Matthew Levi's Attempt to Save Yeshua

Matthew Levi, the former tax collector who abandoned his money to follow Yeshua Ha-Nozri, is the sole witness to the crucifixion who attempts to intervene. His desperate, failed rescue mission on Bald Mountain defines his role as the faithful but powerless disciple, and his subsequent actions — cutting down the bodies and preserving a fragment of the novel — echo the novel's themes of loyalty, guilt, and the persistence of testimony.

Identity and Background

Matthew Levi was a tax collector before he met Yeshua on the road in Bethphage, where a fig grove juts out at an angle. He initially treated Yeshua hostilely, even insulting him by calling him a dog, but after listening to Yeshua's teaching he threw his money down in the road and declared that henceforth money had become hateful to him. From that moment he became Yeshua's constant companion, following him and writing down his words on a goatskin parchment — though Yeshua complained that Levi wrote things down incorrectly and begged him to burn the parchment. Levi is described as a black-bearded man with eyes festering from sun and lack of sleep, wearing a worn-out tallith that had gone from light-blue to dirty grey.

The Failed Rescue Attempt

Two days before the execution, Yeshua and Levi were in Bethphage visiting a gardener who liked Yeshua's preaching. They spent the morning working in the garden, planning to go to Yershalaim towards evening, but Yeshua suddenly said he had urgent business in the city and left alone around noontime. This was Levi's first error: he let him go alone. That evening Levi was struck by a sudden, terrible illness — his whole body filled with fire, his teeth chattered, and he kept asking to drink. He collapsed on a horse blanket in the gardener's shed and lay there until dawn on Friday, when the illness released him as unexpectedly as it had fallen upon him.

Still weak, his legs trembling, Levi went to Yershalaim and learned that his foreboding had not deceived him — the disaster had occurred. He was in the crowd and heard the procurator announce the sentence. When the condemned men were led off to the mountain, Levi ran alongside the file in the crowd of the curious, trying to let Yeshua know that at least he was there with him, that he had not abandoned him on his last journey. But Yeshua, looking into the distance towards where he was being taken, did not see him.

When the procession had gone about a half-mile along the road, a simple and ingenious thought dawned on Levi: the file of soldiers was not solid, there were spaces between them. With great dexterity and precise calculation, one could bend down, slip between two legionaries, make it to the cart and jump into it. One instant would be enough to stab Yeshua in the back with a knife, crying to him: "Yeshua! I save you and go with you! I, Matthew, your faithful and only disciple!" If God granted him one more free instant, he would also have time to stab himself and avoid death on a post. But Levi had no knife with him, nor a single piece of money.

Furious with himself, Levi got out of the crowd and ran back to the city. He ran up to the city gate, manoeuvring amid the throng of caravans being sucked into the city, and saw to his left the open door of a little shop where bread was sold. Breathing hard after running down the scorched road, he entered the shop very sedately, greeted the woman behind the counter, asked her to take the top loaf from the shelf, and when she turned around, silently and quickly took from the counter a long, razor-sharp bread knife and dashed out of the shop.

A few moments later he was again on the Jaffa road, but the procession was no longer in sight. He ran, at times dropping down right in the dust and lying motionless to recover his breath, listening to his heart pounding not only in his chest but in his head and ears. When he finally caught sight of the long procession raising dust in the distance, it was already at the foot of the hill. He realized he was going to be too late — and he was too late.

Anguish and Curses on Bald Mountain

For over three hours Levi sat on a stone on the north side of the hill, where the slope was uneven with gaps and clefts, clutching at a sickly fig tree that gave no shade. He had chosen the worst position for watching the execution, but one that allowed him to remain little noticed and not be bothered by anyone. Earlier, when the procession first arrived, he had tried to break through the soldiers to the very place of execution, receiving a heavy blow in the chest with the butt end of a spear, and leaped back crying out not in pain but in despair.

His sufferings were so great that at times he began talking to himself, muttering: "Oh, fool that I am... Fool, senseless woman, coward! I'm not a man, I'm carrion!" He scribbled notes on a piece of parchment with a stylus: "The minutes run on, and I, Matthew Levi, am here on Bald Mountain, and still no death!" and "The sun is sinking, but no death." Finally he wrote: "God! Why are you angry with him? Send him death." He sobbed tearlessly and wounded his chest with his nails.

When the fourth hour of the execution had gone by, Levi's torments reached their highest degree. He flung to the ground the stolen knife — stolen in vain, as he now thought — crushed his flask with his foot, depriving himself of water, threw off his kefia, seized his thin hair, and began cursing himself, calling out meaningless words, abusing his father and mother for bringing a fool into the world. He clenched his dry fists, raised them to the sky, and demanded an immediate miracle from God — that God at once send Yeshua death. Opening his eyes and seeing nothing had changed, he shouted: "I curse you, God!" He shouted that he was convinced of God's injustice and did not intend to believe in him any longer, calling God a "black god" and "god of robbers."

After the Execution: Retrieving the Body

When the storm cloud rose and the executioner gave Yeshua the sponge and then the spear to the heart, Levi saw the tribune climb the mountain and the centurion order the cordon raised. As the soldiers rushed headlong down the hill and the torrents of rain poured down, Levi remained. Shaking the not uselessly stolen knife, falling from slippery ledges, clutching at whatever was there, sometimes crawling on his knees, he strained towards the posts. Having made his way to them, already up to his ankles in water, he tore off his heavy water-soaked tallith, remaining just in his shirt, and clung to Yeshua's feet. He cut the ropes on his shins, stepped up on the lower crossbar, embraced Yeshua and freed his arms from the upper bonds. The naked, wet body of Yeshua collapsed on Levi and brought him to the ground. He left the body with its thrown-back head and outspread arms on the ground in the water, and ran to the other posts, cutting the ropes on them as well. Several minutes passed, and all that remained on the top of the hill were the two bodies and the three empty posts. By that time both Levi and the body of Yeshua were gone from the hilltop.

Narrative Role and Significance

Levi's failed rescue attempt is the only direct intervention by a follower during the crucifixion, and his subsequent retrieval of the body ensures that Yeshua is not left to the elements. His character embodies the tension between faith and despair, loyalty and impotence. The novel later reveals that Levi, speaking for Yeshua, delivers the judgment on the master's fate — telling Woland that the master "does not deserve the light, he deserves peace" — a verdict that echoes Levi's own experience of guilt and his understanding of human limitation. His stolen bread knife, which he thought useless, ultimately serves to cut down the body, preserving it from further indignity. Levi's presence on Bald Mountain, his curses, and his final act of recovery make him the sole witness who transforms his helplessness into a concrete, if belated, act of devotion.