“That was a delicious meal, governor Festus.” The king spoke in a rich, oily drawl, burping politely to emphasise his appreciation.
“I’m glad you enjoyed it, O king. It wasn’t bad.” Festus patted his mouth with a napkin, then turned and held out his
hands to a servant, who poured water over them, catching it in a basin. “When I arrived in Caesarea, I was a little concerned about what sort of fare I’d find in an out-of-the-way province like Judea, but Felix seems to have provided himself with a decent chef.”
King Agrippa[1] looked sideways at his sister Bernice, rolling his eyes a little. These Roman officials were always quick to dismiss Judea as insignificant, yet for the Herodian dynasty, Judea
and the surrounding areas had been a source of power and comfort for a century. The Herods had provided stability, security, permanence and reliability in the face of an ever-changing Roman Empire. Judea might not have the flashy importance of Rome, but his family had maintained a consistency that Rome could never achieve with its constant procession of prefects, governors and procurators.
Bernice gave a slight smile but said nothing. She and her
brother understood each other well and she knew exactly what he meant.
Festus was a middle-aged Roman administrator, confident, as they all were, of Rome’s excellence, and committed to the goals of the Roman Empire. As the newly-appointed procurator of Judea, he was determined to maintain peace in the province, and, although he would never have said so publicly, to avoid the violence, cruelty and corruption made commonplace by his predecessor Felix. He
also knew that, should unrest arise, he would not have the safeguard of a brother to whisper in Nero’s ear as Felix did.
Having washed his hands, he sat back in his seat and laced his fingers together over his fair-to-middling paunch. He was comfortably fed, and the wine he had been imbibing filled his mind with a pleasant glow.
He was about to embark on some after-dinner small talk when he suddenly remembered the subject he
wanted to discuss with Agrippa.
“Ah, King Agrippa, I have a matter that I want to discuss with you. You are familiar with the conditions of this area and the complexity of the religious situation. There is a man here in Caesarea who was left as a prisoner by Felix. I believe he’s been imprisoned here for two years, but no judicial decision has ever been made. In fact, there aren’t even any real charges.”
“Is
this Saul of Tarsus?” asked the king, interested enough to drop his affected drawl.
“Saul? No, I don’t think so. This man is called Paul or Paulos.”
“I wonder if it’s the same man. Is he a religious crackpot?”
Festus laughed a little. “Aren’t all you Jews religious crackpots?”
Agrippa laughed in turn, but shook his head. His drawl returned as
he replied, “Oh, no, Festus. Religion is certainly important to most of us, but most of us manage to avoid having our need for religion eclipse our love of money and power. This Saul of Tarsus, however, is a polarising character in our religion. Anyway, tell me more – perhaps we can determine whether Saul and Paul are the same person.”
“I arrived from Rome a few months ago and went up to Jerusalem after just three days, since I thought it was
important to get to know the Jewish leaders as soon as possible. I was amazed when they immediately talked about this Paulos. I didn’t know anything about him at the time, but they made it clear that they considered his case the most important one that Felix hadn’t finalised – and that they were angry about it.”
Agrippa nodded. “This Paulos is definitely Saul of Tarsus. I’ve just remembered that both names were used in a report I received
about that uproar in the temple two years ago. And, yes, the chief priests hate him. They plotted to kill him two years ago. Their first attempt didn’t work because the tribune sent his troops into the temple courts and rescued him before they could kill him. So then they made a plot to kill him on the way to a court hearing, but the tribune learned about it and sent him away to Caesarea. Sent him by night, in fact, with hundreds of soldiers to protect him.
It caused all sorts of a ruckus at the time. I’m not surprised they’re still trying to get him.”
“I see. Well, while I was in Jerusalem, the chief priests and the elders of the Jews presented their case against him and asked for a judgement against him. I did my best to put them off by saying that it was not the Roman custom to give up anyone before the accused met the accusers face to face and had an opportunity to make his defence
concerning the charge laid against him.”
