by Nick Tosches
He asked me the direction to Rome from where we were. I looked to the dimming sun, calculated our position, raised my arm high and straight, and pointed to the northwest.
“My riches,” he said. “My well-groomed asshole. My sweet dream-like luxuriations. Our friendship and our laughter.”
I smiled to hear these words from him. For a while, all else drifted from my mind. There were only beloved Rome and the life of ease and amity of which he spoke.
We discussed the great pronouncement that lay ahead, the articulation of the new logos, the new Law, the efflorescence of the Word and the Way. I spoke awhile of the rhetorical devices by which the tropes of divine command could be interwoven with lyricism.
“Many of my people,” he said, “like the gentiles who delve their ways, speak of the Ten Commandments of the Book. But enfolded in that ten are tens upon tens. For the God who was made to deliver them was made to much expound in his deliverance of them.
“If a Jew buys another Jew as his slave, the slave is to serve him for six years and be freed in the seventh, without payment.
“But if a Jew sells his daughter as a slave to a fellow Jew, she is not to go free as male servants do.
“If a Jew seduces a virgin Jewess who is not pledged to be married and sleeps with her, he must pay the bride-price and take her as his wife. If her father refuses to give her to him, he must still pay to the father the bride-price for virgins.
“As the commandment against killing is to protect Jews alone, the Book extols the slaughter of outsiders and even innocents who are born of the enemies of Jews. ‘Happy shall he be,’ says the Psalmist of the Book, ‘that steals away little babies and crushes their skulls upon the rocks.’
“And there is much punishment by death. Anyone who curses his father or mother is to be put to death. Anyone who disobeys his father or mother is to be put to death. Anyone who has sex with a beast of pasture is to be put to death. Any man who has sex with another man, or any woman who has sex with another woman, is to be put to death. Anyone who works on the Sabbath is to be put to death. Any daughter of a priest who prostitutes herself is to be put to death. Anyone who fails to obey the decision of a judge or priest is to be put to death. Any woman who falsely claims to be a virgin at the time of her marriage is to be stoned to death by the men of her town at her father’s door, for she has brought disgrace to Israel. Adulterers are to be put to death.
“Seeing as all Jews, by their own account, are descendants of congress between a brother and his sister, it is curious that anyone who commits incest is to be put to death. In accord with this commandment, and all the others, there should be no Jews. They should all be dead.”
I laughed, and he waited for my laughter to end before he said:
“All blasphemers are to be put to death. All false prophets are to be put to death. Sorcerers and necromancers are to be put to death.”
I understood the implications of these words, but I made light of them, saying:
“It is as you have said. It is surprising that there are any Jews left to be executed, or Jews to execute them.”
“There is death everywhere: ‘You are to take life for life.’ And where there is not death, there is vengeance. ‘Eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burn for burn, wound for wound, bruise for bruise.’ This vengeance of quid pro quo is called the apodictic law.
“Much of what I say, I have learned from the rabbi.”
I recognized from our own word, and from Aristotle, the word he used to describe the law of an eye for an eye.
For no reason, it brought to my mind a similar-sounding Greek word, apodiabolosis, the consignment to the rank of a devil, the making or treating of someone or something as diabolical. Yes, I thought of it for no reason. And now, as this is written, I can think of no reason why for all these years I have remembered it coming to my mind. It is odd, is it not, that memory persists and sense lapses? Odder still, it now strikes me, that I should address this question to you, dear boy, who are, fortunately, many years from the paradox of which I speak. Yes, odd. Odd, odd, all of it, odd.
“You are the rabbi,” I told him.
We entered Gennesaret, a town that occupied a small fertile crescent on a plain near the Sea of Galilee, which in this place was called the Lake of Gennesaret. There was still good light, and we soon came on most of the disciples. They were curious as to the outcome of our Lord’s feeling that he had been called for some reason to pause at Tabgha. Peter and the priest asked me about this. The others asked Jesus directly.
“There was a need to feed people,” I said.
“Yes,” said Jesus. “Gaius is right. The poor of that place. A wedding party that came that way. There was a need to feed people.”
“The people here were already aware of the pronouncement you are to make,” the priest said. “When we went among them to tell of it, we found that they knew.”
“There is excitement here, and much expectation,” said Peter.
A crowd began to build around us. Most of them merely gazed on the Lord, but some ventured words.
“And is there a synagogue here?” asked Jesus. “For it is rest, and rest alone, that I need tonight.”
Peter answered that the synagogue was humble, attached to the home of the dairyman who served as its priest and attendant.
“We have scrolls, and he can read them,” one of the crowd said of the dairyman.
“A man need not have scrolls, or be able to read in them, to be a man of God. Nor is goodness measured by what is written or what is read.”
“Is this one of the things of which you will speak?” another of the crowd asked.
“I will speak of many things,” said Jesus. “But, good people of Gennesaret—and I have revealed this to no others—heed not only what I say, but also what I do not say. For there will be found as much meaning in what will not be said as in what will be said.”
