Twelve

It seemed a good time to speak to Judas, especially after this remarkable event. And, as it happened, Judas was off by himself, apparently pondering what had occurred.

"So what do you think, Judas," said Nathanael, "of this person we are involved with?"

Judas came out of what was a reverie and said, "You mean, what is Jesus? He is, I am convinced, the Prince that was prophesied; and he apparently has been given the power to prove it."

"He is an astounding man--if he is merely a man. He seemed to know just what I was thinking before he met me, and he claimed, at least, that my sin was forgiven--and he seemed to know just what it was."

"I would have no doubt he did."

"But how is such a thing possible?"

"And how can water become wine? It cannot, of course."

"But it did. I could swear it was water that they poured into those jars--and Thomas's cup was water."

"Ah, was it! I noticed that he as much as asked Jesus for permission to drink it."

"I admonished him, and he asked me to taste it. How could he have done it?"

"Do you know Greek, Bartholomew? Have you read any of the Greek philosophers?"

"Well, I can read Greek after a fashion; and I have read one or two books by Plato, but not much else."

"The reason I ask is that I suspected that you had done some studying, and so you might be able to understand me better than the others here."

"Well, I could not guarantee that, but I will do my best."

"Very well. You know that we Hebrews have been aware for centuries that there is but one God, who created everything--other than himself, of course--and who is totally unlike anything he created. He is a spirit, and that is why he has forbidden us to make anything by which we can picture him--because he cannot be pictured. This is all elementary, do you not agree?"

"It is what I have always believed."

"The Greeks have, by a long and painful process, starting from Plato, interestingly, come to the conclusion that everything in the universe depends on something totally unlike anything else in it, totally beyond it--though, unlike us, they think that everything existed forever. Plato called this something everything depends on The Good. Aristotle, his student, disagreed, however, and said that spirits were kinds of things, and our material universe were individual instances of kinds of things. Our matter is what makes each of us the individual human that we are, and our form is the activity of the matter, making us exist as human. Do you follow?"

"I think so."

"Well, a genius named Plotinus some two hundred or two hundred fifty years ago combined Plato and Aristotle into a consistent whole. He said that matter limited the form to being an individual, but form limited what he called the One to being a kind of being. The One, then, was totally beyond what we call being; and since it was the same as Plato's goodness, it necessarily "diffused itself," and produced these little limited copies of--aspects, if you will--of itself, and so we have the limited beings in the world, all of which share in oneness, and so resemble their origin, but in a limited way."

"But what does all this have to do with Jesus?"

"I am getting there. You will notice that when the Lord appeared to Moses in the burning bush, he called himself "I AM."

"And so?"

"Well, I have given this a good deal of thought. I think that Plotinus was mistaken in calling the Infinite One the 'One' and saying that It was beyond being. True, It is beyond the beings that we know of, even those beings we call spirits, like angels. The Greeks knew of those, by the way as I mentioned; Aristotle thought that they were responsible for the movement of the heavenly bodies--but that is another story."

"But you are saying, if I follow you, that the Lord is this 'One' of Plotinus, so to speak, only He is the Infinite Being, since He called Himself "I AM."

"Very good! I thought you were intelligent. The Lord, then, is this activity that is beyond any kind of activity, and is simply "Is," so to speak. We all have being--or activity--in common, if you will, because we are all limited copies of this infinite activity--which is why we are all active in one way or another and to one degree or another--and the degree is our matter, which makes us individual instances of a given kind of being. And the Infinite Activity is what has created every limited copy of Itself."

"This, you realize, is not easy to grasp, but I think I have some inkling of what you are saying. The Lord is like us--or rather, we are like him--in being active, whatever that means, but He is totally unlike us, because for us activity is always some kind of activity. Fine. But again, what has this to do with Jesus? And why do you call this Infinite Act 'Itself' and not 'Himself'?"

"Ah. Because when we say 'Himself,' we are making It into a person (a limited something) like ourselves. 'Himself' is 'Himself' rather than 'Herself,' for instance; and we expect persons to talk to us, using sounds and words and so on, which are limited kinds of activity; and the Infinite is totally beyond any limitation whatsoever. When I call the Infinite 'It,' I am not implying that It is beneath personhood, but rather that it is beyond personhood."

"You mean a kind of super-person that is beyond our understanding."

"Something of the sort. When the Infinite acts, It does not do anything specific, even when something specific is the result; it is always, eternally, one single, simple activity, totally beyond anything created. I think calling It a 'force' would be more appropriate than calling It a 'person.' But of course, any term to describe It would be inadequate, because all the terms we have refer to activity in some limited way or other."

"In that case, though, I could just as easily call Him 'He' as 'It,' because neither term really applies."

"You could, if you chose. I was simply emphasizing that He--if you will--is completely different from anything we can imagine."

"And Jesus?"

