On the Third Day

by Piers Paul Read

  Jake had unlocked the gate and pulled a number of switches which lit a series of lights along the tunnel. He then stood back to let his father pass through, followed by Cardinal Memel, Father Pierre, Anna, and Andrew, before closing the gate and following at the rear.

  The tunnel was long. The left side was made of concrete, so Andrew was unable to tell what soil or structures it had cut through; but the right side, being the Western Wall of the Temple Mount, showed all the exquisite craftsmanship of Herod’s stonemasons. Every now and then, Dagan would stop to demonstrate, for example, how the unmortared joins between the blocks were so tight that it was impossible to insert a ten-agorot piece; or to point out the largest block in the whole edifice which, he estimated, would weigh four hundred tons.

  As they proceeded, Andrew began to feel dizzy. He had visited excavations of this kind before – he had been deep into the pyramids in Egypt and the royal tombs in Mesopotamia – but, as they continued walking through the musty air, he became oppressed by the fear that there might be a fall of rock which would bury them alive. Of course, the thought was absurd because the tunnel had been in use for some time, but reason cannot always master the kind of irrational panic brought on by claustrophobia. Although they had been underground now for only a quarter of an hour, Andrew became convinced that this subterranean journey had lasted much longer, and to doubt that he would ever see daylight again.

  He felt faint. He wanted to cry out, but dared not for fear that Jake and Anna would think him a fool. He kept his eyes fixed on the blue denim of Anna’s jeans until Professor Dagan stopped once again.

  ‘We have reached the point,’ he said, turning to face the Cardinal, ‘where Herod’s retaining wall leaves the side of the Tyropean Valley and cuts into the bedrock beneath the Antonia fortress. To your right, you will see how the rock face is dressed to look like the wall. Further along, we come to the point where the wall cuts through the cistern, and where the Hasmonean channel bringing water down from the north of the city had to be dammed.’

  Andrew peered over the shoulder of Cardinal Memel, and glanced cursorily at the narrow defile, but his eyes, like the Cardinal’s, were drawn to the black hole in the Western Wall where one of the massive stones had been removed.

  Dagan, too, seemed to appreciate that he must abandon his act and get to the point. He turned towards the wall and showed them the points where the solid rock ceased and the man-made wall resumed. Then came a pillar of bedrock, which must have stood in the centre of the cistern, with steps cut in the side to give access to the water. ‘What we suspected,’ said Dagan, ‘but wanted to verify, was that this cistern was connected to a series of others, built beneath the Temple, to meet the considerable demands for water made by ritual purification. It therefore seemed plausible to go through the wall into the other half of the cistern, and from there to explore areas which have remained unknown, certainly since the destruction of Herod’s Temple.’

  ‘What about the Muslims?’ asked Cardinal Memel.

  ‘We felt it could be done without disturbing them,’ said Dagan. ‘It was a matter of cutting around a single block, and removing it from the wall.’

  They turned to the wall and looked at the rectangular hole. As they did so, Jake pulled a switch behind them and a yellowish light became visible from the other side.

  ‘We can go in,’ said Dagan. ‘You will find a shelf of rock, when you go through, which is four or five metres above the bottom of the cistern. There is a ladder from there down to the floor. Please be careful where you walk. We have left everything exactly as it was found.’

  He went to the wall, stooped, and went head-first through the hole. The others waited to follow him in the same order as before. Anna, standing in front of Andrew, glanced up at him uncertainly.

  ‘Are you OK?’ she asked.

  He smiled to reassure her. ‘A little dizzy, but I’ll be fine.’

  Anna went through the wall. Andrew followed and found himself standing on a narrow shelf of rock, looking down into the other half of the cistern.

  Like others he had seen before, it had probably been a cave which had been extended and rounded off by masons. The lights which had been set up by the Israeli archaeologists were more than enough to illuminate the walls. Two of them were pointing down at what looked like a pile of rubble, laid out on a plastic sheet on the floor of the cistern.

