We were the enemy, we who wore the grey robes and waited with eager anticipation for our King to return. I saw the Savior not as a martyr who had died for us but as our legitimate King, who would return, claim his kingdom, and rule with justice and truth over his own people. An Empire ruled subject people, but our King ruled only his own. We would not be enslaved by him, forced to adopt the customs of the Empire; we would share his customs as our own; they were our own. And where his people ended, his rule ended; that was a rightful kingship compared to the tyranny of Caesar.

It would be necessary to teach my wife certain codes, the use of meaningful terms to notify her when one of the Romans was in our midst. We constituted a voluntary secret community, who scratched cryptic signs in the dust; we had special handshakes to identify ourselves to each other; collectively, we waited for the coming event to free us. Outwardly we appeared the same as Caesar's people, and taht was our strength. The question that gripped us was not, Would our King return? but, Would we be able to survive against the Romans--by stealth, since we held no wordly power--until he returned? . . .

a passage from Pkilip K Dick's Radio Free Albemuth. Just so you know, the "rome" he's referring to is the Nixon administration. It's, as the kids say, kinda messed up.