Джеймс Миченер - The Source

Naaman interceded. “Our quarrel is not with Rome, sir. Twice each day we sacrifice to Rome. We serve in your armies and pay your taxes. But we cannot permit in our country graven images, neither of gods nor of men.”

“We’ll see about that,” Petronius thundered, thrusting Yigal aside and ordering his legions to move forward. The gates were swung open. The centurions called signals which the decurions passed along to their men and the march began, but as the first foot soldiers reached the gate Petronius capriciously ordered them to halt. “Bring forth the smallest statue,” he cried, and slaves ran to fetch a handsome black-marble bust of Caligula, with vine leaves in his hair and deep-carved sockets for his benevolent eyes. It was a statue that any museum would cherish or that people a thousand years later would instinctively recognize as a thing of beauty. “The god Caligula will go before us as we enter Judaea,” Petronius announced, and now, with the slaves moving ahead, the army resumed its march into the land of the Jews.

But when a short distance had been covered, the soldiers came upon the four hundred Jews of Makor—that trivial little town that hardly any Roman had heard of—who resolutely lay across the road and barred the way. The slaves, carrying the offensive statue, halted, not knowing what to do, and centurions of the three official legions ran forward with drawn swords. There was a painful moment as the determined Jews continued to block the way, while the Romans hesitated about killing them without specific orders from General Petronius. No Jew was armed.

Hurrying from the rear, accompanied by Yigal and Naaman as prisoners, Petronius came upon the scene and saw for himself that the Jews of Makor were indeed resolved to die where they lay rather than allow the statue to pass. He judged there were less than five hundred of them, with more than half women and small children, while he had some eighteen thousand armed troops at his command. If he gave the signal the killing could be ended in fifteen minutes, but he was a man of sensitivity; he had won many battles without massacring women and children, so now he hesitated. Turning to Yigal, a man half his age, with neither education nor distinctions, Petronius said, “Order your people to disperse.”

“We are going to die … here on the road.”

“Centurions! Clear the road.”

Eagerly the soldiers ran toward the Jews, swords drawn, but when the nameless people of Makor made no effort to protect themselves, awaiting the cold thrust of the sword, Petronius ordered his men to halt. Sweating, the Roman general said to Yigal, “Young man, if they do not obey me we shall have to slaughter them all. Tell them to get up and move aside.”

“I have told you … we are going to die.”

“For what reason?” Petronius pointed with some dismay at the inoffensive black statue of the new god. “For a piece of stone you would die?”

“A false god must not enter our land,” Yigal said.

Petronius swallowed. He knew that Caesar Caligula was no god. He also knew that Caligula had become a false god only because he had murdered his predecessor, Tiberius. And he suspected that before long Caligula himself would have to be murdered. The man’s excesses—killing decent citizens so that he could sleep with their wives for one night, then sending the women into prostitution and slavery—these things would have to be stopped, but in the meantime Caligula was emperor and he was also god. To defy him in any way or to allow the Jews to defy him would mean death for all. “I am going to raise my arm,” the irritated general warned. “When it falls we shall march forward, and if any Jew lies in our way …-Centurions, cut them to pieces!”

The Roman general, backed by an enormous might, stood in the sunlight facing the two inconsequential Jews, one a helper at an olive press, the other a farmer with no lands of his own, and he raised his right arm, holding in the air an ebony baton. About his arm muscle and his forearm he wore military bands of gold, and he made an imposing picture as he stood with the baton aloft. He seemed to be counting, but his voice could not be heard, for from the recumbent Jews opposing him came a mumble of prayer broken by an old man who whispered in a clear, soft voice, “Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one.” It was apparent to all that in defense of this basic doctrine—that there was and could be only one God, unbroken and undistributed—the Jews were prepared to die.

The centurions raised their swords. The slaves stepped aside, holding Caligula aloft in the brilliant sunlight, and for a long, long moment General Petronius wavered. With his arm raised he looked at Yigal and Naaman, who would be the first to die, and he saw that they had no intention of ordering their people to move aside. Indeed, each of the Jews was repeating the prayer which the old man was whispering.

“Bring these two back to the city,” Petronius commanded. Keeping his arm aloft he turned his back on the huddled Jews and ordered his men to follow him. Then slowly he lowered his arm, striking his right leg with the baton seven times. Behind him, in the plain, he could hear the Jews chanting, not a song of victory but of praise.

Inside the city Petronius told Yigal, “We’ll starve your Jews into common sense. They’ll commit their own suicide.” And he threw a cordon about the Jews, allowing none to leave the plain, and all through the blazing day the Jews lay in the sun while slaves dragged out from the city walls a gigantic statue of Caesar Caligula, placing it before the thirsty mob. In the cold night that followed, the watching troops could hear children crying as the benevolent visage of Caligula beamed down upon them in the moonlight. When dawn came there was no relief from the torrid sun, and the old man who had whispered the prayer died with its words still on his lips. Children fainted.

At four that afternoon, when the punishment was most terrible, General Petronius led Yigal and Naaman to the scene and asked if they would now order their Jews to disband. “We have come here to die,” Yigal said simply. Petronius then directed a slave to give Yigal a drink of cold water, and as the Jew drank under duress, standing in the shadow of the great statue, Petronius cried to the prostrate Jews, “See, he doesn’t suffer. He has plenty of water.” With his own hands he poured the remainder on the dry ground at the god’s feet, where it was immediately absorbed by the parched earth. Kicking the dust Petronius shouted, “Do not listen to this fool. Go home. Go home.”

No one moved, and the third cold night came with neither food nor water, and on the next day a child died. Then Petronius began to feel his own throat parching as if it were afire. For some time he fought against this strangling sensation, then made his decision. “Tell the slaves to bring the statue back,” he ordered. When this was done he took Yigal and Naaman to the city gates. “Lead your Jews home,” he said quietly, “and three days from now assemble all Jewish leaders in Galilee to meet with me in Tiberias. There we shall decide what to do.”

So Yigal left the walls of Ptolemais and walked like a man in a daze out to the plain where the Jews of Makor were near death; and as he saw each dusty face—Shlomo, with whom he had played as a boy; Asher, whose sister he had married; Beruriah, who had borne his children—he wanted to kneel before each one, for these simple people by their faith had turned back the full might of the Roman legions. He could not speak, but then he heard a rustling sound and the cry of children, for General Petronius had sent his slaves out from the walls with buckets of water and food. No adults were allowed to touch the rations but children were to be kept alive, by orders of the Roman general.