The Last Scion

by Richard Reed

  “Move out of the way, please,” she said quietly but firmly. “Now.” The medics looked startled, but there was something about her presence that commanded respect, and they moved to one side. Marianne knelt trembling at Rachel’s side. This was the woman who had endured such hardships to help her bring Mary’s message to the world. She had taken a bullet for her. She could not die; it was not her time or place.

  Gently, she laid her hands on Rachel’s blood-stained blouse and bowed her head in prayer, her long dark hair a stark contrast to Rachel’s pallid face as she leaned over her lifeless body. As the seconds passed, Marianne seemed to take on an almost ethereal aura, and the air around her body shimmered in the harsh studio lights. Then, slowly, the glow faded, and Marianne’s head slumped, her body swaying with exhaustion.

  Suzanne could only look on dumbstruck as the scene continued to unfold. For as David moved across to support Marianne, Rachel’s eyes jerked open and she began to cough. She sat up slowly, clutching her chest, momentarily unaware of her surroundings. “I feel like I’ve been run over by a train,” she groaned. Then she saw Marianne’s tired smile, and the look of frozen disbelief on Suzanne Schneider’s face.

  The floor manager caught the presenter’s eye and gesticulated frantically. Suzanne turned to Camera 1. “Ladies and gentlemen,” she said shakily. “I think we have just witnessed a miracle.”

  Epilogue

  “So what is it, exactly, that you are claiming, Marianne?”

  Ten minutes had elapsed since the shooting; ten minutes in which the medics had confirmed that Rachel, whom they had believed dead, was now alive and well, and insisting they continue with the programme. “If we don’t get this out now, we may as well all be dead,” she told them. “There are too many people out there who want to keep us quiet.”

  The studio had been cleared of the last few stragglers, and they resumed their places without an audience but the cameras very much rolling – and the contents now being beamed live to every channel in the States.

  “I appreciate this may be difficult for some people to deal with,” said Marianne. “But first let me assure you that what I am about to tell you in no way undermines the basic tenets of the Christian faith – that Christ was the son of God, and that he died and rose again from the dead. However, what’s crucial – and what’s been quite literally lost in translation over the centuries – is his message.

  “That’s why I’m sitting here in front of you here today, to reveal the truth about Christ, and what he really came to tell us. It’s a message that has been twisted and distorted over the last two millennia, sometimes deliberately, sometimes simply due to the passage of time and an adherence to an all too simplistic interpretation of the gospels.

  “I can tell you this with conviction for one very good reason. To many this may sound far-fetched, but it is the truth, nonetheless: I am a direct descendant of the union of Jesus Christ and Mary Magdalene.”

  “Well, you’ve just performed a miracle,” put in Suzanne Schneider, hurriedly, nervous of the reaction this was going to get from America’s millions of evangelicals.

  Marianne looked embarrassed. “That was God was working through me, as he can through all of us if we have sufficient faith,” she said. “Getting back to my point, why anyone should find a marriage between Jesus and Mary sacrilegious, I really don’t know. We may call Jesus the ‘son’ of God, but he was mortal while on Earth; he was also a Jewish rabbi, who were almost always married.

  “There is plenty of evidence, if you look for it – even in the only four gospels that the tyrannical Church leader Athanasius allowed to be included in the Bible. For example, why was Mary permitted to join Jesus’s mother and his sister Salome in preparing his body for burial after the Crucifixion? No-one outside the family would have been permitted to do that – it would have been scandalous for any other woman to see, let alone touch, a man’s naked body; even after death – much as it is in strict Islamic cultures today.

  “And earlier, when Jesus arrived at the tomb of Lazarus – Mary’s brother – the gospel of John tells us that while Martha ran ahead to meet Jesus, Mary waited at the house to be summoned by ‘the Master’ – precisely the protocol that would have been observed by an orthodox Jewish wife at the time. When Jesus sees her crying, John says he is ‘deeply moved’ and agrees to help Lazarus.

