The Implacable Hunter (12 page)

‘This was arranged in all its details, even to the difficult affair of the betrayal. Here comes a paradox: whom can a man trust to betray him? The betrayal of Jesus evidently had to be entrusted to a man who not only loved him, but who at the same time understood and worshipped him, upon whose discretion Jesus could absolutely rely. It was a delicate business, this betrayal. Rome didn’t want Jesus – if she had, she would have known exactly when and where to find him, but he was breaking none of our laws. His followers were quite orderly in their public demonstrations. The Temple couldn’t provoke anything like a satisfactory Nazarene riot. They could bring Jesus before the Sanhedrin, but at the most they could only try him on a fairly trivial religious charge, and even then their case would not be open and shut; he wasn’t an easy man to argue Law with, as they well knew. Now if they could only get him into the Procurator’s court on some such charge as sedition, and pack that court with a hand-picked rabble of their own just before the
Passover
festival, they might sway Pilate and get Jesus lawfully and permanently out of the way. They would base their charge, of course, on the fact that Jesus had let the people hail him as king.

‘This Jesus knew. So he sends his beloved friend and spiritual brother, Judas of Karioth, to lay information before the priests that on such-and-such a night, at
such-and
-such a time, Jesus will be found at a certain garden, where he may be arrested without the slightest trouble – for if he were to be apprehended in the streets, not even his exhortations could prevent the cobblestones and tiles from flying.

‘So the priests call the Roman patrol, and march out, and Jesus is arrested – ostensibly, to be questioned concerning
such little matters as sabbath violation, and the like. But the High Priest has his questions carefully framed.
Throwing
up his hands in righteous alarm, he gives Jesus over to the Roman authorities on political grounds – the fellow is a pretender to the throne, and therefore a menace to our Peace in Judaea.

‘The only one I pity here is poor Judas. He was, when you consider it, one of the true heroes – for the love of his master he let himself be condemned not to mere torture and death, but to the disgust of everyone who loved Jesus. They say that Judas sold Jesus for thirty silver denarii. Nobody stops to think that Judas’s father, Simon ish Karioth, who loved his gentle little mystical son, would have filled his hands with gold any time the boy chose to ask. Perhaps you know of the old man?’

Paulus shrugged. ‘I think my father has had some
dealings
with Simon of Karioth. I seem to remember that it had something to do with wine. But please go on.’

‘It may be that Judas did take the few pieces of money in order to maintain his rôle of informer. The story goes that after Jesus’s arraignment, Judas came back to the priests and threw the blood-money in their faces. Whatever really happened, at this point poor Judas passes out of our field of vision, the one and only truly tragic figure in this pathetic little history – a gentleman of high courage. And Jesus is arraigned before the High Priest, who rattles off a few leading questions and rushes him before Pilate. It was smoothly managed. The mob is well handled; its temper is ugly, and the priests are resolute. Jesus is crucified with the bandits – and there is the beginning of the story.’

‘If you say so,’ said Paulus. ‘The beginning, if you say so.’

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Now we must pause here to consider another very curious character, who is on record as the one who claimed and received delivery of Jesus’s body. I refer to a merchant out of Arimathea, a wealthy man named Joseph,
nicknamed Amygdal, or Amygdalus, because he was in the almond trade.’

Paulus said: ‘Joseph Amygdal of Arimathea – I know something of that one, and he is a damned rogue.’

‘I find him interesting as a type. I know that if and when he comes back from Egypt we may have a few questions to ask him concerning certain discrepancies between his stated profits and his paid-up taxes, but that doesn’t concern us at this moment. I know that they say of him “a thorn bush grew out of an almond”. He began by selling some horses that belonged to his uncle in order to put down earnest-money for a large shipment of almond oil. This he sold quickly at a lower price than he was to pay for it, to get ready cash to buy grazing lands and herds dirt cheap, having bribed a certain Roman official and an engineer to confirm a rumour that a river was to be diverted and a valley thereby sentenced to death by drought. Then, having sold the land at a staggering profit, he paid for the horses and the oil – to the delight and gratitude of the men he had swindled. But the oil-presser, his chief creditor, was attacked by bandits on his way home, robbed, murdered, and thrown into a river. Our Joseph publicly mourned him as a friend. A little later he was seen wearing a diamond which was recognised as one which had been noticed on the oil-presser’s finger after he left Joseph’s house. But Joseph the Almond produced four reputable witnesses to confirm his statement that his cook had found the ring in the belly of a large fish while cleaning it; the cook being a slave, any property of his was the property of his master. He also swore that this unlikely story was true – so should I have sworn, if I had been Joseph’s slave. “The slave and the fish both being mine, so is the diamond,” said Joseph. “Besides, what proof is there that this was my poor friend’s diamond? One diamond is very like another diamond.” And while the dead man’s heirs were arguing
de
jure
and
de
facto
with Joseph’s
lawyer, the diamond got lost in transit, somehow or other.

