Mission

by Patrick Tilley

  One of the great miscalculations of all time. But Caiaphas could not help but reason thus. He was just playing out the part that had been programmed for him. Like the rest of us, he was a puppet on a cosmic string.

  Chapter 22

  The Man entered Jerusalem on the back of a donkey, flanked by Mary of Magdala and his disciples and hailed as a conquering hero by his followers who lined the route into the city, waving palm leaves and throwing their coats on the ground for him to pass over. Reaching the temple courtyard, The Man overturned the tables of the money-changers and the piled-up cages of the merchants selling sacrificial pigeons and goats, then preached to an ecstatic crowd.

  Outraged by this frontal assault on their authority, the High Priest and the Elders of Jerusalem wanted to send in the Temple Guard to arrest The Man. Annas counselled caution. The Nazarene was surrounded by an unwashed out-of-town mob. If the arresting officers were obliged to use force to take him into custody it might spark off an uncontrollable riot. They must, said Annas, wait for a more opportune moment.

  At sunset, The Man left the city with his disciples and spent the night in a house in the nearby village of Bethany. The next day, he returned to the Temple where a crowd quickly gathered round him in Solomon’s Porch. Hearing of his return to the city, Caiaphas sent a group of priests, all experts in the Mosaic Law, to challenge The Man in front of the crowd in the hope of luring him into making a statement that they could publicly condemn as blasphemous. The Man’s reply confounded them but, under the pretence of seeking enlightenment, the experts kept trying to trap him with apparently innocent questions.

  Once again The Man predicted the destruction of the Temple. A prophecy that, somewhat naturally, enraged the High Priest and his acolytes, the Sanhedrin, the Elders of Jerusalem and everyone else who had a finger in the pie. For besides the money and power that flowed from it, the Temple was the shrine for the soul of the Jewish nation. The reconstruction work, started under Herod the Great, had been going on for nearly fifty years and was still far from completion. To talk of its destruction was the equivalent of proposing the demolition of the Ka ’bah in Mecca to a group of Muslim fundamentalists. It is not hard to imagine how the pillars of the Jewish establishment reacted. The Man’s threat, for it was translated as such, caused them to experience every shade of outraged emotion from incredulous anger to purple-faced apoplexy. But, by sunset on the second day, The Man had still not been arrested.

  Bitterly disappointed, he returned to Bethany to spend the night with his disciples. While the others slept, The Man woke Judas and Mary of Magdala and led them silently out of the house and back towards Jerusalem. The gates of the city were closed but Judas took The Man and Mary through a secret entrance used by the Sicarii – the underground resistance group to which he had belonged. Their destination was the house of Nicodemus, The Man’s secret ally on the Sanhedrin.

  The reason for this midnight call was to discover why the Sanhedrin had not yet arrested him. Nicodemus gave them an account of the latest twists in the labyrinthine plot to eliminate The Man. Since opting for Annas’s devious solution, Caiaphas and his supporters had finally learned that The Man had not been born in Nazareth, Galilee, but in Bethlehem, Judea and, what is more, might conceivably be a descendant of King David. In addition they had learned, through their own informants at Herod’s court, of the mystery surrounding his birth and his relationship with Johanan the Baptiser. Political expediency was one thing, but prophecy was the bedrock of Jewish history.

  Annas and Caiaphas were now faced with the possibility that the Nazarene might not be an impudent impostor. Worse, Gamaliel, acknowledged to be the unchallenged authority in the interpretation of the Torah, had even gone so far as to suggest that, on the available evidence, The Man might even be the promised Messiah.

  Gamaliel’s reading of the runes had caused Caiaphas and his father-in-law to buttonhole the revered sage and take him off into a quiet corner to seek further clarification. Was he serious? Was it possible? To which Gamaliel’s considered reply had been ‘Yes, but, –’ as President Nixon was wont to say, ‘ – don’t bet the ranch on it’.

  In face of the evidence of The Man’s remarkable powers and presence, some of you may find this mixture of cautious reserve, doubt and outright disbelief hard to understand. But as the Book showed, Israel had not been short of charismatic prophets. As any first-century Jew could have told you, Jehovah had been making promises for centuries. A land of milk and honey they could call their own, salvation, vengeance via his divine hand upon their enemies. All of which he had so far failed to deliver.

