St Paul's Labyrinth

by Jeroen Windmeijer

  After three years of preparation, Paul re-emerged in Jerusalem as a Soldier, ready to undertake the most dangerous task of his life, perhaps even the most brilliant operation in the history of mankind. He visited Peter, and Jesus’ brother James, and stayed with them for two weeks. He convinced them that he had become a sincere follower of Jesus. He had changed his name back to Paul so that he could assimilate with the Roman world and rid himself of his association with Judaism.

  He may have gone back to the temple to catch one more glimpse of the high priest’s daughter, that veritable daughter of Eve, perhaps watching her from behind a pillar as she walked with her husband and firstborn child.

  For fourteen years, he travelled tirelessly, telling the story of his Lord Mithras, but now disguised and with a new name: Jesus the Christ, old wine in a new skin. After all, Jesus’ sacrifice also resulted in new life, which is, in effect, the perpetual rhythm of the seasons. And by eating his flesh and drinking his blood, people could also become one with him and gain eternal life.

  He railed against the laws that no longer applied after the death and resurrection of Jesus. There was no more need for the scourge of circumcision. There was no more need to burden people with a yoke that he was hardly able to bear himself. The people should be allowed to eat and drink whatever they wanted … He announced the good news in the synagogues. To his great joy, he irritated the local Jewish communities and was able to draw people away from them. The first to join him were the women, who were already confined to marginal roles, followed by their husbands and children, the slaves, the outcasts.

  And he saw that he was successful, and that his message was popular.

  His story about a God who personally cared about you, looked after you, the sacrifice that had been made for you so that you were free to come to God, the promise of the hereafter … The meal of bread and wine to remember the sacrifice made by Mithras, by Jesus, that allowed you to become one with him. Those were ideas that non-Jews already knew very well, a familiar story, old wine in a new skin.

  As the movement grew and grew, the threat it posed to Judaism in Jerusalem became greater and greater. He cleverly laid the blame for the crucifixion of their Lord and saviour at the Jews’ feet, an outstanding accomplishment, since everyone knew that only the Romans carried out crucifixions. The Jews were allowed to sentence and execute their own people. If, as is described in the Gospels, the Jews had found Jesus guilty of blasphemy, then they could simply have stoned him themselves without the involvement of the Romans, as they had done with Stephen. The Romans didn’t consider blasphemy against the Jewish god Yahweh to be a crime at all. What did they care if the Jews bickered among themselves? The point was that Jesus had committed an entirely different crime, something that the Romans considered to be a very good reason for crucifixion: overturning the tables in the temple courts. It was Pesach, and hundreds of thousands of Jewish pilgrims from all over the Roman Empire had come to Jerusalem to celebrate. The city was bursting with people, it was a powder keg and the Romans were very wary of anyone who might light the fuse. An uprising against Roman authority could have happened at any time, which made the atmosphere very tense. When Jesus and his disciples caused a riot in the busy temple courts, the Romans sought to nip it in the bud immediately. That proved to be fatal to Jesus. And that was the reason that he ended up on the cross – because of the Romans, not the Jews!

  Paul created a whole new structure on the foundations of his own old religion, his own Mithraism, and created a labyrinth in which everyone would eventually become lost. Although he had barely any interest at all in the earthly life of Jesus, he came up with an entirely new interpretation of what Jesus had said. He took the movement started by Peter, James and all the other men and women who had heard Jesus speak in person, and made it part of his own story.

  He was a Sun-Runner now. He wrote letters and travelled far and wide. He followed the path of the sun and left behind all the worldly bonds that had fettered him so that he could unwaveringly follow his own path.

  Paul felt fulfilled. He was drawing closer to his goal: discord within the original community. The very first people to follow Jesus, those who had continued to go to the temple as Jews, now became the apostates …

  After fourteen years, he went back to Jerusalem for the great Apostolic Council. They agreed that he and his helpers would focus on preaching to the Gentiles, exactly what Paul wanted. It would open up a world to him that was infinitely larger than the limited confines of Palestine. He sensed the end of the eternal city was approaching, a consequence of the increasing unrest and the Romans’ brutal oppression. He set off on another journey, but he would return one last time with the money he had collected in the Christian diaspora as a sign of goodwill … And that was where he appears to have miscalculated. No one wanted to accept the money. He was arrested and his end appeared to be drawing near.

  But they hadn’t reckoned on his ability to take control of a seemingly lost situation and turn it around. Paul was a pre-modern Houdini. Paul, the escape artist.

  44

  Saturday 21 March, 12:20pm

  ‘So you’re one of those notorious “secret societies”?’ Peter asked, making the quotation marks audible in his voice.

  ‘Yes,’ Daniël replied simply, ‘but we’re not out for world domination, and we’re not the ones who were really behind 9/11, no illuminati nonsense. We were secret, as you put it, but we prefer to say “hidden”, separate from the world. Not because we’re doing anything dark or sinister, quite the opposite in fact. It’s because our light would be more than most people could cope with.’

  ‘And then your leader thought: enough of this secrecy, let’s open the windows, let the air in? Something like that?’ The smoke from the torch made Peter’s nose itch.

