The Artifact

by Quinn, Jack

  Realist that I am, scant weeks before our ultimate defeat, the Temple in total conflagration, the battle turned decidedly against us, I managed my escape from the crumbling battlements we had occupied for so long against implacable odds. In the dark of night I was able to slay a mounted soldier guarding the outskirts of the city, relieving him of horse and armor. Other survivors escaped to Syria, Turkey, Greece, and even Rome, the very existence of Judea in question. Later scribes will surely record the details of that event. My purpose on these challenging sheets of parchment is to expiate my own soul, to seek a resolution that will enable me to spend my time remaining in some small vestige of a peace that has so far eluded me in this contentious life.

  Despite my wounds, I was able to gallop the Roman horse through trickling streams in rock strewn wadi and mountain passes to Jericho, roaming the villages and towns in Jordan, camping in fields and plains, foraging wheat and barley from small farms, game from the forests and fish from lakes, until I had traveled some 50 milia passuum into the desert where my exhausted beast faltered, leaving me collapsed on the scorching sand.

  Without knowledge of my good fortune, I had been following a trade route to the port of Baku on the Caspian Sea from which a glint of my shucked armor was seen by a caravan from Cairo, according to their leader, hours before my certain demise under the merciless sun. I was unconscious for several days while the women tended my wounds and body ravaged by exposure to the elements. Without the strength or means to exist on my own, I traveled with them, first on a litter pulled by an ass, then my own worn sandals until we reached this watering hole not far from

  the foothills of Tell Manuk, to the south of Bir Meloza, where those kind merchants left me with an

  old dromedary and provisions.

  I have erected my tent against a healthy date tree which provides shade and some sustenance. A cool spring flows from a narrow crevice in an outcrop near a patch of damp moss, sustaining wild flowers and combs of honey. On occasion, I trade my meager possessions with passing nomads, but just as often have been forced to abandon my camp temporarily to thieves and bandits. In the absence of grain or fruit, I have hunted small game with my sling despite our dietary strictures, which I began to observe again when I joined the rebellion three years past. Most days of late I have spent in uneasy solitude, contemplating my wretched life, staring at the virgin parchment before me. My wounds will have healed soon, and I shall travel south to join our forces in what may be our last stronghold in Judea, a final opportunity for our rebellion to expel the two-century domination by Rome from our land appointed by Abraham. Until then, I will occupy my days by setting down this account of my time on earth for my own mental diversion, if nothing else, with the hope of some paucity of expiation for the ultimate crime against my own blood.

  My stylus is heavy, and I put it to parchment with the reluctance of a guilty man. Throughout my life I have scoffed at Egyptian kings and Pharaohs compelled to leave their mark on history with pyramids and obelisks erected by the sweat and blood and very lives of tens of thousands of slaves, the countenance of Emperors cast on coins of gold and silver, carvings of their image inlaid with precious gems, and scrolls encrypted with their own perception of their worldly accomplishments. Is it the fear of historical anonymity or self-justification that drives a Roman magistrate, Israelite patrician or temple priest near the end of his life to commission scribes to record a filtered version of his earthly endeavors? If this is an inherent urgency of mankind it is well that peasants are neither literate nor have the wealth to engage scribes, and must be content with leaving progeny with misspoken oral histories to burden future generations, or the land would be filled with scrolls of prevarication. Who am I to condemn another? It matters not whether hubris, a final search for self-enlightenment or vicarious extension of his time on earth that compels a man to assess his actions, his lifelong beliefs as he nears his end.

  Now, in the fifty-ninth year of my age, after much consideration, I too feel compelled to record the elements of my existence. Without diversion or distraction this fortnight past, they have overfilled my mind to a point where the only way I believe I can find relief from their pressure is to set them down and thus aside in the hope that I can work up the physical and intestinal fortitude to rejoin my comrades still embattled by the Roman hordes. And possibly to rebuke the letters from

  Paul.

