King Jesus (Penguin Modern Classics) (56 page)

She came with Martha to the orchard and, choking with grief and anger, told Jesus : “If you had come to Bethany, my brother would never have died.”

He made no reply, but signed to his disciples to leave him for a while.

Mary continued : “You denied me your love, you denied me a child. You fed us all with golden hopes that the Kingdom of God would come quickly. Lazarus, you and I would enjoy it together in blessedness, if we followed your rule of chastity. Now he is dead ; but you and I are still alive. You have no love in your heart, else you could never have refused me my dearest wish, which is the wish of every honourable woman in Israel. Yet you are known as a just man. If you are a just man, pay your debts. You have debts to God, and these you pay and are glad to pay ; but you owe me a debt too, the debt of flesh and blood. Pay either with a new life or an old : either give me a child to end my shame, or give me back my brother. Why will you not restore him to life? For I am told that you know the Unspeakable Name.”

Jesus heaved a deep sigh, but still kept silent. Then he fell on his knees in prayer. Presently he arose and most solemnly prophesied to Mary : “Thus saith the Lord : I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me shall not taste of death.”

“Will you then give me back my brother Lazarus ?”

“Not I, but our God, if he shows mercy.”

“By utterance of the Name the dead may be restored to life ; but what of the ransom? The prophet Elijah, when by his invocation of the Lord the widow’s son was raised from the dead, paid the ransom with the lives of many soldiers from the army of King Ahaziah ; and Elisha the prophet paid the ransom of the Shunemite’s son with the life of Ben-Hadad, King of Syria, though indeed Ben-Hadad had treated him like a brother.”

“Who instructed you in the secret tradition ?”

“Have I misheard it? If not, who is the victim to be ?”

“I have not come to take life.”

“Yet the ransom must be paid.”

After a long pause he answered : “Greater love has no man than this :
that he lays down his life for a friend’s. Come, Mary, show me where your brother is laid.”

She led him to the tomb, which was not far off—a cypress-shaded cave hewn from the rock, its mouth at present stopped with a boulder ; after the days of mourning were over, it would be sealed with masonry. The disciples followed, not knowing what he had in mind.

It was cold, the sun was low in the sky, and on the slope above the tomb three large pariah dogs sat on their haunches in an evil row, grumbling and snarling. Jesus wept. Among the Greeks the tradition is “a life for a life” : King Admetus of Pherae was ransomed from Hades by his wife Alcestis, who offered to die on his behalf ; from Aesculapius, who raised Glaucus of Ephyra from the dead, his own life was taken by Zeus at the demand of Hades. The same tradition obtains secretly among the Jews.

Jesus cried : “O Lord of Hosts, how long will you permit the Female to cut off your sons by her witchcrafts ?” He groaned as though his heart would break.

By this time a small crowd had gathered, including friends of Lazarus. Not knowing the cause of his grief, they said to one another : “Alas, how he loved the dead man !”

He signed to the disciples to roll away the stone. They did so, and he went a little way into the tomb, knelt and prayed : “O Lord, be merciful to me on the Great Day ; what I do, I do in your honour, laying down the full ransom. Only free the soul of my erring brother Lazarus from the dark place to which he has been enticed by witchcraft. For it is written : ‘Sheol is naked before the Lord ; she has no covering from him.

Then he stood up and spoke in a loud voice. “Lazarus son of Cleopas, I conjure you in the Name of your Creator, come forth from Sheol ; come forth, in the Name of J
IEVOAĀ
; come forth and live !”

He stepped back and stood with arms outstretched. Horror and dismay seized the disciples and the bystanders. They stood trembling, their eyes fixed on the square black mouth of the tomb.

For a while nothing happened. Then a white shape was seen moving uncertainly towards them through the darkness. A long-drawn-out shriek went up and the crowd scattered in all directions. Only Mary, Peter and Judas stood their ground.

Lazarus tottered slowly out of the mouth of the tomb, his jaw still bound with the napkin, his body still swathed in the myrrh-scented pall.

Jesus said to Mary : “Take your brother. The debt is paid.” And to Peter and Judas : “Free him, clothe him, let him go in peace !”

Leaning heavily on his staff carved with flowers, he swung himself about ; and limped away.

