The young men to whom he had just bidden good-bye were all going to Jerusalem, whither Dan was accustomed to go every year for the Feast of the Passover, but last year the journey thither had fatigued him unduly, and it seemed to Joseph that this year he should go to Jerusalem in his father's place; and when he broached the subject, Dan, who had been thinking for some time that he was not feeling strong enough for this journey, welcomed Joseph's proposal—a most proper presence Joseph's would be at the Feast. Joseph had come to the age when he should visit Jerusalem, but he did not readily understand this sudden enthusiasm. If he wanted to go to Jerusalem to the Feast of the Passover, why had he not said so before? And Dan, whose thoughts reached back to the discussion overheard in the yard, was compelled to ask Joseph if it were for the purpose of discussing the value of certain minute points of law that he wished to go to Jerusalem. At which Joseph was astonished that his father should have asked him such a thing.... Yet why not? For awhile back he was discussing such very points with some young gossips. His tongue wagged as was its wont on all occasions, though his mind was away and he suddenly stopped speaking; and when the stirring of his father's feet on the floor awakened him, he saw his father sitting pen in hand watching him and no doubt asking himself of what great and wonderful thing his son was thinking.
Once again actuality disappeared. He stood engulfed in memories of things heard in Azariah's house: or things only half heard, for he had never thought of them since. The words of the Jews he met there had fallen dead at the time, but now he remembered things that had passed over his mind. The heresies of the Jews in Alexandria awoke in him, and a marvellous longing awoke to see the world. First of all he must begin with Jerusalem, and he bade his father good-bye with an eagerness not too pleasant to the old man.
CHAP. V.
Gone to the study of the law! Dan said, as he walked up and down the room, glancing often into Joseph's letter, for it figured to him the Temple with the Scribes meditating on the law, or discussing it with each other while their wives remained at home doing the work. So do their lives pass over, he said, in the study of the law. Nothing else is to them of any worth.... My poor boy hopes that I shall forgive him for not returning home after the Feast of the Passover! Does he suspect that I would prefer him indifferent to the law in Magdala, rather than immersed in it at Jerusalem? A little surprised and shocked at the licentiousness of his thoughts, he drew them into order with the admission that it is better in every way that a young man should go to Jerusalem early in his life and acquire reverence for the ritual and traditions of his race, else he will drift later on into heresy, or maybe go to live in cities like Tiberias, amongst statues. But why do I trouble myself like this? For there was a time before I had a son, and the time is getting very close now when I shall lose him. And Dan stood swallowed up in the thought of the great gulf into which precarious health would soon pitch him out of sight of Joseph for ever. It was Rachel coming into the room that awoke him. She too! he muttered. He began to fuss about, seeking for writing materials, for he was now intent to send Joseph a letter of recommendation to the High Priest, having already forgotten the gulf that awaited him, in the pleasurable recollection of the courtesy and consideration he received from the most distinguished men the last time he was in Jerusalem—from Hanan the son of Seth and father-in-law of Kaiaphas: Kaiaphas was now High Priest, the High Priest of that year; but in truth, Hanan, who had been High Priest before him, retained all the power and importance of the office and was even called the High Priest. Dan remembered that he had been received with all the homage due to a man of wealth. He liked his wealth to be acknowledged, for it was part of himself: he had created it; and it was with pride that he continued his letter to Hanan recommending his son to him, saying that anything that was done to further Joseph's interests would be a greater favour than any that could be conferred on himself.
The letter was sent off by special messenger and Joseph was enjoined to carry it himself at once to Hanan, which he did, since it was his father's pleasure that he should do so. He would have preferred to be allowed to pick his friends from among the people he met casually, but since this was not to be he assumed the necessary reverence and came forward in the proper spirit to meet Hanan, who expressed himself as entirely gratified by Joseph's presence in Jerusalem and promised to support his election for the Sanhedrin. But if the councillors reject me? For you see I am still a young man. The innocency of Joseph's remark pleased Hanan, who smiled over it, expressing a muttered hope that the Sanhedrin would not take upon itself the task of discussing the merits and qualifications of those whom he should deem worthy to present for election. The great man purred out these sentences, Joseph's remark having reminded him of his exalted position. But thinking his remark had nettled Hanan, Joseph said: you see I have only just come to Jerusalem; and this remark continued the flattery, and with an impulsive movement Hanan took Joseph's hands and spoke to him about his father in terms that made Joseph feel very proud of Dan, and also of being in Jerusalem, which had already begun to seem to him more wonderful than he had imagined it to be: and he had imagined it very wonderful indeed. But there was a certain native shrewdness in Joseph; and after leaving the High Priest's place he had not taken many steps before he began to see through Hanan's plans: which no doubt are laid with the view to impress me with the magnificence of Jerusalem and its priesthood. He walked a few yards farther, and remembered that there are always dissensions among the Jews, and that the son of a rich man (one of first-rate importance in Galilee) would be a valuable acquisition to the priestly caste.
But though he saw through Hanan's designs, he was still the dupe of Hanan, who was a clever man and a learned man; his importance loomed up very large, and Joseph could not be without a hero, true or false; so it could not be otherwise than that Hanan and Kaiaphas and the Sadducees, whom Joseph met in the Sanhedrin and whose houses he frequented, commanded his admiration for several months and would have held it for many months more, had it not been that he happened to be a genuinely religious man, concerned much more with an intimate sense of God than with the slaying of bullocks and rams.
He had accepted the sacrifices as part of a ritual which should not be questioned and which he had never questioned: yet, without discussion, without argument, they fell in his estimation without pain, as naturally as a leaf falls. A friend quoted to him a certain well-known passage in Isaiah, and not the whole of it: only a few words; and from that moment the Temple, the priests and the sacrifices became every day more distasteful to him than they were the day before, setting him pondering on the mind of the man who lives upon religion while laughing in his beard at his dupe; he contrasted him with the fellow that drives in his beast for slaughter and pays his yearly dole; he remembered how he loved the prophets instinctively though the priests always seemed a little alien, even before he knew them. Yet he never imagined them to be as far from true religion (which is the love of God) as he found them; for they did not try to conceal their scepticism from him: knowing him to be a friend of the High Priest, it had seemed to them that they might indulge their wit as they pleased, and once he had even to reprove some priests, so blasphemous did their jests appear to him. An unusually fat bullock caused them to speak of the fine regalement he would be to Jahveh's nostrils. One sacristan, mentioning the sacred name, figured Jahveh as pressing forward with dilated nostrils. There is no belly in heaven, he said: its joys are entirely olfactory, and when this beast is smoking, Jahveh will call down the angels Michael and Gabriel. As if not satisfied with this blasphemy, as if it were not enough, he turned to the sacristans by him, to ask them if they could not hear the angels sniffing as they leaned forward out of their clouds. My priests are doing splendidly: the fat of this beast is delicious in our nostrils; were the words he attributed to Jahveh. Michael and Gabriel, he said, would reply: it is indeed as thou sayest, Sire!
Joseph marvelled that priests could speak like this, and tried to forget the vile things they said, but they were unforgettable: he treasured them in his heart, for he could not do else, and when he did speak, it was at first cautiously, though there was little need for caution; for he found to his surprise that everybody knew that the Sadducees did not believe in a future life and very little in the dogma that the Jews were the sect chosen by God, Jahveh. He was their God and had upheld the Jewish race, but for all practical purposes it was better to put their faith henceforth in the Romans, who would defend Jerusalem against all barbarians. It was necessary to observe the Sabbath and to preach its observances and to punish those who violated it, for on the Sabbath rested the entire superstructure of the Temple itself, and all belief might topple if the Sabbath was not maintained, and rigorously. In the houses of the Sadducees Joseph heard these very words, and their crude scepticism revolted his tender soul: he was drawn back to his own sect, the Pharisees, for however narrow-minded and fanatical they might be he could not deny to them the virtue of sincerity. It was with a delightful sense of community of spirit that he returned to them, and in the conviction that it would be well to let pass without protest the observances which himself long ago in Galilee began to look upon with amusement.
A sudden recollection of the discussion that had arisen in the yard behind the counting-house, whether an egg could be eaten if it had been laid the day after the Sabbath, brought a smile to his face, but a different smile from of yore, for he understood now better than he had understood then, that this (in itself a ridiculous) question was no more serious than a bramble that might for a moment entangle the garment of a wayfarer: of little account was the delay, if the feet were on the right road. Now the scruple of conscience that the question had awakened might be considered as a desire to live according to a law which, observed for generations, had become part of the national sense and spirit. On this he fell to thinking that it is only by laws and traditions that we may know ourselves—whence we have come and whither we are going. He attributed to these laws and traditions the love of the Jewish race for their God, and their desire to love God, and to form their lives in obedience to what they believed to be God's will. Without these rites and observances their love of God would not have survived. It was not by exaggeration of these laws but by the scepticism of the Sadducees that the Temple was polluted. If the priests degraded religion and made a vile thing of it, there were others that ennobled the Temple by their piety.