Judas by Frederick Ramsay

He called me “Little Hebrew,” and even though I tried to tell him I did not accept that status, he shook his head and said, “In this world we don’t choose who we are, we just are. And you are Hebrew whether you like it or not.”
    I did not argue with him, but I confess, I had enough of the god who made me less than human, who punished people for the wrongs of others, and who let little girls be raped and made crazy. I wanted no part of him.
    “Try to look Greek,” he said under his breath, “the priestesses are coming.”
    I tried to look like what I thought a Greek must look like. But with my red hair, I doubted I fooled anyone. As it happened, the priestesses had more important things on their minds that day than one insignificant boy who did not care about his mother’s or anyone else’s god.
    “There,” he said, “you see there…all those beautiful girls?”
    I saw them. They were very beautiful and dressed in stuff that let you see the outlines of their bodies.
    “Who are they?” I asked.
    “They are the women dedicated to Venus or Aphrodite, depending on whether you lust after women as a Greek or a Roman.” He laughed again.
    “People give their daughters to the temple in hopes of finding favor with the goddess and sometimes a rich reward, too.”
    “Give? They give their daughters to the goddess?”
    “Yes. Most come from the poor farms and the families on the other side of the Diolkos. From families that cannot bring themselves to selling them into the ‘profession of love,’ if you know what I mean.”
    I knew what he meant.
    “You see that temple up there?” He pointed toward the top of the Acrocorinth. I looked up at an enormous building. I guessed the men of Corinth must have their minds turned to love more than anything else. As if he read my thoughts, Amelabib said.
    “This goddess has the biggest temple in every city. No surprise there, eh?”
    “Where do they all come from? There must be hundreds of women and girls.”
    “There are two kinds of women in the temple. Some—those with much paint and red lips—are the temple prostitutes. They come and go depending on the needs of the priestess. The others are the Vestal Virgins. They must stay that way as a reminder they belong to the goddess. Those girls must be very special.”
    “How special?”
    “They must be beautiful, of course, nothing less would be acceptable to the goddess, and they must be visited by the goddess herself. If they are accepted, they are taken into the temple and their parents may never see or speak to them again. Some say the parents are given the money collected in the offering salver that day.”
    “Visited? You mean the goddess appears to them?”
    “It’s like that…or something…a messenger from the goddess, I do not know. Those are the mysteries. All I know is the goddess marks some young girls in some special way and the priestesses in the temple know what that is, and take only those who have it.”
    I thought it must be like the wine stain the sandal maker in Caesarea had. He had a red blotch on his face he said the gods gave him. I scanned the Virgins. Their ages ranged from Dinah’s to old women. None of them had a wine stain. One or two of them looked familiar, like someone I knew. But I did not know any girls outside of the House of Darcas and these would not be from any place like that.
    We climbed upward. The city on its western edge backed up to the hills. Above us was the temple of Aphrodite.
    We wandered around the heights toward the southern edge of the city. I could not take my eyes off the buildings and statuary and so I did not notice where we were going. I ran into Amelabib who had stopped abruptly at a small stall set in front of a low house, the coppersmith’s home and shop. The coppersmith stood at his hearth, a big, rough-looking man, hands gnarled and black from years of working with copper, melting it, alloying it into bronze or brass, and hammering it out into pieces,