by Paul L Maier
“Shannon, it wouldn’t-”
“I could wear jeans, carry equipment, and don a cap to hide my hair. I’d speak very little-using the lowest voice I could manage when I had to-and simply go along as your aide?”
“I don’t think so, Shannon.”
“Why not?”
“Okay, it’d be possible, I suppose, but if you were discovered, it would doom our mission in Greece. By the way, it did happen before, I recall-earlier twentieth century, I think. Some beauty queen who won the Miss Greece title did disguise herself as a man and snuck into Mount Athos. She was discovered, of course, and it wasn’t pretty.”
“What happened?”
“The monks were so outraged they stoned her to death.”
“What?”
“All right, I jest. Her little escapade doomed Greek beauty contests for decades after that.”
Shannon shook her head, laughing. “Well, I wasn’t really serious. It’s just that it’s going to be hard sitting here waiting while you have all the fun.”
“I promise to give you hourly updates by cell phone.”
Shannon supposed that she would have to be content with that. After Jon drove off for the embarkation port east of Thessalonica, she returned to their hotel room to wash her hands. There, next to the wall socket, lay Jon’s cell phone, resting comfortably in its charger. So much for the hourly updates.
Jon was convinced that if ever some precious ancient biblical manuscripts were waiting to be discovered, they would likely be lurking in a monastery archive at Mount Athos. For centuries, the holy men living in these monasteries had devoted themselves to worship, meditation, and prayer, as well as to preserving the relics and manuscripts in their possession. Who knew what ancient treasures lay buried there in plain sight, for those who knew where to look? The authorities at the Holy Mountain were well aware of this potential as well and had begun a lengthy project of cataloging every manuscript on Mount Athos. That was the good news. The bad was this: the process might take thirty years. Jon’s other mission, then, would be to ask Abbot Miltiades if his ICO might send scholars and photographers to Mount Athos to assist in accelerating the process.
Miltiades Papandriou was the hegoumenos -abbot, archimandrite-of Megiste Lavra, the Great Lavra monastery at the tip of Mount Athos, which had the primacy on the peninsula. He was a rare combination of gifted administrator and world-class manuscript scholar. Both Jon and Shannon knew of his reputation long before their trip to Greece.
Attache case in hand, Jon boarded a wooden Greek ferry painted royal blue and blinding white, the national Hellenic colors. He quickly donned sunglasses in order to save his eyesight. Aboard were a curious collection of robed clergy and monks in black, along with supplies for the monasteries. Nothing female was in sight, of course, except for several crates of cackling hens. Jon could only hope that the weather would stay favorable, recalling that a fierce storm had destroyed an entire Persian fleet off the coast of Mount Athos in 492 BC, two years before the great Battle of Marathon. The Aegean, however, was on its best behavior that morning, a placid, quiet sea interrupted only by the chug-chug-chugging of the ancient diesel engine propelling their craft.
An hour into the voyage, Jon reached for his cell phone to give Shannon the first of his promised updates. It was then that he remembered where it was: plugged into his charger at the hotel in Thessalonica. Mentally kicking himself, he quickly glanced down to see his attache case safely nestled at his feet. Evidently, absentminded professors must be selective in what they forget, Jon assumed.
In late afternoon, they sailed into the port of Dafni. Disembarking, the passengers went through a customs check at the port and were waved through turnstiles by a white-helmeted official-all, that is, except for Jon. Because Archbishop Christodoulos in Athens had generously cleared the way for Jon, he had not stopped at the Pilgrim’s Bureau in Thessalonica to get a diamoneterion-a special three-day pass to visit Mount Athos. Each of the other passengers had one; Jon did not. The customs agent, who knew no English and seemed not to understand Jon’s more classical Greek, let fly with torrents of angry shouts at Jon, almost as if he were a female interloper. Next the agent turned his anger on the boat’s captain, evidently for his daring to bring along a passenger without a diamoneterion. As calmly as he could, Jon opened his attache case and handed the official the authorizing letter from the archbishop of Athens and all Greece.
