The Christos Mosaic

by Vincent Czyz

  His legs broken, but still half alive, raising his hands to Heaven, he said, “Lord, forgive them for they know not what they do.” Then, struck on the head by the club a laundryman used to wring out wet garments with, he died.

  Words that, once again, would later be put into Jesus’ mouth. It could be argued of course that Jesus had uttered them on the cross and they were then attributed to James—but why? Wouldn’t it be blasphemy to take the words of the Son of God and put them in the mouth of his brother? Of course, if Jesus were fictional, a statement like this from James’s actual death would be a wonderful bit of realism to add to his portrait. It might also help explain why there were three different versions of what Jesus said while he was on the cross. If the Gospel writers were not witnesses to the crucifixion, nor even privy to first-hand accounts, they would have had to search scripture and contemporary events for suitable quotes. Not surprisingly, in three of the four Gospels, Jesus’ last words were taken from various psalms.

  Oddly, there was no biblical account of the death of James, in spite of the fact that he was one of Christianity’s great leaders and the first bishop of the Jerusalem Church. Odd also that no complete copy of Clementine’s Institutions, which does describe James’s death, had survived.

  So James, holy from birth—like Jesus and John—was a Nazarite. Although a Nazarite took his vow for a specified period of time, Saint Epiphanius, an early Church historian, insisted James had been a lifelong Nazarite. No haircuts, no shaving, no wine. Even vinegar and grapes were forbidden. James was also a strict vegetarian.

  “Wait a minute,” Drew muttered, “how could James have been a Christian?”

  If he rigidly abstained from drinking wine, he could not have participated in the only sacrament that Jesus himself had commanded. What’s more, he also strictly avoided the consumption of blood—symbolic or otherwise.

  “James was an observant Jew,” Drew said, his voice rising, “and wine was a Greek addition to Judaic worship that came straight out of the Mystery cults—courtesy of Paul, who was the first to mention wine as a sacrament.”

  Drew rummaged through the box of books at his feet until he found Mystery Religions of the Ancient World. Flipping to a dog-eared page, he found a quote highlighted in fluorescent yellow. He who will not eat of my body and drink of my blood, so that he will be made one with me and I with him, the same shall not know salvation.

  Any Christian would immediately identify that quote as belonging to Christ. It was actually an inscription referring to Mithra, a Persian god first mentioned in the second millennium BC. Nor was it only Mithra to whom wine and bread were sacred. Dioynsus, who had his own Mysteries, was god of wine, and a wheat cake went with his rites.

  “Now it makes sense.” Drew closed the Mysteries book with a whump. “There are two layers here … one is Jewish, but the other is Hellenic.”

  Kadir glared at him.

  Just as the Church made Jesus’ birthday coincide with the birthday of the Sun as celebrated in Mithraism and other pagan cults, various aspects of James had been transferred to a non-existent older brother; if you were building a messiah, it made sense to use real parts. Didn’t novelists model their fictional characters on actual people?

  Drew grabbed his volume of Josephus and re-read the passage about James.

  Ananus convened the judges of the Sanhedrin and brought before them a man called James, who was the brother of Jesus, who was called the Christ …

  Drew had found six words that, if they were later insertions as he now suspected, had altered history’s trajectory. He took them out and was perhaps the first person in a millennium and a half to read the passage Josephus had originally written: Ananus convened the judges of the Sanhedrin and brought before them a man called James, who was called the Christ …

  6: 12

  LETTER TO THE Twelve TRIBES

  HIS NAME HAD BEEN Ya’akov ben Yosef. In the Greek of the New Testament, Ya’akov became Iakubos, and from there, the more correct English translation would be Jacob. But when the New Testament was translated into Latin, Iakubos became Iacomus, which was later Anglicized to James.

  Jacob the Christ. James the Christ.

  Even if James had been regarded as the Messiah, it was impossible to prove.

