Great Lion of God

by Taylor Caldwell

  The air had turned nimble again and became, as sunset approached, wine-gold and scarlet. An amber light lay on the crowded and mounting levels of Jerusalem, and gilded the tops of pine, palm and cypress, and a trumpet sounded from the heights of the Temple, warning the people that sunset and prayer were almost at hand. The sound, to Hillel in his despair, was both triumphant and lost. The gilded litter of Shebua ben Abraham, carried by six Nubian slaves magnificently garbed, climbed and descended through the teeming streets and past high walls. Hillel had drawn the curtains of the litter so that he could survey the throngs of his people and pray for them in silence.

  On entering the atrium of Shebua’s house Hillel encountered his son, Saul, who was wrapped closely in his dingy cloak, as if cold. Hillel put his hand on Saul’s arm and looked into his face and saw the pale bemused expression. He said to him, “My son, it is my desire that you accompany me into the presence of your grandfather, for I have direful news to relate and I need the comfort of you at my hand.”

  Saul said, as if he had not heard, “I fear I am becoming mad. One night, in this house, while in my cubiculum, I heard a man’s great voice call me, and today, in the marketplace, I heard the same commanding voice.”

  Hillel considered him acutely. “And it frightened you?”

  Saul hesitated. He drew his cloak closer about him. “I do not know,” he pondered. “I am filled with both fear and exaltation. But it was only a delusion.”

  Hillel shook his head. “Who can say?” he murmured. Then he took firmer hold on his son’s arm. “Come with me,” The overseer of the hall entered the atrium and Hillel requested him to ask Shebua to see his son-in-law and grandson. While they waited the atrium became darker, and they stood in silence.

  The overseer returned to inform them that his lord, Shebua ben Abraham, had just emerged from the baths and was now in his chamber, preparing to dine with the noble Procurator, Pontius Pilate, and King Herod Antipas. He could grant Hillel but a few moments. Hillel’s pale mouth trembled with renewed wrath. He kept his hold on Saul and followed the overseer to Shebua’s chambers, which were luxurious and warmly scented. Shebua was seated in an ebony chair near a small lemonwood table, and his concubine, Asa, the beautiful and serpentine Nubian girl, was polishing his finger—and toenails and perfuming his hands. He wore his usual air of negligent elegance and lay back in his chair as if exhausted. He was arrayed in a tunic of fine silvery cloth and his toga lay on a chair, shimmering as if dipped in moonlight, and his sandals, inlaid with gems, awaited him. His ambiguous glance warned Hillel that he was still unpardoned for his past words, and discreetly disliked.

  “Ah, Hillel, and my grandson, Saul,” he said in his mellifluous voice. “I regret that I must leave you soon, and can give you but a little time.” His pale eyes surveyed them with glacial indifference. His light hair was polished with unguents. Hillel’s nose distended with dim disgust. Shebua did not urge him and Saul to seat themselves, and so they stood, though Saul first went to his grandfather and gave him a dutiful kiss on the cheek, at which Shebua smiled graciously. As twilight was now rapidly approaching Asa drew the silken draperies across the window and lighted two tinted lamps, whose bases were of rosy alabaster. Hillel hid his mortification at being forced to stand like a servant before his lord.

  Hillel began to speak, and as he did so he watched both Shebua and Saul. He spoke concisely, trying to conceal his agony, and as he spoke Shebua’s face subtly changed, became rigid and distant and haughty. But Saul showed his overwhelming distress and anguish. Finally Hillel had done, but he and Saul gazed intently at Shebua.

  Shebua held out his slender arms to Asa, and she reverently clasped the gemmed armlets on them, and put rings upon his fingers. Then she stood beside the chair which held the toga, the ivory instrument of arrangement in her black hand. Her eyes were limpid and without I interest. She might have been a statue, obediently waiting.

  Shebua examined one of his rings. “A dolorous affair,” he said. He shook his head. “Why will they not learn? Or, do they delight in violence and disturbance?”

  He turned his head and regarded Hillel with calm and amused malignance. “I assume that you have come to me with this sorry tale ask my intervention with Pilate and Herod?”

  “True,” said Hillel. He added, “In behalf of your people.”

