Through his window pane, he gazed for a moment at the black sky of the wintry Val-de-Loire. Everything was dark, both outside him and within.
He went back to his table and sat down wearily. His body was short and slender, and yet to himself he seemed massively heavy. In front of him rose several piles of handwritten notes that he had taken in the course of this long night, carefully classified into different heaps. He heaved a sigh.
His research into the Gospel according to St John had led him to the discovery of a hidden actor, a Judaean who kept appearing furtively in the text and who played an essential role in the last days of Jesus’s life. Nothing was known of him, not even his name, but he called himself the “beloved disciple”, and claimed to have been the very first to meet Jesus on the banks of the Jordan, before Peter. And he also said he had been among the guests at the Last Supper, in the upper room – a room that was certainly situated in his own house. He recounted that he had been lying next to the Master, in the place of honour. He described the crucifixion and the empty tomb in the style and in the truthful tone of voice of an eyewitness.
A man who was essential for learning about Jesus and the origins of Christianity, a friend whose testimony is of the highest importance. Curiously, the existence of this capital witness had been carefully eradicated from every text in the New Testament. Neither the other gospels, nor Paul in his letters, nor the Acts of the Apostles mentioned his existence.
Why had they been so bent on suppressing a witness of such importance? Only an extremely serious reason could have motivated his radical removal from the memory of Christianity. And why were the Essenes never mentioned in accounts of the early Church? There had to be some reason – Nil was convinced of the fact, and Andrei had encouraged him to follow the mysterious thread linking the different events that had for ever left their mark on the history of the West.
“The man you have discovered by studying the gospels is the same man I think I have encountered in my own field – manuscripts from the third to the seventh centuries.”
Sitting opposite him in his office, Nil had started.
“Do you mean you have found traces of the ‘beloved disciple’ in texts postdating the gospels?”
Andrei’s eyes had narrowed in his round face.
“Oh, clues that would never have attracted my attention if you yourself had not kept me up with your own discoveries! Almost imperceptible traces – until the Vatican sent me this Coptic manuscript discovered at Nag Hammadi” – and he pointed to his folder.
He gazed pensively at his companion.
“We each pursue our research by ourselves. Dozens of exegetes and historians do the same without being the least bit worried by the fact. On one condition: their work has to remain partitioned off; nobody must try to link together all this different information. Why do you think that access to our libraries is restricted? As long as everyone sticks to his own speciality, he risks neither censorship nor sanctions – and all churches can proudly assert that freedom of thought within them is total.”
“All the churches?”
“As well as the Catholic Church, there is the vast constellation of Protestants – including the fundamentalists whose power is rising right now, especially in the United States. Then there are the Jews, and Islam…”
“The Jews, well, up to a point – though I don’t see how the exegesis of a New Testament text could concern them, since they only recognize the Old Testament. But the Muslims?”
“Nil, Nil… You live in the first century, in Palestine, but my investigations stretch forward to the seventh century! Muhammad put the final touches to the Koran in 632. You absolutely must study this text, without delay. And you’ll discover that it is closely linked to the fortunes and destiny of the man you are seeking – if he indeed existed!”
There was a silence. Nil was working out how exactly to continue the conversation.
“If he existed… Do you doubt that this friend of Jesus’s existed?”
“I would doubt it if I hadn’t followed your own research step by step. Without realizing it, you led me to scrutinize certain passages in the literature of antiquity that had hitherto remained unnoticed. Without being aware of it, you enabled me to understand the meaning of an obscure Coptic manuscript on which I’m supposed to be presenting my report to Rome – I received a photocopy of it six months ago, and I still don’t know how to spin my report, I’m in such an awkward position. Rome has rapped my knuckles once already, and I am frightened they’ll call me in for questioning if I delay any further.”
Andrei had indeed been called to Rome.
And he had never returned to this peaceful office.
The bell chimed in the November night: Nil went down and took his habitual place in the monastic choir. A few yards to his right, one of the choir stalls remained obstinately empty: Andrei… But his mind refused to focus on the slow melismata of Gregorian chant; he was still absorbed in the manuscripts which he had just spent all night deciphering. Over some time now, his lifelong faith had been torn to shreds, piece by piece.
And yet, at first sight, there was nothing sensational about the manuscripts of the M M M. Most of them came from the scattered library of the Essenes of Qumran: rabbinical-style commentaries on the Bible, fragmentary explanations on the struggle between good and evil, the sons of light and the sons of darkness, the central role played by a Master of Justice… it is now known that Jesus could not have been that Master of Justice. The general public, momentarily filled with excitement by the discoveries on the Dead Sea, had quickly been disappointed. Nothing spectacular… and the texts over which he had laboured all night long were no exception.
But for a mind as alert as his, what he had just read confirmed a whole set of details that he had carefully noted down over years of study. Notes which never left his cell, and of which nobody knew anything – except Andrei, from whom he kept nothing secret.
