The Gospel According to the Son

by Norman Mailer

  And I overturned each of the tables before me. I threw them over with the money that was on them, and I exulted as the coins gave small cries on striking the stones of the courtyard. Each possessor ran after his lost coins like the swine of Gadarene as they rushed into the sea.

  Then I knocked over the seats of those who sold doves and I opened the cages. On this commotion of wings the multitude who were with me came forward and cheered at this defiance of usury.

  I said: "My house shall be known before all nations as a house of prayer. Whereas you are men of Mammon and have made it a den of thieves."

  Indeed it was the truth. Men who sought Mammon were thieves. They were thieves even if they had never stolen a cup of wheat. Their greed stripped virtue from all who would emulate them.

  Soon the priests would be speaking of this act in all the sanctuaries within this Great Temple. For the priests, like the moneylenders, also kept their accounts with God separate from their accounts with Mammon. And how quick they were to water all the vines of cupidity that grew on one side of their soul.

  34

  In the midst of this disorder, I strode among the overturned tables and said: "Destroy this Temple. In three days I will raise it up."

  One of the moneylenders had the courage to speak, a stout old man, but with clear eyes: "It took forty-six years to build what is here. You will restore it in three days?"

  Now I had to wonder at what I had said. A folly! There were many in this multitude behind me who were ready to tear down anything that did not belong to them. So the word to destroy, once spoken, could do great harm in days to come. Harsh words live in the dungeon of the heart. They never relent; they never forgive. They are imprisoned.

  I knew regret. Here were many buildings of immaculate beauty. If I had been a pilgrim wandering these halls, I would have felt awe for the skill of the builders.

  By such thinking did I try to remind myself that I was here to teach, not to destroy.

  And I would say that the Lord was still with me. For His rage had been there with mine, had it not? And now who but my Father was telling me to be gentle? I said to my followers, "Respect our Temple. These moneylenders are only the leavings of evil. They can be scrubbed from the stone. Walk with me further into these holy places, and I will teach."

  I led them to a quiet garden between two small chapels; there was even a cedar to give shade. Then, as I had foreseen, a delegation came of priests and scribes and many of the elders of Jerusalem. Their spokesman said: "We have been awaiting you. But we do not understand the manner of your arrival. By whose authority do you do these things?"

  I answered, "I will ask one question. If you can reply, I will tell you. The baptism of John," I asked, "was it from heaven or of men?"

  I knew they would reason as follows: "If we say 'From heaven,' then this Jesus shall say, 'Why, then, did you not believe John?' Yet if we say that John was of men, then all of our devout will say that John had to be a prophet."

  Since these priests depended on the allegiance of pious Jews, and such Jews often feared that their priests were too friendly with the Romans, there was no room for them to admit that John had been a prophet. For then I could have asked: "Why did you not intercede with the Romans and save John?"

  So they answered, "We cannot tell."

  I said, "Neither shall I tell by what authority I do these things."

  A scribe came forward. He approached with such ease that I knew he was from a noble family. His eyes were blue and his brown beard was soft. He smiled as if he were full of affection for me. Indeed, he even said for greeting, "Master"ùwhich, after the disruption I had caused in the courtyard, was a courtesy; if he could not approve of such an act, he would still call me Master. And so, "Master," he said, "we know that you want to teach the way of truth. Therefore I would ask for an answer to this question. It is of weight to us. Would you say it is lawful to give tribute to Caesar? Or shall we not give?"

  With all the gentle warmth that this man offered, I also knew that the Devil had minions who were equally fair. If I replied that one must not give tribute to Caesar, which was the reply, I expect, that he awaited, then these Pharisees could tell the Procurator of Jerusalem that I was leading a rebellion against the Romans.

  My wit, however, was like an arrow. I said, "Give me a coin."

  When they brought it, I asked, "Whose face is on this money?"

  The scribe replied, "Caesar's."

