The Gospel of the Twin (21 page)

We waited, expecting Peter to say something about why he had the dagger. Andrew shoved Peter's shoulder, but Peter just stared into the fire.

Mary pulled her face from Jesus' chest and wiped her eyes with her fists. She picked up Peter's dagger and studied it. She hefted it before her, quickly drawing an X in the air as if testing its balance, then made a downward thrust as if stabbing someone in the back. Holding it by the blade, she passed it to Peter. He eyed it curiously, as if he did not know what it was and had been asked to identify it, and finally placed it back under his cloak.

I wished that I had a dagger to toss down. I didn't know why—it just seemed like it would have added to the elusive meaning of the evening's events. The silence was excruciating. I couldn't stand it anymore and started to say something, maybe something to reassure Mary that Judas was alive and well, although I had no idea of his situation. Then Jesus spoke.

“We die by what we live by,” Jesus said. “What will it be for you, Peter? A dagger? What of the rest of you? By what do you live?”

Peter scrambled to his feet. He slapped himself on the chest. It looked like a salute. “I live by you, Master. I shall die by you.”

Whatever else anyone thought of Peter, we believed those words. Peter looked around at the rest of us. I took him to be issuing some sort of challenge.

Andrew stood. “As shall I.”

Then the Zebedee brothers arose and said together, “And shall I.”

One by one, the rest stood, saying “And shall I.”

Only my brother James and I remained seated. He looked at me, clenched his jaw, and then stood. I stood too.

“I, too, Brother,” James said.

“And shall I,” I said, looking not at Jesus, who, of course, had no doubts about me, but at James. James patted my shoulder, one of the few times his touching me was not done with a fist.

“My heart overflows,” Jesus said. “I have no doubts about your dedication to our mission for God, for our people. But make no mistake: Life gives meaning to life. We are about living, not dying.” Just as we were sinking back down to sit, he rose. “In the morning, I'll address everyone.”

Verse Three

After breakfast, Jesus drew everyone together. We were less than a day's journey from Jerusalem, so I suspected he would offer some instructions about how we should behave there. His address to the crowd indeed had less the character of a sermon and more the quality of an officer's instructions to his troops before battle.

“If they ask where you have come from, tell them that you have come from the light, from where the light came to be in itself. Tell them that you are children of the light, chosen by the Father himself.” This was not altogether different from other things Jesus had said, but the timbre of his voice, dark but warm, like smoke, made it sound more urgent and more mystical. Everyone sensed, as I did, that we were being prepared for something ominous, so we strained to expose what may have lurked between the words.

“All may look upon the visible, but the light concealed within them lies within the Father's light. Tell them that the Father will be revealed, but only to those who know that his image lies covered in light, for those—you—are from the light. They will demand evidence for these wondrous truths of the Father in you. Tell them that the evidence is motion and rest.

“The challenges will increase as our journey nears its end, and in Jerusalem you may face hostility. They will be jealous of you, for the hidden will be exposed to you, to whoever drinks from my mouth and becomes like me. Remember, many will want to enter the empire, but only because they wish to rule it. Seek those who wish to serve.”

I heard a woman utter a slow “yes” that seemed to signify a deep acceptance. I turned and saw that it was Leah's mother, whom I'd hardly noticed for several days (and whose name to this day I cannot recall). Her cheeks were wet with tears, and she cupped her palms skyward as if catching rain. She noticed me watching her and came to me. She put her head on my chest and took a deep breath between sniffles.

“I wish Leah were here for this,” she whispered, and I wanted Leah so badly then that I nearly cried too.

Chapter Twenty-Four

Verse One

Instead of going straight to Jerusalem, we spiraled through recesses of impoverished Judeans whose proximity to the city engendered hatred for the Temple leadership that rivaled their hatred of Rome. Villagers who preferred not to have a band of Galileans tarrying in their streets and who had heard rumors that our numbers might contain assassins were, nevertheless, intrigued by our intention to confront the Jerusalem authority (if that was indeed what Jesus planned to do).

Jesus spent more time responding to questions than delivering speeches. The people's inquiries were timid, as if voicing their complaints aloud might arouse their neighbors' suspicions that they might join a rebellion, even though it was obvious to me that they all shared the same contempt of the Jerusalem priests.

