Great Lion of God

by Taylor Caldwell

  Milo had removed his leather armor and wristlets and cloak and military garb and had dressed himself in a short yellow tunic bordered in red Grecian keys, and his tanned legs were still the legs of a sturdy youth and his feet arched in their fine sandals. He even wore an armlet of wide plain gold.

  “I suppose, dear cousin,” he said to Saul, “that you wonder at my appearance here in Tarsus.”

  Saul was astonished. He considered. “No,” he confessed. “I did not think of that at all, and that is very peculiar. I was only glad to see you.”

  Milo smiled, showing almost all his white teeth, and he studied Saul shrewdly. He sampled the refreshments, sipped the wine, and revealed his pleasure. Even his big protruding ears were brown, and his hands were bronzed. He looked at Saul with his father’s kind eyes, and appeared to think and turn his thoughts about.

  “I am returning to Rome from Jerusalem,” he said, as if he were examining each word. “My parents are old. My father also wishes to return to Rome, where he hopes to be elected a tribune. He is old now. So is my mother. I had not seen them for four years, nor had I seen my sisters and their children for that time, and I have some leave. Do not concern yourself about my men; they are ensconced in an inn in Tarsus, and they are young lads who have never been in this city before and are, without doubt, now investigating the feminine possibilities here.”

  His smiling face became suddenly very serious, and he ate some bread and cheese as if lost in his own thoughts. Seeing this, a vague uneasiness came to Saul. But Milo said, “My ship stopped in Tarsus, and I decided to visit you.”

  “Otherwise, you would not have done so,” said Saul, and was surprised by his own disappointment, for he thought affection had brought Milo here.

  “You are wrong,” said Milo, and gave his cousin his quick if somewhat saturnine smile. “I choose that ship because I wished to visit you.”

  “Ah,” said Saul, and with his old impulsiveness he stretched out his hand to his cousin and they grasped each other’s fingers in a brief firm clasp. Then Saul said, “You have something grave to tell me. In the Name of God, blessed be His Name, tell me at once, if it is bad news!”

  “It is not bad news,” said Milo. “It is most portentous news.”

  “Of my family?”

  “In a manner of speaking. But it concerns—” Milo paused, and did not look directly at Saul now but out upon the shimmering gardens. It was as if he feared, as customary, any extravagant language, for was he not a Roman? Yet, what but extravagant words could convey what he must convey? “It concerns,” Milo continued, his brown cheekbones coloring as if with embarrassment, “the whole world.”

  Instantly Saul’s thoughts flew to the phenomenon of the Eve of Passover, and the letter he had recently written. But he did not speak. He only looked at Milo with the bright blue metal of his eyes, and waited, and a sensation of extreme tenseness came to him.

  “I am Jew, as well as Roman,” said Milo, and expertly fished out an artichoke with his fingers and slowly savored and chewed and swallowed it. He contemplatively, then, licked his fingers, ignored the luxury of the warm water in a silver bowl, floating with rose leaves, and wiped his hands on a napkin. The fastidiousness of the savoring was familiar to Saul, the Jew, but the roughness of the Roman manners would have, under other circumstances, annoyed him. Then Milo, as if wishing to escape Saul’s penetrating eyes, bent over the cheese salver and made a delicate choice in long deliberation. After he had removed his selection to his silver plate and buttered some bread, he went on, lifting his eyes for only an instant to Saul’s, and Saul was freshly amazed at the stern yet thoughtful light in them, for never had he seen it before.

  “I sacrifice to Mars, my patron, in his temple,” said Milo. “I give the deepest devotion to Jupiter, though I cannot, in all truth, consider Julius Caesar and Gaius Octavius Caesar divinities. But I honor them also, in their temples, though I laugh in my heart. Do I believe in the gods of Greece and Rome, and several of the Egyptian gods? I do not know. They are full of splendor and beauty and are understandable by men. They partake of our nature. And they are subtle as well as gross. On the other hand, I am my mother’s son, and so I have been circumcised and was presented in the Temple—I believe a slight sum passed from my father to the priests—and I was Bar Mitzvah, though the other boys taunted me as a ‘bloodthirsty Roman,’ and as a child and a lad I learned the Five Books of Moses, and all the prophets, and Jewish customs and the things forbidden, the Torah, the Psalms—and all that you have studied, Saul. In those days, I was called Titus Milo ben Aulus,” He smiled again, and Saul thought the smile wry.