  I said, "Render to Caesar the things that are Caesars. And to God the things that belong to God." I was pleased. For I was also telling them that Mammon was a god for the Romans, not the Jews.

  I could feel their respect. Now they saw that I not only had the strength to overturn the tables of the moneylenders but the wisdom to avoid a rash reply.

  Later, upon reflection, I would also know that my remark had been too clever. While many a church would survive in evil lands by giving homage to Caesar, I was not here to build churches but to bring sinners to salvation. Why, then, had I given that reply? Had God decided on prudence as the better path? Would He now allow churches to grow in the swamps of pride and Mammon?

  I could see that the scribe who addressed me as Master wanted to continue our discourse. He asked: "What, by your understanding, is the first Commandment of them all?"

  I answered: " 'The Lord, our God, is one Lord.' This must be the first Commandment. The second is to love thy neighbor as thyself."

  The scribe said: "To love one's neighbor as oneself is more than all burnt offerings and sacrifices."

  He was wise in the way he spoke to me. Could he be the Master of the Book in this Great Temple? His manners were as subtle as his well-curled beard. And his speech was as handsome as his appearance. Yet his eyes were pale like the faded blue of the sky when the sky is white. So I did not trust him. Still, I listened as he said: "Here, we are all circumcised. We share a single faith. Many of us in this Temple believe that you have not come here to rend us asunder but to bring us nearer to one another. And this we still believe, even though disruption has followed you like the dust before a storm." He paused to great effect. All among us were now listening to him. "Still," he said, "there are storms that cleanse. So I would ask of you, Master, when will the Kingdom of God be with us?

  As he spoke, I could hear the same two voices that live side by side in many a Pharisee. Their speech is often endowed with good manners, but there is also quiet mockery in their utterance and this is as finely sifted into their courtesies as powder into sand. Nonetheless, I listened. For he was not without some desire to believe that I was the Son of Man. It was possible that the priests who had sent him were also ready to listen. We spoke, therefore, as men who were equal. Only in the second hour did he reveal his knowledge of the scrolls, and thereby began a gentle dispute over the working of cures on the Sabbath.

  "Do you recall the verse," he asked, "that says: 'And while the children of Israel were in the wilderness, they found a man that gathered sticks upon the Sabbath day, and they brought him to Moses and Aaron and to all the congregation. But the Lord said to Moses, "The man shall surely be put to death: all the congregation shall stone him." And the congregation took him outside the camp and did stone him and he died.'" The scribe now said, "That was a thousand years ago, and our congregation today would not stone such a man. Yet the principle may remain. You shall not work on the Sabbath."

  I replied that I had answered this question many times. "If you circumcise a babe on the Sabbath," I told him, "then you may also lift the scales from the blind and flex the limbs of the halt."

  But here he began to speak with such skill that I did not know how or where to interrupt.

  He said, "I have been waiting for all of this year to talk with you. For I have thought of your works, Master, and I would say, even as the prophet Samuel said to King Saul: 'Rebellion is the sin of witchcraft.' Contemplate what I have just said. If you come from Him whom you will not declare but wish us to believe is the Lord, why not say as much? For i
f you refuse to declare yourself, suffering could result from your good deeds. Your cures could appear to us as witchcraft and full of the bright fire of rebellion. We in the Temple fear that fire. We have labored for ten hundred years to learn what is in the Book. Many have died for the five books of the Torah. Yet with the strength of our beliefs we have built the walls of this Temple. We are able to live by the light it provides us. It is the same light that was given to us by the deeds of our martyrs. They died for our scrolls and our laws. So I would remind you, even as it is written in First Maccabees, that King Antiochus, a heathen king, was set over us, and he declared to his whole kingdom that we should now be one people, Jews and gentiles alike. And all were ordered to obey the laws of this new religion even if it was not ours.

  "The gentiles agreed. To our shame, many Israelites also consented to a faith that worshipped idols. Indeed, so many accepted these edicts of Antiochus that the only clear measure of a man who was still a good Jew came to be that you could kill him before he would profane the Sabbath.

