Chapter 7: From John the Beloved Disciple

               
5th Gospel--Told by Jesus' Beloved Apostle

               
A Novel by Richard Jewell

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Book I: Early Years
Part Two–Young Man
                                      

My beloved David, friend and young soldier of Rome, I understand the Emperor Trajan is persecuting the friends. Now that you have become one of the friends, I hope you will avoid him. For here in Ephesus we hear that Trajan only persecutes those who come to his attention.

I know this creates a rather difficult situation for you–a double bind in which, either way, you are in danger. If you publicly proclaim your Christianity, you risk coming to the attention of the Emperor and his servants. But if you keep your belief a secret, then you are guilty of taking part in a secret society, a thing also illegal in the Empire.

Nevertheless, let your religion be somewhat secret. If you were not a Roman soldier and in Rome, I might advise you otherwise. Here in Ephesus and the surrounding cities, we meet openly. There is little the Emperor can do about it. I, of course, am kept confined to my house most of the time. But others less important than I are allowed to gather together as they wish.

But you must keep this long letter to you completely secret. The age of persecution has already begun for the friends of Jesus Christ, and we must hide our most important documents. Too many of them are destroyed already.

I have told you so much now already, with the help of my scribe, of Jesus’ birth and early life. I hope you will see that it is not all miraculous as some unwelcome scribes have recently made it appear.

The scribes write false documents of Jesus’ life and claim the documents have been written by eyewitnesses who saw Jesus. These scribes often mean well. But they confuse people about the message of Jesus’ life and death, the message that we who knew him wish to teach. Already many of the churches from Rome to India argue with each other about which letters and stories of Jesus’ life are true, and which are false. This is a problem.

Because I wish this letter of mine to you to be always accepted as real, I am having the leaders of the friends here in Ephesus and nearby inscribe their names on it. Please have this done in Rome, too. Then, and especially if this letter is ever lost for a time and found later, all those who believe as we do will know this letter is true.

We do not, David, know the exact time of Jesus’ return to earth. Many people believe, mistakenly, that it will be before I die. I doubt this. It is based on a misunderstanding of something Jesus said to me one time, as I recorded in my history of him years ago. It may be dozens of years more, or even hundreds, before he returns. Possibly he will be gone from us as long as it takes this present age of two thousand years to end, and the new one to begin. One of the Magi, well-versed in the science of the stars, believed this.

In any case, keep these and all other true writings dear. They may be needed for a long time.

David, before I go on to tell of Jesus’ years spent with the Essenes, and his travels to holy men in other countries, I should tell you a little more of my own beginnings. I know you have asked me, and been answered by me, about my youth. As I told you, I took after my older brother James, who was also one of the twelve, because like him I was fiery. I admit in my youth I had a quick and loud temper. I don’t know if it would have been easily cured if I hadn’t met or known Jesus so well.

But I have told you all these things before. I have not told you much about my father, Zebedee the fish wholesaler, or my mother, Salome, or my brothers and sister.

I was born about the same time as James the brother of Jesus. I was the fourth born, the youngest, after Roael the eldest, my sister Naomi, and my brother James. Roael was about the same age as Jesus. In those days Roael, my father, and my mother lived in Capernaum. Roael and Jesus, as young boys, were playmates. Roael grew up very much the Essene, though he married. He died several years after Jesus’ teaching began, just before Jesus was crucified. He was a follower of Jesus, but in this life he never knew Jesus’ final agony and his rebirth from the tomb.

Naomi, James, and I all were born during the period of my father’s prosperity. My father had his fishing business, in which he owned more than a dozen fishing boats, and he hired men to fish in them. My father also was a wholesaler of the fish his fishermen caught. The fish were shipped from the Sea of Galilee where they were caught, down to Tiberius, Jerusalem, and elsewhere where they were sold. My father rented the selling rights to various agents of his, who sold his fish in the markets and shops. We lived during this time in a small villa outside Jerusalem, near Bethany, from where he directed his businesses.

As you can see, he was well placed financially. We were not especially rich. But we were far from poor. Because he and my mother had money, they came to know many of the Romans and Hebrews who were in political and financial control of the country, especially in and arund Jerusalem.

My mother liked to entertain. As James, Naomi, and I were growing up, we became used to seeing Roman officials of some certain influence, and some of the younger and more liberal members of the Sanhedrin, passing through our villa for an afternoon.

My father was very active in defending the Essenes to such officials. My mother disliked this. Though she respected my father’s beliefs, she honored him more than she did his actual beliefs. She preferred not to make too great a fuss about whether men believed as Essenes, Pharisees, or Sadducees. She had her God of the Hebrews, and for her that was enough. As a result, she was an excellent and open-minded hostess. She conversed fluently and intelligently with all manner of people.

when my father and mother had lived in Capernaum with my brother Roael, before they moved to the villa outside Jerusalem, my father was active in the mount Carmel Essene temple. But he had a quarrel with Judy, Jesus’ teacher and guide. He and Judy were both strong-minded, and unfortunately they held opposing views on the use of money. He wished to live well. She thought then that poverty was more right. Neither, I now believe, was completely right or wrong. Their disagreement was fueled by their personalities, which rubbed against each other the wrong way. It was partly for this reason, and partly for the sake of improving his business connections, that he moved the family to our villa near Bethany.

In spite of his quarrels with Judy, he sent James, Naomi, and me to school on Mount Carmel. I was raised an Essene. But even so, the three of us younger children also felt drawn to the more traditional forms of Hebrew belief because we saw so many young Pharisee and Sadducee leaders in our home. It was confusing.

The Pharisees, for example, taught us that fate controls most of our lives. The rich Sadducees who visited us said that fate did not exist, except as a man or woman lets it be so. But our Essene teachers told us that neither the Pharisees nor the Sadducees were totally right–that fate at any given point in time really does control our lives, but we are completely free to choose which fate we shall have.

As you can see, young and hot-tempered boys such as James and me who cared little about abstract questions of fate, had several beliefs from which to choose for our manhood. Both of us, and Naomi when she was much older, finally accepted the Essene ways without adopting them completely. Though we didn’t believe everything the Essenes said, we found them more open-minded and practical in explaining many things. They also were a little bit revolutionary, and more against the Romans.

This especially appealed to James and me because the Pharisees and Sadducees were willing to compromise too much with Rome.

I have told you enough, David. I am sure you are not overly interested in lengthy details of my youth, especially the intellectual differences between Hebrew sects when I was growing up. You have the much more exciting religious differences, there in Rome, of Mithras the warrior god contending against faith in Jesus, and against the extreme lust for food and sex of the upper classes, who have their own liberal philosophers. I hope you remain with the way of the friends in spite of these other influences, interesting as they are.

One more thing I should tell you: Jesus and I were cousins. My mother was an aunt to Mary. Many of the first followers of Jesus were related to him by blood or marriage. This is because the Mt. Carmel Essenes were a small group, compared to the Sadducees and the Pharisees. And it was also this way because Hebrew relatives are closer knit to each other than your Roman families are. The souls who chose to come to this earth with Jesus were best able to be born as his brothers, his cousins, and his marriage kin.

Enough, David. I am through talking about me. I am nothing, except as my own life helps to illuminate the story of Jesus’ life. I want you to know Jesus the carpenter’s son, not John the almost-rich fisherman’s son. You and I are friends, as much as an old scholar like me can understand a young Roman soldier like you. We draw together, David, in Christ. Our love for him gives us a common love. It is this, David, that really fuels the love you and I have for each other.

Let me continue his story.

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Most recent revision of text: 1 Aug. 2020.