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Dedicated respectively to James Ambuehl, who kept asking for a new story
If you can find the Truth, then the Truth will
set you free.
- The Gospel of St. John, 8:32
Note:
The authenticity of this document has proven to be beyond reproach. It is indeed from the reign of the Emperor, Titus Caesar Augustus, around 79 C.E. It was sent to me by an archaeologist friend of mine, who is sadly now in a mental hospital following a strange incident in the desert southwest of Mecca, Saudi Arabia. He had found a copy of it in a sealed amphora in the ancient city of Alexandria, about three years ago, which dated back to the late fourth century C.E., when the Library there was destroyed. The jar also contains fragments of what apparently is the original letter, now crumbled into dust and only datable by carbon-14 testing.
Since the only other person who knows of this letter is now in the Arkham Asylum, babbling nonsense, and I am beginning to fear for my life, I am sending you this, my translated version of the letter. It is, to say the least, shocking beyond belief. I urge you to keep this a secret, even from your closest family and friends. The powers that oppose the discovery of this letter no doubt will kill me soon, and they will surely kill you if they find you out.
Here begins the text:
Thaddeus, eminent historian of Alexandria, Jew by birth, sends his greetings to the noble Titus Flavius Sabinus Vespasianus, Supreme Emperor, Commander of the Senate And People of Rome, son of the late and lamented Emperor Vespasianus. Hail, Worthy Heir of Gaius Julius Caesar and of Octavius Caesar Augustus.
I am now an old man on my deathbed, and at the urging of my friend, the historian Pliny the Elder, who is writing down this letter as I speak, I will now inform you of a grave danger to your rule, and the rule of the Senate and of Rome.
Last year you inquired to Pliny about the new sect of Jewish dissidents, who follow the man Jesus, called the Christ, after hearing reports of secret rallies being held in Rome by a man named Paul the Apostle.
Pliny, good fellow that he is, came to me with the story. I immediately decided to compose this letter before I leave this earth, and so that my dreadful secret does not die with me. Only Pliny now knows my tale, and he is trustful beyond reproach.
I must tell you now that the followers of Jesus represent the greatest threat Rome has ever seen. They are relatively harmless now, but if they attain political power, they can very well destroy Rome and the world. The spirit of Jesus lives on in them, and they are fanatical, every last one of them, especially the madman who calls himself Paul.
How do I know this? Let me tell you my story.
I was born in Nazareth, Judea, during the first years of the reign of the Emperor Augustus. My mother was Miriam, a poor woman married to a carpenter named Joseph. I was given the name Simon. My only other brother was a few years older. His name was Yeushua.
Yeushua was undoubtedly a moody and troubled child. This was apparent even before he started shaving. He was given to long periods of depression, and suffered from the same affliction of Julius Caesar, the falling sickness. Miriam and Joseph eventually gave up on Yeushua, when I was about ten, and instead trained me to follow the carpenter's trade, which our family had done for generations.
Now that Yeushua was freed from the drudgery of working, he would take to staying out all night, sometimes for two or three days. He would steal food when he got hungry. He was a loner, with no friends, and could always be found by himself, on the hilltops outside Nazareth.
This was the situation until one day, much later. I was twenty years old, and my brother was around thirty, still without a job or lodging. He stayed at home whenever it was too cold to sleep outside or if he was too hungry.
A traveling "wise man" named John, also called the Baptist, a member of the puritanical Essene sect (the same sect who killed themselves in a mass suicide at Masada ten years ago), arrived in town. He was positively frightening. Extremely tall, with a misshapen arm and eyes of different colours (blue and green) and a dark swash of hair, he frightened many residents. Still, he kept to himself and lived outside the city in a small shack, where strange noises would be heard late at night.
I feared that Yeushua would no doubt be attracted by this "sorcerer," and I was sadly right. Within a week of John's arrival, Yeushua was spending night and day with the old sorcerer. Every time I saw him, I saw less and less of my older brother, whom I knew, and more and more of somebody different. Whereas before Yeushua was quite aimless and inattentive, he became more focused and the glare in his eyes was becoming more and more unsettling.
Then, one night, a massive crash of lightening woke every citizen of Nazareth out of their beds with a shock. It seemed directed slightly outside the town, and I feared the worst, for Yeushua was with the old sorcerer John that night.
When I reached the site of the old man's shack, I found it in smoldering ruins, with my brother sitting outside it. I asked if he was alright. "Of course, Simon," he said in a low, dark voice, "I am alright. I am complete."
Standing up and grabbing me by the hand, he said, "Let us go. My ministry must begin now. You are my first disciple."
With those words, we left Nazareth. I never saw my parents again, and still my heart grieves for them. We headed in the direction of Jerusalem. I nearly died during the trip of dehydration, but Yeushua never seemed to falter, and always made sure I had some water.
A month later, we arrived in Jerusalem. We had added several people to our group, most notably Simon, who Yeushua called Peter, and one Judas called Iscariot. I was astounded by the size of the capital of Judea, having never left Nazareth, but Yeushua seemed not to notice it.
He began preaching, if one can call it that, in the market square. His style of preaching had emphasis on the horrors of death, the evil side of human nature, and the eternal judgment of God. He proclaimed himself the Son Of God, and announced that He was the only way to God. Most of the disciples went along willingly with these rather revolting teachings, with the two dissenters being myself and Judas Iscariot.
