chapter 07

The first effect of forcing myself to slow down was realizing I wasn't a kid anymore. Life raced on and we all seemed oblivious to it. In Rome.

In Rome their religion was events. People killing each other always drew a full coliseum. Festivals inspired mass drunkenness. The university was an island of sanity. Most people couldn't read or write and we had a library full of writings, that if diligently read and understood would have warned us not to be like we were.

I knew that I was one of the fortunate, coming from a line of plunderers. In the world outside of our father's stolen and lost land, I was the king. A king with no kingdom, no great wealth, and no belief in his or anyone else's forefathers.

"Jesus, I've been looking all over for you."

"I was reading through Plutarch's lives."

"We have an application from Galilee. Do you know the fellow."

Charus showed me the application.

"John Levi. He's my first mentor."

"Would you recommend him."

"Charus. You won't believe what I have to tell you. But I must. We are going to change the future."

"Good answer, Jesus. I'll send for your friend and mentor."

"We are the gods, Charus. I know this. I can't make you believe it but I can see it. We are children. Animal gods. It's crazy. But I get the strangest feeling we have only just realized we are here. We've just awoken."

"Jesus Christ, I love your philosophy and if there is such thing as animal becoming god, you are among the first."

"They want to wake up, Charus. I can see their souls straining to become present. We are just far too stubborn."

"I have one other applicant I want you to read through. He's from the west."

Charus was more like a father to me than my magistrate. I was so much like the Jews before me that it frightened me.

Joseph went to Egypt. Daniel, all the prophets. All the same thing.

I didn't want to be the same thing. I wanted a world where people had access to the same heaven I had.

The university received hundreds of applications for very few positions. It was easier to get a teaching job than become a student.

Students came from all over the Roman Empire. Brilliant students with rich parents.

Fredard's letter was brilliant. His qualifications were redundant. I was reading it for the sixth time when Charus came back to the library.

"What do you think."

"I love him already."

"Wonderful. I have one more."

"Why are you asking me."

"Because it's your team you are putting together."

"My team."

"I've read everything you have written since you started publishing in Istanbul."

"Charus. What are you talking about."

"You are born for this job, Jesus. And the Empire has granted you your own hand picked team, as many as twelve, and you are going to be a prophet."

"You don't believe in prophets anymore than I do."

"It doesn't matter what I believe. What matters is I've never met a man of such clarity and certainty as you and we are going to find a way to bring a lasting peace between the Romans and the Jews."

"Gentiles and Jews."

"I've got another stack of applications to go through."

I watched Charus leave again. Everyone in the library was looking at me.

"Heaven is at hand."

I sat back down and read through Karl Karmuscus. He was the first that had spent little time in the study of religious and philosophical thought. He gave evidence of ship routes from South Inunik to Egypt. With this evidence, and many math equations I didn't care to understand, he showed that not only was the Earth not the center of the heavens. It went around the sun as did Venus, Mars, Mercury, Jupiter.

"I've one more."

"I certainly like this man's thinking."

"Shall I write to him."

"Yes."

Goddard Hernstein was a Jew. He didn't think like a student that had believed the teachings of the Torah. Or anything else. He seemed so absolutely beautiful, childish and impossible. With disturbing clarity.

The next application was from China. Fau Ming. On my third read I understood that she was a woman.

"We will go through the rest tomorrow, Jesus. Let us find our women and I'll take you to a fine restaurant to celebrate the world's first think society."

"The Borus Charus Foundation of Geniuses and Masterminds."

"You wish. You are the king, my boy."

At that moment there was no question that Charus was my spiritual father.

"What is it we're doing. Charus."

"We are going to make a religion out of your hope. I know as much as you do we don't need any more Religions. But you ask too much, Jesus. The people can not read. They need generations of proper education to understand you."

"I just want people to stop killing each other and believe that heaven is here and now."

"Two thousand years, maybe."

"And you think it is still cause for celebration."

"Do you know how long we have been on this planet."

"No."

