The Heretic Scroll

by Will Adams

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I thought as much. Though…’

  ‘Though?’

  ‘You’ll think me a dolt,’ he said. ‘But everyone says that Mark is the oldest gospel, and that he wrote it in Rome during the 70s CE. Yet I’ve no idea why they think that.’

  ‘They don’t,’ said Carmen. ‘Not really.’

  ‘But I’m sure I’ve seen them say it.’

  ‘I’m sure you have. That doesn’t make it so.’

  His eyes lit up. He relished this kind of thing. ‘Go on,’ he said.

  ‘There’s not much to say. Rome in the 70s CE is academia’s best guess. Not even that. A kind of neutral zone that no one gets too angry at. But actually, there’s tons of disagreement.’ She gave herself a moment, because it was such a fraught and complex subject, with little known for sure. But the gospels had at least two solid bookends. They named enough historically attested figures like Herod Antipas, Pontius Pilate, John the Baptist and Joseph of Arimathea that most of the events in them could be securely dated to the early 30s CE. And it was certain, too, that they’d taken on much their current form before around 180 CE, when the Church Father Irenaeus had not only named them, but cited passages from them. But that still left the best part of a hundred and fifty years for scholars to squabble over – which, being scholars, they did with great passion and self-certainty. At one end you had the true believers, who sought to push the gospels as early as they’d plausibly go – to the 50s or even the 40s CE. But sceptics gleefully countered with dates well into the second century.

  ‘Church tradition is a very unreliable guide,’ she said. ‘It didn’t even become tradition until late in the second century. So there’s no great reason to believe that the gospels were actually written by people called Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. Their names aren’t mentioned in the text and we have no solid evidence of them being called that until much later. But it’s still a place to start. And tradition claims that St Mark was an attendant of St Peter’s who cobbled together his gospel from the sermons he’d heard St Peter tell. Mark did this, apparently, some time after Nero put St Peter and St Paul to death, in 64 or 65 CE, as scapegoats for Rome’s great fire. So it follows that Mark likely wrote it somewhere in Italy in the second half of the 60s CE.’

  ‘But…?’ asked Cesco.

  ‘Quite,’ said Carmen. ‘As I say, there’s no great reason to accept that. And there’s a big problem with dating any of the first three gospels that early. Because they each include a pericope called the Olivet discourse that—’

  ‘A pericope?’

  ‘Sorry. A passage or incident or scene, I guess you’d call it. It takes place shortly before Jesus is arrested. He and his disciples are on the Mount of Olives, looking across at the Second Temple, when one of them mentions what an imposing and durable building it is. Jesus uses this as a teachable moment, saying how even it will be destroyed and the site desecrated.’

  ‘Ah, yes.’ Cesco was now peeling shrimps, fingers glistening with their juices. ‘Not one stone will remain standing upon another.’

  ‘That’s it. So now you have a choice. Either you believe that was a real prophecy written in the late 60s, or you accept that that bit at least was written after the Romans seized Jerusalem and tore down the Temple in the year 70.’

  ‘I thought that was a myth,’ said Cesco, wiping his hands on a paper towel.

  ‘Not a myth exactly. An exaggeration.’ The Wailing Wall itself disproved the literalness of the ‘not one stone’ passage; but recent archaeological and historical evidence suggested that large numbers of Jewish people had stayed on in Jerusalem for another few decades and had continued worshipping in the Temple. Only after the failed Bar Kokhba uprising of the 130s CE had the Romans finally had enough, clearing the Mount completely to build a temple to Jupiter in its place, banning circumcision and banishing the remaining faithful from the land. They’d even renamed Jerusalem Aelia Capitolina. In many ways that – rather than the first Roman War – had been Judaism’s greatest catastrophe. ‘But close enough to make an impressive prophecy.’

  ‘Okay,’ said Cesco. ‘So Mark was written after 70 CE. How about before 79 CE, when Vesuvius erupted?’

  ‘That’s harder,’ admitted Carmen. ‘But there are still reasons for thinking it. For example, there’s another telling passage in which Jesus states that the End Times would start before their own generation passed away.’

  ‘So he got one wrong. Always a risk with prophecy.’

