Great Lion of God (72 page)

He was a tenacious man, and he touched the shoulder of his horse peremptorily. He looked before him, hoping for a glimpse of the city, praying that it would rise like a silver mirage on the endless white desert, that he could see the glinting of its gates. There was nothing there.

“What is that?” exclaimed the subaltern in a loud and tense voice which shattered the silence, and he reined in his horse and his men halted with him. “I heard a stranger speaking, the sound of a man! Lord,” he said to Saul who was still going on, “did you not hear something, a voice, a command, a question which did not come from one of us?”

“No,” said Saul, and now he was almost beside himself with his I fear, convinced at last that he was enduring an objective and not imagined horror. He abruptly reined in his horse.

And then before his eyes there was a vast explosion of ineffable light, palpitating, a boundless cloud of light, filled with drifting sparks of white fire, glowing at its heart with blinding gold, more vivid than the sun.

And then he saw Him, standing in the center of that golden core, on the desert level.

He was as Saul remembered Him, in the marketplace, with His Mother, on the street, in his dream, and walking among the dolorous crosses, yet He was glorified, transfigured. He was the mighty Man, the heroic and beautiful Man, with all His monumental grandeur of divinity, majestic of face, possessing the blue power of imperial eyes, stately of kingly beard and head, radiating a stern white purity of brow, an effulgent whiteness of robe, the prayer shawl about His shoulders seemingly inlaid with stripes of rainbow color and fringed with jewels. Still, He was as Saul remembered Him in mortal flesh. Or, had he only dreamed of Him? Had he known Him always from birth, from the instant of being?

Saul lifted his hands and his mouth opened and he knew, at last for Whom he had been searching, with longing and despair and hope and love—and with vehement denial. His eyes, though filled with that splendor which shone upon him did not blink, did not turn away, did not scorch. A quietude, as immense as the ocean, fell upon him. His heart bulged in his breast, shaking. His flesh quailed. But the ecstasy increased moment by moment, and he tried to speak, to whisper, and finally it was enough for him to see.

Then He spoke in that great masculine voice which he, Saul, had heard before:

“Saul! Saul of Tarshish!”

It rang over the desert, that Voice, and it seemed to Saul that the mountains started and listened and the earth caught her breath. He saw only the vision before him, yet he also seemed to see the whole world, nation upon nation, city upon city, battlement upon battlement, and sea upon sea, and then constellation after constellation and glittering universe after universe, prostrate, adoring.

The voice, commanding, not to be denied by anything that lived, called again: “Saul, Saul! Saul of Tarshish!”

Saul did not know that he had slipped harmlessly to the desert floor, and that he now lay there, only a seeing vessel. What he saw was all life and all knowledge and all-encompassing certitude and fulfillment, explanation of mysteries, revelations. He forgot where he was, and even who he was. He forgot the soldiers about him, who were huddled together in fear, hearing a voice but seeing nothing.

Saul thought he would expire in his transports. His hands moved before him on the rough gravel, groping. He could not look away from the powerful Figure in that dazzling core of gold, a Figure much greater in stature than a man, a Colossus of brilliance, imposing, armed with the authority of divine might, beautiful beyond dreaming, and yet terrible, implicit with virility and with the fire of creative force.

Again the voice spoke, like approaching thunder: “Saul, Saul of Tarshish! Why do you persecute Me?”

O overpowering love and bliss to hear that remembered voice, the voice which commanded angels and worlds and suns and all men!

“Lord,” Saul whispered, creeping closer to Him Who was the center of his life, “Who are you, Lord?” His exaltation heightened. He desired only to touch that divine foot, to lay his tired cheek upon it, to rest in the blessedness of knowing. Oh, joy of man’s desiring!

Did the voice gentle, as if in pity, lose something of its resolution and severity? It said, “I am Yeshua of Nazareth, Whom you persecute. It is hard for you to kick against the pricks, is it not, Saul of Tarshish?”

Even if He destroy me in punishment and kill me forever, yet shall I rejoice that He has spoken to me! thought Saul. Let all the world roll over me and crush me into nothing—and I will cry out in my delight, shouting Hosannah! that He remembered me! It is enough that I have known Him, have seen Him with these eyes, as I have yearned all my life.

“Lord,” Saul murmured, “what is it You would have me do?”

