The Deceit (32 page)

Ryan turned back to his computer, tapped the keyboard, and read out, ‘The very scriptures are completely lifted: in Pyramid Text 1/5 the Sky Goddess, speaking from heaven and talking about the dead god, says, “This is my son, my first-born … this is my beloved, with whom I have been satisfied—”’

Helen interrupted. ‘Matthew, chapter three, verse seven: “And Lo, a voice from heaven saying,
This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased
.”’ She shook her head. ‘Again, impressive. Anything else?’

‘Endless!’ Ryan said, smiling. ‘It’s endless! Horus was also known as “the Way the Truth the Life”, as the Messiah, and as the Son of Man. And as the Good Shepherd, the Lamb, the Holy Child, and as Iuse – Iusa! – Jesus! – which means the Holy One. He was also called “the anointed one”. This is what must have shaken Sassoon to the core. This is why the Israelis want to destroy the Sokar Hoard. It proves that Judaism is descended from Egyptian faith.’

‘And what about Moses?’ asked Helen. ‘How does he fit in?’

‘Moses we now know was Egyptian, but monotheism was
also
Egyptian. Freud may well have been right: Moses was just an Egyptian priest, possibly a priest of Akhenaten. Consider the great hymn of the Aten: “I regulated the course of the sun and the moon”. It’s Genesis, but Genesis written by the Egyptians.’

‘But the Exodus—’

‘Never happened. There were no Jews in Egypt in 1500
BC
: that’s why there’s no archaeological evidence for it. Which has always puzzled historians. Six hundred thousand Jews moving across Sinai, even six thousand Jews … I mean, you’d see something, right? Some evidence? Yet there is nothing.’ He rushed on eagerly. ‘Yet monotheism started in Egypt with Akhenaten. We know that for sure. So how did it reach Israel and the Jews? It was taken from there by a heretic Egyptian priest, Moses, maybe with some followers. The Bible hides this awkward fact by pretending Jews were enslaved in Egypt, which is nonsense; but they can’t admit that the central claim and narrative of Judaism, the story of Moses the Jew, is a total fraud. Yet there are hints in the Bible, in the Talmud, that Egypt is key.
All
the great biblical figures supposedly spent time in Egypt – Abraham, Moses, Joseph, Jeremiah, even Jesus in the New Testament – they were all in Egypt at some point. The Egyptian DNA of Judaism is still visible, there in the Bible, but it is concealed.’

‘Wait.’ Helen’s smile was gentle, but her glittering eyes showed that she was excited too. ‘Wait.’ She turned and gestured to the café owner, bored and listless on his stool. ‘
Salaam. Kharkadil?
’

‘
Aiwa
.’ The man nodded, and went to his fridge. He took a jug of deep purple hibiscus juice and poured two glasses. Then he brought them over and set them down. Ryan drank. The juice was always good, but right now it was the most delicious drink he had ever tasted.

Helen sipped, and asked, ‘So what about the Copts?’

‘They are crucial. They are like archaeopteryx, in palaeontology.’

‘Sorry?’

‘The first prehistoric bird, which retains some reptilian features. Showing that birds evolved from dinosaurs.’

‘OK.’

‘The Copts retain features that show they are descended from Pharaonic times: the hieroglyphs in the alphabet, of course, and the
orant
– their way of praying – that’s ancient Egyptian. And that funeral rite we saw in Tawdros: that’s Egyptian. Even their churches are often built out of Egyptian temples. Tawdros again.’

‘But why are the Copts so important?’

Ryan smiled, exultant. Sassoon would have been proud of him. ‘Because early Coptic Christian Egypt was the place where Christianity was codified, written down,
made up
. It was done in Alexandria, where all the great scholars lived, Jewish and Christian, Gnostic and pagan, right next to the great and famous library. The first evangelist, Mark, founded the Coptic church in 70
AD
. In Alexandria.’

‘The
ankh
!’

‘Exactly. The cross only appears as a Christian symbol in, what, the late second century? Before that, the symbol of Christians was usually the fish, or the Chi-Rho monogram.’ He was almost rushing his words now; he didn’t care. ‘Then the early Egyptian Christians realized the power of the cross – because they were no doubt inspired by the power of the
ankh
. The great Egyptian symbol, so very similar to a cross. I saw it in Cairo: that’s what those antiquities in the Coptic museum reveal, the ankh evolving into the cross. And this fits with the documentary evidence, too. The first historical citation of the cross as a Christian symbol is made by an Egyptian – Clement of Alexandria – in the third century.’