They remind me now of a particular group of Indians. This bunch lived on the western coast of India, where I wandered after Balkai returned home. Balkai got me from the Galilee to India for my first trip there, but then, at the City of the Seven Islands, he suddenly would go no farther. Savages and monsters populated the south, he said—women who were half-fish crawling upon land to capture and drag men into the sea, men with the teeth and claws of lions who lived off human flesh, and flying dogs that swarmed at night. None of the fantastic creatures that Balkai warned us of had yet materialized in Persia, so I suspected that these beasts were only folklore as well.

I journeyed the coast southward. The heat was worse than in the Arabian desert, and the roads were poorly kept. The locals followed the custom of boiling their water before they drank it, perhaps because of some foul substance that they feared would make them ill. They often crumbled leaves into the water and drank it while still hot. This brew had a pleasant, earthy taste, and I became so fond of it that I carried bags of the leaves with me on my return.

After weeks of following the coast, I arrived at an astonishing town. The people looked somewhat different from their neighbors; indeed, many of them had features like my people. More intriguing was their language. For the most part, it sounded like surrounding languages (hundreds of languages are spoken in India), but I heard words mixed in that sounded like Hebrew or Aramaic. I spent hours each day with several of the elders (who were quite literate; later they taught me Sanskrit) until we could manage a conversation in their language.

I made this town my home for two or three years, and although I came to love the people, I remain uncertain about their historical claims. They said that they had descended from “Judayam” who fled centuries earlier. They could not agree upon which event precipitated the emigration. They may have escaped from Israel when the Assyrians invaded, or from Judah when the Babylonians took it. And according to a third version, when Cyrus ended the exile in Babylon, their ancestors went east instead of back home.

The rest is not in dispute: Over the years, they intermarried with Indians and adopted much of their culture, including the ways of the Brahmins. Their religion was a conglomeration of both their heritages. One elder tried to summarize it for me: “Our unseen world is inhabited by personages recognized by many: Vishnu, Shiva, Kali, Durga, Ganesh, and countless deities of various levels of knowledge and power, each with special functions. Beyond all of these is Yaveya. He is the god without a face, but all faces are born from him. He is everywhere, yet he cannot be found in any place. He does not act, yet he is the necessary ground for all acts. Yaveya brought us here many generations ago, and he watches over us, as he does our kinsmen in the Motherland, your land.”

I told him that I hoped Yaveya watched over them better than he did my people, and I explained our situation with the Romans and the Temple priests.

“We are fortunate to have no ruler,” he said. I think his name was Shamalnan, but it could have been Shlamada. I remember that he was missing an eye and had a large scar across his cheek, somewhat like the disfigurement I later received from those Parthians. His scar stretched from the empty eye socket to the corner of his mouth so that, in profile, he appeared to have a tremendous smile. “Still, we must deal with priests, the Brahmins, who refuse to recognize our ways of worship. The Brahmins do not like people outside their caste to read. They wish to monopolize access to scripture so that they can dictate morality. We try to ignore them. There's little they can actually do to control us.”

He was interested in Jesus' ministry and called others to listen to my stories of my brother's life and works. I became some sort of authority for them. Visitors from the west―mostly Syrians and Greeks―had passed through, but no one, they believed, came from the “Motherland.” They were eager for some certification that, despite their adoption of Indian ways of worship, they were still true to their ancestors. For them, Jesus came to represent everything about that heritage.

In the cool of the evening, I would talk by torchlight, and the attendance grew until it seemed the entire town had gathered to hear me speak. In time, I spoke less of Jesus' deeds and more of his message about how one should live. The elders instructed the villagers to build a roofed, wall-less structure where we would meet. They would come to the meeting place on the Sabbath, and I would recite a portion of one of Jesus' sermons or relate one of his parables. It is possible that I worked as much from imagination as from memory. I would proceed to explicate his more cryptic sayings, like: “If we had no weeds, would not the hoe-makers be kings?” (I explained that common talents could sometimes be developed into uncommon ones.) Then we would sing one of their songs of praise to Yaveya.

