The Secret of the Kingdom

FIFTH LETTER

MARCUS TO TULLIA:

I will tell of my wayfaring to Bethany, and of what happened to me there.

My beard was growing. Having put on a simple tunic and a dirty traveling mantle I seemed to myself more like a robber than a cultured Roman. The Syrian gave me bread, salt fish and sour wine for my journey, and I set off through the city to the Fountain Gate. I passed the pool in the Vale of Kidron and followed the road alongside the dried-up stream. On the ridge to the left rose the city wall, and in the rocky slopes to my right were many tombs. Olive trees, gnarled with age, grew on the hillsides, and I passed a lofty height with a shady dark-green herb garden on its shoulder.

The air was fresh and warm and the sky cloudless. I met donkeys laden with firewood and charcoal, and country folk carrying baskets. I journeyed on, light-hearted, feeling that I was still young and strong. The pleasure of exercise dispelled the gloomy thoughts from my doubting mind and I felt open and receptive. It may be that I am really experiencing a time when the world is filled with expectancy, and no one quite knows what is to happen. A stranger like myself might come as near to the riddle as those who have lived with it. The earth did not seem to me like the old earth, nor heaven as it had been; I was seeing everything more clearly than before.

I saw Bethany from a long way off. The gable ends of the low houses had been newly whitewashed for the feast and shone through the trees. When I drew near the village I saw a man sitting in the shade of a fig tree. He sat so still in his earth-colored mantle that I started and stood still when I saw him.

“Peace be with you,” I exclaimed. “Is this village called Bethany?”

He looked at me, and the eyes in his thin face were so glassy that at first I thought he was blind. He had not covered his head, and his hair was white, though his face, if sallow, was that of a young man.

“And with you be peace,” he replied. “Have you lost the way, stranger?”

“There are many ways and many false guides,” I said quickly, with rising hope. “Perhaps you can show me the right way.”

“Was it Nicodemus who sent you?” he asked curtly. “If so, I am Lazarus. What do you want of me?”

He spoke in a blurred way, as if he had difficulty in moving his tongue. I stepped off the road and sat down at his side, though not close to him. I was glad to rest in the shadow of the fig tree and did my best not to stare at him too rudely, for it is the custom of the Jews to look at the ground when they meet a stranger. With them it is discourteous to look another person in the face.

He may have wondered that I did not start talking at once, for when we had sat silently for a time side by side, I fanning myself with the edge of my mantle—for I had walked myself into a sweat—he said, “You must surely know that the high priests are determined to kill me too. As you see, I have not gone into hiding, but live at home in my village. They’re welcome to come and kill this body of mine if they can. I’m not afraid of them, nor of you. No one can kill me, for I can never die.”

His grim words and glassy look alarmed me. I seemed to feel a chill breath from him. Therefore I exclaimed, “Are you out of your mind? How can any mortal assert that he will never die?”

He said, “Perhaps I am no longer a mortal. I have this body, certainly. I eat and drink and speak. But the world about me is no longer real to me. The loss of my body would be no loss at all.”

There was something so singular about him that I believed him. “I’ve been told,” said I, “that the man who was crucified as king of the Jews raised you from the dead. Is that true?”

He replied, mocking, “Why ask? Here I sit, as you see. I died the death of a mortal and lay enshrouded in my tomb for four days, until he came and ordered the stone to be removed from the entrance to the tomb and called to me, ‘Lazarus, come forth!’ It was as simple as that.”

But he spoke of this without joy. Indeed there was a sneer in his voice. As I said nothing he went on: “It was all the fault of my sisters, and I can’t forgive them for sending for him over and over again and making him return to Judea. If I hadn’t sickened and died, he might not have come here at all and fallen into the hands of his enemies. He wept for me before he called me out of the tomb.”

“I don’t understand you,” I protested. “Why, instead of rejoicing, do you reproach your sisters, seeing that he raised you from the dead and allowed you to return to life?”

Lazarus said, “I don’t believe that anyone who has known death can feel joy again. He ought not to have wept for me.”

He said also, “Jesus must have been the son of God—he who should come—although I was not so firmly persuaded of this as my sisters. I cannot understand why he should have loved me so much, for he had no reason.”

We sat in silence, staring before us, and I did not know what further questions to put to him; he seemed to me so strange with his coldness and joylessness.

“He is more than Messiah,” said Lazarus very decisively. “That is just what frightens me. He is more than anything the prophets could have foretold. I suppose you have heard that he rose up out of his tomb on the third day?”

“I have,” I answered. “That is why I came to see you—to learn more about him.”

“It is quite natural, plain and in every way understandable,” said Lazarus. “What power could have kept him in the grave? I didn’t need to go and see the empty tomb, as my sisters did. I can believe it without that. But, stranger, with all my heart and more fervently than anything else, I hope that never again in this life may he show himself to me. I could not bear to see him. No, no, not in this life. Not until his kingdom.”

“What is his kingdom like?” I asked eagerly.

Lazarus looked at me with cold eyes and said, “Why not ask what the kingdom of death is like? I can tell you this: death is here and now and everywhere. That I know from experience. This world is the kingdom of death. So is your body. But in him, his kingdom came upon earth. Therefore his kingdom is here and now and everywhere.”

Presently he bent his head and added, “But believe not what I say, for I may have misunderstood. It is all bewildering.”

He said also, “Don’t let my dejection depress you. The Way is the right one, of that I can assure you. If you continue upon is, you cannot go astray.”

He stood up and shook the dust off his mantle. “You would like to meet my two sisters,” he said. “I will bring you to them. Then if you will allow me, I shall go my way. It is hard for me to be in the company of people.”

Indeed, he must have felt more dead than alive among others. It was difficult for him to move, too, just as if he had not full control of his limbs. I believe that he would have struck me as odd at once, had I met him first among other people without knowing who he was.

He did not take me to the village by the most direct way, but went before me up the hillside, and from there showed me the rock tomb from which Jesus of Nazareth had called him. His home was a well-kept farm. On the way he showed me a pair of donkeys at pasture, a vineyard, fruit trees, and fowls scratching near the house. It was as if he wanted to let me know, in country fashion, that he was not a man of absolutely no account. It was all so pleasant, serene and genuine that I found it hard to realize that I was walking beside a man who was convinced that he had been raised from the dead.

But for me this point is not conclusive. What matters is whether Jesus of Nazareth really is the son of God, and has risen from his tomb. If so, what was to prevent him from raising Lazarus also, during his lifetime? Thus I reflected, and as I did so, I wondered whether I really was the same Marcus who had studied in Rhodes, lived a night life in the hot streets of Rome, desperately loved another man’s wife in the rose gardens of Baiae, and in Alexandria alternated between seeking out prophecies and drinking all night long in bad company.

What was this thing that had befallen me, and what Jewish sorcery had such power over me that here I wandered, dusty and sweaty, in a Jewish village among cackling hens, seeking proof of resurrection, miracles, and a God who allowed himself to be born in human shape, and then died and rose again that the world might be changed? For if this has happened, the world cannot remain as it is.

Accompanied by Lazarus, I looked into a large, dim room, of which the lower half contained jars and sacks and a manger, and the upper part a few pieces of furniture. But there were other rooms in the house.

Having called his sisters he led me to a stone bench in the yard and invited me to sit down. The sisters came out, covered their faces, as was the custom, and looked at the ground. Lazarus said, “This is my sister Martha, and this is Mary. Ask them what you like.” Then he went away and appeared no more.

When I had greeted the women I said, “I should like to hear something of the teacher who I know lived here, and even raised your brother from the dead.”

