Fifteen

But the inspiration was still upon me, and so I decided to fertilize and water a bit what I had done. They would soon confront what I was driving at, or I was much mistaken.

"The first time I noticed anything of the sort," I went on in the silence, "was when he named Simon the Rock, do you remember? Simon called him the Prince, which he certainly must be if there is to be one, and which we all knew; but Simon also said, if you recall his exact words, 'The Prince, the Son of the Living God.' Do you remember how surprised he looked?"

"I remember. I took it that he was surprised that it was Simon who said it."

"Most of us did. I think he was surprised at what he said, because I think that at that moment, it occurred to him for the first time to believe that it was true; that he was in fact the Son of God.

"That is, since God is inside him, inspiring him all the time, and giving him the power to cure and even to bring the dead back to life--I personally think, if they have not been dead long--he seems to have begun thinking of this sonship a good deal more literally than we imagine. Notice how he has been acting lately. He now calls himself the Son of Man, as if he were something else that took this upon himself, so to speak; and notice how secretive he has become with some of the more spectacular cures. It is as if he does not--yet--want people to know something."

"But what?"

"But what? Exactly. That he is a prophet, and God is with him? No, everyone knows that. No. What he does not want people to know just yet is that he is God Himself!"

Matthew fell silent, and Mary held her breath in shock for a long time.

I waited a few seconds for it to sink in, and then went on, "I see that you are dismayed, because it sounds like blasphemy. But what I think it is is that he has become insane. It is perfectly understandable, but insane. And, of course, it is blasphemy. He thinks that it is true; but he is astute enough to realize that everyone else is going to think that it is blasphemy. No one is going to believe that the God of Abraham is another one in the Greek pantheon who comes down as a bull and rapes a beautiful maiden, having a son by her who is half-divine, half-human. It is unthinkable. God is not that sort of thing. Those gods do not exist and cannot exist. Our God is the only God there is, and he is a spirit, not a male in heat."

"Of course. But then, what are you driving at?"

"Simply that, since he believes that he is God--God the Son, if you will, since he does not believe he is some kind of hero like Hercules; he knows too much about God for that--he is looking for the right moment to inform people of it, and some day, he will find it, and the people . . . will kill him. He foresees it himself."

"But this is terrible! Dreadful!" said Matthew.

"It is tragic! He is without question the greatest man, and the holiest man, who ever lived. No one has ever been in closer contact with God; but the very source of his greatness is destroying him, by little and little, every day. I know not what to do about it; as I said, I have not uttered a syllable of my fears until today. If I were to so much as suggest it to anyone but you, I would probably be killed myself!"

"I cannot believe it."

"I fear that you will not have to, and quite soon. Now that I have pointed it out to you, you will see it happen yourself. It is like one of those Greek dramas. His statements about himself are becoming wilder and wilder, as he thinks we are more and more prepared by his wonderful deeds to accept them; and eventually, he will say something no one can accept--something so outrageous that no sane person can even listen to it--and he will be denounced to the Council. I know; I am a priest myself, remember, and I know that they are already looking for something that will remove him from bothering them. His lack of meticulousness about the Sabbath does not endear himself to them, especially when he makes them look foolish for objecting to it."

"So you think that he will finally say something openly blasphemous."

"I do, because he will not think it blasphemy, because he will sincerely believe it to be true. And once he says it, they will bring him to trial, and he will be too honest to deny the charge, precisely because he believes it to be true--and believes it sincerely, since he is mad. And he will die."

"You mean he will literally be crucified?"

"I fear so. Unless--unless the Power that courses through him gives him some spectacular means of escape at the crucial moment. But in a way, that might be worse, because then he will have won the conflict with the authorities, and we will be ruled from then on by a man who is convinced that he is God. But as I say, the Power, I think, enables him to save others; but I do not think it will be effective if he turns it upon himself. You see, what I consider inevitable is that the Council will find some way to twist what he says into sedition against Rome--and this will be simple if he lets Simon the Revolutionary have his way to the least extent--and once Rome comes on the stage, then it will be out of our hands, and all the force of the whole far-flung empire will be against him. He sees this too; because after all, he is saying that he will be crucified, and we do not crucify people. Yes, you will see him hanging on a cross."

"No!"

"He has said so in so many words."

"But he keeps adding that he will come back to life on the third day afterward, like Jonah."

"Ah, well, of course, he would come back if he were really God, to prove that this is what he is. But . . ."

