The Testimonium

by Lewis Ben Smith

  There was a long silence on the other end. “You aren’t pulling my leg, are you, son?” his father finally asked.

  “No, Dad!” Josh assured him. “I’m not above a practical joke, but not about something this important. I think it must be Pilate’s report on the Crucifixion. I mean, what else could it be?”

  “We know that such a report was made,” his father said. “You may well be right. And even if not, to have a written letter from the hand of the man who presided over Jesus’ trial—son, this is wonderful!”

  Josh thought about his next statement. “Dad, if this is the testimony that Justin Martyr referred to in his ‘First Apology,’ then this discovery could truly be the greatest archeological confirmation of Christianity ever found!”

  His dad agreed. “You are right, son. Understand, of course, faith is exactly that. It cannot be proven, measured, or tested. But I have always believed, and taught you in turn, that faith need not be blind. Christianity rests on a firm foundation of real history. You may have well found a significant cornerstone of that foundation. Well done, my boy!”

  “Thanks, Dad!” Josh said. His father had always been an encouragement to him, even when he disagreed with some of Josh’s choices, but to hear such pride in the old man’s voice warmed Josh’s heart. So God did have a reason for leading Josh away from the pulpit and into an archeology degree! Josh then asked about his mother, and the church at home, and the Rangers’ seasonal prospects, and so the conversation meandered along for another thirty minutes before Josh hung up. He never saw the figure lurking in the shadows, and it did not move away until he went back inside.

  Ali bin-Hassan had heard enough. So the Christian infidels thought they had found proof of the Crucifixion of Isa, eh? As a devout Muslim, Hassan knew that virtually everything the Christians taught about Isa was wrong. The Prophet had revealed the truth in the Quran, that Isa “was crucified not, nor did he die, but it only had the appearance thereof.” The injil of Barnabas, which the infidels rejected, told the true story: that Allah had caught the Prophet Isa (peace be upon him) up to Paradise, and caused the treacherous Judas to be transformed into his likeness, so that the Romans had crucified, not the Galilean, but the very one who had betrayed him! But of course, the media would never tell the truth. If the scroll were opened and read, it would be an inspiration and encouragement to Christians worldwide, and all the gains Islam had made might be threatened. Hassan made up his mind that the scroll, and its discoverers, must be destroyed. As he slipped quietly through Capri village, to the small house near the mosque where he lived, he thought about how to best accomplish that.

  Back at the house, the five archeologists prepared for dinner. Rossini had ordered out from Mrs. Bustamante’s place, since none of them felt like going out for dinner, and she had delivered the meals in person moments earlier. He knew that the restaurateur did not normally leave the kitchen during the supper hours, and thanked her profusely, paying almost twice what the food was worth.

  “Giuseppe, you old fool, you gave me too much!” she protested.

  “After the hospitality you have lavished on my guests, it is the least I could do,” he said. “Not to mention the many kindnesses you have shown to me through the years!”

  “Well, someone has to make sure the lonely old widowers on this island are properly fed!” she replied.

  Giuseppe worked up his courage. “This lonely old widower would like to show his thanks,” he said. “After I return from Naples next week, would you like to go the cinema, or perhaps an opera, with me?”

  “I thought you would never ask!” the Spanish restaurateur replied. “I should be most delighted to be your date!”

  Rossini was beaming from ear to ear as he served the dishes to his friends. Isabella watched him, then whispered to Josh, “I bet he finally did it!” He raised an eyebrow in curiosity. “He’s been mooning over Antonia for a long time,” she explained. “I think he must have finally asked her out!”

  Josh looked at the lovely Italian next to him. Her olive skin was deeply tanned, and the tiny laugh lines around her eyes only enhanced her Mediterranean beauty. “Speaking of which,” he said. She turned and eyed him expectantly. “I was thinking that, once we get to Naples, perhaps you and I could—you know, maybe one evening, go and—”

  She smiled at his awkwardness. How could a man this handsome be so uncomfortable around women? “I would very much enjoy spending an evening on the town with you,” she said. “But let’s get this damnable press conference over with first!”

