"The Constantine Codex" - читать интересную книгу автора (Maier Paul L)

WORLD’S FASTEST GROWING RELIGION FIND OUT WHY!

He had heard this claim so often in the secular press and even among Christians that he was intrigued enough to test it out. It took a bit of doing-more than simply checking Wikipedia.

The careful research of David Barrett, who had been tracking religious numbers for years, proved very helpful. Statistics in the World Christian Encyclopedia easily demonstrated that the banner over the tract rack in the mosque was quite mistaken and that the world’s fastest growing religion was, in fact, Christianity. With the southern hemisphere-Africa in particular-exploding for the faith, the conversion rate to Christianity was double that of conversion to Islam, and in some places, triple.

Even more compelling was evidence from Islam itself. Nearly by accident, Jon stumbled across comments by Ahmad al-Qataani, who was interviewed by Al Jazeera on December 12, 2006. Al-Qataani, leader of an organization advancing the science of Islamic law in Libya, stated, according to the translated Web transcript from Al Jazeera, “In every hour, 667 Muslims convert to Christianity. Every day, 16,000 Muslims convert, and every year, 6 million Muslims convert to Christianity. These numbers are very large indeed.”

Jon doubted, though, that there would be any value in using statistical claims in the debate, since numbers alone did not prove all that much. When the Christian church was founded on the Day of Pentecost, it numbered only some three thousand members.

Osman al-Ghazali proved very helpful in marshalling the most important arguments that Muslims use in defending their faith, and Jon found books by other Muslim converts to Christianity, such as by the Caner brothers, to be very helpful as well. The literature on Islam and Christianity was becoming a major genre in the publishing industry.

So, once again, it would be the Crescent versus the Cross, and the Cross versus the Crescent, Jon reflected. Would their forthcoming debate bring anything fresh to the table or become nothing more than a footnote in a fourteen-century face-off?

Two weeks before “the great debate,” Jon, Shannon, Richard Ferris, and Osman al-Ghazali were on a Turk Hava Yollari jet-Turkish Airlines flight 25 from JFK to Istanbul, a ten-hour odyssey. With a nod to American presidential election debates, they had already had a practice session at Harvard, in which al-Ghazali had presented Islam with such passion that Jon nearly thought he had returned to the teachings of the Prophet.

Jon had planned to use frequent flier miles to upgrade them all to business class, but Richard Ferris told him it was unnecessary. Although the ICO had made no fund appeal in any medium, financial gifts had poured into their Cambridge headquarters anyway. The American public was clearly sensitive to the world importance of this particular Muslim-Christian engagement.

Two members of Jon’s party did not have their expenses underwritten by the ICO. Instead, American taxpayers footed their bill, and no one was even supposed to know they had anything to do with Jon’s group. They were, of course, two agents from the CIA, one sitting by himself at the rearmost seat in business class on the left side of the plane, the other taking the same position on the right. Jon grinned as he noted their navy blue serge suits and ties. If they were supposed to look like tourists, wouldn’t khaki Dockers and sport shirts have been more appropriate?

The plane landed with an emphatic bump at Ataturk Havalimani, the international airport west of Istanbul. The Turkish morning was bright and hot as Jon’s party descended the lofty aluminum port-a-stairway from the front of the plane, a strong semisirocco blowing up from Africa to the south and sending swirls of dust into the air.

At passport control, a welcoming committee from the Turkish Ministry of Culture greeted them amiably, led by the dapper and amply mustachioed director himself, Adnan Yilmaz. He would be their liaison with the Turkish government throughout their visit. Once their baggage was in hand, he whisked them through the various gateways set up to screen out troublemakers. Curbside, he reminded them of the final planning meeting for the debate, to be held in three days at the U.S. consulate in Istanbul, then ushered them inside two black Mercedes limousines emblazoned with insignia from the Turkish government.

So far, so good, thought Shannon, who was torn between the thrill of finally visiting one of the most exotic cities on earth and the fear that somewhere in that vast metropolis of thirteen million, there had to be at least a dozen or so fanatics who felt that they would please Allah by assassinating her husband-or both of them.

Her dread, however, was soon drenched by the improbable vista unfolding before them. To the south were the sparkling sapphire waters of the Sea of Marmara, alive with ships of every variety sailing eastward or westward. Ahead and to the left, the central skyline of Istanbul grew ever larger, not with skyscrapers, as in other cities, but with huge, domed mosques, each surrounded by several stately minarets that looked for all the world like two- or three-stage guided missiles in stone, as if to guard the sanctity of the mosque.

Further eastward, and occupying the most commanding view of the waterfront, were the vast grounds of the Topkapi Palace-for centuries, the home of the great sultans of the Ottoman Empire that had at one time controlled the Mediterranean world and all of Balkan Europe as well. This was not one palace, but a virtual palatial city of its own, full of structures housing the sultans’ treasures in art and women too. From 1453 to the late nineteenth century, much of the world was ruled from here.

Jon was exuberant as he directed Shannon to the sights left and right. Their limos turned northward and were mounting the hill overlooking the Bosporus when he suddenly asked the driver to slow down.

“There, Shannon!” Jon exuded. “See those two great structures? The one to the left, with the six minarets, is the Blue Mosque. And the one to the right, with only four-” he suddenly shifted to a tone of near reverence-“is probably the greatest Christian monument in the entire world: Hagia Sophia.” He said the last in a choked whisper.

Shannon, too, was deeply moved. Hagia Sophia-Greek for “Holy Wisdom”-had been constructed 1,500 years ago by the great Byzantine emperor Justinian, who, on dedication day in AD 537, declared proudly, “Solomon, I have outdone thee!” He had indeed, with this first and largest domed structure in the world, the Christian exemplar from which every domed Muslim mosque since that time was patterned. And Hagia Sophia would be the place where the Muslim-Christian debate would take place that could change all of their lives.

“It’s such a shame that the Muslim conquerors added those minarets,” Shannon said. When Constantinople was taken over in 1453, the cathedral had been converted into a mosque. A mosque? Wait a minute…

“Jon, you can’t be planning to debate a Muslim opponent inside a mosque?”

He looked surprised. “Why not? I’m a generous sort and don’t mind giving him some home-field advantage.”

As he chuckled, the rest of her history knowledge fell into place. “Wait, I recall now. Ataturk, the founder of modern Turkey, converted Hagia Sophia from a mosque into a secular public museum.”

“Precisely.” Jon grinned. “But you were worried there for a minute, weren’t you?”

She swatted him playfully and sat back to enjoy the sights. Through crowded streets scented with dozens of different spices and jammed with humanity buying or selling at hundreds of open-air markets, the limos threaded their way down to the waterfront of the fabled Golden Horn. This was the inlet from the Bosporus-gilded each sunrise and sunset-that split the city and set off the triangular peninsula tip that was the heart of Istanbul. They crossed the Galata Bridge and drove up another hill in the eastern sector of the city, atop which stood the Istanbul Hilton, their headquarters while in Turkey.

Jon and Shannon’s suite was on the top floor of the Hilton, and they walked out onto their balcony to take in the commanding view to the south and west. Below them sprawled the great Turkish metropolis, with millions of citizens packed into its boulevards, parkways, streets, and alleys. To the south flowed the majestic Bosporus, that great waterway channeling water from the Black Sea into the Sea of Marmara and eventually into the Aegean and Mediterranean. The ominous drone of ships’ horns filled the air as ferries scuttled between Europe and Asia-a distance no more than the width of the waterway at that point. On a north-south axis, the ferries had to interweave themselves between the huge cargo ships sailing an easterly-westerly vector, their staccato horn blasts advertising a near miss from time to time.

A knock on the door of their suite interrupted Shannon’s reverie. They walked back from the veranda, and Jon opened the door. It was their two “guardian angels” from the CIA who wanted to sweep the room for any listening devices. Their code names were merely Click and Clack-perhaps in honor of the Tappet brothers on National Public Radio?-and they brushed off all requests for further identification, genially but firmly. Despite their best efforts, no bugs were found.

“Still,” Clack advised, “I wouldn’t mention anything supersensitive inside here.”

“Do we go out onto the balcony, then?” Jon asked.

“Never! Anyone down below could home in on you with telescopic audio.”

Shannon sighed. It seemed that from now on, the panoramic view would have to be enjoyed from within the safe confines of their suite.

Early the next afternoon, Jon and Shannon had an audience with the personage who had innocently lured them almost halfway across the world, the man with the official title, His All Holiness, Bartholomew II, Archbishop of Constantinople, New Rome and Ecumenical Patriarch, who was the 271st successor to the Apostle Andrew. Jon had already met and enjoyed instant rapport with the eastern pope at the Vatican III Council in Rome, the ecumenical conclave where a potential disaster to Christianity had been avoided.

The Eastern Orthodox Patriarchate was located on the eastern edge of the old city just north of the Sultan Selim mosque and overlooking the Golden Horn. The patriarchate was heavily walled-as was so much in that area of the world-but here with more reason. It had been subject to repeated bomb attacks by Muslim terrorists in recent years-a fact deplored by the secularist government of Turkey and the reason there was an official guard station near the entrance.

Inside the gate, Jon and Shannon received a warm welcome from an aide to the patriarch and were given a brief tour of the premises, including St. George’s Chapel with its great chandeliers of shimmering crystal. In the reception hall stood a lofty dais on two levels. On the upper dais was a throne to seat not a human being but a beautifully illuminated Bible, attesting to the supremacy of Scripture. Immediately in front of it but on the lower dais stood the patriarch’s throne of gold with red silk cushions that Bartholomew would have occupied were this a state reception.

Jon and Shannon were received instead at the patriarch’s residence across the courtyard, where the great man himself greeted them with surprising warmth and excellent English. “I bid you welcome in the name of our sovereign Lord, Professor Weber, and also to you, madam.”

“This is my wife, Shannon, Your All Holiness,” Jon explained. “Thank you for this gracious audience.”

He bowed slightly. “No, it is our Christian community in Turkey and I who must extend gratitude to you for coming to defend our faith here in the heart of Islam.”

Bartholomew closely matched Jon in height, though with a stockier frame. He was a figure of authority in his late sixties, attired in a robe of basic black and clutching what was either a bishop’s staff or something of a tall cane-perhaps both. His face, animated with a pair of blazing blue eyes and a broad smile, was edged by a great beard of almost gleaming white that began at his temples and plunged downward halfway to his cincture. A large golden medallion with the heraldry of his office dangled from a chain, apparently having escaped the frosty forest that covered half his chest. By any standards, this was one striking man.

The patriarch ordered refreshments and led them to his office, which had an expansive view of the Golden Horn. Predictably, they first discussed the forthcoming debate and their respective roles in that exchange. When Shannon joined the conversation, her queries were usually about security matters, particularly when Bartholomew told of the series of bombings at the patriarchate. Inevitably, this begged her question, “How safe are Christians in Turkey, Your All Holiness?”

“As you must know, Madame Weber,” he replied, “even though Istanbul is at the dividing line between the Christian West and the Muslim East, Christians number less than one percent of the Turkish population, and we do have a militant Muslim minority that does not mean us well. However, the founder of modern Turkey, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, decreed that this nation would be a secular -not a religious-state, and the army has always enforced that mandate, even to the point of overthrowing several Turkish governments in the past that tried to favor Islam. At present, even though the religious parties seem to be growing in power, I truly believe the Turkish government will remain secular and provide us the protection that we need.”

Jon could hardly wait to bend the conversation in a new direction. Truth to tell, his ultimate goal was less to pit Christianity against Islam-he had not sought the debate, after all-and more to search the archives of the Eastern Orthodox Patriarchate for precious manuscripts. He used history as his segue.