Scowling, the officer had just started reading the letter when a jeep pulled up, driven by a purple-robed monk. The brother stepped out of the vehicle, saw Jon being detained, and then unloaded an even louder torrent of furious Greek at the customs official. The agent took umbrage at that and unleashed a response in stentorian tones, complete with gestures to suit the occasion. Jon had always thought that two Italians arguing after a traffic accident usually set the record for altercation volume. He was wrong. The decibels of this disagreement topped them all.
Suddenly all became quiet. The monk looked at Jon and said in a thick accent, “Welcome to you, Dr. Weber! And please to forgive this unpleasantness. This man’s father was a donkey! I give you ride to the monastery.”
Rather sheepishly, and avoiding eye contact, the customs agent handed Jon the archbishop’s letter and retreated into his guard shack. Jon thanked the monk and climbed into his jeep. They drove southward along the coastal road for a brief time and then headed up into the mountains, where the drive became an adventure. Roads were not paved on Mount Athos but consisted of stabilized gravel. The driver himself seemed to have studied not at a seminary but at Daytona. Whether or not he was trying to impress his passenger, some of his speeding around hairpin curves was just plain dangerous, and Jon expressed his concern as best he could. The driver merely offered Jon a toothy smile, almost as if to say, “Yes, I know; you want me to go faster.” Was this man from al-Qaeda, a terrorist in training?
After twenty harrowing minutes, they skidded to a halt at the Great Lavra monastery, perched at the very tip of the Athos peninsula. Jon stepped out and tried to take it all in: the great gray walls, the fosse, the turrets, the crenellated terraces.
What surprised him most, however, was the unexpected presence of Miltiades Papandriou himself, who walked across the courtyard to greet him, wearing a warm smile that seemed to soften his otherwise-formidable bearded countenance. His spare frame stood erect at more than six feet, his shoulders not hunched over nor his eyes bleary from a lifelong perusal of manuscripts. This man was clearly in charge on the Holy Mountain.
“Greetings in the name of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, Professor Weber,” he said in flawless English. “We are honored by your visit.”
“Quite the contrary, Your Grace. I am the one honored.”
“Ever since we received word from Archbishop Christodoulos that you would come to Mount Athos, many of our brothers have read or reread your remarkable book on Jesus. I think it is a model of excellent scholarship.”
“Thank you, but the chapter on sources rests heavily on your own brilliant manuscript research, Your Grace.”
Miltiades held up the palms of his hands as if to ward off the compliment, then showed Jon to his guest quarters.
At dinner that evening, Jon was invited to give a brief talk to the resident monks in the refectory, which was enthusiastically received. Only because these poor fellows have such limited exposure to diversion of any kind.
The next morning, he was given a guided tour of the monastery, during which he paid special attention to the archives. Archimandrite Miltiades joined Jon in the refectory after the tour, and they both climbed the stairs to his office in a turret overlooking the entrance to the monastery. The office was well insulated from the heat of summer or the cold of winter by books of every description, including the sort that caught Jon’s eye: ancient tomes covered in tattered leather, some with spines missing. Atop the broad desk of polished maple lay a beautifully illuminated medieval codex.
“My-how you say it?-my hobby is to bring out a mo
dern edition of the sermons of St. John Chrysostom,” the genial abbot said, pointing to the codex, “as annotated by medieval monks.”
Jon registered appropriate awe but thought, Why their annotations? Today’s scholars have far more resources for commentary than medieval monks! But he held his tongue; he had more important fish to fry.
“And now, my esteemed professor,” Miltiades continued, “please sit down and let us discuss that manuscript of yours about which the archbishop wrote. First of all, where did you find it?”
“I didn’t find it, Your Grace. My wife Shannon did. At Pella in Jordan.”
“Pella, you say?” The face of the archimandrite brightened. “I’ve always thought that if any important early manuscripts were to be discovered, it would be at Pella. Or perhaps at St. Catherine’s on Mount Sinai.”
“Or Mount Athos,” Jon quickly added.
