Fifth Gospel (23 page)

He ran from the cell then, leaving the baptiser behind in his stinking misery. He hurried to his wife’s chambers, seeking the comfort of her ministrations, but he found her obstina
tely antipathetic to his needs.

Alone and forlorn, with the night’s howling sounds and his terrors for company, he called for a messenger and dispatched hi
m to John’s disciples in Judea with a question for Jesus, from John the Baptist:

Have I understood correctly? Are you the One long awaited, or are we to wait for another?

And he himself, waited for the answer.

SERMON

I
n
the meantime, James bar Zebedee followed his master to their home, Galilee, with a glad heart. For the world had changed to his eye, it was no longer a place of woe and sadness, but a place of joy! The Sabbath was no longer a day of wrath and deathly silence, but a day of life and merriment, a wedding day! He wondered what his old father would say to it when he saw how his son was no longer shadowed by sadness, but was full of hope for each new day!

Their journey was long, but who measured the time? Days and weeks and months and leagues passed in a moment
, and then again, a moment could seem to last the span of a life, it could seem like the crossing of an ocean. One day, his master walked with no apparent aim, finding everything fascinating and lingering long in small insignificant places others might overlook. Another day he would go about with a feverish purpose as if he were looking for something that eluded him. In between he taught them as they journeyed or sat at meat under the great blue expanse strewn with cloud, or beneath the cold black dome crowded with stars.

One
such evening when the sun was westering, his master chose twelve men from among the seventy followers. James, happy to be among them followed him to a mountain, where he said he would teach them how to pray.

‘O
pen your hearts, for I will tell you something…’ he said, as night closed about them. ‘Once I travelled through these lands and came nearby to Caesarea Philippi where, not far from the township, in a Temple, I heard a voice. The voice came from the Bath-Kol, the thunder of heaven, and I was taken up by it, and it spoke a prayer of lament into my soul for the downfall of man. Now I will give you a reversal of this prayer. A prayer of the hopeful soul, that rises up from the fall towards its spirit home.’

He began it, ‘Our Father…who art
in heaven, hallowed be thy name…’

And oh! W
hat majestic choruses did James hear coming from his words! All of creation seemed at that moment consumed by light! Yes, praised be God! Reversed was the original darkness of sin and the fall into degradation, and begun was the ascent towards heavenly newborn life!

The moment passed and Jesus, now sitting among them beneath the cedars
, said, ‘This prayer tells that what lives in me is the kingdom, the power and the glory of heaven, come down to the earth. I have come to bring the heavenly bread, the heavenly teachings that can feed you. Whoever is fed by these teachings in life will not suffer death, for death in the body is only the beginning of life in the spirit, suffering in one life becomes the seed of joy in the next.’

James puzzled over it and said
to him, ‘Can you tell us, master, what the kingdom of Heaven is like?’

Jesus s
at back against the tree and it seemed that even the calm breeze was paused for his answer. ‘To others I speak in parables, but I have chosen you and brought you here because I wish to speak plain with you. The kingdom is a light, a light that shines into the darkness of your souls,’ he said to them.

There was quiet.

‘How is it like a light?’ James did not understand.

‘When
a seed falls on prepared ground it creates new life. When you prepare your souls, when the light of heaven enters you, it can make your heart into an eye, which can see more than the world, it can see the spirit that lives behind the world.’

Judas
, the red beard, huffed from his position, ‘On earth we have the sun we see with our eyes and now you say we need an eye in the heart?’

‘
It was the light of the sun had to create your eyes before you could see the world, Judas. And similarly in your heart an eye must be created from the light of faith before you can see the world of spirit.’

‘Where is this world?’ James asked.

‘It is here, behind these trees, and behind the clouds and the meadows, my brothers,’ Jesus told them.

Andrew looked at
Simon-Peter. ‘What did he say?’

Simon-
Peter sighed and scratched at his beard in irritation. ‘The master said that the spirit is everywhere among us, but if we want to see it we have to make our own suns inside our hearts, so that it can illuminate it!’

Andrew frowned. ‘
Make our own sun? Right here, as we sit, you say? Right here, we are among heaven?’ He shook his head. ‘I do not know…’

‘Heaven is before you, Andrew!’ the master affirmed, ‘It is only that you can
’t see it until the spirit light fashions the eye of your soul.’

‘
What must we do to prepare our souls, master?’ asked little John.

