King Jesus (Penguin Modern Classics) (44 page)

Nicanor looked to see under which of the seven trees Jesus would seat himself, and wondered that he abstained from the tree of royalty, the tree of magic, the tree of might, the tree of wisdom, the tree of prosperity, the tree of holiness, but rested submissively on his knees under the tree of love.

Jesus, reading his thoughts, asked : “Was it not of this tree that Solomon the wise prophesied in his allegory of God’s love for Israel : ‘I sat down under his shadow with great delight, for his banner over me was love’ ?”

Nicanor bowed before Jesus reverently and asked : “Lord, are you prepared to suffer the things that are necessary to royalty? Are you prepared for the marring ?”

“I am prepared. It is written : ‘Behold the Servant of the Lord shall prosper. He shall be exalted and praised and lifted high. Many were astonished, Lord, at your doing : for his face was marred more than any man’s, and his body likewise. Thus marred, shall he sprinkle many nations with his lustral branch. Kings shall be dumb before him. They shall see what has not been told them, and learn what they have not before heard.’ ”

On the third day, just before dawn, they led him by torchlight to the Heel Stone, formerly the eastern altar of a gilgal, or stone circle, long since vanished. Mary of Bethany, the daughter of Jose styled Cleopas, a beautiful kinswoman of Mary the mother of Jesus, stood at one side of the stone ; Mary herself stood next to her, and presently another woman came out of the darkness of the wood, her face shrouded in a shawl, and made a third with them, but said nothing.

Nicanor bound the ceremonial dove-wings to the shoulders of Jesus. “Have no fear, great Lord, for our God will give his angels charge of you, lest you dash your sacred foot against a rock.”

As dawn was breaking, Jesus mounted upon the stone and Mary the daughter of Cleopas cried : “Fly, Dove of Doves, fly !”

At that signal the Kenites began to pelt him with stones and sticks and filth until his face was wounded and disfigured and he toppled forward from the stone, as the winged Icarus falls from Heaven in the famous picture by Zeuxis. But seven notables of Tabor, named after the archangels Raphael, Gabriel, Sammael, Michael, Izidkiel, Hanael and Kepharel, stood below the stone and caught him before his feet touched the ground.

Now, I have read that the Great King of Babylon himself would submit during his coronation to be buffeted in the face by a priest, and that King
Herod when crowned King of the Jews underwent the same indignity, which was the occasion of his remembering the prophetic buffets that Father Manahem had dealt him at Bozrah. But the ritual assault upon King Jesus by the seven notables of Tabor was a more ancient and cruel one by far, performed again after more than a thousand years in fulfilment of prophecy.

They wrestled with him, seven against one, until they had forced him to kneel with thighs divaricated. Then the tallest and boldest of them climbed on the stone and leapt down on him, and by that act of violence the marring was completed. Jesus’s left thigh was put out of joint, the head of the bone being displaced and lodged in the muscles of the thigh ; and his left leg stretched out in spasm and twisted, so that thereafter he limped with what is called the sacred lameness. The eighth sign of royalty had been added and he had uttered no cry or word of complaint. Mary the elder and Mary the younger wept for pity. But the tall old woman standing beside them suddenly drew back her veil, kissed the younger Mary on both cheeks, laughed terribly and fled back into the wood.

The Kenites took Jesus up tenderly and implored his pardon. They washed his face, put salve on his wounds, and towards evening carried him in a litter to a spacious arbour of cedar and fir branches which had been erected in Nicanor’s garden. As he entered, the whole assembly, who had been sworn to sacred silence, rose to their feet.

A throne hung with purple was prepared at the western end of the arbour. Mary the daughter of Cleopas was already seated on it, dressed like a queen in a robe of gold tissue ; a necklace of amber and scallops about her neck and a diadem of stars on her head. The seven notables came forward and ministered to Jesus. Kepharel drew upon his feet the royal scarlet buskins with gold heels of tragical height ; the four angels next in the hierarchy invested him with sacred garments ; Raphael crowned him with his golden crown ; Gabriel presented him with a sceptre of canna-reed.

When he was ready, the Queen smiled graciously at him, descended slowly from the throne and gave him her hand. Painfully he took three steps up the ramp and sat down beside her ; for the meaning of coronation is marriage to the heiress of the land.