  ‘No,’ Daniël said, ‘or, actually yes. Yes, he wants openness. The world should know we exist. We have nothing to hide. But no, not everyone will be able to just become a member. Or at least, that’s not the intention. You’d still need to be invited to join and you’d still be forbidden to tell anyone about what you’d seen and heard. But the story should be available to everyone. Many people actually know it already, but they’re specialists.’

  The tunnel branched out ahead of them. They went left, and then almost immediately turned right. Peter knew he needed to stay close to Daniël if he didn’t want to get lost in this subterranean world.

  ‘But the deeper story …’ Daniël continued casually. He appeared to know the tunnels like the back of his hand. ‘… the layer underneath, that will be kept for an inner circle, only those who’ve been initiated. It’s high time that people knew – and not just religious people, but everyone who says that our society is Judeo-Christian – that the things they believe in are stories, not literal events. People beat each other’s brains out over these stories when their original authors never meant them to be taken literally.’

  ‘And I suppose your version is secretly the true version? But then you’re doing exactly the same thing, aren’t you?’

  ‘I thought you’d say that.’ Daniël looked over his shoulder, laughing bitterly. ‘But our story is at least closer to the original source. In many respects, the Lord that we worship is no different from the Lord of the Jews or the Christians, but we admit that our stories should be read as allegories. And that’s why many people will find us more appealing, and why many people will want to join us.’

  Peter had no idea which part of the city they were walking under. They weren’t taking a straight route to the church, that much was clear.

  A whole system of tunnels … Yesterday he hadn’t known it existed until the mayor and the digger had disappeared into the pit and Peter had found the young man covered in blood in the space below it.

  ‘But why was Raven covered in blood? It couldn’t have come from being hit on the head with those bricks. I mean, he was completely covered in blood.’

  ‘Have you heard of the taurobolium?’

  ‘Bu
ll sacrifice.’

  ‘Bull sacrifice, exactly. Or rams or sheep, if the person making the offering wasn’t rich enough. The person being initiated stands in a pit with a grate over his head. Above him, the sacrificial animal’s throat is cut and the blood runs through the grate and onto the person below. He smears it into his body, washes himself with the blood. And he opens his mouth to try to drink some of it. The blood cleanses you of everything you’ve ever done wrong so you can start again with a clean slate. It guarantees you a life in the hereafter, reunion with your loved ones.’

  ‘And Raven …’

  ‘Raven was going through his initiation. We can’t just smuggle a bull into the temple, so we always use a lamb. We can get it inside quite easily in a big wooden crate.’

  ‘But Daniël … I would never have thought that you …’

  Daniël turned around. With the zeal of a street evangelist, he said: ‘If you only knew, Peter, what it’s like to know the truth, to be free. I hope you find out one day.’ He turned around again. ‘We’re almost there, by the way.’

  ‘And you do this in your temple, your Mithraeum? Where is it?’ Peter asked, continuing the conversation he had just interrupted.

  ‘Maybe you’ll get to see for yourself. The Catholic church always built its churches on sites that were already sacred to the local population to make the shift to Christianity easier. People could carry on performing their own rituals, just as they always had, but with a Christian slant.’

  ‘And my role?’ Peter asked.

  ‘The Father has been watching you for years. It’s …’ But the rest of his words went unspoken when a figure appeared from around a corner.

  ‘Dr De Haan, I presume …’ The speaker was standing menacingly in the middle of the passage in front of them, a torch in his hand.

  Two more men stepped out of the shadows behind them.

  They were trapped.

  45

  Saturday 21 March, 12:40pm

  ‘You bastard!’ Peter shouted.

  Daniël opened his eyes wide and started to say something but before he got the chance, Peter gave him a vicious shove. Daniël stumbled forwards into the startled assailant in front of him, dropping his torch as they both fell to the floor. As his assailant fell, his torch was pressed into his body, setting his clothes alight. He tried to get up, but slipped and fell down again.

  Peter made use of the distraction to grab the torch from the floor and quickly slip past Daniël and the man in flames on the floor. He stopped a little way down the passageway. The tunnel was flooded with light now. The man had struggled to his feet and stood in the middle of the tunnel, like a flaming human torch, desperately trying to take off his clothes. The last thing Peter saw before he ran away was that the man had fallen down again and was rolling around on the ground.

  Daniël, that traitor … he thought, incensed. If only I’d stayed above the ground.

  The sound of the man’s screams faded as Peter ran around the corner. A long passageway stretched out in front of him. He had no idea which way to go, but he kept running.

  He soon heard footsteps behind him. Someone was following him. The light from the torch made him easy to follow, but without it, he would get nowhere. The footsteps came closer. Whoever was following him had the advantage of speed because Peter had to slow his pace to stop the torch being blown out. The flames trailed behind the torch, sometimes even appearing to separate from it.

  He knew it was hopeless. The footsteps were right behind him now.

  Just as he was about to turn around and lash out, someone grabbed his lower legs. The torch flew from his hand, but somehow, it stayed alight.

  He tried to kick himself free, but the man had his legs in a vice-like grip.

