Chapter 9: Jesus and Cousin John to Egypt

               
5th Gospel--Told by Jesus' Beloved Apostle

               
A Novel by Richard Jewell

---

Book I: Early Years
Part Two–Young Man
                                      

When Jesus was sixteen, Judy called him to her in the temple by the alter. “We can teach you no more here,” she said, laying one of her wrinkled hands on the rectangular stone alter. “Boys younger than you already are being initiated into the Egyptian mysteries. That is where we want you to go, according to the dreams we have recently had. In Egypt you will take the first three degrees of initiation into the mysteries. There are seven degrees in all, though the last ones are reserved for older men.”

“Yes Teacher. I have waited for this so long.” He smiled.

“After one year,” she told him, “you shall return here. We will see how well you have done, then. If we approve, we may send you to India for several years, before you return to Egypt for further studies.”

She put her hand on his shoulder. “You go with my blessing, my son. Now go quickly to the cave and pack your things. Visit your family. One week from today, one of our temple companions will come to guide you to Egypt.”

It was hard, after one week, to leave home. He knew that at the beginning of the journey, he and his guide would ride down to Hebron to pick up his cousin John, the Forerunner, who would be going with him. He looked forward to being with John. The two boys had seen nothing of each other for over five years.

But he didn’t feel especially comfortable leaving Mary, Joseph, James, and Josi behind. He was used to seeing them every weekend. They were still the center of his life, if not his studies.

“Come with me,” he joked at supper the night before he was to leave. They all were lying on their couches around the table, their left elbows resting on their pillows, as people did at meals.

“I wish we could,” Mary said. She was uncomfortable, lying on her side to eat, because she was becoming full with a child again. The baby would be born after Jesus left. Soon she would need pillows to prop her up.

Josi smiled at him sadly. “Will you be in Alexandria most of the time?” she asked. She pulled four-year-old James closer against her. He liked to flop onto his stomach, which made it harder for him to eat.

Jesus shook his head. “No, just a small part of the time, really. The school is in Heliopolis, further south along the Nile, and the priests’ temple there is the Great Pyramid nearby.”

He looked up from his food and glanced around the table at each of them in turn. “I will miss you,” he quietly said.

Mary struggled up and hurried into the bedroom.

“It’s all right,” Joseph said as Jesus started to rise. “She just doesn’t like your going away.”

“But I’ll be back in a year!”

“And then you will go to India,” Joseph answered. “Mothers aren’t used to losing their sons, Jesus, until the sons are married at eighteen. Even then, the sons usually stay nearby with their wives.”

“I won’t be marrying,” Jesus said.

“We understand that,” Joseph told him. “But you will be traveling instead, starting two years sooner than many boys leave home. We will see little of you these coming years.” Joseph’s voice suddenly became rough and low. He cleared his throat and looked away.

“Poppa.” Jesus reached his hand across the table to his father and mother’s couch. “I will miss working beside you in the workshop on weekends.”

Joseph took his son’s hand in his own. They clasped each other strongly and gazed into each other’s eyes.

“How about me?” asked Josi.

Jesus turned to her.

Her face was shiny with tears. “Will you miss me?” she asked.

Jesus smiled. “Every time I am sad, Josi, I will wish you were there to cheer me.”

“How about me!” James exclaimed. He jumped off the couch he shared with Josi and ran to Jesus. “Do you have to go?”

“Yes, James.” Jesus nodded solemnly. “When you are older, would you like to travel with me?”

James nodded eagerly. “Why will we travel?” he asked.

Jesus laughed.

“Because it will be good for us!” he exclaimed. “We can see exciting places and talk with all kinds of people.”

James nodded. “You will help a lot of people,” the little boy said.

Jesus, Joseph, and Josi looked sharply at each other.

“I hope so,” Jesus told his brother gently. “I really hope so, James.”

Jesus and his Essene guide met his cousin John at his home in the hills of Hebron. He had seen little of him since they had been playmates as young boys in Capernaum, and a few times later during holidays.

“Jesus!” shouted John, running out of his small mud-brick home.

The two young men wrapped their arms around each other and hugged fiercely in the rocky street of the hilly village.

“Ah, it is good to see you John!” Jesus pulled back from their embrace and grabbed his cousin’s arms.

“We finally have time to talk!” John exclaimed, looking up slightly at Jesus. The latter was already two fingers’ breadth taller.

“Why couldn’t you come to the Essenes on Mount Carmel and visit me?” Jesus asked.

