The Gospel According to the Son Read Online Free PDF

clean nor free of dust. Indeed, that you are the Son of God surprises me. Why did your Father choose you? Say to Him when next you converse that I salute Him. For do you know? Your Father and I have had much traffic and considerable dispute, and so We are always eager to obtain word of the Other and His doings. Indeed, on those occasions when We meet, I tell Him that men and women are the crown of all He has conceived among the animals and the plants of the field but that it is I, not He, who has a better understanding of this Creation. For His work has given issue to many small creatures and spirits that He hardly knows as well as I do. Of course, I was once His servant, His most trusted servant. Contemplate, then, how well I understand Him."
    I was amazed. He did not inspire fear but comfort. Now I knew how it might feel to be a sinner in a low tavern drinking wine. The labors of this long fast were gone; I felt balm come to my limbs. I could talk to the Devil; he was comfortable. If his odor could leave me uneasy, it also offered sympathy to desires I had not yet allowed myself to feel.
    Yet if I would allow him much, still I could not agree that God, the Lord of the Universe, did not understand His Creation better than my visitor. "It is not possible," I exclaimed. "He is all-powerful. The heavens and the earth, the stars and the sun, bow before Him. They do not bow to you."
    For one moment, Satan snorted like a horse. Was he unwilling to accept the bridle?
    "Your Father," said the Devil, "is but one god among many. You might take account of the myriad respected by the Romans. Are we to give no homage to the great will of the Romans? Why, your Father does not even have the power to command His own Jews in their own land even though so many see Him as the only One. You would do better to consider the breadth of His rages; they are unseemly for a great god. They are swollen and without proportion. He issues too many threats. He cannot bear anyone who would dispute Him. Whereas I confide to you that a hint of disobedience and a whiff of treachery are among the joys of life, and are to be ranked with its spoils rather than its evils."
    "That is not so," I was able to answer. "My Father is God, and of many dimensions, and of all dimensions." But my words tasted like straw.
    The Devil replied, "He is not in command of Himself!"

14
    Nor did the Devil show any fear at what he had said. He continued to speak. "Your Father," he said, "does not have the right to demand complete obedience from His people. He does not comprehend that women are creatures different from men and live with separate understanding. Indeed, your Father has no inkling of women; His scorn for them is shared by His prophets, who speak, so they claim, with His voice. And they do! For rarely will He reprimand them! Look at Isaiah! Tell me that Isaiah does not live in your Father's heart when he says: 'Because the daughters of Zion are haughty and walk with stretched-forth necks and wanton eyes, walking and mincing as they go, therefore the Lord will smite with a scabbard the crown of the head of the daughters of Zion, and the Lord will discover their secret parts.' Their secret parts," repeated the Devil. And he continued to speak with the words of Isaiah: " 'The Lord will take away their bracelets and bonnets, the ornaments of the legs, the earrings, the rings and the nose-jewels, the fine linen, the hoods and the veils. And it shall come to pass that instead of sweet smell there shall be stink; and instead of a girdle, a rent; for lovely hair, there shall be baldness, and burning instead of beauty.'"
    "My Father was speaking of the nation of Zion," I said. "So were we taught."
    "No," replied the Devil. "He pretends to speak of the nation of Zion. But it is women He belittles. His mighty curses He saves for the men. When He wishes to address the nation of Israel, He is speaking only to men: 'The indignation of the Lord is upon all nations, and His fury upon