Jesus and the Eightfold Path by Lavie Tidhar

Author:Lavie Tidhar [Tidhar, Lavie]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-1-625671-05-9
Publisher: Jabberwocky Literary Agency, Inc.
Published: 2014-11-15T00:00:00+00:00

Episode Four

The Sermon on the Mount

And there followed him great multitudes of people from Galilee, and from Decapolis, and from Jerusalem, and from Judea, and from beyond Jordan. And seeing the multitudes, he went up into a mountain: and when he was set, his disciples came unto him.

—Matthew 4:25-5:1

It had not escaped the companions’ notice that, when the boy returned from the mountain, he was different. His smile, while still dazzling, was no longer quite so carefree, and his manner was that of a man set on a path. The youthful hesitance had gone, and in its place stood the certainty of a man.

“He has conquered temptation,” Sandy said knowingly. “He is on the path of enlightenment now.”

“I don’t like it,” Pigsy said. “Mixing with devils never did anyone any favours. We should have stayed in Egypt.”

Monkey said nothing though he, too, was concerned about the young Buddha. Changes were coming, he knew that for certain. And he thought of the old king’s words and about the war that must surely come between the Hebrews and the Romans, and he was uneasy.

It is not a Buddha’s role to fight, though Jesus had been trained well by the three of them, and indeed as he grew he became a wonder to watch, flowing through the ch’i of kung fu like a mountain spirit, like water and like sun.

But since he returned, since Monkey brought him back from the Himalayas, the boy was no longer open to them. He was his own man, and he had plans. That was evident at a glance. But what form these plans took, in what way Jesus intended to continue along the eightfold path, that none of them knew.

And so they huddled together and drank many flagons of wine and they brooded. Jesus took to walking great distances and visiting all places in the Galilee, and he almost always went alone.

How far things had gone, how well on his way he was to achieve his plans, they had only found out later.

The days and months passed. Jesus was nearly always away, walking through the hills and rivers of the Galilee, sleeping in villages and fields, talking to the people, his people, these curious men and women called Hebrews, or Jews, who lived on the land and grew grapes and wheat, and spent much time studying their own version of the SÅ«tras, which they called Tanach, which was both a religious text and a history of their people.

“I don’t like it,” Pigsy said again.

Sandy said, “Silence, Pigsy! It isn’t for us to question the Tripitaka, but to follow him.”

“And keep him out of trouble,” Pigsy said, morose, and he roared for another flagon of wine.

For Jesus the land of the Galilee was a place of pasture; he loved its rolling green hills, its ancient fig trees laden with the heavy fruit that opened to a touch and revealed the sweetness inside. He loved its small prosperous villages and its flowing rivers where fish leaped in the sun.

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