“…Some Passerby With A Jug.”
Posting #2.
“…Vasilisa woke up with a jolt, and the first thing
he heard was a mouse with her family working on
a bag of biscuits in the pantry.
Scram!
– he yelled at the determined mouse.”
M. A. Bulgakov. White
Guard.
I
am now turning to a very interesting conversation between Pontius Pilate and
Caiaphas in the 2nd chapter of Master
and Margarita.
To
the procurator’s threat: “Watch yourself, High Priest!” – Caiaphas responds:
“You are threatening me… We
are accustomed to the Roman Procurator choosing his words carefully… What if we
are overheard, Igemon?
Pilate looked at the High Priest with dead eyes and scowling,
produced an impression of a smile. –
What are you saying, High Priest?
Who can hear us here? Do I look like the young wandering fool who is going to
be executed today? Am I a boy, Caiaphas? I know what I say and where I say it.
The garden is cordoned off so well that even a mouse cannot get into any kind
of hole! Forget a mouse! Not even that what’s his name – from the town of
Kyriath… Incidentally, do you know him, High Priest? Yes, if one like that got
inside here, he would regret it bitterly! You do believe me of course?” [Needless
to say, Pilate is talking about Judas here.]
And
so, the first conclusion: The garden and the palace were cordoned off, but the
procurator does not say by whom. As for the platform where the procurator stood
with his secretary, Caiaphas, and Synhedrion members, “the
cleared space was secured by a triple row of Sebaste soldiers on the left hand
of Pilate and the soldiers of the Igurean Auxiliary Cohort on the right, who
were holding the crowd off.”
Bulgakov
also mentions the “legionnaires” untying the freed Varravan and “the convoy”
already leading the three condemned prisoners (Dimas, Gestas, Yeshua), their
hands tied, toward the side steps.
Bulgakov
also gives a lot of attention to the “Syrian Ala” which I’m writing about in
another chapter (The Bard: Genesis).
In
order to better figure out everything, I am moving into the 16th
chapter of Master and Margarita: The
Execution.
From
the very beginning of the chapter, Bulgakov details one after another which
military units approach the Bald Mountain. The Syrian Ala gets there first,
followed by the 2nd Cohort of the Lightning Legion, the latter
having lost part of its title in the bustle, namely, the Twelfth Lightning
Legion.
I
have already explained that the word “Twelfth” points to the Russian poet A. A.
Blok of the Silver Age, who died in the same August 1921 as N. S. Gumilev.
Bulgakov
writes:
“...At last came the Centuria under the command of Mark Ratkiller.
It marched stretched in two chains along the edges of the road. Between these
two chains, under the convoy of the secret guard, went the cart with the three
condemned men wearing white boards on their necks, each saying: ‘Ruffian and Rebel,’ in two languages:
Aramaic and Greek…”
Bulgakov
gives a detailed description of the whole procession:
“…Behind the cart carrying the condemned, moved other carts loaded
with freshly hewn poles and crossbeams, ropes, spades, pails, and axes. Riding
in these carts were the six executioners…”
And
where was Mark Ratkiller in all that? The reader will find soon enough.
Contrary
to the accepted opinion that the Romans nailed the crucified to crosses, there
is sufficient evidence that the condemned were tied with ropes to poles with
crossbeams, which would become known as crosses.
Bulgakov
writes:
“...Behind the carts with six executioners rode on horseback
Centurion Mark Ratkiller, the Chief of the Temple Guard of Yershalaim, and that
same man in a hood with whom Pilate had had a brief conference in a darkened
room in the palace [Afranius]. Closing the procession was a soldier chain.”
Thus
we see that Mark Ratkiller holds a sufficiently high position. To begin with,
he is close to the Procurator of Judea and to other ranking officials, such as
the Chief of the Secret Guard and the Chief of the Temple Guard. Remarkably, in
the Gospel of Mark (15:43-45) in the New Testament we find this:
“Joseph of Arimathaea, an honorable counselor,
which also waited for the kingdom of God, came, and went in boldly unto Pilate,
and craved the body of Jesus.
And Pilate marveled if he were already
dead: and calling unto him the centurion, he asked him whether he had been any
while dead.
And when he knew it of the centurion, he
gave the body to Joseph.”
So,
this is where Bulgakov took the name Mark [Ratkiller] from. It is also from
here that Bulgakov takes the story of Pontius Pilate and the centurion. The
researchers of the New Testament are all in agreement that the Gospel of Mark
is the earliest of the Gospels.
What
now remains is to draw the reader’s attention to the following lines in the 16th
chapter of the novel Master and
Margarita: The Execution:
“…Ascending the mountain in the fifth hour of the ruffians’ torment
was the Cohort Commander arriving from Yershalaim. Mark Ratkiller, walking in
the vicinity of the group of executioners, noticed the arrival of the cohort
commander, gesticulated to his soldiers the order to open the cordon. The chain
was instantly opened and Ratkiller saluted the tribune. The newcomer took
Ratkiller aside and whispered something to him. The centurion saluted the
tribune a second time and moved toward the group of the executioners sitting on
the stones at the foot of the poles. Ratkiller disdainfully looked askance at
the dirty rags lying on the ground under the poles, which recently had been the
criminals’ clothes discarded by the executioners, and called up two of them,
ordering them: Follow me!”
Having
allowed Yeshua, Dimas, and the driven-mad Gestas to drink from a soaked sponge,
all three were summarily killed by the executioner’s lance piercing their
hearts. Hence such an emphasis on the heart in the novel Master and Margarita. Bulgakov writes:
“...The man in the hood [Afranius] followed in the tracks of the
executioner and the Centurion [Ratkiller], behind him the Chief of the Temple
Guard, announcing that all three condemned men were dead. After that the
tribune made a sign to the centurion [Ratkiller], and turning away, started his
descent from the top of the mountain together with the Chief of the Temple
Guard and the man in the hood [Afranius].”
The
storm came. Bulgakov writes:
“Semi-darkness fell, and lightnings were plowing the black sky All
of a sudden fire burst out of it, and the centurion’s cry: Lift the cordon! drowned in the crashing sound. Happy soldiers
started running downhill, putting on their helmets. Darkness closed on
Yershalaim.”
There
is plenty of material here already that we can be working with, which we are
going to do when the next posting comes out.
To
be continued…
***
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