  Shebua said, “All people are my people, Hillel ben Borush. I am not a provincial, as I have observed to you before. I am one with all men, and there is no division. If criminals resort to illegal violence and murder, then I am against them, for I believe in law and order and rightful obedience, and resignation to what is.”

  Resignation to intolerable oppression and exploitation and taxation and cruel tyranny?”

  “Ah, you use the words of violence yourself, Hillel, and I deplore this. I thought you a more temperate man. What is it you wish me to do? Debase myself before Pilate and Herod like a mean little rabbi from the Provinces, whimpering for mercy? These men are my friends; they know my temper; they understand that I regret and denounce useless rebellion as much as they do. They know I am a civilized . man. They know these wretches are nothing to me, though they call themselves Jews.”

  Hillel thought he would die on the spot with his suffering and his anger and hatred. He put his trembling hand to his throat. “Shebua ben Abraham,” he said, “deceive yourself though you will: These are your people, your kinsmen. You have none else. Would a Roman be indifferent to the torments of Romans, or even a Greek? No! Aulus Platonius has told me that he would die for Rome and his people, however useless the struggle. He is a man of honor and pride and loves his country.”

  “And I do not?” said Shebua ben Abraham. “I am not a man of honor and pride? That is your opinion. Our values, our premises, differ, Hillel ben Borush. We have argued this before, and have come to no conclusion, no agreement. I tell you, these criminals are nothing to me. They endanger their whole people, put all of Israel in jeopardy, threaten Israel with the Roman short-sword and total annihilation. Is it not better that a few die for their country than all Israel be destroyed? A Jew who loves his country will ponder on that.”

  Hillel was stricken. Then he said, “Do you think Pilate will honor you as a civilized man, that you do not ask for mercy for your people? Herod is partly Jew, partly Greek, Will he honor you for silence, for a pretense that your people are nothing to you? They will laugh at you secretly, as a pusillanimous man!”

  Shebua’s pale and slender cheeks flushed. “We shall avoid the subject tonight!” he said. “They know my opinions.”

  “You have not answered my questions,” said Hillel. “No matter. You are an adept at sophistries and evasions, Shebua ben Abraham, and I am no match for you. My cousin, the Praetorian captain, Titus Milo Platonius, suffers for Israel. Aulus Platonius, the Roman, is struck to the heart for those who are not his people. Is a Roman less, or more, than you, Shebua?”

  Shebua stood up and indicated to the Nubian girl that he wished his toga. She flung it over his shoulders. He stood tall and glimmering in the lamplight. The girl knelt before him and began to arrange the toga artfully and he became absorbed in the fall of every fold. He spoke a word or two, pettishly, to her, as if nothing was more important. He arranged the sleeve of his left arm with meticulous irritation.

  Saul regarded him with a fixed and peculiar expression, as if his young face had become stone, and his blue eyes glittered with contempt and bitterness. His hands clenched and unclenched at his sides. He felt, above his pain, the humiliation cast on his father and himself, as if they were importunate beggars which only kindness prevented from being dismissed and driven away with whips.

  Shebua then turned glaucous remote eyes on his kinsmen. “I can do nothing. I am a realist, and I know when I can do nothing. As a civilized man I cannot extend mercy to the merciless, tolerance to the intolerant. What else but mercilessness and intolerance have the violent extended to those they murdered? Were the Roman soldiers not doing their duty, in protect
ing themselves, the law, and even all of Israel? Did the violent consider their people, and the consequences to their people? They have brought disaster to many who are innocent, and caused innocent deaths. Shall I, then, plead their cause?”

  “I have told you,” said Hillel, with renewed despair. “Many of those I arrested and now facing shameful deaths were not engaged in violence, as you choose to call it. They were taken from their households.”

  “They are known malcontents,” said Shebua. “They are potential assassins, though many come of noble houses. They have not tried to support law and order, to restrain the violent. To be tacit is to agree.”

  “There are children, and maidens, and youths, among them,” said Hillel, trying to suppress his weeping. “There are wives.”

  Shebua shrugged. “It must be brought forcibly to the attention of potential inflamers that this is a warning, an act of discipline.” He flushed again. “Do you think me a man of marble and malevolence, who loves bloodshed and death? No! Do I rejoice in the thought of agony and grief and misery? No! But I know what must be done, if Israel is to survive.”