  There was also another reason for caution. Caiaphas and his supporters had begun to be seriously worried by the testimony of those who claimed to have been healed, or to have witnessed miraculous acts by The Man. If the stories were true, they could only be explained by the presence of the legendary Persian angels, or demons – who could tell? But whatever it was, Caiaphas was reluctant to inspire its wrath by a rash move against its earthly agent.

  The Man now knew what had to be done. And Judas was tailor-made for the job. As a one-time member of the Essene community in which Gabriel and The Man had resided, Judas understood the situation in a way that the other disciples, as yet, did not. There was no need for lengthy explanations. The Essenes were soldiers in the army of the Prince of Light. The kamikaze of the Celestial Empire. All The Man had to do was to tell Judas that he needed his help.

  Judas was instructed to go to Caiaphas and offer to betray The Man. He was to demand payment so that his motive would not be suspect. He was to say that he could tell when Joshua’s ‘spirit’ had left his body and that, without it, Joshua had no power to harm them. He was to explain that the ‘spirit’ could not bear pain. If they seized Joshua and beat him, the ‘spirit’ could not dare re-enter his body and if they killed him, the ‘spirit’ would be forced to return to the place from which it had come.

  The Man explained that in order for this deception to work, his other disciples and followers must not know of this arrangement. The High Priest’s spies were everywhere. Judas had to be seen as the betrayer, and risk the inevitable consequences of his action.

  And so, in one of the most celebrated notorious acts in history, Judas went to the house of the High Priest and offered to betray Joshua of Nazareth in return for thirty pieces of silver.

  At what has come to be known the Last Supper – to which Mary of Magdala was also invited – The Man warned the Twelve that, in a few short hours he would be arrested and, within a few days he would be dead. Coming after The Man’s triumphant entry into Jerusalem, and the last two days when, faced with the best brains the Temple could muster, he had seemed invincible, the news was not only profoundly shocking, it was utterly unbelievable. And Shimon-Petrus was even more upset when, after swearing that he would go to his death alongside The Man, he was told that he would deny him three times.

  Shimon did not realise that The Man was not accusing him of faithlessness but inserting a delayed-action command into his subconscious. It was a move designed to protect Shimon from his own foolhardiness. Ya’el wanted his disciples alive, not dead. That was why they were all programmed to run out on him when he was arrested. The guilt-laden supporters of a suffering Christ – what author Colin Wilson has termed ‘Crosstianity’ – have made much of he fact that everyone abandoned The Man when the chips were down, but they are wrong. It was part of the plan.

  The other point that needs to be clarified concerns the consumption of the bread and wine that The Man passed to those around the table. Two items which were used to symbolise his flesh and blood and which were to become the basis of the Eucharist – the central rite of Christian worship and, incidentally, a bone of contention within the early Church. Many of The Man’s followers in the immediate post-Resurrection period could not accept the Pauline interpretation of the Last Supper and found the ceremony offensive. Well, the news is that The Man never intended it to become one.

  The writers of
Mark and Luke got it nearly right. The Man made no mention of any remission of sins. That was overlaid later. But it was certainly true that his death was on behalf of all of us. Only we don’t have to feel guilty about it. Once we understand why, we should all be dancing in the streets. His death on the cross brought the release his spirit-being longed for. So let’s set the record straight. Although the celebration of the Last Supper rapidly acquired a unique significance within the Christian church-state, this kind of sacramental rite was by no means exclusive to them. Variations of the same ceremony can be found in other belief-systems and all have their roots in religious practices that reach back to Methuselah and beyond.

  If you want to know more about this, look up any references you can find to the sacred yellow plant haoma.

