned
from Him the tasks they must one day carry on alone.
Those, the best and most tranquil days Jesus and His friends were
ever to know, came to an end all too soon. Presently they must start
back all the way to Jericho, for there were rumors that John the
Baptist was getting himself into serious trouble.
With the five Jesus left Nazareth, and they began again the long
trek down to the edge of the desert. There they made a little camp
and observed for a while the excitement that was growing around
the courageous preacher. Day by day word of what John was tell-
ing the crowds was being brought to Herod, the tetrarch and puppet
ruler of Galilee. And day by day John's hints about the tetrarch's
marriage made his adulterous queen more enraged. Finally one after-
noon John thundered explicitly to Herod's astounded and frightened
subjects:
"It is not lawful for him to have his brother's wife."
When she heard about this, Queen Herodias demanded of the
king that John at once be tortured and put to death. But Herod
dillydallied; he was politicaiy wise enough to realize that it would
be folly for him summarily to execute so popular a man as John
I08 THE GREATEST STORY EVER TOLD
had become. But he had to do something or lose his stolen wife, so
a few days after Jesus and His followers reached the desert the
king's soldiers suddenly rode up and seized John and dropped him
into a dungeon.
And then, most curiously, the little Herod Antipasdissolute,
drunken, and singularly free from decency as he often wasbegan
to take a curious interest in his prisoner. For some obscure reason
the brave, uncompromising man from the desert fascinated the soft-
skinned ruler on his tinsel throne.
Often at night Herod would slip away from the lacy boudoir of
dreaming, exhausted Herodias to go and talk with the man he had
chained in a pit. Undoubtedly the king feared John, and he certainly
could not understand the moral indignation that made him preach
such indiscreet and indelicate sermons, yet something in the mys-
tic's words stirred him, brought him a little light like a door that
opens just a crack.
The more Herod Antipas listened to John, the more thoughtful
and melancholy he became; the more he realized that John was a
just and good man, and thus the more to be feared.
It was then that the queen, who had a cunning brain, decided that
she must get rid of John the Baptist.
Chapter 25 THE WOMAN AT THE WELL
OHCE John was arrested, Jesus and His five friends started back to-
ward Galilee. Guided by an inner voice, the Holy Spirit, the Mas-
ter startled the others by His decision to go home by way of Sama-
ria.
Here, indeed, was a shock. Decent citizens avoided that province
as they would a colony of lepers. The feeling of the Galileans
against Samaritans was so deep and malicious that a mere glance
from one was an insult, cause for a fight. That old feud between
people of identical ancestry went back hundreds of years to the
time when the Samaritans fraternized with invaders, when collabo-
rationists married and intermarried, and forever since they had been
held in revulsion by all patriots of Israel. The ancient hatred made
trade and peaceful intercourse impossible in modern times.
THE PREPARATION It>9
Yet the land of the Samaritans was fair and could have been mnch
more richly developed, with prosperity for many, native and
stranger. The soil was fertile; it had more water than the southern
part of the country because the limestone had not yet absorbed
most of the springs. In the valleys the rich black earth was often
flooded over. The Samaritans planted great fields of wheat, raised
fine vegetable gardens and luxurious orchards, but no outsiders liked
to buy their grain or vegetables or fruit. Good Jews would walk
far out of their way to go around Samaria, Only Romans befriended
them.
Jesus led His five followers straight to this forbidden province,
fifty miles north of Jerusalem, Once within its borders He did not
rest until He had reached its most historic spot, the well of Jacob, at
the eastern base of Mount Gerizim, where the earliest of Israelite
patriarchs had worshiped. This was the land which Jacob had given
to his son Joseph. Everyone thought of this spot as the oldest well
in the world and near by, so the devout piously believed, was the
actual grave of Joseph.
By now the five disciples knew when Jesus desired to be alone and
so they went on, a mile and a half, into the town of Sichar, or
Shechim, as it is known today, to buy provisions for the evening
meal. And knowing the fierceness of the feud, they were wonder-
ing what kind of reception they would get from the Samaritans.
Meanwhile Jesus sat in a reverie on the stone rim around the old
well. Presently a woman came toward Him with a jug slung over
her shoulder, a green hood thrown back from her head. As if she
did not see Him at all, she busied herself tying a rope to the handles
of her vessel and then lowered it into the darkness of the well
"Give me to drink," said Jesus suddenly.
With stunned deliberation the woman pulled up her dripping jug
of water and set it on the stone. Then she turned to him blankly.
Plainly he was not a Samaritan; this stranger was a Jew. She well
knew how people in Jerusalem said, as a slang phrase in the streets:
"We know you are a Samaritan and have a devil' 1 She knew* too,
that it was forbidden of a God-fearing Jew to ask help of Samari-
tans or to receive food or water from them; "He who takes bread
of a Samaritan is like unto him who eats the flesh of swiae." He
might make a friend even of a Gcetik font never a Samaritan* In
bewilderment she answered:
HO THE GREATEST STORY EVER TOLD
"How do you, being a Jew, ask to drink of me, who am a Samari-
tan woman? 1 '
Jesus turned His head thoughtfully. The same old racial prejudice
and fear! From boyhood He had been familiar with this mad and
senseless hostility between His native Galileans and the Samaritans
who lived next door. They fought like rival robber bands. The
Galileans pillaged the Samaritans and the Samaritans ransacked the
Galileans, each attacking the other from ambush. And the old quar-
rel was forever encouraged and egged on by debauched govern-
ments of both provinces.
"If you would know the gift of God," said Jesus, "and who he is
who says to you, 'give me to drink/ perhaps you would have asked
of him,"
The consternation in her deepened. She ask water of him? Jesus
nodded.
"And he would have given you living water."
The words "living water" thoroughly puzzled this buxom, vital
peasant full of the swaying and shapely magnitude of sex. Putting
the back of one hand to her cheek, she said:
"Sir, you have nothing to draw water with and the well is deep.
From whence, then, do you get your living water? Are you greater
than our father Jacob, who gave us the well and drank out of it
himself, and his children and his cattle?"
Leaning forward and speaking confidentially, He replied:
"Whoever drinks of this water shall thirst again. But he that shall
drink of the water that I will give him shall not thirst forever. The
water that I will give him shall become in him a fountain of water
springing up into life everlasting."
She smiled incredulously,
if Sir, give me this water that I may not thirst."
"Go call your husband and come here," He suggested.
Those words flustered her. With a toss of her head she replied:
"I have no husband."
And now the voice of Jesus was so low she could scarcely hear
Him:
"You have said well, *I have no husband/ For you -have had five
husbands. And he whom you now have is not your husband! You
have said truly."
The woman leaned against the parapet of the wall, both hands
grasping the stones.
THE PREPARATION III
"Sir," she gasped, "I see that you are a prophet."
Then, as if to placate a dangerous man, she reminded Him that
He should be merciful to her, because the patriarchs, common great
ancestors of Samaritans as well as His own people, had worshiped
on this mountain. Her face was growing paler, body trembling. It
was a relief when, after a long pause, He spoke to her:
"Woman, God is a spirit and they that adore Him must adore
Him in spirit and truth."
She whispered:
"I know that the Messiah is coming who is called Christ. When
He comes He will tell us all things."
Jesus stood up and looked at her and said:
"I am He who am speaking to you."
She stood and looked at Him dumbly, for she had heard the great
secret that He had not yet told His followers. There was a sudden
noise behind them Peter, John, Nathanael, Andrew, and Philip-
back from town, their arms filled with bundles of food. On seeing
them, she concealed her face, forgetting her water jug, and ran off
into the city, where she told everyone she met that the Christ, the
Messiah was out at Jacob's well,
Jesus, seeing the packages in the arms of His friends, astonished
them quite as much as He had startled the Samaritan woman when
he shook His head, as if reproving their headlong interruption, and
said:
"I have meat to eat which you do not know."
"Has someone else brought him something to eat?" they won-
dered. Throwing an arm over the shoulder of Peter, most baffled of
all five, Jesus said simply, as one spells out a word to a child:
"My meat is doing the will of Him that sent methat I may per-
fect His work."
He was going on, explaining to them that the harvest time of His
work would not be long, when they heard a great sound of voices.
Crowds of Samaritans were surrounding them; they had heard the
story of the woman at the well and were trooping out to see the
man she said was the Messiah; they would judge for themselves*
So much did they approve His teachings that the Samaritans
pleaded with this unknown Nazarene not to leave them. They made
Him their guest, asking Him questions of ethics and Iranian be-
havior, while they offered Him oval cakes of wfaeaten flour, which
was their favorite bread, and bowls of meat stew with a most savory
112 THE GREATEST STORY EVER TOLD
smell, and milk and wine. They washed His feet in the ancient form
of their hospitality. And Jesus taught them and, with them, His
five new companions.
The Samaritans, who were no fools, asked searching questions,
and what He taught them sounded very new and radical If He was
the Messiah, how did He mean to improve the condition of the
world? Wherever one looked, one saw intolerance, cruelty, misery.
Did Jesus offer Himself as the hope of the distressed?
And He, hearing these questions from the Samaritans, lingered
with them two days while He told them of the Kingdom of Heaven.
What He taught them was a new Testament, a perfection of the
old law, brotherhood of man for man, for all were children of the
Father; an end of old grudges and blood feuds and hatred; forgive-
ness the answer to racial and religious strife; love to heal all wounds.
This lesson of tolerance was his first public teaching.
Chapter 26 WHAT HAVE WE TO DO WITH YOU?
THROUGH the cool sweetness of a May morning Jesus led His band of
five men down the highroad from Samaria back into Galilee. The
tingle of new forces of the season filled their veins; there was a feel-
ing of fresh and adventurous life in the spring creep of the land
tortoise across the road and the squonking flocks of storks and
cranes flying overhead
They had come to a halt, for a little rest, not far from Nazareth,
and beggars and curiosity seekers had gathered around them, when
a shocked silence fell suddenly; all movement ceased, and the un-
clean mob stood rooted in fear.
A rich and powerful magnate had suddenly appeared among
them. His breast was decorated with a pendent disk covered with
watery-blue aquamarines, black opals, and emeralds. The very smell
of the aristocratic oil in his ringlets commanded their bent heads;
they were in the presence of wealth and authority. Through the path
they instantly opened for him the nobleman strode forward. But as
the crowd peeked and turned their heads, they observed that the
stranger's face was pale, his eyes moist His words were incredibly
humble.
THE PREPARATION
"I have heard/' he began without parley, "strange reports of you
a carpenter of Nazareth. There is a tale of a fountain of wine you
caused to spring up at Cana. And another tale, which has gone be-
fore you, of how you read the mind of a disreputable woman at
Jacob's well. Such reports have given me, a despairing man, hope.
I need help. I come from Capernaum; my son is there very ill.
Please come down and heal my son, for he is at the point of death."
"Unless you see signs and wonders, you believe not," Jesus replied
with a testing glance at the rich man.
"Lord, come down before my son dies," pleaded the father,
breaking into sobs.
Jesus closed His eyes; this man's tears were real. Softly He spoke:
"Go your way! Your son Mves."
As the rich man looked up, there was no doubt, but only hope in
his face. His eyes spoke his gratitude as without another word he
turned and with outstretched arms flailed a path for himself through
the crowd and ran down the open road. The five disciples were
speechless; Peter's brow knitted in wonderment. Not until later
would those dubious disciples learn what had happened.
The next day, as the ruler was still making his way down the
steep roads to Capernaum, he was met by servants coming up to
greet him, and with news. His son lived!
"Praise God! At .what hour did he get better?"
"Yesterday, at the seventh hour, the fever left him."
At the seventh hour! That, as the father knew, was the exact
hour when the carpenter from Nazareth had told him: "Your son
lives!"
This healing was a master stroke. It fixed the attention of the
whole region on Jesus. Everybody heard of it; as He returned to
the metropolis by the lake, throngs of people were frantic to see
and hear Him. At once He was invited to make a series of public
talks. Crowds packed the rectangular Capernaum synagogue with
its illicit Corinthian pillars; they hung on to His words, but many
with ears cocked for error. And sophistry! These fishermen and
merchants and workmen were well instructed in Moses and the
prophets.
After the reading of the Torah, the attendant handed Jesus the
scroll, and He repeated the prophetic words:
"The spirit of the Lord Jehovah is upon nie, because Jehovah
has anointed me."
JI4 THE GREATEST STORY EVER TOLD
And many were restlessly aware that they felt in the living pres-
ence of knowledge and felicity and power when He began to
speak.
"Repent and believe." This the burden of His message, preached
now for the first time publicly before crowds. Soon afterward He
began to travel around the lake, from town to town, synagogue to
synagogue. It seemed to the people that He was boldly proclaiming
startling new truths, yet much of what He taught came straight
from their own religious books, which they knew well, or had
thought they did, until now. The difference was that He showed
them a richer meaning of their own texts, bringing new light on old
laws and prophecies, as well as flaming new promises.
Finally, and with Mary happy to be with Him again, Jesus came
home to Nazareth. Not to the carpenter shop now but to the syna-
gogue.
He came there to recall to people who had known Him all his life
ancient doctrines, and especially the hard, strong advice of Isaiah,
the troubled servant of the Lord, who praised the constructive
power of suffering truth so hard for anyone to understand. On the
Nazareth platform Jesus quoted to His fellow townsfolk from
Isaiah:
"The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me
to preach the gospel to the poor; he has sent me to heal the broken-
hearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of
sight to the blind; to set at liberty them that are braised."
That day the townspeople were all deeply impressed, and com-
plimented Mary for raising such a gifted son. He was not yet so
famous or controversial a figure that they hated Him. Not until
later were they to turn on Him, but when they did, it was to be
with murder in their hearts. Now it was with a feeling of peace that
Jesus and His five disciples walked the long road back to Caper-
naum, where two deeds performed in public still further increased
His fame.
The first occurred in the synagogue. There Jesus was being
heard by ever-growing crowds, enchanted by the power of His de-
livery, the rich conviction in His voice, the force in His pliant and
fortunate gestures; more and more He held them as under the spell
of a storyteller. Not as the scribes and the rabbis, not with droning
voice and mechanical utterance, with mere repetitions was He talk-
ing to than, but with a natural skill greater than the technique of
THE PREPARATION 115
Roman actor or Greek orator. In every address He startled them
with the completeness of His knowledge, the depth of His assur-
ance, the intensity of His desire to pass on hope and courage to the
oppressed.
This promise so vitalized every lecture He gave that he had al-
ready become the principal topic of conversation. Women, picking
lentils in the field, praised His kindness to all who told Him their
troubles; hucksters sitting at the market place, just within the city
gates; dark-skinned traders, with earrings, stacking their bolts of
silk and baskets of linen; day laborers sitting idly in the shade and
waiting to be hired all sorts of men and women admired and
trusted Him. Housewives at their ovens, leavening sweet dough
with sour; the miller throwing chaff and grain against the morning
breeze with his winnowing shovel, so that the wind would blow
away the chaff and the good grain would fall to the ground; the
husbandman in his field praying against locust and grasshoppers, the
trappers in the hills, seeking partridge and fallow deer and keeping
a wary eye out for stray bears from Mount Hermon all Caper-
naum, at its daily jobs, talked about Jesus.
How, they soon asked themselves, could anyone doubt, after
that insane man had rolled on the floor of the synagogue last Sab-
bath?
Jesus had been talking when suddenly a man in the crowd began
to scream. Running up to the front, he fell writhing to the floor. It
was shocking to see him contorted in his ghastly spasms; the specta-
tors shuddered. Many knew the man, and a chill of repulsion came
over them because they believed he had a devil; believed that some
spirit, unearthly and unclean, possessed his body, making him two
persons in one frame. That, they thought, was why he rolled at the
feet of Jesus and shrieked:
"Let us alone! What have we to do with you, Jesus of Nazareth?
Did you come here to destroy us?"
And then, oddly changing from plural to singular, as if only his
real .self spoke, the sick man finished in a frightened gasp:
"I know who you are the Holy One, of God!"
Without a second's hesitation Jesus spoke sharply and decisively,
commanding something vicious and unclean within the man:
"Hold your peace and go out of him!"
That moment the illness aided. The exhausted man ky quiet as
a sleeping child. Who was this Jesus? Even the skeptics wanted to
Il6 THE GREATEST STORY EVER TOLD
know more of this powerful personality who commanded evil
spirits.
No wonder the people talked.
And right after this episode Jesus performed another strange
deed in the home of His close friend, Simon, called Peter.
Chapter 27 PETER'S MOTHER-IN-LAW
IN THOSE days Peter was not too popular in his own household. He
had been tagging around the south provinces, listening to John the
Baptist, and now taking up with Jesus and neglecting the fish busi-
ness. He who had always been a hard-working family man had be-
come a dreamy, thoughtful fellow, whose boat was splitting at its
seams and whose nets were dry. This did not make for peace in
Peter's home.
Just at this time Peter's mother-in-law fell ill not merely down
with an aging woman's pains of the moon; no mere sick headaches
or cramps, but seriously ill, with a glaze over the eyes, dryness in
the throat, cheeks flushed, forehead burning a painful agony of
fever. It was an epidemic illness, that fever, often prevalent in the
low country after the first rains of autumn.
Naturally Peter's wife called in a physician. This man, like many
others of his craft, had a wise look, usually said nothing, but placed
his hope, daily renewed, on the pharmacopoeia. Four hundred years
before the Greek Hippocrates had founded a sensible medical sci-
ence. But oriental charlatans clung to most outlandish remedies.
Prescriptions consisted of the ashes of a charred wolf's skull, heads
of mice, eyes of crabs, owl's brains, salt of vipers' sweat, frogs'
livers, elephant lice from these resources were the simpler doses
compounded. Boss a mule on the nose and cure a cold! Frogs cooked
in vinegar would take away a toothache! For rarer troubles the doc-
tor would turn to the foam of wild horses, mothers' milk, and the
urine of unweaned calves. Did Peter's mother-in-law have colic?
Let her swallow the drip of rabbits! Dysentery? Pulverized horse
teeth for her! Troubled with her bkdder? Then she must partake of
the kidneys of an ass mixed with a little scraping of mouse's fat.
Bin none of their weird -prescriptions had helped Peter's mother;
THE PREPARATION 1 17
all febrifuges and other medicines efficacious against fever had failed
to still the rising fire in the old woman's veins.
When Simon returned home, just after the Master had healed the
demoniac at the synagogue, his mother-in-law was much worse;
Peter felt sure she was dying. The ex-fisherman did not wait, but
rushed back to fetch Jesus. Andrew and James, John and Nathan-
ael stood in the doorway as Jesus passed in and went directly to the
bed and touched the mother-in-law's hand. She turned away from
Him, hostile at first, then looked back with a bewildered air, not
knowing how to account for the instant change in herself. Until
then she hadn't thought much about Jesus. She had been sick. Now
she was well! Strong enough to get out of bed and minister to all
six of them.
By sunset of that same day the whole town heard about It and the
house of Peter was mobbed. The narrow streets before it and be-
hind, the alleys and the broader highways were choked with sick
people. They hobbled on crutches and crawled on their knees; old
men were toted on the shoulders of their sons and old women
cradled in the arms of husbands who staggered under their weight;
children hastened and soothed by mothers and fathers, they all
came clamoring. Some had pains and fevers, boils and cancers and
leprous sores; minds that were like the stables of wild creatures,
full of lust and hate and blood thirst. They were crippled and
humpbacked and blind, they were dumb and tongue-tied.
Upon them all, one after another, Jesus laid firm, cool hands. He
blessed them, not with a solemn face but with a bright expression,
even a chuckle, especially for the youngsters. Not one was left with
boil, or fever, or speechless mouth. The cripples were uncrippled,
the hunchback now had a straight spine, the dumb could speak
and shout his thanks, the blind could see the Master's pleased but
perspiring face. And others who, like the man in the synagogue, fell
down in their writhings, were released and they, too, in their ecstasy
cried out:
"You cere the Son of God*
That ivas when brow-knitted scholars in the synagogue began to
read again the prophecies in old, neglected scrolls. One, with a little
shiver, pointed out to his companion an ancient prophecy of Isaiah:
"Land of Zabulon and land of Nephthalim . . . the people that
sat in darkness have seen a great light , . ."
Capernaum was on tine borders of Zabnloa and Nephthalim!
Il8 THE GREATEST STORY EVER TOLD
And a second scholar pointed to another prophecy of that same
neglected Isaiah:
"He took our infirmities and bore our diseases."
No wonder all Galilee talked! No wonder the crowds assembled
so that for a brief spell Jesus had to seek renewal for Himself in a
retreat to the desert. But not for long; finding solitude was not to be
so simple. After curing old and young of diseases, He was not to be
left to Himself. Word passed swiftly that He had left town; they
feared He might never come back to Capernaum. The gathering
crowds stormed Peter's house and demanded to know. Some hint
they got because, dropping flax and seedlings, merchandise and fam-
ily wash, they rushed out to seek and find Him on a rocky ledge
some miles farther toward Damascus. Soon He was again sur-
rounded by a sweating, unwashed delegation, entreating Him to re-
turn.
The Master explained that He must first visit other cities around
the lake; assured them all that He would return and sent them on
home. In the towns He now visited He repeated his first Capernaum
program; He taught in the synagogue, and healed the sick. The tales
of these healings were carried into Samaria and Judea, and He was
already being talked of as far south as Jerusalem.
The story that seemed to create the most wonder was not about
healings, however, but the tale of a draught of fishes.
The Master, as many now called Him, had been beleaguered by
a listening crowd, pressing so close to Him that He was forced to
the very edge of the lake. Near by were two fishing boats, with
Dars, mast, and little sails* Fishermen stood ankle deep in the water,
washing their nets, but their baskets, made of wicker and rope work,
were empty. Others were gathering murex shells, washed in by a
storm, to sell to the makers of Syrian dyes.
Jesus saw that one of those ships belonged to His stormy fol-
lower, Peter. Waving a hand to the impatient crowd, the Master
clambered into Peter's boat. Would the sailors pull out a little
farther into the water? Thank you, Peter! Now the impetuous,
over-eager throng must keep its distance. Jesus had a little space for
Himself, and, sitting quietly in Peter's boat, He finished His talk.
When the crowd began to disperse, He turned again to his friend:
"Simon, launch out into the deep and let down your nets for a
draught."
Peter heaved a patient sigh. He had begun to feel one needed a
THE PREPARATION 1 19
great deal of patience to deal "with this calm, pale, unruffled Jesus.
Very politely the bearded fisherman made a protest. Clearly the
Master did not realize . . .
"We have fished all night and have taken nothing."
But the Master did realize it! Indeed, that was why He had made
the suggestion.
So Peter called his helpers and they did as Jesus had advised
them. No fish all night long, no fish for all their tough, hard work
in the darkthey were completely discouraged. But now look! Look
in the full glare of morning light silver pounds of flopping, wrig-
gling, squirming fish, bulging the nets until the ropes broke. They
had to call partners from another ship; they filled both holds with
the catch and even so the ships wobbled and nearly sank with the
weight of their cargoes.
"And there is a meaning to It," whispered one fisherman to an-
other. "Don't get discouraged; keep on fishing!"
So they told the story from Nain to Bethany, but not all of it. For
the gossips did not know the new self-doubt that overwhelmed the
heart of Peter, the shamed fisherman, who, weeping at the memory
of his own skepticism, pleaded with the Master;
"Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord!"
The others stood by watching Andrew who was Peter's brother,
and James and John, who were their partners, and Nathanael. They
heard, as well as Peter, the quick, eager reply addressed to them
all:
"Come after me and I 'will make you to become fishers of men.
Fear not!"
That settled it as far as these five were concerned. They had seen
and heard everything. This was their definitive call and they an-
swered it, even though already warned it was a pathway to death.
No more fishing except for men!
They left the boats with Zebedee, the father of James, waiting
only for a moment while their leader healed a wayside leper. They
started out, ready to follow Jesus all the way to Gethsemane.
120 THE GREATEST STORY EVER TOLD
Chapter 28 THE FIRST CLASH
FROM then on the first five disciples were constantly at His side,
serving and helping when He would let them. They saw Him heal
and exorcise and teach until they feared He would faint with fa-
tigue. At such times He would invariably go off by himself to a
desert spot; from such brief sessions of solitary prayer He would
come back invigorated, as if within the space of an hour He had
concentrated the benefit of a rest cure or a whole summer's vaca-
tion.
The five friends could not restore themselves. They were tired
out when finally Jesus had completed His tour of the lake cities, but
He came back to Capernaum the very image of strong, magnetic
health.
And Jesus was going to need His strength, for a long struggle was
now to begin, never to be relaxed until the end.
It was, in fact, on His return to Capernaum that He first clashed
with the public authorities. They were agents from the Jerusalem
Temple, sent down to make an official report on the wonder-
worker, and the emissaries sat in the synagogue with the doctors of
kw and looked anxiously at the crowds this unknown Master was
attracting. Yet why should they feel distrustful? What they heard
from Jesus, as He preached that day, was sound orthodox doctrine;
He uttered no heresy. If that was what they feared, their long trip
was a waste of time. But kter in the day events heartened the flag-
ging hopes of the spies.
Jesus had entered a private home and sat in an upper room, an-
swering questions from a group of scholars. The Temple agents
were there, too; they had orders to follow Him everywhere and
miss nothing. Suddenly, overhead, they all heard a disturbance.
Much annoyed, the master of the house climbed up to the roof.
Who was making the racket? What he found there was a family, a
wife and four sons, carrying a father, deathly i]L
The sick man's wife pleaded with the outraged householder. Her
aged husband had caught a strange disease; without warning his
whole body had lost the power of movement or sensation except for
aa intense internal suffering. They said, the wife and the sons, who
THE PREPARATION 121
had carried the sick man to Capernaum, that no doctor in Galilee
knew how to cure paralysis. More, they knew that the old man's
death must soon follow.
That was why, in desperation, they had lugged the sick man a
weary distance here. Once arrived, they still could not get to Jesus.
The human crush around the synagogue had been too dense; no one,
sick or well, would give way for them. Later He entered this house
of a friend and sat talking with them in an upper room. So the pil-
grims dragged the bed and the sick man around to the back of the
house next door. No crowd there! Up a narrow flight of steps they
carried their burden to the roof. One of the sons ran off and came
back panting with an armful of ropes.
These ropes they now attached to the corners of the bed, which
was only a pallet or mattress filled with cotton and straw.
Their purpose was clear. They wanted to lower the sick man
through the opening in the roof, deposit him in front of the Mas-
ter, and implore His mercy. All very touching, but the irate house-
holder was ready to order them off the premises when the pale, up-
turned face of Jesus stopped him; that glowing gaze was full of
command.
"Very well, then! Lower him away!"
They lowered mattress and dying man to the floor. Jesus looked
down at the unmoving patient, then up to the opening where
staring down upon Him were the tired mother and her sons. He
smiled winningly, then bent beside the dying stranger, laid lean
hands on icy cheeks, and stroked the cataleptic eyes. He spoke in a
profound hush:
"Be good of heart, son! Your sins are forgiven you."
A buzzing murmur raced through the audience. Bored at hearing
the words of prophets thrown punctiliously at their heads, the
Temple agents now sat up and gasped. Here was something to re-
port to Jerusalem.
"Blasphemy!" squawked one. "Who can forgive sins but God
alone? Blasphemy!"
No one replied as the dread charge, punishable by death, sounded
and echoed in the room. Jesus was still bending over the sick man.
"What is It," He askedi, facing the men from the Temple, "that
you think in your hearts? Why do you think evil? Which is easier
to say: your sins are forgiven you or arise! Take up your bed and
walk?"
I2Z THE GREATEST STORY EVER TOLD
He patted the cheeks of the man who until then could not budge
but only feel his great pain. Then Jesus whispered slowly and delib-
erately:
u But that you may know that the Son of Man has power on earth
to forgive sins, get up! I say to you, arise! Take your bed and go to
your house,"
Everything seemed to stand still for one breathless instant Then
in sight of all the immovable man began to move. The speechless
man spoke. The first sound was a great sob of relief, a convulsion
of joy that shook his whole wasted frame. Struggling up to one el-
bow, he cried:
"Thanks be to God!"
And hearing incoherent cries of joy from those five delirious
faces at the opening in the roof the sick man put his palms on the
earthen floor, forced himself to stand up, stood swaying for a mo-
ment, and then weeping in his new strength, he bent over and did as
he had been bidden: he lifted up his bed and walked out of the
house.
And Jesus smilingly waved His hand in faxewell to the relatives
upstairs before they raced after the man He had healed.
The crowds were breaking up in jabbering confusion* But the
doctors of the kw and the agents from Jerusalem huddled in a cor-
ner and put their heads together. The Son of Man? From where did
He get that phrase? Ah! One of them remembered. The prophet
Daniel had used the same pregnant words,
"I saw in the night faces, and behold, one, like the Son of Man,
came with the clouds of heaven . . ."
The Son of Man! Fulfilment of Daniel's prophecy? Power to
forgive sins? It was heresy. They would go back to Jerusalem and
report upon this business.
Here was the first strong clash with the Pharisees; no one did the
Master criticize with deeper indignation. Throughout the oncoming
centuries scholars and teachers were to complain about the uncom-
promising severity of Jesus toward this class; yet nothing that has
ever been said in their behalf has lessened the force of His indict-
ment. Here were leaders, spiritually ill and dying, yet wielding
power over the minds of the common people. He had to denounce
them; His very silence would have been an endorsement of their
emphasis upon wholly external practices.
The Mosaic kw meant to them the observance of their multiplied
THE PREPARATION 123
regulations. Humility was rare among them; the Pharisees did not
humbly and in secret try to get nearer to God; when they did good
works, they let everyone know; they thought their excellence, such
as they saw it, came from their own merits; they thought of them-
selves as God's pets in the schoolroom of life. They were arrogant
scholars, and, as Jesus was to call them, "Blind leaders of the blind!"
Chapter 29 A TAX AGENT RESIGNS
ONLY a few weeks later Jesus proceeded to shock masses of the
people quite as much as He had already disturbed their overlords of
the Temple.
That was when He added a sixth man to His little band of fol-
lowersand chose for the honor the most unpopular man in Caper-
naum, a functionary everybody loathed the publican, collector of
the Roman taxes. This new disciple was called Levi, son of Al-
phaeus, and Jesus made his acquaintance where he sat in what was
known as the "Receipt of Customs," the place of collecting tariff
duties from travelers and caravaneers.
There was no personal reason for the people of Capernaum to
hate a poor and good-natured man like Levi, but they did; they felt
bound to despise and to detest anybody connected with taxes. In
their code, it was forbidden to pay taxes to a conqueror except un-
der protest. Technically, the taxes were paid to Jewish officers, but
most certainly the monies put in Levfs hands finished up in a
Roman strongbox. Annas and others of his Jerusalem cronies hired
honest men in desperate need why else would a good man take
such a job? and one of several they had employed in Capernaum
was Levi, son of Alphaeus.
He seemed a mild-mannered little man as he sat there at the bar-
rier of the frontier road, humble and acutely aware of how he was
despised. In his loneliness he had become a student; it helped him in
his job to speak Roman and Greek and other travelers* tongues; he
was quite learned in the literature of East and West. But that did
not improve his popularity. No petty torment the people could in-
flict upon him was considered too cruel. He was tiie visible agent
of the taxes, so he was tmclean, the butt of all.
124 THE GREATEST STORY EVER TOLD
"Robber!" the little boys called after Levi when he walked down
the street, and at the supper table their fathers coupled the word
"publican" with sinner and harlot master-all of a class.
Yet Levi continued to be a hard-working and conscientious man,
who watched carefully over every mite and farthing, testing the
true ring of dinarius and penny against a little block of marble; the
Roman coins called pence, and pounds, and the talents of silver and
of gold. And he remained an outcast; no one would sit at table with
him; he could not testify before an ecclesiastical court; long ago he
had lost all standing and all friends.
It was before the tariff booth of Levi that Jesus passed one morn-
ing and looked attentively into the sad eyes of the publican.
"Follow me!" He said suddenly.
- To the amazement of all the hangers-on the publican stood up in
an obedience that was instantaneous and complete. Not a moment's
question! The chapfallen crowd gasped as despised Levi, son of Al-
phaeus, rushed from his table and calling to his assistant to take over
his schedule of merchandise tolls, his careful accounts, his hoard of
coins leaving all these for someone else to attend to without hesi-
tation fell in step and walked off briskly with the Master.
Some of the thoughtful citizens remarked that night that while
many sick persons had been healed instantaneously and sent home
well and strong, no one else had instantaneously left one kind of life
to take up another as simply and directly as did Levi. He was asked
to follow, and he did it at once.
More, the neighbors saw how proud he seemed to be with An-
drew and Philip, James and John and Nathanael that afternoon. At
last he had friends! Prouder still to be told by the Master he would
00 longer be called Levi, but from hence he was to be known as
Matthew. Proudest of all to bring the famous Jesus to his own
despised house, and then to bustle out and buy provisions with
spendthrift hand and scurry back home to prepare a feast; how glad
Matthew was to bring in what rag, tag, and bobtail people he knew
to meet and. break bread with Jesus.
Who were these friends of the taxgatherer? Tramps. Alcoholics.
Outcasts like himself, naturally, together with fellow collectors. And
other low folk tipsters and gamblers, hellions and good-for-noth-
ings, furtive creatures from life's seamy side every one.
Here was room for scandal! Back from Jerusalem, to spy on Him
once more, the Temple agents stood gleefully in the moonlight out-
THE PREPARATION 125
side the house where the publican and his friends were eating and
drinking.
As some of the companions of Jesus sauntered out for a breath of
air the agents from Jerusalem accosted them. One took Andrew by
the shoulder; another drew aside Bartholomew and James; the
smartest of all chose Peter.
"Look here," he blustered to the big fisherman. "Why does your
Master eat and drink with publicans and sinners?"
The answer came with shocking quickness. Suddenly, in the
lighted doorway, appeared the lean silhouette of the teacher from
Nazareth calling to them:
"They that are well have no need for a physician, but they that
are sick. Go, then, and learn you this:
"I love mercy and not sacrifice!
"And I am not come to call the just but sinners to repentance."
The agents drifted off into the darkness. They would be up most
of the night, trying to find fault with what He had meant.
But immediately after there came another kind of deputation
from Jerusalem.
This time it was a group of followers of John the Baptist. The
cousin of Jesus was still imprisoned, kept in a pit like a dangerous
beast by troubled, conscience-needled Herod Antipas. A group of
pallid men, with symbolic ashes worn in their uncombed hair,
mourning for John's imprisonment, came to consult Jesus. They
were friendy but deeply worried, even resentful men. Peter summed
up for them: they wanted to know why the followers of John, men
like themselves, must fast often and make prayers but the six dis-
ciples of Jesus never seemed to fast; they ate and drank and enjoyed
life.
Apparently the story of Matthew's party had been carried far and
fast by these Temple visitors.
The answer should not have shocked these melancholy followers
of the Baptist; not if they remembered how John himself had al-
ready acclaimed Jesus as the fulfilment of the prophecies. If Jesus
were the Messiah and these six men were His chosen assistants, then
His answer should be clear enough:
"Can the children of the marriage fast as long as the bridegroom
is with diem? But the days will come when the bridegroom shall be
taken away from them; and then they shall fast in those days!"
The followers of John, still unsatisfied, went home, just as the
126 THE GREATEST STORY EVER TOLD
Temple spies returned with renewed zeal to trap the Master. Up until
now He had chosen His words too carefully for them to indict Him
for blasphemy. What, then? Well, among the more conservative the
talk in Capernaum was that Jesus and His friends were rather loose
in their observance of the Sabbath laws. There might be a real open-
ing because disregard of the Sabbath was a heathen's offense and
could also be punished by death.
Thus encouraged, the Temple agents returned to the attack on a
Saturday toward the end of June in the year AJX 28. The harvest
was ripening as Jesus walked with His friends out into the open
country. All around them were fields of grain called corn, not Indian
maize but tall yellow wheat from which was made the good, tasty
Palestinian bread. After ambling several miles Peter and John be-
came hungry and quite casually they plucked some tall ears of wheat
which they rubbed between their palms, crushing the grains and
then chewing them raw. Suddenly, like jack-in-the-boxes, there
popped up from the midst of the growing corn two of the Jeru-
salem spies.
Eyes gleaming with satisfaction, they brushed the earth from
their knees and strode toward Jesus as the leader snarled:
"Take a good look at what your men are doing that which it is
not lawful to do on the Sabbath day!"
What? Nibbling a few ears of growing wheat? That is what they
found fault with exactly. In the Book of Exodus, second of the
Books of Moses, reaping on the Sabbath was forbidden. Unquestion-
ably these men were reaping!
Thus the legalistic mind of a Pharisee wherever you find him on
any continent, in any color, tongue, or creed, is today quite the same
as then.
Like a good Jew, the Master countered question with question:
"Have you never read what David did when he was hungry
himself and they that were with him? How he went Into the House
of God and ate the loaves of proposition which was not kwful for
him to eat nor for them that were with him, but for the priests
only?
"Or have you not read in the kw that on the Sabbath day the
priests in the Temple break the Sabbath and are without blame?
But I tell you that here is a greater need than the Temple, and if
you knew what this means/ will have mercy and not sacrifice
you would never have condemned the innocent.
THE PREPARATION 127
"The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath* There-
fore the Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath also."
He had met their trivial accusation with a precedent against
which nothing could stand. Again and again He was to demon-
strate His complete familiarity with every jot and tittle of the Scrip-
tures; here He had carried the argument into the very Temple
which had sent them down to entrap Him.
But pertinacity is also a characteristic of Pharisees!
It was only a few weeks later, again on a Sabbath in the syna-
gogue at Capernaum, that Jesus noticed the same fo:sy old faces
hovering in the rear of the crowd. They were watching eagerly as
a young man up front cried out to Jesus pleading that He heal his
withered hand. Would the Master dare heal a man on the Sabbath?
That question was in every mind in the synagogue.
"Arise and stand forth in the midst," said Jesus. The groaning
man tottered forward; the Master took the withered hand, all shriv-
eled and gray, and held it between His own strong, pale hands. By
this time the Pharisees should have realized how well the Master
knew the law. He was well aware that to break the Sabbath was
punishable by death; so it was stated in Exodus 31: 14. So once again
His life was hanging by a thread as His clear challenge to His
enemies rang out:
"I ask you if it be lawful on the Sabbath to do good or to do evil?
To save life or to destroy it?"
Then, letting His dark gaze sweep the crowd in one magnetic
glance, He demanded:
"What man is there among you that has one sheep and if the
same fall into a pit on the Sabbath day will he not take hold on it
and lift it up? How much better is a man than a sheep?"
His intensely compassionate eyes held them.
"Therefore," He answered himself, "it is lawful to do a good deed
on the Sabbath day."
Turning to the cringing man before Him, he continued:
"Stretch forth your hand."
In another instant both the man's hands were alike; the gray and
withered one restored to health, white and firm and whole as the
other. The tumult of the crowd ended the services. But the Temple
agents, flatulent with anger, went off to conspire with Herodians in
the town. That unsavory crew of royalists did not want to free
Israel; they were marplots anxious to get rid of Pontius Pilate, the
128 THE GREATEST STORY EVER TOLD
procurator of Rome, and establish a descendant of Herod the Great
on the throne of Judea. Here were strange bedfellows but they
were in agreement in asking one question:
"How can we get rid of Jesus and His ideas?"
The question is still being asked today.
Meanwhile Jesus himself went into the desert alone and prayed all
night.
Chapter 30 JOHN HAD TO KNOW
IN HIS prison den in the palace gardens John had heard reports of
the works and sayings of his cousin Jesus; events like the healing
of the withered hand and of the demoniac on the floor of the Caper-
naum synagogue; reports, too, of a greater wonder the healing
again, at long distance, of a Roman's servant. This miracle was per-
formed for a centurion, an imperial officer who had come to ask
help of the penniless wayfaring Jew a spectacle that astounded the
native population. Especially when the Master offered to walk to
the house of the Roman and he refused, exclaiming:
"Lord, I am not worthy that you should enter under my roof-
just say the word and my servant shall be healed."
"Amen!" cried Jesus to the Roman; "I want to tell you some-
thingI have not found so great faith, not in all Israel."
And as the tale came bektedly to imprisoned John the dying
servant became instantly and completely well, without Jesus having
to go near to the house.
On this long-distance miracle the imprisoned Baptist brooded a
long time. Another that made him ponder was an episode at the
hamlet of Nain, where Jesus and the disciples, walking through
the town gate, encountered a funeral party. A widow's son was
being carried to the cemetery. Jesus stopped the procession and in-
stantly called the dead young man back to life. This astounding
fact had been witnessed by John's own emissaries.
Strange, indeed, to have power over life and death and yet even
John the Baptist was aware of doubts among his disciples; perhaps
even in himself! And why not? He was himself now facing a moral
choice between life and death* He could no longer rely on rumors.
THE PREPARATION 129
"Do what I ask," he had just been told by Herod Antipas the
king, "and I'll set you free. Today! But refuse and I shall have to
behead you, John. There is no other way; my wife gives me no
peace about you."
The shallow king with the egg-shaped head really seemed to want
to be John's friend. This was not mere politics on Herod's part, al-
though he did have to take into account the continuing popularity
of his prisoner. But the ascetic man from the desert not only baffled
Herod but fascinated him too; the Baptist's stoutheartedness and
his intrepidity were the talk of the countryside.
Just to show his kindness, the king informed the guards that John
might have anything he wanted to eat. When John declined this
bounty, it staggered the obese and gluttonous Herod; the Baptist
sent back roasts and chops and broils and a hundred dainties from
the palace kitchen. For John a few dry roots were enough, with
leaves and wild honey and a gourd of water. This. austerity had an
extraordinary effect on the childlike Herod. Until he met John, this
weak son of a strong sire had believed in nothing and in no one. All
men were liars, all moved solely by self-interest; all would sell out
at the best price possible. So he believed.
The more stubbornly John refused, the more the little king re-
solved to discover his price. Something deep within Herod Antipas
was perturbed; it would mean frighteningly much to him if it turned
out that after all John had no price. Herod could forgive himself
only because he considered no man was above a bribe; no one not
susceptible of being corrupted.
Late at night he would steal to the edge of the pit and look down
at his prisoner. Coaxingly he would offer sweetmeats. He had plat-
ters of lamb meat, dripping with hot gravies and garnished with
tasty vegetables, poked by guards under the lean nose of the fasting
preacher. But all to no avail. John simply called his tormentor to re-
pentance. And more and more the monarch listened; he dabbled
with these new ideas of morality, dipping lighdy but often. Finally
one night the king forsook his bad-boy tricks and listened seriously
as John told him that while he dallied with his inamorata, a new and
mighty change was shaking the world. The Messiah had come in
person, taking the body of a man. John was His announcer, His
messenger.
Herod, squatting on his haunches at the rim of the dungeon,
shook with laughter.
130 THE GREATEST STORY EVER TOLD
"For a fairy tale-a delusion like this you would lose your life?
Think, Baptist don't play fool! All you need do to go free is to
take back your nasty words #bout my marriage to my brother's
wife. Go out and tell the people that my marriage is all right; that
Herodias and I are not living in adultery. I will get you a nice wife
for yourself too!"
Again John tried to make him understand, but Herod stopped
his ears.
"No, you are fooling yourself, Baptist. I don't want to wrangle,
but this man from Nazareth is not God* You called him that. But
did He ever call Himself that? Did you ever hear Him say He was
even the Messiah? Couldn't you be mistaken, John?"
The king's tone and manner were full of pleading; his fatuous
sincerity touched John's heart, The untamed man from the Judean
desert said to himself:
"Here is my chance! My followers love me too much; they are
loath to leave me and become disciples of the Master Jesus. And
I am no longer with them to plead to them. Here, with this guileful
king who understands nothing, perhaps I can settle it all!"
And in tones unusually gentle for him John said:
"Majesty, will you permit me to consult with some of my follow-
ers about all this?"
"You have only to name them, John, and I will send for them
this instant! n
That was how it was that two emissaries straight from John
himself again came down to Galilee and confronted Jesus with the
question they had been charged with; the answer to which would
settle John's lif e-and-death decision:
"Are you he that is come? Or look we for another?"
With His hand moving toward a blind man's eyes, in the midst
of many healings, the Master gave his answer:
"Go relate to John what you have heard and seen. The blind see.
The lame walk. The lepers are made clean. The deaf hear. The
dead rise again. And," he finished with an ironical smile, "the gospel
is preached to the poor!"
The crowd, sick people and disciples, had heard the question and
the reply. They knew about John; now Jesus established the Baptist's
true position in a clear, direct statement:
"John? What went you out in the desert to see? A reed shaken
with the wind? A prophet? Yes, and more. Among those born of
THE PREPARATION
women there is not a greater prophet than John the Baptist but
he that is the least in the Kingdom of God is greater than he."
And then He reminded them how the priests of the Jerusalem
Temple had objected to John a year before as now they repudiated
Himself. What did they want? John fasted and lived in wild places;
Jesus dined and drank and was present at gay parties. Neither was
acceptable to Jerusalem!
"It is like to children sitting in the market place, who, crying to
their companions, say:
" 'We have piped to you and you have not danced; we have
lamented and you have not mourned!'
