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Stories from the Verse
Con Version
Chapter 59: Cooper 19
Table of Contents
Previous chapter: Brown 302
Five days passed. Each afternoon Cooper was given a bit of stale crusty bread, what he’d have called a roll back home, and about eight ounces of water he guessed was drawn from a cistern. Yet each day he prayed over it, thanked God for the food and drink, broke the bread, and had it last until well after sunset.
On the sixth day he was taken from his cell to the room with the chair, and secured in it once again. He sat in it for a long time, possibly an hour, possibly longer, before someone else entered. This time the garb suggested a priest, or perhaps a monk, someone of some holy order. A soldier followed with a second chair, and with a motion to sweep his robes forward the priest sat down, perhaps five feet away from Cooper, and stared at his face. His eyes squinted, as if he were trying to see through something or see inside. Cooper maintained his unconcerned look and waited for the man to speak.
“I am told,” he said, “you speak English. This is true?”
“English is my first language.”
“You stand accused of heresy. What do you have to say?”
“Is it a heresy to believe in one God the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth and of all things visible and invisible, and in one Lord Jesus Christ the only begotten Son of God, begotten of His Father before all worlds, God of Gods, light of lights, very God of very God, begotten not made, being of one substance with the Father, through Whom all things were made, Who for us men and for our salvation came down from heaven and was incarnate by the Holy Ghost of the virgin Mary, and was made man, and was crucified also for us under Pontius Pilate; he suffered and was buried, and the third He rose again according to the scripture, and ascended into heaven, and sits at the right hand of the Father, and he shall come again in glory to judge both the quick and the dead, whose kingdom shall have no end; and to believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord and giver of life who proceeds from the Father and the Son, who with the Father and the Son together is worshiped and glorified, who spoke by the prophets, and in one holy catholic and apostolic church, and to acknowledge one baptism for the remission of sins, and to look for the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the world to come?”
The inquisitor glared at him with one eye. “Well, if you are a heretic, you are a well educated heretic. Tell me, do you believe that the bread of the mass is the body of Christ?”
“I would say yes, and ask whether you believe that the wine is the New Covenant.”
“The wine is the blood of Christ!”
“Does it not say in Luke that Jesus said, ‘This cup is the New Covenant in my blood’?”
“That is not what it means; you do not take that literally.”
“No? So you admit that Jesus might have been being figurative when He spoke of the bread and the wine.”
“No! Jesus literally says that the bread is His body.”
“And just as literally says that the cup is the new covenant, kainays diathaykas. How is that different?”
“It is heresy! The wine is His blood!”
“The wine represents His blood, and the bread represents His body. He often speaks in metaphor, as when He said we were salt, or that He was the vine and we the branches.”
“But the Apostle tells us that if you don’t discern the body when you partake, you eat and drink damnation to your soul.”
“But the Apostle speaks of the body of Christ as meaning all of us, and so might he not mean that you eat and drink damnation to yourself if you fail to recognize your connection to all other believers when you receive the elements? It is our connection to each other that matters. All men will know that we are His students because we have love for each other.”
“You will burn for your heresy.”
“Because I believe that the body of Christ is the union of all believers, and that we must recognize this if we are to be saved?”
“Because you hold heretical views about the body and blood of Christ.”
Cooper shrugged, but the gesture was lost on his inquisitor, who was already at the door to leave the cell. He wasn’t worried. God had delivered him miraculously already. He only wondered what miracle awaited him.
There is a behind-the-writings look at the thoughts, influences, and ideas of this chapter, along with eleven other sequential chapters of this novel, in mark Joseph "young" web log entry #505: Versers Advance. Given a moment, this link should take you directly to the section relevant to this chapter. It may contain spoilers of upcoming chapters.
As to the old stories that have long been here:
