Four Voices
FOUR VOICES
An imagined encounter in Venice, 1555
A story in two parts about wisdom, faith, freedom, and the survival of ancient writings.
Part One — The Lamp and the Four Books
I. An invitation in Venice
Venice, October 1555.
The four visitors arrived separately, as their host had requested.
The printer's house stood beside a narrow canal, some distance from the busiest quays. On its ground floor, apprentices set type and carried damp sheets to the drying racks. Above the workshop was a room usually reserved for correcting proofs. There, beneath a low ceiling darkened by years of smoke, a table had been prepared.
Four chairs surrounded it. There was bread, a jug of water, a little wine, and a brass oil lamp.
Their host, a printer named Lorenzo, had brought them together partly from curiosity and partly because he hoped to discover whether the unusual writing carried by one of his visitors might be worth reproducing.
That visitor was Fenna, a Frisian woman whose family had preserved a collection of writings concerning the ancient history, laws, and beliefs of her people. She had travelled with copies rather than the oldest leaves, and she had been careful not to explain how the originals had come into her family's possession.
The letters were unfamiliar to Lorenzo. Some seemed related to northern alphabets; others appeared to follow a geometrical pattern that Fenna called the Wheel. She claimed that the writings preserved an account of a society whose institutions had been forgotten.
The other visitors were Miriam, a Jewish scholar who had come from a family of physicians and translators; Thomas, a Christian humanist interested in the earliest attainable wording of the Scriptures; and Yusuf, a merchant and learned Muslim who travelled regularly between the eastern Mediterranean and Italian ports.
None had been invited to judge whether the others' religion was true.
The invitation had asked a more difficult question:
What do our oldest teachings have in common, and where do they lead us in different directions?
Fenna arrived carrying a wooden case.
Thomas looked at it with interest.
"Is that your book?"
"Some of it."
"Is it sacred?"
"It is precious," she replied. "Those are not always the same thing."
Miriam smiled.
"Then perhaps we shall get along."
When everyone had taken a seat, Lorenzo lit the lamp and withdrew. He had promised not to record their conversation without permission.
For a while they studied one another.
At last Yusuf asked, "Who shall begin?"
Fenna opened her case.
"Perhaps the one whose writings none of you knows."
II. The first principle
She laid a sheet on the table.
"Our ancestors taught that all things have their beginning in Wralda. He is eternal, without a visible form, and no creature can fully comprehend him. From the Beginning came time, and through time the world took shape."
Miriam leaned forward.
"Then you believe in one eternal source of existence."
"Yes."
"And not in a family of gods, each ruling a different part of creation?"
"No. Our histories speak of men and women who were later treated as gods. They warn us against mistaking such people for the eternal spirit."
Yusuf nodded.
"The Qur'an also rejects the worship of created beings. God is one, unlike anything that exists."
"And our Scriptures begin with the creation of heaven and earth," said Miriam. "The Eternal cannot be reduced to an image fashioned by human hands."
Thomas added, "Christ teaches that God is spirit. Paul writes that all things are from God, through God, and unto God."
Fenna looked at him.
"But you speak of Christ as divine."
"I do."
"Then we have reached a difference before we have finished our first agreement."
"Let it wait," Miriam suggested. "We agreed to begin with what we share."
Thomas accepted the proposal.
"Then I would say that we all reject the notion that ultimate truth can be possessed as a man possesses a house."
"Possessed, perhaps not," Yusuf said. "But known in part, through what God has revealed."
"Or through what the order of creation teaches us," Fenna replied.
Miriam noticed the distinction.
"You begin with the world, Fenna. The three of us also look to teachings received and preserved."
"I too have received teachings," Fenna said, touching her manuscript. "But the worth of a teaching must be discovered in what it reveals, not merely in the antiquity claimed for it."
Thomas glanced down at the unfamiliar letters.
"That is a demanding rule to apply to one's own books."
"It ought to be."
III. The woman called Wisdom
Miriam opened a Hebrew volume.
"In our writings, Wisdom sometimes speaks as a woman. She calls from the gates and the streets. She teaches prudence, justice, understanding, and the fear of God."
Fenna looked pleased.
"In ours, Frya taught her children first to master themselves, next to love virtue, and only then to understand freedom."
"Why that order?" asked Thomas.
"Because a person who cannot govern his own desires is easily governed by another. Freedom is of little use to someone who has exchanged one master for another within himself."
Yusuf considered this.
"Luqman teaches his son humility and moderation. Wisdom is not merely learning many things. A man may fill his head and remain foolish in his conduct."
"Our Proverbs say much the same," Miriam replied.
"Then what is wisdom?" Thomas asked.
Fenna answered first.
"To understand the order of things sufficiently to act without doing needless harm."
"To know one's obligations before God and one's neighbour," said Miriam.
"To recognize God's guidance and act justly," Yusuf said.
Thomas waited.
"And you?" Miriam asked.
"To know what is good, yet also to recognize that knowing it does not make us good. We need mercy, forgiveness, and a change of heart."
Fenna nodded slowly.
"That is a distinction worth keeping."
Thomas seemed surprised.
"You agree?"
"That knowledge alone is insufficient? Certainly. Our histories are full of clever people whose cleverness made them dangerous."
IV. The shepherd's dog
"Then tell us one of those histories," Miriam said.
