good news of miriam - the lost gnostic gospel of mary magdelene - chapters nine, ten and eleven

- 9 -

Speaking of roads, my travels south were slow and down many back roads and less traveled paths. My carts were comfortable enough. J.D. had hired two men to handle horses and carts. There men under J.D.’s command  were also capable in the use of arms to defend us.

Rather than stay at a town or an inn, we brought along tents. When ever my bones would not want to travel, we would stay for a day or two off the road. J.D. might go into a nearby town with one of the men to buy food.

Wandering shepherds and goatherds would pass by with their flocks. Fresh meat and milk was readily available.

We were traveling through a part of the land known as Samaria. Apparently, all Jews in other parts of the country stick their noses up at the natives here. Depending on who is telling the story, these people had mixed with the non-Jewish natives and had lost the purity of the race.

The story I heard from talking to some here abouts was that Samaria was the pure Israel. That there were no ten lost tribes of Israel. There was only the elite of two tribes who were captured and taken off to Babylon for sixty years. That these captives came back with bad attitudes and mixed blood and from day one of the return, they thought that they were once again the elite of the land. This new elite came at the head of a group escorted by part of the Persian army. This new elite had set itself up in holier than thou importance over the ones who stayed and worked the lands and kept the old time religion.

He said. She said. On top of that you have the Greeks under Alexander the Great and the Romans under Pompey coming and conquering the major cities and settlements at two hundred year intervals.

I am not surprised that many of the Jews of the world outside Palestine had lost the Hebrew language and the old Hebrew traditions.

Out first official stop on the road to Jerusalem was at the home of Julius and Livia. Julius was a retired high ranking Roman soldier. His wife was young, beautiful and native. Evidence of the fruitfulness of this union came in the presence of many young children about the large but not too adorned villa.

The villa had one traditional atrium that preceded another large inner room where most gatherings and dining took place. Beyond the big room was another atrium, smaller, that opened onto the outside through a decorated metal pole fence and gate.

My hosts had been visiting friends in the north and were brought along to one or more of my Sabbath feasts. They seemed intelligent. Though not formally educated, both, and especially the husband were well read and had borrowed some of my scrolls.

People like these stood out in contrast to the drab culture of the north. Julius wanted all his children, male and female, to read and write and to marry into better circumstances than to that which they were born into.

Julius and Livia were not boring social climbers. Dinner conversations were lively, full of gossip and politics were mixed, with both men and women taking pleasure in the atmosphere and entertainment.

A group of local musicians were playing sweet songs. Julius had invited some local friends on the night he put together to honor his new house guest, Miriam of Magdala, a Persian widow.

My title was quite secular. I doubt if anybody could locate Magdala on any map, and well, Persia had an exotic sound to it.

Their villa, when I arrived, seemed to be overflowing with house guests. Relatives, traveling friends, old army cronies, poets, writers, and politicians were here in one compound. I had reached an intellectual oasis. I felt at home as soon as I came through the front door.

With so many guests already in the house I was embarrassed at the rooms given me for myself and my maid and goods. I offered to pitch my tent out back. The tent had been my idea. Back in Persia, it was best when traveling to a friend’s house to expect crowded conditions. Rather than sleep two or three in a bed with strangers, I preferred the privacy that a tent could afford in such circumstances.

My tent would fit quite nicely out back of the house near their small atrium. It was then that I realized the purposes of fences and a gate about this small atrium. Beyond the gate was a great cooking pit. In my honor several goats and a pig were to be roasted. They had asked ahead of time if the pig would offend me. I do no know if they asked because of my Jewish roots or they did not know of any Persian dietary restrictions.

So it was true. The place a person can get or eat pork was in the home of a well to do Roman. My first taste of pork in Palestine was quite good. I had eaten pork elsewhere in other parts of the world in a lifetime of travel. It was an exotic thing in Persia, something old royalty would have had everyday. But everyday practical marginal poverty had goat or lamb served at my table over the years.

