Publisher's Synopsis
Cat Born to the Purple, 4th volume in the Yeshua's Cats' series, picks up the story from Yeshua's Cat of a young woman who had been stoned. Yeshua healed her after sensing her presence, battered and barely alive, in the burning hills near Sepphoris, and named her Eliana, "God has answered my prayer." He settled her in Cana with his friend Eli to keep her safe from her husband and mother-in-law, who had accused her falsely and incited the mob to stone her. Now she is beginning to put her life back together-except for the memory of her stoning, which she has walled away in darkness. Eli's wife Rachel encourages Eliana's extraordinarily gifts for weaving and needlework, hoping Eliana can make a living with her skills. But a year later, Eliana's husband begins to suspect that she's still alive, and Yeshua returns to help Eli find her a new place of safety.
Eliana accompanies Yeshua and Mari to the Phoenician coastal city of Acco. There her handwork impresses a prominent merchant of the royal purple murex dye. He offers her an apprenticeship in his workshop under the wing of a devout Jewish widow, sold into slavery after the rebellions at Sepphoris, but now a freedwoman living as an adopted member of the merchant's family. While in Acco, Yeshua discovers that the merchant's peculiar devotion to the goddess Bast has twisted the hearts of the many cats living in his house-cats descended from the sacred cats of the once great temple of Bast in Acco-convincing them that they are godlings in their own right. For the first time in his ministry, Yeshua reaches out to deliver non-human creatures ensnared by human wrong.
Eliana-now widowed, and her name altered to the Greek "Aeliana"-prospers in her new home, learning how to harvest and brew the priceless purple dye. A clever speaking kitten with a fascination for looms and a gift for dreaming becomes her constant companion. After meeting a young Anatolian merchant, Aeliana finally begins to believe in the possibility of love, in spite of the constant threat of a co-worker's violence. Still, although she follows the One's light as best she can, she is shattered again by the terrifying evil loosed on the world at Yeshua's death. But together with the whole of Creation, Aeliana's life is made whole at last in the miracle of the Resurrection.