Fenna selected another sheet.
"There was once a woman called Minerva, also known as Hellenia. She travelled far from her own people and became renowned for her wisdom. Princes and priests came to question her. They asked why she kept a dog beside her."
"What did she answer?" Yusuf asked.
"That a shepherd needs a dog to keep the flock together. Just as the dog serves the shepherd, she served the ancient mother of her people and watched over her flock."
"An image we know," Miriam said.
"But Minerva went further. She accused those princes and priests of wishing to keep the people tame, like sheep. They would guard them, she said, only so that they might shear them and lead them to slaughter."
Miriam closed her eyes briefly.
"Ezekiel."
"Who is that?" Fenna asked.
"A prophet who condemned the shepherds of Israel for feeding themselves instead of their sheep. They took wool and fat, but neglected the sick and the weak."
Thomas nodded.
"Christ speaks of the good shepherd who protects his flock, and of the hired hand who abandons it when danger comes."
Yusuf said, "There is much wisdom in the difference between a guardian and a master who profits from his dependants."
"But there is another question," Fenna replied. "Must a human being remain a sheep?"
"What do you mean?" Thomas asked.
"Minerva wished the people to become wise. She did not wish them to depend upon her forever. A true guardian should make others less dependent on guardians."
"Yet children must first be taught," Miriam objected.
"Certainly."
"And the weak must be protected."
"Yes."
"Then there will always be need for some form of shepherding."
Fenna considered the objection.
"Perhaps. But let the shepherd remember that the flock does not exist for his benefit."
Thomas smiled.
"That we can all affirm."
V. Three sacks of grain
Fenna took up a smaller page.
"Here is another account. After a war came famine. Three men stole grain, one sack each, from three different owners."
"An understandable crime," said Miriam, "though still a crime."
"The first owner brought the thief before the authorities. The wise women judged that he had acted lawfully."
"And the second?" Yusuf asked.
"He recovered his grain and released the thief. They judged that he had acted well."
"And the third?"
"He went to the thief's house. There he found children suffering from hunger. So he returned with a wagon of provisions and gave them enough to survive."
Nobody spoke immediately.
"What judgment was passed on him?" Thomas asked.
"His deed was entered in the Eternal Book, and his shortcomings were said to have been erased."
Miriam leaned back.
"Our Proverbs speak of a man who steals because he is hungry. The need is understood, though restitution is still required."
"And the Qur'an praises those who feed the poor and release people from bondage," Yusuf said. "Justice is commanded, but so is doing good beyond what is strictly owed."
Thomas nodded.
"Christ's account of the Samaritan comes to mind. The man who truly acted as a neighbour was the one who tended the stranger's wounds."
"Then which of the three owners acted rightly?" Fenna asked.
"All three acted in ways the law might allow," Miriam replied. "But the third perceived something the others had overlooked."
"The cause of the theft," said Yusuf.
"And the suffering behind it," Thomas added.
"Yet a law cannot be replaced by generosity alone," Miriam continued. "A poor widow whose grain has been stolen must be protected as surely as a hungry thief must be helped."
"Yes," Fenna said. "The tale does not abolish justice. It asks whether justice is complete when the law has been satisfied."
Thomas looked at the page.
"That is a question worth passing to our children."
VI. The danger of holy men
Yusuf had listened carefully to Fenna's examples.
"Your writings appear especially severe toward priests."
"They are severe toward those who use religion to make others dependent."
"Not all religious teachers do so."
"I know. Yet our histories tell repeatedly how men acquired authority by claiming secret knowledge, inventing divine commands, and changing the words of earlier teachers."
"Such corruption is condemned in the Qur'an," Yusuf said. "There are warnings against men who write something themselves and claim that it comes from God, seeking worldly advantage."
Miriam said, "Our prophets repeatedly rebuked those who practised outward worship while neglecting justice. But we do not therefore reject the priestly laws given to Israel."
"Nor can I reject the ministry of the Church merely because its servants sometimes fail," Thomas added.
Fenna regarded him steadily.
"Sometimes?"
Thomas accepted the correction.
"Too often. But corruption of an office does not necessarily prove the office itself unlawful."
"That," said Fenna, "is where we differ. My ancestors feared that an office founded upon supposedly exclusive access to heaven could become dangerous even when its holder believed himself virtuous."
Yusuf answered, "Yet someone must teach, judge, and preserve what has been received. A community cannot live entirely without authority."
"Then let authority be limited," Fenna said. "Let its holders be answerable. Let them teach what they know and admit what they do not."
Miriam smiled.
"That is more easily said than accomplished."
"Then it must be practised repeatedly."
VII. Four lamps
As evening deepened, Lorenzo entered with fresh oil.
Yusuf watched him tend the flame.
"In the Qur'an, God's light is compared with a lamp in a niche, sheltered in glass."
"In our sanctuary," Miriam said, "lamps are tended according to the law. Light is also an image of instruction."
"Christ tells his followers not to hide their light," Thomas added. "A lamp is set where others may see."
Fenna looked at the flame.
"Our ancient settlements kept a lamp that was never willingly extinguished. When another fortified centre was founded, its flame was taken from the first. The women who guarded it also preserved laws, histories, and practical knowledge."
"The fire was sacred?" Yusuf asked.
