“I heard him with my own ears,” Mary asserted. “And those who have ears, let them hear his words through my voice, for I speak his words truly.”
“I thought she was safely tucked away among the Galatians!” said John.
“So did I. But that’s her voice, John, I’m sure of it.”
“You speak as a parrot speaks, repeating words without understanding.” There was no mistaking that voice.
“Why, that little pipsqueak!” I wondered why Mary didn’t just slug him.
“Shh,” said everyone around me, including John.
“I tell you, all those who depend on the Law are under a curse. Scripture says, Accursed be he who does not make what is written in the book of the law effective by putting it into practice. Now it is obvious that nobody is reckoned as upright in God’s sight by the Law, since the upright will live through faith; and the Law is not based on faith but on principle, whoever complies with it will find life in it.”
“Are you following this?” I asked John.
“Not perfectly,” he admitted.
“Christ redeemed us from the curse of the Law by being cursed for our sake,” Paul declared, “since scripture says: Anyone hanged is accursed, so that the blessing of Abraham might come to the gentiles in Christ Jesus, and so that we might receive the promised Spirit through faith.”
I could almost hear Mary mentally identifying the quotations he scattered throughout his speech and cataloguing her own counter quotations, ready to come back at him if he ever took a breath, which he seemed disinclined to do. But before I could hear her retort, I was distracted by another woman’s voice behind us, moaning.
“Make her stop, one of you! She promised us she was only going to listen. She promised!”
I turned around, and there, at the edge of the crowd, stood my dear old nemesis Martha, laden with parcels, and flanked by Lazarus, and—could it be? I stared across the span of almost twenty years at an old man I had known as Joseph of Arimathea.
“John!” I grabbed his arm and turned him. “Look!”
And in the midst of people on all sides shushing us, John turned, and in another moment we were all sobbing and embracing and making a ruckus to rival Mary B and Paul.
“How do you come to be here?” I wondered, still dazed, as the five of us moved away from the crowd.
“We came to visit you and Miriam, of course!” said Martha. “You don’t think we escorted Mary here just so that she could make a public scene. She doesn’t need us for that.”
“Maeve.” Joseph spoke, his voice breaking, and I made myself look at the man I had turned away. “Maeve, I had lost hope of ever finding you again. When I returned to find that you had been hounded by Jesus’s disciples until you disappeared—” Here he glanced at John in some bewilderment. “Well, I have never forgiven myself for leaving your side. I should have—”
I went to Joseph, and placed my fingers on his lips.
“Ssh. No more reproaches, dear friend. You did everything you could. You offered your support and protection without asking anything in return.”
“But—”
“Ssh,” I said again, taking his face between my hands and kissing the tears on his cheeks.
At last I turned and looked at Lazarus, whose silent gaze always brought me back to the shoals of the river where I had waited with him between life and death. Lazarus had prophesied, “We will all be together again one day.” I spoke my question without words.
“I only knew it was time to come, Mary,” he answered. “I cannot tell you more than that.”
“And John, Son of Zebedee!” Martha turned her attention to my companion. “Can that be you? What are you doing here in Ephesus with Mary of Magdala!” Martha’s tone made the unspoken words, that slut, quite audible.
John and I exchanged a glance, and I am afraid he blushed a bit indiscreetly.
“And what have you done with Miriam?” Martha demanded.
“Actually, we’re in the city today looking for a scribe,” I answered truthfully, if evasively. “We left Miriam with our neighbors in the house that John built for her. John thinks we should tell our stories, everything we remember about Jesus. He thinks our stories should be written down.”
“Why, he’s absolutely right,” said Joseph with a little too much heartiness, I thought. “Someone’s got to get the story down in a coherent form. And I think I know just the man to help you—a friend of mine, Theodore, a citizen of this city. I was planning to look him up, in any case. He is no mere scribe but an accomplished philosopher and man of letters.”
“Is he a Jew?” asked John, a bit apprehensively.
“He is Greek, of course. He has studied Jewish Law along with many other learned texts.”
“Before we do anything,” Martha interrupted. “Someone better fetch Mary out of that synagogue before they decide to stone her.”
“I am afraid I promised Paul of Tarsus in the name of Christ Jesus that I would never interrupt his teachings again,” I begged off. “I don’t know if the promise extends to debates, but I’d rather not push it.”
Lazarus and Joseph remained silent, contemplating the sculpture on winged victory on the Nike gate.
“I’ll go,” said John at last, earning a grateful sigh from Martha. “And then by all means, let us pay a call on the Greek.”
The house of Theodore was one of the elegant terrace houses perched on the side of Koressos hill, near the top, and it commanded a view not only of the city but of the Temple of Artemis, shining on the plain beyond the walls. The view disappeared as servants ushered us into the atrium to enjoy refreshments while waiting for the master of the house to come and welcome us.
Theodore was a trim, ascetic-looking man, with sharp eyes and a head that made quick birdlike motions as he greeted us each in turn. I couldn’t help recalling other times that Joseph out of the goodness of his heart had imposed on old friends with a bizarre entourage—like bringing a gaggle of whores to the house of Nicodemus in Jerusalem. I thought we were a more presentable lot this time, being middle-aged and more or less respectable, but when Joseph mentioned our mission, Theodore’s eyebrows rose sharply and looked as though they might take flight from his brow altogether.
