good news of miriam - the lost gnostic gospel of mary magdelene - chapters 16, 17, 18

- 16 -

So many things began to happen from this point in time. Many incidents I remember but I did not write them down immediately in a journal. I think that they happened mostly in the sequence that I recall them.

I shall not dispute the times and places with what others have written about. I do dispute the content of many events I was witness to and now being described by others who probably were not there.

I had wanted to meet this man Jesus. I said as much to Mary and Martha. They told me that I was lucky. Jesus and his entourage had accepted an invitation to come and visit in a few days time. I was of course also invited to visit and finally and formally meet this rabbi.

The crowds at the gathering in the hills dispersed the next morning. Jesus and some of his inner circle had left the area during the night.

It was then that I began to become acquainted with the rabbi’s closest friends.

Though I had slept in the cart near the sight of the gathering, I had not expected to stay. I had been mesmerized by the moment and thought that I might miss some event or some precious words.

J.D. had ridden out in the dark to find me. I had given him instructions as to where I was would be traveling.

Indeed, there were many campfires all over the hills that night. I was later to be told that it was not a good thing to advertise a crowd in the open with campfires that could be seen a great distance away. A Roman patrol if it had been in the area would have investigated.

As soon as Jesus had moved on, so did half the previous day’s crowd.

The rest of the crowd this morning was being worked on by the closest followers of Jesus. James and Matthew had moved on. One man, a large man, came up to me and J.D. and stated that the rabbi needed funds to spread the word. I was a bit taken aback. Suddenly the magic of the moment passed.

I smiled and handed the man a few silver coins and then began to leave with J.D..

“Where is Jesus now?” I asked this stranger.

“He is praying in the desert. He prepares for the final days.”

I said nothing and left.

I thought nothing of this until several days later.

J.D. and I arrived at Martha and Mary’s place. Their brother was back from a business trip. I had not met him before this. The house was alive with a festive atmosphere. I entered the house and there in a corner sat Jesus with everyone crowded around him both sitting and standing.

Jesus was surrounded by men and there seemed to be heated debate with some men dressed and giving the impression as being rabbis and part of the Temple crowd.

Some remark passed about Jesus having a little to much wine to drink and why was he in the same house with low lifes and prostitutes. The man making the comments was the big man who asked me for money a few days before to support Jesus’ cause.

Jesus stood up to meet the towering man eye to eye. In Jesus’ case he was looking upward. Through the glassy eyes of a man who had drunken a little bit too much, Jesus said something like.

“Simon. Simon. You are a pillar of virtue. You are a rock fit to build a sturdy house on. When I am gone, you will not regret me these few earthly pleasures.”

Then I saw what I saw so many times. Simon melted in the presence of intense eye contact with his master and tears appeared to be forming in his eyes.

Simon was a man in awe of Jesus. He knew that Jesus was someone great and great with his message as well. I often felt that Simon in his primitive emotional and semi-educated fashion understood on his own level the same things that I too surmised on my level of analysis and speculation. And that inner thought was that one was in the presence of someone nearly divine.

Suddenly there was a commotion near the door to this crowded room. A woman’s voice was heard. She was demanding to see Jesus.

There was a parting of the way and she came into my view. She was one of Mary and Martha’s friends. She in fact had made the comment at the wedding about Herod and “his damn taxes.”

Mary, the friend of Mary and Martha, walked forward holding an alabaster jar. She was wearing a simple dress and was barefoot. Her hair flowed loosely to her waist. She was women in her prime and about the age of thirty.

All were silent as she knelt and started to cry profusely with her head just above the sandaled feet of the drunken rabbi. She pulled off his sandals. She then poured a fragrant ointment, the whole bottle, onto Jesus’ feet. The room was filled with that pleasant fragrance. The woman then began to wipe the feet of this young mysterious man with her long hair.

Jesus’ reaction was untelling. If I had done something so outwardly sensuous as this in my younger days and with my young husband, he would not have just stood there.

Anyway, looking at this whole scene I saw three things. I saw that Jesus was committed to some other agenda than reciprocating into a sensuous act with this woman. I saw various degrees of shock and curiosity amongst the onlookers. I saw a woman on her knees in a form of extreme penance and anguish mixed with a joy of performing this strange act of contrition.

