Chapter Twenty
Christening
In those days they walked along the foothills of the mountains, and in towns where the people were so old they were neither Gentile nor Jew, and the gods worshiped were older than time. These people had survived until now in these small towns and on the borders of the modern cities.
Whatever it had been, in its current incarnation, Caesarea Philippi was a city of limestone and marble, both bleached or polished to shining whiteness, a place of red tiled mansions and houses among the high temples, to Jupiter and Juno, Minerva and Mercury, those standard Roman gods, but missed with the faces, the stories and the bodies of older gods still. And here people were drawn to him, and here there was healing to do, and here there was even a welcoming synagogue, for the further away from Jerusalem they were, the more Jews wished to hear what they had never heard and to hope in what they had ceased hoping. There was a part of him that wished to never go south again.
And at long last, they reached the splashing blue black pool where the loud water of a fall split by a tree growing in its midst became twin silver white,e winking walls, pouring into the great pool that was the very source of the Jordan.
“Here would be a cold baptism indeed,” John said,, and Jesus said, “Such a baptism may be just the one I need.”
“This is the shrine of Pan,” Jude said, smiling.
There was an open air sort of roofless temple above them, and cut into the rock from the white water poured were niches holding images of the gods of this place.Goat hooved, and goat bodied, his ugly face grinning as he held pipes, was Pan with his sharp horns, the Lord of of all wildness. And there was handsome, nude Mercury, his father whom the Greeks called Hermes, And there was Maia the mother Hermes, and an artful sculpture of Echo, Pan’s lover who had lost her form when the Goddess Here, to avenge herself for one thing or another, turned Echo only into a repcating voice, destined to live in dark and hollow places.
Beneath this temple, in the midst of the splashing water, Jesus of the greyed and yellowed robes sat down under the great shadow of Mount Hermon. He had woken up from dreams of himself in Jerusalem, dreams of being handed over for judgment, dreams even of death, and the more he thought of going north and remaining there, of going anywhere but to Jerusalem, the more he was afraid. The more he thought of Jerusalem and embraced the strange visiosn of death, the more he felt like himself, like the self before the self. The more he was free.
He had been trying to explain this to the men who surrounded him. Almost, he wished there were women here, that he had waited for Susanna or Joanna to come. There was something in men, something shut off, something that did not quite want to know what he was getting at.
Since the day he’d come into this territory north of Galilee, and seen those crosses, Jesus became grimmer. Years later they would recall and put into writing that Jesus began to show his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things at the hands of the elders, chief priests, and scribes, and that he must be killed and on the third day be raised to life. Frankly, Magdalene, upon reading this, admitted that even years later she was not entirely sure he was that prophetic or that inhuman. No one who truly believed he was on his way to die leapt toward it, and in those last months anyone who watched could tell you he was going to die and that he was, in fact, leaping.
But he certainly did speak of the possibility of the Cross and the necessity of the sacrifice. Maybe he dared scarcely looked at it all, but the things he said to Peter took that fisherman all the way down, and in the middle of the night, when all were asleep, Jesus and Peter sat together in the great room, the red light shining in their faces..
“Far be it from you, Lord!” Peter said. “This talk of dying, being handed over to the powers …This shall never happen to you!”
Jesus turned his head from Peter. He had been smiling, and now something passed across him so he said, “Ah, that’s it. This is what you say when you come to me again. Yes… This is what temptation looks like.”
“When I come to see you again…”
But Jesus turned, and his look seemed to pass Peter, go over the fisherman’s shoulder to stare into the darkness, and his expression was terrible as he intoned in Aramaic, “Tethaḥar meni Satana!”
Get behind Me, Satan!
Now Jesus was looking as much at Peter as beyond him.
“You are a stumbling stone to me. For you do not have in mind the things of God, but the things of men.”
John, who slept with Seth in his arms, heard the exchange and felt sorry for Peter. Seth had told him what Jesus had said, about dying and dying soon.
“He had said, so shall the son of man be in the heart of the earth, three days and three nights,” Seth remembered.
“No,” John thought, none of them had in mind the things of God, But at least John knew he didn’t.
