Christ the Lord: Out of Egypt

We waved and hollered to people we didn’t even know, and they waved back and I could feel the high spirits of everyone around me.

For moments, I thought Alexandria would disappear behind all her ships and their masts, but the farther out we moved, the more I could see the city, really see it as I’d never seen it, and a shadow passed over me, and if it hadn’t been for Little Salome’s happiness, I might not have been so happy too. But I was.

The wind picked up; the smell of the sea was suddenly clean and wonderful, and it caught at our hair and was cool on our faces. We were really leaving Egypt behind, and I wanted to break down and cry like a baby.

Then everyone was shouting for us to look at the Great Lighthouse, as if we could not see it looming over us to the left.

Now many times, I’d looked out to sea at the Great Lighthouse.

But what was that to passing before it now?

Heads were turned, and people were pointing, and finally Salome and I had a good view of it. It stood on its own little island—a great torch reaching the sky. And we passed it as if it was a holy thing, wondering and murmuring.

The ship moved on, and what had seemed slow now seemed very fast, and the sea was tossing up and down, and there were cries from some of the women.

People began to sing hymns. The land grew ever more distant. The lighthouse became small and then disappeared.

The crowd of those looking broke up, and for the first time I turned and saw the sight of the giant square sail filled with the wind and the sailors working the ropes, and the whole scene of the men at the tillers and all the families now huddled around their bundles, and I knew we had better get back to our own who were no doubt missing us.

People were singing louder and louder, and soon one hymn gripped the whole crowd, and Little Salome and I joined in, but the wind came scurrying to take the words away.

We had to pick our way through the families to find our own, but at last we did, and there were my mother and my aunts trying to sew as if their veils weren’t being almost torn from their heads, and my aunt Mary saying that Uncle Cleopas was feverish and he himself curled up and sleeping beneath a blanket tucked tight and missing everything.

Joseph was just a little apart, seated on one of the few trunks we had with us, quiet as he always was, staring at the blue sky, and the mast above the sail where there was a topsail, but my uncle Alphaeus was deep into arguing with other passengers on board about trouble ahead in Jerusalem.

Now James was all ears for this, and I was soon listening to it too, though I didn’t dare move too close for fear they’d leave off if they noticed me. They were shouting against the growing wind, standing together, in a little space, fighting to keep their mantles from being blown off, shifting this way and that as the boat moved uneasily over the water.

At last, I had to hear what they were saying, and moved away towards them. Little Salome wanted to come, but her mother snatched her back, and I made a motion for her to wait, trying to tell her I’d come back to her.

“I tell you it’s dangerous,” one of the men said in Greek. He was a tall man with very dark skin and richly dressed. “I wouldn’t be going to Jerusalem if I were you. For me it’s home, and my wife and children are there. I have to get there. But I tell you, it’s no time for all these pilgrim ships to be sailing.”

“I want to be there,” said the other, his Greek just as easy, though he was a rougher man. “I want to see what happens. I was there when Herod burnt alive both Matthias and Judas, two of the finest scholars of the Law we ever had.” He nodded to both my uncles. “I want justice from Herod Archelaus. I want the men who served his father in this to be punished. How Archelaus handles this will argue for everything else.”

I was amazed. I’d heard many bad things about King Herod. I didn’t know a thing about the new Herod, his son, who was Archelaus.

“Well, what does he tell the people?” asked my uncle Alphaeus. “He must tell them something.”

My uncle Cleopas, having roused himself from the company of the women, suddenly joined in. “He probably tells whatever lies he has to,” he said as if he knew all about it. “He has to wait for Caesar to say whether he’ll be King. He can’t rule without Caesar confirming his crown. Nothing he says means anything anyway.” My uncle gave one of his mocking laughs.

I wondered what they thought of him.

“He tells everyone to be patient, naturally,” said the first man in his good Greek. It flowed easily like Greek did from our Teacher, or from Philo. “And he waits for Caesar’s confirmation, yes, and he tells the people to wait. But the crowds don’t even listen to his messengers. The crowds don’t want patience right now. They want action. They want vengeance. And they just might get it.”

This puzzled me.

“You have to realize,” said the rough man, the more angry man, “that Caesar didn’t know all the evil that old Herod did. How can Caesar know everything that goes on in the Empire? I tell you there has to be a reckoning for the things he did.”

“Yes,” said the tall one, “but not in Jerusalem at Passover, not when pilgrims have come from all over the Empire.”

“Why not?” said the other, “why not when the whole world is there? Why not when the news will carry to Caesar that Herod Archelaus is not master of those who insist upon justice for the blood of those who were murdered?”

“But why did Herod burn alive the two teachers of the Law?” I asked. I did it suddenly, surprising myself.

At once Joseph turned from his thinking, though he was far away, and he looked over at me and then at the men.

But the taller one, the calm one, was already answering me.

“Because they pulled down the golden eagle Herod had put above the great Temple gate, that’s why,” he said calmly. “The Law says plainly there shall be no image of a living thing in our Temple. You are old enough to know that, child. Don’t you know it? Just because Herod built the Temple did not mean he could put an image of a living thing in it. What was the point to labor rebuilding a magnificent temple so that he could transgress the law and put on its walls an image that was a desecration?”

I understood him though his words were not so simple to understand. I shivered.

“These men were Pharisees, teachers of the Law,” the tall man went on, fixing me with his eye. “They led their pupils with them to take down the eagle. And Herod took their lives for this!”

Joseph was at my side.

The angry man said, “Don’t take him away, let him learn. He would know the names of Matthias and Judas. Both these boys should know.” He nodded to me and James. “It was the right and just thing to do. And they knew what a monster Herod was. Everyone knew. You in Alexandria, what did it have to do with you?” He looked at my uncles. “But for us, we lived with him and his monstrosities. They were visited on great and small, I tell you. Once on a whim, a mad whim, fearing a new King had been born, a Son of David, he sent his soldiers two miles’ walk from Jerusalem to the town of Bethlehem and…”

“No more!” Joseph said, though he smiled and nodded as he put up his hand.

He drew me away. Quickly and firmly, he brought me towards the women. James he allowed to stay there.

The wind swallowed up all their words.

“But what happened in Bethlehem?” I asked him.

“You’ll hear stories about Herod’s deeds all your life,” Joseph said under his breath. “Remember, I told you that there were some questions that I didn’t want for you to ask.”

“Will we still go to Jerusalem?”

Joseph didn’t answer. “Go there, and sit with your mother and the children,” he said.

I did what he said.

The wind was blowing hard now and the boat was heaving. I felt a little sick. I was getting a little cold.