  I have always thought of myself as a simple man. Not pious in the ways of the Torah as James, the firstborn of my siblings and ultimately first among the Temple Priests. Nor brave and clear of purpose as my brother Yehoshua. As rebellious as sister Sarah or quiet and resigned as Mary and Rifka. We six, excluding the usual stillbirths and miscarriages were issues of Mary and Joseph, a worker of wood in Natzerat some seventy-odd years ago during the rule of Augustus Caesar and Coponius, his Procurator of Palestine.

  I was born in the month of Av5 in the year 3752, when we Israelites had been under Roman rule since Pompey captured Jerusalem two hundred years past. At that time the Empire had conquered Hispania and Mauritania to the west, Gaul to the north, Greece and Armenia to the east, Egypt and Cyrenaica to the south. Their occupying armies were garrisoned in and around our large cities of Palestine from which dissention or revolt was most likely to occur. Although cadres of legionnaires roamed the countryside enforcing the collection of taxes and displaying their authority, the small villages of the Galilee were generally free from Roman presence. However, any perceived resistance to Roman law or the Jews employed by the Prefect to collect their levied tax met with swift, harsh punishment by those roving soldiers, most of whom were near barbarians pressed into service in other conquered nations. Under these circumstances, the traditional submission of Jews to the apparent will of God to suffer adversity and application of our inherent abhorrence of physical confrontation seemed the most practical means of existing under the heavy

  sandal of Roman rule.

  Our home consisted of a solid wooden structure my father had built on the outskirts of Natzerat to which additional rooms had been attached as the family grew in number. Despite the modest nature of the house, the skill and patience of my father with lumber, mud and bricks produced a comfortable dwelling providing warmth during cold winter nights and shelter from the heat and rains of summer. As the youngest male child, my early memories are of adequate food and a comfortable living space, which had not been the case when my elder siblings were tots, James having been born in the dank cave inhabited by my parents during their early marriage. Our family observed the Dietary Laws and mandates of the Scriptures, which were reinforced by the sweet voice of our mother who sang the psalms of the Torah almost every evening of her life. It was primarily in this verbal way that Judaism was made known to us and most peasant families, for the knowledge of reading and writing was rare among the vast majority of the population.

  Both our parents came from poor families, my mother betrothed at the early, yet acceptable age of thirteen years, my father a widower with three adult children from his previous marriage, almost thirty years her senior. For reasons of which they would not speak, there was friction among my parents, grandparents and the adult sons of Joseph that caused a distance between our family and most of our relations.

  After giving birth to her first three children in rapid succession, my mother gained a position

  in the glittering rebuilt city of Sepphoris, the capital of Galilee. Her employment at the home of a

  wealthy merchant began as caretaker of his infant daughter and son; whereby the boy Marcus and my brother James, who were of the same age, became playmates. When Marcus was assigned a Greek tutor, James had been included in those instructions. While my mother continued caring for the man’s daughter with Sarah and Yehoshua at the skirt of her robe, James learned to calculate, write and read in Hebrew and Greek.

  Because the older boys were far beyond their beginning studies by the time Yehoshua came of age, instead of schooling, he was apprenticed to our father as cabinet
maker. James, however, had been absorbing his lessons like a dry sponge from the Sea of Galilee. When he had achieved literacy in Aramaic and Latin, he spent much of his time in the new synagogue in Sepphoris studying the Torah in preparation for his bar mitzvah. James possessed an unusual interest and appreciation for the often ambiguous writings of the holy scriptures, and it was not long before he and the elderly rabbi in residence were discussing the Talmud and intended meaning of the laws and historical passages contained in it.

  The education of James was one of the major turning points in our family fortunes. Upon an early family pilgrimage to Jerusalem, whence he had merely eleven years of his age, James astounded the Temple priests with his knowledge of the scriptures and his perceptive questions and interpretations of the Torah. Though I was still a babe in mother’s arms on that sixty-mile trek from Natzerat, the story was still regaled at meals when I was older, as that seminal incident had eventually inspired those self-important priests to recruit James into their midst. This became the towering achievement of our erstwhile unremarkable clan until years later when fate descended calamity and dishonor upon us for events beyond our control.