Helen shook her head. ‘So the entire Jesus story is a myth? It is just the story of Horus?’

‘No. Well, no, not
entirely
. There probably
was
some charismatic Jewish prophet, or faith-healer, probably called Jesus, there is a bit of evidence for that; some agitator who annoyed the Romans and the rabbis, but the story of the Virgin Birth, the entire Nativity, that’s pure Egyptian: the story of Isis and Horus. The Jewish and Christian scholars in Egypt must have folded it in, to attract and gather the faithful. They knew that Isis was wildly popular across the Mediterranean world, so they added in all the best bits of
her
story.’

‘And the Resurrection?’

Ryan swallowed some
kharkadil
. ‘Probably another Egyptian invention. The Resurrection doesn’t actually appear in the authentic gospel of Mark, the first gospel: it’s added later, but anyway it’s just the story of Horus, and of the Aten, the Egyptian sun god, the sun goes down at the winter solstice, the three darkest days, then it re-emerges. It’s the same mythology: Sunday, the day of the sun, Easter Sunday … Hello, Albert.’

The Coptic dealer had entered the café quietly. How long had he been standing there, behind them? It was a little stealthy.

He smiled at them. ‘‘‘The Christian religion is a parody on the worship of the sun, in which they put a man called Christ in the place of the sun, and pay him the adoration originally paid to the sun.”That’s from Thomas Paine, I believe.’ He pulled up a chair and sat down. ‘Go on, please, I have been listening. It is fascinating. You have decoded it, my friend, decoded it!’

‘Well, perhaps.’ Ryan shrugged.

‘No,’ Albert insisted. ‘This is it! Please, do not allow me to interrupt.’

Helen said quietly, ‘OK then. Do we have any proof that it was all written in Egypt? Other than Macarius?’

‘Yes.’ Ryan suppressed his exultation, ‘Oh yes. Remember how Macarius said, “I went to the great library, but it was destroyed”? That’s because the early Christians burned the greatest library in the world, full of pagan and Jewish lore and knowledge: they sacked it repeatedly. And why? Why did they burn it down? Because they wanted to annihilate evidence for the Egyptian origins of the faith.’

‘However—’

Ryan didn’t give Helen a chance to interrupt. ‘Remember also that Macarius said this arson didn’t matter, because he had read all the books, all the books which came from Egypt?’

‘Yes.’

‘
He means it literally.
All of the New Testament came from Egypt. It’s true. Let’s play a game.’

‘Sorry?’

‘Open up your computer. Name a book of the New Testament.’

Helen tapped some keys. ‘Gospel of John.’

‘What’s the earliest surviving copy or even fragment of John?’

She tapped again. ‘Uh. Papyrus … uh … 52. From the second century. It is now kept in Manchester, England.’

‘And where was it found?’

She typed for a few moments, then scrutinized the screen. ‘Discovered in 1920, in Oxyrhynchus, Egypt.’

‘Try another. Let’s try Luke, the Gospel of Luke.’

‘OK.’ She typed, and then replied, ‘Gospel of Luke, earliest extant copy is … written in Alexandrian Greek. Now kept in … the Bibliothèque Nationale, in Paris.’

‘And it was discovered in?’

‘Coptos, Egypt.’

‘How about Thessalonians?’

She tapped. ‘Papyrus 92. Third- or fourth-century fragment found in … Cairo, Egypt.’

Albert intervened. ‘The Book of Revelations.’

A pause. ‘Papyrus 115. Third century. Now in the Ashmolean, Oxford, England – but found in Oxyrhynchus. In Egypt.’

Albert tried another. ‘Gospel of Matthew.’

‘Papyrus 67. Late second century.
Found in Egypt.
’

The café was silent. Helen thrust her chair back. ‘I do not believe it.’

‘But it’s true! It’s almost miraculous. Try one more.’ Ryan was verging on gleeful. ‘Let’s try something different: say, the Second Epistle of John.’

She keyed the names, then read the answer. ‘The earliest surviving copy of the Second Epistle of John is a fragment of Greek script, on parchment, known as Uncial 0232.’ She paused. ‘It was found in Antinopolis, near Besa, in central Egypt.’

‘You see? Every single book of the New Testament is first found in Egypt, and it’s not just because they simply found one big copy – though the first surviving copy of the entire Bible is
also
Egyptian, from Sinai, the Codex Sinaiticus – but the first and earliest fragments and copies and papyri
are all Egyptian.
The entire Christian Bible was written and compiled in Egypt, mainly in Alexandria.
’

‘So Macarius was right?’

