Chapter 15 of 15
I am sending this letter with a man whom I know to be honest, he has faithfully served the temple as a courier, carrying important documents throughout Judea and beyond. In recent weeks he has earned huge fees by carrying messages through the Roman lines, using secret routes known only to him. I inquired of him this morning whether he could take a letter to you; he told me that he was leaving the city this evening and that he would not return. By tomorrow, he says, the Romans will reach Jerusalem, they will surround and lay siege to it, and eventually they will destroy it. He plans to be far, far away when that happens.
The courier said that he had not planned to leave the city in the direction of the great desert, but that he could be induced to change his direction for a fee that I feel is exorbitant, but about which I am in no position to bargain. I do not have the required resources myself, but the temple has much gold, and so I have taken a trinket from the treasury that would probably not be missed in the best of circumstances; its absence will certainly not be noted in the furor that now envelopes the city. And what is but a trifle to the treasury of the temple in Jerusalem will surely be a fortune to a mere courier.
Just yesterday I made a faithless promise to the person I respect most in all the world. Then, out of a cowardly fear for my own safety, I made no attempt to protect him, even though I knew that he was in grave danger. And today, to make amends for yesterday's sins, I have committed another: I have become a thief. But if the predictions of the courier do come to pass, the invaders will carry off to Rome the remnants of the treasury that they do not destroy – so perhaps my thievery will allow one tiny jot of the riches of Israel, collected over countless centuries, to be the instrument of one final good deed. At least, that is the story I am telling myself, and I am standing by it.
When last we met, my dear brother, you mentioned to me that the people of your village keep important documents in large amphorae that they store deep in the caves that pocket the surrounding hills. You told me that the air in the caves is so dry and still that the documents in the amphorae do not suffer the ravages of time, but appear to be as fresh as the day that they were written even after they have been in the caves for many years.
I beg you to seal this scroll and to secret it in your most secure and best-hidden amphora so that it may survive the cataclysm that I fear will destroy not only me and my city, but you and your village as well. But if this letter survives, then hope survives with it, as there is always a chance that it may be rediscovered by generations far into the future, and that the truth will finally be revealed. And if this should come to pass, then Joseph Caiaphas of blessed remembrance, the greatest High Priest that Israel has ever known, will have reached out from the grave to complete his greatest work.
In the short time that is left I remain, as always, your brother and faithful servant,
Enoch
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©2004 Henry Charles Mishkoff