by Robert Ryan
“I’m trying to be. It all boils down to faith.”
“True. I think what I have to show you will strengthen yours.” He reached into a pocket of his cowl and pulled out the blindfold. It looked like a black slumber mask. “Now we must trust one another. The first real test of your faith, perhaps.”
Zeke nodded and Unger handed him the blindfold. Zeke pulled the elastic strap over his head and smoothed the mask into place. “Okay,” he said.
“Hold on to the end of my cincture. My cord. My sanctuary is not far from here. The walk down the slope is the most difficult part. We will go slowly and carefully. I will talk you along.”
They moved carefully down the hill to the bottom of the valley. Ten minutes later they reached the hidden entrance.
“Wait here, please,” Unger said. “We have arrived, but the entrance is a little tricky. I will have us inside in a moment.”
They were among hundreds of graves on a gentle slope near the bottom of the valley. Unger quickly moved to a stone enclosure that had once been the entrance to a tomb. He’d chosen this tomb because it utterly lacked anything that would pique an archaeologist’s curiosity. It was small, dirt brown and boxlike: two nondescript side walls and a flat roof embedded into the earth. The arched entranceway had been sealed for millennia, probably by family members worried about grave robbers.
After assuring himself no one was around, he pressed a button on the small remote attached to his keychain. At the foot of the entranceway, a four-foot square trap door, camouflaged with dirt and rocks, slid quietly into a recess. He went down several wooden steps to a concrete-reinforced tunnel that angled under the ancient stone floor of the tomb. The tunnel ended at the entrance to his sanctuary. His doorway was recessed beneath a simple stone arch. Wanting to re-create the feeling of ancient times whenever possible, he’d bought a weathered oak door with black iron bands purported to have come from a first-century monastery. He stuck his key into the modern lock he’d installed and opened the door. Inside the windowless vestibule carved into the stone, he lit a torch in a wall sconce, and a circle of light flickered to life. The chamber was completely enclosed except for an opening to the left, through which a pathway curved quickly out of sight around a corner. He retraced his steps and brought Ezekiel inside.
Unger closed the door behind them and removed the blindfold. Standing in the rough-hewn antechamber of his sanctuary, he waited while his guest adjusted to his surroundings.
Zeke scanned the stone ceiling and walls. The only opening was some kind of pathway to the left. “Are we underground?”
“Yes. I know you can easily approximate my location, but as long as you don’t know precisely where I am, that is enough for now. Trust must go two ways.” He pulled a torch from a wall bracket and lit it. “I live almost entirely without electricity. Follow me, please. It is time for you to Behold the Man.”
“Ecce Homo.”
“You know Latin?”
“Some. Church Latin, especially. I was an altar boy when the Mass was still said in Latin.”
“An altar boy and a student of Theology. You have obviously been on a long spiritual journey. As have I. For some reason our journeys have intersected. I say ‘for some reason,’ but that is merely the academic in me trying to remain neutral. It does not express my true feelings. And since we are building trust, I should say what I truly feel.
“I believe Divine Providence has brought us together. Perhaps when you see what I have to show you—when you fully experience it—you will agree.”
CHAPTER 42
Zeke followed him down a snaking path that took them through a tunnel and deeper into the bowels of this strange abode. The walkway was modern and resembled a sidewalk. Zeke wondered how the material for building it had been gotten in here and who had done the work.
A few minutes later they struck into another tunnel to the left. This one had no walkway, and they had to walk more carefully over the dirt floor. A short distance later an opening to the right led them into a much larger underground space. As they walked on, Zeke began to notice occasional niches in the walls, stone boxes inside them. “What are those?”
“Ossuaries. Bone boxes.”
Zeke stopped. “Where are we?”
“Under the Mount of Olives. Someplace I knew I would never be bothered. It took five years of ingenious engineering and a team of Bedouin working under cover of darkness, but I have carved out a place for the living in a city of the dead. A fitting metaphor for the coming Resurrection, don’t you think?”
Zeke didn’t know what to think. “I suppose,” he said.
“Don’t worry. There is nothing sinister going on. Other than the dead, we are alone.”
Hardly reassured, Zeke began to follow again. The tunnel straightened and ran more steeply downhill. About fifty yards later they descended a spiral of ancient stone steps until they came to a much more primitive chamber. Walls and ceiling still showed the jagged edges of hammering and chiseling done thousands of years ago. The torchlight glistened off patches of moisture on the stone walls. The smell of mold was heavy. Stepping carefully along a craggy ridge that now served as a walkway, at last they came to a faded wooden door.
“My sanctuary,” Unger said. They went in and Unger closed the door behind them.
His sanctuary was a large natural cavern. In the middle of the stone wall to the right was a large steel door, like the entrance to a bank vault. Unger explained as he went around the room lighting torches in wall sconces. “We sealed the walls and ceiling to create a dry, naturally climate-controlled living space.”
Unger finished lighting the torches and went to the vault entrance. He spun the combination, opened the door, and motioned for Zeke to follow him in.