  “Shortly afterwards, Mary anoints Jesus’s feet with expensive oil and wipes them with her hair. Again, at the time, for an unmarried woman to wear her hair loose in the company of anyone other than her husband or immediate family would have been completely taboo. Jewish women of that era would have worn the equivalent of an Islamic niqab at all other times.

  “I will come back to this later, but first let me tell you how I came to be here today. My family has lived in southern France more or less permanently since Mary Magdalene fled there after the Crucifixion. In the past few weeks, archaeologists in the Languedoc working for National Geographic, under the supervision of Rachel Spencer and David Tranter…” she gesticulated to where Rachel and David were sitting “…have discovered a mountain tomb, built by the Knights Templars to house the bones of Jesus Christ – brought back from the Holy Land during the Crusades.”

  There was an audible gasp from the assembled throng of studio technicians and station management gathered on the edge of the set. Marianne continued, undeterred. “Christ did not rise from the dead in bodily form, any more than you would expect the bodies of your loved ones to rise from their graves at the end-time. Indeed, many – if not most – will have been cremated. But Christ overcame death, as we all shall, to take on spiritual form.

  “In that same mausoleum near Carcassonne lie the remains of Mary Magdalene, who died in exile in France. She was actually interred there at a later date, having originally been buried at Rennes-le-Château. Carbon-dating has proved not only that Mary’s remains date back to the 1st century AD, but to Palestine. Mitochondrial DNA, which as you may know can prove female lineage over many millennia, has also shown that I am her direct descendant.

  “Now there will be sceptics among you who will still doubt. But let me tell you this: there is a tradition of Mary Magdalene fleeing to France dating back many, many centuries – there is even archival evidence in England to that effect from one of the few monastic libraries to escape destruction by King Henry VIII. It’s not really that strange; Gaul was, after all, part of the Roman Empire. Moreover, the gospel which was found in her tomb, while still undergoing forensic analysis and restoration, has also been carbon-dated to the same period.

  “Structural analysis of the text, based on a medieval copy which we also recovered, shows it to be a very early account, without any of the narrative…” she paused and smiled… “you might say, ‘the flowery bits’, which make the four gospels in the Bible so distinctive. The analysis also shows very clearly that this ‘Lost Gospel’ was used as source material for the gospel of John. And it clears up a mystery that has confounded the experts for many centuries: namely, the identity of the ‘beloved disciple’ referred to so often in John. Everyone assumes it was referring to John himself, but it’s a most unusual wording.

  “The simple answer is that the ‘beloved disciple’ was none other than Jesus’s wife, Mary Magdalene – they married at the wedding in Cana. Strange, isn’t it, that John is the only gospel to mention this event, at which Jesus is asked to deal with a wine shortage – hardly the role of a guest.

  “If you switch the names John and Mary, everything falls into place. You can even see where the editors of John got into such a mess trying to rewrite the original – for example the Crucifixion scene. Everyone knew Mary had been there, so they couldn’t just remove her from the story, as they did elsewhere. They had to insert ‘the disciple whom Jesus loved’ – not mentioned in any of the other gospel accounts – to try to ensure their fictionalised version of events hung together. Except it doesn’t, if you analyse the wording carefully.

  “So why go to all this trouble
to marginalise Mary? It’s not hard to see why. There were many vying factions within the early Christian Church, but one of the most remarkable things about that period was the important role played by women in some of these groups. You must remember that Israel, Greece and Rome were all highly patriarchal societies; women were considered not just second-class citizens, but an inferior species – the property of their husbands or fathers. The Jews, and even some Christians today, believe that Woman, in the shape of Eve, was instrumental in getting Man thrown out of the Garden of Eden.

  “As you might expect, the equal role of women in the early Church did not sit well with its male leaders, and they systematically set about re-writing history, creating a new, all-powerful, male-centric Christian dogma.

