From Chapter 514: the healing of a Roman soldier at Beth-horon

The servant arrives. A strong old man looking dismayed. He greets and looks stealthily at Jesus Who smiles at him asking: “What is your mistress dying of?”

“Of… She was expecting. But the child died in her womb and her blood became infected. She is raving as if she were mad and is going to die. They opened her veins to make her temperature drop. But her blood is completely poisoned and she will die. They put her in the cistern to abate her fierce heat. It drops while she is in the ice-cold water. Then it becomes stronger than before, and she coughs and coughs… and she will die.”

“No wonder! With such treatment!” grumbles Matthew between his teeth.

“How long has she been ill?”

The servant is about to reply when the leader of the Roman squad runs down the hill towards them and stops in front of Jesus. “Hail! Are You the Nazarene?”

“I am. What do you want of Me?”

Jesus’s followers rush there wondering who knows what…

“One day one of our horses struck a Jewish boy and You cured him to prevent the Jews from making a din against us. Now the stones of the Jews have knocked down a soldier, who is now lying with a broken leg. I cannot stop because I am on duty. No one in the village wants to take him in and he cannot walk. I cannot drag him along with a broken leg. I know that You do not despise us as all the Jews do…”

“Do you want Me to cure the soldier?”

“Yes, I do. You cured also the servant of the Centurion and Valeria’s little girl. You saved Alexander from the wrath of Your fellow-citizens. These things are known both in high and low quarters.”

“Let us go to the soldier.”

“And what about my mistress?” asks the discontented servant.

“Later.”

And Jesus follows the non-commissioned officer, who devours the way with his brawny legs free from hampering clothes. But even striding thus ahead of everybody, he manages to speak some words to Him Who is the first to follow him, that is to Jesus, and he says: “Some time ago I was with Alexander. He… used to speak of You. Chance has put You close to me just now.”

“Chance? Why not say God? The true God?”

The soldier is silent for a moment, then in a low voice so that Jesus only can hear he says: “The true God would be the Hebrew one… But He does not make Himself loved, if He is like the Hebrews. They do not take pity even on a wounded man…”

“The true God is the God of the Hebrews, as well as of the Romans, the Greeks, the Arabs, the Parthians, the Scythians, the Iberians, the Gauls, the Celts, the Lybians, the Hyperboreans. There is but one God! But many do not know Him, others have a wrong knowledge of Him. If they knew Him well, they would all be like brothers to one another, and there would be no abuse of power, no hatred, no slander, no revenge, no lust, no thefts, no homicides, no adulteries and no falsehood. I know the true God and I have come to make Him known.”

“They say… We must be all ears in order to report to the centurions who in turn have to report to the Proconsul. They say that You are God. Is that true?” The soldier is very… worried in saying so. He looks at Jesus from under the shade of his helmet, and he almost looks frightened.

“I am.”

“By Jove! So it is true that the gods descend to converse with men? After travelling all over the world following the banners, I have come here, and old man, to find a god!”

“The God. The Only One. Not a god” says Jesus correcting him.

But the soldier is stupefied at the idea of preceding a god… He does not speak any more… He is pensive, until, just at the entrance to the village they find the squad standing around the wounded soldier, who is moaning on the ground.

“Here he is!” says the non-commissioned officer briefly.

Jesus makes His way through the crowd, approaching him. His leg, which is badly broken, is lying with the foot turned inside, and it is already swollen and livid. The man must be suffering very much and when he sees Jesus stretch His hand out he implores: “Don’t hurt me too much!”

Jesus smiles. With the tips of His fingers He lightly touches where the livid circle of the trauma shows the fracture. He then says: “Stand up!”

“But he has another fracture farther up, at his hip” explains the non-commissioned officer, certainly meaning: “Are You not going to touch that one?”

Just then a citizen from Beth-horon arrives and says: “Master, Master! You are wasting Your time with heathens, and my wife is dying!”

“Go and bring her here.”

“I cannot. She is mad!”

“Go and bring her here to Me, if you have faith in Me.”

“Master, no one can hold her. She is naked and we cannot dress her. She is mad and tears her clothes. She is dying and cannot stand.”

