The Thirteenth Apostle (15 page)

He decided to postpone examining this pathological outbreak. “Wait till I get to Rome. The city has survived everything.”

He had patiently reconstructed the events surrounding the death of Jesus, when the beloved disciple had been given a new lease of life. He had continued to exist after the Council of Jerusalem. The hypothesis of his flight to the desert seemed the most likely to Nil: it was there that Jesus himself had taken refuge, on several occasions. It was in the desert that the Essenes, and then the Zealots (at least until the Bar Kokhba revolt) had taken shelter.

The trace of his steps was lost in the desert sands. In order to pick it up, Nil needed to listen to a voice from beyond the grave, that of his dead friend.

Pursuing this research would serve to sublimate the anger he sensed mounting within him.

He tried to find a comfortable position and get a bit of sleep.

The gentle rattle of the train lulled him into a doze. The lights of Lamotte-Beuvron sped by.

Then it all happened extremely quickly. The man in the corner next to the corridor left his seat and came over, as if to take something from the luggage rack above him. Nil mechanically looked up: the luggage rack was empty.

He had no time to think: the blond head of hair was already leaning towards him, and he saw the man's hand reaching out towards his clerical jacket.

* * *

Nil was just about to protest at the cavalier manners of his travelling companion – “He's like a robot!” he thought.

But the door of the compartment clattered open.

The man quickly straightened; his hand fell to his side, his face grew more animated, and he smiled at Nil.

“'Scuse me for disturbing you, gentlemen.” It was the ticket inspector. “The passengers who had reserved the empty seats in your compartment haven't turned up. I've got a couple of nuns with me who couldn't find seats next to each other in the train. Here you go, Sisters, sit where you like, plenty of room in the compartment. Enjoy your journey!”

While the nuns came in and greeted Father Nil ceremoniously, the other passenger went back to his seat without a word. A moment later his eyes were closed and he was nodding off.

“Funny chap! What came over him?”

But getting the new arrivals settled occupied his full attention. A suitcase had to be hoisted onto the luggage rack, and bulky cardboard boxes pushed under the seats – and then he had to put up with their interminable chattering.

Night had fallen. As he sought sleep, Nil noted that the mysterious fellow opposite him had not moved an inch, huddled in his corner.

Awoken by daybreak, when he opened his eyes the seat next to the corridor was empty. To get to the restaurant car for breakfast, he had to walk the full length of the train – no sign of the man.

He returned to his compartment, where one of the nuns obliged him to have a sip of disgusting coffee from her Thermos. He was forced to bow to the evidence: the enigmatic traveller had disappeared.

Part Two

35

Pella (Jordan), 58 AD

“How are your legs,
abbu
?”

The beloved disciple heaved a sigh. His hair had turned white, and his features were hollowed. He looked at the man in the prime of his life standing next to him.

“It's been twenty-eight years since Jesus died, and ten years since I left Jerusalem. My legs have carried me here, Yokhanan, and they may need to carry me elsewhere, if what you tell me is true…”

They were taking advantage of the shade of the peristyle, the floor of which was covered by a magnificent mosaic depicting Dionysus. From here, the dunes of the nearby desert could be seen.

Pella, founded by veterans of Alexander the Great on the eastern bank of the Jordan, had been almost entirely destroyed by an earthquake. It seemed to him, when he was forced to flee from Jerusalem to escape the threats of Peter's followers, that this city situated outside Palestine would be safe enough for him. He settled here with Jesus's mother, and they were soon joined by a core of his disciples. Yokhanan came and went between Pella and neighbouring Palestine, or even Syria;
Paul had established his headquarters in Antioch, one of the capitals of Asia Minor.

“What about Mary?”

Yokhanan's affection for Jesus's mother was touching. “That child has adopted the mother of a crucified man, and has adopted me to replace his own crucified father,” thought the beloved disciple.

“You'll be seeing her later on. Tell me more about what's going on: I'm so out of it here…”

“My news is several weeks old. James, the brother of Jesus, finally won. He's now the head of the Jerusalem community.”