The women were shy of me and glanced at one another sideways, holding a fold of their mantles before their mouths. At last the elder one, Martha, summoned up courage and said, “He was the son of God. If you like, I can call the villagers together, for they were all there when he ordered the stone to be rolled away from the entrance and called our brother out, in a loud voice. Our brother came out with the graveclothes still swathed about him, and the sweat cloth over his face, so that everyone was struck dumb and trembled with horror. But he was our brother. We released him from the graveclothes and saw that he was alive. Later he ate and drank in the sight of everybody, and people watched him, gaping.”

Mary said, “There is a man in the village who was blind and who received his sight again from him. Would you like to see him, so as to believe?”

“I have heard that he has healed the blind and made the lame to walk,” I said. “Of that there are so many witnesses that I need not meet these. I would rather know something of his kingdom. What has he taught you about it?”

Mary told me this: “He knew beforehand that he was to die, and in what manner it had to be, although we didn’t understand it then. When he had raised up our brother he withdrew into the wilderness, for there were far too many people swarming around him. But six days before the feast of the Passover he came back to us. While he ate, I anointed his feet and wiped them with my hair, to do him as much honor as I could. Then he said that I had anointed him for his burial; so certain was he of his death. But why everything had to happen in this way and why he had to die so terrible a death is something that neither I nor my sister can understand.”

Martha joined in: “How could we understand, being only women? They say that everything happened so that what was written might be fulfilled. My woman’s reason does not tell me what good such fulfillment did, since he was who he was, and gave proof enough of it by his own works. But I suppose the scriptures had to be fulfilled in that cruel way so that all clever men might believe more readily. For it is man who has been given reason; in that respect women are lacking.”

“But what did he say of himself and his kingdom?” I demanded impatiently.

Martha said, “You tell him, Mary, as you listened to him. I talk better about how to leaven bread and roast meat, harvest grapes and tend fig trees. I have no other learning. I needed no words to persuade me that he was more than a man.”

Mary hesitated as to what she should say, and then began, “No man has ever spoken as he did. He spoke like someone with power. He said that he had come as a light into the world, so that no one who believed in him should remain in darkness.”

“What light and what darkness?” I demanded.

Mary shook her head and said, “Ah indeed, how should you understand when you never heard him teach? He said this: ‘He who sees me sees him who sent me.’ He said also: ‘I am the Way, the Truth and the Life.’”

I believed that at last I understood, and said, “When I seek the Way, then, I am seeking him.”

Mary nodded eagerly and, turning her face up to mine, knelt down before me impulsively, with no more shyness. To make these things clearer to me, she asked: “Which do you think is the more difficult: to say to someone, ‘Your sins are forgiven’ or to call our brother Lazarus from the tomb where he had lain dead for four days and nights?”

I pondered her question, and said, “Both things are equally difficult and, by human reasoning, impossible. How could anyone forgive another his sins? Ultimately, all philosophy seeks to teach man to live rightly, to refrain from deliberately harming others, and to ripen to self-mastery before death. But man cannot help committing evil deeds. He can only see them afterwards for what they are, and resolve to be wiser next time. There, no one can help him. Each must answer for his own actions.”

Yet even while I was speaking I felt the comfortlessness of all philosophy, for philosophy was no more able to free me from sorrow than the Orphic or Egyptian mysteries. Every now and then, without cause, I am seized by sorrow as with a sickness, so that life holds no more joy for me. Wine brings no relief then, nor does any bodily pleasure. It was this anguish that had driven me to seek among the prophecies for some meaning in my life. It was this anguish that had driven me from Alexandria to wander the roads of Judea.

Mary smiled disbelievingly, and said, “If you don’t know what sin is you have no need of the Way, but will remain in the darkness. No man is without sin, not even the Pharisees.”

Martha interjected angrily, “They, if any, are vile. They whitewash themselves like sepulchers, but inwardly they are who knows what. You are a remarkable man, stranger, not even to know what sin is.”

“You Jews have your law,” I said defensively. “From childhood you must learn your commandments, and you know when you break them.”

“He didn’t come to condemn us,” Mary explained, as to a slow-witted person. “On the contrary, he came to deliver us from the domination of the law by showing that no one can be without sin. If a man does no more than speak a hasty word to his brother, he deserves perdition. But he condemned no one. Quite the contrary. To the most sinful he could say ‘Your sins are forgiven.’ Yes, there you are right. That is something that no man can say to another. But he said it. Does not that prove that he was more than a man?”

I sincerely wanted to understand, but could not. “I myself saw him suffer and die on the cross,” I said. “He died a human death. Dirt and sweat ran from him in his agony, blood and water flowed from his side when a legionary thrust a spear through his heart. He did not step down from the cross. No angels came to punish his tormentors.”

Mary clasped her hands to her face and wept. Martha looked at me reproachfully. It was heartless of me to remind them so vividly of their teacher’s suffering. But I needed enlightenment.

At last Mary whispered, “He came into the world as a man and lived among us as a man. But he did things that no man can do. He forgave the sins of those who believed in him. He has even risen from the dead, so that we need mourn no more on his account. But all this is still a riddle which we cannot yet solve.”

“You are trying to make me believe he was both man and God,” I said. “But that is impossible. I might be able to conceive of a God who was everywhere, in everything that happened, and who was a part of each one of us. But God is a god and a man is a man.”

Mary retorted, “You try in vain to confuse me. I know what I know, and sense what I sense. You too are aware of something, though you don’t know what it is. Why else should you have come to us and asked about the way? How can you understand, if we don’t? We only believe, since believe we must.”

“You believe because you loved him,” I returned bitterly. “Certainly he was a remarkable man and a great teacher. But it is hard for me to love him by hearsay alone.”

“There is good will in you,” Mary said, “or I would not listen to you or answer you. Therefore I will explain further. We have been allowed to learn the content of the law: Love God with all your heart and love your neighbor as yourself. In him we love God who sent him.”

To me it was a startling idea that one could or ought to love God. Awe, fear and reverence I could understand, but not love. I shook my head. It was a doctrine that passed my understanding. Moreover, it seemed to me foolish to love one’s neighbor as oneself, since there are both good and wicked people. So I asked slyly, “Who is my neighbor?”

Mary explained, “He taught that everyone is our neighbor, even the Samaritan, whom we children of Israel regard as unclean. The sun shines upon good and wicked alike. Evil must not be met with evil. If anyone strikes you upon one cheek, then turn to him your other cheek too.”

I raised my hand protestingly and exclaimed, “That is enough! I have never heard a crazier teaching, and I realize that no human being could follow it. But you, you beautiful woman, you teach better than that master in Israel, Nicodemus.”

Mary looked at the ground and let her hands fall. She said quietly, “Even on the cross he cried to his father, beseeching him to forgive those who were torturing him. So say those who were there and saw.”

After a while she said humbly, “And do not call me beautiful. It only saddens me.”

Martha protested, “Certainly my sister is beautiful. She has had many suitors. But since the death of our parents we three have all dwelt together under our brother’s protection. That’s how he showed such mercy in coming to us, and bringing Lazarus back to life. But for that we shouldn’t have known what to do. At first we were afraid that the scribes would come here from the city and stone our brother. They threatened as much. But now they are not likely to come. Yet do what I will, I cannot help feeling anxious. He forbade this, but I cannot help it. I hate even to recall what I suffered when Jesus insisted on going to Jerusalem and letting them put him to death.”

