The Kashat Deception

by Albert Noyer

  Andronicos held his right hand against his chest to apologize. “Bishop, indeed a…a novice should have brought a brazier to your cell. However, my news should warm you. The Patriarch will speak with you at this time.”

  “You mean ‘former Patriarch’.”

  “As you wish, Bishop. Please accompany me. Andronicos half-smiled at a thought. This prelate had better not play the master during the interview.

  Born at Edessa in northern Mesopotamia, fifty-year-old Harmonios, despite a conciliatory adopted name―he had been christened Dadishô―looked more brigand than bishop. Untrimmed curly black hair framed a swarthy face whose heavy brows met at the bridge of a thick nose. Forsaking a full beard, Harmonios nurtured only a drooping mustache that usually made strangers hide smiles of ridicule. The bishop had arrived at Myos Hormos from Edessa while Nestorios was in exile at Petra.

  As he walked the corridor to the Patriarch’s cell, Harmonios probed, “Deacon, do you speak the Syriac language?”

  “I do not, but I study Coptic here.”

  “A pity, as the suppleness of Syriac is more suited to expressing the new Christology in the Testaments than Greek or Latin. You are of course ‘Nestorian’?”

  “Yes, and secretary to the Patriarch.”

  “What sort of man is he, to have been deposed from such high ecclesiastical office?”

  “Nestorios is a churchman of principle.”

  When the secretary did not elaborate, Harmonios continued, “I meant, Deacon, that at Edessa we are well acquainted with his teachings, but not as much with the man. We know that twelve years ago Nestorios was a presbyter-monk in a Syrian monastery, and that Emperor Theodosius chose him to be Patriarch of Constantinople. What made his fall from favor so abrupt?”

  “Two envious clerics, who expected to be raised to the patriarchate, accused him of heresy after he preached against using Theotokos as a title for the Virgin.”

  “‘Bearer of God.’ Surely, the danger that the Virgin might be worshiped as a goddess, another ‘Parthenos,’ by pagans, was clear to hierarchy at Constantinople.”

  “Nestorios was Antiochene, a stranger to the capital, yet when attacked he lost no time in assembling a council to defend his views.”

  Harmonios elaborated, “Those being that the Holy Virgin was Christotokos, mother only to the human Christ, and thus He consists of two Persons with separate human and divine Natures.”

  Andronicos agreed, “And Patriarch Cyril of Alexandria became his chief opponent.” He paused at a plain wooden door. “Bishop, we are at the Patriarch’s cell.”

  After two periods of exile in monasteries at Antioch and Petra failed to alter Nestorios’s unorthodox beliefs about Christ and Mary, Cyril had suggested the irony of using the Monastery of the Holy Virgin at Hebet as a third confinement for the stubborn heretic. The choice of that name was no accident; among other doctrinal errors, Nestorios taught that Mary was the mother only of the human Jesus, not of a God-made-Man. The Virgin’s monastery housed lesser ecclesiastical dissenters, but most of the monks were steeped in orthodoxy. After several of the latter tried to reason with the heretic without success, one abba began practicing mortification of the flesh, self-flagellation with shards of obsidian knotted into leather strips. No one knew if he had exorcised uncertainties implanted by the heretic that condemned him to everlasting fire.

  The banished Patriarch’s “cell,” was adjacent to a vast necropolis and consisted of three rooms at the north end of the monastery. The room in which Nestorios received visitors had a whitewashed mud-brick wall with a lamp stand, desk, stool and two chairs as the only other furnishings. The wall displayed icons of two holy persons: Pachomios and Hadra stood on each side of a seated Virgin and Christ Child. Palm-wood shelves sagged under a substantial library of orthodox works: despite Cyril of Alexandria’s loathing of the man, his charitable hope was that Church-sanctioned reading would bring Nestorios to his senses.

  The exiled Patriarch sat behind his desk, holding an ivory hand cross inlaid with mother-of-pearl. Harmonios came in with eyes lowered, as if entering the audience hall of a monarch. Hands tucked into his sleeves, he waited for acknowledgment.

  Intending to humiliate the churchman, Nestorios ordered, “Raise your eyes, Bishop! Is a mere servant of The Crucified One to be honored as is an emperor?”

  “Holiness, the honors cannot be compared.”

