Subverting the Roman Empire with justice and love
Review of "The Day of the Labyrinth" by Roger Haydon Mitchell.
The Day of the Labyrinth: The Blind Seer and the Gift of Love
Roger Haydon Mitchell
Top Hat Books, 2024.
The history of Christianity over the last 2000 years has had a few pivotal moments. One key period was the 4th century, during the reign of Emperor Constantine. The events of Roger Haydon Mitchell’s novel, The Day of the Labyrinth, take place during this time. The book is classified as a historical novel. On the author’s website, however, he further describes it as “a series of fictionalised, or ‘fantastic’ histories.”
The story follows the adventurous travels of a diverse group of friends hoping to subvert the Roman Empire with justice and love as they travel from Rome and across what is now France and England. Labelled “the Daniel Posse,” the group engages the forces of empire control with the simple but subversive message of self-giving love. Violence, war and power-hungry people stand in the way of their dream of justice and peace. A slave ecclesia (church) in Rome stands with them and angelic beings guide their path.
At first, the emperor stands with the group, but the realities of consolidating power get in the way. The introduction of Christianity as the official empire religion during Constantine’s reign drives the plot of this story. The historical choices that were made at the time included positioning God at the top of a power hierarchy within the church, mirroring how the emperor ruled. This shift set the course for the systemic church power that continues even now. The subversive, laying-down-one’s-life gospel message the members of the Daniel Posse carry in this story did not win the day.
Unlikely characters appear in the novel: a druid, the Somme river in Gaul, an eagle, Picts and Celts. The author has included Latin names for such things as mealtimes and vehicles and included a glossary of these terms. For example a carpentum is the equivalent of an SUV, but horse drawn. Once familiarized, these names enhance the imaginative leap into the fourth century in a way not possible with contemporary terms. The wide array of characters may present a challenge to some readers. I often needed to go back to recall who did what, especially when I was reading the book in short spurts. The author has promised a helpful list of characters in the next printing. As an academic, he has extensively researched the period, clearly apparent in the plot. Important events and historical figures do appear in this highly engaging novel.
Eusebius, one of the most learned Christians in that era, figures prominently in the story. Before he died in 339, he had written but never completed an effusive four volume work praising Constantine, comparing him with Moses. He suggests that it was God’s will to raise him to emperor to relieve the Christian torment in the Empire. In the novel he plays palace politics along with Constantine’s mother Helena to assure the emperor plays by empire rules when installing Christianity as the state religion.
Constantine’s tumultuous leadership and failure to allow the message of love and justice into the empire leads him to summon his (Daniel Posse) advisers for this emotional deathbed confession: “I failed God and I failed you, my faithful advisors. I repent of my self-importance and self-sufficiency. I especially repent of making assassination a tool for peace and love when it only was ever a tool for war and hate toward my potential rivals.”
In a launch of this book in Mississauga, Mitchell shared with his audience that “my covert way of writing prophetically applies to the current situation. No one has a clue about the Christian story today. This book introduces a key moment in that story. What does the righteous path look like?” His question is enduring and timeless.
At bottom Mitchell is an activist and writer with a deep conviction that the gospel message can take out entrenched power, even when it appears in the institutional church. “Many of us, while recognizing that the story of Jesus meets our contemporary desire, find a constant tension between Jesus and the largely hierarchically controlled, legalistically oriented, temple-centred organization of the church,” he wrote in a previous book, The Fall of the Church.
This is a very readable novel that packs adventure and stirs the desire to keep reforming our understanding of the good news in contemporary Christianity as empires clash.
