Fifth Gospel (14 page)

‘
In the heart speaks the voice that tells what is right, and what is wrong!’ She took his hand, and placed it between her breasts. ‘Here…’ she said. ‘Here speaks a truth that is beyond law and reason.’

The frankness of her words and the nearness of her womanhood stirred him. She knew how to remind him that he was something more than a soldier of Rome. He gentled her body over his a
nd her fine legs straddled him.

He told her, ‘Is the world of men ready for this heart’s t
ruth then, in your estimation?’

She smiled down at him. ‘To imagine that it might be
, is a pleasant dream…’

There was
the warmth of love between them. She bent to kiss him.

‘Your dream
awakens me,’ he whispered in her ear.

‘
But Philosophers must sleep, if they are to dream.’

‘Ph
ilosophers are lovers of wisdom,’ he gave back, ‘They dream while awake.’

And so she moved h
is soul from Pilate to Pontius, from statesman to man, and he forgot the melancholic rounds of his speculations and instead drank the living air of her soft Elysian fields. She was Persephone and he was her Pluto.

Very well.

Perhaps this was truth enough.

ISCARIOT

J
udas
lay in hiding for hours. When he came out all was quiet and it was near dark. He wanted to see what his work had realised.

He found a massacre.

His mind was taken by panic. He had not intended that it should end this way! He ran then, from himself, from the tempest of blood, from the vomit, the urine and excrement that covered the cobbled streets. He left the city with his heart pounding and with voices crying in his head.

Along
the way, upon the road that led to the north, he came across his friend, Simon Zealotes who was fleeing with his brother Jude. He fell in with them and they gave him consolation, assuming that like them he had fought valiantly and escaped death. They saw his anguish and took it to be sorrow for his friends, having no suspicion in their hearts for the enormous betrayal that was carving him hollow.

Only Judas knew it
, and the further he was from Jerusalem the more terrifying was the clarity in his head. He had shed the blood of Abraham, which to a Jew was the same as killing the father of his people. He had slain his father and succumbed to the seduction of Rome – a harlot who would never be his mother!

As t
hey travelled the road that followed the river Jordan their party came to a bend in the river. Here, they saw a great crowd gathered around a large man dressed in skins. This man spoke of repentance and of the imminent coming of the Messiah; he told the crowds that only by being immersed in water could they be cleansed of their sins before His coming. He also said that he would know those who were ready, just by looking at them. These he called the lambs. The others, the vipers, he would turn away, for they were not ready for what was new.

Judas turned his mind
to these words and considered his situation in a different light. He had done a terrible thing, but his intentions had not been evil ones – he had only desired to prepare the way for the Messiah! If he were cleansed of his sins he could start again, as this man professed was possible. A clean slate! But there was the risk, he reasoned, that such a man would recognise his crime just by looking at him. Would he not then pronounce him to be a viper and denounce him before the world?

Uncertain, h
e stood on the river’s lip. The others, taken by the Baptist’s words, had already taken off their cloaks and were entering the water. Judas considered that it might be his destiny to die here and now, and to have it over with. For how could he live with the terrible weight of his crime on his shoulders? A burden, he knew, that would grow more weighty by the day. Then again, in the depths of his heart, in his sinews, his muscles, his bones, a voice spoke to him of his grand place in God’s design. If this were so, well, the baptiser would cleanse him of his sins and mention not a word of his misdeeds. He would take this as a sign that God yet favoured him.

W
hen at last he stood before the man, he felt himself stripped naked and observed. He waited long, while those eyes probed him with a fierce intensity. It seemed like hours, but it was only a moment.

J
ohn the Baptist said nothing.

A great enthusiasm replaced his woes. God had not forsaken him
! His ideal had not been misguided. Misguided had been his means, but not his ends!

The baptiser
put a hand behind Judas’ back and soon he was entering into the nullity of the water. Fear gripped him and he struggled but then came a sense of peace and abandon, a loosening of the burden. He had never felt so light! When he came out of the water the world looked different, as if he were looking through another man’s eyes.

A
fterwards it was possible for Judas to join the others as one of John’s disciples, without guilt or concern. Day after day he was among them. He ate his meals with them, and listened to the words of the teacher. In the night he slept with them in huts made of rushes and felt that finally he had found a home and a family, for he sensed he belonged among these men, who were so unlike him in their experience and education – the simple fishermen from Galilee. It was as if he were rediscovering something long lost to him, as if in their midst he were reliving the miracle of the age of the Maccabees who had fought and died side by side.

In
the reflection of their eyes he did not see himself Judas Iscariot, the unwanted child; he did not see Judas Scorpizein, the betrayer of his village; or Judas the Sicarri traitor to his nation. He saw a newborn Judas Maccabeus, that great warrior who had once fought to restore the Kingdom of Abraham.

EAGLE

O
n
the day of his birth the sun rose in the constellation of the Eagle, signifying that destiny had chosen the boy’s kinship with all that exists above in the rarefied airs of the world.

Lazarus
had two sisters, Martha and Mary, and theirs was a family of wealth and position for their father had rendered a lifetime of service to the Roman Caesar in Syria and in return he had earned riches and property, both in Magdala and in Bethany. In Magdala, stood the family’s principle home, a house, steadfast and stout, set among a lush oasis of walled gardens and waterfalls. This was by far the grandest house in the region. Bethany, on the other hand, was a modest castle but well situated near Jerusalem.

