Chapter 7 - Jerusalem
Jerusalem is an evil city. She draws you in with her infinite amount of straight and rounded corners of buildings and crooked streets, with the noise of the crowds, and the coal fumes from her furnaces that, on a windless day, bake everything in; she draws you in with the chance to see new things. The aromas of spices in the market, the stench of the meat stalls, the mix of sounds, peoples, and the alliance of copper and silver money. Or suddenly, eternal gold flashes up in the cautious hands of a merchant who counts his aurei a third time just to be sure. There are Syrians here, Egyptians, Nabataeans, Mydians, Cadusians, cunning, depraved Hellenes; you will find lonely buyers and Jewish brothers from whom you should keep your distance; if you are cautious, don't doubt it; they will find a way to empty your knapsack under a plausible pretext, and if you are fat unlucky, they will pounce on you in a dark corner near a wine store and throw you in the snake puddle or a ditch of garbage, there you will be eaten by the dogs, even when you are still breathing shock-shouldered. Here are the Roman dignitaries in purple-striped gowns and the imperturbable tree-length legionaries, while the sicarius hates them and hides his dagger under his cape; here you can buy a girl for an hour or forever, or a young lad of any hue and inexpensively sell a flock of stolen and falsely branded sheep. Stores with wares for every taste of a purse. Shouting, shouting.
Crowds move along, the tawdry garb of pilgrims from the countryside, simple gray clothes of townspeople, linen chitons down to the ankles, and gossamer oriental fabrics around rich women. The sun shines on the lances of a Jewish guard patrolling the streets. At the Temple, among the dispersing crowd, the fairy-tale expensive shell of a cleric, adorned with golden bells, suddenly shines forth. There is the great Temple on the mountain, where Adam was created! He rises above the tops of the paupers and the houses of neat people; he hangs above the helmets of the Roman horsemen, and with them, he wraths them. The stones around his altar never become dry from the blood and fat of the best animals; the space between the moon's horns is filled hundreds of times with light, but in his services, the prayers do not silence, and the lamps do not extinguish. 'He who has not seen Herod's Temple has not seen a beautiful structure,' people say, and they are not lying. The fantastic Temple, which belongs to no one, is the centerpiece of all Moses's little houses, where aromatic spices waft up day and night and smother the fragrance of exposed meat. A quarter million lambs will be slaughtered there during Passover; the ground next to the altar of smell has a slope for water drainage to wash away the blood. The giant pale blue progression of the Holy of Holies moves in the wind and attracts gazes. The Temple, that is a possibility. The Temple is an incisiveness. He is powerful.
Jerusalem is the city of dark basements and dark eyes. Endowed with a wildlife force, it is perched on the Jewish desert soil like a lizard on a stone glowing by the sun.
I ended up in Jerusalem on the eve of Passover. Judas, Andrew, Simon, Matthew, and Philip were with me. We had come with a caravan of pilgrims and had left our wives and servants in Galilee.
Entering the city, I thought back with melancholy to my first Passover here, to my late stepfather Joseph, but as usual, I felt no warm feelings at the thought of my mother.
We spent the night in the Upper Town, in a wealthy neighborhood; we were given lodging by a lonely old man with whom Simon had become acquainted in the marketplace in the blink of an eye. He had promised the old man to help cure him of his gout. Upon leaving, the old man reminded him of this in the morning, and I advised him to soak his feet in a decoction of Jordan thistle, broom bush, and milk thistle.
The city was restless; the prefect's army troops had once again driven protestors from his palace. On the eve, a few zealots had been executed who, as always preparing for revolt, did not want to be mere birdies on a branch of an empire that was alien to them.
Yes, Jerusalem attracted me; I felt its power. It was as if I could convince everyone that I was that messenger of whom the prophets had spoken. And what was God but the joy of encounter and delight? Intoxicating power and blissful peace. No one could rule the world justly: the scribes were overcome by their passions, the fasting Nazarenes by others, and the Roman government, which was just a machine under the cover of will-less Gods. And no one would say to the people of Israel: rejoice in peace, ye chosen ones! Spend no money on offerings in the Temple and pay no taxes to the emperor. Be strong! Find a new way! Honor God with unleavened honey bread, with incense and song; such gifts are more pleasing to Him than slaughter and the knife in a sacrificial basket!
But the city was more substantial than me. Jerusalem was a monster swallowed up by profound contemplations of all the stages of her decay. Around my hands, blue lightning seemed to creep. I was the passion of the Spirit and could light a candlestick with my gaze, but Jerusalem's sleep was still too solid. An ox knew its master, a donkey its lord's manager, the bird its nest, but Jerusalem would not know me yet.