  On the surface Jesus and James were nearly opposites. Whereas Jesus often displayed a relaxed attitude toward observing Mosaic Law, James wouldn’t abide a single point of it being violated. While Jesus was accepting of gentiles, James would not allow the disciples to so much as share a table with the uncircumcised—that is, the Greeks. Hence, the confrontation between Peter and Paul outlined in 1 Galatians. Whereas Jesus embraced the impure, James would have nothing to do with them. While Jesus was portrayed as cosmopolitan—perhaps Hellenized was a better word—James was thoroughly Jewish.

  So why were there so many disturbing parallels between the two men, right down to quotes pulled from one mouth and put into the other’s? Not to mention a detail found only in the writing of Saint Jerome: This same James, who was the first Bishop of Jerusalem and known as Justus, was considered to be so Holy by the People that they earnestly sought to touch the hem of his clothing. There were instances in the Gospels where fingers reach for Jesus’ hem, and this struck Drew as exactly the sort of realistic detail a Gospel author would graft onto his fictional Christ to lend him credibility.

  James was said to have been a life-long virgin. Jesus’ virginity was never mentioned in the Bible, and yet that was the time-honored image of him. A razor never came near James’s head, which meant he didn’t shave his face either, but Jesus was always depicted with long hair and a beard. James was a vegetarian who abstained from consuming blood in any form—the peaceful, hippie-like Christ Drew had come to love was James.

  Was that why Saint Hegesippus’s writings disappeared? Because he made James appear as holy as Jesus?

  Drew picked up his King James copy of the Bible and opened to the Letter of James.

  In voice, tone, and especially in content, it sounded exactly like James as he came across in Acts. James 2:13 seemed expressly directed at Paul’s insistence that faith alone would lead to salvation: What does it profit, my brethren, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can faith save him?

  Christ was mentioned by name at the very beginning of the letter (James, a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ …) and then, just once more. Twice in the entire letter. The letter that followed it, attributed to Peter, mentioned Jesus nine times in the first 13 verses alone. And why didn’t James identify himself as the brother of Christ in his opening? Only as a servant?

  Drew checked the letter for quotes from Jesus, which, in his Bible, would show up in red ink. There were none. Not once did James quote his “brother,” not even when he wrote things Jesus had supposedly said. Drew examined the letter more closely. The Bible editors had referenced the wisdom sayings in the Letter of James that paralleled those found elsewhere in the Bible. One of Jesus’ speeches in Luke, in which Jesus says “Blessed are you when men hate you, and when they exclude you and when thy revile you, and cast out your name as evil for the Son of Man’s sake,” had its counterpart James 1:2: Count it a joy when you fall into various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces patience. But in James, there was no mention of Jesus, only to faith in God, which meant he was

  not quoting Jesus but a wisdom source such as the Gospel of Thomas. The earlier version of this saying belonged to James’s letter since the biblical epistles were all older than the canonical Gospels. Luke had embellished it, as Luke loved to do, and attributed the saying to Christ rather than God. The saying was there in Matthew, too, almost identical to the way it had been recorded in Luke.

  “All three come from Q!” Drew shouted.

  Zafer looked up from a worktable. “You all right over there?”

  “No. I’m not all right. Nothing is all right. The history of Christianity is falling apart in front of me.”

  “Sorry t
o hear that, but it’s almost show time.”

  “Show time?

  “We have a plane to catch, remember?”

  “Just … give me a minute.”

  Drew skimmed the letter. There were more of these common quotes, many more.

  “Why would James write them without mentioning his own brother?” Drew asked the open Bible. Why would he say nothing of his brother’s death? No token remembrance of their childhood? Not a single phrase to connect him to Jesus by blood. It made absolutely no sense … unless James had had no knowledge of a Savior whom Paul had called Christ Jesus.

  Drew hurled his pen at the desk. It bounced up, hit the wall, and landed on the desk again.

  Zafer and Kadir were both looking at him.

  “James didn’t write this,” he said as if they had been following his research. “Or the letter would be in Aramaic. But it’s in Greek. It must be a summation of his thought written by a Christian scribe who inserted a servant of the Lord Jesus Christ in the greeting. The scribe wasn’t aware James was Jesus’ brother—because James wasn’t. That was an innovation of the Gospels, which the scribe clearly had not read. The letter isn’t even addressed to the Christian community. It’s addressed to the Twelve Tribes.”

