Everything depended on her at this pivotal moment. She drew courage from Enosh's gaze and focused her eyes on Truth, who looked down for a split second. She felt a deep sense of peace.
With her left hand, she drew the black chicken close to her and gently grasped its neck while the bloodstained blade glinted in her right hand. Without hesitation, she uttered the blessing.
“In the name of the Sacred Serpent, Master of Light,” she said, adding, “I shall drink the blood of the chicken to you, Truth, and to the life of compassion that you deserve.”
The severed head of the chicken fell to the floor while Sophia calmly swallowed the blood of the chicken in deep gulps and firmly held the fluttering body. She continued to take in the liquid that warmed her insides even after the chicken's small heart had ceased to pump its blood into her. When she finally placed it on the floor next to Truth's chicken, not even a drop of blood trickled out onto the floor. All that remained was a faint plume of feathers that stuck to her fingers.
Everyone was in shock. The audio-visual system was silent. Enosh was repulsed by the sight of Sophia's bloodied lips. Truth could not look directly at Sophia. The soldiers and pilots were silent in confusion and admiration: never had they seen a non-Gnostic person perform the blood ritual with such calmness. Even among the Gnostics, who were required to perform the test as part of their training, very few were able to demonstrate such self-control. The audio-visual system rustled with the Gnostics' murmurs. She had passed the test. None of the Gnostics could deny that.
“Death to the Pythagorean female!” cried someone in the audio-visual system, but no one replied.
Enosh, full of love and pride, feared for Sophia's safety.
“Speak, Pythagorean female,” hissed Truth reluctantly.
She took a deep breath. “We Pythagoreans have committed a grave sin. I plead guilty on behalf of the Pythagoreans and on behalf of Orpheus, who abandon Earth and ignored the fate of those who remained there.” Sophia swallowed her saliva that was thick from the blood and continued. “Orpheus and his successors, myself included, are all guilty for abandoning Earth. I am not satisfied with merely feeling guilty or with any punishment you may impose upon me; I want to utilize this opportunity to take responsibility for my choices and correct what I can. To that end, I must listen to your claims against me, Truth. What are your accusations against me?”
'She just won't stop. Where is this headed?' he asked himself uneasily. His face became grave. He would have preferred to blast her head off, but he must uphold the Gnostic law since all of his soldiers were watching. “I accuse you of pretentiousness, boastfulness, ostracism—the same crimes that you mentioned, but I disagree with the point at which you choose to begin your story.”
Truth understood that Flash had been right. He shouldn't have provided the Pythagorean with an opportunity to speak, but there was no turning back now. All he could do was seize the opportunity and use her words against her in order to reinforce the Gnostic version of history and strengthen his own soldiers' devotion.
“The ostracism began three thousand years ago with Pythagoras himself. You are not aware of it, or perhaps it is easier for you to ignore the fact, but those of Pythagoras' students who did not pass his tests were symbolically put to death. They were expelled from his academy in Croton and were forbidden from returning. Pythagoras forbade his remaining students from speaking with them and they mourned for the former students as if they had actually died. Monuments were erected in their memories. But Pythagoras was not satisfied with symbolic death. Hypsos, Pythagoras' student, discovered the limitations of Pythagorean mathematics and, by association, the limitations of Pythagoras as the man who had created it. He discovered the existence of the irrational number, the number which disrupted their harmonious view of the universe. Pythagoras' pacifist hypocrisy was revealed when he ordered that Hypsos be drowned.”
Most of the Gnostics that were listening on the audio-visual system were familiar with the claims against Pythagoras, which were brought up and taught in their Gnostic training.
“Wasn't this an attempt on Pythagoras' part to become a human God?” his voice boomed. “Just as the Pythagoreans rejected the rest of humanity, so too did their mathematics reject anything that did not conform to their imaginary harmony. They did not succeed in including irrational numbers, zero and the lack represented by negative numbers in their cosmic order. In the same way, Orpheus snubbed the Gnosis and the Earth.”
“Cursed Pythagoras! Cursed Orpheus!” the voices rang out from the audio-visual system.
“Death to the Pythagorean female! Death, death, death,” they roared.
“Silence!” ordered Truth and waited until it was quiet. Only then he continued, “The Pythagoreans committed the sin of separating themselves. They murdered one of their students in cold blood for publicly revealing the dodecahedron, the secret of the geometric shape that is made of twelve pentagonal sides. A geometric shape is more important to them than a human life, a human life that belonged to one of their own, no less.” He was silent for a moment and then continued. “And how do you explain, Pythagorean,” he spit the word out disdainfully, “the Pythagorean pretense of not causing harm to any living thing?”
Sophia looked at him quizzically.
“You do not know, or perhaps you don't want to know? When Pythagoras formulated the mathematical theorem that bears his name, he sacrificed one hundred oxen. How does a pacifistic vegetarian sacrifice oxen to mark his discoveries? Are you surprised at the fact that he made his neighbors burn down his house with himself and his students inside it? And are you surprised that you and your people will encounter that same fate, Pythagorean?”
