Post #12.6, Thursday, September 10, 2020

Historical setting: 563 C.E. Bragda

Nic sees no need to question my remembrances any further. He is sure I am recalling the Council of Bragda in 561. But I fear my glimpses of remembering may be reaching back one hundred years. I will know if there is any truth to this concern when I see if the very old copy of this gospel they have here is the same codex I repaired after the shipwreck and delivered to them in whatever year I was here before.”

         Nic questions my search. “Why would you think any old gospel would be one you brought here?”

         “I will surely know it when I see it, Nic. Each letter of it was by my own hand. And furthermore, all those details I happen to know that were twisted into the Roman gloss, fixing the ancient words to speak a popular second century propaganda — I wrote those letters smaller, and in caps so that they would look exactly like the patchwork of changes that they are. Subtle, I was, but no less intentional than probably was that second century Roman editor of John.”

         Again this morning we sign-in on the visitor’s list and we are escorted amid the eternal forest of marble pillars back to the apse where books are kept. The keeper of the books meets us for our appointment to view the Gospel of John. And we are told the bishop might be available later to meet with us to answer my questions about the particular villa I visited when I was here before. The Gospel of John is already out on the table.  “This is the volume you asked to see, is it not?”

         It still has the same cover. “Yes, thank you Brother, it is indeed the gospel we are seeking.”

         He explains it to us in more detail, “You will see it is in Latin, but it is very old and it might represent a translation from the Greek before the work of St. Jerome was completed. It is St. Jerome’s translation that is approved to become the orthodox translation. Every translator will make slight differences. Since this is the only copy of this gospel we have we will just have to make due.”

         “Of course.” I wonder if I need to apologize for my translation or should I pretend the flaws were by another hand. I ask specifically to see John 1:19.

(What will they see in John 1:19? Continues Tuesday, Sept. 15.)

Post #12.5, Wednesday, September 9, 2020

Historical setting: 563 CE, Bragda

While we await the keeper of the books to make our appointment with the gospel, Nic is questioning the doorkeeper about every detail of the recent Council of Bragda in 561. He seems so delighted in the assurance that my lost memory might have lapsed only one year and a few months.

         “Hey Laz, you should hear this!  It all makes sense now. It’s like you say, the Priscillianists keep reemerging even in these new times. And the heresy is just as you explained it. You were right. The people who joined that cult were meeting in secret, and they were starving themselves to death in the name of God.  So the Council ruled against changes in the liturgy that could be seen as secret language for belonging. They outlawed meatless meals, in order to rescue the starving victims. And to keep these ascetics from being venerated as martyrs it was ruled that suicides were to be buried outside the churchyard.” [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Council_of_Braga. Retrieved,9-23-2019]

         Nic holds onto the high hopes that this rescued monk to whom he has pledged his patronage and friendship can be easily returned to “normal” and our lives can go on simply and usefully all for God.

         On this next morning the ride from the inn with the excellent stable to the basilica is becoming familiar. Two days ago the observations of this jaunt were of distances, elevations and road surfaces.  Now this ride is more about the things that would go unnoticed in our hurry. This morning we feel the gentle rhythm of the horses’ gait, the sounds and smells of a new morning rising in the mist. It is a moment to notice what was lost in our first ride this way.

         Dear God, thank you…

         Nic interrupts my prayer – or is it our gratitude together at this moment. “You know, Laz, when we started on this, the horse thing was a real obstacle for me. Now I’m actually glad we got horses. I mean, listening to his hooves hitting the ground, sorting the rhythm from the taps of the woodpeckers, leaves rustling up to flurry in the breeze, livening the stillness of a hot day to come… I’m learning to like the feel of the horse moving beneath me.” [Author’s note]

         “That’s a good thing Nic, as I fear we will be doing much more of this now. I’m afraid we haven’t really found the easy solve to my scrambled mind yet.”

(Continues tomorrow)

[Author’s note] For information about horses for this writing I asked a friend, Gail Salco, who cares for horses to guide my characterizations of horses, and in one of her e-mails she described a morning ride. I gave her own words to Nic in this place.

