The Artifact

by Quinn, Jack

  Saul was somewhat of a fanatic, James told me, who seemed intent upon embellishing our brother’s words with his own ideas and searching for proof of his mysterious contention that Jesus was the Son of God, the Messiah promised in the Torah, who had in fact risen from the dead. I scoffed at that, but James did not venture an opinion, which eventually became our way of remaining at ease with one another, preserving the sibling love our mother had instilled within all of her children since birth.

  James and I supped together in Jerusalem whenever I passed through on business, brought our families together on holidays, and for an occasional two or three day visit to my home. Both Yentl and I enjoyed my brother, his wife Elizabeth and their children who often remained with us for several weeks in the summer. I frequently inquired of him in private regarding the Christianoi, who were then still considered to be a new sect within the narrow spectrum of Judaism. Due to his filial relationship with Yehoshua and high standing in the Sanhedrin, James was somehow able to act as one of the prime leaders of that newborn movement without conflict as a priestly keeper of the sacred Torah. I listened with curious attention to his discourse about this incredible movement apparently flourishing on the memory of a failed healer ignominiously executed as a seditious criminal, while refraining from negative comments. And James rarely questioned my activities for Judah’s clandestine rebel organization in which I had ascended to the ranks of leadership.

  In comparison to my life before marriage, the years following our move to Tel Gezer were calm and ordered. I came to know Yentl as my wife, partner and companion, developing a deep affection for that remarkable woman, with a profound concern for her well-being. For her part, although it was never mentioned, she realized her advanced age might eventually tempt me in other directions, so kept her body as firm as a woman many years her junior and continued to pleasure me in bed until the very end.

  Perhaps calm is not an accurate description of my peripatetic wanderings, especially thru the Galilee. I traveled on a regular basis as far as Be’er Sheva in the south, to Hurfeish in the north, selling Yentl’s robes, togas, stolae and tunics to local merchants and wealthy families from a covered wagon driven by a trusted freedman and his wife, the woman particularly suited to dealing with female clients. Toward the end of those journeys I carried a great deal of money, my sword and Pugio worn at my belt serving as visible deterrents against thieves. Those weapons also made a serious statement when I addressed a local gathering for the purposes of recruitment to our forthcoming rebellion. Although my personal and business circumstances were largely without incident during that period, all of Palestine seethed in an undercurrent of disaffection and upheaval. Sicarii-led and independent peasant skirmishes were launched with increasing frequency against traveling groups of Roman soldiers, their smaller encampments and wealthy Jews. Rebel forays against Gentiles sympathetic to the Empire flared throughout Palestine, especially the Galilee. My attempts to coordinate separate rebel bands initially met with contention for supremacy among their leaders, requiring my repeated visits to cajole headmen and their respective insurgents to come together under one man with designated officers as an effective fighting unit. Jews have always been renowned for our explicative and argumentative nature, whether discussing the everyday laws of our religion or the number of steps it takes to walk from house to latrine. The difficulties I encountered in forming an offensive militia to do battle with Roman legions did not augur well for success.

  A second undercurrent also gaining strength after the death of Yehoshua were the many followers who proselytized his teachings. A Greek-speaking Jew named Stephen, who like Saul preached that my brother was The Messiah and would return at the imminent End of the World to initiate the Kingdom of God, was brought before the Sanhedrin, to whom he angrily denounced Jews who did not embrace Jesus as Messiah, deprecating the Temple and Torah in the process. The man was found guilty of rejecting Judaism and sentenced to death by stoning.

  Not only was all of Palestine in a state of upheaval, but also Rome and many other of her provinces across the Empire. Pilate caused several altercations with his Jewish subjects after sentencing my brother to death, until finally sending soldiers to disrupt a Samaritan Prophet, whom they killed along with many of his leaders and followers. When Samaria complained to Roman authority that Pilate had slaughtered unarmed pilgrims, the Emperor Tiberius recalled him to Rome and a fate I have never learned. Marcellus, the Procurator who replaced Pilate, discharged Caiaphas as high priest and a false tranquility settled over Judea until the death of Tiberius. Then the emperor’s succession by a malevolent youth, Gaius Caligula, who attempted to place his statue in our Temple, resulted in large-scale protests in the Galilee and Judea until that mad young hedonist rescinded his order. Assassinated after less than five years on the throne, Caligula was succeeded as Emperor by Claudius, who installed Agrippa as Procurator of Judea, upon whose death Palestine reverted to its original kingdom under the administration of Procurator Cupas Fadus.

  Because of frequent rebel attacks in the Galilee, Rome was wary of any large gathering of Jews, reacting swiftly to silence religious prophets such as Theudas, who preached to many in Judea until an army contingent sent by Fadus slaughtered his followers and brought the prophet’s head back to the Procurator. The stimulus for retribution continued for the next decade with the murder of Galilean pilgrims as they passed through Samaria, the slaughter of a prophet known as the ‘Egyptian’ and his followers by the Procurator Cumanus, constant egregious offenses to our religion, and increasingly heavy taxes sent to Rome to fund a treasury depleted by the lavish personal extravagances of the Emperor Nero. That particularly sadistic emperor instructed his soldiers to scour the provinces for Christianoi whom he sent into the Coliseum by the thousands to be ravaged by the starving beasts I had handled in the arenas.