"What it represented was sacred: the duty not to allow knowledge to perish."
"And what if those who guarded it began to claim that no one else could understand the writings?" Miriam asked.
"Then they would betray the purpose of their office."
Thomas said, "It seems we have found a danger shared by all four traditions. The keeper of a light may come to believe that the light belongs to him."
"And the one who tends the lamp," Yusuf said, "may confuse its vessel with its source."
Fenna nodded.
"The flame does not belong to the hand that carries it."
For a moment the agreement seemed complete.
Then Miriam looked at the four books.
"We have spoken of God, wisdom, justice, and the preservation of knowledge. Yet we have avoided the questions that may prevent us from ever becoming one community."
"Perhaps," Yusuf replied, "we should now ask them."
VIII. Who may speak for God?
"Who determines what is true?" Miriam began.
"The Eternal has given Israel instruction," she said. "Our duty is not to invent the law according to our convenience."
"Christ reveals the way to reconciliation with God," Thomas said. "For me, that revelation cannot be reduced to a lesson in good government."
"And the Qur'an calls humanity to recognize the one God and heed his messengers," Yusuf added.
Fenna listened before replying.
"I do not deny that older generations can teach us. Without them, we must discover everything anew. But when someone says, 'God has commanded this,' how shall I distinguish the command from the speaker's own wishes?"
"By examining the revelation and its interpretation," Miriam said.
"By the teaching and example of Christ," Thomas answered.
"By the Qur'an and sound understanding," Yusuf said.
"And if those interpretations conflict?"
"They must be argued honestly," Miriam replied.
"Yet argument cannot settle everything," Thomas said.
"Why not?"
"Because there are matters of faith that reason alone cannot compel us to accept."
Fenna considered his answer.
"Then I must leave those matters open."
"Even if they concern your own salvation?"
"I cannot call a thing known merely because I fear the consequences of doubt."
Yusuf shook his head gently.
"Nor should doubt become a virtue simply because it is doubt. A man can refuse good counsel from pride as readily as he can accept false counsel from fear."
Fenna accepted the rebuke.
"True. Then let us agree at least that neither certainty nor doubt makes a person wise unless he has good grounds for it."
IX. The divine and the human
Thomas turned to Fenna.
"You spoke earlier of exceptional people being made into gods. Is that what your writings say happened to Minerva?"
"Yes. After her death, priests spread tales of miracles, made images of her, and claimed she had spoken things she had never said."
Yusuf said, "The Qur'an rejects the worship of Jesus and his mother as divine beings beside God."
"Then we agree," Fenna began.
"Not entirely," Thomas interrupted.
All three looked at him.
"I believe Christ is more than an exceptional man whom later generations exalted. I cannot accept that the heart of my faith arose from priestly invention."
"Nor have I proved it," Fenna answered. "Our writings contain a story of a wise teacher called Yesus, also known by other names. Priests are said to have transformed his teachings after his death. But whether he is the person whom you call Jesus of Nazareth cannot be established by resemblance alone."
"I am grateful that you make the distinction."
"Still, I would ask whether any good person would wish others to worship him."
Thomas replied, "Your question assumes the very matter in dispute: whether Christ was only such a person."
Miriam spoke quietly.
"We should not pretend to settle in an evening what generations have disputed. We can describe our differences without misrepresenting one another."
Yusuf agreed.
"A refusal to concede is not necessarily a refusal to understand."
X. Whose freedom?
The disagreement became sharper when they began to speak of law.
Fenna described how the ancient Frisian writings condemned enslavement, including enslavement for debt, and required military leaders to be appointed for limited periods. She told them of women responsible for public instruction and of assemblies that restrained ambitious men.
Yusuf admired the safeguards against arbitrary rule, but asked whether they applied equally to strangers.
"Our communities were warned against conquest," Fenna answered. "They were also told to help neighbouring peoples when help was requested."
"But could strangers join them?"
"Not without conditions. Their laws were strict concerning marriage outside the community."
"Then freedom was not quite universal," Thomas observed.
"It was the foundation of their own order."
Miriam leaned forward.
"And that is the danger. Every people wishes to preserve its customs. But preservation can become exclusion, and exclusion can become injustice."
Fenna said nothing.
Miriam continued.
"Our laws distinguish Israel from other peoples, yet they also command us to love the stranger. We cannot forget what it meant for our ancestors to live in a land where they lacked power."
"The Qur'an speaks of peoples and tribes knowing one another," Yusuf said. "Righteousness cannot be measured simply by ancestry."
Thomas added, "Paul teaches that belonging to Christ is not confined by the distinction between Jew and Greek."
"Yet none of our communities has wholly lived up to such teachings," Miriam said.
Fenna looked down at the manuscript.
"Our own writings condemn the theft of freedom, but some of their punishments are terrible. And they speak of other peoples in ways I cannot defend merely by calling the words ancient."
Thomas said, "That is the first thing you have said tonight against your own book."
"No," Fenna replied. "It is the first thing you have noticed."
Yusuf smiled.
"Then your fidelity to it may be greater than that of someone who praises every sentence."
XI. The last question
Near midnight they spoke of death.
Miriam described the hope for justice and restoration that ran through the Prophets, along with the differing emphases found in Jewish tradition.
Yusuf spoke of resurrection, divine mercy, and the final judgment.
