The Thirteenth Apostle

by Michel Benoît

  Simon Peter and another disciple were following Jesus. Because this disciple was known to the high priest, he went with Jesus into the high priest’s courtyard, but Peter had to wait outside at the door. The other disciple, who was known to the high priest, came back, spoke to the girl on duty there and brought Peter in.14

  Still no name: but the “another disciple” is him – just as on the banks of the Jordan, as on the shore of the lake of Galilee.

  And it is he who will introduce Jesus to the State Councillor Nicodemus, the landowner Lazarus and Joseph of Arimathea, who will provide a temporary tomb for Jesus. All of these notables would not have been part of Jesus’s social sphere in Jerusalem and he would not have been able to meet them without his friend as an intermediary. They will all play a crucial role in Jesus’s final days and they are mentioned only in John’s gospel. Another testimony to the privileged link which united the Galilean and the man from Jerusalem.

  Essenian or Nazorean?

  One thing is certain: the thirteenth apostle is, at the moment he first encounters Jesus, a disciple of John the Baptist, like the four Galileans he seems to be consorting with: only the enthusiasm generated by the Baptist’s teaching could have temporarily brought closer men from such different social backgrounds as the rich worthy from Jerusalem and the four poor fishermen.

  They are therefore all five of them Baptists.

  The Baptist movement was a loose collective born out of rejection of the Temple, its cult, its corrupt hierarchy, its compromises with money, power and the Roman occupier. The Baptists had replaced the Temple’s sacrificial ritual by immersions into water, which provided internal purification, and were done more or less frequently. The most famous Baptists were the Essenians, who spread all over Israel. Some scholars believe that St John the Baptist had been a member of an Essenian community – perhaps that of Qumran – before leading the life of a hermit on the banks of the Jordan.

  So, was the thirteenth apostle not only a Baptist – because he followed St John – but also an Essenian? One cannot prove it conclusively, but numerous clues in the fourth gospel point towards a strong Essenian influence. When in my novel I make him out to be a non-ordained Essenian I am going beyond the strict facts of history, but without straying from the domain of plausibility.

  The Nazoreans were one of the Baptist sects. The thirteenth apostle, in the section of John’s gospel written by him, is the only one to insist on the fact that Jesus belonged to them: when he describes Jesus’s capture by the Temple police, his narrative makes them repeat, with a quite theatrical insistence, that they are looking for “Jesus the Nazorean”.15 Again according to him, the sign attached to the cross of the condemned man bore the inscription “Jesus the Nazorean, King of the Jews”.16 However, the Synoptic Gospels are categorical: the inscription, according to Roman custom, only included the official ground for the condemnation of the crucified one: “Jesus, King of the Jews”. His affiliation to one or another Jewish sect was absolutely irrelevant to the occupying forces.

  These details allow one to advance the following hypothesis about the thirteenth apostle’s background: that he, even though he had been an Essenian at one stage, eventually became a Nazorean like Jesus – hence his insistence on labelling him “the Nazorean”. And this adherence to the same movement must have been an additional source of friendship and intimacy.

  We know very little about the Nazoreans in first-century Palestine: had Jesus not been part of this movement, it would have probably sunk into oblivion entirely. Quite unexpectedly the Nazoreans’ legacy can be found in the Koran, which often mentions them and is influenced by their own particular conception of the identity of Jesus.

  In the Synoptic Gospels, “Nazorean” has been transformed into “Nazarene” – i.e. an inhabitant of Nazareth – or even “Nazarite” – a reference to an Israelite who has taken a specific ascetic vow. This is one of the most subtle manipulations undertaken by the evangelists. The Nazorean identity of Jesus must at all costs be prevented from passing into posterity, his Baptist roots be erased from the collective memory. The evangelists therefore made him out to be an inhabitant of Nazareth (Jesus of Nazareth), even though archaeological investigations have demonstrated that there is no trace of a village in Nazareth in the first century. Furthermore, the contemporary historian, Flavius Josephus, who described Galilee in minute detail, never speaks of a place called Nazareth as a birthplace of Jesus, of whom he had not even heard.

  Jesus of Nazareth, as usually translated? No: Jesus the Nazorean.

  A Legitimate Heir?

  Since the Church’s inception, three men – Peter, James and Paul – are at the front line of a struggle to appropriate Jesus’s heritage. In this conflict, James possesses a considerable advantage: he is the actual brother of Jesus, his blood brother,17 his legitimate successor.

  To counter this birthright legitimacy, the disciples of the thirteenth apostle will try after the fact to invent a superior claim to legitimacy for their leader: he was chosen in person by Christ at the moment of his death. Similar to Paul’s claim, in order to legitimize his status of apostle, even though he had never met Jesus, that he was chosen by God.

  The result is a short scene which can only be found in the fourth gospel, and with reason: a scene which has become emblematic, been represented everywhere in Christian art and generated countless commentaries.