"For John came, neither eating nor drinking, and they say: 'He
is a devil.'
"The Son of Man came, eating and drinking, and they say: 'Be-
hold a man that is a glutton and a wine drinker, a friend of publi-
cans and sinners!' "
And Jesus waved good~by to John's emissaries a salute of the
hand and a rueful smile.
Two nights later Herod came again in the moonlight to look down
into the pit at John. Behind the open gardens and the palm trees lay
visible the wide plain and the silver-lighted highlands beyond. In
the stillness of the night one could hear the babble and splash of a
great fountain. The prisoner stood up briskly and politely; for all
his confinement he had never known depression of body or lassitude
of mind.
"Well, Baptist. Your messengers have returned!"
"Yes, Majesty!"
"With an answer?"
"Yes, Majesty."
"Then you must have decided. John, will you recant take it all
back unsay it about my wife and me? And go free?"
To all the king's blandishments John had but one answer:
"No!"
In saying that, he knew he was pronouncing his own death sen-
tence. Herod uttered the ferocious oath of a weakling and strode
off to the boudoir of his lady*
132 THE GREATEST STORY EVER TOLD
Chapter 31 A- YOUNG GIRL DANCES
BY NOW John the Baptist had been kept in prison at the palace in
outlying Machaerus for so many months that his friends no longer
lived in daily fear of his being put to death. There was really only
one person who desired his blood: the queen, Herodias. But she
had never softened her scolding hatred. Day and night she seethed
with unyielding hatred that poisoned all her thoughts, ruined her
digestion, and even inflamed her wartish blemish, a disfiguring de^
feet on the temple beyond her left eye, too deep-rooted to be taken
off.
On the night that John said no to the king a state dinner was
being planned in the palace. In celebration of his birthday, fat and
pursy little Herod Antipas had invited all the bigwigs of Galilee-
princes, tribunes, important officials to come and sup. At the ap-
pointed time they came, smiling their superior Roman smiles, flat-
tering themselves as being sybarites and voluptuaries in a barbaric
colony, making clear to one another with nudges and glances their
contempt for this arrant provincial kingling, but making no secret,
either, of their appreciation for his savory meats and well-aged
wines.
The night was hot, moist, and still. The tall banquet hall was lit
with torches and long tapers and the sultry air was thick with the
smell of roasts and heady liquors. The voices of the feasters ram-
paged above the sinuous, devious songs of the minstrels. There was
hardly one sober head at Herod's table when, at the height of the
feast, the damask curtains parted and the king's stepdaughter came
mincing in for the principal performance of the evening.
She was the daughter of Herodias, this Salome, and the daughter
also of PhiHp, Herod's brother. At an early age she was already ex-
hibiting signs of nyrnpholepsy; she was full-bosomed and shapely,
with shocking young eyes full of inviting hints.
For an instant the damsel stood poised with outstretched hands
her fingers moist with oils pressed from rare petals, attar in her hair,
and die exact purpose of seduction in her brain.
The players of the harps, the strokers and incessant beaters of the
THE PREPARATION 133
drums began their rhythmic motions, and Salome in the trans-
parency of a diaphanous robe began to dance* She moved in voluptu-
ous measures; the lifting and weaving of her thin, infantile white
arms, the promise of her educated fingers, rhymed with the stealthy
insistence of her hip movements, stirred the blood.
Forward and back she moved in barefoot steps. At a final chasse
movement, across to right and back to left, there was let loose a very
hell of noise, bellows of praise, and the clapping of hands, the
stamping of feet! Salome, a little scared at such incendiary success,
would have run off, but Herod, who despised as weaklings men
who did not suffer from inordinate desire, cast a grin around at all
his guests, and made a rammish grab; then set the moist, panting
young one on his knee.
"Ask me whatever you want, Salome, and I will give it to you,"
he whispered hoarsely. There was a long silence of lascivious rest-
lessness in the king, of wanton ogling by the child.
What did the eldritch Salome want? Herod was never really to
know. Looking at him appraisingly, like a fledgling paramour, see-
ing what lust was like in a king's eyes, she kept silent. That female
demon, her mother, had trained her for this. Then in his ecstasy
the king swore his oath aloud:
"Whatever you shall ask, Salome, my sweet, 111 give you though
it be the half of my kingdom."
Now there was an oath! Salome put her finger in her mouth. For
that moment she was a giglet: a giddy little girl. Then she remem-
bered her instructions and ran off to the queen, who waited in an-
other apartment.
"Mother, Mother, what shall I ask for?"
The mother told the bacchante child quickly enough. The kingly
boon must be not anything that Salome might want for herself, but
what the mother desired with all her vengeful soul. The man John!
The desert preacher with his pale face and cavernous eyes. That
prude Baptist who had condemned her to the people for her new
marriage. That insensible Baptist who, of all men she had known*
was untroubled by her voluptuous beauty, unkindled by her fire.
That water-splashing, locust-chewing, honey-sipping giant who
would not yield to the natural passions of a man.
"John die Baptist!" Herodias commanded intensely. "Ask for his
head!"
A Ikde disappointed, now bored and languorous, Salome ran back
134 B GREATEST STORY EVER TOLD
into the banquet hall, back to the king. He chuckled at sight of her,
and while the table remained under its spell he lifted her wrapped
body upon his couch.
"Well, Salome, what will it be?"
"I will that immediately you give me in a dish the head of John
the Baptist/'
The king put the moist child down from him. His eyes were
sobered with unexpected horror. A moment of pudgy incertitude
and then, as he realized that his wanton vow must now be paid in
blood, lust died in his soul. The Romans watched him with sheer,
gloating delight; in his quandary he was making good sport for them.
They made bets on whether he would dare fulfill his own oath
or be forsworn before them all. How, they sniggered, would he
dare invoke by murder the ill-will of the crowds who had been bap-
tized by John? Yet how perjure the royal word? Those Romans
knew that the pampered Queen Herodias, indulged in all her wishes,
had long desired this very thing. And they suspected that she had
coached her child in that bawdy dance and waited for this drunken
opportunity. A captain, who commanded a thousand Roman sol-
diers, told his neighbor;
"Herod is in a box. He will be wrong now no matter what he
does."
None could guess that there Was something more than political
concern in Herod's heart, that the conscience of the king had been
beleaguered by this rugged giant from the wilderness. John was
strong, where the king was weak; John believed, where Herod was
always in doubt; John was positive, and Herod loved him for it.
But the king knew there was no excuse even for a reprieve, no
chance for a temporary delay, and so he called for the cross-eyed
steward of the feast. He regarded the servant as if he were Abaddon,
the angel of the bottomless pit.
"Fetch the executioner," he said miserably, pulling a fold of his
robe over his paunch* "Have him bring us here now the head of
John called the Baptist, Bring it in in a dish!"
Hurrying to the prison, the executioner, shoving aside guard,
keeper, and warden, woke John from a peaceful sleep. He ordered
the prisoner, clad in his long, sleeveless garment of haircloth, to
kneel and ky his head on a butcher block. With one expert swing
the wall-eyed axman cut the head from the long, muscular neck. By
the untidy hair he lifted the dripping head and let it fall in a deep
THE PREPARATION 135
dish of gold, .then carried it to Herod. And the king gave it to the
hands of the dancing child.
Now, as Salome started back toward the damask curtains, at her
very first step the harpists smote their strings and the drummers
beat with their sticks, and almost unconsciously the girl fell naturally
into the old writhing of her dance. Her hips swayed again as she
passed through the curtains, the lifted dish with the dead man's
head held high in her little-girl arms. She laid the bloody thing at
the feet of her mother and then, like a sleepy crosspatch, had to be
put to bed.
John's disciples buried the headless body and, riding night and
day, brought the grisly news to Capernaum.
Now, once again, Jesus retired to privacy and communion; to
prepare himself for the coming ordeal, to renew his energies; to
wash the soul for the time of the forerunner was over and his own
mission lay before him. Once again, in bleak mountains frowning
above the Sea of Galilee, beyond Capernaum, Jesus stole off to be
alone. All through one starlit night he remained on the dark height,
alone and yet not alone, his heart opened to the infinite.
When morning came he was ready to take two radical steps.
Book Four
THE FIRST YEAR
Chapter 32 CHOSEN
THE first step was to complete the selection of His principal follow-
ers, who would be trained to carry forward His work when He
would have to leave/ them.
Back in Capernaum He sent out Peter and James to bring to Him
ten others whom He named from among the throng that helpfully
and for months had followed Him wherever He went. An hour
later He ranged the Twelve in a circle around Him, as they stood
on an unfrequented part of the pebbly shore of the lake.
Bald and bearded Peter with his freckled nose was there, of course,
and his tall brother Andrew. Near them stood the pale Bartholo-
mew, who was also called Nathanael. Then came bright-eyed, im-
petuous John and his brother James, sons of Zebedee; and standing
beside them bearded Matthew, the exuberant ex-taxgatherer. Mus-
cular, athletic Philip stood with his arm around the publican's shoul-
der. All these had been with the Master in His recent expeditions.
The others were newcomers. They had been selected from the
large group of disciples who had followed the Master around
Galilee.
First there was that other, younger James. Nearly forty years
later, for love of Jesus, he was to be thrown down from the pin-
nacle of the Jerusalem Temple, and, being seen still to breathe, was
finally to be stoned to death.
Standing with, the younger James was the even younger Jude,
his brother; Jude, who was called also Thaddeus and Lebbaeas; Jude,
who would be regarded as obscure by future geoeratioes, after
being shot to death by arrows in Armenia sixty years from this June
day when he was chosen.
There was also Simon Zdfotes, again a brother of young James
and Jude. Simon was to be crucified at an appallingly old age; some
138 THE GREATEST STORY EVER TOLD
say he was one hundred and twenty-nine years old when he was
nailed to an X~like cross in Persia.
Last but one of those whom Jesus now selected was Thomas,
surnamed Didymus, but better known as doubting Thomas, some
later day in India to be ripped with a spear and die.
At the end of the list was Judas, the son of Simon of Kerioth. His
name, Judas Iscariot, meant Judas of Kerioth.
A hybrid crew those twelve! Derived from incongruous sources!
Yet Jesus informed them that He had chosen deliberately, and that
His official mission must begin at once, with the death of John the
Baptist, In the language of that day the term apostle meant "one
who is sent," and applied especially to couriers who carried letters
from rulers or others in authority. Explicitly he named His Twelve
as messengers. He would send them out to preach, promising that
they, too, should heal sicknesses and cast out demons*
For a long time the thirteen stood in silent prayer, then started
back into the town* Clearly, as they could see, He would need their
devoted help. And the prospect was a little frightening; on that
very day it seemed as if all the sick of the whole world were gather-
ing in Capernaum. They came from as far as the great metropolis
with its gaudy Temple, where no one, it seemed, had ever been
healed; from distant parts of Judea, and even beyond; loose regi-
ments of bedraggled men and women, streaming in from seacoast
and mountains, from Tyre and Sidon, and rugged old Carmel, where
Elijah had lived in his cave; farther still, from Idumea and from the
oeter regions beyond the Jordan. From throughout all Syria came
hosts of strangers, and from the ten nearby cities called the Decapolis
that ringed the Sea of Galilee.
Not without qualms the Apostles beheld the clamoring throngs.
Soon it would be their job to heal such people. Life had, in so short
a time, changed completely for these men, A little while ago they
could have turned back, but no more. Jesus had chosen them, twelve
and twelve only, as if in mystical recognition of the ancient tribes.
They followed Him, as he made His way along the shore, healing
many along the way, until the press of people grew so large that
once again He took refuge in a fisherman's boat. The time had come
wfam He and His chosen dozen must put the multitudes off from
them and be alone together.
After hours of sailing out of sight of the pursuing crowd they
THE FIRST YEAR 139
beached at a desolate part of the shore, below a towering mountain
of black volcanic rock. The thirteen climbed up the steep path until
they reached a shelter overlooking the inland sea and the late after-
noon fog that now began to mist across the waters.
Here Jesus took His second major step.
Chapter 33 THE SECOND STEP
THE time had come to make one speech to these Twelve that would
sum up all His teachings, a complete and formal statement of His
message, which the Apostles would learn by heart.
For this purpose He had led them away from the multitudes to
a rocky shoulder here on one side of the mountain, an isolated spot
where they could be alone.
As the disciples sat on their heels in a ring around Him, He began
to teach. There was never heard in this world, before that day of
divine revelation, or since, a more concise or orderly statement of a
universal philosophical system; nor has there ever been another such
chart of human behavior. Here was all the soul needed to know of
God and creation and daily life, of today and hereafter. Here, too,
were the most audacious promises ever made to humanity: the good
news of eternity according to Jesus Christ.
He began by telling them how a human being could be happy in
his life on this earth. There were only eight rules one had to follow
and one would be blessed. Not that He promised them security
against the misfortunes of the world; He had no guarantee for any
against pain, loss, grief, or disgrace. No such thing lay in the teach-
ing whose revelations those Twelve were to start reverberating in
every land. All that Jesus had to offer was happiness. That was a
state of mental well-being by which a man could remain tranquil and
yet with an eager zest for life, no matter how poignant his loss, how
deep his sorrow, how excruciating his pain. Here were eight rules to
keep that man serene and capable in the midst of any disaster.
The eight rules, which were to be called the Beatkiules* were
simple and wise but admittedly difficult to fellow. The way to de-
struction was broad and inviting; the way to gtey, straight and nar-
140 THE GREATEST STORY EVER TOLD
row* First of the rules was that a man must be poor in spirit; he
must be gentle, practicing humility, not heady and proud and arro-
gant; if one had succeeded in some great task, he was not to sit and
gloat and brag, but must go right on, planning another job, a harder
and better one.
In the second rule a man must be meek; that was not to be a cring-
ing coward but to believe in the goodness of God and in the friend-
liness of the universe, even when the soul is suffering and can see
no reason why it should suffer; the rule meant acceptance of God's
will
To mourn, too, would be a third blessing, but happiness would
come, not in feeling sorry for ourselves so much as in feeling com-
passion for others and trying to help them; a basic counsel implied
in all the Master's teachings.
Again the dynamic follower of His message would hunger and
thirst after justice and righteousness; not merely in a legal sense but
in a desire to understand and follow the kws that govern life and
that are part of the will of God.
We must also be merciful; so will we earn mercy for ourselves.
And who shall not need it?
Those shall be happy f too, who are clean and pure of heart;
Jesus promised them that they would see God. But He meant what
He said in the fullest sense: purity meant more than just a kck of
lust; it called for a goal, a purpose in life.
Again, those who were persecuted for the sake of justice, for the
teachings He gave them they, too, would be happy, for theirs was
tine Ejngdom of Heaven.
**And, n He finished with the last beatitude, "blessed are you when
they shall revile you and persecute you and speak all that is evil
against you, untruly, for my sake. Be glad and rejoice, for your re-
ward is very great in heaven,"
As there could be happiness in this world by following the eight
rules, so there would be unhappiness if they were not followed.
"Do not think," He instantly answered their thoughts, "that I am
come to destroy the kw or the prophets, I am not come to destroy
but to fulfill"
And the fulfillment as He now described it to them was like a
stvtfiog challenge, dazing to conventional old ways of thinking. He
lecaflbd to them the Ten Commandments, called the Law. For ex-
ample, you must not kill. Ah, but that was not the end of the mat-
THE FIRST YEAR 14!
ter* "I say to you that whosoever is angry with his brother shall be in
danger of the judgment."
To wish a man dead is murder then? More than that! If your
friend and you have quarreled, there is no place for you in church.
Leave the altar, fleeing your gift, and find the man with whom you
have disagreed. Make up with him; be reconciled to him then, and
not before, you are in a proper state of mind to kneel before the
altar of God. Agree with your adversary quickly, before things go
too far.
And what of thoughts of lust? They are the same as acts of lust.
"Whoever shall look on a woman to lust after her has already com-
mitted adultery with her in his heart."
What is a man to do, then? He is to conquer himself at whatever
the cost! If his right eye is rotten, tear it out. Better to lose an eye
than infect the whole body and die.
No way of ease and roses this! In a land where divorce could be
obtained with communistic ease, Jesus now told them that there
could be no divorce in the Christian life. He made his words plain;
He said and meant that a man could have only one wife, and that to
get rid of her, even if she made his life miserable or someone else
beckoned him to voluptuous joy, was nevertheless to expose her to
the danger of adultery.
This revolutionary command against custom was followed up by
one that seemed against nature itself. To the gasping Twelve Apos-
tles, there to learn their immortal lesson, He told them they were
not to resist evil. Now there was indeed a dazing idea. Not to resist
evil? No, bewildered Twelve, and bewildered posterity, you are
not to resist. When you learn that force is not the answer to force,
peace will come to die world; never until then. As long as attack is
answered by repulse, aggression by defense, wars will never end.
That is true in your private lives as well; if a man punches you ota
the right cheek, don't hit him back; turn the left cheek to his fist!
Audible gasps from all Twelve! For months now they had heard
His merciful ideas, but nothing so radical and shocking as this calm
instruction. Did they remember the old Mosaic law of an eye for an
eye and a tooth for a tooth? Certainly, Master, we all remember
that! But they had forgotten a potent fact: that ooce upon a time,
and long ago, tbe kw was not Bee that. Revenge wm a man's own
business; break his tooth and lie could have your eye in vengeance,
if only he was strong enough tp cat .it from yw& .Later the Mosaic
142 THE GREATEST STORY EVER TOLD
law put a limit on human fury. To repay an injury, you could take
in kind, but no more than equal justice. So the law was changed to
put a curb on: an eye for an eye, but only a tooth for a tooth.
Now came Jesus fulfilling the old law with a new and gracious
expansion. Twelve listeners, get it straight and clear: if a man takes
away your coat, give him your vest as well And if , under the cruel
and oppressive laws of this occupied land, a Roman soldier compels
you to walk with him a mile, carrying his shield and sword in the
hot sun, go with him another mile, freely given when you don't
have to,
A light of understanding was shining on the faces of the listening
Twelve. Thus a man could make himself free; the giving of more
than required did that the new, astonishing, wholly Christian doc-
trine of the law of surplus service.
With a sense of increasing power and glory they heard Him go
on to the golden rule that a man must do unto others as he would
have others do unto him an improvement over all similar state-
ments because it was positive, dynamic like Jesus himself. They were
to give, when asked to give; lend, when asked to lend; and whereas
the old law allowed one to love his friend and hate his enemy: "I say
to you that hear, love your enemies, do good to them that hurt you^
and bless them that curse you, and pray for those that calumniate
you."
Was that humanly possible? For thousands of years afterward men
were to debate that amazing command. How can you love your ene-
mies? Unfortunately, in kter years, the words, translated into many
tongues, were to lose the precision with which Jesus spoke that day
in His native Aramaic Chaldee dialect. Jesus used two words for
affection fiKus and agape. In our own texts these words, widely dif-
ferent in meaning, were to be translated as one word "love." So a
great deal of confusion was to be caused by the injunction to love
our enemies. Jesus often used love in the strong sense of the old Greek
word**g4^e~-a detached, impersonal, self-commanding sense of the
Fathership of God which makes all people His children. Not that
we are expected to feel caressing affection for our enemy, but we
are to bless him, and pray for his salvation, and, forgiving his offense,
leave his fate to God.
This point, because of the precision with which Jesus invariably
spoke, the Twelve thoroughly understood: "Be you merciful even
as your Father in Heaven is merciM"
THE FIRST YEAR 143
With the same perfect clarity he went on to warn against being
show-offs, especially of their good works. If they bragged of their
fine deeds to excite the admiration of their fellows, then that ended
it; their reward was that very admiration of their fellows and they
should expect nothing further. The right hand must not know what
the left hand does. Pray in secret too in the darkness of a closed
room, and not, like pharisaical exhibitionists, on the street corners,
with make-up on their faces to give them a haggard look of having
piously fasted for a long time. "I tell you they have their reward!"
How to treat others, how to govern one's own impulses, were, as
they saw clearly, the urgent parts of His teaching. This was a way
of life, a pattern of conduct for all to follow. We are not to judge
another; nor to condemn. If we do judge, then we, too, shall be
judged; when we condemn, we insure condemnation for ourselves.
But if we forgive, we may also be sure of forgiveness, It is up to each
one of us, individually; we can choose what to do; we have moral
freedom.
Carefully He explained all matters to them. A follower of Jesus
would not criticize the small faults of others; he mttst be too busy
correcting his own gross defects the mote in your brother's eye, the
beam in your own, springing up in this mountain sermon out of
boyhood rabbinical teachings in the Nazareth synagogue. One must
be careful not to waste the treasures of spiritual understanding on
those unready for receiving it; pearls were not to be cast before
swine. Careful, too, to recognize a false teacher, of which there
would come many; wolves in sheep's clothing. As a tree is known
by its fruit, so is a man known by his acts. And the false teachers
will unmask themselves by their deeds.
All men were responsible for their deeds, their words, their very
thoughts. Here was startling news for the twelve sobered listeners,
A count was kept in eternity, a balance sheet would be ready for the
final reckoning. He who did good deeds, said wise and kind words,
and thought good thoughts was like a man who built his hoose on a
rock. When storm and flood came, the house was unshaken* Those
who did not follow this counsel lived in a house btrilt on sand; **The
ruin of that house was great,"
This message placed an immense obligation on. each of the Twelve;
He stressed that point and! they must all try to be worthy of it. He
had chosen them because they were the safe of the earth but if salt
loses its flavor, ft is wsefcss* They were the Igjbfi; of the world ami
144 THE GREATEST STORY EVER TOLD
they must let their light shine before men, "that they may see your
good works and glorify your Father in heaven*"
What they had to teach was the fulfillment of the law: "Till
heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from
the law . . ."
The whole design of a man's life should be to accumulate the
treasure, not of time but of eternity. To do this he should love God
and serve Him and nothing else; there could be no divided loyalty;
a man cannot serve two masters. It was a basic mistake to let the
exigencies of the world center on moral decisions; if God feeds the
birds and clothes the flowers of the field more richly than the glory
of Solomon, His earthly children should have confidence that He
will care for them as well
"Oh, you of little faith!" exclaimed Jesus sadly, when He had
reached this point "You must seek first the Kingdom of God and
His righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you . . ."
From the comfort of this great promise He passed on to others,
even more audacious. To those whose lives were thus dedicated to
righteousness there were these wonderful assurances:
44 Ask and it shall be given you.
**$eek and you shaU find.
"Knock and it shall be opened unto you.
* What man is there of you, who, if his son asked for bread, would
give him a stone? If you then, being evil, know how to give good
gifts to your children, how much more shall your Father in heaven
give good things to them that ask Him? Therefore, all things what-
soever you would that men should do to you, do you even so to
them; for this is the law and the prophets.'*
AH these things and more Jesus explained to the Twelve as they
sat around him on die ledge of the mountain overlooking the distant
lake* The sun vanished behind the waters^ the gloaming came and
deepened, and a little scimitar moon began to rise as He told them
that only by prayers could a man find the strength to live a life like
that And how should a man pray? Not with the vain repetitions
that had bored and dmllusioned him in his childhood, but remem-
bering always that God the Father already knew the needs of His
children and the form of their prayer therefore should be:
i *Oor Father who art in heaven, hallo wed be thy name. Thy king-
dooi come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this
day our daily bread. And forgive us our trespasses as we forgive
THE FIRST YEAR 145
those who trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation, but
deliver us from evil . . ."
That was the Sermon on the Mount.
Chapter 34 THE FIRST BOX OF OINTMENT
CAUSTIC remarks made publicly by Jesus about the ruling caste be-
gan reaching the ears of some of the most powerful of the wealthy
faction, living close to Capernaum. A few nights later Jesus was in-
vited to dinner at the house of a Pharisee, who had talked over the
matter with cronies.
"Why not have the fellow in? Let's take His measure. He may be
harmless. If He isn't, well, we'll know what we have to do!"
So the Master was summoned to sup with the rich Simon. This
Pharisee had considerable curiosity, of course, about a wayside
preacher reported to have magical powers. He also thought the man
who voiced so much criticism of the rich might be bought by flat-
tering hospitality and cease his most unpleasant attacks, which were
unsettling to the mob. "Offer good prices and you can obtain any-
thing," the rich man figured merchandise, honor, or faith, if you
happen to have use for such things. But in addition to his curiosity
and his scheming the Pharisee's vanity made him feel that as soon as
this radical from a Nazareth carpenter shop was allowed to meet him
personally he would see what a nice chap he really was, and criti-
cism of the rich would wither away. He felt himself such a wonder-
ful symbol of his class!
But Simon, without knowing it, was letting himself in for a dras-
tic evening.
Jesus sat down at the table, amiably composed in spite of his host's
omissions of certain common acts of courtesy. There were no other
invited guests, and that, in the custom of the region, was an implied
insult. His choice viands were not being served this evening, and
he offered none of his fine wines, nor his strong oriental brandy,
distilled from the juices of the cocoa palm, dearly die rich Simon
could not bring himself to treat a carpenter as an equal. Moreover,
Simon acted as if he thought his visitor ignorant of the hospitable
attention any guest was entitled to. Nevertheless, Jesus was full of
urbane consideration; the two ate of boiled rice, raisins, spice, and
146 THE GREATEST STORY EVER TOLD
lamb meat, and they small-talked: crops promised well, but taxes
were high and would go higher. There were rumors of war in the
west.
Then, suddenly, Simon leaned forward, glaring over the shoulder
of Jesus. Behind the divan on which the guest reclined at the meal
was a sight the Pharisee could hardly believe. Crouching there was
a woman with long red hair; she was wrapped in a magenta robe of
perfumed silk In soft, smooth hands she was holding an alabaster
box. The Pharisee had no difficulty in recognizing the intruder; he
had seen her long before, when nobody knew except the two of
them.
But tonight she had no eyes for him, powerful citizen though he
was, with great authority and power to do harm to such as she. All
frippery and trumpery of her trade laid aside, the red-haired woman
kept her bloodshot eyes fixed on this penniless, mendicant Jesus. She
wept ts she washed His feet. She wiped the calloused soles with her
loog red hair f and tenderly kissed the insteps before she rubbed them
with the ointment from her box of alabaster,
The Pharisee sat back, fuming to himself;
"There, you see! This man, if He were really a prophet, would
surely know who and what manner of woman this is."
Then Jesus said sofdy:
"Sanaa, I have something to say to you."
"MBt&r, my It."
"A certain creditor had two debtors. The one owed five hundred
pence and the other fifty."
** Ateter?"
a A0d whereas they had not wherewith to pay, he forgave them
bo*.*
ic Yes, Master?"
"Wbicfa, therefore* of the two, loves him the more?"
"I soppose the one to whom he forgave the most."
"You have judged rigbdy! Do yew see this woman? I entered into
your house; yoe gave me 00 water for my feet, but she, with tears,
has washed my feet and with her hair has wiped them.
*Tou gave me no kiss, but she, since she came in, has not ceased to
kiss iny feet Many sins are forgiven her, because she has loved
And for the first time speaking to the redhaired womaa He added:
sins are forgiven you."
THE FIRST YEAR 147
"Who is this that forgives sins also?" snarled Simon, rising.
But Jesus was paying no attention to his host. He helped the red-
haired woman to her feet and gently closed the lid of her box of
alabaster. Costly, that box; even more costly the ointment; all her
savings must have gone to buy it.
And He said to her:
"Your faith has made you safe. Go in peace!"
And immediately afterward He, too, left the rich man's house.
Chapter 35 THE WOMAN WHO UNDERSTOOD
BECAUSE of happenings like that, the fame of Jesus was on every lip
back in His home town. Cousins, uncles, and even more distant kins-
folk, all known as "brethren" and sisters, in the common usage of
the time, kept running to His mother to hear the latest news.
"Mary, have you heard of the redheaded woman who rubbed your
son's toes with spikenard and washed His heels with her tears?"
Or:
"Mary, do you know about the devotion shown to Him by those
other women Joanna, the wife of Chusa, who is the steward of King
Herod? Or of Susannah? Or of so many others?"
If there was gossip or malice in the minds of her neighbors, Mary
was still glad to hear any report from Jesus. Those women, she
knew, cooked food for her son; sewed the rents in His long white
robe; mended His sandals. And Mary smiled even more serenely
when town gabblers told her the authorities did not like at all the
way her son was encouraging women to take an interest in public
affairs and to think for themselves.
The more the populace talked about the growing fame of Jesus,
the more the cousins and the uncles, the brethren, felt left out of
things. If Jesus had now become such a great man in the region, then
why shouldn't the world learn that He had relatives, too, who were
admirable in their own way? Or was Jesus ashamed of them aE now
that He was becoming so famous?
So a number of relatives persuaded Mary to go with them, and
they walked together down intt> the bdgfflg upraar of Capernaum.
Because the Master had made it His headquarters, the town was
148 THE GREATEST STORY EVER TOLD
having a boom. Always an overpopulated place, Capernaum was
now thronged with tourists, drawn there by tales of Jesus, includ-
ing thousands of sick people. Lodgings were overpriced, if and
when you could find them. The harassment of those innkeepers
made Mary think of long ago and far away.
In the private house where Jesus lodged the crush of supplicants
from the mob milling in the road made the warm air stifling. Far
back of the fringe of the crowd Mary stood outside the house, while
some of her big-shouldered relations began to batter forward until
they got through the door of the house into the clamoring court
and, at last and breathless, stood within sight of Jesus.
"Look! w they panted to Him* "Your mother and your brethren
stand without, waiting for you."
And they grinned, fully expecting that He would instantly have
a pathway cleared through the hubbub and rush down the opened
corridor to greet the family from Nazareth.
But Jesus, looking over their heads and past the crowd saw Mary
waking beyond. For a moment the gaze of mother and son met in
tender greeting. He knew that she had trudged a weary journey to
see Him here. This toiling, hard-working Mary was no longer young.
And she knew full well that He must still be about His Father's
business. Between them, in that protracted hail of glance and smile,
there was perfect understanding. With His eyes still looking devot-
edly toward her, He spoke a question to the crowd:
**Who is ray mother? And my brethren?"
His arms as he outflung them seemed to bless all the poor and
wretched*
"Look tt my mother and my brethren!** he cried. "For whosoever
shall do the will of God, he is my brother and my sister and mother."
And Mary's smile to those disgusted relatives seemed to ask:
"Is it not all glorious and sorrowful and triumphant?"
Maiy, the mother, who understood so much!
Chapter 36 THE TELLER OF GOOD YARNS
As HIS public speaking continued, Jesus began to prove Himself the
greatest teller of good stories the crowds had ever listened to.
From the prow of a borrowed fishing ship He would often face
THE FIRST YEAR 149
the beach and expound His deepest ideas by simple, apt, and excit-
ing tales. Agents and pedants from the Temple, occasionally reap-
pearing to dog His footsteps and listen to everything He had to say,
made wry faces at His habit of parable telling.
It was new. It was different. So it must be worthless! And from
the point of view of an intellectual it certainly was undignified!
Besides, what was new about it? The very school children knew
that Balaam had told parables and so had Job. The prophets had made
up pointed stories to hold the attention, to make deep matters sim-
ple to peasants as well as scholars.
There were two practical reasons for His spinning of yarns. One,
of course, was clarification. He was dealing with the most profound
truths affecting mankind. It was too much to ask that all mechanics
and fishermen should grasp abstract truths too readily. But they
could grasp them when He bespelled them, telling narratives with
mobile gestures and a perfect and wholly unrestrained ease of de-
lineationhis heroes and villains and a whole great cast of fascinating
characters were drawn invariably from familiar scenes; from their
own daily life, the background of barns and highways. And all told
with such cadence and modulation of the voice and such simple
description that the characters seemed to spring up alive before
them.
But if His first purpose was to clarify, it was equally true that the
second purpose of His stories was to mystify. His disciples often
had to ask Him to explain the meaning of His parables, and once
they demanded why He often spoke in so cryptic a manner.
"To you," He told them, "is given to know the mystery of the
Kingdom of God; but to the rest in parables, that, seeing, they may
not see; and, hearing, may not understand; lest at any time they
should be converted and their sins should be forgiven them and I
should heal them!"
Amazing words, themselves harder to understand than any para-
ble. That behind all these words and deeds of the Master was a uni-
versal purpose, beyond the grasp of men, was not yet clear to the
disciples, nor is it clear to their descendants today. He had His
work to do and it was the work of mercy and salvation. That work
must go on, must not be interrupted before all was accomplished.
In these enigmatic, seemingly hard words lay a mystery never to be
fully revealed to His disciples.
These figures of His parables were everyday folk farmers fore-
JfO THE GREATEST STORY EVER TOLD
ing the plow through stony, reluctant fields, or poorer men, plant-
ing in little gardens all familiar sights in open Galilee. Some of His
plots concerned drunken stewards and faithless servants and who
had not heard of them? He could take the profoundest truths of
prophets and old lawgivers and bring them down, in terse, practical
words, to the kitchen and the bazaar.
Of course He knew his material Intimately; He had lived in a
house so dark that a woman must light a candle in the daytime to
find the silver coin that she lost; He could, when it helped the story,
employ the skng of the gardener, the baker, or the builder; He knew
about rotten, leaking old skins and the new bottles of the wine
merchant; and the brutal tyranny of upper servants over the lower.
At times He fell back on the lore of the work He had done with
His own hands. The carpenter spoke of the splinter and the beam;
die strong and the weak foundations of houses; the green wood and
the well-seasoned. All the teeming life about Him was material for
His parables; pastures, flocks, good shepherds, and lost sheep; moun-
tains and the hawks; how the mustard seed grows from a tiny grain,
ike faith; rich merchants and poor fishermen; the ingathering of
com sheaves and fruits.
The one parabk of Jesus that die people remembered best was the
adventures of the prodigal son. There was so much hope and prom-
ise in k. There was a tale, the like of which they had often seen
acted ia real Methe young man, taking what money his father had
for him, and traveling off to the great city, expecting to become on
his own a veiy great fellow before long.
But within a short time a siren wound her arms around his foolish
neck and smothered his good sense in a counterfeit passion that he
believed to be true love; gamblers and thieves worked with her until
a whole company of city buzzards picked clean the bones of his
purse and then the young man was kicked out through the back
door of the harlot's house. So hungry did he come to be that he took
the only job he could find-a pig tender, an assistant to a swineherd;
he even ate the husks intended for hogs.
What to do? What to do now? The miserable young man came
at last to a sensible resolution, He realized bitterly enough that the
fcwest servant on his father's property ate better food than he did.
CM worse he could not ask to be taken back into his old position in
the famiy, but perhaps he might have a job working around the
place.
THE FIRST YEAR 15!
"I will arise," the young man decided, "and go to my father/'
And now what does the ragged homebound traveler see? A hurry-
ing figure coming toward him through the dust of the road. It is his
father, who has seen him from afar and has rushed forward to clasp
him in loving arms, put a ring on his finger, a robe over his cold
bones. "Kill the fatted calf, for my son has come home!"
God, Jesus assured them, was a Father like that waiting for all his
sons to come home. Here Jesus reached the highest point, the grand
climacteric, the apogee of His teaching.
But there was a next favorite story which He first told under
most dramatic circumstances, because of a heckler in the synagogue
at Bethany. At the time the vagabond Jesus had come down to Judea
and was stopping at the home of three old friends of the family: two
spinsters, Martha, her sister Mary, and Lazarus, their brother.
It was an exciting scene that Bethany morning: the congregation
crowded the little house of worship facing the highway running
from Jericho up to Jerusalem* That was a robber-infested road,
dangerous to travelers, to, this day as well as than a steep descent
falling from the rocky height of the capital down to the Dead Sea.
The people from roundabout that wilderness region, where John
had grown up and Jesus had fasted and been tempted, loved to talk
of tweedledum and tweedledee. They were a disputatious lot, relish-
ing the subtleties of theological argument, fine points, and micro-
scopic distinctions. Having heard how a carpenter from Galilee had
worsted in debate some of the ablest dialecticians, they sensed a good
show to come as they gathered to hear Jesus preach.
One, a doctor of the law, was picked by the others to be their
spokesman and to challenge the speaker.
If Jesus had ever been careful in His public talks, He had dropped
all caution by this time. In what He had to tell them there was now-
adays every opportunity for conservatives to object. With what
could seem to many only presumptuous impudence, Jesus informed
them they were blessed because of what they were seeing with Him;
prophets and kings had wanted to see these things and had not To
the good people of this world He promised eternal life.
In the solemn pause that f ollowed these words die lawyer stood
up. With every appearance of civility, but with a leer in bis left eye,
he asked:
"Master, what must 1 do to possess eternal life?"
like many a good Jew before him, Jesus countered:
152 THE GREATEST STORY EVER TOLD
"What is written in the Law? How do you read it?"
Question for question the heckler went on:
"Master, which is the first commandment of all? n
"The first commandment of all is, 4 Hear, Israel; the Lord your
God is one God; and you shall love the Lord your God with your
whole heart, and with your whole soul, and with your whole mind,
and with your whole strength. This is the first commandment. And
the second is like to it. You shall love your neighbor as yourself.
There is no other commandment greater than these."
This apparently simple exchange of query arid answer was of
deep technical meaning to the intellectual sharks. The lawyer had
asked a legal question-and a dangerous one. What he was really
getting at was whether the prohibitions-there were three hundred
and sixty-five specific ones, together with the two hundred and
forty-eight positive commands of the kw-were to be regarded as
of equal value and importance; a tricky approach in a deliberate
attempt to trip up Jesus and get Him into trouble with the author-
ities. Without hesitation the Master gave a reply that simplified
man's duty to his God and his fellow man. Quoting from the Mosaic
books of Deuteronomy and Leviticus he had gone back directly
to fundamental laws* These he distinguished from trivial man-made
observances by which the Pharisees were keeping themselves and
eveiyone else too busy.
"On these two commandments/' Jesus further told his heckler,
"depend the whole law and the prophets."
But tihe kwyer did not sit down.
**WelI, Master," he persisted, "you have said in truth that there
is one God and there is no other besides Him. And that He should
be loved with the whole heart and with the whole understanding
and with the whole soul and with the whole strength, and to love
one's neighbor as oneself is a greater thing than all holocausts and
sacrifices."
Jesus nodded, but His eyes studied the man intently.
*Tou are not far from the Kingdom of God," He said. "You have
answered right. This do and you shall live."
Now the kwyer smiled.
**And who is my neighbor? 17 he demanded sharply. By premedi-
tation he had led the way up to this dilemma. Does the neighbor
mean only a fellow Jew, Jesus? Surely you don't mean that a Gentile
THE FIRST YEAR 153
could also be a neighbor? Or, infinitely worse than that, a depraved,
despised, unspeakable Samaritan?
"Master, 'who is my neighbor?"
From where he sat Jesus could look down the aisle and through
the open door and portico out to the road beyond, the robber-in-
fested highway. It was as if He were describing a drama being en-
acted there:
"A certain man went down from Jerusalem to Jericho and fell
among thieves ..."
A situation they all recognized and many had feared. Under the
storyteller's spell their imagination went to work. They could see
that "certain man" packing his bags for the journey, his worried
wife helping him and pleading with him to wait until someone else
could go with him. No, no the business was urgent; he must get
to Jericho before dawn tomorrow. And then a small, piping voice
spoke up his ten-year-old's voice; listen to the child; he knew
somebody that was going on that road tonight: his chum's father.
And who might his chum's father be? What did you say, niy son?
Did I hear you say that your chum's father came from Nablus?
Wife, explain this! A son of mine playing with Samaritan boys!
And the father became even more apoplectic when his boy wanted
to know what was really wrong with a Samaritan. Why, explain
to him, wife! Samaritans were all dirty and untrustwordiy. Hun-
dreds of years ago they collaborated with the Persian invaders . . ,
"But, Father, is my chum to be punished for what happened hun-
dreds of years ago?"
No more Samaritan boys for you; no son of mine may be seen
playing with a Samaritan; it might even hurt me in my business.
And so, having refused the suggestion of his boy, and given his or-
ders and prayed in the Temple, the father starts out alone on the
dark road. There he is overtaken by robbers, who strip him to the
skin, leave him naked on the ground in the dark beaten, wounded,
and half dead.
And now the crowd was very still as Jesus told them:
"And it chanced that a certain priest went down the same way;
and, seeing him, passed by.
"In like manner also a Levite, when he was aear the place and
saw him, also passed by.
"But a certain Samaritan, being on his journey, came near him;
and, seeing him, was moved with
154 THE GREATEST STORY EVER TOLD
"And going up to him, bound up his wounds, pouring in oil and
wine; and setting him upon his own beast, brought him to an inn
and took care of him.
"And the next day he took out two pence and gave to the host
and said: 'Take care of him, and whatsoever you shall spend, over
and above, I, on my return, will repay you.* "
Here, for a moment, Jesus paused and looked from the bespelled
faces of the people straight at the heckling lawyer.
"Which of these, then, in your opinion was neighbor to him that
feU among the robbers?"
And looking back into the smiling face of the Master, the lawyer
could answer only:
"He that showed mercy to him."
Even then he could not bring himself to use the definite but for-
bidden word "Samaritan." But that was what he meant.
"Go and do you in like manner!'*
Chapter 3 j A TIME OF WONDERS
LITE ooe afternoon Jesos and His group left the west side of the
Lake of Galilee an$ sailed eastward for the desert shore, where there
would be no crowds and they could all rest for a while. His resilient
nature would always respond to small periods of rest. Now he was
tired; soon after they shoved off he fell into a slumber peaceful and
deepi as if no harm could possibly overtake him.
But m those days, as now, the Lake of Galilee was one of the
most treacheroijs of all earth's waters. One moment it ripples in
wifely felicity and the aext will foam itself into shrewish fury.
On this twilight voyage, while Jesus slept in the hinder part of
the ship, His head on a lumpy old pillow, there came out of a sud-
den dark cloud above them a spit of forked lightning and a peal of
thunder. The blow of a high wind rattled die small sails; waves
splashed frothing over the bow, and water poured over the side rails.
"Master!" yelled the disciples. "We perish!"
Grabbing Jesus by the shoulders, they shook him violently awake.
As He blinked at diem sleepily, the Master did what no ordinary
sailor would evei do: He stood uji in the rocking boat More, He
THE FIRST YEAR 155
spread His hands and commanded the storm to cease, as if expecting
immediate compliance and got it. Instantly the wind fell off and the
skies cleared and the little boat rode on over miraculously quieted
waters.
But, He asked them, with a mournful shake of the head:
"Where is your faith? Why are you fearful?"
What could they answer? Where was their faith? Many times
they had seen Him give movement to paralyzed legs; sight to blind
eyes; health to the centurion's servant; life to the widow's son. But
they had not seen enough to abolish fears for their own skins. Even
now Thomas wondered: was not the vanishing storm perhaps just
a coincidence?
It was not remarkable, therefore, that two thousand years later
young men in universities were to smile and snort at the childish
notion that man, born of woman, could, by one word of rebuke,
send a tempest blowing on its way. Even those who saw it did not
find it easy to believe. And they thought they had faith!
They would see Jesus go buoyantly on His way, driving out
of a cave dweller a legion of devils, watching as those dispossessed
and invisible fiends entered into a wild herd of swine; they actually
saw and heard the pigs and hogs and sows begin to squeal and grant
and run violently down a cliff side into the lake where they were
aE drowned; they even saw perturbed hog raisers of the neighbor-
hood come in a delegation and plead with the Master to depart to
" some other place and still, in their hearts, they had doubts. It would
take a hill called Calvary to settle those doubts. Yet others did not
need so much!
For example, back in Capernaum Jesus healed an untidy woman
sick with a bloody issue. For years she had not ceased bleeding;
she had been dosed with the whole pharmacopoeia of her day; "had
suffered many things from physicians.'* So great was the press of the
eager crowd clustering densely around that at first the saffering
woman could not get near enough to Jesus to ask His help. But she
said to herself: 'If I can only touch the hem of His garment, I shall
be whole."
Ah, Peter John James-why could yon not believe lite this poor
woman? See what happened to her now! The fountain of her wast-
ing Wwxi was dried up ml she felt in her body that *hz was healed
of the evil; those are the words of St. Mark
a Who touched me?" demanded Jesus, whea this happened
156 THE GREATEST STORY EVER TOLD
The others chortled at His question. Who touched Him? la all
this jamming press of people? But Jesus silenced the amusement with
one flat statement: some energy had been drawn out of Him, His
power had been called upon, and in all the pressure of the milling
crowd, He knew! And the rebuked disciples gasped with wonder
In the next confirming moment when the woman fell down on the
ground before the Master, acknowledging that it was she. And He,
who had asked His own disciples, "Where is your faith?" said to her:
"Daughter, it is your faith that has made you whole. Go your
way in peace."
Only a few minutes before the head man of a synagogue, a Jew
called Jairus, had asked the Master to come and look at his sick
daughter. They had been walking toward his house when the woman
was healed of the bloody issue. But now, as they started off again,
a screaming man pushed his way forward and told Jaims:
"Your daughter is dead!"
The father would have fainted, but Jesus put His arm around
him. The power to alky pain and jostle death itself was in His hands
for brethren and pagan but never for the unbeliever. So he whis-
pered:
"Fear not. Believe only! And she shall be safe!"
