Chapter 4: Flight to Egypt

               
5th Gospel--Told by Jesus' Beloved Apostle

               
A Novel by Richard Jewell

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Book I: Early Years
Part One–Child
                                      

There are many things, David, that have already been explained and many which have not, concerning this birth.

You may be asking who Josi, Mary’s close friend, was. You are right if you guess that she was the elect lady to whom I wrote a letter that even now is widely circulated among many of the churches, including your own. She stayed with Mary many years. I grew to know her well when Mary lived with me. Both she and Mary were women of great dignity and love in their later years. Josi was a closer eyewitness of the whole of Jesus’ life than even we who were among his chosen twelve. Yet we twelve were often the first to hear Jesus’ special teachings, when we were away from his family home.

I will not describe the special teachings now, saving them for later. But I will say here that part of these teachings helped explain such unusual wonders as those that followed Jesus’ birth. I mean, for example, the star that came over the stable and hovered there (a mixture of a natural wonder, possibly, and a supernatural), the presence of angels and their singing, and the heavenly voices.

It is so hard to describe these wonders to you Romans. Unlike us Jews, you are much more often ready to disbelieve everything unless you see it with your own eyes. And then, even having witnessed it yourself, you must have it hit you over the head until you cry out in pain, or it must be repeated so many times that you think you are going crazy, before you accept.

Part of Jesus’ special teachings was that wonders are “natural,” too. They are no less natural than walking or speaking, which we must learn in our infancy. Infants learn to be part of wonders. They can communicate with each other and with their parents in certain very basic psychic ways, just as they use their developing eyes, hands, and mouths to communicate. But most parents don’t respond. Their children soon lose the skill. We adults bury ourselves in the darkness of knowing only material things. We are so busy earning our living, eating our food, and worrying what will happen to us next that we are too tired and too little aware to learn these basic psychic skills.

How about the heavenly singing of the angels and the voices from heaven?

Many people hear voices, David. The wonderful Greek orator and teacher Socrates had his inner voice that spoke with him often. Your own friend Publius the Orator has told you of the time he was about to unknowingly blunder in front of wild, stampeding horses near the coliseum and the voice of his dead father commanded him to halt. Why can’t you Romans examine the evidence and then admit something is really there? It seems to take the reasoning power of a Greek, the faith of a Jew, and the patience of a Galilean farmer to convince you younger Romans in particular.

I know, David, that you are not quite as stubborn in this as are most. You have accepted the resurrection and you have seen, as you say, sorcerers who can heal by laying their hands on wounds.

But what you haven’t accepted quite yet is that miracles are a common, everyday occurrence.

The star of the Magi, who were kings from the Orient, was one such occurrence. As you may remember, according to Matthew who was one of the twelve, the star first appeared to the Magi when they were still in the eastern lands that were their homes. They had been waiting for such a sign. When it appeared, they knew it because it was a different light than all their astrological studies had ever led them to observe. It moved toward the west and disappeared.

They followed its path. They inquired along the way until finally King Herod sent them to Bethlehem. Then the star suddenly appeared again, bright and shining, when Jesus was born. They followed it to Bethlehem the next day and were led to the inn. They were presented to Jesus and Mary several weeks later, after the purification necessary by Jewish laws.

Such starts, David, have appeared before. They move where they shouldn’t and sometimes follow people. They confound astrologers and scholars alike. Some suggest they are strange men from a world of the stars, who fly like eagles in metal enclosures that glow. Others suggest such lights are a reflection of the sun that, disappearing beneath the horizon every night, sometimes sends light high in the part of the sky that is not hidden from it. Still others say such lights are strange ball-shape forms of lightning or explosive gas on fire.

It does happen frequently enough. But is also is sufficiently rare to make it special. Whether it was physical or psychic, it still was one of the special events that surrounded Jesus’ birth. If just one of these special events had happened, then his birth would not have been so remarkable. But because many such events happened, his birth was so much more noticeable than anyone else’s in the world.

The eighth day after Jesus’ birth, he was circumcised. Mary recovered well and he was healthy. They stayed first in the inn, and then with a distant relative in Bethlehem who was also an Essene, until forty days had passed. Then Mary and Joseph took Jesus to the great Temple in Jerusalem where he and Mary received their purifications by Jewish Law.

After this, several Magi, the three Matthew mentions and a few others, gave Jesus their gifts and honor. The Magi were not only astrologers but also high priests in their own lands. In this way the leading members of the most important mystery religions, from Egypt to farthest India and beyond, gave their formal recognition to Jesus as the Christ.