Once, when my lecture was done, the man who usually led the singing called several others to the front and announced that they had created a new song. The five or six men sang a song of praise to Jesus. Had they expressed veneration for a man of great wisdom or a dead leader whose virtues were to be emulated, I would have been pleased. However, they sang of reverence for him, much like they did for Yaveya. Merely adding him to their vast pantheon would have been troubling enough, but the song clearly called him the “giver of light,” “bearer of souls,” and “conqueror of death.”

They granted him some elevated stature above the usual sky gods like Varuna and Dyauspiter, and I wondered if they were going to draw pictures of him with six arms, riding one of those giant beasts with a serpent-like nose.

How could they have drawn such epithets from me?

Chapter Twenty-Five

Verse One

The prevalence of Pharisees in Judea proved a hindrance to Jesus' orations. Jesus could make the most innocent of remarks as he began a speech, and if the Pharisees were about, they would surely interrupt with an argument or question. If the questions were direct, Jesus would answer in his characteristically oblique style.

Pharisee: What is the afterlife?

Jesus: What is this life?

Pharisee: What is eternity?

Jesus: In the moment, there is no future and no past.

Pharisee: Why does God allow evil?

Jesus: If you knew the answer, would it change you? Would you then allow evil?

Pharisee: Are we free, or are we the slaves of fate?

Jesus: I do not know. Perhaps the freedom is in the asking of the question.

Pharisee: What is the soul?

Jesus: What is the body? Could the soul be anything more than the wholeness of the body?

Pharisee: I had a dream in which I saw an eagle fly in a circle overhead. What is the meaning of this dream?

Jesus: Can we understand dreams if we do not first understand waking sights? If you are awake and you see an eagle circle overhead, what does that mean? Do you trust your eyes more when they are closed than when they are open?

The Pharisees were often stumped by his responses, but these men were far more interested in disputation than in getting answers, and they could debate the interpretation of scripture for hours on end. They were respectful and seemed to be sincere, calling Jesus “good rabbi” and asking that he “help us understand” how to resolve some paradox they detected in his comments.

Jesus had little patience for such analysis, and the first time the Pharisees tried to engage him, he was thrown off-balance and could not respond with anything clever. I think I remember the occasion. Just a couple of minutes into Jesus' speech, a Pharisee loudly interrupted: “Good rabbi, I have puzzled at length over something for which I believe you can provide some clarity. In the resurrection, what shall we look like? Will a man who died in old age arise into his decrepit body, or will the Lord give him a youthful one? What of a man who lost a finger as a boy? Will his finger be restored?”

This inquiry had nothing to do with Jesus' topic, which I think was about family obligations and how they related to civic duties, and he had no ready reply. He was accustomed to talking with people after his sermons, but during them he typically heard only agreement coming from the crowd.

Jesus stood silent as if stunned. The questioner's three or four companions whispered and nodded to each other. I saw frowns on the faces of many of our crowd, offended, I supposed, at what they took to be the man's rudeness. Peter and Andrew both looked at me and shrugged. I guess they wanted me to jolt Jesus out of this reticent moment. Finally, Jesus spoke.

“Friend, those are fascinating questions, but could we discuss them later?”

The Pharisee didn't reply, and I didn't know if he was smug about bewildering Jesus or disappointed that they hadn't locked into debate. Jesus tried to return to his sermon, but he didn't sound confident and lost his place several times. Afterwards, the Pharisee and his companions left, and I was relieved that they hadn't stayed to accept Jesus' invitation for discussion.

After several of these encounters, Jesus became adept at turning the Pharisees' inquiries back upon themselves, and then James would jump in and discourse with them on their own terms. He loved argument and could string bits of textual evidence into discursive chains as beautifully ornamental as they were convincing. The Pharisees were duly impressed, and I'm sure James imagined that he would have pursued the scholarly life had Joseph not dragged him from Judea.

The crowd would soon lose interest in James and the Pharisees' discussions and disperse. At the third or fourth instance of this pattern—Jesus speaks, Pharisees challenge, Jesus responds enigmatically, James jumps in for a debate—Andrew and Peter pulled me away from the crowd, fearful that new audiences might no longer come, and even old followers might become disillusioned.

“They may think Jesus led them to the door of the palace,” said Peter, “only to be denied entrance by chattering, self-righteous servants.” I thought it an odd metaphor. The Pharisees were the servants, of course, but whose palace were we trying to enter? “Something has to be done,” Peter continued, “about these, these—”

“Distractions,” said Andrew. “Have you spoken to your brother about it?”

