Great Lion of God

by Taylor Caldwell

  “Is it not written that hope deferred makes the heart sick?” asked Hillel, in the fainting voice of a dying man. “But now I no longer desire even to hope. I care no more.”

  Without even a farewell, he left his old friend. The rabbi sat in a turmoil of distressed thoughts for a considerable time. All men despair, he told himself. All men of intelligence sometimes curse the day they were born, as did Job, and long for death. Yet they endured. It is possible that Hillel ben Borush has some physical affliction which is draining his hope, unknown to himself. I must consult his friends.

  Then the rabbi suddenly remembered that Hillel’s friends had frequently complained to him that they saw Hillel with less and less frequency, and that when encountering him they were struck by his air of remoteness and uninterest. He had not been seen in the synagogue for a long time. He accepted no invitations. The leaders of the Jewish community remarked that his tithes were as prompt and as generous as always. But they did not see the man, himself, but only I his messengers. “Dear Father!” said Reb Isaac aloud, in consternation. “A man dies of his longing and his despair before one’s very eyes, land one does not see! How blind we are! It should have been plain to me, when I visited Hillel, that none was present in his house though once his friends thronged there—and his only company was that rascally Greek former slave of his—Aristo? Aristo. He is a rich man now, I have heard, and his produce moves in caravans afar, thanks to Hillel who freed and recompensed him according to the Law. I must write to him and ask his assistance.”

  It galled the proud old man that he must write to a former slave, and a Gentile, to implore his help to save a noble member of a Jewish family. But he wrote the letter at once and dispatched it by a servant, and sat and ruminated and prayed and reproached himself, then poured a goblet of wine and made grimaces as he drank it—though it was excellent—and assured himself over and over that Hillel was at heart too pious a Jew to cause his own death, and that some ill of the body was responsible, or the time of his life. By sunset some tranquillity returned to him, for he believed that men at heart were sensible and shrank from death, even the most desperate, and he enjoyed his dinner.

  Aristo was in his flourishing and far-flung olive groves when a slave—he owned fourteen now—brought him Reb Isaac’s letter. He read it with incredulity, standing there in the chill thin autumn light of early evening. It was a very mysterious letter. The rabbi wrote with stiff formality and obscurity. Hillel ben Borush was in sad spirits; his mind was dark with melancholy. Some affliction had been cast over his soul. ?

  As if I did not know that! thought Aristo.

  The rabbi continued that it would please him—“Hah!” said Aristo aloud, with a wry smile—if Aristo would go to the house of the noble Hillel ben Borush that evening and converse with him and give him cheer.

  The letter was the first indication that Reb Isaac had even been aware of Aristo’s existence, for never had they exchanged a single word or greeting, or even met eye to eye or had acknowledged the other’s presence. How he must have writhed to bring himself to this pass! thought Aristo with considerable amusement. He contemplated the proud old man painfully writing the letter to a former slave—thus acknowledging that he had been conscious of him occasionally—and he was more amused. Then he stopped smiling. He sat down on the dry grass and stared at the sheep which wandered through the groves in their eternal symbiosis with the olive trees, and reflected.

  A Greek did not consider death at one’s desiring and by one’s will either shameful or criminal Nor did Romans, nor Egyptians, nor other sensible people. When a man decided he had had enough of “living, or living had become unbearable or dishonorable, his friends and family understood his act and while they were saddened they considered his departure a release from what had been afflicting him beyond endurance. Only unthinking animals suffered life at its worst, and clung to it. And Jews, of a certainty. Aristo shook his head. Jews were beyond comprehension. They considered life sacred, even their own and even when they were afflicted beyond bearing. But life was not sacred unless it had a purpose and a meaning and was as placid and enjoyable as possible. Aristotle, himself, had set the limits on what a man of intellect should be called upon to tolerate in life.

  Hillel ben Borush had set his limits. Why should anyone, even a friend who dearly loved him for his virtues, contradict him? It was an impertinence, a vulgar insult, an intrusion, an outrage. A man knew his own heart, his own capacity for suffering, his own reasons, and only a base barbarian would argue from his ignorance of another man.

