They were coming opposite the eastern face of the Temple proper. “Look at that gate, or door!” Claudia pointed again. “Whatever it is, it’s tremendous! And it shines as though it were gold!”
“They call it the Beautiful Gate. It’s made of Corinthian brass and plates of gold, and it’s so heavy it takes a score of strong men to open and close it. They say it was given by a rich foreign Jew. It must have cost many a sesterce, don’t you think?”
“I’m sure it did.” Her eyes were wide with disbelief. “The whole place is magnificent; why I’ve never seen anything like....” Suddenly she clamped a hand to her nose. “By all the gods, Longinus, what an odor!” She leaned her head out. “Bona Dea, all that cattle. No wonder that awful stench. What on earth are cattle and sheep doing in this beautiful place, Longinus? Can it be for sacrificing, by all the great and little gods!”
“Yes, it’s for sacrificing.” Longinus grimaced. “The Jews think that slitting an animal’s throat and throwing the blood on that great altar somehow cleanses them of their sins. I don’t understand how it could....”
The young woman’s laugh was derisive. “Bringing all those poor animals in here to befoul this beautiful place, these gorgeous mosaics, to pollute the very air, and they call that cleansing themselves. Bona Dea, their Yahweh, if he demands this sort of worship, must be a bloodthirsty god. It just goes to prove, Centurion, that this one-god religion has less sense to it than even our silly superstitions.”
“That’s what I told Cornelius. I see no efficacy in slitting the throats of poor beasts and slaughtering countless doves and pigeons in order to serve some god. Of course, so far as the priests are concerned, it’s a highly profitable business. But, of course, why should we criticize the Jews when we do it in Rome, too, though not on such a grand scale?”
A few paces farther on, the procession turned squarely to the left again and proceeded along a third side of the Temple enclosure, past the stalls of the lowing, frightened cattle and the cages of birds and the money-changers seated behind their tables. From the long portico the marchers pivoted to the right, then ascended steps that led to a wide, paved esplanade.