Great Lion of God

by Taylor Caldwell

  It was into this world, thought Aristo with unusual sorrow, that this Jewish Hector had been born, all passion but no baseness, all honor but no malevolence, all duty—alas—but no frivolity. The world would not love him, therefore the gods must, and that is more dangerous.

  “The figs are very ripe and sweet, Aristo,” said Saul, noticing, with that sharp clarity of eye for which he was distinguished, the mournful expression on his tutor’s antic face. “Eat this, which is the largest and is covered with its own honey.” He put the fig into Aristo’s fingers, and Aristo ate it abstractedly.

  “Pigs,” said a laughing voice near them as they ate under the striped awnings. They looked up to see the young girl who had stood on the bridge. She smiled at them teasingly and threw back the mass of her golden hair, in which the sunlight danced. Her eyes, almost as golden, mocked their male gorging of the fruit. Her exceedingly pretty face, fair as a lily, and as translucent, was rosy from the heat of the day, and her pert nose was burned. Her eyes were hardly less golden than her hair and her pretty mouth was always smiling, or, if a grave thought flitted across her mind, the expression of her lips might change to seriousness, which, however, appeared to be instantly about to depart. A year younger than her brother, Saul, and only thirteen, she was taller and her breasts were delicately nubile under the thin stuff of her short green tunic. While Saul was as restless as a young bull, Sephorah was as restless as a flower in a summer breeze.

  She was already espoused to her cousin, Ezekiel, in Jerusalem, and would marry him on her fourteenth birthday, for she had reached puberty six months ago.

  “That tunic,” said Saul, “is lewd and shameless, for one of your age, an espoused woman, a modest Jewish maiden.”

  The girl glanced down at her long fair legs below the hem of the tunic. “Bah,” she said. “Who is concerned with modesty in this garden? The day is hot, too hot even for a chiton.” Her legs gleamed like marble touched by the sun. She bounced under the awning and seized a citron and tore off its skin and sank her white teeth into the pulp. Her merry eyes surveyed them. The juice of the fruit ran down her chin and she licked at it with her red tongue.

  “I am thinking of not marrying Ezekiel,” she said, and thrust her hand again between Aristo and Saul and took a plum. She pretended to study it. Her Greek accent was pure and sweet, for Aristo had taught her, himself, whereas her father had taught her Aramaic, and enough Hebrew as was prudent to teach a girl.

  It was only when looking at Sephorah that Saul’s eyes lost their metallic gleam and became almost soft. But he spoke disapprovingly. “It is not fitting for a maiden your age to display herself in a boy’s tunic. Where is our mother, that she permits this?”

  “It is not a boy’s tunic,” said Sephorah. “It is mine, of a year ago. My legs became longer.” She spat out the seed of the plum. Her feet moved to inaudible music. “I think I am really a nymph,” she said.

  While Saul had been taught much of the Greek gods by Aristo, during their classical studies, he did not consider it proper that his sister should know of their lascivious beauty and their adulteries, and so he gave Aristo a glance of umbrage. But Aristo was studying the pretty girl—child with pleasure.

  “I think so also,” he replied.

  “Shameless,” said Saul. “Your knees have been bitten by mosquitoes, unbecoming for a girl. They are also dirty. Have you been crawling in mud, my sister?”

  “Do I ask you where you go so secretly in the mornings, when it is hardly dawn?” asked the maiden, reaching for a bunch of grapes.

  Saul, to Aristo’s surprise, colored deeply, and even his pink ears turned red. Sephorah laughed at him. “It must be to visit a girl, a shepherdess, perhaps, or a goose girl, or a herder of goats,” she said. She shook a finger at him, a slender finger running with juices. “Shameless, indeed. You steal from the house when it is hardly light, and only I see you and put my pillow over my face to muffle my laughter. What damsel is it, sweet brother?”

  Aristo studied his pupil with amusement, for Saul’s coloring was deepening moment by moment and his face seemed to be swelling. The Greek took pity on him. Saul was incapable of lying, and a question would be answered by the truth and it was obvious that he was dreading such a question. So Aristo said, “It is quite common for a youth Saul’s age, full of dreams and fantasies and strange longings, to go out to view the dawn alone, and to meditate.”