  “Now when I go to the Temple or the synagogue, I stand in the Court of the Gentiles, but what I hear from within the Temple stirs my blood with ancient cries and movements. But when I stand before the altar of Mars, I am also so stirred, and I believe in my patron with absolute faith—just as I believe in the God of Abraham and Jacob.”

  Saul said, “The Greeks believe that all religions contain a measure of the truth, but not the whole truth, Milo.”

  Milo caught the reserve in his cousin’s vibrant voice, and he said, quickly, “But you do not?”

  Saul hesitated, “I would be lying if I said I believe the Greeks. I believe that there is but one Truth, blessed be His Name, and I await His Messias.” Again he hesitated. “Forgive me if I have offended you, but I cannot lie.”

  “I am, at times, in a very contradictory situation,” said Milo. “Sometimes it is an untenable state. At other times it is as if I see a broad landscape, not narrowed to one little vista, but embracing the world. No matter. It is my nature to be direct, and I fear I am not being so now, for I have been witness to astounding events.”

  Saul’s thoughts again flew to the Eve of the Passover, and he said nothing.

  “I was fortunate,” said Milo, “to arrive this time in Jerusalem to celebrate the Passover with my parents. You know that two of my sisters are married to Jews. They gather in my father’s house for the Holy Days. Does it seem amazing to you that my old Roman father wears a skullcap on those occasions and exhorts his grandchildren on the history and the glories of Israel, and the Covenant God made with her?”

  “I have heard of it,” said Saul, and could not help smiling. “And Hannah, in gratitude and love, has the Roman lares and penates in her house.”

  “My father, like myself, honors all the gods, though he honors the Jewish God more. What Rome will make of this, when he returns I do not know. But Romans are tolerant of all religions, so long as those religions do not teach rebellion against Rome. They even erect temples to strange gods and honor them, as you know. I am very proud of both my people.”

  “You have something to tell me,” said Saul.

  “Yes.” Milo refilled his goblet and looked at the winey contents and swished it around and sniffed at the bouquet. Saul saw that he was bidding for time, and his uneasiness sharpened.

  “You have heard of the Galilean, Yeshua of Nazareth, or Jesus, as we Romans have interpreted the name?”

  A cold stiffness made Saul sit upright. He nodded without speech, but his face tightened.

  “Your sister, my cousin Sephorah, has written you concerning Him, this Jesus, and I bring her letter to you, and letters from Joseph of Arimathaea, and my own parents.” Now it was Milo who hesitated, then lifted his brown gaze and looked at Saul steadily. “Was Tarsus darkened also, on the Eve of the Passover?”

  A tremendous excitement seized Saul and he cried, “Yes, yes! I have written to my friends of this, and my sister! Did it darken Israel? Impossible! It was but a storm cloud over Tarsus!”

  “A very strange cloud,” said Milo, in a musing voice. “I have received letters from my compatriots in Rome, my fellow soldiers. That ‘cloud’ covered Rome also, for a considerable time, and at the hour it covered Cilicia and Israel. And, I have heard, Egypt and Asia Minor and the Isles of Greece. A very strange cloud.”

  Saul’s nostrils drew in with the sharply drawn breat
h. “It—can be explained,” he said. “Surely the astronomers are now explaining it.”

  “But, to no one’s satisfaction, not even their own. There is prattling of comets and their sudden disintegration which hid the sun. This argument fails before scientific examination, as the scientists understand, themselves. The darkness did not last long enough, and when it lifted, it lifted suddenly, and all was as it was before. Except for one thing—”

  “Yes?” cried Saul, leaning toward him.

