According to Mary Magdalene (9 page)

M
ary did not take in the enormity of the morning's events until she told Leonidas about their talk. “You told her!” He did not want to believe her.

Mary sat in silence, then said with great certainty: “She knew.”

Leonidas shook his head. “I don't think the priestesses can see into the past,” he said. “On the other hand, they're very clever at reading other people's minds.”

“That could be the same thing.”

“I suppose so.”

“I'm thinking of taking some of my ill-gotten money and giving it to their work with prostitutes in Seleucia.”

“You must do as you wish.”

His voice was curt as always when the talk came to the old tribune in Tiberias. She changed the subject.

“Are you pleased about the new child?”

“Oh, yes, for Mera's sake. And Livia's.”

She knew he found Mera's husband difficult, the boastful Nicomachus, who had a great many opinions and a lust for power, and whose influence in the merchant house would increase now that he had a son.

At dawn the next morning, Mary went through the portal of the Isis temple, and was at once taken to the old woman, who again offered her newly baked bread. That morning she had lit an oil lamp, but although it did not make much difference to those dark walls in the circular room, it did mean they could see each other.

“I've given your story much thought and would very much like to hear more about Jesus and his view of women.”

Mary thought hard, but could find no answer. “He had no views on women,” she said in the end. “He saw them as human beings. He never flattered them and was not protective toward them. He accepted people as he found them. He had no prejudices.”

The old woman laughed. “He didn't have that manliness which constantly has to be defended?” she said.

Mary smiled and nodded. “That's true. But he had great wrath within him.”

“Who was his mother?”

“She was a widow and a strong person. It's true of the Jews, too, that their women have invisible power.”

The priestess repeated what she had said the day before. “It's not just the Jews. If women didn't have that power, then the injustices against them would be fewer.”

Mary laughed aloud. “If women openly exercised their power, we would have war between the sexes.”

The old woman changed the subject. “Christians talk about the kingdom of God that is soon to come?”

“Jesus talked about the new kingdom as if it were not of this world. The kingdom of heaven is near, he said. But that was misunderstood, like so much else. It was forgotten that he said that the kingdom of heaven is within us and the new kingdom among us.”

The priestess drew a deep breath and her voice was stiff as she said, “It's important that you give your view of what happened.”

“I am writing it down. But it is becoming so personal.”

The old woman shook her head. “Which means no one need take it seriously,” she said.

“There is one thing that makes the task difficult. I can hear him saying it—write no laws on this that I have revealed to you. Do not do as the lawmakers do.”

They parted and Mary went to see Mera and the child.

Livia had stayed with her daughter this second night after the birth of the child. She had decided to have a long sleep, out of relief about the child and that all had gone well.

But sleep evaded her.

Her anxiety over Mera and her husband kept her awake, that boastful cockerel, incapable of any awareness of anyone else. When he had been told about the birth of his son, he had invited all his colleagues in the house to wine and had gotten very drunk, then disappeared into the wild quarters of Seleucia.

Then there was Mary. Livia was honest enough to admit it was jealousy that drove her into dark thoughts of her sister-in-law. She had gone to Mera like a queen, prayed to some unknown god, and taken command. And all that talk about the wind had infuriated Livia. By no means do the winds carry the birds that have not learned the difficult art of flying, Livia thought.

Afterward, when the boy had been born, Mary had retreated into her usual humility. Livia detested the humble, suspecting that they were concealing an arrogant spirit.

In the end, however, she must have escaped her wicked thoughts. When Mera woke to feed her child, her mother was sleeping so soundly, not even the cheerful morning greetings of the priestesses woke her.

Mera felt great tenderness for her mother.

“She's tired. She's been very uneasy,” the youngest priestess said.

“Yes.”

Mera thought Livia would have good reason to be uneasy even in the future.

After their breakfast, Livia woke and managed to smile at her daughter and the little boy.

They were told that Mary had already arrived and was talking to the mother of the temple. Livia's eyes hardened. Two witches, she thought, of course they seek each other out. Then she was ashamed and tried to conceal that ugly thought behind a crooked smile.