  "Then, King Antiochus commanded us to abstain from circumcising our children. Whoever did not obey would die. Good Israelites had to flee Jerusalem. The priests of King Antiochus then placed swine upon the altar. Whoever was found with the Book was put to death. When soldiers found infants who were circumcised, they killed them. And they hung the priests who performed the circumcision.

  "We learned then," said the scribe, "that our Book could not restrain evil unless all of us gave absolute obedience to the laws of the Book. When we listen, therefore, to what you say, we do not always hear your understanding of the ten hundred years of the Book. Nor do we feel your recognition of the martyrs who died for the Law. Instead, we see that in your haste to serve God, you encourage publicans, sinners, even the uncircumcised. You rush to destroy all that you have learned in all the years of your schooling. Do you not comprehend that blind rejection of the Law is as evil as idolatry?"

  I could hear more and more sounds of assent among those who listened. Some of my own people were muttering that he was right. And many had wept as he spoke of the deaths of these martyrs.

  I was slow to reply. "Do not think," I told him, "that I am here to deny the Law or the prophets. I have not come to destroy but to fulfill." Here I stopped, and looked into his pale eyes. "Unless the righteousness of my followers exceeds the righteousness of your scribes and Pharisees, we shall not enter the Kingdom of Heaven."

  Before he could reply, I added: "All that you say is just if people observe the Book. But they do not. This land of Israel has committed so many great sins that the Lord now looks upon the people of Israel as living in whoredom. Are we not supposed to find a way to save the whore?"

  The scribe answered in a tone so light and so full of the wings of confidence that his words danced upon his tongue; in that moment I heard Satan stir in his throat. For he said: "Save the whore? Yes, you will finish by saying to gentiles, a people who are not your people, 'You are my people,' and they will say, 'You are my God.' " And the scribe laughed softly. All the mockery he had mixed into his courtesy settled over me. It was as if he had seen all things evil and wise where I had not. So he knew to a certainty that gentiles were ignorant and worshipped statues whereas he, like other good Pharisees, was of the Chosen.

  I did not speak until I could find the words I sought. And then I spoke in Hebrew, even as I had read it in the Book. "From the words of Ezekiel," I said: " 'My sheep were scattered because there is no shepherd, and they became meek to all the beasts of the field when they were scattered. Neither did My shepherds search for My flock, but fed themselves. Behold, I am against the shepherds.' "

  "And these shepherds," the scribe answered, "are kin to me? Can it be that this is what you say?"

  I was thinking that even a drunken man would know what it was now politic to say. I was lacking in all knowledge of how to offer what would gain the most and offend the least. But then I had no desire to be politic. I wanted these Pharisees to remember my words forever.

  "I look," I told the scribe, "to gather my flock from all places, from wherever they have been scattered. So I do not despise those who are uncircumcised or those who are ignorant of the Book."

  "Are you saying that you would give a light to the gentiles?" he asked.

  "Yes," I said. "That would be for the salvation of all." The scribe was silent; I think he was weary. He had studied the teachings of the great prophets, and they had dreamed of the hour when God would bring salvation to Israel. But it had not come to pass. Was the scribe wondering whether this Galilean and his peasants could know more about salvation than our heroes and prophets, even the kings of the glorious and holy past?

  I continued to speak. "The Lord," I said, "has made my mouth a sharp sword. In the shadow of His hand He has hidden me. He has told me: 'Raise up the tribes of Jacob and the strong reserve of Israel.' But He also said: 'I will give you a light to the gentiles in order that you may be My salvation unto all the ends of the earth.'" To which the scribe said, "Is that not blasphemy?" I replied, "It is what my Father has said." On these words he left. With him went many who agreed with his thoughts. A large number. I was alone again with my followers.