Post #12.4, Tuesday, September 8, 2020

Historical setting: 563 C.E. remembering a different time

         I know I wasn’t part of a procession of bishops. We are at the visitor’s desk at the basilica of Bracara, called Bragda now. Nic is urging that we study the visitor’s list from a Council held here only twenty months ago in 561. I know my name will not be on that list. But when I was here, I brought a gospel so I asked the monk if they owned a Gospel of St. John.

         “Indeed, we have such a book. But it’s very old. To lay eyes on it you will need to make an appointment with the one who keeps the books.”

         “Please, then, help us make that appointment.”

         Nic is already assured that I had only lost a year or two of remembering, and we would soon find my wife named Susannah with the yellow hair, and maybe a family longing to greet me and meet him, my newest friend. And he would also feel assured to know that the strange story I confided to him of my life as an earthly friend of Jesus, forever being healed back into life, was simply the product of a once scrambled mind.

         But this encounter at the visitor’s station doesn’t leave me nearly so sure. So few things are as I remember them, and those that I do recall are worn and old, or newly refurbished to hide their oldness. Surely I was here once, but I fear it was in the century of 400’s, and I know this is the year 563. Everyone says so.  No one else even wonders about that. In every language in every place it is the middle of the 6th Century in the year of Our Lord.

         While we wait to make an appointment with the monk who oversees the library, Nic plys the doorkeeper for details. I just wander the Christian marble pillars pretending Rome emulating Greece in Galleacia where now the Suebi rule. Such a mix is the world these days.

         Dear God, it is no wonder my sense of belonging is scrambled. Help me to see your way, and thank you again, for Nic. Amen.

         Nic is anxious to learn all he can about this recent “Council of Bragda” assured, he supposes, that the more we know of it the more my memory will be jogged back into normal time and my weird nature of resurrection can be dismissed with my mind’s scramble.

(Continues Tomorrow)

Post #12.3, Thursday, September 3, 2020

Historical setting: Bragda, Galleacia, 563 C.E.

         Mountains and valleys make long rides of short views. The huge central edifice for Christian worship and bishop business is the largest building in the city spread in this valley, but it is nearly an hour’s ride zig-zagging down the hill from the inn onto these old city’s streets. We tie the horses and are greeted at the grand doors by a doorkeeper, the monk with the visitor’s list. It is that very list of the bishop’s visitors that we came to find.

         “I was here once before on a mission to bring a gospel. Do you keep these records? Maybe I can find my name here on a past list.”

         The welcomer answers, “We have heaps and mountains of records all the way back. Every bishop thinks history needs those things, though all the stacks could be better used to warm this place on a chilly night. If you can tell me the year and month I’ll pull the record.”

         “I’m not sure of the date.  I was called here as a messenger, as they were dealing with the heresy of Priscillianism.”

         “Oh, of course! That would have been the Council of Bragda just two years back. Eight bishops came with all their soldiers, messengers and servants, eight full processions from all four corners of the winds.”

         The monk is animated telling the story of his moment here in glory right at this visitor’s desk. Nic is taking it all in offering a near all-knowing smile — an ah-ha for the righteousness of the stories I had been telling him. The problem is, my recollection of coming here had no processions of famous bishops. There was nothing at all like an invited “Council of Bishops.”  There was only a rumor that years before some ancient saints considered the issue. When I was here these glorious stories were not of recent bishops, but of the great and bygone saints: St. Ambrose, St. Martin of Tours, and even the bishop assigned to this see late in the Fourth Century who went off to the East to write important papers with St. Augustine. That was the long past memory of bishops when I was here. And no one was calling it Bragda then. The only Council I was hearing stories of was in Zaragosa in 380, not in 561.

         Nic interrupted my thoughts, “See Laz? Take a look at the visitor’s lists from the time of the Council.  I’ll bet we’ll find your name.”

         (Continues Tuesday, September 8)

Post #12.2, Wednesday, September 2, 2020

Historical setting: Bragda, Galleacia, 563 C.E.

         While Nic and the other boarders in this loft seem a chorus of bullfrogs in peaceful snores, I spend this darkness sorting thoughts and what-if’s; memories in glimpses; time in centuries not months, and I try to retrieve any lingering thoughts I have of a wife with a yellow braid of hair. That garish fresco at the villa has come into my thought — that nonsensical collage of rough Suebi portraits laid over the bodies of Roman gods and goddesses.