Thomas spoke of the death and resurrection of Christ, without which his understanding of salvation would lose its centre.
Fenna said that her writings were chiefly concerned with what one generation owed to the next.
"Do they promise nothing beyond death?" Thomas asked.
"They speak of Wralda's eternal spirit and the passing nature of earthly forms. They do not make the hope of reward after death the chief reason for doing good."
"Yet people suffer wrongs that no earthly judgment repairs," Miriam observed.
"That is true."
"And what of the murderer who dies prosperous?" Yusuf asked.
"I cannot promise his victim that another world will make everything right."
"Then where is justice?"
"Sometimes it is unfinished," Fenna replied. "That is among the hardest things I know."
Thomas looked at her for a long time.
"I cannot accept that as the last word."
"I did not ask you to."
The room grew quiet.
Then Miriam said, "We have discovered something more useful than agreement. We have discovered where agreement ends, and why."
"Will that help anyone?" Yusuf asked.
"It may prevent us from pretending that those who disagree with us must be ignorant or wicked."
Fenna fastened the straps of her case.
"Tomorrow we might begin again with a question none of us has answered: how can people preserve their deepest convictions without denying others the freedom to examine them?"
Thomas smiled.
"Would you return?"
"If I am welcome."
"You are."
They rose. Before leaving, Fenna wrote a sentence on a small scrap of paper and left it beside the lamp:
One who learns only how to answer others has not yet learned how to examine himself.
Lorenzo found the scrap after they had gone.
He put it safely into a drawer.
Part Two — The Missing Voice
I. The disappearance
Fenna did not return.
By the following afternoon, her room had been searched, her travelling chest forced open, and every sheet of her unusual writing taken away.
A servant had seen two men stop her near a covered passage on the previous evening. One had spoken sharply. Fenna had tried to pull away. The servant, frightened and unable to understand their words, had retreated into a doorway.
There was no reliable account of what happened afterward.
Thomas went to the magistrates. Yusuf questioned merchants and boatmen near the quays. Miriam visited the printer, hoping that an apprentice might have copied enough of the strange letters to preserve something of their form.
Nothing useful emerged.
When the three met that evening, Fenna's chair remained empty.
Thomas spoke first.
"We should have walked with her."
"Perhaps," Miriam replied. "But guilt is not evidence. We do not know that our presence would have prevented anything."
"Someone wanted those writings," Yusuf said.
"Perhaps. Or wanted her. We must not turn a suspicion into an established fact."
Thomas looked bitterly at the empty place.
"Yesterday we discussed men who suppress knowledge in the name of truth. Today one of us is gone."
"Then let us act upon what we know," Miriam said. "We must keep searching, and we must preserve whatever we remember."
Yusuf glanced towards the drawer containing Fenna's sentence.
"She warned us that the guardians of knowledge might become its jailers."
"And now," Thomas said, "we may have become the only witnesses to something no one else will believe."
Miriam unfolded a blank sheet.
"Then we should begin by writing down what she actually told us. Separately, while our memories are fresh. We can compare our accounts afterward."
"Why separately?" Yusuf asked.
"Because memory changes when people speak together. We may persuade one another that we heard things which only one of us imagined."
Yusuf nodded.
"She would approve."
"Perhaps," Miriam said. "We should be careful even when speaking on her behalf."
They worked for an hour.
Then Thomas put down his pen.
"There is another question I cannot put aside."
"What is it?"
"Suppose her writings disappear completely. Suppose our own traditions endure, but hers does not. How would the world look four hundred years from now?"
Yusuf considered the suggestion.
"Four hundred years?"
"Yes. Imagine that only the three religious traditions represented here continue to shape the great centres of learning, law, and public life. Not that men cease to think for themselves, but that Fenna's peculiar account of freedom is absent."
Miriam turned towards the window.
"Then we must imagine the year 1955."
She spoke the number slowly, as though testing an unfamiliar word.
"Let us try," she said. "But without pretending to see what has not yet happened."
II. What will survive?
"What will your descendants preserve?" Thomas asked Miriam.
"The law, certainly. The Sabbath. The stories of our ancestors. Our arguments about how the law should be understood."
"And if they are scattered?"
"We have been scattered before. A people may lose its government and yet retain a language of memory."
"Will the world treat them justly?" Yusuf asked.
Miriam looked at him.
"Has it ever done so consistently?"
He did not answer.
"I fear that our descendants may again be made strangers in countries where they have lived for generations," she continued. "Rulers will change. Kingdoms will rise and fall. But the temptation to blame an identifiable minority for a community's misfortunes may endure."
"Then your writings will be a protection," Thomas said.
"Sometimes. They may give courage and continuity. But they cannot shield a child from a soldier."
Thomas lowered his eyes.
"Our churches have not always been innocent in the treatment of your people."
"No. And if your churches endure, I hope their descendants will learn to distinguish devotion to Christ from hostility towards Jews."
"Perhaps they will."
"Perhaps some will. But I fear that four hundred years will not be sufficient to extinguish every ancient prejudice."
Yusuf asked, "What would you wish your descendants to learn from their suffering?"
"That memory should deepen justice, not merely strengthen fear. If they ever acquire power over others, they must not forget what it meant to live without protection."
"Would they remember?"
