Christmas story - 2024

He was oppressed and afflicted,

 yet he did not open his mouth;

he was led like a lamb to the slaughter,

 and as a sheep before its shearers is silent,

 so he did not open his mouth.

• Isaiah 53:7

Intelligence is the only solace a eunuch has.

Zerah could not only read and write; he could do so in six languages and several dialects. By the time he was seven, Zerah could speak both Meroitic and Egyptian. By ten, he had added Greek. Languages came easily to him, a blessing and a curse.

It was for this reason Zerah was chosen to train as an ambassador for Kandake Amanirenas. She selected Zerah herself after hearing him speaking fluent Egyptian to a traveler. She immediately recognized his intelligence. A child able to learn languages would make a valuable addition to her ambassadors.

To work for Kandake Amanirenas, he was required to be cut, to lose his manhood. 

It was not his choice. 

What ten year old boy wants to be mutilated in that way. But he had no say. He was supposed to be honored.

He did not feel honored. He felt afraid.

Zerah knew that the life of a eunuch was one of privilege. He would never lack for food or shelter. He would wear fine clothes. He would be educated.

These advantages did not tempt him. He would rather continue an ordinary slave and remain intact. But he knew they would do as they liked. He had no voice in what would be done to him. He never had and never would be in control of the circumstances of his life.

The procedure was horrifying. Many boys did not survive the cut. Zerah wondered if he would be one of them.

Zerah was a handsome ten year old. His ebony skin was clear and smooth. His eyes were almost black. The curls on his head formed tight intricate swirls. His high brow of glossy skin proved a fitting symmetry to his oval face, while his long dark eyelashes gave him a sultry look, unusual in a child. Others were constantly commenting on his exceptional beauty.

They would no more.

Beauty would not be his as a eunuch. Eunuchs do not look as other men do. He would be tall and his ape-like arms would fall down by his side to his thighs. Small breasts would form. Zerah would never have facial hair. Maybe no hair at all.

No longer would he be the the beautiful boy he was now, basking in the praise of friends and strangers.There would be no pride in his appearance. He would be a freak.

Not only a freak, he would be a freak without friends.  Intrigue and jealousy flourished among eunuchs. There was no trust. There were no friendships, only alliances. He would no longer have contact with all who were his friends before being selected to train as a eunuch..

How does one live without friends?

There are things known and things unknown and in between are the doors.

- Jim Morrison

The pain from the cut was swift and intense. For ten seconds, Zerah felt nothing at all and then the burning between his legs was unbearable. It was sharp and his stomach and bowels emptied instantaneously.

After the cut, a paste was placed where his scrotum had been and something sharp was placed in his penis and left there. For three days Zerah was allowed nothing to eat or drink. The pain and the urgency never left him until the pin was removed. 

During those three days, Zerah yearned for a death that didn’t come.

After two years of training, Zerah began his career accompanying older eunuchs to their destinations. It was customary for a young eunuch to drive the chariot of an ambassador. This was part of Zerah’s training. He observed the negotiations of the older eunuchs without speaking. Only in his practical duties did he ask questions, and of ordinary people. It didn’t take long for Zerah to recognize how he needed to speak in order to achieve the Kandake’s goals. In every country, Zerah learned new languages and cultural practices to use later when he became a senior negotiator. 

Zerah never lost his ease with learning a language or his love of new places and ideas.

Languages became Zerah’s friends. Within the eunuch community, he was thought a recluse. He did not involve himself in the many schemes common to the other eunuchs. Zerah had no desire for greater power.

He was a freak among freaks.

Zerah knew that learning a language takes so much more than knowing the meaning of words. It takes seeing nuance, phrasing, and body language which gives meaning and shades of meaning to what has been said. Zerah immersed himself in a language. He got to know it better every day by being in a place and hearing how ordinary people spoke with each other. He learned how people moved as they spoke, how their faces change, how a change in tone can make a difference in how something is understood.

He found culture a spiritual being, and learning its language an art.

Another advantage in his assignment as chariot driver was learning how to navigate the best route from place to place. This was yet another advantage in proving his worth to the Kandake.  It was a skill not every eunuch could master. Once he was in charge, he would have a young eunuch to accompany and drive him; but he would be the one to teach him to navigate the unwieldy chariot.

…. Him. 

Neither one of them was a him. 

