'Come, come hither, listen to my master. Save your soul.'
'Here, hear the great Athos. Hear the salvation of the world.'
'Do not touch us, let go.' Lemuel spins back to see a youth try to drag the blind apostle to where a number of men stand in brown robes. With two hands Papias knocks the youth forcefully back.
'Stop! Stand back. Do not touch him!'
'Come, come to hear the word of John,' the youth says, and points.
'Of John?' Papias asks, startled.
'Of John, yes, John, come,' the youth nods.
And the Apostle and the disciples move across to stand then in stunned amaze and listen.
'Learn of the water of life,' cries one of the men. 'Unless you be baptised of the water of life you cannot enter to the kingdom of God.'
A man, wizened, gum-shrunk, approaches, upon his cheek a constellation of sores.
'All can be saved and given eternal life in the name of John the Messiah.'
'John was not the Messiah!' Lemuel cries. The crowd stirs about to consider him. But the baptiser is not deterred; he is used to all manner of objection, the goldsmiths have decried him, all and sundry.
'Yes, John was the Messiah. John came from God,' he calls down, 'came from the right hand of God to show the way to heaven. In his ministry here on earth he performed many miracles. Made the blind to see, the lame to walk. Often in the waters of the Jordan came healing, came salvation thanks to John.'
The old man drops to his knees. The crowd that has gathered presses forwards. Some who have been attending less dramatic presentations hurry over for the spectacle. Something may happen. You never know the hour. The sun burns hotly. There is brilliance of white light.
'John was not the Messiah!' Lemuel cries once more. 'John came before. To bear witness. He was sent by God to bear witness to the light that was to come.'
There are murmurs and the crowd presses to see, a swathe of sun-browned faces and dark beards. Is there to be a fight? Which tells the truth? Will they wrestle each other for victory of God?
The disciple is prepared to elbow forwards to further argue, but John says, 'Lemuel, come away.'
The Apostle turns and tells Papias to lead them to a quieter place in the square.
'Come back and find salvation!' the baptiser exhorts.
The disciples in a loosened knot slip back from the crowd. Some shake their heads at them for cowardice or remaining unclean of spirit. Then another has stepped forwards to be baptised and takes all attention.
In the square there are everywhere islands of proclaimers, about them small gatherings that stand and disperse as interest or boredom decide. Here are loud hollerers, ones who beat their chests across with thorned sticks and cry out to the blue sky, here others in heavy chains, so long worn as to have enwreathed the flesh with running calluses, red and purple and yellow. So, too, are small assemblies in attendance to doctrines obscure, prophets from distant lands whose names are unfamiliar but were, too, emissaries of God. There are desert gods, mountain gods, river gods, gods of rain, gods of particular places, particular months, days. Gods who demand sacrifice, payment, service. At one larger gathering there is proclaimed a great god of insects; those who would be his disciples may take inside them the very body and spirit of their god who is come on earth in the low form of beetles, centipedes, such. A man with great wool of hair and whiter-than-white of eye blears about, chants in tongues, then dips his hand into a timber bucket and draws from it the long wriggling body of a horned insect. Fine black antennae twist in the air. 'Take inside you the body and spirit of God!' he cries out, then opens wide his mouth and drops the insect inside. There is chorus of mixed admiration and revulsion both. He chews roundly, shuts his eyes, and intones some manner of prayer.
'Come, partake of the body of God. Eat and be made holy!'
The disciples move on. The crowds flow fickle, this way and that; about their edge, with condemnatory regard, those passing to and from the synagogue. See what happens, they seem to say, when the doors are opened, when anyone can be called God.
The hot sun boils down. The air is crisped. The Christians cross the sunlight to the further end, not far from the stalls of the gold and tinsmiths.
'Here, here is quieter,' Lemuel says.
They look to one another. None has been prepared for this. None has imagined the world so and in their dismay wonder what the Apostle has understood of the scene before them. How will their faith be adequate to the world?
'We should go back,' Meletios says. 'It is too crowded, too dangerous. There is no place for us here.'
'For this we are come,' John says.
His face is composed, his manner unperturbed. What depths of belief are in him cannot be imagined by the others. What sustains him, what remains not only undefeated but even undiminished by human weakness, capriciousness, by time itself, is outside their understanding. How is it he is not dismayed? How is it, with the jabbering range of religions arrayed before them, he believes still in beginning here, now? Who will listen to their quiet Word? The opposition will be outrageous. The odds against them making headway so great that to all but the Apostle it seems a doomed enterprise. Yes, spread the Word, but to those ready to receive it, to those in their own houses, where the disciples will not be troubled by clamour and jeering and ridicule. This is the easier path. Then, too, because of love, because they love the one who has been at the centre of their so long, they would not see him attacked and belittled. Because of love, they urge him once more to go back.
But John is of another mind. His resolve such that neither argument nor age nor force will impede him. The world will not obstruct him from the place he is to come. No pain, no rejection it can offer, will dissuade him, for he believes he has long ago been taken from himself, that the one who should have died many times ages since is not the one who remains. He is become the instrument. And this, in the scope of his understanding, is what love has made of him, what love wants, and to which he has submitted his being entire. For this he is here. To tell of love.
