The Silence of Gethsemane

by Michel Benoît

  As well as words there are also his acts. Considering the society in which he lived, his way of “moving” around the Jewish world strikes one as most original. It is evidence of an inner freedom that was very rare at the time.

  The Gospels pay little attention to the emotions experienced by the main characters. In Jesus’s case, there are a few surreptitious psychological clues – anger, disappointment, joy, sadness, tears… Yet we should beware of these peripheral touches, which don’t reflect the Evangelists’ usual mode of expression and certainly not their intentions. I only trust them when they are borne out by the context, the Sitz im Leben. Nonetheless, they offer little by way of indicators as to what someone at the centre of such tumultuous events must have really been feeling.

  With regard to the conspiracy that led to Jesus’s arrest and execution, my theory (with Peter as the main instigator and Judas shown to be innocent) is based on a careful reading of the New Testament. This goes against the official teaching. I will be glad to take criticism on this point, although on one condition: that all the sources are consulted, and none are passed over in silence.

  What of the disciples?4 We have only the slenderest of information on two of them – Peter, about whom all the witnesses lie by omission, and Judas, who is a victim of the most despicable vilification. If we compare the four Gospels, the Acts of the Apostles and Paul’s Letters, we come to the conclusion that the Twelve never had the same aims as their rabbi (at least during his lifetime). Political designs, personal ambition, violence, treachery… the image of them that I hold up will only shock those who prefer, to the unsubtle light of the texts, a rosy myth which helps maintain their illusions.

  That the disciples subsequently realized what they stood to gain from turning this man into a god is borne out by history itself. What is surprising is that the voice that has been so carefully muted by manufacturers of myths should have managed to reach us at all. If my attempt to paint his portrait succeeds, it is due to this voice’s unparalleled robustness and originality.

  It might surprise readers that I make no mention of the miracles involving the natural world which are ascribed to Jesus5 – but exegetical scholars have serious reservations as to their historical accuracy. His powers of healing, however, are confirmed by sound factual evidence. My interpretation of this – the confluence of a strong desire to heal with the qualities of a thaumaturge – rules out the possibility of magic while still not offering a satisfactory answer to rationalists. This is because they tend to overlook something that medicine is only now beginning to rediscover: that every illness is essentially an affliction of the soul, or (to use the correct terminology) a psychosomatic disorder. If called upon to do so, our mental powers are able to repair, either wholly or in part, any defects in our body. For those trapped inside a mechanistic view of the human condition, the power of healing displayed by a shaman or a Jesus figure can only be explained as a miracle or a hoax. “We civilizations have come to realize that we are mortal.” After an extraordinarily long life, Christianity is experiencing a dramatic decline. The great mother tree is only held up by its bark, its leaves drift down onto a soil that is now indifferent to them. Robbed of its age-old roots, the West (which was once Christian) is also suffering from an identity crisis the like of which it has never known before.

  Is it possible to give him back his vital force, which was lost at the same moment that Christianity itself collapsed? The various Churches have proved themselves incapable of this task. They have silenced prophets and theologians alike, leaving only a race of preceptors.

  At the beginning of the first century ad, established Judaism was also spent, divided, unable to adapt, using up what remained of its strength in order to survive in a hostile or indifferent world. The Nazarene, however, was guided by a fundamental intuition: to return to the original source, to leave the Moses of Sinai and the Law behind and rediscover the Moses of the Burning Bush.

  To go beyond the Law without disregarding it.

  Witnesses as we are to the inexorable decline of a Catholic Church that is fossilized in its past, paralysed by dogma and with nothing to say to a world in the grip of a spiritual drought, are we able to follow his example? To go back to the original source of the vast Christian edifice and hear the voice of the Prophet of Galilee as if for the first time, aware that he was betrayed from the start by the very individuals who handed down his memory to us after hiding it beneath a heavy mask?6

  Are we able to unmask Christ? The quest for the historical Jesus now provides us with the means of doing so.

  It offers perspectives that strike a chord with our own age.

