The Black Madonna (33 page)

It was still raining two days later. A grey, slanting persistent rain that was more than a drizzle but not quite a downpour, a dull, depressing rain that drenched the streets and showed up the English summer for a lie. Marcus and Nazreem stood huddled under a cheap umbrella on the corner of Poultry and St Stephen Walbrook, streets whose very names reached back into the vanished mediaeval cityscape, surveying dismally the weathered Portland stone, grey concrete and improbable postmodernist pink marble. Taxis swished past, washing the kerbs with sprays of dirty water from their wheels. The rucksack on Nazreem’s back – even now she refused to let Marcus carry it – was suddenly unaccountably heavy.

‘Maybe he won’t come,’ she said and wondered if it was more in hope than expectation. And yet, deep down, she was weary of her burden.

It had been a difficult decision at first, but then as soon as it was made, suddenly not so difficult after all. The ‘black Madonna’ had gone. Stolen and never recovered. The world had forgotten about it. And in the end that was for the best. There was no way she could now consider unleashing anew the storm of controversy that she knew would surround its rediscovery. To ignite a new bonfire amid the already smouldering ‘conflict of civilisations’ between Christian and Muslim, to turn a spotlight on an ancient artefact that was an affront to the two main faiths on the planet. No. Better by far to entrust it to one who promised, and for some reason she believed him, to treasure it for what it was – part of mankind’s history – and keep it safe until the day, should it ever come, when the world had grown up. It would, to be sure, mean that she had relinquished her hopes of overnight archaeological celebrity, to Gaza’s claim to fame. But she would have other opportunities. And Gaza had trouble enough as it was. Besides, just right now she was not sure when – or if – she was going back.

Marcus clutched her hand. ‘He’ll come,’ he said, and realised as he said it he was not sure if it sounded like a promise or a threat.

It was an unprepossessing site for a meeting: a bleak spot in the
sterile jungle of the City of London’s financial district. Yet the old abbot had been quite specific. But it was hard to imagine anything of eternal value in this warren of unlovely architecture where the only god was greed. The focal point, No 1 Poultry, was a great pink marble shop-and-offices complex that Marcus could vaguely remember Prince Charles or someone similar calling a ‘coconut ice steamship’. Opposite it was a slab of a 1950s office block, a soulless monolith in the process of being demolished. The entrance to an underground garage yawned like a giant maw before it, and there were
construction
hoardings next to what looked like somebody’s idea of a rock garden in which the plants had all died, behind a rusty railing.

A taxi stopped near the entrance to the shopping arcade at No 1 Poultry and Marcus craned his neck to see if the figure emerging was familiar but rather than a grey-haired elderly ecclesiastic it was two long-haired blonde women in pinstripe trouser suits who emerged, both talking separately into mobile phones. Marcus glanced at his watch. Already the man was fifteen minutes late, but that was nothing in Spanish terms and given the notorious unreliability of London’s transport still nowhere near time to declare a ‘no-show’. Out of idle curiosity he pulled up the collar of his jacket and strolled over to the bus stop. He thought it was unlikely that the abbot would arrive by bus, but you never knew.

The array of route numbers – 11, 26, 56, N76, N21 – meant nothing to him. A twenty-four-hour service theoretically operated via here to Foot’s Cray wherever that was. He imagined bleary-eyed
late-night
revellers heading for home somewhere in the suburban
fastnesses
of Kent peering out into the dark wondering why on earth their bus was stopping at … whatever this stop was called. And then he saw it. The reason they were here. Four little words in black on white, the name of the bus stop written above the route numbers: ‘
The Temple of Mithras
’.

He turned to where Nazreem was still standing, looking increasingly miserable with her backpack and the dripping umbrella, and called her over. He almost didn’t notice the little figure in a dark raincoat and Homburg hat scuttling across the road towards them. And then he was there, beside them, leaning over the little railing to look at the
fragmentary
ruins. Marcus leant beside him and examined the concrete-set rubble that he had at first taken for a neglected rock garden.

‘That’s why we’re here?’

The old man nodded.

‘The cult of Mithras went hand in hand with worship of Kybele. It was a soldier’s religion and there was a tradition of bull sacrifice, but it did not only reach as far as Spain. Here you have the proof, at least what little they have left of it. The early Christians stole Mithras – just as they stole Kybele – and buried all memory of his cult. In fact they did their best to confuse it with devil worship, the legend of the Antichrist.’

‘What do you mean? In what way?’

‘In almost every way. Mithras was born at the midwinter solstice, on or around the 25th of December – roughly the same date that ancient Britons celebrated the turn of the year at Stonehenge. He was born of a virgin mother, a miracle witnessed by shepherds on a rocky mountainside. After his slaying of a bull – ‘the horned beast’ – he died, was entombed in a cave and rose again to his disciples. A central feature of the initiation into his mysteries involved bull’s blood, as Christian communion involves the blood of Christ.’