Together they strode on firmly, until they came to the house of .
death. Already the hired minstrels had come to offer their services;
tbey were playing their stringed instruments and singing the psalm
dirges a riot of noise and old custom.
Jesos motiooed to the crowd to remain behind. Only Peter and
James and John could go in with Him. On the doorstep He made
a gesture toward the noisy mercenaries:
**Give place! For the girl is not dead, but sleeps!"
The hired mourners roared; already they were a little drunk; they
were insolent and full of scorn. Inside the house Jesus led mother
and father into the darkened room where the child lay, white and
motionless. Jesus lifted up one cold, limp hand and murmured: .
"Litde girl, arise!"
At His words the child arose immediately. And Jesus, with the
most pleased and tender and understanding smile, told Jairus and
his wtfe to get her something to eat; any little girl, called back
from death to life, would probably be hungry. He also entreated the
parents not to talk about what had happened.
But die $toiy spread like sunrise.
THE FIRST YEAR 157
Chapter 38 NOT WITHOUT HONOR
BY NOW the neighbors in Nazareth were divided about the fame of
Jesus and quarreling over him.
Had He not become too important to talk to His own mother and
family?
Disgusted relatives, in spite of Mary, had spread the reproach
and they found ready listeners. And others, perfectly decent folk,
had the human feeling of being shut out from a recognition they felt
rightfully entitled to.
And why did He hang around Capernaum? Why, if this Nazarene
were now a great man, did He forget where He came from? He
might help His own town a little! They were all neighbors together,
weren't they? So on street corners there were arguments and scrim-
mages, for some would take his part; fisticuffs and knives in the al-
leys.
In the midst of this public unrest Jesus suddenly returned, and
at once the Nazareth air grew as tense as the last moments before
a thundershower. Mary's home was surrounded with people, some
japing and mocking, others shouting friendly greetings. Peter and
the others had to force a lane through which the Master could walk
to the synagogue.
And there, once more facing the same benches where as a child
He had learned the kw and the prophets and the whole body of
tradition, He talked about how a man should treat his fellow man.
His discourse shocked every one of them. He drove home an
old teaching, but it had to do with a new situation: the racial and
religious intolerance of their time. They all had racial prejudices,
and it infuriated them to hear Him tell them that they must give up
those prejudices: God loved the Syrians and the Sidotuans too; He
was God of the Gentile as well as of the Jew.
A grumbling filled the synagogue. This was not at all what most
of the crowd had come for. Who was He to-instruct them? Wasn't
He a miracle worker? Well, what wias He waiting for? Come on,
perform! And they began to make shrill noises and mocking faces,
and stamp their f eek
158 THE GREATEST STORY EVER TOLD
He was the son of Mary, wife of Joseph the carpenter, was He
not? He had grown up with the rest of them in these very streets,
praying before this very altar. Played with old companions and rela-
tivesJames and Joseph and Simon and Jude among them and the
girls of his acquaintance, too, all goggle-eyed now and giggling.
Not one such girl or boy, no other citizen of Nazareth, could give
a blind man back his sight, change a cripple into an athlete, exorcise
evil spirits, drive out demons, or recall to life the stiffening dead.
No one else pretended to do such things, either. But Jesus, now, so
the tales went, had done all these things and more. Well, let's see
Him do them now.
a Sho*w us your powers, Jesus! Open the eyes of the blind, car-
penterl Rmse us up a corpse, Mary's son!"
Rows of impudent faces, full of taunting challenge, confronted
him from the pews. Physician, heal yourself! As great things as we
have heard done in Capernaum, do also here in your own country!
And the reply of Jesus came with a forgiving sigh:
**A prophet is not without honor except in his own country and
in his own home."
A prophet, is it? He really considered himself a prophet, thai?
At once a feeling of outrage swept through the synagogue. While
they had waited for Him to perform His tricks like any conjuror
with bag and stick, He would try to interpret doctrines to them!
Not a smgle blind eye opened, although the pkce was thick with
the b&id this morning; not a withered hand waved and shaken until
it was whole; not a body climbing out of its grave? Yet He presumed
tso give himself the airs of a prophet!
Loud cries of anger came from the hot-tempered citizens of Naza-
reth as they rushed upon Him, the whole squirming, motley crew
with oit-throat eyes ablaze. They dragged Him out into the narrow
street and up to die brow of the hill on which their town was built.
From that great height, where often as a boy He had looked around
Him at the world, they would chuck Him headlong down to the
rocks.
Not one of the crowd could tell afterward just what happened.
A moment He was there, die next instant gone. All they could say
to die stricken Mary was that He passed throiigh the midst of them
sad wait His way.
Book Five
THE SECOND YEAR
Chapter 39 BARLEY LOAVES AND FISHES
THE queen had promised Herod Antipas, Tetrarch of Galilee, that,
having beheaded John the Baptist, he would have peace of mind at
last. He would be free, once and for all, of those gnawing doubts
with which the Baptist had pricked his feeble conscience. The peo-
ple, too, she predicted, would soon quiet down. But Queen Herodias
was neither sibyl nor prophetess; she was wrong about both matters.
The Baptist was dead, but the king could not forget him. And this
Jesus, for whom John had been the great advertiser, was now mak-
ing the perturbing gospel more popular than ever among the people
in his domain.
Not a day passed but the .king's spies brought him reports of the
growing force of Jesus.
"He has multiplied His influence fifty times over," ran one
communication. That estimate had to do with an experiment made
by the Master when He gave many of his disciples a trial com-
mission to go out preaching in pairs. He had also assured them
that from now on they, too, would have power to cure diseases
and drive out unclean spirits from those who believed.
"Heal the sick," He bade them. "Cleanse the lepers. Cast out devils!
Raise the dead! Freely you have received, freely give . . ?
The intellectual skeptics at Herod's court laughed,
"How can this man give his dupes power over devils, when
there are no such things as devils?" they jeered.
But it was all die more disconcerting, as duly reported to Herod,
when the disciples returned full of joyous accounts of their suc-
cess. Yes, all had happened as He promised. "Lord, the devils also
are subject to us in your name!"
Jesos himself was foil of joy at their imports, aad at once thanked
God in prayer:
1 60 THE GREATEST STORY EVER TOLD
"I confess to Thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because
thou hast hidden these things from the wise and the prudent and
hast revealed them to little ones. Yes, Father, for so hath it seemed
good in Thy sight."
And more clearly than before, then, Jesus proclaimed Himself:
"No one knows who the Son is but the Father, and who the Father
is, but the Son, and he to whom it shall please the Son to reveal him.
a Come unto me, all you that labor and are heavy laden, and I will
give you rest!"
It was hard to laugh at reports like that
How can a poor tetrarch laugh when every day he hears that
wandering up and down the roads of his kingdom there is a mys-
terious figure that actually does cure diseases, devilish or not? Herod
for a long time refused to believe that there was such a person as
Jesus; he believed the new wonder-worker was John the Baptist,
risen from the dead.
Moreover, he knew that the constant occupation of this mysteri-
ous Nazarene was in preaching a radical doctrine, supplemented with
healing. Through 204 cities and villages, the smallest of which num-
bered 15,000 subjects of Herod, through town and open country
and into the Greek cities of Transjordania, the Master went, trudg-
ing with His ragged disciples all poorly clad, poorly housed, and
poorly fed and winning the adoration of crowds by his healing and
preaching.
Such a situation would be a menace to any authority!
Next Herod heard of something not only incomprehensible, but
iacoeccivable. One could be told that it happened, but how could
00ft think of it m happening?
The scene was on the northeast side of the Lake of Galilee; the
time was at the beginning of April, AJX 29, just when the paschal
feast was again coming on. That day a great multitude at least five
thousand people had followed the Master. Now evening was near
and the crowds were hungry. Making a hasty inventory, the disciples
found that hardly anyone had brought food on this excursion into
the hills.
But Andrew, Peter's brother, said:
"There is a lad here who has five barley loaves and two small
fishes. But what are they among so many?"
As the story was carried to Herod, Jesus calmly invited the crowd
p> sit down 00 the green hillside. Then He took the loaves, faced
the cfcscending sun, and when He had given thanks, He distributed
THE SECOND YEAR l6l
to the disciples, and the disciples to the people, enough to feed the
whole five thousand.
How could Herod's mind, or anyone's visualize such a happen-
ing? Yet he was informed that there were five thousand witnesses;
that the Master had fed Herod's hungry subjects; and that act was
enough to unsettle any king.
And then, having shown them the abundance of faith, Jesus gave
the people a stern second lesson:
"Gather up the fragments that remain," He said, "that nothing
is lost."
They, who had been fed with miraculous abundance, now had
to fill twelve baskets with the fragments of the five barley loaves!
Clearly one must practice prudence and frugality in the very pres-
ence of divine plenty.
Herod was further told that a band of revolutionaries, young
hotheads, led by a principal bandit patriot who dubbed himself Jesus
Barabbas, were working to overthrow the Roman colonial govern-
ment by violence. They had organized a posse to take Jesus by
force, make Him their leader, and constitute him Kong of all IsraeL
True, Jesus evaded them, losing Himself in the mountain. But,
Herod asked himself, would this wonder-worker always run from
such an offer? John the Baptist had been trouble enough, but Jesus
might become a threat to established government itself, as politicians
like to say.
It all worried Herod the Tetrarch so much that he sent his own
spies out for more reports. Some of his advisers were already telling
him he had better put Jesus to death before it was too late. Talk
about that plan was, of course, palace gossip and soon was carried
to Jesus. The Master smiled grimly and said to the talebearer:
"Go and tell that fox, behold I cast out devils and do cures today
and tomorrow, and the third day I am consummated.
"Nevertheless, I must walk today and tomorrow and the day fol-
lowing because it cannot be that a prophet perish out of Jerusalem. 7 *
Herod Antipas rubbed his head when he heard this,
"He must mean He expects to be killed in Jerusalem," he mut-
tered. And he never forgot those words; he passed them on, by mes-
senger, to the Roman representative, Pontius Pilate.
Next came a story of how the disdples, right after the feeding
of the five thousand, set out alone without Jesus in a boat to sail to
the hinterland across the lake from Capeosaum. It was dark night
1 62 THE GREATEST STOEY EVEE TOLD
when, again without warning, the air grew cloudy with impending
storm; high and contrary winds blew all around them, and the ship
was tossed helplessly. It was the fourth watch of the night, and the
frightened Apostles, blown spray in their faces, spindrift on their
beards, had given themselves up for lost, when they saw the Master
coming toward them. He was walking upon the sea.
Once again the wind began to veer, changing its direction, as he
calmed the storm for them.
The tale was not only circumstantial; it even had its humorous as-
pect. For it seemed that Peter, seeing the watery promenade, sud-
denly lost his fear of dying in the storm and called out to Jesus-
might not he walk on the water too? Certainly; come right along!
For a few giddy moments Peter emulated his Master, his big feet
treading the wave, his mighty bulk unsinking in the sea. Then panic
came to the big fisherman's heart; losing faith, he gave a lugubrious
squawk of fright and at once began to go under. But Jesus touched
his hand and escorted him smilingly to the gunwale of the boat
That was when they began to convince themselves that Jesus was
truly a divine being, far nearer to God than they had at first sup-
posed,
A braver roan than Herod Aatipas would fear a man who could
walk on water.
From this and other reports the tetrarch came to see, with gloomy
hindsight, that his murder of John the Baptist had served only to
bring Jesus into the supreme position as leader of the moral revolu-
tion. Nothing could be more troubling, Once the disciples of John
hid obtained the body of the Baptist and buried it, they spread
w0rd everywhere that he had urged his followers to take up with
Jesus. Until the beheading, thousands of the John people had pa-
tiently waited for the Baptist to be let out of jaiL They had fully
expected Herod to set him free. Far from being dispelled by John's
martyrdom, they rushed to the Nazarene, adding their numbers
and ardor to his following. Such a union of growing forces filled
with dismay the chicken heart of Herod Antipas; night and noon
jhe kept repeating to himself :
"John I have beheaded. But who is this of whom I hear such
things? "
Be decided that one day he must have a talk with Jesus. But hav-
ing oe most power of prophecy than his queen, he had no idea under
cjrramstanoes they were eventually to meet.
THE SECOND YEAR 163
Chapter 40 THE CONSPIRATORS RETURN
SCARED though they were at times, as rumors and threats of police
interference increased, the Twelve Apostles remained with Jesus.
But many other followers, at first loud in their zeal, began to fall
away. Some found the doctrine He preached, the discipline He ad-
vocated, too severe. Some were afraid of offending the palace. But
the Master's increasing claims also seemed to many of them pre-
posterous. For those were the days when He began to be most
specific about His identity.
As long as He had been vague, they could interpret His words
and still follow Him. When He became explicit as He did in his
famous Bread of Life oration and the whole series of speeches that
followed itmaking it clear that He offered Himself as the Son
of God; well, then a man had to be careful! The very idea that He
would be a sacrifice for their sins no more need of burning lambs
and doves frightened them. What if Jerusalem were to hear such
talk? Birds and lambs were big business in the capital
So many preferred to stand with the powerful of the earth than
with this bold, other-worldly teacher from Nazareth. But He went
much further than this* Although the tragedy He foresaw was stiU
distant, He announced the miracle doctrine of the Eucharist to them
now, long in advance of the Last Supper He would eat with them.
This shocked and affronted many of His followers. They could
walk with him no more, as they told him; one after another, in scores
and hundreds, they deserted. Finally he called the Twelve into pri-
vate council.
"Will you also go away?" he asked them directly.
The answer of Peter was a triumph of the oriental habit of an-
swering one question with another.
"Lord, to whom shall we go?"
And then, in faltering voice, he summed it up:
"You have the words of eternal life."
It was a serious moment in their lives; it became more serious
still as the Master looked at them and implied;
"Have I not chosen you Twdhre-naad we of you is a devil?"
164 THE GREATEST STORY EVER TOLD
That was another question given as an answer!
In those days their traveling was incessant. The Master's talks
were delivered in synagogues all over the countryside, miracle
traveling hand in hand with doctrine. The pentecostal feast of the
year 29 found him in Jerusalem, at the health-restoring pool of
Bethsaida, near the sheep's gate. Here, at the basin below the Famous
Five porches, he found a frustrated old cripple who for twenty-
nine years had never been able to scramble down to the pool in
time to be there when "the angel troubled the waters/' as the peo-
ple said. Yet in the capital of His enemies Jesus promptly made the
old fellow well in spite of the fact that it was the Sabbath.
Under their breath the Pharisees swore at this popular rnendicantj
this dusty wayfarer with His burr of the Galilean dialect; this car-
penter from Nazareth, whose enemies said He was illegitimate and
yet who allowed it to be claimed for Him that He performed mira-
cles! On the Sabbath too! And when this interloper comes to the
Temple itself and happens to see there the ancient chap He had
cured at the Probatica pool, what does the Nazarene say to him:
"Sin no more y lest something worse happens to you"
And when they bait Him about that word "sin" He tells them
simply to their reproachful faces, speaking as the Son of God with
powers and prerogatives:
"I cannot of myself do anything. As I hear, so I judge; and my
judgment is just; because I seek not my own will, but the will of
Him who sent me.**
Ah, the Pharisees lamented to one another, we have done wrong
to allow this yokel Messiah to get as far as He has. We should have
scotched Him two years ago. Here He comes, bold as you please,
at the close of His second year, to preach in Jerusalem right in the
Temple! Bat only the lesser factotums talked so; the real rulers of
the Temple authority, of course, were Annas, the former high priest,
and his sons. And Annas laughed at the small fry who were afraid
of Jesus.
"Messiah!" jeered the old politician. "Our roads are full of self-
proclaimed messiahs. Let them all spoutit is a safety release. To
shut them up because of such twaddle is to show fear. Give them
rope, I say t and let them hang themselves/*
The lesser officials were too aware of Annas's complete political
domination openly to disagree with him. Nevertheless they put their
cofnptottbig heads privately together and decided that the whole
THE SECOND YEAR 165
nation would be better off without such a menace as Jesus. Not only
did He break the Sabbath, but He said that God was His Father.
That was a hellish thing for a man to say! They would deal with
this presumptuous charlatan and stop His blasphemies, one way or
another, before they were through with Him, and in spite of Annas.
But because Jesus was so popular, they would have to move slowly,
deliberately, and have a complete case against Him before they
pounced.
So when Jesus returned to Galilee, in June A.D, 29, the Temple
agents were once more on His trail. Down from Jerusalem they
came to heckle at every opportunity. You, Jesus we have watched
you eat bread with unwashed hands. That is a violation. You know
our observances! Why do you and your followers disobey?
First in answer that ironical smile; then:
"Well has Esaias prophesied of you hypocrites, as it is written:
This people honor me with their lips, but their heart is far from
me.
" 'In vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrine the command-
ments of men. For, laying aside the commandment of God, you hold
the tradition of men, as the washing of pots and cups; and many
other such like things you do. 7 "
Now that was an answer with a vengeance. It was a revolutionary
challenge. In a few words Jesus had indicted Temple tyranny and
futility in enforcing the letter and smothering the spirit of the law.
Boldly He accused them of an organized conspiracy against the
heart of the people's religion, of taxing both heart and purse, too,
stripping men not only of farthings but of hope.
And such hypocrites were the critics who objected to the soil
on His hands? What was true purity? Not what goes into the mouth
of a man is impure, but what comes out of it those things which
come out of the mouth come forth from the heart, and they defile
a man. For out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulter-
ies, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies. Those were the
things which defile a man!
This increasing quarrel of Jesus with Jerusalem became an absorb-
ing topic of gossip in shops, bazaars, and synagogues* The people
had long been familiar with simple disputation; they deariy loved
an argument, the noisier the better. But it was with local teachers
only that a poor man argued; not with scholars from the capital it-
self!
THE GREATEST STORY EVER TOLD
Furthermore, the simple home-grown debates concerned only the
details, never the philosophy of the teachings. No one in Galilee
had ever before dared to dispute the Tightness and wisdom of an-
cient traditions. Many honestly found the flagrant contempt of Jesus
for the ceremonials very shocking to their sense of the proprieties.
All the province was soon in an uproar of taking sides. In the midst
of which Jesus left them once more.
Chapter^ TRANSFIGURED
JESUS traveled north to the seacoast town of Sidon, one of the oldest
dries in the world, to rest incognito for a while. In this fascinating
ancient port on the Mediterranean He would live unrecognized in
a rented house and move unobserved through the hustling and color-
ful streets. Relaxing, He would spend long, quiet hours watching
the building of mighty ships, whose tall masts and swelling prows
would brave the storms of distant seas. Or He would pause at the
shop of the sHvei^miths, toiling at resounding f orges, or look down
into the red furnaces of glass factories and the vats of purple dyers
from nearby Tyre-
But not for long was He left in peace. One afternoon He went
for t wilt A light rain was falling; the drizzle was cool to His
forehead and the backs of His hands. A vagabond minstrel saw
Hun and named Him. Soon the rumor ran through the town that
He was Jesus, the wonder-worker from Galilee. As crowds began
to gather around the front doorstep, the little holiday was over.
Came first a Syro-Phoenician woman. This Gentile stood at the
front door, imploring him to heal her daughter. To the grieving
mother Jesus applied a grilling test of humility and faith. He spoke
to her as she was accustomed to being spoken to, reminding her that
she was outcast and He a Jew; **It is not good to take the bread of
the children and cast it to the dogs."
But it did not matter to this Syro-Phoenician mother if He called
bar <we of the dogs. For she answered: "Yea, Lord, for the whelp
also eat under the table of the crumbs."
THE SECOND YEAR 167
He smiled with approval on this devoted woman. She told Him
that her daughter was possessed by a devil or was mad. Jesus, with
that same debonair smile, gentle and courteous, cast out the devil
and healed the girl completely. Then, going back to Galilee, He
healed a deaf man, and a blind man who came feeling his way
cautiously down the street.
And then, a day later, as if to confute the skeptics who never left
off mocking at the inconceivable tale of feeding the five thousand,
Jesus repeated the miracle. This time not a full five thousand were
fedonly four thousand famished men and women.
Again He gathered together and used up what they hada point
for all who hoped for miracles in their own private difficulties
seven loaves and a few little fishes. With that slight store He fed
them all. A sentimentalist would have thought that the fribbling
Temple spies who not only tracked Him all the way north, and
saw the whole thing, but who had generous helpings of the miracu-
lous bread and fish knowing themselves vanquished, would have re-
pented of their grisly errand and embraced the Master. Instead,
what one of them did, a bilious fellow, chronically ill from liver
trouble, was to step forward and impudently ask if Jesus would
please show them a sign now. With crumbs still on His fingers!
That was when Jesus told the spy and his accomplice there would
be no sign for them!
So He refused! He will not give them a sign to prove he was the
Messiah? Very well, then, He must be a devil. Good-by, Nazarene,
for now! You think we have botched our errand? Well, you'll hear
from us later.
Balked, their mission still unsuccessful, they went off to spread
a story all over the province; wherever they went they defamed
and slandered Him with the same line of propaganda. Jesus was
not a prophet; not even a charlatan, a pretender to medical knowl-
edge; He was ridden by a devil! These undeniable powers of His
were bkck magic, straight out of hdl.
Soon the tale of what the Temple agents said of Him came back
to die Twelve.
"Whom do the people say that I am?" Jesus asked keenly, as they
sat one day near to the springs of the Jordaii; the sound of the water
pouring out from die mountain'^ hip was lifce a song f
The f erveat John, and Janie% Andrew, and shy, iMffideet: Philip
1 68 THE GREATEST STORY EVER TOLD
told of strange tales that were believed. Some of the people thought
He was John the Baptist, head back on his neck, cadaver out of the
grave. Others thought He was Ellas, or some other prophet of olden
time, reincarnated to call Israel back to first principles.
"But whom do you say that I am?" Jesus persisted.
Often His profundities blurred their thoughts and obscured their
understanding, but this was a question they felt ready for. There
was a moment's silence, then vast Peter stood up and hoarsely cleared
his throat.
"You," declared Peter, lifting his beard and forcing back his
mighty shoulders, "are the Christ, the Son of the living God."
"Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah!" exclaimed the Master, "Be-
cause flesh and blood has not revealed it to you but my Father,
who is in heaven. And I say to you: that you are Peter, and upon
this rock I will build my church and the gates of hell shall not pre-
vail against it. And I will give to you the keys of the Kingdom of
Heaven. And whatsoever you shall bind upon earth, it shall be
bound also in heaven; and whatsoever you shall loose on the earth,
it shall be also loosed in heaven."
Not one but was deeply affected, not only the disciples but the
Master. He charged them with the utmost secrecy. Now was not the
time to insist bluntly to the public that He was the Christ. The
mere assertion would call down upon themselves the full weight
and ferocity of Jerusalem. He would surely, be made a prisoner
before He had delivered some of His most important coming utter-
ances. Oh, the Temple would make Him prisoner anyway soon
enough.
Calmly and with a certitude that overawed all protest he forecast
on that calm summery afternoon the coming struggle and its out-
come. Not one of the Twelve could ever argue afterward that what
happened in Gethsemane and on Golgotha was a surprise to him.
Jesus foretold it all several times; already it was clear to Him how
He must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things and be put to death.
"Lord," groaned Peter, feeling, in the new authority he had just
received, strong enough to protest, "be it far from you! This shall
not be!"
Not alarm* but an instinctive awareness of danger flashed into the
Master's face as he heard Peter's words; goodhearted Peter, so kck-
ing in intuition.
**G0 behind me t Satan! M whispered JesiB, looking directly at his
THE SECOND YEAR 1 69
friend, as if he were casting out a devil "You are a scandal to me,
because you like not the taste of things that are of God but the things
that are of men*"
Peter bowed his shaggy head. Five minutes after having been
called the foundation of the church he had been called Satan by the
Son of God. Like the good man he was, he prayed for grace.
Another apostle, Judas Iscariot, turned to one side, as if he would
walk away. An underbred fellow, that Judas; with a gauche man-
ner, awkward, even boorish, he seemed almost blatantly disinterested
in the dreadful prophecy the Master was making for Himself. The
eyes of Judas were turned to look off, as if his interest were caught
by a scene below, a Roman funambulist, a performer on a tightrope,
giving a roadside show.
Meanwhile, as if prodded on by some deep necessity, Jesus told
them flatly that the Kingdom of God was near at hand.
"There are some standing here that shall not taste death till they
see the Kingdom of God."
Not know death? Yet Peter died. So did John and James, and all
the Twelve. For twenty centuries afterward men would argue about
that declaration. Ecclesiastics and theologians and masters of exegesis
would set up a score of theories and probabilities and deductions.
Yet only a few days later the prophecy came true. Peter and
James and John came to that state of grace, miraculously, instan-
taneously, and with an exaltation that probably surpassed any other
single human experience. That was when they witnessed the re-
markable phenomenon on the top of Mount Tabor.
Mount Tabor rises at the northeast edge of the valley of Esdra-
elon. It is not a great mountain, not so high, for example, as Mount
Hermon with Its lingering snows, farther to the north. But Tabor
is a holy mountain because, on its rounded summit, within sight
of Jesus's own town of Nazareth, occurred the miracle of the Trans-
figuration,
To this day no one knows what really happened there. Jesus
never explained the mystery. It was six days after He had predicted
His crucifixion that He led his three close friends up almost to the
very peak Near by was a stream, and they could hear the babble
and the rippling sound of flowing water. When they were quite
apart to themselves, Jesus knelt down on the stubble and dried-up
grass and began to pray, and the others knelt with Him. Presently
Pecer and James mid Ws brother John became aware that something
I JO THE GREATEST STORY EVER TOLD
extraordinary was happening. Some inexplicable access of power had
suddenly taken hold of the Master, He was not now as He had been
even five minutes before.
The first great, overwhelming fact that His three friends had to
grasp was that the shape of the Masters countenance was altered^
That, and a moment later the equally visible and undeniable fact
that His garment became white and glittering.
The robe that Jesus wore that afternoon was the robe of a teacher
of Palestine, long and flowing, and no matter how clean in the
morning, it was bound to be stained by dust before He had walked
far. But now the raiment, for all its frazzled hem, was pure and
glittering, as if woven not of common cotton and wool, but fashioned
of an incomprehensible substance, soft and shining. White as snow,
that raiment now, whiter than any fuller's earth can make cloth
white; any launderer or bleacher of cloth with all the soaps and clays
and scrubbing brushes.
"He is being transfigured before us," Peter said in a hoarse whis-
per.
And now two others suddenly appeared and began talking with
Jesus. The Apostles knew, without knowing how they knew, that
they were present at and witness to some peculiarly important mo-
ment, some vast and significant interruption to the normal course
of natural law, some instance of infinite rarity when two worlds
are in contact and the dead mingle with the living in felicitous com-
munion-
More, the three fishermen standing on the mountaintop not only
saw the Master with Moses, the great leader dead all these vanished
ceiiteries, and EEas, long-buried prophet, but they heard them talk,
listening to wiiat they talked about.
It was too much; the other world will always be too much for
mortal eyes and ears. Their minds grew dense, their eyelids heavy,
and they fell asleep, . . .
Waking, they were just in time to see the close of this strange
experience. As the Apostles rubbed their eyes, not knowing how
long they had slept, light was shining around their beloved leader.
They saw the two celestial visitors retreating, walking off as it were,
not into space but into seme unknown dimension figures that pres-
ently disappeared,
^Blaster!" came Pete/s mighty basso, u k is good for us to be here.
Let us? make three tabernacles. One for you. One for Moses. One for
THE SECOND YEAR iyi
And in sheer exuberance he grinned, as Luke pointed out later,
"not knowing what he said." Before he could go on, a fog fell upon
the scene, its damp embrace seeming to hide them all from the world,
and they heard a voice:
"This is my beloved son; hear Him."
The three Apostles now were so scared that they fell face down-
ward on the ground and stayed there until Jesus touched them and
told them to get up.
No more voices then! No more shining figures. Only Jesus smil-
ing and binding them to secrecy.
Now the favorites, Peter, James, and John, had secrets which the
other nine must wait to learn secrets which the favored three them-
selves did not understand.
The obligation of silence had been kid in frightening terms:
"Tell the vision to no man till the Son of Man shall be risen from
the dead."
In their uncertainty the three fishermen quizzed Him in private.
What did He meanwhen He was risen from the dead? If all that
they had seen meant that He was, indeed, the Messiah, what about
the old prophecies which had promised that before the Messiah ap-
peared, Elias would be reborn on the earth? How about that? The
answer was staggering. The very people who had taught the old
prophecies, the scholars who stood by the letter of the law, had not
recognized that the spirit of Elias, the prophet, had been revitalized
in the ministry of John the Baptist.
Again Jesus repeated His prediction that He was to die a violent
death. His persecution would coine from the very people who should
support the truth but would not.
No words that He spoke, no deed He would do would soften
their hearts. And the three remembered how once, when He was
about to heal a young man who had attacks which made him foam
at the mouth, bite and tear and bruise himself , the scribes and the
scholars had gone to the sick boy's father and tried to keep Urn
from the Master. Better to have a dumb spirit, they advised; better
to be an epileptic than to be healed by such as He! The father was
greatly disturbed, but he loved his son so much that he could man-
age humility of which the skeptics were incapable:
"I do believe. Lord Help my unbelief!'*
And of course the boy was heded because father and son had
faitih like a grain of mostaid seed; if you had such f aitfa as they had
172 THE GREATEST STORY EVER TOLD
shown, you might say to this mulberry tree, be you rooted up and
be you transplanted into the sea, and it would obey you!
The time was not far off, He constantly assured the Twelve,
when He would be buried and rise again. Then the Apostles began
to gossip and bicker among themselves. He would take on His king-
dom when He rose again, and the whole world would have to recog-
nize His power! And when that time came, they, the Twelve, would,
of course, have very important positions. Before very long they
were thinking about who would be the most important, which is a
way human beings have of making dunces of themselves, even
when they are close to God and on the way to being saints.
Surely they would all sit somewhere quite near the throne of
God, But in what order of precedence? The disciples, like wives
of cabinet officers and ambassadors, began to be excited about proto-
col. On the way to Capernaum one day soon afterward they dis-
puted among themselves with some heat.
When they were all in the house at Capernaum, Jesus, who had
arrived before them, calmly asked:
"What did you treat of on the way?"
They did not want to tell Him what they had been talking about
but He beckoned the whole Twelve to the back yard and when
they had squatted around Him, He went on:
"If any man desire to be first, he shall be the least of all, and serv-
ant of aJL"
And as they looked away, with good reason to feel sheepish, He
called to a child playing in the doorway and drew him to His em-
bfiaee* Then, holding on to him, He turned intently from face to
face, and taught them with simple directness:
"Unless you be converted, and become as little children, you shall
not enter into the Kingdom of Heaven. Whoever, therefore, should
humble himself as this little child, he is the greater in the Kingdom
of Heaven. Whosoever shall receive this child in My name receives
Me, and whosoever shall receive Me, receives Me not, but Him that
sent Me. n
THE SECOND YEAR 173
Chapter 42 TRIBUTE TO CAESAR
NEVER were they allowed to feel safe any more. Go where they
would, spies from the Temple were at their heels. The Jerusalem
agents were still baffled by the Master's adroitness in avoiding open
blasphemy but still hopeful of tripping him. After two years, during
which Jesus had been preaching north and south, they had failed,
but their optimism was tireless.
One day, when they were quartered at Peter's house in Caper-
naum, the spies came, following a pair of taxgatherers and a Roman
officer, wealing a baldric loop across his breast to hold his sword-
all full of crafty smiles and palm rubbings.
"Well, Simon, does not your master pay the diodrachma?"
"You'll see," answered Peter with a scowl, and strode into the
house. The whole question of taxes to a foreign power made the
gorge rise in any patriot. And there were so many taxes! No end,
it seemed, to the misery. In every Roman province the conquered
people had to pay two direct and inescapable taxes poll and land.
The poll tax was a property tax, distinct from the ownership of
farms and houses and building lots. If you were a farmer, one tenth
of your wheat and one fifth of your wine and fruit were taken for
Caesar. On top of these taxes were piled every new and clever
and outlandish trick those in power could devise, or the publicans
could think up. As if the Temple tithes were not enough, the peo-
ple must also pay the highway tolls, the house rates, the excise
taxes, crown taxes all very much as poor creatures of governments
and politicians have been doing ever since*
More than once Peter had wondered whether he was not, by
paying taxes to the representative of Rome, also committing a grave
offense against the religious law of Israel, which, as far as the popu-
lace was concerned, was the only true law.
And resentful Peter also knew, as he stormed into Ms house, that
these scoundrelly pubUcmi, as the Romans called tjbeir native col-
lectors, would often lend money to impoverished f ellow Jews who
found themselves unable to pay. By this act of hypocritical kindli-
ness they converted a public obligation into a private debt, on which
they could cfaaarge usury as mt&ccsfe
174 THE GREATEST STORY EVER TOLD
Such practices had heaped hard times upon Palestine. From broad
fields the unhappy farmer would be reduced to a small farm, that
is, from a plow to a spde-yet he still could not pay, and so he
would lose his second, his smaller farm. Eventually he would be-
come another of the thousands of beggars like those who still hold
out their scrofulous hands to tourists in Nazareth and Cana and
Tiberias and at all the gates in the wall of Jerusalem, Others might
flee into the mountains, becoming bandits or revolutionaries, or both
raiding towns, inciting mobs to rebel, and raising doubts even in
the minds of cowards.
"Is it lawful to pay tribute to Caesar?"
One day soon the Temple spies would force Jesus to declare
Himself on that poignant issue. But today they had to content
themselves with payment in money, which is its own answer.
For reasons of His own, apparently, Jesus chose to deky the in-
evitable clash; He greeted Peter, as He stomped into the house to
seek in the little hoard of the family for tax money, and knowing
all the while there was not enough there.
"What is your opinion? " Jesus asked Peter. "The Mngs of the
earth, of whom do they receive tribute for custom? Of their chil-
dren, or of strangers?"
"Of strangers,** Peter replied with bitter certainty.
The nod of Jesus was enigmatic.
"Hm the children are free!" He exdaimed. "But that we not
scaaialize them, to the sea and cast in a hook; and that fish which
shall come first up, take; and when you have opened its mouth, you
flUi lad a setter."
A stater? A piece of money in die mouth of a fish?
"And give it to them for me and you," finished Jesus.
You are not a fisherman, nor am L Yet you have taxes to pay and
so have L Are we then to hope for gold pieces in the mouths of
lake trout? No! No! What are we then to do? We are to stop
scowling, stop worrying, go on workingif you are a fisherman,
fish! The needed money will ooine from your own labor and trust
tfee beoevoleoce of our loving Father, who has promised to provide
for afl needs of the aithfoL
The money was pot in the taxgatherer*$ hands, the debt was
paid, and die djsgfrmxded spies from the Temple sought comfort at
the tavern.
Two long years, and they had not trapped Him yet.
THE SECOND YEAR 175
Next year, they promised themselves, would be different! The
members of the Sanhedrin, Supreme Council of Israel, were al-
ready getting worried. Something was bound to happen.
That was not the opinion of these frustrated detectives alone; it
was shared by a few men in the Council itself liberal rich men who
found some merit in these new doctrines being taught by the Naza-
rene leader.
That was why a visit to Jesus was secretly arranged for one of
these rulers with vision. He came and walked with Jesus in the
countryside one night.
The stranger was a little man, richly dressed and with carefully
trimmed beard, who introduced himself as Nicodernus, a member
of the Sanhedrin. He came by night, he explained, because he could
not afford to be known as an associate of the man who had created
such a tumult of criticism. But Nicodemus, before he came, had in-
formed himself of some of the history of this wayfarer. He got di-
rectly down to business.
"Master," he said, "we know some of us that you are a teacher
that comes from God. For no man can do these signs which you do
unless God be with him."
- Jesus waited thoughtfully* He knew what Nicodemus was after.
This wealthy man of good heart wanted to know the essence of
Jesus's teaching. Jesus gave it to him directly:
"Unless a man be born again he cannot see the Kingdom of God."
Nicodemus looked startled. These were strange words, hard to
understand. AU Israel was waiting for the Kingdom of God, for
the Messiah who would throw out the Romans and re-establish the
independence of the race, but how could a man be born again to
see that happen? Said Nicodemus:
"How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter a second
time into his mother's womb and be born again?"
Jesus smiled and insisted:
"Unless a man be born again of water and the Holy Ghost he
cannot enter into the Kingdom of God. That which is born of the
flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the spirit is spirit. Wonder
not that I said to you, you must be born again. The spirit breathes
where he will and you hear his voice but you know not whence he
comes and whither he goes. So is everyone that is born of the spirit,"
Nicodemus sighed and shook his head
"How can these things be done?"
1 76 THE GREATEST STORY EVER TOLD
As Jesus talked on, really giving this earnest man a panoramic
statement of the plan of salvation, Nicodemus began to realize a
part, at least, of the enormity of this teacher's claim. Jesus was
calmly, quietly informing him that he, the Nazarene, was the Mes-
siah, the bringer of the spirit for which all the race had been waiting
for a thousand years,
"For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten
son that whosoever believes on Him shall not perish but have ever-
lasting life. For God sent His Son into the world, not to change the
world but that the world may be saved by Him. He that believes in
Him shall not change, but he that does not believe is already
changed becaused he believes not in the name of the only begotten
Son of God."
Nicodemus went away very thoughtfully.
Book Six
THE THIRD YEAR
Chapter 43 YOU MUST HAVE A DEVIL
THE real danger to their safety began to be visible at the Feast of
the Tabernacles. That was a great holiday; the popular proverb de-
clared: "Who has not seen this joy of the Feast of the Tabernacles
has not seen the glory of Israel."
Together the thirteen started the dangerous journey to Jeru-
salem. All the long way hostility seemed to meet them. The spies
from the Temple had been very busy spreading their canards. A
few of the disciples traveled on ahead, and two kept coming back
to tell of animosity sowed in people's minds.
In Samaria, where once they had been well received, they found
a new coldness; when they visited here before they had been com-
ing from Jerusalem; now they were going toward it, and the
Samaritans hated Jerusalem and all travelers who went that way.
James and John became purple with fury when they learned that
there was no room to be made for them at the inns. In their rage,
they were ready to have fire and brimstone fall upon Samaria and
scorch it off the face of the world.
Jesus shook His head sadly. These disciples! When would they
understand that He came, not to destroy, but to save?
Before they were even halfway to Jerusalem new spies met Him,
demanding that they stand and be questioned. The knowledge of
Jesus, the resourcefulness of His learning, and His instant access to
all the vast body of the kw amazed them to the point of exhaustion,
"How does He know, never having been trained as our rabbis
are trained?'* the inquisitors groaned.
Jesus blandly explained to them that He brought not His own
doctrine but the law of One that had sent Him into the world. The
Temple provocators worried about that "One/* especially when
speaking of His divine mission. Jesus went on quietly to ask why
they wanted to Mil Him.
iy8 THE GREATEST STORY EVER TOLD
"You must have a devil, Jesus; who wants to kill you?"
They did, and they knew it, and Jesus knew it; the struggle would
not long be delayed. In dialectic too swift and keen for their denial
He held up their criticisms to ridicule. Why did He heal the sick
on the Sabbath? That, again! Well, it was lawful to circumcise on
the Sabbath, because by circumcision a man was improved; yet
they would criticize Him when He improved not a part, but the
whole man on the Sabbath?
The boldness of such attacks astounded the agents. Already a
case of blasphemy might possibly be made against Himif they
could prove that He represented Himself to be of divine origin.
Only, it did not seem to them too precise a case as yet because the
people knew He was so poor. Even the most stupid man would
not expect the Messiah to be born poor and humble! So they hur-
ried back their reports to Jerusalem, upon which the high priest in
the Temple turned lavender with ire.
This current high priest, whose name was Caiphas, was the son-in-
kw of the powerful old politician, Annas; only because the daughter
of Annas was his wife was Caiphas high priest. He was a large,
handsome coxcomb of a man and not very clever.
At first even Caiphas was not inclined to take Jesus seriously, any
more than was Annas kter on. But in October A.D. 29 the people
of Jerusalem were already talking abo.ut the workingman from
Galilee as if he were the most interesting person in the world far
more interesting than any of the underground revolutionary leaders.
Some enthusiasts even then openly declared they believed that
Jesus of Nazareth was the Messiah, the Christ. As they argued:
"When the Christ comes shall He do more miracles than this
man does?"
That kind of talk did begin to trouble Caiphas. His quarry was
very adroit; there was no evidence against him yet on which to
found a case, although he so often came close to it. But Jesus threw
the Temple into an intellectual panic when they learned he had
told his followers that He would be with them for only a little
while and then would go to the One who had sent him:
"You shall seek me and not find me, and where I am, you cannot
come.'*
"What is this saying? " they asked one another. 'Where will He
g0 that we shall not find Him?"
*Tf any maa thirst," Jesus was telling the public, "let him come to
THE THIRD YEAR 179
me and drink. He that believes in me, as the Scripture says, out of
his belly shall flow rivers of living water."
The Temple agents lifted their ears at the boldness of this indeli-
cate self-assertion. Voices in the roadside crowd were shrill:
"This is the Prophet indeed."
"This is the Christ."
"But was the Christ to come out of Galilee?"
"No, the Christ was to be born in Bethlehem,"
"Jesus *was born in Bethlehem!"
By this time even the tireless agents of the Temple were wearing
down. When they came to report to Caiphas, the high priest, their
voices were trembling.
"Never did man speak like this fellow," they gasped,
Caiphas was outraged.
"Are you also seduced?" he stormed, "Has any one of the rulers
believed in Him? No! Not one of us. Or of the Pharisees? No! But
this multitude bah. They don't know the law. The crowd is ac-
cursed . . ."
Nevertheless, it was at this time that one of their own, one of the
rulers as they liked to be called, actually did say a good word for
Jesus. He was Nicodemus, the aristocrat, who, muffled in a great
dark hood, had once talked by stealth with Jesus at night, to learn
His doctrine. Now he accused the others of the Sanhedrin of malice.
Said Nicodemus:
"Does our God judge any man unless He will hear him and know
what he does?"
Upon which the aristocratic fellow judges of the Sanhedrin cried
at Nicodemus:
"Are you also a Galilean?"
And left him standing alone on the Temple steps.
All this was heating up as Jesus and his followers drew near to
the city, and the crowds on the road thickened until it was like a
inarching army. At the suggestion of Jesus the disciples catered
Jerusalem alone. His time was not yet come when he should eater
with them, provoke a demonstration, and so cut short his active
ministry, in which so much was yet to be done. However, he did
enter the capital that night alone, and in secret he moved among the
throngs.
Meanwhile, the Apostles, mingling with them openly, heard more
talk of their Master than of anyone eke. He was tbe famous legend
180 THE GREATEST STORY EVER TOLD
of the hour. Although here in the capital the opposition of the
priests was well known, many dared to say a decent word for Him.
Everywhere He was discussed with the utmost seriousness; was He
a new revolutionist, a man sent from God, a risen prophet? All the
old familiar questions.
"And where is He?" asked some of the Eastern pilgrims.
No one knew.
"He is a good man," one bold spirit dared to say.
"No!" cried others, "He seduces the people."
"No!" cried still others. "He is the Messiah!"
The crowds flowing into the city hired quarters in tents, because
the feast commemorated the long nomadic years when their ances-
tors lived in shelters made of goat skins. It was always celebrated on
the fifteenth day of the seventh month, about the time when the
harvest was brought home, so it was also known in Jesus's day as
the Feast of the Ingathering, a very happy time.
The Apostles stayed that night near to the Temple, which was
illuminated* For the whole night dancers with torches were per-
forming in the forecourt, and the air was sweet with the harmonies
of dulcimer, cymbak, and trumpets, and drums played by an or-
chestra of Levites. When dawn came, the crowds would follow the
priests to the Pool of Siloam, and from the pool water would be
drawn tip in a vessel, not of mere lead nor even of silver but of pure
and shining gold. Afterward the water was poured out on the high
altar of the Temple.
Meanwhile, as Jesus slept on the Mount of Olives, to the east of
this city, His enemies in a huddle behind the Temple sat up to dis-
cuss ways and means to take His life. Finally one bleary-eyed con-
spirator had an inspiration.
"If you will listen to an old man," he wheezed, "I can tell you
how to trip this fanatic into his grave and aH quite legally too."
They listened and rejoiced at his cleverness. Here was a plan that
looked like a certainty. And so simple! Thus the next morning,
when Jesus walked calmly into Jerusalem, with polluting exhala-
tions rising from its filthy streets, and appeared in the Temple, re-
turning to his speeches, a band of Temple guards were busy else-
where on business of the high command. From out of the snarled
traffic of some hideous bystreet they lugged a woman from an adul-
terous bed. She was the bait for the trick they meant to play.
As Jesus sat in the Temple, teaching busily, a delegation of men
THE THIRD YEAR igl
suddenly appeared with the adulteress by the arm. They shoved
her in the open space between Him and His listeners and one guard
stood forward as interrogator. He spoke with deep respect, suave,
indignant, and with every appearance of sincerity:
"Master, this woman was even now taken in adultery. Now Moses
in the Law commanded us to stone such as she. What do you say?"