And so they traveled up into the hills of gently sloping Mount Hermon.
Then Jesus told His disciples, “If anyone wants to come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. What will it profit a man if he gains the whole world, yet forfeits his soul? Or what can a man give in exchange for his soul? For the Son of Man will come in his Father’s glory with his angels, and then he will repay each one according to what he has done.”
They had been in a bowl of green slopes, but now they were rising above them, and above even the summit of Hermon, the long, thin, ragged clouds raced by, seemingly indifferent to these mystical words.
“I shall give you what no eye has seen and what no ear has heard and what no hand has touched and what has never occurred to the human mind.”
Jesus thought, and the thing is to find the wind in those words and those words in the wind. But one of the disciples said to Jesus, “Tell us how our end will be.”
“Have you discovered, then, the beginning,” he asked, laughing, “that you look for the end?”
For where the beginning is, there will the end be. Blessed is he who will take his place in the beginning. He will know the end and will not experience death. Blessed is he who came into being before he came into being. If you become my disciples and listen to my words, these stones will minister to you. For there are five trees for you in Paradise which remain undisturbed summer and winter and whose leaves do not fall. Whoever becomes acquainted with them will not experience death.
“Truly I tell you, some who are standing here will not taste death before they see the Son of Man coming in His kingdom.”
After they had eaten that night, Jesus said, “I know what you are thinking, “You are longing for cities and good food and not cold weather and my droning on about things you do not want to hear. But the time of the celebration is ended and a new time is upon us.
“You are my friends, but you are my disciples. I am the road of life. Heed what I am teaching.”
Jesus stood up, “Make a ring.”
“What?”
“Make a ring. Stand up. Stand up. There you go! Make a ring, and now hold hands.”
The men of Israel and Syria knew how to dance, knew the ring dance, were often times quite spirited in it, kicking up legs and making somersaults. Men and women rarely danced together unless it was in a great ring and Jesus said, “Jude my cousins, get out your harp and pick up my tune.”
And then Jesus lifted his voice to sing:
“Answer Amen unto me.
Glory be to thee, Father.”
And they, going about in a ring, answered him:
“Amen.
Glory be to thee, Word:
Glory be to thee, Grace.
Amen.
Glory be to thee, Spirit:
Glory be to thee, Holy One:
Glory be to thy glory.
Amen.
We praise thee, O Father;
we give thanks to thee, O Light,
wherein darkness dwelleth not.
Amen.
And as Jesus sang his prayer, Jude found the rhythm of it on his lyre.
I would be saved, and I would save.
Amen.
I would be loosed, and I would loose.
Amen.
I would be wounded, and I would wound.
Amen.
I would be born, and I would bear.
Amen.
I would eat, and I would be eaten.
Amen.
I would hear, and I would be heard.
Amen.
I would be thought, being wholly thought.
Amen.
I would be washed, and I would wash.
Amen.
Grace danceth. I would pipe; dance ye all.
Amen.
I would mourn: lament ye all.
Amen.
And he sang again and again the strange song, until the disciples placed the words in their heart and sang them too. And they turned and turned back and clapped and caught hands and moved in and moved out and danced, long, long, into the night.
Around this time, the details blur and few of the mcn remember exactly what happened next. That parts were left out of the story, as Nathanael would say in old age, was only to be expected.
“The Greeks say that time is fluid, moving in and out, disappearing. The Greeks say some things exists sometimes but not all the time and in some places, but not in all, and that at the holiest places on earth, time moves freely or not freely at all.”
And in those days, approaching the height of Mount Hermon over the ancient city that, before it had been named for Caesar or any Philip, had belonged to Pan, had belonged to Baal of the Storms and was often under his dark cloud, they rose up onto his holy mount, his holy collection of hills where the world was sloped, and they ascended into a blackened sky where mists fell down upon them, and the air was thin and thoughts chased one another away, leaving the mind blank.