I was paying little attention to what she said, being disturbed by the irrational teaching which Mary had revealed to me, and which truly was not of this world. I had heard more than I could digest at one time. It would have been better to scoff at this doctrine and turn aside from so preposterous a way. I writhed at the mere thought of regarding the first half-wit or criminal I met as my neighbor, and of allowing myself to be insulted or assaulted without raising a finger in my defense.

But Mary said, “Let us not be troubled. And you, stranger, be not troubled either. Let us wait for what is still to come. He said that every hair of our head is numbered, and that not even a sparrow falls to the ground without his father knowing of it. Why then should we be anxious?”

Her words impressed me. In the same way as formerly, when doubting and yet wanting to believe, I had obeyed signs and omens, so now I was filled by a sense of certainty that I ought not to be so rebellious, so desirous of attaining truth in a twinkling. Perhaps in time everything will become clear to me, if only I am content to walk the way along which I am being led.

Therefore I rose, saying, “I have kept you from your occupations too long already. But I thank you both for listening to me so willingly, and for giving me an answer. Peace be with you.”

Martha rose hastily and struck her hands together, crying, “Don’t go yet. How could I let you go from here hungry and thirsty?”

Without heeding my protests she went in to prepare some-thing to eat. Meanwhile I sat on the stone bench, plunged in thought, while Mary sat on the ground nearby. Neither of us spoke, yet our silence was not embarrassing, as is the silence of those who have nothing to say. On the contrary, Mary had said as much as I was able to receive. Part of it I had understood, and the rest may become clear to me one day; but nothing would have been gained by talking just then. Thus she was content to be seated near me; and from her presence I received an outflowing of serenity that put me in good heart.

Martha came back with bread spread with oil and seasoned with bitter seeds, vegetables chopped up with eggs, salt mutton and thick grape honey. When she had set it all out beside me on the stone bench, she poured water over my hands and blessed the food. But neither she nor her sister touched it, nor did Lazarus come to eat with me. For all their kindness, I felt an outcast.

My walk to Bethany had not been long, yet I felt hungry on beholding the good food and I ate avidly, while Martha sat beside me, urging me to taste of everything and finish it all. I wondered whether they would throw away anything that I might leave, considering that it had been touched by a foreigner, and for politeness’ sake I went on eating after I had had enough. At last I drank of the water that Martha had flavored with wine, and was overcome by a heavy drowsiness.

It was noon when I had finished, and Martha said considerately, “You must not think of returning to the city now, in the heat of the day. Stay and rest for a while, so that we may fulfill all that hospitality requires.”

My exhaustion was immense, and I know not whether the spiritual or the physical weariness was the greater. When I tried to stand up and walk, my limbs felt so feeble and the two women’s kindness was so refreshing that I had no wish to take my leave. The mere thought of it was pain. For a moment I fancied that Martha had mixed some narcotic in the wine, but why should she have done that? And it had had no bitter flavor.

“It is not far to Jerusalem,” I said, “but if you will really allow me, I would gladly stay here for the noon rest. I like it so well here with you.”

They both smiled mysteriously, as if they had known the truth of this better than I. For a moment their secret certainty gave them a singular look, as if they had been no longer just people, but something more. Yet I felt no fear of them.

They came with me into the inner courtyard, which was shaded by a roof of foliage. In my mood of drowsy unreality I noted that their farm was larger than I had thought. There were at least four buildings, put up at different times, enclosing a courtyard. The sisters pointed to a flight of steps outside the newest of the buildings, followed me and showed me their guest room on the roof. It was a small, cool room containing a low sleeping bench and a mat on the floor. The bed smelt of cinnamon. They said, “Lie down here and sleep your noontide sleep. He whom we have talked of often rested in this room. But when he had been alone and had rested, he would go up into the mountain to pray. He came and went here as he wished. Do the same.”

There was a water jar and a linen cloth ready in that room. Heedless of my protests, Martha knelt before me, took off my sandals, washed my dusty feet and dried them with the linen cloth.

“Why do you do this?” I asked. “You are not my servant.”

Martha looked at me with that same mysterious smile and said, “One day you may do someone else this same service, without being his servant. You see, to my eyes you appear wounded, sorrowful and full of anguish, even though outwardly your limbs are whole and sound and your head stored with diverse wisdom.”

These words struck deep, for now as ever my knowledge is but a burning stab in my heart; all my questions circle skeptically round and round reality, and however greatly I may desire it I cannot bring myself to believe.

Mary said, “He did his disciples the same service on that last evening, when they were squabbling about which of them should be first in his kingdom.”

Silently they went out, and as soon as they had gone I fell into a deep sleep on the cinnamon-scented bed in that good room of theirs. I awoke with a strong sense of being no longer alone; of there being someone near me, waiting for me to wake. The feeling was so strong that I lay with my eyes closed, trying to catch the breathing or movements of the stranger. But when I opened my eyes, I saw that the room was empty, and I alone. The depth of this disappointment caused walls and ceiling to waver before my eyes; they seemed so frail as to be on the point of collapsing. Again I closed my eyes and at once was aware of the same presence, and of being no longer alone in the room. I thought that I had known something of the kind inside his tomb. I was filled with peace.

I thought, It was in himself that his kingdom came on earth. Now that he has left his grave his kingdom too will remain on earth as long as he does. Perhaps it is the presence of his kingdom that I feel.

I slept again, but when I awoke for the second time I felt the whole weight and sluggishness of my body on the bed, smelled the bitter smell of my own sweat, and was aware of the sturdiness of the mud walls about me. My awakening was as heavy as lead, and I still had no wish to open my eyes, so dreary was it to awake once more to the world of the body.

When at last I felt strong enough to look about me and return to reality from the bliss of dreaming, I found that this time I was not alone. A woman was crouching motionless upon the mat, waiting for me to wake. She was clothed in a black mantle and had covered her head with a veil, so that at first I wondered whether she was a living person. I was not aware of any presence, nor had I heard her enter as I slept. I sat up on the edge of my bed, feeling the leaden weight of earth in every limb.

When the woman heard me moving she straightened her back and uncovered her face. She was very pale and no longer young. The experiences of a lifetime had worn away her former beauty, and yet a flame burned in her face. When she saw that I was wide awake she signed to me with one hand beneath her mantle to sit quietly, and began singing with guttural sounds in the sacred language of the Jews. Having half spoken and half chanted for a long time, she translated what she had said into Greek.

“All flesh is grass,” she began, “and all its loveliness as the flower of the field. Grass withers, the flower fades, because the spirit of the Lord blows upon it. Grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God shall stand forever.”

Then she said, “Truly our God is a hidden God.”

She gazed at me with a spark in the depths of her black eyes, and I nodded to show that I understood. Yet her words still meant nothing to me. She went on: “And he said, ‘It is a little thing for thee to be my servant, to raise up the tribes of Jacob and to bring back the scattered of Israel. I will also give thee to be a light to the heathen peoples, so that my salvation may reach to the end of the earth.’”

She resumed the sacred language of her interrupted chant, though hesitating now and then over the words as if she could not remember them all. Then she explained again in Greek: “That is what the prophet Isaiah foretold of him, and the quiet ones in the land have preserved the words in their memory; that he was the most despised, full of pains and grief, so despised that people hid their faces from him. He bore our griefs and laid our sorrows upon himself. He was wounded for our transgressions; he was punished that we might have peace. We all went astray, like sheep, each to his own way. But the Lord cast all our guilt upon him. When he was tormented he submitted, and opened not his mouth.”

She shook her head. Tears began running down her cheeks but she went on still, in a broken voice, “He gave his soul in death and was accounted an evildoer, he bore the sins of many and prayed for the transgressors.”

