The Gospel According to the Son (2 page)

A few shepherds were guarding their flocks in the fields surrounding us, and they came upon the manger soon after my birth. An angel appeared to them and pointed to the barn, and the angel said: "This day is born Christ, the Messiah of the Lord."

The shepherds told so many men and women about the angel that word soon came to Herod, the king of Israel, that there had been a holy birth in Bethlehem. Herod saw at once that any babe who had been watched over by an angel could yet become a king. He had no need of other kings.

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By the year of my birth, Herod was old. People could no longer speak of him as the greatest warrior in Israel. But when he was young, his triumphs had been so many that he was full of lust and took ten wives.

The people of Israel did not love him. He was an Idumean from south of Judea, a Jew only in name, in truth a pagan. Caesar had made him emperor over all the Hebrews by declaration from Rome, and Herod put graven images of the Roman eagle on the gates of the Great Temple, a sacrilege forbidden by the Commandments. And his life was full of many unclean hours and evil deeds. Afflicted by suspicion, he could not trust the fidelity of his wife, Mariamne, his most beloved, and having convinced himself that she would soon betray him, he ordered his body-servant to slay her. Afterward he mourned Mariamne and gave large favors to the two sons he had had with her, but neither could forgive him. They sought to murder their father for the slaughter of their mother. They laid plots. They were discovered. They were beheaded. In Rome, Emperor Augustus said: "Better to be Herod's swine than his son." That was much repeated among the Jews.

Later, as Herod grew older, he grew mad. Not a day after he heard of my birth, he sent three wise men to Bethlehem. He said: "Find the holy babe and bring me word. I wish to come and worship." They did not believe him, but they knew they had to leave at once, and at night.

On the short journey to Bethlehem, a star came from the east and passed above them, then moved to the south, and they followed the star until they came to our manger. There, they knelt before Mary and Joseph, and gave worship. So it is told in the Gospel of Matthew. Matthew would also claim that the wise men brought gifts of gold and frankincense and myrrhùbut that may not be true. For Joseph and Mary never spoke of such presents.

It is true, however, that the wise men offered one gift of considerable value: They warned Joseph not to live for even one more day under the rule of Herod. Indeed, these wise men were also quick to leave the land of Israel, and departed soon after they came to the manger. And Joseph left in the next hour. All of us traveled by night until we came to Egypt.

Herod exacted a vengeance. When the wise men did not return, executioners were sent to Bethlehem with a command to slay all male children who had been born at the time of my birth. The words of the prophet Jeremiah were fulfilled: "Lamentation and weeping and mourning."

Herod soon died, and Joseph came back to Nazareth, where he gave two sons to my mother, James and John. It may be that our love for each other was cursed, for in later years I did not feel as near to these brothers as to the children who had been slain in Bethlehem. When Joseph's death opened the seal of my mind, I brooded often upon those children and the life they never had.

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Let it be understood that I was not unprepared to speak to the priests of the Great Temple. Like other children, I had started school before the age of five, and in our small synagogue we studied every day until nightfall. By the age of eight, I could even read the language of the old Israelites, and I knew the Commandments, which came down from Moses, and the laws derived from the Commandments. Since each law gave birth to ten laws, and each of these to another ten, there were now ten hundred laws concerning prayer and diet and the rules of sacrifice on the altar. And we also studied Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and the book of Deuteronomy.

We read the prophecies of Elijah, and of Elisha and Ezekiel and Isaiah, and much of what was not in our few scrolls was remembered by our elders and teachers, who passed it on to us.

Yet on our return to Nazareth following our visit to the Great Temple in my twelfth year, I decided that if I had been given wisdom enough to speak to the wise men, that must have come from the spirits of those infants who were killed because of my birth.

An even greater weight was upon me. That was Joseph's story concerning my true father. I could hardly see myself as the Son. After school, on days when we would scuffle with each other, I would lose such fights as often as I won. How, then, could I be the Son of the Lord? And this doubt left me in fear of His wrath. For I remembered that the Lord had said to Moses, "Behold, these people will forsake Me and break My covenant and then shall My anger be kindled against them. They shall be burnt with hunger and devoured with burning heat . . ." And indeed the Lord's wrath may have been upon me as a result of having such thoughts. The great fever burned in my flesh soon after. In my twelfth year, I was all but devoured by that fever.

