The Fifth Gospel: A Novel

by Ian Caldwell

  I stand, but Peter clings to me. He has fistfuls of my cassock. He won’t let me put him down.

  I reach the phone on the table and call Mignatto, then Lucio. There’s no answer.

  “Peter, let go. I need to bring you back to Brother Samuel.”

  He roars hysterically. When I pull him off me, he battles my outstretched arms, lunging at me. His face is sheer panic. I’m abandoning him.

  I close my eyes. Calm myself. Kneel.

  “Come here,” I say.

  He runs into my arms with so much force that it almost knocks me over.

  “You’re safe. Babbo’s here. Nothing bad is going to happen.”

  I stroke his hair. I squeeze him. I let him cry. But it doesn’t pass. He’s never been so inconsolable. At the tips of my fingers, even as I hold him, I feel the tattoo of my racing pulse. Every passing minute brings the exhibit closer. Michael will be there. I can’t stay here. If I don’t hurry, I’m going to be late.

  I look down at the phone in my hand and can think of only one solution.

  * * *

  MONA ARRIVES TWENTY MINUTES later. Peter is still breathing hard. Only the promise of seeing her has made any change in him.

  “Mamma,” he squeaks, and goes to her for a hug.

  Her first instinct is the right one: to sit down on the floor and let him fold himself into her lap.

  “Brother Samuel’s going to come over, too,” I tell her.

  She nods.

  “Go to Samuel’s if you want, but please don’t go anywhere else.”

  She nods again.

  Just seeing him in her arms fills me with guilt. But she doesn’t ask why I would leave our crying son behind. She doesn’t doubt.

  “I don’t know when I’ll be back,” I say.

  “Alex,” she says softly, “it’s okay. Samuel and I are going to take good care of him. Just go.”

  MY HEART THRUMS. TIME is wasting. I’m late.

  Gendarmes are posted at the entrance to the Belvedere Courtyard. Over their shoulders I see dozens of black sedans parked inside.

  “Which way?” I say.

  The gendarmes point north, toward Ugo’s old office. “Head that way, Father. You’ll see it.”

  If Michael broke into my apartment, then he didn’t fly here for the trial. Everything he said was a lie. He was in Rome all along.

  I dial Leo. He doesn’t answer. I leave a message warning him to look out for Michael. Finally I see a private entrance unlocked in the museum wall. Inside, printed programs are left curled up on the floor.

  He’s the one who must’ve called the apartment, the night before he broke in. Which means he’s one of the men who was staying in that room at the Casa.

  I pick up one of the programs. In large red letters, a note on the first page says:

  WE ASK OUR GUESTS

  TO FOLLOW THE GUIDED TOUR OF THE EXHIBIT.

  A map shows the route: from here down to the Sistine Chapel, a corridor one quarter of a mile long has been cleared for the exhibit. As I run to catch up, the history of the Shroud flashes by in reverse. 2004: radiocarbon tests refuted. 1983: Italian royal family gives Shroud to John Paul. 1814: Shroud exhibited to celebrate downfall of Napoleon. 1578: Shroud first arrives in Turin. 1355: first known Catholic exhibition of the Holy Shroud. The path runs unstoppably toward the Fourth Crusade. Toward 1204.

  That’s why Michael sent me to use the pay phone behind the Casa. Because he could watch me from his hotel window.

  When I reach the gallery with Constantinople painted on the wall, I stop in surprise. No one’s here either. And no part of the exhibit has been removed in the three days since I saw it.

  I hesitate, disbelieving. So it’s already happened. The Orthodox have learned that we stole the Shroud from them.

  There are shoe prints on the marble floor. Body heat still hangs in the air. Then I see them. On the other side of a display case, almost invisible in the darkness, are two Orthodox in black cassocks. They stand in the corner, weeping. Across the glass, one of them meets my stare. His beard is spangled with tears.

  But a voice comes from beyond the doorway. A deep, gentle voice, like a father soothing his son. I step forward, recognizing its accent.