“Go and bring her here if your faith is not inferior to the faith of these heathens.”

The man goes away discontentedly.

Jesus looks at the Roman lying at His feet: “And can you have faith?”

“Yes, I can. What must I do?”

“Stand up.”

“Be careful, Camillus, because…” the non-commissioned officer is saying. But the soldier is already on his feet, agile, cured.

The Israelites do not shout hosanna. The man who has been cured is not a Hebrew. On the contrary they appear to be dissatisfied or at least their faces seem to be criticising Jesus’s action. But the soldiers are not discontented, and they draw their short wide daggers and raise them into the grey air after beating their shields with them to make a joyful noise. Jesus is in the middle of a circle of blades.

The non-commissioned officer looks at Him. He does not know what to say or what to do, he, a man near a god, a heathen near God… He is pensive and he realises that he must at least do for God what he would for Caesar. And he orders his men to salute the emperor (at least I think so because I hear a mighty “Hail!” resound while the blades shine as they are held almost horizontally by the outstretched arms). And not yet satisfied, he says in a low voice: “Go without worrying also at night. The roads… are all watched. Watched against highwaymen. You will be safe, I…” He stops. He does not know what to say.

Jesus smiles at him saying: “Thank you. Go and be good. Be human also to highwaymen. Be faithful to your service without being cruel. They are poor wretches. And they will have to give account of their deeds to God.”

All the MV passages where Jesus interacts with non-Israelites are interesting to me. I find this one to be especially fascinating and informative; here’s why:

• (Like several other passages,) it shows that the Romans consistently held Jesus in high esteem.
• It shows that the Romans had an efficient, well-developed system for collecting and transmitting intelligence. Every Roman was aware of every good thing Jesus had said or done on their behalf since the start of His public ministry.
• Jesus had to make a choice between healing a Roman or an Israelite first, and He chose the Roman. The implications of His choice were not lost on the citizens of the nearby village. Later in the same chapter He used their reactions as the nucleus of a speech rebuking them for their continued inability to grasp His message of inclusiveness and universal charity.
• It shows that the medical understanding of the time was at least somewhat scientific. Contrary to what people might conclude from the rather limited list of miracles mentioned in the KJ Gospels, the Israelites did not believe that every illness was caused by demonic possession.
• Last but not least, the image of Jesus standing in the middle of a circle of unsheathed Roman swords is astonishing. It puts me in mind of the well-known undersea photographs of a clown fish nestling in the otherwise poisonous tentacles of a sea anemone. It’s a terrific visual metaphor for Jesus’s positive relationship with the Romans.

From Chapter 506: on our true nature and potential

From the beginning of Jesus’s “I am the Light of the world” speech (John 8:12-20).

“By an order of His thought He created the firmament and the earth that is the mass of the atmosphere and the mass of dust, the incorporeal and the corporeal, what is very light and what is heavy, but both still barren, void and shapeless, because they were enveloped in darkness, devoid of stars and lifeless. But to give the earth and the firmament their true features, to make of them two beautiful things, useful and suitable for the continuation of His creative work, the Spirit of God — that hovered over the waters and was one thing with the Creator Who was creating and with the Inspirer Who urged to create, in order to be able to love not only Himself in the Father and in the Son, but also an infinite number of creatures — named stars, planets, waters, seas, forests, plants, flowers, animals that fly, wriggle, creep, run, jump, climb, and finally man, the most perfect creature, more perfect than the sun, because he is endowed with soul as well as with matter, with intelligence as well as with instinct, with freedom as well as with rules, man similar to God because of his spirit, similar to animals because of his body, the demigod who becomes god by the grace of God and his own will, the human being who can transform himself into an angel, if he wishes so, the beloved being of sensible Creation, for whom, although He knew that he would be a sinner, even before time existed He prepared the Saviour, the Victim in the Being loved beyond measure, in the Son, in the Word, for Whom everything was made. But to give the earth and the firmament their true features, as I was saying, the Spirit of God, hovering over the cosmos, shouts, and it is the first time that the Word shows Himself: ‘Let there be light’ and there was light, good, beneficial, strong during the day, dim at night, everlasting until the end of time. From the ocean of wonders, which is the throne of God, the bosom of God, God draws the most beautiful gem, and it is the light preceding the most perfect gem, that is, the creation of man, in whom there is not a jewel of God, but God Himself, breathing over the dust to make it living flesh and His heir to the heavenly Paradise where He awaits the just, His children, that He may rejoice in them and they in Him.”

