The Christos Mosaic

by Vincent Czyz

  “I’m aware of that.” Her tone added So what ?

  “Look closely. Paul is hauled in front of Felix in 60 AD, exactly two years before James is killed. When Acts ends, Paul has been renting a little house for himself for two years—exactly two years after the death of James. The axis of the symmetry is James’s death. I mean please … for some Temple indiscretion in Jerusalem that only marginally involves the Romans, Paul is still waiting for his trial four years later? It’s obvious horseshit.”

  Jesse’s face darkened like a thumbnail whacked by a hammer. “Drew, I’m modern and all that, but please, let’s try to keep the Bible separate from farmyard metaphors.”

  “Sorry.”

  “I take your point though. Something is off.”

  “Yeah, and this is what it is: Ananus and Paul both had strong motives for killing James—Ananus because James’s popularity was a threat to his own power, Paul because James’s brand of Christianity was diametrically opposed to his own. It was too Jewish. All those purity laws didn’t appeal to Paul or the Greeks. Paul was the silent partner in the conspiracy. But …” Drew stabbed a finger at her. “Paul wasn’t, as the Bible says, arrested two years before James died, nor was he brought before Felix. He was arrested when Festus was already governor—and James was already dead. He went to Rome either because Festus died in office and Paul invoked the rights of his Roman citizenship to be tried in Rome or, more likely, he exiled himself to Rome, where it was less likely his hand in James’s death would be discovered. In fact, the whole trip to Rome might be a fiction to make it look as though Paul is in Rome at the time of James’s death, and for nearly two years after that. Luke could hardly make him appear more innocent. And don’t forget why Luke wrote Acts—”

  Jesse nodded impatiently. “To reconcile Jamesian Christianity with Pauline Christianity, which was very Hellenized. That’s why, although Paul is clearly the hero of Acts, James settles the central dispute about admitting gentiles to the Church.”

  Drew waved a hand. “There it is.”

  “It’s an interesting theory, but …”

  “Don’t take my word for it.” Drew pointed at the photographs. “Nathan says there’s material in the Habakkuk Scroll that clearly implicates Paul. I also got the distinct impression that the Ebionites were persecuted nearly out of existence because they knew Paul murdered James. They still call him the Enemy.”

  Jesse nodded. “That’s what bothers me—too much of what you’re saying makes sense. I really have to … I have to read the whole scroll.” She lifted a handful of the 8 x 10s.

  “Then you’re going to have to come to Istanbul. You can take all the time you want while I try to work out more of these Gospel encryptions.”

  “What Gospel encryptions?”

  7: 10

  SUBSTRATA

  “WELL … LOOK, YOU KNOW there are a lot of contradictions between the Gospels and things that don’t add up within a particular Gospel. But what if that’s intentional? What if the authors of the Gospels used allegory to encrypt historical events?”

  “An alternative history?”

  “Unless I’m completely off, there are disguised references to historical events and to … a substrata of history I guess you could call it. Bethlehem is a good example. All the Gospels record this as Jesus’ birthplace. Luke even goes out of his way to get Joseph and the pregnant Mary, who already lived in Nazareth in his version, to Bethlehem. What was so important about Bethlehem?”

  Jesse had been leaning to one side, a straightened arm propping her up on the bed, but now she sat up. “Micah 5:2 … a ruler of Israel shall come out of Bethlehem.”

  Drew pushed back sweat-soaked hair with his fingers. “That’s exactly how a Jew would read it. But we know from Saint Jerome that Bethlehem was a center of worship for Adonis long before it was Christ’s birthplace. Adonis is a Greek name taken from the Phoenician adonai for lord—identical to adonai in Hebrew.” Drew put both of his hands out. “There it is. Our Lord was born in Bethlehem—the same message for Jew or gentile. So the other side of the coin, the hidden side, is how a Greek would read it. Jesus was another in a long line of dying-and-rising gods who were venerated in the Mystery cults, a divine lord born in Bethlehem.”

  Jesse sighed. “Yes, that’s been the trend in modern scholarship … to call Jesus another Dionysus or Mithras or Adonis…”

  “It makes sense. In Judaism, there was no precedent, no prophecy about a Messiah resurrected from the dead.”