Truth succeeded in convincing his men that their spiritual path had historical legitimacy. Sophia was familiar with the allegations he raised, though she had never once believed in their veracity, except for the fire incident. Her intentions, however, were not to win the argument; her sole purpose, as Enosh had put it, was as follows: to cause Truth to take notice of her, so see her as a conversational peer, a partner to his social community. So far, she had succeeded in doing so.
“I accept all the sins of my ancestors upon myself. According to what you said, Truth, Pythagoras delineated the borders of who was to be accepted versus who was to be rejected. According to what you said, he should have accepted whoever wanted to join him or he should have joined with others. I want to pose a question for you now: Where do you determine your boundaries of acceptance? Who do you include in your circle of acceptance and who do you reject? And upon what do you base this?”
“The Gnostic knowledge is based on the concept of the disrupted unity of the universe. Our world is currently ostracized. We were all exiled from the source, from the Pleroma of the completeness of the Gods. We Gnostics know this. Our entire purpose is to extract the outcast divine spark from its confines of the material world and return it to its rightful place. We are all outcasts, trapped within the material world.”
Sophia knew that her words would only serve to incite Truth and that he was likely to respond, but she had no other choice but to continue to try to arouse his feelings. “What you are saying is that you place the demarcation of belonging between the spiritual and material realms, but in practice you place it somewhere else entirely.”
He furrowed his brow.
“You agree that in the Blood Challenge, the chickens were sacrificed in order to mark my inclusion as one who bears the right to speak, correct?”
“Indeed,” he grunted impatiently, wary of where her argument was heading.
“That is to say, the chicken, you and I are a trio. From this trio comes one—the chicken externally defines the two of us, me and you, as partners in discourse. The ancient Pythagoreans rejected the Crotonians of southern Italy and the new Pythagoreans rejected the Gnostics of Earth. This was done in order to internally consolidate themselves into a group.”
Truth understood that she was building up toward a logical conclusion tha
t would not benefit his stance, but he had no way of backing out now. “Finish up before my patience runs out,” he growled with controlled irritation.
“And so,” replied Sophia, trying to apply all of the knowledge that she had acquired from Enosh, “you are using an impure totem, the rejected chicken, to delineate and define the human community from the bottom up. You use the sacred totem, the Serpentine Master of Light, to define the human community from the top down. The chicken from below and the serpent from above symbolize the boundaries of humanity. Between the chicken and the serpent, you outline the boundaries of humanity. When you sacrifice a chicken in the name of the Master of Light, you connect them in a definitive loop that encircles humanity. Despite the Gnostic insistence on viewing man as an abomination, you are the ones who marks the borders of inclusion that separates animals from humans. The ritual leaves animals on the outside of the circle and leaves humanity as the inclusive group. I requested to partake of the Blood Challenge in order to express my agreement to the brotherhood of humanity that exists between us. Since I passed the test, you must see me as an equal sister.”
He was speechless for the duration of a few seconds. She remained silent only in order to emphasize his silence as agreement and then continued before he could speak:
“The Blood Challenge is an expression of something else as well: the exploitation and rejection of the chicken. Who drank your blood, Truth? Who drained your soul from you, Truth? I can hear your pain but do not know what it is.”
The harmonious sounds of the spheres of light rose by an octave.
'Cursed witch,' thought Truth. 'You will not ensnare me in your trickery.' Truth raised his voice. “The pain is not personal pain, Pythagorean. It is the pain of Ishtar, who lost her son Yaldabaoth, the demiurge, to the material world. The pain is that of aeon Yaldabaoth, who fell from the heavenly stars and aeons, from the pleroma, and cannot find his way back home.”
“The stars and the aeons are deaf and dumb. But you are right. I no longer believe in Pythagoras, who claimed that he could hear the melody of the stars in their paths. I no longer believe that stars can hear your pain nor partake of it. The stars are indifferent. I understand your anger toward the silence of the stars. I understand your attempt to transform your personal pain into a metaphysical cosmic phenomenon. It is much easier to believe that you belong to an abandoned world than to believe that the world has abandoned you.”
Truth intended to firmly curtail her speech but she continued.
“Cursed are the stars that continue on their paths while your loved ones abandon you. Cursed is the sun that shines while your soul is gloomy. There is no sacred Pythagorean mathematics. There is no pleroma of sacred aeons. There is only human pain, my pain, Smoke's pain, your pain.”
Only now was Truth afforded the opportunity to think about Smoke. “Silence her,” he ordered darkly.
The Atheist fleet was now speeding through space—dozens of various types of warships, including bombers carrying ammunition, landing craft and field generator equipment. Leading the forces were Diotima and the chief of general headquarters, Bruno, who maintained constant communication with the fleet behind them via the dispatch stations they had scattered. Diotima repeatedly checked the communication with the forces' commanding transmissions. She ensured that the units were stationed correctly around Samos and checked the secret attack codes, along with many other critical details. Finally, she understood that she was impeding their ability to focus on their work and left them alone. Despite the extreme speed accrued by the commanding ship since it left Octavia, the distance to Samos was still great. They hoped to achieve contact at any moment via the transmission stations. Diotima touched Bruno's hand and sensed his tension and apprehension. She thought that she needed to calm herself down before attempting to calm him.
