The Artifact

by Quinn, Jack

  That event, I was surprised to learn--considering the multitude of laws and guidelines for our daily existence, was the only truly religious element in the entire weeklong period of that life-long binding ceremony. The evening celebration continued with Rebekah, her bridesmaids and friends somehow packing themselves into the small bedroom of my sisters’, converted for the time to the personal use of the young bride, while my brother and his friends engaged in games and dancing to traditional wedding music from flute, horn and kinnor24 played to clapping hands, cymbals and

  tambourines during that entire night.

  Those festivities did not cease until morning, and despite my gift of memory, I cannot recall if I had sleep between the bright sunrise of Yehoshua’s wedding day and the departure of the bridal couple that evening. The day that followed was filled with more song, music, dancing, and a feast served to the men and women separately. I participated in those games that did not demand a great deal of running, though was able to display my skill in contests of aim and dexterity. Rebekah sat under the ritual huppah25 a good part of the time looking and no doubt feeling like royalty for the first time in her life; a girl younger than my own age with a constant smile of modest joy, surrounded by her bridesmaids when they were not gamboling together in the field behind our house in the hope of attracting the notice of suitable bachelors.

  At the end of that evening meal, Yehoshua finally approached the huppah, his guests of one hundred or more gathered around in hushed expectation to hear the groom’s admiration of his bride’s beauty, praise of her attributes and make his protestations of love. In response, Rebekah’s little voice earnestly proclaimed her love in a hymn from the “Song of Songs,” to which Yehoshua added his verse of reply, both of them singing one to the other, oblivious of the silent presence of their guests holding candles to light the darkness.

  With that ritual pledge completed, the men became increasingly rambunctious with the rapid flow of unwatered wine, more high-spirited in their dancing to louder music with a quicker tempo, clapping hands accompanied by good-natured shouts at the resumption of games for witness by the women and laughter from all. At some point during that celebration, Yehoshua led Rebekah beyond the edge of the field in the soft light of a covered oil lamp, through a footpath in the forest, and over the ridge to their two-room dwelling a short distance from our family home to consummate their marriage vows. Their absence went studiously unnoticed by the celebrants, however, but not their return on the following day, which was greeted with revitalized jubilation that continued into the next week.

  Following the consummation of their vows, our irrepressible Sarah snatched the bloodstained bridal sheet from the marriage bed, then proudly displayed it in our own house for all to know that her sister-in-law had proved her virginity.

  On that official day of their wedding, I had reclined alone in the shade of an olive tree at the side of our house waiting for the rest of the men to finish their series of foot races, gazing at the happy celebration of my brother’s marriage to the lovely girl who had been the singular object of his affection since his heart had been able to respond to the second sex. My joy was again tinged briefly with sad thoughts of Tanya, as my gaze wandered out to the unpaved road leading from our village to via Sepphoris where a hooded man on horseback rode slowly past. As my attention shifted from those recurring feelings of loss to the mounted stranger, I realized he was the same man Yehoshua had spoken to when we were cutting young trees at the edge of the forest that spring just past: Judah The Galilean, leader of the Zealots and murderous Sicarii26, who with his brother, had continued the aggression of his grandfather27 against Roman rule.

  What was he doing here? I watched as he walked his horse down the rutted earthen road until he was out of sight beyond a stand of birch, wondering at the coincidence of his presence or if it was no coincidence at all. The answer to that question came as I pondered it, when Judah and a companion horseman reappeared from around the bend in the road, heading back toward Nazarat Illit.

  I stood up and looked about for Yehoshua, whom I spied enjoying a run and ball game with his friends. I began to walk toward him, aware that the rebel had obviously not been an invited guest. I stopped in mid stride, concerned that his apparent surveillance of my brother’s wedding could have ominous portent, which might be vexing to Yehoshua, casting a pall on his happiest of days.

  By all rights, our older brother should have been chosen as the factotum of the groom, but I suspect my selection as foremost ancilla28 was the result of a conspiracy on that issue by both my

  brothers. The responsibilities of that role in which Yehoshua had placed me surely included shielding him from exposure to unsettling distractions. I took a bowl of ripe olives from a serving table and walked across the short grass in front of our house to the access road where the two horsemen stood watching my approach. I offered the olives up to Judah, a sharp-featured man with clipped black beard and cold eyes sunk beneath heavy brows.

  “All are welcome at the marriage feast of my brother,” I told him.

  The smile of the Galilean was surprisingly warm. “We came not for the feast, Shimon, but thank you. My congratulations to your brother for a happy union that will bear him many sons.”

  Judah took some olives from the bowl and passed it to his comrade. Despite their traverse in front of our home toward the center of Nazarat, I asked, “Are you traveling to Sepphoris, then?”

  The Sicarii handed the bowl down to me. “You were present when Yehoshua severed the hand of the publican.”

  I did not respond.