"I hope so. Yet no people is guaranteed wisdom by its sufferings."
Thomas sat forward.
"And what if they return to the land of their ancestors and establish a government there?"
"Then they will face the problems every government faces: land, law, security, and the rights of those who do not share the rulers' identity."
"Fenna would recognise those questions."
"Yes," Miriam replied. "Her writings may be lost, but the problems they described will not disappear."
III. The Christian centuries
Thomas studied the flame.
"I imagine Europe extending its influence across seas that our fathers scarcely knew. Ships will become more capable. Maps will improve. Perhaps distant continents will fall under the government of European princes."
"And under the authority of their churches?" Yusuf asked.
"Often, I fear."
"Would that spread charity and learning?"
"It might. But it might also spread conquest and slavery. Men have a great talent for dressing appetite in sacred language."
Miriam regarded him thoughtfully.
"What do you think will happen to learning?"
"It will expand. The press is already changing Europe. A book that once took months to copy can now be produced in hundreds of impressions. Over four centuries, I would expect schools, libraries, and instruments of observation to multiply."
"Will that make men wiser?" Yusuf asked.
"More knowledgeable, certainly. Wiser, not necessarily."
"What is the difference?"
"Knowledge increases our powers. Wisdom teaches us when and how to use them."
Thomas looked towards Fenna's chair.
"She would say that power without self-mastery leads to servitude."
"And your descendants?" Miriam asked. "Will they preserve the humility of their faith?"
"Some will. Others may conclude that their growing command of nature gives them the right to command other men."
"Will all remain Christians?"
"No. Greater knowledge may lead many to question inherited doctrines. Others will deepen their faith. Churches may divide further. Perhaps some people will regard religion as unnecessary."
"Would that be a disaster?"
"Not merely because they ceased to believe. A person can abandon religion without abandoning conscience, just as a person can profess religion without possessing it."
Yusuf smiled.
"That is a difficult admission for a defender of faith."
"Only if one confuses faith with reputation."
Thomas paused.
"Yet I imagine another danger. Suppose men discover forces hidden in matter itself. Suppose they devise weapons that can destroy thousands in a moment. Then their technical achievements may grow far beyond their moral understanding."
"Could a man possess such power?" Miriam asked.
"I do not know. But our age already devises more powerful artillery with every generation. Why should invention stop at the limits we now know?"
Yusuf looked troubled.
"Then the old question returns: who may be trusted with power?"
"And how may their power be restrained?" Thomas added.
"That was Fenna's question about kings."
"Yes. Four hundred years may make it more urgent, not less."
IV. The future of Islam
Yusuf rose and walked towards the window. The canal was dark, and the lantern on the opposite quay had begun to sway in the wind.
"Our faith has already outlived rulers who believed themselves indispensable," he said. "I expect it to outlive many more."
"What will hold its followers together?" Miriam asked.
"The Qur'an, prayer, learning, law, pilgrimage, and the memory of the Prophet. These bind communities even when their governments disagree."
"And will your lands prosper?"
"Some will. Others will suffer warfare and division. Trade will connect distant peoples, and knowledge will pass between languages. Perhaps the balance of power will shift away from the lands where our learning now flourishes."
"Will your scholars welcome knowledge from others?" Thomas asked.
"The best of them will ask whether it is true. Others may reject it because they dislike its origin."
"Just as ours may," Miriam said.
Yusuf nodded.
"I expect debates over the meaning of the law. Some will say that whatever was decided long ago must remain unchanged. Others will insist that justice requires careful attention to new circumstances."
"And women?" Miriam asked.
"What of them?"
"Will they be permitted to study and judge, as Fenna's women were?"
"Some have long possessed learning in our communities. But the extent of their public authority will remain disputed. If future generations discover new ways to educate large populations, that dispute may become more difficult to avoid."
"Should it be avoided?"
"No. But it must be argued with knowledge of our sources, not merely with appeals to custom."
Thomas asked, "And how will your descendants respond if foreign rulers control their lands?"
"Some will resist. Some will accommodate themselves. Some may rediscover in their religion a language of independence. Others may turn religious identity into a weapon against neighbours who interpret the faith differently."
"And you would oppose that?"
"I would oppose the use of false accusations and injustice. I cannot promise that everyone who claims my religion will do the same."
Miriam answered, "Nor can any of us."
V. Three traditions, one world
The conversation continued while the lamp burned lower.
At last Miriam said, "We have each imagined our descendants preserving wisdom and repeating our failings. But what happens when these traditions meet one another in the world of 1955?"
"Trade will make them neighbours," Yusuf replied.
"And conquest may make one the master of another," Thomas said.
"Perhaps they will also learn to translate one another's writings more accurately."
"Then they may discover that doctrines they have quarrelled over for centuries were sometimes misunderstood through imperfect translations."
"And they may discover genuine differences that no translation can remove," Miriam added.
Thomas nodded.
"Christ's place in my faith will not become identical to his place in Yusuf's simply because we understand one another's languages."
"Nor will our understandings of revelation," Yusuf said.
"But perhaps," Miriam continued, "they will learn that agreement about every sacred question is not required for the administration of justice."
Thomas looked interested.
"Explain."
"A court need not decide whether Christ is divine in order to decide whether a poor widow has been cheated. A physician need not settle the origin of revelation before treating a wounded stranger."