Mera bathed her child herself that morning, lovingly and with sure hands. But that great joy she expected did not come to her. “Mother, I won't go home with the child to the merchant house and Nicomachus.”

“But where will you go?” whispered Livia.

“You know he hits me.”

Livia drew a sharp breath, but they were interrupted by Mary knocking on the door and coming in with flowers, a vision of joy in herself. But she stopped halfway. “Is anything wrong?” she said.

Livia collected herself, but her voice was unsteady as she said, “The women of this family have a problem.”

Before she could say any more, the door was flung open and there was Nicomachus, drunken and noisy, stinking of stale wine and rage. The first person he set eyes on was Mary, and he went straight over to her.

“So there you are,” he shouted. “Sanctimonious cow, you, who couldn't even give the family an heir. You needn't make any more efforts. Nor your bugger of a husband, either. There's an heir now, and that's my son.”

Four strong women soon removed Nicomachus and put him out onto the street.

“He'll find his way home, I suppose?” said one of the priestesses when they came back, and Mera replied that yes, he always found his way home.

A few hours later, Mera and her child were taken to Leonidas' house.

Mary said nothing about Nicomachus' attack on her, but meeting Leonidas in the merchant house, Livia was not so considerate, and she was frightened when she saw his reaction.

Only a few days later, Leonidas had a talk with Nicomachus. Mary was not told what was said at the meeting, only that Nicomachus was to move to the merchant house's office in Ostia to learn how the silk trade was run in that great harbor outside Rome.

“How did you get him to agree to it?”

“I gave him an ultimatum. He has been guilty of a number of irregularities here.”

Leonidas' tone of voice was curt and, as so many times before, Mary reckoned there was a side of Leonidas she had never known.

Mera and the child stayed with Mary for a few more weeks, so Mary found it difficult to concentrate on her writing. Not that Mera disturbed her. No, it was the child and his sweetness that kept her from her work. When he had the colic in the evenings and would not go to sleep, Mary walked him to and fro, singing and babbling to him. She had never mourned her own childlessness, but now that loss truly pained her.

There were other changes, too. Livia refused to allow Mera to live in a house as poorly guarded as Mary's, and with no servants to help in the house.

“I presume you think your innocence protects you from the evils of the world,” she said. “But that hardly protects Mera and the child. Antioch is getting more and more dangerous every year, robberies and murders almost everyday occurrences.”

Leonidas backed her up, for he had long worried about Mary being alone in the unprotected house and about her walking alone in town. So Mary had the guardhouse put in order and equipped it properly for servants.

Livia watched in surprise. “You must be ashamed to have slaves,” she said.

“Yes,” was Mary's simple reply.

Terentius was a Nubian, tall and very strong. When Mary first greeted him, she reckoned she had never seen a more handsome man, bronze colored, with the features of an Egyptian pharaoh. Then she realized whom he resembled, a relative of the statue of Isis in the courtyard of the Temple.

She liked him from the first moment, his wife, too, a fine-limbed graceful woman with modestly lowered eyelids.

What he and his wife thought of her she would never know. They were both mysteriously closed when it came to both emotions and thoughts.

She was soon able to admit it was good hearing Terentius' footsteps at night as he went around the house and garden. And it felt safe to have him a few steps behind her when she went to the synagogue and the marketplace. And she didn't have to do the cleaning.

Only the cooking she kept for herself.

Once, when she was putting dough into the oven and he walked past, she thought she saw a shadow of a smile on his face.

When Mera reluctantly gave in to her mother's demands that she should move back home with her child, Leonidas said, “I want Terentius and his wife to stay here.”

Mary could hear from his tone of voice that he had been expecting protests, but before she could open her mouth he said he was not going to give in on that point. “I've already told Livia that I want to buy them.”

When Leonidas had begun this conversation, Mary had been relieved, glad of the help and security the two servants gave her. It was when he said the word “buy” that she said, “May I make one condition?”

He said nothing, so she had to go on. “I want us to free them. I think they'd stay and wouldn't demand higher wages.”

“If you're sure, then I've no objections.”

“We'll talk to them.”

The conversation with the two Nubians did not turn out as Mary had expected.