  “The Romans cannot allow that act of rebellion to go unpunished. His wedding feast would be a fine opportunity to teach him a lesson for all to witness.”

  A cold shiver went through my body at the thought of Roman soldiers galloping through our property with drawn swords, upsetting tables of food, slashing bloodied blades at our guests without discrimination or mercy. “You are here to warn us?”

  “No man can walk through life paralyzed by fear.”

  I looked about for other Sicarii, and saw none. “How can you two protect us from a cadre of Roman soldiers?”

  “Our people are rarely visible.” He spoke with his hands immobile on the pommel of his saddle. “Beyond that copse of birch behind me. Over the ridge to our left. On the far side of your father’s shop. Among your wedding guests.”

  I looked around, dumfounded. “Does Yehoshua know this?”

  “We spoke of it when you saw me last spring.”

  “Yehoshua did not seem pleased about your conversation.”

  “He could not prevent me from coming as an observer.”

  I looked from Judah to his silent companion who gave me a quick smile, a large-nosed man with blackheads dotting his cheeks above an unruly brown beard, his features in shadow within the hood of his robe.

  “You have made me feel uncomfortable,” I admitted, “and reassured at the same time.”

  Judah nodded in agreement. “Which is life.”

  “I should return to the celebration.”

  “Perhaps you will seek me out when a few more years have been added to your age.”

  I frowned at the thought, holding his cold eyes for several moments. “I admire your courage, but....”

  “I know men. You have a restive streak, Shimon.” Judah turned his mount and his companion did likewise.

  I stood there frowning still as the Sicarii cantered toward the center of the village, and Judah walked his mare back toward the stand of birches. I had barely thirteen years, yet that infamous rebel treated me as an adult, sewing the seeds of recruitment which my mind dismissed.

  James had always been more cerebral than physically active, and during those weeks he was at home for Yehoshua’s marriage, he spent a good deal of time with my parents and his boyhood friends, catching up on the local news since his last visit. After my conversation with Judah, I took James aside, relating the presence of the Sicarii and their mission.

 
; His countenance became as a distant storm. “I had hoped the accident with the publican would be tempered by Uncle Aecheticus and Aunt Elizabeth’s payment of taxes.”

  “Judah thinks not.”

  “Yehoshua’s heart is large and filled with compassion, but he can be rash when angered.”

  “Would they really send soldiers to attack our friends with drawn swords?”

  “The Romans are a brutal lot, Shimon. A goodly part of their army are barbarians conscripted from conquered lands such as Gaul and Germania who are paid in part by allowing them to plunder and rape defeated peoples at will.”

  “Their generals condone this?”

  “The same mentality that conscripts slaves to fight to the death in the circus for the amusement of their bloodthirsty citizens.”

  “What can we do?”

  “Pray for the Kingdom of God.”

  That answer made me uncomfortable.

  The remainder of that week was spent in my distracted celebration beside the groom and casting furtive glances in the direction of Sepphoris. My trepidation had eased somewhat as the days of festivities passed without incident. Although the Galilean had lodged a discomfort in my mind with his prediction of some ultimate reprisal on Yehoshua by Coponius, who had replaced Vespasian’s father when their family had sailed back to Rome, I hoped that the new procurator of Judea might have other more pressing matters to occupy his attention.

  Before he returned to continue his studies in Jerusalem, James told Yehoshua about my conversation with Judah, which did not surprise him, as the rebel had promised to assign men to patrol the field in front of Yehoshua’s home during and after their marriage on an irregular schedule. James suggested that the newlyweds resort at least temporarily to the usual practice of the bride joining the family of the groom for several years after their marriage, but Rebekah, who had never had the luxury of the privacy of her own room was so delighted with her new home that she would not hear of it.

  The months following Yehoshua’s marriage seemed strange at first. His absence from our house, living a short distance from us, yet an important part of our family still; the three of us working in Father’s shop or in Sepphoris. Although he partook of his midday meal with us, he always returned to his own house and Rebekah in the evening. Through the winter months we endured no retaliation for the incident with the publican, and decided that either the man was in poor favor with the Romans, that the matter had not come to the prefect’s attention, that he was too busy on other tasks or too lazy to take action for a relatively minor transgression in a small, poor village of little consequence. As the seasons changed, we became preoccupied with other matters.

  Jerusalem, Judea

  3767 Iyar (CE 20 April)

  James returned from Jerusalem that spring in order to make the requisite pilgrimage with the family. On the tenth day of Nissan (March) we all set out for the Temple for the festival of Pesach29, commemorating the passing of God over the homes of the Israelites on His way to kill the firstborn children of the Egyptians, during which our consumption of unleavened bread at seder is intended to remind us of our enslavement in Egypt. The preparation for that three tsa’ad30 and weeklong celebration had begun months before, specific tasks assigned by Mother to myself, sisters and Rebekah, while Father and Yehoshua continued to work in Sepphoris until James arrived. Then the three of them saw to our two-wheel cart, packing it with tents, blankets and provisions, allotting additional bundles for us to carry.