The MV Gospel helps us understand our own true nature as well as Jesus’s. I am highlighting this particular passage because it discusses not just our true nature, but our higher potential as well. It’s also interesting for an entirely different reason: it restates the first chapter of Genesis, but in a far more anthropocentric way.

From Chapter 494: the adulterous woman

Compare with John 8:1-11.

The group pressing around Jesus, the only one to be still, whilst all the others standing around this or that master are walking up and down, opens out to let a small group of gesticulating venomous scribes and Pharisees pass. They are spurting venom from their eyes, their livid faces and mouths. What vipers they are! Rather than lead they are dragging a woman, about thirty years old; her hair is ruffled and her dress untidy and she is weeping, as if she had been ill-treated. They throw her at Jesus’s feet as if she were a bundle of rags or a dead body. And she remains there crouched, with her face resting on her arms, which hide it and are like a cushion between it and the ground.

“Master, this woman was caught in the very act of committing adultery. Her husband loved her and ensured that she lacked nothing. She was the queen in her house. And she has been unfaithful to him because she is a vicious ungrateful sinner and profaner. She is an adulteress and as such she is to be stoned. Moses ordered so. In his law he orders us to stone such women like unclean animals. And they are unclean. Because they betray faith and the man who loves them and takes care of them and because like earth never sated, they always crave for lust. They are worse than prostitutes because without the sting of need they give themselves to satisfy their lewdness. They are corrupted and corrupters. They are to be sentenced to death. Moses said so. What have You to say, Master?”

Jesus, Who had stopped speaking at the tumultuous arrival of the Pharisees and had looked at the pack of angry men with piercing eyes and then had lowered them on the depressed woman thrown at His feet, is silent. Still sitting, He has bent, and with His finger He begins to write on the stones of the porch covered with the dust raised by the wind. While they speak He writes.

“Master? We are speaking to You. Listen to us. Reply to us. Have You not understood? This woman has been caught in the very act of committing adultery. In her house. In the bed of her husband. She has polluted it with her lechery.”

Jesus is writing.

“But this man is a fool! Don’t you see that He does not understand anything and that He is drawing signs on the dust like a poor fool?”

“Master for the sake of Your name, speak. Let Your wisdom reply to our question. We repeat it: this woman lacked nothing. She had clothes, food, love. And she has been unfaithful.”

Jesus is writing.

“She lied to the man who trusted her. With mendacious lips she greeted him and went to the door with him, smiling, she then opened the secret door and let her lover in. And while her husband was away working for her, like an unclean animal, she wallowed in her lewdness.”

“Master, she is a desecrator of the Law as well as of her nuptial bed. She is a rebel, an impious person, a blasphemer.”

Jesus is writing. He writes and cancels with His sandal-shod foot what He has written and writes farther on, turning around slowly to find more room. He looks like a little boy playing. But what He writes are not playful words. He has written successively: “Usurer”, “False”, “Irreverent son”, “Fornicator”, “Murderer”, “Desecrator of the Law”, “Thief”, “Libidinous”, “Usurper”, “Unworthy husband and father”, “Blasphemer”, “Rebellious to God”, “Adulterer”. The words are written over and over again while new accusers speak.

Well, Master! Your opinion. The woman is to be judged. She must not contaminate the Earth with her weight. Her breath is poison that upsets hearts.”

Jesus stands up. Good gracious! What a face! His eyes flash like lightning striking the accusers. He holds His head so upright that He looks even taller. And He is so severe and solemn that He seems a king on his throne. His mantle has fallen off one shoulder forming a short train behind Him. But He does not mind that. With stern countenance and not even the least trace of a smile on His lips or in His eyes, He glares with such eyes at the crowds which withdraw as they would before two sharp blades. He stares at them one by one. With such searching intensity that frightens. Those who are stared at try to withdraw into the crowd and hide there. The circle thus widens and breaks up as if it were mined by an occult power.

