The Galileans: A Novel of Mary Magdalene

by Frank G. Slaughter

  “‘Healing comes from the Most High!” Joseph said quietly. “I will do my best to set the bone straight, but the rest is in the hands of the Lord.”

  “Simon is a very good man,” Mary said confidently. “The Lord is sure to favor him.”

  From his pouch Joseph measured out a dose of dried poppy leaves and mixed them in wine. Simon drank the mixture with a grimace. While he waited for the drug to take effect, Joseph began to prepare his bandages. Mary was sent to tear long strips of cloth from a winding sheet, while he trimmed short sections of the thin wood used to make the sounding boards of the musical instruments for splints. Water was also set to boiling in a pot over a brazier, and into it Joseph stirred flour to make a thick starch paste.

  Demetrius watched the preparations with interest, and when Joseph sent for a chair with a high back and placed on top of it a folded napkin, the old musician could contain his curiosity no longer. “Why do you need the chair, Joseph?” he asked.

  “The bar at the top will fix the shoulder and upper arm,” Joseph explained as he seated Simon sideways on the chair, with his injured arm hanging over the back and the pad under the armpit. “Then a pull can be applied to the lower arm with weights while the bones are set properly and bandaged into place.”

  “And the flour?”

  “Bandages moistened in starch harden when they dry, helping to hold the broken fragments in place and protecting the arm from further injury.”

  “By Diana!” the lyre maker exclaimed. “That is ingenious. Did you invent it?”

  “You should study the medicine of the Greeks as well as their music,” Joseph reminded him with a smile. “Hippocrates and other physicians were using methods like this nearly five hundred years ago. No doubt you remember what Idomeneus said to Nestor in the Homeric poems?”

  “You may hoist me on my own spear, young man,” Demetrius said triumphantly. “But that at least I know.” He declaimed sonorously:

  A surgeon’s skill our wounds to heal,

  Is worth more than armies to the Public weal.

  The poppy had exerted its effect by now, hastened by the wine in which Joseph had mixed it, and the lines of pain were almost gone from Simon’s face. He only winced a little as Joseph carefully removed the sling and showed Mary how to hold the lower arm so that the elbow was bent at an exact right angle. Next he wrapped a scarf around the elbow and arm, leaving the ends long, and attached to them a small pot from the kitchen. This was allowed to hang with its weight pulling upon the lower portion of the arm, and therefore upon the end of the broken bone.

  Into the pot Joseph next poured sand slowly, increasing the weight very gradually. From time to time as the pull increased, he touched the upper arm gently in the region of the fracture, feeling with the sensitive fingers of the bonesetter for the positions of the broken ends. When finally he could detect no overriding of the fragments—the pull of the muscles being now overcome by the weight of the kettle and the sand—he gently pushed and adjusted the broken parts until they were in line with each other. To the amazement of the onlookers, Simon suffered next to no pain during this manipulation, for the steady pull on the arm kept the bones apart and in line with each other, so that no jagged ends cut into the flesh.

  Now Joseph began to apply the bandage which must do the important job of holding the bone in place until it could heal. First the upper arm was wrapped in soft wool, and over it strips of thin wood were placed parallel to the bone as splints. Over this he wrapped turn after turn of the moist starched bandage, laying each one on carefully so that it was not twisted, rolled, or folded. At the shoulder he carried several turns around Simon’s body and beneath the opposite armpit to hold the bandage in place, before continuing around the elbow and down the arm as far as the wrist. Thus the entire elbow joint was covered except the lowermost portion, where the ends of the scarf were attached to the small kettle furnishing the weight.

  When it was finished, Demetrius waddled over and touched the white cast. “By Diana!” he cried. “It stiffens already. To be able to relieve suffering like this is better than either philosophy or music, Joseph. I am properly humbled.”

  But it was John, the son of Zebedee, who gave the young physician a real accolade for his work when he said quietly, “It was well said by Jesus, the son of Sirach:

  Show the physician due honor, in view of your need for him,

  His works will never end,

  And from him peace spreads over the face of the earth.

