The Twelfth Man

By John Skow

BROTHERS by CHAYYM ZELDIS

497 pages. Random House. $10.

This gaudy costume novel elaborates lengthily on one of those history-as-it-wasn't ingenuities: the supposition that Jesus -- though he did not know it himself -- had a malevolent older brother. Obsessed by his hatred of the young mystic, he pretended belief, joined Jesus' band of followers, then betrayed him to the Roman authorities. The idea is intriguing. The family relation ship between good and evil makes a strong metaphor, and the attempt to add flesh and fury to the rather thin biblical characterization of Judas invites attention.

Yet Chayym Zeldis, a prizewinning poet and novelist (Golgotha) offers little more than The Robe turned inside out. The narrative is just adequate as a melodramatic page turner. But an au thor who invents a 500-page confessional memoir by the principal villain of Christianity might be expected to advance some notions about the na ture of evil, and in this respect the novel is simply vacant-minded.

Judas (who, portentously, is never referred to by name) commits a sufficient number of murders and other laps es of conduct to qualify as one of society's pustules. The author imagines his rise by sheer meanness from nonentity to the position of War Minister in the court of Herod. He plots to overthrow Herod, and then, himself deposed and displaced from power, meets his long-lost younger brother, whom he goads into raving on seditiously about the kingdom of God.

The sly purpose involved, he confides to his journal, is to saddle gullible humanity with the empty cult of a charismatic fool. To accomplish this he engineers the entire Crucifixion, arranges the mysterious disappearance of his brother's body and then cynically dictates wondering and sentimental accounts of it all to Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. Having struck these gongs, the author lets all vibrations die away. It is unclear whether he feels that he has made a comment on Christianity's failures or written an ironical tale of good growing from evil.

A more talented literary mischief maker -- Gore Vidal, perhaps-- might have carried the novel off, but Zeldis's book is children's theater. His Judas fig ure is really naughty Captain Hook boasting of wickedness.

John Skow

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