Great Lion of God

by Taylor Caldwell

  His own eyes, so big and dark and liquid, beamed on Saul with affection, and again Saul was baffled at the kindness to him of this good and renowned man. Saul could not see himself as Joseph saw him—a young man of ardent if somber passions, with an ascetic face strong with square and angular bones, and with eyes that appeared to glow with visions.

  There were many who considered Saul formidable, and ruthless with slow men, and arrogant with knowledge, and impatient beyond toleration, but Joseph knew him as a young man with destiny large in his blue eyes, even in the eye that drooped and reddened at too much light. Saul had many imperfections; he was unable to endure fools gladly, as Solomon had suggested, and he had no patience for weakness and fragility of character and compliance and that effeminate gentleness which many of the Sadducees and the Scribes cultivated, as part of their civilized lives. (“We are kind,” they appeared to be insisting on all occasions, in rebuke to others they considered ungentle. But Joseph remembered what a sage had said: “Strange it is that those who wish all men to be kind are themselves incapable of kindness.”)

  In Joseph’s estimation—and he was a man who knew men—Saul’s manifest virtues, some of them extreme, overlaid his imperfections as a fine and brilliant glaze overlaid the base coarseness of pottery. They were not virtues which would endear him to many but rather aroused their contempt, their hatred, their uneasiness and their hostility. He was incapable of the gentlest of hypocrisies or the slightest of deviousnesses, and he spoke bluntly and roughly and offended many—often to his own bewilderment for he still retained some of his younger delusion that men preferred truth to lies and candor to guile.

  They drove away in the cauldron of yellow light which was now full morning, and the heat beat at them like heated rods through their garments.

  Saul was not a stranger to deserts and lifeless places, but now, as the wheels turned rapidly farther in the direction of Damascus he was stunned, not only by the heat but by the complete and barren desolation which lay all about him, empty of all life even the most I hardy, except for thistles, treeless, raging with incredible and blinding light, the hills beyond a pure stony brass, the ground below saffron and thick with dust and boulders and gravel and flat as a man’s palm, the sky a stark and staring blue too intense for more than a quick glance, and cloudless, the sun an enormous hole of flame approaching the zenith, and here and there, where little spring rills had run, straggles of dry amber crawling over the stricken earth. Vultures, black and silent and sharp as ink, soared against the sky, seeking and bending and wheeling. Occasionally, scattered caves appeared, trembling in waves of heat, their openings like great dry mouths dead of thirst, and gaping. There was no waterhole visible anywhere, no green oasis in this landscape of Gehenna. Once Saul thought he saw the lurking shape of a jackal casting a clear shadow on the parched and blighted ground, but as jackals were the color of the landscape, itself, it was impossible to be certain.

  Saul had often pondered on the thought that he would like to retreat to the desert for a space, to this immense and lifeless silence, this incandescent light. But as he looked about him now he confessed that he could not understand why even the most dedicated and fervid Essene or Zealot should choose a place which could only resemble hell. It was said that these men could find locusts and wild honey when necessary, and water, but Saul saw no spot where these could be obtained. They were far from the city, and yet they penetrated more and more into the wilderness, and Saul guessed, by the sureness of the Nubian’s driving of the black stallions, that this was no new territory to him and that he was familiar with it. His massive earrings cast golden shadows on his polished ebony cheeks, and he was gazing about him with indifferent pride. Saul began to be more than grateful for the umbrella raised over his and Joseph’s head by the servant who sat between them.

  Joseph lifted his hand and pointed toward the hills and Saul saw below them, dancing in heat-waves, a cluster of low caves, just beginning to climb the lower flank of the nearest hill. “Our destination,” I said Joseph.