         She was Susannah; now I have a name for her. How is it I have a name and a braid of hair in my mind but no face? How is it that I could have a wife and have no ancient thoughts of our lives together? And how ancient are these memories? Is she still here in Hispania waiting for me? How many years has it been?

         My wishes are for inscribing that name of Susannah onto my memory in the golden ink of moonlight pouring through the gap between roof tiles of this loft. Surely, if I could sleep this Susannah would show herself in my dream. I only wish to recall a glimpse: her voice, her eyes, her touch. So fine it would be to know she is real and of earth and yet to be found at a familiar home place.

          Do we have a home at that villa now? And when I was away in Gaul, why was I there, and how long had it been? Is her father, the don, still alive? Do we have our own children’s portraits on those walls now? Do our children have yellow braids of hair or is it simply black like mine? Surely it was Susannah who begged the bishop to dismiss the cult. Surely the villa is no longer threatened by the heresy. But I have no memory of anything more than the cult and the heresy.

         I find myself spinning so many dreams and fantasies of a life I only wish I could remember. These are wishes not memories, Maybe they are only meanders of a scrambled mind dashed with hopes and longings.

         Dear God, thank you for this friend Nic, who is helping me to retrieve my lost years. Give me the strength and wisdom to accept reality, whatever it may be. And thank you for this beautiful moonlight, the sunsets and horses, and the clear waters, and the comforts and plenty that surround us now. Amen.

(Continued tomorrow)

Post #12.1, Tuesday, September 1, 2020

Historical setting: 563 C.E., Galleacia

         At this waking our minds, our hopes, our plans for a new day are fully in-tact; but every bone and joint has only one position without hurt and that is the one position remembered from the long trots and strides of yesterday’s many hours of riding. I hear Nic’s mindless groans, the knocks of changing an old oarsman into a rider. I pretend my own groaning is silent. The horses are ready. Do they have no memory of the long day yesterday carrying these two of us weighty men? The Rose remembers his best behavior and accepts the saddle with all its ties. Umber makes no opinion known at all. He is indeed a well-tempered gelding.

         Today we follow the river toward the west, though I know the villa I nearly recall in this land is far to the east. Today The Rose and Nic find an easier and faster gait, and Umber follows, so we are making better time journeying toward the bishop’s see of Bracara Augusta.

         I’m glad to find the few people we are encountering today at these watering places speaking the Suebi tongue, and some even use the Roman vernacular. I had a hidden worry that the Visagoths had taken over Iberia while I was away – however long that may have been.  My forgotten absence is a sore topic Nic and I try to avoid.

         The sun is low in the West when we finally we lay eyes on the city, so now we are seeking an inn with a meal served and a stable to accommodate our patient beasts.  Here again, our Roman language is acceptable, yet the spoken tongue is more as I had expected – a derivation of the Suebi.

         The inn with the adequate stable edges the valley of the civitas. The old basilica of the see is the centerpiece of the city that spreads below us.  It is the most obvious building in the valley amid the houses and markets. We plan to go to that basilica in the morning. Tonight we will rest.

(Continues tomorrow)

Post #11.12, Thursday, August 27, 2020

Historical setting: 563 C.E., somewhere near in Galleacia

A slow start this morning then a pace unhurried. We are still a distance from the turn to follow the river to Bracara. Nic asks someone at this watering place where travelers may spend a night. Again, it seems everyone is speaking the language of the Visigoth’s and not the Suebi.

         I have secret doubts as to when I remember, but Nic is starting to question my memory of who and what.

          “You say it was the Suebi Bishop who summonsed you to Gallacia?  So, when we arrive in Bracara we will seek the see of the bishop and he will be your old friend who will fill in all the missing information – dates, places, people – all of that?”

         “That’s my intention, although if the bishop I met when I was last here is not the bishop now, they will surely have the record of my summons. Whoever is there can offer direction to the villa where I went. And they may still have that copy of the Gospel of John I brought. I remember in bits and glimpses. The don was an old Suebi soldier. He was awarded the Roman villa as a spoil of the war. And every one of his children had that yellow hair. His family all wore their long braids twisted and knotted in Suebi fashion. It’s very distinctive.

