Part one:

Saul was dressed in an expensive, imported robe. He was obviously a wealthy man. His hair gleamed and was heavy with Persian oil. His beard was trimmed short in a manner that was trendy among local Romans. He wore expensive jewelry, including a number of rings. One of them bore the mark of King Herod Antipas, for Saul was an official in his court. He stood with several other Herodians outside of Antipas’ palace in Jerusalem.

A group of Pharisees wearing simply adorned but elegant robes came down the street. They were huddled closely together and avoided contact with anyone walking near them. Their heads were wrapped with leather bands holding phylactery boxes on their foreheads. Their beards were long and flowing, as were the tassels dangling from the corners of their robes. They slowed as they approached Saul and the men with him. The two groups looked at each other warily.

Saul stepped forward and held out his forearm to one of the Pharisees, inviting a Roman handshake. He was refused, as expected. He winked at his friends.

“Hello Mathias.”

One of the Pharisees, apparently the leader, nodded.

Saul continued. “We don’t see you in this part of town often. I hope you didn’t brush against any loose women on your way here or dirty your clean robes on our common streets.”

The men behind him laughed, and the faces of the Pharisees tightened. Mathias spoke sharply in response.

“Always making jokes, Saul. Just like when we were boys, and you laughed after being thrown out of the synagogue for acts of wanton profanity. Still whoring for the Romans, are you? Still have your nose up the ass of that jackal Herod, may God smite him and all such lawbreakers and traitors.”

Several of the Herodians put their hands on their swords and stepped forward. The Pharisees neither laughed nor made any defensive move. They stood motionless. Saul held up his hand. He spoke a few sentences in Latin to the men behind him, and they relaxed. He turned back to Mathias with a smile on his face.

“Let us put this aside for now and deal with the problem at hand. We have considered the matter, and I think we have the perfect solution.”

He reached into a belt and pulled out a coin. He flipped it toward Mathias, who caught it, looked at it in his palm, and then dropped it as if it had burned him. The Pharisees looked at the silver denarius laying in the dust and took a step away from it. Mathias looked enraged, but he swallowed hard and forced a calm expression on his face.

“I’ll have to go home and wash now before I enter the Temple. Thank you so much, Saul. Is it not enough that you abandon the faith of our fathers? Do you also have to ridicule and pollute those of us who remain true to God?”

Saul stepped forward and retrieved the coin. He tossed it in the air and caught it again.

“All that fuss over a coin with the head of Caesar on it. It is not an idol. It is legal tender. Your religious ways are hopelessly outdated and irrelevant in the modern world. Still, it is precisely this reaction that will allow us to trap him. We’ll all go together to the temple tomorrow. Jesus will undoubtedly be speaking to his rabble near there. You can simply ask him if it is permissible under the law of Moses to pay taxes to Caesar or not. If he says yes, you can blather on about how he’s gone soft on the Roman question, or how he breaks the commandments without a second thought. Whatever you want to say. You can spin it however you like.”

“And if he says that it is not lawful to handle this money at all, much less pay taxes with it?”

Saul grinned. Malice glittered in his eyes.

“Then I will have him scourged and in the court before Herod within the hour. And that will be the last that anyone will hear from Jesus of Nazareth.”

rlp

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