Skeleton 03 - The Constantine Codex (25 page)

Reaching into the suite’s mini refrigerator that was stocked full of overpriced goodies, Jon pulled out several mini bottles of cabernet and poured glasses for all who wished. “You’ll recall that there was an unfortunate accident with our original bottle,” he added, trying hard to add a bit of levity to the general mood that had all the gaiety of a séance in Transylvania.

Again the phone rang. It was Morton Dillingham of the CIA. After several remarks in the I-told-you-so category, his comments quickly focused on a predictable theme. “Now, how are we going to get you out of there?”

“But we’re not ready to go back yet,” Jon advised.

“So here’s what we’ve arranged,” Dillingham continued, brushing off Jon’s comments as those of a madman. “We’re text messaging your homeward itinerary, flights, and times over our high-security line, since we don’t trust the phones—”

Jon chose his words carefully. “With all due respect, Mr. Dillingham—and with gratitude for all your efforts on our behalf—Shannon and I have no intention of leaving Istanbul for at least a week.”

A long silence ensued. “Are you out of your mind?” Dillingham finally responded.

“Ordinarily, we’d be glad to go, but something of
phenomenal
importance has just come up here that we simply have to deal with. It’ll require about a week—well, maybe only five days—after which we’ll be delighted to have you arrange our transportation.”

“Nothing could be
that
important, sir!”

“Oh, but it is.”

“More important than your life? And that of your wife?”

Jon pondered for a moment, then replied, “Yes . . . that’s exactly the case.”

Dillingham lost all control of his tongue, blurting out, “
Listen
, Weber, whatever your ding-dong, dad-blasted reason may be, we’re sick and tired of tryin’ to keep you outta trouble when all you do is go out of your dag-blamed way to
find
trouble! You don’t stay in touch; you don’t follow the rules—what are you, some kind of suicidal jerk? Hey, maybe we should just wash our hands of you and let the terrorists use your blessed body for target practice! Yeah, that’d be a lot less expensive for us, and never mind that you’d be toast!”

Jon cringed but made no reply. Better to let Dillingham’s steam get vented.

Finally Dillingham cleared his throat. “Well . . . sorry, Dr. Weber. That was . . . that was rather unprofessional of me.”

“No apologies necessary, Mr. Dillingham. I realize I’ve been an exasperating case for all of you. I’m very sorry about that.”

Dillingham sighed. “Don’t mention it. I still feel bad about how I blew off. Let me try to show you that I’m not some pompous federal idiot. And please call me Mort rather than Mr. Dillingham, all right?”

“Fine—if you call me Jon.”

“All right, then. But what detains you, Jon? What’s so blasted important?”

“It involves a manuscript . . .”

“A
manuscript
, you say? What sort of manuscript?”

“Awfully sorry, but that’s all I can say at this point.”

Dillingham released another sigh of frustration. Then he said softly, “One last time, Jon; if they don’t catch the gunman, he’ll try again. And there may well be more than one out there. After that debate today, you’re not exactly a hero in the Muslim world.”

As Jon pondered the point, Dillingham asked again, “So—this manuscript of yours—is it
really
worth your life?”

“It really is, Mr. Dill—er, Mort. You’ll understand when I can finally explain it all.”

After a few moments of silence, Dillingham finally said, “Well . . . have it your way, then. We’ll postpone your return arrangements for exactly one week. But
only
if you follow the added security measures I’m going to text message to our people.”

“We’ll do exactly that . . . Mort.”

When he hung up, Shannon observed, “Sounds like you were speaking for both of us, Jon.”

“Uh-oh, you’re right.” Jon looked at her. For a time, the room was silent. Then he asked, “Do you really want us to go back immediately?”

“Yes, I’d really
want
to—
if
we hadn’t come across that manuscript!”

Relief washing over him, Jon gave her a big hug. Ferris and al-Ghazali wanted to know all about “that manuscript,” whatever it was.

Swearing them all to total secrecy, Jon and Shannon launched into the story for the second time that evening, Kevin Sullivan adding further comment with the sort of enthusiasm only the Irish can generate. The Vatican ace didn’t even have to change his plans for the flight back to Rome the next morning. He rather served as guinea pig for the escape route from the hotel that Jon and Shannon would use on a daily basis that week.

Several hours after Sullivan’s jet had left Turkish airspace, Jon, Shannon, and their security took the service elevator down to the Hilton’s basement parking garage. They climbed into a special Citroën that looked like a surviving specimen from the 1970s, but in fact had armor-plated sides and bulletproof glass. Anyone peering inside would have seen not the Webers but a Turkish couple, the husband with tanned skin and Muslim headdress and the woman veiled. The cars preceding and following them were equally nondescript, but they all had a common destination: the Eastern Orthodox Patriarchate.

Inevitably, Patriarch Bartholomew invited Jon and Shannon to a celebratory breakfast. The churchman was overflowing with appreciation for Jon’s defense of the faith, which he thought an inspiration for all Christians living in Muslim lands, particularly for those in Turkey. Jon, in turn, thanked him in advance for editing the Greek translation of the debate for both the DVD and print versions. After a final coffee, Jon explained that—with the patriarch’s kind permission and that of Brother Gregorios—they wished to finish their research in the archives, which might take several days.

“Certainly, dear professor,” the patriarch agreed. “And do let me know if you find anything of . . . of particular interest.”

Of particular interest?
Jon mused.
How about a manuscript codex that will become one of the great landmarks of biblical research?
But for now, he simply agreed.