  VI

  Joseph stopped at the doorway leading into the garden of Demetrius when he came the next morning to visit his patient, unwilling to interrupt the beautiful and peaceful scene before him by making his presence known. Simon was sitting on a bench overlooking the smooth mirror of the lake below, where the fishing boats with their multicolored sails were already abroad. Mary sat on the grass at his feet, with the morning sunlight turning her unbound hair into a coppery cascade. She touched the lyre in her hands with skilled fingers, and her voice filled the garden with a paean of praise from the poet who had loved this beautiful region around the lake, a part of the Song of Solomon!

  The voice of my beloved!

  Behold, he comes, leaping upon the mountains, bounding over the hills.

  My beloved is like a gazelle, or a young stag.

  Behold, there he stands behind our wall, gazing in at the windows, looking through the lattice.

  My beloved speaks and says to me:

  “Arise, my love, my fair one, and come away;

  for lo, the winter is past, the rain is over and gone.

  The flowers appear on the earth, the time of singing has come, and the voice of the turtledove is heard in our land.

  The fig tree puts forth its figs, and the vines are in blossom; they give forth fragrance.

  Arise, my love, my fair one, and come away.

  O my dove, in the clefts of the rock, in the covert of the cliff,

  let me see your face, let me hear your voice, for your voice is sweet,

  and your face is comely.”

  “Beautiful!” Joseph cried from the doorway, unable to remain silent.

  Mary jumped to her feet. “Joseph of Galilee!” she cried indignantly. “What do you mean creeping up on us?”

  “The song was too beautiful to interrupt,” Joseph explained.

  “The leech is right, Mary.” Simon smiled fondly at her. “It was a lucky day when I found you weeping on the streets of Capernaum.”

  The girl’s face sobered. “But mainly for me.” She shivered a little, although it was not cold. “I was only twelve years old, Joseph, but already I had known what it was to be beaten without reason and to be stripped naked for men to set a price upon me. Simon was the first person who had ever been kind to me in my whole life,” she added fiercely. “Do you wonder that I love him and Demetrius better than anyone else in the world?”

  Joseph bent to examine Simon’s arm. The bandage, he found, had dried into a stiff cast that held the arm firmly, and the swelling had already subsided noticeably.

  “Truly,” the fisherman said, “if anyone had told me yesterday there would be so little pain today, I would have branded him a liar. It is well written in the Book of Ecclesiasticus, ‘If you are taken ill, offer prayers to God and place yourself under the care of a physician.’”

  “Not all physicians would have treated you so well as Joseph did,” Mary interposed. “Most people say he is better than his master, Alexander Lysimachus.”

  “How do you know so much?” Joseph asked with a smile.

  “I go everywhere and keep my eyes open.” Mary tossed her head. “Besides, men have no secrets from a woman.”

  “So you call yourself a woman now.” Demetrius had come into the garden while they were talking. “Soon you will be eying young men and then there will be no more si
nging in the house of Demetrius.”

  Mary ran to him and put her smooth cheek against his grizzled one. “You know I would never leave you!” she cried, and Joseph was amazed to see tears in her eyes, so quickly had her volatile emotions changed.

  Demetrius squeezed her shoulder. “I was only jesting,” he soothed. “Someday you will marry a rich man who will make old Demetrius the keeper of his wine cellar. Then I can die happy.” He turned to Joseph. “The Street of the Greeks is buzzing with the miracle you performed upon Simon’s arm, young man. Soon the whole town will know of it, if Mary has her way.”

  “I was just telling him that he is better than Alexander Lysimachus,” Mary said. “But he is too modest to admit it.”

  Joseph could stay no longer, but as he went about the city visiting the sick, his thoughts were full of Mary’s gaiety, her beauty, and the way her mood could change from happy to sad and back again in an instant, like a child. He had seen no signs of prosperity in the house of Demetrius, but he had found there something more important, a quality often lacking in the homes of the rich where he went with his leeches: the happiness of people who loved unreservedly.