  Passing between the doors that were kept locked until now, I find myself in a vast, darkened hall. The only thing I see at first are floating heads—disembodied faces peering into the black. Not until my eyes adjust do I make out their cassocks and tuxedo jackets and black gowns. There are hundreds of people here. I start searching for Michael, but it’s hard to move through the crowd.

  The walls lighten as the corridor continues. Black turns to gray. Gray to white. At the other end, far off, the room seems to glow. Up there, I see paintings on the walls. Down here, though, the walls are almost bare, stenciled with words and mounted with a few old artifacts—coins and bricks—that look like they came from the bottom of a fishing net.

  “You now know,” Nowak says, standing on a dais at the far end of the hall, “the history of the Holy Shroud. You know that Western crusaders stole it from Constantinople and brought it into the arms of the Catholic Church.” His voice goes silent. The crowd is staring. I look up. Archbishop Nowak’s eyes are closed, and his fist is in the air. He brings it down, down, down on his chest.

  Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa.

  My fault, my fault, my most grievous fault.

  I move by intuition. The Orthodox are in tight groups, not leaving each other’s sides. But the Roman priests, like Michael, are interspersed through the crowd.

  “Forgive us, Lord,” Nowak says, “for making Your Shroud a symbol of our separation. Forgive us our sins against our brothers.”

  There’s a dead hush. Some old cardinals in the crowd are stony, as if Nowak is going soft, but His Grace forges on.

  “Fortunately, Doctor Nogara made a final discovery even more important than anything you have seen so far.”

  My search for Michael stops. I’m taken by surprise. Archbishop Nowak is about to describe what Ugo found.

  “As you will now see,” Nowak says, “the Holy Shroud solved our greatest theological crisis in one of the most difficult periods of our shared history. Without it, we could not be standing here tonight, for the Vatican Museums could not exist.”

  This sounds nothing like what Ugo described in his letter.

  “This is the final gallery of the exhibit,” Nowak says. “So before we reach the Sistine Chapel, I would like to introduce Doctor Nogara’s assistant, Andreas Bachmeier, who will explain Nogara’s discovery.”

  Everyone’s attention shifts. As Bachmeier steps up on the dais, I start making my way through the crowd again. Then, just for an instant, I catch sight of something in the crowd. A cassock with a long rip in the back of the collar.

  The cassock I cut open at the Casa.

  I turn back, but it’s gone.

  Pushing deeper into the crowd, I try to focus on the faces around me, try not to be distracted by the thought that calls louder and louder for my attention. Bachmeier makes a bow to Archbishop Nowak, then says, “For decades, the world has asked only one question about the Shroud: is it authentic? But Doctor Nogara asked a better question: why did Christ leave it to us? His answer is in this gallery.”

  All around me, a weird energy is building. Even the Orthodox are looking around, trying to decipher what Bachmeier means. I slip past a herd of them, apologizing in Greek. Then I see it again: the sliver of white in a torn Roman cassock. I move toward it, trying to catch a glimpse of the priest’s face.

  But he’s moving, too. Edging through the crowd. I wait to see where he’s going.

  “You may wonder,” Bachmeier says, “why no art is hung on the walls at the entrance to this gallery. Why there are only words. It’s because this is the world into which the Shroud was born.” He steps off the
dais, pointing to the stenciled quotations. A microphone on his lapel fills the hall with his voice. “The First Commandment of the Mosaic Law says, I am the Lord your God. You shall have no other gods before me. You shall not make for yourself a graven image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. The ancient Jewish people observed this prohibition very seriously. Consider what we’re told by their historian Josephus.”

  Nowak never leaves the platform, but in his deep, rolling voice he intones, “The Assembly of Jerusalem sent me to destroy the palace of King Herod, because it was decorated with images of animals. But another man arrived there first, and set the palace on fire.”

  As necks crane to see the letters on the wall, the priest in the torn cassock stops. He turns to look at Nowak. From that angle, I can see his face. My whole body stiffens. Michael.

  I push forward and reach for his arm, but he’s moving away from me. Angling himself toward Archbishop Nowak.

