PHASE SIX
ON THE MOVE
Section One--The Right of the Leper
ND by the middle of the day, Sunday, the twelfth day of March, going up into the small boat owned by the twins, with Simon who is called Patsar, I came into the parts of Dalmanutha called, Magdala the tower of the sea. And for several days after that, I went into all the area round and about the house of Zebedee, and the birth place of James and John, casting out evils wherever I went.
02 And on the very next Sabbath day, that is to say, on the even of the eighteenth day of March, as I was wading in the river of Arbela, and cleansing myself, there came an old man to me, beseeching me, and kneeling down beside the water's edge, said to me out of fear: If thou art Iseus your God canst make me clean, for I am called Naaman the leper by those that hate me.*
03 And angry at his failure to recognize the nature of his own uncleanliness, reluctantly I saith unto the old man: I will. For I knew by looking at him that he was just a good Samarian in need of a bath, and that he who hath lived in the desert was afraid of going into the water unless he be helped, for he was an old man and afraid of the sea.
04 And stretching forth my hand unto him; for I knew that he did not have leprosy; I helped him into the living waters so that he could wash his crusty looking body. And without ritual of any kind, I saith unto him: Be thou clean. But I neither commanded him to dip himself seven times;* nor did I make atonement for his sins.*
05 And immediately upon entering the river Arbela, he that was made clean by the sprinkling of living waters, thinking inside of himself that he was being baptized by the saviour, began to praise me as the Baptist come again, saying: God is with Iseus, blessed be he who is to come. [Which is here being interpreted from the Latin Vulgate into the Greek: God is with Jesus, but in the Greek-English only, by way of an enormous error: God is Jesus or God is a man called Jesus].
06 And after I helped him out of the water, forthwith I sent him away, lest he think that I was speaking the words of power spoken by El`iseus the prophet. For did he not say to Naaman the commander of the Syrian army: 'Go, and wash seven times in the Jordan, and you shalt be made clean'.*
07 And he being gone out of the water, I saith unto him: Go immediately to the synagogue of Magdala, and show thyself to Alepheus the chief priest, and offer for they physical cleansing the sacrifices for sin that Moses commanded of thee.* And after that, I continued to wash myself so that I could be made clean before entering the house of God.
