Told by the death's head

by Mór Jókai

"What has Malchus done that he deserves to be admitted to the service of Baphomet?" he inquired.

My patron answered for me:

"He has been a heretic, an atheist, a thief, a murderer, a counterfeiter, an adulterer—"

"The very man for us!" interrupted Nebuchadnezzar—and then I understood why my welcome to the conventual residence had been so cordial!

I was asked to take off my monk's habit, and given the dress of a Roman lictor, in which character my first task was to remove the lid from a sarcophagus that stood in a niche in the wall.

I was horrified when I saw that it contained a wax image of our Savior, as He descended from the cross, with the five gaping wounds in His body, and the crown of thorns on His head.

The knights gathered about the sarcophagus, and began a discussion, to which I listened with fear and trembling. They spoke in Latin, and as I am quite familiar with the language I understood every word.

One of the knights asserted, that Christ was an eon of the God-father, Jaldabaoth, who had sent Him to the earth, as the Messiah of the Pneumatici, and to vanquish his, Jaldabaoth's, arch-enemy, Ophiomorpho; that Christ, having failed for want of courage to accomplish the task, Jaldabaoth had allowed Him to be crucified in punishment; all of which was satisfactorily proved by Valentinus, the Gnostic. Another of the knights insisted, that Christ was an imposter, as was verified by Basilides of Alexandria, and Bardesane; and that His true name was Ben Jonah Hanotzri.

The earth seemed to sink from under my feet as I listened to this blasphemous disputation. Though I am a wicked sinner, my reverence for all things holy is boundless. I held my hands over my ears to shut out the horrible words, but I could not help but hear some of them.

The third knight maintained that the whole story of Jesus Christ was a myth—He had never been born—had never died. The entire legend was an emblem, a symbol that, like Brahma, and Isis, had never possessed a material body; and that all images of Him were idols, like those which represented Basal, or Dagon.