  Optimism. Jesus never attempted to change the world, he proclaimed its end. He is the very first member of the alter-globalization movement, sketching out the beginnings of a new world in which happiness is a basic human right.

  Suffering. He rejects the belief that it is inevitable. Whenever he encounters it, he never reacts with indifference. For him, no hopeless situation is permanent, not illness, not death (which is just an outward appearance), not sin – which during his lifetime was the main reason for social exclusion.

  Compassion. He is steeped in it, unceasingly and to his very depths. It removes all barriers erected by tradition, laws, social customs and personal interests. Completely open to his neighbours, he allows himself to be permeated by them. In this way a new social order is created, whose principal concern is that everyone should be able to fulfil their own individual calling.

  Women. If they are equal to men, this is not as a result of pitying them, but rather an acknowledgement of the first act of creation, which cannot continue to be disregarded. Created to be man’s partner, woman joins with him in seeking the harmony of the first man and woman in a shared pleasure that offers a foretaste of the Kingdom.

  Sexuality. Unlike the members of its elite, traditional ancient society displayed a severe moral attitude. On meeting a prostitute or a woman who has committed adultery, Jesus sees only a human being on the road to love, which is one stage in the journey of complete self-fulfilment.

  Active non-violence. More than any other prophet (and long before Gandhi), he was the first to suggest this as the answer to both individual and collective disputes.

  He was also the first to introduce the idea of a secular society. Since God is in heaven, he cannot be called upon to justify laws and customs that are in conflict with the law of the heart.

  And the first to establish an ethics of intent, by rejecting the suggestion, when faced with the man who was born blind, that a curse or original sin hangs over all of us from the moment of our birth. We alone are responsible for our actions, as well as the consequences that may arise from them.

  Meditation. I can think of no other word to describe his way of praying, which was unheard of in Judaism, and was met with surprise and a total lack of understanding by those closest to him. He never shared the secret of this private, inner world, although from what we are able to tell it was not dissimilar to the practice used in Hindu-Buddhism.

  In all of the above, Jesus appears to be surprisingly close to Siddhārtha Gautama, the Buddha.7 The world’s truly Awakened Ones all share the same experience, and in its essence their teaching is virtually identical.

  To attempt to summarize his teaching in a few words would be to betray him a second time. During the period he spent in the wilderness, this man had a direct experience of God’s presence that was so insistent that he was only able to convey it by means of a series of blinding intuitions (hence the seeming lack of order in the Gospels). Like all human beings, he is ultimately beyond analysis. It is left to the reader to look beyond the words and try to gain an insight into their own heart, which is the only thing that enables human beings to understand each other.

  In our efforts to find him we run up against one major obstacle: he created no organization that would continue with his work. Like the prophets who came before him, he understood the limitations of religious institutions and roundly
condemned them. Truly anticlerical, he was happy simply to sow the seeds.

  Which is why a church of any kind can only betray him.

  So what does the future hold for his personal teaching? Are those over whom he still exercises a fascination destined to remain a small group of nameless individuals lost among the vast majority who cannot manage without myths or dogma? Is this not what he was trying to say in his first parable, when he pointed out that very few seeds take root and grow, and then almost by chance?

  Can we ever catch hold of these seeds, which blow on the wind in a world buffeted by storms?

  1 This was published in 2001 as: Dieu malgré lui, nouvelle enquête sur Jésus (Robert Laffont).

  2 First published in 2006 as Le Secret du treizième apôtre (Albin Michel), and since translated into eighteen languages. Published in English by Alma Books in 2007 as The Thirteenth Apostle.

  3 This study is due to be published as L’Évangile du treizième apôtre.

  4 See my study of them, Jésus et ses héritiers, mensonges et vérités (Albin Michel, 2008).

  5 Walking on water, miraculous catches of fish, stilling the storm, the withered fig tree.

  6 For the question of origins, see Jésus et ses héritiers (Albin Michel, 2008).

  7 On this subject see Part 2 of Dieu malgré lui (Robert Laffont, 2001), ‘Un Bouddha juif’ (‘A Jewish Buddha’).

  Main Gospel References

  The following abbreviations are used for the books of the Old and New Testaments:

  Mk: Mark. Mt: Matthew. Lk: Luke. Jn: John. Acts: Acts of the Apostles. Ps: Psalms (Hebrew numbering). Lev: Leviticus.

