Great Lion of God (92 page)

Lucanus, overcome, could not continue. He bent his head and wept, and there was only the sound of his weeping in the sweltering little chamber, and the weeping of Timothy. But Saul sat rigidly upright and stared at the cracked plaster wall and his face was the face of a dead man.

He said, “Continue. I know my son, Boreas, is dead, and that you came to tell me.” His voice was calm and lifeless.

“It is true,” said Lucanus, when he could control himself. “And his young wife, Tamara bas Judah, died also, and their little children, and all of the house of Judah ben Isaac, and the wife of your old tutor, Aristo, and two hundred others.

Boreas—he attempted to save his infant daughter, and hoped that one outside would be merciful, and he thrust her through one larger slit—”

“And the child was murdered also,” said Saul.

Lucanus could not speak. The silence in the room was like the silence of death. Then Lucanus faltered, “Your tutor, Aristo, was an old man. I must tell you all. When his wife died in that fire, he hanged himself. All that you have loved in Tarsus, Saul, has perished.”

Saul turned his great leonine head and gazed fixedly and without tears at the candle which fumed and burned redly on the table near his shoulder. He might have been reflecting or indifferent.

“I am a Christian, but I am also a man,” said Lucanus, and now his voice was low and baneful. “One of those who perished was the beloved only daughter of the legate, himself. He had not known that the maiden and her mother were Christians, recently baptized. Four wives of the centurions and captains were incinerated. Their husbands had not known that the women were Christians. Those incendiaries and their inciters have been arrested, and they will die for their crimes.”

Saul rose from his bed like a man hypnotized and he sought his dagger and he slashed his garments slowly and carefully. Then he sat down in a far corner and bent his head and began the long lamentation for the dead, uttering, “The Lord gives. The Lord takes away. Blessed be—” But he could not say the final words and could only rock on his buttocks, groaning like an animal that has been mortally wounded, until the very walls echoed his groaning.

“Blessed be the Name of the Lord,” said Timothy in a broken voice, but Saul did not repeat it.

Then Lucanus rose and went to Saul and stood over him and said in a deep and shaking voice, “‘I am the Resurrection and the Life—’”

When Saul did not heed him the physician knelt before him and took him in his arms. But with a convulsive gesture, such as a dying man gives in his extremity, Saul pushed him from him. Then he fell face down on the floor as if he had died, and the dreadful groaning ceased.

Together Lucanus and Timothy lifted the unconscious man to his bed, and he lay there and the physician felt his weak and staggering pulse and wiped away the icy sweat which gathered on his face. And Lucanus remembered how he had stood outside the synagogue, listening to the screams of children and their mothers and had watched the walls finally fall in mercy upon them in a last and terrible explosion of scarlet flame. The physician found it in his heart to hate again, even more fiercely than he had hated on that appalling evening. He looked down at Saul and he questioned why this man, who gave all his life and heart to God, should have been made to suffer so, as if an evil punishment had crashed upon him.

Lucanus said to Timothy, “Would that he die before he awakens again to knowledge! But that, doubtless, will not be granted. He will continue to the end. He is a greater warrior than I, for I confess that if all that I have loved had died so, in innocence, and defenseless I should turn away—”

“They live again, in the Vision of the Messias, blessed be His Name,” said Timothy. “Only we are left to mourn, and to remember.”

But Lucanus did not reply.

Chapter 47

L
UCANUS
stayed at the inn with Saul for many days, and for those days Saul lay on his bed, mute and still and almost motionless. Lucanus fed him like an infant, and Saul ate and drank a little as if only his body were present and his soul at a far distance. The physician bathed him and removed garments and replaced them. He bought the best of wine for the stricken man, and mixed with it certain potions and the beaten eggs of geese, and forced it gently through the clenched lips. Young Timothy was like a small son whose father had been struck down, and it soothed him to be sent on errands and to write letters. He would look at Saul with grief, wringing his hands.

