Jesus & the Eightfold Path

Copyright © 2011 Lavie Tidhar
All rights reserved.

Published as an ebook in 2014 by Jabberwocky Literary Agency, Inc., in conjunction with the Zeno Agency LTD. Published as a limited edition hardcover by Immersion Press in 2011.

Cover art by Melissa Gay.

ISBN 978-1-625671-05-9

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Part One: His Birth and Early Years

Episode One: Journey to the West

Episode Two: The King of the Jews

Episode Three: A Star Over Bethlehem

Episode Four: Egypt

Part Two: The Temptation of the Christ

Episode One: Nazarene

Episode Two: The Baptist

Episode Three: The Great Old One

Episode Four: The Sermon on the Mount

Part Three: The Gospel According to Josephus

Episode One: The Roman Agent

Episode Two: Tiberias

Episode Three: Demons and Storms

Episode Four: Walking on Water

Part Four: The Passion of the Christ

Episode One: A Ramble in the Temple

Episode Two: The Last Supper

Episode Three: The Hill of Skulls

Episode Four: Resurrection

Also by Lavie Tidhar

Part One
His Birth and Early Years

Episode One
Journey to the West

Now when Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of Herod the king, behold, there came wise men from the east to Jerusalem.

—Matthew 2:1

They were not entirely men, and they were not entirely wise; however, here they were, three pilgrims clothed in the dust of the road, travelling faster than men do: for the road was long and dangerous and hard, and a single star in the sky beckoned them on, as if to say, hurry, hurry.

“Barbarous country,” Sūn Wùkōng said. He was tall and thin and had the wizened face of a monkey. He raised a hand and touched the gold band around his head. “I could be back in the Bloom Mountains, or better yet, making play for the Jade Emperor’s daughter.”

The fat companion beside him roared with laughter and said, “Really, Monkey! The girls in these parts are not too bad. You are too aloof! Too selective! You are a connoisseur, whereas I—” he took two enormous fingers and pinched a lavish section of the pink ample skin of his belly—“I am a democrat, a man of the people! I like to try everything!”

“Like the Princesses of the Moon?” the third companion, a quiet, narrow-shouldered man said. His name was ShāWùjìng, and it was Monkey’s turn to laugh as the fat man scowled and said, “That was uncalled for, Sandy.”

“It was your own fault, Pigsy,” Sandy said. “If only you learnt to keep your hands to yourself . . . ”

“Like last night,” Monkey said.

Pigsy opened a snout-like mouth wide and grinned and said, “I tell you again, Monkey, the lasses here are none too bad, and willing, for an exotic stranger and a charmer, too.”

“Charmer!” Sandy said. “The girls here must be barbarous indeed!”

“You sound envious!” Pigsy said.

“Never!” Sandy said.

Monkey smiled. “You’ll find a nice girl and settle down one day, Sandy.” And the monk blushed. He was not like the other two. He was more refined, and delicate.

Pigsy was back to his exploits of the night before. “Such arms!” he said. “Such belly! Such . . . such thighs!” His hands drew vulgar shapes in the air.

“She sounds like an elephant!” Monkey said, and Pigsy, not listening, responded, “I tell you again, Monkey, the girls here may be farmer-girls and chunky, but they know how to rut.”

“Enough!” Monkey said. He touched again the golden crown on his head. “Time is growing short, and the stars will soon be in alignment. We should be there soon.”

“Sooner we get there, the sooner we can go back,” Sandy said. Monkey smiled; it was a small, strange smile, like that of a man who knows, or guesses, more than his companions; but he said nothing.

They had travelled far. Many weary days they spent, crossing the great sullen mountains beyond the Emperor’s realm, hiking through treacherous snow and beside deep gorges. Many were the snow-demons they had fought, and many were the deep and ancient cave-dwellers, things of darkness and fear, that tried to waylay them on their way. A giant bird had taken Pigsy for a meal and carried him by its talons to its high eyrie at the top of the world, and it took all of Monkey’s power to rescue him. He had summoned a cloud and he and Sandy rode it to the top, where the giant bird, its feathers the colour of blood and the sun, its scales glittering like jewels, was already pecking at Pigsy’s pink, succulent flesh.

Oh, how the once-Commander of the Heavenly Naval Forces shrieked! Oh, how he cried! Eight babies did the monster bird have, eight sharp-beaked monstrosities clamouring for Pigsy’s flesh!

The battle was lengthy and worthy of song. Sandy used his fighting spade against the bird, but it was of little use against her giant beak. Monkey plucked hairs from his body and blew on them, until soon there were many Monkeys flying around, fighting the bird, while all the while Pigsy screamed and screamed like a pig about to be devoured.

Oh, they had laughed! It took Pigsy almost a week to get over his ordeal. Luckily they had found that hidden city high up in the Himalayas, where lights came from shining crystals and the women were fair and wore shimmering robes . . .

They had almost lost Sandy there, to the charms and grace of the beautiful Princess of the Pale Water, she who was like a mountain spring . . . They were two beings of water, she and the once-water ogre, and it was only the importance of the journey—and the wiles of Monkey, who had set out to seduce the princess—that saved the day.

Long and hard the journey had been! Across the mountains at last, and down into the hot lands below, and across a vast distance of danger and temptation. There were nomads on the plains, strong harsh men who tried to attack the three travellers; and there were wizards too, of a new ilk not seen in the Middle Kingdom, preying on travellers—man-eaters and uncouth. There had been many fights, but always the three travellers were triumphant.

The lands gradually changed. The air became hot and humid. The barrenness of the plains turned lush and there were many trees, and their fruits were exotic and new, and Pigsy lusted after the fruits of the land (and the fruits of men’s loins, too!).

At last there was a great crossing of a sea, by ship sturdy and taut of sail. “A good craft,” Monkey said thoughtfully as he patted the beams of cedar.

Pigsy leered and said, “Fishermen’s tubs, Monkey! One Imperial ship would sink a whole fleet of them.”

“Perhaps,” Monkey said, and his wise monkey’s eyes were thoughtful.

At last they had come to the barbarous land called Judea. They went as men here, and old men at that. On the first night coming off the ship brigands tried to rob them. After that there had been no more attempts.

Episode Two
The King of the Jews

When Herod the king had heard these things, he was troubled.

—Matthew 2:3

“What’s their king like?” Sandy said.

“A provincial,” Pigsy said and laughed a har-har sound, showing teeth. He picked at them with the long sharp nail of his small finger. “What do you expect?”

“I don’t know,” Monkey said. He had been mainly silent since they had entered Judea. It was not at all, as Pigsy privately thought, like him, but then Monkey was a more complicated creature. He, Pigsy, was a simple man and liked the simple life: food and drink and wenches. What more could you want?

But Monkey was different and sometimes Pigsy worried about him. It was the influence of the Tripitaka on Monkey, he thought. It had turned him into a sometimes-philosopher.

It did not occur to Pigsy that his thinking this, his worrying about Monkey, was itself an influence of the Tripitaka. “He seems capable. A bit ambitious in his building projects—”

“What king isn’t?” Sandy said.

“But a good politician. Which he probably needs to be, in these barbarous lands. They have their own emperor, you know—”

“A Roman,” Sandy said.

“They’re called Romans.” Pigsy snorted.

“Enough!” he said. “When do we leave?”

“We just got here!” Monkey said, and a new smile came over his wizened face. “It could be fun to stick around . . . ”

They were walking up the mountain road to the city called Jerusalem. They did not quite go unnoticed. There had been . . . indiscretions.

Such as at the inn that stood outside the little hovel of a town called Beersheba. It was a hot place and Pigsy was irritable and sweating. When he saw a pool of mud outside the stables he did not even stop to look around but jumped in, and was soon rolling in the yellow-brown mud, making the strange grunting noises that meant he was happy.

It might have ended at that if not for a most delectable black-eyed girl who had chosen that exact moment to walk past the stables, slipped in the mud, and was amorously wrapped in the arms of the pig. The girl had shrieked, the household was alerted, and the companions had to beat a hasty retreat and spend the night camped under the stars.

And there was the moment Sandy got drunk. It was in a tavern further down the road. After a couple of bottles of the potent local red wine Sandy, quite earnestly, began to tell the assembled company camel-drivers and traders and even, alas, the old king’s man, all about the Tripitaka, and the star, and their journey.

That was not a good move, but the situation was made even worse when Sandy, innocently, seemed to have offended one of the ladies present whose man, a large, beefy Edomite, charged at him.

Soon Sandy’s spade was flying everywhere, and then Pigsy joined in, and bodies were flying around as if a desert wind had passed through the tavern, and tables and chairs, too. Monkey had not been pleased.

“The road seems awfully quiet,” Sandy said now. The three walked slowly, as old men. Above them, far in the distance, towered the city of white stone. “I wonder where everyone is.”

Monkey smiled. It did not escape his notice that the general populace had been giving them a wide berth of late. In fact, quite a blockage was forming about a mile behind them, as cart-drivers became aware of the three travellers’ presence ahead and slowed down to a crawl.

“There’s someone coming,” he said and pointed. Indeed, coming down the mountain road at a gallop was a young man on a horse, wearing a uniform that seemed part-local and part-Roman (as far as the travellers, who had encountered few Romans, could tell) and looking quite official and self-important.

“Do you think he wants to talk to us?” Sandy said, and Pigsy said, “I’m hungry.”

The horse came thundering towards them. It was a handsome specimen, black coat and shiny, and it seemed aimed directly at the three travellers. When it came within a few feet from them the horse had stopped. The three travellers, too, stopped, and stood staring at the animal and its rider.

When the rider dismounted they could see that he was indeed young, but that his face was already hardened by fighting. He seemed a local boy, what they called a Hebrew, and he spoke in Aramaic. He said, “Greetings, venerable gentlemen”—or something to that effect.

“Greetings, soldier,” Sandy said. “What can we do for you”—or something to that effect.

“Venerable one,” the boy said, “the king wishes to have conversation with yourselves. I am requested to escort you the rest of the way to Jerusalem, and to the palace itself.”

“Will there be food?” Pigsy asked.

The soldier turned to him and smiled, if only briefly, and said gravely, “There will be.”

“We are old men,” Monkey said, and he leaned on his staff as if to demonstrate his feebleness. “And peaceful. We have no business with your king, and our errand is urgent.”

The boy’s raised eyebrow said, “Is that so?” but aloud he said, “But the king, it seems, has business with you.”

“Very well,” Monkey said amiably. “Seeing as our path leads us to Jerusalem on its own, I believe we could spare your king some moments.”

“That is very generous of you,” the soldier said. “My name, by the way, is Josephus, son of Matthias.”

The boy had a solemn face but his eyes twinkled. Monkey, without quite knowing why, liked him. He said, “Lead the way, then, Josephus.”

The boy led his horse slowly forward. The three wise men followed on foot. When at last they reached the great gates of the city, Pigsy was out of breath and pinker than usual. He said, “I’m hungry.”

“Business first,” Monkey said, and Sandy sniggered. They followed the boy through the busy entrance, down narrow alleyways bordered by houses built entirely with stone.

They passed a large building where the noise of construction was overwhelming. “Our Temple,” the boy, Josephus, said; the three companions looked, once. “Lacks a certain grandeur,” Sandy murmured.

They came to the palace.

The king, when at last they saw him, seemed vigorous and somewhat earthly. There was little protocol. The king’s name was Hordos—Herod in the manner of the Romans—and he had a thick white beard and a nose that had been broken once before.

He said, “Wise men. Thank you for coming to see me.”

“Did we have a choice?” Sandy said, but quietly.

Hordos smiled. “I am, after all, the king,” he said.

“What do you want?” Pigsy said, bluntly. The king’s smiled wavered. Monkey said, “Forgive my friend, for he is led mostly by his appetites, and his appetites are great, and we have come a long way and are weary, and have a long way to go yet.”

The king inched his head. “Very well,” he said. “Let us not bandy words. I wish to know of your purpose here.”

“And by asking,” Monkey said, “you indicate that you feel you already have a good idea?”

For the first time they could see the king and soldier in him. Hordos leaned forward, his eyes were hard, and he said, “This is my country. There is little I don’t know. And in your travels you have been less than circumspect.”