  ‘Well, yes. Exactly. But if the gospels were written much later than we think, why put that bit in?’

  ‘Fair enough,’ said Cesco. He tossed the mussels into a colander, rinsed them with cold water. ‘Which suggests what? They were written before around 100 CE?’

  ‘I’d say so, yes.’

  ‘Which still isn’t the 70s. So I assume there’s more.’

  ‘This is Bible study,’ smiled Carmen. ‘There’s always more.’ She took another sip of wine to brace herself. ‘Have you ever heard of the Synoptic Problem?’ she asked.

  II

  The road south from Rome to Naples was fast but dull. Dieter sat in the passenger seat of the green Audi A3 searching his phone for properties to rent. Price was no great object, yet still there was nothing of the right size and privacy, not at such short notice, not in Naples itself. He expanded his search zone to include its suburbs and satellites until he found a promising candidate outside Capua. Four bedrooms, a swimming pool, extensive private grounds and available for the next three weeks. He couldn’t book it online at such short notice, so he sent the owner a message with his phone number. The owner called back ten minutes later. ‘Tomorrow, sure,’ he said. ‘But not tonight. It needs to be made ready.’

  ‘I don’t care about that,’ Dieter told him flatly. ‘It’s tonight or nothing.’ The man hesitated. Vesuvius had ravaged the tourist trade. ‘Two thousand euros for four days,’ he told him. ‘Cash, if you prefer.’

  The bargain struck, he turned his mind with pleasurable anticipation to Cesco Rossi. Unsurprisingly, he’d failed to track down his address in Naples. But apparently he’d been working for the victim, Raffaele Conte, and Conte had run a photographic studio whose website included its address in the city’s theatre district. Rossi – or someone who knew him – was sure to turn up at some point. Put one of his men on its doors, they’d have him soon enough.

  The rental house sat at the end of a winding country lane and atop a steep hill. They took the turns easily enough themselves, though Gunther and the others laboured a little in the white van behind them. The house’s automatic gate was already wide open when they arrived. A silver Volvo estate was parked on its forecourt. The man who came to meet them walked with a pronounced limp and grimaced with each step. ‘I’m missing dinner with my in-laws,’ he grumbled.

  ‘No need to thank us,’ said Dieter. He followed him inside, along a dark corridor. One of the side doors was padlocked. ‘What’s this?’ he asked.

  ‘Basement garage,’ said the man. ‘We use it for storage. There’s plenty of parking out front.’

  ‘Yes.’

  A hamper of goodies waited on the kitchen table. A bottle of white wine and a litre of milk in the fridge. He tried to show him the oven; Dieter waved him quiet. Upstairs, the beds were made, the bathrooms clean. ‘It’s fine,’ Dieter told him. He took out his wad to count out cash. The man licked his lips.

  Their business done, they went out. The guys were unloading the car and van. ‘So what are you here for?’ asked the man.

  ‘A convention.’

  ‘A convention?’

  ‘Yes. A convention.’

  ‘Left it a bit late, didn’t you? For a convention, I mean.’

  ‘Our villa got flooded.’

  ‘That’s too bad.’

  ‘Yes.’ Dieter checked his watch. ‘You’ll want to be leaving, I expect. Make it to your in-laws’ in time for coffee.’

  ‘I still need to show you the—’

&nbs
p; ‘We’ll figure it out.’ He walked the man to his car, watched him off, headlights winding around the hairpins. He closed the gates with the remote, then went back inside. The padlock on the basement door looked solid enough, but the screws were too small for the job. He twisted and pulled until the bracket came free. He turned on the light, made his way downstairs. There was enough space for two cars, but instead there was a great lumpen mass in the middle covered by a pair of large dust sheets. He lifted one up by its corner. Old furniture, broken white goods, packing chests filled with toys, books, clothes and crockery. He dropped it back down, wandered on. There were hooks in the ceiling, as if to hold up a boat, while the walls were bare concrete block. Ugly yes, but thick. And with no near neighbours, a man could scream his heart out here and not be heard.

