The Tongues of Men or Angels

Twenty-seven Years after the Crucifixion

After a frustrating week of waiting, while charging cargo at Tyre, the ship finally ports at Caesarea in Judaea. Though Caesarea is hardly Judaea proper: it is a predominantly pagan city now, renamed for Caesar Augustus — and furnished with a temple to him too — filled with foreigners and foreign gods, the centre of Roman administration and commerce. The seat of the prefect, although, the Feast of Weeks being near, possibly the governor is currently in Jerusalem.

Pontius Pilate, of course, is long since gone, recalled for a readiness to resort to mass slaughter, cruelty and extortion, exceptional even by Roman standards. The prefect is Marcus Antonius Felix now, a freedman who has risen to control a province, though his buoyance doubtless owes much to his brother, embroiled in imperial intrigues, said to be the lover of the Emperor Nero’s mother. Felix himself has lately married a Herodian princess.

If it were possible, Paul might have preferred to remain in this haven of Roman security but, for the sake of his mission, rapprochement with the Three Pillars must be accomplished. There are other supporters loyal to Paul in Caesarea, though; arrangements have been made, and Paul’s group is swollen by seven Gentile men from Caesarea itself and a further ten who have travelled from Cyprus with Mnason, one of Paul’s earliest disciples, converted at the court of Sergius Paulus.

They hire horses to take them to Jerusalem, pad nags, accustomed to being ridden by those unaccustomed to riding. Almost all of Paul’s previous land journeys were made on foot, but each hour grows more essential now; this is not a moment for questioning every last expense.

The ostler they rent from trades camels, too. It has been years since Paul has seen such beasts. Knees worn black from their strange crouched wait. Fur like sheep’s wool on the sides of their great chests. Faces of sad patience, deceptive faces, ready at a moment to hiss and spit. A slave boy cleans the camels’ teeth, scraping bits from between them with a green twig. The pegs of the camels’ rear spikes look carnivorous. If the Romans came across more camels, they would have myths about man-eating ones — camels that can thrive only on human flesh: that’s the sort of story Romans like.

It is an extravagant comfort to be on horseback, the mounts’ heads nodding in time to their gentle trot, flanks black and oily as cormorant feathers. And, despite some trepidation about meeting with the Pillars, it feels good to be back in Judaea.

Alongside the road are fortress cliffs of red rock, which have sheltered patriots and bandits, but there will be no fear of robbery on this trip. There is a certain sense of power, in fact, in travelling with such a large party: Silas, Timothy, Sopater, Aristarchus, Secundus, Gaius, Tychicus, Trophimus and now Mnason and seventeen others.

Neither do they fear the Asiatic lions, the symbol of Judaea but snub-nosed like Roman dogs of war, asleep under the acacia trees to escape the sun. The lions have long learned to fear man and even at night would not attack a group like this one. But at the moment it is too hot for lions to hunt at all, and the gazelles know it. They eat mockingly close by, bodies twitching, though they stand still, as if an excess of energy is squashed into their small frames. Leaf-clipping muzzles pushing into bushes. Short satyr spikes of their horns like metal styluses.

The apostle’s party passes villages. Some real, quiet and nervous. Others illusory: sand sculptures, layers hardened and built on top, like flat-roof dwellings; false streets wind-stripped between them.

Paul falls to the ground as he tries to remount after they eat by a dry-walled well. Unused to steeds, he slips and lands breathless on his back, staring at the sky. And in the moment before his companions lift him up again, he returns to a time more than twenty years ago, when he lay, like a shell-stranded tortoise, on a road outside Damascus. All he has achieved over those two decades, surely it would not have been possible were he not chosen and aided by God. Surely he can make James understand this. Beside Paul is a high thistle, spiny fronds reaching out like a beggar’s plea for coin.

Mnason has secured the group lodgings in Jerusalem in advance of their arrival. Fortunately, because the city, as usual, is beyond bloated for the festival. As soon as they are settled, before even eating, Paul dispatches Timothy to arrange parley with the Three Pillars. Timothy returns to report it done, they will meet the following morning, and he grinning bears the tale that James seemed every bit as wrong-footed by the news of their presence as Paul had hoped.

And so the two sides assemble, in the broad, bright courtyard of the house of John-Mark’s mother. Paul with Silas and Timothy, Trophimus of Ephesus and the others who came with them by sea and also Mnason of Cyprus. The Three Pillars with an entourage of elders of The Way and four younger men, long-haired and sinewy.

