The Silence of Gethsemane

by Michel Benoît

  What reason did they have to follow me now? For some fanciful notion of a Kingdom that was a long way off, yet which had somehow arrived? For a theoretical feast with an Abba that no Jew had ever heard of?

  But what frightened them more than the physical danger was that they might have misjudged me; that I had misled them.

  It was then I noticed that Judas was standing with Peter.

  Without a moment’s hesitation I decided to take the Judaean’s advice. Not far from here, in the village of Ephraim, there was a small community of Essenes. Their comrades at Qumran had helped me survive when I was in the wilderness, and one of them had told me that they could tell by my reasoning that I was a man after their own heart. So perhaps those at Ephraim could provide me with a breathing space for a few hours?

  For the second time in my life my path would lead me to the Sons of Light.

  46

  I spent the night praying on the sand, while my disciples slept – yes, already.

  Wherever I went from now on, I would be an outcast. In Galilee, Herod’s police would soon pick up my trail. In Jerusalem and the surrounding area, the Sanhedrin’s arrest warrant would never be far behind. Every human being is born to die – but as soon as I decided to follow in the footsteps of John the Baptist and then take on the mantle of Elijah, I was born to be killed. Yet our basic instincts refuse to accept this fact, and do all they can to avoid it. Would I have to leave my native land and go and live in the Jewish Diaspora in Antioch or Alexandria? To forget that when he decides to follow the special calling of his people to the very end, no Jew is ever ordinary?

  Why us Jews? Why me? If I had asked the One whom no one is permitted to question – as Job discovered to his cost – it would have choked off the silence that was struggling to rise up out of the darkness.

  For at that moment, more than anything I needed silence.

  By the time the first rays of dawn were lighting up the horizon, I had come to a decision: the journey that began when I left the family workshop in Capernaum to go and listen to the Baptist’s gruff voice would end in Jerusalem. A Jew accepts death, but he is forbidden actively to seek it out; I wasn’t intending to commit suicide, I would do everything I could not to be caught – or at least, not too soon. Not before I had played the final note of a symphony that had been composed by Someone other than me.

  As a devout Jew, I knew I could seek refuge in the palm of his hand, this Other. It was into his hands that I commended my spirit, my life, my soul.

  So on a bright sunny morning in Judaea I set off on the road to Jerusalem. Followed by my disciples – but for how much longer?

  Since Lazarus could expect to avoid the consequences of his “resurrection” due to his position in society, I went straight to his house at Bethany to find him. I was soon joined by the Judaean, who, being less prominent than Nicodemus, was able to come and go more easily. There were things we had to discuss.

  Lazarus was the first to ask me a question that must have been bothering him ever since he started to follow – albeit from a distance – my short-lived career: why on earth had I taken such an extreme line over everything? I told him quite sharply that I hadn’t been extreme, except perhaps in putting compassion before all ideological belief. To fight Evil is to refuse to admit defeat when faced with human suffering, whatever its cause and in whatever shape or form it appears. And I went on to say that it was Judaism that is extreme, because it only acknowledges One God among all the different deities in the world, and one Law out of the vast array of legal systems used by the human race. If I had broken the Law, it was in order to stretch it to its limit. Was taking the intuition of the prophets all the way to this limit, where it sinks into the silence of God, the behaviour of an extremist?

  “So the life you lead is that of a prophet?” said Lazarus.

  Does any life have a precise trajectory? Was I able to define mine by what I was? Or, like the vast majority of people, by what I had failed to be? My life couldn’t be defined in terms of its actions; I was asking my friends to judge it by the powerful intuition that had been its driving force ever since I left the family home.

  “In that case,” said Lazarus, with a note of finality, “you know what you have to do. A prophet never ceases to prophesy; it is only Jerusalem that is able to silence his voice.”

  The Judaean took a more businesslike approach. On the day that I went into hiding in the village of Ephraim, he had walked round the Temple esplanade, listening to gossip. Everyone was wondering if I would show myself during the Passover, which was in four days’ time. Some people were saying: “Surely he won’t come to the festival, will he?” He had detected a tremendous sense of expectation among the crowds, one that was shared by my disciples – which is probably why they stayed with me in spite of everything. Yet he was wary of them, and felt they represented as much of a risk to me as did the members of the Sanhedrin. When I dismissed this suggestion he pulled me up short – it might just be that he had a clearer idea of what was going on in their minds than I did at the moment. And he went on to say (in terms I didn’t really understand at the time) that his main concern was to protect me from their political ambitions.

  So I had to make a decision. I couldn’t stay with Lazarus, although as long as I moved around among the throng of pilgrims I would be untouchable – the Jewish police would never dare arrest me on the Temple esplanade, which is where fugitives from justice usually seek sanctuary.

  So I would spend the day in the shadows beneath the pillars that run along the esplanade of Solomon, while in the evenings I would slip back quietly to the safety of the oil press in the Garden of Gethsemane at the foot of the Mount of Olives, which looks out over the Temple. No Jew would dare venture there at night because of the tombs that are dotted all over the Kidron Valley, which would cause them to become unclean if they strayed too close to them in the darkness.