He finally speaks: “If there is one of you who has not sinned, let him be the first to throw a stone at her.” And His voice sounds like thunder while His eyes flash even more brightly. Jesus has folded His arms across His chest and remains thus: as straight as a judge, awaiting. His eyes give no peace: they search, penetrate and accuse.

First one, then two, then five, then in groups, all the people present go away with lowered heads. Not only the scribes and the Pharisees, but also those who were previously around Jesus, and others who had approached Him to hear His opinion and the sentence, and both the former and the latter had (earlier) joined together to abuse the guilty woman and demand her lapidation.

Jesus is left alone with Peter and John. I do not see the other apostles.

Jesus has resumed writing, while the flight of the accusers is taking place, and He now writes: “Pharisees”, “Vipers”, “Sepulchres of rottenness”, “Liars”, “Traitors”, “Enemies of God”, “Revilers of His Word”…

When the court is completely empty and there is a solemn silence in it — only the rustling of the wind and the murmur of a little fountain in the corner can be heard — Jesus raises His head and looks. His countenance is now placid. He is sad, but no longer angry. He casts a look at Peter, who has moved away a little, leaning against a column, and one at John, who almost behind Jesus looks at him with his loving eyes. Jesus smiles slightly looking at Peter and more brightly when He looks at John. Two different smiles.

He then looks at the woman, still prostrated and weeping at His feet. He gets up, He adjusts His mantle as if He were about to set off. He beckons to the two apostles to go to the exit.

When He is alone He calls the woman. “Woman, listen to Me. Look at Me.” He repeats His order because she dare not look up. “Woman, we are alone. Look at Me.”

The poor wretch raises her face that tears and dust have turned into a mask of dejection.

“Woman, where are now those who were accusing you?” Jesus is speaking in a low voice, with gravity full of pity. His head and body are lightly bent forward, toward so much misery, and His eyes are full of an indulgent restoring expression. “Did no one condemn you?”

The woman replies sobbing: “No one, Master.”

“Neither do I condemn you. Go. And do not sin anymore. Go home. And behave in such a way that you may be forgiven by God and by the man you offended. And do not trespass on the benignity of the Lord. Go.”

And He helps her to get up taking her by the hand. But He does not bless, neither does He greet her with the greeting of peace. He looks at her going away, her head lowered and slightly staggering in her shame, and when she disappears, He sets off Himself with the two disciples.

I am including this well-known incident because the MV version completely altered my understanding of what happened here and why. Not knowing what Jesus was writing in the dirt, and not realising that He had perfect “moral radar,” i.e. the ability to instantly read the hearts of the people around him, I had always assumed that His response to the woman’s accusers was objective, i.e. based on the facts of the case and His understanding of Mosaic law. But the MV version makes it clear that his response to the woman’s accusers was situational: he did what he did, and said what he said, mainly in response to the immorality he perceived inside them. So His response was two things at once: a clarification of Mosaic law, and a rebuke to these particular accusers — in short, a masterpiece of rhetorical economy.

From Chapter 491: regarding the Day of Judgement

Part of the Sermon on the Living Water, at the Temple in Jerusalem on the last day of the feast of the Tabernacles. Compare with Revelations 20:11-15.

The day will come when on a dead world, under a dark vault of heaven, bones and bones of dead people will appear at the angelical blare. Like a womb that opens to give birth, the Earth will eject from its bowels every bone of man who died on it and is buried in its mud, from Adam down to the last man. And then it will be the resurrection of the dead for the great supreme judgement after which, like an apple of Sodom, the world will become empty, turning into nullity and the vault of heaven with its stars will come to an end. Everything will come to an end, with the exception of two things which are eternal, remote, at the extremes of two abysses of immeasurable depth, in complete antithesis with regards to form, aspect and way in which the power of God will continue forever in them: Paradise: light, joy, peace, love; Hell: darkness, sorrow, horror, hatred.

