Chapter 16

For many generations it had been customary for the reigning Prince of Arimathaea to observe the fast and attend the festivities of Passover Week in the Holy City.

This annual event, originally commemorative of the Jews’ release from their intolerable bondage in Egypt, had gradually evolved from a stark and solemn re-enactment of that miraculous deliverance and had acquired many irrelevant but attractive characteristics. It was Homecoming Week for all Jews who were able to return to their Holy City. Hundreds of them came from great distances and from foreign countries, bringing with them all manner of merchandise. Long caravans, laden with exotic foods, spices, jewels, and costly textiles, encamped in the surrounding hills. Minstrels, magicians, actors, acrobats, soothsayers, fortune-tellers, vendors of confections and medicinal herbs swarmed the narrow streets. Passover Night was still solemnly celebrated in the silence and seclusion of dimly lit Jewish homes, but Passover Week was a carnival for many more visitors than viewed it as an austere ceremonial.

Young Prince Joseph of Arimathaea always looked forward with happy expectancy to this pilgrimage. It belonged to springtime. The country was beautiful. Had there been no pleasures in prospect at his destination, Joseph would have felt repaid by the delights of the journey. He travelled in a style befitting his wealth and position, attended by a gay group of his young cronies and an impressive retinue of servants.

Jerusalem, in Joseph’s opinion, was an enchanted city. Generations of his forebears had been conspicuous in the making of its history, as the inscriptions on their massive tombs in the ‘Garden of Sepulchres’ eloquently testified. The day would come when Joseph himself would join them there. His own tomb, elaborately planned, was even now under construction and would be completed by the end of the summer. He was in no hurry to occupy it, for life was good, but it was a comfort to know that whenever he needed it the sepulchre would be ready to welcome him.

And he had many influential friends in Jerusalem who received him cordially. Even the gruff and short-tempered Procurator, Pontius Pilate, served him cakes and wine when he paid respects at the Roman Insula—and called him Joe.

And he always paid a duty call at the Galilean Embassy, though this was less to his taste. By custom, all inter-provincial affairs involving the Principality of Arimathaea were adjudicated by the Tetrarch. Joseph was glad that the services of Antipas were but rarely invoked; for he did not like him and did not trust him. Another reason for not wanting to visit the Embassy: he invariably encountered the brazen, jingling, over-painted Salome, whom he detested…And once he had been obliged to spend an unhappy hour with her mother whose reputation was in such appalling disrepair that to be on friendly terms with her was to invite a scandal.

Now he was on his way home from Jerusalem. Tonight they would break the trip, as usual, by camping at the road junction near the village of Hammath.

Early the next morning, the Prince’s encampment was roused by the unexpected noise of traffic on the highways. A great crowd was converging on a meadow not more than five hundred yards away. Inquiries revealed that the Nazarene Carpenter was to appear.