Twenty-One

It was as well he said this, because when the reached the shore, they were confronted with another madman, who ran up to him screaming in that demonic voice that haunted Nathanael's dreams, "What do you want with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? I beg you, do not torture me!" He was the most fearsome person Nathanael had yet seen, totally naked, full of cuts and bruises, as filthy as Thomas had been, and with shackles on his legs dangling broken chains.

"What is your name?" said Jesus.

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

Nathanael, who had barely recovered from the boat trip, moved as far away from this monster as he could; but 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.

Nathanael was thinking that all this was just too much; he was not at all sure his heart could long tolerate so many shocks, when the townsfolk came up and 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. Nathanael, sitting in the same seat, with Jesus seated, now, on the cushion in the stern, breathed a silent sigh of relief. It would have been too much to bear if the group had an ex-demoniac as one of them. Jesus looked at him and smiled an amused smile, and Nathanael realized that--of course--he knew what he had been thinking. He blushed once again in shame, something that had become a common ocurrence.

Later that same day, toward 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!" Dear God, again! thought Nathanael.

Then the woman slowly approached Jesus, as if she were being dragged toward him. She was incredibly beautiful, and the very picture of naivete. But the voice! Everyone moved aside in fear, and Nathanael cowered behind Andrew. This voice was even more horrifying than that of the one who was Legion--and it came from this demure-looking innocent!

" 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." Nathanael understood what she said; it was Greek: "Have mercy on me, Son of the Most High God." Son of the Most High God! The demon knew him! And knew him as God the Son!

"Yes, Master. Good master," answered the voice. It could not possibly be that beautiful woman's voice. She began groveling in the dust like a dog awaiting punishment. How many demons did she have possessing her?

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

"We are seven, Master, only seven." Only seven! But the legion on the other side were children in comparison!

"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."

"It is only that when she did so, one of us tried to enter and she did not refuse. That is all, Master. And then came the others." Nathanael thought with relief that one had to allow them to enter. God grant that he never would!

"What did you tell her?"

"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."

"As if, in other words, it meant that she would understand the evil that had been done to her, not in what way she herself was evil."

"It could have been interpreted in that way, one supposes." Nathanael listened, fascinated with horror.

"One supposes! You knew perfectly well that that would be the only way in which she would interpret it."

"You know, trebly merciful Master, that we cannot be certain of such things."

"I will play no games with you. We both know what you knew and how well you knew it. So she accepted having you enter in order to discover exactly how she had been wronged."

"But she did accept, Master, and so she must have at least suspected the truth and been willing to accept that, because in fact we were allowed to enter, and you know that we cannot enter a person who has been totally deceived. Why do you torment us in this way?"

"You would speak to me of tormenting someone? But is it not the case that the 'knowledge' you gave her of the malice and deceit of others was in fact your malice and deceit--it had no relation to reality?"

"Master, merciful Master, you know that sometimes it was true--often and often it was true! Spare us!"

"But when it was true, it was true by accident. Is it not so that she thought it was true, not because of something she discovered, but because you made her believe it true, whatever the facts happened to be."

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."

Here Nathanael lost what was going on, in the realization that Jesus not only knew what people were thinking, but what these demons thought and what their tactics were; and they knew that he knew all about them and had total control over them. This was not a man "filled with" God; this was the master of those spirits. He had absolutely no fear of them, whether seven or legion, whether mild or ferocious. Nathanael began to feel an awed kind of terror at Jesus, when he saw how calmly he controlled this multitude of beings that totally controlled this poor woman.

Finally, Jesus said, "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' face and shrieked in terror. She looked as if she had just peered into the pit of hell.

Evidently, she had seen with the eyes of the demon for an instant, and realized graphically what Nathanael felt: the omnipotence she was confronting--and it overwhelmed her.

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. Thomas marveled at her temerity. Clearly, the devils themselves could not do it.

"Do you understand your situation?" he asked calmly, and she reacted at first as though he had slapped her; but then immediately regained he insolent expression. She was still strikingly beautiful, in spite of the dust and the state of her clothes.

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." Nathanael quaked at how the demons, even when Jesus had them in his power, still managed to control the woman.

"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. Nathanael, behind Andrew--as if Andrew could shield him from this!--turned away. He could not watch. Even the pigs going mad was nothing in comparison to this!

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. And this was Magdala. She was the notorious Mary of Magdala! The one that the authorities claimed poisoned the best of the priests and Pharisees, and the one they could do nothing against, since she knew too much about too many!

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." Nathanael realized that, if he could control the demons, it would be child's play for him to control a person's thoughts. Was he controlling Nathanael's? But no. He would not force this woman, and he was not forcing Nathanael. He respected those he interacted with, however unworthy of respect they were.

The woman--Mary--was saying"--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!"

Nathanael's thoughts were not "controlled" after this; he had no thoughts, but only turmoil.