  Nestorios gestured with his cross. “That is an ambiguous answer, yet clever. How did you to come be bishop at Myos Hormos? Surely, you are not Egyptian.”

  Shaken by the Patriarch’s blunt manner, Harmonios stuttered, “I…no, Holiness. I c…come from Edessa in upper Mesopotamia.”

  “Edessa? At Antiochia I was a week’s journey south of that city. You are known for the Peshitto, a Syriac translation of the Christian Testaments.”

  “A work of Bishop Rabbula.”

  “Rabbula…” Nestorios scowled on hearing the name. “That bishop, now blessedly deceased, was no friend of my teachings.”

  “Holiness, Bishop Ibas succeeded him in the year past.”

  “Oh? Does this Ibas share my view of Maria as the bearer of only a human Christ, and not of God?”

  Harmonios hedged, “I know that he is sympathetic to the writings of Theodoros of Mopsuestia, which your followers at Edessa and Nisibis highly favor. Did you know that even Cyril refused to condemn Theodoros’s writings?”

  “Yes, the theologian was an elder cousin of mine and dead the year I became Patriarch.”

  “I…I wasn’t aware.”

  “And, Bishop, I am not aware of why you came to this inhospitable place in an inhospitable season. Myos Hormos is how many days caravan travel?”

  “About twelve…” Harmonios sneezed and reflexively shivered in the cold room. “Holiness, may…may I sit down?”

  “On that stool. Andronicos, have a brazier and mulled wine brought to warm the Bishop.”

  Harmonios slumped on the low seat, drawing his stained travel cloak more tightly around his shoulders. Nestorios laid down the hand cross and went back to reading a papyrus manuscript on his desk until the secretary returned. In calculated moves, he had managed to embarrass any sense of superiority from his ecclesiastical visitor―the brusque greeting, a stool rather than a chair, the bishop’s dependence on his host’s hospitality for minimal comforts.

  Acutely conscious of the disrespect shown to his person and church office, Harmonios nervously blew on cupped hands as he glanced at the sky outside a window behind the Patriarch. The square of blackness was speckled with a myriad of shivering stars in the constellation of Scorpio, the namesake denizen of this desert waste.

  Nestorios’s window in the monastery overlooked some one hundred mud-brick tombs of monks who had died at Hebet during the past century.

  Andronicos returned with a dusky Kushite youth, carrying a glowing charcoal brazier by its handles. After ordering the novice to set the heater on the floor near the visitor, and return with the hot wine, the secretary crossed behind Nestorius to pull shutters over the window opening and keep out chill night air.

  The Patriarch continued reading until the youth came back with a cup half-full of wine―he obviously had sampled much of the spiced drink on his way back. Nestorios rolled up his document and secured it with a flaxen cord, then glanced up at Harmonios with a patronizing smirk.

  “You should be attending your flock, Bishop. What is this mysterious ‘ancient papyrus’ my secretary tells me you felt compelled to come here and discuss?”

  Harmonios clutched the warm cup with both hands. “Holiness, it is one of two rumors I heard from dock workers at the port.”

  “Rumors are the stepchildren of lies, Bishop. Are you the only person unfamiliar with this maxim?”

  Harmonios’s initial respect for the Patriarch blossomed into rising anger at his rude condescension. “The first is no longer a rumor,” he insisted stiffly. “Pulcheria Augusta is confined in one of her palaces by Chrysaphios Tzumas, a palace eunuch.”<
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  “Is this true?” Nestorios sat up straight at the unforeseen misfortune of his powerful enemy at the imperial court. “The emperor’s sister was instrumental in my exile to Petra and then here.”

  “Holiness, a few days ago a courier arrived at Hormos with the report. This eunuch has the emperor’s ear and Emperor Theodosius has not been pleased with Pulcheria.”

  The Patriarch’s hope rose at the report. “Indeed, an encouraging development for me. Word may have reached Pelusium…” He motioned to his secretary. “Andronicos, verify this with the provincial governor.”

  “Holiness, I shall send a courier.”

  “Do so before morning.” Nestorios turned back to the bishop. “And what is this second rumor about a papyrus?”

  “I know not the full details of a document found with an ancient account which supports your viewpoint that Christ’s divine and human natures exist simply conjoined, not as one substance.”