“I'm hoping the Pharisees will tire of this game,” I said. “They're not antagonistic. In fact, we probably have a good deal of common ground. It's just that they enjoy argument like children enjoy playing pebble jump. When a new kid comes in, everyone wants to see how he plays the game. But, no, I haven't spoken to Jesus about it.”

“I didn't mean him,” said Andrew. “I meant James. By tossing his pebble, he keeps the game alive.”

“You're right,” I said. “Do you think James could become a distraction for the Pharisees? Maybe he can occupy them while Jesus orates.”

Peter grunted in agitation and wiped sweat from his reddened brow. “James? James is the answer?” His bottom teeth jutted out and he snorted like a horse. “You two are pathetic. Something has to be
done
!” He pulled at his lip and let it pop back against his teeth. “Where are the Zealots now that we need them?”

Andrew shook his head and squinted an eye at Peter, a look of exasperation that Peter had probably seen thousands of times before. Andrew turned back to me. “Maybe James could give a speech, or at least the beginning of a speech. When the game begins, Jesus would speak just down the street. The Pharisees will stay with James, but the others will go to Jesus.”

“I don't know,” I said. “I just don't see James standing on a platform before a crowd.”

Andrew's face broadened. He grabbed both my shoulders. “What if you—don't say ‘no' yet—what if
you
start the speech?”

I didn't understand, but only for a moment.

“You mean I should—”

“Hear me out. You wouldn't be impersonating him exactly. You wouldn't claim at all to be him. You'd just climb up onto a cart and start to speak. You wouldn't say, ‘Come listen to me; I'm Jesus.' You'd just speak. The Pharisees would jump in right away. Then Jesus could start a short distance away. There'll be a bit of confusion at first, but we'd get the crowd to move to Jesus. Then James will keep the Pharisees occupied.”

“I don't know.” My breath was shallow. I gulped air as if I were running to escape wild beasts.

“What?” asked James. “What's wrong?” I hadn't noticed he was nearby. I thought he was already debating the Pharisees.

As Peter took my elbow to steady me, Jesus began to speak. I ignored my dizziness and strained to hear what he was saying, but the crowd was milling around us, fussing about whether to go or stay. If Jesus was speaking, why had they lost interest? Were Peter and Andrew right and the disillusionment had already begun?

I thought I heard Jesus say, “As written in the laws,” which was completely uncharacteristic. We moved closer, and I heard Jesus say, “As the laws command.”

We got to the front with Mary. Her head was cocked, and her upper lip formed a curious arch. The Zebedee brothers whispered to each other. Philip held his flattened hand toward me as if he expected me to place an explanation into his palm. James glanced at me with a look that was half puzzlement, half pleasure. Leah's mother was at the front too, and she interlaced the fingers of one hand into mine and pressed her head against my shoulder. Did she want my support, or was she offering support to me? I thought about my promise to Leah to look after her and felt a pinch of guilt that I had not kept a closer watch.

“Good rabbi, Torah gives us six hundred and thirteen laws,” said a narrow-faced Pharisee. He was bald, but had a dense, dirt-colored beard that came to a caprine point. “Hillel taught that they all amount to this: Do not do to others what is hateful to you. Do you agree?”

Jesus stepped down from the cart from which he'd begun his speech and picked up a brown leaf from the ground. He climbed back onto the cart and held up the leaf, studied it for a moment, and tossed it into the breeze as if releasing a dove—he had such a flair for these gestures. “Hillel was a wise teacher, and we would do well to follow his guidance,” he said. “We must, however, understand the source for our respect for others. I say that the teachings can be reduced to this: First, love the Lord with your entire being, as he is being itself. Also―and this is the same as the first―love your neighbor as you love yourself. With such love, you will protect your neighbor as you protect the pupil of your eye. These are not two loves, but are two ends of the same movement—”

Jesus' voice was lost in the murmurs, and not just those of the Pharisees. He looked around with a slight—perhaps smug—smile, but made no effort to regain the crowd's attention. Matthew, a toll collector who had joined our traveling band not long before, leaned toward me. “Thomas,” he said, “does he think that what he said is actually possible?”

“I'm sure he does.”

“Who are my neighbors, then? Strangers?”

