On the Third Day

by Piers Paul Read

  This priest now led the four Simonites to a seminar room where they sat down around a polished table. Father van der Velde brought in a jug of fruit juice and five glasses on a tray. He filled the first for Cardinal Memel, who now that he was wearing his red-trimmed cassock and scarlet cummerbund took on some of the dignity of a Prince of the Church, then the other glasses for the other monks, before sitting down with them to listen to the Cardinal.

  ‘I have told Prior Manfred and Father van der Velde what we have seen this morning,’ said Cardinal Memel to the two younger men, ‘but I think that, having heard from me, they should also hear from you – particularly from you, Brother Andrew, because of your archaeological expertise.’

  Andrew blushed, a little awed by this formal confrontation with such eminent priests. Father van der Velde, who seemed so modest in pouring out the fruit juice, was well known as one of the most eminent and influential theologians in the Roman Catholic Church – a Dominican who had served as a peritus during the Second Vatican Council, and who had gone on to work so hard for the reunification of the different Christian Churches that he had become known as ‘the apostle of ecumenicism’. He had occasionally been rebuked by theologians like Cardinal Ratzinger, and whenever his name had come up in conversation with Father Lambert, Andrew had noticed that tight look which came onto his face when he had difficulty in suppressing uncharitable thoughts.

  Now, under the scrutiny of this penetrating theologian, as well as that of the General of his order, Andrew became confused. He dared not give free expression to the wild and heterodox thoughts which were running through his mind, yet he knew that as the pupil of Father Lambert he was expected to have something to say. ‘You will appreciate,’ he began, ‘that it is difficult to form any judgement of my own on the archaeological data because I have not had the opportunity …’

  ‘No, sure,’ the Cardinal interrupted. ‘But what were your impressions?’

  ‘My impressions? Well, clearly this was the skeleton of a crucified man with marks on the bones consistent with the descriptions in the Gospels of what Our Lord suffered. It is in a cistern which matches the location of the cistern in which Pilate, according to the Vilnius Codex of Josephus’ Jewish War, buried the body of Jesus of Nazareth. Therefore, at first sight, it seems, or rather it seemed to Father Lambert who was a far greater archaeologist than I am – it seemed that this was indeed the mortal remains of Our Lord.’

  Father Pierre opened his mouth to protest, but Cardinal Memel held up his hand to silence him. ‘How can you be so sure,’ he asked Andrew, ‘that the whole thing is not a hoax?’

  Andrew, who had hardly considered the possibility, felt like a student who had forgotten an essential point in an essay. ‘I cannot be sure. I cannot even speculate one way or the other until I have made a more detailed study of the find, but I know Professor Dagan – I have known him for some years, because he was not just a colleague but also a close friend of Father Lambert’s – and it is inconceivable to me that he would have anything to do with a hoax.’

  ‘And clearly Father Lambert thought the same.’

  ‘Yes. And then there is the Vilnius Codex. That too would have to be a fraud.’

  ‘But why?’ asked Father Pierre.

  ‘Just a moment,’ said Cardinal Memel, holding up a hand to restrain his secretary. ‘Before we move on to you, Father, I should like to be sure that Brother Andrew has had his say.’

  ‘There is nothing I can think of at this moment to add to what I have said,’ said Andrew, as he might have done at the end of his Confession.

  ‘Very well. Father Pierre. On vous écoute.’

  ‘I think it would be absurd,’ said the young Frenchman, arching his eyebrows with Gallic contempt for the illogical, ‘to accept one hypothesis or the other at this stage.’

  The Cardinal frowned at the word ‘absurd’. ‘No one suggests,’ he said, ‘that we either accept or reject any hypothesis. However, we do have to decide whether or not Professor Dagan’s discovery merits an investigation by the Catholic Church. If we decide that it does, then we are, to some extent, acknowledging the possibility that he may have discovered the mortal remains of Our Lord Jesus Christ. If we do not, however, we are open to the charge – which has been made over and over again in the Church’s history – that we are afraid to submit the tenets of our faith to any kind of scientific scrutiny.’

  ‘A comparable case was the Turin Shroud,’ said Father van der Velde in a quiet, high-pitched voice.