“Wait a moment while I give us some light.” He turned on a generator that made very little noise. “My one concession to modern living.” Soft track lighting from above came on, illuminating another large cavern. Unger waited while Zeke took it all in. “I have many other items, but this is where I keep the holiest of holies.”
The light shone down on a kind of altar, with numerous objects arranged atop it. To the left of the altar, the shadowy outlines of a few larger items were visible in a separate space off the main chamber. They went to that area first.
Two large chests rested in the craggy alcove, along with a gold-colored container that reminded Zeke of depictions he’d seen in movies of Aladdin’s lamp. By comparison the chests were plain: faded, unadorned metal, not designed to impress but merely to transport whatever was inside.
An extension cord ran from the generator to a pole lamp behind the artifacts. Unger clicked it on and the lamp’s conical shade created a powerful spotlight that brought the items into stark relief.
Unger picked up the container. “This is made of gold. It held the myrrh that the Magi brought to the newborn Christ.”
Zeke wanted to give him the benefit of the doubt, but it seemed inconceivable. “How can you be sure that it would have held the myrrh from the Wise Men?”
“Myrrh is a resinous tree sap that had several uses in antiquity, among them embalming and anointing. In the Old Testament, God refers to it as an ingredient in the ‘holy anointing oil.’ It would have made a most appropriate gift for someone the Magi believed to be the Messiah. Messiah means anointed one. So does Christ.”
“I want to believe, but still I must ask: how does your evidence prove that this is the myrrh?”
“Residue remained inside the container. I have had it tested and traced its origins as best as anyone could. Taken together, the evidence has convinced me. The trees that produce myrrh grow primarily in three regions: India, Africa, and Arabia. The testing proves that this myrrh is from Arabia, which coincides with the prominent theory that the Three Wise Men came from Persia, or possibly Babylon. Of course, virtually all of these first-class relics disappear at some point. Usually they resurface in several different locations, each claiming authenticity. In the case of the Gifts of the M
agi, the strongest claim is made by the monks of Mount Athos in Greece, who have them on display. But in the early 1300s, Catalan mercenaries pillaged the monastery. Catalonia is an independent region in Spain, but over the years many Catalans have emigrated to Spanish-speaking countries. As an antiquities dealer, I have developed underground contacts all over the world. Several years ago my source in Argentina, which has a large community of Catalans, told me of a man who claimed that the original myrrh of the Magi had been handed down to him from an ancestor involved in the pillaging of the monastery.
“I went to Argentina and became convinced the man was telling the truth. Still, I couldn’t just take his word for it. I re-traced the records he had, establishing provenance all the way back to the Catalan mercenary who stole this from the monastery. I then went to Catalonia and made copies of the original records to eliminate the possibility of forgery, which is common in this business. I have the documentation and I am convinced.”
“All right.” Zeke nodded toward the two chests. “What else do we have?”
Unger opened the first chest. It was filled with small, rather crudely hand-made bottles, each filled with a muddy, dark brown liquid. “Holy water collected from the Jordan by John the Baptist at the baptism of Jesus. John knew he was baptizing the Messiah, and that water used for His baptism was most holy. So he saved it.”
“Seems like that would be a really tough one to prove.”
“Indeed. Knowledge of the existence of these chests did not come to me in a conventional way. It came to me in visions.”
He held up a hand.
“I know how that sounds. I have been on this mission for over ten years, Ezekiel. Living alone down here, with the spirit of John the Baptist inside me. Besides myself, you are the only person ever to see this collection. I have done everything possible to establish the provenance of these items, but there are so many conflicting claims, and the trail is so lost, that no one can ever be sure. We’re talking about a trail that leads back to Jesus Christ and the Crucifixion, which scholars have been tracing for two thousand years without coming to any universally accepted conclusions. I have the documentation, but you don’t prove these relics, Ezekiel. You feel them. You experience them. Which, when I finish showing you my collection, I invite you to do.”
“How do you mean?”
“Explaining that requires a little background. I am very well aware that my story strains credibility, so please bear with me.”
“Certainly,” Zeke said.
“I came to believe I was chosen by the Lord to carry on the work of John the Baptist. Specifically his role as the Forerunner. The one to blaze the trial for the Messiah. You are familiar with it?”
Zeke realized that, in effect, he himself had taken on that role. “Yes,” he said.
“I knew I needed to purify my soul for such a mission. To me that meant adopting the lifestyle of a monk, rejecting all worldly things. I had to work alone, since I knew no one would accept me as a prophet, a divine messenger. Which meant I could not pursue formal training in a seminary. I had to teach myself what it meant to be a monk. I immersed myself in all the studies and rituals, coming closer to God all the while, but never quite reaching the oneness I felt I needed for so sacred a mission.
“Then the trail of the myrrh took me took me to Mount Athos in Greece. I spoke with the monks there and learned more about their history. In particular I discovered hesychasm, a belief that, by rejecting the senses, and achieving a total inner quiet, one could experience God. In the 14th century, when the monks of Mount Athos were at the height of their influence, they had become the foremost practitioners of hesychasm. It was based on the Lord’s admonition in Matthew:
‘When thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou has shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret; and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly.’