“Your All Holiness,” he began deliberately after a slight lull in their dialogue, “here in Constantinople-and I prefer to use its time-honored name-we have probably the most extraordinary city in the world. I find it remarkable that after Rome fell, New Rome-Constantinople-survived for another thousand years. It was this city, this cork in the bottle of Muslim expansionism, that virtually saved Christianity in eastern Europe. In the West, Islam rolled across North Africa, crossed at Gibraltar, conquered Spain, and then invaded France until the Muslim forces were finally stopped just south of Paris. But for Constantinople, the same could have happened in the East.”

“Well, for a while, it seemed as though it might,” Shannon joined in. “When this great city fell in 1453, Islamic hordes poured into the Balkans, conquering everything up to Vienna, where they were turned back by a Christian Europe that could now finally defend itself. What if there had been no Constantinople?”

Bartholomew had been nodding his concurrence. “Eastern Islamic forces would have joined with their Western forces and European Christianity would probably have been vanquished-as it has been wherever Muslims have conquered.”

Shannon added, “I have little patience with some of our bleeding hearts who point to the church’s great ‘sin’ in the case of the Crusades. That’s a myopia that sees only halfway into the past. If we ever ask ‘Who took more from whom-Islam or Christianity?’ there’s no contest. Christianity has taken not one square foot of territory from Islam that it did not originally possess, whereas Islam has taken Asia Minor, Syria, Lebanon, Egypt, all of North Africa, and part of the Balkans from Christianity.”

“How very, very true, Madame Weber. I wish all Christians were as well informed. So often they can see back only to the Crusades.”

Jon saw his opening and plunged in. “And the losses to Christianity have been staggering, particularly here in Constantinople. Think of the precious church documents that were destroyed here-some probably from the time of Constantine or even earlier. By the way, wasn’t Constantine buried here?”

“Oh yes, indeed,” Bartholomew replied. “He was buried in the Hagioi Apostoloi, the Church of the Holy Apostles. He built the church and wanted to gather relics of all twelve apostles for the sanctuary, but he got only St. Andrew. Well, also the bones of St. Luke and St. Timothy. So yes, Constantine and his sons were buried here, and so were Justinian and Theodora and their family, as well as many of the Byzantine emperors and my patriarch predecessors-St. John Chrysostom, too. That wonderful basilica was second in importance only to Hagia Sophia itself.”

“Is it still standing?” Shannon asked.

Bartholomew shook his head sadly. “The Holy Apostles was rebuilt by Justinian in the year 550, just after Hagia Sophia, and it stood nine hundred more years until the Ottomans conquered Constantinople. That’s when the conqueror, Sultan Mehmed II, turned Hagia Sophia into a mosque and moved our patriarchate into the Holy Apostles. But when that church got surrounded by Turkish settlers who were hostile to Christians, Mehmed demolished the church and built the Fatih Camii on the site, the Mosque of the Conqueror. In fact, he’s buried there. And that mosque still stands, almost in the center of the Old City.”

“Where did the patriarchate relocate?” Jon inquired.

“To the Church of St. Mary Pammakaristos in the Christian district-and eventually, of course, to this place.”

“What happened to the treasures of the Church of the Holy Apostles-its icons, sculptures, sacred books, manuscripts, and-”

“The Venetians,” the patriarch muttered darkly, then, more distinctly. “What history calls the Fourth Crusade-although it was conceived and born in hell-invaded Constantinople instead of the Holy Land in 1204 and plundered the city. The Venetians even looted the Church of the Twelve Apostles, opening the tombs of the emperors-even the sepulchre of Justinian-and carting off their silver, gold, and jewels!”

Bartholomew had visibly changed. Gone was the genial patriarch. In his place was a scowling prophet with flushed countenance who had again wrapped his hand, or rather fist, around the knob of his staff as if to cudgel Venetians off the pages of history. “You know of the Emperor Heraclius?” he asked.

“Byzantine emperor soon after Justinian?” Shannon suggested. “Lived in Muhammad’s time?”

“Yes, exactly, Madame Weber. The Venetians broke open his tomb and stole the golden crown right off his head-with some of his hairs still attached to it! You can see it yet today at St. Mark’s basilica in Venice.”

The disaster at the beginning of the thirteenth century seemed to impinge even into Jon’s twenty-first. His hopes of finding any written materials from the time of Constantine seemed to vanish with the Venetians. Almost timidly, he asked, “What about the other treasures at the Church of the Apostles-the library, the codices, the manuscripts? The Venetians carted those off also?”

Bartholomew thought for several moments, each of which seemed an endless span of time to Jon. Finally the patriarch shook his head. “No, those barbarians, those putrid pirates, couldn’t even read. They wanted gold, not books.”

Jon tried not to look too elated. Swimming in relief-at least preliminary relief-he asked, “What… whatever happened to the written materials? Did the Turks destroy them?”

“Some were lost in the fires that burned at various parts of Constantinople after the conquest, but the church saved a goodly number of important documents.”

“And… where are they now?”

“Some are at church and seminary libraries of the Orthodox churches across the world-St. Vladimir’s in New York, St. Catherine’s at Mount Sinai, Mount Athos-but many are here in the patriarchate.”

Glorious news! Now was the time for Jon to bare his heart. How abrupt should he be? A bald, frontal assault with an unvarnished confession of what he and Shannon ultimately desired? A series of gradual insinuations and hints? No, plain honesty would be best, he decided.

“Your All Holiness,” Jon began, “I wonder if you’d be generous enough to let us see some of the written materials-the documents, the older manuscripts?”

The patriarch seemed somewhat puzzled, hesitant.

“Well, certainly not today,” Jon quickly added, almost in panic. “But perhaps before we leave Istanbul?”

Bartholomew finally nodded. “I only wonder why we have not talked more about the matter that concerns me most, concerns the church most, which is-”

“The debate, of course?” Jon broke in.

“Yes, the debate, Professor Weber. I am to be joint moderator with Mustafa Selim. Don’t you think we should talk more about the debate?”

“Yes, certainly. This must indeed be our central concern. How well do you know Mustafa Selim?”

“Well, we are not the closest of friends, obviously, but we do respect one another. Each time Christians are attacked somewhere in Turkey, he publicly deplores it and tries to build tolerance among the more fanatic elements in Islam. Several times when our patriarchate was bombed, he even sent workers over to help in the repair. A good man. But now, Professor and Mrs. Weber, please to join me for lunch so that we can plan together at table.”

Both the patriarch and Jon had checklists for items related to the debate. Jon was most concerned for the safety of the Christians inside Hagia Sophia and whether there were really enough in Istanbul to constitute half the audience. To his surprise, the patriarch said they could have filled the entire structure with Christians, since many were coming to Istanbul for the event from Asiatic Turkey. He also reported that he and Mustafa Selim were in charge of ticket distribution, and the latter passed them out only to known, moderate Muslims. And yes, the police would be able to assure the safety of those inside.

For his part, Bartholomew wanted to know the main thrust of Jon’s opening remarks and the strategy that he planned to pursue. In response, Jon unpacked his arsenal of Christian arguments as well as the principal points in Islam that he felt were open to challenge. The patriarch’s repeated noddings in affirmation were a welcome sight for Jon, but his concluding caution was quite sobering. “You must walk a very careful line, Professor Weber. If you triumph in the debate-or, I should say, when you triumph-please do so gently. Were you to mortify your opponent, there could be ‘blood in the streets,’ as you Americans put it. On the other hand, our faith must be defended with vigor, for it is God’s own truth. The way will be narrow-and difficult.”

“That’s very sage advice, Your All Holiness, and I thank you for it.”

As they stood up from the table, their host said something in Greek to an aide. This translated itself when an aged, scholarly monk appeared and greeted them in the courtyard below the patriarch’s quarters.

“This is Brother Gregorios,” Bartholomew said. “He is our archivist and librarian. I have instructed him to let you examine our entire collection of ancient records and documents anytime you wish.”

Jon felt like wrapping his arms around the patriarch for a big hug, but he checked himself. Offering most genuine gratitude, they left the patriarchate.

On the drive back to the Hilton, Jon was pensive, even crestfallen. Shannon asked what the problem might be.

“What a study in contrasts,” he commented, shaking his head. “We’ve just conversed with the spiritual head of the second-largest church in Christendom-the eastern pope, so to speak. But the patriarchate is so much smaller than the Vatican, so very modest by comparison. It just… doesn’t seem fair.”

Shannon sighed. “Well, you can thank the Ottomans for that. Just imagine what might have happened had the Turks not conquered the Byzantine Empire.”

“Or what if they had converted to Christianity rather than Islam? We’d have a very different world today.”

“We’d have a better world!”

“I couldn’t agree more.” He leaned over and gave her a kiss, thankful that their driver was so engrossed in fighting his way through Istanbul traffic that he took no notice.

The debate was one week away. All eight thousand portable seats on the main floor inside Hagia Sophia had been spoken for. Additional folding chairs would surround the basilica on all sides, with closed-circuit television screens and loudspeakers conveying the program inside. Representatives of Christian church bodies would have VIP seating-meaning they could sit inside the basilica-as would an equal number of Islamic leaders, 84 percent of whom would be Sunni and 16 percent Shia, in accord with their relative numbers in the Islamic world.

Already the lofty galleries of Hagia Sophia were getting cluttered with television cameras, cables, and broadcast paraphernalia, next to which a special section was reserved for the world press corps. The rest of the surrounding galleries were given over to additional seating. Adjacent to the three main entrances to the basilica were security checkpoints with turnstiles, first-aid facilities, and of course, additional porta-potties.

Nothing was left to chance. Click and Clack, who suddenly had additional security help from the CIA, were putting in twelve-hour days. Each evening, they briefed Jon, Shannon, Dick, and Osman. Ferris seemed to be in constant phone or e-mail contact with Marylou Kaiser and the ICO in Cambridge. Jon himself was keeping his wits sharp through verbal duels with Osman.

Yet Jon was acutely aware that there was such a thing as too much preparation. Two days before the debate, he and Shannon decided to take a break. Perhaps an excursion on the Bosporus? A museum tour of the Topkapi Palace? Never! Like iron filings drawn to a powerful magnet, they were back again at the Eastern Orthodox Patriarchate to explore the archives. This time their host was not the patriarch himself but Brother Gregorios, the librarian-archivist.

A diminutive older figure with a pointed gray beard and sallow skin, Gregorios seemed to have spent his entire life in row after row of book stacks. At first he was somewhat cool toward Jon and Shannon, as if his assigned task of showing them around his domain would cut into his beloved affair with words-printed, written, painted, pictured. But their obvious interest and apt queries seemed to melt the old man’s heart as he recognized them as genuine bibliophiles.

They had seen much larger libraries, of course-here there were only six hundred thousand books-but they had not come for the printed word. Instead, manuscripts were their target, early codices and documents from times of yore, the older the better. They had to be looking at the right place. It was in Istanbul that the Greek scholar-churchman Philotheos Bryennios had discovered the famous Didache, lost to the world since the third century, when Eusebius, the father of church history, almost included it in the New Testament canon. The Teaching of the Lord to the Gentiles through the Twelve Apostles was the real name of the work, lost for fifteen centuries until 1873 and Bryennios’s discovery.

In the reading room there were ten computers, at three of which young, black-suited students were peering into screens. Jon looked at one of the keyboards and winced, not because the lettering was Greek but because several letters were interchanged from the regular QWERTY keyboard. Then again, he hadn’t really planned to use those computers for overseas e-mail but in place of a card catalog.

Gregorios showed them row after row of book stacks and explained what sorts of titles were shelved on each. This was important, since they were hardly using the Library of Congress cataloging system. Yet all these were printed materials and thus of only secondary importance to Jon and Shannon. Still they registered appropriate interest until Jon finally asked, “And the archives, Brother Gregorios? Where are the archives?”