The abbot smiled and agreed. “Or Mount Athos.”
Jon proceeded to give the whole history of the find before opening his attache case. First he took out only four of the five ancient leaves, then renderings of the writings on them enhanced by ultraviolet, providing a much clearer text. Miltiades put on a pair of gold-rimmed glasses and began reading the Greek immediately, occasionally glancing at the originals.
Minutes passed. Jon said nothing. Nor did his host, who reached for a magnifying glass from time to time and held it over the texts. Silence filled the office more audibly than Jon had ever experienced.
Finally Miltiades looked at Jon and said slowly, “This is quite remarkable. I have read some of these words before. I think it was when Eusebius quotes Hegesippus on the death of James the Just of Jerusalem.”
“Exactly, Your Grace. I wanted you to discover that for yourself, rather than with any prompting from me. I congratulate you on your marvelous recall.”
“It is nothing,” he objected. “But here we have more from Hegesippus than what Eusebius quotes. It tells how Jesus’ cousin Symeon became the next bishop of the church in Jerusalem.”
“Precisely. And this is why my wife and I believe these pages come from the lost writings of Hegesippus.”
The abbot shook his head in astonishment. “This is… this is remarkable, Professor Weber, remarkable! But I had not heard of this discov-”
“Only three people on earth know about these pages, Your Grace: yourself, my wife, and I. The priest at Pella knows about the leaves, of course, but not what they contain. Obviously, we wanted to determine their provenance-and even their authenticity-before going public with them. Hence my visit.”
“Yes. Yes of course.” The abbot exhaled heavily. “To me, it looks as if the writing comes from… well… from as early as… the third century. But wait…”
He reached for a reference book on orthography, which compared Greek lettering styles across the centuries. Now his head shifted from one side to the other repeatedly in comparing the shapes of letters, almost as if he were watching some ancient tennis match. Finally he looked up. “Yes. Yes, it is third century indeed. Here, look for yourself.”
Jon compared the evidence and nodded-affecting surprise only because he had also done this comparison with a similar text on Greek orthography back in Cambridge. But yes, it was important to have his conclusions tested by the world authority on ancient Greek texts.
Their conversation now turned to the origin of the ancient leaves. If they came from the third century, then they could well be a first-generation copy of Hegesippus’s original, which had to have been written before his death in AD 180, the abbot told Jon, confirming what he and Shannon had already surmised. “If that is the case, more such leaves from Hegesippus would be priceless. Did your wife inquire about this at Pella?”
“Most certainly. Unfortunately the priest who was using them to hold his place in an aged copy of Eusebius’s Church History had no idea where they came from or when.” Jon went on to disclose his plans for the ICO to do an exhaustive inventory of all written materials at the church in Pella, pending the local priest’s permission.
Next they focused on the question of authenticity. The archimandrite examined the brownish leaves under additional lamps, using his magnifying glass almost constantly. His scrutiny, however, was fairly brief. He lifted his head and said, “Really, Professor Weber, there is no question but that these leaves are genuine and ancient. I think it would be totally impossible to… to… What is the word?”
“To forge, to falsify something like this?”
“Yes, that is what I want to say.”
Jon smiled appreciatively, almost as if his host had made it all possible. Then he reached into his attache case and extracted the fifth brownish leaf and its enhanced copy and laid them on the abbot’s desk, his own heart increasing its tempo as he said, “This final page, Your Grace, is of such great importance that I didn’t want it to color your conclusions.”
Miltiades resumed his reading, showing no response whatever. Halfway through, however, he looked quizzically at Jon before returning to the text. Slowly, his head turned across each line, which he seemed to read and reread. This time he also had much recourse to the original on the left side of his desk, poring over it again and again.
He finally sat up, shook his head, and muttered, “Thaumadzo!”