“Why couldn’t you come to the Dead See Essenes and visit me?” John replied. He waved his hand. “These Essenes. All they know for young men like us is work!”

Jesus glanced sideways at their Essene guide from Mount Carmel, who was standing a few lengths away in the street. He was smiling.

“Come,” Jesus told John. “We shall ride our donkeys together and find out what each of us has learned. Is that lean animal poking his head around the corner of the house yours?”

They talked for hours as the brown hills around them became increasingly deserted and wild. They described their lessons, their Teachers, and what their Essene communities were like. Jesus’ Mount Carmel Essenes were more a mixed group of men, women, and children, many of whom had their own homes and jobs beyond the community walls. But John’s Essenes, the stern old men who had been training him for many years in the wilds by the Dead Se, were a closer-knit group. Though women were allowed, the community was much more rigid in discipline and in limiting their wealth and pleasures. There was little to see or do at their temple anyway, for the dry lands and the salty sea stretched in empty thirst around them in all directions.

The first night they camped, Jesus and John stayed up late around the flaring campfire. Their guide was already asleep in the goatskin tent they all were sharing. The hills rose darkly, high above their camp. A night bird was calling in the distance.

A pause came in their conversation. Both young men were staring into the fire. John was knocking embers back from the edge of it with a pointed stick.

“John?” Jesus asked. “Have they–told you?”

John’s head whipped around. Then he tried to appear relaxed. “Told me what?”

“About, well, what we are to do,” Jesus answered.

John spoke carefully. “They have told me about how I will someday have a special job.” He avoided Jesus’ eyes. “Why? What have they told you?”

Jesus shrugged. “Oh, just that I have a special job, too.”

Both young men stared at the fire uneasily.

“Jesus? Did they tell you we have a job to do together?”

“Sort of,” Jesus said.

A cloud drifted over the thin new moon, taking away what little light there was beyond the circle of their fire.

John threw down the pointed stick. Embers exploded upward into the night sky.

“They told me I’m supposed to help you,” he spoke out. “you’re the Messiah!”

They stared at each other in the flickering light.

“Yes. That is what they say.” Jesus nodded.

John picked up his stick again and began drawing lines in the hard ground.

“Do you believe it, John?” Jesus asked.

“Do you?” he answered.

“Up to a point,” Jesus replied. “If all they say about my birth, and the way it came about, is true–”

“Do you doubt it?” John interrupted.

“No.” Jesus touched his forehead, a gesture he’d picked up from Judy. “Perhaps I am the Messiah. But I’m certainly not the messiah of all the holy books. The old prophets have me marching at the head of a great army, and conquering Rome.”

John looked at him from under his dark eyebrows.

“Why not?” he asked softly. “Why should a messiah not lead an army against these Romans?”

“It is not in me,” Jesus said. “I don’t want to.”

“But you will do God’s will?” John’s voice was stern, commanding. It was the voice of a much older and experienced man. The darkness of the night seemed to back away from it.

“You sound like a prophet.” Jesus smiled.

John looked away. “The Dead Sea Essenes are hard teachers,” he said. “They broke me in two with their rules.”

“You have not broken but have bent,” Jesus told him. “And that is only temporary. Yes, John, I will do the will of God.”

“You sound like a messiah.” John smiled a little. Then his face became serious again. “Do you mind if I don’t believe in you entirely?” he asked.

Jesus’ jaw tightened.

“No,” he said. “I don’t mind.”

“It’s not you I don’t believe in.” John spread his hand out. The firelight danced between his fingers. “It’s just that I have trouble accepting any of this.”

“I do, too,” Jesus answered. “I look for a sign. When it comes, I still will sometimes doubt.”

John’s face relaxed some. “Listen, Jesus. I’m ready to follow you. You’re a better Essene that I am anyway.”

Jesus started to protest.

John held up his hand. “But I have to go by my own mind in these things, he told Jesus. “I won’t follow you blindly. Is that clear?”

“More than clear, John.” Jesus nodded his head. The heat of the fire on his face was making him feel his tiredness. “Let’s go to bed,” he suggested.

John rose and stretched. He kicked some dust across the fire, turning it to glowing coals.

“Come on, cousin.” He laid his arm across Jesus’ back. “We have the whole year to decide these things.”