  Since Jake was now coming through the hole in the wall behind him, Andrew climbed down the ladder, but, as he reached the bottom and walked towards the plastic sheet, he stopped and started swaying from side to side. His dizziness had become acute, and he saw Anna, as she turned towards him, in a blur. He felt himself fall, then caught, held, and led back towards the wall.

  ‘It’s so stuffy,’ he mumbled.

  ‘Sure,’ said Anna, who was holding on to one of his arms. ‘You’d better sit down.’

  With Anna on one side and Jake on the other, he leaned back against the rock.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said.

  ‘Don’t be silly,’ said Anna. ‘There’s no air in here. And it’s creepy. I’m not sure I want to see a skeleton, whether it’s Jesus Christ or John Brown.’

  Her words reminded Andrew why he was there – to use his professional skill and judgement to form an opinion about something of overwhelming importance. The challenge restored him. He stepped forward.

  ‘Rest a moment,’ said Jake, holding on to his shoulder.

  ‘No. You see, I’m the archaeologist. The others cannot judge.’

  ‘There’s plenty of time.’

  ‘I’m fine, really I am.’ Andrew stepped forward – the faintness was gone – and walked unaided towards Professor Dagan, Cardinal Memel and Father Pierre.

  They stood looking down at a human skeleton which lay cradled in one half of an enormous earthenware jar. Andrew could see at once that the bones were exceptionally well preserved. He could tell, for example, that, although the body had lain in a foetal position at the bottom of the jar, it was that of a man around five and half feet tall, with short legs and a powerful torso. Some of the ribs on the left side had caved in but those on the right remained in place. The jaw-bone had become detached from the skull, but the skull itself was in good condition. The teeth, in particular, were as sound as those of many a living man, and suggested death at a relatively early age. Most startling of all, however, were not the bones or the teeth but the huge rusty nail which still ran through both ankles.

  ‘Is this how you found it?’ asked Cardinal Memel.

  ‘More or less,’ said Dagan. ‘The storage jar lay on its side, and it was cracked. We did not expect to find anything of particular interest inside, and meant to remove it to the Institute to study its contents. We then realized that it would be impossible to carry it up the ladder and through the hole in the wall without disturbing the contents, so we laid it on this plastic sheet and opened it just as you see it now.’

  ‘Nothing has been changed since then?’

  ‘Nothing at all.’

  ‘That is most interesting,’ said Cardinal Memel, pointing to the nail which transfixed the ankles.

  ‘It seems that the legs were twisted before being nailed to the cross,’ said Dagan.

  ‘There are other instances of crucifixions of this kind,’ said Jake.

  ‘And did you realize at once that it might be Jesus?’ asked Cardinal Memel.

  ‘It is not for me to say whose skeleton it might be.’

  ‘No, of course not. But it was inevitable, finding a body in a cistern …’

  ‘It was not so unusual to find a body,’ said Dagan, ‘because there are tombs cut into the rock all over and around Jerusalem, many of them close to cisterns. What was unusual was to find the body in a jar, not in an ossuary.’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘If the family or the friends of a dead man had taken the trouble to bury him deep beneath the Temple, you would assume they would have placed the body in a decorated ossuary, or even a sarcophagus. It also
seemed curious that so much trouble had been taken to bury the body of a criminal in this way.’

  ‘So you thought that it might be Jesus?’

  ‘I had to be careful. I did not wish to look foolish, like Sukenik.’

  ‘Who was Sukenik?’ asked Cardinal Memel.

  ‘The father of Yadin. After the war, in a tomb in Talpirth, he found an ossuary with a graffito which seemed to suggest that it contained the bones of Jesus.’

  ‘And it didn’t?’

  ‘No. His inferences were successfully refuted by your compatriot, Kane.’

  ‘But it must have occurred to you …’

  ‘Certainly, when I examined the skeleton, and found marks consistent with what was said to have been done to Christ …’

  ‘The nail through the ankles?’

  ‘Yes. And look at the skull.’

  Cardinal Memel took a pen-torch from one of his pockets and a magnifying glass from another, crouched and peered through the glass at the skull. ‘Yes. That’s extraordinary.’ He looked up and turned to Andrew. ‘Here, Brother,’ he said in an excited tone of voice. ‘Come and look at this. You can actually see traces of the crown of thorns.’

