Excerpt from Fifth Gospel - A Novel

Lea gave me her quiet, patient attention.‘You should know that when an army enters into a city, faith soon leads to murder.’  

‘Should I? Why should it be so…I have no idea!’

‘Think of it pairé, what you call faith is not really faith at all, it is only religion. Religion is only a short step from zeal, and zeal only a margin away from fervour, which is only a hair’s breadth from frenzy–the cradle of hate and murder. The truth is, pairé, that evil and good share the same small space in the soul.’ 

‘What makes one man evil and one good, then?’

‘How close he is to the good gods or to the evil gods.’

‘And what is the compensation for the atrocities committed against innocent people…children!’ I said with vehemence, for the memory of Bezier’s had come unbidden and was stirring up an anger I had not let myself feel all these years.  

She turned towards me and fixed her steady gaze on my face. ‘There is another way to look at it, pairé. It could be that destiny has brought these souls together to a place where they can suffer in order that in the future they can return again, together, for a good cause…’

This did not ease my heart. ‘I know we are told to forgive our enemies their sins…but what of God? Has he turned away from the innocent?’

‘God is just,’ she said.

‘But is that all he is? What of love?’

‘God is Love, and his wrath is also his love.’

‘How can wrath be love?’

‘Do you remember, what Buddha said to Jesus? Suffering leads to Compassion. When God spills out his wrath it causes suffering. But suffering gives us wisdom, it allows us to recognise the suffering of others, isn’t that so?’

‘Yes.’

‘So, the memory of our own suffering is what allows us to understand and to forgive those who have done some wrong to us…this is true love pairé. Wrath seen from the other side, is true love; a Love that cancels out sin.’

I looked out of the window to the hard snow falling over the crests and peaks and valleys and chasms of our mountains. I realised more than ever how far I was from perfection. 

Chapter cut from Fifth Gospel - A Novel - HOSANNA

HOSANNA

‘Behold thy king cometh unto thee; he is just and having salvation; lowly and riding upon an ass and upon a colt the foal of an ass.’

Zechariah 9:9

IT WAS ON Sunday, on an ass’s foal, that Christ Jesus came into the city of Jerusalem followed by those faithful to him. As he entered through the great gate of the city the crowds, having received tidings of his approach hastened to meet him and upon seeing him they were seized with ecstasy and began to throw palm fronds over the ground in imitation of those primitive rites of spring. He was to them a symbol of a king, the sun that rises out of the darkness of winter’s night; and also the symbol of a priest of the order of Melchizedek who has come to bestow his blessings on those who are gathered in the oldest sun-sanctuary of humanity - Mount Zion.

He knew their thoughts and understood that the frenzy in their souls would not last.

For three years he had held back his magnificence not wishing to prematurely dazzle human beings. But now his divine selfhood was consuming his very humanity and so it radiated outwards through his human body like a flame that burns brightly one last time before reducing the wood to ashes. Soon he would stand before them like a dying star, a powerless human being and he knew what they would do.

It was his destiny to pass calmly through this festival of merriment, meekly through the welcoming praise of Hosannas to show the world the way that leads from the powerless body to the resurrection of the spirit.

This morning he had instructed his disciples to go to Bethphage, which means the House of Figs, a hamlet situated on a rocky plateau on the other side of Olivet. He had requested that they find him a foal of an ass, the white colt upon which he now sat.  He had chosen this place because in Bethphage the old initiatory practice of ‘Sitting Beneath the Fig Tree’ was still cultivated and it was here that these animals were held sacred. They were held sacred because Balaam, the old prophet, had also sat upon an ass. But the ecstatic visions that Balaam had achieved through the state of soul bound to the body, the ass, were no longer appropriate. He wanted to show his disciples how the Fig Tree was barren, that the old initiation must give way for what he would bring and so he had pointed out to them the Fig tree with many leaves and no fruit. He wanted to show the people that the time of ‘riding of the ass’ was over, for a new awakening was upon them, so on this day, when the old sun still shone in the heavens, he used a symbol the people recognised from the past but he showed them how he would use it in the way of the future.

