In Both Worlds

by William H. Holcombe

This led to the confiscation of our estates; and as Mary and Martha were helpless and beautiful young women without relatives to protect them, they were assigned to the special guardianship of Magistus. Caiaphas approved in strong terms this decree of the Sanhedrim, eulogized Magistus for his generous character and patriarchal virtues, and congratulated the sisters of a vile robber, themselves the disciples of a base impostor, on their extraordinary good fortune in being placed under the enviable protection of one of the shining lights of Israel.

The wickedness and duplicity of this high priest will be almost incredible to future times. But the age was [pg 295]evil; the church was corrupt; and public and private morality reduced to the lowest ebb. The priesthood was a matter of bargain and sale. The office of high priest, the holiest and highest in the Jewish theocracy, was obtained by bribery and fraud and in more than one instance by murder. Caiaphas was one of the most consummate hypocrites that ever entered the holy of holies. He might have changed places with Barabbas, and justice and religion would not have fared the worse for it.

My sisters, terrified at the thought of falling into the power of Magistus, their remembrance of whom was anything but pleasant, fled from our house and concealed themselves with some of the disciples of Jesus. The two chief miscreants of the Sanhedrim seemed determined to get possession of these unhappy and forlorn women; and they instituted the most rigorous search through the houses of all persons who were suspected of harboring them. Their evil passions seemed only half gratified by my destruction and the seizure of our property. Fearful would have been the fate of these angelic friends of Jesus, had they fallen at that time into the hands of his fiercest enemies.

Spies and detectives fully authorized to search, arrest, bribe, intimidate and even kill, were set upon their track in every direction. The country became so unsafe for them, that they were conveyed by stealthy night marches to the hut of some friendly fishermen away down on the sea of Galilee. Even there they were pursued; and Peter the apostle rowed them across the sea on a dark and stormy night, and concealed them in the very tombs [pg 296]whence issued the maniac out of whom Jesus cast a legion of devils.

After many sufferings and hair-breadth escapes, they were conveyed out of the country, and at that moment were living concealed in the city of Antioch, at the house of a poor but worthy man—himself a Christian, for Christ had cured him and nine others of the leprosy; and he alone of the ten had turned back to give thanks.

I wept when I thought of the unhappiness of my poor sisters; and I felt an urgent desire to regain my shattered strength and rejoin them.

The story of the crucifixion of the Lord struck me with wonder and awe. I was not surprised that Judas Iscariot had betrayed him. But the pathetic incidents of his last supper, his betrayal, his trial, his crucifixion, his resurrection, his appearance to his disciples, and his ascension, affected me to tears, and filled me with a spirit of humility, love and prayer.

“Those are pictures,” said I, to my friends, “which will be painted on the heart of the Christian Church in the colors of heaven, and which the powers of death and hell can never efface.

“If such,” thought I to myself—“if such is the effect of this divine history as it appears in the literal form to man, what must be the power and glory of the spiritual signification of these great and holy things, when they are studied by angels in the light of heaven!”

Barabbas and his bravest lieutenants, including the Son of the Desert, had fallen into the hands of the rulers. Barabbas conveyed to Magistus a threat, that if he were [pg 297]not released he would expose to the Sanhedrim his attempt to murder his nephew. Whether Magistus and Caiaphas, who acted always in concert, feared an exposure of this kind, which is not probable, considering the source whence the charge would come, or whether they followed spontaneously the wicked instincts of their own souls, they procured the release of Barabbas and the crucifixion of Christ.