The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ (Canongate Myth #16)

And he led Christ up the hillside to a place where the setting sun illuminated everything brightly. The stranger was wearing clothes of pure white, and the glare from them was dazzling.

'I asked about your brother,' said the stranger, 'because it's clear that a crisis in the world is coming, and because of it you and he both will be remembered in times to come just as Moses and Elijah are remembered now. We must make sure, you and I, that the accounts of these days give due weight to the miraculous nature of the events the world is passing through. For example, the voice from the cloud you heard at his baptism.'

'I remember my mother told you about that... But did you know that when I told Jesus about it I said that the voice spoke of him?'

'That is exactly why you are the perfect chronicler of these events, my dear Christ, and why your name will shine in equal splendour with his. You know how to present a story so its true meaning shines out with brilliance and clarity. And when you come to assemble the history of what the world is living through now, you will add to the outward and visible events their inward and spiritual significance; so, for example, when you look down on the story as God looks down on time, you will be able to have Jesus foretell to his disciples, as it were in truth, the events to come of which, in history, he was unaware.'

'Since you spoke to me of the difference between them, I have always tried to let the truth irradiate the history.'

'And he is the history, and you are the truth,' said the stranger. 'But just as truth knows more than history, so you will have to be wiser than he is. You will have to step outside time, and see the necessity for things that those within time find distressing or repugnant. You will have to see, my dear Christ, with the vision of God and the angels. You will see the shadows and the darkness without which the light would have no brilliance. You will need courage and resolution; you will need all your strength. Are you ready for that vision?'

'Yes, sir, I am.'

'Then we shall speak again soon. Close your eyes and sleep now.'

And Christ felt overpowering tiredness, and lay down where he was on the ground. When he awoke it was dark, and he felt he had experienced a dream stranger than any other he had known. But the dream had solved one mystery, because he knew now that the stranger was no ordinary teacher, no member of the Sanhedrin, no Greek philosopher: he was not a human being at all. He could only be an angel.

And he kept the vision of the angel, his white garments dazzling with light, and resolved to let the truth of that vision into the history of his brother.

Jesus Debates with a Lawyer; The Good Samaritan

For most of the time Christ kept out of the way of Jesus, because he could rely on the words of his informant. He knew his spy was trustworthy, because occasionally he checked the man's report by asking others what Jesus had said here, or done there, and found always that his informant was strictly accurate.

But when Christ heard that Jesus was going to preach in this town or that, he sometimes attended to hear for himself, always remaining inconspicuous at the back of the assembly. On one occasion when he did this, he heard Jesus questioned by a lawyer. Men of the law often tried their skill against Jesus, but Jesus was able to deal with most of them, though he frequently did so by what Christ thought were unfair means. Telling a story, as he so often did, introduced extra-legal elements into the discourse: persuading people by manipulating their emotions was all very well to gain a debating point, but it left the question of law unanswered.

This time the lawyer said to him, 'Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?'

Christ listened closely as Jesus responded: 'You're a lawyer, are you? Well, tell me what the law says.'

'You must love the Lord God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind. And you must love your neighbour as you love yourself.'

'That's it,' said Jesus, 'you've got it. You know the law. Do that, and you'll live.'

But the man was a lawyer, after all, and he wanted to show that he had a question for everything. So he said, 'Ah, but tell me this: who is my neighbour?'

So Jesus told this story:

'Once there was a man, a Jew like yourself, going along the road from Jerusalem to Jericho. And in the middle of his journey he was set on by a band of robbers, who stripped him, beat him, stole everything he had, and left him there by the roadside half-dead.

'Well, dangerous as it is, it's a busy road, and soon afterwards, along came a priest. He took one look at the man covered in blood at the roadside, and decided to look the other way and go on without stopping. Then along came a temple official, and he too decided not to get involved; he passed by as quickly as he could.

'But the next to come along was a Samaritan. He saw the wounded man, and he stopped to help. He poured wine on his wounds to disinfect them, and oil to soothe them, and he helped the man up on to his own donkey and took him to an inn. He gave the innkeeper money to look after him, and said, "If you need to spend more than this, keep an account, and I'll pay it next time I'm passing."

'So here's a question for you, in answer to your question of me: which of these three men, the priest, the official, and the Samaritan, was a neighbour to the man who was robbed on the Jericho road?'

The lawyer could only answer, 'The one who helped him.'

'That's all you need to know,' said Jesus. 'Off you go, and do the same thing.'

Christ knew as he wrote it down that, for all its unfairness, people would remember that story much longer than they'd remember a legal definition.

Mary and Martha

One day Jesus and some of his followers were invited to eat with two sisters, one called Mary and the other called Martha. Christ's informant told him what happened that evening. Jesus had been speaking, and Mary was sitting among the people listening to him, while Martha was busy preparing the meal.

