So don’t talk to me about the old Roman civilization. I know they had central heating and straight roads and the greatest army the world has ever known, but at the back of all that they were the biggest shits in creation. Look, if some barbarian king back in the Dark Ages wanted you dead, what did he do? Cut off your head, or bludgeon your brains out, or drown you, or throw you off a high rock. All pretty quick. The Romans, being three times as clever and ten times as organized as any barbarian were a hundred times more savage in their methods of murdering people.
And that’s what they did to Yeshua Christos.
Pilate, being Pilate, got his revenge on the priests for blackmailing him. Whenever someone was crucified, the law said that you had to have a plaque on the top saying what crime the victim was condemned for. Pilate ordered that the inscription read “Yeshua of Nazareth, King of the Jews”, and had it written in Latin, Greek and Hebrew to make sure everyone got the message. This was hung around Yeshua’s neck when He was on his way to the execution and then it was nailed to the top of the cross.
So how do I know all these things? Well, first, I was there when He was crucified. Secondly, I’ve been crucified myself. Lots of times. They say you have no memory for pain. That’s crap. I shiver every time I pass a carpenter’s shop or hear someone hammering. And I’m immortal. Or I was until today.
A thousand years ago, my name was Cartaphilus. I was a good, law-biding, unimaginative orthodox Jew. And I worked as doorkeeper to Pontius Pilate. He needed doorkeepers because most people who came to visit a Roman governor were either too important to touch a door themselves or too busy crawling and begging to bother with one. The first time I met Yeshua of Nazareth was as he was being led out to be executed. He had just been scourged. The soldiers had put this crown of thorns on Him. They wanted to have their part in annoying the priests as well and were playing up to Pilate’s crack about Yeshua being King of the Jews. Yeshua was being led out, struggling under the weight of the cross-piece of the crucifixion-frame.
Now at that time most of what I knew about Him was rumour — that and what my cousin Jacob the wine-merchant said when he dropped in to have his head bandaged. Some people were claiming Yeshua was the Messiah, the king of the Jews. But the high priest Caiaphas had wanted Him condemned to death. Being a good Jew, I figured that anything Caiaphas said must be kosher. If the high priest wanted the Nazarene killed, then he had his good, religious, reasons. So, what can I say? I was an idiot.
The Nazarene was trying to get through the door. I spat on Him. He fell down under the weight of the wooden beam. I put my foot on His back, where He had been whipped and the flesh was hanging off him. I pushed with my foot and told Him to get up and get a move on.
Someone had told me He sacrificed and ate small children. And, back then, I was callous.
He cried out. Then He got up, picked up the beam with some effort and he looked at me. He said, “I am going quickly to my death. But you will wait a long time for death. You will be waiting until I return.”
I didn’t know what to make of this. I didn’t think much about it. A couple of soldiers hit Him with the flats of their swords and off He went to Golgotha.
His words didn’t sink in at first, then a strange panic overtook me. I realized He’d put some kind of curse on me. Even if He was a blasphemer, He was still some kind of holy man. I was very troubled. An hour and a half after He had spoken to me, I quit my doorkeeper’s job forever.
I ran to Golgotha. He was nailed to his cross in between two Zealots. He was still alive, but quiet, not struggling and groaning as much as the other two. There weren’t many other people around, just some ghouls. His disciples had all deserted him. Whether Yeshua was the son of God or not, no man would want to be associated with Him and run the risk winding up nailed to the next-cross-but-one.
There were a few women around. Friends and relatives. And the execution squad was there, playing dice for his possessions. But there was a strange thing, a Roman officer — I don’t know if he was in charge of the execution squad — was pacing up and down, looking at the dying man and muttering to himself.
The Centurion looked at me and beckoned me over. In those days, you did everything in your power to avoid those people. They brutalized their own soldiers enough, and they could be lethal to ordinary civilians, especially in a country they could barely control. I was terrified as I walked over to him. But all he did was grab me by the shoulders, look straight into my eyes and say, “Truly, this man was the son of God.” All he wanted was someone to listen.
The son of God! Only afterwards did I realize what a queer thing this was for a Roman to be saying. Romans believed in lots of gods. The only people around who believed in one god were we Jews. Maybe the Centurion was Jewish. I don’t know.
The son of God!
If the Centurion was right, then I was condemned forever. I lost my reason. I walked to the foot of the cross and begged the Nazarene to forgive me. But it was too late. He was in too much pain to take any notice.
Then I went over to the women, who were all crying and pulling at their hair and I joined them. One of the whores had seen me kicking Him. They didn’t want to know me. I can’t blame them for that.
I was too troubled and too ashamed to seek out the Nazarene’s friends. Not that he had many at this stage. His male followers were in hiding. Even good old Peter, who was no slouch when it came to beating the crap out of money-changers and wine-merchants, was at this moment loudly claiming he had never heard of Yeshua and didn’t like him anyway. As for Judas the Zealot, he hanged himself because his plan had gone wrong. I regretted that. In the next few years, he would have been company.
I began to wander. I left my wife and my family and walked first north, towards Galilee. I don’t know why. An evil spirit within me told me that I must wander the face of the world until He should return.
The nights were always the worst. As evening drew in and the shadows lengthened, my own shadow would become that of Yeshua struggling under the weight of that wooden beam.
Years later, I heard what happened. The Romans liked to leave corpses hanging to rot as an example to any other would-be offenders. But the Jewish law would not permit bodies to be exposed in this way on the Sabbath, and the day after Yeshua’s execution was the Sabbath. Joseph, a man from a place called Arimathea, a rich and influential Jew who was friendly both with Yeshua’s family and with Pilate, approached the governor. After the Romans had checked that Yeshua was dead, Joseph got permission to take the body down and he buried It in the tomb he had bought for himself.
A few days later, Yeshua of Nazareth rose from the dead. He visited his frightened followers who took strength from seeing Him again. Some time after that He ascended to Heaven to take his place at the right hand of the Lord.
Don’t be so shocked, rabbi. Just because it isn’t in your One True Testament doesn’t mean it didn’t happen.
Yeshua’s followers now dispersed throughout the Empire and beyond, spreading the story of how He had come to save man from his sins. Some of them began their work right there in Jerusalem, but they were driven out by the authorities. One of them, a man named Stephen, was stoned to death for blasphemy.
At first, followers of Christos and those they baptized into their faith seemed to be forming a new sect of Judaism, but soon it became clear that there were important differences. One of the others, Philip, met an Ethiopian on the road from Jerusalem to Gaza. The Ethiopian was an important court official in the service of the queen of his country. He was a eunuch. As you know, a man who is not whole may not become a Jew. The eunuch asked Philip, “Is there anything to prevent me being baptized?” And Philip answered, “Nothing.”