Monkey sighed. “That is true,” he acknowledged. “But if you know of our purpose, why did you summon us here?”

“Please,” the king said, “let us not pretend to be simpletons. I have heard tell that you follow a star, and that a messiah will be born here in Judea, and that he will become king of the Jews.”

“You fear for your succession?” Monkey said, and Sandy added, “It is the nature of kings that they are sometimes dethroned and dynasties change. What of it?”

But Pigsy, who was looking at the king the way one does at a juicy lamb chop, said, “We know little of kings and nothing of Jews. We follow the Tripitaka, and curse the day that he was ordained to be born in this barbarous backwater.”

The king smiled and raised his hand. “Peace,” he said. “You are hungry, and I have been a graceless host.” He called out, and servants came and brought meats and bread and cheese and jugs of red wine. “Eat,” he said. “Let it not be said that you find us inhospitable.”

And so discussion was adjourned; and the three companions ate until they could eat no more; and at last even Pigsy has had enough, and he belched enormously and grinned and patted his belly and said, “Simple fair, but good.”

“Thank you,” the king said wryly. He had merely tasted of the food, and drank but half a cup of the wine. “Now, what is this Tripitaka of which you speak? What is your true purpose?”

“King,” Monkey said, and he fingered the golden band around his head as if in pain, “we three are bound to the service of the Tripitaka, the sanzang, “three baskets” in your tongue. He is a messenger of the Buddha. It is his destiny to travel far and gain wisdom, and it is ours to keep him well and to protect him. Why he was ordained to be reborn here I do not know. What his purpose is, that, too, I do not know. We three, who were once mighty kings and generals, are now fallen and bound in service to him. And you, what is it that you desire of our master?”

“Your master,” Hordos said, “is yet unborn.”

“He was born before,” Pigsy said indifferently, “and will be born again. That is the nature of his karma.”

The king shook his head. “There is much I do not understand in your speech,” he said, and then he sighed and said, “but enough to trouble me.”

The servants had been dismissed. They were alone.

“A bad time is coming,” said the king, “and while some here accuse me of not being a true Jew, which I am, I grow concerned for my people. Some call me cruel, and yes, I have been cruel, and will be so again when necessity demands.”

Pigsy nodded; he was beginning to think better of this king, who had good food and who, moreover, understood the importance of carefully-applied cruelty. It was, Pigsy felt, a necessary quality in a king.

“I have held off against the Romans,” the king said. “I have maintained Judea as an independent entity; it took much doing. I have forged links with Ptolemy of Egypt, but I fear his time, too, and his dynasty’s, are ending. A war is coming, gentlemen. A war of the Jews. When I go, I fear I will have no successors, and the Romans will annex this country the way one gathers a fallen fruit.” His eyes glazed, and Monkey saw with wonder that the power of prophecy was in the king’s eyes.

“A war will come,” the king continued, and his voice was booming and urgent. “My people will revolt. We have fought the Greeks, and we have beaten them. We have outlasted the Babylonians. We have escaped the Egyptians. Always, my people survive. But now, I fear, the final war is coming, and against the Romans there can be no victory. We will be defeated, and taken as slaves, and the temple—my temple, that I have been rebuilding and remaking until it will stand as glorious as Solomon’s once was!—will be destroyed, and the menorah lost forever, and two thousand years of exile will follow. This,” he said, and his eyes opened and he saw again, “is what I wish to prevent.”

Then the three companions bowed their heads, for the king’s words had moved them; and Monkey said, “What is it you wish done?”

“Find the boy,” the king said. “And take him away. I will put out an order for his death. The Romans will not trouble further. Take him to . . . Egypt. I will arrange safe passage with Ptolemy, its ruler. Return to Judea when my time comes. It will not be long now. Already the shadows lengthen, and my temple is not yet done.” The king shook his head, and smiled, and the expression in his eyes was cruel.

“I will put out an order for the boy’s death,” he said, “and it will be followed. Should he remain in Judea he will be killed. It will be up to you three to prevent that—if you can.”

Monkey smiled, and Pigsy grinned, and only Sandy remained expressionless, as if thinking deeply.

“Politics is not our strongest suit,” Monkey said. “But we understand fighting.”

“Then go,” the king said, and he bowed his head to the three companions. “We will not meet again.”

And they left; and as the king had said, so it was.

They never saw Hordos again.

Episode Three
A Star Over Bethlehem

When they had heard the king, they departed; and, lo, the star, which they saw in the east, went before them, till it came and stood over where the young child was.

—Matthew 2:9

Miriam felt restless. A hot wind was blowing outside and the house felt damp and airless, and she longed to go out of doors. Yet it was dark; a moonless night and the stars gazed down oppressively, and so she remained inside with the baby.

Jesus! Her little Yeshua, a cherub, an angel, a sweet-tempered baby who seemed not to know the meaning of crying. He was a lifeline. She had felt so queer since he was born. Oppressed by the house, the night, and the small noises that made her jump . . .

The birthing-mother was kind and said it was only to be expected. Sometimes women felt this way on the birth of their first child.

Miriam wished Joseph was there, but he was working late again; an urgent order from a Hashmonai family in Jerusalem asking for a cabinet. He was a good carpenter, her husband, a good man, but he worked too hard. Yet she never complained. He had taken her in with child and had always treated her right. And the baby was as much his as  . . . as . . .

She didn’t want to think about it. Not now.

A noise outside startled her. She sat close to the fire and stared out into the dark. Was anyone out there? She heard the neighing of a horse and the clatter of hooves, disappearing into the distance. Just some messenger or late traveller going past. She needn’t worry. Bethlehem was a good town, quiet, observant. It was close enough to Jerusalem and the markets and the temple.

Idly she wondered if Joseph would buy her the new shawl she had seen on their last visit to the city. It was dyed a bright-blue. She stirred the fire with a stick and stared at the dark outside.

Why was she so nervous?

“Bit of a dump,” Pigsy said cheerfully. Somehow he had secured upon his person one of the king’s personal flagons of wine, half a loaf of bread and a large chunk of cheese. He was chewing as he spoke (which never failed to annoy Sandy). “Not much to do after dark, I shouldn’t think.”

Monkey didn’t reply. He looked up into the night sky and once again touched the golden band there, the one he couldn’t remove. He was bound to the Tripitaka. The band of gold on his forehead was his jailer.

Most of the time Monkey enjoyed his adventures with the Tripitaka. But, recently, he was becoming more and more distracted, and felt the weight of the band more acutely. He shrugged, said, “I’ve seen worse.”

The town was dark and quiet. Low lying stone houses and thatched roofs, with orderly dirt roads that ran in between. Bethlehem. It meant the house of bread in the Hebrew’s tongue. Pigsy choked and sprayed a fountain of bread crumbs from his mouth. “Really!” Sandy said. Pigsy shrugged and took a deep sip of the wine. Sandy shook his head. He found himself agreeing with Zhū Bājiè on this. “What a place to be born,” he said.

“Here,” Monkey said. He was still looking at the skies. The other two looked up, followed his finger. Stars scattered across the sky like a hoard of diamonds and rubies. The Milky Way ran from one end of the sky to the other, two of its arms visible, reaching out as if to pluck at an unseen treasure. Sirius, the Dog Star, was bright in the centre of the heavens. And there . . .

Monkey never quite knew what it was. His knowledge of astronomy had not been great. He had been more interested in mischief than true learning. And yet he wondered. Was it a comet they were following? A star that—a sage in the Imperial Court had once told him this happened—exploded and its light reached out an unimaginable distance away? Was it a spirit-being, or a demon cast down from heaven very much like Pigsy or Sandy once were?

He didn’t know. But there it was, a bright steady point in the sky, a beacon they had followed all the way from the Middle Kingdom, past the forbidding mountains and the dreary plains, to this land, to this town, finally to this house, brick and thatch and a small yard, with a fire burning quietly inside.

He nodded and the other two exchanged a glance. They made no move but merely stood there, gazing at the house, each thinking his own thoughts. Pigsy finished the bread and took a last sip from the wine. Monkey stepped forward and knocked on the door.

She jumped at the unexpected sound. Had she nodded off ? She stood up and went and looked at the cot. Little Yeshua, toothless and sweet, was smiling up at her and there were little dimples at the corners of his mouth.

Jesus, she thought, using the Latinate version which was such de rigour. What shall I do with you?

The sound came again. Someone knocking at the door. And Joseph wasn’t there. What should she do?

“Hello!” It was a cheerful voice, quite deep, as of an old yet vital man. “Anybody home?”

Perhaps it was the voice. In truth, she couldn’t have said why she did it. But she went to the door. “Who is it?”

Did her voice quiver? She heard low voices conferring outside. They spoke a strange language she didn’t understand.

“We are wise men come from the east,” a new voice said decisively; then, less so, “And, um, would it be possible for us to come in?”

“Wise men,” Miriam said, remembering something her grandmother used to say, “do not call themselves wise.”

“Bugger,” someone muttered outside. “Look, lady—” but he was silenced, and the first voice laughed. “I think the word in your language is star gazers,” he said. “Chozei kochavim? We are astrologers. Our wisdom is a matter for interpretation, but we would like to speak with you. It is about your son.”

Her son! What did they want with her son? She looked over at the cot. Baby Jesus was cooing to himself. He was grinning, that face he made when he-oh, not now!

She found herself opening the door. Outside stood three old men. They leaned on canes and two of them looked wizened and bent beyond description, though the third was fat and fleshy and she thought he looked like a pig, and it cheered her up.

“Come in,” she said. “I’m afraid I have to—”

“What is that smell?” Sandy whispered. Unfortunately his voice was quite loud. The woman had heard it and was embarrassed; Monkey could see that. Surprisingly, it was Pigsy who stepped in.

“He’s a baby, you idiot,” he said to Sandy, and went over to the woman and said, “Let me help you,” and in moments he was changing the baby’s dress and wiping his bottom. Monkey and Sandy stared as if they were thunderstruck by one of the gods. “What?” Pigsy demanded. “You have to forgive them,” he said, turning around to the baby’s mother. “Sworn bachelors, both of them. Me, I like the family life. Your husband not in, by the way? I must say pregnancy makes women positively glow. What are you doing later?”

“Pigsy!”

The woman seemed bewildered. “What do you want?” she said again. “My husband will be here soon.”

“What we have to say concerns you both,” Monkey said. “But first, may I . . . ” he gestured to the baby, and the woman nodded reluctantly. Monkey went to the cot and looked down, and saw the Tripitaka, and bowed his head. His golden band gleamed in the fire.

And so he tried to explain. About the Tripitaka, the sanzang, and about the eightfold path and enlightenment and nirvana, and the woman looked like she wanted nothing more than to throw the tree of them out and be done with it.

“He’s in danger,” Monkey finally said, bluntly, and the woman blanched. “You have had a premonition,” he said.

She nodded and said, “Yes,” and sounded surprised.

“We will protect him,” Monkey said. “We are his . . . guardians. For a while, anyway. It is our job. But he must leave Judea, and you and your husband must take him. For he has destiny awaiting, and the world is full of pitfalls and traps for the unwary.”

“But where?” the mother said, and they could see she was distraught. Pigsy went and comforted her.

“We shall wait for your husband,” Monkey said. “And as soon as he returns we must depart.”

“But where?” the mother said again.

Monkey looked at Sandy for confirmation and said, “I believe it is a place called Egypt.”

Episode Four
Egypt

He took the young child and his mother by night, and departed into Egypt.

—Matthew 2:14

Egypt! Misr, Mitzraim . . . Even in the final years of its decline it remained a wonder of the ancient world. How can one describe the great yellow desert, its calm, its endless quiet under a sky as wide as a universe? How can one describe what it is like to stand beneath the giant pyramids, casting their jagged shadows on to the bare earth as a blood-red sun—engorged like an ill heart—sit so big it dominated the horizon?

“We get better sunsets at home,” Pigsy said. “What food have they got?”

Sandy shushed him.

They had travelled by night. They had slipped out of Bethlehem and journeyed north, crossing the great desert, camping out under the cold and unrelenting stars, and having arrived at last in the land of Egypt.

The baby Tripitaka’s father turned out to be a quiet and unassuming man. His wife was hardier than him, but they had both found it difficult, leaving home and hearth and venture into a strange land with a baby and three very odd strangers . . .