  Andrew knelt down and, sure enough, on the surface of the skull, he could see a faint tracery of scratches.

  ‘Because the cistern was airtight,’ said Professor Dagan, ‘the skeleton is better preserved than many others we have found. We have sent samples away for analysis and carbon-dating of both the bones and what remains of the skin. Preliminary reports suggest that there are chemical compounds within these fragments consistent with the theory that the lacerations could have been made by the curved spikes of plaited Sisyphus spina Christi, which was indigenous to Palestine at the time.’

  ‘And the marks on the bones?’ asked the Cardinal, turning his attention to the rib-cage of the skeleton.

  ‘The measurements taken between the two incisions match the known width of the blade of a Roman spear.’

  ‘But all this could be a coincidence,’ said Father Pierre sceptically. ‘There were many thousands of Jews crucified during this period. Many might have been given a coup de grâce with a spear.’

  ‘And crowned with thorns?’ asked the Cardinal.

  The Frenchman shrugged. ‘Perhaps it was customary to torment prisoners in this way.’

  ‘Of course,’ said Professor Dagan.

  The Cardinal turned to Andrew. ‘You’re the archaeologist, Brother. What do you say?’

  ‘We are trained never to jump to conclusions,’ said Andrew.

  ‘Of course,’ said Michal Dagan. ‘And these are not conclusions. These are only preliminary findings, but we thought it proper to involve others at once.’

  ‘And the Church appreciates your so doing,’ said Cardinal Memel.

  ‘I was thinking less of institutions,’ said Dagan drily, ‘than of my fellow archaeologists, particularly Father Lambert.’

  ‘Of course, of course,’ said the Cardinal, glancing at his secretary. ‘And he, quite clearly, was convinced.’

  ‘When did it occur to you,’ asked Father Pierre, ‘that it might be the body of Christ?’

  ‘As a speculation? Almost at once.’

  ‘You remembered the Vilnius Codex?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And put two and two together?’

  ‘Not at once. But when we found the marks on the bones …’

  ‘You realized that it might be Christ?’

  ‘I realized that I should call Father Lambert.’

  Cardinal Memel looked back at the skeleton. ‘Just think, gentlemen. If Father Lambert was right, then we are looking at the earthly remains of our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ.’

  ‘“I have gazed upon the face of Agamemnon,”’ said Father Pierre scornfully.

  ‘What’s that?’ asked the Cardinal.

  Father Pierre turned to Andrew. ‘Wasn’t that what Schliemann said when he discovered the gold mask of a king at Mycenae?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And was it Agamemnon?’

  ‘It is now thought it was not.’

  ‘Father, Brother,’ said the Cardinal reprovingly. ‘This is not the moment for bavardage. I should like to suggest, if our Israeli hosts do not mind, that we stand and say a prayer together.’

  He grunted, slightly, as he got to his feet. Father Pierre gave Andrew a covert look as if to say: ‘What a clown.’ But in obedience to their superior both he and Andrew stood beside the Cardinal with bowed heads and clasped hands while Professor Dagan and his two children withdrew discreetly to the ledge of rock.

  ‘Almighty God and Father,’ prayed Cardinal Memel in his deep bass voice, ‘you have in your mercy drawn back the veils of mystery over the meaning of our existence and your creation, enabling us to rise out of our condition of sinful ignorance into a life of grace and truth. Help us now, we beg you, to understand the true meaning of what we see before our eyes, so that we may go forth from this cavern beneath the foundations of your holy Temple, and carry its message to the waiting world.’

  Walking back down the long tunnel to the plaza in front of the Western Wall, Andrew’s thoughts and feelings about what he had just seen were constrained by the role he had adopted in the cistern, of an archaeologist whose judgement could affect the future history of the world. He even wore a thoughtful and slightly self-important expression, as if pondering a question of science, not reconsidering a matter of faith.