He looked at John.
‘Think good thoughts, feel for others, and do good deeds. That is how you prepare your souls. Such men can make themselves new again. This is what I mean, when I say,
you must be born again
.’ He looked at them, ‘If you foster calmness and balance, all comfort and well-being on earth shall be your reward. When I am gone, you must teach others to do the same.’

‘
But if we were to tell people such things they would laugh at us! A man hungers and thirsts, and these must be satisfied,’ said Thomas, a cross-eyed merchant who had joined them at Capernaum.

‘
Thomas, you must say to them, if you purify your souls, you will hunger and thirst only for what is good. Then, this goodness in you shall feel compassion for all men who hunger and thirst, even those who hate you, and revile you.’

‘These are just words!’ Judas dismissed. ‘What you ask for is impossible
! How can we feel compassion and mercy in our souls for an enemy that crucifies us and kills our children, our women and our old men? Sinners must burn in hell if God is just.’

‘Judas, my friend, God is just
but I have come to tell you about love. A soul full of hate has only hate for a harvest. Those men that you love in this life, though they do not merit your love, will love you in the next life. If you feel compassion and mercy for a man now, you will find it returned to you later…this is preparing the soil of the soul for a harvest of love.’

Simon-
Peter said, ‘I have seen what lives and plays in the water and the air and the light, I have seen it! Is this then, the spirit world of which you speak, master?’

‘Yes, Peter,
but blessed are those that do not see it and yet still believe in it. But when faith becomes vision it will be as though you had stepped out of your body, as if it were nothing more than a garment. The soul will then shine out like a light over the world of spirit, that is what I mean when I say,
you must become naked before God
…you see, to you I speak plain.’

Cross-eyed Thomas said
, with a dismal sigh, ‘If we become seers master, then we are done for! Prophets are not only hated by powerful men who fear their judgements and admonitions but the ordinary people also hate them for they don’t always agree with their opinions! Prophets even hate other prophets who do not foretell the same things! Nobody likes them. They are either stoned or run through with a blade, or else they are torn apart by the crowds, or thrown over the edges of cliffs! And afterwards, no man raises statues to them or truly honours them. All in all, master, they do not fare well!’

‘One would think a merchant would be used to being hated!’ said
Matthew, the tax collector, ‘Specially a cross-eyed one!’

Thomas
took in a breath of indignation, ‘Look who’s throwing stones! A tax collector no less…a man who is hated even by his own mother!’

The master sighed
and quieted them with a hand, ‘There is no doubting it. You will be persecuted and killed if you have the light in you, as I shall be persecuted and killed. This is because the blind don’t understand light, you see? But when you are persecuted for the sake of your goodness by blind men, rejoice and be glad, for great shall be your reward in lives to come!’

Judas
’ eyes were like two sparks in the night. ‘Well…you say these things to us, and you expect us to believe you, and yet we still do not know who you really are, the carpenter from Nazareth or the Son of God…which is it?’

‘Forgive me, Judas, my brother,’ Jesus said to him, ‘but if you had the light in you, you would see me, and know me.’

Judas fell quiet. After that James and the others, feeling badly for the way Judas had spoken settled down to sleep.

The night encroached and James lay beneath the cedars
thinking that he was so full of love for his master that he would die for his sake. And in that moment between sleep and wakefulness he looked up to the stars and heard a tender voice in his ear say that one day he would die a martyr’s death in a far off land in a place called ‘The Field of Stars’. But he would not be forgotten. Centuries later a great French King called Charlemagne would follow those same stars to that field. He would call that route,
The Way of St James
, and he would be the first pilgrim to his grave, not realising that the grave of James was really his own grave. In time a great temple would be erected to house his grave and every year thousands of pilgrims would follow the stars for miles, just to see it.

James
drifted off to sleep, thinking these things with a smile on his face. And he was still smiling for these rewards when he woke up, though he remembered nothing of the voice, or of its portents.

NIGHT SUN

T
he
night
the French took the Eastern Barbican the fortress was thrown into a panic. There were perfects coming through the gates holding their belongings, followed by archers and knights who locked the gates behind them. The rest of the fortress came out into the starless night to see what all the fuss was about and found themselves gathering up what weapons were spare to help the knights on the ramparts.

The Barbican
had been stormed by surprise. The French had come not by way of the well-defended path that separated the narrow ledge from the fortress, but by way of our trail cut out of the eastern rock face. The Basque shepherds had discovered our secret path and this meant two things – the French were only a few paces from our walls and we were cut off from the outside world. Soon we would have to make a decision, starve or surrender.