  The Last Supper was another occult metaphor that linked Ya’el with the earlier Celestial missions to Earth, which the Roman Church ignored, as it proceeded to distort The Man’s message. The deliberations of Ignatius, Clement, Irenaeus, Hippolytus et al which, through the adoption of the Nicene creed, gave a monolithic character to Christianity which was to last till the Great Schism in 1054, were based on two fundamental errors. The first being their implacable opposition to what was called ‘syncretism’ – the attempt to reconcile the diverse threads of philosophic and religious thought and practices. Everything that had happened prior to The Man’s birth was either ignored, or branded as heretical when, in fact, The Truth was there all the time, staring them in the face. The reason is not hard to find: ‘Brax had already got to work on those who saw the Apostolic succession as a vehicle they could use to propel themselves into positions of power.

  If you believe nothing else in this account, you must believe that The Truth has been around from the beginning. It has lain buried in the heart and mind of Man in every age and has been expressed, often obscurely and incompletely, in every faith from stiff-necked Episcopalianism to the wacky spontaneity of Zen.

  The second error which, like the first, was the result of some cold-eyed pragmatism concerns the Eucharist. As I’ve said, The Man never intended his last meal on Earth to become institutionalised. It was the Pauline organisation men who saw in its symbolic representation of the timeless mystery, the magic ingredient which, served up with some liturgical salad-dressing, was to be the cornerstone of the power-structure they were building.

  What they proceeded to do with The Man’s message, with a little help from ‘Brax, can be explained in terms of a modern marketing operation. Celebration of the Eucharist allowed the organisation men to get the corner on salvation. That was the product for which the bishops held the exclusive franchise. The churches were the retail outlets. And the people putting this deal together claimed to have been granted the licence to do so by Peter, who Paul had built up into The Man’s sole legal representative. The only one to whom the secret formula had been confided.

  Over the next three centuries, when theology became the new growth industry, the careerists manoeuvred themselves into commanding positions. They became the medium for the message. They could not stop the individual search for God but the Word According To Rome was loud and clear. If you did not come to church to celebrate Mass, your soul would be eternally damned. And, of course, only officially approved priests could celebrate Mass and give absolution. Once you had committed yourself to buy the basic package, you were on the hook for life.

  The piece of bread and the cup of wine that The Man shared with his disciples was built up into the greatest protection racket of all time. And if you find that hard to accept, just think of all the money and power that has passed through the hands of Rome & Co., and the violence it has unleashed on those who chose to dissent from its teaching. There is no doubt about it. ‘Brax may have failed to recruit The Man, but he did a great job on the people he left behind.

  By arrangement with The Man, Judas stayed behind in Jerusalem to await the return of the owner of the house, whom he had to reimburse for the wine and food they had consumed. The rest of the party left the city before the gates closed for the night. Instead of returning to the village of Bethany, The Man cut across the Kidron Valley to the Garden of Gethsemane on the Mount of Olives. When they reached the garden, The Man left nine of the disciples by the gate then went deep into the olive grove with Andreas bar Jonah, Jacob and Johan barZebedee, the three who had witnessed the Transfiguration. As on Mount Hermon, Shimon-Petrus took his brother’s place in the rewrite.

  A hundred yards or so from the gate, The Man left the three to keep watch, and went off on his own. This, as the Book says, was the crucial point in the mission: when The Man questioned the necessity for the Crucifixion, and his ability to go through with it. It was his last contact with the Empire before his death and they were so concerned, they ordered Gabriel down from the orbiting longship to strengthen his resolve.

  The three disciples did not really fall asleep as Matthew, Mark and Luke state. It was a coded way of saying that their minds were unaware of The Man’s mental agony, and Gabriel’s brief and reassuring visit.

  As The Man rejoined the three disciples, he heard a confused babble of voices and saw the light of torches on the slope below the garden. Shimon-Petrus, one of the nine left by the gate, ran up to warn The Man that a mob led by men from the Temple Guard and armed with swords and staves were looking for him. Andreas urged The Man to run but it was too late. They were already surrounded by some thirty to forty men, two of whom had Judas pinned by the arms. The mob advanced cautiously to within ten or twelve paces of The Man, then pushed Judas forward to check that the ‘spirit’ had left the Nazarene.

  Judas had arranged with the Captain of the Temple Guard, who was there to make the arrest legal, that he would embrace The Man if it was safe to seize him. But as he closed in, Judas found himself looking into the fiery eyes of the complete man, Joshua-Ya’el. With a cry of surprise, Judas fell on his knees and grabbed hold of The Man’s hands. ‘Rabbuni!’ – ‘Master!’ The Man hauled him to his feet and whispered urgently, ‘Do what you have to do.’ Trembling with shock, Judas embraced him. Planting the kiss that was to earn him a place in history, for all the wrong reasons.

  Although orthodox Christianity ignored the central role played by Mary of Magdala, and branded Judas as the archetypal traitor, it’s interesting to note that Islam, which was to bring the power of The Word back into the world, regarded Judas as a somewhat more heroic figure who played an essential part in The Man’s mission.

  The mob surged foward to seize The Man and a struggle developed as Shimon, Andreas, Jacob and Johan tried to protect him. Just as the violence began to escalate, The Man created a diversion. Ya’el separated out from Joshua as a pale apparition in a flowing robe and sowed a few vital seconds of panic which is recorded in Mark, 14:51;52. Verse 50 is out of sequence and should follow it. ‘And there followed him a certain young man, having a linen cloth cast about his naked body; and the young men laid hold on him: And he left the linen cloth and fled from them naked.’ To which is added verse 50, ‘ – and they (the disciples) all foresook him and fled.’

  And Judas managed to escape, too.

  That was why Ya’el had not withdrawn his spirit-being before Judas arrived. In the confusion that followed the appearance of ‘the young man in white’ and the frantic attempts of the mob to lay hands on him, the disciples broke free and, with The Man’s voice in their ear urging them on, disappeared into the darkness.

  After firmly tying The Man’s arms, the mob dragged him back to the sleeping city at the end of a rope and took him to the house of Annas – Caiaphas’s father-in-law. As High Priest, Caiaphas was reluctant to get involved officially at this stage. He had too much at stake if things were to go seriously wrong. It was much better for the arrest to be seen as the spontaneous action of a group of decent, honest, God-fearing individuals.

  Nicodemus was one of the ten members of the Sanhedrin summoned to witness The Man’s preliminary investigation conducted by Annas. At first, Nicodemus was unaware that
Caiaphas was also present, watching discreetly from behind a pierced wooden screen. And, as all students of the New Testament know, Shimon-Petrus had insinuated himself into the small crowd that had gathered outside in the courtyard and was warming his hands over a fire.

  The other ten disciples had made their way back by various routes to the house in Bethany where they sat shivering with fear and panting like a pack of hunted dogs that had gained a temporary respite. They stared into each other’s glazed, tear-streaked faces, hating themselves for their cowardice. Not knowing that, in responding like well-drilled robots, they had done exactly what The Man had intended them to do.

  Mary of Magdala and several other women from The Man’s entourage were on hand to provide some friendly warmth and moral comfort, but it did little to reduce the mental anguish of the ten escapees. Slowly, as the night gave way to a gunmetal dawn, their utter amazement that Judas, of all people, had turned traitor gave way to a cold unreasoning anger and vows of vengeance.

  Caiaphas had come braced for some verbal fireworks but there were no sparks flying from the Nazarene as Annas accused him of blasphemy, preaching subversion and of possessing demonic powers. Joshua denied the charges. Not forcefully, but in an evasive manner, turning each question into an answer. Caiaphas had the distinct impression that the Nazarene had no idea what they were talking about. Annas, too, was unsettled by the interrogation. The Nazarene was only a pale shadow of the fiery-eyed trouble-maker that had led an unruly mob through the Temple courtyards, overturning stalls and disrupting business.

  Annas retired behind the screen and went into a huddle with Caiaphas, the Captain of the Guard, Nicodemus and the other representatives from the Sanhedrin. Had they been tricked by Judas into arresting the wrong man? The Captain and Nicodemus reassured Caiaphas. The man who stood bound and guarded in the other room was definitely Joshua of Nazareth. Annas, who had listened to The Man preaching in the Temple, was forced to agree that he and their prisoner were one and the same. Only Nicodemus knew that what stood before them was only the host-body of Joshua. The spirit of Ya’el was absent.