The Gospel of Simon Read online

  While his grandson sent a text message to his girlfriend, the old man turned off the television and opened the window by the little kitchen table, the blue curtains billowing in the summer breeze. Through the window, he could see the little stone goat house with one window at the edge of his fenced yard. He used to own more land, but he’d sold most of it to a developer fifteen years ago, keeping only a small lot that included the house and the goat house, which had been on the land for so many generations no one knew how old it was for certain.

  What used to be his family’s farm was now surrounded by houses, each similar to the next and all of them painted white, clean and bright in the sunshine. Beyond the old goat house, he could see the beige drabness of sand and rock and the ancient rolling hills sparsely clad in scrubby, green trees with overcrowded housing and ugly power lines running toward Jerusalem in the distance.

  “All right, Grandpa. Rebekah said she’ll take a raincheck. She said there’s a movie she wanted to see anyhow. So what is it you want to show me?”

  The old man patted one of the two wooden chairs at the small table.

  “Come sit,” he said.

  When they were both seated, the young man across from his grandfather, the old man pulled the box closer.

  “This is older than you can imagine,” he said, removing the lid and carefully setting it aside.

  A musty smell arose from the opened box.

  “What is it?”

  “Your past. Your future.”

  Simon looked puzzled.

  The old man lifted out a bundle of paper tied crisscross with blue twine.

  Simon stood up and leaned over to get a better glimpse. From where he stood, he could see what looked like a leather bound book still inside the box.

  His grandfather laid a wrinkled hand atop the pages.

  “This manuscript contains the story of our family, our place in history.”

  The grandson struggled to understand what his grandfather was talking about. As far as he knew there was nothing special about their family, no claim to fame, let alone some extraordinary role in history.

  “I’m getting old. I must tell you a secret while my mind is still clear.”

  Simon wondered if the bundle of papers was his grandfather’s journal.

  “Is it about when you were young, about something you did? The war, maybe?” he asked, sitting back down.

  “No.”

  “Is it about my dad? Was he adopted?”

  The old man chuckled, the wrinkles around his eyes like deep canyons etched by floodwater.

  “No.”

  “Is it about Grandma, how you met her?”

  The old man smiled softly. He missed his wife.

  “No. It’s not about your grandmother. No more questions. The secret I must share with you happened long before I was born. It’s the story of what happened to the first Simon, for whom we are both named.”

  The old man pushed the manuscript across the table to his grandson.

  “Read this. There’s time enough.”

  Simon thumbed randomly through a few pages. The manuscript looked as if it were typed on onionskin paper on one of those old, manual typewriters.

  “I’ll be in the goat house when you’re done.”

  Simon untied the twine and set aside the blank first page. As he began to read, his grandfather shuffled across the creaking floor to the door, grabbing his cane and a worn, black fedora from a hook on the wall beside a small wooden crucifix. He glanced back just as Simon looked up from the manuscript as if startled, his mouth agape, his eyes questioning.

  The old man tipped his hat at his grandson and smiled before stepping into the sunlight.

  My name is Simon, I was born in Cyrene, a seaside city in the province of Cyrenaica not far from the Roman seaport of Apollonia on the southern Mediterranean coast. My family moved to Judaea when I was a boy. My mother died at sea on the journey. My father bought some land less than a half a day’s journey from Jerusalem on which he could raise goats and grow olives and a vineyard.

  But this story is not about that.

  It is about the day I helped a Nazarene named Jesus carry his cross through the streets of Jerusalem up to Golgotha where he was crucified.

  It has been forty years since that day, more or less. I was much stronger and taller than I am now. I asked my grandson to write down my recollections for me while I still remember clearly. Ezra learned to write in Aramaic. I promised him one of my goats for his labor, a pregnant nanny.

  What you are about to read I have told to few others. You will doubt some of what I say. You may even think I am lying. That is understandable. You were not there. It is difficult for most people to believe things they have not seen with their own eyes.

  For my own part, I forgive you your skepticism.

  Thursday

  Love is the fulfillment of the law.

  (Romans 13:10)

  My father died when he was forty-seven, and I inherited this land, which I have lived on ever since. Back when this story began, I lived here with my wife, Rachel, and my two sons—Alexander and Rufus. On this particular Passover, my firstborn, Alexander, was seventeen. Rufus was fifteen. Like their father, they were sturdy boys who would become strong men. Our daughter, Avigail, was four at the time.

  Avigail was deathly sick. Sometimes, her fever burned like a fire. When the fever was very high, her little body convulsed in violent fits, her eyes rolling back in her head, which always terrified her mother. Avigail’s stomach wouldn’t hold down food or drink. Her mother was always cleaning up after her, washing rags. Our little daughter was wasting away, and nothing we did seemed to help. The village healer had been consulted, but none of her remedies cured the sickness. I felt as helpless as a feather on the Jordan, hopeless in the certainty our beautiful, little daughter was going to die.

