Life and times of Jesus as related by Thomas Didymus

Front matter

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By James Freeman Clarke

LIFE AND TIMES OF JESUS

Chapter I. The Lake Of Galilee, And The Synagogue

I, Thomas, called the Twin, being an elder brother of the Assembly of God's children and of the Brotherhood in Jesus the Christ at Malabar, write this my memorial, for the help of those who may come after.

I was born in Syria, and belonged to the tribes called Jews. We learned, when we were children, that our God, whose name must not be uttered, was greater than all gods. He made the earth, the sun and the stars ; and the gods worshipped by other nations worship our God. His home was in our sacred city, the joy of the earth, "beautiful for situation," on a mountain-top, looking down toward the east on the Sea of Death, and toward the west on the great water which divides Africa, Asia, and Europe from each other. Our country was small ; but it stood in the very centre of the world. It was given to our Father Abraham by his friend Yahveh, the God of our nation, and given again to Jacob, his grandson. Here our people had lived, and they thought themselves God's own people, — the loved of Him who made heaven and earth. Here lived and reigned our great King Daweid (David) , who conquered the surrounding kings, and made our tribes great and rich. Here reigned the mighty Solyma, who was so wise that he knew all things on the

l earth, — trees, beasts, birds, — all things in the water, and nil gems in the caves, and the virtues and powers of all. Our people had been slaves in Egypt, but were delivered by the prophet Moses ; they had been slaves in Persia, but were delivered by the prophets Daniel and Nehemiah ; and now they were slaves again under the Romans : but we expected the greatest prophet of all, and the last, to come, who would expel the Latin legions, and make the great and lovely city of Yahveh once more the delight of the world. For in our sacred books it was written that a righteous king should come, and subdue the whole earth by the rod of his mouth, and slay all wicked men by the mere breath proceeding from his lips. When he should come, our holy land, defiled by the armies of aliens, would become again pure and free. For this great prophet we prayed and waited.

And, indeed, many things showed that the time was near at hand.

Some years before, when I was a little child in my father's house in the province of Galilee, a great rumor went abroad, that angels had been heard singing in the skies, and declaring that some great good was coming to men. Also it was said that a wonderful star had been seen in the air, sending a ray of light into the very village where the prophet was then born. And, indeed, the king. Herod, was terrified, and feared for his throne ; and it is said, though I know not the truth of the story, that he scut armed men to slay all the children in that village, thinking to kill the infant prophet. Foolish man ! to suppose that he could hinder the decree of the Most High from its fulfilment. What God determines, will come to pass, even by the very means men use to prevent it.

Moreover, an old man who passed through our village when I was a boy, with a staff in his hand, journeying to Lebanon, sat in our gateway, and received milk and bread. And. when his hunger and thirst were appeased, he told how lie had been in Jerusalem at the time when the star appeared sud-

THE LAKE OE GALILEE, AND THE SYNAGOGUE. 3

denly in the sky, and that it seemed like three bright planets assembled in one place as if for consultation. And he said that he had also seen some Persian priests in white robes, and with mitres on their heads, priests of Ormazd, who had come from Edessa to Jerusalem, saying that the Scriptures of Zerdusht, whom the Greeks call Zoroaster, had also testified that a Saviour and Deliverer of man should be born in the west. And when the three stars were seen by them in the west, coming together to consult, they knew the time was at hand. So they had come by the way of Palmyra, or Tadmor in the Desert, to see that prophet who was also to be a king. And they said that while they travelled, and every night looked at the lights of heaven in the west, they saw the three stars go apart, and separate from each other. But when, in their journey, they had passed through Moab, and descended to the Jordan, and saw the dark mountains of Judaea rise before them, they beheld the three stars come together a second time, and remain standing side by side over our land. Then they knew that in this place the prophet was to come. But whether they found him, or did not find him, the old man knew not.

After this, many years passed away, and the Deliverer came not ; so that the hearts of men were heavy with waiting. And the Roman soldiers were in camps, and in cities, and we were taxed to pay for their food and their wages. And they oppressed us, and carried away our wives and daughters into captivity, under pretence that we were rebellious ; and they cruelly beat and put to death our chief men, to inspire terror and produce submission. And yet no Deliverer appeared. And so the days went by.

My home was on the western shore of the Sea of Galilee, which is the water of Genesareth. The plain where I lived was called, in my own tongue, "The Garden of Riches," so fertile was it, and full of lovely flowers and stately trees, and like a Paradise of plenty. The water of the lake wtu.

