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So I had begun to believe in my Father. I would labor for Him. Soon He would come to save Jerusalem. He was Lord of the Universe. I would labor with joy. Through Him, comfort would come to those who were sorrowful, and the hungry would be fed, yes, and those sinners in greatest despair would find their sins remitted. And I felt such joy at these thoughts that I could not believe they were my own. Indeed, the Devil must have scraped me sore in my judgment, for I was now ready to do all. But then, on this new morning I was not much afraid of Satan. He had captured only a small part of me. I had been tested, had proved loyal, and now my tongue began to feel clean. As I walked, there was the smallest and sweetest of modest miracles. In this desert waste I came upon a small tree and it bore plums that slaked my thirst and gave a sweet warmth to my limbs. I fell to my knees and blessed my Creator, yet before I could even begin to pray, I came to my feet again.
    I was obliged to wonder. Why had the Lord left me alone with Satan? Was it to scourge me of an excess of piety? Before long I would learn that there might be truth in this. There was work to do, and it could not be accomplished on one's knees.

15
    I returned to Nazareth and entered the house where I lived with my mother. On greeting me, she was much relieved. For more than forty days I had been away, and if she had supposed at first that I was on a journey with my cousin, she had soon begun to hear fearful stories concerning John. (And all of this had come to pass while I was on the mountain.) It seemed that Herod Antipas, the son of dead King Herod, had long distrusted John the Baptist. Like his father, Antipas suffered from dreams; he worried that the prophet would inspire people to rise against him. Whereupon he put John away in a dungeon in the fortress of Machaerus on the high cliffs over the Dead Sea. So I knew that my time had come. I must leave Nazareth. I must take up a life of preaching and try to emulate what John had done.
    Yet my mother thought I should not be a preacher. She did not care to think of me wandering on lonely roads to give blessings to strangers; better, by far, to become a good Essene. She wanted me to join the desert community at Qumran, where the most devout are gathered. But that was not my desire. Men who choose to live at Qumran must first confess all guilt and all sin, give all that they own to the brethren, and live among them for years before they can be accepted as true Essenes of Qumran. And one did not speak in the presence of one's leaders unless invited.
    I did not understand how my mother could want such a life for me. It was the Lord to whom I should submit myself for tests, not to this or that High Priest. But then, my mother was not always easy to understand. If she was proud of my origin, she was full of worry for my wellbeing; rare was the day when she did not expect a catastrophe to befall me. Fear lived like a night animal in our small house. One could all but hear the scurrying in the dark.
    Moreover, if Mary was modest, she was also vain, and I would suffer by both ends, for her will was graven in stone. Yet she did not see herself as strong, but frail. Worse! She saw me as being like her, and therefore unready to go out into the world. And I, knowing all that I must now attempt, was not pleased that she placed such small confidence in me.
    I did not tell her what had happened during my forty days on the mountain, but then she must have known that I had been near at last to my Father. Still, she did not wish to hear any part of that. She had a heart large enough for a queen, but like a queen, she did not enjoy what she could not understand.
    Yet she was also a mother. She knew me very well. So she could now surmise that it had not only been my Father who was with me on the mountain but the Other. If the Devil owned the powers of darkness, then I was weak enough, as she would see it, to have been tainted. Therefore I must be