  He managed to twist his body so that he was almost lying on his side, and then lift his torso up from the ground as though he was doing sit-ups. His pursuer, a small, bald, heavy-set man, was clearly at a disadvantage now with both of his hands wrapped around Peter’s legs. He tried to free one of his arms, but failed.

  Peter had never fought anyone in his life, not as a boy and not as a man. He hadn’t ever dared to get into a fight and he’d rarely been in a situation where he’d needed to. On a couple of occasions at school, he’d patiently lain on the school playground and waited for the teacher on duty to come and free him from whichever child had him in a headlock. Their schoolmates had booed in disappointment when his attacker had eventually let him go.

  But now he felt an enormous, primal strength gathering inside him, driven by rage, like lava spouting from a volcano. He drew back his fist and landed a punch on the nose of the human bear trap at his feet. He heard the bone crack – a horrible, dry sound. Blood spurted out of the man’s nose, exactly as he’d seen it happen in films. The man shrieked and held his hands over his face, but Peter punched him again, hard on his left ear this time. Then he kicked the man away from him until he lay groaning on the floor. Blood oozed between his fingers.

  Peter stood up, picked up the torch and began to walk, without any thought at all to his opponent’s fate. His right hand was covered in blood. He wiped it on his trousers, but blood stayed smeared on his skin.

  The tunnel split again, and he randomly chose to go left. Where do I go, where do I go, he thought. And which direction am I even going in to start with?

  After about fifty paces, he remembered the compass in his trouser pocket.

  He stood still and listened to make sure no one was coming. All he could hear was the gentle sound of water flowing beneath his feet. Then he took out the compass and held it up to the torch flame so he could see it more clearly. The passage ahead of him appeared to go south. We can’t have walked further than the Coelikerk, he thought, otherwise we’d have reached it already. The church must be to the east.

  He had no idea if he was right. Maybe they had taken a circuitous route and gone straight past the church. This was probably a shot in the dark.

  He walked further down the passageway. After a few dozen metres, it split in two again. He chose the path that looked like it had the most easterly direction, towards where he thought the church would be. He took a few more turns left and right, until he felt sure that he was gradually heading east.

  He heard voices up ahead. He instinctively put the torch behind his back to shade some of its light, then took a few steps towards the noise. There was a T-junction ahead of him. Two male voices were talking in the passage on the left.

  ‘… then?’

  ‘We’ll see when we get there.’ The speaker was clearly having trouble hiding his annoyance about something. ‘Listen to me,’ he went on, ‘I didn’t come up with this plan overnight. I’ve been working on it for years … given it a great deal of thought. And I haven’t done anything in secret, I haven’t gone behind your backs. I’ve been open and honest about everything.’

  There was no reply from the other man.

  ‘Not in the beginning, that’s true, but I don’t have to. I’m your leader, I’m your Father.’

  Peter was so keen to see the man who called himself Father that he had to suppress the urge to go around the corner. But he wanted to hear what they were talking about first.

  ‘Ane put his trust in me, I don’t need to explain any of that to you. The sun disappearing, right before the equinox … All the signs indicate that I’m right. This morning, they started to investigate the tunnel where they found Raven. They’ll bring excavators, drills, they’ll use force to break down the walls, and they’ll use scanners to find the tunnels …’

  ‘We can still call it all off,’ the other man argued. ‘And then they’ll just always wonder what the labyrinth under their city was all about. They might never even discover the temple.’

  ‘But I want them to discover us! Can’t you get that into your head? Are you deaf?’

  The second man didn’t respond.

  ‘Come on,’ said the man who called himself Father. ‘We need to be at the church before Peter gets there.’
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  ‘And if he doesn’t make it?’

  Peter didn’t hear a reply.

  But just as Peter was about to go around the corner to let them know he was there, the Father spoke: ‘I’ve already said this to Daniël too: if he doesn’t make it, then we’ve failed. We’ll abandon the plan and the two of them will disappear. He’ll get Judith when he’s on the altar in the church and not one step, not one second sooner.’

  It began to grow darker, a sign that the light source was moving further away from Peter.

  Peter followed the two men, being careful to stay out of sight. His own torch was almost burnt out now, but he kept it behind his back.

  He trod so softly that he felt like he was floating above the ground. With each step, he let his foot hover in the air for a moment, like a lion stalking its prey, or Saint Peter walking on water.

  He peered around the corner and watched one of them put a torch into a ring on the wall and then extinguish it with a quick blast of breath. As soon as the flame went out, he heard a door or a hatch being opened. In the faint light, he could see the first steps of a stone staircase. Footsteps echoed through the tunnel as someone went up the stairs.

  Now, at last, he could bring the torch out from behind his back. He shuffled across the passage until he could touch the wall with his left hand. After ten or fifteen metres, he reached the alcove where the staircase began.

  As he put his foot on the first step, he felt her behind him, Judith. The feeling was as unexpected as it was familiar. He was afraid that if he turned around to look, she would disappear again, back down into the deep darkness. If he didn’t look back, he could take her with him, up into the light, where the first rays of spring sunshine were bringing new life to the earth.