Jonathan Rabb - The Book of Q

“With the not so attractive.” She shifted in her chair.

“Meaning?”

“Well …” Again, she hesitated. “You have to remember that Mani’s followers thought that theirs was the one true and holy Christian church.”

“As did every other renegade sect at the time,” he countered. “What’s so unattractive?”

“Yes, but the Manichaeans were after a kind of hyperasceticism. They professed to be purer than the other churches, their scriptures more comprehensive and unambiguous, their methods of describing the world through their knowledge more quasi-scientific-something very appealing at the time-and their preparation for the return of the Messiah more complete.” She began to sift through a pile of books, picking out one as she spoke. “That preparation, though, demanded that there be only one church standing when the Messiah returned.” She scanned the pages, talking offhandedly. “All others had to be rooted out, or at least subsumed within the Manichaean system. Evangelicalism taken to its extreme. Even the Romans thought of them as some sort of ‘superior Christians,’ more pious, more devout than the rest.”

“So the Persian dualism had unity as its goal? That doesn’t sound right.”

She nodded. “It’s known as ‘the Manichaean paradox.’ Light and darkness waging war, but only to a point. The ultimate aim: one pure church in a world beset by darkness.” She found the page she had been looking for. “Here it is. This is the catchphrase they used to summarize the whole theology: ‘of the two principles and the three moments.’ The two principles are, of course, light and darkness. The three moments are the beginning, the middle, and the end.”

“That’s innovative.”

She continued, ignoring the comment. “In the beginning, light and darkness are separate; in the middle, they’re mingled-that’s where we are now, in that middle moment; and at the end, they resolve themselves in an eternal triumph of life and light over death. It’s really quite simple.”

Pearse did his best to nod. “Simple. I’m still not sure what makes that so ‘unattractive.’ It’s not all that different from what the Catholic church was trying to do at the same time. You called it ‘a unified front.’”

“Yes,” she said, retrieving the cigarette, “but the Manichaeans were also seen as zealots, far too willing to brand those incapable of attaining the gnosis-that is, the vast majority-as threats to salvation. Only gnosis granted freedom; those without it, they felt, had to be controlled, maybe even manipulated. A sort of tough love. It was their methods for achieving that control that were unattractive and thought of as somewhat … suspect.”

“Melons were actually evil?” he said.

“Very funny. No. Certain early Christian writers suggested-albeit in completely unsubstantiated ways-that the Manichaeans had more in mind for the material world than simply its purification. Or at least that their methods weren’t as noble as they preached. Most scholars today reject those claims as another clever way the Catholic church managed to turn a rival group into pariahs.”

“Right, right. Not only were their teachings heretical but they were deceivers and manipulators, as well. That part, I know. The church was very good at that for a while.”

“Precisely.” Smoke streamed from the cigarette. “And, from time to time, dating back as far as the third and fourth centuries, there’s been speculation that they were … infiltrators-for want of a better word.”

“Infiltrators?” His eyebrows lifted as he smiled over at her. “That sounds pretty racy. Into what?”

“I’m not sure I’d use the word racy , but”-she took a long drag-“infiltrators into other churches, where they would rise to positions of power, and then take those congregations in very specific directions. A sort of cancer within the Catholic hierarchy. Bolsheviks of the fourth century, if you will. And all in the hope of creating their one, pure church. There is, of course, no proof for any of that.”

“Of course.” His smile grew. “It still sounds pretty racy … Bolsheviks, infiltrators. In a purely academic way, of course.”

“Yes. Very … racy.” For all her playing, Angeli clearly had her limits. Still, Pearse was enjoying pressing at them. “Anyway,” she said, “most of us believe that the Catholic church eventually became too powerful and well entrenched, and no amount of covert manipulation could have changed that.”

“You make the Manichaeans sound like some sort of secret society.”

“Oh, they were that,” she insisted. “There, I can show you plenty of proof.” She smiled up at him. “Very racy proof. Any number of documents describe how they developed a network of cells-a la the French Resistance-within the Roman Empire both to spread their own interpretation of the Word and also to avoid detection. Most scholars claim that the sect wanted to avoid detection by the Romans . As I said, though, there have been those who’ve suggested that the Manichaeans might have wanted to avoid detection by other Christians , as well.” Angeli creased her lips around the cigarette and inhaled deeply. “And given what your scroll contains, I’m now somewhat inclined to agree with them.”

Pearse knew there was more to her admission than merely an academic’s reassessment. His encounter with the Austrian had been proof enough of that. The question remained: What? “So fifteen letters, describing some kind of transcendent experience, will change the way we view the Manichaeans? I can’t see how that would be earth-shattering for more than a handful of people.”

“Then you would be wrong.” Nothing hostile in her tone, simply a statement of fact. Without waiting for a response, she bent over and began to lay the pages on the carpet, one by one. Whenever she needed more room, she would push the encroaching pile of books as far as her short arms would allow, eventually forced to drop to her knees so as to gain added leverage. Every so often, a few books would topple; she continued, undeterred, until the area from desk to Pearse lay hidden under a blanket of yellow paper. “Remember, it was a prayer passed down orally ,” she said at last, still fiddling with the order of the sheets. “Somehow, I forgot that little piece of information for nearly an hour. Stupid, stupid, stupid.”

Pearse gazed out over the sea of yellow, the scrawl only slightly less daunting than the wild arrows that ran from one sheet to the next, exclamation points circled in red ink, whole paragraphs written vertically in the margins, the letters almost too small to make out. He watched as she twisted her head once or twice so as to follow the mean-derings of several of the linked pages, the red pen emerging from one of her pockets to solidify the routing. When she was fully satisfied, she pulled herself up to the chair and sat.

“So, what do you think they are?” There was almost a giddiness in her tone.

Pearse looked across the pages. After almost a minute, he shook his head and turned to her.

“Oh, come on. You were wonderful on this stuff. Remember those bits from Porphyrius Optatianus, the poet-courtier of Constantine? All that wordplay? You were the one who figured those out, not me.” She nodded again at the pages. “So come on. What do you think they are? It’s right there in front of you.”

The gauntlet had been thrown. Pearse moved to the edge of his seat and again began to scan the yellow sheets. Another long minute.

“Transposition of lines?” he said. Fatigue, lack of practice-either way, he knew it was a weak attempt, but he had to go with something.

“Too obvious.”

“Thank you.” He looked again. “Reverse sequencing?”