Fifth Gospel: A Novel (Rosicrucian Quartet) Paperback

by Adriana Koulias

  The moon’s old forces were obliged to unwind from him and to scurry away. A shriek was heard in the bowels of the world and the blue archangel of death fell back into the shadows. Satan had not succeeded. The moment had passed. Jesus had survived – for now.

  Relief washed over him. He would go on to accomplish his deed.

  59

  THE ARREST

  But I don’t understand Lea, why was it necessary that the disciples stay awake? They were weary…why could they not sleep?’

  ‘He told them that he needed them,’ Lea said.

  ‘Yes, but what could they do for him?’

  ‘Well, pairé, it is like this: For three years the circle of disciples had been held together by the Holy Spirit which lived among them, this spirit had provided Jesus with the power to withstand the entrance of Christ’s spirit into his Soul, his blood and his body. Now, when it was time for them to stay awake and keep the Holy Spirit within their circle to enable Jesus to withstand to the end, they could not do it, they were faithless.’

  ‘But how, how were they faithless?’

  ‘Their fear had dissolved their faith, pairé, in the same way that a breath blows out a flame. For this reason the Holy Spirit had to flee, and this left Jesus powerless. You see, the Holy Spirit can only linger in a circle which is faithful,’ she said to me, and I was stunned by this.

  The Marquésia and I had experienced the fullness of the Holy Spirit and we had been only two! But then, I remembered Christ Jesus’ words in Matthew’s Gospel,

  Whenever two of three are gathered in my name, I am there among them!

  Lea looked at me. She had discerned my thoughts. ‘The power of faith lives in each soul, pairé, like a knife sits in its sheath, but the Holy Spirit lives in a circle only to the extent that each member is faithful to Christ.’

  Tears fell over my face, so moved was I by sadness. ‘And so…He was alone,’ I said wiping my tears with my stained hand, ‘Even the Holy Spirit had deserted Him!’

  ‘But you are forgetting the women, pairé! They were always awake; he did not need to hold them, for they had always held His soul in their care, since a woman is like a vessel, as you know. Yes, he had the women, but he needed one other…he needed a witness, this could only be a man and there was one, one who was faithful, one who did not sleep.’

  ‘Who was it?’

  ‘Observe…listen…learn…’

  ‡

  Christ Jesus was powerless for a time, until he could assemble to himself the fullness of his senses. When he finally stood he made an unsure back to where his disciples lay sleeping. He saw that from beyond the garden there came the glow of moving torches and the sounds of men.

  ‘Rise!’ he told them, out of breath, ‘The hour is at hand when I am betrayed!’

  John, Simon-Peter and James stood. In a moment the others came to warn him of impending doom.

  ‘Quickly! You must flee, Lord! They come!’ Matthew rushed at him.

  ‘No, Matthew, I deliver myself up without resistance.’ he said, as the guards of the Sanhedrin, some twenty in total, entered the clearing.

  The guards were made up of Jews, Syrians and other races and they were dressed for battle: armed with swords and spears and sticks, staves and clubs. They trampled their way to him and ahead of them came Judas.

  When the company entered the clearing, Judas, from a small distance, said an anxious, ‘Hail, master!’

  He came close then, and leaned in, allowing his breath to linger over the cheek of his master a moment before he kissed him. As he kissed him Christ Jesus remembered Satan’s words, Now or later, what does it matter?

  Jesus took Judas’ face then into his hands and looked deep into the pit of his eyes, he discerned in them no recognition, no love, only Satan looking back at him. I told you…my purse is always full!

  He said to Judas, ‘Friend! Is this why you have come, to betray me with a kiss?’

  Judas did not answer. He freed himself and stepped aside to allow the guards to come forward and then he ran away with his purse jingling.

  Christ Jesus wished the guards to know that he was coming freely to them so he asked them for whom they sought.

  The Jew leader of the band answered, ‘Jesus of Nazareth!’

  He nodded. ‘I AM, he!’

