Jonathan Trigell - The Tongues of Men or Angels

‘I am not,’ Cephas says. ‘I told you, you are mistaken. Half the Jews of the world are here for the Passover. There must be another hundred Galileans who look like me. I do not know him, woman.’

They don’t need witnesses. Annas and Kayafa have heard sufficient from Yeshua’s own mouth. The two high priests retire to a smaller adjacent chamber to talk in private.

On their own they seem different: sager and grimly sorrowful. They know what must be done, but there is neither pleasure nor malice in it. It is just one of those things necessary for the survival of the chosen people — like cutting a lamb’s throat in the Temple — an act best performed quickly and quietly. Judaea balances on the point of a Roman javelin. A pretender to the throne could tumble the whole country.

Strictly the Nazarene should be tried, but they can’t call the council of the Sanhedrin: it never takes place outside the Chamber of Hewn Stone in the Temple and it never meets at festival times and it certainly never meets at night. And even Annas’s palatial home doesn’t have a room where seventy-one men could hold court. In any case, the council is half filled with Pharisees who consider sedition against Rome a righteous path and in most things hold the view that they should be left to their own course: ‘If The Way be of men, it will come to naught, and if it be of God, you will not be able to overthrow it.’ That would be the talk of the Pharisees, were they here.

But they aren’t here: it is only Annas and Kayafa and this is no trial, just a decision-making process, the result of which is all but predetermined anyway. Not by prophecy, but by pragmatism.

‘Should he be allowed to continue until more of the populace believes him, the Romans will destroy the Temple and the nation,’ Annas says. ‘They have crucified men before for dropping a coin with Tiberius’s head on it to the privy floor. Just to wear a robe that faintly resembles the emperor’s is a capital offence. If our people start to follow a rival king, the streets will soon enough be ankle deep in blood.’

‘Agreed, of course,’ Kayafa says. ‘More expedient that one man die than that the whole nation be destroyed.’

A Temple Guard comes over to the group by the brazier now; perhaps Cephas raised his voice more than he intended; perhaps the guard just likes looking tough in front of servant girls.

‘What is your business here, fellow?’

‘I warm my bones, nothing more.’

‘I know your face from somewhere.’

‘He is with Yeshua bar Abba, I tell you he is,’ the maid chips in.

‘I swear to you that I am not. I do not even know the man you’re talking about. I have to go now anyway. I have orders to attend to and not enough time to blather with gossips.’

Cephas storms away as if offended, but breaks into a run as soon as he is back through the gate. He abandons his sword where it lies in the trough. Bolts the other way and takes every narrow alley and sudden turn he can. Though he hears no one pursuing, he runs until his lungs overcome him and he cannot do other than stop. And there he crouches, panting, trembling, heart of melted wax, hunched in the shadow of a tanner’s vat.

A cockerel crows then, a boastful warble, which marks the moment sufficiently for Cephas to know that every dawn henceforth is going to shrill with the agonizing shame of this dishonour and desertion. Every proud-combed rooster in the world is going to sing about Cephas’s crime. He curls, impossibly small, on his side. The ground is cold — so very cold — and Cephas’s bitter-salted tears will not warm it.

Annas has authority to order the death penalty for religious offences, but there is no blasphemy committed here. Declaring yourself to be a king is not blasphemy, it is sedition against Rome. And for that crime the prisoner should be sent to the prefect. Pilate is expecting him to be turned over anyway: lending the priests command of a cohort of soldiers is not a normal occurrence. Better to get on with the deed, then, and have it done, Annas thinks. Maybe the Galilean really is of the royal line of David; probably he’s just another madman. But either way, the best thing now is for the Nazarene to be dead and gone before Jerusalem even hears what has happened.

Kayafa is not as sturdy as his father-in-law. Kayafa lacks the stomach for this role. Some days he can barely believe that once he wanted nothing more than to be the high priest. After he gives the guards their orders, he rends his robe with horror and sorrow and sickness and self-pity at the shit he has to go through. It is a hard path to be this figure of half-rule. Even harder being hated for it. About the only thing the Romans and the Judaeans can agree on is that they all despise the high priest and yet they all still need him, as their go-between and negotiator: the Romans with the people; the people with God.

In the week since Cephas was first sighted in Rome, Paul’s followers have gathered more information about his doings: Silas and Aristarchus have even been to one of the house churches to hear him speak. Evidently Cephas is steering away from the villas where the wealthier Christians worship, sticking to the shop-front and tenement-courtyard gatherings of the poor.

Appropriately, perhaps, because they say Cephas’s speech is rough and unlearned. Worse: Aristarchus says that Cephas is still using images of Galilee fishermen, deserts and shepherds, which really don’t work in this urban world. Paul reaches the people of Rome with metaphors drawn from the arena sports that are their entertainment, and with martial talk, to which they are accustomed from their politics and history.

‘I think that elderly pestilence, Cephas, is going to find it harder to buffet you here,’ Timothy says.

Useful has noticed before that Timothy has this way of involuntarily pursing his lips, when he thinks he has made a fine point, as though kissing his own brilliance.

‘No, Cephas will not defeat me again. I am too aware of his schemes now,’ Paul replies. ‘He is nothing but a false apostle, a deceitful worker, given to me by God as a thorn in the flesh in case I should become too proud through my abundance of revelations. Cephas is no better than the slave who always stands behind a Roman general in his Triumph, who whispers throughout the ceremonies, “Remember you are only a man,” to prevent the general thinking too much of himself.’

‘But how did you come to be opponents in the first place?’ Useful asks. ‘Surely your purpose was the same.’

‘Well, there, Useful, lies a story. And since that’s so, perhaps it would be as well to get some more of our tale down. Leave us now,’ Paul says to the others. ‘Useful and I have our work to attend to.’

Paul peels a russet apple, the blade of his ivory-handled knife towards his thumb, while Useful readies the writing materials. With an old man’s perfected practice, Paul carves the peel, furled into a single unbroken snake.

‘So,’ Paul begins, ‘after Barnabas the Cypriot introduced us, I stayed fifteen days with Cephas in Jerusalem and got acquainted with him. And he appeared to be a servant of righteousness. He told me about his time spent with the earthly Jesus and of his visions of Him after His death, which, if anything — I might add — were not as spectacular as my own experience. And word spread among those of The Way that I, who had once persecuted them, was now preaching the faith and there was much glorifying and rejoicing.