“That's the problem with Atheism,” she said.
“What is the problem?” asked Bruno.
“There is a limit to optimism. Had I believed beyond the shadow of a doubt in the existence of some sort of divine power, I would be much calmer. I would be able to tell myself that everything was going to be fine, since the ways of God are secret and that He is working for my benefit in any event. I would pray and feel like I invested some additional small effort to quell the sense of helplessness.”
“Ah,” said Bruno understandingly. “So believe in a higher power. I won't tell anyone,” he said with artificial simplicity.
“Well, okay, if you don't tell anyone...” She was unable to finish the sentence. The audio-visual display began to pick up signals. It began as an indecipherable noise but quickly became sharper and clearer.
“Silence her. I'll tell you, Pythagorean, something about the pain of the universe—pain as told through the words of an angel, the messenger of the aeons, to the knowledgeable men and recorded in the Ginza Rabba:
Before the worlds existed, there was the great fruit
Painfully he was created from it and came unto himself
And became the God, Master of Light.
From the noble and sublime Master of Light
Came the ethereal piercing rays.
From the radiant ether came the burning fire.
From the fire came the light.
From the power of the Master of Light,
From a deep gash,
Came the Jordan River.
And from the Jordan River came the pure waters
Of the Euphrates, Tigris, Pishon and Gihon.
In destruction and ruination, out of the radiant light and the pure waters,
I came into being,
Trembling and suffering flesh.
Suffering is the foundation of creation,
Pleasure is the foundation of the Creator.
Even then, Diotima had been unusual among the faculty of the Higher Academy of Ancient Cultures. Her red hair and freckled face were an accurate reflection of her inner flame and her enthusiasm for small details that appeared insignificant to others. She spent her free time in the archives, poring over ancient tablets in Sumerian, Akkadian and Babylonian. These were the ancient relics that had been rescued from the fires that had ravished the Earth during the Human-Gods' Wars. She knew how many shekels a sack of barley cost, how many goats equaled one plowing bull and the equivalent of a slave in donkey loads. She knew the placement of the God Shamash in the sky and what time each irrigation canal was opened and closed. Thanks to her mastery of ancient theology as well as technical economic details, she transitioned well from academics to politics. What fascinated her above all else in her study of ancient cultures was the same concept that attracted her to politics. Deep down, she knew that underneath all of the cultural, chronological and geographical differences between groups of people, people were really not all that different from each other. Civilizations rise and fall but human needs remain constant. Politics afforded her an opportunity to show people the similarities beneath the differences. It was a perfect opportunity to apply her knowledge.
She progressed in her political career because she was adept at identifying the minute changes in the cultural climate of the Atheists in Dust and in turn fashion symbolic systems that would provide an appropriate response to the changes in the population's needs.
She had studied about the Gnosis, the modern successors to the Sumerians. She was familiar with the writings of the Ginza Rabba and recognized various schools of Gnostic influences in Truth's speech: the ancient creation myth, the 'World of Darkness' of the school of Seth, the 'First Man' hymn of the Ophites and primarily the sanctity of the Jordan River in the Mandaean worldview. In the meantime, she held off on her plan to interject on the audio-visual system
“Release the first safety,” she told Bruno.
“Smoke! Are you with us?” asked Truth.
“I am Gnostic,” he replied.
Truth felt a sense a relief. For the first time, he gave a thought to the burden that rested on his shoulders. But his peace quickly vanished as Smoke continued to speak.
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“If by 'Gnostic', you mean striving for knowledge and truth, then I am a Gnostic. If the relationships between us turn us into partners in the Gnostic community, then I am a Gnostic. If the mission of annihilation defines me as a Gnostic, then I am not a Gnostic. Are you a Gnostic, Truth?”
“Of annihilation?” said Truth incredulously, refusing to believe his own ears.
“I choose life, life for us all,” he said calmly.
“Traitor!” roared Truth angrily.
“Had I continued to deny my knowledge, then I would be a traitor, a traitor to myself. Had I continued to work toward the annihilation of all of us, including you, Truth, then I would also be betraying you.”
Flash watched and listened to the scene from his commanding position in the ship. “Commander,” he whispered into Truth's ears though the audio-visual device, “any additional word that Smoke utters will harm our forces' integrity.”
Truth did not heed Flash. He was absorbed in digesting Smoke's stinging betrayal. He had no choice: he must sentence his chosen deputy, Smoke, to death. 'I have no other choice,' he repeated to himself. 'The sanctity of the Gnostic law must come first.'
“The punishment for the traitor is death by public execution. Your skin will be peeled from your body. You shall have no place in the presence of the Master of Light!” hissed Truth with threatening coldness, but he was seized by horror. When he imagined the heavenly pleroma, he no longer felt a sense of ecstatic elation that he used to feel. For the first time, his vision paled in the face of pain. He must kill his chosen one.
'No one can predict what will happen now,' thought Enosh. The same thought occurred to Sophia. She thought, however, that it was notable that in the course of the seconds that had passed, Truth could have easily killed Gabriel with his own hands, but he chose not to.
Mesopotamia - The Redeemer Page 30