Uri, however, was troubled.
He would have been extremely pleased were the Ark of the Covenant to come to light, but he found himself unable to believe it was about to happen. If it had not been located for centuries on end, and why would it now in particular? The peaceful landscape of Judaea and Samaria did not exactly give the impression that Judgment Day was nigh.
No way are we going to Tiberias, it occurred to him. Mount Gerizim had been the destination from the outset.
But why?
He began to calculate.
They had been traveling for four days now. If the vision really had come to Matthew a week ago, as people were saying, then it would have taken at least four days for news of it to reach Jerusalem. Messages could be sent by fire, but that was not usually used for long, complicated messages, as vowels were left out and meanings could easily be misunderstood. It was quite probably a courier who had carried the news. It must have been at least eight days ago, or even earlier, that the courier had arrived in Jerusalem with the news that people were going to search for the Ark of the Covenant at the festival with shovels and swords in the depths of the mountain. We’re being sent there to see whether the chest comes to light.
Uri muttered discontentedly to himself that the story was not credible.
There was no chance of the actual chest turning up, Uri thought. Had another chest been fabricated? Had the Samaritans forged one and buried it on the mountain so that it would be found and they could assert ownership and gain the upper hand over other Semites? Even supposing that was the case, why precisely was it us, newcomers to Judaea, who were going to be put in proximity to the chest? What might our task be — to bear witness to the fact that the chest was a fake or, on the contrary, that it was genuine? But then who amongst us would have the courage to bear witness on a matter like that? If that chest came to light the high priest would have to see it, but there is not a priest among us!
We have been sent to Samaria as spies, to spy on those looking for the Ark of the Covenant.
The Samaritans were so joyous that they paid no attention to them. They scarcely even greeted the two in white robes, though they recognized and appreciated that they did not worship toward the Temple in Jerusalem. Aaron had heard the familiar way that the two white-robed men addressed the Samaritans, but he had let it be.
How could it be that men in white robes lived in Judaea and didn’t pray toward Jerusalem? Was it not all a single religion? Or was it a single religion that had broken up into several faiths?
Roman Jews, like the priests of Jerusalem, did not believe in a Hereafter or the immortality of souls or the transmigration into a new body, yet Master Jehuda and other masters believed in these things. They still belonged to one religion, however, because they made sacrificial offerings to the Temple. But was anyone who did not make such sacrifices a Jew at all? Was where one paid taxes a criterion of Jewishness? The Jews of Parthia who had stayed in Babylon paid no dues, or like the Roman Jews sent only half a shekel in taxes, yet they were still Jews. What did they believe in?
To believe in an Invisible, One and Only, Everlasting Lord, to see Him, to strive with the Lord, as the name Israel literally means — maybe that is enough to be Jewish. The Eternal One binds His people to Himself with a bond stronger than the Ark of the Covenant: He has the menfolk’s prepuces cut off, and that is the mark that shows they are His.
From then on they were surrounded night and day by an intoxicated throng. The Samaritans had not drunk any wine, but they had become inebriated by their own souls, and as far as the eye could see signs of the Divine presence, the Shekinah, His Immanence in the world, the Holy Spirit, appeared in the fields and trees, in the grass and sky.
For the Samaritans this Day of Atonement was more significant than usual. Uri was pleased when he recognized this. Once he got back to Rome, he would recount it all in detail to his father.
They moved with the crowd. The walkers were hemmed onto the narrow tracks as there were no other paths. Stones, clods of earth, and protruding roots cut their unshod feet, and Uri felt a twinge of guilt watching from above on the back of a mule. They made slow progress, adopting the pace of the mass anyway, so Uri got down and walked on among the people. His feet were sore but he did not mind, as the soles would soon be as tough as leather. Aaron saw but did not upbraid him. The two white-robed men noticed and also dismounted, leading their mules by the tether. The others, though, stayed on their mules.
Progress was slow.
“We are Essenes,” one of the white-robed men said. “What about you? Where are you from?”
Uri gave a brief outline. The Essenes humphed.
“Was it your people, then, after whom the gate in Jerusalem was named?” Uri asked.
“Our forbears,” they answered proudly.
Uri carried on walking with the Essenes, who were greeted gladly by the singing Samaritans attached to the throng.
The day becomes long if a person is walking, and talk is slack until the sun sets. That was how Uri learned that Essenes, of whom he had never heard in Rome, were few in Judaea, perhaps just a few thousand altogether, but had been there for a century now. There were places where they lived in their own houses, with the occasional scattered family member living in a village or town; wherever they were they helped one another and obeyed the commands of their leader. When Uri asked whether they had a single leader in Judaea, they first gave an evasive answer, then confessed that there were several sects of Essenes and several leaders. Many Essenes maintained only frigid relations with those Essenes that still paid dues to the Temple, but they still considered them clean; the Essenes alone had striven for purity in this mire that the Almighty had unleashed on Earth during recent generations. The high priests and even the masters left them alone. Individuals and even whole families could join the Essenes, but it was difficult to gain admission. Newcomers were subject to a trial period, during which it was not permitted to do or, above all, think anything impure. Thoughts could also be impure; indeed, it was mainly thoughts that were impure, stemming as they do from the bowels, and they condemned impurity of thought among themselves. They would regularly recount to each other their thoughts, even their dreams, and the community would discuss them and judge whether they were clean. If not, the leader would impose a punishment on the person who had thought or dreamt it.
They carried a trowel at all times because they were allowed to leave no impurity in their tracks on the face of the earth. They never resorted to arms, although a trowel might be used a weapon if it was whet. They only used it in self-defense, and if it was ever used as a weapon it had to be buried deep in the soil, at least five feet deep, because blood made it impure and would never wash away. Violent use of the trowel had to be confessed to the community, who would judge whether it was legitimate or not. If it wasn’t, the leader would mete out a harsh punishment, the harshest of which, for the Essenes as it was for the Jews, was ostracism, even if a follower had attained the highest rank of initiation, the fourth.
Both of the Essenes had attained the second degree, though only after many years, because unfortunately they were not born Essenes. Their leader had nominated them for this delegation in response to the high priest’s request for Essene involvement.
Uri felt inclined to live in an Essene community for a while, though he did not admit it, as it would have been a futile wish.
Unclean Samaritans were not to be found among the Essenes, the Essenes said disparagingly, as they walked with the masses toward Mount Gerizim and politely returned the respectful greetings of the unclean Samaritans.