  When Joseph arrived home that evening, he was greeted by the fragrant aroma of a fish broiling on the coals of the cooking hearth. And when he came into the kitchen, he saw that his mother was not alone. Mary was sitting on a low stool, watching the preparations for the evening meal and chattering all the while.

  “Welcome to our home, Mary of Magdala.” He gave the formal greeting. “Peace be upon you.”

  Mary’s eyes twinkled. “I am part Greek and bear a gift. Do you not fear me?”

  Joseph knew her too well now to be surprised at her learning. “Timeo Danaos et dona ferentes—I fear the Greeks when bearing gifts,” he repeated, smiling. “No, I do not fear you.”

  “Look at the fine fish Mary brought us,” his mother said proudly. “I have persuaded her to stay and help eat it.”

  “Will you dance for us afterward?” Joseph asked.

  Mary held up her hands in mock horror. “Do you want your neighbors to say you are entertaining a Jezebel? Besides, does not Hippocrates warn that a physician must always be careful of his dignity?”

  “If I remember the aphorism right,” Joseph told her, “it was this: ‘The dignity of a physician requires that he should look healthy and as plump as nature intended him to be; for the common crowd consider those who are not of this excellent bodily condition to be unable to take care of others.’”

  While his mother prepared dinner, Joseph took Mary to the small surgery where he treated the poor of the city. It was little more than a covered terrace with a closet for his medicines and instruments. Magdala was not large enough to support a medicamentarius, as an apothecary was called who compounded and dispensed medicines only upon the order of a physician, so Joseph gathered most of his own herbs and ground his own medicines, plus those of his preceptor. Fortunately, the hills of nearby Gilead were famous for healing plants, and the balm produced there was widely used by physicians everywhere.

  Mary listened with intelligent interest while Joseph demonstrated the instruments and their uses. The bag he carried on his rounds was called the nartik. It contained the izmel, or scalpel, for incising abscesses; the trephine, a nail for letting blood; the makdeijach, a sharp pointed probe with which to explore wound tracks and other areas; the misporayim, a pair of scissors for cutting dressings or the sutures of horsehair sometimes used to close wounds; the tarrad, a speculum for exploring cavities; and the kalbo, a pair of forceps which had many uses.

  On another shelf was the kulcha, for emptying the stomach in poisonings and for those suffering from overeating; the gubtha, a hollow catheter for cases of urinary stone or obstruction; and the shel harophe, the leather apron which was almost the uniform of the Jewish physician. In the corner stood the kisei tani, an iron box serving both as a desk table and as a place of safekeeping for precious medicines.

  In the closet that served as a pharmacy and treatment room were the drugs: borit, a strong soap for washing inflamed skin, as well as the hands of the physician; neter, which was both a cleansing agent externally and a powerful kidney stimulant when taken internally; tsri, the healing balsam; nehoth, the gum of tragacanth; and lott, a powerful sedative made from opium. Next to them were various ointments labeled ungentia: collyria for washing infected eyes; and pilulae of various drugs, rolled into pellets of several sizes.

  Below these another shelf was filled with jars of powdered poppy leaves for promoting sleep and relieving pain; the seeds of the jusquiamus; the diachylon plaster favored by Menecrates, personal physician to the Emperor Tiberius; the drug called “dragon’s blood,” because it was said to come from the blood of a dragon killed in combat with an elephant (although actually only the gum from an oriental plant); the preparation called mithridaticum, a favorite of the Emperor Pompey, and many others. At the end of the shelf was a pile of odd-looking roots. Joseph picked up one and handed it to Mary.

  “Why, it looks like a man!” she exclaimed. “See? Here are the arms, and the legs, and body. What is it?”