"No one does. But I know it has been a very very long time to get to us."

"We are still growing."

"That's the thing, Jesus. I think one day there will be something better than how we are doing. And we must find a way to change our way of thinking like a pigeon that moves to the city."

"I could eat a horse."

"I know the place."

chapter 08

My class rooms became over crowded. I was infected and my students included most of the other professors of the university. Charus wouldn't allow me to give extra classes but did get the university to give me great halls to teach in.

We chose a week of festivals to leave Rome and travel to the sister of Charus in the Toscana. Helene with her big belly, Morane, the wife of Charus and their son Warim.

And my team of six men and one woman. Arbard Ekstein was also a Jew. From the west. I had the feeling we were everywhere. Charus knew the Torah better than any priest I had met.

"What is a Jew."

Hernstein laughed and asked us what a fish was.

"Jesus Christ is a fish."

"I don't believe it."

The first night we stayed in the Toscana we talked witty nonsense in several languages and played games. It was a blast not having any intention other than to enjoy the communion of one another. Rome didn't matter. Nor did the Jews. The mighty war lords were fighting somewhere else and we knew our best chance at getting to heaven was to take it when it was with us.

My Latin wasn't at all bad but Greek went straight through me. Helene spoke Hebrew with John all night. Ekstein and Nimron shared a language I'd never heard of, Ming spoke every language and received admiration from all. The men, noticeably more.

"This is heaven."

"I told you Jesus, quit your job and move up here."

"I will. In about 10 years."

"I've got witnesses."

"I never make a vow. It is my intention and when I have finished my work, we will be sharing vegetables."

Hernstein told a story that was so absurd and he stone sober in every expression. His diction so elegant. We all had tears from laughing. And Hernstein refused to smile till he was through and had he not laughed with us at the end, I would have lost hope in him. There was something terribly tragic in him.

"We are the angels. Because we can see heaven. It is there for anyone and because we are what we are and we believe it is better to be like we are, we are by default obliged to our descendants to release all from slavery and find a better way to manage the wealth of paradise. Or we will lose it. Until we have dropped our death cult worshipping and our plunder luxury. There will be war. War and ignorance. And such a state can never sustain it self. And."

"And we will find a solution."

"But not tonight, please. I'm going to bed."

John and I stayed up the longest and sat out on the hill to watch the sun come up.

"Did you ever think we would both end up in the university of Rome."

"Jesus, I knew you since you were a kid. I've never met anyone like you. You have given up your birth right as king to become a philosopher and quite possibly the first king of the Jews to make a move toward Jews and Gentiles. This is a turning point, Jesus. They might remember me if I am with you. But you, Jesus, you are the bridge."

"You make me sound like a religion."

"If they make a religion from you."

"They plan too."

"I know. And I already follow it. Since I first saw you. I know who your mother is and I know who your blood father is. He has told me many times when he has been drinking."

"He's dead."

"He wasn't when I knew him."

John always kept the company of Roman Royalty. They had the books he wanted to read.

"King of the Jews, they will call me. I am also king of the Romans."

"We are strange creatures, are we not."

The sun was exploding up over the hills. And I noticed all the sounds around me. And knew I was real.

chapter 09

"When I was a child of six, I was playing at the stream. Alone in the woods, not at all far from our house. And I felt someone standing behind me. When I turned to look, I saw the shadow of a man. Where, if there really was a man, the man should be. Until I had focused on him, I was frightened, when I saw him he was very familiar. Then he was no longer visible.

When I finally thought to think about it, I was in university. And I wondered if what I had seen was me. The man I was to become.

And in a way, I believe my mind was set before I saw the shadow of a man. He had come from the future to tell me to always believe in me."

"That's a classic religious experience."

"Not really. Religious experiences are grand and reserved for the priests. It was my active mind. My understanding of life. And it is nothing more than seeing and understanding. We follow the false gods they give us because our leaders tell us too and blatantly ignore the obvious."

"What's obvious."

"That we are here. Either we are in heaven here and now."

