by Tuvia Fogel
“True, but look at what Innocent is doing with his bulls on Jews now!” objected the Old Man.
Yehezkel sighed. “Our life in Christendom can only get worse, Father. Had Christians corrupted the sense of the Torah, but gone their way with their own holy texts, like Muhammad, their faith wouldn’t be a menace to us. But Christians—confound them!—went their way with our holy texts! They call themselves Verus Israel, heirs to Mount Sinai, when they stole those traditions from the legitimate beneficiaries of that revelation. What feeds their hatred for us is that the more learned among them know it.”
“You’re right,” said the chaplain. “But they understand nothing of the power of the Holy Tongue.”
“Indeed,” said Yehezkel. “Now that reminds me of the strange ideas of a kabbalist in Gerona, Father.”
“Do tell, Master Ezekiel,” said the Old Man eagerly, mindless of the evening turning to night.
“The Talmud calls Jesus a magician,” began Yehezkel, “who cured people with a power he’d acquired. A pronouncer of Names, a drawer of circles—in effect, were he to live in Provence today, a kabbalist! Well, a rabbi in Gerona teaches that the Incarnation and the Trinity arose from mistaken interpretations of kabbalistic concepts that were correct in themselves. In other words, Jesus wasn’t a magician, but a kabbalist who took a wrong turn, a rabbi whose Kabbalah was full of errors.”
“Jesus, a kabbalist . . . what a fascinating thought, Rabbi. I wonder if you might do something for me . . .”
“After showing me the Parchment of Circles, you can ask me anything you wish, Father!”
“Well, just as I had no rest until I discovered where circular maps of Jerusalem originated, there’s a mystery concerning Jesus that has plagued me since I first read Saint John’s Gospel.”
His audience of a Christian, a Cathar, and a Jew leaned forward, intrigued.
“In the last chapter of his Gospel, after the Resurrection, John says that Jesus went to the shores of the lake, and with his help some disciples caught 153 fishes.” He repeated, “One hundred and fifty three fishes. John is a dozen verses from the end of his tale, it’s the last thing Jesus does in this world, so how could a detail like a precise number be devoid of significance? And in a Gospel as riddled with symbols as John’s!”
He paused, not really daring to hope for a solution. “I’ve played with that number for decades, as have others before me, but this idea of Jesus as a kabbalist changes things. What if Saint John was one, too? Tell me, Rabbi, can gematria be used, how shall I put it, backward? Can a number lead to a particular word?”
“Mh . . . John’s Gospel is in Greek,” said Yehezkel. “I’ve heard of gematria applied to Greek, but secrets can only be apprehended through things like gematria in Hebrew, the Holy Tongue of Creation.”
“But didn’t Jesus speak Hebrew?” asked the Old Man, surprised. “He was a Jew, wasn’t he?”
“Yes, he was,” said Yehezkel, “but Jews then, outside of prayers and Torah readings, spoke Aramaic.”
“Still and all, could you show me how to arrive at a word from the number 153 in Hebrew?”
“I can try that, but you’ll have to fetch a wax tablet again,” said Yehezkel.
Ten minutes later they followed his lesson as he played with letters and numbers for them. He scratched 1 5 3 on the tablet. “Since every letter in the Hebrew alphabet has a value, I could write 153 with four, five, or even ten letters, but I will do it with the smallest number, three. Not just because we all like a three-letter word, but because with three letters there will only be eighteen possible combinations, while with even just four letters, there would be . . . oh, dozens and dozens!”
The Old Man’s bony hand went up immediately. “Wait, wait, Rabbi! How could there possibly be eighteen ways of combining just three letters?”
“It’s because they’re not always the same three! You see, if the total is to be 153, then one letter—the gimel, which is worth three—will always have to be present. But making up the remaining 150 with two letters is something I can do with six different letters! I can use 100+50, 90+60, and 80+70! On top of that, changing the order of the letters will result in a different word! Here, I’ll show you the combinations.”
He started scratching, and soon the tablet was covered with figures like a dish invaded by ants.