  In that air, as clear as molten glass, the caves appeared to be much nearer than they truly were, and Saul was beginning to suffer from heat and thirst long before the yellowish stone of the caves reluctantly approached them across the barrens. Suddenly the tiny figure of a man appeared on the top of the lowest cave—or cavern—and he seemed as black and intensely sharp as a vulture against the sky. He waved an infinitesimal hand in greeting, then stood there, a wild and bearded little figure, watching them. After a while he was joined by similar figures, and there was a shagginess about them which suggested fur garments about their loins. They wore no cloaks nor hoods to shelter them from the sun and the heat, and as the car raced closer to the caves Saul could see their faces, almost as black as the Nubian’s, and thick with beards. Their arms and hands and legs were dark and thin but muscular, and now they leaped as lightly as goats to the ground and their voices could be heard, vivid yet fragile as flutes: “Shalom! Shalom!”

  Joseph was smiling in the shadow of his hood. He made a trumpet of his hands and called a greeting in return to those who awaited him. They were growing in number. Now there were at least fifty, then more, then more, and then more than one hundred. They seemed to leap not only from the caves but from the earth itself, and the sun struck gleams from their eyes and from their teeth. From their actions, their gestures, their movements, Saul could see that they were young, and that some were hardly more than boys who had just reached early youth, for these had small or no beards. He felt his own sweating chin. He wore no beard, himself, for his skin was so fair that a beard irritated it beyond sufferance, and induced sores, and Rabban Gamaliel had said: “God desires us to love and to serve Him, but not to endure unnecessary pain in that service, for that is vainglorious. And did not Lucian, the Greek, say that if beards were necessary for wisdom a goat would be a veritable Plato?”

  Some of the younger of the desert dwellers could not restrain their joy and enthusiasm at seeing their friend, Joseph of Arimathaea, and came running toward the car, raising fiery clouds of yellow dust in their wake. Saul glanced at the provisions Joseph had brought: Leather bottles of wine, wheels of cheese, wheaten and oaten bread, fruit, and vessels of artichokes in vinegar and garlic, and kegs of beer and closely wrapped bottles of sound Syrian whiskey. There were baskets of onions, also, and citrons, very pungent in the heat, and heaps of dates and figs and boxes of pastries and jars of rendered fat and dried meats. There were small leather pouches which Saul more than suspected contained respectable amounts of Roman gold sesterces and drachmas. There were also many books, tied with rope, and blankets and pottery and cutlery. In truth, the huge car was so provisioned that there was barely room for the four riders in it.

  The young men had now reached the car and were shouting and laughing and calling like children, and grinning at Joseph and casting curious looks at Saul. They leaped and they danced, and clapped their hands, and Saul, who had expected gloomy recluses with stem and remote faces, thought that he had never seen so merry a gathering, and so joyous. They shouted inquiries of Joseph. They asked of his family and his and their friends. They uttered laughing oaths at the mention of the priests in the Temple. Some, in their exuberance, engaged in little running wrestling matches. Their feet were bare and sinewy and almost black, or, at the most, they wore rope sandals. They might be as lean as bone and their flesh like hard strings and sinews, but their eyes shone with clear delight in living, and glowing passion.

  The Nubian watched all this with the indulgence of a man several years older than these dark and dusty youths and even deigned to smile occasionally and flicked elegantly at his silken turban of many colors and shrugged his golden necklace about his long and serpentine neck. He was a barbarian emperor in the midst of his wild and almost naked servants, and he bestowed a very white smile upon them and urged them to watch the horses’ hoofs, which only made them dance the merrier into dangerous proximity. The air was clamorous with their young voices. They sang. Th
ey guided the Nubian to a place behind the nearest caves, and here, to Saul’s amazement, the shadow cast by the caves was almost cool, and purplish, and in its midst was a bubbling spring. He thought: “The shadow of a great Rock in a weary land,” and understood completely, for the first time, the full meaning of the phrase in the Scriptures.

  Now a man rounded the side of the sheltering cave, an older man of some thirty years, broad of shoulder and tall and incredibly emaciated, but giving the impression of immense vitality and indomitable strength and authority. His beard was black and thick and curly, his nose sharply and thinly beaked and predatory, his mouth faintly smiling, his black eyes large and shining under shaggy black brows. When the youths saw him they fell back in respect, and he held up his arms to Joseph and almost lifted him from the car. The two then embraced and kissed each other. Joseph, as usual, was finely clad, but the man he held so tenderly was nearly nude with a goat-skin about his loins, and his burned skin glistened with sweat. They held each other off and gazed into each other’s eyes, and smiled, and embraced again, and murmured the holiest of greetings, concluding with a passionate, “Hear, O Israel! The Lord our God, the Lord is One!”