"Well, it seems that there are certain people--like Moses, for instance--who have some kind of intimate contact with the Infinite--who are filled with It or Him, and who can speak to Him, or rather, they can be 'spoken to' by Him, though not with words; they just know things that no one but the Infinite Activity could know, since, if He or It knows anything, He knows it by creating it--as you know your thought because you have thought it, or a word you say because you have said it. We are all 'words,' so to speak, that the Infinite is saying: finite words, limited expressions of Him, just as our words are limited expressions of our thoughts, which are themselves limited expressions of ourselves."

"And so you think Jesus is filled somehow with the Lord, and somehow knows what the Lord knows."

"Or what the Lord gives him to know. It is probably another inaccuracy to say that It 'knows' anything. Perhaps better would be to say It 'is in contact' with things. And a man like Moses or Jesus, of course, can do, in certain cases, what the Lord does, such as create wine without using grapes and soil and so on. How he does such a thing, I know not--and I suspect he knows not, but it is somehow revealed to him--without words, again--that it can be done, and so he simply allows the Infinite Act to do it through him somehow."

"He allows it?"

"Well, he becomes the vehicle by which it is done by the Infinite Act."

"You realize, don't you, that you have not made the mysterious very intelligible by this; it is not very much of an explanation."

"Oh, I am fully aware of it. All I was trying to do is to show that it can happen. If you will, it is my attempt at description rather than explanation. How it happens is totally beyond me and beyond anyone, I suspect, including Jesus himself. And what he can do is also beyond anyone's predicting, including himself.

"But he has hints, at least, of what the Infinite is about to do through him. He seems to be saying that there is going to be a transformation of the world through him, somehow, and that we must prepare ourselves for it. What form it will take he perhaps does not know, but I personally suspect it will involve abolishing suffering and possibly even death--because if I read the Torah correctly, we were originally not destined to suffer death; that came with the Fall. But how he will accomplish this, I suspect that he does not know; he waits for what I suppose you could call an 'inspiration.'"

"So you think he is another Moses."

"Oh, no! I think he is far beyond Moses. I cannot imagine Moses turning water into wine just because his mother asked him to do something to save some people embarrassment. As to that, my suspicion is that, since he is a man, he cannot simply create things out of nothing, as the Infinite creates them, but needs something to work with. In this case, it was the water.

"But anyhow, what I think is that Jesus is the man who has the closest possible contact with the Infinite, probably the only man in the whole of history who is that close to It--or Him, if you will."

"And that is why you chose to follow him."

"Well, you see, I was wondering, like every Hebrew, whether the Prince would come in my time, and when I heard John at the Jordan say that he was announcing his advent, I kept my eyes and ears open. And when that incident of the thunder which was words--I heard it, and they were words-that-were-not-words, just as I would expect--I spotted the one who had the dove on his shoulder, and asked if I could follow him. Would you not do so, if you thought as I do?"

"I know not. If I believed what you believed, I think I might be too frightened to do so."

Remember that the One is also Goodness itself, and Scripture insists that the Lord loves us, so we probably have nothing to worry about. Certainly, Jesus's behavior up to this point has been benevolent and not domineering."

"That is true. Well, thank you, Judas; you have given me much to think on. Much."

"He is well worth a great deal of thought."

So there might be a transformation of the whole world back to the condition it lost from the Fall, with no pain, no suffering, no death--no fear, no drunkenness, no misunderstanding. A dream. Impossible. But then, water cannot become wine--and my sin could not be forgiven. And he could not know my thoughts or have brought me to where Philip found me and "arranged things" as he did.

Nathanael's mind was reeling. A man so filled with God that God acted in superhuman ways through him! And he apparently wanted Nathanael to be his follower in transforming the world into a world that made sense! He was half expecting to be able actually to see angels climbing up and down this Jacob's ladder.

He happened to spot Ezra, and went over and said, "I saw you there with Jesus and his mother. Did she ask him to do what he did?"

"No, she merely said, 'They have no wine,' and he replied, 'What is that to you, Madam, or to me? My time has not come yet,' but then she told the servers to do whatever he told them, and he looked around and saw the water jars and told them to fill them with water--and when they drew it out, it was wine."

"Except for what went into Thomas's cup."

"Yes, that was perhaps the most incredible part of it. But imagine! They have wine now for a month of festivities such as this! And such wine! I have had more than is good for me, because it is such superb wine. Think of the influence that woman has! She presented the difficulty, and when he seemed to tell her that he would do nothing, she simply turned to the slaves and told them to obey him! And he did do what she wanted, in a spectacular way!"

"It is indeed spectacular. That is not the word for it. But I saw you later, with the mother and Thomas."

"Ah, that. I am sorry, Mas--Bartholomew, but that was confidential, and I cannot repeat it unless I have permission. Thomas knows I overheard, but I do not think she does. I can say this: even apart from what she said to him this day, she is an absolutely amazing person in her own right."

