“Judas Iscariot should do,” Pilate called out to his back. “The man is well versed in both astronomy and geography.”
The summoned man arrived a few minutes later, led by two of Pilate’s men. Judas Iscariot was sixty years of age, the top astronomer in Jerusalem, and a well-known prophet among the people.
He wore hempen robes dyed deep green and a wide oxhide belt of the same color. His uneven gray hair was bound into a small knot at the back of his head and wrapped with a black cloth. His feet were large and sturdy, and he wore heavy-looking sandals of thick woven leather.
“Over here, Judas,” Pilate called from the balcony.
“When I first saw that marvelous cloud of light in the northern sky this late at night, I prepared myself for your call, Lord Prefect.” Judas swept aside the hanging curtain and stepped out onto the balcony.
“Well? What do you think it is? Tell me plain.”
Pilate crossed his arms and turned to face the brilliance in the north.
Judas held his peace. Hands clasped behind his back, he strolled along the edge of the balcony.
After a moment Pilate spoke again. “I’m sure you know that Jesus of Nazareth is to be executed on the morn.”
Judas nodded, his face dark.
“There are people who believe he is the Son of God, that he is the Messiah—they believe that his execution will be the end of our world, and they’re frightened because they think this light and his execution are connected. Well, Judas? Tell me what you think it is.”
The prophet put both hands upon the white marble balustrade and leaned out, his eyes searching far off into the night sky. A long silence passed.
“Judas. I must confide in you that the more I saw of this Jesus of Nazareth, the more I found it hard to believe that everything he said was a fiction.”
Judas seemed to smile then, faintly. “Lord Prefect. I’m surprised to hear you admitting such things. This man must be persuasive indeed. No wonder the people take him for the Messiah.”
Pilate scowled.
“Lord Prefect. Two years ago, when the carpenter of Nazareth was still proselytizing on his own up near Samaria and Arbela I requested that he be apprehended. Do you recall this?”
“I do,” Pilate replied, a bitterness in his voice.
“Lord Prefect, it is true that of the many acts that he calls miracles, some do not follow the course of logic or any natural scheme. They are wondrous, to be sure. He calls them miracles of God. And he foretells that these miracles will one day govern our world. Lord Prefect, you should have sentenced him two years ago. I’m afraid that now you may have waited too long,” Judas said.
The prophet had indeed recommended this course of action to Pilate several times before. And perhaps he was right, Pilate thought, though the realization didn’t make him any more pleased to be reminded of it now. He felt a chill sting, as though he’d been struck upon the cheek by a thin razor. He wanted very much to say something piercing, something that would stab into the heart of the wise man, but as always before Judas, he found himself unable to summon the perfect retort.
“True,” he said eventually, “but back then I never expected him to gain so many fervent followers in the city.”
“I would not say they are that many.”
“Yes, but still—”
If you do not think them too many, then why accuse me of staying my hand overlong in his execution?
“They are merely frightened, Prefect. Fear and faith are two different things . . . though tomorrow their fear will become faith in truth.”
“How can you say that?” asked Pilate sharply. He was sure that Iscariot had some specific knowledge of Jesus, something about the carpenter of Nazareth he was unwilling to share, that had disposed him against the man. It was almost as if he bore him ill will.
“Do you know what his apostles do now?” Judas changed the topic, leaving Pilate’s unanswered question to drift away with the night breeze.
“I’ve heard that they dispersed after he was taken into custody and went into hiding. Apparently, the profound guidance of their God was not enough to eliminate their fear of death altogether. They probably were worried they might pass on before their paradise came to Earth.”
Judas shook his head. “I wonder how much his apostles really understood of Jesus. The love and the God he spoke of are little more than a kind of code. In fact, everything he says comes from a very different place than human thought and desire.”
“So whose God is Jesus of Nazareth talking about? Who is it that he’s preaching for?”
“I do not know, though I will admit I had expected much of him.”
This time, Pilate’s question seemed to have struck a chord in Judas’s heart.
“When first I saw him giving a sermon, in a small village in Galilee, I knew he was different from the many other prophets I had seen—those false prophets who are so numerous that on a given day, a man might throw his sandal in any direction and be sure to hit one. Why?” Judas said. “Because he does not speak in prophecies. The things he says may indeed cause unhappiness, but they will never bring joy.”
“Why not?”
“Because if a final judgment by God is truly necessary, would that not suggest that our world was on a path to ruin?”
Pilate stood still and silent as a stone. A hot wind blew up from the Jordan River Valley and swept between the two men.
Together they stood listening to the sound of the wind in their ears.
At last Judas lifted his right hand and pointed toward the far-off brilliance of the night sky. “That light? To be quite frank, this is the first time I have ever seen anything of the kind. An elder sailor of Phoenicia once told me that there is a frozen sea at the northern end of the world and a land of ice at the far southern end, and in those places, sometimes, one can see strange, beautiful lights in the skies. Yet I cannot help but think that this is something altogether different.”
“Then you think it has something to do with Jesus’s execution.”
“No. I think it has nothing to do with that man’s faith. That this spectacle should appear on the night before his execution is merely a coincidence. I believe this is a simple yet exceedingly rare natural phenomenon, nothing more. You have nothing to fear from that light, at least. You should tell this to the people and see them safely to their beds.”
“Judas,” Pilate said, “that still won’t stop them from saying that a terrible miracle was witnessed on the night before the Nazarene’s death.”