“How do you know what He really willed? The love of Jesus is infinite…”

“His love was not infinite, Father.”

“His hand heals, even when it seems to smite.”

“It is not true, Father. Jesus hated. Jesus was irascible…”

“What do you say, my son?”

“The Council of Nicaea rejected several authentic narratives of the gospel…”

“Those that were of divine origin rose from the altar, as if possessing wings. The others dropped to the earth,” the Bishop interjected.

I smiled. “I was present. What you say never occurred. The fathers wrangled and fought. I never saw a more obstinate and self-willed gathering. A militant minority, backed by Emperor Constantine, imposed its will upon the Council. Finally, they compromised upon the Bible, as the Christian world knows it, but the books of Thomas and the gospel of the Infancy of Jesus were rejected, for they related things unpalatable to your theology…”

“What things, my son?”

“The cruelty of Jesus…”

“Impossible!” the Bishop exclaimed.

“You forget,” I remarked, “that I knew Jesus as a boy. I knew his tantrums as a child. I knew him when he was an apprentice in his father’s shop. I remember how, on one occasion, my father commissioned him to do a job for him. The work was not satisfactory. When my father pointed out certain flaws to him, young Jesus flew into a rage and smashed his own handiwork. If a god adopts a trade he should master it more completely.”

“My son,” the Bishop remarked, shaking his locks, “your hatred envenoms your tongue. You draw upon memories embittered by your own bias.”

“If you will not accept my testimony, I can cite the evidence of your own sacred books. I shall draw upon sources regarded as sacred by the Fathers of the Church.

“His cruelty even as a boy became so frequent and so intolerable, according to the testimony of Saint Thomas and other witnesses, that Joseph, his father, said in despair to Saint Mary: ‘Thenceforth we will not allow him out of the house; for everyone who displeases him is killed.’ ”

“That was a metaphor, my son,” the Bishop smiled.

“No, Father! It was literal. Listen to a few incidents.”

“Go on, my son.”

“The son of Hanani, disturbing the waters of a fish pool, Jesus commanded the water to vanish, saying:—’In like manner as this water has vanished, so shall thy life vanish.’ And presently the boy died.

“Another time when the Lord Jesus was coming home in the evening with Joseph, He met a boy, who ran so hard against Him, that he threw Him down; to whom the Lord Jesus said, ‘As thou hast thrown me down, so shalt thou fall, nor ever rise.’ At that moment the boy died.

“Another time Jesus went forth into the street, and a boy running, rushed by His shoulder; at which Jesus being angry, said to him, ‘Thou shalt go no farther.’ And he instantly fell over dead. The parents of the dead boy, going to Joseph, complained, saying, ‘You are not fit to live with us, in our city, having such a boy as that. Either teach him that he bless and not curse, or else depart thou hence with him, for he kills our children.’

“Then Joseph, calling the boy Jesus by himself, instructed him, saying, ‘Why dost thou such things to injure the people so, that they hate and persecute us?’

“But Jesus replied, ‘They who have said these things to thee shall suffer everlasting punishment.’ And immediately they who had accused him became blind.”

I remained silent. The Bishop knit his brows, and meditated.

“It is merely a legend, the invention of some poet who liked cruel things. Your testimony is spurious. Jesus was as gentle as a lamb. Even as a child He was obedient and wise…”

“That is also mere poetry, Father,” I smiled a little cynically, piqued at the fact that he did not believe me. “Jesus snubbed his brothers. He neglected his family. He denied all family ties. He asked those who followed him to leave their fathers and mothers, their kith and their kin. I do not blame him for upbraiding his Father in Heaven on the cross. Yet why should he be surprised if his Father in Heaven forsook him, since he himself forsook his father and mother on earth? Only an unnatural son would deny his own mother with the cold insolence of Jesus. ‘Woman, what have I to do with thee?’ is not a quotation from the Apocrypha. It is part of the gospel, the gospel which, you claim, rose miraculously from the altar. He withered the lives of little children with the same petulance with which he blasted the innocent fig tree.”

“My son, if what you relate were really true, would it not prove that He was omnipotent from His Mother’s womb?” the Bishop exclaimed triumphantly. “He had a God’s work to do even in His infancy.”

“Then he who kills is God,” I remarked.

“The Lord giveth, the Lord taketh away. His ways are inscrutable. If Jesus commanded the children to wither, it was part of His divine plan, I assure you.”

I laughed. “He was cruel, and he was cruel to me. His eyes blazed with anger when he hurled his anathema against me, without attempting to understand my motives. If he had read my heart he would not have cursed me. He acted rashly, and he acted in anger. Perhaps he inherited his unreasonable irascibility from his putative Father in Heaven…”

“He gave you the opportunity to find your soul…” the Bishop said gently.

“No!” I exclaimed. “He meant evil, but I have conquered him! By my will and by my intelligence, I have transformed his curse into a blessing.”

“God’s ways are incomprehensible to man,” the Bishop repeated suavely.

“Let man be incomprehensible to God, then!” I exclaimed.

“Only man’s vanity is incomprehensible to God, my son.”

“Man’s vanity, then, shall conquer God!”

“So Lucifer believed, and he was hurled to destruction!”

“Lucifer lives on, Father. He is not destroyed.”

We remained silent. The Bishop placed his hands upon my shoulders, and looked at me, his eyes covered with a film. “My son, believe me, if you understood Jesus you would accept Him.”

“I understand…therefore, I cannot accept!”

“You have denied Him too long. He loves you. He waits for you. He will return whenever your heart calls Him… You can end your long pilgrimage whenever you wish. You need not tarry until the end of time… Give up your age-long battle against His love and His Holy Word.”

“How can I, a poor mortal, harm his Holy Word, if he indeed is God? You exaggerate my power, Bishop. In the great sea of humanity, is a man more than a wave?”

“One unruly wave may capsize a boat.”

“If Christianity is the work of God, who is strong enough to destroy it?”

“No one!” he exclaimed. “And yet,” he continued sadly, “people may so distort and misinterpret it, that it were almost better destroyed…”

“Father, from the clash of mountains, there arises a conflagration; out of the struggle between Jesus and myself…who knows, something more beautiful than either Christianity or pure reason may be born.”

“Christ is perfection.”

His words startled me. It seemed as though I suddenly saw something—a Light—a Vision. I tried to grasp it, but it vanished immediately.

I smiled. “Father, that which we seek and find,—is it worth the finding?”

“Only one thing is worth the finding,—Jesus.”

The two friars, the Bishop’s companions, were approaching, and at a distance, propped against a tree, Kotikokura was patting a large cat and squinting his eyes in my direction.

“We are both very tired, my son. Let us rest a little. This evening we shall speak again.”

He arose, pressed my hands, and walked towards his friends. The Bishop’s face, as it broke the reflection of the sun, appeared strangely different from that of Apollonius. Had I been laboring under an illusion? Had I made a grave error in recounting my story? My head ached. My heart felt heavy.