He looked about him now to his disciples. They were revelling in the royal acclamations; laughing and smiling to see so many happy and ecstatic faces - all except Lazarus-John. Tomorrow Christ Jesus would curse the Fig Tree and in the coming days they would come to observe how fruitless were these Hosannas and how temporary and superficial were these cries of Blessed be he that cometh in the name of the Lord! For he knew these Hosannas would prove not a blessing but a curse; they were poisoned fruit; an echo of the ancient and archaic language sung by jubilant crowds on Mount Zion soon to be traded for angry calls on that other mount, the arid place where lived the old moon religion of Jehova, Mount Moriah, where was situated the Temple of Solomon. For tomorrow he would enter the temple and cleanse it one last time of those nefarious intruders who, under the guise of priesthood, tainted his Father’s house with the traffic of money. One last time he would show them the power of his spirit before the great battle with the Pharisees and Scribes, which he knew would come. Then at last would the Fig Tree wilt and wither away and the people would realise that he had not come to bring back the old mysteries - to breathe new life into an old corpse - but to show them the seed to something new – something they could plant in the soil of their hearts for later times.

This realisation would eventually nail him to the cross. 

And with sorrow in his heart among the excitable sounds of the jubilant, fickle populace, he wept for Jerusalem. He wept for its people and he prayed to his Lord on their behalf.

Chapter Cut from Fifth Gospel - A Novel - TEMPLE SLEEP

TEMPLE SLEEP

‘And the youth looked at him and loved him.’

The secret Gospel according to Mark

To Lazarus Christ Jesus said, ‘Soon you will pass into spiritual worlds, and your sister shall prepare you for your burial, she will sit with you and hold you in her heart, for she shall be the guardian of your soul until I return…Have faith Magdalena,’ he said to her, ‘support your brother as you support me…for in every death there is a rebirth…Wait for my call, then shall you see the last sign before the Son of Man begins his journey to his death. In your brother shall be resurrected what lives in me, the eternal Word, the light and the life that comes from those heavenly spheres from which I have come to earth. He shall be the first to see the Kingdom in all its fullness on earth, for his illness is not unto death, but to the glory of God, to the revelation of the eternal Word.’ Now to Lazarus he said, ‘Through this initiation, you shall venture into spirit worlds and you will become another man, you shall have another name and they shall call you John the beloved disciple of Jesus. It is true that every birth is accompanied by an illness, the illness of the mother. But this illness does not lead to death, but to new life.’

Lazarus was amazed by these words but his eyes were heavy laden and his heart seemed to falter. At this point he heard his sister Martha hurrying into the booth. ‘Lord,’ she said, ‘do you not care that my sister has left me to serve you alone? Please tell her to come and help me!’

Mary answered, ‘Martha, sit with us…the master is speaking of eternal truths.’

But Martha’s voice, very far away now, came into his mind, irritated and unhappy, ‘There is so much work to do! I should also like to sit and to listen to eternal truths, but who shall feed the master, then?’

‘Martha, Martha,’ came his master’s gentle words, ‘you are careful and troubled about the food, which is your task for you must care for my physical well-being; in you lives what is active. But one other thing is also needful - Mary listens to my words because she has a task that is different from yours, she cares for my soul, what lives in her is contemplative…and as you have chosen, so too has she chosen what is suited for her part…and this shall not be taken away from her.’

Lazarus heard his sister’s voice say, ‘Yes, my lord,’ and after that her footsteps in the courtyard.

Christ Jesus continued with his teaching and as his words were spoken Lazarus felt his body at peace, its turmoil stilled. The world too seemed quiet, the sea, and air and the very heavens came to rest and among this harmony did his acquiescent soul lift up from him.

And he fell out of his head.

                        

               Lazarus sees himself stripped of all earthly pretensions standing beside his master in the temple of Jerusalem, before the Pharisees.

          ‘Verily, verily,’ Christ says, and it is as if Lazarus himself were saying it, and it seems not strange at all but the most simple thing, for he feels as if he is one with Christ. ‘I say unto you, if a man keep my saying, he shall never see death…’

The Pharisees answer, ‘Are you greater than our father Abraham which is dead, and the prophets which are dead? Who makes you so great?’

Christ tells them, ‘If I honour myself, my honour means nothing: it is my father who honours me, of whom you say that he is your God…but you do not know him! I know him! And if I were to say that I do not know him to please you, then I would be a liar, like you. I know him and I keep his word, you only speak of Abraham. Abraham himself rejoiced to see my day; and he saw it and was glad.’

