Chapter 29 - Demetrius
When people heard that I had moved from Capernaum to Chorazin, long lines came to me, from the sick, the handicapped and simply from people who were in need of comfort or good advice. Most often now I got people who asked me to administer justice in some matter, but I tried to avoid that role, so as not to offend the authorities, and I either referred him to the chief rabbi or to the chancery of the Roman garrison. There also came simple-minded people who simply stared at me with wide-eyed images and kissed my sandals.
I received people in one of the rooms on the first floor. That one had a wooden floor, and through the two windows plenty of light came in. In the corner was a fireplace with a flue. At my request, a table with a marble top was carried in, and on it I displayed bowls of all kinds of remedies, and my instruments, including new ones, specially forged to my design drawings, the work of the skillful blacksmith being paid for by our hostesses.
After consulting with my students, I started asking money for my treatments, mainly from well-to-do people. This enabled me to safeguard myself from people who simply wanted to have a chat with a well-known teacher, about something futile, for example, about whether to bake cakes in the shape of the ears of King Artaxerxes' lover at the Feast of Purim, thereby wasting not only my time, but theirs as well.
Moreover, we knew all too well how fragile any prosperity could be and wanted to set aside some silver money for the future.
Extracting a tooth and wound treatment with an infusion - 1 axis
Pulling a molar - 2 asses
Putting an arm back in its socket - 1 drachma
Splinting and fixing a broken arm - 2 drachmas
Having a comforting conversation with someone who was afraid of everything - 1 drachma
The prayer for a rich and sinful man -1 silver sickle
Curing a lunatic who ran from madness into the fire or water - 3 drachmas
Cleaning and cauterizing a festering wound - 3 drachmas
Blessing a pilgrimage to the Temple - 2 asses
Blessing a trade transaction - price by appointment
Treating male impotence - 3 drachms
Circumcising an infant - 5 asses
Predicting the death of a sick person to the nearest one year - 7 drachmas
Predicting the death of a sick person to the nearest six months - 10 drachmas
The seasoning against a snake bite - free
Exorcising evil spirits from a dwelling with incense - 4 drachmas
Removing a wart - 3 lepta
Bewitching a sagacious man - 15 drachmas
Bewitching an ordinary man - 5 drachmas
A leguminous lion gall (For the ritual of weakening the enemy) - 1 sickle
A piece of crockery with a drink against insomnia (wormwood, hops, mint) - 2 drachmas
Convulsions, shortness of breath, black disease, freedom from nightmares, rheumatism and colds... What a person gets for nothing has little value to him, the same goes for a method of treatment. I grabbed people's money and thus helped them feel the joy that health was for sale. For sale! Just now! Without waiting years for the free grace of a fickle God, as invalids and lepers did at the dome of Shiloach.
When hysterical women came to me for comfort, I often had intercourse with them in the treatment room, which was the best I could do for him. Sometimes they turned out to be virgins and I made them promise not to tell anyone about what happened, so I wouldn't have family members on my roof. Some came again. Others I scared them so they wouldn't run their mouths. There was nothing that curbed a woman's tongue like the fear of a curse.
Gita and Tali were jealous, but they couldn't do anything about it. Just as it was not in my power to heal everything and everyone, so it was not in the power of the sisters to have me all to themselves. By the way, as long as the relationships of a man and his wife have some imperfection or a trace of resentment, the games are both spicier and more colorful.
By the way, an effective remedy for those who could not conceive with any possibility, burning the word poerioet on a woman's belly. But of course, without intercourse, nothing came of it as well.
I started treating the mentally ill more often. Usually all they needed was attention, a kind, reassuring word. Many doctors (and not only among the Jews) try to cure their insane patients by locking them in dark rooms, tying them up, roasting them, getting them drunk with stubborn wine and making them listen to loud music, but that is stupid. And as useless as treatment through prayer to God, in whom you had long since ceased to believe.
Mental patients had to be encouraged to engage in mental activity, physical exercise and even making speeches.
I must confess that I enjoyed asking hefty sums from people who under normal circumstances were as backward as they were greedy. When I had listened to the abdominal complaints of such an innkeeper, I advised him to eat lamb's porridge in the morning, gave him a small piece of crockery with almond oil (take it in the morning at the same time as the porridge), and asked 5 shekels for it. His red fleshy face read: dirty swindler! And then, with a grin of indignation, he took five silver coins from his belt. Delightful to see!