"No! No! No! It cannot be! You are mistaken!"

"I am sorry Matthew. You have no idea how sorry. Perhaps I should not have told you."

Matthew stared at me openmouthed for what seemed forever. Finally, he said, in a calmer voice, "No, you are wrong, Judas. You must be. The Master would never allow him to perform miracles, if--"

"You must remember that the Master is more of a Power than a person--"

"Now that I cannot believe! That is blasphemy!"

"Have it your way," I said. "But you have quite a few of the Judean priesthood against you. I admit that there are many who would agree with you. The trouble is that facts are facts, and whether you believe that I am right or wrong makes very little difference to what the facts are."

"But that also goes for you, Judas. You are extremely intelligent, and you seem to have reason on your side, but what will happen will happen. Your thinking that you are right will not make you right, if you are wrong."

"If I am. Believe me, Matthew, I would be overjoyed to be proved wrong. I love the Master, and it crushes me that his own mind is betraying him into destroying himself--and so needlessly! But we have not long to wait, I think. If I am correct, very soon he will be making some claim about himself that only a madman can accept. And he will ask us to accept it with no compromise. I am no prophet, but I see everything converging on this."

And we parted. I was overjoyed in one sense that what I had said had received a hearing--and a hearing by Mary as well as Matthew--but saddened that it crystallized what I had been thinking, and made me see it as inevitable. Well, I would be able to extricate myself from Jesus's entourage in time, I was convinced, and perhaps so would Matthew, whom I was quite fond of, and Mary, whom I longed to pair myself up with when all of this settled down. Her poison was still in me, it seemed.

But I did not dare really approach her, more than to let her know that I was interested, should she wish to approach me. It was quite conceivable--likely, in my opinion--that she and Jesus had already formed a liaison, and my taking her away from him would result in something not to be thought of: something that would make crucifixion child's play by comparison.

We were all wandering aimlessly in the woods, pondering what I had said and its implications. I was apparently deep in thought there in the dark, but on a path ahead of me was Mary. It was a narrow path, and as I passed by, I brushed against her back, lightly enough so that she might think I did not notice. Of course, it was also possible that she might think I intended the gesture and was saying that I was willing to have her again, in which case, she would follow me and make some remark about my touching her. This was my signal, should she choose to interpret it thus, that I would accept her if she came to me. Doubtless this had happened hundreds of times with other men.

She did turn, but stopped, and after looking at me for a few moments, resumed her walk. It seemed that she chose to reject the signal, or interpreted it, not as a signal, but as a slightly clumsy gesture of one who was not attending to what he was doing. Conceivably, the fact that she was Jesus's mistress was making her, for her sake--and even for mine, for mine, because I knew she cared for me--avoid any contact with me.

But then in a little clearing ahead of me I saw John. I hesitated, since angering him might be dangerous--I had had an unpleasant experience with young David recently, who took me by surprise when I made an overture to him and punched me hard in the solar plexus, knocking the wind out of me. He will have to pay for that in the near future.

But I did not wish to repeat this with John, who was fully as strong as he if not stronger, but the more I hesitated and thought what we might do together the bolder I became, and so I steeled myself against a sudden blow, and barely touched his lower back as I walked by, going on as if I noticed nothing, and not even daring to look back. When I got far enough away, I paused in my walk and took an oblique look at the trees near John, and saw him irresolute, but with his hand balled into a fist. I had been wise to be prepared.

But I was not fooled. He was attracted to me. How could he not be, handsome as I was? It was just a question of how I could exploit it, and the force in me was already providing me with several options.

But things in our little group were now beginning to happen thick and fast--things that I had predicted just now with Mary and Matthew, in fact. Jesus's revelation of himself as God would, of course, be accompanied by more and more spectacular miracles, the first of which occurred the next day.

We had gone into a lonely spot, after crossing the "sea" of Galilee in a boat, because Jesus had been so--one might say "pestered"--by the crowds that he decided that we should have a little time by ourselves; we would return on the morrow. But it turned out that a positively enormous throng of people had divined where we were going, and had walked around the lake from Capernaum and all the surrounding area and caught sight of us; and Jesus, unwilling to simply send them away, had gone up a hill (it was not very far from the mountain where he had delivered his initial sermon), and he spoke to them at great length, sitting there, with the people ranged below him down toward the lake.

Finally, he said to us Twelve, who were gathered round him, "It is late, and the place is deserted." He turned to Philip, who happened to be beside him. "Where will we buy enough bread to feed all these people?" He had a twinkle in his eye as he said this.

