Love between the Synagogue and the Assembly

Alexandria 132 CE

Eudokia said to her husband Dioscorus in bed at night, ‘Of course, I’m worried for the city, especially with this drought, and I’m worried for the parish. But what’s keeping me from sleep tonight is worrying about Julianna.’

Eudokia and Julianna were running a relief program in Alexandria during a famine due to the lateness of the Nile flood, Julianna recruiting volunteers from her synagogue and her academy, Eudokia recruiting parishioners from the Ekklesia (assembly) of St. Annianus.

‘It was brave of her, coming to Assembly, wasn’t it?’ he replied. ‘We know it wasn’t the Holy Spirit that inspired the visit. Yet, she wasn’t too proud to pray with us.’

‘Not only brave, husband. It was more than that. I can’t think of the word. She is well aware of the Adversus (anti-Jewish) sentiments at St. Annianus, and these sentiments actually threaten her community with violence. She’s passionately in favour of Bar Kokhba’s revolution and knows we don’t support it. And yet, she comes to us.’

‘I think the word you’re looking for is love.’

‘Exactly. You, know, despite the differences of our sects, I think Julianna is my dearest friend. I wish there was something I could do or say to return her loving gesture.’

‘Why don’t you go along with the deaconesses on the trip to market? They could use an extra hand buying in supplies for the relief meals. I hear it’s quite an enjoyable outing, and there are ample opportunities to sit down for a chat.’

‘You’ve seen her condition. She can barely walk. She’s likely to begin her labours any day now, and a crowded marketplace with no midwife in sight would be a terrible place for that to happen.’

‘All right. You could invite her for dinner?’

‘That would involve the whole household. I’m hoping for some private, intimate time with her. I want her to know how important her friendship is to me.’

‘Why not do something together with the children, then?’

‘That’s a fine idea. Of course, we’d have the children’s noise to attend to, but that’s about as private as two mothers can get.’

The letter was delivered by a slaveboy into the hand of the Sister at the side gate to the Academy.

Eudokia, presbyter at the Ekklesia of St. Annianus, to Julianna, Master of the Academy of Sisters

Shalom.

Dear friend and sister, in our busy lives, we are afforded with few opportunities to just sit and chat. I was moved and happy that you and your daughter attended our Assembly. I know our parishioners have not all been well behaved, and you and your Sisters have suffered at their hands. Please accept whatever apology I can offer. Shall we, you and I, take a few breaths away from that?

One of my parishioners owns a villa on the hill above the Jewish Quarter. In his gardens, he has erected a stone table with a spectacular view of the harbour. He would be happy to welcome us onto his land. Shall we bring the children and take a midday meal there?

I know your blessed condition leaves you with difficulty walking, but if the Academy can’t spare a donkey for the day, I would be happy to send one of ours.

My slaves will carry food for us.

Be well.

On a beautiful sunny afternoon, overlooking a spectacular view of Pharos and the Eastern harbour, the two friends met at midday.

‘This is magnificent, Eudokia. I feel like a queen, dining in such luxury. I fear your kitchen has had to pack so much, enough to feed this hungry brood,’ said Julianna, looking around at her eight children, who were completely uninterested in the copious plates of bread, cheese, cold meats, fresh fruit and amphorae of juices, so ecstatic were they to run around on the hill with playmates other than just their siblings.

Julianna had brought along one of the teenage Sisters to help with child supervision, and while she and the two slaves stayed with the donkeys and played with the children, the two women discussed the famine relief, the adversus trend at the ekklesia, ‘prophets’ and their visions and tongues, Bar Kokhba and ‘the Galileans’. Sitting on what the city viewed as opposite sides of the fence, they found that they had roughly the same position on every one of these subjects.

The atmosphere, despite distractions from the children, was so convivial that they even broached the subject of religious beliefs and practices. Julianna discovered that Eudokia’s faith in ‘the religion of Peter, James and John’, as she termed it, was not so different from her own. Julianna abhorred the ‘loaves and fishes’ practice as breaking the Mosaic prohibition against blood, and she did not accept Yeshua as having been the one and only messiah. She would not have welcomed uncircumcised Gentiles to her table, whereas Eudokia would. Those were really their only differences.

As women will do, when they are intimate one with another, Eudokia and Julianna began to speak to each other about their lives and their family histories.

‘After the crucifixion of our Lord, my great-grandfather Jude, also called Thaddaeus, preached the gospel at Edessa, and he first brought the light of Christ to Armenia,’ said Eudokia. ‘He was martyred in Berytus (Beirut). You may have seen images of an axe associated with his name. That is how he was killed.’

