The Jerusalem Parchment

by Tuvia Fogel

  Yehezkel was silent and then mumbled, “Yes, Master Francesco, I understand . . .”

  “No, no, don’t you ‘Master Francesco’ me. Call me ‘Brother Francesco piccolo,’ like my friars do.”

  “As you wish. What brings you to Outremer, Brother Francesco piccolo? Are you perchance a pilgrim to Jerusalem, like we are?”

  Francesco started to answer, but his gaze fell on Aillil, wrenching him from the conversation. He mumbled something about angels freely roaming the earth, put an arm around the boy’s shoulder, and walked off across the square under the smiling eyes of the women. Yehezkel stood there, hands on his hips as if waiting for an answer to his question.

  Meanwhile, Francesco showed Aillil the feint in which the sword rises as if for a blow from above but instead is driven forward to plunge in the opponent’s gut from below. The friars were speechless at the sight of their scrawny founder standing in the middle of the square, feet wide apart in a warrior’s pose. Francesco urged Aillil to try the move and then, in a sudden change of heart, threw aside the branch he’d used for a sword, ruffled the boy’s hair, and walked him back to where the others stood chatting.

  The rabbi, noticing that the friar already understood every word Aillil grunted, felt a small pang of jealousy. Not finding the courage to address the Jew, Friar Illuminato—a quiet, introvert blond as lymphatic as Aillil—turned to Galatea. “He already learned the boy’s ‘song.’ You know, Madonna, when we lived in the Porziuncola, before coming to Matins, he would go down to the pond. One day I asked him why, and he said he was learning the song with which frogs praise the Lord. It takes awhile to learn it, he said, but in the end he did.”

  Galatea nodded, eyes closed, silently thanking Divine Providence for placing her on Francesco’s path. Just one more thing that would never have happened had she stayed in the lagoon.

  When they rejoined the group, Francesco turned to Yehezkel as if the rabbi had just asked his question. “No, we’re not pilgrims to the Holy Sepulchre. We are headed to the Christian camp at Damietta.”

  The company was taken aback. A preacher was going to join an army inflicting death and destruction? But before anyone could ask about it, Friar Pietro drew Francesco aside and whispered in his ear. The founder’s features were suddenly transfigured with anger. He rushed over to Friar Elia and shouted at him. “Let your tongue, which spat the venom of slander on your brother, chew on excrement! Go on, Elia, pick up some shit from the ground, put it in your mouth and chew on it!”

  Friar Elia’s head dropped to his chest. An embarrassed silence fell on both companies. Galatea sensed an old conflict between Francesco and his earliest companion and started talking to Gudrun to downplay the outburst of monkish rigor. Friar Elia found some donkey stool nearby and bent to pick some up.

  “No, Elia, not those!” Francesco’s normally serene features seemed literally warped. “Those are old and dry. That’s like eating earth; there are those who would do it from hunger. No, I want you to find a donkey, walk behind it until it shits and put the fresh stuff in your mouth, with all its fragrance.”

  Yehezkel was intrigued by this fury. Francesco’s red and swollen eyes followed Elia setting off on his penance, flames of pure outrage burning in them.

  A few minutes later, with Francesco already engaged in what seemed like brooding self-reflection, the two companies parted ways. Yehezkel gingerly probed Galatea on the friar’s spat with Brother Elia. “You know, madame, both when he mimed kings before the crowd and just now when he raged at Friar Elia, Francesco looked like a totally different man from the one I revived yesterday. Just . . . someone else. There is something here I cannot figure out.”

  “Francesco is very likely a saint, Master Ezekiel, and we’re privileged to have met him. I’m aching to know why on earth he wants to join the Christian armies in Egypt.”

  “That one puzzles me, too,” smiled Yehezkel. “His own brothers didn’t look all that enthusiastic when he said it, even though I’m sure they already knew of his plan.”

  “He is neither a jester nor the despot he looked like just now, so rest assured, Rabbi: his reason for going to Damietta is a divinely inspired one.”

  Galatea’s tone was that of a last word, and Yehezkel took it as such.

