The Book from the East
The first thing Brother Matteo had learned about the merchants from the East was that they were better at keeping their promises than the local fishermen.
The second was that they had better oil.
The oil arrived in squat clay jars, sealed with wax and marked with the signs of merchants Matteo could neither read nor pronounce. It burned cleanly, with little smoke, and lasted longer than anything the local presses produced. For the little chapel of Saint Nicholas, which stood above the harbour of a town south of Amalfi, this was no small blessing. The chapel had three lamps before the altar, two before the image of the Virgin, and one in a narrow alcove where a sailor's widow had placed a wooden cross in memory of her husband.
Matteo had learned to bargain for all six.
He was twenty-six, had been a monk for eight years, and possessed the sort of curiosity that his elders considered both a gift and a mild affliction. He wanted to know how things worked, why people believed what they believed, and whether a man who spoke a language Matteo did not understand could nevertheless be telling him something true.
The merchants indulged him.
There was Yusuf, a broad-shouldered man from Alexandria who traded in linen, spices, and oil. There was Samir, who claimed to have crossed the desert so many times that he had forgotten the colour of grass. There was an elderly Persian merchant named Bahram, who sold fine cloth and silverwork and had once spent an entire afternoon explaining to Matteo why the stars did not care about the fortunes of kings.
They brought him little gifts from time to time. A strip of dyed cloth. A brass weight shaped like a fish. Once, a tiny glass bottle containing a perfume so potent that Matteo had been obliged to keep it outside his cell.
In return, he helped them settle disputes with local officials, found a physician for Yusuf's feverish nephew, and occasionally arranged for the chapel's kitchen to provide bread when a shipment had been delayed.
They had come to regard him as a useful man.
Matteo, for his part, regarded them as windows.
Through them he had heard of Baghdad, Cairo, Samarkand, and cities beyond the reach of every map in the monastery library. He knew that the Greeks had traded and fought with the peoples of India, that Alexander had marched into lands whose names were now recited by schoolboys, and that Roman merchants had once sailed the eastern seas for spices and precious stones.
But those were fragments. The Greeks, he had discovered, were excellent at describing foreign peoples and less reliable when describing what those peoples thought of themselves.
He had wondered, more than once, what a man in India would say if he were asked to explain his own world.
He received an answer on a wet Tuesday in November.
Bahram arrived shortly before dusk, carrying a small wooden chest.
The rain had driven most of the merchants from the harbour, and the monk was alone in the chapel, trimming the wicks of the lamps.
“You are a difficult man to find,” Bahram announced.
“I am in a chapel.”
“A difficult place to find a man, if one wishes to sell him something.”
Matteo smiled. “I have no money.”
“I have not come to sell.”
Bahram placed the chest on a bench and opened it. Inside lay several folded lengths of silk, a silver cup, and a book wrapped in blue cloth.
The book was modest in appearance. Its cover was plain, its pages thick, and its binding unfamiliar. On the first page, beneath a short dedication in a flowing hand, was a title in Italian.
Il Canto del Beato.
The Song of the Blessed One.
Matteo looked up.
“A book?”
“You look disappointed.”
“I was expecting something more expensive.”
“Then you are becoming a merchant.”
Bahram laughed and explained that the text had come from Persia, where a scholar had translated it from Sanskrit into Persian. An Italian-speaking associate of the scholar had then rendered it into the language Matteo knew. Bahram had acquired a copy in a port farther east and had carried it west with his other goods.
“It is a dialogue,” he said. “Between a warrior and his charioteer. The warrior cannot bear to fight. The charioteer tells him what he must understand.”
“A Christian book?”
“No.”
“A Jewish book?”
“No.”
“Then what is it?”
Bahram considered the question.
“A book from India.”
Matteo turned the pages carefully. The script was clear, the translation unusually elegant. There were notes in the margins explaining names, customs, and concepts that would otherwise have been incomprehensible to an Italian reader.
“Why give it to me?”
“Because you ask questions without demanding that I become a fool before answering them.”
Bahram closed the chest.
“And because,” he added, “I would like to know what you think of it.”
Matteo glanced at the altar. The evening lamps were almost ready.
“I shall read it.”
“I assumed you would.”
At the door, Bahram turned back.
“Do not be offended if the book disagrees with you.”
Matteo raised an eyebrow.
“I am a monk. I am offended by many things. I shall try not to make this one of them.”
Bahram laughed again, and went out into the rain.
Matteo read the book in three nights.
On the first, he read about the warrior's despair.