The parents had become subdued and the mother overly-protective of her child. The three companions, sworn bachelors all, whatever Pigsy may claim, became quite irritable.

It was with a sense of mutual relief, therefore, when they arrived in the shadow of the pyramids and reached the old Hebrew Quarter, where once the slaves of the Pharaoh had lived.

“It’s all right,” Joseph said to Miriam. He felt responsible somehow for the whole thing. “Remember my namesake had done the same thing in his youth, only to return triumphant.”

“You are no longer young, husband,” she said, and saw his hurt face and was sorry. “You are right,” she said. “It will be fine.” They held each other close, two strangers frightened in a land they didn’t know.

But Egypt! It was a barbarous land, a wondrous land, a place decaying decade by decade, and yet still full of its ancient grandeur, of whimsical miracles and moulding magic.

Their new house was baked mud and the old quarter almost deserted. Yet some Hebrews had remained in Egypt, and some still came and went, men of trade or learning or messengers of the Jewish king.

There was always work to be had for a carpenter. Joseph found himself busier even than in Bethlehem, and he wished for his son to follow him. “An honest trade,” he said to Miriam. “That’s what the boy needs. You can’t go wrong with an honest trade.”

Miriam smiled at him. Sometimes she worried for the baby Jesus, but she kept it from her husband.

The baby Jesus, meanwhile, grew to be a healthy little boy. His skin was browned by the sun, and his hair grew long and fell down to his shoulders. He played in the alleyways of the Hebrew Quarter and learned Hebrew and Aramaic and a smattering of Greek, and he was seldom alone (his friends were always there when he needed them).

“Again,” Monkey said. The boy, his face frowning in concentration, beads of sweat forming on his unlined face, once again assumed the position of Praying Mantis Preparing to Jump. “Focus your ch’i,” Monkey said. The boy took a deep breath and eased it out slowly. “Settle,” Monkey said. “Feel the ch’i flowing through you. When your attacker moves—”

Monkey struck, and the boy moved—like a praying mantis. Where the boy had been only air remained. “Good,” Monkey said. “Now try it again.”

Sandy taught the boy the Sūtras, and debated with him the nature of the world. “Be like water,” he said. “Do not resist change. Be change. Remember that the usefulness of a cup is its emptiness.” He also taught the boy to drink tea, of which he had a small supply—“A wonderful infusion! The basis of a civilization!”—though it had never quite caught on.

But it was Pigsy whom the boy liked most of all. Pigsy, fat and sweating and grumbling, who carried him on his back without complaint, and joined him in his make-believe games and always played the parts Jesus didn’t want.

It was Pigsy, too, who took the boy beyond the walls of the Hebrew Quarter into the dazzling city outside and protected him from harm, where they explored the wide avenues, the startling markets, the hustle and bustle of the ports on the Nile, and admired the ships and invented stories of adventure and daring for them. It was a happy childhood.

At that time they lived in peace and were not disturbed. The word of Herod had proven true.

Yet it is the truth that water can both flow and crash. And so the path of the river that was Jesus was forming deep grooves in the earth, and they did not go unnoticed, and many were curious, and some were concerned.

Jesus was walking along the Nile on his own. At thirteen, he was still small but there was a sense of compressed energy about him. He didn’t yet need to shave, but his long dark hair was shiny and rich.

Yet it was his eyes that drew people to him. They were a blue-black colour, like a bruise. But the longer you stared at them the more colours you saw, the more swirls and eddies. It was like staring into an infinite pool, and it was hard to pull away.

At thirteen, Jesus was discovering girls, and in that he was late, for the girls had already discovered him.

The banks of the Nile were relatively quiet at this time of the evening, which was unusual. The heat of the day had abated and a half moon provided plenty of light. Stalls were strung along the bank, selling spiced mutton and flatbread, watered wines from Rome, oranges from Judea and pineapples from Kush.

Jesus bought himself half a loaf of bread loaded with meat and walked along, the juice running down the sides of his mouth.

A ship cruised silently by on the great river, sails open, as graceful as a swan. Gold flashed off its sides. A royal barge? He didn’t know and didn’t care. He walked down along the Nile with all the carelessness and good cheer a boy of thirteen has when he is away from his parents and has pocket money to spare. The world was full of delights.

He passed a group of skimpily-dressed ladies, their bodies painted harsh bright colours. He was dazzled by their smiles.

“What a beautiful boy!”

“Where are you going, honey?”

“Where’s your mother?”

“I’ll mother you!”

Laughs.

He walked past the open mouth of an alleyway when the tune dropped from his lips and he paused and stood stock-still. An observer may have failed to notice him: he disappeared into the shadows as if he were one of them.

Inside the alleyway a fight was taking place, and it was not an even one. A girl only a few years older than himself was fighting desperately against a gang of young, muscled men. Bare-chested the men held clubs, knives, curved swords, and on their arms wore heavy bands of dull metal.

Jesus looked up—and was smitten. The girl was beautiful and wild, with bare-arms on which glittered heavy gold bands. Her nose was proud, her skin dark, and she fought with a ferocity he had not known women possessed.

She jumped high in the air and kicked and one man’s face caved in and he fell, but two more grabbed her arms and brought her down.

The words of his mentors came back to him. Be like water. He was ready. Somehow, he felt, this was what he was born for. He eased his way along the wall, unseen and unnoticed. The girl was struggling fiercely against her opponents, but there were too many of them. Jesus—

He leaped. High in the air he went, and the power of ch’i was inside him. He leaped and lashed out, once, twice, three times. The men fell back.

“Brat!” A massive hand reached out to grab him.

Jesus allowed it to come, welcomed it, unresisting, and when it took hold, used his opponent’s own force, and broke his arm.

Leaping again he kicked, breaking a man’s nose, landed and punched, one, two, three rapid hits, moving, ducking underneath the big men—a mad swirl of energy.

Had one of his mentors seen him at that moment they would not have, perhaps, been impressed. They might have felt that he was too impulsive, that, despite how coolly he might have thought he fought, it was not so. They might have felt he fought almost like a child. Yet there have been few children in the world ever to be trained by Sūn Wùkōng.

The girl fought by his side. Together they faced the circle of evil-looking attackers, and together they punched, leaped, swung and ducked and hit, until at last—

A boy and a girl stood alone in a dark alleyway. A sliver of moonlight came down from above and circled them, and all around them were the bodies of the attackers, and all was still.

“Traitors!” the girl said. Her eyes flashed. She seemed hardly to notice Jesus. “They will live yet to regret ever having lived.” She smiled. “The torturers will make sure of that.”

“What did they want?” Jesus said. “Why were they attacking you?”

“What is your name, boy?”

“Yeshua. Jesus.”

Her eyes opened, surprised. “A Hebrew?”

“Yes.”

“You don’t fight like one.” She laughed. He thought she had a cruel laugh, but she was very attractive. “The last time your people were here they ran away across the desert.”

“The last time my people were here God killed every first-born in Egypt,” Jesus said. The girl stopped laughing.

“God . . . ” she said, musingly. “Do you believe in God, boy?”

“I do.”

“I don’t,” the girl said flatly. “But I believe in politics, and those thugs were sent to assassinate me. By my sister Tryphaena, no doubt. The whore. God!” She turned her head and looked straight at Jesus, and seemed to discover something in his eyes; for a long moment they looked at each other, not speaking.

“I am . . . ” she said, and her voice was thicker now, as if she was being shaken from a dream. “I am Cleopatra.”

Part Two
The Temptation of the Christ

Episode One
Nazarene

And he came and dwelt in a city called Nazareth.

—Matthew 2:23

The journey back to Judea took considerably less than forty years, though it might have, at times, felt like it. Pigsy was irritable; Sandy morose.

“The girls!” Pigsy said to Monkey. They were trudging through the desert. “Skin like dark olives, warm hands scented with oil, warm bo—”

“Olives,” said Sandy. “Don’t talk to me about olives.” Pigsy and Monkey both looked at him sideways, surprised at the non sequitur.

Pigsy, miffed, said, “What have olives got to do with it?”

“Nothing,” Sandy said, a little too forcefully. He had spent most of his time in Egypt at the Pharaoh’s library.

Didn’t Sandy mention, in a few unguarded moments, that one of the librarians was unusually helpful? Perhaps that was it, Monkey thought. But why olives? He decided, on second thought, that he didn’t really want to know.

The boy, meanwhile, was taking the travelling rather well. He looked about him everywhere with a sort of sharp-eyed innocence (long lost to the three travellers) and Monkey rather envied him.

He had turned out well, the Tripitaka: handsome, well-spoken, rather better in the noble arts of war than the last Tripitaka had been. They’d always had to bail him out; always running after this demon or that who had ensnared the Tripitaka. This latest reincarnation was something of a blessing, really, when it came down to it.

The boy turned around and, as if reading Monkey’s thoughts, flashed him a boyish grin and a wink.

Damn it! The Tripitaka always made him feel like this, knowing what lay inside of him, never coming outright and saying it, but knowing, all the same, and—he touched the crown on his head. If only he could have it removed . . .

“Is this Mount Sinai?” the boy Jesus said. He pointed at an unremarkable sandy-coloured hill which looked identical to all the other dune-like hills they had so far passed. “Where Moses gave the Ten Commandments to my people and spoke to God?”

“Speaking to Gods,” Monkey said dryly, “is seldom a beneficial policy.”

“Yes,” Pigsy said, “they just might hear you and talk back.” He smacked his hands together and said, “Kapawo!”

“Olives!” Sandy said. He looked like he was spoiling for a fight.

The parents rode behind on donkeys. A small train of pitiful-looking animals carried their worldly goods, leaving a trail of hoof-prints and the occasional excrement behind.

The desert was dreary but, on the plus side, Monkey thought, it didn’t take long to cross. And once they entered Judea proper, and the air turned cooler and the wind whispered promises of the sea, the companions’ mood improved. Slightly.

The journey north was long but uneventful. Herod’s death would have left the country in an upheaval, but the Romans had stepped in quickly, and order was restored.

There were to be no more kings for the Jews. Herod’s three boys ruled as tetrarchs, and a Roman prefect was, indeed, more than enough for what was, after all, a Roman colony in all but name (and a small, insignificant one at that).

“Romans build good roads,” Monkey said.

“Ah, but Egypt  . . . ” Pigsy said wistfully. “I went into one of their pyramids once, did I tell you?”

“About a hundred times . . . ” Sandy muttered.

The boy Jesus turned and gave Uncle Pigsy his wide-eyed stare and said, “Truly?”

“Truly,” Pigsy said, obviously pleased. “Found a secret door. Inside, a long tunnel went down quite a long way. Dark. Of course I knew the place was cursed, was waiting for it, you can bet on it; but treasure, I must admit I was quite curious as to its exact nature, and I wasn’t going to take anything—”

“Ha!”—this one from Sandy.

“Mummies,” Pigsy said, matter-of-factly. Jesus’ eyes grew even larger. “A horde of them. Damndest thing I ever saw. All wrapped in bandages, quite brainless, obviously; they had their brains pulled out through the nose before they put them there—” Miriam, behind, looked horrified—“quite barbaric, really,” Pigsy said magnanimously, as if conceding her an important point. “But the crux of it was, I’m standing there, in the very treasure house of this old pharaoh, and this army of mummies comes rushing me. I’m completely surrounded. No way out, deep underground. Nothing for it but to fight them.”

“Oh!”

Pigsy grinned at the boy. “When fighting mummies,” he said, as if imparting some great and secret knowledge, “remember that they move slowly and have no brains. They rely purely on numbers. And being virtually unstoppable, of course, already being dead and all.”

“Please!” It was the mother again.

Pigsy sighed. “Later,” he promised, “I’ll tell you how I got away from them. Best not to go into it now. Must say they mummify some nice-looking girls in those tombs. Chambermaids and what not, you know. Not their fault; it’s not like they asked to be made into mummies—”

“Pigsy . . . ” Monkey said, growling; the boy looked between them, and looked disappointed.

“And I, for one, never minded such a minor a point as the lack of a brain,” Pigsy said, and roared in laughter.