This recognition was very reassuring for both Mary and Joseph, and the Essenes. It helped reaffirm, ever more strongly, that they had received the right baby.

The most remarkable event following this recognition was not a miracle. It was a violent cruelty.

The first three Magi, it seems, had told King Herod they would report back to him. It was a foolish promise made in a hasty moment. They didn’t dare report back, which they learned after coming to Bethlehem. They went home, finally, without even a polite note to Herod.

The King flew into a rage. For all his gross fatness and stinking flesh, he was a cunning and intelligent man. He ordered all male children two years old and younger to be killed.

Imagine Herod. All the stories about him were true. The man was a complete physical wreck by the time Jesus was born. He was diseased. His heavy body sweated constantly from fever. His feet were swollen, and he had running sores that bred worms. Sometimes he had convulsive fits. Though Herod did stand by the nation and get many concessions for it from the Romans, the marks of great evil were on him. His eyes were both watery and completely cold. His pudgy fingers picked delicately, like vultures’ talons, at objects. His flesh was a creamy, translucent white as are many men’s who have enjoyed repeated murder and cruel sex. He had married ten times; killed many of his children, wives, and their relatives; and in peacetime, sentenced tens of thousands to perish in blood by the sword. Just before he left this world he ordered his oldest son slain.

His killing of all the male infants in Bethlehem and the surrounding areas would have been more noticed if it weren’t for the fact that he died shortly after–and took with him several dozen prominent Jews whom he had ordered slain at the same moment of his death. The whole nation, except for those close to Bethlehem, was too busy mourning the death of their leaders to notice the less important slaying of the infants.

To some people it was not less important. Herod almost killed Jesus and he came even closer to murdering John the Forerunner, who was an infant in Bethlehem, too.

Mary, Joseph, and Jesus, with Josi, had escaped on a trip to Egypt before Herod’s murderers came. The infant John the Forerunner and John’s mother, Elizabeth, came shortly after. It was Elizabeth who told the story of the slaying to the rest of them, on the journey through the Egyptian desert.

Elizabeth and her group, including Essene guards, came hurrying into Mary and Joseph’s desert camp shortly after sundown. The camels they were riding had, over a period of several weeks, helped them catch up with Jesus’ family.

Beside Elizabeth, on another camel, rode a serving woman who was also a nurse. In her lap, held tightly between her robed legs, a big and healthy infant of almost one-and-a-half rode with his eyes shiny-bright from excitement. He was John and he had just awakened from a nap as they entered the desert camp. His intent eyes darted everywhere, watching gleefully.

The Essene guards and the servants of Mary and Joseph jumped up in alarm as Elizabeth and her group came racing in. Elizabeth had outrun even the far-ranging Essene messengers going ahead of her to announce her arrival.

She and Mary fell into each other’s arms as soon as Elizabeth dismounted. The young mother, and the old, grey-haired one with wisdom in her eyes, hugged as kinswomen and friends. Jesus, not much more than one and carefully covered in large robes to protect him against the chill, eyed these intruders cautiously. He recognized Elizabeth and pointed at her. His examination of her paused as he caught sight of John, an infant not much older than he, staring back at him. Slowly a shy grin spread on Jesus’ face. In the bustle of people meeting, the two infants were almost forgotten except by Josi and John’s nurse. The two women put the boys to bed in the dark tent together. Night crickets were calling. The boys fell asleep silently, gently holding each other’s hands in the glow of the sing oil lamp while their nurses watched over them.

Elizabeth and the others sat together at the campfire. After they all had eaten roast lamb, which earlier had been spitted and turned slowly over the fire, she slowly began to tell them the story of her flight.

In the distance of the desert, a jackal suddenly cried. The sound was lonely. The wind stirred the palm fronds of the oasis behind them, making the trunks creak and groan. Elizabeth turned large, dark eyes on each of them. In those eyes a terror gradually appeared, as in one who has seen the Jewish hell where offal and children are burnt, and was still recovering from it.

“There was blood everywhere,” she said. She circled a finger over the ground in front of her. “Your dream of danger, Joseph, came true. They sought out both John and Jesus.” She looked him in the eye.

Joseph nodded once. Mary, beside him, leaned forward quickly when one of the infants cried out. She relaxed slowly as she saw Josi hurry back into the goat-hair tent, where the children were. Mary turned her attention back to Elizabeth.