I did decide to engage in dialogue with the city. I knew that I had to be an industrious and fearless teacher. I did not let the fact that it was easier to get answers in conversation with a dead horse than with your people and the city that was its symbol.
I made my disciples drink wine that morning and led them all to the Temple. Matthew realized that we would not just pray and sacrifice, and he became terrified. He remembered Valerius Gratus' letter and reiterated that we would be marked as rioters and condemned if anything happened. I reassured him.
We approached the East Gate of the Temple. On either side of it, the stalls and tables of the changers were close together. I remembered how these greedy folks had cheated my parents years ago. A wave of indignation rose in me, and the crowd recoiled from me as if lit by an invisible fire while the merchants and changers were afraid to look at me. Selfishness is one of the ugliest vices of humans.
Changers cheated us endlessly, right next to our own Temple!
And the stench! The stench of the hundreds of heads of slaughtered cattle in the courtyard facing the holy of holies! The sheep, oxen, and mountains of manure ... there you have the cherished good that the clergy dare to instill in the people.
The manure, the gluttony, the disbelief... The clinking of coins drowned out the singing of the Levites. The conceited greed for profit had won the day. The mosaic floors and porticoes were occupied by buyers, usurers, and hunters of oxen and sheep. The dung, the manure! Even the temple of Venus on Mount Erika was purer, and the pagans prayed there. They did not turn it into a smelly marketplace... or the temple of the Syrian goddess at Hierapolis...
Indeed, someone had to tell the truth! The ugly truth was that the silver in the Temple had turned black, and the Temple wine was spoiled like stagnant water. But no, everyone was absorbed in this swirling stream. It was as if I was the only one who saw it all and was aware of it.
It was sunny, and my heart beat faster after two cups of pure wine.
I told my students to stand and wait for me, grabbed a long leather leash from a counter of one such merchant, and ran into the courtyard where the cattle were soulful. I screamed and swung the leash to chase the cattle and sheep to the adjacent street, each moment marveling that no one had stopped me yet. I slipped through the puddles of slurry, fell, stood up, and flogged the animals under curses with my belt. The crowd watched me, stunned and held its breath. After barred several cattle, I ran to the nearest changer and turned over his table of coins, then to a second one, where I did the same. A knife in the next changer's sleeve gleamed, and I did not dare get too close to him. The excited crowd went wild, and I shouted to the changers, "This is my father's house! I am the son of God, do you hear? Don't make the Temple more than a trading house! Tell that to your clergyman! My name is Jesus! Just remember that one, you bunch of greedy blockheads!'
I was surrounded by a terrified and offended crowd. But everyone understood that I was risking my life, so they were involuntarily in awe of me. The changelings who had lost some of their money screeched. My students kept the prying eyes away from me as best they could. One or two shouted that they knew me and that I was a criminal.
'Why are the Temple's clergy, Levites, and servants exempt from all taxes?' I continued. 'Because they have turned people into cattle! But soon, that will come to an end! The time is near!'
No one dared to grab me, and only because after running after the cattle and my falls, I was covered in manure.
An old, tall cleric with a long, pitch-black beard approached. He grabbed me by the only clean slip of my clothing and growled, "Who do you think you are? Beast! Zero!
Andreas sprawled and fell on the counter of a dealer in streaks, and pigeons, which were flying back and forth in their overturned cages, shot up, pushed off the handler, and caught up with us in one piece. At any moment, the guard of the Temple would emerge, and we would be there. Once we ran down Temple Mount, we dissolved into the small streets of the Lower City. No one came after us, and that was another one of those coincidences that allowed me to survive.
I was mentally exhausted but understood that I could not have acted otherwise. Everyone was in fear except Philippus, who managed to maintain his cheerful composure. Clean clothes were found for me, and we had fled Jerusalem within the hour. I felt the city's hunger as if its stones supported the desire to drink my blood. Back to Galilee!
For I had said something horrible, something unimaginable to them, that I would destroy the Temple, on which in the 46 years of its construction, so many treasures were spent! Thousands of servants of the Law had built it with their own hands because only the chosen ones had the right to touch these lumps of white and green marble, and another tens of thousands of men who had lent a hand in the process... And in the face of all this triumph of moderation, reason, and eternal rules, I stood... alone.
Was it worth building all that? Was that Temple necessary at all? After all, one visit to a suitable physician was more beneficial to a suffering man than years of Easter sacrifice in a lump sum, even if falsehood, stench, and avarice had been expelled from this Temple.