They had decided, at last, to settle in the Galilee. The warm climate, fertile land and, importantly, the distance from Jerusalem were all factors. And Nazareth itself was a pleasant enough town, with cobbled streets and low stone walls and a bustling market. One could drink plenty of the local wine and find conversation, and there was plenty of work for a carpenter.

And so they settled and lived comfortably enough, and the boy grew and became a man, and all would have been peaceful and prosperous if it weren’t, of course, for the nature of fate and the inevitable turning of the wheel of life upon its axis.

And one day, as if heralding at last the winds of destiny, there came a man to the river Jordan, and his name was Yochanan.

Episode Two
The Baptist

And the same John had his raiment of camel’s hair, and a leathern girdle about his loins; and his meat was locusts and wild honey.

—Matthew 3:4

“Locusts and honey!” Pigsy said disgustedly. “I mean, really!”

He was sitting with Monkey and Sandy at a lakeside taverna in Tiberias, drinking red wine. The sun was low on the horizon. A lone fisherman could be seen in the distance.

“I mean,” Pigsy added: “did you see that old devil?”

It had all been most disagreeable, Monkey had to concede. This man Yochanan, this John as he called himself in the vulgate, reminded him of the men of a mountain tribe they had encountered up in the Himalayas: big, hairy creatures, shadows against the snow-line. They hadn’t attacked, but followed them, just out of reach, for days across the endless snow. Tenacious, that’s what they were.

And that’s what this man John was, too. Though he, too, was not entirely a man.

“Do you think he will be all right?” Sandy said. He seemed morose, but then he usually did.

“It is out of our hands now,” Monkey said. “For a little while, anyhow.”

John. Yes, they had all recognised him, at the end. But he was not a threat, despite his nature. It was what transpired afterwards that had them worried—and meant they were now sitting without their charge on the shore of the Sea of Galilee, fretting.

It had all began innocently enough. John had come to the river Jordan and there he dwelt, and preached, of course (the land was full of preachers of all hues, and he was no exception) But it had become a fashion among the young and not-so-young to go to him, for the man John offered a new spiritual service to the community, and it was called baptism. Come and see him, and he would dunk you in the river Jordan, and pronounce you free of sin. Jesus wanted to go.

“What sins have you committed that you need to go there?” Pigsy had asked morosely. Morality, he thought, should be left to those best suitable to handle it—Buddhas and such-like. But that the Tripitaka needed to wash away his sins seemed, well, it seemed indecent is what it seemed.

Jesus, thinking about Cleopatra—there was that thing she did, with olives; he couldn’t seem to shake that memory away these days—blushed and didn’t reply. But he was determined to go.

He had grown to be a handsome young man. Long hair fell down to his shoulders and his beard, which he cultivated in the vain hope of appearing older, nevertheless gave him a rather fetching appearance. There being nothing else to it, the companions joined him.

Monkey had a bad feeling about the whole thing. The old Tripitaka always got mired in those side-trips of his, and he thought the new one would be no exception. Anyway it was their job to watch over him. And so they went.

The river was pleasant and there were many fishes and Sandy, at least, seemed delighted by the change of scene, and he caught their lunch bare- handed standing in the river. John’s place was easy to find. There was a veritable horde of people heading the same way.

From above, the scene was curious: there was this man, hairy and almost naked, big arms almost rippling in the sunlight, standing stock-still in the middle of the Jordan.

And there were the people, forming an orderly line, stepping gingerly into the cold water, waddling up to this John, and being baptised. And the man, all the while he was dunking them into the water, was shouting at the top of his voice, and speaking thus:

“O generation of vipers!” said John, “who hath warned you to flee from the wrath to come? Bring forth therefore fruits met for repentance. And think not to say within yourselves, ‘We have Abraham to our father’, for I say unto you that God is able of these stones to raise up children unto Abraham. And now also the axe is laid unto the root of the trees: therefore every tree which bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down, and cast into the fire—” and so on and so forth.

Pigsy scowled but kept his tongue, for there were many women in the baptism and the sight of their wet clothes filled him with delight. But Sandy was more hasty and said: “There is something familiar about this man.”

“Wait!” Monkey said, as Jesus went down with the rest of the crowd and waited his turn.

When Jesus stepped into the water John looked into his face, took a step back, and nearly fell. And then he raised his eyes and saw the three companions, outlined against the bank of the river Jordan, and he scowled.

“I will not baptise you,” he said flatly to Jesus, and the expression on the young man’s face was one of grave disappointment. And John said, “I have need to be baptised of thee, and comest thou to me?”—or words to that effect in the Aramaic tongue, which makes it sound less poncey.

And Sandy said: “He’s a water-sprite!” for he recognised something then, and being a water-demon himself of a sort, was well-familiar with the order.

Pigsy said, “Let’s attack him!”

But Monkey stayed their hands. “Wait!”

And Jesus said, “Suffer it to be so now.” John nodded and didn’t argue. After that he grabbed Jesus’ head and dunked him in the river, and the boy came back again spluttering and said, “It’s cold!”

“He is the Tripitaka,” Monkey said to Sandy, quietly. “And all demons must, in the end, accept the Buddha or perish beside him. But now it is the time of his temptation, which every man must pass on his way to enlightenment. And of this John, at least, I think we need not fear.”

Then John raised his eyes again, and his and Monkey’s met. The water- man inched his head towards Sūn Wùkōng, in recognition or acceptance, and both turned to look at Jesus.

“It’s a trap!” Sandy said. But Monkey remained where he was and held back his companions.

The young Tripitaka was out of the water. And above his head, where before soft clouds had amassed, there was now an opening; and the sun shone down and seemed to suffuse the young man in light. And a voice spoke, or seemed to, and there was a moment of stillness.

“Monkey, please!” Sandy cried.

“There are things we cannot guard against, Shā Wùjìng,” Monkey said. “This is the time of the Tripitaka’s trials. He must make his own choices now, and we cannot help. Be patient.”

And Sandy looked at Monkey and for a moment he almost didn’t recognise him, for Monkey looked like a wise and ancient king just then, and his eyes looked far away. And so they paused, and did nothing, as their young charge stood alone under the opening in the sky—

And then there was a rumble of thunder—

A fork of lightning burst open a stone—

There was a scream, or perhaps many all joined into one—

And blackness descended on the earth and something horrid and demonic seemed to grasp—

To grapple—

To take hold—

Something ancient and great and full of horrors unnamed—

It was only for a moment—

And then it was over and the sun was shining and the clouds dispersed, and the earth was as it was before, warm, pleasantly-scented. It took them all another moment to realise that Jesus was no longer there.

The Tripitaka had disappeared.

Episode Three
The Great Old One

Then was Jesus led up of the spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil.

—Matthew 4:1

There was a confusing aspect in the river—John’s face, for a moment revealing behind it something alien and gleeful . . .

And then the clouds, opening, the light falling on Jesus and him knowing, all of a sudden, a simple, joyous, wondrous and strange knowing of all and everything; and he could see the sense in the way motes of light danced on the surface of the water, in the way wind governed the movement of clouds. He tried to hold on to it, that way of seeing, all-encompassing and strange . . .

And then the blackness, that sense of wrongness descending, and the feel of slimy tentacles holding him, squeezing the breath out of him, pulling him down, down, and into the ground and beyond it, into the underworld that lies beneath.

Jesus felt calmer than perhaps he should have. But it had all happened so quickly! He had no time to panic.

Down and down he went. As he did light took shape again around him and he could see, and what he saw began to work on him, like water dripping slowly until it turned the body blue with cold.

And he knew where he was, for his guardians had taught him well.

First came the Chamber of Wind and Thunder, a great cavernous space filled with lightning and the smell of burning flesh, and bodies buffeted by cyclones thrown here and there like rag dolls.

Second came the Chamber of Grinding, where a horrid dry smell permeated and where men and women, sobbing quietly, were ground to dust. The chamber expanded and constricted like a lung, and all inside it were reduced to powder.

Third came the Chamber of Flames, where eternal fires burned and human bodies sizzled as they perished.

Fourth came the Chamber of Ice, quiet and solemn and filled with the bodies of children.

Fifth came the Chamber of Oil Cauldrons, where rapists were boiled alive. And then the Chamber of Dismemberment by Sawing, and the Chamber of Dismemberment by Chariot. Eighth came the Chamber of Mountain of Knives, where Jesus turned back, horrified, as those who cheated and profited from it were forced to climb the mountain, the knives cutting into their flesh, over and over, until they seemed like an inhuman mass of blood and tissue . . .

And on and on they went, and the Great Old One took him down with him through all the levels of hell.

They went through the Chamber of Tongue Ripping, the Chamber of Pounding, with the sound of giant pistons going up and down, crushing screams; they went through the Chamber of Torso-severing, and the Chamber of Scales, where men hung upside down from the high ceiling, giant meat hooks pierced through their bodies.

They went through the Chamber of Eye-gouging and the Chamber of Heart-digging; the Chamber of Disembowelment and the Chamber of Blood, where the blasphemous were skinned alive. And then the Chamber of Maggots where crooks lay screaming on the ground while a black cloud of maggots crawled over them and devoured them slowly . . .

And finally through the flames of inferno and down to the nameless level nineteen.

Jesus stood in front of a great carved chair. Standing before it, immobile as statues, were the two fearsome guardians of Diyu, of hell: Ox-Head and Horse-Face, great weapons by their sides.

“Approach, human!” boomed a voice, and a dark shape suddenly filled the great chair. It seemed as if the light dimmed further, and the darkness on the chair was discerned only by its relation to the outer darkness of the hall, so that features were hard to identify (though Jesus seemed to notice tentacles, and two enormous eyes like dark moons).

Jesus stepped forward, and bowed politely. “Yanluo Wang,” he said.

“Jesus of Bethlehem,” said Yanluo Wang, Lord of Hell, the Great Old One. “Latterly of Nazareth.” He sounded pleased. “Your teachers taught you well. Welcome to hell.”

“Thank you.”

“How do you like it?” boomed the voice.

Jesus smiled. “Human imagination is a wonderful thing,” he said.

“Indeed!” A tentacle seemed to flop from the deep darkness. The two guards remained immobile, staring fixedly ahead. “But, come. Enough small-talk. That is one vice not usually enjoyed in hell—” the great awful voice laughed, like a grating of rusty cogs in a mighty engine—“though personally I consider it a punishment all by itself. Perhaps a new hell  . . . ” his voice ebbed away speculatively.

Then he sighed and his dark attention returned to the standing Jesus. “I want your soul,” Yanluo Wang said, as a matter-of-fact.

“My soul?”

“Your will,” the Great Old One said impatiently. “Your service. Your worship. A soul is but actions of the mind. And I want yours.”

“Are you willing to pay for it?” Jesus said.

Yanluo Wang laughed. “Hebrews!” he said. “Your people truly are equal to the Chinese in the fecundity of mercantile opportunity! Pay, you say? Indeed. I can offer you a great many things.”

And so began the temptation of the Christ. And for forty days and forty nights (that being a number of particular significance for the Hebrew people, along with seven and thirteen) Jesus was left in the desert, the wilderness as later scholars might translate it, and he was very hungry.

And when the forty days and forty nights (give or take) had passed, the Great Old One reappeared to him and said, “You are the Buddha. Make the stones into bread, so that you may be saved.”

But Jesus laughed and said, “One does not achieve nirvana through the coveting of foodstuffs. Let the stones remain—or roll if they so wish.”

And Yanluo Wang was not pleased. And he took him here and there and offered him many things.

At last, when they were both weary, he took him to the highest peak of the highest mountain, higher even than where the yeti go, and he sat Jesus down and gestured. The whole world was spread out below them, from the Middle Kingdom in the east to the great empire whose seat was the Eternal City, Mother Roma, Rome, and he said (more or less): “All these things will I give thee, if thou wilt fall down and worship me.”

And Jesus looked down at the world, and it was beautiful. “The sun may rise in the East,” he said, “but it sets in the West.”

The Great Old One looked at him like he was crazy and said in a pained voice, “Please do not quote Zen koans at me.”

“Sorry.”

Jesus looked down at the world and saw the sun rise and travel across the globe (for he learned much from the Greeks in Egypt, and thought the idea of a flat world ridiculous), and his eyes were drawn first to Nazareth, where his mother and father sat together by the fire and spoke in low voices and looked afraid. Then he looked to Tiberias, where three once-heavenly companions were getting terribly, horribly drunk.

