Cephas is a man built for battle, nicknamed not only Rocky but also ‘Baryona’ — Outlaw. He could be a gladiator if he did not belong to God. He might be one yet, if the Romans take him alive some day. Cephas has wrists as thick as many men’s ankles. A head as broad, as jowled and as menacing as the giant mastiffs the Romans use as dogs of war. But Cephas is not a fool. And Cephas knows what they are about to do. And Cephas feels his stomach coil like a boat rope as he mounts the steps.
The first courtyard of the Temple is open to all, even non-Jews. Though covering most of the thirty-six-acre precinct, large as a great lake, it is almost a bazaar. Awash with traders shouting, the yawp and squeal of livestock and the Babel babble of foreign tongues. Someone watching from the Roman-garrisoned Antonia Fortress looking down on the scene — and such there are — would not be sure if the great crowd that entered the Temple at one time is spreading throughout the court deliberately, or only through necessity of the narrow spaces between stalls. But spread they do, dispersing in every direction, seeping into the corners, strolling in groups of two or three to admire the frescos, or to take the shade of a colonnade, or to haggle half-heartedly with a stallholder.
The Twelve stay close to Yeshua, with his brother, James the Lesser, to one side and Cephas to the other, Jochanan behind, the Three Pillars who support and protect Yeshua always.
But for the opulence of the court and the magnificence of the Temple, draped with ornate tapestries of scarlet and purple, this could be any market square in the civilized world. Though peculiarly specialist: most of the table traders are money-changers and many of the stallholders selling animals for sacrifice. Doves for the poorest, oxen for the richest and, this being the time of festival, lambs for everyone with a family large enough to eat one. The trade is necessary: the sacrifices are laid down in the sacred law and travellers can hardly come — often from far-off lands — carrying a live sacrifice and keeping it pure. Likewise, the Temple tax must be paid — Moses himself commanded that every Jew over twenty years must donate a silver half shekel by the Passover of each year. The tax is a sacred duty and it is the one levy in this country that does not fill Roman coffers. The exchange of coins for a single Tyrian shekel, to ensure that all men pay the same, is a necessity; money-changing is no abomination. Yeshua is not against these things.
But if Judaea were free, she could mint her own coins and would not need to suffer using those with graven images and words like ‘Divine Augustus’ upon them. And in this occupied land, the Temple tax and this Temple trade silts the purses of collaborators and conspirators: the high priests, who bribe and fawn their way to their appointment; the Sadducees, with their lavish houses in the upper city, their servants and imported slaves; the Herodians and their aristocrat cronies, who profit from the status quo, with their Roman finery and Latin education and affected accents. It is they who decide who can trade in the courts of God’s Temple. And they who determine how much must be paid for the privilege. On God’s Mount, by the Holy of Holies wherein God Himself dwells.
Yeshua leads the Twelve to the slots in the wall where pilgrims post their donations. A widow precedes them there. Too old to marry again. Too young yet to die. There are many widows in Judaea these days. Her face is raisined from fieldwork. Her clothes would scarcely be worth a rag merchant’s trouble of taking to market. Her bare feet are pocked from the bite of fleas or mosquitoes. She places one tiny copper lepton at the slot, the smallest coin there is, and turns behind, to see who watches her in her shame. But her eyes meet those of Yeshua and he smiles at her. Yeshua’s smile is a half-smile, just one side of his face changes and this asymmetry somehow reinforces how symmetrical he is. How handsome. His eyes and skin dark, like a Bedouin’s. His black hair a lamb’s-wool tangle. Yeshua’s bearing is humble, but even this widow — who knows nothing of him, whose eyes are clouded with cataracts — can tell that he’s a prince.
Yeshua shouts, so all nearby can hear him, even through the chatter of commerce. A voice much practised in addressing crowds. An ability to carry born from crying in the wilderness. ‘This poor widow has contributed more to the Temple than all the wealthy men of Jerusalem combined. For all of them have given a little from their great abundance, but she out of her poverty has put in everything she had, all she had to live on.’
The widow shrinks, to be suddenly the object of so much attention, then seems to feel a strength pouring from Yeshua’s presence and straightens again. Straighter than she has stood in years.
Like a dropped anchor, the whole Temple is suddenly tethered to this point; ripples of awareness flow outward from it.
Yeshua motions to Jochanan, who hands the widow some coins. Perhaps a hundredfold what she has just donated.
The Sadducee priest who monitors this section of the courtyard — at his back a squad of Temple Guards — comes to confront Yeshua. The Sadducees don’t like pretenders to the throne and they don’t like talk of rich and poor, divisive talk, and they especially don’t like those who speak openly against Rome. This priest must know the views of Yeshua, perhaps thinks to entrap him in arrestable offence. The priest moves forward, but he does not come quite face to face with Yeshua: he stops behind a money-changer — a corpulent man, seated at a small table — a human barrier between them.
‘So you approve of paying the Temple tax at least, Rabban,’ the priest says. ‘Now tell me, should we also pay taxes to Rome?’
Yeshua picks up a denarius from the money-changer’s table. The man looks affronted, begins to protest, but sees Yeshua’s grim brow and glances to Cephas’s bulk and sits the fuck back down. ‘Whose image is this on the coin?’ Yeshua asks.
‘It is Tiberius Caesar’s,’ says the priest.
‘But doesn’t God’s law forbid graven images?’
‘You know that it does.’
‘Ah, yes, I remember it now,’ Yeshua says: ‘You shall not make for yourself a graven image, or any likeness of anything that is in Heaven above, or that is on the earth beneath, or that is in the water; you shall not bow down to them or serve them. And who do you say Caesar is?’ Yeshua asks. ‘Is he a man or a god?’
‘There is only one God.’
‘But this coin of Caesar’s says he is a god, the son of a god. And now you say he is just a man. So, do you think Caesar is a liar or a fool?’
The priest stammers a non-response. The crowd laughs. Not just the disciples, but all who stand and watch. The priest should leave it now. The priest probably even knows himself that he should leave it now, but pride is a powerful wind.
‘You still haven’t answered me, Rabban,’ he spits, and he motions the guards to draw closer to him. ‘Should we pay the taxes of Rome?’
‘If I pay tribute to a man who says he is a god, whose image is graven on the very means of payment, is graven on the standards of his armies, is graven on the statues of his towns, am I not bowing down and serving a graven image? Am I not breaking God’s commandment?’
The priest doesn’t answer. He looks conflicted because he has achieved his aim: he has Yeshua in publicly witnessed sedition, but it has not run how he would have liked.
‘You look confused, friend,’ Yeshua says. ‘Do I need to make myself plainer? Render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s! Italy belongs to Caesar. Let it pay him tribute. Let him tax Egypt, if he must. Syria, too, for what we care. But this is God’s land. Covenanted to God’s people. It is forbidden to give God’s things to a heathen. The fruits of this land are tithed to God. Render unto God what is God’s!’
And Yeshua grasps the edge of the money-changer’s table before him and flips it full circle into the air. The Sadducee and the guards scatter to avoid its landing point. Coins spin and roll about the ground, graven heads of Caesar clattering upon paving.