The Kingdom of the Wicked (55 page)

       The rabbi Ishmael said: 'We hear nothing against you. We received no letters from Jerusalem. None of the brethren has come to me with reports or accusations. All I know is that the sect you lead is spoken against. From your own mouth we would wish to hear why this is so.'

       'Or rather — why it should not be spoken against. Very well. Listen.'

       While still chained to Sabinus, Paul performed a number of baptisms in the Tiber, the river not running strong at that season. Luke, who had set himself up in the physicians' quarter off the Via Lata, came to help. Good pagan Roman citizens watched the ceremony and spoke bad words: Cannibals, motherswivers, defiling Father Tiber with their uncleanliness, disgusting I call it. Sabinus said: 'Listen, friends. I'm his official escort, got that? Imperial orders. Interfere with him and you interfere with me. Now bugger off.'

       'I baptize you, Aquila, in the name of the Most High, the Son who proceeds from him, the Holy Spirit that proceeds from both. To the new life of that Spirit you are now admitted.'

       Argument was hot most evenings in the house of Aquila. Sara, who had accepted her husband's conversion with a shrug, was nevertheless curious to see Paul, as was her brother, who still called him Saul. She shocked the Christians if not the Jews by saying:

       'God forgives all sins, you tell us. What I want to know is — who forgives God?' Neither Luke nor Julius had read the Book of Job. 'A good God wouldn't have allowed what happened to my sister. An innocent girl torn to pieces by a madman while all stood by and saw it. I stood by, Julius stood by, but, most of all, God stood by. God looks after his own, does he? God has never yet looked after his own. The Israelites call him abba — father — only to be kicked in the teeth.' Paul said:

       'God gave man freedom — for evil or good. A terrible gift but also a glorious gift. God will not interfere with the freedom of his creatures. For good or ill. There is much suffering still to come — for Jews, for Christians, for those who profess no faith. History is a record of human suffering. God knows it, and yet God will not interfere.'

       'But,' the rabbi Ishmael said, 'according to your belief he did interfere. He sent down his son — blasphemy, blasphemy — to enter the stream of human life — meaning (oh, blasphemy) that he came down himself.'

       To die, to suffer, but to rise again. Human evil does not prevail for ever. Death at the hands of human evil is itself a victory, for if a thing does not die it cannot rise again. We share birth with the animal creation. Resurrection we share with God.'

       'I cannot accept it. None of us can.'

       Paul spoke up. The parting of the ways. 'The Holy Spirit spoke through the prophet Isaiah, and the Spirit spoke well. ''Go to this people, and say: By hearing you shall hear, and shall in no wise understand. And seeing you shall see, and shall in no wise perceive. For this people's heart is gross, and their eyes are shut, and their ears stuffed with wax. They do not wish to perceive with their eyes and hear with their ears and understand with their hearts. Be it known therefore that this salvation of God is sent to the Gentiles: the Gentiles will hear." Brothers, strangers rather, the Gentiles have already heard.'

       'I think,' the rabbi said, 'we have heard enough. I think there is little point in staying to hear more.' Courteously enough they bade the company good night, these courteous honest Jews set in their way of living in a state of unfulfillable expectation. Paul felt deeply depressed.

       Julius was summoned, still in his uniform but in a state of official suspension, waiting for discharge, terminal leave and the piece of land that could be converted into cash, to the office of the jurists Holconius Priscus and Vettius Proculus. These were old men learned in Roman law and they were brisk to elucidate the legal position of Lucius Shoel Paulus or Paullus.

       'That Shoel has a fine exotic ring. Where is he now?'

       'Under a kind of house arrest,' Julius said. 'A chain on his wrist. Awaiting your lordships' pleasure.'

       'The Emperor's pleasure. The pleasure of the people of Rome. Already detained at that pleasure for — how many years?'

       'Two and a half. That goes beyond the statutory period for bringing an action.'

       'No. His status has changed. He's an appellant to the state. The period begins from the moment of his appeal — when was it lodged?'

       'Over a year ago.'

       'No record of any accusation being brought here in Rome. Not yet. One more month. If nothing happens we file a writ of Liberetur.'

