Great Lion of God (73 page)

He did not like the unexpected, the strange. He sat and frowned and stroked his beard and ruminated, and turned the fine rings on his plump fingers. He let some time pass and then went to the chambers he had assigned to Saul, and there he had sat before the young man with his staring blue eyes and the clean coarse garments in which the servants had dressed him. Judas noted that the supper had barely been touched. He became uneasy. There was no sign of injury to the eyes opposite him, which hardly blinked in the light of the pleasant lamps. Saul appeared wrapped in some vision, some profound meditation, which made him unconscious not only of himself and his surroundings but of his host.

Judas hesitated. It would soon be dawn and he was weary and he was a man who believed it almost sinful not to retire to his bed at the usual hour. But he was not only anxious; he was curious. He said, in a kind voice, “Are you ill, Saul ben Hillel, and why do you not see?”

“I have seen all of Life,” said Saul, and these were the first words he had uttered. Suddenly his face shone like lightning and a quickness as of unbearable exaltation flashed into his eyes. “But I must wait.” He paused. He turned his blind eyes in Judas’ direction and said in a less passionate voice, “Forgive me, Judas ben Jonah, for not greeting you and thanking you for your hospitality before this hour, but I am assailed by celestial revelations and must meditate on them all.”

A pucker appeared between Judas’ big brown eyes. He again considered if Saul had suddenly become mad.

“I have seen the Messias!” said Saul, and his voice thrilled like a trumpet and he smiled exultantly and pressed his sun-darkened hands convulsively to his breast as if to restrain a leaping heart.

Judas was more confused. Was this Saul ben Hillel who had been reported to be the most relentless foe of the Nazarene? “When?” he asked, with his usual caution.

“But a few hours ago,” replied Saul. “In the desert, before we approached the gates of Damascus.” He spoke simply and with a childlike candor, and Judas could not remember such candor in the young man before.

“The Messias,” said Judas, as if reflecting.

“I saw Him!” cried Saul, and he stood up and looked about him with a great and rapturous smile, though he could not see. You must believe me, Judas ben Jonah! I saw Him, He Whom I have been persecuting, and He did not reproach me nor strike me dead! He has given me a mission, and I am filled with revelations which He is bestowing on me, moment after moment! He has chosen me—the most base, the most contemptible, the most loathsome, the one most worthy of the fires of hell and utter destruction. Why do I not expire at the very thought of such magnanimity, such mercy, such love?”

“I do not know,” murmured Judas, more confused than ever. He had heard of the inspired disciples and Apostles of Yeshua ben Joseph, though he had encountered but one of them, and he convinced and elated if not extravagant. Saul was like a red sun, a red lion, in this pleasant chamber with the flickering lamplight and with the warm wind stirring the damask curtains and bringing into the room a scent of heated stone and flowers. No one more alien to the house of Judas ben Jonah had ever entered here before, and Judas was disturbed by this wildness and vehement joy and unearthly certitude.

“Why do you not see, then?” asked Judas, in a reasonable tone, as if attempting to bring matters to a rational level. “God does not strike men blind out of love.”

Saul paced a few steps, then retraced them. His strange excitement was growing. “I have been blinded in order that I may see, fully, for the first time in my existence!” he cried.

Judas could not comprehend this. It was not sensible. “Perhaps,” he suggested, in a paternal tone, “the sun was too strong on the desert.” He glanced at the carved ivory and ebony bed, with its fragrant linen and silken covers. “Rest, Saul ben Hillel, and if your sight is not restored by morning I will call my physician.”

Saul’s eloquent face expressed his tremendous impatience, and then he controlled himself and smiled with a gentleness Judas found startling. “I have been told that one will come to me within a few days, and he will baptize me and my sight will be restored, and then I shall embark on the way He has ordained for me, blessed be His Name.”

It was evident that he believed that he was speaking reasonably and that Judas would understand these plain words without further explanation.

“Who will come to you, Saul?” he asked.

“A man named Ananias.” The impatience was returning to Saul’s face.

Judas knew Ananias, a poor and saintly scholar, who had been instrumental in bringing Judas into the company of the Messias. Before he could ask Saul how he knew this man Saul said, “I have been told of him since I was struck blind, and he will come.”

Judas rose. He said, “Let me conduct you to your bed, dear friend for you are exhausted and need your rest.”