"And a ruler need not compel his subjects to confess the same creed in order to protect their lives," Yusuf said.
"Exactly."
"Would that not weaken religion?" Thomas asked.
"It might weaken the power of those who employ religion to govern unwilling consciences. That is not necessarily the same thing."
Yusuf thought for a moment.
"Perhaps by 1955 men will have devised laws that protect a person's liberty to worship, or not to worship, without thereby releasing him from his duties towards others."
"Would those laws descend from our traditions?" Thomas asked.
"From some parts of them," Miriam replied. "And from arguments against other parts. Human institutions rarely have a single parent."
They sat in silence.
Then Thomas said, "Something is missing from this future."
"Fenna?" Yusuf asked.
"Not only Fenna. The particular arrangement of ideas in her writings."
"We have already found many of those ideas in our own traditions," Miriam observed.
"Yes. But she brought them together differently. The worth of a law was measured by whether it preserved freedom. Religious teachers were judged by whether they made people wiser and less dependent. Political offices were deliberately limited. And women guarded the public memory of the community."
"Her writings also contained severe exclusions," Miriam reminded him.
"I have not forgotten."
"Then what would be lost?" Yusuf asked.
Thomas reflected.
"Perhaps not an entirely different collection of moral truths. Perhaps a different way of arranging them."
Miriam nodded slowly.
"A tradition may teach mercy while placing obedience first. Another may teach obedience while placing justice first. The words may be shared, yet the order changes how people live."
"And Fenna placed freedom very near the beginning," Yusuf said.
"After self-mastery," Miriam corrected.
"Yes. That distinction matters."
VI. The rediscovery
"Suppose the writings were found again," Thomas said.
"When?" asked Miriam.
"In 1955."
"Found where?"
"In an old chest, perhaps. Or in the keeping of a family that no longer knows how its ancestors obtained them."
"Would they be the same leaves Fenna carried?" Yusuf asked.
"We cannot know."
"Then let us imagine they are copies," Miriam suggested. "Copies of copies, perhaps, damaged and repaired."
"Written in the same unfamiliar letters?"
"Yes."
Yusuf returned to the table.
"Then the first task would be to read them."
"And the second," Miriam said, "would be to establish their history."
"Would that be possible four hundred years from now?"
"Perhaps scholars will possess methods we cannot imagine. They may learn to distinguish kinds of paper, ink, and handwriting. They may compare ancient languages more accurately than we can."
"And suppose they find a passage declaring that a certain disaster occurred thousands of years earlier," Thomas said. "Would that establish the date?"
"No. It would establish what the writer claimed."
"What if the book described ancient voyages, settlements, and laws otherwise unknown?"
"Then those claims should be investigated against whatever independent evidence survives."
Yusuf nodded.
"A remarkable story does not become true merely because it was written down."
"Nor does it become false merely because it is remarkable," Thomas said.
"Precisely."
Miriam looked at Fenna's empty chair.
"That is what I most wish future readers would understand. They may discover that some passages preserve very old knowledge. They may discover that others belong to a much later age. They may find a work composed from traditions that did not all originate together."
"Would that diminish its value?" Yusuf asked.
"It would change what kind of evidence it provides. But a text can be valuable as history, as literature, as philosophy, or as testimony to the hopes of its writer."
Thomas smiled.
"You are preparing to defend Fenna from both her admirers and her enemies."
"Someone may have to."
VII. The fourth tradition returns
"How would the churches respond?" Yusuf asked.
Thomas considered the question carefully.
"Some scholars might welcome the discovery. Others might fear it, especially if the writings claim that later priests altered the teachings of admired figures and transformed human beings into gods."
"Would you fear it?"
"I would wish to read it. But I would not accept a claim about Christ merely because a newly found text contained a man called Yesus."
"Even if other details resembled the Gospels?"
"Resemblance would make the question worth investigating. It would not settle it."
Miriam said, "Jewish scholars might examine its origin stories, its laws, and its ideas of divine wisdom. They would recognise familiar themes. But they would also be troubled by the attempt to assign different moral qualities to peoples according to ancestry."
"And Muslim scholars?" Thomas asked Yusuf.
"Some might find in its rejection of human gods a confirmation of principles they already hold. Others would be interested in its account of an earlier teacher whose words were allegedly corrupted. But they should not claim that an unknown Frisian writing establishes the original meaning of the Qur'an."
"Would any of them want to suppress it?" Miriam asked.
"Some might. But suppression is not proof that the book is true. Nor would their objection prove it false."
Thomas looked up.
"That is a sentence worth preserving."
"There is another danger," Yusuf continued. "What if Fenna's admirers become so persuaded of the book's great age that they no longer permit anyone to question it?"
"Then," Miriam answered, "they might establish a new priesthood in the name of a tradition that condemned priestly domination."
"And perhaps a new cult around Frya or Minerva," Thomas added.
Yusuf smiled sadly.
"Or around Fenna herself."
For a moment all three looked towards her chair.
"That," Miriam said, "would be a cruel ending to her story."
VIII. A book of freedom
"But there is a better possibility," Thomas said.
"Tell us."
"A teacher in 1955 might read about the Frisian maidens who guarded libraries and instructed children, and begin to ask why women in her own society are denied comparable authority."