  With James away at his studies in Jerusalem, Yehoshua became the elder son by default,

  assisting Father in his carpentry trade. With the children of the Sepphoris merchant’s grown,

  mother became the maidservant of the mistress of their elegant city mansion, to which she

  continued to walk ten miles each day under the hot sun, in freezing cold, pregnant or nursing, with her daughters, and me tagging behind until I, too, was able to work beside Father and Yehoshua.

  Nazarat, Palestine

  3762 Shevat (CE 16 February)

  When I barely had nine years, a different but equally significant incident occurred in my own youth.

  As a lowly apprentice to father, I spent much of my time fetching and dragging fallen branches and tree limbs from the forest, sawing lumber, drilling and pounding pegs and nails. Just as most boys between five and ten years, I was required to take formal lessons in religion at the local synagogue that were also oral, as reading and writing were thought to be unnecessary skills for peasant children.

  One evening, when James had been studying in Jerusalem for most of the past five years, my older brother had come home for one his rare visits, on this occasion to celebrate the sixteenth anniversary of his birth. The entire family was seated at table for supper served by mother and our sisters as James answered our interminable questions about life in the capital city, the overwhelming Roman presence there, his studies and daily experiences. Toward the end of the meal James began to inquire into my days spent on my religious studies, working with father, and other activities with friends in the village and nearby Natzerat Illit6. I was at first reticent with this eldest brother, who to my eyes had become a tall, black-bearded stranger with curling tietze, slender to the point of asceticism, with a kind and humorous attitude I found at first inappropriate to his eventual priesthood and disconcerting.

  “So your lessons with Rabbi Benjamin go well?” he asked me.

  I cast a glance at mother, then Sarah, who was more apt to get me in trouble than any of my

  sisters. “I find some of the teachings dull. Others are difficult to understand.”

  Sahara and Mary were scrubbing our bowls in a washtub behind me and giggled together at

  my answer.

  “Understanding is often not as important as knowledge,” James said.

  Even then I was prone to a contentious nature. “How can I know the meaning without understanding the ideas behind the scriptures?”

  “The words in the scriptures are truth,” he told me with his indulgent smile for the benefit of our parents, who had heard my complaints before, but were unable to satisfy them. I did not wish to bicker with this holy man before the entire family, so I tried to divert the polemic from myself to a common adversary. “I have heard that Romans think our laws deny us pleasure.”

  “Pleasure may be the goal of pagans,” James said. “Yahweh requires a certain amount of sacrifice before admission to His Kingdom.”

  “Romans kids believe their gods will transport them to nirvana after death. Is that the same place or will I not see them after the Messiah comes?”

  James laugh was surprisingly full and deep for a man whose robe seemed to hang from knobby bones. “Perhaps you have been listening to pagan falsehoods with ears that should hear only the truth of the Torah.”

  “I have told him that,” Yehoshua said, who at only two years my senior seemed to take a mischievous joy in precipitating upon me whatever embarrassment he could devise. “The Roman boys are wild and undisciplined. They are not a good influence on an impressionable young Jew.”

  “Maybe I can influence them.” I regretted the comment as soon as it had flown from my mouth. All three girls burst out in incredulous laughter.

  James glanced at our sisters with raised eyebrows, then at me. “Perhaps you will tell me

  about your Roman acquaintances. Do they not shun you or ridicule your leg?”

  My mother had always encouraged the family to accept my twisted limb, never to pity or

  make excuses for me because of it, nor avoid reference to it whenever appropriate. Since birth, no one in the family has ever made a negative remark in my hearing regarding the shriveled appendage. I have not been treated so kindly by others.