And then looked he to the wide and desolate sands of Egypt and to the palace, where through one window he heard the sound of running water, and a girl singing in the bath—

And further, to the great armies of the Roman generals, and in particular that of Gaius Julius Caesar Octavian, and further yet to Jerusalem, the city of white stone, where Herod’s son Archelaus ruled as tetrarch, and he knew then that his place was there, among his people, and that his role in the world was yet to come. And he said simply, “No.”

And Yanluo Wang nodded his great squid-like head and departed, and before he did he called him Buddha, for he knew then that the young man had now found the path and that, if he stayed on it and did not fail, he would indeed achieve nirvana and transcend Mara, all that which is illusion.

But he knew, too, that there was time enough yet for Jesus to fail.

And Jesus was left alone in the Himalayas, and it was very cold. But as he called there were those who heard his cry from far away. And Sūn Wùkōng, the Monkey King, left his drink, summoned his cloud and rode faster than wind until he reached the great heights of the mountains, and Jesus, at last, was returned to Galilee.

Episode Four
The Sermon on the Mount

And there followed him great multitudes of people from Galilee, and from Decapolis, and from Jerusalem, and from Judea, and from beyond Jordan. And seeing the multitudes, he went up into a mountain: and when he was set, his disciples came unto him.

—Matthew 4:25-5:1

It had not escaped the companions’ notice that, when the boy returned from the mountain, he was different. His smile, while still dazzling, was no longer quite so carefree, and his manner was that of a man set on a path. The youthful hesitance had gone, and in its place stood the certainty of a man.

“He has conquered temptation,” Sandy said knowingly. “He is on the path of enlightenment now.”

“I don’t like it,” Pigsy said. “Mixing with devils never did anyone any favours. We should have stayed in Egypt.”

Monkey said nothing though he, too, was concerned about the young Buddha. Changes were coming, he knew that for certain. And he thought of the old king’s words and about the war that must surely come between the Hebrews and the Romans, and he was uneasy.

It is not a Buddha’s role to fight, though Jesus had been trained well by the three of them, and indeed as he grew he became a wonder to watch, flowing through the ch’i of kung fu like a mountain spirit, like water and like sun.

But since he returned, since Monkey brought him back from the Himalayas, the boy was no longer open to them. He was his own man, and he had plans. That was evident at a glance. But what form these plans took, in what way Jesus intended to continue along the eightfold path, that none of them knew.

And so they huddled together and drank many flagons of wine and they brooded. Jesus took to walking great distances and visiting all places in the Galilee, and he almost always went alone.

How far things had gone, how well on his way he was to achieve his plans, they had only found out later.

The days and months passed. Jesus was nearly always away, walking through the hills and rivers of the Galilee, sleeping in villages and fields, talking to the people, his people, these curious men and women called Hebrews, or Jews, who lived on the land and grew grapes and wheat, and spent much time studying their own version of the Sūtras, which they called Tanach, which was both a religious text and a history of their people.

“I don’t like it,” Pigsy said again.

Sandy said, “Silence, Pigsy! It isn’t for us to question the Tripitaka, but to follow him.”

“And keep him out of trouble,” Pigsy said, morose, and he roared for another flagon of wine.

For Jesus the land of the Galilee was a place of pasture; he loved its rolling green hills, its ancient fig trees laden with the heavy fruit that opened to a touch and revealed the sweetness inside. He loved its small prosperous villages and its flowing rivers where fish leaped in the sun. He loved Yam Kinneret, the place that was called the Sea of Galilee, and he loved Tiberias, that new town, and its fisher folk and tavernas and markets.

He wandered this green and pleasant land like a man seeing for the first time what was in front of him. And as he walked, he spoke to the people he met.

Once, for instance, passing along the shore of the Kinneret, he saw two fishermen, and their names were Simon and Andrew—that is, Shim’on and Andrei—and he called to them, and they joined him.

And once he saw a ship in the distance, and men mending nets on the deck. He called out to them, too. And the men—old Zebedee, and his boys James and John his brother—came ashore, and followed him.

And so a group of young men formed around Jesus and they followed him everywhere and they did as he commanded. (This was bound to raise some concerns, in Jerusalem for certain, but in Rome too, as we shall see.)

And he trained them in kung fu and other martial arts, and often they camped under the stars and away from the towns. And though sometimes Jesus missed his old friends, Monkey and Pigsy and Sandy, he was happy and did not give them much thought. And they, for their part, watched him from a distance and did not interfere; for they knew their time was yet to come.

And another curious thing happened then. For the sick and the possessed came to Jesus and he, having been through the eighteen levels of hell and down to the nameless level nineteen, discovered in himself now the power to resist the many devils that lived in that time, in Judea and the Galilee. And he banished them all, and the possessed were dispossessed. It was seen as a miracle (though a miracle by definition is something that can only happen once).

“It’s a skill,” Jesus once said to old Zebedee, in confidence. “Once you can see the demons, it is easy enough to command them. Though they love to take on human flesh, they are scared of it. And once revealed it is an easy matter to convince them to depart.”

Zebedee, who knew powerful magic when he saw it, didn’t bother to argue. He, in any event, had spent more years than he could count on the Kinneret and he, at least, had never seen the devils.

And the number of people following Jesus grew and grew. And at last, having found a convenient hill on which to stand, where the winds drew the voice clear and a sort of natural amphitheatre was formed below, Jesus spoke to his followers.

“Be like water,” he said, “Empty your mind. Be formless and shapeless like water. Now you put water into a cup, and it becomes the cup. You put water into a bottle, and it becomes the bottle. You put it into a teapot, and it becomes the teapot. Now, water can either flow, or it can crash! Be like water, my friends.

“Be supple like bamboo; bend at powers greater than you, but return upright when their storm had died, for that is the meaning of being a Jew.

“Blessed are the followers of the path, for they shall achieve nirvana. “Blessed are the meek, for they shall rise in the next turn of the Wheel. “Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they shall be filled with righteousness.

“Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy.

“Blessed are the pure in heart, for theirs is the way of the Buddha.

“Blessed are the tea-makers, for they shall warm, and be warmed.

“Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the guardians of peace, if they must fight to achieve it.

“Fighting for peace is like performing carnal acts in order to achieve virginity. Do not fight. But when you are fought be like water, like bamboo, like an ancient fig tree weathering the elements.

“We are an ancient people. We have seen Babylon come and go, and the might of Pharaohs, and the fall of Assyria, and the Philistines, and the men of Canaan. We have seen prophets rise, and then kings. And now at last we have neither, and the might of Rome is threatening to come down on us, the way Goliath once thought to conquer the young David.

“Do not light a candle and put it under a bushel, for that is silly. Put it in the candlestick of Chanukah, and celebrate the defeat of the Greeks, who once sought to do the same to us as the Romans.

“You must move from form to formless and from finite to infinite.

“Follow the eightfold path.

“Beware of Mara, who is the illusion of this world. See what is there, not what you wish there to be.

“Remember the desert, for we had passed through it, and can pass through it again and again. And the desert of years, which is our ally, has seen generations of us go past when all others fell by the wayside and were perished.

“Remember Moses, who did battle with the Pharaoh’s magicians and bested them. And remember David, who fought the giant and won. And remember Elijah, who defeated Ba’al and Ashera and went to the heavens in a chariot of fire.

“Remember: the usefulness of a cup is its emptiness.”

And on Jesus spoke, until the shadow of the mount lengthened over the multitudes that stood on its slopes and listened to the Buddha. And at last Jesus said:

“Being a Jew is like being a house built upon a rock. Let the rain descend, and the floods come, and the winds blow and beat upon that house, and it will fall not, for it is founded upon a rock. Be like a rock, my people. Be like a rock, and be ready to roll.”

And when Jesus had finished he climbed down from the mountain, and great multitudes followed him.

Part Three
The Gospel According to Josephus

Episode One
The Roman Agent

Those who undertake to write histories, do not, I perceive, take that trouble on one and the same account, but for many reasons, and those such as are very different one from another.

—Josephus Flavius, The Antiquities of the Jews

It is now time to depart, if only for a moment, from the events unfolding in the Galilee, and turn instead to my own involvement in the affair. The following period in the life of Jesus, he who was called The Christ, The Great Soul, The Buddha, is one of extensive travel and of what we may term adventure. It is a time of great interest to the keen historian, and we shall return to it momentarily.

But as to my own role . . .

When I first met the wise men I was but a young soldier in the service of King Herod—and a more patriotic follower than I no king could wish for. Yet patriotic does not always mean that one is willing to die for one’s country.

When I was twenty-six I undertook a journey to Rome. Ever since I felt my life hanging in the balance of two allegiances, for I was a Jew and faithful to my people, but I had also seen the world and knew the Romans to be its rulers, if only for the time being.

Rome!

You may have seen, in the earlier parts of this narrative, something of the wonder that was Egypt. But Egypt’s was the wonder of barbarism, of declining grandeur.

Rome was its opposite. It was noble and mighty, but also young, vibrant, like a royal son on the cusp of becoming Caesar. I cannot begin to describe to you the wide avenues, the markets carrying the fruits and produce of every country in the known world; the atmosphere of intellectual curiosity one could so easily find, the libraries and theatres and the bronzed ladies carried down the road . . .

But I digress  . . .

I was in Rome again at the time of this telling, and had been residing in the eternal city for some time. I was on an errand from Judea to the Caesar himself (with whom, it can be said, I had an understanding), and my life was, though of some pleasure to myself, on the whole uneventful.

That all changed with the arrival of the messenger from the east.

I was summoned to the palace one clear summer night. The stars shone over the black dome of the sky, as if they had never seen a cloud. Everywhere was the smell of cooking carried on a summer breeze, and the streets were full of citizens sitting outside, enjoying the balmy weather.

It goes without saying that the Caesar was a commanding man. I was ushered through untold corridors into his office (a humble affair one would not think to associate with a ruler of the known world).

When I came in he was upright, pacing the room. He motioned for me to sit down. There were no servants in the room. We were alone. Caesar himself fetched me a goblet of wine.

“Josephus,” he said. He had very dark, intense eyes, and they fastened on to me now. “What do you know of a man called Yeshua Ben Yosef, a Nazarene?”

At that I was taken aback. I had heard many stories of this man, Jesus as the Romans called him, through the large and active networks of Jewish merchants and travellers.

And it was some time before I associated the arrival of those strange, wise men from the east whom I had met, with the birth of a boy in Bethlehem.

I said, carefully, “I believe he is a preacher. One of many, of course, but a successful one.”

“And what, Josephus,” Caesar said, still pacing (and I could not help but wonder why he seemed so agitated, for Judea had always been full of preachers and prophets, but that should hardly matter to a Caesar), “what does this man preach?”

At that I shrugged, though I was uneasy. “I imagine it is the usual,” I said with more confidence than I felt. “The country is rife with seditionists and desert-men.”

Caesar smiled, though without humour. “Desert men,” he said. “Yes. I had heard this Jesus did come through the desert, and more than once. A potent symbol for your people, is it not?”

I acknowledged that it might be, but said, “Surely you do not find him a threat, Caesar? Is he not like a grain of sand on a wide and endless beach?”

At that Caesar glanced sharply at me. “I would have thought the same,” he said. “I would hardly concern myself, nor raise you to my side, on the account of one insignificant—what did you call him?—seditionist.”

I merely bowed my head, acknowledging the truth he spoke. Caesar nodded. “A man arrived in Rome yesterday evening. A strange man, such as was not seen in these parts for many years, with eyes the shape of almonds, and of stature short, though powerfully-built, and speaking a foreign tongue none in the Empire can understand.”

“Come from where?” I asked, though an idea was already forming in my head.

“From the east,” he said. “An ambassador from a place he called the Middle Kingdom. Though his language was exceedingly strange, he spoke a passable Greek. And his errand concerned this man Yeshua.”

I had never heard of a Middle Kingdom, and said so. “Beyond the known world?” I said. “Surely . . . ”

“Surely nothing,” Caesar said. He turned and glared at me. “The man is already dead. And I had heard rumours of the wealth of the east, and rest assured Rome will one day move against it. But for now it must be kept silent.”

