Julian: or Scenes in Judea. By the Author of Letters from Palmyra and Rome

Front matter

JULIAN: on SCENES IN JUDEA. THE AUTHOR OF LETTERS FROM PALMYRA. AND ROME. EDINBURGH: PUBLISHED BY WILLIAM AND ROBERT CHAMBERS. 1843. EDINEUItGH : \V. AND It. CHAMBERS. NOTE. To the present work, which appeared at New York in 1841, the following explanatory note was pre fixed : — " These ' Scenes,' it is thought proper to say, are purely fictitious, with no foundation whatever in histo rical fact, except where an ohvious agreement will he found with the Scriptures. Wherever the story deviates from the straight course of the New Testament record, it is to he taken as imaginary — illustrative merely of the period chosen. For the part assigned to Herod there is a show of authority ; and it will be found to conflict with the con jecture of those who, to meet the difficulty presented, by Luke xv. ], suppose the tetrarch to have been absent from his dominions, during all the early part of our Saviour's ministry, engaged in a war with the king of Arabia.

In respect to Scripture antiquities, no more has been attempted than not to do them violence. Geogra phical and topographical details will be found to agree essentially with the best authorities." SCENES IN JUDEA. Praise to the God of Abraham : the locusts are flown. The land which they found flourishing and verdant as a garden, they have changed to the bar renness of a. desert. The cities and the villages, but now so full of people, are become the region of deso lation and death. Even the very city and house of God arc level with the dust, and the ploughshare has gone over them. And here upon the hill of Olives I sit, a living witness of the ruin. By reason of the wonderful compassions of God, which never fail, I am escaped as a bird from the net of the fowler : yet I take little joy in this ; for whjr should the days of one like me be lengthened out, when the mighty and excellent of the land are cut off?

Irather rejoice in this, that the spoiler is gone, the armies of the alien have ceased to devour, and they who are fled, and hidden in caves and dens of the rocks, may come forth again to inhabit the land and build up the waste places. A multitude, which no man could number, have fallen before the edge of the sword, or by famine, and the air is full of the pestilential vapours that steam up from their rotting carcases. But a greater multitude remains ; and it may well be that, ere many years have passed, they shall fill the land as before, and, gathered into one by him who, though long de laying, will come, pay back, and more, the measure they have received. That time will surely come. Even as the Assyrian could not finally destroy, but the hand ofthe Almighty was put forth, and the city and the temple grew again from their ruins to a greater glory than before, so shall it be now.

Letter I

I thus addressed my mother soon after reaching Cæsarea : — You who know your son so well, will not doubt that I took my departure from Antioch with pain. No where since I passed the gates of Rome have I been entertained with such magnificence. Nowhere have the hours proved themselves so short-lived. After the dulness of Athens, and the worse than dulness of Smyrna, Ephesus, and Rhodes, it was refreshing to witness the noise and stir of the mistress of the East. So frequent were tlie theatres, baths, and porticos, tlie shows, the games, the combats of wild beasts, that I felt myself almost in the Elysium of my own Rome. What added, too, as you will believe, to my happiness, was this, that I passed everywhere for a Roman of un doubted Rom<in blood ; or, at least, if my descent were seen, with a civility which seems native to these orien - tals, the knowledge of it was not betrayed by a word or look.

I perceive you to smile at this, as also to > utter a few words expressive of a gentle contempt for an unworthy scion of an ancient house. The contempt from you I can bear, but the smile by which you seem to enjoy what you are pleased to term my credulity, I must say and believe is wasted ; for, more than once have I been assured by some of my own tribe, that, but for a something in my eye, they should not suspect me to be other than a Roman. Neither, my mother, was this flattery ; it was from some incapable of that meanest vice — from my real friends. But who ever were so blind as to take me for a Roman, you may be assured I was not careful to undeceive them. I enjoyed the perfect felicity while I might ; and the dream was undisturbed during the whole of my so journ there, except in a single instance, when, once as I was walking in front of the baths of Tiberius, I saw approaching from an opposite point the lordly Drusus, who, as I gave signs of saluting him, turned his face in another direction, and swept along without recog nising me.

What think j*ou of that ? At this distance I can see your colour change. But if you even feel the insult, who live so shut out from the great world, how much more mu6t I who am in it. I think your censure is too sharp upon me, when at such moments I, somewhat hastily perhaps, wish the twelve tribes had found the fate of Pharaoh, seeing that to little else than scorn and curses, hatred and oppression, are they born who come of their lineage. Willingly would I renounce all the wisdom I have ever found in Moses and the prophets, for a little of that equal honour in the eyes of men, which more, methinks, than questions of philosophy or religion, concerns a man's well-being. My eye is not far Teaching enough to discern a single advantage in the position the Jew fills in this great theatre of life.