  “That’s true,” Jesse admitted. “But the Adonis cult in Bethlehem … that’s pure coincidence.”

  “Maybe, but all the Mysteries venerated a dying-and-rising god. Mithra might be the best fit of all. He was born to a virgin on December 25. He’s depicted with a halo, had twelve disciples, his holy day was Sunday—the day he was resurrected—he was worshiped on Vatican Hill in Rome, before the Catholic Church existed of course, and the leader of his cult was a pope. I mean, that tall hat bishops still wear is called a mitre, from the Latin for Mithra—Mitra. It’s adding up.”

  Jesse nodded, a little wearily maybe. “So you think the Gospel authors plagiarized the myths of the Mystery cults?”

  “At first that’s exactly what I thought,” Drew conceded, “but I realized the stories were too well-known to steal. I think on one level the Mystery elements were landmarks for pagans, particularly the Greeks— it was the Greeks after all who took to Christianity, not the Jews. Greeks would feel at home with a Mystery cult. So the Gospels were meant both for the Jews and for an audience versed in the Mysteries—pagans all over the Levant. Why else would Matthew be so ready to write that a virgin would conceive and bear a son? A virgin birth wasn’t strange to him because he was a Hellenized Jew surrounded by the Mystery cults in which any number of god-men had been born to virgins.”

  Jesse shook her head. “Scholars have made these connections before— and dismissed them. Except for a couple of wingnuts with PhDs.”

  Drew sighed. “Okay. Let’s rewind a little … James was a Jew first and foremost. To him following the Messiah meant observing the Torah and showing your faith through good works. Paul, who was thoroughly Hellenized, wasn’t interested in Judaic Law. For him faith justified everything. He’s the one who popularized a savior resurrected from the dead like every other god-man in the Mediterranean world.”

  Jesse’s smile was condescending. “You should have gotten your PhD, Drew. You can’t support all this.”

  “Well, I’m not done digging yet. I’m not even sure Jesus was the Savior.”

  She rolled her eyes. “Now you’re way out in left field.”

  “Look, even in Saint Hegesippus, James is described as holding debates on the Temple steps as to whether or not Jesus was the Christ. If it was common coin that Jesus had actually risen from the grave, would there really be any doubt? No. Which means the resurrection wasn’t accepted among the Jews, it was a Pauline invention.”

  “So who was the Savior?”

  “James.” Drew was far from convinced, but he wanted to see how she countered.

  “Hold it, hold it right there. You mean to tell me—”

  “Jess, didn’t you just say the Teacher of Righteousness and James look like a good fit? What does the scroll—” he lifted his chin toward the photos spread out on the bed— “say about the Teacher? All those who observe the Law whom God will deliver because of their suffering and because of their faith in the Teacher of Righteousness…? Not only does the Teacher sound like the Messiah, but stressing Judaic Law sounds exactly like James. And the Teacher can’t be Jesus because there is nothing about the crucifixion or the resurrection or anything else to indicate Jesus.”

  Jesse frowned. “I’d rather read the whole scroll before rearranging centuries of scholarly interpretation.”

  “Okay, but look at their deaths. In the stylized version of James’s death—”

  “Stylized?”

  “Josephus gives us the historical account. Clement and Hegesippus give
us the stylized accounts, where James is thrown from the pinnacle of the Temple and stoned. Isn’t it curious that Acts of the Apostles leaves out James’s death entirely? The first bishop of the Church of Jerusalem, brother of the Lord? Acts and the Gospels deliberately suppress James as often as possible. They had to. His holiness takes away from Jesus’.”

  Jesse waved a hand in vigorous denial. “They were suppressing Jamesian Christianity in favor of Pauline Christianity.”

  “No argument there. But there are too many similarities between James and Jesus. In the stylized version of James’s death, James is addressing a crowd on Passover just before he’s killed; Jesus is crucified on the eve of Passover. Jesus and James both see the Son of man coming on the clouds of Heaven before they are killed. Both are unjustly accused of blasphemy. Both ask God to forgive their killers. It’s not one or two things, Jess, it’s about a dozen.”

