The Last Temptation of Christ (53 page)

Magdalene rose also, silent and happy. The agitated disciples got up and looked at each other.

“Where are we headed?” asked Thomas, hooking his horn onto his belt.

“At this time of night? Why in such a hurry? Won’t tomorrow morning do?” said Nathanael, and he glanced sullenly at Philip.

But Jesus, with long strides, had already passed through the yard and begun his march toward the south.

THE FOUNDATIONS of the world were shaken because man’s heart was shaken, crushed under the stones which men called Jerusalem, under the prophecies, the Second Comings, the anathemas, under the Pharisees and Sadducees, the rich who ate, the poor who were hungry, and under the Lord Jehovah, from whose beard and mustaches the blood of mankind had been running for centuries upon centuries into the abyss. No matter where you touched this God, he bellowed. If you said a kind word to him he lifted his fist and shouted, “I want meat.” If you offered a lamb or your firstborn son as a sacrifice, he screamed, “I don’t want meat. Do not rend your clothes; rend your hearts. Turn your flesh into spirit, your spirit into prayer, and scatter it to the winds!”

Man’s heart was crushed under the six hundred thirteen written commandments of the Hebrew Law, plus the thousands of unwritten ones—yet it did not stir; under Genesis, Leviticus, Numbers, judges and Kings—yet it did not stir. And then suddenly at the most unexpected moment a light breeze blew, not from heaven, but from below, on earth, and all the chambers of man’s heart were shaken. Straightway Judges, Kings, the prophecies, anathemas, Pharisees, Sadducees and the stones which men call Jerusalem cracked, tottered and began to tumble down—at first within the heart, then in the mind and finally upon the earth itself. Haughty Jehovah once again tied on his leather master craftsman’s apron, once again took up his level and rule, went down to earth and personally began to help demolish the past and build the future along with men. But before anything else, he began the Temple of the Jews at Jerusalem.

Jesus went every day and stood on the blood-sprinkled paving stones. He looked at this overloaded Temple and felt his heart hammer against it to pull it down. It continued to stand, however, gleaming in the sun like a golden-horned garlanded bull. The walls were veneered right up to the roof in white marble streaked with sea blue: the Temple seemed to float upon a turbulent ocean. In front of him hung three tiers of chambers, one on top of the next. The lowest and widest was for the idolators, the middle one was for the people of Israel, and the highest for the twenty thousand Levites who washed and sandpapered, lighted and extinguished the lamps and cleaned the Temple. Day and night seven kinds of incense were burned. The smoke was so thick that the goats sneezed seven miles away.

The humble ark which enclosed the Law, the ancestral ark their nomadic forefathers had transported across the desert, had moored itself to this summit of Zion, put out roots, sprouted up, dressed itself in cypress wood, gold and marble and become a Temple. At first the savage desert God did not deign to inhabit a house, but so much did he like the smell of the cypress wood and incense and the savor from the slaughtered beasts that one day he lifted his foot and entered.

It was now two months since Jesus’ arrival from Capernaum. Each day he went and stood in front of the Temple and looked at it; each day he seemed to see it for the first time. It was as though each morning he expected to find it crumbled to the ground and to be able to trample over it from end to end. He had no desire to see it any longer, nor did he fear it. In his heart it had already been destroyed. One day when the old rabbi asked him why he did not go in to worship, he shook his head and answered, “For years I circled the Temple; now the Temple is circling me.”

“Jesus, those are boastful words,” the rabbi objected, thrusting his aged head against his breast. “Aren’t you afraid?”

“When I say ‘I,’ ” Jesus answered, “I do not speak of this body—which is dust; I do not speak of the son of Mary—he too is dust, with just a tiny, tiny spark of fire. ‘I’ from my mouth, Rabbi, means God.”

“That is a still more terrible blasphemy!” cried the rabbi, covering his face.

“I am Saint Blasphemer, and don’t forget it,” Jesus replied with a laugh.

One day when he saw his disciples standing before the imposing building in open-mouthed admiration, he became angry. “You find the Temple astonishing, don’t you?” he said to them sarcastically. “How many years were needed to build it? Twenty years? Ten thousand workmen? In three days I shall destroy it. Regard it well—for the last time. Say goodbye to it, for there shall not be left here one stone upon another that will not be thrown down!”