Jesus caused strange reactions in everybody he met and especially the women he let get close to him. I have heard and sometimes shared comments about these feelings and emotions on the women’s side of the tent regarding this man.

One voice spoke and began to break the mesmerizing spell of the moment.

“If this sinner, this adulteress, had wanted atonement, she could have contributed this valuable ointment to the cause. It could have raised several pieces of gold to help feed us and help the important message to be spread.”

I would later come to know this man presently speaking as Judas, one of the followers of the Baptist pointed out to me the other day.

Jesus replied to Judas.

“Our hosts in their rich house could not meet me at the door and have a lowly servant offer me water to wash my dusty feet.”

I saw Martha and Mary look at each other in despair. Their brother showed no reaction.

Jesus then spoke to the women on her knees in front of him

“I told you yesterday woman. Go thy way and sin no more.”

Martha and Mary came forward and helped this other Mary to her feet who was still emotionally upset and took her to another part of the house.

The lofty looking rabbis left with each talking to one another in low voices and showing signs of distress and disgust with the negative shaking of their heads. They in their non-verbal way seem to be expressing a “who is he?” and “what sort of behavior is this?” attitude.

Martha and Mary’s brother, out host, left the room.

Most of Jesus’ followers left the room as well. I think that they thought that the host was likely to throw them all out. I think these scenes and being thrown out of a host’s house was nothing new to them.

Jesus remained standing in silent thought. I stood there and kept looking at him. He gave me a sideways glance.

“Have we met before?” he asked me.

“Yes and no Manny.”

“Manny?” he replied.

“I saw you at that wedding over a week ago.” I stated.

“I don’t quite remember.” He replied.

I reached for a cup of wine on a tray and offered it to him. He took a single gulp of the whole cup.

“Wedding you say?” He said to me.

I took the cup from his hand and gestured for him to sit.

“Are you that Persian woman? I believe somebody mentioned something about you.”

I took two cups of wine from a tray and handed him one cup and I took a sip from the other cup.

He stared at me in curiosity.

“I have been here in this house before. Men and women mix in this house in the Roman style. Do you have any objection to my sitting and talking to you Manny?” I asked.

He make a slight smile at his nickname and gestured for me to sit and then began to speak.

“I appear to have upset people again. I am good with a big crowd outside but here inside, my manners are a bit too sparse for some.”

The host would return sometime later to salvage his status as host. Jesus and his crowd had not left the grounds. The earlier incident would be forgotten like many incidents in a dysfunctional families. Lazarus, our host, loved his dotty sisters and would tolerate their eccentricity about this new holy man being in his house.

In that time before Lazarus’s return, I had my little Manny all to myself.

From the moment I opened a door in communication with this strange man, I used my instincts and followed a role I knew so well with my distant son. I assumed the role of friend and confident, of favorite aunt and doting mother.

And indeed our age difference was I think enough to let him respond in a similar manner reciprocal to my own.

My Manny started with the story of Mary with the ointment bottle.

Mary was the wife of a steward of none other than King Herod himself. Her husband managed a great farm nearby. King Herod probably did not know this husband and had never visited that farm ever.

Mary was accused of adultery by what constituted a small village of workers on that huge estate. Her husband cheated on her. She cheated on him. Maybe the husband wanted a new wife without the negative news of a divorce reaching his employer. Perhaps the wives of some of the workers wanted payback or were just jealous.

“There is nothing more hypocritical or cowardly than a crowd of people standing in judgment of a woman who perhaps was not totally responsible for her actions…

“Anyway to make a long story short. I was there and they wanted to take a human life and I would take the first stone for any woman accused. And besides, where was the man also involved in this sin?

“I told those bastards that he who is without sin to cast the first stone.

“So much of the law is dead and obsolete. They want a new country, a leader to lead them and all they do is look backward, backward, backward…”

He told me so many other things. By the time Lazarus and Martha and Mary returned as hosts, I knew that I had found my father’s long lost prodigy.

- 17 -

Having a precious jewel in one’s possession sounds great. The problem is holding onto the jewel.

Unfortunately, after I spent some quality time with Jesus that day, I kept running into what I will call the committee.