They said they were pleased to be able to stay. They both liked being there and the work and the house. But they did not want to be freed.

When Terentius saw Mary's surprise, he told her they were used to belonging to a family, that it gave them security and protection. That was unusually many words to come from him, and Mary sensed it had cost him a great deal, both the words and the decision.

A time then came when Mary was to devote hers.elf to writing, but already on the very first day she was interrupted.

Rabbi Amasya came to see her, alone, early in the morning, and as usual, he did not want to come in.

They sat in the garden facing the street, fully visible. He had a thick parchment scroll under his arm.

“We have had a letter from Peter, the Christian apostle. It's long and written in…somewhat incomprehensible Aramaic. Dialectal speech, I should think. I want to know whether you would undertake to translate it into Greek.”

Her first impulse was to say no. But then she heard the wind moving in the tall cypress trees and thought she could sense Jesus' smile. Then she remembered her talk with the old priestess and her own insight that what she had hitherto written was too personal, that her intention had been to try to give a portrait of Jesus and what he preached. So it might be important to compare that with Simon's.

So she nodded at the cypress trees and said to the rabbi, “Of course, I'll try.”

She sat all day over the long letter. It was badly written, as Rabbi Amasya had said, and she snorted. Simon Peter was an uneducated man. Then she was ashamed, for Jesus would never have thought like that.

But another thought followed on her shame. It was the Master himself who had chosen the simple fisherman from Capernaum. What had Jesus seen in the man? His integrity? His strength? Yes. And something more, his great childish heart?

It took her a long time to read the letter. She stopped in surprise right at the beginning, where Peter confirmed that we were born again through Jesus Christ's resurrection from the dead.

And further on: “You were not redeemed with corruptible things as silver and gold…but with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish, without spot.

“Christ also has once suffered for your sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God, being put to death…”

Mary had heard Leonidas say that Christians saw the death of Jesus as a sacrifice. But she had not realized the breadth of that teaching. For many years, she had brooded over why He had chosen that terrible death on the cross. The people of this new teaching did not have to brood. They had the answer.

But then she remembered that Passover in the great temple in Jerusalem, the house of God turned into a slaughterhouse, the animals bellowing, blood flowing.

Peter wrote a great deal on humility, but was that the same kind that Jesus had spoken of?

“Servants, be subject to your masters, with all fear; not only to the good and gentle, but also to the froward. For this is thankworthy for conscience toward God, endure grief, suffering wrongfully.”

“And you wives, be in subjection to your own husbands.”

Much of the long letter bore Jewish characteristics, a Jew who knew the Jewish laws speaking.

“…Ye are the chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people; that you should show forth the praises of him who has called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.”

All afternoon, Mary worked on the translation, making great efforts to follow the Aramaic text exactly, finding the right meaning and the best words. But she was strangely agitated.

She slept badly that night. Leonidas was away in Rome and she had no one to talk to. The next day she checked what she had written, compared it with the original and sent Terentius with the manuscript and greetings to the rabbi. She had no desire to meet him or to discuss the matter.

But her unease would not leave her and she found it difficult to assemble her thoughts and go on with her own writing.

A
week or two later, she was hard at work writing when she heard someone thumping on the entrance portal and a moment later Terentius came to report that the rabbi and two other gentlemen wanted to see her. The tall Nubian was looking solemn.

“Ask them to come in.”

In the first confusion, she could see only one of them, Simon Peter, who filled the room with his great body and forcefulness. Rabbi Amasya made an attempt to say they had come to thank her for the translation, but his words were drowned by Simon's voice.

“Mary, Mary Magdalene!” he cried.

He wept as he embraced her, falling to his knees and kissing her hands.

“My sister.”

Mary turned as white as a sheet and strangely rigid. She tried to say something that would lower the tension in the room, but her tongue would not obey her. Then when her eyes met Terentius’, where he was still standing over by the door, she managed to whisper, “We'll have wine and fruit in the pergola.”

She would never be able to recall the next moment, her head blank and her mind paralyzed. Simon Peter was still going on, kissing her hands and shouting to the world that at last they had found the disciple Jesus loved most of all.