  36

  As the shadows in the great courtyard grew longer with the lowering of the sun, echoes kept returning of all that had been contested between the scribe and myself. Now that I could speak with no one to dispute me, I was more ready to say all that I thought. For I could see that my Father's cause would not prevail unless I was prepared to battle the powers of this Temple, and the great walls of their thought. So I must speak with the mightiest words I could find. Indeed, I could hear the voice of the Lord coming forth from me without errant thoughts of my own. There were Pharisees still among us, and I began by saying: "The elders sit in the seat of Moses, and the Great Temple of Jerusalem is their throne. Whatever these elders bid you to observe, observe it. But do not do as they do. For they lay heavy pieties on men's shoulders, yet they will not raise a finger to move our burdens. Rather they look for the chief seats in the synagogues and the uppermost rooms at feasts."

  Immediately, the Pharisees stirred. Some began to leave. Yet a few, as if twice fortified, remained to spy upon what I would say further. So I mocked them. I spoke in their voice as if I too were a Pharisee. " 'Look upon me,' " I told them. " 'Am I not prosperous?'" And then said in my own voice, "Do any of you grieve over the bent fingers of the old woman who embroiders the fringe of your prayer shawl?"

  Bolder Pharisees began to hoot and others, more timid, chose to leave. But I could also see the faces of those who had lost their houses through the sharp practice of others. "Why," I asked the Pharisees, "did you not feed the widow's children instead of acquiring the house? Slaves of Mammon! If you swear by the gold of the Temple, you will become a debtor to the Lord. Fools! You are blind! You pay tithes of mint and anise and cumin according to the Law and you omit the weightier matters of the Law, which are judgment and mercy and faith. You strain at a gnat and swallow a camel. You clean the outside of the cup and leave the inside full of extortion and excess. You are like sepulchers, beautiful and white, that are full of dead men's bones. You build the tombs of the prophets, yet you are the children of those who killed the prophets."

  The Lord had given me these words, and at last I could speak in the brave voice of John the Baptist. I was truly his cousin. "Behold," I said. "I will send prophets to you, and wise men. Some you will kill and some you will crucify; some you will persecute from city to city. And upon you will fall all the righteous blood shed upon the earth until this day.

  "O Jerusalem, Jerusalem! You have stoned those who were sent unto you!"

  My words fell upon them. All the while, my heart was heavier than the blows they received to their pride. For my words were not false. I knew that these were my people and this was my Temple, and so I must mourn for Israel.

  And I could see that it was time to leave. The Pharisees had summoned the Temple Guard.

  Y
et the throng who still surrounded me had been moved by my words. My people were so ready to protect me that they were like a tempest of whirling sand ready to sting the eyes of any man who interfered with my leaving. Some of the guards held rocks in their hands. But not one was thrown. No man laid hands on my garments. My hour was not come. The guards approached and fell back, approached and fell back, and my eyes told them not to touch my cloth.

  In that manner, I departed from the Temple on that first day.

  37

  Once we were outside the walls, the larger part of this throng now climbed with me to the Mount of Olives. And we were full of joy. I alone could feel the darkness beneath the exaltation.

  One after another, disciples came forward to ask: "When are these great things to come? Will we rise at the end of the world?"

  I said to them: "The end of the world will come only when I am no longer among you."

  As I said this I could feel their pain, and that brought tears to my eyes. For I could see that they loved me more than they did not; I felt again the need to bring them counsel, and so I spoke of the visions in my dream.

  I said: "You shall hear of wars and rumors of wars. Nation shall rise against nation and kingdom against kingdom. There will be famine and pestilence and earthquake. All these are but the beginning of sorrow. Others will gather you up to kill you. You shall be hated by all nations for my name's sake. Iniquity will abound. The love of gold will afflict many. But those who endure to the end will be saved. And you shall preach this gospel of the Kingdom to all nations."

  In that instant, surrounded by my people, who swayed and cried out at these words, I thought of the minions of the Devil. Was it the Lord's warning? These minions would also come upon the earth, and in my name, and they would be armed with a store of small miracles. Each would claim to be the return of myself. Bottomless deceptions lay before us! I said: