Mission (58 page)

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.

After a lifetime of hardship and frustration, this was to be Joshua's finest hour. Ya'el had told him that they were both near the end of the road and explained what was to happen. Joshua now understood that he, too, had a vital part to play in Ya'el's mission. As with Judas's Ain-folk psyche, there were to be no medals, no special return-ticket to the Empire, but his contribution to the war effort would not be forgotten in the final accounting.

Resuming the interrogation, Annas asked Joshua if he was The Messiah. The answer, in modern English was, ‘You said it, not me.' That was enough for Caiaphas. Joshua's reply was tantamount to saying that he
was
The Messiah. The ultimate blasphemy. And, if that wasn't enough, his refusal to answer questions properly showed the Nazarene to be both insolent and unrepentant. Caiaphas ordered the Captain of the Temple Guard to administer a salutary but not too savage beating. They needed Joshua on his feet for his trial before the full Council of the Sanhedrin that coming morning.

As Nicodemus left Annas's house, he saw Shimon-Petrus standing in the shadows outside the gate to the courtyard and gave him the news. The Man had condemned himself. It was all over. There must, urged Nicodemus, be no attempt to rescue him. Shimon-Petrus left to spread the word.

The impact of The Man's arrest on the Followers and the huge crowd that had flocked with him into Jerusalem was absolutely shattering. They had come to town with such high hopes. Burning with a new-found belief that deliverance was at hand; braced and ready for the dramatic overthrow of the ruling Jewish families and the defeat of the Romans by miraculous acts of power. And what had happened? His closest disciples had fled and were now in hiding. The Man had been arrested without a fight, had submitted passively to interrogation and had allowed himself to be beaten by common servants and ignorant soldiers.

While this bewildering news spread through the narrow, crowded streets, Joshua was brought before the Council of the Sanhedrin, his hands still bound, at seven a.m. None of the hastily assembled members had ever attended a meeting this early, but Annas and Caiaphas were anxious to get Joshua into the hands of the Romans before his supporters had time to work out a coherent response.

The arraignment did not go as smoothly as they had hoped. A
series of all-too-eager witnesses presented a mass of conflicting evidence. Joshua remained silent, refusing to answer any of the allegations. Aware that the case against the Nazarene was on the verge of collapsing, Caiaphas played his last card. Summoning up the full authority of his high office, he sonorously intoned the sixty-four thousand dollar question – ‘
By the living God I charge you to tell us: Are you The Messiah, The Son of God?
'

To which Joshua answered,
It is you who say that I am.
'

‘Blasphemy!' cried Caiaphas, simultaneously tearing his robes with carefully controlled hysteria. It was a symbolic, ceremonial act which impressed the waverers on the back benches. Annas took up the cry and called for a show of hands. The verdict was unanimous. Guilty on two counts. Blasphemy and treason against Rome.

Pontius Pilate had barely finished breakfast when Joshua was delivered at the door to the Fortress Antonia, courtesy of the Sanhedrin, charged with claiming to be King of the Jews and urging people not to pay taxes to Caesar. His accusers, who were backed up by a noisy crowd suffering from a sudden rash of loyalty to the emperor, demanded that, as putative leader of the dissident minorities, Joshua should be put to death before the situation got out of hand.

As governor of the province, Pilate was duty bound to investigate the charges but, after questioning Joshua, he was distinctly unimpressed. The Nazarene's answers were incoherent and he certainly did not appear to be brimming over with revolutionary fervour. In fact, to put it bluntly, he did not appear to be all there. Who, asked Pilate of his lieutenants, would follow a man like this? On the available evidence, the case against Joshua under Roman law was thin and contrived. What we, since the thirties, have called a frame-up. That, in itself, did not disturb Pilate. All kinds of people, from the humblest Jew to the noblest Roman senator, were rail-roaded every day of the week. But Joshua had already been found guilty of blasphemy. A crime for which, under Jewish law, he could be stoned to death. If the Sanhedrin wanted him killed why hadn't they done it themselves?

Pilate made some discreet enquiries of his own. What he learned was hard to believe but if it was true, then the Nazarene was far more than a dull-witted one-time carpenter. His reported powers of healing could be described as supernatural. It was even claimed that he had caused storms to abate, and had saved some men in a boat by
walking across the wave-tops of the Sea of Galilee. Could this, wondered Pilate, be the reason why the Sanhedrin had delivered Joshua up to the Romans? But, if these stories
were
true, why had the Nazarene submitted to a beating? If he could heal the sick with a touch of his hand, why had he not mended the broken skin on his own bruised and bloodied face? There had to be a catch somewhere. Too many things did not add up.

Despite his cynicism, Pilate, born in 9 BC, was a man of his age. Like Herod Antipas, he had been educated in Rome; acquiring the same veneer of sophistication and the same careless disregard for religion. The Roman pantheon of gods did not make heavy intellectual demands on a man; worship was a mere formality; religious festivals little more than an excuse for getting riotously drunk.

As a professional administrator and one of the ruling elite, Pilate knew that power came out of the short swords of a well-drilled legion. Even so, one has to remember that, despite the intellectual brilliance displayed by the Greeks in their enquiries into the nature of matter and the structure and origin of the universe, the accepted cosmological theory still put Planet Earth at the centre of seven concentric spheres. And Zeus-Jupiter was believed to be alive and well and living on Mount Olympus.

Second-sight, or clairvoyance, was not only more readily accepted then, it was much more widespread than it is today. The predictions of the Jewish prophets were a matter of historical record and, compared to other races, the Jews were believed to possess a greater degree of paranormal skills. Pilate did not really buy the idea that Joshua was possessed by a spirit-being from beyond the stars but he was relieved when a member of his staff pointed out that, legally, this potentially troublesome prisoner did not come under his jurisdiction. Herod Antipas was Tetrarch of Galilee. As a Nazarene, Joshua was his problem.