Free The Gospel According to the Son by Norman Mailer

shore.
    Yet as I returned to my ship, Legion began to beg that I let him come with my people. I was tempted. He would make a mighty apostle. But their number was twelve, and I could not add another. Moreover, he was a pagan. Still I could take no pride in saying: "Go instead to your people and tell them what happened." In truth, I abhorred the man. The rush of those demons who came out of his throat had been unfathomable in its uproar. Who could vouch for the cause of such a misery?
    After he left, Legion spoke well of me among the gentiles in the city of Decapolis, where he went to live. They marveled at his words of praise. In former days, he had never had a good word for any man.

23
    On my return to Capernaum, one of the elders of the synagogue (his name was Jairus) stepped forward and knelt at my feet. Until now, not one of the Pharisees had offered more than a place to teach (and this grudgingly). Yet here was Jairus. He pleaded with me, saying, "My little daughter lies near death. I pray thee, come and heal her so that she may live."
    By now I had learned how close was faith to the loss of faith. Both stole silently into the heart. So I understood: The rulers of the synagogue might disapprove of me, but that did not mean I had failed to enter their hearts. Much strengthened, then, by this meeting, I went with Jairus to his house, and a horde came with us. As we passed through the street, I knew that someone had done me an ill. All virtue had suddenly left me. I turned and said, "Who touched my clothes?"
    A stranger said: "You see the multitude, yet you ask 'Who touched me?' " But then a woman cried out and fell down before us. "I have had an issue of blood for twelve years," she said, "and have spent all I own on physicians and have only grown worse. Hearing of you, I touched your garment. I thought: 'That shall make me whole.' And it did. I have stopped bleeding."
    I could see by her eyes that she spoke the truth. So I was gentle. I told her, "Daughter, go in peace and you will be wholly healed by tomorrow." No sooner had she left, however, than a servant from the house of Jairus came to him and said, "Your daughter lives no longer."
    Had the ailing woman taken the virtue I had been gathering to save the child?
    But in that instant my Father was with me, and feeling His strength, I turned to this ruler of the synagogue and said, "Jairus, be not afraid. Only believe." I had to hope that the daughter was not dead but resting in that long shadow of sleep that is near to death. For then I might save her. I did not know if I had the power to bring back those who are truly dead.
    I recited to myself the words of the prophet Isaiah: "Awake and sing, ye that dwell in dust."
    At the house of Jairus there was much disturbance. Many were weeping and wailing. I entered and said: "The girl is not dead but sleeps."
    And I spoke in this manner to calm the air. The dead are best raised in silence; tumult can only drive them further away. So I asked the mourners to leave the house and went with Jairus and his wife to where their daughter was lying. I held her hand and recited words I remembered well from the scroll of the Second Kings, saying: " 'When Elisha was come into the house, behold, the child was dead, and he prayed unto the Lord. And he lay upon the child and put his mouth upon the child's mouth and his eyes upon the child's eyes and his hands over the boy's hands, and he stretched himself upon the child and the flesh of the child was now warm, and the child sneezed seven times and opened his eyes.'
    "And this," I told the father and mother, "having been spoken, need not be done again." For I knew that if I lay upon the girl and she failed to stir, incalculable would be the harm. With the power of the Lord in my hand, I merely touched her and said, "Good daughter, unto thee I say arise." And straightaway she arose and walked. Her parents were astonished, but I told them to give her food, and give it with all the love that