“Oh yes. Please to follow me.”

He led them to the far northern end of the library’s ground floor and down a metal stairway into a broad hall. All four walls were completely lined with bookshelves laden with ledgers organized by year. Jon looked around and asked, “I wonder if my wife and I could examine some of these volumes for… perhaps the next hour? When we’ve finished, we’ll come to your office.”

“As you wish.” He bowed slightly and left the archives.

“All right, my darling; let’s peruse all this with a passion!” Jon said, exulting in their solitude.

“Oh, of course, Jon; I’m sure we can read all of this in an hour.” She grinned.

Jon chuckled and pulled a book off the shelf. It began with events at the patriarchate in January 1848. Much of it was in a flowing Greek script that was at first difficult to read, but soon Jon had made out several pages. He put the book back where he had found it and said, “Now let’s find the earliest year here.”

Chasing down row after row, he found a really tattered tome with fading leather covers. “It’s from 1503, Shannon, just fifty years after the Muslim conquest.” Then he found another section of the hall devoted to the oldest printed books as well as manuscripts that predated them. He was overjoyed. “We have incunabula here,” he called out. “Incunabula!”

“Great!” She hurried over and looked at the title page. “Fabulous, Jon. Look at the date. It’s 1483!”

“The year Martin Luther was born. He could have read this book.” It was Hartmann Schedel’s Nurnberger Chronica, the great picture book of the Middle Ages. Jon carefully paged through it. Then he laughed. “Never mind that this elaborate woodcut of Padua is exactly the same as that for Verona-here fifty pages earlier.”

“They must have counted on medieval readers having short memories,” Shannon said, smiling.

The manuscripts, however, were Jon’s Holy Grail, the potential treasure that had lured them from Cambridge to Istanbul. They were indexed on a large placard posted over the wider stacks where they were stored. The dates ran back from the 1400s and 1300s to the 600s and 500s. A rippling thrill tingled through Jon, although he realized it would take a much longer visit to know what they contained. Today’s was only a quick survey.

They retraced their steps to Gregorios’s office to extend their thanks and take their leave. “I think we have a general impression of the layout here, good brother,” Jon said. “We have seen it all, haven’t we?”

He nodded. “All but the geniza, of course.”

Jon chuckled at the man’s use of a Hebrew term. “The geniza? I didn’t know you were Jewish! A sacred dump for old Scriptures?”

Brother Gregorios joined in the laughter. “Well, that’s what we call our room for… bad manuscripts-I want to say-for leaves missing from books or… or codices with bindings cracked and pages that are not readable or are too torn to save. We do try to save some of them when we can. And maybe even try to rebuild them-no, what is the word?”

“Rebind them?” Shannon offered.

“Yes, rebind them.”

“And where is your geniza?” Jon asked.

“In the basement.”

“The basement? I hope you have humidity control.”

“Oh yes, the whole library and archives-and basement-are at 48 percent humidity and twenty degrees temperature.”

“Twenty degrees, you say?”

“That’s centigrade, Jon,” Shannon said. “In Fahrenheit it would be about… sixty-eight degrees.”

Jon made a mental note: Think first; speak later.

As they were walking out of the library, Jon did an about-face. The opportunity was simply too good to pass up. He walked back to Gregorios’s office and asked, somewhat sheepishly, “I wonder, good brother-just to complete our tour-if we might briefly visit also the geniza?”

“Well, there’s not much to see there, but… as you wish.”

He led them into the basement. The room was poorly lit. Next to the light switch was a clear plastic cube with temperature and humidity barrel graphs, showing that at least the proper environment was being maintained. As Gregorios had assured them, the temperature was a slightly cool but comfortable twenty degrees Celsius and the humidity was carefully controlled. Otherwise, mold would have blanketed everything in this literary catchall and ruined it.

It was hardly a picture of disciplined order. On the east side of the room were torn books, orphaned printed pages, and empty bindings. In the center was an apparently uncataloged miscellany of dusty manuscripts in partial state of preservation, and at the extreme western edge of the room were stacks of ponderous old tomes bowing the wooden shelves with their weight.

“Ugly as all this appears, Jon,” Shannon said, “I suppose our teams will have to photograph every bit of it?”

“Most of it, I think. There may be some golden nuggets in this junk heap.”

Jon tried to discern the arrangement of materials in the room, but there seemed to be little or none. Shannon walked over to the fat tomes, pulled one off the shelf, and blew dust off it. She opened to the title page, and her eyes widened. “Listen to this, Jon: Omile Hrisostomou, 491-496. That would be Sermons of Chrysostom, AD 491-496, written in Constantinople in 847.”

“Interesting,” Jon said. “Even though we have those sermons elsewhere, a ninth-century codex is nothing to sneeze at.”

“Ye-yes it is!” Shannon snorted in nasal tone, as she inhaled suddenly and let loose with a colossal sneeze. “Sorry. It’s the dust.”

The other ancient tomes offered more sermons by Greek church fathers. Shannon turned to another codex that was almost on the floor, since its weight had bulged the too-thin wooden shelf supporting it. Holding her nose, she blew the dust off the faded calfskin stretched across a thin wooden board cover. “This one looks like it’s fairly complete, although the back cover is missing.” Opening to the title page, she read aloud: “Biblia Beta. Kaine Diatheke tou Kuriou Iesou Christou…”

She read on silently, then asked, “What do you think? This one could be interesting.”

Jon made no response. He was busy in the miscellaneous manuscript section.

“Jon, did you hear me?”

“What’s that, Shannon?”

“We have an interesting title page here, in very elegant lettering.” She repeated the Greek for what, in English, would be “Book Two: The New Testament of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, one of fifty copies.”

Jon hurried over to Shannon’s side and examined the page. His eyes narrowed. He glanced further down the title page and read aloud the rest of the Greek, followed by his translation, as he would write it out later that day in the same relative positioning as the Greek: One of fifty copies commissioned by Caesar Victor Constantinus Maximus Augustus and servant of God who authorized Eusebius Pamphili to have these prepared by his scribes in the church at Caesarea Palaestina and distributed throughout Constantinople in the year 1088 AUC

Jon realized he was breathing heavily. His face grew flushed. His pulse accelerated, and his hand actually trembled as he paged quickly through random sections of the codex. Finally he halted his frenetic paging and stared at her. “My darling,” he began, in what sounded more like gargle than elocution. He cleared his throat and tried again. “Do you have any idea what you’ve found here?”

“Well, Constantine’s name is on it, so it must be significant. But what about that date? Constantine died in 337, but this is from 1088, and we have many materials from the eleventh century.”

“That’s 1088 AUC, Shannon. Ab urbe condita -from the founding of the city.”

“Rome, of course-founded 753 BC!” Shannon recalled. “Okay, so our date is 1088 minus 753 or… AD 335?”

“Right. And that’s exactly when Eusebius says Constantine commissioned him to do this.”

“So this could be the real thing, Jon?”

He slowly shook his head. “I’d hate to be premature, but yes, it could well be.” He broke into a great smile. “It’s well known that Constantine had commissioned Eusebius to prepare fifty elegant copies of Scripture, but none of them has ever been found. And just look at the layout: four handsome columns of beautiful Greek lettering on each page of vellum, just like the Codex Sinaiticus, which dates only a bit later.”

Jon paged further in growing excitement. “Aside from the Sinaiticus, we have only two other codices from that time: the Vaticanus and the Alexandrinus. This is… this could be… well, I’m not given to superlatives. Let’s just say that this might be a… a simply stupendous find. Depending on what the text says, this could… well, it could be a discovery far more important than even the Dead Sea Scrolls! How in the world, Shannon, do you have such off-the-wall great luck, such over-the-top serendipity, that-?”

“Oh, Professor Weber,” said Brother Gregorios, who had just appeared in the doorway, “have you seen enough of our tattered collection?”

“Yes, thank you, good brother.” Then he whispered to Shannon, “Just put this back exactly where you found it.”

On the way back to the hotel, Jon unpacked his strategy. “We had no time to get into the text, Shannon, so telling anyone there what we found would have been totally premature. And foolish! If the thing is authentic-and how in the world could it not be?-it will stun the entire scholarly world. Report it too early, and it would become a cause celebre and complicate any evaluation. We could even be denied further access to it.” If Jon had one questionable habit, it was his proclivity to overexplain things to people, born of many years’ teaching university undergrads, who, in fact, needed his careful reiteration of what might have seemed obvious.

The moment they returned to the Hilton, Jon headed for his laptop, found the folder on the early church fathers, and opened a work by Eusebius called Vita Constantini – The Life of Constantine. He paged through the document until he came to chapters 36 and 37, where he read aloud, for Shannon’s benefit, the dated though colorful translation from The Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers of the Christian Church. It began with Eusebius’s transcription of Constantine’s own letter, written from Constantinople to Eusebius in Caesarea. VICTOR CONSTANTINUS, MAXIMUS AUGUSTUS to Eusebius, It happens, through the favoring providence of God, our Savior, that great numbers have united themselves to the most holy church in the city which is called by my name. It seems, therefore, highly requisite, since that city is rapidly advancing in prosperity in all other respects, that the number of churches should also be increased. Do you, therefore, receive with all readiness my determination on this behalf. I have thought it expedient to instruct your Prudence to order fifty copies of the sacred Scriptures, the provision and use of which you know to be most needful for the instruction of the Church, to be written on prepared parchment in a legible manner, and in a convenient, portable form, by professional transcribers thoroughly practiced in their art. The procurator of the diocese has also received instructions by letter from our Clemency to be careful to furnish all things necessary for the preparation of such copies; and it will be for you to take special care that they be completed with as little delay as possible. You have authority also, in virtue of this letter, to use two of the public carriages for their conveyance, by which arrangement the copies when fairly written will most easily be forwarded for my personal inspection; and one of the deacons of your church may be entrusted with this service, who, on his arrival here, shall experience my liberality. God preserve you, beloved brother.

Jon looked up from the screen in jubilation. “What you found was written on parchment, Shannon. You found one of the fifty. Scholars have been looking for that edition since the early centuries of the church!”

“Yes, but don’t the ‘Scriptures’ ordered by Constantine include the Old Testament? I just found the New.”

“Well, they were supposed to be portable, so they were most likely in two volumes, exactly as the title ‘Book Two’ implies. Anyhow, in the next lines, Eusebius tells how he responded to the emperor’s letter.” Such were the emperor’s commands, which were followed by the immediate execution of the work itself, which we sent him in magnificent and elaborately bound volumes of a threefold and fourfold form. This fact is attested by another letter, which the emperor wrote in acknowledgment…

“‘Threefold and fourfold form’? Whatever can that mean?” Jon wondered.

“Maybe three or four columns of writing per page?” Shannon suggested.

“Why not? Excellent, Shannon! What we saw were four columns per page, and remember how carefully the calfskin cover had originally been tooled? That’s it! That’s one of them!”

Shannon smiled, but her reserve showed that she wasn’t quite ready to celebrate. She shook her head and asked, “But why would they put something so incredibly valuable as that in their junk room?”

“Well, who knows when it landed there? We’ll try to find out. But probably they did it for some stupidly simple reason, such as a missing back cover. That room was full of mangled books.”

“Okay, Jon, let your mind roam. What, finally, is the ‘world-shaking’ importance here? Might it not be simply an early edition of the New Testament that we all know? And if so, what’s the big deal?”

“You know the rule, Shannon: the earlier, the more authoritative. The Bible has come down to us with thousands of tiny variations. None of them amount to a hill of beans, despite sensationalizing claims to the contrary. But now textual scholars will have a tremendous new source to work with in getting us the best possible reading of what the biblical writers actually wrote. And who knows what else we might find in the text? For openers, even issues regarding the Canon come into play here: what books are included in that early New Testament, and which are left out?”