"Half a year's salary," Philip answered, "would not buy enough bread so that everyone could have even a little!" He gazed out at the crowd in dismay. Jesus wore a little smile. He looked around as if for suggestions. There was something afoot.

Andrew said, "There is a boy here with five barley loaves and a couple of fish. But" he added as he cast a glance out at the crowd, "what good would that do with all of them?" He waved his arm indicating the multitude.

"Have the people lie down to eat," said Jesus. The place was quite grassy, and so they milled about and reclined on it, spreading themselves on the field halfway down the hill.

Jesus then took the loaves of bread from the boy, raised his eyes to the sky and thanked his Father for supplying them with food. And then he tore the loaves apart and handed the pieces to us Emissaries to distribute; and did the same with the two cooked fishes. And each of the Emissaries managed to get a piece either of bread or fish or both.

I thought at first that this was a bit silly, and tore my little loaf in half, intending to discharge my duty immediately--and finding, to my amazement, that after I had given away both pieces, I still had half a loaf in my hand. I gave it away, and when I blinked, it was still there. I tore it in two and gave away one of the pieces, and still had the two halves.

I could not fathom when the bread duplicated itself; it was just there during one of the hundreds of little distractions one encounters--as I looked up for someone to give the piece to, for instance, or when I so much as blinked. It all seemed quite natural, but it was in fact perfectly incomprehensible.

Suddenly, Mary appeared, glancing at me, but not approaching me, and met Simon the Revolutionary, who came up and said, "Have you received any as yet?" and when she answered No, he took a piece of barley bread he had, broke some off, and handed it to her.

"Is that enough?" he asked. "Take another." And he tore off another rather larger chunk of bread from the piece he had and gave it to her. "Have some fish also," he said, and took a piece of cooked fish he was carrying with the bread, broke it in two, and gave her half. "Is it not amazing?" he said, half to her and half to some people seated nearby.

"Is what amazing?" asked Mary.

"Look!" he said. "I gave you two large pieces of bread, and half of my fish, and see what I have left! What I started with! I have been trying to see when it grew back, and I cannot! It is just there when I want more! Is it not astonishing?"

Mary was about to make some remark, but Simon passed along to the group, asking everyone he met whether they wanted more, and saying, "You see? Your King is feeding you! With five loaves of bread and two little fish! And there are thousands of you! I have been counting. You must be five thousand men or more, not even counting the women and children! And all of you are being fed on these five loaves by your King! Or is Caesar your King? Or who is?"

And as he passed from group to group in the throng, the word "King" began to swell from the crowd like a chorus, and when finally we students came around with baskets to collect the leftovers and eventually filled twelve with what people no longer wanted, the cry of "King!" became a roar, as the people stood up, evidently to go up to Jesus and lift him on their shoulders and take him--to Jerusalem, to anywhere, they knew not; they were simply inflamed with enthusiasm.

But quickly the swell of hosannas turned into a confused, "Where is he?" and Simon began running among them, from one student to the next, asking who had seen Jesus last. The most that could be gleaned was that he had been there, but had slipped away while everyone was distracted with collecting the marvelous harvest from the five loaves. "But he cannot have gone!" screamed Simon in anguish. "It is the perfect moment! Where is he?"

Nathanael put a long hand on his shoulder and turned him around. "Obviously," he said, "he does not want to be King."

"What do you mean, 'does not want to be'? He is our King."

"Then where is he?"

"That is what I want to know!" he shouted, and broke free.

I suspected as much. He would let the spectacular miracle and the implication that he was to be their King simmer for a while. Because obviously, his goal, I was sure, was to have the people name him as King, but realize that the one they were naming was in fact God in human skin. They were nowhere near that now.

Simon would not calm down for a considerable time, well after the crowd had thinned out a great deal, and night had begun to fall; and even then, all he did was hang sulking about the periphery of our little band of students.

They, on the other hand, were ebullient. "Did you see Philip's face," laughed John's brother James, "when the Master asked him how we were to buy bread to feed all these people?"

"Well how was I to know what he planned to do?" said Philip, evoking a roar of laughter in everyone, who continued teasing him unmercifully in their joy, while some related anecdotes about the people in the crowd, how everyone tried to find out how the bread multiplied itself--and no one, not even the students, could fathom it; there simply always was more. Like everything Jesus did, it was perfectly simple, and perfectly impossible to understand.

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