Holidays - Seasons Greetings!

Down the road from Nain and Herod’s new city, Tiberias, thundering and clamping across the hard road of the plain there came a troop of Roman soldiers. These did not belong in the country, for no part of the land was, as yet, a Roman province; but they were continually coming and going either on errands from their masters, the governors of neighboring provinces, to Herod’s court, or they were passing through the country from Damascus and the eastern frontier to the sea. This troop, of about twenty men, was evidently on its way to Jerusalem, probably with dispatches for Herod; for had it been going to the sea it would have traveled by the road that ran back of Nazareth.

Without even drawing rein, the soldiers came hurtling in among the groups of men and women and children seated upon the ground at their meal. The terrified shouts of men, the screams of women as they caught up children from under the iron shoes of the horses, the high, frightened clamor of all, brought Mary quickly to her feet and sent her running back across the little stream toward the rest place.

Half the men of the troop had now dismounted and were kicking and cuffing the men, countrymen, merchants and strangers alike. With rough curses in the Coast Greek which all the East was now learning, the soldiers commanded water brought for their horses, and food.

While some men scurried to do the bidding of the soldiers, others edged sullenly out of the circle of the place, out of reach of spearheads, and stood angry and uncowed. These were the countrymen of Galilee, men of a yet unconquered race, who would be last of all Israel to be broken under the yoke of Rome.

The women still cried out in terror as they saw blows falling, and one child crying frightfully was heard above all the rest. A tall soldier, beating a Damascus pearl merchant with the flat of his sword, to hurry his service, stopped at the child’s shrill crying.

“I’ll stop him, mother,” he said gruffly. And before the terrified mother could turn away the child was snatched from her arms and swung high in the air. The tall soldier turned and shouted to a great red-bearded companion who still sat his horse, his spear flung carelessly across his thighs:

“Catch him on the spearhead, Titus Rufus.”

The red-bearded one brought his spear to position, and, even as the mother fell clutching at his knees, the tall soldier swung and tossed the child carelessly, with perfect aim, straight at the point of the spear.

At the last possible instant the red-bearded one raised the spear slightly, and deftly caught the child by an arm as the little body came flying toward him. Just as deftly, he tossed the child back to the mother where she lay upon the ground.

Mary stopped at the edge of the little circle, unable to move or cry out, her body and her will paralyzed in fright and mother horror.

The woman finding her baby again in her arms and unhurt swooned upon the ground. Mary ran forward picking the child up on one arm and kneeling to support the woman with the other. The soldiers stood, laughing roughly, but with a sort of coarse good nature. Then Mary looked up at them. Her eyes were lighted with the Motherhood of all the earth. The men did not know what it was they saw in that look of the Jewish maiden, but the rough laughter fled instantly from their faces. Awkwardly their eyes fell, and they turned away hastily to their business of food and drink.

Mary understood. They had not meant to harm the child. It was one of their tricks, a diversion. They had practiced it many many times, so that they did it expertly and with almost no danger to the child. From Spain in the distant west to the Euphrates that trick was acted. This woman, now opening her eyes from her faint and looking wildly around for the now quiet child, would never lose the fear of the Roman name. She would transmit it to generations unborn. If they had actually killed the child it might not have had upon this woman the effect of vague unreasoning fear that this play would have. And this man child: the tale would be told him until he would believe that he remembered it. He would even boast it to his fellows around the village well. He would grow up to hate Rome. But even in his boasting there would be that nameless, world-covering fear of that careless, ruthless power. Over all the world how many thousands of Roman soldiers had played that game of toss and catch! How many millions of mothers and men children would carry the memory of it through all their lives and breathe the terror of it into other lives!

Nazareth stood by the highway where men and armies of all the world came and went west and east. Mary knew the talk of her people. They were not a people shut in and narrowed to a belief that Jerusalem was the center of the world, as the people of Judea thought. She had never before seen Roman soldiers at so near a view, but her imagination, quickened now by suffering and much thinking, was able to construct the power of the mighty world empire out of the bearing and the looks of these men.

She saw them mount carelessly, without a look or a thought for the angry, vengeful men who stood about. She saw them ride on their way across the plain, and as she took up her journey behind them she somehow understood that her own life and her own problem had taken on a new breadth, a wider and more terrible aspect, from the sight of these men.

Her King was to sit on the throne of David, and He was to rule the world. But how could He rule the world, how, even, could He come to the throne of David while that mighty, engulfing power of Rome existed to throttle the earth? With sudden insight, she saw the grip of Rome on all the world and she knew that there could be no king of Israel, there could be no real king anywhere unless that king should first conquer Rome.

She did not foresee all that was to come. She did not perceive the three centuries of blood and stake and un-ending martyrdom that must come before her King should conquer Rome. But the horizons of her vision moved out almost illimitably in those few moments while she watched the flying troop. She understood that her King was not destined for the mere work of liberating the Jewish nation. Only the little and narrowing traditions and views of the people had reduced Him to that. Mary saw that He must indeed be the Prince of the whole world. She understood, with trembling, that there could be no truce, no peace, between Him and this tremendous Power of the West. The struggle would be a death grip between the two.

Her King must stand in the light of the entire world, with the entire world, Rome, against Him!

It was another of those things to be kept in her heart. She hurried onward, feeling more than ever the weight and the terrible loneliness of her soul under all these things. More than ever did she need and hunger for that other woman, that woman who would understand.

She traveled swiftly, for her heart was drawn by its need, and she was not burdened by the innumerable bundles which other foot travelers of the road carried. The East, then as now, was continually on the move, on visit or ceremonial; and usually it traveled in families and carried a large part of its household goods with it. Mary passed opulence snailing along in ox carts, and poverty, abject but patient and cheerful, staggering on under its meager, string-tied possessions. As she saw the sun declining toward the hills of Dothan, she was minded that it would be wise for her to attach herself to one of these humble family parties that she might have the protection of their company for the night. But her haste would not accommodate itself to the easy, shuffling pace of those whom she passed; and, too, the solitude, the calm and peace which the road had given her had become very dear. She was loath to have it broken by chatter and explanations with people who would not understand the necessity of this long, lone journey of hers.