Chalice of Blood

Brother Lugna, still on his feet, began to argue.

‘Sit down, Brother Lugna,’ ordered Brehon Aillín. ‘This is not a scholastic debate.’ He turned to Fidelma. ‘I am allowing these statements, Fidelma, only on the grounds that you are presenting what Brother Donnchad’s thoughts were and that these thoughts have a direct bearing on his murder.’

‘I have said as much,’ agreed Fidelma firmly. ‘I am not asauthoritative as Brother Donnchad so merely I repeat what he says. Brother Donnchad records that the relationship of those I have mentioned is termed adelphos throughtout the texts. Adelphos means brethren in the blood relationship sense. Had the writer wanted to suggest brethren as in the meaning of the brethren of this community, the word he would have used is suggeneia.’

She paused but no one spoke.

‘I repeat, I am no scholar in this regard. Brother Donnchad believed that he would be able to find out more when he went to the Holy Land. He made inquiries and then, when he was waiting in Sidon, which I understand is a port on the coast of the Holy Land, he began to hear stories that truly shocked him. He found that he could not even discuss them with his own brother Cathal, who remained untroubled and secure in his Faith. This he comments on in his record.

‘He heard one story that particularly distressed him. The story referred to Jesus, and we must remember Jesus is but the Greek form of the Hebrew name Yeshu or Joshua. The story was about a Yeshu ben Pantera.’

‘Yeshu was a very common Hebrew name of the time.’ This came from Brother Donnán. He glanced apologetically at the Brehon. ‘I am sorry, but I had to mention that, just in case it was thought that the name Jesus is a unique name. It’s meaning in Hebrew is “red-handed hero”.’

‘You are no doubt correct,’ Fidelma replied mildly. ‘However, Donnchad was directed to a work called the Tosefta, which is a collection of Jewish oral law, and in it is a reference to Yeshu ben Pantera. The text makes clear that this was none other than Jesus of Nazareth. The word “ben” signifies “son of”, as in our own word, “mac”.’

She had to wait while the cacophony of voices that greeted her statement subsided.

‘I will not go on to recount the research that a distraught Donnchad continued to conduct. I know that he was also led to a work by a Greek philosopher named Celsus who wrote that Mary, or Miriam, the original Hebrew name, was a girl who lived in Sepphoris in Galilee. The Romans marched through the town and she was raped by a Roman soldier of Phoenician birth called Abdes Pantera and bore him a child-’

There was a gasp and Brother Lugna was first on his feet, shouting, ‘Sacrilege, blasphemy!’

‘I am only recounting what Celsus wrote. I do not claim that he speaks the truth or that I agree with him,’ Fidelma went on determinedly. ‘Celsus wrote that the parents of Mary, who many other sources claim to have come from this city near Nazareth called Sepphoris, drove her out from their home in shame. But eventually Joseph, a carpenter, accepted her and her son.

‘In Sidonia, Brother Donnchad found other sources that spoke of a local man from the city called Abdes Pantera. He was an archer and he had joined the Roman army some years before the birth of Jesus and when he became a Roman citizen, he took the name Tiberius Julius Abdes Pantera. It is said that his regiment took part in the destruction of Sepphoris under the command of the Governor Quinctilius Varus.’

‘This is ridiculous!’ cried Brother Lugna in outrage. ‘It is profanity against the Faith. Are we to sit here and hear our Faith insulted?’

‘Once again I say that I do not offer this as fact,’ Fidelma continued doggedly. ‘It is what Brother Donnchad discovered in his research, came to believe as fact and formed his opinion.’

‘I have already ruled that it may be presented for that purpose,’ added Brehon Aillín. ‘If understanding this leads to the discovery of who killed him, then I am prepared to hear it.’

‘Brother Donnchad discovered that the name Abdes in the language spoken in Sidonia meant a “servant of Isis”, a god of the Egyptians. Abdes joined the first cohort of archers and rose to be the standard bearer, a signifer. Abdes served forty years in the Roman army and Brother Donnchad discovered that his regiment, the Cohors Primus Sagittariorum, was stationed in Judea until Jesus was nine years old. Then the cohort was moved to the northern frontier in Germania Superior along the banks of the River Renos. Abdes was stationed in a fort called Bingium where, at the age of sixty-two years, he died and where he was buried.’