I had a dim recollection of having read something like this in Alexandria the winter before, with the Jewish scholar, but then the words had held no significance for me. The woman sat curled up on the floor, weeping and hiding her face in the black cloth so that I might not see her sorrow.

I said, “Yes, yes; I understand what you said. Thus it was foretold, and thus it came about—but what does it mean?”

The woman shook her head and answered behind the cloth, “We don’t know yet; we don’t understand. But there are no longer many ways, there is no longer each his own way—there is but one.”

When she veiled her face I thought of that face, and said at last, “What belongs to your peace, woman? I seem to recognize you.”

When she had dried her eyes on the cloth she uncovered her face again, tried to smile and answered, “And I recognize you. That is why I came here. When he was tortured on the cross you struck a scribe and thrust away those who were reviling him.”

I couldn’t help laughing. “No, no,” I rejoined gently. “I struck no one. You are mistaken. There was indeed a scribe to whom I put a question, but he was insolent, so I appealed to the centurion and he drove off the mockers.”

But the woman shook her head vehemently and declared, “I saw you strike a man who was jeering, because you were angry with him, although you are a foreigner, without share or part in the matter.”

I saw no reason to argue with her; and besides, it had been so dark before the king’s death that she might well have been mistaken. After a little while I said, “I’m sure I saw you there with his mother.”

“Yes,” she said, “I am Mary of Magdala. You have already heard of me. He drove the evil spirits out of me, and since then I have followed him. He allowed me to follow him, although people insulted him because of it.”

Suddenly she threw up her head and looked at me, as if until then she had held herself in check, and asked, “Tell me! I have heard that you went to the tomb at the Governor’s order and that you were the first Roman to see that he was risen. Tell me about this—testify to what you saw. No one believes me because I am only a woman.”

I weighed my words carefully, not wanting to lie or to mislead her. “The earthquake had rolled the stone from the mouth of the tomb and the guards had fled. I entered the tomb with the centurion. We saw the graveclothes lying there, folded, and the sweat cloth separate from them, but there was no body in them. Seeing this, I believed; but then the Jews came and in their rage they tore open the linen. Yet I still believe he has risen. How this is possible I don’t understand; such a thing has never happened before.”

She listened reverently. I wanted to be impartial, so I added, “Of course, there have been and still are mysteries in different countries where it is the custom to bury a god, and for him to rise up again from the dead. But this is not real—only a sort of pious play-acting. You were at the tomb before us. Tell me what you saw. Did you notice the graveclothes?”

Mary of Magdala shook her head and explained, “It was still dark when I went to the sepulcher. I saw that the stone had gone and thought that someone had carried him away. But I dared not enter the tomb, and if I had I should have seen nothing because of the darkness. So I ran to the place where his closest disciples were in hiding and brought back Simon Peter, who is a big, strong fellow, and the young John to whom he had entrusted his mother. They ran as for their lives to the tomb, entered it, found it empty, but went away again quickly, being afraid of the Jews. I stayed behind and wept by the sepulcher, and a little later I looked inside. There was an angel there; he seemed clothed in light, with a face of fire, so that I was startled and began to tremble, and turned away when he spoke to me. But as I did so I saw him himself, although at first I didn’t recognize him.”

Her account differed from that of the guards. She looked at me apologetically, as if sensing that I doubted her, and explained, “It is not surprising that I should not have recognized him at first, for it never entered my head that it could be he. Not even his disciples recognized him at first, that time when he crossed the sea of Galilee and walked on the water to their boat. I took him for a stranger who had carried off the dead body. I reproached him for it and begged him earnestly to bring it back. Then he called me by my name and I saw who he was. He gave a message for the disciples, and I was so rapturously happy that I felt no ground under my feet as I sped away. But not one of them believed me.”

I did not really believe her either. I just felt that she was the kind of woman who allowed herself to be carried away easily, and that she had confused the order of events when she narrated them. But I reverted to the main point and asked again, “Did you notice how the graveclothes were lying?”

She looked at me in surprise and shook her head. “How should I have noticed a thing like that? I was dazzled by the angel and had to turn away. And I was very frightened. The disciples didn’t believe me though the women did. The disciples still fear for their lives and can think of nothing else.”

She grew excited, as women will, and went on eagerly, “As you say, it must have been the earthquake that rolled the stone away from the tomb, though others are convinced that the angel did it. They also say that the same earthquake brought the steps of the sanctuary crashing down in the temple. Two of them never recognized him when he walked with them that same day on the road to Emmaus. They never recognized him, although he interpreted the scriptures to them, point by point, and told them why everything had to happen as it has happened. It wasn’t until they reached the village in the evening and asked him in, when he took a loaf and gave them some of it, that they recognized him. But then he vanished before their eyes.”

“You believe then,” I said, and my tongue felt stiff, “that he is still here, coming and going as he likes and talking to anyone he chooses? And that some people recognize him, but others do not?”

“Just so,” replied Mary of Magdala with conviction. “That is what I believe, and that is why I am waiting. Perhaps our hearts do not yet burn as they should; perhaps our understanding is too sluggish. Therefore he lets us wait until we ripen enough to comprehend the meaning of it all.”

“Did you say he walked on the water?” I demanded, to remind myself of how impossible and irrational all this was.

Mary of Magdala looked at me confidently and declared, “He performed so many miracles that even a stone must have believed. Yet we still don’t know what we are to think of him. Certainly it is written that his messenger is deaf and his servant blind, and it may be that we fulfill his purposes unawares.”

“But why do you trust a foreigner like myself?” I asked. “You are a cultured woman, you speak Greek and know the prophets by heart in the sacred language of the Jews. I have also been told that you are a woman of means. Tell me something of yourself, so that I may understand you.”

She said proudly, “I am not shy of foreigners. In my house I used to meet Greeks, Syrians and Romans—even members of the court. If he is indeed he, as I know and believe, his message is not to Israel alone but a light for the whole world, as it is written. For that reason, too, people laugh at me. When the demons attacked me I experienced much that those simple men do not understand. A sorcerer can cast a spell on the body of a person possessed, so that it lives in a basin of water and cries out when the sorcerer sticks a pin into water in another room. But he never wanted to exploit me as others had done; he only wanted to free me from the evil spirits when he found that I myself, with all my heart, desired to be rid of them. My face is as bare of my past life as a stone from which the rain has sluiced the living soil. Don’t ask me of my past. Talk simply to me as I am now.”

“As you wish,” I said. “But you have not answered my question. Why do you trust me?”

Her face blazed once more and she exclaimed, “Because you took his part against the revilers at the crucifixion. Because you respected his suffering without knowing any more of him than what was written in mockery upon the cross. You defended him when his own people took fright and fled. There were no others there but we women and young John, who has no reason to fear, since his kinsmen are friends of the high priest. Even the agitators made bold to shout at the Romans on behalf of their comrades who were to die. But not a single voice was raised for him.”

I saw then that she had converted her grudge against the disciples into friendship for me. After reflection I answered cautiously, “If I rightly understand you, you believe you know more about him than his own disciples have yet grasped, because you have been through a great deal in your life. But they mistrust you because you are a woman and easily influenced, and they don’t believe in your visions; and so you want me as a witness.”

