Fifth Gospel(12)

On the appointed day Mariam and her son sat before him. Mariam felt anxious for what the anchorite would say. But the old man said nothing for a long time. Instead, he inspected Yeshua from below his wrinkled brow, making soft noises to himself. When it seemed that he would never speak, he smiled suddenly and began to laugh with merriment, as if relieved of some great burden.

Surprised, Mariam said nothing, but watched and waited for it to stop, knowing that old sages were known for having a peculiar wisdom. When he addressed her then, his face was as unwrinkled as a child’s might be and his eyes were as clear as a stream.

‘Long ago,’ he told her, ‘there was a teacher whose name was Melchizedek. Old Melchizedek had a favourite pupil to whom he taught all the mysteries of the Sun. This pupil, my dear, was destined to incarnate many times, and a long line of ancestors had to be prepared to make a body suitable for him. So Melchizedek tutored another pupil, Abraham, and he taught him all the secrets of the Moon, the secrets of the blood and the creation of the perfect body. His task was to prepare the forty-two generations of your ancestors for the birth of that favourite pupil, that first pupil. And it is due to Abraham’s faithfulness that you are here today with the fruit of your loins. My favourite pupil is come again, and I am rejoicing! For my task is near done, and I must now remind him of his past and bring to him all that he has left behind, in order that he might perform a special task.’

He reached out and passed both hands over Yeshua’s eyes and immediately her son fell asleep in her arms. The old man closed his own eyes and uttered many prayers over her boy. When it was over and her son was returned to his senses, the old man looked at her with kindness and familiarity.

‘Soon you will give birth to another child,’ he told her.

Instinctively she moved a hand over her flat belly. Not even Joseph knew that her bleeding was late.

‘Herod is dead; soon you will be too big with child to travel. You must go. Take your child and husband and journey by way of the Sinai desert in the direction of your homeland, but do not go to your Temple in Jerusalem for the hope of your priests will nurture your boy towards earthly and not heavenly ends. There is a safe place to which you can go, called Nazareth. The people who live there are not so different from us, they are called Essenes and you may live among them untroubled, until the time comes.’

She wanted to ask him when that time would be and what Yeshua was destined to do, but could not bring herself to say anything.

He told her, ‘A mother must love her son, but you must love the Son of God, even as you love your own son…for the love of a mother can make all things taste sweet.’

Now as she lay upon the rush mat, she wondered what he had meant and scolded herself for not asking the questions that continued to plague her. What was to be her son’s task? When would it come? And how must she love the Son of God as her own? Her vexation with herself made the child in her belly give a kick that took away her breath. The child reminded her that by the time they reached Nazareth she would be a mother twice over.

She did not know what she would find in Nazareth among the Essenes, the pure ones. She only knew what she remembered of her Temple days, that these ascetics were more strict than the Therapeutae of Egypt, more strict than the Nazarites, for they wore only white and sequestered themselves in their Mother Houses for fear of defilement. What would become of Yeshua’s task in such a place as Nazareth? Could the heir of David be made a king of Israel in such a place, among men whose faces were turned away from Jerusalem? Nothing good had ever come out of Nazareth – that was the saying and she worried that it was true.

She turned over to hug her husband, who seemed to be older by the day. In truth, the memory of her former life at the Temple in Jerusalem had become more and more distant to her eye and the details had lost their clarity and distinction. She remembered how she had been taken to the Temple as a child and how the miracle of the greening staff had proved the eligibility of an ageing Joseph as a choice of husband. She had not wanted to marry, but the priests had reminded her of the duty of every person of sovereign lineage to further their ancestral lineage. She had consented only as a service to her people and yet in time she had grown to love him, and if the love she felt was not a young love such as she had seen in others, it was weighty and costly and she was glad of it. She only hoped Joseph would live long enough to see his son’s task accomplished.

Outside, the night deepened. Tomorrow would be another long day’s march and she put away her thoughts and fears and resolved to sleep.

She closed her eyes and sleep did come, but it was not peaceful.