  Jesus has just been crucified. The Synoptics are categorical: a band of Roman soldiers, led by a centurion, surrounded the site of the execution and saw to it that no one would approach the condemned men. There are many spectators, but all “kept their distance” according to the Gospels. One can find a confirmation of this practice in an enjoyable anecdote in Petronius’s Satyricon,18 which recounts the lamentations of a widow being prevented by soldiers from taking her husband’s crucified body down from the cross: no spectator was allowed to go near the feet of the crosses and speak to those being executed.

  However, the fourth gospel contains the account of a dialogue between Jesus and his mother:

  Near the cross of Jesus stood his mother, his mother’s sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene. When Jesus saw his mother there, and the disciple whom he loved standing nearby, he said to his mother, “Dear woman, here is your son,” and to the disciple, “Here is your mother.” From that time on, this disciple took her into his home.19

  An entirely improbable encounter, and no doubt entirely fabricated. Why? Because it was intended to be read as Jesus’s testament, addressed to his friend. “From now on you are my spiritual brother, since my mother here present is your mother.” Spurred on by the need to affirm itself, the community which claims to follow the thirteenth apostle does not shy from calling him the “brother of Jesus”, not by birth as in James’s case, but due to the final wish of Jesus himself. Brother and heir to Jesus: this community can therefore – to the same extent as James’s – stake its claim on Jesus’s legacy.

  Yes, the thirteenth apostle was present at the West Gate of Jerusalem, in the heavy and oppressing atmosphere of the crucifixion. But no, he did not advance to the foot of the cross. He saw from afar the compassionate gesture of a legionnaire giving some water to the dying man. He saw the thrust of the spear, and he is the only one to report this historically plausible fact, in emotion-laden words. He saw from afar, and he was the only one present out of all the apostles, the others having fled as soon as Jesus was captured in the Olive Garden.

  He saw, but it was his community who invented the dialogue at the foot of the cross.

  When they add that “From that time on, this disciple took her into his home”, it’s a lie. He did take her in, but not right after her son’s death: a few weeks later and along with other survivors from Jesus’s following. They were to find themselves again in the upper room of his house, “along with the women and Mary the mother of Jesus, and with his brothers”.20

  Did he keep her at his side from then on? This is traditionally claimed and is quite
possible.

  When, in The Thirteenth Apostle, I show Mary having followed our hero all the way to Pella, the first stage on his long itinerary, it is very plausible. We know from a reliable source that some Christians sought refuge for a while in the Transjordanian town, with some members of Jesus’s family. But we don’t know anything more about this: neither Mary nor the beloved disciple are ever mentioned. What I have invented is coherent with the facts in our possession – there is an extension of history.

  This claim to power legitimized by spiritual inheritance would later give the fourth gospel considerable clout over the years, because its author became gradually assimilated with one of the twelve apostles, John the Evangelist, who would posthumously reap the rewards.

  The Initiator of the Fourth Gospel?

  Until recently, the disciple whom Jesus loved had been identified by the Church as St John of Zebedee, known as the Evangelist.

  Who was this apostle John? We know his occupation, that of labourer and fisherman on the lake of Galilee. He must not have gone to school or synagogue, because several months after the death of Jesus, he was arrested along with Peter by the Jewish authorities, who “realized that they were unschooled, ordinary men”.21

  This is around 31 AD: John is then formally described as uncultured, knowing neither how to read nor write. How could this fisherman, who only spoke Galilean Aramaic, be the author of the gospel ascribed to his name, of which numerous passages were written first of all in Greek, and in a supremely elegant, poetic and beautiful Greek to boot? How could he have then gone on to compose the Apocalypse, which demonstrates a profound knowledge of oriental myths and religions, which is replete with cryptic cultural references that baffle modern specialists to this day?

  How would he know the city of Jerusalem so well, its streets and pools, he who only rarely went there to sacrifice in the Temple? And even more importantly, how could he be on familiar terms with Caiaphas – the Jewish state’s premier political figure – how could he enter and leave his palace freely (when his companion Peter had to wait outside)?

  And there is more: we know from a reliable source that James of Zebedee, John’s brother, was decapitated by King Herod in 44 AD.22 Father M.E. Boismard, with his customary erudition, demonstrated in 1966 that – most probably – John was killed at the same time as his brother. So if John died in 44 AD, when no gospel had yet been written, how could he have been the author of the one attributed to him, which has been dated by everyone to 100 AD, and perhaps even later? How could he have written the Apocalypse, which was finished between 110 and 120 ad?

  No, John never wrote anything: he who had only ever handled fishing nets instead of a quill.

  But who then is the author of the “Gospel according to St John”?23

  By following the minute, extremely technical work of scholars, I have been lead to the most probable hypothesis: in the origin of the fourth gospel (the definitive version of which came later than the three others), is what I refer to as “the narrative of the thirteenth apostle”. He tells us what he has seen during Jesus’s stays in Jerusalem, up until the week ending in his crucifixion.

  Whoever reads the fourth gospel will notice that there are great differences in vocabulary, style, expression, doctrine, sometimes from one page, paragraph or even line to another. One has to face facts: this is not the work of one single author, but of several. Can we be more specific?

  One of the most immediately noticeable things about the gospel is the proliferation of small passages of extremely vivid, detailed description. For example, seventy-two hours after the death of Jesus, while everyone is hiding out in the upper room of the house in the western quarter:

  Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene went to the tomb and saw that the stone had been removed from the entrance. So she came running to Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one Jesus loved, and said, “They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we don’t know where they have put him!”

