Mirrors (18 page)

The ancient festivals that marked the cycles of nature now called Christmas and Easter are no longer homages to pagan gods, but rather solemn rituals that venerate the divinity who kidnapped their days and hijacked their symbols.

The Hilaria, a festival either inherited or invented by Rome, greeted the arrival of spring. The goddess Cybele would bathe in the river, calling for rain and fertility in the fields, while the Romans, dressed in bizarre clothes, laughed themselves silly. Everyone made fun of everyone else, and there was no person or thing in the world undeserving of a good ribbing.

By decision of the Catholic Church, this pagan festival, which celebrated with hilarity the resurrection of spring, was deemed to coincide each March, more or less, with the resurrection of Jesus, of whom the scriptures record not a single laugh.

And by decision of the Catholic Church, the Vatican was built in the exact location where the festival of glee used to reach its zenith. Now, in that vast plaza where the guffaws of the multitudes once resonated, we hear the grave voice of the pope reciting passages from the Bible, a book where no one ever laughs.

THE SMILING DIVINITY

Images of him show him smiling, serenely ironic, as if mocking the paradoxes that defined his life and afterlife.

Buddha did not believe in gods or in God, but his devotees made him one.

Buddha did not believe in miracles, nor did he perform them, but his devotees attribute to him miraculous powers.

Buddha did not believe in any religion, nor did he found one, but the passing of time turned Buddhism into one of the most popular religions in the world.

Buddha was born on the banks of the Ganges, but Buddhists make up less than 1 percent of the population of India.

Buddha preached asceticism, the renunciation of passion, and the negation of desire, but he died from eating way too much pork.

A FATHER WHO NEVER LAUGHS

Jews, Christians, and Muslims worship the same divinity, the god of the Bible who answers to three names, Yahweh, God, and Allah, depending on who happens to be calling. Jews, Christians, and Muslims kill one another on His orders, they say.

In other religions, the gods are or were many. Greece, India, Mexico, Peru, Japan, China all boast or boasted numerous Olympians. Yet the God of the Bible is jealous. Jealous of whom? Why is He so worried about the competition if He is the only true god?

Thou shalt not bow thyself down to any other god, nor serve them; for I the Lord thy God am a jealous God. (Exodus 20:5)

Why does He punish several generations of offspring for the disloyalty of their parents?

I the Lord thy God will visit the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me. (Exodus 20:5)

Why is He so insecure? Why does He mistrust his devotees so? Why must He threaten them to get them to obey? Speaking live and direct, or by the mouths of the prophets, He warns:

If thou wilt not hearken unto the voice of the Lord thy God . . . the Lord shall smite thee with consumption, and with fever, and with inflammation, and with extreme burning, and with drought . . . A wife wilt thou betroth, and another man shall lie with her . . . The Lord shall give as the rain of thy land powder and dust . . . Much seed wilt thou carry out into the field, yet but little shalt thou gather in; for the locust shall consume it. Vineyards wilt thou plant and dress, but wine shalt thou not drink nor lay up; for the worms shall eat them . . . Ye will offer yourselves for sale unto our enemies for bondmen and bondwomen, without any one to buy you. (Deuteronomy 28)

Six days may work be done; but on the seventh is the sabbath of rest, holy to the Lord; whoever doeth any work on the sabbath day shall surely be put to death. (Exodus 31:15)

He that blasphemeth the name of the Lord, he shall surely be put to death, and all the congregation shall certainly stone him. (Leviticus 24:16)

The stick works better than the carrot. The Bible is a catalogue of harrowing punishments meted out to the unbelieving:

I will send out against you the beasts of the f ield . . . I will chastise you, sevenfold for your sins. And ye shall eat the flesh of your sons, and the flesh of your daughters shall ye eat . . . I will draw out after you the sword; and your land shall be a desolate wild, and your cities shall be a waste. (Leviticus 26)

This perpetually angry God rules the world in our days by means of His three religions. He is not what we might call nice:

God is jealous, and the Lord revengeth; the Lord revengeth, and is furious; the Lord will take vengeance on his adversaries, and he reserveth wrath for his enemies. (Nahum 1:2)

His ten commandments do not outlaw war. On the contrary, He orders it done. And His is a war without pity for anyone, not even babes:

Now go and smite Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, and spare them not; but slay both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass. (Samuel 15:3)

Daughter of Babel, devastator: Happy shall he be, that taketh and dasheth thy little ones against the stones. (Psalms 137:9)

THE SON

No one knows how: Yahweh, the one god who never made love, fathered a son.

According to the scriptures, the son came into the world when Herod reigned in Galilee. Since Herod died four years before the beginning of the Christian era, Jesus must have been born at least four years before Christ.

What year, nobody knows. Or what day or what time. Jesus had spent nearly four centuries without a birthday when Saint Gregory Nazianzen issued him a birth certificate in the year 379. Jesus was born on December 25. Thus the Catholic Church once again draped itself in the illustrious robes of idolatry. According to pagan tradition, that was the day the sacred sun initiated its march against night through the winter’s darkness.

Whenever it may have occurred, that first silent night of peace and love was certainly not celebrated as it is now in many lands, with the deafening battle roar of firecrackers. For sure, there were no little pins showing the golden-curled babe which that newborn was not. Any more than the ones who followed a star no one else ever saw to a manger in Bethlehem were either three or kings. And certainly that first Christmas, which foretold such bad news for the merchants in the temple, was not and was never intended to be a promise of spectacular sales for the merchants of the world.

WANTED

WANTED
NAME, JESUS.
AKA, MESSIAH.
NO JOB OR FIXED ADDRESS.

He claims to be the son of God, who came down from heaven to set fire to the world.

An outlaw from the desert, he gets townspeople all riled up.

He promises paradise to the destitute, to slaves, crazies, drunks, and prostitutes.

He fools the common people by curing lepers, multiplying loaves and fishes, and performing other tricks of magic and sorcery.

He does not respect Rome’s authority or Jewish tradition.

He has always lived outside the law.

For thirty-three years he has been running from the death sentence he received at birth.

The cross awaits him.

THE ASS