At that instant, the goat-looking Pharisee raised the same question. “Good rabbi! Good rabbi!” He yelled and waved his arms and hopped. The murmurs receded. “Good rabbi, you raise an interesting and important question, especially in our present age. Now, surely the Lord expects us to care for our neighbors, but do you mean to say ‘love,' a word of such strong implication?” His throat-lump jerked under its thin cover of skin, threatening to poke through. “And if so, can one truly love another
as oneself
while maintaining one's identity? And—forgive me, Rabbi, I am only requesting clarity—and if so, who
is
one's neighbor?”

I liked this stringy old guy. His manner was somewhat stylized, but he did ask valid questions.

Jesus pointed at the Pharisee and nodded. For an instant, I thought the old guy might be a shill, but Jesus would not have pulled a cheap ruse like that. Then I realized that he'd pulled off a better trick. He knew that mentioning the law would provoke an inquiry about the nature of the law. He had set them up so that he could steer the discussion to whatever he was about to say.

“Friend,” Jesus said, “you are indeed a pursuer of truth. Too many here pursue resentment, quick to find splinters in their neighbors' eyes while abiding the timbers in their own. Yet, I suspect that you and everyone else here already know the answer to your question. Consider this: A traveler was set upon by thieves who beat him mercilessly, took his belongings, and left him by the road to die.”

At the far side of the crowd, a small band of men moved in to join the audience. Some slight agitation followed, perhaps a jostle for position—just enough to distract me for a moment.

“Later, a Levite approached the man, who had called out to help him to his feet so he could find aid.”

The Zebedee brothers, who were flanking Jesus like sentinels, stretched their necks to see if something of note was brewing. Curiosity got the best of John. He flashed a hand signal at James—I think a fist followed by a swirl of the thumb—and went to the source of the chatter. A group of Pharisees behind me began to whisper.

“Finally, a Samaritan passed by and helped the man from the ditch. He then paid another man for the use of his cart, perhaps one like this one, to take the injured man to an inn.”

John ran back and leaned in to whisper to James. James nodded and ran toward us. He whispered into Mary's ear. Mary and James ran to the other side of the crowd. Jesus paused to watch them pass. Andrew tapped my shoulder and gave me a quizzical look. The Pharisees' voices got louder. Other people were talking, especially the local Judeans.

“Now I ask you: Who was this man's neighbor?”

A woman squealed, perhaps Mary, and voices rose. The Pharisees and Judeans were enraged and shouting. “Are Samaritans better than us?” “Why do you hate the Levites?” The goat-whiskered man, however, nodded in silence, and I took it to be approval.

Jesus jumped down from the cart and ran toward Mary and the others.

“What's happening, Thomas?” Leah's mother asked.

I thought that a fight had broken out, and I pulled away from her. “Wait here,” I said. When I got to the far side, a portion of our familiar group was rejoicing. The Judeans were still jeering around us when I got a quick look into the knot of people. Mary's face emerged over the shoulder of the man she embraced. She was weeping, and they were swaying and slowly turning. As her face turned away, the man's face came into view: the resolute and shining countenance of Judas.

Verse Two

“Many days,” said Judas, “we hid in the wilderness with no food. But many other days, we walked in towns with no fear, as if we were locals.” His fellow Zealots sat together, away from our inner circle, except for one named Simon, who appeared to serve as Judas' bodyguard. “I know you have heard negative stories about us. Many are lies. But I won't deny them all. We love this nation. We put it before our lives.”

It was a trying moment for us. This was our beloved Judas, who had disappeared four months earlier and now belonged to a militant group said to include assassins. He was vague about how he had come to enlist with the Zealots, but it was clear he had taken on a leadership role. So I doubted that he had returned to us for good.

Yet, what if he wished to stay? Could we refuse? Jesus would take anyone. Tiberius himself could join us and Jesus would welcome him with, “This empire is boundless, with no borders, no sentries, no gates,” or something similar but more poetic. What if Judas and his cronies were recognized as violent extremists by the prefect's police in Jerusalem, and we were all arrested together? We knew this prefect's reputation for ruthlessness—dozens at a time nailed to beams and olive trees on the highway into Jerusalem to deter all from the slightest suggestion of sedition. Could we take such a risk?