  I was kneeling beside Avigail’s bed, wiping her burning body with a wet cloth, when Alexander and Rufus returned from the field, where they had been laboring since morning.

  “How is our sister?” asked Alexander.

  “She is getting worse,” I said sadly, shaking my head. “She hasn’t opened her eyes all day.”

  Rufus knelt beside Avigail and placed a hand on her forehead.

  “Get well, Little One,” he whispered. “May God take pity on you.”

  Avigail’s eyes did not move.

  “Did you boys repair the wheel on the cart, like I asked? Tomorrow is Passover. We must take the wine into Jerusalem to sell.”

  The boys said the cart was repaired.

  “Very good,” I replied. “And how goes it with the goat house?”

  “We have laid down the first four courses of stone,” replied Alexander. “The stones are well fit. It’s a strong foundation.”

  Rufus nodded in agreement with his older brother.

  I kissed Avigail on the forehead.

  “Come,” I said, rising from my knees, “let’s go see your handiwork and load the cart for tomorrow’s journey.”

  Outside, I stopped on a small rise and looked down over my land, marveling at the grove of olive trees and the neat rows of grape vines laid down by my father. My sons stood beside me, one on either side. From where we stood, we could see the vertical stone wheel that pressed oil from our olives and the little garden where my wife grew vegetables and herbs for our family. Goats grazed in the vineyard and chickens scratched in the soil. We could also see the beginning of the new goat house beside the old, dilapidated wooden one. Built of stones, the new goat house would last for many generations.

  “This is good land,” I said. “I can be proud to pass it to you one day. Hopefully, you will pass it on to your sons.”

  I followed my boys to the cart to inspect the wheel, looking closely at the repair. I grabbed the rim and pulled on it to check how wel
l it was connected to the axle. The wheel was tight, the hub well-greased.

  “A fine job,” I said, patting both of my sons on the shoulder. “Now, help me load the wine into the cart.”

  I had twenty amphorae, each as high as a tall man’s waist filled with wine and sealed with wax to prevent spilling or spoilage. My sons helped me to lift each clay vessel into the cart. The tall amphorae stood like soldiers against each other in such a manner that they did not fall over. They were used in trade ships because they could be stacked in the hold, with the added purpose of serving as ballast on rough seas.

  Rufus almost dropped one as he hoisted it up to me, but he caught it in time.

  “Careful,” I admonished him. “Each of these is very valuable, especially during Passover when there is great demand for wine.”

  When the amphorae were loaded, we shoved straw between the spaces to prevent breakage from jostling in the cart on the road to Jerusalem.

  “Now, let us go see the goat house,” I said, wiping sweat from my brow with the back of my hand.

  The first four courses were set, rising almost waist high. I examined the opening I had marked for the door.

  “I couldn’t have done better myself,” I said. “After one more course of stones, make a window here.” I placed a small rock on the stone wall to mark the place.

  Just then, Rachel called to us from the house.

  Jacob and Aliza, an elderly couple who had a small farm in the next valley, had come to visit. Their sons and daughters had long since married and moved away to begin their own families. Their granddaughter, Nessa, was about Alexander’s age. They had come to see how Avigail’s health was. Aliza brought a poultice she said would cure our daughter’s sickness. She said it must first be submerged in warm water. After Aliza had squeezed out the water, my wife led Aliza to our daughter’s bedside, where she pulled back the bedding and placed the damp bag of aromatic herbs on Avigail’s chest, close to her neck.

  “She will breathe in the healing vapors,” Aliza said. “I used this on my own children when they were sick. It will help, you will see.”

  While our little girl lay in her bed breathing in the medicine, we sat at the table and talked for a while.

  “Tell me, Simon, are you still going into Jerusalem tomorrow?” asked Jacob.

  “Yes. The wine is already loaded for the journey.”

  “May you profit,” said Jacob. “Are your sons going with you?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then,” said Jacob to Rachel, “you must call on us if you need any help while they are away.”

  “Much thanks to you,” she replied. “May God smile on both of you.”

  Before leaving, Jacob took me aside where my wife could not hear.

  “Perhaps your daughter’s ailment is retribution for violating one of God’s laws,” he said. “Can you think of anything? Perhaps you have eaten something that was not kosher or your wife has despoiled the sacrament of the mikvah?”

  “I have wondered so myself,” I replied, thinking of Job’s false comforters. “But why punish Avigail?”

  That night, after throwing away the ineffective poultice, my wife and I lay in bed talking about the next day, quietly so as not to wake our sons who slept nearby.

  “Perhaps, if I fetch a good price for the wine, I can pay a more skilled healer from Jerusalem to come help Avigail.”

  I knew that I could only pay so much because most of the money would have to support my family until the fall when the olives would be pressed for their oil.

  Rachel squeezed my hand gently in the darkness.

  “That would be wonderful,” she whispered. “Perhaps the pain in your head could be cured as well.”

