Part one post was titled Letter From the Wife of Pontius Pilate
Now at this time, we had acquaintance with one Jairus, a ruler of the synagog. When Pontius would argue with him his philosophy I would sit in the women’s court where the fountain is and embroider upon my veils with his wife Salome. They had an only child, Smedia. She had then just reached her twelfth year and was lovely as dawn roses which in all the world grow only in Jerusalem.
When Pontius spread out his hands against the argument of Jairus, I in my loneliness listened to Salome. First in my court, then many times on her own roof, she whispered to me of one Jesus, a carpenter of Nazareth who walked among these people, healing the sick, curing lepers, making the dumb cry out, the blind to see. And now He had made a lame child leap up whole. A lame child, O Fulvia!
Now others, unbelievers, politicians, the Pharisees themselves, began to talk of this Jesus. Herod told us He had taken a tribute piece from a fish’s mouth, and laughed heartily and so did all. Then they said He raised a man of Bethany from the dead. Now all in Jerusalem rang with this Jesus. But in his discourse was no miracle, only healing of empty cleverness with simple truth.
Salome said He said, “You must become as a little child to know God.” But Pontius forbade us, or any of the household, to approach Jesus, for Pontius was very learned, nor would he wish to become as a child. When once I pleaded he put me by with, “Yes, yes I know, this Jesus has turned water into wine; He multiplied a few loaves and fishes to feed many; He disappeared out of a crowded room, but so the conjurers of the East have done. Let Him show me how it is done so I myself may do these things, and when I do them I may believe. I want truth, not trickery. Hold thyself, Claudia Procula, very high; thou art a Roman’s wife.”
But now I pitied Pontius. He had many cares and a very lean look. His rulings took him often from us, and then he lost his taste for life itself as one who, grown arid among his parchments could not see what was real before himself. Many wise men are so , Fulvia.
Then a strange sickness fell upon us that summer. Its malice gathered with the heat. Particularly it wasted children with a torpor life of death itself. So it numbed my boy. He thinned, whitened, and fell. Even Pontius was roused. He sent runners to Athens, to Alexandria, to Rome itself, for drafts. And the weakness increased. Now the gentle sweetness of my boy was scarcely of Earth. I trembled. Then the child of Jairus and Salome was stricken, and quickly. The night Smedia died the physicians also turned away from my boy’s couch.
Pontius, to meet the end, closeted himself with his Stoics. I was alone with my dying Pilo, and his tutor, Mata, a Greek slave to Pontius. Now Mata pressed a tablet into my hand. It was from Jairus. It said, “Jesus will come to Smedia, even dead. Do tou bring Pilo.” A faint trembling light shot into my soul. All else had failed. My child’s last breath was almost burned out. Could He, this Jesus, save my son?
Scarcely knowing it was my own voice, my arms, my substantial self, I followed Mata. He held Pilo very gently and glided softly, swiftly, into the dawn, like a shadow with a shadow. I had not known it but Mata as a follower of Jesus. But when we came to the street of Jairus our chariot could not proceed farther, the crowd was so great.
Mata would not have us known imperially, so I stood heavily veiled as a mourner. Thus I was slowly given passage through the outer wailers and the flute players and the many poor, and those fisherfolk who follow Jesus, and those Pharisees and Scribes who seek the more to trap Him in treason against Caesar.
These would give me no entrance beyond the vestibule, for they wished no witnesses. But O Fulvia, to have gained thus far, and now to fail my chance to ask for Pilo his life of Jesus! Then at the head of the stairway I saw Jairus. Before the authority of his hand a way opened upward. But when I was at the bedchamber door Jairus quickly withdrew, and I could only wait there, pressed, agonizing.
To be continued on Sunday the 9th.
Lisa Y. Life Coach
www.facebook.com/lisaylifecoach