  So Peter and the other disciple started for the tomb. Both were running, but the other disciple outran Peter and reached the tomb first. He bent over and looked in at the strips of linen lying there, but did not go in. Then Simon Peter, who was behind him, arrived and went into the tomb. He saw the strips of linen lying there, as well as the burial cloth that had been around Jesus’s head. The cloth was folded up by itself, separate from the linen.24

  The visual quality of this short passage is remarkable: we are told it is still dark, that they are running together in the dimness of the dawn of this 9th of April, that the other disciple has managed to distance himself from his oafish companion. We can almost hear Peter finally arriving, puffing like a blacksmith’s forge. The laundry is described with almost professional precision…

  This is the hallmark of the thirteenth apostle, the other disciple. The gospels of Mark, Luke and Matthew were compiled belatedly, with numerous alterations, with more or less acknowledged intentions. In these passages of the fourth gospel, nothing has been altered: we have here the testimony of the only eyewitness of the events he narrates.

  He narrates, he does not interpret. He says what he saw.

  * * *

  Such scenes, taken straight from reality, pervade the fourth gospel. Acquaint yourselves with them and you will immediately recognize the hand of the thirteenth apostle: the aforementioned first encounter (John 1:35 ff.) After that, not many continuous occurrences: Jesus lives in Galilee, his friend does not see him again until he comes to Jerusalem for the major Jewish festivals. So he recounts what has made the greatest impact on him: the scene at the Temple (John 2:13–25), the healing of a paralysed man (John 5) and a blind man (John 9), the episode of the adulterous woman (John 8), the resurrection of Lazarus (John 11) and his hospitality (John 12:1–11)… And right at the beginning the scene of the “miracle” of Cana, where his account would later be reinterpreted by one single sentence – which gives it an entirely different meaning.

  Then Jesus goes to Jerusalem, where he dies: the thirteenth apostle finds him again in his own city and does not let him escape his gaze until the very end, until his grave is found empty and the subsequent surprise encounter on the shore of the lake of Galilee.

  In my novel, I have called all these bits and pieces, this journalistic record of a first-hand eyewitness, “the letter of the thirteenth apostle”. It is not a gospel like that of Mark, which claims to be a biography of Jesus and would inspire the two other Synoptics. No, it’s the case of a man remembering the most remarkable events of a friendship established two years previously on the banks of the Jordan.

  My hypothesis is that this letter constitutes the initial core of the fourth gospel. In order to understand how, by various retouchings spread across time, the letter of the thirteenth apostle has been modified by successive acts of sugar-coating – going as far as completely transforming the person and personality of Jesus – one must investigate the thirteenth apostle’s community.

  The Community of the Thirteenth Apostle

  Minute research has given us the means to establish what the texts do not say at first hand: around the thirteenth apostle a community has formed itself, which has met with a complex destiny. And it’s the complexity of the community of the beloved disciple which alone helps explain the complexity of the fourth gospel and its apparent contradictions.

  The primitive Church is not what we imagine now, a uniform group of people, united by a homogenous conception of Jesus. It comprised several communities, gathered around one apostle or another, who would serve as a rallying point and banner. Paul of Tarsus, in one of his authentic letters, describes the situation well:

  My brothers, some from Chloe’s household have informed me that there are quarrels among you. What I mean is this: One of you says, “I follow Paul”; another, “I follow Apollos [a collaborator of Paul]”; another, “I follow Cephas [Peter]”; still another, “I follow Christ.”25

  In other words, several apostles had founded thei
r communities, which “belonged” to their founders.

  The Acts of the Apostles describe three of these communities, which are opposed to one another in violent skirmishes: that of Peter, a majority which the old ruler controls with an iron fist, up until his final eviction from Palestine. He will then be replaced in Jerusalem by James, Jesus’s brother, who little by little takes charge of what will later be called (using a term too general to be exact) the Judaeo-Christians.

  Then a newcomer enters the stage in quite a dramatic manner: Paul of Tarsus. He displays his disdain for the official apostles: “As for those who seemed to be important – whatever they were makes no difference to me.”26 Numerous communities under his authority will be born all around the Mediterranean Basin.

  A fourth community has been discovered in Palestine,27 the one that was formed around the thirteenth apostle. This community, just like its founder, has been erased from the Church’s memory: a meticulous textual examination does however allow one to get an idea of his tortuous journey.

  The first to rally round the beloved disciple would be the Jews who had come to Jesus. It is no doubt to this initial group that he will transmit his memories of the man he knew: they constitute what I called his letter. His testimony will be integrated into the community’s successive and evolving structures. Indeed, the community exists out in the open, in the midst of a general climate of turmoil difficult to imagine today, characteristic of the Jewish context of the period. We see it clashing with all the pressure groups intermingling around it.

  The first clash will happen with Peter and his people, who claim to be the sole representatives of the “correct teaching”. The opposition between the Twelve and the thirteenth apostle has been violent; we have several accounts of this in the fourth gospel.