The man stood in silhouette on one of the high towers of the Temple. Below him was the Court of the Gentiles, its acres of sweeping terraces packed with crowds of people. The outer courts had been taken over with additional animal pens - sheep and cattle to be slaughtered to celebrate the festival of Passover.

Drovers and pilgrims stood ankle deep in dung, bartering over the price of an animal for sacrifice. The poor, who wished to make an offering, pushed their way through the mob to the outskirts of the animal pens. Here, traders with huge wicker cages filled with doves, sold birds for a few pennies. This great mass of animals and people swirled and eddied against the rows of columns that supported long covered arcades where merchants had established shops selling more expensive relics and souvenirs. In the shaded colonnades, money changers had also set up their tables alongside the booths occupied by the merchants.

Every foreign Jew, who had come on pilgrimage to visit at least once in his lifetime the Temple of his God, took the opportunity to pay in person the annual sacred tribute of half a shekel. The tribute was paid by every Jew on earth, whether rich or poor, no matter where he lived. This money was sent to the Temple in Jerusalem as atonement for his sins, to be used to defray the expenses of the rites performed for absolution.

As it was unlawful to make this offering in a foreign currency, pilgrims were obliged to exchange their money for Temple coinage. Not only were they charged five percent for this service, they were invariably cheated with inflated exchange rates. What was a man to do? Having saved and scrimped for years to make an often hazardous journey over many months, sometimes years, to reach the house of God, was he to lose this once in a lifetime chance to make his offering personally to his maker? No, he exchanged his savings for the only currency accepted by the Temple priests that which they had minted themselves and sold at a profit to the money changers.

This was the entrance court to the Temple of the Most High, which stood witness that this was a house of worship for Jews of all nations. It had been reduced by the priests to a foul and stinking farm yard; an abattoir that fed the great altar with sacrificial blood from sun up to sunset every day; incidentally providing meat for the twenty two thousand priests and functionaries, who served the Temple.

The noise was deafening. In a babble of languages and accents, men cursed and shouted to be heard above the bellowing of cattle and bleating flocks of sheep. In the confusion and uproar, tempers were frequently lost and punches thrown. Fortunately no weapons were allowed either within the Temple courts or outer precincts, the exception being those allowed to the Levites, the Temple police, who were responsible for keeping order. Armed with clubs, they would step in when a fight broke out and end it in summary fashion.

It was a patrolling Temple guard who not only spotted the figure on the tower, but also recognised it as the leader of a Jewish sect that acknowledged the dead man Jesus as the Messiah, God's messenger - a sect that would eventually be known as Christians. He immediately ran to his superior and reported what he had seen.

The bored priest who received this information stopped picking his nose and thought with malicious glee of the furore his news would cause. He also recognised the man on the tower as James, one of the dead Jesus' brothers and knew that the present High Priest of all Israel, Ananus, was the son of Hanan, the father-in-law of Ciaphas, who had had Jesus condemned to death. Humming to himself, he sped away to find Ananus. As he hurried along he speculated as to why James was on the ramparts. A thrill of vicarious excitement swept through him, as with a sudden flash of intuition he realised that James, who had been elected by the Christian Jews as the first bishop of their church, intended to speak to the Jews gathered in the Temple courts.

The High Priest of all Israel, Ananus, was leaving a meeting of senior priests when he received the report of the man on the tower. Muttering his displeasure he hurriedly returned to the meeting.

Knowing the identity of the man on the tower, he knew that a crisis was in the making. Swift, decisive action was needed.

The members of the re-assembled committee discussed the situation. Not knowing why the man was there and what he intended, led to conjecture and confusion. Among them was Eleazar Ben Ananias, Governor of the Temple. This role made him second in command to Ananus. His father, who had served a term as the High Priest of all Israel, was responsible for the Temple's finances and its vast treasury.

Unknown to his fellow priests, Eleazar was a leader in the Zealot party, whose members declared themselves to be Nationalists. Currently they restricted themselves to terrorist attacks on civilians who didn't agree with their political agenda, "Home rule for Israel". As well as killing civilians, they ambushed Roman patrols when the opportunity presented itself. To anybody who would listen, they declared that the Jews should rebel against Rome. As Commander of the Temple police, who were all Levites, Eleazar was prepared to deal with the situation in whatever way Ananus ordered.

Ananus said nothing but sat, thinking furiously. James the Just, as he was known to his followers, represented a serious threat to orthodox Jewry, for he was the acknowledged leader of a new teaching; a teaching that found expression in Judaic Christianity Judaism in transformation - a new religion which spoke of one God for all mankind. This new teaching saw Judaism as the foundation of Christianity, and in Christianity the ideal Jew. For James the Just, a devout Jew, the Law meant the rule of life as Jesus had taught it, available to all men, gentiles as well as Jews.

To Ananus, an astute and worldly Sadducee, this was a deadly threat. Far too often the High Priest of all Israel was seen to be supportive of Roman law, exercising political power to his own advantage.

As the people suffered under crippling taxes imposed by the Romans, they saw priests living in luxury. The vast quantity of meat offered up daily on the High Altar ensured they lived well. Ananus enjoyed the lifestyle of an emperor, for he controlled the huge inflow of Temple offerings. He also raked in a share of the profits made by the money changers, the merchants and the drovers, who traded in the outer courts.

The house of Ananus, the High Priest reasoned to himself, had a duty to destroy the leader of this new religion. God, he decided, had delivered the brother of the so-called Christ into his hands. Like his brother-in-law Ciaphas, he would distance himself from the actual killing. True he had no Pilate but, he mused, a legal execution by the Jews was possible, for devout Jews were flocking to the Temple in their thousands to celebrate Passover. These people were the faithful, the true believers in the God of Abraham and Moses. Let the law of Abraham and Moses he thought, nodding to himself in quiet satisfaction, determine this man's fate.

"Blasphemy!" For the first time he spoke out loud.

The room stilled. Anxious faces turned expectantly towards him.

"This man, out of his own mouth, denies the God of our fathers. He is guilty of...