Jerusalem. The Biography

concerned with the world after the Last Days; he preached social justice not so much in this world as in the next: ‘Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.’ Tax-collectors and harlots would enter God’s kingdom before grandees and priests. Jesus shockingly evoked the Apocalypse when he showed that the old laws would no longer matter: ‘Let the dead bury their dead.’ When the world ended, ‘the Son of Man shall sit in the throne of his glory’ and all the nations would gather before him for judgement. There would be ‘everlasting punishment’ for the evil and ‘life eternal’ for the righteous.
    However, Jesus was careful, in most cases, to stay within Jewish law and in fact his entire ministry emphasized that he was fulfilling biblical prophecies: ‘Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets:I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil.’ Rigid adherence to the Jewish law though was not enough: ‘except your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, ye shall in no case enter into the kingdom of heaven’. Yet he did not make the mistake of directly challenging the Roman emperor, or even Herod. If the Apocalypse dominated his preaching, he offered a more direct proof of his sanctity: he was a healer, he cured cripples and raised people from the dead and ‘great multitudes were gathered together unto him’.
    Jesus visited Jerusalem at least three times for Passover and other festivals before his final visit, according to John, and had two lucky escapes. When he preached in the Temple during Tabernacles, he was hailed by some as a prophet and by others as the Christ – though snobbish Jerusalemites sneered, ‘Shall Christ come out of Galilee?’ When he debated with the authorities, the crowd challenged him: ‘Then they took up stones to cast at him but Jesus hid himself and went out of the temple, going though the midst of them.’ He came back for Hanukkah (the Festival of Dedication), but when he claimed ‘I and my Father are one, then the Jews took up stones again to stone him … but he escaped’. He knew what a visit to Jerusalem would mean.
    Meanwhile in Galilee, Antipas’ discarded Arab wife escaped from the dungeons of Machaerus to the court of her father, Aretas IV, the wealthiest King of Nabataea, the builder of the remarkable Khazneh shrine and royal tomb in ‘rose-red’ Petra. Furious at this insult, Aretas invaded Antipas’ principality. Herodias had first caused the death of a prophet and had now started an Arab–Jewish war which Antipas lost. Roman allies were not permitted to launch private wars: the Emperor Tiberius, who bathed in increasingly senile debauchery in Capri, was irritated by Antipas’ folly but backed him.
    Herod Antipas now heard about Jesus. People wondered who he was. Some thought him ‘John the Baptist but some say Elias and others, one of the prophets’, while his disciple Peter believed he was the Messiah. Jesus was especially popular among women, and some of these were Herodians – the wife of Herod’s steward was a follower. Antipas knew of the connection to the Baptist: ‘It is John, whom I beheaded: he is risen from the dead.’ He threatened to arrest Jesus, but significantly some of the Pharisees, evidently friendly towards him, warned him: ‘Depart hence: for Herod will kill thee.’
    Instead Jesus defied Antipas. ‘Go ye, and tell that fox’ that he would continue healing and preaching for two days and on the third he would visit the only place where a Jewish Son of Man could fulfil his destiny: ‘It cannot be that a prophet perish out of Jerusalem.’ His sublimelypoetical message to the son of the king who had built the Temple is steeped in Jesus’ love for the doomed city: ‘O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, which killest the prophets, and stonest them that are sent unto thee: how often would I have gathered thy children together, as a hen doth gather her brood under her wings, and ye would not! Behold, your house is left unto you desolate.’ 46
    JESUS OF NAZARETH: THREE DAYS IN JERUSALEM
     
    At the Passover of AD 33, * Jesus and Herod Antipas arrived in Jerusalem at almost the same time. Jesus led a procession to Bethany on the Mount of Olives, with its spectacular view of the gleaming snowy mountain of the Temple. He sent his Apostles into the city to bring back an ass – not one of our donkeys but the sturdy mount of kings. The Gospels, our only sources, each