History as a mirror

Ian Caldwell’s erudite novel The Fifth Gospel is set in the Vatican in 2004. The author describes it as a thriller about the conundrum of being a scientific-minded person of faith in the modern world

April 13, 2015 07:59 pm | Updated 07:59 pm IST

Ian Caldwell, author of the fifth gospel.

Ian Caldwell, author of the fifth gospel.

Ian Caldwell’s The Fifth Gospel (Simon & Schuster) tells the story of a mysterious and powerful exhibit in Vatican, the brutal murder of the curator, two brothers, both priests — one Roman Catholic and the other an Eastern Catholic and a dying pope’s wish. The book is a fascinating and erudite rendition of life in the Vatican. In this email interview the 39-year-old author talks about the genesis and research that went into the book. Excerpts.

Can you talk about the genesis of The Fifth Gospel?

It evolved from a historical enigma I discovered more than a decade ago. The Bible never tells us what Jesus looked like, and in the earliest surviving paintings of him, he is sometimes depicted as short-haired, sometimes as beardless, with no authoritative version winning out over the others. Yet around 400 AD, all of the other competing images were replaced by the long-haired, bearded Jesus we know today. Why? What discovery made the Christian world decide this was how Jesus really looked? That question gave birth to The Fifth Gospel .

In the acknowledgements you talk of the book being 10 years in the making. Can you elaborate?

The Fifth Gospel is set entirely inside the Vatican, and told from the perspective of a Catholic priest. I’m not Catholic myself, yet authenticity and factual accuracy are very important to me, so the novel required an enormous amount of research. I read more than 600 about the Vatican, and interviewed Vatican-trained clergy, Holy See diplomats, Catholic scholars, and Church-law specialists.

You collaborated with Dustin Thomason on The Rule of Four. Writing has often been described as a solitary pursuit. What are the pros and cons of collaborations?

Dusty and I were fresh college graduates when we began writing The Rule of Four , and I think our complete inexperience as writers, combined with our lifelong friendship, allowed us to survive what was otherwise a very unusual creative process. On the other hand, having a co-author guaranteed us a constant source of feedback and encouragement that, especially for two first-time novelists, proved crucial. We couldn’t have survived The Rule of Four without each other.

Is historical fiction your genre of choice? What is it about the genre that attracts you?

I write about modern people who share a deep sense of connection to the mysteries of the past. I find that I understand myself and my world better when I’m able to peer into history as a mirror.

Like you mentioned in the acknowledgements, the Catholic Church has every reason to be wary of novelists and yet they were forthcoming. Why do you think the Catholic Church has become a conspiracy theorists' favourite?

This is an ancient institution whose leader is elected in secrecy, governs more than a billion souls, and has his own private country. He owns the world’s greatest collection of art and ancient manuscripts, has a diplomatic network spanning the earth, and commands the absolute obedience of thousands of highly educated, men who dress entirely in black. If this is all you see when you see the Catholic Church, then it sounds like the greatest James Bond novel never written.

Would you describe The Fifth Gospel as a story of fathers and sons, or sin and redemption, or faith and family?

It’s all of those things. It’s also a thriller about the conundrum of being a scientific-minded person of faith in the modern world.

You mentioned Google was a great help in the research. Did you also travel to Vatican?

Even members of the Catholic clergy have asked me how much time I spent inside the Vatican, since the book’s portrayal of life there is so factual. The surprising answer is that I was never able to make a research trip there! I began working on this novel around the same time my wife and I had our first child. Two years later we had our second, and three years later our third. With newborns and toddlers at home, I couldn’t just fly to Rome for a few months for research. Instead, I relied on a huge private library of hard-to-find Vatican books and many, many interviews with Vatican-connected clergy. Some of the information they gave me (and pictures they sent me), I couldn’t possibly have discovered on my own even if I’d spent a year inside the Vatican.

Father Michael as Quasimodo — could you elaborate?

The Fifth Gospel is partly the story of a Catholic priest who serves as a Church diplomat, so the novel explores the tensions of serving in the Holy See Secretariat of State. Sometimes dissent takes unexpected forms at the Vatican, since it isn’t really possible to disagree outwardly with the pope. Based on this discovery I created a character in The Fifth Gospel who operates as a “Quasimodo,” meaning a priest who has quietly been recruited by those who disagree with the pope in order to do ugly things.

St. Thomas died in India. In the book you talk of St Thomas being buried in Edessa. Comment.

The story of Saint Thomas is a fascinating one. His name means “twin,” and in fact he is sometimes known in the gospels as “Thomas called Didymus,” where the name Didymus also means “twin.” The Fifth Gospel asks why he was known by this strange name, and examines the different accounts of Thomas found in the four gospels, raising questions about why these stories are slightly different from each other.

Very ancient Christian chronicles also tell us that Thomas sent a missionary to Edessa, a city that became famous in early Christianity for possessing a very unusual relic of Jesus. This relic and the mystery of its origins, plays a central role in The Fifth Gospel . After Thomas died, his remains were carried back to Edessa.

In describing the Vatican economy, you paint a fascinating portrait of the sacred and mundane. How difficult or easy was it to marry the two?

The Vatican has to strike a difficult balance between running a country and running a religious institution. Technically, and even on the balance sheet, the Vatican City-State (country) is entirely separate from the Holy See (religious institution), but the truth is that they inevitably brush up against each other. The Sistine Chapel isn’t just where new popes are elected in conclaves; it’s the last stop for tourists visiting the Vatican Museums, and the tiny country’s economy relies heavily on income from those ticket sales. So my portrait in The Fifth Gospel very much reflects the reality I found in my research.

0 / 0
Sign in to unlock member-only benefits!
  • Access 10 free stories every month
  • Save stories to read later
  • Access to comment on every story
  • Sign-up/manage your newsletter subscriptions with a single click
  • Get notified by email for early access to discounts & offers on our products
Sign in

Comments

Comments have to be in English, and in full sentences. They cannot be abusive or personal. Please abide by our community guidelines for posting your comments.

We have migrated to a new commenting platform. If you are already a registered user of The Hindu and logged in, you may continue to engage with our articles. If you do not have an account please register and login to post comments. Users can access their older comments by logging into their accounts on Vuukle.