José Saramago - The Gospel According to Jesus Christ

Time passed, the mist did not speak again, and Jesus asked, now with the voice of one who expects an affirmative reply, Nothing more. God hesitated, then in a tired voice said, There is still the Inquisition, but if you don't mind, we'll discuss that some other time. What is the Inquisition. The Inquisition is another long story. Tell me. It's best you don't know, you will only feel remorse today for what belongs to tomorrow. And You won't God, being God, feels no remorse. Well, since I'm already bearing this burden of having to die for You, I can also endure the remorse that ought to be Yours. I wanted to protect you. You've done nothing else from the day I was born. Like most children, you're ungrateful. Let's stop all this posturing, tell me about the Inquisition. Also known as the Tribunal of the Holy Office, the Inquisition is a necessary evil, we will use this cruel instrument to combat the disease that persistently attacks the body of your church in the form of wicked heresies and their harmful consequences along with a number of physical and moral perversions, which, lumped together without regard for order of importance, will include Lutherans and Calvinists, Molinists and Judaizers, sodomites and sorcerers, some of these plagues belong to the future, others can be found in every age. And if the Inquisition is a necessary evil, as You say, how will it proceed to eliminate these heresies. The Inquisition is a police force, a tribunal, and will therefore pursue, judge, and sentence its enemies as would any police force. Sentence them to what. Prison, exile, the stake. Did You say the stake. Yes, in days to come, thousands upon thousands of men and women will be burned at the stake. You mentioned some of them earlier. They will be burned alive because they believe in you, others because they doubt you. Isn't it permitted to doubt me. No. Yet we're allowed to doubt that the Jupiter of the Romans is god. I am the one and only Lord God, and you are My son. You say thousands will die. Hundreds of thousands of men and women, and on earth there will be much sighing and weeping and cries of anguish, the smoke from charred corpses will blot out the sun, human flesh will sizzle over live coals, the stench will be nauseating. And all this is my fault. You are not to blame, your cause demands it. Father, take from me this cup. My power and your glory demand that you drink it to the last drop. I don't want the glory. But I want the power. The mist began to lift, and around the boat water could be seen, smooth, somber water undisturbed by a ripple of wind or the tremor of a passing fin. Then the devil interrupted, One has to be God to countenance so much blood.

The mist advanced again, something else was about to happen, some revelation, some new sorrow or new remorse. But it was Pastor who spoke, I have a proposal to make, he said, addressing God, and God, taken aback, replied, A proposal from you, and what proposal might that be. His tone, cynical and forbidding, would have reduced most to silence, but the devil was an old acquaintance. Pastor searched for the right words before explaining, I've been listening to all that has been said here in this boat, and although I myself have caught glimpses of the light and darkness ahead, I never realized that the light came from burning stakes and the darkness from great piles of bodies. Does this trouble you. It shouldn't trouble me, for I am the devil, and the devil profits from death even more than You do, it goes without saying that hell is more crowded than heaven. Then why do you complain. I'm not complaining, I'm making a proposal. Go ahead, but be quick, I cannot loiter here for all eternity. No one knows better than You that the devil too has a heart. Yes, but you make poor use of it. Today I use it by acknowledging Your power and wishing that it spread to the ends of the earth without the need of so much death, and since You insist that whatever thwarts and denies You comes from the evil I represent and govern in this world, I propose that You receive me into Your heavenly kingdom, my past offenses redeemed by those I will not commit in future, that You accept my obedience as in those happy days when I was one of Your chosen angels, Lucifer You called me, bearer of light, before my ambition to become Your equal consumed my soul and made me rebel against You. And would you care to tell Me why I should pardon you and receive you into My kingdom. Because if You grant me that same pardon You will one day promise left and right, then evil will cease, Your son will not have to die, and Your kingdom will extend beyond the land of the Hebrews to embrace the whole globe, good will prevail everywhere, and I shall stand among the lowliest of the angels who have remained faithful, more faithful than all of them now that I have repented, and I shall sing Your praises, everything will end as if it had never been, everything will become what it should always have been. I always knew you had a talent for leading souls astray, but I never heard you speak with such conviction and eloquence, you almost won me over. So You won't accept or pardon me. No, I neither accept nor pardon you, I much prefer you as you are, and were it possible, I'd have you be even worse. But why. Because the good I represent cannot exist without the evil you represent, if you were to end, so would I, unless the devil is the devil, God cannot be God. Is that Your final word. My first and last, first because that was the first time I said it, last because I have no intention of repeating it. Pastor shrugged and said to Jesus, Never let it be said the devil didn't tempt God, and getting to his feet, he was about to pass one leg over the side of the boat, but stopped and said, In your pack there is something that belongs to me. Jesus could not remember having taken the pack with him into the boat, but in fact there it was, rolled up at his feet, What thing, he asked, and on opening the pack he found nothing inside but the old black bowl he had brought from Nazareth. That's it, that's it, said the devil, picking up the bowl with both hands, One day this will be yours again, but you won't know you have it. He tucked the bowl inside his coarse shepherd's tunic and lowered himself into the water. Without looking at God, he said, as if addressing an invisible audience, Farewell forever, since that is what He has ordained. Jesus followed with his eyes as Pastor gradually swam off into the mist, from a distance he looked once more like a pig with pointed ears, and he was panting furiously, but anyone with a keen ear would have had no difficulty hearing the note of fear in it, fear not of drowning, what an idea, because the devil, as we have just learned, has no end, but of having to live forever. Pastor had disappeared behind the broken fringe of mist when God's voice suddenly rang out in farewell, I will send a man named John to help, but you will have to prove to him that you are who you are. Jesus looked around, but God was no longer there. Just then the mist lifted and vanished, leaving the lake clear and smooth from mountain to mountain, there was no sign of the devil in the water, no sign of God in the air.