“Arise,” said the Lord, “and go into the city and it shall be told you what you must do, Saul of Tarshish.” And now He smiled as a father smiles, or a brother, or the dearest friend any man can know, and bliss assailed Saul again and he was transported again and ecstasy again seized him, and eternity was his own.

The incredible light remained, golden at its heart, storming with flecks of radiance, but the Figure had departed. Saul gazed at the light, longed to hurl himself into it, to suspire in its holy depths, to lave in it, to sleep in it, at rest forever. He dreaded to return to the world of dim shadows and pain and the flesh, to mundane things, to men and wearisome roads and the hungers of the body, and the mirage of cities and the meaninglessness of tongues, and dull breath and humiliations and stone and dust. How could he endure the world, after that vision and that glory? Better to die in the remembrance than to resume life again. All longing that he had ever known was nothing to this craving of the soul, this urgent passion, this anguished yet delighting love.

The soldiers, almost beside themselves with fear, having heard but a voice though not the words, and having seen nothing, dismounted and ran to the prostrate man. They saw his face, his staring eyes, his parted lips. His countenance was brighter than the moon. It was as if he had beheld a divinity, for he was transfigured. This so frightened them that they started back from him, shivering, for it was dangerous to touch one stricken by the sight of the divine. “Has he seen Jupiter or Apollo or Mercury?” whispered one soldier to his officer. “He has the appearance of one who has approached the gods.”

The subaltern overcame his fear after a few moments. He had his honor as a Roman to maintain. He touched Saul on his rough woolen shoulder and Saul arose, not wearily, not with a swaying motion, but like a boy, His eyes were still filled with a glory, a reflection of something not of this earth, and again the soldier recoiled and touched his amulets. Saul’s face had become preternaturally elated, changed, drawn like gold, exultant.

Then he said, as if announcing a wondrous message of such great import that he could hardly speak: “I do not see. Yet I see. Let me not see with these eyes again lest the delight be taken from me!”

The soldiers glanced at each other in trepidation. Then the officer said timidly, “You have been blinded, lord?”

Saul clasped his hands together in a convulsion of rapture and exquisite adoration.

“What does it matter to me, now that I have seen the Messias?” He paused. He was like a man who had gazed too long at the sun and now saw its aureole, its timeless image, printed on his retina, and yet was not afraid. “I have seen my Life,” he said, and did not see the soldiers. “I have seen the Truth, the Everlasting! I have beheld the Holy One of Israel, and it is enough for me. My long search is over. I have found Him, at last! O, my Lord and my God—at last!”

He struck his breast with his fists. He cried aloud in his indescribable joy.

Then, though he could not see he became aware of the disordered breathing of the men about him, and felt their fear, and a deep tenderness touched his heart. He said, “I am blind, but take me to the house of Judas, on the street called Straight, in Damascus.”

They put him on his horse, shrinking to touch one who had seen what must not be seen, and his flesh was like a vibrating harp. They led him through the rest of the night to the city, in silence.

Chapter 34

“
There was a certain disciple at Damascus, named Ananias, and to him said the Lord in a vision: ‘Ananias!’ And he said, ‘Behold, I am here, Lord.
’

“
And the Lord said to him, ‘Arise, and go into the street which is called Straight, and enquire in the house of Judas for one called Saul of Tarshish, for behold, he prays, and he has seen in a vision a man named Ananias coming in and putting his hand on him, that he might receive his sight
.’

“
Then Ananias answered, ‘Lord, I have heard by many of this man, how much evil he has done to Your saints at Jerusalem, and here he has authority from the chief priests to bind all that call on Your Name
.’

“
But the Lord said unto him, ‘Go your way, for he is a chosen vessel unto Me, to bear My Name before the Gentiles and kings and the Children of Israel, for I will show him how great things he must suffer for My Name’s sake
.’

“
And Ananias went his way
—” (Acts 9:10-17)

J
UDAS BEN
J
ONAH
was in a dilemma.