There are no pronouns for a eunuch. Eunuch is the ultimate descriptor. There was no hiding his status. Zerah’s appearance marked him for what he was. He stood out in public with his height, his long arms, and his pudgy physique. The softness of his skin, accented by his lack of hair, gave him a boy’s face on an adult man.

Tribal people sneered at him when they thought he was not looking. It was  dangerous to openly sneer. After all, Zerah was a eunuch. He held political power. Zerah could not inspire love from any, but fear of him came from what he was and what that meant.

No one looked at Zerah as a person. He was a eunuch. Few looked past his physical oddities.

Hidden behind his freakish body was that beautiful boy who loved watching people and learning their language. Inside was the remnants of a man who longed for a family he would never have. Inside was a person who wanted to love and be loved. 

Inside every person is a person who wants to be loved.

Zerah had not found love but he found a measure of acceptance in what he called little while friends. He discovered he could sometimes break through the barriers to have a true relationship with some of the people around him, most often slaves who knew oppression well. It was not love, but there was a kind of bond.

Zerah always initiated contact. He would surprise others with his personal questions and the fact that he actually listened to the answers. Those not involved in direct negotiations, who served the negotiators, were as invisible as Zerah had once been. Men, women and children who cleaned and cooked and tended to the animals were not spoken to beyond instructions, by anyone but Zerah.

Tentatively, as they became used to this strange eunuch that asked their names, that asked about family and religion, some began to trust him. Some came to know him as a person who cared about people and animals and plants, about religions and harvest festivals. They found his voracious curiosity a non-threatening irregularity and relaxed so that Zerah could observe them in their daily lives.

Zerah would pay children generously when he first arrived to show him what he wanted to see -  indigenous animals and religious ceremonies, farming methods and bartering techniques. His interests were all encompassing. Zerah’s peculiarity was lucrative and the children competed with each other for who could tempt him with the best information. 

Every creature is a word of God. 

• Meister Eckhart

Zerah’s trip to Rome was the longest of his career. Trilingualism and more were not uncommon in Rome. There were so many languages spoken from the different parts of the empire. He spent five years studying Latin, Gaulish, Etruscan, Aramaic and Coptic. He also learned the subtle differences in the way Greek and Egyptian were spoken throughout the empire. His last year was spent studying the Hebrews with their odd religious practices and beliefs. As a eunuch he was barred from the inner worship area and had to content himself with asking others. This was a great disappointment as he studied this religion of only one god.

Zandake knew his gifts and used them well. She found his greatest talent was as a learner and teacher. Zarah would go to strategic places and bring back his knowledge to other eunuchs. Zarah was a valuable asset. She knew she had chosen well. Information he brought back provided negotiators a greater chance of peace and continued trade.

His companion on this trip was Horo. Horo was 13 when they left. Zerah watched as Horo’s body changed into that of a eunuch. At each change, he saw Horo’s spirit dim. Zerah saw great anger, an anger Horo held tightly within him.

Horo was chosen to accompany him because of his intelligence and his ability to learn quickly. This was true but he no longer received joy from it. As his body changed, so did his curiosity. He did as told and learned what he was taught, but there was a quiet rage waiting just beneath the surface.

Horo did not tell his story and Zerah did not ask. This was something that must be offered, and in their six years together, Horo never had. He did not respond to Zerah when he told his own story. Horo had found no solace for his pain, no sharing with another who suffered as he did.

The time had come for them to return to Kandake Amaniremas. They had learned so much. However, Zerah was not satisfied with his knowledge of the Hebrew people with their strange religious practices and theology. He had acquired a copy of their sacred text but found it incomprehensible in many places.

• Yet the Lord longs to be gracious to you;
  therefore he will rise up to show you compassion.
  For the Lord is a God of justice.
  Blessed are all who wait for him!
  Isaiah 30:18

Zerah understood the Torah more than the other parts of the Hebrew texts. Most religions contained a set of laws, rules and regulations to follow. Some of the stories told in the Torah were similar to other religions he had studied. It was the writings that were considered sacred, those not found in the Torah, that Zerah found obscure.

He was reading aloud from the book of Isaiah, pondering over the passage that read He was oppressed and afflicted, yet he did not open his mouth; he was led like a lamb to the slaughter,and as a sheep before its shearers is silent, so he did not open his mouth.

He read this over and over wondering who these words described. After the third time, Horo said bitterly, “It sounds like us.” Zerah waited to see if Horo would continue, but his lips tightened and he knew that Horo had said all he would say.