Jon recognized the verb from the opening lines of St. Paul’s letter to the Galatians: “I am amazed.” Then a torrent of words poured out of Miltiades’s mouth. “Now Hegesippus is talking about the Gospels and how they were written. After Mark and Matthew, he comes to Luke, and… and he writes…” He grabbed the magnifying glass and immediately translated into English. “He writes, ‘After blessed Luke wrote his… first treatise to Theophilus, which we call Luke’s Gospel, and his second treatise to Theophilus, which we call the Acts of the Apostles, he wrote… also a third treatise to the same person, which we call the Acts of the Apostles, Beta,’ that is, the Second Acts of the Apostles.”
The abbot laid down the magnifying glass on his desk between the original leaves and the enhanced version and was silent for some moments. Finally he said, “Now I know why you think these pages are… are so important!”
“Indeed, Your Grace. They could even mean that there is biblical material out there that never got included in the Bible.”
The abbot made a triangle of his fingers and thumbs and nodded pensively.
Jon continued. “Have you ever found any reference to a third treatise to Theophilus?”
Slowly the abbot shook his head. “No. No, I have not. This… this is astonishing.”
“And it may help explain why Luke seems to break off so abruptly at the end of his narrative in Acts, chapter 28. Here he brings St. Paul to Rome, and the reader can’t wait to read about the greatest crisis in the apostle’s life: his trial before Nero. But Luke seems to do a… a fade-out on us, as Americans put it. No trial, just a few words about Paul preaching openly in his rented dwelling for two years.”
“Ah yes. I’ve often thought that this was the most… the most…”
“Frustrating?”
“Yes, the most frustrating passage in all of Scripture.”
Both were silent for a while. Then a wan smile crossed the abbot’s face. “What a treasure it would be for the church-for the world-if that ‘third treatise’ could ever be found.”
“How very true! But do you think that’s even possible?”
A slight frown furrowed the cleric’s brow and he shook his head sadly. “No, I don’t think so. It would have been discovered long ago and be part of our Bible today.” He paused, drummed his fingers on the desk, and resumed speaking. “But your discovery, I think, will be very helpful to explain why the book of Acts ends as it does. Luke had more to say.”
“Yes. Luke had more to say indeed. This is exactly what my wife and I concluded.”
“Just so. But what are your plans for this discovery? When will you publish?”
“Not until a total inventory of the St. James Orthodox Church at Pella is completed-for obvi
ous reasons.”
“Oh yes, yes. That is very, very important. And I promise you that I will tell no one about this until you give me permission.”
“Thank you, esteemed Archimandrite. I was about to ask you for that favor. If the news ever got out, hordes of amateur scholars and sensationalist sleuths would converge on Pella and crowd out the true specialists.”
“Yes, and probably destroy further parts of this manuscript, if they were discovered.”
After a brief but nourishing lunch, Jon broached to Father Miltiades the ICO’s offer to help accelerate the inventory project at Mount Athos and its many monastery archives. He feared a negative response since the monks there were known to be a fiercely independent lot. One of the monasteries, in fact, had so opposed any ecumenical outreach to Roman Catholicism that it had to be excommunicated from Eastern Orthodoxy.
The genial archimandrite, however, surprised him and said, “This is an answer to prayer, dear Professor. Scholars across the world have been begging us to hurry up, to…”
“Expedite?”
“Yes, to expedite our inventory search. But we have not had enough resources or specialists to do that. But now you come here and promise us both. In the name of the Great Lavra and of all the other monasteries on the Holy Mountain, we offer you our thanks.”
Jon proffered enthusiastic thanks of his own, promising to stay in close touch with Abbot Miltiades. It was a very pleasant way to end his visit. Perhaps it was the mellow mood that actually enabled him to avoid panic on another breakneck jeep ride back to the port of Dafni. On the ferry back to the mainland, he found himself clutching the attache case closer than ever.
After a quick drive back to Thessalonica, Jon stopped at the hotel’s convenience venue to pick up a newspaper. Glancing at the news rack, he was shocked to see his own picture on the front pages of the international newspapers. He snatched up a copy of the International Herald Tribune.
But before he could even read the article, Shannon rushed over to him. “Jon, you won’t believe what’s happened!”