We come now to an episode possibly apocryphal, though my informants were very circumstantial and most corroborative in their accounts of it. It seems that the Emperor Nero was in the district of Suburra in daylight and in disguise — that is to say bewigged — having called on the sorceress Locusta (still flourishing and too discreet not to be so) about a matter of giving an immediate and painless quietus to the Empress's ailing pet panther (this story you need not, of course, elieve). His guardsmen were also in disguise, meaning cloaked and their daggerhands cloaked too, and they kept their distance from their master five yards behind and ahead. Tigellinus was not with his master, nor was Gaius Petronius who, fearing Tigellinus for some reason, was writing on his estate ten miles down the Via Ostiensis. Nero seemed to remember a particular shop: surely water had been poured on him from that roof there? Who had had the effrontery to do it? It had given him a slight chill and he had not forgotten. He did not propose punishment, which would be an unworthy thing as, after all, he had been dissimulating his status at the time and accepted what came in the way of buffets (a citizen of the equestrian order had beaten him for molesting his wife and with total impunity) as part of the game. Indeed, he looked at the shop with some respect and then with some curiosity. A very old man was stitching away at what looked like sailcloth, and an oldish bald one was working on a recognizable bed canopy. Chained to this one was a Roman soldier. 'What is this?' he wished to know.

       'Who asks?' asked the bald stitcher. Nero said:

       'No ceremony, please. Caesar sometimes likes to walk among his people.' And he doffed his wig. The two workers recognized a face omnipresent on coins and medallions and started to rise. 'I said no ceremony. Be seated. Though that soldier there may remain on his feet. Have you a cup of something cooling for your Emperor?' Thus it was that Paul, who was still an appellant to an abstraction called Caesar, met Caesar face to face and was encouraged to talk to him.

       'A Christian, you say, a Christian? A dangerous sect and an unnatural one, so I'm led to believe.'

       'A religio licita, Caesar. You will find that in the imperial records.'

       'Cannibals, indulgers in unnatural acts of love, is that not so?'

       'Unnatural love is expressly forbidden. As for cannibalism, we do not eat little children, as is too often alleged. We eat merely the body and blood of the Son of God under the disguise of bread and wine. A harmless ceremony which promotes solidarity and has a wholesome mystical meaning.'

       'The son of which god?'

       'There is only one God, Caesar. His simple nature is fracted and diversified under various forms that pass for divine among the Greeks and the Romans. When you think of Zeus or Jupiter you are trying to grasp one aspect only of this single simple God's essence. The God we believe in made the world and loves it, made man and loves him. He is a highly moral God, detesting evil and approving the good.’

       ‘What should morality have to do with divinity?'

       'God is of a radiant purity who wishes his creation to attain to a like purity. The smallest sin makes his purity scream out with pain.'

       'That is absurd.'

       'No, Caesar. His infinite perfection must of necessity be appalled by evil.'

       'What do you mean by evil?'

       'Acts of destruction, of corruption, of selfishness.'

       And by good?'

       'Love of our fellows, even of our enemies, acts which demonstrate that love.'

       'But it's impossible to love one's enemies.'

       'Difficult, Caesar, but we have to try. It's a way of turning our enemies into friends.'

       'A way of life, then, rather like that ridiculous stoical one the illstarred Seneca taught me.'

       'No, Caesar. We live the virtuous life in order that we may be worthy of standing in the presence of God.'

       'How?'

       'In the next world. After death. The good attain the divine vision and the evil are cast away from it. Their pain consists in knowing what they miss. It is like a million fires burning them for ever and ever.’

       ‘And all this was taught you by a slave?'

       'No, Caesar, that is another error. God so loves his creation that he was willing to come to earth and live like a man. He taught us, yes, and he was punished for teaching us, strange as that must seem. He was nailed to a tree in Judaea and died. But he rose again from the tomb.'

       'Stuff and nonsense. Dead men don't rise again. Or women.' Having affirmed that he nevertheless shuddered.

