Caesar's Lord, page 43
After all the travel, Empress Helena declared that she needed a few days of rest in her new home, so for the moment, Rex found himself without many duties as a guardsman. “How about we explore the city tomorrow?” he asked Flavia as they were getting ready for bed.
“I can’t think of anything I’d like more.”
“I can,” Rex said with a mischievous grin, then blew out the lamp in their room.
The next morning was blue-skied and pleasantly cool now that it was early October. Flavia washed in the room’s basin, then joined Rex for a light breakfast in the quaint courtyard at the front of Glory House. They were finishing up their meal when they noticed a boy of about twelve eyeing them from a nearby bench. His complexion was brown, and his eyes were lively and intelligent. Rex waved at him in a friendly way, and that was enough to prompt the boy to approach their table.
“I know you,” the boy said. “I was at Nicaea for the council, and I observed all you did. I am grateful for it. You defended true doctrine—both of you.”
Rex chuckled and pushed out a wooden bench with his foot. “Then it seems we should make your acquaintance, young sir! Come sit at our table.” After Rex introduced himself and Flavia, they learned that the boy’s name was Cyril. He was an assistant to Bishop Macarius and was studying for a future career in the church.
“I can show you around the city,” Cyril offered. “I know everything about Hierusalem, especially as it relates to our faith.” The boy smiled, then added, “And I know secret ways to get into hidden places.”
“You’re just my kind of lad,” Rex said with a laugh as the threesome headed out to the city streets.
Cyril led Rex and Flavia to the Great Cardo that divided the city in half. “This street was the outer wall of the city in the time of Jesus,” the boy told them. “The Lord did all of his work to the east of here. The western side was outside the walls.”
From the Cardo, the tour wandered through the side streets of Hierusalem where many generations of Christians had lived and worshiped. Cyril pointed out all the important sites, including two ancient house churches where believers still met today. The larger of them was the church where Macarius now presided. It was the former home of Mary, the mother of John Mark. The second story of the house was the Upper Room—the site of the Last Supper and the place where the Holy Spirit first descended upon the church. A grapevine was growing there, so Rex broke off a branch as a memento of the place where the cup of the Lord came to represent his blood.
Next, Cyril headed into the countryside to the south of the city. The ravine known as the Valley of the Cheesemakers descended to meet the valley called Gehenna, where the Old Testament said babies were sacrificed to evil gods, making it a hellish location. Fortunately, Cyril took Rex and Flavia to a different place: an enclosed pool fed by the ancient Gihon spring. Now it was decorated with pagan nymphs frolicking in the nude.
“King David drank these waters,” Cyril said, “and Jesus called it the Pool of Siloam. He made mud from his saliva, then told a man born blind to wash in this pool. It healed him.”
Rex removed an army canteen from his satchel. “I will collect some of this water. Pope Sylvester will be delighted to have it.”
From the low-lying Pool of Siloam, the three now began to climb an ancient pilgrimage route up to the Temple Mount. Flavia soon found herself out of breath and sweating now that the day had warmed. Once she drew near to the platform’s surface, she grew excited to see what was on top. She knew the Jewish temple wouldn’t be there; Emperor Titus had destroyed it sixty years before the time of Hadrian. Even so, this was Mount Moriah—the summit King David had purchased for God’s temple. Solomon had carried out David’s idea in glorious fashion. Somewhere up here, Flavia reminded herself as she topped the Mount, is the very spot where God dwelled in the Holy of Holies!
Unfortunately, just as Cyril had warned her before they began to climb, the place was a disappointment. Wicked Titus had completely destroyed the house of the Lord. Then Hadrian had made the blasphemy even worse by erecting the temple to Jupiter. As always, Jupiter sought the high places, for he was a minion of the ultimate climber—Satan, who raised himself up in pride before Almighty God. Flavia didn’t even bother to ascend the temple steps to look around from its porch. She approached only as far as two statues of Hadrian and his successor, Antoninus Pius, then turned her back on the demonic place with a sense of sorrow and indignation.