They completely threw into doubt everything that had been said hitherto about the origins of Christianity – in other words, about the culture and civilization of the entire West.
“From San Francisco to Vladivostok,” Nil thought, “everything rests on a single postulate: Christ was the founder of a new religion. His divinity was revealed to the Apostles by the tongues of fire that settled upon them at Pentecost. There was a time before that day, the Old Testament, and a time after – the New Testament. But that is not the whole truth – in fact, it’s false!”
Nil suddenly realized to his surprise that he was standing up in church, while all his fellow monks had just prostrated themselves to chant the Gloria Patri. Swiftly, he bent down like the others in his row of choir stalls – from the stalls opposite, the Father Abbot had looked up and was observing him.
He tried to follow the divine office more closely, but his mind was galloping along like a wild horse. “In the manuscripts of the Dead Sea I have discovered the basis of the notions by which Jesus was turned into a god. The apostles were not well educated, and could never have carried out such an operation: they drew on things that were being said around them, and we knew nothing about these – until the discoveries at Qumran.”
This time, he found that he was the only one facing the opposite choir stalls, while the rest of the community had just turned as one towards the altar, to chant the Our Father.
The Father Abbot was not looking at the altar either: he had turned his head to the right and was gazing pensively at Nil.
As he left lauds he was grabbed by a student, who urgently needed some advice on his ongoing dissertation. When he had finally got rid of this unwanted interruption, he swept into his cell, picked up the M M M from his crowded table and slipped it without further ado under his scapular. Then, as naturally as possible, he headed to the library in the central wing.
The corridor was empty. With a beating heart, he stepped through the door of Biblical Studies, then into Andrei’s office, and continued until he reached the corner where the two wings of the Abbey
joined: the long north-wing corridor was equally deserted.
Nil went up to the door that he was not authorized to open – that of Historical Studies – took out of his pocket Father Andrei’s bunch of keys and inserted one of the two small ones into the lock. A last glance down the corridor: still empty.
He went in.
Nobody would be in the library at such an early hour in the day. However, he did not want to take the risk of switching on the main lights, which would have indicated his presence. A few low lights remained permanently on and cast a wan, yellowish light. He headed to the far end of the library: he needed to get to the first-century book stacks, and put the M M M back in the place he had taken it from the evening before. Then disappear before anyone saw him.
* * *
Just as he was coming up to the third-century bookshelves, feeling his way along with his right hand, he heard the muffled noise of the door opening at the other end. Almost immediately, a glaring light flooded the whole library.
He found himself right in the middle of the central bay, his right arm stretched forwards, a forbidden book under his left arm, in a place he should never have entered, and to which he was not supposed to possess the key. It seemed to him as if the book stacks were moving away to either side of him so as to leave him even more alone and exposed to every gaze. Pitilessly, the spotlights shone out from the wall and berated him: “Father Nil, what are you doing here? How did you get hold of that key? What’s that book? And why, yes, why did you borrow it yesterday evening? So what are you looking for, Father Nil? You did nothing else but sleep last night? Why were your wits so far away during this morning’s office?”
He was about to be discovered, and he suddenly remembered Andrei’s frequent warnings.
And he also remembered his friend’s body rigid in death, lying by the tracks of the Rome express, his fist raised in anger against the sky.
As if he were accusing his assassin.
22
Gospel according to St John
Early on that Sunday morning, the women came back from the tomb, stupefied from finding it empty. They told the incredulous apostles a story about men in white so mysterious that they could only be angels. Peter told them to be silent. “Angels! Old wives’ tales!” The Judaean signalled to him. They slipped out of the house.
They walked for a while in silence, and then started to run. Peter was soon outdistanced, and was out of breath by the time he reached the garden: the two Essenes had left without waiting for him, but the Judean, who had arrived first, told the apostle how he had been able to speak to the Essenes. Yet again he had the advantage, yet again he was the privileged witness.
Peter, furious, returned to the upper room alone: without a word of explanation, the Judaean had headed off in another direction and was making for a wealthy-looking house in the west district.
The sect of the Essenes had come into being two centuries previously. It comprised monastic communities living separate from the world, as in Qumran, and lay communities who led more normal lives within Jewish society. The Jerusalem community was the biggest, and had even given its name to the western district of the city. Eliezer Ben-Akkai was its leader.
He gave his visitor a warm greeting.
“You were one of us for a long time – if you had not become one of Jesus’s disciples, you’d probably have been my successor. As you know, the temple Jews hate us and refuse to accept the fact that we bury our dead in burial grounds that are separate from theirs. Some of these are hidden in the middle of the desert. Impure hands must never profane our tombs.”
“I know all that, Rabbi, and I share your desire to preserve the last dwelling place of the Just Men of Israel.”
“Jesus the Nazorean was one of those Just Men. His final place of burial must remain secret.”
“Eliezer… you are old now. You must not be the only person to know where Jesus’s tomb lies.”