He cherishes in his soul his faith, which he holds to be nobler and purer than that of Pythagoras or Cicero. But however much nobler and purer in his own eye, when did other than a Jew so esteem it ? Who ever has heard of Romans, Greeks, or Egyptians becoming Jews, and receiving — save hi numbers most inconsiderable — the Jewish faith ? Yet is it likely that through so many ages a religion given of God should have remained in the world, and not have convinced men of its divinity ? I, alas ! have not even a conviction of its truth, to sustain me under this burden of contempt and re proach. I am a Jew outwardly, carrying the signs of my descent and origin in my face and form, branded in by the hand that made me, and by the hand that reared me ; and this I cannot help. But with readi ness would I lose one half my limbs, if from what re mained these scars and seams of ignominy were fairly erased.

You say that in Rome I mix freely with the Roman youth, that I sit at their tables, and they at mine, that I join them at the games, and in every amusement of our city life. It is true ; yet still I am a Jew. I am beloved of many because I am Julian ; yet by the very same am I abhorred because I am a .lew. The Roman beggar who takes my gold — for gold is gold — begs psirdon of the gods, and as lie turns the corner, scours the coin upon the sand. Yet, my mother, I see not why one people should thus pro scribe another ; nor do I look upon the wrong but with indignation. You justly accuse me with indifference to the religion of my fathers. But I have never beheld with patience the slights, insults, and oppressions which, by the stronger, have been heaped upon the weaker; nor, truly, when I reflect, can I see why the worship of a people should be charged upon them as a crime.

It is these injuries which have roused within me, at times, the Jew ; however, for the most part in my search after pleasure, I have been too ready to forget all but what ministered directly to that end. If thou art filled with wonder at so serious a vein in me, I will soon give thee the reasons thereof; but let me first speak of my passage hither, and of that which happened immediately on my arrival. I left Antioch, as I have said, with regret. At the mouth of the Orontes I embafked in a trader bound to Cæsarea, and then to Joppa and Alexandria. We at first were driven out to sea by an east wind, and ran quite along the shores of Cyprus ; but this soon subsiding, we crossed over again to the Syrian coast, and were afterwards enabled to keep our vessel so near— the breezes being gentle, and from a safe quar ter—that I enjoyed a continued prospect of the country, with as much distinctness and satisfaction, methinks, as if I had been travelling by land ; at least with dis tinctness enough, for every pleasure of this sort is increased by a certain degree of obscurity and dim ness.

Painters understand this, and over their works throw a sort of haze by some mysterious process of their divine art, which imparts to them their prin cipal charm. No prospect and no picture is beautiful which is clear and sharp, as if cut in metal. Truth itself is to me improved by a veil of this same mis tiness thrown around it. But if any fault is to be found -with this Syrian atmosphere, it is, that of this all-involving dimness there is something too much ; to that degree, indeed, that the eye is often cheated of the distant features of the landscape— the moun tains which, drawn upon the chart before us, we know to be not far distant, not too far for the eye to reach with ease, being cut off entirely by this purple wall of partition. Happily, as we drew near the port of Berytus, beyond which lay the mountains of Li banus and Anti-Libanus, there was not so much of the quality of which I speak in the air as to deprive us of a view of their summits, crowned with their snowy caps, filling the whole eastern horizon.

It was a magnificent mountain scene, a fitting vestibule, you will say, my mother, through which to enter the holy land of Moses and Abraham. It was, I am obliged to confess, with emotions such as I had never experienced before, that I found myself now for the first time gazing upon the shores of this wonderful people, the home of my fathers. It was beautiful to the eye, as we skirted the coast, as one long continued garden. The rich agriculture of the husbandman was pushed out to the very sands of the sea-beach, and every cape, and promontory, and lofty peak showed, sparkling in the sun, the white walls of a village or some insulated dwelling, proving how thickly peopled must be the country which could spare its inhabitants for the cultivation of spots natu rally barren and inhospitable, but now by the hand of industry changed to a soil not less fertile than that of Italy.