“I’ll bet they didn’t like that!” said Agrippa, smiling.
“No, they tried to tell me that the hearing had already been carried out in Jerusalem and there was no question of the man’s guilt, but I was a bit suspicious that they weren’t telling me the whole truth.”
“I’m not sure that some of those leaders know what truth is. They just know that they hate any
opposition, including Saul,” said Bernice.
“Do you know of this man, my lady?” asked Festus, turning to her.
“Only by common report. I’m just making a general observation about the chief priests. However, Agrippa is right, Saul of Tarsus is a religious crackpot. He’s travelled all over the world trying to spread his crazy ideas.”
“And the leaders hate him particularly because he used to
be on their side and now he shows them up for their hypocrisy,” said Agrippa.
“Ah, a turncoat?” said Festus, nodding. “Now I understand why they were so insistent – there’s no better way to earn someone’s undying hatred than to leave them and swap sides. Anyway, when they came here with me, I didn’t delay. I sat on the judgment seat the very next day and ordered that the man be brought in. But when his accusers got up to speak, they didn’t
charge him with any of the crimes I had expected. They only had some contentions with him regarding their own religion and a certain Jesus who had died, but whom Paul affirmed to be alive.”
“This conflict has been going on for more than 35 years,” said Agrippa. “It started before I was born when the chief priests killed Jesus, the Nazarene carpenter, because he kept showing them up. It sounds like he was a genius at rhetoric and debate. He
had thousands of followers – mostly uneducated peasants.”
“Paul is no ignorant peasant, though. He’s well educated, and a powerful speaker, too.”
“True, and that’s another reason why they hate him. Originally, the chief priests were sure that if they killed Jesus, that would be the end of the movement he led. But they were wrong. Those ignorant peasants wouldn’t back down, and they made the leaders look
small-minded and weak.”
“How?”
“From the start, they claimed that the carpenter was alive...”
“Wasn’t he executed? Did they make a hash of the execution?”
“They? He was crucified by you Romans. Do you think your soldiers would have got it wrong?”
“No,” said Festus decisively. “We wouldn’t get that wrong. So
he was dead. How could his followers say he was alive? Surely all the leaders had to do was produce the bones?”
“You’d think so, but it seems that something happened to the body. The leaders claimed that his followers came and stole the body from the tomb.”
“Wait, you said he was crucified. Wasn’t the body just thrown into the rubbish tip and burned? That’s what we Romans do with the bodies of crucified
men.”
“Yes, that’s what normally happens here too, but two important leaders of the Jews went to Pilate, the governor, and asked to have the body so that they could bury it.”
“I thought the leaders all hated him,” said Festus, puzzled.
“Not quite all. There were a few who liked his teaching and didn’t agree with his execution. I heard that one of those leaders put the body in his own new
tomb.”
“And then his followers came and took the body? What a mess.”
“Well, it wasn’t quite that simple. You see, apparently many people had heard the carpenter say that he would be killed and come back to life again, so after he was buried, the leaders went to Pilate and insisted that the tomb be sealed and guarded.”
“And Pilate agreed to that?”
“Yes. The
tomb was sealed and soldiers were sent to guard it.”
“So what happened to the body then?”
“Nobody knows. The leaders say that the carpenter’s disciples came and stole the body while the soldiers slept. Does that sound likely to you?”
“If any of my soldiers let that happen now, they wouldn’t live long enough to tell the tale.” Once more, Festus spoke decisively.
“Of course not,” agreed Agrippa. He glanced at Bernice then leaned forward and spoke confidentially. “When I was young, my father[2] was involved with some of the followers of the carpenter. They’ve formed a sect they call The Way and their enemies call the sect of the Nazarene. My father wanted to please the chief priests, so he executed one of their leaders – one of the original followers of the carpenter. Then he locked up another one and kept him in prison
while everyone was celebrating the Passover feast. He planned to kill him too, once the feast was over, but it didn’t work.”
“What do you mean?”
“The man disappeared,” said Bernice, snapping her fingers indicatively.
