Skeleton 03 - The Constantine Codex (28 page)

With a feeling of awe, almost bordering on worship, they started to photograph Second Acts. Jon felt something of a sacred tingling in his arms and fingers as he understood, for the first time, what the Jewish high priest must have sensed when he went into the Holy of Holies at the Jerusalem Temple just once each year. He and Shannon were penetrating something of a verbal inner sanctum in this process, treading onto freshly uncovered holy ground.

The new document seemed to be only about a quarter as long as the original Acts.

“This seems to be a sort of codicil appended to Luke’s main document in Acts,” Jon noted, “probably to cover what happened to Paul in Rome, because he really leaves us hanging where Acts stops in chapter 28.”

“I really hope that’s it,” Shannon added. “I’ve always found the last verse of Acts the most frustrating passage in the entire Bible.”

“Well, darling, we may now be able to find out what happened next.” He flashed her an incandescent smile.

The quest for answers, however, would have to be delayed until the evening rushes. For now, they had to finish the photography with only three days left, and the final day was reserved for the report to the patriarch.

Immediately after the sacred pearl of their discovery—Second Acts—followed the expected epistles:
Pros Romaios
—Romans, then
Pros Korinthious A
—First Corinthians, and
Pros Korinthious B
—Second Corinthians.

After a break for lunch, they returned to photograph the rest of St. Paul’s writings, also appearing right where they should be:
Pros Galatas
—Galatians,
Pros Ephesious
—Ephesians,
Pros Philippasious
—Philippians,
Pros Kolossaeis
—Colossians,
Pros Thessalonikeis A
—First Thessalonians, and finally,
Pros Thessalonikeis B
—Second Thessalonians.

Having finished for the day, they took their leave of Brother Gregorios and were at the gate of the patriarchate at the agreed-upon time of 4:30 p.m. Again, their security convoy was faithfully waiting on the street just outside. Jon only hoped that they had found something to do with their time during the day.

They could barely wait to finish supper that evening so that they could delve into Second Acts. But they were detained by the nightly visit of Dick Ferris and Osman al-Ghazali. Both complained that it was getting harder every day to hold off the media, who were pressing them for information about Jon and Shannon—what their plans were, their schedules, and when Jon would be available for interviews, photography, press conferences—whatever. Ferris, per usual, delivered his sheaf of continuing response to the debate. This time he supplied an overseas edition of
Time
. The cover was a wide-angle photo of Hagia Sophia, with vignettes of Jon and Abbas al-Rashid burned in. The cover story was titled “The 1,400-Year Challenge to Christianity,” with sidebars that included brief biographies of both debaters, the main tenets of Islam and Christianity, and even a précis of the debate itself.

Next, Ferris placed a copy of
Newsweek
on the table, the cover depicting a huge crescent on one side of a diagonal and a cross on the other. “Jesus and Muhammad” bannered the story, with treatment similar to
Time
’s.

Osman did the same for media in the Muslim world, where the coverage was also copious. “Actually, the Turkish and Arab press treated you rather well, Jon,” he said. “One would have thought they’d be down on your case. They particularly liked the relationship you seemed to develop with al-Rashid. Well, that is, except the Shiites.
Kayhan
claimed that al-Rashid sold out the Islamic side, just as he’s been doing for months with his plea for moderation, et cetera, et cetera—predictable stuff. Victory for them would have been a Shiite mullah making you look like an imbecile in debate, Jon, and then grinding your infidel face into the cold marble floor of Hagia Sophia.”

“So they still haven’t lifted Jon’s fatwa yet?” Shannon wondered.

Osman shook his head. “Probably it would take a miracle, like the return of Muhammad from the dead, announcing, ‘Weber is innocent!’”

Again, Ferris and al-Ghazali commented on how Jon seemed less than enthusiastic about all the world media attention, his mind apparently elsewhere. Which it was. He was only waiting for an opening, which came when Ferris asked, “By the way, how goes your exploration of that codex?”

Instantly Jon came to life with an explosive smile. “Now that you ask,” he replied with a wink at Shannon, “you’ll understand why we must ask—no, demand—an even stronger pledge of
absolute
confidentiality. Agreed?”

Both men nodded.

“No, more than that. Arms up as if you were taking an oath, which this actually is . . .”

Both raised their palms, as if in court, curiosity dominating their features.

“Well, to discover one of the fifty actual copies Constantine commissioned Eusebius to prepare was sensation enough, you’ll recall. But in photographing it, we found two other items that merely escalate this ‘sensation’ into—shall we say—the
cosmic
category.”

“What in the
world
do you mean, Jon?” Ferris asked.

“How about both the lost ending of Mark
and
Second Acts?”

“Huh-
what
?” Ferris bellowed. “There’s another Acts? Maybe to finish Paul’s story?”