  “And thus Christotokos, ‘Mother of Christ,’ is the correct Marian title, not ‘Mother of God,’ for no woman can bring forth a son older than herself.” Nestorius pondered the discovery of a written document that could give almost biblical support to his teachings. “Bishop, this papyrus was found where?”

  “In a Moeris necropolis. The document evidently was concealed in a mummy dating to the years of the Holy Family’s sojourn in Egypt.”

  Nestorios’s eyes narrowed in suspicion. “Bishop, is this another fanciful Infancy tale? What kind of simple fool are you, or do you think I am?”

  “Patriarch, I…I―”

  “Your source of this information is, of course, nameless?”

  “No, no, Holiness, it is by a Kushite importer at Hormos named Shandi. In fact, he is a business associate of the governor.” Unnerved by the questioning, Harmonios abruptly stood up, knocking over the stool and splashing wine on his cloak. “I…I also came to say that your converts at Hormos are prepared to help you escape to Edessa.”

  Nestorios waited until Andronicos took the cup and blotted the stain with his kerchief before asking, “Edessa? Why to that city?”

  “Holiness, your followers are numerous there and most eager to travel further east and proselytize in Persia.”

  “Persia?” Nestorios laughed at the absurd thought.

  “You…you could be restored to a Patriarchate in Edessa.”

  “Bishop, if this papyrus is authentic it will discredit Cyril’s theology about Christ’s human and divine natures being united in One Nature, not only at Alexandria, but in the entire Egyptian Church. Further, such a revelation would under-mine the basis of orthodox Christianity itself. No, I see a much greater prize than another Patriarchate…” Nestorios picked up his hand cross again; he thought more clearly when holding the ivory symbol. “My vision is of a Nestorian Church that would encompass both Constantinople and Rome!”

  “Yes…yes, of course, a Nestorian Church,” Harmonios babbled. “My…my feeble mind―”

  “Bishop, you came today with a caravan?” Nestorios asked.

  “Yes, a small group, bringing sacks of charcoal for monastery braziers.”

  “You return when?”

  “At dawn with fresh camels.”

  “How far to Myos Hormos?”

  Harmonios estimated, “Seven days to Abydos on the Nilus, no more than five to Myos Hormos. God willing, twelve to fourteen in all.”

  Nestorios caressed the ivory cross against his cheek. “You brought a servant or two to attend your needs?”

  “Ah…I have three, Holiness.”

  Nestorios stood and turned to his deacon. “Andronicos, bring me the travel cloak of one of those servants. Make sure it is hooded.” Murmuring a blessing, he touched the cross to the prelate’s forehead, throat, and inner wrists. “Now, deacon, take our bishop to the refectory for supper.”

  * * *

  A flush of pre-dawn light had brightened a milky sky for half of an hour-glass before the arc of a yellow-orange, nascent sun burst over the rippling eastern dunes of the Great Western Desert.

  The camels of the caravan bringing Bishop Harmonios back to Abydos had plodded several miles beyond the horizon when a monk assigned to bring a morning tray of food for Nestorios rapped on the Patriarch’s cell door. Andronicos opened the portal part way, held a finger of his left hand to his lips, and pointed to a form covered by a blanket, lying on the cot.

  “The heretic is not well today and cannot eat,” he whispered to the holy man. “Share his food with a companion of yours.”

  The monk sneered, “An affliction of God for his apostasy from the True Church.”

  “Indubitably, Brother, and he also may be too ill to eat any supper. I shall look in on him and tell you.” Andronicos closed the cell door and turned to shake a mystified novice awake. The frightened youth peered up at him. “God be with you,” the deacon said. “I’ll bring you back food when I go to the refectory and break my own fast.”

  CHAPTER X

  Getorius moaned as he slowly moved his fingers up to touch a swollen lump on the back of his head. Without opening his eyes, he struggled to rise from a bed.

  Sitting next to him, Nepheros admonished, “Lie back, Surgeon. That was a vicious blow to the head you received.” The secretary eased Getorius’s hand away and applied cold water to the wound from a soaked cloth.

  Standing up from another bed, Arcadia was relieved. “Thank Cosmas, my husband is regaining consciousness. Nepheros, you’ve done very nicely without Papnouthios here.”