Those surrounding Jesus were a mixed bunch of people. There was an outer core of James, his brother, Mary (another Mary), his mother along with assorted cousins and half brothers and half sisters. There was also this Simon person. They also called him Rocky or Peter. These were the original ones of his hard core Galilee base.

This outer core with the exception of Rocky were all family. This family did not seem to be a very close family that I could see.

The closest circle were what I called the worldly ones. They were Matthew the tax collector, and two brothers James (another James) and John. James and John, the brothers, were called the “sons of thunder”. Whenever they were around, their loudness and boyish enthusiasm centered all attention about themselves and the subjects that they were to talk about or address. Even Jesus with his charisma could not compete with their energy once it was ignited. It was they who went ahead of the group and scouted out any town or village that would be willing to welcome Jesus as a visiting preacher.

This Matthew, James and John sub committee were once followers of the martyred John the Baptist figure.

I have heard lately that Jesus was supposed to have been a cousin of this Baptist fellow. I heard no such thing when I first encountered Jesus.

The next layer surrounding Jesus were the rabbis and scholarly crowd.

It was here that Jesus was most successful. His knowledge of most of the Jewish sacred and semi-sacred texts was phenomenal. He had a perfect memory.

I understood from my old friend Hiram that there were many sacred Jewish texts floating around. Some cults were focused on one or two ancient books. Only a handful of scholars had any idea what the true inventory of sacred books was in the Jewish culture.

There was something Jesus disclosed to me. As a recognized child prodigy with a perfect memory, he was made to recite volume after volume of Jewish law. In fact, Jesus looked back with regret. His name and fame of a child was that of someone more like a freak going from town to town and from synagogue to synagogue for a small fee or donation.

Jesus wept. He felt that he had been denied a childhood because of his talents.

Let us go back to the committee.

At any one time Jesus seemed to be dominated by any one segment of these people surrounding him. When one part of the committee was out of sight, another part of the committee zoned in to Jesus’ attention.

Indeed, when it got hectic and crowded in the traveling rabbi’s group, the master would disappear for days at a time. Nobody would seem to know where he was. Few, if they knew, were not willing to tell what he was doing or where he was.

It is here where I discuss the person of Judas. Judas was slightly younger that Jesus. He was about the same build and height of Jesus. On some occasions when I had not seen Jesus for sometime, I mistook Judas for Jesus from behind.

I had originally thought that Judas had been one of Jesus’ commune siblings. I thought this because of similar features and that when they were together, they seemed close. In fact, when ever anybody else such as Simon, Matthew, James or John said anything to the rabbi, Jesus might question facts being presented to him. Whenever Judas presented facts to Jesus in public, Jesus rarely questioned him. Jesus trusted Judas and anything he reported to him.

Then again, I knew why Judas and Jesus were so tight. Judas was Jesus’ brother in law.

We had just been discussing this relationship when Lazarus assumed his role as host at the gathering and my first official meeting of the rabbi.

It took me many more months to piece together clues of a branch of this genealogical tree.

The whole ministry of Jesus began many years ago. The young prodigy with a good memory became a student of the great scholars and rabbis that haunt the eaves of the great Temple.

Even without assets or a family that could support him, Jesus had found patrons. The student would become a great teacher. It was here where Jesus first met Judas as a fellow student in a study group.

Introductions were made and Jesus married Judas’ sister. Jesus’ wife died in childbirth along with the child. As a result, Jesus went through some sort of emotional meltdown.

Manny left Jerusalem. He disappeared and was not seen or heard from for years until he showed up as a follower of John the Baptist.

The overall flow of Jesus’ present ministry was in a way a continuation of the hermit, holy man, and prophet of John the Baptist.

Being able to muster great crowds and work them into religious fervor was not a good thing in a country that had for centuries been a sort of theocracy but now was part of a greater empire.

The Romans did not touch the Baptist. On that they played their Herod card.

Many groups on all tiers of Palestine looked to the Baptist as being the fulfillment of hope to remove foreign rule and reestablish a pure theocracy.

When John the Baptist died, a gap opened up. These many groups, cults, economic haves and have-nots did not want to loose some of the momentum and unity building that started and flowed about the Baptist.

