BOOK TWO .

THE HEART OF MARY

 

CHAPTER. TWO HISTORY OF THE PRECURSORS OF THE MESSIAH

 

I AM THE ALPHA AND THE OMEGA

 

 “Behold, I am coming soon. Blessed is the one who keeps the words of the prophecy in this Book. And I, John, heard and saw these things. When I heard and saw them, I fell to my knees to worship at the feet of the angel who was showing them to me.

But he said to me, “Do not do that, for I am a fellow servant with you and with your brothers the prophets, and with those who keep the words of this Book; worship God.” And he said to me, “Do not seal up the words of prophecy in this Book, for the time is near.” Let the one who is unrighteous continue in his unrighteousness, let the foolish continue in his folly, let the righteous continue to practice righteousness, and let the holy one become even holier. Behold, I am coming soon, and with me is my reward, to give to each one according to his deeds. I AM THE ALPHA AND THE OMEGA, THE FIRST AND THE LAST, THE BEGINNING AND THE END. Blessed are those who wash their robes so that they may have access to the tree of life and enter through the gates that lead to the City. Out with the dogs, the sorcerers, the sexually immoral, the murderers, the idolaters, and all who love and practice falsehood.

I, Jesus, have sent an angel to testify to you these things concerning the churches. I am the root and the descendant of David, the bright morning star. And the Spirit and the Bride say, “Come.” And let the one who hears say, “Come.” And let the one who is thirsty come; let the one who wishes take the water of life freely… Amen.” 

 

1

The Saga of the Restorers 

 

In those days (1st century B.C.), God raised up a man after His own heart for His people. Of the lineage of Aaron the priest, this man named Abijah was the only citizen in all of Jerusalem capable of standing before the king, blocking his path, cutting him off, and telling him straight to his face the harsh truths that his actions and his way of governing deserved.

The Hasmonean—Alexander Jannaeus was his real name—looked at this Abijah with his eyes lost on the horizon, his thoughts fixed on one of the pages of the book from which this man of God seemed to have stepped out, possibly from the “ ” in the Book of Nehemiah. One of those pages about kings and prophets that the children of Israel loved so much, and which their parents would recount to them with epic tones in their voices, their words echoing like distant drums beating to the rhythm of military exploits—when the heroes of ancient times, Samson and Delilah, King David’s thirty mighty men and his harp with strings of goat’s hair, Elijah the seer flying on the backs of the four horses of the Apocalypse—one of fire, another of ice, another of earth, and the last of water—the four riding together through the wind of the ages in pursuit of the Messiah who would be baptized in the very waters of the Jordan that parted in two to make way for a bald prophet. The holocaust of nations lost beneath the ashes of an apocalypse written on the wall, the end-of-the-world wars of dead poets, the never-ending tales of the dreams of eternal Rome, visions of druids of a Babylon in the midst of building a stairway to heaven, Hercules born of a wolf in a foul mood, ruins of Philistine cities without name or homeland in search of paradise lost, the utopia of Egyptian harlots nursing Hebrews older than Methuselah, the hero of Dark Ur proclaiming his divinity upon the altar of the barbarians of the North, the south to the east of Eden, the west to the right of the River of Life, when death had a price, at the beginning of time, at the dawn of the ages. Once upon a time there was a cupbearer who conquered an empire. Once upon a time there was a universal flood, an ark upon the waters that covered the world. The passion of being, the fact of being, the reality of yesterday—always present, omnipresent, omniscient—more end-of-the-world wars, more heroes of iron, new masters of the universe; the future is tomorrow; the truth belongs to the chosen one; the chosen one is the victor; “To me, those of Yahweh!” I have the corner of your cloak impaled on the tip of my sword, king, lord. It takes more than a crown to be a king, more than three arms to be the strongest; the past was yesterday, today is tomorrow; angels never eat or drink, but sometimes they mate with human women and sire evil offspring—the seed of the devil—when heroes were demigods and demigods were two-headed monsters imposing their reign of terror. And it continues to bring names and times to mind.

Ah, those myths and legends of the people who emerged from the sea, spread throughout biblical Palestine, and revolutionized world history with their seismic wave of tribes on a sacred mission!

What child in Jerusalem didn’t know those stories from the time of María Castaña!

“Here comes Goliath,” the grandparents would tell the kids when they were misbehaving and wanted to scare them.

The Hasmonean scoffed at those children’s stories and laughed right in his grandparents’ faces at the ghosts of the past. He was real; his prophet Abijah was real. What good had the dream of the messianic kingdom ever done anyone? Where had the desire to make it a reality led them time and time again?

“And they still want to try it one more time! It’s madness,” the Hasmonean thought to himself.

The men of the king of Jerusalem—all dogs of war, all mercenaries from the dark and remote depths of Palestine in the service of the Abomination of Desolation—all stared at the last Hebrew prophet with eyes burning with rage. Although the Hasmonean found his personal prophet of doom amusing, the truth is that his own expression would change every time Abijah hurled his oracles at him point-blank. Yet, in his role as king to a prophet, the Hasmonean held back his men’s rage and allowed himself to be lectured with those apocalyptic phrases about his fate.

“Hear the oracle of Yahweh concerning your lineage, son of Mattathias,” Abijah announced in that voice so characteristic of him.

“The God whom you profane on the throne and in His Temple will uproot your seed from the face of the earth over which you reign. Yahweh has spoken and will not change His mind; He will not revoke His judgment: Your sons will be devoured by a foreign beast.”

As for the Hasmonean’s hired assassins, may the grace the king of Jerusalem found in such prophecies of death, desolation, ruin, devastation, destruction, and hell be cursed. “But how could he—Alexander Jannaeus, a legitimate descendant of the Maccabees, of pure blood—allow a priest to speak to him in that manner?” those dogs of war asked one another.

Alexander looked at them with a stunned expression. Was it worth his time trying to explain to them why he allowed himself to be lectured with those hair-raising pronouncements—so biblical, so typically Old Testament, so distinctly sacred? For a moment he considered it, but the next he told himself no. They would never understand. Even if he spent days on end explaining what it was all about, the minds of his mercenaries would never be capable of rising any higher than the distance their swords rose off the ground.

Is the world a place to waste time waiting for donkeys to fly in the wake of the sun’s chariot, for fish to trot through snow-capped mountain ranges in search of the last yeti, or for birds to swim through the waters behind the ship of a Columbus yet to be born? How could the Hasmonean possibly get it into the heads of his dogs of fortune that this Abijah was his prophet!

That Abijah was the prophet who gave his crown its entire divine meaning. Without his own particular, personal prophet—his own—his crown would never transcend; his dignity as king would never be exalted in the eyes of the future. Abijah would be the chariot of glory upon which his name would transcend the centuries and carry his memory even beyond the millennia. It might be that his own name would be forgotten, but Abijah’s would live on forever in the memory of the people.

“Do you understand now? Does it sink in? My name and his will be linked for eternity. But if I kill him, I will kill my own memory. Does this prospect tell you anything about the nature of my relationship with the creator of your most terrible nightmares?” The Hasmonean did his best to instill a modicum of intelligence into the stone skulls of his dogs of war.

All for nothing.

But it is the truth. Alexander should count himself lucky, for God had given him his own prophet as well. All the kings of Judah had their jester, their harem, and, of course, their prophet. Whether for better or for worse is another matter; the important thing was to have one.

Otherwise, from a political standpoint, this Abijah was harmless. Yes, sir, his prophet was as harmless as a dragonfly from the royal pond, as inoffensive as a spider in the garden of his harem swaying among the dust on the curtains, as defenseless as an abandoned little sparrow with a broken wing left out in the open during a northern winter. One slip-up, a single misstep, and in the blink of an eye “the last prophet” would be reduced to the trail left by the breath of dawn somewhere on the other side of the sunrise. Or did his mercenary dogs really believe that he, Alexander Jannaeus, the son of the sons of the Maccabees, would allow this Abias to cross the line between foretelling misfortunes and bringing them about? Were they out of their minds?

Those were his people. The Hasmonean neither loved them nor felt any nationalist passion for his people, but they were his people, and he knew how their minds worked. If Abijah did not cross the line, it was not because he feared death; it was because it was not in his nature to bring about what he foretold—he merely delivered the Oracle of Yahweh. God speaks, and he speaks. He could have remained silent and avoided having his neck slit by a sword, but that would have gone against his nature.

Moreover, with the same passion with which Abijah would have served up his head on a silver platter—without the slightest fear that one day the Hasmonean might grow tired of the dance— with that same passion, his prophet—not the prophet of this king or that king, but his prophet, his very own—that Abijah lashed out without mincing words against the Sadducees and Pharisees alike, fanning the flames of the hatred that consumed them all and dragged them into civil war.

“This Abijah is one of a kind,” he would say to himself. And the Hasmonean would continue on his way, laughing his head off.

   

2

The Slaughter of the Six Thousand

 

Curiously enough, the people thought exactly the same as their king regarding the sacred mission of the last living prophet they had left.

The people rushed to meet the priest Abijah, filling the Temple during his shift. Just as if they were a swarm of children abandoned to their fate in the most violent heart of a jungle of passions fueled by a hatred that is never satisfied, and suddenly they saw a true man rise up among them, the people of Jerusalem rushed to meet Abijah in search of understanding, compassion, and hope.

“Do not weep, children of Jerusalem, for the souls who are being driven from their homes by violence. They rest in the bosom of Abraham, awaiting the Day of Judgment. Weep rather for those who remain, for their fate is eternal fire,” Abijah told them.

The man of God and the people were made for one another. It was the truth. And he, the Hasmonean, was destined to behead others and then hear his prophet’s judgment upon his own head:

“The Lord has spoken—the oracle of Yahweh—and He will not relent. The eagle gazes down from on high at the serpent, and the vulture soars, waiting for the spoils. Your children are the prey. Who is it that toils for another’s house? In due time it will be seen that there is a God on this earth when the serpent flees from the eagle.”

And this, too, was true. A truth as vast as the island of Crete, as the Great Sea, as the infinite sky filled with stars, as the great pyramid of the Nile. And if you doubt it, ask the mountain that the Hasmonean raised with the heads he severed from their necks on that day destined to be forgotten.

It was not two or three, nor a hundred or two hundred. It was “six thousand” heads that the grandson of the Maccabees sacrificed to his passion for absolute power. Six thousand souls in a single day. What horror, what madness, what humiliation!

It happened in Holy Jerusalem, that Jerusalem toward whose walls all the Jews of the world directed their prayers. It did not happen in the city of a barbarian king, nor did it happen on the open battlefield during the mowing down of the fallen. Nor were they the heads of a foreign people that rolled down the slopes of the Via Dolorosa until they came to rest at the foot of Golgotha. They were the heads of his neighbors, the heads of the people who greeted him every night, the heads of the people who used to say good morning to him. What a disaster, what a disgrace, what a tragedy!  

It happened during the celebration of a religious festival—one of the many that the Templar calendar had set aside to commemorate the unforgettable events experienced by the children of Israel from the time of Moses to the present day. It so happened that the Hasmonean had inherited the high priesthood from his parents. In his capacity as Pontiff, he went to perform the opening rite that broke the monotony of the year. That very notion—of believing himself to be equal to Caesar, general and supreme pontiff all in one—annoyed the nationalists more than anything else in the world. It annoyed them and amused them. When has a snake ever been seen dreaming of being an eagle?

In his role as Pope of the Jews, the Hasmonean went there to declare open the festivities that used to break the monotony of the year. He sat on his high priest’s throne, fully immersed in his role as His Holiness on Earth. He was just about to give his blessing urbe et orbis when, suddenly, without warning, driven by an inexplicable change of mood, the crowd began hurling rotten tomatoes, foul-smelling worms, potatoes caked in maggot-infested mud, and lemons from the time when dinosaurs roamed the Holy Land. What a scandal! His enemies watched the spectacle from the city walls. With their eyes, they asked themselves everything: What will the Hasmonean do? Will he retreat inside and let things run their course? Or will he come out enraged with the fury of a demigod roused from his seventh dream, the triumphalist?

By Moses’ beard, if the Hasmonean had let them continue, surely the Jerusalemites would have turned the festival into a contest and gone all out to see who would be the first to cast the final stone. The Hasmonean drew his sword from beneath the armpits of the saints and gave the order to his hounds of war: “Let not a single one remain!” he roared bloodthirstily.

What was witnessed then had never been seen before in the entire history of the Jewish people. Never before had an army of macabre demons emerged from the Temple— , swords in hand—slaughtering without regard for age or gender. If the Lord God had His throne in the Temple of Jerusalem, under whose command, then, were those murderous monsters reaping lives without regard for whom?

Is it not rather the Devil who has his throne in this Jerusalem of the Hasmoneans? the relatives of the dead would ask themselves inconsolably later, as they accompanied their deceased down the Via Dolorosa to the Jewish Cemetery. By then it was too late!

On that day of celebration and joy, the Hasmonean hounds scattered through the streets, and as they encountered Jews, they slit their throats, stabbed them, mutilated them, beheaded them, and cut them to pieces—for fun, for sport, out of passion, and out of devotion to the Devil.

The Devil, seated on his throne, Satan, watched that orgy of blood and terror, and, gripped by the anguish of one who knows that an earthly day has only 24 hours, lamented how quickly two dozen sixty-minute periods pass. Had he had a dozen more at his disposal, he surely would not have left a single Jew alive. The Devil’s will was clear: to kill them all; but his servant’s omnipotence to carry it out did not extend that far. So master and servant had to settle for the figure of six thousand heads. Which wasn’t so bad for a single day, either. After all, even the most evil demon working flat out would not have exceeded that figure by much. It is all too easy to say “six thousand dead” in a single day.

Flavius Josephus, the official historian of the Jews—who in his day was accused of falsification by Christian historians—set the bar high by citing six thousand dead in a single day. The question is: Did Flavius Josephus reduce the number of victims to the absolute minimum in an effort to downplay the scale of the tragedy in the eyes of the Romans? Or, on the contrary, driven by his political hatred of the Hasmonean dynasty, did he exaggerate the number?

As everyone knows, among the Jews, the popularity of the Hasmoneans had fallen very low in recent times—to the point that subsequent generations came to regard that period as a cursed era, a black mark on the history of the chosen people. Josephus surely held the latter view and was particularly critical of the Hasmonean rulers—especially the reign of Alexander Jannaeus—and thus exaggerated the nature of their crimes in order to convey his own personal hatred to his compatriots. Or it could have been the opposite: he downplayed the numbers, anticipating the visceral revulsion his Roman readers would feel toward the Jews upon reading the account of that massacre. Let us return, however, to the facts.

From the Hasmonean perspective, the ideal outcome would have been for no one to be left alive to tell the tale. Since the dead cannot speak, the fame of that day would not have been preserved in memory, and no one would have remembered it the next day.

Unfortunately for the wicked, the Devil praises his glory more than his infernal glory deserves; consequently, his servants always end up frustrated and trapped in the webs of a spider that, while not all-powerful, is strong enough to engulf them all in its schemes. It would be natural for a prince of Hell to sit and contemplate his work from the epicenter of the glory of the one who is beyond good and evil; fortunately, the Devil’s horns curve downward, and, against nature, end up piercing the demon himself in the back. Unaware of their fate, sooner or later his worshippers out there screw up, and of course, that’s why they stink.

In short, even if the Devil’s will were the total extermination of the Jews, man! I’d say there had to be at least one left. And since it seems that the very next day all of Jerusalem had had enough of weeping, I’m not lying when I say that there was indeed one left.

Later, upon reflecting more clearly and with more time, the Hasmonean couldn’t find his way out of the labyrinth his own rage had trapped him in. It all happened so fast. If only he’d sensed the plot brewing right behind his back! In any case, he showed no sign of remorse. On the contrary. “Just look at that—it’s amazing how long it takes a human cub to grow up and how little time it takes for it to bleed to death!” he said to himself.

The Hasmonean never tired of marveling. Later, during the mass burial of the unfortunate Jerusalemites who had been caught in the web of his insane madness, the Hasmonean kept shaking his head. No one knew if it was out of pity or because he was missing one or two of the dead.

I believe the Hasmonean carried out his massacres with the mind of a scientist fully immersed in experimenting with a new formula. “If I kill two hundred, what will happen? What if I subtract one and add thirty-something?” A monster! His love for research knew no bounds. One moment he was frying a bunch of children “made in Pharisee-land,” the next he was devouring a plate of virgins in their own sauce. But without letting himself be carried away by passion—everything was done very properly, very scrupulously, with the cold, steely objectivity of an Aristotle teaching Metaphysics in the open air.

Who said men cannot become demons when we know that some became like angels!

They called him the Hasmonean—his nickname for posterity—in memory of a namesake from hell, a devil from the court of the Prince of Darkness. Just like his evil namesake, Alexander Jannaeus felt a murderous love for the throne that devoured his insides and turned his blood to fire.

The Hasmonean had fire instead of blood in his veins. Fire poured from his eyes because his thoughts were so evil. Anyone who dared to hold the Asmonean’s gaze saw the Devil behind his eyes, dominating his brain and, from there, plotting all manner of evil against Jerusalem, against the Jews, against the Gentiles, against the whole world. And the most tragic thing was that the Asmonean didn’t believe in anything.

“If God doesn’t exist, how can the Devil exist?” the high priest of the Hebrews confessed to his men. An atheist Pope! That Caesar was high priest and was a pagan, an atheist, and all the rest—that’s acceptable. But that the high priest of the Jews was more of an atheist than Caesar—how can anyone swallow that?

The truth is that on that occasion, the Hasmonean was on the verge of getting himself massacred. In the end, he thought better of it and said to himself, “What a fool I am—I almost actually believed I was the Holy Father.”

The truth is—if the whole truth must be told—that the mood of the people shifted so rapidly from the healthiest joy to the most absolute madness that nothing could be done. So, how can we blame the Hasmonean for fighting for his life and defending himself by taking the sacred right to self-defense to the extreme?

And how can we absolve him of having caused such a terrible situation through his crimes?

It’s not easy to find the culprit, the scapegoat to blame for that monstrous massacre. What the Hasmonean wasn’t going to do was take the blame. He wasn’t a fool by a long shot.

“Let the stones of the Western Wall tremble—let them tremble,” he told himself. “Let the blood flow furiously down through Jerusalem to the Garden of Olives—let it flow. Let the wind, stirred to action, carry on its torn cheeks an elegy for Jerusalem that will shatter the souls of Alexandria on the Nile, Sardis, Memphis, Seleucia on the Tigris, and even Rome itself—let it carry it.” “What worries me is when life will grant me the grace to put an end to the cowards who fled like rats. If they loved them so much—since they mourn them so deeply—why did they abandon them to the slaughter?” This is how the Hasmonean justified his crime.

The Hasmonean’s assassins laughed at his joke. The Jews, on the other hand, could not contain their cries for vengeance. If they had already been unable to tolerate the Hasmonean, who snatched their daughters away without giving them silver in exchange, and took them off to sell them as he pleased, invoking Solomonic traditions—all of them sacred—; if they could no longer bear it when he killed their sons simply for attempting to open their lips to protest his deafening crimes; after the Massacre of the Six Thousand in a single day, hatred joined hands with madness, and the declaration of all-out war against the Hasmonean rang out from one end of the world to the other.

“The Hasmonean must die,” cried Alexandria on the Nile.

“Death to the Hasmonean,” repeated Seleucia on the Tigris.

“The Hasmonean will die,” swore Antioch of Syria.

“Amen,” replied Holy Jerusalem.

 

3

The Magi from the East

 

Hatred for the Hasmonean spread from synagogue to synagogue. One synagogue passed the message on to the next, and in less time than the Hasmonean would have liked, the entire Jewish world was aware of his exploits.

“Truly, the wings of Mercury are swift, Your Highness,” his war hounds came to ease his worries.

“A fool’s consolation, crocodile tears,” as the proverb says.

The fact is that the Jerusalemites’ hatred of the Hasmonean flew on swift wings from one corner of the Jewish world to the other. Naturally, the news also reached the mother synagogue, the Great Synagogue of the East—the oldest synagogue in the universe.

Although founded by the prophet Daniel in the Babylon of old—the Babylon of legends, the classical Babylon of antiquity—with the changing times and the transformations of the world, the Great Synagogue of the East changed its location. By the present time, the Magi of Nebuchadnezzar had moved to the capital of an emperor who knew nothing of the glory of the Chaldeans nor cared for the ghosts of Akkad, Ur, Lagash, Umma, and the other eternal cities of the Age of Heroes and Gods—when creatures from other worlds found human women beautiful and, defying divine prohibition, intermingled their blood with theirs, committing an unforgettable sin against the laws of Creation, a crime punishable by banishment from the entire cosmos.

Alexander the Great, as you all know, razed that Babylon of Legends to the ground. His successor to the throne of Asia, Seleucus I “the Invincible,” must have thought it wasn’t worth rebuilding its walls, and instead built an entirely new city. In keeping with the fashion of the time, he named it Seleucia; and “of the Tigris” because it lay on the banks of the river of that name.

Compelled by the new king of kings, the inhabitants of Old Babylon moved and came to populate the New. Whether willingly or by decree is the question. But knowing the structure of that world, one can afford to believe that the relocation took place with no more protests than those from those who were denied residency permits. When building Seleucia on the Tigris, its founder removed from his city the Persian elements that had not been purged by Alexander the Great. This measure, as you can understand, benefited the Jewish families who, in the shadow of the Persian aristocracy, directed trade between the Far East and the Empire. Protected by the Achaemenids and experts in all aspects of government, the Jews attained a prominent social position in the Persian Empire, to the point of arousing the envy of a sector of the aristocracy. The Bible tells us how this faction’s plot against the Jews gave rise to the first “final solution,” which was miraculously thwarted by Queen Esther’s ascension to the throne. Once this crisis was overcome, nature took its course. The descendants of Queen Esther’s generation devoted themselves to trade and, over time, became the true intermediaries between the East and the West.

When Alexander overthrew Persian Babylon, Jewish families were freed from subjugation under the Achaemenid ruler. Alexander was succeeded in the rule of Asia by his general Seleucus I the Invincible. With the change in rulers, the Jews’ situation improved. The only thing Seleucus demanded of the residents of Seleucia on the Tigris was that they devote themselves to business and stay out of politics.

With Persian competition eliminated and standing alone at the helm of trade between the East and the West, by the time of the century in which we find ourselves—the First Century B.C.—the Hebrew families who had survived the upheavals of past centuries had become immensely wealthy. (Let us not forget that King Solomon’s mines derived their wealth from control of trade between the East and the West. It was toward this region that those liberated by Cyrus directed their talents. All the more so because the reconstruction of Jerusalem and the peaceful purchase of the lost land would cost them mountains of silver. As we all know, the tithe owed by every Hebrew to the Temple was a sacred duty. With the Temple gone, that tithe no longer made sense. But once it was rebuilt and became operational once more, the need to get that Universal Tithe to Jerusalem demanded the creation of a collection branch: the synagogue.

The Great Synagogue of the East, led by the Magi of Babylon, was established to serve as the central hub from which the tithes of all synagogues under the Persian Empire would be channeled to Jerusalem. The better things went for all the synagogues, the more abundant would be the river of gold—whether in the form of metal or spices (gold, frankincense, and myrrh)—that would flow into the Temple.

Universal peace was in the Jewish interest to the extent that it guaranteed communications between all parts of the empire. The years of the Greek conquest and the subsequent decades of civil war among Alexander’s generals were an obstacle that slowed the flow of gold and spices that the Magi used to bring to Jerusalem every year. However, as tragic as the cutoff of that golden supply was for the Temple, Jerusalem was compensated when Alexandria on the Nile became an imperial city and a new influx of sacred capital sprang from its synagogue. In other words, no matter what happened, the Temple always came out ahead; and no matter what political changes occurred, the Magi from the East always arrived in the Holy City with their cargo of gold, frankincense, and myrrh.

In its day, within the Jewish community of Seleucia on the Tigris, the news of the Maccabees’ war of independence sparked a spontaneous prophetic outcry. From afar, the Great Synagogue of the East had been waiting for that sign for centuries. At last, the Day announced by the angel to the prophet Daniel had arrived. Three centuries had passed in anticipation of this moment; three centuries had faded into the dawn of time; three long, infinite centuries, waiting for this Hour of National Liberation. Daniel’s prophecy had hung over the horizon of the Synagogue of the Magi from the East like a sword eager to enter battle.

“The vision of the evenings and mornings is true,” it said, “keep it in your heart, for it is for a time yet to come.”

“The two-horned ram you have seen is the king of Greece, and the great horn between its eyes is its king; when it is broken off, four horns will come up in its place. The four horns will be four kingdoms, but they will not be as strong as the first.”

Was the prophecy not fulfilled when Alexander the Great overthrew the king of Persia and Media, and was it not perfected when, upon his death, his generals divided the empire, resulting in the formation of four kingdoms following the War of the Diadochi?

With the prophecy of the conquest of the Persian empire by the Greek fulfilled, the enthusiasm aroused among the youth of New Babylon by the Maccabean Revolt was as intense in passion as was the desire among the leaders of their synagogue to be young again, to take up the sword, and to follow the champion whom God had raised up for them to victory.

Likewise in Alexandria on the Nile, in Sardis, in Miletus, in Athens, and in Reggio Calabria—wherever a synagogue took root and flourished—there the young men enlisted and their elders equipped them for glory.

Long live Israel! With this proclamation, the brave responded to the Maccabee’s battle cry: “Those of Yahweh are mine.”

The Maccabees’ final victory—however prophesied it may have been from the very beginning—was nonetheless celebrated by the Jews as if no one had ever foretold it. The Maccabee brothers fell, as everyone knows, but their exploits were recorded in the Book of Books so that their names might remain forever in the memory of the ages.   

 

4

The Sadducees versus the Pharisees 

 

The elation over the newly won independence lifted the people’s spirits. The cry of victory that the Maccabean War sparked throughout the Jewish world kindled hope among the people.

