Yeshu says to him, “I know of you, Apollonius, and I would be as you are. I would be free to wander as the wind took me, but for what the Father would have me do.”
Seth and I are as one at this; we would know what Yeshu must do. And so too would the council of the Carmelites. Even Salome, for whom the One was John, must know. But it is Apollonius who speaks. “Though I have never seen you, Yehoshua, yet I knew so soon as you came who you were.”
Yeshu lifts his eyes to this one whose own eye is fire itself, and the moment that passes seems forever. The young man, Apollonius, would hold his eye. He is heroic in his attempt but he cannot, for if he is as fire, Yeshu is as deep water.
Yeshu asks in a voice as remorseless as the sea, “Who am I?”
In surprise, Apollonius blurts out, “Do you not know who you are?”
Yeshu opens his arms, and does not take his eyes from the face of Apollonius. “Last night I dreamed I stood in the Temple of Herod and all around me it was cast down, stone upon stone. The great men of Jerusalem tore at their beards, they rent the fine robes they wore, and the tears that stood in their eyes blinded them with grief. Yet I did not feel sorrow, but a great joy, greater than any I have ever known, save for breathing in the breath of the Father. As you know dreams, tell me of this dream.”
Hearing this, a great shudder goes through Apollonius, and when he speaks, he speaks to the shadows. “Last night I too dreamed, and in my dream a voice came to me, saying, ‘Apollonius, though you travel far, and though you learn much, and though you seek the glory of the ages, it will not come to you in this life. Instead, the words and the deeds of another will burn like a living flame deep into the hearts of men, and you will be cursed and forgotten. This is so, even though you share his sorrow, for he will be a thousand times more misunderstood than you, a thousand times worse betrayed. But be not disheartened, for nothing of the good that a man has done, and nothing of the good that he has thought, is lost, even if he is imprisoned or crucified for that good.’”
Apollonius looks at Yeshu, and his face is as if it was burnt away and the bone beneath revealed. “I think you are that other.”
And it is now that the Voice rises up in my throat, burns as bile burns, tastes on my tongue as poison might taste—and I cannot stop it as I could not stop my life. The dark room of stone is filled with the sound of me, which is not me. “LO! THOUGH THE WAY BE FRAUGHT WITH DREAD, AND THE WAY BE STREWN WITH SORROW, YET THE ONE SHALL SURELY STAND FORTH FOR ALL MEN. THROUGH HIM, I HAVE MADE MYSELF KNOWN TO THEE. HAVE I NOT SPOKEN AND HAS HE NOT HEARD?”
I flinch from the faces of the Carmelites. I shy from the look of Apollonius—it is as if he gazes on a feast and has no mouth. But I could die at what comes over the face of Seth. All that he thinks me, all that he thinks Yeshu, is now justified.
Yeshu steps back. He holds up his hand as if he could ward off what Apollonius has said, as if he could stopper the Voice. And then he turns and he leaves.
I too step back and, without thought and without balance, rush after him, and my white robe sweeps the lamp from the table.
The chamber of the Carmelites is plunged into darkness.
The air is black with night. At the foot of Elijah’s Altar, Yeshu has fallen to his knees and clasps himself with his arms, leaning so far forward his forehead would touch the frozen ground. I can see no farther than this, and there is no sound but the soft hiss of falling snow.
How sick is my heart! And how I curse the Voice that causes such pain in my beloved! I sink to my knees beside him, would touch his hand, his shoulder, brush the tender discs of white from his dark red hair. But I do nothing save kneel with him and hold myself in my own arms so that I might not writhe and I might not scream out my horror.
And this is all that we do. Until, by our very stillness, we must seem as brethren to the birds and beasts of the forested night, for they pay us no heed. But I, in my eternal unquiet, cannot stopper my mind. I think of the tower for which I am named. I think of Nyx who seeks my company. I think of the young man of Tyana who dreams he shall be as nothing to he who comes. I think of Elijah, the prophet of Yahweh, who perhaps in this very spot was said to have challenged the four hundred priests of Baal to prove how great their god, and when their god came not, taunted them, saying, “Cry aloud, for he is a god. Either he is talking, or he is pursuing, or he is on a journey, or perhaps he sleeps and must be awakened.” But unlike Baal, Yahweh came when he was called, and then he demanded that Elijah slay on the spot all of Baal’s priests for the love of himself. Elijah did not disobey. Yeshu’s Father is not the jealous bloodthirsty Yahweh, nor is he Baal, nor any other Being man thinks apart from the world and from himself. And Yeshu’s Father knows not Death, but Life. And does not need to be summoned, for he is with us always.
