An hour into the voyage, Jon reached for his cell phone to give Shannon the first of his promised updates. It was then that he remembered where it was: plugged into his charger at the hotel in Thessalonica. Mentally kicking himself, he quickly glanced down to see his attache case safely nestled at his feet. Evidently, absentminded professors must be selective in what they forget, Jon assumed.
In late afternoon, they sailed into the port of Dafni. Disembarking, the passengers went through a customs check at the port and were waved through turnstiles by a white-helmeted official-all, that is, except for Jon. Because Archbishop Christodoulos in Athens had generously cleared the way for Jon, he had not stopped at the Pilgrim’s Bureau in Thessalonica to get a diamoneterion-a special three-day pass to visit Mount Athos. Each of the other passengers had one; Jon did not. The customs agent, who knew no English and seemed not to understand Jon’s more classical Greek, let fly with torrents of angry shouts at Jon, almost as if he were a female interloper. Next the agent turned his anger on the boat’s captain, evidently for his daring to bring along a passenger without a diamoneterion. As calmly as he could, Jon opened his attache case and handed the official the authorizing letter from the archbishop of Athens and all Greece.
Scowling, the officer had just started reading the letter when a jeep pulled up, driven by a purple-robed monk. The brother stepped out of the vehicle, saw Jon being detained, and then unloaded an even louder torrent of furious Greek at the customs official. The agent took umbrage at that and unleashed a response in stentorian tones, complete with gestures to suit the occasion. Jon had always thought that two Italians arguing after a traffic accident usually set the record for altercation volume. He was wrong. The decibels of this disagreement topped them all.
Suddenly all became quiet. The monk looked at Jon and said in a thick accent, “Welcome to you, Dr. Weber! And please to forgive this unpleasantness. This man’s father was a donkey! I give you ride to the monastery.”
Rather sheepishly, and avoiding eye contact, the customs agent handed Jon the archbishop’s letter and retreated into his guard shack. Jon thanked the monk and climbed into his jeep. They drove southward along the coastal road for a brief time and then headed up into the mountains, where the drive became an adventure. Roads were not paved on Mount Athos but consisted of stabilized gravel. The driver himself seemed to have studied not at a seminary but at Daytona. Whether or not he was trying to impress his passenger, some of his speeding around hairpin curves was just plain dangerous, and Jon expressed his concern as best he could. The driver merely offered Jon a toothy smile, almost as if to say, “Yes, I know; you want me to go faster.” Was this man from al-Qaeda, a terrorist in training?
After twenty harrowing minutes, they skidded to a halt at the Great Lavra monastery, perched at the very tip of the Athos peninsula. Jon stepped out and tried to take it all in: the great gray walls, the fosse, the turrets, the crenellated terraces.
What surprised him most, however, was the unexpected presence of Miltiades Papandriou himself, who walked across the courtyard to greet him, wearing a warm smile that seemed to soften his otherwise-formidable bearded countenance. His spare frame stood erect at more than six feet, his shoulders not hunched over nor his eyes bleary from a lifelong perusal of manuscripts. This man was clearly in charge on the Holy Mountain.
“Greetings in the name of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, Professor Weber,” he said in flawless English. “We are honored by your visit.”
“Quite the contrary, Your Grace. I am the one honored.”
“Ever since we received word from Archbishop Christodoulos that you would come to Mount Athos, many of our brothers have read or reread your remarkable book on Jesus. I think it is a model of excellent scholarship.”
“Thank you, but the chapter on sources rests heavily on your own brilliant manuscript research, Your Grace.”
Miltiades held up the palms of his hands as if to ward off the compliment, then showed Jon to his guest quarters.
At dinner that evening, Jon was invited to give a brief talk to the resident monks in the refectory, which was enthusiastically received. Only because these poor fellows have such limited exposure to diversion of any kind.
The next morning, he was given a guided tour of the monastery, during which he paid special attention to the archives. Archimandrite Miltiades joined Jon in the refectory after the tour, and they both climbed the stairs to his office in a turret overlooking the entrance to the monastery. The office was well insulated from the heat of summer or the cold of winter by books of every description, including the sort that caught Jon’s eye: ancient tomes covered in tattered leather, some with spines missing. Atop the broad desk of polished maple lay a beautifully illuminated medieval codex.
“My-how you say it?-my hobby is to bring out a modern edition of the sermons of St. John Chrysostom,” the genial abbot said, pointing to the codex, “as annotated by medieval monks.”
Jon registered appropriate awe but thought, Why their annotations? Today’s scholars have far more resources for commentary than medieval monks! But he held his tongue; he had more important fish to fry.
“And now, my esteemed professor,” Miltiades continued, “please sit down and let us discuss that manuscript of yours about which the archbishop wrote. First of all, where did you find it?”
“I didn’t find it, Your Grace. My wife Shannon did. At Pella in Jordan.”
“Pella, you say?” The face of the archimandrite brightened. “I’ve always thought that if any important early manuscripts were to be discovered, it would be at Pella. Or perhaps at St. Catherine’s on Mount Sinai.”
“Or Mount Athos,” Jon quickly added.
The abbot smiled and agreed. “Or Mount Athos.”
Jon proceeded to give the whole history of the find before opening his attache case. First he took out only four of the five ancient leaves, then renderings of the writings on them enhanced by ultraviolet, providing a much clearer text. Miltiades put on a pair of gold-rimmed glasses and began reading the Greek immediately, occasionally glancing at the originals.
Minutes passed. Jon said nothing. Nor did his host, who reached for a magnifying glass from time to time and held it over the texts. Silence filled the office more audibly than Jon had ever experienced.
Finally Miltiades looked at Jon and said slowly, “This is quite remarkable. I have read some of these words before. I think it was when Eusebius quotes Hegesippus on the death of James the Just of Jerusalem.”
“Exactly, Your Grace. I wanted you to discover that for yourself, rather than with any prompting from me. I congratulate you on your marvelous recall.”
“It is nothing,” he objected. “But here we have more from Hegesippus than what Eusebius quotes. It tells how Jesus’ cousin Symeon became the next bishop of the church in Jerusalem.”
“Precisely. And this is why my wife and I believe these pages come from the lost writings of Hegesippus.”
The abbot shook his head in astonishment. “This is… this is remarkable, Professor Weber, remarkable! But I had not heard of this discov-”
“Only three people on earth know about these pages, Your Grace: yourself, my wife, and I. The priest at Pella knows about the leaves, of course, but not what they contain. Obviously, we wanted to determine their provenance-and even their authenticity-before going public with them. Hence my visit.”
“Yes. Yes of course.” The abbot exhaled heavily. “To me, it looks as if the writing comes from… well… from as early as… the third century. But wait…”