  The dinner was magnificent—Mrs. Bustamante had outdone herself this time. Steaming plates of pasta with every sauce imaginable, savory chicken diced fine and marinated until it was falling apart, calzones stuffed full of every variety of meat, cheeses, and vegetables, with hot fresh Italian bread rolls. The archeologists fell to with a vengeance, but it was apparent after a half hour that there was no way they could begin to consume it all.

  Josh was enjoying himself immensely. Father MacDonald, Scottish brogue in full swing, was needling him about petty religious differences, and Josh was swatting aside his comments with witty rejoinders that had everyone around the table keeping score. The young Baptist had even allowed himself a glass of wine, although he honestly did not like the stuff much. Finally, not even the sturdy Apriceno could finish another bite, and they began to wrap up the leftovers.

  “Put them all in my freezer,” said Rossini. “I will feed on them for the next month!”

  Apriceno laughed. “No wonder you’ve gotten portly since you settled here, Giuseppe,” she laughed. “The way that woman fattens you up, you’d think she had her eye on you.”

  “Maybe she does,” Rossini shot back, setting of a new round of laughter.

  As she helped Josh wrap up the last of the calzone, he noticed that Simone was sporting a large gold ring that housed an ancient Roman coin. “I haven’t seen you wear that before,” he said.

  Apriceno replied, “It was a gift from my husband, when I returned from my first dig. The coin is from the Augustan era, and he picked it up for me at a gift shop here on Capri on our honeymoon. He said it was in celebration of my successful excavation. Ever since then, I wear it whenever my field work is done. Ricardo and I parted ways long ago, but this reminds me that once upon a time, we cared for each other, and he was proud of my work.”

  Josh nodded. “He was a foolish man to let you go, Doctor. You’re a pretty remarkable lady!”

  She laughed. “All men are foolish, especially young ones when they try to flirt with women old enough to be their mothers!” she responded.

  Isabella slid between them, smiling. “Back off, Simone, I saw him first!” she snapped in mock anger. Josh fled the room in embarrassment.

  Later that evening, with the food put away and the dishes washed, they sat around the table, playing dominoes and discussing interesting digs they had been on. Josh showed them his lucky necklace—a simple leather circlet with the first arrowhead he had ever found suspended from it. MacDonald discussed an ancient Roman military camp he had dug in Great Britain, just north of Hadrian’s Wall.

  “The camp was normal enough,” he said. “Buckles, arrowheads, toga clasps, a crossbow trigger. There were three burials just outside its boundary—looked like Roman legionaries who had fallen victim to Pict raiders—probably some of me ancestors. One of the Romans still had a Celtic spearhead in his rib cage! But there was a slab of stone in the camp—polished limestone with crude Latin letters carved on it. It was a curse: ‘May Hades take this land of cruel blue barbarians and walking dead men!’ I have never understood what that last part meant.”

  Josh nodded. “That is bizarre,” he said. “One of my early archeology instructors in America said he once excavated an Archaic site in Central Texas where he found five severed heads carefully buried under several massive limestone slabs, each one several hundred pounds, piled one on top of another.”

  Isabella listened with interest. “One of my Egyptology profess
ors excavated a burial near Karnak, where he found an enormous mummified crocodile—with a mummified child interred inside it. The boy had not been eaten—his body was perfectly intact and not torn apart, like a croc kill. But he was carefully mummified, and then deliberately placed inside the crocodile’s body, with all manner of wards and protective curses inscribed on the wrappings that encased them both.”

  “Superstition is a bizarre thing,” said Simone Apriceno.

  “Speaking of superstitions,” said Rossini, “my mother always told me that if I stayed up too late after eating too much, I might turn into a giant vegetable! And I think it is time for me to heed her wisdom. Isabella, you and Simone have the twin beds in the far guest room, and Father MacDonald, you may use the near guest room.”

  “I’ll bunk down on the couch like I did last time,” said Josh.