Here in Judea, it had been months of travel and no offer of pig. It’s juicy crackling skin was a welcome taste.

Pig is a luxury food and here on Julius’s estate of fig trees and olive trees mostly, there was excess garbage from the main house and the servant quarters to maintain and feed a luxury animal for personal consumption and profitable sale.

No doubt a Roman army from Italy longs for those foods that reminds them of home comfort. Pig was undoubtedly one of those foods.

The pleasantness of my stay with Julius and Livia was short lived. After a few days the house was turned from a bright note to a sour one.

In the middle of the night, I was awoken by the sound of horses and the shouts of men. When I tried to leave my room, Livia told me to stay inside my room. She said that she would explain later. I was a bit curious and a bit frightened as well being here in a strange house.

After an hour or so, Livia came back to my room.

“You will have to double up in one room dear Miriam. We have a military emergency.”

“Military emergency?” I asked.

“One of our patrols has been ambushed. The wounded are being place in the back of the house. Under no circumstances go beyond the big room. In fact, stay in you room. We will bring your meals here.

“We are under martial law. Julius has ridden out to the other farms to gather reservists and veterans to help the army.”

“I have some training in the healing of wounds. I have learned it over the years. More than one bandit or two has done harm to mine on the caravans I have traveled with.” I volunteered in the way of information.

“I will ask if they need any assistance.” Then she left.

The dark hours of night went by slowly. Shouts of pains could be heard in the distance. Finally about dawn, Livia called me out of the room.

She took me to the back atrium where several soldiers lie on stone benches about the area. The metal fence and gate had been removed. Beyond the atrium were a few soldiers stationed near the cooking pit. Soldiers were coming and going during time. The design of the back of Julius’s house became clear to me. Beyond the inner sanctum and psychological safety of a traditional Roman home was a temporary military headquarters starting in and away from the house.

The larger bedrooms were placed around the first enclosed atrium. Standing here in the back of the house, I noticed that a series of small bedrooms lined the walls and clustered around the rear atrium.

In a brief glance I saw two Roman soldiers on the ground, dead, their faces covered out of respect.

There had not been a surgeon on duty with the patrol that had been attacked. An ample number of medical instruments were available. One of Julius’s staff, an older man, was using metal staples make of silver to close wounds as opposed to a more traditional method of sewing stitches.

I did not know what use I could be. Those who were not dead were patched up. The older man spoke to me.

“Mistress Livia says you have some experience with wounds.”

“You have done most of the hard and preliminary work. I do have some healing herbs and medicines in my trunks.”

“Then bring them.” He said with some irritation.

I was going quickly through my things and came back with my medicine chest. I also had recruited Rebecca to help me.

Livia was putting cold wet rags on the foreheads of some of the wounded.

The older man looked through my medicine chest, looked at labels, sniffed opened bottles.

“We have no pain killers with us. What can you give me to help kill pain or help some of these poor buggers to get some rest or sleep. It will be some time before medical wagons from headquarters can come and pick them up and take them to the infirmary.

I nodded. Pulled out a set of scales and started measuring and mixing some powders and putting them within small wrapped pieces of parchment. Each folded piece was a single dose.

“I leave it to your discretion.” I began to say to the older man. “An individual dose is probably good to ease any pain for a few hours. Two doses will probably cause sleep. I do not recommend sleep for someone who is heavily wounded or bleeding. They should be watched closely and attended to.

“And the liquid base to serve your herbs?” he asked.

“Water or wine will do. No doubt wine will do no great harm at this stage.” I said looking about the room.

He nodded and took the dosage packs from me along with a young military soldier who was out of his heavy combat gear.

I stood by and was not certain what to do next. Each soldier was attended to. Those who were conscience drank medicine. The deeply unconscious soldiers had lost a lot of blood and many were still bleeding.

I opened my medicine chest and withdrew some dry herbs. I spoke when the older man was not focused on his charges.

“These herbs mixed with water can help stop some bleeding when soaked with clean strips of cloth.”

