Great Lion of God

by Taylor Caldwell

  In his extremity he believed that Caiphas was truly one with him lat last, and as alarmed as he, and in this belief there was considerable truth.

  He felt betrayed and beset, abandoned by every man, and that he I was struggling alone against a legion of the damned, who did not I faint or fail. He dared not think of Rabban Gamaliel lest he lose his I mind, nor did he think of Joseph of Arimathaea. But they thought of I him and spoke often of him, quietly between themselves.

  Caiphas summoned Saul to him one chill winter evening and said, with a heavy and tragic face, “We have a problem of exceeding delicacy.”

  Saul sat down weightily, for his weariness grew day by day. “Another one?” he asked, and accepted a goblet of wine.

  Caiphas sat near him and folded his hands in his lap. “You have heard of the house of Tobias, elegant Hellenistic Jews, patrons of art and the theater, Sadducees, whose sons are Scribes and officials of Roman government, and possessing fine houses in Athens and in Rome and Jerusalem and Alexander, and learned, and esteemed noted for their taste and discrimination, and as sophisticated as the Greeks, themselves?”

  “I have heard of them,” said Saul. “They are friends of my grandfather. I, for one, do not esteem them.” His face grew hard, that haggard face with the new deep lines plowed into it, and its thinness so that the harsh large nose protruded more than ever.

  “They are celebrated for the men they have contributed to the Sanhedrin and to the sciences, particularly medicine, and to the professions, particularly law.”

  “They are also celebrated for their atheisms,” said Saul, “and for the amusing poems and books they have written deriding the Pharisees and the more stringent aspects of the Mosaic laws, and have gracefully approached the very edge of heresy.” He regarded Caiphas with impatience. “What have these exquisites, these arbiters of elegance, to do with me, and my mission before God?”

  “It is very delicate,” said Caiphas. “There is a youngest son in the house, still unmarried, of great beauty it is said and strength and charm, Stephen ben Tobias. He has studied in Athens, Rome and Alexander. He is a man who has directed his gifts and his talents, God-given, nowhere in the service of Israel, preferring to be a great gentleman in the Greek and Roman manner, strolling the world and observing it voluptuously, and enjoying himself. He not only appears to have a Greek soul, he resembles a Greek amazingly. That, of course, is not of importance. His family has never been supporters of the Temple except for the most meager of tithes, nor have they had respect for the priesthood. In short, they have been heathens in attitude, and Stephen ben Tobias is a true son of his fathers.”

  “I am not concerned with Sadducees and their admiration for the Greeks, nor even their atheism,” said Saul. “Worthless Jews are of no moment to me. Let God be their judge, not I.”

  Caiphas coughed and studied the priestly ring on his finger. “It is known that Stephen ben Tobias has embraced the new heresy of the followers of Yeshua ben Joseph of Nazareth.”

  “I do not believe it!” cried Saul. “A man of the useless house of Tobias, overcivilized, posturing, perfumed, dainty, rich, garmented in ilk and gold and jewels—and the poor and starveling heretics, unlearned, debased, craven!”

  Caiphas coughed again and fixed his light gray eyes significantly on Saul. “It is not harder to believe than that your grandfather and brethren have also embraced the heresy.”

  Now Saul heard the soft threat under the High Priest’s quiet words and a cold sweat broke out upon his flesh, a sweat of fear and dread. He said, “If my kinsmen believe there is some merit in Yeshua ben Joseph’s blasphemous teachings, they have not sought to proselytize, nor have made overt acts, nor have they refrained from their devotion to the Temple. In truth, they are now showing more devotion to the Law and the prophets and the Temple than ever they revealed before! So I have heard. I do not seek out,” Saul resumed, his terror brightening the exhausted dullness of his eyes, “those who are suspected of error, but those who advance it, insist upon it, harangue about it, and declare blasphemy in public. We do not enter a man’s house and demand evidences of his adherence to our faith, for his house is his own and so sacred. We do not demand even that he believe! We command only that he keep his own counsel discreetly, not create public disturbances, not openly beard priests in the Temple and call them “keepers of the word of the law but murderers of the spirit,’ and not insist, publicly and openly, that Yeshua ben Joseph was the Messias. What a man believes is between him and God, blessed be His Name, for faith is a gift of God and cannot be forced or willed. But public blasphemy is another matter, and incitement to riot against the peace of Israel, and open treason against our nation and our God.”

