http://www.jesusnovel.dreamwork2000.com/index.htmlJesus- A Philosophic Novelenfotografica@antenna.nlCopyright 2005 Ineke Duursema2006-09-08T16:51:42+02:00 hourly 1 2000-01-01T12:00+00:00 Sat, 09 Sep 2006 00:29:42 +0200fotografica@antenna.nlPrologue2006-09-08T16:51:42+02:00http://www.jesusnovel.dreamwork2000.com/prologue/prologue.html#unique-entry-id-0http://www.jesusnovel.dreamwork2000.com/prologue/prologue.html#unique-entry-id-0

Podcast - Part 1 Prologue Jesus Novel

Most humans never learn, whether in modern or ancient times, that dying is the absolute end if you have not done something greater with your life.

These were the thoughts of the man in a body distorted, topsy-turvy on a cross in the great Roman city of 64 AD (Jesus Era) that Nero ruled. Nero was a half-baked tyrant suffering the stiff, inflated head of an imbecile given power by a system that had little control of itself, so sometimes its shit knew no bounds.

The light over Rome appeared extraordinary that day. Clouds carouselled in from pagan lands to the East. The clouds came from the unconquered lands of the heathen to cross over the civilized accesses of the city. They flooded down creating shadows in the great oval track of the Circus Maximus where wealthier Romans took lunches from stalls and consumed a recreational rest out of the hot work of the Mediterranean day.

Such a man as this in such a predicament had much to think about, and so little time to do it in. He thought of his last great decision just recently made . . . He had asked that he be crucified upside down so as not to be nailed to the cross the way The Savior before him had been crucified upright those 34 years ago.

The bearded soldiers had invaded their worship service in the rich lady's house as he was speaking . . . their officer read out a decree from the Emperor himself . . .

I said a God bless, and they led me away, one grabbing my white hair and the other two took each of my arms . . . Really, they didn't have to do that, he thought again, but I did not protest, such was my surprise at my arrest.

If clouds could care, maybe they would descend down upon him like angels? Maybe they kept their distance over the amazing city of Rome with its avenues and streets, especially its plazas with monumental public buildings. This man knew from his many walks during his life here how the buildings themselves, more so than even the biggest trees, blocked the light flashing down upon pavements and cobbled streets. The light seemed to lead the way through streets such as the Sacred Way, the Temple of Saturn, the Mighty Forum, the seat of the Senate and government, and the arch of Milmaximus . . .

I have offered nothing like that to God as my lasting achievement, said the man to himself . . . Ah, the pain, pain, pain, but so had The Master pain at his crucifixion . . . so why the complaints, Peter, why the complaints?

My life is in its last reckoning, said the upside-down man . . . I must make a final judgment as to my life . . . Ah, the pain, my broken limbs . . . never to walk again upon this earth!

The bile that kept draining to his mouth tasted like raw, old vinegar with scum on it. He spat it out. Hanging upside down was not a choice one made lightly. The pull on his outstretched legs and his arms in an X kind of cross, and especially on his nailed penis seemed to distract him. He wanted to stay focused on his final and greatest thoughts before God. He had to do his last task now before a near death. From where his head hung upside down it was an easy glance up among the trees of the small park into the cloud-swirling sky. How fast the clouds are moving, he thought. How fast and soon no more . . .

This was Rome, a city of a million people, 64 AD in the rule of Nero, Imperial Caesar, Nero Claudius Drusus Gemanicus, as he was formally called, in those days decrees coming from this elevated lump of shit-infested humanity, an emperor's word, was law in its power to kill at will.

"Well, at least, though I led no armies . . . I converted hundreds, if not thousands . . . when you think of how my Christians converted at least ten, and sometimes a hundred each to our cause . . ..

We cannot fight Rome but we can outlast her. We have no armies with battle swords and the will to kill others in order to control the world. We shall outlast them . . .. For every martyr they create of our number, at least a thousand of the still living will worship us leaders as a Saint . . ..

No, Rome, we will defeat you! My life has been well used. I can die now, exhausted of my purpose at last . . .. You don't kill me, Rome! . . . Like the Savior, you take my body but my soul lives on to capture you in the hundreds of bodies of us Christians . . . I die in Christ . . . As he died for me, I die for him! . . . I die . . . ahhh, the pain . . .!