  “The root is called ‘mandragora.’ Some people claim that it is actually human and shrieks when pulled from the ground.” Joseph took down a bottle filled with dark fluid. “This is the wine of mandragora, made by soaking the powdered root in wine to extract the active drug. Some call it ‘lovers’ drink.’”

  “Why?”

  “They say because it strengthens love. Or maybe it got the name because disappointed lovers have been known to use it to bring on the sleep of forgetfulness. But the wine of mandragora is mainly used for relieving pain during surgery and in nervous afflictions.”

  “When the drug is used to bring on sleep,” she asked, “do they ever wake up again?”

  “Not always, but a very large dose is required to cause death.”

  Mary shivered. “You said mandragora was used for nervous afflictions. I only faint when I am excited. Would it help to prevent the attacks?”

  “It should,” Joseph agreed at once. “Let me give you a small bottle of mandragora wine to take home tonight. You can try a few doses when you are going to dance. It might keep off the attacks altogether.”

  The fish was perfectly cooked and the meal was gay, for Mary was as intelligent and witty as she was beautiful. Much of the time Joseph forgot to eat for looking at her. Afterward, he walked with her across the city to the Street of the Greeks.

  “I love your mother, Joseph,” she told him as they stood before her house. “And you are very sweet, too.” She stood on tiptoe and kissed him on the cheek, then was gone.

  Joseph’s mother did not miss the warm light in his eyes when he returned, still a little dazed by that feathery kiss. “Mary is very beautiful, Joseph,” she observed. “And her father was a Jew. Even if she was adopted by a Greek, she was brought up in the religion of our people.”

  “Why does it make any difference whether she is Jew or Greek?” he asked, but his mother changed the subject.

  “She told me about the miracle you performed in healing Simon the fisherman.”

  “I only set the arm. The Most High must still heal it.”

  “But without your setting, the Most High would have let it heal crookedly,” she observed with unanswerable logic. “The fish came from the establishment of Zebedee, so Mary has important friends. He is the richest fish merchant on the lake.”

  Joseph was beginning to get the import of this rambling conversation. “But she sings and dances in the streets,” he reminded her with mock disapproval.

  “Did not David the king, whose blood flows in your veins, sing and dance in honor of the Most High?” she demanded heatedly.

  “Some call her a Jezebel and accuse her of abodah zarah.”

  “Some women envy all girls with beauty and speak evil of them,” his moth
er said with a sniff. “Mary has spirit and would make a fine wife for a bright young man. She likes you, Joseph; you should court her.”

  “There will be plenty of time yet to speak of marriage,” he said more soberly then. “Today Alexander Lysimachus promised to take me in two months before the judges at Jerusalem. He thinks I am ready to be certified as rophe uman.”

  “Aie!” his mother cried in delight. “My son will be a ‘skilled physician.’” The title was conferred by duly appointed judges only upon those apprentices who had finished the prescribed period and were certified by their preceptors as able to practice in their own right. “Now you can forget all that foolishness about going to Alexandria,” she added.

  Joseph did not argue the point. He knew he had learned everything that Alexander Lysimachus could teach him and was probably as skilled as any physician in Judea or Galilee, perhaps in all of the province of Syria itself. But his studies in the works of the Greek philosophers and physicians had served to show him how small actually was the knowledge of even such eminent physicians among the Jews as his preceptor. The great Hippocrates, Diocles of Carystus, the famous Alexandrians, Herophilus, and Erasistratus—all had gone beyond the simple concepts of disease as a punishment from God or the effects of possession by demons. And Asclepiades of Bithynia had even dared to state categorically that, since the body was composed of disconnected atoms in constant movement, health was dependent upon the orderly movement of these minute particles, while disease resulted from a standstill of the atoms, or violent clashes between them. His principle of contrario contrariis in treatment had earned him the favor of kings. More than once in his own experience, too, Joseph had felt that the derisive advice of “Medice, cura te ipsum [Physician, heal thyself],” was more truth than criticism.