By and by Yeshu pushes up from the chill of the earth, and by and by he sits upright. His white breath gathers on the black air, the snow gathers on his shoulders. “If they think themselves saved, John, will they then welcome the Kingdom?”
Something is changed in me. I understand him instantly. He means that if he allows himself to be the Messiah, the people would allow themselves to be “saved” and, being saved, would hear his teaching. Eloi! Eloi! I know where he will go with this; I know where it will take him. I would that he not go there. I would that we flee to Egypt. Or to Tarsus. Or to that place John the Baptizer spoke of, Nehardea, the free state of Jews on the banks of the far Euphrates. Anywhere, but where Yeshu will go.
He turns to me; his voice is still no more than a whisper. “In this one thing, I have learned from my brother, Jacob, who said, ‘What means it to a man to have faith, but no deeds? I will show you my faith through my deeds, for being good is not enough, doing good is what is needed.’ But this is a thing I have learned in my own person: most men are Hylics, as your Philo called men of the body. I would name them captives. They do not grow gradually wiser and better and more knowing of God but instead lurch from one blind folly to another, from one superstition to another, from one tyranny to another. This also I have learned in my own person: that not knowing the Father and the Mother, man will have a god, and if he cannot find a true god to worship, he will worship the false. Therefore, if we do good deeds, Mariamne who is John who is my heart, then the deeds that we do, we must do well, and there must be no mistaking what occurs.”
This too I understand. I kneel beside my friend and a clarity fills me as white and as cold as the snow that falls around us. Yeshu will be the Messiah for a people who are sore afraid, and thereby need to be saved. He will stand forth for a people who cannot see and for a people who cannot hear. He will assume the role of Messiah as initiates of the Therapeutae assume the role each year of Osiris. Like John, if he cannot teach them one way, he will teach them another. But they will not rise up and make him king; he intends that through him they will find the king in themselves. This is what he has been called to do, and nothing will turn him or stop him or sway him.
He lifts his face into the gathering white. “I see now that my life is become the Father’s life. I have argued and I have pleaded. I have struggled to wish myself free of this. I have reasoned that if Herod would kill me as he killed John, is this not an end to it? A man might give his life so that others live, but no man can be expected to die so that others might know Life. But I cannot persuade myself. I am what I am and must do what I must do.” Stars of snow lie on his lashes, catch in his mouth. He speaks now as if he spoke before multitudes. “If the Messiah comes, he must come as the Voice within you shouts. He must come as a lion, as a king, so that what must be done will be done.”
What will be done, is already being done. No matter that I have fought it, hid from it, refused it, ineluctably, it has moved, step by step, toward itself. And I am as used in this as Yeshu is used in this.
Who uses us? What speaks through me?
Plato taught that the first principle is intellect whose only function can be to think, and the only possible object of thought must
be itself. But I must ask: why, then, did it act? Does it not seem more likely that the first principle is not intellect, but Consciousness, which being aware, would not only think, but feel and, in feeling, would desire to express itself? All reality is that expression. The stars and all they contain, the earth and all that goes on it, man and every movement he makes or thought he thinks. Nothing can be separate from Consciousness, and nothing can be “fallen.” There can only be the myriad expression of Consciousness, which is neither good nor evil, but is infinite experience.
God is not a being outside the Self, nor has it gender, nor is it burdened with a desire to find fault, or to test, or a need to command obedience. God is Consciousness—which is All There Is. And we are how it knows itself in all its infinite variety. God is an endless timeless dance of joyous creation. All this, so that God might know itself—and glory in the contemplation thereof.
Yeshu rises, holding out his hand. Our fingers are so cold, his touch pains me. “As you have walked with me, John, will you go with me now?”
