1 - First Fruits

The following series is adapted from "The Apostle" by Sholem Asch

Chapter 1

FIRST FRUITS

Seven weeks have passed since that memorable day when Jesus of Nazareth was crucified on the hill of Golgotha by command of Pontius Pilate, and it’s time for the festival of first fruits. Countless pilgrims bring their offerings to the House of the Lord. For the most part they’re Palestinian Jews, because the only fruit acceptable for the offerings at this festival must be grown on the soil of the Holy Land.

Included among the worshippers is a large group of poor, homeless and forlorn people coming down from the Mount of Olives. They were hardly noticed by the festive crowds yesterday, when they traveled up the narrow winding path leading from the Kidron Valley into the Akra quarter, for this is a common sight. The Akra quarter has long been the home of Jerusalem’s poor. Their gray, tattered coverings of burlap stand in stark contrast to the multi-colored dress of the holiday celebrants. They wear no sandals, and their heads are uncovered. Their sackcloth clothing is tied around the waist with rope. Some of the women wear the black veil of widowhood, and there’s one in particular whose tall, slender figure and air of stately sorrow brings to mind the memory of Naomi returning to her native city from the fields of Moab.

The men in this group are powerful and muscular, their beards and faces covered with the dust of the road. They brought large bundles of household goods, such as bamboo mattresses, folded tents, and basins, on their broad backs. Their food consists of onions, cucumbers, lettuce and flat cakes. It looks like they’ve come for a long stay.

The group went directly toward the ancient King David wall opposite the muddy Siloah spring, where the caves rise tier upon tier in the massive wall. Traditionally, this has been the refuge of the homeless. The people already here welcomed the new arrivals, waiting at the foot of the vast ruin to help the women up the narrow steps to the upper tiers. The men pitched their tents side-by-side on the damp level in front of the wall.

The hot street here is now filled to overflowing, and the dust, coming in layers with the east wind never really settles, but hangs in a low cloud around everyone’s feet. It’s stifling. Some people find shelter in the shadows of the rich houses in the upper city near the Temple entrance. Others cluster under awnings of sackcloth or branches the shopkeepers have put up to keep the sun, dust, and flies from their goods of wine, flour, and vegetables. Still others find refuge in the niches between the houses in the alleys of the lower city.

And even when it seems that not another foothold remains in Jerusalem, the crowds of pilgrims continue to pour in. Each group comes marching in to the sound of flutes and timbrels, a sacrificial ox leading the way. Farmers who live nearby have brought fresh vegetables. Those from farther away bring vegetables that’ll stay fresher over a longer period of time. There are yellow sheaves of wheat in rough-hewn baskets, while here and there one can see the flash of a finely made golden tray heaped with figs and held high by the jeweled hands of an aristocrat.

The festival of Pentecost will be featured today, the most joyous of all Jewish festivals, for it commemorates the giving of the Ten Commandments at Sinai. Many Jews, who live too far away to bring first fruits, have come anyway just to be a part of the Pentecost ceremonies and to sing verses from the Psalms while listening to the Levites blow the silver trumpets and play on the harps. In the most central court of the sanctuary, white-robed priests offer up sacrifices. The whole Temple is a stormy ocean of colors, a pageant of fantastic costumes, and ten thousand faces are raised eagerly to the light that streams from the central sanctuary.

There are Jewish visitors from Babylon in their long mantles, and Jews from Cilicia and Cyrene in cloaks of woven goat’s hair. There are Jews from distant regions of Asia whose faces are bronzed almost to blackness, whose bodies and limbs are lean and bony. There are Jews from Persia and Medea, with long curled beards and thick-plated black hair. There are poor Jews from the provinces of Arabia, whose only covering is a white sheet. And there are even Jews from Rome, proudly wearing the toga of their adopted city.


Several men are standing off in a corner of the Temple court at the center of a crowd of curious pilgrims. Their dress and bearing is Galilean: sackcloth robe, with bony arms and legs protruding, high heads thickly covered with black curls, tangled beards, and flashing eyes. But that’s not what draws attention. It’s what they’re saying and the way they’re saying it. They‘re telling a marvelous and incomprehensible story with wild and eager gestures, as if they’re feeling the story as they tell it.

The principal speaker looks to be middle aged, as if it had came on him all at once rather than gradually. His dense, bristling beard and his close curls are half black, half gray, but his eyebrows, like his eyes, have the luster of youth. His earnest face, furrowed with the marks of labor and tribulation, is impressively sincere and truthful looking. But his voice carries even more conviction than his appearance, for though he keeps it low, it rings with inspiration. His language is a mixture of Aramaic and Hebrew, and though his listeners mostly speak Greek, yet they seem to understand him.