  One question remained: what of the Passover? How and where would we be able to celebrate the festival of Jewish national identity? The custom for poorer families is to club together to buy a lamb that is ritually slaughtered the day before in the Temple, which is transformed into a vast abattoir for the occasion. The carcass is then collected by one of the families, who invite their neighbours to share the meat before sitting down to a private celebratory dinner. Even wealthy people share, for this is part of the tradition – a Jew never spends the Passover away from his own kind.

  It was out of the question for me openly to share the paschal lamb with Lazarus’s family and neighbours. So what were we to do?

  The Judaean thought for a moment, then made a suggestion. Of all the different factions that existed in Israel, the Essenes were the ones I had treated with the most sensitivity. My criticism of them had always been oblique, and in many of the ways we chose to live, my disciples and I felt close to them – so why not celebrate as they did? Ever since they had been with me, my disciples had followed my example and stopped sacrificing in the Temple. A meal without lamb – which although not truly paschal was still solemn and sacramental – would make us feel part of the people of Moses as they commemorated the crossing of the Red Sea.

  As for where… The safest place would be his house, since it was in the western part of the city, home to many prominent people and Caiaphas’s palace, which was closely guarded by the Jewish police. No one would think of looking for us there.

  I straight away agreed, and thanked the Judaean for being brave enough to invite us to his home. He said that one of his servants carrying a water jar would meet us, and lead us through this affluent neighbourhood, where we had never set foot before. Without that, our appearance and Galilean accents would soon give us away.

  When I left Lazarus’s house I wanted to tell my disciples, but once again they were nowhere to be seen. By now it was getting dark. Keeping to the shadows on the outside of the city wall, I made my way to the Garden of Gethsemane.

  Alone.

  47

  My disciples joined me
later, guided by Judas, who knew a route that avoided the tombs, and we settled down for the night as the Passover moon rose higher in the sky.

  There were three days left before the start of the festival – three days that now seem like a lifetime, yet which went by like a whirlwind. The next morning there were so many people around the Temple that I didn’t feel at all anxious as I walked up the colossal entrance steps: the police wouldn’t take any notice of a pilgrim in a well-made coat because they were looking for a fugitive dressed in rags. Yet as soon as people realized I was there, they came at me in a great tide to try and make me say something, just as a bull is stunned before the fatal blow is struck. I had always thought that I was the one on the attack, but now I had to hold my position every inch of the way.

  It was the Sadducees in their tall hats who led the charge. They were aware that, like Hillel, I had said there was life after death – although unlike him I described the afterlife in some detail as a kingly feast. They referred to the passage in the Law that says that if a Jew’s brother dies leaving a wife but no children, he has a duty to marry the widow. In unctuous tones they asked: if the eldest of seven brothers dies and leaves no children, does the second-eldest brother not have to marry his widow? But if the second brother also dies, and likewise all of the remaining brothers, none of them leaving children… then according to my teaching about the resurrection on the Last Day, of all the brothers whose wife will she be – because all seven have married her one after another?

  Theologians! Wasn’t it typical of them to split hairs! As the crowd stood listening, I replied calmly and unhurriedly. To be resurrected doesn’t mean coming back to life in the same body and with the same desires although in different climes. The proof could be found in those I had healed, who had each been recreated as a new person, not just a resurrection of the old one; similar to their original self, but no longer dancing to Evil’s tune. This is what the simpleton in Capernaum and all the others had experienced, a sensation of euphoria at being cured. I explained that when we are reborn on the Last Day we will be like the angels in heaven, of whom we know nothing except that they stand rejoicing in the presence of God for all eternity.

  As for the Law…

  “Have you not read in the book of Moses, in the story about the Burning Bush, how God said to him: ‘I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob’? He is God not of the dead, but of the living.”

  Faced with these men wearing the insignia of their power, and who regarded God as their personal property, I thought back to my time in the wilderness, which was much like Moses’s experience at the Burning Bush. And I told them that they were quite wrong – for at the top of Mount Sinai, the Law was set in stone. But in the presence of the God of loving kindness it takes on new life, trampling down death for ever. There is no more death; my God is the God of the living.

  Once again I insisted that my source lay in the origins of the Law, in the story of the Patriarchs.

  Among the audience I recognized the Scribe who had once asked me about the order in which the commandments should be placed. He had been listening carefully, and smiled at me before walking away, telling anyone who cared to listen that I had answered well. In public, the Sadducees and the Scribes avoided locking horns with each other like they do in the Council; the bemitred men took no notice of him, and just disappeared. Here I was protected by the crowd, who were delighted to see me stand up to them.

  In Galilee I had always sensed that I was talking to the majority, the Judaism into which I was born. What set my teaching apart was that it was based on the belief that opposites could co-exist and didn’t cancel each other out: thus the familiarity of the word Abba was not an act of lese-majesty towards the Father Almighty, nor did the law of the heart negate the commandments. I wasn’t abolishing anything (except for hypocritical oaths and barbaric divorce laws), I was helping the flower of Judaism to bring forth its finest fruit. But this wasn’t the place for such subtle distinctions: you had to be on one side or the other or keep quiet.