What happened next was unexpected by anyone. The joy of living in freedom still sweetened their souls. One might say they were reveling in the intoxication of the sweet wine of freedom when, just around the corner and as they set out on the straight path, the old specter of Cain’s fratricide awoke from its slumber.

Did it come out of the blue? Or perhaps not? How can one affirm it? How can one deny it? Did they see it coming, or did they not? What were they thinking when they looked back? Did they never learn? Wouldn’t those who, from within, facilitated Antiochus IV Epiphanes’ “final solution” once again shatter the peace, sowing on the very day of freedom the seeds of violent passions for control over the Temple Treasures?

Weren’t the Sadducees—the priestly party—the ones who pushed Antiochus IV Epiphanes to decree the “final solution” against Judaism? The Bible says so. It gives names and details: high priests who kill their brothers, fathers who murder their children in the name of the Temple.

Later, too, when the criminal hordes of the Fourth Antiochus set to work, the Sadducees were the first to abandon the religion of their fathers. They chose life, deserted the God of their fathers, and sacrificed to the Greek gods. Cowards, they surrendered to Death, bowed their knees, sold themselves to the world, and worse still, sold out their own people.

It was only logical, then, that when the Maccabean War broke out, the Pharisees, the union of the doctors of the Law and leaders of synagogues both at home and abroad, took the reins of the National Liberation Movement, surrounded the Maccabee with the glory of the general whom the Lord had raised up for them, and charged toward victory with the confidence of one proclaimed the victor from the very first day of their uprising.

Such is life! Once the History of the Maccabees was written, the history of envy began to be written. The old ghosts of the struggle between the Sadducee party and the Pharisee guild once again threatened a storm. The wind began to stir. So the rain would not be long in coming.

Did the Aaronic clergy ask for forgiveness for the sins committed during the Seleucid rule?

The Aaronic clergy did not ask for public forgiveness for their sins. The Sadducees did not bow their heads; they did not accept blame. The Temple belonged to them by divine right.

No, God—they were the owners of the Temple Treasures. On the contrary, wouldn’t the Pharisees taking control of the Temple amount to a rebellion of the servants against their masters?

Of course it would. From the Sadducees’ perspective, any move by the union of the teachers of the Law in the opposite direction would be taken as a declaration of civil war.

Such is human nature! No sooner had the nation broken its chains than its leaders began sharpening their claws. How long would it take for the ultimatum to arrive?

Truth be told—and I mean the absolute truth—it didn’t take long for the ultimatum to make its fratricidal proclamation heard. “Either power would be returned to them,” the Sadducees threatened, “or they would crown a king in Jerusalem.”

There was hair-pulling, headaches, torn tunics, ashes demanding passage, threats giving birth to ghosts, spears that broke on their own, battle axes that went missing and were then “accidentally” found. The Sadducees and Pharisees were on the verge of killing each other in the name of God!

Who would stop them? Who would put a stop to them?

The threat of civil war hung in the air over Jerusalem for the duration of John Hyrcanus I’s reign. God had forbidden the Jews from appointing a king outside the House of David. The Sadducees not only considered a son of the Maccabees as king but also moved from thought to fait accompli.

The Pharisees were horrified. When they discovered the masterstroke—a checkmate against the Law—that the Sadducees were planning, the Pharisees raised a huge outcry.

“Are we, by any chance, a nation without a brain?” its wise men asked publicly. “Why do we fall into the same trap over and over again? What is wrong with us? What is the nature of our condemnation for the sin of our father Adam? Every time the Lord gives us life, we reach for the fruit of the forbidden tree. Now Cain wants to challenge God to stop him from killing his brother Abel. And are we going to allow the shepherds to cast the flock into the abyss of their passions? If a son of the Maccabees reigns, we betray God. Brothers, we have been pushed beyond the dilemma. Better to die fighting for the truth than to live on our knees worshiping the Prince of Darkness.”

Many words were exchanged. It was clear on that full-moon night that civil war would ultimately shatter the peace at dawn. No matter how much Abel loved his brother Cain, Cain’s madness in defying God forced Abel to defend himself.

Times had changed. The first Abel fell without exercising his right to self-defense because he was born naked and lived naked before his parents and his brother. He never raised a hand against anyone. Peace was his problem. Abel was all peace. How could one who was all peace even imagine the existence of a dark heart fed by darkness right in his own brother’s chest! Abel’s innocence was his tragedy.

And his glory in the eyes of God.

Cain did not think with his head; he thought with his muscles. The man believed that the strength of the mind and that of the muscles were subject to some mysterious law of correspondence. He who has the most powerful arm is the strongest. The strongest is the king of the jungle. Consequently, the fate of the weak is to serve the strongest or to perish.

Like Cain, the Sadducees fell into the trap of their personal ambitions. So the civil war for power was bound to break out sooner or later. Perhaps later rather than sooner. It amounted to the same thing. Nor could anyone predict when—the exact date. The fact was that the atmosphere was thick with the looming civil war. The atmosphere was growing tense. You could almost smell it in the air. One day, one day… But let’s not get ahead of ourselves.

The people were still celebrating their victory over the Seleucid Empire when suddenly word spread of the abominable crime committed by the son of John Hyrcanus I. Not content with the high priesthood—which the nation had accepted against its own conscience but kept quiet about, given the circumstances—the son of John Hyrcanus I took the crown for himself.

With his coronation, the Hasmoneans added yet another, even worse crime—one that was unnatural—to an already heinous one. At the forefront of such a violation of the sacred laws were the Sadducees. The Sadducee Party—let us recall its origins—was a spontaneous creation of the priestly caste. It was formed to defend its class interests. The interests of the priestly clans revolved around control of the Temple Treasury. Over time, changes at the highest levels of the Temple gave rise to powerful clans, whose members gradually joined the Sanhedrin—a sort of Roman Senate modeled on the most Solomonic traditions—by default. The struggle between these clans for control of the Temple was the driving force that led the Jews to the “final solution” adopted by Antiochus IV—a final solution that spilled so much innocent blood into the chalice of the evil ambition of the fathers of these very Sadducees, who were now crowning the son of Hyrcanus I as king of Jerusalem in defiance of God’s Law.

As indirect architects of the anti-Jewish “final solution,” the Sadducees lost control of the Temple for the entire duration of the Maccabees’ campaigns. Judas the “ ” Maccabee expelled them from the Temple. He purged with the hammer what the scythe of Death had spared. No wonder, in the eyes of the Sadducees, the Maccabees were dictators!

The Pharisee Union—let’s delve a bit into the opposition—stemmed from the grassroots organizations responsible for collecting the tithe. The Union was the apparatus the Party used to keep that river of gold flowing from all over the world into the Temple’s coffers—the very source of the fratricidal struggle between the various priestly clans. As officials in the service of the Aaronic clergy, the Pharisees lived off the collection of the tithe and the offerings for sins committed by individuals.

When the Sadducees began killing one another for control of the Goose That Laid the Golden Eggs, the Pharisees took charge of events and used the people’s offerings to equip the young volunteers who came running from all over the world to fight under the command of the Maccabees. So by the end of the War of Independence, the tables had turned, and it was the Pharisee Syndicate that was in control of the situation. The Sadducee Party, as one might expect, was not going to tolerate this change for long.

The Sadducee Party’s counteroffensive was neither elegant nor brilliant, but it was effective. All they had to do was slip into the skin of the Serpent and tempt the Hasmoneans with the forbidden fruit of David’s crown.

That internal battle between the Party and the Syndicate for control of the Temple sparked a spontaneous outcry of indignation and anger in the progressive Hebrew world. It was then that the very same forces that had once been harnessed in the service of Independence stepped onto the scene, ready to dethrone the usurper.

Between the Pharisees and the Sadducees, they were turning the nation into an abomination in the eyes of the Lord.

Something had to be done urgently; it was urgent to declare war on the private interests of the Party and the Union and to restore the nation’s status in accordance with the model described in the Scriptures.

It was urgent.

So many things were urgent.

And yet nothing was urgent.

According to the most eminent scholars of the most distinguished schools of Alexandria on the Nile, Athens, and New Babylon—let’s call it Seleucia on the Tigris—all the Jews of the world had a sacred obligation to regard the Hasmonean reign as a transitional government between Independence and the Davidic Monarchy.

No, sir; the fragility of the newly won independence could not afford to be struck by the flu of civil war. For the sake of strengthening the reconquered freedom, all the synagogues had to remain united and support the king of Jerusalem. As events unfolded, the necessary measures would be taken to move toward the transfer of the crown from one house to the other.

“Yeah, the sages—always so wise! They think they know everything, and in the end, they know nothing,” the younger generations began to retort. The younger generations’ outrage over the accepted status quo was slow to come to the fore. But it finally did so in the wake of the Massacre of the Six Thousand. 

 

5

Simeon the Just

 

“The Presentation in the Temple”: So when the days of their purification according to the Law of Moses were completed, they took him to Jerusalem to present him to the Lord, as it is written in the Law of the Lord that every “firstborn male shall be consecrated to the Lord,” and to offer as a sacrifice, as prescribed in the Law of the Lord, a pair of turtledoves or two young pigeons. There was a man in Jerusalem named Simeon, righteous and devout, who was waiting for the consolation of Israel, and the Holy Spirit was upon him. It had been revealed to him by the Holy Spirit that he would not see death before he had seen the Lord’s Christ. Moved by the Spirit, he came to the Temple; and when the parents brought in the child Jesus to do for him what the Law required, Simeon took him in his arms and, blessing God, said: “Now, Lord, you may let your servant depart in peace, according to your word; for my eyes have seen your salvation, which you have prepared in the sight of all peoples—a light for revelation to the Gentiles and the glory of your people Israel.”

 

Simeon—our next protagonist—was descended from one of those families that survived the sacking of Jerusalem and managed to prosper by planting their vineyards in Babylon. This was a fact that Simeon could prove at any time and place he was called upon to do so.

Although it may not sound quite right or even appropriate to say so—since it brings to mind laws associated with sad and disastrous events—Simeon was a Hebrew of pure lineage. Before the most expert and qualified authorities of his people whenever they wished, and if it was a matter of curious Gentiles delving into the subject just to put pedigree enthusiasts on the spot—with their musty lineages and all that—it was the same; whenever they wanted and whatever table they set before him, Simeon the Babylonian was ready to present his parents’ genealogical record, which was like a ship sailing directly to the roots of the tree under whose branches Adam won Eve’s heart.

His parents had lived through the Babylonian Captivity, as well as the fall of the Chaldean Empire; they welcomed the rise of the Persian Empire; they lived through the Greek revolution—and, of course, the rule of the Hellenes. As time went on, Simeon’s household grew, becoming a powerful house among the Jews and a wealthy one in the eyes of the Gentiles. Under normal circumstances, Simeon would have inherited his father’s business, visited the Holy City at least once in his life, been happy among his own people, and strived his entire life to be a good believer before men and before God. As the heir to one of the wealthiest bankers in Seleucia on the Tigris, everything was set for Simeon to be mourned by countless mourners when he died . After his death, when the kingdom of Israel was proclaimed by the son of David, his descendants would exhume his bones and bury him in the Holy Land.

This chronicle should have been a summary of the life of Simeon the Babylonian. But the usurpation by the sons of the Maccabees erased all that perfect happiness from the book of his life. Such beautiful plans had not been intended for him. That idea—to sit back and wait to see how events unfolded before taking definitive action, just in case the Lord was using the Hasmonean reign as a transitional period between the Maccabees and the messianic kingdom—the advice of the leaders of the synagogue in Seleucia on the Tigris—was not for him. Simeon had been listening to that drivel for far too long. And after the Slaughter of the Six Thousand, he didn’t even want to hear such words of caution in his wildest dreams.

The overthrow of the Hasmonean was not something that could be put off until tomorrow, or the day after tomorrow, or even until that very afternoon. The Hasmonean had to die—now. Every day he remained alive was an offense. Every night he went to bed, the Nation found itself one step closer to its destruction. The Hasmonean had broken all the rules.

First: His family had been chosen and had received the high priesthood by bypassing hereditary traditions and rites. A foreigner—not the full council of the saints—had granted him supreme authority.

The sentence for such a usurpation of sacred duties was capital punishment.

Second: Contrary to the traditions, which forbade the high priest from wielding a sword, the Hasmonean had placed himself at the head of the armies.

The penalty for this offense was also capital punishment.

Third: In violation of the most firmly established canonical traditions, the Hasmonean had not only trampled upon the monogamy that governed the life of the high priest, but also, like Solomon reborn, maintained his own harem of young women.

The penalty for this offense was yet another death sentence.

And Fourth: In violation of the divine law that forbade any member not of the House of David from ascending the throne of Jerusalem, the Hasmonean, by doing so, was dragging the entire nation toward suicide.

For all these reasons, the Hasmonean had to die, regardless of the cost or the means to be employed.

These arguments by Simeon ultimately convinced the leaders of the synagogue in Seleucia on the Tigris of the urgent need for the world to put an end to the Hasmonean dynasty. With this sacred mission, Simeon the Babylonian left his parents’ home and came to Jerusalem.

Wealthy and bearing the tithe from the Synagogue of the Magi of the East, his policy of friendship toward the Hasmonean crown—which needed financial support to expand the military reconquest of the kingdom, a strategy through which Simeon the Babylonian would win the friendship of his enemy—would simultaneously earn him the distrust of those very on s among whom he was meant to rise as the invisible hand pulling the pro-Davidic strings. This double game would keep him walking a tightrope over the abyss from the day of his arrival until the day of victory.

While he exerted all his strength to keep his head on his shoulders, Simeon the Babylonian had to keep his revolution strictly confined to domestic matters. Ptolemaic Egypt lay in wait, hoping for Jerusalem’s weakening, and a Jewish civil war would provide the perfect opportunity to invade and plunder the country.

On the other side of the Tigris River were the Parthians. Always threatening, always eager to breach the border and annex the lands west of the Euphrates.

Although on the verge of collapse in the north, the Greeks awaited their chance for revenge and were not missing a beat in their efforts to take advantage of a Roman civil war to reconquer the lost land of Palestine.

In short, the need to rid Jerusalem of the abomination of desolation could not jeopardize the freedom won by the forefathers of the Hasmoneans. 

 

6

History of the Hasmoneans  

Aristobulus I “the Mad”

 

After the death of John Hyrcanus I, son of Simon, the last of the Maccabees, his son Aristobulus I succeeded him as ruler of Judea. In this chapter, the memory of the Israeli people is lost in the labyrinth of its own phobias and fears of the truth. According to some, the son of John Hyrcanus I did not seize the crown by force. He simply inherited it from his father.

According to the official account, the abomination that sealed their downfall was committed against the father by a son who had to overcome the fierce opposition of his mother and his own brothers. Ultimately, nothing is clear except the need to confront reality by following the trail of the facts. Personally, I do not know to what extent those facts are essential for determining the father’s guilt in order to exonerate the son.

Whether Aristobulus I crowned himself king against his father’s will or merely legitimized a covert monarchy, we will never know with absolute certainty—at least not until Judgment Day.

The fact is that Aristobulus I began the glorious chronicle of his reign by surprising both strangers and acquaintances with the life imprisonment of his brothers. Motives, reasons, causes, excuses? Well, here we enter the eternal dilemma regarding what the actors of history actually did and what they would have liked to have been written about them. Should we get into this discussion, or leave it for another day? I mean, what stronger motive is there for seizing power than the passion for power itself? Absolute power, total power. The freedom of one who stands beyond Good and Evil, the glory of one who rises above the Laws because he is the Law. Life in one fist, , Death in the other, the people at his feet. To be like a god—to be a god! The accursed temptation, the flesh of the forbidden fruit—to be a god: far from the eye of justice, beyond the long arm of the law. Wasn’t the Devil cunning? That passion to be like a god had revealed its virulent, poisonous nature when it transformed an angel into that Serpent, mother of all demons. “Very well,” Aristobulus I replied to himself, “I will generously spread my poison throughout the earth, beginning with my own home.”

Horror, disillusionment—take me far from the Devil’s dreams. Awaken me, heavens, beauty, in some corner of Paradise.

What madness is it that drags the mud into believing itself stronger than the flood? Does the snail dream of being faster than the jaguar? Does the Moon challenge the Sun to see who shines brighter? Does the lion scorn the crown of the jungle? Does the crocodile complain about the size of its mouth? Does the fierce creature envy the mermaid’s song? Does the eagle envy the elephant of the plains? Does the phosphorescent fish rise from the ocean depths to demand moonlight from the Sun? Who offers the northern cold springtime petals? Who seeks the fountain of eternal youth to write on its banks: “Foolish is he who drinks”?

The indisputable fact is that Aristobulus I ascended to the throne left vacant by his father’s death. And the first thing he did was to throw his brothers into the coldest dungeon of Jerusalem’s gloomiest prison. Unsatisfied, still not content with such a crime against nature, Aristobulus “the Mad” finished the job by sending his mother to join his brothers.

No one ever knew why he set his mother’s youngest son free. The fact is that just as he had surprised everyone by sentencing his brothers to life imprisonment, he surprised everyone again by setting one free. It seems he spared the life of the youngest of his brothers—though not for long. Soon after, madness took hold of his mind, and he outdid himself by strangling him with his own hands. After committing all these crimes, the mad king dressed himself as high priest and went to lead the worship service as if Jerusalem had rejected Yahweh as God and sworn allegiance to the Devil himself.

Such was the beginning of the reign of the son of John Hyrcanus I.

At the root of such a crime—worthy of Satan’s most gifted disciple—lies the terrible dispute between mother and son, between Aristobulus I “the Mad” and his brothers, concerning the transformation of the Republic into a Kingdom.

Accepting the madness of Simon Maccabeus’s grandson as the final, decisive—and even exculpatory—diagnosis is no way to bring such a serious matter to a close. Especially when the brief one-year reign of the Second of the Hasmoneans—leaving aside the issue of those he killed, whose names were not recorded nor their memory preserved because they were not his relatives, whose number we can estimate based on what he did—for who would imprison his brothers yet set free those who are not? I was saying that the brief year of Aristobulus I’s reign—brief though it was—shaped the future of the Jewish people in such a profound and painful way that it can be seen at the root of the trauma that, two , a thousand years later, official Jewish historians continue to suffer when recreating the Hasmonean era.

What discussion more critically apocalyptic than the transformation of the Republic into a Monarchy could have driven the grandson of the Heroes of Independence to become a monster?

Official Jewish historians gloss over this issue by looking the other way. In doing so, they commit a terrible crime against themselves by creating the impression in the reader’s mind that killing one’s mother and siblings was commonplace among the Jews. I do not know to what extent it is ethical—or even merely morally acceptable—to lay the burden of the crime committed by their parents upon the children. Or is it perhaps true that the Hebrews used to eat their mothers day in and day out?

It is a crime against the Spirit to conceal the truth in order to impose one’s own lies. If Aristobulus I killed his brothers and his mother—such a monstrous crime—we must understand it as the ultimate consequence of the struggle between the republican and monarchist factions, the former represented by the Pharisees and the latter by the Sadducees. Aristobulus I won this struggle against his brothers, and it cost his mother her life on charges of conspiracy against the crown.

From our comfortable vantage point, we can venture this theory regarding the case. It seems evident that if that woman’s authority could not impose her judgment, it must have been because it clashed with more powerful interests. And what more powerful interest—one for which one would risk one’s life—could there have been in Jerusalem than control of the Temple?

Let us bear in mind that throughout the entire history of the children of Israel, a case of such cruelty—a son against his mother—was never recorded because it never occurred. So the fact that this unnatural act occurred opens the door to the conspiracy against the nation’s laws that took place between the Aaronic priests and Aristobulus I. In this context, the imprisonment of the brothers and their mother makes perfect sense. In fact, the events we are about to examine were all marked by the same iron hand. Then there is the mindset of the official historian, who exploited the nature of the crime to conceal, within the depths of horror, the year of terror that the people of Jerusalem endured under the tyranny of the mad king. By focusing that year of slaughter on the royal family, the historian cast a smokescreen—akin to that of Pharaoh’s magicians—over the struggle at the root of the problem. Who imprisoned his brothers for opposing his coronation—what would he not do to those who, though not his brothers, refused to transform the republic into a monarchy? The official Jewish historian glossed over this issue. In doing so, he took us—the people of the future—for fools and those of his own time for lifelong idiots.

In any case—leaving the debates aside for now—Aristobulus I set one of his brothers free, as I have said. It is said that the young man was a fierce and brave warrior who loved the game of war, and there he wasted no time in launching the attack with the cry, “Long live Jerusalem!” A worthy relative of Judas Maccabeus—whose stories the boy grew up on—the Brave Prince led his soldiers to victory, which never eluded him, with the very glory of heroes enamored of his very being.

Let us say that, with the peaceful Reconquest of the Promised Land shattered by the Maccabean Wars, John Hyrcanus I ushered in a new era by putting to the sword all the inhabitants of southern Israel who did not convert to Judaism. Through this policy, he annexed Idumea.

It fell to his son, Aristobulus I, to lead his armies against the north. Jerusalem was in the throes of anti-monarchical unrest due to the events already mentioned—the imprisonment of the king’s brothers and the massacre of his republican allies—and while Aristobulus I focused on bringing the situation under control, he handed over military command to his younger brother, who conquered Galilee. It wasn’t all bad news, however. The conquest of Galilee boosted the morale of the Jews, who didn’t know whether to laugh at the victory or weep over the failure of having as their king a murderer of the worst kind—a full-fledged madman.

What came next was something no one expected. Or perhaps they saw it coming but did nothing within their power to prevent it. The fact is that no sooner had Prince Valiant begun to look elsewhere for fame and glory than jealousy—and the guilty conscience that had imprisoned him because of his deeds—drove his brother Aristobulus I to sentence him to death.

In this case as well, Aristobulus I acted by following the example of the Gentiles, though he adapted the system to the Eastern mindset. The Roman Senate had established as a rule in the handbook of the powerful that overly victorious generals must be forced into retirement or put to death. The Scipios and Pompey the Great himself fell victim to this rule. The final case would be that of Julius Caesar—which, of course, turned out quite well for them.

Wiser and holier than the imperial senators, the king of the Jews did not beat around the bush. He simply sent his younger brother his irrevocable decision, hanging from the blade of the executioner’s axe.

The news of the younger brother’s murder at the hands of his older brother reached Alexander Jannaeus down there, amid the chill of the dungeons and the howls of prisons hewn into the walls of hell. Naturally, the news made his blood run cold. But his life-giving fluid might have regained its warmth had the chill of the dungeons not been compounded by the presence of his mother there. She, the poor woman, so deeply wounded, lost her mind and, with what little sanity remained, let herself starve to death.

Watching one’s mother and one’s own brothers die because of a brother is not what one would call the best school for kings. But this was the school for kings that Alexander Jannaeus was forced to attend—he who became the object of all the hatred in the Jewish world following the Massacre of the Six Thousand.

Driven to the brink of madness by that tragedy, the Hasmonean swore to avenge the deaths of his mother and brothers—to emerge alive from hell—over the corpses of all the cowards who were at that very moment burning incense in the Temple.

Another matter altogether—returning to the theme of the official Jewish refusal to acknowledge the coronation of John Hyrcanus I—is that the matricidal and fratricidal madness of Aristobulus I would have been nothing more than the climax of the drama into which his father’s coronation had led them all. The official Jewish position—led by the famous Flavius Josephus—was to refuse to acknowledge the coronation of the son of the last of the Maccabees. His actions, his wars, and his will seem to prove the opposite; they seem to shout at the top of their lungs that he was crowned, and it was during his reign that the virus of the curse found fertile ground in his household. How else can we explain that the day after the burial of John Hyrcanus I, his wife and children collapsed under the weight of that crushing opposition to the continuation of his dynasty? In what other context, then, could we understand why the new king decided overnight to execute all his siblings—including his mother—for high treason?

Logic need not present its evidence in the court of biohistory. Biohistorical arguments are self-explanatory and require no witnesses. But if neither one nor the other is enough to make one’s way through the labyrinthine jungle in which the Jews lost their memory, there is nothing one can advise the man with his finger on the trigger, except that he put an end to the tragedy quickly and stop gathering onlookers before heading to hell with his lamentations and elegies.

There are no facts other than the bare, simple reality. Aristobulus I succeeded his father, Hyrcanus I. He immediately ordered his brother Alexander to be imprisoned for life. Alexander’s brothers and sisters also met the same fate. The only one spared from the Cain-like slaughter was his mother’s youngest son. That mother lay as if dead in some dark dungeon of her wicked son’s palace when the corpse of her youngest son was lowered to her on anonymous ropes. The poor woman closed her eyes and let herself starve to death. Such were the beginnings of the reign of Aristobulus I the Mad; such were the origins of the coming reign of his brother Alexander I.

 

7

Alexander Jannaeus

 

When Alexander Jannaeus emerged from the dungeon—where he normally would have perished—the situation in the kingdom was as follows. The Pharisees had convinced the masses that the nation was under the wrath of God. Sacred laws forbade the Hebrews from having a king who was not of the House of David. They had one. By having him, they were provoking the Lord to destroy the nation for rebelling against His Word. His Word was the Word, the Word was the Law, and the Word was God. How could they prevent destiny from running its course?

The problem was that the servants of the Lord—the Sadducee priests—not only blessed the rebellion against the Lord they served but also used the king to crush the wise Pharisees.

Even so, the macabre greed of Aristobulus I turned even the Sadducees’ stomachs. This did not mean, however, that the Sadducees were willing to join forces with the Pharisees to rid Jerusalem of its sin. The last thing the Sadducees still wanted was to share power with the Pharisees.

Then, mysteriously, Alexander Jannaeus was released from prison and escaped death. A miracle?

If the hatred that gave him strength and kept him alive can be called a miracle, then it was a miracle that Alexander survived his brothers and his mother. Too bad that, aside from the rats, no one came down to his hell to offer their condolences for his mother’s death! Had they done so, they would have discovered that the force that kept him alive and fueled his thirst for revenge was hatred, which made no distinction between Pharisees and Sadducees.