Incredibly, he’s telling them that the Jesus that Pontius Pilate had crucified on Passover was none other then the promised Messiah, and that he’d risen from death. Even more amazing is the man’s ability to quote verse after verse from the Psalms and prophets that foretold how Messiah would suffer and how God would raise salvation for Israel from the seed of King David. This Jesus showed himself to his disciples after his resurrection, ate and drank with them, and commanded them to carry these tidings to the children of Israel. He told them to say that before many days would pass, he would come down from heaven, and the Kingdom of Heaven would begin on earth.

Some of the man’s listeners vividly recall the gruesome scene while others have a vague recollection that something happened. Still others, recent arrivals in the city, have no clue what he’s talking about. But the passionate speech of the Galilean is obviously stirring deep memories of hopes and dreams in most of them.

In some, though, it stirs up the bitter taste of disillusionment and shame.

One man says, “So early in the morning, and already so full of wine.”
“Not only with wine, but with the poison of the Evil One,” says another.
But a third voice says, “These men don’t talk like drunkards.”

“Whoever heard of a man rising from the dead?” says one man loudly, passing his fingers gracefully through the strands of his beard. The colored girdle around his waist shows him to be a Sadducee. “These men should be driven from the Temple court for spreading such lies. A man’s reward is given him in this life, good things if he’s righteous and punishment if he’s wicked. Don’t listen to these ignorant Galileans.”

Hearing this, a young man pushes his way through the crowd, until he stands side by side with the Sadducee and face to face with the men of Galilee. He glares at the latter with one fierce and challenging eye, which seems to concentrate the power of two into the one. His other eye is almost closed, the heavy lid lying lifeless over the pupil and leaving just a glimmer of white at the bottom. Clearly the young man had heard both the preaching of the Galileans and the comments from the Sadducee.

With a contemptuous grimace of his tight lips and his thin, hawk like nose, he says, “No, not for their belief in the resurrection. It’s only you sad Sadduccees who deny that. They should be thrown out because they exalt a man who was hanged. ‘The curse of God rests on him that’s been hanged.’ That’s what the scripture says.”

At this the preacher turns toward the Sadducee and the young man, lifts his arms, and cries, “This fulfilled the sayings of the prophets who said that Messiah must first suffer. Hear the words of the prophets, “We wandered like lost sheep, each of us went his own way, and God put on him the sins of us all. He was oppressed and tormented, and he did not open his mouth. He was led like a lamb to the slaughter, and as a young sheep is dumb before the shearer, so he opened not his mouth.’”

“How do the words of the prophets come so easily to these men,” says a baffled bystander. “These men are Galileans. Isn’t that the fisherman from Capernaum who followed the rabbi while he lived?”
“See how the spirit of God rests on them! They talk like educated men, but they never received any formal teaching.”

“Jews!” cries the young man hotly. “They are misleaders and blasphemers! They’ve given the name of God’s anointed to a man who was hanged!”

He would say more, but just then he feels a tug at his elbow. Another young man, evidently a friend, has by now worked his way to the front of the crowd. In contrast to his friend, his bearing is sedate and quiet. Tall and graceful, his face framed in a young beard, his curled hair parted and falling on either side of his forehead, he looks like an heir of some rich family from another province.

“Saul,” he says gently. “We’ll be late for the morning session of Master Gamaliel.”

“You’re right Joseph,” answers Saul. “The babblings of these Galileans would even rob us of our rabbi’s lesson.”

And as abruptly as he’d pushed his way forward, he now turns and pushes his way out of the crowd.

* * * *

The two young men hurrying across the court to the arcade where the illustrious Gamaliel is to deliver his festival lesson are non-Palestinian Jews. Saul, older and shorter, is all motion and restlessness, as if quicksilver runs in his veins rather than blood. He comes from Tarsus, a famous town in Cilicia. Like all pious Jews, his father sent him to Jerusalem to sit at the feet of the great rabbis to learn the Torah and the ways of godliness. His friend hails from Cyprus, a rich province famous for delicious wines, incense, and copper mines. His father, a descendant of Levites, sent him to Jerusalem as well, but his purpose was to learn Levitical service, and to take part in Temple ceremonies like singing songs of praise on the fifteen steps before the sanctuary when the priests offer sacrifices. But his father also went a step further and bought him a parcel of land outside Jerusalem. This allows him to claim the same rights and privileges as someone born there, and makes him feel less like a stranger.

Both of these men grew up in the heart of the gentile world, a world of sin, whoredom and despair. They’ve seen complete moral chaos and utter bestiality, and they cling to the one hope in the storm, the Rock of Israel. They believe with all their heart that there exists just one salvation for man, and they’ve come to Jerusalem to be filled with the spirit of the rabbis and the words of the Torah. They are both proud to be called disciples of Gamaliel.