  ‘Exactly,’ said Cardinal Memel. ‘And there the Holy Father himself authorized the carbon-dating of the fragment of cloth.’

  ‘Certainly,’ said Father Pierre, ‘if prima facie evidence emerges that this skeleton is that of a crucified man from the period of Pontius Pilate, then there will be speculation that it is the body of Christ.’

  ‘And the Church will be asked to comment.’

  ‘Yes. But as well as investigating the archaeological data, if that must be done, we should also investigate the possibility of a fraud.’

  ‘Undoubtedly that will be done,’ said Cardinal Memel. ‘But do you feel now sufficiently confident that it is a fraud to advise that we should denounce it as such?’

  Father Pierre hesitated. ‘I mistrust the Jews,’ he said.

  ‘What motive would they have for a hoax of this kind?’

  He gave another shrug. ‘They have always been the enemies of Christianity.’

  ‘I think that is untrue,’ said Father van der Velde.

  ‘Yes. I too,’ said Prior Manfred.

  ‘Certainly,’ the Dutchman went on, ‘there have been attacks on Christian churches here by some fanatics, but the Israeli government has always shown great sensitivity about our feelings for the Holy Places.’

  ‘Of course,’ said Father Pierre. ‘Pilgrimages are a source of foreign currency. But even here they try to denigrate our faith by turning the Holy Land into a Disneyland.’

  ‘How do you mean?’ asked Cardinal Memel.

  ‘They take pilgrims to an old Turkish caravanserai and call it the Inn of the Good Samaritan. Think how many thousands more would come to see the Body of Christ.’

  ‘I cannot believe,’ said Andrew, ‘that Professor Dagan would be party to a hoax for the promotion of tourism.’

  ‘Nor does your hypothesis deal with the necessary link between the discovery of the cistern and the Codex in Soviet Lithuania,’ said Cardinal Memel, ‘unless, of course, you are suggesting some collusion between the Israelis and the Russians.’

  ‘It seems very unlikely,’ said Father van der Velde. ‘What interest would the Russians have in a fraud of that kind?’

  ‘The discrediting of Christianity,’ said Father Pierre.

  ‘But as I understand it,’ said Father van der Velde, ‘the Soviets under Gorbachev are seeking to rehabilitate Christianity, not discredit it.’

  ‘That is also my understanding of the international situation,’ said Cardinal Memel.

  ‘But surely,’ said Prior Manfred, who until this point had remained largely silent, ‘surely we are approaching this question from the wrong direction.’

  ‘How do you mean?’ asked Cardinal Memel.

  The face of the pious German was creased and twisted with the evidence of much anguish. ‘What we are asking, are we not, is whether this is a fact or is not a fact – whether these bones are the bones of Jesus of Nazareth. But surely we should be listening in our hearts for the voice of God to tell us.’

  ‘Certainly,’ said Cardinal Memel.

  ‘I feel sure,’ Prior Manfred went on, ‘that this discovery is sent to test us – but in what way, das weiss ich nicht.’

  ‘Blessed are those who have seen and yet still believe, perhaps?’ asked Father Pierre.

  ‘There is a certain levity in your attitude, Father,’ said Cardinal Memel to his secretary, ‘which seems to me, in the circumstances, inappropriate.’

  ‘Yet,’ Prior Manfred went on, his agitation forcing the words out li
ke puffs of vapour from a steam engine, ‘yet he is right to refer to doubting Thomas because perhaps, if these are the bones of Christ, then they are uncovered to test us further, to see if our faith in Christ can survive despite the evidence that there was no bodily resurrection.’

  ‘Are you suggesting,’ asked Cardinal Memel, ‘that it does not really matter whether these are the bones of Our Lord or not?’

  ‘Ja … nein … das ist … that is to say, when it is established, if it could be, that they are, then does that mean that all our faith is vain?’

  ‘Those are the words of St Paul,’ said Andrew.

  ‘Yes, but St Paul is not Jesus,’ said Prior Manfred. ‘There are many things he said which the Church now rejects – about the position of women, for example. And there are many theologians and exegetes who have for some time harboured doubts about the bodily resurrection of Christ.’

