"Oh, she admired your frankness; she is mad, so please pass her unnoticed on our journey to Tadmor. Now to change the subject.
"All organized nations, Syria not being the least, after the fame of Jesus spread abroad, sent scribes to listen at his feet and report, which report was included in the collection for our Family Tree Tribe, with a record of the life and death of Mary Magdalene in which she shines forth as a feminine beauty of wonderful spiritual comprehension. This report, with that of the destruction of Jerusalem and the final attempt to crush out Christianity, has been carried by us in tradition but lost in record for many centuries. Lately we have been told that the original manuscripts still exist in the ruins of our ancient citadel in Tadmor (Palmyra.)
THE RECHABITES
"We styled ourselves Rechabites because we lived in open air, drank no wine and mingled with no other tribes. We descended from Adam through the Kenites. Our rendezvous at the time of David was at Jabes, but in the days of Jeremiah we came to Tadmor, where we assembled yearly to pay tithes for over a thousand years.
"Now we are dispersed throughout the Orient, and pay no tithes, yet we hold sacred our peaceful attitude toward strangers, our education as scribes, our nomad life and our abhorrence to strong drink. The family tree is disappearing, for we are intermarrying; even my mother was an Indian from Karachi.
"My object in this journey is, if possible, to collect the Aramaic manuscripts of the tribe, that they may be handed down in an unbroken line, thus completing our family tree. I can tell you more particulars about our people, and many incidents about Mary Magdalene, even if we do not find the manuscripts. For we will journey together."
"Please let me ask you one question, Mr. Jona, and then you can proceed. Do you intend me to understand that you expect to find the original report or document at Tadmor, or is it a legend of a later author of your tribe who was familiar with traditional accounts of Jesus and Mary Magdalene?"
"I do not want you to understand anything only that I hope to find manuscripts which will satisfy all that Jesus of Nazareth was a spiritual representative of God, and that after His death He appeared to Mary Magdalene."