Jesus was reaching into the great earthenware pot wherein was kept the flour. He took up a cupful and brought it to the dough. ‘This camel must quench his thirst,’ he said, and sprinkled the flour.
She turned her dough over and over to take up it up. ‘That’s your mother in you talking! She always knew how much flour was enough, and yet she did not seem to live with her feet on the ground! For my part, I have always felt the ground keenly beneath my feet and that is why I treasured your mother.’ She sighed. ‘You may not know it, but my comfort has always been that I see her in you, in the fairness of your skin and the love of your heart. But Jesus, I also see something else in you! Yes…something more than joy and calmness. There are times when a flame rises up in you that seems not your own. I worry then for you...and when it comes, the moment I recognize that fire, I look away!’ She halted, searching for additional words, ‘What overcomes me? I don’t know! Sometimes I fear that if I were to look too deep into your eyes…I would not meet Jesus bar Joseph at all…but some other man!’ She made a nervous laugh and said, ‘Is this not a remarkable madness?’
He looked at this and words came to him without a thought, ‘What is an eye, mother? Is God not capable of fashioning an eye in place of an eye and a hand in place of hand?’
This surprised her and she didn’t seem to know what to say. ‘God is capable of anything, Jesus. That is what we are told...’
But Jesus did not hear her, for he was taken by his own words. His heart grew wide with recollections half forgotten and half remembered; of two boys sitting in a field or walking arm in arm; two boys sharing meals or laughing together. He had not thought on Yeshua in some time but he had always felt him in his thoughts. Yeshua was the one who would have said such words. A realisation came to him then, an understanding of why his stepmother loved him and yet held him remotely from her; why she seemed close to him one moment and distant the next.
What lived within him, that part of him that was like Yeshua, said to her, ‘God can make two into one if it serves his design. He can make the inside like the outside, and the outside like the inside, and the above like the below, and the male like a female and the female like a male, one and the same…’
She stopped kneading her bread, to look at this with a frown.
‘How can he do this?’
‘Perhaps,’ he told her, ‘it is like a woman who conceals leaven in her dough and though she can make two loaves from it makes only one. Perhaps if you were to recognise the son in front of you, the Lord would make the son hidden from you plain to you!’
Her breathing near stopped. Jesus saw something flicker in her eyes and she stifled a gasp.
‘Praise the Lord our God!’ she said, and tears welled up. She opened her mouth to say something else, but her lips would not utter the words.
‡
‘It was only a moment, pairé, spent this way, while the afternoon crept through the shadows of other rooms. Afterwards, having acknowledged it, they both returned to their duties–he to his workshop and she to her dough.’
‘What was she going to say, Lea?’ I asked.
‘She was going to say that she could see Yeshua, her son, in Jesus. But these feelings could not rise up into her thoughts.’
‘Why not?’
‘The time was not yet come, pairé, don’t be impatient! First she must let her feelings sit in the warm silence of her heart, like ‘leaven’, until they can rise up to become words.’
‘Oh my!’
16
THE ENLIGHTENED ONE
Jesus travelled with the pure ones to the valley of Engaddi, an oasis of fresh water springs and palm trees thrust up out of a stark, apocalyptic landscape. Here, atop a sheer windblown hill overlooking the abundant desert skies and those salt-laden waters of the Dead Sea, he was taken to the motherhouse of the Order of the Essenes where its members lived in complete and silent seclusion.
On his arrival he was welcomed with respect and over time he was given instruction and shown the library of scrolls preserved in clay pots, wherein the elders and guardians of the community had sealed the memory of their founder, the ordinances of their people and the prophecies of the holy ones. Jesus had lingered many an hour in this repository of wisdom, reading by the light of an oil lamp.
Below the motherhouse in a modest convent, there lived the celibate educators of the children of outsiders. Beyond this could be found the dwellings of the married Essenes, the weavers, carpenters, vine growers and tillers of the soil, the life-blood of the order. He saw that this community was not unlike the community at Nazareth, where the lay people supported the priests and the teachers, and so it had not been difficult for him to grow accustomed to its ways.
At Engaddi however, the community not only provided for the priests, it also provided for the many penitents who came here from every place, and the ascetics who lived in the desert gorges and hillside caves of the neighbouring areas. Jesus wandered through these desolate places with his teachers, garnering their knowledge. At other times, he went alone into the village to talk to the simple folk. When he was feeling the need for quiet, he would take himself to where the trees shaded the coolness of a waterhole not far from the settlement. Here, he could sit and ponder the purity, or impurity, of the teachings he was receiving.
One day, when he came to the waterhole, he found one of his teachers waiting for him. The old man’s head was roughened by the sun, and his white beard flowed like a shiver from his chin. He greeted Jesus with a nod, and asked him if he knew what he had come for.
‘You wish to speak with me.’
‘That is so.’
His time at Engaddi was nearing an end and the old man had come to seek from him his decision: to go or to stay.
‘Much time has passed since your arrival in our community and I am sent by the elders not to convince you to stay, since a man must decide freely to enter into our cloister, but rather to speak of the grave and solemn responsibility you shall undertake if you decide to join us in our doings.