'Be not afraid,' John says to them. 'The Lord is with us.'
He raises his blind eyes to the light. He holds out his hands not far from his body. He begins.
28
Fools of a fool. Of an old fool. Of a blind old fool. In the State Agora, Auster says, preaching to no one. They should have stayed on their island, let their bones whiten on the shore.
This is the time of the Divine. Not a carpenter's son.
The world is more full of fools than wise men know.
My hour approaches.
On the third day of preaching in the square, their audience small and temporary, there comes before the Christians a file of figures in coarse shrouds, their faces smeared with dirt. They are at first no different from others of bizarre practice who cross there. But one among them stops when he hears John say the name of Jesus.
'Jesus was a prophet,' this one calls out.
The few who are gathered turn back to look.
'Jesus was a witness to the Son of God,' the dust-faced says, 'to the great Lazarus, who rose from the dead.'
'Lazarus was raised by Jesus,' Danil shouts. 'It was Jesus, of Galillee, who prayed at the tomb and brought Lazarus back from the dead.'
'Blasphemy! Lazarus sent word to the mind of Jesus that he come and bear witness to his resurrection. Jesus came because he was sent for. To tell the world of the greatness of Lazarus. Pray to Lazarus that ye might all be resurrected!' the Lazarean cries. From the ground he lifts a handful of dust and pushes it to his mouth. 'Dust to dust,' he shouts out, chokes. 'We are dust lest we be resurrected again to new life by Lazarus. Come, follow.'
The man, with dust mouth and dirt face, leads the file like ghosts away, and some, attendant on the Christians, follow.
In ways they have been no different from others trafficking there, but in their aftermath the Apostle is quietened in himself. It is as though a cloak of weariness has been left on his shoulders. It is past the noon
. Papias asks him if he will rest on the steps, if he will take water.
'Yes, Papias. I would drink now and gladly.'
He sits into the shade of a porch. The others continue to preach to whomever delays before them.
Lazarus. Because of Lazarus you returned.
We had gone beyond Jordan into the place where John first baptised. And there abode.
And there were many who came and believed in you there.
I thought: we might remain. We might continue here in safety and love.
It was a place of peace. Our needs were simple. We were free of accusers and hatred. Might we not have remained there? The twelve and the others that came. A first community. Might we not have lived thus, sitting between the olive trees to hear your teaching?
To build a church even there, to live in example of love.
Might that not suffice? I thought. That we might live so in your presence.
Then came the figure out of the sunlight.
I saw him first, a shape moving in a wave of heat. He approached steadily across the burnt ground, small dust of haste in his wake. I went to meet him.
'I bring news to Jesus of Nazareth,' he said.
I did not want the news. I confess it. I did not want the world to come and find us. To find you.
'What news?'
'I am to tell Jesus of Nazareth,' he said, and went past me.
I felt the cold of death then. As foreknowledge. I understood submission but did not want to submit. Understood sacrifice but did not want you to be sacrificed. I am a man only. And knew and feared what must come.
When I followed after already, you had risen and walked to make easier his finding you.
'Lord, the one whom you love is sick,' the messenger said. The one who was sick, he told, was Lazarus from Bethany, brother of Mary and Martha. They sent word that you might come, for they believed in you and prayed you might intercede.
You withdrew into a quiet place.
We were left with argument.
'We should not go, it is dangerous,' James said.
'Why can we not remain here?'
'They will take him if he return.'
A chorus of consent then among us.
'How take him when he is the Lord?' the question of Judas.
Two days.
For two days you did not go.
For two days you remained apart and did not eat and did not speak and took but little water.
I sat not far distant. I wanted to tell the messenger return, tell them he cannot come. Tell them it is unsafe and he will be killed for this Lazarus. Tell them we are at peace here, that there will be no more signs and miracles. This time is now for our community of love, here, and we will welcome who will come to us.
There was no need to go. If it was your wish, you could heal Lazarus from afar, I thought, simply by saying it should be so. You could stay and cure both.
From where I sat, I prayed it would be so. I prayed another figure might come out of the sunlight with word Lazarus was healed.
At the dawning of the third day, you shook my shoulder. Had I slept? How had I slept when I wanted so to remain awake?
You woke all the disciples, in the thin light said, 'Let us go again into Judea.'
The protests were quiet but firm. Voices about the mystery. 'Master, they have of late sought to stone you, why should you return?'
'Are there not twelve hours in the day?' you said. 'If any man walks in the day he stumbles not, because he sees the light of this world. But if a man walks in the night he stumbles, because there is no light in him.'
We did not understand of night and light and of what you answered. You said, 'Our friend Lazarus sleeps, but I go that I may wake him out of sleep.'
'But if he sleeps, Lord, he shall be well,' Philip said. 'We need not go.'
In your face a cloud.
'Lazarus is dead,' you told plainly. 'And I am glad for your sakes that I was not there, to the intent ye may believe.' You looked away into the sun rising. What pity was in your eyes. For pity is love.
'Nevertheless, let us go unto him.'
You moved away to make ready.
Thomas said to us who sat in puzzlement and fear, 'Let us also go, that we may die with him.'
