The Gospel According to the Son

14

Nor did the Devil show any fear at what he had said. He continued to speak. "Your Father," he said, "does not have the right to demand complete obedience from His people. He does not comprehend that women are creatures different from men and live with separate understanding. Indeed, your Father has no inkling of women; His scorn for them is shared by His prophets, who speak, so they claim, with His voice. And they do! For rarely will He reprimand them! Look at Isaiah! Tell me that Isaiah does not live in your Father's heart when he says: 'Because the daughters of Zion are haughty and walk with stretched-forth necks and wanton eyes, walking and mincing as they go, therefore the Lord will smite with a scabbard the crown of the head of the daughters of Zion, and the Lord will discover their secret parts.' Their secret parts," repeated the Devil. And he continued to speak with the words of Isaiah: " 'The Lord will take away their bracelets and bonnets, the ornaments of the legs, the earrings, the rings and the nose-jewels, the fine linen, the hoods and the veils. And it shall come to pass that instead of sweet smell there shall be stink; and instead of a girdle, a rent; for lovely hair, there shall be baldness, and burning instead of beauty.'"

"My Father was speaking of the nation of Zion," I said. "So were we taught."

"No," replied the Devil. "He pretends to speak of the nation of Zion. But it is women He belittles. His mighty curses He saves for the men. When He wishes to address the nation of Israel, He is speaking only to men: 'The indignation of the Lord is upon all nations, and His fury upon all their armies: He hath utterly destroyed them, He hath delivered them to the slaughter. Their offal shall come up out of their carcasses and the mountains shall be melted with their blood.' What a rage! His failures burn in His heart! Can He suspect that He may not be all-powerful? No! He does not have enough spirit to say: 'Yes, I have lost, but my soldiers were honest and fought well.' No, He is vengeful. 'The palaces will be forsaken,' says Isaiah, 'the forts and towers shall be dens forever, until the Spirit be poured upon us from on High.'

"But when," asked the Devil, "will the Spirit be poured upon us? Your Father would send you forth to improve the hearts of men when His own heart is caked with the blood of those He has slaughtered. His love of all He has created is choked by His curses. His rages may be mighty, but they do not satisfy His desire. His language reveals how much He adores the grandeur He pretends to despise.

"Tell me that your Father is not filled with an adoration of women. Which He hides from Himself! For He hates their power to entice Him. Ezekiel knows what is in your Father's heart. After all, he heard these words from the Lord: 'I swore unto thee and entered into a covenant with thee, and thou becamest mine. I washed thee with water; yea, I thoroughly washed away thy blood, and I anointed thee with oil. I clothed thee also in broidered work, and fine linen, and I covered thee with silk, with ornaments, and I put bracelets upon thy hands and a chain on thy neck, and earrings in thine ears, and a beautiful crown upon thine head. Thou wast decked with gold and silver; thou didst eat fine bread, and honey, and oil: and thou wast exceedingly beautiful, and thou didst prosper into a kingdom. And thy renown went forth among the heathen for thy beauty which I had put upon thee.' Now," said the Devil, "hear how He complains! He is pitiful in His complaints: 'But thou didst trust in thine own beauty, and played the harlot because of thy renown, and poured out thy fornications on everyone that passed by, and multiplied thy whoredoms. Thou hast also committed fornication with the Egyptians, thy neighbors, great of flesh; and hast played the whore also with the Assyrians because thou wast insatiable.

" 'Wherefore, O harlot, because thy filthiness was poured out, and thy nakedness discovered, therefore I will gather all thy lovers with whom thou hast taken pleasure; and will gather them round about against thee, and give thee into their hand, and they shall throw down thine eminent place, and shall strip thee of thy clothes, and shall take thy fair jewels and leave thee naked and bare, and they shall stone thee, and thrust thee through with their swords. And they shall burn thy houses with fire, and execute judgments upon thee in the sight of many women: and I will cause thee to cease from playing the harlot.'

"Does all this take place," asked the Devil, "in order to scorn Jerusalem? Say rather that your Father's language reeks of desire."

"Your words are pollutions." I hoped to excite enough anger in myself to reply, but I could only repeat: "Your words are poisonous."

Satan replied: "Your Father's tongue is as ripe with lust as my own."

I knew confusion. Could I deny that my loins had quickened as I listened to the repetition of my Father's words?

Now the Devil said: "You believe that you are sitting on the summit of this mountain, but we are no longer there. We have risen to a place above the holy places."

His embrace of my vision was complete. Now I saw the city of Jerusalem, and it was beneath us. For we were no longer seated on the mountain. We were on the highest dome of the Great Temple in Jerusalem.