‘You are not yet fifty years old, how can a man so young have entered so deep and risen so high as to have seen the father Abraham in the blood of his generations?’

‘I am not an initiate. I am the initiator, and yea more than that, I am the subject of initiation itself! I am the foundation of the very world! I am not only one with Abraham, but with what pulses in the entire cosmos, I was before Abraham was. Before Abraham was, existed the one who is I AM and I AM He.’

The people grow angry. They take up stones to cast at him and he has to flee. There are hindrances all around. He feels pain as stones strike him but they are not stones, it is that his soul is being wrenched from the temple, the grave of his body.

He realises that Christ is the door and that through Him he can enter a higher sphere, a glorious mountain.

From the outspread widths of space comes to him an angel, the self of his great teacher, John the Baptist, whose words had so often warmed his heart. His mighty cosmic form seems to Lazarus like Adam and he blesses him with his greatest gift – the gift of his own spirit. Lazarus feels it enter into his emptied soul.

I am John!

Now in the upper airs the moon’s snow face cuts the night’s skirt, and is stirred by delicate green whirlwinds that move from star to star inscribing in astral light grand pictures for his seeing.  He rises higher through the agency of another angel, upwards to a sea the colour of peach blossom that stretches out to distant purpling plains and resounds in glorious songs. This angel points to the father of his people. 

Abraham!

He is one with Abraham. his ancestor.

A light rises over the horizon of this unpolluted, immeasurable landscape. A sun, suspended, luminous, diaphanous. incandescent and transparent all at once permeates the heaven-opened world from all sides like the rays of a dawn sun. These throw their luminance upwards to the hems of a lowering cloud making it gleam all gold.

The Sun is the light and life and love of the world and it is born now in me!

I am a Son of Man!

I am one with Christ who is the light of the world.

From those mighty cosmic reaches, come the resounding words,

‘Lazarus…come forth!’

And Lazarus tells himself, 

‘Now do I truly recognise without hindrance what lives in the soul of Jesus…Him who has awakened me - the sublime being of Christ!’

             

Excerpt - Author's Cut Fifth Gospel - A Novel

EVIL COUNTERPARTS

‘He maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good

and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust.’

Matthew 5:45

AT THE MOMENT the mother of God was receiving the essence of virgin-hood from the far-spread dominions of the Divine Sophia, leagues away upon an Island that faced Vesuvius called Capri, Caesar Tiberius was making room in his soul for a demon.

Some time ago, fascinated by the occult, Tiberius had become addicted to the pagan cults and rituals of the mysteries belonging to his conquered peoples. Ill prepared for the accelerated initiations to which he had subjected himself, his ignoble nature, already impetuous and prone to indulgence, became unfettered through a loosening of the mind from the heart and the will.

This loosening caused his thoughts to become crowded with hallucinations and delusions. He saw enemies around every corner, he heard of conspiracies, all men lay in wait to put a dagger into his back. Having succumbed to madness and fury, he plunged into a chaotic program of revenge. In the night his men seized unwary men, women, sometimes children, those whom his disordered mind suspected of treachery and in the day, loved ones would drag the countless bodies with hooks from the Tiber River, afraid to burn their loved ones or even to grieve, lest it be seen as a sign of treason. Some poor victims were made to drink poison, others were strangled and those young virginal women, who were protected by the law while inviolate, were first raped by his torturers before Tiberius’ sentence was carried out.

Not only delusions but also fits of excitement seized him, where his self love soared upwards in grand overestimations of his divine powers, of his status as a superhuman being whose surroundings in Rome could not hope to match his intoxicating grandness! In Capri he abandoned himself to sensual excesses, treating his deviant guests to grand orgies of food and wine that lasted days, with scores of naked dancers engaging in multiple lurid unions for entertainment, or with romps in the woods and groves where, in feverish stupor, his guests could find those boys and young women who, dressed as Pans and nymphs, would solicit their attentions in any way they desired.