Heavy was my heart w
hen Lea came again to the room at the top of the spiral stairs. I told her things did not look good for us and she looked at it with a nod and said,

‘No, that is certain.’

‘You say that lightly, but many will die!’

‘For every act
ion there is a compensation,
pairé
, as Jesus has said.’

A memory surfaced unbidden.
‘At Beziers the French came after the dirty work was done,’ I told Lea. ‘In the end they burnt the church and all the people in it, thousands of them, both Catholics and Cathars, were kneeling at the altar praying! My mother and father and sisters perished with the others. I only survived because a dream woman like you took me from my bed and told me I must go into the woods. She saved my life. Many years later I heard that the Bishop of Citeaux had told the Crusaders to kill them all, for God would recognise his own in heaven. Tell me Lea…how can a war of religion not care for its faithful?’

She gave this
her patient attention. ‘You should know that when an army enters into a city, faith soon leads to murder.’

‘
Should I? Why should it be so? I have no idea!’

‘Thi
nk of it
pairé
, what you call faith is not really faith at all. It is only religion. Religion is only a short step from zeal, and zeal only a margin away from fervour, which is only a hair’s breadth from frenzy – the cradle of hate and murder. The truth is,
pairé
, that evil and good share the same small space in the soul.’

‘
What makes one man evil and another good, then?’

‘How close or distant one is to the good gods
.’

‘
And what is the compensation for the atrocities committed against innocent people, against innocent children for God’s sake!’ I said with vehemence, for the memory of Bezier’s had come unbidden and was stirring up an anger I had not let myself feel all these years.

She
sighed. ‘There is another way to look at it,
pairé.
It could be that destiny has brought these souls together to a place where they can suffer in order that in the future they can return again, together, for a good cause…’

This
did not ease my heart. ‘I know we must suffer fro our sins, but why has God turned away from the innocent?’

‘God is just
,’ she said.

‘But is that all
he is? What of love?’

‘
God is Love, and His wrath is also His love.’

‘How
can wrath be love?’

‘Do you remember what Buddha said to Jesus? Suffering leads to Compassion.
When God spills out his wrath it causes suffering, this suffering not only leads to a cleansing of sin but it also gives us wisdom, it allows us to recognise the suffering of others. It is the memory of our own suffering that brings about the understanding that helps us to forgive those who have done some wrong to us…this is true love
pairé
. Wrath seen from the other side is true love; a Love that cancels out sin.’

I
looked out of the window to the hard snow drifting over the crests and peaks and valleys and chasms of our mountains. I realised more than ever how far I was from perfection. If she saw my despondency, Lea did not show it. True to her nature she began to speak calmly of the road to Capernaum and I let myself fall into her words, for what good was there to dwell on bitterness?

Here p
ictures healed my heart; pictures of that woman I had grown so fond of, that highly spirited Roman woman, the wife of Pontius Pilate. I could see her sitting proudly in her chariot and I could hear the thoughts of that near blind Centurion, who rode ahead of the small retinue…

‡

Gaius Cassius was gladdened to leave the confines and tedium of Jerusalem, to travel the wide-open spaces of the land. He was happy to feel the chaffing of his greaves and to suffer the aches in his spine, legs and buttocks, from being in the saddle. For it made him feel less like an old man, which he was, nearing sixty springs, and more like a soldier.

H
e looked about him. His eyes had turned bad since his failed initiation those years ago and had grown worse each year, so that now he saw the world through a brown haze
.
This loss, though debilitating, had not prevented him from doing his duty, for he had grown skilful at finding ways around it. And yet, as his outer eyes had begun to see less and less of the content of the world around him, in the same measure did his inner eyes begin to see more and more of the content of his soul, and this, more than anything, had not pleased him.

D
uring the tedium of his days in Jerusalem, he had tried to dull this inner eye with wine and women and gambling. But the numbness occasioned by these diversions had not lasted, it had only served to make him feel more keenly the dishonour and shame of a man who lives a borrowed life, an undeserved life.

He grumbled
and took a glance behind him to the chariot carrying Claudia Procula. He could not see her face clearly, only the outlines and the general form of it, but his inner eye knew that she was beautiful, for her soul bespoke beauty.

Soon after Pontius Pilate had arrived in Judea he had given Cassius the charge of following his wilful wife and maintaining her safety
. At first this assignment had made his temper disordered, for not only was it demeaning for a centurion of his calibre and experience to waste his time minding a stubborn woman, he also found it difficult to keep track of her with his worsening eyes, but not wishing to draw attention to the secret of his failing vision he had made the best of it.

