The Gladiators. A Tale of Rome and Judæa

by G. J. Whyte-Melville

“Ye have heard her!” he exclaimed, with an assumption of holy and zealous indignation; “out of her own mouth she is condemned. What need ye more proof or further deliberation? The doom has gone forth. I appeal to the Sanhedrim that justice be done, in the name of our faith, our nation, our Temple, and our Holy City, which such righteous acts as these may preserve even now from the desolation that is threatening at the very gate!”

With such an assembly, such an appeal admitted of no refusal. The Seventy looked from one to another and shook their heads, sorrowfully indeed, but with knitted brows and grave stern faces that denoted no intention to spare. Already Phineas Ben-Ezra had given the accustomed signal; already the young men appointed as executioners had closed round the doomed three, with huge blunt missiles poised, and prepared to launch them forth, when another interruption arrived to delay for a while the cruel sacrifice that a Jewish Sanhedrim dignified with the title of justice.

A voice that had been often heard before, though never so wild and piercing as at this moment, rang through the Court of the Gentiles, and seemed to wail among the very pinnacles of the Temple towering in the morning air above. It was a voice that struck to the hearts of all who heard it—such a voice as terrifies men in their dreams; chilling the blood, and making the flesh creep with a vague yet unendurable horror, so that when the pale sleeper wakes, he is drenched with the cold sweat of mortal fear. A voice that seemed at once to threaten and to warn, to pity and to condemn; a voice of which the moan and the burden were ever unbroken and the same—“Woe to Jerusalem! Woe to the Holy City! Sin, [pg 432]and sorrow, and desolation! Woe to the Holy City! Woe to Jerusalem!”

Naked, save for a fold of camel’s hair around his loins, his coarse black locks matted and tangled, and mingled with the uncombed beard that reached below his waist—his dark eyes gleaming with lurid fire, and his long lean arms tossing aloft with the wild gestures of insanity—a tall figure stalked into the middle of the court, and taking up its position before the Nasi of the Sanhedrim, began scattering around it on the floor the burning embers from a brazier it bore on its head; accompanying its actions with the same mournful and prophetic cry. The young men paused with their arms up in act to hurl; the Nasi stood motionless and astonished; the Sanhedrim seemed paralysed with fear; and the Prophet of Warning, if prophet indeed he were, proceeded with his chant of vengeance and denunciation against his countrymen.

“Woe to Jerusalem!” said he once more. “Woe to the Holy City! A voice from the East, a voice from the West, a voice from the four winds; a voice against Jerusalem and the holy house; a voice against the bridegrooms and the brides; and a voice against the whole people!”

Then he turned aside and walked round the prisoners in a circle, still casting burning ashes on the floor. Matthias, like his colleagues, was puzzled how to act. If this were a demoniac, he entertained for him a natural horror and aversion, enhanced by the belief he held, in common with his countrymen, that one possessed had the strength of a score of men in his single arm; but what if this should be a true prophet, inspired directly from heaven? The difficulty would then become far greater. To endeavour to suppress him might provoke divine vengeance on the spot; whereas, to suffer his denunciations to go abroad amongst the people as having prevailed with the Great Council of the nation, would be to abandon the inhabitants at once to despair, and to yield up all hope of offering a successful defence to the coming attack. From this dilemma the Nasi was released by the last person on whom he could have counted for assistance at such a time. Pointing to the prisoners with his wasted arm, the prophet demanded their instant release, threatening divine vengeance on the Sanhedrim if they refused; and then addressing the three with the same wild gestures and incoherent language, he bade them come forth from their bonds, and join him in his work of prophecy through the length and breadth of the city.

“I have power to bind,” he exclaimed, “and power to [pg 433]loose! I command you to rend your bonds asunder! I command you to come forth, and join me, the Prophet of Warning, in the cry that I am commissioned to cry aloud, without ceasing—‘Woe to Jerusalem! Woe to the Holy City! Woe to Jerusalem!’ ”

Then Calchas, stretching out his bound hands, rebuked him, calmly, mildly, solemnly, with the patience of a good and holy man—with the instinctive superiority of one who is standing on the verge of his open grave.

“Wilt thou hinder God’s work?” he said. “Wilt thou dare to suppress the testimony we are here to give in His presence to-day? See! even this young girl, weak indeed in body yet strong in faith, stands bold and unflinching at her post! And thou, O man! what art thou, that thou shouldst think to come between her and her glorious reward? Be still! be still! Be no more vexed by the unquiet spirit, but go in peace, or rather stay here in the Court of the Gentiles, and bear witness to the truth, for which we are so thankful and so proud to die!”

The prophet’s eye wandered dreamily from the speaker’s face to those of the surrounding listeners. His features worked as though he strove against some force within that he was powerless to resist; then his whole frame collapsed, as it were, into a helpless apathy, and placing his brazier on the ground, he sat down beside it, rocking his body to and fro, while he moaned out, as it seemed unconsciously, in a low and wailing voice, the burden of his accustomed chant.