The Psalter Read Online Free PDF Page A

“I’ll be right down,” she said into the phone and ran for the stairs.
    Romano gazed at the dark-haired archivist as she dashed down limestone steps, a panicked expression on her face. “What’s happened mon Père ,” she cried out as she rushed to his side, grasping his hand. “Is Father ill?”
    Not being a pastoral priest, Romano had forgotten they often delivered tragic news so they could console their parishioners. “I’m terribly sorry,” he said. The woman gasped, shrinking. He realized his words were ill-timed. “There’s nothing wrong. This is a professional visit.”
    Isabelle glared at him, straightened herself, and pushed his hand away. “That was cruel, Father.”
    Romano felt foolish. “I can’t tell you how sorry I am, but I have no experience as a parish priest. I should have…well, I’m truly sorry.”
    Isabelle eyed him. “Well, Father, your remorse appears genuine, but I’m still quite aggravated. How can I help you?”
    Romano glanced at Eugène and back at Isabelle Héber. “Can we speak privately?”
    “I’m very busy, Father. I’m in the middle of an important translation and already past my deadline. You can make an appointment with Eugène. I have a little time next week.”
    Father Romano took Isabelle’s arm and guided her a few feet from the reception desk. “Please, Madame, this is urgent or I wouldn’t ask. A priest was killed for this book,” he held up his small backpack for emphasis, “and I need to know why.”
    Isabelle probed the priest’s face and recognized his desperation and passion. “Alright, Father. I’ll give you five minutes, but no more.” She led him up the limestone steps to her office. Lifting a stack of books from a chair, she motioned for him to sit. Romano sank in the chair and set the backpack on his lap. He unzipped the top and produced a thick, leather-bound book. He offered it with both hands to Isabelle, who pushed aside a pile of papers on her desk. She opened the cover and appeared confused. “Father, this is Latin. You can translate it better than I.”
    The paleographer leaned over the desk and grabbed a pen. He pointed the tip at a space between two lines of Latin text. “Can you make out this minute indentation?”
    “No,” Isabelle said, lowering her face to the page.
    “Use this.” The priest offered his magnifying glass. “The impression was made by a calamus , but it’s in the gap between these two letters, and look at this tiny crease. A stylus scored the paper to mark where a line of text should be, but there’s no text. This ordinary page of Latin prayers was written over an older scroll. This is a palimpsest, Madame.” The priest stared intently at the archivist, expecting his words to have an impact.
    Isabelle Héber furrowed her brow. “Father, there are hundreds of known palimpsests. Scrolls were erased by the thousands for this type of book. It’s not unusual at all.”
    “The palimpsest is not what’s important, but the contents of the original scroll used to make the pages. I believe this was once a first-century document written in Aramaic.” The priest still evoked no response. “The language of Jesus?”
    “And millions of others. You’re surely not suggesting that this is a New Testament scroll,” Isabelle scoffed, “because the scriptures were written in Greek, by Greeks.”
    “We believe the Apostles wrote them in their own language and they were translated into Greek.”
    “What happened to the originals?”
    “The theory is that they were destroyed.”
    “All of them,” Isabelle said cynically, “and not a single survivor?”
    “That’s why this is so important. Scholars have been searching for original scriptures for almost two thousand years. I might have discovered some.”
    “On what do you base that?”
    “I used an ultraviolet light to look beneath the Latin and found these three letters.” Romano pulled a small notebook from his backpack. He showed the archivist a page