  “Why wouldn’t it be the other way around? Why wouldn’t pieces of Jesus’ life have been grafted onto James’s?”

  “Because that would diminish Jesus’ stature and elevate James’s. And as you just admitted, the New Testament writers sympathized with Paul and went to great lengths to suppress James’s importance. Paul was bringing in Greek converts on his missions but James was a stay-at-home kind of guy who barely converted any Jews.” Drew snapped his fingers. “Justin Martyr! He proves what happened. When Saint Hegesippus describes the death of James, he cites something in Isaiah as a prophecy, something like Let us take away the Just One …’”

  “Let us take away the Just One, for he is abhorrent to us, wherefore they shall eat the fruit of their doings,” Jesse finished. “The Septuagint’s mistranslation I might add.”

  “Right. Anyway, the point is that for Hegesippus the Righteous One is James. Hegesippus was born around 100 AD in Palestine. But by the time we get to Justin Martyr, who’s writing a couple of decades later, the Righteous One is no longer James, it’s Jesus. It makes sense. Even if there was a historical Jesus, his worshippers would have wanted him looking down on every other prophet. Why do you think Mark sticks that line in John the Baptist’s mouth about not being worthy to loose Jesus’ sandal strap? If John were really so unworthy, Jesus would be the one baptizing him. And Jesus wouldn’t be repeating some of the same things—word for word—John had already said.”

  Jesse smirked ironically. “There’s a gaping hole in your theory. If James was the Savior figure in first century Palestine, where did the crucifixion narratives come from? There’s nothing in the history of James to explain that.”

  “Paul doesn’t mention the Romans or Pilate.”

  “Nonetheless, the crucifixion narrative came from somewhere.”

  Drew thought of the vase—centuries older than Christianity—that he’d seen at Serafis’ house, the image of Dionysus impaled on a stake— stauros in Greek but translated into English as cross. There’s your dying-and-rising god, he thought, but that image was still a long way from the detailed crucifixion narratives in the Gospels. “Like I said, I’m not done digging.”

  “Well,” Jesse held up the photographs. “If this scroll ever sees the light of day, the Church is going to have some explaining to do.”

  “I think I’ve got that covered.”

  “You found a way to keep them from selling it to Serafis?”

  Drew nodded.

  “How?”

  “It’s not important.”

  “So why don’t you tell me?”

  “Because the less you know, the safer you are.”

  “Oh, come on, Drew. I’m up to my neck already.”

  “Look, Jess, I took a huge chance having you meet me here. I already lost Zafer and Kadir’s trust. It’s not a good idea for me to lose any more.”

  She sighed. “So what now?”

  “I have to get back to my hotel.”

  “And leave me here? Under surveillance? Drew, I’m not staying here tonight.”

  “I can’t take you with me, Zafer would freak out. We have to get you to another hotel.”

  “How are we going to do that? Maybe you haven’t noticed—I’m a Caucasian dressed like a tourist. I’m a dead giveaway.”

  Drew smiled. “I’ll take care of that.”

  7: 11

  THE MARKET, AFTER HOURS

  SITTING IN A CAR PARKED across the street, Nathan saw a couple step out of the hotel. He glanced at his watch. Nearly midnight. The woman wore a scarf over her head and an ankle-length skirt. Head down, she held her husband’s arm as the two of them walked south on Istiklal Avenue.

  Where the hell was a conservative Muslim couple going at this hour?

  Nathan got out of the car and followed them at a pace that would be fast enough to overtake them but not to draw attention. He slipped off his watch and pushed it into a pocket. He would simply ask the time—almost everyone here spoke Arabic—as an excuse to get a good look at them.

  Still on the opposite sidewalk, they turned down a narrow street. He trotted across Istiklal. As he turned the corner, he nearly bumped head-on into the man, who was now walking in the opposite direction.

  “Affedersiniz.” Excuse me. The man looked at him curiously and stepped around him.

  Nathan realized at that moment that the covered woman had not been his wife. He took out his cell phone.

  Just as Jesse reached Drew, Drew spotted Nathan. “Shit.”