“Is there nothing left from the time of the Lord?” Rex asked Cyril. “We know the Savior’s feet walked here. He came as a boy to talk with the rabbis, and again as a teacher himself. But it seems like everything is now pagan.”
“Follow me,” Cyril said. “I will show you a special, forgotten place.”
The youth led his two fellow explorers to a region of the Temple Mount obscured by debris that had accumulated over many decades of neglect. Vines and shrubs had engulfed whatever structures once stood here.
“From all the columns, it looks like some kind of colonnade,” Rex observed.
Cyril nodded. “It was the Royal Portico, I believe.”
The threesome came to an impenetrable wall of vegetation and ancient ruins. Yet when Cyril tugged on a certain vine, a gap opened in the leafy obstacle. “Go in,” he encouraged with a gesture of his hand. Flavia was the first to dart through.
A staircase lay before her, crumbling and cluttered with rubble yet sturdy enough to climb. Flavia ascended it. Arriving at the top, a wide vista met her eyes. She stood at one of the four corners of the Temple Mount. The place was situated high above the surrounding city and gave an expansive view of the ravines and hills around Mount Moriah.
In the waist-high wall that guarded the sheer edge of the platform, there was a niche where a person could stand. It was almost like a little pulpit. Rex went to it and peered over the wall. When Flavia joined him, she saw that the drop to the pavement below was dizzying. This high place was a vantage point that overlooked all of Hierusalem.
“There’s an inscription here,” Rex said to Cyril, running his finger along letters carved into the niche. “It’s in Hebrew. Can you read it?”
Cyril shook his head. “No, but I copied it and showed it to a rabbi. It says this is the ‘place of trumpeting, to declare the Sabbath.’ The rabbi told me this was where a shofar was blown at sunset to let the city know the Sabbath was beginning. But that’s not all. There’s something else special about this place.”
Impressed by the boy’s inquisitive nature and knowledge of the city, Flavia exclaimed, “Cyril, you amaze me! Perhaps someday you should be the bishop of Hierusalem.”
“If the Lord wills it, I would serve,” he replied modestly.
“So what else is special about this place?” Rex asked.
“Jesus himself stood here. The scriptures say the devil took him to the pinnacle of the Temple and tempted him to throw himself down and let angels catch him. This is the Temple’s highest point—right here. Jesus refused to show his glory in a prideful way. He said, ‘Do not put the Lord your God to the test.’”
Rex knelt down and removed a loose pavestone from the niche. Since the whole area was exposed to the weather and had fallen into decay, the stone’s removal was an act of preservation more than desecration. “I will keep this safe,” Rex said. “The Christians of Rome can view it and be strengthened to overcome their temptations to pride and self-glory.”
“We’ve found some good relics today,” Flavia remarked after Rex had tucked the stone into his satchel. “The grapevine of the Upper Room. The healing waters of Siloam. And now an actual stone where Christ stood and resisted Satan.”
Rex patted his satchel and nodded. “It’s a start, but we need to find more. What I’d really like to discover is something related to Christ’s resurrection.”
At these words, Cyril let out a little chuckle. An impish expression also came to the boy’s face. “What is it?” Flavia asked him.
Though Cyril didn’t want to answer at first, he was finally coaxed into saying, “I think you’re about to find what you seek.”
The intriguing words caught the attention of Rex and Flavia. When they pressed Cyril some more, they learned he had eavesdropped on a secret meeting last night between Bishop Macarius and Empress Helena. “I overheard them by accident,” Cyril explained, then sheepishly admitted, “but I stayed around to listen.”
Rex had to smile and shake his head at the boy’s audacity. “Sounds like something I would have done. What did you hear?”
“Big news! Emperor Constantine has authorized the excavation of Christ’s tomb. It’s the main reason he sent his mother here.”
Astonished, Flavia asked, “You know where the tomb is?”
“Not for sure. But we have strong traditions. One of our elders—he’s close to a hundred years old—he says he knows the place. He insists his grandfather told him. Memories like that are common in the Hierusalem church. We pass down the lore of our sacred places. How could God’s people ever forget such things?”
The idea of visiting Jesus’s tomb fascinated Flavia. From the look on Rex’s face, she could tell he was excited too. “Let’s go there now!” he exclaimed.