  These words possessed such a power that the guards fell back in awe, but in a moment they came to their senses and moved to seize him.

  Of a sudden Simon-Peter came forward brandishing his filleting knife and smote the Jew commander’s ear. A great confusion ensued then and among the chaos Simon-Peter ran away. A guard, seeing a youthful figure leaving the clearing made to seize him, but he did not know that it was not Simon-Peter, it was the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of Christ, leaving him.

  A wolf made a howl.

  ‘This is the hour of the power of darkness!’

  As he said it, he was set upon from all sides like a wild dog that must be tamed. He was bound with cords and belts around his middle and his neck and his hands were tied ahead of him. He saw his disciples take themselves out of the garden and away from him, scattering into the night, as he had foretold. He was struck a blow to the face and he fell to his knees. Blood flowed from his nose but he was paused only a moment for the rope around his neck soon tightened and he was jerked upwards to the balls of his feet and he staggered for balance. The rope strangled him. When it slacked he took a breath and heard laughter. A boot struck the small of his back and sent him hurtling forwards, whereupon he was again pulled from behind, so that without his arms to stop his fall, he fell on his back.

  He was kicked and spat upon and in that moment before he was again jerked upwards to his feet he caught a glimpse of someone watching from the shadows. This one had remained. This one had not slept! Christ-Jesus remembered how thankful he had been at Bethany to know that one man had been found worthy to follow him – Lazarus-John in that hour with his far-seeing eyes.

  He alone would be his witness.

  60

  DREAMER

  Days after the failed sortie, Raimon de Perella and Pierre-Roger de Mirepoix swallowed their pride and descended the pog to parley with the French. The garrison was much depleted from that fateful battle and it would not take long for disease to take hold with so many dead and no place to bury them. On top of it, we were trapped, with no food and no help from the Count of Toulouse.

  Our fate had been sealed.

  A long night was spent in prayer over the dead and the dying and in the morning I was barely awake when the horn sounded on the ramparts marking the return of the seigneurs from the fields with the terms of surrender. The garrison would remain in the fortress fifteen days and the French would take hostages to prevent a night escape, en mass. The garrison would be pardoned, as would the killers of the inquisitors (this amazed us all), the men at arms could leave with their belongings but would have to appear before the Inquisition to confess their errors. All others would have only light penances provided they abjured their heretical beliefs and made confession before the Inquisitors. But those who remained stubborn and did not confess the errors of their faith and all its rituals, rights and beliefs, would be burnt to death. This was the terrible addendum that we had feared.

  We had fifteen days to make our preparations, and to choose: death or life.

  A cry of despair reached to the very heavens then, for those who had taken the consolamentum could not recant their faith, they could not deny the Holy Spirit. For this reason the only alternative left to them was to choose the pyre, leaving their friends and family to watch as they burned. I knew that many believers would ask for the consolamentum in the coming days, for what life was there beyond the walls of Montségur without family and friends? What life was there in a country now foreign to their eye, a country full of inquisitors, danger and malice? What was there to return to? After all, their farms and castles had been seized, their animals stolen, and their vassals sent away. How must they live a life hounded by Rome? Better
to die pure so as to be raised to the light of heaven. One moment of pain was small payment for an eternity of bliss!

  Or so they believed.

  Each man found his wife and children. Families gathered together to pray, weeping and talking and holding one to the other.

  These fourteen days would bring peace and a chance for us to celebrate the Bema on behalf of our founder Mani. And it was on the eve of this festival, as the yellow moon illuminated the world outside the window with a silver incandescence, that Lea and I were together again. Quiet and solemn we sat for a long time and I contemplated her loveliness realising that my attitude towards her had changed over these months. It had moved from wonder to reverence to surrender and finally to a strong insatiable love. But it was not the love of a man for a woman. At least I did not think so. I would liken it to the love of a man for the beauty of the mountains and the wisdom of the seasons, a love for the personification of nature as a woman, the Demeter of the Greeks or the Diana of the Romans. For is it not nature herself that makes our ears and eyes more attentive? Is it not through nature that we can learn to grasp subtleties and fine distinctions? The wisdom in the heart of this elfin girl had grown in me a love for everything visible and there is nothing more noble or sacred than a quiet, dispassionate love. This is the love I felt as I sat before Lea. That is when I started to worry for her safety.