This kind Jesus from the Bethlehem stable, this healer of the sick
was He likely to order the woman to be stoned to death? They
knew it was not in Him to do it. Yet, on the other hand, if He told
them they might disregard the Law, He was also guilty of a crime
that called for death. Oh, here, now, was a most cunning trap!
Jesus's eyes went from face to face, his gaze straight and full of
question. He did not seem to notice the sniveling prisoner. Clearly
the man who was her partner in adultery had not been detained.
Having looked at all the guards and Temple scholars one by one, eye
to eye, the Master leaned forward on his knees and with the nail of
a lean brown forefinger wrote in the dust.
There were those who said afterward that what He wrote was &
list of women intimates of the members of this outraged delegation.
When Jesus looked up again over His shoulder, He said calmly:
"He that is without sin among you let him cast the first stone.'*
And stooping down again, He resumed His mysterious writing in
the dust.
The trick had failed! For each man there knew about the im-
proprieties of the others. And they could all read the writing in the
sand. And so they hurriedly went out, beginning with the oldest
man.
The woman ky there, groveling on the stone pavement, abjectly
prostrate. Jesus sat back, relaxed, and smiled at her such a tender
smile as she had never hoped to see on any man's face. His head a
little to one side, He asked:
"Woman, where are those that condemn you? Has no man con-
demned yon?**
u No man, Lord.'*
"Neither will I condemn you. Go!'*
And she was almost out of earshot: when He called af 'tec her;
"And sin no more!**
1 82 THE GREATEST STORY EVER TOLD
Chapter 44 A REAL INVESTIGATION!
THIS episode of the harlot and the guards excited such hilarious ap-
preciation in Jerusalem that Jesus became more than ever an issue,
not only in homes, taverns, and outside doorways of the synagogues,
but in the highest councils of the Temple.
The rulers now determined to make a thorough investigation of
His next miracle and to expose it as a fraud. They did not have long
to wait.
On the Sabbath day after a long argument in the Temple Jesus
went walking with the disciples down one of the coiling, twisting
streets when He came upon a blind man. Seeing the pitiful figure,
some of the disciples halted the Master for a question. Probably this
mendicant, who had never seen anything in his life blind before
his first cry was the victim of the disease of a dissolute father. That
was why the disciples asked him:
"Master, who has sinned this man or his parents, that he should
be born blind?"
The answer which Jesus gave was bewildering:
"Neither has this man sinned, nor his parents; but that the works
of God should be made manifest in him."
Not waiting for more questions, he spat on the dusty ground and
then, bending over, kneaded the wet dust into a kind of clay which
he spread on the blind man's eyes. And he whispered:
"Go wash in the pool of Sifoam."
Off went the trusting blind man, thumping with his stick, and
Jesus resumed His stroll. But it was not long before they heard a
hullabaloo in the streets behind them. Here came the blind man
again, having done as he was told; now he returned, romping down
the highway, seeing the world the blue sky, the white clouds, the
sun, the streets, the houses, the people, the smiles on children's faces.
And people ran with him, jabbering:
"Is not this he that sat and begged?"
"He is like him, but "
The beggar looked back over his shoulder, shouting scornfully:
u l am he."
THE THIRD YEAR 183
They clamored around him:
"How were your eyes opened?"
And the man said:
"That man called Jesus , . ."
So! But the Pharisees had been telling the people they were not
to believe in that man called Jesus. Plainly the thing to do was to
take the former blind man and show him to the Pharisees. What
would they have to say to this?
The answer of the Pharisees was typical of all the Pharisees in the
world then and ever since. Having heard the facts, they shook
their heads. Here was a very serious offense indeed. Jesus could not
possibly be a man of God and for the same old reasonif He had
healed this blind man, He had done it on the Sabbath. Therefore He
had broken the law of Moses.
But a few of the rulers were more impressed. Timidly one asked:
"How can a man who is a sinner do such miracles?"
About this point they began to squabble among themselves. Fi-
nally they turned on the beggar and put the question squarely to
* "m:
"What say you of this man that has opened your eyes?"
The beggar answered doggedly:
"He is a prophet."
By this time the Pharisees had recovered from their first shock
and retreated to firmer ground. They were certain the whole thing
must be a fraud; of course there had been no healing the man had
never been blind in the first place. Most likely he was a sensation-
monger as well as a liar. But suddenly an old man and an old woman
were shoved forward by the crowd. They were the beggar's father
and mother. The Pharisees had to ask the old couple:
"Is this your son who you say was born blind? How then does
he now see?"
The old man and the old woman said they certainly knew this
man was their son and that he was born blind.
"But how he now sees we don't know. Or who has opened his
eyes we don't know. Ask our son; he is of age. Let him speak for
himself."
Their simple declaration left the Pharisees in such a quandary that
they wanted to end the interview as quickly as possible. So they re-
called the beggar and gave him some sound advice. Perhaps he had
been a little blind; if now IK had his sight, let him give glory to God.
184 raE GREATEST STORY EVER TOLD
"Don't you know this man Jesus is a sinner?" they nagged him.
But the beggar answered:
"If He be a sinner, I don't know. But one thing I know that once
I was blind and now I can see."
It was a long, tough day for the Pharisees!
An even more desperate clash between Jesus and the Temple was
to come soon afterward on the question of His authority.
Who had told Him He could teach the people?
Who had appointed Him?
Plagued with these questions, the Master told them plainly that
He was in Palestine to do the will of the heavenly Father, adding
boldly that He and the Father were one.
So carefully phrased were His assertions that not even then could
the Temple make out a case of presumptuous blasphemy against
Him. Yet the claim He then made to divinity was clear. He alone
could fully know the Father; so He informed them. None except the
Father could fully know the Son, either. That was an assertion of in-
finite at-oneness between the two. Staggering declaration! Even
more staggering was the profundity of concept, the precision of ut-
terance, when He hurled at them the statement:
"Before Abraham 'was made y I am!"
Why all this disputation? Partake of universal beauty and won-
der with me, you unhappy people; in one instant I shatter all the
ideas an ordinary man has about time and space and sensibility; in
another instant I give you welcome to eternity.
M Cofne unto me, all you that kbor and are heavy laden and I will
give you rest.
*Take up my yoke upon you and learn of me, because I am meek
and humble of heart and you shall find rest to your souls.
"For my yoke is easy and my burden is light"
For such words, in spite of all the power and antagonism of the
Temple, the people loved him.
THE THIRD YEAR 185
Chapter 45 THAT BETTER PART
It WAS about this time that Jesus found Himself scolded by one of
the best friends He had in the world. That was Martha, the sister of
Lazarus and of Mary, who lived in Bethany.
For a long time the four had been good friends. At the very out-
set of his ministry Jesus had met the gentle, shy Lazarus, who took
him home for supper one night and introduced him to his sisters.
Ever since that night they had all adopted Jesus into the family.
Whenever he came near Bethany, which is only a few miles from
Jerusalem, He must stay with them. It was in the synagogue near
their home that Jesus had engaged in that breathless colloquy with
the heckling lawyer and silenced him with a story destined for im-
mortality the parable of the Good Samaritan.
But there was a difference in the relation of Jesus to each of
these three vivid personalities. Lazarus himself was a retiring, self-
effacing man who never once dreamed that he was to be an instru-
ment of universal power, an experiment in love and death. Mary was
a thoughtful and dreaming girl whose brain was clear, curiously in-
satiable, full of a great yearning to know and to understand. Her
sister Martha was quite the opposite: the busiest housewife in Beth-
anyand the most respected. She scrubbed and swept and dusted
and washed and ironed and baked and roasted and basted and tasted
and poured forth her abounding energies in performing all the duties
a woman was expected to perform.
One day Jesus came to stop at their home. In the cool shadows of
late" afternoon He sat in the dooryard, talking of profound matters
with Mary, the thinker and dreamer, who sat listening. Her eyes on
the Master's face, she asked many questions, while from within the
house came an increasing clatter of plates and pots and jugs it was,
somehow, a very noisy kitchen this day.
Suddenly Martha, red-faced, hands dripping wet, breath panting,
appeared angrily OH the doorsilL She spoke with labor ed politeness.
It was wonderful out in the front yard; she could feel the coolness
now, but die c0dd not understand why her sistser Mary should sit
at ease on the front stoop with their Illustrious guest and chat while
die baked and stewed in the hot kitchen and got the supper ready.
1 86 THE GREATEST STORY EVER TOLD
She, too, would like to have sat and talked, but somebody had to get
the meal
"Martha, Martha," Jesus answered, "you are careful and troubled
about many things. But one thing is needful: and Mary had chosen
that good part, which shall not be taken away from her."
Now what was Martha to gather from that? She was very puz-
zled, as she turned her back on her guest and her sister, to retire to
the kitchen and go on with her cooking. Her face was very red, her
heart very sick*
She felt virtuous about doing all that drudgery just to give Him
the right kind of meal Certainly both wanted to put a good table
before Him. Both wanted Him to be comfortable, well fed, the food
savory, the dishes shining, the linen crisp and clean. But it was
Martha who must see to all that, and in return she heard those
strange words as she came back to the kitchen wiping her hands,
confusion in her eye.
What could He have meant? Was honest labor being rebuked?
Was this shiftlessness of her sister the good part which was not to
be taken away from her?
Here was a riddle for all the good Israelitish wives and daugh-
ters. They had no voice anywhere except in the kitchen; they were
like house slaves. No woman had ever appeared in those casual road-
side debating societies where Christ and His disciples matched wits
with argufiers of all sorts. In those days men believed that woman's
pkce was in the house. She was expected to be careful and troubled
about many things but never about ideas. Women were workers,
not thinkers; practical, not speculative; drudges ministering to the
physical wants of man,
Maltha knew her duty and she did it with the self-righteousness
that is found sometimes in such good housewives. And Martha re-
sented any other woman but most of all her own sister who
wanted to discuss philosophy with a man. No woman, before that
Mary, had ever been allowed to do such a thing.
Jesus was opening the door to Mary, the modern woman, when
He encouraged her intellectual rebellion.
He said that she had chosen the good part in taking an interest in
matters which men had, until then, appropriated to themselves. It
was an important matter that He settled on the doorstep in Bethany.
Today all the women of the world have chosen that good part, and
k sbaU not be taken away from them.
THE THIRD YEAR 187
Chapter 46 THE DINNER TABLES OF THE
MIGHTY
THOSE were busy days, filled with many healings including two
blind men from Bethany, who howled down the dusty road: "Have
mercy on us! " and ten lepers who were all made clean at one stroke.
Only one of the ten gave thanks for deliverance from the loath-
some disease, and he was a Samaritan!
Once more, in defiance of the Pharisees, Jesus restored another
patient on the Sabbath; openly, in front of all, on the floor of the
synagogue. This poor woman was very ill; her body bent inward
so that she was bowed together, head and toes nearly touching; she
had not been able to look upward at all for eighteen years. By laying
His hands on her, Jesus straightened out the contorted body; she
was a well woman on the instant. Yet
"Master, we would see a sign from you!" the hecklers told Him
again.
Aristocratic scholars from the Temple and the Pharisaical rabbis
from the neighborhood synagogues no longer hid their fears of His
effect on the common people. Enemies of various kinds were draw-
ing together against Him in a conspiratorial unity of alarm.
If they could have read the future (they who could understand
neither present nor past) they would have -known that the very
answer of Jesus was, of itself, a true sign, although He scorned to
tell them so. There was a gleam in the dark eyes as He replied:
"This generation is a wicked generation. It asks a sign, but a sign
shall not be given it, except the sign of Jonah, the prophet.
"For Jonah was in the whale's belly three days and three nights.
So shall die Son of Man be in the heart of the earth three days and
three nights and behold a greater than Jonah is here!*'
They could not, of course, penetrate this sign, this precise pre-
diction, of His three days in die tomb. But the Pharisees knew they
were getting nowhere with Him; die chief counselors decided diat
their agents sent out to ensnare Him had not been very clever.
Wiser heads were needed now.
That was why, on a twilight walk from die synagogue at Beth-
any, Jesus was stopped by a ridi old Pharisee who invited Him to
1 88 THE GREATEST STORY EVER TOLD
dinner. Here was news! True, Jesus had been entertained by rich
men before this, and others had come stealthily, after nightfall, and
kept their visits secret. But never before had Jesus been given social
recognition so near the capital
The Pharisee who invited him, a tall, sallow man with the cold
eyes of an undertaker, never did cease regretting it for the rest of his
natural life-because things went wrong for the host from the^mo-
ment Jesus entered the house. It began when the Pharisee noticed,
to his shocked dismay, that Jesus had not washed before dinner.
Now, while the Pharisees knew little enough about sanitation in
the time of Jesus, since the time of Moses they had had the good
sense to wash faces and hands before they took food in their fingers.
It seemed a perfectly fair question for the Pharisees to ask Jesus why
He did not wash; He who had made cleanliness the very life of His
teaching and whose first sacrament was baptism. Jesus had been
teaching in the synagogue on the Jericho turnpike; then, jostled by
a stinking, unscrubbed mob, He had walked across the stony hill-
sides to keep his dinner appointment. He entered the burgher's
house and sat down at table without asking first for a basin of water
and a towel.
The Pharisee did not mention the omission* He merely thought
about it. What he did not realize was that he was in the presence of
one from whom no thought could be concealed. It was not merely
that Jesm knew what the Pharisee was thinking about washing be-
fore meals. He knew the whole psychological history of this Phari-
see; and why he had invited a wayside teacher in to dine. That old
Pharisee also thought just like the rich man in Galilee, human na-
ture seeming the poor thing it sometimes is that Jesus would be
flattered by the invitation, A wandering visionary, with no home
of His own, a man with no position in the community whatsoever-
such a poor creature might be expected to feel a sense of great so-
cial elevation. That would soften Him tip, making Him ready to be
wheedled, A table heaped with good food, delicacies a poor man
never tasted, goat skins puffed with European wines from Samo-
thrace and Naples and Rome soon the vagabond would be heady,
giddy, talkative He would say too much; why, they might even
be able to nab Him before the dessert.
Jesus knew that was how the Pharisee thought and how he had
pboood his evening. When the Master entered the house, He did not
for the single reason that He had no intention of remainipg
THE THIRD YEAR 189
there to break bread with this old schemer. Instead, the dinner still
untouched, He seized the occasion to give His host and other guests
a lesson they would never forget. He began by directly answering
His host's discomfort because He had not washed: in quiet voice
He stated simply:
"You Pharisees make clean the outside of the cup and the platter.
But your inside is full of rapine and iniquity. . . .
"Hypocrites. Because you are like whhed sepulchers, which out-
wardly appear to men beautiful but within are full of dead men's
bones and of all filthiness."
That was a dismaying beginning for an evening meal. The
shocked silence was broken by one of the other guests, a scribe who
knew every jot and tittle of the law; one, though, without much
humor, for now he spoke up in a tone of pained protest:
"Master, in saying these things about Pharisees you reproach us,
the lawyers, also!"
Did He? Most certainly He meant to!
"Woe to you lawyers also! Because you load men with burdens
which they cannot bear; and you yourselves touch not the packs
with one of your fingers. You have taken away the key of knowl-
edge; you yourselves have not entered in, and those that were en-
tering in, you hindered."
After that outspokenness Jesus arose and went quickly out of the
house. That same night a second council was convoked in Jeru-
salem. The lawyers and the Pharisees came together in what was like
an ecstasy of hate. They must not have a man at krge, saying
things like that! There must be some way found to catch some-
thing from His mouth by which they might accuse Him.
As a practical result of their convocation they decided to make
another try. If He blaspheme in front of expert witnesses, they
might be able to indict Him. So for the third time Jesus found Him-
self invited to a rich man's table. On this night Jesus observed all
the amenities. He washed His face and hands and reclined on a
couch at the ruler's table. Suddenly, through the open door there
staggered a man with dropsy an accumulation of water in various
parts of the body. No one said anything as the dinner was inter-
rupted by the silent apparition of this suffering man, but all the
other diners looked at the Master. Would He forget that this was
the night of the Sabbath?
Sensing the familiar trick, Jesus looked around at aE of them
190 THE GREATEST STORY EVER TOLD
the lawyers, the formalists, the Pharisees to whom the slightest dere-
liction in the strict observance of the Sabbath was a mortal sin
and He asked them a question:
**Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath day?"
He got no answer. But He waited for none. He turned to the
sick man and made him well, and sent him away.
"Which of you/' He then asked, "shall have an ass or an ox fall
into a pit and will not immediately drag him out on the Sabbath
day?"
The silence was still acute. By this time, because of news of the
healing, the house of the Pharisee was surrounded by a multitude.
Jesus left the table, turned His back on the supper guests, and,
standing in the open doorway of the rich man's house, He began
to speak with supernatural eloquence and power, delivering the
greatest of His parables-for that was when He told the story of the
prodigal son.
This exhortation to the multitude in front of the Pharisee's house
was almost as moving as the Sermon on the Mount With supreme
earnestness and poetic eloquence, He talked to them of God's for-
giving way with sinners, of the virtue of humility, and the abomina-
tions of pharisaical pride. This was a time when He served notice
that no man could serve two masters and expkined the necessity of
renouncing all to follow the way of Christ:
"If any man come to me and hate not his father and mother and
wife and children and brethren and sisters; yes, and his own life also,
be cannot by my disciple. And he that takes not up his cross and
follow me is not worthy of me."
Well* that was the third time the Pharisees had Jesus in to din-
ner. They would never ask Him again.
Chapter 47 URGENT TEACHING
BEYOND Jordan, in the country across from where he was baptized,
Jesus retired for a while to talk over the future with the Apostles.
There was now an urgency in His attitude; He told them the time
was short before He would close his earthly mission, to bring for-
giveness to the world
THE THIRD YEAR
This pardon of God to a man, based on how that same man par-
dons his fellows, was the peak of His teaching, and it reached the
peak of expression in this region near where John had first pro-
claimed Him three years before.
There was so much He had still to impart, and the human limita-
tions of His chosen Twelve were sadly visible, yet they were the
men who must carry forward the work when He was gone. To
them He emphasized major problems the sex life, marriage and di-
vorce, celibacy and virginity. Whom God had joined together, He
told them again, let no man put asunder.
But was celibacy ever to be recommended above marriage? Only
for those who choose to be free of family ties and obligations, and
the tyranny of the senses, in order to carry on the Master's work:
"For there are eunuchs who were born so from their mother's
womb; and there are eunuchs who were made so by men; and
there are eunuchs who have made themselves eunuchs for the King-
dom of Heaven.
"He that can take it, let him take it!"
Then He turned and held out His arms to mothers and their chil-
dren. His face glowing with love for all the little ones of earth and
their mothers, He turned to the same disciples to whom He had ex-
plained virginity, marriage and divorce, and with little boys and
girls climbing all over Him, He smiled at their confusion. Peter!
James and John! You are trying to chase these children away, as if
they were a nuisance and a disturbance; listen:
"Suffer little children to come unto me and forbid them not, for
of such is the Kingdom of God. I tell you, whoever shall not receive
the Kingdom of God as a child shall in no wise enter into it!"
More and more He taught of the particular care God has for
every living individual:
"Are not five sparrows sold for two farthings and not one of them
is forgotten before God? Yes, the very hairs of your head are all
numbered."
Thus He emphasized the uniqueness of the individual, and they
loved it, though litde comprehending the literal import of His
words. But two thousand years kter, in the laboratories of modern
criminologists, the speetrograph and spectrophotometer show us
that the hair on every mortal head is different from all others-, and,
more, that each individual hair is "niimfoared," is different from any
other hair on the same head! Not only are there no two thumbs or
192 THE GREATEST STORY EVER TOLD
fingerprints alike in all humanity, but even the lines and whorls and
loops and corrugations on the hoofs of cows and bulls and the feet
of dogs and cats are all unparalleled. It is science today that shows
individuality to be of persistent uniqueness in God's world, just as
Jesus taught it.
Science was to learn that not one man's sweat was like another's;
you could break it down into its chemical elements, and find an in-
finite diversity in mere drops of perspiration. Let the killer leave but
a stain from moist finger tips on the lace collar of the woman killed
and he can be convicted by it
Every part of me and you is intrinsically and unmistakably you
and me; the combination and proportions of your phosphorus and
calcium and aE the rest of you are unique. That immense importance
of your uniqueness, and mine, your individuality, your immortal
soul was what Jesus was trying to bring home to the people:
^Yes, the very hairs of your head are numbered . . . you are of
more value than many sparrows."
In those days, too, He began to promise them the coming of the
Holy Ghost, which was the good spirit, the comforter, or paraclete,
always to be guide and counselor to every Christian, after Jesus was
gone. If they were ever brought into court, they were not to be
afraid of how or what they should answer; the inner voice of the
Holy Ghost would let them know in the hour of trial what they
should say. They need not fear hunger or homelessness; they must
pat tiieir confidence in His promise of this help to come.
Jons seemed to be more deeply concerned than ever with the
relations of the poor and the rich; or capital and labor; the responsi-
bilities of workman and millionaire. A brightly dressed, golden-
curled young man rushed up to Him one day on the open road and
gasped:
"Good Master, what shall I do that I may receive life everlast-
ing?"
"Why do you call me good?" Jesus waited a moment for the
young man to get his breath, "None is good but God alone." Jesus
was well aware this baffled young man was no more than a curios-
ity seeker; he had no real faith ia Jesus or His divinity. "Then why
ctl me good? You know the commandments: you shall not kill;
you shall not commit adultery; you shall not steal; you shall not bear
false witness; honor your father and mother."
THE THIRD YEAR 193
"But, Master, all these things I have observed from my youth.
What else shall I do?"
And again the smile of Jesus was rueful.
"One thing is wanting unto you. If you will be perfect, go sell
what you have, and give to the poor, and you shall have treasure in
heaven; and come, follow me."
The kneeling man stood up. His face was stricken, tragically fuH
of regret. He went away sadly. He was very rich; he had great pos-
sessions.
Looking after him, seeing his sorrow, Jesus remarked how hard
it is for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of God; harder than for
a camel to pass through the eye of a needle. Yet, He added whimsi-
cally, with God all things are possible.
But no sooner had the rich man gone off than the Apostles picked
up that promise about treasure in heaven.
Peter cleared his throat.
"Master, we have left all things and have followed you* What,
therefore, shall toe have?"
Smug and self-righteous as he was at that moment, Peter spoke
only fact. He and the others had certainly left house and nets and
ships, brothers and sisters, father, mother, wife, children. The re-
ward, they had thought, was well worth the price life everlasting.
But after hearing that talk with the golden-curled young rich man,
there was a large question in their minds. They had given up their
all for the rest of their lives. What about the Jacob-come latelys?
The people who had enjoyed a full worldly life and then, just
shortly before they were going to die, joined up in the movement of
Jesus? Would these late arrivals get as great rewards as the others,
who had served a lifetime; had borne the heat and burden of the
day? That didn't seem just for the kte ones had much more to
repent than the original followers.
Yet Jesus was constantly preaching forgiveness not once, not
seven times, but seventy times seven; and endlessness of forgive-
ness. How about those who asked forgiveness at the eleventh hour?
Did they share equally in the great rewards to come? And even
though He told them a parable of laborers in the vineyard, there
was still a growing riddle in their souls.
He saw their plight clearly; in the little time that was left He
would try to buttress their faith. But in the midst of their counsels
there came a call to Bethany, back to the house of Martha and Mary.
1 94 THE GREATEST STORY EVER TOLD
Chapter 48 COME FORTH!
As ALL the world knows now, but few cared then whether they
knew it or not, Lazarus was the brother of Mary arid Martha. By
hired courier the sisters sent an imperative message to Jesus:
"Lazarus, he whom you love, is sick."
But to the consternation of the Twelve the comment Jesus made
seemed almost casual:
"This sickness is not unto death, but for the glory of God; that
the Son of Man may be glorified by it."
Now the sisters had not misrepresented the facts. Jesus did love
Lazarus; He loved all three of that family as personally as He had
ever loved any other mortal, except His mother. All the more sur-
prising that He seemed to dismiss the desperate message while He
lingered; He even seemed to dawdle for two whole days, nor would
He budge from the town where the message had found Him.
The earthbound Twelve Apostles applauded His behavior, al-
though they completely misconstrued it.
"Good thing He stays here! Sensible!'* they said among them-
selves. "To go back to Bethany, so close to Jerusalem, would be
Mke walking into the den of a bear. By now the Temple is so stirred
npv they would be bound to do Him mischief. They might even hire
a killer to put Him out of the way. Or even massacre the whole lot
of us while we sleep. The Master is right: it is all very sad about
Lazarus, of course every one of us loves Lazarus but it is much
more prudent to stay right here and be safe!"
Upon which Jesus suddenly told them He was going on to Beth-
any. They bitterly protested. What could He be thinking of? Only
a short time before, when He was there, agents of the priests tried
to stone him. Why go back? His only answer was:
"Lazarus our friend sleeps; but I go that I may awake him out of
sleep.**
"Lord," protested the disciples, "if Lazarus sleep, he shall do
well!"
Then the kindly smile faded from the lips of Jesus and He spoke
to them sternly:
THE THIRD YEAR 195
"Lazarus is dead."
That was mournful news. It was true that they had all loved Laza-
rus. It was heartbreaking to think of their friend as dead. Yet even
more shocking, fuller of heartbreaking bafflement were the next
bewildering words of their leader:
"Lazarus is dead. And for your sakes I am glad that I was not
there that you may believe. But let us go to him."
Then up spoke Thomas, whose other name was Didymus, in
Greek, "the twin." Thomas Didymus was an early exponent of the
scientific spirit; his hardheaded insistence on facts made the others
call him Doubting Thomas. Doubter he was, a man slow to make
up his mind, one truly born with a thirst for honest inquiry and
one who dearly loved a fact yet once doubts were resolved, his
loyalty was simple, fixed, and unshakeable. Although in this sudden
resolution to go into danger Thomas foresaw nothing but disaster,
he wheeled on his companions and snapped:
"Let us also go! That we may die with Him."
Their hearts were heavy, but they backed up Thomas, all of
them, from John to Judas.
The house of Martha and Mary was crowded with mourners,
friends and relatives and professional weepers and groaners hired
for the occasion, according to custom; criers and breast beaters,
who created a frantic disorder night and day.
As soon as she was told that Jesus was coming, Martha ran out
to meet Him. Mary remained at home. Both women were in agony
of sorrow and disappointment: Mary withdrawn to herself; Martha,
the forthright practical one, rushed out.
"Lord," she exclaimed bitterly on confronting Jesus at the edge of
town, "if you had been here, my brother had not died."
The redness of grief streaked her gaunt face and quivering cheeks.
Then, recalling herself, she bowed her head submissively and her
lips trembled:
"But now also I know whatsoever you will ask of God, God
will give it you."
Jesus put His hand on her shoulder and whispered:
"Your brother shall rise again."
But Martha frowned, because even then she did not trust herself
to believe or hope.
*1 know that he shall rise againin the resurrection at the last
day."
I9<S THE GREATEST STORY EVER TOLD
Jesus had to force her to look at Him; made her eyes meet His
own as He said:
"I am the resurrection and the life."
A hush fell on them all at these fateful words.
"He that believes in me, although he be dead, shall live. And
everyone that lives and believes in me shall not die forever. Believe
you this?"
"Yes, Lord! I have believed that you are Christ, the Son of the
Living God, who are come into this world."
By the look in His eyes she felt forgiven and released. She gath-
ered up her skirts and, turning, rushed back to the house and called
her sister Mary:
"The Master is come and calls for you."
Mary did not wait. Now she, too, ran out of the house, down the
stony hillside. Everybody in the house followed her; they were in
a tumult; what had happened? Perhaps Mary was going to the grave
itself to weep and pray. If so, she must not go alone!
Mary did not care who was following. At first her heart was lifted
tip, like the heavenly gates and the everlasting doors in the psalm,
just because Jesus had sent for her. But as she ran on, the memory
of His absence at a time when they needed Him most, when they
salt for Him and He hung back when He might have answered
the resentment welled up in Mary, so that when she came to Him,
although she fell down at His feet, she, too, reproached Him.
"Lord, if you had been here, my brother had not died."
She wept, and all the others that had followed her wailed with her*
"Where have you laid him?" Jesus asked patiently.
"Lord, come and see!" shouted the mourning relatives.
Jesus wept. The sight of the Master in tears as they trudged all
together once more into the Bethany hills made many a woman
speak behind her hand to a nrighbor:
"Look how He did love Lazarus!"
"Ah, yes, but
"But? But what?"
"Could not He that opened the eyes of the man born blind have
caused that this man He loved so much should not die? "
Now they were come to the grave of Lazarus; it was a tomb,
really a cave, dug down out of the slant of a rocky hill and reached
by going down a set of three stone steps and crossing two large flag-
stooes* A boulder stood before the entrance of the sepulcher.
THE THIRD YEAR 197
Jesus said:
"Take away the stone."
Let him who has an ear hear that! Remember all that you see
here now, Apostles! miracle of reassurance for you when you shall
need it most, from one coming desolate Friday until its Sunday.
"Take away the stone," said Jesus, but the practical sister Martha,
notwithstanding all the faith she had professed, had to protest:
"Lord, he has been in the tomb for four days. By this time . . ?
"Did I not say to you, that if you believe, you shall see the glory
of God?"
Sweating, gasping, and feeling they were doing a mad thing, the
relatives shoved away the stone. And Jesus, going to the edge of the
steps, looked up at the sky and spoke:
"Father, I give thanks that you have heard me. And I know that
you hear me always, but because of the people who stand about,
have I said it; that they may believe that you have sent."
There was a moment of critical silence. The spring winds blew
sweetly on their faces and the smell of the tomb was crossed with the
odor of wild flowers. Then Jesus cried in a loud voice:
"Lazarus! Come forth!"
And he that had been dead, the buried Lazarus, did come forth*
He came of his own motion, revenant under his own propulsion,
though he was bound, feet and hands, by the white winding sheet
and his face tied around with a napkin under his chin. Jesus said to
them:
"Loose him and let him go."
And Lazarus embraced his sisters.
Chapter 4$ A POLITICAL SETBACK
FROM a political point of view, the raising of Lazarus was a handi-
cap.
To bring back a dead man to life in the very shadow of Jerusa-
lem's walls was bound to fill the capital population with awe and
therefore further anger the priests. True, this was not the first dead
person Jesus had bra^jfat back to Hfe^ but the miracle of the house
of Jainis had been performed in a northern province; from such a
THE GREATEST STORY EVER TOLD
distance rumors of miracles were not taken too seriously. But not so
with Lazarus, who lived right next door. Plenty of people in Jerusa-
lem could swear that Lazarus had actually died and had been buried
in his tomb. Now, with their own eyes, they could see him walking
around again, living as usual.
No wonder Caiphas, the high priest, found himself suffering from
gas pains after every meal. Caiphas had run the Temple from the
year 18, and always he had been a jumpy, apprehensive man. But
now he was becoming sleepless a victim of insomnia because too
many people were beginning to believe the Galilean miracle-doer
really was the Messiah.
That was more than a nuisance in the high priest's comfortable
scheme of things it was potential ruin. The Nazarene must be
stopped.
After all, the Temple scouts had been dillydallying with the fellow
for nearly three years, and with no results. How far must He be
allowed to go? Not until the raising of Lazarus from the dead had
Caiphas realized the depth of the peril. If a determined majority of
the people were to come to believe in Jesus, before long they could
and very likely would turn out of authority scribes and poli-
ticians, Sadducees and Pharisees, concessionaires and all their rack-
ets. The sacrificial fires would go out and the altars smoke no more,
which would mean no more booth-selling of lambs and doves, the
end of money changing and simony, good-by to the juicy traffic in
sacred things.
Hardly a rich man in Jerusalem whose pocketbook would not be
affected by such a turn in the popular will. If the people believed in
Jesus, they would throw out the men who exploited their hopes and
fears* When that happened, the Roman officials, up to the mighty
Pontius Pilate himself, would say to the high priests and all the in-
terlocking directorates of the Temple aristocracy:
"Since you cannot control your people any more, we won't make
any more deals with you; we must do business with this newcomer
who has the support of the people; we will make our arrangements
with Jesus!"
No, that would never do! As Caiphas realized the situation, he
stroked his long and perfumed beard and murmured to his anxious
comforters:
a lt is expedient that one man should die for the people not the
whole nation perish."
THE THIRD YEAR 199
How truly he spoke he did not know!
Caiphas was in a hurry to settle Him, but Jesus needed time to
complete His instruction of the Apostles. So He retired to a retreat
His enemies did not know, to a place called Ephraim, a tiny and
remote -brown mud village in the desert, fifteen miles to the north-
east of Jerusalem.
There Jesus taught His Twelve at length, making a third predic-
tion to them of His death and resurrection. Six stages He counted
out for them: betrayal, the sentence of the court, the handing over
to the Roman governor, mockery and humiliation, crucifixion, and
the final triumph. Here He became most precise, calmly preparing
His friends for what was to happen when He would be mocked and
scourged and spit upon.
"The Son of Man shall be betrayed to the chief priests and to the
scribes and to the ancients; and they shall mock Him and spit on
Him and scourge Him and kill Him; and the third day He shall rise
again/'
Chapter 50 THE GREAT FEAST
IT WAS now the time of the Passover, the greatest of all celebrations
in Israel. From the sea and from over the caravan routes of moun-
tains and deserts, by ships and camels and walking barefoot, travel-
ers by thousands and scores of thousands turned weary and sweaty
faces toward Jerusalem. No matter how tiring, they must make the
journey, for the Pasch was coming: the great Passover feast com-
memorating the night when the Lord, smiting the first born of the
Egyptians, passed harmlessly over the houses of the children of
Israel. All devout souls who could possibly do so wanted to make
their way to the Temple at Jerusalem. For seven days they would
join in the prayers, offering up the paschal lamb in the traditional
sacrifice and eating the unleavened bread*
Soft spring lay over that hard city on the great height Time for
the cuckoo to sing and new little flowers to bloom* Time of the
racing of the sap and a sense of resurrection in human bodies and
thoughts, when life renews itself.
Jesus and the Twelve were also going up for Passover in Jerusa-
200 THE GREATEST STORY EVER TOLD
lem. The Apostles were boyishly excited by the great crowds; some-
how the explicit prophecies made by the Master of blood and death
soon to come had failed to weigh upon them. They were humanly
giddy in the midst of great events. Actually when the Master had
foretold His death, they could not bring themselves to believe it. He
had always shown such resistless power! Was He not the Christ?
How, then, could He be harmed? They simply couldn't accept it.
So it was without any feeling of deep melancholy that they
started out making a long loop down the mountain paths, in a de-
tour to the southern road.
Soon some of the Galileans recognized Jesus and clustered around
Him; another miracle, please, dear Master!~-here are two blind men.
And when sightless Bartemaeus was made to see, the crowds inten-
sified until the road was choked. That was when the Master noticed
a little man swinging perilously from the topmost bough of a syca-
more tree.
This swinging dwarf of a man was dangling a few yards back of
the customhouse, and on that office door he cast, now and then, a
wary eye on his balsam tax cash.
In those days the Romans controlled the balsam trade, getting a,
royalty from plantation owners on every shell. The balsam trade
was a busy one and kept many workers employed; all around the
city were plantations. The field hands would hack at the back of
die trees with jagged stones and then -would hold a handful of wool
near the open wound and catch the bleeding drops of sticky white
juice. This would be squeezed into a mussel shell where it would
harden and the shell would be its container All over the world went
the balsam shells, to be sold to those who believed the odor would
cure headache. That was one reason why the Romans had set up
their special customhouse here on the frontier of Judea.
And that was why they had a little hunchback, a misshapen man
named Zacchaeus, to be their taxgatherer here.
The townspeople called Zacchaeus a scoundrel. Like Matthew,
the saint, he was lower than low in his neighbors' eyes, not only be-
cause of his deformity but because he collected the tribute money
imposed upon his own people by conquerors and made a good
profit for himself on the transaction. He was very rich.
Nevertheless, Zacchaeus wanted to see Jesus. He beheld the mob
come plunging ahead of the Master, down the road in a frenzied
swirl of bumooses and dusty robes and rushing through the city
THE THIRD YEAR 201
gates, shouting and singing in fine, excitable mood. The hunchback
was in a panic. He had to see this teacher of whose doctrines he
had heard; he had been told that another despised taxgatherer, Mat-
thew, was one of the Master's closest friends. Maybe the Master
would deign to notice him too!
Did any man ever feel more inferior than Zacchaeus? He was so
small, his body so badly made, that he was almost a midget; he was
a tax man, and no one would have anything to do with him. Only
in this stranger from Nazareth did he see any promise of human
warmth and understanding and now that Jesus was about to pass
right in front of him and his customhouse, he feared he would not
get even a glimpse of his hero, because the crowd was so large and
Zacchaeus was so small. That was why the hunchback scrambled
up into the branches of the sycamore tree a medium-sized, bushy
green tree that swayed crazily under his monkey-like movements of
arms and legs; and through the damp, flat leaves he thrust a bearded
face to look down the squalid street for the man he had heard would
be a friend to anyone.
Jesus looked up and saw him there, in his brocaded silken cap,
imported from Ctesiphon. Zacchaeus turned pale but the Master
waved his hand and called:
"Zacchaeus! Hurry up and come down! . . . Come dotm, for
this day I must abide in your house!"
The Master in my house! Jesus my guest!
A savage, delirious tumult of joy was in the taxgatherer's heart.
The malformed little millionaire tumbled down from the last branch
of the sycamore tree; he ran with pounding feet down the avenue
the crowd opened up for him; he cried and laughed. And Jesus
laid His hand on the shoulder that came barely to His waist and they
walked on together, while the crowd murmured and whispered.
For now the people were as shocked in their way as so often the
Pharisees and the Sadducees had been shocked in theirs: the Master
was going to be a guest of a wretch like Zacchaeus, he who wore
the great glittering beryl ring, a gift from Herod the Great himself.
In the doorway of the house of the rich taxgatherer the Master, in-
spired with His theme, told the gaping spectators the parable of the
Ten Talents; and thus let them know that to be diligent about one's
business and thereby to earn a profit was not dishonorable. That
night, when salvation came to the house of Zacchaeus, there was
song and celebration under the roof.
202 THE GREATEST STORY EVER TOLD
On the following night Jesus slept in Bethany, closer by a day's
journey to Jerusalem. But He did not bide in the house of His friends,
Mary, Martha, and Lazarus; instead He chose to put up at the house
of a man called Simon the Leper one of those healed by Jesus.
While He was in Simon's house, on that Saturday, the first day of
April in the year 30, Martha served the supper and Lazarus sat at
the table, with just as good an appetite now for his sister's cooking
of braised lamb and garden vegetables as if he had never been laid
in his cerements for three days in the family vault.
Mary, the other sister, was mysteriously absent.
Suddenly she came through the doorway and knelt at the feet
of Jesus. Like the harlot back in Galilee, Mary carried in her hands
an alabaster vase. In it was a pound of spikenard, a very expensive
ointment; the sisters had used up their savings to buy it for the
burial of Lazarus, Silence fell as the guests watched Mary. She knelt
and lifted one foot of Jesus and began to rub instep and toes with
the ointment. Both feet she massaged with the sweet-smelling paste
and then, again like the other woman up north, she dried off the
feet from head to toe with her long dark hair.
Finally in the same critical silence she poured some more of the
ointment on the top of the Master's head and rubbed it in with
strong, slender fingers. The room was filled with the odor of the
ointment.
And Judas was whispering to Martha:
"What a waste of this ointment! It could have been sold for three
hundred pence! It cost much more than that, when it was bought
originally for your brother Lazarus, who, as things turned out, did
not need its sweet smell. You sisters could have sold it all and given
the money to the poor!"
The onlookers imitated the Pharisees now, muttering together
and turning dark glances toward Mary, with her extravagant ala-
baster vase in her hands; darkest glances of all came from Judas.
For a long time Judas Iscariot had been the treasurer of the Apostles;
he kept the purse and doled out the money, and of him John later
said that he was a thief at heart and cared nothing for the poor.
Judas would actually have snatched the box and what was left of the
ointment from Mary's hands had not Jesus seen this bogus zeal for
what it was and intervened.
"Let her alone," He commanded, "that she may keep it against
die day of my burial."
THE THIRD YEAR 203
Then, as shocked silence fell, He continued:
"Why do you trouble this woman? She has wrought a good work
upon me. In pouring this ointment upon my body, she had done it
for my burial. What she had, she has done. She is come beforehand
to anoint my body. The poor you have always with you, but me
you have not always. I tell you, wherever this Gospel shall be
preached in the whole world, that also which she has done shall be
told for a memory of her."
And indeed after nearly two thousand years, in which it has been
told day after day, here it is being told again!
On the day after Mary anointed the feet and head of Jesus, He
walked with His disciples from Bethany up the stony road to Jerusa-
lem. It was the Sunday before the Pasch or Passover and all the
high roads were thick with pilgrims, noisy with their psalms.
Yet what began as a pilgrimage for Jesus and His friends going
into the city to join in celebrating the Passoverended in what can
be called nothing less than the most remarkable triumphal march of
all time.
Chapter 51 PALM SUNDAY
THE legions of the Caesars, tramping under arches of victory, were
meaningless beside this sudden and miraculous triumph. One instant
Jesus was one among a hundred thousand pilgrims; then, before any
of His disciples could realize what was happening, the same Jesus
was isolated, singled out, for the adoration of the people, the target
of deep-toned amens and shrill hallelujahs!
Yet it all came about so simply. They started early on that Sunday
morning, passed through the hamlet of Bethanage, and paused at
the foot of that green Mount of Olives, Olivet as the Christians call
it, place of a garden where He was to meet agony, and from whose
topmost point He was to say farewell to the world.
Now at the base of the Mount Jesus paused-, called two of His
disciples and gave them curious orders. They were to press on to the
next little town, really a suburb of Jerusalem, and in the village they
would find, tied to a hitching post, the colt of an unbacked ass, foal
of a beast accustomed to the farmer's yoke, yet no man, woman, or
204 THE GREATEST STORY EVER TOLD
child had ever ridden this youngster donkey. The two disciples
were to loose the ass and bring him back to Jesus; if anyone tried to
stop them, they were merely to say the Lord had need of the ani-
mal's service.
And so it all turned out! The two disciples, not a little upset by
their errand, did not remember that the prophet Zacharias centuries
before had written:
"Tell ye the daughter of Sion. Behold the king comes to you
meek and sitting upon an ass , . ."
They found not only the colt but the mother who foaled him
standing hitched, their owners lounging near by. The disciples un-
hitched the young beast and gave their ready-made explanation to
the startled owners. No objections! The words of Jesus, repeated
to the farmers, was somehow all that was necessary; the disciples
came back leading the dumb beast by a short tether of leather
thongs.
Jesus and the other disciples were surrounded as usual by a multi-
tude, but at sight of the donkey some curious sudden resolution
seemed to seize the crowd. They gave a great shout. Between them
where they stood at the foot of Mount Olivet and the great city lay
a gorge, the gulley called the Valley of Gehenna, a place of abom-
inable memories. All the pilgrims must descend into that valley
and then climb the steep paths on the other side in order to get
up to the Jerusalem gates and journey's end. Yet suddenly, now
mysteriously, inexplicably, the tramping hordes of pilgrims stood
still, milled about, and, as if moved by a common and overmaster-
ing purpose, made a vast human barricade around the tall, bearded
figure with His friends in long white robes on the green hillside.
The convoy of the two disciples was greeted with shouts and
cheers as if, without being told, the crowd not only knew the un-
backed colt was for Jesus, but also remembered that an ass's colt
was the royal equipage, full of symbolism for the kings of Israel.
Lurking agents of the Pharisees, always near, did not miss the sig-
nificance of the urrridden ass, fulfilment of old prediction. They
watched with narrowed eyes what followed the general, spontane-
ous adulation of the multitude. When had such extravagant devo-
tion been seen before in all Judea? The mob gone wild over this one
man; the garments of the disciples laid over the ass's back for Him
to ride tipon, and the people, catching the contagion, throwing
down their clothes to the dust before the four feet of the beast They
THE THIRD YEAR 205
cast their robes for Him to ride over, while others turned to cutting
down boughs from the trees of balsam, acacia, and tamarisk, and
green branches of the palm trees. Running far ahead of the popular
rider on the donkey's back, they strewed the ground before him
with their greenery, with bouquets and nosegays and wild flowers.
The Pharisees not only saw all this but they had to listen to the
shouts of witnesses avouching a great miracle to the pilgrims and
strangers; yes, sure they knew the man Lazarus; yes, they had seen
him dead and wrapped and yes, by the eternal God of Israel, they
had seen the cadaver called out of its grave and turn again into a
living human being.
And then thousands of men and women began to shout with joy,
joining the voices of the Apostles, and crying:
"Hosannah! Blessed is he that comes in the name of the Lord?
"Hosamah to the Son of David!"
"Blessed be the kingdom of our father David?
"Blessed be the King that comes in the name of the Lord?
"Peace in heaven and glory on high?
"Hosannah in the highest?