4 THE LEGEND OF THOMAS, CALLED DIDVMUS.

pure and fresh : it was full of fishes, and three hundred vessels sailed to and fro from the cities on the western shore to those on the eastern shore. So deep down lay our lake, that it was as if one should pour water into the bottom of his cap ; for the mountains rose high all around, and the sea nestled in their midst, sheltered from all cold winds by these high walls of stone. Perpetual spring reigned in this valley : the figs and grapes ripened during the whole year ; and the fruits and flowers and trees of all climates mingled peacefully together. The lofty palms, crowned with leaves which rustled and crackled in the wind, stood by the side of dark green walnuts, and the spectral olive-orchards. The Lord, who gave this land of Palestina to our people to dwell in, made it rich within with fertile valleys, great plains bearing corn and wine and oil, clear-flowing streams, beautiful forests of oaks and turpentine-trees, and palms towering aloft like sentinels to guard the people. But the Lord had also put mountains around it to protect our people from the tribes who roamed for prey all about us. So Palestina rose like a fortified island from the midst of the desert below, walled in by Hermon and Lebanon on the north, and the rock} 7 peaks of Sinai on the south. Those mountains were our friends ; and all our land was a watch-tower, whence we could lift up our e}'es, and overlook the plains below, reaching to the vast blue sea on the west, and across Jordan and its long valley to the mountains of Moab beyond.

But I lived in my mother's house by the shore of the Lake of Waterfalls ; and to see these distant regions I must climb the hills. Many travellers, merchants of Babylon and Damascus, crossed our sea, journeying toward the coasts of Tyre and Sidon on the north, or to Egypt at the south. They pitched their tents by the side of the four great springs, from which the waters rushed in large streams toward the lake. And I, a boy, often walked through the plain when the sun of spring covered it with white and blue flowers, or

THE LAKE OF GALILEE, AND THE SYNAGOGUE.

the summer caused it to burn with the red fire of the lilies. I talked with the birds, who made the air all alive with their song, and with the clustering blossoms, which seemed almost as alive as they, and thought of the wonderful history of our people. I pondered whether in my time the Great Deliverer would come.

From my early childhood, my mother fed my heart with the stories of our heroes and kings. She was one who was waiting for the consolation of Israel, sure that the Lord had not forgotten his people, though he tarried long, and his voice had now been heard by no prophet for long years. As in the days of the boy Samuel, " the word of the Lord was precious, for there was no open vision." But my mother told me, that, in the history of our people, there came always the darkest and gloomiest hour before a new dawn. It was a dark hour for our people in Egypt when Moses was born, their Deliverer. We were now, indeed, slaves to the Romans ; but we were not ground into the earth, as our fathers were by the Egyptians. Caesar was not as cruel as Pharaoh. It was a dark time when our people were wandering through the wilderness for forty years, seeming about to become as rude and wild as the robber tribes around them. They drove their flocks and herds from one hillside to another, like the sons of Esau. They dwelt in tents, like the Ishmaelites. But so the Lord changed these weak slaves of the Egyptians into hardy soldiers ; and when they came to the shore of the Jordan, and saw the green hills of the land of promise glowing in the western sunset, they were strong enough and brave enough to enter into the land and take it.

Then she talked to me concerning the wild times that followed the conquest, — when there was no king in Israel, and every man did what was right in his own eyes. There was no law nor fixed government, nor any settled place for the altar of God. Some worshipped at Shiloh, and some at Bethel, and many continued to offer sacrifices at the places b THE LEGEND OF THOMAS, CALLED DIDYMUS.

where Baal had of old been worshipped, — at Baal-Hermon and Baal-Hazor and Baal-Judah. And then, when the calamities of the people were great, the Lord raised up men of might, and women of might, — Samson and Deborah, Gideon and Jephthah, — and under their strong hand, peace returned, and the tribes fought with each other no more, and had rest also from the Philistines of the plains.

Moreover, my mother told me of the days that followed, when the Philistines rose up again against Israel, and brought great armies, with armor and shields and swords and lances, and drove our people before them, and took the ark of God ; and how. when the priest of God heard of this, he fell back and died. And they named the little child born to his daughter, Ichabod, because the glory was departed.

And my mother told me that the glory departed from Israel, because the people had ceased to worship Yahveh, and worshipped the gods of the plain and the coast, — cruel Moloch, and licentious Ashtaroth, and all the Baals. They worshipped in the temples of the heathen, and in the groves of abomination, with shameful and horrid rites : and the land was defiled with blood, and the ark taken away to the temple of the fish-God, Dagon.

