Doctor Who_ Byzantium! - Keith Topping [73]
Almost, but not quite.
Because he had collaborated with Shakespeare between draft one and draft two of Hamlet.
'These notes are very rough and ready,' he said after a brief scan of some of the scrolls that the scribes had yet to look at.
'The handwriting is almost illegible.'
`They were mostly written in Rome while Mark and Paul were under house arrest,' noted Amos. 'It is hardly surprising.
The rest of the scrolls were completed last year in Babylon, when Mark finally found Peter.'
The Doctor knew he would probably regret asking, but one question kept nagging away at him. 'Who, exactly, was...
sorry, is this scribe Mark?'
À cousin of the prophet Barnabas,' replied Amos. 'He was just a boy when the disciples held meetings with the Christ at the home of Mark's mother in Jerusalem. He tried to save the Christ's life when they were all betrayed by Judas and Jesus was arrested at Gethsemene. Mark escaped from the gardens and hid in the family home for many months. Eventually, with the disciples scattered across Judaea and in hiding, Barnabas, who was teaching in Antioch, was sent as an emissary to Tarsus, to the home of the recently converted Paul, he that was Saul. Barnabas brought Paul back to Jerusalem because the church needed a figurehead around whom it could spread the word.’
Àfter a brief time in Jerusalem, they coaxed Mark from hiding and set out on the first of their missionary journeys,'
Rayhab added, helpfully. 'But there was friction between them during this time. That was when Barnabas and Mark went to Cyprus. It was all a nonsense and was later settled to the satisfaction of all parties.'
Òh good,’ said the Doctor, sarcastically. 'I do so love a happy ending.’
'They received a very mixed reception whereinsoever they went,’ continued Reuben. 'On such occasions as, with the will of the Christ, they were seen to perform miraculous cures, they were treated as avatars-incarnate.'
`But,’ added Amos, 'such teachings as they offered caused great offence to the Hellenistic Jews and, especially, to the hated Zealots.’
`They were often chased out of town and survived only by the skin of their teeth,' Rayhab added.
`They founded churches in Galatia, Corinth and the Areopagus in Athens,' continued Reuben. 'They stayed for more than two years at Ephesus, building a Christian community, and it was there that Mark started his writings, based on his personal knowledge of the early days, and on the stories he was hearing from Paul and Barnabas.’
'He was a journalist, in other words,' noted the Doctor, approvingly. He had read accounts of the cross-empire journeys of Paul, Mark, Timothy and the rest. He had always considered them to be a collection of quasi-fairy tales with only the most narrow basis in reality. Now, he wasn't so sure. Ànd this would be, what, about ten years ago? Hmm?'
`Yes,’ confirmed Amos. 'Then they returned to Jerusalem, but Paul's enemies provoked a riot when he tried to preach at the temple and he was arrested and tried before a Roman court in Caesarea.’
`But,’ the Doctor added, 'because he was a Roman citizen, he could appeal directly to the emperor. So they sailed to Rome, surviving a shipwreck near Malta. And Paul, while still under house arrest, continued to preach until last year when he was either freed and now resides in Miletus, or executed in the Circus of Nero, depending on which version you believe.'
Rayhab was surprised by the Doctor's apparent cynicism.
'Paul is alive. We believe in the truth,’ he said. 'In the word of the Christ, and of God himself.'
‘I find the origins of the Christian church fascinating,' the Doctor said defensively. 'How a minor sub-cult of Judaism could spread so quickly. Jesus of Nazareth only died thirty years ago and already you have churches in most of the major population centres. In an age where mass communications involve somebody shouting from up a mountain, or writing a letter, that's quite impressive, even I am willing to admit.'
'That was why Paul was needed,' Reuben admitted. 'Peter and the rest could preach