Fifth Gospel (10 page)

R
EMEMBERING

W
hen
Jesus returned home he was twenty-four springs, though in his heart he felt himself as ancient as Mount Tabor.

His
father had long awaited his homecoming and they were graced with some quiet weeks together before Joseph fell deeper into his illness and succumbed to it peacefully in his bed. Afterwards, custom dictated that he wait a year with his family, and he passed this time at work, reflecting upon his travels, allowing his experiences to enter deeply into him.

The
Essenes of Nazareth had time and again attempted to recruit him for their order but Jesus had always said no. Now, on his return from the outlands, they came again, having heard of his travels, and he welcomed them, for he was interested in their warm conversation and the lively exchange of ideas, which they offered.

T
hroughout the winter months, fulsome in long shadows and cool winds and resplendent skies, the Essenes came each day and sat with him in the garden. He knew they were gleaning from him the measure and nature of his knowledge and the dimensions of his experience and soon they made Jesus an offer. The knowledge he had gained all these years was similar to that knowledge attained through initiation, and so if he chose to enter the order, he would not need to undergo the trials of the lower grades. They assured him, they could teach him more than he already knew.

‘Do not judge
us too hastily, Son of Mary, for what you see around you in Nazareth and other cities is not a reflection of our order’s true nature. It is in the monasteries that you will find our saints, our seers, men who live by the pure rule. Only they can teach you what you concerning the deepest and most profound secrets of our order.’

They left to await
his answer.

Over seven nigh
ts Jesus pondered his decision.

While r
eviewing his life since his twelfth year he came to an understanding. The Essenes, among whom he had lived all his life, had separated themselves from the ecstasy of the pagan people and also from the calculated inward brooding of the Hebrew priests. Perhaps in their inner sanctum they held that living knowledge which he was seeking? Perhaps wise Salome had been right: He had been like a mule in search of a scent that had always been behind his ear. There was only one way for him to know and so he made up his mind to say yes. He would follow them to their sanctuary at Engaddi to learn their ways and laws, on the provision that he would be permitted to remain aloof from those same laws, if he so wished.

T
hey agreed.

Jesus was aware that Mariam did not ask him why the
quiet ones
came and went from her home, or what they asked of him, but he knew the question lived in her soul as she busied herself with everyday matters. These days she was surrounded by people: his aunt Mary and his uncle Cleophas, who had come to help since his father’s death; her daughters and her other sons; and her servant, Salome.

T
here was rarely a moment of quiet to tell her of his decision.

On the anniversary of his father’s death
, when the winds announced the coming of warmer days, there came the opportunity.

She was alone, kneading bread
.

He took a long time to
come to the point. He sensed in himself a hesitation and awkwardness in her company. When he finally told her that he would soon go, she took a long moment to answer, so that it seemed almost as if she had not heard him at all.

‘Why so soon?’ She blurted out
, without looking at him, her attention on her fists pounding the dough, ‘You have barely returned from your wanderings, now you want to go again! What makes you so restless?’

Looking at her
, Jesus pondered their peculiar friendship. In many ways they were strangers and yet he had known her near all his life. It was true that her blood did not run in his veins, but there were moments when her heart in its slow measures opened up to his and he felt the warmth of recognition and love. When those moments came, her face, framed by the black mourning mantle, with its nose and the angle of the jaw and the bones of the cheeks, seemed etched in his memory, as if each detail had been carved there with a knife. But there were other times, when along with this feeling of the deeply familial, they held each other aloof, as they were doing now; as if they were seeing each other for the first time.

He could not explain this strangeness to himself
, and now when her eyes met his, the expression in them was so close and natural, yet so distant and strained, that it was unbearable to look upon it. Something told him that they were sharing an unspoken act; that they were each seeking to remember something through the other, but whatever it was they sensed sorrow in it and so they swung like a pendulum, from closeness to distance, seeking one another out one moment and pulling away the next, forestalling the moment of recognition, again and again.

He realised he had not answered her question. ‘What makes me restless?’ he looked at her. ‘I
haven’t found what I’m looking for.’

‘Do you know what it is?’ she asked.

‘I will know when I find it.’