Zerah was aware of someone approaching their stopped carriage but continued to read from Isaiah. He looked up as the man approached and saw that he was a Hebrew.

Zerah was surprised when the man spoke to him. He had found the Hebrew people the least likely to engage in conversation with a eunuch. He found no eunuchs in their assemblies. They were not allowed, as he well knew from his own experience.

“ Do you understand what you are reading?” the man asked.

“How can I unless someone explains to me?” Zerah could not keep the frustration out of his voice. “Is the prophet speaking of himself or someone else?”

The man who was called Phillip offered to teach him what this passage was referring to. Zerah invited him into his carriage and told Horo to continue on their journey.

Phillip spoke of recent events that happened since Zerah left Jerusalem to return to the Kandake. Zerah had heard some of this Jesus along with many others who claimed to be what the Hebrews called the Messiah. He knew that many Hebrews wanted to break from Rome and return to governing their homeland. Zerah had not heard the story of Jesus’s crucifixion, the brutal way of execution reserved for slaves and revolutionaries.. This was strange indeed. How could he be the long awaited Messiah of the Hebrews?

Even more confusing were the teachings of Jesus. Phillip shared how the Messiah had come to build a spiritual kingdom on earth rather than a physical one. Jesus taught of radical love to both neighbors and enemies. Jesus told stories about ordinary people. He preached a loving god who cared for all.

Phillip told him about how Jesus had women among his followers and how they traveled together. How many became his disciples, just as men. How could Jesus allow women with men, not eunuchs? Zerah thought.

A woman ruled in his own country but he knew this was unusual from living in other cultures. Women had no rights in Hebrew society. They were treated as property. If Jesus had women as disciples, he was radically different from the Hebrew religion Zerah studied. And yet, Phillip was telling him that it was always the plan of the Hebrew god to send Jesus to mankind. If Zerah were not expected back soon by the kandake, he would return to Rome to study this new branch of the Hebrew religion.

Humans think in stories, and we try to make sense of the world by telling stories.

Yuval Noah Harari

Phillip continued to tell about what was happening after Jesus’s death, word of his resurrection and ascension into the heavens, how his followers lived in community sharing together what they had. It was fascinating and he felt a strange longing to be part of this community of Jesus who didn’t care if he was a eunuch. If all his followers were as kind and accepting as Phillip, he would like to be a part of this religion.

Zerah, having studied many religions, was a follower of none.

Phillip explained further that Jesus’s followers called themselves The Way because the teachings of Jesus brought them into a new way of living.

When Phillip told him about how new followers were being baptized to represent this transition to a new life, to a life of love for believers and non-believers alike, Zerah immediately knew this was something he wanted to do.

As they came to a small pond formed by a slow moving river, Zerah wanted to ask for Phillip to baptize him. Zerah knew that he would never be allowed to practice the Hebrew religion because of what he was, because he was not a real man. But this Jesus religion seemed to include women and men as equals. If women could be accepted, could he be accepted as a man who was not a man?

Zerah finally overcome his fear and made his request. Phillip was overcome with joy. Zerah had never had a person in all his travels treat him as this man did. In all the places he’d traveled, he never stopped being a eunuch, an outsider, a freak.

As Zerah emerged from the water, he was filled with a joy and peace beyond his understanding. He felt loved in a way he never had.

He observed that Horo had come to stand beside the water, his face filled with longing.

“Could I be baptized?” he asked of Phillip.

Phillip embraced Horo and led him to the water.

Zerah knew that Horo had been listening to all that Phillip said. As they walked back to the chariot, Horo and Zerah animatedly talked of what they had been told and of all the implications this newly embraced religion could mean for them. Both knew how much it would affect every part of their lives. Both were anxious to share what they had learned with others.

In their protracted conversation, they forgot all about Phillip. When they realized they had not thanked him, they found that he was already gone.

Horo increased the pace of the chariot as both wanted to return home as quickly as they could. They would not continue at the leisurely pace of before. There would be no stopping by the road to read. 

A name in Meroe is given to a child to determine his destiny. Horo means one who will multiply. When he became a eunuch, this name became a source of sorrow. He would never father a child. How could he be one to multiply?

But Horo would be the one to multiply followers of Jesus. He would return, not as the sad bitter teenager who left, but as the joyful man who returned to tell of a love that has no bounds.

Horo began to tell Zerah his story.

Merry Christmas, Shosha, Matt, Maura, Autumn and Nicholas. You are all beloved.