Chapter 17

4 BCE

In what is today northwestern Iran

A caravan set forth from the shores of Lake Urmia. Its vast and shallow waters teemed with birds of every kind—ducks, swans, spoonbills, egrets, flamingos—all tarrying in the waning light of autumn. Here and there, flocks took wing, circling briefly before returning to the water. But now and then, a flock would break free, rise high and turn south, never to return. It was a good omen, said the augurs, the watchers of birds.

A fortnight's journey brought the caravan westward over the mountains and down the great Zab River to the city of Mépsila. There, the people marveled at the caravan's splendor, and those who rode with it. For it seemed to them that the ancient priests of Māda, the Magi, had returned from legend.

The people celebrated with feasts of honeyed lamb and pomegranate wine. And when it came time for the caravan to depart, the they lavished parting gifts upon the priests, gold and pearls, camels and donkeys, spices and incense.

Rumors of their coming spread across the pastures of Mesopotamia. For on a camel at the caravan's head rode a man of great stature. He wore a brilliant blue robe that shimmered like mountain water beneath the summer sun. He was the Rab Mag, Lord of the Magi, watcher of stars.

By night, he steered the caravan toward the constellation Ara, the altar of the gods, low on the western horizon, its great pillar of smoke climbing through the starry night. By day, he followed the King's Highway across the Syrian plain and down to Damascus. Many roads departed that great city, none more rutted than the Via Maris, the Way of the Sea.

The winter morning came clear and cold. Brittle chamomile crunched beneath the camels' hooves, raising a sweet and pungent odor. Down below, the Sea of Galilee reclined in shadow, calm and dark beneath a blanket of haze. All along the western shore, the villages were waking, sending up their tendrils of smoke. All at once, the wooded hills beyond blushed with morning light. There, cradled in a gentle valley, lay the village of Nazareth.

***

Adriana Fitzseth led Peter out of her office on the second floor of the British Museum and down the hallway to a walk-in vault. It was a cramped space, fifteen feet to a side, the walls lined with gray metal drawers, the air kept cool and dry by machinery humming steadily somewhere above the low ceiling. A metal table equipped with an articulated reading glass stood in the center of the room, folding chairs to either side.

Adriana closed the heavy outer door and tapped a code into the glowing keypad. Something heavy clunked inside the wall. She turned to face Peter. "There, we're safe from anything but a direct mortar strike, or so the engineers tell me."

From a high drawer, she withdrew a sheet of paper and a delicate, glass-paned document case about the size of an iPad. She laid on the table. "This is what your father came to see."

Peter sat in one of the chairs. Sandwiched between the panes of glass were what looked like to be two small fragments of parchment, each badly burned. They were mirror images of each other, like open butterfly wings.

"This is Vindolanda Tablet III-245. It's never been displayed in public." She activated the reading glass's UV lamp and switched off the overhead lights. The writing seemed to leap from the burned material, a fine cursive script.

Adriana explained. "It's colloquial Latin, a form used by the Roman Army in Britain two thousand years ago. This writing tablet was discovered along with many others near Chesterholm, England, in the ruins of an ancient fort called Vindolanda."

"What does it say?"

She switched off the UV lamp, and they were left in complete darkness, the weird scent of ozone lingering in the cool air, machinery humming above. "Take yourself back. All the way back to Roman Britain in the first century. Now imagine you're a trader, a businessman. You make your living buying goods from local farmers and selling them at a profit to the Roman Army. You've delivered the goods but haven't received payment yet."

She had moved to the door. "So, you sit down to write a letter to the centurion in charge. It's the middle of winter. You huddle in your calfskin tent, wet your quill, and by the light of an oil lamp, compose a letter on a wafer of birch bark. Finished, you score the wafer down the middle, fold it in two, write the recipient's name on the outside, and bind it tight with leather thongs. Then in the morning, you hand it along with a silver coin to the driver of a wagon heading for Vindolanda, and hope for the best."

Adriana turned on the overhead lights and handed Peter the sheet of paper. It was a transcription of the tablet's text in Latin and in English.

Octavius Clodius fratri suo salute . . .

[Surface 1]

Octavius to his brother Clodius, greetings. If you love me, brother, you will swiftly send me one hundred pounds of sinew for which I have settled up. I have several times written of this matter, and that I have bought about five thousand modii of ears of grain, on account of which I need cash.

[Surface 2]

Frontius [unreadable] again. He was wanting me to allocate hides for trade in Hibernia, and that being so, was ready to give cash. I told him I would give hides by the Kalends of March, but he would not wait. He had taken as passenger our old Judean rebel and his mustard seeds. Frontius will return in the summer to collect the hides . . . [remainder is lost]

Adriana settled into the opposite chair, her gaze on the ancient fragments of birch bark within their protective glass case. "This letter was composed around 85 CE. We know from other letters that Octavius was a successful trader based at Carvetiorum on the west coast, and that Clodius was a centurion of the Cohors I Tungrorum garrisoned at Vindolanda. Frontius appears to be a mutual acquaintance, probably another trader. It's a rather ordinary letter, really, except for three things. First is the mention of Hibernia, the Latin name for Ireland. This is one of only a handful of documents indicating a Roman presence there."

"Who's the old Judean rebel?"

