The Secret Magdalene

by Ki Longfellow

  From priest to pauper, a sigh runs through the people. Would they enter God’s Kingdom? At the End of Days, they would do nothing else. As one, they would inhale this messiah, take him deep into their lungs, and one among them, a small man, but finely made, and with a look of hard labor about him, speaks out, and his voice too is not loud, but soft with longing. “Who is it that will draw us to heaven, Master, if that Kingdom is in heaven? And when shall it come?”

  These questions have been asked many times and Yeshu has answered them many times, each time differently. Today Yeshu’s answer seems spurred by the burning and the dying all around us. “The birds of the air and the beasts of the earth and the fishes of the sea shall draw you to heaven, and all creatures under the earth. For the Kingdom of Heaven is within you, and whosoever knows God shall find it, for if you know him, you shall know yourselves. And you will realize that you are the sons and the daughters of the Father who is perfect, and you shall know yourselves to be citizens of heaven, for you are the City of God.”

  Yeshu could not have spoken of gnosis more clearly, but not “knowing” the goddess Sophia who is gnosis, the faces of those who hear him are blurred with confusion. He has told them the world and all it contains is the Kingdom of God if only they would know it. And I pity them so for not having ears to hear, and I pity them for thinking themselves separate from God, and lost.

  But this is what the elders wait for, and one among them, no doubt chosen earlier, and this one Nicodemus himself, has pushed forward and pushed forward so that by now he stands at the foot of Yeshu’s step. Nicodemus raises his voice and trumpets out over all those who have listened as they would listen to David come again, “By what authority would you speak of such a thing? Who gave you this authority?” His gray beard is full of rage and his face is free of doubt.

  Yeshu turns a mild eye upon Father’s once friend. “I too would ask a question, and if Nicodemus should answer mine, I would answer his. Tell me of the Baptism of John? Was it from heaven or was it from men?”

  I know what Yeshu has done; I know that Jude does and I feel his flush of admiration. As for Nicodemus, there is no need to touch him; he too knows what Yeshu has done, and is lost.

  But now comes forth a certain Gamaliel to stand by Nicodemus. Though a Pharisee, Gamaliel is yet president of the Sanhedrin, and has eaten at Father’s table. Just as Nicodemus does not know me, this one does not know me; both are convinced by the person of John the Less. Gamaliel, too, knows what Yeshu has done and his thoughts are as harried as hares, seeking a way to answer. If Nicodemus should say that John’s baptism was from heaven, this messiah will say to him in front of all, why then did you not believe him? But if Nicodemus should say that John’s baptism was of men, then the people would turn on those he spoke for, would hurl the hard lemons they keep about them for just such moments, since all hold John of Kefar Imi as a prophet. Therefore, neither answer will do. “We cannot tell,” is what the president of the Sanhedrin must finally say.

  So that Yeshu, who has come here this day to provoke the council and to enrage the priests, answers, “Neither do I tell you by what authority I do what I do. But this I will say to you. If a man asks his son to do a thing and the son says he will not, but afterward relents and does it, and then the man asks a second son to do a thing, and this son says that he will, but does not, which son has done the will of his father?”

  Of course, Gamaliel who has eaten Father’s bread must answer that the first son does the will of the father, so that Yeshu can say, “Then in truth I say to you that the whores and the tax collectors will know the Kingdom sooner than you shall know it. For John came to you and you believed him not, but the whores and the tax collectors believed him. And neither did you repent. For you are like whitewashed tombs, which appear outwardly beautiful, but within are full of dead men’s bones.”

  Yea Balaam! How the face of Gamaliel darkens! How Nicodemus grinds his teeth! That Yeshu should presume to say such a thing to a teacher of the Law!

  By now, the priests and the members of the Sanhedrin have pushed past the people and ring us round with only themselves. I know that Jude fingers his knife, as does Simon Peter, as do the Sons of Thunder. My own blade is no less distant from my hand.