Elizabeth rubbed her tired eyes and shook her head.

“One street,” she said, “the one they call Street of Children where so many young families always live, was river. The stones were completely covered by blood. The soldiers were carrying children’s heads around with them.”

Mary shuddered and looked away.

Elizabeth sighed. Not far behind them the brook in the oasis burbled happily, running quickly over its few dozen feet of life before dying in the desert sand.

“It has been weeks, now,” she said, “but still I wake up at night from a dream with my body shaking and my eyes pouring tears. I ask for John immediately and have him put beside me.”

She shook her head. “The dream is always the same. It is something that really happened. I saw it as John and I ran through the back streets into the hills. Two of Herod’s soldiers were tossing a baby John’s age back and forth like a ball. The mother was running back and forth between them, pleading and screaming. The baby was crying. One of the soldiers drew his sword out and let the baby land on it.”

The dying fire flickered high, shining briefly up against Elizabeth’s face. It was lined with suffering.

One of the Essene guards traveling with Joseph and Mary stood and walked several paces away. He threw up. Mary suddenly jumped up and ran to the tent she shared with Joseph.

“Go to her,” Elizabeth told Joseph. “She is wondering if Jesus and John were worth such a sacrifice. I know, because in the darkest part of the night I find myself wondering that, too.”

Joseph rose. He looked the older, grey-haired woman in the eye. He was closer to her in age than anyone else present.

“Where is Zacharias your husband?” he asked. “Is he still tending the Temple in Jerusalem, as before?”

“They killed him,” she answered. “He wouldn’t tell them where John and I were hiding in the hills, or if John was dead.”

Joseph looked at her carefully in the dark shadows of the dying fire. Tears were running freely down her face.

“I will go to Mary,” he said. “We will talk more of this later. You must sleep now, mother of John.”

He kissed her reverently between the eyebrows; then she tiredly walked to her tent. An Essene guard quietly placed himself in front of the goat-hair door.

Joseph shook off his own fears and went to his wife.

In the tent, Mary leaned against Joseph’s chest and sobbed. Jesus, she knew, would be sleeping for several hours in his own tent with John, until he was hungry or she called for him. She was glad Jesus was out of the tent. She knew she wouldn’t ever blame him for being the cause of hundreds of babies being killed. But she wanted him out of her sight right now, just to be extra sure.

She did blame herself.

“Joseph, all those children!” she cried. “Couldn’t we have left Bethlehem right away to stop it? Couldn’t God have sent us away?”

Joseph remained silent. It was never easy, even in the best of times, to satisfactorily explain why God let people die. He frowned.

“Joseph! Answer me! Why couldn’t I have done something to prevent this? As his mother I should have known something like this would happen!”

“There was so much danger around us that it was impossible to know the form it would take,” he said. “How were we to know Herod’s whims?”

Mary balled her hands tight.

“I thought I would be helping Israel when I agreed to become Jesus’ mother!” she exclaimed. “Instead, all I’ve done is help kill off her infants!”

“There’ll be much worse, probably, before it’s all done,” he answered.

She spun away from him.

“How could you understand?” she yelled. “You aren’t his mother! You didn’t have to help decide what’s good for Israel!”
“Don’t be selfish!” he exclaimed. His face was red.

She looked at him in horror and hurt pride.

Immediately he realized he had said the wrong thing. He shook his head to clear it. He had been used to spending most of his time among Essene men who listened to moral criticisms as if such criticisms were the words of God himself. Women, he had been slowly realizing for the past six months, were entirely different. They were more sensitive and less hardened in their attitudes. Maybe, he felt, this was rightly so.

He held out his hand.

“Mary. I’m sorry. Come here, child.”

She spun on her heels and ran out of the tent.

He was afraid to follow here.

Mary burst in upon Josi, alone with Jesus and John, and started sobbing in earnest.

Josi, with a quick look at the boys to see if they were still sleeping, put her arms around her friend.

“What’s wrong?” she asked.

Mary lifted her head.

“I killed them, Jos,” she whispered. Her voice was hoarse. “Maybe I should be dead, too.”

“It’s Herod’s fault,” Josi said. Her mouth drew down.

Mary shuddered at the mention of the fat King.

“Not even God can predict what men like that will do,” Jos explained.

“I think,” she continued, “that even if we’d gone all the way to Egypt right after Jesus and John were born, he’d still have found a way to get to us! You know he’s a friend of Caesar August. With Caesar’s support, Herod can do anything he likes!”