Peter, having heard, wrote tenderly to the man whom he had once declared to be a thistle in his hand, a stone under his foot, a cinder in his eye. He reminded Saul of what the Messias had said, that men, though they die, will live again in the radiant shadow of His Being, and that those who perish in His Name will be assumed to Him at once. Sephorah wrote a tearful and loving letter, and so did many members of the Jerusalem Community, and elders and deacons who had once quarreled with him and now suffered with him. Lucanus read all these bountiful letters to Saul, who said nothing. Then members of the Christian community in Tarsus came in groups to console him, but he would not see them. They promised prayers for his alleviation of sorrow, and he did not answer them.

The cold bright winter came to Athens and Lucanus bought a small brazier for Saul’s chamber, and he now slept on a floor pallet near Saul’s bed the better to hear him and attend him. Though Saul was so still and so silent, Lucanus guessed acutely at the agony he was enduring, too great for speech, for even the flicker of an eye, tor tears, for mourning.

“He was a noble Apostle,” said the Christians.

“He is a noble Apostle,” said Lucanus, and they went away in silence.

“He is our brother, and though we do not accept what he has told us he is still our brother, a Jew among Jews. He has our prayers, and may God, blessed be His Name, infuse new life into him that he may live again,” said the Jews.

“I pray with you,” said Lucanus, “in the Name of Him Who was a Jew also.”

One night, Saul awoke from his lethargy and was instantly aware. He saw Lucanus sleeping wearily beside him. He saw the weak candle flame. Confused memories tried to return to him, but he shrank from them. Then he fell asleep again. He began to dream.

He dreamt that he was wandering in a vast garden, and the tremendous trees floated in a golden mist and all the flowers glittered with a silvery dew. There was the sound of singing waters, and the distant sight of ivory and golden hills, and fountains. It was warm, and the soft air was perfumed and the sky beamed in clear blueness. He wandered, and knew there was something he must remember which would cause him anguish, but it was sufficient now to walk in this bliss, this shining solitude, this calm joy, this assurance of love and companionship, though he saw no one. The grass under his feet was fresh and new and sparkling with greenness, and he saw glades offering blue cool shadow and many of the trees were flowering in a myriad colors. How blessed this was, how full of peace. Who had said, “The peace that passes understanding?” Saul could not remember, but the words echoed in his heart and he knew that peace. A branch of a tree hung over his head and he saw it was heavy with scarlet globed fruit, and he took one and ate of it and it was like honey and wine, refreshing his soul.

Then he saw a young man approaching him across the grass, and there were enormous wings of light palpitating from his shoulders, and his garments shimmered like moonlight and clung to his massive limbs and flecks of white fire radiated from his robe and his face was more beautiful than the face of any man, with locks glossy and dark and polished, and eyes deep and dark and bearing in them an expression which no human creature could understand. It was enigmatic, removed, kind and aloof. His feet, sandaled with silver, barely bent the grass and where he moved he left a fading brightness. A curious sword hung in its curious scabbard from his gemmed girdle, a sword shaped like a jagged bolt of lightning, and there was lightning on his brow.

Saul was not afraid, but he felt a pulsing deep within him and an awe. The young man came closer to him, and he was taller than the tallest man and his arms were clasped with jeweled armlets. He looked down at Saul reflectively, and his slight smile was not human though it remained gentle. Saul could see his strong pale throat and the throbbing in it.

“Saul ben Hillel,” said the stranger in a voice which was both close and far, and filled the silent air. “I bear a message for you.”

Saul knelt before him and clasped his hands, and waited, looking up into that unearthly countenance.

“There is a time for mourning, and that time has passed,” said the stranger.

“You have forgotten much, but it has been forgiven you, as all is forgiven to those who love. Now you must gird yourself like a man and resume what has been ordained for you, lest those who love you are grieved that their passing has ended your life and your mission. Multitudes have sorrowed before you, and multitudes will sorrow after you, but sorrow is vain, for only One can heal and you have not asked Him.”

“My heart is only human,” said Saul. “I sorrow with a human heart.”

“He also has a human Heart,” said the stranger with severity. “It has grieved, and is grieving still, as no other man could grieve. The humanity of His Heart surpasses yours, Saul ben Hillel, and His sorrow is as a mountain. Will you desert and betray Him, or will you rise and say, ‘There is none else, O my Lord and my God?’”