  Sephorah, herself, thought this was probably true of her brother, but she continued to tease him. “One morning I shall surely follow you,” she said, “and discover the dryad in the bulrushes.”

  “You are thinking of Moses,” said Saul, and his voice was a little thick. “And cease this talk of dryads and nymphs, and wash yourself and array yourself more modestly.”

  “Old man,” said Sephorah and ran off, singing, her white legs flashing in the sun.

  “A divine maiden,” said Aristo. “A veritable Atalanta.”

  Saul shrugged. “She is but a chit,” he said. “She has a tongue like an asp.”

  They sat in silence, aware of what had not been said, and when they looked at each other again it was as if they had made a compact between them, a compact of honor, Saul smiled. “I love her dearly,” he said, “though she has no mind and is only a girl.”

  They heard Sephorah’s airy singing near the pond, a blithe light song that was no prayer of invocation but came from her child’s heart and her joy in Me. Nevertheless, Aristo was taken by melancholy, as if a precious interlude was coming to an end and would never be known in just this fashion again. He imagined that a beautiful statue had turned and had shown another face, and it was a more somber one.

  The distant mountains were already wearing thin rings of snow and now, as the sun sank the wind freshened and the awnings bellied like sails. Saul, almost under his breath, began to chant that mournful and sorrowful song which Aristo knew presaged the coming Jewish High Holidays, and the solemn Day of Atonement when Jews repent their sins, ask for forgiveness and promise penance. Aristo thought, “Their Deity is their own, and thank the gods that they keep Him!”

  Saul’s faint chanting suddenly seemed ominous to the Greek. He did not speak when Saul rose and, with bent head, returned to the house. Aristo watched him go, and something dusky and premonitory but unknowable passed like a harsh wing over his mind. To him, it was an omen.

  Saul had become disconcertingly aware he had truly reached manhood a few months before this autumn day in the garden, which was two months before his fifteenth birthday.

  As the Jews had an earthy and realistic approach to life—though greatly employing symbols they almost never used euphemisms as men allegedly used fig leaves—Saul had been duly taught the uses, meanings and duties inherent in sexuality from the earliest childhood. His father would have used a more delicate approach than did old Reb Isaac, who thought Hillel’s demurrings on the subject not only ridiculous but incredible. “God made us as we are,” Reb Isaac had said, staring at Hillel as if he suspected him of heresy at the very least. “We are naturally endowed with appetites, which must be controlled if we are to attain civilized manhood and walk proudly as Jews. Are we Romans or Greeks? Are we Epicureans? No, thank God, blessed be His Name! It has been said that men have been given lusts in order to conquer them, and thus become more than animals who obey all their lusts. How, then, can we know these things until we first acknowledge the lusts in honesty and understanding, and then modify and use them in the service of God and man?”

  “We Pharisees,” said Hillel, “know the Holy Commandments concerning all things, including adultery. We do not condone nor suffer violations. Therefore, we have taught modesty as well as restraint.”

  Reb Isaac’s black stare had ironically widened. “You younger Pharisees, it would appear, do not know the essence of the Law! Tell me, Hillel ben Borush, would you say only to your son, ‘It is not wise to caress or kiss a woman?’ The boy would become confused and uncertain. But if you say to him, ‘You shall not enter and lie wi
th a woman when it is not permitted,’ he will know of a certainty what you mean, for children are not so pure and innocent as you would seem to suspect. They have instincts, and some of their instincts are stronger than men’s.” The old man smiled what Hillel thought was a diabolical smile but in truth was only an amused one. “We do not condemn fornication, my son, though we do not advocate it! It is adultery which is the crime. Let us be men and not coy women.”

  Hillel, as Reb Isaac suspected, used daintier language than advocated when he spoke to Saul of “the duties of pious men.” Saul had then been but six years of age. He had studied his father in dutiful and respectful silence. Only his high color became higher. He had seen the mating of swans and goats and birds and small chattering animals and had thought nothing immodest about the matter. But Hillel’s hesitant approach, his open and gentle embarrassment, his pained slight smile, had not only astonished the boy but had made him embarrassed in turn, and wondering. He already knew that men mate as do the beasts, but less openly. He had not considered that his sister had been delivered by some thaumaturgy or the visitation of an angel. He was already studying the Scriptures ably.