It has been seven years since Paul last saw Cephas, at the time of the Antioch incident, longer since he saw James and Jochanan. None of them looks so changed, but they must be: not only older, but altered.

There is none of the kissing common among reunited men of these regions. A cognized gap remains between the two groups. Paul hopes it is a space wherein the Holy Spirit might abide.

A cockerel — a fighting breed — struts about the courtyard, king of this small corner, golden-plumed, crested with a comb of flesh as red as the petals of the blood orchid. And on a paving beneath the arch of a roof a baby bird lies dead, its skin translucent, legs, not fully formed, curled uncomfortably into itself.

‘You wished for an audience with us, Saul of Tarsus,’ James begins.

He speaks in his native Aramaic, dictating the language in which this conclave will be held, putting Paul at a slight disadvantage, but cutting his companions from the conversation entirely.

‘I wanted to see you, yes,’ Paul replies, the rarely used tongue returning like familiar scripture, ‘so that I could give you the very great sum of money I have collected for you and the poor ones of Jerusalem. I have been a man of my word, James. I have honoured our agreement. It was made, you will recall, at the time of the decision that I would go to the Gentiles and you to the circumcised. I have kept to my side of that bargain.’

‘Bargain, was it? Like something struck by a stall hawker or a whore? The Pillars don’t bargain, Saul, we decree. But it’s fortunate that you bring up the matter of circumcision, because I have something to say, for your own safety. You see, Brother Saul, many thousands of Jews who follow The Way are here at Jerusalem and all of them are zealous for the Torah. But they have been informed that you teach men to turn away from Moses, saying not to circumcise or live according to the sacred laws. They will certainly hear that you have come, so we have been worrying over what we could do to protect you.’

Jochanan now speaks for the first time: ‘What’s the matter, Saul?’ He laughs. ‘You’ve the face of a man trying to suck honey from a hornet’s nest.’

‘There is nothing to be afraid of, Paul,’ Cephas says, ‘but you must know that we have been read copies of your letters. They circulate widely, widely enough for us to know that you have sometimes written ill of us.’

‘And ill of the Torah,’ James says. ‘You compose epistles filled with thimblerigs, where you switch the peas before the eyes of fools to turn fraud into fact. We are not simpletons to be tricked by street swindlers, Saul. We know to watch the hand and not the cup.’

Paul’s lips move, but no words come; it is easy to be disdainful of James the Just from a distance, but his presence is a force like the Boreas wind. James’s face is drawn and dark.

‘So we have decided that you must publicly demonstrate that you recognize the Law of Moses,’ James says. ‘You will show these Gentiles who have come with you and the Jerusalemites that you submit to us and to the Torah. When you have completed a Nazirite Vow to prove that you remain a faithful Jew, only then will we accept your gift for the poor ones and we will rule on what the future holds.’

‘You know the process of the temporary Nazirite Vow, no doubt,’ Jochanan says. The beard surrounding the scar of his throat has gone badger-striped with white. ‘But perhaps I should refresh your memory, because it seems you have been prone to forgetting certain practices of late. You must make purifications to enter the Temple and also abstain from wine and other fermented drink for seven days. When the period of your dedication is over, you are to present sacrifices to God: an unblemished male lamb for a guilt offering, an unblemished ewe lamb for a sin offering, an unblemished ram for a fellowship offering, with grain, wine and bread offerings. You will present these at the Temple, before God and man. Then, in front of all, you must shave off your hair to symbolize your subservience to the Torah and put your hair into the fire of the sacrifice. Thereafter everyone will know there to be no truth in these reports about you, and that you are still submissive to the Law.’

‘But we will protect you through this,’ Cephas says, gesturing to the four gaunt younger men, who are with his group on the shaded side of the courtyard. ‘These comrades will take the Nazirite Vow with you. They will look after you and ensure that the purification rites are carried through correctly. Though you will, of course, have to pay their expenses, because the sacrifices mean no small cost.’

‘Do I have a choice in this?’ Paul asks.

‘God gives us free will. We always have choice,’ James says. ‘You could perhaps leave Jerusalem immediately and pray to outrun such deadly men as would most certainly pursue you.’

After they have retired from the meeting, Paul clarifies to his followers what has come to pass because they don’t speak Aramaic. He explains how he has come up with a course of action to soothe the situation, as hot sun calms the lion.

