# Lazarus, a tale of the world's great miracle/Chapter 19

CHAPTER XIX.
THE Sanhedrim had been called together; and more, it was not without disquietude that Caiaphas had appeared in the midst of the assembly. Jerusalem was convulsed by the events of the preceding day. Lazarus was alive again to swell the ranks of Christ's supporters and the High Priest's opponents.
"Our enemies are multiplied," Caiaphas had said unctuously to Nicodemus, and the latter had answered with significance: "Yea, methinks they are too strong for us."
In the privacy of his own chamber, with none but Annas to hear his asseverations of what he meant to do, the infuriated accents of his oaths, the mingled scorn and terror of his remarks, Caiaphas gave up all pretence of being actuated by religious fervour or noble impulses.
"Yes, if I be eternally damned, if Satan claim me for his own, if this be the Christ, the very Son of God, yet He shall perish, for that He hath striven to contend with me, to pervert the nation, to insult the teachers of the law, of whom I am chief. Dost not fear, Annas, thou who art the father of many priests, that if this Man once gain the mastery all priesthood shall be ended? What need of priests, if a common carpenter can come and teach in our ​synagogues and flout us? Thou and I, Annas, may go and live in some mean cottage in Nazareth, for it seemeth that out of that village cometh greatness. Thinkest with me, Annas?"
"I think," said Annas, talking for once without prevarication and without affectation, but with the experience of age and many years in a position of responsibility, "that, in thy hate of the Nazarene thou dost make too much of this thing."
"Hate? Thou hast well said hate, Annas," retorted Caiaphas, in his anger forgetting all but his own malevolence. "I hate Him for His presumptuous teachings, for His scheming and pretended simple ways that do entangle this foolish Jewish people. Doth He think, because He cajoleth fools and beggars with His quackeries, that I, great Caiaphas, can be deceived? Ah! He shall see yet who is the stronger. He shall yet learn that those who cross the path of the High Priest are but brushed aside."
And Caiaphas made a gesture as though he raised and tossed aside some obstacle from his path. No offended elephant waiting to tusk his enemy, then seize him in his trunk and hurl him into the air, could have presented a more terrible aspect of rage and fury. Annas's heart recoiled within him at the remembrance that this man was the husband of his daughter.
"Poor Rebekah, methinks she too must suffer," he murmured.
Then, while the two men were preparing to leave the room, gathering up parchments, placing others aside, there rose on the air once more the cries of: ​"Lazarus is risen, Lazarus is risen!" which all through the night had whipped Caiaphas's blood into foaming waves of fury.
"It seemeth to me that if thou dost murder one the other will still remain," said Annas, shrugging his shoulders; "for, whether Lazarus was really dead or not, I know not; but now he liveth. Of that there is no doubt."
"Call it not murder," answered Caiaphas, "because a blasphemer shall meet His just reward. Wouldst thou, too, be a believer?" he added scoffingly.
"I believe not that He is the Christ," replied Annas seriously; "but I do believe that 't is a man of hidden power. We know not how or whence; perhaps of Satan, or who knoweth? And I think that we must use caution, lest some hidden danger spring upon us."
Caiaphas looked at him for one moment, as if debating whether he had gone mad; for the voice of Annas was the only one he ever listened to, the advice of Annas the sole advice he ever followed. Perhaps no man in Jerusalem was so much the counterpart of his own vileness.
"What thinkest thou then, Annas?" he said impatiently.
"I hardly know," replied the older man. "If thou wouldst have me tell thee what I would have done had I still remained High Priest, and such strange event befallen in my reign," here he lowered his voice, "I would have had Him caught by stealth and murdered, for to make a sacrifice of a man is ever to make him a martyr. To make a ​public function of an execution is ever to run danger of division amongst the people; and with one who could raise Lazarus, be it by chicanery or not—I know not, and whether Lazarus were dead or not, I know not, nor will know—yet, methinks the man must needs have power who can do this thing, whether by God's assistance or Satan's magic; and, since there is such stir about the death of Lazarus, a lesser ruler of the Synagogue, surely there will be threefold over the death of one who calleth Himself the Son of God."
Caiaphas was silent. It seemed as though these wise words of Annas carried conviction to him, but that ambition forbade such secret dismissal of the man he hated. The people had believed in Him. The people should see who was the more powerful. The man who had publicly denounced the law should perish by the law. A public example should be made, and Judaea should for ever be rid of the possibility of a reappearance of such fanatics. The world must be freed from all such mischief-makers.
"Thou wouldst have them say that I, Caiaphas, am afraid?" he asked, shrugging his shoulders. "No, it is the people's voice, the voice of them who seemed to follow Him, that shall condemn," he went on, growing fiercer and more sullen. "If He be the Son of God, let His God save Him!" Then suddenly clutching the old man by the arm and placing his coarse lips close to his slowly deafening ears, he said: "I will not be dictated to by Pontius Pilate."