In any case, the Hasmonean was mistaken in thinking that the death of his hated brother was due to natural causes. The death of Aristobulus one year into his reign—and immediately following the death of the Valiant Prince—was neither a matter of chance nor of divine justice. Is it any wonder that the crime against his own mother turned the stomachs of the inhabitants of Jerusalem and led them to decide, in collusion with Queen Alexandra, to put an end to the monster? The fact that the prisoner’s wedding to the widow of the deceased—his sister-in-law Alexandra—was held urgently and immediately highlights the Sadducee alliance that ended the life of Aristobulus I.

The Sadducees, acting before the Pharisees, deposed the king and installed the Hasmonean in his place, with the aim that, once revealed as his saviors, he would not be tempted to switch sides and hand over power to the Pharisees—who, as the natural enemies of his saviors, would necessarily have been his own enemies as well. Taking advantage of the element of surprise, Alexander accepted the crown, swearing not to change the status quo.

This was the explosive situation—a seething cauldron of chaos—upon which the Hasmonean’s hatred was founded.

Alexander I, however, would never forgive his liberators for taking so long to make their decision. What were they waiting for—for his mother to die? God! If only they had arrived a day earlier.

The hatred the new king harbored toward his nation during his year of imprisonment—a long, endless year—cannot be described in words. Only his subsequent massacres will reveal its extent and depth. That hatred was like a black hole advancing from his gut to his head, like a Nothingness flooding his veins with a cry: Revenge. Revenge against the Pharisees, revenge against the Sadducees. Had his saviors taken the trouble to think about what they were doing, they would have slit their own veins before opening the door to freedom for the next king of the Jews.

It would take Jerusalem little, very little time to discover what kind of monster the Hasmonean had as his idol. The hatred devouring Alexander I’s body, mind, and soul would soon spiral out of control and demand corpses by the dozens, by the hundreds, by the thousands. Six thousand for a Passover feast?

An appetizer. Just that—a mere appetizer for a true demon. Didn’t the wise men and holy priests of Jerusalem claim to know the depths of Satan? Yet another lie! He, the Hasmonean, would reveal to all the Jews the true depths of Satan. He himself would lead them to the very “ ”—the Devil’s throne. Where did Satan have his throne? Fools—on his mother’s grave, in the Jerusalem that had watched his brothers die without lifting a finger to save them from ruin.

Just as the father of ancient Jewish history, Flavius Josephus, had done—concealing from his own people the internal cause that shattered the promised happiness of the house of Hyrcanus I—he did it again by speaking of the miraculous and sudden death of the matricide and fratricide, a murderer, of course. He had to do it if he didn’t want to reveal the cause he had just concealed from his people. If he had publicly sworn before the future that the very Sadducees who had elevated the son had ordered the father’s death, doing so would have opened the doors to the rest of the world, allowing them to enter and see with their own eyes the deadly internal war between the Pharisees and the Sadducees.

An enemy of the truth for the sake of his people’s salvation, in the crosshairs of Roman hatred following the famous rebellion that ended with the destruction of Jerusalem, Flavius Josephus had to trample over the corpse of the truth in the name of reconciliation between Jews and Romans. And in the process, to keep the children of the murderers of the early Christians at arm’s length from the crime against divine nature that they had committed and continued to commit—to the extent that it served their interests—even if it meant erasing their memory, performing a lobotomy on themselves, and moving forward as a cursed people, condemned by all, regarded by all as those who devour their mothers and are natural murderers of their brothers? No Jew was to look askance at Aristobulus I killing his mother, his brothers, his uncles, his brothers-in-law, his nephews, and even his grandchildren, had he had any. According to Flavius Josephus and his school of thought, this was a natural occurrence among the Jews. So where is the scandal?  

This is the story of Jesus. It is not the story of the Hasmonean chronicles. The significance of that dynasty’s seventy years, however, is so crucial to understanding the circumstances that led the Jews to the most ferocious and murderous anti-Christianity that we must necessarily retrace them, as one who flies over the most momentous events related to this Second Fall. On another occasion, at another time, God willing, we will delve into those chronicles. For now, let us simply skim the timeline.

The Hasmonean’s hatred toward everyone—Pharisees and Sadducees alike—ran its course. In just a few years, it turned into an avalanche. Rolling down a suicidal slope one of those days, they all—Pharisees and Sadducees—went to celebrate a sort of friendship banquet with the king. The doors opened, the strategists took their positions, and with the wine, everyone got into the spirit of things. And bypassing all the meanderings and preliminaries, they ended up rushing headlong toward the shores of the sea of personal issues. In the heat of the moment, one of the Pharisees present, drunk on wine, blurted out to the king’s face what everyone was saying: that his mother had conceived him with someone other than his father. In other words, the Hasmonean was a bastard.

The situation wasn’t complicated to begin with, and then the Devil came along to make it worse. The Devil, as if he were winning a battle of wills against the Angel, kept adding fuel to the fire at every opportunity. With the fuse burning and the powder keg just a stone’s throw away, it was only logical that the explosion would blow everything in its path to smithereens. The Massacre of the Six Thousand at in a single day would not be the only devastating wave. But it could at least have served to calm tempers and bring enemies together.

Unlike other peoples of the world, the Jewish nation’s racial philosophy was to never learn from past mistakes. If it was zeal for the Law that had previously driven them to the Massacre, from then on it would be a thirst for vengeance. It was this unbridled thirst that swept from synagogue to synagogue across the globe, carrying to all believers that cry we heard earlier: “The Hasmonean must die.” To this, the most daring and zealous responded by dedicating their lives to killing the Hasmonean. Among them was Simeon the Babylonian, a citizen of Seleucia on the Tigris, a Hebrew by birth, and a banker by profession. His entry into Hasmonean Jerusalem and his intentions to remain in the kingdom could not trouble the king—who was always in need of allies and financial resources for the war to reconquer the Promised Land—nor arouse his suspicions, given the geopolitical circumstances the ancient Seleucid Empire was facing.

Indeed, Asia east of Eden was becoming too small for the Parthians, and they suffered unspeakably as they dreamed of invading the lands west of the Euphrates. It was therefore only natural that the children of Abraham would begin to return from the Exile to the other side of the Jordan. If, on top of that, the returnee seemed to have no idea about the local political situation and—to everyone’s delight—was a wealthy banker and a devout believer, so much the better.  

“Simeon, my son, paranoia is to tyrants what wisdom is to the wise. If either group abandons its counsel, both are lost. That is why one who moves among snakes must be immune to their venom and have the wings of a dove to overcome the schemes of the wicked with the innocence of one who serves only his master.

“Simeon, turn your back on your enemy as a sign of trust, and you will earn your salvation; but wear the armor of the wise beneath your cloak, so that when paranoia drives him mad, the dagger of his madness will shatter against your iron skin.

“If you shake hands with the tyrant, keep in mind that he hides the dagger in the other; offer him, then, what he seeks, for God gave man only two hands, and if with one he takes yours and with the other seizes what he wants, the dagger will always be far from your throat.

“When you see him wounded, rush to tend to his wound, for he is not yet dead; and if he lives, seek his death, but do not merely wound him, lest he rise again to bring about your ruin. The devil has many ways to achieve his goal, but God needs only one to make him bite the dust. Be wise, Simeon; do not forget the teachings of your masters.”

Simeon the Babylonian arrived in Jerusalem with the book of the Magi of the East tucked under his arm. The school where he learned the craft of the Magi traced its origins back to the days of the prophet Daniel—that prophet and chief of the Magi who, with one hand, served his master and, with the other, dug his own ruin all around him. But enough talk—let the show begin.

Simeon the Babylonian put his teachings into practice. He managed to break the ice of the Pharisees’ distrust toward the king’s new friend. He managed to deceive King by helping to finance his campaigns to reconquer and consolidate the conquered borders. Behind the Hasmonean’s back, with his other free hand, the Babylonian put his signature on all the palace plots against which the Hasmonean—like an athlete in the midst of an obstacle course—accomplished the impossible feat of surviving all his would-be assassins. One after another, all those attempts to sever his head from his neck ended with the deaths of the would-be assassins. Tired of so much ineptitude—in his opinion, his compatriots were not even fit for that—Alexander Jannaeus treated the corpses of his enemies as one treats those of dogs: he threw them into the river, letting the current carry them out to the sea of oblivion.

Desperate over the Hasmonean’s fate, the Pharisees devised the ultimate plan: to hire a mercenary army, take command of it, and declare open war on him. It meant plunging into a civil war, but what choice did they have? The Hasmonean’s star seemed to have risen from the very depths of hell. No matter what they plotted against him to overthrow him—no matter how subtle and convoluted the plan—the wretch always came out alive. He had more lives than a cat. He could not be written off as dead.

“Let the damage be on his conscience,” they told themselves. And so they hired the Arabs to put an end to the reign of the most tyrannical, cruel, and bloodthirsty king Jerusalem had ever known in all its history. All of this was kept under the strictest top-secret. The last thing Simeon the Babylonian and his Pharisees could afford was for word of their plans to reach the Hasmonean’s ears. He wouldn’t hesitate to kill them all—young and old alike—throwing them all into the same pot. As the wise man’s proverb said: One must be as innocent as a dove, yet as cunning as a serpent.

But since in this world one cannot deceive everyone at once, there was in those days one person whom Simeon’s magic tricks could not deceive. That man was the priest Abijah, the Hasmonean’s personal prophet, about whom we have already read in previous chapters.

Simeon, of course, also attended Abijah’s shift to hear the Oracle from his lips. It was to him—yes, to him, the king’s new friend and his most sworn secret enemy—that Abijah directed words that shattered all his plans.

“If Heaven fights Hell with the Devil’s weapons, how will the fire that devours everyone in its blaze be extinguished?” the man said. “Do you compare God to His enemy? Does the angel who guards the path of life rebel against his destiny by raising the flame of his sword against the tree he protects, thereby preventing anyone from approaching it? Does he then consider himself lost? What will be his Lord’s judgment on his despair? By acting thus, will he not deny the God who entrusted him with his mission? You are not fighting the devil; you are fighting God’s angel, and even if he is on your side, he cannot abandon his post. His command is firm: Let no one approach. Why do you think he will lower his sword? Will he rebel against his Lord out of love for you? Cease, then, from this folly. You are not fighting against a man; you are waging war against the God who placed his angel between you and the life you seek by invoking Death.”

An oracle full of wisdom that, with its listeners blinded by hatred, fell time and again on stony ground. For a moment it seemed as though it might take root, but as soon as they stepped out of the Temple, the smell of blood brought them back to the reality of everyday life.

 

8  

Civil War

 

How close to the outbreak of a civil war do the clouds brew that will pour down the broth of hatred in torrents? How are the traces of a scar, carved deep between chest and back, erased?

The Pharisees and their leaders made the desperate decision to hire a mercenary army to put an end to the Hasmoneans once and for all. They did not hire the army of the Ten Thousand Greeks lost on their return to their homeland, nor did they cross the sea toward Carthage seeking freedom among the descendants of Hannibal. Nor did they call upon the famous Iberian warriors. Nor did they turn to barbarian hordes. To kill their Jewish brothers, they called upon the Arabs.

How long does the meat of hatred need to simmer in the pot to cook? When poison is not enough and secret conspiracies abound, is it legitimate to call upon the devil himself to carry to hell that which was born in the heat of his fire?

As he did with so many other episodes, the official historian of the Jews of that time tiptoed around the triggers of that rebellion as if walking on eggshells. Willing to sell the truth for the thirty pieces of silver of Caesar’s pardon and with the approval of a Jewish generation that, torn between worshiping the emperor and the fate of the Christians, danced in honor of the golden calf before God and men, Flavius Josephus overlooked those causes from the distance of that civil war’s origins—causes so horrific and treacherous as to overshadow the centuries-old enmity between Jacob and Esau.

The fact behind the concrete slab under which the Jews buried the memory of their past is that, in violation of their own laws, Israel hired Edom; Jacob called upon Esau to defeat the Devil together, ignoring—because he did not want to remember—that the Devil who had defeated Adam, the father of both, needed more than just an alliance between brothers to have his tail cut off.

Be that as it may, the battle between the supporters of the restoration of the Davidic monarchy and those loyal to the Hasmonean dynasty took place. And it was the enemies of the Hasmoneans who emerged victorious.

It seems that that very same Hasmonean who walked on carpets woven from the skins of the Six Thousand, that soulless demon who dared to curse the God of gods by sleeping with his harlots in his own Temple, that invincible son of hell, so the story goes, fled the battlefield like a rat.

He wasn’t even worth dying like a man—his enemies later lamented, though it was too late.

Unfortunately, just as they were about to seal their victory, the victorious army committed the unforgivable mistake of backing down. As I said, they were about to reap the laurels of success when remorse took hold of their minds, and they began to think about what they were doing. They were handing the kingdom over to the Arabs!

Faced with the choice of finishing off the Hasmonean or living under the yoke of their traditional enemies, the Pharisees decided on the unthinkable.

It’s true: love for the homeland outweighed the memory of so much past suffering. So, before finding themselves trapped under the wheels of their own mistakes, they broke the contract with the victory they had won—a fatal error they would soon come to regret, one they would never regret enough.

In one of those classic twists of fate, the victorious nationals joined forces with the defeated patriots, and together they rose up against the mercenary army that was already preparing to conquer Jerusalem for its king.

Stunned by this turn of fate in his favor, the Hasmonean transformed from a fleeing rat into a hungry lion; he took the lead among those who once again hailed him as king and expelled from his kingdom those who had just seen him run away like a dog.

The first to regret this were the Pharisees.

His return from the grave convinced his enemies that the Hasmonean was sponsored by the Devil himself. The calm, the tranquility with which Alexander made his entrance into Jerusalem was celebrated by almost everyone. That was the calm before the storm. Shortly after returning to his palace, after sleeping with all his concubines, once he had digested the defeat in the folds of a bad dream, and tired of promising what he would never fulfill, the Hasmonean ordered that the leaders of the Pharisees and the hundreds of their allies be rounded up as one would round up cattle. The head count amounted to so many souls that no one could imagine how the Hasmonean was going to cook so much meat.

What happened belongs to the unholy annals of Israel. But if there is Good and Evil and everything has its opposite, the people who have a Sacred History also have its opposite, a Malignant History. To the ranks of the heroes of these dark scriptures belonged, without a doubt, Cain, the Alexander of these chronicles, and Caiaphas, who in the name of his people crucified the Son of David.

The Jewish chronicler would have liked to have buried this chapter of his people’s evil history. The short span of time between his generation and the one that suffered under the “Nero of the Jews” made it impossible for him to erase from the book of his people’s life the dark, defining event of this chapter.

In revenge for the humiliation he was forced to endure—finding himself fleeing like a rat when until then he had been boasting of being the fiercest lion of hell—the Hasmonean erected eight hundred crosses on Golgotha. Not one, nor two, nor three, nor four.

If the Passion of the Lamb has been conveyed to you as physically grueling, wait until you learn what sufferings those eight hundred goats had to endure.

The Hasmonean announced that he was going to throw a party. He invited acquaintances and strangers alike, foreigners as well as patriots. The celebration was to be Neronian in style. For since the natural sign of human intelligence is imitation, and since Nero had not yet been born, someone had to rise up as the model for the future mass-murderer of Christians. Who else but him, original even in his flight?

He set the date. He didn’t tell a soul about the surprise he had concocted. And the banquet began. The Hasmonean brought out enough meat and wine to feed a regiment, hired foreign prostitutes, and ordered the local ones to ply their trade as they had never done before. Nothing was lacking. Food by the bucketful, wine by the barrel, women in abundance.

“Where will you find another king like me?” in the prelude to his madness, the Hasmonean shouted so that Heaven—worshiped by the eight hundred condemned men who already had their places reserved on the eight hundred crosses crowning Golgotha from its foothills to the summit’s esplanade—might hear him.

During the last few days, everyone had bet that the Hasmonean would not dare go that far. The relatives of those involved in the macabre spectacle prayed to Heaven that he would not dare. How little they knew him! The Jews had not yet found out and continued to refuse to believe that the very mother who gave birth to Abel had nurtured the monster that was his brother within her womb.

“Do only Greek women give birth to beasts?” the Hasmonean shouted at the top of his lungs from atop the walls. “There you have proof to the contrary. Here you have eight hundred.”

Nero wasn’t that bad. At least the madman par excellence crucified foreigners. These eight hundred were all compatriots of their executioner, all brothers of his guests.

This was the surprise. Instead of putting them on trial or murdering his enemies without anyone being able to blame him for their deaths, the Hasmonean herded them together like cattle and condemned them to die on the cross. Just because—because he was the king, and the king was God. And if he wasn’t God, it didn’t matter; he was the Devil. It amounts to the same thing, the same thing.

Mount Golgotha was crammed with crosses. When the guests took their seats in their armchairs, the eight hundred crosses were still empty. The spectacle was sinister but gratifying if it were to remain nothing more than a silent threat. With this positive thought in mind, they began to help themselves to the wine.

Eventually, after most of them had eaten more than they should have, drunk beyond measure, and thoroughly satisfied their masculine instincts, the Hasmonean gave the order. At his command, the eight hundred condemned men marched forward.

Immediately they began to hang them from the crossbeams—one cross per person. If any of those present felt their soul shatter, none dared to shed a tear. The wine, the prostitutes, the pleasure of watching someone die like a bandit who, until yesterday, had paraded his status as prince of the people—all of it together did the rest.

“What do you do with the rats that invade your home? Do you forgive their accursed offspring, or do you send them to hell as well?” In the ecstasy of the tragedy, Asmoneus howled once more from the walls of Jerusalem.

What came next no one expected. The Hasmonean was full of surprises. Perhaps you, reader, wouldn’t imagine it either if I didn’t tell you and challenge you to guess it. Everyone believed that with the crucifixion of the eight hundred Pharisees, the Hasmonean’s thirst for vengeance would be quenched. They had already turned their backs on the victims on their crosses when eight hundred families began to gather—the eight hundred families of the eight hundred wretches exposed to the stars of their fate. Women, children, family by family, took their places at the foot of the cross of the head of each household.

Stunned, believing they had been invited to witness a hellish nightmare, the eyes of the guests at the Jewish Nero’s banquet widened in shock. Paralyzed with horror, they realized what was about to happen. The latest and freshest incarnation of the Devil was going to behead the head of the family and slaughter the body at the same time. If the man is the head of the family, then his family is the body—and who is the madman who kills the head and leaves alive a body full of hatred so that it may take its revenge?

The Hasmonean army of executioners drew their swords, awaiting the order from the man who had turned Jerusalem into the Devil’s throne.

All the bodies were already at the feet of their heads; their wives, along with their sons and daughters, were trembling with horror and despair, weeping over the father’s fate, when—believing that their destiny was to weep—the king’s flash of madness shattered their illusion.

Once again, at the height of his madness, the Hasmonean cried out with emotion: “Jerusalem, remember me.” Immediately afterward, he gave the satanic order.

They slaughtered them all—women and children—at the foot of the eight hundred crosses and their eight hundred goats. The Hasmonean’s hired executioners drew their axes and swords, raised their arms, and began their hellish and macabre task. No one lifted a finger to prevent the crime.

(The official Jewish historian wrote little more about this crime. Claiming in his prologue that the truth was his sole concern, after reading his account one wonders what love for the truth the devil could possibly have. But let’s continue.)

 Numb with shock, believing they were living a dream, the guests watched the third part of the hellish spectacle without moving from their seats. As bit players in the Asmoneo’s grand performance, their pay had clouded their judgment. Truth be told, it didn’t take a genius to guess what would happen next. The Asmoneo then ordered that the crucified goats be set on fire. And that the party continue.

And the party continued amid a deluge of alcohol, meat, and prostitutes.

The next day, all of Jerusalem rushed to the Temple to find comfort in the Oracle of Yahweh.

The man of God simply said, “The destruction that will bring ruin upon this nation has been decreed.”

 

9

After the 800

 

After that orgy of cruelty and madness, nothing could ever be the same again. The ambition of some, the fanaticism of others—it had led them all to a dead end. A king unleashes his murderous madness, directing it against strangers—fair enough—but when, in the entire history of the Kingdom of Judah, has any king ever turned against his own people to commit such a crime?

The reputation the Maccabees had earned among the Jews, on the day after the Massacre of the Eight Hundred, was found crawling through the lowest depths of decency and the respect one nation owes another. Branded as monsters who devoured their own children, those who until yesterday had walked among the Gentiles claiming for themselves the status of the Chosen People had to hide from everyone’s gaze the very next day, as if fleeing from Satan himself. But let us return to Holy Jerusalem.

For a time, the cry of pain and grief kept the insatiable thirst for vengeance of the relatives of the Eight Hundred at bay. But sooner or later, the hatred to the death would spread and sweep through the streets, sowing death upon the sidewalks. Who would be the first to fall? On street corners, in the darkness of alleys, under any doorway. At any hour, on any occasion—the king’s foreign executioners?

No! It would be them, the Sadducees. It would be the sons of Aaron—all priests, all saints, all sacred, all inviolable—who would be the first to face vengeance. Since vengeance could not be taken out on the king, it would be taken out on the flesh of his allies. Brothers-in-law, cousins, fathers-in-law, sons-in-law, wives, mothers-in-law, grandparents, grandchildren—all were in the crosshairs of the dagger.

Whether they were leaving the Temple or going from their homes to their fields, wherever they were found, hatred would descend upon them without distinguishing between the righteous and the guilty, the sinner and the innocent. There would be no mercy, no quarter. With his macabre lesson, the Hasmonean had deflected the dagger from his own back. Who would save them now? One by one. When they closed their eyes in their homes… two silver coins would emerge from the shadows, seeking eye sockets in which to take up residence. When their animal needs arose… claws would emerge from the crevices in the ground. No, the Sadducees would not sleep in peace, nor would they live in tranquility from that day forward. The day would come when it would seem better to them to live in hell than to suffer the hell of being alive.

And so it was. Every day after the Massacre of the Eight Hundred, the streets of Jerusalem awoke to the wailing of widows and orphans demanding justice from the king. The king was delighted to see that while they killed one another, they left him in peace.  

It is the truth: in his madness, the Hasmonean took pleasure in watching his allies live in terror, like rats trapped in the house of hungry cats. As far as he was concerned, his personal safety had been secured against all risk. Without distinguishing between age or gender, he once killed six thousand in a single day. This time, he had devoured 800 enemies along with their families. Did they want even more? He still had the nerve to double the death toll.

Why 800 crosses? Why not seven hundred? Or three thousand four hundred?

The fact is that the Hasmonean had the memory of a beast. Human beings overcome childhood traumas; they are distinguished from beasts by their ability to forget the harm suffered at some point in the past. Beasts, on the other hand, never forget. Years may pass; even if a decade goes by, the wounds remain etched in their memory. With the passage of time, the little pup becomes a wild beast; then one day it encounters its childhood enemy, the wound reopens, and out of instinct it pounces to exact its revenge. Such was the nature of the Hasmonean’s memory.

Why 800 souls? Why not seven hundred or three thousand four hundred?

The people had to know the truth. The whole world had to know his truth. History had to record in its annals the root cause of the Hasmonean’s hatred toward the Pharisees. How many brave men followed the Maccabee on the Day of the Fall of the Brave? Wasn’t it exactly 800? Weren’t the fathers of the 800 crucified Pharisees the ones who gave the order to retreat and handed the Hero over to the enemy? Why did they do it? Why did those cowards leave only the Hero and his 800 Brave Men to face the enemies?

“I’ll tell you why,” shouted the Hasmonean from the ramparts. “Because they feared the Hero would rise up as king. Cowards—they sold out the Hero and handed him over to silence the fear they harbored. But tell me, when, at what moment, on what secret occasion did it ever occur to the Hero, among his 800 Brave Ones, to lead them against Jerusalem and proclaim himself king? His soul knew no ambition other than the freedom of his nation. His heart beat only with the longing for freedom. Your fathers challenged him to surrender command, to place himself under their orders, unaware that this Brave Man recognized no king and lord other than his God. They put him to the test, pushed him to the edge of the abyss, believing that the Brave Man would turn his back on death. They dared the Champion of the Almighty. Well then, this is the pay that your King and Lord places in your pouches. Take your wages, cowards. You touched the Champion whom God raised up to grant you freedom at the price of his blood and that of his entire household. Do you not want paradise? There I send you to claim your wages from the Almighty. His glory and fame bothered you. You had to flee the battlefield to prove to him that victory was yours, that without you he was nothing. Rejoice, for soon you will see him face to face.”

No matter what he said, no matter what reasons he used to justify his conscience, the Hasmonean knew that after the Slaughter of the 800, nothing could ever be the same. After that ode to the depths of hell, he could expect nothing but the destruction of his house. Abijah had prophesied it, and—without intending or seeking it—he had brought it about. Fate, destiny, a misstep left uncorrected, another unforeseen error imposing the law of necessity, pure chance, chaos, the fates, the irresponsibility of the people and their dreams of justice, freedom, and peace. How can one blame the goddess of fortune for bestowing ill-fated kisses? Sometimes you win, and sometimes you lose. Worse dynasts managed to pave the way for their children across the plain of the centuries. But to what end? In the end, every crown ends up being stripped bare; the one who seemed to have the fewest legs leaps the highest, and yesterday’s nobody claims tomorrow’s glory. From a throne, the world is a box of crickets; the one who shouts the loudest is the king. Why aren’t the people content with their lot? Why do they want more justice, more freedom? If you give them a hand, they’ll take your arm. They always find a reason to ruin their rulers’ happiness. If it weren’t for the fact that subjects are necessary, wouldn’t everyone be better off dead? Or at least deaf and mute?

The Hasmonean’s dark reflections in his moments of distress were not to be missed. More than once he let them flow from his mind without even realizing his Praetorian commanders were present. Their diabolical smiles spoke more eloquently than the longest and most profound discourse of the most colorful and conspicuous sage.