‘I have decided to perform a Nazirite Vow, as a balm on this fever of discord. To the Jews I become a Jew, to those subject to the Law of Moses as if I too am under that Law. God has made me all things to all men, the better to save some.’

‘So you did not explain to them how the Torah was only a temporary measure until the arrival of God’s Son, that all who rely on the Law are now under a curse, that salvation comes only through faith in Jesus Christ?’ asks a puzzled Trophimus.

‘Not precisely, no.’

Apart from its size and splendour and the fact it contains no statues, the Jerusalem Temple barely differs from any of the countless other temples that Paul has seen on his missionary journeys: people travel there to worship; the priests make sacrifices; the supplicant hopes their God has blessed them.

What separates Paul’s new sect is that he has come to believe and teach that Jesus was the perfect and final sacrifice. That no more sacrifices are needed. Yahweh sent His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh to be a sin offering. Jesus is the Lamb of God, the final atonement before the imminent reign of God on earth, when the righteous dead will rise from the grave and the saved among the living will have their lowly bodies moulded into a new and glorious form.

But that being so, Paul has no particular problem with the strictures of the Nazirite Vow that he has undertaken to complete. Aside from an uncomfortable lump of undigested pride in his stomach, the act is simply meaningless to him.

So he descends into the purifying mikveh bath, as do the four long-haired acolytes of James. Men who are cordial but cold. It is hard to say if they are to protect Paul or to curtail him. They remain so close by that their shadows blend with Paul’s, but he is unwilling to trust his safety to them. He has Timothy take the rites of purification too, so that he can enter the inner sanctums of the Temple.

And as far as possible, during the seven days of the dedication, Paul keeps the rest of his disciples about him as well. A fish school of protection, in the centre of which Silas guards his master, like the pupil of his eye.

The Temple is the point of greatest danger. The Israelites are always fired up when so close to God. Which is why the Romans watch its courts from the towers of the Antonia Fortress and why, in recent years, fearing revolutionary activity on the part of the festival crowds, the prefect has even taken to stationing a company of soldiers at armed alert by the very entrance porticoes. To remind those Jews mounting the great stone steps that insurrection may be quelled with spears.

But Paul takes comfort from seeing the legionaries there, as he passes through the double gates with the four Nazirites and his retinue of followers. Paul himself wrote: Let every person be subject to the governing authorities … the authorities do not bear the sword in vain. They are servants of God to execute wrath on the wrongdoer. So Paul has no fear of these troopers’ blades; in fact, he steals the eye of Mnason and shares a nod, to emphasize the soldiers’ presence. Because Mnason knows the ways of Rome well, having served the Cyprus governor. And Mnason has some specific instructions to follow in the case of calamity.

Past the porticoes, the party enters into the great bazaar of the first court, filled with bleating beasts and sweating traders, crying repeated words about their wares so fast and so frequently that they become almost an unintelligible stream, like speaking in tongues. Money-changers and pedlars ply and, occasionally, priests glide by amid the pilgrims and peasant farmers carrying reed-tied sheaves of wheat as offerings. And Paul sees also the short grey tunics of Temple Guards, a uniform he knows well.

Paul is beyond certain that the world has altered utterly — the Christ’s sacrifice and Paul’s revelations have transformed everything — and yet to be here, you could almost believe that it all remained the same.

There is still the waist-high wall, which separates this area from the holier courtyards of the Mount and the Temple itself. The decorative palisade has many unguarded entrances — it is purely symbolic, easily crossed — but the fate of transgressors is made clear by numerous notices in every language: No Gentile is to enter beyond the balustrade into the forecourt around the Sanctuary. Whoever is caught will have himself to blame for his subsequent death.

So Paul cannot take his formation of followers with him as he passes through with the four Nazirites; only Timothy accompanies him. The others wait outside, as instructed, as close to Paul as the wall allows, alert for his return. A large group, but not so incongruous in this vast open courtyard, filled with strangers and wayfarers drawn from every cranny country of the earth.

But as Paul passes back through the barrier to rejoin his companions, there is a man he identifies, hazily, as at the frayed edge of a dream; a man from Asia, from Ephesus. Is he a follower of The Way or just a Jew from Ephesus? Paul can’t remember.