Ordering his disciples back to Beth Nimrah, he went by a circuitous route to Bozrah in Edom, where he remained for about a month, preaching to the proud and violent Edomites. Only Judas was with him, and
only to him did he confide the story of what had passed between Mary and himself.

Judas said : “Master, our God is merciful. Your life may not be required of you ; another’s may serve.”

“No man can read his purposes. Let his will be done.”

“Who then will reign in the Kingdom, if not you ?”

“It is not for me to ask. Only let the Lord raise me up at the Day of Judgement.” Then sorrowfully he quoted these verses from the thirty-first chapter of the Book of Jeremiah :

How long will you continue in your ways, back-sliding daughter?

Behold, the Lord has shown a new thing here on earth : a woman shall hem a man about.

Six days before the Passover he led his disciples through the famous ford across the Jordan, not far from Jericho, by which in ancient times Joshua had led the embattled Israelites into the Promised Land. On the further bank, by agreement, he met his brother James and a large company of Ebionite ascetics who greeted him with extraordinary tokens of respect, kissing his hands, his cheeks and the fringes of his robe. As they went off together to confer in a date grove near by, a blind beggar cried out to him from the wayside : “Son of David, have mercy on me! Have mercy on me, Son of David !”

“What mercy can I show you ?”

“Lord, let me be restored to sight.”

Jesus went over to the beggar, took him by the chin and gazed searchingly into his eyes ; satisfied that the principle of sight was not destroyed, he prayed long and earnestly, and then plastered them over with clay mixed with his own spittle. “Go apart from the crowd, Son of Faith, kneel down by the river and repeat the
Hear, O Israel
three times ; when you have done, strip off the plaster and wash your face in the flowing water.”

The beggar obeyed, and presently shrill cries of joy were heard as he came hurrying back to give thanks to Jesus. His sight was already returning, though he could not yet distinguish men from trees, except by their movement. “No thanks to me ; only to our God,” said Jesus. By evening the beggar could see as clearly as he had ever done ; yet he had been blind for twenty years.

The news of this cure spread among the crowds of pilgrims from Transjordania who streamed across the ford. They asked one another in wonder : “Who is this holy prophet who has healed the blind man of
the ford? And is it true that the blind man addressed him as the Son of David ?”

On the next morning Jesus reached the outskirts of Jerusalem. He sent James and John ahead to a cross-roads where they would find a young unbroken ass tied to a post outside an inn. They were to untie it and bring it to him. If anyone should challenge them, the password was : “The Master has need of it.” Nobody challenged them and they led the ass back to Jesus. They found him seated under a palm-tree, wearing a new scarlet cloak and tunic which, unknown to them, Judas had brought back from Bozrah wrapped in a blanket. His head was wreathed with vine, in his right hand he held a flowering pomegranate branch. They threw up their hands in astonishment and shouted as joyfully almost as the blind beggar had done.

Jesus said nothing ; there was no need. The long-awaited hour of manifestation was here at last, the triumphal hour foretold by the prophet Isaiah when he said :

Who is this who comes from Edom, with dyed garments from Bozrah? and by the prophet Zechariah when he said :

Shout aloud, daughter of Mount Zion,
Shout, I say, Daughter of Jerusalem!
Look, for your King comes riding in to you,
Your righteous King whom God has saved for you.
Meekly riding in upon an ass,
Meekly riding in upon a young he-ass.

They heaped their garments on the beast’s back, as the men of Ramoth-Gilead had done hundreds of years before when they acclaimed Jehu king. Jesus mounted, and rode royally into the City through the Jericho Gate, the disciples singing at the top of their voices these verses from the psalm
O Give Thanks to the Lord
:

Open to me the gates of righteousness. I will go through and praise the Lord,
Through the gates of the Lord, by which the righteous shall enter.
I will praise you, Lord, for you have heard me and you will save.
The stone which the builders refused has become the quoin that bears up the roof.
This is the Lord’s doing and is marvellous in our eyes.
To-day is the Lord’s own Day ; we will rejoice and be glad in it.
SAVE NOW, I beseech you, Lord ; Lord, I beseech you, send prosperity.
Blessed be he who comes in the name of the Lord.