Those words were enough to strike terror to the heart of any
privileged caste. Why, they were saluting and adoring and praising
hosannas to this man; they were calling Him king. He had the mob
under a spell.
They thought of Him not only as a real king but as one with un-
earthly supernatural powers; an angel man, a God man they be-
lieved it all! Of course then He could do with these people what-
ever He cared to do. At any moment He could turn loose these
mobs against all organized authority, against the Roman governor
and the Temple priests, break down all supremacy, all power, set
up Himself as ruler and king indeed.
Such a sight, such a prospect, such a danger was intolerable to
fanatic Pharisee and greedy Sadducee alike. A spectacle like this, of
unbridled and fantastic trust and devotion, called for action. The
priestly authorities looked at one another with pale, blank faces. The
whole world is gone after him!
Now the procession was climbing up, very near to the city with
its long, curving walls of tawny stones; its tower forts and tall,
armored gates. The sight of it, the nostalgic boyhood memories, the
certainty of what was now at hand, brought tears to the Master's
eyes. Weeping over Jerusalem, "the place of peace," Jesus cried:
206 THE GREATEST STORY EVER TOLD
"If thou hadst known, even thou, at least in this thy day, the
things which belong unto thy peace! But now they are hid from
thine eyes.
"For the days shall come upon thee, that thine enemies shall cast
a trench about thee, and compass thee round, and keep thee in on
every side.
"And shall ky thee even with the ground, and thy children
within thee; and they shall not leave in thee one stone upon an-
other; because thou knewest not the time of thy visitation."
It was as if He could see into the future, see the distant armies of
Titus in their encampment forty years later on Mount Olivet; the
fire and the sword that fell upon Jerusalem and made sure every
word of His prophecy, so soon to be one of the awful facts of history.
On He moved amid that sudden general ecstasy of love and utter
trust. Through the city gate, where mobs of the narrow streets came
spilling and mingling with the arriving crowds of pilgrims who
escorted Him. Who comes? This is Jesus, the prophet; from Naza-
reth of Galilee! The blind and the maimed followed Him as close
as they could until He reached the courts of the Temple, and there,
in the very shadow of the altar of the Most High, He healed them.
And children, flocking near, took up the refrain of their elders:
"Hosanna to the Son of David!"
"Do you hear what these brats are saying?" screamed the scan-
dalized theologians and the scribes.
"Yes!" agreed Jesus. "Have you never read: 'Out of the mouths
of infants and sucklings you have perfected praise?' "
Ah! They knew what that meant a prophecy of old David about
the Messiah! Was that not blasphemy enough? No, for He had stiB
merely quoted a text; they could not arrest Him on that.
But it could not be allowed to go on much longer!
Chapter 52 THE GREAT CLASH
THE whole Temple court of the strangers, court of the women,
the inner court, even the high altar, the very sanctum sanctorum
itself echoed with the full-throated clamor of His followers.
Even the Gentiles, who did not celebrate the Passover, came as
THE THIRD YEAR 207
near as they could to see the wonderful prophet. With many ques-
tions they plagued Philip, who came from Bethsaida, where there
were many Gentiles and Philip, who was a little shocked, turned to
Andrew. They talked it over.
Was this Kingdom of God a blessing only for Israel? Or could
even the Gentiles also be saved? Peter and Andrew left no doubt in
the minds of the stout, dark-curled Gentile strangers; the message
of the Master was for everybody. For that fact, if for no other, He
was to die. And some asked: "If you think He is going to die, why
doesn't He try to escape?"
"And what shall I say? Father, save me from this hour? But for
their cause I came unto this hour."
So Jesus spoke, most distinctly, in the Temple.
Did all who were there hear, at the same instant, a sound of thun-
der? Many were to swear that what they heard was actually a voice;
John, who was an ear witness, declared it was the voice of God; a
repetition of what he had heard three years before on the farther
bank of the Jordan, when that other John baptized Jesus. Then the
spirit of God descended in the form of a dove; on this, the original
Palm Sunday, there was no bird from heaven, but instead that thun-
derous voice, as loud, as reverberating as a long peal of thunder, a
cosmic voice, breath of the universal, answering the prayer to
glorify His name:
"I have glorified it and will glorify it again!"
In the fear that caught them all, whether they thought it voice or
thunder, Jesus quickly explained:
"This voice came not because of me but for your sakes. Now is
the judgment of the world; now shall the prince of this world be
cast out."
Summing up the full historical importance of His mission, He
added, referring specially to the brutal death already planned for
Him:
"And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all things unto
myself."
The Temple scholars and theologians! the ancients as they were
sometimes called, because of their wrinkles and long beards and
their reputation for wisdom, kept after Him with crafty questions.
They even joined one day with a shrewd group of Herodians; work-
ing together they cooked tip a new stratagem*
208 THE GREATEST STORY EVER TOLD
"Tell us," they demanded, "by what authority you do all these
things. Who is it that gave you this authority?"
Now this was nothing more nor less than a new change on the old
effort to trap Him into blasphemy. So sure He seemed of Himself to-
day in the face of so much popular applause, they reasoned that per-
haps He would become heady and forget to be careful. If He an-
swered, as they hoped He would, that He was the Christ, then they
would have Him, hip and thigh.
But Jesus, shrewdest of all debaters and dialecticians, countered
with a demand to be told whether they thought the baptism of John
was from heaven or not. This was an adroit maneuver. They knew,
as well as did He, that in public memory John, the beheaded, was
now more popular than ever, a venerated martyr. If the priests were
to say: "John's baptism was from heaven," the next question would
be, naturally, "Why didn't you believe him, then?"
But to say otherwise to maintain that John was merely a man,
never a prophet would have been too dangerous; the old priests
might be roughly treated by the crowd. All they could answer was
that they did not know.
This equivoque set the crowd grinning and chuckling so that the
Pharisees had to return to the attack, this time trying to upset Jesus
by posing another dangerous political and social question: Should
a good Jew pay the Roman taxes? That was a real poser! For if
Jesus said no, He would be guilty of treason. Pilate would polish
Him off without ceremony. But if He said yes, all Palestine would
be offended,
Jesus called for a penny and pointed to the image on the coin; the
profile in rilievo of Augustus Caesar.
"Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's" and so with
that astute answer, another trap failed. Even His enemies were
ready to concede their admiration for the skill by which He demol-
ished that craftily prepared piece of heckling. But while He was on
the subject, Jesus denounced to their faces the scribes and the Phari-
sees for also laying insupportable burdens on the shoulders of the
people.
Immediately these daring words reverberated all over the city.
They were carried quickly to the luncheon table of Caiphas, the
high priest. How the dandy Caiphas writhed! For his friends and
partners to be called publicly and in so many words the devourers
of widows' houses which he and most of the associates undoubtedly
THE THIRD YEAR 209
were! Jesus mocked their vanities, their sitting in the seats of honor,
and getting bows from the poor men in the market place, and sew-
ing bands on their robes with long, fancy fringes. They raked in the
money and goods of the poor with their tithes, but forgot law, judg-
ment, mercy, and faith. Serpents! Generation of vipers! How would
they flee from the judgment of hell?
This was the strongest lashing the Master had ever given His ene-
mies, a castigation in the very shadow of the altar of their magnifi-
cent Temple; He was ruining them in the eyes of a believing multi-
tude enchanted by His every word.
And even as He was speaking, He pointed to the dark, bent figure
of a little woman creeping toward the money collection box; she
dropped two brass coins into the treasury. Who got the widow's
mites? Caiphas and his great father-in-law Annas and their elegant
crew they would get the widow's cash and all the other mites and
pence and farthings and pounds that fell into the Temple money
boxes. So Jesus told the crowd that this poor woman had cast in more
than all the others, for the others had given of their abundance but
she of her want, her undeniable human misery. Looking round him
at the Temple, majestic in its gifts and wondrous stones, glittering
gilt and tessellated pavements, He warned them again that the days
of the Temple were counted; not a stone would be left on a stone.
Again He warned of the future. Let all who loved Him watch
out for those who would come, quoting Him, preaching in His
name, but really serving evil. There would be wars and seditious
nations rising against nations; kingdoms arrayed against other king-
doms; famines and terrors which would be only the beginnings of
sorrows. But those who believed in Him should not be frightened,
though the end was not yet in sight. For the good news must be
preached to all nations.
He did not try to belittle the peril of His followers. Those who
loved Him would be unmistakably marked for persecution. When
the police laid hands on them, however, they were not to be fright-
ened, and, in panic, try to think what they would say in court on
the day of trial. He would give them a mouth! And out of it wis-
dom to confound their adversaries. Nor would all their foes be
strangers. They and their descendants through centuries of the
future would find themselves, because of their loyalty to their faith
in Him, betrayed by friends, by their own brothers even, and by
their parents.
21O THE GREATEST STORY EVER TOLD
"In your patience," He advised them, "you shall possess your
souls."
That day He prophesied at length and with great explicitness.
Not only did He forecast the woe that most certainly did fall upon
Jerusalem only a few years after He departed, but He went on to
define the nature of the end of the world itself.
". . . And upon earth, distress of nations . . . men withering
away for fear ... and then they shall see the Son of Man coming
in a cloud . . . and the stars of heaven shall be falling down and
the powers that are in heaven shall be moved. . . ."
Before that great day of the Second Coming of Christ they could
be sure that hypocrites who quoted Him solely to serve evil would
appear in greatest profusion. Very clever and deceiving men they
were certain to be; they would be doing miracles of themselves,
showing signs and wonders of accomplishment anyway clever al-
most enough to deceive His most pious followers. They must be
very watchful
And how soon would He come this promised second time? Ever
since that day of prophecy in the Temple, loving disciples of the
Master have been asking the same question with increasing anxiety.
And for two thousand years, as still today, all of us must be satisfied
with the answer He gave them:
*'But of that day and hour no man knows, neither the angels in
heaven, but the Father alone!"
Because of the need for vigilance, He told them a story of wise
and foolish virgins invited to participate in receiving a bride and
bridegroom. Only five of the virgins thought to bring oil in their
lamp; the five others, the foolish virgins, forgot to be ready and
were left behind when the great time came. For this event of the
second coming was far more than a mere ceremony or celebration:
it would be literally and finally the day of the Last Judgment.
Chapter # THE POLITICAL BOSS .
THE next day was the day before the Pasch; the celebration of the
Feast of the Unleavened Bread would begin at sundown on the fifth
of April, A.D. 30.
THE THIRD YEAR 211
In strict accord with the Mosaic law, as stated in Exodus 12:18,
the ceremonial paschal lamb must be slain on the fourteenth day of
the first month in the evening. According to the Jewish reckoning
of a day from 6 P.M. to 6 P.M. the actual day of the Pasch was
reckoned from one evening until another. However, in this year of
30 the Pasch happened to fall on Saturday. To avoid violating the
stringent Sabbath rest, many of the Jews transferred the slaying of
the lamb to the evening of Thursday.
Strangely, that fateful morning when Jesus resumed His preach-
ing in the Temple there were no spies waiting to debate with Him.
Why had Caiphas called off his crew? Had he other plans in mind?
As a matter of secret fact, for some days the high priest's agents
had been paying increasing attention to the disciples rather than to
their leader. Later one of these spies talked confidentially to the
high priest.
"We are almost ready," Caiphas exclaimed. "There is only one
more big hurdle. That's my father-in-law, Annas."
And to himself he added: "Father-in-law won't like this. He
never likes any of my ideas. But this one cannot be allowed to fail;
I've got to make him see it our way."
Caiphas was very much pleased with himself. He had found one
of the Twelve who would sell out. He had never known any man
who did not have at least one disloyal friend. . . .
Annas was now a very old man but he was still the political boss of
Jerusalem. Of the sixty families in the Temple aristocracy, his was
the richest and the most powerful. For years as far back as that
long-before day when Joachim had pointed him out to Joseph-
Annas had served his people as high priest. When he felt he had
held the post long enough, he passed on the fringed blue robe and
stately headdress to his eldest son, and then, in turn, to six of his
other sons. Now that his own seed was used up, his son-in-law
Caiphas got the job-he was the visible authority, under the God of
Abraham, of Isaac and of Jacob, but he was also privately under the
firm governance of Lord Father-in-Law!
Not seven sons nor son-in-law, all ganged together, could ever be
a match for Annas. Even now, when he was in his eighties, and
secretly considered a dotard by his family, they stood in mortal fear
of the slight figure with the oblong head on the lean corded neck.
There was something awesome in the long wisp of white hair that
dangled over the pale green glimmer of his left eye. Annas had a
212 THE GREATEST STORY EVER TOLD
sharper brain than his relatives and he was not nearly so greedy. All
that they possessed he had given them; even the little wisdom they
knew he had taught them.
In no one except himself did Annas believe. The god he worshiped
at the Temple was a respectable and convenient bugaboo to keep
the lower classes in check. The people must be led by an elite class,
men of superior managerial talents. Of such men Annas was, beyond
question, the best example in Palestine.
His agents still sold the people the doves and lambs to burn on
the altars of sacrifice to keep God in a congenial mood. His bank-
ers still changed the Roman money used in ordinary commerce to
the coinage of the Temple with a large gain in the transaction. Annas
saw no immorality in such business. Keep the people poor and full
of fear and they will believe. Otherwise they will start movements
for their own improvement and no good can come from that.
Right now there were men storming through Judea and Samaria
and Galilee preaching revolution against the Romans. Annas took an
annoyed view of such crackpots. Only yesterday he had ordered the
arrest of a leader called Barabbas, who had stolen money to finance
an insurrection to free the people. To temporize with such move-
ments was sheer, downright nonsense.
No man to make an enemy of, this Annas, son of Seth, whose
name meant "Grace of Jehovah." He was the most superb intelli-
gence among the ruling class in Judea* Calm lived in his bosom; he
had no hatreds and no grudges, and knew neither remorse nor fear
a dangerous personality. He had been born to money, he had
married money, and he had cultivated money because he early
learned its power. Annas was owner of vast property; he had no
friends except among those who also owned property and a great
deal of it. The Temple Sadducees were cautious men, well pleased
with their way of life, suspicious of change; conservative men and
proud of their ancestry they wanted no social traffic with anyone
placed outside themselves in these important particulars.
True, the radicals continually charged that Annas and his friends
had betrayed the people. Some of the Pharisees joined in the accusa-
tion. But such Pharisees were a motley crew of lower-class, over-
pious, fanatical demagogues. Their dislike left Annas untroubled.
He considered himself the actual king, master of the people, and
they, in tuxn, called him "the most fortunate of the human race." He
THE THIRD YEAR 213
smiled, disdaining to dignify an insult, when occasionally some im-
pudent rebel mourned aloud at a crowded bazaar:
"Woe is me on account of the race of Annas; woe is me on ac-
count of their serpent's hiss!"
Fearing neither radicals nor Pharisees, Aniias had taught his sons
and son-in-law that everybody in the world was a hypocrite and a
liar, and could be bought at the right price.
It was a dark spring evening. Pontius Pilate reckoned it as in the
seven hundred and eighty-third year of Rome and the twenty-sixth
year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar. The people of Israel called it
the fourteenth Nisan. We would call it Thursday, the seventh day
of April, in the year of our Lord 30.
From his window Annas could hear a distant noise; Jerusalem,
already crammed with hundreds of thousands of pilgrims from
Judea, from Samaria, from Galilee and from Perea, was still receiv-
ing more from distant parts of the Roman empire, pouring through
the gates.
Windows shut against the blatant clamor, Annas was sitting loftily
by a fire of coals. Against the high red wall opposite him in his pri-
vate chamber stood a younger man, gorgeously attired and with an
elaborate black beard. He was Joseph Caiphas, bending toward his
father-in-law and fixing him with a myopic squint. As the old man
warmed his fingers the son-in-law said:
"I know you want to go to sleep, Lord Annas, but my business
simply will not wait!"
Annas sucked his last tooth. White wisp across left eye, head
turned to one side, he seemed hardly to be listening. Actually, he
was hankering childishly for the silly notes of the cuckoo bird;
for in Palestine, from April until June, it is harvesttime, and that is
when the cuckoo bird sings. More, because this was the eve of the
Feast of the Passover, which comes following the full moon, Annas
was remembering other such festivals of the past, when everything
was younger and not so tiresome. Although his loins were withered,
hands slightly palsied, the soul of Annas felt younger than ever to-
night. He tugged at his ramlike little beard and his face was bleak
and mystifying.
"What kind of business then?"
And the old man added to himself: "You popinjay! Your very
name Caiphas means depression. And how you depress me, with
your silken beard that reeks of perfume, and your resonant voice
214 THE GREATEST STORY EVER TOLD
that is always just teetering on the edge of a belch. Those cowlike
eyes and loud tones would make you a political candidate any-
where."
"I think the fate of this nation may hinge on what we do tonight,"
announced Caiphas with a solemn shake of his head.
"The nation has withstood many other nights. Are we at the cross-
roads again?" jeered Annas, who hated rhetoric. "Why tonight?"
"Because unless we settle this fellow Jesus He will ruin us all"
Annas sneezed, helped his nose with his fingers, and demanded:
"How can I possibly be ruined by a wayside tramp?"
Caiphas threw up his hands.
"Just consider, Lord Annas, what He has been able to do in three
short years. A Galilean mechanic-probably illegitimate, if one is
to believe what one hears three years ago began to talk to whom-
ever would listen to Him. Today the whole world is listening!"
"A big audience!"
"Our whole world here about, I tell you, is filled with lying
reports that He is a prophet, with a great new message which pro-
claims the dignity and importance of the individual soul, and dan-
gerous rubbish even worse than that-and that He can perform mira-
cles!"
"Don't they know miracles don't happen any more?" Annas
sniffed again.
"They believe," pursued Caiphas, parting his beard, "that Jesus
drives out devils, makes crooked legs straight, gives sight to blind
eyes, and even brings the dead back to life,"
"And I still want to know why do you bother me with such non-
sense, Joseph Caiphas?"
"Last Sunday, the tenth Nisan, while you were away, He rode
into Jerusalem, with twelve of his followers trailing behind Him.
He was seated on a Babylonian ass! As if, by our traditions, He con-
sidered himself a king, a judge, or a prophet. How do you like
that?"
Annas stuck out his chin and seemed to swallow something with
difficulty.
"Why didn't you order the man arrested then and there?" he
asked querulously.
"Because this is feast time, and Jerusalem is full of pilgrims two
hundred thousand and more . . ."
"Rabble! Just rabble and scum!"
THE THIRD YEAR 215
"Yes, but that is the dangerthe rabble love Him. The scum love
Him. They might easily revolt. The poor are all for Him. The des-
perate turn to Him. I tell you," Caiphas finished bitterly, "the whole
world has gone after Him!"
Annas lifted his old arms in a mock helpless gesture.
"Joseph Caiphas," he barked, "what is it you want to do with
this Jesus?"
The high priest rose and strode over to the old man; he placed
white, puffy hands on the iron shoulders.
"I want to arrest Him and then summon the whole council!"
"On the eve of the feast?" gasped Annas, as if his ears lied.
"I want to arrest Him tonight, Lord Annas," Caiphas replied with
a gaunt nearsighted look. "His influence has reached a point where
we should not hesitate any longer,"
"Arrest Him! Summon the whole council! Nonsense! For what?"
barked Annas, waving his hands as if to cast folly into the stove*
"The man thinks He is the Messiah? Well, what Galilean does not?
Messiah! I'm sick of the word. Jeremiah and Isaiah made a lot of
trouble for us, let me tell you, when they promised us a messiah!
Insurrections! Revolts! Zealots! That fellow Jude of Gamalia! After
a madman like that Jude, you worry about this mild Jesus? I tell you,
He's only another Messiah! I do hope, my boy, you are not taking
your position as high priest too seriously."
The old man's scorn failed to shake Caiphas. With a deep breath
he returned to the attack.
"I have to make you see that this is a different Messiah," he said
sternly. "One with ideas about the rich and the poor not to my
liking nor to yours, Lord Annas. He says the Gentiles are just as
good as we are . . ."
On the old man's firelit face there came and went a puckering
twinge of malice.
"Quite mad, no doubt! Quite mad!" But his covert satire was lost.
"But, my dear Lord Annas, he goes further than that!"
"I detest your rhetorical pauses. Be specific. What else?"
"He says that family loyalty, too, is nonsense."
"Family loyalty? Well, there may be something to his point of
view!"
"Because, He said, everybody who believed in Him was His
mother and His father."
Annas laughed in a soft humming tone.
2l6 THE GREATEST STORY EVER TOLD
"There!" he crowed. "I said so. The fellow is crazy."
"A dangerous craziness, then. Jesus is against our entire economic
system and intends to destroy it. He denounces the rich. He sets
class against class. Already His teachings are affecting some of our
own young men members of our Sadducean families actually join-
ing his group. They are traitors to their class and they admit it and
laugh at their fathers for telling them so."
The wrinkles deepened on the dried-apple face of Annas.
"He talks to the people and after He goes away they begin to
ask questions," Caiphas continued. "Such as why the poor do not
have the same civil and political rights as the rich. Why our Sad-
ducean families have so much to eat and the others have so little.
He tells them all men are equal in the sight of God. He tells our
young men they have to choose between riches and God Almighty
He wants them to give their inheritances to the poor and follow
Him!"
"Well this is news!" muttered Annas.
"He teaches that misusing riches is the most dangerous of sins,
because it gives one man tyranny over his brothers. He wants every
man to love his fellow man as his own brother. He shakes His finger
in our very faces and only the other day He said, 4 Woe unto you,
scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you devour widows' houses. 5 n
"He is provoking class hatred, that is clear!"
"Why, Lord Annas, Jesus is making it so that any man in Jeru-
salem with two pairs of sandals begins to feel ashamed of himself
when he passes a barefoot beggar."
The glimmer in the old man's eye was turning into an incalescent
gleam.
"Why was I not told of this before?"
"You have been away for two months. Besides, we waited until
we were ready to lay the whole matter before you," Caiphas ex-
plained hurriedly. "But not all the Sanhedrin has been idle. An inner
group has had Jesus watched for two years now. We've held meet-
ings for the last six months to find a way to deal with Him. And
would you believe it, at the conventicle we held on the Feast of
the Tabernacles, one of our own group actually defended Him
there!"
"Was it not Joseph of Arimathea?" asked Annas quickly,
"No, Lord."
Annas sucked his tooth again.
THE THIRD YEAR 21 J
"Then It must have been Nicodemus. I know my crowd. Never
mind how I guess. Go on. When did you meet again?"
"About six weeks ago, when there was a wild tale in circulation
that Jesus had raised a man named Lazarus, over in Bethany raised
him from the dead."
"You have indeed kept this all very secret," complained Annas
petulantly.
"We thought it best to work in the dark," admitted Caiphas with
satisfaction. "We did not ourselves appear in the matter. We allowed
the scribes and the Pharisees to bicker and debate with Him, but
we of what some insist on calling the Caiphas group were always
on the watch to catch him."
"In what crime?"
"Blasphemy and, if possible, in treason."
Annas's slow smile was shrewd and a little tragic. He understood
the deadly strategy. The old political boss was not a bloodthirsty
man, but he was beginning to suspect that perhaps his son-in-law
was not alarmed without cause.
"You have not heard what happened in the Temple," pursued
Caiphas, ready to play his winning card. "Did you know that this
harmless Galilean fanatic, as you called Him, entered the Temple,
kicked over the tables of our money-changers, and drove our dealers
out with a whip?"
"Attacking our dealers?" Annas was instantly scandalized.
"He said, *Make not my Father's house a place of merchandise.' **
"His father's home? And He scourged our changers!"
, "Did I not say so?"
"And people are listening to this man, you say?"
"They greeted Him with palms last Sunday, and called hosannahs
to Him. There is not one of the inns in Jerusalem tonight where
they do not debate if He is or is not the Messiah, the Christ!"
"Tell me just what happened there at the Temple!"
"He was teaching, but all the while, out of the corner of His
eye, He watched the people going up to change their money at the
tables of our bankers. My spies told me everything: how His eyes
glowed darkly and how He played with a loop of ropes in His
hand, picked up idly in His walk. Slowly He moved through the
throng of buyers and sellers, watching the profits made on the sale
of sheep and pigeons. Then His hands moved swiftly. With in-
credible dexterity He fashioned for Himself a whip out of those
21 8 THE GREATEST STORY EVER TOLD
cords, a scourge, and suddenly He let fly with that whip. He flailed
the backs of our money-changers, and turned over their tables so
that the money spilled and ran tinkling over the marble floor. This
sudden move of His so startled the crowd that they fell back and
left Him standing, breathing heavily, face moist, strong hands lifted,
and His voice deep as He told them in a voice full of scorn and anger:
" *It is written: "My house shall be called the house of prayer
to all nations," But you have made it a den of thieves. Take these
things hence and make not my Father's house a house of traffic.'
"No one challenged Him, no one laid a hand upon Him, He
walked out of the Temple back to His lodgings. His disciples were
frightened, let me tell you. They expected trouble. And they are
going to get it, . . , Oh, and one thing more! He told the people
there was no need for them to buy doves and lambsJehovah re-
quired no sacrifice on the altar. He, Himself, would be the sacrifice
for them all WabP 9
"Wah/ 99 rumbled the echoing Annas. "When the feast is over, then
we shall go after Him, Caiphas."
"Lord Annas, we can't wait that longnot another day, even. The
mobs might rise up and rescue Him."
"We must raise our own counter-rabble!" decided Annas sud-
denly.
"To denounce Him?"
"Of course! For blasphemy! And treason. The first to worry the
poor pious fools of the Pharisees. The second to worry Pilate."
"Lord Annas," exclaimed the high priest, with a noisy exhalation
of his breath, "you understand at last!"
For the first time since his son-in-law had arrived, Annas rose
from his chair. His oblong old face, that had been so animated, was
suddenly as unmoving as a mask, unlighted with the glow of thought;
a lantern whose candle had blown out.
There was in this moment an inexplicable fear in Annas. He knew
his son-in-law to be a thoroughgoing scoundrel. Here Annas was,
for the first time, giving up his own judgment to Caiphas. There was
something terrifying in that simple fact. The white and wrinkled
visage was without expression and the humming voice seemed to
creep from the stiff lips:
"You don't believe this Jesus has any real miraculous powers, of
course? Any gifts our learned scholars have not yet discovered? n
<< Why do you jest with me, Lord Annas?"
THE THIRD YEAR 2 19
"Something makes me hesitate to enter on this business. So hurried
an arresta trial under conditions unorecedented in all our his-
tory . . ."
"But Lord "
"Peace! My practical good sense tells me* I am justified in agree-
ing to your plans. It is only inside of me . . ."
"Your soul?" mocked Caiphas, white teeth shining through his
beard.
"If I believed in a soul, that would, no doubt, be it. Yet look at
it this way, Caiphas! I sincerely believe that with fanatical crowds,
commoved and unsettled, cheering on a revolutionary leader in the
streets, the patriotic folly of our people may lead them to excess.
It could easily happen at any time during the next few days. Pilate
would then have to order Roman troops to take action. That would
certainly mean resistance, riot, bloodshed, death! It might also in-
crease the restrictions kid upon the whole people by the Romans.
Is it not logical to act to prevent that, Caiphas?
"Furthermore, I am anxious to show the Roman authorities how
sincerely I want to co-operate. And so "
"And so, Lord," urged Caiphas, "we can convince the full coun-
cil that it is expedient for them that one man should die for the
people and that the whole nation perish not."
"You have made definite plans, I suppose?"
"I don't have to tell you that the practical and legal difficulties
were enough to discourage even a man of action like myself. Get-
ting the court to agree to assemble in the dead of nightand to keep
their clacking tongues quiet beforehand that in itself was no simple
task. But they realized now there is an emergency!
"Arranging for witnesses is not proving to be easy, either, let
me tell you. No one seems to want to talk against Jesus. I have
worked harder on this . . ."
"But what about ratification?" interrupted Annas. They both
knew perfectly well that while the Sanhedrin could pronounce the
death sentence, before it could be carried out Pilate, the Procurator,
had to agree to it. "Can you secure Pilate's approval of the death
sentence in time? You must kill this man before the crowds find out
what you are doing! If you don't . . ."
"I know, Lord. We are doing this against the wishes of our peo-
ple* There may be mobs rioting to save Him. The whole plan is
carefully laid out up to the door of Pontius Pilate . . ."
22O THE GREATEST STORY EVER TOLD
"And then?" Annas's voice, harsh and guttural, was like the croak
of a raven.
"And then we all draw back. We leave Pilate to you. You are the
one man in Judea who knows how to handle him."
The flattery was not lost. The face of the withered little man
flushed and his quivering fingers spiraled through his scanty beard.
"So," he sighed benignly, "you set out to save the nation and
wind up by asking me to save you from your own folly. Very well,
since it is necessary, I will do it. Send out and arrest Jesus!"
The high priest lifted his large soft hands.
"Sorry, Lord Annas. We don't know where to find Him tonight.
He constantly eludes our spies, as if He were a sorcerer with power
to change His shape, or disappear. But if you will permit, there is
a man outside . . "
"An informer?"
"One of his own men. He will talk only to you."
"Do we really need him?"
"Those who could tell us where He hides for the night all seem
to be His friends," answered Caiphas, with an exasperated air. "Only
this one man seems to be amenable."
"Well," sighed Annas, "it is sometimes necessary to make use of
traitors, but they always turn the taste of a decent man's spittle.
Send in your man."
And Joseph Caiphas, going to the outer hall with bumptious stride,
called softly:
"You may come in, now Judas Iscariot."
Chapter 54 THE UPPER ROOM
AT SUNDOWN of that same day thirteen men met to celebrate the
Passover in a great gray hall, an upper room in a house on Mount
Zion, northeast corner of the height of Jerusalem.
In the tall-roofed chamber with heavy beams holding up the ceil-
ing the only furnishings were rattan divans and a long oaken table,
on which tall candles were burning. The flickering flames played
upon the sturdy figures of the Apostles and repeated them in dis-
torted shadows against the unwindowed walls.
THE THIRD YEAR 22 1
During the afternoon their sacrificial lamb had been properly and
ritually killed in the forecourt of the Temple sanctuary; soon, now,
the roasted carcass would be eaten, when the day of the Pasch was
legally come; with the twilight came a new day, beginning when
the sun went down an analogy full of hope.
Now they were all gathered here in this room as by a kind of
miracle. They had not known where to turn or how to proceed
when the Master called to Him Peter and John and told them to
arrange matters.
"But where?" mumbled Peter in his always exasperated and im-
patient voice.
The answer was casual, but specific:
"Look, as you go into the city there shall meet you a man carry-
ing a pitcher of water; follow him into the house where he enters.
And you shall say to the goodman of the house: The Master saith
to thee, where is thy guest chamber where I may eat the Pasch with
my disciples?' And he will show you a large dining room furnished
and there prepare."
Every word of which came true immediately. Now here they
were assembled in that same goodman's upper room, all twelve, with
only the Master yet to appear.
In spite of the warnings Jesus had given the Twelve, none of
them realized, or was willing to believe, that this would be their
last meal together. They were still too earthbound and too worldly
to grasp, as they would later, the great historical realities of the
drama in which they were actors, playing, as a group, a major role.
At such a tragic time, while they were still a good long way from
being saints, and while waiting for the Master to join them, they
began arguing among themselves all over again about priority. In
spite of previous rebukes, they argued once more which of them
would be the greater, which would be the closest assistant to the
Master, in the glory of the future.
Perhaps, too, they counted on the fact that if Jesus heard about
it, He would forgive such weaknesses in His chosen ones, because
He really loved diem, knowing that men must be lovableif at all
not because of the absence of defects, but because of the presence
of merits. John once said of Him: "Jesus, having loved His own
who were in this world, loved them until the end,"
But the Master did not permit this inexcusable bickering on such
a solemn occasion to pass without a final admonition.
222 THE GREATEST STORY EVER TOLD
In the very midst of their squabbling He suddenly appeared,
wrapped in a long blue cloak, at the doorway. Their sudden silence
was again that of back-yard children, discovered in some naughti-
ness. This time Jesus did not admonish them in mere words, but
in unmistakable action.
His garments laid aside, He stood facing them with only a towel
wrapped around Him. In the unbroken and bewildered quiet, un-
disturbed by so much as the clearing of a throat, Jesus poured water
from a pitcher into a basin. Then He knelt at the foot of his strong-
est and strangest disciple.
"Master," gasped Peter, "do you wash my feet? No! No! You
must notr
Jesus, on His knees, looked up at the great, heavy-handed fisher-
man.
"What I do, you know not now but you shall know hereafter,"
Peter's face suddenly turned a deep maroon and he shouted:
"You shall never y never wash my feet!"
The disciples were thunderstruck at Peter's vehemence. But the
Master's warning voice was as calm with him as it had been with
the storm over the Lake of Galilee,
"If I wash you not, Peter, you shall have no part with me."
Peter gasped and glared hopelessly around him, then bowed his
head and groaned:
"Lord, not only my feet but my hands and my head."
Turning next to John, Jesus washed the calloused feet of that
long-tramping apostle. Twenty-two feet he washed, laving, rubbing,
and drying toes and instep and heel with the towel with which he
had girdled himself, and at last he came to Judas.
Some in the room had already noticed that a strange mood had
fallen on the treasurer and keeper of the bag. Tonight the son of
Simon Iscariot seemed afflicted with melancholy; there was in him
none of the love-feast spirit which should dominate the meal. Pale,
glassy-eyed he sat, limp and yet fixed; the crown of stiff red curls
did not move, nor the hairs of the curly red beard turn even an
inch; the brooding eyes, so intensely small and so black, had lost
all familiar gleam and authority; it was as if Judas were looking
upon some dire vision, visible only to him.
Jesus got up, carried His basin, and knelt to Judas. As he me-
thodically washed the treasurer's thin, long feet, He said:
THE THIRD YEAR 223
"He that is washed needs but to wash his feet but is clean wholly.
And you are clean "
He paused and looked up straight at Judas.
"-but not wholly!" He added, with a sigh. He finished the busi-
ness of the washing, threw out the water, and put on His own gar-
ments.
Then he sat at the table surrounded by the twelve familiar faces.
His arms were opened, His hands lying, palms up, unmoving on
the snowy napery. His eyes were lowered and He looked at no one.
To his right sat the pale-faced John, his cheek almost touching the
Master's shoulder; and farther to the right, baldheaded Peter, absent-
mindedly sharpening a long knife against the tip of his horny thumb.
Near him, Andrew and Zelotes. To the left were bearded Matthew,
and Jude Thaddeus, the oldest man at the Last Supper; curly-haired,
black-bearded Thomas, doubting churl but a loyal and faithful man
nonetheless; James the Greater, of long and powerful physique;
beardless Philip, almost feminine in his gentle aspect; Nathanael
Bartholomew at the end of the table, with James the Lesserand
finally, on the opposite side, as if set apart from all others, Judas
Iscariot.
"With desire," Jesus told them, "I have desired to eat this pasch
with you before I suffer."
He made the words as emphatic as he knew how.
"For I am telling you that from this time I will not eat it till it
be fulfilled in the Kingdom of God!"
And going straight back to the argument which He had begun,
with the washing of their feet, He asked:
"For which is greater, he that sits at table or he that serves?
"But I am in the midst of you as he that serves; and you are they
who have continued with me in my temptations. And I dispose to
you, as my Father disposed to me, a kingdom, that you may eat and
drink at my table in my kingdom."
After a long silence He lifted His voice in one of the psalms of
David, which all sang feelingly. A cup was passed and blessed:
"Blessed be Thou, O Lord, our God, Thou King of the world Who
has created the fruit of the vine!" Each had his portion, then, of
the bitter herbs, endive and lettuce, dipped into a compote of al-
monds, nuts, and figs. By the color of these f raits they were reminded
of the bricks, which their ancestors had to make without straw.
224 raE GREATEST STORY EVER TOLD
With this bitter dish they again ate the bread of misery, the Mazzoth
to remind them of the hasty flight out of Egypt. Then they ate the
Easter Iamb, and drank a third cup, which, as good and religious
Jews, they all knew to be the cup of blessing.
It was then that Jesus lifted up His hands.
"Know you what I have done to you?" He asked them. "You
call me Master and Lord. And you say well, for so I am. If I then,
being your lord and master, have washed your feet, you also ought
to wash one another's feet. For I have given you an example, that
as I have done to you, so you do also. I say to you, the servant is not
greater than his lord.
"I speak not of you all when I said you are clean now. I know
whom I have chosen, but that the Scripture may be fulfilled: 'He
that eats bread with me shall lift up his hand to betray me,' At pres-
ent I tell you, before it comes to pass, that one of you that eats with
me shall betray me."
These sudden and completely shocking words of die Master re-
sounded frighteningly in the dining room. This was the first time
He had ever said anything like that. The Twelve had not had the
slightest hint of what was coming. Jesus had seemed to trust them
all completely; showed suspicion of none, not in all their three years
of journeying through Palestine. The charge of treachery stunned
them.
True, the old religious books were full of prophecies that the
Messiah would be sold out by one of His friends. True, too, they
believed Jesus was the Messiah. But never, never, had they actually
brought the old prophecies home to themselves; as for the betrayal*
even if they had remembered the predictions, they would never,
for a moment, have believed that the forecast of treason was meant
for one of the Twelve.
Their faces were full of sorrow as they pointed fingers to their
own breasts, looked imploringly at Jesus, and one after another,
man by man, asked Him the same question:
"Is it I?"
"Is it I, Lord?"
"Who is it?" shouted Peter, glaring around at them all.
And John, who loved Jesus intensely, was even at that moment
leaning his head on the Master's bosom; the young disciple gently
echoed the fisherman's voice;
"Lord, who is it?"
THE THIRD YEAR 225
"He it is to whom I shall reach bread dipped/' Jesus answered.
"He that dips his hand with me in the dish, he shall betray me."
They were like frozen men, unable to move, as the Master dipped
a morsel of bread in the dish of lamb and gravy and then very quietly
held it out toward Judas.
The voice of the treasurer trembled as he croaked:
"Is it I, Master?"
"You have said it," answered Jesus. Even then He could not keep
the pity from His eyes. "That which you do, do quickly."
As John wrote later, Judas received the morsel of bread and
gravy and then fled from the room; the door slammed heavily be-
hind him.
"And," John added, "it was night."
Even now the disciples found it hard to take in. True, Judas, son
of Simon, was the least popular among them, but who could believe
he would sell his Master's life? Such a thing still seemed beyond
belief. As they looked at the door, closing behind the escaping Judas,
they told themselves, with the same fatuity with which good men
always doubt the existence of abomination, that Judas must have
been sent out on some business mission. After all, he held the purse;
perhaps Jesus had sent him off to buy supplies for the festival day,
or on some urgent errand to give money to the poor.
But when Judas was gone from the candlelit refectory, Jesus
made no further reference to him. Instead, He took the bread, and
broke it, passing a piece to each of the eleven, as he said:
"Take you and eat. This is my body."
They ate. Then He filled with wine the chalice, one of the litur-
gical cups of the paschal rite, as Melchizedek had once offered a
sacrifice of bread and wine in the very beginning days. And now
Jesus gave thanks and passed the chalice of wine to the eleven, say-
ing:
"Drink you all of this. For this is my blood of the new testament
which shall be shed for many unto remission of sins. Do this for a
commemoration of me."
And they all drank of it all except Judas, who had gone, but who
was still crouched on the stairway outside listening to the great new
rite, the way in which a man becomes one with God and he knew
that for him it was too late.
226 THE GREATEST STORY EVER TOLD
Chapter $5 THE PARTING
THIS was the time of the real parting between Jesus and those who
loved Him in this world.
What He said to His faithful eleven, after that first communion,
was a farewell, not merely to them, but to Mary and to His friends
in Bethany and to all those, born and unborn, who would love Him
and keep His ways,
"Little children," He told them softly, "yet a little while I am
with you. You shall seek me, and as I said to the Jews: 'Whither I
go, you cannot come/ so I say to you now.
"A new commandment I give unto you: that you love one an-
otheras I have loved you, that you also love one another!"
And, as often before, He told them they would be ashamed of
Him, but now His forecast of this odious act was not in the inde-
terminate futurebut tonight!
They would be ashamed of Him within the next few hours, but
after He was dead and buried, they would find Him waiting there
and then he made a post-mortal appointment, a rendezvous after
death in Galilee!
And now He made to Peter a most extraordinary statement. Here,
in the upper room, was bald and bearded Peter with the freckled
nose; Peter, the rock on which Christ would build the church secure
against the gates of hell; Peter, to whom Jesus now said:
"Simon! Simon! Look, Satan has desired to have you that he may
sift you as wheat,
"But I have prayed for thee that thy faith fail not, and thou, being
once converted, confirm thy brethren."
Peter looked wildly insulted. That Satan desired him, he well
knew. That the Master prayed for him was a great blessing, although
Peter felt he could defeat the devil by his own strength, if he needed
to. But to be told that he would someday be converted . . .
Peter coughed and grew red in the face at the thought.
"Lord," he said, as if he might even reprove the Master, "I am
ready to go with thee both into prison and to death.'*
Jesus looked at him compassionately. Prison? Aye, the Mamartine
THE THIRD YEAR 22J
in Rome would be one of his prisons. Death? Upside down on a
cross, Peter, at your own humble request, because you will not feel
worthy to be crucified head side up as was the Master. Peter! Peter!
"I say to thee, Peter, the cock shall not crow this day till thou
three times deniest that thou knowest me!"
Peter roared a protest. So did all the other disciples. But Jesus
held out His arms to them, even while Peter was shouting to the
rafters:
"Although I should die together with thee, I will not deny thee."
A grim silence settled upon them as He turned and motioned
them back to their divans. Once He had told them to go without
scrip or purse and shoes; now there were to be changed conditions
and new orders; let them carry money and weapons; a man could
sell his coat to buy a sword. "For the things concerning me have an
end."
They showed Him two swords and He said they were enough.
Speaking in a whisper, He gave them His final charge:
"Let not your heart be troubled. You believe in God, believe also
in me."
They sat, listening intently, yet not understanding that God him-
self was with them there. Much must be done before the full truth
would come to them, the mystery of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost,
all three but one divine reality. But in only a moment Jesus was to
make a clear statement on that point.
"In my Father's house there are many mansions. If it were not
so, I would have told you; I go to prepare a place for you. And
whither I go, you know, and the way you know."
He paused because He could read their hearts. That brave, flinty
old skeptic, Thomas, with the cast in his eye, leaned forward.
"Lord, we do not know whither thou goest and how can we
know the way?"
To which came an immediate answer that men have been quoting
ever since, for two thousand years:
"I am the way, the truth, and the life. No man cometh to the
Father but by me. If you had known me, you would, without doubt,
have known my Father also. And from henceforth you shall know
Him, and you have seen Him."
Did He mean what He seemed to be saying? The question burst
from Philip:
"Lord-show us the Father and it is enough for us."
228 THE GREATEST STORY EVER TOLD
Jesus waited a moment, as if He were looking backward three
years into mortal time, when that Andrew, sitting there on the other
side of the table, had brought to him a shy young friend with the
Greek name of Philip. That thoughtful youth had been escaping
Bethesda because of its brutal wickedness. That same Philip had
brought Nathanael into their party. Yet listen to Philip now:
"Lord, show us the Father and it is enough for us. 7 '
"Have I been so long a time with you," sighed Jesus, "and have
you aot known me? Philip, he that seeth me, seeth the Father also;
how sayest thou, show us the Father? Do you not believe that I
am in the Father and the Father in me? The words that I speak
to you, I speak not of myself. But the Father, who abideth in me,
He doth the works."
There they had it, full in the heart. He was not merely a rein-
carnation of some old prophet, or the new messenger of the Lord;
aot merely a messiah to lead the people into a new dream of peace
he was in himself God, one with the Father Almighty, the Master
of heaven and earth,
Only now, an hour from Gethsemane, twelve hours from Calvary,
could He tell them this. Had He said it to them before, they could
not have lived with Him as disciple and Master; they would have
been crushed with awe. At last they had been told the full, paralyz-
ing truth. But much more must come before they would fully be-
lieve.
At that candlelit table in the upper room God sat with them now.
"If you shall ask me anything in my name, that I will do.
"If you love me, keep my commandments.
"And I shall ask the Father, and He shall give you another com-
forter. He may abide with you forever.
"I will not leave you orphans; I will come to you . . .
"If any one love me, he will keep my word and my Father will
love him, and we will come to him and will make our abode with
him.
"But the Paraclete, the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send
in my name, He will teach you all things, and bring all things to
your mind, whatsoever I shall have said to you."
Peter gave a great sigh of relief. His brain had been dizzy with
his worries. How was he to remember all the wisdom of the Master,
not one word of which was yet written down? Now he knew. The
Comforter would come. The Holy Ghost from heaven would be
THE THIRD YEAR 229
the guardian of the church he was to found. The Holy Ghost would
bring it all back to mind. A load was lifted from the heart of the
tormented fisherman. He turned again to hear the Master's farewell:
"Peace I leave with you; tny peace I give unto you; not as the
world gives, do I give unto you. Let not your heart be troubled nor
let it be afraid. I am the vine, you the branches; he that abideth in
me, and I in him, the same beareth much fruit.