  Then the astute Reb Isaac approached the subject with bluntness. We are warned to beware of the strange woman, in the Scriptures,” he said, “for it is said that she is the gate to hell. Stolen waters are sweet and bread eaten in secret appears to be more delightful than honest bread. If a strange woman diverts a man from his duty as a man, then she has destroyed him. Hark to my words, my son: A woman is far more powerful in all ways than a man, for all she does not possess muscles of any notable size.” He then became more explicit, in an effort to overcome what he discerned was the boy’s shamefacedness, due to poor Hillel’s stammering and circumlocution. In consequence of this determinedly brutal approach—and Saul’s own barely stifled contempt for his mother’s pretensions and airs and graces—and Hillel’s awkward sheepishness, Saul early acquired not only a strong suspicion of women but a far more rigid attitude toward them than even Reb Isaac could have desired. He never fully recovered from his belief that there was something intrinsically vile about the relationship between a man and a woman, and that even the propagation of the race—created to praise God—did not entirely condone it. Before he was fourteen he had almost concluded that God had been in error in inventing such a process, and that one more befitting the dignity of man ought to have occurred to the King of the Universe. Reb Isaac, never a teacher who avoided the truth, admitted that the pleasure of cohabitation was the greatest of human enjoyments, and Saul, for an instant, thought the old man obscene. Understanding this at once, from his pupil’s wincing expression, Reb Isaac had said, “It is said by our wise men that it is often fitting that even those pleasures which are permitted should be denied. But that is in the singular and entire service to God. My son, the Holy One has not created filth and evil. These come from the mind and soul of man, for has not Solomon said that man is wicked from his birth and evil from his youth, and that man’s heart is deceitful from his childhood? God, blessed be His Name, sanctified the union between men and women, and could He have done so if it were repulsive and against our nobler instincts? It is only man who has rendered the holy unholy, the pure impure, the endearing the disgusting, the joyful prurient. What God has given us must be honored, respected and enjoyed, but in moderation and in trust, and never immoderately or lewdly. When a man lies with his wife it is only one of his appetites, just as hunger and thirst are appetites. All used in excess is not to be forgiven lightly.”

  Saul said, “Yes, Rabbi.” Then he added, “I shall devote my life to the service of God.”

  Reb Isaac understood immediately, and he was disquieted. He said, “You are your father’s only son, and you will say Kaddish for him. A man who dies without a son to perform this holy duty is thought unfortunate.”

  Saul repeated, “Yes, Rabbi.” But the deep and obstinate Pharisee spirit of him made its own resolution.

  He was accustomed to rising before the sun now to make his way in the first pale and uncertain light to the small school of Reb Isaac, nearer the city. On reaching the bare and austere room he would be the first to greet his teacher, and they would have a brief and private prayer together. Reb Isaac had already decided that Saul had peculiar and mighty gifts of the spirit, and so while he was kind to the youth he was far sterner, more given to admonitions and censure and warnings and counsels, than he was to his other students in the Scriptures and in the life of the pious Pharisee. Saul was a rare soul; he was a vessel permitted to hold the Grace of God—if taught strenuously and led wisely. If Reb Isaac had any fears it was that he might not be wise enough and nimble enough and prayerful enough to guide this soul as it must be guided, and so Saul was often the anguished object of his deepest prayers.

  Saul was not given to boyish pranks as the other pupils were given, nor did he laugh and eat with gusto, nor was there any mischief in his eyes. He studied even when it was not demanded of him, much to the hilarity and taunts of the other boys. His humor was dry and caustic, and sometimes unkind though not intentionally so, and he had a brusque way of speaking which did not endear him to his companions. Some of them were sons of Sadducees, who were not entirely worldly and Hellenistic, and a few were the sons of Pharisees. The latter youths had, several of them, already decided that indeed they would depart from the ways of their tiresome fathers when they would be far enough in distance from the lash and the angry voice and the stringencies of parental purses.

