“Look. But don’t curse.”
“Fine,” said Warris, and walked to the edge and looked down. Ladders stretched down three levels, the lowest being a good twelve meters down. There was a small metal door set in a hole carved in rock. To the left, it looked as though someone had abandoned a great sheet of plywood.
“May I go down and look?”
“If you don’t have to be there, you do not play there,” said the Orthodox Jew.
“Why?” said Warris.
“That is holy ground, burial ground.”
“Down there, hewn out of rock, way down there?”
“Yes.”
“It is such a small opening,” said Warris.
“There is only one body.”
“One body?” asked Warris.
The man nodded.
“What is under that plywood boarding down there?” asked Warris.
“I do not know. A Gentile, a good man, wanted it that way.”
“How do you know he is a Gentile?”
“That one argued the Talmud with the Reb Nechtal himself. We all know of him where we live.”
“I see. Might he have come from the Vatican?”
“The Roman Catholic place?”
“Yes?” said Warris.
“We think so.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know. But there are those of us who know those things and they think so.”
“I see,” said Warris Abouf. “Has he been here a long time?”
“What is long?”
“Since autumn.”
“If that is a long time, he has been here a long time.”
Warris asked if the body were that of a man, but the Orthodox Jew did not know the answer to that. Was there any special commotion about the body when it was discovered? Warris asked, and this, too, the Orthodox Jew did not know.
His group was living up to its obligation and that was why he was there. They were waiting for the Gentile to prove whether the body was that of a Jew or not.
Warris took one more look at the plywood. It was there not to protect stone, which could endure the elements better, but to hide it. Now why would anyone want to hide a stone?
From the Arab produce dealers nearby, Warris got more information. The dig was going along according to schedule when suddenly it stopped, and Nasir Hamid was told that his property could not be used by him for an indefinite time by the Israelis. And if Warris knew what was good for him he would not ask any more questions about that hole because the Israelis were picking up people who did that.
“Thank you,” said Warris to his fellow Arab. He didn’t have to ask any more questions. The plywood hid the stone because anyone who knew the Gospels knew that a great stone had covered the hewn tomb. And there was only one body the Vatican would care about so much to involve diplomatic channels.
They had found Him.
21
Good Friday
He was the direct successor of Peter, who came from Galilee here to Rome, he was the Bishop of Rome and the Vicar of Christ on earth, and on this Good Friday, he was awakened two hours before dawn by a priest sworn never to reveal he had been so awakened. For at eight in the morning he would return to his apartments, and pretend to be awakened again. Only a few would know the Pope ever had this secret meeting at all.
So, too, for his Lord Cardinal Secretary of State. As a precaution, this meeting was never to have taken place.
The American priest had returned. His investigation was complete. The Lord Cardinal Secretary of State said that he had seen portions of the report, but it was too complex for him.
“Did he give a yes or no, Lord Cardinal?”
“He seemed strange now, Your Holiness,” Almeto Cardinal Pesci said.
The answer was in the priest’s face, that once brave bright Irish face. This fine mind, this tough soldier of Christ, this rock of faith within the Jesuits, stared dully ahead and did not rise to kiss his sovereign’s ring.
His face was pale, his eyes were gaunt, and his mind was hiding somewhere from the pain of the world. He wore a Jesuit cassock.
When the priest saw Pesci kiss the papal ring, he too did so, and His Holiness tried to look into the eyes. But those eyes, too, hid, lest meeting other eyes, contact might be made.
The room was bare, the rug rolled up and taken away. Faint square shadings on the wall were where tapestries had hung. There was a metal table in the middle of the room, surrounded by two high-backed chairs and one small metal one for the priest. It was, as the Lord Cardinal had said, as safe from technological eavesdropping as the Vatican could provide.
“Well, James, what have we?” said His Holiness. They all spoke English.
“As His Eminence knows, I have divided the report into several sections. And the findings of each section were summarized.”
“But there was no conclusion.”
“I want to give the facts as I found them.”
“Please,” said His Holiness. And the man’s voice was comforting. Jim had not slept this week, nor had he taken the invitation to Mass. He could not even pray anymore without weeping.
He began with his elimination of the possibility of fraud, from the tomb not having another entrance, and other facts which would make the planting of a body impossible, the validity of witnesses, and the ever-important minutiae which matched.
“Whatever was found there was not fraudulent, whatever it was. We knew that early on,” said Jim.
“You said so, early on. I was never convinced they could not have put all the evidence there for their own purposes. I am talking of Israel,” said Cardinal Pesci. He sat, content in his flesh covered by billowing red cloth.
“When?” said Jim.
“Any time at their convenience,” said Cardinal Pesci. “They control all of Jerusalem, you know.”
“But it’s a place, Your Eminence. Haneviim Street is a real place with real people. Someone would have noticed something. There was no tunneling in from the back, because the limestone showed that could not be. The volunteers would have noticed fresh-packed earth. Two-thousand-year-old dirt is different from yesterday’s, you know.”
Pesci asked His Holiness if he might smoke, and, being given permission, proceeded to use one small corner of the tabletop because there were no ashtrays in the room.
