He Who Returned. Martin Fieber
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The zealots were not Samuels world, these resistance fighters reacted to there enemies with the same ruthlessness. However they were nonetheless Jews. But the Romans? Every few days a couple of legionnaires came through Nazareth and looked for fellowmen of Judas. No, these damned Romans! Now heathen buildings stood everywhere in Sepphoris. A theater had even been completed a few days ago. They were now merely working on completing one of the auxiliary buildings with the dressing rooms. Actors, those damned hypocrites. And the most outrageous thing of all was that works of those arrogant Greeks were being performed there. Just yesterday evening had seen a performance of play by Aeschylus. ‚Orestie’ or something like that. It had been the premiere. This piece was about king Agamemnon, who had returned from the Trojan War. Samuel asked himself how such a play, in which the subject matter was murder, blood revenge and extramarital affairs, could even be performed,. What a superficial Greek world! Those Greeks were false, arrogant and quarrelsome. A folk of thinkers, pah. Yes, they had always been able to think, but they had never been able to trust in God. Ah well, they were not the chosen people of God. What else could one expect of them? But what was worst of all: nowadays many Jews outside of Galilee could not speak Aramaic any more and only spoke the arrogant sounding language of those Greeks. And now even the children were beginning to dream of the Greek towns outside of Galilee. Yes, the Messiah was desperately needed.
Samuel briefly returned from the world of his thoughts to make sure whether all of the children had left the room. None of the brats was there anymore.
And once again Samuel’s restless thoughts returned to the incorrigible zealots. They wanted to cast out the foreign rulership of the Romans by force. On the one hand they were right, for what business did the Romans have here among the Jews anyway? They were even worse than the Greeks. But by force? That was assuredly not the right way. Killing simply was not the way.
This was also the reason why Samuel had been in Sepphoris yesterday. He had met with several Rabbis from the area and with some priests from Jerusalem there. They had spoken about the increasing violence in Galilee and about the influence of the Greeks on Jewish life. Much was said but there was no result. As usual. One wanted to wait and see how the next couple of months would develop. But yesterday had really upset his frame of mind. How Bealja, his clerical person of trust from Jerusalem, had told him, the unswerving loyalty to the law of the rabbis in Nazareth had even reached the high priests ears in Jerusalem. In a final talk Bealja had told him that one was concerned about a Rabbi in Ephesus. He supposedly no longer was focusing on the transmission of traditional teachings, but rather enjoyed his time with easy women. And if the situation did not improve in the next few months, once was considering sending him , the good Samuel, into this town in distant Greece and have him preach the God of Abraham in this cave of depravity. Samuel had asked Bealja why he of all people was being considered for this. Bealja’s answer was clear and sent a shiver down Samuel’s spine. Whoever had such a good reputation in the faithless and backward Galilee had to possess unusual abilities.
At first Samuel was shocked by this idea. Ephesus! He did not know much about this town, only that it was the town of black magic. The whole world had probably heard about the magic books of Ephesus. But to leave his home was out of the question. How could they ask this of him! But the longer he thought about this news, the better he felt about it. Around 200 people lived in Nazareth, and it was said that around 200.000 lived in Ephesus. And the number of Jews in that town, in which the whole world met, was probably much higher. There he could bring about something new, there he could bring the errant Jews back to God. He was not afraid of the countless whores that apparently existed in Ephesus. After all he was discipline incarnate. And he knew how to deal with women. They only needed a strict hand. And that he had. Sarah was the best example. She was always at his service and did what he wished. Ephesus was still a long way off though, and thus he let go of those thoughts and placed the torah scrolls back into the shrine. He was satisfied with his lot. The Lord must be satisfied with him. The only thing he was still worried about was Joshua.
His son had repeatedly made a very distant impression on him. That damned dreamer! If he had not been his son and been so talented, he would have thrown him out of class already. At least the dumb could still work on the fields or tend the sheep. But dreamers? They did not even notice when a sheep went missing. O, this Joshua! As the son of the rabbi he was not allowed to engage in such dreamy reveries. After all Joshua might become a good priest or even his successor. Joshua had all of the abilities for this, was not lazy, but often, like today, simply not present. He would even sleep away the Passover celebration if he, Samuel, did not ensure that he did not miss it. He wanted to cast a more watchful eye on his son in the near future and sort out this daydreaming. No matter how, after all he was not afraid of applying corporal punishment when it served its purpose. After all, did not the Holy Scriptures put it quite nicely: “Blessed is the man whom you chastise.”
∞
Miriam prepared a lentil soup for the celebration which was to be given in their honor today in the village. She stirred in a large pot that she had received from the women of the village. The intense weariness from the long journey made her work harder. Yeshua sat quietly in a corner of the room and watched her while she was cooking. He had just written a few sentences in his diary. The scroll was lying next to him on a small dresser. Miriam was alone with her son, for Joseph had just walked over to Samuel’s place to go over some things with him.
“Mommy, why are we here?”, her son asked.
“Yeshua, it has been ordained that you grow up here for the next few years. Bakenor, your teacher from Alexandria, gave us this instruction on our way and besides that I had a dream again, in which a heavenly messenger told me that we should return into the hometown of Joseph. You will get used to the little place eventually.”
Miriam added the finishing touches to the soup and also gave Yeshua a piece of the bread she had dipped in the soup to taste. “And?”
“Yummy.”
Miriam smiled, for she knew that Yeshua loved this ritual. It would surely help him to feel at home here soon.
“Mother, why am I the only person in Nazareth who has blue eyes?” Yeshua gave her an inquiring glance.
Miriam was thunderstruck, for she knew that this question had to come sometime.
She could still remember the morning well on which a heavenly being had appeared to her and told her that she had been chosen to bear the future saviour of Israel into the world. At first she had not wanted to accept this message, but the heavenly messenger had been very insistent and convinced her, so that she eventually accepted her mission. She and Joseph had apparently been chosen since they were very pure human beings. And the future saviour could only grow up with pure parents. However there was a more important reason: the genes which she and Joseph carried in each other had to be modified