Mary Magdalene interrupted me, crying, “Do you not understand even yet, you slow-witted man? He let even women come to him. He was good to Mary, the sister of Lazarus, and to Martha too. When he ate at the Pharisees’ table he allowed a sinful woman to kneel by his couch, to wash his feet with her tears and dry them with her hair. This lost him his reputation with the Pharisees; they are ready to think any evil of him. But you shall hear more. He took pity on even a Samaritan woman once, by the well. And another woman who had been taken in adultery he saved from the hands of the scribes when they were going to invoke the law and stone her. Believe me, stranger, he understood women better than anyone else has ever done. Therefore I believe that we women understood and understand him better than his cowardly disciples.”

Her voice broke; she was panting with wrath. Presently she went on: “Oh, they were high and mighty enough for a while, and healed the sick with his power. But when the day came to set off for Jerusalem on that last journey, as he wished, every one of them was full of excuses, although earlier they had been ready to quarrel among themselves over the thrones in his kingdom. He spoke to the people in parables, but to them he explained all things clearly. Yet even so they did not understand. Only Thomas, who has the clearest head of them all, had the sense to say, ‘Well then, we will go too and die with him.’ But do you suppose a single one of them did die, although they managed to get hold of two swords to defend him with? Two swords they found, though it is forbidden to obtain weapons secretly in Jerusalem. But did they defend him? That is my point.”

She was talking with breathless vehemence, but calmed her-self again and, after reflecting a little, admitted, “But of course he himself forbade them. He said, ‘He who takes the sword shall perish by the sword.’ But then again on the way to Jerusalem he told them, ‘He who owns a cloak must sell it now and buy a sword.’ I don’t understand. He must have wanted to test them. Or else give them confidence in themselves. I don’t know. At any rate, Simon Peter cut off the ear of one of the high priests’ servants when they came by night to arrest him. And he put the ear back and healed it, so that nothing but a thin scar can be seen there now. Malcus’ kinsfolk have told this story, though Malcus himself has been forbidden to speak of it.

“But let me empty out all my wrath,” she continued. “Let me rail at those cowards. He kept watch alone, he knew his fate, he prayed. They say he sweat blood in his terrible anguish. Of them he asked nothing but that they should watch with him. And what did they do? Slept like logs in the garden! No, I cannot understand—I cannot forgive them! Were these the men to set fire to the temple? Why, they were too spineless even to slay the betrayer: he had to hang himself. I do not understand. I know not what he saw in them, or why he summoned them of all people to follow him.”

So utterly feminine was she in her wayward censure that I wanted to laugh and stroke her cheek, to help her give vent to her despair in tears. But I dared not laugh, and could not touch her. I simply said once more, as discreetly as I might, “If it is so—if they really are afraid, and know not what to make of him, although he taught them—then no wonder that I, a stranger, should feel bewildered. But I believe not one of them is meant to die. Not yet, at least; not until his teaching has become clearer to them. Even the keenest human intelligence must be too slow to grasp such singular precepts all in a moment. These men are bound by all the Jewish prejudices to which they have been bred from childhood. Therefore I think it best for you not to appeal to me for evidence—or even mention me—in their presence. They would only despise me for being a Roman, just as you, no doubt, lost your reputation by consorting with foreigners.”

She tossed her head sharply, but raising my hand in deprecation I made haste to explain. “No, on the contrary, as a Roman I understand you, Mary, certainly better than any Jew could ever understand you. In Rome women are free, and on an equal footing with men—yes, even superior to men, since a woman is always more cunning and in many ways more merciless than a man, and her thoughts are untrammeled by any logical consistency. So let us be friends, you Mary of Magdala and I, Marcus Manilianus of Rome. I respect you as a woman, and I respect you even more highly because he let you go with him. I can only assure you that I cannot but believe that he has risen, by what I myself have witnessed. And with your feminine sensibility you must have understood more of him than his disciples.

“Nevertheless,” I went on, very warily, “I would willingly meet them some time, or at least some of them, to see what sort of people they are.”

Mary of Magdala hesitated, but acknowledged reluctantly, “I am not on bad terms with them. I am bound to see that they get food and drink as long as they remain in hiding. They are ordinary fishermen. In their fear they do not know which way to turn, and then they quarrel until I have to step in; though perhaps you cannot understand this, since I spoke so bitterly of them just now. But of course there is much good in them; I admit that. They would like best to return to Galilee, but for the present they cannot make up their minds to anything. At gates and on the roads they are easy to recognize by their dialect. By their faces, too, for that matter, for after living with him for two or three years they no longer look like ordinary fishermen. Perhaps you can’t understand that, but if you ever meet any of them you will know what I mean.”

Mary of Magdala was now warm in defense of these men, and assured me, “He must have had his reasons for choosing just these simple fellows to be his disciples. The only one of them who can have had any schooling is Levi; he was a customs official. But when I think of learned men, whether scribes or philosophers, I find it hard to believe that such people could grasp anything of his teaching. Believe me, a learned man might devote the whole of his life to the study of a single word of his, just as a scribe can brood for years over a single letter of the scriptures, or as a Greek may write a whole book about a place name in the Odyssey. And indeed I clearly remember his saying that these truths reveal themselves to simple people and babes and not to the wise.”

I pondered her words. There might be something in them. A mind burdened with earlier erudition and an earlier way of thinking could hardly accept, without boggling, an utterly new and outrageous doctrine such as Mary had expounded to me. In the same way do I myself stumble at every step over former tenets; things that I have had to learn and have become used to thinking.

“Was that what he meant when he told Nicodemus that a man must be born again?” I asked, almost to myself.

“Nicodemus belongs to the quiet ones,” said Mary of Magdala. “He is one of the devout who wait; he means well, but he knows the scriptures by heart, and whatever new thing he comes upon he has to compare it with them so as to understand it. No matter how much he were born again he would always remain a baby in swaddling bands—ones that were too tight!”

The thought of the baby made Mary smile. When I saw her white, stony face brighten so suddenly, and her eyes light up, I realized that in her day she had been an unusually beautiful woman. For even now, just because of that little smile, I had to own that she had great beauty. In a curious way she reminded me of the bright moon, and I remembered that she had made her fortune as a breeder of doves.

“You needn’t wear soot-black,” I said, without thinking. “Your colors are silver and green, Mary of Magdala; your flower is the violet, your wreath the myrtle. You don’t deceive me.”

She started, and said mockingly, “Are you playing the astrologer? Don’t talk to me about earth forces. Even if I did wear silver and green again, the gods of earth have no longer any dominion over me. I have only to pronounce his name—Jesus Christ the son of God—for all evil to flee away and the powers fade to harmless shadows.”

From her words I realized that she had been aware of her demons, and suffered during her bouts of possession. I regretted my chiding at once and I saw the smile fade from her face, leaving it as stony-hard as before. An uneasy spark still glowed in the depths of her eyes. Yet I could not resist adding, “Are you quite certain, Mary of Magdala, that you too do not compare all that is new with your earlier thoughts, so as to understand? Are you quite sure that you have done more than replace your old demons by a new and more powerful one?”‘

She wrung her hands and rocked her body back and forth as if to subdue some pain, but she tried to look me straight in the eyes and declared, “I am sure, perfectly sure, that he was and is the light, the full and absolute light. He, the man; he, God.” Yet compelled to betray the morbid suspicion that had consumed her, she persisted in her own defense and asseverated more for her own sake than for mine, “No, he is neither sorcerer nor demon, although he could walk on the water. If he had been no more than the mightiest of magicians I should certainly not have followed him, for I have had enough of witch-masters. And he never ordered me to follow him; he allowed me. That makes a difference, as you can see.”

I was ashamed of my suspicions, yet I had felt bound to ask, for I wanted to achieve certainty, so far as anyone may achieve it by means of human inquiry. I saw that I had hurt her, and I begged her forgiveness as gracefully as I could. Then I came straight out with my request: “Mary of Magdala, lead me to his disciples, so that I may assure myself about them too.”