Were his children’s lives in danger? And would they continue to be so if not a single Jew remained alive?

It was a tricky choice. When depression suffocated him, the Hasmonean caressed him. But no. That would be too much. He had to find a smarter solution. Turning his back on the fact that he had crossed the line wasn’t going to solve the problem. He had to think. After the Massacre of the 800, nothing would ever be the same again. He had to find his way out of the labyrinth before his family opened the gates of hell and the flames of hatred consumed them.

Yes, nothing would ever be the same again.  

It wasn’t just the Hasmonean who understood this. Simeon the Babylonian understood it, too. Abijah’s words echoed in his head with the full weight of their enduring truth. “Hate begets hate, violence begets violence, and both will devour all their servants.” Where, indeed, had the magical arts led Simeon the Babylonian? The blood of the 800 weighed on his conscience. The weight crushed him. Abijah had always been right. He never tired of saying, “Who takes a pitcher and goes to fetch water in a burning forest? To that end, such means.”

But of course, what other advice could one expect from a man of God?

What else?!

That they lay down their arms and, without abandoning their goal, devote the means appropriate to that cause to the restoration of the Davidic monarchy. For example?

Convinced by the evidence, Simeon the Babylonian laid down his arms and became a disciple and partner of Abijah, who had been preaching to those hearts of stone in the desert for so long.

For his part, the Hasmonean’s despair grew as the days went by. Abijah’s prophecy regarding the fate of his house began to seem so evident to him that, against all odds, he relented. Not because the weight his conscience could bear—still strong enough to bear a few thousand more corpses—stirred his very being. The true cause of the mental oppression that tightened around his neck, leaving him breathless, lay in the fate he had carved out for his sons. He himself had sharpened the axe’s blade. Because of him, his sons had become the object of God’s wrath. The executioner who would cut off their heads had not yet been born, but who could assure him that he would not be born?

In a move befitting his terrors, Alexander Jannaeus struck a treaty of national reconciliation with his enemies. Abijah and Simeon the Babylonian would be the guarantors of this pact, which would ensure his descendants’ survival among the other families of Jerusalem. The state treaty was as follows.

Upon his death, the crown would pass to his widow. Queen Alexandra would restore the Sanhedrin. In this way, the battle between the Pharisees and the Sadducees for control of the Temple—the source of all recent evils—would be brought to an end. His son Hyrcanus II would receive the high priesthood.

Upon Queen Alexandra’s death, whether the crown would pass to her other son, Aristobulus II, or whether the legitimate heir of the House of David would be crowned would depend on the results of the search for the Son of Solomon.

Once Queen Alexandra had died, the House of the Hasmoneans could not be blamed for the final events to which the search might lead. This part of the agreement would be kept secret among the king, the queen, Hyrcanus II, and the two men in whom they trusted, Abijah and Simeon the Babylonian.

His widow would elevate these two men to the leadership of the Sanhedrin headed by Hyrcanus II. This final part of the pact would remain secret to prevent Prince Aristobulus from rebelling against his parents’ will and claiming the crown.

Alexander Jannaeus died in his bed. His widow succeeded him to the throne. Alexandra Salome reigned for nine years. True to the pact she had signed, Queen Alexandra restored the Sanhedrin, entrusting its governance on equal terms to the Pharisees and Sadducees. Her son Hyrcanus II was appointed high priest. Prince Aristobulus II was excluded from the line of succession and from matters of state. The secret part of the pact—the search for Solomon’s living heir—would no longer depend on Queen Alexandra, but on the two men to whom her late husband had entrusted the mission. A mission that was to be completed during Alexandra’s reign and remain shrouded in the secrecy that had given rise to it. Although young, if such a plan to restore the Davidic monarchy were to reach Prince Aristobulus’s ears, no one could say for certain that, in his madness, he would not rise up in civil war against his brother.  

There were nine years of relative peace. The two men charged with finding Solomon’s legitimate heir had nine years to scour the kingdom’s upper classes and track him down. I say “relative peace” because the relatives of the 800 exploited their power to drench the streets of Jerusalem with the blood of those who had executed their kin.

Powerless to curb that thirst for vengeance—which claimed its victims daily with impunity—as each year passed, the eyes of the condemned began to turn more and more to Prince Aristobulus as their savior. With Aristobulus lulled into the hope of reigning after his mother’s death, he had to be roused from his comfortable position as crown prince; they had to act immediately and carry out the coup d’état that the Sadducees’ own defenseless situation was bringing about.

Under these circumstances, how much time did Simeon and Abijah have to find Solomon’s rightful heir? How long could they weather the civil war looming on the horizon?  

God knows that Simeon and Abijah searched—that they scoured the entire kingdom in their quest. They moved heaven and earth in their search. And it was as if the house of Zerubbabel had vanished from the political scene of Judah after his death. Yes, of course there were those who claimed to be descendants of Zerubbabel, but when it came time to produce the relevant genealogical documents, it all amounted to nothing but words. So, with time running against them—the queen mother drawing closer to the grave with each passing day, Prince Aristobulus II growing stronger every year under the protection of the Sadducees who advocated for a coup d’état that would bring them to power—Abijah and Simeon found themselves drifting farther and farther from what they were seeking. Their prayers did not reach Heaven; rumors of civil war, on the other hand, seemed to. In the ninth year of her reign, Queen Alexandra passed away. With her died the restorers’ hope of finding Solomon’s rightful heir.

 

10

The Saga of the Forerunners

 

Following the death of the Hasmonean, after Queen Alexandra’s regency, while Hyrcanus II held the office of high priest, and after the civil war against his brother Aristobulus II, God stirred the spirit of wisdom within Zechariah, son of Abijah.

Called to the priesthood as the son of Abijah, Zechariah focused his career in Temple administration on the history and genealogy of the families of Israel. A confidant of his father—with whom Zechariah shared his zeal for the coming of the Messiah—Zechariah conceived the plan to open the Temple archives while his father and his partner, the Babylonian, led the search for the heir to the Crown of Judah. When the failure of the search for the legitimate heirs of Zerubbabel became a fait accompli, Zechariah vowed to himself that he would not rest until he had turned the shelves upside down, and—by Yahweh!—he would not stop until he found the clue that would lead him to the home of Solomon’s living heir.

The Temple in Jerusalem fulfilled all the functions of a state. Its officials acted as a bureaucracy parallel to that of the Court itself. Birth records, employee salaries, income accounting, the School of Doctors of the Law—this entire machinery functioned as an autonomous body.

Positions of power were hereditary. They also depended on the influence of each candidate. As a candidate, Zechariah would have in his favor the three classic forces with which anyone could have risen to the very top.

He had the spiritual leadership of his father. He had the influence and full support of one of the most influential men both within and outside the Sanhedrin, Simeon the Babylonian, the Semayas of traditional Jewish sources. In these sources, Abijah is called “ r Abtalion,” a distortion of the original Hebrew; by perverting the Hebrew sources in this way, the Jewish historian sought to conceal from future generations the messianic connections between the generations preceding the Nativity and Christianity itself. And above all, and most importantly, Zechariah possessed the spirit of wisdom that his God had given him to bring his undertaking to a successful conclusion.

Under the command of God, the saga of the restorers led by Abijah and Simeon the Babylonian—whose names, as I have said, were distorted by later Jewish historians in order to root the origin of Christianity in the mind of a madman— God once again repeated the interplay that had taken place between his two servants, stirring within Simeon’s son the pioneering spirit that would be kindled in the son of his partner.

Having denied the fathers victory—because the glory of triumph had been reserved for their sons, Abias’s son being the elder of the two—God, in His Omniscience, willed that Simeon’s son, named Simeon like his father, should have Abias’s son as his teacher, thereby sealing the friendship that already existed between them with bonds that endure forever.

Also, like his father, Simeon the Younger seemed born to enjoy a comfortable and happy life, far from the spiritual concerns of Abijah’s son.

Like father, like son, Simeon the Younger tied his future to that of Zechariah, placing the fortune he inherited from his father at his service.

A man—speaking of Zechariah—would have to be quite foolish indeed to fail, with such power behind him, in his attempt to climb the pyramid of the Temple bureaucracy and rise to the summit as Director of the Historical Archives and Chief Genealogist of the Theocratic State into which, following Pompey the Great’s conquest of Judah, the ancient kingdom of the Hasmoneans had been transformed. Overcoming this inability through the boundless intelligence his God had given him to forge his own path, Zechariah reached the top and planted his flag on the highest peak of the Temple’s structure.

Times were difficult, in any case. Civil wars were ravaging the world. Horror had become the norm. Thank God, the failure of Simeon and Abijah ended with a happy ending that made up for it.

After Queen Alexandra’s death, what had long been foreseeable finally came to pass. Aristobulus II claimed the crown for himself, faced his brother Hyrcanus II on the battlefield, and emerged victorious. But if he had dreamed of legitimizing his coup, he soon realized his mistake.

The world was no longer ready for a return to the days of his father. Even the Sadducees themselves were now unwilling to relinquish the privileges the Sanhedrin had granted them. Neither the Sadducees nor the Pharisees stood to gain from a return to the status quo that had existed before the Sanhedrin was established. Obviously, this was even less in the Pharisees’ interest than in the Sadducees’. So it was agreed to bring onto the scene the father of the future King Herod—a Palestinian by birth, a Jew by force. At the Pharisees’ behest, Antipater hired the king of the Arabs to oust Aristobulus II from the throne.

The maneuver of placing the burden of the rebellion on the shoulders of Hyrcanus II was a stratagem by the Sanhedrin to remain on the sidelines in the event of a defeat by the hired forces. The ongoing war was resolved in favor of Hyrcanus II thanks to divine foresight, which interposed the Roman general of the time—who was on a triumphal march through the lands of Asia—between the brothers. We are speaking of Pompey the Great.

After conquering Turkey and Syria, the Roman general received an embassy from the Jews begging him to intervene in their kingdom and put an end to the civil war into which their passions had dragged them. This took place in the 60s B.C.

Pompey agreed to act as an arbitrator between the two brothers. He ordered them to appear before him immediately to explain the reasons why they were killing one another. Who was Cain, and who was Abel?

Pompey did not engage in discussions of this nature. With the authority of a master of the universe, he spoke words of wisdom and made known his Solomonic judgment on the matter. From that day forward and until further notice, the Jewish kingdom was transformed into a Roman province. Hyrcanus II was reinstated as head of state, and Antipater, Herod’s father, as chief of his general staff. As for Aristobulus, he was to retire to civilian life and forget about the crown.

And so it was done. Afterward, Pompey set out with the Roman eagles to complete his conquest of the Mediterranean world, leaving the bells to toll in Jerusalem for the solution adopted—the best of all the worst options.

In those days, the dragon of madness roamed freely across all the corners of the Ancient World. It had been doing so since the dawn of time, but this time, amid the Roman civil wars—the Devil wiser through age than through genius—its tongues of fire created men more evil than ever before. Unlike the other tongues that made saints, the Devil’s tongues gave birth to monsters who sold their souls to Hell for the sake of the fleeting power of military glory. Like a Superstar signing blood-wedding contracts with Death’s grooms, the Prince of Darkness signed autographs with a smug grin, hoping in his manifest madness to earn from his Creator the applause due to the one who had issued an ultimatum to God.

The death toll from the Roman world wars was never recorded. The future will never know how many souls perished beneath the insane wheels of the Roman Empire. Reading the chronicles of that empire of darkness on Earth, one might dare to say that the Devil himself had been hired as an advisor to the Caesars. Once again, the Beast roamed the far reaches of the globe, carrying out its sovereign will.

In the midst of those bloody times, when even a blind man could see the impossibility of defying the new master of the universe—all the more so if the challenger was nothing more than a fly on an elephant’s back—Aristobulus II, defying all logic and common sense, disregarded Pompey the Great’s Solomonic judgment and declared an armed rebellion against the Empire.

The boundless ambition for absolute power knows no bounds of race or time. History has seen the cat of Pandora’s box opened more times than the annals of modern nations can recall. It seems the chasm between man and beast is less dangerous than man’s leap into the status of the children of God. And yet, those who deny humanity’s future what belongs to it by right of creation— —are the very same ones who later defend the idea of evolution with fire and bullets. We do not know whether, by casting doubt on God’s intentions in creating Man, science is concealing an open rebellion against the final stage programmed into our genes since the dawn of recorded history. Deep down, it might simply be a matter of intellectual pride raised to the square of its power. That is to say, the existence of God is not denied; what exists is a refusal to live out a predetermined narrative. Let me explain: why must we be passive objects in a story written before we were even born? Isn’t it better to be active subjects in a tragedy written by Destiny?

The depths of human psychology never cease to amaze. In the darkness of the abyssal depths of the mind, luminescent creatures as beautiful as stars in the night suddenly transform into monstrous dragons. Their fiery arrows devour all peace, violate all justice, and deny all truth. And by coveting the power of the rebellious gods, they prove right those who, without believing in evolution, assert that there is something beyond man.

After all, it is not so much a matter of believing or not believing, but of choosing between the nature of the Beast and that of the children of God.

In this regard, Aristobulus II had a mindset very typical of his time. It was all or nothing. Why share power? Between Cain and Abel, he had chosen the role of Cain. And he hadn’t fared badly at all. Why was the Roman now coming to steal the fruits of his victory?

As long as Pompey the Great imposed his will on him at swordpoint and the myth of the Pirate Slayer’s invincibility kept his passion in check, everything went perfectly for the Savior of the Mediterranean. As soon as Pompey turned his back on Aristobulus, his Hasmonean streak emerged, and he devoted himself to what he knew best: waging war.

He certainly put into practice the way he understood waging war.

Wherever he rode, he made his mark. A farm here, another there—Judea would remember the son of his father for a long time to come. Fire, ruin, desolation—let history be written, and let what is written remain written, if not in the annals of history, then at least on the backs of the people!

The Ancient Serpent must have known that the Day of Yahweh was approaching—a day of vengeance and wrath. With the Leviathan in its sights, Hell intensified the fire burning within, and from the pinnacle of its accursed glory, it set out to lead the army of darkness to its impossible victory.

Brother against brother, kingdom against kingdom. Even the all-powerful Roman Senate trembled with dread on the day Caesar crossed his own Red Sea. Because of the Conqueror of Gaul—who had only recently been hailed as the lord of Asia—that very same Pompey was seen crossing the Great Sea, fleeing like a cat, only to end up murdered like a louse on a beach by order of a pharaoh in a skirt.

He pursued his former partner all the way to Egypt—the man who had turned a river into a phrase for the ages— and there the very same pharaoh who had slain Pompey would have buried him had the provincial armies of Asia not providentially intervened on his behalf; among their ranks, the Jewish cavalry stood out for its boldness and courage, securing victory and, more importantly, saving the life of the Conqueror of Gaul. This rescue earned the Jews of the Empire Caesar’s most heartfelt gratitude and restored to the nation its lost reputation as valiant warriors.  

The necessity that drives the powerful to rely on one another was what thrust the chief of the Jewish general staff into the arms of the new master of the Mediterranean world, earning Herod’s father, as I have said, the honors of favor for the Jewish people, and for himself and his household the friendship of one who is grateful because he was of noble birth—that of the one and incomparable Julius Caesar.

This latter favor did not go down as well in Jerusalem as it did within the family circles of the man concerned. But given the persistence of the Hasmonean’s son in following in his father’s footsteps, it was respected as a bulwark. At such times, the Jews believed little or nothing that they should fear the meteoric rise to power of the Palestinian upstart: Herod.

Not even when Herod demonstrated more than enough courage to dismantle the forces of the Galilean bandits and sentenced them to death, bypassing the laws of the Jewish Sanhedrin?

Taking advantage of his position as lieutenant of the northern forces, Herod captured the bandits, dismantled their strongholds, and sentenced their ringleaders to death. Nothing unusual if it had been a Jewish leader. The problem was that by assuming the functions of the Sanhedrin—judging and sentencing to death—Herod’s personal ambition was laid bare, forcing the Sanhedrin to clip his wings while there was still time.

The matter of putting the Edomite youth on trial was complex because of who his godfather was: Caesar himself. The issue was that if his wings were not clipped, no one could stop his meteoric rise to the throne.

Simeon the Babylonian and Abijah presented this argument to the other members of the tribunal that had convened to judge Herod. Had they rid themselves of the usurpation of David’s throne by a Jew by birth only to see a Palestinian take his place on it?

Unafraid of the Edomite upstart, Simeon the Babylonian delivered his verdict before everyone: Either they condemned him to death now that they had him at their mercy, or they would regret their cowardice on the day Antipater’s son took the throne in Jerusalem.

Herod turned to look at that old man who was prophesying to him in broad daylight what he had seen so many times in his dreams. Amazed to find a brave man among those cowards, he swore there, in the presence of all his judges, that on the day he was crowned, he would put them all to the sword. All except the one man who had dared to tell him to his face what he felt.

When Herod became king, that was the first measure he took. Except for his personal prophet, he beheaded all the members of the Sanhedrin.

 

11

The Genealogy of Jesus According to Saint Luke

 

Amid those days of bloody horrors, Nature defied Hell by flooding the earth with beauty. It was truly an age of beautiful women. In the service of her Lord, Nature conceived a woman of extraordinary beauty and gave her a name. She called her Elizabeth.

Elizabeth was the daughter of one of the high-ranking priestly families of Jerusalem. Her parents belonged to one of the twenty-four families that inherited the 24 shifts at the Temple. As her parents were clients of the house of the Simeons, the extraordinary beauty of that young woman opened the doors to the heart of Simeon the Younger, with whom she grew up as if she were his sister.

Isabel’s parents could not help but view the relationship between the two young people favorably. Thinking of the possibility of a future marriage, her parents granted Elizabeth a freedom generally denied to the daughters of Aaron. What could fill those parents’ hearts with greater pride than their eldest daughter becoming the wife of the heir to one of the greatest fortunes in Jerusalem?

It was no longer just a matter of wealth; there was also the protection that Herod had extended to the Simeons. The death of the leading members of the Sanhedrin following his coronation left the Simeons in a privileged position. In fact, the Simeons’ fortune was the only one that the king did not confiscate.

If Elizabeth were to captivate the young Simeon with her beauty—phew!—it would be more than her parents could ever have dreamed of.

With this secret possibility in mind—one that seemed to grow more real with each passing year, thanks to the intelligence with which Wisdom had enriched what Nature had endowed her with so many gifts—Isabel’s parents allowed her to cross that thin line beyond which a Hebrew woman was free to choose a husband.

It was customary among Jewish castes to arrange the marriage contracts of Aaronic women before they reached that perilous age, beyond which, by law, a woman could not be compelled to accept paternal authority as if it were the will of God. Convinced of the irresistible influence of Isabel’s beauty over the young Simeon, her parents took the risk of letting her cross that boundary.

She crossed it delightedly, and he was her accomplice.

Simeon played along with that soulmate whom life had given him. Having been raised himself to enjoy a privileged freedom, by the time Isabel’s parents realized the truth, it would already be too late. By then, Isabel would have crossed that border, and nothing and no one in the world could stop her from marrying the man she loved more than her own life, more than the walls of Jerusalem, more than the stars of the infinite sky, more than the angels themselves.

The day her parents realized who Isabel’s chosen one was, they raised a huge outcry. 

The problem with the man Isabel loved in a way that far outweighed family interests was simple. Isabel had given her heart to the most stubborn young man in all of Jerusalem. In reality, no one would have bet a thing on the life of Abijah’s son. It had gotten into Zechariah’s head to enter the Temple and expel all the sellers of genealogies and wholesale dealers in birth certificates. Stunned by what they believed was a direct attack on their pockets, many swore to end his career at any cost. But neither threats nor curses managed to scare Zechariah.

In this regard, everyone acknowledged that the son was a carbon copy of his father. Wasn’t his father the only man in the entire kingdom capable of standing up to the Hasmonean in his prime, blocking his path, and prophesying a torrent of misfortunes right to his face? What could one expect of his son—that he would be a coward?

In any case, why didn’t Zacarías direct his crusade elsewhere? Why had he gotten it into his head to focus his crusade against the thriving business of buying and selling genealogical documents and fake birth certificates? What harm were they doing to anyone by issuing those documents?

Those interested came all the way from Italy itself, willing to pay whatever was asked for a simple piece of papyrus signed and sealed by the Temple. What was the reason for this stubbornness on the part of Abijah’s son? Why didn’t he just enjoy life like any other young man? Did he actually get a kick out of ruining everyone’s fun?

Well, but before we continue, let’s delve into Zechariah’s mind and the circumstances he was up against.

I have said that Zechariah, son of Abijah, and Simeon the Younger, son of Simeon the Babylonian, took up the mantle of the search for Solomon’s living Heir.

Given all the circumstances established in the previous chapters, it is clear that secrecy was the sine qua non that would lead them to the very end of the thread. No one was to know what their ultimate goal was.

If the mere idea of a Davidic restoration made the Hasmoneans’ hair stand on end, at the slightest suspicion of the intentions of the sons of their protégés—Semayas and Abtalion in the official Jewish writings, Simeon and Abijah to us—King Herod would have slaughtered all the sons of David that very day.

Then there were the classic informers who would be only too happy to denounce their sons—our Simeon and Zechariah. Herod would reward such a denunciation for treason against the crown with countless honors. And in the process, they would eliminate from the scene the lone crusader with whom no agreement could be reached.

So, knowing the sea of dangers on whose waves he was sailing, Zechariah did not confide in anyone in the world. Not even to Elizabeth herself, the woman he knew he would marry despite the wishes of his future in-laws.

It was only natural that, of all the men in Jerusalem, there was no one who enjoyed greater protection than the son of Abijah.

Let us now examine the causes of that widespread corruption into which the Temple officials threw themselves.

In gratitude for his rescue by the Jewish cavalry—as I have said before—Julius Caesar granted Judea tax privileges and exempted its citizens from military service.

Caesar was unaware of the complex extent of the Jewish world. Cunning as anyone, the Jews throughout his empire took advantage of his ignorance to benefit from the privileges granted to the citizens of Judea. But to benefit from such privileges, they were required to present the relevant documents.

All they had to do was go to Jerusalem, pay a sum of money, and obtain them.

Was this really the plan that the son of Abijah had devised? Did Zechariah not love his brothers in Abraham? Why did he oppose it? What did he have to gain from all this? The Temple treasury was filling up. As a priest and a Jew by birth, wasn’t he interested in the prosperity of his people?

The growing hostility toward Zechariah stemmed from his unstoppable rise, which—if no one stood in his way—would soon lead him to the very top of the Historical and Genealogical Archives, the department responsible for issuing the aforementioned documents.

Well, there were certainly reasons for the son of Abijah to turn a blind eye and take advantage of the opportunity to enrich himself—and, while he was at it, to share with everyone the prosperity that heaven had bestowed upon them after so many past hardships; yes, there were indeed reasons.

But no, Abías’s son insisted he wouldn’t compromise his principles. He was as stubborn as a rock. To make matters worse, the protection he enjoyed left his enemies with no choice but to try to derail his career by any means necessary.

So, as much as she adored the man of her life, Isabel herself wondered what was behind her beloved’s crusade. If she brought up the subject, he would brush her off, look away, change the subject, and leave her hanging. Didn’t he love her?

Simeon the Younger laughed at those two star-crossed lovers.

Isabel took that laughter to heart—and since she was the daughter of Aaron and had Nature on her side—she was certain her best friend would reveal to her the mystery the two of them were hiding.

Simeon the Younger stalled her at first. The last thing he wanted was to endanger Isabel’s life. In the end, he had to open his heart to her and reveal the truth.

If a Jew from anywhere in the Empire wished to register as a citizen of Judea, to which family would he claim kinship, and in which city would he ask to be registered as a native?

The answer was so obvious that Isabel understood instantly.

“In Bethlehem of Judea, and to King David.”

It was already difficult enough for the Kingdom’s Chief Genealogist to wade through mountains of documents; on top of that, there was this avalanche of David’s descendants who were suddenly popping up everywhere, claiming descent from the legendary king.

“So you’re looking for Solomon’s heir,” Isabel replied to Simeon. “How lovely!” Simeon laughed heartily at his own witticism.

Zechariah didn’t find it quite so funny that his partner had revealed the truth to Elizabeth. Now that the damage was done, he had to press on and trust in feminine wisdom—a trust that Elizabeth never betrayed.

The very Spirit who halts the advance of warriors and denies them access to the goals He has reserved for those who will follow them—that same God is the One who ordains the timing and moves the actors across the stage, reserving victory for those to whom He would deny it to those who paved the way for them.

Against all the bad omens their enemies wished upon them, Zacharias rose to the highest position in the Temple Archives. He also married the partner chosen for him by fate. When they discovered they could not have children, people said, “It is God’s punishment” because she had rebelled against her parents’ will, but they found comfort in loving one another with all the strength of which the human heart is capable.

Added to the pain of their infertility was the failure of their search.

 

12

The Birth of Joseph

 

Zechariah spent years sifting through mountains of genealogical documents, sorting through historical scroll after scroll in pursuit of the trail that would lead him to the last living heir to Solomon’s crown. He didn’t go mad because his intellect was stronger than the despair that took hold of his mind—and, of course, because the Spirit of his God smiled upon him through the words of his partner Simeon, who never lost hope and was always there to lift his spirits.

“Take it easy, man. You’ll see—in the end, we’ll find what we’re looking for where we least expect it, and when we least imagine it. You’ll see. Don’t rack your brain—your God wants to open your eyes in His own way. I don’t think He’s going to leave you empty-handed. It’s just that we’re looking in the wrong direction. It’s our own fault. Do you think the Lord God has raised you to where you are now just to leave you in despair at the summit? Rest, enjoy your life—let Him make us laugh.”

That Simeon was extraordinary—in every sense of the word. When he married the woman of his dreams, he also enjoyed the dream of being the happiest man in the world. With that happiness of his, which spilled over onto all the clients of his bank and made him the banker of the poor, one fine day business matters took him to Bethlehem.