  ‘Certainly,’ said Cardinal Memel.

  ‘And these doubts have not destroyed their faith,’ said the German Simonite, ‘so why should it destroy ours?’

  There was an almost crazed look in his eyes as he spoke. It was quite evident to Andrew that, for all the reassurance that his arguments conveyed, he was closer to a crisis than any of the others. It was apparently evident to the Cardinal, too, because he turned from Prior Manfred to Father van der Velde. ‘You, Father,’ he said, ‘are more up to date than any of us, I think, on the latest developments in biblical exegesis.’

  The Dutch Dominican sat back in his chair and reached into the pocket of his jacket. ‘I am very much of the opinion of Father Manfred,’ he said, taking out a packet of Gauloises and looking down at it as if wondering whether to smoke a cigarette. ‘We may look at the question of whether Jesus rose from the dead or not in a literal sense – and whether, in consequence, the skeleton discovered by Professor Dagan could be his – without doubting any article of the Nicaean Creed.’

  ‘Go on,’ said Cardinal Memel.

  ‘For some time, as most of you know, many theologians and exegetes, such as Father Schillebeeckx in Holland or Father John Coffey in Sydney, have had grave reservations about accepting that the Christ of the Resurrection was the physically reanimated corpse which was placed in the tomb. The belief arose for several reasons. It is much easier to grasp the concept of resurrection from the dead when it is presented as physical reanimation, particularly in the context of the Pharisaical tradition among the Jews which, unlike the Greek philosophical tradition, made no distinction between body and soul. However, the evidence of the Gospels themselves hardly sustains such a hypothesis, for though it is clearly stated that the body was gone – and we need not doubt that – it is also quite apparent that those who saw the risen Lord did not at first recognize him as Jesus.’

  ‘Mary Magdalene,’ said Cardinal Memel, ‘thought he was a gardener.’

  ‘And the two disciples, on the road to Emmaus, walked with him and talked with him without realizing who he was.’

  ‘Exactly,’ said Father van der Velde, in the tone of an approving tutor. ‘And if you read the Gospels simply as narratives, they all founder when it comes to the risen Lord. Until the crucifixion they read as clear, straightforward statements of fact, yet after the Resurrection they are meandering and confused. The fact of the Resurrection itself is dramatic, but the events leading up to the Ascension, and the Ascension itself, come as an anticlimax, almost as if the Evangelists as authors did not know what to do with Jesus after he had risen from the dead. Is he a man or is he a spirit? On the one hand, they are eager to show that he is flesh and blood, eating with the apostles on the shores of Lake Galilee. On other occasions, however – in the upper chamber in Jerusalem, for example – he appears to them out of thin air.’

  ‘Yet,’ said Prior Manfred, ‘it was there that Christ showed Thomas his wounds and told him to touch his wounds, and it was there too that he blessed those who believe without seeing.’

  ‘Yes. But believe what? That he rose from the dead, certainly, but must it be in a literal sense? Were those wounds bleeding? Were they dressed? And where did Christ go when he disappeared once again into the ether? And was it the same Christ who appeared to St Paul on the road to Damascus after the Ascension?’

  ‘St Paul certainly thought so,’ said Cardinal Memel.

  ‘Ja, vielleicht …’ muttered the old German, shaking his head.

  ‘The Evangelists,’ Father van der Velde went on, ‘do not tell us very much about what Christ did after his Resurrection. The detailed account of his life before the crucifixion is in marked contrast to the vagueness of their account of the hundred days or so after the Resurrection, and the Ascension itself would seem to have been omitted from early versions of St John’s Gospel and is certainly less vivid than, for example, the descriptions of the Transfiguration.’

  ‘Are you suggesting, then,’ asked Cardinal Memel, ‘that Our Lord did not rise from the dead?’

  ‘The question we must consider, your Eminence, is not “Did Christ rise from the dead?”, because it is an article of our faith that he did, but “What do we mean when we say that Christ rose from the dead?”, or “In what way did Christ rise from the dead?” Is it possible, we must ask ourselves, that Christ rose from the dead in a way that left his body itself on earth?’

  ‘For God, anything is possible,’ said Cardinal Memel.