  An alcove near the scroll gate was fitted with a workbench. It had an array of hand and power tools on the wall behind. He ran his eyes over them. An electric drill, a power saw, a nail gun, a hammer and a chisel. Hedge clippers and a pair of secateurs. An orange extension cord. Everything he could have wished for. The table had a fitted vice. He put his finger in and tightened it till he felt it grip. He tried to pull it out but couldn’t. He loosened it to free himself, then took down the drill. Its battery had run flat, so he plugged it into a socket to recharge.

  ‘This should just about do,’ said Knöchel, from behind.

  Dieter turned to stare at him. ‘Do?’ he said. ‘It’s perfect.’

  III

  Cesco caught his finger on the lip of a mussel as he scrubbed it of its beard. He scowled and watched it for a few moments, waiting for a bubble of blood that never appeared. He ran it under the cold tap anyway, then added the mussels to the pot along with the fish stock and some coriander.

  ‘The Synoptic Problem?’ he said. ‘Heard of it, sure. Not a clue what it is.’

  ‘Okay, then. To start at the beginning, the first three gospels – Matthew, Mark and Luke – are known as the synoptics because they’re all very much alike, telling the same stories in much the same order, often with the exact same words. That doesn’t happen by accident, not even from all three of them hearing the same stories from the same wandering preacher, say. You’d still never get it word for word. So there has to be some kind of literary connection.’

  ‘You mean they stole from each other?’

  ‘A bit harsh. It was standard practice back then. And it’s not the key question anyway, which is who copied from whom? People argue it every which way; but most agree that Luke was last. Apart from anything else, his gospel opens by acknowledging the other gospels already in existence. And there are other hints too. He’s less apocalyptic than Matthew and Mark, as though he’s having second thoughts about the imminence of the End Times. And he almost certainly wrote the Acts of the Apostles as well, which is rife with anachronisms.’

  Cesco grinned. He did enjoy a good anachronism. ‘Such as?’

  ‘Well, there’s a particularly telling one about a pair of revolutionaries called Judas and Theudas who he gets the wrong way round – exactly as Josephus did in his History of the Jewish War.’

  ‘And you think he copied it from Josephus rather than vice versa?’

  ‘It seems more likely, yes. Acts was obscure, but Josephus was famous. And his History wasn’t published until the early 90s, which would push both Luke and Acts back to the turn of the century, leaving us with Matthew and Mark. These two are really similar. In fact, Matthew effectively is Mark, only reordered a little and with about half as much extra material. So either Mark stripped out those bits from Matthew, or Matthew added them to Mark. You’d think this kind of situation would be rare. But actually it happened a fair bit. And it turns out that adding new material is far more common than stripping it out. That makes sense when you think about it. People have things they want to say. Take these gospels as an example. Mark tells a punchy short story about a gifted Galilean who preached uncomfortable truths, worked miracles and gained a following that unnerved the authorities. It climaxed in a violent confrontation that he appeared at first to lose but which he ultimately won. Classic Greek hero stuff, like Jason and the Argonauts, the Odyssey or the Bacchae.’

  ‘And Matthew isn’t like that?’

  ‘It’s much more tangled, certainly. More layered. And while it’s hard to see why Mark might have cut down Matthew, it’s easy to see what Matthew would have gained by adding to Mark. Take their openings, for example. Mark begins with Jesus already an adult. But Matthew includes a Nativity – as Luke does too, for that matter. As biography, it’s clearly nonsense. But as a way of satisfying Jewish prophecies about the Messiah, it’s pretty much a checklist. House of David. Tick. Born in Bethlehem. Tick. Shall be called Emmanuel. Tick. Out of Egypt. Tick. It’s as though Matthew had trawled through Jewish scriptures looking for predictions for Jesus to fulfil. Or take the miracles. Mark’s Jesus is a holy man with real but limited powers. He has to smear paste on a man’s eyes to cure his blindness. He can’t perform miracles at all near his own home. But Matthew’s Jesus is divine. He says the word and the centurion’s servant is healed.’

  ‘Truly this man was the Son of God.’

  ‘Different centurion. Same idea. Which is another thing. Mark’s gospel originally stopped after Jesus’s tomb was found empty. He himself was never actually seen. But the resurrected Christ was key to Matthew and Luke. So again the same dynamic: a Greek hero is turned into a Jewish god.’

  ‘That still doesn’t date Mark to the 70s.’

