Mad Gods - Predatory Ethics: Book I by Athanasios Read Free Book Online Page B

trickery, deceit and
deception. If necessary, he even gained entry through impersonation. Rothschild
Institutes & Depositories, Sufiya and Astan-Quds Razavi, Medici Library,
Mortlake Residence and The Philosophical Research Society, all willingly opened
their doors to him. He also went through many of the newly discovered works
from Nag Hammadi, later called the Gnostic
Gospels, which included La Tome de
Les Parfaits, L’Histoire des Elites, the Sangrael Gospel.
    In addition to the private collections of the wealthy
elite, there were other texts, guarded and kept well hidden by clandestine
parts of the Roman Catholic Church. In the Vatican, itself, there was more than
thirty miles of shelves, known as the Secret Archives. The church’s judicial
bodies — the Roman Rota, Apostolic Signatura and the Apostolic
Penitentiary — each had their own chanceries.
    At any time during his quest, had he been discovered,
his life would have been at risk, not only as a result of his subterfuge, but
also because of where he ventured and who he was. More than the church’s
judicial bodies roamed the secret corners of the Vatican. Kosta passed many
priests, their hands scarred from fighting. He looked into many blankly staring
eyes, but his lies were always sufficient to dissuade further suspicion. They
wanted to believe the lies, so he let them.
    By itself, much of the knowledge he uncovered was
unique and innocuous. Each individual piece came alive to him from information
he had uncovered in unrelated codices, fitting together the puzzle pieces as no
one else had ever done. The deeper he penetrated, the easier it was to remain
unknown.
    His command of forgotten dialects and languages
became unparalleled. During the seventh months of his immersion in rare,
forgotten texts and unique volumes, he discovered the repeated prophecies of a
unique birth. It was spoken of at length in many manuscripts. It was detailed
in the reputed, original collections of Nostradamus’ Quatrains, the Gnostic Gospels, the Apocrypha, Idammah-Gan Codex and early Christian volumes, not
included in the modern Bible .
    After he completed that odyssey of discovery, he
returned to Alexandria to find the original text, about which Plethon had
spoken. During his first week, he had searched the wider ruins, along the
major, original book stacks and reading rooms, finally discovering the entrance
to an abandoned stairway. It was close to where Caesar’s men had carelessly lit
the fires, which had burned down Alexandria’s wharfs and docks. The collateral
damage was never even mentioned in his memoirs, the Civil Wars , because it would’ve pricked at his vanity, worse than
the pugios did on the Ides of March.
    After Kosta found the stairway, he descended and
searched the honeycomb of passages for a passage to further stairs, leading to
where all the original works, ever held at the Royal Library, were stored. It
was true that every book entering Alexandria had remained there. Even Marc
Anthony’s wedding gifts to Cleopatra were copied — every one of the
200,000 Pergamon scrolls, texts and codices.
    After another ten-day search in the dark, Kosta
finally located the stairway. Near the hidden entrance, he found a corroded,
ancient cross and bent down to rub some of the dirt off its surface. Some
deluded, early Christian zealot, under the influence of Patriarch Theophilus’
mob, had nearly done what Kostadinoupoli’s St. John Chrysostom called, “Vanishing from the face
of the earth, every trace of the old philosophy and literature of the ancient
world.” They had almost been successful, Kosta thought with a chill.
    He suppressed a shudder and felt for the edges of the
stone door, pushed five specific points in exact order, and ancient pulleys
screeched the door open. At first, clouds of dust hid the doorway, but soon
dispersed, revealing the foot-thick stone-hinged opening, much like any other
door. He walked through the opening easily enough, pushing the door shut