The Simeons’ clientele also extended to the towns around Jerusalem. Among the families that did business with them was the Clan of the Carpenters of Bethlehem. At that time, the leadership of the Clan was in the hands of Matat, the father of Heli. Master cabinetmakers, the Clan of the Carpenters of Bethlehem had built their reputation as woodworking professionals since time immemorial. It was even said that the clan’s founder had installed one of the gates of the Holy City in the days of Zerubbabel. Just rumors, of course. The fact was that the arrival of Simeon the Younger in Bethlehem coincided with the birth of Eli’s firstborn son. They named the newborn Joseph. Congratulations aside, once the business that had brought him to Bethlehem was concluded, the child’s grandfather and our Simeon began discussing the family’s origins. The course of the conversation led Matat to elaborate on the Davidic lineage of his house.

In Bethlehem, it never occurred to anyone to question the word of the head of the Carpenters’ Clan. Everyone believed—as had always been the custom in the town—that the Clan belonged to the house of David. Matat, Joseph’s grandfather, didn’t go around brandishing his family’s genealogical record as if it were a whip ready to fall upon the unbelievers. It wouldn’t have been necessary. It was simply the way it was; it had always been that way, and nothing else was appropriate. His parents had been considered sons of David since no one could remember when, and he, Matat, was fully within his rights to believe the word of his ancestors. After all, everyone was free to believe themselves to be the son of whomever suited them best. But of course, with the Zaccarian investigation at a standstill and the search for Solomon’s son in the historical archives stuck in a dead end, it was inevitable that a simple family of carpenters would leap into the realm of infallible truths; it was inevitable that our Simeon—a very close friend of the Kingdom’s Chief Genealogist—would find Grandfather Matat’s absolute certainty, if not amusing, then at least quite endearing. More than anything, it was the tone of certainty in Joseph’s grandfather’s voice.

When, without intending to offend the head of the Bethlehem carpenters’ clan, Simeon the Younger cast doubt on the legitimacy of his family’s Davidic lineage, Grandfather Matat looked at the young Simeon with slightly furrowed brows. His first reaction was to feel offended, and by his beard, had the doubt come from anyone else who had questioned his honor, he would have thrown them out of his house on the spot. But in honor of the friendship that bound him to the Simeons, and because the Younger had in no way intended to offend him, Grandfather Matat refrained from giving free rein to his temper. Also because, given the prevailing winds of the times—when all it took was a kick to a stone to produce descendants for David—the young man’s doubt seemed understandable to him.

A man of very good character, despite this manner of entering our story, and not wanting any doubt of any kind to linger between his house and that of the Simeons from then on, Grandfather Matat took our Simeon by the arm and led him aside. With all the trust in the world placed in his word, the man led him to his private chambers. He went to a chest as old as winter, opened it, and took from within a sort of bronze scroll wrapped in musty hides.

Before Simeon’s eyes, Grandfather Matat placed it on the table. And he unrolled it slowly, with the mystery of one who is about to bare his soul.

As soon as Simeon saw the contents wrapped in those musty hides, his pupils widened like windows as the first rays of spring broke through. A silent “Good heavens” slipped from his lips, but he concealed his surprise and hid the shiver of emotion running down his spine. For rarely in his life—even as a close confidant of the Kingdom’s Chief Genealogist, and despite how accustomed he was to seeing ancient documents, some as old as the walls of Jerusalem—had his eyes beheld a treasure as beautiful as it was significant.

That genealogical scroll exuded antiquity from every pore. The seals on its metal were two stars shining in a leatheren firmament as dry as the mountain where Moses received the Tablets. The characters of its script gave off exotic fragrances born on the battlefield where David had raised what would become the sword of the kings of Judah. Grandfather Matat unfurled his clan’s genealogical scroll in all its magical splendor and let the Young Man read the list of the ancestors of Joseph, his newborn grandson. It read:

“Heli, son of Matat. Matat, son of Levi. Levi, son of Melchi. Melchi, son of Jannai. Jannai, son of Joseph. Joseph, son of Mattathias. Mattathias, son of Amos. Amos, son of Nahum. Nahum, son of Esli. Esli, son of Naggai. Naggai, son of Maat. Maat, son of Mattathias. Mattathias, son of Semein. Semein, son of Josec. Josec, son of Jodda. Jodda, son of Joanam. Joanam, son of Resa. Resa, son of Zerubbabel.”

While he was reading it, Simeon the Younger did not dare to lift his eyes. A dazzling energy was coursing through every fiber of his being. Inside, he wanted to leap for joy; his soul felt like that of the Hero after victory, leaping naked through the streets of Jerusalem. Had Zechariah been there with him, by his side, by God, they would have danced the dance of the brave around the victory fire.

Of course, of course Simeon the Younger had seen a document just like that one—with different names, but from the same era—holding within its secrets the oldest Hebrew characters, written by the men who lived in Nebuchadnezzar’s Babylon. He had seen it in his own home. His own father had inherited it from his father and brought it to Jerusalem to deposit a copy in the Temple Archives. Yes, he had seen it in his own home; it was the pride of the Simeon family. How many families in all of Israel could produce a document of that nature? Simeon had known the answer since he was a child: only the families who returned with Zerubbabel from Babylon could do so, and all those who could do so were members of the Sanhedrin.

Good heavens! What our Simeon would have given to have his Zechariah by his side at that moment. In his eyes, the moon and the stars were not worth as much as that Babylonian bronze scroll bound to that cowhide parchment from Eden. That document was worth more than a thousand volumes of theology. What wouldn’t he have given to have had the chance to hear the rest of the List read from Zechariah’s own lips! It read:

“Zerubbabel, son of Salathiel. Salathiel, son of Neri; Neri, son of Melchi; Melchi, son of Addi; Addi, son of Cosam; Cosam, son of Elmadam; Elmadam, son of Er; Er, son of Jesus; Jesus, son of Eliezer; Eliezer, son of Jori; Jori, son of Matat; Matat, , son of Levi; Levi, son of Simeon; Simeon, son of Judah; Judah, son of Joseph; Joseph, son of Eliakim; Eliakim, son of Melea; Melea, son of Menna; Menna, son of Mattata; Mattata, son of Natam. Natam…son of David.”

 

13

The Great Synagogue of the East

 

Perhaps I am rushing through the sequence of events a bit, carried away by the emotion of my memories. I hope the reader will forgive me for having charged almost uncontrollably across the plain of the memories I am revealing to them. After having lain dormant for two thousand years in the silence of the lofty peaks of History, even the author himself cannot control the emotion that overwhelms him, and his fingers reach for the clouds with the same ease with which the wings of the snow eagle stretch toward the unattainable sun that gives life to its feathers.

The truth I have glossed over is the relative international calm that Julius Caesar’s empire brought to the region—a relative peace that worked in our heroes’ favor, stimulating their intellect, especially that of our Zechariah. Under different geopolitical circumstances, perhaps, the possibility of incorporating that peace into their strategic interests would never have crossed their minds.

Broadly speaking, everyone knows what kind of love-hate relationship between the Romans and the Parthians kept the Middle East in check during that century. In any case, textbooks on the history of the Ancient Near East and the Roman Republic are available to anyone. It is not a topic that features prominently in official historical accounts, largely due to the Parthians’ Asian origins—a detail that serves as sufficient excuse for Western historians, influenced by their Greco-Roman culture, to merely touch upon the history of their own Empire in passing. This history is not the best place to broaden the perspective in that direction; let it be noted here that I hope to do so at another time. In short, this history cannot infinitely expand the scope of the setting in which it unfolded. Official textbooks are there to broaden the perspective for anyone who wishes to delve a little deeper into the subject.

The relevant fact that pertains to this history centers on the influence that Caesar’s peace had on the region and the choices it placed in the hands of its inhabitants. Let us consider that whenever we think of the days of the conqueror of Gaul, the predominant focus remains on the trappings of his wars, his dictatorial instincts, and the web of political conspiracies against his imperium—always overlooking the benefits that his peace brought to all the peoples subjugated by Rome. In relation to our story, Caesar’s peace was not merely great—it was of the utmost importance.

Zechariah, who never stopped scheming about how to bring his search for the rightful heir to Solomon’s crown to a successful conclusion, one day thought of his partner’s words: “Take it easy, man. You’ll see that in the end we’ll find what we’re looking for where we least expect it, and when we least imagine it—you’ll see,” and he told himself that Simeon was absolutely right. They still hadn’t found what they were looking for because they’d been circling around nothing. And they probably would never stumble upon the clue about the sons of Zerubbabel by continuing to dig where there were no traces of their existence. So why not play the “Great Synagogue of the East” card? All they had to do was send an email asking the Magi of New Babylon to search their archives for Zerubbabel’s genealogy. Just that easy, just that simple.

Simeon the Babylonian, a native of Seleucia on the Tigris and an expert on the synagogue in question, nodded. He laughed and blurted it out from the bottom of his heart:

“Of course, my sons, how could we have been so blind all this time? There lies the key to the enigma. Don’t waste any time. Somewhere in that mountain of archives you must find the gem that’s been driving you crazy. The time is right. It’s now or never. No one can say when the peace will be broken. Let’s get to work.”

Zechariah and his men chose a thoroughly trustworthy courier from among the couriers of the Great Synagogue of the East who, once the routes were open, used to bring the tithe to Jerusalem. The message he was to carry on his return journey to Seleucia—to be read exclusively by the leaders of the Synagogue of the Magi of the East—concluded with these words: “Focus your investigation on the sons of Zerubbabel who accompanied him from Babylon to Jerusalem.”

Given the tension between the two empires of the time—the Roman and the Parthian—a taut rope that could snap at any moment, not to mention the constant nationalist uprisings typical of the Middle East, a response might take some time. But they had time.

Ever since the days of Zerubbabel, the Jews on the other side of the Jordan had managed to navigate the dangers and fulfill their obligation to pay the tithe. During the period of stability that the Persian Empire brought to Western Asia, the caravan of the Magi from the East arrived year after year. Later, after Alexander the Great’s conquest of Asia, the situation remained unchanged. Things took a turn for the worse when the Parthians set up camp east of Eden and dreamed of invading the West.

Antiochus III the Great struggled mightily to contain the onslaught of the new barbarians. His son, Antiochus IV, died defending the borders. With the lands of the Near East turned into a no-man’s-land open to looting and pillage following the death of the “Beast” of the Jews, the Jews east of the Jordan had to learn to fend for themselves; but no matter what happened, the caravan of the Magi from the East always arrived in Jerusalem with its cargo of gold, frankincense, and myrrh.

Despite this adversity, which was taken for granted, Zechariah’s message reached its destination. In due time, he returned to Jerusalem with the expected reply.

The answer to Zechariah’s question was as follows:

“Zerubbabel brought two sons with him from Babylon. The eldest was named Abiud; the younger was named Resa.”

And there was more, the messenger from the Magi continued to tell them:

“Zerubbabel gave the scroll of his father, the king of Judah, to his eldest son. Abiud’s son was, therefore, the bearer of the scroll of Solomon. To the younger son, he gave the genealogical   scroll of his mother. Consequently, Resa’s son was the bearer of the scroll of the house of Nathan, son of David. Except for their lists, the two scrolls were identical. As for the whereabouts of both heirs, they could give no details on that.”  

“How strange is the Almighty!” thought Simeon the Younger as he returned from Bethlehem. “What a strange way for the Almighty to move! The river hides beneath the earth, swallowed up by the rock; no one knows what path it will carve through the underground passages, far from the sight of all living beings.” Only He, the Omniscient One, knows the exact place where it will break through and come to the surface.

The Lord laughs at His people’s despair; He lets them dig in the ground, searching for the path the river will take—a river that, barely born, was lost in the heart of the earth—and when they finally throw in the towel under the weight of an impossible victory, and their hands are bleeding from the wounds of frustration, then the soul of the All-Knowing is moved; He rises, smiles at His own, and with a pat on the back goes and says to them: “Come on now, boys, what’s the matter with you? Lift up those eyes—what you’re looking for is right under your noses.”

Simeon the Younger smiled to himself, thinking of the look on his partner Zechariah’s face when he broke the news to him. He could already picture himself launching into the whole story of his discovery.

“Sit down, Zechariah,” he’d say.

Zacharias would stare at him blankly. Simeon the Younger would continue to shroud him in the mystery of his joy, determined to savor that moment second by second.

“What’s wrong, brother? Have you already lost that ability of yours to read my mind?” Simeon the Younger would press him.

Yes, sir—Simeon Junior was going to savor that moment down to the very last microsecond.

At that moment, there was nothing in the world he desired more than to experience, out in the open, the look on his partner’s face when he said:

“Lord Chief Genealogist of the Kingdom, tomorrow I will have the infinite pleasure of introducing you to Resa, the son of Nathan, son of David, father of Zerubbabel.”

 

14

The Alpha and the Omega  

 

Against the horizon, the ocean raises its mouth, devouring the sky. The winds howl; sharks plunge their paths into the dark depths, fleeing the fiery brambles that, in the form of whips of water, lash the strong arms that chose to die fighting rather than live dying. What unknown force, from the remote altars of the universe, sprinkles the eyes of men with its nectar of joyful courage—men who go barefoot and walk with bare souls along a path of thorns, seeking to warm their bones by the fire that never burns out? What energy hardens the bones of the “ ”—the lark of the distances between the two poles of the Earth’s magnet—as it traverses the brief seasons of its ephemeral life? Why does the long-suffering earth—crushed, exhausted, and scorched from its primordial mud—give birth to spirits destined to turn their backs on the coconut-tree-lined beach and venture alone into the depths of the black forests? What mystery lies hidden in the human soul that so many seek and so few attain? In what cradle did the firmament of the heavens nurse the breast that shows the arrow the cleft that will serve as its quiver among its ribs?

Are not the pleasures of life waves of cream and chocolate upon whose lips tender petals deposit their kisses? The king of the jungle sits on the plain, admiring the dance of his queen in the valley of the gazelles. The indomitable condor glides his feathered vessel over peaks that slice through the sky like heroes’ swords cutting through the enemy’s ranks. The dolphin of the oceans lets itself be carried by the warm currents, dreaming of encountering, along the paths of the sea, caravels of colonists intoxicated by dreams. Why was it man’s lot to experience the fluttering of ambitions, the clash of interests, the crackling of passions?

What shall we do with that part of our human nature? Shall we sing it a lullaby before the requiem? Shall we banish the birth of new heroes from our future? Shall we do to the children of the future what others did—give them a grave in the name of freedom? Or shall we lock them inside a cage so they chirp sadly like those foolish little birds that die if their freedom is stolen from them?

Every man faces a life of danger and another of comfort, oblivious to the fate of others. Every age has had its devil’s advocates and its prosecutors for Christ. The only thing we know is that once the journey begins, there is no turning back.

The messenger who brought him the reply to the Saga of the Forerunners from New Babylon was named Hilel. Hilel was a young doctor of the Law, a graduate of the School of the Magi of the East. Just as Simeon the Babylonian had done in his day, Hilel made his entrance into Jerusalem carrying the Tithe in one hand, and in the other a secret wisdom suited only to that class of men whom the earth brings forth, even if their fellow men condemn them.

The earth weeps as well, and its children learn as well. It has always been said that man knows more about hell—because he has lived amid its flames—than the devil himself and his rebellious angels, for since their future is our fate, those accursed children have not yet tasted the bitter flavor of the fires of the terrible underworld that awaits them at the turn of the century.

The wise Hellenes believed themselves superior to the Hebrews because of their ability to penetrate the mystery of all things. One is then compelled to ask: Does the one who stumbles over the donkey’s stone know more than the one who never fell? In other words, we are all condemned to learn by stumbling twice, like donkeys. And consequently, we must systematically condemn anyone who learned the lesson without having to bite the dust where the Serpent writhes.

In those days of dragons and beasts, of scorpions and centipedes, two paths lay open before mankind. If one chose the first path—to forget about gazing at the stars and devote oneself to one’s labors—existence demanded no more than the motto “live and let live”; let the tyrant crush and the powerful bring down, for that is their destiny; the destiny of the weak is to be crushed and brought down.

If they chose the second path, all wisdom was too little and all caution insufficient. Zechariah and his men had chosen this latter path. So had Hillel, the young doctor of the Law whom the Magi from the East had sent to them from New Babylon with the answer to their question.

Hillel did not merely bring them the names of the two sons of Zerubbabel who had accompanied him from Old Babylon to the Lost Homeland. Alone with the Saga of the Forerunners, he told them what they had never heard before; he revealed to them a doctrine whose existence they could not have imagined even in their wildest dreams.

That Zerubbabel was the heir to the crown of Judah, and that in his capacity as prince of his people he led the caravan returning from the Babylonian Exile, is a classic tale of Sacred History. Starting from this well-known fact, and assuming—as Zechariah and his saga do—that Zerubbabel’s eldest son was entitled to the birthright of the kings of Judah, Zechariah made his way through the genealogical mountain ranges of his nation. Ultimately, the impossibility of navigating those vast archives led him to look across the Jordan. And from what had once been the land of earthly paradise came the answer on the lips of the doctor of the Law, the protagonist of the following discourse.

“Here I am with the two sons the Lord has given me,” began Hillel, delivering the message he had brought from the current Chief of the Magi of the East, a man named Ananel.

“All of us here present have read these words of the prophet many times. David, however, did not have just two sons. He had many. But he included only two—as his words attest—in his messianic inheritance. We are speaking of Solomon and Nathan. The first was a sage; the second was a prophet. Between these two, David divided his messianic legacy.

In doing so, David removed from his heir to the throne the notion that he was the Son of Man, the Child who would be born of Eve to crush the Serpent’s head. In other words, Solomon was not to be swayed by the cries of his court clamoring for a universal kingdom; for he was not the Messiah-King of his father David’s visions.

A worthy son of his father, the wise king par excellence followed the Divine Plan to the letter. So did his brother, the prophet Nathan. From the day after his brother’s coronation, Nathan withdrew from the court and mingled with the people, leaving behind a legacy that is never forgotten nor ever fully grasped.”

(Many doubts may arise here regarding whether Nathan, son of King David, and Nathan the prophet were the same person. I do not wish to lose myself in the ramblings typical of a historian of past events. When the documentary evidence necessary for reconstructing a figure’s history is lacking, the historian must turn to the elements of an infinitely more precise science—namely, the science of the spirit. I’ll pose just one question and leave the topic at that. The king of the prophets… to what other prophet would he have opened the door of his palace except to the one born in his own house, born of his thigh, as the Greek “ ” said? Did his God not amaze him by making him laugh in that way? Of course, the matter remains pending confirmation by official documentation. But I insist: when natural evidence is lacking, the researcher must lift his gaze and seek the answer in the One who holds in His memory the record of all things in the universe. But if faith fails and God’s testimony is deemed worthless before the court of history, then we have no choice but to move on from the subject, or to wander endlessly in pursuit of that unattainable wisdom of the Hellenes. Assuming here that the wisdom of those present is free from prejudice against the Creator of the heavens and the Earth, we continue).  

“The house of Solomon and the house of Nathan parted ways. In due time, when God, in His omniscience, so determined, these two messianic houses would meet again, unite into a single house, and the fruit of this union would be the Alpha. When this event took place, his parents gave him a name; they called him Zerubbabel. This birth occurred approximately five centuries after the death of King David.

“Zerubbabel, son of David, heir to the crown of Judah, married and had sons and daughters. From among his sons, he chose two to repeat the task undertaken by his legendary father, and between them he divided his messianic legacy. The names of his two heirs were Abiud and Resa.

“Loving their father and fearing their God, the princes Abiud and Resa accompanied their father from the Babylon of Cyrus the Great to the Lost Homeland. They took up the sword against those who tried by every means to prevent the reconstruction of Jerusalem, and after their father’s death, they went their separate ways.

“Each of them inherited from their father, Zerubbabel, a genealogical scroll written in David’s own hand. The Solomonic scroll begins its list with Abraham. The Nethanelite scroll begins its list with Adam himself.

While no one is unaware of the succession from David to Zerubbabel in the Royal Lineage of Judah, the situation is different with the Nathanic Lineage. Its succession is as follows: Nathan, Mattathah, Menna, Melea, Eliakim, Jonam, Joseph, Judah, Simeon, Levi, Matath, Jorim, Eliezer, Jesus, Er, Elmadam, Cosam, Addi, Melchi, Neri, Salathiel.

Anyone who claims to be a son of Resa must present this list. Otherwise, his candidacy for the messianic succession must be rejected.”

But let’s recap.

    

15

The Daughter of Solomon

 

Five centuries after David’s death, the two messianic houses met in the Babylon of Nebuchadnezzar II. In the court of the Hanging Gardens, Salathiel, prince of Judah, was born. Salathiel married the heiress of the house of Nathan, and they had Zerubbabel.

All the Jews were already rejoicing because the son of the Scriptures had been born when God stirred up the spirit of prophecy in Daniel. With the authority of Nebuchadnezzar’s Chief Magician, Daniel silenced that messianic clamor by announcing the divine will to all the Jews. Namely, God had handed the empire over to Cyrus, prince of the Persians.

What Daniel did and said is written down. It is not for me to tell experts well-versed in Sacred History the number of wonders with which Daniel enveloped the throne of the Chaldeans, taking the crown from the heir to give it to the one chosen by his God.

The price Cyrus paid for the crown speaks with indisputable evidence to the nature of the prophet Daniel’s involvement in the events that led to the transfer of the empire from Babylon to Susa. But the concern that brings us together here has to do with the fate of the Alpha.

Indoctrinated by Daniel, the young Zerubbabel reenacted in his own life what his father David had done in his. He took the two sons whom God had given him and divided his messianic legacy between them. To the eldest, Abiud, he handed over the genealogical record of King Solomon. To the youngest, Resa, he handed over that of the prophet Nathan. And then he separated them so that the Alpha might follow its own path and grow until it became the Omega.

“We now have the bearer of the prophetic scroll,” Hilel continued his account, “the rightful heir of the prophet Nathan, son of David. His emergence is a physical manifestation of how close we are to the hour when the other arm of the Omega will break forth and come to light. The word of hope that my lips bring from the East is in your hearts: God is with you.” “The Lord who has led you to the house of Resa will pave the way for you to the house of his brother Abiud. In His Omniscience, He has gathered us all together to bear witness to the Birth of the Alpha and the Omega, the son of Eve, the heir to the Scepter of Judah, the Savior in whose name all the families of the Earth will be blessed.”

The discovery of the doctrine of the Alpha and the Omega amazed Zechariah and his Saga. It may also be amazing all of you who are reading these pages. The two genealogies of Jesus have been before everyone’s eyes ever since the Gospels were written. These two lists have caused many headaches for exegetes and other experts in the interpretation of the sacred scriptures. On such a beautiful day, I do not intend to claim victory over the memory of those who tried to transform these lists into a sort of heel against which to launch the arrow that killed Achilles. If God is the one who closes the door, who will open it against His will? Only He knows why He does what He does, and no one can fathom His reasons except the one whom He begot in His mind. Or does anyone believe that, against His will, someone could snatch away the victory that was denied to so many? Is it not true that Noah had in his Ark mighty eagles capable of braving the winds and casting their gaze upon distant horizons? And falcons as swift as shooting stars, born to defy storms. And yet it was the most fragile of all birds that defied Death.

But let's get back to our story.

Finding the son of Reza, son of Zerubbabel, son of Nathan, son of David, lifted the spirits of Zechariah and his men to fantastic heights.

They already had the bearer of the Natic scroll, a newborn child who had just come into the world in Bethlehem. His parents had named him Joseph.

Given this, the search for the son of Solomon—now that Nathan’s son was in swaddling clothes—became a search for Solomon’s daughter. A woman who might already have been born—or might not. If they were to find her—and assuming, in the best-case scenario, that they could persuade her parents to bring her family closer to that of her brother Resa, thereby uniting their heirs—Zacharias and Simeon the Younger would be witnessing the Birth of the Son of David, son of Abraham, son of Adam. In the fruit of that marriage between the son of Nathan and the Daughter of Solomon—the Alpha and the Omega—would be incarnated in the Child born to them.

They could do nothing but congratulate themselves and get to work.

But there was still a problem. If, as had been demonstrated with the house of the Son of Nathan, the parents of the Daughter of Solomon belonged to the humble classes of the kingdom, how would they find her? Once again, they would have to seek the answer in the Archives of New Babylon. Somewhere beneath the mountain of documents in the Great Synagogue of the East lay the clue that would lead them to Solomon’s Daughter. Of the two needles in the haystack, they had already found one; now they had to find the other.

It did not take long for Zechariah and his men to send a messenger to New Babylon with the following question: Where in the Holy Land had Abiud, the eldest son of Zerubbabel, settled?

Surely, among that mountain of scrolls in the Great Synagogue of the East, there had to be some document signed in Abiud’s own handwriting.

It was reasonable to believe that, following Messianic doctrine, the two brothers had parted ways and placed the future of their reunion in God’s hands. That was certain.

Communication was constant in those days between those who left New Babylon and those who remained in Seleucia on the Tigris; searching, searching, and searching, they would find a letter sealed by Abiud—there had to be some personal document in his own handwriting that would reveal to them which part of Israel Zorobabel’s eldest son had gone to and where he had settled.

Faith moves mountains—sometimes of stone, and sometimes of paper. In this case, it was of paper.

The following year, the answer was brought to Jerusalem by the chief of the Magi of the East himself. Ananel came with the Tithe. He presented his credentials to the king and the Sanhedrin. Once the formalities were over, he held a secret meeting with Zechariah and his entourage. It was brief.

“Indeed, Abiud and Resa went their separate ways. Resa settled in Bethlehem, and his descendants never left that place. His brother Abiud, on the other hand, headed north, crossed Samaria, and reached the heart of Galilee of the Gentiles. Following a policy of peaceful settlement by purchasing land from its owners— —Abiud bought all the land he could see from a hill called Nazareth.”