  The sayings weren’t borrowed from Christ or the Gospels; they were taken from Q, just as Stephen had theorized.

  “Does this make increase the price of my scroll?”

  “If James was regarded as the Savior and the Teacher of Righteousness, yes.”

  “Iyi o zaman.” Good, then.

  “Now that I think about it, there’s nothing in this letter that’s particularly Christian—nothing about Jesus’ life, his crucifixion, the resurrection. James takes just about every chance he gets to praise Jesus and praises God instead.”

  Zafer stood up. “Time to rock.”

  Drew looked around at the books and papers he had amassed. He started gathering things up absentmindedly, still trying to synthesize all the information he’d taken in. But there were still too many unanswered questions.

  James was not one of the twelve apostles and yet, after the death of Christ, he was universally acknowledged as leader of the Church in Jerusalem—even by Peter. Early sources claimed that Jesus chose him as his successor. Why would Jesus choose a successor who was in so many ways his opposite? Why not one of the Twelve? Unless there was no Jesus.

  Jesus’ brother Judas, Drew recalled, had written a letter in the New Testament as well. He dropped the stack of books in hands and picked up his Bible. He flipped through it until he found The Epistle of Jude.

  Jude, a servant of Jesus Christ, and brother of James …

  How could no one have noticed? Jude mentioned James as his brother but not Jesus! The original salutation must have been Jude, a servant of God, and brother of James. A scribe had substituted Jesus where he saw the word God.

  The Ebionites must have known all along. But there was something about James they were hiding. Maybe whatever the Ebionites knew had been the reason that they had disappeared from the pages of history. Maybe the Habakkuk Scroll, which they so desperately wanted, was the key.

  BOOK 7: 1 - 19

  ANTIOCH ON THE ORONTES

  Jewish historians have written that Joshua ben Perachiah was Jeschu ha-Notzri’s teacher. They say also that this Jeschu lived during the time of King Jannai; the historians of other nations, however, have written that Jeschu was born in the time of Herod and was hanged in the days of Archelaus, Herod’s son. This difference is a great one, a difference of more than 110 years.

  — Abraham ben Daud, circa 1100 A.D.

  And the Teacher has said: “Yeshua practiced sorcery and corrupted and misled Israel.”

  — Talmud

  7: 1

  ADANA

  THE FLIGHT TO ADANA was a little over an hour. The plane taxied to a stop in front of a dinky terminal that turned out to have a single baggage carousel. While Zafer stood at a counter signing the paperwork for a car rental, Drew’s phone rang. He glanced at the number. Yasemin? Sighing in anticipation of a string of accusations, he pressed the green icon.

  “Hello…?”

  “Drewjuh’um, why didn’t you cook me breakfast this morning?”

  “What?”

  “Ya, my job is making the bed and bitching at you for being lazy. You’re supposed to cook me breakfast at least.” She was speaking with the voice of a little girl. “What’s the matter? You’re afraid of a little temper tantrum?”

  This was the one-eighty he’d been hoping for while he was walking to the ferry station. “I don’t know, Yazz.” He was answering the question they both knew was behind the one she’d actually asked.

  “I’m sorry about this morning, Drew.” Her voice had reverted to a woman’s. “My emotions have been a little volatile since the divorce.”

  “Since the divorce?”

  She giggled. “Okay, maybe before that. But it’s worse now.”

  “I’ve noticed.”

  The baggage carousel jerked into motion. Kadir stood next to it, looking up at Drew as though the taller man were telling the Sicarii the address of Zafer’s safe house.

  “Drew, there’s something else.”

  “I’m listening …”

  “I’ve been in therapy for the last three months.”

  He was surprised she’d admitted it, but more surprised she’d finally given in and started seeing a shrink.

  “I’m supposed to be on medication.”

  “Supposed to be?”

  “I haven’t been taking it.”

  “It doesn’t work if you don’t take it.”