‘Yes. And this is his big and frightening secret. Christianity was invented by Gnostic and Jewish scholars, slaving away in Alexandria, consciously inventing a new religion, taking elements of recent Jewish history: the story of some criminal magician, some local prophet, a suitably obscure rabble-rouser called Jesus, to ensure the Jews liked the new religion. But they wanted to spread the good news, they wanted Gentiles to believe too: this was a
global
faith they were writing, so they sprinkled in the Egyptian magic, added in the Nativity, the Virgin, the son of God, the miracles and the Resurrection, especially anything to do with the most popular goddess of the day, Isis.
In it went
. All of it derived from Egyptian sources. The
ankh
, the praying, everything. They even took the halo from the Egyptian sun symbol, positioned over the head of an Egyptian deity.’

Helen looked crestfallen. ‘So. It is all a lie …’

Albert spoke, ponderously. ‘Well, Helen, not so much a lie. More like a remake.’ He was smiling. ‘Christianity is a
glamorous
remake of a provincial original. Like, shall we say, a little European art movie turned into a Hollywood blockbuster?’

Helen’s frowning face was illuminated by the glowing computer screens. ‘OK. OK. I do get it. This … this secret would terrify fundamentalists, Jewish or Christian, it would destroy their faith, or much of it – but it doesn’t explain everything. It does not explain what is happening to the Zabaleen – why are they supposedly bewitched? And it does not explain what that quote about the Beast means, and it cannot explain what the Greek word riddle means.’

Ryan shrugged, exuberantly. ‘Does it matter? We’ve just debunked Judaism and Christianity!’ He chuckled. ‘That’s not enough, before lunch?’

‘It’s quite enough,’ said Albert. ‘Very impressive, exhilarating even … And now you must, I am afraid, accompany me.’

‘What?’

He was holding something in his hand. Ryan stared down at it.

‘I feel like a gangster. But there we are. Let us take a small but exciting drive. And then you can hand over the papyrus.’

‘Albert—’

‘If you do not, I am obliged to shoot.’

The gun was levelled at Ryan’s stomach. Albert’s hand was trembling. But his voice was quite firm.

‘Now.’

The steps were so narrow that Karen had to descend them like ships’ stairs, face to the rungs, carefully placing one foot beneath the other. What was she going to see at the foot of these steps? Her emotions spiralled but she closed them down.

Karen reached the bottom and turned around. She was in a kind of musty brick vault with a low wooden ceiling. It was empty, lit by the melancholy yellow light of a dozen little bulbs strung along the ceiling on dangling wires.

‘Eleanor?’ Karen called. ‘Eleanor?’

Her voice echoed, and died. The only noise she heard was a dog barking along the passageways. The vault ended at a wall of thin red bricks, old and mossed, and then a further low door, barely four foot high, which, from what she could dimly perceive, led into another stone chamber.

It must be medieval, she thought. The whole of this corner of London was medieval in origin, threaded with narrow passages and wine cellars and storage vaults: that was one reason it was favoured by gold and silver merchants into the twenty-first century: they could store the bullion safely in stone-built chambers.

Her thoughts disappeared into the horror of reality.
Where was her daughter?

Ellie’s voice had seemed to come from directly beneath her, when she was in the room above. And yet – not.

He was still playing tricks.

Karen didn’t even bother looking for the speaker. She knew it would be here somewhere, secreted in the dripping stone work, concealed behind a loose, five-hundred-year-old stockbrick.

‘Mummy.’

It was Eleanor again.
Beckoning
. Muffled yet near, distant yet needy.

‘Mummy, help me!’

The voice was inviting her into the next chamber, through the tiny stone door. Karen wondered, for a slice of a second, if she should resist, turn back, give up, refuse to play her ordained role in this satanic charade; but of course she couldn’t. She had to go on. Rothley was probably elsewhere, with Eleanor, dead or alive. Yes. Halfway across London, halfway across the world, and this was all a joke. Yet the tiny scintilla of a chance that it wasn’t a joke, that Eleanor might be down here, forced her to go on.

‘I’m coming!’ Karen called. ‘Eleanor, I’m coming!’

‘Mummy I’m in here, the door thing, help me. I’m scared, I, Mummy—’

Karen crouched through the door, having to kneel and squeeze left and push through sideways, the door was so small.