  Then holding his friend’s hand tightly, Joseph turned to Saul who had stiffly alighted from the car and had thrown back his hood to catch the coolness of this place.

  “Jochanan, my brother, my friend, I have brought him of whom I have written, Saul of Tarshish, who chooses, like us, rather to obey God than man, and to serve Him.”

  Saul looked directly into the countenance of Jochanan, who had been greeted as a brother by Joseph of Arimathaea, and as the dearest of friends, and he discerned, with a kind of shrinking awe, the pure and terrible holiness of .those great black eyes, which seemed to force their gaze into his heart to discover all that lay there, and to pass inexorable judgment. It was like facing the blaze of the sun, from which nothing can escape. Saul felt himself mute and small and miserable and uncomely and without significance, and an intruder.

  Then Jochanan set his long hands on Saul’s shoulders and smiled down at him with a fearful scrutiny, and then his brows drew together, then relaxed, and he said in a most gentle, almost compassionate voice, “Shalom. Greetings to the friend of my friend, Joseph of Arimathaea, and may Our Father, blessed be His Name, grant to you all that He desires to grant. Welcome, Saul of Tarshish!”

  As if some intense moment and climactic had arrived and then had passed in safety and peace, the youths, at a distance, raised a happy cry of jubilation, and Joseph smiled as though in relief. And Saul, who was bemused and bewildered, felt a loosening in him and the banishment of the fear he had momentarily experienced, and which could not be explained.

  Some of the younger and chattering boys were capering away with the provisions, which they carried to the cave where they stored their few goods and their meager possessions. Jochanan put one arm about Saul’s shoulders and the other about Joseph’s, and led them to another cave where the dimness was welcome after the conflagration outside, and where there was a coolness as if the earth were breathing through some crevice. In truth, Saul felt the light chill breath and sighed with pleasure. The cave was large and furnished with a pallet on the earthen floor, a low wooden table, and two benches. The floor bore scattered black and white hides of goats, and in one corner was a heap of scrolls. There was nothing else. The two guests sat down and Jochanan said—and Saul heard the deep and rapid timbre of his manly voice—“Thanks to you again, Joseph, we shall have a feast!”

  “You have but to say the word, Jochanan, and every seven days such ‘feasts’ will arrive without fail.”

  Jochanan shook his powerful head. But he smiled. “My young friends would then grow fat and long for the flesh-pots, and there would be few else to praise His Name and keep pure His Commandments, and speak of the Messias.” His mighty knees gleamed darkly in the spectral light of the cave and his chest was like leather armor, and black with thick hair. He looked with kindness at Saul and said, “Though you do not know me, I know you, Saul of Tarshish.” He paused. “Joseph has written often of you.” But Saul felt that he was speaking with constraint and not saying all he could say.

  Two youths with lively faces brought in plain pottery plates and a platter heaped with the cheese and bread and fruit and meat which Joseph had brought, and earthen goblets foaming with beer and a bottle of wine. Saul discovered that he was hungry, but Jochanan ate sparely as did Joseph, and the two friends spoke together in quiet grave voices of things mysterious to Saul. Nevertheless, they were words of import.

  “I leave, before the full moon,” said Jochanan. “Therefore, we do not meet again, Joseph, for some time.”

  “You have received the summons?”

  “True.”

  Even in the dimness Saul could see the sudden sadness of Joseph’s face. He heard him sigh.

  “The drama, then, begins,” said Joseph. He clasped his hands together on the table and contemplated them.

  “And never ends,” said Jochanan. “Come, dear friend. Would you have it otherwise?”

