Priscilla was of medium height, silver-haired, with a good physique, with strongly marked but not unpleasant features and a hint of a self-confident smile playing around her lips. She did not wear clothes of mourning, which Uri interpreted as meaning that they had expunged death, and anyone who had died was living.
They must be horribly afraid of death.
They must be horribly unable to bear being on their own, and ultimately unable to bear not being loved. They were unable to bear the human condition.
On Saturday evening, with the Sabbath over, sixteen of them sat on stools around a long table, with Uri as the seventeenth. I’m a prime number, he thought, being somehow very pleased with the idea.
Priscilla had a few innocuous words for each and every one, addressing them by name, and their faces would light up as if tears were glittering in their eyes, tears of hope, and she proceeded to break the bread and cut it into slices. They gazed reverentially before leaping up and distributing the bread, and then she poured water into the beakers from a jug.
“We are assembled here, my brothers,” intoned Priscilla, and a great stillness descended, “to give remembrance unto our Lord, who died for our sake and rose again from the dead for our sake, and who gave the gift of immortality to those of us who believe in Him, and ours has become the kingdom of Heaven here on Earth, because we are simple souls and we gained admission for that reason.”
The faithful mumbled an “Amen,” passed the beakers along the table, drank the water, then wept. Uri looked down at his beaker, sniffed it, and had a taste: it was water.
Then they partook of the bread, which was ordinary bread, and Priscilla said that the food was the last supper that the Lord, the Resurrected Anointed, ate on the evening before his death; this was repeated by the faithful throughout the world in whom New Life had taken root through the Holy Ghost that the Anointed had inspired into believers here on Earth.
Priscilla then recited the usual Sabbath prayer that had to be delivered on the Friday evening, but added on a priestly blessing.
Everyone shuddered, including Uri, who had seldom heard the blessing from any priest.
They all said “Amen” and took another draft from their beaker.
Priscilla then asked in almost a conversational tone what news the faithful had brought of the big wide world, and a quiet, informal conversation followed; their faces became animated, they took on life rather as if the Motionless, that dormant primitive substance about which Zeno writes, had been set in motion by the second, deeper substance, the Spirit. They spoke about Philippi, Thessalonica, and Ephesus, from which they had heard good things about their brothers and sisters. Priscilla was asked for news from Corinth, and with a slightly gloomy face she said that she had received a letter that there had been some debate between the apostles, but the matter seemed to have been resolved; for her own part, she added that some of these brothers were not without their vanity. Not that this was a problem, because it was our business in life to perfect our souls, there was a little time still left for that, not much but still a bit, before the Lord again appeared among us, but it would be unfortunate if this were to lead to strife among believers. The Lord took no pleasure in that.
A pudgy, comically snub-nosed man asked Priscilla whether she would read out the letter, to which Priscilla said that she would gladly read it out, if it were up to her, but the apostle had asked her to delay doing so because he was preparing to travel to Rome in person. Before that he wanted to send yet another long letter to the Romans among the faithful; indeed, it was rumored that the successor and vicar on Earth of Him who was Resurrected was also planning to make a trip from Jerusalem to Rome in person at much the same time. This generated a flurry of excited whispers among the believers, who clearly knew what persons were being referred to.
Uri cast a stealthy glance at Marcellus, who was sitting next to him in rapt devotion; he wondered if he too was aware, but he could not tell from the doltish expression on his face.
That was how the initiates talked, not so much on account of Uri, the stranger, at whom they flashed occasional smiles, but (or so Uri felt) because that was their usual way. At the end Priscilla blessed on behalf of the crucified and risen-again Anointed; the faithful had tears in their eyes, Marcellus too, Uri just bowed his head. To finish, the priestess reminded the believers never to forget that they were now saints and should lead their lives accordingly. The faithful, weeping and joyous, solemnly pledged their word.
“Your son is a great asset for us,” Priscilla said to Uri when they had broken up to stand around and chat in smaller groups, with Marcellus politely poised three paces to the side.
Uri nodded and then switched to another subject.
“I was once also very desirous to see Corinth,” he noted, “but I never managed to get there.”
“We ourselves only went there out of necessity,” chuckled Priscilla, who seemed to be a very sane, sober-minded individual. “That was where a boat was headed from Brindisi, when it looked like we would starve to death if we had stayed in Italia.”
“A good friend of mine lives there,” said Uri. “We were in the same year at the Gymnasium in Alexandria.”
Priscilla gave a jolt.
“He wasn’t named Apollos, was he?” she asked shrewdly.
Uri was in turn shaken.
“Yes, that’s him!”
They sized each other up, and Uri went on:
“I envied him for getting a post as a teacher of rhetoric at the Gymnasium in Corinth.”
“He left that post a long time ago,” said Priscilla.
There was a silence; Marcellus drew closer.
“Do you happen to know what he is doing now?” Uri asked.
Priscilla hesitated.
“He is supported by the faithful,” she disclosed finally. “He’s one of our apostles who is involved in the dispute…”
“Whose apostle is that?”
“The Lord Jesus, our Lord and Messiah, who rose again from the dead.”
Uri sighed.
Had Apollos deluded himself willingly, like these people? That just was not possible. Apollos had a sharp mind and had always looked trouble head on.
“Are you sure that isn’t another Apollos?” he asked and in hope provided a thumbnail sketch of his friend’s appearance.
“That’s him!” Priscilla exclaimed in amazement, batting her eyelids both in panic and happiness. “He’s a marvelous orator, and that was his trouble, but he is now learning humility and is commendably cutting back on those oratorical skills… There was some tension between him and our dear friend, the father of our souls; he is not as eloquent as Apollos but his fortitude is unsurpassed: there’s an incredible strength packed into his paltry small frame, and he is able to speak in the simplest language, such that even dimmer souls should understand, because our Lord said that ‘Only the truly foolish shall enter into the kingdom of Heaven.’ It is hard to train ourselves to be simple-minded; we have been spoiled by the oh-so-slick smartness that we have inevitably picked up over the course of our sinful lives, and that is why we are flawed in our faith… That dispute, however, has blown over, thanks be to our Lord and Messiah who died for us and was resurrected for our sake!”
Uri tramped with Marcellus toward Rome proper across the Cestius Bridge, arching over on the western side of Tiber Island on the way back from Far Side, and making their way toward the Fabricius Bridge on the eastern side.