Jesus Triumphant (Chronicles of the Nephilim Book 8) by Brian Godawa Page A

of purpose. But he never arrived.
    There was an inexorable struggle between fate and human will in the Stoic tragedies that Demas also understood deeply. They enacted stories of enduring heroes with upright spirits achieving victory over internal and external evil. Thus the solution to the universal dilemma of evil could be found not in the gods above to save humanity, but in man freeing himself from the ignorance of passionate excess and emotion. Demas’ Jewish heritage however filled him with an opposing emotional passion, gusto for life, and righteous anger for justice. He felt as if two spirits fought within him for dominance, and these plays triggered that gladiatorial combat.
    On stage, Gestas performed as Hercules achieving his twelfth and last labor, capturing alive the three-headed demon dog, Cerberus, the guardian of the Gates of Hades. Demas watched his brother wield his sword dramatically against various Shades of the dead in the fiery darkness. He observed with a critical eye because he had taught Gestas how to fight so that his acting would carry authenticity as well as prepare him for the dangers of real life. Six men operated the large monster suit of the hound of hell that frightened the female observers in the audience. As musicians played and narrators sang, Hercules captured the monster and dragged him out of the underworld offstage.
    Demas wondered what the world of the dead was really like. All nations and peoples had their myths and stories of just what the “Land of No Return” held out for the destinies of men. Ancient Sumeria and Egypt told stories of gods who died and returned from the dead as mythical representations of the cycle of nature. Many other narratives of heroes like the Babylonian Tammuz or the Greek Odysseus, told tales of those who descended into the underworld in order to free a loved one from death. They all tended to portray a gloomy dark world where the unrighteous dead suffered in one form or another. The righteous dead, however were taken away to garden paradises, or “Isles of the Blessed.”
    Demas preferred the contrary voice of the Stoics. Although they were terrible entertainers with their plays, they were nevertheless more insightful with their rational philosophy. Hellenistic thinkers like Zeno and Seneca considered such myths of descent to be mere imagination, attempts to placate fears and speculate about what no one could possibly know. No one had in fact ever come back from the dead to reveal what happened to the soul upon its escape from its prison house of the body. Aeschylus the Greek Stoic playwright wrote, “Once a man dies and the earth drinks up his blood, there is no resurrection.”
    Demas decided he would not stay to watch the mimes. They would mock the Jews in their audience by parodying their religious observances. He got out of his seat during intermission to wait for his brother back stage.
     
    “What did you think?” Gestas asked Demas, as he disrobed from his costume backstage.
    “I think you need work on your swordplay,” said Demas.
    Gestas shook his head with a smile. “Come with me, and you’ll get your wish. But we have to hurry. We are already late.”
    “Where are we going?” said Demas.
    “To the scribal collegium,” said Gestas.
    The collegium was not the gym where they could practice sparring, but the school where scribes practiced and teachers educated students.
    Demas continued confused, “What do scribes have to do with fighting?”
    “More than you realize,” said Gestas.
     
    The sun was already setting when they arrived at the collegium in the upper class district of the city. They snuck in the back way so as to avoid being noticed. They slipped past large Corinthian columns into the atrium in the center of the school. No torches were lit. It was a secret meeting. Fifty Jewish citizens from all kinds of social classes and backgrounds filled the benches where students usually sat. Blacksmiths, carpenters, an equestrian