  But this pushing forward seems as nothing to Yeshu. Once again he raises his arms and speaks out over them, his eyes on the gathered people behind the wall of priests and of elders. “Hear that the Kingdom of Heaven is like a certain king who would give a feast for the marriage of his son. This king sent out his servants to all just men, so they might be asked to come to this feast. But no one would come, each saying he was too busy with his business or with his farm or with this or with that. And again the king sent out his servants bidding them tempt these just men by speaking of the delights each would find at the king’s table, and still none would come. Indeed, some were vexed the servants had come a second time, and made light of them, or set their dogs on them. But the king loved his son, and his wish to share his abundance was great, so sent his servants out a third time. And this time, there were those who were angered by the call and would slay the servants of the king. And the king, when he heard this, was hurt in his heart, so that he sent his servants to the highways and to the wild ways to gather any he could, be they good or be they bad, to come sit at his table. And the poor, not too busy with this or with that, came to his feast. And the bad, humbled that a king’s servant would ask them, came to his feast. And those who were like children, and would see such a thing as a great supper, came to his feast. And the king spared them nothing. For I tell you, all are called, but few answer.”

  There are those among these elders who would take up small chunks of masonry; I feel the heat of this terrible desire as it passes through Nicodemus. As for Gamaliel, he could not turn much redder, and how his arm aches to cast the first stone! Gamaliel knows whom Yeshu means by just men—he means the priests and the scribes and the Sanhedrin; he means Gamaliel himself. But in their shock and their outrage, neither he nor the others standing with him can lay a hand on Yehoshua the Nazorean for the crowd at their backs. Only the Romans can touch Yeshu now. And by what he does next, I know that Gamaliel is prepared for this. The movement is slight, and it is quick. Gamaliel has signaled another to come forth, a younger man and a priest of little standing.

  It is this one who smiles upon Yeshu, saying, “Master, we know now you are true. We know you care for no man more than another. And we know you teach the way of God. Therefore, tell us what you think. Is it lawful to give tribute to Caesar, or is it not?”

  I feel Yeshu stiffen against me. Here is a trap, more dangerous than that which he himself laid for Gamaliel. The president of the Sanhedrin is a clever man and I know it is he who has thought of this. If Yeshu should say that it is not lawful, he will preach sedition against Rome, and—too soon—the Romans will kill him. If Yeshu should say it is lawful, he will show himself a friend of Caesar, and the people will turn away from him. And if he should say, as Gamaliel has said, that he does not know, Yeshu will show himself no more than the elders and the priests who answer as best suits the moment, and the people will be certain he is no messiah. Any one of these answers will put an end to this bold trespasser who speaks in the foolish accents of Galilee.

  Gamaliel’s thin smile tells me how well he knows this, and how tight his trap. What he does not know is that, according to our plans, there can be no arrest before the right and proper time. Therefore, for his life and ours, Yeshu must answer well.

  “Show me a coin.”

  For the elders, it is the work of a moment to produce any number of such things, and with care and precision a single dinarius is laid in Yeshu’s outstretched palm. Yeshu does not look at it, but at Gamaliel, though it is to the young priest that he now speaks. “Whose is this image?”

  “Caesar’s, Master.”

  “And this lettering?”

  “Caesar’s, Master.”

  Yeshu hands back the coin, as precisely as he was giv
en it, and says so that all can hear. “Render to Caesar that which is Caesar’s, and to God that which is God’s.”

  Oh, this is a wonderful answer! Not even Salome could have thought of a cleverer one! And I look out over the faces of the people, and all here, they too think it a wonderful answer and break out in talk of it, each repeating to each what it is the Master come among them has said. By evening, Yeshu’s words will be heard in every home, and every place of business, and every fine mansion in Jerusalem. By evening, the sound and the meaning of it will reach the ear of the prefect of Judaea.

  Yeshu has done what he need do with the priests of the Temple and the Sanhedrin. If there are any among them who love him, they hold no power now, for he has so turned the president of the Sanhedrin against him the rest would not lift a finger in his defense. Therefore, it is Pilate who is now sought by Yeshu.

  Coming away, we know we have played our parts well, and rejoice. Even I rejoice, knowing what I know. But as we pass once more through the Court of the Gentiles, Matthew of Lydda exclaims at how grand the Temple, and his brother, Levi, proclaims at its worth, but Jude surprises us by proclaiming how close Yeshu came to stoning. And Yeshu stops in his tracks, saying, “It is not prophesied that I should be stoned.” I need not hear him to know what he does not say, which is: and blessed be this, for if stoning were prophesied, it could not be survived.

