Rabbi Abraham ben Yeshua ben Yosef bar Akko ha-Kohen felt every second of his 88 years on Tisha B'Av in the year 4138. When he was but a young student of the Talmud in Tverya, the great heresies of Eliyahu ha-Nazari stole both Christian converts back to Adonai and much of the Jewish community. Off they went into the Alps and Germania, proselytizing in their new Canaan in Ashkenaz. They ignored the Rabbis and built a new Judaism there. Now, across the whole of Canaan, there were only 5,000 Old Jews left. The Samaritans were favored by the new conquerors, while the Christians were being sold into slavery by their conquerors.
It had been more than 80 years before that the Romayim emperor, Diocletian, had brought the Galatians, Gallo-Romans and Gaels to the land of Babylon. They had put down the Christian revolts and slaughtered the Aramaic Christians. Assyrian prospered as a court language for these Gaelic tribes, who were still emigrating in the youth of Rabybya Kohen. They settled their women and children in the Valley of Two Rivers, and beat back Sassanid armies with gusto. They themselves took up worship of the faith of Mani, and were opposed to Christianity. Once the Romayim left the region due to internal struggles, barbarians and intrigue, the Ayrim (Gaels) unified into a centralized monarchy. They took up many Assyrian, Persian, Greek and Roman ideas, but kept their own language, now dominant in the Valley of Two Rivers. They literally moved the best buildings of Taysfun to their own Babylon, using native Christians, pagans and criminals as labor. They even built the legendary gardens again. Now, their monarch, Crimovanus, came marching through the Levant. As a play on his own native name, Crimthann Ui Fidgenti Mor, he was called Crimovanus Ophigentius Mortis, or Crimthann Death, known for his use of razing cities as psychological warfare.
Rabybya sighed in anguish now. Yerushalayim, the great and sacred city, was now under siege, the last city of the Levant to be attacked. While many cities surrendered peacefully to the Ayrim, other cities were not so lucky. Damascus had her best buildings shipped back to Babili in pieces, her homes razed, and her people massacred, sold or coopted as spies and new soldiers. Aleppo was burnt to the ground with all her people inside. Sidon was sacked, her crops stampeded, women ravished, and her soldiers dipped into burning hot oil. Beirut suffered an earthquake, and then the Ayrim a week after. There, little ruins remained. Nablus was spared compared to the others- only the Samaritans, who let in and fed the soldiers, were spared the destruction of other cities. Bethlehem and Nazareth suffered as Sodom and Gomorrah did. Those cities fought bravely, but only the Christian monasteries and shrines remained- the citizens were long dead, rotting as carrion on the fields where Christ had his childhood.
And now, the Ayrim, destroyers of cities, killers of men, mighty and angry, marched on the Holy City. Rabybya was still praying at the Western Wall, but he could hear the siege outside. It was truly awful, and he prayed to Adonai Eloheinu to defend his city. As the Ayrim broke through the walls, Rabybya began the Aleinu.
He could barely hear himself over the sounds of the slaughter. He heard the women screaming, the children crying, the fire, blood and death. On one Tisha B'Av, the First Temple was destroyed by Babylonians. On a second one, the Romayim destroyed a second temple. On this third one, a Romanized Ayrim army from Babylon burnt and destroyed the city. He heard the Christians praying, and he himself chanted to God, fervently hoping for some salvation.
(4 hours later)
The smoke-filled sky was purple, like the cloak of Crimovanus, and red like the blood of the slaughtered. Very few people were left- only the Shrine of the Sepulchre and the Masada remained standing. The 300 remaining Jews of the city fought valiantly at the Masada, and Crimovanus, a man of war, honored them with graves and a single sign.
"Here lie the 300 Hebrews, Maccabees and Jews, fighters of great valor, killed while fighting C.O.M. May they rest peacefully with their God YHWH, and find eternal glory for their deeds".
Crimovanus now walked with his guards, following a chanting noise. They came upon the Wailing Wall, and a man known to any person of importance in the region- Rabybya Kohen.
Rabybya was the last great Jewish scholar, keeper of the Babylonian school of Jewish scholasticism. In the past, there had been a great school in Babylon, but the reforms of Elijiah the Nazarene proved to be much more popular among the Jews of the Roman world. Crimovanus came up to the man, and expressed his knowledge of Kohen and his admiration. Kohen saw that Crimovanus was one-fourth his age, and asked why Crimovanus was burning the city. Upon standing once more, Kohen saw the destruction of Jerusalem and wept, falling prostrate to the ground. His last words were a tortured, loud, echoing cry, a last hurrah of the old Judaic order.
"Baruch atah Adonai, eloheinu melech ha-olam! Shema Yisrael, Adonai eloheinu, Adonai echad! Baruch, baruch shem k'vod, malchuto, la'olam va-ed!"
Crimovanus expressed his stoic admiration once more, and a simple pedestal and obelisk, 5'9" in height, made of red sandstone, were laid at the bottom of the Wailing Wall.
"Here lies Rabybya Kohen, last of the great Jewish scholars of the old faith, ever faithful in his one true God."
Jerusalem was dead, and the Holy Land, robbed of milk and honey, was filled with pus and maggots, like a rotting corpse. Only the holiest shrines remained in the burnt cities, and the roads to Bethlehem, Jerusalem and Nazareth were gone. The ruins would be overrun with grass. When Gnostic traveler Hanno bön Milkpilles made his great trek to Asia in the year 555, he commented
"Damascus was laid bare, her building overgrown with weeds, with animals frolicking in the ruins... Bethlehem and Nazareth were completely concealed, except for the shrines of Christ, maintained by permanent pilgrims of all sects. They were incredibly hard to find- no roads existed to get to them. The Ophigentii let them languish in the desert... The ruins of Jerusalem consisted of the Sepulchre, the Masada and the Wall. The Wall was standing strong, weathering all the tests of time and climate. The tomb of Rabybya was also in pretty good condition. The Masada had cedars growing around and in it- it is like a mountain of stone and plant. Jerusalem, once a city of God, is now just a garden, and a reminder of what once was.