Here indeed he struck home, for it was through Pontius Pilate that Annas had been bereft of his ​High Priestship. "His mumbling words reach not the people's ears," Pilate had said in rough jocoseness to Tiberius; and so Annas had been deposed, and, to blunt the edge of his disappointment, his kinsman appointed in his place.
The two hurried along the street to the council chamber, already packed with all the rulers of the Synagogue, and all the chief priests and high officials.
While the two were walking through the crowd, the people pointed and hooted at them, and hoarse cries of: "Lazarus, Lazarus!" continually reached their ears.
Pontius Pilate, contrary, to his usual custom, was not present, a fact that gave great satisfaction to Caiaphas. A heated discussion at once began. It was evident that, in the face of such a miracle, two courses alone were open. One, the impossible one to the law-eaten, power-seeking Pharisees, that of acknowledging the God-given power of a good man, if not the divinity of the Son of God; the other, to lose no further time in putting Him to death. Nay, more, the Sadducees went so far as to say that Lazarus must also be destroyed.
"He is a living witness of this thing," said one; and Caiaphas shrugged his shoulders in impatience.
"Ye do speak as if this were indeed a miracle and Lazarus had been dead," he said.
"Nevertheless, this Man doeth many miracles."
"What shall we do?" said another.
Then Nicodemus, resolving to make one last attempt to use his high position for the service of the Lord, rose up and said: "Surely ye would not slay ​Lazarus. Yet, if the Nazarene be slain, will not all the people and Lazarus tell still of His great deeds?"
Caiaphas shot a glance of wrath at him.
But Nicodemus continued speaking: "What harm doeth He? Let us leave Him alone. Surely the State hath nations that do war against her, and many enemies; she needeth not to war against one man. Let Him alone."
Then, while no one uttered aught, as though his words were taking effect, the voice of Annas rose on the silence, for there must needs be silence to hear the old man's voice.
"If we let Him thus alone, all men will believe in Him, and the Romans shall come and take away both our place and nation."
Caiaphas shot a look of approval and gratitude at Annas. He recognised the diplomacy of the remark. Annas had profited by Pontius Pilate's absence to cast a slur on the intentions of the governing race. Yet, if Pontius Pilate should come to hear of this, it could not be said that Caiaphas the High Priest had pronounced the words. Annas had spoken well and tersely, and Caiaphas's countenance beamed with sated craft.
But Pontius Pilate was, in a sense, popular, and there were many in the building who owed place and power to him, and resented the covert attack on the good faith of the Procurator. His absence, too, had filled their minds with uneasiness. Perhaps an open rupture was to come between Caiaphas and the Roman Governor; then woe betide those who had sided against Cæsar's viceroy! These and many other reflections crossed the minds of the more temperate of ​the Pharisaical party, many of whom were friends of Lazarus and Nicodemus.
Here and there a voice rose, crying out: "He is not worthy of death."
Then Caiaphas, with that arrogant impatience which, from its very daring, so often carried the day, exclaimed roughly, insultingly: "Ye know nothing at all. Who are ye to set yourselves against the prophecy of one who is of the lineage of Aaron? Have I not prophesied to you that it is expedient for one man to die for the people, and that the whole nation perish not? If this man live, the nations of God will run hither and thither to seek after vain preachers; but, if He die, they will gather themselves together in one fold henceforward, in patient obedience to the laws of Moses. To save one man's life will ye sacrifice a nation? Will ye not rather by one man's death deliver all the children of God?"
Silence, that unwilling silence that might yet be intrepreted as consent, reigned in the building for some moments, while one after another those who were against the condemnation of the Nazarene, yet felt themselves powerless to oppose the will of Caiaphas, rose and left the council, hoping thereby to show their disapproval. Caiaphas followed each with eyes that gleamed with satisfaction.
"Cowards!" he muttered from his place. "Cowards!" despising the very characteristic that yet caused his satisfaction. "They dare not gainsay me."
The exit of these people was followed by a sudden buzzing of voices, murmuring, arguing, expostulating.
​Yet all who remained felt that, by doing so, they owned themselves convinced; many indeed were partisans of Caiaphas.
Then, seeing the moment of his victory come, Caiaphas rose and addressed the council: "Men of Israel, Rulers, Chief Priests, Sadducees; I see that ye are ready to quit you like men and not allow this agitator to provoke the people. Is it, then, agreed that an order go forth to capture this wily Man and to bring Him before Pilate for examination?"
Purposely the cunning Caiaphas omitted the word condemnation. To bring the Nazarene before Pontius Pilate did not necessarily mean to condemn Him to death; albeit that Caiaphas knew that the one would lead to the other; but the artful ignoring of the words that would imply the Saviour's sentence carried the day with those he was addressing.
"Yes, we are agreed," they shouted. "Let Him have fair hearing before Pilate." And hastily, lest fresh objections should be raised or conditions made, to give no time for the tide of political assent to turn, Caiaphas descended the steps of the Tribunal and hurried away, leaving Annas to conclude the business of the day.
And that day an order was published throughout Jerusalem and all Judæa, including Galilee, that if any one set eyes on the Nazarene, He should be brought before Pilate.
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