They quietly slid under their wool blankets in the tent, careful not to wake their guide. John began snoring almost immediately beneath his blankets. Jesus took several hours to fall asleep. He was cold. He also was too busy thinking about what he and John had said. Sleep came to him only reluctantly, as he slowly drifted off into dreams of their future together.

The two young men arrived in Heliopolis months later, after a brief stop in Zoan to see the street where they had stayed for a time when they were babies. The Essene guide left them at the priestly temple of the Great Pyramid outside of Heliopolis. This temple was where they would be initiated into the Egyptian mysteries. It rose endlessly to the sharp blue sky above. All around its base were small stone huts and carefully cultivated ornamental and food-bearing gardens. Most young men from Egypt and even as far away as Rome, who wished to know God, were initiated here between their studies in the Heliopolis school.

The temple was built of stones that were so great that each of them was much higher than a man and a person and fit so tightly together that not even a thin knife blade could penetrate the cracks. Inside it was a series of many tens of rooms both above and below the ground, though only a few of these rooms could be found without the help of the Egyptian priests. Some of these rooms were aired and sunlit by long shafts passing from the outside, above, into the depths of the dark cells inside.

Jesus and John were immediately separated. Jesus found himself being led to a simple and comfortable little stone room on the outer edge of the pyramid, where he washed, ate, ate, and slept on the fresh-smelling rush mat provided for him.

The next day he was taken before the temple’s high priest in the large stone reception hall. Sunlight streamed in from several shafts. The walls were covered with white linen hangings and richly embroidered strips of carpet-like wool dyed gold, red, and purple. Reed mats colored in gold and purple were spread down the center of the floor.

Tall, light wooden chairs lined the side of each of the two longer walls, for here the priestly council met. At the end of the hall was a throne chair of hard, dark wood with wide armrests and an inset carving of a coiling serpent. The serpent rose over the back panel and above the head of the man sitting in it.

The man rose from the chair as Jesus approached him. He was tall, and his height was increased by the platform on which he stood.

Jesus bowed.

The man bowed back. He was the high priest. His robe was of the finest heavy linen with great purple stripes alternating with bleached-white ones. On his chest was a heavy gold medallion he wore only within the temple. It was a great disc of the sun that gleamed and shimmered in the sunlight striking it.

“So,” he said. His heavy white eyebrows drew together over his dark eyes. He was watching Jesus intently. “You have come.”

Jesus addressed him respectfully. “Yes, Holy One.”

“Why did you and your cousin not go to our school first?” the priest asked. “Do you think the mysteries are so easy to understand?”

“We have learned many of the teachings already, Holy One,” Jesus answered.

The high priest’s eyes relaxed a little. “So your teacher, Judy, has told us, through her messengers. She also has kept us informed of your growth.”

The high priest’s stare suddenly shot deep into Jesus’ eyes. “We know you,” the priest said. “You are the predicted one, according to prophecies in our country and others.”

Jesus blinked once, slowly.

“One of our number was there,” the priest continued, “when you were born. I believe you called such visitors Magi?”

Jesus nodded. “Yes, Holy One.”

“You will pass the first degree of initiation without trouble,” the priest told him. “Boys younger than you sometimes pass it. There are seven degrees. The second one may be too difficult for you. Most men wait until they are older than you, to take this one. You may take it if you wish, whenever you feel you are ready.”

“Yes, Holy One.”

The high priest leaned forward, towering over Jesus. The priest frowned deeply. “Do not take the third degree,” he said. “Judy says you are ready for it. My recommendation is that you aren’t. Many men fail it! A boy –for that is what you are, still a boy–has never before taken it.”

“But,” Jesus asked, “will you honor Judy’s request, if I want this more advanced degree?” He watched the priest carefully.

The high priest stood up straight and shook his head. “We do not like breaking rules,” he answered. “According to our rules, you must be a man of eighteen or more to take the third degree. But we may” –he raised a finger–“I say may make an exception in your case.”

He bent forward again. “After all, if you really are the predicted one, we wish to help you as much as possible.” The priest frowned gravely. “But we will not make things easier. If you fail our tests, then you must stop. Some failures may disqualify you completely, in which case you will not return for more degrees.”

He glared into Jesus eyes. “Do you still wish to go on?” he asked.

“Yes,” Jesus answered.

The older man finally smiled. “Good. We were hoping you wouldn’t frighten easily. Now go.” He clapped his hands, and a young priest came in. “Take your bath of purification. I will guide you to your first test as soon as you are clean.”

---

---
Most recent revision of text: 1 Aug. 2020.