Arjuna stood between two armies and saw before him the faces of men he loved, men who had taught him, men whose deaths would leave children fatherless and households broken. He could not imagine victory without horror. He could not imagine defeat without dishonour. He could not act, and yet inaction itself seemed to carry consequences.
Matteo knew this paralysis.
He had seen men at the harbour refuse to choose between two evils until the choice had been made for them. He had seen fathers remain silent while their sons made ruinous decisions, fearing that intervention would destroy the affection between them. He had seen good men allow suffering to continue because every available remedy seemed imperfect.
He had always believed that the answer lay in conscience, prayer, and the teachings of Christ.
Yet here was a man who appeared to have reached the same terrible crossroads by another road entirely.
The charioteer did not merely tell him to obey. He spoke of the self, of death, of duty, of the difference between the body and the enduring soul.
Matteo found himself reading passages twice.
On the second night, he encountered the teaching that a man should act without attachment to the fruits of his actions.
He put the book down.
Outside his narrow window, the harbour bells sounded the hour. A dog barked in the street below. Somewhere, a woman was calling for her child.
Matteo thought of the chapel.
He had spent the better part of his adult life ensuring that its lamps burned, its floor remained swept, and its poor visitors received bread when the kitchen could spare it. He took pride in doing these things well. He also took pride in being regarded as a man who did them well.
He remembered a winter evening when a wealthy widow had praised his diligence before the pastor. He had pretended embarrassment, then spent the rest of the day quietly pleased with himself.
Was the good he had done diminished because he had enjoyed being praised for it?
If he had acted partly for recognition, had he acted wrongly?
And if he had not expected recognition, would the act have been more truly good?
The book seemed to suggest that freedom required a man to surrender his claim upon the outcome, even upon the reward for his virtue.
Matteo thought of the Gospel. He thought of Christ's instruction to give alms in secret, not for the admiration of men.
The resemblance unsettled him.
He read on.
The third night was the worst.
For the warrior's charioteer revealed himself as something far greater than a teacher. The book described a universal form, a vision of existence in which creation, destruction, life, and death were gathered into a reality that no ordinary human eye could endure.
Matteo closed the book and sat motionless.
He had been taught that God was the creator of all things, that creation was not God, and that the world depended upon divine goodness. He had been taught that the mystery of the Trinity was not a licence to speak carelessly of divine multiplicity, and that Christ was not merely a man who had attained extraordinary wisdom.
Yet this Indian text presented a figure who spoke with the authority of the ultimate divine reality.
The charioteer was not simply pointing towards God.
He was claiming to be the one to whom everything ultimately belonged.
Matteo opened the book again.
He found the passages on devotion. The individual was called to surrender selfishness, to direct action towards the divine, and to seek liberation through knowledge, disciplined work, and love.
It was not the same faith he knew.
He could see that much.
But neither was it the nonsense he had half expected to find.
He looked towards the little wooden cross above his desk.
“Lord,” he whispered, “what am I to do with this?”
The cross offered no explanation.
Matteo returned to the book.
Father Lorenzo was eating an apple when Matteo arrived at the presbytery the following morning.
He was a spare, grey-haired man with a weathered face and a habit of listening so intently that visitors often found themselves telling him more than they had intended. He had served the town for nearly thirty years. He knew which fishermen drank too much, which merchants cheated on their weights, which widows had no firewood, and which boys were likely to become priests if somebody could persuade them to stop fighting long enough to learn their letters.
He also knew Matteo.
“You look terrible,” he said.
“I have been reading.”
“That is usually less dangerous than drinking.”
“I am not certain.”
Lorenzo put down the apple.
“What is it?”
Matteo produced the book.
The priest examined the cover, then looked at him.
“Where did this come from?”
“Bahram. A Persian merchant.”
“And what does it contain?”
“A dialogue between a warrior and his charioteer. The charioteer teaches him about the soul, duty, action, devotion, and the nature of the divine.”
Lorenzo waited.
Matteo hesitated.
“I think I need to talk about it.”
“Then sit down.”
They sat at the small table beside the window. Matteo began with Arjuna's despair, explaining how the warrior could not reconcile his obligations with the destruction he was about to cause. He spoke of the immortal self, of action without attachment, and of the strange freedom that might come from relinquishing the demand that the world reward a man for doing what was right.
Lorenzo listened without interruption.
When Matteo finished, the priest leaned back.
“These are serious questions.”
“They are not mine.”
“Whose are they?”
“The book's. Or the warrior's. Or the charioteer's. I cannot say.”
“But you have made them your own.”
Matteo looked down.
“Yes.”
