Judas

by Frederick Ramsay

  The soldiers looked at one another and then at the men. “Who are you? Why haven’t we heard of an accident in the wadi?”

  “We are friends of this man and have come to take him home.”

  The soldiers moved toward the back of the inn as well. “That is the man who killed our comrade.”

  “No, you are mistaken,” one said. “Your comrade fell into the hands of Barabbas. Everyone knows that.”

  “We have information that on the very day our comrade was found in the road, this man arrived here covered with blood, our friend’s blood.”

  “It is true he arrived here in that condition and on that day, but as the victim of a very bad fall into the wadi and in no way connected to your friend’s murder. You should do us all a great service and be out seeking Barabbas. This man is a stranger to these parts and did not know the steep banks and foolishly left the road at dusk. He fell.”

  The two groups of men stared at each other as if they could, by sheer force of will, make the other step aside. I never saw anyone stand up to Roman soldiers like these men. I prepared myself for some bloodletting.

  “Ask the innkeeper and these good people if we tell the truth,” the first man said.

  “It is so. Yes, yes. A very bad fall…” a nervous chorus of support from the small gathering.

  The soldiers looked at each other and the people in the inn—unsure. The innkeeper pounded on the table where he kept his supply of wine.

  “A drink for you, good soldiers. We are in your debt as you keep the roads clear of brigands and thieves.” He poured out large cups of wine and offered it to them.

  “The best,” he declared, “from Cilicia.” The soldiers took the wine, drank, and seemed to make a decision. Clearly, they would get no help from any of this group. Dragging a wounded prisoner any distance would be difficult. After a while the wine’s mellowing effects set in, and they accepted the story about the fall. Life would be easier for them that way.

  Once again I had been snatched from the terror of Roman justice, saved from being punished for murder I did not commit. I struggled to understand. I had no friends, yet it seemed whenever I needed help someone was there for me. The only boat leaving Caesarea that awful day fifteen years ago happened to have room for Mother, Dinah, and me. The boy who worked for Amelabib fell and broke his leg, Nahum, and now these men. I wondered if there was a plan, some divine current that kept me alive in spite of the difficulties that followed me.

  My newfound friends approached my alcove. I tried to rise. My knotted muscles and the pain in my side from the blows allowed only a small hitch upward. They motioned for me to lie still. A fifth man entered the small space with a crude litter and they gently lifted me on it. One of the men chatted with the innkeeper, who then wrapped some bread and cheese in a cloth and handed it to him along with a full wineskin. They hoisted me up and carried me out into the afternoon sun. I did not know where they were taking me or why. We moved downhill and away, to where, I did not know.

  Chapter Twenty

  I spent the first weeks with my rescuers in an infirmary under the care of the resident healer, Eleazer. He hovered over me like a lioness watching her cub. Eleazer, it seemed, sailed through the days as one of life’s cheerful and garrulous people. I could not speak, so he spoke for me, answering my unasked questions as he busied himself with his ointments and potions and tending my bruises. His infirmary smelled like a spice shop from the oils and balms he concocted. From his nonstop, one-sided conversation, I learned that I had been delivered to the Essene community at Kirbet-Qumran, the same group to which my friend Nahum belonged.

  In my second week, three men visited me. By the seriousness of their expressions, bearing, and the deference Eleazer paid them, I assumed they must be very important. The oldest of the group did most of the talking. Later, I discovered he served the community as the high priest, not the high priest in Jerusalem whom I later learned they dismissed as a usurper, the corrupt end of the Hasmonian experience.

  He stood in the doorway and studied me for a long time. His features mapped the whole history of the nation. He looked old enough to have crossed the Jordan with Joshua. I expected the quaver and rasp of the elderly, but this man’s voice, deep and resonant, could belong to a young man. His expression resembled that of someone examining a piece of suspect fish.

  “Nahum vouched for you. He says you are a generous man and worthy of delivery from the hands of Rome. He also said you came to Galilee seeking information on the whereabouts of certain men and you had plans to avenge yourself in some way. Is this true?”

  I nodded.

  “Since he found you near a Roman corpse, he supposed it possible you began that crusade. But, on second thought, he felt it unlikely you could have been beaten so badly and also have committed murder. In that, however, he could not be sure.”

  He paused and looked to his right and left, seeking confirmation from the two men with him. Reassured, he continued, “Because Nahum, whom we deem worthy and indisputably upright, spoke on your behalf, we brought you here, bound your wounds, and gave you sanctuary. We are no more concerned with the death of one Roman soldier than the affairs of any other pagan. However, before we can do more for you, we must have answers to some questions. Are you willing to answer truthfully the questions put to you?”

  I pointed to my throat to indicate I could not speak and nodded again.

  “Do not answer in haste, and be sure of what you do answer. We are skilled in divining the truth. Did you kill the Roman soldier?”

  I shook my head.

  They stood very still, stared at me, exchanged looks, and after what seemed like an eternity, and apparently satisfied I spoke the truth, they nodded and relaxed.

  “Understand, if you were the killer of that man, the safety of all who live here would be jeopardized, and we would not permit you to stay.”

