Late Spring 70 A.D. – Jerusalem – The Temple

Six weeks from the visit to the merchant, Judas carefully and reverentially turned a precious volume, over and over, in his calloused, worn hands. The smell of the newly bound covers around the papyrus was still strong. He’d read the words inside many times. He wasn’t sure he’d captured the idea properly. But it was the absolute best that he could produce.

Judas raised the small book up, and placed it with great ceremony inside the earthenware vase. Now he needed to find someone in authority, to whom he could entrust the object for safekeeping. He loaded the vase onto a donkey provided by his trader friend, and set off south.

Two days later, he caught his first sight for many years, of the city walls of Jerusalem rising magnificently from the rocky floor. Soaring even higher, the walls of the Great Temple were clearly visible to any approaching visitor. The sun glinted brightly off the white marble edifice. Herod had intended that the Great Temple should inspire awe in the local population. And he had succeeded.

The preacher motioned the donkey on and approached one of the main city gates. The entrance was impressive. The outer walls of Jerusalem were constructed of huge stone blocks, the size of which never ceased to cause him wonder. Inside the walls, he found some lodgings for the night in the New City, close to the sheep market. That evening was spent buying a lamb for the morning.

The next day, the old man approached the public entrance of Herod’s Temple on the south side of the Temple Mount. He gave his sacrificial lamb to an official posted at the gate. Moving inside, he went on to thoroughly cleanse himself, and then climbed a steep, tall staircase, to the Court of the Gentiles.

The courtyard was large, surrounded on all sides by beautiful arched porticoes. They were double on three sides and triple on the last. The porticoes had high vaulted cedar roofs and contained elaborately decorated mosaic pavements.

As Judas moved out into the enclosing walls, the bright summer sun revealed a buzzing hive of activity. Along one side of the large, open space stood a series of small, square, wooden tables. Behind these, moneychangers were having animated exchanges with their customers about fair rate of exchange, from Roman to Jewish coins. Serious looking priests were wandering around in plain white cloaks. And it was to the nearest priest that the old man hurried.

Judas needed an audience with one of the Jewish scholars, in the inner temple. It would be necessary to gain an introduction from one of the priests in the court. But a meeting could not be immediately arranged. So, he was sent back to his lodgings, to wait until time could be made for him.

During the evening a group of pilgrims and Judas were seated at the dinner table, in the small lodging house in the city. One of the religious travellers, a Jew, had been in the inner temple that morning. He was reviewing the gossip he’d heard between the elders.

“The rumour amongst our leaders is that this time the Romans are determined. Vespasian has triumphed in Rome and has instructed his son, Titus, that Jerusalem must be taken back from the Jews.”

The rest of the pilgrims exchanged worried glances. Before being called back to the civil war in Rome, Vespasian had wreaked havoc. He’d been despatched by the Roman Emperor Nero, to quell the Jewish rebellion that had erupted four years earlier. Arriving in Galilee, with three legions of around 60,000 men, he had started hostilities immediately.

He had swept down through the region, southwards and eastwards, callously destroying each town in his path. But then the death of Nero had necessitated his return to Rome. Victorious, it sounded as though he was now relying on his son, to cement his reputation.

The old preacher was keeping his own counsel. He had enough first hand experience of the Romans to realise that the inhabitants of the city were in grave danger. And also he thought to himself, it would be hard to get one of the scholars to focus on his problem, with everything that was happening.