  Drew had found the Turkish couple in the lobby of the hotel. He’d explained that although his wife wasn’t Muslim, she wanted to dress more modestly, tonight, and offered an exorbitant price for a set of clothes. He promised the man an extra 25 lira if he would walk Jesse around the block. He himself had climbed out a window at the back of the hotel.

  Jesse looked over her shoulder.

  “That’s him on the corner. We’ll have to lose him in the car. Come on.”

  Drew had the satchel against one hip and Jesse’s laptop bouncing off the other. The straps intersected over his sternum and his spine.

  “My rental is this way.” Jesse pulled him by the hand.

  On either side of the street was Antakya’s central market, a warren of alleys and winding streets. Slouching and leaning, their awnings of corrugated tin or fiberglass, the shops and stalls looked as though they had once been on the move, their advance had been suddenly halted, and they’d settled into these haphazard arrangements.

  Jesse pointed at a Fiat. “Here.”

  A car facing them started up, and its high-beams flared to life.

  “Wait.” He caught Jesse by the arm.

  The car pulled out with a shriek of rubber.

  Instinctively, Drew pulled Jesse down onto the sidewalk with him. Automatic gunfire erupted as the car passed. Glass exploded into tiny shards that rained down on them and danced on the concrete.

  “They shot at us!” She sounded astonished more than anything else.

  The thought of the Glock he was carrying flashed and disappeared, leaving the same blankness that followed a nighttime display of lightning. A pistol against submachine guns—that was suicide. Scrambling to his feet, he tugged Jesse up by her hand.

  The side windows of the Fiat had been shot out.

  Tires squealed as the car did a 180 near the corner.

  “This way!” Drew yanked Jesse into one of the narrow streets of the market place where a few Turks, their faces curious and tentative, gathered to peer at the Fiat in its glittering setting of broken glass.

  Drew knocked into an empty vendor’s cart as he took Jesse around the corner.

  “Do you know where we’re going?”

  “No!”

  The car screeched to a stop, and a flashlight beam found them.

  Realizing the curve of the road would make a clear shot nearly impossible, Drew pushed Jesse ahead and broke into a sprint.

  Another burst of automatic gunfire unstitched the quiet. Drew heard pings off metal, ricochets off stone, the shattering of glass. Most of it over their heads. As they rounded the curve, Drew heard
the whine of a car in reverse. A few seconds later, headlights cast Drew’s and Jesse’s elongated shadows in front of them as the car sped up the narrow street.

  Drew glanced over his shoulder. Above the glare of the high-beams, he saw the silhouette of a man leaning out of the car’s window.

  “Shit.”

  “This way!” Jesse pulled him down an alley far too narrow for a car. Just as they emerged onto another street, there was another spurt of automatic fire. Stone shattered but the alley was already behind them. Drew stopped suddenly, slipped off her laptop, and handed it to her. “Go.”

  A Turk, who’d been sawing wood in his shop, stared up at them in disbelief.

  Drew pulled out the Glock, a weird pistol to him because it had no hammer. He looked at the carpenter. “Chabuk eh’il, abi.” Get down fast, brother.

  The Turk ducked into the recesses of his workshop.

  “Where am I supposed to go?” Jesse shouted.

  “Get behind something.” Drew dropped to one knee behind a wall. Aiming with both hands, he trained the Glock on the mouth of the alley maybe thirty feet away.

  A man carrying what looked like an Uzi trotted into the street.

  Drew squeezed the trigger. A burst of sparks showed where the bullet scarred the dark cobbles at the Sicarii’s feet. The man leaped back into the alley, and Drew fired off two more shots in rapid succession.

  “Let’s go!” Grabbing Jesse’s hand, he sprinted up another curving street.

  “Did you hit him?”

  “Didn’t try to. I just wanted to give them something to think about.”

  They ducked into another alley as the Uzi opened up.

  A motorcycle approaching from the far end brought them to a sudden stop. Drew prayed a Sicarii wasn’t riding it. He and Jesse flattened themselves against the corrugated steel rolled down over the front of a shop to let the bike pass, but at the last second Drew jumped out. Using a long arm bent slightly at the elbow, he caught the rider under the chin.