=1 "The garden"
The garden
This story is pure fiction. Any resemblance to any personality, living or dead, any relation to a future, present, historical or pre-historical religious community is imaginary and unintentional and the result of no malice aforethought.
Pope Anastasius had made it. He stood before the Pearly Gates a little breathless after the steep ascent. He was an old man, and tears of joy came to his eyes as he saw them now, the beautiful gates, flanked on either side by huge winged bulls.
“The seraphim,” he whispered. At that moment a cat who had followed him up slipped inside through a hole in the gate. Wonderingly Anastasius looked at the hole.
“A real cat-door! Rather too big for cats, though. Could it be for dogs too? And always open. Cats wouldn’t have to wait for someone to let them in.”
As he wondered, a rabbit hopped by him. Then a mongoose slipped through, and three rats and a fox.
“Must be quite a zoological garden inside,” he thought. Then, remembering, he braced himself for the meeting with his papal predecessor, the first pope, Saint Peter, the Keeper of the Keys. Perhaps, he hoped, as a colleague he would have no difficulties. He knocked carefully with the beautifully carved knocker, a golden hind knocking on a golden lion’s head. A key rattled. Slowly the door opened — and Anastasius got the shock of his life, or rather of his afterlife. A huge, silver-backed gorilla stood before him, an old mountain gorilla, a magnificent beast.
Pope Anastasius, who had been an ardent amateur zoologist and an avid reader of zoo-psychological treatises, knew that mountain gorillas are harmless as long as you follow certain psychological rules. So, politely, looking at something else, he smacked his lips in greeting.
“Dominus vobiscum,” said the gorilla in a ringing bass voice.
“Et cum spiritu tuo,” hastened Anastasius rother tonelessly. There was a painful silence. Then Anastasius noticed two golden keys on a chain around the gorilla’s belly.
“You have Saint Peter’s keys?” asked Anastasius.
“I am Saint Peter,” the gorilla announced in his most dignified manner.
“Oh,” stammered Anastasius. “I… I thought… why… Excuse me, I didn’t recognize you.”
“Hmmm.” A rumbling sound came from the huge hairy chest before him. “You mean why I am a gorilla now? Well, one of the reasons is that people always tried to kiss my feet, and I didn’t like that. They don’t do it any more.” And he smiled a satisfied smile. Anastasius felt ashamed. He should have done that, of course.
Suddenly lowering his huge eyebrows and looking piercingly at Anastasius with his brown eyes, the gorilla asked,
“You don’t have any racial prejudices?”
“No, no, not at all,” Anastasius assured him, swallowing hard.
“You are Anastasius?” asked Saint Peter in a more friendly tone. “Come in, my son. Your arrival has been announced on the intercom.” They sat together in the small reception room, Saint Peter explaining the rules and regulations and Anastasius wondering all the while why his assiduous study of both the Greek and the Latin church fathers had not prepared him for all this.
An ass entered the room through a door that opened onto an inner garden.
“An ass!” exclaimed Anastasius joyfully. He liked asses.
“Not an ass,” replied Saint Peter, “THE ASS.”
“THE ASS?” Anastasius repeated somewhat at a loss.
“Yes. You know, the she-ass on which our Lord rode into the Holy city.”
Comprehension came at the same time to Anastasius as the discovery that that ass was wearing three halos, one above the other, while Saint Peter had only one and a half.
“Yes,” said saint Peter, following his glance, “three halos, three times holy. She — or rather he — had three former lives. The first was Adam, and then Noah, and then Samson, before he changed his sex and became a she-ass for our Lord to ride upon. Since then she has been very useful here, especially for newcomers like you.”
Up to this time the ass had been looking demurely down at her feet, but now she glanced up.
“You want a lift?”
Anastasius was aghast.
“Heaven forbid!” he exclaimed, and kneeling before the ass he pronounced with awe,
“Sanctus asinus ora pro nobis.”
“She will do that too,” promised Peter. “Get on her back and she will take you round. She does it as a kind of community service, a penance for the sins of Adam and Noah and Samson.
“You remember Samson, and the jawbone of an ass?”
It took some persuasion before Anastasius was willing to sit on the back of the she-ass, and he was so moved to be riding on the same animal as his lord had ridden 2,000 years before that he hardly saw the beautiful landscape through which they passed, until they came to a group of huge shaggy-haired beasts in a field of blooming lilies of the valley.
“Mammoths!” exclaimed Anastasius.
