The Julian Secret (Lang Reilly Thrillers) (23 page)

Another look at his watch told Lang he would be right on time. Opening the car door, he withdrew the ignition key. Immediately, the car’s theft alarm squawked, a wail Lang was certain would filter into every classroom on campus. Reinserting the key did no good, nor did cranking the engine.

Defeated, he looked around to make sure no one could identify the perpetrator of such a racket and slunk away like a thief in the night.

Leb Greenberg was a small man with a strong handshake and brown eyes that sparkled as though he had a joke he was about to share. Other than the yarmulke from under which sprigs of gray hair sprouted, he could have been anyone’s favorite grandparent.

“Thank you for seeing me, Professor,” Lang said as he stepped across the threshold of a small office.

“Leb, please,” he said, indicating Lang should sit in one of two uncomfortable-looking chairs arranged in front of a desk. “All day, it’s Professor Greenberg this, Doctor Greenberg that, usually complaints about grades. Let us skip the honorifics, shall we?”

Lang recognized a British accent, one without the dropped h’s, the voice of the upper class. He often won
dered why everyone who had lived in England, no matter how briefly, adopted that enunciation.

Greenberg sat behind a desk empty of clutter other than a cup and saucer and a stack of papers Lang guessed was a manuscript. “Francis tells me you’re interested in a specific bit of ancient Jewish history as it might relate to Christianity. Wouldn’t say exactly what.”

He glanced down at the cup. “Oh dear, forgive me. I was just having tea. Might I pour you a cuppa?”

He lifted an electric coffeemaker from behind the desk.

“Sure, thanks.”

Agency training. Sharing a meal, a beverage, increased whatever bonding might take place. Defectors from Communist regimes had been more likely to share information with debriefers who joined them in eating and drinking.

The professor produced another cup and saucer, one not matching his own. “I’m afraid you’ll have to settle for concentrated lemon juice, no milk, no sugar.”

“That’s fine, thank you.”

Lang watched his cup fill with a liquid as dark as coffee and took an experimental sip. He fought back a gasp. The stuff was tart enough to make his teeth itch.

“Specially blended for me,” Greenberg said proudly. “I get it through a merchant in Beirut.”

Lang had never previously viewed Lebanon as a terrorist country.

Licking his lips in pleasure, Leb sat back in his chair, arms behind his head. “What can I do for you, Lang?”

Somehow mollify the taste of this tea that was sour enough to pucker his mouth like a green persimmon. But Lang said, “Francis and I were looking at a Latin inscription, fourth century. It referred to a ‘king of the Jews,’ the title put on Christ’s cross. I always thought it
was derisive. Francis wasn’t so sure, said you might have some historical thoughts on the matter.”

Leb was silent for so long, Lang thought perhaps he didn’t hear. Although the professor was looking straight at him, Lang was certain he saw something else.

Finally, he sat up, his hands cupping his tea as though to keep it warm. “I think you can understand the problem here. We Jews have a very different perception of the Christ and of the Gospels of your New Testament. That difference frequently leads to misunderstandings. For two millennia it led to the shedding of blood. Ours.”

Lang put his cup on the desk. “Leb, I’m seeking history, not a religious argument.”

The Jew smiled. “In many ways, that’s unfortunate. We Jews dearly love to argue points of religion and law among ourselves.” He grew serious. “Exactly what is it you think I might know?”

“King of the Jews. Was Jesus a king or was he simply being mocked?”

Leb offered the coffeepot to Lang, who declined a refill, before concentrating on refilling his own cup. “I can give you historical fact. You have to supply your own spiritual significance.”

“Fair enough.”

Leb held his cup in both hands, gently blowing across the top. “Let’s start with Judea of the first century. It wasn’t the pastoral place the Gospels might lead you to believe. Instead, it was a defeated country, seething with an undercurrent of nationalism. Most Jews of the day were less than fond of the occupying Romans. Think France 1940 to 1944.

