Edgar Saltus

Mary Magdalen Edgar Saltus

Publisher Marketing: Excerpt: ...of Ashtaroth, the invective at Bethsaida, the transfiguration on the mountain height, the cure of lepers, and the presence that coerced. Yet through them all certain things remained immutable, and of these, primarily her contact with the Christ. To her, Jesus was not the Son of man pg 143 alone, he was the light of this world, the usher of the next. When he spoke, there came to her a sense of frightened joy so acute that the hypostatical union which left even the disciples perplexed was by her realized and understood. She had the faith of a little child. And on the hills and through the intervales over which they journeyed, in the glare of the eager sun or beneath the wattled boughs, the emanations of the Divine filled her with transports so contagious that they affected even Thomas, who was skeptical by birth; and when, after the descent from Hermon, two or three of the disciples mused together over the spectacle which they had seen, the rhyme of her lips parted ineffably. She too had seen him aureoled with the sun, dazzling as the snow-fields on the heights. To her it was ever in that aspect he appeared, with a radiance so intense even that there had been moments in which she had veiled her eyes as from a light that only eagles could support. To her, marvels were as natural as the escape of night. pg 144 At Beth-Sean she had heard him speak to dumb beasts, and never doubted but that they answered him. At Dan she had seen a short-eared hare rush to him for refuge, and follow him afterwards as a dog might do. At Kinnereth he had called to a lark that from a tree-top was pouring its heart out to the morning, and the lark had fluttered down and nestled in his hand. At Gadara he had tamed wild doves, and a swarm of bees had stopped and glistened in his hair. At Caesarea, when he began to speak, the thrushes that had been singing ceased; and when the parables were delivered, began anew, louder, more jubilant than before, and continued to sing until he..