  He let me think about that for a moment. I wondered how good they really were at “divining the truth.” Certainly all of the truth could not be forthcoming.

  “You are of the circumcision.”

  A statement, not a question. I nodded. There could be no doubt about that. Why I, or anyone else for that matter, endured that peculiar anatomical revision remained a question for another day.

  “Where are you from? Not here, we think.”

  I pointed at my throat again and gestured.

  “Can you read and write?”

  I was not sure how to answer. I could do both, thanks to Patros, my wine-soaked tutor, but I believe it is not always advisable to admit to everything. People sometimes think that if you are illiterate, you are also stupid, and will reveal things in their speech and manner they might not otherwise. That can be of great benefit in a situation involving negotiating rates or the price of things. Finally, I nodded.

  We looked at one another and then, realizing my predicament, he told someone out of my line of sight to bring writing materials.

  I was handed a wax tablet, the sort used to jot notes or do calculations. I took the stylus and wrote in Greek, Some Greek, less Aramaic, no Hebrew. I started to hand it over, then pulled it back and added, I can do numbers, like the people from the East.

  They conferred among themselves.

  “How can it be you read little Aramaic and no Hebrew, if you are of the circumcision?”

  I did not know how to respond to that. Does God demand that if you are snipped short down there, you must also read and write Hebrew? I shrugged and then reached for the tablet.

  I come from Corinth.

  I thought Corinth a safer place to be from than Cenchrea, although there was a good possibility these men had never heard of either. I decided the rest of my travels could be discussed at some other time.

  “Ah,” he said, and nodded his head. The three men conferred.

  I discovered later that men born in the Judea of Rome, or Israel, or Palestine—no matter which name I used, I offended someone—believed the Jews raised in foreign places lost all sight
of their obligations under the Law. Therefore, these men viewed my selective ignorance as not only possible, but probable.

  “Tell us of your family.”

  My mother and father are dead.

  They looked at one another and murmured among themselves for a moment and then turned to me.

  “You may stay here temporarily. If you wish to stay longer, after the third year, you must join the community. Everyone who lives here also works here, and so will you, if you stay. We have need of someone who can manage numbers like the men of Arabia. We will put you under the charge of our steward who has struggled with numbers for two years, since Jacob died. Jacob knew how to compute like the people of the east, but he could never teach Jeptha. Now, perhaps, you can help us.”

  I nodded.

  “Then you will stay?”

  Again I nodded. Where else could I go? Barabbas stole my clothes and my money. I would not last a day alone in the wilderness. Even if I could find a city in which to ply my trade, what would I use for capital? And then there was the family of Leonides. They would never think to look for me in this place. It had occurred to me as I convalesced that they may have been tracking me through my letters of credit. If they had, they would now be led to Barabbas. Perhaps they would be satisfied with taking that red-haired thief and leave this one in peace. Either way, I had no choice but to stay. In a year, with some careful manipulating of accounts, some creative ways of inventorying, I just might acquire the money I would need to start over.

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Masad Hasidim, home to the Essenes, is a collection of buildings set at the base of the foothills beside the Salt Sea. They are arranged in a cluster around a central great hall that doubles as a dining room and scriptorium. There is an elaborate series of cisterns and channels that keep the inhabitants supplied with water, which is a major concern as they are forever taking ritual baths .

  I have never seen such compulsion. Romans are great ones for baths. They build them everywhere and use them often. But at Masad Hasidim, the Essenes climb in and out of their mikvahs, tubs before meals, after meals, instead of meals. They have taken to ritual bathing with the same fervor the followers of Bacchus have to wine.

  More dwellings stand a short distance down the road. They house a separate part of the community. Wives and families of men who joined the community live there. Their rule requires celibacy, but it also prohibits abandoning families. The men visit their families from time to time, but do not stay.

  Opposite the settlement, the hills rise steadily upward to the west, pockmarked with hundreds of caves and washes, providing hiding places for outlaws like Barabbas. They also hide the community’s treasures. The caves store provisions, manuscripts, and documents no longer needed. The dry air in the valley of the Salt Sea means those scrolls and other writings, unless dug up by accident, will probably be preserved forever. Some of the caves are sealed, and some are not.

  I assumed the sealed ones held secrets or wealth. In my first months, I determined to find out which. There might be an occasion in the future when I would need help in restoring my financial position. I never did. The community, I discovered, had a way of changing people. Except for the events of one fateful Passover, I might have been viewed as their greatest success.

  ***

  When I recovered from my beating at the hands of Barabbas, I joined Jeptha, the rotund steward, and soon found myself occupied with the business affairs of the community. Jeptha, an honest and faithful man, had no sense of how things were done. Soon, he deferred to me as we arranged the community’s accounts, stores, and transactions. He had no talent for numbers either, and so, inside a year, for all intent and purposes, I became the steward and he my assistant. I thought he might be annoyed by this turn of events, but he seemed relieved.

  At the same time, to reduce the level of ignorance in things that mattered most to my hosts, I acquired a tutor, Reuel, who though only slightly older than I, had the benefit of a lifetime of study in the holy books and scrolls. Nahum had begun my instruction during my stay with him in Sepphoris. For that, and for saving my life, I owed him a huge debt of gratitude, but it was through Reuel I found the Lord. He had the look of one born to a life of asceticism, lean and angular, as if carved out of the tan stones from the hills.