Shannon quickly found Jon’s enthusiasm contagious and said, in a beaming smile, “I bet you’ll have trouble sleeping tonight!”

“You bet, and for the next two nights, my darling, since the debate is tomorrow. But after that, I’m loading up our cameras with freshly charged batteries to photograph every last inch of that incredible document.”

In a great bound, Jon now leaped to the mini fridge in their suite, hauled out a bottle of Dom Perignon, popped the cork, and filled two glasses with bubbly. “I know this is too traditional, sweetheart, but… a toast to Shannon Jennings Weber, amazing archaeologist, scintillating scholar, dauntless discoverer of precious codices, and magnificent mate! By the way, we’ll both have trouble sleeping tonight!”

The night before the debate was indeed rather sleepless for Jon, and not only because he and Shannon were celebrating God’s magnificent gift of marital love-itself a proof of his existence. He was also chagrined to realize that instead of fighting nervous concern over the forthcoming debate, his mind was focused on the ancient codex Shannon had discovered. It was almost as if he had told himself, “Let’s get this debate thing out of the way so I can finally read what’s in that document!”

Now, on the sun-drenched morning of September 3, while their motorcade wound its way to Hagia Sophia, he came to his senses. How selfish, how very solipsistic could he get? Millions across the world would be watching the debate-either live or later on DVD, and over the next hours he had to defend the faith as best he could rather than fixate on a dilapidated manuscript. The Crusaders were unable to succeed militarily against Islam eight centuries in the past; was he, perhaps, supposed to try making up for that intellectually? Then again, he was glad he had not ventilated such wild thoughts to Shannon, for she would have replied, “The faith will survive nicely without your success or failure, dear!” Shannon was God’s gift to Jon for many reasons, not least of which was to keep her husband humble. As the magnitude of the event finally registered with Jon, he wondered why it had taken him so long to invoke divine help. Although he was not in a private oratory but in the midst of urban bedlam, he offered up the most earnest silent prayer of his life.

It was difficult for them to get inside the basilica, since it was surrounded by a host of humanity even an hour before the debate was to begin at 9:30 a.m. The lovely park that extended between Hagia Sophia and the Blue Mosque several blocks to the west had turned into a temporary parking lot for television and communications vans, each sprouting relay dishes aimed toward their counterparts outside the western upper gallery of the basilica.

Surrounded by Turkish gendarmes, Jon’s party made its way through the small west portal into Hagia Sophia. Overhead inside the passageway they saw a magnificent, semicircular mosaic of Constantine offering the city of Constantinople to the Virgin Mother and Jesus. To the right was Justinian, offering Hagia Sophia to the same pair-all against a gleaming background of golden mosaic. Jon offered up another quick prayer to the Christ who received these gifts to bless the debate.

Inside, they walked down a side aisle, under the vast dome overhead, and toward a dais erected at the southern end of the sanctuary. Several times Jon stopped at a given row, exchanging a glad hello with a friend from the States who had made the long trip to Istanbul. Shannon, in fact, had to shoo him on several times.

On the eastern side of the sanctuary, Abbas al-Rashid and his party were approaching the dais. It was the first time Jon had seen his debate partner in the flesh, but he answered well to the many photographs he had seen of the sheikh in the press and on television. He was a fair Islamic counterpart to Jon-the same solid, broad-shouldered frame, medium-tall height, and square-cut visage, but perhaps five years older and with dark hair and deep brown eyes. He was wearing a Western-style suit but with Islamic headdress, perhaps a compromise to please both extremes among his faithful seated in the eastern sector.

As they took their seats in the front row on the opposite side, Jon-almost instinctively and without forethought-got up and walked across the aisle to shake the sheikh’s hand. Abbas unleashed a broad smile and shook Jon’s hand with evident enthusiasm. Both sides of the audience erupted into applause. It was an unanticipated and pleasant touch.

At 9:33 a.m., three men emerged from somewhere in the apse and stepped up to the dais. One of them Jon had already seen emblazoned on the Turkish lira, no less than the president himself-all six feet of him and his trademark mustachioed face that resembled a latter-day Suleyman the Magnificent. He moved to a central microphone and opened in Turkish, then English: “In the name of the Republic of Turkey, it is my privilege to welcome you to Haya Sofya and this important debate between Imam Abbas al-Rashid, the grand sheikh of al-Azhar University in Cairo, Egypt, and Dr. Jonathan P. Weber, professor of Near Eastern studies at Harvard University in Cambridge, USA. To my right is the Muslim mufti of Istanbul, His Excellency Mustafa Selim, who will be one of the moderators, and to my left is His All Holiness Bartholomew II, the Eastern Orthodox Christian Patriarch, who is the other moderator. May Allah-God guide all our proceedings here today.”

He then stepped down from the dais.

The Muslim moderator stood and approached the microphone, directing the audience, again in three languages, to don their headgear. From now on, there would be simultaneous translations of all speakers in the agreed-upon languages of Turkish, Arabic, English, Greek, Farsi, French, German, Spanish, Italian, Russian, and Chinese. The appropriate language would be transmitted via Bluetooth wireless technology to all earphones mounted on the thousands of heads in the audience. The expense for this arrangement-well into six figures-was the gift of a Saudi oil magnate.

Mustafa Selim announced the rules of the debate, which both sides had agreed upon weeks earlier. It would be a much freer exchange than U.S. presidential debates, in which the contest was merely “Who can answer the same question better?” rather than the rough-and-tumble of give-and-take. Next, Patriarch Bartholomew presented a brief commentary on the rules, promising that both moderators would intervene as little as possible and cautioning the audience against raucous responses of any kind, which would result in ejection by government police. Both parties in the debate were then invited to offer brief opening statements.

Abbas won the coin toss but elected to go first. He began with an air of confidence. “I am honored to have this discussion with one of the foremost Christian authorities in the world today, a man whose scholarship is admired by all, including Islamic scholars. But I will try to show him-and the world-that Islam has superseded both Judaism and Christianity as Allah’s, as God’s, greatest, fullest, and final revelation and that the prophet Muhammad-may Allah’s peace and blessing be upon him!-is greater than the other prophets that we both respect, namely Abraham, Moses, and Jesus of Nazareth.

“I will liken Judaism to the elementary school in our knowledge of Allah, Christianity to the secondary or high school, but Islam as the university. I will point out the impossibility that God could be three rather than one or marry a human woman and have a son by her. I will honor Jesus of Nazareth as a great prophet, to be sure, but not as God or the Son of God. Nor was he crucified, as claimed by the Christian Scriptures, which suffered errors early on in their transcription from the original authors.

“I will also demonstrate that Islam has higher moral standards than Christianity, and for that reason Allah has blessed his believers with greater territorial success and conversion rates than Christianity. And at the close of our debate, I hope that Professor Weber will recognize the truth of Allah’s revelations through his holy Prophet-may Allah’s peace and blessing be upon him!-and perhaps even accept the one true religion as proclaimed in the Holy Qur’an.”

At that, Abbas sat down and received thunderous applause from the eastern side of Hagia Sophia.

Jon had taken in every syllable of al-Rashid’s opening statement, parts of which were predictable, others not, such as his opponent’s ingenuous hope for his conversion. Jon squeezed Shannon’s hand and walked to the dais.

Noting the contrast between the two halves of his attentive audience, he began. “I find it a privilege to dialogue with one of the great theologians of Islam. Grand Sheikh Abbas al-Rashid is known not only for his vast knowledge but also for his generosity and wisdom. If you’ll permit a personal reference, his was the major voice in averting great danger from me some months ago due to a mistranslation in one of my books. I remain in your debt, my friend.”

Spirited applause broke out from both sides of the sanctuary, which al-Rashid acknowledged with a gracious nod of appreciation to both Jon and the audience.

Jon resumed. “As a Christian, of course, I will have to maintain that all knowledge about Jesus Christ is far more reliable from contemporary and eyewitness sources rather than from a differing version that first arose six centuries later. I will have to correct some misinterpretations that Islam has about Christianity and its doctrine of the Trinity and affirm that Jesus did indeed die on a cross, and that he rose again as he and the prophets had predicted. I will have to challenge the claim that the Qur’an is God’s greatest revelation-” he heard murmuring from the eastern half of the sanctuary-“and that the Christian Scriptures suffered errors as they were recopied across the centuries.

“While I have great respect for the second largest religion on earth, I shall have to point out problems in the claims of Islam, while finding those of Christianity provable by a massive amount of outside evidence. In any case, I look forward to a fascinating interchange with the grand sheikh.”

As Jon left the podium, parallel applause broke out on the Christian side.

The debate then moved into the format they had agreed to, which was now announced by both moderators: Islam’s problems with Christianity Christianity’s defense Christianity’s problems with Islam Islam’s defense (Both parties are limited to fifteen minutes each in the above segments) A general exchange Final summation: Christianity Final summation: Islam

The moderators also announced the schedule: two morning sessions, separated by a break, and two similar afternoon sessions following an interim for lunch. “And lest anyone complain that this is too long,” Patriarch Bartholomew added in a genial touch, “debates in the past lasted for days, not hours. Martin Luther’s famous debate at Leipzig in 1519, for example, lasted eighteen days. We don’t intend to inflict that on you!” Laughter followed intermittently, depending on the varying speed of the translators.

Jon and Abbas now took their seats, each at the end of a table on the dais so that they could face one other, while the two moderators sat in the middle. Both sides had agreed that only the person speaking at a given time would stand and use a lectern.

Abbas al-Rashid stood and opened with warm enthusiasm. “Thank you, people of all faiths, for joining us today for what we believe will be a very important discussion, which is long overdue. And yet this is not the first time Christians and Muslims have debated their respective beliefs. In fact, major discussions have taken place for the past fourteen centuries, and we are pleased to add our own efforts to that proud tradition.

“As for problems I find in Christianity, let me begin with simple logic and mathematics. The program began today at a specific time-not three different times. And so, if Christianity confesses one God-as do Jews and Muslims-they cannot also confess that God is three. This is not monotheism, but polytheism, specifically, tritheism: the worship of three different gods. To be sure, Christians try to speak of one divine essence and three personalities in what they call the Godhead, but this doctrine of the Trinity, so-called, fails all tests of logic. By no calculation does one equal three, or three equal one. This point alone, I believe, refutes Christianity as a viable religion for any who believe that God is one.”

Loud partisan applause again broke out, until silenced by the moderators. Jon was less than comfortable in realizing that Abbas had immediately attacked the one logical weak point of Christianity. Only the problem of evil was greater, but that was common to all three monotheistic religions. Jon looked at Osman Al-Ghazali to see if the Arabic translator was doing an accurate job. Much of Abbas’s Arabic Jon could understand, but he wanted to be sure. He had had a bitter enough experience with mistranslations! Each time that he heard “Allah” in Arabic, the translator rendered this as “God,” which was perfectly acceptable, since that was the generic term for God in Arabic.

Abbas seemed to press his lips together, perhaps to keep from smiling. He glanced quickly at his notes and then resumed. “We who follow the Prophet-may Allah’s peace and blessing be upon him!-also find it nearly blasphemous that Christians should think that almighty God had a marital affair with a human woman in conceiving Jesus. The sovereign Lord is certainly beyond that sort of thing, unless you equate him with mythologies invented by the Greeks and Romans: Zeus and his many affairs with anyone in skirts in heaven or earth.” He paused briefly for the laughter greeting his remark. “We esteem Mary highly, of course, but we refuse to make her part of the Godhead. We also regard Jesus as a great prophet. Indeed, we believe that he was virgin-born and that he shall return, as he has promised. But to include him in what you call your Trinity? Never!

