All Who Came Before

      Simon Perry

      ALL WHO CAME BEFORE

      Copyright © 2011 Perry, Simon. All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in critical publications or reviews, no part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without prior written permission from the publisher. Write: Permissions, Wipf and Stock Publishers, 199 W. 8th Ave., Suite 3, Eugene, OR 97401.

      Scripture taken from the Holy Bible, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®.

      Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by Biblica, Inc. All rights reserved

      worldwide. Used by permission.

      Resource Publications

      An imprint of Wipf and Stock Publishers

      199 W. 8th Ave., Suite 3

      Eugene, OR 97401

      www.wipfandstock.com

      isbn 13: 978-1-60899-659-9

      eisbn 13: 978-1-4982-7408-1

      Manufactured in the U.S.A.

      For

      Willem, Lewis, Alice, Stefan

      and Edwige

      Acknowledgments

      Above all, the writing of this book has been enabled by the generosity of Bloomsbury Central Baptist Church, who in 2008, granted me a three month sabbatical. At the end of this, several members of the church also read and very helpfully critiqued the first draft, most notably, Brian and Faith Bowers, Jean Harrison, Seth Stephens and Robert Doty. Great encouragement for this project also came from my colleague, Ruth Gouldbourne, our church secretary, John Beynon, and three members, Shona Scanlan, Jordan Tchillingirian, and Emma Langley. A former minister of the church, Brian Haymes, also offered invaluable insight, as have several other friends.

      Ali Hale and Carys Underdown helped the idea to take shape in my head over lengthy conversations after chapel services at Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge. Others who have committed time to reading and helping with various stages of the Manuscript are Stephanie Brock, Simon Woodman, Dien Wooller, Roy Bagley, Kae and Rachael Rake, Mike and Belinda Smith, Bill and Joan Perry, Richard James Perry, and June Brotherton.

      My own children, Willem, Lewis, Stefan and Alice, have heard various versions and summaries of the plot, and their competing cries for justice have helped to inform the story. Lastly, my gratitude goes to Edwige, whose constant encouragement, ridicule, and love, have ensured that the book was completed and the story heard.

      1

      The dagger slipped from Yeshua’s grip, tumbling into darkness and taking with it all hope of justice. Warm blood trickled from his empty hand. Silently the drops fell, until their collective voice would gather to cry from the ground. Yeshua—God will save us—had not saved his people, and his God had not saved him. Facing his final moment, he lowered his eyes and the fear he had so recently shaken returned with mortal force. The clash had lasted only seconds, but the build-up had seemed endless as he lay concealed in the grass, waiting for it to begin.

      “Right on time,” he had heard his brother call from across the track as their targets emerged from the city.

      “Be ready, Theudas,” Yeshua the Egyptian replied in shallow breath. “They’ll be here before we know it.”

      The dark western horizon was crafted by Roman hubris. The cut stones, mounted as legionaries in rank and file, silently forbade any hope of resistance: the city wall, standing like the tip of a colossal blade sunk deep into the heart of the Promised Land; the aqueduct, bleeding the milk and honey from that land to fuel its oppression; the amphitheatre, celebrating the human body by enslaving it. The empire’s capital was incarnate in Straton’s Tower, conquering the sky to monitor all that passed by sea or land.

      The intent of this almighty stonework reached far beyond its practical purpose. This was a spectacle to invoke astonishment and fear, and in so doing to radiate the divine power of Rome. Where once the sky would meet the land, magnificent structures now intervened. Heaven and earth could meet only through Rome.

      The shallow chill of the Judean summer night still clung to Yeshua’s limbs, but he lay motionless, hidden in the scrubland outside the eastern gate of the great coastal city, Caesarea. Two Roman soldiers had emerged from the gate and begun the shallow descent along the southerly track that in two minutes’ time would bring them within six paces of the would-be assassin. At sight of their approach, Yeshua was seized by a momentary paralysis, which spread from his bowels and ordered his entire body to abandon its absurd intentions. Every limb and organ agreed this was an insane scheme: the son of a merchant, lying in wait to attack soldiers of Rome. A split second transformed these soldiers into immortals. They would surely hear his approach and fall on him long before he was within striking distance. No professional soldier, hardened in battle and sharpened through constant training, would fall prey to such a misguided amateur.

      The glint of helmets and spear-points flickered toward them, still over a hundred slow paces away, but an infinite distance to the wavering Egyptian, overawed by the mortal consequences to be determined by the skill or failure of his own hand. Someone’s blood would soon cry out from this dry patch of ground. He looked at the veins carrying a quickened pulse to his fingers and wondered whether that blood would be his.

      “No safe path to victory,” Yeshua snarled in an effort to buttress his resolve.

      “You alright?” his younger brother asked, in a tone suggesting he himself was not. Yeshua could see, even from the loose curls of Theudas’ hair, silhouetted against the skyline, that his entire body was tense.

      The elder brother paused to control his breath before responding in a stage whisper. “We’ve watched them every night for a week. We’ve rehearsed this move to perfection.” His quiet words were packed with determination. “Theudas. We are ready.”

      The Romans were protected by carefully designed amour, yielding little in the way of exposed flesh. So the assassins would attack from behind, hands gripped over the pommel of the dagger’s hilt. They had practiced their move repeatedly upon one another using whittled wooden play knives, and even tied scarves around a tree to see whether the real blade would cope with the knot protecting the throat.

      Theudas said nothing. Can he go through with this? Yeshua thought, but could hardly ask. “Theudas,” he said, “think of Yotham. Think of Saul. Murdered by these pagans.”

      Silence made an eternity out of three heartbeats. Eventually Thuedas grunted. “These pagans will taste justice tonight,” he said.

      Yeshua sighed in relief, and with this reminder of why they were here, fear gave way to a stab of grief followed by a deeper blood rush of seething anger towards these troops. His eyes lifted as he offered an embittered prayer. “My brothers’ lives ended the day they went to Your holy city to worship at Your holy Temple. . .” He paused to glance at the approaching soldiers “. . . And so did mine.”

      Yeshua inhaled the salty air as if to draw energy from all around him. Lightly moistened by the Mediterranean breeze, small trees and thick grass defied the sandy earth, freckled across a dry landscape where the jackal would hunt the hare. The raging calm of the predator descended upon Yeshua. He looked down at the wiry grass that had been his companion all night, and up at the heavens through a few patches of clear sky. The Egyptian’s cynical prayer had done its job. He knew well enough that it was offered only to himself. He knew this God was merely the convenient name of his own projected anger. But by deceiving his own spirit with the conviction that some greater Other was being engaged, he broke the stranglehold of self-doubt.

      The genuine otherness of the prayer was the recollection it brought of his father’s friend, Caius. The legionary’s tales were treasure to a wide-eyed adolescent eager for stories of war. Whatever the story, the same