“There were basically three political groups: The Sadducees, the wealthy landowning class who profited from Roman occupation, somewhat like the
collaboteurs
in France during World War Two. Then there were the
Pharisees, priests and those who stuck to the strictest Jewish law. Then we have the Zealots, those who intended to restore the Promised Land to its intended inhabitants. You may recall these folks fomented the rebellion that resulted in Rome leveling the temple and sacking Jerusalem in seventy or seventy-one
C.E.
, only thirty, thirty-five years after Christ’s death.”

“The siege of Masada?”

“Yes, that was the last battle, the Little Big Horn of ancient Israel.” Leb took a long sip, his eyes fastened on something Lang couldn’t see. “Except the nine hundred–plus Zealots killed themselves rather than surrender. Anyway, at the birth of Christ, many Jews were looking for a man from God, a man to deliver them from foreign rule just as the Maccabees had a hundred years before and Moses centuries earlier.”

“A messiah,” Lang volunteered.

Leb nodded slowly. “Perhaps. But remember, Lang,
messiah
simply means ‘one anointed’ in Hebrew. The Greek word
christos
means the same.”

The professor took another sip, placed his cup on the desk, and continued, still gazing at something Lang was sure was far away. “Your Gospels tell us Christ was of the House of David. That would be the royal family, the equivalent of the English Windsors.”

There was a pause.

“A potential king born in a stable?” Lang asked.

Leb shook his head slowly, not moving his eyes. “A stable, perhaps. Luke says so, but Matthew tells us Christ was born an aristocrat in the family home in Bethlehem. In fact, he also tells us Christ was of royal blood, a direct descendant of Solomon and David. Pretty heady stuff, a legitimate contender to the throne of a united Jewish State.

“Luke has the birth attended by poor shepherds,
Matthew by kings from afar. John and Mark are silent on the subject. But then, your Gospels weren’t contemporaneous accounts. They were written anywhere from sixty years after the crucifixion to nearly a century later, probably taken from other accounts. Hardly an assurance of accuracy.

“At any rate, no one tells us much about Christ’s early life other than a single account of a young man arguing with elders in the temple. When we next see Christ, he is at a wedding in Cana, a very fancy wedding where so much wine is consumed, more has to be brought in. Or created. The first miracle.”

Leb inspected Lang’s barely touched tea. “Don’t like it?”

“I was so interested in what you were saying, I forgot about it.”

The professor smiled. “Perhaps you are a capable lawyer, Lang, but a very poor liar.”

“Okay, so it’s a little . . . unusual.”

Leb poured the contents of Lang’s cup into his own. “An acquired taste. Now, we were talking about . . . ?”

“The wedding at Cana.”

“Oh yes. Not only is there copious amounts of wine, but Christ and the hostess order servants about. Unlikely someone would presume to command another’s domestics, so we could conclude it was Christ’s wedding and a rather big affair at that, not the marriage of peasant stock but of aristocracy.

“I also think it’s worth remembering that Matthew’s Christ ‘comes not to bring peace but with a sword.’ ”

Lang sat up in his chair. “I hadn’t realized the Gospels were so different.”

Leb snorted. “ ‘Different’? They’re in irreconcilable conflict! I can imagine the reason why the early Christ
ian church chose those four diverse versions of the life of Christ.”

“And that would be?”

“Because the others available were either more diverse or mentioned something the Church didn’t want known.”

“Any idea what?” Lang was fairly certain the man had a very clear idea.

Leb held up a conspiratorial finger, a professor in the midst of a lecture. “Let’s continue and see if we can’t reach the same conclusions together.

“We know Christ spent a great deal of time traveling with supporters and lecturing to crowds. I submit the Gospels’ version of what he had to say is less than accurate.”

He held up a hand to stop Lang’s question. “Let’s move on to the end of his ministry, to that Passover where he was charged as a criminal and crucified. First, as you as a scholar of ancient history know, crucifixion was punishment reserved for subversives, enemies of the State.”

“But wasn’t a thief crucified next to Christ?”

“So we’re told. But I submit, the Gospels were written for a Greco-Roman audience, not Jews. Even back then, the stubbornness of Jews in their religion was a given. Facts were changed so it appeared the Jews were responsible for the death of the Messiah, a fiction from which we Jews have suffered for two millennia. Who might or might not have died next to Christ is mere speculation with a strong editorial slant. Witness: The council of Jewish elders, the Sanhedrin, supposedly originally condemned Christ on that Friday night. In other words, the most respected Jews in Jerusalem broke
Sabbat
by meeting after sunset on a Friday in flagrant violation of Jewish
law. Not only that, those men had the absolute power to condemn a man to death by stoning.

