Julia Bowie written aged 12 In a moment of time 13.10.03 Found the following fragment pasted between two pages in an otherwise unexceptional 'scrapbook' of mostly medieval manuscripts. I believe the collection was discovered by Dennistoun, some ten years ago, in the vicinity of Rennes'le-Chateau. On translation (the original language is scholarly Aramaic) it called to mind the temptation of Jesus in the wilderness. Of the gospels, Mark keeps it short, one verse (1.13). Matthew allows it eleven verses (4.1-11) and Luke thirteen (4.1-13). It is with the Luke version that I am particularly concerned for although, to a great extent, it and the Matthew account are the same, it is the Luke that alludes to the 'moment of time'. The fragment translates: 'Know then my children that after your father went out into the desert to fast and pray, after forty days and nights he returned saying that indeed a vision had been granted unto him. His heart and mind were heavy. After about ten days, he came to me and said, 'My wife, as you know in the wilderness I was afforded a vision. This is what I saw. It seemed to me that in a moment of time I was able to travel far into the future, through thousands of years, and see many things. I saw the earth swollen with blood as millions of men on myriad battlefields cried out in their death agonies. I saw the bodies of countless women tortured and consumed in flames, their wisdom lost to the world forever. Whole tribes, nations even, unknown to me were slaughtered indiscriminately by men in strange armour. High priests vomited their excesses and fathered children of whores. The world grew corrupt in my name and I saw all this in a moment of time. Have I, O wife, travelled too far along the path I have chosen now to retreat?' The manuscript is indecipherable for the next few lines then: 'Know this then my children as so much of the meaning of your father's words is already changed in the mouths of the corrupt.' Then a signature: 'M. Magdala'? The diary containing the above entry came to me as part of my sister's effects. On the twenty-first of October '03 she was knocked down and killed by a hit and run driver. The accident happened in Rome, outside the Vatican library where she had been researching. Her notes were returned to me by her bank where she had deposited them on the afternoon of the nineteenth. All she was and all she knew were lost to the world in a moment of time. I cannot help but wonder in whose name she died? I have not been able to trace the original fragment. On reflection, I doubt whether doing so, in the light of these events, would be wise. |