And then, in that darkness, the Lord raised up Samuel, a stern and awful prophet, who turned the hearts of tin* people to their own God and King, the God of the great and terrible name. And as soon as the people's hearts were right in his sight, their strength returned, and they smote the Philistines hip and thigh, and pursued them with great slaughter, even unto the spot where Samuel put up the stone which he called Eben-ezer, or the Stone of Help, because the Lord had helped them even unto that place.

And so my mother told me of the wanderings of our Father Abraham, king of men, from whom every Israelite is descended. For we all had our genealogies, kept sure by the sons of Levi in their sanctuaries. No other nation had this science as had the Jews ; for all our land belonged to families, and the scribes kept a record of the boundaries of every piece of land, so that, if it were sold, it should return to the same house at the end of fifty years.

Among all nations, men are proud of beiug descended from great ancestors. At Rome, men were proud who belonged to the Cornelian or Fabian houses ; but, except with us, there was never known a nation all of whom were descended from the same ancestor. Every Jew in the whole world, whether he lived in Alexandreia, or Persia, or Rome, or Athens, could say, "I have Abraham, the friend of God, for my father." This made every Jew a brother to every other Jew, and gave to us all the same family pride. We were the patricians of the world. What were Roman knights or senators, or Macedonian kings, to our ancient race? They were plebeians, born yesterday. To-day they chanced to be more powerful than we, and were our rulers ; but to-morrow we should see them fall, as we had seen the fall of other vast monarchies which had also for a time been our rulers, — the Pharaohs of Egypt, oldest of empires, the Assyrians, Babylonians, Persians, Phoenicians. Cyrus the Great, conqueror of Babylon, had been our protector and friend. Hiram, King of Tyre, was an ally of Solyma. What had become of Cambyses, whose armies overran Egypt ; of Sargon and Tiglath-Pileser ; of the ships of Sidon? These all were gone. The ruins of Nineveh and Babylon were overgrown with trees, and, as our prophets had foretold, desolation had come up into their palaces. Hades was moved from beneath to greet them at their coming. Babylon, the glory of kingdoms, the beauty of the Chaldees, had become as Sodom and Gomorrah. The city of Damascus, most ancient on the earth, was only a village, its pride and power departed. Tyre, formerly sitting on the sea like a queen, and sending her ships of merchandise to unknown regions, was only a heap of stones. All the

8 THE LEGEND OV THOMAS, CALLED DIDYMUS.

burdens and woes uttered against these mighty monarchies by Isaiah and Ezekiel had been fulfilled. All were none : but we, the children of Abraham, remained, in whose seed all the families of the earth should be blessed. God had put into our hands the destinies of mankind; and when Messiah came, all other peoples, nations, languages, should submit, and bow down, and adore before Yahveh, Lord of lords and King of kings.

I went one morning to our house of gathering (or synagogue) to listen to the reading of the law and the prophets. Ours was an open town, large enough to furnish the Ten Men of Leisure, whose duty it was to be always present, so that the worship might never wait for want of the necessary number to make up a congregation. These Ten Men of Leisure sat on the high seats on each side of the ark, and presided over the affairs of the congregation. The house was on the summit of a hill, overlooking the sea, whose bright blue waters sparkled in the sun, and lay dark in the shadow of the hills which rose steeply from its eastern shore. Far away, at the upper end of our sweet lake of Galilee, were misty mountains, with the snowy top of Ilermon soaring above all into the heavens. The morning was calm, and the sabbath rest seemed to be shared by all living things. The lambs' bleat was not heard from the distant hills, on which the flocks showed like streaks of snow; the birds were silent in their groves of olives ; and the lake, on other days alive with white sails, was now without a boat on its surface.

Our house of gathering, built of large stones, and cedars from Lebanon, stood on a raised platform of volcanic rocks, and was entered through a porch of four cedar columns.