And it was here that Jesus sent most of them away, leaving them among the hills and villages to do the work of preaching, and, later they were to suspect, of learning, and it was here that Jesus took others up higher and higher till they were ready to pass out, and all the time they chanted psalms. Since most say it was John and James and Peter, let us say that’s exactly who it was, and that this was one of the first times Judas was left out, and let us say that while Judas saw them all go up into the dark, white spaces of Mount Hermon, this was the first time his thoughts began to eat at him. Shouldn’t he have been uncluded? And what was Jesus about, especially in these days, what the hell was he about?
It is said that when they returned from the mountain, the disciples who had gone up with Jesus looked as if they had seen a lion, and Jude was reminded of the story of the elders who went up to see the face of God with Moses, indeed, Jesus’s face seemed to burn like the face of Moses had. But when he came down, there was no time to ask about this, for they were in a great struggle, beyond themselves. holding back a boy possessed of a demon and frothing at the mouth.
A man approached Jesus and knelt before him. “Lord, have mercy on my son,” he said.
“He has seizures and is suffering greatly. He often falls into the fire or into the water. I brought him to your disciples, but they could not heal him.”
“You unbelieving and perverse generation,” Jesus had said, and they were not sure if he was speaking to them, or to the man or even to the air, for he was strange like that at times, as repellent as he was irresistible, “how long shall I stay with you? How long shall I put up with you? Bring the boy here to me.”
Then Jesus, with a cry and a gesture, drove out the demon, and the boy, screaming long and loud, almost orgasmically, fell into his father’s arms, expelling a great gust of wicked wind, and was healed at that moment.
Then the disciples came to Jesus in private and asked, “Why couldn’t we drive it out?”
Jesus replied, “Because you have so little faith. Truly I tell you, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you.”
But some remembered him saying, “It is because these demons come out only through prayer and fasting.”
Both were helpful to know. Neither was helpful. Matthew had known much faith. So had Alphaeus. So, the others thought, had they, and they were by now used to being obeyed by demons, to commanding folks to be made well. That there was more than calling on the Father or on the name of Jesus was news. They were ready to be away from this strange place, return to Galilee and escape this magic mountain.
And so they did, but they did so without Jesus. And then there are some that say they did not do so without Jesus, that they waited on him while he traveled north. All know that he traveled north, but later it could not be remembered with whom. Certainly Peter and James and John were there. And though only John and Judas would remember it, and only John would bear the memory for years and years after this, the boy brought from the dead, shy young Seth, the Son of the Widow of Nain came as well.
They traveled north, toward the coast, bridging the hills and returning to the cities of Tyre and Sidon, to walk and talk through the arcades of the ancient cities under the shadow of the mountains, to enter the high pillared temples and pass through their labyrinthine ways. Only a few knew or remembered or wished to remember those days. Among some he attracted crowds and spoke words as he had never spoken before and John looked about and said, “The word which was smothered in Jerusalem, and just took seed in Galilee is ready here. Here people wish to learn.”
But here they did not hear the stories of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. They did not hear, but in the synagogues, of Moses who delivered their ancestors out of Egypt. And here these synagogues were strange and full of Greek allegory, painted with ancient myths. Here they learned of Bacchus, called Dionysus, and of Orpheus, the God who descended to the underworld for love of his wife, but lost her because he lost trust.
Dionysus was worshiped under many names, and sometimes he was Eshmun and sometimes he was not, and he was worshiped as the pillar and as the vine, worshiped in rituals of bread and wine, and Jesus watched with burning eyes and fiery face. While he watched, John’s heart ached with understanding. Jesus was far from him because Jesus was always far from him, but now it seemed the gap could not quite be bridged, was so cavernous it nearly left John weeping.
Dionysus was the son of earth and heaven, of the woman Semele who had loved Zeus the father of all, the lord of the lightning bolt and thunder. In the theater they saw the story of the young god, angry that his mortal family, the royal house of Cadmus, denied him a place of honor as a deity. His mortal mother, Semele, was a mistress of Zeus; and while pregnant, was tricked by a jealous Hera to request Zeus to come to her in his true form. Being only a mortal, she was struck down by Zeus' thunderbolts while in his presence and was killed. Zeus then saved Dionysus, who was in Semele's womb, by sewing him into a cavity in his thigh. When Semele died, her sisters said it was Zeus' will and accused her of lying; they also accused their father, Cadmus, of claiming Semele was pregnant by Zeus to cover up an affair with a mortal man. Most of Semele's family refused to believe Dionysus was the son of Zeus, and the young god was spurned by his household.