  ‘So the answer must be yes, because the Jesus of before the crucifixion did not disappear into thin air, whereas the risen Jesus did, and so, we must suppose, was physically real only in a spiritual sense and not in an actual, scientific sense that would exclude the existence of his mortal remains.’ He paused and looked down at his packet of Gauloises, as if considering, again, whether it would be appropriate to smoke.

  ‘I follow your theology and your exegesis,’ said Cardinal Memel, ‘but how does this hypothesis explain the empty tomb? Was that a hoax by the apostles to help us believe in the Lord’s spiritual resurrection?’

  ‘That is most unlikely,’ said Father Pierre, ‘because the Pharisees believed that those saved would rise again with a new body.’

  ‘That’s quite true,’ said Father van der Velde. ‘The disciples could plausibly have claimed a resurrection even if the tomb had not been empty. Moreover, the passages in the Gospels which describe the finding of the empty tomb, though they contradict one another in places, are nevertheless as vivid and convincing as the descriptions of Christ’s crucifixion. Yet, if one accepts that Peter, John and Mary Magdalene did find the tomb empty, but that Christ did not rise from the dead in a literal sense, then who removed the body and how was it done?’

  ‘It must have been the disciples,’ said Andrew, remembering what Father Godfrey had done with the corpse of Father Lambert. ‘They were the only ones with anything to gain.’

  ‘But the chief priests were aware of that,’ said Father van der Velde. ‘They knew that Christ had in some sense predicted his own resurrection, and that his disciples might therefore steal the body and claim that he had risen from the dead. That was why they asked Pilate to place a guard over the tomb – which, according to both the Evangelists and Josephus, he did.’

  ‘Josephus states, I seem to remember,’ said Cardinal Memel, ‘that the Jews also put a guard of their own at the tomb.’

  ‘I know. But that is unlikely. Remember, it was the Sabbath, and no Jew could bear arms on the Sabbath.’

  ‘So they had to get Roman soldiers to guard the tomb.’

  ‘Precisely. Now, even before the discovery of the Vilnius Codex, which suggests that it was Pilate who ordered the removal of the body from the tomb, it had become clear to many exegetes that it was quite probably removed upon his orders. We discovered this by approaching the question from another direction – looking back, as it were, upon the Gospels with the benefit of our knowledge of the Acts of the Apostles, which come after them in the canon but were almost certainly written before. To begin at the end, we have St Paul sent to Rome for trial on charges brought against him by
the chief priests. Why to Rome? Because Paul was a Roman citizen, certainly, but what is interesting if you read between the lines of Luke’s narrative is the almost amicable relationship between Paul and the Roman authorities. When Paul is threatened with assassination by the Jewish leaders, the Roman tribune in Jerusalem provides a cohort of Roman soldiers to escort him to the safety of Caesarea; and once he is there, Pilate’s successor, Festus, invites him to preach before King Agrippa and his sister, Princess Bernice.’

  ‘Wasn’t that because Paul was a Roman citizen?’ asked Cardinal Memel.

  ‘Or was it Roman policy to protect the fledgeling Christian Church?’

  ‘And what about Nero?’ asked Father Pierre.

  ‘But that’s just the point. We are so used to thinking of our martyrs in the Roman arenas, and the persecution of Christians under Nero and the later Roman emperors, that it seems inconceivable that, in those early years in Palestine, it was Roman policy to encourage the spread of Christian teaching. Yet there is further evidence to suggest that this was in fact the case. Remember that power was to some extent shared at that time between the Roman procurators and the leaders of the Jews. But one power which was reserved to the Roman procurator was the power of sentencing a man to death. This was why the Jews were obliged to ask Pilate to authorize the crucifixion of Jesus.’

  ‘Why did he agree?’ asked Father Pierre.

  ‘Because he was afraid of a riot if he refused,’ said Cardinal Memel.

  ‘That is what the Evangelists imply,’ said Father van der Velde, ‘but is it consistent with the fact that Festus would not hand over the lesser figure of Paul? Or was it, as Josephus states, because Pilate was bribed by the Sadducees?’

  ‘That is more likely,’ said Prior Manfred, ‘from what we know about the behaviour of Roman procurators at the time.’