  Caiphas sighed. “Calm yourself, my Saul. I heard no word against your family. It is as you have said. But I have heard word of Stephen ben Tobias. I hear that he has been named one of the Seven among the heretics, that is, a leader, a privileged and influential man, a man appointed with authority by them to teach, to harangue, to destroy our faith and our security. How the infection reached him is a mystery. une less attuned to any faith, however esoteric, than Stephen ben Tobias could not have been found in all of Israel, or one less careless of holy matters. Yet, I am assured, he has placed his private fortune at the feet of those they call apostles and disciples, has taken to living openly among them, dressing himself humbly, and is full of fanatical fervor. It is as if a peacock had turned himself into a crow, a noisy insistent crow, preaching heresy. Now, my Saul, what shall we do about this man?”

  “It is incredible,” said Saul. Caiphas murmured, “Stephen has a rich villa of his own at Caesarea, where he has entertained Pilate and Herod. He has delivered this fine property to the heretics, for a shelter for living quarters, for a meeting place of other heretics. When among them there he labors in the fields he owns, with the basest of them, plowing, speaking, preaching, exhorting, and eats at the common table with them. He is like a man possessed.”

  “He is doubtless possessed,” said Saul. “No man of his kind could descend to that unless he is mad. Have none of his kinsmen requested a priest to exorcise the evil spirit that is now residing in him? Surely, they are perturbed!”

  Caiphas spread out his hands. “That, I do not know. That house has always been an aristocratic one, patrician, scornful, haughty, cold—and corrupt. What they think of Stephen is not known, and woe to any man who would be impertinent enough to question them concerning a member of their house! They are remote and dignified—and very rich. It is possible they think it a young and lively man’s temporary aberration, and so probably smile at it indulgently, just as they have smiled at the iniquities of other members of the family who have embraced Greek and Roman lewdnesses. Their conduct has often approached the scandalous and there have been murmurings among the priests in the past. But they clothed it all with a graceful discretion, if indeed it was shameful.”

  The High Priest looked at the silent young man whose lips were compressed and white and whose look was bent on the marble floor.

  “Had Stephen shown the discretion of his family we should not now be faced with a dilemma,” said Caiphas. “But, he is not discreet. He is now in Jerusalem, and I have reports that he is exhorting large audiences in the Temple purlieus and proclaiming with passion that Yeshua ben Joseph is the Messias, and making new heretics by the score. For he is a man not only of consequence and one of cultivated and authoritative speech, and a gentleman, but he has been trained in rhetoric and dialectics in Athens and speaks with eloquence and passion, moving even the most devout, it is said, to tears and acceptance. He is a veritable Demosthenes of heresy. He has convinced many priests and has lured them into blasphemy. Amazingly, he is persuasive even among the very learned.”

  When Saul did not speak Caiphas continued: “He also has a restless mind and is curious and inquisitive. I am certain he is well informed of the beliefs of the heathen, for, as I have said, he is a Hellenist and has spent more time in Greece than in Israel. Speak, Saul.
What shall we do, for Stephen ben Tobias is dangerous, more dangerous, perhaps, than any other living heretic.”

  “Do you advise me to arrest him and throw him into prison?” Saul fixed his fiery eyes on the High Priest almost in contempt, for he knew Caiphas’ reverence for his own caste and his protection of them.

  “His kinsmen would be at my throat,” said Caiphas, and Saul, even in his anger, could not keep from smiling.

  “Report him to Pilate as a seditionist against Rome,” said Saul. “Let Pilate then choose his fate.”

  “His family is influential, and, as I have told you, they know Pilate well. This situation would only amuse Pilate; he is endlessly amused at us. He would only say, T have left this in your hands, my dear Caiphas, as you requested, yourself.’ He is a very capricious man, land a murderous one. He enjoys punishing Jews, but not such Jews the house of Tobias. He would not lift his hand. He would jeer it the thought of Stephen inciting our people to sedition against Rome, “for several of the family are Roman citizens and married to Romans and reside in Rome, and are friends of Caesar’s. When I have mentioned heresy to Pilate he has almost laughed in my face. He thinks our devotion to God is ridiculous. He cares nothing about that, as you know.”