This passage plainly states that when the Day of Judgement occurs the earth will be uninhabited, so presumably a very long way off in human terms. There is no reason to take any comfort in this timing, though. The only thing about Judgement Day that matters is its existence; its timing by comparison is irrelevant. The mere existence of Judgement Day is what drives us, or ought to be driving us, to treat everyone we meet with love and charity today, tomorrow, the day after that, and the day after that, for the rest of our lives.

I would like to see this particular passage get publicised far and wide, in the hope that doing so will sharply reduce or even eliminate the endless series of specific, inevitably false Doomsday predictions from self-interested, spiritually immature people. These predictions weaken people’s interest in Christian eschatology and thereby cause great individual harm; more broadly, they undermine the dignity and credibility of every denomination of Christianity.

From Chapter 414: the origin of the plot to kill Jesus

Compare with Luke 11:37-54.

Helkai, a member of the Sanhedrin, invited Jesus and the apostles to dinner at his house. He tricked his guests into violating the precepts by rushing them to the dinner table with no opportunity to wash their hands. In an earlier passage Jesus confronted Helkai about this duplicity. Here, He is concluding a long speech excoriating his treacherous hosts.

But I will speak as long as My Father likes me to speak. And afterwards My deeds will speak more than My words. And My merits will speak even more than My deeds, and the world will be taught and will know, and it will judge you. The first judgement is upon you. Then the second will come: an individual judgement at the death of each of you. And then the last one: The Universal one. And you will remember this day and these days, and you, you alone will know the terrible God, Whom you have striven to show as a nightmarish vision to the spirits of simple people, whilst you, inside your sepulchres, derided Him and you neither respected nor obeyed His commandments, from the first and main one: the commandment of love, to the last one given on Sinai.

It is of no avail to you, Helkai, that you have no images in your house. Neither is it of any avail to you all, that you have no sculptures in your houses. Inside your hearts you have an idol, several idols. The idol whereby you believe that you are gods, the idols of your concupiscence. Come, My disciples, let us go.

And preceded by the Twelve he goes out at last.

Silence…

Those remaining clamour shouting all together: “We must persecute Him, catch Him at fault and find counts of indictment! We must kill Him!”

Then silence again.

Then, while two of them go away disgusted with the hatred and intentions of the Pharisees — one is Helkai’s relative and the other the man who defended the Master twice — those left ask one another: “But how?”

There is silence once again.

Then with a hoarse laughter Helkai says: “We will have to talk Judas of Simon around…”

“Of course! It’s a good idea! But you offended him!…”

“I’ll see to that” says the one whom Jesus called Simon Boetos. “Eleazar of Annas and I… We will entrap him…”

“Some promises…”

“A little fear…”

“Much money…”

“No. Not much. Promises of much money…”

“And then?”

“What do you mean: and then?”

“Eh! Then. When it is all done, what shall we give him?”

“Nothing! Death. So… he will not speak anymore” slowly and cruelly says Helkai.

“Oh! Death…”

“Are you horrified? Go away! If we kill the Nazarene Who… is a just man… we can kill the Iscariot as well, as he is a sinner…”

There is hesitation…

But Helkai, standing up, says: “We will hear also what Annas says… And you will see that… he will say that it is a good idea. And you will come, too… Oh! You will certainly come…”

They all go out after their host who goes away saying: “You will come… You will come!”

This is the origin of the plot to kill Jesus by means of Judas Iscariot. Be sure to note that the original intention was to kill Judas as well. Also be sure to compare this passage to Luke 11:38, which says “But the Pharisee, noticing that Jesus did not first wash before the meal, was surprised.” Again, Helkai and the others rushed Jesus and the twelve to the dinner table under false pretenses; the corresponding verse in Luke omits this treachery.

From Chapter 46: description of Satan’s appearance

From the beginning of the temptation in the wilderness.

Jesus is very thin and pale. He is sitting with His elbows resting on His knees, His forearms forward, His hands joined and His fingers interlaced. He is meditating. Now and again He looks up and around, then looks at the sun, almost perpendicular in the blue sky. Now and again, particularly after looking around and at the sun, He closes His eyes and leans on the rock sheltering Him, as if He were seized by dizziness.