“May I speak with you privately for a moment, old friend?” he said to Joseph, and the two of them went apart, leaving us to enjoy wine, olives and figs.
I took the chance to catch up with Mary B.
“Have you left Galatia for good?” I asked.
“Who knows anymore? For good or ill or whether I will ever return,” sighed Mary. “I made the trip South to have a word with James about Paul of Tarsus. He’s been sending the most nasty, overbearing epistles to the ecclesia in Galatia, and though he doesn’t mention me by name, he is clearly attacking my teachings. Before I could get an audience with James, Lazarus took it into his head that we must all go to Ephesus at once. Lo and behold, there’s Paul. So you see I just had to confront him today, Martha.”
“Much good it does you or anyone,” scolded Martha. “All this fighting.”
“She was more than holding her own when I called her away,” John said, as mildly as possible.
“And what is your position on the teaching of Torah, John?” asked Mary B.
“Oh, Mary,” said John. “I am not much good at having positions, if you remember. I miss the good old days of parties and parables.”
“Just like her,” Mary gestured toward me. “The two of you are a pair!”
An awkward silence followed as it dawned on everyone that Mary had spoken more truth then she knew.
“In the name of Jesus!” Mary smote her brow. “Don’t you think you’re both a little past that sort of thing?”
“Don’t talk about it,” said Martha reflexively. “It only makes it worse.”
Lazarus just smiled to himself, and before anyone could make any further comment, Joseph and Theodore returned, with three servants, wax tablets in hand.
“I will confess,” said The
odore, seating himself on a low stool, “that when my friend Joseph told me you were followers of the so-called Way, my first impulse was to have nothing to do with you or your stories of someone you call the Christ. Ephesus is a city known for its enlightenment and diversity. People come from all over the world to marvel at the Temple of Artemis, whether or not they are followers of her cult. No cult of any kind has ever been censured or repressed in Ephesus, but the Christiani have not shown the same forbearance. The burning of costly and in many cases irreplaceable scrolls—of which you may have heard—has turned public sentiment against them.”
“None of us approves of such measures,” Mary B spoke up. “And all of us here have sharp differences with Paul of Tarsus.”
“So Joseph has explained to me,” said Theodore gravely and courteously, displaying no shock that a woman should speak for the group. “And I admit I am intrigued that there should be so much controversy dividing such a new cult, surrounding, forgive me, such an obscure figure from a far-flung outpost of the Roman Empire.” He revealed all his Hellenic prejudices. “My curiosity is roused. In short, I am willing to put my services and those of my household at your disposal.”
“We are grateful to you, sir,” John answered this time, asserting his leadership, I sensed. “When and how do we begin?”
“We begin at once.” He signaled to the waiting scribes. “And naturally, we begin at the beginning. Joseph tells me the idea is yours, John, son of Zebedee.”
“Yes, but I don’t know everything. These others have stories, too.” He hesitated, casting a look of appeal in my direction.
“Jesus loved you, John,” I said. (Who knows, perhaps these words of mine were the origin of his title in the gospel named for him: the disciple whom Jesus loved.) “He trusted you. You start.”
Mary B, Martha, and Lazarus nodded agreement. Outspoken as she was, Mary B had not arrived in Ephesus with the intention of dictating her gospel narrative. I expect she wanted some time to organize her thoughts or to hear what the rest of us would say that might need interpreting or correcting. John moved from the couch where he had been reclining and took a stool, like Theodore’s. He sat up straight, closed his eyes for a moment before he spoke.
“In the beginning…”
(If you are waiting to hear the famous words that open John’s gospel, you must wait a little longer.)
“I was a fisherman on the Sea of Galilee, and so was my brother James. We were friends with Andrew and Simon, who were also brothers. We called Simon the Rock, and Jesus did, too. He had nicknames for us all. My brother and I were called Boanerges, the Sons of Thunder…”
John told his story, too quickly, leaving out most of the parables. I could tell he was nervous and intimidated by Theodore and the scribes. Soon Mary B could contain herself no longer, and jumped in, adding the theological context and elucidating points of the Law. Now and then, Mary or John would turn and ask me to tell a particular story—about how Jesus changed water into wine at our wedding. I also told what I knew about Jesus’s meeting with Susanna at the well in Samaria. And I told the whole story of how I came to be brought before Jesus as an adulteress. Martha spoke up only about the death and raising of Lazarus, how she reproached Jesus when he arrived what she still considered to be four days late. Lazarus refused to speak about the matter at all, and shook his head when I sent him an inquiring glance, so I did not tell about waiting with him at the river.
