The Silence of Gethsemane

by Michel Benoît

  “Rabbi, not my feet only but also my hands and my head!”

  Weighed down by mysteries that were impenetrable to him, he clung to the idea of the cool, clear water that he had first known when John the Baptist baptized him in the River Jordan. He had experienced this act of purification with the open-handed candour of the newly converted. I reminded him of this:

  “One who has bathed entirely does not need to have his feet washed, but is entirely clean.”

  We were looking into each other’s eyes, our faces were a hand’s breadth apart. The time had come to make it clear that I wasn’t taken in, that he was dancing to the Evil One’s tune. I stared at him, and he stared back.

  “And you are clean, but not all of you!”

  I hurled this thinly disguised accusation in his face as I knelt in front of him, not Judas. So now he knew: I had uncovered his secret.

  Without another word I moved on to the next person.

  I went back to my place to give the usual homily. What could I say to them, these men who had followed me without ever really catching up? I wanted to leave them a form of legacy. So even if they had failed to understand me, they could at least remember our long journeys together, the compassion I had always shown for people with no fixed roots, my boundless patience with those who opposed me. I had never wanted to be served, simply to serve, to bathe the wounds that Evil had inflicted on them. I ended my address on a sorrowful note:

  “For I have set you an example, that you also should do as I have done to you.”

  It was the last time I would be a rabbi teaching his disciples.

  52

  After that the meal continued in heavy silence. Everyone kept their eyes on their food, closed off within themselves.

  When the moment came for the sharing of the bread, the image of mealtimes in the family home in Capernaum suddenly came flooding back to me, everyone talking quietly round the table, those gentle childhood moments that never leave us. Joseph would bless the loaf, then with a smile our mother would give a piece to each of us children in turn, smile at us with an expression of affection that was quite unforgettable… the unexpected memory sent a tremor of emotion through my whole being – so were the Twelve plotting against me? Was I surrounded by turncoats? My mind plunged in turmoil, I had to know. Breaking the round, flat loaf as they looked on, I said:

  “Take; this is my body which is given.”

  Because I was looking down at the bread, I didn’t see who started the whisper that was soon running round the table. The word given could be taken to mean two things, either given or given up. I overheard some of them ask the person next to them why I had replaced the usual blessing with this obscure pronouncement. Now they would have to declare themselves; slowly I poured wine into the cup.

  “Take, drink, this is my blood, poured out for many.”

  There was an immediate outcry. Was I saying that I was going to be given up like a common criminal, that my blood would flow like wine?

  I kept my eye on Peter, Judas and the Boanerges brothers: they were the only ones saying nothing, as if turned to stone, while the others were shifting in their seats and demanding to know what I meant. But I didn’t get a chance to reply – the unambiguous reference to my imminent death roused the demon of their old ambitions, the endless bickering over power. They began hurling insults at each other across the table; if I were no longer there, who would take my place?

  Amid the uproar, Peter and his friends seemed to have been struck dumb. But their silence provided the answer to my question: the others seemed genuinely surprised, their obvious display of disunity showed they knew nothing of any conspiracy.

  They weren’t conniving against me.

  Peter!

  I was so shocked that I only managed to utter:

  “Truly I tell you, one of you will betray me.”

  A deathly silence descended on the room. They looked round at each other, wondering whom I meant. Then Peter turned to the person on his left. Still speechless, he gestured to him to ask me what I knew.

  The Judaean leant towards me, his head almost on my shoulder, and whispered:

  “Who is it, Rabbi?”

  There was a note of irony in his voice. Everything he had just told me about the conspiracy – was I going to lay it out on the table among the bread and wine? Was he asking me to tell them about the agreement that Judas had made with Caiaphas? If the curtain were suddenly to be raised in this shadow theatre, wouldn’t Peter and Iscariot come to blows? Wouldn’t they rush and fetch their weapons from where they had left them by the door?

  Was the celebration of the Kingdom going to end in a brawl?

  53

  Now there is nothing left to play for, I am sure I took the decision that had to be taken at that moment, and without delay. If I had exposed those who were behind the conspiracy, revealed everyone for what he really was, a sealed cauldron that was hovering at boiling point would have blown up in my face. The person in the most precarious position was Judas, who would find himself at the mercy of the activists whom he had betrayed. The most vital thing now was to protect him from their potentially violent reactions, especially Peter’s. I had to tell him that I was aware of his plans, that he had my consent – but it had to be done in such a way that the others wouldn’t realize; so they would think that I was telling him to go and buy what we needed for the festival, or to give something to the poor, as was the custom. He had to leave the room straight away.

  I took a piece of bread and dipped it in the dish:

  “It is the one to whom I give this piece of bread when I have dipped it in the dish.”

  Then I offered the piece of bread to Judas, who took it without a word. Looking him in the eye I whispered:

  “Do quickly what you are going to do.”

  The others round the table were so astonished that when Judas got up and walked towards the door, his face expressionless, they didn’t even react. As he went out he took his sica from the table and disappeared into the night.