  ‘I still do not know who you are, Lea.’ I told her, ‘Whether you are a spirit or a person, an image or likeness, or just an old man’s pleasant dream. I do not know! But when I begin to think you real, my dear, I am terrified for what will happen to you!’

  She looked upon this as she looked upon everything, with equanimity and silent acknowledgement, and yet I did see that her spirit, beautiful and sincere as it was, had become completely absorbed by my words. She inclined her head in thought before she spoke. ‘I am what man has made me and what I will be is also in the hands of men. This is my destiny. But my heart is certain of goodness because I have found it in your heart, pairé, and that is how I know that one day I will be released from my imprisonment.’

  The poor naïve child! What did she know of the hate of men? I resolved to instruct her. ‘Listen to me Lea, I don’t believe the inquisitors will stand by while the enemies of their faith walk away. As soon as we are off this pog they will make their arrests and despite the French assurances all those who do not die on the pyre will be thrown into prisons. Have you heard tell of them, my dear? No light, no food except bread and water, with your wrists shackled to the wall for days, months, years! Matteu comes soon, by way of the Porteil Chimney. He will take the treasures of our church over the wall with him. He is also taking the Marquésia’s child and three perfects. It would not be difficult to convince him to take you as well, what do you say?’

  ‘No, pairé, I cannot go, not yet. I must stay for my mother’s sake,’ she said, looking at me with those azure eyes.

  ‘Your mother? Who is she? I promise that I will see to her if you go. Will you not consider it?’

  She shook her head, ‘But it is my mother who wishes me to stay, pairé, so that we can continue, for there is little time and much to tell. Shall I begin?’

  I sighed, crestfallen and downhearted. I did not wish to face the pyre with Lea beside me, but I was defeated by her determination and the look in her eyes and so I said to her, ‘as you wish, Lea, please, begin again.’

  She smiled then, and so sad and noble and beautiful was it that I had to look away, afraid lest I dissolve her beauty with my clumsy observation.

  ‘Pick up your quill now pairé, for I will tell you about the Roman woman…Claudia Procula. She is sleeping when Christ Jesus is taken from the Garden to the palace of Ananias. Now her dream comes again and she sees herself walking among a great field of people. The world above and below is the colour of blood and storm cloud, and into this world she walks like a statue dressed in white. Her arms hold a ream of the finest cotton cloth, some of which is let loose behind her to be taken up by a gentle breeze. But this dream is different, now the crowds part before her like a great black sea and she sees what she has not seen before. Revealed by the crowd’s mysterious gesture is the figure of Christ Jesus, lying on the ground, his body broken and battered and bloodied. She realises that the blood that has made red heaven and earth in her dream is not her defiled blood – it is His blood!’

  ‡

  She woke with a start, and sat up in bed full with fear and covered in perspiration. Her first impulse was not to wake her husband but to gather an outer garment over her shoulders and to run barefoot through the meagre lit halls with her heart in her throat and the shadows of dread all around her.

  She came to her maid’s quarters. Susannah was also a follower of Christ Jesus. She said to her, ‘Quickly! Go to the fortress of Antonia, to the Centurion Gaius Cassius. Tell him these words: Our master is in danger! Go…run…!’

  She watched the girl dress and stood in the halls observing her shadow disappear into other shadows with the cold spring wind penetrating her to the very bones.

  This night would see the unmasking of her faith and of her secret journeys with Gaius Cassius to see Jesus who was Christ. This night the world might end! For all things seemed to her to be standing upon a knife’s edge. Fear for it made her unable to move. She could not yet will her legs to turn around and take her back to her rooms and so she stood, without a further thought on what she would tell her husband.