I swallowed hard, thinking of the poor emissary. “Of course,” I said.

Caesar smiled. “What do you know of three wise men who may have come to Judea from the east, some thirty years ago?”

He saw in my face that I knew something, and he laughed then. “Come, Josephus!” he cried, and clapped me on the back. He went to his cabinet and poured himself a goblet of wine. “I knew you were the man! Tell me of your wise men.”

“Well,” I said cautiously, and knew that I must tread carefully, “I am not sure they were entirely men; nor were they entirely wise . . . ”

And I told him the little that I knew.

When I had finished Caesar sat down for a long moment. Then he raised his head and looked at me, and smiled.

“This is probably nothing,” he said. “A plot amidst plots. Perhaps merely a diversion to draw my attention elsewhere. It matters not. You have been in Rome for some time now, Josephus. Is it not time for you to return to your home, if only for a while?”

I understood Caesar at that moment, and knew he was not asking a question, but giving an instruction I was obliged to follow. And in truth I was glad, for I had a desire to return to that land of which writing can only ever reflect a partial truth.

But there was more: I could feel the wings of history fluttering in that room, as fragile and enchanting as a butterfly’s. And in that moment the desire arose in me to follow it and see where it would land.

“It would be my pleasure and my honour, Caesar,” I said, and he laughed.

And so I became his agent, and was despatched to return to Judea.

Episode Two
Tiberias

And now Herod the tetrarch, who was in great favour with Tiberius, built a city of the same name with him, and called it Tiberias. He built it in the best part of Galilee [and] strangers came and inhabited this city.

—Josephus Flavius, The Antiquities of the Jews

I set out from Rome with a caravan of spice merchants heading to the Mediterranean Sea. My heart was easy at departing Rome, for in truth the spirit of travel was upon me. I went alone, for I was to be little more than an observer, a mere reporter of events (though I had other, more secret instructions I was to carry out under certain circumstances, which I preferred not to dwell upon).

It was spring when we set off, a time of the year most suited to my nature and I rejoiced in it. The merchants I travelled with were wealthy enough, and we lived comfortably on the road. Bread and olives and tomatoes dried in the sun, and straight wide roads and everywhere Imperial peace and prosperity.

It was good to be a Roman citizen, I thought, though I was not one then.

On the coast I bid my merchants goodbye and took passage on a ship. The Mediterranean sparkled in the sun. As we departed I saw in the distance some dolphins, and thought it a good omen.

I landed in Judea one spring day and the feeling that took me as I stepped off the ship was one of homecoming, and the smell of the land threatened to suffocate me for a moment, so rich and full of feeling it was.

The next step of my journey was undertaken on foot. I travelled slowly, at leisure, staying frequently in busy inns, buying drinks liberally, and generally getting the lay of the land. It was a far cry from my time as an industrious young soldier, going busily hither and dither on a horse!

Of rumours, as is natural, there was an abundance of riches. Of Roman taxation there was much grumbling. I learned of the man John, a baptiser in the river Jordan, who had been sent to prison at the command of Herod Tetrarch, son of Herod the Great, my old king.

And I heard many fantastical stories of the Nazarene, who was touring, I learned, far and wide, ranging across the Galilee and its sea and over to other lands, to Syria and elsewhere. He drove away the demons that take over people and bring sicknesses and ill-will and performed many miracles, and taught his way, which I heard tell was called Xao-lin. And I greatly desired to meet with him, but bid my time.

And there were stories, too, of the three beings who I had met, briefly, once before (though there were less of these, and clouded). But I learned that they resided now in Tiberias and determined to meet with them once more, and learn for myself of their nature.

But first I went to Nazareth.

Nazareth was pleasant and quiet, the sort of place I could imagine myself retiring to, growing grapes and sitting in the shade of a fig tree, and drinking rough local wine while grandchildren played in the yard. I did not know then, of course, that this was not to be. But I indulged in such fantasies for a while, idly, as I waited in the woman’s yard.

Her name was Miriam, and she was becoming stooped with age. I introduced myself as an old soldier of the last king, now something of an amateur historian. I asked whether she could help me with some stories, some anecdotes.

“You have,” she said, without the slightest hesitation, “too obvious a mark of Rome on you and it is clear to me—no, please don’t interrupt—that you wish to hear of my son. Very well. I have no objection to that.” She smiled at me. “As long as we understand where each other stands.”

I smiled and bowed my head. “I am here merely to listen,” I said, “and to record. I truly am a historian.”

“Oh, I know who you are, Joseph son of Matthias,” she said, surprising me. “My son has been expecting you, and sent word of your arrival over a month ago.”

I tried to hide my reaction, but she could see I was startled.

She nodded, as if acknowledging something we both shared. For a moment her eyes misted over. “I brought him up to be a good boy,” she said.

“I’m sure you did,” I said.

She shook her head. “Too much interference.” In her eyes I could see pain, but also pride. “If you wish to learn of him,” she said, “go to him, Josephus son of Matthias. He will tell you all you wish to know and more.”

It was thus that it was revealed to me that neither my identity nor, it seemed, my mission were a secret to the man whom I had come to investigate. That, you may imagine, had made me uneasy, yet I was not willing to abandon my inquiry. Besides, I must confess, I was curious.

Yet defiance stayed me for a while, and I did not make directly to Jesus’ camp, which was in any case roving all about, the man and his Xao-lin disciples. Instead I went to Tiberias.

I found the wise men easily. Following the sound of fighting and drunken shouts I came to a taverna on the shores of the lake. Men were rushing in while others were flying through the air on their way out. The din was incredible. The sounds of breaking clay were everywhere.

I eased my way in, dodging flying plates and jugs and men, and stopped short at the sight that greeted me.

In the middle of the taverna stood the three wise men, though they were much changed from the last time I saw them. For one, the mask of old age had slipped from them as easily as dirt in a wash.

But it was more than that, for in their drunken anger their true nature was revealed and it was no wonder the cry of “Devils! Devils!” then rose in the air.

One had the body of a man and the face of a monkey. Another was like a pig in human clothes. And the third had a dreadful countenance, some elemental being from the depths of some cold dark river.

“Devils? Devils?” the pig one roared. “You are the foreign devils! Be gone and let a man drink in peace! Begone I tell you!” and he sprang into the air, kicked—and barrelled into two attacking men, sending them crashing into the wall.

“You call this wine?” said the monkey-faced one. “My piss tastes better than this!” and he took on five men at once, all rushing him, and bested them in the time it took to utter his words.

I felt that intervening might be in order. I stepped closer to the melee. “Venerable gentlemen,” I said, adopting again the way of address I had first used all those years before; then louder, “Venerable gentlemen!”

For a moment the three warriors paused. Even their attackers hesitated at my intrusion, no doubt curious as to who may be foolhardy enough to attempt discussion under the circumstances.

“Who?” I heard the pig one say. He turned an enormous head and two beady eyes regarded me blearily. “You the ma’nger o’ this place?”

“Please,” I said. “Venerable one. I wish to talk. We are old acquaintances. Would you not lay down your arms?”

“No’ ev’n used ’em yet,” the pig one said, but he looked uncertain. He turned his face to his companion and said, “Monkey?”

The monkey man regarded me thoughtfully, and the cheerfulness of battle left his face. “The boy soldier,” he murmured, “now grown old. Jehosaphat, was it?”

“Josephus,” I said.

“Quite,” the monkey said; and then, “A messenger boy if ever I saw one.” His dark monkey eyes didn’t leave my face. “And whose errands are you running now, boy?”

I did not reply to that. Instead, I said, “Where is your charge? Or have you given up your purpose so easily?”

At that the pig man roared and would have charged me, were it not for the monkey holding him back.

“Very well,” the monkey said. “Let us adjourn to somewhere more private. Do you have wine?”

At that I smiled, for I still retained some skins from Rome with the finest drink that could be found in that grand place. “The very best,” I said, “and money to buy more were it to run out.”

At that even the sour-faced water demon smiled.

And so the three of them followed me out of that hall of devastation and the men of Tiberias, wearing the hollow sunken looks of warriors after battle, watched us as we passed.

Episode Three
Demons and Storms

They [our books], indeed, contain in them the history of five thousand years; in which time happened many strange accidents [and] many chances of war.

—Josephus Flavius, The Antiquities of the Jews

But let us abandon, for the moment, my conversation with the three strange beings from the east and turn away, across the sea, to the affairs of Yeshua, he who was indeed called the Christ, the Hebrew Fist, and the Great Soul. For this, the time of my coming as agent for distant (but-oh-so close!) Rome, was the time of Jesus’ so-called Galilee Tour, though he had gone far beyond the Galilee. It was a time of great change and great upheavals, a time of miracles and strange affairs, of demons and storms.

Let us, then, turn momentarily away and see Jesus.

He was handsome, with hair grown long and beard to match, and eyes that shone and a Hebrew nose: Jesus not so young, but passionate, a desert man, surging out of the desert with his followers devout, to smite a great empire.

Not so likeable, perhaps, not now. The boyish charm was gone and in its place was a mystic, a rebel, a marshal of men. But not yet wanted. Not yet hunted. Free, as yet. And, once again, going on a journey.

“The foxes have holes, and the birds of the air have nests, but the Son of man hath not where to lay his head,” Jesus was saying. He was becoming, more and more, like that, speaking in riddles, not always making much sense.

One of his men approached him. He was agitated. “Lord,” he said, “suffer me first to go and bury my father.”

At that Jesus looked very stern, and he said, “Follow me, and let the dead bury their dead.” And the man looked horrified, but complied.

It was not a long way from where I sat with the wise men. We were, in fact, there to see it happen, to watch—to watch over, if we must be exact—the young Jesus, the Tripitaka re-born.

His men couldn’t see us. He, I have no doubt, could, but he ignored our presence in the shades above the docks.

“You see?” Zhū Bājiè, The Pig of the Eight Prohibitions (as I had since learned his proper name was) said: “How he ignores us! How he shuns us!”

“Pigsy, Pigsy,” Sandy said awkwardly. Even more awkwardly he tried to pat the former Heavenly Marshall’s back. “Come. You are being emotional.”

“He is the Tripitaka!” Pigsy said. “He journeys across the path to nirvana but he must have us to keep him safe and out of trouble! Instead he goes hither and dither like a messianic desert warrior, raising hell, forgetting who his friends are—” and the pig-like entity did a curious and embarrassing thing; he burst out crying.

“Pigsy, Pigsy  . . . ” Sandy said helplessly.

I looked at Sūn Wùkōng and the Monkey King looked back at me. He shrugged. “It is the way of the Tripitaka. Each must seek enlightenment in his own way. We can only ever watch out for him from afar. But the Tripitaka must make his own choices, and enter into peril whole-heartedly.” He smiled, though there was little humour in it. “The way we do.”

On the docks below, Jesus and his Xao-lin followers were boarding a ship. Sails were being raised, and as they did they puffed in the wind, like a cockerel putting out its chest.

“There is going to be a storm,” Sandy said.

“Of course there is going to be a storm,” Monkey said. “How else could he quell it?”

The ship pushed out to sea. We watched it go. And this, as I later pieced it out, is what happened . . .

There had been a great storm. A tempest. The waves rose as high as boulders and as strong, and crashed against the ship. The wind buffeted the sails, threatened to rip them, and the ship rolled dangerously, and all aboard it rolled with it, and all their possessions, and many were—as could only be expected—sick.

Jesus was asleep in his cabin.

There was running around, and falling, and bumping into the narrow walls; water was threatening to breach the hull, and the air smelled thick of tar and ozone. Lighting crackled, too close, outside.

The men, those who could still stand, made their way at last to Jesus’ door and banged upon it.

“Jesus! Jesus!”

At last there came a reply. “What?”

“Save us!”

“The storm!”

“Save us or we perish!”

Jesus rose from his bed. His hair, being long and all, was somewhat unkempt from sleep. Then he smiled, the smile rising like rumpled sheets being straightened, a smile that brought calm, a confident smile.

“O ye of little faith,” he said, or something to that effect, and followed his followers up to the deck.

The tempest raged. The storm threw waves like soldiers at the hull. Spherical lightning squatted over the mast. In the darkness of the storm the wind seemed to carry faces, demonic and strange, wafting over the men and laughing horribly.

