Steven Savile - Silver

“There are similarities, of course. Both so-called prophecies refer to the rose. But is that rose a way of saying springtime and grounding the prophecy with the time of blooming? Or could it be a person? Some have tried to say the rose was Princess Diana, England’s rose. It is a possible interpretation, just as Hitler was a possible interpretation of Hister and ‘from the roof evil ruin will fall upon the great man’ could relate to the Kennedy assassination. His only outright and correct use of a name was in the quatrain relating to Franco.

“And for all the similarities there are glaring and irreconcilable differences. The third secret of Fatima talks of a city almost destroyed while Nostradamus sounds like a pleasant papal visit in spring. You tell me, because your interpretation is every bit as valid as mine, Noah. Are you seeing the problem with accepting prophecies here?”

“I think I’m getting the picture,” Noah said. In truth he was. He might not have understood even half of what Abandonato had told him, but he didn’t need to. The priest was doing a damned good job of convincing him that fate was fickle, unpredictable, and basically everyone and his aunt had predicted the end of the world a dozen times. But that didn’t change the fact that four times the Vatican had cancelled the Pope’s pilgrimage to Iraq due to fears for his safety. Fears almost certainly put there by scaremongers pointing at the Nostradamus prophecies and asking why tempt fate? Of course this was different; the secret and the quatrain had been used not to predict an attack on the Pope but to threaten one.

Noah was about to explain when a third man bustled into the small garden. He shuffled with his head down and hands clasped. Hi feet brushed over the stones. As he came closer Noah realized the young priest was holding a printout. “The results of the search you requested, Monsignore,” he held the paper out for Abandonato.

“That will be all, thank you,” the priest said, taking the sheet and reading through the list of codices Nicholas Simmonds had signed off on during his time in the library. The young librarian shuffled back out of the garden. There were eighty-seven texts listed by name. Abandonato pursed his lips as he read through them quickly. Reaching the bottom of the page, he shook his head. “As I said, he was working on the Pre-Lateran and Lateran Hebrew codices. There’s nothing here I wouldn’t expect him to have handled.” He turned the sheet over and continued to skim the list of titles. Midway down something caught his eye.

“Well now, perhaps this is something. You mentioned the Sicarii zealots, yes? According to this, Nicholas worked with one specific text that would be of interest for several reasons, The Testimony of Menahem ben Jair. If it is the text I am thinking of, it was in a dreadful condition when it was brought in a few years ago. I would need to check the precise date, but I believe the bequest came to us after it was discovered in an earthquake in the Masada region of the Dead Sea. I would need to check with my colleagues to be sure. I do know that our restoration team have been working on reassembling the original papyrus for quite some time.”

“2004,” Noah said, as another piece of the puzzle slotted softly into place. Simmonds had been sent in to look for this book. Noah was certain of it. It made stone cold sense. Not only that, it was the only thing that made sense. The testimony had been recovered from the site during the Masada dig. Now Mabus wanted it back. What could it possibly say to make it worth all of these lives? “You said there were several reasons people might be interested in this testimony?”

“Indeed. Ordinarily I would say with something like this the main interest has to be the historical nature of the find. Any document from the time helps provide us with a picture of the world as it was. Let’s not forget that even the most highly educated of men were not in the habit of recording their thoughts in writing. Thoughts were for thinking, for speaking, but not for writing down. Wisdom was passed on from father to son, in parables and stories. Anything that adds to our understanding of the time is precious. But, discoveries like this? Something like this doesn’t just cast a little light on the final days of the assassins’ cult, though that in itself is a priceless gift to our generation. No, this is far more because it was written by Menahem himself. And why was Menahem important?” Abandonato asked rhetorically. “I’ll tell you, Menahem ben Jair was important because not only was he the leader of the Sicarii zealots, he was also the grandson of Judas Iscariot. Tell me, who wouldn’t want to know the final mortal thoughts of this man? His secrets? Everything he held dear and wanted to set down for time immemorial? I know I would.”

Noah thought about it as he followed the Monsignor back through the labyrinth of illuminated corridors toward a door that led out to Rome proper.

“So, what do you think the testimony says?” Noah asked.

Abandonato shook his head. “Truthfully, I do not know. I would not expect much wisdom-the man was a killer, his band of zealots little better than terrorists, though they would have called themselves freedom fighters, like the IRA, no?”

Noah could see the comparison. The Sicarii wanting Judaea for Jews wasn’t dissimilar to the IRA wanting to reclaim Northern Ireland for the Irish, but sectarian attacks and bombs at Bishopsgate and Warrington and Canary Wharf, where children and two shopkeepers, ordinary decent people, died, made it difficult for Noah to think of them as freedom fighters.

He made a noncommittal gesture.

“Perhaps Menahem’s testimony was nothing more than a list of his beliefs? A manifesto of sorts so that anyone who found it could pick up his cause and fight for an unoccupied Judaea?”

As a guess, it made sense, but Noah wasn’t entirely sure he believed the priest when he said he hadn’t read it. Skepticism was natural, but at some point it shifted into paranoia, surely?

“So it wouldn’t be like finding a new gospel, then?”

“In one sense, possibly. The word gospel is derived from the Greek euaggelion. It means quite literally ‘good news.’ In the sense you mean, though, the gospels include the four canonical books of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John as well as some extra-biblical gospels written in the second century. These gospels are the ‘good news’ written about Jesus the Anointed and organized as connected narratives that focus upon the kerygma, that which is proclaimed, and the Sitz im Leben, the situation in life. What motivated the gospel writer to put down his words? The intentions of the author arefundamentally important in the gospels,” Abandonato explained.

Noah vaguely remembered the uproar surrounding the Gospel of Judas when it was recovered. The Judas Iscariot of his own gospel was both the betrayer of the Bible the world knew and simultaneously the hero of his own life. It was that aspect of the story that captured the imagination of the world-from being the most infamous traitor of all time Judas was suddenly presented as the most loyal and faithful companion, the only one who could be trusted to make the great sacrifice.

It was the same with all of the so-called Gnostic gospels. They seemed to paint everything we knew in a different light. In Thomas, God didn’t need great houses of worship, since Thomas promised that God was beneath every stone and in every split piece of wood. God was in the details. God was in the stuff of life. That was the nature of His creation, and it was there in the middle of it, beneath the heavens, that He should be worshipped, not in houses of brick and stone.

It was as Abandonato had said, subtle changes in translation of an existing text, or a subtle shift in the message of a “new” one could send tremors out through the world.