“Constantine had the steel swords of his army to back him up,” Seth continued. His story of the past played in Zoe’s mind brighter and brighter as the gathering darkness gradually erased the detail from the present.

Zoe broke the silence. “As far as I can remember, this wouldn’t be the first time theology was written with the sharp point of a sword.”

“And not the last.” Seth smiled. “So when all the bishops got to arguing again during the conference, Constantine had had enough. He was still an unbaptized pagan but he stepped in and declared that Jesus and God were ‘consubstantial’ and of ‘one substance with the Father.’ And what’s more, anybody at the conference who didn’t sign the declaration attesting that this was the word and will of God wouldn’t leave the conference… at least not alive. Not surprisingly, all but two signed and those two were excommunicated and their writings ordered to be burned.” He paused for a moment. “And so it is that the Trinity—the undisputed centerpiece of the Christian religion—was legislated at the point of a sword by a fellow who wasn’t even a Christian at the time and it was not for the faith but to restore civil order.”

Zoe gave him a wry smile and shook her head slowly. “So, the Nicean Creed was just Constantine’s way of having everybody get their stories straight, to spin things the same way.”

“Just that.”

“Hmmph,” Zoe said as she got to her feet and walked over to the window and looked down at the lights around the lake. “That old saying… the one about there are two things the public should never see being made: sausage and a law?” She turned to face him. “I guess there ought to be three. Theology.”

“It’s not pretty.” Seth agreed as he got up and went to her side. Together they looked out over the lake.

“I just don’t understand why you keep on believing when you know this stuff.”

Seth sighed loudly. “Sometimes I wonder myself, but I keep thinking that underneath all the theological lies and church bureaucracy there are still some bits and shreds of truth to believe in.”

“But what good are the shreds if the whole remains a mystery?”

“Maybe the mystery is the point” He shrugged. “Maybe the mystery has to remain because we’re looking at the infinite through finite eyes. Maybe what God really wants is not blind acceptance of dogma but a lifetime of searching… discarding what is obviously false, testing the rest That’s why this manuscript that Max gave you is so important It shows once again how the truth was edited to create a supposedly divine authority for what these people wanted to do. In this case, they wanted to suppress any sort of contention that women had a place in the church. So they did a sex change on Sophia.”

“Oh, please,” Zoe said.

She frowned for a moment, then her face recomposed itself as she sipped at her wine. Seth watched as her eyes changed ever so subtly, reflecting the shifting thoughts behind them. When she spoke again it was clear her mind had come about on a decidedly different tack. “The transcript of the trial?”