Mary said evasively, “You cannot be ripe for that yet. Nor are they. We are all waiting. Wait patiently too.”

But seeing my sincere desire she softened a little and said, “I don’t believe you’re a Roman spy. In your heart you are no traitor, I am a sufficiently good judge of character to know that. If you were, something very bad would happen to you—not through our power, but through the power of him who chose the disciples and whose will is to preserve them, as you yourself believed. Do you know where the Fountain Gate is?”

“I came that way,” I said, smiling, “although it was a longer way round. I wanted to see the Fountain Gate.”

“Then you know of the man who carries water,” she said. “Be it so. One day perhaps when you are still and humble in your heart, he will show himself at the Fountain Gate. But I beg you to be in no hurry. Everything will come about in good time. If I didn’t believe that I could not live.”

I asked her whether she would return to Jerusalem with me, but Mary of Magdala preferred to stay alone for a while in the room where Jesus of Nazareth had often rested. She said, “Go when you please, and do not stay to give thanks if you see no one down there. We women know of your gratitude without that. Come and go as you wish. Yet I suspect that you know not for certain what you do want. I believe you may already be compelled to follow the one Way, even if unwilling. Peace be with you.”

“And with you be peace,” I returned; and something impelled me to add, “Peace be with you, woman. More than a beloved, more than a wife, more than a daughter, since he allowed you to follow him.”

My words surely pleased her, for she remained crouching on the floor, and when I had stood up she put out a hand and touched my foot as I was bending down for my sandal. It was a touch of such ineffable longing, of such groping for the unattainable, that it moved and shook me more than anything I had known. I would hardly even have understood it if in my recent dream I had not seen the kingdom descending upon the earth.

I no longer felt any grief as I went down the steps to the leaf-shaded courtyard. No one was to be seen, and the houses on all sides were silent. So I went my way without farewell, and when I came out to the stone bench I saw to my surprise that by Roman reckoning it was already the fifth hour. The shadow of the hill had stretched almost as far as the yard. I walked briskly back toward the city by the way I had come, so plunged in thought that I never looked about me. Again I passed the old olive trees on the hillside, now lit by the sun, though the road lay in cool shade. I passed the herb garden too, and now as evening came on there was a strong fragrance from all its medicinal plants.

I was first aroused from my thoughts by a monotonous tapping sound as I neared the gate. I saw a blind man crouching by the wayside, ceaselessly tapping his stick against a stone to attract the attention of passers-by. His eye sockets yawned emptily and his thin body was clothed in rags that were stiff with dirt. When he heard me pause he began whining in the piercing voice of the professional beggar: “I am blind, have pity!”

I remembered the bag of food which the Syrian’s wife had given me and which I had not needed. Laying it in his gnarled hand I said quickly, “Peace be with you. Take this and eat, and keep the bag. I have no need of it.” For when I approached him I smelled the appalling stench of his filth, and I preferred not to stay and empty the bag into his hands.

But he didn’t even thank me. Instead he stretched out his hand and groped for his mantle, as he pleaded with me eagerly:

“Evening is here, night is at hand and no one has come to fetch me from where I have sat all day. Have compassion, O compassionate, and lead me into the city. There I can find my own way, but here outside the wall I get lost and stumble over stones, and might fall into the ravine.”

I was nauseated by the very thought of touching this horrible creature who could hardly have been called human any longer. I thanked my good fortune therefore that I had time to step aside, out of reach of his grasping hands, and I walked on hurriedly, trying not to listen to his professional wail as he called after me and began once more to strike a stone with his stick, as if to take revenge on it for his disappointment. In my mind I reviled him for his ingratitude; at least I had given him good food and a bag worth money.

But when I had gone about ten steps, I seemed to come up against a wall. I was forced to turn and look around. The hopes of the beggar revived and he whined, “Be merciful to a blind man, you who see. Lead me to the city and a blessing will come upon your head. When darkness falls, I grow cold, and dogs slink up and lick my sores.”

I asked myself whether it was I who was blind or that stinking creature. To give him that food had not been particularly meritorious, since I didn’t even need it. But I could really account it a good deed if I forced myself to touch him, feel his presence and lead him to the city gate. Yet the very notion was so repugnant that I retched.

I said reluctantly, “The ways are many, and so are false guides. How do you know that I shall not lead you astray and push you down into the ravine to be rid of you?”

The blind man started at my words, and was still, and the stick in his hand sank. “Peace be with you, peace be with you,” he cried again, hopeful and afraid. “I trust you. How should I, who am blind, do other than trust him who leads me, since I cannot find the way myself?”

His words struck me to the heart. I had been blinded by my own fastidiousness. What could I myself do but hope that someone would lead me along the right road? I remembered the mysterious presence in my dream, that vanished when I opened my eyes. Resolutely I went up to the blind man, grasped his bony arm in both my hands, and raised him to his feet. Meekly he handed me his staff, meaning me to hold one end and lead him by it, so as not to soil myself by his touch. But I disliked the idea of leading him as one leads a beast by the bridle, and so I took his arm and began guiding him along the road. Nevertheless he still groped anxiously before him with the staff, for the Kidron road is no level Roman thoroughfare.

The going was slow, for he was so thin and frail that his knees sagged. To close one’s hand about his arm was like grasping a gnawed bone. I asked impatiently, “Why did they bring you so far from the gate when you can’t take care of yourself?”

He lamented, “Ah, stranger, I am too feeble to hold my own at the gate. But in the days of my strength I used to beg in the road before the temple.”

He was evidently proud of that memory, and repeated that he had begged near the temple, as if that had been a great honor. I marveled to myself how tough-fibered mankind is, so that even the most pitiable creature can find something to be proud of.

“I could hold my own by thrusting and hitting out with my staff, blind though I am,” he boasted. “But when I grew weaker I had to taste bumps and bruises myself. At last they cuffed me away from the gate, so that I have no choice but to ask some merciful person to lead me out to a place by the wayside for the day. There are far too many beggars in the holy city, and many of them are very strong.”

He fingered a corner of my mantle, and said, “There is fine stuff in your mantle, stranger. You smell good. You must be rich. Why do you wander about outside the walls at night with no companion? Why does no one run before you to clear the way?”

I owed him no explanation; yet I said, “It has become necessary for me to find my own way.” Then the whim took me to ask him, “And you—have you heard of the king of the Jews, Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified? What do you think of him?”

The beggar grew so angry that he began to tremble, and shaking his staff he cried, “Yes, I have heard enough about that man. They were right to crucify him.”

I was much astonished. “But I have heard that he was a good and merciful man,” I said. “He healed the sick, and to those who toiled heavily and hard he desired to give peace.”

“Oh, indeed—peace!’” the blind man repeated with a sneer. “He wanted to overthrow and destroy everything, even the temple. A malicious troublemaker, that’s what he was, and a man of ill-will. You shall hear. By the pool of Bethesda there lay a well-known lame beggar on his bed, and now and then he let someone jostle him down into the water to arouse the necessary pity. No one has been cured at that pool within the memory of man, however much the water may bubble now and then. But the place is outside the Sheep Gate, and the shady colonnade is a good place to beg in. And then, what should that Jesus do but come along and ask him, Do you want to be well? The lame man gave a crooked sort of answer, saying that there was always someone else who got down to the water before him when it bubbled. Then the Nazarene told him to stand up, take his bed and go his way.”

“And he was cured?” I asked incredulously.