  “Of course, it also suited Rome’s first Christian emperor, Constantine, to have a highly structured, patriarchal religion that could be used to control people. He encouraged the early bishops to ‘get on message’ and create a new, unified belief system, much like the CEO of a big company might do today. Gospels that didn’t suite the new doctrine were declared heretical, and outlawed. Those that survived the process and made it into the Bible were heavily edited, something Biblical scholars readily acknowledge. In some cases passages were even added later, such as the attempt to stone the adulterous woman in John. Here, the word was even put about by priests that it was actually Mary Magdalene – a blatant piece of character assassination if ever there was one.

  “So the misogynists, of whom Peter was the chief offender, won the day. It’s worth noting that in one of the Gnostic Gospels, Peter is quoted as saying that women ‘are not even worthy of life’.

  “Which brings me to my final point. One of the key themes of the Lost Gospel was actually left out of John, for reasons that will become apparent. It’s hinted at in some of the gnostic gospels, which may also have used the Lost Gospel as a source.

  “That theme, I’m afraid, will be controversial to some. It flies in the face of what your evangelical pastors are telling you over here in the States.” She paused, unsure of how to continue without causing offence.

  “The facts are these, as found in the gospel, and passed down to me by word of mouth from mother to daughter, through an unbroken line stretching back to the Magdalene herself.

  “Firstly, there is no such place as Hell. God created the universe, and everything within it. There is no duality, no evil force. The argument that because there is a force for good, there must also therefore be a force for evil, is completely without logic. The only evil in this world comes from the hand of Man; to suggest otherwise is simply to let us ‘off the hook’, as you say, for all the terrible things we do.

  “It’s worth noting that the Torah, the first five books of the Bible and the cornerstone of the Jewish faith, makes no mention of Heaven or Hell. And as I have already mentioned, Jesus was a rabbi. Later traditions mention ‘Gehenna’ as a place of punishment – but even then, the time a person’s soul could spend there was limited to 12 months, before being admitted to ‘Gan Eden’, or heaven.

  “Secondly, because there is no Hell, there is no need to be ‘saved’ from it. Of the early Churches, just one – Rome – actually believed in Hell. Do you really think a loving God would condemn his – or her – children to eternal damnation, just because they didn’t believe in him?”

  Marianne turned to Suzanne Schneider. “Would you? Would you condemn your own children to an eternity in Hell – assuming there was such a place – just because they stopped believing in you?”

  Suzanne hesitated, like a rabbit caught in the headlights. “I suppose not,” she said, hesitantly.

  “And if you wouldn’t do that, how much less likely is God to do so!” said Marianne. “Christ did not come to ‘save’ us from the Devil, nor do we have to be ‘born again’ to enter the Kingdom of Heaven – unless, perhaps, we need to live another lifetime on earth as part of our spiritual journey.

  “You know, that smug badge of honour about being ‘saved’ really bugs me. It’s not what Christ was about. We will all transcend death. There may be some souls who still choose to turn their faces from God, but that will be their choice, not His.

  “That phrase ‘the Kingdom of Heaven’ is really a metaphor for spiritual enlightenment. Christ came to show us the way; to recognise, and to come to know, the ‘Christ’ within each and every one of us; to fulfil our destiny and become a spiritual being. Did he not say, ‘Beware that no-one lead you astray saying “Lo here or Lo there”, for the Son of Man is within you’? And did he not also say, ‘Ask and it will be given unto you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you’?”

  Marianne turned to face the camera. “You know what’s really important? Just this: our soul is the most precious, beautiful thing. We must nurture it like a flame; we must feed it with love, compassion and forgiveness; for they are the oxygen without which our soul will surely flicker and die.

  “If only people realised that every time they hurt another human being, or fail to help someone in need, they are actually damaging their immortal souls, then maybe the world would finally find peace.”

  There was a long pause as the cameras zoomed in on Marianne’s face, before Suzanne Schneider spoke once more. “Well, you’ve certainly made some pretty mind-boggling claims, there, Marianne. Just to pick up on a couple of your points, if Jesus didn’t resurrect in bodily form, how did he reappear to his disciples? And if we don’t need to be ‘saved’, what’s the point of religion, anyway?”