Looking at Jesus and maybe other active and in the know followers of the Baptist, one saw a race for a leader of a cult to gain followers and gain some political clout in Jerusalem or Caesarea.

A preacher who could control thousands of souls could start a revolution or just as well tell their followers to be patient and accept the foreign rule.

Out of all these possible contenders for a new national spiritual leader and well thought of teacher and rabbi was the figure of Jesus of Nazareth.

At first, I could not understand all the comings and goings of parts of the committee. Genuine disciples of Jesus were going about the countryside and living a new life. They were preaching a message of tolerance and love. Other disciples were coordinating these efforts. A visit from Jesus to these areas and these dedicated disciples who were living and teaching, this visit was like honey on top of a cake.

Funds were raised. Stipends were given out. Consensus was growing as to how powerful a voice, a rabbi and possibly a prophet could have among the people. Jesus was being watched by many levels of the people in power. He was no immediate threat.

Jesus was still small onions. In comparison to the Temple crowd and Herod, Jesus was years away from any assertion of national recognition or claim to power.

As a business woman with interests in caravans and other investments, I saw Jesus as someone building a network of people to help push for his spiritual agenda.

In the back of my mind, I thought about the possibility of a network of people that could ferment and start revolution. I knew in my heart of hearts, considering what I saw, that any revolution in this small country would be swiftly crushed by Rome.

The beast of Rome was a vast empire with inexhaustible resources at its disposal. The beast rules the world and would likely be doing so for hundreds of years to come. You had to get with the program. You, on an individual or national level, had to adjust your attitude and outlook. You must do this or you will surely perish.

Jesus was not about rebellion. He was though I think a progressive social thinker and would be reformer. If he could, he would take land from the rich and redistribute it amongst the poor. Something like that could only be done with the consent of those who governed. It was not likely to happen.

The message, both spiritual and social, got stronger and stronger toward the end. I think that the nest step with a socially popular preacher was to attack and or to carve out a strong niche among the Temple crowd. Step by step, preaching season to preaching season, year by year was the long term plan for advancement.

I sensed that amidst the emotional chaos that followed the death of his wife and child, Jesus had gone out amongst the peasants to work. As a day laborer and a migrant and a vagrant, he touched the land and the people close to that land.

Jesus knew the people and the people were beginning to know him. It was Jesus who was fond of talking about the basic goodness of all people. In his early life as Temple scholar, he saw the peasants in the countryside as something distant and abstract. Many in the Temple looked down on those in their own country who worked with their hands or were not of pure lineage or having pure adherence to old laws.

Jesus was fond of telling his parable about how a Samaritan found and cared for a traveler who was robbed and left for dead.

It was to me, on one occasion, revealed that the traveler left of dead was Jesus himself in his younger vagabond and homeless days.

Jesus loved traveling through Samaria. The people there were hungry for spiritual messages.

Instead of ostracizing Samaria, Jesus the great teacher and future power broker sought a greater unity of all the people of this land.

- 18 -

Another of Jesus’ inner group were his patrons.

Indeed, a powerful man among the Temple crowd was a great scholar named Nicodemus. Nicodemus had been one of Jesus’ earliest sponsors going back to his youth.

Martha and Mary had been giving funds for a while until their brother put his foot down and said no to any more money for their holy man.

As I said, there were many patrons in many parts of the country. No doubt Matthew the tax collector gave an estimate of my net worth over to Judas who appeared to be the treasurer of the whole operation.

My first few months after having been introduced to Jesus was to have a few encounters with the group. Judas came to me often for money. I was glad to contribute in a modest but healthy fashion. For my support I was likely to be told where and when Jesus might be preaching.

I went so far as to rent a modest house in the country some distance from Jerusalem. I supplied the house with a caretaker and meager provisions of grain, oil and lentils. The house became the hangout for the worldly sub-committee. Judas, John, James and Matthew were frequent visitors along with many traveling disciples the names of which I cannot remember.

Judas was keen on sending certain rabbis from the Temple crowd onto places where Jesus would be preaching. Some of the rabbis were part of what I would call an anti-high priest crowd. No doubt Nicodemus was one of many patrons supplying men of political and moral authority for a small trip to the country that would require one day of travel each way along with a spiritual performance on the day in between that travel.