"I can well believe it, if she is the mother of such a son."

"We are facing an adventure that is going to turn the world upside down--or rather, put it rightside up."

"I know. I have been doing my own investigation, you might say, and Judas is of the same opinion."

"Indeed?"

"He arrived at it by an attempt to unite what we know of the Lord from Scripture and from what the Greek philosophers had to say. But if you want to find out what his theory of Jesus is, you will have to ask him, I am afraid. It is very profound, and I would not dare to try to summarize it."

"Yes, I suppose he would do something of the sort. Well, it explains why he is here."

"I think you are being far too hard on him, Ezra."

"Perhaps I am, perhaps I am. But based on what I heard just now, I would be very suspicious of anyone who had a 'theory' of Jesus."

"You seem to have been extremely impressed."

"You have no idea! You could have no idea!"

"Well, but you have a point; I will keep it in mind. Oh, and Ezra . . ."

"Yes?"

"This is embarrassing," said Nathanael in a voice of chagrin. "But I was so full of what I was going to do that it put it out of my head. I am very grateful to you for what you did for Thomas on the day we found him."

Ezra reacted almost with shock. "I cannot say it was my pleasure, but I am happy I did it. Thank you." And he smiled one of his huge smiles.

At this moment, James came up as the guests began to thin out, and said that they had best take their leave, and asked if they would join them back in Capernaum that night, because it would be easier if they were all together as they prepared themselves during the next few days to go up to Jerusalem for the feast. It seemed they were to become a rather permanent nomadic group, because from then on, they would have no fixed abode, but would be going throughout Galilee and Judea; and so they had to begin collecting tents and cooking gear, so that they could stop wherever they happened to be for the night.

He turned back to Ezra, and said, "As long as we are up here, Ezra, would you be so good as to go back and see my father and tell him that you are now a free man, and that we will be joining Jesus of Nazareth--and explain a bit what this is all about, if you can, and see if you can persuade him to give you some money to support all of us for a while in our undertaking. Could you do that for me?"

Ezra's smile was positively blazing, due partly to the influence of the wine, Nathanael suspected. "Yes, I think I might be able to manage that," he said, and trotted off.

He returned a while later laden down with a pocket full of a considerable amount of gold. "He was quite curious as to what happened, and I explained a bit about Thomas--that is, Thomas and the cave--which impressed him greatly. He said, 'So you think this Jesus might actually make something of him?' and I answered, 'I think he already has. I think you will be very proud of him one day.'"

"And what did he say to that?"

"'Amazing! He must be a miracle-worker!'"

"Yes, well. But he is a good man at heart. I fondly hope I will be able to make him proud."

"I am sure of it. Oh, and I told him you called yourself 'Bartholomew.'"

"And what did he say to that?"

"He laughed. But it was a good laugh, Bartholomew. But then he said, 'But let him not come to me until he has done something that can really justify his existence. I invested too much hope in him that has been squandered simply to welcome him back because he has found someone to look up to.'"

That stung. His father may have been well-disposed--must have been, based on the weight Ezra was carrying--but he was the same man Nathanael had difficulty tolerating. Acknowledging him was one thing, but being with him was something entirely different.

Nathanael and Ezra then went to Jesus, and Ezra said, "Nathanael's father has decided to make a contribution to our--what he called 'enterprise'--when I went to see him just now, and we were wondering where we should put it."

Jesus stroked his beard and said, "Take it to Judas. He has a house somewhere in Jerusalem, and will know how to keep it safe." This raised an eyebrow of Ezra, but he brought it over, and showed it to Judas, who said, "And what am I to do with all this?"

"It is a gift from Bartholomew's father," replied Ezra, and Jesus said that you would know how to give it safekeeping."

"Oh, so apparently I am to be our treasurer."

"It rather looks that way."

"One thinks he could have come and appointed me himself. But no, I suppose that is like him. He simply knows that I would be glad to undertake the duty--though I know next to nothing about how to keep accounts. But I suppose he is not really concerned about money. Not if he can make wine out of water." He said this with a glance at Nathanael. "In fact, I suspect he wants to have nothing to do with it himself. Very well, I will undertake the task. You can put the money in that saddlebag over there, and I will see that it is safe. I will count it later, when we get to Jerusalem."

Nathanael thought that Judas himself had a rather casual attitude toward money, and he was sure that Ezra had the same idea, but perhaps with a less benign interpretation of it. Or perhaps he was being unjust to Ezra.

When they went back outside Capernaum, a number of women joined them, helping out with the domestic side of things, and there were other men also, some only staying for a day to see what would happen, and others for more extended periods. This relieved Nathanael of some of his fears, since the women would be taking over most of what Ezra had done for him, and he would not have to learn to cook and clean for himself.

In fact, if he were a "student" of Jesus, he perhaps could simply listen, and occasionally contribute to a discussion or two. He could bear that; but he fondly hoped he would not be asked to do anything.