“And speaking of Jesus, whom we call Isa, we agree that he performed miracles and wonders, but he did so as God’s prophet-no more, no less-a holy man who was so favored by God that he never would have permitted him to suffer such a horrible death as crucifixion, as Christians claim. Never! Allah could not have done that to his faithful prophet. And this very point proves the greater reliability of the Holy Qur’an over the Bible. Your New Testament-all four Gospels-claim that Jesus died at Jerusalem, and he most certainly did not. Sad to say, errors intruded into the Gospels when the manuscripts were recopied across the decades and centuries since, which is why God had to correct the record by revealing to his holy Prophet what truly happened-may Allah’s peace and blessing be upon him.”

Shannon looked carefully at her husband. She noticed a slight tightening of his jaw muscles, although his face registered total neutrality. She knew that hers did not, since she was angry at what she thought a mistaken attack on her faith, and the murmuring behind her from the Christian audience showed that she was not alone in that respect. Osman, sitting to Shannon’s right, merely seemed fascinated by Abbas, while Richard Ferris, on her left, wore an eloquent frown.

Abbas swallowed a sip of water and continued. “And of course, there are many other teachings in Christianity that we cannot accept, such as the supposed resurrection of Jesus. That prophet died a normal, natural death, as did the blessed Muhammad-may Allah’s peace and blessing be upon him!-so no resurrection was needed for either of them. The story that Isa-Jesus-rose from the dead was merely what psychologists call ‘wish fulfillment’ by his partisans, perhaps grieving that he had somehow forsaken them. Furthermore, his supposed suffering and death had no redemptive quality, as the Christians claim, nor are they saved by faith in what never happened. What they call their ‘sacraments’ are fine- if they find comfort in them-but intrinsically they are useless. The water of their ‘baptism’ is just plain water, and if they feel cleaner afterwards, fine. The bread and wine in what they call their ‘Eucharist’ cannot have been ordained by God or Isa, since all strong drink is forbidden in the Holy Qur’an-just another example of how their Scriptures have been corrupted.

“And finally, while many of Jesus’ teachings are noble and we Muslims can support many of them, they do not seem to have had the power of those taught by Muhammad-may Allah’s peace and blessing be upon him-because look at how, generation after generation, century after century, Christians have failed to follow the high moral teachings of their master. If Jesus taught peace, then why did they go to war? If he taught giving to the poor, why did they steal and seek after riches? If he taught the commandments, why did they break them? If he taught purity, why did they indulge in impurity? If he taught humility, why did they prefer pride and adorn their highest officers with embellishments that would have embarrassed their founder?

“It is for these reasons that the teachings of Muhammad-may Allah’s peace and blessings be upon him-clearly have had greater divine sanction than those of Jesus, which is why we regard him not only as greater than Jesus, but as Allah-God’s final revelation for all mankind. Thank you, Professor Weber and everyone here, for your kind attention.”

Thunderous applause erupted from the eastern half of Hagia Sophia, punctuated by cries of “Allahu Akbar!” “God is great!” While Christians sat on their hands, the ovation across the aisle was not only loud but apparently interminable. The clapping and shouting cascaded everywhere, reverberating up to the golden dome, then down across the galleries and reechoing over the entire audience.

Shannon looked pointedly at the moderators. Wasn’t this the sort of emotional display they were supposed to contain? Patriarch Bartholomew finally lifted his gavel and started pounding. His Muslim counterpart seemed hesitant but eventually did the same. The double pounding, augmented electronically, had its effect, and the vast sanctuary stilled to a hush.

She was relieved when Jon stood up to his lectern. Thank goodness they’d hear the truth now. He began, “Thank you, honored Sheikh, for your candor, which is clearly the product of honest conviction. You’ve presented the principal objections Islam finds in Christianity with eloquence, and I’m sure there are more.”

Following the ripple of laughter, he continued. “At this point in our debate, I am to respond to those objections, and the first is certainly of paramount importance, namely what you claim as ‘the mathematical impossibility of the Trinity.’ In fact, in many of the historic encounters between Muslims and Christians across the ages, this doctrine has prompted the most debate.

“I’m reminded of the celebrated discussion between Caliph Muhammad ibn Mansur al-Mahdi of the great Abbasid dynasty and Timothy I, patriarch of the Assyrian Church. This took place in 781, when the caliph opened the debate by asking, ‘If God is one, he is not three; and if he is three, he is not one. What is this contradiction?’ The Christian patriarch replied that the sun also has three dimensions-spherical shape, light, and heat-and yet it remains one sun. Similarly three golden denarii are three in number but one in essence: gold. The one does not contradict the other. But I would add to the patriarch’s explanation the fact that we cannot hope to know and understand the ultimate essence of God, who is so dimensionally different from his creation that the mystery of the Holy Trinity stands at the ultimate threshold of our attempt to understand God with this message: ‘Unless three equals one, thus far, and no further.’ For this very reason Augustine could say, ‘Credo ut absurdum est!’ -‘I believe because it is absurd,’ in the sense that human logic alone could not have ‘invented God,’ as it were.”

Shannon tried to gauge the general reaction. Abbas was merely looking down at the table in front of him, apparently lost in thought. The reaction of the audience was similar. Time to move on, honey.

Jon continued. “As to whether God engaged in any marital act with the Virgin Mary, Christians absolutely agree with you that this would be demeaning to our Lord and certainly did not happen in human fashion. No, not at all. This was clearly spiritual, not physical, as you yourself would agree, since Islam believes that Jesus was born of a virgin. If the begetting of Jesus were physical, carnal, Mary would not have been a virgin.

“As to Jesus’ crucifixion and death in Jerusalem, probably no fact in all of history is better attested to than this one. Not only are the Gospels, the entire New Testament, and all the earliest Christian writers in unanimous agreement on this point, but so is the witness of non-Christian writers, such as the Roman Tacitus, the Jewish historian Josephus, the rabbinical traditions of Judaism, and such pagan philosophers who opposed Christianity as the Neoplatonist Celsus. The plain fact is that no one in the world denied that Jesus was crucified until a Gnostic heretic in Egypt named Basilides did. Whether or not the Prophet Muhammad knew of him is not the point here, but this is: Muhammad’s claim arrived six centuries after Jesus’ crucifixion. Accordingly, the burden of proof on this point must shift to Islam.”

Shannon glanced at the eastern half of the nave and heard a murmuring grumble.

“To the claim that errors intruded into the Christian Scriptures through recopying across the centuries,” Jon continued, “tiny variations in spelling and syntax did indeed occur in the surviving Greek manuscripts of the New Testament. Yet none of these dealt with any doctrines of Christianity or facts regarding the person and statements of Jesus, and not one of these denied that Jesus died on the cross- not one of the 5,700 Greek manuscripts of the New Testament that have come down to us in whole or in part.

“Furthermore, any claim that the biblical documents were subject to error compounding error in recopying was disproven by the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls in 1947, in which two surviving Isaiah scrolls from circa 200 BC were compared with the oldest known manuscript of Isaiah at that time, from AD 1006. The text is 99 percent the same, showing that there was remarkable care and accuracy in recopying biblical manuscripts.

“My worthy opponent also concludes that the resurrection of Jesus never happened, nor was his work redemptive for believers. If, in fact, Jesus never died at Golgotha but lived on, as claimed by Islam, then indeed there was no necessity of any resurrection. But, again, Jesus’ death on the cross is as solid a fact of history as is, say, the hijirah, the flight of the Prophet from Mecca to Medina.”

Angry whispering erupted in the Muslim audience, which seemed to get louder, as if by contagion. Shannon shot a worried glance at her husband. He might have been wiser not to have used the sacred hijirah as a parallel. Speech was not as free in the Muslim world. Looking over to Abbas, she saw Jon’s scholarly opponent apparently unaffected by his statement, merely jotting down notes. When the moderators’ gavels brought silence, Jon resumed.

“As for questioning the resurrection, it is clear that Jesus either did or did not rise from the dead. If he did not, why was his body not found in Jerusalem still occupying the tomb in which he was buried? The authorities there who crucified him would certainly have pointed to his dead body in order to refute claims of his resurrection, if it were available. All the traditional claims of a ‘stolen body’ are worthless in terms both of motive and execution. That Jesus’ tomb was indeed empty is now a sober fact of history.

“My worthy opponent also questioned the efficacy of the church’s sacraments. Christians themselves have differing opinions on whether they are merely symbolic or very powerful means by which God penetrates the lives of believers, the clear majority of Christians favoring the latter interpretation. But I wonder why the grand sheikh claims that God in Christ could not have authorized the Holy Eucharist because wine was involved. The Qur’an claims that in paradise, there will be ‘rivers of wine’-Sura 47:15-and yet sharia law prescribes eighty lashes for one imbibing wine.

“Finally, the argument that Christians do not fully follow the high moral standards of their Founder is very true indeed, and I certainly agree! Unfortunately, however, every religious faith on earth has followers that fail to uphold the high teachings of their respective prophets or founders, and Islam is no exception. I find it strange that my worthy opponent should have accused Christians of making war when, in the present climate, it is the extremist followers of Islam who seem to be the world’s terrorists, inflicting death and destruction in New York City, Washington, D.C., London, Paris, Madrid, Somalia, Afghanistan, India, Indonesia, and elsewhere.

“Add to that the obvious cruelties Muslim jihadists have inflicted on their own kind, such as the Taliban in Afghanistan throwing acid onto the faces of schoolgirls trying to get an education, or mangling a young boy’s arm in Indonesia for stealing a loaf of bread, or the so-called honor killings in which families put to death their own innocent daughters who have been raped. And what about the Iranian who wanted to divorce his innocent wife, so he framed her for adultery and she was stoned to death?

“I hasten to add, however, that Dr. al-Rashid is as bitterly opposed to radical Islam as is the rest of the world, for which I am extremely grateful and will always call him my friend. But I note from the moderators that my time has expired. Thank you, ladies and gentlemen, for your kind attention.”

Jon sat down to waves of powerful applause from the Christian side, along with cries of “Hear! Hear!” Shannon breathed a sigh of relief. It seemed the first volleys had been exchanged with minimal bloodshed. Mercifully, it was also time for the first morning break. Black Turkish coffee only exacerbated the limitations of the human bladder.

Inevitably, the break lasted longer than the appointed twenty minutes, but by 11 a.m., all had returned to their seats. It was now time for Jon to air what Christians found amiss in Islam, an area in which he knew he would have to thread his way very carefully across a field strewn with traps and mines. It wasn’t fair, of course. In the free West, anyone could say outrageous things about Christianity and not only be tolerated, but even be applauded for it, while in the Middle East-as Jon had learned from personal experience-one wrong phrase regarding Islam could set off riots, destruction, and even death. Still, the truth must come out, Jon decided, as he began.

“Some of the problems that Christians see in Islam have already been cited in my response to those that Islam finds in Christianity, so they need not be repeated here. Basically, we must question the revelations that Muhammad claims to have received from the angel Gabriel.” As he’d anticipated, this statement met with murmuring from the eastern contingent. “But in this we are only following the Prophet himself, who also questioned his early revelations until firmed up in his beliefs by his wife Khadijah.

“We also find difficulties in the life of Muhammad that we do not find in the life of Jesus. One of them involves wives, that is, those after the death of Khadijah, to whom Muhammad was always faithful. Jesus had no wives, but the Prophet had twelve. My distinguished opponent will point out that the patriarchs in the Old Testament also practiced polygamy, but the real point here is one of consistency. While the Prophet limited the number of wives a man might have to four, he himself chose twelve. Someone has well said, ‘No true prophet must ever exempt himself from his own mandates.’”

Again, murmuring-this time a bit louder than before.

