The Tongues of Men or Angels

Thirty-two Years after the Crucifixion

Last night James stayed in Bethany. At the home of an enduring friend, the same house where his brother was once anointed with costly oil, as all kings must be. Thus James now descends the Mount of Olives as he walks to the Temple. It distils one’s mind, to pass through that place where so much happened. And so much did not happen. Where they prayed in the darkness for all that Zechariah had prophesized and promised. But the earthquakes didn’t come and the Romans did.

There is a leafy smell of plenty in the olive groves. A scent much missed in recent years. And everything cries of the Galilee Sea, strangely, because those Galilee days are far away in distance and time, but the wind rolls in James’s ears, the trees sway like the waves and it’s cool and fresh as the breeze on a boat.

Some of the trees are old as Methuselah, with trunks thicker than the backs of a plough-pulling brace of oxen. How would these ancient olive trees be with wild shoots grafted on to their roots? Would they thrive as they do now or would the struggle to combine kill both parts and whole? James knows the alluring maniac Paul has written that his Gentile communities are just so grafted on to the nourishing sap from the root of Israel, from which he says the Jews themselves are now snapped off. Who knows if Paul really believes such things? Paul’s lips drip honey and his speech is smoother than oil, but James is sure God loves His people. That is life’s one certainty. God covenanted this land to prove it. And presently Yeshua will return to free it.

James treads stiffly down the path towards the Kidron valley, winding between the coin-round rolling stones of the ossuary caves hollowed into the hillside. That was another certain truth: James was witness to the empty tomb; he and Cephas saw with their own eyes that Yeshua’s body was gone. There are Sadducees who say it wasn’t so, but they are flatly wrong.

From here, the Temple is barely as big as one of James’s dark thumbnails, but only as everything is decreased from a distance: nothing can negate the Temple’s importance; like a guardian, the Temple watches over Jerusalem. And the Roman Antonia Fortress watches over the Temple. Jerusalem’s walls of quarry-cut limestone, higher than the tallest trees, look impregnable, yet they have been pregnated: enemy seed lies within, multiplying. But shortly Yeshua will return to defeat all oppression and usher in the true Kingdom of God.

There have been other would-be messiahs, of course, during the period while James and those of The Way have patiently waited for Yeshua’s reappearance. Just a few years back there was the one they called the Egyptian, who was convinced that he could bring Judaea liberty and a new dawn. The Egyptian had gathered a multitude of common people right here on the Mount of Olives — from where the new age must indeed begin — saying he would collapse the fortifications of Jerusalem — perhaps he hoped for earthquakes. Then he and his believers would march through the tumbled defences and defeat the Romans and their collaborators. The prefect of the time, Felix, had unleashed a force that killed four hundred of the Egyptian’s followers and captured another two hundred alive, later all crucified.

Before the Egyptian, there was the man called Theudas. Roman horsemen had decapitated him and slaughtered many of his acolytes, without waiting to see if Theudas could indeed perform the miracles he claimed. Which, of course, he would not have done: Yeshua is the true anointed one, of the line of David, and any day now he will come back to prove it.

James prays in the Temple so frequently and for so long that his knees have grown swollen and calloused, like those of a camel. It pains them now to walk great distances; not that this is such a long way — the Kidron valley is not even wider than a dog’s bark, for dogs on one side can cause retaliation from the other — but the steep uphill from its bottom still takes its toll. James is past sixty years, a venerable enough age for any man to reach in these times, but he won’t be going anywhere until Yeshua returns. That much is sure.

James rests when he reaches the vast steps of the Temple, which lead to its double and triple gates. There’s a vagabond at the foot of them, with a grey-faced monkey in a little tunic. And when the man plays his reed pipes the monkey dances for him. A watching toddler flaps his arms and shrieks with joy that such a thing should be. Too young yet to know that in Jerusalem all things are.

When the Greek-Seleucid Empire outlawed and tried to extinguish the religion of the Israelites, women were thrown from this corner of the Temple Mount, for having their babies circumcised. And people who hid to observe the Sabbath were burned alive. Many were tortured and slaughtered for refusing to eat swine meat. These things that Saul of Tarsus would surrender are not convention or etiquette. They are the very essence of a nation. They are the people’s portion of the contract agreed with God.

As he approaches the leftmost gate, James hands a coin to a ragged and ancient crone who sits there, not seemingly begging but without other obvious pursuit. And she says she’ll give it to the poor ones, though the idea that there could be anyone poorer than her seems improbable. And then she says, ‘I met him, you know. I knew him, if only for a moment of a day. That day in the Temple. He was like the sky wrapped in a skin.’

And she looks as though she might be mad — she puts a hand over her mouth, as if to stop her speech, or else to hide it — but she speaks the truth, because who could she mean but Yeshua? And if that’s who she means, then it’s as good a description as any.

James passes through the gate and into the glorious colonnaded courtyard of the Temple, a space so huge that it occupies perhaps a tenth of the entire city. A feat of engineering near mystical. Mostly the pale stone is smooth as kidskin but here and there are blocks left irregular, just as they came. Parts a builder could have left aside, but which have become corner stones.

