Seth asks, “God, then, is Consciousness itself?”
This idea transports me.
Evening after evening passes in this way, for we are now mathetes, pupils of a philosopher. The Nazorean Seth and the Therapeutae Philo come very close to the mind of the other but miss by the breadth of a single idea, while the rest of us listen as if we were at a theater and the play as enthralling as any written by the greatest of Greek playwrights.
This, for example: Philo teaches that a soul, which seeks to rid itself of evil and to preserve the divine within itself, will be born into this world again and again, until it is ready to reunite with divinity. “This,” he says, “is what the Holy Plato called Orphism.”
“And this,” counters Seth, “is what Socrates would say was the ultimate benefit of doing good, for no man who values his own soul, and who therefore has no wish to return to this world over and over, would persist in doing wrong. Socrates taught that only ignorance is evil, for no man can knowingly do harm.”
But Philo rebuts this: “You need only to look around you to see that many most definitely do choose to harm themselves as well as others.”
“In this,” Seth replies, “you are like Plato’s pupil Aristotle, who mistook the meaning of Socrates. Socrates would say that if a man acts out of goodness, it benefits his soul, and if a man acts out of wickedness, he harms not only others, but his own soul. It stands to reason therefore, that any man, knowing this, would not do harm. It is also reasonable to say that a man who chooses harm does not know this, and is therefore ignorant. Thus it follows that ignorance is the only evil.”
“The teacher is taught,” says Philo, but only after swallowing a large bite of pride.
There are other nights when Seth must concede. Though never on nights when Philo discusses Moses. It is Philo’s contention that Plato and Pythagoras borrowed the best of what they taught from Moses. Seth does not laugh at this, but we can see he does not accept it. Later, he quietly tells us that Jews who love Greek or Egyptian ideas often hope to defend themselves from criticism by claiming these ideas are originally Jewish. It is, he says, understandable in a conquered people, and something he has seen in many men and in many places. Salome and I sit near and listen for hours.
Seth changes as we change. Salome has become taller and I have become taller still. We are now boys on so deep a level that no one would guess we were not. Hiding our breasts by binding is not difficult; hiding our menses by Tata’s herbs and constant vigilance is also not difficult. There are times I wonder if I could remember to act the female. As we do no magic, we hear no voices. Most especially, the Loud Voice is silent, for which I am grateful. As for Seth, he talks no more of messiahs and Kittim and the Poor and their war of Dark against Light. We can see he grows beyond these things, vital though they are to most men he knows and, I presume, cherishes. In coming with us to Egypt, Seth has discovered there is a peace and a beauty not to be found in the world of men in their comings and goings and plots and counterplots, in their rages and their desires and their fears. Seth changes on so deep a level I think almost to see his bones grow.
And then comes the evening that changes us all: Philo Judaeus of Alexandria allows Seth of Damascus and his nephews, John the Less and Simon Magus, to see and to hear—even to know if we are ready—the secret Passion of Father, Mother, and Child, Osiris and Isis and Horus. And because Seth urges him to, he allows also Dositheus and Helena of Tyre.
For a week before, we must meditate and fast and cleanse our bodies in oil and scent. We are told little of what to expect, except that we are to pay strict attention, for later, when we have returned from all that we shall see and do, we will be asked to make sense of it. If we cannot make sense of it, Philo assures us he will have wasted his time with us, and he shall stop doing so on the instant—we will no longer be his mathetes. He does not say this to Seth; he says it only to Simon Magus and to John the Less. I do not think Salome will forgive him for this, for all that she seems unconcerned. But for me, hearing it, I can barely keep down the little we are allowed in the way of food, which is nothing but a tasteless, watery, grayish…something. Actually, I have no idea what it is, and I do not ask.