“James! But… what about Peter?”

“Peter resisted for as long as he could. He even went to try and dethrone Paul in his own lair in Antioch – but he got sent away with a flea in his ear! Anyway, he's just taken ship to Rome.”

The two men laughed. Seen from here, on the edge of the desert and its vast emptiness, struggles for power in the name of Jesus seemed derisory.

“Rome… I knew it! If Peter is no longer number one in Jerusalem, Rome is the only place big enough for his ambitions. It's in Rome, Yokhanan, at the heart of the Empire, that the Church of which he dreams will grown and become mighty.”

“There's something else: your disciples left in Judaea are more and more marginalized, and sometimes hassled. They're asking if they ought to get away as you have, and come and join you here.”

The old man closed his eyes. This too was something he had been expecting. The Nazoreans were neither Judaizers like James, nor prepared to deify Jesus like Paul: caught between the two tendencies that were violently opposed in the young Church and refusing to be assimilated to either of them, they risked being crushed.

“Those who can't put up with the pressure can come and join us in Pella. We're safe here – for the time being.”

Yokhanan made himself comfortable sitting beside him, and pointed to the bundle of sheets of parchment scattered across the table.

“Have you been reading,
abbu
?”

“All night long. Especially this collection, which you tell me is circulating in Asia.”

He showed the thirty or so sheets, bound by a woollen cord, that he was holding.

“For all these years,” said Yokhanan, “the apostles have been transmitting Jesus's words orally. So that the memory of them won't be lost when they die, they have set them down here, in no particular order.”

“Yes, it is his teaching, just as I heard it. But the apostles are cunning. They don't put words into Jesus's mouth that he never said: they merely change one word here, add a nuance there. They invent commentaries, or attribute to themselves things they never really said. For example, I've read that, one day, Peter fell to his knees before Jesus and proclaimed: ‘Truly, you are the Messiah, the Son of God!'”

He threw the book down on the table.

“Imagine Peter saying something like that! Jesus would never have accepted such a claim, neither from Peter nor from anyone else. Listen, Yokhanan: in exiling me, the apostles managed to gain exclusive control of the testimony. In their hands the Gospel has become a tool of power. The transformation of Jesus will continue apace, that much is obvious. How far will they go?”

Yokhanan kneeled at his feet, and placed his hands on his knees in a familiar gesture.

“You can't let that happen. They are writing down their memories – you should write yours. You ought to record in
writing the things you teach your disciples here – and circulate the text the way they are circulating theirs. Tell the whole story,
abbu
: talk about the first encounter on the banks of the Jordan, the healing of the lame man by the pool of Bethesda, Jesus's last days… tell the story of Jesus the same way you told it to me, so that he doesn't die a second time!”

He kept his eyes fixed on the face of his adoptive father, who picked another bundle of parchment off the table.

“As for Paul, he knows what he's doing. He knows that people can only put up with their wretched lives thanks to their faith in the resurrection. He says to them: you will rise from the dead,
because
Jesus rose from the dead first. And if he rose from the dead, it means he's God – only a god can raise himself from the dead.”

His face clouded over, and Yokhanan took his hands in his own.

“I didn't want to tell you: Eliezer Ben-Akkai, the leader of the Essenes in Jerusalem, is dead. Is he going to take the secret of Jesus's tomb with him?”

The old man's eyes filled with tears. The death of the Essene meant his whole youth had been wiped away.

“It was Eliezer's own sons, Adon and Osias, who carried the body. They know – that makes three of us, and that's quite enough. You have learnt from me how to encounter Jesus from beyond his death. What would you gain from knowing where his final grave lies? His tomb is respected by the desert – it would not be respected by men.”

Yokhanan quickly rose to his feet and went off for a few minutes. When he came back, he was holding a bundle of virgin parchment in one hand, and in the other pen of buffalo horn and an earthen inkwell. He set them down on the table.