  When he had gone, I turned to Peter. In Galilee I had once accused him of being Satan; would those be the only words that would stay with him after tonight? No, he had to hear of hope and forgiveness, so he would know what God’s loving kindness could be. So I spoke to him gently, using his pet name as his mother must have done when he was a child:

  “Simon, Simon, listen! Satan has demanded to sift all of you like wheat! But I have prayed for you, Simon…”

  Some of the disciples were defiant, perhaps they were finally beginning to understand. Was I going to be handed over? Well, they wouldn’t let me be taken without a fight. They swung round and looked at the table by the door, where the two sicas could be seen among the coats.

  “Rabbi, look, here are two swords!”

  “It is enough,” I replied. “My kingdom will not be won or held by force of arms, for all who take the sword will perish by the sword.”

  And I began to chant the Psalms of the Hallel, which brings the ritual to a close. Finally setting aside their differences, they joined in:

  The snares of death encompassed me,

  I suffered distress and anguish;

  O Lord, I pray, save my life!

  When we left the house in the western part of the city, it was under cover of darkness and in sorrowful silence. The same as every night, we made our way to the Garden of Gethsemane to seek sanctuary; there were only eleven disciples now; the Judaean would meet us there later.

  As we walked out of the room, I saw Peter pick up his sica and slip it under his coat.

  54

  I look up. The moon is now high in the sky; it must be the last watch before dawn. A blanket of silence seems to have descended on sleeping Jerusalem. Oh, those nights in Galilee when I would stand dreaming by the lake, watching the fishermen’s lamps dance on the surface of the water! Leaning against an olive tree like I am tonight, I would sometimes stay till daybreak, waiting for them to come back so I could help unload the catch onto the shore.
Often they would make a fire of thorn twigs and gently cook one or two fish in the embers, their delicate flesh flavoured by the sweet-smelling smoke.

  How I wish I could relive those sensations, the smells, the brief conversations I had with passing strangers without giving it a second thought… During the last two years my every word has been scrutinized, evaluated, examined with the fine-tooth comb of ever-more merciless criticism, opposition and suspicion. In the coming light of dawn, why can’t I simply wander back to my own home, open the door, ruffle the hair on my sleeping children’s heads, smile at my wife as she lights the fire at the start of a new day? I feel such a need for tenderness, but all I can see is the granite wall of Jerusalem on which I am going to be broken.

  Should I have ignored the call of the wilderness? I thought I had found a vocation, something that no ordinary Jew can turn his back on if he is to keep faith with his people. Where did it have its source, that commanding voice? In the madness that has been raging in Israel all these years, in my pride, or in God himself? And if it is God who is calling to me from within, then why choose me? Why me?

  On the slope below the city wall, sharpened by hours of listening, my ears detect a new sound in the darkness: sandals crunching on the stony path, the tramp of marching feet, brief orders issued in a low voice. I leave the kindly embrace of the olive tree, while time flows by in the light of the stars. I lean forward and peer through the quivering foliage into the Kidron Valley, where now and then the light of torches can be seen flickering through the trees. They are heading this way, in single file.

  The time has come.

  I close my eyes. Suddenly I can barely breathe, the sound of my heartbeat is drumming inside my head. Let them come! If I am only for myself, then who am I? Once again, events are about to shape me into the man I am meant to be. A prophet doesn’t live for himself, he lives for others; for his people. And, since my encounter with the Syrian woman and the centurion, for all the peoples.

  But first there are my disciples to consider. If they are dragged from sleep by the sudden arrival of a squad of soldiers, how will they react? Will they run away, try to save themselves? Or will they put up a fight, will Peter draw his sword? And will he use it?

  The torches are getting closer. Leaving the shelter of the tree, I walk slowly over to where they have made their camp. Once I have been handed over to Caiaphas, will he keep the oath he took? I don’t believe that for a second. When I am at his mercy and he realizes that he can’t convict me for blasphemy, he will use the first excuse he can think of to have me taken before Pilate.

  And that means death.

  After I am gone, will my Galileans finally become disciples? Or perhaps they will create an institution in my memory which will have nothing to do with what I was trying to be or to teach them, but which satisfies their desire for power?

  When I get there they are already awake, standing in a huddle, peering anxiously into the valley. Little flock, how I have loved you despite everything… on the other side of the clearing, in the shadows beneath an olive tree I can make out the figure of the Judaean; so he is here too, as promised, loyal as ever. I know he will follow me to Caiaphas’s palace – but after that there is nothing more he can do. My friend! He is the only one who simply tried to understand me, who asked nothing except to be allowed to hear the vast echo of my personal experience of God.

  Everything has been fulfilled – or almost everything.

  I am about to fight my last battle with Satan.

  Have I managed to escape the Evil One’s dance, am I finally free?

  Once again I am alone in the presence of the Invisible, a naked prophet.

  My God, my God, are you really going to forsake me?

  Afterword

  The fruit of thirty years of private research, these memoirs of an ordinary Jew also bear witness to a century of collective efforts with which I familiarized myself before even thinking of writing a word. The quest for the historical Jesus, which began in the nineteenth century, has worked its way through thousands of pages, as researchers advance from theories to provisional conclusions before coming to rest on a few established facts. We are no longer able to speak of Jesus, known as the Christ, in the way people spoke of him in the age of triumphant theology.