Gamaliel is the teacher in Israel. He has a great house frequented not only by pupils and rabbis, but also by other men of worldly learning, wealth and influence who feel drawn to the Pharisees. Every Pharisee from abroad who has sufficient means arranges to have his son sent here. To be a pupil of Master Gamaliel is not only a matter of pride, it’s also necessary for one who dreams of a career. Besides that, it’s a guarantee of an education in the best tradition of the great Hillel.

As they rapidly thread their way through the crowd, Saul continues the criticism his friend had interrupted.

“A crucified Messiah? Where’d they get this stuff from, the heathen? Are we Canaanites, or something? I’ve seen enough of these outrages at home. If they want to try planting these abominations in the garden of Israel, then I say tear them out by the roots!”

“But Saul, how can you compare heathen beliefs with what these men were preaching? They quoted our prophets. They don’t deny our beliefs. On the contrary, they call men to repent and prepare for the great day to come. Don’t you find it astonishing that their quote from Isaiah exactly fits the death of their Messiah? And don’t we also believe in the resurrection as they do? I don’t know, Saul, it seems there’s something in their words we need to think about.”

“Joseph!”

The sharpness of the older man’s voice brings his friend to a halt. Saul stares at him with his one blazing open eye, while his lips tighten ominously. To Joseph, it even seems like Saul’s half closed eye is examining him with equal intentness, boring into his secret thoughts.

After a pause, they continue on their way.

“The hope of Israel, one who was hanged?” bursts out Saul. “The one who’s going to come on the clouds with legions of angels and harvest the nations like sheaves? The one God anointed to be a light to the people? The one the Gentiles took and slaughtered like a sheep, and he didn’t call the heavenly hosts to rescue him?”

“But didn’t you hear the man quote from Isaiah, ‘He was led like a lamb to the slaughter,’ and ‘for the sins of my people he was wounded, and he made his grave with the wicked?’ They’re not saying he was punished because he did evil. They’re saying he freely took our sins on himself, and was wounded for our sin.”

“You mean--?” asked the young man of Tarsus and stopped again for a moment, keeping his eye sternly on his friend.

“I – I personally don’t mean anything. But I do say that the words of those men have put thoughts into my head.”


There is silence between them for the rest of the short distance to the arcade where Master Gamaliel has already started preaching. His seat is a raised stone built into the curve of the wall. The older pupils sit on low benches, while the younger ones stand behind them in a semi-circle. Master Gamaliel is a man of slight build, advanced in years, but of majestic appearance. By custom, his head is covered with a kind of black veil that falls over his shoulders. His long white beard reaches down almost to his girdle and frames a grave, wrinkled face.

The lesson he chose this morning doesn’t deal with law or religious observance. It’s devoted to the rules of conduct and the principles of human relationships as taught by his illustrious grandfather, Hillel. Master Gamaliel adds his own commentaries and observations to these rules and principles.

As the two young men approach, they hear Gamaliel say, “Choose a rabbi and teacher who will keep you from the ways of doubt. Man has only one enemy, his own uncertainty. If you have doubts, find a teacher and ask him. Do not be forever uncertain as to whether you are doing your duty. God desires good intentions, for if your intent is pure, all is pure. If you know that there is one who sees your thoughts, and before whom you must make an accounting for all your deeds, you will never doubt. The fear of God will keep you on the right path. So find yourself a teacher and place yourself under authority.”


Returning through the tumultuous Temple court afterwards, Saul and Joseph ponder these thoughts, each in his own way, applying them to the events of the day. Their hearts are stirred by a new restlessness.

“Those were beautiful words the Rabbi spoke today,” says Joseph. “Man needs a guide. He needs the awe of authority, a thread to hold to. Otherwise he’s a lost sheep.”

“Not just man,” murmured Saul. “The whole world must be brought under the command and guidance of authority.”

Coming to the outer court they see that the preaching Galileans are no longer there. But the crowd that had heard them was. Small groups of Jews, both Palestinian and foreign, are discussing the strange things they heard, creating a veritable babel of voices.

A tall Babylonian is swaying back and forth, his arms lifted to heaven, as if a holy spirit possesses him. “Father in heaven!” he calls. “Can it indeed be that you’ve sent us a deliverer?”

A Persian Jew talks in a dreamy voice, “I heard with my own ears what these messengers said. Every day for forty days he appeared to them, exactly as he had in life. He sat with them and broke bread with them.”

“Look at that!” exclaims the young man of Tarsus. “This is what the Galileans have done. The heart of Jerusalem is steeped in longing for deliverance, like woven linen is steeped in oil waiting for the fire at the water pouring ceremony. What will happen if a spark should fall on the drenched heart of Jerusalem?”

“If?” repeated Joseph. “The spark has already fallen. Don’t you hear what these people are saying?”