"Brahman is that," I said.
"I beg your pardon? 'Brahman'?"
"In India. Brahmanism. Brahman possesses absolute, pure consciousness. Pure consciousness, pure being, pure bliss. As I recall."
"But what," Tim said, "is this anokhi that they ate and drank?"
"The body and blood of the Lord," I said.
"But what is it?" He gestured. "It's one thing to say glibly,
'It's the Lord,' because, Angel, that is what in logic is called a hysteron proteron fallacy: what you are trying to prove is assumed in your premise. Obviously, it's the body and blood of the Lord; the word 'anokhi' makes that clear; but it doesn't-"
"Oh, I see," I said, then. "It's circular reasoning. In other words, you're saying that this anokhi actually exists."
Tim stopped and stood, gazing at me. "Of course."
"I understand. You mean it's real."
"God is real."
"Not really real," I said. "God is a matter of belief. It isn't real in the sense that that car-" I pointed to a parked Trans Am-" is real."
"You couldn't be more wrong." I started to laugh.
"Where did you ever get an idea like that?" Tim said.
"That God isn't real?"
"God is a-" I hesitated. "A way of looking at things. An interpretation. I mean, He doesn't exist. Not the way objects exist. You couldn't, say, bump into Him, like you can bump into a wall."
"Does a magnetic field exist?"
"Sure," I said.
"You can't bump into it."
I said, "But it'll show up if you spread iron filings across a piece of paper."
"The hieroglyphs of God lie all about you," Tim said. "As the world and in the world."
"That's just an opinion. It's not my opinion."
"But you can see the world."
"I see the world," I said, "but I don't see any sign of God."
"But there cannot be a creation without a creator."
"Who says it's a creation?"
"My point," Tim said, "is that if the Logia predate Jesus by two hundred years, then the Gospels are suspect, and if the Gospels are suspect, we have no evidence that Jesus was God, very God, God Incarnate, and therefore the basis of our religion is gone. Jesus simply becomes a teacher representing a particular Jewish sect that ate and drank some kind of-well, whatever it was, the anokhi, and it made them immortal."
"They believed it made them immortal," I corrected him. "That's not the same thing. People believe that herbal remedies can cure cancer, but that doesn't make it true."
We arrived at the little grocery store and stood momentarily.
"I take it you're not a Christian," Tim said.
"Tim," I said, "you've known that for years. I'm your daughter-in-law."
"I'm not sure I'm a Christian. I'm now not sure there in fact is such a thing as Christianity. And I've got to get up and tell people-I have to go on with my ministerial and pastoral duties. Knowing what I know. Knowing that Jesus was a teacher and not God, and not even an original teacher; what he taught was the aggregate belief-system of an entire sect. A group product."
I said, "It could still have come from God. God could have revealed it to the Zadokites. What else does it say about the Expositor?"
"He returns in the Final Days and acts as Eschatological Judge."
"That's fine," I said.
"That's found in Zoroastrianism also," Tim said. "So much seems to go back to the Iranian religions ... the Jews developed a distinct Iranian quality to their religion during the time ..." He broke off; he had turned inward, mentally, oblivious, now, to me, to the store, our errand.
I said, trying to cheer him up. "Maybe the scholars and translators will find some of this anokhi."
"Find God," he echoed, to himself.
"Find it growing. A root or a tree."
"Why do you say that?" He seemed angry. "What would make you say that?"
"Bread has to be made out of something. You can't eat bread unless it's made from something."
"Jesus was speaking metaphorically. He did not mean literal bread."
"Maybe he didn't, but the Zadokites apparently did."
"That thought crossed my mind. Some of the translators are proposing that. That a literal bread and a literal drink is signified. 'I am the gate of the sheepfold.' Jesus certainly did not mean he was made of wood. 'I am the true vine, and my father is the vinedresser. Every branch in me that bears no fruit he cuts away, and every branch that does bear fruit he prunes to make it bear even more.'"
"Well, it's a vine, then," I said. "Look for a vine."
"That's absurd and carnal."
"Why?" I said.
Tim said savagely, "'I am the vine, you are the branches.' Are we to assume that a literal plant is referred to? That this is a physical, not a spiritual, matter? Something growing in the Dead Sea Desert?" He gestured. "'I am the light of the world.' Are we to assume you could read a newspaper by holding it up to him? Like this streetlight?"
"Maybe so," I said. "Dionysos was a vine, in a manner of speaking. His worshippers got drunk and then Dionysos possessed them, and they ran over the hills and fields and bit cows to death. Devoured whole animals alive."
"There are certain resemblances," Tim said.
Together, we continued on into the little grocery store.
6
BEFORE TIM AND KIRSTEN could return to England, the Episcopal Synod of Bishops convened to look into the matter of his possible heresies. The jerk-off-I should say, I suppose, conservative; that is the more polite term-bishops who stood as his accusers proved themselves idiots in terms of their ability to mount a successful attack on him. Tim emerged from the Synod officially vindicated. It made the newspapers and magazines, of course. Never at any time had this subject worried him. Anyhow, due to Jeff's suicide, Tim had plenty of public sympathy. He had always had that, but now, because of the tragedy in his personal life, he had it even more.
Somewhere Plato says that if you are going to shoot at a king you must be sure you kill him. The conservative bishops, in failing to destroy Tim, left him as a result even stronger than ever, which is the way with defeat; we say about such a turn of events that it has backfired. Tim knew now that no one within the Episcopal Church of the United States of America could bring him down. If he were to be destroyed, he would have to do it himself.
As for myself, in regard to my own life, I owned the house that Jeff and I had been buying. Jeff had made out a will, due to his father's insistence. I did not acquire much, but I acquired what there was. Since I had supported Jeff and myself, no financial problems confronted me. I continued to work at the law office and candle shop. For a time I believed that, with Jeff dead, I would gradually lose touch with Tim and Kirsten. That did not turn out to be the case. Tim seemed to find in me someone he could talk to. After all, I was one of the few people who knew the story about his relationship with his general secretary and business agent. And, of course, I had brought him and Kirsten together.
Beyond that, Tim did not jettison people who had become his friends. I amounted to much more than that anyhow; a great deal of love existed between the two of us, and out of that had come an understanding. We were, literally, good friends, in a sort of traditional way. The Bishop of California who held so many radical views and advanced such wild theories was, in his immediate life, an old-fashioned human being, in the best sense of the term. If you were his friend, he became loyal to you and stayed loyal to you, as I informed Ms. Marion years later, long after Kirsten and Tim were, like my husband, dead. It is a forgotten matter about Bishop Archer, that he loved his friends and stuck with them, even if he had nothing to gain in the sense that they had, or did not have, some power to advance his career, to enhance his station or advantage him in the practical world. All I amounted to in that world was a young woman working as a clerical secretary in a law office, and not an important law office. Tim had nothing to gain strategically by maintaining our relationship, but he maintained it up until his death.