by J A Bouma
“But, again, isn’t this all being true?” Nia asked.
“To some extent,” Alexander added. “However, to speak of Jesus’ divinity is not the same as speaking of his deity.”
Father Jim hummed with approval. “A very apropos and crucial distinction, Alexander. You will hardly find progressive Christians giving a positive statement of Jesus' deity. Saying Jesus is God would mean all other so-called gods are not. Instead, as Alexander here said, they will insist that Jesus gives us ‘the highest, deepest, and most mature view of the character of the living God.’ Yet again, their Jesus isn’t God but merely a person who shows us the divine. The result is that Jesus is left merely as a person who exhibits the divine. He is the image of God; he resembles and is like God. This kind of Jesus embodied and modeled God through his ethics, not his nature.”
“My head is hurting…” Ford moaned. This was way above his pay grade, and he wanted to get to it. Get back home, to his people to see what the hot Hades was going down! “And why does this matter, anyhow?”
“Why it all matters,” the cardinal went on, “especially since these teachings were being spouted by the very titular head of the Republic’s new pagan religion Panligo, is that Arius was the reason for the Council of Nicaea, and the reason why hundreds of bishops throughout the Church put pen to paper to craft the Creed sitting at the heart of Christianity, reminding Ichthus what we believe about Jesus’ nature for nearly two millennia. That he was very God as much as very human.”
“Which means the teachings of this Arius fella aren’t anything new.”
“Now you’re catching on, John Mark! In fact…” Father Jim brought up the slate device and started flipping through some of the icons of books he had pulled. “Ahh! Listen to this.”
He cleared his throat, then read aloud:
Since you think properly, pray that everyone will think that way. For it is clear to all that the thing which is made did not exist before it came into being; but rather what came into being has a beginning to its existence.
“That that Arius fella?” Ford asked.
The cardinal nodded. “Precisely.”
“I don’t get his meaning.”
“This was a nascent articulation of his belief that Jesus Christ, Son of God, second person of the Trinity, did not exist before he was born, but rather came into being in the person of Jesus. And here is a more developed version.”
Again, Father Jim read aloud:
And God, being the cause of all that happens, is absolutely alone without beginning; but the Son, begotten apart from time by the Father, and created and founded before the ages, was not in existence before his generation, but was begotten apart from time before all things, and he alone came into existence from the Father. For he is neither eternal nor co-eternal nor co-unbegotten with the Father, nor does he have his being together with the Father, as some speak of relations, introducing two unbegotten beginnings. But God is before all things as monad and beginning of all. Therefore he is also before the Son, who thus has his being from God.
Alexander whistled. “That pretty much puts an exclamation point on the end of it.”
“Indeed,” Father Jim said, Rebekah and Lucy nodding along.
Irritation flooded Ford, and humiliation. Never was good in school, and never was good with no religious and no Christian mumbo-jumbo. Probably why he didn’t take to it until later in life.
“Again, the idea that the Son of God, Jesus Christ,” Alexander explained, “was a separate being from God the Father.”
Father Jim exclaimed, “Yes! Which has radical implications for the gospel, given that if Jesus wasn’t God himself, but merely a man, then we’re all still dead in our sins! His death would have done nothing for us. Even Emperor Constantine knew that!”
“Emperor who?” Ford asked.
Alexander replied, “The man who was basically responsible for gifting us Ichthus’s cornerstone creed.”
“You are speaking of the Nicene Creed, da?” Nia asked.
“Precisely, my dear!” Father Jim affirmed. “And listen to what the Emperor has to say about our fellow Arius.” He said aloud:
The great and victorious Constantine Augustus to the bishops and laity: Since Arius is an imitator of the wicked and the ungodly, it is only right that he should suffer the same dishonor as they.
If any writing composed by Arius should be found, it should be handed over to the flames, so that not only will the wickedness of his teaching be obliterated, but nothing will be left even to remind anyone of him. And I hereby make a public order, that if someone should be discovered to have hidden a writing composed by Arius, and not to have immediately brought it forward and destroyed it by fire, his penalty shall be death. God will watch over you, beloved.
Ford smirked. “Sounds like our Dear Leader, the Patron himself, with all the post-Reckoning book burnings and whatnot.”
“And for good reason!” the cardinal exclaimed. “Let’s be clear. For Arius, Jesus was the moral Son of God, not the metaphysical Son of God. Rather than God himself becoming a human being, Jesus was viewed as a man who merely embodied the deepest meaning of life, as even some contemporary teachers would say. I’d say that was reason enough for the good Emperor Constantine to send his teachings to the flames!”
“Touché, chief.”
“And cue that wackadoodle guru’s Super Soul Sunday theme music,” Lucy chuckled.
“Oh, yeah. Oprastein. That guy with the perpetual smile and spray-on tan with that popular Sunday morning DiviNet religious show?”
Lucy added, “That’d be the one. A cross between the non-denominational, mega-church evangelicalism of the 21st century and New Age spiritualism of the 20th century.”
“And quite the feat to pull off, I reckon,” Ford said.
“God’s crazy love through Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection,” Alexander interjected, “you’re saying that’s what is at stake, Padre?”
