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.Acrid smoke got in eyes and nostrils, as much those of the Syrian escort as of the crowd, most of which read this as a new and somewhat brutal mode of rejoicing.Young men, cushioned from yelling Syrian military by staid and bewildered visitors to the city, got at Caleb’s roped wrists and freed them with a pair of knives, and the crosspiece fell and caused stumbling.A rope ladder rolled down from a roof.Caleb began to climb.The Syrian under-officer yelled and prodded with an impotent spear, whose shaft had been grasped by two youths who showed fine white teeth.Burning and smoky festoons still fell.Caleb reached roof level, the ladder was drawn up with remarkable speed.By Jupiter, there was going to be trouble for somebody.By now it could be said that a great part of Jerusalem, natives and visitors, had found its way to the open courts of the Temple, where Peter, as leader of the twelve, had fixed on a pillar with a plinth that afforded room for two bare feet and volutes on the column that granted a handhold.From this he was to speak.The Syrian escort, holding on to the remaining two prisoners, were diverted from the straight road to execution by their need to find Caleb.He had got on to a roof, meaning that he could now be anywhere.The under-officer frankly wept, waving his spear in gestures of desperation.By Castor and Pollux, there was going to be trouble.Priests in the courtyard were chanting: ‘We offer you, Lord God of Hosts, these first fruits of your planting and nurturing, as also this holy bread baked from the first of the new barley grain—’ But they had but a small attendance.They turned at the babble of many voices.A brawny Nazarene, no longer young, was bawling:‘Men and women of Judaea, and all that are dwelling in Jerusalem, give ear to my words.’What language was he speaking? Some say that a miracle had been performed, whereby he spoke the primordial Adamic tongue and his listeners had been granted an instant course of highly skilled lessons in it.It is safer to believe that he spoke not Aramaic, nor a bizarre amalgam of all the tongues of the dispersal, but a pure Hebrew with no Galilean accent (the Galileans always had difficulty with the gutturals).That the language of the sacred texts should now become the medium of immediate discourse may be taken as miracle enough, as also an eloquence Peter had not previously possessed and, indeed, rarely possessed thereafter.A Thomasian kind of sceptic (I refer to what Thomas had been; there was danger now of his becoming overcredulous) stood near to Peter and, hearing the careful enunciation of one who must consciously control the movement of tongue and lips, as well as the tonalities of enthusiasm, was heard to say:‘He’s drunk.They’re all drunk.They’ve been at the new wine.’I must cast some doubt on the new of his accusation.The vintage of the year was still some months away.He may have said sweet instead, knowing, as we all know, that if you put new wine in a jar and cover the stopper with pitch and then place the jar in a fishpond, your removal of the jar after thirty days will ensure that your wine will stay sweet the year long.Peter laughed and said: ‘I heard that.I’m not drunk, nor are any of my friends here.It’s only the third hour of the day and the taverns are hardly open.No, this is no drunken talk but the giving forth of the good news.You know, some of you, what was said by the prophet Joel: “I will pour forth my spirit upon all flesh.And your sons and your daughters will prophesy.And your young men shall see visions.And your old men shall dream dreams.And I will show wonders in the heavens overhead, and signs in the earth beneath, blood and fire and the vapour of smoke.”’ Some there had certainly seen that.‘“The sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood before the day of the Lord comes, that great day, that notable day.” Well, that great and notable day is upon us.Jesus of Nazareth, approved of God by mighty works and wonders and signs – Jesus, crucified, slain by lawless men – him has God raised up, having loosed the pangs of death.’Dangerous talk.Priests listened grimly.‘This Jesus,’ Peter repeated, ‘did God raise up.Of this all we twelve assembled before you are witnesses.Being therefore exalted by the right hand of God and having received of the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, he has poured forth these words which you hear and of which I am the vessel.Let all the House of Israel therefore know assuredly that God has made him both Lord and Christ – this Jesus whom you crucified.’Some of the Sanhedrin were now present.Saul, who should not have been here but tending his fellow student Caleb, hovered near them, showing a proper horror.‘Save your souls,’ Peter yelled, ‘men and women of Israel – for the wonders and signs are upon you.’The impressed ones in the crowd cried: ‘How?’‘Repent.Be baptised every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of your sins.And you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.Save your souls – save yourselves from this crooked generation.’ And, the die finally cast, he pointed towards the back of the crowd, where the priests were.Some of them stalked off.Saul, blazing and silent, stayed.Matthew, the former tax collector, trained in practicalities like sums due on what dates, cried to the crowd that baptisms would start next day at dawn on the banks of the Kedron
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