In truth, he had never understood women and their ways
, having spent most of his life in the military. They were creatures wholly foreign to his experience, good for distracting a man from boredom, dulling the bitterness of defeat, or helping him to celebrate a victory. As a centurion he was aware that it was good for his men to trade the glory of steel for the pleasure of skin and warmth from time to time, but he also knew that a woman was like wine, she could make a man forget the smell of blood and disappointment in the evening, but in the morning she was a headache and a bad taste in the mouth.

And yet, here was something new! As time passed, he began to welcome this diversion
with the lady Claudia! He began to look forward to hearing from Susannah, her mistress, that Claudia was leaving the pr
ae
torium. At first all had gone smoothly, but Claudia Procula was an intelligent woman and soon came awake to his task. Perhaps, even in those early days, she had already made a guess at his malady for she was in the habit of losing him. He often wondered as he floundered in the crowds like a fish looking for water, if her eyes were observing him from some corner with merriment. Yes, he had become a plaything, blown by a woman’s will, like a feather in the wind.

I
n the end, though they never spoke of it, a quiet understanding had developed between them; she would not venture to dangerous places and he would let loose his rope a little and give her a small semblance of the liberty she craved. All had gone well, and in time even his esteem grew for her. For he realised that when Claudia ventured out of the palace, it was not always for her own pleasure, but also for the good of others. Often times she would take hampers of food which she would deposit at the mouth of leper caves, or which she would distribute among the poor.

Despite himself
and beyond his true recognition of it, he had grown to love her. And as the years passed, with the lessening of his vision there grew a picture more vivid in his mind’s eye of her beauty, whose characteristics he recalled each night with great care – as if the image of her were a precious blade in need of a careful polish at the end of a day.

Now, u
pon this road to Capernaum, he wondered if he had given her too much rope.

S
ome time ago she had sought him out on the pretext of discussing the security of the household. Instead, she had ordered him to take her along when next he set off to find the man Jesus of Nazareth. Having such an order put to him by her in person had made him quite unable to speak. She had taken from him the self-possession to say no, so that a strange covenant was then added to their other unspoken agreements by virtue of his silence, which he could not later undo, without causing disrespect to her person.

R
eason told him it was one thing to allow a woman some small indulgent freedoms, and quite another to take her on a stolen journey to Galilee, to hear Jesus of Nazareth speak, while the Governor was away, taking care of those duties pertaining to the running of his province. Where would such matters lead? He could not presage.

Such
things were on his mind as they reached that place where Jesus was known to preach. When they found him, Cassius squinted to see. It was afternoon and the sky was like an ocean of red. He realised he could only make out the shape of a man standing among a great crowd on a hillside.

Claudia Procula, having come from her chariot, was now beside him
, and they stood not far from the crowds facing east, behind a group of shading trees. The nearness of Claudia made him nervous. He had to curb a desire to lean into the smell of her body, scented as it was with roses. Perhaps it was this nervousness, or the heady scent, or the magic of the woman, or even his old eyes playing him for a fool but whatever the case, he was not prepared for what he saw.

All t
hese years, he had grown out of the habit of looking at the sun since Mithras was no longer to be found in it. Nor did he feel the god in his heart, which seemed to him like a wasted vessel. And yet, as birds flew in the soft-coloured air to find their homes, and the frogs called and the people full of plagues and infirmities came to Jesus to be healed, he let his old wasted eyes look on Jesus and he saw something grand, he saw that from him came a light as mighty as the sun! A night-sun was rising in his heart, even as the day-sun was setting.

This let loose in Cassius what had not moved since those years before
in that cave dedicated to the God Mithras. This movement unleashed from the locked places inside him his long lost devotion and his reverence and it seemed to him like the universe was a hollow space and that he was stood in that hollowness like a pillar of salt, about to be blown away.

‘Do I
live?’ he asked himself then, ‘Or am I in the heaven of the Greeks?’

When
he looked again, it was over.

C
assius tried to tuck it away, and made up his mind not to think on it, for what madness had visited him? He did not know. He turned away to look at Claudia Procula, and he saw that she was weeping.

‘Mistress,
you are in distress?’ he asked, worried now.

She shook her head
and told him with a small laugh of embarrassment, ‘I am not distressed, my dear, Cassius…tell me, did you see it too? It was only a moment, but did you see how the sun shone from out of him into the oncoming night? Oh Cassius!’ she said to him, ‘I cry for joy, because I am full of that sun! I am full of grace!’

Ca
ssius did not know what to say.