Lazarus, a tale of the world's great miracle/Chapter 7
CHAPTER VII.
NO wonder, then, that a party shrinking beneath the terror lest power and affluence should depart from them for ever, should rejoice at the turn events had taken. The expected miracle of Lazarus's resurrection had not occurred. The Nazarene's want of sympathy, or, perhaps, His fear of the threats to take His life, which was believed to be the cause of His not returning to the house of the sorrowing sisters, had changed for the moment the current of popular favour. Several lukewarm believers fell back into the ranks of the sceptical, while others, like Nicodemus, struggled hard to believe that there was some good reason for Jesus' apparent indifference to the grief of those He was known to have loved so well. Of course, the base attributed it to the most cowardly of all motives, fear. It seemed clear enough to Caiaphas that Jesus, knowing that the miracle was expected, would be conscious that the home of Mary and Martha would be a likely place for His capture. This was what Caiaphas tried to persuade himself to believe; yet it did not coincide with the fearless attitude of the Christ till then, nor with the fearlessness of His words. In any case, this was an opportunity which, as a politician and a ruler of men, he must take advantage of. It was such an one as, perhaps, he would never have again. Now the Nazarene must be put an end to; His seditious preaching hushed for ever; His bold denouncing of the Pharisees and the scribes avenged. But it would be a difficult task, he knew. Pontius Pilate was under the influence of his wife, who, it was known, favoured the belief in the Nazarene, if not as the Son of God, at least as a great prophet and a good man come from God. Pilate was difficult to approach upon the subject. Then about Nicodemus, one of the most powerful rulers of the Synagogue, there were strange rumours. How could he, Caiaphas, get at him by stealth? To make use of Nicodemus himself, nay more, to approach the Nazarene, unseen, and to hear His blasphemous words, and out of His own mouth convict Him, making Nicodemus a party to the destruction of this Man who dared to set Himself up in defiance of the High Priest; oh, it would be a master-stroke, one that his base, intriguing soul would glory in. It whetted his thirst for vengeance, while, at the same time, it intoxicated him to foresee that proud soul abased, that majestic presence on the cross, blood flowing from the fair side, and all the humiliations of an ignominious death heaped on the shoulders of the Man whom even Caiaphas, deep down in his heart, admired, at the same time that he feared Him as a supernatural being. For had He not held His own, unsupported either by wealth or position, by party or by followers? How could Caiaphas have played that part? No, the wily High Priest knew full well that his own position was maintained only by his arrogance, and that it was by the fear of himself he had built up his successes on the ignorance of a down-trodden race; that, were he but a lowly carpenter, with all the world's powers and dignitaries against him; did he but loosen the reins of despotism for one moment, or, by preaching what he knew to be the truth, open out the path of liberty—that of the spirit, as opposed to the letter of the law,—he, Caiaphas, before whom all men now bowed, would be hurled both morally and physically from his high place and become of no account. He knew he would be powerless to emulate the Nazarene he affected to despise, the carpenter who conquered souls by His sublime meekness, His unshrinking truth, and His awful purity.
Yes, side by side with his dread lest the Jewish people should escape him; side by side with his hatred of the Nazarene, and fear of the possible overthrow of his power and place, were a sullen jealousy and an envious rage, that one by birth so meek and lowly, should be so much the greater man than was he, Caiaphas. How he hated, Pontius Pilate, too, and Claudia, his proud, domineering wife! How, of late, she had set him at defiance! What a slap in the face it would be to Pontius Pilate should he be forced to condemn the Nazarene to death!
Alone in his chamber, this priest, who had been ordained to bring true religion and peace to the Jewish people, revolved in his mind how he should destroy this Man who stood, in the grandeur of His simplicity, between him and power. To acknowledge Him as the Son of God were to destroy the power, not only of Caiaphas, but of all the high priests and Pharisees forever. For one moment (for Caiaphas was not without intelligence enough to look at both sides of the question), he had asked himself what would be the result should he himself recognise the power of the Christ and join the ranks of the believers. No man versed in the prophets, as Caiaphas was, could well disbelieve that, even if the Nazarene were not the Christ Himself, He was an emissary from heaven whose coming had been predicted. Absently, as if to persuade himself for one moment, Caiaphas turned the pages of the book of the prophets that lay close to his elbow. He almost started at the words that seemed to give the answer to his unuttered question, for he was a superstitious man: "Who hath believed our report? and to whom is the arm of the Lord revealed? He is despised and rejected of men: a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief: and we hid as it were our faces from Him; He was despised, and we esteemed Him not."
Caiaphas with breathless interest re-read the words He had so often read before. The stillness outside, the gloom within, the strange similitude of the picture drawn by Isaiah to the person of the Nazarene; for one brief moment all this impressed the man, who was shrewd enough to understand the prophecy, yet not to recognise the Saviour it foretold. Chapter after chapter he devoured in the hope that he would, at last, light on some passage that would justify the condemnation of the Man who called Himself the Christ, and was not; but the prophet was against him. Again his eyes fell on the book, and they lighted on the words: "Seek ye the Lord, while He may be found, call ye upon Him while He is near."
Caiaphas pushed the book impatiently away from him, and paced the room with rapid strides. The long sleeves of his robe waved backwards and forwards in the air, and now and then he clutched at them impatiently, as if their very stirring added to his irritation. What if, after all, this Nazarene were the Christ, and he, Caiaphas, should condemn Him to a felon's death? Surely no eternal punishment would be great enough for such an one; and for an instant the great Caiaphas trembled. Then he crossed the room and leaned on the window-sill, and looked out on the silent night. All was dark and still; a few stars only gave just sufficient light to bring out in vague relief the outline of the white walls of the houses of Jerusalem.
Presently he started at steps he heard that passed beneath the window. He leaned forward, and in clear tones called out: "Watchman, what of the night?" but his voice had not carried far enough, and instead of making answer, the watchman, mindful, perhaps, that he was outside the house of Caiaphas the High Priest, sang out in a clear, deep voice: "Break forth into joy, sing together, ye waste places of Jerusalem, for the Lord hath comforted His people, He hath redeemed Jerusalem."
Caiaphas drew back. "He too," he muttered to himself. "Surely the world hath gone mad about this one Man; but it shall not be said that Caiaphas was thus led hither and thither, swayed by the voice of an ignorant people, lashed into fanaticism by the words of an impostor, who tries to cajole them by honeyed words and feigned humility. No, Caiaphas the High Priest shall still retain his power, and if this Man is after all the Christ"—here he broke off into a horrible, unmirthful laugh—"if Caiaphas is wrong then let His blood be upon me and upon my house, and let me be damned for ever and ever. Yes, I would barter even my soul, rather than let that proud Claudia and that self-sufficient, prating Roman fool, the Procurator, triumph over me. I have borne enough; the Nazarene shall die, and that speedily."
And, even ere these words had passed his lips, a flash of summer lightning illumed the room, and, to the overwrought brain of Caiaphas, it seemed as if, within that light, the figure of the Nazarene, in dazzling white, appeared to him; and the sad, speaking eyes were turned on him reproachfully, and a voice, whose music haunted him till his dying day, in gentle accents murmured: "Why go ye about to kill Me?"