“Ah, but why did the Israeli archaeologist ask, that, when the rock to the tomb was discovered, they wait a night, eh?”
“They had worked all day and, interestingly enough, we have proof the stone wasn’t moved, from an American Baptist, Mark Prangle.”
“The proof that no one entered the cave came from an American with pro-Zionist tendencies, correct?” asked His Eminence.
“Yes,” said Jim.
“Suppose, that night, the Jews put a body they had been saving into the cave?”
“What about the clay bricks, Your Eminence? They were dry.”
“Some clay dries in a night. Do you think Israeli technology is incapable of producing clay that dries in one night? They have one of the most sophisticated arms industries in the world. They have modern science. I cannot believe they could not produce a brick that does not dry in a night.”
“And in one night come up with a body that carbon-dates within the time frame, and a disk that dates to within twenty years of the death of our Lord?”
“Perhaps they were waiting for just such an occasion. Perhaps they had planted it before the archaeologist got there,” said Cardinal Pesci.
“The Arabs around there knew of no recent digging. The owner of the lot, an Arab, was inconvenienced by this. All the details showed it was a legitimate find.”
“Maybe they did it before,” said His Eminence.
“When? Before 1967 it was the dividing line between Jordan and Israel, and there was sniper fire going on there. The Jordanians wouldn’t let them walk around without shooting at them. Nothing was built there for nineteen years that wasn’t a barricade.”
“Why not before the fou
nding of Israel?” asked Pesci.
“Dating wasn’t that exact then. The technology of this dating is new. They couldn’t have been that exact fifty years ago. The only reason we know what we have found with exactitude is because of the new technology. If this body had been found a mere hundred years ago, it would still be anyone’s guess as to what it is,” said Jim. He did not address the cardinal as His Eminence.
Cardinal Pesci put out the cigarette on the table.
“You used an extraordinary number of Israeli citizens in that technological corroboration, Father Folan,” said His Eminence.
“I did.”
“Don’t you think that was a bit unwise to use so many Jews?”
“You keep coming back to the Jews, as though that is prima facie evidence of some fraud. But as a matter of established fact, the Jews are the least likely to have any vested interest in disproving someone else’s religion. They do not seek converts, like Christianity or Islam. They do not care what you believe, and therefore do not have to burn you alive or break bones or pass crazy laws against you. The existence of Christianity or Islam is no theological threat to them. You might as well be the chief priest of Baal or Astarte for all they care,” said Jim, adding, “You Eminence.” There was anger in his voice. He felt his face flush.
“You seem to know a lot about Judaism,” said Cardinal Pesci.
“We have work to do, Lord Cardinal, come, come,” said His Holiness. “In what ways, James, does the find conform to our Gospels?”
Jim explained what a rich man’s tomb was, how the stone in front was small in height, but a great stone. He explained how someone could have come up to the tomb at that time and thought it empty.
“And what about those who saw Him resurrected?”
“If that is so, then of course he did, Your Holiness,” said Jim.
“But you have something else related to that?” said His Holiness.
“I have theories based on the nature of his followers,” said Jim, and only at the Pope’s request did Jim verbally give Sharon’s theory about Christ and his followers, how He was the movement, and how they had invested so much and were now ruined. He was not a martyr to them, He was a failed God until the Resurrection.
“Either seeing that the tomb was empty or hearing that it was, despite that great stone, might lead some severely depressed people to believe they saw Him,” said Jim, and then he quickly went on to Dr. Sproul’s most convincing evidence that the man was in his thirties and had worked as a carpenter. But most damning was the method of crucifixion, and for this Jim showed a black and white photograph of the right ribs. It was a blowup, and the small, round indentation signified entry by a foreign body.
“While there were thousands of crucifixions all over that land, Christ’s crucifixion was unusual. The normal way to speed up death was breaking the bones, not spearing someone. That defeated the whole purpose. To die by a weapon was honorable. Crucifixion was to humiliate someone, strip him completely of everything,” said Jim. He was crying. Why was he crying? Why were his lips trembling?
He could see tears rim the eyes of his Pope. The man had sympathy for him. Pesci lit another cigarette. And Jim went on about the crucifixion, and then how the shroud would have conformed to this unusual crucifixion, except for the height, and how Aramaic would have been the most likely language for the disk.
He tried to stop crying but couldn’t completely, so he just went along as though the tears were not there. Pesci had arguments about the disk, quoting St. John’s description of three languages, Greek, Latin, and Aramaic, as those being used for the sign that said “King of the Jews.”
“You don’t understand what a disgrace crucifixion was, Your Eminence. Those were high languages for that place, the languages of the rich and the powerful, not for who Jesus’ followers were. You know he was crucified because he had followers. And they humiliated him in front of the people who spoke Aramaic. They would not have disgraced those languages like that.”
And the heavy tears were there again. The wracking sobs took him, and he had to wait a minute to quiet down to answer a very silly question from Pesci.
“No, Your Eminence, even though many pictures have INRI, Jews wouldn’t understand a Latin abbreviation. It would have been only for Roman officers, possibly. And why humiliate him only for Romans?”