Where in the great cunt of creation did he pluck these sayings of his? I was proud of what I composed for him. But often, ever more often, I was taken aback by words that came to him spontaneously, uncomposed, with the ease of careless breath.
Nor was I the only one taken aback. The crowd looked to him. The disciples looked to him.
The sun was now down, and only its train of soft last light remained.
“And now I myself must heed the call of rest, that I might serve you the better.”
The dairyman welcomed us and brought us simple food to eat. He humbly asked Jesus to bless the modest synagogue with whatever brief prayer he might care to kindly utter, in voice or in silence.
“But this place is already much blest,” said Jesus at his gentlest. “It is I who felt blest on entering here. It is I who feel blest to be here.”
The dairyman appeared to be moved. He lowered his head and said: “It is a blessing that you have deigned to rest here.”
Jesus placed his hand on the man’s shoulder and asked him for more milk and perhaps just a morsel more of chicken.
In the cool of the next early morning, we walked among the people of Gennesaret. Like many of the towns of Galilee we visited, it was a place of many fishermen. Simon Peter spoke to the men about nets as much as about the Lord, and it was pleasant to witness this, for he had a guileless and charming way of interlacing faith and fishing, and simple men were much drawn to him and his way.
Our young fisherman Andreas, on the other hand, eschewed talk of his trade, seeking increasingly to be regarded as a confidant and an aide of the Lord. He strove to imply and give an impression that he had been singled out and chosen by Jesus on the day when he attached himself to us at Simonias.
Before midday, there arrived from Capernaum a merchant laden with wares to sell and a tale to tell.
He told of a great feast on the afternoon past in the plain not far from here. With only two fish, a few loaves of bread, a little wine, and a handful of small cakes, the Messiah miraculously had fed five thousand men, women, and children. And with
a purse containing but three shekels he had gifted all with silver and gold enough to pay Roman capitation tax and Jewish temple tax, and more.
We were reclined in the shade of an oak, hearing this. After the modest answer given yesterday to their question about what had taken place at Tabgha, the disciples were as awe-struck as the townsmen whom the merchant addressed. The disciples beheld Jesus, as did the townsmen; and when the heads of his audience turned, the merchant’s eyes followed them, and he beheld Jesus as well. Following suit, I too looked upon him, and I am sure that I was alone in discerning the hint of self-satisfaction that was in his heavenly eyes.
Jesus had plucked a young acorn from a low branch, and his fingers played idly with it as we lay on our sides in the shade. As we rose to walk through the town, he discarded this acorn, tossing it to the rich grassy earth. A young woman rushed forth to fetch it, grasp it close, and hold it to her heart.
22
WE HAD CHOSEN THIS PLACE THE FIRST TIME WE SAW IT. Carved by winds and rains and all the natural forces of time out of mind, this overhang on a hillside amid the cliffs and knolls that rose west of the shore of Galilee seemed to have been set there by those forces solely for us, and to have awaited us since pictures were first seen in the night stars above.
What had first astounded us about this shallow rock-shelter was that it appeared as an arched proscenium. Ascending to it by carefully negotiating outcrops that served us as precarious stepping-stones, what next, and all the more, astounded us was that it was indeed a proscenium of sorts, in that it looked down on a circular terrace, a verdant hollow of a plain, enclosed by what, from the height we had reached, could clearly be discerned as a distinctly curved wall formed by the surrounding hillsides, at the center of whose sweep we found ourselves standing, looking down and all round us.
We had been able to see the shore from there. All the hills sloped toward it. Fishing boats appeared as small dark spots on the placid water. Two of the small dark spots were not far from land and very close to each other. What had astounded us next, astounded us most. We heard a voice call from one of these small dark spots to the other.
“Do you have any idle hook-line we might use for the day?” the caller could be heard to ask in an almost conversational tone.
“Yes, but no idle hooks,” came another voice in like tone. These voices were lucid to our ears. This place was a vast amphitheatre; and furthermore, its acoustic properties were better than those of any open theatre of human device. Those of the amphitheatre of Statilius Taurus were as nothing compared to this place. The auditorium cavea of that grandly designed Roman amphitheatre was far surpassed by the undesigned verdant hollow of this place near a cove in the middle of nowhere.
We had been very eager to discover if words spoken from the hillcrest could be heard on the shore, as words spoken from the sea had been heard on the hillcrest. I descended the croppings and made my way to become a small dark spot in the eyes of Jesus. I stopped and stood close to where the water splashed over the smooth black stones.
“And I say unto you,” he said unto me. And I heard him say it unto me.
“This is it. This is the place,” I said.
“I believe it is,” he said. “I believe it is.” Then I heard his easy laughter.
Neither of us had much raised his voice.
We were silent and still for a while, he high in his vaulted proscenium and I down and afar at the water’s edge, overpowered by the magic and far-reaching beauty of our amphitheatre. I envisioned our vast grassy auditorium filled with the audience that would be ours. Unlike any Roman audience, ours would not be segregated to sit according to rank or wealth or sex.