“As for claims that the Holy Qur’an is God’s final and greatest revelation, Christians find that problematical because the book contains inconsistencies that seem incompatible with the perfection of God. In Sura 7:54, for example, we are told that the world was created in six days. Fine. Yet in Sura 41:9-12, we are told that it took God two days. Again, in Sura 2:256 we have the noble statement: ‘There is no compulsion in religion.’ Excellent! Yet Sura 9:29 advises, ‘Fight those who do not believe in Allah.’ And of course, when one of the most documented facts of history-the crucifixion and death of Jesus-is denied, then one must naturally question the source of such denial.”

At this point, the murmuring took on a distinctly angry tone.

“Your great Shahada -‘There is no God but God, and Muhammad is his Prophet’-is excellent in terms of leading people to one God, but it has also led to the belief that Muhammad is God’s only prophet or at least his greatest prophet. But please contrast Jesus and Muhammad. Christians believe that Jesus performed miracles and rose from the dead. Muhammad did neither. His immediate successor, Abu Bakr, said at the Prophet’s funeral in Mecca: ‘If you are worshipers of Muhammad, know that he is dead. If you are worshipers of God, know that God is alive and does not die.’

“Finally, Christians find the sharia law set forth in the Qur’an to be demeaning to women-placing them helplessly under male control with only half the rights of men. Punishments mandated in sharia also seem excessively brutal: cutting off a hand for stealing, stoning a woman to death for adultery, ‘honor killings’ to which I referred earlier, and, worst of all, the penalty for conversion from Islam is death.”

“AND YOU ALSO DESERVE TO DIE!” a voice shouted in plain English from nearby, Die… die… die echoing and reverberating across the marble walls of Hagia Sophia.

Now a young Muslim stood up in a row very near the dais. He clenched a fist held high and shouted, “You are a satanic infidel whom Allah will surely strike down, Weber, and then condemn you to hell where you belong! Your days are numbered, Web-”

The voice was instantly silenced when Turkish police rushed in, grabbed the man, and gagged him, then hustled him out of the basilica. But a great commotion had arisen as a result, which ended with the banging of two gavels.

“You may continue, Professor Weber,” Patriarch Bartholomew said.

“No, I’ve finished my response, honored moderators.” Jon sat down and looked to Shannon, but her lovely face was warped with concern. Osman and Richard on either side of her, however, were smiling and flashing Jon thumbs-up signals.

Abbas al-Rashid stood with an enormous frown and opened, “As for the terrible interruption just now, ladies and gentlemen, you have just heard Islam at its worst! And yet this was not Islam at all, which is a religion of submission to Allah and respect for humanity, but a misguided fanatic who thought he was a Muslim. I apologize to you, Professor Weber!”

A humble bow accompanied his words, but Jon shook his head, held up his hands, and said, “It is nothing!”

Abbas’s features relaxed into a warm smile as he took up the defense of Islam against points that Jon had raised. “My worthy opponent questions the revelations given to the Prophet-may his name be blessed-because Muhammad himself questioned them at first. But of course he did, which is exactly what one would expect of a very rational person not given to delusions. The very questioning proves his rationality, and I am grateful for it. Clearly, Allah provided his wife Khadijah to reassure the Prophet-may his name be blessed-perhaps much as he sent Aaron along with Moses to confront the pharaoh of Egypt.

“Now, regarding wives, the Hebrew Bible-which Christians call the Old Testament-does indeed provide us precedents. With David having ten wives and Solomon supposedly a thousand, one need not quarrel over just twelve for the final prophet in their line.”

Jon squirmed as the audience laughed, regretting that he had ever raised the wives issue against his earlier intentions. Never mind that Abbas had deftly dodged his main argument-the issue of Muhammad’s inconsistency-he had evoked laughter, which would endear the audience and win points while making Jon look foolish. Abbas was shrewd, no doubt about it!

He continued. “My worthy colleague questions the Holy Qur’an because of ‘inconsistencies’ he claims to find in its pages. Well, so be it. There are contradictions also in the Bible, as in every literary work, whether written by man or God. But this is no problem whatever, since Islam alone provides the solution.”

Abbas reached for a copy of the Qur’an lying on the table, picked it up, and said, “I read from Sura-that is, chapter 2, verse 106: ‘Whatever communications we abrogate or cause to be forgotten, we bring one better than it or like it. Do you not know that Allah has power over all things?’ Clearly, then, the later statements of Allah in the Qur’an replace the earlier statements in every point of perceived disagreement.”

Applause broke out in the eastern half of the sanctuary, which was promptly silenced by the moderators.

“However, there is no disagreement in the Holy Qur’an that Jesus escaped death on the cross. No, not at all. Again I read, this time from Sura 4:57: ‘They killed him not, nor crucified him, but so it was made to appear to them, and those who differ therein are full of doubts with no certain knowledge… for of a surety they killed him not.’ Do you see, Professor Weber, the historical references that you cite thought Jesus had been crucified-‘so it was made to appear to them.’ Allah would never have permitted his faithful servant Isa to endure this. God would not allow any of his prophets to be killed.

“And now to Jesus and Muhammad-two great prophets. You seemed to deny that Muhammad could perform miracles. But our hadith-our traditions-tell us that once when the Prophet was asked, ‘Why don’t you do miracles as did Jesus?’ he responded by holding his thumb and index finger around the full moon, then passing his other index finger through the middle of the orb, and half the moon fell east of Mecca, and the other half fell to the west. No, I don’t believe that this physically happened, but the miracle is that bystanders saw exactly that-which is a miracle. And what of the Prophet’s miraculous midnight ride from Mecca to Jerusalem and up to heaven and back?”

Good heavens! Jon thought to himself. Can Abbas really believe all that-this rare voice of Muslim moderation? And yet if I poke fun at such credulity, the place will go up in flames. He must just be trying to please his own right wing. That, in fact, seemed to be the case, since Abbas hurried on to the next point. “How shall I respond to my colleague’s concerns as to how sharia law is being applied today and how women have been treated in Islam? I would ask you all to prepare for a shock… I agree with him! Yes, I agree with him!”

Amid rumblings of surprise, he declared, “The words of the Prophet-may his name be blessed-have been followed too literally by some in the world of Islam, who forget that he was often speaking to followers in very difficult military situations, rather than laying down rules to be observed at all times and places. This is no more and no less than the same problems Christians have with how they interpret some of the words of Jesus, who also often spoke harshly. He said, for example, ‘If your eye offend you, pluck it out!’ I sincerely hope that no Christian would be insane enough to take that advice literally.

“And so, I would like to close this phase of our discussion on an irenic note: Professor Weber and I have much in common, since we both oppose any hateful fanaticism in religion that would lead believers to think that violence is obedience to Allah’s, to God’s, commands. It is not!

“Thank you, ladies and gentlemen.”

Both sides of the sanctuary now joined in spirited applause, which grew even louder after Jon and Abbas shook hands.

It was now noon, and time for lunch.

In order to avoid the press and the crowds, Click, Clack, and a detail from the CIA and the Turkish special police escorted Jon, Shannon, Richard, and Osman through a small exit in the southern apse of Hagia Sophia and into several black Mercedes sedans. They were whisked eastward around the basilica and into the gates of the Topkapi Palace grounds, where walking tourists parted ranks to let them drive by. Stopping at the eastern end of the enclave, they descended a steep flight of stairs to the Konyali Topkapi restaurant and its beautiful view overlooking the Bosporus. Here they all sat down at outdoor tables in an area separated from the rest of the restaurant terrace.

Osman and Dick were ebullient over the first half of the debate. Ferris, in fact, gave Jon a big hug and ordered champagne. Shannon was finally smiling again too, though she voiced her apprehension over the fanatic who had yelled his hatred inside the basilica. Kemet Bankasi, one of their Turkish liaisons, overheard her and said, “Again, we’re very sorry about that. He turned out to be a young student from Bodrum who is studying under a radical cleric there.”

“But how did he ever get a seat so near the front?” Dick Ferris asked.

“That’s still a mystery. He wouldn’t tell police, but it could be as simple as using a chair that was unoccupied for some reason. We thought we had screened everyone properly, but-well, one in eight thousand isn’t a bad average, is it?”

They all chuckled.

In discussing strategy for the afternoon, the talk was so spirited that they barely noticed the delicious seafood luncheon the chef had specially prepared. Jon passed on the champagne, since he wanted to keep all his wits in gear for rounds three and four.

Ferris’s cell phone rang, and he excused himself from the table. Minutes later, he returned, wearing a big grin. “The debate won’t air in the States until 3 p.m. our time, which is 8 a.m. Eastern time in the U.S. But Europe’s just an hour behind, and the BBC is reporting a huge audience. They even set up big projection screens at various points in London-Waterloo Station, Trafalgar Square, St. Paul’s-you name it. The same with Television Francaise. And at the Reichstag in Berlin, they even suspended a morning meeting of the Bundesrat so all could watch.”

“No riots so far?” Jon asked almost timidly.

“Not that I’ve heard.” Then he added, impishly, “And that’s all due, of course, to the high plane on which the debate is taking place.”

“Well, we’ll change all that this afternoon. That’s when we take our gloves off, so prepare for fireworks!”

“Jon…” Shannon’s plaintive tone was corrective enough.

“Just hyperbole, dear,” he soothed. Though maybe not, he mused.

By 2 p.m., all had reseated themselves inside the immense basilica, having lunched at hundreds of different eateries in the heart of Istanbul. Although Jon half expected the audience to diminish-who watched all-day debates anymore?-this time it was the opposite. Even the crowds outside had swelled. All seemed to know that the fun was about to begin. This would be the open, free, unstructured segment of the debate, in which the moderators promised to intervene as little as possible. Abbas, Jon, Bartholomew, and Selim had reminded one another of that agreement moments before the debate resumed, and the moderators opened the afternoon half of the debate by reminding the audience of that arrangement as well.

Again, Abbas al-Rashid seemed interested in starting off. “Dr. Weber, your explanation of the Christian Trinity is interesting in terms of how you illustrated it with the sun, or gold, or whatever, but I find it less than convincing. Please, once again, kindly explain how one can equal three. The word Trinity is not even in your Bible.”

The Trinity again, Jon reflected, then replied, “You are absolutely correct, Dr. al-Rashid. The term was first used by our church father Tertullian, but it faithfully reflects both the unity of God as well as his ‘plurality’ as Creator, Savior, and Sanctifier, qualities that we find all over the Old and New Testaments.”

Jon went on to cite the appropriate passages, then marshaled the traditional and philosophical evidence Christians have always used. The bottom line, in any case, was that mathematics alone stands as a warning sign that-unless one equals three-humanity, this side of eternity, cannot hope to probe the essence of God who is dimensionally different from his creation. “But permit me, honored Imam, to deal with the most significant problem that Christians have with Islam. It is so basic that all the other difficulties we find become secondary to this one.”

“Indeed? I look forward to hearing it!”

“And that, of course, is the role of Jesus and what happened to him in Jerusalem on the day we call Good Friday. To deny his crucifixion flies in the face of all historical evidence. You explained that as best you could, by claiming that ‘it was made to appear’ that he was on the cross. This, however, will simply not do. It would have required something of a mass hallucination on the part of all bystanders at Golgotha-which was not possible. And what about the Roman executioners? The Romans were grimly efficient when it came to executions: no one escaped.”

“With Allah, everything is possible. But you, worthy Professor, claimed that there are no records stating that Jesus did not die by crucifixion, other than that Basilides person. I fear you are mistaken on that point. The Gospel of Barnabas reports that someone else took Jesus’ place on the day of crucifixion and that Jesus escaped death. Now, the-”

“Honored Sheikh, The Gospel of Barnabas is a medieval forgery! It has no historical value whatever.”

“Well, perhaps a forgery based on facts, on a true secret tradition of what actually happened.”