Rams’ horns blew, the company shouted acclamations and the wedding feast began. An unblemished white ox had been slaughtered in honour of the King and Queen, and now the company, hungry for roast flesh after a night and a day of fasting, waited for him to inaugurate the banquet by partaking of the sacred shoulder reserved for him.

He set the shoulder aside, saying : “Those who love me will refrain with me. This custom is ended.”

None dared cat, and the carcase of the ox was taken out for burial. However, he accepted a cup of red wine from Nazareth, the ancient House of Wine attached to the shrine of Tabor, and shared it with his queen. Even the Kenites now drank wine, dispensed from their Nazirite
prohibition. He also accepted a loaf of bread from Bethlehem of Galilee, the ancient House of Bread, and shared it with his queen to the last crumb.

Then to music of pipe and drum the Kenites antiphonically sang Rachel’s Blessing upon Israel. This is their mystic song of the Sacred Year and contains the names of the original fourteen tribes, Dinah among them, beginning with Reuben and ending with Benjamin :

See the Son, on the water tossed,
In might and excellency of power,
Resting at ease between two feats—
He has paid the shipman all his hire—
Dwelling secure in the hollow ship
Until by winds he is wafted home.
Hark, how he roars like a lion’s whelp!
Hark, how his brothers praise his name!
For his eyes are red with Eshcol wine
And his teeth are white with milk.

 

Happy is he ; his bread is fat,
Royal dainties are on his plate.
Though a troop of raiders cast him down,
He will cast them down in his own good time.
He is set apart from all his brothers
And joined in marriage to Canaan’s queen.
His word is sharp, his anger fierce ;
The whole world listens to his commands.
He makes fruitful by his right deeds,
And the people swarm like fish.

 

So his seed shall become a multitude.
He bestows forgetfulness of pain ;
He is wise as a serpent, undeceived,
His judgements bite like an adder’s fangs.
None dares murmur before the throne
When he sits in judgement beside his queen.
Wise-mouth wrestles against his foe,
Who flees at dawn like a hind let loose—
See the Son of my Right Hand,
Divider of nightly spoil.

Then the notables, who were the bridesmen, sang the first half of the forty-fifth Psalm, King David’s royal marriage hymn, in which the King is invited to gird his sword on his thigh and ride forward in majesty to battle, seeing that God has established his throne for ever and has put a right sceptre in his hand, and has anointed him with the oil of gladness.

Mary’s kinswomen, headed by her sister Martha, who were the bridesmaids, sang the second part of the psalm in which occur the verses :

Kings’ daughters were among thy honourable women : upon thy right hand did stand the queen in gold of Ophir.

Hearken, O daughter, and consider, and incline thine ear ; forget also thine own people, and thy father’s house ;

So shall the king greatly desire thy beauty : for he is thy Lord ; and worship thou him.

The king’s daughter is all glorious within : her clothing is of wrought gold.

She shall be brought unto the king in raiment of needlework : the virgins her companions that follow her shall be brought unto thee.

The maskers came tumbling in, disguised as birds and beasts ; they danced and made merry until it was time for Jesus and Mary to retire to the bridal chamber behind the curtain. But he turned to his queen and his words were far more terrible to the company even than his refusal of the reserved shoulder. He said in a clear voice : “I am your King, and I have come not to renew but to make an end. Beloved, let us not do the act of darkness, which is the act of death. You are my sister! You are my sister! You are my sister !”

By these words he chastely denied her the consummation of marriage. A silence as if of death fell on the astonished assembly ; while Mary the Queen first flushed and then blanched.

Mary the mother of Jesus was the first to speak. She stood up and asked sternly : “My son, is this how you deal with your virgin bride? What if the King your father had shamefully done the same ?”

He answered : “Woman, the Power of Michal has left you and lighted upon your kinswoman. The reckoning is now between herself and myself only.”

Lazarus the Essene, the Queen’s brother who had been her guardian since the death of their father Jose Cleopas, comforted her. “The King your husband has done wisely in trampling upon the garment of shame. Only by this road can we all walk together in pure love. Dry your tears, Mary. Dry your tears, for the love of the Living God.”