  “They have not teased him lately,” Yehoshua interposed with a capricious grin.

  “Oh?” James looked from second to youngest brother.

  Our parents exchanged an anxious glance that recognized an agreement to allow their progeny to engage in exploratory discourse from which we might arrive at knowledge with more lasting impact than lessons arbitrated by adults.

  “Shimon has learned to run and play almost as well as the other boys,” Yehoshua explained, “after father made the stout leather sandal and wooden brace to aid his walking stick.”

  Sarah said, “Jewish boys make sport of it.”

  “So he started going off by himself,” Yehoshua continued. “He made a slingshot and has become quite the marksman, even bringing pigeon and quail home for stew.”

  Rifka leaned over the table to clear the serving dishes. “Then some Roman kids stumbled onto his hunting ground.”

  James looked at me. “What happened?”

  “Does everyone know this story but me?” father asked.

  “And me?” our mother said.

  “Go on, tell,” Yehoshua prodded, holding back his infrequent laughter.

  Our sisters Mary and Rifka joined Sarah giggling behind Mother’s chair with their singsong encouragement. “Go on, Shimon, tell it all.”

  I looked around the table at my entire family, whose expressions and verbal chiding

  demanded that I proceed. My big mouth was getting me into trouble again. “They threw stones, so I threw them back.”

  Yehoshua needled me on. “Tell it, like you told me.”

  They were not going to give me peace until I gave them all the details, so I thought there might be less fuss if I got it over with.

  “Half a dozen boys came racing over a hill in their short togas, then gave up their race as they approached me. A big kid spoke to the others in Latin: ‘Subsisto! Vultus a foetidus claudus Jew!’7”

  “I did not understand what he said, but began to walk away to avoid trouble. Looking over my shoulder to see if they followed, I saw a second boy pointing at my brace. He spoke Latin also, but I could sense the meaning. ‘Is postuto ut brace ambulo.’8”

  “‘Liquidus! Liquidus! Liquidus!’9” several of them chanted. The leader continued harassing me in poor Aramaic. ‘I wonder if he can walk without it....’”

  “I started to trot away but it was too late. They were upon me. They wrestled me to the ground, unbuckled my brace, then backed off a few paces, the bully swinging it around over his head. I struggled to my feet and hobbled toward him to retrieve the device, but he kept
backing

  away, swinging it high in the air.

  “‘Give it back, you filthy pagan,’ I yelled. When the Aramaic-speaker translated my words to Latin for his companions, they stopped taunting me and stood their ground with mean looks.

  Another boy made a gesture with his hands that was also quite clear. “Vado in, permissum

  nos velox.”’10.

  “‘Run,’ the bully ordered in Aramaic, swinging the brace at me. I knew they would only

  come after me if I did try to run, so I stood there forcing them to make the next move.”

  “Was that the day you came home all cuts and bruises,” mother asked, “claiming that you

  fell into a wadi?”

  I tried to squirm out of the lie. “They pushed me.”

  Yehoshua added, “After beating the feathers out of you.”

  “I do not like this tale of fighting,” Father said.

  “I will stop, then.”

  “Please, let him finish,” James injected. Although only sixteen years of age, he could not only read and write, but according to our local rabbis, was becoming an accomplished religious scholar. “I wish to hear it.”

  Father deferred to his holy son with obvious reluctance. “Speak the rest, then.”

  I drew a deep breath and tried to complete the embarrassing recitation quickly. “When I refused to run, they beat me to the ground. They kicked me with their hard leather scandals and pushed me over an embankment.” I looked down at my fingers twisting in my lap, remembering the tears of humiliation the Roman boys had forced from my eyes. “I scrambled out of the wadi, and found my brace hanging from the limb of a tree. I came home.”

  “Not directly,” Yehoshua reminded me.

  Sometimes I did not know if my older brother was trying to get me into trouble with adults, or liked to show everyone what a resourceful brat I was despite my handicap.