Jon simply shook his head. “As I recall, one reason you deny Jesus’ crucifixion was because God would not allow such a punishment for one of his faithful prophets. Well, there we have a problem. Quite a few of God’s prophets have indeed suffered and died for his sake despite their faithfulness. Elijah had to run for his life, Jeremiah was cast into a pit, Zechariah was stoned to death, and John the Baptist was beheaded.”

“Well, Jesus was perhaps a favorite son among the prophets. In any case, you Christians have been fearfully wrong in turning him into a god, when there is no God but God.”

“What about Jesus’ own claims to deity?”

“He never made them. This is only another example of how your Scriptures have been corrupted, or, to phrase it better, an example of how errors have intruded into their texts when manuscripts were recopied. In fact, here is what Jesus did say on this subject.” Abbas picked up his Qur’an, paged through it, and said: “Here it is. I quote from Sura 5:116: “Then God will say, ‘Jesus, son of Mary, did you ever say to mankind, “Worship me and my mother as gods besides God”?’ Jesus will answer, ‘Glory be to You. I could never have claimed what I have no right to. If I had ever said so, You would surely have known it… I told them only what You bade me. I said, “Serve God, my Lord and your Lord.”’”

Al-Rashid closed the book and looked directly at Jon.

Jon again shook his head and said, “Jesus would never, ever have said, ‘Worship my mother and me as gods.’ This drastically violates everything we know regarding his relationship with his mother, Mary, and so-”

“So you agree with me, then?”

“No, I do not. In his ministry, Jesus took great care to distance himself somewhat from his mother, most probably so that any worship of his mother would never take place. Accordingly, God could never have asked a question like that.”

“But the Holy Qur’an says that God will ask Jesus this question.”

“And our Holy Bible shows that it would be utterly impossible for God to ask Jesus a question like that, especially in view of everything we know about God, Jesus, and Mary from the pages of the New Testament.”

“So, then, you also deny that Jesus ever said or ever would say what the Holy Qur’an plainly states are his very words?”

“Yes, I simply must deny that Jesus ever said, or ever would say, the words that you quoted.”

“Then are you calling the Prophet-may his name be blessed-a liar ?”

“No-” Jon started to reply but was forced to pause as loud, agitated murmuring arose from the crowd. He raised his voice a bit. “No, I would never call him a liar. Muhammad did not write down those words himself, since he could neither read nor write. They were first written down-as the Qur’an-under his successor Caliph Uthman twenty years after his death. How can we be sure that those were the actual words of the Prophet?”

This prompted an even louder drone of disapproval until silence returned when the crowd seemed eager to hear Abbas’s response.

“It is an article of faith in Islam that they actually were the Prophet’s words-may his name be blessed. And certainly the same could be said about the words of Jesus in the Gospels. He never wrote them down.”

“This is true enough, Dr. al-Rashid. But the overwhelming evidence of the different followers of Jesus who wrote down his words is consistent in reporting what he said. Many were eyewitnesses. The same cannot be said for a source six centuries after Jesus.”

Silence followed. It was a very powerful argument, not because Jon had come up with it, but because it was simple, logical, historical fact.

Finally Abbas responded, “I must prefer the true and final revelation of God himself in the Holy Qur’an against that of human beings, whether they wrote as eyewitnesses or were removed even thousands of years from what they reported.”

Jon waited out the inevitable applause from the Muslim half of the audience, then replied, “I respect you for your faith, worthy Imam.” He suppressed what he wanted to add: even though no historian in the world would agree with you. What he did add was: “And I trust that you will respect mine.”

The moderators rang a bell, indicating that it was time for the midafternoon break. Both sides of the sanctuary offered applause, clearly enthusiastic enough to exceed what was merely routine or polite.

Jon’s luncheon group, along with their detail from the Turkish police and the CIA, retired to what would have been the green room in any other public venue, but at Hagia Sophia it had to be a robing room in the apse of the basilica. More than anything else, Jon wanted to hear Osman al-Ghazali’s reaction to the afternoon debate, thus far. As a convert from Islam, his opinions were of utmost importance.

“Brilliant defense of the faith, Jon,” he opened. “And you really scored some potent points against Islam. By the way, it seems that most of the national television networks in the Muslim countries are making use of Al Jazeera’s feed from their big camera crew in the east balcony.”

“Great. But why are you frowning?”

“Oh, was it that noticeable? Well, I’m… just a little concerned…” His voice trailed off.

“Concerned about…?”

“Well, during the debate, I’ve been watching the other side very carefully, particularly several of their well-known mullahs whom I recognized, sitting near the front. Some Shiites were there too. One, in fact, was Ayatollah al-Kazim from Tehran, not the one who laid a fatwa on your head, but his lieutenant. And then there was Imam Chasbullah, who evidently came all the way from Indonesia, Amir Ahmad Riza Khan from Pakistan too. Among the Sunnis there were several princes from the royal family in Saudi Arabia, as well as a big Egyptian delegation-mainly faculty colleagues of al-Rashid. But I digress. My concern is this: every time you scored a debating point against Islam, I watched their reaction. We’re talking narrowing of the eyes, clenching fists, and corrugated foreheads. Lots of frowning, too.”

“You mean they weren’t exactly applauding me?” Jon quipped with a wink to Shannon that was intended to forestall any worry on her part.

“Well, put it this way: I wouldn’t want to break bread with any of them afterward.”

“Hadn’t really planned to, Osman.” Jon looked up. “Uh-oh, here comes Ferris with that cell phone molded to his left ear.”

“Hi, team,” he said. “Our debate’s been on for an hour now in the States. It’s replacing the morning shows on NBC and CBS, with ABC cutting in from time to time on Good Morning America. CNN is covering everything from gavel to gavel, but with a commentary team that’s half-Christian and half-Muslim.”

“Excellent!” Jon said. “I’ll bet watching that would be more fun than the actual debate!”

“Yeah, but-” Ferris’s face fell a bit-“the NBC studios at Rockefeller Center received a bomb threat from someone who called in with a Middle Eastern accent.”

Shannon bit her lip and glanced at Jon with a look that all but shouted, I knew something like this would happen!

“What are they doing about it?” Osman wondered.

“Well, they have to take it seriously, of course,” Ferris replied, “but that sort of thing is quite routine nowadays, unfortunately.”

“We have to go back shortly,” Jon said. “Any further advice, Osman?”

“Just beware of any traps that al-Rashid may try to set for you. If you’re caught in one, he could win the debate. I’d only suggest that you continue walking that tightrope, Jon. You have to defend the faith, of course, but try to do it as diplomatically as you can-”

“Without enraging the other side. Got it, Osman.” Blasted restraint, he almost muttered. How I’d love to cut loose!

On the way back to the dais, Jon weighed the obvious. They were now on the last lap. What if he got tired-or impatient-and let his guard down? One ill-chosen phrase, evidently, could ignite the Islamic world. Again that dreadful double standard: Curse Christ as much as you wish in the West, or draw caricatures of his church, or place a crucifix in a pan of urine and call it art (duly funded by the government), and you easily get away with it. Try the same with Islam or Muhammad and you’re dead!

Just before stepping onto the dais, Jon looked at row ten on the Christian side of the sanctuary, because it seemed to be filled with Roman collars. And on the aisle, whom should he see but the wonderfully familiar face of Kevin F. X. Sullivan, “my personal ambassador to the Vatican,” Jon often told friends. He immediately walked over, and they exchanged several slaps on the back.

“And what brings you to Istanbul, Kev?” Jon asked. “Converting to Eastern Orthodoxy, are you?”

“Right! But only when you return to Mother Church, Jon. The Holy Father sends you his blessings.”

“And mine to him, Kev. Gotta run. What’re you doing for dinner?”

“No special plans.”

“Great! We’re at the Hilton. Say 7 p.m.?”

Before Kevin could answer, Jon had to return to the dais. But he looked back and saw his friend flashing a thumbs-up sign.

The moderators now announced that the same, freewheeling dialogue would govern the final session of the debate, with a minimum of their interference. Applause actually broke out at that point, which both the patriarch and the primate took graciously.

“I have a question for you, Professor Weber,” Abbas al-Rashid began. “What in Islam do you find the most difficult doctrine to accept?”

Clever, Jon thought. Makes Abbas look like he’s ready for anything, while luring me out on a dangerous limb. Why didn’t I think of that one first? Jon finally opened his mouth and said, “The doctrine of abrogation.”

Abbas looked puzzled. “The doctrine of abrogation?”

“Yes, the idea that God could lay down one precept and then-in what is claimed as a subsequent revelation-change his mind and say something entirely different. I find that demeaning to God’s perfection.”

“But the later command is an improvement on the previous one, as Allah tells us. Isn’t that gracious of the Divine Majesty?”

At that point, Jon had to bite his tongue, for he wanted to say, Well, why didn’t the deity get it right the first time? Didn’t he have a second cup of coffee that day? What he actually said was “One only wonders why anything that God did or said would need improvement.” This was met with applause from the Christian contingent. Then he added, in tit for tat, “And what in Christianity do you find the most difficult doctrine to accept, esteemed Imam?”

“Two claims, really,” he replied. “The Trinity, of course, is still incomprehensible to any Muslim. But the other is what you Christians call the doctrine of the Incarnation, that the God of the universe could have taken on human flesh in Jesus. That is impossible by any standards and is far more demeaning to God than the idea of God improving on his commands.”

“Well said! And I certainly agree that the Trinity and the Incarnation are the two greatest mysteries, the two greatest miracles of the Christian faith. Again, though, I side with Augustine who said, ‘I believe because it is absurd’-absurd to human logic, to be sure, but our minds are so dimensionally different from that of God that what seems absurd to us may be entirely logical in the divine dimension. And what greater revelation could God give us than to cross the cosmic divide into humanity, forming the divine bridge by which we can truly know God and experience the blessings of having our sins forgiven by faith in the suffering, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ?”

“Very well, then, let me ask you the most important question any Muslim can ask of anyone else. May I?”

“Of course.” Here it comes, Jon thought, with no idea how it might be defined.

Al-Rashid asked, “What is your true opinion, your honest opinion of the Prophet Muhammad-may his name be blessed?”

A sudden, tense silence filled the vast reaches of Hagia Sophia. Well, it was dynamite, Jon realized. Or better, his tightrope was now stretched across the caldera of a volcano bubbling with hot lava and threatening to explode whether or not he fell off the tightrope first. What he wanted to say was not what he could say at that place and time. Yet he had to be honest.

Jon smiled. “I have many good things to say about the Prophet Muhammad.” A loud stirring on both sides of the aisle showed that he had startled the entire audience. He paused to let the strange tidings digest, then continued. “First of all, he led his people away from the terrible error of paganism, polytheism, and their worship of many different desert deities to monotheism, since there can be only one God. Belief in the one God sets Judaism, Christianity, and Islam apart from all other world religions then or since. We surely have that in common.”

“Well said!” al-Rashid replied. “I heartily agree.”

“Muhammad also taught people to abandon idolatry and other sad practices of paganism. He taught them spiritual disciplines, such as prayer, fasting, and concern for the poor, and he set higher ethical standards than had previously been the case among the desert tribes of Arabia. His reforms aimed in the right direction, for example, reducing the number of wives a man might have to only four. Previously, there had been no limit.”

“Again I must agree. Well spoken. Why, then, can you not also become my brother in the true faith? All you must do is define Jesus correctly as one of the greatest of the prophets, yet less than God-and thus restore unity in place of trinity. But are there any other reasons you cannot join us?”

“Yes, there are. But first I must thank you for your fraternal spirit. We need much more of that in Muslim-Christian dialogue. There are indeed many other reasons that I cannot follow Islam, but a single day’s debate is not long enough to air them. Since our time is expiring, let me mention only one. I find it extremely unwise to hazard my entire spiritual future by believing in one person’s claimed revelation, whether that person be man or woman, boy or girl. What if that one person should be wrong? And I do believe that every religion founded by just one person has indeed been mistaken.”