The frightened disciples stepped back. Could something have gone wrong with the teacher’s mind? He had become so abrupt and strange lately, so obstinate. Odd, vacillating winds were blowing over him. Sometimes his face gleamed like the rising sun and everything around him was made to dawn; at other times his look was dark, his eyes despairing.

“Don’t you feel sorry for it, Rabbi?” John ventured.

“For what?”

“The Temple. Why do you want to demolish it?”

“So that I can build a new one. I shall build a new one in three days. But first of all, this one must vacate the land.”

He took the shepherd’s staff which Philip had presented him and banged it down on the paving. The wind of anger was now blowing over him. He looked at the Pharisees who were stumbling along and lacerating themselves against the walls, apparently blinded by the excessive splendor of God. “Hypocrites,” he shouted at them, “if God took a knife and tore open your hearts, out would bound snakes, scorpions and filth!” The Pharisees heard, became frantic, and secretly decided to block this fearless mouth with dirt.

The old rabbi put his palm over Jesus’ lips to silence him. “Are you courting death?” he asked him one day, his eyes brimming with tears. “Don’t you realize that the Scribes and Pharisees run continually to Pilate and demand your head?”

“I know, Father,” Jesus replied, “but I know still more, still more. ...”

Bidding Thomas sound the horn, he mounted his usual platform on Solomon’s Porch and once more began to proclaim, “It has come, the day of the Lord has come!” Every day from morning till sunset he shouted in order to oblige the heavens to open up and hurl down their flames—because, as he well knew, man’s voice is an all-powerful charm. You cried “Come!” to the fire or the dew, to the Inferno or to Paradise, and it came. Similarly, he was calling Fire. It would purify the earth, would open the way for the appearance of Love. Love’s feet are always pleased to step on ashes. ...

“Rabbi,” Andrew asked him one day, “why don’t you laugh any more, why aren’t you joyful, as you were before? Why have you grown continually more ferocious?”

But Jesus did not answer. What could he say, and how could Andrew’s naïve heart understand? This world, he reflected, must be destroyed right down to its roots if the new world is to be planted. The old Law must be torn down, and it is I who shall tear it down. A new Law must be engraved on the tables of the heart, and it is I who shall engrave it. I shall widen the Law to make it contain friends and enemies, Jews and idolators: the Ten Commandments will burst into bloom! That is why I have come here to Jerusalem. It is here that the heavens will open. What will descend from heaven—the great miracle, or death? Whichever God desires. I am ready to ascend to heaven or to be hurled down into hell. Lord, decide!

The Passover was approaching. An unexpected vernal sweetness had flowed over the hard face of Judea. The routes of land and sea had opened up, and worshipers arrived from the four corners of the Jewish world. The bellowing tiers of the Temple stank from human beings, slaughtered animals and dung.

Today a great number of the ragged and the lame had assembled outside Solomon’s Porch. With pale, hungry faces and burning eyes they looked maliciously at the well-fed Sadducees and at the rich, merry burghers and their wives, who were weighted down with bracelets of gold.

“How long do you think you’re going to laugh?” someone growled. “We’ll soon cut your throats. The teacher said so: the poor will kill the rich and divide up their goods.”

“You didn’t hear very well, Manasses,” snapped a pale man with sheep-like eyes and hair. “Poor and rich won’t exist any more; they will all be one. That’s what the kingdom of heaven means.”

“Kingdom of heaven,” an ungainly beanstalk of a man interrupted, “means that the Romans get out. A kingdom of heaven with Romans isn’t possible.”

“You understood nothing of what the teacher said, Aaron,” replied a venerable man with rabbit-like lips. He shook his bald head. “Israelites and Romans, Greeks and Chaldeans don’t exist—nor do Bedouins. We’re all brothers!”

“We’re all ashes!” shouted someone else. “That’s what I understood; I heard it with my own ears. The teacher said, ‘The heavens will open. The first flood was of water; this one will be of fire. All—rich and poor, Israelites and Romans—ashes!’ ”

“ ‘The olive tree will be shaken, but two or three olives will remain at the top, three or four on the highest branches.’ The prophet Isaiah said that. ... Courage, men. We’ll be the remaining olives. All we have to do is keep the teacher close by, so that he doesn’t get away from us!” These words were pronounced by a man with skin the color of a charred pot, and round, popping eyes which stared at the white, dust-filled road to Bethany. “He’s late today,” he grumbled, “he’s late. ... Take care, lads! Don’t let him get away from us!”

