Brenos fingered the second sheet. For a moment its purity and sensuous feel reminded him of the white flesh of a village girl who had tempted him in his youth, but then he forced himself to concentrate on the Celtic script, writing that flowed with the regularity and beauty of waves rolling onto Hibernia’s shores. It was appropriate for a document that heralded the most important message since the Nazarene’s ministry was written down and completed God’s plan for mankind.
After His Resurrection, the Apostles had asked about the restoration of the Kingdom of Israel. The Nazarene had replied that it was not yet time for them to know the season the Father had fixed—an unmistakable indication that the Judean kingdom would be restored. After Peter the Apostle was released from prison by the angel, he told his friends he was leaving them. “With that he went out and journeyed to another place.” What was not recorded was that the angel told Peter, in a dream, to take the Nazarene’s Last Testament and embark for Hibernia, where it would be safe until the Father’s time came for its revelation.
Brenos winced and rubbed his forehead. One of his recurring headaches had returned, but he continued his mental summary of the League’s origin.
Peter too had realized things were going wrong, writing about the passions of the flesh warring with the soul, of slaves and servants who did not respect their masters, of women who were not submissive to their husbands, and flaunted expensive robes decorated with gold. Today, one need look no further than Faustina, the provincial governor’s harlot, for proof of Peter’s accusation.
The weak emperor’s court at Ravenna was also a scandal. Men were said to wear their hair long, in the manner of females. Women commissioned silk robes the cost of which would feed a dormitory of the poor for a year. And a woman, Emperor Valentinian’s mother, not the Emperor himself, truly ruled this corrupt Western empire. False teachings were everywhere, affecting forms of worship among Hibernian, Gallic, Roman and Eastern churches. The faithful milled about like confused sheep, unsure of their true shepherds.
Brenos’ head ached with a dull pain, and he felt again the fullness that periodically pressured his loins. He would usually practice a penance after succumbing to the erotic urge, but thought that if he read the League charter the temptation might pass.
“The Declaration of the Associates of the Gallican League,” he read softly, “the vigilant ones who were chosen to fulfill the things predicted by Jesus the Nazarene concerning the end of the world.”
Brenos skimmed through the preamble. It pointed out that even as a child Jesus did not suffer fools. The infancy narratives of Thomas related how He struck dead a child who accidentally knocked Him over, then rendered blind the elders who reprimanded Him.
The League brothers might not yet be many, but they were not blind. Was Matthew not speaking to them when he wrote with apostolic authority that those of a humble nature would have the earth as their possession? The Brothers had taken on Ciallanus’ sweet yoke of humility, obedience and poverty, as the clause stipulated:
CLAUSE I. We have sold our belongings and given the proceeds to the poor in exchange for earthly perfection and treasure in the New Jerusalem.
CLAUSE II. The Nazarene’s prophet, Sextus Africanus, confirms in his Chronographia that the Final Coming, and the end of the world, will occur five hundred years after His first Coming. Four hundred and thirty-nine years have passed. vigilamini! It is time to be vigilant!
CLAUSE III. Blessed John, in an ecstasy similar to ones we have experienced, was privileged with a revelation. He saw, in the right hand of One seated on the throne of the New Jerusalem, a scroll. No one was worthy to open the scroll and break its seven seals except Jesus the Nazarene.
You are worthy to take the scroll
and open its seals,
because you were slaughtered. With your blood
you ransomed men for God
from every tribe and nation.
And you made them to be a kingdom
and priests to our God.
And they are to rule as kings over the earth.
Brenos’ head throbbed now. He skipped past the list of seals that revealed in turn war, famine, death, martyrdom, and the day of Jehovah’s wrath. The Seventh Seal brought a short period of silence in Heaven, then the seven angels before the throne summoned hail, fire, mountains of flames, and seas of blood. Water was made bitter by the fall of the star Wermut, amid total darkness. A third of mankind was destroyed.
The abbot came to the core of the revelation as the Gallican League interpreted it, and whispered it aloud. “Then another angel came holding only a little scroll in his hand, that the mystery of Jehovah might be revealed. The scroll was bitter to the stomach, but as sweet as honey in the mouth. And the angel vowed that there would no longer be a delay, that the days of the opening of the scroll of the mystery of Jehovah, as he announced to his servants, would be fulfilled.”
The pain in Brenos’ head and the fullness in his loins were almost unbearable. He needed to begin the purge. His mouth was dry, but he forced himself to finish reading.
CLAUSE IV. Wherefore, the contents of the angel’s scroll are to be revealed on the Feast of the Nativity. Each of the periods of the six sealed scrolls is of ten years’ duration, and six times ten equals the sixty years remaining of Africanus’ prediction of the final Tribulation.
Let him who has eyes to see and ears to hear, see and hear!
Brenos rasped the last line. His swollen member rubbed against the rough cloth of his tunic. Without rearranging its pages he shoved the manuscript
