Fifth Gospel: A Novel (Rosicrucian Quartet) Paperback Read online

  When the blindfold was removed from his eyes he saw that he was on the stone floor of the cave, kneeling before a statue of Mithras killing the bull, in a room lit by torches and candles. Someone had come to pour wine, the source of ritual ecstasy, into his throat, and to stuff his mouth full of bread, the flesh and substance of Mithras. A purple cloak was placed over his shoulders and he was crowned and told to rise.

  ‘You have ascended the ladder without falling; you have killed the bull; you have reached the Sun and become one with Mithras! You are a Sun Hero!’

  There was a loud battery of noise, now, the clashing of cymbals and the beating of drums. Figures wearing animal masks, invokers and worshippers chanted hymns describing Mithras’ journey across the sky. But Cassius was confused. He tried to bring sense to his thoughts. He looked to the chanting priests and wondered why they did not know that he had not climbed the sixth rung.

  It was a moment before he understood, a moment before it was clear. The trial had occurred in his heart, in his soul. The bull had been his lower self, and he himself had taken the place of Mithras. The priests had not seen it because they had lost the ability to see into the heart of a man! They could not go beyond the fifth degree themselves!

  This realisation brought with it a sense of dread, followed by a deep woe. He felt like a man who wakes up from his sleep to find that his entire family has been butchered while he has slept and that he is alone. Outwardly he might be a Hero of the Sun, but inwardly he had lost all rank and honour. He had lost his brotherhood, for he would never again consider himself an initiate of Mithras and so he grieved, because to lose this was more painful than death; it was like losing the very flooring and purpose of his life.

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  ‘Oh Lea!’ I said now. ‘I feel for this man, Cassius Gaius Longinus, he has lost everything he has ever believed in!’

  ‘And he will lose much more before his meeting with Christ, because he has to let go of what he is, in order to become what he might be.’

  14

  BATH KOL

  At the appropriate time, Jesus left his ailing father and his stepmother and took up his mind’s resolve to find work in far off places as a means of supporting the family, and to learn something of the world beyond what could be known in Jerusalem and Nazareth.

  In his younger years he had accompanied his father in the pursuit of his trade and now he used those same routes, and following in the skirt-tails of the caravans that passed through Nazareth and journeyed to the new city of Tiberias.

  Tiberias lay on the shores of the Sea of Galilee and was the thought-child of Herod Antipas. Many Jews considered it to be a waste-hole of the world because Herod had built it over an old burial ground. For this reason, the grand unfinished city was in need of men that were good with their hands: stonemasons, carpenters and engineers, and so Jesus had found work not only in the construction of Herod’s new palace but also on the many stately dwellings that were being built for the upper classes of Roman society.

  It was his habit to speak little, to listen, and to observe as he worked the temper and customs of the people around him. In Tiberias Jesus had seen the worship of Caesar and the cult of madness that the man inspired in those wealthy Romans who came to the city for the wonder benefits of its hot sulphuric springs. The worship of the ordinary people of Tiberias also interested him and one day, when he heard the celebrations in the streets for the god Attis, he went to see what it could teach him.

  The procession was made up of men and women dancing to the sound of tambourines and flutes. The women wore amulets and flowing robes and painted faces and the men cut their bodies with knives to let their blood flow - an act which the people said inspired visions of the future. Intrigued by it he allowed himself to be led to the Temple of Attis. Here, while his everyday eyes observed the offering service performed by a priest at his altar, his other eyes saw a monstrous vision: the sacrifice offered by the priest was taken up by evil spirits! The idols of the pagan gods had become the likenesses of depraved beings and these were responsible for the frenzy and agitation of the people. The sight of it made him sick to the stomach and he had to take himself from the Temple for air, his spirit crestfallen and deeply troubled.

