The Kashat Deception (A Getorius and Arcadia Mystery)

By Albert Noyer

A papyrus concealed in a Kushite Prince's mummy reveals a youthful Jesus, purportedly raised in an Egyptian tradition of diviners and healers.Prologue: Bethlehem, A.D. 1: Luke, a medical student traveling to Alexandria, is summoned to the home of Joseph whose wife, Mary, recently gave birth to a son, Emmanuel, now suffering an umbilical infection. He treats the child, just as Herod's soldiers arrive to search for male children under two years of age. Luke bribes the commander to spare Emmanuel and warns Joseph to escape with him in a caravan traveling to Egypt. On the way, Luke writes a record of the perilous journey. Pelusium, A.D. 440: Surgeon Getorius and his wife, Arcadia, arrive in Egypt, sent by Augusta Pulcheria to verify a traditional route venerated by the Egyptian [Coptic] Church as that of the Holy Family's flight. Nepheros, a secretary to governor Sergius Abinnaeus, befriends the couple and helps them adjust to the country's strange new culture and customs. Pelusium's Bishop Eusebios resents Constantinople's meddling in their religion and traditions, as does Patriarch Cyril at Alexandria. Before Abinnaeus and his wife, Dorothea, move to a winter villa, he trysts with his Kushite concubine, Pennuta, but scoffs at a demand that he marry her. Papnouthios, an Egyptian physician practicing vivisection and necromancy, reports the discovery of an ancient papyrus in the mummy of a Kushite Prince, who purportedly befriended Joseph and raised Jesus in mystical Egyptian healing practices. 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. Eusebios and Getorius try to determine the document's authenticity. When Pennuta is found murdered, Abinnaeus is blamed, but her brother Shandi, his scheming business partner, conspires to obtain the papyrus and help Nestorius escape to confront Cyril. When news comes of Pulcheria's detention in a palace coup at Constantinople, the couple's Imperial support evaporates, possibly leaving them stranded in a hostile Egypt. Is the papyrus authentic and will it get to Nestorios in time to confront Patriarch Cyril?A tale that blends historical A. D. 5th century events in Egypt, with surviving pagan Isis and Sobek crocodile god worship, and a forthcoming split from Greek Orthodoxy by the Christian Coptic Church, which survives to this day in Islamic Egypt.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 154991975X
• ISBN13: 9781549919756
• Release Date: January 2018
• Publisher: Independently published
• Length: 210 Pages
• Weight: 0.83 lbs.
• Dimensions: 9.0" x 0.5" x 6.0"