Judgment: Wrath of the Lamb Read online

  Simon added, “The civil war will destroy this city from within, making it easy prey for Roman desolation. We need to convince the factions to unite against a common enemy.”

  Simon caught Aaron’s look of disappointment. The Essene monk knew Simon was lying. He knew that any plan Simon had for uniting with Gischala was only so that he could get close enough to kill him. Had the young monk not been so loyal to him, he would have called Simon out by now.

  The cynical general owed him for that.

  Simon said to the others, “I can still leave before the legions fully secure the city. And those who want to die fighting an impossible battle are free to stay and do so.”

  Simon hadn’t figured out yet how he might get at Titus. He would deal with that when the opportunity came.

  For now, he just wanted to kill Gischala.

  CHAPTER 7

  Caesarea Maritima

  Julia Berenice watched Flavius Titus reading the Greek scroll of the Apocalypse as he stood beside her brother Herod Agrippa and the captive Jewish general Flavius Josephus. They were in the assembly room of the Herodian palace in the city, just the four of them and their messenger.

  Titus’s brow was scrunched with incredulity at what he was reading out loud. “Then I saw heaven opened and behold, a white horse. The one sitting on it judges and makes war. His eyes are like a flame of fire, and on his head are many diadems. He will rule the nations with a rod of iron and will tread the winepress of the fury of the wrath of God Almighty.”

  He stopped and looked at twenty-two-year-old Thelonius Rufus Severus, who had brought him the scroll along with intelligence on the Christian community. “And this unnamed ‘King of kings and Lord of lords’ is supposed to be the Nazarene Jesus whom they call Messiah?”

  “Yes,” said Thelonius.

  “But you say they are not part of the Jewish revolt?”

  “No, my lord, they are not. What you read is a symbolic picture of what happens in the heavenly realm. They believe that their God is commanding the armies of Rome from heaven to do his will and destroy Jerusalem.”

  Titus read from the scroll again. “Yet, they believe that those armies are gathered to make war against him who was on the white horse. How can they be fighting against him when they are doing his will?”

  “It is how they see the sovereignty of their God. He puts into the hearts of his enemies the very desire to carry out his purpose without them even knowing it.”30

  Titus looked at Josephus, who confessed, “I cannot deny that is how our Scriptures speak of the deity. I have openly said to you that I believe our God has gone over to the Romans. You are God’s instrument of righteous judgment upon Israel. But the Christians are appropriating the concept and twisting it to their delusions.”31

  Josephus was a Pharisee who had led a Jewish army against Rome. But when he was captured, he had offered to help Vespasian try to convince the Jews to surrender in order to avoid total destruction.

  Titus looked back at Thelonius. “But after this god of theirs puts it in their hearts to war, then he judges them for it?” asked the legate.

  Thelonius shrugged yes.

  “That is a Christian lie,” Josephus interjected. “I still believe Vespasian is God’s Anointed One, the Messiah.”32

  Josephus’s name had originally been Joseph ben Matthias, but when he had been captured by Vespasian, he had prophesied that the general would be become both emperor and Messiah. Such flattery had rewarded him with adoption into the Flavian family with his new name of Flavius Josephus.

  Titus looked again at the Apocalypse scroll and spit out, “Religious nonsense.” He threw the scroll down onto the table. “But you have discharged your duty to me, Thelonius. So I suppose I owe you my side of the bargain.”

  Thelonius bowed and said, “My lord.”

  Berenice saw Titus nod to a soldier, who left the room.

  Thelonius was the son of Lucius Aurelius Severus, a Vigile prefect of Rome whom Nero had commanded to find the Apocalypse when he heard it prophesied the end of the world and assassination of the emperor. Nero had blamed the Great Fire of Rome on the Christians because of their language of fiery judgment. He had used that as a pretext to hunt Christians down in a systematic persecution that lasted until the emperor’s death three and a half years later. Severus had disappeared while trying to find the Apocalypse, and Nero had never received the information he sought.