He was a rich and respected resident of the ancient city of Damascus, a man of some forty-eight years, grave, circumspect, dignified and courteous, a banker and a merchant. His family was old and revered, he had married a lady of distinction and piety, and his sons had married similar women. His daughters had not disgraced him in their marriages. He would say, with modesty, that there was not a city of note in the world in which he did not have a devoted friend, and he had round innocent brown eyes that saw everything and underestimated no enemy nor overestimated any acquaintance or even a member of his own house. His beard was rich and brown and carefully tended and only slightly fragrant, and he moved sedately. This was partly a matter of flesh and partly a matter of temperament. His large house on the street called Straight was most comfortable though not luxurious, nor were its appointments ostentatious. He would often say in his soft deep voice that God had been good to him, blessed be His Name, and he was heralded for his alms and the tithes he paid to the Temple and his journeys to Jerusalem on the High Holy Days, and his devotion.

His whole life had always been in accordance with the Law and the Commandments, and he found no tediousness in it. His counsel was invariably wise, if dull. He would say that a man who considered life precarious and capricious was a man who had not ordered his own life well, and he suspected excitement, enthusiasms and wonder.

He was a friend not only of Pontius Pilate and Caiphas, the High Priest, but of Shebua ben Abraham. Shebua valued his friendship, and Saul ben Hillel had met him on a few occasions in his grandfather’s house, and if the young man had discovered him to be a man of formal and uninspired convictions he had also come to respect him. So, Saul had announced to Pilate that he would live at the house of Judas ben Jonah while on his mission to Damascus, and Judas had extended him a cordial if prudent invitation, not at first understanding to the full.

Now he understood. Hence, his dilemma. For Judas ben Jonah had become a follower of Yeshua ben Joseph of Nazareth, not with instant interior acclamation and joy and revelation and delight but only after prolonged and judicious study. It was evident, to his pedestrian mind, that the crucified Nazarene was the Messias, but how he, a discreet and cautious man who took much time to reach even an insignificant conviction, had arrived at his belief was not known even to his wife. “I believe,” he had told her with his usual gravity, and that was sufficient. He was willing to grant that less blessed men did not believe, and he pitied them.

He had noticed recently that many of his fellow Jews were entering Damascus from the provinces of Israel with stories of persecutions inflicted on them by the High Priest, Caiphas, and Pontius Pilate, because they were adherents of the new cult. He assisted them with his usual quiet prudence, and in secrecy, not out of fear—for he lacked the imagination to fear much—but out of charity. “This, too, will pass,” he said, quoting Solomon. A man needed only to have patience. When some mentioned Saul ben Hillel as one of the most ferocious persecutors he was mildly incredulous, and he welcomed the visit of the young man for he liked visitors and gossip, and he respected Shebua ben Abraham who had been of service to him in the past.

Two days before Saul had arrived at his large walled house on the street called Straight he had heard the full story, and for the first time in his ordered life he knew acute distress. Then it came to him that God, blessed be His Name, had arranged this in order that he, Judas ben Jonah, could bring the young man to reason and deflect him from his intransigent ways. As a man of good will, himself, he was convinced that most men had instincts of good will; it was only necessary to inspire them. Evil was banal and trivial; good was powerful and invariably triumphant. This was the conviction of Judas ben Jonah, though he did not carry this belief too far in the marketplace, and so enhanced his reputation for astute prudence.

The street called Straight was not straight, but was even more winding and serpentine than the other fervid streets of Damascus. However, it had a certain decorum and quietude, for all the houses were the houses of rich men who did not flaunt their wealth. Judas had ordered apartments for Saul, whom he remembered as a pugnacious young man with fiery red hair and impatient eyes and an abrupt manner, and a man who was not as respectful to his elders as was seemly.

He awaited the arrival of Saul as his guest with superbly concealed anxiety and apprehension. But Saul had arrived long after midnight last night, though not expected until the morrow, and he had come in blind mute disarray with Roman soldiers, who had led his horse into the courtyard, and, after delivering Saul to his host, had departed to their barracks. They had told Judas, in their blunt and artless military fashion, that Saul had apparently seen a god on the desert, for he had been instantly deprived of sight and his face had glowed like the moon. Judas observed this, himself and he was failed with the first wild conjectures of his staid and serene life. Had Saul ben Hillel become mad? Judas ordered servants to conduct Saul to his quarters, and commanded water and scented towels and fine soap to wash away the soil of the desert, and unguents, and a nourishing supper. Saul, without protest, and seemingly unaware of all that transpired about him, departed with the servants and Judas sat down in the atrium to consider the matter.