



Produced by Ted Garvin, Danny Wool and PG Distributed Proofreaders









       A Roman Lawyer in Jerusalem

              First Century

                   By

               W.W. Story





  A ROMAN LAWYER IN JERUSALEM


  Marcus, abiding in Jerusalem,
  Greeting to Caius, his best friend in Rome!
  _Salve!_ these presents will be borne to you
  By Lucius, who is wearied with this place,
  Sated with travel, looks upon the East
  As simply hateful--blazing, barren, bleak,
  And longs again to find himself in Rome,
  After the tumult of its streets, its trains
  Of slaves and clients, and its villas cool
  With marble porticoes beside the sea,
  And friends and banquets--more than all, its games--
  This life seems blank and flat. He pants to stand
  In its vast circus all alive with heads
  And quivering arms and floating robes--the air
  Thrilled by the roaring _fremitus_ of men--
  The sunlit awning heaving overhead,
  Swollen and strained against its corded veins
  And flapping out its hem with loud report--
  The wild beasts roaring from the pit below--
  The wilder crowd responding from above
  With one long yell that sends the startled blood
  With thrill and sudden flush into the cheeks--
  A hundred trumpets screaming--the dull thump
  Of horses galloping across the sand--
  The clang of sabbards, the sharp clash of steel--
  Live swords, that whirl a circle of grey fire--
  Brass helmets flashing 'neath their streaming hair--
  A universal tumult--then a hush
  Worse than the tumult--all eyes staining down
  To the arena's pit--all lips set close--
  All muscles strained--and then that sudden yell,
  _Habet!_--That's Rome, says Lucius! so it is!
  That is, 'tis _his_ Rome--'tis not yours and mine.

  And yet, great Jupiter here at my side,
  He stands with face aside as if he saw
  The games he thus describes, and says, "That's life!
  Life! life! my friend, and this is simply death!
  Ah! for my Rome!" I jot his very words
  Just as he utters them. I hate these games,
  And Darius knows it, yet he will go on,
  And all against my will he stirs my blood--
  I suspend my letter for a while.

  A walk has calmed me--I begin again--
  Letting this last page, since it is written, stand.
  Lucius is going: you will see him soon
  In our great Forum, there with him will walk,
  And hear him rail and rave against the East.
  I stay behind--for these bare silences,
  These hills that in the sunset melt and burn,
  This proud stern people, these dead seas and lakes,
  These sombre cedars, this intense still sky,
  To me, o'erwearied with life's din and strain,
  Are grateful as the solemn blank of night
  After the fierce day's irritant excess;
  Besides, a deep absorbing interest
  Detains me here, fills up my mind, and sways
  My inmost thoughts--has got, as 'twere a gripe
  Upon my very life, as strange as new.
  I scarcely know how well to speak of this,
  Fearing your raillery at best--at worst
  Even your contempt; yet, spite of all, I speak.

  First, do not deem me to have lost my head,
  Sunstruck, as that man Paulus was at Rome.
  No, I am sane as ever, and my pulse
  Beats even, with no fever in my blood.
  And yet I half incline to think his words,
  Wild as they were, were not entirely wild.
  Nay, shall I dare avow it? I half tend,
  Here in this place, surrounded by these men--
  Despite the jeering natural at first,
  And then the pressure of my life-long thought
  Trained up against it--to excuse his faith,
  And half admit the Christus he thinks God
  Is, at the least, a most mysterious man.
  Bear with me if I now avow so much:
  When next we meet I will expose my mind,
  But now the subject I must scarcely touch.

  How many a time, while sauntering up and down
  The Forum's space, or pausing 'neath the shade
  Of some grand temple, arch, or portico,
  Have we discussed some knotty point of law,
  Some curious case, whose contradicting facts
  Looked Janus-faced to innocence and guilt.
  I see you now arresting me, to note
  With quiet fervor and uplifted hand
  Some subtle view or fact by me o'erlooked,
  And urging me, who always strain my point
  (Being too much, I know, a partisan),
  To pause, and press not to the issue so,
  But more apart, with less impetuous zeal,
  Survey as from an upper floor the facts.

