The Da Vinci Fraud: Why the Truth Is Stranger Than Fiction (10 page)

But this is not at all clear. Strauss (unusually for him) and the many apologists who quote him are playing the Rationalist game by taking for granted an accurate depiction of the events of Easter and then juggling possible explanations for them. The real issue is whether Jesus might have survived, with his disciples just glad enough to have him back, by the providence of God. All the extravagant preaching of a glorious resurrection, fainting guards at the tomb, angels swooping down in shining robes, would have been the window dressing of subsequent retellings, once the hypothetical original belief in the cheating of death had been transformed into a mythic belief in a resurrection of a dead man.

And yet possibility is not probability. Before going further, however, it must be said that the Swoon Theory, the idea that Jesus survived crucifixion, certainly wins the trophy for probability if the other contestant is the notion of a supernatural resurrection performed by an invisible god. The latter may indeed have happened for all we know, but as poor historians who can do no better than gauge probability on the basis of comparison to what we usually see happening around us, we would have to give the palm to the Swoon Theory every time.

There remains a third alternative, though it is one that will do Baigent, Lincoln, and Leigh no good. It may be that the facts of Jesus’s death have been lost, perhaps not having been known or notable, and that the vacuum of this ignorance was filled by imaginative fiction of a kind well known in the period, namely, the romance adventure novel. Books of this sort had entertained mass audiences since the seventh century BCE if not earlier, though their heyday was the second century CE. The composition of the gospels falls well within these limits, and the suggestion offered here is that, at one time, the story of Jesus was told in a novelistic fashion and that the conventions of this genre supplied the source for the crucifixionresurrection sequence. Only at first it was an escape from death, as in the novels, rather than a resurrection from it.

It is quite striking that in several of the novels, the heroine is falsely thought to have died and is entombed still alive. She awakens in the darkness of the tomb and despairs until fortuitously robbers come to loot the tomb, discovering her alive. Not daring to leave witnesses, they make a fast decision to take her along and sell her as a slave. Soon after, her loved ones visit the tomb to mourn and are startled to find the tomb empty, sometimes with grave clothes or funerary tokens left intact.

In Chariton’s
Chaereas and Callirhoe
, Chaereas is falsely incited to rage against his wife, Callirhoe, and delivers a kick that seems to kill her. She is entombed alive. Soon pirates (who are virtually ubiquitous in these novels) arrive to rob the tomb. They discover Callirhoe alive, now having revived in the cool of the mausoleum, and they kidnap her to sell her as a slave. In her captivity, Callirhoe pities her doubly vexed husband in terms strikingly reminiscent of the New Testament empty tomb accounts: “You are mourning for me and repenting and sitting by an empty tomb.”
³

But the resemblance to the gospel accounts only grows stronger a little later when poor Chaereas discovers the empty tomb.

When he reached the tomb, he found that the stones had been moved and the entrance was open. He was astonished at the sight and overcome by fearful perplexity at what had happened. Rumor—a swift messenger—told the Syracusans this amazing news. They all quickly crowded round the tomb, but no one dared go inside until Hermocrates gave an order to do so. [Compare John 20:4-6.]

The man who went in reported the whole situation accurately. It seemed incredible that even the corpse was not lying there. Then Chaereas himself determined to go in, in his desire to see Callirhoe again even dead; but though he hunted through the tomb, he could find nothing. Many people could not believe it and went in after him. They were all seized by helplessness. One of those standing there said, “The funeral offerings have been carried off [Cartlidge’s translation reads: “The shroud has been stripped off”—cf. John 20:6-7]—it is tomb robbers who have done that; but what about the corpse—where is it?” Many different suggestions circulated in the crowd. Chaereas looked towards the heavens, stretched up his arms, and cried: “Which of the gods is it, then, who has become my rival in love and carried off Callirhoe and is now keeping her with him?”
⁴

The parallels to the empty tomb accounts, especially to John 20:1-10, are abundant and close. Chaereas even suggests that Callirhoe has been (like Jesus) translated to heaven. Later, Callirhoe, reflecting on her misadventures, says, “I have died and come to life again.”
⁵

In Miletus Callirhoe comes to believe that Chaereas perished while searching for her. To console her and to lay her fond memory of his rival to rest, Dionysius, her new husband, erects a tomb for Chaereas. It lacks his body, but this is not, as all think, because the corpse is irrecoverable but rather because he is still alive elsewhere. His tomb is empty because he is still alive. Why seek the living among the dead?