  Saul had written several additional letters to me over the years citing my sibling obligation to join the followers of Yehoshua, urging me to join him, Peter and James in promulgating his teachings in preparation of his second coming. I discarded those parchments as the ranting of an idiot and never responded, until he sought me out during the later part of the two decades between his ‘conversion’ and preaching to Gentiles in travels to Syria, Turkey, Greece, and even Rome. At our first encounter, that intense little man provoked one of my most vituperative denunciations of the Christianoi.

  Saul, having adopted the Greek appellation of ‘Paul’ in renunciation of his former castigation of the Jesists, found me on the north coast of the Sea in a hostel where I had stopped for the night. It was a meeting that I remember well. Standing somewhat taller than my own height, with unruly gray hair circumscribing his baldpate, bushy brows, gray beard, a tiny flat nose between piercing close-set eyes, Saul was broad of shoulder with thick arms, his protruding paunch belying a gluttonous appetite. With his disgusting habit of leaning forward to expel his foul breath when speaking in confidence, I could not understand how that man could persuade anyone of anything, whether goatskin tent or outrageous belief.

  We sat across from one another at the dining table placed out in the air before the tavern below the travelers’ rooms, Saul with a whole roasted fish, cheese, bread olives and wine before him, I with a bowl of mussel soup, bread and cup of water.

  After an introductory conversation, Saul adjusted his stained toga, its purple band indicating his Roman citizenry and began in earnest by accusing me of not answering his letters.

  “I could think of no polite response to them.”

  “You will not join James, Peter and me in spreading the word of your holy brother?”

  “You used to oppose his teachings, scourging his followers wherever you found them.”

  “Yes, yes,” he answered with a dismissive wave of his hand. “That was before Yahweh opened my eyes.”

  “According to your opinion.”

  “How else?” he said. “Jesus is the Messiah risen from the dead, who will come again to establish the Kingdom of God in
which we will live free from oppression forever.”

  “You did not know my brother nor hear him speak.”

  “I have listened to those who did and communed with him.”

  “You have not listened to me, who has discussed his purpose with him.”

  Saul waved my point away as he would shoo a fly from his meal. “One man’s word against many.”

  “Why would I lie? Why would Pilate have crucified him other than believing him a threat to the Empire? What cared he about some minor Jewish sect?”

  “We can never know the minds of other men.”

  “Saul, do you not realize that this incredible resurrection nonsense insults his memory? My family, me?”

  “I have reclaimed the name Paul of my infancy to better assimilate into the Gentile world.”

  “Another prevarication.”

  He ignored that. “James does not agree that my teachings do Jesus or your family harm, nor does your sister Mary.”

  “I do not understand how intelligent people are able to conjure up such a ridiculous story about the resurrection of a failed preacher and convince other imbeciles to accept it.”

  Paul rose from the table, his visage flushed with anger. “You blaspheme! His flesh and blood, more concerned with the this day than hereafter.”

  “Yes, Saul, Paul. I am trying to do something positive to lift the oppression of Rome, while the likes of you babble absurdities in the wind of the desert.”

  “Be gone, Satan!” He turned and stalked into the inn leaving me to pay for his meal.

  From news that reached my ears in years to follow, Paul became the foremost proponents of my brother’s heritage as the Son of God, his resurrection and the Messiah as prophesized in the Torah by Moses. He spread his continually enhanced message to Jews and Gentiles alike around the Mare Mediterranea as far as Spain--arguably conjured as much within his own mind as from the hearsay teachings of Yehoshua. He established Christianoi synagogues and wrote half a hundred letters to the converted in the far reaches of Corinth, Thessalonica, Galatia and Rome itself.

  Paul also consulted with Peter, James and other leaders of their sect until their quarrel over the halakic92 requirements of Gentiles. Paul was eventually accused by the Sanhedrin of drawing Jews away from strict adherence to the Torah and Judaism, the culmination of which was bringing an uncircumcised Gentile into Temple, thereby causing a riot on sacred grounds, an affront punishable by stoning. In order to avoid a religious uprising in the capital, Procurator Florus arrested Paul for his own protection and shipped him to Rome, where he was held under guard for two years in a house where he was allowed to accept visitors, continued to correspond with Christianoi synagogues throughout the region, emphasizing salvation in Jesus, rejecting the failed “dispensation” curse of Torah Law and the acceptance of Gentiles for whom he excused the ritual of circumcision. The precise reasons for Paul’s eventual death some years later are unclear, but regardless of motivation, as a Roman citizen he was allowed the more dignified execution of beheading compared to the inverted crucifixion of Peter about the same time.

