So thou thinkest, Eliab, that the autumn rains will make an end of him.
And maybe of thee too, Bozrah, Eliab returned. A hard life ours is, even
for the young ones. Hard bread by day and at night a bed of stones, a
hard life from the beginning one that doesn't grow softer, and to end in
a lion's maw at fifty is the best we can hope for. For us, perhaps,
Bozrah answered; but Jesus will go up to the cenoby among the rocks and
die amongst the brethren reading the Scriptures. If the autumn rains
don't make an end of him, Eliab interjected testily, as if he did not
like his forecast of Jesus' death to be called into question. As I was
saying, a shepherd's life is a hard one, and when the autumn rains make
an end of him, the brethren will be on the look-out for another
shepherd, and there's not one amongst them that would bring half the
flock entrusted to him into the fold at the end of the year. The best of
us lose sheep: what with----
The flock will go to Jacob, the lad he's been training to follow him
ever since his friend was killed, Havilah remarked timidly. Eliab and
Bozrah raised their eyes, and looked at Havilah in surprise, for a
sensible remark from Havilah was an event, and to their wonder they
found themselves in agreement with Havilah. The flock would go to Jacob
without doubt. Of course, Havilah cried, excited by the success of his
last remark, he be more than fifty. Thou mightst put five years more to
the fifty and not be far wrong, Bozrah interposed. Havilah was minded to
speak again, but his elders' looks made him feel that they had heard him
sufficiently. Now, Bozrah, how many years dost thou make it since Joseph
of Arimathea was killed? How many years? Bozrah repeated. I can't tell
thee how many years, but many years.... Stay, I can mark the date down
for thee. It was about ten years before Theudas (wasn't that his name?)
led the multitude over these hills. A great riot that was surely--fires
lighted at the side of the woods for the roasting of our lambs, and
many's the fine wood that was turned to blackened stems and sad ashes in
those days. It comes back to me now, Eliab interjected. Theudas was the
name. I'd forgotten it for the moment. He led the multitude to Jordan,
and while he was bidding the waters divide to let him across the Romans
had his head off. It was nigh ten years before that rioting Gaddi's
partner was killed in Jerusalem. I believe thee to be right, Bozrah
replied, and they talked of the different magicians and messiahs that
were still plaguing the country, stirring them up against the Romans.
But, cried Bozrah suddenly, the story comes back to me. Not getting any
news of his friend, Jesus left his flock with Jacob, and came down to
the pass between the hills where the road descends to the lake to
inquire from the beggars if they had seen Gaddi's partner on his way to
Jerusalem or Jericho, and seeing the lepers and beggars gathering about
Jesus, I came down to hear what was being said, but before I got as far
I saw Jesus turn away and walk into the hills. It was from the beggars
and lepers that I heard that Joseph had been killed in the streets of
Jerusalem. Thou knowest how long beggars take to tell a story; Jesus
was far away before they got to the end of it, simple though it was. I'd
have gone after him if they'd been quicker. More of the story I don't
know. It was just as thou sayest, mate, Eliab answered, and thou'lt bear
me out that it was some months after, maybe six or seven, that Jesus was
seen again leading the flock. I remember the day I saw him, for wasn't I
near to rubbing my eyes lest they might be deceiving me--I remember,
Eliab continued, it comes back to me as it does to thee, for within two
years he had gathered another handsome flock about him. A fine shepherd,
Havilah said. None better to be found on the hills. Thou speakest well,
Eliab answered him, and for thee to speak well twice in the same day is
well-nigh a miracle. Belike thou'lt awake one morning to find thyself
the Messiah Israel is waiting for, so great is thy advancement of late
in good sense. Havilah turned aside, and Eliab, divining his wounded
spirit, sought to make amends by offering him some bread and garlic, but
Havilah went away, a melancholy, heavy-shouldered young man, one that,
Eliab said, must feel life cruelly, knowing himself as he must have done
from the beginning to be what is known as a good-for-nothing. And it was
soon after Havilah's departure that Jesus returned to the shepherds and,
stopping in front of Eliab and Bozrah, he said: I've come back, mates,
to give you my thanks for many a year of good-fellowship. So the time
has come for us to lose thee, mate, Eliab answered. We are sorry for it,
though it isn't altogether unlocked for. We were saying not many moments
ago, Bozrah interjected, that the life on the hills is no life for a man
when he has gone fifty, and thou'lt not see fifty again: no, and not by
three years, Jesus answered. It was just about fifty years that the
feeling began to come over me that I couldn't fight another winter, and
to think of Jacob, who is waiting for a flock, and he may as well have
mine during my life as wait for my death to get it. Better so, said
Eliab, whose wont it was to strike his word in whenever the speaker
paused. He did not always wait for the speaker to pause, and this trick
being known to Bozrah, he said, and by all accounts thou hast made a
true shepherd of him, passing over to him all thy knowledge. A lad of
good report, Jesus answered, who had fallen on a hard master, a thing
that has happened to all of us in our time, Bozrah interjected. He's not
the first that fell out of favour, for that his ewes hadn't given as
many lambs as they might have done. Nor was there anything of neglect in
it, but such a bit of ill luck as might run into any man or any man
might run up against. He was told, said Eliab, who could not bear anyone
to tell a story but himself, that though he were to bring the parts of
the sheep the wolf had left behind to his master he would have to seek
another master. Such severity frightens the shepherd, and the wolf
smells out the frightened shepherd, Jesus said, and he told his mates
that he had not found Jacob lacking in truthfulness nor in natural
discernment, and he asked them to give all their protection to Jacob,
who will, he said, go forth in charge of our flock to-morrow.