Saul began to weep. The stranger continued, “God also has a Son, and He saw that Son offer up Himself for wretched mankind, saw. His flesh bruised and nailed and torn, saw His humiliation and the fear and shrinking in that most human Heart, saw the malice which surrounded Him, and watched His death.”

Saul lifted his tearful face and stretched up his arms and looked at the sky and said, “Forgive me, my Lord and my God, and strengthen me so that I may endure and not forget again, and spread Your Wings beneath my feeble flutter and carry me. For I am not God. I am only a man and You have fashioned me to suffer as a man.”

When he looked for the stranger he was gone, and now a dark noisomeness closed about Saul and he awakened and saw it was cold hard morning and Lucanus was stirring the coals in the brazier.

Saul said in a weak but clear voice, “Dear friend, I have seen an angel, and he has reproved me.” Now, in reality he wept the first tears, and Lucanus held him in his arms and did not restrain him, but comforted him in silence.

And now the long missionary journey began. Accompanied by Timothy and Luke, Saul resumed a colossal task which to him seemed endless, frequently frustrating, dolorous, desperate, harsh with opposition, resentment, persecution and ridicule and obduracy from members of the young Church. On receiving a letter from Corinth that he not visit that city again he answered sadly and tenderly: “I made up my mind not to make you another painful visit. For if I cause you pain, who is there to make me glad but the One whom I have always pained? And I wrote as I did so that when I came I might not be pained by those who should have made me rejoice.—For I wrote out of much affliction and anguish of heart and with many tears, not to cause you pain but to let you know the abundant love that I have for you.” (Cor. 2:1-4)

As time passed his afflicted eye began to darken, and his strength, which had, for years, been the strength and energy of heart and spirit and will, declined alarmingly. In vain Lucanus urged him not to strive so vigorously, and to rest between journeys. “If I am to bring order out of stubborn and doctrinal chaos then I must press on,” he said. “There is a time to die and I would that death will not find me sleeping, in luxurious ease and forgetfulness. My task is not complete.”

Sorrow and years had taken the last audacious red from his whitened hair and his brows, and his face was creviced with sorrow and pain and there was a faint but constant tremor about his wide firm mouth. But he walked upright and strongly on his bowed legs and his glance, despite his afflicted eye, was still leonine and commanding, and his voice held an imperious note still, and a fascination, which seized men’s attention. None held a lukewarm opinion about him. He was fiercely and devotedly loved, or as fiercely and devotedly hated, in the Church. Rebuking, chastising, exhorting, condemning, praising, loving, explaining, teaching, converting, comforting, laughing or weeping, jesting or scorning, he journeyed apparently without fatigue, his eyes sparkling or blazing or tender, in accordance with the occasion, his manner abrupt, violent, impatient, conciliatory, depending on those he encountered. If he marveled often at the blind stupidity of man and the sin and error in which he appeared confirmed, embracing the death of the soul which so terrified him, himself, Saul also saw the piteous predicament of man, the hopeless sorrow, the bewilderment, the anxious pain, the infirmities, and he marveled anew that so frail a creature possessed also a fortitude and an endurance and a desire for truth and certitude which must move the hearts of angels.

Once he said to Lucanus, “If I were to be permitted but one word to describe a man I would say he is brave. For he is brave in spite of his intelligence which makes him aware of a hostile world and environment, and which seemingly is without hope and surety or help for pain, and is heavy with loss and sadness and disappointment. Animals are not aware of these things, so they have an animal courage for the day’s needs. But a man knows the years and the memory of them, and he knows that the coming years hold out to him no promise of splendor and satisfaction but only a repetition of yesterday, and in spite of that he has the bravery to endure, and we must salute him.”

His compassion grew as he journeyed to the harsh shores of Lystra, to golden Ephesus, to Macedonia, to Philippi of the gray stone mountains and the scarlet poppy plains. It was in Philippi that the Romans—becoming more and more exasperated by the Christians—and having heard that he was a turbulent man who insulted the gods and desecrated their temples and aroused rebellion among slaves and freedmen and the rabble, and had commanded them to rise against Rome and their masters, seized him and threw him into prison, there to await trial and probable execution as a traitor. This, was done on a day when Lucanus and Timothy were absent.