Devil's Island by John Hagee Page A

life.
    No matter what he did, his life would change irrevocably. If he offered the sacrifice, he would deny the God he loved and served, and face the eternal implication of his betrayal. If he held fast to his Christian beliefs and refused to worship Caesar, Rome would strip him of all his possessions and either execute him or send him into exile. Knowing Damian’s deep animosity toward him, Abraham guessed that his refusal to sacrifice could result only in a death sentence.
    He listened to the shouted commands of the legionnaires, the indistinct murmuring of the crowd, and the sound of feminine weeping. The scene was eerily familiar: armies using weapons to force political and religious beliefs on people who wanted only to live in peace, not be compelled to take sides.
    For an instant Abraham let his gaze wander from Damian’s. He had heard Rebecca crying and now saw Elizabeth cradling Rebecca’s head against her shoulder. His wife’s eyes were clear, and it occurred to Abraham that over the last few weeks she had emptied her reservoir of tears in anticipation of this moment. Now Elizabeth stood straight, facing her ordeal dry-eyed, and Abraham was proud of her resolve.
    The requested bowl of incense in his hand, Damian took a step toward Abraham. “Perhaps you recognize the design,” he said, holding the gold container aloft in admiration. “A souvenir from the miserable time I was stationed in Jerusalem.”
    Abraham looked at the small bowl, beautifully engraved with a pattern of figs, a motif synonymous with the nation of Israel. How like Damian, he thought, to have kept plundered treasure for his personal benefit, and to savor its use for this sacrilege.
    A scene of looting flashed across Abraham’s mind—Roman soldiers scrambling over the bodies of revolutionaries to gather the spoils of war while noncombatants, like himself, fled for their lives. But it was a simple response of nature, caused by not eating for more than twenty-four hours, that sent Abraham on a brief but intensely powerful emotional journey. When his stomach rumbled, it all came back to him . . .

6
    ABRAHAM HAD ARRIVED IN JERUSALEM in the spring of his twenty-fifth year. His father had suggested the trip as a way of distracting Abraham from his newfound spirituality. “You should rediscover your Jewish roots,” his father had said. “Walk where Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob walked. Celebrate the Passover at the temple of Solomon.”
    Disenchanted with the practice of law, Abraham had embraced the idea enthusiastically. He had always wanted to make the pilgrimage to Jerusalem, but his motives now were vastly different from his father’s: Abraham wanted to walk where Jesus of Nazareth had walked and to worship in the birthplace of Christianity.
    In the last few years he had defended several Christians in civil lawsuits brought by vindictive Romans. The Christians had become easy prey after Nero’s spate of persecution following the burning of Rome. The emperor had made the “atheists” his scapegoat for the catastrophe—which, it was rumored, he had instigated in order to initiate a grand scheme to rebuild his palace and the heart of the city. Many followers of Christ were burned alive, some as torches to light Nero’s estate; others faced martyrdom in the arena with wild animals. The savage persecution gradually dwindled, and four years after the fire, Nero committed suicide in the face of rebellion and public condemnation. The stigma against the Christians, however, survived, and they remained targets of harassment.
    Abraham had found the Christian believers—most of whom were Jewish, as he was—to be peaceful, gracious, and kind. In short, they were upstanding citizens who had been unfairly maligned. Over the months he had engaged many of them in lengthy spiritual discussions, eventually recognizing for himself that Jesus of Nazareth was, indeed, the Christ, the Son of