“Indeed,” the cardinal said. “Which impacts the real lives of real people and their real eternal destinies. And given the onset of the final days, the apocalypse if you will, that isn’t something we should stand to let be fiddled with.”
Ford shifted loudly, folding his arms and leaning back. Enough talk. Time to get to it.
“That’s all fine and dandy, and I’m always one for a good Sunday school lesson in the finer points of Christianity, given I was a pagan and whatnot, but this ain’t addin’ up to a hill of beans in the real world outside these steel walls and up above that seawater if we don’t do something about it all.”
“I absolutely agree with you, John Mark,” Father Jim said.
“Then what are we gonna do about it?” He knew he sounded worked up, but the doctrine download made his head hurt, and he knew a world outside was hurting for far more tangible action than just some words.
The cardinal raised a finger and returned to the slate device. “Indulge me for just a few more readings…”
Ford tried not to moan, but one slipped. Father Jim didn’t notice, as he was readying to read anyhow. He said aloud:
The effects of that envious spirit which so troubled the peace of the churches of God in Alexandria continued to cause Constantine no little disturbance of mind. For in fact, in every city bishops were engaged in obstinate conflict with bishops, and people rising against people, causing in him sorrow of spirit; for he deeply deplored the folly that had been exhibited by the deranged Arians.
“That sounds like a copy of Eusebius’s Life of Constantine,” Alexander said.
“I trained you well,” the cardinal said with a wink. “But one more…Ahh! There you are.” Again, he read aloud:
As if to bring a divine array against this enemy, he assembled a general council and invited bishops from all quarters, expressing his honorable estimation. When they were assembled, it appeared evident that the proceeding was the work of God. For those who had been most widely separated, not only in sentiment but also personally, as well as by country
, place, and nation, were brought together, forming as it were a vast garland of priests, composed of a variety of the choicest flowers.
Alexander twisted up his face in confusion. “Wait a minute…‘he assembled a general council and invited bishops from all quarters, expressing his honorable estimation.’”
He looked to Ford, then back to Father Jim again, eyes wide and nose flaring like someone had just dumped a carton of the heebee jeebees on the fella.
“I don’t get it,” Ford said. “What’s the matter?”
“You’re talking about the Council of Nicaea,” Alexander answered, “aren't you?”
The cardinal grinned, a twinkle in his eyes that led Ford to believe they had their answer to what was next on the horizon.
He confirmed it: “And that’s our next move, Master Zarruq. While John Mark and his merry band head off to Noramericana, I’m sending you back in time to retrieve the memory of, I dare say, the most pivotal moment in the Church’s history.”
Alex didn’t look too happy about it, but now they were getting somewhere. Finally!
Norameriana or bust, baby…
Chapter 15
Mediterranean Sea.
Alexander awoke with a start, the plasticky sensation under his hands unfamiliar and confusing, slippery and firm with barely any purchase as he felt for a solid ground for his scramble toward consciousness. Same for the low hum, a sound that seemed to penetrate even his chest, combined with a pressure in his head that left him unsettled.
He snapped open his eyes, a dim dark blue greeting him along with the static scent of heavily sanitized air, cool and flowing with regularity, as he sucked in a startled breath.
Sitting up, Alexander spread his arms from his side, groping and shuffling around for answers. Was he in prison? The room was a tiny, cramped space with a low ceiling and windowless walls. A door at the other end stood closed, perhaps even sealed shut.
Had he been captured by the Republic? Thrown in the back of an Enforcer Transport and drugged until he reached the end of the line for him—a reprogramming camp at the borderlands of Solterra?
Alexander tried gathering his thoughts, but it was no use. His mouth instantly salivated for relief from the narcowafers he had run out of just before—
The end of the world as he knew it.
A collection of memories began surfacing, wicked memories of grim darkness and pregnant with despair and hopelessness.
The darkened sky and blood-red moon. The stars falling and fading, along with the fiery explosions upon the earth’s quaking surface.
Father Jim and Ford and Sasha, Lucy and Rebekah and Jin—the people who had come in that yellow submarine to save him. His friends who had come for him after he had abandoned them.
Then the attack by Republic Stingrays and the deep submergence station, with that woman and those people who were part of some Ichthus Resistance carrying on the work of the Ministerium to protect the Church and prepare Christians for the apocalypse.
Which had been ratcheted up to the second circle of hell when the sky rained down an onslaught of fire and blood, torching the earth’s vegetation and laying waste to presumably a third of the world’s trees and grass.
Right before someone had made reference to the hidden Remnant of the Order of Thaddeus they had been hunting for over a year—of which he was their Master.
He ran a shaking hand through his thick, gnarled hair, heart pounding at the possibilities and head aching with the volume on his anxiety maxing out.
Something stirred across from him, lumpy and curved.
Alexander backed up slowly, the plasticky cushion squeaking under his movement before his back hit a wood-paneled wall. He clenched his hands into a fist and raised them toward mid-chest. No telling who could be sitting with him in that Republic hole.