“We can’t,” said Cyril.
“Why not?”
“It’s underneath a huge amount of earth. Hadrian buried the tomb that the earliest believers said was the Lord’s. He ordered a public square to be built over it. And right in the middle of the plaza, he put up a temple to the foulest goddess of them all—Aphrodite.”
Rex and Flavia exchanged glances, then smiles came to both of their faces. “Are you remembering what I’m remembering?” she asked him.
“Yes! That day in Corinthus!”
Flavia took her husband by the hand. “We toppled Aphrodite’s idol that day,” she said. “Now it’s time to dethrone her once and for all.”
OCTOBER 326
The news acquired by Cyril in his accidental eavesdropping soon proved correct: Constantine had, indeed, ordered the demolition of the Temple of Aphrodite. Over the course of about a week, a team of workers was brought in from the vicinity of Hierusalem and throughout the province of Palaestina. Even the few remaining soldiers of the Tenth Legion were assigned to the demolition job—a task they knew well, since digging earthworks was part of every legionary’s basic duties.
Rex was able to watch the proceedings as they developed because Empress Helena wanted to visit the site every day and observe what was being done. His only assignment was to remain close to her side and make sure she was safe. She often stood for so long under a purple awning at the edge of the temple precinct that Flavia finally arranged for a cushioned chair to be brought in. “How kind of you!” Helena said as she took her seat in the shade.
From this makeshift throne, the new queen of the Christian empire watched the gradual dethroning of the Queen of Heaven. Aphrodite was known elsewhere by other names: Venus among the Latins, Ishtar or Astarte among the timeless cultures of the east. She ruled from the sky and oversaw fertility, sexuality, and love. Her star was the first to appear in the night sky and the last to leave it at dawn. But while she was an ancient goddess, she wasn’t invincible. Her time in Hierusalem had finally come to an end. Yet as it turned out, she wasn’t going down without a fight.
Once the work crew was assembled and equipped, the dismantling of the temple commenced. From the very start, it was a difficult job, plagued by more delays and obstacles than anyone had expected. Even from his vantage point next to the empress, Rex could feel the tension among the workers. Many of them didn’t want to be there, so a spirit of rivalry prevailed instead of cooperation. The crew was often afflicted by strife and arguments. Tools and personal possessions kept going missing. The frequency of work injuries—some of them serious—seemed to be higher than normal for such a job. Even the two supervising bishops, Macarius and Eusebius, were at odds with each other. The outcome of this project would have major implications for their respective churches, so both men were tense and found it hard to reconcile their differences.
Yet despite all the problems, the Temple of Aphrodite gradually came down. Once the roof tiles and ceiling beams were removed, the light of the sun shone upon the idol for the first time in almost two hundred years. “Go look at her, Rex,” the empress said. “Report back to me what you see.”
After Rex walked across the plaza and went inside the now-roofless temple, he returned to Helena’s side. “She is seated on a throne in the form of a seashell,” he reported. “Delfini are swimming on either side of her, and doves sit on her shoulders. She wears a crown of stars. Her body is naked, though her lower half is draped with a cloth.”
“At least that’s better than what they have out here,” Flavia said, indicating a marble statue that stood on a nearby hillock. In that depiction of Aphrodite, the goddess was entirely nude and painted in lifelike fashion. The statue was perched on a stony outcrop that protruded from the temple platform. Although no one was currently excavating that part of the temple complex, Rex knew it was on Helena’s agenda because the local Christians claimed the outcrop was the ancient hill of Calvary. Each item was supposed to proceed in due time, and demolishing the temple was the first order of business.
It took two more days to knock down the temple’s walls, which left Aphrodite sitting alone and exposed in the plaza. Ropes were attached to the idol, then men with machines whose wheels were turned by oxen began trying to pull it down. Yet the ancient cement of Hadrian—or perhaps some demonic contrivance—resisted the laborers’ efforts. Rex was watching the proceedings intently when one of the machines shattered under the immense strain, drawing a terrible bellow from the oxen. Shards of wood went flying into the air, and Rex winced when he realized that body parts were part of that carnage as well. Flavia also groaned and covered her eyes. Apparently the goddess of love was hell-bent on vengeance today.