  LIMASSOL, 29TH JUNE 1219

  It was some days before they saw the friars again. Yehezkel was spoiling to talk to the Coptic monk Rav Shlomo had once met in Famagusta, and the next day—they had been in Cyprus for just over a week—he asked Galatea to inquire with Limassol’s Latin nuns on the whereabouts of a Father Makarios. Despite Makarios being the most common name on the island, the nuns knew at once whom she meant.

  The saintly Copt, sick of religious abuse from the Latin clergy, had retired to meditate in the Orthodox monastery of Kykkos, near the highest peak on the island, unimaginatively named Mount Olympus. As luck would have it, this was in the Troodos mountain range, only thirty leagues northwest of Limassol.

  In accordance with her new style, Galatea took the reins of the expedition. Ignoring the loud protests, and Aillil’s were very loud, the abbess decided that only she and Master Ezekiel—escorted by Rustico and Garietto—would climb to Kykkos. But this time, as Yehezkel expected, the wealth on the island made her rule out donkeys, and she asked him to find some horses.

  “There are Jews in Limassol, quite a few I’d say, so how do you expect me to believe you can’t procure four horses for just three days?” she told a surly rabbi.

  On July 2, five days after Yehezkel revived Francesco in the regent’s palace, the strange couple and the armigers mounted four Arab steeds and set out for Mount Olympus, not without jesting that visiting a seat of pagan gods before going to Jerusalem was, in a way, paying homage to the history of revelation. On reaching the monastery, they discovered that Makarios had finally renounced the world altogether and, like the hermit saints of Anatolia, left the monastery and climbed to a chapel consecrated by Saint Paul himself, in the middle of whose ruins he now sat and meditated.

  They rode farther up the mountain. When they sighted the ruins, they left Rustico and Garietto to keep guard against wild beasts—so abundant in the Troodos range that locals considered it a miracle Makarios had not yet been eaten alive—and made their way among the bushes that grew undisturbed in the ruins.

  Father Makarios was very old. A long white moustache fell down the sides of his beard, itself a dirty white. When they got close enough for the smell to reach them, it became clear the Copt hadn’t washed in years, if ever. Crusts of accumulated grime covered his neck, ears, and nails, and his hair, thought Galatea, looked like the nest of a medium-size lagoon bird.

  “Most Reverend Father,” she addressed him, “can you help us solve the enigma in Jerusalem?”

  “Aah, it’s you . . .” mumbled Makarios.

  “Were you expecting us, Father?” she asked hesitantly.

  “You’re the woman and the Jew of Gioacchino’s prophecy, aren’t you?” He coughed.

  “Then you must also know what we’re looking for,” said Yehezkel with a smile.

  “Ha! You’re still much too cocky, Rabbi! If you don’t learn some humility, you’ll never find what you’re looking for, whatever it may be!” said the hermit drily.

  Galatea struggled to wipe a smile from her lips. Yehezkel, piqued, didn’t say a word.

  “Of course I know what you’re looking for: the Parchment of Circles!” wheezed Makarios. “I don’t know where it is. I heard even the one they call the Old Man hasn’t been able to find it. If Sophia never turned her countenance toward him, it means he must be another Christian who hates women after all.”

  Galatea knelt down next to Makarios, a sudden urgency in her voice. “So it’s true that only a woman can solve the enigma?”

  “A woman and a Jew. That is what was written, isn’t it? After all, even Christ only revealed his secret teachings to the Magdalene, the woman he took for his wife . . .”

  Galatea was startled and then remembered that
the hermit said the same thing. Yehezkel knew that Cathar perfecti were adamant the Magdalene had been the wife of Jesus but was mildly surprised to hear the same claim from an Egyptian Copt. Galatea pressed the hermit.

  “So Christ trusted the soul of women, just as Hildegard said?”

  “The soul of women. . . .” The monk raised his head. His eyes crossed Galatea’s and suddenly came alive.

  “Sophia is feminine, and Spiritus is masculine. That’s all of theology right there! You Latins don’t know all the Gospels. The Christians of Egypt, Syria, Babylonia, whom you call heretics, they are the real Church of God! They know the teachings of Miriam of Magdala, of Martha, of Salomé . . .”