“As you see, Father,” said Yehezkel, “there are eighteen. Now I’ll substitute Hebrew letters for the numbers.” He started scratching out each number and writing the equivalent letter in its place. It took him just over five minutes, and the result was a sequence of eighteen “words.”
“These are not all words,” he said and then corrected himself with a smile. “At least, not in this cycle of the universe. They’re just all the combinations of three letters that add up to 153.” His audience was puzzled.
“Now we have to see which ones are words, and for that, I’m afraid, one has to know Hebrew.”
Yehezkel began scratching out the words that, in this cycle of the world, meant nothing in Hebrew. The nonwords vanished under Yehezkel’s strokes. In a remote corner of their minds, the three assorted Christians wondered if they hadn’t embarked on a magical, possibly dangerous Jewish ritual. The mystery of the 153 fishes permeated the silence in the apartment, the only sounds coming from the spitting candles and the little scimitar on the wax.
In the end, Yehezkel raised his head, smiling. He had rubbed out all eighteen words. “None of those words mean anything in Hebrew,” he said. “But I believe one of them does tell us what your Evangelist meant by that number. You see, John knew that his readers, the ones who would wonder why Jesus’s disciples caught exactly 153 fishes, knew Greek better than Hebrew.”
They all stared at him like children about to receive the most extravagant gift in the world. The Old Man, who had toyed with the riddle for the best part of a century, wasn’t even breathing. Yehezkel wrote a single, large, three-letter Hebrew word on the tablet and handed it to Galatea. “How would you read this word, the fifteenth one of the eighteen, my brilliant pupil?”
Scratched in the wax were an ayin (70), a gimel (3) and a pey (80).
Galatea, her heart skipping a beat from surprise, whispered, “A . . . gà . . . pe!”
“Correct, my friend! It seems the message John left the followers of Jesus in the number of fishes was the same selfless love that he came into this world to teach them.”
The Old Man’s eyes were moist. “It is as you say, Rabbi; there can be no doubt. The proof is that in the verses that follow, Jesus asks Peter three times if he loves him—using agàpis!”
The Old Man stood up and faced his three new friends. “Now I know this, something no theologian knows: I can repossess my real name before I lie down and die. Now, thanks to you, I am truly Doctor Universalis! And in any case, if you two find the confession, I want my real name to be remembered as that of the man who found the map that led to its hiding place.”
“Doctor Universalis,” murmured Yehezkel. “Where have I heard that title before? But of course! At the University in Montpellier! You . . . you are Alain de Lille!”
“At your service, my good friends. I died in the year of our Lord 1203, in the abbey at Cîteaux, and I can testify that no man is freer than a dead one!”
Galatea’s laugh restored the gathering’s celebratory mood after the brief spell of Gospel Kabbalah, but Yehezkel’s face darkened as memories of Alain de Lille’s reputation surfaced in his mind. “But you were a well-known, respected theologian . . . who wrote things that pleased the church.” He suddenly remembered one. “By my beard, if I’m not mistaken, you even wrote a Contra Judeos!”*58
Alain smiled. “Bernard of Clairvaux taught me to stay in the good book of the powerful. The man was so cunning that by the time I was twenty he’d made his own pope! My orthodoxy was always a facade—behind it, my mind was as free as Abelard’s! I only stopped hiding my distaste for Catholic dogma after I moved to Montpellier, where a whole different world opened up to
me.”
The rabbi’s expression softened. “I knew that world, too, Master Alain. Curious, tolerant, sensual . . . But Simon de Montfort destroyed all that for good, ten years ago. It no longer exists.”
“Master Ezekiel, don’t despair,” said Alain softly. “This darkness is just a pause, before the iron wheels of circumstance grip firmly once again, pulling to Jerusalem!”
“There is something, Father,” said Galatea, “that Don Sancio never explained. How did the Templars get to know of the confession, and of the Parchment of Circles?”
“Bernard, or Saint Bernard, I should say, loved ancient manuscripts. He heard of the confession and tasked his Templars with finding it. They dug under the Mount for nine years but came up with nothing, so at the Council of Troyes, in 1127, Bernard told Honorius II that the Templars had the document, and there was nothing left for him to do but recognize the order, with the rule he’d written for it.”
