Chapter 6

Sombrely dressed pedestrians along the road were withdrawing to the weeds and brambles where they waited, gaping. Some sat down on the low stone fences. Simon plodded doggedly on, resolved that he would not leave the highway until it was necessary; nor was he going to do Antipas the honour of staring at his damned parade. Entering the little hamlet of Magdala, he turned off into a lane to wait until the thing was over and the dust had settled. He eased himself down on the dry grass in the shade of an old olive tree with his back to the highway. The metallic clatter of the approaching cavalry was insisting that he should turn and look, but he scowled and closed his eyes.

Everything was going wrong for Simon, lately; everything! It had all stemmed from this mad Carpenter who had taken it into his head that the people would be better off if—if—they weren’t quite so well off; that’s what it came to: own nothing—and be happy.

And why did anyone in his right senses listen to it? Because they had heard a rumour that the fellow could cure diseases. Well, supposing he could: was that what we wanted, a man who went about defying nature? Before the Carpenter had added this confusion to one’s thoughts, life made some sense. To be sure, it had its difficulties, but you learned to accept them. Simon glanced back at his own complacency and wished he might recover it. He had never been one to bother himself about riddles. Such dizzying old problems as ‘What are we here for? What is the good of it? What is it all about?’ had never cost him a moment’s anxiety.

As a lad he had been forced to assume a man’s responsibilities, requiring him to work early and late while other children were at play, but it had never occurred to him to complain that the world was mistreating him or that Jehovah had singled him out for target practice. A lot of people were for ever whimpering that God had ‘hidden His face’ from them, when probably nothing much was the matter except that their cistern was low or a few of their chickens had died of the pip.

That’s what you got for being so tangled up with religion; you were always in a dither about God. The new calf was a heifer and God was on your side; your donkey went lame and God was angry at you. Better not worry so much about God, who was probably not worrying much about you.

Simon’s religion—what little there was of it—had been quite simple. He assumed that there must be a Great Mind in charge of the stars and the sky and other large undertakings, but he couldn’t believe that God ever stooped to such trivial engagements as wilfully breaking the windlass-chain at the Abrams’ well because the old man had walked a little too far on the Sabbath. Simon’s God was a neat and trustworthy housekeeper, who put the sun out in the morning and took it in at night with a regularity you could count on, and He arranged that the seasons should come along in a dependable procession. Nothing ever got out of kilter.

Pursuant to this elementary creed, the Big Fisherman had not considered his childhood drudgeries as a visitation of God’s displeasure. Indeed, he had taken pride in his ability to endure hard knocks and prosper in the face of obstacles. Never in his life had Simon looked up and cried ‘Why?’ Not even when poor little Abigail died. It didn’t occur to him that perhaps God was paying him off for his misdeeds. He knew he had made plenty of mistakes—mostly by letting his temper get the best of him, to other men’s serious discomfort—and he had missed many a religious fast that he might have observed; but he couldn’t think that God had decided to take an interest in his small indiscretions. And when the elderly Rabbi Ben-Sholem, visiting them the day Abigail died, had implied as much, Simon had retorted, bluntly: ‘I don’t believe that God would do a mean thing like that!’