  Once the Flavians ascended to power, Titus had tracked down Severus’s son Thelonius and tried to find out what happened to Severus as well as where the Christians were, still believing them to be part of the revolt against the empire. When Thelonius claimed to have no knowledge of his father’s whereabouts or activities, Titus had seized his fiancé, daughter of a Roman patrician, holding her hostage until Thelonius should finish his father’s commission, uncovering the intelligence Titus sought on the Christians. Pretending to be a believer, Thelonius had infiltrated the Christian community in Jerusalem. He’d even led some orphans to the city of Pella in the mountains where the Christians had fled to safety.

  That was over a year ago. Thelonius had lied to the Christians in Pella that he was returning to Jerusalem. Instead, he’d returned to Titus in Caesarea with a scroll of the Apocalypse and intelligence on the whereabouts of the Christians. Then Nero had died, and Titus had put a temporary hold on the war. He’d kept Thelonius in custody in case he needed him again.

  He no longer needed him. The Christians were still in Pella where Thelonius had said they were. The son of Severus had betrayed the Christians to save his fiancé. That woman, Livia Marcella Bantius, was presently being escorted into the room by the soldier Titus had sent for her.

  She was a beautiful young seventeen-year-old with blond hair and large, bold eyes. Her youth and innocence took Berenice back in time to less complicated days. Days now long gone and destroyed by the responsibilities of life—and politics. Berenice felt like an ugly old hag as she saw her lover Titus stare at the young girl.

  At forty-two years of age, Berenice was long past marriageable, but she had kept her beauty and was still able to seduce men like Titus who wanted a woman of maturity and experience over mere childish flesh. Still, age and society were far harsher on women than on men. Even the most privileged of the female sex like Berenice saw their status diminish rapidly with age. And Berenice knew that time was running out for her ambition of becoming empress of Rome.

  Berenice was brought out of her thoughts by Livia standing with Thelonius. They had been allowed to cohabit together this last year while waiting for Titus to release them. Berenice’s heart melted for the young lovers, for the love she had lost, for the love she would never know.

  Titus announced, “I release you from my custody. There is a ship leaving for Rome this evening. You may take it and return home. Get married and enjoy Flavian rule.”

  “Thank you, Caesar,” said Thelonius. “I am indebted to your grace.”

  Titus left the room announcing, “I have a taurobolium in the camp. I know how you Jews feel about other religions. I do not require your attendance, but you are welcome.”

  A taurobolium was a pagan blood ritual of the Mithras religion of the legions.

  Berenice noticed her brother Agrippa staring lasciviously at her with a smile. He had been conspicuously quiet this whole time, but she knew that he knew exactly what she was feeling. He knew her soul inside and out. Her fears, her ambitions, her desires. He knew her too well. He knew too much. It unnerved her.

  After Titus, Josephus, and the two young captives were out of the room, Agrippa whispered seductively to her, “Family love never ages, Berenice. Nor loyalty. Do not forget that. Even if you never become empress, you will always be my sister, my queen.”

  As his sister, Berenice was a princess who ruled over the Jews in the line of Herod. Herods were hated by Jews because they were Edomites from the detested line of Esau. But their great-grandfather Herod the Great had secured their dynastic rule over Judea in the d
ays of Julius Caesar. And so, though they were hated by most Jews, nevertheless they ruled.

  Agrippa and Berenice had an unconventional love between brother and sister. The kind that the world was too ignorant and backward to understand in her enlightened estimation. She had always used her God-given female sexuality to advance her interests in this world dominated by males who were slaves to their libido.

  But with her current interest in Titus, something had changed in her. She began to push Agrippa away. Reject his advances. She knew she couldn’t do so much longer because in one sense he was right. She had to be loyal to her own. She had to maintain the Herodian dynasty, their future.

  And sometimes that required doing things she didn’t want to do. Doing things she hated.

  Leaving Agrippa, she walked after the others, tossing whimsically back over her shoulder, “Well, my brother, you will always be my brother. But remember to respect me because one day I may be your empress.”

  In the unseen realm, Apollyon and Azazel followed Titus and the other human leaders out to the legionary camp along with the Canaanite gods who had returned from their search through the Land.