At other times he experienced a pitching of his gloom into an abyss of despair. Unfettered by clarity of thought, he fell into states of anguish and hopelessness, which he sought to console through acts of cruelty against others. More and more did a depraved delight in suffering surface from out of the depths of his volcanic temper, whose volatile hungers increased with the distortions of his deranged thoughts and the fire of his disordered passions.

One day, he was taken by a stroke of genius, he ordered his guards to drag the half living and tortured carcasses of his imagined enemies and their supporters to the high cliffs where he had them cast headlong onto the rocks below. He was surprised and elated when he experienced the profoundest sexual raptures on observing his men break the bones of the dead with boathooks and oars!

Thus was his Satanic empowerment accomplished while at the same time two other events were occurring, side by side in Judea - the sublime spirit of the Sun was entering into the soul of Jesus, and not far off, in the province of Perea, the son of Herod the Great, Herod Antipas, friend and admirer of Tiberius, was taking his demonic sister in law, Herodias for a wife.

It was a resplendent wedding, followed by a feast to rival those feasts on the isle of Capri. Midway through the banquet, whose excess could have fed an entire village for months, Herod stood, with a goblet in hand and made a toast.

‘To Caesar Tiberius! The noble Wolf!'

Epiphany Part II 'The Baptism', Excerpt from Fifth Gospel - A Novel.

THE BAPTISM

     

T

HE day was nearing its apex. Sharp talons of light fractured the water and made short shadows of men. From the crowds, Jesus saw the priests of the Sanhedrin leave the river, and he waited for a time, until the voices of the people had died down and many had left, seeking their midday meal.

He laid aside his garments and took himself to the river in his loincloth. The man in the river was aglow with light. Colour spilt over him like fluid fire. Jesus saw him put a hand over his brow. He did not pause but entered the silvered water. First his feet, then his ankles, and knees, until the cold came over his thighs, until he stood before the man whose height was greater than his, and whose face was, of a sudden, full with awe.

The man let go his staff into the water, and his knees buckled and he fell into it.

He cried, ‘I should be baptised by you! I cannot endure to do it!’

‘In the same way that once my presence awoke your limbs in your mother’s womb, I shall awaken your thoughts to your duty!’

The man called John looked up and Jesus’ shadow fell over him. Jesus could now see, unclouded and undisturbed by the light, a reflected mirror image of himself in the other man’s face. An image of something he had misplaced. He was given the knowledge at Qumran that this man was the same as Elijah, and now he recognised in him, the oldest soul of humanity, Adam, and he realised that some part of him belonged to this man and was conjoined by a remembrance of times lost in a dream.

When the baptiser stood, it was a signal to Jesus.

He crossed his arms over his chest. He felt a support behind the small of his back. It seemed to him then, that although Yeshua was leaving him, little by little, the soul of the baptiser was uniting with him –  to sure up the pathway to the God. And he was comforted by it.

John guided him into the water, and he was submerged into light and colour and sound. His soul was wedded to the element of the river. All the pictures of his life rushed past his eyes until he heard a flute song, and he could smell sheep, earth and grass. All of it was married to the warmth of friendship, the lulling breezes, the glow of the sun, the fingers of the wind, the soothing feel of his mother’s hand and the cry of a child in the wilderness.

Now, there was nothing more.  

He did not breathe. He was lost. He was alone. A flame hovered over him. A sparkling, ever-tranquil, lilting radiance issued from the encircling round, and above him the spirit of Yeshua gathered up to form the shape of a bird. It lingered a moment over him, as if in a final farewell, and was given up, with light in its wings and life in its breast.

Surrendered!

The majestic and wise spirit of Yeshua, which had fashioned his soul and body over eighteen years, was severed from him. Within him was left a hollow place, unopened yet to the spirit, like a spring bud that trembles in a cold wind.

How could he open it, when he had no forces left to him? A great lassitude overwhelmed him and threatened to extinguish him. He was alone. And yet…and yet…Jesus sensed the soul of his dead mother draw near. His mother, whose purity was the likeness of his own, came to his aid. She plucked tenderly at his heart, to unfold him in readiness for the descent of grace; for the pulse of heaven’s glory. When the clouds parted and rent was the veil that separates above and below, the God fell downwards, from the heart of the Father, like a brand of light moving through the spirit’s fluid stream. Jesus inhaled the breath of the God into his lungs, and the spirit orphaned from heaven, innocent of evil, immortal, blameless, without guilt and eternal, began its descent into the soul of Jesus.

Now, when Jesus opened his eyes, he saw the world differently for the second time in his life, and in his ears the thunder call came:

 ‘Thou art my beloved Son, in whom I behold my very own Self, in whom my own Self confronts me! Now you are begotten in Jesus!’

     

                                

The Day of Epiphany! A New Season - Excerpt from Fifth Gospel - a Novel

A NEW SEASON

I

T was the fifteenth year of the rule of Tiberias, on a day when Venus stood in Aquarius that John the Baptiser awoke, feeling his muscles and sinews taut, his mind awake and alert and his heart calm.

The sun had popped up out of its desert crib to cast its fiery eye over Israel and to beat upon the brows of men and the backs of beasts. Each day he faced this sun, standing waist deep in that freezing river, observing with an unfaltering eye the whirling tumult of dead thoughts and sins that were discharged into the river from the souls of those whom he baptised. Each day he wondered where the strength would come for his work and each day he was given the forces necessary. But this day something was altered. In himself he felt it, the nearness of the fulfilment of his task, accompanied by a strange bewilderment…since he found himself desiring to forestall it!

In this mood he left his hut of rushes to say his prayers to the God of Israel and to perform his ablutions before taking himself to that little bend in the river near Bethany, situated in the lower Jordan. 

Large crowds came to be baptised and he worked for hours without pause, looking into each soul to determine its measure and value, dividing the lambs from the vipers. Near the midpoint of the day the leaders of these vipers arrived at the river, a deputation of priests and Levites upon asses preceded by a retinue of guards whose swords caught the bold sunlight and reflected their sharp sting into John’s eyes. They pushed aside the crowds to allow the priests to come to shore.

Well…well…his words had moved across the land, so that even the Temple in Jerusalem had heard of him! He was pleased for the sake of his task.

He said to them, ‘The Masters of the ancient wisdom of the snake, the brood of vipers, the initiates of Lucifer, have come!’

One Pharisee said from his high position, ‘We are here on behalf of the Sanhedrin, to ask you some questions.’

‘Questions?’ the baptiser said, looking about with mockery in his eye. ‘If you come asking questions concerning laws that are written in books, you will not find anything here to satisfy you. I do not answer to laws that indicate this or that to be right or wrong. I answer only to the power that exists in every man to know right from wrong in his own heart!’

‘Heresy!’ the Pharisee said, ‘A son of Abraham must follow the laws of Moses!’

The Baptist looked at him with flares for eyes. ‘You make much of having Abraham for a father, but this alone does not make you worthy! Your body of flesh is like the stones at your feet…in the same way that you can pick up any of these stones and make them yours…God can make any man, a child of Abraham.’

Gasps came from the priests. Rants, and raves and astonishment filled the air. ‘You dare to say, any man can be a child of Abraham! Any man can enter the lineage of the blood tree of your forebears, which is sanctified by God!’

The Baptist roared like a lion at them, ‘Why do you call on this dying tree! God has given me the axe–and I will cut it down!’ He pointed to the people and cried, ‘Israel! This tree no longer bears good fruit!’

The delegation was turned over into a rumble of voices. The guards stood at the ready with their weapons.

‘Jerusalem!’ He pointed at the delegation. ‘Your laws and your knowledge were brought to you by way of Moses, but the time of these laws is finished now! Soon, grace and truth will come into the world by way of the anointed one. He will descend to earth so that the blind sons of Israel may see Him! But only those who can hear the voice of conscience in their hearts will recognise him!’  

The rabbis, priests and the Levites talked in an excited fashion among themselves, shaking their heads and distorting their countenances. They could not agree. Meanwhile in the crowds, a man called out to John,

‘But how shall we become good men? What is this voice you speak of, that is in the heart?’

John the Baptiser answered, ‘Do you not shrink to see others cold or hungry? Do you, who have much, not hear a voice that tells you to help those who have little? This voice speaks tenderly in the wilderness of your soul, and it will say to you: he who has two coats, let him share with him who has none; and he who has meat, let him do likewise.’

Then a publican called out, ‘But what of our livelihood?  We have to earn a living, from shelter and food! What will you have us do? Give men a bed, and a bowl of soup for free, to be good?’

‘Listen to the voice, it will say: Do not ask for more than is rightfully yours.’

And the soldiers, who were Herod’s men and had come with the priests and Levites, asked him, ‘How can we soldiers be good men, if we must use a sword and accuse others for our wages?’

John the Baptist told them, ‘The voice will say: do not do violence to any man and do not accuse another falsely. What you do, must be good and right, if you are to take to yourself your wages and be content.’

‘Who are you?’ Another Pharisee called out, ‘Are you the Messiah?’

John knew these questions needed to be asked, to prevent confusion in the people’s minds, and so he answered, ‘Listen to me…all of you…know that I am not the Christ. He shall come after me!’

‘Do you say that you are Elijah, then?’ Another priest said.

John shook his head, ‘I am sent in the spirit of Elijah.’

‘But it is said, that a prophet will come before the Messiah comes, are you not that prophet?’

‘I have told you…do not look at me, look for that other who will come!’

‘Who do you say that you are? We must return to tell those who have sent us, the council of great men at the Sanhedrin,’ that same Pharisee said.

‘Tell them, that I am the voice of the soul, crying in solitude, cut off from the likes of those who hold fast to the blood of Abraham. I am the free voice, without a folk, who seeks Him who comes to sustain me!’

‘Why do you preach repentance and baptise, and make pure men, if you are not a Prophet, or Elijah, or the Messiah?’ A Levite gave back.

‘I baptise with water, but there stands one among you that you do not recognise. He has the forces derived from a higher source than mine! He is mightier than I, for I am not worthy to stoop down to unloosen even the laces of his sandals. I baptise you with water. I do this in preparation for Him, who will baptise men not with water, but with the Holy Spirit fire!’

‘Is he here?’

John’s heart was full with joy, ‘I feel he is among us!’

The priests looked about them.

Each man searched his neighbour.

‘Where is he?’ they asked.

‘You shall not see Him until He makes himself known to you.’

The priests mocked him and said he was a madman. They told the crowds that no man should believe such lies and with their dispositions proud, gathered to them the reins of their animals, and took themselves and their soldiers from the shores of the river. But two members of the Sanhedrin remained behind, and sat among the crowds. John sensed that these men had been touched by his words.

After that, he continued with his work until the sun reached its zenith, and the crowds began, as was their custom, to disperse for the midday meal. Now standing alone in the chilling water, he saw a man step forward and come to the edge of the river.

He put a hand up over his eyes to see, for the sun’s rays were shimmering on the surface of the river, blinding him.

He recognised the man’s form and the contours of his face. How bright did the sun shine at that moment! As if it’s body were leaning over to touch the river! John squinted, and still he could not see, and yet he did see. This was a man he knew, and yet, it was not simply that he saw a man he knew, for this man, whom he had met at Qumran, seemed not to be there at all, but in his place was a soul that he recognised in its essential foundations. It was as if he were looking at his own reflection, a part of himself, long lost and forgotten. Did this soul that came towards him not seem like the youngest, and purest, soul in the world? And was this not the opposite of his own soul, which felt to him ancient, cracked, and used up, like an old jug emptied of its contents?

His heart near burst with the mighty impression this thought created, and his eyes filled with tears, and he let go his staff into the water.

WISE MEN, RICH MEN AND LEPERS - Excerpt From Fifth Gospel - A Novel.

              

JESUS walked the road that led from Nazareth to Judea with his feet moving of their own accord and his thoughts vacant in his head.

During his conversation with his stepmother, what had lived embedded in him like a seal on wax had begun its leave- taking. This had made him feel bewildered and abandoned. As he walked now, he could no longer think coherent thoughts, and his movements followed only a predetermined design, towards the man who would take his destiny further.

At daybreak, a wind-storm announced itself in the anger of a red sky. Soon the air had picked up around him to sting his eyes. He stumbled and fell. Two men dressed in white garments with hoods over their heads and scarves over their faces, came from the road ahead, leading an overburdened mule.

The taller man helped him up, and said loudly over the din, ‘What is this? Jesus of Nazareth, is that you? Where are you going alone, my son?’