But I didn't ask everyone for money, even though I did suffer from scraping, which I reproached myself for. If some poor slob arrived in a torn sindon with some ailment, of course I treated it free of charge.
All the illiterate, nit-picking, empty-headed folk filled my days with real illnesses and imagined phobias, and sometimes I did long for a conversation with a wise man. But like everywhere else, the people in Chorazin led sedate lives, and it was more useful to me to talk to the trees in the orchard than to them; at least olives and figs could not answer with stupidity. Of course, there lived in town a few families from the highest Roman circle, including the prefect and his wife, and they were educated people, but like the local clergy, they shunned dealing with me. With my students I never had a spiritual bond of trust, indeed, sometimes I noticed that they were ashamed of me, like children of their fathers, while I, what shall I conceal it, looked down on them a little and certainly did not see them as wise men at all.
Therefore, I was very happy when a learned man from Damascus came to me, named Demetrius. He indicated that he had lost the joy of life and that, having heard somewhere about a healer from Galilee, he had immediately set out on a journey. Demetrius shared an acquaintance with me and a cure for melancholy, and I was happy to convince myself once again that not only stupid suckers believed in me. He brought news from the capital of the province, but the main thing was that you could discuss questions of medicine with him, talk about philosophy and poetry.
I heard Demetrius explain in detail everything with which he was occupied. Once, when I was working in the library of Alexandria, I had at the same time received instruction in the handling of metals and other substances from one of the priests of Hermes, and therefore I was able to determine fairly quickly the cause of Demetrius's affliction, which was located in mercury poisoning, the metal with which he was experimenting in his workshops, trying to find a cheap way to properly gild tableware on the orders of a Roman Merchant. He had almost made xerion, a remedy for healing and transforming metals, but had suddenly lapsed into deep melancholy.
I explained to him that he had to get the mercury out of his body, only then would the drab sadness, like the waves of the North Sea, leave him.
'Then how do you do it, Jesus? Asked Demetrius.
"We know that in the world there are seven metals, and each of them corresponds to a wandering star, " I said. 'Mercury is guided by Kohav, who attracts ga in the morning and repels ga in the evening, therefore you must undress in a solitary height before sunrise, stand stark naked with your face to the east, look for the star Kohav in the sky and pronounce loudly: ''I return your gift to you!'' Then you must dance a flowing dance until dawn, offering your flanks, shoulders and behind to the light of this star, and fanning yourself with a bunch of branches from the flowering honeysuckle, which buds just in the month of ijara, when the pale face of Kohav is best seen. You should welcome the morning red in this way seven times, or else nine times, if after seven times you still do not feel joy of life.
I managed to inspire Demetrius, he brightened visibly as he imagined how he would return the star her heavy gift, finally step out of her shadow. I felt sorry for him because, after all, he had spent much of his life in a gloomy workshop, experimenting. I also told him that nasal drops of pheasant bile helped against melancholy and that you should take them simultaneously with the star's manifestations. Demetrius wrote down my advice on a piece of papyrus.
On parting, he said he would always be happy to receive us at his home in Damascus, and he explained how I could find him there. And he also presented me with a book written in Hellenic tongue containing the poems of Nikolaos of Damascus, titled The Seed of the Unicorn, which I absolutely loved. I knew that this man had been a historian and the teacher of Cleopatra of Selena, Queen of Kirenaika, but it turns out that he was also an impeccable poet whom I feel comfortable calling the sharper of refinement. These papyruses in their leather case with ribbon around them were a truly royal gift to me. Nikolaos of Damascus renounced in the book all the values of the world, to influence that same world against and unconstrained, but with authority.
I listened in my treatment room with eager interest to the news of people coming from Jerusalem. What orders had the prefect issued? What goods were now selling at a good price? What new prophets were making themselves known? What did you hear about my doubles? Has any of the clergy yet mentioned my name in a public appearance? In what acts of war hmm had really begun or ended in the countries around us? Had not one of the elders of the Sanhedrin died? Has another great new book been published? It occurred to me then that Israel was on the eve of events that would change her institution. And I wanted to have my part in that.
