To go to Jerusalem, Jesus answered, and to tell the people that I was not raised from the dead by God to open the doors of heaven to Jews and infidels alike. But who will believe thee to be Jesus that Pilate condemned to the cross? Hazael asked. Twenty years have gone over and they will say: a poor, insane shepherd from the Judean hills. Be this as it may, my repentance will then be complete, Jesus muttered. But thou hast repented, Hazael wailed in his beard. But, Jesus, all religions, except ours, are founded on lies, and there have been thousands, and there will be thousands more. Why trouble thyself about the races that cover the face of the earth or even about thine own race. Let thy thoughts not stray from this group of Essenes whom thou hast known always or from me who found thee in Nazareth and took thee by the hand. Why think of me? It is enough to remember that all good and all evil (that concern us) proceeds from ourselves. Hast not said to me that God has implanted a sense of good and evil in our hearts and that it is by this sense that we know him rather than through scrolls and miracles? Abide by thy own words, Jesus. Be not led away again by an impulse, and go not forth again, for it is by going forth, as thou knowest, that we fall into sin. Wouldst try once more to make others according to thine own image and likeness, to make them see and hear and feel as thou feelest, seest and hearest; but such changes may not be made by any man in another. We may not alter the work of God, and we are all the works of God, each shaped out of a design that lay in the back of his mind for all eternity. We cannot reshape others nor ourselves, and why do I tell things thou knowest better than I? The thoughts that I am teaching now are thine own thoughts related to me often on thy return from the hills and collected by me in faithful memory. Hast forgotten, Jesus, having said to me, the world cannot be remoulded, all men may not be saved, only a few, by the grace of God? I said these things to thee, Hazael, but what did I say but my thoughts, and what are my thoughts? Lighter than the bloom of dandelion floating on the hills. It is not to our own thoughts we must look for guidance but God's thoughts, which are deep in us and clear in us, but we do not listen and are led away by our reason. My sin was to have preached John as well as myself. I strayed beyond myself and lost myself in the love of God, a thing a man may do if he love not his fellows. My sin was not to have loved men enough. But we are as God made us, and must do the best we can with ourselves.
Jesus waited for Hazael to answer him, but Hazael made no answer, but sat like a stone, his head hanging upon his chest. Why dost thou not answer, Hazael? he said, and Hazael answered: Jesus, my thoughts were away. I was thinking of last night, of our talk together in that balcony—I was thinking, Jesus, how sweet life is in the beginning, and how it grows bitter in the mouth; and the end seems bitter indeed when we think of the gladness that day when we walked through the garlanded streets of our first day together in Nazareth. It was in the springtime of our lives and of the year. How delightful it was for me to find one like thee so eager to understand the life of the Essenes: so eager to join us. Such delight I shall not find again. We spoke last night of our journey from Nazareth to Jerusalem and across the Jordan. Thou wouldst not follow thy father's trade, but would lead flocks from the hills, and becamest in time the best shepherd, it is said, ever known in the hills. No one ever had an eye for a ram or ewe like thee, and of thy cure for scab all the shepherds are envious. We were proud of our shepherd, but he met John and came to me saying that God had called him to go forth and convert the world. Since God has placed thee here, I said, how is it that he should come and call thee away now? And thou wast eager with explanation up and down the terraces till we reached the bridge. We crossed it and followed the path and under the cliffs till we came to the road that leads to Jerusalem. It was there we said farewell. Two years or more passed away, and then Joseph brought thee back. A tired, suffering man whose wits were half gone and who recovered them slowly, but who did not recover them while leading his flock. How often have we talked of its increase, and now we shall never talk again of rams and ewes nor of thy meditations in the desert and on the hill-tops and in the cave at night. So much to me were these sweet returnings of thee from the hills that my hope was that the dawn was drawing nigh when thou wouldst return no more to the hills, and yesternight was a happy night when we sat together on the balcony indulging in recollection, thinking that henceforth we should live within sight of each other's faces always. My hope last night was that it would be thou that wouldst close my eyes and lay me in a rock sepulchre out of reach of the hyenas. But my hopes have all vanished now. Thou art about to leave me. The brethren? No, they will not leave me, but even should all remain, if thou be not here I shall be as alone.