I felt vertigo.

At that moment the Devil said to me, "Because you are the Son of God, you can feel free to leap! Cast yourself out. Your Fathers angels will carry you."

I felt a temptation to jump. But, most suddenly, I did not feel as if I were the Son of God. Not yet!

An abyss was below me. And I knew it would be there for all the generations to come. Whenever they stood on a height, they would live in the wind of that unruly spirit who dwells in our breath and has a terror of the leap. Now the Devil looked at me again with his dark eyes, and the points of light within were like a night of stars; those eyes would promise glory. "If you stay with your Father you will labor for Him," he said. "You will be consumed. Jump! You can save yourself. Jump!"

I would be smashed. But would my extinction be brief? And my return to the living as quick? The Devil had taken me into him. By the light in his dark eyes, I knew his speech even though he said nothing. If I jumped, the Devil would possess me. I would have leaped to my death at his bidding.

But at this moment he said aloud, "You will be reborn. In secret. God will not know. I have the power to distract."

He was telling me of a life to come. It would be bountiful. "All is mine!" cried Satan aloud.

Indeed, greed was godly to him. Out of crude greed would come works of great power. "Those who have loyalty to me," said the Devil, "sit now upon the earth with such command that they never give vent to those little turds, fit only for a goat, that pinch themselves forth from the bony cheeks of your friend John. Why, he will not even shit on the Sabbath! And on other days he carries a small hoe to cover his leavings."

And I, in this same moment, wondered whether I could leap but not fall. Could I fly with angels? By power given to me by the Lord, could I fly?

Could I know? Satan stood between my Father and me. Did he have the power to deny the wings of the angel? I did not jump. I wanted to, but I did not dare. To myself I said, "I will not serve God as a brave son but as a modest one." That was just. Had I not spent more than half my life working carefully with many small movements, equal to equal, with the small mysteries of wood?

And now I had an inkling of why God had chosen Mary and Joseph to be my family. I said, "Get thee hence, Satan." If my voice was weak, I repeated it: "Get thee hence, Satan," and now my voice had more force. It was ready to draw upon the strength that comes from emptiness. And I saw the wisdom of the Lord. For even in fasting is strength, and that was the greatest strength one could bring to bear against the Devil inasmuch as he hated emptiness. Who is more lonely than the Devil? I had the power at last to look into Satan's eyes and say: "It is not you I want. It is my Father." Even as I said this, I knew a small but sharp woe. I was losing something I desired, and I was losing it forever.

But Satan gave a cry like a beast just wounded by the spear. "Your Father," he cried, "will destroy His own Creation. For too little!" And he departed. And I was left with a vision of angels. They gathered about me to bathe my eyes. I slept. Never before had I known such exhaustion.

In the morning I awoke to see myself on this same mountain where I had lived for forty days. Now I was ready to come down. The road to Nazareth would be long and empty. Yet for the next day and the next, no brigands attacked. Which was just as well. My hour with the Devil had left me spent. My breath was foul. Nor did I feel that I had escaped altogether.

I was, however, not distraught. For as I marched, so could I recite the words of Isaiah: " 'Unto us,'" I declared, " 'a child is born; unto us a son is given; and the government shall be upon his shoulders; and his name shall be called wonderful, counselor, the mighty God, the everlasting Father, the prince of peace.'" And if I was too insignificant for such words, I had to suppose that God had chosen me for His son because I had been born and had lived in the midst of common people rather than like a king. Thereby I could understand many small virtues and weak habits in others. If I could increase in my powers (and I knew that He would pass on many powers to me), perhaps the world of men might multiply in virtue with me. So I had begun to believe in my Father. I would labor for Him. Soon He would come to save Jerusalem. He was Lord of the Universe. I would labor with joy. Through Him, comfort would come to those who were sorrowful, and the hungry would be fed, yes, and those sinners in greatest despair would find their sins remitted. And I felt such joy at these thoughts that I could not believe they were my own. Indeed, the Devil must have scraped me sore in my judgment, for I was now ready to do all. But then, on this new morning I was not much afraid of Satan. He had captured only a small part of me. I had been tested, had proved loyal, and now my tongue began to feel clean. As I walked, there was the smallest and sweetest of modest miracles. In this desert waste I came upon a small tree and it bore plums that slaked my thirst and gave a sweet warmth to my limbs. I fell to my knees and blessed my Creator, yet before I could even begin to pray, I came to my feet again.

I was obliged to wonder. Why had the Lord left me alone with Satan? Was it to scourge me of an excess of piety? Before long I would learn that there might be truth in this. There was work to do, and it could not be accomplished on one's knees.