The words penetrated her paralysis, and her anger made the blood throb in her veins. She flushed, sat down and stared at Peter, managing to keep her voice steady as she spoke.

“The last time we met,” she said. “You called me a liar and sent me away.”

“Yes.”

Now it was his voice that was unsteady. “Can you forgive me?” he whispered.

“I imagine we'll have to try to understand each other.”

The moment she said it, she realized that it was an invitation to cooperate with him. Did she want to? Did she have to?

Then Terentius arrived with refreshments. Mary served them with steady hands, and they all had a moment in which to deliberate.

Mary nodded toward the third man.

“I don't think we know each other, do we?” she said.

“My name is Paul.”

Mary drew in a sharp and audible breath. She remembered the rabbi and Leonidas talking about Paul of Tarsus, Christianity's great thinker, the man who was to lay the foundations of the new teaching.

“I have heard about you,” she said, managing to conceal her surprise. At first glance, Paul was an insignificant man, small, bowed, and with no special features. The large and dramatic Peter almost obliterated him.

“I have long wished to meet you,” said Paul. “I want to hear your testimony on our Master.”

She could see his eyes were intelligent and penetrating, though she met them unswervingly as she replied.

“My images of what is incomprehensible are different and I fear they would offend you. I am far from as sure of anything as Simon Peter is.”

Simon interrupted. “But you were the one he loved most.”

There was a long silence while Mary calmed her heart and collected her thoughts.

“Let us take what Simon says as an example of the way our opinions differ. As we in His retinue were ordinary people with small thoughts and much envy, there was a lot of talk about this, just whom he preferred, who was closest to him. Siblings squabbling,” she said, searching for words.

“When Jesus spoke of love, He didn't mean personal ties. He loved. His love couldn't be measured or directed. It included everyone, at every meeting. No more, or less, nor in any different ways from person to person.

“He was always totally present, at every moment, at every meeting. Whoever he met, however accidentally, was given his total attention and all his love.”

Paul smiled for the first time, and his smile transformed him. Mary went on. “I have thought many a time over the past years that he was too great for us. We will never understand. We can only try to interpret. And we do that from the starting point of our own prejudices.”

She flushed suddenly, and Paul saw it was anger coloring her cheeks.

“When I translated your letter, it became so clear,” she said, turning to Simon. “You wives, be in subjection to your own husbands…” you wrote. Did you ever hear him say that? No! He said…there shall not be woman or man here. He is the only man I have ever met who regarded women as human beings, with respect. He did not protect them. He never made fun of them…”

She turned to look at Paul again and went on. “Think on it. He came to preach tolerance, humility, and love. And who exercises those virtues, if not the mothers?”

Paul's face had crumpled again, but Mary refused to be stopped.

“We were equal numbers of men and women disciples, and women constantly surrounded him. Right up until Golgotha, when most of his apostles deserted him. Around the cross we stood, his mother, Susanna, Salome, Mary, Clopa's wife, and me.”

“And John, you forget John the Baptist.”

“That's true, John was there during the long torment. He was the youngest, the most childish, so understood most.”

There was a long silence. Paul was divided, but pulled himself together and finally spoke. “Mary,” he said. “May we come back? And may I bring my scribe with me? He's a young man, almost a boy. But he has quick fingers and I would like to have what you have to say in writing.”

“To put it together with the final account that is to be written?”

“Yes.”

“Then you are welcome.”

They decided on a time the next day and the men rose to their feet.

In the doorway, Paul asked one last question. “I presume you had heard tell of Jesus when you sought him in Capernaum. Was that because you wished to be freed of your torments?”

“No,” she said with surprise. “I was not in torment. But we had met once, and I was much taken by his singular being.”

“You had met?”

“Yes,” she said. “In the Galilean mountains. By chance.”

Then she smiled. “If there is such a thing as chance,” she added.

Mary had no one to talk to. Leonidas was not returning until the following week. She tried to eat the food Terentius brought, but was unable to. She was frightened.

I must be truthful. But I need not tell them everything.

She went to bed early but could not sleep. The memory was suddenly crystal clear to her, the shimmering images of their first meeting.