She
looked at this, and returned to her pounding.

‘
You need not worry for money,’ he told her, ‘You have all the earnings of my journey and you must use it as you see fit.’

She
paused. ‘That’s not my worry, Jesus,’ she said, and took the dough and slammed it on the table to make her point. ‘My worry is not for money, it is for the tongues of the people...they don’t know what to make of you...they say you’re lifted up too high for yourself. Mind what I say…such talk can lead to suffering.’

He
felt her concern and he gentled her, ‘Doesn’t Isaiah tells us that we must not hide from suffering?’

She made a gaze into his eyes and poured out all the strength of her
Temple education and intelligence into it, to convince him of her words, ‘Isaiah was speaking of the Messiah, Jesus, the Messiah, whom Israel awaits…we, ordinary people, should not run towards suffering like a thirsty camel runs towards a water hole!’ When she had said it, a sudden remorse moved over her brow and she squared her shoulders and bent to her work to hide it.

‘The world thirsts
,’ he told her.

‘
Yes…yes…and you thirst also…’ she said, without looking up.

‘I am the thirst and I am also the water
that quenches it.’

She paused in her work
again and into her unhappy face there entered a trace of a smile. ‘Oh! So now you are two things?’ She gave a sigh of resignation. ‘Where will you go to, this time?’

He broached it gently, ‘To Engaddi.’

She stared down at her dough – it was sticky. She nodded to herself as if she now knew two things: she had not added enough flour, and she had guessed at Engaddi; both did not appear to sit well with her.

‘To the Essenes…
well!’ she said, ‘Now I know why they have been at our door like bees hovering over a bush in flower! Engaddi is a desolate place, Jesus!’ She looked up at him. ‘Why must you go there? With all your learning you would be welcomed any time at the Temple as a rabbi. Must I lose two sons to the ascetics and have nothing to show for my life?’

Jesus was reaching into the great earthenware pot wherein was kept the flour. He took up a cupful and brought it to the dough
. ‘This camel must quench his thirst,’ he said, and sprinkled the flour.

She turned her dough over and over to take up
it up. ‘That’s your mother in you talking! She always knew how much flour was enough, and yet she did not seem to live with her feet on the ground! For my part, I have always felt the ground keenly beneath my feet and that is why I treasured your mother.’ She sighed. ‘You may not know it, but my comfort has always been that I see her in you, in the fairness of your skin and the love of your heart. But Jesus, I also see something else in you! Yes…something more than joy and calmness. There are times when a flame rises up in you that seems not your own. I worry then for you...and when it comes, the moment I recognize that fire, I look away!’ She halted, searching for additional words, ‘What overcomes me? I don’t know! Sometimes I fear that if I were to look too deep into your eyes…I would not meet Jesus bar Joseph at all…but some other man!’ She made a nervous laugh and said, ‘Is this not a remarkable madness?’

He looked at
this and words came to him without a thought, ‘What is an eye, mother? Is God not capable of fashioning an eye in place of an eye and a hand in place of hand?’

This surprised her and she did
n’t seem to know what to say. ‘God is capable of anything, Jesus. That is what we are told...’

But Jesus did not hear her, f
or he was taken by his own words. His heart grew wide with recollections half forgotten and half remembered; of two boys sitting in a field or walking arm in arm; two boys sharing meals or laughing together. He had not thought
on
Yeshua in some time but he had always felt him
in
his thoughts. Yeshua was the one who would have said such words. A realisation came to him then, an understanding of why his stepmother loved him and yet held him remotely from her; why she seemed close to him one moment and distant the next.

What lived within him, that part of him that was like Yeshua, said to her, ‘God can make two into one if it serves his design
. He can make the inside like the outside, and the outside like the inside, and the above like the below, and the male like a female and the female like a male, one and the same…’

She stopped kneading her bread
, to look at this with a frown.

‘How can he do this?’

‘Perhaps,’ he told her, ‘it is like a woman who conceals leaven in her dough and though she can make two loaves from it makes only one. Perhaps if you were to recognise the son in front of you, the Lord would make the son hidden from you plain to you!’