When I recovered, I had lost all memory of what Joseph had told me and was again like others, and even a young man, for now I was thirteen. I began my labors as an apprentice in Joseph's shop and spent seven years as a simple apprentice and seven again as a full apprentice before I became a young master.

The first seven years were spent in learning how to make mud-bricks for walls and put up framing for roofs and doors and windows. And I also acquired the skill to build beds and tables, stools and cabinets, boxes of all sizes, and plows and yokes for oxen. In my second apprenticeship I worked, however, in Sepphoris, the capital of Galilee, an hour on foot from Nazareth. There I learned more of my craft by working in fine houses, and Joseph taught us much, for he knew many arts.

Here too lived Herod Antipas, the son of Herod, and this Herod Antipas had become king of Galilee, Idumea, and Judea. When I would watch him pass in procession, I did not know why my blood raced like a steed and I was ready to bolt. My heart was speaking to me even if my mind was not; I had no sense of why I should feel such fear at the sight of King Herod Antipas taking his royal passage through the avenues of Sepphoris. All I knew was that I seemed to have no greater wish afterward than to propitiate all bad feelings (and good ones) by working with care. My life was devoted to the practice of carpentry.

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Joseph used to say: "Where one plank is joined to another by a man who cares for the subtlety of the joint, the first piece will cleave to the second as in a marriage that is blessed. But boards joined by nails fall apart when the nail rusts; so, too, is marriage corroded by adultery." I do not know if it was for such a reason, but none of us were given iron implements until after we had served our first seven years with tools of bronze. Joseph would often speak of the trials of carpenters from ancient times and other lands: He would tell how the Egyptians fashioned small chests of much delicacy out of no better wood than acacia, sycamore, or tamarisk. Such grains were fibrous and often knotty, and each surface had to be finished with paint and gold leaf. Yet this work of the Egyptians, although limited by their bronze tools, had proved more beautiful than our own, and Joseph even owned a small Egyptian chest whose dovetailed corners were a wonder to him.

When we began to use iron tools, it was with caution, even fear. We all knew the visions of Daniel and how the teeth of the fourth beast are iron and terrible in their strength.

All the same, I learned. After a time, I could make good use of iron, and was able to work my tools upon woods from many lands: maple, beech, oak, yew, fir, lime, and cedar. Oak we would select as framing for a door, and maple, which was supple, for beds, keeping cedar, which was sweet-smelling, for chests. Wild olive, being very hard, was for tool handles.

I had friends in other workshops who could plate metal objects in gold and silver; some of us even spoke of traveling from Sepphoris to Rome so we might apprentice our skills to great masters. But this was no more than talk; we never failed to observe our daily acts of purity. And we knew that Rome was full of license. It was said that the emperor and empress indulged in lewd acts of which you would not wish to speak for fear that a vile sore might visit your tongue.

So my trade became my pride, and I knew respect for the tools in my box. A rasp, a plane, a hammer, an auger, a gimlet, an adze, a cubit rule, a saw, and three chisels for paring, as well as a gougeùall were mine. And my knowledge of how to treat wood became another tool.

When we used fir for flooring, we offered prayers that it not burn. For fire seemed attracted to fir. And other prayers were said over winter oak, which was liable to decay. Cypress was blessed; it resisted the worm.

Joseph also taught many ways to put up walls of stone for large buildings, and told us of a substance called pozzolana, an earth that came from the volcanoes south of Rome; this pozzolana, mixed with lime, became a cement. Such knowledge led me to think of the wisdom of the Lord, who knew the earth so well that heavy soil thrown far from its home by a volcano could find a new nature for itself and hold loose stones together. Often would I ponder on the substances of His Kingdom that we worked upon with our hands.