"If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, you shall ask
whatsoever you will, and it shall be done unto you. This is my com-
mandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. Greater
love than this hath no man, that a man lay down his life for his
friends.
"Arise! Let us go!"
And one by one they followed Him to Gethsemane,
Chapter 56 THE BARGAIN
SALLOW-FACED Judas slouched through the door at the farther end
of the red-walled apartment and approached the two elders with
graceless steps. All his life, in all that he did, there was a boorish-
ness, an awkwardness in Judas, a maladdress and a roughness that
gave to his whole manner an uncouth swagger. He was a red-bearded
man with tough curly hair, thick with ringlets, and his eyes chron-
ically swollen. The movements of his body were quick and jerky,
as if his strength lay not in muscle and sinew, but in an abundance,
a very torrent of nervous energy. His straw sandals squeaked on
the marble floor as he made a stiff, perfunctory bow to Annas,
"Peace be with you," said Annas softly, and Joseph Caiphas bowed
his head; he had retired into shadow.
"Your name, my son?"
"Judas, son of Simon."
"Where do you come from?"
"Kerioth."
Annas scribbled on a piece of parchment with a goose-quill pen,
and while continuing to write, pursued his examination. His next
question was asked with the utmost casualness:
"How long have you been a friend of this Jesus of Capernaum? "
230 THE GREATEST STORY EVER TOLD
"Jesus of Nazareth, Lord~I have been his friend for three years."
"How did it happen that you, a good man from Kerioth, took up
with one of these wild Galileans?"
"I believed in Jesus," replied Judas.
"Believed what about Him?"
"Everything."
A flash of anger came into the old man's bright eyes; then he
clucked his tongue and exchanged a rapid glance with his son-in-law.
"Then why do you offer to betray Him, now, in His hiding place
for the night?"
"Understand me clearly," exclaimed Judas in a voice deepening
with indignation. "I am not a common informer. What I do, I do
and why, is my affair and I do not wish Him to come to any harm."
Old priest and young priest remained silent
"You do not intend any harm to Jesus, do you?" persisted Judas*
"Do you doubt the mercy, the justice, or the wisdom of the
judges of Israel?" demanded Caiphas.
"No, I believe in the Sanhedrin as the true judges of the Lord."
The eyes of Judas were filled with a flickering light as he said
these words.
"I believe," said Annas acidly, "that you are a revolutionist. Do
you know that I could send you to prison?"
"No, Lord Annas! You have no evidence against me."
U I found evidence enough only yesterday against a conspirator
called Barabbas! Another fellow trying to stir up trouble and bring
us all to ruin. You have been foolish, my son, if you have harbored
thoughts of revolution. What did you do all these three years with
Jesus?"
"I carried the bag; I was His treasurer; that is how much He
trusted me."
"Did you have much money to handle?" asked Annas.
"A few pence at our most prosperous time. We trusted to God
for what we ate and where we slept."
"Are you sure Jesus didn't keep some back for Himself?"
iC Yes, I am sure of that!" shouted Judas. "How can you "
"Judas!" snapped Caiphas. "You forget yourself."
Judas stopped his mouth with the palm of his hand, then bowed
low.
U I am truly sorry," he muttered. "Please forgive me. I must try
to forget Him and all His works. I was under His spell that was
THE THIRD YEAR 23!
it and now the scales have fallen from my eyes and I see Him as
He really is. He charms you, and the thoughts He puts into words
sound wonderful. But these are violent times, and He talks soft
words. If anybody slaps you on a cheek, turn your head around
so he can slap the other one. Give in to everybody. Never resist any-
body."
"I think I begin to see," interrupted Annas. "You thought the
important thing was for Him to rally our people. Well, He had his
chance. He had it last Sunday, when He rode into this city and
the whole multitude fell at His feet, with hosannahs and acclama-
tions. Why, He could have done anything to that mob that He
wanted. What did He want?"
"Nothing. He was preaching some pacifist madness about the
Kingdom of God. He needs to be pkced under arrest "
"Protective arrest for His own good?"
"Yes, Lord," agreed Judas.
"Another question," went on Annas in a musing tone. "Did you
ever hear your Jesus attack the priesthood?"
"Yes, Lord."
"The details on that, now, please."
"You will do Him no real harm or punishment, Lord? He is at
heart a good man."
"We went over that before. How did He attack us?"
"Lord, He has told more than a dozen parables that would blast
you all out of the Temple."
Annas sucked his tooth noisily as he turned blankly toward Cai-
phas. "Then Jesus is a dangerous man," he grunted. "You have done
well to come to me."
He seized his pen.
"Who are the principal supporters of this fellow?"
As Judas bfegan to enumerate, Annas wrote down the names of
sixteen persons: the eleven other Apostles and Mary, the mother of
Jesus; Mary, the wife of Cleophas; Salome, the wife of Zebedee,
Mary Magdalene and Joanna, the wife of Chuza, who was Herod's
steward. These, Judas declared, together with Mary and Martha of
Bethany and their brother Lazarus, formed what might be called
the inner group of the followers of Jesus; they were His friends
and confidants.
"But does He not hobnob also with men of a much higher social
class?" asked Annas.
2J2 THE GREATEST STORY EVER TOLD
"Why not? While they have not openly avowed their member-
ship, they are strongly sympathetic. They are Joseph of Arimathea
and the counselor Nicodemus."
"You were right, Lord Annas!" exclaimed Caiphas savagely. "And
I never once suspected either of them."
"They have a right to their opinions, son-in-law. Now, Judas, one
thing more and we shall be finished. I believe you told the high
priest that tonight above any other time was the best to take Jesus.
Why was that?"
"Because it is the only time He would let you take Him."
"Riddles again."
"No riddle-a simple fact, Lord Annas. Jesus could escape fron?
your guard, disappear before your very eyes if He had a mind to.
I saw Him do that when the mob tried to kill Him in His home
town of Nazareth. The man is invulnerable, He is not capable of
being wounded or seized if He does not wish to be. But He expects
to be taken tonight."
"And why no miracles tonight?" requested Annas with sarcasm.
"Because He believes He must die. He keeps saying He must die
to save the world. Take Him now while He is in that mood and
He will not resist youso you," Judas added with heavy mockery,
"wiU be well off."
For a moment Annas and Caiphas talked together in low tones.
Annas suddenly stood up.
"Listen to these special instructions. Get for us their certain plans
for where they will spend tonight. That is important, my son we
must not take this man until Jerusalem is asleep, and we must be
through with Him before Jerusalem wakes up."
"No harm will come to Him?" reiterated Judas. .
"Leave everything to us and hurry."
"What I do, I must do quickly."
As Judas lifted his head, he heard a clink of silver. Annas was
bent over, trembling hands held up near the flame of the candle?
Judas saw that the old man was counting out money.
"I am not doing this for hire!" he blurted out.
The old man glanced at him witheringly,
"Hire? Hire a patriot? Don't be foolish, Judas. But I have had
too much experience in life ever to take anything for nothing. To-
morrow you will not come back to me with new demands you
wiU be paid off now. Thirty pieces of silver!"
THE THIRD YEAR 233
The coins clinked in the palm of Judas. The false apostle put it
idly in his bosom, bold eyes searching the red walls, as if he ex-
pected to see the hand of the Lord writing there to rebuke his per-
fidy.
"Hurry!" said Annas. "Or you will be late."
Judas stalked out
Chapter 57 A VISIT TO PILATE
THE conspirators, Annas and Caiphas, knew they had to hurry. The
difficulties confronting them only strengthened the resolve in Annas
to obtain the death penalty for Jesus, and to be satisfied with noth-
ing less.
Now that the old leader believed in the real danger of the situa-
tion, he was far more stirred than Caiphas, although outwardly still
calm and lordly. No one knew better than Annas what the conse-
quences would be to him, to his family, to his class, if Jesus prevailed.
It would mean the ultimate eclipse of the Temple aristocracy. The
idea of a workingman, a carpenter, coming to Jerusalem with such
a program and with power over the imagination of the people was
infinitely more disturbing than a messiah of the kind the malcontents
desired. A military messiah Rome would know how to answer; he
might be disturbing for a while, but any uprising of the people
would speedily enough be crushed,
Jesus came preaching something else: a revolution in the heart.
The sooner they killed that, the better.
But Annas was resolved also that the illicit plan must be put
through with the utmost appearance of legality.
"Thank God, Pontius Pilate is in residence at the palace," said
Caiphas,
"Pah!"
Annas spewed Pontius Pilate out of his mouth with his spittle.
"Lord Pilate will go along with me, I dare say. You make sure
of your witnesses, Caiphas men who will testify to the blasphemy."
The heart of Annas was elated now; even at his extreme age he
relished politics, intrigue, secret action. Obstacles had always hard-
234 THE GREATEST STORY EVER TOLD
ened the resolve of Annas; in the excitement he forgot his weariness
and felt young again. He tasted victory in advance.
It was nightfall when Annas set forth upon his errand. Boys with
torches went before and behind his litter as he was carried through
the narrow, crowded streets, The old man hated the bustle and con-
fusion of holiday times; he was glad that it was but a short way to
the castle of Antonia, where Pontius Pilate stayed when in town.
The crowds made way for the party as the bearers carried the
mighty Annas past the bridge that led over the little valley of
the cheese-masters, and higher up the Temple hill, scene of the old
man's activities through a lifetime. Dimly he could see the great
Temple in the deepening night: the forecourts rising, one over the
other, like terraces, and beyond, at the northwest corner, a glimpse
of the green stones of Pilate's castle. Threatening sign of the might
of empire, it rose upon a steep rock, fifty cubits high. Tonight, be-
cause of the festival, a double garrison of alerted Roman troops was
stationed in its walls and barracks; Pilate had sworn the people
should never riot again while he governed Jerusalem.
Annas came to the castle with an imprecation in his heart. He,
an aristocratic Sadducee, playing hand in glove with Pilate, actually
hated the Empire with a passion greater than Pharisee or revolu-
tionist. For one detail of oppression he hated it most of all. As
a symbol of their power, the Romans kept the sacred robes of the
high priest in the castle and would lend them back to the Jews only
on state occasions; tomorrow Caiphas might wear them for the Pass-
over, but then he would have to give them back again to the foreign
master. That detail of infamy was an excruciating symbol of sub-
jection*
Also Annas was well aware how deeply Pilate hated all Jews,
avoiding every possible contact with them, even while living among
them and governing them; he would certainly not be pleased at
this late caU by Annas. But this errand was an urgent political con-
sideration, by which the old man knew he could justify the intru-
sion and hold Pilate's ear long enough.
The litter bearers were halted at the gates of the Praetorium by
imperial guards. To a lowbred churlish guard Annas barked out his
name and mission; the Roman gave him surly glances but pulled a
chain which produced repeated clanging of a distant bell, and when
another guard came, turned in his name. Presently they let him pass.
Annas was in the castle of Antonia less than half an hour, but
when he came out, his eyes held the gleam of a man who has won.
THE THIRD YEAR 235
"When the case of Jesus comes before Pilate, the Nazarene will
die," he was thinking. "And that will be the end of it He will never
be heard of again,"
Chapter $8 WE ARE READY
BY THE time Annas reached home, a crowd had gathered before
his front door. Rough-looking men stood idly talking together, like
laborers waiting for a foreman to come and give orders. Which,
Annas reflected with satisfaction, was exactly what they were
laborers, hired mobmen, shouters, screamers, fist-shakers, noisy pro-
fessional pickets who would rail against any person or any cause for
pay. Tonight Caiphas would be their foreman.
Caiphas had worked swiftly. Not only had he assembled these
hirelings to give tongue at the proper time, and sound as if they
were the voice of all Judea, howling for blood, he had also assem-
bled a troop of Temple guards, sentinels without weapons. These
were men of the priestly classes, very important, too, and they let
you know it by the way they swung their shoulders as they walked
and the scornful way in which they looked past people in trouble.
Their duties were to guard the Temple and maintain order; they
tad already been greatly reproached for not having prevented the
disastrous scene in the Temple, when Jesus overturned the tables
and whipped the money-changers.
The priests charged that if these guards had been attending to
their business, such a thing would never have happened. But the
Temple militiamen replied that they had been attending to their
business, and f aithfully-they had charge of the singing and the in-
strumental music: the lyre, the dulcimer, the horn, and the sounding
brasses; they had to see that the Temple was kept clean; that the
building was kept in repair; and arrange for the buying of supplies,
the sewing and embroidery of the priestly robes. They must also
supervise the preparation of the vessels, the utensils, and the stuffs
used in the ceremonies, and the endless washing and dryings and
safeguards against defilement. So many technical points had to be
observed that the guards spent their whole terms learning the rules
and instructing the novices who would succeed them.
236 THE GREATEST STORY EVER TOLD
Presently they would be joined by Roman soldiers with armor and
swords, who would give empire authority to the arrest.
"You have acted quickly, Caiphas," said Annas, when once again
the old man and his son-in-law stood face to face in the room with
the red walls.
"Better than you realize," replied Caiphas, showing teeth through
his beard. "I have sent personal word to every single member of the
council, telling them all that the Sanhedrin must be prepared to
meet tonight and to stay in session until the case of this fellow is
disposed of. They will recognize how serious the emergency is in
the way I worded the call. Meanwhile, Judas is back."
"Judas?"
"Judas Iscariot, Lord the man who will take us to Jesus. He has
learned exactly where to lead us."
"Then are you ready?"
"At once!"
Chapter $9 THE DARK GARDEN
IT WAS well after nine o'clock and quite dark when Judas, ready
for his traitorous job, emerged through the back doorway of the
house of Annas and descended to the alley. Loitering before the
steps was the posse of the Temple guards; though forbidden to
carry arms, they had picked up staves and cudgels. Standing off from
them were the six Roman soldiers with an officer; they carried lan-
terns and torches, clubs, and staves.
Judas turned his back on them, stalking around a corner into a
jagged and poisonous-smelling little street. Not a sound was heard,
except the shuffling feet of the men, the clank of armor, and the
lonely howl of some faraway dog. The course they followed was
zigzag, a series of short, sharp detours; the streets were all rough
and full of holes, so the marchers made haste slowly. Pale in the
light of harvest stars loomed the Temple; then around a last reek-
ing corner the men came to a passageway cut in the southeastern
angle of the Temple wall and began the hazardous descent of a
flight of old stone steps falling sharply from the upper city to a
locked gate below.
THE THIRD YEAR 237
At this ancient portal, near to the pool of Siloam, the Roman of-
ficer talked with the gatekeeper and made arrangements for open-
ing up and admitting the party when they returned with their pris-
oner. On a promise of scourging, the terrified gatekeeper agreed to
keep his gate open and his mouth closed.
Meanwhile the imperial soldiers, facing the wall, grumbled to
one another.
Why this crawling through the dark in force to catch one man?
They had heard tales about their quarry. Report said the Nazarene
possessed mysterious powers; He could walk on the sea, the winds
of heaven performed His bidding, and once He had fed forty thou-
sand hungry people with one basket of loaves and fishes and every-
body had a bellyful. This wonder-worker and all His familiars
were said to lie hidden in some dark garden outside the city wall.
What might He be doing even now in that garden? Witchcraft?
Spells, conjurations, devil praying? Why must they be sent after
such a magician in the dark? Would not daylight have done as well?
Judas heard them talking among themselves and quietly reproved
them. Jesus had never harmed anyone. He was not a sorcerer. The
disciple reassured them, coaxed them to follow him as he led the
way through the gate and still farther down, until they reached
the brook Kedron that flows between Jerusalem and the Mount of
Corruption, Once, in this dark valley, the god Moloch had been
worshiped in human sacrifice.
Having passed beyond the mystical murmur of the brook, they
hastened on toward the Mount of Olives.
But the soldiers continued to grumble they were brave men, but
who would not be anxious about a fugitive with such powers as
chose?
Well, Judas assured them they need not fear Him tonight. Jesus,
he reported, was actually waiting for them to come and get Him
in a farmyard, an oil press called by some the Garden of Gethsemane.
It was really a series of gardens within enclosing walls a place He
had often visited before, but never so kte. On any other night by
this time He and His followers would be at the home of friends,
like Mary and Martha and Lazarus; with them and their neighbors
Jesus and His men stopped often.
But tonight He and eleven followers were late out of their beds.
What were they doing in the Garden? Judas did not know. It
did not matter anyway, he expostulated, again and again, as he
238 THE GREATEST STORY EVER TOLD
trudged beside them. The silver coins in his bag made a soft, jingling
noise as he walked. Nonsense! Nonsense! And Judas sighed heavily
as he led the long and mincing column of men who swung their
hissing torches and walked like women, not to stumble over the
stones.
Presently Judas called softly and lifted his hand, and they halted
at a high hedge, which served as a wall that completely enclosed
the area.
Now most of the party knew where they were. This was the
farmyard with the oil press a dark patch of olive trees in a familiar
triangle between the most-traveled footpaths over Mount Olivet and
the highroad to Bethany. Not a native in the city but had heard the
ribald jokes about the top of the hill where Solomon once built
houses for his heathen wives.
A little doorlike opening had been cut in the hedge that other-
wise completely enclosed the olive garden. Judas waved back the
guards while he leaned in and peered. Miraculously the darkness
seemed to soften then, as if the stars grew brighter. With narrow-
ing eyes Judas searched among gnarled and hunchbacked trees of
immemorial age; his long, shrewish nose took in the soft orchard
smell of ripening fruits and the damp sweetness of night greenery.
And the peaked ears of Judas reported the deep sound of die wind,
soughing and murmuring through those ancient olive boughs.
But where were the eleven and the Master? Dimly, Judas began
to make them out. That vast hunk of man sprawled on the grass, his
head on a rolled-up cloak, was surely Peter, snoring. The slim form
yonder by the pavilion platform was John, also deep in slumber.
Other dark smudges under the trees were unrecognizable, but Judas
counted eleven, all asleep. Their leader was invisible.
Judas would have entered then and brought the guards with
him, but he was stopped by the sound of a familiar voice at prayer.
He stood listening. Somewhere off in the deeper foliage there, where
he remembered a white boulder half buried in the earth, Jesus of
Nazareth was on his knees. Judas could hear the suffering voice:
"My Father! If it be possible, let this cup pass from me!"
The nostrils of Judas twisted in disdain.
"Afraid?" he murmured. "He is afraid! He is praying to be let
off to escape "
But Jesus was not done with His praying.
"Nevertheless, not as I will, but as you will."
THE THIRD YEAR 239
Then Judas was startled because of that double wishing prayer
to God; that ambivalence in Gethsemane. The Master wanted life,
yet if the Father to whom he prayed insisted, knowing what was
best, then He would obediently take death. The contradiction
stirred a deep resentment in the listening Judas. This humbleness
was unbecoming to a man. At the altar, from ancient times, the
people had struck the best bargain they could. Do this for me and I
will do that for you, O God! So the patriarchs and kings and
prophets had tried to do business with the infinite. But Jesus did not
seek to force his will; He sought instead, and Judas was astonished
by it, to come to an understanding of the will of God, that he might
obey it.
The silence after the prayer was touched by a low swishing sound
as by a trailing garment brushing the grass. Out of the dark and
walking by starlight the white figure of Jesus appeared, moving to-
ward a sleeping disciple. Judas could see him clearly now tall,
robed, walking barefoot across the chilly field. Jesus bent over the
snoring man.
"Peter! What! Could you not watch one hour with me? Watch
you and pray that you enter not into temptation. The spirit indeed
is willing but the flesh is weak . . . Sleep, now, and take rest. It is
enough! The hour is come! Look, the Son of Man shall be betrayed
into the hands of sinners. Rise up. Let us go. He that will destroy me
is at hand."
Then he reached forward his foot and with the bare toes gently
joggled Peter's shoulder. The fisherman grunted, rolled over, and
then sat up violently, his round face and pug nose and blinking eyes
turned upward.
"It is enough, Peter. The hour has come," Jesus said simply.
Peter scrambled to his feet and bared his knife.
Judas waited for no more. He laid a hard, damp hand on the
wrist of the leader of the band, and whispered:
"Now is the time. Let us go in and take Him. You will know Him
sure He will be the one I wiH Mss!"
The sound of rough voices and the clank of steel, the sight of
the fires, brought all the drowsy disciples to their feet. They blinked
at the frightening torch-lit scene, shining with the cold brilliance of
armor and swords.
Judas strode forward until he stood directly in front of Jesus.
"Hail, Master!"
240 THE GREATEST STORY EVER TOLD
Jesus moved toward Judas and seized him by the shoulders. Then
the arms of Christ drew Judas to Him and the disciple kissed the
Master on the cheek. At the signal, the Roman soldiers came for-
ward, weapons in hand. But Jesus did not at once let Judas go. He
held him tightly, His cheek laid against the tough ringlets, eyes
lifted, as if asking a favor of the invisible. Then at last he released
him, and as Judas stood back, the prisoner brought His hands to-
gether and held them out as He approached the Roman captain.
That was more than the panic-stricken Peter could bear. The
knife he had toyed with at the supper table gleamed in his hand a
knife with a blade five inches long, for gutting fish. This uplifted,
the stalwart Peter sprang at the officer-, there was a moment's tussle,
a disorderly struggle, and then the ironic voice of Jesus:
"Peter, Peter, put up your sword!"
And Peter's fishing knife fell at his feet.
A little soldier from the Temple scurried forward with a hand-
ful of ropes and began to tie the wrists of Jesus. That action was like
a warning to all the other disciples, who had been watching in
startled dismay.
This sudden invasion of men in armor and others armed with
* cudgels and staves filled them with fright. The torches burned like
small new worlds fuming in a dark universe. Voices rose in brawling
question. Peter and all the others were overwhelmed with fear for
their own safety. Stampeded, like wild creatures, they scampered off
into the night. One, wrapped only in a linen cloth, was seized by a
guard, but he tore himself free, leaving the garment in the soldier's
hands; naked, he vanished among the trees. Leaping the hedges and
running as fast as legs would carry them, they left Jesus, the captive,
alone.
Chapter 60 THE PRISONER
As HE waited for the prisoner to be caught and brought before him,
Annas, the most powerful man in Israel, felt depressed. Already he
foresaw certain trouble; no matter how many "niessiahs" they ex-
terminated, the troubles of the people continued to create the need
for salvation.
THE THIRD YEAR 241
The old man glared hopelessly around his grand salon and then,
rising from his stool, walked slowly toward the steps of his dais.
Wearily he mounted the platform and sat in the imposing chair, as
the door was flung open and the captain of the guard stood at at-
tention before Annas.
"Lord," he said, "we have done as you commanded. We have
taken the man prisoner. Behold him at the door Jesus of Nazareth!"
The prisoner was shoved forward so that, in a circle of light from
the hanging candelabrum, He came in full sight of Annas.
The political boss of Jerusalem was instantaneously jolted at his
first sight of the captured Jesus. He blinked and looked again. No
outer detail seemed important this tall, fettered man in the white
robe and sandals; what was it in Him that was so jolting, like to a
blow over the heart? It could not be the prisoner's luxuriant brown
hair and untrimmed beard; most peasants and mechanics so wore
their hair. It could not be the white turban wound loosely around
the head, for that was the national headdress, and the white turban
of Jesus fell at the side, as did most of the turbans in that place and
at that time, down to the shoulders and over the tunic; and, as did
His fellows, Jesus fastened His turban under the chin with a cord.
But the sharp eyes of the old politician did notice that the blue inner
robe of the prisoner was all of one piece and without a seam. The
garment had been given to Jesus by one of those women along the
way who had been grateful for His message. That night He was also
wearing a blue tallith, a loose-flowing mantle over His shoulders; at
its four corners were blue fringes.
By the looks of Him He was just an ordinary man with sandals
dusty from long tramping on the open road. Yet Annas sensed,
nevertheless, that his prisoner was not ordinary at all, but most extra-
ordinary. How was that? Whence that remarkable quality of sep-
arateness and power which Annas immediately felt in Jesus? Where
did it reside, and how did it visibly express itself?
Was it in the bright glory of His large eyes, set so wide apart, like
His mother's? Some inner energy of incalculable force looked out
of those large and patient and unfailingly interested eyes, of one to
whpm God was an overpoweringly intimate and personal experi-
ence. They spoke of an intimate understanding of the nearness and
goodness of the heavenly Father; a kind of unendurable ecstasy pro-
longed through life. It was as one who knew, moment by moment,
this deep and rich experience, that Jesus walked into the red-walled
242 THE GREATEST STORY EVER TOLD
room of the home of Annas; as one who felt no humiliation, though
His wrists were bound with leather cords that cut into His flesh.
Feeling himself in the presence of a mystery, Annas promptly de-
clined to take any stock of it and fastened his gaze approvingly on
the bound wrists of Jesus, but even so he was already aware of an
uneasy suspicion that you cannot tie up infinity with a string.
The prisoner looked around calmly. AU these men, hirelings,
hirers, judges, believed that the Lord God Almighty, the God of
Israel, of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob, was really a glorified mem-
ber of their caste; the land-owning, slave-owning, mortgage-fore-
closing aristocrats represented here. As Jesus regarded Annas and
Caiphas in that moment, He seemed to say:
"Joseph Caiphas, you are the high priest of the Temple and you
and your ancient father-in-law sanction the oppression of the poor.
You have helped the people to forget the eighth-century prophets;
I would call the people back to listen once more to the thunder of
those voices."
There was in that long glance of His from the face of Joseph
Caiphas back to the face of Annas almost a bemused compassion
for the political and judicial problems that confronted them in their
conspiracy against Him.
Annas, letting the silence stretch almost unendurably, seated him-
self again with determined aplomb, to listen to the reports. It was
good news that the prisoner's band of followers had deserted Him
and fled* That promised well; the fickle popukce, too, might not
resent His death so much as had been feared. Where were His sup-
porters now? Annas sucked his tooth with satisfaction. He had no
suspicion of the presence in the doorway crowd of two of those
very Galileans. One was a stout fellow, woolen robe belted with a
frayed old cord; beard turning white, pate turning bald; a rough
and fusty fisherman with freckled nose and lacking in city manners.
He was Sirnon called Peter, but Annas did not know about him.
Close by, but ignoring Peter as if the two had never met, was also
another fisherman, John, one of the sons of Zebedee a young man
with anguished face.
Annas beckoned impatiently for Judas, hovering in the rear.
"You promised there would be no resistance," he said with some
choler. "What happened about the soldier's ear, Judas?"
Judas lifted weary shoulders and shrugged.
44 That was just Peter," he groaned. "Crazy Peter who always
THE THIRD YEAR 243
loves to swagger and show off, no matter what happens, it was
Peter that resisted arrest; he should be punished, too, Lord, even
more than your prisoner here, for Peter is a very violent man."
"Was there an ear cut off?"
"An ear?"
"That is what I asked you. Was there an ear cut off, or wasn't
there? I have been just told children's tales about an ear restored
again on a soldier's head. Will you answer?"
All along Annas had merely been tolerating Judas, but now he had
had enough; he was in a heat of temper.
"I know not about the ear, Lord. There was a good deal of ex-
citement and shouting at the time. Perhaps so! But Jesus can do more
wonderful things than restore ears when He wishes to."
The glance of the sharp old eyes leaped quickly to the prisoner.
But Annas did not prolong his scrutiny. Something in has every
glance at the captive face disturbed him. Perhaps it was the tran-
quillity of Jesus, so composed, so at peace; the line of great decision
on the kindly mouth was upsetting too; there was in it no imperti-
nence and no overconfidence; nothing unfriendly or suspicious, but
it was the reflection of a great inner serenity, a sense of grace and
power that under the circumstances was hard to contemplate.
Annas made a churlish clearing of his throat and clapped his hands
together. His withered body seemed to grow taller as he resolved
not to be outstared by his prisoner. Let the fellow realize he was
brought first before Annas because Annas was the most important
man in Jerusalem, the behind-the-scenes power, the uncrowned
king of Israel and the multitude who had begun to murmur that
their Nazarene was "King of the Jews" must soon hear of this proud,
responsible moment; all the hardened arteries and clogged veins of
the old man glowed with a reborn physical warmth and sense of
power,
"Jesus, you are called a blasphemer!" began Annas; he held his
wrist tight against his ribs as he pointed to Jesus. "Are you a blas-
phemer?"
The ready smile of Jesus had in it no complaisance or appease-
ment. He looked about Him, comprehension without mockery in
His glance. When He spoke, His voice was calm and unshaken;
there was in His well-mastered tones the country accent of a Naza-
rene:
"I have spoken openly to the world* I taught in the synagogue and
244 THE GREATEST STORY EVER TOLD
in the Temple, where all the Jews come together-and in secret I
spoke nothing. Why do you ask me? Ask them that have heard me!"
A reluctant glitter of admiration came into the scornful eyes of
Annas. This self-assured prisoner was shrewd not one to be caught
easily in a snare. Promptly He had just taken His stand as an inno-
cent man, squarely on His rights and privileges as a citizen, living
under the law of Moses Annas and his crew would have to prove
those charges by witnesses in a court of law; that was the technical,
legal meaning of Jesus's answer.
"I see!" murmured Annas, milking his beard. "You demand
proof? Very well, Jesus of Nazareth, I hold you for trial. For imme-
diate trial Blasphemy!"
A noise ran through the mob listening at the open door, a noise
running back through vaulted sides of the courtyard to the open
steps that led down to the street. From Judas came a strangled cry,
and he grabbed at the cloak of Annas.
"Blasphemy! You would try Him for such a crime!" he protested.
"No, you promised "
A guard clapped a hand over the mouth of Judas. His tortured
eyes sought the face of Jesus; but the soldiers had turned Jesus
around and were already escorting Him out to the next stop on His
dark journey.
Chapter 61 DENIAL
FROM the hands of Annas, Jesus was led directly to the home of the
high priest which adjoined the Temple. The journey, which on foot
took less than twenty minutes, was made in silence, commanded by
the guards; at that hour it was like the very belly of darkness, and
the narrow, coiling Jerusalem streets were deserted. Except for the
hired mob, and Judas and the Roman soldiers, almost no one saw the
dismal procession on Its way to the judgment
Outside the priest's front door they waited for orders from Cai-
phas the mob surging around Jesus who, wrists bound, stood erect
between two soldiers. Not once did the luminous brown eyes turn;
had He looked left, He might seen a stout figure wanning tough
old hands nervously above a pan of coals. Peter!
THE THIRD YEAR 245
But Jesus did not see Peter then, nor did He look to the right
where, among the moist dark faces of hired disturbers, He might
also have seen the young and distrait face of John.
Peter was still wanning his hands when a young woman carrying
a bucket stopped suddenly before him. The girl's name was Huldah
and she was one of the favorite servants of Caiphas; she studied
Peter with slow recognition.
"You!" she said, something spiteful in her voice.
"I?" answered Peter in a worried tone.
"You. You were also with Jesus, the Galilean."
"I don't know what you are saying," stammered Peter, uneasy at
a lie.
"You 'were with Him," Huldah insisted, stamping her foot.
"Woman, I know him not," said Peter, and shook his head. He
moved off, hoping to lose himself in the crowd, but before he could
go two steps, another maid joined Huldah, crying shrilly:
"Surely he is one of them. He is a Galilean himself. Even the way
he talks gives him away."
Then Peter uttered an oath and swore:
"I don't know this man you are talking about."
The lying words had no more left his lips than there came a lull
in the clamor of voices and Peter heard the shrill crowing of a cock.
And when Peter turned he was looking into the eyes of Jesus, and
it was the compassion in those eyes that made the fisherman weep
bitter tears. Not reproof, but the full understanding of a loving
heart. The sound he heard when the cock crowed no more was the
gentle chuckle of God!
Chapter 62 THE JUDGES
THE prisoner was kept waiting outside the Hall of Judgment while
the crowd inside watched the space between two monoliths at the
entrance, where they knew He must very soon appear.
The high vaulted basilica of the council chamber where the trial
would be held was lit with hundreds of oil-burning torches set in
niches cut in the walk. An enormous auditorium, built of great
246 THE GREATEST STORY EVER TOLD
marble pieces, it was called the Hall of Hewn Stones, or Lishkath
Haggazith, and was regarded as the national shrine of Justice.
By eleven o'clock that Thursday night the majority of the sev-
enty judges were in their places; Caiphas had worked busily
enough. The roof echoed with the low drone of their voices-chat-
ter subdued by the solemnity of a capital occasion^Turbaned, bare-
foot, and cross-legged asquat embroidered cushions, they were
ranged in a deep hairpin design, a living letter U. And the judges,
rubbing finger tips, shaking heads, rolling eyeballs, spreading hands
fan-shape, shrugging shoulders, scratching buttocks, all were whis-
pering energetically, speculating on the suddenness of their sum-
mons and the anxiety that must have driven Annas to sanction such
an unprecedented move. Was it because he feared the powers of
magic with which the prisoner was said to be endowed?
At the bottom part of the U sat a blotch-faced old functionary
who was called the Nassi, chief of the assembly. Like a meditative
patriarch, he was conferring with the gorgeous and blooming Jo-
seph Caiphas. In ceremonial garments, the high priest ^was now a
sight to strike almost any prisoner with awe. Annas, his father-in-
law, was not yet visible.
At either tip of the human hairpin were stationed rows of little
men with inkhorns, quills, and strips of parchment; they would
record what was said and done. Beyond the scribes were three rows
of younger men: blackbeards, but few graybeards, for these were
only learned novices. If one of the squatting judges were to fall iU, or
become paralyzed or die, an understudy from the row of young sub-
stitutes would take the vacant cushion and the trial would go on.
All of these various ranks of men made up the Sanhedrin, most
potent ecclesiastical and secular assembly convoked now to try, un-
der the code of Moses, one accused of being a false prophet
They were learned scholars and of true character; among them
were schoolmasters and lawyers; Pharisees, too, fanatics who would
make every breath a man drew subject to some new and capricious
twist of scriptural interpretation, but they would be equally meticu-
lous to see to it that any prisoner got a square deal. For among them,
Pharisee, Sadducee, all, there was not one judge who did not accept
his responsibility, or who carried it lightly. These were counselors
who could not be threatened or influenced by outsiders, but only
by their own prejudices and fears. Theirs was the highest of all
honors, a place in the Sanhedrin, and they had obtained it only by a
THE THIRD YEAR 247
lifetime of hard work and sacrifice. As a man is acquainted with his
own fingers they knew the law; from memory they could cite prece-
dents and decisions of countless judges who had gone before
them, together with all essential passages of Scripture. They were
schooled, too, in science medicine, chemistry, astronomy; and they
also had to be familiar with the condemned practices of the black
magicians, the soothsayers, and the necromancers. All spoke the
language of Roman, Greek, and Egyptian as well as certain dialects
of neighboring countries. They were supposed to have a spotless
moral reputation, and many of them did.
They were, of course, rabbinical logicians and apt in dialectics.
Finally, not one of them had ever followed at any time in his life a
trade, an occupation, or a profession by which he had earned an in-
come.
The scope of this court had no boundaries within the range of
morals and dogma and human behavior* In its humanity, die detach-
ment of its attitude was oddly objective; an intellectual determina-
tion to be scrupulously just. Since from the court's verdicts there
could be no appeal, the sacred duty lay on the conscience of every
judge to protect the interests of those on trial. Their oaths bound
them to be actual attorneys for a prisoner. They must interpret the
law in his favor whenever that was possible; it was their explicit
duty to look for extenuating circumstances.
Since, then, the whole judicial scheme of Israel was designed to
make it impossible to convict an innocent person, these judges, if
they respected their oaths tonight, would have to acquit Jesus.
Annas knew that, if Caiphas did not.
One might be certain they would think a long time before they
beheaded Jesus, or strangled Him, stoned Him or burned Him, or
hung Him on a cross. In a dozen regulations their own laws stood
between Jesus and a sentence of death especially one great and
favorable point, that, in criminal procedure, was a final check on in-
justice called the "antecedent warning" a safeguard for a prisoner
unequaled in any other court of kw, before or since. Under its pro-
visions no man accused of a capital offense could be convicted un-
less it were also proved beyond contradiction that he had been
warned in advance; had been told that, for what he was about to do t
he could be put to death. Even more than that, it was required that
die offender must have then replied that he did realize he was about
248 THE GREATEST STORY EVER TOLD
to commit the crime, was fully aware of its penalty, and that he
meant to do it anyhow.
How could anyone ever be sentenced to death under such merci-
ful latitude? How, above everyone else, could Jesus of Nazareth be
convicted?
Through a small door to the left popped suddenly, like a breeze
of authority, the little figure of Annas. Promptly on the midnight
bugles he came, the crabapple face pale in the fluttering torchlight;
the wisp of white hair greased and pushed back. Solemnly the little
man marched to the table where stood Caiphas, arms folded in mag-
nificently pretended repose. Briefly Annas spoke to his son-in-law,
then made his way to a reserved cushion and sank down upon it
with a painful little grunt. Everyone knew that now the trial could
go on*
Without delay Joseph Caiphas strode forward with a grand sweep
of arms and robes and took a commanding position. He spoke in
serious, even gentle tones:
"I ask for silence! I ask for attention! I ask for truth and justice!"
In a low, responsive murmur came the chorused answer:
"So mote it be!"
Upon which Caiphas, turning to the great doorway, called out:
u jesus of Nazareth, stand forth!"
Chapter 63 ON TRIAL
AT THE top of the great stairs the figure of the prisoner appeared be-
tween two vast marble pillars. The guards stood back and let the
whole assembly get at look at Him. Seeing Him this second time,
Annas was jolted harder than before. The impregnability of that
alert and tranquil countenance tormented him, not because the old
one did not understand, but because he was beginning to suspect
that he understood too well.
The prisoner's calm humility was enough to pierce intellectual
pride. In one straight glance Jesus seemed to survey the whole en-
trenched and greedy power which here was marshaled against Him.
His head slightly tilted, He might have been listening to echoes of
the long-ignored voices of the prophets and seers of the people.
THE THIRD YEAR 249
The cackle and gabble of conversation dwindled as guards led
Jesus forward. It was just a few minutes past midnight. Now, in the
bright torchlight of the huge chamber, they sized Him up with the
most intense curiosity, and wondered at His calm. Did not this man
realize His peril?
He realized everything. He knew this court, with its full and
legal quorum assembled illegally in the night; its powers and un-
bounded jurisdiction; its ideals and its frail humanity; and im-
bedded in that humanity its fears.
And now Caiphas stood up in the middle of the hollow of the U.
On his head the high priest wore a turban of blue enwrought with
gold, and across his chest was the brass plate of his office glittering
with twelve precious stones. His flowing robe was also of blue, but
his girdle was of scarlet, purple, and gold, and out of his sleeves
fluttered the pure white linen of his sacerdotal underwear. Of the
whole court only he wore sandals, but you could barely see them
for the gaudy fringes of his robe embroidered with crimson pome-
granates.
Before the trial began Caiphas prayed with theatrical intonations
and histrionic pauses; he should have begun by making the morn-
ing sacrifice, but he skipped over that detail He merely lifted up
his hands and brought palms together just below the last ringlet of
his redolent beard, and a silence fell as the intoning voice fairly
crooned up to Jehovah. Caiphas, addressing the God who, as a pillar
of cloud by day and of fire by night, had led the Israelites out of the
bondage of Egypt, now entreated this same light to shine on the
deeds done here at this trial; that the elders, the priests, and the
scribes might know the truth and judge justly.
The prayer, as Nicodemus said afterward, was much too long.
As it was finished there was the uneasy rustling of men seizing a
little opportunity to settle themselves, clearing of throats, coughings
behind the hand, brief whisperings, neighbor to neighbor, and fi-
nally a full, expectant hush.
Caiphas gave a signal and the guards shoved Jesus down the last
two steps, into the hollow of the great U surrounded by His judges,
"Let every man know of what this Jesus of Nazareth stands ac-
cused," resumed Caiphas. "His crime is blasphemy. For that crime
He is now to be tried. He is accused of having used certain words,
of having said certain things. If these charges are true, if the wit-
nesses agree, then He is guilty not only of sacrilege, the most abom-
250 THE GREATEST STORY EVER TOLD
inable crime, but also of that charge which has been forbidden since
Moses gave us the law the crime of sorcery. Let the witnesses be
called."
First there was brought in a tall, gaunt; hungry man with eyes
that peered from under red lids in unaccustomed wonder at all this
height and depth of room, this display of torches and candles, this
splendor of wardrobe, this unaccustomed glory in the dark hour of
morning. Caiphas caressed his beard as he asked the first question.
"What is your name?"
"Ben Jezrel."
"You have promised to tell the truth. You have not forgotten
the commandment?"
Ben Jezrel put his hand under his right thigh in token that he had
spoken the truth and answered:
"I remember: 'You shall not bear false witness against your
neighbor.' "
Grossing his hands, the high priest began the recitation of ritual
words required by the code:
"Forget not, O witness, that it is one thing to give evidence in a
trial as to money and another in a trial for Hfe, In a money suit, if
your witness-bearing shall do wrong, money may repair that wrong.
But in this trial for life, if you sin, the blood of the accused and the
blood of his seed, to the end of time, shaE be imputed unto you . . .
Therefore was Adam created one man and alone to teach us that if
any witness shall destroy one soul out of Israel, he is held by the
Scripture to be as if he had destroyed the world, and he who saves
one such, it should be as if he had saved the world for a man from
one signet ring may strike off many impressions and all of them shall
be exactly alike, but He, the King of Kings, He the Holy and
Blessed, has struck from His type of the first man the forms of all
men that are living, yet so that no one human being is wholly alike
to any other!
"Wherefore let us think and believe that the whole world is
created for a man such as He whose life now hangs on your words!"
Caiphas waited for a moment and then began the formal question-
ing:
"Did you actually see and hear the prisoner commit the crime
with which He is charged?"
"Yes."
"Did you caution the prisoner of the gravity of His offense?"
THE THIRD YEAR 25!
"I did."
"And he persisted?"
"He did/'
"Did you warn Him of the punishment to which He would be
liable if He were convicted of the offense?"
"I did, sir."
"Do you think He was aware of the serious nature of His crime?"
"I am certain that He was."
"Now, what were the words you heard Him say?"
"I heard this man say these words," Ben Jezrel testified: *I will
destroy this Temple that is made with hands and in three days I will
build another not made with hands.' "
A murmur ran through the elders, the priests, and the scribes. Had
this Galilean dared to say such a thing? Would He deny it?
Caiphas turned toward the prisoner,
"Well, Jesus of Nazareth, what have you to say to this that you
have heard?"
There was no answer.
"Do you deny the testimony of Ben Jezrel?"
Jesus, wrists bound, face untroubled, stood mute in the great
lighted hall. To remain silent was His legal right.
"Do you admit that you said those words?"
Still no answer. Caiphas turned, with a long sweeping grimace
that encompassed the whole court. His shrug seemed to say to
them: "You see how it is? We have a stubborn, stiff-necked prisoner
here." But he scrupulously refrained from saying any word detri-
mental to the accused. Instead, he dismissed Ben Jezrel with a toss
of his hand.
"Bring on the second witness."
The second witness was Isaac ben Marath, a good man from King
David Street, a poor merchant in beans and barley but one who,
nevertheless, gave up his tithes to the Temple three times a year.
"Well, Isaac ben Marath," began Caiphas, ^tdl us what were the
words you heard spoken by this man?"
And Isaac ben Marath answered:
"I heard Jesus of Nazareth say: 'Destroy this Temple, and in
three days I will raise it up/ "
"You may go!" said Caiphas, turning with triumph to the whole
court, right and left, seeming to say: "Well, judges, you have heard
the necessary two witnesses. Does not their testimony agree?"
252 THE GREATEST STORY EVER TOLD
As if in answer to that unspoken question, one of the most re-
spected members of the court, Joseph of Arimathea, brought his
knees together and stood up with an agility surprising in so elderly
a man.
"The witnesses do not agree!" Joseph sternly declared. "If you
think they do, you are very much mistaken. The first witness testi-
fied I have written down very carefully what he said that this
prisoner, Jesus, had uttered these words: I will destroy this Temple
that is made with hands and in three days I will build another not
made with hands.' That is one accusation we have heard.
"But the second witness said something entirely different; he at-
tributes to Jesus an entirely different statement which was, accord-
ing to him: 'Destroy this Temple, and in three days I will raise it
up." 5
A new murmur ran through the court, some saying one way,
some another. They no more agreed among themselves than had the
witnesses. But Joseph went doggedly on.
"In the first instance/' he argued, "Jesus is accused of announcing
His intention of destroying the Temple and then restoring it by
sorcery. In the second instance He is quoted as promising to restore
the Temple if someone else destroyed it. Which, then, did He actu-
ally say? Certainly one of these witnesses must be wrong, and our
law says that at least two witnesses must agree!"
Caiphas, looking imploringly toward his father-in-law, had re-
ceived an almost imperceptible signal. He gave vent to a deep breath
of outraged annoyance, and answered:
"Very well; there is no need to argue the point. Let us hear from
another witness."
Now Jacob, the corn seller, was a man Caiphas felt he could rely
on, and he was there to be used in an emergency. Willingly Jacob
slapped his thigh for the oath, 'answered the ritual questions, and
was brought promptly to the point: he had been there in the Temple
and he had heard what Jesus said.