       'There were too many witnesses, some of them still living, Caesar. He was seen after death. His resurrection bids us believe in our own. The righteous rise again after death. So do the wicked. Both are judged. The sheep are separated from the goats. Eternal bliss or eternal fire. We take our choice. We are free to do so.'

       'So you people see death as a gateway to a better life. If you have been good.'

       'Caesar puts it simply and well.'

       The destruction of the body is nothing?'

       'Painful perhaps, but acceptable — more than acceptable to the just.’

       ‘Una nox dormienda. We're taught to believe that. That is what I believe.'

       'Catullus was wrong, Caesar. The being destroyed rises to a greater beauty. The pagan legend of the phoenix is an apt illustration. The thing must die in order to rise again. We sow in death, we reap in life. Death is no problem.'

       'All you tell me — what is your name?'

       'Paul, Caesar.'

       'All you tell me, Paul, sounds like a negation of life. No wonder there are some who fear you and even more who despise you.'

       We accept that, Caesar. To be vilified, to suffer execution for the sake of the faith — what happened to the Son of God is not to be feared by mere men and women.'

       'The phoenix, eh? To perish and to rise again. To burn grey, then to burn gold. And what does this Son of God you speak of decree for Caesar, who is not like ordinary men?'

       'Caesar as flesh, blood, bone and spirit must face divine judgment like the rest. Caesar as a ruler must be obeyed. "Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to God the things that are God's." '

       'And if it be considered that Caesar is above God?'

       'The made cannot be greater than the maker. There is nothing above God.'

       'If,' Nero said, 'there is what you call an eternal maker, there ought to be an eternal destroyer.'

       'God has his enemy, Caesar. What you say is well said. The story goes that God's most beautiful angel Lucifer the Iightbringer rebelled against God's rule and was cast from God's presence. God could not destroy him, because God is committed to creation. God could not prevent this evil one from being committed to destruction, because God made his creatures totally free. So evil stalks the world, but evil cannot eventually win. Good is too powerful.'

       This sounds as if your God wills himself to impotence.'

       'A measure of his love, Caesar.'

       'Interesting.' Nero got up to go. 'If I accepted your religion — No, please remain seated — I would have to be good. But an emperor cannot always afford to be good. He cannot love his enemies. It is regrettable but unavoidable that he should have to destroy them. A ruler is forced into what you would call the commission of evil.'

       'There's always forgiveness, Caesar. God forgives everything. God responds at once to the least gesture of repentance. God, as I told you, is good.'

       'And yet he throws people into fire and emptiness or whatever it was you said?'

       'No. The sinner throws himself into the fire. Choice, Caesar, is free to all. To slaves and to Caesar alike. Even Caesar is free to live the good life. A life that is no more than a shadowy preparation for the true life which begins with the death of the righteous. But,' and now it was as if he were thumping away at the Ephesians, 'if we identify ourselves with the fallen forces of destruction, then be in no doubt as to the nature of that ultimate punishment. For, though the body dies, the body rises in a transfigured form for bliss or for punishment, whichever we ourselves choose. Punishment, Caesar — loss, darkness, emptiness filled with pain greater than the pain of fire for ever and ever. Not even an emperor is exempt from the logic of his own acts. As a man sows And he bent to a different ,ewing. Nero felt himself to be dismissed. He said:

       'And the first step to the faith?'

       'Baptism, Caesar. The washing away of past sins.'

       'Washing?'

       'In water, water transfigured into a sign of redemption.'

       'Ordinary water?'

       The old man who had been stitching canvas looked uncomfortable. Nero nodded, put on his wig, sketched a kind of confused imperial blessing, then left. He walked rather shakily towards the Imperial Forum, his cloaked guards before and behind. An old woman in a shawl turned and grinned at him. It was Agrippina with blackened teeth, her hair scorched, back from that place. Hell. And then it was not. There was no need for his mother to come back in brief visitations from the outer blackness. Nor Britannicus. Nor Octavia. Nor all the others whose names he had forgotten. The vision of fiery emptiness was probably enough. Stain the illimitable candour of eternal beauty or goodness or whatever it was with splashes of crimson. The pure white screams aloud in pure white pain.