Salome and I have longed to know Mysteries, we have sought them however we could, yet now that Theano has us dress in white trousers and white tunics, and now that we come so close, I find I would rather I could stay in my bed. We go barefoot and wear small crowns of gold. Not one of us has ever worn trousers. How odd they feel between the legs. While it is yet deathly quiet and the city still sleeps, we meet with Joor far out on the flat Canopic Way. We walk for mile after mile, taking this featureless track or that, seeing others walking as we do, some alone, many in small groups, but making no greeting. Not once during this long day does anyone speak or slow, especially Helena of Tyre who knows only silence and pain. By and by, we find Sudheer and the poetess Julia waiting in a boat, a small thing of reeds with a curved prow. Taking our places in this, we move through the trackless reeds and rushes in complete silence.
The first shades of evening draw down so that above us stands the great constellation of Osiris. Joor points up at the starry sky to speak the first words we have heard this day. “There,” says he, “see the three stars in his belt? Those are Mintaka, Anilam, and Alnitak, who are the three wise men.” From the belt, Joor tracks a curve down to the bottom of the sky where shines in the east Sopdet, the brightest of all the stars, which the Greeks call Sothis, and the Israelites call Ephraim or the star of Jacob. “And that is who they seek, Isis, from whom Horus, the godchild, will be born this night.”
With many others, silent as we are silent, we have come finally to the shores of a secret lake. Darkest night has fallen, and as we approach, there suddenly comes the wailing of flutes, but this is as nothing, for a moment later, our nerves are shaken and our ears shattered by the thunder of a mighty gong. Then comes the sudden flare of light from a thousand torches. Then darkness. We walk forward in utter gloom; then we are lit in our multitude by flaring torches, then plunged back into darkness, then blinded again by surprising light. The long line of initiates, each gold crowned and white gowned and without sandals, circles the lake, and some of us dance, no matter if there is fluted music or if there is not, and some of us do not dance but walk as solemn as Temple priests on the Day of Atonement. And I for one wake up as I have never been awake, and all the while the gong hammers on our senses, and the light flares up and dies, flares up and dies, and far out on the lake of black water there is a huge raft of reeds, and on the raft, the towering godman himself, Osiris.
It is now that we see that it is Philo himself who presides at this great and terrible rite and it is Philo who carries a wand. We are given three things: one to drink, one to eat, and one to hold. And it is now as thick incense infuses the air that the godman suffers and dies for us amid loud lamentation from the thousands around me. I grab Salome’s hand, who would have grabbed mine if I had not done such a thing first. I am by turns terror stricken, then wracked with such pity I sob in my throat, and then comes joy, so exultant it is almost the joy of my secret time of illness. Osiris, born of God and a mortal virgin, is led before us in triumph seated on a donkey. But is then abused and is scorned and caused to die horribly, hung bleeding on a crooked tree. Just before I think I too would die from grief, he is taken down and placed in a tomb where three women attend his body. But oh! He rises on the third day! And how I weep as he ascends to heaven accompanied by such music as is made by the transported, and in the blaze of glorious celestial lights.
On all sides, there now comes a chanting. “Have we sacrificed thee?” the higher initiates around me cry. “Do we say that thou hast died for us? He is not dead! He lives forever! He is alive more than we, for he is the mystic one of sacrifice. He is our Lord, living and young forever!” And we all of us weep. And over some comes such a state it seems akin to transcendent vision, and they fall to their knees with upraised faces. But for a very few there is more than this
. A man stands near, small and dark of skin, but shining out as a moon. This one does not merely feel, he sees; and he does not merely see, he knows.
I know this is so. I have felt into his mind.
This is what Philo calls a “sober intoxication,” and what Plato names the “rapt” after observing Socrates standing spellbound for the whole of a day and a night. Sudheer, the Brahmin, calls it Moksha, which is God Union. But I am a Jew and I call it Glory.
I look to Seth when I see this; I wonder what it is he feels? And immediately I look away. I have trespassed against him, seen something in his face that was not for me to see, not without permission. As if the skin had been pared away, scraped down to the bone, I saw as if truly seeing, my first teacher, my beloved friend. I saw that, like Moses, though Seth could point the way to gnosis, he could not travel there himself.
On the third day following this night, when Salome and I are once again fed, once again clothed as Jews, and back once more at our studies, a messenger comes to take us to the Jewish section. Salome remembers, as do I, that when this day is over, we shall know whether the great philosopher Philo Judaeus will continue to honor us with his teaching, or whether he will not. Instantly, I am plunged into a fearful tangle of nerves, but Salome appears perfectly untroubled.