At first, I tried to be there every time Jesus preached. But my personal schedule and business affairs made it impossible for me to leave Jerusalem on the drop of a hat.

I noticed that for Jesus, the theme of his preaching sometimes changed. It changed from a strong social theme to a strong religious theme. This change of theme seemed to change depending on who was in the crows listening that day.

I saw high ranking Roman soldiers in full gear sitting on horses and listening to Jesus’ preaching. No doubt they were on official spying business for the Roman administration. Also, members of the Temple police in civilian clothes were often pointed out to me as part of large crowds listening to Jesus.

Small gatherings in patron’s villas saw visiting rabbis treated royally and the preaching to be in pure orthodox manner.

When the crowds far away from Jerusalem were involved and those crowds were dirt poor, that was when I heard a down to earth approach to religion and a message of social equality and call for justice.

Jesus was indeed becoming popular. Traveling about in my cart on business I sometimes ran into Jesus or one of the growing numbers of his officially sanctioned disciples.

I loved catching Jesus unawares. He may have only been passing through a town himself with no scheduled stop.

The people in the village or town many times turned into an instant festive crowd and atmosphere. People would be running to fields to announce Jesus’ presence. The crowd would swell.

Everywhere in these crowds were people who were blind or could not walk. Then the miracles seem to happen. Then commotion usually happened.

Sometimes Jesus and his followers could control the crowd. After the reaction of the blind being made to see or others dropping their crutches and walking unaided, the crowd sometimes turned into a mob. In these instances, Jesus and his bodyguard looked for a quick exit.

I have heard stories of Jesus curing lepers. I have not seen but I believe at this point of his career, he was honing his spiritual energy and talents. I do believe some of these stories about the curing of lepers as being true.

The crowds seemed to be following Jesus everywhere. He seemed to be too much in demand. There were too many hangers on at my little house in the country. I stopped supplying it. Still they stayed and waited news of Jesus.

One of my last acts of funding was to feed one of these crowds. The crowd was large. It was hot. It was growing late. Jesus and his preaching were reaching epoch proportions. I was asked for my cart and funds to go into a nearby village and buy food. Truly I bought every cooked loaf of bread in that village and probably half of the smoked fish of the entire village’s whole year’s supply.

When I returned, the food got distributed to the crowd. I believe that the legend of Jesus multiplying loaves and fishes was born that day. I heard it repeated soon after in other places. He truly might have fed thousands on his own on another day. Those other stories of other days I did not witness. These stories may be true. After all, he did change water into wine. I had been there.  I had tasted it.

Crowds, as I saw them, never exceeded a few hundred at any one time. It was a crowd of thousands that head of the committee Judas was aiming for.

All this activity seemed to me to be on a schedule. There was a plan. What that plan was I would not discover for sometime and not until after the tragic events took place in Jerusalem.

It was about this time that I got word from my son in Persia. My son was tired of all the politics of religion in Persia. He was heading south into virgin territory to start a mission on the west coast of Arabia. Good. No Rome.

My son’s decision to move operations sounded wonderful to me. My family would be together again. Many caravans start and stop on that coast of Arabia. We had some interests in ships trading in that region as well.

It was time for me to move on.

I was packing and making travel arrangements for all my books and property here in Palestine. My schedule seemed to allow me one more observation of the Jewish faith. I had missed the festival of Passover in Jerusalem the year before during my travels. I wanted to see this one high holy day of Passover in this religious center before departing this land.

As coincidence would have it, Jerusalem was the focus of the Jesus religious crusade coming from out of town to the big city.

As my townhouse was now nearly empty, Judas asked permission to stay there if necessary. I consented.

Judas also wanted use of the donkey that had pulled my cart and had been stabled just outside the city wall. I had to wonder where so many coins had gone in those previous months. If I had not been so infatuated and mesmerized in my father’s lost prodigy I would have asked Judas for an accounting of all funds I had advanced to him on behalf of Jesus, my little Manny.

I saw so much success and potential in Jesus. I knew I was looking at him as a model of hoped for success for my own son to achieve on his missionary quest.

Judas, oh Judas. Where did all my money to you go?