  The sign // refers to parallels between the synoptic Gospels – Matthew, Mark and Luke.

  For the English translation, the biblical quotations are based on the New Revised Standard Edition of the Bible (Anglicized text), 2003, translated from the Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek.

  Ch 1:

  Mk 14:32 & //. Jn 11:57. Mt 26:40 & //. Mk 8:28 & //; 8:31; 9:31; 10:33 & //. Jn 11:8; 12:4; 13:26

  Ch 2:

  Mk 14:70. Lk 13:32. Mk 6:3. Lk 4:22 & Jn 1:45; 6:42. Acts 1:14

  Ch 3:

  Jn 21:3. Mt 2:13–15

  Ch 4:

  Lk 16:17 & //. Mt 5:19; 22:36 & //

  Ch 5:

  Mk 7:3–4

  Ch 6:

  Lk 7:34

  Ch 7:

  Mk 1:4 & //; 6:18 & //. Mt 3:7–10. Lk 3:10–14; 3:5; 3:4. Lk 4:16 & //

  Ch 8:

  Mk 1:4–6 & //

  Ch 9:

  Mk 1:12–13 & //

  Ch 10:

  Mt 3:14. Jn 1:26 & //. Jn 1:37–39; 19:23; 1:42–50; 3:29

  Ch 11:

  Jn 4:21; 2:1–10

  Ch 12:

  Mk 1:21–26 & //. Lk 4:18; 4:21–22

  Ch 13:

  Jn 1:44. Mk 1:29. Mt 4:21–22. Mk 3:17. Acts 4:13. Mk 1:29–31 & //; 1:32–37 & //

  Ch 14:

  Mt 4:17 & //. Mk 1:40–45 & //

  Ch 15:

  Mk 2:1–12 & //. Jn 2:13–15. See Acts 21:27–32

  Ch 16:

  Jn 2:23; 3:1–4; 3:22–26; 3:30; 4:1–3; 4:4–40. Mt 23:4

  Ch 17:

  Mk 5:30. Lk 7:11–15. Mt 9:16

  Ch 18:

  Mk 3:13–14; 2:35–37; 6:31 & //; 2:13–17 & //

  Ch 19:

  Mk 2:23–27; 3:1–6

  Ch 20:

  Mk 3:20; 3:31–35; 3:21; 3:22–26 & //; 6:4; 17

  Ch 21:

  Jn 11:18. Lk 10:38–40. Jn 5:2–15

  Ch 22:

  Lk 7:18–22 & //. Mt 14:1–11 & //. Mt 9:17

  Ch 23:

  Mt 5:13–16. Mk 4:2–9 & //; 4:14–20 & //; 4:13

  Ch 24:

  Jn 13:29

  Ch 25:

  Mt 5:3–10 & //; 5:21–22 & //

  Ch 26:

  Mk 5:1–17 & //; 5:21–43 & //

  Ch 27:

  Mt 5:38–45; 5:33–35. Lk 7:36–50 & //

  Ch 28:

  Mk 6:7–12 & //. Lk 10:18. Mk 6:30–43 & //; 6:45

  Ch 29:

  Lk 6:12. Ps 139:4. Ps 131:2. Mk 9:2–4 & //; 9:14–29 & //. Mk 8:17

  Ch 30:

  Mk 7:1–23 & //

  Ch 31:

  Mk 7:24–30 & //. Mk 8:27–33 & //; 10:32 & //

  Ch 32:

  Lk 8:2–3; 10:38–42. Mk 15:43 & //. Lk 22:39. Mk 10:13– 15 & //. Jn 7:1

  Ch 33:

  Mk 3:9. Mt 22:1–10 & //; 25:1–10; 13:44; 13:24–30. Mk 9:1. Mt 13:33; 31–32. Mk 9:33–36 & //