  When, at last, he took off his paper cap and stepped out into the hot, bright sunshine, he did not drop this role for that of an anguished believer who had just had the rug pulled out from under his feet. Instead, he felt a sudden, irrepressible burst of high spirits which made him want to run across the plaza and jump for joy.

  He told himself that it was only relief at escaping from the confines of the tunnel which had changed his mood in this way; and he was restrained from obeying the impulse to run, skip or even smile by the presence of the Cardinal and Professor Dagan. He confined himself to catching Anna’s eye, and giving the kind of complicit wink that one mischievous child directs at another, which elicited from her one of her wry smiles. It was only when he reached the car that he understood that the relief he felt was not just at escaping from the tunnel, but also at returning unaffected by what he had seen.

  He knew, of course, that it would be irresponsible and unprofessional to reach any fixed conclusion without further painstaking research. Even then, it was unlikely that anyone would ever be certain one way or the other. Father Lambert had apparently accepted that the balance of probability came down in favour of the hypothesis that this was the skeleton of Jesus Christ: what made Andrew so happy was that, unlike Father Lambert, he had discovered the truth before it was too late.

  He knew that this was an entirely egotistical reaction, and for a moment felt the usual twinge of bad conscience; but then that twinge was overridden by the liberating realization that if Christ did not rise from the dead, then all the struggle to be unselfish was futile. What was the point, now, of continuously chastising himself for being what he was – someone young, healthy, intelligent and, at that particular moment, in enormously high spirits?

  They drove back to the Staedtler Institute in the same cars as before. Andrew sat in the back of the Subaru, Anna next to Jake in the front. She turned towards Andrew. ‘What did you think?’

  ‘It could be Jesus,’ he said.

  ‘Do you really think so?’

  ‘In itself the discovery of a skeleton with those marks, and hidden like that, would lead one to wonder. But add to that the quite separate discovery of the fragment of Josephus. Clearly, Father Lambert thought that proved it was genuine.’

  ‘Doesn’t that upset you?’

  He looked perplexed. ‘It should, shouldn’t it? But somehow it doesn’t.’

  ‘The French priest seemed sceptical,’ said Jake.

  ‘I think he was just playing the Devil’s advocate,’ said Andrew. ‘Or perhaps one should say, the a
dvocate of the Risen Christ.’

  Jake did not laugh. ‘Will he influence the Cardinal?’

  ‘I doubt it. He was only chosen as his secretary to teach him French.’

  They reached the Staedtler Institute, where the Cardinal was already taking leave of Professor Dagan with one of his vigorous handshakes. ‘This has been a most memorable occasion, Professor,’ he said. ‘One way or the other, it has been a most memorable occasion.’

  ‘For me, too,’ said Dagan.

  ‘Now I know you won’t expect me to pronounce on your find before I have had time to think about what I have seen, and discuss it with some of my colleagues. I would be grateful if you would continue to regard our visit as confidential until we are ready to make the Church’s position clear.’

  ‘Of course,’ said Michal Dagan. ‘As I have told you, the government, and I myself, are all too aware of the implications of this find, and are most anxious to cooperate with the Christian Churches.’

  With a few more courtesies of this kind, the clerics took leave of the Israelis. Andrew, suddenly realizing that he was to part from Anna, drew her aside and said: ‘Can we meet later on? Where will you be?’

  ‘Call me at home. I’ll be there this afternoon.’

  She smiled, then followed Jake and her father towards the entrance to the Institute. When she reached it she turned and waved to Andrew as he was driven off in the white Peugeot with Cardinal Memel and Father Pierre.

  Fourteen

  The three Simonites could say little in the car because of the driver but, upon reaching the Ecumenical Institute at Tartur, Cardinal Memel instructed them to change back into their clerical clothes and then meet him in the garden. When they reassembled, the Cardinal was accompanied by Prior Manfred, and by the thin, grey-haired man wearing a beige jacket and open-necked shirt who, when they had arrived that morning, Andrew had taken to be the director of the Institute. However, the Cardinal now introduced him as ‘Father van der Velde, whom we have taken into our confidence in this matter’, and Andrew realized at once that this was the distinguished Dutch Dominican from the Ecole Biblique.