“My two sons, Adon and Osias, are carrying his body at this very moment. They know the place, as do I, and they will transmit the secret of the tomb.”
“What if something were to happen to them? You must entrust the secrets to me too.”
Eliezer Ben-Akkai stroked his sparse beard for a long time. His visitor was right; peace with Rome was extremely fragile, and it could all explode at any moment. He placed his hands on his visitor’s shoulders.
“Brother, you have always been worthy of our trust. But remember: if you were to deliver the remains of our dead into the hatred of our enemies, the Eternal One himself would be judge between us and you!”
He glanced into the room, where Essenes were coming and going. He moved away to the corner of a window and beckoned his companion to follow him.
He leant forwards, and murmured a few words into his ear.
When they separated in silence, the two men gazed at each other for a long time. Their faces were particularly grave.
As he went home, the Judaean smiled. Jesus’s tomb would not be the object of any power struggle.
23
Still dazzled by the glaring light that had flooded the library, Nil glanced down the nearest row of books: it was empty in the middle, and as smooth as the palm of a hand. He stepped forwards: at the far end of the second-century book stack, two big boxes had been placed – books that needed to be catalogued. He quickly slipped behind them, hearing as he did so the characteristic rustle of an approaching robe. Was it a monk’s habit, or the cassock of one of the traditionalist students? If they were coming to fetch a book from the second-century stacks, he was doomed. But perhaps the person approaching wasn’t coming for a book? Perhaps he’d seen Nil enter, and was harbouring quite different intentions?
Nil crouched down.
The visitor passed the second-century stacks without stopping. Nil, hidden away in the shadows at the far end, behind the boxes, held his breath. He heard the man going into the first-century stacks from which he had taken away the M M M on the previous day, and he suddenly regretted that he had not thought to shift the neighbouring books on the bookshelf to disguise the big empty gap.
There was a moment of silence, then he made out the visitor’s footsteps passing his stack, heading away towards the library entrance. He had not been spotted. Who was the intruder? A monk’s footsteps can be recognized from those of a thousand others: he never attacks the ground with his heel, but slides his foot forwards and seems to be walking on a cushion of air.
It wasn’t one of the students.
The main lights suddenly went out, and Nil heard the sound of the door closing, which automatically locked the door. His forehead was drenched with perspiration. He waited for a moment, then rose. Everything was dark and silent.
When he came out, having put the M M M back in its place, the north-wing corridor was empty: now he had to put the keys back where he had taken them from. The door to the librarian’s office was still not locked. Nil went in and switched on the light: Andrei’s clothes were still hanging over the back of his chair. His heart was beating as he seized the trousers and thrust the bunch of keys into one of the pockets. He knew that he would never return to this office – never as he had done before. One last time he gazed round at the bookshelves in which Andrei stacked the books he had received before putting them in the library.
At the top of one pile, he noticed a book that did not have a label with its access number. His attention was drawn to the title:
LAST COPTIC APOCRYPHA FROM NAG HAMMADI
Critical Edition
by Fr Andrei Sokolwski, O.S.B.
Paris: Gabalda Editions
“The edition of the Apocrypha he had been working on for ten years – finally published!”
Nil opened the work: a remarkable piece of scholarship, published with the aid of the CNRS, the French research centre. On the left-hand page, the Coptic text patiently established by Andrei and, on the right, a translation. His friend’s last work: a testament.
He had lingered in this office for too long, and he c
ame to a sudden decision. Someone had stolen from his cell Andrei’s last note, addressed to him alone like a message from beyond the grave. Well, this book that his friend had received just before leaving, into which he had poured all his knowledge and all his love – this book belonged to him – to Nil. It was not yet labelled, and so had not been entered into the catalogue of the Abbey: nobody in the world could possibly know that he was appropriating it today. He wanted this book for himself. From beyond death it was like a hand held out by a man who would never publish anything again – would never again sit down in this chair to listen to him, his head bent forwards, a mischievous gleam in the narrow slit of his eyes.
Resolutely, he slipped the edition of the Apocrypha of Nag Hammadi under his scapular, and went back out into the corridor.
As he headed for the stairs, his mind filled with the solitude in which he would henceforth dwell, he did not notice the shadowy figure flattened against the wall next to the high door of Biblical Studies. The shadow was that of a monk’s habit.
On the smooth fabric a pectoral cross was dangling; the monk’s right hand was caressing it nervously. On his ring finger, a very simple metal ring reflected no light.
Nil went back to his cell, closed the door behind him and stood stock still. When he had gone down for the office of lauds a while ago, he had left the labours of the night before meticulously arranged in small separate heaps. The pages were now scattered everywhere, as if by a gust of wind.
But it was November, and his window was closed. It had been closed since the day before.
Someone had again come into his cell. They had come in and searched it. They had searched it and perhaps taken away some of his notes.
24
Acts of the Apostles
“Peter, what has happened to Jesus’s body?”
The Thirteenth Apostle Page 8