         “When we find that villa, Nic, I’ll show you something very odd that speaks of the times. Roman frescos originally filled the walls of the large atrium. The Roman artwork depicted a heavenly orgy of mythical gods and goddesses. But in the Suebi hands the garish painting was simply ignored and overhung with family portraits.

         “Piecing my glimpses of memory, I think my wife was the eldest daughter, Susannah. Her portrait is there. She was the one who recognized the tragedy in the cult and who took her concerns to the bishop who then summonsed me.”

         “So you remember her summons but not your life together?”

         “That’s strange isn’t it, which details stay in the mind. Maybe the heresy still lingers with me denying my own earthly reality. But really I don’t think a mystical moment could poison a memory of a wife.”

         “So that rumored promise of a purely mystical after-glow is what we are seeking?” Nic is kidding. I hope.

           “Really Nic, I’m only hoping that earthly villa will be familiar.”

         This night we have not yet reached the turn at the river.

         (Arriving in Bracara Augusta, September 1)

Post #11.11, Wednesday, August 26, 2020

Historical setting: Remembering a time, maybe 452 C.E.?

The heat of the day is upon us so we find a cool flowing creek to water the horses.

         Nic asks why they needed the Gospel of John brought all these years after the cult leader was executed. He does say, “all these years after” as though my other visit here was recent. But I’m starting to wonder if I’ve simply forgotten a vast swath of years.

         “In 384 only the instigator and a few of his henchmen were gone. The theology lingered. Cults popped up here and there. The newly appointed Suebi Bishop at the see of Bracara called for the Gospel to settle once and for all the loose ends of this heresy.”

         “When would you say that was?” Nic asks, goading me for remembering a date.

         “Somewhere near mid-century, I think.” Clearly a failing answer in not naming a century.

         “You don’t know, do you Laz. Your mind is still scrambled. So if you don’t even know when, how is it possible you could know how? How could the Gospel of John ever be considered a talisman against heresy? If starvation and execution didn’t exterminate it how could a gospel do it? In fact, compared to the other gospels, from what I know, I would think John would be the cult book supporting Gnosticism.”

         “Oh, Brother Nic. Just the opposite. It only seems to use the language of the heresy because it was finally edited and given that Roman gloss in a time and place when mysticism was spreading and metaphor sounded earthly. The gospel co-mingles the tangible with the spiritual, using symbols of light and life as a bridge between the physical and spiritual worlds not as a rejection of the earthly things. So it isn’t Gnostic but sounds similar. And what seems a cultish narrowing to our ears, where we still know of pagans and Zoroastrians and Jews, when John (July Chapter 10) says that we must enter God’s Kingdom through Christ alone, that was actually heard in that time of Roman fixes as a statement of widening the entrance, not a Gnostic exclusion; it was expounding the universal (catholic) acceptance into Christianity.”

          Nic argues “Calling Christianity ‘universal’ is really only said in the most narrow sense. It seems confusing.”

         “Paradoxical.”

         “Maybe I just had to be there as you say. Or maybe your scrambled mind just won’t let go of the nonsense. Which is it Lazarus? Which is it?”

(Continues Tomorrow)

Post #11.10, Tuesday, August 25, 2020

Historical setting: A Dark Age On the Road in Iberia

“So, Brother Lazarus, you haven’t yet explained how the ‘Gospel of John’ cures the Iberian heresy. If the sin is dualism, or judging everything either good or bad, a Gospel hardly seems a cure.”

         “The worry over that heresy started when a cult was observed. A young aristocrat, Priscillian [Footnote 1] gathered followers based on divisiveness and exclusion. I think it was around the year 380 when Priscillian was actively writing and gathering the original cult following. That was, of course, way before I was called here.”

         I won’t mention that having a scrambled mind I’m still not really sure when it was that I was called on. Was it in the 5th century, or the 6th? I’ll continue my explanation as though my mind is clear.

         “This dangerous cult leader was looking for personal power. At first he had his own churches but the bishops closed them so the followers met in private villas which is what continued long after he was gone.