‘He is quite a character, this Joseph. He has made cinnamon out of birch bark; and a huge consignment of peppercorns, examined, sealed in boxes, and paid for on purchase, miraculously turned into little balls of clay after the boxes had been delivered and accepted and their seals broken. He organised a lottery on the Antioch chariot-races, with an “accumulative system” of computing the winnings so full of quantities, magnitudes and the relationship of forms, that Archimedes himself might have broken his head over it; the entire profits to be devoted to the building of a hospital for lepers. The profits, counted after Joseph’s expenses were deducted, were so small that the hospital was abandoned, and Joseph was regarded in some quarters even as a kind of martyr. I suppose a few lepers did get a few parcels of food and old clothes which they wouldn’t
otherwise
have got. As for Joseph, in spite of his “irretrievable loss” he was very anxious to start a new lottery, “bigger, simpler and better”, only a more influential philanthropist got in first.

‘But the poor always get a little out of Joseph the Almond, especially after he has done something more than usually wicked. He is one of those contrivers who have a daemon of cleverness on their backs which forces them to be dishonest as other men’s daemons might compel them to write poetry. But after the writing comes the reading; and then even Ovid squirms. When Joseph’s conscience growls like an empty belly, there is black bread and meat for the beggars and white bread and incense and doves for Jehovah, and he is a lucky man who wants a favour and catches Joseph in one of his hours of contrition. This doesn’t last, you know.
Today
, tomorrow, Joseph is possessed by a new scheme – the last scheme, the scheme to end the need for scheming – and off he goes again, leaving his conscience at home like a
toothless old house-dog to welcome him when he returns, while he goes poaching with his yellow lurchers.

‘However, when the inevitable repentance sets in, his is no mere form of apology to a god. He is truly sorry; incense and doves aside, he wants to demonstrate this. So – haven’t you ever noticed it in this type? – he wants to do something dangerous for a friend. He wants to angle Destiny with himself for bait. Yesterday, every aspect of business that might expose himself to the slightest jeopardy was covered and double covered. Now, when there is nothing to be got for himself, he wants to dangle naked in the teeth of Chance; this is something he owes to the Eternal.
Furthermore
– and possibly first and foremost – he is one of those desperate characters who crave excitement, and
cannot
get the flavour of a thing unless it is salted with risk. He would rather lose on long odds than be safe on even money; let him hedge his bets as he will he gambles against himself. Only he likes to think of his gambling as an act of faith.’

Paulus said, scornfully: ‘I have heard players praying to the rolling dice. Gamblers are superstitious. Joseph of Arimathea bought Jesus’s body for a mascot, as another might buy a baby’s caul or a hare’s foot.’

‘No,’ I said, ‘I think you are wrong. Like many of Joseph’s stripe, he held the likes of Jesus Christ in awe, and felt that he could somehow be helpful to him. I can imagine him
begging
Jesus: “Have a background! Get in the right line! Put out roots, make headquarters, know the right people!
I
don’t ask you to be anything but yourself, your very own self –
I
believe in you just as you are – but
you’ve
got to make the
right
friends!” Jesus laughs him away. Joseph is hurt, and says: “All right, laugh at me. So I’ve pulled one or two funny deals – I’m not in your class, and I know it – I’m an uneducated man. I can’t read books – only men. But I admire education all the more in others, Rabbi, and I believe in
you, strike me blind I do! I know people inside out and I can find capital. Don’t forget I’m on the Council. God forbid anything should happen to you…. But if it does, mark my words old Josef Mygdal could turn out to be a friend in need, believe me, Rabbi!”’

