Great Lion of God

by Taylor Caldwell

  The next day they reached the wind-struck and scintillating port of Caesarea. Several of the Roman galleon’s sails were already set, and she bobbed and danced on the blinding waters like an enormous dove. Saul’s belongings, his chests and his one pouch, were taken below to his small cabin. He took affectionate leave—somewhat stiffly—of Joseph, and said, “I will return within two months.”

  “Rest,” said Joseph. “Reflect. Meditate. It has been years since you have visited your home.”

  An expression of intense pain passed over Saul’s countenance. “Do I not know that? Do I not condemn myself? If I had returned earlier I should have seen my father’s face and have received his blessing before he died.”

  “It was my hope that tranquillity will come to you,” said Joseph of Arimathaea. Saul stared at him, incredulously. “I am always tranquil!” he exclaimed. “What passions of this world disturb me?”

  But that is not what I mean, thought Joseph. He kissed Saul on the cheek, like a father, his long oval face tender and melancholy, his large dark eyes liquid and soft. He stood on the dock for a long time thereafter, watching until the last high white sail sank below the blue and watery horizon.

  Saul had brought books of commentaries with him to study, but he found a sort of languor, compounded of sea wind and sun, overcoming him. He tried to reprove himself. He fought against a desire to sleep, to yawn, to gaze only on the sky and the sea. It was sinful not to think; it was an offense to God not to meditate upon Him constantly. Man had no reason for being except to study about God and to adore Him, and to endeavor to learn of His Will. For the world of men was but an evil dream which would pass away; it had no substance, no reality. Saul had wandered far away—though he did not know it—from the teachings of his own Pharisee sect. He had absorbed the stringencies, but never the lightnesses, and during those days on shipboard it did not occur to him that this was what the Nazarene, Yeshua, had meant, on the hot street in Jerusalem. Piety without joy, faith without gladness, duty without innocent pleasure, worship without delight—these did not please God, the Nazarene had intimated.

  Despite his most formidable efforts—and they were indeed formidable—Saul found himself daily becoming more enervated, more languid. His mind was no longer the sharp knife cutting through irrelevant phrases down to the bare and uncompromising fruit. It wavered away from books, from subtleties. Saul was sometimes surprised to discover himself leaning over the ship’s rail, staring down into the fascinating colors of the sea, the changeful colors which were purple and turquoise and limpid blue, transformed at sunset into one endless plain of deep gold. Then the conflagration of the skies awed him, the terrible and silent manifestation of God made him quail. He could only mutter to himself, “When I gaze upon the Heavens, the work of Your Fingers—What is man?” And then, “The Heavens declare His Glory, and the firmament shows His Handiwork!”

  Even Saul could not resist this majesty, though only a little before he would have reproached himself that by admiring the world he was forgetting God. I wonder, he thought once, if we have not overlooked many things concerning the Psalms of David, and have concentrated only on his cries of despair and piety? It was, to him, a blasphemous thought and he tried to put it aside.

  The name of the small Greek island at which the ship stopped on its long and dreamlike journey escaped Saul, for it was of no consequence and its port was rude and noisy. It had little cargo to be taken aboard except for crude statuettes destined for heathen houses in Tarsus. There was also but one passenger, who was surrounded, on the dock, by men and women who vehemently kissed his hands, his cloak, the hem of his garment, and even his feet, and called him “Divinity!” Children raced about him, pausing to touch him and grin delightedly upon him. Baskets of fresh fruit were laid at his feet as offerings. He was a tall man, obviously a Greek, and of a slender but muscular appearance, and his light hair was mixed with gray and he was a man at least of some forty years. His garments were poor, his cloak patched, his feet in rude sandals and a big pouch lay near him. He wore but one ornament, a large ring on his right index finger, a knightly ring of singular beauty and fire and of enormous value, and it was this that captured, Saul’s interest.