Everything is about stone in this land. Yeshua named a fisherman Cephas — Peter, in Greek — Rocky. Then he with James and Jochanan became the Three Pillars. And now James, already surnamed the Just, is also known as Oblias — Rampart of the People — not only a pillar, but a bulwark wall that protects them. James has risen in populist prominence to become almost a rival high priest. He wears the white linen robes and turban of a priest this very day. There are even rumours that James has entered the Holy of Holies, the innermost sanctum, where only the high priest is allowed. If James has really done so, it is blasphemy. But if he has done so and lived, it is a sign of confidence and power and of God’s favour.

Many among the Jerusalemites have long doubted the legitimacy of high priests chosen by Rome. James now speaks openly against the present incumbent: Annas the Younger; Annas son of Annas; offspring of the man who had a hand in Yeshua’s death.

James has publicly called Annas ben Annas a sack-swollen tick, bloated from feeding, the blood of others swirling within translucent stretched skin. A ruler who oppresses the poor is like a dustbowl wind that obliterates crops. James says that Annas and all the rich should weep for the miseries that are going to come upon them once Yeshua returns. But some in Jerusalem already tire of waiting for Yeshua’s return and call for his brother to be anointed in his stead.

A hooded crow, black but for its tunic of grey chainmail, lands clumsily in James’s path and stares at him, one-eyed, with a twisted head.

It is not because of the bird, but James senses that something is wrong. Is this premonition, or does he subconsciously spot subtleties too small to define, imperceptible differences on the courtyard that lead to his stomach so rapidly sickening with a feeling of ill?

James crouches a moment, as if struck by a sudden need to pray, but he does it rather to take pause on his route and have a guarded look about. He sees nothing amiss, but whispers scripture anyway:

‘For man knows not when his hour will come;

As fish are caught in a cruel net,

And birds are snared with a noose,

So are the sons of man trapped in an evil time,

When it falls suddenly upon them.’

James takes a further vigilant sweep. The bright white marble and burnished-gold Temple — wider at the front than at the back, like a prone lion — glows with glory. Low murmurs of prayers drift about. And the incomprehensible chatter from clusters of foreigners, words that sound like whoops and hoots and yelps. The tang of rich incense on the air. Stallholders shout and beasts bleat. People gaze in wonder, looking serious and worshipful. Others gossip as if by a village well. A nose-tied bull raises a suddenly rigid tail, a right-angle removal, to defecate with audible exhalation. And two small brothers laugh to witness it, as James and Yeshua might once have done. Pilgrims meander with pale palms held out before them, as if they carry invisible loads. Men nod gravely as they encounter those notices that warn of the death deserved by Gentile trespassers past that point; they physically acknowledge as if outwardly to declare that they understand and agree and that the penalty does not apply to them. An Ethiope limps by, one foot held out sideways, slowed by some ailment. And in the shades of the outer colonnades, merchants spit on their hands to seal deals. Wealthy men, most of them, who will howl when Yeshua returns. For the sun rises with scorching heat and withers the plant; its blossom falls and its beauty is destroyed. In the same way, the rich will fade away even while they go about their business. But for the moment they are engrossed and pay no attention to the kneeling apostle. Neither can James see anything else to account for why he should feel so suddenly fearful. There is not even a single Temple Guard in sight.

And, as James thinks this, the realization sinks, because there should be. He becomes conscious that the thing he senses is in fact an absence: there are no Temple Guards to be seen. When there should be. There always are. And if they cannot be seen, then it means that they are unseen.

James pushes himself up and starts to make for the eastern gate. Maybe he shouldn’t have come alone, but Jochanan and Cephas are both abroad, converting the colonies of that exiled enemy, Paul, brushing away his lies, which are as fragile as spiders’ webs. And James should have nothing to fear, here in the Temple, in public. He is the Just One, a Pillar, the Rampart of the People. The Pharisees would clamour for retribution if the high priest dared to touch him.

But it seems that Annas son of Annas has decided that risk is worth it, to silence a rival and a critic, because his Temple Guards now pour forth. In two columns they troop across the courtyard. Crowds clearing before them. James flees as fast as he can, but his knees are crick and gristled from his life of prayer. The guards close and there is no doubting their purpose. James flings out with his staff to ward them back. But they grapple him; six or seven of them have him by the arms and the legs. One pulls his turban off and throws it away. James thrashes, but vainly against such numbers.

Some in the crowds cry out against the guards. But the guards just push aside such people as hinder them. They are at least three squads strong: thirty men, armed with swords and fullers’ clubs. One has a bandage, filthy as his soul, wrapped about his head. They haul James to the parapet of the eastern wall of the Temple Mount. And, as if he was but a dockside sack of grain, they heave him over.

James shrieks, like a gull in flight, as he falls. But ceases with a grunt when he hits the steep side of the Kidron. He still lives, though, as he rolls down the ravine. A herd of goats first watches, then flees the person hurtling towards it. A bundle of white linen and blood, tumbling, unable to stop itself. Eventually the body reaches the base of the valley. Even now James twitches. He cannot rise, but he tries to. It is clear he isn’t yet dead.

The Temple Guards trudge down the path towards him. And then they gather stones. Many of them haven’t been in Judaea for long but already they know: everything is about stone in this land.