  Then Aristo thought of his loved pupil, Saul, and he pursed his lips, frowning. Saul was a Jew, and the thoughts of Jews were strange and not to be understood. Saul would not agree with either Aristotle or his old teacher, and he had the deepest affection for his father—whom he had never comprehended in the least. “Why can they not let him go in peace and wish him a safe harbor?” Aristo asked himself, and ran his lean hands over his bristling hair, which was now as gray as ashes. Then he rubbed his palms over his bony knees, shook grass from his garments and rose, a tall and agile man as lithe as a youth still, though he was older than Hillel ben Borush. His restless black eyes were still as polished and clear as a young man’s, and now they were narrowed with thought. He put his cloak over his shoulders and set out on foot for the house of Hillel ben Borush.

  The sun was setting in deep golden light and the scarlet and tumbled mountains threatened the wide and fertile valley as always, and the river ran in brilliant gilt. Aristo moved rapidly and surely along the road, thinking deeply. He had known that Hillel was suffering some ill of the soul or the body in silence, and this had been for many years, but Aristo had a certain restraint which kept him from inquisitiveness. However, he had visited Hillel often, bringing him some fresh fruit from his own gardens, or some Greek sweetmeats which Hillel had appeared to enjoy, or olives steeped in oil and flavored with garlic and peppers, and other Greek delicacies. Of what had they conversed in the evenings and in the early nights? Hillel’s children, or the weather, or some newly discovered work of Philo’s, or they had argued obscure philosophic thoughts. But of late Hillel would fall into heavy silences and often Aristo would take his departure and Hillel would not be aware of it.

  Aristo reached Hillel’s house, and was informed by the overseer of the hall that the Master had not returned as yet from his gardens. He led Aristo through the house and Aristo went into the gardens alone. Here the light was suffused with faint rose and gold, and there was a pungent scent of autumn in the air, blowing from the trees, and the leaves rattled dryly. But the red gravel paths were neat as always, and the fountains sang their frail little songs, and the white statues postured among late flowering bushes and the black ornate bridge arched over the pond, writhing with its dragons and serpents, and stood against a deep aureate sky.

  Aristo squinted and looked about him, at the marble benches, which were empty, at the bridge reflecting itself in the green stillness of the wide pool, at the black swans and the absurd Chinese ducks and the white swans and the peacocks who were ruffling their Argus-eyed feathers. Aristo saw no one. He had the thought that Hillel was not here at all, for there was no rustle, no movement, no hail. The Greek waited. He called once or twice, “Master! Master?” His voice echoed emptily in the silence.

  There was no answer. Aristo hesitated. He advanced further into the garden. There was no sign of Hillel. He came to the bridge, pondering. He walked up its arch, and leaned on its low wall. He looked down into the green water, which was without a ripple. Even the swans did not disturb it.

  Aristo gave the slightest start. Then he continued to gaze down into the water, which was much higher than a man’s head here, and faintly glittering with the last light. Aristo stood there a long time, seeing, and did not move.

  Then he said, gently, “Go in peace, dear Master, and may your God look upon you more kindly than I suspect He will, and may He remember that there was no man more virtuous than you, nor more loving, nor
more tender, nor more just. May you find, in the Isles of Bliss, which you merit, what you did not find in life. Farewell.”

  Chapter 18

  “No, lord, you cannot send this letter,” said Aristo to Reb Isaac, to whose house he had been called. “Saul ben Hillel is a man of deep sensibilities. Your letter could possibly destroy him, and he is a man who must not be destroyed.”

  For Reb Isaac, in his grief and his own self-reproach and his own fear for Hillel ben Borush’s eternal fate when called before a stern God to account for his deathly act, had written a letter he would have inconsistently deplored in another. He had reproached Saul for apparent disregard and indifference to the kindest and sweetest of fathers, so that that father had taken his life—it was a judgment on his heedless and selfish children. Children who loved their parents and had shown those parents their love never had to endure this sorrow. I But parents left lonely and abandoned in an empty house were often driven, in their torment of mind and in their longing and yearning, I to the unpardonable act, and the unpardonable portion of it lay forever on the souls of the neglectful children. Who, asked Reb Isaac in a letter reeking with bitterness, had possessed a more worthy father than Saul ben Hillel? That father had never complained of his children’s indifference to him. No, he was too tender for that. He had only suffered. Reb Isaac did not exactly call down pious imprecations on I the head of Saul but the impression was there. The parchment was stained with his own ancient tears.

