THE PARAGON
Odyssey of the Nazarene
By Joseph Emmrich
© 2017 Joseph Emmrich
All rights reserved
Chapter One
The Present Time
In the Court of Herod Antipas
In the Early Years of the Reign of the Emperor Tiberius
Yeshua is Twenty-five Years Old
It was the age of occupation and corruption. It was the time of a culture in decline. It was a time without redemption, when the leaders of the people whored themselves for personal gain; and the common people, beyond family and village, existed as every man for himself.
The Roman overseers had ultimately confirmed Herod the Great’s last will and testament, dividing Judea into four, to end the internecine squabbling of sibling pretenders to his throne. Each of the four was called tetrarch and was king or queen enough in his or her own realm to sit atop the pyramid of wealth and orchestrate the dirty deeds beneath.
From time to time someone would arise who claimed to be the long-promised Messiah to his people, to save them from the morass of Roman rule and corruption in which they wallowed. Herod Antipas feared these messianics above all others. It was not in any Jew’s interest, especially his, to challenge Roman rule.
The Qumran monastic community, near the Dead Sea, was a hornet’s nest of sedition as far as he was concerned. His spies had made that clear. The problem was he couldn’t send men into Judea, the territory of his brother, Archelaus, to lay waste to the place. If, however, unfortunate things happened to the worst of them, he could have the best of both worlds: keeping the favor of Rome and quelling the urge for popular uprising.
Antipas paced the marble floor of his throne room, the grandest salon in the grandest palace in the eastern part of the Roman Empire. He had inherited his father’s penchant for building opulent structures. His guard snapped the butt of his spear to the floor, cracking an echo in the rotunda above them and announcing the approach of his regent.
Sesipedes, the regent, was the king’s backbone, in the same way a snake has a backbone. Kill them all. Let them fear you. That was the counsel he often gave and was only too happy to execute, but today his advice was more nuanced.
“Right now, your majesty, there are two monks at Qumran we need to be concerned about. They’re Galileans from Nazareth, called Yonnah and Yeshua. We need to find a way to eliminate them. Maybe they could meet with some accident on the road when they’re returning to Nazareth or even be killed by ‘highwaymen.’
“Perhaps the same thing could happen in Perea,” Sesipedes continued, “where this Yonnah preaches. Of course, Perea, across the Jordan, as well as Galilee, are your territories, and your brother would have no concern about what happens there, but these two are clearly who we need to watch. We have time. We can be patient.”
“I’ve been patient, Sesipedes,” Antipas said. “Others have warned me about these two, and I’m ready to see it done. Find me two men from the Royal Guard who trust each other and who I can trust, and bring them to me.”
“Your Majesty,” Sesipedes replied, “I suggest Kefir, second in command of the Guard and his son Ptolemy, the fittest and best fighter. He adores his father and will be completely loyal to him and to your mission. The reason you can be assured of their loyalty is that you’ll find them extremely motivated, and you’ll see how easily you can manipulate that motivation.”
“Of course, Kefir. I know his story well,” Antipas said. “In fact, I brought him to the Court before your regency. He’d been loyal and deserved some reward because of his personal tragedy. Bring them here. I want to instruct them myself.”
In Nazareth
Ten Years Earlier
Yosef awoke well before first light. He shuffled across the central room of his home, the one where the family gathered for meals and such, and made his way to the hearth to get a flame from last night’s embers to light a lamp.
His house was modest but sturdy. He’d built it himself of stone and brick. It was a bit larger than some of his neighbors’, large enough to accommodate his parents. It had three rooms in addition to the central one, and an outbuilding behind the main house for the animals.
Yosef and his son, Yeshua, had been home for a few days, waiting for supplies to arrive in Sepphoris, so they could finally finish their work there. If they kept a brisk pace, they could make the walk to Sepphoris in less than two hours. It was too far to do every day, so they often stayed in the dormitories provided by the king, but they were among the lucky ones who could make the trip home whenever they wanted or needed to.
Yeshua awoke at Yosef’s second calling. He sat up, rubbed his eyes, and made his way to a bowl of water, where he took a drink and splashed some in his face. With the waking process now begun in earnest, he was able to bring good humor to his first words. “Good morning, Father.”
