Historical Miniatures | Page 3

when he saw a stranger, he started, and the two men gazed at each other long, before they could speak. Amram, who felt unpleasantly surprised, began the verbal encounter: "Reuben? Don't you know me, the friend of your youth, and your kinsman in the Promise?"
"Amram, the husband of Jochebed, the son of Kohath! Yes, I know you!"
"And you here! After you have vanished from my sight for thirty years!"
"And you?"
"I was sent for to repair a door; that is all; and when I was left alone, I wanted to look round.
"I am a scribe in the chief school...."
"And sacrificest to strange gods...."
"No, I do not sacrifice, and I have kept my faith in the promise, Amram. I have entered this temple in order to learn the secrets of the wise, and to open from within the fortress which holds Israel captive."
"Secrets? Why should the Highest be secret?"
"Because the common people only understand what is low."
"You do not yourself believe in these animals which you call sacred?"
"No, they are only symbols--visible signs to body forth the invisible. We priests and scribes revere the Only One, the Hidden, under His visible shape, the Sun, giver and sustainer of life. You remember, when we were young, how Pharaoh Amenophis the Fourth forcibly did away with the ancient gods and the worship of the sacred animals. He passed down the river from Thebes proclaiming the doctrine of the Unity of God. Do you know whence he derived that doctrine? From the Israelites, who, after Joseph's marriage to Asenath, daughter of the High Priest of On, increased in numbers, and even married daughters of the house of Pharaoh. But after the death of Amenophis the old order was restored, the King again resided at Thebes, and the ancient gods were brought out again, all to please the people,"
"And you continue to honour the Only One, the Hidden, the Eternal.
"Yes, we do."
"Is, then, your God not the same as the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob?"
"Probably, since there is only One." "It is strange. Why, then, do you persecute the Hebrews?"
"Foreigners are not generally loved. You know that our Pharaoh has lately conquered the Syrian race of Hittites."
"In the land of Canaan and the region round about, in the land of our fathers, and of the promise. Do you see, the Lord of Zebaoth, our God, sends him to prepare the way for our people?"
"Do you still believe in the promise?"
"As surely as the Lord liveth! And I am told that the time will be soon fulfilled when we shall leave our bondage, and go to the promised land."
The scribe did not answer, but his face expressed simultaneously doubt in Amram's declaration, and the certainty of something quite different which would soon happen. Amram, who did not wish to have his faith shaken by any kind of explanations, let the subject drop, and spoke of something indifferent.
"That is a strange staircase."
"It is an elevator, and not a staircase."
Amram glanced up at the domed roof, and found a new pretext for continuing the conversation, which he did not wish to drop.
"Does that represent the sky?" he asked.
"Yes."
"And its secrets?"
"Ah, the secrets? They are accessible to all who can understand them."
"Tell them in a few words."
"Astronomy is not my province, and I know little of it, but still I will tell you in a few words. The vault up there represents the sky, the board lying on the table, the earth. Now the wise speak thus: In the beginning Earth (Sibu) and Heaven (Nuit) lay near each other. But the god of air and of sunlight (Shu) raised the sky, and set it as a vault over the earth. The fixed constellations which we know form as it were an impression, like that of a seal on wax, of the earth, and when the learned study the stars, they can find out the unknown parts of our earth. Look at the constellations which you know. In the north the Great Bear; in the south, at a certain season of the year, the Hunter (Orion), with four stars at the corners and three stars in the middle. These three we Hebrews call Jacob's Staff, and through the uppermost of them passes the sky-gauge or equator, which corresponds to the earth-gauge where the sources of our Nile are said to be.
"You know also the constellation which we specially love--the River (Nile). Look, how it flees from the Hunter (Orion), and makes as many windings as the Nile here on earth. Therefore he who wishes to learn the hidden secrets of earth must learn them from the sky. Our wise men know only the lands which lie towards the east; but those which lie in the north under the Great Bear are unknown to us, as also are the lands towards