The Order (Gabriel Allon #20) - Daniel Silva Page 0,47

asked Gabriel.

“As a Roman Catholic prelate and a man of great personal faith, I believe the Gospels were divinely inspired. That said, they were composed by human beings long after the events took place and were based on stories of Jesus’ life and ministry told by his earliest followers. If there was indeed a tribunal of some sort, Pilate undoubtedly spoke very few, if any, of the words the Gospel writers put in his mouth. The same would be true, of course, of the Jewish crowd, if there was one. Let his blood be upon us and our children? Did they really shout such an awkward and outlandish line? And with a single voice? Where were the followers of Jesus who came to Jerusalem with him from the Galilee? Where were the dissenters?” Donati shook his head. “That passage was a mistake. A sacred mistake, but a mistake nonetheless.”

“But was it an innocent mistake?”

“A professor of mine at the Gregoriana used to refer to it as the longest lie. Privately, of course. Had he done so openly, he would have been dragged before the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith and defrocked.”

“Is the scene in Matthew’s Gospel a lie?”

“The author of Matthew would tell you that he wrote the story as he had heard it himself and as he believed it to be. That said, there is no doubt that his Gospel, like Mark’s, shifted the blame for Jesus’ death from the Romans to the Jews.”

“Why?”

“Because within a few short years of the Crucifixion, the Jesus movement was in grave danger of being reabsorbed by Judaism. If there was a future, it lay with the gentiles living under Roman rule. The evangelists and the Church Fathers had to make the new faith acceptable to the Empire. There was nothing they could do to change the fact that Jesus died a Roman death at the hands of Roman troops. But if they could suggest that the Jews had forced Pilate’s hand …”

“Problem solved.”

Donati nodded. “And I’m afraid it gets worse in the later Gospels. Luke suggests it was the Jews rather than the Romans who nailed Jesus to the cross. John makes the accusation straight out. It is inconceivable to me that Jews would crucify one of their own. They might well have stoned Jesus for blasphemy. But the cross? Not a chance.”

“Then why was the passage included in the Christian canon?”

“It is important to remember that the Gospels were never intended to be factual records. They were theology, not history. They were evangelizing documents that laid the foundation of a new faith, a faith that by the end of the first century was in sharp conflict with the one from which it had sprung. Three centuries later, when the bishops of the early Church convened the Synod of Hippo, there were many different gospels and other texts circulating among the Christian communities of North Africa and the Eastern Mediterranean. The bishops canonized only four, knowing full well they contained numerous discrepancies and inconsistencies. For example, all the canonical Gospels give a slightly different account of the three days leading up to Jesus’ execution.”

“Did the bishops also know they were planting the seeds for two thousand years of Jewish suffering?”

“A fair question.”

“What’s the answer?”

“By the end of the fourth century, the die had been cast. The refusal of the Jews to accept Jesus as their savior was regarded as a mortal threat to the early Church. How could Jesus be the one true path to salvation if the very people who heard his message with their own ears clung to their faith? Early Christian theologians wrestled with the question of whether the Jews should even be allowed to exist. St. John Chrysostom of Antioch preached that synagogues were whorehouses and dens of thieves, that Jews were no better than pigs and goats, that they had grown fat from having too much to eat, that they should be marked for slaughter. Not surprisingly, there were numerous attacks on the Jews of Antioch, and their synagogue was destroyed. In 414 the Jews of Alexandria were wiped out. Regrettably, it was only the beginning.”

Still dressed in his borrowed clerical suit, Gabriel went to the window and, parting the blinds, peered into the Borgo Santo Spirito. Donati was seated at his writing desk. Before him, still in its sheath of protective plastic, was the page from the book.

EVANGELIUM SECUNDUM PILATI …

“For the record,” said Donati after a moment, “the Nicene Creed, which was written