"Or."

"Where many people are here, along side of us."

"It's all a little surreal, our reality."

"Hyper real."

"And always changing."

What we were to plan was obvious. Weather I liked it or not. So I decided to like it. Even if it meant leaving my island of books and hanging on a cross.

The date was already set. Karl convinced us all of that detail.

"No one alive in Jerusalem has seen or known what an eclipse is."

I had ten years to get myself used to the idea of letting Roman soldiers drive nails through my hands. I understand the logic behind the drama. Still it is a mad thing to do.

The part of the plan I least liked was John leaving the university after only one year, to prepare the people for the coming of me.

"We will come back often to visit, if you think I'm going to run around the desert every day for nine years without coming back to see you and your team of geniuses. Well my boy, nail me to the cross and send someone else."

"Someone else isn't from there, John."

After a few years, Fau Ming and I were the only two of our team that weren't living in Jerusalem. Hernstein and Ekstein took their priestly robes and went to work in the synagogue. Preparing the priests for the coming of me.

Karl set up public schools from Antioch to Judaea.

Goddard taught at the schools in Jerusalem.

Charus and Nimron planted and harvested cannabis and campaigned against alcohol. They ran a smoke house and distributed, among other things, my writings. I sent stories for children, knowing they were young enough to learn.

When the time came for Ming, Helene, our three children and I to return to what wasn't so much my home but my pathetic destiny.

I felt like a stranger. I had seen very little of my family since I started studying. Judas was my only brother interested in taking over dad's business in Galilee. Dad had already sold his share of his other places. He wasn't wealthy like the King of the Jews, but more wealthy than grandfather Jacob who had little of a king's life.

"Jesus, my love, I miss the Toscana already."

"Me too. But I don't miss my books. And that makes me quite pleased with myself."

"Don't promise yourself."

"I'll write stories about the kids' adventures in the hills and villages of Toscana. Or wherever else we may chose to live."

"Anywhere but here or Rome."

I still hadn't told Helene that I would hang on a cross with nails through me. And telling my mother seemed out of the question. But I told my brothers and sisters. Judas told me he wouldn't leave my side until I was on a ship headed west.

After talking to Ming, who was working as an aid to king Herod. My dad's grandson. The bugger had put John in jail. After spending 40 days at the lake for an extended family reunion, John was arrested for no real reason.

Other than the possibility that Herod was not happy that his dad's bastard kid was back in town and rumor had it that he was a real King. And he intended to claim his kingdom.

"Herod. What's wrong with the punk ass."

"He's a spoiled kid, Jesus. He's 22 and never been anywhere without a hundred guards. He has never set eyes on a poor man. And rumor has it that the only woman that excites him is his brother's wife."

"Brother's wife. Sister-in-law."

"Other rumor has it that he married his brother's wife because he desires her daughter who has just reached puberty and is said to be one of the most beautiful creatures of God's creation."

"I hate rumors. I want John out of prison. I'll go see the bastard Herod."

"I don't believe he will give you audience, Jesus. But we know that Rome has told him if you die, he will be removed. Not a rumor. He is your insurance for now. But he is in no position to like you even a little. It's the way it is, my friend. I'm sorry. We knew this wouldn't be easy. We aren't in the university anymore."

"I know, Charus. I will restrain from taking an army to Herod and executing him."

"Good. That would not help our chances."

"I won't promise, but I tell you there is a high probability that I kill that bastard if he doesn't release John."

"We will get Rome to remove him."

I didn't want John in Jail. Now that we were finally living in the same city, when we could finally see each other, he was in prison. Because Herod was a full grown idiot.

John had done his Job well. He had called himself John the Baptist and played the role of Eliah to help check off the list of the stuff we had to get done to get Jerusalem seriously infected.

Infected so that one day no one would believe in the horror story God of our forefathers or any of the forefathers of the Gentiles.

"This is completely absurd. No one has ever done anything like this before."

"That's why it is going to work."


jesus chapters 10 - 12