He gestured for me to join in and do my thing. Livia supplied me with cloth. Rebecca began cutting small strips. I mixed the medicine into several bowls of water so that several of us could further dress wounds.

I gave instructions to Livia and Rebecca not to dip used bandages into the bowls of medicine. To keep applying fresh bandages and medicine when needed.

Time passed and like a well oiled machine medical wagons arrived from headquarters to move the wounded and the dead.

I was exhausted. A setting sun indicated that a whole measure of daylight had passed without my even thinking of eating or focusing on personal needs.

When the last of the wounded were removed I realized that some of the small side rooms of the back atrium were occupied by Roman officers. Tables and maps were in use in these rooms instead of beds.

That while I was busy with tending the wounded, a small military operation had been coordinated within feet of the dead, wounded and dying.

Livia motioned us back towards the private part of the house. Livia, if she knew the answers to any of my questions, did not respond.

- 10 -

I went to sleep without eating food that had been served to us in our room.

I dreamt.

Persia was a great empire again. I saw the destruction of Babylon and the freeing of the Jews. I saw the stones of Solomon’s temple being reassembled into a magnificent building.

I stood on a platform of a high temple in Persia. I stood next to my dead husband. My dead father appeared out of mist and spoke to me.

“The prodigy that I did not find. You must find him. The stars predicted a new temple built in his name.”

The old man’s eyes were black and filled with an image of stars.

He and the dream faded from view.

I awoke.

I had a headache. I had not labored so hard in years.

The house had returned to some normalcy. I ate my morning meal in my room and lounged about. I was looking for something. My father’s vision had sparked a line of thought. I could not access his papers. Those papers were all back in Persia and scattered among children and to religious elders.

I did remember something about my father’s last journey to Alexandria. Father had followed the other Magi and was a month behind them. The old man went all the way to Alexandria to find yet another prodigy.

The stars are what you make of them. Insight and intuition can be embellished to thrill a paying subject.

Oh yes. I remember I was with child, I could not travel with my father. I had a husband and family to take care of. The dates. I started writing down dates. Birth of a daughter. Return of my father. He set out on his journey two days after a sacred feast.

Some calculating was needed. Along with some guessing and some improvising with his old style of star interpretation was needed as well. There it is. A special sign in the constellation of the Hebrew.

My father many years later told me some bizarre things. He told me that the Magi had seen a child that fit the star charts. The Magi were returning to Persia. They told my father that the young prodigy was being taken to Alexandria, to the great Jewish community there, to be taught in Jewish folklore and law.

Asar the elder sought this child desperately. Something in Asar’s insight and intuition in the preparation of the star charts told me that this child was something special. The child was a prodigy much different than the rest of a whole generation of prodigies sought and found over the decades.

I know that my father was seeking the return of the great master to earth.

“A new temple built in his name.” That was a phrase that haunted me for some days to come. I drifted back in memory and time to being a little girl. We, my father and I, were in a great temple built by the Egyptian pharaoh Seti. I do not remember to whom that temple was dedicated. There were many small rooms on the side of the main temple area. Minor gods and statues, lamp light and shadows at night in these small rooms made me scared.

My father seeing my fright said not to be afraid.

“There is but one creator, the father of us all.”

With the eyes of a greatly educated man and a man with great soul, my father swept his hands around gesturing to the main spaces of the inner temple.

“In our father’s house, there are many chapels.”

From that day forward I never again feared religions or temples cluttered with statues of gods. In the end, many people believe many things. That Egyptian temple was in near ruins and the priests tending to that temple were seeking handouts from tourists and pilgrims to survive. Great and mighty religions and beliefs come and go through time but the basics remain the same.

The creator made the universe and we live in the universe. What we return to when we die is up to the creator. One must live in conformity to the precepts of the great master and live one’s life day by day.

“A new temple. Constellation of the Hebrews. An Enigma.” I muttered to myself as I reviewed my charts.