She looked up. "Senex Iudaeus seditiosus noster," the core mystery of Vindolanda Tablet III-245. We don't know for sure who he was, but he appears to have been known to all three men."

"So he was famous."

"Infamous might be a better word. For a military man like Clodius, 'Judean rebel' would have held pejorative connotations. Remember that it was only fifteen years earlier that Emperor Titus broke the Jewish insurrection and destroyed the Second Temple of Solomon, and most of Jerusalem with it. But you're right, this particular Judean rebel did become famous, very famous indeed. In fact, you've heard of him."

"I have?"

"Yes, but by another name." She seemed to be judging Peter's reaction. "What do you know about the term zealot?"

"A zealot's a religious fanatic, right?"

"That's the modern meaning, yes. In the time of Jesus, however, the term zealot was applied to the most religious of Jews, particularly those who fought against the Roman occupation. So, to a first-century Roman soldier like Clodius, a Judean rebel would have meant a Jewish insurrectionist, a zealot."

"I still don't know who you're talking about."

She nodded. "The Catholic Church has long downplayed the fact that one of its saints might have been an insurgent against the Roman Empire."

"A saint?"

"Not only a saint, but one of the Twelve Apostles. In Aramaic he was known as Shimón qana, Simon the Zealot."

"St. Simon?"

"None other."

"Wait. How do you know this zealot was Simon and not some other rebel?"

She seemed pleased with Peter's question. "What else do you know about Simon the Apostle?"

"Not much, I guess." Peter knew there were actually two apostles named Simon. There was his own namesake, Simon whom Jesus later named Peter, the rock of the Church, and there was Simon the Zealot. Peter's catechism teacher once described the apostles as a twelve-man basketball team. Jesus was coach, Peter the all-star captain, and Thomas the starting forward. Way at the end of the bench, down with Thaddeus and Judas, sat Simon the Zealot.

Adriana continued. "Simon's hardly mentioned in the New Testament. But early Church tradition holds that Jesus sent Simon to the edge of the world to preach the Gospel, to Britain and Ireland."

"So that fits."

"The final piece is the mustard seeds mentioned in the letter. Octavius clearly associates them with the old Judean rebel because he writes 'his mustard seeds.'"

"What's so important about mustard seeds?"

"Jesus's parable, of course. 'And Jesus asked, What is the Kingdom of God like? And how shall I come to resemble it? It is like a grain of mustard seed, which a man took and cast into his garden; and it sprouted and grew into a great tree.'"

"Ah, I get it. The mustard seeds symbolize Christianity, and Simon was spreading the new faith to Ireland."

A curt nod. "Precisely. This letter may record the earliest evangelism of Ireland. It's well known that Christianity existed there centuries before St. Patrick arrived."

"What did my dad think about all this?"

Her coarse facial features seemed to scrunch up. "Your father was . . . well . . . skeptical. He pointed out, rightly, that the Latin phrase used in the parable of the Mustard Seed is granum sinapis, grain of mustard, not the more specific term found here, semina sinapis."

A jolt of electricity shot through Peter. "Did you just say seh-mee-nah see-nah-pees?"

"Yes, semina sinapis, mustard seeds."

"That's it! That's what he was saying."

"Come again?"

"My dad. Semina sinapis. Those were his last words before he died. He never explained what they meant. He never had a chance to."

A cloud of concern shadowed her face. "Then I think you should speak with my father."

"Why?"

"There's so much you need to know."

"What do you mean?"

She picked up the document case and returned it to its high drawer. "I'm not the one to tell you all this." She took out a business card and began writing something on the back. "Here is my father's address in Hampstead Garden suburb, and his telephone number. I'll let him know to expect you." Then she wrote down a few more words. "Commit these passwords to memory."

"Passwords?"

"Oh, it's all rather dramatic for my tastes. The passwords are plants from the mustard family, the Cruciferae, which refers to their tiny cross-shaped flowers." She sighed and asked him to stand. "Let's practice. When you meet him, shake his right hand with yours, then grasp your left hands beneath, like this."

Peter looked down at the cross formed by their arms.

"Then you need only to say three of the passwords between you. That's it." She released her grasp.

"Was that what you were trying to do when we first met?"

"It's called the usual means of identification. You'll be fine. Don't worry. He'll be ecstatic to finally meet you."

"Finally meet me?"

"Oh dear. I might at as well tell you something. We're family."

__________________

Author's note:

Thank you for reading Chapter 17!

Who is this mysterious traveler arriving in Galilee?

Had you already guessed what "seh-mee-nah see-nah-pees" meant?  Did you know it was Latin?

The discovery of the Vindolanda tablets in the 1970s offered an unprecedented view of first century life on the Roman frontier in Britain.  They are the oldest surviving hand-written documents in Britain.  Most of the 700+ tablets so far discovered are housed at the British Museum in London.

I've always been fascinated by the possibilities that figures from the New Testament might have worked their way to the British Isles.  Joseph of Arimathea is perhaps the most famous of these legendary travelers.  Early Christian patriarchs believed that  Simon the Zealot preached the Gospel in Britain.  The word apostle actually comes from the Greek apóstolos, one who is sent away.

-Frode

Image: One of the Vindolanda tablets, courtesy of https://1rs84j3vm0ob2asu30vmou8p-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/Previously-discovered-birthday-invite.jpg