She answered : “Is my lord the King wiser than King Solomon, whose sister was also his spouse? For Solomon lay, dove-eyed, all night between her breasts, on a green bed in their spacious arbour ; and like a dove he sought out the clefts of the rock. Yet who am I to be a judge in this matter? I unveil my face for the King, and his word is my law.”

R
ELIGIOUS
mysteries are largely concerned with astronomical prediction. The Chrestian mysteries are no exception. Jesus had been born at the winter solstice, the birthday of the Sun when it attains the southernmost, or right-hand, point of its course ; but his baptism and anointing were a ceremony of rebirth performed on the ninth day of the month Ab, the date of the heliacal rising of the Dog-star. According to Jewish apocalyptic writers, the ninth of Ab was also the destined birthday of the Messiah, because the Messianic star of Isaiah’s prophecy was the Dog-star, the Calebite badge of the House of David ; moreover, the rising of the Dog-star determined the true beginning and ending of the Phoenix (or Sothic) Year of 1460 ordinary years, and the Messiah Son of David had been mystically described as the new Phoenix. It is also noteworthy, by the by, that in having two birthdays Jesus resembled the god Dionysus, “the Child of the Double Door”, born first of his mother Semele and then of Father Zeus ; and so initiates of the Alexandrian Church are taught by the mystagogues when they pass into the Third Degree of Recognition.

On the last evening of his marriage feast, which lasted for a week, Jesus informed his courtiers that as soon as his injury permitted he would go out to view his kingdom, and that if what he saw pleased him, he would summon them again and issue his royal commands. Meanwhile, let them all return to their homes, there to watch and pray assiduously.

He told his queen : “I cannot take you to my house, Beloved, though your bridesmaids promised you that I would ; for I have no house. Until I may occupy a palace I shall need no settled home. I will sleep under the stars or accept whatever poor shelter friends or strangers may offer me. However, if you wish to accompany me in my wanderings, I cannot turn you away.”

“My lord, do you address me as ‘Beloved’ and say ‘if you wish to accompany me’? I am told that you once had a house and other possessions, but that you made them over to your mother and have since given away all your earnings. When you own a house again, call me to it ; I do not ask for a palace. How could I have guessed when I put on these robes and this crown that I was to become the bride of a wandering beggar? My lord, either desire your servant to accompany you and she will obey, or allow her to return to Bethany and remain there patiently until the coming of better times.”

“Return to Bethany in peace with your brother Lazarus and await me there.”

“As my lord desires.”

Mary was sick at heart. Against her will she had fallen in love with Jesus and would gladly have followed him to the ends of the earth in the hope that her devotion might at last persuade him to relent towards her in love ; for, as she knew, there is a way out of every rash vow. Yet her woman’s pride—or, one might say, the Power of Michal—forced her to feign indifference, and her sister Martha commended this discretion. “Your beauty will draw him, and he will presently ask as a favour what is no more than his right.”

When Jesus was able to walk, though with great pain, he sent for John. John returned at once to Tabor and found him settled in the sacred grove. “Master of the vintage,” he asked, “do you pluck the big grapes first, or the little ones, or do you pluck whichever comes to hand ?”

“First the little ones ; they have most need of me.”

“The big grapes are better worth the plucking.”

“Yet the whole vintage must be gathered in. Heads of Academies and rulers of the Sanhedrin may wait until the last ; the poor and the outcast cannot wait.”

“Your face is not turned towards Jerusalem. Tell me for what northern city you are bound, and I will prepare your way.”

“I have seen it written : ‘Behold upon the mountains the feet of the messenger of good tidings who publishes peace.’ ”

“What to do in that place ?”

“To choose out pillars for my gilgal. One well-shaped pillar you have given me already.”

“Do you need hewn pillars, or rough-hewn or unhewn ?”

“Rough-hewn. The polishing is best done by my own hand.”

So John ran ahead to prepare the way for Jesus, who followed riding on an ass, with Judas on foot by his side. He made for the town of Capernaum, aware that it takes its name from the tomb of the prophet Nahum, the author of the prophetic verse which Jesus had quoted. Capernaum is a small frontier town at the northern end of the Lake of Galilee and on the main road from Egypt to Damascus ; it has a customs house, a fish-curing industry and famous wheat-lands.