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Living with such skills, I was at peace. But rare is the calm that is long free of disturbance. Even as Joseph was in his last days I began to dream of the Great Temple in Jerusalem, and I wondered if it was too late for me to learn how to cast in gold and silver. Thoughts came to me that I would yet work upon the Holy Altar, but I distrusted them, for they left me full of a greed that was stifling to the throat; I had to wonder whether it was wise for a modest man to work with gold. All the same, I was ready. And for what, I did not know. I felt as if I were a man enclosing another man within. Joseph died, and I mourned him. Soon I was distraught. His great secret came back to me. If I knew again that the Lord was my Father, I hardly knew in what manner, He was still far from me. Whenever I thought that He would soon appear, He did not. I was in need of new wisdom.

It was then I decided to make a pilgrimage to that prophet and holy man who was John the Baptist, and indeed, I could even say that I knew him before I saw him, since he was my cousin. I had heard my mother speak often and well of John, even if others did not. He was held in ill repute among the Pharisees in our synagogue. These Pharisees of Nazareth were, in the main, devout, although never equal in piety to us; being merchants, they grew fat, but then they had many appetites, and not all were clean. No matterùthey spoke of John as if he were a wild creature. All the same, I felt close to my cousin. I did not know him, yet he was kin to me. Much was alike in the way we were conceived.

His father, Zacharias, had been an Essene priest; his mother was the same Elizabeth whom my mother had visited when pregnant with me, and Elizabeth was most devout and was as thin as a tall blade of grass. So, too, was Zacharias; they believed that the body must be kept as a temple. Only a pure body could offer pure prayers in the struggle against the powers of evil.

Therefore, they remained childless. And were happy. But there came a time when Elizabeth began to mourn that she was barren. One day she even prayed for a child. And her prayer was heard. That morning, as Zacharias stood alone at the altar performing a priests office, an angel came to him. (Indeed, this angel was the same Gabriel who would in six months speak to my mother.)

Gabriel said: "Zacharias, do not tremble. I bring good news. Elizabeth shall bear a son."

Now, Zacharias was not at ease. No angel had ever appeared to him before. So he said: "I am an old man, and my wife is close to me in age. Who can you be?" Whereupon the angel grew angry. "Since you do not believe me," he said, "you will not speak until the day that Elizabeth gives birth." And when Zacharias came out of the synagogue, he was dumb. Nothing could be heard but the straining of his throat.

He returned to his house and was silent. Yet soon enough he would marvel. For on this same day that he lost his speech, he was able to rise and give issue to Elizabeth. And she conceived. Soon, she was so afraid she might lose what had been given her that she remained in bed. And the unborn child did not stir.

In the sixth month of this pregnancy, Gabriel visited my mother. Afterward, even as Joseph was wondering how to serve as her guardian, Mary went into the high hills to visit her cousin.

And in the moment that Elizabeth saw my mother at the door, so did her babe leap in her womb. Overjoyed, she spoke out: "Blessed art thou, Mary. All generations to come shall call you blessed."

Mary felt honored by these words. Elizabeth's ancestry (on the side not related to my mother) was said to go back as far as Aaron, the brother of Moses. Elizabeth's blessing stayed in my mother's ear, and her pride became as great as her humility. Few could contradict her will. My mother would say: "He that is mighty has done to me great things." It soon became her belief that all she said could only be the truth. She would speak often and fondly of John the Baptist. "Only when Elizabeth saw me," she liked to say, "was John able to quicken in the womb."

And on the day my cousin was born the tongue of Zacharias grew loose, and he spoke, and could bless his son.

John grew up. He was lean, more lean even than Zacharias or Elizabeth, and he lived alone in the desert. He preached near a ford in the River Jordan, and pilgrims came to him in great fear of their sins. He preached with such force of word and spirit that the High Priest of the Great Temple sent Levites out from Jerusalem, and they asked: "Who art thou? Art thou the Christ?"Christ being the word for Messiah in Greek, a language that many of the elevated in Jerusalem liked to use.

But John said, "I baptize with water, no more. I am not the Messiah." These Pharisees were dissatisfied. They said: "You perform baptisms yet you are not Christ. Who are you, then?"

"I am the voice of one crying in the wilderness," John replied. "But there is one coming after me whom you do not know. He is chosen above me by the Lord, and I am not worthy to loosen the straps of his sandals." And John said it on the day before I went to visit him, although I had no idea that he spoke of such things. I had thought to go as one more pilgrim.