  But during the night I spent at Ephraim, I had decided not to keep quiet.

  By blending in with the crowd I managed to get back to the Garden of Gethsemane. I found my disciples standing on the slope, gazing at the great edifice of the Temple in the light of the setting sun.

  “Look, Rabbi,” they said, “what large stones, what large buildings!”

  My mind still full of the altercation with the Sadducees, I just mumbled that it was nothing, that it would all be cast down eventually. Peter and the Boanerges brothers immediately took me aside. With conspiracy written all over their faces they asked me what I knew, if the end was approaching, if I was going to give the sign that everyone was waiting for.

  There was nothing I could say. If they were so incensed with destroying the Temple then why not do so, another one would only take its place, if not in Jerusalem then somewhere else. Who knows, they might be the ones to lay the foundation stones personally. The Temple of God, however, was them themselves – but they were prevented from entering it by the great gates of their ambition.

  I looked round for Iscariot. So where was Judas?

  48

  In Galilee, Roman legionaries were few and far between, but in Judaea their constant presence helped keep the nationalists’ feelings of hatred alive as if rubbing salt into a wound. After the events of the last two days, I had to wait until the next morning before I was asked for my opinion about the laws that were imposed by the occupying power, the way it governed and plundered the country.

  The first shots were fired by a group of Herod’s minor officials, who were used for low-level intelligence-gathering in Galilee. I was surprised to see them keeping company with prominent Pharisees. Was it mere coincidence that these natural enemies happened to be there at the same time, or had they joined forces in order to try and entrap me, knowing the crowd of pilgrims in Jerusalem was swarming with Zealots?

  They took the same sly, ingratiating approach as the Sadducees the day before.

  “Rabbi, we know that you are sincere and show deference to no one; for you do not regard people with partiality, but teach the way of God in accordance with truth…”

  Beneath the honeyed words and the deep, exaggerated bows, I detected the poisoned arrow.

  “Tell us: is it lawful to pay taxes to Caesar, yes or no?”

  The barb went deep. As well as indirect taxation, the various provinces under Roman rule have to pay a set tax imposed on colonies. In the year 12, the nationalists had rebelled against this tribute, which is like a shameful brand burnt into the flesh of the Jews, while the Zealots forbid their followers to pay it at all. To answer “yes” would be to defend the Roman occupation and thus alienate myself from the only nation in the world who stubbornly refuses to submit to it, and make enemies of the fanatical supporters of independence as well as the silent majority who are secretly on their side. To say “no” would mean being immediately arrested by Roman soldiers.

  The Pharisees in Galilee had already heard me denounce the practice of oath-taking, and describe the basis for a non-religious partnership between the sacred and the secular. But now I was confronted with senior members of both the clerical and civil authorities, who always make common cause when it comes to safeguarding their privileges. I asked to see a coin of the kind used to pay taxes.

  “Whose head is this on it, and whose title?”

  “Caesar’s!” they answered with one voice.

  “In that case,” I said, “give to Caesar what is Caesar’s, and to God what is God’s!”

  In the space of a few words I had managed to unite the entire esplanade against me. The Zealots, who were furious that I had defended the tax on colonies – as if the land of Israel belonged to Caesar! The Herodians, offended that I had publicly reminded everyone that they only paid lip service to God. The senior clergy in Jerusalem, who would never allow the religious and civil authorities to be separated. And last but not least the mob, among them my
disciples, who were disappointed as well as outraged that I hadn’t taken a stand against Rome in the name of mystical beliefs that they neither understood nor shared.

  The mass of people moved away, leaving me in the open, and a group of Scribes took advantage of my sudden isolation. Of all the Pharisees, these thinkers are the most dangerous; when they saw them appear, the crowd gathered round again. The Scribes asked if I believed that the long-awaited Messiah was the son of David.

  It was a particularly shrewd and underhand question, which in a sense encapsulated everything that they held against me. Hadn’t there been whisperings in Galilee (and not just among my disciples) that I might be the Messiah? Didn’t other people say that the Messiah was the son of God, by whom the divine presence is maintained on earth? Whatever the case, if the Messiah were the son of David – the priest-king – didn’t that prove that the civil and religious powers in Israel could never be taken in isolation?

  Faced with these past masters in the art of pedantry, there was only one way to answer such a multifaceted question: by referring to the sacred text. Speaking over their heads to the crowd behind them, I said:

  “How can the Scribes say that the Messiah is the son of David?”

  In one of his Psalms, which all my listeners would be familiar with, doesn’t David himself speak to God and call him Lord? So how could he be his son?

  Although I don’t think the crowd appreciated the finer points of the argument, they were always quick to show their delight whenever the little rabbi from Galilee put members of the supreme authority in their place. As previously with the wealthy young man, I had stated quite plainly that I was not the son of God. Now cheated of the main reason for levelling a charge against me, that of blasphemy, which was punishable by death, the assault receded. One or two of them came over and quietly congratulated me for giving such a good answer.