Jesus looked up at him, trying to understand words that no longer made sense. When his voice came from his mouth it sounded hollow, as if it came not from him but from the wind, ‘I am going to where people like you do not wish to direct your vision, where human pain can find the consolation that comes from what you have forgotten!’

‘Jesus of Nazareth!’ the other man shouted. ‘Do you not remember us from Engaddi?’ The man took the scarf from his face momentarily. ‘Do you see who I am?’

The shorter did likewise and said, ‘I once sat with you in the grotto...do you remember?’

Jesus did not see them. He saw only what they represented.

‘Come away from this scorching wind!’ the taller one said, ‘The Lord is a storm come to sweep away the world.’

‘You are lost lambs!’ Jesus coughed, walking away.

‘We are all lost, Jesus!’ the shorter one cried, ‘It does not matter how many psalms we sing, or how many temples we build, God continues to deny us our Messiah!’

Jesus stood in the tempest of elements and looked at them. ‘And when I become your shepherd,’ he said, ‘when you realise who I am, you will run away again and become lost, just as you ran away from me long ago.’

The men put scarves to their mouths to ward off the dust and debris. The shorter man said, ‘you must come with us...you are not well, there is a house of the order not far from here, where you can rest.’

‘Leave me be!’ he said to them. ‘I won’t go to your secluded house! You wear white, and you pretend to be pure, but you are not pious men in your hearts, because in you burns a fire that has not been kindled by God, but by your own ambitions. You bear the mark of the tempter! It is the tempter that has made you arrogant, so that your wool glitters with his fire!’ He put his fingers to his face. ‘The hair of this wool pricks my eyes but it will not blind me!’

The taller man shouted, ‘Rest assured, Jesus, it is the dust that pricks your eyes! You know we have shown the tempter the door, he has no part in what we do...you should’ve stayed with us, now look at what the world has made of you! Let us help you!’

‘Oh what arrogance and pride! You are only greater than others because you stand on their backs!’

They did not know how to respond to this, and he left them standing in the desert. Behind him the mule made its loud complaints, shaking its head, as the breath of Jehova carried the world away to blot out the sun.

The storm abated, and days passed without beginning and without end.

It was night.

Fatigued and cold, Jesus wandered towards a light in the distance. When he drew near to it, he saw a man sitting by a fire preparing to eat a meal. When the man looked up, he stood in a hurry, afraid, and called out to him with a mustered boldness, ‘Who are you? I am alone but I have a knife, and I shall not be afraid to use it!’

Jesus showed him his empty hands. ‘I thirst,’ he said, knowing he must pause, for his legs would soon give out from under him.

The man came to Jesus and helped him to a place beside the fire. ‘Forgive me...I am constantly afraid of being robbed by thieves, or killed by bandits! I see you are no thief, and no bandit...come...be my guest...eat at my table. I have made soup,’ he said, showing him the watery stew which he was pouring into a bowl. ‘There’s crow in it and wild mushrooms,’ he pointed out those meagre morsels with an approving eye, ‘and some other wild things I have no name for....once, you know, I would have spat at the thought of such a meal, but now I shake with anticipation. Look at my hands how they shake. Because of the crow, I have made it boil a good long while to kill the poison...that is what it has come to...still...thanks be to God, I have something!’ He sighed. ‘Israel mourns...Israel hungers...its people cry out in pain for deliverance, but first I must cry out for something to feed the hunger of my body! Something to put in my belly! After that, a man can turn his mind to the hunger of the soul. Until then, we are all animals...’ he looked at Jesus, ‘You need something in your belly too I’ll wager...you look like you have eaten nothing in days...come...it's good you will see, I have let it boil long to kill the poison...’

Jesus shook his head, ‘I want only water.’

‘Only water...!’ the man said, peering at him with more intensity. ‘Are you a prophet? Yesterday, I heard tell from a holy man, of a prophet in these parts...So help me God! He was described to seem just like you! Many don’t trust prophets, they think them mad people with one foot in heaven and the other in hell...but I believe it a good thing to know a prophet who can speak to God.’ 

The man gave him some water, which Jesus drank with gratitude. ‘I thank you for the water...but I am not a prophet.’