“Yes,” replied the ass. “When they were hunted to extinction on earth God gave them a refuge in paradise.”
They rode along the seacoast, where they found a huge bare rock covered with snow-white baby seals, each with a golden halo. “Our holy martyrs,” explained the ass. “Each year they go down to earth to the coasts of Newfoundland and Labrador to be mercilessly clubbed to death. They do that in order that a few may survive.”
“Holy martyrs, pray for us,” murmured Anastasius rather absent mindedly.
Inland again they saw a huge herd of buffalo. A small group of Red Indians in full tribal regalia rode over the hill and stopped before the ass, lifting their hands silently in the salute of the Plains Indians.
“Also extinct,” explained the ass, and added, “to them too God gave happy hunting grounds — here.”
Riding through a swampland they saw here and there a woolly rhinoceros, a deinotherium, or a glyptotherium, and as they entered a rain forest thousands of magnificent tropical birds.
“Birds of paradise,” Anastasius told himself, “also now extinct on earth”. Among some sequoias they met a giant moa, a number of pandas, snow leopards, and an occasional lyre bird.
Each time they met an animal or a group of animals, the she-ass introduced them to Anastasius: “The thylacine of Tasmania… the auroch of central Europe… the quagga of Africa… the aye-aye of Madagascar… the Queensland tiger…," etc., and after each presentation she added, “extinct.”
In the late afternoon the tired Anastasius got down from the ass for a rest. Munching some blue flowers (extinct) the ass remarked to Anastasius:
“You didn’t imagine paradise like this?”
“No,” he admitted, “not quite, but I like it better this way. I must admit, however, that I should like to see some angels.”
“Oh, didn’t you see them?” asked the ass, astonished.
“No, where?” asked Anastasius, afraid he had missed something.
“The birds you saw: the dodo, the great auk, the passenger pigeon, the roc, the heath hen… all extinct now. They were angels. What else is an angel but an angelic spirit in the body of a bird?”
“Yes, of course, I hadn’t thought of that.” admitted Anastasius.
“They took the most beautiful and at the same time the most useful bodies which God had prepared exclusively for those who wanted to sing the hallelujahs of creation.” There was a long silence, and in the distance could be heard a skylark as it climbed into the blue.
“I haven’t seen… Hmmm… I mean… Are there no human beings here, with the exception of the American Indians and the few Bushmen?” asked Anastasius a little sadly.
“Would it be paradise if the place were full of human beings?”
“No,” admitted Anastasius, “perhaps not.”
“Wherever animals play together, there is paradise. Where there are animals and men, there is earth. And where there are only men and no animals — hell.”
Anastasius nodded, and then after some time inquired a little hesitantly,
“How is it that I got in?”
“Well,” said the ass, “from time to time there comes a human being who fulfills the entrance requirement.”
“And what is that?”
“One who loves his neighbours, the animals, as himself.”
“And is that so rare?”
“Not so rare, but even those who are admitted you don’t see around here, because after some time they all decide to go down again to help their animal neighbours, to become their protectors as zoopsychologists, conservationists, writers, lawyers, legislators, and in some cases zoo directors.”
After their rest the ass took Anastasius to a nearby cave.
“An Anchorite lived here for many years, and you may spend the night here comfortably if you wish. Tomorrow I will come and show you round a bit further.”
Anastasius spent a peaceful night, watched over by a friendly but hardly talkative cave bear. In the morning the ass returned.
“Today,” she said, “I will show you the most beautiful animals in the garden.”
“Aren’t they all beautiful?” asked Anastasius, who, after a good night’s sleep, had lost his first shyness.
“Yes,” said the ass, “they are all perfect, but those which I am showing you today are God’s latest creation. They are much later than man, and not mentioned in the Bible. The rumour goes that after becoming disappointed with man God made them, and they are still here, they have not yet been sent down to earth. Perhaps earth is already too badly spoiled for them, too much polluted by man.”
“Not today, please,” begged Anastasius, suddenly feeling weary. Then after a long pause, almost as if it were to himself, he whispered,
“I should like to see God.”
“That’s easy,” said the ass. “You have only to take the lift.”
“The lift?” asked Anastasius, uncomprehendingly.
“Yes, the elevator — upstairs.” And he pointed into the blue.
Anastasius looked up.
“But there is nothing.”
“Why, of course there is nothing. There are no things. God is the transcendence of things.”
“I thought God was in heaven.”
“Certainly,” explained the ass. “He is also in heaven. But here he takes forms so that we can see Him.”