For a moment it appeared that Saul would resist, that he did not desire sleep, and that he wished only to sit and to meditate on the ecstatic, incomprehensible thing which had come to him. Then he permitted Judas to lead him to the bed, and he lay down and Judas covered him. The older man then contemplated the strong sunburned face and thick red hair on the silken cushion. “Shalom,” he said at last, and blew out the lamps and went to his own chamber his thoughts most chaotic.

Though Judas was a banker as well as a merchant he respected scholarship and wisdom and preferred to be known as a wise man rather than a wealthy one. Therefore, he greeted Ananias with grave courtesy when the elderly man came to his door, and welcomed him to his house and ordered refreshments for him. He pretended not to observe the poor clothing of his guest and the patched leather boots and the thin meagerness of his cloak and his lean pouch. Ananias had come a long way through the streets on foot, and his pale and slender face and gray beard wore a patina of golden dust threaded with sweat. Yet, in spite of his quiet manner and evident weariness his expression was bright and youthful and his eyes were the eyes of a boy, lustrous and polished.

“This house is honored by your presence, Ananias,” said Judas ben Jonah, and himself poured the wine the servant had brought, and as he was a man who appreciated the refinements of life he was pleased by the golden ewer traced with Indu enamel in various colors. But Ananias drank sparingly and with an apparent absence of mind, and there was a troubled line across his forehead. He declined the sweetmeats, though Judas informed him that they had been prepared by the hand of his talented wife.

“I have a peculiar mission,” said Ananias at last, in the sweetest of voices. “You have a guest, one Saul of Tarshish.” He hesitated. “Judas, we both adore the Messias. We know He sends us commands which we dare not disobey, for has He not given His blessed life for us, and does He not love us? Do not, therefore, ask me questions I cannot answer. I have been sent to your guest.”

“He awaits you,” said Judas. “I confess I understand little of this. His words frighten me, when he deigns to answer my questions. HIS manner has about it something of madness. He has sat these three days in my house wrapped in a dream, and he murmurs under his breath and prays without ceasing, and he is as another Jacob, absorbed in visions, or a young Moses, gazing with blind eyes upon the Promised Land. Sometimes, though he cannot see, he paces his chamber, uttering great cries and sobs and clapping his hands together, and sometimes he weeps aloud or laughs in exultation as if a teacher had taught him an absorbing lesson and he had come to a mighty conclusion of his own. He does not eat. He drinks little. If he sleeps, I do not know it. He is like one consumed. He appears like one in a fever, restless, transfigured, staring, burning of eye, dry of lip. I have offered to conduct him into my gardens for the sun and the air, but he refuses to leave his chamber. Insistence brings on a fit of terrible impatience, for which he immediately apologizes and begs forgiveness. He has said to me, I must be alone, so that I may learn and observe that what I saw in obscurity and murk, and as through a glass darkly, has been shining in color and light from all eternity—and I was blind! I once said with Job, “Oh, that I might know where to find Him!” and behold, He was at my right hand always and I did not see Him, for I refused to see! But now I see, and cannot have enough of the seeing, and I await His call.’”

Ananias looked with compassion on his troubled host and said, “I comprehend his words, Judas ben Jonah. At first I was dismayed, for is this not Saul of Tarshish, whom the Romans call Paul of Tarsus, the fearful enemy of our people? There is an old Lybian saying, ‘That once an eagle, stricken with an arrow, said, when he saw the fashion of the shaft, “With our own feathers, not by others’ hand, are we now smitten.”’ The people of Saul ben Hillel have been smitten by him, but not in malice, not in deliberate cruelty or rage, but in ignorance.”

“No matter the reason for smiting,” said Judas, with a wry expression, “the wound is just as painful.”

“True,” said Ananias, rising. “But now I pray you to lead me to your guest.”

They went in silence to the chamber of Saul. They found him sitting on his rich bed, his hands clasped on his knees, straining to hear. Ananias paused on the threshold to contemplate this man of terror, who had come to destroy the faithful, and who had had a vision on the road to Damascus. He was a young man with hair like the Sun at sunset, disheveled and uncombed, and his face was ghastly sleeplessness, yet trembling with exaltation, and his eyes, one drooping in affliction, shone with an unusual blue light like metal and he had the powerful aspect of a young lion held by a chain, and straining, and overcome with eagerness for the arena. He leaned forward, craning toward the door, for beyond it he had heard footsteps and so vivid were his eyes that Ananias could hardly believe that he did not see.