  “It is an unjust letter,” said Aristo, to the old rabbi, whose eyes Swore reddened and swollen. “Saul loved his father, and so did Sephorah, that beautiful young matron. I knew them well. I knew Hillel ben Borush well also, far more than did many of his friends. I guessed his intentions long ago.”

  Reb Isaac regarded him fiercely, his black eyes blazing. “And you lid not attempt to persuade him that he must live, you who have more reason than most to revere him and be grateful to him?”

  “It was for that reason that I did not so attempt,” said Aristo. “Lord, we cannot come to a meeting of minds in this matter, for our philosophies differ. What I understand you cannot understand. What to you is a crime against your God is not a crime to me. Nor to millions of others. We did not ask to be born. But we can choose when to die, for surely a man has dignity! You believe in a life beyond this. I do not, though I wish my dear former Master an existence of bliss. As Socrates said, one should not fear death, for if it is only an endless sleep, is not sleep sweet? And if there is life after death, it cannot be worse than this life. Have mercy. Do not send this letter to Saul, nor to Sephorah bas Hillel. I will go to Saul, myself, and I will tell him—”

  “What?” exclaimed the rabbi, and now he frankly wiped away fresh tears.

  “That his father had been ill of an old sickness for a long time. That, you will agree, is true. He had not wished to cause his children anxiety for him, and fear, and so had refrained from enlightening them. That is true, also, though now I see you shaking your head. So, when in his gardens, calmly standing on the bridge, he had been taken with a last chill, a last vertigo, a last fainting, and had fallen into the water. His face, when taken from the pond, was peaceful and quiet—and so it was—and therefore he had not known that he was dying and had not struggled. We can believe, I will tell Saul, that it is possible that he was dead before he fell into the water. I implore you, do not continue to shake your head. For it is true that Hillel ben Borush died long ago, long before that final evening, in the stillness of his gardens.”

  “Sophistries,” said the rabbi. “You Greeks are full of sophistries.”

  “A sophistry is preferable to the cruel truth,” said Aristo, faintly smiling. “And, do we know the truth of this? No. It lay in the heart of Hillel ben Borush, and was not open to the eyes of others.”

  “Why cannot you tell Saul, then—you so fond of sophistries—that Hillel died tranquilly in his bed, and not in the pond?”

  “For the reason that the world is filled with men with wagging tongues, and we can be certain that on some day a visitor to Jerusalem, who knew both Hillel and Saul, will tell Saul that his father was found in the water. We—have been discreet. We implied to no one what we knew, and so Hillel sleeps beside his wife, unreproached. But Saul is a man of imagination. If I lie to him, and say his father died in his bed, and he later hears I lied to him, then he will know, of a surety, that his father took his life and I had desired only to spare him. He will not be grateful, but his life thereafter will be one agony. Do you wish that, you, his old mentor?”

  The rabbi was silent, and the tears fell from his eyes and dripped into his white beard. Then he said, in a hoarse voice, “I can understand now how you Greeks have seduced our people in Israel, with your sophistries and your clever arguments.”

  Aristo laughed softly. “Do you wish that I regret that? No. I am pleased. Your prophets were grim men, I have heard, with no joy in life, and only doom and admonitions on their tongues, and threats of punishment, and other unfortunate things. I have been told that these matters so prophesied did come true. But why should men suffer apprehension in advance? Do not all men err and covet the naughty joys of the world? It is our nature. Lord, I beg of you—I see the words on your tongue—not to tell me the meaning of the prophets and the lowering Countenance of your God. I heard them to weariness from Saul, who lusted to convert me. You and I have two different frames bf reference, and never shall they meet. But on one thing we can agree: The gods love a merciful man.”