Have I really a choice? Would it matter if I did? I say, “There is no other path.”
“Then, come. We must prepare for Jerusalem.”
In the Valley of the Jezreel, below us to the north, the blossoms of the almond have come forth and have fallen. The flax is harvested. Below us to the west, the Plain of Sharon greens, the winds fold their tawny wings, and the sea lanes are open once more. War biremes and mail boats sail in and away over the Sea of Darkness. And here on our mountaintop, concealed from all but a few, all that is intended by Yehoshua the Nazorean is gone over and over, examined for precise detail or flaw. Messengers come and go, and one of these is the sister of Yeshu, the fiery Maacah, and one of these is Ananias, who has ever been a half-informed Nazorean. Yeshu has learned from the fate of John of the River. He will not do as John did; he will not be taken before his time. Even I can see that the final plan of Yehoshua the Nazorean is worthy of Solomon, that it is tremendous in conception. It is also wonderfully cunning, for it entails not only what we would do but also what Yeshu would have a host of unwitting others do in reaction.
Long are the hours, and many the days, since Yeshu knelt at Elijah’s Altar. And throughout, Yeshu and Jude and Addai have talked as they walked from place to place, or sat together in Seth’s simple room. Though Seth does not come with us, and Addai cannot come with us—both remaining here to prepare for what will come after—they do nothing more than direct their minds toward that which Yeshu wills. If Yeshu did not know it before, hearing it from me, Seth makes very clear the Midrash of Philo Judaeus, who even now with others creates a godman for Jews. Yeshu questions Seth closely on all that is wanted of a godman, and all that is expected.
And though I would not, I have been drawn into this cool plotting, and there are moments I think we will not fail, that we cannot fail. But many more are the moments I listen to those I love with unutterable dread at my center.
Not so Salome. Salome has a new interest, and even now I feel a new dream forming behind her skull. Hour after hour, she sits at the feet of Apollonius of Tyana and takes what it is he can give. Hour on hour are not devoted to John of the River. My friend has that look in her eye again, the one that even Philo did not dare to defy, and it is all I can do not to think what this means. Perhaps this is why I am so willing to scheme away the nights.
Yeshu, using the skills of a lifetime, is become certain the Jewish godman must come “in body” as their expected Messiah; therefore he must fulfill Jewish prophecy. To that end, Seth, who pours over scripture, most especially Isaiah and Psalms and Zechariah, has chosen six key prophecies, three of which are already fulfilled. First: the Messiah must be anointed by a prophet. Was John of the River not a prophet? And did he not, in some fashion, baptize Yeshu in the Jordan? Second: the Messiah must be proclaimed as such. Do the people not everywhere call out his name, saying he is the Messiah? And has not Megas of Ephesus, once the high priestess of the zonah, anointed him as a king? Third: the Messiah will work wonders, most especially the raising of the dead. Do not many believe Yeshu has done just that in the child Matti, son of Ismael the Samaritan, and in my cousin Eleazar of Bethany, and did they not persist in saying so despite his best efforts at the truth?
But there are three not yet fulfilled. Somehow the Messiah must be betrayed by a trusted friend. And somehow he must be arrested by the Jews and tried by the Romans. And somehow he must be crucified, and—as Osiris, as Dionysus, as Tammuz, as all the godmen who are the son of Isis or Sophia or Mariam—he must rise on the third day.
These last three are what is talked of long into the night.
Each new word and each new detail adds to the tremendous fact that we will do as we plan to do. Each moment pushes us forward to the day there can be no turning back. But as I knew that night in the snow, there never was a turning back, not from the very instant that John of the River thought to say, “Simon! John! I would have you meet my favored cousin, Yeshu’a.”
But now it is far into the month of Adar and we must be about Yehoshua’s business, which is the Father’s business. As said, Seth will stay on the mountain to prepare a place in expectation of success, as will Addai and Tata. It is agreed that Addai will not show his wonderful flat face in Jerusalem, for he was once caught up in the talons of Rome, and Rome does not forget, and Rome is everywhere. And Tata would sooner live again as a slave than leave him. But Salome will come away, though she will not follow Yeshu.