The shepherds said again that they were sorry to lose Jesus, and that
the hills would not seem like the hills without him, and Jesus answered
that he, too, would be lonely among the brethren reading the Scriptures.
When one is used to sheep one misses them sorely, Eliab said, there's
always something to learn from them; and he began to tell a story; but
before he had come to the end of it Jesus' thoughts took leave of the
story he was listening to, and he turned away, leaving the shepherd with
his half-finished story, and walked absorbed in his thoughts, immersed
in his own mind, till he had reached the crest of the next hill and was
within some hundred yards of the brook. It was then that he remembered
he had left them abruptly in the middle of a half-finished relation, and
he stopped to consider if he should return to them and ask for the end
of the story. But fearing they would think he was making a mocking-stock
of them, he sighed, and was vexed that they had parted on a seeming lack
of courtesy: on no seeming lack, on a very clear lack, he said to
himself; but it would be useless to return to them; they would not
understand, and a man had always better return to his own thoughts.
Repent, repent, he said, picking up the thread of his thoughts, but
acknowledgment comes before repentance, and of what help will repentance
be, for repentance changes nothing, it brings nothing unless grief
peradventure. I was in the hands of God then just as I am now, and
everything within and without us is in his hands. The things that we
look upon as evil and the things that we look upon as good. Our sight is
not his sight, our hearing is not his hearing, we must despise nothing,
for all things come from him, and return to him. I used, he said, to
despise the air I breathed, and long for the airs of paradise, but what
did these longings bring me?--grief. God bade us live on earth and we
bring unhappiness upon ourselves by desiring heaven. Jesus stopped, and
looking through the blue air of evening, he could see the shepherds
eating their bread and garlic on the hillside. Folding-time is near, he
said to himself, but I shall never fold a flock again....
His thoughts began again, flowing like a wind, as mysteriously, arising
he knew not whence, nor how, his mind holding him as fast as if he were
in chains, and he heard from within that he had passed through two
stages--the first was in Jerusalem, when he preached against the priests
and their sacrifices. God does not desire the blood of sheep, but our
love, and all ritual comes between us and God ... God is in the heart,
he had said, and he had spoken as truly as a man may speak of the
journey that lies before him on the morning of the first day.
In the desert he had looked for God in the flowers that the sun called
forth and in the clouds that the wind shepherded, and he had learnt to
prize the earth and live content among his sheep, all things being
the gift of God and his holy will. He had not placed himself above the
flowers and grasses of the earth, nor the sheep that fed upon them, nor
above the men that fed upon the sheep. He had striven against the memory
of his sin, he had desired only one thing, to acknowledge his sin, and
to repent. But it seemed to him that anger and shame and sorrow, and
desire of repentance had dropped out of his heart. It seemed to him as
he turned and pursued his way that some new thought was striving to
speak through him. Rites and observances, all that comes under the name
of religion estranges us from God, he repeated. God is not here, nor
there, but everywhere: in the flower, and in the star, and in the earth
underfoot. He has often been at my elbow, God or this vast Providence
that upholds the work; but shall we gather the universal will into an
image and call it God?--for by doing this do we not drift back to the
starting-point of all our misery? We again become the dupes of illusion
and desire; God and his heaven are our old enemies in disguise. He who
yields himself to God goes forth to persuade others to love God, and
very soon his love of God impels him to violent words and cruel deeds.
It cannot be else, for God is but desire, and whosoever yields to desire
falls into sin. To be without sin we must be without God.
Jesus stood before the door of the cenoby, startled at the thoughts that
had been put into his mind, asking himself if any man had dared to ask
himself if God were not indeed the last uncleanliness of the mind.