  But Milo said, “You have not heard from Sephorah since some time before the Passover? No. I must tell you why. Her son, Amos, was about to be Bar Mitzvah, and as he is the favorite of all the family, a boy of great wisdom and learning and tenderness and virtue and strength, and beautiful, the family intended to make of it a great celebration. This was some short weeks before the Passover. But on the three days before Passover the boy fell gravely ill of some mysterious disease, and he was given up for dying by his physicians.”

  Saul uttered an exclamation of grief and great anxiety. “But the boy recovered?”

  “No,” said Milo, and again he looked at the gardens. “He died.”

  “Oh, God!” cried Saul, overcome with anguish. “Oh, it is not possible! I knew the boy. He had the face of an angel. He resembled my father!”

  He covered his face with his hands and groaned, “You swore to me that you did not bring me evil news! But now you have broken my heart.”

  “Let it be healed,” said Milo, gently, and Saul, blank with astonishment, dropped his hands. His face ran with tears.

  “The boy died at dawn,” said Milo, and he looked straightly at Saul’s pallid face. “The three physicians were there, one the renowned Egyptian, whom the Greeks call Horus, though that is not his name. In two hours the child was of an icy coldness. They had closed his eyes and his white lips. The house had been gayly decorated for the Bar Mitzvah. The decorations were taken down, and the brothers and parents and grandfather of Amos, and the uncles and grandsons and nephews, sat down in ashes and tore their clothing. Sephorah was taken to her bed. overcome. The house was filled with mourning. Burial clothes and oils and spices were prepared. A tomb was chosen. The dead boy lay on the floor, hourly becoming more livid and ghastly, so that it was an agony to look upon him. The sunset was approaching, when he must be entombed.”

  Saul closed his eyes quickly as he saw what Milo had seen, and his heart began a slow sick drumming.

  “It seems,” said Milo’s voice, as if at an immense distance, “that there was a servant in the house who had looked upon Yeshua of Nazareth and had fallen at his feet. He was an old and devoted servant. He had loved the boy, Amos. So, knowing that Yeshua was newly arrived, again, in Jerusalem, doubtless to celebrate the Passover in Jerusalem according to the Law, he ran out, seeking him. And he found him.”

  Saul’s face so changed that Milo could hardly recognize it. It had become fierce. This disturbed Milo. But he went on:

  “While the women washed the dead child the Nazarene came to the door of the house with several of his miserable disciples, the old servant leading the way. And the Nazarene entered that beautiful house of your grandfather’s and looked sadly at the mourners. He did not speak to them. He approached the dead boy, who was now being wrapped in his grave clothes. He contemplated him. It seemed that Yeshua, or Jesus, as we Romans call him, was about to weep, not because the boy was dead—”

  “He profaned my grandfather’s house,” whispered Saul in furious soft horror.

  “Listen to me!” cried Milo, losing his military composure for the first time. “You have not been listening to me, Saul ben Hillel! You have been listening only to your own thoughts, you obdurate man! But were you not always so, alas?

  “Listen to me! Jesus stretched forth his hand and he said, ‘I say to you, arise, Amos ben Ezekiel!’ And the boy stirred in his grave clothes and he opened cloudy eyes and he looked about him strangely and raised his head, and the mourners sprang to their feet with terrible loud cries and then flung themselves about him, to feel his warming flesh and to see the color returning to his white cheeks and lips. None but the adoring servant saw the Nazarene leave, this Jesus, and none thought of giving him so much as a goblet of wine, or offering him a shekel!”

  Saul jumped to his feet and moved rapidly to a column of the portico and he stretched out his hand against it to support himself, and his back was to his cousin.

  “Do you not understand?” said Milo, rising also, but standing by his chair. “He who was dead was given life. He who was dead was restored in a twinkling to health and to his family’s arms. He, ready for the grave, was Bar Mitzvah, before Passover. Your nephew lives, Saul of Tarshish, your nephew lives!”

  “You are mistaken,” said Saul, in a muffled voice. “He was never dead.”

  “I was there,” said Milo. “I swear to you, by the God of Abraham and Jacob, that I was there, and I saw it for myself, and so did many more. I am a soldier. I have seen death countless times. I know the sight and the smell of death, even new death. Your nephew was dead as dead as any man slain on the battlefield.”