‘You know that Nazarites are reverenced by all as holy men. They are holier even than the Levites born into the priesthood! When they go to the Temple in Jerusalem, they are given every convenience and are permitted at any time to enter the court of the Nazarites, where they can gather up their hair and cook their peace offerings.
‘What I have come to tell you is this…if you become an Essene you will not be respected or given conveniences. You will not be understood by any man! For we Essenes walk like shadows…’ he whispered, ‘silent, quiet…and none know that we prepare the world for the coming of the Messiah through fasting and penitence and deep prayer. We live a grave life, Jesus, as you know, because it is only through purification that we gain knowledge, it is only by shunning the world and its un-cleanliness that we shall rise higher than other men. Listen to me, Jesus,’ he sat forward, ‘the world has stained the soul and the soul has tainted the breath, which was given as a gift to man by God, so that when we breathe out…we kill the world. Once you enter into our cloister all that exists outside its gates, all that lives in the kingdom of the world must be forgotten. That is why there are no images at our portals, Jesus, because our eyes must be kept pure for the images that are true. Have you seen the pagan idols in your travels? Are they not like the beings we meet in the world? How can we presume to be the creators of the likeness of God? All images must be left behind at those gates, for only in seclusion can the mind make images of higher things, and only these higher images can change the heart, and only a change of heart can cleanse the breath…so that a man becomes like a plant, life giving.’
But as the man spoke, before Jesus’ eyes the image of the Essene softened into the green foliage, and in its place came the image of another being.
The figure wore a smile that conveyed a likeness of all the love in the world, all that was valued as worthy and holy. He spoke even as the other man did, but his words were heard in the heart and not the ear.
‘I was b
orn on the night of a full moon in far distant lands, long before this time, Jesus. I was the son of a wealthy king and queen. When I was your age, full of thirst to know the world, I too left my home, just as you have done, and what I saw was full with ills. Yes, I saw the pain of disease and the ravages of old age. I saw poverty and hunger and pain. I saw women crying for their lovers and mothers crying for their children and drunkards crying for their drink. I saw the cold, the weary, the beaten, the helpless and the hopeless. I saw these things as you have seen them and I too mourned for those I could not help. The truth is, Jesus, I would have returned home to the palace of my father feeling despondent, had Vishva Karman the artist of the gods, not appeared to me. After that, I sought enlightenment as you have done. I sat beneath the Bodhi tree where I was transfigured and it was through this illumination that a light was shed upon the ultimate truth:
‘Birth is suffering. Illness, thirst and hunger are suffering. Old age and death are suffering. Separation from loved ones and unification with those we do not like is suffering. Pain is suffering and the absence of pleasure is suffering. Attaining what is desired is suffering, and attaining what is not desired is suffering. Ignorance is suffering and knowledge is suffering, craving and grasping and consciousness is suffering. To end suffering, to release the soul from the eternal chain of incarnations, to find salvation, I realised that one had to extinguish the self, and blot out the thirst for existence.
‘And so this is what I, the Enlightened One, went on to teach men.
‘But now, Jesus, the time for such a teaching is ended. For just as there are those who follow the path willingly, relinquishing all earthly things, walking with their white robes carrying their bowls in their hands, not labouring for their meals but living only from the alms that others deign to give them, so there must also be those who cannot follow the path, those who cannot relinquish earthly things. The world needs labourers and street vendors and women who can bear children and cook meals. There must always be those who do not wish to escape the endless wheel, for without them who would support those who walk the path? The priests could not collect alms if all men were to relinquish the world for enlightenment!
‘The fulfilment of these doctrines would force all people to be like the elders of this order, but this is no longer lawful. Something new is entering into the world, Jesus, and I have prepared for it. The most excellent of spirits will soon come. He was known in ages past as Vishva Karman and Rama and Krishna and when he descends into the body of a man, He will be called Christ. He will bring with Him this understanding: that it is by way of death that man is born again; it is by way of suffering that compassion arises; and that it is by way of compassion that conscience can come into being. You see, conscience comes when we feel the pain of another. This voice of conscience now asks: how pure is enlightenment, if it is selfish and leads to the exaltation of a few through the suffering of many? He is near at hand, Jesus, and only conscience will recognise Him.’
Jesus felt the majestic truth of these words and asked, full of wonder, ‘Who are you?’
‘I am called, Buddha because I have sat under the Bodhi tree and I have been enlightened, and so I have escaped the endless round of incarnations. Long ago, it was I who made smooth the way for Christ! He will not escape the world but He will unite himself with it for all times not to save a few, but to save many.’
After that the vision melted away and the image of the Essene was returned to Jesus and he saw that he was sitting as before and that but a moment had passed.
The elder, he realised, was waiting patiently for a response, and he gave it: he could no longer remain with the Essenes.
Afterwards, he returned to the motherhouse with his mind crowded with thoughts and as he reached the gates, upon which no graven images were seen, his now enlightened spirit eyes were directed to the creatures that were sat upon them. Had he seen these creatures before? Were these the same as those creatures he had seen among the Temple priests and on the pagan altars?