  We stand before the entrance to the Hulda Tunnel but Yeshu does not enter. Instead he asks of us, “You know that in two days it is the feast of the Passover?” Oh yes, all here know this. There is much nodding and much confusion that the question is asked. Yeshu then says, “You know then that the son of man will be betrayed and crucified?”

  If I have rejoiced, it is nothing to how I now lament. As for the others, on the instant all joy is gone from their hearts.

  Simon Peter tears at his beard, and when he has finished with this, he takes Yeshu by the shoulders and shakes him, crying out, “I would have this thing far from you! This will not be done unto you!”

  And it is now, and for the first time, that I see how full of fear is my beloved friend. But Yeshu’s fear has made him angry. He takes Peter’s wrists in his own hands, and by so doing pulls Simon Peter’s hands from off his shoulders, and the look on his face is black. “Get you behind me, Satan, who is ever the angel of doubt. You are an offense to me for you savor not the things of the Father, but of men.”

  How this strikes at Simon Peter’s heart. I would not be him for all the world. His face is as ash as Yeshu walks away. But neither for all the world would I be Yehoshua the Nazorean. Yeshu cannot allow himself to doubt what he does. To doubt is to falter, and to falter is to fail.

  Yeshu sits in Father’s inner courtyard eating Nicolas dates, each longer than a woman’s finger, with flesh as white as northern skin and taste as sweet as honey. Half asleep, I lean my head on his shoulder and watch him pick among them for the biggest and the sweetest. All around us I hear the murmur of voices talking of this and talking of that, then there comes a moment of silence, and into this silence Simon Peter inserts what he has need of saying, what he has had need of saying ever since leaving the Temple Mount.

  “Yehoshua,” he begins, and in his voicing of this name there is a world of meaning, “I have tried and I have tried, but I cannot shake your words from my mind. I tell myself you do not mean what you say, that you mean something else, something I cannot grasp, nor can others.” Here, he glances round at Jacob and Simon bar Judas and at Saul of Ephraim and even at Eleazar. “But you say it too often, and I begin to think there is a terrible truth in it. I have thought one other man king, and have I not lost that man to Herod Antipas? How is it you think to tell me I will lose another to the evil ones? How can this be? I am a simple man, Yehoshua, and I live by what wits I have, and by the knife at my belt. I did not come here to have you die. I came here to make you king.”

  If ever my heart went out to this Galilean, this Sicarii, this gnasher of teeth and hater of women, it goes out now. And in this moment I know as Yeshu knows that Peter will not willingly betray his “king”; therefore, all that is left to hope of him is that he will betray Yeshu unwillingly.

  Yeshu says, “Simon Peter, who is it that has created the world?”

  “God did.”

  “And where is God?”

  “You teach us he is in man.”

  “I tell you that men are in God and God is in man. I tell you that there is no God but the God in man who is in all things, and who expresses himself through all things. Therefore, I ask you, who is God?”

  And though he would wish to answer, Simon Peter cannot bring himself to say that if God is in all men, then God is in Simon Peter, and if God is in Simon Peter and expresses himself through Simon Peter, Simon Peter is God. Simon Peter stands before Yeshu with all this written in his eye, with his eye full of tears, and though he struggles mightily to speak, he cannot. All that he has ever known of God and the Law stops his voice at its source. With the whole of his being, Simon Peter has made Yeshu his king. But as for the teaching! The teaching is wind in a cave. Where is the black of it? Where is the white? If there are no demons, how then explain the evil that befalls good men? If there is no Yahweh to please, how then can a man shape his fate? If all men are loved, who is there left to hate? If a man cannot love his hatred, what good can he do in this world?

  And I, by my gift forced to listen, hear all this roar through his mind.

  In pity, Yeshu speaks for him, yet there is a further, darker reason for what he now says. “If I were Simon Peter of Capharnaum and as Simon I were to know the Father, I would then say I was the Light of the World. But as I am Yehoshua the son of Joseph, I say that I too am the Light of the World, and they that follow me shall not walk in Darkness, but in Light. And they shall have the Light of Life and know not Death, but know Glory in Life. For I know from whence I came and I know whither I go. If any man knows these things of himself, he knows all things. By this truth, you shall be set free.”

