This was the sixth degree. Men had died in the attempt.
‘Roman!’ The voice rang like a bell, coming from all directions. ‘Ascend the ladder!’
He knew there were seven rungs. Each represented a stage achieved. In years past, he had climbed to five rungs, now he must climb them again, and add a further rung.
He climbed the first and second rungs. He had swum across a fast moving river for the first and had jumped blindfolded over a burning fire for the second. For the third, he had climbed a steep mountain and had become a member of the sacred militia of the Invisible God Mithras.
He put a foot now, tentatively, on the fourth, and it was not where it should be. His head spun and he felt the pull of the abyss below. He slowed down his breath for that was how he had achieved the fourth degree, by harnessing the air in his lungs. He pulled himself up to the fifth rung, by bringing rhythm into his blood and heart; this ability had once earned him the title of Roman.
He was aware now, that he had come to the sixth rung and the trial he must undergo to achieve the sixth degree. He must recognise the bull and kill it, with the ancient weapon he carried.
Hunger, pain, darkness, all seemed immense to him. That great yawning hole below beckoned him to fall into its waiting mouth. But death, he told himself, only frightened weak minds. Worse than death was to lose all rank and honour.
Suspended, he heard a beast. It would be an ugly creature full of instincts and passions and it would topple him from his ladder. The beast snorted in the darkness. Slow and careful, Cassius took the dagger from his mouth and grasped the hilt of the weapon, while holding tight to the ladder. He brought it to his chest and felt the cold tip sharp against his skin. He felt his heart, beating against the steel in rhythmic strokes. The muscles of his hand and arm strained against the bones, strained to hold the knife still, strained not to let it go. His jaw clenched and unclenched. He took an in-sweep of breath and let it out and took it in again and held it, listening for the animal that would soon come. When the earth began to tremble he only had a moment. Then, as he lifted the weapon, between the upward arc and the downward thrust, a doubt tore through him.
There is no bull! You are not holding a dagger. This is a test of your discernment; good from evil, truth from untruth…and this is an untruth!
The world shook beneath him and disclosed a crack in the matrix of the ritual and into it he fell, into the cavity, into the abyss of his body.
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.
‡
‘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.