  Azazel spoke with surprise to his overlord. “Of course. It makes perfect sense now. Michael is the guardian prince of Israel. But if the Jewish nation is apostate, then only the remnant believers in Messiah are his chosen people.”

  “Exactly,” replied Apollyon. “And that is why Michael is at Pella, not Jerusalem. He rises up to protect his holy ones in hiding: the Christians.”

  Azazel said, “That leaves Jerusalem completely unguarded.”

  “Do not have such a one-track mind,” chided Apollyon. “I have plans for Michael and his holy ones. Oh, I have plans.”

  CHAPTER 8

  Berenice and Agrippa stood in the dusty middle of the Roman camp outside the city of Caesarea Maritima. A large area had been cleared, and hundreds of soldiers assembled to watch Titus perform a Mithraic ritual before them all: taurobolium.

  Mithras was the god of the Roman legions. He was a muscular warrior deity who was born from a celestial rock, had slayed a sacred bull, and shared in a banquet feast with the Sun. The slaughter of the bull, called the tauroctony, was a picture of the creation of the cosmos. And the taurobolium was a ritual of rebirth for the welfare of the emperor.

  Titus approached a large pit in the ground. He wore a silk white toga with its right sleeve thrown over his left shoulder and a golden crown on his head. Designated as Caesar in charge of Vespasian’s forces, Titus was about to be baptized for the task ahead of him.

  Agrippa leaned in to Berenice and whispered, “Sister, are you sure you want to observe this?”

  She gave him a dirty look and returned to watching the ceremony. The truth was that she was not sure. Mithraism was a brutal military cult with origins in Persian mythology. It wasn’t the blood sacrifice that bothered her. Jews had their own such sacrifices. It was the idolatry of it all. But it could very well be her future with the son of Vespasian and heir to the throne. She swallowed and forced herself to keep watching.

  Titus descended into the pit via a ramp cut into the ground. The top of the pit was covered with slats of wood with punctured holes in them. Through the entrance ramp, Berenice could see Titus kneeling in the pit.

  Several priests dressed in white robes led a large sacred bull onto the wooden covering up top. It was draped with garlands of flowers, and its horns were sheathed with gold like the golden crown on Caesar.

  With a casual quickness, one of the priests used a sacred spear to pierce the breast of the bull in its heart. The black beast jerked at first in reaction, but the ropes tying it down held firm. It dropped to its knees on the wooden slats, then rolled to its side.

  Blood poured from its dying heart onto the wood and through the punctured holes down upon the body of the prayerful Titus. He raised his hands to the bull and lifted his face, receiving the baptism of blood, even drinking in what spilled on his lips.33

  Blood was never consumed in Hebrew sacrifices. For Jews, the life was in the blood, so they were not to consume it but only to use it as a substitute for their own life. Drinking the blood was abominable to Jews. Berenice turned her eyes away.34

  “I don’t blame you, sister,” whispered Agrippa. “It is idolatry. But you had better get used to it if you want to achieve your ambitions. They have just as many festivals and ceremonies as we do, but to their pantheon of gods. Jupiter, Mars, Venus, Neptune, Diana. It’s hard to keep them all straight. So much easier having just one god to deal with, wouldn’t you say?”

  His teasing angered her. He liked to get under her skin. To make her feel unsure or overwhelmed so that she might rely more on him.

  He added, “Maybe you and I should try some divination to help prepare you for your future. I can get some pigs and chickens, and we can cut them open, feel their entrails and organs to find omens for the future.”

  Such superstitions were ridiculous. But he was right. She would have to go along with a whole host of deplorable rituals, most of which were forbidden in the Torah. Some of them were even called “abominations.”

  Berenice shivered with disgust. She had learned the fine art of compromise from her Herodian upbringing, but sometimes it weighed on her conscience. What integrity did she have? What conviction? Did she believe in anything or nothing? Herods sought power and dynasty. So in the end, did that make power their ultimate deity? The emptiness gnawed at her soul.