“In short, had the Jews wanted Christ dead, they were perfectly capable of executing Him themselves.

“Further, as you no doubt know, someone who had earned Roman enmity wasn’t usually buried but left to rot on his cross as a reminder to others who might harbor seditious thoughts.”

Lang sat still, considering what he had just heard. “So, Leb, it’s your guess that Christ’s message wasn’t all peace and love?”

The professor shrugged apologetically. “I have no hard facts, of course, but I can make the following surmises if I may . . .”

“Please.”

“First, Christ was of royal blood, if not the direct heir to the throne of all the Jews. Second, he came along when the Roman province of Judea was seething with a rebellion barely under the surface, one that, in fact, broke out shortly after his death. Third, his message was sufficiently disturbing to the colonial powers that he was tried for treason and executed, his actual title on the cross. Finally, his followers saw an opportunity to press their leader into the Messianic mold, thereby aggrandizing themselves. No matter what evidence finally surfaced, the Church wasn’t going to back down: Christ was the long-promised son of God who ruled through His Holy Church. To admit he was basically a revolutionary was unthinkable. Think more Lenin than Gandhi. The early Church fathers cocked us a snook.”

Lang was certain he misunderstood. “Cocked us a . . . ?”

“Snook. Cocked a snook. I’m sorry. British idiom. You would say pulled the wool over our eyes.”

The barrier of a common language.

Lang considered this and what might have been contained in the library at Montsegur. “But there’s no evidence of any of this.”

Leb shook his head wearily at an argument he had heard many times. “Of course not. If there ever had been, it would have long been destroyed. For that matter, there’s no contemporaneous record of Christ, either.”

Indictment
.

King of the Jews
.

Rebel
.

“An absence of proof,” the professor added, “is not proof of absence.”

Lang smiled. “How very Zen.”

Leb nodded. “The university also has a curriculum in Buddhist studies.”

Atlanta, Georgia
Rectory, Church of the Immaculate Conception
Two hours later

Lang was drinking his second cup of coffee in hopes of cleansing his palate of the professor’s tea. Outside Francis’s office, the Mercedes’s theft alarm was again howling, unstoppable but at least muted by the thick brick walls. He had just finished summarizing his meeting with Dr. Greenberg.

Francis took a legal pad from a drawer in his green metal, government-issue-type desk and began to copy the inscription. “Okay, let’s put the English over each Latin word.” Lang watched.

Imperator
   Emperor (nominative case)

Iulian
   Julian (nominative case)

accusat—
   accusation/indictment (case unknown)

rebillis
   rebel (genitive case)

rexus
   king (genitive case)

iudeaium
   Jews (genitive case)

iubit
   commands (first person singular, present tense)

regi—
   palace (case unknown)

unus
   one (genitive case)

dEI
   god (genitive case)

sepelit
   buried/entombed (third person passive?)

The priest reversed the pad and held it up. “Allowing for the fact the Romans had no articles,
a, an
, or
the
, I make it to be ‘The Emperor Julian commands or orders.’ ”

Lang nodded. “Yeah, but orders what? Without the ending, I’m not sure if he’s ordering someone be indicted or something be done with the physical indictment.”

Francis drew a line between two of the words. “If he’s ordering someone, presumably the King of the Jews, to be indicted, he’s three centuries late. Let’s assume the inscription is supposed to make some sort of sense.”

Lang leaned forward. “Okay. What’s being done in/to/with the palace? Without the ending, we don’t know.”

Francis used a Bic pen as a pointer. “I think we can assume the palace doesn’t possess something, leaving the nominative, dative, objective, or ablative cases. There’s no verb that could apply; palaces don’t order, nor are they entombed. That would leave . . .”

There was a knock at the door and a woman’s steel-gray-haired head popped around the corner like a jack-in-the-box. “Father, you have only five minutes before Eventide service.” She saw Lang. “Oh, pardon me. I didn’t know you had company.”