I see Satan’s ugly face appear. He does not show himself in the features we imagine him: horns, tail etc. He looks like a bedouin enveloped in his robe and in a large mantle that resembles a domino. He is wearing a turban on his head and its white flaps fall along his cheeks, down to his shoulders protecting them. Thus only a very small dark triangle of his face can be seen, with thin, sinuous lips, very black hollow eyes, full of magnetic flashes. Two eyes that penetrate and read into the bottom of your heart, but in which you can read nothing, or one word only: mystery. The very opposite of Jesus’s eyes, also so magnetic and fascinating, which read in your heart, but in which you can also read that in His heart there is love and bounty for you. Jesus’s eyes caress your soul. Satan’s are like a double dagger that stabs and burns you.

Charles Baudelaire (1821-1867) wrote: “The finest trick of the devil is to persuade you that he does not exist.” This is not just another memorable quotation; it is one of the main reasons why our planet is saturated with evil. Our minds need some concrete sensory impression — some specific image, sound, touch, taste, or smell — as an anchor around which we can build up our understanding of something more abstract. Here MV has done us a tremendous service by providing us with an anchor we badly needed for increasing our awareness and understanding of Satan.

From Chapter 25: the Passion of Joseph

Mary is speaking directly to MV. Compare with Matthew 1:18-21.

Who can truly tell Joseph’s pain, his thoughts, the perturbation of his feelings? Like a little boat caught in a great storm, he was in a vortex of conflicting ideas, in a turmoil of reflections, of which one was more piercing and painful than the other. He was, to all appearances, a man betrayed by his wife. He saw his good reputation and the esteem of his world collapse around him; because of Her he saw scornful fingers pointed at him and felt pitied by the village people. Above all, he perceived that his love and esteem for Me had fallen, struck to death, before the evidence of a deed.

In this respect, his holiness shines brighter than Mine. And I give this witness with the affection of a spouse, because I want you to love My Joseph, this wise, prudent, patient and good man, who is not separated from the mystery of Redemption, on the contrary, he is closely connected to it, because he suffered for it, consuming himself in sorrow for it, saving your Saviour at the cost of his own sacrifice because of his holiness.

Had he not been so holy, he would have acted in a human way, denouncing Me as an adulteress so that I should be stoned, and the Son of My sin should perish with Me. If he had been less holy, God would not have granted him His light as guidance in his trial. But Joseph was holy. His pure spirit lived in God. His charity was ardent and strong. And out of charity he saved your Saviour for you, both when he refrained from accusing Me to the elders, and when he saved Jesus in Egypt, leaving everything with prompt obedience.

The three days of Joseph’s passion were short in number, but deep in intensity. And they were tremendous also for Me, those days of My first passion. Because I was aware of his suffering, which I could not alleviate, in fact I had to obey God’s command Who had said to Me: ‘Be silent!’

And when, after we arrived in Nazareth, I saw him go away with a laconic goodbye, and bent as if he had aged in a short time, and I noticed that he no longer came to see Me in the evening as he used to do, then I tell you, My children, that My heart wept very bitterly. Closed in My house, all alone, in the house where everything reminded Me of the Annunciation and the Incarnation, and where everything reminded Me of Joseph, married to me with spotless virginity, I had to fight despair and Satan’s insinuation, and hope, hope, hope. And pray, pray, pray. And forgive, forgive, forgive Joseph’s suspicion, his disturbance and just despair.

Just try to imagine how deeply these two people suffered, in silence, for three full days! Mary, expressly forbidden from explaining Her pregnancy to Joseph; and Joseph, kept in the dark and suppressing the perfectly understandable urge to take action or question Mary directly. This was an extraordinary, high-stakes preamble to the Nativity.

Also be sure to take note of Mary’s remark about “fighting Satan’s insinuation.” We all know the standard descriptions of Mary as meek and gentle, but this remark reminds us that She is also a fighter. We must keep reminding ourselves how much inner strength She has.