"What, then, did He say?"
"He said," replied Jacob, ruffling a somewhat tattered beard,
"these exact words: *I am able to destroy the Temple of God and
to build it in three days.* "
Again Caiphas turned to the Sanhedrin with a vindicating smile.
But now there was a deeper murmur, and Joseph of Arimathea was
again on his feet
THE THIRD YEAR 253
"This," cried Joseph, "is confusion piled upon confusion. Here we
have a third testimony and what we call a vain, useless one. This
third witness now quotes the prisoner as saying: 'I am able to destroy
this Temple/ This is not what the others said; not the same thing at
all The first testified to a threat-the third to a mere boast.
"Which is it then, threat or boast? Or was it anything at all? A
man's life hangs on the answer. Our law requires that the witnesses
must agree together. Three have already disagreed. Caiphas, you
have produced no case against Jesus of Nazareth!"
"In all three testimonies," replied the high priest, in a shrill voice,
"the witnesses agreed in one essential point: they all say three days,
do they not? Is not that agreeing together?"
Joseph smiled disdainfully.
"That is reasoning for a Roman, but not for a Jew," he replied.
"I remind you again, Lord Caiphas, this man is on trial for His life.
He is entitled to every protection the law affords."
"Certainly you are very active on His behalf," observed Caiphas
with an acid glance.
"It is my duty and yours to be active on His behalf," Joseph re-
turned. "No, Caiphas, as I told you before, you have not made out
a case against this man. Furthermore, I see a witness over there
anxious to be heard. Let us hear him."
Caiphas turned brusquely. Standing near to the prisoner was a
stout, pale man, eyes shining with extraordinary brilliance.
"I asked," he faltered in a nervous voice, "that the questions be
put to me. I have already been before the Committee."
With patience that lacked all grace, Caiphas applied the ritual to
the stranger. His name was Benjamin, also of King David Street.
"Well, Benjamin, what have you to testify here?"
Benjamin sank to his knees, picked up the dusty robe of the
prisoner, and kissed its hem.
"I was blind," he said. "He put some clay on my eyes after mixing
it with His spittle and when He took the clay off, I was healed."
Caiphas shook his finger in the face of the witness.
"Get up!" he barked. "You are not here to tell fairy tales! What
do you really know?"
"One thing I know," reiterated Benjamin. "Once I was blind and
now I can see."
There was a hush in the trial room; something in the manner of
254 THE GREATEST STORY EVER TOLD
this witness filled them "with belief. They turned to look at Jesus
with new interest. Could it be possible . . .
Caiphas lifted his well-tended hand and guards hustled the witness
off.
"There is no value in such an interruption," he complained an-
grily. "No value whatsoever. We are not here to decide whether
this accused man is a physician or is not a physician. The question is
clear enough: is he, or is he not, a blasphemer?"
"You have yet to prove it," said Joseph.
A vociferous shout from the assembly reinforced the objection.
Caiphas saw then, if he had not realized it before, that not he nor
his great father-in-law, nor anyone else, held the ancient tribunal of
Israel in his pocket. These judges were not to be ruled except by
law.
As the confusion grew, another of the judges, Nicodemus, stood
tip from among the elders and clapped his hands for a sign that he
wanted to be heard.
"Mark you this, my lords," Nicodemus declared. "If you at-
tempt to limit the blasphemy charge against this prisoner to the sub-
ordinate charge of prophesying, how can you ever prove the man a
false prophet? You can't possibly do it until the Temple is de-
stroyed. If, then, Jesus of Nazareth fails to rebuild it in three days,
then and then only is He proven to be a false prophet. That is the
law, my Lord, and we are bound by it."
And as Nicodemus sat down, Joseph of Arimathea rose again.
"My lords," he said, "I propose that we dismiss Jesus of Nazareth
here and now, and let Him go His way!"
As Joseph of Arimathea sat down, he saw many approving head-
shakes. As yet there was certainly no majority for conviction. Only
momentarily disconcerted, Caiphas again lifted his ringed hand,
Annas having just left his side.
"My lords," began Caiphas, "it is true that under our law the
least discord between the evidence of witnesses is held to destroy its
value in so solemn an issue as we are now trying. However, this does
not mean that the entire case against this prisoner can be thrown out
on merely technical grounds. Moreover, we have more evidence to
bring. I charge, that this man claims to be the Messiah all Jews have
waited for, the Christ. That is His abominable crime and now He
must answer for it."
"Wak!"
THE THIRD YEAR 255
Both Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimathea were on their feet,
clamoring to be heard.
"You are changing the very ground of the accusation during the
course of the trial!" shouted Nicodemus. "That is unjust. I believe
it is illegal."
Before Caiphas could attempt an answer, old Annas rose again
and took over. Very straight he was, in his physical slightness,
standing in that vast public chamber, the incarnation of the elder
statesman, the voice of authority and experience.
"Let us hear no talk of injustice in this honorable court," he began
crisply. "Nor of illegality. We are here to exercise our best talents
in trying a man accused of the worst crime we know blasphemy.
The accusation that the prisoner pretended to be the Messiah is
merely a further count in the indictment. It is fair. It is just. It is
legal. Caiphas, your witnesses!"
No one cared to challenge this opinion; Annas was thek su-
preme, most respected, and powerful adviser.
The new witnesses were called: Simon, the web-toed watchman
from the Porch of David; Ezra ben Tobeth, the one with the sweet
singing voice; and Chalis of Bethany, a neighbor of Mary and
Martha. They slapped their thighs, or raised hands, according to
preference, and to them were put the regulation questions. Then
they gave their evidence.
And more than before it became clear that something was amiss.
For Simon testified that Jesus had called Himself the Son of God,
but Ezra swore he had called Himself the Son of Man. And Chalis
declared that he had once heard Jesus ask His disciples how public
men called Him and what they said of Him; Chalis had overheard
Him inquire if men thought He was the Christ.
Caiphas was in the same dilemma as before; beads of angry sweat
glistened on the cheeks of the high priest and rolled down to
dampen the ringlets of his whiskers as he bowed to consult Annas.
"Joseph of Arimathea is right," the old man whispered. "You
have not been able to prove a case against Jesus. And yet, my Lord
Caiphas, having gone this far, you have got to prove a case against
Him."
"And quickly too," added Caiphas, "or someone will say it is time
to end the trial and go home."
"Nicodemus is getting ready to do that now," said Annas. "He is
the kind of man who likes to make a speech. He will offer some
256 THE GREATEST STORY EVER TOLD
quillet of a technicality, because that is what he is, a quibbler on
small points, subtleties, and nice distinctions. Hang and burn such a
man! But let him talk! By the time he finishes and sits down, I will
have thought of a plan."
Chapter 64 PROVE IT!
NICODEMUS was demanding to be heard.
"This case," he argued, "has fallen apart; it has collapsed. Nothing
has been proved. It is already an hour after midnight. How long,
then, are we to be kept out of our beds? I, for one, want to go
home!"
There was no mistaking the approval that ran murmuringly
through the rows of judges; they agreed with Nicodemus.
"What should have been done here tonight," resumed Nico-
demus, "is plain for everyone to see. This prisoner should have been
defended much better than He has been. What if He did say He was
the Messiah? Can we disprove it? His claim raises an issue of fact; it
is not, of itself, in my opinion, a blasphemy.
"Oh, my Lord Caiphas, so many questions needed to be asked to
lay a firm foundation for the defense of this undefended Jesus. Do
we find anywhere in our history an account of any time when God
appeared on the earth in the form of man? If we do" and here Nic-
odemus slowed down and repeated with emphasis "if we do, then
how can we know that He will not do the same thing again? How
can we know?
"No, no, Caiphas, please I have almost finished. I insist that at
the finish of this parade of witnesses, with tales that did not hang
together, what, pray, is the final result? Clear as the daylight which
will break before long Jesus remains an unconvicted man. I say that
we should set Him free and then we can all go home to our beds
where I, for one, at my age belong."
THE THIRD YEAR 257
Chapter 65 THE AFFIRMATION
HAD the vote been taken then as Nicodemus sat down, the judges
might have acquitted Jesus and set Him free.
Caiphas and Annas knew that, but the long speech of Nicodemus
had given the old politician just the time he needed to meet the situ-
ation. Now Caiphas, schooled in whispers by his father-in-law, stood
forth to play a new and desperate part.
Erect in his gorgeous robes, pre-eminent in the midst of the si-
lenced and watchful tribunal, the high priest raised his right hand,
two fingers pointing to the ceiling. They all knew elders, priests,
scribes, and prisoner as well that Caiphas was about to put to Jesus
the most solemn of oaths known to the Mosaic code the adjura-
tion, the oath of testimony. But on what point?
Ah, here it was that Annas had perfectly discerned the true char-
acter of his captive. Son-in-law would fail; no, he had already failed
to prove the charge. But by a deep instinct the experienced Annas
knew that the charge was true, nevertheless. This man did believe
He was the Christ. Believing that sincerely, would He ever deny
Himself?
Why, then, they could make Him commit the abomination of
blasphemy in the very hearing and sight of the whole court! Watch
and see* This, Caiphas, my sweet-reeking son-in-law, is how you
must go about it:
"Jesus of Nazareth," cried Caiphas, in a resounding and orotund
voice, "I adjure you, by the Living God, by the Almighty, that you
tell us if you be the Christ, the Son of God."
In the silence then a man might have heard the fall of snow. Every
person knew what this question meant. Caiphas had done more than
put to Jesus the most solemn oath known to the Hebrew constitu-
tion; for such a question, silence itself was an offensive answer.
Caiphas was playing his last card with this man who had not spoken
since the trial began. As a pious and law-abiding man, Jesus now
bad to reply*
His answer came, clear and bold:
"You say that I am."
You say that I am! To the ears -of the judges there was nothing
258 THE GREATEST STORY EVER TOLD
evasive in the answer. It was idiomatic, not equivocal. By the cus-
tom of their speech, it meant "I would not presume to contradict
you."
But Caiphas was not to be satisfied by that reply. He repeated the
challenge:
"Jesus of Nazareth, I adjure you by Sabaoth-the unnumbered
host of heavenly angels by the gracious and merciful God, that
you tell us if you are the Christ."
Again the crystal-clear voice:
"You have said."
Triumph rejoiced the bosom of the prosecutor; actually, the pris-
oner had already committed Himself. "You have said" was thf
traditional form in which a cultivated man would reply to a question.
on a grave or sad matter; courtesy forbade at such a moment a di-
rect "yes" or "no."
"Jesus of Nazareth, I adjure you, by the long-suffering and com-
passionate God, that you tell us if you be the Son of God!"
And then Jesus answered in a voice clear and ringing:
"7 amT
It was as if lightning had struck in the Hall of Unhewn Stones
Caiphas himself turned pale. Here was triumph beyond his dreams!
Before the whole court, just as Annas had schemed, Jesus had com-
mitted the very offense they had failed to prove against Him.
Caiphas took full advantage of the moment. He uttered a loud
cry and fell back as Jesus went on speaking in the same calm tones:
"Nevertheless, I say to you, you shall see the Son of Man sitting
on the right hand of the Power of God and coming in the clouds of
heaven."
Caiphas was backing away from the prisoner, he was turning like
a dervish in long circles and tearing at his own robes as if he would
rip them into rents and slits and tatters. So the law required any
priest to behave when blasphemy was uttered in his hearing. He
must rend his garments. But the high priest, being a frugal soul, did
not tear them beyond repair. And all the while Caiphas kept crying
MI hysterical tones:
"He has blasphemed! He has blasphemed! What further need have
we of witnesses? Behold, now, you have heard! He has blas-
phemed!"
Then suddenly, coming to a dramatic pause, he asked in a husky
whisper of the court:
THE THIRD YEAR 259
"What think you?"
And from most of the scribes and priests and elders came a shout:
u He is guilty!"
The faces of the judges were pale and covered with sweat They
knew the stern duty that now lay upon them. Again they cried:
"We ourselves have heard it from his own mouth. He is guilty of
death!"
Their minds were made up and their task was almost done. But
even now the fate of Jesus was not fully decided.
Caiphas faced the judges.
"My lords," he said, "up until now I think I have been very pa-
tient. Although some of these interruptions tonight have begun to
make me a little suspicious. What is behind this business? Is it not
possible that there is a conspiracy afoot with some designing per-
sons, setting these men on to save Jesus for His real work, which is
to stir up agitation against us and bring on a revolution? I keep my
tones moderate, my lords, but only with some effort, for mine has
nqt been an easy task. I say that now we must seize our problem,
grapple with it, and settle it."
From all parts of the smoky auditorium came strident voices.
"Question, question! Let us decide! Put the question!"
The voting began.
The particularities of the voting were observed to the last ancient
landmark, let it never be reported to the people that Jesus of Naza-
reth, or anyone else, was unfairly tried. The final speech of Caiphas
was scrupulously fair: he admonished them to render an honest ver-
dict in the secret places of their hearts where thoughts and actions
were clear to the Most High.
Beginning with the youngest, a course followed only in trials for
life, and advancing to the eldest in strict rotation, the high priest
solemnly posed the question to which there could be but one of two
answers: yea or nay.
The reason for the younger men voting first in capital trials was
that justice again demanded safeguards; if the older men voted first,
their very acts or their words, explaining their votes, might influence
less mature minds, men merely in their late forties. So the youngest
voter present was the first called to vote for the acquittal or convic-
tion of Jesus.
His vote was for death.
Each judge, on hearing his name called, scrambled up from his
260 THE GREATEST STORY EVER TOLD
bright silken pillow, stood erect, and spoke his verdict. Some made
little speeches to explain the vote; this course was followed almost
invariably by the dissenting friends of Nicodemus and of Joseph of
Arimathea, and by some others too.
Caiphas did not expect a unanimous verdict; more, he did not
want one. Opinion was against all judgments speedily or unani-
mously voted. Such a verdict could invalidate itself. The legal
theory was that if the accused had not a friend in the court, then the
element of mercy was not in the hearts of his judges and so they had
to let him go. A minority of two votes, at least, would be necessary
before they could convict Jesus. He could even be acquitted by a
minority of one. Such was the law.
So the voting went on with yea, yea, yea, and for a long time no
nays at all. But Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimathea were not par-
Hamentarious, and so they voted in strong, loud voices for acquittal.
"BarbeliofNehan?"
"Yes."
"Andrew of Dazar?"
"Yes."
"Gamaliel of Bethany?"
"Yes."
In the very midst of the solemn voting a man came rushing down
the great stairs, straight at Caiphas. The fingers of his left hand were
contracted as if they would tear out the heart of the high priest; the
right hand held up a bag.
"Judas Iscariot!" cried Caiphas. "What do you here?"
"I declare," cried Judas, "that this man you are condemning to
death is innocent. You promised me otherwise than this. Here is
your money."
And Judas cast his bag on the floor; the string was loose, the
mouth gaping, and pieces of silver rang sharply on the stone slabs
and scattered gleaming like little living things in all directions one
rolled to the very heel of Annas.
"Judas, get gone!" cried Caiphas, advancing with a threatening
air. "Guards!"
"High priest," cried Judas, "I repent myself of what I have done.
I have sinned in betraying innocent blood."
In the silence that followed Judas turned agonized eyes on the
calm face of Jesus, but several judges called to him.
"What is your mistake to us?"
THE THIRD YEAR 2<Sl
"Look you to it!" answered another.
From the throat of the lost apostle came a broken cry. He rushed
up the steps and out of the Hall of Hewn Stones and the crowd
parted to let him pass into the deepest darkness of the morning hours.
Flying, when no man pursued him, Judas rushed into an open field
where he would find a rope and a tree. There he hanged himself and
dangled publicly until his body swelled up and burst . . .
Meanwhile the balloting resumed and presently was finished. Cai-
phas once more faced the tribunal.
"My lords," he said, "there is a minority of two for acquittal; all
the rest are for conviction. That settles our work for now."
Chapter 66 PILATE'S FIREPLACE
IN THE dark and early chill of Friday, April 7, Pilate was waiting.
Because of what was going on in the Hall of Hewn Stones, he had
to remain up all night in his gloomy reception hall. He must be ready
for the official hearing he would soon be called upon to give the
Nazarene prisoner. By now the first and second sessions of the
Sanhedrin had been held; messengers had been keeping well in-
formed the brusque Spanish giant, called by the people Lord Pilate;
reports of all the legal quibbling over small points while a life hung
in the balance; he even knew about the insults and mockery of those
who stood in a sniggering and drunken ring around the prisoner
during the intermission between the hearings.
Pilate felt a persecuted man himself. The Roman governor, a war-
rior and a most distinguished soldier, hated the mean fate that had
sent him to rule a poor colony like Palestine. In the present turmoil
he knew that while he was facing a local situation, it nevertheless
had explosive political aspects, dangerous to his own interests.
Unhappily for him, Annas and Caiphas held him actually at their
mercy. One more complaint to Rome, one more uprising in Pales-
tine, and he would be out of the imperial favor. His position en-
raged him; if he could help Jesus, he would, just to frustrate Annas.
He wanted to leave this empty chamber and go to the beautiful
Ckudia Procula, and all the boudoiresque joys die thought of her
instantly conjured. His wife would not likely be asleep; she suffered
262 THE GREATEST STOKY EVER TOLD
from insomnia and then read far into the morning hours in books that
Pilate found to be silly bores. For example, what did Procula see in
that man Horace-Quintus Horatius Flaccus? Yet night after night
she had her favorite girls read from his long scrolls. And Julius Ver-
gilius Maro she enjoyed, too, and even Publius Ovidius Naso, al-
though it had been forbidden to read his books ever since Augustus
banished him in the year A.D. 8. That was partly because Ovid's Ars
Amatoria was considered a direct challenge to the imperial policy
of moral reform. Why should Procula read such deadly dull books?
The only volume Pilate and Procula could enjoy together was the
eloquent history written by Titus Livius, who had been a friend of
Procula's royal grandfather.
Only the night before Procula had wakened from a troubled sleep
and told Pilate of a dream. She had been dreaming of Jesus. To
Pilate's amazement, she knew something of the doctrines taught by
that wayside wanderer. How had she ever heard of the man? Well,
she had once been visited by a messenger from the household of
Herod of Galilee. She had talked with Herod's servant? Aye, Lord
Pilate! A man? Nay, Lord Pilate, a serving maid called Joanna, who
was a devoted follower of Jesus. Well, what had Procula dreamed
of this Galilean? Pilate's wife capriciously, or at least suddenly, de-
cided not to tell. She assured him he would never understand.
That was it. There was always something where they thought he
did not belong or fit in. Something in life slipped past him, unseized,
like a springtime eeL He did his work, which was to fight, to gov-
ern, to administer, to report to see that the great plain of Hauran
sent on its vast wheat to make the Roman bread; he did everything
practical that was to be done, yet other people found values in life
that he missed.
Take these natives, for instance. They all loved something invisi-
ble; and that was a love that kept them true to one another and
charitable, meanwhile holding a sustained and bitter aversion to all
his attempts to win their respect. Here in Palestine, his wife was his
only consolation, and now because of these stiff-necked people he
must give up the idea of seeking her out; must leave his fireplace;
must go face Annas whom he respected but distrusted, Caiphas
whom he despised, and Jesus of whom his wife had dreamed an un-
told dream*
The air of the dark house before dawn was damp and cold as a
dog's nose. Pikte shivered a little as suddenly he heard a taatara
THE THIRD YEAR 263
sounded on a Flemish horn; a quick succession of brassy notes, sig-
nal that Annas and his prisoner were at the gate.
Chapter 6 7 CLAUDIA'S DREAM
KNOWING travelers today, when they go to Jerusalem, spend a
thoughtful hour in the Convent of the Sisters of Zion. They turn to
the staircase leading from its chapel and go down nineteen centuries.
Under the foundations of the chapel are the flagstones of the old
Roman street before the palace of Pilate, great flat slabs of lime-
stone and granite, rutted with grooves worn by chariot wheels and
lacquered smooth by long-stilled bare feet.
To stand there in the dimmish light and feel the reality of those
flagstones is like an exercise in evocation. All of the modern piled-up
city of Jerusalem overhead fades out like an unsubstantial vision and
in its pkce stands the gate of the Praetorium. The mob is there, the
hired and drummed-up mob whose purchased fists are lifted and
whose scurrilous voices snarl in the dark. They follow after the
guards making clear the path of a majestic little man with the wisp
of white hair over his left eye Annas, the tireless old boss of Jerusa-
lem.
With Annas comes his son-in-law, lifting his rent robe of blue so
that its fringes will not trail in the dust. Behind these two, in a ring
of soldiers, the condemned prisoner.
They pull a long cord and a bell rings. Annas knew what would
happen: Pilate was coming out to them instead of asking them in-
side. In their earlier confab the procurator had agreed that he would
hear the case out of doors, beyond the gates of the Praetorium, as a
concession of Pilate to the religious immunities of the people. Be-
cause this was the Passover feast, they had a ceremonial objection
to entering the domain of a Gentile; they would have to purify them-
selves, and there would not be time for that before the feast. To
enter a pagan's house meant contracting impurity for seven days.
Annas and Caiphas stood a little to one side-Annas rubbing his
iong nose reproachfully and Caiphas playing with his beard. They
were making room for the prisoner, who was pushed forward so
that He stood with them before the still-closed gates.
264 THE GREATEST STORY EVER TOLD
The prisoner had been ill-used, one could see that. One tanned
cheek, gleaming .in the flickering torchlight, showed a red splotch
where someone had struck Him; His left eye was bruised and the
skin under the lower lid was turning color. Loosely around His
throat hung a napkin knotted at the back; it had fallen there from
His eyes; they had blindfolded Him, as loafer after loafer struck
Him, crying: "Prophesy, now! Who is it that struck you?"
His beautiful seamless robe was stained with phlegm where many
had spat upon Him. Yet the open eyes were still serene; one soldier
said to his wife later on that nothing could disturb the man's com-
posure; they had pushed Him by the shoulders while He was blind-
folded, buffeted Him back and forth, spun Him around, and mocked
Him with blasphemous oaths, yet He seemed preserved by some
inner force, some grace that rose above the buffoonery and actually
brought it to an end. They soon gave up their sport because, with
such a man, it wasn't fun.
His hands held before Him, still knotted at the wrists, He kept His
eyes on the gate, and while they were waiting, for Pilate took his
time about it, a few yellowish streaks appeared in the eastern sky.
As if the fragile glow were a signal, there came a rumbling of wheels
and rusty chains, the screak of hinges, and the Praetorium gates fell
inward.
There was Pilate sitting in his chair of ivory and bronze on the
high platform.
Jesus, bound and delivered, lifted His keen face to meet His new
judge. Pilate, well robed against the morning chill, cast Him a brief
but appraising glance, then stopped; the official's first startled feel-
ing was one of recognition. Where had he seen this man before?
He had an insane impulse to lift his hand in the salute and greet Him
as a friend. That was why he turned away so hurriedly from the
prisoner to the villainous faces of the mob swarthy faces, bearded,
pock-marked, scabby, with eyes diseased from their mothers' wombs
and hands ready for anything.
The procurator heard the low hurly-burly of their mutterings
and then, shaking himself free of foreboding, he turned to Annas
with a cynical expression and asked for the indictment.
"What accusations do you bring against this man?"
Caiphas gave a pompous, even impudent answer; he felt no need
to truckle to Pilate.
THE THIRD YEAR 265
"If He were not a malefactor, we would not have delivered Him
to you."
But Pilate had formally demanded the facts and so Annas con-
tinued:
"We have found this man perverting our nation and forbidding
to give tribute to Caesar and saying that He is Christ the King."
This man with His wrists bound, in this soiled robe, and His
lacerated face a king? Perdition! These people had never seen a real
king! Thus thought Pilate, who had twice broken bread with Ti-
berius. He chuckled to himself and leaned down toward Annas.
"Take Him, you," he suggested, with a lenient clearing of his
throat, "and judge Him wholly according to your own law."
But Caiphas shouted back angrily;
"It is not lawful for us to put any man to death. You know that*"
Of course Pilate did know that. Their elaborate process had been
no more than a sort of magistrates' court held to establish a prima-
facie case; or even less than that, these elders of Jerusalem had acted
as a grand jury and all they could do was return a true bill.
Pilate turned to the accused and with a wry turn of his mouth,
which showed a broken tooth, he suddenly roared:
"Are you the King of the Jews?"
Jesus returned his smile and answered:
"You say it."
Again Caiphas stepped forward and lifted his forefinger warn-
ingly.
"We know this man to be the son of Joseph the carpenter, born
of Mary, but His followers say that He is the son of God and a
king."
Again Pilate chuckled.
"Tell me how I, being a procurator, can try a king?"
Caiphas, having no sense of humor, protested:
"We do not say that He is a king, but they say that He is."
Pilate looked down at Jesus, and this time it was a long scrutiny
of the wavy brown hair that fell about the shoulders, the forehead
without a line in it, the dark eyes luminous and wide apart. The
bruises and blood gave Pilate the creeps. All his life he had missed
something, a mystery forever eluding him. Now did he see it, like
a bright and wonderful light, in the face of a condemned man?
Now, if he had found it, must he kill It?
266 THE GREATEST STORY EVER TOLD
Pilate made a brusque motion; the prisoner was to go inside;
Pilate would talk with Jesus alone.
What did this mean? Here was a most unlikely surprise! Annas
and Caiphas were well aware that Jesus was a charmer. The procu-
rator might be talked out of doing his duty. He could not be
ignorant of the doctrines of Christ, His reputed miracles and His
much-beloved character. Pilate was showing far too much interest
in the prisoner.
The big, heavy-breathing official, with his clinking bracelets and
perfumed armpits, led the way boldly inside to the same fireplace
from which he had just been called. He kicked a second chair toward
the hearth and with a rough, almost threatening motion of his arm,
bade Jesus be seated, facing him. One was the judge and the other
the condemned prisoner, and yet now the expression on Pilate's face
was that of man to man.
"Are you," he repeated with a gleam of amusement that empha-
sized their privacy, "the King of the Jews?"
Jesus, back and head erect, leaned forward, palms on knees; Pilate
was conscious of the intense personal magnetism in the great eyeSv
In that moment of deepening attraction a soldier appeared between
the drapes of the farther door and gave a salute. He brought Lord
Pilate a perfumed note from Procula. Scowling, the Roman read
what his wife had written:
"Have nothing to do with that righteous man; for I have suffered
many things this day and dreamed a dream because of Him."
That dream again. Why should she dream so powerfully of Him?
Pilate was known as a uxorious man, foolishly and extravagantly de-
voted to his wife. But he had not expected tonight that she would
try to interfere in the conduct of his office, a tiling she had never
bothered to do before in all the time they had spent together in this
frontier outpost. She was a Caesar's granddaughter, born with an in-
stinctive respect for the Roman law by which he must try this man.
The moment Procuk interfered, Pilate stiffened and was chilled
with resistance. No woman could tell him what to do.
At once he began to think of the counts against the prisoner. He
was said to be a seditionist. By all reports He stood for demolishing
established social ideas; a rebellion, after which a new sovereign
would take over, a God-anointed king with his throne in Jerusalem.
Did Procuk expect her husband to encourage that? Now the gov-
ernor looked at Jesus with a restive eye, while his thick fingers tore
THE THIRD YEAR 267
the letter. Messianism, that was what it was! And messianism meant
anarchy and treason a terrible thing in this spot of infection in the
empire. The heart of Pilate hardened.
This fellow, he thought, was closer to torture than he probably
realized, for all his composure and with that disturbing glow in his
large eyes. Wonder if he really knew what crucifixion meant? First
came the scourging, the flagellum. That was as terrible as the cruci-
fixion it preceded; the whip was tipped with nails and scraps of
bones, and it was wielded by soldiers with the arms of weight-
throwers. Why, if Pilate were to turn this man over to the whip-
pers with the flagellum He would probably never live to be cruci-
fied; He would die from the stinging torture of the forty blows.
If He did survive that horrible pain, would He have the strength
to carry His own cross? That was the way the plan was ordered; if
you were sentenced to be crucified, you had to carry your own cross
through the streets, through the gates, and outside the walls to a
hill where the capital sentence was executed. The prisoner had to
watch all the preliminaries: the hole dug for the foundation, the
laying down of the cross and then he was spread on it, stretched and
wrenched to fit, nailed to its crossbars by his hands, to its center-
piece by his feet.
Pilate's eyelids narrowed as he thought of all this. A nasty way to
die you were nailed up there in an unnatural position, your body
in a fearful tension, and the slightest movement of any muscle
brought anguish. And the thick spikes hammered through the hands
and feet, the open wounds quickly inflaming, the overburdened and
swollen blood vessels, the long-drawn-out agony, and the horrible
raging thirst.
What penalties to inflict deliberately on this gently serene man,
with His lustrous eyes and their candent light, and the lean, strong
hands on His knees! He was all right now, except for one bruised
eye and the red mark on the left cheek and the spittle on his gown.
All right now. And yet what could happen to him in a very little
while, if Pilate so decided! That was the way Annas and Caiphas and
their troublesome crew wanted him to decide.
The Temple aristocrats would all like Pilate better if he con-
demned this Nazarene straight to the cross. What the people would
think, the people who had trudged after Jesus for three years down
dusty roads and over weary hills; who had seen Him heal their
lepers, give sight to their blind, and bring back their loved ones from
268 THE GREATEST STORY EVER TOLD
the grave the poor men and women and children whom He had fed
and whose hearts He had uplifted with hope, what they would
think was not hard to foresee, either.
There had been hosannas on Sunday!
But now it was early Friday morning. All those who welcomed
Him with waving palms were asleep. Only the hired crowd of the
high priests stood wakeful on the paved stones beyond the pakce
gates.
"Are you," Pilate repeated truculently, all chuckle gone from his
voice, "are you the King of the Jews?"
"Say you this of yourself?" asked Jesus calmly. "Or did others
tell it you concerning me?"
"Am I a native?" barked Pilate. "Your own nation and the chief
priests delivered you to me."
He was startled at the aptitude with which Jesus had met the first
question. The prisoner had demanded that Pilate make clear his own
position. Was it that he was searching into the political side of this
problem, which would be a proper position for a Roman judge? Or
was he concerned with blasphemy, a charge of no importance to
Rome but abominable in the eyes of Jerusalem? In effect, Jesus was
asking Pilate: "Do you ask me this, fearing that I am an earthly pre-
tender to an earthly crown and hence an enemy of Caesar's empire,
or do you want to know if I claim to be the Messiah?"
Pikte's answer was thus most explicit when he scornfully shouted:
"Am I a native?" No, he was not; he was a Roman conqueror and
very wary of any radical with kingly pretensions. He was there to
stifle insurrection.
Then Jesus replied with final explicitness:
"My kingdom is not of this world."
In those seven forthright words Pilate had his reply; yet it was
hardly the answer he wanted. It would have been all right if only
Jesus had been willing to utter a simple one-word denial. But He had
preferred instead to speak of "my kingdom." The words irked the
governor; a kingdom was a kingdom, and what other world was
there, except this one? How can anyone have a kingdom without
being a king? Hadn't Jesus already convicted Himself?
Jesus, in His quiet voice, was expkining:
"If my kingdom were of this world, my servants would certainly
strive that I should not be delivered to the Jews, but now my king-
dom is not from hence."
THE THIRD YEAR 269
Pilate's blue eyes blinked as he grated in hard repetition:
"What I want to know isare you, then, a king?"
To this question Jesus made an answer for the ages:
"You say that I am a king. To this end was I born and for this
cause I came into the world, that I should bear witness to the truth.
Everyone that is of the truth hears my voice."
And Pilate, hearing His voice, feeling the near presence of that
mystery that had eluded him for so long, leaned forward, swarthy
hands seizing the arms of his chair, all mockery gone, and asked in a
deep whisper:
"What is truth?"
Pilate was not jesting, but he did not stay for an answer. He read
it in the eyes of the prisoner. He rose from his chair, bent over
Jesus, and said pleadingly:
"Do you not hear how great testimonies they allege against you?
Look in how many things they accuse you. Do you answer noth-
ing?"
Jesus answered nothing. Pilate threw up his hands.
"You don't answer me? Don't you know that I have power to
crucify youas I have also power to release you?"
Then Jesus answered:
"You should not have any power against me, unless it were given
to you from above. Therefore, he that has delivered rne to you has
the greater sin."
Pilate's eyes gleamed with the joy of a wholly irrational relief.
This man understood. Why, He even forgave! He was reassuring
Pilate that He really did appreciate the difficulties of his position.
Pilate would do anything for a man like that!
It was no longer for Procula's sake only, it was for the sake of the
prisoner Himself that Pilate would try to free Him. Brusquely he
ordered Him to walk before him down the long, shadowy corridors
that echoed to the flap of his Roman sandals; Jesus's feet were bare
and made no sound upon the floor. Past the torches of the guards
they marched, the accused and the judge, and out again into the
open courtyard.
THE GREATEST STORY EVER TOLD
Chapter '68 THE DRUNKEN KING
AT THE appearance of Jesus the crowd roared and laughed and made
mewling sounds like alley cats. But at the sight of the representa-
tive of Caesar they were instantly quiet, Jesus stood again, with
thonged wrists, at the foot of the platform and near to His accusers,
Annas and Caiphas.
Pilate sat out of doors in his ivory and gilded bronze chair. This
was a defiant moment in his life. His simple, uncomplicated brain
was whirling with discordant arguments: what Procula dreamed and
what Annas had already reported to the Emperor about the procura-
tor, and the blessed light in the eyes of the condemned man. He kept
them waiting for his decision as he groped for words.
How would he defend himself, if he made the wrong decision
and Rome called him on the tapis? He knew the law; had to know
it. The statute that was operative in this case was the Lex Julia
Majestatis, which had become the kw in 48 B.C. Anyone who offered
a claim of being equal to the king committed treason and was open
to a sentence of death; the Twelve Tables of Rome, originally writ-
ten in blood, gave sanction to the most horrible punishments the
mind of frightened rulers could conceive. If what Jesus had said
constituted high treason, there was no greater crime known.
Piate, by the gods, make up your mind! In your heart of hearts,
do you really believe Him guilty?
Well .. .
And still the restless mob waited and still Pilate hesitated. What
was it Jesus had answered in there? "My kingdom is not of this
world" Then it was clear that Jesus fully recognized the temporal
majesty of the Roman kw. It was as if He said: "Lord Pilate, if I
said my kingdom were of this world, you would be right in con-
demning me. But I do not say that. Mine is a kingdom of the spirit."
WeU?
A lawyer would probably have said that Jesus offered a confession
and avoidance. At least Pilate reasoned it so. Then is Jesus guilty or
not, Pikte? The minutes are slipping by. Without a gknce at Annas
or Caiphas, nor yet at Jesus, Pikte stood up and announced:
THE THIRD YEAR 2JI
"I find no cause in this man!"
They were thunderstruck! No fault in Jesus at all? That judg-
ment can't be final! Yes, it was the finding and order of reversal of
the case which had come to the procurator on appeal. The shrewd-
est lawyer in the Sanhedrin would have to concede that Pilate had
done his job. He had held a hearing and had decided that, in his
judgment, the verdict of the trial court was not in accord with the
law and the evidence. Therefore Jesus had been illegally convicted
and must now be discharged from custody. The hearing on appeal
was ended, the verdict pronounced, and it was "not guilty."
Roman jurisprudence had done its task; it had acquitted Jesus
Christ.
"He stirs up the people!" gasped Caiphas, his flushed face visibly
paling in the creeping light of dawn, while behind him the hired
mob began obediently to rumble: "He stirs up the people, teaching
throughout all Judea, beginning from Galilee to this place . . ."
"Galilee?"
Pilate's hoarse voice broke in on what promised to be a harangue.
"Did you say this prisoner came from Galilee?"
"It is so!"
Pilate smiled affably. Already he had seen a riot beginning in front
of his palace. Now he experienced a vast sense of relief, for if Jesus
came from Galilee, then He was really not Pilate's problem after
all; it was a question of jurisdiction; it was Herod's problem, and
Herod was even now in Jerusalem! The princeling who ruled as
tetrarch over Galilee could take over the responsibility of deciding
this case. What a fortunate solution! Especially as there was no love
found or lost between Herod Antipas and Pilate; this courteous ges-
ture in protocol might put an end to an old animosity.
"Take him to Herod!"
Annas grumbled and Caiphas roared, and his mob roared with him*
but to no avail. This time Pilate stood firm. The ivory chair was car-
ried inside, the gates of the Praetorium were closed. Pilate proceeded
to drink two goblets full of red wine poured from a stone jug with
a wide handle and a narrow mouth. There was nothing else to do
but to turn about and march through the dark streets to the pakce
of Herod. As they marched on, in grim silence, Annas and Caiphas
did not talk. They had been outfoxed; Pilate's position was politi-
cally sound; they could not complain, for what he did was legal.
Of course it was nothing more than a trick by which Pilate was
272 THE GREATEST STORY EVER TOLD
trying to extricate himself from a dilemma. The lawyers would in-
sist that Jesus was being charged with what was called continuous
sedition. True, the crime was first committed in Herod's Galilee, but
it was continued in Judea, and that was where Jesus was arrested
at the very gates of Jerusalem. The procurator was lawyer enough
to know that he had full jurisdiction, if he cared to use it But he
had stunned the priests with an apparent insistence on scrupulous
observance of legal details.
However, Herod Antipas was nobody's fool either. He, too, had
a legal turn of mind, when it was necessary. Once before he had
executed a prophet The name was John the Baptist, and like skunk
spray the odium of that beheading had clung to him ever since.
Would Herod see through Pilate's transparent trick?
On this morning when Pilate tried to leave Jesus on his doorstep
Herod Antipas was staying in the ancient Jerusalem castle of his
family, the Asmodean palace on the height of the Xystas, just oppo-
site the Temple. There at dawn sat Herod under festoons and deco-
rative garlands, still carousing before the remains of a gluttonous,
meal Uttering a tablecloth slopped and stained with wine. The tetrach
was wrapped in a white robe fringed with gold. Around him a group
of yawning, half-naked girls pretended still to be enjoying his com-
pany; a fat one with a ring in her nose belched rhythniically every
two minutes and with each eructation Herod Antipas, "the little
Antipater," threw back his head and cackled.
The girl had just belched, and frowzy Herod was again cackling,
when suddenly they heard a noise at the outer gate. A snuffling page
boy, ill with a head cold, bowed prostrate before the Tetrarch of
Galilee and told him the news: a detachment of Praetorium soldiery
was arriving outside! With them came Annas and Caiphas, leading
a condemned prisoner.
That, Herod told himself, was an extraordinary state of affairs.
Who was the prisoner? Jesus! Not Jesus of Nazareth! Well, who
could tell what would happen next? This Jesus, who had the repu-
tation for being so gentle-spoken, so full of loving-kindness for
everyone, had once sent a bold message to Herod Ajntipas and the
tetrarch, who, unfortunately, had a vulpine face, had never for-
gotten it:
"G0 you and tell that fox, Behold I cast out devils"
Herod, a typical Oriental, who lived f atiy and for the full pleas-
ure of his passions, had been of several mini about Jesus. Ever since
THE THIRD YEAR 273
he had dallied with decency over the rampart, of the dungeon of
John the Baptist he had been haunted by the spirituality of the
prophet he had slain. Like Pikte, like Tiberius, like all men whose
lives are lived for pleasure and power, Herod envied the man who
could do without these. For a while he was afraid of the very name
of Jesus because he believed the prophet from Nazareth was really
John the Baptist, risen from the dead. However, his advisors had
assured him that this was not so, and Jesus Himself had never made
any such claim.
Next the stories came to Herod of the miracles Jesus performed.
The idea of any magical feats stirred Herod like a boy going to the
circus. Could this Jesus do the Hindoo rope trick that caravan travel-
ers reported was done in India? Could He make ivory balls disappear
under cups, flowers bloom from a seed under a shawl? Could He
make voices come from hidden corners where no man was?
Besotted as he was that morning, surrounded by bottles of chol-
agogue and purgative and sobering-up doses he had learned In
Rome, Herod Antipas still remembered the answer he got to those
questions. This Jesus differed from all other magicians in one im-
portant particular: He did not give exhibitions merely to excite
wonder and awe; His strange powers were devoted to helping others,
and for this help He made no charge. That puzzled Herod Antipas.
John the Baptist had been another who would take no fee. What
kind of fellows were these prophets?
For a long time Herod had wanted to see this wonder-worker
perform, and now here He was, early in the morning, sent to him
by his old antagonist, Lord Pontius Pilate. Anything could happen
in this foolish world! As the fat girl belched and winked one bleary
eye, dull and dimmed, Herod Antipas slapped her thigh, and, cack-
ling with glee, bade them bring in the Master.
But Jesus was a great disappointment to Herod Antipas.
The debauched tetrach, looking upon this subject Galilean, im-
mediately wanted to see thaumaturgic signs and wonders. He gave
a ribald grunt. Show me some tricks! Come on, magician, and do
something! Even the watching Annas and Caiphas were outraged at
his alcoholic frivolity. Why would not a ruler behave like a ruler?
They listened while Herod tried to joke with the prisoner, cajoling
Him to do just one miracle. Jesus would answer nothing.
Then the priests went to it, and had at Herod Antipas. With sav-
age emphasis in their charges, they told the tetrarch of the three-
274 THE GREATEST STORY EVER TOLD
fold allegations: causing sedition among the people, refusing tribute
to Caesar, and claiming to be Messiah, King of the Jews. Their
vehemence brought Herod to his political senses. With a lopsided
look at the priests, he gave a vast shrug and slapped his belly. King
of the Jews! Wabf Hail, King!
Fat, slovenly, and uncertain in the fumes of his wine, Herod,
squatting on his haunches, made a mock and wobbling obeisance:
"Hail, Bang! Slaves, bring me a royal white robe! Not that one.
Not good enough for a king like this. Hail, Wonder- Worker King!
Where's his robe? Haven't you fetched it yet? Give me now. Wahl
This is a royal robe all right. Look, King! That's yours! Mighty fine
too. Put it on! What? You stand stiff and straight and look me in the
eye and neither answer nor plead for mercy? You're like your cousin,
then! Like John the Baptist. I cut his head off! And they put it
on a plate! Salome danced with it. No more of that. I won't cut
your head off, Jesus!
"Hail, King! Ha! Ha! How goes it with you, King, old King, old
King, old King, hey, boy! Your head stays on for me. If it comes
off, let Pilate take it off not I. Once was enough for me. Back with
you! Soldiers! Salute and bow to the King of the Jews, and take
Him away. I thought He was a magician. WahF . . .
The captive Jesus was led to the door in the white robe of mock-
ery, when Herod Antipas, suddenly grown serious, staggered to his
feet.
"Wait! You remember me three years ago I wanted to kill you
then. You called me an old fox and you said I couldn't kill you, be-
cause a prophet must perish only in Jerusalem. How could you read
tne future like that?"
The door closed. The prisoner was gone. But He left Herod
Antipas as frightened as Pilate. Indeed, the very next day Herod had
a heart-to-heart talk with Pilate. There had not been cordial rela-
tions between them for a long time, but after the troubled night
they both had known because of Jesus, the Tetrarch of Galilee and
the Procurator of Judea became friends.
THE THIRD YEAR 275
Chapter 6 9 CRUCIFY HIM!
PILATE had been talking with his wife. He knew what the returning
clamor in the outer courtyard meant. Messengers swifter than the
tired feet of the priests raced back to the palace with word that
Herod had not risen to the bait; he returned the prisoner with his
compliments. Whatever the crimes of Jesus, they were committed
in Jerusalem and therefore under Pilate's jurisdiction. The problem
was back in the procurator's hands and it was even greater than be-
fore; now he had talked with Claudia Procula.
Never before had Pilate seen that sophisticated Roman lady of
the court so much in earnest about anything. To kill Jesus of Naza-
reth, she told him, was unthinkable. Exaggerated as such a thought
must seem, still Pilate had got from her the feeling that if he failed
her in this, life between him and his wife would never again be the
same. That was a dismaying thought to Pilate. From Toledo to the
Tigris he had never touched her like; he was a rough, uncomplicated
man, and she was the sum of his pleasure.
Yet what must the governor do now? He had to find a way to
acquit Jesus and still not incur revenge from a frantic priesthood.
Again he sat in his fancy chair and confronted the pale, bruised
prisoner. Serene as before He was, even in the new royal robe of
white with golden fringe which Herod had draped over Him in
drunken mockery. The faces of Annas and Caiphas were pale and
haggard with the long labors of this night and morning; their con-
spiring, their illegal trial, their running from the Temple to Pilate
and from Pilate to Herod and now back again had tried the smooth
legs and swollen the fat ankles of Caiphas; he seemed even more
tired than his aged father-in-law.
Pilate rubbed his fingers over a pan of smoldering charcoal on a
tripod beside his chair. He turned from Jesus to Annas, and then,
hoarse voice edged more than ever with impatience, he pointed out
to them that although the prisoner was a Galilean, nevertheless
Herod Antipas, the Tetrarch, had refused to do anything with him.
As for himself, he could only repeat what he had said.before:
"I find no cause. You have presented to me this man as one that
276 THE GREATEST STORY EVER TOLD
perverts the people, and behold, I, having examined Him before you,
find no cause in this man in those things wherein you accuse Him.