  But if Simon Peter has not understood him before this, he does not understand him now.

  He is torn by the shame of his ignorance, by his unthinking fear of the Law, by his unthinking need for the laws of man, which do not set him free, but cage him. I watch, and I bleed for him. So too do the tender Miryam and the proud Maacah. Even the Sons of Thunder who understand only with their hearts are here moved to pity. But Yeshu watches him as a farmer watches a planted seed. When will it sprout, and what shall it be? In his love of all men and his desire to save all men, Yeshu is cruel to this one man. Simon Peter cannot bear his pain nor can he bear our pity, but most terrible of all, he cannot bear the look of Yeshu. And he turns on his heel and is gone from Father’s courtyard rather than endure another moment of it. And I am flooded with fear. Will Simon Peter go to betray Yeshu out of this pain? If he does, all goes well. But, if all goes well, it is as a pit that opens at my feet.

  Josephus arrives, and the look in my father’s eye chases all thought of Simon Peter from my mind.

  “Yehoshua! They have done it. Gamaliel has gone to the prefect to ask that you be arrested, they accuse you of an attempt to seize the throne. They claim that a whole army of Zealots hides in the city, awaiting your word to rise up. They have rounded up a dozen men who will swear to this and who will condemn you most horribly. Chief among these is Nicodemus, and a certain Phabi of Nain. Do you know this one?” Father, who thinks this the blackest of news, stammers in his horror, clutches at his robe, looks from one face to another. “Have you heard me, Yehoshua? Do you know what I say to you?”

  “Yes, Josephus, I know what you say to me. You have told me that what comes is called.”

  Father does not understand. But then, few do.

  When I was very young, younger even than on the day Semne the Egyptian came to live in my house, Father tells me that my mother would walk out from the city so that she might delight in her garden, and when Hokhmah, the young and cherished wife of Josephus, did this, she w
ould take her only child, a daughter, who could yet but toddle.

  I do not remember my mother, but I remember her garden.

  On the Mount of Olives, there are many olive groves, and of these, Father owns one of the largest. He owns, as well, an olive press, and it is near to this press that Mother made her garden, a beautiful thing, and walled round with stones, flawless in their fitting. In it there are carved benches on which one can sit and look out over Jerusalem. There are leafy myrtle trees that dapple the heated ground with blessed shade. There is a small cave near to which, long ago, Hokhmah would allow me to play. There is a tomb sealed with a large round rolling stone in which she lay for a time. There is a grave nearby in which her bones are buried. And there is an apple tree she planted before ever I was born. All this is tended still by certain of Father’s favored slaves.

  On this day, as Mariamne, and without chaperone—in so many ways, Josephus lets loose his grip on the Law—I take Yeshu to my mother’s garden, named by her Gethsemane for its being so near my Father’s olive press. I bid him sit with me under my mother’s apple tree. Above us, the young apples are no more than swollen promises. Underfoot, the anemones make a thick red carpet. All around, the bees are busy in their work and the nation of ants tireless.

  This day is ours, for on it Yeshu does not intend causing fear or anger or protest. For those who wish Yehoshua ill, this is their day to whisper in ears and to plot cunning deeds, to gather witnesses, and to send messengers running from palace to Temple to private homes throughout the city. But for Yeshu and Mariamne, it is our last day, and it seems we are content to sit, knowing that the other is close by. I push from my mind that which happens or does not happen in the city at our feet…Does Simon Peter do what is needed of him? Does he make his way through the streets of the Upper City seeking the home of Gamaliel? Does he fit his body into the shadows near to the great house of the high priest Caiaphas? Gradually I feel a voice rise up within me; it is not one of those that came in youth with Salome, and it is not the Loud Voice. This voice is mine, it is the voice of Mariamne, and what she would say is in her heart to say. “As the apple tree among the trees of the wood, so is my beloved among the sons. I sat down under his shadow with great delight, and his fruit was sweet to my taste.”