Only a great earthquake could destroy Herod’s mighty renovated temple. I have yet to gaze upon that modern marvel.

The villa had returned to normal. I did not want to stay any longer but was forced to for lack of horse flesh.

The Romans had requisitioned all the horses Julius had in his stables including my own.

Julius reassured me that some Arab horse traders made the rounds of these farms every couple of weeks. That script paid to him by the Romans was as good as cash. Other horses would replace my horses placed in the services of Rome.

I would just have to sit tight for a few more weeks.

In a way it was a good thing. Julius would not say so directly but I began to conjecture that there were many military operations going on at the present time. The operations were to root our local rebels causing trouble in the area.

With the return of normalcy in the house, the usual hangers on began to reappear in what I thought was something of a daily feast.

Everyday goat or lamb was being cooked outdoors.

I kept my distance from the back atrium area. Retired and active military seemed to be constantly coming and going in this villa. Plenty of wine and vulgar language was common in what I started to think of as the male part of the house.

My part of the house, the refined part of the house, dealt with women, children, poets, tutors, and tradesmen stopping by to sell cloth and other goods. Dangerous highways or not, tradesmen had to make a living.

It was during the daily feasting, when wine was flowing, that I got a few answers from Livia. I do not think that she liked the military stuff so close to her private world. She knew that it was necessary for the long term safety and happiness of her family. I think that she loved her husband but in her heart of hearts she was a native. Her official sympathies lay with her husband and Rome.

I sensed that her unofficial sympathies were not with any local rebels so much as she wished all the conflicts to go away. She, like any woman, wanted domestic bliss to reign over her home.

With one of the tradesmen, I made a deal. I traded my tent and one of my carts for a bag of coins and an old donkey.

There was one more title to add to truth and the rumors of others: widow, “whore” and now pilgrim.

For the remainder of my time in this land I would observe the old religious laws of this land, of my true roots, as best as I could. I was on the way to Jerusalem with one maid servant, one eunuch driver, one cart and one trunk of clothes and goods. The extra things Livia said could be put in storage on the estate and sent for when I arrived at suitable quarters.

Julius protested my leaving. He told me that the horse traders would be arriving any day soon.

I suspected that all this reservist and local militia activity and entertaining must have depleted the resources of his humble estate. I told him to hold onto any horse flesh he might acquire in my name. I would return this way on my trip back to Persia.

The man was gracious. He cautioned on what roads and areas were still beset with rebels. He gave me a letter of introduction written in official Latin.

“A letter from a veteran is good in many quarters as a means of safe passage. Except for the hard nuts and the rebels, your passage should be a safe one.”

The “hard nuts” he referred to were the Romans who hated duty in this land and hated all the people of the land.

We said our goodbyes. The original three of us began walking south next to the cart and donkey. We were pilgrims on route to a holy city.

  

- 11 -

We were still in Samaria. This land was part of the greater Judea and close to the coast in a hodge podge of various religions. People in some villages still had small idols or fertility gods about.

I know that women are partial to fertility goddesses. Women need their charms. The man of the house may have to lead the way outside the house. Women are burdened by everything from childbirth, child care, managing household food supplies, cooking, cleaning, presenting a face of comfort to visitors and placating the male ego and the male libido and so on and on and on.

Women are a multitasked creature. Along the way, we meet women near wells and coming and going to a stream where they collect water in jars. Or they had been washing clothes or cloth in the nearby stream.

Walking along side the cart in a slow place, we maintain contact and talk with local women. We get to hear news and gossip of the local area. Your handle as a pilgrim on the way to Jerusalem was a great opener to start conversations.

Women who shunned strangers were women from a village not worth visiting. The possibility of villages partial to rebel activity were as a general rule villages very hostile to strangers.

Asking about market days made it easier to enter a town or village on market day where one hears all sorts of news. The land is filled with many cults. The only pure Judaism like I read about in my scrolls is practiced at the great temple complex in Jerusalem.