  “Better your young bones than my old ones, laddie,” said the priest.

  One by one the archeologists gravitated towards their rooms, until Josh and Isabella were left alone. She let out an enormous yawn, and stretched slowly.

  “I am thinking that we probably do not need to spend half the night talking, like we did Wednesday!” he said.

  “You are probably right,” she said. “By the way, I have arranged for you to stay at the Ambassador Suites, along with the rest of the team, for your time in Naples. It is a nice place, and the Bureau has a longstanding arrangement with them, so your room will be fully covered. It’s just four blocks from the museum, and not far from my flat.”

  “Good,” he said. “It will be nice to have a room of my own, although Dr. Rossini’s place is far more comfortable than those tents up on the mountain!”

  “Josh,” said Isabella. He looked at her. “I have enjoyed, very much, getting to know you this week,” she said, and kissed him.

  This was no friendly kiss on the cheek, but a full-blown lover’s kiss, with a great deal of passion and emotion behind it. He was too stunned to respond at first, but then returned her kiss with enthusiasm. After a few seconds, they broke apart.

  “A shame this house does not offer greater privacy!” she said, and left him standing there, his emotions in a confused jumble. Once more, it took him a long time to go to sleep.

  The next morning the team packed their bags and assembled down by the docks to catch the ferry to the mainland. A van was waiting to take them to the Ambassador Suites, and after they had deposited their luggage in their rooms, they met at the museum. Josh had never seen the massive structure before, and was quite impressed with it. It was a massive structure, pink with rich dark brown gables and arches. He knew that it housed one of the largest collections of Egyptian relics outside Egypt, as well as many one of a kind Greek and Roman era artifacts, and looked forward to touring it later, as time allowed. When they got out of the van, he began to walk toward its front steps.

  “Straight in and keep going, my young friend,” said Rossini. “The new lab is actually behind the main museum, in a completely new, state of the art facility.”

  The team walked through the corridors of the museum, out a small back door, across a small parking lot, and approached a modern concrete structure, with narrow windows and a low roof, unobtrusively inserted between the many historic structures around it.

  “A large part of the structure is underground,” said Rossini, “and that is where many items are stored. But the labs we will be using are all on the ground floor, near the back of the building. You’ll notice that the entrance faces onto the parking lot of the main museum, while the rear of the building presents only a blank face to the street behind it. That is by design. This is a place for scientists and archeologists to work, not for the public to come and gawk. I was on the committee that designed the place.”

  There was a small security desk just inside the door, where each of them was issued a special badge that gave them access to the entire museum complex. After they had received their badges, Rossini walked them back to the main laboratory, where Dr. Guioccini was waiting for them. “Greetings, my friends!” he said. “Welcome to your new workplace! This is where you will tease out all the secrets from the treasure trove of information you have discovered. Let me show you around.”

  He gestured to the large work area behind him, where stainless steel tables with magnifying viewers over them held many of the Capri artifacts. “This is where the solid pieces will be studied—the furniture, the sword and scabbard, the various coins and other items you recovered. You have banks of microscopes, numerous computer monitors and workstations, and full carbon-14 dating capability. Dr. Rossini and Dr. Sforza, you will be doing much of your work here.” He walked down a short corridor and opened the door to a much smaller lab. Numerous rehydration tanks of various sizes lined the walls, along with smaller worktables and trays, with magnifying viewers and enough computer equipment to conduct a moon launch, or hack into the CIA’s mainframe.

  “This is our manuscript center,” he said. “Drs. Parker and MacDonald, this is where you will unroll the ancient scrolls you have found and transcribe their message. The two undamaged scrolls are rehydrating in those two tanks”—he pointed at the back wall—“and the fragmentary manuscripts are undergoing stabilization in these banks of drawers.” He indicated an area along the opposite wall. MacDonald and Josh looked at each other happily. This kind of work environment was something many historians and archeologists only dreamed of.