  “Yet he executed two thousand miserable heretics in Galilee,” said Saul, and grimaced with an anguish he could not control. “Our fellow Jews.”

  “You are a very ambiguous man,” said Caiphas. “You hunt down heretics and imprison them and order them to be lashed and admonished, yet when Pilate punishes them with death—and is not death ordered for blasphemers?—you quail. No matter. It is probable even you could not explain it. It is possible that you draw a distinction between your threats of massacre and the actual massacre! Or is it heinous for a Gentile to do what a Jew would do? In matters of justice and law we can make no distinctions. Pilate ordered those executions because the heretics were advocating open revolt against Rome.”

  Saul stood up, with a vehement gesture. “With what weapons? Do they possess arms and armor, swords and fortresses, legions and centurions and generals and ships of battle and fortunes and mercenaries and chariots and horses trained in war, and banners?”

  Caiphas shook his head in wonder. “You are one who speaks from the bowels in this, and not from the mind. Let us return to Stephen ben Tobias. He must be silenced.”

  Saul’s pale face was suffused with scarlet, for the High Priest had touched him sorely with his words. He exclaimed, “Have you no eloquent priests, no devoted priests, no men of stature and faith who could arouse the people against this heretic? Have we no fanatics no zealots, amongst us, to protect the Temple and the Book and the Law? Have we not even the army of Gideon?”

  Caiphas was silent.

  “What is the task of the priests but sustaining and protecting our holy faith against all enemies, and advancing and strengthening it? But the priests have now become mere discoursers of obscure commentaries; they delight in random philosophies and the inconsequential things of this evanescent world! They do not shout of the prophets and the law. They speak no more of Sinai, except on the High Holy Days, and then listlessly. They have become as secular as the people, themselves! They are ritualistic—but faithless. They have hidden God from the people in languid ceremonies and in clouds of incense, and are more concerned with tithes and their privileges than they are with the souls of their people. They urge more aqueducts and public buildings and roads upon the Romans, and speak of these things as necessities, but the immanence and glory of God are far from them. They believe the luxuries of their living, and their political influence with the Romans, are more than the souls of our people.

  “This heresy would not have arisen among the people of Israel had not their souls been languishing for the exaltation of faith, the renewal of faith, the devotion to faith, which the priests have not been offering them!” Saul went on, becoming fired with his rage and indignation. “Yeshua ben Joseph brought to them an ardor and a power and a transcending passion again, and even if he permitted it to be said that he was the Messias, and so was a blasphemer, at least he stirred their fainting hearts and their souls! But our priests have taken our people into the desert of faithless despair and have turned their minds only to this world, and have deprived them of living waters. On your head, Caiphas, and on the heads of your priests, lies the reason for this heresy!”

  Caiphas stared at him in sudden and uncontrollable terror, for it seemed to him that Saul had suddenly become clothed in flame and prophecy, had enlarged mightily in stature, had been infused and magnified, and so expanded beyond human flesh that he appeared to fill the chamber and to make it blaze with lightning and resound with thunder. The eyes flashed blue rays, the face was transformed like the face of the prophets, and his voice was terrible.

  Saul flung his cloak about him, and though he wore no sword it was as if he were arrayed for battle.

  “As for this Stephen ben Tobias, I will pray how I must deal with him, Caiphas. In the meanwhile, search for a fervent priest or two to counteract this heretic’s blasphemies—if you can.” Saul went from the chamber and the sound of his leaving was, to Caiphas, the footsteps of an avenging man, clangorous and echoing.

  Chapter 32

  HE HAS the face of an angel, thought Rabban Gamaliel as he looked at young Stephen ben Tobias who had dined with him in company with Joseph of Arimathaea. Alas, we see this splendor of countenance among the young seldom now in these drab and restless days of discontent and lack of certitude. If one asked of him, “Who are you?” he would not sit down to ponder and contemplate uneasily and with despair as so many of his generation now do. He would reply with smiling pride, “I am Stephen ben Tobias, a Jew of a great house, a servant of God, blessed be His Name,” and in saying that he would say all that could be said, and beyond that there is nothing more.