Before entering the house, I turned to take another look at the lake. The mountains, which swept around it. seemed to hold it in their protecting arms, as a mother holds her child. As it lay in their embrace, so we. the multitudes who lived on its shores, lay in the hollow of God's hand. How happy our life in this delicious retreat ! — perpetual summer around, mountains and deserts, solemn sentinels, guarding us fron the robber tribes which roamed to the east of us. As ] stood above the fair scene, I looked along the level beach below, in some parts of snowy sand, and in others a speckled line of black and white stones. All round the lake ran this white beach, like a silver girdle around the waist of a queen. And our lake was a queen in her beauty and riches. To the south rose the white walls of Tiberias, where dwelt our cruel ruler, whom the Roman emperor had confirmed as our tetrarch according to the will of his father Herod. Herod the father had left Galilee to be governed by Antipas his son, born of a Samaritan woman. Thus we. were ruled by a family of Arabs and Samaritans, who in their wicked hearts sought to put an end to the worship of our God, the Most High. They built temples to the Roman god Jupiter, and worshipped stone idols, carved by Greek artists, and made like men and women." Beyond Tiberias, men might sec the faint mists rising from the hot springs of Hammath. I, taught to abhor all heathen worship, looked with horror at this evil city of Herod Antipas, which he had built on our shores, and where he lived the life of a beast rather than a man. A rapacious plunderer, he sent his tax-gatherers (who were called publicans, or Telonai) to torment us with perpetual demands. They were like wolves and bears devouring the land. They had no modesty, no fear. They watched by the lake to see what was brought over in the boats, that they might accuse us of bringing what was forbidden by the Roman laws. They made us pay taxes on what we bought and sold, taxes on the sheep which we pastured on the bare hills, taxes when we crossed a river, a tax on each man's head, a tax on the house we lived in, a tax on each door in our house. All this money was taken to Tiberias, and there was spent by Herod and his friends on their feasts, for I do not think that much of it ever went to the emperor at Rome.

But this was not the worst evil this tetvarch did to hs. Only a few weeks before the time of which I speak, I passed by a house near our town, and I heard a moaning sound, and went in. There, on the floor, lay the householder, with blood streaming from his face. When I had lifted him up, and bathed his face, he cried out, tk Oh, woe, woe on this dav ! May blackness and night settle on it forever. My child, my child ! Why did I not die when my child was taken away! " And then I learned that soldiers from Tiberias, sent no doubt by wicked Herod, had seized his daughter, a girl of sixteen, and beautiful as sunrise, and carried her away to the city, for the tyrant's pleasure.

Well may you think, my children, that we hated this devilish Antipas. this son of Satan, and that we never put foot in his polluted city. It stood fair on the distant shore ; but it was the home of all abominations. We hated Antipas, and we hated his tax-gatherers ; for no one had taught us at that time that we could love our enemies, and that love was stronger than hatred. Bless the Lord, my children, who lias taught you this word of peace, which takes out of the heart its poisonous rage, its bitter hatred, and tills it with the calm of the angels of God.

When I went into the house of gathering I found there the greater part of the community, and many strangers beside ; for a renowned teacher had come among us. and was to speak that day. He was of the tribe of Benjamin, and very learned in the law. I went in, passing first through the wide portico, which represented the Court of the Gentiles in the temple at Jerusalem, which all our synagogues (as the Greeks called them) were made to resemble. Ascending some steps from this court, or walking-place, I entered the house. On the right hand was the place of the women, separated by a low partition from the place of the men. The light came from windows above, and the southern sun sent a ray through a single round window at the upper end, falling on the ark of cedar, which held the sacred Thora, or books of the law of Moses. As we entered, we bowed toward this ark, and therefore toward Jerusalem ; for every synagogue in the world was so placed, that the people within, all but the elders, should look toward Jerusalem. The ark stood on a raised platform, which was reached by seven steps, and divided by a low rail from the rest of the building. The space within this rail represented the Court of the Priests, and the ark itself was a type of the Holy of Holies. A rich veil of Tyrian scarlet hung before it, in imitation of the veil of the temple ; and in front of this the candlestick with eight branches, unlighted. One lamp alone burned by the ark, and never was suffered to go out, — a symbol of the light which always streams from the one living and true God.

Sitting on each side of the ark, on the raised platform, were the Ten Men of Leisure, the elders of the congregation, with the three rulers of the house of gathering, the president, and some Pharisees and priests from Jerusalem.

The service went on as usual ; but it was evident, through all the early readings and the eighteen prayers of Ezra, that the heart of the congregation was greatly moved, expecting what was to come. Indeed, the Jewish nation, which seemed crushed to death under the iron heel of the Roman legions, retained its life and freedom in its synagogues. The Romans, a nation of great strength and boundless pride, but slow of perception, saw us going every seventh day to our houses of gathering ; and if they sometimes came and stood in the outer court, to which we ostentatiously invited them, they laughed with scorn at what they held to be an absurd superstition. They knew not that these synagogues were secret societies, organized in every part of the Roman Empire, with a discipline like that of their own legions. They perceived not that every adult Jew belonged to one of these congregations, and that his name was enrolled in its list of members, bound to obey the orders of the ruler of his synagogue and its council of elders. They had no knowledge of the organization which bound them together, and made them all subject to the chief Council of the Seventy at Jerusalem. The Romans were proud of their courts of law, and then' judges, claiming jurisdiction in all the provinces. They knew not that every synagogue was a court, and that it called on the Roman law, only to enforce its own sentences. Though it had not the power to punish with death, it could do worse : it could excommunicate a member from its body, and so cut him off from his nation, making him an object of hatred to his household, and an alien from the commonwealth of Israel and the promises of God.