“Good morning, Son. We need to move, so we aren’t late for work.”
Without a verbal response, Yeshua made his way to the barn to feed and water the animals, while saying his abbreviated morning prayers to himself.
Antipas had conscripted Yosef, and who knew how many others, for his project to build a magnificent capital in Sepphoris. The family owed the king two years of labor, but with father and son working together, they could fulfill the obligation in one year. It wasn’t exactly slavery. The king paid them, albeit a pittance, about half of what Yosef could make as a builder working on private jobs, but it was a hardship in an already hard life.
Yosef’s wife, Maryam, awoke with them. She served them some bread she’d made the day before, along with a little cheese, enough to sustain them on their trek. She herself would soon go to work on her parents’ small farm. She worked at least as hard as her men.
Whenever her duties in the field or with the animals were finished, Maryam helped whoever needed it whether or not they were family. Yosef loved her for this. She’d always helped whomever she could, even as a child, running errands, doing chores, caring for the sick. She never ran out of energy. It was as if everyone was her family, and she was beloved in Nazareth.
As father and son walked the dusty path to their job, they passed the time in a variety of ways, sometimes bursting into song, sometimes playing games of observation, such as who could be the first to spot ten hawks, or sometimes just conversing father to son. Yosef had been angry about this conscription. Not only did it ruin his business, it interfered with his son’s education. Most young people got only a little schooling, and mostly at the local synagogue, but Yeshua seemed to have a gift for learning and speaking, and Yosef would do anything he could to nurture that gift.
“Yeshua, this servitude will only last a while longer,” Yosef said. “You’re my able helper, but we both know your future is as a rabbi and possibly an influential one. I expect you to remain humble as I say this, but you have an exceptional mind, and you need to have education beyond what you’ve gotten in Nazareth, and as much as I hate to admit it, from this time you’ve spent in Sepphoris.
“I know,” Yosef continued, “you seem interested in the Essene sect. You’re fifteen now. You’ve shown your mother and me you’ll walk your own path. Most parents would consider you incorrigible; but since your rebellious behavior has always been constructive, we’ve allowed you more freedom than most children. Have you thought about where you want your path to take you when this job is finished? I’d love to keep you in Nazareth with me, but that’s a selfish wish I can’t justify. You have good to accomplish beyond Nazareth.”
As they trudged up a hill, two men on mules passed them, and the four exchanged pleasantries. It was the day after Shabbat and people were returning to business. The closer they got to Sepphoris, and the higher the sun rose, the more encounters they could expect.
“I’ve thought about what you said, and I agree,” Yeshua rejoined after the brief interruption. “For my calling, this kind of learning is like driving nails or setting bricks is to your business. So, yes, I’ve been thinking about joining the Essenes at Qumran. It wouldn’t cost you anything other than my absence and loss of my labor. I appreciate the sacrifice it would mean for you to let me do this, but I sense you’d be agreeable and even encourage it. I’ve talked to some Essenes, and I think the monks could teach me well.”
“I agree,” Yosef replied. “I think your mother will too. I also hope you can convince your cousin, Yonnah, to go along with you. He’s a strange one. He withdraws from people, and seems to have an unholy flirtation with the Zealots.”
Yosef was now aware of more and more people on the road. The sun was fully risen, the sky cloudless, all signaling the likelihood of a crowded market in the new city.
“In your cousin’s mind the answer to our misery is rebellion,” Yosef continued, “and in a young man’s idealism, he has sympathy for the radicals, because he agrees with their goals. He may not be ready to adopt their methods, but when they commit some atrocity, he’s too willing to blame the victim.”
“I think you’re right about that,” Yeshua said, “and I’ll try my best to convince him to join me. Despite his aversion to people, it’s not because of shyness. It may be his form of demon, albeit benign. He can speak to people with passion. I don’t pretend to understand his behavior, but I think he’ll be a great preacher someday. He needs some direction to his voice, as I do myself. We’re both young and have a lot to learn.”
“A young man who can say that is wise beyond his years,” Yosef responded. “I hope you keep that attitude.”
As they walked the last rolling hills into Sepphoris, they were in as good a mood as men could be on their way to a job they despised. The day went well. The sun was warm enough to make Yosef sweat. The colors of spring splashed his view from the blossoming trees on the hillsides, all the way down to the tiny blooms in the nooks and crannies of the job site.
