Gregg Loomis - The Coptic Secret

There had been some small comfort in having Francis confirm that politics played as large a role in the clerical world as the secular.

Both men finished a meal of what had been charitably described by the flight attendant as chicken marsala, the only alternative to the mystery meat Lang had seen being served to other, possibly less perceptive, passengers. Lang and Francis put down the post-9/11 plastic utensils that had been largely ineffective in dismantling the rubbery fowl. They reclined the few millimeters allotted each tourist- class seat. Lang opened the novel he had bought at the airport bookstore only to realize he had read it years ago. The publisher had reissued it with a different cover. Now he was stuck with futile attempts to sleep sitting inches away from perpendicular or the in-flight movie, a G-rated animation suitable for small children and the easily amused simpleminded.

He had forgotten how dismal economy travel could be.

He turned to Francis, who looked disgustingly comfortable. "So, tell me about James."

Francis blinked and shook his head as though he had been asleep, a possibility Lang hadn't considered given the circumstances. "James? James who?"

"Jesus's brother, James the Just, I think he's called."

Francis was unsuccessful in stifling a yawn with the back of his hand. "What do you want to know specifically? The Catholic Church and you heretics differ on a number of details."

"Try the truth."

The priest smiled. "You really know how to put a fella between an ecclesiastical rock and a hard place. As you know, we believe in the perpetual virginity of Mary, which by definition excludes the possibility of Jesus having any full siblings."

"Who came up with that idea?" Lang asked.

Francis shrugged as much as possible in the cramped confines of his seat. "I'm not sure. The idea probably originated in an obscure second-century text called Proto-Evangelium of James. Like the Jews, the early Christians felt anything sexual was unclean. It would be impossible for the mother of the Savior to be defiled. Since she was perpetually a virgin, she could not be the mother of Jesus's so-called siblings."

"Convoluted reasoning, I'd say."

Francis nodded. "Perhaps, but then how reasonable is it that a man would rise from the dead?"

Exactly what Lang had been thinking. How could a religious devotee also do the Vulcan mind-meld? Star Trek or witchcraft? "OK, but what about James the man?"

Francis was on firmer ground. "There were two Jameses who were the original disciples. But they are always designated as James the son of Zebedee, brother of the apostle John, and James the son of Alphaeus, also known as James the Lesser."

"James the Just wasn't an apostle?"

"Someone literally had to stay home and mind the store. If Jesus was pursuing his ministry and Joseph, husband of Mary, had, in fact, died by then, who was to support the family?"

A question of such practicality, Lang was surprised he had never considered it.

"In fact…" Francis produced a pocket-size Bible and quickly thumbed the pages. "Ah, here, John 7:2-5 makes it clear than none of Jesus's brothers seemed to believe in him. In fact"-he flipped the pages again-"Mark 3:20, 31-35 tells us that, when his family heard of his healing the sick and casting out demons, they went to restrain him. People were saying Jesus was out of his mind. I'd say it would be a fair guess that the family was less than pleased to have an itinerant preacher for a brother. In fact, you may recall it was his inner circle of disciples that buried him, not family, although his mother may have been present according to the Gospel of John. I'd also guess that having a family member crucified, a death reserved for traitors to Rome, was a bit of a humiliation."

"James wasn't a disciple, but he became the first bishop of Jerusalem?"

Francis put the little book back wherever it had come from. "True. How did James go from alienated brother-or half brother-to ardent apostle? I'd speculate it took something pretty dramatic. Like, maybe, Jesus's post-crucifixion appearance to James, which Paul mentions in 1 Corinthians 15:3-8."

"But why James? I mean, why not one of the original twelve disciples?"

Francis shook his head. "Part of some divine plan, I'm sure."

"Unsatisfactory response, but a safe haven. C'mon, Francis, you can do better than that!"

Francis pursed his lips. "I'm sure the church has an answer, but if I had to speculate… well, the Gospels tell us Christ selected Peter to continue his ministry, his church, as it were…"

"Upon this rock…?" Lang interjected.

Francis rolled his eyes. "They say even the devil can quote scripture, but, yeah. Anyway, I'd postulate that Peter, at least at the beginning, pretty well had his hands full spreading the word. He needed someone to handle things at home in Judea and who better than a… a close relative of Jesus himself."

"OK. What else can you tell me?"

"It will please you to know there is no rest of the story, at least not in the Bible. The time line of the New Testament ends just about there with Acts 15. We do, however, have a historical reference by Josephus."

"The Jew historian turned Roman citizen?"

"The same. He tells us James was reputed to be so pious, to pray so much that his knees were like those of a camel. He also refers to James as 'the brother of him that was crucified, held by some to be the Messiah.' I believe this is the closest thing to a contemporary mention of Christ that exists."

Lang stretched his legs as far as the limited space allowed, an unending quest for comfort. "You said that was the end of the story. What became of James?"

Francis made no effort to suppress a yawn. "Martyred. He was stoned by a mob outside the Jerusalem temple and then thrown from the highest part of the building. Or vice versa."

Lang sat straight up, legroom forgotten. "Stoned and thrown from a building? That was the way Eon was murdered."

"Now there's a coincidence."

Lang shook his head. "I don't think so. A bullet would have been quicker and easier. Besides, when's the last time you heard of death by stoning?"

Francis's lips tightened. "You're saying someone killed your friend in the same manner as James? Why would they go to that much trouble?"

"If I knew that, I might have a good idea who these people are." Lang thought for a moment. "Were any of the saints martyred by having their throats cut?"

Francis was silent a moment, reviewing the ever-ingenious ways in which early Christians were dispatched to meet their God. "I suppose that could be said of Matthew. He was hacked to death with a halberd. But why…?"

Lang was thinking, calling up details of the murder scene in Prague. "Does a purse mean anything to you?"

The priest was clearly puzzled. But then, his friend frequently asked questions that made no sense at the moment. "A purse?"

"Like an old-fashioned woman's change parse."

Francis ran the palm of a hand across his jaw. "As perhaps related to St. Matthew?"

Now it was Lang's turn to be baffled. "A purse would be related to a particular saint?"

"All saints have symbols; most, several. In medieval times, the clergy were the only people who could read and, of course, no one knew what the various saints looked like. So, they were identified to the common person by symbols. Matthew's was a purse, since he had been a toll collector. But he is also symbolized by a winged man or a lance."

But neither a lance nor a winged man had been in Klaus's home.

Something else was emerging from Lang's memory, something he had read. From experience, he knew no amount of effort was going to make it clear. It would come in its own sweet time.

The newspaper, the Times account of Eon's death. It had mentioned something that at the time seemed a non sequitur, a totally irrelevant fact.