  For many years, I had suffered frequent pain in my head. The aching—especially when it was behind my eyes—was such that I felt I would retch and wish that I would die. It was so unbearable that all I could do was to lay in bed in the dark with my eyes closed, unable to work. At such times, my loving wife would sit beside me and rub my temples and knead the back of my neck, which always seemed to help a little. Avigail, before she became sick, would sometimes rub my temples and neck as she had seen her mother do and say, “Does that feel better, Father?”

  “Then let us pray that I get a good price. It is a half day’s journey each way. We will leave before sunrise. Time to sleep.” I kissed my wife and rolled over.

  Friday

  In this shall everyone know that you are my disciples:

  if you have love for one another.

  (John 13:35)

  We left beneath a sky full of stars. As I walked out the door, careful to close it gently, I touched the mezuzah mounted on the doorway. In darkness, my sons and I harnessed our donkey to the cart loaded with wine. As we began our uneventful journey to the city, aided by the light of a full moon, my thoughts were of Avigail and how I might earn enough extra money from the wine to hire someone to help her.

  She was so sweet before her affliction. Her smile was like a bright lamp in the darkness. Her laughter when I tickled her was the most joyous sound in the world. She loved for me to carry her on my shoulders, and some mornings I would awake to find her nuzzled in bed between me and my wife. I would give my life for hers, if such a sacrifice could be made for another.

  My plan was to get in and out of the city as quickly as possible.

  As I led the way, my sons walked behind me half asleep.

  Our spirits arose with the sun that cast a golden light upon the green hills and valleys, alive with springtime grass and flowers.

  We arrived early in the morning. The merchants in the marketplace were setting up their stalls for the busy day.

  I hate going into Jerusalem.

  It is always crowded and noisy, especially during the Holy Week of Passover when thousands of Jews flock to the bustling city to worship and to make sacrifice at the Temple, their tents cluttering the grounds outside the city walls. The smell of waste from so many people and the smoke from so many burnt offerings is disagreeable to my nose. Give me the fresh air and serenity of my farm.

  I only go into the city when I need to sell wine or olive oil or to buy things.

  Among the multitude are the prophets who usually wander the countryside. It seems that everyone is a prophet nowadays. The country is full of them, preaching this or that, shouting and spitting their messages of impending doom, most of them half mad. Then there are the zealots plotting rebellion to overthrow the Romans. If that isn’t enough, there are the countless exorcists and magicians who masquerade as miracle workers—most of them charlatans who earn their living from the despair and suffering of others. And then there are the wretched beggars and pickpockets, many of them children, who ply their slippery craft on unwary pilgrims.

  If you ask me, the high priests at the Temple are the worst of them, filling their purses and treasury and impoverishing others by ransoming access to God. Every day, the sick who are too poor to pay their exorbitant fees perish from their illnesses. During Passover, the priests double the fee to make a sacrifice, which they require of every Jew. It is extortion. What does God need of gold and silver? He could make a mountain of it. In the name of God, the priests steal the homes of widows to support the lavish palace of the high priest.

  Greed and power have made the high priests like prancing peacocks who preen and lavish themselves with offerings earned from the labors and sufferings of other Jews. They are more concerned with how people address them in the market and where they sit at feasts than with the welfare of others. They debase their office. They have forgotten that being Jewish is both privilege and a responsibility. They have become tools of the Roman Empire. The high priests taint the Temple and violate the laws of God as given to Moses.

  Thou shalt not steal.

  Thou shalt not covet.

  And most important:

 
; Love your neighbor as yourself.

  Their avarice is without bounds, made all the worse by their troubling association with the Romans, who uphold the precarious peace in Jerusalem by crucifying runaway slaves and rebel dissidents and leaving their rotting corpses as warning to others and for the ever-present crows and vultures and scavenging dogs who feed on them until there is nothing left to bury.

  Judaea is wretched with the ghastly spectacle.

  You could throw out the whole lot of them for all I care. I give them a wide berth for most of the year. I come here only to sell my goods. I always return to my farm in haste after the wine or olive oil is sold for a good price.

  I sold half the wine quickly. Though I haggled for more, I got less than I had hoped for. I was told again and again there was a glut of wine this year and prices were down with so much wine to be had. With my purse lighter than I had expected, I worried that I might not be able to find a healer to help Avigail.

  When we were close to the Temple, I left my sons to guard our possessions while I went inside to make an offering to God, as required during Passover, but especially on behalf of my daughter. In spite of my feelings about the high priests, I still sought to obey God’s laws. While I was waiting in line to purchase an animal to sacrifice, the man in front of me turned and spoke to me.

  “Look at all the pilgrims come here to sacrifice,” he said.

  I turned and looked back at the throng of people.

  “There are a great many,” I replied.

  “God demands a sea of blood,” he said, smiling, though most of his teeth were missing or rotten. “His blood thirst is insatiable.”

  Of course, the priests wanted to lighten my purse for the privilege of sacrifice. I tried to plead with one of them, telling him that the loss of so many coins could mean the difference between life and death for my Avigail.

  He did not care.

  “You must pay the tribute price or no sacrifice.”