Secret Magdalene (41 page)

How this infuriates the Gadarene! They bluster and they threaten with fist and with stick, so that Simon Peter, who has broken the chain with one last blow of stone on link, stands away from the madman, turning to face these men as Simeon, and now Jude, faces them. “As God is just,” he calls out, “this man’s demons would enter you! Run away from here, pigs of Gadarene, before I come to push you all into the sea.”

And they do run. They know true Sicarii when they see them, and they hike up the skirts of their robes and they are off before else is said or done. At which Simon Peter and Simeon laugh so hard the hills ring with the noise of them.

Yeshu gives up his own mantle to clothe the man called unclean, and though the poor thing begs to come with us, back to Galilee where he might be safe from his neighbors, or at least safer, we cannot take him. There is barely room in Joazar’s boat for us. “But I hear voices, master. They speak vile things to me. By day and by night, I hear them, so that I hear nothing else, so that I cut at myself to let them out.”

“Do you hear them now?”

Surprise crosses the face of he who held legions. “No. I do not hear them now.”

“Then they are gone from you, and will not come again. Go to your own house, Yair, son of Akiba. Remember what the Father does for you.”

By the evening, we are far from Gadarene, settled once again in Galilee.

F
ollowing such things, casting out demons and subduing storms, comes another evening during which Yeshu must endure his disciples sitting near, but not too near for their growing awe, and comes another evening where no matter how clearly he says a thing, he is not heard, not even by those who follow.

Seated at his right hand at table, I watch them. What do they whisper, each to each? Are they as those who call him messiah? Do they too think him king? With good, though foolish, intent, do any speak aloud to others of what, being near Yeshu, they would only whisper? And do these others speak to yet others?

I despair of how this goes, for in whose ear does it come finally to rest?

N
ear Gennesaret in Galilee, a great crowd has once again gathered to hear Yehoshua the Nazorean. And once again my beloved is ringed round by those who would protect him from the love the people bear him, and once again he begins with silence, and in silence we all wait, for at such a time there is nothing else in the world, nothing, save Yeshu. But on this day, though the sky is as smooth and as blue as an egg, there is a darkness at the center of things that I cannot name. On this day, even Simon Peter is uneasy, as if a storm were somewhere building and building. I am near to Yeshu. I know he is enraptured. We all of us wait, until there is nothing but perfect quiet and perfect stillness; then, and only then, he speaks, saying, “He who will drink from my mouth will become like me. I myself shall become he, and the things that are hidden shall be revealed to him.”

“Ahhhhh,” sighs the multitude, looking up at him with such a terrible uncomprehending need that that which is dark in this day becomes darker still. If Yeshu feels this darkness, he makes no sign, but goes on speaking in his quiet way, so that some begin to sway at his words and some begin to moan. Here one is moved to call out, and here another. And by and by, more and more murmur and mutter and raise their hands, and then the day is shattered by the voice of a woman crying out, “This is our Messiah!” and at this, a man stands forth, sweat beading his fervent face, and turning to the crowd, he calls out, “This is he who comes!” And then another man shouts, “This one is our very king! And another cries, “Seize him! This very day, we shall take him to Jerusalem!”

And more and more and
more
of the same, until the crowd presses forward like one great beast, and Jude and Simeon and the Sons of Thunder push them back and push them back, but still they come forward, and it is only by moments that Jude and I manage to catch hold of Yeshu’s arms and to pull him back into Joazar’s boat. Simon Peter and Seth and Thecla clamber aboard, pushing away those who would also clamber aboard, and then as one they take us away, away. Even so, there are those few who swim after us and those many who run along the shore calling out, “Yehoshua is the Messiah!” and will not leave us, not until we make our way far out onto the sea. And there we remain until it has gone full dark and there are none left to make Yeshu king.

But the day after this day, Jacob the Just goes back to the wilderness, and with him goes Andrew of Capharnaum and Timaeus the Bandit and all those who shave their heads until the Temple is cleansed. “As I love you,” says Jacob to Yeshu, “this is not my business. As I love God, I must do my own work.”

Yeshu kisses him and, without protest, lets him go.

As we settle to sleep this night, I see the despair in Yeshu’s face. I see the beginnings of broken eyes. Reaching out, I touch him, saying, “Perhaps you ask too much, beloved? The people are as children and you must treat them as children.”

“What then am I?”

“You are as a father to them.”

“In that case, I should beat them for their stupidity.”

“In that case, you would be Yahweh and not Yeshu.”

Yeshu laughs and laughs. I would seldom hear that laugh again.

O
ften now, Yeshu is weary. Though he makes no mention of it, it is in his eye and his skin, in the simplest movement of his hand. No matter that I select the best in the markets for his supper, he grows thinner, and I am made uneasy that he will know his pain again. This day, when Hanukkah is gone by for another year, as is the planting of barley and of wheat, he is become shaken in the bone by what has come of his teaching, and would seek solitude.

So it is that today we rest.

There are seven who sit on the banks of the sweet Sea of Galilee just south of Capharnaum. Behind us rise up the mountains of Galilee, coming so close to the sea there is only this narrow strip of land between water and mountain. On this day, Joazar’s boat waits quietly at anchor. Others who follow are scattered wherever and however, and if I did not know better, I should think the world a safe and quiet place, and I would think that any time now Salome and I could set sail for Egypt. Perhaps taking Seth, perhaps taking even Yeshu? It is not impossible. It is not an impossible dream, and sitting on the shore of the sweet water sea I dream it, as I still dream of Kush.

Under the nearby mulberry trees, and sheltered by tents from a mizzling rain, Salome sits with Helena as well as with the mother and aunt of Yeshu, though I know she is not truly with them. She is with John, which means she bends her diligent head over her scrolls and her inks and her reeds. Others of us have gone seeking diversion. They travel by boat farther south to Taricheae and some even on to Tiberius. Herod’s new city is a mess of timber yards and full loud with the cries of builders and the pounding of mattocks, yet it provides much that should divert them.

Simon Peter has gone home to Perpetua and to Mark, though if he remains the Simon Peter I have come to know, he will demand food of his mother-in-law and he will frighten his son and he will lie with his wife, and he will be gone in the morning. Tata also visits in the home of Simon Peter to see that all remains well with Sarah, but she will not stay the night. With Tata has gone Miryam, for Yeshu’s youngest sister has long since become attached to Tata. If Tata remains the Tata I dearly love, and she does, by now the innocent weaver Miryam knows much of honey and of laps and of lifted heads.

Where we sit on the bank, a catfish noses out from the water, then sinks away again. Four turtles are stacked on a sunken log like newly washed bowls in a scullery.

Seated next to Thecla, Addai’s old friend Dositheus holds forth on the interesting fact that the god of the Jews does not have sexual organs. Says he, “The priests of the Temple claim this one has created the world by will alone.” By now, Dositheus never uses the forbidden name, Yahweh, or even those names allowed, such as Adonai or ha-Shem, but only the name Plato gave his Maker of the Universe, Demiurge, or Craftsman, because, as says Dositheus, “This god has fabricated a copy of the higher world, which by its nature can only be base imitation.” But where Plato thought the Craftsman worked to the best of his ability, and therefore his copy is as good as it can possibly be, Dositheus thinks the Craftsman is flawed by self-centeredness and arrogance and the desire to dominate human affairs, and therefore his copy is fatally flawed. He calls him the Jealous God, and sometimes, Sakla, which is Aramaic for fool. Salome has seen the point he makes by this and she has asked, “If Yahweh is the One and Only God, there being no other gods at all, and if Yahweh is good, what is there to be jealous of?”

Dositheus speaks on, “Now this is an interesting thing, calling forth by the will, which is the basis of magic as Joor once taught us, and I would debate it with these Yahwists if their god were truly the Supreme Being, and not the chief material Power, or Archon.”

Eleazar, leaning over far enough to fall as he sits near us, though not quite with us, pretends to skip a pebble over the water, and Dositheus follows its course with a gloomy eye. “More and more, I come to believe as it is taught in certain secret sects that there is a realm of the spirit which is Good and is called Pleroma, and over against it there is a realm of matter which is Evil and is called the World. I am entirely convinced that it is not the Supreme Being who calls this World forth, but the Demiurge who is the Master of Matter. And into this evil matter we have fallen, and cannot find our way out again, being tormented by the
nephilim
who mimic the Divine, but who are lesser deities of the chief Archon, and evil in themselves. Enoch’s book calls these the fallen angels, and this sits well with me.”

Yeshu is staring out at the sea, but he is listening, especially now as Seth is moved to reply to Dositheus of Gitta. “You would have two realms, then? One Dark and one Light, each antithetic to the other, indeed, opposed to the other?”

“I would.”

“And therefore you would say that duality is at the root of all things, as is conflict and discord?”

“Yes. I believe this is where my thought takes me.”

“As it takes others. But tell me, in this world of Evil in which we take vital part, consciously knowing no other world, have you come to believe that men and women themselves are evil?”

Dositheus holds up his hands, his woeful face wreathed in worry at the very thought. “No. No. I cannot bring myself to think that, though there are surely evil men, or at least men who do evil. But Evil is, as you know, one of my favorite topics, and I have yet to think to the end of it.”

“As it is mine, Dositheus. And who has come to the end of it? But it seems to me that rather than use Plato, you might as well call your ignorant Craftsman the evil spirit Ahriman who opposes the god Ahura Mazda, for all this is so much Persian thinking! If we are helpless before Evil, which is outside a man and not inside a man, you take from us our splendor. By this we are no more than creeping things, scurrying from under a sandal; no more than spent leaves, blown this way and that.”