We meet with the familiar pattern again in the
Ephesian Tale
of Xenophon. The beautiful Anthia seems to have died from a dose of poison but has in fact merely been placed in a deathlike coma. She awakens from it in the tomb: “Meanwhile some pirates had found that a girl had been given a sumptuous burial and that a great store of woman’s finery was buried with her, and a great horde of gold and silver. After nightfall they came to the tomb, burst open the doors, came in and took away the finery, and saw that Anthia was still alive. They thought that this too would turn out very profitable for them, raised her up, and wanted to take her.”
⁶

Equally striking is the recurrent feature of the hero being condemned to the cross, sometimes actually being crucified, but being reprieved or rescued just in time. For instance, Chaereas is condemned to the cross: “Without even seeing them or hearing their defense the master at once ordered the crucifixion of the sixteen men in the hut. They were brought out chained together at foot and neck, each carrying his cross. . . . Now Chaereas said nothing when he was led off with the others, but [his friend] Polycharmus, as he carried his cross, said: ‘Callirhoe, it is because of you that we are suffering like this! You are the cause of all our troubles!’”
⁷
At the last minute Chaereas’s sentence is commuted: “Mithridates sent everybody off to reach Chaereas before he died. They found the rest nailed up on their crosses; Chaereas was just ascending his. So the executioner checked his gesture, and Chaereas climbed down from his cross.”
⁸
As he later recalls, “Mithridates at once ordered that I be taken down from the cross—I was practically finished by then.”

Here, then, is a hero who went to the cross for his beloved and returned alive. In the same story, a villain is likewise crucified, though, gaining his just deserts, he is not reprieved. This is Theron, the pirate who carried poor Callirhoe into slavery. “He was crucified in front of Callirhoe’s tomb.”
⁹
We find another instance of a crucifixion adjacent to the tomb of the righteous in
The Alexander Romance
when Alexander arrests the assassins of his worthy foe Darius. He commanded them “to be crucified at Darius’s grave.”
¹⁰
We cannot help being reminded of the location of Jesus’s burial “in the place where he was crucified” (John 19:41).

In Xenophon’s
An Ephesian Tale
, Anthia’s beloved Habrocomes goes in search of her and winds up being condemned to death through a series of misadventures too long to recount here. “They set up the cross and attached him to it, tying his hands and feet tight with ropes; that is the way the Egyptians crucify. Then they went away and left him hanging there, thinking that the victim was securely in place.” But Habrocomes prays that he may yet be spared such an undeserved death. He is heard for his loud cries and tears. “A sudden gust of wind arose and struck the cross, sweeping away the subsoil on the cliff where it had been fixed. Habrocomes fell into the torrent and was swept away; the water did him no harm; his fetters did not get in his way.”
¹¹

When the hero and heroine, both having brushed death so closely, reunite, each can scarcely believe the other is alive. There is a recognition scene where one insists that he or she is truly alive and no ghost. For example, Habrocomes returns to a temple where, in happier days, he and Anthia had erected images of themselves as an offering to Aphrodite. Still deprived of Anthia and thinking her to be dead, he sits there and weeps. He is discovered by old friends Leucon and Rhode: “They did not recognize him, but wondered who would stay beside someone else’s offerings. And so Leucon spoke to him. ‘Why are you sitting weeping, young man?’ Habrocomes replied, ‘I am . . . the unfortunate Habrocomes!’ When Leucon and Rhode heard this they were immediately dumbfounded, but gradually recovered and recognized him by his appearance and voice, from what he said, and from his mention of Anthia.”
¹²

Here we see an unmistakable resemblance to the New Testament empty tomb accounts, where Jesus or an angel accosts a weeping mourner, and a dramatic recognition results. Compare John 20:11-16:

Mary remained weeping outside the tomb, and as she cried, she bent over to peer into the cavity. There she saw a pair of angels, in white robes, posted where the body of Jesus had been, one at the head, the other at the feet. They inquired of her, “Woman, why are you crying?”