“What do you have against Romans?” asked Cardinal Pesci.
“I beg your pardon, Your Eminence?” said Jim.
“I hear nothing but anti-Roman sentiment. I think we should note that.”
The Pontiff, ignoring Pesci, pressed on to hear more of the report. Jim explained how some of the dating was new, and the Pope seemed to grasp everything quickly. He even said “Good” a few times when the explanations were especially lucid. Jim had lost all reference for what was good and not good in explanations.
It was Cardinal Pesci who noticed a light crack through a heavy curtain, and then checked a watch and warned His Holiness that soon he would have to be back in bed to be awakened. Above all, this meeting was never to have taken place. Jim accepted the warning.
“Your Holiness,” said Cardinal Pesci, “I have one last question, which I think is highly relevant.”
“Yes. Yes. Go ahead,” said His Holiness. His hands were forward on the table, large fingers touching thumbs like that of a blacksmith, thick and wide. But the eyes were incredibly sharp.
“Father Folan,” said His Eminence, making sure the lines of his imaginary ashtray were neat lest someone think he had a tendency to just put out cigarettes on tables, “you intended originally to get a corroborating archaeologist, and yet you changed your mind. You used the original archaeologist.”
“Yes. I did it for two reasons. I saw that she actively did not wish this find to be … to be, to be what originally she thought it might have been. And so that was good. And you have got to realize … you’ve got to realize …”
“Go on, James,” said His Holiness.
“… you’ve got to realize that the archaeologist was the one other person who had to know everything. Did we want that?”
“A good point,” said Pesci. “But do you think the fact that she was your mistress might have had anything to do with her selection?”
Jim Folan couldn’t breathe. He couldn’t lift his eyes from the stark tabletop. He heard his Pope talking to him.
“What?” said Jim.
“Is that true?”
“She was my mistress. And I love her. I do. I took her in adultery. I did,” said Jim, and then he lifted his eyes to that of his spiritual sovereign. “But that was not the reason I chose her. I told you that reason.”
“I believe that, Father Folan,” said His Holiness. “Now, James, as to why we are here. Do you think they found the unrisen body of your best friend, James?”
“We have the Gospels. It depends on how you interpret them, you know. It’s all in interpretation, you know. Your Holiness.”
“James. My Jesuit. My soldier. Yes or no.”
“I gave my evidence.”
“James, what do you believe?”
Jim looked to Cardinal Pesci. He was so content, so safe, and Jim would have traded anything for that safety, that safe place of Cardinal Pesci, instead of being hung out here, in shame. All he could feel was shame. Shame before his Pope. Shame before all that he ever valued or served, only grateful that there were not more here to see him like this.
And Jim opened his mouth to answer, and then covered his eyes in his hands to hide the world in blackness. And even the tears now had deserted him.
What came from his lips was a moan, was a cry, was a wail.
“Father, Father,” he said to his Pope, “why did you send me?”
And then the tears came almost like a release. When he was quieted, and Cardinal Pesci was reminding His Holiness of the time element, Jim felt two strong, warm hands on his own.
The Pope waited until Jim looked up.
“When there is nothing else, James, the
re is Christ. When all is stripped away, you can see Him clearest. There will be a time when science can disprove what it appears to prove, just like there was a time when it couldn’t prove these things. So, this now, James, is what I ask of you, good soldier. Rest. We will call on you again.”
“I am not a good soldier, Your Holiness,” said Jim, grabbing the hand with the papal ring and kissing it.
“Ah, but you are. You have fought the good fight, and you have suffered. We know that. Share it with Jesus, James. Share it with Him. He wants it. It is His. Do not let His good soldier go with these untended wounds, James.”
His Holiness told the good Jesuit once more, “He is risen,” and then personally took him to the door, as the poor young man told him how much he wanted to believe. He had tried to take the notes with him, but was told that was no longer his responsibility. There were other duties for him very shortly.
When he was gone, the Pontiff turned to his Secretary of State.
“Well, Lord Cardinal, what do you think?”
“I think we send our surreptitious thanks to the Israeli government, and of course return some similar kind of favor.”
“As a priest, not as our Secretary of State, what do you think?”
“But I am Secretary of State, Your Holiness.”
“What do you think of the body?”
“The Jews won’t dare make it public because then we can accuse them of being behind it all.”
“Do you think that is His body?” asked the Pope, nodding to the pictures, which he would soon ask his Secretary of State to take possession of.
“With apologies, Your Holiness, I am your Secretary of State, not the Pontifical Biblical Institute, or your Archaeological Commission, which you yourself chose not to use.”
“You think it is, don’t you?” said the Pope.
“I never really wondered that much, Your Holiness.”
“Is it that you never cared?” asked the Pope with sudden chilling amazement.
“That is an extreme way to say that my concerns are for the Church, and its real problems.”
“What we saw with that priest, that Jesuit with the strong faith, is a problem. That is our main problem. We have lost two priests, the first of whom may have been strong in the faith. I do not know. But the second, the American, it shook my foundations, too, just to look at him. We must have the body. We must have the disk. We must have the secrecy of Israel. There is no question about that.”
The Body Page 33