Yehezkel looked puzzled. “But why would an . . . upright saint like Bernard lie to a pope and put the church in the hands of warrior monks?” he asked.
“I’m not sure. I was told it was to do with saving the Cistercian order from financial ruin, but I rather think he wanted his monks to have a military arm to fight heretics, infidels, and antipopes. You see, when Bernard decreed who was pope and who was antipope, people in Rome just didn’t listen, which enraged him. He wanted a militia because he feared what would happen when Honorius II died.”
Before retiring to their cells, on an impulse from Arnald, the only knight at the little cryptological feast, they raised their goblets to the genius of Elisha ben Abuya.
ACRE, 27TH JANUARY 1220
While Yehezkel was solving the mystery of the fishes, Frutolf was in his master’s quarters in the Hospital of the Teutonic Order near Acre’s eastern wall.
Hermann von Salza had left Damietta two weeks earlier with John of Brienne, when the legate’s arrogance became too much for the king of Jerusalem to bear.
“So, Brother Frutolf, what other slights did you suffer from the English Templar?”
“The most vulgar you can imagine, Master. I gave my word to a Venetian abbess that I’d protect two women traveling with her while they were in Acre. So what does Brother Bois-Guilbert do? He has the women kidnapped by the Hashashin a few days after they disembark!”
“Why on earth would he do that?” asked Hermann. “Surely not so he could have his way with them?”
“No, no, he wanted information for Domingo of Guzman. The women came from the West with the abbess and a Jew. From what I garnered, Domingo and a Templar chaplain they call the Old Man are looking for a certain Parchment of Circles, and Bois-Guilbert is Domingo’s arm in Outremer.”
“Mmh . . . a Parchment of Circles. Pedro didn’t mention it. As for this Old Man, who is he?”
“To hear the Englishman, he’s the principal head of a heretical hydra hiding inside the Temple.”
“Scheiße! I have enough problems with heretics in my order without worrying about Pedro’s, too! The reason I called you, Frutolf, is that you were actually surveilling the Templar for their master, and you did an excellent job, too. Thanks to you, he now knows, as you just said, that the agent Domingo infiltrated in his order is Bois-Guilbert. Do you know who he met with in Acre?”
“The Templars wouldn’t even let me into their castle here. He was busy recruiting people for the siege, but of course he stopped doing that when Damietta fell. But if he’s been exposed as a spy, Master, I’ll be grateful not to have to do his bidding any more.”
“Not only is that the case, Frutolf, you’re about to avenge every humiliation he inflicted on you. Pedro de Montaigue has asked me to have the traitor arrested and, if he resists, executed.”
“Forgive my insolence, Master, but wouldn’t there be consequences if a Teuton killed a Templar?”
Hermann smiled. “I always underestimated you, Brother Frutolf. Yes, there would be; that’s why you’re to go to Jerusalem disguised as a pilgrim and offer your services to the abbess you mentioned.”
Hermann seemed unsure of his next words and then said, “You will protect them, and if Bois-Guilbert is desperate enough to follow them there out of uniform, you will eliminate him—in which case, as you see, he won’t be a Templar killed by a Teuton, but a pilgrim killed by another, maybe over a woman. And don’t worry; if it should come to it, I’ll make sure the vizier lets you go.”
Frutolf could hardly believe his good fortune. His mission, assigned to him by his master, was now to be Galatea degli Ardengheschi’s champion, to protect the lady of his thoughts!
He grabbed Hermann’s forearm, at the same time bowing his head, and then left the big study.
CHAPTER 27
ZAHAR U’NEQEVAH
Male and Female
ON THE CLIMB TO JERUSALEM, 30TH JANUARY 1220
A dreary chant rose from the barefoot and bareheaded pilgrims, their staffs swinging their way up the side of a hill. The three riders caught up with the column a little before Tulkarm. Two Templar knights—eccentrically faithful to the order’s original, hundred-year-old mission—escorted forty or so penitent souls, two white mantles with red crosses being enough to deter raiding parties of even a dozen Bedus.
