The Light

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I see my only friend's face clearly, as if it were yesterday! But it was 60 years ago. I had never seen such passion on a human countenance. It blazed with anger and fierce hatred one second, then flushed with hysterical joy the next. John.

My brother, Caiaphas Alexander, the oldest son of the high priest (though our father was not the high priest yet) was walking to the temple with my cousin during the feast of the Passover, our most "holy" and profitable season. My cousin was a hothead with a reputation for imprudent actions. As they walked, he was busily engaged in a diatribe against all our fellow human beings. My brother, "the chosen," assented at intervals with the slightest of nods. At 13, he was full of his new manhood. He walked with a dignity befitting a son of Aaron. The inbred arrogance of our kind fit him as naturally as did his richly tasseled silk robes. I was walking behind them, wearied of my cousin's endless disparaging remarks. I was sure he would turn to my inadequacies when I was out of earshot, or maybe sooner.

"This town if full of Galileans," he snorted. "I almost hate to see these holy days come! They all swarm in like insects--insects that smell like dead fish! They lounge all over the place, eating those coarse barley loaves. You can't walk down the street without being battered with bags of rock-hard bread. And how they talk! Their words sound like barley mush, like they are too lazy to enunciate clearly! They aren't much different than those Samaritan dogs they sleep next to," he said, with a sneer.

"You mean they both get up with the same fleas?" replied by brother, a hint of a smile on his haughty face.

"Excuse me," said a well-dressed boy whose vigorous walk had brought him up to my brother's elbow. Though no barley and dried fish bag hung from his shoulder, his words were spoken with a Galilean slur. Like “Escoos me.”

"Excuse me!" said the boy again, more forcefully. I gave him my full attention, something I rarely did. I liked to keep my life as muted as possible. I saw a short, sturdy boy, about my age, 10, his cheeks rosy with sun and with something else. Then I saw his eyes, eyes beaming with a passion I had never seen in my coolly civil household. They blazed into my brother's cold, distant ones. The challenge was unmistakable.

Next, I saw a flicker of fear move my brother's thin, pressed lips. Yes, it was fear I saw, even though my brother was a foot taller and several pounds heavier than the Galilean.

The boy continued. "The dogs wear the fleas in my family, and we don't lie down with them. Only you filthy Judean shepherds cuddle your animals at night."

In a flash, my cousin leaped in front of my brother, his face very close to the boy's. I guess the faint fishy smell coming from the boy's plain but good clothes didn't bother him. "How dare you talk to the grandson of the high priest like that, you mangy Galilean whelp! You had better learn to respect your betters, you filth-eating maggot!" and he punctuated his statement with a slap across the boy's defiant mouth.

Apparently, the boy wasn't ready for an education. He flung his muscular little body into my cousin's stomach with the ferocity of a mad dog, beating and kicking him with wild abandon. I forgot to mention that my cousin was fourteen, and, though not very athletic, big. Like most Sadducees who called Romans pagan vermin, he had spent some time wrestling in their baths. So, with some fairly well executed maneuvers, he finally managed to throw his leg into the boy’s churning ones, toppling him. But the boy scrambled to his feet in an instant and charged again, this time artlessly flinging his fists into my cousin's nose, which began to bleed.

Finally, my cousin recovered enough to use his weight. He started to beat the boy back. Clenching his fists, he pounded the smaller boy's face, landing blow after blow until the blood flowed freely from cuts in his lips and over his eyes. When I saw the boy's face again, it was thoroughly battered, but, if anything, even more jubilant than ever, as if this was the fight he had always looked for.

As his eyes swelled to narrow slits, the boy moved in steadily, taking the blows with that wild grin on his face. Then he leaped again, this time knocking my cousin, who was becoming entangled in his long, flowing robes, off balance.

Soon they were both rolling on the ground in uncontrolled fury-grunting, punching, kicking, biting, until, finally, using his Greek training, my cousin pinned the boy to the ground, crushing him with his considerable weight. It should have been over at that point, but the boy seemed to focus all his power in his neck for a resounding head butt—I can still hear that sound—like a hard wrap on a firm melon

Groaning in agony and holding his head tenderly, my cousin rolled off him. The boy, his legs now free and quickly upright, was a about to execute a well-placed kick to the groin when another boy stepped up from behind him and grabbed his shoulder with a grip to steady a bucking horse-how clearly I see that hand now, and that voice-how it resonates in my brain.

"John," said the older boy, very quiet but unmistakably commanding-it was unusually full for a boy's voice-"it's time to leave now. But first, you must ask this man's forgiveness."