  Joseph was silent for a space. Finally he spoke, still contemplating his hands: “We cannot avoid, even by prayer, what has been ordained from eternity. Of a certainty, we should rejoice that we have been permitted to know this hour. Still, as mortal man, I am filled with sorrow and with pain. I would die one thousand times, ten thousand times over, to spare him one pang. I would lay my body before his feet, for the trampling, and call myself blessed. I would be flayed alive, for his sake, and rejoice. But that is not my destiny.”

  Jochanan touched the clasped hands quickly. “No, it is not your destiny. You have another. But rejoice with me that I have finally received the summons, and must go.”

  To Saul’s amazement, Joseph’s eyes filled with tears and he bowed his head. Of what man were they speaking? What prophet unknown to him, what holy man? If they knew of such, why was not he, Saul ben Hillel, permitted to sit at his feet?

  As if Joseph had heard these questions, he lifted his bent head and strove to smile at Saul. “Forgive us, that we seemingly speak in riddles, my Saul. We cannot tell you as yet. but in His time God will enlighten you. That, Jochanan has told me.”

  Saul’s red brows drew together and he could not refrain from saying, “We have met but today! He knows me not!”

  “Ah,” said Jochanan, “God, blessed be His Name, has told me many things. Do not be impatient, my son.” His puissant face darkened for a moment. “How He will call you I do not know, though I know He will. Do not turn aside when you hear His voice.”

  Saul frowned again. He felt himself diminished to the state of a schoolboy, for all he was twenty-five years of age and this wild man—with the rude accent of the province of Galilee—was hardly more than five years older.

  He said, “I am not without friends. My cousin’s husband is the Roman officer, Aulus Platonius, and his son is Titus Milo a Praetorian captain in Rome, and I am a Roman citizen versed in Roman law, and my grandfather is the friend of Herod Antipas and Pontius Pilate, and if there is some Jew who is in danger or pursued or under sentence of death, it is possible that I could plead for him.”

  He had no sooner said these words than he colored with shame of himself, though his boasting had been innocent and he had felt himself offended.

  The older men regarded him gently. Then Jochanan said, “There is none who can save him, for he has chosen this for himself.”

  Saul remembered how Joseph of Arimathaea had saved many from the dreadful death on the cross nearly ten years before, and had preserved others from suffering. So his harsh anger—at both himself and the others—disappeared. But it was replaced by discomfiture. He drank more wine. Suddenly, he remembered the dream of the nameless peasant who had perished on the cross also, and whose dying body had become encased as if in the shell of a seed and had dropped into the earth, and had given birth to a limitless harvest. Saul’s face changed.

  “Yes?” said Jochanan, in a quick and urgent voic
e.

  Saul stared at him in open surprise. “I was but remembering a dream,” he said.

  “It was a dream that preceded an almost mortal illness of mine, and which left me with this half-closed and sunken eye.”

  “Tell me,” said Jochanan.

  Saul told himself that this was absurd. Why should Jochanan, and Joseph, also, be so intent on him now, demanding that he speak of a dream he had had so long ago, and which was only the precursor of a fever? Or the result of it? He smiled in embarrassment, but the two men kept their gaze upon him, commanding.

  Thereupon he told them, watching for amused smiles, for shrugs, for answering embarrassment, even for a laugh. But their faces became more intent and grave, and they began to exchange glances and leaned closer to him, and they seemed hardly to breathe.

  “I was sickening,” said Saul. “I had seen the execution of fifty young Jews by the Romans. There was death and agony in my heart. I was also chilled by the storm and wetted by the rain that followed. I could not free myself from the memory of the poor workingman— though he was none of importance—who had walked among the crosses and had appeared to lighten the suffering of the dying. Joseph saw him, also.” He glanced at Joseph who nodded speechlessly.

  Saul continued: “I had seen him once before, during the High Holy Days, with one he addressed as his mother. She called him Yeshua. His face haunted me. I do not know why. He was poor and humble.’ Why I should dream that he, too, had been executed, had fallen into the earth—” Saul became silent.

  There was silence all about him. He looked up to see the moved faces of the older men and now even Jochanan’s eyes were wet with tears. Joseph made an impulsive gesture, but Jochanan laid his hand on his wrist, as if in warning.