As he entered the compound the spirits fled in haste, and on seeing this a question arose in his heart:
Where do you go, spirits, when you flee from here?
For a long time this thought plagued him. This thought and the words of the Enlightened One.
17
WATERMAN
John, son of Elisabeth and Zacharias, neared his thirtieth year.
In fulfilment of his father’s vow to God he had been taken as a child to the Nazarites to be instructed. Thereafter he had lived in the desert among the peoples of the caves and the peoples of the gorges, and for this reason he now remembered little of his mother and father, and his youth in Hebron. Instead, he remembered other things: the surface of the salty sea, the scorched winds that fanned the palms, the taste of cool waters flowing from natural springs, and the endless round of fasting and deprivation, which formed a part of the life of every Nazarite. He had never taken a razor to the head, He had abstained always from any fermented drink, ate no animal flesh and had never come near a dead body. Moreover, the exercises he had endured since childhood and continued to endure had been harsh, the maceration and mortification of the flesh had hardened his body and loosened his soul in readiness for the coming of the Messiah.
Towards this end he spent long days and even longer nights in meditation and fasting, sitting before the mouth of his cave with his throat parched and his hunger gnawing and biting him like a ravenous animal. The cave was located in the walls of a steep gorge. From its lip he could look over the mountainous wilderness of Judea, over the death-imbued waters of the Dead Sea and the rigid bareness of the low lying deserts. This landscape recalled to him the impoverishment of the human soul; the soul that chose only a striving for earthly things. In the distance he could also see that other place, which had once been cursed by God – Gomorrah. This was now the colony of the Essenes, who came to call it Qumran.
He would sometimes go to Qumran and on the way he would pause to visit those little colonies that here and there dotted the wilderness. He spoke to the people of these hamlets of his hopes for the coming of the Messiah. But the people did not hear his words with open ears, for they possessed lame spirits.
He often spent time at Qumran, for he acknowledged the struggle for purity of the Essenes, and they, in turn, seemed to approve of his pious life and allowed him to enter their cloisters from time to time, disclosing some of their ways to him. He knew they only did so, however, in the hope that he might incline his heart towards them. But he had always sensed something misshapen in their teaching and for this reason he never remained long with them, preferring the solitude of his cell, his own rules, and his own ways.
It was on such a visit to Qumran, that John met the man whom they called Jesus of Nazareth.
The day of the meeting he was sat on the highest pinnacle of the Essene house, feeling particularly troubled. A deep gloom had settled over the expanses, making the desert’s pillars and domes seem to him like sinister beings. The entire world seemed cast in murky tones by the grey-green clouds of an oncoming storm, which loomed above and made his bones and sinews creak – a storm, sure enough, caused by the devil.
He was torn from his thoughts by a voice.
‘You are the prophet?’ The voice said, and when John turned to look, he saw that it came from a man no older than he, a man who was tall, brown of skin, fair of hair, with eyes that were neither brown nor green nor blue: the eyes of a Galilean, a stranger of mixed heritage.
He did not like strangers.
‘If I am a prophet,’ he said, turning around again, ‘then I am a solitary one.’
The Galilean did not seem put off by him, which in itself was enough to make him curious.
‘All prophets are solitary,’ the other man pointed out, sitting next to him. ‘Elijah was a voice in the wilderness, unknown by a world that did whatsoever it wished with him.’
John made a huff. ‘What good did Elijah do? The souls of men have not changed, the world remain
s the same.’
‘Did you hope you would find it otherwise?’ the other man said.
What was this question that did not seek an answer, but seemed to be the answer itself? He took a closer look at the silhouette of the man sitting beside him. He was gazing out at the desert as if it were a pleasure garden! On the one hand, this man seemed as old as Abraham and on the other, there was something fresh and youthful that played about his eyes. The perception of these opposing natures made John fall into bewilderment and he did not know what to make of it, so he did something rare – he smiled.
‘What is your name? It seems to me that we have met before.’
The stranger said, ‘I am Jesus. I was born in Bethlehem, but I come from Nazareth.’
‘Nazareth?’ John said, ‘Nothing good ever came out of Nazareth, isn’t that what they say?’
‘Yes…that is what they say,’ the stranger looked at him, with a wide smile in his colourful eyes.
There was something in that smile. ‘I have heard tell of you, I think…’ He frowned, trying to put a finger on it. ‘Are you one with this Order?’
Jesus shook his head slightly.
‘What are you doing here, then?’
‘I am the same as you.’
John nodded, reflecting on it. ‘I am a solitary wanderer…a seeker…’
Jesus said, ‘And that is what I am.’
He threw him a hard stare. ‘What are you seeking?’
Jesus returned it, measure for measure. ‘The truth.’
John shrugged. ‘That is what every man seeks.’
‘Is that not also…what you seek?’
‘Yes…’ he said disconcerted, ‘but have you found it? That is the question.’
Fifth Gospel: A Novel (Rosicrucian Quartet) Paperback Page 10