Mary nodded. Suddenly she looked up in fear.

What if he does follow us here?” she asked.

Josi put her finger on the corner of her mouth.

“No, she answered. “They’ve done their killing. And no one except the Essene leaders at home knows where we’ve gone.”

Mary sighed. She felt the beginning of relief curling through her.

“I quarreled with Joseph,” she said.

“Do you want to stay here tonight?” Josi asked.

Mary paused. “No. I’d better go back to the tent. He’ll be worried.”

“Do you want Jesus, yet?”

Mary shook her head. “Keep him here until he cries. Okay, Josi? I want to pray.”

They kissed each other good night and Mary went back to her tent.

As she entered, the light from the opened flap showed the dimly lit figure of Joseph on his knees, head raised, eyes closed, in prayer.

She silently stole up beside him and kneeled. She took his hand. He glanced down sharply and looked into her face.

She squeezed his hand, then lifted her head to the tent ceiling, too.

His tense body relaxed. An hour later, they lay down on their mats and slept, after Josi had brought Jesus to Mary.

Their stay in Egypt lasted several years. First they all lived together in Zoan, on the eastern banks of the Nile. But Zoan was small enough that they were afraid that word of their names might travel back to Jerusalem.

So they moved to Alexandria. Alexandria has a large Hebrew population. It is one of the few great cities in the world, other than Jerusalem itself, where Hebrews are respected. They control the northeast corner of the city and have their own government there. The city numbers well over half a million people and Hebrews make up almost a hundred thousand of these; so it was easy for the groups, especially Mary, Elizabeth, and their children, to lose themselves in the metropolis.

They stayed in an inconspicuous mud-and-brick house where Joseph, for appearances’ sake, kept working as a carpenter. The work also helped him keep busy with a job that was good for him. But he had plenty of time to experiment with his craft, and improve his woodman-ship, for they did not need the money. The gifts of the magi had taken care of that. They used these gifts carefully.

Jesus and John grew into plump, happy babies. They quarreled with each other, slept together, and learned to walk. They often held hands in front of the house while they watched the busy people pouring back and forth on various jobs and social visits in the Hebrew quarter.

Neither of the children showed any special signs of being who they were. They both were obviously intelligent; but neither of the mothers had had children before this, so their intelligence was not particularly noticed. Both children, especially Jesus, seemed to have strong wills. This worried Mary in particular. She was afraid that if her baby actually was the looked-for one, Israel’s messiah, he was going to be a strong-armed and even soldierly King as some of the ancient prophets had foretold.

It was because of worries such as this, and also out of her own deep, natural curiosity, that Mary began using the Library at Alexandria. Josi would go with her on these visits.

The Library at Alexandria is one of the great wonders of our world. In older times, it is said, the Alexandrians liked to joke that the Library held one book for every citizen of the city. That was over half a million rolls of books. Though many of these were lost in the great fire when Julius Caesar held the city under siege, still the replacements made by Mark Antony and Cleopatra, and more recently by the Romans, make it even today a library of unique size.

Mary and Josi used to walk under the great portico, with its roof and its open-air sides filled with thick marble columns, and feel amazed at the quiet dignity and scholarly atmosphere of the place. Hunting for old book rolls was no easy job. A librarian had to help. He would guide Mary and Josi through the long halls and high rooms, with their shelves stacked tens of feet high with manuscripts, to the book rolls Mary and Josi wanted for that day.

Both of the girls knew Greek. The Essenes had taught it to them. It was an unusual accomplishment in Jewish women. But it helped them study the many book rolls that had been translated into Greek, the scholarly language of the Roman Empire.

It became kind of a holiday for the two young women, these days when they could go to the library and use their Essene-trained minds.

“Josi!” Mary exclaimed. They had dozens of book rolls all around them on the long marble table at which they were sitting. “Look at this one!”

“Another prophecy?” Josi asked.

Mary nodded and grinned.

“Haven’t we found enough prophecies of Jesus’ life in Israel’s prophets?” Josi asked.

“You know it doesn’t hurt to check everything,” Mary told her. “If some prophet from another religion can predict Jesus’ life, it just makes our own Hebrew prophets even more right.”

Josi put her chin in her cupped hand. “Okay. Let’s hear it. What religion are we listening to this time?”

Mary bent over her book roll and peered at the beginning of it. “Zoroaster,” she said, “that Persian religion.”