“Certainly he was cured; he picked up his bed and went,” answered the blind man. “That Galilean has a most dreadful power. So the fellow lost a good livelihood, which he had carried on for thirty-eight years. Now in his old age he will have to keep himself by working, having no lawful reason to beg.”

The blind man grew yet more embittered. “And to cap everything, it was the Sabbath. The poor fellow ran straight into trouble because he was carrying his bed, and there was squabbling with the priests. And as if that wasn’t enough, Jesus met him again, in the temple, and warned him against sinning any more, lest worse befall him. Then in self-defense the man accused Jesus to the priests, testifying that he had healed him and expressly told him to carry his bed, although it was the Sabbath. But what could the priests do? All his followers were around him. He blasphemed and proclaimed far and wide that he had power to break the Sabbath and work on the Sabbath, like his father. Yes, yes, he made himself God’s equal. Of course he had to hang on the cross.”

But from my silence the blind man realized that I was not of the same opinion, so he continued, “What would become of the world if the temple were torn down? Where would the maimed get alms if there were no more rich sinners to atone for their sins by giving to the poor?”

He thumped his staff on the ground and gloated, “Even I was able to go with the crowd and shout ‘Crucify him, crucify him!’ The Roman wasn’t sure what judgment to give, since he doesn’t know our laws, or perhaps likes to see people desecrating our temple or blaspheming against God. All we beggars who have any standing are dependent on the temple and the guardians of the peace. For this reason we were hastily summoned together from our places by the temple and the gates, to go with the rest and shout ‘This is the truth!’ I was there too, and called for Barabbas. Barabbas was an innocent man compared to Jesus; he had done no worse than kill a Roman.”

I said in horror, “I do not understand you. How deeply rooted must your wickedness be that you can boast of such a thing? He might have had power to heal you too, if you had believed in him.”

The blind man turned his eye sockets to me, grinning crookedly and showing the stumps of his teeth.

“Who do you think you are, and what do you think you know? You must be impure and defiled, being a foreigner,” he whined. “You had better lead me by my staff so that I need not touch you. The God of Israel would blow you to ashes with one breath if I cursed you. But if you belong to the followers of that man Jesus, may worms devour you alive.”

He hissed out his hatred at me until I smelled the stink of his breath, and he clutched my mantle so that I could not pull myself free.

“You are a simple one,” he sneered, pointing at his eye sockets. “Not even God himself could make eyes grow again once they’ve been poked out. I would not even want my sight restored, for that matter, for what is there in the world for anyone like me to look at?”

I could have got away by striking him, but I could not bring myself to lift a hand against him. “Calm yourself, sinless one,” was all I said. “We are nearly at the gate. There I shall leave you, so as to defile your purity no longer.”

“If only I were stronger,” he sighed, staring at me with his empty eye sockets. “I will show you something, stranger.” Suddenly, with an unexpected hold, he wound his arm around my neck from behind and drove his sharp knee into my back. I felt his free hand groping for my purse. Indeed if he had been stronger I should have been in a serious fix, unable even to shout for help; as it was, it was not difficult to wrest his repulsive arm to one side and free myself from his robber-grip.

He said, panting, “This is my advice to you, stranger. Let this be a lesson to you. Reflect before you listen to the request of anyone unknown to you, and don’t lead beggars along unfamiliar roads. Had I been stronger I would have had you in my power, and whistled up companions to help me. You would have lost your fine mantle and your purse. Had I been wicked, I would have pressed my thumbs into your eyes so that you could not have recognized me, to bear witness against me. And yes, yes! If you’d been a Roman I would gladly have killed you.”

“Thank you for your warning,’” I said ironically. “How do you know that I am not a Roman?”

The beggar answered, “No Roman would ever have under taken to lead me as you did, you who know little of the world’s evil. I should have had a kick from him or a whiplash across my face. No mercy can be expected from a Roman. All they want to do is to build roads and aqueducts and see that measures keep their measure and weights their weight.”

We had reached the pools near the gate. I asked, “Have you yourself met the lame man you talked of? Does he really feel resentment toward his healer?”

“No, I haven’t,” the blind man admitted. “I just repeat what I have heard. But why did he heal only that man, and a few others? Why did he not cure us all? Why should one receive grace and another remain in darkness forever? You must agree that we have reason to speak ill of him.”

“You will have heard too,” I remarked, “that he, King Jesus, stepped out of his tomb on the third day.”

The beggar shook with laughter. “Women’s gossip,” he hissed. “And you, a grown man, believe it!” But his laughter was as much sobbing as sneering. “His disciples stole him from the tomb; that’s clear,” he said, “so as to cheat the people to the end. God exists. That I know. But here on earth there are no powers except money and clenched fists.”

He felt fiercely in front of him along the roadside with his staff, hit it against a stone, which he bent down to pick up. “Here is a stone,” he shouted, shaking it before my eyes. “Do you imagine that it will turn into bread? No more can the world change and become different. It is a world of hatred and murder and whoring, a world of greed and revenge. The God of Israel is a god of vengeance. The Romans will suffer for it one day, but at least it won’t be that Galilean’s doing.”

I went strangely tense, and my limbs turned cold. “Jesus of Nazareth,” I said. “If you are or were more than the king of the Jews, if you are in your kingdom and your kingdom is still here, turn this stone to bread and I will believe in you.”

My words made the beggar put his staff under his arm and begin rolling the stone between his hands to feel it. The stone yielded to his fingers. Suspiciously, he blew dust from it, raised it to his nose and smelled it. Still more incredulously he pinched off a piece, put it in his mouth, tasted, chewed and swallowed. “This is not bread, but a cheese,” he said, and railed at me for my stupidity.

I too had to pick out a piece of the white interior of the stone and taste it. It was indeed a hard, ball-shaped country cheese. It must have fallen off some load, and become so covered in dust from the road that at first sight it looked like a stone.

The beggar sucked at a piece and asked suspiciously, “Are you a magician? Did you turn that stone into cheese in my hand by invoking the Nazarene’s name?”

“Cheese or bread, it is at least food for man,” I said. “If he was able to turn a stone into cheese in your hand when I asked him to do it in his own name, then you too must believe that he is risen.”

But as I was saying this I began to have doubts in my own mind as to whether, without being aware of it, I had noticed something unusual about the stone which the blind man had happened to hit by the roadside. In itself that was an amazing coincidence, yet there are stranger ones that that.

The blind man was more practical. He quickly slipped the cheese into the food bag I had given him as if he were afraid that I might take it from him, and then began poking with his staff at the other stones beside the road, and knelt and felt them with his hands. The stones were stones, round lumps just like the cheese, and stones they remained. After a time he ceased his search.

We had come along a road that sloped gently upward toward the wall from the Vale of Kidron. Thus we were standing in the shadow of the city, but behind us the crest of the somber hill was bathed in red by the setting sun. I looked about me for fear of phantoms and prayed aloud, “Jesus Christ, son of God, have mercy on my unbelief.”

At that moment a dazzling light shone upon me, and suddenly it felt unreal to be standing where I stood. The reality within me seemed plainer than the massive city wall before my eyes. For the briefest instant, as in my sleep in Lazarus’ house, this reality was as true as—yes, even truer than—the reality of the ground and stones. But the blind man saw nothing; he merely pleaded in a woeful tone, “Don’t call upon that man, don’t shout his name, if he is really risen. His blood is upon my head too.”