  “You care nothing for Israel,” said Hillel. “All your words are but sophistries. You care for nothing but your own household, your wealth, your position. I knew this before. I knew in my heart that I could not move you. If I had not given my word, if my dear wife had not agreed, the marriage of my daughter to your grandson would not take place, for I would not wish her allied to the house of Shebua ben Abraham, nor would I desire her to give birth to one of your blood. I have wasted my time, and time grows short. I will have recourse to worthier men, men of valor and honor and justice.”

  He turned and Saul accompanied him from the chambers. The youth gazed at his father and thought again how he had misjudged him, though with love, and woe came again to his heart.

  “Come with me,” said Hillel. “We go to the house of Joseph of Arimathaea.”

  “To the man who declared he saw the Star over Bethlehem?” asked Saul, with faint scorn.

  Hillel stopped suddenly. His face changed, became full of emotion and a light shone behind the tears in his eyes. “To Joseph of Arimathaea!” he said.

  Father and son lay in the gilded litter as it wound its way through streets glaring with red torchlight, and lamps, and through throngs of hurrying people and soldiers and mounted cavalry and camels and asses.

  Saul said, “It is wicked to denounce those of your blood, according to the Scriptures, but Shebua ben Abraham is an evil man.”

  Hillel said, “No, he is not evil. There are occasions when the evil can be touched. Shebua is a frightened man, and none can appeal to a man of fear. He is distracted. He is beyond reason. I saw fright in his eyes. I spoke to him harshly, yet I pitied him. God may forgive the evil, if they repent, but how can even angels make their voices known to a man filled with panic?”

  But Saul said, “He is an evil man.”

  Hillel sighed. “I wish he were only that. I can forgive all but cowardice.”

  “And expediency,” said Saul.

  “Are they not, at the last, the same?”

  The house of Joseph of Arimathaea was on a wide and level street, below the Mount of Olives. Behind the wrought iron gates the house stood in tranquillity and calm, the portico filled with lamps, the gardens aromatic, heavy with pine and palm and the spires of the dark cypresses. The gatekeeper opened the gates and the litter entered the red gravel path to the bronze doors. The doors opened, and Joseph of Arimathaea stood on the threshold, and then he stepped into the portico, with its white and shining columns, to welcome his guests.

  He was a tall and massive man, in his long blue tunic belted with gold, his arms bare. He was in his middle years, and beardless, and he was nearly bald. His head was large and heavy and oval, larger than the head of the average man, and the first impression of strangers was that he was ugly and without comeliness. His features were too big his mouth too ponderous, his chin corpulent, his fat ears protruding from his skull, which was polished like stone. But his eyes were dark and radiant, mystical and kind, under black brows which met totally over the bridge of his aquiline nose.

  He said, in a very sonorous voice which aroused echoes in the gardens, “Greetings to Hillel ben Borush, and his son, Saul. Welcome to this house, which knows your illustrious name!” He extended enormous and muscular hands to Hillel, then embraced and kissed his cheek. He smiled at Saul, and his smile made his face beautiful. “Shalom,” he said.

  Hillel struggled to control himself in the face of this tender and gracious greeting, and returned the embrace of his host. Joseph led them into a wide and illuminated atrium, where the overseer stood at attention, and then into another room tastefully furnished and permeated with the scent of fresh fern. Joseph clapped his hands and servants entered laden with linen and plates and cutlery.

  “I have dined,” said Hillel, “though my son has not.”

  “Come,” said Joseph, with another of his luminous smiles. “When can a man not enjoy food?” He studied the young Saul, and then a I curious glimmer touched his eyes. For some unknown reason Saul I was disturbed at that frank gaze with its overtone of mystery. Saul I did not love luxury, and this house was at least as luxurious as his grandfather’s. But it seemed to him that the luxury here was not so studied, not so pervasive. He sat in silence near his father while the servants prepared the table.

  Hillel said, “You know why I have come, Joseph of Arimathaea?”

  “Yes,” said his host. “I received the letter from my dear friend, Aulus Platonius, who is your kinsmen. But, you are weary. Let us first refresh ourselves.”

  “How is it possible, when I am so distraught?”