But, Hazael, all may be as thou sayest, the Jews will welcome me, Jesus answered. I am no longer the enemy; Paul is the enemy of Judaism and I am become the testimony. Judaism, he says, is the root that bears the branches, and if I go to Jerusalem and tell the Jews that the Nazarene whom Pilate put upon the cross still lives in the flesh, they will rejoice exceedingly, and send agents and emissaries after him wherever he goes. Paul persecuted me and my disciples, and now it would seem that my hand is turned against him. Remain with us, Hazael cried. Forget the world, leave it to itself and fear not; one lie more will make no difference in a world that has lived upon lies from the beginning of time. A counsel that tempts me, for I would begin no persecution against Paul, but the lie has spread and will run all over the world even as a single mustard seed, and the seed is of my sowing; all returns to me; that Paul was able to follow the path is certain testimony that he was sent by God to me, and that I am called to be about my Father's work. As thou sayest, things repeat themselves. Farewell, Hazael. Farewell, my father in the faith. So there is no detaining thee, my dear son, and, rising from his seat, Hazael put a staff in Jesus' hand and hung a scrip about his neck. If thy business be done perhaps—— But no, let us indulge in no false hopes. Neither will look upon the other's face again. Jesus did not answer, and returning to the balcony Hazael said: I will sit here and watch thee for the last time.
But Jesus did not raise his eyes until he reached the bridge, and then he took the path that led by the cenobies of other days, and walked hastily, for he was too agitated to think. A little in front of him, some hundred yards, a great rock overhung the path, and when he came there he stopped, for it was the last point from which he could have sight of the balcony. As he stood looking back, shading his eyes with his hand, he saw two of the brethren come and touch Hazael on the shoulder. As he did not raise his head to answer, they consulted together, and Jesus hurried away lest some sudden and impetuous emotion should call him back from his errand.
CHAP. XXXVIII.
A small black bird with yellow wings, usually met with along the brook flitting from stone to stone, diverted his thoughts from Jerusalem and set him wondering what instinct had brought the bird up from the brook on to a dry hill-top. The bird must have sensed the coming rain, he said, and he came up here to escape the torrent. On looking round the sky for confirmation of the bird's instinct, he saw dark clouds gathering everywhere and in a manner that to his shepherd's eye betokened rain. The bird seems a little impatient with the clouds for not breaking, he continued, and at that moment the bird turned sharply from the rock on which he was about to alight, and Jesus, divining a cause for the change of intention, sought behind the rock for it and found it in a man lying there with foam upon his lips. He seemed to Jesus like one returning to himself out of a great swoon, and helping him to his feet Jesus seated him on a rock. In a little while, Paul said, I shall be able to continue my journey. Thou'rt Jesus whom I left speaking in the cenoby. Give me a little water to drink. I forgot to fill the bottle before I left the brook, Jesus answered. There is a little left, but not the fresh water that I would like to give thee, Paul, but water from overnight. It matters not, Paul said, and having drunk a little and bathed his temples, Paul asked Jesus to help him to his feet, but after a few yards he tottered into Jesus' arms and had to rest again, and while resting he said: I rushed out of the cenoby, for I felt the swoon was nigh upon me. I am sorry to have interrupted thy discourse, he added, but refrain from repeating any of it, for my brain is too tired to listen to thee. Thou'lt understand the weakness of a sick man and pardon me. Now I'm beginning to remember. I had a promise from thee to lead me out of this desert. Yes, Paul, I promised to guide thee to Cæsarea—— But I rushed away, Paul said, and thou hast followed me, knowing well that I should not find my way alone to Cæsarea. I should have missed it and perhaps fallen into the hands of the Jews or fallen over the precipice and become food for vultures. Now my strength is coming back to me, but without thee I shall not find my way out of the desert. Fear nothing, Paul, I shall not leave thee till I have seen thee safely on thy way to Cæsarea or within sight of that city. Thou hast come to guide me? Paul asked, looking up. Yes, to guide thee, Paul, to accompany thee to Cæsarea, if not all the way the greater part of it, Jesus answered. Thou'lt sleep to-morrow at a village about two hours from Cæsarea, and there we shall part. But be not afraid. I'll not leave thee till thou'rt safe out of reach of the Jews. But I must be at Cæsarea to-morrow, Paul said, or else my mission to Italy and Spain will be delayed, perhaps forfeited. My mission to Spain, dost hear me? Do not speak of thy mission now, Jesus answered, for he was afraid lest a discussion might spring up between him and Paul, and he was glad when Paul asked him how it was he had come upon him in this great wilderness. He asked Jesus if he had traced his footsteps in the sand, or if an angel had guided him. My eyes are not young enough to follow footsteps in the sand, Jesus replied, and I saw no angel, but a bird turned aside from the rock on which he was about to alight abruptly, and going to seek the cause of it I found thee.... Now if thy strength be coming back we will try to walk a little farther.