  He looked at the Greek’s face, and saw its pale and sculptured planes and outlines, and its large and steadfast blue eyes. The man had a stern yet gentle appearance. It was obvious that he was not pleased by the adulation poured upon him by these poor worshipers—did they consider him a god?—but he would not rebuke them nor repulse them, out of his kindness. He was a handsome man, yet in some way forbidding, and Saul noticed this with meager approval, and there was a somber level to his fair brows.

  “Apollo!” cried some of the people, adoring him. “Asculapius! Chilon!” The children screamed and embraced his knees, and their parents looked upon him as at the sun.

  Saul noticed that he carried a staff with the two serpents of Mercury winding upwards upon it, and then he saw that the pouch was really the pouch of a physician. Saul felt some disgust. The man, then, had been born a slave and educated as a physician, and then freed by some benevolent master—otherwise he would not be wandering about the sea islands in such wretched garb and with such liberty. Like most Greeks, he was probably also a mountebank. Then the thought came to Saul that mountebanks did not travel like this, in obvious poverty, and there was also that knightly ring on his long index finger. A gift from some superstitious rich man? Or, had it been stolen? Greek physicians, who had been born slaves, were not above thievery.

  Saul had not mingled with the other passengers on the ship nor had he deigned to give even the captain, Gallo, more than a curt word. He suddenly found Gallo standing beside him at the rail of the ship, and Gallo, a big bluff man, was staring at the miserable Greek slave-physician with a lighted countenance.

  “Yonder,” he said, “is the famous physician, Lucanus, adopted son of the greatly noble Roman, Diodorus Cyranus, whose name all Romans honor. For he was a man of the true Roman spirit and patriotism and pride, a tribune and the procurator of Syria, and a favorite soldier of Augustus Caesar. Alas, there are few left like Diodorus. Lucanus does his adoptive father’s memory an honor, for he is celebrated along the Great Sea, and is a man of considerable fortune, and one cherished by Tiberius Caesar, himself. He accepts no fees, no gifts. It is enough for him to minister to the poor. He will accept no rich patients, except those abandoned by their own physicians as hopeless, and then he will demand that they give to help the wretched.” Gallo smiled and shook his large cropped head.

  Saul’s interest, reluctant though it was, was held. It was not like a Greek to reject money! “He wears a magnificent ring,” he remarked.

  The captain threw back his head and shoulders. “It is the ring his adoptive father, Diodorus Cyranus, bequeathed to him, and it is of the family!” He hesitated, and looked sideways at Saul, and then he coughed. “Once he was on this ship, of which I am captain. It was feared that plague had broken out among the galley slaves. Many of their bodies were thrown overboard at midnight, when the passengers were asleep.” The captain coughed again. “We were flying the yellow flag; we were not permitted to land at the ports. Yet—this Lucanus cured the sick and dying of the plague in one night!”

  “How?” demanded Saul, with some derision. (These wily Greeks!)

  “How? I do not know,” said Gallo. “I, myself, laughed at the thought, and gaily reproached Lucanus for affirming that it was the plague. Plague is not cured in a few hours and the victims restored to complete health! My own physician, whom I later punished, also asserted it was the plague.”

  “So. It was not the plague,” said Saul, shrugging.

  The captain scratched a thick eyebrow. “I thought not,” he said, and is heavy voice was suddenly quiet. “But later I knew it was,”

  Saul swung to him, his face disbelieving and almost grinning. “Impossible!”

  “Ah,” said Gallo, very serious now. “So it was said: Impossible. But it was also true. I am not super
stitious. I do not believe in the gods. But Lucanus did, of a certainty, cure the dying and restored them to health in a twinkling. It is strange, also, that he, too, denied later that it was the plague, though he had asserted it was the plague in the beginning.”

  “I see,” said Saul. “If a physician denies it was the plague, then it vas not the plague.”

  “But, it was,” said Captain Gallo. “I saw some cases of the plague later, and I recognized them. They all died.”

