Eifelheim - Michael Flynn [49]
Joachim’s prayers cut off abruptly. After a moment, the man rose to his knees, crossed himself, and turned around. “Is that what you think?”
“In Galatia, those Jews who had not accepted Christ criticized those who had, because the Galatian pagans who had also been saved did not follow the Law of Moses. So, the Jewish Christians urged the Galatian Christians to become circumcised, hoping to use that outward sign to mollify their accusers. But the Galatians had a horror of bodily mutilation; so much turmoil resulted. Paul wrote to remind everyone that outward signs no longer mattered.”
Joachim pressed his lips together and Dietrich thought he would launch some retort; but after a moment, he rose to his feet and straightened his robe. “I wasn’t praying for that.”
“What, then?”
“For you.”
“Me!”
“Yes. You are a goodly man, I think; but you are a cold one. You would rather think about the good than do it, and you find it more congenial to debate angels and pinheads than to live the true life of poverty of the companions of the Lord—which you would know, if you thought about what Paul meant in his letter.”
“Are you so holy, then?” Dietrich said with some heat.
“That men’s hearts do not hold always what their lips proclaim, I am heartily aware—ja, from childhood! Many a whitened sepulcher proclaims Jesus with his tongue, and crucifies Him with hands and body! But in the New Age, the Holy Spirit will guide the New Man to perfect himself in love and spirit.”
“Ja doch,” said Dietrich. “‘The New Age.’ Was it Charles of Anjou or Pedro of Aragon who was to have started it? I’ve forgotten.” The New Age had been prophesied by another Joachim—he of Flora. Paris had reckoned him a fraud and “a dabbler in the future,” for his followers had prophesied that the New Age would begin in 1260, then in 1300, as political winds in the Two Sicilies shifted. Flora’s teaching that St. Francis had been a reincarnation of Christ Himself struck Dietrich as both impious and logically flawed.
“‘The man of the flesh persecutes those born of the spirit,’ “Joachim quoted. “Oh, we have many enemies: the Pope, the Emperor, the Dominicans …”
“I should think Popes and Emperors enemies enough without taking on the Dominicans.”
Joachim threw his head back. “Mock on. The visible church, so corrupted by Peter with Jewish falsifications, has always persecuted the pure church of the spirit. But Peter fades, and beloved John appears! Death stalks the land; martyrs burn! The world of fathers will be replaced by a world of brothers! Already, the Pope is overthrown, and Emperors rule in name alone!”
“Which still leaves the Dominicans to deal with,” Dietrich said dryly.
Joachim lowered his arms. “Words hang like a veil before your understanding. You subordinate spirit to nature, and God Himself to reason, and so cannot see. God is not being, but above being. He is in all places at all times, in times and places we cannot know save by looking within ourselves. He is all things because he combines all perfections, in a way past all understanding. But when we see past the limitations of such creaturely perfections as ‘life’ and ‘wisdom,’ that which remains is God.”
“Which does not seem beyond understanding, at all, and reduces God to a mere residuum. You preach Platonism warmed over like yesterday’s porridge.”
The young man’s face closed. “I am a sinful man. But if I pray that God will forgive my sins, is it so terrible that I include yours, too?” He bent and rose again with a sprig of hazel in his fingers that had fallen from Theresia’s herb basket. The two parted with no further words.
DIETRICH ALWAYS found his meetings with the Krenken unnerving. “It is the fixity of their features,” he had told Manfred. “They lack the capacity for smiles or frowns, let alone expressions more subtle; nor are they given to much display or gesture, and that bestows on them a menacing