At one point Martha came in to rebuke Mary: 'You let the bread burn! Look! I ask you to be careful with it, and you just forget all about it! How can I do three or four things at once?'

Mary said, 'The bread is not as important as this. I'm listening to the master's words. He's only here for one night. We can eat bread any time.'

'Master, what do you think?' said Martha. 'Shouldn't she help me, if I've asked her to? There are a lot of us here tonight. I can't do it all on my own.'

Jesus said, 'Mary, you can hear my words again, because there are others here to remember them. But once you've burnt the bread, no one can eat it. Go and help your sister.'

When Christ heard about this, he knew it would be another of those sayings of Jesus that would be better as truth than as history.

Christ and the Prostitute

On the few occasions when Christ came close to Jesus, he did his best to avoid contact with him, but from time to time someone would ask him who he was, what he was doing, whether he was one of Jesus's followers, and so on. He managed to deal with questions of this kind quite easily by adopting a manner of mild courtesy and friendliness, and by making himself inconspicuous. In truth, he attracted little attention and kept to himself, but like any other man he sometimes longed for company.

Once, in a town Jesus had not visited before and where his followers were little known, Christ got into conversation with a woman. She was one of the prostitutes Jesus made welcome, but she had not gone in to dinner with the rest of them. When she saw Christ on his own, she said, 'Would you like to come to my house?'

Knowing what sort of woman she was, and realising that no one would see them, he agreed. He followed her to her house, and went in after her, and waited while she looked in the inner room to see that her children were asleep.

When she lit the lamp and looked at him she was startled, and said, 'Master, forgive me! The street was dark, and I couldn't see your face.'

'I'm not Jesus,' said Christ. 'I'm his brother.'

'You look so like him. Have you come to me for business?'

He could say nothing, but she understood, and invited him to lie on the bed with her. The business was concluded rapidly, and afterwards Christ felt moved to explain why he had accepted her invitation.

'My brother maintains that sinners will be forgiven more readily than those who are righteous,' he said. 'I have not sinned very much; perhaps I have not sinned enough to earn the forgiveness of God.'

'You came to me not because I tempted you, then, but out of piety? I wouldn't earn much if that was the case with every man.'

'Of course I was tempted. Otherwise I would not have been able to lie with you.'

'Will you tell your brother about this?'

'I don't talk much to my brother. He has never listened to me.'

'You sound bitter.'

'I don't feel bitter. I love my brother. He has a great task, and I wish I could serve him better than I do. If I sound downcast, it's perhaps because I'm conscious of the depth of my failure to be like him.'

'Do you want to be like him?'

'More than anything. He does things out of passion, and I do them out of calculation. I can see further than he can; I can see the consequences of things he doesn't think twice about. But he acts with the whole of himself at every moment, and I'm always holding something back out of caution, or prudence, or because I want to watch and record rather than participate.'

'If you let go of your caution, you might be carried away by passion as he is.'

'No,' said Christ. 'There are some who live by every rule and cling tightly to their rectitude because they fear being swept away by a tempest of passion, and there are others who cling to the rules because they fear that there is no passion there at all, and that if they let go they would simply remain where they are, foolish and unmoved; and they could bear that least of all. Living a life of iron control lets them pretend to themselves that only by the mightiest effort of will can they hold great passions at bay. I am one of those. I know it, and I can do nothing about it.'

'It's something to know it, at least.'

'If my brother wanted to talk about it, he would make it into a story that was unforgettable. All I can do is describe it.'

'And describing it is something, at least.'

'Yes, it is something, but not much.'

'Do you envy your brother, then?'

'I admire him, I love him, I long for his approval. But he cares little for his family; he's often said so. If I vanished he wouldn't notice, if I died he wouldn't care. I think of him all the time, and he thinks of me not at all. I love him, and my love torments me. There are times when I feel like a ghost beside him; as if he alone is real, and I'm just a daydream. But envy him? Do I begrudge him the love and the admiration that so many give him so freely? No. I truly believe that he deserves it all, and more. I want to serve him... No, I believe that I am serving him, in ways he will never know about.'

'Was it like that when you were young?'

'He would get into trouble, and I would get him out of it, or plead for him, or distract the grown-ups' attention by a clever trick or a winning remark. He was never grateful; he took it for granted that I would rescue him. And I didn't mind. I was happy to serve him. I am happy to serve him.'

'If you were more like him, you could not serve him so well.'

'I could serve others better.'

Then the woman said, 'Sir, am I a sinner?'

'Yes. But my brother would say your sins are forgiven.'

'Do you say that?'

'I believe it to be true.'

'Then, sir, would you do something for me?'

And the woman opened her robe and showed him her breast. It was ravaged with an ulcerating cancer.