"That would be useful," Miriam said.
"A magistrate might study the limits imposed upon military leaders and reconsider the dangers of an office held too long."
"Or a labourer," Yusuf suggested, "might read that air, water, land, and fire were given for the use of all, and ask whether wealth is being distributed justly."
"A person opposing slavery might find an ancient condemnation of bondage for debt," Miriam said.
"And a scholar might investigate the unusual alphabet," Thomas continued. "Even if its claimed origin proved mistaken, the investigation could teach him something about the development of writing."
"Then the value of the discovery would not depend entirely upon its age," Yusuf said.
"No. But we must not go too far. An old text cannot by itself justify a new law. Its principles must still be considered on their merits."
Miriam nodded.
"And a principle that protects the liberty of one people must be examined to see whether it can protect others."
"What if it cannot?" Yusuf asked.
"Then it is incomplete."
Thomas looked towards the window.
"I wonder whether the world of 1955 will have learned that lesson."
"We cannot know," Miriam replied.
"But we can imagine that people then will be asking it."
IX. The danger of the ancestors
Miriam remained troubled.
"There is something in Fenna's writings that we have not sufficiently considered."
"The three ancestral mothers?" Yusuf asked.
"Yes. Their descendants are described in different ways, and moral qualities are associated with those divisions."
"Ancient peoples often describe strangers harshly," Thomas said.
"That does not make the descriptions sound. Suppose the readers of 1955 have learned to classify people by their physical characteristics more precisely than we do. Suppose they also possess powerful armies and governments."
Yusuf looked at her.
"Then a story of ancient descent might be used to justify conquest."
"Or expulsion," Miriam said. "Or the belief that one people has a natural right to command another."
"Yet the same book condemns the enslavement of others," Thomas replied.
"That contradiction is precisely what makes the danger real. Readers can select the passage that serves their purpose."
Yusuf nodded.
"Our three traditions have suffered from selective reading. It would be strange to imagine Fenna's writings immune to it."
"Then what would responsible readers do?" Thomas asked.
"They would refuse to turn a genealogy into a judgment of human worth," Miriam replied. "They would examine its historical claims without accepting its prejudices as facts."
"And if they found genuine wisdom in other passages?"
"They would not have to discard it."
Yusuf said, "Then perhaps the discovery could become a lesson in how a tradition may preserve profound insights alongside grave errors."
Thomas considered this.
"Which would make it more human, not less interesting."
X. What would change in 1955?
The hour grew late, but none wished to depart.
At last Yusuf said, "We have spoken of many possible effects. Let us answer Thomas's question more plainly. Suppose the writings are recovered in 1955. What changes?"
"At first," Miriam replied, "very little. A few scholars examine them. Some become excited; others dismiss them. Newspapers may exaggerate what has been found."
"Then?"
"Someone produces a translation. Historians dispute the chronology. Students of language compare the letters and vocabulary with other ancient and medieval forms. Perhaps the paper tells a different story from the writing."
"And ordinary people?" Thomas asked.
"Some read it as a tale of their ancestors. Others see in it a model of political freedom. Still others reject it because it conflicts with their beliefs."
"Would established religions be weakened?"
"Not necessarily," Yusuf said. "Some believers might discover ideas they recognise. Others might be disturbed. But the appearance of another text does not compel anyone to abandon a faith."
"Then perhaps the greater effect would fall upon history," Thomas suggested.
"Possibly. If its claims were independently confirmed."
"And if they were not?"
"Then it might still influence literature, philosophy, education, and political discussion."
Miriam looked at the three books on the table.
"We must also remember that four centuries can alter what people think a book is for. By 1955, readers may no longer expect every work of wisdom to be a revelation or every ancient narrative to be a reliable chronicle."
"That would be progress," Thomas said.
"Of a kind," she replied. "But it might also tempt them to dismiss moral questions because the history is doubtful."
"Then they would make the opposite mistake," Yusuf said. "They would suppose that a false chronology makes compassion false, or that an uncertain origin makes the defence of freedom worthless."
Miriam nodded.
"And others would suppose that a wise moral teaching proves the chronicle true."
"Two errors," Thomas said, "arising from the same failure to distinguish one question from another."
Yusuf looked towards Fenna's abandoned place.
"Perhaps that is what her missing writings could teach the future: not to confuse the worth of an idea with the authority claimed for its author."
XI. The note
A knock came at the door.
Lorenzo entered. He had received no reliable news from the harbour, but one of his apprentices had found a small paper in the room after the previous evening's meeting.
He placed it on the table.
Thomas recognised Fenna's handwriting.
Miriam read the sentence aloud:
"One who learns only how to answer others has not yet learned how to examine himself."
"Shall I keep it?" Lorenzo asked.
"Would you permit us to copy it?" Miriam replied.
"Of course."
They each wrote the words on a separate sheet.
Then Yusuf said, "We should be careful not to treat them as her final message. She wrote them before she disappeared."
"Agreed," Miriam said.
"And we should not invent a reason for her disappearance simply because her writings might have troubled powerful people," Thomas added.
"Agreed."
They looked at one another.
"Then what shall we tell anyone who asks about her?" Yusuf said.
"The truth," Miriam answered. "That she came to speak of ancient Frisian writings. That we heard her describe their wisdom, laws, and history. That she disappeared the same night and her papers were taken."
