Chapter 16 - Quintus Lanius

I woke up on a reed mat in the barn. The young Roman I had seen in the synagogue bent over me.

'Glory be to your God, Jesus,' he said. 'My name is Quintus Lanius. I'm so glad you're alive! You had lost a lot of blood. The whole city is talking about you only now. You are a true teacher, your preaching is a healing balm!'

Quintus told me that I had been unconscious for about an hour. The benevolent youth had torn a row off his gown and bandaged my mouth. After which he and a few others in the synagogue had carried me to the barn.

From outside sounded, the voices of my disciples; they were preparing food, then Judas stepped in and also rejoiced at my return to the transient world.

I felt as limp as a dishcloth. Quintus walked away and soon returned with honey and a comb of warm goat milk, and I allowed myself to savor this treat. Seated next to me, Quintus told me that he was the scion of a distinguished lineage, raised into a spoiled and profligate young man who divided all his time to mindless idleness: he played dice, drank himself a piece in the collar, indulged in maidens and boy slaves, indulged in narratively hollow words, and on top of that he dyed and curled his hair. But a year ago, after being caught in a criminal relationship with the wife of consul Aulu Plautius, he had been exiled from Rome and gone on a journey to see the world to study the philosophy and religious teachings of foreign nations. This exile had revived his mind. He had arrived in Capernaum from Bosra and, out of curiosity, had entered the synagogue, hoping to learn something new there.

He asked about my signet ring. I explained that it was a gift from Oroza Bakoerat and fussed that you had no use for such a ring if you were hungry but that it was also a waste to sell it and, therefore, it would have been better if that star diviner had sent me gold coins. That made Quintus feminine. He could not believe that someone to whom the king's chief astrologer had sent a gift and a kind word lived in a drafty barn with the wind blowing right through it.

I even had to ask Matthew, who was just nearby for a moment, to take the letter out of his knapsack and show it to the youth.

I talk with Quint once until evening, sometimes falling asleep for a while and then waiting patiently for me to open my eyes again. We talked Latin with each other. I explained to Quintus that travel was not the best way to get to know the world, that a philosopher of all first had to investigate his own inner world and already thus could cast himself out to become a great sage without coming out of his god, just as the Essenes and pheropeutes and other hermits chastise themselves slowly, to exhaust the flesh, nourish the aversion to their own flesh, and ideally you should put yourself to death quickly and painlessly. After all, there is no greater shame, my dear young man, than to be here and in this body. Have you ever watched the Jerusalem clergy in the temple prepare the livestock for the great feast day? Have you not? It is worth watching: the animals are led in a goose march to the slaughter bench. And look, the condition of men is nothing better than theirs. The wisest thing a body can do on the way to the slaughterhouse is to cremate. Because our sacrifices will always be too little to God, always! Besides, I am convinced that you can only partake of true happiness and bliss on the healing side among the magnificent immortal beings. Believe me, virtue goes astray for mortal nature but meets the immortal full of joy.

Quintus was perplexed.

'But Julie, Jewish god is against suicide.' Said he.

'Nowhere in the Torah is that said in so many words,' I replied. 'Indeed, God himself will once become flesh, as a man, and kill himself, thus setting an example for all sensible people. Then, He will rise from the dead and transform the world. For that, He only needs enough letters, enough to compose with them the one nodding and important thing that He will lay as the cornerstone of everything.'

My words sounded convincing, especially since Quintus had just seen how blood loss had nearly killed me to show people the way to eternity, the only worthwhile one.

'But I'm afraid to die, Jesus...' confessed Quintus. 'Later perhaps, when I am old and tired of my days...'

'When you are older, Quintus, your life will surely not be as valuable as it is now,' I continue my thoughts, stern, disconsolate, and unquestioning. 'You will slack off spiritually and cling to life with your last strength, begging mercy to your shame from him who is not even worthy of your derision. You will be too late in the spiritual world... Animals should not have defects, though old age is an ailment worse than ugliness. Do you know how the surrender in the temple in Jerusalem works? One wondrous morning, your blood stains the walls, and then your bowels and your fat hisses on the altar of odor that has been stoked all night... Best of all, there is a lamp. An old passage is not pleasing to God. Empedocles of Akragas, the Hellenic sage, and physician, stepped into the crater of the volcano Etna without waiting for his old age, and he did very wisely in doing so.'

Quintus sank into pondering, then spoke, "You Jews are lucky, you have only one God whom you spit right in the bard for the whole mors art by virtue of the mors voluntaria. But my family believes in Neptune, Apollo, Mars, Pluto, the geniuses and graces, and in Venus... It's a lot easier to kill a big gawd with a stone than to miss a swarm. But I think it would be correct to determine who exactly owns all those birds.'

I was surprised at the accuracy of his words.

I laughed for a few days in the barn to regain my strength. I was told that Rabbi Avdon had again gone to complain to Prefect Aurelius, but that the latter had laughed at him for his inability to restore order in his own synagogue. My disciples, who were making money in various ways while prophesying as joyfully as they were unconcerned, were getting further and further away from Capernaum because no one in the city and more believed. It took a long time for them to show up again. Only Judas was constantly with me.

Quintus regularly brought me good food and good wine, from which I gained great strength. Especially from the hearty fears of a three-year-old. Sometimes, Quintus would come and lie next to me, and I would slap my arm around him like a girl.

Judas became jealous.

A short time later, Quintus said goodbye to Capernaum and continued his journey south to the Kingdom of Nabatia, because he wanted to visit Petra, the city where the tomb of the patriarch Aaron was located. What did you come to see there? Aaron had long since been freed from all of us, and his bones had turned to dust. As I said goodbye to Quintus, I hoped that my admonition would be effective. I chose the best medicine for him. In Petra you had a red rock from which you could step into eternity.