“So, write,
abbu
. Write, so that Jesus may remain alive.”

36

“I now declare this solemn session open.”

The Rector of the Society of St Pius V noted with satisfaction that some of his brothers were not leaning against the backs of their chairs: those were the ones who had made good use of the psalm
Miserere
to measure out their application of the metal discipline.

The room was still just as empty, with two exceptions: opposite him, at the foot of the bloody crucifix, an ordinary chair had been placed. And, on the bare table, a liqueur glass contained a colourless liquid, which gave off a faint odour of bitter almonds.

“My brother, please take your place for the proceedings.”

One of the participants rose, walked round the table and sat on the chair. The veil masking his face was trembling, as if it were an effort for him to breathe.

“For many long years, your service in our Society has been beyond reproach. But recently you have committed a grave error: you have given away confidential information concerning the current business, one which is of capital importance for our mission.”

The man raised supplicant hands to those present.

“The flesh is weak, my brothers, I beg you to forgive me!”

“That is not the question!” the Rector replied in trenchant tones. “The sin of the flesh is remitted by the sacrament of penance, just as Our Lord remitted the sins of the woman caught in adultery. But by speaking to that girl about our recent anxieties…”

“She's no longer in any position to cause us problems!”

“Indeed. We had to make sure that she would
never again
be able to cause problems, which is always regrettable and ought to remain the exception.”

“So… since you have been so kind as to resolve this problem…”

“You do not understand, my brother.”

He turned to address the assembly.

“There is a great deal at stake in this mission. Until the middle of the twentieth century, the Church kept control over the interpretation of the Scriptures. Ever since Pope Paul VI of unhappy memory suppressed the Congregation for the Index in 1967, we no longer control anything. Absolutely anybody can publish absolutely anything, and the Index, which relegated pernicious ideas to the forbidden sections of libraries, has fallen away like a finger attacked by the leprosy of modernism. These days, an ordinary monk, far away in his abbey, can become a grave menace to the church by providing the proof that Christ was just an ordinary man.

A shudder ran through the assembly.

“Ever since our Society was created by the sainted Pope Pius V, we have struggled to preserve the public image of Our Saviour and God made man. And we have always succeeded.”

The brothers all nodded.

“Times are changing, and they demand extraordinary measures. We need money to isolate the problem, set up
sound
seminaries, control the media throughout the planet and block certain publications. A lot of money to influence governments when it comes to cultural politics and education, so that the Christian West is not invaded by Islam or by sects. Faith can move mountains, but the lever it uses is money. Money can do everything: when used by pure hands it can save the Church, which is today threatened in its most precious belonging – the dogma of the Incarnation and that of the Trinity.”

A murmur of approval could be heard running through the room. The Rector gazed intently at the crucifix, under which the accused sat trembling.

“Well, we get nothing more than a trickle of funds. You will remember the sudden vast fortune of the Templars? Nobody has ever known where it came from. And now the inexhaustible source of that fortune may perhaps be within our reach. If we possessed it, we would have unlimited means to carry out our mission. On one condition…”

He lowered his gaze to the wretched brother who seemed to melt away on his chair under the violent glare of the two spotlights illuminating the crucifix.

“That condition is that no indiscretion should compromise our activities. And you have committed that indiscretion, my brother. We have managed to draw out the thorn you thrust into the flesh of Our Lord, but it was a near-run thing. We no longer have any confidence in you, and so your mission is today at an end. I ask the ten apostles present to confirm, by their vote, my sovereign decision.”

All at the same time, ten hands stretched out towards the crucifix.

“My brother, our affection goes with you. You know the procedure.”

The condemned man undid his veil. The Rector had often met him face to face, but the others had never seen anything but his two hands.

The veil fell to reveal the features of an elderly man. There were dark rings under his eyes, but his gaze was no longer imploring: this last act was part of the mission he had accepted when he became a member of the Society. His devotion towards Christ as God was total and it would not flinch today.