  Marianne smiled. “Christ died and reappeared to his disciples in spirit to prove that the soul transcends death – something, as I have said, not widely recognised at the time. He also wanted to reinforce the message that we should focus not on building up treasures on earth, but on spiritual growth. To teach us that discovering the spark of God within us will make us a better person and lead to a spiritually richer life.

  “Your second point reinforces what I have just said: that we must practise what we preach in our everyday lives. The Church today puts so much emphasis on saving ourselves that we lose sight of the compassion and forgiveness that is at the heart of Christ’s teaching. And we must do it not in the hope or expectation of being rewarded, as some of your televangelists suggest, but rather out of love.

  “We are standing at the threshold of a new age; a new dawn for mankind. Christ’s true message really can end all wars, eliminate poverty, eradicate violence and injustice.

  “That is the true vision of Christianity that we must all take forward. Not blind belief, not a ‘get out of hell free’ card, but an understanding of our spiritual identity, and our true relationship with God, and each other.”

  Afterward

  (Warning: contains spoilers!)

  Most of the historical events portrayed in this book are true.

  The Cathars belonged to a Christian sect that flourished in southern France and northern Italy in the 11-13th centuries. They believed in reincarnation, and also that Earth was a ‘hell’ from which release was to be fervently prayed for. They were noted for living a simple life, with a rejection of worldly pleasures, and for condemning the greed and corruption of the Church of Rome.

  In 1209, Pope Innocent III launched what amounted to an act of ethnic cleansing against the Cathars, with knights from all over Europe joining what would later become known as the Albigensian Crusade. The campaign lasted until 1229, and tens of thousands of Cathars were slaughtered in what can only be described as genocide. But the suffering was not over – that year also saw the launch of a Papal Inquisition to extract confessions as part of the Pope’s continuing mission to eradicate what it saw as the Cathar heresy. The Cathars’ last stronghold, the mountain-top château of Montségur, fell in 1244 after a long siege, and more than 200 believers were burned alive in a communal pyre. There are contemporary anecdotal, albeit unsubstantiated, stories of something precious being struggled out of Montségur shortly before the inhabitants surrendered. The Cathar characters of
Corba de Lanta, her daughter Philippa, and their respective husbands Raymond de Péreille and Pierre-Roger de Mirepoix are all real.

  For those interested in reading more about the Cathars, I recommend Stephen O’Shea’s The Perfect Heresy. I also thoroughly recommend a visit to the Languedoc, and Montségur in particular. Montségur is an achingly beautiful place, though there is always a strange stillness there, as if the hills can never forget the atrocity.

  Most of the information – I hesitate to say ‘facts’ – about Bérenger Saunière and Rennes-le-Château is also as accurate as I have been able to make it. Saunière is documented as having found some gold coins in the church, shut up the building, and employed workmen from another district to continue excavations in secret. He then started digging up the churchyard, to such an extent that villagers complained. He did, indeed, come into fabulous wealth, not only renovating and redecorating the church, but building himself a large house next door, where he indulged in lavish entertaining. He was later censured for selling masses, but it is not thought he could have accumulated nearly enough money this way to explain his wealth.

  Hundreds of books have been written on the subject, mostly in French, and there are now hundreds of websites, too. It really is difficult for the newcomer to know where to start; even harder to distinguish fact from fiction – or ‘faction’, where a few facts have been embellished or distorted and copied from one book or website to another as if they were fact. Here my journalistic discipline helped, and I have tried to stick to the accounts that appear to have the most authenticity – though I have used a little dramatic licence here and there to improve the story, so it shouldn’t be taken as ‘gospel’ (if you will forgive the pun). I thoroughly recommend Jean-Luc Robin’s Rennes-le-Château: Saunière’s Secret as a particularly good introduction to the subject, and one that takes a similarly sceptical approach (the English version is not currently available on Amazon, but can be found in the bookshop at Rennes le Château). There really are some pretty wild theories out there!