They threw down their mantles for him to ride over and danced ecstatically on either side of him. The younger and more riotous members of the crowd, catching the enthusiasm, strewed the road with palm branches that they were carrying into the City as fuel for the Passover ovens ; they clashed drinking-cups together and, pouting out their lips, imitated the loud blare of trumpets.

It is untrue to say that the City was greatly stirred, as might well have happened if the wild ash-smeared Ebionites had kept to their engagement by acting as whifflers. But all of them, except only Jesus’s brother James, had abandoned him at Jericho on the previous evening, deeply offended that instead of remaining in their austere company he had elected to spend the night at the house of Zacchaeus, who was the chief tax-gatherer of the district and a notorious enemy of the people. Nevertheless, the noise of the shouting and rough music brought many townsfolk running to their roofs and doors. “Who is that scarlet-clad nobleman on the white ass ?” neighbour asked neighbour.

“It is Jesus of Nazareth, the prophet, whom not long ago the Jebusites drove out through the Fish Gate with stones and rotten fish. He is returning boldly in the guise of a Great One.”

“He a Great One! Let him first prove it !”

“They say that at the ford yesterday he restored a blind man’s sight.”

“Does that make him a Great One? Then the fairs are full of Great Ones—travelling physicians who make old men young, who graft new noses on diseased faces, who banish warts and pimples with a pass of the hand.”

“They say, too, that at Bethany about a month ago he revived a young Essene whom Mary the Hairdresser, a Kenite witch, had thrown into a trance as deep as death. Four days he had lain in the tomb, and his spirit had already descended to the lowest caverns of Sheol before this prophet called it back.”

“They say ; but they say many foolish and incredible things. Once a spirit has descended into Sheol it cannot return until the Last Day when Gabriel with his ram’s horn sounds the Unspeakable Name.”

“No, not unless the Name is spoken by a prophet beforehand.”

“Did this Jesus then dare to speak it? The penalty is death by stoning !”

“Who knows for certain? The City is full of headless rumours. Nevertheless, it is agreed that Jesus differs from all other men.”

“And all other men from one another. If he is a Great One, why is he so ill attended? What are a dozen madmen and a rabble of ill-mannered little boys ?”

“H
OSANNA
!” – “S
AVE NOW
!”—the disciples were shouting. “S
AVE NOW
, I beseech you, Lord !” For “Save now” was the cry prescribed by the prophet Jeremiah for the Day of Trouble that had dawned at last. Jesus dismounted from his ass at the Eastern Gate of the Temple, where he cast down his wreath and branch, changed his scarlet garments for white ones, removed his shoes, and was soon swallowed up in the great throng of pilgrims that pressed into the Temple Courts. The cries of “H
OSANNA
!” were drowned in the universal clamour of rejoicing and the ringing psalm :

Oh, enter then his gates with praise,

Approach with joy his Courts unto!

Jesus remained all afternoon with his disciples in the Court of the Gentiles, leaning on his staff, observing and observed ; but nobody acclaimed him, and he uttered no royal edict. In the evening he went quietly out to Bethany, to the house of Simeon the Lowly, used by the Free Essenes as their club-house, where he had promised to spend the night.

Here an ominous event occurred. As he sat eating with Simeon his host, a wild-eyed woman came to the door and knocked loudly three times. The porter asked what her business was.

“I wish to see Jesus of Nazareth.”

“No women are admitted here.”

“Then let Jesus of Nazareth come out to me.”

“Who are you ?”

“I am the Third Mary.”

The porter went in to give the message to Jesus, but Mary the Hairdresser darted past him into the dining-hall, an alabaster jar of terebinth ointment in her hand. Gliding up to Jesus, she cracked the jar on the table edge and let the scented ointment stream over his head, beard and tunic. The whole house filled with the scent. Then she knelt weeping ; tears wetted his feet, but she unbound her hair and wiped them with it. “Alas for Adam !” she sobbed. “Alas for Adam in his journey from ark to ark !”

Jesus, his face more pallid than ever, asked her : “Woman, whose gift is this ?”

“The Second Mary’s gift of peace.”

“Gladly accepted even from your hands, and in defiance of your Mistress.”

She rose and hurried out again.

The Essenes were outraged. They admit no women into their assemblies and also consider the use of ointments at banquets indecent. One of them asked : “Who was the woman? And why was this ointment wasted ?”