The Gospel According to the Son

13

The visitor soon arrived. And he was as handsome as a prince. He had a gold ornament on a gold chain about his neck, and in this ornament was the face of a ram, bestial yet more noble than any ram I had ever seen. And the hair of this prince was as long as my own and lustrous. He was dressed in robes of velvet that were as purple as the late evening, and he wore a crown as golden as the sun. He had climbed the mountain, yet there was no dust on his robes nor sweat upon his skin. He could be no other than who I thought, and indeed he soon introduced himself. I said to myself, "The Devil is the most beautiful creature God ever made."

His first words were: "Do you know how the prophet Isaiah met his death?"

I was overcome with silence. So I was obliged to listen as he said: "Isaiah was killed by a Jewish king, the pagan Manasseh, cohort of Amon. A bad Jew." The Devil nodded as if he were a good Jew (which I was certain he was not!). Then he held up one finger and spoke again: "This Manasseh, wishing to destroy the religion of his fathers, sent out a royal order that Isaiah was to be uprooted from his home in the city and hunted like an animal. Hearing of this, Isaiah fled, and the soldiers of Manasseh set out after him into the wilderness. There, the prophet looked for a tree with a hollow large enough for a man to stand inside. This sanctuary," said the Devil, "he found in a stout oak with a rotten center, and he placed himself inside it. But the officers of Manasseh discovered where he was hiding and brought a great saw to the tree and cut it in half. Isaiah went screaming into his death. Did you know?" asked the Devil.

"Not of such a death did I hear."

Whereupon he laughed. I felt weakened by this story more than by any deprivation of the fast.

He, however, was not about to cease speaking. "The manner in which Isaiah met his death need not give you large concern," he said, "since you are not a prophet but indeed the Son! To my recollection, which is not small, the Lord has never performed an act of this kind before.

Indeed, to look upon you is to give me much to contemplate. For you seem innocent of all that I know."

He looked at me fondly. His eyes were black marble, but there were lights within. He said, "Are you hungry? Are you in need of drink?" And he brought forth a jug of wine and a leg of lamb, well cooked, which I had not seen beneath his robes until he produced them. And now he approached me so closely that my nostrils took in the spirit of the wine and the gravies of the lamb, even the smell of the Devil himself, which penetrated a small cloud of perfume rising from the folds of his robe. I could also perceive how greed came forth from his body. For that was kin to the odor that lives between the buttocks. Therefore I refused his food, but still, the other odors of his body entered my appetite like the savory that comes from an oven when food is roasting. And he, seeing such deliberation, smiled once more and said, "But of course you have no need of food. Being the Son of God, you can as easily command these stones to be bread. Which is proper food for an Essene. However, your garment is neither clean nor free of dust. Indeed, that you are the Son of God surprises me. Why did your Father choose you? Say to Him when next you converse that I salute Him. For do you know? Your Father and I have had much traffic and considerable dispute, and so We are always eager to obtain word of the Other and His doings. Indeed, on those occasions when We meet, I tell Him that men and women are the crown of all He has conceived among the animals and the plants of the field but that it is I, not He, who has a better understanding of this Creation. For His work has given issue to many small creatures and spirits that He hardly knows as well as I do. Of course, I was once His servant, His most trusted servant. Contemplate, then, how well I understand Him."

I was amazed. He did not inspire fear but comfort. Now I knew how it might feel to be a sinner in a low tavern drinking wine. The labors of this long fast were gone; I felt balm come to my limbs. I could talk to the Devil; he was comfortable. If his odor could leave me uneasy, it also offered sympathy to desires I had not yet allowed myself to feel.

Yet if I would allow him much, still I could not agree that God, the Lord of the Universe, did not understand His Creation better than my visitor. "It is not possible," I exclaimed. "He is all-powerful. The heavens and the earth, the stars and the sun, bow before Him. They do not bow to you."

For one moment, Satan snorted like a horse. Was he unwilling to accept the bridle?

"Your Father," said the Devil, "is but one god among many. You might take account of the myriad respected by the Romans. Are we to give no homage to the great will of the Romans? Why, your Father does not even have the power to command His own Jews in their own land even though so many see Him as the only One. You would do better to consider the breadth of His rages; they are unseemly for a great god. They are swollen and without proportion. He issues too many threats. He cannot bear anyone who would dispute Him. Whereas I confide to you that a hint of disobedience and a whiff of treachery are among the joys of life, and are to be ranked with its spoils rather than its evils."

"That is not so," I was able to answer. "My Father is God, and of many dimensions, and of all dimensions." But my words tasted like straw.

The Devil replied, "He is not in command of Himself!"