Jerusalem. The Biography

Jewish Covenant with God, was a Jewish duty but irrelevant for gentiles: ‘Look out for the dogs! Look out for those who cut off the flesh! For we are the true circumcision who worship God in spirit and glory in Christ Jesus,’ he raged at Christian gentiles considering circumcision.
    By now James and the elders in Jerusalem disapproved of Paul. They had known the real Jesus, yet Paul insisted: ‘I have been crucified with Christ. The life I live now is not my life but the life Christ lives in me.’ He claimed, ‘I bear the marks of Jesus branded on my body.’ James, that respected holy man, accused him of rejecting Judaism. Even Paul could not ignore Jesus’ own brother. In AD 58, he came to make peace with the Jesus dynasty.
    THE DEATH OF JAMES THE JUST: THE JESUS DYNASTY
     
    Paul accompanied James to the Temple to purify himself and pray as a Jew, but he was recognized by some Jews who had seen him preach on his travels. The Roman centurion, charged with keeping order in the Temple, had to rescue him from lynching. When Paul again started preaching, the Romans thought he was the fugitive Egyptian ‘sorcerer’, so he was clapped in chains and marched to the Antonia castle to be scourged. ‘Is it lawful for you to scourge a man that is a Roman?’ Paul asked. The centurion was dumbfounded to find that this wild-eyed visionary was a Roman citizen with the right to appeal to Nero for judgement. The Romans allowed the high priest and Sanhedrin to question Paul, watched by an irate crowd. His answers were so insulting thatagain he was almost lynched. The centurion calmed the mob by sending him off to Caesarea. 52
    Paul’s exploits may have tainted the Jewish Christians. In 62, the high priest Ananus, son of Annas who had tried Jesus, arrested James, tried him before the Sanhedrin and had him tossed off the wall of the Temple, probably from the Pinnacle where his brother had been tempted by the Devil. James was then stoned and given the
coup de grâce
with a mallet. * Josephus, who was living in Jerusalem, denounced Ananus as ‘savage’, explaining that most Jews were appalled: Jesus’ brother had been universally respected. King Agrippa II instantly sacked Ananus. Yet the Christians remained a dynasty: Jesus and James were succeeded by their cousin or half-brother Simon.
    Meanwhile, Paul arrived as a prisoner in Caesarea: Felix the procurator received Paul alongside his Herodian wife, the former queen Drusilla, and offered to free him in return for a bribe. Paul refused. Felix had more pressing worries. Fighting broke out between Jews and Syrians. He slaughtered a large number of Jews and was recalled to Rome, † leaving Paul in jail. Herod Agrippa II and his sister Berenice, ex-queen of both Chalcis and Cilicia (and supposedly his incestuous lover), visited Caesarea to greet the new procurator, who offered the Christian case to the king, as Pilate had sent Jesus to Antipas before him.
    Paul preached the Christian Gospel to the royal couple who reclined in ‘great pomp’, cleverly adapting his message for the moderate king: ‘I know thee to be an expert in all customs among the Jews. King Agrippa, believest thou the prophets? I know thou believest.’
    ‘Almost thou persuadest me to be a Christian,’ replied the king. ‘This man might have been set at liberty if he had not appealed to Caesar.’ But Paul
had
appealed to Nero – and to Nero he must go. 53
    JOSEPHUS: THE COUNTDOWN TO REVOLUTION
     
    Paul was not the only Jew awaiting judgement from Nero. Felix had also despatched some unfortunate priests from the Temple to be judged by the emperor. Their friend, a twenty-six-year-old named Joseph ben Matthias, decided to sail to Rome and save his fellow priests. Betterknown as Josephus, he was to be many things – rebel commander, Herodian protégé, imperial courtier – but above all, he was to be Jerusalem’s supreme historian.
    Josephus was a priest’s son, descended from the Maccabeans, a Judaean landowner, raised in Jerusalem, where he was admired for his learning and wit. As a teenager he had experimented with the three major Jewish sects, even joining some ascetics in the desert, before returning to Jerusalem.
    When he arrived in Rome, Josephus made contact with a Jewish actor in favour with the pernicious but thespian emperor. Nero had killed his wife and fallen in love with Poppaea, a married beauty with red hair and pale skin. Once she was empress, Poppaea gave Nero the confidence to