“That’s what I meant,” said Anastasius. “I want to see Him.”
“You are quite sure you are ready for that?” asked the ass. “You are entirely rid of your racial prejudices? No anthropomorphic ideas about Him any more?”
Anastasius suddenly became rigid. Was he in for another shock?
“What… what do you mean? He takes forms so that we may see Him! What forms will He take?”
“Well,” said the ass, “naturally to a horse he will appear as a horse, to a dolphin as a dolphin, and to an ant as an ant. What else would you expect?”
“So to me He will appear as man?” asked Anastasius hopefully. The ass shook her head. “I don’t think so. He doesn’t do that any more, not since man exterminated the sifakas.”
“Sifakas?” asked Anastasius.
“Yes, the beautiful monkeys of Madagascar. They were his pet creation.”
“And how does He appear to human beings now?”
“As Yeti, the Abominable Snowman of the Himalayas.”
Now it was Anastasius’ turn to shake his head. “No,” he said slowly, “I don’t think I’m ready for that.”
“You could ask to be transformed into a cow. To the Egyptians and to the Indians He appears like a bull.”
Anastasius remained silent.
“How about the Holy Ghost? Would you like to see the Holy Ghost?”
“Is that possible?”
“The Holy Gost is the Holy Immanence in all things, in all beings, and He is everywhere.”
“But how will I see Him? Formless, or in some form?”
“Naturally, He will take a form so that you can see Him.”
“What form?” asked Anastasius, again suspicious.
“Don’t be afraid. He will conform to your religious background and even to your racial prejudices. The Immanence is not the Tremendum. He is never shocking.”
“All right,” said Anastasius, still somewhat reluctant. The ass smiled, and looked at a pigeon which had come down from its perch in a tree where it had been cooing for some time. Anastasius also looked at the pigeon, and the pigeon looked at him with one eye. Time passed, as very slowly and warmly comprehension dawned in Anastasius.
“Is… is… that a dove?” he stammered stupidly.
“Not a dove,” said the ass, “THE DOVE.”
There was no halo, no aureole, nothing to show that it wasn’t an ordinary pigeon. Anastasius made no move, but something started to burn in his throat. While he watched it seemed to him that the dove was becoming bigger and bigger.
“Quick,” said the ass, “get on his back before he becomes too big. He is going to take you into the fiery circle.”
“I wouldn’t dare,” whispered Anastasius.
“Don’t be stupid. If you ever sit down confidently anywhere, you can do it here, on the Holy Immanence — Reality itself.”
“Not for my life,” breathed Anastasius as the bird grew bigger and bigger.
“Not for your little life, perhaps,” echoed the ass, “but for the sake of the greater life, — eternal life.”
And as the bird had now become too big to mount, the ass urged, “Come on, stand on my back first.”
Finally Anastasius, taken by sudden panic, scrambled up and sat down, almost disappearing among the feathers. As the bird spread its wings it appeared to be no longer a dove but an eagle.
After overcoming his panic and the sinking feeling in his stomach due to the steep ascent of the growing bird, Anastasius stretched his neck to look back down into the garden. It had disappeared.
Behind them the sun, now only a bright star among stars, rapidly grew smaller and smaller. And still the eagle grew.
Visible behind them now was a whole arm of the galaxy, and far to one side its brilliant heart. And still the bird grew more and more vast among the galaxies and beyond. But soon even they became faint and disappeared far away below them as a huge, shadowy, silvery wings stretched into ever remoter infinities.
Anastasius had already lost all sense of time, and now even the galaxies, the last starry island universes, were lost behind them in the immensities of space. Still the wings continued to lengthen out. There was nothing now to which he could refer, for beyond the continuous stretching, farther and farther out on either side, he could feel only naked empty space rushing by. Suddenly again he was seized by fear, and clutched at the bird’s warm body beneath the downy feathers, and closed his eyes. Slowly he felt the bird and himself becoming one, and as they continued to grow bigger and bigger there was no longer any comparison with his former self: he had become the sole remaining reality of the universe.
When Anastasius opened his eyes again he looked through the divine eyes of the bird and saw light. With the tips of his outstretched wings, his body was touching the utmost limits of manifest space, and beyond them, surrounding him on all sides, shone the light. A strange light. Not the cold light of the stars or the galaxies, not like any light he had ever known, but a warm and shimmering depth, a soft luminescence, an alabaster light, inviting and smiling. The beyond. The transcendence. The bird himself, the immanence, had stopped in his flight and seemed fixed, beyond space and time, immobile, framed in the most glorious of aureoles.