Brother Gregorios readmitted them to the patriarchate’s
geniza
, though Shannon preferred to call it the “Manuscript Retirement Home.” He stood in the doorway for a minute or two but then generously returned to his own duties. Jon’s pulse was at a swift gallop as they made their way to the southwestern corner of the room. There it was—the ancient bookcase . . . and its bottom row of dilapidated materials . . .
and
the Constantine Codex.

Wordlessly, and almost worshipfully, Jon put down his attaché case that was crammed with photographic equipment and, with exquisite care, lifted the volume off the shelf. Then he opened it with a gentleness he usually reserved for Shannon.

For her part, Shannon opened her own case, which contained several photo lights—including ultraviolet and infrared—spare batteries, 6.0 gigabyte flash drives, filters, and dozens of 35mm film canisters—yes, film, since they would photograph each page both digitally and via film emulsion. A random static electric charge could destroy the memory cards if they went only the digital route or if they were, say, hit by lightning. “We would die, of course, but the film would most probably survive,” Jon had explained, helpfully.

Both put on white cotton gloves to prevent any of their skin oils from touching the vellum of the codex. Gently they opened the tome and, for the first time, were able to examine material beyond the title page in some detail.

“Incredible, Shannon!” Jon exclaimed. “Just
look
at that magnificent writing—it’s biblical uncial—just like the
Sinaiticus
and
Vaticanus
. And four columns per page versus three in the
Vaticanus
.”

Shannon shook her head in awe. “It’s stunning, absolutely
stunning
. And ancient, all right; look at all those words run together. I still wonder why they didn’t have enough sense to separate words in the early documents.”

“It’s called
scriptio continua
. And it’s the same with the Greek and Latin you find on most of the monuments in the ancient Mediterranean world. Actually, it was the Hebrews who had the great idea of separating words.”

Jon turned on his mini tape recorder and dictated. “September 4: In what we term the
geniza
—the decaying manuscript repository of the Eastern Orthodox Patriarchate in Istanbul—we are examining an extraordinary document, a codex with pages of vellum sewn together inside a front cover of thin wooden board layered over with thick dark tan vellum. The back cover is missing. This codex is most probably one of the fifty commissioned by Constantine late in his career and prepared by Eusebius. It is written with a very fine hand on leaves of vellum parchment—probably antelope or donkey skin, I think. Each page is about—” he pulled out a pocket tape measure—“about thirty-eight centimeters wide by . . . thirty-five high—similar to the
Sinaiticus
. There are four carefully justified columns per page, with slight variations in the lengths at the end of each line. There are about . . . twelve to . . . fourteen Greek letters in beautiful biblical uncials in each line, without serifs or any adornments. The lettering seems very similar to that of the
Sinaiticus
in the British Library in London—hence early fourth century. This accords very well with statements on the title page.”

They now carried the precious codex over to a table nearby, where they would carefully photograph each page. First, they had to see how many pages there were and which biblical books were included—or excluded. Again Jon pressed the Talk button on his recorder.

“The title page was found almost separated from the rest of the material but still joined at the highest sewn stitching. I suspect that the missing back cover is the reason this codex landed in the
geniza
. The page of material following the title page begins:

“TO KATA MATHAION AGION EYAGGELION.”

“The Holy Gospel According to Matthew,” Shannon whispered. Jon heard the emotion in her voice, which echoed his own.

Shifting the heavy pages of the large codex from right to left with extreme care—almost as if they were a volatile mix of nitroglycerin threatening to explode—Jon came to the last page, which had only two columns and ended with a postscript:

APOCALLYPSIS IOANNOU TOU THEOLOGOU

“The Apocalypse of John the Theologian,” Shannon again translated. “That’s the book of Revelation! We probably have the whole New Testament here, Jon!”

Jon nodded, eyes momentarily closed, breathing a prayer of thanks to God for having permitted such a discovery as this. Wiping his eyes, Jon had a catch in his voice as he said, “First we should survey the whole document. Only then the photography.”

Now began the painstaking process of paging through the codex. The plan was easy, the accomplishment difficult. Time and less-than-ideal storage conditions over its probable seventeen-hundred-year history had apparently glued some of the pages together, likely due to excess humidity. These they would have to deal with on the morrow, but as they paged through the accessible text, their excitement was only compounded, because
Kata Mathaion
was followed by
Kata Markon
, next
Kata Loukan
, and then
Kata Ioannen
—Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John—the same order of the Gospels as in all later versions of the New Testament.

Nay, more. In turn followed Acts, Romans, 1 and 2 Corinthians, and the rest of the Pauline corpus, the general epistles of James and Peter—virtually the same order of canonical books that appeared in contemporary Bibles. This was beyond all expectation, since the great
Sinaiticus
, while it also had all of these books, included the apocryphal Epistle of Barnabas and the Shepherd of Hermas too.

“I counted 151 pages, Jon. And you?”

“The same. Exactly.”

“You say this is vellum. So how many animal hides do you think were necessary to create this codex? A dozen or two?”

Jon thought for a moment, then replied, “No, more like eighty or ninety animals had to die for this codex—and that’s just for our New Testament segment here.”

“Incredible! Don’t tell the SPCA about this!”

“Sad, but true. It’s been estimated that the cost of one of these codices was a laborer’s lifetime earnings. That’s why they used papyrus instead of parchment as much as possible for biblical manuscripts. But even a papyrus scroll was expensive—not because of the material cost—reeds
are
cheaper than animals—but the huge effort in
copying
.”