No, nor Herod either. For I sent you to him, and behold, nothing
worthy of death is done to Him. I will chastise Him, therefore . . ."
"Good!"
He could see some of their faces now. Greek sailors with bearded
mouths, gold bangles in their ears, and their long arms around un-
kempt slatterns and blowzy women, drunk on blackstrap wine;
gamblers with old blue scars on their necks, blacklegs, cheaters at
dice, with their sluts from the town bagnios, beldams and hags. One
old vixen kept shaking a scrawny fist while she whistled through her
teeth.
"And then I shall release Him!"
Release Him! A yawp of fury came from the mob. To heal more
blind men, raise up more supporters, preach more perversions of the
established order release Him? Caiphas turned quickly and spoke
two words into a dirty ear lowered to his beard. The words ran
quickly to the very core of the mob and there rose a sudden pierc-
ing cry:
"Crucify Him!"
From one, then from a dozen came the uncouth cry. Soon it was
a rhythm and a chant "Crucify Him! Crucify Him!"
Pilate's shaggy brows went up. Had he heard aright? This prisoner
was supposed to have enemies in the Temple but friends in the
streets. That cry for crucifixion came from the gutter. To flog Jesus
would be almost to murder Him. They all knew what official chas-
tisement meant. That ought to satisfy the most bloodthirsty among
them. To let Jesus live that would be keeping his word to Procula*
Although he knew that blatant, noisy, blustering mob for what
it was, nevertheless the situation was intimidating. Such hate, real or
acted, could be contagious. A riot could easily be in the making.
Nevertheless, Pilate was not ready to admit defeat.
The idea in Pilate's mind to get his prisoner off was like a fear
gnawing at his brain. He still had one untried idea. Forcing a con-
ciliatory smile and rising, ignoring the priests, he talked for the first
time directly to the people.
In Jerusalem, he reminded them, they had a custom which he had
faithfully followed: on the Feast of the Passover the procurator
could set one prisoner free, with a full pardon. The crowds had only
to shout the names of their favorites and he whose name got the
THE THIRD YEAR 277
loudest noise he would set free. Now Pilate, making a last effort to
keep his promise to his wife, put two names before the mob this
prisoner of Nazareth and the other, the notable revolutionary leader
Barabbas!
He was truly a seditionist, was Barabbas, and in his conspiracy to
overthrow the government by violence he had already committed
murder.
"Will you," asked Pilate, pretending to make light of the whole
charge, "that I release to you the King of the Jews? Whom will you
that I release to you Jesus Barabbas or Jesus Christ?"
Then, obedient to signals from Caiphas, the crowd screamed:
"Away with this man! And release unto us Barabbas! "
By this time there were honest voices as well as hired that took up
the bellowing. Barabbas had his own friends in that crowd; the
clamor was deafening:
"Away with this man! Give us Barabbas!"
Arms outstretched, Pilate strode forward and tried to plead with
them, but they drowned out his words; they took up a rhythmic
chant, and it swelled, as guards beat the paving stones with their spear
handles and a drunken woman clapped a pair of cymbals.
"Crucify Him!"
"Crucify Him!"
"Crucify Him!"
Pilate raised his hand furiously in an imperial gesture and there was
a sudden awed silence.
"Why, what evil has He done?" he roared indignantly. "What evil
has this man done?"
Instantly their reviling voices bellowed again in the same final bit-
ter reply:
"Crucify Him!"
"Crucify Him!"
"Crucify Him!"
Pilate flung himself into the ivory chair. He gave an exhausted
growl and made a sign. The crowd screamed with joy as Jesus was
led off to His fate.
It was then that the guards took Jesus and beat Him within a gasp
of His life. This was not being birched like a schoolboy, aor merely
thrashed like an ordinary malefactor they flogged Him with a whip
made of three leather lashes, to the flaying ends of which were
stitched those bits of metal and bone. With forty blows they scourged
278 THE GREATEST STORY EVER TOLD
Him, and when it was done Jesus was so weak that He had barely
strength to stand. His body was covered with wales and stripes
and welts; He had been drubbed within a few breaths of His life.
But He must continue to stand, for they had still more to do to
Him.
Over His back, streaming from the blood opened by the counted
lashes, they laid again His own robe. Two idle soldiers had plaited
wild thorns that grow in scraggly hedges around the farms to keep
out fox and wolf. On His head they pressed this crown of thorns.
It was in the court of the governor's palace that this pain and mock-
ery were heaped on Jesus. Pilate meanwhile had returned to Claudia
Procula, who reclined in her bed, pale and reproachful. He told her
brusquely what had happened; from the courtyard the jeering voices
reached their ears:
"Hail, King of the Jews!"
"They give Him many blows!" wailed Procula. "Yet He makes no
outcry! "
"True, they strike His head, and spit upon Him-'*
"I warned you to have nothing to do with that just man! "
"You told me more than that," snapped Pilate. "You told me you
had suffered many things all day because of a dream concerning
Him."
He bent over, but she thrust him away. He rose with an oath.
"Very well," he snarled. "I will go out and try again."
Once more the prisoner and His judge stood before the mob. This
time Jesus was on the platform beside Pilate as the governor squirmed
in his ivory chair. The face of Pilate was tired and worn, and his eyes
had a hunted look; the face of Jesus was bloody.
"Behold," Pilate began, trying to put a note of reasonableness and
casual common sense into his voice; "behold, I bring Him forth unto
you that you may know I find no cause in Him."
The purchased gangs looked at the beaten Jesus, face and hands
bloody, wrists knotted and stained crimson, new scars on His face,
but with shoulders up and straight and the eyes and posture serene in
indestructible composure. The crown of thorns gave to His face a
dignity and not the clownish buff oonery they had expected.
In the silence Pikte spoke, as a man speaks when he thinks he is
clinching a deal:
"Behold this man!"
THE THIRD YEAR 279
Then he lifted his powerful thumbs to his ears as the shriek and roar
of their voices deafened him:
"Crucify Him!"
"Crucify Him!"
"Crucify Him!"
Pilate screamed back at them:
"Take Him, you, and crucify Him, for I find no cause in Him."
Here Annas stepped sternly forward. He was not going to let
Pilate escape his proper responsibility. He pushed back the forelock
wisp of gray hair from over his left eye and cleared his throat and
spoke in crisp, authoritative tones:
"Lord Pilate, we have a law and according to the law, He ought
to die because He made himself the Son of God."
And a new shout went up:
"Crucify Him! Whoever makes himself a king, speaks against
Caesar. If you release this man, you are not Caesar's friend!"
Over and over again the mob chanted those desperate words.
They struck to the depths of Pilate's little soul. Yet, even so, he per-
sisted still. He stood beside the object of all this fury and, forcing
himself to jest, as if to ask the whole race if they were in fear of
this bedraggled figure, Pilate roared:
"Behold your king!"
No, they would not join in his laugh. He could not cajole the
hirelings, paid to be implacable. They yelled:
"Away with Him! Away with Him! Crucify Him!"
In a panic of forced jesting Pilate cried:
"Shall I crucify your king?"
"We have no king but Caesar!"
Pilate heard that shout and lost. Beyond that phrase he could
not go. Those words were the frontier line past which no politician
could advance; not if he cared for his own skin. Pilate had done all
that he felt he could do. Had he done more, he would have had a
different name in history.
Somewhere in his soul he knew that the beautiful mystery had
escaped him again and now forever. That was why he called for a
basin. A negrillo paddled forward on deformed feet, carrying a
golden bowl in his dark, apelike arms. The lustrum, ceremony of
purification! In front of all of them, he, a Roman, washed his hands.
And as the waste water dribbled down, and drops of it on the bkck
280 THE GREATEST STORY EVER TOLD
hairs of the back of his hand glistened in the faint light, he lifted
his face sidewise to heaven and cried in a broken voice:
"I am innocent of the blood of this just man*"
As he motioned to the soldiers to take Jesus off to His crucifixion,
the voices of priest and hired mob joined in one last cry:
"His blood be upon us and upon our children."
Here the mob, hired by scoundrels, in an excess of malice uttered
fateful words which for untold centuries were to plague and vastly
injure the lives of innocent people. The words they screamed in that
awful hour were often to be misconstrued, so that generations of
decent people were to be unjustly stigmatized. The conspirators who
hired this mob to hunt the prisoner of Pilate had loosed a whirlwind
of injustice and misunderstanding.
So the long trial was over at last Barabbas, the revolutionist, was
released to the people. Jesus was condemned to be crucified, all very
legally, by Pilate, who made no further objections to the wishes
of Annas and his son-in-law, Jesus was started again on the trek to
Calvary, and Jesus Barabbas, gray-haired, dazed, strode off with his
supporters, his bewildered inkberry eyes not noting the woman in
the dark blue doak who stood in the shadow of the wall weeping
and remembering Samuel, her husband's friend.
Mary had seen him. She had seen it all.
Chapter 70 THE DOLOROUS WAY
THERE was a yellowish creep in the east that slowly took the place
of the pale rose of dawn.
The start of His journey home after His incarnation, perfectly
lived was at the barracks where they had beaten Him, the guard-
room of the castle of Antonia. There Pilate had turned Him over,
and from there He descended the broad stairs in the unfamiliar yel-
low light of a strange dawn. He came down the steps almost un-
noticed, while the crowd turned in an ecstasy of welcome for the
revolutionist that Pilate had just set free Barabbas, striding, cocky,
curly head twisted to one side, laughing with an I-told-you-so smug-
ness, accepting the raucous welcome as a tribute no more than his
due. In the jaundiced aurora Barabbas took the center of the stage*
THE THIRD YEAR 28 1
while Jesus, going on down, came to the second station of His jour-
neyto a place at the bottom of the steps where the cross was wait-
ing.
It was a crude thing of wood, blackened and smelling of creosote
and tar, the centerpiece rounded and large as the mast of a small
ship, and the horizontal bar of a long beam split in half and fixed
firmly with two bolted iron clamps not much of a carpentry job;
the workman from Nazareth could have made a better one than
that. There was a huddle of men there, not soldiers, but servants
and artisans who had fetched the cross, dragging it by a chain. One
who gave the orders and acted like a gang boss came up to the two
soldiers who guarded the bleeding and beaten prisoner and said what
must be done. The fellow must kneel in the street A part of the
crossbar would be hooked over His shoulder. Then He must stand
up again with the weight of the cross on His back and He must
put one foot in front of the other, dragging it alone, down the stink-
ing, festering streets, scarcely pausing at the narrow turns, and never
to pause, never to wait, never to catch His breath. This was a slave's
punishment two thieves shared His fate, carrying their crosses in
the same procession.
No greater humiliation could be inflicted on a man. He must carry
His own cross to the place of execution; drag His stake and cross-
piece, emblems of guilt, of pain, of ignominy.
At that part of the narrow street where today there is a broken
column set in the stone wall Jesus tottered, swayed, and fell, but
they yanked Him to His feet again and pushed Him on. A child
rushed by, trundling a hoop, belaboring it with a pointed stick and
never noticing what was passing by. Only a few minutes later Jesus
saw in the crowd that lined the street the face of His mother; Mary
was watching there, by a blind alley that was filled "with dirty, neg-*
lected, and wretched children holding to her skirts.
How she had got there, all the way up from Galilee, what impulse
urged her, no one knew. But Mary, who could not get into the trial,
stood in the street and watched, as, bent and breathing hard, He
pulled His cross along.
Their eyes met, and all the years were in their glances. Then she
was lost to His sight as the howling tatterdemalion mob clotted
around Him. Once more there came a dizziness; He was about to
fall again. A murmur of chagrin ran through the gang that followed*
It began to look as if that beating had been too severe. Hereafter
282 THE GREATEST STORY EVER TOLD
the soldiers should be warned about such excesses. They had beaten
more than half the life out of Him; if the guards were not careful,
He would die right here, collapsing under the cross at the busiest
crossing in Jerusalem. Then there would be no crucifixion; no long-
drawn-out death on the cross to watch intently; the people would
be angry if cheated of the most interesting part of the whole show.
Was this what they had stayed up all night for?
The guards felt that they knew what the public wanted.
They would not ran any further risk of killing Him prematurely;
when they saw how little strength was left in Him, they drafted a
man from the onlookers to help out. The chosen man's name was
Simon, a pilgrim with his two small sons, Rufus and Alexander,
from the beautiful city of Gyrene, in upper Libya, where a Jew was
a man as good as anybody else among the Gentiles; where he held
equal citizenship with the Greeks who founded the town and the
synagogue stood side by side on terms of equality with temples
of pagan gods. One minute before he was drafted Simon was an un-
known molecule swimming in the vast bloodstream of the human
race. Suddenly a guard pointed a finger, snarled an order, and the
burly Cyrenian, seething with his bad luck, ceased to be a gawping
spectator from a distant city and became immortal. Simon the un-
known Cyrenian bent to help Jesus carry His cross, his two little
boys following him in tears. When he straightened up he had be-
come a figure in history.
He had done no crime; his pleasure was spoiled; it was an aching
nuisance to take such a load and the way to the hill of Golgotha
was still a long one but because of that half hour's unpaid toil Simon
won immortal fame,
Now, as he moved onward with Jesus, the noise of the crowd took
on a different note. The riffraff and the hirelings were no longer
alone. Word was going through the awakening city; news of what
the Sanhedrin and Pontius Pilate had done together flew from door-
step to upper window and along the domed rooftops; the women
heard of it first, and they came running out to see if it were true.
There is a legend that as Jesus and His unwilling helper Simon came
by the house of a girl named Veronica, she rushed from her door-
way and wept at the sight of Him; she bathed His sweating face
with her veil and the tradition seems deathless that an image of
His face was imprinted on the silken meshes of her scarf.
Through the gate called Porta Judiciaria by the Romans He passed
THE THIRD YEAR 283
outside the wall of the city, into the open country and within sight
of a gloomy hill. There the women of Jerusalem surged into the
road, elbowing aside tramps and drunkards, pickpockets, thieves and
cutthroats, and all the savage crew that followed the cross. Un-
afraid of them, or of the priests who hired them, these housewives,
daughters, and widows fought their way to the Master's side, be-
wailing and lamenting Him.
The countenance of the Master cleared, and His eyes took on new
strength as He cried to these decent women:
"Daughters of Jerusalem! Weep not over me, but weep for your-
selves and for your children. For behold the day shall come when
they shall say, Blessed are the barren and the wombs that have not
borne and the paps that have not given suck. Then shall they begin
to say to the mountains: Fall upon us; and to the hills: Cover us.
For if in the green wood they do these things, what shall be done
in the dry?"
In the woeful day of destruction before long to dawn on Jeru-
salem many were to remember those sorrowful words.
Even with the strength of Simon the Cyrenian who suddenly
found himself taking a mysterious liking to this convict and carried
the cross with an inner and utterly inexplicable satisfaction Jesus
felt His knees buckle under, and for the third time He fell down.
But His tormentors were not so worried now. Here was their des-
tination; He had only to lug the cross up that final stretch of steep
hill and there He would be!
Calvary!
Golgotha, the natives called it, meaning the place of the skull
See, two other felons, also soaked with sweat and blood after their
flogging, come dragging their crosses, too, from around the turn
of the outer wall. Two thieves also going up today. It promised to
be a really interesting exhibition.
Chapter 77 FINISHED!
IT WAS high noon as workmen arranged th'e crosses on the ground.
The three condemned prisoners stood together Dysmas and Ges-
tas and Jesus, while the soldiers shoved back the crowd and the
284 THE GREATEST STORY EVER TOLD
common workmen disposed the crosses on the ground near the holes
and heaps of fresh earth.
High noon, and the sun brightly shining on bay trees and laurel
over yonder, but on -the four edges of the world clouds were gather-
ing. In spring is it not unusual for clouds to begin gathering on the
four horizons all at once? Few noticed the dark ring around the
lower part of the sky. They had other things to look at: the three
crosstrees kid out now and ladders being bolted and braced, and
men with hammers and spikes and other men with spears goading
each prisoner to lie down on his cross.
It was a quick business; the three victims were tired out, inert,
incapable of resistance. They stretched Jesus out on the prostrate
device, fingers in His armpits and palms forcing down His thighs and
holding His head in the middle of the crosspiece, and they held
Him so while they hammered huge pointed spikes through His palms
then nailed His feet to the main piece. Up now, hoist high, and
dump the foot of the cross in the open hole.
So, there, and at last, the will of Annas and Caiphas was fully done.
Jesus was crucified between two thieves, the three gaunt crosses
with their suffering human beings uplifted upon them making sharp,
bleak silhouettes against the paling sky*
One would have thought, then, that with this finality malice would
wither, but it was not like that.
At mocking Pilate's orders strange commands of a strange man
who meant the priests to be confronted with a reminder a sign
was nailed up on the cross over the head of Jesus, an inscription in
three languages: Latin, Greek, and Aramaic:
"Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews!"
When he heard that this was being done, Caiphas was uncontrol-
lable. In spite of the pleadings of Annas, who wanted now only to
get to his bed, Caiphas had himself carried in a litter back to the
pakce where Pikte was having a meal that was both breakfast and
lunch.
Caiphas came storming into the small blue-walled room with the
firepkce, where Pilate received his visitors.
"Why do you do such a thing as this to us? Don't write 'King
of the Jews'; if you must write anything, write, 'He said, I am the
Kong of the Jews.' "
Pikte snorted at Caiphas and a leer twisted his thick, loose-formed
mouth. He was through yielding to this popinjay.
THE THIKD YEAR 285
"What I have written I have written," said Pilate, and stalked
back to his wife.
"I feel like a vaticide!" he was reported to tell his wife. "I have
killed a prophet."
"Perhaps," lamented his wife, "you are a deicide perhaps you
have killed a god."
"But who," cried Pilate, the born interrogator, "can possibly kill
a god?"
"That," his wife answered, "is your only hope!"
On the hill of Calvary the crowd of watchers was growing con-
stantly, in a vast half-moon of concentrated attention before the
figure on the central cross.
Jesus, turning from the tapestry of faces, murmured to the sky:
"Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do."
Forgive them? All? Where were His friends? Where are you,
Peter? The rock on which I shall found my church and the gates
of hell shall not prevail against it. Is that you, back there? Peter!
Ah, bold, baldheaded fisherman, with your human nature you suffer
for me so; the full price must be paid now.
But is that you, Peter? Where is John? John, the well-beloved;
John, who, at our Last Supper, laid his head on my breast and wept?
Where is John now? And Judas! Judas not here to see what his
treachery has brought us all to? Judas is in the potter's field, after
hanging from a tree. Is that what is to be seen, so far, far off on the
road to Bethlehem, where Mary's son was born?
And all the others, where are they? The nine other Apostles.
"You ran away! Why did you run away, James and Thomas and
Bartholomew and all the rest of you? For your lives you ran, scam-
pering off in the dark rows of olive trees in the Garden of Geth-
semane; scattering down the deep slopes of Olivet to the grand high-
way and off to the road that leads back to Galilee back home.
Why did you nine forsake? That is so clear to see now. You never
completely believed in Jesus. You wanted to believe; you persuaded
yourselves that you had accepted the idea fully and with no reser-
vations, but in your heart of hearts you never, for a moment, be-
lieved that I and the Father are one. The soldiers came and took me.
Why did I not release Myself as I had done before?
Because you feared that you would share this fate of mine, up
here on the cross, crucified. You, too, might bleed and die. But the
286 THE GREATEST STORY EVER TOLD
day is almost here when you will have such faith that fear will no
longer matter.
"I thirst," said Jesus.
So the rnonstrous-conscienced guards prepared for Him a cup of
wine mixed with myrrh and gall and bile. He would not drink it.
His last cup on this earth was the chalice of the communion at the
Last Supper. The leering fools who had mixed up the filthy mess
could not force it down His throat, so there was nothing left for
them to do but to spill all of it on the ground.
Calmly He hung there, suspended, as the guards who had nailed
Him up threw dice for His robe which was without seam, woven
from the top throughout They had taken all His garments and
divided them into four parts one for each soldier. But when they
looked at that beautiful seamless robe one of them proposed: "Let's
not tear it. Let's cast lots for it, whose it shall be."
It was while the soldiers were throwing the dice that Jesus looked
down and saw that He was not alone. Moving slowly forward
through the crowd, coming ever closer to the cross, were three
women three Marys close at hand. Mary, His mother, stood at the
foot of the cross. And Mary, the wife of Cleophas, His mother's
sister, knelt beside her; Mary of Magdalen, out of whom he had cast
seven devils, was prostrate on the earth.
And who standing beside His blessed mother? John! Yes, it was
John! John, the well-beloved disciple. This was why you hovered
on the far outside of the crowd; you were waiting to bring Mother
here..
With a sudden access of strength Jesus called out in the premature
gloaming that was creeping in:
"Woman, behold your son!"
With infinite tenderness He had called to her; and then, turning
to John, the drops of sweat glistening on His neck and forehead
and cheeks, He summed up all the concern and compassion in His
heart in these words to His dear follower:
"Behold your mother!" And from that day on John would be
like another son to Mary. But his devotion was a symbol of a greater
service, for Jesus had spoken to mankind, had showed all living the
symbol of motherhood.
The slowly darkening indigo sky was losing its deep violet blue
and turning to black. The agony of the gentle prisoner, the memory
THE THIRD YEAR 287
of His good works, the wailing of the women all helped to change
the mood of the watchers. Twice He had spoken from the cross:
once to pray for the soldiers even at the very moment they were
enforcing the tent pegs through His hands; and again when He
spoke to His mother. The compassion of the suffering man moved
the people to a dangerous sympathy, so back came the priests with
their troupe and they began to jape:
"He saved others; let Him save Himself if He be Christ, the elect
of God."
They waggled their hands and fleered and blasphemed,
"Wah!" they cried with oriental frenzy. "You that destroy the
Temple of God and in three days build it up again. Wah! Save your-
self! Come down from the cross!"
And even Caiphas, standing with the silent Annas and some of
their cronies of the Temple priesthood, spoke out of the side of
his mouth:
"Others He saved; Himself He cannot save."
One of the scribes answered:
"If He be the King of Israel let Him now come down from the
cross and we will believe Him. He trusted in God; let Him now de-
liver Him, if He will have Him."
But there were some who noticed that as the darkness deepened a
small light shone behind His head, and that it grew more luminous
as death came ever nearer.
So the priests talked away among themselves, feeling yery safe,
as the soldiers offered Jesus a sponge soaked in vinegar, because
He had said He thirsted; while the soldiers tormented Him, the mob
railed, and the women of Jerusalem mourned and the blood flowed
slowly, trickling down from pierced hands and feet
One of the robbers, Gestas, took up the cry from the onlookers-
and spat it out with blood and foam at his mouth:
"If you be the Christ, save yourself and us!"
But Dysmas, on the right-hand cross, called back to him:
"Neither do you fear God, seeing that you are under the same
condemnation. And we, indeed, justly because we receive the due
reward of our deeds. But this man has done no evil."
Then, turning his head toward the Master, he said with pleading
sweetness, amazing in so rough a voice;
"Lord, remember me when you shall come into your kingdom."
288 THE GREATEST STORY EVER TOLD
The eyelids of Jesus flew up, the eyeballs rolled back, and He
smiled. It was a smile of blood and sweat, but He called out boldly^
in His old clear, strong voice:
"So be it, I say to youthis day you shall be with me in Paradise.""
The storm was gathering its darkness now; the air of the black
sirocco was getting murkier by the minute with a wrack of clouds
and dark floating vapor scudding across the sky. There was a low,
rolling sound of thunder, a rumble swelling to roar and crash over
the heads of the people. As the rain came, many scattered, but others
remained, to miss nothing. Even the most vociferous of the paid
mob began to feel a germ of fear. The sun was lost behind the thick-
ening nimbus overhead and there was a low and constant murmur-
ing among the people. Tumult and panic were ready to break out
into mob madness. This, they began to fear, was no ordinary storm;
this was not the familiar black sirocco which came to Jerusalem
each year at the beginning of April. This was a brooding, deepening,
lightless storm *of sinister intensity.
It was close upon three o'clock in the afternoon, when, for the
fourth time, they heard Jesus speak:
"Eloi, Eloi, Ldmma sabacthani!"
Had they heard clearly? That strange mixture, that sentence, a
compound of Hebrew and Aramaic Chaldee? Some, far in the back,
thought that in delirium He was calling on the prophet Elias. And
some of the mockers again brought the vinegar sponge and stuck
it on a long reed, and thrust it up at Him, while they cried;
"Let be! Let us see whether Elias will come to deliver Him!"
But Jesus had not called upon Elias. His mother knew and under-
stood. So did all good and pious people gathered there, and even
the hypocrites, if they remembered their Scriptures.
What Jesus had said was:
"My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?"
Standing near the foot of the cross, Caiphas, hearing those words,
gave a hoarse chuckle of delight. Seizing his old father-in-law's
withered wrist, he rejoiced:
"Hear that, Lord Annas? His followers will never be able to live
down those words. First He says He is God, then He asks Himself
why He has forsaken Himself. Pretty comic, don't you think?"
There was a terrible peal of thunder. But presently Caiphas heard
the voice of Annas, despondent and disheartened:
"Yon complete and utter ninny and fool!"
THE THIRD YEAR 289
"Lord Annas, did I hear you . . ."
"You did. You are high priest, Caiphas, but you do not even
remember your Scriptures. Especially the Twenty-second Psalm,
which begins: 'My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?'
and goes on to prophesy perhaps what happened here today even
to the parting of his garments."
"Father-in-law, you're not going "
"I am going home," sighed Annas, and turned his back on his son-
in-law.
And Annas might also have reminded Caiphas that the very next
Psalm declared the Lord as the Good Shepherd: "Even though I
walk in the dark valley I fear no evil; for you are at my side!"
With an unearthly smile down upon His mother and His other
loved ones, Jesus had spoken the words as King David anciently
predicted; without further protest He let the vinegar from the
sponge pour down into His parched throat and He spoke the sixth
time from the cross:
"It is consummated."
Caiphas then knew what that meant. The whole body of prophe-
cies of the old prophets had been fulfilled; his own prophecies as
well. They had said that the Messiah would be born in Bethlehem,
the city of David. There Jesus had been bom, and in a stable, as
also prophesied all the long story was full of milestones, verifica-
tions, credentials, from the old prophets that He, Jesus, now in His
pain and humiliation, was the promised Messiah.
"It is consummated!"
Having said that He took a deep breath and spoke out sofdy,
spoke as Mary remembered He would often speak when He was a
boy, falling off to sleep, on His bed in Nazareth softly and with a
tone of surrender and relief:
"Father, into your hands I commend my spirit"
And bowing His head, He gave up the ghost
Thus it was that Jesus of Nazareth died, about four o'clock in
the murky air of Good Friday afternoon, April 7, AJX 30.
Men told strange stories afterward: tales of how the veil of the
Temple was torn into two pieces the rainbow veil that hung at the
Holy of Holies and hid the innermost altar from the eyes of all ex-
cept priests, rent and ripped, from top to bottom, although no
man's hand had touched it Tales of a trembling of the earth and
rocks crashing from hillsides; graves ripped open, their white domes
THE GREATEST STORY EVER TOLD
splitting wide. All this was talk behind the hand, because the priests
would retaliate on any of their own who had a sympathetic 01
significant word to say about this execution.
Those at the cross who loved Him beat their breasts and sobbed.
The Roman officer who had given all the orders for the execution
of the death sentence turned his back on the women and gagged.
Perhaps it was the earthquake that weighed the man down, or per-
haps the darkness. Or it may have been the face of Mary. Then,
cleaning his mouth with an oblong of silk, he turned to one of his
lieutenants and gasped:
"Indeed this man was the Son of God."
Chapter 72 WHY DO THEY NOT CARE?
THE old man Annas sat in his great room and fanned himself. A
small lamp on the table at his right hand raised a flickering light to
his little goadike face and the wisp of tired white hair hanging over
his left eye. On the divan sat his son-in-law Caiphas with the volup-
tuous perfumed beard, a bulk of shadow against the lesser darkness
of an open window.
"It is hot tonight," complained Annas. "We are going to have a
torrid summer. I know the signs."
"Did you not understand me just now when I told you this town
was in an uproar?" asked the high priest of Jerusalem primly.
"You know very well it is the Feast of Weeks, Caiphas. The city
is simply crowded again, full of visitors."
"Full of Christians," reported his son-in-law bitterly. "I cannot
seem to make you realize. You are getting more obstinate all the
time. Seven weeks ago I had all I could do to make you act against
that impostor, Jesus of Nazareth. And now "
"And now," Annas broke in with his humming voice, "the follow-
ers of your executed impostor are back in town and only this week
they made three thousand converts!"
"Five thousand!"
"They seem very confident of their faith."
"The danger of revolution is even greater with Jesus dead than
alive," complained the priest.
THE THIRD YEAR 291
"Are you sure that He is dead?" asked Annas lightly.
"You saw Him die."
"No, I did not wait. But, Caiphas, what do you suppose happened
to His body?"
"It was buried. And there's a pretty story too. Do you know
where they laid that cadaver? In the tomb that Joseph had built for
himself!"
"Joseph? Of Arimathea?"
"Exactly. One of our own kind, but a traitor to his class. He went
to Pilate and asked permission and got it. He worked fast, and was
able to observe the ceremonial law before sunset, and he had help
help from another traitor."
"Nicodemus, no doubt," chuckled Annas, with an obscene roll of
his pale blue eyes.
"Yes, it was Nicodemus. Two substantial men like that extend-
ing charnel hospitality to the remains of a felon, winding the body
in the traditional cerements, eight feet long; anointing the body with
embalming spices, as our ancestors learned from the Egyptians. They
had women with them, too, silly women who believed in Jesus.
Wahr
Annas lowered his fan, folded his arms, and gave a toothless grin,
barely visible in the dark.
"Is the scoundrel's body still in the tomb?" he asked softly.
"No!"
"No?"
"No!"
"It is not?"
"No, I said."
"It is gone?"
"Yes!"
"But where, Caiphas? You have suddenly become quite mono-
syllabic."
"It was stolen."
"I see. Why did not Joseph and Nicodemus see to it that the
golal, the great stone, was placed securely against the tomb?"
"That was done, but . . ."
"And weren't there guards?"
"I believe so."
"You know so. Ypu yourself specifically asked Pikte to put them
there. Then how could anyone have stolen the body?"
292 THE GREATEST STORY EVER TOLD
"Wah! I don't know," groaned Caiphas. "I wish I did."
"Caiphas," Annas advised, u calm yourself. Have another drink
of cool and sweetened water and listen to me. I have not been so
Indifferent as you think in this business. I selected my own repre-
sentatives to investigate. It is a fact that the tomb of Jesus now has
no corpse in it"
"Those scheming disciples . * ."
"Stole it? No. They might well have tried to, but no! They had
no opportunity. But suppose they had done so. Where have they
hidden the remains? I employed the smartest spies in Judea, expe-
rienced in espionage. They mingled with these apostles pretending
to be true believers. We got nowhere. It is still a fact that the re-
mains of a criminal, who was put to death, have disappeared under
your very nose. Now you tell me the body has been stolen. What
eke could you say?"
"You begin to talk like one of them," murmured Caiphas.
"No* I am merely trying to be factual and objective, as always.
There are several possible reasons for that tomb being empty. Sup-
pose, for example, the body was never put in there at all. Suppose
that Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus did not trust you. I hap-
pen to know they never have. They may have feared that you would
send vandals after that body, for fear the faithful followers of this
man would continue to visit the tomb and make it a shrine. They
may even have been afraid that you would use His body for dog
meat, Caiphas. So Joseph and Nicodemus may have removed the
body to another, more obscure, secret tomb."
"I shall face them."
"You need not trouble. I have already talked to them. They did
nothing of the kind. They were too scared!"
"Pilate, then?"
"What should the Procurator of Judea care about a convict's
corpse? He did his best for Jesus as long as he could."
"Then where can it be, Father-in-law?"
The laugh of Annas was low and chuckling.
"Don't you know? The Christians say He has risen from the dead,
in three days, on schedule, as promised! And it is supposed to prom-
ise a similar grace to all His followersa palingenesis, a rebirth into
a higher life."
"Do you think you have to remind me of what the Christians
say!" exclaimed Caiphas, with a tremble in his voice. "Peter the fish-
THE THIRD YEAR 293
erman, ana James and John, the sons of Zebedee, and the whole
crew of them are standing on our street corners, preaching these
insane lies c Jesus is Christy the son of the Living God! He rose from
the dead! We have all seen Him! We have all talked with Him!
Here, ask Thomas Didymushe was the skeptic, he saw the wounds
of the nails in His hands and feet and put his own hand into the
wound in His side!'
"That is the sort of talk they are blabbering all over town. They
even call to me, as I stand listening at a little distance off, and ask
me if I have gone to the tomb to see for myself; and why don't I
call the gardener and ask him what he knows about it."
"Well," snapped Annas, "why don't you?"
The fact was that Annas had done just what he now advised his
son-in-law to do. He had talked with the gardener, and with the
Roman soldiers, and even with Christian witnesses. Out of the minor
disagreements, the divergencies in detail, even the apparently irrec-
oncilable differences, there emerged in all essential substance ac-
counts that were impressively the same.
Annas had not wanted to believe any of them, yet these witnesses
were not liars; he could see that.
They reminded the old politician that Jesus was crucified on
Friday, which was the parasceve, the eve of preparation of the Sab-
tath, and, more than that, on this occasion also, the night before
the Feast of the Passover. It would be an affront to the people, both
in their Sabbath devotions and their celebration of the Pasch, to
leave meanwhile the three bodies beginning to putrefy on their
crosses. So even the priests had gone to Pilate that day only a short
while behind Joseph of Arimathea to ask that the legs of the corpses
be ceremonially broken and the bodies pulled down and taken away.
To this request Pilate also gave consent, and sent soldiers to finish
the job.
These guards broke the legs of the two thieves but they did not
touch the legs of Jesus. But one of the soldiers Longinus was his
name opened up His side with a thrust of his spear, and testified
that blood and water flowed from the open wound. Many of the fol-
lowers of Jesus also believed that the spear pierced His heart
When their work was done, Joseph of Arimathea showed the
guards his writ from Pikte, by which they must relinquish to him
the remains of Jesus. There was no difficulty about it; the two thieves
were tossed into a common burial pit, but the body of the Nazarene
294 THE GR E ATEST STORY EVER TOLD
was given to the two daring aristocrats who risked the condemnation
of all their friends to do this service.
Joseph and Nicodemus freely admitted to Annas just what they
had done. The garden in which Joseph had made for himself a sepul-
cher hewed in stone was quite close to the hill of the crucifixion.
There the two rich men carried the body and Nicodemus opened
a bag and took out a hundred pounds of an ointment made of myrrh
and aloes. Joseph had brought fine linen and so, while the two Marys
helped, they laid Him away.
"It is queer," continued Annas in his humming voice as he re-
viewed the testimony; "the guards say there was an earthquake.
Some talk about an angel with shining face coming down and the
soldiers falling unconscious with fear. Anyway, a woman came into
the garden. Her name was Mary, she came from Magdala, and she
used to have a dubious reputation. Before dawn her grief for this
Jesus was poignant quite evidently she came to the tomb with more
spiced ointments for the corpse. It was still dark at that hour, but
she could see well enough to be both astonished and terrified. She
ran back into town to tell this new leader of theirs-^IVe talked with
him; a fiery fellow who won't back down Peter of Capernaum.
She told Peter that she feared robbers had stolen the body of their
Lord!"
"Rubbish!" grumbled Caiphas.
"Most mysterious rubbish! Pretty soon there were two other
women called Mary in the garden. One was His mother, from up in
Nazareth, and the other His aunt, the wife of Cleophas. They, too,
were astonished when they found the stone gone. Now, Caiphas,
as one man tells the story, they found two angels in the tomb. I do
not know what an angel looks like, so I find it hard to visualize."
"Why try? Isn't this whole conversation a waste of time?"
"That," said Annas, "depends entirely on how much of it you
are going to be able to grasp. I hear, too, that they found a young
man sitting on the right side of the tomb, as one enters the place.
The young man, who was wearing a white robe, told them not to
be frightened; I think I have the testimony of what he said here."
Annas picked up a thin scroll lying on the Athenian stand at his
left hand. He flipped it open, clucked his lips twice, and then read:
a 'You seek Jesus of Nazareth who was crucified. He is risen! He
is not here! Behold the place where they laid Him. But go, tell His
THE THIRD YEAR 295
disciples and Peter that He goes before you into Galilee; there you
should see Him; as He told you.' "
"And I suppose," said Caiphas with a leer, "you sent agents into
Galilee!"
"I am sorry to say I did not I did not believe, when I first heard
these stories, that there could be anything to them."
"Lord Annas!"
Caiphas stood up and assumed a dramatic pose.
"Do you mean to sit there and give me to believe that you do
put any belief in them now? Are you going to tell me Jesus of
Nazareth did rise from the dead?"
"I don't know," grinned Annas uncomfortably. "I wish I did, but
I don't. I don't know."
"You know that such a notion is mad," Caiphas retorted coldly.
The old man tugged at his dangling wisp of white hair and his
smile became glacial
"Hear it all and judge for yourself. If nothing else, It will have
the interest of a curious tale. The women went back and told Peter,
whom I mentioned, and another, younger disciple a decent enough
young man called John. I heard them tell the story to me and I
cross-questioned them severely. No, I could not make a breach in
either man's testimony. Both men ran to the tomb after hearing the
story from the women. Hard as they found it to believe in fact,
they didn't believe it at first any more than you or I did "
"Do," corrected Caiphas.
"Nevertheless, they ran to the Porta Judiciaria as fast as they
could. John peered into the tomb and saw the linen cloths and the
face napkin lying loosely on the shelf where the body had been.
Then he waited for Peter. He was not ready to tell me why, but I
think he was just plain scared, as any man might well be. These
disciples think their Jesus was a God, but they themselves are very
ordinary fellows, beHeve me. Then along came Peter, puffing from
the run."
"Never mind the descriptive passages," pleaded Caiphas sourly. "I
know you are a frustrated poet That is what made you such a suc-
cessful politician. Have I much more to hear?"
"Peter," repeated Annas implacably, "was puffing heavily. He
did not loiter at the door; not Peter. He plunged right on into the
sepulcher; he, too, saw the loose grave clothes and the napkin that
296 THE GREATEST STORY EVER TOLD
had been about the head of Jesus wrapped tip and put carefully in
a separate place."
"So what is the point of all this miracle story, Lord Annas?"
A warmer light came into the bleak eyes of the old man.
"The point I make to you is a point in logic, a point in sheer
reason, my son-in-law. Let us overlook or, if you prefer, dismiss all
the arguments and look only to the salient facts. They say that Jesus
appeared visibly to Mary Magdalen. We need not discuss that I
am also told that you tried to bribe the soldiers "
"I?"
Caiphas picked up his skirts and again stood dramatically erect
"You, yes! Sit down. You have bribed before, as we both know.
"Caiphas, you tried to bribe the soldiers to say that robbers took
the body, and that the robbers were His disciples. Silly that you
should expect soldiers of the Roman legion to report to Pilate such
a self-incriminating tale as that the body was stolen right under their
eyes. They took your money, of course and I know you interceded
for them at the palace but the story, Caiphas, is against good sense.
Never mind!
"There is a little village called Emmaus, about seven miles from
Jerusalem, and there is a repeated report that Jesus appeared and
ate with a family there."
"What rubbish, rubbish, rubbish "
"It is not so easy to jump on the next report. That is when He
is said suddenly to have appeared in the midst of His friends, right
here in Jerusalem. He nearly scared them into sickness. Have you
read the account of what they all testify He said to them? Listen:
" Teace be to you! It is I! Fear not! Why are you so troubled
and why do thoughts arise in your hearts? See my hands and feet,
that it is I myself; handle and see; for a spirit has not flesh and bones,
as you see me to have. 5
"He showed them the wound in His side," Annas went on. "He
ate with them. He bestowed on them some mystical blessing of the
Holy Ghost, whatever that may be; the whole business is beyond
my comprehension. But it did have something to do, Caiphas, with
the forgiveness of sin."
"That," said Caiphas, *Vas blasphemy again.*"
Annas chortled.
"He seems to go right on committing that sin," he mused in his
humming voice while Caiphas swore humorlessly.
THE THIRD YEAR 297
"But there was one remarkable circumstance which we must never
forget," the old man continued. "One of their members Thomas
Didymus by name was absent at this visitation. The others told him
all about it but doubting Thomas shook his head. He refused to be-
lieve any of it."
"The first Christian with a grain of sense," said Caiphas.
"The first true scientist, perhaps. Anyway, Jesus returned to con-
front Thomas, the skeptic, with His hands the apostle saw the holes
in the palms left by die tent pegs and the wounds in His feet; he
put his own hand into the open wound in Jesus's side, where the
spear of Longinus had pierced it."
"And what did Thomas say then?" asked Caiphas, beguiled in
spite of himself.
"He said, 'My Lord and my God' and then Jesus said, 'Because
you have seen me, Thomas, you have believed. Blessed are they that
have not seen and have believed/ "
"But that," cried Caiphas, "denies rationalism!"
"Exactly I" said Annas, and laughed to himself, long and silently,
like a very foolish or a very wiseold man. "And I, for one, am
glad of that much I never like those pessimistic ideas."
Both knew that it was not necessary for Annas to complete the
story; each had tried to sift it down to its realities. They had heard
the reports of the appearance of Jesus to His disciples by the Sea
of Tiberius; and of how He had appeared to others on a mountain
in Galilee. More, they had heard over and over again the story, in-
credible to them both, of how Jesus had gathered all His loved ones
around Him on the top of Mount Olivet, had promised them "Lo, I
am with you always, even until the consummation of the world"
and then had visibly departed heavenward until He was hidden
and lost in clouds.
Now, in the moist warmth of the torrid night, Annas and Caiphas
sat together in the dark, remembering so much of this man whom
they had ordered killed yet who still could plague their peace of
mind.
"The reason I came here tonight," explained Caiphas, "is that we
shall have to agree on a strong policy."
"You still want action? More action?"
"Yes."
Annas clucked his tongue and lips together.
4< But I thought you had already started on this sort of thing with-
298 THE GREATEST STORY EVER TOLD
out bothering to consult me. Haven't I heard that you had a young
man named Stephen brought up on charges? Wasn't he a follower
of Jesus? Did you have a lot of trouble with him?"
"We condemned him, too."
"Yes, and you stoned him to death, and the followers of Jesus now
declare that he is a martyr the first from among themselves."
"Perhaps he will not be the last."
"But has it occurred to you, Caiphas, that this brave death con-
tradicts all that you had to say earlier this evening? Would any man
be willing to die in a heroic, glorious martyrdom like this- for some
conjurer's trick involving the stealing of a corpse in a hoax, a sham?
No! He was one of the men present when they say Jesus showed
them hands, feet, and the wound in His side."
"I still don't see "
"Probably you never will But I shall try to give you a gleam of
light On the night we killed Him, you remember that two of His
disciples followed Him into Jerusalem but one of them denied Him
three times and both kept themselves hidden. What happened to
the other nine? They couldn't get away fast enough. They went
back to Galilee where they came from, and glad enough to get
there. Why? Because they were afraid. They had pretended all
along to themselves that they believed He was the Messiah and
maybe they did-but when they came to face danger they lost faith
and ran.'*
"Cowards as well as fools!" fleered Caiphas.
"But what makes them brave now?" asked Annas sternly. "How
is it a man can die so willingly? All the others, preaching today on
the streets of Jerusalem, know that their ultimate fate is violent death*
They know what they stand for and what you stand for, Caiphas,
and they know this world will always be a place of fear, of want,
of war, of all kinds of suffering, as long as those two conflicting
points of view exist The world will be a better place, Caiphas, only
when their side wins. And they will win. We can only kill them;
but they can conquer us.
"Why do they no longer care whether they live or die? Because
they have seen their leader rise from the dead; they expect to do
the same; to them, now, life and death are mere words for tempo-
rary things and do not really matter* Since the resurrection, that is
what it means to be a Christian."
Again there was silence except for the droning of the insects.
THE THIRD YEAR 299
Sobered Caiphas was thinking of that tmcompromisable conflict.
"Lord Annas," said Caiphas, "the tales of rising from the dead are
comical. The views taught by the followers of this man are not
comical they are subversive. I propose to stamp these people out so
that they will never be heard of again; there won't be a Christian
left in the world!"
Old Annas sucked on his noisy tooth.
"Very well," he said. "Do as you will do anyhow. -But Caiphas,
these roots are deep and spreading. Before you get through God
only knows I I have a horrible feeling that we have blundered. His-
tory may blarne us. Worse, history may blame all our nation, all
Israel, for the guilt that belongs so much to you and me and our rich
and powerful friends who were afraid of the truth."
"What is truth?" Caiphas was sarcastic. "Pilate asked Him that. Do
you know the answer?"
"No. But now I believe it is truth itself that we nailed to the
cross and then buried and truth, as usual, rose again."
Annas chuckled softly.
"I am old and sleepy," he muttered. "Good-night, Caiphas." He
moved toward his bedroom.
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