Fifth Gospel(30)

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.