  He set off again, westwards to Syria and those great cities he had frequented with his father in his younger years. These were those cities bordered by oceans: Tyre, Zerephath and Sidon, Byblos and Sarepta. Their ports were doorways to other lands and other races and their pagan religions. He studied these cults and spoke to their priests, seeking the grandeur of the ancient life of the gods. But again he found only ignorance and empty rituals, which called forth the attention of those evil spirits of corruption. He also met many people at their work or during those quiet hours of rest in the evenings, when they sat listening to the murmur of fountains. He met others in the day, in those bazaars where they paused from their labours to exchange banter and thoughts. On the roads he spoke to merchants and itinerants, he listened to the woes of the pilgrims, to the gripes of the tax collectors, to the stories of the farmers and fishermen and the concerns of the labourers, publicans, priests, laymen and landholders. He befriended Gentiles, Jews, Samaritans, Greeks, Egyptians and Syrians, and wherever he went, whispers followed him:

  A Nazarite of special qualities has arrived among us!

  For this reason he often found himself surrounded by those who were in need of moral comfort and he told them stories and sayings he had gathered from here and there. The people listened to him for hours and this seemed to comfort them, and yet, deep in their souls Jesus discerned an emptiness, which they did not know how to fill. He searched in his heart for a way to help them, but realised he could not give them what they needed for they needed more than stories, they needed their leaders to show them the way to God – but how could they when their leaders were also lost?

  He wondered if he was the only one who could see the world crumbling away, and he was full of despair for it. He wandered long and travelled far and wide, and in his wanderings his concerns grew until an inner crisis of soul reached its apex on his return from the outer lands, at Caesarea Philippi.

  He was nearing the city, built on the slope of Mount Hermon, some furlongs northeast of the Sea of Galilee. It was perched on a lofty terrace, overlooking fertile valleys and a road that meandered through temples and grottoes and places of pagan worship. Walking this road he observed the quality of the air. He could see the spirit of the trees, rocks and soil, and he tasted the spirits in the water of the streams. He saw in nature the memory of the mighty power of the pagan priests, their wisdom and piety, but his spirit was directed also to the men who lived here and he saw that these people, more than any he had seen so far, in his travels, had suffered a decline. Lepers, insane persons, lame and deformed children came out of hiding holes to regard him with their eyes as he passed. He could hear scuffles and arguments breaking out here and there, and lewd language and uncontrolled laughter coming from one place or another. It reminded him of his journeys to the outskirts of Jerusalem with Gamaliel, and he now realised that the pagan priests, like the Temple priests in Jerusalem, had deserted their people. They had left them to die a living death.

  A leprous child stood some distance from him stretching out a skinless hand for a morsel of food. Jesus went to the child with pity and love in his heart and he held the child’s hand in his to comfort him. He gave the child some nuts and soon the child ran away and returned with others, the afflicted and the desperate, the forlorn and the hopeless. They lamented and pulled at their hair and cried into their hands.

  Someone called out, ‘Are you a priest come to save us from this disease that has taken us? Will you offer up a sacrifice to the gods on our behalf?’

  ‘A priest! A priest has come!’ more voices joined in.

  A groundswell of joy and praise broke out around him and the people began to press him towards the threshold of their temple. It was with anxiety that he entered the ruined place, full of cobwebs and b
rick-dust and broken effigies and idols.

  The crowd, moved by longing and hope, pushed him towards the altar and he could not stop them. Now from this vantage point Jesus looked about him and saw something emerge from the shadowed corners, a red-winged being. It peered at him and said:

  ‘Well well…you’ve come in and made yourself comfortable have you? Look at you, poor fellow, pale as a ghost! You can see that the world is perishing…the end of the world is near and you cannot stop it! So why not enjoy what time is left? You can lead this rabble and make something of yourself…go ahead…stand up on that altar and shout ‘repent, repent!’ This mongrel lot will follow anyone who says those words!’