  “Last of all,” Guioccini said as he escorted Simone Apriceno to the end of the hallway, “here is our paleobotany lab. All of your pollen samples are housed in those drawers, arranged according to the labels you placed on them, Dr. Apriceno. We have a full range of microscopic instruments, and C-14 dating capacity. I want a full and complete battery of tests run on every pollen sample you collected from the chamber, double and triple checked for stratigraphic integrity. Let us know if there is anything found where it should not be.”

  After finishing the tour, he called all of them back to the main lab. “The press conference will be in the visitor’s gallery of the main museum at noon on Monday,” he said. “We want to show the world good, solid science—with a dash of theater thrown in. I want you to pick the artifacts you are going to show, and flag them so that we can move them to the facility. The more durable items should be no problem; however, the scrolls do not need to leave this laboratory until they have been opened and read. But I do want good, clear pictures and video of them to show to the press. I would like all of you to speak Monday, and explain those things that relate to your area of expertise. You have the entire day, and tomorrow if necessary, to put together your remarks. I would like to have a run-through this afternoon, so I can have an idea as to what you plan to say. Any questions?”

  They looked at one another and shrugged. Each of them had already been planning what they might say, and what finds they might share, since they found out about the press conference, and they had shared some ideas the evening before and on the way over this morning. It was just a matter now of stringing it all together. Dr. Guioccini smiled and nodded his farewell, and left them to it.

  It was a difficult day after that—not physically, but emotionally. Josh had never been the center of media attention before, but he did not have a terribly high opinion of the American press. MacDonald had acted as a Vatican spokesman on archeological matters for years, and was a natural in front of the camera. Simone Apriceno disliked public appearances, but she had worked as a university lecturer and knew how to keep her comments simple and interesting. Rossini would also be a natural, and Isabella, although she disliked this type of dog and pony show, was forceful and attractive enough to hold the attention of any audience. Little by little, they worked out which artifact each one of them would present to the press, what remarks they would make, and how to present the discovery of the scrolls. Time flew, and by three o’clock, they were ready to present their run-through to Guioccini and Castolfo. The two board members were duly impressed, and the long day came to an end shortly a
fter six in the evening.

  Josh joined the team as they walked back to the front of the museum complex. Isabella’s car had been in the museum employee parking lot for a week, and she bade them a fond good evening before heading for it. She knew her neighbor had been watering the plants and feeding her cat, but it was time for her to have a night at home. The museum’s van conducted the rest of them back to the hotel, and Josh took the time to enjoy a long, comfortable shower in the privacy of his room. His thoughts were still in an uproar about Isabella. He had never been this strongly attracted to any woman, and yet he knew she did not share his faith. How could he bear to share his life with someone he might not get to share eternity with? And yet her beauty made him weak in the knees—he had not felt this adolescent, even when he was an adolescent!

  He felt like some exercise would do him good, so he went down to the gift shop and purchased an overpriced pair of swim trunks, then returned to his room and ran through some of the karate exercises, or kata, that he had learned during his four years of martial arts study in college. The blocks, punches, and kicks, exercised in perfect sequence several times over, helped clear his head. After an hour of vigorous exercise, he went down to the pool and swam for another hour, then ordered some food delivered to his room. He ate a light supper, to atone for the feasting earlier in the week, and was sound asleep before ten o’clock.

  As for Isabella Sforza, she lay awake long past midnight, looking at the photographs of her lost husband, and then thinking about the young man she had met just a few days before. She thought long and hard about the two of them, unable to decide what move to make next. Finally, she got out of bed and padded through her apartment barefoot, taking Marc’s photos down and placing them in her dresser drawer. She would never forget him, never stop loving him, and never stop missing him—but it was time to move on.

  Even after I had granted them their wish, Caesar, the Jewish priests were still not happy with my handling of the Galilean. I had just sat down to my noontide meal when I got word that one of Caiaphas’ secretaries wanted to see me. Once more I had to leave the Praetorium, since their ridiculous religion would not allow them to cross the threshold of a Roman. “What is it now?” I snapped.