Her
breathing near stopped. Jesus saw something flicker in her eyes and she stifled a gasp.

‘
Praise the Lord our God!’ she said, and tears welled up. She opened her mouth to say something else, but her lips would not utter the words.

‡

‘It was only a moment,
pairé
, spent this way, while the afternoon crept through the shadows of other rooms. Afterwards, having acknowledged it, they both returned to their duties–he to his workshop and she to her dough.’

‘What was she going to say
, Lea?’ I asked.

‘She was going to say that she could see Yeshua, her son, in Jesus. But these feelings could not rise
up into her thoughts.’

‘Why not?’

‘The time was not yet come, pairé, don’t be impatient! First she must let her feelings sit in the warm silence of her heart, like ‘leaven’, until they can rise up to become words.’

‘Oh my!’

THE ENLIGHTENED ONE

J
esus
travelled with the pure ones to the valley of Engaddi, an oasis of fresh water springs and palm trees thrust up out of a stark, apocalyptic landscape. Here, atop a sheer windblown hill overlooking the abundant desert skies and those salt-laden waters of the Dead Sea, he was taken to the motherhouse of the Order of the Essenes where its members lived in complete and silent seclusion.

On his arrival he was welcomed with respect and over time
he was given instruction and shown the library of scrolls preserved in clay pots, wherein the elders and guardians of the community had sealed the memory of their founder, the ordinances of their people and the prophecies of the holy ones. Jesus had lingered many an hour in this repository of wisdom, reading by the light of an oil lamp.

Below the motherhouse in a modest convent
, there lived the celibate educators of the children of outsiders. Beyond this could be found the dwellings of the married Essenes, the weavers, carpenters, vine growers and tillers of the soil, the life-blood of the order. He saw that this community was not unlike the community at Nazareth, where the lay people supported the priests and the teachers, and so it had not been difficult for him to grow accustomed to its ways.

At Engaddi however, the community not only provided for the priests, it
also provided for the many penitents who came here from every place, and the ascetics who lived in the desert gorges and hillside caves of the neighbouring areas. Jesus wandered through these desolate places with his teachers, garnering their knowledge. At other times, he went alone into the village to talk to the simple folk. When he was feeling the need for quiet, he would take himself to where the trees shaded the coolness of a waterhole not far from the settlement. Here, he could sit and ponder the purity, or impurity, of the teachings he was receiving.

On
e day, when he came to the waterhole, he found one of his teachers waiting for him. The old man’s head was roughened by the sun, and his white beard flowed like a shiver from his chin. He greeted Jesus with a nod, and asked him if he knew what he had come for.

‘You wish to speak with me.’

‘That is so.’

His time at Engaddi was nearing an end and the old man had come to seek from him
his decision: to go or to stay.

‘Much time has passed since your arrival in our community and I am sent by the elders not to convince you to stay, since a man must
decide freely to enter into our cloister, but rather to speak of the grave and solemn responsibility you shall undertake if you decide to join us in our doings.

‘
You know that Nazarites are reverenced by all as holy men. They are holier even than the Levites born into the priesthood! When they go to the Temple in Jerusalem, they are given every convenience and are permitted at any time to enter the court of the Nazarites, where they can gather up their hair and cook their peace offerings.

‘
What I have come to tell you is this…if you become an Essene you will not be respected or given conveniences. You will not be understood by any man! For we Essenes walk like shadows…’ he whispered, ‘silent, quiet…and none know that we prepare the world for the coming of the Messiah through fasting and penitence and deep prayer. We live a grave life, Jesus, as you know, because it is only through purification that we gain knowledge, it is only by shunning the world and its un-cleanliness that we shall rise higher than other men. Listen to me, Jesus,’ he sat forward, ‘the world has stained the soul and the soul has tainted the breath, which was given as a gift to man by God, so that when we breathe out…we kill the world. Once you enter into our cloister all that exists outside its gates, all that lives in the kingdom of the world must be forgotten. That is why there are no images at our portals, Jesus, because our eyes must be kept pure for the images that are true. Have you seen the pagan idols in your travels? Are they not like the beings we meet in the world? How can we presume to be the creators of the likeness of God? All images must be left behind at those gates, for only in seclusion can the mind make images of higher things, and only these higher images can change the heart, and only a change of heart can cleanse the breath…so that a man becomes like a plant, life giving.’