On the shore from which he had come, Jesus could see a large crowd and, in the background, numerous tents, evidently an encampment for people who did not live there and who, having nowhere to sleep, had settled themselves as best they could. Curious, he lowered the oars into the water and rowed in that direction. Looking over his shoulder, he saw boats being pushed into the water, and taking a closer look, he saw Simon and Andrew, James and John in them, with others he did not know. Rowing hard, they were soon within speaking distance. Simon called out, Where have you been, obviously this was not what he wanted to know, but he had to begin somewhere, Here on the lake, replied Jesus, an answer as inane as the question, not a good start in this new chapter in the life of the son of God, Mary, and Joseph. Then Simon was clambering into Jesus' boat, and the incomprehensible and impossible was revealed, Do you know how long you've been out here in the mist, while we tried to launch our boats only to be pushed back by strong winds, asked Simon. All day, replied Jesus, then added, All day and night, seeing the intensity in Simon's face. Forty days, shouted Simon, then lowering his voice, You've been on the lake forty days, and all that time the mist never lifted, as if it were hiding something from us, what were you doing out here, we haven't caught a single fish in these waters for forty days. Jesus passed one of the oars to Simon, and both rowed and conversed in harmony, shoulder to shoulder, moving at a pace ideal for exchanging confidences, and Jesus said before any of the other boats could get closer, I've been with God, and I know what the future holds for me, how long I will live and the life that awaits me after this life. What is He like, I mean, what does God look like. God does not appear in only one form, He may be a cloud, a pillar of smoke, even a wealthy Jew, but once you hear His voice, you know Him. What did He say to you. He told me I am His son. Then the devil was right, during that business with the pigs. The devil too was here in the boat and heard everything, he seems to know as much about me as God does, sometimes I think he knows even more than God. And where, Where what, Where were they, The devil was on one side of the boat, between where you are now and the bench at the stern, which is where God sat. What did God say to you. That I am His son and will be crucified. If you're going to the mountains to fight on the rebel side, we'll come with you. You will come with me, but not to the mountains, we will not conquer Caesar with arms but make God triumph with words. With words alone. Also by giving a good example, and giving our lives if necessary. Are these your father's words. Henceforth all my words are His, and those who believe in Him must believe in me, for it is impossible to believe in the father without believing in the son, since the new path the father has chosen for Himself can begin only with me, His son. When you say we will come with you, who do you mean. First of all you, then Andrew your brother, the sons of Zebedee, James and John, which reminds me that God said He would send a man named John to assist me, but that cannot be the same John. We don't need anyone else, this isn't one of Herod's ceremonial processions. Others will come, perhaps some are already there waiting for God's sign, a sign He will manifest through me, that they may believe and follow. What will you tell the people. That they must repent of their sins and prepare themselves for God's new era, which is about to dawn, an era in which His flaming sword will humble those who have rejected and vilified His holy word. But you must tell them you're the son of God. I'll say that my father called me his son and I carried that word in my heart since the day I was born, but God Himself has now come to claim me as His son, one father does not make one forget the other, but the father giving orders today is God, so we must obey Him. Leave this to me, said Simon, dropping his oar and moving to the prow, and he called out in a loud voice, Hosanna, the son of God approaches, he who has spent forty days on the water speaking with his father and now returns to us so that we may repent and prepare ourselves. Don't mention that the devil was also there, Jesus quickly warned him, afraid of the difficulty he would have explaining this if it became public knowledge. Simon gave another cry, louder, causing great excitement among the crowd gathered on the shore, then he hurried back to his seat and told Jesus, I'll row, you stand on the prow, but say nothing, not a single word, until we reach the shore. And so they arrived, Jesus standing on the prow of the boat in his worn tunic and with his empty pack over his shoulder, arms half raised as if wanting to greet someone or bestow a blessing but too shy, not confident enough. Among those waiting, three men were so impatient that they waded in up to their waists. Reaching the boat at last, they began pushing each other, one of them trying with his free hand to touch Jesus' tunic, not because he believed what Simon had said but because he was pulled by the mystery of this man who had been on the lake forty days, like searching for God in the desert, and who now returned from that mountain of cold mist, where he might or might not have seen God. Needless to say, in all the nearby villages people were speaking of nothing else, and the people gathered on the shore had come to see the meteorological phenomenon for themselves. When they heard there was a man lost in the mist, they muttered, Poor fellow.