         “The version of Gnosticism he was teaching was already deemed to be heresy. With all things of earth evil, even taking food and water was considered sin. So the deadly side of this full-on devotion led to starvation of the body.  And worse yet, the withering of one’s body was viewed as a virtue by followers.

         “In 380 twelve bishops had a Synod in Zaragoza to deal with this. Priscillian didn’t go, but he sent them a tract defending his theology. Of course his argument couldn’t hold up to orthodox theological scrutiny, since he was basing his argument on a heretical Gnostic, apocryphal text. But strangely, the Synod, possibly intimidated by his intellectual prowess, or simply confused by the theology chose to deal only with the political issues. They forbad things like calling oneself, ‘doctor’; making clerics into monks and requiring women to be forty years old before the title of “virgin” was given. [Footnote 2] When he was excommunicated, Priscillian, being a self-invested power fiend, simply doubled-down and took the title of Bishop — Bishop of Avila. [Footnote 3]

         Both sides of the controversy sought affirmation from church leaders of the time: St. Ambrose, St. Martin of Tours, and even a pope.  Then, in 384 it all morphed political and Priscillian was tried for magic in a secular court and was executed.

         Nic asks, “So why are they still bothered all these centuries later and why did they send for the gospel?”

(Continues tomorrow)

[Footnote 1] Priscillian (died c. 385) was a wealthy nobleman of Roman Hispania who promoted a strict form of Christian asceticism. Certain practices of his followers (such as meeting at country villas instead of attending church) were denounced at the Council of Zaragoza in 380. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Priscillian  Retrieved 5-16-2019.

[Footnote 2] In or about 380 a council of Spanish and Aquitanian bishops adopted at Saragossa eight canons bearing more or less directly on the prevalent heresy of Priscillianism. https://theodora.com/encyclopedia/s/councils_of_saragossa.html Retrieved 9-26-2019

[Footnote 3] He became bishop of Ávila in 380. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Priscillian  Retrieved 5-16-2019.

Post #11.9, Thursday, August 20, 2020

Historical setting: 563 C.E. On the Road in Galeacia

“If it wasn’t sex and it wasn’t disobedience what was it that went wrong in the garden that eventually led to the deadly heresy that took the full ‘Gospel of John’ to dispel?” Nic asks, nudging more holy yammer.

         And I fall right in. “Well, that forbidden knowledge of good and evil made the assignment Adam originally had of naming everything, seem irrelevant. The story goes they started separating everything into two heaps of judgment without even a nod to God’s eternal last words of Creation: ‘It is good.’ And maybe all the rest of the bible is simply God clarifying, ‘It is good; I love you and I forgive you all dear creatures of earth’.

         “But by accepting this stolen judgment, this original sin – the duality of the knowledge of good and evil – this perception becomes the essence of ‘falling from grace.’ It’s not an accidental trip and stumble; it’s a complete, full gallop into the pit in the opposite direction of God’s free gifts. No wonder the blessing of growing a garden seems like punishing work, or the amazing moment of birth is remembered for the pain. No wonder snakes crawl and Eden has sand dunes.”

         “Yes, Laz, but if we’re empowered to choose between good and evil, and the world is, in God’s view, ‘good’ why do people keep yearning for the evil?”

         “How would I know? Maybe it’s the human passion for rivalry that looks to set one above another. The creature lust of dominance comes easily in the ability to declare badness and to know which child in the play yard is chosen for the bad name and the shunning. It’s all just a godless power play.

         “Just a thought Nic, you might give The Rose a nudge, and let him know to pick up the pace a bit.  We can walk to Bracara faster than this ride will take us.”

         “He’s keeping me on his back so nicely, I don’t want to be critical of his gait.”

         “Here’s what to do. Press your knees tight against the saddle so you will stay on and he won’t have to balance you there, then just nudge him with your heel to let him know it’s alright to try a trot.”

         Nic grabs onto the saddle horns as the horse lurches forward. At first the trot seems like frenzy but we all quickly settle into a rhythm with both horses trotting and both of us still astride.

         Dear God, even though I’m human, I still notice it is good. Thank you. Amen.

(Continues Tuesday, August 25)