  Joseph said, “All things are possible with God, and He is not without mercy, blessed be His Name.”

  Hillel’s eyes filled again with tears. He said in a broken voice, “Forgive me, but my heart is afflicted. I am not usually so womanish.”

  Joseph said in a gentle voice, “When are a just man’s tears womanish? If we did not weep on occasion our hearts would be only as dead earth. And do we not have reason to grieve? Enough. Let us dine in peace, trustful in the promise of hope.”

  “What hope?” thought Saul with renewed bitterness. “What hope is there for man?”

  He slowly became aware of the peacefulness about him, in this house. Even Hillel, in his terrible distress, was soothed and partook of some wine, cold meats, vegetables in oil and vinegar, fruits and pastries. Saul, hot of heart and afflicted of mind, could not be insensible to the quietude of this house, the harmonious repose, the placid beauty. He thought to himself that Joseph’s house reflected his taste, that everything in it and about him was an extension of himself. But Shebua ben Abraham’s house did not reflect him, for there was no substance in him to reflect. His house was the creation of others’ tastes and others’ values; he, himself, could create nothing. The very soft light on the white walls of this room appeared but an emanation of Joseph of Arimathaea’s own spirit. Saul felt certitude, not the certitude that comes from faith in men but in faith beyond men, and his young cramped soul shook its crumpled leaves and reluctantly began to expand. But he remained suspicious, wary of platitudes.

  Joseph’s voice did not break the silence; it rode upon it easily. He said at last, “I have seen Pontius Pilate, who owes me much, and I have seen Herod, who owes me more. I knew of the tragedy at the Damascus Gate almost as it happened, for shall one of my people suffer without my knowing or my caring? Alas, it was a sorrowful tragedy, and I grieve for both Roman and Jew, and for all who clash arms anywhere in a conflict which is never resolved. For so long as men exist there will be war and hatred and oppression and rebellion, until—” He paused, and he gazed into space as if seeing some heroic vision yet unfulfilled.

  He resumed. “Is it better to die in a just cause which may never succeed, or to live and work in hope of its final success? This has always been the enigma which has faced man, especially in his youth. The Greeks say
it more brutally: ‘It is better to die on your feet as a man than to live on your knees as a slave.’ But merely to die, however nobly, is to remove a warrior. We cannot spare warriors.” He gave Hillel his gentle smile again but this time it was a little cryptic.

  Hillel was regarding him with painful attention.

  “Let me comfort you in a small way,” said Joseph in a compassionate tone. “There have been killings today, and Romans do not look upon killings of their soldiers with equanimity. Nor do we regard the killing of Jews with uninterest. The Romans call themselves the men of law and reason. They can understand the anger of the Jews, for they would feel as we do if Rome were occupied by an alien power and its laws enforced on her. Romans are also pragmatists—when it concerns other men’s patriotism and spirit. Who is stronger? Rome. Who, therefore, has the major right to rule, engage in trade, regulate commerce, build, change? Rome. This is not a new manner of regarding the conquered, but Rome has made of it a virtue. It is not hypocrisy. The Romans are honestly convinced that they are the civilizing and welding force in the world, and they have always dreamed of a world—government, which they believe they have brought about under the Pax Romana. Competing nations, rival empires, appear disorderly to the Romans, trivial, duplicating, self-indulgent, extravagant, expensive, without efficiency, and dangerous. If the Roman spirit could be described in one word it would be Economy, economy in thought, deed, philosophy, action.

  “Forgive me if I seem to be astray, and tardy. I wished you to understand that I comprehend the Roman, and comprehension is half the battle when engaging in controversy. For, who can hate the man he understands? He can only approach the adversary, or the friend—and it is strange how often they are the same!—with kindness and reason, and even with sympathy. This is not subtle wiliness. It comes from the heart, if it is genuine. Therefore, though I know Pilate well, and know him for a cruel and superstitious and ambitious man, I also know him as a man, of my human flesh and my human spirit, and I know he is not happier than I, not more content, not alien to my being. He shares with me all the afflictions and all the hopes and avarice of mankind, and he knows that I know this of him. As for Herod, he is a man to be pitied, the man who cannot reconcile his Jewish nature with his Greek instincts.