  Lucanus, the Greek physician, had finally disentangled himself from his adorers, and was coming aboard, carrying his staff and his pouch. Gallo went to greet him at once, and embraced him with fervor and respect and affection. He led Lucanus below to do him honor in his own quarters, with fine food and wine, and as they passed Saul at the rail Lucanus gave him an absent smile and a faint nod. He had hardly seen Saul, nor was it evident that, in truth, he had noticed him at all.

  The crowd on the dock had knelt to receive his blessing, before he went below, and he had given that blessing, Saul saw, with a faint frown of impatience and yet with love. When he had disappeared with the captain the throng rose and threw kisses at the vessel, and flowers, and the baskets of the fruit were brought aboard, the only gift the people could bestow out of their poverty.

  Saul mused. A rich man who refused more riches, who would minister only to those who could not pay him: It was not like a Greek, nor like other men either! Men, in the majority, are not moved to live in mercy and for mercy. At the very least, they desire fame. But what fame did this Lucanus possess? Only the miserable and the starving, the peasants and insignificant, acclaimed him. There had been no guard of honor to conduct him to this port, no finely clothed man to embrace him, no litter at his disposal.

  For some reason, which exasperated Saul, Lucanus suddenly reminded him of Yeshua the Nazarene, when it was obvious there was no similarity at all between a rich Greek who had been adopted by a noble Roman family, and a sun-burned humble son of Galilee.

  Chapter 22

  THERE is one, thought Lucanus, the Greek physician, on the third day from the little port, who is at war with man—as I am at war with God.

  He was reticent, himself, yet the reticence of the young man he had learned was called Saul of Tarshish, of a noble and distinguished Jewish house, was not of his own kind. Lucanus’ reticence rose out of his distaste for adulation and fawning, but Saul’s rose—it was evident—out of an enormous dislike for humanity. Gallo had said to Lucanus, pointing out Saul to him at a distance on the deck, “There is One who is returning to his home to dispose of his fortune, for he now lives in Jerusalem, and I had been commissioned by a famous Jew, and very rich, named Joseph of Arimathaea, to give him every courtesy and consideration. I was also,” the captain grinned, “given a substantial gift. These Jews can be generous. I attempted to make a friend of Saul, of the gloomy countenance, but was repulsed. This ship carries renowned passengers, but Saul will have none of them. If they approach him, he goes to his cabin. I have sent special dainties to him, but he has rejected them, with politeness but also with disdain. A number of bottles of exceptional wine were brought aboard for him, the gift of Joseph, but he gave them to me, not graciously but with contempt. It is said,” the captain resumed, “that he despises all mankind. Of a certainty, his glance is cold and censorious and aloof, and he will not respond to any courtesy.”

  Lucanus was not a man who approached others without encouragement, except if they were ill. Like Saul, he was restrained. But he found himself curious about this young Jew with the fiery red hair, the fierce profile, the afflicted eye, the harsh mouth, and the bowed legs which he tried to conceal under a long tunic. Saul also had a pallor, and freckles, and the sun burned his fair skin. He walked with a rolling motion. His air was abstracted and crepuscular. He frowned. Lucanus had never seen him smile. He wore no ornament at all. He had strong freckled hands, the hands of a man who knew labor. Lucanus also knew much about the Jews, so he understood. More and more Saul incited his curiosity, and this baffled the reserved Greek. Was it the Jew’s obvious look of proud misery which attracted him, the icy hauteur, the resolute step, the embittered countenance he revealed to others? The expression of removal, of condemnation, of rejection?

  As I have removed myself from God, and condemned Him and rejected Him, so this unfortunate young Jew has removed himself, has condemned and rejected man, thought Lucanus the physician.

  The Greek was troubled. It was well to reject God, for He was I merciless to His creation, and had, Himself, repudiated the tortured I little animal called man, who could only suffer and die without hope or recompense. But, it was not well to reject humanity, which was not responsible for its predicament nor its agonies. If man was evil—as he so monotonously was—then he had been created so. Should he, then, be condemned by the One who had ordained his evil? No, only compassion and tenderness should be extended to him, and his pain alleviated when at all possible—for did he not live in a pain he could neither understand nor conquer? Prometheus, the immortal Titan, who had not been truly man, had been so moved by the anguish of humanity that he had defied the gods, themselves, and had brought light and warmth to the world, out of his tremendous pity. Lucanus could understand Prometheus, but he could not understand Saul of Tarshish, who did not have the look of a stupid man.