Lazarus loved Magdala
, for its tower, and Bethany for its serenity and silence. For as well as a love of heights and wide spaces, he also possessed a deep sensitivity and inwardness of soul, which had fashioned for him ears more sensitive than other ears and a heart more perceptive than other hearts. And they remained so, even after his intellect was stimulated by learning.

His mother
, a Jewess from the lineage of Pharisees, had made certain that Lazarus was given a good Hebrew education. His father, an Egyptian noble who had been broadly educated himself, ensured that his schooling was supplemented with tutoring from the best Roman and Greek teachers.

His Greek tutor
, Photismos was a wiry old man with clear blue eyes and a quick mind. He had developed in Lazarus such a love for the Greek language that some thought the boy resembled a Greek, even in his manners and outward appearance. They also shared a love for high places, and Lazarus rejoiced whenever his teacher took him to the Migdal tower as he had this day, to observe the plains and mountains.

The tower had been built to observe and to defend the ancient trade routes connecting Nazareth to Damascus, its walls were mighty and steep and from them Lazarus could follow the caravans carving their way through the fertile plains of Gennesaret.
Standing upon its ramparts Lazarus demonstrated his oratory skills by calling out his own name, which echoed in the distance. He told Photismos that he liked to hear this call and that sometimes imagined that it came from another boy answering him from another tower.

Photismos nodded
, thinking on it. ‘Does the sound of this word express your inner self?’

Lazarus
was taken by this thought. ‘It must, since it is my name.’

‘
Ah…’ The old man smiled. ‘But Lazarus is not so strange a name, is it? There are many boys called Lazarus, but tell me, what is the name that only
you
can use?’

‘
I do not know.’

‘
You have just said ‘I’ do not know. Can you give this name “I” to any other being?’

Lazarus
paused. He alone could say “I” to himself.

‘But
are we not also given a name, according to the quality in our souls?’ he asked.

‘
Yes…this is true,’ his teacher said, ‘names are not given without rhyme or reason. Your name means
helped by the Lord
, but I do not believe that you alone in the world are helped by the Lord. The word “I” however, you alone can say. It is yours even if you do not have a name.’

‘Bu
t who has named me, I?’

‘God has named you
, of course...who else? You see, you are a word that was once spoken forth by God! Just as you have spoken your name forth, a moment ago, and it has created a sound that manifests your inner soul. This means that by uttering your name, you have also created something!’

‘
And so I am a God?’

‘Do the
Hebrews not say that all men were made in His image and likeness, child?’

‘
Yes…but I have never understood how that can be.’

‘Let us see
if we can explain it. Do you know the meaning of the word, Logos?’

Lazarus
shook his head.

‘It is the word of God
, my son. In the beginning, the warm word of God was spoken out into the world and it created life.’

‘But t
he sun creates life.’

‘
Yes, but what quality does the Sun possess that enables it to create life?’

‘Light
?’

‘
Bravo!’ Photismos clapped him on the back. ‘Yes…in this world nothing can grow in the dark, except for evil things, and no man can see on a moonless night, except for sorcerers…am I right?’

Lazarus agreed
, for this was well known.

‘
In the same way that the sun shines over the world, a spirit light shines over your soul, did you know that? This divine light is the word of God, and it has made you divine. This is why you can say “I”, because this word shines into you! A plant cannot say
I am
, nor can a camel. The
I am,
the divine light-word of the universe, has entered only into man.’

‘
But why do my teachers at the synagogue not teach this marvellous truth?’ Lazarus asked.

Photismos looked out to the valleys and hills and mountains. ‘A long time ago
, the great prophets and teachers could still see the light-word, but as time passed they grew blind and saw only the physical light of the sun, and it damaged their eyes to look upon it.’

‘
Do you say that men have grown blind to the word of God?’ Lazarus asked.

‘Yes…
and it is for this reason that a god descended to the moon in order that from it he might reflect the wisdom and the love of the sun; for this reflected light caused men no harm.’

‘
Who is this god?’

‘He reflects the
light-word, and so he is called…Jehova!
I am that I am
.’

Lazarus
grew fearful; this was the forbidden name, which was never to be spoken out loud. Men were stoned to death for saying it.

‘
Do not be afraid, child…soon a man will come who will see the fullness of the word and he will speak of it without fear. This man will look at the God of the Sun directly in the day, because His light will not harm his eyes.’

‘Who is this man
who will see this God, and why will His light not harm his eyes?’

‘He
will be the forerunner, child,’ he said to Lazarus, ‘and he will see this Sun God, the true light of the
I am
, because He will enter into a body of flesh, to dwell among men.’

‘Will I
ever see Him, the bearer of this light?’

Photismos looked at the boy
with a serious face. ‘You? You most of all, child! Why do you think I spend so much time on you?’

‘But how will I find him?’

‘Many years from now, you will hear the voice of His forerunner, crying out in the wilderness. He will direct you to the Man who will be the bearer of the light-word. You must listen to that call.’

‡

‘As the years passed,
pairé,
Lazarus waited for the call of the one whom Isaiah prophesied; the one who would bear witness to the incarnation of the Word of words. But it was not until he was a man, some months after he and his sisters had moved from their Galilean home to Bethany, that Lazarus had a waking dream. He dreamt that he was standing on the parapets of that great tower of Magdala again, but now it was not his own voice calling out his name, but another voice from afar, in the distant wilderness of Judea, that was calling it. The sound of it entered into his ears, and moved his heart to make it skip beats, it made him flush with warmth and it directed him to the wilderness, to a man called John.’