At the loud Muslim murmuring, al-Rashid held up his hands for silence, then replied, “Well, I would agree with you in the case of Zoroaster, or Gautama Buddha, or Mithra, or Joseph Smith, or Mary Baker Eddy-all single founders-but you have just admitted, then, that Christianity is false, since it was founded by one man: Jesus of Nazareth.”

“No, my honored opponent! Christianity had many founders who lived and taught God’s revelation across many centuries. We believe the testimony of God’s patriarchs and prophets in the Old Testament, who predicted matters that were fulfilled with incredible accuracy many centuries later. We believe the further testimony of God’s evangelists and apostles and missionaries in the New Testament, as well as in the ultimate embodiment of God’s revelation in Jesus Christ. Now that is what we call a whole ‘cloud of witnesses’ who can be trusted since their testimony is unanimous.”

Spirited Christian applause filled the basilica.

The moderators now tinkled their bells, indicating that it was time for a final summation by each side. Al-Rashid was given the favored position of having the last word, due to the essentially Muslim environment.

Jon started his summation with a surprising twist. “I am most grateful to everyone in this basilica for your attendance and for your patience, as well as to all who had a hand in preparing this event. I don’t think a final summary of the Christian position is necessary at this point, since that should be quite obvious by now. Instead, I would like to close with an urgent appeal for further dialogue and tolerance between Muslims and Christians. Both sides have been guilty of failures in this respect. In the West, we’ve been traumatized by radical Islam-especially since 9/11-and so there the debate rages as to whether Islam is a religion of peace or violence.

“The answer, of course, is yes, meaning that one can find both in the Qur’an. Yet so often when Muhammad advocated violence it was more in the form of a general inspiring his troops prior to actual warfare, since the Prophet had been attacked militarily. Does anyone think that-were Muhammad alive today-he would have condoned the attacks in New York or Washington, the subway bombings in London and Madrid, the assassinations in Beirut, the bombings of mosques in Pakistan, the murderous rampage in Mumbai, and dozens of other acts of Islamic terrorism across the world?”

“Never! He would not have!” al-Rashid interposed.

Jon smiled and continued. “And so I would plead that the great moderate majority in Islam across the world become far more vocal, far more active in curbing the incendiary rhetoric of radical mullahs and other militants who preach violence. I would plead that their governments become far more active in eradicating terrorist cells in their own nations and elsewhere. These fanatics have killed far more of their own Muslim brothers and sisters than the Western Christians they have targeted!

“To be sure, Christians in history have also failed to follow the teachings of the Prince of Peace. But in general, our period of religious violence ended centuries ago. Today, we do not see Christian or Jewish terrorists blowing up Islamic mosques, do we? Sadly, the reverse is often the case, which is why I would rejoice to see a true Islamic reformation take place in terms of the same mature moderation now achieved in both Judaism and Christianity. If you forget everything else in our discussion today, please remember this vision, this plea.

“Thank you, ladies and gentlemen.” Amid applause that bordered on ovation, Jon sat down.

Abbas al-Rashid stood with slow deliberation and said, “I, too, thought of using this summation to ‘win for Islam,’ as it were, but I agree so thoroughly with my opponent’s plea for peace, dialogue, and moderation that I am pleased to say that I agree with his statements in almost every respect. Even in the Christian West, however, we also hear radical voices denouncing Muslims as ‘camels’ or ‘towel heads.’ This is not to say that our radicalisms are the same. Ours, I must confess, are far more violent, far more dangerous, and far more in need of correction.

“For that reason and others, I join with Professor Weber in appealing to all Muslim authorities in both state and religion to denounce radical Islam, to curb terrorism, and finally to end it. They must admit this truth to their people: that terrorism has never-anywhere in history or anywhere on earth -succeeded in establishing a successful government or society. Its history instead has been one of bloodshed, civil upheaval, anarchy, and general chaos. For that reason, reason itself must prevail. If it does, I have great hopes for another golden age for Islam-as was the case in the Abbasid era, for which I was named-but only if it escapes the clutches of those who would restrict it. These are the same false leaders who have prevented Muslim progress in so many fields in the centuries since. I hope people of goodwill everywhere may support this effort.

“Thank you, ladies and gentlemen, Christians and Muslims alike, for your presence at our discussion today.”

Al-Rashid received applause similar to what Jon had evoked, though actually more from the Christian than the Muslim audience. In the eastern half, some had refused to applaud, especially Shiite representatives. Abbas and Jon walked toward each other, met near the center of the table on the dais, shook hands, and then actually embraced. Instantly, the applause became a vast, genuine ovation.

Punctual as always, Monsignor Kevin Sullivan was in the chandeliered lobby of the Hilton at 7:05 p.m., when Jon and Shannon stepped off the elevator. This time nattily attired in clerical grays, the dark-haired, ruddy-faced son of Ireland gracefully kissed Shannon’s hand and then squeezed Jon’s.

“We really wanted to take you over to the Sultan’s Table on the Golden Horn, Kev,” Jon said, “but the CIA vetoed it-especially tonight-so we’ll have to make do with the hotel restaurant.”

“The Bosphorus Terrace? Not a bad alternate! Hey, kabobs and beer would do. This time it’s the company, not the food.”

The maitre d’ seated them next to a sliding-glass door overlooking the city, and the conversation lagged not a moment from that time on. In fact, they hurried their drink order for one bottle of local merlot so they could get on with it. The three had been through several extraordinary adventures together recently that could massively have affected the Christian faith, and they wondered if this would be another.

“You turned in a virtuoso performance today, Jon,” Kevin observed. “The Holy Father was particularly pleased-I was on the phone with him an hour ago-and if only you were a good Catholic, I really think he’d give you a red hat!”

“Hmm… Jonathan Cardinal Weber,” Shannon said. “It does have a nice ring to it, doesn’t it?”

“Ah, but then I’d have to give you up, Shannon,” Jon said, “and become a solitary celibate like Kevin!”

“And you’d never want that, Jon!” Kevin played along. “The beautiful Shannon alone is worth your staying Lutheran.” After smiles and chuckles, Kevin grew serious. “I’ll say again, this was an important day in the fourteen-century interface between Christianity and Islam, and you did our faith proud.”

Jon shook his head. “Both you and I know that I could have hauled out some really heavy artillery against Islam, but I had to limit myself to a handgun. And you know why.”

Kevin nodded, pensively.

Shannon said, “I think when the debate comes out on DVD and especially in printed form, it may pack even more power. Any word on how it was received in Rome, Kevin, apart from Benedict XVI, that is?”

“Well, I also spoke with Cardinal Buchbinder, the Vatican Secretary of State, and he told me business nearly ground to a halt today, with everyone hooked to a TV screen. Same for the general public in Italy, I understand, since Radiotelevisione Italiana covered everything. But, thank God, no riots anywhere so far.”

“And you can thank Jon’s pulled punches for that,” Shannon commented.

When they had ordered the main course, Jon shifted the conversation. “Okay, team, enough about the debate. Frankly, I’m debated out. But now,” he said grandly, “let us tell you, Kevin, about the fabulous thing that happened this week, and it’s not the debate…”

Kevin looked at him quizzically. Shannon had a slight smile on her lips.

“But before we tell you, we’ll need your pledge to keep this absolutely confidential for now, okay?”

At Sullivan’s emphatic nod, Jon said, “Do you see that lovely proof for God’s existence sitting at our table?” All eyes focused on Shannon, a slight flush tinting her cheeks. “That woman with the face of an angel also has the mind of a Solomon and the luck of the Irish. Please start off, Shannon. Begin with Pella.”

Hardly needing any persuasion, Shannon eagerly unpacked her discovery in Jordan, capping it off with her find in the basement of the Eastern Orthodox Patriarchate. In the telling, Kevin’s eyes grew wide, and when she told of the title page identifying the codex as one of the fifty copies of Scripture ordered by Constantine, his jaw dropped open.

“My… my goodness,” he stammered. “That could revolutionize New Testament scholarship! Up to now, among the great uncials, our earliest are the Vaticanus, the Sinaiticus, and the Alexandrinus. But this version-authorized by Constantine and prepared by Eusebius, no less-would easily trump them all. This is a… a scholar’s dream !”

Kevin pushed what was left of his juicy filet to one side of the plate and seemed to grow incandescent with excitement. “Okay, we have the title page, but what about the rest of the text? What’s the format? How many columns per page? How many lines per column? What books are inclu-”?“We don’t know, Kevin,” Shannon said. “Or rather, we don’t know yet -except for four columns per page.”

“What in very blazes do you mean?”

Jon explained. “Just as we were ready to get into the text, the curator of the archives returned, and we instinctively ‘covered our tracks,’ as it were. Maybe we should have been open about it from the start, but then, I think, the patriarch would have invited his Greek scholars by the dozens to pore over the codex, and we could have been last in line.”

Kevin nodded. “I think you did the right thing.”

“But now you’ll start to understand that, ever since Shannon found that codex a couple days ago, my mind has been there and not on the debate.”

“Well, your mind on autopilot doesn’t do a bad job. But when are you going back to examine that codex and photograph its pages?”

“Tomorrow morning, of course.”

“Great! I have to fly back to Rome tomorrow, but do keep me informed, Jon, and let me know when I can tell the Holy Father.”

“Right, but only if you keep a buttoned lip in the meantime.”

As Jon leaned over to refill Shannon’s wine glass, they heard a sharp crack from outside. The bottle of merlot shattered in his hands, gushing crimson all over the tablecloth and onto their laps.

“Get under the table!” someone yelled.

As the three dove for cover, another shot demolished Jon’s plate into shards of crockery that spattered off the walls. Shrieking and panic filled the restaurant.

Several men from adjacent tables ran to the sliding-glass door that had been ten inches ajar, permitting a breeze-and two bullets-easy admission. Guns drawn, they stormed through the door while Turkish police rushed into the room and surrounded Jon, Shannon, and Kevin. For some moments, a surrealistic scene of bedlam transformed the Bosphorus Terrace into a chamber of horror. Commands were barked, only adding to the cacophony of shouting and screaming that filled the place.

Shannon, Jon, and Kevin were hustled out of the restaurant and onto the first available elevator. As its brass door was closing, Jon saw that the other diners were being similarly herded out. But who will pick up all their tabs? he wondered, then worried about his own sanity for posing such an inane question in such an emergency.

Safely inside their suite, Shannon sat on the edge of their bed trembling, trying with only limited success to put on a brave front. The men took turns pacing the floor and glancing at the door. Jon tried to redeem the situation, without really knowing how, except to say that a small army of police now controlled the hall leading to their suite.

Presently, Richard Ferris and Osman al-Ghazali appeared with Click and Clack, who explained that the men at nearby tables in the restaurant were from the CIA and the Turkish government police. They had just recovered the weapon at the edge of the broad lawn in back of the hotel, an old U.S. Army Garand rifle with telescopic sight. The perpetrator, evidently, didn’t believe in suicide bombing, although simple murder was fine. Had it been the other way around, or if he had simply shown up with a firearm at point-blank range just outside the open glass door, Jon would be no more.

The phone rang. It was Adnan Yilmaz, the Turkish minister of culture who had met them at the airport. He explained-with official regrets on the part of the Republic of Turkey-that they were doing ballistic tests on the bullets and checking the rifle for fingerprints. Meanwhile, however, Jon and his party were not to leave the Hilton-advice they found quite unnecessary.

Minutes passed, yet time dragged. Although he was not supposed to, Jon briefly parted the opaque sleep curtains in their suite to look below. He saw a long column of police cars with flashing red and blue lights and heard the alternating dual wail of European emergency vehicles. And of course, right behind them were the news trucks and television vans.

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 seance 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 Citroen 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 attache 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