All this while, the scribes wrote furiously, and Theodore went from being a moderator trying to keep order among the speakers to someone increasingly caught up by the story. Servants came to light torches when darkness fell, and fresh food and drink kept appearing. Still we talked on. We each told what we remembered about the crucifixion, but I left out the parts that only I knew—how I had changed places with him on the cross and how Miriam had tried to drug him, so that he would be taken for dead and cut down in time to save his life. I don’t know what made me hesitate about the latter. Perhaps the fact that many skeptics still believed his death had been faked, and I did not want to lend credence to that theory. When it came time to tell about the tomb and what happened in the garden at dawn, everyone turned to me.
“You were the only one of us there,” said Mary B.
“Tell it, Mary,” John urged. “Tell all of it.”
I sent him an anguished look. John knew more about what had happened than anyone else alive; he had guessed the truth. But I had never told anyone the whole story. Though the idea of writing our stories was to preserve them, I had a sudden fear of loss. Once the story was outside of me, it would not be mine anymore. I would have no control over it.
Is this what you want? I asked my beloved silently.
She who loses her story for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel will save it, I thought I heard his voice, but it might have been only a memory of some other words, some other time. And I did not know what he meant. I would have to decide for myself.
“When everyone else left the tomb, I stayed behind with him,” I began.
And I told how I had been sealed in with him, and how I had taken the lamp and unwound the grave clothes, so that I could see his body again.
“I am sorry, Martha,” I turned to her. “I know it was not proper.”
Martha weeping, just nodded, and reached for my hand. And as I went on, I knew everyone who listened was there with me again, grieving with me again. And as John had asked, I told everything. I sang the song I sang over him after I had bathed him with tears, and I told how he embraced me, and rose in me, and how we made love where his dead body had been laid.
“That is all I remember until the earthquake, and then I woke to find him gone, and the stone rolled away.”
Then I described the golden tree and the man I thought was the gardener.
“Until he called me by my name, and then I knew him.”
I lost myself and my words in the memory of that moment.
“And what did you answer?” Theodore prompted.
I looked up at him, and saw that his face was wet with tears; they shone in the torchlight.
“I said… I said: Sweet holy fucking Isis!”
I saw Theodore make a gesture to the scribes. I was not to know the significance of that gesture until lifetimes later.
“Are you sure?” he asked, his eyebrows seeking the ceiling.
“It is the sort of thing she would say,” concurred Mary.
“I am sure, because I remember his answer. He said: Yes.”
Theodore’s brows now plunged towards the floor and stayed there in a frown.
“Continue,” he said.
“Then I went to tell the others,” I concluded, suddenly tired. I had told enough. No one needed to hear about Jesus’s hymn to Isis or the golden raiment I found waiting for me in the tomb where I thought to find only my filthy tunic.
“What did you think?” Theodore turned to them. “Did you believe?”
Then the others took up the story again, describing his appearances to them and the joyful party we all had on the beach in Galilee. No one protested when I rose and asked a servant to show me to the toilet room. When I had relieved myself I did not go back to the courtyard, but found the stairs to the rooftop. I gazed out over Ephesus, all the houses of the rich ablaze with light, and the streets lit all the way to the water. The Temple of Artemis, too, was outlined with light, its columns a ghostly forest on the plain.
“What is done is done,” I said out loud. What I meant and whether I spoke to Jesus or myself, I did not know.
In fact, the Gospel according to John was not done, nor would be for many years. As far as I know John never even saw the final version of his gospel. Theodore became obsessed with what some people regard as a masterpiece, the most literary of the four canonical accounts, and he worked it and re-worked it for decades, not completing it until after the fall of the Temple of Jerusalem. I still wonder if I was more responsible than I could wish for the way this gospel took shape, not because of what I
said, but because of what I didn’t say when I had the chance.
By the time I came down from the roof, the party had broken up for the evening. A servant, who had stayed to clean up the remains of our feast, offered to escort me to the women’s wing, but I just asked for directions and insisted I could find my way. In one passage, I heard voices coming from what must have been Theodore’s private library.
“A remarkable story, extraordinary,” I recognized Theodore’s voice.
“Yes, isn’t it?” I heard Joseph answer. “Even though I have known most of it for years, I don’t think I have ever heard it told at one sitting.”
“Of course, the telling was extremely jumbled,” said Theodore. “The story is in desperate need of structure and focus. And I will tell you something, Joseph, if you will not think me presumptuous.”
“Of course, I won’t. You know I have the utmost respect for your philosophical training.”
“None of them, much as they love this man they call Jesus or the Christ, none of them knows who and what he really is.”
“How do you mean?”
“Well, they think he is human, and they have an inkling that he is more, that somehow he has become a god, as in all the old myths, which of course the Jews among them are not allowed to believe in. What they don’t understand is he is more than either divine or human. He is a principle, he is the Logos. If there is a divine principle, if you will, he is one with that principle. He comes to point the way to the realm of the absolute.”
“I think I follow you,” said Joseph excitedly. “It’s like the myth of Plato’s cave. All his followers are looking at images of his life projected in shadows on the wall. They are caught emotionally in the story, in their own stories, but he is the like the light itself.”
“He is the light. The light that shines in the darkness,” Theodore exulted, “and I will write the story, so that people can come out of the cave and glory in that light.”
The hair stood up on my neck, and fear and excitement, so akin I could not tell them apart, raced along my spine.
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