  Although the execution of principal Christianoi was felt by its members, it did not have a significant impact on the general populace, who were more concerned with corporal issues than a new religion. During the thirty-year period of unrest after the death of Yehoshua, a goodly half-dozen self-proclaimed messiahs appeared in the Palestine, some of them assembling ten times my brother’s followers, yet meeting a similar fate, most under the swords of the legions sent by the ruling procurator of the time.

  The appointment by my brother of that simple fisherman, Peter, to carry on his message has always puzzled me. Why not Judas, the most educated and intelligent of his closest six? Or Philip? Although Yehoshua was not known for his sense of humor, was his assignment of Peter’s unimaginative sobriquet ‘Rock’ facetious? Aware that his meager following and revisionist tenets would probably pass away after his demise or scatter to escape persecution, did Yehoshua purposely assign the most unqualified man as leader to bear it to its predestined anonymity? I understand that Peter did try to fulfill his assignment, keeping the Christianoi flame burning in Jerusalem, venturing into the Idumea and Egypt, his labors finally ending with his execution in Rome. Peter and most of the other six made a grand effort to promote my brother’s message to Jews in Jerusalem and the surrounding area, also venturing back to the Galilee where people had heard the preaching of Jesus from his own lips. In my travels there for the Zealots, I encountered many believers in awe of my relationship to their self-appointed savior, questioning me regarding his personal characteristics, when he demonstrated the first signs of his powers and his counsel with God, his proclaimed ‘father.’ Some of those desperate, poverty-stricken followers competed with one another professing their personal witness to his miraculous healings and wonders, dismissing any rational explanation offered. For the most part, I attempted to use my status as the brother of Jesus to convince them of the need to unify as a militia, just as Yehoshua encouraged their banding together in brotherly love.

  My personal sadness began again one night upon my return from an extended journey through the Galilee. I embraced Yentl with the warmth and relief of a man rescued from the wilderness, gratified at the strength of her arms around me and murmured words of welcome. I bathed the grime and sweat from my body, changing from my robe into a loose tunic, while she supervised our freedwoman in preparing our evening meal, which we ate lounging in the Roman manner, exchanging events and happenings we had experienced during our separation.

  In our bed sometime later, we lingered in pleasuring one another, as was our wont, before the heat in our bodies propelled us to that final glorious act, leaving us breathless and smiling in the dim light of the candles. When my thoughts of passion had cleared my mind, a nagging concern from our delightful coupling came to me, and before my recollection of its source, I reached out to fondle Yentl’s breast.

  “You seem to have grown a bone under my favorite flesh,” I said.

  She thought I was teasing her. “Bones do not grow there of a sudden, Shimon. You know as little of women as the day we met.”

  I guided her fingers to the spot. “There is something hard here. Have you not noticed?”

  She chuckled as we explored her breast together. “I do not often fondle myself in your absence.”

  There was nothing for it at that moment, so we slept. The next day we discussed it further, and claiming the growth did not pain her, she decided to ignore it until some other symptom arose. Some weeks later, my curiosity finally persuaded her to consult a physician to at least learn if there was cause for worry or not.

  The news was not good. After his examination, the Jerusalem surgeon told us that a lump in a woman’s breast was not uncommon at Yentl’s age, and many such growths he had seen presented no problem. The man was reluctant to describe the illness of those who did have a problem, but relented when both Yentl and I insisted. Some women so afflicted, he told us, experienced either a rapid or lengthy malaise that wasted their entire body, terminating in death.

  Yentl braced herself to ask the doctor if the illness was accompanied by pain, seeking my hand and nodding her understanding as he admitted that possibility along with the reassurance that he could administer drugs to diminish it. There was no reason to dwell on that unfortunate possibility, which if it did occur, would probably not do so for some time. Considering Yentl’s accumulation of forty-odd years, she would probably pass away of some other ailment or old age before this illness became terminal—if it did.

  I was reluctant to travel for some time after that diagnosis, but when Yentl had suffered no ill effects from the lump for several months, I became anxious to get back to those unruly rebel bands whom I knew would be at cross-purposes if left without supervision for a good length of time. Yentl had organized the production of our garment enterprise to run by itself with Jewish employees and freedmen, since I would have no slaves. Her employee quintet produced the bla
nkets from which the garments were designed, cut and sewn with more will and less supervision than slaves, yet I could never determine if their enthusiasm was the result of wages or the subtle pride they seemed to take in their acquired skills and accomplishments. Was this a business secret that would gain popularity? Or was an employer able to work an indentured servant harder, longer and more profitably?

  When Yentl’s healthy body began to show the deteriorating signs of the dread disease, she relinquished completely the day-to-day management of garment-making to her hirelings. We certainly had sufficient wealth to support us in luxury if we so desired, and I tried to convince her to sell her business, which she refused to do. As the illness progressed, however, I ceased my roving sales efforts to spend as much time as possible with her, yet the enterprise began to decline. Finally agreeing to divest ourselves of the burden of commerce, she transferred ownership to our freedmen without payment or recompense, and the business picked up appreciably. Although her inordinate generosity vexed me considerably at the time, I held my tongue. Since then, that magnanimous gesture stands in my mind as the true monument to Yentl’s persona.