  The months of preparation and anticipation for my family’s long-planned pilgrimage to The Temple eclipsed the fifteenth anniversary of my birth. We were so caught in the excitement that all save Mother forgot my small personal event in deference to the huge import of our fortnight stay in Jerusalem. Even the overnight respites would be an adventure during the three days to the Holy City on the Roman road paved with iron slates that would carry many other families who converged from side trails to towns and villages along the way, occasionally impeding progress by stopping to gossip or renew acquaintances with distant relatives or friends.

  Father led Intak, our trusty family ass, then almost too elderly for the journey, who pulled our cart on which Mother rode with most of our food, flour for bread, grain for Intak and bedding, followed by my giggling sisters whose backs were strapped with tent shelters. Rebekah tugged gaily at the tether of the sacrificial lamb we brought with us rather than pay a high price for one in Jerusalem after converting our Galilee shekels to capital currency at exorbitant rates charged by money-changers in the Temple. James carried cooking pots, bowls and utensils; Yehoshua a calabash of wine and one of spring water on each shoulder; and finally me with my bag of stones and sling, ready to shuck my backpack of miscellaneous notions and dart off into the brush for fresh game at any opportunity.

  I struggled to keep up with my brothers, who were talking about the Passover rituals. Neither Yehoshua nor I had ever been to the capital city and devoured every word regarding the ceremonies and events explained by our older sibling. Breaking into the easy jog I’d learned to use to achieve the pace of taller people with two normal legs, I squeezed in between James and Yehoshua. If I were to characterize the three of us, I think James was the smartest, most thoughtful, most analytical, and certainly the most pious31; Yehoshua a man of action, focused on his private goals, determined to achieve them; and I the dispassionate observer, assimilating events around me, allowing the tides of circumstance to take me where they would.

  We passed a side road beside which several peasant families had stopped to rest before joining the flow of caravans and modestly comfortable people like ourselves, their men and women already tired from carrying their possessions by hand and shoulder, having traveled only a short distance from some desolate village to the east without benefit of beasts of burden.

  “They will not wait placidly much longer,” Yehoshua said. “It has been a thousand years since Abraham promised a Messiah would come to relieve our suffering. There is no sign of Him yet.”

  “What do you mean, ‘they will not wait?’” I asked him. “For Yahweh?”

  “Our people are fed up with the Romans,” Yehoshua answered, “poverty, hunger, taxes, their hard lives. The Zealots will stir them to revolt again as they did at the time of the census, a few years after my birth.”

  “I admire the courage of Judah,” I said. “Yet how can an impoverished mass of peasants hope to challenge the might of Rome?”

  “With the help of Yahweh,” James answered. “The Kingdom of God will flourish and we will prevail.”

  “Without a Messiah,” Yehoshua said, “the rebels could not persuade people to rise up against Rome.”

  I was breathing hard from the pace, yet managed to ask my eldest brother for his opinion.

  “I do not know what or who will incite people to take up arms,” James admitted. “Continuing subjugation to punitive Roman rule, the Pharisees and Sanhedrin aligned with our conquerors. A silent God who has yet to intervene. I cannot deduce why He seems deaf to our observance of his laws, our fervent prayers, our sacrifices. Unless of course....”

  Yehoshua frowned. “What, James?”

  “He awaits the proper time to send another King David to lead us. The Empire is unstable, increasing its demands on occupied lands, creating more unrest and turmoil among conquered peoples. It would not astonish me if the Kingdom of God came within our lifetime.”

  I remember laughing at that idea, seeing one brother lift his shoulders in a casual shrug, as the other shifted his frown to me. James had always been a practical thinker. His candor regarding the pacific religion he had chosen to promulgate did not surprise me.

  Years later, when I recalled that conversation among the three of us, I wondered how much of an impact it had on the path Yehoshua chose as his subsequent destiny, as opposed to other events that broke his heart and churned his mind.

  “The Roman boys say their parents do not actually believe in their pagan gods,” I said, “but pretend to do so as a
means of keeping the lower classes subservient.”

  James smiled at me. “In other words, they consider their religion a farce. I do not know if I am pleased or saddened to hear that.”

  “The boys say their religion is made up of legends created by their ancestors. Why could not our religion be based on man-made stories, too?”

  Yehoshua lacked the sense of humor of his older brother and took my occasional irreverent questioning of our religion more seriously than James. “Judaism a farce? You equate our one true God with that silly worship of craven idols and incredible myths?”

  “Banishing Adam and Eve and all their progeny from the Garden of Eden for partaking of forbidden fruit at the urge of a snake sounds pretty far-fetched to me,” I answered. “As does an ark so huge that it could hold two of every animal on earth.”