She had said it in a voice loud enough to carry to the next table where a portly Egyptian gentleman heard it. He looked strangely at these two women who were studying a religion even men of his country didn’t usually bother with.

“According to this thing,” mary said more quietly, “this Book of Zendavesta, “a ruler of God shall be born of a virgin, and the wise astrologers of the Magi shall visit the baby.’”

Josi grinned. “Not bad. Mary, speaking of wise astrologers, I’ve got something here that is interesting.”

She held up a bulky old book roll. “Within the rolls of this book,” she said, is an interesting theory on astrology that claims we are getting further and further from accurate astrological dating. According to this,” she paused dramatically, “Jesus was born a Pisces.”

“But he was born in December!” Mary exclaimed. “That’s not Pisces’ month.”

“That’s just it,” Josi answered. “According to this book, every two thousand years we get further off. This Marcus Lucanus, who wrote it, says that corrections were made long ago, but not more recently.”

Mary paused. “Well, where in Pisces was Jesus born, then?”

“On the cusp,” said Josi. “He’s almost an Aries. He was born practically in between the two signs.”

An old and scholarly Greek in a ragged toga slowly walked past them, carrying several book rolls under his arm. They waited for him to pass.

“I guess that would make some sense,” Mary finally said. “He acts like a Pisces. He’s so sensitive and stubborn.”

Josi nodded. “This roll has all kinds of mathematical proofs, too. And all kinds of drawings showing the stars and the world and how they used to be lined up and how they really are now. This roll says the stars move out of their orbits around the world, Mary!”

Mary smiled. “Well, they must. Where else did that star come from that hung over the stable in Bethlehem?”

“Oh that.” Josi’s hand waved. “That was just a conjunction of the planets Saturn and Jupiter.”

Mary laughed. “But Josi! That conjunction happened long before Jesus’ birth!”

“But it repeated itself two more times in less than a year!” Josi exclaimed. “Why couldn’t it come back again?”

Mary shook her head.

“Our star moved, Josi. Even the Magi who were astrologers knew that. They said it was different, too.”

Josi sighed. “I was hoping it was just a conjunction. It would make things easier. There were so many things like that at the birth. It was scary. But that he’s born–nothing. He might as well be anybody!”

Mary nodded. “Yes, and I’m thankful for it. After reading all these prophecies about what he’s going to become, I’m glad he’s just normal as a baby. You know he’s going to have all kinds of special powers as a man, don’t you, if the prophecies are right?”

“Sure,” Josi answered. She trembled slightly. “It’ll be exciting then!”

Mary shook her head. I’ll take him just as he is, Josi. Those prophecies scare me. I’m going to enjoy him right now, before it’s too late. He won’t always be as human as he is now.”

Josi stood up. “Let’s go home, Mary. Speaking of human, both of the children must be awake and driving Elizabeth made. She’s the most patient woman I’ve ever met. I wish I could be that patient. But goodness, she lets those kids run circles around her. Especially John. He’s the wildest little boy I’ve ever known.”

Mary smiled and stood up, too. It’s a good thing John likes to protect Jesus,” she said. “John is so much bigger. But someday, I think, he may be the smaller of the two.”

“Oh really?” Josi asked. “But you and Elizabeth are about the same size.”

“Yes, but Zacharias was a short man. And if it makes any difference, the men in my family have been tall.”

“It’s too bad your mother is gone, Mary.”

“Yes.” Mary handed their batch of scrolls to the librarian to return to the stacks. Since they were women, they were not expected to climb on the footstools and ladders to the higher shelves.

The librarian thanks them solemnly with a bow.

“My mother would have enjoyed a grandson,” Mary continued. “But I don’t think it’s hurt Jesus any. Between you and Elizabeth and some of the other Essene women here in Egypt, he has plenty of colder people to love.”

Josi looked at Mary admiringly. “Love is what’s important, isn’t it?”

Mary shrugged. “We could teach him all sorts of things, I suppose. How to be a king. How to be a master of psychic powers. How to be a holy man. But we still don’t know exactly what he’s supposed to become. Even if we did, he’d still need to learn love. As it is now, love is about the only thing we have to give him, along with a little discipline.”

Josi grinned. “He does need the discipline. He gets into everything.”

Mary led the way out through the great portico and down its granite steps. “He’ll probably be quite a rabble rouser when he grows up,” she agreed.

Quietly, only half-noticing all the busy sights and sounds of a great seaport city, they walked home.

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Most recent revision of text: 1 Aug. 2020.