Ananel repeated this name, “Nazareth,” with the emphasis of one who knows that his listeners are hanging on his every word. “Nazareth!” repeated Zechariah and Simeon.

“Galilee of the Gentiles, a light has risen amid your darkness,” the two men whispered in unison.

Knowing how things stood, Ananel could assure them without a shadow of a doubt that the House of Abiud still stood. The question they now had to resolve was how to approach the Daughter of Solomon without arousing suspicion at the tyrant’s court.

 

16

The Birth of Solomon’s Daughter

 

On the horizon, Jacob of Nazareth wrote the words of a poet: “Oh woman, what shall I do if no one taught me the laws and principles of the art of deception? Why won’t you love me innocently? If my rib aches and you spring from the wound like a dream, what do you want me to do?”

Jacob had the soul of a poet lost in a galaxy of verses from Sharon, that Lily of the Valleys who sings of an elusive wisdom, wounded by the loves of her king. Matán, his father, married Mary; they had sons and daughters. Jacob was their eldest son.

In those days of uprisings against the Western Empire and invasions by the Eastern Empire, with Galilee subjected to looting and pillaging—a battleground for the ambitions of all other peoples—Jacob of Nazareth became his father’s right-hand man.

The young man, Jacob—though he was not really a boy anymore; I would say he was a full-fledged man—had not yet married. Not because he had spent his time sacrificing his youth for the well-being of his brothers and sisters. That’s what people in the village said. I wouldn’t go that far. Neither would he. How little they knew him! He didn’t take a wife because he dreamed of that extraordinary, paradisiacal love described by poets. Would his dream come true in that world of metal and stone?

Maybe yes, maybe no.

The truth is that Jacob of Nazareth had the stuff of that Adam who won Eve at the cost of having a rib taken from him. For Jacob, the world’s first poet was Adam. Jacob imagined the First Patriarch naked among the wild beasts of Eden—whether racing the panther or stepping between a tiger and a lion during a dispute over the crown of their friendship. For Jacob, when Adam went to bathe in the river, the great lizards of Eden would emerge from the waters. And when he saw the birds of Paradise alighting on the Forbidden Tree, he would scare them away with a stone so that they might live and not die. Then, as night fell, Adam would lie on his back dreaming of Eve. He saw her running beside him, her hair as long as a mantle of stars, both of them naked in the sun of Eden’s everlasting spring. And when he awoke, Jacob’s rib ached with loneliness.

Just like Adam in Eden, Jacob of Nazareth would sit against the trunk of one of the trees on the Cigüeñal Esplanade, dreaming of her, his Eve. One of those afternoons of poetic reverie, a doctor of the Law who claimed to be named Cleopas appeared on the southern road.

Meanwhile, on the other side of Herod’s kingdom, in Judea, the arrival of the head of the Great Synagogue of the East—a Magus named Ananel—shook things up when Ananel was elected to the high priesthood.

For many, Ananel’s election marked the completion of the purge of the Sanhedrin that Herod carried out the day after his coronation. He swore it, and he did it. He swore to all his judges what he intended to do to them the day he became king, and when, against all odds, he became king, Herod did not forget his word. Except for the men who had foretold his future, he had them all beheaded. He did not let a single one of those cowards escape who had missed the opportunity to crush him when they had him at their mercy. Afterward, he went and confiscated all their property.

The arrival on the scene of the Chief of the Magi from the East—with an eye toward reconciliation with the people—made Herod’s task easier. Even more so when, as president of the Sanhedrin, Ananel presented him with a plan to rebuild the synagogues of the kingdom—a plan that would cost the king not a single euro and would earn his crown the forgiveness of history.

As you know, in the wake of the persecution by Antiochus IV Epiphanes, the vast majority of Israel’s synagogues were razed to the ground. The Maccabean War and the subsequent military campaigns of the Hasmoneans prevented the reconstruction of the synagogues, which had been in ruins ever since.

Now that the Pax Romana had been established, the opportunity had arrived.

It is clear that if the funding for that reconstruction project had depended on Herod, the establishment of synagogues throughout the kingdom would never have come to pass. It was another matter entirely if the funding came from private capital. As it turned out, the project was carried out by its promoters.

As for the Sadducee clans, the priestly classes’ custom of managing the temple treasuries for their own personal gain would also have prevented the reconstruction of all the synagogues in the kingdom. With Ananel’s election as President of the Sanhedrin and his project enjoying the support of Zechariah’s men—on whom the final decisions of the Jewish Senate depended at that time—the project could and did move forward. Neither Herod nor anyone outside the Zechariah circle was able to imagine what secret objective lay behind that seemingly generous plan for synagogue reconstruction. Had Herod suspected anything, things would have turned out quite differently. The fact is that Herod took the bait.

Jewish history recounts that shortly after the project was signed, Ananel was removed from the high priesthood at the instigation of Queen Mariana in favor of her younger brother. Well, it doesn’t put it quite that way, because the Jewish historian buried that project in the swamp of oblivion. What it does say is that the queen did her younger brother a very poor favor, for no sooner had he been elevated to the high priesthood than he was murdered by the very man who had elevated him. But anyway, these details—so typical of that monster’s reign—are beside the point in this history. The fact is that Zechariah and his men were granted complete freedom of movement to carry out that generous project of rebuilding the kingdom’s synagogues. 

With a free hand to oversee the synagogue reconstruction, the problem Zechariah had to overcome was choosing the right person. Clearly, they couldn’t send some charlatan to Nazareth. If the envoy discovered the true purpose behind such a vast and costly project and let it slip, the future of Solomon’s Daughter would be doomed. The chosen one had to be an intelligent and ambitious man for whom the appointment would amount to a kind of exile. Blinded by what he would consider a punishment, all his energy would be directed toward completing his mission and returning to Jerusalem as soon as possible. And this is where that doctor of the Law named Cleophas enters the scene.

 

17

Cleophas of Jerusalem

 

This Cleophas was the husband that Elizabeth’s parents sought out for their youngest daughter. Having learned their lesson from the disappointment they suffered when their eldest daughter married Zechariah, Elizabeth’s parents sought a husband for her younger sister, lest she, too, follow in her older sister’s footsteps. The last thing they wanted for their youngest daughter was another man like Zechariah, so they married her off to a promising young doctor of the Law—intelligent, from a good family, a classic young man: the woman in the home, the man attending to men’s affairs; the perfect son-in-law. Isabel was very unhappy with the choice of Cleophas as a husband for her younger sister, but there was nothing she could do about it.

Cleophas believed that his marriage to Elizabeth’s sister would open the doors to the most powerful circle of influence in Jerusalem. It didn’t take long for Cleophas to discover what his brother-in-law Zechariah thought about this idea of opening the doors to his circle of power. Out of love for her sister, Elizabeth did smooth the way for him, but as far as Zechariah himself was concerned, it was a different story. Which made sense, considering what was at stake.  

Well, Cleophas had a daughter with his wife, whom he named Anna. Small in stature but with a beautiful face, Isabel showered her niece with all the affection she could not pour out on the daughter she would never have. That affection grew along with the girl and, over time, became an increasingly powerful influence on Anna’s personality.

Cleophas, the man in question, could not look favorably upon such a powerful influence on his daughter from his sister-in-law. His problem was that he owed Elizabeth so much that he was forced to swallow his complaints about the upbringing that her aunt was giving to “his beloved niece.” Not because the pampering was depriving her of the education befitting a daughter of Aaron; in this regard, Anna’s religious upbringing was every bit as good as that of the high priest’s own daughter. On the contrary, if we’re talking about envy, it was her own daughter who was the object of the most envy. The daughter of a doctor of the Law, the niece of the most powerful woman in Jerusalem—aside from the queen herself and Herod’s wives—Anna grew up surrounded by psalms and prophecies, receiving the religious education most befitting a living descendant of the brother of the great Moses.

The romantic ideals her sister-in-law was instilling in her daughter were what drove Cleophas, her father, up the wall. By the time Anna had grown into a young woman, there was no way to broach the subject of a marriage of convenience with her. No match her father sought out for her caught her eye. No suitor seemed good enough to her. Anna, like her aunt, would marry only for love—the man the Lord chose for her. And the girl confessed this to her father with such brazen innocence that it made his blood boil.

Anna was already of marriageable age when Zechariah summoned Cleophas in private and ordered him to prepare to set out for Galilee. He was the one chosen to rebuild the synagogue in Nazareth.

Unaware of the Doctrine of the Alpha and the Omega, Cleophas took the selection as a maneuver by his sister-in-law Elizabeth. As far as he was concerned, his selection was the doing of his sister-in-law, who was thus removing “her little girl’s” father from the picture and preventing him from arranging marriage deals.

Cleophas’s protests were of no use to him. Zechariah’s decision was firm. The mission entrusted to him by the Temple took priority. He had to leave Jerusalem immediately and report to Nazareth as soon as possible.

Before sending him to Nazareth, Zechariah conducted some preliminary research. He learned that Nazareth was governed by a man named Matan. This Matan was the owner of the Big House, which they called “The Stork.” His informant told him exactly what he had been hoping to hear. This Matan, as was said in the town, was of Davidic descent. However, no one had sworn to this—neither in word nor in deed.

With a nagging suspicion, Cleopas set out for Nazareth. He had never been to Nazareth before. He had heard of Nazareth, but couldn’t remember what. Based on what he had heard, he imagined what awaited him: Cleopas already saw himself banished from Jerusalem to a village of ignorant and, most likely, ragged country bumpkins.

Along the way, Cleophas could have bet anything that the address where he was to present his credentials would belong to a hut-dweller, little or no different from one of the caves of the Dead Sea. The more Cleophas mulled it over, the more his hair stood on end. He still didn’t understand why him. Why didn’t his brother-in-law Zechariah give the mission to some other doctor of the Law? What was his brother-in-law up to? He’d never entrusted him with any mission, and the one time he’d included him in his plans, he was sending him to the ends of the earth. What mistake had he made to deserve this exile?, the man complained to himself.

Was his sister-in-law Isabel really, truly not behind this scheme? He told himself she was. What Isabel intended was to remove her father from the picture and buy time for her niece Ana. Come to think of it, he could swear to it. When Ana least expected it, she would have crossed the line that Isabel herself had once crossed, and no one would be able to force her to marry the suitor he had chosen for her.

Cleophas spent the entire journey mulling it over in his head. The truth was that his brother-in-law Zechariah wasn’t the kind of man you’d expect to act like a pushover. Nor did Zechariah say more than was necessary—just the bare minimum—so figuring out what had prompted his decision to send him to Nazareth to rebuild a synagogue that any half-decent doctor could have put back together without anyone’s help was not just difficult—it was impossible. Better to believe that it was all according to Isabel’s will.

Cleophas was lost in his dramatic visions of the fate that awaited him when he rounded the last bend in the road. On the other side lay Nazareth. What a surprise it was when he looked up and came upon that sort of fortress-like farmhouse right in the heart of the hill!

Phew, he breathed a long, relieved sigh. The sight of the Cigüeñal lifted his spirits. At least he wouldn’t be spending the foreseeable future among cavemen.

Relieved, Cleophas made his way toward El Cigüeñal, the village’s “Big House.” Grandfather Matán, the owner of that large house with its architecture so unusual for the time, came out to greet him.

Grandfather Matán was a strong man for his age, a country man, weathered but still capable of harnessing the donkeys and lending a hand to his eldest son. His wife, Mary, had died; he lived with his firstborn son, a man named Jacob, who was in the fields at that moment.

Cleophas presented his credentials to the owner of El Cigüeñal. He briefly explained to Grandfather Matán the nature of the mission that had brought him to Nazareth.

Grandfather Matán smiled at him with complete sincerity, blessed the Lord for having heard the prayers of his fellow villagers, showed the envoy from the Temple the room he would occupy for as long as he needed it, and immediately summoned all the neighbors to his home to welcome him as Cleophas deserved.

Now that he had calmed down, Cleophas was glad to be able to serve the people of Nazareth. The warm and cheerful welcome the villagers showed him finally banished from his soul the bad omens that had accompanied him all the way up from Samaria.

That afternoon was the first time in his life that he came face to face with Jacob, his host’s son.   

 

18

Jacob of Nazareth 

 

The first time Cleopas saw Jacob, he was taken by surprise.

Jacob was a young man. The most distinctive feature of Matan’s son was his ever-present smile. Sometimes Jacob’s naturally cheerful disposition confused those who did not know him. From someone who had inherited his father’s estate, everyone expected a serious, bossy, even brusque man. Cleophas, too—without knowing why or how—had formed that very same impression of what Jacob would be like when thinking of Matán’s son. When he saw him for the first time, he was pleasantly surprised. The preconceived notion he’d held all day about the Stork’s heir crumbled to pieces the moment Jacob laid eyes on him.

The one thing that didn’t amuse him as much—as a Doctor of the Law, which Cleophas was—was the fact that Matán’s son was still unmarried. Any other man his age would already be a father.

At the remark, Jacob smiled heartily. But anyway, Cleophas hadn’t come to Nazareth to play matchmaker. If the boy was a bit of an oddball, that was his father’s business.

In many ways, Jacob reminded him of his daughter Anna. Like her, he would either marry for love or not at all.

Otherwise, I insist, Cleophas’s impression of Jacob was excellent. As for the question of the Davidic lineage of the owners of El Cigüeñal—whether they were descendants of David in name or in fact—what business was it of his anyway? Had he been sent to Nazareth to investigate the truth or falsehood of the Davidic lineage of Matán and his son? Of course not.

In short, the reconstruction of the synagogue in Nazareth was underway. It wasn’t just a matter of rebuilding walls. Once the building was finished and decorated inside and out, worship services had to be established. That was his mission: to have the synagogue up and running for the arrival of the doctor of the Law, to whom he would hand over the keys to the synagogue at the end of his term.

This obligation did not deprive him of his well-deserved vacation.

Cleophas did not know it, but in Jerusalem there were those who were dying to see him return. Had he known, perhaps things would have turned out differently, and the story that follows would never have come to pass. Fortunately, Wisdom plays with human pride and overcomes it by making use of the ignorance of the wise, so that, in full view of all, divine omniscience may be glorified.

And Passover arrived. As they did every year when peace permitted, Grandfather Matán and his son Jacob traveled down to Jerusalem to make offerings for the purification of their sins, pay the tithe to the Temple, and celebrate the greatest of the national festivals.

The Jewish Passover commemorated that night when, while the angel was killing all the firstborn of the Egyptians, the Hebrews ate lamb in their homes—a meal they would repeat in perpetual remembrance of God’s salvation throughout their lives.

Grandfather Matán recalled having traveled to Jerusalem for the festival for as long as he could remember. In other words, even if Cleophas hadn’t been in Nazareth, he and his son would have gone down to Jerusalem. But since both Cleophas and Matán were going, it made sense for them to go together.

Upon arriving in Jerusalem, Cleophas flatly refused to accept Matán’s idea. The man had gotten it into his head to spend the festival in a tent on the outskirts of Jerusalem, like everyone else. It was the custom. Around that time of year, Jerusalem looked like a besieged city, surrounded by tents on all sides.

Cleophas dug in his heels. Under no circumstances was he willing to allow his host to spend the festival out in the open when he himself had a house in the Holy City large enough to accommodate the entire town of Nazareth.

The excuse given to him by Matán and his son—“if they treated him that way in Nazareth, it wasn’t out of self-interest; what they did, they did from the heart, without expecting anything in return”—such an innocent excuse did them no good. For Cleophas, the only word that would do was “yes.”

“Are you going to bring a curse upon my house in the eyes of the Lord because of your pride, Matán?” Cleophas snapped, angry at his refusal to accept his invitation. Matán smiled and relented.

Cleophas was unaware, as I’ve said before, of the anxious anticipation with which Matán and his son were awaited in Jerusalem. And Cleophas was even more unaware—all the more so because it was God’s doing—that by inviting Jacob into his home, he was bringing his daughter Anna the man of her dreams as a Passover gift.

Once Matán and his son had settled into Cleophas’s house and the introductions were over, Zechariah and Grandfather Matán began a private conversation. Knowing our Zechariah, it’s not hard to guess what he was after or what kind of roundabout ways he took to steer Jacob’s father toward the topic that had his Saga’s heart in suspense. In this chapter, we won’t even attempt to recreate a conversation between anything more than a magician and a country man unversed in the arts of the Logos. Where I will focus my attention, however, is on the intuition Isabel felt when she first laid eyes on Matán’s son.

Isabel took advantage of the men’s conversation to take the young man by the arm and envelop him in her grace. From the very first moment Isabel saw Matán’s son, a ray of supernatural light entered her soul—something she could not explain in words but that drove her to act as if Wisdom itself had whispered its plans into her ear; and she, delighted to be its confidante, pretended to relinquish control of her body and surrender her will to her divine accomplice.

Smile upon smile—that of the young man meeting that of the mature beauty—Isabel took Jacob by the arm, led him away from the men’s gaze, and introduced him to the jewel of her household, her niece Ana.

 

19

Anna, the niece of Elizabeth, wife of Zechariah

 

God is witness to my words and guides the movement of my hands along the lines He draws, whether they remain crooked or straight in His judgment. The fact is that love at first sight exists. And knowing His creatures better than they will ever know themselves, He kindled in His Wisdom the fire of eternal love within those two dreamers who, from opposite corners of the horizon, without knowing one another, sent verses to each other on the wings of the firmament.

The first to see the radiance of that divine flame was Isabel. And she was the first woman in the world to witness the Daughter of Solomon being born of that love that would burn without being consumed.

Since Anna and Jacob were unable to tear themselves away, and with Elizabeth sheltered beneath her fairy-godmother’s cloak—that divine flame that had enchanted the two who were struck by the lightning bolt of Love—Elizabeth managed to keep them alone and together, far from the gaze of men, always so grumbling, always so self-righteous.

Her husband Zechariah, for his part, sought out the company of Grandfather Matán and employed the boundless arsenal of intelligence that his God had given him to coax from Jacob’s father the name of the son of Zerubbabel from whom his lineage descended.

As he uttered those five letters—A-B-I-U-D—Zacharias felt his strength fail him.

Simeon the Younger, standing beside him, read in his eyes the emotion that nearly knocked Zechariah to the ground.

“Why are you so surprised, man of God?” Elizabeth replied upon hearing him repeat those five letters: A-B-I-U-D. “Hasn’t your God given you enough proof that He Himself is guiding your every move? I’ll tell you something else. I have seen Solomon’s daughter in the womb of your niece Anna.”

The return to Nazareth was hard for Jacob. For the first time in his life, Jacob was beginning to discover the mystery of love—extreme happiness and utter agony in the same package. Is this love? He didn’t know whether to burst into tears of joy or of sorrow. Could this be why God made man and woman to never be separated—because if they part, they die? If, even before the rib of loneliness, his pain had disguised itself as a poet and painted the face of his beloved upon the blue firmament, now that he had seen her in the flesh, those verses had undergone a metamorphosis; they were beginning to emerge from their chrysalis, and, truth be told, it hurt. So much so that he was already beginning to wonder if it hadn’t been better had they remained among the dawns and spring dews. Now that he had seen her, now that he had savored the fragrance of her smiles in her eyes—sensations he had never imagined had seeped into his very marrow and made his bones vibrate with sorrow and happiness. Oh, Adam’s rib.  

As they rode on, Grandfather Matán looked at his son, puzzled by his silence and sighs. All his life, his Jacob had been a natural conversationalist—outgoing and easygoing. But ever since they’d left Jerusalem, and had already traveled through all of Samaria, his son hadn’t broken a single rule of monosyllabic speech.

“Is something wrong, Jacob?”

“Nothing, Father.”

“It looks like it’s going to rain, son.”

“Yes.”

“It’ll be time to plant the beans soon.”

“Of course.”

The Doctor of the Law, Cleophas of Jerusalem, wasn’t very talkative either. He simply went with the flow, speaking only when necessary. Was returning to work once a cause for celebration and joy? So there was no need to make a big deal out of it.

The question was how long it would take Grandfather Matán to discover his son’s heartbreak. And how long would it take Cleophas himself?

Grandfather Matán didn’t take long to get to the heart of the matter. Jacob tried to stall his father. It had all been so sudden, almost like a hallucination. How much longer would he deny himself the chance to ask his father to ask Cleophas for his daughter’s hand in marriage? The more he thought about it, the more he marveled.

In any case, even if Jacob remained silent, Grandfather Matán was already figuring it out. Something had happened in Jerusalem that had changed his son so decisively, so quickly, and so profoundly. What else could it be but Cleophas’s daughter?

When, in time, Cleophas announced his desire to travel down to Jerusalem and his son Jacob spontaneously offered to accompany him—lest some bandit might take advantage of that lone traveler—Jacob’s father no longer had any doubts. His son was hopelessly in love with Cleophas’s daughter.

Cleophas, on the other hand, was completely oblivious. The man gladly accepted Jacob’s offer. God only knows what would have happened if Cleophas had been aware of the love story between his daughter Anna and the son of Matán. The man was so old-fashioned that he simply could not fathom the marriage of a daughter of Jerusalem’s upper class to the son of a Galilean peasant, no matter how wealthy the groom might be. And so he allowed himself to be escorted.

In Jerusalem, amid tears of impatience that Aunt Elizabeth wiped away with hands trembling with laughter, her daughter Anna waited for the day her Prince Charming would appear.

Since Elizabeth knew her brother-in-law as if she’d given birth to him herself, she took Jacob and brought him to her house. That way, she killed two birds with one stone. Zechariah would have the Son of Abiud all to himself, and along the way, the two young people would have all the time in the world to pledge their eternal love to one another once again. In due time, her brother-in-law would find out what was going on. According to Isabel, this was the Lord’s doing, and woe betide her brother-in-law if he dared to get in the way.

Oblivious to the class prejudices and social concerns of adults, Jacob and Ana wrote each other verses from Sharon amid lilies of promises as vast as pyramids and as resplendent as stars in the light of the eyes of the fairy godmother whom God had sent them. And they parted with the promise that next time he would come accompanied by his father, bearing in his hands the dowry for the virgins.

When Cleophas and Jacob returned to Nazareth, the young man explained his desire to his father. His father held back his emotions, begging him to wait until Cleophas had finished his work. Then he himself would go down to Jerusalem to ask for his daughter’s hand in marriage.

Jacob accepted his father’s suggestion.

Cleophas, in fact, finished his work, said goodbye to the people of Nazareth, and returned to his usual life. Shortly after settling in Jerusalem, he received a surprise: a visit from Matan.

“Matan, man, what’s going on?”

“As you can see, Cleophas, a father’s duties have brought me to your home.”

“You tell me.”

Jacob’s father told him everything that was going on. His son wanted his daughter as a wife and had come as a co-father-in-law with the dowry for the virgins in hand.

Cleophas listened in silence. Once Matan had finished explaining why he’d come to his house, Cleophas remained silent. It was the typical shock that overtakes someone who’s always the last to find out; Cleophas was stunned. In such cases, the shock is followed by the classic outburst of anger.

The flame ignites in his brain: Had his daughter Ana pledged her love to Jacob? And when had that happened? And how had she dared to give herself to a man without her father’s consent and blessing? Anger is a spark destined to become a blaze; it turns into a flame and ends up spewing fire from his mouth.

Ana, the self-interested young woman—though not exactly well-mannered—listened from behind the door, her heart in her throat, to the conversation between her father and her beloved’s father. Her fingers were itching to build an altar to her father’s “yes” in the most beautiful corner of her soul. Her “father-in-law” gave her such a warm look as he passed by that she already considered herself married and felt herself soaring on wings of utter bliss toward her wedding chamber.

The young woman was biting her lip when her father spoke up.

“And how could that be, my good Matán, if my daughter is already betrothed to another man?”

Cleophas was lying. An innocent lie to avoid being seen as the one who stabs the man to whom, until yesterday, he had professed eternal friendship.

Good heavens, to spare his friend the stab, he was plunging the dagger right up to the hilt into his own daughter. The girl slumped down against the wall, her heart pierced right through. Too weak to run away and throw herself off the ramparts, Ana endured the rest.

“I’m sorry, but your son’s claim is an impossibility beyond my control,” her father concluded.

Grandfather Matán fell completely silent. In the blink of an eye, it dawned on him. By his beard, Cleophas was lying to him. As far as he was concerned, what was truly at stake there was Cleophas’s refusal to accept his word regarding the Davidic origin of his House. Had it been true—the engagement to an “ ” and “unknown” suitor—Grandfather Matán would have accepted the refusal without feeling the adrenaline burning in his gut. But no—the holy and immaculate servant of God whom he had welcomed into his home, honoring him as if he were the Lord himself, was now dropping his mask. His daughter was to marry a peasant—and from Galilee, to make matters worse?

Cleophas would have been better off telling him to his face exactly what he was thinking. The truth was that he had never bought into the story about Jacob of Nazareth’s supposed Davidic lineage. While he was in Nazareth, since it didn’t concern him one way or the other, he simply brushed the subject aside. Whether it was true or not was none of his business. Now that Matán was asking for his daughter’s hand for his son, he no longer had any reason to keep playing the hypocrite.

“That’s my final word,” Cleophas concluded the discussion.

“I’ll give you mine,” Jacob’s father blurted out. “I’d rather marry my son to a sow than to the daughter of a clever son of murderers who live off the blood of their brothers at the cost of their people’s destruction.”

Lord, if the child was already mortally wounded, the words of Jacob’s father dealt the final blow to Ana’s soul.

Ana ran out of her house and roamed the streets of Jerusalem, leaving behind a river of broken tears. As best she could, she found her aunt Elizabeth’s house. She went inside and threw herself into her arms, ready to die forever.

While Elizabeth tried to stem that flood of tears, Grandfather Matán mounted his horse and galloped at full speed up through Samaria. When he arrived in Nazareth, his blood was still boiling. His son Jacob was stunned to the core upon hearing his words: “You’d sooner marry a sow than the daughter of Cleophas.” Those were his final words.