I could not but wish that, if it were decreed I must he a Jew, I had been born and had lived in these sunny regions ; and, in truth, that it had pleased heaven to have retained my parents on their native soil, seeing that there, among our own hills and plains, we could not but have been a people more respected than we now are, or ever can be, wandering over the earth, forcing ourselves upon every nation and every city, unwelcome guests — among them, but never of them. We had not long lost sight of the ridges of Lebanon, when we passed successively those ancient seats of opulence and renown, Sidon and Tyre ; then doubling a lofty cape, formed by a part of Mount Carmel shooting into the sea, a few hours' sail revealed a distant prospect of Cæsarea. As we drew near, I was astonished at the magnificence of the port.

It is a harbour of an imm'ense capacity as to vessels of all kinds and sizes, yet has it been formed wholly by the hand of art. The shore presents at this part of the coast an almost even line of sandy banks running from south to north, with none of those alternate pro jections and inlets which are proper for the security of ships against both the current of the sea and storms of wind. Wherefore, at the cost of an im mense sum, did Herod the Great construct this artificial basin— larger than the famous one at Athens —wherein vessels can ride in perfect safety, protected especially against the violence of the southern gales, which in this region are chiefly to be feared. The water is enclosed by a mole in the shape of a half moon, which, bending round from the south, presents its open mouth to the north, whose gentle winds allow vessels at all times to obtain an entrance.

This mole, wholly of marble, and of enormous proportions, offers to the eye on the outer side a continuous range of edifices, also of marble, which seemed to me palaces as I approached at a distance, but are designed for the reception of merchandise ; while on the inner side, for its entire length, it affords a broad and spacious pavement, where the ships are lightened of their burdens, and, lashed to iron rings or pillars, ride securely till their cargoes for another voyage have been received. At the entrance of the harbour, and at the very extremity of the mole, there rises a lofty tower, upon the summit of which you behold a Colossus of Asia ; while on the opposite side of the en trance, upon a similar tower which terminates the shorter arm of the mole, stands a Colossus of Rome, of the like huge proportions.

Towers of the same height and size shoot up along the whole length of this vast wall, intended partly as an additional feature of magnificence, and partly as a defence against the assaults of an enemy. From the inner shore of this wide basin — which for vastness seems a lake — rises by a gradual ascent the city, the streets which lead from the water being crossed at regular intervals by others of the same width, which run in an opposite direction. As our vessel, its decks thronged with passengers, floated, driven by a gentle northern breeze, within the embrace of this spacious haven, and the crowd of shipping, the long range of lofty towers, the city with it? palaces, temples, and theatres, all opened at once to my view, I thought I had never seen anything of a more impressive grandeur. I could with difficulty persuade myself that this was a city of Judea ; that, where I had expected to behold a barbarous and un cultivated people, I should thus meet, instead, all the signs of elegance and taste which had marked the cities of Greece and Syria, or are to be observed in the chief towns of Italy.

I remembered, indeed, the magnificence and boundless wealth of Herod ; but I do not think, my mother, that even you yourself are aware of the greatness of his achievements, not only here in Cæsarea, but, as I have heard, in many other of the cities of Judea. From some of my own nation, who have been fellow-passengers, and with whom I have enjoyed much pleasant intercourse, I have learned this ; and, in addition, more of the present condition and recent history of the country, than I could have obtained from any sources whatsoever in Rome. Of these things I shall impart what know ledge I have gathered at my future leisure. Let me, at present, return to our arrival. We thus floated into this beautiful harbour, making our way slowly along amongst vessels of all nations, which, like ourselves, were coming in, or departing, or riding securely at their anchors.

The noise and confusion were scarcely less than in the Tiber. I enjoyed the scene greatly, as I do everywhere what ever leads to uproar and contention. Particularly was I delighted with the quarrels which arose among the sailors, when the vessels either could not easily pass each other, or became entangled, when it frequently came to blows, and more or fewer were over set into the water. If they who were thus thrust overboard did not readily recover themselves by clinging to the sides of the vessel, or laying hold upon some rope, the combatants then ceased till the drown ing men were drawn up again. Yet are many daily lost in these rude encounters ; and I myself saw blows given and taken which seemed to me more than enough to demolish the head on which they fell. But when the governor of a people is full of quarrel, and ■violence, and injustice, how can anything better be expected from the very lowest of the populace ?

As I stood watching what was thus going on about me, I was surprised to find ourselves suddenly brought up against a vessel which, from the bellowings that pro ceeded from it, I perceived to be crowded with wild beasts ; and, indeed, the deck was covered with their cages. As I expressed to one who stood by me, and with whom I had had frequent intercourse during the voyage, my wonder to see such a cargo making its way into a port of Judea, where the customs and religion of the people differ so widely from those of Rome and other heathen cities, he replied, that they who knew anything of the manner in which Judea had been governed by Herod, and after him by the Ethnarch, would see, in what had occasioned surprise to me, nothing but what agreed exactly with the now altered character of the population.