From Chapter 45: initial encounter of Jesus and John the Baptist

… I notice that the right bank of the Jordan (compared with my position) is becoming crowded with people. There are many men dressed in different fashions. Some seem ordinary people, some rich, and there are some who appear to be Pharisees, because their tunics are adorned with fringes and braids.

In the midst of them, standing on a rock, there is a man whom I recognise at once to be the Baptist, although it is the first time I have seen him. He is speaking to the crowds, and I can assure you that his sermon is not a sweet one. Jesus called James and John “the sons of thunder.” Well then, what should we call this impetuous orator? John the Baptist deserves the names of thunderbolt, avalanche, earthquake, so impetuous and severe he is in his speech and gestures.

He is announcing the Messiah and exhorting the people to prepare their hearts for His coming, eradicating all obstructions and rectifying their thoughts. But it is a violent and harsh speech. The Precursor does not possess the light hand Jesus used to cure the wounds of hearts. He is a doctor who lays the wound bare, scrutinises it and cuts it mercilessly.

While I am listening — I am not repeating the words, because they are related by the Evangelists, but here they are amplified in impetuosity — I see my Jesus proceeding along a path, which is at the edge of the grassy shady strip coasting the Jordan. This rustic road — it is more a path than a road — seems to have been opened by the caravans and the people who throughout years and centuries, passed along it to reach a point where it is easy to wade, because the water is very shallow. The path continues on the other side of the river, and disappears from sight in the green strip of the other bank.

Jesus is alone. He is walking slowly, coming forward, behind the Baptist. He approaches noiselessly and listens to the thundering voice of the Penitent of the desert, as if He also were one of the many who came to John to be baptised and purified for the coming of the Messiah. There is nothing to distinguish Jesus from the others. His clothes are those of common people, but He has the appearance and handsomeness of a gentleman. There is no divine sign discriminating Him from the crowd.

But it would appear that John perceives a special spirituality emanate from Him. He turns around, and at once identifies the source of the emanation. He descends impulsively from the rocky pulpit and moves quickly toward Jesus, Who has stopped a few yards away from the crowd and is leaning against the trunk of a tree.

Jesus and John stare at each other for a moment: Jesus, with His very sweet blue eyes; John with his very severe black flashing ones. Seen from nearby, one is the antithesis of the other. They are both tall — their only resemblance — for all the rest, they differ immensely. Jesus is fair haired. His hair is long and tidy, His face is white ivory, His eyes blue, His garment simple, but majestic. John is hairy: his straight, black hair falls unevenly onto his shoulders, his sparse dark beard covers his face almost completely, but his cheeks, hollowed by fasting, are still noticeable, his feverish eyes are black, his complexion is dark, tanned by the sun and weather-beaten, his body is covered with hairs, he is half-naked in his camel-hair garment, which is tied to his waist by a leather belt and covers his trunk, reaching down to his thin sides, whilst his right side is uncovered and bare, completely weather-beaten. They look like a savage and an angel, seen close together.

John, after scrutinising Him with his piercing eyes, exclaims: “Here is the Lamb of God. How is it that my Lord comes to me?”

Jesus replies calmly: “To fulfil the penitential rite.”

“Never, my Lord. I must come to You to be sanctified, and You are coming to me?”

And Jesus, laying His hand on the head of John, who had bowed down in front of Him, replies: “Let it be done as I wish, that all justice may be fulfilled and your rite may become the beginning of a higher mystery and men may be informed that the Victim is in the world.”

This is one of my favourite passages. Apart from its obvious historical and spiritual significance, MV precedes it with a detailed physical description of the entire Jordan river valley which I have omitted here, so the reader has a complete sense of place. When she describes Jesus slowly and steadily proceeding towards John the Baptist from a great distance away, the effect for the reader is nothing short of cinematic.

Beyond this, though, there is the nature of the encounter between these two: no blessings or other type of standard greeting, just an instantaneous, intuitive knowing and connection. During the act of baptism a kind of intimacy necessarily exists between the baptiser and the baptisee. What makes this passage so touching is that for Jesus and His Precursor, this intimacy existed from their first moment of mutual recognition.