But as the man spoke
, before Jesus’ eyes the image of the Essene softened into the green foliage, and in its place came the image of another being.

The figure wore a smile that conveyed a likeness of all the love in the world, all that was valued as worthy and holy. He spoke even as the other man did
, but his words were heard in the heart and not the ear.

‘
I was born on the night of a full moon in far distant lands, long before this time, Jesus. I was the son of a wealthy king and queen. When I was your age, full of thirst to know the world, I too left my home, just as you have done, and what I saw was full with ills. Yes, I saw the pain of disease and the ravages of old age. I saw poverty and hunger and pain. I saw women crying for their lovers and mothers crying for their children and drunkards crying for their drink. I saw the cold, the weary, the beaten, the helpless and the hopeless. I saw these things as you have seen them and I too mourned for those I could not help. The truth is, Jesus, I would have returned home to the palace of my father feeling despondent, had Vishva Karman the artist of the gods, not appeared to me. After that, I sought enlightenment as you have done. I sat beneath the Bodhi tree where I was transfigured and it was through this illumination that a light was shed upon the ultimate truth:

‘
Birth is suffering. Illness, thirst and hunger are suffering. Old age and death are suffering. Separation from loved ones and unification with those we do not like is suffering. Pain is suffering and the absence of pleasure is suffering. Attaining what is desired is suffering, and attaining what is not desired is suffering. Ignorance is suffering and knowledge is suffering, craving and grasping and consciousness is suffering. To end suffering, to release the soul from the eternal chain of incarnations, to find salvation, I realised that one had to extinguish the self, and blot out the thirst for existence.

‘
And so this is what I, the Enlightened One, went on to teach men.

‘
But now, Jesus, the time for such a teaching is ended. For just as there are those who follow the path willingly, relinquishing all earthly things, walking with their white robes carrying their bowls in their hands, not labouring for their meals but living only from the alms that others deign to give them, so there must also be those who cannot follow the path, those who cannot relinquish earthly things. The world needs labourers and street vendors and women who can bear children and cook meals. There must always be those who do not wish to escape the endless wheel, for without them who would support those who walk the path? The priests could not collect alms if all men were to relinquish the world for enlightenment!

‘
The fulfilment of these doctrines would force all people to be like the elders of this order, but this is no longer lawful. Something new is entering into the world, Jesus, and I have prepared for it. The most excellent of spirits will soon come. He was known in ages past as Vishva Karman and Rama and Krishna and when he descends into the body of a man, He will be called Christ. He will bring with Him this understanding: that it is by way of death that man is born again; it is by way of suffering that compassion arises; and that it is by way of compassion that conscience can come into being. You see, conscience comes when we feel the pain of another. This voice of conscience now asks: how pure is enlightenment, if it is selfish and leads to the exaltation of a few through the suffering of many? He is near at hand, Jesus, and only conscience will recognise Him.’

Jesus felt the majestic truth of these words
and asked, full of wonder, ‘Who are you?’

‘
I am called, Buddha because I have sat under the Bodhi tree and I have been enlightened, and so I have escaped the endless round of incarnations. Long ago, it was I who made smooth the way for Christ! He will not escape the world but He will unite himself with it for all times not to save a few, but to save many.’

After that the
vision melted away and the image of the Essene was returned to Jesus and he saw that he was sitting as before and that but a moment had passed.

The elder
, he realised, was waiting patiently for a response, and he gave it: he could no longer remain with the Essenes.

Afterwards
, he returned to the motherhouse with his mind crowded with thoughts and as he reached the gates, upon which no graven images were seen, his now enlightened spirit eyes were directed to the creatures that were sat upon them. Had he seen these creatures before? Were these the same as those creatures he had seen among the Temple priests and on the pagan altars?

As
he entered the compound the spirits fled in haste, and on seeing this a question arose in his heart:

Where do you go, spirits, when you flee from
here?

For a long time this thought
plagued him. This thought and the words of the Enlightened One.