  Galatea thought, “First I learned that to say mercy, Jews say womb. Now I hear that Christians in the East never forgot the women around Jesus or his respect for them. Oh, Mother Elisabetta, help me ask the right questions!” The abbess was already on her knees but bent down until her lips brushed the hermit’s encrusted feet. Yehezkel recoiled in disgust.

  “Please, Father, let me hear one of the teachings those holy women received from Jesus’s mouth.”

  Makarios was quiet and then recited, “‘Then Salomé asked Jesus, ‘When will your kingdom come?’ And the Lord answered, ‘When two will become one, and the masculine will become feminine!’”

  Galatea was struck dumb. Yehezkel immediately took advantage of it. “For Jews, Sophia is chochmà, which is feminine, and the Latins’ Spiritus is Shekhinà, also a female!”

  Makarios was starting to enjoy himself. “Priscilla, prophetess of the Montanists, starts her book with ‘Christ came to me in female form, wearing a shining robe, and filled me with her wisdom . . .’”

  Galatea was in seventh heaven. If only Mother Elisabetta could have heard this holy man speak! The idea that the Magdalene had been Jesus’s wife filled her with particular wonder. “But Father, why do the Gospels we Latins read never mention Jesus marrying Miriam of Magdala?”

  “Don’t they? Who do you think got married at Cana? Tell me, would the Lord’s mother worry about the wine for the guests running out if she was not the groom’s mother? John even writes, “His mother said to the servants, ‘Do whatever he tells you.’ Would she say that if she was just a guest?”

  The old man started coughing. Galatea looked around for some water, but he gestured not to worry. “The truth is the apostles were blinded by jealousy for the anointing in Bethany, for it had been done by ‘that woman,’ so the Evangelists twisted it into a prostitute’s gesture of tenderness for her redeemer, when in fact it was the most solemn ritual of the Jewish people: the election of the King of Israel!”

  Makarios propped himself as if to get up, and Yehezkel rushed to his side. When the monk got to his feet, Galatea was still kneeling. He placed a hand on her head and spoke softly, his tone worried. “You must go to Egypt, my dear, to find a letter written by the rabbis who saw the Parchment in Jerusalem four hundred years ago. I was told it is kept in a synagogue in Fustat, near al-Kahira.”

  “But that’s where I was born!” cried out Yehezkel.

  Makarios eyed him as one does a noisy child. “You surprise me, Rabbi. Did you really think that God lets people be born where they will?”

  This time Yehezkel decided he would not, under any circumstances, open his mouth again.

  Makarios leaned on his arm. “You see, the Parchment of Circles was found with many others in a cave near Jericho. Scores of sealed jars full of manuscripts in Hebrew and Greek. In Caliph al-Ma’mun’s time, the rabbis in Jerusalem examined them all, and the letter speaks specifically of the Parchment of Circles. It is in the Ben Ezra synagogue.”

  “Lord of the Universe! That’s where I prayed as child!” mumbled Yehezkel under his breath.

  The old man pointed to some bushes fifty steps away. “Help me to walk over there, Rabbi, I must relieve this mortal body one more time.”

  As he hobbled along leaning on Yehezkel’s arm, the rabbi contravened his one-minute-old resolution. “Father, the Latins are waging war in Egypt right now, and going to Fustat would be complicated, to say the least. Would it not be more useful if we went directly to Acre and looked for this Old Man?”

  “Even if he’d found the parchment, which I doubt, he wouldn’t show it to you,” said Makarios. “But if you told him you had the letter from Fustat, he would have to let you into his quest, wouldn’t he?”

  “Mmh . . . it looks like you really want to help us, Father,” said Yehezkel.

  “Don’t be so diffident, Rabbi. Prophecies come true, but only when men realize they have to help them come true.”

  “Yes . . . maybe you’re right,” mumbled Yehezkel. Makarios stumbled behind a bush, and Yehezkel waited for him, reflecting, as he had done a thousand times, on the true nature of prophecy.

  When they came back, Galatea was still in prayer. In a gesture typical of traveling Mohammedans and Jews, Yehezkel raised a hand to protect his eyes as he glimpsed the sun to decide if it was low enough to pray Minchà. Soon, the three clerics stood or kneeled among the ruins, the cries of swallows affectionately mocking them as they spoke with their God—that is, each one with his or her God.