  

20

The Birth of Mary

 

How foolish men are, Lord! They seek You, and when they find You, with words as sharp as knives, they curse themselves because You speak to them. Like someone who found what he was looking for and regrets having found it because he had been expecting something else, men turn their words into swords and spears, disfigure their faces with war paint, and, hating hell, kill one another believing they are killing the Devil himself. “A lever to move the universe!” says one. “My kingdom for a horse!” cries the other, believing he is inscribing words of golden wisdom on the walls of time.

When will they learn to be free with the freedom of one who has infinity before him? Man’s existence is like that of a butterfly that flies for twenty-four hours and, when the day’s twilight arrives, surrenders its body to the mud from which it came to life—but unlike that weightless creature, in those twenty-four hours man transforms that precious, brief day into a hell of monstrosities. Why did you give the stone a mouth? Why give arms to one whose imagination is limited to turning his fragile fingers into weapons of destruction? What moved you to elevate their brains above those of birds, who ask only for a piece of sky for their wings?

Alas, alas, the soul of Jacob. Alas, how the son of Matán of Nazareth wept over his misfortune. Among the olive groves where Noah’s dove once wrested from God the promise of eternal life without return, at the foot of the tree where the son of Matán would die in the not-too-distant future, Jacob poured out the joy that his heart could not contain in the desert of pride. He had spent his whole life dreaming of her, and now that his hands had touched the flesh of his dreams, his rib was cast into the fire.

“Vanity of vanities, all is vanity,” a wise man wrote on a sacred wall. Is it any wonder that when he wrote that, the man could not have been very much in love?

Oh, Ana’s heart. Do eyes weep blood? Does pure water flow through the veins? What hidden mystery did God forge when He conceived two people to be one? Why did He not make the male and female human in accordance with the nature of beasts? They mate at the command of their instincts and part without sorrow. Why did the Lord have to raise from the mists of instinct the flame of murderous loneliness against which Adam was born defenseless in his paradise? How easy it would have been for the Eternal One to make man in the image and likeness of machines… You program the creature, set it loose in its sidereal zoo, the heavens move through their constellations, and to the rhythm set by its coordinates, the creature mates and reproduces like a plague. Why replace an infallible program—as we see in the natural world—with a code of freedom? Spring arrives, and creatures mate and multiply calmly but without pause. While instinct calls to arms, the human being stands firm and responds with a single word. They call it love.

And yet, once the fruit of that code has been tasted, who is it that looks back? The beasts call Love “sex”; the beasts call sex by its name. Or when sex dies, does Love cease to exist? Or is there no Love without sex? Contrary to the opinion of such experts, the rest of us know that Love exists independently of the reproductive act of the species. And because it exists, it wounds those who desire it but do not have it. Yesterday, today, and always, where there is love, there will be pain.  

Grandfather Matán closed his ears to his son’s lamentations. He did not want to hear Cleofás’s name again, not even in his dreams. For him, the matter had been settled once and for all. His heir could go ahead and find himself a wife among the barbarians if, in his spite, he so desired; he would not say a word against it, but by God and His prophets, he would disinherit him before suffering such a great humiliation again.

Unlike Matán, once the dust had settled, Lady Isabel drew the rod of her temper, went after her brother-in-law, and brought it down on his back with these words: “Fool, devourer of your own daughter, what game are you playing? Do you stand between God and His plans by invoking your status as a servant? Are you rebelling against your Lord by imploring Him to leave your house in peace? I tell you that, as surely as there is heaven and earth, my little girl will marry the Son of Abiud within a year from this day forward.”

Phew, if Cleophas thought the storm had passed, it was because he hadn’t yet received a visit from Zechariah. His sister-in-law had thundered; his brother-in-law would unleash lightning and thunder upon him.

But not with words of anger or rage. Zechariah realized that part of the blame for what had happened lay with him. As things stood, he could no longer keep his brother-in-law in the dark about the Doctrine of the Alpha and the Omega. He sat him down and told him everything.

The Son of Resa, son of Zerubbabel, lived in Bethlehem. He was a child, and his name was Joseph.

The Son of Abiud, Zerubbabel’s other son, was someone he already knew—his name was Jacob. The hope that had taken root in all their hearts was that the Daughter of Solomon would be born of the marriage between Jacob and Anna. Thus had God ordained it, and though it was only a hope, they were staking their lives on it coming to pass. Those two children would marry, and from them would be born the Son of David, the son of Eve for whom all the children of Abraham had been longing for millennia.

As for Jacob’s genealogical legitimacy—about which he had no doubt whatsoever—they would soon have proof.  

Out of prudence, Isabel insisted on taking charge of resolving the situation herself. Matán would be more likely to back down in the face of a woman than if it were “someone else” from Jerusalem who came to demand that he change his attitude. Also, an unexpected trip by one of them might arouse suspicion at King Herod’s court, whereas if she went, no one would miss her.

And so it was done. Isabel arrived in Nazareth and went straight to the Stork. When Jacob’s father saw her, he was speechless.

What did that lady want now?

Very simple. To pay her respects to the Son of Abiud. On behalf of her entire household, including her brother-in-law, she had come to ask for her son Jacob’s hand in marriage for her niece Anna. And on the way, she had traveled from Jerusalem to Nazareth to reveal to the Son of Abiud the Doctrine of the Alpha and the Omega.

Grandfather Matán listened in wonder to the sequence of events experienced by Zechariah and his Saga. At the end of the story, Grandfather Matán bowed his head, nodded in acknowledgment, and asked him to wait a moment.  

He returned immediately, carrying a genealogical scroll wrapped in parchments as ancient as the first dawn that spread its light over the oceans. Elizabeth felt a shiver run down her spine—the same sensation that Simeon the Younger had once experienced. Aware of the encounter at the House of Resa, Grandfather Matán unfurled the List of Saint Matthew on the table.

The same metal, the same seal, the same characters—only the names had changed.

“Matán, son of Eleazar. Eleazar, son of Eliud. Eliud, son of Aquim. Aquim, son of Zadok. Zadok, son of Eliakim. Eliakim, son of Abiud. Abiud, son of Zerubbabel.”

Isabel could not stop her breath from catching at her lips. Even as she tried to remain calm, her eyes danced with joy over the line that the sons of Abiud had traced through the centuries.

Then she read the list of the kings of Judah, from the last one back to Solomon.

“And by the way, where’s your Jacob?” Isabel blurted out when she finished reading.

That woman was pure genius. Jacob jumped for joy when he saw his fairy godmother. The sparkle in Elizabeth’s eyes revealed to him the change in his father’s mood. You can imagine the rest. Matán and his son accompanied Elizabeth back to Jerusalem, bringing with them the jewel of the House of the sons of Abiud, the dowry for the virgins, and the terms of the marriage contract.

Cleophas saw with his own eyes what he had never asked to see during his stay at the Stork. Like his brother-in-law Zechariah, who witnessed the encounter, Cleophas marveled at seeing the other twin scroll in the possession of Joseph’s father. But if those present thought the surprises were over for the day, they were mistaken. The terms of the marriage contract left them stunned. They were as follows:

First: The property of the Son of Abiud—in this case, Jacob—was non-transferable. What did this mean? In the event of Jacob’s death, his inheritance would pass directly to his firstborn, whether the couple’s first child was male or female.

Second: In the event of widowhood, the widow could never sell, either in part or in whole, the property of Jacob’s heir. That inheritance—the Stork and all its lands—would be reserved for her heir until he reached the age of majority. What did this mean? That the widow’s household would have no claim to Jacob’s inheritance.

Third: If Jacob’s widow were to remarry, the children from this new marriage would have no share in the deceased’s inheritance.

Fourth: If the couple had no children, Jacob’s inheritance would pass directly to the sons of Matán. Jacob’s widow, however, would live in her late husband’s house until her death.

Fifth: If Jacob of Nazareth’s heir were a woman, she would inherit her father’s messianic legacy, which she in turn would bequeath to her heir. If, as had happened on previous occasions, one woman were succeeded by another, the messianic succession would pass from Jacob to the next eligible male heir. Let us say that if Jacob were succeeded by a female, it would fall to her alone—and not to his widow—to pass on his inheritance to her chosen one. Any transfer of Jacob’s inheritance to a house united with his descendants by marital ties would not be valid in this case. The inheritance would pass from mother to daughter until a male took the helm of the House of Abiud, whose name would follow that of Jacob.

This was how Joseph came to be Jacob’s son, uniting in his hands the leadership of both Houses—that of his father and that of his late father-in-law. He would bequeath this unified inheritance to his firstborn, the Son of Mary.

The terms of this contract drew a smile of admiration from those present. The absence of generations in the List of the House of Abiud found its explanation in this line of succession, so atypical within Jewish patriarchal traditions. Thanks to this truly unique arrangement, the House of Abiud had maintained its property in its original extent and continued to ensure that it would remain so.

Once the contract was signed by the co-in-laws, the wedding took place a year later, and in due course, the couple welcomed a baby girl into the world.

In memory of her mother, Jacob named her Mary.

“Didn’t I tell you, man of God, that I saw the Daughter of Solomon in my little girl’s womb?” enveloped in divine happiness, Elizabeth said to her husband.

   

21

Life of the Holy Family

 

Once the bearers of the messianic scrolls had been found, after the Virgin’s birth, Zechariah gathered Eli, Joseph’s father, and Jacob, Mary’s father, at his home. The two men had much to say to one another. The discovery of the Alpha and the Omega had revolutionized their lives and the future of their children—and how! Zechariah, overcome with emotion, let his heart speak freely.

“How incredible is Wisdom! The strong believe they have the weak strangled under the weight of their callous and violent souls, while the little ones abandon themselves to the fate that the great wish to inscribe on their backs with the whip of their perverse wickedness. Dreams of freedom cease to soar over the horizon, giving way to darkness; hopes now lie shattered at the feet of their armies. But suddenly, Wisdom turns around. She is tired of being pursued, of never being caught. She becomes the daughter of the wind, fixing her gaze on the athletes of thought; one begs her to choose him, another promises her eternal love. She does not speak; Wisdom has chosen her champion. She advances toward him, takes his hand, lifts him from the dust, winks at him, and bestows upon him the crown of life. Stunned, driven mad, scandalized by her choice—because she set her eyes on the least among them, because she bestowed her favors on one who was nothing—those scorned by fate then conspire with the darkness to destroy the Eternal One. She, the Bride of the Almighty, laughs; her Bridegroom raised the galaxies with a single movement of his hands; it was enough for him to open his lips just once for Hell to tremble. She is the apple of his eye—what could she possibly fear from the plans of the genies?

Here are her men. The two rivers that she hid underground—and which everyone had presumed lost—have resurfaced, and, in a mystery that inspires wonder and the singing of new psalms, they have done so through the very mouth of the earth.”

Heli and Jacob introduced their children. Solomon’s daughter, Mary, and Nathan’s son, Joseph, were alive. The Virgin in her cradle, Joseph standing among the men, gazing at her.

Then Simeon the Younger spoke words of wisdom: “Ignorance, my friends, has the human race chained to the post of the dog born to guard his master’s door. God created Man to taste the sweetness of freedom like a Samson immune to Delilah’s spells. The treacherous Devil forgot his divine nature, envied the human condition, and, having ended up possessing that of the beasts, howls in a delirium at the stars of Hell, which he worships as Paradise. A coward—with the cowardice of one who builds his greatness upon the corpse of an army of children—the Serpent has gone mad, believing he can track the eagle by the trail it leaves in the heavens. Fear not, my friends; He is with us. The Sacred Eagle scans every movement of the Dragon from the invisible cliff; as it breathes, the dark fire pours from its nostrils, and the muscles of the Great Spirit tense like bows ready for battle; if it advances a single foot, the Warrior leaps from his peaceful sleep in the Sage’s tent and grasps his arrow—swift as lightning, strong as thunder. What we are experiencing here is the dawn of a new Day that is already spreading its light upon the immaculate eyes of your children’s innocence.

“Let the enemies of the Kingdom of God plot their plans of destruction in their caves; let the enemies of Man hide in the labyrinths of the underground chambers of Power—we fear nothing, for God is with us. His bow is drawn, His sword is sharp, and His shield protects us. If the Devil is greater than our Savior, why did he flee to hide after killing Adam? Does the lion flee from the gazelle? Does the victor kneel before the throne of the vanquished? If the Devil is hungry, let him eat the stones; if he is thirsty, let him drink all the sand of the desert. Your children are far from his clutches.” 

It was a stirring oath. Words were spoken that would never be forgotten. Eli and Jacob swore to marry their children when the time came. They vowed that if they broke their word, the Almighty would cast their souls into the abyss where demons dwell.

Then they each returned to their daily lives. Eli gave his son Joseph brothers and sisters. Jacob took Mary’s sisters as his wives; later, he had the son for whom they had longed so much.

Joseph was already a man and Mary a woman, both on the verge of signing the most secret and important marriage contract in the history of the world, when the news of the death of Jacob of Nazareth—husband of Anna of Cleophas and father of Mary—left everyone who lived to see that day speechless.

Had Mary not made that vow of hers, the wedding would have been brought forward. Mary’s vow, as I said, affected Joseph himself the most. For a moment, it seemed as though the edifice of all their hopes was crumbling, when Joseph wrote in the annals of eternity those words of his, which his wife would one day repeat to the angel at the Annunciation: “May God’s will be done; behold, I am His servant. Our fathers have waited a thousand years; I can well wait a few.”

Those were the years that were—no more, no less. When his time came, Joseph made his arrangements and set out for Nazareth. He leased a plot of land from the Widow to set up his carpentry shop and waited for Cleophas to marry so that he, in turn, could marry Mary.

After the birth of Joseph, the second son of Cleophas, Joseph paid the dowry for the virgins. A year later, the wedding was celebrated.

And the wedding took place despite the shadow of adultery that hung over the Virgin’s innocence.

Just as his mother-in-law had told him, the angel of God dispelled Joseph’s doubts. With the shadow of adultery lifted, Joseph mounted his horse and rode to Judea to fetch the Child’s Mother. The event of John’s Annunciation had been revealed to him by the messenger whom Zechariah had sent. What Joseph did not expect was to find Zechariah and Elizabeth transformed into young men and women full of life. But after what had happened to him, nothing surprised Joseph anymore. Or so he believed. For when Zechariah regained his speech, his first words were to reveal to Joseph the thoughts that had been growing in his soul since the Virgin’s arrival regarding the Son of Mary.

“My son, God our Lord has amazed us with a wonder of infinite nature. From ancient times we have known that God is Father, as we can read in His Book. By forming us in His image and likeness, He gave us a taste of the sweetness of fatherhood; and by revealing Himself to us as the Father of many children, He opened our eyes to the existence of one among them born to be His Firstborn. What He never openly revealed in His Book is that this very Firstborn was His Only-Begotten Son. Or perhaps we failed to see it in His words when His prophet said: ‘You will weep as one weeps for a firstborn; you will mourn as one mourns for an only-begotten son.’

“My son, that is the Son your wife carries in her womb. Your Lord has placed His Child in your hands, Joseph. His life is in your hands; if His life is already in danger because of who He is—the son of Eve who was to be born to us—what will be the responsibility of the man to whom the Father has entrusted the care of His Only-Begotten Son? Never let your guard down, Joseph. Defend him with your life; wrap your arm around his Mother and place your own body between her and those who will come seeking her to kill her Son. Remember that he is to be born in Bethlehem because it is written. And precisely because it is written, that will be the first place where the devil will direct his murderous hand.”

Joseph listened to the words of Zechariah, son of a prophet and father of a prophet, unable to believe that God would allow any man—whether named Herod or Caesar—to touch even a single hair on the head of Mary’s Son.

So Joseph returned to Nazareth, celebrated his wedding with Mary, who was already well along in her pregnancy, and prepared to go down to Bethlehem when Caesar Octavian Augustus’s decree for a census stirred up a spontaneous outcry of insurrection throughout the nation.

Only once had the tribes of Israel submitted to a census. On everyone’s mind was the price the people had paid for King David’s census. What punishment would befall them if, out of fear of Caesar, they disobeyed the prohibition against being counted like livestock?

The uprising broke out in Galilee. Judas the Galilean and his men preferred to die as brave men fighting against Caesar rather than live as cowards before God. The effect of Judas the Galilean’s uprising was to cut off the roads.

“How long will this uprising last? Obviously, as long as Herod’s master wills it,” Joseph replied to his brother-in-law Cleophas. “Don’t you think Herod is capable of wiping out Judas and his men in the time it takes for his father’s famous cavalry to neigh? The Herods must be biting their nails right now. If it were up to them, they would have already put an end to this holy war. But I think Caesar doesn’t want that, and Caesar is the one in charge. The Romans have decreed that the census begin in the kingdom of the Jews because they knew this would happen. The merciless crushing of Judas and his men will serve as propaganda against any other possible insurrection; that is how the Romans prevent the disease.”

Joseph was not mistaken. The Herods obeyed their Roman master’s order. They let the Galilean uprising grow. When the victim was fat enough for the slaughterhouse, they sent out their armies. They killed as many as they could from the Galilean’s band, and with the bodies of the survivors they strewn crosses along all the roads leading to Jerusalem.

Joseph and Mary passed beneath that multitude of crosses on their way to Bethlehem. Is it any wonder that, overcome with grief, the Virgin went into labor as soon as she arrived at her husband’s house?

In this chapter, the truth depends less on the facts than on the faith of each side in the court of history. If we place our trust in the historian Flavius Josephus—a traitor to his homeland, yet a savior of his people by ensuring, through his *Jewish Antiquities*, that the Caesars learned to distinguish between Jews and Christians, even at the cost of turning his descendants into a nation at perpetual war against the Truth—then in this case, the insurrection of which the Apostles speak was born in the imagination of the authors of the New Testament.

The principles of Psychohistory, however, stand against the distortion that Flavius Josephus carried out by erecting between Jews and Christians the wall of steel that would keep them apart for twenty centuries—an act that required him to deny the very existence of Christ himself, thereby becoming, in doing so, the Antichrist of whom Saint John spoke.

  

22

The Birth of Jesus

 

The uprising had been crushed, and Jerusalem was besieged by an army of crosses; amid such turmoil, Joseph and Mary—who was already in a very advanced stage of pregnancy—made their way through.

When Joseph and Mary arrived in Bethlehem, the village was packed to the brim. Joseph’s brothers were surprised—for none of them had imagined that Joseph would come down before his wife gave birth—so they improvised a bed in the manger for Mary to give birth.

Once again, the elements of psychohistory demand our attention. I mean, Herod would not have ordered the Massacre of the Innocents had the Romans been present in Bethlehem. The Romans, on whom his coronation ultimately depended, would never have allowed such a crime. As soon as they left, Herod set to work. But it was already too late. Joseph, Mary, and the Child had left.

This set of psychohistorical elements opens our eyes to the Battle between Heaven and Hell of which St. John speaks in his Revelation. Death, having been unable to prevent the fulfillment of the Scriptures or the Birth from taking place, had to lay hands on the Child. But Life, confident in its strength, moved across the chessboard of the Earth with the certainty of one who knows the strategy and capabilities of his enemy and is always one step ahead. By the time Herod went to lay his hands on the Child, his parents had already left. Certainly not to Jerusalem. Although they could have taken refuge in the home of Mary’s grandmother.

And I say “not to Jerusalem” because, had they stayed in Jerusalem, the words of Simeon the Younger as he greeted the Mother and the Child in the Temple would make no sense. But if he saw the Child for the first time, then yes.

In this, as in everything else, the reader must judge for himself whom to believe: a traitor to his homeland, repackaged as a sort of savior of the very people he betrayed, or men who, out of love for the truth, carried that love to its ultimate consequences. I say this because, in the wake of this new retelling of the events, there will be those who argue that this way of rearranging the timeline does not correspond to the actual sequence of events as they occurred.

So, after the Child was born and the Mother was already on her feet, Joseph registered his son. We do not know what Joseph’s original intention was. If it was to stay in Bethlehem, his plan changed after the secret conversation he had with the Magi.

As you have already deduced, the Magi were not kings. The Magi were the bearers of the tithe from the Great Synagogue of the East, and as such, they were required to make a stop at the Temple.

What the Magi never imagined as they journeyed joyfully was that they would travel the last few kilometers of their journey beneath a sea of crosses. Thank God, the turmoil of the moment had kept Herod’s son occupied, and they made their way to Bethlehem to warn Joseph.

Joseph registered his son and returned to Nazareth. After the number of days stipulated by the Law had passed, he went down to the Temple, believing the danger had passed. He entered the Temple with his wife when Simeon the Younger came up to him.

“What are you still doing here, man of God?” he asked. “Has no one told you what has happened?”

He took him aside and filled him in.

“Zechariah has covered your trail by washing your footprints with his blood. Shortly after the Romans left, the Herods sent their assassins to your city. Your brothers are mourning the death of their infants. But that’s not the end of it. The horror of the news reached Zechariah. He took Elizabeth and John and hid them in the caves of the desert, where they will be safe from all danger. Then he came to the Temple. Joseph, they surrounded him like a pack of dogs, threatening to kill him if he didn’t reveal everything he knew. Unable to bear his silence, they beat him to death with their fists and feet right at the very gates of the Temple. Joseph, take the Child and his Mother and go to Egypt. Do not return until these murderers are dead.”

Joseph didn’t say a word to Mary. To keep her from finding out the news from her family, he took her away from Jerusalem without giving her any explanation whatsoever.

“How could you have lived your whole life carrying this burden all by yourself, my husband?” she wept when he told her on his deathbed.

Upon their return from Egypt, the Child’s grandmother was still alive. I believe I mentioned that the emigrants returned what we might call prosperous and happy. The financial situation of Mary’s estate was equally good. The droughts that had once ravaged the fields were followed by periods of abundant rain. Joanna, Mary’s virgin sister, managed her sister’s lands without envying a man for anything. Those who believed that Jacob’s household would collapse after his death had to admit they were wrong. That young woman, devoted to her family since her youth, never faltered nor allowed herself to be misled. Although released from her vow by Cleophas’s marriage, Juana did not marry.

Suddenly, starting the carpentry business from scratch did not seem like an easy undertaking. Cleophas did not share this view. The situation Joseph had to overcome the day he arrived in Nazareth was one thing; this new one was quite another. Joseph was, after all, a complete stranger back then. Now, to begin making a name for themselves, they could count on a network of family connections spread throughout Galilee.

Among these connections, Jesus would find his future disciples. But let us return to the Son of Mary, his heir, and spiritual leader of the clans that, like branches of the same trunk, were spread throughout the surrounding area.  

Joseph’s death bound Jesus to the oath that the deceased had made to Cleophas. We have already seen that the Child experienced within himself the rebirth from the Spirit following the episode in which he took center stage at the Temple. The Simeon who came out to meet the Son of David at the Temple was the Young Simeon whom we have seen say to Joseph: “Go, man of God, for they will kill him.”

In the years following Joseph’s death, Jesus left the carpentry shop in the hands of his cousin James and took over from his aunt Joanna in managing his Mother’s estate. During his tenure, the fields yielded a hundred percent; the fame of the wines from Jacob’s vineyards spread throughout the region. Intelligent as they come, Jesus proved to be a businessman with whom making deals was a guarantee of success. He bought and sold olive harvests without ever losing a drachma.

Supported by family connections and the capital of the clan leader, the carpentry shop in Nazareth also experienced a very positive boom.

After the Herods died, Jesus took possession of his father’s estate in Judea.

I believe I mentioned earlier that in Jerusalem, Jesus of Nazareth was regarded as something of a mystery. His father’s brothers remained unmarried, invoking the proverb: “Like father, like son.” Physically, Jesus was the spitting image of that tall, strong Joseph—a man of his word, a man of few words, prudent in his judgments, a family man, always attentive to the needs of his loved ones.

The fact is that after marrying off all his cousins and leaving the business to run on its own, that Jesus—adored by his family—surprised them all with “his disappearances.”

  

23

The Mystery of Jesus’ Disappearances

 

No one knew where Jesus went or what he did when he disappeared like that. He simply vanished. He disappeared without warning, without offering any explanations. His disappearances could last for days, even weeks. If his cousins James and Joseph asked around to see if anyone had seen their Jesus, everyone would put on a face that said they knew absolutely nothing.

Where did Jesus go?

Well, that wasn’t easy to say. But wherever he went, he’d come back from wherever he’d been as if nothing had happened. Then he’d return as if nothing were wrong, offering some random excuse to everyone who, with that natural concern, showed him how much they loved him—“I had to take care of an urgent matter,” for example—and that was that, end of story. It wasn’t worth insisting any further; in the end, Jesus would burst out laughing, and they were the ones who looked like fools.

“Why all this worry, Santiago, brother? Are you lacking anything? Are your children sick? You have health, money, and love—what more could a man want?”

Didn’t I say so? It was impossible to get angry with Him. Not only was He absolutely right, but when He said it with that smile in His eyes, in the end you were the one who looked like a fool for worrying for no reason.

The only ones who seemed neither surprised nor scandalized by his disappearances were the Women of the House. To Santiago’s and his brothers’ even greater surprise, the Women wouldn’t even hear of any reproaches. What mystery was His that had them so enchanted?

A mystery? Why had He captivated his mother, his Aunt Juana, and his Aunt María?

There certainly was a mystery. A very big one.

It turned out that whenever He left, a miracle occurred in the house. The sacks of flour never ran out, even if they scooped out the flour by the shovelful. The oil jars never emptied; no matter how many liters of oil they gave away, the level in the jars never dropped. And if any of them fell ill, the three Women of the House knew He was coming back because they would immediately get well. And just like these things, so it was with everything else. So how could He not have them completely enchanted? Of course, when it came time to answer them or his cousins about where He had come from or what He had been doing, Jesus would simply look at them and give them, as His only answer, a kiss accompanied by a smile.

Where was He going? Where had He come from? What was He doing? I believe it was the thirteenth apostle who said that Jesus was going to implore His God, with powerful tears, for mercy for all of us.

