Chapter 15 - The Synagogue

Perfect Aurelius had forbidden me from profiting in the streets and thus making people congregate. Still, I came to the synagogue of Capernaum, talked to the people there, and ignored the displeasure of the rabbi. I loved that little synagogue next to the oil press in the mountain grove. Unlike the gray basalt city buildings, Bas Heij was built of white stone, with 12 wide, rectangular windows, after the number of the tribes of Israel, with marble columns at the entrance, whose mason had decorated the roof with eternally ripe bunches of grapes. A separate aqueduct ran to what my head must learn. Still, I did not miss an opportunity to look up an explanation or an addition to the texts. In the synagogue of Capernaum, I discovered scrolls with an unusual variation on the revelations of Baruch. From time to time, I went by to read a little in this testimony from Babylonian times, according to which the Jewish people, as always, were themselves to blame for everything.

The wretched work of Baruch Bas so much against the will of Judea King Joachim that, as his reading progressed, he repeatedly cut off pieces of the scroll with a knife. He threw them into the fire, but I drew from this prophecy a subversive power necessary for your bubble eloquence when dealing with crowds of people. Moreover, the scroll I got my hands on gave a more detailed description than was usually the case of the seawater drinking the dragon in whose interior was hell. However, such creatures have always held my great interest.

One good Sabbath morning, I came to the synagogue without pupils when the old Rabbi Avdon had assembled several people there to discuss the Torah and matters of the city. In the prayer hall, where the sunlight fell in like a broad self through the round going above the door, which also symbolized the light of the Lord God, the venerable elders of Capernaum were seated, scattered over the pews, with their long beards, and men and boys, among whom I discerned a young, blond Roman in a toga, trimmed with purple trim, he was listening intently to Avdon. Seated before his people, the rabbi was explaining a prayer.

In a south-facing alcove sat a pair of women dressed in long plebes.

I was surprised to see a Roman among the Jews, though the old rabbi looked at me contemptuously. He could not expel me from the synagogue just as he could not forbid me to pray to God outside its walls.

I sat between everyone and pretended to be all ears for what Avdon was proclaiming. In my hand, I clutched a shell with a broken edge that I had picked up at the water's edge the night before. I waited for a fitting moment to reinforce my reputation as a teacher. I no longer thought of the quiet life I might lead, spittin' in the vegetable garden or riding simple doctors' rows. Still, I once again wanted to change to the best of my ability our spiritual world that seemed to me by the day more like a jug of rancid oil, like half-witted scribes, tainted with superstitions and phobias, touting them for the cure for all ills. Of him, David said, "There is no truth in their mouth; their heart is a curse, their throat an open grave, their tongue a tool for flattery.

Avdon ended his explanation of the salmon and began talking about how one should uphold the Roman government, not be rebellious, think more about saving one's soul, and criticize the new laws less.

'Do you not forget that all that is dark will become bright,' Avdon orated. 'Just now came the news that a conspiracy has been discovered against the great Emperor Tiberius, whose reign brings us so much prosperity. The cunning Lucius Aelius Seianus attempted his power and has been punished! Entirely justified! Remember, every government is God-given, and nothing happens by accident. After all, even King Herod had a Temple built at Caesarea for Emperor August.

'I regret that Avdon,' I said, rising from my seat. 'It is not a matter of building a Temple for someone just because he is clothed with power.'

Approving retorts sounded from city officials.

That gave me a must.

'I just Rob everyone to look beyond their nose,' Avdon began to justify himself, and his face was red with effort. 'I'm talking about the most important thing: to keep our lineage and faith and not fight against those we cannot possibly overcome. Our foreland is a prayer in silence...'

"No, Avdon! Exclaimed me. 'So timid as the prophet Isaiah just now, who said, pull out of Babylon, swiftly away from the Chaldeans with a voice of joy...!'

"Where do you suggest we flee to, Jesus? Avedon asked in a raised voice. 'You come out of nowhere to put us here but with pious people living on our soil, and these are not the times of Babylonian captivity now.'

"But what if Jesus is correct and gives us God's punishment power through inaction? I worriedly asked a man in an expensive robe. He was a merchant passing through because I had not seen him in Capernaum before.

'It ends badly with people like Jesus!' Exclaimed Avdon. 'They hang from poles along the roads, only the ravens for joy. His friend Simon stole a chicken! Do you know that?

'Simon has already been punished for being hungry,' I said, seeing the young Roman take my interest and awe. 'Let us be meek toward Simon. And now let's talk about the main thing...'

In that moment, I try to put myself in a state

the necessary signs pronounced themselves as if they came flying towards the listener, born somewhere at the end of a sunny gallery as poetry.

'So,' I began slowly and menacingly, 'you drench God with vinegar and bile? With your unreason and wantonness?

The faces of the audience darkened. Avdon looked at me again obliquely, with a look full of hatred, picking at a tangled gray beard, but he did not interrupt me. As I lashed out at all that own us all, I talked first slowly, then faster, even faster, and at the end of this speech, I shouted, shaking my fists, in one whose sharp shell was clenched:

'Brothers of mine! The secrets of truth are revealed in symbols and images, but we must look for these signs ourselves! Only ourselves! Have no hope in the synagogue, have no hope in the emperor, no hope in God! Yes, you hear well!

The audience stiffened, and the boy Romijn looked at me in ecstasy as if he saw an omen.

'This world is one far pregnant with corpses!' Scheelde said, and tears streamed down my cheeks. 'Are you guys hearing?

We have no one, our mothers and fathers, which is dust; our rulers, which is mold; our property is musty and rotten, so what do we have to fear?

'Yes, Jesus! Truly, it is so! Sounded voices. 'May fear be cursed! We are not afraid!'

'Darkness and lies, right and left, life and death,' I continued, feeling how the air in the prayer room vibrated from the energy coalescing. All that is one! God is the swallowing up of people! But I am here with you! I will share everything with you! Give me a bowl!

Someone gave me a black earthenware bowl. I quickly passed the sharp edge of the shell over my wrist, as I had once done at the wedding in Canada, Hilde bowl under the stream of blood, and spoke slowly, in hallowed silence: 'I sit here before you, another teacher you shall not have, and I drink you with the living fluid for eternal life... Take each from this bowl...'

The women began to wail. Avedon remained silent in his cut, weather-decorated seat and looked at me wrathfully. One man with a puzzled face stood up and walked out of the prayer room, grinning, but all the others sipped the blood reverently. I stood before them and prophesied, forgetting that the blood kept flowing from my arm and forming a puddle on the stone floor. I lost consciousness.