Fifth Gospel(128)

‘He will have another life in which these memories will be transformed into pictures.’

‘Another painter…?’

‘Yes…this man is yet to come. Many returned as painters, pairé, to tell what they had seen. If all goes well the man who was Judas and Augustine will create wondrous works of art in which he will often depict Magdalena and her brother Lazarus-John over and again. Sometimes he will confuse them, one with the other, and people will say that his John is really Magdalena, but this is only because he could not prise them apart himself. His greatest achievement, though, will be his hardest task; he will paint the last supper, but he will struggle to paint the dark face of Judas, his own face.’

‘Oh!’ My sense of wonderment increased. ‘Will he paint his own face?’

‘That remains to be seen. One day you will know how close he came to his own ideal. He will also see me, as you do, and I will tell him many things of the past, and the future, and he will paint my portrait. Many will think he has painted the face of a wealthy woman, but in this woman’s face he will portray the soul of all women! He will take that portrait with him everywhere as a memory of our meeting, and will loathe to let it go. One day you will look at it carefully, pairé, and you will see that in the background he has painted that place in which he died, the valley of Hinnon.’

‘So he does not go to hell!’ I said, ‘He is given the chance to redeem himself as Augustine and then as this painter!’

‘You see, pairé, the wages of sin might be death, but from death comes new life…that is the gift Christ gave to mankind, that is what the church of Rome has hidden from men, for their Christ is like the God of the Sadducees and Pharisees – a God of death.’

‘What happens now to Judas?’

‘At the very moment he sees whom he will become, the girdle around his neck lets go, and he falls onto the rocks. His last thought is of Magdalena and of the rocks…something he will also paint. But at that moment, as he falls, he hopes for nothing and he fears nothing. He is free in his spirit, pairé, for the first time in all his lives.’





64


WHAT IS TRUTH?




Before I could take these things into my heart Lea had begun again to tell of Pontius Pilate who was standing, stone-faced and weary, upon the court outside his palace.

‡

Some called this court the Pavement, because it was inlaid with mosaics, and others called it the Gabbatha, or the high place, because from it one could glimpse the township of that name. Whatever the case these days Pilate had made it a raised tribunal, erecting at one end of it that marble seat from which he always pronounced his sentences and judgements.

A wide sweeping staircase, usually a-swarm with guards at these times, led from the Pavement down to a great square bounded by stone walls and lined with columns and seats where the people could gather. He stood stiffly looking down upon it. It was near the hora secunda, the second hour of the day, and even at this early time it was already hot. Above the smoke from the sacrifices made columns rise towards the heavens, while below in the temple the Levites pierced the valley with their woeful songs. These ordinary things on such a day as this made him full of discomfort – for this was no ordinary day. Pilate wiped his brow and thought things through.

Last night around the midnight hour his wife had woken him fearful for a dream in which Jesus of Nazareth was covered in blood. It had taken him long to console her. The sentinels, he had told her, were doubled and the cohorts drawn up, as was customary during the feast. Nothing could happen without his knowledge. Still she had wept and among her weepings had confessed her belief in the man, how often she had seen him and heard his words, and how much she feared for his safety.

Later, reports reached the praetorium of a commotion in the city and he understood the accuracy of his wife’s augury. His Centurion, Gaius Cassius, had returned from the palace of Ananias with news that the Jew had been arrested on made up charges and was being taken to face trial by the council at the Palace of Caiaphas.

Cassius had told him that the followers of Jesus would not oppose it for they were peaceable, but Pilate considered that the Sicarri might use the unrest to play upon the different factions for their own ends. All these years he had feared another uprising of great proportions and now that it was near he felt ill prepared for it. He had ordered Cassius to gather the men and to use force if necessary, but had cautioned restraint. If the entire population of Jerusalem decided this day to rise up against Rome, his meagre soldiery would not suffice to hold them back and there was no time to send for reinforcements.