‘He wrote an Epistle, did he not? I attended a lecture about it once, but the lecturer didn’t cast much light. To whom do you think he referred when he wrote ‘ungodly people who heap abuse on celestial beings’?’

‘I’m fairly certain he referred to the false-apostle Paul, who wrote that believers were already on the same level as angels.’

Julianna knew that of the four factions among the Notzrim after the death of Yeshua—Rechabites, Christiani, Barjonim and Kyriacoi (those of the Christ)—all four had been historically represented at St. Annianus. The founder St. Mark had been a Christiani, a disciple of Paul, whom Eudokia called false-apostle. She was of the Kyriacoi, members of the Desposyni (members of Yeshua’s family) and their supporters. At some point there had been Rechabites, followers of John the Baptist, and there were certainly, in the past, Barjonim, disciples of Simon Cephas, who had led the movement before Yeshua. These were the more zealot-minded of believers, but there were fewer of them there today, as her dwindling collections for Bar Kokhba had revealed.

Eudokia continued her tale. ‘After the Great Revolt, the Desposyni went to live Paneas in Galilee, which is now called Caesarea Philippi. But Emperor Domitian was suspicious of the House of David, as he feared the Perousia (Second Coming of Christ), and commanded them to come before him. My cousins answered the summons, and when he asked them how much property they owned, they told him 39 acres valued at 9,000 denarii between the two of them, from which they supported themselves by their own labour. They showed him their calloused hands.

‘Caesar asked them where was the Kingdom of Christ. They told him it was not of this earth but was a heavenly kingdom which would appear at the end of the world, when we would all be judged according to our works. At this point, the emperor ruled them ‘harmless’ and let them go home.

‘My father came to Alex after the Kitos War, where we joined the congregation of St. Annianus. I think you know the history of the ekklesia?’

Julianna knew it, ‘Yes, founded by St. Mark in the building that was the house of the cobbler Annianus?’

‘Indeed. Successive construction works have enlarged the house and made it more suitable to large gatherings.’

‘There was some lovely story about a sandal…?’

‘The story goes that St Mark was walking through Rakhotis, and the strap of his sandal came aloose.’

‘So, he went to Annianus the cobbler.’

‘While the cobbler worked on it, the awl slipped and injured his hand, at which he exclaimed, ‘heis ho Theos’ (God is one). Mark took this as a holy sign, healed his wound and preached the gospel of our Lord to Annianus’ household.’

‘So, Annianus was the first convert?’

‘St Mark first evangelised Alex, but before him a rabbi Apollos had taught the teachings of John the Baptist here. That’s why there were some in the early ekklesia who considered themselves to be Rechabites.’

It was Julianna’s turn to tell her tale.

‘My mother was an Academy girl, and she married a man named Julianos, hence my own name, whom she met at a symposium. She travelled to his home country of Lydia to live with him. But there was an incident in the city. A Gentile girl was murdered, and the Greeks blamed it on the Jews. Some form of mass reprisal was looming, and my father and his brother Pappus confessed to the crime, though they were entirely innocent, to save the people from massacre.’

‘Goodness! Such a tragedy! So, it’s not just the women in your family who are zealot heroes.’

‘My father was lauded by many Jews as a hero, but I can tell you, my mother was not pleased. Her husband’s altruistic gesture left her with two small orphan children, myself and my sister Marcia, who sadly died young. My mother returned to Alex, with me, after that, and sought refuge with the Academy.’

‘The Sisters took you in?’

‘They would have taken us in, anyway; it’s Academy policy to help refugees. But in this case, it was in their interest. My father left us some land in Lydia, which my mother sold and bequeathed to the Sisters.

‘On the maternal line, my grandmother was Martilla, one of the refugees from the Great Revolt who came to Alex with Sophia the Master. She was one of the original Sisters with whom Sophia founded the Academy. It must have been rather exciting in those days. For one thing, there was quite a bit of opposition from husbands and fathers. Can you imagine, philosophical symposia led by women? A bunch of women and ‘bright-eyed girls’, as Sophia would say, arguing with men about literature, history and politics?’

Eudokia giggled, ‘Now, you’re like queens, in Alex, at least.’

‘Sophia corresponded with rulers and sages all over the empire, and as for me, I bow to none,’ Julianna admitted.

Eudokia ventured, ‘It’s rumoured that the Academy possesses secrets, some document that men are not allowed to see? Something about the mystery of the empty tomb?’

‘It is true,’ Julianna admitted. ‘Sophia wrote her memoirs, filled with magical recipes and first-hand details of the War that would disturb the Many to know. All Sisters read it upon initiation, but we are pledged to divulge its secrets to no one, not even our husbands.’