  I need you now to rein me in, too quick
  To ride a whim beyond the term of Truth,
  For here a case comes up to which in vain
  I seek a clue: you could clear up my mind,
  But you are absent--so I send these notes.

  The case is of one Judas, Simon's son,
  Iscariot called--a Jew--and one of those
  Who followed Christus, held by some a god,
  But deemed by others to have preached and taught
  A superstition vile, of which one point
  Was worship of an ass; but this is false!
  Judas, his follower, all the sect declare,
  Bought by a bribe of thirty silver coins,
  Basely betrayed his master unto death.
  The question is--Did Judas, doing this,
  Act from base motives and commit a crime?
  Or, all things taken carefully in view,
  Can he be justified in what he did?

  Here on the spot, surrounded by the men
  Who acted in the drama, I have sought
  To study out this strange and tragic case.
  Many are dead--as Herod, Caiaphas,
  And also Pilate--a most worthy man,
  Under whose rule, but all without his fault,
  And, as I fancy, all against his will,
  Christus was crucified. This I regret:
  His words with me would have the greatest weight;
  But Lysias still is living, an old man,
  The chief of the Centurions, whose report
  Is to be trusted, as he saw and heard,
  Not once, but many a time and oft, this man.
  His look and bearing, Lysias thus describes:
  "Tall, slender, not erect, a little bent;
  Brows arched and dark; a high-ridged lofty head;
  Thin temples, veined and delicate; large eyes,
  Sad, very serious, seeming as it were
  To look beyond you, and whene'er he spoke
  Illumined by an inner lamping light--
  At times, too, gleaming with a strange wild fire
  When taunted by the rabble in the streets;
  A Jewish face, complexion pale but dark;
  Thin, high-art nostrils, quivering constantly;
  Long nose, full lips, hands tapering, full of veins;
  His movements nervous; as he walked he seemed
  Scarcely to heed the persons whom he passed,
  And for the most part gazed upon the ground.

  "As for his followers, I knew them all--
  A strange mad set and full of fancies wild--
  John, Peter, James--and Judas best of all--
  All seemed to me good men without offence--
  A little crazed--but who is wholly sane?
  They went about and cured the sick and halt,
  And gave away their money to the poor,
  And all their talk was charity and peace.
  If Christus thought and said he was a god,
  'Twas harmless madness, not deserving death.
  What most aroused the wealthy Rabbis' rage
  Was that he set the poor against the rich,
  And cried that rich men all would go to hell,
  And, worst of all, roundly denounced the priests,
  With all their rich phylacteries and robes--
  Said they were hypocrites who made long prayers,
  And robbed poor widows and devoured their means;
  And were at best but whited sepulchres:
  And this it was that brought him to the Cross.

  "Those who went with him and believed in him
  Were mostly dull, uneducated men,
  Simple and honest, dazed by what he did,
  And misconceiving every word he said.
  He led them with him in a spell-bound awe,
  And all his cures they called miraculous.
  They followed him like sheep where'er he went,
  With feelings mixed of wonder, fear and love.
  Yes! I suppose they loved him, though they fled
  Stricken with fear when we arrested him."

  "What! all--all fled?" I asked. "Did none remain?"
  "Not one," he said--"all left him to his fate,
  Not one dared own he was a follower--
  Not one gave witness for him of them all.
  Stop! When I say not one of them, I mean
  No one but Judas--Judas whom they call
  The traitor--who betrayed him to his death.
  He rushed into the council-hall and cried,
  ''Tis I have sinned--Christus is innocent.'"

  And here I come to what of all I've heard
  Most touched me--I for this my letter write.
  Paulus, you know, had only for this man,
  This Judas, words of scorn and bitter hate.
  Mark now the different view that Lysias took,
  When, urged by me, his story thus he told:

  "Some say that Judas was a base, vile man
  Who sold his master for the meanest bribe;
  Others again insist he was most right,
  Giving to justice one who merely sought
  To overthrow the Church, subvert the law,
  And on its ruins build himself a throne.
  I, knowing Judas--and none better knew--
  I, caring naught for Christus more than him,
  But hating lies, the simple truth will tell,
  No man can say I ever told a lie--
  I am too old now to begin. Besides,
  The truth is truth, and let the truth be told.
  Judas, I say, alone