An image of Saint Paul wandering through Asia Minor fixed in his mind. “Apostolic?”

“Not at all.”

“So Augustine got it wrong? It’s not a collection of Jesus’ sayings?”

“Evidently.”

He allowed himself only a moment’s disappointment before asking, “So whom are they written to?”

“That’s a very good question.”

“Thank you.”

A smile. “To the ‘Brothers of the Light.’” She was almost flip in her response.

“Manichaeans?”

“Yes, Manichaeans.”

Silence. She seemed to be retreating again.

“How many ashtrays am I going to need?” he asked.

She peered over at him. “I’m not sure you’re going to want to hear this.”

“Now who’s teasing?” He waited. “So the epistles … can I assume they’re all written by the same scribe?”

“You’d think so, wouldn’t you? But they’re not. They’re actually fifteen separate letters-not in Syriac, but Greek-that span a period of almost four hundred years.” She stopped, her eyes fixed on his.

“Four hundred years?” he said. “That doesn’t sound right.”

“No, it doesn’t, does it? But given the references to various emperors, Popes, and patriarchs, you can pretty much date the letters from somewhere in the middle of the sixth century, up through the end of the tenth. Considering that western Manichaeanism was supposedly wiped out by the end of the fifth, those are rather remarkable dates.” Again, she held his gaze. “Added to that, all of the letters are connected to the prayer-they all begin with their own transcription of it. Another odd distinction.”

“So where are they from?”

“All over. As far west as Lyons, northern Germany, Rome, Milan, Constantinople, Acre. The known world at the time.”

“That’s … incredible. There’s nothing like that in the canon.”

“I think I just said that.”

“So what do these letters say?”

Her eyebrows rose in anticipation. “Ah, now that’s where it gets interesting.”

“Good. For a minute there, I thought it was going to be as dull as last night.”

“Oh, really?” It was clear she was beginning to loosen up. “Well, compared to this, last night was-what did you always call it?” Pearse had no idea what she was talking about. “Minor-level? Minor-”

“Minor-league.” He smiled.

She nodded. “Yes. Minor-league. Last night, we were playing in the ‘bonies.’”

“Boonies,” he said, correcting her.

“Boonies. Whatever.”

“So what makes these letters so interesting?”

Again, she drew forward to the edge of the chair. “Each one is an apparent description of the writer’s personal ‘heavenly ascent.’”

“His what?”

“His tour of the divine realm, his ascent, where he’s made privy to esoteric knowledge. All very Manichaean. Except that each one of these is written as if from the pen of one of the five prophets. Now, that’s very strange.”

Happy as he was to see Angeli back in full swing, Pearse needed clarification. “Prophets? I’m not … Which prophets?”

“Adam, Seth, Enosh, Shem, and Enoch,” she answered, as if citing nothing more obscure than her own name. “The Manichaean prophets.” It was now time for the cigarettes to reappear. “You’ll also find Noah, Buddha, Zoroaster, and, of course, Jesus slotted into the list, but it’s primarily the other five. Each appearing in cycles, and each bringing us one step closer to redemption.” She lit one up. “Mani himself is the last of them, the Paraclete, ‘the seal’ promised by Christ.”

“Right,” he said, just to slow her down. “Why don’t you take a few puffs.” She was beginning to fly off; he needed to tie her down to something more tangible. “Let’s hold off on the prophets for a minute. What do the letters actually say?”

Looking over at him, she, too, realized she was getting ahead of herself. She nodded. “They begin with the basics. Foretelling the end of the world, when all evil will be burned in a final fire, light set free, full knowledge attained-that sort of thing.”

Slowly, he said, “Okay. So that would be … typical apocalyptic warnings. The light of Christ rooting out evil. Right?”

“Oh, it’s not the light of Christ. That isn’t it at all. That wouldn’t make it Manichaean.”

“No, of course it wouldn’t.” So much for the tangible.

“They’re an easy bunch to get muddled with.”

“Remember, I’m easily muddled.”

“I’ll try to dumb it down.”

“Very kind.”

She crushed out the cigarette and settled back into the chair. Waiting until she’d found the right approach, she began: “All right. You have to remember that the battle between light and darkness isn’t a metaphor for them. It’s real, manifested in the very way they chanted their prayers, the way they performed their rituals, even in the way they chose their foods. Unlike your basic Christians, or even Gnostics, the Manichaeans believed that light and darkness were substances scattered within the material world. For instance, they actually thought that melons and cucumbers held a great deal of light, meats and wine the dark elements. Eat a melon, promote good. Eat a chicken, foment evil.”

“And that was what Mani developed out of Gnosticism? Evil foods?”

“It’s not as silly as it sounds. How much sillier is the idea of separating spirit and matter-spirit good, matter evil? The Greeks got a great deal of mileage out of that one. And it’s not as if Mani didn’t find the material world as abhorrent as the orthodox Christians did; it’s just that he managed to make it an essential part of salvation.”

“Right, right.” Pearse slowly remembered his brief foray into the world of “Light and Darkness.” “And that’s why Augustine and the church were so uneasy.”

“Exactly. More than that, because Mani believed human beings are fashioned by demonic forces-bent on keeping the light trapped for eternity-he also thought that men had to play an active role in their own salvation: find those things that help to free the light, avoid those that don’t. Melons versus meat. Augustine had said the will was free only when choosing God. With Mani, you’ve got something that grants a sort of cosmic feeling of responsibility to the individual, because he might be a bearer of the light. Catholicism never gave its faithful that kind of autonomy.”

“Thanks for reminding me.”

“I told you you weren’t going to like it.”

“I might surprise you.”

“Anyway, a prophet’s ‘heavenly ascent’ was simply the highest form of that responsibility, all of it geared to bringing the gnosis back to his followers and thus freeing sufficient light so that the last of the prophets-Mani himself-could return and bring about the final purification of the world.”

“And that’s what the epistles are all about.”

“No.”

“No,” Pearse repeated. “Great.” He was doing his best not to get frustrated. “So these ‘heavenly ascents’-”

“Are where the epistles begin. Yes. What you might call Manichaeanism at its most attractive.”

“I see.” He had no idea what she was talking about, but he decided to press on anyway. “But it’s not where they end.”

“No.”

Again, he had to hold back his frustration. “So where do they end?”

“With the not so attractive.” She shifted in her chair.

“Meaning?”

“Well …” Again, she hesitated. “You have to remember that Mani’s followers thought that theirs was the one true and holy Christian church.”

“As did every other renegade sect at the time,” he countered. “What’s so unattractive?”

“Yes, but the Manichaeans were after a kind of hyperasceticism. They professed to be purer than the other churches, their scriptures more comprehensive and unambiguous, their methods of describing the world through their knowledge more quasi-scientific-something very appealing at the time-and their preparation for the return of the Messiah more complete.” She began to sift through a pile of books, picking out one as she spoke. “That preparation, though, demanded that there be only one church standing when the Messiah returned.” She scanned the pages, talking offhandedly. “All others had to be rooted out, or at least subsumed within the Manichaean system. Evangelicalism taken to its extreme. Even the Romans thought of them as some sort of ‘superior Christians,’ more pious, more devout than the rest.”