  61

  WE ARE NOT ALONE!

  Even before Lazarus-John had arrived to tell them the news, Mariam had known it. For she had heard the howling of the wolf and she had come awake and remembered! Dear God! This was her dream come to life! The dream she had dreamt over and over on her way to Egypt those many years ago. She did not open her eyes but lay there as the agony came into her heart, a longing to be with her son, and something more! A suffering that echoed a thousand times in the stillness, for it was not only her own suffering and grief that concerned her, but also the anguish felt through her by heaven itself!

  When finally she opened her eyes she was in that room full of women in the house at Ophel owned by Veronica. In a moment came Lazarus-John’s whisper in her ear.

  ‘It begins!’ he said.

  Then it was into the night for all of them: Magdalena and her sister-in-law on either side, with Salome and the others, Joanna Chuza, Martha and Lea, trailing behind them.

  On her mind were his last words to her after the Pascha before he left to take his disciples to Olivet.

  ‘Be consoled, the Holy Spirit is always with you…I will go now and when you see me again, you will sorrow exceedingly, but as the Father is with me, so must my Mother be with me to the very end. Follow me, find me, stay with me. Be the eyes of heaven!’

  Her benumbed and tired eyes filled now with tears to think on it and as she stumbled and was caught by Magdalena, and she told her from afar, as if she were not upon the ground but upon a mountain, ‘Where is he, Magdalena? We must find him!’

  With difficulty they made their way through the crowds, for all had come out into the streets of Ophel having heard the noise of the many guards and the uproar of the soldiers. Her son’s disciples, Andrew and the sons of Zebedee now joined them, and some way off she could see Philip and Bartholomew looking on. Soon Simon-Peter was at her side and falling at her feet.

  ‘Mother! They have him! They have our Lord!’

  She could only nod to Simon-Peter and continue walking amid the cries of grief and lamentation that rose up from the people who loved her son. When they came near the gates of the city she saw him. Those who came too near to him were struck by the soldiers and told to return to their houses.

  ‘What will you do with our Lord!’ they cried.

  ‘Yes what will you do to him?’

  ‘You should mind the company you keep!’ they told the people. ‘This man is a blasphemer and a heretic, an inciter of rebellion! Go back to your hovels, lest you be tried with him and suffer his fate
!’

  These ignoble guards struck her son with cords, and kicked him and spat on him.

  He fell.

  The mother made to go to him but the crowd swelled and prevented it.

  Lazarus-John said to her, ‘I will go and alert Nicodemus, Joseph of Arimathea and Gamaliel…go on ahead with the others, I will find you again!’

  She followed the crowds as they passed through a door made in the wall and beyond the pool of Bethsaida to the forum, descending with the growing numbers of citizens down a steep street and turning south towards the whereabouts of the house of Ananias, father-in-law of the high priest. A number of Roman guards came then, and a centurion upon his horse.

  The centurion interrogated the crowds concerning the commotion but no man answered him. She struggled to move forward through the multitudes and called out in Latin, ‘They have seized an innocent man, and they take him to Ananias without a Roman trial!’

  The Centurion came closer and leant over the neck of his animal to bring a torch to her face.

  ‘I recognise your voice!’ he said.

  And she too recognised his, though she did not know from whence.

  ‘What is his name!’ the man pressed.

  ‘Iesus Nazarenus!’ she told him.

  The man heard it and was gone into a memory, his horse whipping the air ahead of the crowds.

  Magdalena, beside her, was overcome with grief and said to her, ‘Mother…how shall we endure it?’

  She let out a breath and the world grew still, as still as a light beam caught fast through a gap in trees. In this splinter of a pause floated sun-like stars, and she was directed to their seeming. In her mind came the face of her old friend Mary. The dead mother of Jesus stood before her with the sun in her eyes and a smile playing about her mouth. She gestured upwards to heaven’s vault and when Mariam looked, she was lifted out of her soul to a place where there was nothing but love and light and life.