  Jesus looked about him at the expectation on the faces of the men and women and children. He was no priest, how could he give them what they desired? Looking at them he saw all the pagan peoples that he had met in his travels gathered together into one great corpse made from unwashed bodies and wild faces; a corpse of human suffering overflowing with wickedness and with desperation and disease. He sensed the smell of rotted flesh, of darkness, stagnant, dank – the odour of human degradation. The world whirled around him and in that moment he felt the universal suffering of humanity as if it were his own. It streamed into him like a rush of white fire from all the faces that looked up to him for comfort and he could not take a breath for the immensity of its weight.

  ‘What’s the matter? Don’t you like my handiwork?’ said the being.

  Jesus shouted at it, ‘Who are you? Why do you do this?’

  When the people heard his words they seemed to grow afraid, for they sensed an open traffic with evil and began to push and shove to flee from the temple.

  But Jesus felt a pain, a dart of poisoned ice burst into a thousand lighted candles, each shimmering in the air ahead of his eyes. He was removed then, from that place and the people and the evil being.

  In this realm of nothingness, he heard these words:

  ‘Listen Jesus...’

  Aum

  Evils hold sway

  The ego of man struggles free

  And guilt is incurred at the expense of others,

  Which is experienced in the daily bread

  Wherein the will of the heavens does not rule

  Because man has separated himself from your realms,

  And forgot your names

  You fathers in the heavens!

  Jesus recognised this voice! He shouted into the open vaults of the deserted temple, ‘Yes…evil holds sway because men have wanted freedom from the gods but now everything falls into ruin, the world is old, how can the people rise up to remember the gods again?’

  The voice said.

  ‘Watch and wait Jesus, soon comes my Son and He will make the old new again!

  ‘Who are you?’ he asked.

  A warm, love-giving radiance, entered into his heart.

  ‘I am knowledge and ignorance, I am shame and boldness, I am shameless; I am ashamed, I am strength and I am fear and I am war and peace, I am the truth and the speech that cannot be grasped. I am the name of the sound and the sound of the name; I am the sign of the letter and the designation of the division …I am Bath Kol, I am Sophia, the voice of the Wisdom that is All.’

  15

  REMEMBERING

  When Jesus returned home he was twenty-four springs, though in his heart he felt himself as ancient as Mount Tabor.

  His father had long awaited his homecoming and they were graced with some quiet weeks together before Joseph fell deeper into his illness and succumbed to it peacefully in his bed. Afterwards, custom dictated that he wait a year with his family, and he passed this time at work, reflecting upon his travels, allowing his experiences to enter deeply into him.

  The Essenes of Nazareth had time and again attempted to recruit him for their order but Jesus had always said no. Now, on his return from the outlands, they came again, having heard of his travels, and he welcomed them, for he was interested in their warm conversation and the lively exchange of ideas, which they offered.

  Throughout the winter months, fulsome in long shadows and cool winds and resplendent skies, the Essenes came each day and sat with him in the garden. He knew they were gleaning from him the measure and nature of his knowledge and the dimensions of his experience and soon they made Jesus an offer. The knowledge he had gained all these years was similar to that knowledge attained through initiation, and so if he chose to enter the order, he would not need to undergo the trials of the lower grades. They assured him, they could teach him more than he already knew.

  ‘Do not judge us too hastily, Son of Mary, for what you see around you in Nazareth and other cities is not a reflection of our order’s true nature. It is in the monasteries that you will find our saints, our seers, men who live by the pure rule. Only they can teach you what you concerning the deepest and most profound secrets of our order.’

  They left to await his answer.

  Over seven nights Jesus pondered his decision.

  While reviewing his life since his twelfth year he came to an understanding. The Essenes, among whom he had lived all his life, had separated themselves from the ecstasy of the pagan people and also from the calculated inward brooding of the Hebrew priests. Perhaps in their inner sanctum they held that living knowledge which he was seeking? Perhaps wise Salome had been right: He had been like a mule in search of a scent that had always been behind his ear. There was only one way for him to know and so he made up his mind to say yes. He would follow them to their sanctuary at Engaddi to learn their ways and laws, on the provision that he would be permitted to remain aloof from those same laws, if he so wished.