  Ch 34:

  Mt 8:5–13 & //. Lk 7:1–10

  Ch 35:

  Mk 8:11–13 & //. Lk 11:20 & //. Mt 13:16–17 & //. Lk 11:1–4 & //. Mt 6:5–8

  Ch 36:

  Jn 7:2; 7:3–4; 7:9–10; 8:1; 8:2–11; 8:59

  Ch 37:

  Jn 9:1–34. Mt 21:17. Jn 10:40

  Ch 38:

  Mk 10:1–12 & //

  Ch 39:

  Mk 12:28–34 & //. Lk 10:29–37. Mk 10:13–16 & //. Lk 13:31

  Ch 40:

  Lk 15:11–24. Mk 10:33–34 & //; 10:35–43 & //. Mt 20:20

  Ch 41:

  Mt 8:19–20. Mk 10:17–27 & //. Mt 19:24–26

  Ch 42:

  Ps 19:2. Jn 11:3; 11:6; 11:7–8. Mt 23:37 & //. Lk 9:51

  Ch 43:

  Mk 10:32. Lk 19:1–8. Mk 10:46–52. Mk 11:1–10 & //

  Ch 44:

  Jn 11:17; 11:19–23; 11:31–39; 11:41; 11:43–44. Acts 4:2. Jn 18:15

  Ch 45:

  Jn 12:2–3; 12:7; 12:4–5; 12:8; 12:9; 11:46–53; 7:50–52; 11:57; 12:10–11; 7:49; 11:54

  Ch 46:

  Lk 23:46. Jn 11:55–56. Lk 22:39; 22:10 & //

  Ch 47:

  Jn 19:23. Mk 12:18–27 & //. Mk 13:1–4

  Ch 48:

  Mk 12:13–17 & //; 12:35–37 & //

  Ch 49:

  Lk 22:38 & Jn 18:10. Mk 12:41–44

  Ch 50:

  Mk 14:13 & //; 14:15 & //. Acts 5:28; 5:40. Mt 26:15 & //. Lev 27:2–8. Jn 18:15–16

  Ch 51:

  Mk 1:29; 5:37; 9:2 & //; 10:35. Acts 1:18. Lk 9:54. Jn 13:4–15

  Ch 52:

  Mk 14:22–25 & //. Lk 22:24. Jn 13:21–25

  Ch 53:

  Jn 13:26–30. Lk 22:31–32; 22:38. Mt 26:52. Ps 116a:3–4

  Ch 54:

  Jn 21:9. Mk 14:50. Jn 18:10; 19:30. Mt 27:46 & //

  BY THE SAME AUTHOR:

  THE THIRTEENTH APOSTLE

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  TRANSLATED BY ANDREW BROWN

  When his friend, Father Andrei, is mysteriously killed on a train on his way back from Rome, Father Nil decides to conduct his own investigation. The dead priest possessed proof of the existence of a thirteenth apostle and an epistle stating that Jesus was nothing more than an inspired prophet, not the Son of God – two things that would spell great danger for the Church.

  While he pushes ahead with his investigation, the Pope’s advisors, rival factions and secret societies are trying, by any means, to lay their hands on the priest’s findings. From the Mossad to Fatah, everyone seems to have a very good reason to keep the thirteenth apostle a secret...

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  PRISONER OF GOD

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  TRANSLATED BY ROGER CLARKE

  A brilliant student with a promising career ahead of him as a biologist, Michel Benoît decided at the age of twenty-two to follow the path of God and take on monastic orders as Brother Irénée. But after more than twenty years of self-sacrifice and a fraught quest for God, Michel was “discharged” by the Church. What happened? What led to the Catholic hierarchy rejecting one of its own?

  Prisoner of God is a compelling examination of sectarianism and the methods used by organizations to stifle freedom of expression and crush the individual. It is also an account of the mysterious world of the abbeys: the monks’ everyday life and the way they deal with solitude, silence and s
exuality.

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