Fifth Gospel(10)

‘I am afraid!’ he said to them, but they did not heed him. They enveloped him in their delicate shadows and pulled him down into the dismal depths of his madness.

It took him long to die and when the people heard of his agonising death these words rang out across the land:

‘He is dead, he is dead! The Idumean who stole to the throne like a fox, who ruled like a tiger and who died like a dog!’





4


MARY




Forty generations after Abraham, and some months after the birth of that first child, a young woman called Mary accompanied her husband on a journey from Nazareth. It was the era of Caesar Augustus. Herod the Great had died and his cruel, sadistic son and successor Archelaus, had been deposed, leaving Syria a Governorship of the Roman Senator Quirenius.

Under his rule, a census was announced for the purpose of taxation and the people of Judea were required by law to travel to the seat of their ancestors to be counted. Mary’s husband, Joseph, was of the lineage of David and so he and Mary had to make the journey to Bethlehem, the town of his forebears, even at this difficult time.

For Mary of Nazareth was long with child.

Nine months earlier the seed had been sown in her belly on a fateful night when the Essene priests had called her and her betrothed, Joseph, to the veiled place. There they had been given a cordial that made their minds fall into nothingness. So it was with surprise and anxiety that Mary herself greeted the news of her conception, for she could remember nothing of her union   with Joseph. Only the warmth and protection of that radiant angel of God had calmed her worried heart. For the angel’s soft whispers had announced the birth of her child in these words:

Ave Maria! Blessed are you among women! To you will be born a child and you will name him Jesus, and he will be called the Son of God.

This was the same voice that had compelled her to travel to her older cousin’s house, to help her with the imminent birth of her own child.

Since her youth, the world had seemed a recent thing to Mary, and she had felt like nothing more than a dust mote drawn upwards by the breezes and the winds of heaven. A dust mote that rarely falls down-to-earth. But on her journey to see her cousin Elisabeth, she had found that an awakening was taking place in her soul. She had walked through the cold southlands, among the sadness of the mountains and the misery of the desolate trees, among the mocking face of the unforgiving brown coloured sky of Judea, until she had found herself, not only at the threshold of Elisabeth’s house, but also at the threshold of her own life.

It had been made clear to her then, that she was coming down to earth, and she had understood what she must give up.

That had been six months ago and now as she cast a glance at her husband, the young carpenter with the soft brown eyes and hair like charcoal from the fires, she knew her descent was near complete and she put her trust in Joseph. He saw to all her needs and pulled the animal gently on the road, so as not to cause her unnecessary discomfort, he toiled over the frozen hills and mountains with his feet blue and blistered and his hands callused and frigid, though he made no complaint as others did, of the Romans and the census.

For Joseph did not squander his words.

She remembered his face when he had seen, upon her return from Elisabeth’s house, how she was grown with child. No memory lived in his heart of the union   brought about by the ministering of the priests and yet, in his dream-full eyes, she had seen no recrimination; from his mouth no harsh words had come. When the township had gathered to call her to account and she feared the people would stone her, Joseph remained steadfast in his love for her, refusing to shun her, making it possible for the priests to keep to themselves their workings.

She looked out of her thoughts and realised they were nearing Bethlehem. Darkness was fast descending over the highland wilderness of Judea and only a red outline remained in the west where the road to Hebron made a thread through the valleys and hills that separated Bethlehem from Jerusalem. The last of the sun was touching the pinnacles of a mighty palace. She looked to the east, to where a star-like moon was rising behind purpling clouds; a strange moon, a moon unlike any moon she had ever seen. At that moment, the howling of a wolf was heard and it filled her with dread. She was glad they had arrived at the outskirts of the town.

It was cold, but the fields that continued upwards to the heights along which the city stretched, were rich with terraced vineyards and gardens well tended. Lights flickered in the houses, full with guests. The sound of merry talk and laughter reached them even here. All of it cheered her heart, which until now had been heavy with the bitter knowledge that she was homeless and may not have a warm place to bring forth her child.