Would be leaders are often spouting their anger in town squares on market days. So too, self taught and itinerant preachers catch the ear of some. These small town preachers are usually talking about the end of the world which I think is code talk for the destruction or expulsion of the Roman army. The preachers all seemed fixed on an idea of a deliverer who would make the average Joe have the courage to join in the fight and help end the present political chaos in the region. Again a deliverer or messiah sounds like code talk for a military leader, one to unite the people and lead the revolt against Herod and Rome.

Julius and even Hiram warned me that the closer I came to the religious heart of the land in Jerusalem, the more dense would be the anger and the underlying wish for a united pure, free from foreigners, Jewish homeland. They had been right in that evaluation of the situation.

One benefit of taking a pilgrim’s trail south is that we keep bumping into other pilgrims on their way south or returning north. Many pilgrims are barefoot and without provisions. They are walking south to atone for sins and to come at journey’s end outside the house of their god.

Talking to these pilgrims or sharing water or a meal with them, you get the essential religious flavor of the land. Apparently I had just missed a great messiah. His title was the “Baptist” and he preached the end of the world, a popular theme, and he offered cleaning of one’s body and spirit in a nearby river.

This holy man had offended the local King. He managed to get arrested and word was that they had executed him. No body came out of the palace dungeon for burial. Rumor of his death was taken as fact.

Many other pilgrims were still hoping that rumors of the “Baptist” were not true. These faithful still hoped that they might get to see this once in a generation candidate for messiah.

Approaching one nearby town, there had been a commotion of sorts. A woman in the middle of the road had been shouting in hysteria. A few people were gathered about her. Myself and Rebecca came near.

The woman was shouting that she had seen the messiah of the Jews. Some travelers passed by. They had all the signs of practicing Jews. They passed by and shouted. They shouted things like “unclean” and “Samaritan” as if such were curse words.

Still other people had continued to gather and were probably from the nearby town. The woman who shouted was now talking loudly to her neighbors.

“I have met a prophet. There by the well of Jacob. He told me of my life sins. He, a stranger, a pure Jew, knew of my five marriages and my present life of sin with a man I am not married to.

“Oh God! Oh God! You have blessed this unworthy nobody. God be blessed! God be praised!”

Words moved back and forth amidst those gathered around. Such a gathering is not a good thing. A Roman army patrol would charge first and ask questions later. People gathered in public in such an excited state looked very much to me as a civil disturbance and one step away to becoming a mob and then a riot.

Some women took this woman and made her sit on a nearby rock. Somebody brought water for her to drink. Indeed the men were looking up and down the road no doubt afraid of the a Roman patrol on horseback that might happen by.

The woman was now calm. Some helped her stand and helped her walk toward the nearby settlement. Tears were streaming down her face as she made pronouncements to those escorting her.

“I am saved! I have seen the messiah! He is come! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the lord.”

We followed at some distance and although strangers we were able to get a woman or two tell us what had happened.

“That woman has had a very sad, sad life. Five husbands have divorced her. Her sixth man does not want to marry her. She is cursed six times, no seven, six men and a sad life.”

“She says that a learned man, a rabbi she thinks, came and asked for water from the well. She did not understand why so proper a Jew would talk to her. Then he told her that his words were the water of life, eternal life. That anybody who drinks of the waters of God will be saved.”

“Do you think the Baptist has returned from the dead?”

I gave no reply. I could not get an answer as to what this man, this prophet looked like.

Some said he had companions with him. This was all so strange to me. I saw this terrible need for a people who wanted to regain a free identity and to rule themselves without the burden of foreign oppressors.

So much of the Jewish saga matches the Persian saga. Maybe Persia does need someone strong, first to use the Romans to reestablish a nation and then to throw them out when the nation is strong again.

I was saddened. So much of my beliefs and culture lay with Persia. I was beginning to have a split personality in regards to my personal beliefs.

I actually felt the energy of that woman picked up from despair by the words of a rabbi or holy man. Persia has not seen such energy for centuries.