  One day Lucanus brought himself to approach Saul as the younger man leaned over the rail and stared broodingly at the sea. Lucanus forced himself to smile, and it came to him with amusement that he had as much difficulty in being affable as did Saul. His amusement, therefore, gave him a confidential and merry expression and Saul, turning, was somewhat disarmed. Lucanus said, “Forgive me, but I am interested in your eye. Is it blind?”

  Saul was immediately affronted. He said, “No.”

  The single word was daunting, but Lucanus, who was older, was not easily daunted. “I am a physician,” he said. “You must pardon my professional curiosity.”

  “Why?” asked Saul.

  The query was so quick and so telling that Lucanus’ inner merriment broke into mild laughter. Saul began to smile, his unwilling smile. Lucanus said, “Will you join me in a goblet of wine? I confess that I am not a judge of wines, though it is possible that you are, Saul of Tarshish.”

  Saul’s red eyebrows rose. “You know my name? I also know yours. Like yourself, I am no judge of wine.”

  “I thought all Jews were Epicureans,” said Lucanus, artfully. He saw at once that his remark had amused Saul. “No,” said the younger man. “Many of us prefer Syrian whiskey.”

  “A bottle of which I possess,” said Lucanus. “I, too, prefer it. Wine, to me, however wonderfully perfumed, tastes like vinegar on the tongue. Moreover, it is impossible to drink enough of it—to forget. One only sleeps heavily, a sad sleep, and awakens unrefreshed and sluggish and with a nausea. Whereas whiskey is very rapid and leaves no residue, unless it is drunk like wine. Will you join me?”

  Before Saul could reply Lucanus had motioned to a servant dawdling on the deck and had spoken to him. Very soon the servant returned with two small silver goblets and a bottle of whiskey. Lucanus and Saul sat down under a striped awning, out of the steaming sun, and Lucanus poured the golden liquid into the goblets. Saul tasted, made a grimace, then drank a little. He said, “It is possible that you, too, wish to forget, Lucanus?”

  “I would I could drink of the waters of Lethe,” said the Greek, and his face became a subtle mask of pain. “There are times I cannot endure the agony of mankind.”

  Saul regarded him in a long silence. Finally he said, “The agony of mankind is deserved. Have we not brought it upon ourselves?”

  Lucanus was acquainted with the religion of the Jews, so did not stare in surprise. He looked into the depths of his goblet. Saul said, “It is, perhaps, not the agony of all mankind which disturbs you, Lucanus, but the agony of one or two or three whom you have loved.”

  “True,” said Lucanus, and lifted his large blue eyes to Saul’s face. “
But do we Greeks not say that argument should be from the general to the particular, if it is to have verity, and meaning? Yes. The general argument touches all—and none completely. You are correct. I have loved, and I have lost, and now I love no more, except in the general sense, which I have admitted is not valid at all.”

  Saul did not comment.

  “I have heard,” said Lucanus, full of pity, “that there is, in Israel, a man of miracles. Is it true?”

  Saul visibly started, and his face changed and became ugly. But his voice was temperate and controlled when he said, “We have many wandering rabbis in Israel, and many of them are miracle-workers, for they are simple and God-fearing and God-loving men, and they believe they can heal. It is not unusual when they do. Faith is not incredible.” His lip curled.

  “But,” said Lucanus, who saw that in some manner he had struck a tender spot in Saul, “I am speaking of one man in particular, a man who has caused much excitement in these days in your country. You will recall that we Greeks build altars to the Unknown God in our temples, and we await His arrival. I have heard that the countryman of yours, of whom I speak, is the Unknown God.” He watched Saul keenly.