Twenty-One

The next day, they crossed the "sea" for some reason, this time all of them in Simon Rock's boat, which his father lent him for the day; it was large enough so that all twelve of them fit comfortably on benches on the sides (the center was for practical purposes empty for the casks that held the fish they had caught in water until they reached the shore). Jesus sat on the bench in the stern, which had a cushion on it, making it a kind of couch, and then, saying he would take a bit of a rest, lay down and fell asleep, his head near Nathanael, who was on the side toward the stern. Andrew, who was opposite Nathanael, looked with amusement at him gripping the gunwale with white knuckles. Andrew, of course, had plenty of experience in being out on the lake even in a storm--sudden storms were common there--and he had forgotten how frightening it had been the first couple of times.

And it looked as if a storm was about to hit them now. Suddenly, the rain came and the lightning, and the wind blew a ferocious gale, and the boat rocked fiercely. It clearly terrified Nathanael, who now held on to the gunwale at the side and the stern, looking at Jesus, hoping that he would wake and do something to save them. But he slept on.

Finally, water began slopping over the sides, and Andrew and Simon the Revolutionary began bailing. The storm seemed to be getting worse and worse, and Jesus slept on.

Nathanael finally could bear it no longer, and in panic, he cried out to Jesus, "Master, does it not bother you that we are going to drown?"

Jesus woke, looked out at the storm, and said, "Be quiet! Calm yourself!"

And suddenly, the wind dropped and all was still.

He looked at Nathanael, and with a mock-stern voice, but a smile on his face, said, "Why did you doubt, you people who have so little faith?"

"What sort of a man is this?" said James to John, who was beside him at the oars, as they looked up at the blue sky. "Even the wind and the sea obey him!"

But adventures were not over for that day. On the shore they were confronted with another madman, this one naked, full of cuts and scrapes, with fetters and chains that he had broken. He ran up screaming in that demonic voice, "What do you want with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? I beg you, do not torture me!"

"What is your name?" said Jesus.

"Legion. There are many of us. Please, please do not send us away into the abyss!"

Nathanael cowered to the back of the group--understandably enough, based on what had happened with the other demoniac. Jesus just stood there calmly as the demons pleaded and begged for mercy. He was looking around.

His eyes lighted on a herd of hogs grazing next to a nearby cliff overlooking the lake. The man saw where he was looking, and the demon inside him pleaded, "Please! Send us into the pigs! Let us enter them!"

"You may go," said Jesus and with a roar, they left and the hogs suddenly went wild. The whole herd rushed around for a moment, and then threw itself over the cliff into the water and drowned.

Everyone looked on in shock, not least the man out of whom they had gone. Multiple demons could be in a person! The swineherds, who of course were Gentiles, looked over the cliff at the destruction, and ran off. Jesus, meanwhile, asked if someone had an extra cloak and tunic, and covered the naked man, with whom he began a one-sided conversation. It was clear that the man, though no longer insane, was so terrified at what had happened that he could not speak more than a word or two. Jesus was trying to reassure him. Then, when the townsfolk came up, they cried, "Leave us! Leave us! Have mercy!" looking on the madman with fear.

"Master, will you leave?" he said. "May I go with you?"

"No, my friend. Go back to your home, and explain to everyone what God has done for you." And Jesus and his companions got back into the boat, crossing over to Capernaum. Jesus looked at Nathanael smiled an amused smile.

Andrew, who had himself been almost unmanned by the encounter, especially the sight of the huge herd of pigs which had gone completely berserk, was inclined to sympathize more fully with Nathanael. It was one thing to be afraid of the storm, but quite another to be afraid of these powers of hell. Jesus had no fear of them, but anyone but Jesus was but a cockroach in comparison to them; and it would be nothing for them simply to step on him--or enter him.

Did one have to give them permission? Or could they just take over oneself?

That evening, as the group was on the road near Magdala by the "Sea" of Galilee, Jesus suddenly shouted "Stop!" at a woman who had just emerged from the shadows, and looked as if she might fall off the cliff.

There was a brief pause, where everything was frozen, and then the woman said, in a rasping man's voice, "What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth? She is ours!" Another one! This time a woman!