  She saw Titus walk out of the pit, his hands held out in godlike welcome, his face and white toga drenched red. The thousands of soldiers surrounding the pit cheered and yelled with hands saluted outward, “Hail, Caesar! Hail, Caesar!”

  In sharing his father’s title, Titus represented the emperor himself, a god. And Berenice knew Titus reveled in the glory. She’d been hopeful when Vespasian had given parting advice to his son to avoid total desolation in his campaign on Jerusalem. Vespasian knew the political ramifications of destroying the heart and soul of the nation. He could lose the Jews as a client state. Yes, they would be enslaved, but they would not be loyal and would remain a thorn in the flesh of the empire.

  Titus looked at Berenice and Agrippa, then turned to walk up to a host of tribunes standing next to the Herods.

  The blood-soaked general called out, “Quintus Magnus.”

  A grizzly one-eyed centurion with graying sideburns stepped forward to attention. “Yes, Caesar.” Everything about the man screamed indomitable, even the eye patch. It wasn’t a covering of wounded weakness but a badge of marauding experience and meanness.

  Titus wiped at blood dripping into his eyes and said, “I commission you to take the First Cohort of eight hundred soldiers to the city of Pella in the Transjordan. Find the Christians and kill them all.”

  The centurion stiffened with salute and barked again, “Yes, Caesar.” He turned to gather his men.

  Berenice shared a look of concern with Agrippa. Until now, the Roman general had not displayed such animus against the Christians. She had actually thought he wouldn’t bother carrying through on Nero’s plans precisely to distance himself from the previous emperor. This was a bad sign. Titus still considered the Christians to be an outgrowth of the Jews, that they were both of the same root. So if he would do this to stamp out the Christians, then her own people did not have much hope of mercy either.35

  She felt nauseous at the thought of it. And she began to formulate her plans for how she might stop him.

  In the unseen realm at the Roman camp, Apollyon summoned the gods of Canaan to his side: Ba’al, Asherah, Dagon, and Molech.

  “This is your land,” he said. “Go with the Roman cohort and take it back.”

  Ba’al, the mighty storm god, spoke up, “My lord, why do you require all of us?”

  “Because Michael will be there, so you will need all the divine power you can summon in the Land.”

  The Canaanite deities glanced nervously at each other.

  “Will you grant me Driver and C
haser?” Ba’al asked. These were the names of Ba’al’s two weapons of power—a war hammer and lightning spear. In the hands of any warrior, they were devastating. In the hands of Ba’al, they could become tools of uncontrollable power. And because Apollyon had previously bound Ba’al’s sister Anat into the Abyss for plotting a coup, he could not trust Ba’al before the final battle.

  “Not yet,” Apollyon answered the storm god. “When you get to Jerusalem.”

  “Yes, my lord,” said Ba’al with a bowed head.

  Apollyon watched closely for any hint of reaction. He saw only submission. The storm god was not as devious or calculated as his sister had been.

  “I have complete confidence in your ability to accomplish the task,” Apollyon flattered Ba’al.

  “But, my lord,” complained Molech. “We need all the advantage we can get. Michael is the mightiest of the heavenly host of Yahweh. We don’t know how many others he will have with him.”

  Apollyon grinned. “And that is why I am sending you, the strongest of this Land, against him. If all of you cannot take him down, then you are not worthy to fight at Armageddon.”

  They all accepted the chastisement.

  “You will do fine,” he concluded. “I have faith in you.”

  The Canaanite gods did not appear so confident.

  He tried to inspire them. “Ba’al and Asherah, you ruled as husband and wife over apostate Israel from the judges to Josiah. Dagon, your Philistines made magnificent trouble for King David. You almost crushed him.”

  “Almost,” complained Dagon.

  “And you, Molech,” said Apollyon, “You brought child sacrifice to Israel when no one else could.”

  Molech smiled, self-satisfied, his eyes glittering with thoughts of the heinous things he loved to do to children in the valley of Hinnom, also known as Gehenna.

  “You are all principalities and powers over this land and her rulers.”