Free Raptor by Gary Jennings Page A

congregation chanted the Trecanum: “Gustate et videte…!”
    When all had partaken, Dom Clement recited the Thanksgiving, but then, before pronouncing the Dismissal, he interposed a message that was not in the liturgy. You see, it was the custom of many among the congregation to swallow only a particle of the Host given them, then to take the remainder home and receive bits of it privately after their family prayers during the week. And Dom Clement warned those communicants, every Sunday, against leaving that consecrated bread carelessly about their houses, where a rat or a mouse—“or worse, some person not baptized in the Holy Catholic Church”—might accidentally or atrociously eat of it. Then he dismissed the worshippers: “Benedicat et exaudiat nos, Deus. Missa acta est. In pace.”
    Although I had heard him utter that caution about the Host innumerable times, never before had I thought to wonder why there should be any but Catholic Christians among the local folk. As I have told, I had for long been seeing the peasants do various things that seemed to me not quite—or not at all—in accord with Christian custom and practice. I had also long ago noticed that there were a good many folk of the Balsan Hrinkhen who did not attend our church services even on high holy days. Of course, in any community there are a few energumens, those “possessed by demons,” which is to say insane, who are forbidden entry to a church. I had assumed that most of those who ignored our services were merely impious and lazy louts. But the very next day I learned that some were guilty of a waywardness far more to be reprehended.
    At the appointed hour, I took my wax tablets to Dom Clement’s quarters, to sit down and do the exceptor work of transcribing his correspondence. As he usually did on Mondays, the abbot asked if I had any questions about what he had preached at the previous day’s mass. I replied that yes, I did, but I tried not to sound audacious or disrespectful as I said:
    “Those Hebrew tribes mentioned in the psalm, Nonnus Clement—you told the congregation how their names derived from the Latin tongue or from an old Roman demon-god. Surely, Nonnus, those Old Testament peoples named themselves long before Romans occupied the Holy Land and brought to it their language and their pagan gods…”
    “Good for you, Thorn,” said the abbot, smiling. “You are maturing into a very alert young man.”
    “But… then… how could you utter what you knew to be an untruth?”
    “The better to convince the congregation of the sinfulness of those enemies of the Lord,” said Dom Clement. He had ceased to smile, but he spoke without anger. “I trust God will overlook that small deception, lad, even if you do not. Most of my congregation are simple folk. To persuade such rustics to keep the faith, Mother Church allows her ministers occasionally to assist the cause of truth with the aid of pious artifice.”
    I pondered this, then asked, “Is that also why Mother Church set Christ’s birthday on the same date as that of the demon Mithras?”
    Now the abbot frowned. “I fear I may have been allowing you too much liberty, my boy, in your choice of studies. That question might have been posed by a pervicacious pagan, not a good Christian who believes the Church’s teachings. Of those teachings, one is this: If it ought to be, it will be. If it is, it ought to be.”
    I mumbled humbly, “I stand chastised, Nonnus Clement.”
    “Whatever you have read or heard about Mithras,” he said, more kindly, “wipe it from your mind. The superstitious belief in Mithras was doomed even before Christianity overwhelmed it. Mithraism could never have survived, because it excluded females from its worship. To grow and thrive, a religion must appeal, above all, to those most easily led, those most amenable to paying tithes, those most susceptible and even gullible—meaning women, of course.”
    Still humbly, I nodded, then waited for a