Our ministry attracted more people as the years went by. As more and more people joined the group, my doubts about the sanity of Yeushua grew. I began to think that it was no longer my poor misfit brother inhabiting the body of the man preaching in the market. Judas, who was originally taken in by the sheer charisma of Yeushua, also grew more vocal in his dissension against Yeushua.
One day, around three years after we came to Jerusalem, things came to a climax. Yeushua finally took attention of Judas's dissent, as well as my own, and we decided it was time to alert the authorities, particularly Caiaphas, head of the Jewish Sanhedrin (High Council) and the Roman governor Pontius Pilate.
We had also decided to flee, and when Yeushua and the rest of the disciples were out preaching, we were packing our bags in the small room we shared together. Suddenly, we heard footsteps come down the hall, and when we turned to the door, we found it blocked by Yeushua. His eyes literally blazed with anger. "I know about your little 'plot,' he sneered. "I expected better from you, my dear brother. As for you, Iscariot," he continued, "I should have just killed you a long time ago." His voice sounded deep, almost too deep for a human, and it sounded strangely disembodied, as if it were not coming from Yeushua's mouth. I could hear it vibrate in all the bones in my body. "But none of that matters now, Simon and Judas," he said. "I'll just have to let Aza-that is, God, judge you. Too bad it had to come to this."
With those words, he launched himself at Iscariot. Judas threw up his arm, but Yeushua simply crushed it with his hand. I stared in shock as Yeushua reached for Judas's throat and began to crush the life out of the poor man. Judas, with his last strength, grabbed an small vase on the table and smashed it against the side of Yeushua's face. It didn't stop my brother at all. Not even the large piece of the vase sticking out the side of his head had any noticeable effect.
I turned and ran, expecting Yeushua to turn and follow me. I ran down the staircase, and heard his voice shouting: "You can't defeat me! I am the One Of The Thousand Shapes, brother of Yeushua! I am the Messenger Of The Great Old Ones! You cannot - "
As I stumbled outside, I heard a rumbling noise, and the house burst into violent flame. As people in the street stared in horror, the house slowly crumbled in on itself, leaving a pile of rubble.
I fled. I did not stop until I was in Alexandria, in the province of Ægyptus. Every day since then, I always continue to look over my shoulder, for fear that Yeushua- no, the creature that took Yeushua's body for its use - will come for me. Dreams of him pursuing me have haunted my sleep every night since then. Death will come as a blessed release for me, but first I must finish this letter.
I found work at the Great Library here, as a clerk, and changed my name to Thaddeus. All the time I collected news items relating to my brother and his followers. I found that the Apostle Peter hung himself after going insane about ten years later, and a newcomer, calling himself Paul the Apostle (the same one Your Majesty heard about in Rome) took over leadership of the group. He began to write massive amounts of false propaganda, transforming my brother Yeushua, the Jewish preacher, into Jesus the Christ, the Hellenic Son Of God, and the Second Part of the Holy Trinity, who died on the cross for our sins. It is Paul - who is surely as fanatical as Yeushua - who is responsible for the spread of this new religion (referred to as Christianity) throughout the Empire. Although Paul is quite old now, he continues to preach the "Word Of God."
Your Majesty, I cannot stress enough that I think that the creature who used Yeushua for his own purposes is a being of infinite evil, a being that wishes to hasten the destruction of mankind. I do not know what happened in that room after I fled. Perhaps Judas killed Yeushua. I can't be certain. But I am certain that the Creature did not die that day in Jerusalem. I beg of you, do not let the Christian religion survive. It is a creation of the ultimate evil, and I am sure it will bring death, ruination, and suffering for untold others around the world in years to come.
I will be dead soon. But I pray to whatever gods may be that I will find peace, even if it is nonexistence, as the old Greeks claimed. I also hope that Judas and my poor, deranged brother find peace.
I will send one copy of this letter with my oldest friend Pliny, to Your Majesty's court on the Palatine Hill, and will leave another copy here in the Great Library (which will no doubt stand the test of time for many years). I salute you, Noble Caesar. And may the Senate And The People of Rome survive for a thousand years.
Thaddeus the Jew,
Alexandria, in the eight hundredth and thirty-fifth year since the founding of Rome.
Here the text ends.
It is apparent that the Emperor Titus never received the missive from Thaddeus. Pliny the Elder, on his way to Rome, stopped to visit his nephew, also called Pliny, at a small town named Pompeii, in the shadow of Mt. Vesuvius. The rest is known to history - Pliny, trying to evacuate the city during the eruption of the volcano, collapsed on the beach and died from inhalation of ashes.
As for the copy in the Library (which is no doubt the one my friend found), it was copied again just before the Christian Emperor Theodosius ordered the Library destroyed in 386 C.E., being as it is a storehouse of "pagan literature." It is only luck that the sealed amphora with the missive inside survived the destruction until the present day.
Please, please, do not reveal this letter. I am sounding repetitive, but it appears that Christianity is again gaining the upper hand in the Western world, and if Thaddeus was right, we will suffer a worse fate than persecution. And let us hope that the Great Old Ones will never return.
- Sean Rodgers
September, 1997 C.E.
Copyright © 1997 Peter A. Worthy
"Archaeological Findings" © 1997 by Sean Rodgers