"And what shall we say of their age?"
"Only that she believed the writings to preserve a much older tradition. We did not examine the originals, and we cannot establish their date."
"Of their contents?"
"What we remember, distinguishing her words from our own interpretations."
"And if our accounts differ?"
"We shall preserve the differences."
Thomas smiled faintly.
"She would perhaps be disappointed by how little we can prove."
"Perhaps," Miriam said. "But we should not claim to know what she would think."
Lorenzo took back the original note and placed it in his drawer.
The three visitors agreed to meet again the following morning and continue the search.
Before leaving, Thomas turned to Miriam.
"Do you believe anyone will still be thinking about Fenna four hundred years from now?"
"That depends," she said, "on whether something of her words survives."
"And if the writings are found?"
"Then the future will have to decide what to make of them."
Yusuf shook his head.
"Not merely decide. Examine."
Miriam smiled.
"Yes. Examine first."
They descended the stairs. The pressroom was silent. Outside, the canal reflected the lights of the houses opposite.
The fourth chair remained empty.
Epilogue — An unfamiliar manuscript
Somewhere in northern Europe, 1955.
A young scholar sat beside a window, turning the pages of a manuscript whose history was uncertain.
The writing was strange, though some words appeared related to languages she knew. The text spoke of a distant catastrophe, migrations across northern seas, a society governed through assemblies, and women entrusted with the preservation of law and learning.
It contained stories of foreign kings and priests, of disputed freedom, of navigators who crossed unfamiliar waters, and of a teacher whose followers had allegedly altered his message after his death.
The manuscript's own chronology was difficult to reconcile with the chronology she had learned. Its references to a Christian reckoning might not even be using precisely the same calendar framework. She made a note not to convert its dates without first establishing their meaning.
She turned to the account of the ancient mother who instructed her children in self-mastery.
Outside, the modern world continued.
Ten years had passed since the end of a terrible war. Europe was still recovering from destruction on a scale almost impossible to comprehend. Millions had been murdered. Great empires were losing their colonies. New states and new international organisations were struggling to establish peace.
The United Nations had existed for a decade. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights was only seven years old. In Asia and Africa, demands for independence had acquired new force. Scientists had learned to release energies that could illuminate cities or destroy them.
Human knowledge had advanced astonishingly.
Human wisdom remained in question.
She read about the laws of the ancient Frisians.
They condemned the enslavement of others and restricted the authority of their rulers. They regarded self-mastery as the foundation of liberty. They insisted that the greatest virtue might lie beyond the strict application of the law.
But they also divided the human family into ancestral groups to which different moral characteristics were assigned. Their laws contained punishments that seemed cruel and exclusions that were difficult to reconcile with the freedom they praised.
She could not ignore either side.
She took up a pencil and wrote:
The manuscript's teachings must be examined separately from its claims about antiquity. Its praise of freedom does not authenticate its history. Its historical uncertainties do not invalidate every moral insight.
She read on.
The writing described the preservation of books through generations. Laws had been copied, records concealed, manuscripts damaged by water and copied again. The narrative explained why its custodians had considered their task so important.
She wondered how much of it could be verified.
Perhaps the text had preserved traditions from a forgotten age. Perhaps it was a later reconstruction of an imagined past. Perhaps different parts belonged to different periods.
She would need to study the paper, the writing, the language, the historical names, and the chronology. Every claim would have to be considered on its own evidence.
Then she came upon a sentence concerning the greatest danger facing a free people.
It was not merely the arrival of an enemy, the writer argued. It was the gradual surrender of independence through luxury, fear, ignorance, and the desire to be ruled.
She paused.
Outside her window, people were hurrying to work. The streets were busy with bicycles and motorcars. Radios carried reports of distant conflicts. Governments possessed powers that no ruler of Venice in 1555 could have imagined.
She wondered what the authors of these writings would have thought of such a world.
Would they have admired its learning? Its medicine? Its machines? The opportunities now opening to women? The growing recognition that no person should be deprived of dignity because of ancestry?
Would they have been alarmed by its concentrated power, its enormous weapons, its propaganda, and the ease with which whole populations could be made dependent on distant authorities?
She realised that neither admiration nor alarm would answer the question before her.
The manuscript did not need to be treated as infallible in order to be worth reading. Nor should it be rejected merely because its story was strange.
She returned to her notebook.
If these writings are old, they may enlarge our understanding of the past.
If they are later, they may reveal what their author believed the past ought to have been.
In either case, we must ask why freedom appears so prominently in them, and why the freedom of others is sometimes so difficult for their speakers to imagine.
She put down her pencil.
Four hundred years earlier, in a room above a Venetian printing house, three people had imagined how the world might receive such writings.
The scholar knew nothing of that meeting.
She knew nothing of Fenna, the vanished visitor, or the three who had tried to preserve their recollection of her.
But she had reached, by another path, a question very close to theirs.
Was the task of scholarship merely to establish what people in former ages believed?
Or must it also help the living recognise where their own certainties remained unexamined?
She looked again at the manuscript.
She did not know what it would ultimately prove.
For now, she had only a text, a series of questions, and the responsibility not to confuse her hopes with evidence.
She turned the page.
The fourth voice had not yet been heard by the world.
End of Part Two.