Chapter 20

Fully an hour before sunset on the fourteenth day of Nisan Jerusalem began to go into retirement. It was as if the shadow of some spectral hand had moved across the Holy City invoking silence.

The bazaars and food-markets, seemingly responsive to a prearranged signal, were closing their shutters. Vehicular traffic was rapidly clearing from the streets. The pedestrian throngs were melting away. Only the Roman patrols remained.

Residents and their Jewish relatives and guests from afar were quietly assembling behind closed doors. Even the Gentiles, who had come to Jerusalem on business and were under no obligation to do honour to Jewry’s solemn observance, had tethered their camels and were lounging in their tents.

On such a springtime night as this, fifteen centuries ago, the Israelites had escaped from their intolerable bondage in Egypt. On that occasion, according to their sacred Scriptures, the Angel of Death had passed over the Land of the Pharaohs, striking down the first-born son of every Egyptian home; and that the avenging Angel might identify the houses to be spared, the Children of Israel had been instructed to sprinkle the blood of a lamb upon their door-posts. And while they waited for the summons to depart they stood in silence round their tables, equipped for their adventure, and solemnly ate the sacrificial lamb.

That was the ‘Passover,’ and it was still annually commemorated. Perhaps the dramatic event might have been long since forgotten—such is the inconsistency of human nature—had the daring flight to freedom led the fugitives to a permanent peace and prosperity in their ‘Promised Land.’ They had not found peace and prosperity. Through the ages they had worn the yokes and chains of many oppressors; but in spite of their enslavements, or because of them, they dutifully ate the paschal lamb, emblematic of a freedom unachieved but still to come. The Jew was a melancholy optimist. He shed tears over a tragic past, but he had never lost his faith in a triumphant future.

Tonight he was further from freedom than he had been for at least a century. Even while he devoutly ate the lamb he could hear the ominous jangling of the Roman Empire’s armour on the street outside his blood-smeared door.

Grandfather, at the head of the family table, bent with the burden of his years, piously read from the well-worn scroll in his trembling hands, ‘O Jerusalem, that bringest good tidings, lift up thy voice! Say to the cities of Judah, “The Lord will come with a strong hand.”‘

And while Grandfather read the comforting words, the young Centurion on the street was harshly measuring, in clipped syllables, the well-disciplined foot-beats of his marching legionaries.

‘Thine eyes shall see Jerusalem a quiet habitation; a tabernacle that shall never be taken down!’ intoned Grandfather.

‘Un’!…Du’!…Tres!…Quat’!’ barked the Centurion.

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