He traveled throughout Asia and other foreign lands, gathering a cult of female worshipers, the Maenads. At the start of the play, Dionysus returns to Thebes, disguised as a stranger, to take revenge on the house of Cadmus. He has also driven the women of Thebes, including his aunts, into an ecstatic frenzy, sending them dancing and hunting on Mount Cithaeron, much to the horror of the young Pentheus, king of Thebes who also is Dionysus' cousin. Complicating matters, Pentheus has declared a ban on the worship of Dionysus throughout Thebes.
Pentheus sends the guards to find his divine kinsman and they soon return with Dionysus himself in tow. Pentheus questions him, both skeptical of and fascinated by the Dionysian rites. Dionysus's answers are cryptic. Infuriated, Pentheus has Dionysus taken away and chained to an angry bull in the palace stable, but the god shows his power. He breaks free and razes the palace with an earthquake and fire. Dionysus and Pentheus are once again at odds when a herdsman arrives from the top of Mount Cithaeron, where he had been herding his grazing cattle. He reports that he found women on the mountain behaving strangely: wandering the forest, suckling animals, twining snakes in their hair, and performing miraculous feats. The herdsmen and the shepherds made a plan to capture one particular celebrant, Pentheus' mother. But when they jumped out of hiding to grab her, the Bacchae became frenzied and pursued the men. The men escaped, but their cattle were not so fortunate, as the women fell upon the animals, ripping them to shreds with their bare hands. The women carried on, plundering two villages that were further down the mountain, stealing bronze, iron and even babies. When villagers attempted to fight back, the women drove them off using only their ceremonial staffs of fennel. They then returned to the mountain top and washed up, as snakes licked them clean.
Dionysus, still in disguise, persuaded Pentheus to forgo his plan to defeat and massacre the women with an armed force. He said it would be better first to spy on them while disguised as a female Maenad to avoid detection. Dressing Pentheus in this fashion, giving him a thyrsus and fawn skins, Dionysus led him out of the house. At this point, Pentheus had also begun to see through Dionysus’s mortal disguise, perceiving horns coming out of the god's head.
A messenger arrived to report that once the party reached Mount Cithaeron, Pentheus wanted to climb an evergreen tree to get a better view and the stranger used divine power to bend down the tall tree and place the king in its highest branches. Then Dionysus, revealing himself, called out to his followers and pointed out the man in the tree. This drove the Maenads wild. Led by Agave, his mother, they forced the trapped Pentheus down from the tree top, ripped off his limbs and his head, and tore his body into pieces.
After the messenger relayed this news, Agave arrived, carrying her son's bloodied head. In her god-maddened state, she believed it is the head of a mountain lion. She proudly displayed it to her father, Cadmus, confused by his horror. Agave then called for Pentheus to come marvel at her feat, and nailed the head above her door. But in the end, her madness gave way to grief and Dionysus punished Cadmus and his wife, turning them into serpents.
When the play was done, Jesus sat shaking in the theatre while others around him rose to leave.
Later that night, while they ate, he said, “The punishment will fall upon me.”
“What’s that?” John said.
“Not on the old king or the old queen, not on the poor young king, either… They know not what they do. There must be blood, blood for the renewing. Their must be… something must be offered… Well, then let it be me.”
“Lord,” Judas interrupted, “We have experienced the joy of Eshmun—”
“But even that joy is not free. What lives must die to live again.”
“This talk of blood,” Judas shook his head, “and of punishment. And…”
But Jesus said, “I am the Christ, I am the Son of David, I am the Son of the Living God. I am the Bright and Everlasting Sun.”
And then he said, entranced by the light on the wine as Seth poured it, “Blood, blood, dripping everywhere, blood of the vine, intoxicating wine. I am Dionysus. Dionysus is me.”