  “I know. But I hate the idea of being on drugs.”

  “It’s medication.”

  “Whatever you want to call it. I took one after you left. And I do want us to try again. I’m sorry.”

  Drew sighed. “We can’t keep playing this game, Yasemin.” Maybe they loved each other, but their love wasn’t the healthy kind.

  “After all the work I put into you, why should someone else get you? Mehmet gave you a chance to lose your temper in Samarkand, and then, just for good measure, I gave you another in the morning.”

  He almost laughed. “Is that what you were doing?”

  “Of course. You’re a little lazy, okay, but without your temper, you’re the man I always wanted.”

  “Maybe we can split your prescription.”

  He heard a stifled giggle.

  “Sure. Why not?”

  “Look,Yazz, I can’t let you take all the blame here. The truth is, I did lose my temper. I didn’t throw anything or smash any family heirlooms, but I shouldn’t have taken off like that. I should have stayed. Not even gotten out of bed. We should have talked things over. I know that’s what you needed, I just … I’m still adjusting, okay? I’m still getting a handle on my anger. I’m working on it.”

  “That’s what I wanted to hear, Drew.”

  She sounded like she was close to crying, even with the mood-flattener. “Drew, you’re still my husband.”

  “That’s what I wanted to hear. But listen … I’m not in Istanbul right now. We’ll—”

  “Where are you?”

  “I’m …” Reflexively, he lied. “I’m in Ankara.”

  “Ankara? What are you doing there?”

  “It’s too complicated to explain right now.”

  “Drew, don’t you have to start school?”

  “I’ll be back in three or four days.”

  Probably making a genuine effort to preserve the spirit of reconciliation, she didn’t dig any deeper. “Okay. I’ll see you then. Seni seviyorum.”

  “Ben de seni seviyorum.” I love you, too. He closed the phone and put it back in his pocket.

  Kadir was grinning up at him.

  “What the hell are you looking at?”

  “Ne kadar tatli.” How sweet.

  “Let’s get out of here.” Zafer jerked a thumb toward the exit. Their bags were piled at his feet.

  As
the glass door leading to the parking lot slid back, it was a rerun of Cairo: a wall of dry heat that seemed to melt the cars, the asphalt, and the fencing.

  “I hope you got something with air conditioning.”

  Zafer pointed at an Audi. “I’m more interested in what’s under the hood than what’s under the dashboard.”

  “Not bad.” It had to be the ugliest green anyone had ever picked out for a car.

  “They were all out of Porsches. They were all of out of gray and black, too. This was the best I could do on short notice.”

  Downtown Adana was crumbling buildings, exposed brick, unpainted cement. Unlike Istanbul and Cairo, however, these buildings had never been particularly inspiring. Drew was glad when they pulled onto the highway and Zafer hit the accelerator. Another two and half hours or so and they would be in Antakya, where he had to find a way to meet Jesse.

  Drew had called her from the airport in Istanbul. “Don’t worry,” she’d said, “I’ll be there.” Only how the hell was he going to get away from these two? How was he going to get the photographs out of the satchel Zafer carried around with him? And even if he managed to pull off both of those tricks, how were he and Jesse going to stop an ex-commando from selling the scroll to Serafis?

  7: 2

  CONFESSION

  FOUNDED IN THE FOURTH CENTURY BC on the Orontes River by one of Alexander the Great’s generals, Antioch had swollen, not two hundred years later, to a cosmopolitan city of a quarter million. The apostle Peter had been drawn to its bustling precincts, and the church he founded in a shallow cave—on land that belonged to the apostle Luke as legend would have it—was reputed to be among the oldest in the world.

  With mountains to the north and south and hills to the east and west, modern Antakya sat in a broad river basin. The Orontes was now known as the Asi River. Although the outskirts of the city reminded Drew of a Mexican border town—buildings unevenly painted, walls carelessly patched up, roofs of corrugated tin or dirty yellow fiberglass held up by rusting brackets—Stephen had fallen in love with the quiet valley and its ring of hills and mountains.