He said, ‘Listen to me…men will rule over you only for a small time, for it is the task of the male to make a way in the world of matter, since it is the task of the mind to tear the world apart. But a future will come when what lives in the heart, what lives in you, will take precedence over the mind. What lives in you will unify the world, not tear it apart. Into your souls will be born a new spirit of good will, and it will not be male or female. Then the world will rejoice when a child is not born from the womb of a woman, but when the spirit is born in the heart, in the soul like a sun. Then shall healing come to the earth, for my spirit shall unite with my mother in heaven, and the earth itself will give birth to a new sun. This is the mystery of the blood, which I did unveil to the men when I raised Jairus’ daughter, but they could not yet understand it, for only women who bleed can know it – how the blood shall have a sacred task in future times, the sacred task of fashioning the heart into a sun.’
These things he taught them because they were seven, since every truth has seven meanings and that is why wisdom has built her temple on earth with seven pillars.
‘I tell you, that I will be with you always,’ he continued, ‘even unto the ends of the earth. For even though I shall not be among you in this body I will return in the beating of your hearts and in the pulsing of your blood…here shall you always find me. This is what I mean when I say that you abide in me and I in you, like a bride and groom abide together in the bridal chamber of the heart. Soon I will be beaten and killed and my blood will spill over the earth. Even so, take heart! When I was conceived in the Jordan I died to the spirit. Thus my death in the world will be a spirit birth! You will soon behold me as a man of sorrows but remember, I will soon be joyful and among you again. I shall rise again. Remember these things which I have spoken to you for I tell these things to no man, since women were the first to think, to imagine and to remember and they will be the first to see!’
After these teachings her son gathered to him his male disciples and left for a place beyond the Jordan where John had baptised his followers. In the meantime Lazarus finally succumbed to his fever and Martha fell into an inconsolable grief. She could not help in the preparations so it was left to herself and Magdalena to wash and dress the young man’s body in linen cloths for his burial.
Magdalena sent word to Jesus and together the women waited, knowing, awake, mournful and praying. For they understood that the time had come: ancient time, the devourer of its children had moved forward, despite all their efforts to restrain it.
53
SCORPION~EAGLE
They came into Bethany and Judas followed last of all, his mind full of strange thoughts. The sun began to drop its bruised body into the godforsaken hills as they neared the township and the men were weary, having travelled since yesterday.
It was now more than three days since word had reached them of Lazarus’ worsening sickness and all feared that he was dead. But Judas was not concerned for it, something else made his brow dark and his eyes aflame. That spirit which had plagued him these many months had begun to make a way into his head and he could feel it, rearranging the rooms of his mind. It wrapped around his heart to combine his disappointments, his hate and his lust into a poisoned leaven for his limbs.
For months now he had waited for Jesus to bring back the glory days of the Maccabees, but benevolence and kindness, patience and love were all that he had offered. In Judas’ mind all the deeds of salvation enacted so inconspicuously by Jesus whatever they might be, were worthless. Words of compassion and tolerance were not enough to change the world, only the sword could change it. Blood for soil!
It had taken him time to see it but finally Judas had realised that Jesus was not the Messiah. For revolution and war were not accomplished by a man deliberate in his desire to change nothing, but to leave all men free.
The other disciples spoke of Jesus as the Son of Man. They spoke of how he had fed thousands, how he had quietened storms and produced otherworldly transfigurations of his being. Judas had seen nothing and yet he had been with them always. How could they have seen what he had not? He supposed that they had seen dreams…only dreams…and even now none of them could see what he could see: that even in his body, once so youthful and strong, Jesus was less vigorous and obviously headed for decay, like a wasted old man.
But something more had stirred his hate and made his rebellious spirit rip at his soul, a fire-laden desire had grown in Judas for the woman whom Jesus had named Magdalena.
From the first he had disliked her brother, the Hellenistic youth, Lazarus, whose life was lived in luxury and privilege and whose soul was the opposite of his. However in Magdalena, Judas had sensed something akin to his own restlessness, a soul full of dammed up passions. But it was not only her soul that drew him, the woman’s unparalleled beauty had also stirred his loins, a beauty that betrayed her attempts to mortify it, or to conceal it. For no matter how many veils the woman wore or how coarse was the garment draped over her shoulders a fundamental note of allure was plucked from the instruments of his manhood each time he saw her and he would have the song played in full!