  “People ask why the gospels never mention an image on the Shroud,” continues Bachmeier. “But imagine how the Jewish community would have responded to the image of a naked, crucified man.”

  Suddenly Michael steps forward. He makes a move to confront Nowak on the dais, but sheerly by accident another priest walks into his path. Michael sidesteps, and I lunge forward. My fingers reach his sleeve. I grab him.

  “This,” Bachmeier is saying, “is why the disciples brought the Shroud to Edessa. A pagan city with no prohibition against images. Led by a king who admired Jesus.”

  Michael spins around. He looks at me, but there’s no recognition in his eyes. His pupils are small and tense. His brow is wet with sweat.

  “You son of a bitch,” I say.

  He rips himself away from me and steps up on the platform with Nowak. At first His Grace doesn’t register his presence. Bachmeier is saying, “Our early Christian Church, however, was still hostile to images.” Archbishop Nowak seamlessly begins to read a quotation. But Michael steps in front of them. I lurch forward to grab hold of him, but he pulls out of my grasp.

  At that moment, something swoops before my eyes. A rush of color. Swiss Guards, descending from all corners of the room. Instantly Michael disappears behind a wall of them, engulfed.

  There is shock on the faces of the Orthodox in the crowd. I push my way forward. Just for a second, through the thicket of soldiers, I see Michael’s white eyes bulging in their sockets, his arms thrashing. He tries to shout, but it’s unintelligible. They have clamped something over his mouth. He tries to kick them away, but they’re immovable.

  A strong hand grips my shoulder and pushes me off. “Back away, Father,” a voice says.

  But I hold my ground. Michael is roaring, trying to spit out the gag. Two Swiss officers wave for the crowd to part so that he can be hauled away.

  “Friends!” Nowak says, lifting his arms in the air. “Please. Forgive this man. He is disturbed.”

  I start to follow Michael out, but more Swiss arrive, blocking my way.

  “I have to talk to him,” I say.

  They nudge me back.

  “Where are you taking him?” I ask.

  Then a voice comes from behind me.

  “Father.”

  I turn. Then I take a step back in surprise.

  “Your Grace.”

  The whole crowd is watching us.

  Not knowing what else to do, I bow to Archbishop Nowak.

  He takes me by the arm and leads me back to the dais.

  “My friends,” he announces, “many of you know Bishop Andreou. He visited your countries. He was instrumental in what we do tonight. This man is his brother.”

  He gives them a long look at me. At my beard. My flowing cassock. The point is not subtle. A mixed family, West and East. We can all survive under one roof.

  “Thank you, Father Andreou,” Nowak says, “for your help a moment ago.”

  The crowd politely claps. I keep my eyes on the floor. I didn’t stop Michael; the Swiss Guards did. This is theater.

  When the inspection is over, I begin to step down. But Nowak keeps his hand on me. He won’t let me walk away. “Doctor Bachmeier,” he says loudly, “please continue.”

  And when Bachmeier begins speaking again, Archbishop Nowak whispers to me, “Father, your brother would want you to see what comes next.”

  So I stand beside him, the token Greek Catholic, the antidote to Michael’s outburst, as Bachmeier guides the crowd through quotations on the walls. They are the ancient words of Church Fathers, saints, councils of bishops.

  God who prohibited the making of graven images would never Himself have made an image.

  Images should not be in churches. What is venerated and worshipped should not be painted on the walls.

  The names beneath these quotes come straight from the textbooks I teach in pre-seminary. Saint Irenaeus, from the 100s AD. Tertullian and Origen from the 200s. Eusebius, father of Christian historians, from the 300s. Epiphanius, flag-bearer of orthodoxy, from around 400. The audience drifts slowly down the gallery, watching the ancient leaders of our Church breathe fire against images. Watching our religion take a stand against paganism by shunning the paintings and statues that adorn pagan temples of Jupiter and Apollo and Venus.