  Though robust and muscular, Saul did not engage in the roistering of the other boys when relieved of the bench and the pen and the endless books. But his appearance was formidable and so he was not attacked even when considered the most provoking. However, he was derisively called “Red Hair,” and his bowed legs were discussed loudly in his presence. He felt no animosity or hostility toward his mates. His attitude was of indifference, and this they could not endure, and so they taunted him. He thought them vain and weak and superficial, and often pitied Reb Isaac for being their teacher. They had no true reverence for the Word of God, no deep piety. They were careless. Therefore, he, Saul, should avoid them, lest be, too, should be drawn into the pit.

  Reb Isaac often wondered if such an attitude was entirely compassionate. (It is true, he would say to himself, that compassion could become mawkish and sentimental, and therefore a disservice to God and man.) He had observed that Saul was gentle, even tender, with the old man’s grandchildren, who were very young, and so Reb Isaac was frequently perplexed. He could not reconcile such gentleness with such total indifference to one’s peers. Sometimes the old man thought that Saul was far deeper than even he guessed, and he humbly hoped that the Almighty knew what He was doing. Yet, he often wondered how the son of Hillel ben Borush and Deborah bas Shebua—both charming and touching in their fashions—could be so obdurate even against innocent folly and lightheartedness, and how he had acquired his mysterious character and devotion. Reb Isaac believed that environment conditioned the nature of man, as the Greeks averred, but now he sometimes doubted. What ancestral seed had sprouted his life?

  Saul was of the Tribe of Benjamin. Reb Isaac pored over the history of that tribe to try to find an instance of rigidity of conscience—beyond the desiring of God—or perhaps a prophet who had met a severe execution for his expressed opinions, which had exasperated contemporaries. So far the rabbi had been unsuccessful. So Saul remained a mystery to him. Reb Isaac respected mysteries. They indicated the Finger of God. Still he said to Saul one day: “It is fitting that you devote your life to the Holy One, the Lord God of Hosts, my son, if that is your destiny and your desire. But you are young. God has not forbidden the young to enjoy simple pleasures and innocent gratifications, nor the society of friends.”

  This, however, did not seem to stir Saul. He said, “I often laugh, Rabbi. I find many things amusing. But there are things which do not touch my sensibilities nor arouse me to laughter. Must I, then, laugh, merely to be agreeable? Is the approb
ation of trivial people to be desired?” His energetic face expressed his passionate scorn.

  Aristo the Greek would have been surprised to hear Reb Isaac’s reply, heavily laden with depression, “You will be a wise son in Israel, Saul.” The words would have been no novelty to the Greek, but the melancholy would have amazed him, for he thought the rabbi wholly contentious and fanatical.

  On the morning that Saul woke to the full knowledge of his manhood, the warm spring sky was still dark. He felt restless even more than his customary restlessness. He rose from his bed in his small cubiculum and then stood immobile, wondering what had aroused him so keenly. He was acutely aware of his young strong body, of the muscles in his belly and his arms and legs and shoulders. They had tensed as if about to leap. Then he put on his sandals and his tunic and threw his light cloak over his shoulders. He went outside into the dark and silent garden, feeling the dew on his feet. Nothing moved, but now he smelled the furious and urgent fragrance of grass and tree and flower. He bathed his hands and face in the fountain and he did so slowly, feeling a new voluptuousness in life. He looked to the east. A dim crown of crimson fire was brightening there but the sun was far from rising; a gray shadow outlined the crown and silently spread upwards. Saul ran his hands absently but with a kind of fierceness through his hair. The strands crackled with energy. He smiled. A thrill of intense rapture ran through his flesh and he shivered with the delight of it. He began to walk in leisure toward Tarsus, content, for once, merely to feel and not to think.

  None had deprived him of joy in his youth nor treated him harshly, nor had condemned innocent joys to him, nor had darkened his days. Yet from infanthood he had been vehement and somber, passionate and uncompromising, disputatious and challenging except with Reb Isaac. However, on occasion, he had ventured an opinion or two in contradiction, but when faced with absolute Scripture and the Law and the Book he had retreated not in confusion but with dignified humility. The chidings he had received from his father who spoke so gently were not concerned with small sins or mischief, but with his firm addiction to study at the expense of surveying the world of grandeur and beauty and terrible loveliness. Deborah complained to him that he was no child, and then no youth. “You were a graybeard from your cradle,” she would say with her girlish petulance. “You will regret the years of joy which you have wasted, my son.”