A quiet return we had of it. None there were who spoke. The messenger run ahead of us.
The end begun.
And Martha came out the road to meet us. 'Lord, if you had been here, my brother would never have died. Even now I am sure, whatever you ask of God, God will give you.'
'Your brother will rise again,' you told her. 'I am the resurrection and the life, he who believes in me, even if he dies will come to life. And everyone who is alive and believes in me shall never die at all. Do you believe this?'
'Yes, Lord, I believe you are the Christ, the Son of God, come into the world.'
And Martha went and brought Mary, and those who were in the house consoling her followed. And Mary fell at your feet with weeping. 'Lord, if you had been here, my brother would never have died.'
And you were moved with deepest emotions, your spirit troubled.
I never saw such before and was afraid.
You wept.
And those thereabouts said, 'See, how he loved him!' But others, 'He opened the eyes of the blind man, couldn't he have done something to stop this man from dying?'
Even troubled so, even with tears falling, you went then unto the tomb.
And after, some believed because Lazarus was again in life. And others went to the Pharisees, and the chief priests gathered the Sanhedrin to ask, 'What do we? For this man does many miracles. If we let him thus alone, all men will believe in him and the Romans will come and take away both our place and our nation.'
And from that day they planned to put you to death.
We went from there after into the wilderness. And to the city called Ephraim. It was the time near Passover. And many asked if you would come up to Jerusalem for the feast.
The high priests had issued commandment that if any knew where you were, they must show. That they might come and take you.
So there was no more the peace as was before Lazarus.
All was changed. For this I wept. To accept what must be.
The time that was coming. The time was coming when you would be gone.
The end begun.
There is the sound of trumpets. Shrill blasts flourish above the noise of the crowd. And again they sound. Do they come out of the dazzling sunlight, out of the white heat above? Does the sky open its folds to revelation? There flows a wave of murmur then hush as the trumpeting approaches. Three notes, then three more herald arrival. The fanfare makes stop the square entire. It comes not from the sky but the eastern corner, and there is a parting of people then as first a tall insignia is borne forward. It is a symbol O, a great silvered circle on a high pole, carried by one with shaven head and garment of pale blue. Behind him come a pair likewise attired and bareheaded carrying placards aloft on which are written 'The Divine' and 'The One.' Following these are the trumpeters. They blast again, make clear of birds the upper ledges. Into the brilliance of the light, with a manner no different from the approach of a Roman column, come more of these figures, beardless, head erect, in palest blue. Their clothing uniform, their identities are masked at first. They come in file with fixed expression. There are a dozen of them, then more. The crowds part for them as they cut across the square to its centre. The trumpets ring out. Men, women, children push forward to see what is arrived amongst them.
There are further banners, insignia obscure painted in red, then two figures bearing drums. Behind these comes Diotrophes, august, chin-tight, upon his chest a silver O. Then other drummers follow. At what signal is unclear, but now they quicken the beat. Hands flash and the sound thunders. The trumpeters enjoin in a music of urgent annunciation. All the crowds in the square are arrested, all other claims made deaf. Then enters, at last, Matthias.
The blue-robed disciples in front have formed a
large O in the square. It is into its centre Matthias now walks. He, too, has shaven head and eyebrows, is moon-faced serene, seems not to see those who press forward to see him. The tempo of the drumbeat quickens to match his ingress, stops to silence when he stands in mid-circle.
It is high theatre, and the crowd responds. From other holy men, teachers, those who were listening move away to catch this instead.
'Children of God,' Matthias shouts, 'bow your heads!'
And as one the entire circle of disciples about him does. Some in the crowd do likewise, momentarily unsure if something blinding is about to descend. Soon enough they are eye-cocked back, peering in at the performance.
'Children of God, bow your heads and give thanks. We are come to bring you the good news. The good news of the One. Who made you. Whose children you are. The One from whom all goodness flows.' Matthias raises his hands skywards, and as the sleeves of the robe fall back, the arms and fingers are whiter than flesh, as if he has reached previously into immaculate light. He calls out, 'O Divine, who has chosen me for thy message, give me power to bring it to these your children!'
He shuts his eyes, lowers his head to his chest, then, as though the power he asks is granted, he raises it quickly and proclaims, 'The Divine One is the Father. We are all his children. This is the message he instructs me to bring to you.' Matthias turns his eyes about him — one blind, one seeing — discovers the Apostle and his disciples not far distant by the steps. 'Do not believe you are sinners. Why should you be called sinners? The children of the Divine are not sinners. Would God make sinners? Would the Creator make imperfect children? If so, then he would not be the One who made heaven and earth, who made all things, and gave to all things a perfect soul. No, heed not those who speak to you of sin. Heed not talk of imperfection. You who hear my word are children of the One and can through following the Father's ways return at death to his side. This he has told me. This is the truth and the way. We are things of light. We are the essence he created. Be not afraid of your own perfection. Your own light. Come and follow us. This way is heaven. The Divine has said. Has come to me even on an island, where I prayed for him to enlighten me, to show me what was truth. He brought me light and power, power to heal, to bring to him the elect, those of his children who will sit at the front rank in heaven.
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