They were working on an amphitheater near the market. It was a big day for buying and selling, perhaps because it was the first sunny day in a while. The women of Sepphoris and surrounding villages, packed shoulder to shoulder and elbow to elbow, all seemed to be shopping for something. This was the largest market in the area, rivaled only by Jerusalem, and today was a terrific day for business.
The workers were taking a short break. Yeshua was watching people, imagining where the man in the turban was from, what life was like for the hunchbacked old woman, was this pretty girl married? Suddenly, his focus shifted to men in hoods. It wasn’t a day for hoods. There were four of them. They came from different parts of his field of view, but they seemed to be converging on a single point.
“Father, look . . . those men.” They were close enough now to be seen together as one group with a common purpose.
“Yeshua, stay here.”
He did as he was told and watched his father run toward the men. He wouldn’t be in time. The four of them set upon a woman who looked to be Egyptian, took daggers from under their cloaks, and began to stab her as if they had a personal hatred of her. She was with a young boy, probably her child. Yosef screamed, “Zealots among us!” The crowd parted as the men hacked. Yosef broke through and grabbed the child, whisking him back into the crowd.
As the men finished with the mother, they seemed to realize they’d been denied the life of the child and to understand they were now observed. After a quick glance, they ran and lost themselves in the crowd. Almost immediately soldiers converged on the spot. Yosef was trying to comfort the young boy, who was maybe eleven or twelve years old, when the soldiers grabbed the boy and hustled him away.
Yeshua watched in horror at the murder, in fear for his father’s life, and in agonizing sorrow for the boy, who had witnessed his mother slain so brutally. When Yosef returned, he was breathing heavily. He was angry to the point of rage. “May God damn them all to hell!” he exploded. “These are the Zealots who fascinate your cousin. They’d kill an innocent woman and a child, probably because she’s married to a Jew. These are the murdering bastards who claim to be men of God and speak for Judaism. If you ever have anything to do with them, I’ll denounce you to everyone.”
There was no need to worry about that. For although Yeshua always listened to his cousin’s opinions with an open mind, including about the Zealots, this settled his own opinion and wrote it in stone. This was evil, pure and simple. There could be no justification for it.
He might want to be rid of the Romans and the corruption they brought, but better to wait. Eventually, he felt, Roman rule would collapse under its own weight. No need to try to hasten the day with murder and making yourself worse than a beast.
At the Same Time as the Murder in Sepphoris
In the Palace of Izates I, King of Adiabene
In Hadyab, in the Northern Tigris River Valley
The slave girl’s father slapped her to the ground. She didn’t cry. She was used to this kind of treatment. She felt only resentment toward him.
Her mother was worse in her eyes, weak and groveling, concerned more for her own welfare than her daughter’s, always willing to kiss King Izates’s feet for whatever small favor she could wrest from him.
“Meryam, you little bitch, you’ve done it now,” her father bellowed. “We’ll all pay for your stupidity.”
“What would you expect me to do, Father? How can I even call you father?” She drew out the word in sarcasm. “You care nothing for me.”
“You question me?” he thundered. “What don’t you understand about our slavery? You were born a slave. Izates owns you. If you want to be fed and housed–in short, if you want to live, and if you want your parents to live–you do his bidding and the bidding of his people.”
“You’re parents to me in name only.” Meryam growled the words. “I despise you as much as I despise Izates. He at least has no reason to love me. When the overseer of the kitchen tried to force himself on me, no, I wouldn’t have it. I grabbed the nearest knife and plunged it into his filthy body. Now you blame me. I spit on you.”
Her father raised his hand to her again. Her mother stood by expressionless, looking down, staring at her fingernails. Instead of striking her, her father kicked her toward the door. “Get out.” He spat out the words. “Go now to Izates, as he commands, and meet your fate. We’re through with you. I only hope we’re spared for the crime of spawning you. Get out.”
Although her defiant attitude was more than a veneer, she was afraid to die and now believed that would surely be her fate. A guard took her arm and led her down a long colonnade to the opposite end of the palace. Each marble pillar she passed seemed like the counting down of moments to the end of her life. She had nothing to sustain her but that well of defiance inside.