The origin of those tears should not seem strange to us, knowing the source from which they flowed. It was the Son of God, of the same nature as his Father, who looked face to face at the future of the work he was about to carry out, and as he saw the destiny toward which he was leading his disciples, his whole heart broke.

How could he not seek from his Father a viable alternative that would spare his own from the fate toward which he was dragging them with his Cross?

And what is even more tragic: when His blood drew Him into the fragility of human existence and He wondered how He could be sure that what He was about to do was God’s will—at that very moment, the weight of that Destiny crushed Him, pierced His chest, and wrung from Him tears of living blood. How could He be sure that what He was about to do was the right thing? Why the Cross of Christ and not the Crown of David?

The tension, the pressure, human nature laid bare, pounding his mind and soul with the vision of the hundreds of thousands of Christians whom He would lead to martyrdom… A Destiny He could spare them simply by accepting the Crown that the people, in droves, would offer Him. What to do? How to know? And by what means could He resist the comfort His Father offered Him?

… For after the Day of Yahweh would come the Day of Christ, a Day of freedom and glory: the King on His Throne of Power leading His Father’s armies to victory…

During those days, before beginning His Mission, Jesus chose in Galilee those who would become His future Apostles. The bonds that united Him to His future Disciples stemmed from the blood ties that Zerubbabel’s eldest son began to forge when he founded Nazareth.

In contrast to the atmosphere in which Zerubbabel’s men, who remained in Judea, multiplied, the people of Galilee welcomed Abiud’s men peacefully and warmly. The residents of Judea were outraged when they discovered the intentions of Zerubbabel and his men; they rebelled against the idea of rebuilding Jerusalem and tried by every means to force them to abandon the project.

The Bible says they did not succeed. Instead, from the inhabitants of the Holy Land at that time, they did secure a policy of perpetual enmity. This policy led to the seclusion and isolation of the Jews of the South from the rest of the world. A circumstance that, over time, would transform the southern Jews into a people who abhorred the Gentiles, whom they despised and spoke of in private as if they were mere beasts.

“I’d rather eat with a pig than with a Greek,” said one rabbi.

“I’d rather marry a sow than a Greek woman,” his colleague retorted.

This hatred toward the Greeks and toward Gentiles in general—that contempt on the part of a people who came to believe themselves to be the Superior Race—was, to a certain extent, a natural hatred. Toward the Greeks, following the persecutions of Antiochus IV Epiphanes. Toward the Egyptians because one day the Pharaoh… Toward the Syrians because in times past… Toward the Romans because they were oppressing them… The goal was to turn this hatred into a kind of national identity, to draw from it the strength to continue believing themselves to be the Superior Race, the one called to subjugate and be served by the rest of humanity.

The inhabitants of Judea awaited the Messiah to become the New World Empire. Their relationship with the non-native laws—imposed by the empire—that regulated life between Jews and Greeks, between Greeks and Romans, and between Romans and Iberians, was a path through the jungle fraught with mortal dangers—a path along which the Jew had to remain vigilant and always draw from his hatred and contempt for other races the vital strength that would help him overcome his circumstances until the Coming of the Messiah.

Unlike their brothers in the South, those in the North integrated perfectly into Gentile society. They worked with them, traded with them, dressed like them, learned their language, and respected their customs, traditions, and gods.

Compared to their southern brethren, the Jews of Galilee had evolved in the opposite direction. While the southerners invoked hatred as a protective wall for their identity, the northerners invoked respect among all people as the guarantor of peace.

When Jesus arrived, therefore, the mental and moral differences between Galilean Jews and southern Jews were as vast as those that existed at that time between a barbarian and a civilized man. The Galilean continued to await the Coming of the Messiah, the Christ who would unite all the peoples of the world; the Jew from Jerusalem also awaited a Birth, but not that of a Savior, rather that of a warlike and invincible conqueror who would bring all the other nations of the world to their knees before him. It is unlikely that Jesus would have found even a single man among these Jews of the South who would follow him in singing to Love and Universal Brotherhood the most wonderful poem ever written, the Gospel.  

Given these circumstances, it was no coincidence that all his Disciples were present at the wedding in Cana.

When the Son of Zerubbabel and heir to Solomon’s crown settled in Nazareth, his men and their sons united among themselves and scattered their seed throughout the region. Respectful of their neighbors, upholders of the laws of universal civilization—where religion was a private matter subject to the law of freedom of worship—the men of Abiud and their sons spread throughout Galilee, maintaining endogamous marriage as the foundation of their national identity. In every other respect, the Galilean Jew was no different from his neighbors. He dressed like them, spoke like them.

In such an environment, the success of the Virgin of Nazareth Tailoring Workshop was built on the nationalist movement that arose in Galilee following the reconstruction of the synagogues. It was during those unique, pivotal moments in life—such as weddings—that national pride surfaced, and people took pleasure in wearing traditional, folk attire. The art of crafting the national costume, in the hands of the daughters of Aaron—who had turned it into a monopoly headquartered in Jerusalem— the Virgin’s opening of her business—as a disciple of a master in the best-kept secret of the female priestly caste, of which the creation of seamless cloaks was the supreme example—proved to be a wise move that drew engaged couples from across the region to Nazareth.

Regardless of the prosperity it brought to the Virgin’s household and to Nazareth itself, the success of the Virgin’s workshop broke new ground in the region and prepared it so that her sisters could find there a place to grow and multiply. They married in Galilee and had their sons and daughters. To the bonds that existed before the Virgin’s birth, we must then add those created by her sisters and the sons and daughters of her brother Cleophas, and the scope of the context in which her Son moved takes on its true dimensions.

Or, to put it another way, Jesus’ disciples were present at the famous wedding at Cana simply because they were related to the bride and groom by blood. Or do you perhaps believe that Peter’s mother-in-law was healed without faith?

Throughout the Gospels, we see that the only condition Jesus required to receive the grace of His Power was faith. When He healed Peter’s mother-in-law, she had not yet seen the Only-Begotten Son of God. That she had faith without having seen Him opens our eyes to the connection between Peter’s mother-in-law and the Virgin Mary, thanks to which that woman’s faith in the Son of Mary was absolute. And it helps us open the door to her home and see that Peter, through his marriage to his mother-in-law’s daughter, is directly related to the Virgin Mary.

After the miracle of turning water into wine, all Peter needed to see was the anointing of the Son of David by the prophet.

When one reads the Gospel, the first surprise comes upon seeing Peter and his companions abandoning everything at the call: “Follow me.” As if they were robots or automatons without free will, those men left their families and followed him without even asking where. That is the first impression. Logically, this is only a superficial impression. Those men knew the Son of Mary perfectly well. They knew the nature of his spiritual leadership over all the Davidic clans of Galilee. Peter and his companions were not mindless automatons obeying their creator’s command to the rhythm of his fingers tapping on a computer keyboard. Not at all. Needless to say, on more than one occasion—bound by blood ties to their Mother’s House—they spoke with her Son about the Kingdom of the Messiah. It should also be noted that the First Public Miracle, which they witnessed, transformed the conception they had formed regarding the nature of the Messianic Mission—so much so that they were willing to leave everything behind the moment Jesus desired it. Having clarified this, let us continue.

You have already seen who this John was—the son of Zechariah, grandson of the prophet Abijah—and what sentiment lay at the root of the Baptist’s harsh condemnations against the Jews. His mother, Elizabeth—the great-aunt of Mary, the Mother of Christ—dedicated her life to raising John and telling him the whole truth about his father: why he died and whom John would precede. When Elizabeth died, John withdrew to the desert and lived his supernatural life, awaiting the fulfillment of the mission for which he had been born. Jesus’ baptism by John confirmed to the Disciples what they already knew: the Son of Mary was the Messiah.

They followed Him to conquer the universal kingdom. They never imagined that the sword with which Jesus would conquer the throne of David would be “in his mouth.”

Jesus told them many times what His fate would be. But how could they possibly have imagined that the Son of God would die crucified?

As witnesses to wondrous, supernatural, extraordinary, and divine works in every respect, how could they possibly have imagined that their brothers in Abraham would commit such a crime against the Father of that Son?

What had to happen happened. Incredibly, Jesus closed his mouth as if sheathing a sword and inexplicably surrendered himself to the enemy who had come to kill him. All he would have had to do was open his lips. If he had only said, “On your knees,” the mob that had come out to seek him would have been frozen to the ground like pillars of salt. But no, he did not utter a word. He simply allowed himself to be chained.

To them—the Eleven—he left only the coward’s choice.

So they all ran to hide. All except the one who ran off naked. He was the one who brought the news to the Mother: They had just captured her Son; they were taking him away to be judged.

The Roman had demanded the head of that Messiah from the Sanhedrin. Intimidated by Pilate’s legions, the Sanhedrin had handed him over.

This matter of absolute guilt—which the future placed upon that Jewish generation, exonerating the Romans of their direct participation in the Passion of Christ—is resolved in the very heart of the high priest’s words to the court that handed the Messiah over to Pilate:

“It is better that one man die for the people.”

“It is best” meant that either they would hand him over to Pilate, or he would declare martial law and send out the legions to hunt him down. If they handed over Jesus of Nazareth, the people would remain quiet, having been taken by surprise; but if Pilate sent out his legions against the very man they were now abandoning to his fate, they would later defend him to the death out of love for their country. And where was the madman capable of believing in the victory of a popular rebellion against Caesar?

The fate of Jesus of Nazareth was sealed. It was either Him or the Nation. If, because of their cowardice, the future were to blame them for having handed Him over—placing upon them all the responsibility for His death—so be it. What else could they do? That shrewd Pilate would wash his hands of it. So what? Wasn’t it better for one man to die than for the entire people to be massacred by the legions?

The disciples’ mistake was believing that their people would not act like cowards and would take up arms rather than hand the Messiah over to the Romans. To them, the matter was clear: how could the Empire possibly defeat an army led by the King of the Universe? Hadn’t hundreds and hundreds of men, women, and children experienced His glory firsthand? Weren’t they, among the masses, the blessed living testimony to the Divine Mission of Jesus of Nazareth? It’s true that many times those crowds had acclaimed him as king, and on just as many occasions he had turned his back on them. Was that logical? To renounce the throne that belongs to you by inheritance?

Yes or no?  

Well, throughout the entire history of Israel, it had been demonstrated that the anointing of the king was not the responsibility of the people but of the prophets. Given this experience, it was natural for Jesus to refuse a coronation that went against historical and divine law.

The Age of the Prophets, recorded in Scripture, meant that the anointing—canonically speaking—belonged to the Temple. The time would therefore come when those very same crowds would follow him to Jerusalem and ask the Sanhedrin for the divine recognition that Jesus of Nazareth had earned through his works.

Then, pressed by the testimony of so many blessed souls and by a countless crowd clamoring at the top of their lungs for the high priest to anoint the Messiah, Jesus would sit on the Throne of David, his historical father, and in the presence of all the children of Israel, he would be crowned with the crown of kings.

When, in the third year of his Mission, word spread that Jesus of Nazareth was heading to Jerusalem for Passover, messianic anticipation drew countless crowds to Jerusalem.

Pontius Pilate was expecting him. Aware of the exploits of the Messiah of the Jews, he had long since demanded the head of that Nazarene from the Sanhedrin. The political decision he had to make regarding the messianic upheaval caused by “the Nazarene” was both complex and clear. He had to die. “If the Shepherd dies, the flock will scatter.” Nor could he deploy his legions and unleash them en masse against the crowd. A nationalist rebellion would erupt in defense of their Messiah, and a Spartacist-style war was the last thing Caesar could wish for. As a politician, his mission was to nip the problem in the bud before war broke out. He could wait for the worst and let the prey grow fat—just as Augustus and Herod had done in the days of the Census. At the right moment, Pilate would deploy his legions, and through the slaughter, the other nations would learn how Rome punishes rebellion against Caesar.

The fact was that the entire Sanhedrin was against the Nazarene but dared not lay a hand on him for fear of the crowd that followed him wherever he went. The Sanhedrin had sworn to Pilate that they would hand him over in person, but that he should wait until the fruit was ripe.

After the first year of his triumphal march toward the Mount of the Sermon, the second year had gone downhill. At the crossroads between the second and third years, Jesus’ refusal to be crowned king had begun to scare away the crowds, who did not understand him at all.

Who among all those who had enjoyed such Divine Power would not have led the crowds to Jerusalem to demand from the Sanhedrin in full the Crown of his father David?

Confusion and ignorance regarding his intentions had left Jesus Christ alone at the dawn of the third year. Only the women and his disciples remained faithful to him.

What, then, had become of that initial desperation of the Roman politician? And what seemed even worse to the Sanhedrin: why would Pilate back down now? Could there be those within the Roman ranks who, in the event of a messianic uprising, would desert the Empire to place their swords at the service of the Son of David?

As Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem demonstrates, the anticipation—which had been stifled in the previous year by Jesus himself—awoke from its slumber. Believing that the Son of David had made his final decision in favor of his coronation, the crowds all rushed to Jerusalem that year.

As we already know—and as history shows—by Passover, Jerusalem had become a besieged city. From all corners of the world, Jews were coming down to and ascending to the Holy City to celebrate that Last Supper, which served as a prelude to the Exodus led by Moses.

In that year, 33 A.D., the usual crowd was joined by all those who had once proclaimed him king.

Imagine everyone’s surprise when Jesus entered the Temple and, with a whip, forever shattered the pressure against the Sanhedrin and Caesar that this exalted crowd was ready to exert.

That messianic fervor that Jesus had awakened in his first year had returned. It reached Jerusalem before He did and made the walls of Jerusalem tremble with the same force as Joshua’s trumpets had in their day. If, instead of going straight to the Temple to grab a whip and declare all-out war on the Sanhedrin, Jesus had done what he did as a child—making his way to the Court of the Scribes and getting down to business… But no. Not at all. Not in the least. Things were already in turmoil, and he went to plunge them into chaos in the most explosive way imaginable.

The very same crowd that just a few hours earlier had clapped and cheered in honor of the Son of David was, as night fell, demanding his head from Pilate, who by then could no longer see why he had to kill the man who had dug his own grave.

To understand the Flight of His Disciples, one must put oneself in the shoes of those men who, in their hearts, had dreamed of that triumphal entry: “the Coronation.” They were the first to be stunned when they saw their Master take up a whip and lash out with all-powerful fury against the Temple.

It was at that moment that Judas made his decision to hand him over to the Sanhedrin. The others left with their spirits crushed, as if floating in a total void.

What was going to happen now?

What had Jesus done?

As they ate the Last Supper, they felt as confused and empty as that Earth which, before the Beginning, wandered in the Darkness of the Abyss—confused and empty.

Alas, children of the Earth, your mother’s inheritance is your lot! Did she not receive all manner of promises from her Creator on the day of her birth, and as soon as her Creator turned away, did she not allow herself to be ensnared by the confusion that accompanies all loneliness? Since your mother experienced the confusion and emptiness of solitude at her birth, how could you not stumble over the same stone?

While they were having supper with Him, His disciples had not the slightest idea what He was talking about. They only knew that they were willing to die fighting rather than leave Him alone. Poor Peter—his heart sank to the ground when his Hero and King took the sword from his hands! Without exception, they all ran off, driven by a force beyond their control that moved their legs against the will of their minds.

“What’s going to happen now, Mother?” the other John asked the Mother of Jesus, as if she knew the answer.

What was going to happen? What had been prophesied for a thousand years was about to happen. The heavens would be draped in mourning to weep for the death of the Firstborn; the Earth would lament the death of the Only-Begotten.

 

24

The Death and Resurrection of Jesus Christ

 

The events of That Night are described in the Gospels. I will neither recount them nor elaborate on them. I will limit myself to what is not written.

As the Judeo-Roman farce ran its course, the sky grew overcast above the heads of the thousands of drunken people chanting, “Crucify him!”

The very same confusion that seized the Disciples and sent them fleeing—that very same force—had taken hold of the crowd that had cheered him at his triumphal entry; and, abandoned to alcohol, they vented their grief against the source of the disillusionment that had taken hold of their minds. Deranged, given over to the alcohol in which they drowned their sorrow—which flowed freely and by the barrelful from the hands of the Temple into their throats—those who just a few hours earlier had chanted to the Messiah, “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord,” now shouted, “Crucify him.”

As they shouted and shouted, clouds gathered on the horizon, weaving a web of lightning and thunder over Golgotha. While the Condemned One dragged his cross along the Via Dolorosa, oblivious to the drunken crowd that spat their laughter upon the Son of Mary, night began to fall.

Absorbed and awestruck by what they were experiencing as they took part in the procession, very few of them thought of the Prophet’s words. In fact, only one boy did. At the foot of the Cross, as he gazed up at the sky, the Scriptures came to his mind.

 

“The waves of death had already surrounded me, and the torrents of Belial terrified me. The bonds of Sheol held me captive; the snares of death had overtaken me. And in my distress I called upon Yahweh and cried out to my God. He heard my voice from his palace, and my cry reached his ears. He was moved, and the earth trembled. The foundations of the mountains wavered; they quaked before the wrathful Yahweh. Smoke rose from his nostrils, and from his mouth came scorching fire, coals kindled by him. He lowered the heavens and descended; a black cloud was beneath his feet. He mounted the cherubim and flew; he soared on the wings of the winds. He made darkness a veil, forming his tent around himself—watery gloom, thick clouds. Before the radiance of his face, the clouds dissolved—hail and flashes of fire. Yahweh thundered from the heavens; the Most High made His voice heard. He hurled His arrows at them and scattered them; He flashed lightning and struck them down. And streams of water appeared, and the foundations of the world were laid bare before Yahweh’s rebuking wrath, before the blast of the hurricane of His fury.”

 

Yes, only that boy, John, fixed his eyes on the sky, which was watching in horror as the children of the Earth committed their crime. In the anguish of the moment, no one had realized what was about to fall upon their heads. The sky was as black as the depths of the most impenetrable cave. When Jesus breathed his last breath and they believed that the end had already come, as if suddenly awakening from a dream, their eyes opened to reality.

Before they could sense the threat from the heavens, the firmament split as if in tears. A crash rang out, louder than that of the walls of Jericho as they fell. It was then that they all raised their heads for the first time and smelled that electric moisture in the air.

They were just about to turn back when suddenly a lightning-like whip split the darkness. It seemed to strike far away. How foolish of them! It was the horseman who had once parted the enemy’s ranks for Judas Maccabeus, now riding fiercely upon the clouds of prophecy. His gleaming eyes lit up the night, and from his all-powerful throat, thunder rolled across the horizon; like a madman, possessed by a pain that blinded his very core, that divine horseman raised his arm and brought his whip of lightning and thunder down upon the crowd.

The hellish wrath of the Eternal Father rained down upon children and women, the elderly and the young, without distinguishing between the guilty and the innocent. Driven mad—like who wakes with a start from a nightmare only to open his eyes and find that the real nightmare has just begun—the crowd began to run down Golgotha. The storm overhead threatened hail, lightning, and thunder, but no rain. It was a thunderstorm that the Almighty—pierced by the spear driven into His Son’s chest, His heart shattered—had taken into His own hands and, driven mad by the pain, was unleashing upon the children of the earth without regard for whom. Frenzy and dread took hold of everyone. Terror swept through the crowd, sparing neither the elderly nor the children, male nor female. Driven mad by what they had done under the influence of alcohol, the crowd began to move toward the walls of Jerusalem. Fools! As if God’s pain could be stopped by stone.

And so the crowd began to run down Golgotha, seeking salvation within the city walls. Then the Almighty’s electric whip began to fall upon women and children, young and old, without distinguishing between the guilty and the innocent. His pain—the pain of the Almighty—reached them all and tore at their flesh without mercy of any kind. In less time than it takes for the rooster to crow its second time, the slope of Golgotha began to fill with charred corpses. Those who were already climbing the slope toward the Lions’ Gate thought they had escaped the horror when the tombs of the Jewish Cemetery began to open. The prophets emerged from their tombs, and from their ghostly mouths the Wrath of the Almighty delivered their death sentence to the living.

Horror, desolation, terror. Those who thought they had found refuge in their homes found their doors locked. On the night of the Last Supper, fifteen hundred years ago, the angel of death swept through the homes of the Egyptians, seeking out the firstborn. That same angel now roamed the streets of Jerusalem, killing without distinguishing between the young and the old. The same infinite pain that had shattered his Lord’s heart had now reached his own, and in his unspeakable agony, he plunged his cherubic sword into everyone he encountered.

Terrified, trapped in a hellish nightmare, terror drove the fugitives to the Temple. There they huddled within its walls, seeking mercy. In a frenzy—with the madness of one who kills his own son and takes refuge from the child’s father in his own home—they found their grave there when the scourge of Sorrow rained its tears down upon the dome, a dome that collapsed onto the terrified crowd.

Horror, dread, desolation. The pain of the Father of Christ in full violent outburst. The blood of a God transformed into blocks of stone falling upon a terrified crowd, crushing heads, reducing men and women to rubble. “Cry out again, ‘Crucify him!’” the stones of the Temple’s dome wrote with their creaking as they fell from the ceiling to the ground.

While these things were happening at the foot of the Cross, only one man and three women remained. As if shielded by a shield of energy, the boy stood, watching the spectacle. At the foot of the Mount of Passion lay the charred corpses, the dying crushed under the weight of those who had fled down the slopes. Against the walls, with no possible escape from the dead who had risen from their graves, the paralyzed victims of horror piled up in a frenzy. When, after a while, the Temple’s dome collapsed and the thunder and lightning ceased, along with the thrashing of flesh and blood, Juan picked up the sword of the Roman who had confessed. The boy turned his head toward the three Women, spoke to them with his eyes, and began to clear a path for them. The crowd of wounded and dying, horrified, parted as if he were an angel of God in the very midst of completing the work begun by his Lord. Such was the fire that blazed from the eyes of the youngest of the Sons of Thunder.

Once they reached the streets, unable to withstand the gaze of that human cherub, the delirious onlookers stepped out of his way. Juan led the three women home and closed the door behind him. There were the Ten and the other women. As if dead, the Mother threw herself onto the bed and closed her eyes to a world to which she no longer seemed to want to return.

The survivors swore to erase from their memories—and from those of their children—the memory of the Night when God broke His Covenant with the children of Abraham. Their historians buried the memory of that Night in the tomb of millennia-old silences. Many times in the history of humanity, a people has sworn to erase from its memory a certain event—one that was special and crucial to the development of its future. Rarely has a people managed to bury such a traumatic chapter so definitively.

The Eleven also believed that such was the fate of those three years of unforgettable glory. In fact, the only thing that kept them locked in that House that Friday and the following Saturday was the desire to know the fate of that Mother who lay as if dead in her bed.

Would the Mother awaken from her slumber? Couldn’t one see, on her face ravaged by suffering, the shards into which her heart had shattered?

Lord, how could they look her in the face when she awoke? What words of comfort would they offer her to justify the shameful flight they had undertaken?

What could they do? Abandon her to her fate? Keep running until the distance between them and their memories became an abyss?

Hadn’t He told them that everything they were going through would pass, and that He would rise again on the third day?

The hours seemed endless to all who watched over the Mother’s sleep. Despite the danger they faced, no one would leave without accompanying her to Nazareth.

How long would it take for the Mother to wake up? But of course, why would she want to wake up?

At noon on Saturday, the Mother began to emerge from her stupor. The Eleven thought they would not be able to bear her gaze. Oh, how foolish they were!

They had been gazing at that aged face for more hours than they could count. They already knew every micrometer of her lacerated cheeks by heart.

Suddenly, that Saturday, her face began to regain its color. Everyone stood watching her every movement. Just then, the Mother opened her eyes, full of life.

At her side, her sister Juana was caressing her forehead as one caresses the head of the most beloved person in the world. Unexpectedly, the Mother asked for a little water. The other Mary, the wife of Cleophas, stood up. Slowly, the Mother sat up in bed and looked at them all. The Eleven were sitting on the floor against the walls of the room. The expression on her face left them in awe when the Mother parted her lips. “What’s the matter, my children?” she said, smiling. “Whom are you keeping vigil for? You’re looking at me as if you were seeing a ghost.”

The Eleven could not get over their surprise. Mary, the wife of Cleophas, returned with the glass of water and sat down beside her, resting her head on her shoulder.

“It’s all right, Mary, don’t be a little girl—don’t cry anymore. Or do you want my Son to find you like this when He comes?”

The Eleven looked at one another, thinking that grief had caused her to lose her mind. The Mother read their thoughts and began to speak to them, saying:

“My little children, I am to blame for everything. Long ago I should have revealed to you who It is that you call Teacher and Lord. This had to happen so that He might free me from my silence. Who do you think you’ve been following from place to place?

“I am old, my children, and I am weary. Listen to me carefully and lift up your spirits; when He comes tomorrow, you will have proof of everything I am going to tell you today. What would my Son think if, upon coming tomorrow, He found you in this state? How could I look Him in the face? Bear with me if at any point I am not clear. When He sends you the Spirit of the Promise, you will remember my words, and I myself will be enchanted by the wisdom He will pour into your souls. What I am about to tell you, I have heard from Him. I do not possess His grace or His wisdom. I tell you now, He Himself will fill you with His knowledge, and then you will no longer need me to tell you anything. He spoke to me of His World, of His Father; I asked Him questions, and He answered me without hiding anything from me—at least nothing I did not need to know. I was His confidante, the open and innocent heart into which He poured His divine memories. He spoke to me of His World with His eyes gazing into infinity; I kept it all in my heart; each of His words I sealed within my very being. I have not known why He sealed my lips until this very day. Today He has freed me from my Silence, and I place in your hearts what He placed in mine and what I have carried with me for so many years.”

Opening her Heart to them, the Mother revealed to the Disciples: the Annunciation, the Incarnation of the Son of God, and the Divine History that She heard from the lips of her Child, in those days when, as “her Child,” the Son of God came to nestle in the arms of “his Mother.”

 

 

BOOK THREE. THE CREATION OF THE UNIVERSE ACCORDING TO GENESIS