But then the motion grew until a dark figure shimmering under the dim light rose from underneath a thin blanket, hair short against the head with perfectly formed cheekbones and a scar running across the cheek that told a story he’d heard before.
“Rebekah?” he whispered.
She smiled, that perfect set of pearls set against dark Alkebulanan skin shining in the faint blue light. Infusing him with hope and settling his nerves some.
Now he regretted thinking she looked lumpy! Curved in all the right places, more like it. Which put a smile on his face knowing she was with him in whatever mess he had gotten himself into.
But wait. That meant—
“No, not you as well…” he moaned.
She sat up straighter, stretching with arms bent behind her head and closing her eyes with a casual calmness that Alexander couldn’t understand. How could she act so cavalier under the circumstances! And what was she wearing? Some sort of beige burlap dress getup and a dark brown shawl wrapped over her head and thrown across her shoulders.
Then he realized he was wearing something similar, his chest itching from a shirt of the same material but with his standard white linen pants and a simple cloth hat. What manner of prison garb was this?
“Not me as well what?” she grunted as she completed her stretch.
Alexander’s mind was swirling with confusion. He could hardly form the words, could hardly give voice to the wicked reality foisted upon them. He bowed his head and held it, heaving a breath of despair.
“How did it happen? My head is so foggy from it all…”
She sat up; the blanket slid off to the floor. “When did what happen? What on earth are you going on about?”
He looked up. “Th—The Republic. The reprogramming camp they stuffed us away in.”
She giggled, throwing him a furrowed brow and disbelieving smile. “Are you for real? Republic reprogramming camp.” She rolled her Rs in a way that sent his heart soaring with delight, a welcomed shift.
A sudden shift in the gravitational force within their cell gave him momentary pause for his theory. As if they were slowing down from some supersonic speed, gravity working against him, tugging against his body and his bottom sliding forward on the slippery plastic seat.
Then it hit him.
Personal submergence vehicle. Zooming through the Mediterranean on their mission from Father Jim.
The door slid open, startling Alexander and sending him to his feet.
It was Jin.
“We’re approaching the docking station. Get ready.”
The docking station. That’s right!
Alexander’s head pulsed with memory now, the exhaustion from having run on a trace charge of adrenaline after forty-eight hours of non-stop mayhem catching up to him, the fraught nature of it all fraying his every nerve.
Now it was all coming back, what he had gotten himself into—as well as Ford and Father Jim.
Ford was insistent on getting back to his Noramericana homeland. He said he thought the Ministerium should get boots on the ground for themselves to see what the unsealing of the sixth seal and the launching of what was purportedly the beginning of the Great Tribulation with the first trumpet blast—what it all really meant for the world, and Ichthus. Alexander figured it was mostly an excuse to see what it all meant for his people, his family. Although he couldn’t really blame him. Made perfect sense; didn’t judge him for it in the slightest.
Father Jim was fine with that, so off the man went with a mid-size SeaQuester and Nia, Sasha, and Lucy for backup, tasked with scoping out the damage up top on land and hunting down the Ryder Reeves character who seemed to have some knowledge of the Remnant they’d been trying to track down the past several months.
But that didn’t end it for Padre. He had other plans for Alexander and Rebekah, who had become quite the intrepid time-travel pair through their last two missions retrieving the Church’s history. Getting stuck in the past will do that! He suggested they take the Ministerium’s yellow hydrocraft to the far side of the Mediterranean and jump back to AD 325—to the gathering of Ichthus’s first ecumenical council. The Council of Nicaea, where Arius had been trounced and deemed a
heretic. The very heretic his father seemed to want to leverage for his own designs for Panligo, and Solterra Republic.
The way Padre figured it, what would sustain the Church during Solterra’s darkest hour would be the Creed that sat at the heart of their faith. Combined with the Holy Scriptures, the foundation upon which the apostles and Church fathers built and sustained the faith, with Christ at the head, retrieving the essential creedal components of their faith would anchor Ichthus in what was true, what was real about what they believed—helping Ichthus persevere through the worst of the apocalypse by holding fast to and standing firm in their trust in Jesus Christ’s obedient life, redeeming work on the cross, and his victorious work through the resurrection.
Except the last time any of them had seen the former historic site, the Republic laid waste to it with a pack of Quellers that dropped an arsenal that pulverized it into dust! And what little intelligence the Ministerium was still able to gather indicated Enforcers were still stationed nearby several months later. With the Stingrays that had tracked them down and the Republic’s continued Purge campaign waging away, Alexander thought it was suicide to try their hand at jumping back to the future with all that was going on.
Yet there they were, racing toward destiny once again, Ichthus and the faith on the line. And Alexander was charged with leading the effort to defend and protect all the Church held dear.
An ache began needling Alexander’s temples, his mind pulsing with another memory from when he had last jumped back to the future from Smyrna after Polycarp's martyrdom. This pain wasn’t quite the blooming agony that had sent him to his knees and doubled him over in that beachside shack. What he had feared was some sort of emerging bodily reaction to time travel. Jumping back hundreds of phases seemed to have triggered it, but he wasn’t sure, and he hadn’t mentioned anything to Father Jim or Sasha.