  “Then,” said Saul, not turning, “it was by some evil incantation, and better it would have been that my nephew had remained dead. Who knows what has been done to his soul?”

  Milo was profoundly shaken. He said, “You do not believe that. No, you do not believe it. Therefore, you have implied I am a fool and a liar, and a deluded wretch.”

  Saul turned now and his eyes were a terrible blue blaze. But his voice was quiet. “If I have offended you, Milo, my cousin, I crave your pardon. I do not believe my nephew was dead. I believe he was in a state of suspended animation, that even the physicians were deceived, and that the boy would have awakened as he did even if— This state is not unknown, and there is always much fear that the ‘dead’ will awaken in the tomb and die there.”

  Milo sighed, a big gusty sigh. He sat down heavily in his chair, bent his head and clasped his knees in his hands. He shook his head over and over. Saul returned to his own chair. He felt weak and dazed. He said, “And that is another portentous piece of news.” He could not keep the satire from his voice.

  “Saul, Saul,” said Milo. He refilled his goblet. “You have forgotten the darkness. For, you see, Jesus of Nazareth was arrested for blasphemy, at the instigation of the High Priest, who is a friend of Pilate’s, just before Passover. He was brought hastily, at night, before a few members of the Sanhedrin, a very few, for he was not considered important, but only a poor workman, not worthy of the meeting of the whole Court, and he was found guilty of blasphemy. And worse, though it was not mentioned by the Court, of inciting the people of Israel to riot against the Romans, and so destroying law and order. It was told me that the High Priest said, fearing the Romans, Better it is for one man to perish than his whole nation.’”

  Saul could hardly speak, but a kind of ferocious joy filled his eyes. And so he was crucified!”

  Yes,” said Milo, looking at him with a formidable stare. “He was crucified. At noon, on the Eve of the Passover. He died, three hours later, on the cross, in the Place of Skulls, called Calvary, and on the instant of his death there was a great thundering and the earth shook and the world fell into darkness. And—the Veil in the Temple, which concealed the Holy of Holies, was rent in an instant.”

  He still gazed at Saul. “I was there. At the Place of Skulls.”

  And then, to Saul’s absolute stupefaction, Milo related a story which resembled, in every particular, even to the murky sky and the fear of the Roman soldiers, Saul’s own dream of the crucifixion when he, himself, in his illness, had almost died. Nothing moved on his face; his eyes did not blink. He appeared hardly to breathe. At moments Milo believed he was in the midst of a seizure, and that he was unconscious. Only those blazing eyes gave any sign that he heard, and even of this Milo was not very sure.

  “I was not in charge of the crucifixion,” said Milo. “I was there because of what I had seen in your grandfather’s h
ouse, the raising from the dead of your nephew, Amos. I was there to witness the death of a good man whose very look was mercy, whose very glance was beauty and power, a poor man whom no one cherished but a few—and even those deserted him except for his mother and one or two others of his followers. Alas. He had done no evil. Many loved him, and thousands were there, on the mounts, grieving and afraid. But nearer still was the market rabble, the lustful, the base, hating, ignorant and eternally envious and malicious market rabble, who love to witness suffering and death, who did not know this man except that he had been accused of blasphemy—and what did they care about blasphemy, these screaming and grinning and taunting mobs? It was enough that this was a spectacle of agony which they could enjoy, and make of it a holiday. Do we, in Rome, not know this thieving rabble, and fear it? We have tried to placate these fat wretches, these wretches with enormous buttocks, sweaty, dependent, unwashed, indolent, greedy, demanding, howling, savage, lightless but filled with malevolence, boiling with lying rumors, worshiping the tawdry and despising the heroes and the just and the merciful—do they know that they do not deserve mercy? Yes, we know them, in Rome, too, and we have been appeasing them for a whole century, with free housing within the very sight of the Palatine, within sight of Caesar’s palace, with free food and beans and wheat and bread and meat and swine, with free entertainment. For we know them, now, to be the menace of empires, to be the real Vandals within the gates, the destroyers. Woe to that nation who gives them votes and voice, and listens to their howling! This we have done, and inevitably Rome must fall.”