I answered, that I was obliged to confess great ignorance of all that related to the Jews, as I was Roman born, and my reading and studies had lain in a quite different direction. At this flourish, which I had hoped should pass with him, he quickly rejoined, " You may be Roman horn, but if so, your Hebrew blood wears well, for the Jew looks out at your eyes as plainly as the Roman out of your cloak and your speech. Never hope to play Roman with those eyes in your head." I was somewhat taken down, as you may suppose, by this ; but I put the best face upon the matter, and said that I could not but acknowledge that, although I had been born in Rome, my parents had removed thither from the upper ptirt of Judea. My education had, however, been so completely Roman, owing to my father's early abandonment of all out ward observance of his faith, that it was strictly true, as I had stated, that my ignorance was great of all that related to the present condition and late his tory of the country of my ancestors.

" The more the pity," replied my companion, " that a son of Abraham should be found to deny his country and his ancestry, and make a boast of what should be his shame — that he knows nothing of the people from whom he sprung. It is to such traitors," and his dark eye sparkled like a living coal, " that Judea owes her slavery and her apostacy — her slavery to a foreign yoke, and her apostacy from the faith and the customs of the early days of our history. The people are no longer Jews, but Herodians, Greeks, Romans, anything — anything but Jews. Is this a city of Jews we are entering ? It stands on the soil of Judea, but it belongs not to the rightful occupants of the soil. Cæsarea is first Greek, then Roman, last, and least, Jewish. But a word in your ear — the Jews that are there are of the true stuff.

They are zealous for the law and for liberty. A little thing would rouse them to the defence of either, or both." As he said this, our further conversation was suddenly interrupted by our vessel coming into violent contact with that containing the cargo of wild ani mals, which caused them to utter their savage cries with terrific uproar ; and to this was added the oaths and shouts of the sailors and the pilots, each laying upon the other the fault of the encounter, and all preparing to go from words to blows. This issue was, however, happily avoided, and the vessels being soon free of each other, we proceeded on our way. " These animals," then resumed the Jew, " about which you wondered that they should be here, are destined to the games instituted by Herod in com memoration of the building of Cæsarea, and which return every fifth year.

On the third day from this they commence; and if you are a stranger in this ptirt of the world, and would observe the customs of a new people, you will be well repaid for the delay by remaining and witnessing them." I said, " that I should certainly do so ; that I was abroad for the single purpose of seeing the people of various regions, and obtaining such knowledge as s JULIAN; OR might in this way be gathered without much expense of labour or thought ; that although, as he had seen, I was no Jew, except in the misfortune of having descended from that tribe, I was yet especially de sirous of dwelling a while among them, as, if not a polite or powerful nation, they certainly were a remarkable one, and well merited the observation of a curious traveller." A mingled look of scorn and rage was the only response I received at first for this speech.

He paced the deck of the vessel a few moments, and I supposed would not deign to hold further communication with me. He, however, soon returned to my side, having swallowed his indignation. " Young man," said he, " I forgive the levity of your speech, for the reason that I well deserved it, for persuading you to be present at heathen sports on a Jewish soil. But, in truth, they have been now so long celebrated, that they have become a part of the life of the people, and it is only a few of the stricter sort who condemn them or keep back from them. It had agreed better with my real opinions, however, had I denounced them, as I should have done, and warned thee against them. But you will use in this your liberty. I now wish to say that, in spite of your enmity towards your own people, I have conceived a regard for you, and while you shall sojourn in Cæsarea, osier you my house and home ; and once beneath the roof of a true son of Abraham, I will not doubt that your long perished affection for the land of your fathers may be revived, and that we may send you home a Jew in nature, as, forgive me, you are in outward semblance."

" Were it only for an apprehension of such lament able issue," I rejoined, " I should feel compelled to decline your hospitable request. May I never be more of that of which I am already too much. But beside this, I am bound in obedience to the wishes of my mother, to seek out the dwelling of the widow of Sameas, the wine merchant, with whom it is my pur pose to abide, if, indeed, she yet lives and can receive me ; for it is very many years since we have heard of her welfare, and know not now whether she be even ,-m inhabitant of Cæsarea." To this the stranger replied with vivacity, " The widow of Sameas ! Ah, the Lord be thanked for directing your course to that haven. She is a true mother in Israel. She still lives and dwells in Cæsare.a, and is of good estate. Sameas was no idler, .and when he died, his widow and children inherited the fruits of his industry ; and but for the unjust exactions of Pilate, their wealth h.ad been second to that of few within the walls.