Then the woman slowly approached Jesus, as if she were being dragged toward him. She was exceedingly beautiful, and, incredibly, the very picture of innocence. Andrew gasped and involuntarily stirred at the sight of her. But the voice! That put a stop to all attraction.

Everyone moved aside in fear. This gave promise, if possible, to be even worse than Legion!

" µ !" she said in that same male voice, and Jesus snapped, "Be silent! You will answer only when spoken to, no more; you will speak the truth for once, and only in Aramaic." Andrew wondered what she had said. It sounded like Greek.

"Yes, Master. Good master," answered the voice. The woman began groveling in the dust like a dog awaiting punishment.

"Refrain from calling me good." barked Jesus. "What do you know of good? How many are you?"

"We are seven, Master, only seven."

"Does she know you?"

"Oh, yes, merciful Master. She invited--"

"You lie."

She cringed and groveled again in the dirt of the roadway, "It was not truly a lie, merciful Master. She did not refuse us--"

"I will engage in no disputations with you. Is she listening now? Can she hear us?"

"Yes, Master."

"She is to know how you entered her. Explain it."

"As I said, Master, she did not refuse us. It was our right, and we were not forbidden, as happens so often with us. She--"

"Stop! In your description of how you entered her, you are to speak in such a way that she alone will understand what you did to her. These others need not know--and are not to know--what she did."

"But it was her cursing God that opened the door. We could not have entered without it, Master. You know that."

"Let that suffice. What she had done and what had happened to induce her to curse God is not to be mentioned. Continue."

Andrew realized from this that they had to have some kind of permission before they were allowed to enter a person. But it did not really solve his problem, because apparently that permission was not all that difficult to obtain. She cursed God, and that was enough. God forbid that I should ever curse God! thought Andrew.

"--you tell her?" Jesus was saying.

"Only that she was evil, something that she knew very well, most merciful Master, and whether she wanted to learn what evil really was, so that she could understand what had happened to her."

Andrew quaked. They really entered by giving the person a plausible reason that they could solve a difficulty he had. Andrew was looking for a solution to whatever was wrong with his resentment of Simon, when all he consciously let himself believe he wanted was justice and fairness. He could imagine some demon telling him, "I can explain just why the way you are treated is unfair. Let me help you."

But the problem was that Andrew realized that his attitude that it was unfair was the problem; he was not seeing things as they really were, for some reason. He did not need explaining why he was right; he needed someone to explain why he was wrong, and what to do about it.

But it would be so easy to let someone or something in to tell him what he wanted to hear! His legs shook, and he was glad that he was wearing a tunic and a cloak, so that no one could see.

At that moment, the demon in the woman said, "I cannot lie, Master. I admit that."

"You cannot lie!" scoffed Jesus. "You! You cannot lie to me, certainly, because I know the truth beforehand. I say this, however, so that she will understand that you have been lying to her from the beginning, and so that she will no longer trust anything she thought she knew up to now."

Andrew thought, God save me from listening to such lies, even though I know not what the truth really is!

--Come to think of it, was not this Magdala that they were nearing? Was this not the home of a famous prostitute, who was corrupting all of the elite of Galilee and Judea? What was her name? Mary. Mary of Magdala. Was it really she? But who else could it be? She had obviously been trying to see if she could seduce Jesus. The demons in her must have received a shock!

Jesus now broke in on the protestations of the devil-spokesman, "Be silent. I would speak to her now. Allow her to speak."

The woman looked up from the dust of the roadway, with her hand clutching convulsively at a root that grew across a rut. She saw Jesus's face and shrieked in terror. She looked as if she had just peered into the pit of hell.

He reached down and touched her back, and she seemed to change. Her eyes went down to the ground before her face once again; and she fought to keep her gaze fixed there, but in spite of herself, she found herself being raised to her feet by his hand, and standing up. Then she looked at herself, seeming to realize how she must appear, with her eyes modestly cast down in front of everyone like a repentant sinner, and suddenly tilted her head back and stared defiantly straight into the eyes of Jesus. A feat of courage that Andrew could not have matched.