But the man clearly remembers Paul, because he shouts in anger, ‘Men of Israel, help! This is the fellow who preaches everywhere against our people, the Law of Moses, and this edifice. More than that: see how he has just brought a Gentile into the inner Temple and desecrated this Holy Place.’

Does the man think Timothy is a Gentile, then? It is true that he is half-blooded and looks none too much Judaean. Or does the man recognize Trophimus the Ephesian and assume that Paul had taken him, too, into the Temple? Or, worst of all, was this always a trap?

The four followers of James walk discreetly backwards from the fracas, returning to the sanctuary of the central courts.

Paul yells that he has committed no crime, that Timothy is a circumcised Jew.

But a crowd has formed; a ring of ruffians has organically appeared. Men who were seemingly dispersed in every direction, seeped into the corners, strolling, admiring the frescos, taking the shade of colonnades or half-heartedly haggling with stallholders, are suddenly gathered here. In cases where the likelihood of detection is so slight, the sanction must be heavy, or else where is the deterrent? For the warning signs to work, it must be known that the throng will enforce the toll. Judaea is a vendetta land under vendetta law. An eye should be gouged out for an eye lost. And this dreg riff-raff — suspiciously swift to emerge — seem extremely keen on gouging. Were they in wait for Paul, or do they always hope for the chance to commit murder countenanced by God?

Someone in the crowd shouts, ‘Kill him!’ And assailants tear into Paul. He is pummelled by fists. Knocked to the paving. The sky above him is dimmed by snarling shapes. Sandals stamp on his head. But Silas claws men from his master, swinging like a granite hammer. And Timothy jumps onto the back of one of the attackers and rends at his eyes. Mnason flees, but the two score of Paul’s other supporters charge into the mass of aggressors and what was a brutal assault on one man becomes a swirling skirmish on the forecourt of the Temple. Though outnumbered, Paul’s followers have advantage in knowing each other instantly, while the chaotic mass of their attackers faces confusion as well as pugilism. The violence is stilted and gusting — men grapple and are wrenched apart again. The battle is a vortex; centripetal Paul sucks in defence and aggression, many men fathoming who to fight in the brawling whirlpool only by how other combatants behave when close to the apostle.

Then Secundus, wrestling away an adversary who tries to strike his master, is knifed from behind in the small of his back and shrieks out at the pain as a sickle-shaped dagger is withdrawn. He drops to his knees, seeming puzzled, as if he feels an overwhelming urge to sit down and think about something, but he will not need to dwell on it for long. The assassin who struck the blow looks calm and satisfied. If he is angry, it is fury born of some slow-boiling hatred; he is not carried away in the heat of events.

But for a moment it is as if the fight has paused, while those nearby take in this escalation. And all who have seen, and are able, then draw their own blades and the pace of combat slows as the ripple of drawn daggers spreads and consequences climb. And the two sides disentangle and separate, backing away from knife slashes. Some of the fallen are dragged from the ground into their own lines.

Paul and his disciples are encircled by a force of greater and growing numbers. The apostle’s followers gather around their master and the injured Secundus; silent Secundus, robe rooster-comb red, face translucent as a stilled bird-chick. And though the crowd hesitates to rush at the opposing knives, they begin to lob objects and feint lunges, as the bravery of superior numbers is bolstered. There is no way for the apostle’s men to escape; it is stark clear how this will finish. The only remaining doubt is how long it will be before they are overborne and butchered. They will bleed out on the forecourt, like so many beasts. Because sacrilege demands sacrifice. There is no atonement without the shedding of blood.

But then, as a division of deus ex machina, a formation of Roman spearmen comes running, Mnason at their head, leading the cohort to the battleground. Mnason had a message to deliver in case of trouble and he has conveyed it, compelling as an angel. Legionary boots troop across the Temple court and the crowd must burn with the urge to pelt them or charge them, but to do so would mean death. The mob’s blood is up, but they still hold on to the greasy edge of reason sufficiently not to challenge the trained killers of Rome. Not just yet.

The soldiers come to a practised stop with javelin points like a stockade buttress between the two factions. And the tribune of the cohort draws Paul from the mass of his followers and demands of him: ‘Is it true what this man Mnason says, that you are a Roman citizen?’

And Paul, whose face is raw-bruised, who bleeds from his nose and his lip and one ear, laughing with fear-rush and relief, replies, ‘I am. And, praise God, it was worth every drachma.’