Jeremy Robinson - The Didymus Contingency

“If you were blind, you would not be guilty of sin; but now that you claim you can see, your guilt remains,” Jesus replied with just the hint of a smile.

The Pharisees got a strange look on their faces. Tom could see that they had been defeated in verbal combat as quickly as he was normally. He knew that for these men to continue the conversation would be futile and would reveal to the crowd that Jesus had beaten them. It seemed the strangers knew this too. It took ten seconds for one of them to speak.

Simeon squinted. “Are you the one called Jesus?” Simeon asked, changing the subject and dodging a bullet.

“I am.”

“We’ll be seeing you again,” Tarsus said, as he and the other Pharisees turned and pushed their way through the crowd, which dispersed quickly for lack of action.

Jesus nodded in agreement, then turned and walked away. Bewildered, Tom turned to David and said, “I don’t think I understand half of what that man says.”

David smiled. “I don’t think they do either,” he said, as he watched the three Pharisees pound away. He turned to Tom and said, “You should hear it in the King James Version.”

Tom smirked and looked at the retreating Pharisees, “Who are they?”

“Pharisees.”

“They seem to be on the same page as me,” Tom said.

David’s eyes grew wide. “Stay away from them, Tom. I mean it.”

“Why?” Tom asked.

“Think of them as ultra-right wing Republicans,” David said.

“ You’re a Republican,” Tom pointed out.

“That’s not the point,” David said. “Left or right doesn’t matter. What does matter is that they’re the legalistic fringe of the current culture. They’re well read, well spoken and intelligent, but clouded by tradition and will defend their beliefs to the point of violence.”

“So they’re evil?”

David sighed and said. “No. Maybe some. ‘Misguided’ might be a better word. But others choose a different path. Look, let’s just say that nothing good can come from you speaking to those Pharisees.”

“Afraid they might help me?”

“Aren’t you forgetting something?”

“What?”

David looked at Timothy, who was talking with Jesus.

“Timothy can see,” David said.

“I was set up,” Tom replied without pause, as though it were a forgone conclusion.

“How was Jesus supposed to know what you had planned?”

Tom paused and then said, “You warned him…didn’t you? You knew I would try something and came to the same conclusion I did, that if I chose a person for Jesus to heal, someone that wasn’t working with Jesus, that he couldn’t heal that person. But you warned him and he had this Timothy pretend to be a blind man along the route he knew we’d take through the city! He knew I’d pick the first beggar we came to!”

“Ugh. Now you’re being paranoid!” David fumed as he shook his head and stormed away.

“I’m not paranoid… I’m… I’m…” Tom became distracted by the three figures walking away, their ornate robes dancing in the wind. These Pharisees might be useful. They were the only people who seemed to make sense in this backward culture. Tom decided to find out more about them. Maybe they could reveal the chink in Jesus’s armor?

Jerusalem, Israel

Tom was up and moving at the crack of dawn. He knew it was the only way he could see the Pharisees without being noticed or questioned extensively by David. Tom worked his way through the streets of Jerusalem, which he was proud to say he had nearly memorized. Finding his way to the upper-city, street-side home of Tarsus was no problem.

Not having been to the upper city too often, Tom forgot how stunning it was. Not at all like the lower city, full of beggars, blind men and the pungent odor of filth. Here it was clean. The homes were spaced apart nicely, with landscaping and statue decorations. It was like stepping out of the middle ages and into the glory of Rome.

A pang of guilt struck Tom in the stomach as he approached and admired the smooth marble home. He had convinced himself he wasn’t betraying his friends. He wasn’t plotting against them, just gathering information. David was always one step ahead of Tom and it was time to educate himself. He would learn from his own sources what the future was going to bring. Tom knew that by the way David glared at the Pharisees whenever they crossed paths, they must have something to do with a resistance to Jesus’s claim to be God. He figured they must know something that David didn’t. They must know and perhaps be able to prove that Jesus was a fake. Tom was convinced of it.

Tom knocked on the hand-carved wooden door. No answer. He banged harder and thought he heard some movement inside. Crash! Something fell over and seconds later, the door flung open. “What? What is it?” Tarsus asked with his eyes half shut. “Every time I send Silva to the market…”

“Sorry, did I wake you?” Tom asked.

“Yes, yes. Now what do you-Wait, I know you… I’ve seen you with-”

“Jesus, yes, I’ve been traveling with him.”

“Yes. One of his intolerable disciples! Be gone with you or I’ll fetch the Romans!” Tarsus fumed.

“Wait, please, hear what I have to say.” Tom said. “I think we have some opinions in common.”

Tarsus eyed Tom, “Meaning?”

“I’m as unconvinced by Jesus’s claims as you are,” Tom said.

Tarsus scrunched his lips together. “Explain yourself. How would you account for the miracles people say he does?”

“Sleight of hand, deception, some might call it magic,” Tom said as though it were nothing impressive.

Tarsus upper lip snarled. “Magic! The black arts! You mean to tell me, you, a disciple of this man believes him to be demon possessed?”

Tom wasn’t sure how Tarsus had made the leap from simple magic to demon possession, but reckoned these primitive people had yet to be introduced to the illusionary arts that were more science than magic. But if the modern day equivalent of a magic-using con artist was demon possession, so be it. “Yes,” Tom said plainly.

Tarsus smiled a toothy grin, “Indeed… Perhaps you would like to speak with some colleagues of mine as well?”

“I would,” Tom said.

“Come in, come in. Let me dress and I will take you to them,” Tarsus said with a full-blown smile.

Tom stepped into the home and closed the door behind him.

Tom managed to sneak back without waking anyone up. He had learned a lot, but not enough. He arranged to meet with the Pharisees again, and they had all agreed to keep their meetings a secret. Tom acted like nothing was different, but he felt different, somehow. He felt like everyone was watching him, like everyone knew. Maybe David was right; he was being paranoid.

Tom was sitting on the hard stone floor of Solomon’s Colonnade, which was a row of columns on the East side of the Temple. He had come to the Temple with David, Peter, Matthew, Judas and Jesus, but he had remained distant. He now sat ten feet away, leaning against one of the tall columns, admiring the view, lost in thought. Every time Tom came to the Temple, he found himself captivated by the beauty of the structure. Truly, his ancestors were master craftsman. Tom felt that if there were a God and God actually needed a house, this would be it.

From the colonnade, Tom could see the outer walls and columns of the Court of Gentiles, which he knew was full of merchants selling doves, sheep and cattle for sacrifice. There would be Jewish pilgrims from all over Israel and the Roman Empire, moneychangers, scribes and Pharisees. Tom calculated that the entire area took up around thirty-five acres of land. Beyond the Court of the Gentiles, no non-Jew was allowed.