The man has fainted, such is the bodily pain he suffers, like a giant snake has got his penis while lions are ripping at his swollen insides and craw-dragging him between them, arm from arm, leg from leg, from arm, leg, guts, his head a dead weight just as his genitals have been since the many years ago he saw The Christ alive again and realized his redemption like flashes of lightening descending over them from the darkened sky to fire them all to the greatest efforts of their lives for the new cause, for the peace of the world, for a simple life not terrifying others with killing sprees but preaching, preaching, always preaching their humanity, and that we had to help one another, slave or free.

Evidence for The Powers at work showed a blackened city, the middle of it burned, made charred earth and shards, cremations of old glory. Nero has blamed the Christians for it. Now he has got the land to redo the center of Rome to his own palace and palatial liking!

The buildings would be rebuilt, but this time with wide avenues and city blocks to a more rational and realized time of power and magnificence. Wood would go from the style of old houses of the simpler years to new buildings of brick, stone and cement so recently invented.

The traveler by foot, as most are, must come to narrower ways with smaller town houses, porticuled in columns still. Such a stranger has then to traverse to other quarters to pass little parks and the apartment houses of the artisans, some six stories high where the working people of the city live. Their apartments are without places for contained fire to cook their meals, or warm them in winter. Laws are enforced against having kitchens like the rich since too many fires have got out of control. These heat-choking holocausts cannot be contained as the fires burn, burn, burn and people lose their possessions along with their spirits to rebuild again and relive their broken city lives.

He half woke up again dangling down, the nails that suspended him tearing into sinew, fragmented bone where the puncture wounds had gone through, and dripping, bleeding blood vessels.

Ah, this is the Roman way . . . he thought . . . They see me as a piece of flesh, a dirty rotten Jew as they have called me, even when I tell them I am no longer that but a Christian . . . What can I hope for, yet not is my hell, ghenna, the death pits of everlasting suffering if that is to happen to me, since I have no vote before God or man, apparently . . . the pain makes me not care, I don't care, his thoughts drummed on inside his throbbing head, loaded with the extra blood pressure from being nailed upside down to already bloodied soldier logs set into the ground for their crazed purposes, ah, for them to retire and finally kill no more, insignificant on a little allotment farm. I don't care, thought he himself, the head pounding at his thoughts . . . I won't be distracted . . . all this is for God our Savior . . . We have kept the covenant! We have let the Holy Spirit rule us and now I am ruined, just as he was upon his upright cross, not a common criminal like the others, but a God!

While thinking to himself, his hanging legs and arms stiffened. Then his stomach contracted and released uncontrollably and shit came out of his ass, dribbling down his upside-down backside and into and through his hair. He seemed to take no notice and stayed immersed in his dying thoughts.

This I have lived for, and now I die for, thought the burly man, his limbs distorted like a pile of dried eating snakes at market, their heads removed. I die . . . I die now . . . yet in simple death is my life back with him! I am shod of this body at last, the vale of pain and wicked thoughts . . . I don't care what they have done to me now . . . my life is in what I have lived . . . I am the first Christian, if I can allow a little pride to make me happy through this dying pain . . .

In the flowing view down into Rome's narrower ways where roads crisscross, one leads past a little park, past half derelict mansions of a collapsing street from Republican times two centuries ago. It is studded here and there with the desperate tenements that thriving, crowded Rome was living with.

The man on the crisscrossed cross seems to have fallen asleep, or is he simply without the energy anymore to think his tumbling thoughts? Who can know a dying person's impressions? Some things you just take with you into your non-existence. You are without friends further, no listening ear to hear your complaints or share your achievements and joys.

His body shivered in its stress contractions. He opened his eyes but they did not seem to see anything and they closed again.

People had stayed a safe distance away when they saw what the soldiers were going to do to the man as their two slaves dug into the park ground preparatory to setting the two cross logs at an angle. One stout soldier had the leather bag that he unloaded on the ground. The iron plated mallet . . . six iron spikes, two short coils of rope, one of which they used to tie the cross logs together in the middle on the ground preparatory to tying their white-haired victim there, his hips on the upper side of the cross so they could tap their smallest nail delicately through the man's hand-stretched penis to hold his body secure against the wood once they raised him up and fitted the cross pieces of his cross into the ground, a nail each through his wrists and one each through the ankle bones and ligaments to secure him there.

The way they did the whole thing at first even the prisoner could not tell if he would be crucified upright or upside down, as was his wish. When some force has got your body you must work hard not to be identified with it. Had the victim man become an observer to his own painful, humiliating fate? He certainly needed to.

Such was Rome and the hard attitude of its power persons over the millions they ruled as an empire. read more ...(part 2)




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