Jon nodded happily. “I haven’t translated it yet, but here’s the missing ending of Mark.” He handed printouts to both men, then gave a detailed account of how it all happened.

Slowly they recovered. Osman shook his head. “No wonder you didn’t seem all that impressed with what we brought you. All we had were merely your international headlines and stories!”

Jon chuckled. “But isn’t this more important?”

They agreed. Ferris then added, “Unless there’s some bombshell that hasn’t been discovered yet in your Second Acts,
yes
, Jon, this
is
more important—important enough to make
every
Bible . . .
ever
printed . . . in
any
language . . .
anywhere
in the world . . . outright outdated!”

It was a powerful and very sobering statement. Jon caught the danger immediately and said, “That’s most probably true, Dick, but if you put it that way, millions of Christians across the world may panic or go loony if they think their Bible has been supplanted. What we’ve found doesn’t subvert the Scriptures at all but instead
supports
them.”

Shannon, who had been silent for most of this, now spoke up. “Here’s another way to put it: the Bible is an immense and colorful mosaic of God’s revelation, but two important tesserae of that mosaic were missing. Now they’re back in place.”

The three men nodded slowly, then enthusiastically. “By george, she’s got it,” Ferris said.

Osman shook his head in wonder. “One ancient document changing history. How large did you say it is?”

“I didn’t say, but the pages measured about thirty-eight by thirty-five centimeters.”

“And the codex itself. It’s about, what, say, five inches thick?”

“About that—a shade more. Why do you ask?”

“I simply can’t wait to see it. When can we?”

“Only photos for now, my friends.”

They discussed future plans regarding the discovery, in which Richard Ferris and the Institute of Christian Origins would have to play a major role, and then their immediate plans for the return flight to the U.S. three days hence.

“Thanks for all your help, gentlemen,” Jon said. “Couldn’t have done it without you. I trust you’ll tie up all the loose ends with our Turkish hosts over the next two days? You will? Great. Now please get out of here so I can translate Second Acts.”

Second Acts proved much more reluctant to offer up its secrets than had the lost ending of Mark’s Gospel. Since none of this material had ever before appeared, none of the passages had the familiarity of the standard New Testament verses Jon had known since childhood and which had always eased the translation process. That awful running together of words in the codex was hardly a help either. Often, when he had just about parsed a sentence into separate words, the result made no sense and drove him back to try again with different word divisions. Here he was veritably
lusting
to learn what the document said, yet found it difficult to pry open the text. The new section from Mark had been so much easier because of common themes in the resurrection accounts.

Finally he threw down his pen. “I’ll never get this translated tonight, Shannon. I’m sure even modern Greeks would find some of these uncials hard to crack. But now that I’m getting a bit used to them, I
will
scan the whole text for key words so that we can get a general feeling of where it’s going and what it says.”

“That sounds like a good plan, dear. Would it help if I took notes?”

“That would be ever so kind of you.”

Jon went back to his computer screen and scanned the four columns of each page of Second Acts from the codex.

“Okay, here we go: ‘Paul . . . when Paul was released . . . Caesar—yes, Nero Caesar—
great
, Shannon! . . . Paul again . . . and Luke! . . . judged . . . Seneca? . . . Rome . . . Spain? Yes, Spain!”

Occasionally he used a magnifying glass to zoom in on faint lettering. “Crete . . . Titus . . . Ephesus . . . Alexander . . . Helios? . . . Praetorian Guard . . . Timothy . . . Via Ostiensis—the Ostian Way . . . fight . . . race . . . victory . . .”

After an hour of this, Jon felt a little defensive about failing to supply a quick, running translation. “It’s a little maddening with the words all run together.”

“Come, come now, Jon,” she teased. “The ancients could do it.”

“Okay, dear. Just see how it goes—even in English.” He quickly typed out the first two lines of his translation without spaces between the words and handed her a printout. “There you go, Shannon. Have at it. It’s all in perfect English.”

She read:

ThisthirdtreatiseOTheophilusdealswithallthatbefellPaul afterAristarchusandIarrivedwithhiminRomeandwestayed inhisownrentedhousenearthePraetorian . . .

“And now imagine all that in a
foreign
language too,” Jon continued, “and in lettering so different from the norm that you nearly have to relearn the alphabet.”

“Point taken, Jon. I
am
impressed. You manuscript sleuths must be geniuses.”

“Hmmm . . . you wouldn’t be patronizing me now, would you?” A slight grin was warping his mouth.

“Of course I am. I want to patronize you for the rest of your life!” Then she gave him a lingering, passionate kiss.

After the embrace, Jon returned to the desk and turned off his laptop. “I’ll certainly have enough reading material on our flight back to the States! In fact, I’ll be lucky if I get all this translated in a month.”