  ‘No, but once you’ve accepted the order, it becomes a matter of simple logistics. We think Luke was likely written in Greece. Matthew near the Turkish–Syrian border. And Mark certainly seems to have been writing for a Roman audience. There were no printing presses back then, no email. Everything had to be copied by hand then disseminated by horses and ships. And clandestinely too, considering how Christians were viewed. So you have to allow a certain amount of time. Especially as it all happened at least twice. Mark to Matthew. Matthew to Luke.’

  ‘And you’re suggesting ten years a pop? That’s quite some daisy chain.’

  ‘I did warn you.’

  ‘Yes. And somewhat redundant, wouldn’t you say? Seeing as there’s a far simpler way to find out.’

  ‘There is?’

  ‘Sure,’ said Cesco, with a twinkle-eyed smile. ‘Give me Lucia’s keys and I’ll go look.’

  Chapter Thirteen

  I

  It was well past nine when Izzo finally locked up Serious Crimes and set off for home – the same cramped apartment that he and his wife had moved into some fifteen years ago now, a few months before their marriage. At the time, it had been on the edge of town, giving them a fine view of the great volcano – a view that they’d been assured would remain unblocked. But Herculaneum had carried on growing since, and its planning system was so corrupted that all their windows now offered was other, larger blocks.

  Mario was still up. Izzo made him brush his teeth, then put him to bed and read him a story. He fell asleep before he’d finished, a little drool darkening his pillowcase. The sight made Izzo’s heart twist, as it sometimes did, with too much love. He stooped to kiss his forehead, then turned off his bedside light, leaving the door slightly ajar.

  Isabella was by the hob, muttering to herself. She slopped a ladleful of overcooked tagliatelle Bolognese onto his plate and set it on the table. He regarded it balefully. A family of slothful flatworms slinking through a muddy puddle. His wife’s cooking had been both healthy and delicious. Now everything tasted awful, yet perversely he kept putting on weight.

  ‘Some wine, I think,’ he said.

  ‘For a change.’

  ‘If you knew what my day had been—’

  ‘We all of us have days. I spent three hours at the doctor’s.’

  Izzo said nothing. Hard experience had taught him not to ask. He poured himself a glass of red and turned on the radio, curious as to what they were saying about his case. But Fatima Zirpoli from the Ve
suvius Observatory was on instead. Another incident on the volcano that morning. Carbon dioxide from an unknown fumarole that had killed a dog. Every possible signal of an eruption was now flashing red. It was clear from her tone, if not her words, that she thought a full evacuation of the Red Zone wasn’t just now urgent but should in fact already have been called. But she was only an advisor in the matter. Evacuation was for the politicians to call. And they were resisting hard, for it was certain to be chaotic, expensive and highly unpopular. Unless, of course, the volcano blew – in which case they’d be transformed instantly into far-sighted heroes.

  He looked across at Isabella. ‘Spoken to Konrad yet?’ he asked.

  ‘He wasn’t in.’

  ‘Perhaps he’ll be in now.’

  ‘It’s too late.’

  ‘Nonsense. They stay up all hours. Let me try for you.’ Isabella had barely spoken to her son since his marriage. A Nigerian she could perhaps have tolerated. A Muslim, at a stretch. But the two together had proved too much. Naturally enough, they’d been offended. Lines of communication had been strained ever since. He doubted that Isabella had even tried them, but it was also possible that Konrad – being aware of the likely evacuation – was screening for this number. He therefore rang him on his mobile instead, for he’d never called him on it before. Sure enough, he answered almost at once.

  ‘Hey!’ said Izzo cheerfully. ‘It’s me. Your brother-in-law.’

  ‘Oh. Ah. Yes. I’m sorry, Romeo, but I’m afraid you’ve caught me at a very—’

  ‘I’ve got your mother here. She’d like a word.’

  ‘…bad time. Can you not call back in—’

  ‘A volcano is about to erupt on our heads,’ said Izzo coldly. ‘We’re likely to be evacuated at any moment. My sister has very kindly offered to put Mario and me up, but there simply isn’t room for your mother. So no, I can’t call back.’

  ‘I’m sorry, truly. We’d love to help, but—’