Jesus held up his arms, no longer smiling, his face rebuking the storm. “Stop it,” he said.

The wind howled defiance.

“I mean it,” Jesus said.

And the storm stopped. The wind receded. The waves quieted and retreated. And a great calm descended on the sea.

What power is that?

Perhaps—and this is only a suspicion—the three companions kept an eye on him wherever he went, despite his protestations. Perhaps—and this is mere speculation—Monkey, in a different shape, was following the ship and fought the demon of the storm, and bested him. Perhaps Sandy, assuming the shape of water, fought the demons of the waves and quelled them, too.

Perhaps.

But the true Buddha needs no companions to make those of the Mara, of the illusion of the world, obey his will. And his men were seized with amazement, and were much relieved when the ship came to rest, at last, on the other side of the country of the Gergesenes.

Though not for long.

As they came onto the shore it was night, with only half a moon to light the way. And in the distance were the Gergesenes’ tombs, which they build to last, and where their dead lay entombed yet not always still.

The cry rose from the men of Xao-lin. Fear grasped them in its clasp and pressed and pressed and squeezed. For from the tombs there rose unquiet devils, riding dead and horrid corpses, exceedingly fierce, and blocked their way.

In the distance was a herd of pigs at pasture. The night air smelled fragrant and fresh, the breeze coming in from the sea. The horrid mummies lurched to a standstill.

“Who are you to come and disturb our peace?” they cried in awful voices.

“I am Jesus, son of Joseph,” the Tripitaka replied. “Go, return to your crypts before you raise my wrath.”

“Don’t antagonise them,” one of the disciples said, and shivered, but he was silenced by the others.

The devils, those living-dead, laughed most horribly. “What are you going to do to stop us?”

For a moment there was stillness. Somewhere in the darkness, perhaps, a monkey-shaped shadow moved. Perhaps noticing it, perhaps not, Jesus assumed the Stance of the Crouching Monkey. His hand reached forward, fingers spread open. He beckoned the devils.

“Come.”

The mummies charged. Jesus, quick as lightning and as bright, leaped into the air. He seemed to move in slow motion, while all around him was a blur. He lashed out, connected, landed, swept the legs from under one opponent, tore at another’s bandages. The air seemed to crackle with eldritch tension.

In the midst of battle the devils laughed again, the sound rising in unison, shattering peace and loosening men’s bladders.

“If you have power, Tripitaka,” they said, “or whatever you call yourself—” Bodies connected in mid-air. Blows rained. Jesus leaped in a figure of eight and seemed to rise, rise, rise like an arrow of cloud—“Then put us into the herd of swine over there!”

Shadows of monkeys moved in the dark. Somewhere there was the flash of gold. A pig neighed, the sound most horrid.

There was a crackle of lightning. The air felt charged. And many voices cried as one: “No! No! No . . . ” and faded away.

Down by the beach, a herd of swine screamed as one. It was a sound tormented. And running in blind panic and in terror, they ran along the sand and finally, horribly, straight into the water and drowned.

Silence settled again. The disciples, shaking still, looked up at Jesus, fear and admiration filling their eyes.

And from somewhere in the distance, a keening, angry, frightened voice screamed, again and again, as if beset by devils itself: “What, in God’s name, have you done to my pigs?”

Episode Four
Walking on Water

But now Pilate, the procurator of Judea, removed the army from Caesarea to Jerusalem, to take their winter quarters there, in order to abolish the Jewish laws.

—Josephus Flavius, The Antiquities of the Jews

Matthew, in his somewhat long-winded account of the Christ, tells us that “it came to pass, as Jesus sat at meat in the house, behold, many publicans and sinners came and sat down with him and his disciples.” To that I say:

It was quite a party.

I had been living in Rome for some time and was not a stranger to such scenes, but I must confess that Jesus could really gather them together.

Jesus amused the guests by turning water into wine. Scenes of drunkenness inevitably followed. Pigsy was lolling against one wall, a tankard of wine in one hand, a painted Jezebel in the other. Monkey was demonstrating martial arts to several anxious disciples. Sandy was nowhere to be seen. Music wafted through the warm air, alongside the smells of roasting meat, spilled wine and perfume.

Jesus seemed in good spirits, almost serene. For a change he wasn’t preaching, just hanging out, talking quietly with some guests, keeping an eye on everyone.

The message I received from Caesar was troubling. Pontius, the procurator (the “tax-collector,” as Jesus called him, and with some justification) was mobilising the army to go back to Jerusalem from Caesarea, the new Roman town on the shore of the Great Sea.

Jesus had been quiet recently. He had returned from his journeys and for a time seemed content to sit idly, yet even so with every passing day more people came to join him, men and women both, some high and some low, but all drawn to him and to his cause.

I had my suspicions. I had communicated with Rome by cipher and my conclusion was uneasy: Jesus was intending to march on Jerusalem.

Would he confront Pilate? I did not know the man, but heard he was a good administrator. He came from a place called Vienne; a good citizen of Rome, ambitious—but not too much—and had his hands full with the taxation problem in Syria, not to mention the internal problems in Judea, with Jewish politics and the escalating conflicts within the Sanhedrin, the council of judges.

Being a Roman procurator was a demanding job. Taxes had to be collected. Possibilities of rebellion had to be kept down. Administration . . .

I lifted my eyes as I thought this and saw Jesus looking at me. There was a twinkle in his eyes. What was he planning?

I decided that night to take my leave of him. I wanted to see the country again, see for myself what its citizens thought, what they may have wanted, what changes were being wrought by the Romans. I was a man with his feet on two sides of a river, and I feared a flood.

The next day I set out for Jerusalem. The journey was long and pleasant. I passed through the Galilee and on to the shore of the Great Sea, and made my way without hurry to the mountains where Jerusalem sits.

Stories of Jesus still reached my ears. Healing the sick. Walking on water. Making speeches. I began to fear Jesus. Later historians tried to make him a man of peace. But he was not. He was a focus for change, and change is always violent and disruptive.

Jesus said, “Think not that I am come to send peace on earth. I came not to send peace, but a sword.” These words echoed that year across Judea.

When I spoke with Sūn Wùkōng, much later, after all these things had indeed come to a head, he expressed his view of the time in a short, almost brusque manner.

“The Tripitaka,” he said, “did not follow the eightfold path. His nature is to stray, to be lost, to err. Only by journeying so can he learn to follow the true path, and achieve the state of the Buddha.”

Then he said: “Walking on water is easy. You just have to make sure you don’t drown.” He smiled then; a little ruefully it had seemed to me. “Attaining true wisdom is harder.”

In any case, my journey was pleasant and, on the whole, uneventful. I did stop at Caesarea, but only caught up with the army when I, at last, reached Jerusalem and saw again my home, that eternal city to which even Rome is no match: Jerusalem of the Temple and of King David and of the Ark of Covenant: Jerusalem the city of white stone.

There would be no water to walk on in this city, I thought to myself then. The stones of Jerusalem are not as pliable. In the following days I watched the life of the city, the battles of ideology, of politics, of belief, between the Pharisees and Sadducees, the work of the Great Sanhedrin, Pilate’s work on the water aqueduct to Jerusalem, the completion of Herod’s great temple.

But more than that, I sat in the markets and spoke to my people, and listened, and smelled the city with its spices and cloth and merchandise from all across the known world, and Rome seemed for the moment to recede away from me, as if in a dream.

Yet I knew enough of the nature of dreams to dread the waking up.

Part Four
The Passion of the Christ

Episode One
A Ramble In the Temple

And Jesus went into the temple of God, and cast out all them that sold and bought in the temple, and overthrew the tables of the moneychangers.

—Matthew 21:12

Look at them go! Look at them go! Jesus and his gang! Look at them go, with a force, with a bang!

It was a quiet day at the temple. The sky was blue and clear. The white stone walls were clean and still looked fresh, young in years, old in purpose. The cohanim had departed inside. In the great yard, only the usual bustle of morning visitors and the trade sounds in the various religious stalls could be heard.

The mob appeared gradually. They had sneaked into Jerusalem over several days, unnoticed, unobtrusive. Perhaps the narrow streets felt a little busier but that was all. Yet now they gathered. Now they were felt.

Were a man to look closely at the yard of the temple, he might have seen three strange shapes, three statues standing a solitary guard. Grey stone they were, immovable and ancient, and to man barely noticeable. Only their eyes were alive, but no man looked at their eyes. One had the appearance of a wizened monkey; one seemed a little like a pig, or an Egyptian hippopotamus; a third, thin and sour, with a sheen of water on his stony skin. If such statues could speak, this is, perhaps, what they would have said:

“I don’t think it’s such a good idea,” said Pigsy.

“None of us do,” Monkey said. “But it is not up to us. Let the Tripitaka fight his own battles.”

“Nothing can be achieved by fighting in a temple,” Sandy said, “even if it’s not a proper temple.”

“It is to them,” Monkey said mildly.

Sandy snorted. “It isn’t the role of a Tripitaka to pick fights. And anyway, what if he needs to borrow money?”

“Then he can ask his mother,” Pigsy said, and grunted. The mob was approaching, but for now, inside the walls, it was peaceful.

“A Buddha is a man of peace,” Sandy said.

The Monkey statue, for one impossible moment, seemed to shrug. “But we are not.”

“That is why we are only his companions,” Sandy said.

The Monkey statue seemed to shake its head. “We only follow the Tripitaka as he himself follows the path to enlightenment. He is on that path yet. He will learn, at last.”

“Do we join in?” Pigsy said. “I feel like fighting.”

“We’ll have time yet,” Monkey said; it seemed with relish. “For now we wait, and watch.”

The mob came to the gates. At its head was Jesus. He wore loose flowing robes, multicoloured, that seemed to shine in the sun. A felt belt, black, closed around his narrow waist.

There were two guards outside. One said, “You can’t come in here like this!”

The other took one look at the situation and turned to run. Jesus soared into the air.

He was like a maelstrom, like a hurricane sweeping in from the Great Sea and into the coastal areas, sucking up everything in its path. He rose in a graceful arc, seemed for a moment to freeze (or was it the world around him, slowing?) and lashed out. His foot connected with the remaining guard’s face.

The guard dropped like a stone statue.

“He’s good,” Pigsy said. “That was a Crouching Monkey Jump.”

Monkey said, “We trained him well.”

“I could do with a cup of tea,” Sandy said.

Jesus and his men marched into the temple. A shout rose in the air.

Jesus came and stopped before a long table. Behind it a man of quite noticeable bulk was sitting comfortably. “Yes, young man?” he said. He seemed not to see the crowd pressing behind Jesus. “You would like to purchase a dove? Speak to a cohen? Bring a sacrifice to the sacred altar? Whatever your religious needs, we can help.”

“I am religious need,” Jesus said. For a moment it seemed as if the monkey statue had covered its eyes. “Oh, no,” it might have said.

Jesus grasped the long table with his hands. “Is this a Roman temple?” he said, “or a Jewish one?”

“A temple,” the fat man said mildly, “is a temple.”

Jesus shook his head. “This won’t do.”

The fat man wobbled and for a moment seemed to think of rising. Then he laid his large hands on the table and leaned forward. “You the young preacher from the Galilee?” he asked. “The one been making all that trouble up north?”

Jesus said mildly, “What if I am?”

“Then you can bloody well go back to the Galilee, country boy!” the fat man said. Several men further down from him laughed.

“Please don’t piss him off,” Sandy said, though of course no one heard him.

Jesus’ hands tightened on the table.

“That’s it, boy,” Monkey said. “Focus your ch’i.”

Jesus raised his hands. The table, with one impossibly sweeping motion, flew in the air and landed with a crash, breaking on the stony floor. The fat man rocked in his chair and fell, landing on his back. A shocked silence settled for a flickering moment over the yard.

Then the silence broke, too. Enraged men charged at Jesus. His disciples spread out across the yard.

“Bloodshed,” Sandy said, and seemed to shake his head. “I do not call this following the path.”

“That’s right,” Pigsy said. “We’re the ones should be doing the fighting.”

The attacking men were almost on Jesus. He leaped into the air again, his legs pulled under him. His hands were a blur of motion. When he landed more men were lying comatose on the ground of the temple.