‘You’re trying to say the whole Jesus story …’

‘… borrowed what was useful, to persuade Mithraists to come over to a new, semi-homegrown version of their religion.
Mithraism
had its home in Persia, beyond the Roman Empire’s borders, and therefore was no longer considered suitable. Christianity with its strict doctrines and hierarchies echoed the power structure of the empire itself. The irony was that as the emperors’ power waned, that of the bishops and their overlord, the bishop of Rome, filled the vacuum. It was a takeover of the empire from within, and it brooked no opposition.

‘Those who followed the old gods, the old beliefs in freedom of thought, were either exterminated, or found an accommodation. The Christians were fanatical and if they couldn’t eliminate an old belief, they adapted it. But in so doing, they provided a lifeline for some followers of the old religions who found a convenient way of turning the tables back again from within, of becoming double agents, so to speak, using the memory of saints, often some of the most fanatical Christians, to mask the worship of old familiar faces.’

‘A pagan conspiracy, at the heart of the Church for two thousand years?’

‘Tch. Hardly a conspiracy. More accommodation, and not always an easy one. The zealots of Protestantism with their blind faith and 
fascist Puritanism were – and are – the most dangerous. Along with their bedmates from the fanatical side of Islam.’

‘Are you a member of this sect … the Giuliani … is that what you call yourselves?’

‘We don’t call ourselves, such as we are, anything, except perhaps students, philosophers. But it is a name that has been used.’

‘But nothing to do with Sister Galina, the Gallae?’

‘Nothing at all. We were aware of their existence, of course. That is why I was in contact with Sister Galina, but we have always favoured less extreme behaviour. We were not aware that the sisterhood had paid to have the statue stolen.’

‘Why? Where does it come from?’

‘What do you know of the Emperor Julian?’

‘Julius Caesar? As much as the next man. More than most.’

‘Not Julius. I said Julian.’

‘Julian? I don’t think …’ then not for the last time, Marcus’s mental squirrel retrieved a piece of information he had thought discarded for ever, something from his first-year university history course’s compulsory reading of Gibbon’s
Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire
. ‘A late emperor,’ he said hesitantly. ‘Fourth century or thereabouts. The one they called Julian the Apostate?’

The old abbot smiled, more appreciatively this time. ‘The very same,’ he said. ‘Except that they did not call him that at the time. They would not have dared. Nor indeed for many years later. The name is an invention of those who worked scrupulously to darken the name of a man who was a friend of learning and an opponent of dogma.’

‘You’ve lost me.’

‘It’s not surprising: history lost him. Julian was the nephew of the Emperor Constantius, great-nephew of Constantine, last of the imperial line. He only ever wanted to be a philosopher. But fate ruled otherwise. He turned out to be a brilliant general and on the death of his uncle was acclaimed emperor by his troops.

‘Julian was an initiate into the mysteries of Mithras. He saw his elevation to the purple as an opportunity to abolish the faddish new religion he believed was strangling the minds of his contemporaries. He abolished all of Christianity’s privileges. The Catholic Church today insists he tried to ban it, but in reality he simply stopped the Christians banning all others. It was they who were intolerant. And they got their revenge.’

‘What do you mean, got their revenge?’

‘Had Julian lived, the world might have been a different place. Christianity would never have become dominant. Islam might never have got off the ground. The whole dominance of the
Judaeo-Christian-Islamic
monotheistic religious edifice would never have taken off, crushing the more tolerant pluralist beliefs of the old
Hellenic
world.’

‘But?’

‘Julian died young. He died in battle, a futile war against the
Persians
. The manner of his death remains suspicious. A wound from the rear. Julian was not a man to run.’

‘Friendly fire?’

‘Or deliberate assassination. After his death the empire was run by a serious of weak dolts, the Christians gained the upper hand again, suppressed all the other cults and gradually took over the power structures from within. The rest is history. Literally.’

‘And this is why people like you have lived like a secret society within the Catholic Church, trying to take it over from within?’

‘Good God, no, if you will excuse the expression. We are not, as you might think, trying to take over anything from within. On the contrary, as I said, we like to think of ourselves as Julian did, as philosophers. No religion is wrong until it attempts to proscribe all others and claim for itself the sole right to truth, yet sadly that is what so many try to do.’

Nazreem nodded, as if suddenly she was indeed convinced that handing over her trophy to this man was the right thing to do.

‘And this,’ she said, handing him the rucksack, ‘my “black Madonna” is really the Magna Mater, Kybele?’

‘Almost certainly. The church where you found it was, I believe, supposedly dedicated to …’

‘Saint Julian.’