Lorenzo took a piece of apple from the plate.
“Tell me what troubles you most.”
Matteo had prepared several answers. He spoke none of them.
“Suppose,” he said, “that a man does good because he wishes to be good. He feeds the hungry because hunger is evil. He protects the weak because they ought to be protected. He speaks the truth because falsehood destroys trust. Yet he also wishes to be admired for these things. He wishes to be saved. He wishes to know that his life has mattered.”
He looked at the priest.
“How much of his goodness belongs to the good, and how much belongs to himself?”
Lorenzo did not answer immediately.
“And if he relinquishes the desire for reward,” Matteo continued, “does he become more virtuous? Or does he merely cease to care what happens? If the result of an action does not belong to him, what responsibility does he have for the result?”
The priest's expression changed. The amusement had left it.
Matteo pressed on.
“And then there is the soul. This book speaks of the self as something that survives the body and returns again and again. We teach the resurrection of the dead. We teach that each life is precious, that judgement awaits us, that we are creatures of God. But this man speaks as though the soul's journey is far longer than one life, and as though liberation means escaping the cycle altogether.”
He swallowed.
“I do not believe the same things. But I want to understand why he believes them. And I want to know whether I have understood my own beliefs as well as I thought I had.”
Lorenzo was silent for a long moment.
Then he said, “You have been reading a book from India.”
Matteo nodded.
“And now you have discovered that you have a mind.”
Matteo stared at him.
The priest smiled.
“It is an unpleasant discovery for many of us. We prefer to think that all our difficult questions have been settled by the time we take our vows.”
Matteo laughed despite himself.
“I am serious, Father.”
“So am I.”
Lorenzo reached for the book. He turned a few pages, studying the translator's notes.
“I know little of India,” he said. “Less than you, apparently. The Greeks wrote of those lands, and the Romans repeated what they knew, but neither was obliged to understand everything it encountered. They travelled, traded, fought, and returned with accounts shaped by their own concerns. We must be careful not to mistake their descriptions for the whole truth of another people.”
He closed the book.
“But I know something of the questions you have found in it.”
“You do?”
“I have spent thirty years hearing men ask whether they are good because they love goodness or because they fear punishment. I have heard merchants wonder whether generosity counts when it is performed before witnesses. I have watched men do the right thing for the wrong reasons and the wrong thing for reasons they considered noble.”
He leaned forward.
“The question is not foolish. But neither is it new to Christianity.”
Matteo felt an unexpected surge of relief.
“Then the book is wrong?”
“I did not say that.”
The priest's answer was so immediate that Matteo looked up sharply.
Lorenzo continued.
“I said that your questions are not new to Christianity. That is not the same as saying another people cannot ask them well, or that they cannot discover something we have neglected to consider.”
He tapped the book.
“You must distinguish between understanding a question and accepting an answer. The man who asks why the soul endures has not thereby proved that it is reborn. The man who teaches detachment from reward has not thereby shown that the good of an action is independent of its consequences. And the man who claims to speak as God must still be examined according to what he teaches about God.”
Matteo nodded slowly.
“But if I find something true in it?”
“Then you have found something true.”
The answer was so simple that Matteo almost missed it.
He frowned.
“Even if it comes from a religion we do not accept?”
“Truth does not become false because a stranger discovers it first.”
Lorenzo looked towards the window. Below them, a cart rattled over the stones, and a pair of sailors were arguing about a broken axle.
“The Church teaches that all truth belongs ultimately to God. We should not be afraid of truth. We should be afraid of our own vanity, which persuades us that because we have been entrusted with the truth, we must already possess every answer worth knowing.”
Matteo was quiet.
Then he asked the question he had been avoiding.
“Father, is it wrong that I find the book profound?”
Lorenzo looked back at him.
“No.”
The answer came without qualification.
Matteo's shoulders relaxed, but only slightly.
“I sometimes feel,” he confessed, “that the more I read, the less certain I am of what I know. The book seems to open one door, and behind it there are ten more. I read about duty and find myself questioning my motives. I read about the soul and find myself questioning what I mean when I say that I shall live forever. I read about devotion and find myself asking whether I love God or whether I love the comfort of believing that God loves me.”
His voice had grown quieter.
“And then I wonder whether I am wandering away from Christ simply by asking.”
Lorenzo regarded him with an expression Matteo had seen only a few times before: the look of a man who was considering not what he ought to say, but what the other person most needed to hear.
“Matteo,” he said, “when you were a boy, you used to ask me why God made the sea.”
Matteo blinked.
“I remember.”
