“I was in the Court of the Women, Mistress, during the early service, when I came upon her. I recognized her, and I knew she was a follower of the Galilean. So I asked her to tell me if he had come to the Feast. She said he had and that even then he was in the Court of the Gentiles over near the Shushan Gate; today, she said, he would be teaching there, no doubt as soon as the service of the water pouring is finished. Soon the procession will return from the Pool of Siloam; it may be that it’s already back. If you’d like to eat, Mistress, and then go down to the Court of the Gentiles....”
“But I need not eat just this minute, Tullia. We’ll go now. Here,” she said, holding out her robe, “help me get dressed. I really would like to see that man and hear him speak”—she smiled—“and witness any feats of magic he might be prevailed upon to perform.” But quickly her expression sobered. “Tullia, you’ll have to fix me so that no one would even dream he was looking at the Procurator’s wife.”
“Yes, Mistress, but a veil and simple stola will serve that purpose.”
Claudia peeked into the adjoining bedchamber. It was empty. “Pilate no doubt has gone to the Praetorium,” she said. “He needn’t know I’m going down into the Temple precincts.”
With Tullia’s aid, she dressed, and they descended to the ground level and went out through the great vaulted doorway on the south side of the Tower. A moment later the two women, heavily veiled, entered the Temple enclosure through the North Gate of Asuppim and headed toward the Soreg, a lacy latticework of carefully carved and interwoven stones four and a half feet high surrounding the Temple itself. From there they turned left and strode eastward through the vast Court of the Gentiles with its jam of worshipers and the idly curious.
“Mary said that he usually sits over there”—Tullia pointed toward the cloisters along the eastern wall of the Temple—“near the Shushan Gate.” The Shushan Gate was at the northern end of the wall, directly east of the Beautiful Gate. Steps led up from the Court of the Gentiles to the Chel, a corridor running between the Soreg and the walls of the Temple proper, in which sat the resplendent, great Shushan Gate. The Court of the Women, in turn, was several feet higher than the Chel. At the western end of the Court of the Women, centering the wall, was another large opening, the Gate of Nicanor, and directly west of this gate and on a still more uplifted platform, stood the Great Altar. A person at the Gate of Shushan could look above marble steps ascending from one court level to another to the priests performing their orders before this tremendous and imposing pyramidal altar of burnt offerings.
As Claudia and Tullia neared the eastern end of the Soreg they could see the Shushan Gate, but no group was knotted about it. They could look across the cloister and out through the gate to the rise of the Mount of Olives beyond the Brook Kidron far below. “He’s not there,” Tullia said, her tone revealing disappointment. “Perhaps he went with the procession to the Pool of Siloam and has not yet returned. Surely he will be here soon.”
But as they turned the corner to their left, the two women saw a motley throng pushed together in a half circle about the steps that led up to the Chel. “Maybe Jesus is there,” Tullia exclaimed, keeping her voice low, for now they were nearing the outer edge of this crowd. She turned to confront a lean and bearded tall Israelite. “We have just come here,” she said. “We wonder why all these people are gathered about. Is some rabbi expounding the law?”
“Yes, the Galilean whom some hold to be the Messiah of God. The priests and the scholars have been trying to confuse him, but he has thrown their words back into their teeth.”
They moved forward into the outer fringe of the group and eased their steps toward the man sitting before the Beautiful Gate until soon they had an unobstructed view of him. From where they stood they could also see through the wide portals of the Beautiful Gate across the Court of the Women and the Gate of Nicanor to the Great Altar, upon which the High Priest Caiaphas, with two other Temple dignitaries assisting him, had tipped the golden ewer of water from the Pool of Siloam as a libation to Yahweh. Many of those now listening to the discourse of the Galilean had been present for the ceremonies of the water pouring, including a small knot of lavishly robed Israelites whom Tullia immediately recognized as the men who had been attempting to confound Jesus with their hate-inspired but politely phrased questions.