The old man said softly, “Shalom. May the joy of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob be with you, my son, Saul ben Hillel, and may the peace of God, blessed be His Name, attend you always.”

Saul sprang to his feet. He moved two steps in the direction of Ananias. He cried, “Ananias!”

“It is I,” said Ananias. “I know all that you would tell me for I, too, have seen a vision.” Now for the first time he felt pity for this young man, this passionate man, this most vehement and resolute man, and saw much in an instant of time. He sighed. At the sound Saul came forward again, wildly smiling, and now there were tears on his darkened cheeks. He fell to his knees before Ananias and clasped his hands and bowed his head.

Ananias glanced beseechingly at Judas, and the other man, who was agape with curiosity, left the chamber and closed the door behind him. Ananias laid his hands on Saul’s rough head, and sighed again, He knew, without knowing how he knew, that all Saul’s life had been one agonized search, in suffering, in despair, in occasional rapture, in confusion, in hope and in yearning. He had found what he had sought, but Ananias knew with a preternatural knowing what fate lay before this young man. Saul would not fall aside. He would never falter. He would know pain as he had never known it before, but he would accept it, not meekly as quieter and more composed men accepted it, but with a furious joy. Yet, he had far to go, and the light would not always lie on his path, and he would grope and straggle and fight in a far vaster wilderness than any he had experienced in his short lifetime. He was a warrior, one or God’s heroes, and he would not lay down his sword and his armor until his last breath.

Ananias raised his head and prayed almost inaudibly, that Saul’s sight might be restored to him, if it were the will of God, and that God would always comfort and uphold him in the direful way ahead. He bent and pressed his palms against the young man’s feverish cheeks and kissed his forehead like a father, and there were tears in his own eyes. No more was he troubled, and no more did he remember the letters from the High Priest, Caiphas, to the leaders of the synagogues in Damascus.

Sunlight filled the chamber. A great peace inhabited it and flowed like bright water over the kneeling man and the old scholar who bent over him so tenderly. Light reflected back from the white marble floor, struck on the walls, and then it turned the hair of Saul to fire. It was like a brilliant aureole about his head, and for an instant Ananias knew fear. Yet the breeze from the opened windows was soft as silk and scented with fountains and flowers, and there was the shadow of trees wavering in the radiance, and the cry of birds.

Saul lifted his head. He smiled up into the face of the old man, and with joy.

“I see,” he said. “No more am I blind, but behold the world in glory as I never saw it before! I see!”

“Yes, my son,” said Ananias. “For the first time in your life, you see. Shalom.”

Part Three

APOSTLE TO THE GENTILES

Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free, and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage.

Chapter 35

I
T SEEMED
incredible to Joseph of Arimathaea that the sun-darkened man before him was Saul of Tarshish, and he peered at Saul with age-dimmed eyes and his mouth moved soundlessly in the way of very old men, as if chewing, and his white beard fluttered on his chin. It was hot and still in Jerusalem today, and the sky was white with heat and the cypresses were dusted with golden particles and not even the fountains in the gardens could cool the burning air. Yet Joseph was wrapped in woolen shawls and his feet were covered with high boots lined with sheep-wool, and he rubbed his hands as if they were chill.

If he was aghast at Saul’s appearance, Saul was even more aghast at the ruin of the splendid man he had last seen only five years ago. But, thought Saul, did I believe that time stood still here while centuries rose and fell in my mind, and nations appeared and vanished, and the revelations of Heaven shafted down on me in fire, in the deserts of Arabia? Joseph was aging when I last saw him, but I did not perceive it. Now the years have revealed themselves. Have I changed also so stringently? I am thirty-three years old, no youth, eheu! but neither am I old with a beard. He looked at his hands and they were almost as black as a Nubian’s, and he knew that his countenance was blackened also, in spite of his once-fair complexion, and that he must appear as an African lion with his great mane of red rough hair and rough brown clothing and his dark feet and the deep tawny color of his arms and throat and feet. Only his blue eyes were the same, glistening with the powerful force of his spirit and the passions that had always lived with him.