In the morning, lying on a bed of soft fern leaves in his anchorite cave, Anastasius came to himself again. Outside, the sun was shining brightly, the birds… pardon me, the angels… were twittering, and he asked himself if he had only dreamed the adventure with the bird in its circle of light. But it all seemed too real, too much a part of himself.
“Today I have a surprise for you,” said the she-ass when she came.
“Another surprise, you mean?”
“You still have your anthropomorphic prejudices?”
“Perhaps,” he admitted.
“Today we will rid you of them completely,” she promised, and took Anastasius into the grasslands where they came upon the giant stream-lined impalas from North Africa.
“Extinct,” she explained, as were also the Persian lions, Irish deer, American camels, giant ground sloth and glyptodons.
At noon when they came to a hill with a splendid view over the rolling prairies, they sat down for a rest. Around them butterflies, bees and dragonflies danced in the sun.
“Are these also angelic spirits?” asked Anastasius.
“Not exactly,” the ass replied. “Butterflies and dragonflies are the souls of human children who died at birth. Bees are souls waiting to be incarnated on earth.” Anastasius nodded. He remembered having read medieval legends about that, and that on Michaelmas and Candlemass bees had been mentioned in the liturgy. His attention was turned by a slight sound behind him. There stood a shining white new-born lamb quietly looking at him, with its big eyes.
“A lamb,” he said softly.
“Not a lamb, THE LAMB,” the ass reminded him. But Anastasius had already seen the light, the immense aureole, surrounding the lamb with a shimmering brilliance. He prostrated himself.
“Sweet Jesus, beloved Master…” he stammered, overcome with emotion. But then he felt a wave of immense peace which filled him with a calm and quietness and a sense of utter fulfilment. Thus strengthened he was able to look at the lamb.
After a long silence, moments of pure bliss, Anastasius spoke, expressing in words his heart’s innermost longing:
“Lord, give your servant his orders.”
“My message is love.” The lamb spoke gently, “And love knows no exception. 2,000 years ago I went to earth. I took birth in a stable to show men that I had come to save the animals from men’s greed, and in order to make men conscious of animal suffering.
“I preached on The Mount. When I said, ‘Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God,’ I meant the animals. When I said, ‘Blessed are the meek,’ I meant the animals.
“The law that forbade the taking of life men interpreted as applicable only to their own tribe or species. I told them ‘I am the life,’ all life, and spoke of all the children of God, but men thought I meant mankind alone, their own little tribe, and not all beings.
“I spoke to them of ‘Our Father’, the God of love, and they imagined that He loved only them and not the rest of his creation. Men in their greed and blindness of heart saw only themselves. Already the dominant race on earth, they imagined I had come to save them exclusively and to give man, alone, eternal life.
“Each time I spoke of the Kingdom, I meant the great oneness of all life, but man took it to mean himself, his own little egoistic self. It is true, animals do not need to be saved from themselves as men do, only from man. Since man has become the great spoiler of the kingdom, I no longer wear a human form. That form they nailed on a cross. To a pastoral people I appeared as a lamb, to a scientific society I come as rattus rattus albinus — the laboratory rat. As I promised my children, I have not abandoned them. Each day I go down to be with them, to die, to be a witness for love and for life, for the oneness, for the kingdom.”
The voice became silent. In a crumpled heap Anastasius lay at the feet of the lamb, who as he spoke had become as vast as the universe and as brilliant as a thousand suns. For a long time he lay there. When he lifted his head again he was alone. Paradise was all around him, but no longer in his heart. Only a burning desire was there, a flaming longing to fulfil, to obey the demands of love.
Slowly he stood up. He saw that his body was no longer old, but was that of a young man. He walked to the gate of the garden.
“Peter,” he said, “Give me your blessing. I’m going down to follow my master.”
Saint Peter, lifting his eyebrows clear up to the hairline in the salute of the primates, and smacking his lips as a sign of affection, looked after Anastasius as he went out and started his descent. He was still within hailing distance when Saint Peter — was it to cover his own emotion or to warn Anastasius of the dangers he was going to meet and to encourage him? — gave the hair-raising cry of the mountain gorillas and started beating his chest like a huge wooden drum.
Anastasius’ body became smaller and smaller, shrinking finally to an infant’s size. And then far down in the distance it was only a flame, a tiny brilliant flame like a star… going down… down… down….