“This is my closet, Ezekiel. I have developed my own form of hesychasm, a simple mental discipline for cleansing my mind and spirit. It has allowed me to see the Lord. To experience Him. When I finish showing you my collection, if you are willing, I can give you the barest instruction for achieving hesychasm, then leave you alone to see if God will come to show you the way.”
“Anything that can bring me closer to God, I’m all for it,” Zeke said.
“Very well. Let us proceed. For the rest of my collection I will give only the short version of their provenance, or we will be here all night, and that is not our purpose. I have the documentation, which you would be welcome to peruse at your leisure.”
“Fair enough.”
Unger opened the second chest.
It was filled with dozens of silver crucifixes, their bright reflections almost blinding as they radiated throughout the room. Zeke blinked several times to adjust to the glare, then leaned forward to inspect them.
“These belonged to Saint Peter,” Unger said. “I got them in Antioch. Antioch is in Turkey, which became a major source of silver in antiquity. Peter and Paul had gone there after the death of Christ, and begun to spread his Word. There is a cave church there known as the Grotto of St. Peter, which tradition says is where he began his ministry. My source said looters found these in a secret chamber beneath the church and sold them on the underground market.
“We do not know who made them, but I had one tested and the metallurgist assured me that they are made of the only one hundred percent pure silver ever found. Silver has a long tradition of being used to ward off evil. As does the Holy Crucifix, of course.”
Zeke started to pick one up but Unger stopped him and pulled something from a small cardboard box beside the chests. “Please. Put these on first.”
They both donned latex gloves. Zeke gently picked a crucifix from the pile, then closed the chest to stop the glare from hurting his eyes. When his vision had readjusted, he studied the artifact. Inspecting it from all angles, he became transfixed. It almost seem to glow from within.
The upright was about six inches, the crossbar five. Each was about an inch wide and half an inch thick. The edges were perfectly straight. There was not the slightest deviation from square or parallel or equal length from the center. His eyes kept being drawn back to the silver Body of Christ, crucified in perfect miniature. A minute inspection of the details revealed an astounding level of craftsmanship.
There were distinct lines in the palms of Christ’s hands. Perfectly-shaped nail heads jutted through them, silver drops of blood trickling from his wounds. The twists and grain of the ropes that cut into his wrists were exactly like those of real rope. Each tiny thorn on the crown of thorns was distinct and looked like it could prick your finger. Zeke couldn’t look at Christ’s eyelids for more than a second or two. They seemed as though they had just closed, and might reopen again at any second.
The detailed representation of his body was equally stunning: the definition of the musculature, the outline of the ribs. Even the toenails were rendered precisely and evenly, as though just manicured. Zeke remembered something about Mary Magdalene tending Christ’s feet before the crucifixion. After two thousand years, there was not the slightest blemish anywhere. The crucifix was perfect.
“Silver tarnishes fairly easily,” Zeke said. “And yet there’s not a speck on this, supposedly after two thousand years. How can that be?”
“One of two possibilities. Either they are not two thousand years old and I have been duped, or their divine power has protected them.”
Light appeared to be pulsing through the crucifix from within. Zeke walked into the darkness, thinking the lamp might be causing some flickering reflection.
Enveloped in shadow, the bursts of light were even more visible. They were coursing through the Body of Christ, like miniature lightning. Zeke walked back to Unger. “I’m leaning toward the latter of those two possibilities,” he said.
“You are able to see the light. That bodes well for your ability to experience hesychasm.”
Continuing to look at the crucifix, the
rhythmic eruptions of light struck Zeke as the pulsating of a soul. Finally it became too disturbing and he had to tear his gaze away. He placed the crucifix back in the chest, picking up another, then another. He glanced at the entire pile. They were all the exact same. Pulsating. Perfect. He started to close the chest and noticed something neatly written on a plaque inside the lid, in a language he didn’t recognize. “Have you figured out what that says?”
“Yes. It is Aramaic. The language of Jesus. It says: ‘These shall be used in all churches as a testament to the sacrifice Christ Jesus made as the Son of Man.’”
Skeptical whispers in Zeke’s head were drowned out by the sound of his heartbeat pounding in his ears. The sound of hope. “If these items are genuine,” he said quietly, “they represent the origins of Christianity, literally from its birth.”
“Your job, Ezekiel, is to remove the if from your thinking. If God has chosen you, you must. I have.”
He was right. Zeke thought of his mother and father and sister, and his desperate need to believe that there was a God who would look after their souls. Suddenly he wanted the positive feeling welling up inside him reinforced. “Let’s see the rest.”
“There is one more thing to see over here before we go to the altar.”
Unger swiveled the light so it shone on an area to the left of the alcove. A large net, roughly ten yards in diameter, was stretched out on the craggy floor.
“The fishing net left behind by Peter at the Sea of Galilee, when Jesus told he and Andrew to follow Him, and He would make them fishers of men. I got it from the same source in Antioch, who said it had been discovered in the same hidden chamber as the crucifixes. It has been analyzed and tested and verified as definitely being a cast net that would have been used in Peter’s time. Molecular analysis has found traces of sea water that is identical in its chemical makeup to that of the Sea of Galilee. Beyond that…”