I had dropped into a nasal, drawling, comic-stage Jewish dialect. Paulus said: ‘Yes, I dare say he does speak
something
like that. But –’

‘Wait. Joseph the Almond was a day’s ride out of Jeusalem when he heard the news of Jesus’s sentence. He dropped whatever business he was engaged in, and came hot-foot into the city, having neither eaten nor drunk, followed by a few confidential strong men, and personally armed with a purseful of hard cash, good scrip and credentials. He was too late. Jesus was due to die. It was the eve of the
Passover
festival, and the Temple was not to be gainsaid. If money could have saved Jesus then, Jesus would have been saved. But Joseph knew when he was beaten. Like the skilled guerilla that he was, he shifted his tactics in mid-stride, and went after the lesser officials. He worked smoothly. You must know that he could not have got the body of a crucified felon for honourable burial without Pilate’s permission – which involved some swift politics and costly bribery. Afranius, who saw the execution, says the nails probably went into the arteries for a quick death. I make bold to think otherwise. The calendar was in Joseph’s favour. No corpses could hang to pollute the air of the Passover, so the
condemned
men were taken down after they had been hanging only a few hours. Most men can survive a few hours of what I will call a light crucifixion, with the nails only in the flesh – let alone a wiry, dried-out young desert rat accustomed to hunger and thirst and hardened by twenty years on the roads.

‘At sunset, the two bandits were still alive and howling. So, when they were taken down, their legs were broken with
the back of a hatchet and they were buried alive. You see, there are several cases on record of men crucified and buried in shallow graves in that dry ground who have kicked and gnawed their way to the surface. Jesus’s legs were not broken. A group of people gathered, shouting: “He’s dead, he’s dead!” So he was taken down gently and hurried to Joseph’s sepulchre where there were people waiting with ointments, bandages, and, I suppose, hot soup.

‘The mouth of this sepulchre was covered with a stone, and an armed guard was mounted outside. Inside, the women and a physician went to work. They must have cleaned and dressed the wounds, and given him something to make him sweat and sleep, feeding him constantly with strong broth, just a little at a time, squeezed into his mouth out of a sponge. It is an old wives’ remedy, and as good as any for whatever ails you. And there was nothing much the matter with Jesus. What are a few flesh wounds in the
extremities
? I have seen a man crawl three miles with his bowels in his hands – we sewed him up with twine, and he still lives to boast about it.

‘Now. Three days later, or thereabouts, the mourners go to fetch the body. There is some cock-and-bull story of a band of muscular angels all dressed in white, who frightened the guards and then, putting beefy shoulders to the stone, rolled it away from the mouth of the sepulchre. But we will disregard the superstitious balderdash, if you please, and confine ourselves to the innocent, earthy touches which make for evidence in the mind of an unbiased observer. The only one who went into the sepulchre was the ex-prostitute, Mary of Magdala. She went in weeping and saw that Jesus was not there. There were only two “angels”, one of whom said to her, in very earthly accents: “What’s the matter, lady?” At this, the meek and penitent follower of the pacific Nazarene was jostled aside by the tousled, hennaed
Magdalene
harlot, spitting fury and with her nails out, shrieking:
“Where’s Jesus? Tell me what you’ve done with my Jesus, or I’ll tear your eyes out!”

‘And just then somebody touches her on the shoulder: “Mary, Mary!” She turns and sees a man, shabbily dressed, whom she believes to be the gardener. She starts to cry again in the hysterical way these girls have and begs him: “Please tell me where they’ve hidden my Jesus. I want to take him away.” Now the man talks to her in her own rough Aramaic, and she recognises him and falls to her knees. But he picks her up and tells her to find where his disciples are hiding. He is coming to visit them, he says, before going on his way elsewhere.

‘And Jesus found out his disciples. He showed them his wounds, and, as I gather, he stayed with them, gathering his strength for about two weeks. He even refreshed himself by going out fishing by night on the sea of Tiberias – it is these homely touches that tell with me, and to hell with the angels! – and it would seem that they had many a comfortable breakfast of bread and broiled fish at dawn on the beach. I am informed that the disciples were anxious to get their hands on poor Judas. He told them that Judas was none of their business. Then, saying that he was going to his Father, Jesus wrapped himself in his gardener’s cloak and limped away down the dusty road and so vanished. If poor Joseph of Arimathea had had his way, I dare say Jesus would not have awakened until he was out to sea on a ship bound for Africa or Spain. But this was not to be. Jesus went away into the wilderness from which he had so suddenly appeared “to be with his Father”. But his Father was God, and God is anywhere and everywhere. This is something we Stoics are bound to accept, whether we like it or not. So this Jesus may be with his Father, brooding among goats on a hill – or in a hut in Endor, or a cellar in a blind alley in Damascus, or in a garden in Joppa. Who knows?