“Disappeared? What do you mean?”
“Gone; missing; absent,” said Bernice, her eyes gleaming.
“In the morning, when our
father was about to send for the man, the guards reported that the man had disappeared from his cell,” explained Agrippa, triumphantly, sitting back in his seat.
“Were some of the guards on the man’s side?” asked Festus, frowning.
“That’s what our father assumed, so he executed them all,” said Agrippa.
“Sounds sensible to me.”
“Perhaps. But for the conspiracy to work,
all of the guards would have had to be involved. It wasn’t just a few guards outside his cell, you know. The man was chained between two soldiers in his cell. There were guards outside the door, guards along the corridor, guards at the building entrance, guards in the courtyard. And then there was the locked iron gate leading into the city. There were guards inside and outside.” Agrippa leaned forward again, tapping his finger on the table for emphasis.
“But none of those guards – not one – admitted to seeing anything unusual.”
“Bribery, perhaps? Are the followers of the carpenter rich?”
“If it was bribery, none of them got to enjoy their ill-gotten gains because our father killed them all,” said Bernice.
“And not one of them admitted anything before they were executed,” repeated Agrippa.
Festus looked
thoughtful. “So what do you think happened?”
“I don’t know,” said Agrippa, simply. “One can’t help seeing a similarity between that incident and the disappearance of the carpenter’s body. Yet his followers aren’t militant, so I can’t imagine them taking the body from a guarded tomb. They don’t fight.”
“Except for that one incident I heard of when the Nazarene was arrested,” said Bernice. “They say that
one of his followers hacked a man’s ear off.”
“I’ve never really believed that story,” said Agrippa. “After all, no-one could ever produce the earless man. All they have are stories about the carpenter telling off his follower and then magically putting the man’s ear back on. I doubt any of it happened. Just a fantastic story. What is clear is that, to this day, his followers are never violent.”
“Then
they won’t last long as a sect!” laughed Festus grimly.
Agrippa inclined his head. “What if the explanations the carpenter’s followers give for those disappearances are true? It’s hard to wipe out a group when locking them up doesn’t work and they don’t stay dead when you kill them.”
“The idea’s absurd,” scoffed Festus.
“They say that hundreds of people saw the carpenter alive after he was
crucified, dead and buried. And some say that the follower of his that I mentioned has been seen alive in other countries.”
“I suppose it is only ever his followers who see the carpenter!” snorted Festus. “That’s not very convincing. Perhaps we should track down that follower your father locked up. We could ask him what happened.”
“Why? Would you join their sect if he told you it was a
miracle?”
“Of course not.”
“Sometimes it’s best not to search too deeply. You might find an answer you don’t like.”
“You could be right. Well, thanks for giving me more background. At the start, I had no idea what it was all about, so since I was at a loss as to how to investigate these matters, I asked Paul if he was willing to go to Jerusalem and be tried there on the charges.”
“That would have played right into the chief priests’ hands! If you’d sent Saul with a party of soldiers, they’d have been ambushed by a contingent of irregular fighters on the way. Hundreds of them, probably.”
“That wouldn’t have occurred to me before you gave me some of the background. You’ve been a great help. I would’ve liked to let Paul go, but these Jewish leaders have caused previous governors plenty of
trouble and I was trying to placate them. But when Paul appealed to be held over for the decision of the Emperor, he took the decision out of my hands. So I ordered that he be held until I could send him to Caesar.”
Agrippa leaned forward. “I’d like to hear this man myself,” he said.
“Tomorrow you will hear him,” declared Festus.
Notes
[1] King Herod
Agrippa II ruled from 52AD to about 92 or 100AD. He was the son of King Herod Agrippa I, who ruled over Judea, Iturea and Samaria from 41AD to 44AD and was the ‘Herod’ referred to in Acts 12. Agrippa II was about 30-35 years old at the time of this story and his sister Bernice about a year younger.
[2] Agrippa I (reigned 41-44AD)
