The Beautiful Mystery

Frère Antoine and the abbot find Gamache to explain the prior’s last words. He died while saying the Latin phrase “Ecce homo” (322). This is what Pontius Pilate says in the New Testament’s Gospel of John while pointing at the bleeding body of Jesus—translated, the words mean “He is man” (322). Pilate wanted to remind everyone that Jesus was mortal and prevent his deification.

Alone with the Gamache, the abbot says that Frère Antoine will make a good choirmaster, as he loves God as much as his art. This is also true for the abbot, whose love of God would be unchanged if his life no longer focused on the chant, but may not have been true for the prior. The abbot finally admits that he and the prior argued over the recording, and is surprised to hear Gamache knows about the building foundations—the abbot swears he told no one else. The abbot sees the physical cracks as a symbol of the weakening of the monastery as a whole. Unlike the prior, who wanted to use the recordings to fix the building, the abbot concluded, “What good would it do to fix the cracks but lose our real foundation? Our vows aren’t negotiable.