THE SUN CAME out of the desert like a lion and beat at all the doors of Israel. From every Jewish home the savage morning prayer rose up to the stiff-necked God of the Hebrews: “We hymn you and glorify you, our God and God of our fathers. Almighty and terrible, you are our help and support. Glory to you, Immortal, glory to you, defender of Abraham. Who can vie with you in strength, O king, with you who slay, resurrect and bring deliverance? Glory to you, Deliverer of Israel! Destroy and crush and scatter our enemies, but quickly, while we are still alive!”

Sunrise found Jesus and John the Baptist sitting above the Jordan in the hollow of a precipitous rock. All night long the two of them had held the world in their hands, deliberating what to do with it. Sometimes one took it, sometimes the other. The one’s face was severe and decisive: his arms went up and down as though he were actually holding an ax and striking. The other’s face was tame and irresolute, his eyes full of compassion.

“Isn’t love enough?” he asked.

“No,” answered the Baptist angrily. “The tree is rotten. God called to me and gave me the ax, which I then placed at the roots of the tree. I did my duty. Now you do yours: take the ax and strike!”

“If I were fire, I would burn; if I were a woodcutter, I would strike. But I am a heart, and I love.”

“I am a heart also, that’s why I cannot endure injustice, shamelessness or infamy. How can you love the unjust, the infamous and the shameless? Strike! One of man’s greatest obligations is anger.”

“Anger?” said Jesus, his heart objecting. “Aren’t we all brothers?”

“Brothers?” the Baptist replied sarcastically. “Do you think love is the way of God-love? Look here-” He stretched forth his bony, hairy hand and pointed to the Dead Sea, which stank like a rotting carcass. “Have you ever bent over to see the two whores, Sodom and Gomorrah, at her bottom? God became angry, hurled fire, stamped on the earth: dry land turned to sea and swallowed up Sodom and Gomorrah. That is God’s way-follow it. What do the prophecies say? ‘On the day of the Lord blood will flow from wood, the stones of the houses will come to life, will rise up and kill the house-owners!’ The day of the Lord has set out and is coming. I was the first to discern it. I uttered a cry, took God’s ax, placed it at the root of the world. I called, called, called for you to come. You came, and now I shall depart.”

He grasped Jesus’ hands as though he were placing a heavy ax in them. Jesus drew back, frightened. “Be patient a little longer, I beg of you,” he said. “Don’t hurry. I shall go speak to God in the desert. There his voice can be heard more clearly.”

“So can the voice of Temptation. Take care-Satan is lying in wait for you, his army all in order. He knows very well that you mean life or death for him. He shall fall upon you with all his wildness and all his sweetness. Take care. The desert is full of sweet voices-and death.”

“Sweet voices and death cannot deceive me, friend. Trust in me.”

“I do. Alas, if I didn’t! Go, talk with Satan, talk with God too, and decide. If you are the One I have been awaiting, God has already made the decision, and you cannot escape. If you are not, what do I care if you perish? Go ahead, and we’ll see. But quickly; I don’t want to leave the world all alone.”

“The wild dove that beat its wings above me while I was being baptized: what did it say?”

“It was not a wild dove. The day will come when you shall hear the words it pronounced. But until then, they will hang over you like swords.”

Jesus rose and held out his hand. “Beloved Forerunner,” he said, his voice shaking, “farewell-perhaps forever.”

The Baptist pressed his lips to Jesus’ lips and held them there. His mouth was a live coal, and Jesus’ lips were scorched. “It is to you I finally render my soul,” he said, tightly squeezing Jesus’ tender hand. “If you are the One I’ve been waiting for, hear my last instructions, for I think I shall never see you again on this earth, never again.

“I’m listening,” Jesus whispered, shuddering. “What instructions?”

“Change your expression, strengthen your arms, make firm your heart. Your life is a heavy one. I see blood and thorns on your brow. Endure, my brother and superior, courage! Two roads open up in front of you: the road of man, which is level, and the road of God, which ascends. Take the more difficult road. Farewell! And don’t feel afflicted at partings. Your duty is not to weep; it is to strike. Strike! and may you have a steady hand! That is your road. Both ways are the daughters of God, do not forget that. But Fire was born first and Love afterward. Let us begin therefore with Fire. Forward, and good luck!”

The sun had already risen high. Caravans from the Arabian desert appeared, bringing new pilgrims with multicolored turbans on their shaven heads. Some had crescent-shaped talismans made from boars’ teeth, which they wore suspended around their necks; others had tiny bronze goddesses-all hips; and others, necklaces made from the teeth of their enemies. They were wild beasts of the east who had come to be baptized. The Baptist saw them, uttered a piercing cry and rushed down from the rock. The camels knelt on the mud of the Jordan, and the voice of the desert was heard to resound mercilessly: “Repent, repent. The day of the Lord has come!”

Meanwhile, Jesus found his companions. They were sitting on the river bank, silent and afflicted, waiting for him. It was now three days and three nights that he had not appeared, three days and three nights that the Baptist had abandoned his baptizing to talk to him. He spoke on and on, and Jesus listened with bowed head. What was he saying, bearing down over him like a vulture; and why was the one so wild and the other so sad? Judas paced up and down in a rage, puffing. As soon as night fell, he secretly approached the rock to hear. The two of them were talking, cheek to cheek. Judas cocked his ear but could distinguish only a murmur, a rapid murmur, as from running water. One was giving, the other receiving, being filled, as though the son of Mary were a jug propped up under a tap. The redbeard slid down from the rock in a frenzy, and once more began to pace in the darkness. “Shame on me, shame on me,” he grumbled, “to let them deliberate about Israel while I am absent! The Baptist should have entrusted his secret to me, should have given me the ax. I am the only one who feels Israel ’s pains. I am able to use the ax; he, the clairvoyant, is not. He shamelessly proclaims that we are all brothers, injured and injurers, Israelites and Romans and Greeks, devil take them!”

He lay down at the foot of the rock, far from the other companions, whom he did not wish to see. For a moment he fell asleep and seemed to hear the Baptist’s voice and scattered, disparate words: “Fire,” “ Sodom and Gomorrah,” “Strike!” He jumped up. Once awake, however, he heard nothing but the night birds and the jackals and the murmur of the Jordan in the reeds. He went down to the river and plunged his flaming head into the water to extinguish the fire. “He’ll come down from the rock, won’t he?” he murmured. “He will, and then I shall learn his secret, whether he likes it or not!”

When he saw Jesus approach, therefore, he jumped up, as did the other companions. They ran out joyfully to receive him, touched his shoulders, his back, caressed him; and John’s eyes filled with tears-a deep wrinkle was now engraved in the middle of the master’s forehead.

Peter could not contain himself. “Rabbi,” he said, “why did the Baptist talk to you for days and nights? What did he tell you to make you so sorrowful? Your face has changed.”

“His days are few,” answered Jesus. “Stay with him, all of you, and be baptized. I am leaving.”

“Where are you going, Rabbi?” cried out Zebedee’s younger son, taking hold of Jesus’ tunic. “We’ll all come with you.”