The accident, combined with the arrival of the first autumn rains, made Helena stay away from the work site for a while. Only when the weather turned nice again did she go back. But Flavia no longer joined them, for she had taken ill with a fever that kept her bedridden. Fortunately, there were some imperial handmaidens who could look after her, so Rex wasn’t worried about leaving his wife for part of the day. Yet since Flavia was normally so healthy, her sudden sickness seemed like a visitation from the evil spirits that had been stirred up in Hierusalem. Rex made sure to have an elder from a nearby church anoint Flavia with oil like the scriptures commanded.
When he returned with Helena to the seat under the awning, Rex found that the temple was completely gone and the flagstones of the plaza were being removed one by one. Husky men with iron bars pried them out, then two-man crews carried away the heavy pavers. Underneath the flagstones was a sandy muck filled with masonry rubble and chunks of broken statuary—infertile soil that could only serve as the substrate for the platform, not for agriculture.
Eventually, all the flagstones were removed and the crew began to excavate the fill dirt by digging it with shovels and dumping it into baskets. Gangs of workers passed the baskets from one to another until the last man emptied the basket onto a cart that would discard the debris outside the city. Soon a round crater was formed like those found in volcanic regions. It grew wider and deeper every day, even when rainstorms impeded the progress.
One of the most enthusiastic workers—if not the strongest of them—was little Cyril. With his quick energy, he wasn’t hard to spot among all the more sluggish and plodding workmen at the site. Cyril worked long hours while wearing nothing but a loincloth. During the afternoon rest breaks, he would frequently lounge near the empress’s awning and converse with Rex. Sometimes he would even chat with Helena, who quickly grew fond of him and commented on his sharp mind. She started sharing her flavored water and raisin cakes with Cyril during the breaks.
As the fill dirt was removed, the outlines of an ancient quarry began to emerge. The pick marks made by the stonecutters of long ago could still be seen on the quarry’s walls. Hadrian’s workers had backfilled the quarry pit to create a level platform for the temple. Bishop Eusebius, who was a scholarly historian, considered this a promising sign that the team was digging in the right place. “Quarries were often turned into cemeteries when they were used up because of all the holes hewn from the rock,” he remarked. “After a few decades passed, they often became gardens too, because fresh soil accumulated on the bottom. Both of those facts fit with Christ’s burial in the scriptures. I expect we shall find his tomb soon.”
As if to prove the bishop right, a gaping hole opened up the next day in the muddy crater that had been carved out of the quarry pit. It looked like a portal into Hades, so the workers backed away from it with superstitious awe. Cyril, however, wasn’t afraid. He approached the hole with a lamp and gazed into it. And then, without warning, the edge of the hole collapsed and the underworld swallowed him whole.
Rex didn’t wait for any of the crewmen to initiate a rescue. Bolting from Helena’s side as if shot from a sling, he descended into the crater and scrambled across its gooey bottom toward the hole. An overnight rainstorm had made the soil unstable, so Rex knew he was in significant danger. Any hollow space beneath the surface was liable to collapse, just as it had for Cyril. But Rex was determined not to let Aphrodite claim the life of the boy he had come to admire so much.
Stepping gingerly to the edge of the hole, Rex shouted into it. “Cyril! Can you hear me?” Since there was no answer, Rex snatched up a nearby spade and thrust its blunt end into the opening. “Grab on to the pole, and I’ll pull you out!”
What happened next was so swift and violent that Rex could barely comprehend it. The whole earth seemed to give way in a cascade of mud and rubble. A landslide plunged Rex down into an abyss while spinning him like a child’s doll and bombarding him with rocky blows. Light and dark flashed in every direction as Rex lost all sense of up and down. His nostrils and mouth became clogged with grit and sludge. After tumbling for what seemed like an hour but was probably just a snap of the fingers, the turbulence stopped as Rex slammed into something solid. Pain shot through his body at the impact. A dreadful darkness and silence engulfed him. Then all was still.