I'll lean on thee, and then, just as if Paul felt that Jesus might tell him once again that he was Jesus of Nazareth whom Pilate had condemned to the cross, he began to put questions: was Jesus sure that it was not an angel disguised as a bird that had directed him? Jesus could only answer that as far as he knew the bird was a bird and no more. But birds and angels are alike contained within the will of God; whereupon Paul invited Jesus to speak of the angels that doubtless alighted among the rocks and conversed with the Essenes without fear of falling into sin, there being no women in the cenoby. But in the churches and synagogues it was different, and he had always taught that women must be careful to cover their hair under veils lest angels might be tempted. For the soiled angel, he explained, is unable to return to heaven, and therefore passes into the bodies of men and women and becomes a demon, and when the soiled angel can find neither men nor women to descend into they abide in animals, and become arch demons.
Paul, who had seemed to Jesus to have recovered a great part of his strength, spoke with great volubility and vehemence, saying that angels were but the messengers of God, and to carry on the work of the world God must have messengers, but angels had no power to carry messages from man back to God. There was but one Mediator, and he was on the point of saying that this Mediator was Jesus Christ our Lord, but he checked himself, and said instead that the power to perform miracles was not transmitted from God to man by means of angels. Angels, he continued, were no more than God's messengers, and he related that when he had shed a mist and darkness over the eyes of Elymas, the sooth-sayer in Cyprus, he had received the power to do so direct from God; he affirmed too, and in great earnestness, that it was not an angel but God himself that had prompted him to tell the cripple at Iconium to stand upright on his feet; he had been warned in a vision not to go into Bithynia; and at Troas a man had appeared to him in the night and ordered him to come over to Macedonia, which was his country; he did not know if the man was a real man in the flesh or the spirit of a man who had lived in the flesh: but he was not an angel. Of that Paul was sure and certain; then he related how he had taken ship and sailed to Samothrace, and next day to Neopolis, and the next day to Philippi, and how in the city of Thyatira he had bidden a demon depart out of a certain damsel who brought her master much gain by soothsaying. And for doing this he had been cast into prison. He knew not of angels, and it was an earthquake that caused the prison doors to open and not an angel. Peter had met angels, but he, Paul, had never met one, he knew naught of angels, except the terrible Kosmokratores, the rulers of this world, the planetary spirits of the Chaldeans, and he feared angel worship, and had spoken to the Colossians against it, saying: remember there is always but one Mediator between God and man, Jesus Christ our Lord, who came to deliver us from those usurping powers and their chief, the Prince of the Powers of the Air. They it was, as he had told the Corinthians, that crucified the Lord of glory. But perhaps even they may be saved, for they knew not what they did.
Jesus was afraid that Paul's vehemence would carry him on into another fit like the one that he had just come out of, and he was glad to meet a shepherd, who passed his water-bottle to Paul. Fill thy bottle from mine, the shepherd said to Jesus, and there is half-a-loaf of bread in my wallet which I'd like thee to have to share with thy traveller in the morning, else he will not be able to begin the journey again. Nay, do not fear to take it, he said, my wife'll have prepared supper for me. Jesus took the bread and bade his mate farewell. There is a cave, Paul, Jesus said, in yonder valley which we can make safe against wolves and panthers. Lean on my arm. Thy head is still a trouble; drink a little more water. See, the shepherd has given me half-a-loaf, which we will share in the morning. Come, the cave is not far: in yon valley. Paul raised his eyes, and they reasoned with vague, pathetic appeal, for at that moment Jesus was the stronger. Since it must be so, I'll try, he said, and he tottered, leaning heavily on Jesus for what seemed to him a long way and then stopped. I can go no farther; thou wouldst do well to leave me to the hyenas. Go thy way. But Jesus continued to encourage him, saying that the cave in which they were to rest was at the end of the valley, and when Paul asked how many yards distant, he did not answer the exact distance, but halved it, so that Paul might be heartened and encouraged, and when the distance mentioned had been traversed and the cave was still far away he bore with Paul's reproaches and answered them with kindly voice: we shall soon be there, another few steps will bring us into it, and it isn't a long valley; only a gutter, Paul answered, the way the rains have worn through the centuries. A strange desert, the strangest we have seen yet, and I have travelled a thousand leagues but never seen one so melancholy. I like better the great desert. I have lived all my life among these hills, Jesus replied, and to my eyes they have lost their melancholy.