  “The physician undoubtedly is at his hospital, conducting more experiments. Surgeon, do you hear me well enough? Can you see me?”

  Getorius turned his head toward the voice, opened his eyes, and nodded. Even that slight motion sent renewed throbbing through his skull. “What…what happened?”

  Nepheros reached over to pick up a wooden staff with a crocodile carved at its top. “I found this next to you. It belongs to Tanutamun, that priest at the Sobek temple.”

  Arcadia scowled, “So, he’s responsible for injuring my husband?”

  Tanutamun must have discovered him examining the Kashat mummy.”

  “I asked Getorius not to go to that horrid place, but he’s stubborn.”

  Arcadia, you…” Getorius winced and asked Nepheros, “Help me sit up now.”

  “Of course…” The secretary pulled him up by the armpits and adjusted a pillow behind his back.

  “Give me a moment…” Getorius closed his eyes and exhaled a long breath. “Arcadia, you were correct. The mummy is that of a woman.”

  “What, you’re saying a female!” Nepheros exclaimed. “How…how can that be? Surgeon, how do you know?”

  “Arcadia noticed that―”

  “Getorius, please rest and let me tell him. The carved feet were small with sandals decorated in a woman’s style. My husband went to verify the mummy’s gender.”

  “A shriveled breast,” Getorius murmured.

  “A woman’s?” At his nod, Nepheros exulted, “Surgeon, that’s splendid! It proves the papyrus not to be genuine.”

  “Not necessarily,” Arcadia cautioned.

  “What do you mean?”

  “You’ve not had much experience with forgeries, have you Nepheros?”

  “Perhaps not.”

  Getorius explained, “My wife means that in itself a discovery that way proves little, yet the document is of crucial importance. Of course, authorities must witness the mummy, yet the woman could be Kashat’s wife or daughter. As a physician, Papnouthios will confirm the gender. Bishop Eusebios can…can verify that for…for…the church―” He winced eased himself back to lie down.

  Acadia noticed her husband’s voice falter and his face contort in pain. “Nepheros, I should mix spirea and valerian dosages. I’m glad that you brought him back here, yet Getorius should sleep now.”

  “Certainly, Domina.” The secretary sponged the wound a last time, put the cloth in the bowl, and stood up. “I’ll send Papnouthios to look in on him in the mor
ning.”

  “We’re grateful. Will the governor now arrest this Egyptian priest?”

  “Assuredly not, Domina. Abinnaeus will do nothing that might cause Pelusium’s unruly pagan quarter to riot and destroy Christian property.”

  “So the priest will not be punished?”

  “Tanutamon is a power in his community. I…I bid you both health.”

  After the secretary left, Getorius watched his wife prepare the medications. “You seem to feel better, cara. Where is your nursemaid?”

  “Agathe? I told her that I’d be fine and to go and eat supper.” Arcadia handed him a cup of the solution, then gently touched the swelling beneath his hair. “Your head must feel terrible. I plan to follow Hippocrates in observing the inflammation. He wrote that a fever might follow and then blackening of the bone before it turns pale again. That seemed to be a glancing blow and, fortunately, the least damaging to your skull.”

  Getorius winced again as he swallowed the bitter potion. “I’ve read The Physician on head injuries. My wound is not that serious, so don’t expect me to be dead in fourteen days.” He forced a laugh and reached down to examine the ceremonial staff that felled him. “I’m also fortunate that Egyptian priest wasn’t strong. A blow with this could have killed me.”

  Arcadia spooned brown valerian powder into more wine. “Again, what happened?”

  I won’t tell her about those human limbs I saw in the crocodile pen. “I continued cutting linen wrapping until I exposed the embalmed body. I had just found a shriveled female breast when I was struck from behind…” He took the cup from her. “I’m also fortunate that you told Nepheros where I was. When did he come to see you?”

  Confused, Arcadia asked, “What do you mean? He didn’t come here.”

  “Didn’t? Then who―”

  “It’s Agathe! I thought the woman couldn’t understand Latin, but she must have overheard us and told the secretary where you’d gone.”

  “Fortunately so…” He thought a moment. “Arcadia, did Agathe ever leave the room before you dismissed her?”

  “No.”

  “Then how could she have informed the secretary of my whereabouts?”