  He said we were born Jews. We could not escape that any more than we could escape the sun and the moon.

  “We are born in pain and blood. We come into this world covered with the blood of our mothers and in her pains of childbirth. At birth we relive our history—the pain of captivity and deliverance, the blood of oppression and triumph. We are a people who endure. An obedient people, we are born to it. No matter how far we may stray from the Lord, we are still who we are and we must live it out. You were born in the blood of history, Judas. Neither you nor I can be anything but what we are.”

  If anyone told me I would someday worship the God of Abraham, I would have laughed and said they were drunk or worse. But after two years of Essene discipline and Reuel’s tutelage, I did. I had lived so many years in the dark, and as long as I remained domiciled there, I could never know him. But on the sun-baked shores of the Salt Sea, I discovered the key to my survival.

  My mother had not been schooled in the scrolls as she might, had she been a boy. Women, Reuel insisted, were not suitable vessels for the wine of the spirit. I did not know why, but it was their belief, and one shared with the populace in general. That being the case, all my mother knew of the Lord were scraps she gleaned from her occasional attendance at synagogue, seated on one of the side benches. A few things she may have learned from other women in their daily meetings at the well, the olive press, and monthly in the tents, during the times of impurity, but all before her twelfth year. After that, of course, she had no contact with her family or her people. She knew only small bits of the Law of Moses. She had been told what the Lord forbade his people, but never his desire for them. She knew what not to do, what not to eat, what not to say, and even what not to think. She dredged up what she knew or could remember from that limited fount to instruct me. None of it made any sense then, and after we parted, I had no interest in discovering what I might have missed, happy to put distance between myself and that angry, punishing god.

  At Masad Hasidim, I discovered what holds our people together and what attracts Greeks and other nonbelievers to our way. I realized the rules and limits I chafed under as a child were part of a larger, practical, and functional whole. In a disordered and chaotic world, God offered order. To be a Jew is as much an exercise in discipline as spirituality. All that is required of us is to follow the Law. It needs none of the cerebration of Greek philosophy, none of the complex hierarchies of the Persians, and none of the beast and hero fables of the pagans, just submission to a way, to a truth, to a life.

  Chapter Twenty-two

  To my delight, I discovered the Essenes of Masad Hasidim knew my grandfather and his rebellion in Galilee, so I heard the story again, but not precisely as Nahum and my mother remembered it.

  “A follower of Zadok, the last true priest of the temple,” they said. “Everyone knows about Judas of the Galilee.” And then they added, “But, he should have waited for the sign, for the righteous moment, when the forerunner appears and preaches the new Israel. That, you see, is our mission, that is what we are about—to preach the new mission.”

  “When will that happen?” I asked.

  “In the Lord’s time. And then,” they said with a fierceness which matched that of Barabbas, “we will rise up and strike down those who oppose the Righteous Leader.”

  I accepted all of it, but in my heart, I yearned for the battle to begin immediately. I wanted to be there when the unrighteous met their doom, when the Romans, the men like Barabbas, and all those who prey on the poor and defenseless would be cast down into the pit. I did not want to wait. But Reuel said we had no choice in the matter.

  “We will know neither the hour nor the day,” he said. And I supposed it must
be so, but it gave me small comfort.

  ***

  Several young men came to Qumran to study under the watchful eye of the elders and the priests. Generally, they stayed a month or two, and then returned to their homes. Their tenure usually followed the seasons. These students provided a modest income to the community. In turn, the community provided tutors and a place to stay. One, named John, would dog my heels for the next several years. Born the son of a fisherman in Capernaum named Zebedee, he came and stayed. John’s hands were soft like those of one who had never been asked to apply himself to the net or the plow. His clothes were not rich, but they were new and well made. John did not like me, then or now. I never knew why. He distrusted me from the outset. Perhaps he had a premonition, who can say? I avoided him, if I could; if not, I remained silent. Of course, that would change, but I could not conceive of even a possibility he or I would ever coexist peaceably.

  ***

  About this time something happened that persuaded me I had become a different man and possibly worthy of some measure of esteem, after all. Jeptha, my putative overseer, set out for Jericho with coins to buy supplies. I calculated the amount he would need and watched as the treasurer counted out the coins from our meager store. He left with a substantial sum, more than I had laid eyes on in two years. I do not know if poor Jeptha had any sense of the relative fortune he carried or not. He stuffed them into his purse, laced that to his girdle and off he went.

  Some hours later, I walked down to the Jericho road to stretch my legs and to be alone for a while. It had become a small indulgence I permitted myself after the rigors of Essene discipline during the day. I had to leap a gully where the lane leading from the settlement met the main road. As I did so, I saw where Jeptha had attempted the same maneuver but, because of his girth, must have slipped. I smiled at the image and would have walked on except a glint, a glitter, caught my eye. When I bent down to see what caused it, I discovered Jeptha’s coins—all of them. His purse must have split in the fall.