"Do you understand your situation?" he asked calmly, and she reacted at first as though he had stung her; but then immediately regained he insolent expression. She was still strikingly beautiful, in spite of the dust and the state of her clothes. In spite of himself, Andrew desired her, and as soon as he realized what was happening, he fought it with all his strength. No wonder she had so many clients!

Jesus looked at her, not paying attention to her obvious attitude, but simply waiting for an answer, which took a long time before she nodded.

"Do you wish to be freed from them?" came the question.

Again she paused, and a shudder ran through her body. She looked as if in spite she was going to give a flippant answer; but she was looking into his face, and evidently realized that this would not be acceptable.

"I wish to die," she answered, and added in a voice of scorn, "Master." As he opened his mouth to speak, she drew in her breath in terror.

But he merely said, "That is not for me to grant you now. Do you wish to be free of the demons within you?"

Again a very long pause, and then her face changed from considering the question, and she glanced at Jesus with fear and scorn.

"They are lying to you once again," he said. "If I free you, I will send you from me; and you may stay away if you wish. In fact, I will not permit you to return before sunset tomorrow, so that you will have time to consider your life and what you truly want for yourself."

"You will not be doing me a favor."

"Possibly not."

"Then why do you torment me? You have the power. Why do you not simply do it?"

"Because it is your life, not mine."

"And therefore, I must decide! Then accept my hate and do it! I care nothing for what may happen! Do it!"

"You have heard?" said Jesus, but not to the people around him, but to those inside her. "You are to leave her and remain apart from her until tomorrow after sunset, and then you may return only if she permits you. Go!"

She emitted a gurgling sound, akin to what is called the "death rattle," after which she took in a gasping breath and screamed so that the hills rang, as she fell once more to the ground and writhed and writhed like a snake whose head had been cut off, shrieking and wailing with different voices, all in the ultimate throes of agony. Andrew was rooted to the spot, as were the others.

After an eternity of this, everything stopped. She lay exhausted on the road.

Evidently, the thought came to her that everyone was looking at her humiliation, because she glanced round and suddenly sprang to her feet, staring defiantly once again at Jesus. She tossed her head, and said, "You think you have done a good deed! You think you have saved me! You have destroyed me!"

"Perhaps so," he answered. "That will depend on you. You have a night and a day of peace to consider it."

"Consider what? Who am I? What have you left of me?"

"Whatever there was of you that they left behind. You will find that there is much. You will recognize yourself."

"I doubt it."

"If you refuse to do so, that is your choice, of course."

"So I am to consider my evil ways, and then return and beg your forgiveness, (she spat out the word) now that you have left me this torn piece of rag that I must now call myself."

"Understand this: If you wish to be forgiven, you will receive forgiveness--Do not speak; I am aware that you do not believe it possible. If you wish tomorrow evening to be forgiven, return to me."

"And then I am to learn the conditions you impose."

"The only condition is that you wish it. You must know one more thing. It will not be possible for you to kill yourself before tomorrow night."

"So you would remove from me the one blessing in this curse you have cursed me with!"

"For a time, yes. You are rash, Mary. If I did not, you would kill yourself without taking thought. And you will find that it is not now necessary."

Mary. So she was the notorious Mary of Magdala!

Then you are master, and I am slave."

"Yes."

"Suppose I refuse to take thought. Suppose I simply wait until tomorrow night."

"I will not force you to do otherwise."

"Do you actually believe that you can control my thoughts? Not even they could!"

"It is of no consequence."

"No consequence! That you think you can control thoughts! That you can forgive sins! You claim that I was deceived by spirits within me, and you practiced magic on me to drive them out! My deception is nothing in comparison!"

"Drive her away, Master!" shouted Simon the Revolutionary. "She herself is ten times the demons you cast out of her!"

"I need no driving, kind sir," she said in a voice of withering scorn. "If the Master will dismiss me, I will leave of my own accord. May I depart, Master?"

"You may go."

"Thank you, gracious Master. Gracious, kind, generous Master! I leave you in the pleasant company of the rest of your slaves!"

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