  They agreed.

  Jesus was aware that Mariam did not ask him why the quiet ones came and went from her home, or what they asked of him, but he knew the question lived in her soul as she busied herself with everyday matters. These days she was surrounded by people: his aunt Mary and his uncle Cleophas, who had come to help since his father’s death; her daughters and her other sons; and her servant, Salome.

  There was rarely a moment of quiet to tell her of his decision.

  On the anniversary of his father’s death, when the winds announced the coming of warmer days, there came the opportunity.

  She was alone, kneading bread.

  He took a long time to come to the point. He sensed in himself a hesitation and awkwardness in her company. When he finally told her that he would soon go, she took a long moment to answer, so that it seemed almost as if she had not heard him at all.

  ‘Why so soon?’ She blurted out, without looking at him, her attention on her fists pounding the dough, ‘You have barely returned from your wanderings, now you want to go again! What makes you so restless?’

  Looking at her, Jesus pondered their peculiar friendship. In many ways they were strangers and yet he had known her near all his life. It was true that her blood did not run in his veins, but there were moments when her heart in its slow measures opened up to his and he felt the warmth of recognition and love. When those moments came, her face, framed by the black mourning mantle, with its nose and the angle of the jaw and the bones of the cheeks, seemed etched in his memory, as if each detail had been carved there with a knife. But there were other times, when along with this feeling of the deeply familial, they held each other aloof, as they were doing now; as if they were seeing each other for the first time.

  He could not explain this strangeness to himself, and now when her eyes met his, the expression in them was so close and natural, yet so distant and strained, that it was unbearable to look upon it. Something told him that they were sharing an unspoken act; that they were each seeking to remember something through the other, but whatever it was they sensed sorrow in it and so they swung like a pendulum, from closeness to distance, seeking one another out one moment and pulling away the next, forestalling the moment of recognition, again and again.

  He realised he had not answered her question. ‘What makes me restless?’ he looked at her. �
��I haven’t found what I’m looking for.’

  ‘Do you know what it is?’ she asked.

  ‘I will know when I find it.’

  She looked at this, and returned to her pounding.

  ‘You need not worry for money,’ he told her, ‘You have all the earnings of my journey and you must use it as you see fit.’

  She paused. ‘That’s not my worry, Jesus,’ she said, and took the dough and slammed it on the table to make her point. ‘My worry is not for money, it is for the tongues of the people...they don’t know what to make of you...they say you’re lifted up too high for yourself. Mind what I say…such talk can lead to suffering.’

  He felt her concern and he gentled her, ‘Doesn’t Isaiah tells us that we must not hide from suffering?’

  She made a gaze into his eyes and poured out all the strength of her Temple education and intelligence into it, to convince him of her words, ‘Isaiah was speaking of the Messiah, Jesus, the Messiah, whom Israel awaits…we, ordinary people, should not run towards suffering like a thirsty camel runs towards a water hole!’ When she had said it, a sudden remorse moved over her brow and she squared her shoulders and bent to her work to hide it.

  ‘The world thirsts,’ he told her.

  ‘Yes…yes…and you thirst also…’ she said, without looking up.

  ‘I am the thirst and I am also the water that quenches it.’

  She paused in her work again and into her unhappy face there entered a trace of a smile. ‘Oh! So now you are two things?’ She gave a sigh of resignation. ‘Where will you go to, this time?’

  He broached it gently, ‘To Engaddi.’

  She stared down at her dough – it was sticky. She nodded to herself as if she now knew two things: she had not added enough flour, and she had guessed at Engaddi; both did not appear to sit well with her.

  ‘To the Essenes…well!’ she said, ‘Now I know why they have been at our door like bees hovering over a bush in flower! Engaddi is a desolate place, Jesus!’ She looked up at him. ‘Why must you go there? With all your learning you would be welcomed any time at the Temple as a rabbi. Must I lose two sons to the ascetics and have nothing to show for my life?’