They knew that each synagogue had its angel, or messenger, yet thought they not to ask what were the messages they carried from one to another ; for they said, " These are all mere matters of religion, and pertain only to worship. " They were blind to the fact that there was in their midst this army, drilled and organized, and ready to act when the message should be sent forth from Jerusalem. They saw a million of men collecting in our holy city at the great festivals ; and to them it seemed a mere act of worship, like the mysteries of Eleusis. They were ignorant, that, to every Jew, religion and patriotism were one and the same thing. They heard us speak of the Christ who was to come, and the kingdom of heaven, and believed that our Christ was to be only a religious teacher, and the kingdom of heaven some holy life beyond this. And when, in the synagogues, they heard the elders read the denunciations of the prophets against Tyre and Egypt. Nineveh and Babylon, they understood not. that, though our lips spake of Babylon and Nineveh and Nebuchadnezzar, our hearts spake of Rome, and Augustus and Tiberius Caesar. Fools and blind ! Even then the storm gathered which might dash in pieces their proud empire, and make Jerusalem the capital of the earth ; and ill their cold pride they thought themselves rulers of mankiud, and Rome the mistress of the world.

And when we held converse, one with another, concerning the coming revolution, which was to overthrow at once the petty kingdom of Herod and the thirty legions of Rome, to place Judaea at the head of all the nations of the earth, and make one universal religion for all mankind, we called this catastrophe, the " Kingdom of Heaven," or the " Kingdom of God." For the same God of Israel, with the unmentionable name, who had brought our fathers out of Egypt, who had beaten back the Assyrians, who had redeemed us from the power of Babylon, would soon and utterly destroy the Romans. When the mighty leader, the son of Daweid, should appear, then the harvest would be ripe, and he would thrust in his sickle. But the Romans, who heard us speak of the kingdom of heaven, thought we meant only some heaven hereafter, and knew nothing of these hopes, nor the bitter vengeance which we expected to take on their idolatrous nation.

After the psalms had been chanted, the law read, the responses made, the eighteen prayers recited, the strange rabbi came forward on the platform. There was put into his hand the roll containing the Prophecy of Joel. In a voice deep, and trembling with emotion, he read of the plague of locusts : —

" Hear this, ye old men !

Give ear, all ye inhabitants of the land ! Hath such a thing happened in your days, Or in the days of your fathers? . . .

That which one swarm of locusts left, hath a second swarm

eaten !

And that which the second left, hath a third swarm eaten ! And that which the third left, hath a fourth swarm eaten ! "

As he read these words, his voice trembled with strong feeling ; then he stopped, and looked round on the assembly.

A suppressed murmur ran through the congregation, sounding like the far-off roar of the sea. We understood his meaning well. These locusts were the Romans, the soldiers of Herod, and the hateful Telonai, or tax-gatherers. We knew that some of these very officers of Herod were at this moment standing in the outer court, but not one of the congregation looked at them.

Then the reader went on, and described the terrors of the coming time : —

" The day of Yahveh cometh ; it is near 1 A day of darkness and gloom — A day of clouds and of thick darkness.

There cometh a people numerous and strong; Like them have been none of old, And after them there shall not be.

A fire devoureth before them, And behind them a flame burneth.

The land is as the Garden of Eden before them, And behind them a desolate wilderness.

Yea, nothing escapetli them ! "

Another deep murmur went through the synagogue. Even so it was with our land, crushed under the leaden weight of the tyrants. All these lovely valleys, which God had given to our fathers to be the homes of happy families, were laid waste, and given as a prey to the spoiler. But the reader went on : —

" Yet even now. saith Yahveh, Turn to me with all your heart; Rend your hearts, and not your garments, And turn to Yahveh, your God.

For he is gracious and merciful, Slow to anger, and of great kindness, And repenteth him of the evil. . . . Then will Yahveh be zealous for this land, And will remove far from you the northern host,