  LIMASSOL, 6TH JULY 1219

  On a fiercely hot day, three days after Makarios blessed them with moving but strange words about Mary and Jesus, but also Isis and Horus, the company met the friars again in Limassol harbor.

  Once again, while his brothers were only too happy to converse with the charming abbess, Francesco, to her chagrin, was reluctant to stand too close to Galatea or to any woman in the company. This resulted in Francesco and Yehezkel’s walking off to talk Scriptures while the rest of the company listened to the friars’ tales of the last few days’ preaching in Limassol.

  “Someone gave him a copper coin yesterday,” said Pietro, “and he immediately gave it to an aggressive beggar who was pestering him. I complained that widows and orphans were far more deserving of charity than that wretch, and you know what he said? ‘Should I be choosier than God, who gifted it to me?’”

  Brother Illuminato contributed his quote: “And what of the answer he gave to the merchant who asked him why he should give him a coin?”

  “What did he tell him?” asked Galatea, already smiling.

  “Because charity cures heartaches,” said the lanky youth.

  Meanwhile, Francesco and Yehezkel were walking along the pier talking ethics. Soon they came to the difference between Rabbi Jesus’s “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you” and Rabbi Hillel’s*40 “Don’t do unto others what you would not like done to you.”

  Francesco argued, “Surely a positive exhortation is morally superior to a prohibition! Just think, Master Ezekiel, of a community where everyone initiates actions that benefit others!” said the friar with conviction.

  Yehezkel smiled, “But don’t you see, Brother Francesco piccolo, it would also encourage people to do what they think benefits others?” He stopped, grabbed Francesco’s shoulders, and fixed him in his reddened eyes. “Close your eyes and imagine you’re in a world ruled by your ‘Do unto others.’ Are you there? Now imagine that one day you walk into a village inhabited exclusively by sodomites.”

  Francesco made a face and then burst out laughing. “An elegant theological argument if ever I heard one! Point taken, Master Ezekiel, point taken. Tell me, did Jesus Christ and your Rabbi Hillel ever meet?”

  “No, he died just before Jesus was born. But Rabbi Akiva, who taught a hundred years after Hillel, was in perfect accord with Rabbi Jesus on the choice of the most important verse in the Bible. I believe they both chose ‘You shall love your neighbor as you love yourself.’”

  A sunbeam shone down and lit Francesco’s gaunt face. “And how do you understand that precept, Master Ezekiel?”

  “A drunk peasant in Provence once asked me, ‘Do you love me?’ I said, ‘Of course I love you,’ but he whined, ‘You say you love me, but you don’t know what I need. If you really loved me, you would know.’
I had no response. I think that only if you share your neighbor’s sadness, do you love him like yourself. How do you understand the verse, Brother Francesco piccolo?”

  “We all bear the same divine spark within us,” began Francesco, “almost as if we were all one body. Sometimes, the hand with the hammer will miss a blow and hurt the other hand. Would you hit it with the stricken hand, to punish it? You would only feel more pain.”

  Francesco had mimed each word: the missed blow, the hurt hand striking the guilty one, the look of pain heaped on pain. Now, his face straight again, he concluded, “The same goes for your neighbor. If he does you wrong, he is still a part of you. If you punish him, you’ll only suffer more.”

  Yehezkel was silent, his soul on fire, then he murmured, “Thank you, Brother Francesco piccolo. Thank you.”

  As the two men—a comic pair from a distance at almost seven feet and just over five—reached the end of the breakwater and turned around to walk back, a cry went up from the lighthouse.

  “Templar galleys on the horizon! The Templars are attacking the island!”

  Any Cypriot over thirty had memories of Templar abuse, usually memories running with blood. Both company and friars, like most people in the harbor, ran up to the ramparts on the city’s walls to see for themselves if Cyprus was being invaded again.

  Everyone peered at the galleys emerging from the mist on the southern horizon. Their short masts, all flying the white, red-crossed pennant, oscillated with every thrust of the oars. Soon they could make out that the galleys had no shields along their gunwales. Experienced observers decreed they weren’t rigged for war and must be an embassy connected with the siege. A consensus developed that Pelagius sent Templars to squeeze more gold bezants out of Cyprus, the island being very rich and war very, very expensive.