Gospel (135 page)

39.
I tell you, young Tesmegan, press not too closely upon what you believe, ask not too much of it. By some accident had I seen it was indeed the Teacher of Righteousness in that horrid cellar, I believe, upon contemplation, that I would not have told anyone of the truth. Because what does Truth matter beside the good that we Nazirenes will bring to the world? It may be absurd but I believe one day Rome may surrender to the Nazirenes, all its armies and wealth of empire will fall into the service of He Who Showed the Way. And O what a world we will live in then!

So why then did I turn away before all answers were revealed? Why, for myself.

40.
I preferred, dear brother, in this final gesture, Faith to Truth. I recall it is said that at His shameful trial, Our Master was asked by the Roman procurator, “What is Truth?”

Our Master made no answer.
20

I would not be surprised if God Himself was equally silent on the matter—why should God tell us such a thing, as He alone has the power to be certain of Truth? The Master of the Universe's gift to us is not Truth, which we clearly don't have the capacity to perceive; it is instead the capacity for Faith. These past years I have allowed my obsession with what was true to lead me down faint, irrelevant paths. One cannot retrieve Faith by a world of proofs, facts, histories, and tracts, as if it were Truth one had lost.

I began this gospel by admitting that I had lost my faith. Now I tell you it is found again. But very different, this time, this faith: not the raging inferno of my passionate youth or the fiery tractates of my middle years. It is a small spark now, fought for and sheltered, fanned with constant attention, but it shall not go out in these last hours.

And it is warmth enough.

41.
Here I risk your censure, Josephus, but you too will return to your faith, though perhaps not to the priesthood that once was your life. Admire as you will the Romans and their Empire and their management of it—even in Man's history if there is none greater—I know you shall discover Rome to be so much dust, for that is all she is. She has rearranged the stones, no more, no less; her mighty arches and viaducts are ruins in the making.

I cannot say what form of faith you will return to.
21
Odd, sitting here watching my last day turn to night, I have found the serenity to wonder that which faith we lift up does not matter; God must expect some confusion concerning our lowly notions of Him. But God would not forgive our indifference, let alone our persecuting each other over it.

42.
You know, I tell you my brother, as I have recounted my travels here to Tesmegan—what's that, my boy? Tears for my paltry life sputtering to its end? (Oh, even at the end I must endure nonsense and incompetence.) As I was saying, I have in these days relived the last years of my life, and it seems, now that death is certain on the morrow when the Meroitians will bake me or burn me or some ingenious thing, that less and less have I been able to take to my breast our ranting prophets or ancient Mosaic rules or even the confident voices of Peter or Gamaliel, and, alas, the face of Our Master, once clear and embossed upon my mind, even that has faded somewhat as the years have dulled and distracted me.

No, as Mary predicted, it is the Holy Spirit I have come to cherish, Blessed
Sophia,
guiding me with a calm and discernment that I have mistaken most of my life for the memory of my blessed mother, the woman's-voice of my own conscience.

43.
Oh yes, speaking of
Sophia,
Mary pressed a missive into my hand, as I believe I mentioned, to open upon my discovering the truth in Meroe. I opened it with trembling hand, wondering if it might be a scrawling from the Teacher of Righteousness Himself! But no, it was merely the words of a young man not seventeen, full to brimming with a love of God and His world:

I have come to think that God is surely no more luminous than a mother tending her children, the rituals of the kitchen and successful harvest, the hearth of a home at peace. The foolish men look to the skies, My Sophia, when it is down around us, yes, even to the womenfolk that we should look. How well they have cradled Love through the ages while we men have raged in tongues unknown to God, persecuted one another for piles of twigs, hurled pebbles at the silence of the night.

That, you will recall, is from my
Cosmos Explained,
an immature work full of enthusiasms, but not without some small merit and well regarded, despite some superficial deficiencies of style, in many quite reputable Alexandrian as well as Damascene circles. Mary has scribbled upon the bottom of the papyrus that she recalled Our Master having regarded this passage very highly.

Hosanna, at the last, the very last I am to know that He Who Is Beyond Compare found in me some thing to love!

44.
Might
Sophia
grant me a final blessing?

Should this scroll never reach my brother Josephus bar-Matthias, may it one day be found by, I pray, a fellow scholar, a lonely soul such as myself who may have misplaced the consolation of God, who found his faith passing with his youth, who searches for the light of brotherly love amid the confusion and darkening muddle of this world. I leave it, Holy Wisdom, in Your capable hands.

You Who can do all things!

45.
And what have I ever really known? Perhaps even now, the True Temple is being rebuilt in the new Jerusalem. Gamaliel and Peter have become reconciled, holding hands and leading our redeemed nation in prayer! And you, Josephus, returned to our people … why, maybe it is you who will lead the Nazirenes away from their fondest heresies, using your skill as a leader (since, dear brother, your inaccurate histories cannot make your career or fame, I am sad to say). Blessings, many blessings, and farewell! Investigate for yourself the teachings of Our Master—but be sure to do it quickly, quickly:

For we are living in the End Times!

NOTES

Chapter 1

Textual Note:
Throughout the gospel, the editor has arranged the text in paragraphs, punctuating as seemed reasonable, and using quotes in the dialogue for easier reading. The editor has endeavored to retain a bit of the self-importance and stilted tone of this confession, reminiscent of the Byzantine church historian Eusebius, but of an earlier era.

1
.
Aπ
βαλον τ
ν
μ
ν π
στιν,
“I had lost my faith.” Faith,
π
στις,
as is commonly used by Paul in the First Century. Josephus is the Jewish historian “Flavius” Josephus (ca. 37–100
C.E.
)

2
. For this mediocre Greek poetry, see Appendix A.
   Eridanus is where Phaethon, the unfortunate driver of the sun's chariot, fell to rest, not his father, Helios.

3
. Vespasian, the general who began the campaign to tame Judea in 67
C.E.
and later Emperor, 69–79
C.E.
, was first of the Flavians.

4
. This snipe concerns Aliturius, a Jewish actor who performed in Rome and was a great favorite (and perhaps bedmate) of Nero. The author suggests Josephus played at being a Roman and was no less a traitor. In 67
C.E.
Josephus commanded troops in Galilee against the Romans and was taken prisoner at Jotapata for two years. In that time he ingratiated himself with the soon-to-be crowned Vespasian and won his release, this time fighting on the side of the conquering Romans under Titus, destroyer of the Temple.
   All Josephus texts throughout are the revised 1991 Hebrew University Press editions, editor-in-chief, M. Hersch. For a discussion of Josephus's reputed treachery to the Jews and responses to the attacks of Justus of Tiberias, see M. Hersch,
Josephus
(HUP, 1991), also S. J. D. Cohen,
Josephus in Galilee and Rome
(Leiden, 1979).