  Stephen was young and he had a sprightliness of spirit and a passionate warmth that was as full of humor as it was intense. Always, he had had such a temperament, but now it was richer and deeper and gave a bright glow to his face. He was tall and handsome and athletic, and indeed, as Caiphas had said, he was the embodiment of Grecian masculine beauty such as was seen only in Macedonia and not among the dark and agile Athenians. His curly hair was like amber and glittered with health and life over a full face with a strong and rounded chin, the classic Greek nose, the open lustrous eye, the sensitive and animated red lips so extolled by Greek poets, and a grace of movement that was like a poem, itself. For this visit to Rabban Gamaliel, he had dressed as he had always dressed before, in fine raiment, a long tunic of thick yellow silk bordered in red embroidered flowers, a golden girdle and Alexandrine dagger, jeweled sandals and armlets, and many rings, and even an earring in one ear. But his hands, once so delicate and perfumed, now revealed the marks of rugged labor, and were as brown as a nut, as was his complexion. His expression rushed in one moment from the most absolute seriousness to such gentle and hearty merriment that the old men who sat with him felt their hearts move with affection, and with sighing memories of their own youth and assurance and vigor.

  “Nevertheless,” said Joseph of Arimathaea with anxiety, “I beg of you to be discreet, Stephen. We have spoken of Saul ben Hillel, may God have mercy upon him, and he is a ruthless man now, a relentless one, full of dedication and fanaticism, a veritable lion of God. We await the blessed day when he will see the glory of that which he now attacks, for always we have known, in some measure, his destiny. But until that day and hour it is well to step lightly about him. I am certain he has heard of your proselyting, for nothing escapes him for long, nor is he a respecter of persons. I pray you will not encounter him.”

  “I thank you for your concern, Joseph,” said Stephen, and though his face had become grave there was still a twinkling upon it. “I am sorry that he was not invited to this house tonight, so that we could debate. I have seen him at a distance, and indeed he does resemble a lion, with that red mane of his, the fierce eyes, the commanding manner, the ner
vous impatience and the lithe movements, and his regal gestures. I feel that our conversation would be, at the very least, furious and interesting, and intelligent, and not weighty with the stones of ritual doctrine. The men I usually encounter are either hostile and dull, or docile and dull, rejecting or accepting with equal lack of positive reason. In truth, the docile and blandly accepting disturb my spirit, for they are no warriors of God.”

  He flung out his hands. “What He has spoken of among us is not womanish nor resigned nor meek nor flaccid. It is a call to battle, as the prophets called, and Moses. Our faith is not a faith for the eccentric and timorous and unthinking and placid and shy. It is muscular and powerful; it calls for banners and trumpets and drums and battlements and all the strength a man can give it, and not soft words and hesitant manners and mild preachments. It is strong drink, not milk. While it is tender and merciful toward the weak and the unsheltered lambs and ewes, and for those oppressed by man and hopeless, it demands that even those must gird up their loins after their wounds are healed and stand fearlessly before enemies and lies and Godlessness. It demands an ‘Aye!’ to the face of God, regardless of persecution or death or exile, and a joyful noise before the Lord. Let not those who fear, come to us, nor those who would dilute the power of our certitude, nor those who would say, ‘This may be so, but on the other hand that may be so, and should we not be men of kindly reason who not only can give answers but can listen tolerantly to questions and weigh them judiciously, remembering that perhaps those questions pose a truth of their own?’

  “The truth is of one piece,” said Stephen, and now his face glowed with that unearthly light which so many found fascinating and exultant. “It is true in all things or it is false entirely. It must command all that a man is, or it can command nothing. That is what the prophets have told us, and which our Redeemer and our Savior has told us: ‘He who is a friend of this world is an enemy of God.’ In short, the world is black error and you cannot serve error in the morning and serve Him at night.” He smiled at his friends. “‘He who is not with Me is against Me.’”