‘You say all this was written down by Brother Donnchad?’ demanded Abbot Ségdae, then he turned to the Brehon. ‘Forgive me, Brehon Aillín, I want to be absolutely sure on this point.’

‘It was,’ replied Fidelma. ‘His written account will be presented to you as evidence. I know nothing of these places or their history. All I know is that Brother Donnchad wrote this down and was influenced by it. On his return journey, when he landed at Tarentum, he bade farewell to his blood brother, Cathal, and continued his journey north. He crossed the mountains. Finally, he arrived in Bingium by way of the River Renos. There, so he recounts, he found a guide who led him to the grave of Abdes Pantera. The Latin inscription was still clearly legible. He recorded it word for word.’

‘But all this proves nothing about who killed him,’ Brehon Aillín interjected.

‘What this is meant to prove is the state of Brother Donnchad’s mind — and a motive for his killing. As I have frequently said, I do not vouch for its accuracy one way or the other. But Brother Donnchad found himself troubled by the story, which is known to the people of Judea, the story of a rape in Nazareth, mentionedin a Jewish law text, recounted by the Phoenicians in Sidonia, and by Greek and Latin writers like Celsus. The story Celsus tells was even rebutted by Origenes who took the arguments seriously enough to argue with them. Brother Donnchad went so far as to trace the tomb of Abdes in Germania. Brother Donnchad was a great scholar. True or not, this was the matter that troubled him.

‘What he had uncovered created such doubts in his mind that he was losing his belief in the new Faith, He was a very logical man. But, at times, belief calls upon us to shed our rational minds and simply accept that which we are unable to prove. Credo quia impossible est, I believe it because it is impossible, as many of our priests would say. Well, faced with evidence of a rational story about Christ, Brother Donnchad found he could no longer believe what logic told him was impossible.’

There was another ripple of angry mutterings in the refectorium. Eadulf looked round uncomfortably. Fidelma was only presenting arguments that had caused Brother Donnchad to slip away from the Faith but to those who sincerely believed, it was as if she was preaching heresy or attacking the Faith itself.

Brehon Aillín rapped his staff of office. ‘And you maintain that his doubts provoked such anger in someone that that person killed him?’

Colgú intervened. ‘We have only to witness some of the emotions that this story has provoked here to realise that such an anger is not beyond possibility,’ he pointed out.

‘Exactly so,’ replied Fidelma, nodding. ‘Who in this abbey is so fanatical in their belief that they would do anything to stop a scholar of Brother Donnchad’s reputation from proclaiming his views that might harm the Faith? Many of our people havenot yet entirely accepted the Faith. It is only two centuries since the Five Kingdoms began to hear and accept the Word of Christ. What, then, if Brother Donnchad, recently back from the Holy Land, began to tell this story?’

There was an unhappy murmur and many of the brethren looked at one another awkwardly.

Abbot Iarnla’s face was pale. He said slowly, ‘Everyone in this abbey is of the Faith and to proclaim a disbelief in the Faith is a great sin.’

‘But we are a tolerant people for we are but newly come to this new understanding with God,’ Brehon Aillín declared. ‘We tolerate and seek to persuade others to the Faith, especially those who are reluctant to make the leap into a new world that has come upon us from the East.’

‘We cannot afford tolerance,’ Brother Lugna snapped. ‘The Faith is inviolable and every soul lost is a soul condemned to the fires of hell.’

‘Brother Lugna is dogmatic on such points,’ pointed out Fidelma mildly.

‘I am only dogmatic when people deny the truth of the Faith.’

‘Indeed. One would say that you have a fanatical belief.’

‘I am zealous for my Faith, that is true.’

‘And if someone disagreed with your Faith?’ prompted Fidelma.

Brother Lugna opened his mouth to respond and then snapped it shut as he realised where Fidelma was