Apollonius of Tyana means to walk east into the rising sun as his hero Pythagoras did, and Salome as Simon Magus will go with him. They will follow the path Pythagoras took, stopping in secret places such as this place, peopled by such as these secret people. As he names them, there are more than ever I knew, hidden settlements where from time out of mind gnosis has been sought, and where the goddess Sophia still lives. They will travel until they come onto India—India of the Vedas! And there in fabled India, they will live among the wisest of a wise people, learning all that they can.
To be a magician as she was trained to be, to be a seeker of dreams, and to do as Apollonius will do, and do it as Apollonius who also loves Pythagoras will do it, how ravished, once more, is Salome. As I love her, I must rejoice for her.
But Yeshu and Jude and I will go only so far as the town of Cana in Galilee. This is as it must be, for before we would walk into Jerusalem, first we must gather those who would walk with us. And most especially that one who is suited by his or her own character to betray Yeshu.
How ill I feel. How strangely elated.
We stand where the road becomes two, one branch leading north and one leading east. Helena of Tyre, who has ever walked in grace and in silence, does what is in her heart to do: she chooses that road which Simon Magus takes. Megas of Ephesus chooses that which Yeshu takes, as I think now she ever will. And I walk with her, numbed not by rosh but by dread and by loss. Salome has said her good-byes, and she has turned her face from me. I hold what she has given me, the tiny vial of Sabaz she has carried all these years. By this, I know that she too has plotted with Yeshu, though only so far. And this one thing she has said so that I understand her choice: “As I love you, my sister, my brother, my dearest friend, it is my desire that you come with me, all the while knowing you will not and cannot. I know you know that men must make themselves ready to ‘hear.’ I know you know gnosis is not something to be learned, but is something to be felt; it is a change in the very nerve. I know you know no man can bring other men to Life. John could not, though he gave his blood. I know now the Mystery must be kept in some safe place, even if that place be only your heart, until the day they come seeking.” She then kissed me, and turning, walked away.
I watched her leaving until she was gone, and still I watched.
I understand the choice Simon Magus has made; in my bones I know it is more than worthy. But I cannot choose it, for I have chosen Yeshu.
And now, as I trail behind he whom I have chosen, birds sing as they sing each sp
ring, the waters of the rivers flow away to the sea, the sun rises and the sun sets. I leave behind my beloved Addai. I leave Tata whom I cherish. I leave Nyx to Tata. Salome leaves me. But to leave Seth who blesses what Yeshu would do, though he cannot share his terrible need, yet begins his own part in Yeshu’s plan…I could not know how it would feel to leave Seth. I am cut in two.
Yeshu and Jude go with covered heads, and speak to no one, nor catch any man’s eye. By this, it is all but certain that Yeshu shall not be found out, for by now the search for him has lost its edge and its vigor. Other matters have taken precedence in the thoughts of Herod, whose troubles with the King of Arabia tax not only his powers but also his mind.
I walk on, Eio under my hand; Babel, almost grown, trailing behind. In the rough warmth of Eio’s blessed hide I take some comfort, but nowhere else.
We have arrived in Cana in the midst of a wedding; a large house is taken up with it. And here we find Simon Peter, for the bride is a younger sister, Leah, a frightened young woman who is to marry a fierce young man of this town. We find also Joazar, Simon Peter’s brother-in-law, the fisherman whose boat we once so often used, and the Sons of Thunder. Here too is every other Galilean who last year followed Jacob to the wilderness, all, that is, but Leah’s second brother, Andrew, who is dead, and the once-bandit Timaeus, who is taken by Pilate. We find also Simeon, who of them all makes little of my being female, and Joses, who, like most, does not allow me to know him. But we do not find Yeshu’s brother Jacob, for Old Camel Knees is become strong in the wilderness and gathers his own Judaean followers who are ferocious for the Law.
It seems, though, that even if the Galileans had not come away from Jacob for Yeshu, still, they would have come away. With their rough ways and their rough accents, and without John or Yeshu to calm them, they have felt out of place in Judaea. While we conspired on the sacred mountain of Carmel, they grew homesick by the Sea of Stink and would come home again, for who would choose barren Rome-infested Judaea over green Galilee?