She answered them, “Because someone has moved my Lord, and I have no idea where they put him!” As she spoke, she turned around, only to see Jesus himself standing before her. But she had no inkling that it was Jesus.

Jesus said to her, “Woman, why are you crying? Who is it you are looking for?”

Taking him for the caretaker, she said, “Sir, if you are the one who moved him, tell me where you put him, and I will take him off your hands.”

But Jesus said to her, “Mary!”

She looked at him and said to him in Hebrew, “Rabboni!” which means, “My master!”

Here we also have the question “Why are you weeping?” the initial failure of recognition, and the recognition being sparked by the mention of a woman’s name. Luke 24:13 ff. is only slightly less close:

That very day, two of them were headed for a village called Emmaus, about seven miles distant from Jerusalem, deep in conversation about everything that had transpired. While they were thus preoccupied, who but Jesus himself should approach, catching up to them. But their eyes could not register his identity. And he asked them, “What on earth so animates this conversation of yours as you walk?” So they stopped in their tracks and fell silent, looking dejected.

Finally, one of them, by the name of Cleopas, replied. “You must be the only pilgrim to Jerusalem unaware of the events of these past few days!”

And he replied, “What events might those be?”

And they answered, “The ruckus over Jesus of Nazareth! Oh, he was a prophet mighty in word and deed! At least God and all the people thought so! But our arch-priests and rulers handed him over to be sentenced to death, and they crucified him. And we had great hopes he would be the one to set Israel free.

“And that’s not the end of it! Today is the third day since it all happened. And, to make matters worse, some women of our group threw a scare into us. They went out to the tomb this morning, and found the body was gone! They came back prattling about a vision they’d had, of angels who claimed he was alive! Some of our companions went to check things out: the women were right. But they saw no sign of him.”

And he said to them, “You poor fools! Too obtuse to take the word of the prophets! Wasn’t it part of the plan that the Christ had to suffer all the things you’ve described before he could ascend his throne?” So, starting with Genesis, he went through the Prophets explaining which were references to him, and what they meant.

When they finally came near their destination, he pretended he was headed further down the road. But they refused to hear of it and insisted he stay the night with them. “Look, evening draws on apace, and most of the day is gone.” So he accepted their invitation and went in. When they were gathered round the table, he picked up the bread, said the blessing, and divided it. All of a sudden, their eyes widened in recognition—then he was gone!

One said to the other: “It makes sense! Didn’t you feel that mounting excitement as he deciphered the scriptures for us while we were walking?” Though it was nightfall, they lost no time retracing their steps to Jerusalem. Soon they located the eleven and their companions in a meeting. “What’s all this?” they asked, and were told, “What the women said was true! The Lord
is
risen! Simon saw him!” Then the two disciples told what had happened on their journey, and how he revealed himself to them in the breaking of bread.

NOW ACCEPTING IMPLICATIONS

The crucifixion and empty tomb, I suggest, may form not part of the career of the historical Jesus but rather of the novelistic form into which his story was cast. These features may be no more historical than the virgin birth. Many scholars already deem the empty tomb story a legend, but perhaps instead it is fiction, a novelistic embellishment. Perhaps even the survived crucifixion of Jesus is simply a literary convention. (The irony here is choice: Our larger purpose is to scrutinize a novel based on the gospels, and we wind up suggesting that the gospels themselves are in some measure based on ancient novels!)