From Chapter 46: excerpt from Satan’s opening speech

Satan has sat down in front of Jesus and he scrutinises Him with his dreadful eyes, and smiles at Him with his snakelike mouth. Jesus is always silent, and is praying mentally.

“You don’t trust me. You are wrong. I am the wisdom of the earth. I can be Your teacher and show You how to triumph. See, the important thing is to triumph. Then, once we have imposed ourselves and we have enchanted the world, then we can take them wherever we want. But first, we must be as they wish us to be. Like them. We must allure them, making them believe that we admire them and follow their thoughts.

You are young and handsome. Start with a woman. One must always start from her. I made a mistake inducing her to be disobedient. I should have advised her differently. I would have turned her into a better instrument, and I would have beaten God. I was in a hurry. But You! I will teach You, because one day I looked at You with angelical joy, and a fraction of that love is still left in me, but You must listen to me, and make use of my experience. Find yourself a woman. Where you do not succeed, she will. You are the new Adam: You must have Your Eve.

In any case, how can You understand and heal the diseases of the senses, if You do not know what they are? Don’t You know that is where the seed is, from which the tree of greediness and arrogance sprouts? Why do men want to reign? Why do they want to be rich and powerful? To possess woman. She is like a lark. She will be attracted only by something sparkling. Gold and power are two sides of the mirror that draw woman, and are the causes of evil in the world. Look: in a thousand different crimes, there are at least nine hundred that take root in the lust of possessing a woman or in the passion of a woman, burning with a desire that man has not yet satisfied, or can no longer satisfy. Go to a woman if you want to know what life is. And only then, You will be able to cure and heal the diseases of mankind.

Women, You know, are beautiful! There is nothing nicer in the world. Man has brains and strength. But woman! Her thought is a perfume, her touch is the caress of flowers, her grace is like wine, pleasant to drink, her weakness is like a handful of silk, or the curl of a child in a man’s hand, her caress is a strength which is poured over our own strength, and inflames it. Sorrow, fatigue, worries are forgotten when we lie near a woman, and she is in our arms like a bunch of flowers.

But what a fool I am! You are hungry and I am talking to You of women. Your energy is exhausted. That is why that fragrance of the earth, that flower of creation, the fruit that gives and excites love, seems without any value to You. But look at these stones. How round and smooth they look, gilded by the setting sun! Don’t they look like loaves? Since You are the Son of God, all You have to say is: ‘I want’ and they will become sweet-smelling bread, just like the loaves housewives are now taking out of their ovens, for the supper of their families. And these arid acacias, if You only wish so, will they not be filled with sweet fruit and dates as sweet as honey? Eat Your fill, Son of God. You are the Master of the earth. The earth is bowing down to put itself at your feet and appease Your hunger.”

I have always found myself puzzled after reading Satan’s speech in the KJ version of the temptation in the desert (Matthew 4:1-11) — not because of what it contains, but because of what it lacks. Simply put, what about lust? This is the most important debate that has ever taken place on the surface of our planet, and Satan is giving the most important persuasive speech he will ever give, and yet he neglects to tempt Jesus with lust? So it came as a great relief to me to find that in the MV version lust is mentioned and mentioned right away, reflecting its proper place in the hierarchy of temptations.

We can also see why this vital section of Satan’s speech got dropped from the KJ version: unlike the sections which followed, it did not end with a direct question or request to Jesus, nor did it elicit a response from him.

It’s impossible to overestimate the value of having Satan’s complete speech in front of us, because it gives us nothing less than Satan’s recipe for leading people away from God. In an afternote to this chapter, Jesus gave MV an overview and assessment of the entire temptation episode, and He summarised Satan’s strategy as follows:

“The two most common means adopted by Satan to conquer souls are sensuality and gluttony. He always starts from material things. Once he has dismantled and subdued the material side, he attacks the spiritual part.

First the morals: thoughts with their pride and greed; then the spirit, obliterating not only its love — which no longer exists when man replaces divine love with other human loves — but also the fear of God. Then man surrenders his body and soul to Satan, only for the sake of enjoying what he wants, and enjoying it more and more.”