  Only as paganism fades away does the Church’s position soften. A pastiche of images on the walls captures it: across the Roman Empire, Christians entering their churches are greeted by paintings and mosaics of Jesus, his miracles, his disciples. There is something miraculous about how quickly it spreads, as if a whole civilization is waking up from a shared dream, a revelation of the divine formula: God is beauty, and beauty moves the soul. The timeless face of Jesus is suddenly everywhere. And yet at this very moment, just as Christian art is blooming, an existential danger rises. When the timeline on the walls reaches the 600s, the white letters become red. They are written in Arabic.

  Bachmeier points to the words. “Now we come to the most electrifying event in history since the fall of Rome. Out of Africa marched the unstoppable new religion of Islam. It threatened not only the Holy Land but Christianity’s new attitude toward images. Before your eyes are the words of Muhammad as recorded by Imam Muslim. Since I have been asked not to read them aloud in these museums, you may read them for yourselves.”

  There are murmurs as the crowd takes in the translations.

  The most grievously tormented people on the Day of Resurrection will be the painters of pictures.

  All painters who make pictures will be in the fire of Hell.

  Do not leave an image without obliterating it.

  “At the border of Christendom and Islam, Christians came in contact with these ideas,” Bachmeier says, beginning to lead the crowd forward again, “and some of our faithful began to absorb them. These Christians slipped into the heresy of believing that art depicting our Lord was evil and must be destroyed. One of these heretics became Christianity’s emperor in Constantinople. And in the black year of 726, he launched a campaign we know today as Iconoclasm. A tragedy eclipsing even the Fourth Crusade.”

  A light clicks on overhead. Letters appear in the darkness, as if written in smoke by the devil. Nowak’s voice is pained as he reads them.

  “Churches were scraped down and smeared with ashes because they contained holy images. Wherever there were venerable images of Christ or the Mother of God or the saints, these were consigned to the flames, or were gouged out and smeared over.”

  Bachmeier continues. “The amount of Byzantine art that survived this period is desperately small. The world’s greatest collection of Christian art vanished almost entirely. This was a ruthless emperor. He proved to be almost unstoppable.”

  We come to the end of the hall. Bachmeier points to the final wall, the one separating us from the Sistine Chapel. It is painted an eerie, haunting
white. His voice trembles when he says: “Almost.”

  The wall is so bright I have to look away. That’s when I notice that the door leading to the Sistine Chapel is flanked by Swiss Guards.

  “One of the most important questions Doctor Nogara posed,” Bachmeier says, “was why Jesus left us the Holy Shroud. For seven hundred years, no one knew the answer. But in the midst of Iconoclasm, a Christian monk named John remembered an astonishing fact: in the city of Edessa there existed an image not made by human hands. An image of Christ, by Christ. It proved that our Lord’s new covenant was accompanied by a new art. When God became human, He made Himself into an image. By His own incarnation, He shattered the prohibition against art. And as proof of His intentions—like the tablets He gave to Moses—He left behind the Shroud.

  “Inspired by John, a small group of old men rose up against the emperor. And together, those men saved Christian history. I present you their words.”

  Archbishop Nowak’s voice is flooded with feeling now. Booming.

  “God-protected emperor, Christ sent His image to King Abgar of Edessa, and even today, many peoples of the East still assemble at this image, in order to pray there. We adjure you, therefore, to turn back to the truth. It would have been better for you to have been a heretic than a destroyer of images.”

  Bachmeier says, “Those words were written by Pope Gregory, Patriarch of the West. But he didn’t stand alone. Here are the words of Nicephorus, Patriarch of Constantinople.”

  “Why would you punish those who paint Christ’s portrait, when Christ Himself left the image of his divine figure on a cloth? It was He who imprinted his own replica, by allowing a cloth to be placed over him.”

  “In Jerusalem,” Bachmeier continues, “three more patriarchs sent a letter to the emperor. After that, a full ecumenical council was called. And for the last time in our shared history, the bishops of Christendom spoke in one voice. For all posterity they declared that Christianity is a religion—the religion—of art.

  “It is therefore my great joy to ask His Grace to open the doors in front of us, and to ask the rest of you to follow him inside. For behind those doors, you will see what our unity, and our Lord’s example, made possible.”