Short-form historical fiction for Easter, Copyright 2023 by Andrew W. Smith
I was not a skeptic; I was a confirmed unbeliever. I am trained in The Law and its enforcement. I belong to no sect and believe in no superstition. And my allegiance is to The Law, the Temple, and Israel. So for the sake of The Law and the Temple and Israel, hear me and heed me.
By the time of my assignment, the Nazarene was easily found and easier followed: the people spoke of him unprompted, his whereabouts and his works, and where he went, multitudes thronged. I discovered the Nazarene in Bethany, and disappeared into the masses who had attached to him.
The people high and low who follow the Nazarene or believe in him without having seen him do not imagine his supernatural works to be possible; they know them to be impossible. The reports are accurate, the miracles are authentic: no man was ever persuaded by his eyes over his will more totally or brutally than I. The question is whether this extraordinary man and his supernatural powers are of the Light, or otherwise.
There is only Light about the Nazarene; his ways and works are only good. He knows The Law as well as any Pharisee, and keeps The Law at least as well. His deeds are compliant with The Law, his words are consistent with The Law. Save one. It was my principal charge, to witness the Nazarene's reputed claims of deity, and I am bound to report that in my hearing, and more than once, he did utter claims to the effect that God the Father is his father. But before the Nazarene is judged for blasphemy, hear my report and heed my warning.
The Nazarene and his circle are not an army, not a faction, not even a gainful enterprise; they resemble nothing so much as a wandering teacher and his over-aged pupils. The Nazarene asks no monies and holds no properties. He and his circle dress plainly, without finery or jewelry, and they're forever eating bread and fish like the common people. They are itinerant, without a fixed abode but never without friends to offer them a table and a bed.
Our notion that the Nazarene threatens the established authorities temporal or ecclesiastical, is the projection of ambitious men in those established authorities. Among his followers are a great many who believe him to be the Messiah of prophecy and who interpret that prophecy as the throwing off of Roman dominion from Israel, but the man himself says nothing to inflame and does nothing to impel any such political aspiration. On the temporal powers he offers only, "Render unto Caesar what is Caesar's." There is no sedition about the Nazarene, and he is without ambition; his cause is not worldly.
It's highest blasphemy, of course, the Nazarene's claims to be "Son of God", unless of course he is the Son of God. We are a subject people, subject to Rome, and if for whatever cause the Nazarene comes to affront Rome, then I know too well how Rome will answer the affront. But if this Jeshua the Nazarene is the Messiah of prophecy, come to deliver us not from Rome but from death, and if in him God has offered us His son, and yet Israel takes a hand in his rejection, then woe to Israel.
