This novel centers on the Virgin Mary （chapter 38, 43）。 Biblical references to her are few and far between. She is barely mentioned. It fell to theologians and the church to supply Mary with a full biography. And they definitely rose to the challenge, providing a thorough family history, laced with the amazing, all fashioned to fit the image of the almost-deity they wanted her to be. They even chose her appearance as European （chapter 43）， with fair skin, regardless of the fact that she would have almost certainly been of Arab descent, living her entire life in the Middle East.
There are differences of opinion as to Mary. As noted in chapter 43 Eastern Christianity taught that she died a natural death, like any human being, then her soul was received by Christ and her body resurrected on the third day into heaven. The Roman church went a step further, long teaching that Mary was born totally free of sin, lived a chaste life as a virgin, and ascended into heaven in full bodily form.
But had she died first?
That point was never resolved until 1997, when John Paul II decreed that Mary had in fact died before ascending. It helped that not a single bone of Mary抯 has ever surfaced as a relic. The debate over where her grave may be remained ongoing until the 1950s. Pius XII抯 papal declaration as to the Assumption ended all discussion. The archaeologist mentioned in chapter 43, who was ordered silent by the Vatican over what he found at one of the supposed burial sites, is a real person.
After the crucifixion, Mary virtually disappears from official accounts. The Bible states that Christ, from the cross, entrusted his mother to the disciple whom he loved, who was standing nearby. Who was that? No one knows, though that same reference appears in two other biblical references （chapter 43）。 I made that entrustment to a man named John. Not the evangelist, another John.
The Testimony of John, first mentioned in chapter 43, is a real document. It appeared in the fifth century as a Greek manuscript, supposedly an eyewitness account of Mary抯 Assumption into heaven. But it also detailed how, after the crucifixion, she lived in Jerusalem, daily praying at her son抯 empty tomb. The account further described her death and burial somewhere in the Valley of Jehoshaphat. The authenticity of this account has long been in doubt, but it did not stop theologians from using parts of it while fashioning Mary抯 legend. I changed its wording completely （starting in chapter 49）， utilizing another, equally fantastical account, The Life of the Blessed Virgin Mary, taken from the visions of Anne Catherine Emmerich, a nineteenth-century canoness, mystic, and stigmatist.
Emmerich dictated a long narrative concerning a series of visions she experienced about the Virgin, which were subsequently published. According to Emmerich, the Virgin lived out her life on a hill near Ephesus, in Turkey. There she died and was assumed into heaven. In 1881 a French priest, the Abb?Julien Gouyet, used Emmerich抯 visions to search for the house and found it based on her descriptions. It still exists there today and can be toured. I myself have visited it. The Vatican has taken no official position on the authenticity of the location but, in 1951, Pius XII declared the house a holy place. John XXIII later reaffirmed that declaration. Paul VI in 1967, John Paul II in 1979, and Benedict XVI in 2006 all visited and treated the house as a shrine, though there is absolutely no evidence that the structure existed at the time of Mary.
But for believers, 2 Corinthians 5:7 is most instructive.
We walk by faith, not sight.
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About the Author
Steve Berry is the New York Times and #1 internationally bestselling author of sixteen Cotton Malone novels, five stand-alone thrillers, and several works of short fiction. He has more than twenty-five million books in print, translated into over forty languages. With his wife, Elizabeth, he operates History Matters, an organization dedicated to historical preservation. He serves as an emeritus member of the Smithsonian Libraries Advisory Board and was a founding member of International Thriller Writers, formerly serving as its copresident.