The brightness faded as quickly as it had come. My sight was still dazzled, and I raised my arms as if to cling to the sweet buoyancy I had felt. The shadow of the wall fell over me again, even more somberly than before, and I returned to earth with heavy limbs. When I looked across the valley to the steep, sunlit hill, my reason told me that something flashing up there had cast a brightness over me, just as with a mirror one may make a fleck of light play in the midst of shadow.

Nevertheless there lingered within me an exultant certainty that he was real and that his kingdom existed. This secret certainty was stronger than my reason, so that I truly desired to believe. I thought, Why am I in such a hurry? Why do I want everything at once, and completely?

Joyfully I grasped the beggar by the arm and said encouragingly, “Bestir yourself. A few paces more and we are at the gate.”

But the blind man resisted me, tore himself free and complained, “The road is steep here. Where are you taking me? You’re not going to lead me to the precipice and push me over, to avenge the man I helped to send to the cross?”

I answered, “It is not much I know of him, but I don’t believe he rose again to be avenged. No, that is certain.’”

We reached the gateway. The guards knew the blind man and greeted him with a few gibes, and a question as to how much he had managed to grab for himself during the day. Probably they would have searched him and taken their share if I had not been with him. They asked no questions of me, since my oiled hair and the stuff of my tassel-less cloak were evidence enough.

The beggar was reassured by the familiar voices of the guards; he felt the walls of the archway with his staff, broke suddenly free and hurried ahead, for here he knew the way. Beside the gate there was a little open space, and by its walls some maimed and crippled mendicants were still sitting, holding out their hands and begging alms in monotonous voices. But for the most part the evening activities of the city were ceasing, and we were met by the smell of cooking fires, freshly baked bread, garlic and hot oil.

When the blind man had gone a few paces ahead of me, he began brandishing his staff and calling upon his fellow beggars. “Israelites!” he cried. “The man following me has led me here, and I can bear witness of him. He is possessed. He changed a stone to cheese in my hand by invoking the name of the crucified Jesus. Pick up stones and stone him to death. He must be one of that accursed man’s disciples, and will bring evil upon us.”

He bent down and caught hold of a lump of fresh dung, which he threw toward the sound of my steps so accurately that it hit me and dirtied my mantle. Seeing this, the other beggars hastened to grab him and hold him fast, begged my pardon on his account and warned him, saying, “Are you out of your mind as well? This is a rich foreigner. How could he be a disciple of the Nazarene’s? He is no Galilean; we can see that from his face.”

They wailed in chorus, stretched out their hands to me and displayed their infirmities. I distributed a fistful of coins among them, then took off my dirty cloak, wrapped it around the blind man, laughing aloud and saying, “Here is the mantle you fingered so greedily. Use it for your comfort some night when you have to stay by the roadside and shiver because no one will lead you home.”

The blind man shook his fist at the others, yelling, “Now do you believe he’s possessed? Why, if I hit him on one cheek, I swear he’d turn the other one. He’s mad enough for it.”

His words made me laugh more than ever. Perhaps the teaching of Jesus of Nazareth was not so impossible to follow as I had thought. When I tried to return this fellow good for evil, my own satisfaction merely increased. I had the feeling that only thus could I get the better of his malice. To strike him or report him to the guards would have been merely to vanquish one evil with another.

The other beggars joined obsequiously in my laughter and told their companion, “He’s not possessed, just tipsy, can’t you see? Only a tipsy man would take off his cloak and give it to you; only a tipsy man would think of guiding you, and only a raving drunk would roar with laughter when you insulted him.”

In a way they were right. A superhuman intoxication hummed in my head, made me laugh aloud and dimmed my sight so that I was not in the least disconcerted by the glances I met as I walked through the city clad only in my tunic. Anything else might have been staged beforehand, but not the hard cheese which the blind man’s staff touched among all those other similar round stones.

The Syrian trader’s wife struck her hands together when she saw me coming back half clad, and the Syrian himself was startled, thinking that I had fallen among robbers. But when I just laughed, went to my room for money and sent him out to buy a new mantle, he grew calmer and thought like the others that I was drunk and had gambled away my garment. With many apologies he returned some time later bringing a good woolen mantle with little tassels at the corners. It was of fine Judean wool, he told me; he pinched the stuff and rolled it between his fingers to display its quality and the excellence of the dye. He also assured me that he had beaten down the price for me to a reasonable sum.

At last he said, “This is a Jewish cloak. To find you a Roman one I should have had to go all the way to the forum and pay many times the price. You can cut off the tassels if you like, but there’s nothing to prevent you keeping them, now that you’ve grown a beard. For my part, I too fear and revere the God of Israel and go to the forecourt now and then to drop a coin in his sacrificial coffer, to secure good business.”

He looked at me with a crafty smile in his black eyes and gave me back what was left of the money, counting it out carefully. I offered him a reward for his service, but he raised his hands in deprecation and said, “I need nothing from you, for the clothes dealer has already paid me a commission on the business. You’re in a far too generous mood to go out again tonight. Rest in your room, rather, and sleep your head clear, but first eat some of the good soup that my wife has made. She has put plenty of onions in it, and herbs that will save you a headache in the morning.”

As I did not immediately start to go upstairs, he shook his head in concern, threw out his hands and cried, “Well, well, I’m only thinking of your own good. If you insist, I can send the boy out for another measure of sweet wine, but after that you must drink no more. And don’t trip on the stairs tonight, or you might break your neck.”

When I tried to defend myself and to explain, with a stuttering tongue, that I was perfectly sober, he held up his hands in great distress and went on, “Your face is red and your eyes are shiny; but as you will, as you will. I will send for a young woman who keeps company with foreigners. But she cannot come before dark, lest she lose her reputation in our quarter of the town. Have patience until then. She will keep you in bed and calm you so that you have peace to sleep yourself sober. She can neither play nor sing, certainly, but she is healthy and well grown and will certainly send you to sleep without lullabies.”

He was so firmly convinced that he knew what was wrong with me that it was all I could do to dissuade him. To please him I went to bed, and considerately he came up too, to cover me with my new mantle. Presently his daughter brought me a steaming bowl of strongly spiced soup and stayed to watch me eat, tittering shyly with her hand before her mouth. The soup scalded my tongue, yet its heat only seemed to increase my lightheaded elation.

The girl also replenished my water jar, but when she had gone I could stay in bed no longer. On tiptoe I stole up to the roof, and as the stars came out I sat wrapped in my new mantle, listening to the quieting of the city and breathing in the cooling air. Now and then a light puff of wind brushed my hot face, and in my happy state I felt as if an unseen hand had stroked my cheek. Time quivered in me, the dust of earth quivered in me, but something else persuaded me for the first time in my life that I was more than ashes and shadow. This knowledge made me still.

“You risen son of God,” I prayed in the darkness, “erase all vain learning from my head. Take me to your kingdom. Lead me into the only Way. I must be mad, ill, bewitched by you. But I believe that you are more than anything that has ever existed in the world.”

I awoke, cold and stiff, with the blaring of the temple trumpets. The sun shone upon the eastern ridge, but the city still lay in a hazy dawn twilight, and the morning star hung bright over the horizon. My head had cleared. Shivering, I wound the woolen cloak more tightly about me and crept back to my room and my bed. I tried to feel ashamed of my night thoughts, but I was not ashamed. Rather, I felt as if a cool light yet dwelt in me although the fever had passed.

For this reason I have let my beard grow and stayed in my room, to think over carefully and to write down what befell me that day. When I have finished writing I mean to return to the Fountain Gate. I feel an inward assurance that everything that has happened to me and is still to happen has a purpose. This certainly gives me security. Whatever mad things I may have written, I do not blush for a single word.