The Magic Circle Katherine Neville (top 100 novels of all time TXT) 📖

At the end of the feast, when Nicodemus stood to give the blessing and ask for the honor, next year at this time, to sit in the tent of the sea beast, the Master himself arose from his seat in one of the booths not far away. In his flowing white robes, his hair whirling wildly around him, he crossed to where Nicodemus was standing and, sweeping the platters and goblets to one side, he climbed onto the low brass table.

He held up an urn of water and, holding on to the branches of the bower with the other hand to steady himself, he began to pour water everywhere—on the table, on the ground—splashing the guests still reclining there, who leapt to their feet in alarm. Everyone was amazed or flustered; no one knew what he meant by this action, or could even imagine. Then the Master tossed down the urn. His arms aloft, he cried,

“I am the water! I pour myself out for you; whoever thirsts should come and drink from me! If you believe in me, rivers of living water will flow from you.…”

And, as it was recalled afterward by those present, his voice was so rich, his command of words so inspiring, that it wasn’t until later that they realized no one had the vaguest clue what he was talking about.

As the supper was adjourning and people drifted from the gates of his grounds, Nicodemus happened to overhear a conversation among a few of his fellow Pharisees. A clandestine council had been hastily called for later that night at Caiaphas’s palace across town. Nicodemus, though uninvited himself, resolved to attend, for it was clear that even the Master’s strongest supporters had been shaken and confused by his strange performance.

The next morning, Nicodemus went early to the temple court seeking the Master before others found him. He wanted to protect him from whatever he might do or say, for his words were often misconstrued even by his own disciples. The previous night, despite heated objections by Nicodemus and others—even by his own temple police—Caiaphas had insisted that some pretext be created to secure the Master’s arrest as soon as he appeared in the morning.

The Master arrived just after Nicodemus. He was wearing the same white robes as before. No sooner had he entered the temple court than a large circle formed about him—including many of those from the secret meeting. This time they were more prepared. At the prompting of Caiaphas, today they’d brought an adulteress with them. They shoved her before the Master and asked whether he thought they should stone her, as the law, of course, required. This was a trap: it was well known that—like Hillel, who was liberal about marriage rulings, especially with respect to women—the Master believed in forgiveness when there was repentance of such sins.

But to the astonishment of all, the Master said absolutely nothing. Instead, he squatted in the dirt in silence and started to draw pictures in the dust with his fingertip as if he hadn’t heard a word. By then, a real crowd had begun to form around him to see what he would do and to jeer at the woman, whom they held just before him like a dangling piece of meat on a hook.

When they’d pestered him for what seemed a very long time, he stood up and looked around at the crowd in silence—deep into each pair of eyes, as if in final judgment on each person’s individual soul. At last he spoke.

“He who is without sin among you,” he told them, “then let him cast the first stone at her.”

Again he squatted in the dust without a word and drew pictures with his finger. After a very long while, he glanced up and saw the woman standing there before him. She was all alone.

“Go, and sin no more,” he told her.

With those words Nicodemus, who had observed all this from afar, understood the importance of what the Master had done. He had risked his life for a woman he knew to be guilty as accused, for he’d said “no more.” The Master had forced each person present to judge himself—including the woman, for she too would have to recognize the magnitude of what had been done in her behalf.

When the woman departed and the Master was left there alone, Nicodemus came up to stand beside him as he still drew with his finger in the dust. Nicodemus was curious to see what the Master drew. He looked down, and there in the dust was drawn a kind of knot—a very complex knot, for one couldn’t make out the beginning or the end; it just seemed to go round and round.

The Master sensed Nicodemus’s presence and arose from the dust. With his foot he scraped out the image he’d drawn. When Nicodemus broached the topic of the risk taken by the Master in coming down alone from Galilee with no warning, the Master smiled and said only,

“My dear Nicodemus, do I seem alone to you? But I’m not: I came here with my Father. Don’t forget, the shofar blows also in Galilee.”

This of course referred to the Day of Atonement the week before while the Master was still in Galilee, when the ram’s horn was blown as it was each year-end, signaling all men to reflect in the coming year on how they might act more in keeping with God’s will. But it was the casual way the Master mentioned this age-old tradition that gave Nicodemus the uncomfortable feeling that it might have taken on fresh meaning within the Master’s feverishly active and fertile mind. What was he really up to?

Before Nicodemus could pursue the matter, the Master headed off briskly to the court of the money changers just within the temple precincts. Nicodemus had to puff to catch up with him. There, those who’d taunted the Master outside surrounded him again—as he might have expected and seemed to want—accusing him