I am impressed. As well as annoyed.
As soon as we are within the walls of Philo’s house, where we have not been for many days, Philo takes me to one room and Simon Magus to another. Thus separated, a servant sets ink and papyrus and brushes before me and, I presume, before Simon. Philo waits until all but my heart is quiet before saying, “I shall ask you, John the Less, three questions concerning what you saw by the lake, and you shall answer these questions in writing. When you are done writing, I will ask you to read your answers aloud. Since I am expected this night to attend a great dinner at my brother’s house, and since I am the honored guest, we will not waste time. First, what is the meaning of Osiris riding a donkey? Second, why is Osiris the godman abused by the people as he walks to his death? Third, if man is a flawed creation of God and if the world is a lesser image of heaven as says the Holy Plato, why then were man and the world created? Now I will give Simon his three quite different questions. Start, please. I will be returning sooner than you can imagine.”
With that, he is gone. And I am left quaking. I believe I know how to answer the first two questions. Osiris is our Higher Nature, that part of us which is akin to God. But being, as we are, in body, we are bound to our Lower Nature, seen symbolically as the ass. This is also why Osiris is said to be born of God and of a mortal. I think too that I can answer the second question: Osiris is treated as he is for the same reason the Jews treat the scapegoat on the Day of Atonement as they do, heaping it with all of our sins and then driving it and our sins out into the wilderness to die. But as for the third? I do not know the answer to the third question. Eloi! Eloi! I am lost. And so I sit and I stew and I make a mess of my papyrus.
Before I know it, Philo is back and he does not look at the mess I have made nor does he look at me. He looks at one of the many curious things he keeps in his house, and taking it up and fiddling with it with his long frog fingers, he tells me to read aloud what I have written. Having no choice, I read and he listens and he nods and he fiddles with his whatever-it-is and he seems satisfied, but when I come to what I have written in answer to the third question, there is nothing but silence for I have written nothing. Philo waits for what seems an eternity before saying, “Have you something caught in your throat?”
“No, Master.”
“Then read, boy, I run out of time and patience.”
I do not cry, and that is something. “I do not know the answer to the third question.”
I wait to hear that Philo will no longer waste his time with me.
“Good.” He sets down that which he plays with. “Neither do I. Though I am working on it. I wonder, do you agree that man is flawed? It could be that it is this postulate, and not man, that is flawed. But no, how else to explain wrongdoing? And if the world is not as Plato says, a lower copy of the higher, why then is it full of sorrow and suffering?”
I do not speak as he continues. “Yet what if suffering is only of the mind, thinking itself separate from Source? What if Seth is right when he surmises that the world is not a copy, but a reflection of Source, and that it is neither good nor is it evil, but instead endlessly creative? That would rather change things, would it not?” He shakes his head. “Plato would not have said such a thing, and Plato was as a god in his philosophizing. Yet I will tell you a thing, boy, and it is this, whether he is flawed or not, man suffers. For this, the Egyptian has the godman Osiris and the Greek has Dionysus and the Persian has Mithras, and others have their godmen, and they are all the same, but who does the Jew have as godman? Who is their envoy to the goddess Sophia, she who will bring them silent intoxication and lift them from suffering? They have Yahweh, but Yahweh will not do. Yahweh is for those who do not know the gnosis of Sophia, and do not know they do not know. Yahweh is the Law and the Law makes captives of our people. Therefore, I think to perform Midrash. I think to devise for the Jews a new myth, one crafted from old myth, but a uniquely Jewish myth of a godman. Would that I could call him Moses!”
I blurt out, “But it will not be true!”