As it is, they enjoy competence aud more. But the dearest wealth of the house is the zeal for the law and the rights of Judea which fires the souls of Philip and Anna, the son and daughter of the merchant. The best I can wish thee, therefore, my young Roman, is, that thou mayest dwell a space in the house of Sameas, for if there be but a drop of Jewish blood in thy body, I fear not but their ardour will so warm and swell it, that it shall fill all thy veins." We now separated, the vessel having reached the spot where she was to be secured, and the passengers making ready to depart. The Jew, my companion, took leave of me, after first directing me in such a manner that I could not fail to find the dwelling of the widow of the wine merchant. It was with little satisfaction that I looked forward to a residence with a family of Jewish zealots.

It was enough, I thought. that I had borne so. long, and with such patience, the reproaches of my own mother ; quite enough that, in addition, I had just been exposed to the vitupera tions of a fanatic, from whom I had happily escaped alive, without bein^ now for many days — how many I could not know — shut up, without the possibility of escape, in the very hot-bed of Judaism. ' What a fate for me ! I had .almost resolved to take ship, without so much as landing, for Alexandria, when the image of your sorrowful and rebuking countenance, my mother, presented itself before me, and I turned dutifully toward the quarter of the city where dwelt tlie merchant. To reach it I must pass through the central parts of the city, to where it first joins the country. The place I sought I easily found; for Cæsarea, dear mother, although the capital of Judea, is not so large as Rome.

And, moreover, as I passed along, I could not but judge that it would scarce be so enduring, seeing that, though presenting everywhere the marks of newness, it presents .also everywhere the signs of premature decay. A city built in a day is very likely to last but a day; and all around are Herod's piles of building, whether in the form of theatre, temple, market-place, or quay— already perceived to yield to the effects of time. Even the palace of the governor, -which erewhile was the residence of Herod himself, is in p.arts of it ruinous, through the falling asunder of the ill cemented masonry. Pilate could hardly trust to his walls to defend him against any rising of the citizens. But he is in little danger at any time, as I think, considering what the population of tlie city is, notwithstanding the enmity of the Jewish portion of the inhabitants.

The dwelling of Sameas, after traversing the entire breadth of the city, I at length reached. A beggar issuing from a gateway, laden witli the proofs of the benevolence to which he had successfully appealed, was the only person of whom I could inquire which of the dwellings near me was that of the widow of tlie wine merchant. He answered, pointing to his sack of commodities which he was bearing away, " From whom but the widow of Sameas do the poor of Cæsarea depart laden in this fashion ? Pass yonder threshold, and thou shalt find thyself in paradise." So saying, and waving his arm with dignity, he turned away to count over his stolen treasures. The kind-hearted we always approach with confidence, so that with a quicker pace I passed tlie gateway, and entered a spacious garden, in the centre of which, almost buried beneath overhanging foliage and flowers of every variety of form and hue, stood the dwelling ofthe wine merchant.

A slave now immediately approached, saying he would conduct me to that part of the house where I should see those for whom I sought. As he led me on, and I observed the great beauty of the spot, and the many tokens of wealth and refinement in the garden and in the dwelling, the forms and proportions of which were now distinctly to be seen through the opening trees, I found myself growing to a more complacent humour, and better disposed, than when I left the vessel, to greet with some appearance of warmth the widow of the virtuous Sameas. It is true I saw statue neither of god nor goddess, nor vase of marble curiously wrought with nymphs and fawns, and young, dancing, half-drunk Bacchuses ; nor did the imperial forms of Augustus and Tiberius greet my eye, as they do everywhere in street and garden, nuirket-place and shop, in Rome.

So that from art much was wanting to give the truest grace to the picture before me ; but nature seemed to have made good all defect of this sort by her superior charms ; and I was made soon to forget what at first struck me as a want, by the novelty and surpassing richness and variety of plants, trees, and shrubs, both native and foreign, which met my eye. I lingered to admire, and would at that moment rather have remained among the beauties of nature, than have gone farther to encounter the living beauties of these half-barbarian regions, but I was civilly urged on by the attending slave, and so, in a few moments, ushered into the presence of the widow and her daughter. They were seated in a large and lofty portico, whose arches, overhung with flowers, opened immediately into tlie garden, while here and there, as tlie trees permitted, were seen gleaming through the light blue waters of the Mediterranean.