‘How fabulous! It leaves the rest of us just dying to find out.’

‘Well, I can’t tell you the secrets, Eudokia, even you, but I can tell you that Sophia’s closest ally during the War was Tabitha, a deaconess at Mount Zion, who was a disciple of Simon Cephas.’

‘St. Peter. A girl after my own heart, then.’

‘She was martyred, burned with the Temple, at the end.’

Eudokia mused, ‘If only we could experience the joys and the hopes of living during the New Jerusalem, the expectation in those days of the Kingdom of God on Earth, without experiencing the persecution of the days after.’

‘It was not all glory, remember. The years of freedom were marred by rivalry between Menahem ben Judah, Johanan of Gush Chalav, Simon bar Giora, Eleazar ben Simon—everyone wanting to be king.’

‘That’s one thing your Bar Kokhba has going for him—no opposition.’

‘Except Hadrian.’

‘That’s big enough.’

‘Sophia was such an opponent of dividing men and women by gender, age, rank, religious belief. It was half-crippled veterans, spotty youths, and bright-eyed girls who made the New Jerusalem, she said. It is a value we strive to uphold at the Academy.’

‘Yes, you are justly famed for it.’

The two women, firmly established in their intimacy, began confiding in each other about their family lives.

Eudokia’s concern was that both she and her husband spent so much time doing the works of the ekklesia that she feared her children suffered.

‘Of course, I have the slaves to help,’ she motioned over at the two boys with the donkeys and the children, ‘and we have a woman slave to help with the cooking and the children, but slaves are never a substitute for parents. Dioscorus is stricter with them than I am, so during the limited time we spend with them, he and I often argue, which I hate for them to hear.’

‘I know what you mean,’ said Julianna. ‘My husband and children are always berating me that the Academy always comes first. Particularly Deborah, she claims that I’m always making her look after the babies, though I promise you it’s really not that often. She’s a member of the Academy now, so her studies are pulling her away from the hearth. Now, of course, Abris is gone with Bar Kokhba, so I have to be both father and mother, but, I admit, the Sisters are such a help. At the Academy we have a rather communalistic attitude toward cooking and childcare. The children have their favourite Sisters, so I never lack for someone to look after them for an hour or two.’

‘I can’t say the same for Aya, here.’ Her youngest, a daughter of two years, was sitting in her lap making a mess of the bread on the table. ‘She insists on following Ima (Mother) everywhere I go. Sometimes Yona, too.’ She pointed at the next youngest, a boy of three, who had been lured away from Ima’s sleeves by the boisterous playing of the other children.

‘I will admit to you, Eudokia. I wouldn’t want the Sisters to know this. I tell you in confidence. Though I attend the odd lecture, I’ve delegated the organisation of symposia to Mother Yaltha, and it’s a year and a bit since I’ve read a book.’

‘I’m sure the Sisters wouldn’t fault you,’ Eudokia sympathised. ‘Think of the little scholars you’re bringing into the world.’

The two mothers looked out upon their collective brood and giggled. Scholarship was obviously the last thing on their minds today.

Julianna revealed to her friend her fears about the War. Bar Kokhba’s 50s and 100s (militias) were at present besieged by the 5^th Macedonica and the 11^th Claudia. What would a defeat mean for Jews, in and out of Judaea? How would her life and family change if Abris did not come home? ‘Will my children be orphaned, left with nothing but a martyr’s eulogy? But what I also wonder, Eudokia, is what if we win? What would a free Judaea mean for Aegyptus?’

So pleasant was the afternoon, and indeed so loving was the feeling between the two women that Julianna found herself feeling guilty for enjoying the luxury. While she dined on meat and fresh fruit, what meagre fare was sustaining her husband in some damp cave in the Judaean hills? While she gazed across at shining Pharos, what horrible view of death and injury was Abris watching from some high fortress at Jericho, Herodium or Betar?

She longed to speak to him, or receive a letter. And it was not only a wifely longing for her man. She desperately needed first-hand information on Bar Kokhba. What had really happened with ‘the Galileans’, as the leader mentioned in his letter? Even if the worst were true, knowing was better than not knowing. She felt certain that knowing the truth would help matters somehow between her community and Eudokia’s.

Eudokia was certain; her friendship with Julianna would stand the test of time, of everything. If they could be this happy with one another, despite the strife between their communities, she was sure they would remain friends forever.

The children finished the afternoon with two bruises, three bad scrapes and four cases of torn clothing.

‘Not too bad,’ the two mothers agreed.