Philo dismisses this with a wave of his hand. “Which of these godmen are true? What is truth? It does not matter whether a story is true or if it is not true. What matters is the eternal truth in the story. The goddess Truth does not come into the world naked; she has too bright a shine, so clothes herself in symbols, as all gods and goddesses are symbols. It is the height of foolishness to take their stories literally. Yet behind each shines a truth. The godman does not ‘teach something’ or ‘think something’ but rather inspires intense feeling unto rapture. The godman opens the self to God. This the Jews do not have, so I shall invent a new myth that will suit them. I will begin a passion here in his name, and I will see it spread. What? Are you still here? Run along. You may come again when Seth comes.”
I run off as if I had sails and the wind were at my back.
If I have a hero, who is Seth, and if Salome has a hero, who was John of the River and is now Pythagoras, and if Philo has a hero who is Moses, Seth has a hero. Seth’s hero is Socrates. Socrates said that one must question everything. Socrates said that the unexamined life is not worth living. Socrates said that what is important is not what other men think, but what the individual thinks. “Understand this,” says Seth. “Know that as Socrates valued his own thought and taught each man to value his, so too the Nazorean values his own experience of god and would teach each man to value his.”
Seth tells us that he hopes one day he will see his way to live as Socrates and die as a Nazorean. But his teaching of the inner Nazoreans seems to change as he changes. Salome and I have talked it over and have decided that the Nazorean is a beginning and the inner Nazorean a continuation. We have decided that as Philo hopes to create a Jewish godman, pieced together from all other godmen, Seth is creating the inner Nazorean teaching as he teaches it. By this we come to see that religion, like philosophy, can be tended like one of Tata’s roses.
Who knows when and how it will flower?
I have been sitting watching the sea. It is boundless and endless and timeless in its mystery. The vault of early morning sky is like an upended cup of blue glass. Tiny black ants labor in the soft brown earth near my hand. Nearby sits Seth, who works on a poem asked of him by Julia. After a good hour of this, my friend looks up and presents me with, to my mind, an odd question. “Is there anything,” asks he, “that is not Life?”
I look about me and smile in all my wisdom, saying, “The stones are not alive. Nor is the Sea of Stink. If there is anything dead in this world, and surely there is, it is these things.”
I shall not soon forget how he answers my answer. He picks up a rock that lies on the palace path, and he strikes it against the stone of the palace wall
s. Crack! Out jumps a spark from between rock and stone like the quick bright tongue of a snake. He says, “There is nothing that is not alive, John. What is death? What is dead? The Kingdom of God is the Life of life. Where is there not the Kingdom of God? Where can God not reach?”
Seth returns to his poem and I to my contemplation of the sea. But I no longer feel wise.
Over seven years, we attempt to read every book and every tome in every niche and every bucket in the ten halls of the Brucheion Library. And some of them we read over and over. We fill our minds with names and dates and potions and places. We fill our minds with the thinking of this one and of that one, of this school and that school, of poet and philosopher and mathematician and holy man, with the thoughts of women as well as men. But the names and the dates and the places and the gender are not the thing. Nor are the thoughts of others the thing, no matter how sublime, not even Seth’s thoughts, or the thoughts of Philo Judaeus. What is meant by all this learning is that we might learn to have thoughts of our own.
Over these same years, Ananias the sponge merchant comes and goes, growing ever fatter. He has surprised us by marrying a woman of the wilderness who remains in the wilderness, a widow he tells us is called Sapphira. It is not surprising that within a year they have a son, and a year later another son and the following year a third son, and a fourth son the year after that. This does not make his comings any less frequent or his goings any less short. Ananias carries our letters to Addai and to Tata and delivers what they write to us. He brings us news. Father’s brother-in-law, my uncle, Pinhas ben Yohai, lies near death with some strange corrupting illness that doctors cannot cure. Father has removed himself to Bethany to take charge of his brother-in-law’s home and family. The Jerusalem house is closed down; Naomi and all Father’s servants and slaves packed off to Bethany. I ask, “Is my aunt still mistress of her own home?” Shrugging, Ananias answers, “If Pinhas dies, perhaps Josephus will have two wives. There are rich men who have more than this.” I shudder at the thought. But of course, this will not happen for it is forbidden by Torah for a man to take his brother’s widow to wife if there are children, and Father is a man of the Law. When it suits him. But then, Pinhas is not Father’s brother.