The protagonist is Salome, who is condemned to an eternal succession of lives on Earth, because she prompted the execution of John the Baptist. Her driving quest is to achieve superiority over men, and she begins by arousing the love of Isaac Laquedem, who appears as the Wandering Jew; but she is still adolescent, and the net result of this attraction is her vow to conquer the Moon, which keeps women in biological bondage. After two quick and unhappy marriages, she leaves her home to wander into the desert, where she meets Jokanaan (John the Baptist), who is preaching that he is Elijah. She is greatly impressed by him, and manages to get him thrown into prison, instead of being summarily executed as a heretic. When she tries to tempt him, he rejects her. She angrily causes his death in the manner described in the Gospel of Mark; but before he dies, Jokanaan says that she must continue to live for an eternity, because she is "too vile for the grave".

Back in Jerusalem, she meets Cartaphilus, whom she recognizes as the former Isaac, the son of a cobbler, who has first excited her. However, she takes no part in the Crucifixion, and so she is ignorant of the curse imposed upon the Wandering Jew. One century later we find her in Arabia, the wife of King Hussein. She cannot have children by Him because He is sterile, but she realizes that He may try to kill her to cover up this fact. His brothers prevent Him from this deed by killing Him, and then each brother marries her, but she remains barren.

She first learns of the Wandering Jew through the wise man Apollonius, her teacher, and expresses the hope that she may someday meet him. Resuming her wandering life, she meets the formidable Queen Zenobia, of Palmyra. The two try an experiment in female domination, in which Zenobia frees all of Her female slaves, and places women in important governmental positions. Zenobia, who vies in glory with Her predecessor Queen Cleopatra, insists that the defeat of the Serpent of the Nile by the Romans has come about not from the superiority of the Romans, but from the physical handicaps of the female sex. Then Zenobia dies, and Salome temporarily retires to a quiet life upon the Rhine, meanwhile becoming enamored of an immortal turtle, Lakshmi, which is a symbol of the revolt of women. At her first opportunity she and her turtle travel to the Temple of Cartaphilus, who has by now become the God Ca-Ta-Pha. He is absent, and while awaiting his return, she proceeds to create a civilization in which the functions of men and women are turned around. When Cartaphilus returns, they find that they are both still in love with one another, but decide that they should wait a few centuries for their love to ripen.

Salome therefore continues to travel, learning many secrets from various cultures, and falling in love with a young girl named Joan, who returns her love. By bribing all the chief authorities of the Church, in manners not always specified, she manages to have Joan installed as Pope, becoming herself a power behind the throne. For a time all goes well, but Joan is after all a woman, and succumbs to an unnamed lover. She dies giving birth to a child in public, while wearing papal robes.

Meanwhile, Cartaphilus and Salome have come together again, he always wallowing in sensuality, in his search for "unendurable pleasure indefinitely prolonged". Centuries pass, while Salome continues her adventures, sometimes dressed as a woman, but more often as a man. She even manages to collect a harem. Finally, however, she concludes that the time has come for a female Christ to redeem womanhood. Her choice falls upon Joan of Arc and it is her feat of ventriloquism that enables Joan to hear divine voices. After the capture of Joan, Salome has the opportunity either to save her, and expect her to succumb as the other Joan had done, or to let her become the great martyr that womanhood needs. There may be only one choice.

Shaken by the incident, Salome retires to a convent, where, because of her heresies, she is condemned to the stake. By using magic, she is able to substitute a dummy of flesh and blood, and to escape to Elizabethan England, then to Vienna, and finally to Tibet, where Cartaphilus has last been reported. In the process, she is now fit to marry Cartaphilus, but he is too busy contemplating the final meaning of life. Upon his advice, she temporarily becomes a nun, and then returns to the Russia of Catherine the Great, who is called an old woman "impaled upon the phallus". When her attempts to expose the worthlessness of Potemkin to his Royal Mistress prove disastrous, Salome is obliged to leave Russia for South America, where she attempts to found a race of lovers, who may experience "unendurable pleasure indefinitely prolonged". After her attempt to interest Queen Victoria in the greatness of woman fails, Salome and Cartaphilus settle down in South America, and marry. She contemplates the birth of Homuncula, the one who "unendurable pleasure indefinitely prolonged" may find infinite gratification. However, she becomes less the revolutionary, and more the lover. The story concludes with both Salome and Cartaphilus singing the praises of love.

DOCTOR GEORGE KUMLER ANDERSON (1965)