“You asked why He made it so beautiful, and then why He made it capable of drowning men. You asked why the gulls could fly and we could not. You asked why God gave us a world so full of wonders and then required us to die before we could understand it.”
“I was twelve.”
“You were insufferable.”
Matteo smiled.
“And I never told you to stop asking. I told you that some questions require patience, some require study, and some require the humility to admit that we may not receive a complete answer in this life.”
Lorenzo placed a hand on the book.
“You have found a people who have asked some of these questions in their own language, through their own history, and according to their own understanding of the world. You need not pretend that their answers are ours. But neither should you pretend that their questions are meaningless.”
He paused.
“Exploring the spiritual life does not mean betraying Christ.”
Matteo looked at him.
“The danger is not that you will read a book and discover that someone else has thought deeply about God. The danger is that you will become so frightened of what you might discover that you stop thinking altogether. Or that you become so enamoured of being a clever man that you begin to mistake novelty for wisdom.”
The priest's smile returned.
“Both are common temptations. The second is particularly common among young monks who have recently acquired foreign books.”
Matteo laughed.
“I shall endeavour to avoid both.”
“Do so. And read carefully. If you disagree with the book, understand it well enough to disagree honestly. If you find something worthy in it, do not deny that merely because it unsettles you. And when you return to the Gospels, read them with the same seriousness.”
He pushed the book gently towards Matteo.
“Above all, ask yourself what your reading is doing to you. Are you becoming more patient? More honest? More compassionate towards those who cannot repay you? More willing to admit your own faults? Or are you merely collecting arguments to admire yourself?”
Matteo considered this.
“I hope the former.”
“So do I. But hope is not evidence. You will have to practise.”
The conversation stayed with Matteo for the rest of the day.
He returned to the chapel and found Yusuf waiting beside the door with two jars of oil.
“You look less ill,” the merchant observed.
“I have spoken with my pastor.”
“Ah. And has he forbidden you to read the book?”
“No.”
Yusuf looked mildly disappointed.
“What a pity. It would have made a much better story.”
Matteo helped him carry the jars inside.
They worked in silence for a while, replacing the old oil in the lamps. When the first flame caught, it burned with its familiar, steady light.
“Yusuf,” Matteo said, “what do you know of India?”
The merchant considered the question.
“Very little. I have traded with men who have traded with men who have been there.”
“Do you know what they believe?”
“Some of them.”
“Would you tell me?”
“If you will tell me what you believe.”
Matteo smiled.
“Agreed.”
Yusuf lifted the second jar.
“Then you must buy me supper. Religious conversations are very expensive.”
“I thought you were a merchant.”
“I am. That is why I know the value of my time.”
They laughed, and Matteo made a note to speak with the cook.
That evening, after the last visitor had left, he returned to his cell and opened the book again.
He did not read it as a man searching for a replacement for Christ. Nor did he read it as a man hunting for errors to confirm what he already believed.
He read it as a man who had discovered that the world was larger than his ignorance had allowed him to imagine.
The warrior still troubled him. The immortal self remained difficult to reconcile with the resurrection he believed in. The cosmic form of Krishna unsettled his understanding of the creator and creation. The doctrine of rebirth seemed to lead towards a different destination from the one promised in the Gospels.
But the teaching on action without attachment drew him back.
He thought of the widow whose lamp burned before the wooden cross. He thought of the hungry men who came to the chapel, of the merchants who trusted him with their disputes, of the praise he sometimes enjoyed too much.
He wondered whether he could perform his duties tomorrow without keeping a private account of what he deserved in return.
He wondered whether he could love goodness without needing to be known as a good man.
He wondered whether he could ask God for wisdom without demanding that wisdom arrive in a form he already recognised.
Before sleeping, he knelt beside his bed.
He prayed as he always had, beginning with the familiar words he had learned as a child.
But when he reached the end, he remained kneeling.
“Christ,” he whispered, “if there is truth here, teach me to recognise it. If there is error, teach me to understand it. And if my pride is the thing that prevents me from learning, then let me discover that too.”
He waited, feeling rather foolish.
Nothing happened.
The chapel bells rang the hour.
Outside, the harbour slept beneath a clear sky, its ships pointing east and west, their cargoes of oil, silver, silk, and stories waiting to be carried to places their owners might never see.
Matteo rose, extinguished his candle, and placed the Indian book beside his Bible.
For the first time since he had entered the monastery, he did not feel that the questions waiting for him were an obstacle to his faith.
They were part of the road.
And the road, he was beginning to understand, might be longer than he had been told.
The End