The elements were beyond our control. Too much wind could carry away his voice or diminish its equal distribution. Gray cloud coverings could steal the effect of the changing, softening hues upon his appearance as the setting sun moved over him in its arc. Bad rain could ruin it all.
Yes, the elements were beyond our control. But the rest—I could take care of the rest. I began to compose with increased inspiration.
We walked together through that place, seeing caves and grottoes around us in the soft stone hillsides, seeing birds that flew above us and delicate wildflowers that grew at our feet. But for the remains of an ancient lime kiln we happened upon, it seemed that we were the only ones who had ever walked here. But soon great multitudes would come, and would be filled with the Word and the Way.
As we watched the play of light on the hillside and sea, and especially on our proscenium, the importance of the sun’s arc was clear to us. Thus we had chosen to begin in the late afternoon, with the golden sun full upon him, that we might end with the sunset of the new day, with the vesper-colors resplendent through the hills and sky behind him.
“If only there were a God,” he said. “If only we could buy the clemency of the weather through prayer, propitiation, or the sacrifice of a son.”
I did not like the last phrase of what he said. I knew he was speaking of a figure from the Book, but it made me think of your father, my young son to whom I hoped to soon return.
“Don’t you Romans have a god of weather?”
“Jupiter, the king of the gods. He is also the weather-god.”
“Perhaps a petition in your native tongue?”
“He receives an infinity of prayers and offerings. But in the end, he seems only to work for himself.”
As it was, we could not have hoped for a more beautiful sky or more splendid aurulent beams and light, calm, soothing breezes.
The changing ochers of the earth and the rocks, the glimmer and iridescence of the sea, the deep and deepening of the blue above, the lush white clouds that shared in the increasing dusk-radiances to the west, where he stood in his plush blue robe—it was perfect. All was in accord, beyond the powers of any God or gods.
“I know what the beloved disciple is thinking,” said Jesus that morning, as he prepared to ascend. “He is thinking: What if they do not come?”
Our code worked well. Some of the disciples believed “the beloved disciple” to be a figure of speech, a form of synecdoche, used by Jesus to refer to all of them as if he were referring to one of them. Others believed that there was an especially beloved disciple, whom Jesus did not name out of consideration for the feelings of the others. Each of these believed the beloved disciple to be himself, or speculated jealously at which of the others it might be.
And he was right. I was then thinking: What if they do not come?
From the hillside, he looked out and waited. From the grass below, we looked out and waited.
They came. Through every path and passage, they came.
In truth, there were thousands. And they continued to come. Through the morning, into the noontide, they came. From every city, town, village, and settlement where this pronouncement of the Word and the Way had been bruited, they came. From places unknown to us, where this event had been noised abroad from places known to us, they came. Even those of Tabgha, still joyous from their feast of dreams, were there. Thousands upon thousands, they came.
The priest looked awed, as if witnessing something from the Book, or even something not yet written into the Book.
How many other priests were there that day among the humble, and how many rabbis? There is no telling.
And how many cutpurses and thieves were there, as at every congregation? Besides our Lord, I mean. I did my best to keep the disciples near to me, that they might unawares form a protective phalanx between the pressings of the crowds and Faith, Hope, and Charity, which I kept tethered closely to me.
The stone slab on which I alternately sat and stood was not unlike the stone seating in a Roman theatre. But around me, and all others, there were no plastered, painted walls aspiring vainly to majesty. Around me, and all who were here, was only true majesty.
Gazing at these masses, which reached to all the hills around and almost to the sea, I knew that there would be no more talk between us of vanishing. Not now. I knew
that we would not relinquish this mysterious road, nor would it relinquish us, until it reached its end, wherever and whatever that might be. I felt a reckless excitement at this prospect. I felt also a fearsome foreboding.
Jesus made the gesture of pressing his right hand to his heart, and he maintained this pose until all were silent and all was still.
And then he opened his mouth, and then I heard him; and the thousands upon thousands heard him.
His voice. My words.
23
AND THE LORD SPAKE, AND HE TAUGHT THEM, SAYING:
“Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
“Blessed are they that mourn: for they shall be comforted.
“Blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the earth.
“Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled.
“Blessed are the merciful: for they shall obtain mercy.
“Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God.
“Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called the children of God.
“Blessed are they who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
“Blessed are you, when men shall revile you, and persecute you, and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely, for my sake.
“Rejoice, and be exceedingly glad: for great is your reward in heaven: for so persecuted they the prophets which were before you.
“You are the salt of the earth: but if the salt has lost its savor, with what shall it be salted? It is thereafter good for nothing, but to be cast out, and to be trodden under foot of men.
“You are the light of the world. A city that is set on a hill cannot be hid.
“Neither do men light a candle, and put it under a bushel, but on a candlestick; and it gives light unto all that are in the house.