  We now know a great deal more about the man himself than we did a century ago, thanks to the demythologization of the Gospels, which despite some excesses has enabled us to see the texts in a completely new light. Thanks, too, to archaeological work in the region, which provides Jewish life of the time with the essential third dimension that it has long been lacking. And last but not least, thanks to relentless study in many different fields: historiography, papyrology, linguistics, exegesis, sociology and comparative psychology have all helped explode the Christian myth. What was once unthinkable is now unavoidable – Jesus regarded as a historical figure and not a god. The human substance of which dogma stripped him has now been restored.

  Since Renan there have been countless versions of the “Life of Jesus”, bogus autobiographies, novels ascribed to Pilate, Barabbas, Judas, Mary Magdalene and goodness knows who else… Not to mention the juicy and lucrative fantasies that claim to reveal his secret. Drowned in a sea of conflicting information and swollen by its tides, his corpse is now beyond recognition.

  In 1995 I set out to write a study on his identity, with the help of those works that were then available in France.1 Was he really God, as Christianity asserts?

  This study gave rise to a thriller, which aimed to make some of the more recent discoveries available to a wider public.2 In it I presented a mysterious thirteenth man, whose proximity to Jesus is no longer questioned. In order to complete my investigation into this unnamed Judaean, I attempted to unearth something that could be the echo of his eyewitness account, which has long lain buried in the text known as the Gospel According to John.3

  This latest research eventually brought me to the foot of Everest – uncovering Jesus’s own teaching from beneath the many words that have been put in his mouth.

  Yet how was I to go about it? Should I add to the many thousands of pages already published by English, American, German, French and Jewish exegetical scholars? Plant another tree in an already dense forest?

  Or instead, should I write another work of fiction on the life of Jesus, embellish it, use my imagination to fill the gaps in our knowledge?

  While rereading Marguerite Yourcenar’s Memoirs of Hadrian, I came across this comment: “One foot in scholarship, the other in that magical empathy which allows us to get inside another person’s mind… And paint the portrait of a voice.”

  A woman from our own time shed her identity in order to think like a Roman emperor who died in the year 137. Rather than claiming to bring us the sound of his voice, she sketched out the picture of a voice that fell silent 1,800 years ago.

  One foot in scholarship, the other in magical empathy… I had found the ice pick that would help me climb the slippery slope.

  A portrait – but from which angle? Where should I set up my easel?

  Some other words which Yourcenar attributes to Hadrian spring to mind: “I can just make out the figure of my approaching death.” I had to find Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane, during the night of utter solitude when he knows he is about to die and gives free rein to his memory.

  He had to speak at the critical moment, the point when the pressure on him is at its greatest, when he realizes he is going to be put to death and yet is given a momentary reprieve – a device that enabled me to get round the insurmountable obstacle of chronology. It is a well-known fact that any biography of Jesus is doomed to failure, because each of the four Gospels, our best source of information, portrays events in its own particular way. Yet my research into John’s Gospel led me to believe that in the most ancient section of the text, parts of the chronology were reasonably accurate, which allowed me to put some of the events that made up the Galilean’s public life into a fairly reliable order.

&nb
sp; Take the scandalous scene on the Temple esplanade, for example. Matthew, Mark and Luke site this at the end of their hero’s career, viewing it as the spark that sets everything off. John, on the other hand, uses it as Jesus’s first public act (the wedding at Cana being a family event). It poses no threat to his personal safety, which according to the Evangelist was only endangered after the healing of the man who was born blind and the raising of Lazarus – two incidents which take place quite close to each other in the original part of the Gospel.

  So I put my trust in the rudimentary chronology of the Fourth Gospel. From the moment that Jesus leaves Judaea in order to put an end to the bickering between his disciples and those of John the Baptist, from the moment he starts travelling round Galilee and developing his own teaching, all chronology is lost. Only his visits to Jerusalem provide us with a few reliable landmarks.

  Thus in the memory that I attribute to Jesus, events and conversations come back to him at random. As so often with our own past, he only remembers the most important things.

  He was a man who experienced a process of inner gestation, only gradually becoming aware of himself and what he wanted to say. The Gospels bear witness to this in their accounts of his earliest discourses, which adhere closely to those of John the Baptist.

  So when did he find himself? His teaching is presented to us as a whole, something that was formulated in his mind before he began his career as a preacher. Yet each of the four Evangelists arranges this material to suit his own ends. I have been inclined to follow Mark, who tends to be the least arbitrary in the way he distributes Jesus’s discourses around the narrative.

  To listen to a voice which can still be heard two thousand years later.

  And Jesus’s voice is unlike any other. Despite the centuries that separate us, despite the reworking carried out by the Gospel authors, there is a particular tone, a way of expressing himself that is common to all his parables and maxims. Research enables us to recreate this voice, or at least one that echoes the original as accurately as is possible.