“Where can he go?” asked old rabbit-lip. “God told him to do battle in Jerusalem, and it’s here he’ll do battle!”

The sun was in the middle of the sky. The paving steamed; the stench increased with the torrid heat. Jacob the Pharisee appeared, his arms loaded with amulets. He was publishing the special grace of each: these cured smallpox, colic and erysipelas; these expelled demons; the most powerful and expensive killed your enemies. ... He noticed the ragamuffins and cripples, recognized them. His envenomed mouth cackled maliciously: “Go to the devil!” and he spat three times into the air to be rid of them.

While the ragamuffins bickered, each one twisting the teacher’s words in accordance with the longing of his own heart, a huge and venerable man with a long stick bolted in front of them, sweating, covered with dust, his wide, still-unwrinkled face glistening.

“Melchizedek!” cried old rabbit-lip. “What’s the good news from Bethany? Your face is all lighted up!”

“Rejoice and exult, men!” shouted the old notable. Weeping continually, he began to embrace them all. “A corpse has been resurrected; I saw it with my own eyes. He got up out of the tomb and walked! They gave him water and he drank; they gave him bread and he ate and spoke!”

“Who? Who was resurrected, who was resurrected?” they all demanded, falling upon the old chieftain. People in the neighboring arcades heard. Men and women ran. Several Levites and Pharisees also came near. Barabbas was going by, his ear caught the uproar, and he too joined the crowd.

Melchizedek was delighted to see such a great multitude hanging on his lips. He leaned on his staff and proudly began to speak. “Lazarus, the son of Eliakim. Does anyone know him? He died a few days ago and we buried him. One day went by, two, three—we forgot him. Suddenly, on the fourth day, we hear shouting in the street. I race outside and see Jesus, the son of Mary of Nazareth, with Lazarus’s two sisters prostrate and kissing his feet, lamenting for their brother. ‘If you’d been with him, Rabbi, he wouldn’t have died,’ they screamed, wailing all the while and pulling out their hair. ‘Bring him back from Hades, Rabbi. Call him and he’ll come!’ ”

“Jesus took them both by the hand and lifted them up. ‘Let us go,’ he said.

“We all ran behind them until we came to the grave. There Jesus stopped. All the blood went to his head, his eyes rolled and disappeared, only the whites remained. He brought forth such a bellow you’d have thought there was a bull inside him, and we all got scared. Then suddenly while he stood there, trembling all over, he uttered a wild cry, a strange cry, something from another world. The archangels must shout in the same way when they’re angry. ... ‘Lazarus,’ he cried, ‘come out!’ And all at once we hear the earth in the tomb stir and crack. The tombstone begins to move; someone is gradually pushing it up. Fear and trembling ... Never in my life have I feared death as much as I feared that resurrection. I swear that if I was asked what I wanted to see more, a lion or a resurrection, I would say a lion.”

“Lord have mercy upon us! Lord have mercy upon us!” the people shouted, weeping. “Speak, Father Melchizedek, speak!”

“The women shrieked, many of the men hid themselves behind rocks, and we who remained trembled. The tombstone rose little by little. We saw two yellow arms and then a head all green, cracked and full of dirt; finally the skeleton-like body wrapped in the shroud. It put forward one foot, then the other, and came out. It was Lazarus.”

The old chieftain stopped to wipe away the sweat with his wide sleeve. All around him the people were howling. Some wept, others danced.

Barabbas raised his huge hairy hand. “Lies! Lies!” he shouted. “He’s commissioned by the Romans and cooked all this up with Lazarus. Down with traitors!”

“Shut your mouth!” bellowed a savage voice behind him. “What Romans?”

They all turned and immediately recoiled. Rufus the centurion was coming toward Barabbas with his whip held high. A pale, blond-haired girl grasped his arm. She had been standing and listening to old Melchizedek the whole time, the tears running from her large green eyes. Barabbas slid away into the assembled humanity and disappeared, and behind him ran Jacob the Pharisee with his amulets. He overtook him in back of a column. There the two of them, their heads glued together, began to chatter: bandit and Pharisee became brothers.

Barabbas spoke first. “You think it’s true?” he asked anxiously.

“What?”

“What they say: that he revived a corpse.”

“Listen well to what I’m going to tell you. I’m a Pharisee, you’re a Zealot. Until now I always said Israel would be saved only with prayer, fasting and the holy Law. But now ...”