‘What a shame!’ The man’s spirit drooped. He took a thoughtful gulp of his soup. ‘If you were a prophet,’ he continued, ‘I would ask you to speak to God on my behalf...on account of the paths my soul has taken.’

Jesus was directed to an apparition that loomed large and red over the man. ‘What are these paths? I have seen you before...a thousand years ago. You were different then!’

The man grew fearful. ‘What do you see? Oh, dear God of Abraham, what do you see? Is it the Devil sitting on my shoulders? Is it? Yes...?’ He shuddered and moaned, and shuddered again. ‘Would you send it away? It hounds me. I have given up everything, and yet it follows me! I admit that I was never a pious man. My heart was always bent on acquiring riches and high honours. I thought that I was of greater value than others. One day I had a terrible dream. I saw what had made me rich. It was not I, myself, it was a black angel with huge red wings, and I was terrified because I knew that it was the devil! I took to my heels to escape him, abandoning everything, and I have been going about for a long time, fleeing from what sits on my own shoulders...’ when he said this, his eyes clouded with tears and he seemed to be lost in a vision of his own wretchedness.

‘I have seen this spirit that hounds you before,’ Jesus said to him, ‘at the pagan altars...it is the spirit of pride and arrogance!’

‘Yes...yes...!’ the man said, with eyes wide. ‘Pride and arrogance! Exactly! That is my weakness!’

Jesus could not help him, he could not help anyone, not yet...something was waiting for him in the Jordan and he had to go. He stood and with a heart full of woe, left the man in his misery.

He walked day after day with the sun’s fingers on his brow, and spent the nights huddled, trembling from cold, with his teeth chattering and only his thin, white robe wrapped around him. On the morning of the thirteenth day when the fire-ball came out of its rocky bed he was up again, walking, and came upon the disfigured shape of a man sitting beneath a solitary tree.

Already the world was a furnace and he knew he must have shade, but as he neared the tree the man sitting there raised his head and Jesus could see that his skin was covered in pustules, leaking with suppurations, that his nose was a hole in his face and that the lids over his eyes were gone missing, giving him the look of a living cadaver. The leper tried in vain to cover his malignancies with a hand eaten and ravaged. ‘Go away!’ he said to Jesus. ‘I am foul! Hurry! Don’t come near, for the path I walk is not your path, my son. I beg you to leave while you can...!’

Jesus sat near the man and wiped his brow with a sleeve and said. ‘It is hot.’

‘Yes, yes...it is hot...but please, save yourself! Must I take upon my soul your death on top of everything else I have to bear?’

Jesus heard snakes hissing behind rocks and when he looked at the leper he saw blue wings and a cold eye. He had seen this eye before in the faces of those Temple priests. The eye looked at him while its wings enfolded the man.

‘Tell me,’ Jesus said to him, ‘where has the path your soul has taken led you? I know you, I saw you thousands of years ago, but you are now changed, you are come down to earth!’

The leper was terrified. He sucked in a breath through the purple edged crater that was his mouth, and from within this cavern he emitted a strangled voice, ‘Do you see it? Oh the misery! Where is the Messiah? When will he come to release me from this dreadful thing that claws into my flesh? He came so gradually, you know. At first I thought he was the Archangel Gabriel and I adored him but I soon realised that he was another...I realised he was the angel of death! Death itself gnaws at my bones and feeds on my flesh...look at me! Me, a learned rabbi, a powerful man in the synagogue! Now I am defiled and no one will have me near them, and I have to

walk alone in desolate places like this, scarcely able to beg for what scraps people will give me at their doors.

‘When you came I was waiting for death to tear me to pieces with his jaws...I have waited! But he wants to torture me more...’ He began weeping then into his ulcerated hands.

‘I have seen it,’ Jesus told him, putting a hand on the man’s shoulders, ‘It is the sharpness of your dead thoughts, rabbi...these are like corpses and rotting carcasses.’

The man was so frightened that he put both hands over his face to ward off the picture of it.

Jesus pointed his head to the sun and bellowed an ‘Ahhh!’ into that white light that blinded his eyes. ‘I am a grain of sand in the desert! What can I do?’ he said to it. He got up, hot tears falling on the dirt, and with exhaustion in his limbs went on his way.

And like the wise men and the rich man, this leper did not see him go until he was a speck on the horizon.