Peter, James, and John followed Jesus of Nazareth, whom they called Yeshua, up the mountain trail and into the gathering dusk. To one side the legions of night, all the shadows that had waited for the day to end, gathered in the hollows of the mountains; in the far distance, smoke twisted upward from the settlements near the inland sea of salt. Was that an olive grove far below, on the lower slopes of the mountain, that blur of jade and beaten iron?
Peter alone had been so high up before, had in fact once been to a mountain that had snow on it, and he was not afraid here. Was there not a trail?
“A trail for goats alone,” said James, the brother of Jesus, who was often dour.
“Master,” John asked, tentatively, “might we stop, and eat? I hunger, and I have brought some bread and cheese.”
Yeshua seemed not to have heard him, but strode confidently on, just as if he’d been here before, though Peter thought it likely that he had not.
They rounded a crag, and the trail became even thinner, and steeper, and rougher, and a ground mist trailed here. A permanent dew glittered like a shed snakeskin on the dull red and gray stones.
Peter’s feet hurt where he’d struck them on stones, and his sandals were coming apart. But he would have followed Yeshua across a plain of fire if the Master had asked it. And somehow, in the presence of Yeshua, all discomforts seemed like just so much discordant natural sound, like the night-calls that the animals of the mountains were beginning to make among the twisted little trees. With Yeshua, one found another center of gravity, a detached place within onself that was like the austere perspective of this mountaintop itself. Or so it was for Peter.
But James, though he seemed drawn after his brother Yeshua like a leaf in a wind, looked at Yeshua differently from the others, and could not forget the child he had known before the awakening of the Man.
“Yeshua,” said James, “I’m tired and it grows cold; the night is coming. Surely we...”
But James said no more, for they’d come to a shoulder of the mountain, a flattened place, and a great light was arising here, seeming to coalesce in the air itself, a light that had been waiting for them to show itself.
Yeshua stepped boldly into the collected light. It was as if stars could come down like the rain; and that rain of light fell onto Yeshua, and he was transfigured.
Yeshua turned toward them, and he was still the same man, the same craggy black eyes and beaky nose, the same bristling black beard, the back a little hunched from childhood rickets; yet in that moment he seemed to take another meaning into himself, like the meaning in numbers and astronomy; like a figure in the clay tablets used by the practitioners of the Egyptian mysteries.
And his face—it blazed like the sun! And his clothing became as light!
And then the light above him gave birth somehow, so that something that had been there, unseen, was now visible: a cloud, perhaps, but a cloud solid as a ship, and made of the finest silver; or so it seemed to Peter. And from this cloud, descending, came two men, in white robes and flowing white beards.
These two, Yeshua said to Peter, with the voice of his mind, are but Elijah, and Moses, come to bring light. And walking alongside the Prophets came what must be imps, or child-angels, for these smaller beings were no larger than a child, and their eyes were ovals of dark stone, and their raiment was silver that changed color as they turned, iridescent as mica. Their heads were larger than the heads of men; their bodies smaller; their fingers numbered only four, on each hand. When Peter looked into their eyes he thought he saw something there that, if it was not evil, was just as hard and unyielding as evil. Were these fallen angels, given to Elijah and Moses for servants?
Yeshua spoke with the two men in white, in voices inaudible, and Peter thought he heard one of them laugh softly as he turned to look at the small black-eyed ones; and Peter saw Elijah slap Yeshua upon the shoulder, as if they were drunken comrades. Then Yeshua turned toward Peter, his face still bright, though the light was bearable now.
James and John fell to their knees, weeping with fear.
Though his mouth was so dry it was hard to speak, and though his knees trembled, Peter remained standing and said in a croak, “Master... Lord... it is good that we are here. If you wish, I will make three shelters: tabernacles of wood, one for you and one for Moses and one for Elijah.”
He heard his own voice as if in the distance, and he thought: Why am I babbling so?
And then came another cloud of light, another kind of chariot above the silvery chariot of the little black-eyed ones and the light of this Higher chariot seemed to spill out like a weightless luminous liquid, washing over, them, carrying with it logos, as on a wave, and a voice was heard: Behold, this is my son whom I love, and in whom I am well pleased. Listen to him. Listen to him....
The words rippled through the disciples like the shimmy of an earthquake; the words threw them to the ground; they lay trembling on their faces, and never had Peter been so afraid: it is not given for man to hear the voice of God, and lesser visitations have left men raving and broken.
And the light—it seemed to search through them, so that every unworthy thought was brought out of its noisome cubby and examined.
Peter squeezed his eyes shut, as if that would block this painful scrutiny, but only after he prayed for release did it ebb away...
And then Peter felt Yeshua’s hand on his shoulder; he knew without looking, from the nourishment in the touch, whose hand it was.
Peter opened his eyes, his head aching, his vision swimming, and saw that the cloud-that-was-solid was gone, and the Higher cloud chariot was gone as well, and departed also were Elijah and Moses and the little black-eyed angels.
“Rise up and do not fear,” Yeshua said. “Our purpose here has been fulfilled. Let us return to the village.”
Numbly, Peter and John and James started down the mountain. They glanced at one another, as if looking for answers, and there were none.
Walking beside Peter, Yeshua said softly, “Do not speak of the vision you have seen until the Son of Man is raised from the dead...”
James asked Jesus a question about Elijah, but Peter was not listening to the question or the reply. His mind was still full of the voice and the light—and the onyx eyes of the little angels, if angels they were.
After a time, John and James, eager for food and rest, were hurrying ahead of Peter and Yeshua, and Peter thought it safe to ask, “Master—you and I, we are friends, are we not?”
Yeshua looked at him with mild surprise. “Yes.”
“And if I ask you to tell me something, and promise to reveal the answer to no one, will you trust me, Yeshua rabbi?”
“I trust you, and would trust you even as you sundered my heart with a knife.”
Peter decided not to let himself be deflected by paradox and parable. He spoke softly, so the others would not hear. “Then Yeshua, friend and Master, tell me this: the small ones with Moses and Elijah—were they angels or demons?”
“Demons? Not as you mean it. They are those who think they control my power, only because they released it in me. And they suppose they are the fathers of Elijah and Moses, and they are not. They released a power, and they deceive themselves that they created it. They are those who live on the shores of Heaven and see it not. They are those whom God has chosen as his instruments and who yet believe that God is their instrument, that God is a dream of their own creation. They are those in whom Knowledge has outweighed Being as the moon outweighs the temple in Jerusalem. But I say to you that they have their own amazement coming, as surely as spring follows winter; though it will take two thousand years and more, their amazement is coming.”
Peter sighed; it was one of those sayings of Yeshua, who was also called Christos Jesus, which he would never recount to others, for he did not understand it himself. And he set himself to forget it.