The Kashat Deception
(2014)(The fifth book in the Getorius and Arcadia Mystery series)
A novel by Albert Noyer
A papyrus concealed in a Kushite Prince's mummy tells of a youthful Jesus raised in an Egyptian tradition of diviners and healers.
After a Prologue set just after the birth of Jesus, when Joseph must flee with Mary and the infant to Egypt in a caravan, and escape Herod's soldiers, Chapter 1 opens with Getorius and Arcadia tasked by Aelia Pulcheria with verifying a traditional route that marks the Holy Family's flight. The couple arrives at Pelusium in a hostile political and religious environment that resents Constantinople's meddling in the Egyptian [Coptic} Church. Only Governor Abinnaeus's secretary, Nepheros, befriends them. Before the governor and his wife, Dorothea, move to a winter villa, he trysts with Pennuta, his Kushite concubine, who demands that he marry her. Papnuthios, a physician experimenting with vivisection and reanimation, reports the discovery of the mummy of a Kushite prince named Kashat. When Getorius examines the mummy, in the pagan temple of a crocodile god, he uncovers a concealed golden case containing a papyrus. It purports to be an account by Kashat, who sheltered Joseph's family, but raised Jesus as his own son in esoteric Egyptian lore. The account will support a heresy of Nestorios, now exiled in a desert monastery for denying that Christ is inseparably both True God and True man. Bishop Eusebios impounds the document and tries to ascertain its authenticity with Getorius. Arcadia falls ill with puretos -- swamp fever. When Pennuta is found murdered, the governor is blamed, but her brother, Shandi, his scheming business partner conspires with a pretorium faction to help Nestorios escape and confront the Patriarch at Alexandria with the damning papyrus. When news comes of Pulcheria's fall from power at Constantinople, the couple may be stranded in Egypt without Imperial support. in an Epilogue, Arcadia summarizes these events in a letter to her father: the fate of Nestorius and others involved in the plot; what happened to the papyrus and a spurious "Diary of Joseph" the couple were to secretly locate; their slim chance of retuning to Ravenna before spring.
An intriguing tale that blends historical 5th century events in pre-Islamic Egypt with the fictitious discovery of a papyrus that challenges Early Christian doctrines about Christ's Divinity, surviving pagan Isis and crocodile god worship at Pelusium, and a forthcoming split with the Coptic Church and Greek Orthodoxy that continues to this day.
Genre: Historical
After a Prologue set just after the birth of Jesus, when Joseph must flee with Mary and the infant to Egypt in a caravan, and escape Herod's soldiers, Chapter 1 opens with Getorius and Arcadia tasked by Aelia Pulcheria with verifying a traditional route that marks the Holy Family's flight. The couple arrives at Pelusium in a hostile political and religious environment that resents Constantinople's meddling in the Egyptian [Coptic} Church. Only Governor Abinnaeus's secretary, Nepheros, befriends them. Before the governor and his wife, Dorothea, move to a winter villa, he trysts with Pennuta, his Kushite concubine, who demands that he marry her. Papnuthios, a physician experimenting with vivisection and reanimation, reports the discovery of the mummy of a Kushite prince named Kashat. When Getorius examines the mummy, in the pagan temple of a crocodile god, he uncovers a concealed golden case containing a papyrus. It purports to be an account by Kashat, who sheltered Joseph's family, but raised Jesus as his own son in esoteric Egyptian lore. The account will support a heresy of Nestorios, now exiled in a desert monastery for denying that Christ is inseparably both True God and True man. Bishop Eusebios impounds the document and tries to ascertain its authenticity with Getorius. Arcadia falls ill with puretos -- swamp fever. When Pennuta is found murdered, the governor is blamed, but her brother, Shandi, his scheming business partner conspires with a pretorium faction to help Nestorios escape and confront the Patriarch at Alexandria with the damning papyrus. When news comes of Pulcheria's fall from power at Constantinople, the couple may be stranded in Egypt without Imperial support. in an Epilogue, Arcadia summarizes these events in a letter to her father: the fate of Nestorius and others involved in the plot; what happened to the papyrus and a spurious "Diary of Joseph" the couple were to secretly locate; their slim chance of retuning to Ravenna before spring.
An intriguing tale that blends historical 5th century events in pre-Islamic Egypt with the fictitious discovery of a papyrus that challenges Early Christian doctrines about Christ's Divinity, surviving pagan Isis and crocodile god worship at Pelusium, and a forthcoming split with the Coptic Church and Greek Orthodoxy that continues to this day.
Genre: Historical
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Used availability for Albert Noyer's The Kashat Deception