‘Indeed. Not a saint at all, you see, but a covenant, a clue to future generations, a way to save the legacy of an emperor who believed in an alternative to autocracy – in heaven and on earth. I believe it must have been some of his Greek philosopher friends who brought it there from Rome, after his death. It’s the sort of intellectual joke that would have appealed to them: sweet and sour all at once.’

‘And yet in Rome they believed this lump of stone had magic powers, believed it saved the city.’

‘In Rome,’ the old priest smiled, ‘there were people who would believe anything. There always have been, and still are. Yet maybe it did. Because they believed it. Maybe those who believe in miracles experience them. Maybe. The important thing is to have an open mind.’

‘Open enough to believe this is also a chunk of the Hajr-e-Aswad, stolen from the Ka’aba itself.’

Marcus could hear the cynicism in her voice, but there was none in the Spaniard’s reply.

‘Many Muslims believe that the Black Stone fell from heaven in the time of Adam, who they too believe to have been the first man. Some scientists believe life on earth may have been brought here by chance, on a meteorite from another world.’

‘You’re not saying there’s a connection?’

‘I’m not saying anything except that in the end everything is
connected
. Myths, legends – religions if you like – intermingle, and
anything
is of importance if it reminds us of our real significance in the universe.’

‘Infinitesimally small. Meaningless.’

‘No, not at all. In size we may be infinitesimal but we are also infinite: each one of us as a manifestation of “the One” that is the Universe itself – which is what Plato suggested and Julian believed – we are all, after all, each of us our own universe, but only make sense of any sort in communion with others. It is not dissimilar, I think, to what quantum physics and string theory suggest. Science and belief are not necessarily so estranged as many people would believe. But what do I know? It is time for me to go.’

He took up his burden and hoisted it onto his back, not a cross but a small statue, little more than a lump of rock in a backpack, but a symbol nonetheless, and with a small bow towards Nazreem, turned and walked slowly away from them.

Marcus watched him, a small, slight figure, with the weight of the world on his shoulders, watched him walk away until he was lost in the crowd. Then he put his arm around Nazreem, and hugged her tight. As if the universe itself depended on it.

As maybe it did.

The End

The worship of Kybele goes back to the oldest days of human
civilisation
and is historically documented at great length. The goddess's name has taken many forms including Cybele, Kubhih and Kubaba.

She was linked to the Egyptian goddess Isis, the Greek Rhea and the earth goddess Gaia, and an idol in her shape made from a sacred black stone was indeed brought into Rome in 204 BC and credited with saving the city from invasion.

There has always been a transgender aspect to her worship, and her Roman followers did indeed practise voluntary self-castration.

There are many academic tomes about the study of Mithras, notably German scholar Manfred Clauss's
The Roman Cult of Mithras
,
translated
into English by Richard Gordon. The similarities between the story of the deity's life and that of Jesus Christ, including the date of birth, resurrection and virgin mother are remarkable to say the least. The nineteenth-century French philosopher, Ernest Renan, wrote: ‘If the growth of Christianity had been arrested by some mortal malady, the world would have been Mithraic.'

The temple of Mithras in the City of London is real, though it has been relocated several times due to building work. At the time of writing it is still to be found in Queen Victoria Street and it really is a bus stop (see website below).

The Roman Emperor Julian (‘the Apostate') is one of history's most intriguing figures. Quixotic and controversial, there is no doubt the world would have been a different place had he lived longer. There is an arresting and highly readable novelesque
biography
by Gore Vidal, entitled simply
Julian
.

The Black Stone set into the wall of the Ka'aba in Mecca dates back, according to Islamic tradition, to the time of Adam and Eve, when it was sent to earth by God to show Adam where to build a temple.

Most deities considered ‘pagan' by mainstream religions have
worshippers today. A Kybele-worshipping group in the US town of Catskill is fighting for religious recognition. I stress that my ‘Gallae' belong firmly in the realm of fiction and have no reference to any modern adherents, other than drawing on the same historical
religious
background.

I apologise to anyone whose religious sensibilities might be in any way offended by the fictional content of this book. It is a piece of imaginative fun with no intended message, other than perhaps a plea for mutual toleration of our fellow humans. As for the views expressed by some of my fundamentalist characters, I stress they are theirs alone, not mine and I have no wish to promote them: believe me, there are enough nutters out there already.

There are myriad links on the internet to all the topics in this book. I offer only a couple of links to anyone interested in seeing some of the items mentioned in real life:

Useful information on the sites of the black Madonnas in
Altötting
and Guadalupe may be found at:

http://www.altoetting.de/cms/welcome_tour.phtml

http://www.paradores-spain.com/spain/pguadalupe.html

http://www.spanish-fiestas.com/extremadura/guadalupe.htm

The Temple of Mithras and its bus stop can be found at:

http://www.tfl.gov.uk/assets/downloads/central_bus_map.pdf