Coming up behind them, Arnald slowed down to exchange words with his brethren while Yehezkel and Galatea peered at the pilgrims. Their distant gazes bespoke the sobering sights they’d witnessed in the two thousand leagues they had walked, but their eyes also shone with the feverish expectation that from the next hilltop, they might finally glimpse Jerusalem.
As they rode on, Yehezkel said, “We’ll never thank you enough for these mounts, Arnald. The pilgrims will walk for another week to reach Jerusalem while we, with God’s help, will be there tomorrow.”
“Le cheval, comme chacun sait, est la part la plus importante du chevalier!”*59laughed Arnald.
They left Château Pélerin at dawn after spending the previous day resting and discussing with Alain—who swore them to secrecy on his identity—the precautions they should take to avoid Domingo’s agent in Jerusalem, for, whoever it was, he would have to dress as a pilgrim to enter the city and would thus be harder to spot, while they would be as obvious as they’d been for their whole journey.
They arranged to communicate through a Templar in pilgrim’s clothes who would loiter just north of the city, by the ruins of the church of Saint Stephen, destroyed by Salah ad-Din. Arnald bristled at the words “Templar in pilgrim’s clothes,” something as compatible with the Rule as murder was with the Ten Commandments, but then considered the unusual circumstances and said nothing.
Finally, and most important, they discussed with Alain what they would do with the confession, should the Lord help them find it. They eventually agreed—Galatea with some reluctance—that the Saracens were the best guardians of a relic so dangerous for the church. They would take it to Damascus.
The night before, Yehezkel copied a map that showed every tunnel the order had dug between 1119 and 1126. The Templars started digging in Solomon’s Stables, in the southeastern corner of the esplanade, and reached deep into the bowels of the Mount. As Yehezkel labored by lamplight in the secret loft, they all laughed at the thought of the real Parchment of Circles, a hundred years earlier, safely ensconced under the Rock as knights dug tirelessly, and uselessly, twenty feet below it.
The rabbi, besotted with maps since childhood, lovingly copied the one with the points of access to the tunnels, all the while wondering if the knights named after the Temple ever found any of the Temple’s treasure, which he knew had been hidden in prearranged spots under the Mount by the high priest during the siege by the Romans.
“So you always thought Elisha didn’t know the confession was hidden with the oil, did you?” she began, as if expressing a mild, scholarly interest in a detail.
He felt the ice in her voice and braced for what was coming.
“Well, of course I would have told you of my . . . supposition, but really
, the thought only occurred to me in the last few days, as I reflected on Elisha’s accusation only mentioning the page from Ezekiel and the oil, but ignoring something as important as the confession.”
“Uuhh! Don’t lie to me, Yehezkel ben Yoseph! You ‘reflected on Elisha’s accusation’ from the minute Don Sancio told us of the confession! Why not just admit that you don’t trust this Christian nun with the knowledge that the confession exists?”
Yehezkel thought she looked more upset than when he’d called her a pagan.
“And this idea of handing it to the Saracens! If I were an accomplice in that, would I not be a renegade to my own religion?”
Yehezkel heard real anguish behind the anger. “My friend,” he ventured gingerly, “if there was no Resurrection, then surely you would be a renegade to a false religion.”
“That’s it!” she thought. “He’s made his move! Now he’ll say, ‘Become a Jewess, and marry me.’”
Yehezkel, instead, murmured, “But if accepting that truth is too hard for you, I suppose you can claim the confession is a fake document, concocted by the Jews to deny that Jesus defeated death.”
Startled, she thought, “And here he is, instead, providing me with a way out of my quandary! Why do I always think this man is after my soul? Is it the bile I heard from all those priests about Jews?”
“That’s what I’ll do,” she said. “At least until we find out if there is a confession. After all, if you trust me not to hand over the page from Ezekiel to Christian clerics to be used in converting Jews, I suppose I should accept your decision to entrust the confession to Mohammedans.”
With that, she steered her horse toward Arnald’s. Yehezkel smiled, relieved. Then a bizarre thought entered his mind for the first time. “The Jerusalem rabbis left the confession in its hiding place for when the Messiah would arrive . . . And now I’m going to find it?”
The next morning they climbed the first hill from which Jerusalem could be seen.