  “He is full of mercy,” said Reb Isaac, and his voice broke.

  “Then I will admire Him,” said Aristo. “Write another letter to Saul, and I will take it with me. I have never been in Israel though some of my produce passes through that nation in the caravans. And I wish to see Saul again.”

  “It is a horror to me,” said Reb Isaac, “that Hillel informed me, the evening he died, that he had lost his faith in God.”

  “Then, perhaps, that faith has been re-established,” said Aristo, and smiled. “That will give him happiness.”

  “In Gehenna?”

  Aristo rolled his eyes upwards. “Are you drawing the boundaries of your God’s mercy, and making Him less compassionate than a man? Is that not what you would call presumption?”

  Reb Isaac reached across his table and drew parchment and ink to him. “I will write Saul a letter more pleasing to you.” He gave the Greek a bitter look, and a surly one, but Aristo was pleased.

  Aristo took passage on the next and swiftest ship to Israel, carrying with him a consoling letter from Reb Isaac and letters from Hillel’s lawyers, for the dead man had left a considerable estate, which must be settled.

  On the ship he met a fellow Greek, one Telis, expansive, wise and cynical, who had a house in Jerusalem and estates in Cilicia. He was an amusing companion, and informed Aristo that he had spent over a year in Tarsus and in Rome. The antics of politicians, he said to Aristo, were an endless amusement. He was uproarious over the quandaries of Rome, faced with national bankruptcy, an unsurmountable national debt, wars, insurrections in the streets, riots, and an enormously increasing demand from Roman mobs for new and excessive amusements, housing, food and gifts. “Greece decayed also, from similar maladies,” he observed to Aristo, “and the Roman Republic virtuously commented on this, notably one historian, Sallust, and their Cicero, whom I admire. Never, said Cicero, must Rome decline to this depravity—ours—nor this bankruptcy, and the government be a meek slave to the howling mobs of the marketplaces. Nor would Rome, Cicero hoped, ever become so venal, lascivious, corrupt and luxurious.” Telis laughed heartily. “But it has all come to Rome, on a much vaster scale than in Greece, and I, for one, am happy over the condition of that nation of grocers!”

  “If Rome falls, she will bring down the world with her,” said Aristo, thankful that he had land as well as money.

  “What a world!” mused Telis, his wily and humorous face puckering with a thousand wrinkles of cynical mirth. “I am over sixty years old, and I fi
nd this world endlessly amusing, so craven it is, so weak, so whimpering, so greedy, so exigent, so fearful of government, so heedless of history and its warnings, so brutal and sentimental and filthy with an infinitude of crimes of body and soul!”

  “It was always so,” said Aristo. “And always will it be.”

  “My friend, I agree with you.” Telis was as tall as Aristo and as dark, but under the darkness of his complexion there was a peculiar pallor. “I am a skeptic,” he said, scratching his cheek thoughtfully, as they both leaned over the railing of the bowing ship and looked at the sea and the sky. “I am also not superstitious, as are the Romans. Is it not amusing how they garland their necks with amulets from Delphi and other shrines, both Greek and Roman, and even Egyptian, and the gods know where else? If an oracle at a shrine informed them that they must wear a horseshoe on their heads they would unshoe every horse in the world, and a horseshoe would be worth its weight in gold. The Romans have already debased their currency to meet their debts—another sign of imminent collapse—and are using copper. Someone should, of a certainty, start the rumor that horseshoes guarantee the wearer a lifetime of luck and the handsomest women and feasts and success at the gaming tables, and the Romans could then use iron in their currency, which is cheaper than copper, and lo! most of their problems would be solved.”

  “Why do we not finance such a shrine and hire the best priests as oracles?” asked Aristo, smiling.

  But Telis had fallen into thought. He said, “I have remarked that I am not superstitious. More than a year ago I acquired a strange pain in my right side, and I began to spit blood occasionally. The episode passed. I ignored the pain, which grew stronger over the months, and went on my journeys. While in Rome I consulted a physician who informed me that I have a cancer in my lungs, and that my days are numbered.”