“Can we join in? Please, Monkey?” Pigsy said. “Let the boy play.”

A man charged Jesus with a knife. Jesus dodged, rose effortlessly behind the man, and landed a blow that felled the knife—and the man. Another man charged him with a staff and he jumped between the swipes and somehow, a moment later, remained holding the staff alone, his opponent on the ground.

All over the temple ground, fights had broken out. Pockets of violence erupted, occasionally merged, until at last the whole floor of the yard seemed to be one heaving mob of people, screaming and cursing and spilling each other’s blood.

Birds were screaming. A man was thrown and hit their cages and a latch sprang open. A multitude of white doves rose into the air.

“The army is coming,” Sandy said.

“The army!” the shout rose a moment later. “The army is coming!”

With one graceful, impossible movement Jesus rose in the air, reached the top of the wall, somersaulted above it and was gone behind, and his men all followed.

Soon the only remaining thing in the temple’s wide yard were the bruised and aching bodies of men struggling to get up, while high overhead the white doves flew in a vast cloud that spread away from Jerusalem.

Episode Two
The Last Supper

And the disciples did as Jesus had appointed them; and they made ready the Passover.

—Matthew 26:19

“I like pigeons,” Pigsy said a little later. Two of the birds had made the mistake of landing for a moment on the pig-shaped statue. Now nothing remained of them but a couple of belched feathers that floated, forlornly, in the air. Someone was singing. It sounded a little like “Jesus loves you more than you might think.”

Monkey said, “He’s in trouble now.”

“The Romans are in trouble,” Pigsy said. But Monkey shook his head. “They have a story here,” Sandy said, “David and Goliath. He was one of their early kings.”

“Goliath?”

“David. He was a boy with a catapult and he felled a giant.”

“You’d need one hell of a big catapult to fell the Roman Empire,” Monkey said.

“Let’s get drunk,” Pigsy said. “Where is that boy soldier from Rome?”

“Josephus? Not seen him.”

“Must be up to no good.”

“Let’s go.”

They went.

Accounts of his last days are numerous, and I shall therefore not offer too many details in this, the chronicle of Jesus, or as he was called in various times the rebel, the troublemaker, the Hebrew Fist or the Buddha.

The three companions called him the Tripitaka, which is the embodiment of their laws, but when used thus it merely denotes a man: a seeker on the path to nirvana.

And it is said that the road is full of false trails and traps of quicksand for the unwary traveller . . .

In any event, I arrived in Jerusalem after the affair in the temple, and was in time to see the beginning of the conflict—if that, and not a street brawl, it can be called.

Jews do fight and fight well. The Greeks can testify to that, the Canaanites and the Philistines and many others can, too.

But to be a Jew and to survive the long centuries, the rise and fall of mighty empires, is to also know how to lose well.

In any event, and following the temple incident, the small revolt began.

In the narrow streets of Jerusalem, fighting erupted. Roman soldiers were ambushed and slain. Confrontations took place hourly, in squares and open spaces, but the real fighting was done in the side streets and urban areas. It was a war in the margins of the city.

The council of the Sanhedrin was alarmed. So was Pilate, but to a lesser extent. He had, after all, the whole might of Rome behind him; and in the middle of the second day he called for me, and I came to see him.

“Josephus,” he said. “Who is this troublesome man?”

“They say he is a messiah,” I replied. “When he was born a star shone over Bethlehem.”

“The stars shine over many places,” Pilate said. “If they made messiahs out of men then the whole world would be filled.”

I inched my head at that. “Nevertheless,” I said, “he has a following.”

“And they are militant. What is the manner of their fighting?”

“I believe it is called Xao-lin.”

“Shaolin? What barbarous language is that?”

I said I did not know.

“From the east, I hear,” said Pilate; his shrewd eyes observed me while I said nothing. He shrugged. “You have your instructions,” he said at last, and I inched my head again at that. “It is Passover in two days. There will be no fighting. I . . . I will declare an amnesty. Let the Jews settle the matters of the Jews. You know what to do. Can I trust you to do that?”

“I will do what is necessary,” I said stiffly. He smiled and dismissed me.

On the night of the seder, the Passover meal, I sat with Jesus and his followers in Jerusalem and we celebrated the escape of our people from Egypt. Jesus was in a subdued mood. At some point a woman came to him and poured oil over his face and clothes from an alabaster box. The oil ran down his long hair and stained his beard.

The day before, standing in a market square with his men spread around him like bodyguards, he seemed to have lost it a little.

“Hypocrites!” he shouted. “Woe unto you! Fools and blind! Even so you also outwardly appear righteous unto men, but within you are full of hypocrisy and iniquity!” And then he launched into a tirade that took even me by surprise. “You serpents!” he shouted, and the people around him turned back in fright. “You generation of vipers, how can you escape the damnation of hell?”

It was not a speech designed to make new converts.

I sat with him at the seder table in the house of Simon, the leper, and the oil ran down his face and he said, “She did it for my burial.”

I had not heard him so grim before. But something had changed in Jesus in those last days. Perhaps it was the sight of the bloodshed. Perhaps the people’s reactions to his attack on them. No one likes to be called a viper.

Something fundamental changed in him and he seemed quieter, darkened, like a lamp about to burn off. And at last he turned to me (for I was sitting on his right) and he said with a slight smile: “You know what to do, Josephus. Can I trust you to do that?”

I shook my head and he said it again, until finally I nodded.

Episode Three
The Hill of Skulls

—and the earth did quake, and the rocks rent; the graves were opened; and many bodies of the saints which slept arose, and came out of the graves after his resurrection, and went into the holy city, and appeared unto many.

—Matthew 27:51-53

They came with swords and staves but they were not needed. They came with authority, but it went unanswered. I think he expected me to kiss him, to mark him in some way, but that too was unnecessary. Everyone knew Jesus.

They came, a guard of men, and I led them, and we took hold of Jesus and took him to the Procurator.

“Are you the king of the Jews?” Pilate said.

Jesus said, “Ata amarta,” which means, You said it, or, That’s what you say.

“I am innocent of his blood!” Pilate said and he called for water and washed his hands. “Send him to be crucified.”

And so it was. The cross was erected in the place they call Golgotha, that is, the place of golgalot, of skulls. To either side of him was a thief. The nails were driven in and he was left to die. The rebel was caught without a fight. Order was restored.

A hush lay on the earth, expectant, like the humidity that presages a storm.

“Tripitaka.”

“Tripitaka!”

“Leave me.”

“Why do you always have to get into such trouble?”

The crucified man smiled. “I was a fool,” he said.

Pigsy snorted. “Ata amarta. We’ll get you out of here.”

“Leave me.”

Of the three only Monkey was silent.

It was dark on the hill of skulls. It had been dark for several hours. Sūn Wùkōng peered into the dying man’s face and they held each other’s eyes for a long moment.

“I was a fool,” the man on the cross said again and smiled, though it looked more like a grimace of pain. “Please forgive me.”

“Tripitaka!”

“Tripitaka!”

But Monkey silenced his two companions. “So it is true,” he said at last, and the crucified man nodded.

“I no longer have a name,” Jesus said and looked surprised, “I see . . . ” but he did not complete the thought. His eyes took on a faraway gaze, and Monkey knew that the man was truly seeing now—that mara, the illusion of the world, was lifted from before his eyes at last. He was close to nirvana now.

Monkey said, “Master . . . ” and the bound man shook his head, a minute movement, and replied, “No more, Sūn Wùkōng. There are no masters in the Republic of Heaven. You are free.”

The gold band on the Monkey King’s head began to vibrate. Slowly it seemed to expand, its pressure on his head easing. It slipped from his head and hovered in the air above it, and then it broke.

“Fool, companion, king,” the crucified man said, and though his face was twisted in pain his eyes contained a smile. “It is time to seek your own wisdom. Friends—” his eyes sought out Pigsy’s and Sandy’s—“farewell.”

His last words to them, as soft as the sound of distant waves carried on the wind, were, “Follow the eightfold path . . . ”

In the time of his death there was an earthquake. The tremors pulsed through the ground and shook tables and chairs, and felled cups and flagons, and great stones rolled, and graves broke open.

And from the graves rose an army of corpses, though many had lain in the ground for many years and were but skeletons, and when the people saw them they were understandably upset.

And the army of the dead men rose in the darkness and converged on the city of white stone, and the people fled before them.

The dead marched through the narrow streets of Jerusalem and some of them were only freshly dead, and their deaths had been violent. So the men who died in the skirmishes were alive again, if only for a moment, and if not alive then at least undead.

And they walked through the streets and the people barred their doors and shut their windows.

And afterward, the night was silent.

Episode Four
Resurrection

He is not here.

—Matthew 28:8

There are many stories concerning the passing of the Christ, and few truths to be gained by sifting through words as one would through silt in search of precious gold. What is known, more or less, is this:

When he died a man came to collect his corpse, and he called himself Joseph, and said he was from the country of Arimathaea. It might be that the man had a vaguely piggish appearance. But if so, few make much of the fact.

The man took the body from the cross and wrapped it in linen, until only the shape of a man could be discerned inside. He transported the body thus to a fresh tomb, hewn in the rock outside Jerusalem, and he placed the appearance of the body inside and sealed the tomb with a rock, and after that he disappeared.

For three days the tomb was guarded and women came and sat by the sepulchre, and amongst them Miriam his mother, and Miriam of the town of Migdal, and Miriam the other; indeed the name Miriam was exceedingly common in those days, and who Miriam the other was I cannot in truth say, but that she wasn’t the first nor the second.

And it is said—though I was not witness to it—that on the night of the second day a chariot came and a lone woman, dark-skinned and proud, stepped out from it and sat for a long while by the rock, and spoke words no one could hear. And then she, too, departed and was not seen in that country again.

On the third day the tomb was opened. The bandages, what is called in the Hebrew tachrichim, were left strewn on the floor. There was no body.

A search of the tomb was ordered but no hidden exits could be found. His disciples were blamed, accused of stealing the body in the dead of night, but nothing was ever proven.

At that time rumours of his reappearance became common. His disciples claimed to have met him on a hill in Nazareth, but there were few to heed their words at that time. The story of he who was called Christ and Buddha was left unended, which was perhaps for the best.

In later years, I had heard stories of his appearance in unexpected places. It was rumoured that a man resembling Jesus appeared in the eastern land called India, and healed the sick, and travelled around. And others said he was seen on the distant Isle of Mist, in a place called by the heathens Glastonbury. And others yet told of his going to some vast and undiscovered continent, a place of barbarous splendour that lay beyond the known world.

As for me, the Procurator was not ungrateful, nor was Caesar back in Rome. I had remained in Judea and advanced through the ranks, and at last had taken command of Yodfat, a military outpost in the Galilee. It was there that I found myself when the Great War finally took place, and the Jews of Judea revolted against the Romans.

We made our stand against the empire. But the might of Rome, as always, was too great. When they had taken Yodfat many thousands were killed, and the remaining soldiers preferred to commit suicide rather than to be taken prisoners.

Not so I. It is essential for a warrior to be prepared to lose his life in service. Yet when the time for it came, and I saw the futility of further resistance, I wished to live. Suicide is a thing of zealots. Yet I have always believed that being a Jew is first about living, about surviving adversity, not giving in to it.

I shall not go into details. Suffice it to say that I was taken captive, had endured, and found it beneficial to assist the Romans with some minor intelligence. I was present at the siege of Jerusalem and witness to its destruction.

And, at last, I was taken to Rome in the entourage of Flavius Vespasian and his son, Titus, and became a Roman citizen.

Amen.

ALSO BY LAVIE TIDHAR

NOVELS

The Tel Aviv Dossier*

Osama*

The Violent Century

A Man Lies Dreaming

Unholy Land

THE BOOKMAN HISTORIES

The Bookman

Camera Obscura

The Great Game

also available in omnibus form as The Bookman Histories

NOVELLAS

The Vanishing Kind*

Cloud Permutations*

Jesus & the Eightfold Path*

Gorel & the Pot-Bellied God*

COLLECTIONS

Black Gods Kiss*

HebrewPunk

The Apex Book of World SF (as editor)

The Apex Book of World SF 2 (as editor)

The Apex Book of World SF 3 (as editor)

*available as a JABberwocky ebook

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