Great Lion of God

by Taylor Caldwell

  “A direful man is this Paul of Tarsus,” the young officer would mutter, gazing at the man apart over his shoulder. “One cannot understand these Jews; one is particularly unable to understand this Jew. What are we about? To arrest his people in Damascus for blasphemy! If it were not so mysterious it would be absurd.”

  “Still,” said one of his men, “I have heard tales that their God rises easily to wrath and vengeance and flies in a storm of fire, and has an outrageous temper, and levels mountains with the glance of His eyes and demolishes cities by the mere raising of His hand and can, if He wishes, divide the earth like an apple with His sword. One does not trifle with such a Deity.”

  “I have heard,” said another soldier, “that His God is also tender and merciful and loves man. But that is manifestly ridiculous! What god can love men? Unless it is maidens and nymphs and dryads of much beauty.”

  “It is possible that he is an oracle,” said still another, “or a soothsayer, and a wise man does not enrage such for fear of death.”

  “Hah!” said the subaltern, lifting his big young shoulders, “I have been in this land of the Jews for longer than any of you, and I have seen one they call Yeshua but whom we call Jesus of Nazareth, and I saw him die, and many called him their God, but he died only as a man. They say he rose from the dead, but that is a tale of women. Nevertheless, I have also heard that the Jews are often sorcerers, so let us keep our peace and obey our orders.”

  The soldiers were accustomed to campaigns and austerities and denials and adversity and hardship, and though these were not to be desired they could endure them. But they marveled that a civilian, a man reputed to be a scholar and a rabbi, and a man of the cities, and not a soldier, could endure what they endured without complaint, and be the first on his horse in the morning. One or two of the soldiers were convinced that he was either demented—and therefore had superhuman strength—or that he was semi-divine—and therefore had superhuman strength. No ordinary man, they thought, could live as he lived and not die of it, days ago.

  Sometimes they found a cave in which to sleep, for which they were thankful.

  And sometimes they heard Saul of Tarshish murmuring under the vast loneliness of the moon and the stars, and they made signs against portents and Furies and Hecate and Hecuba and the evil eye before they slept. It did not come to them that they accompanied a man in torment and agony and deep in the dark night of the soul. They rode behind him, seeing his powerful shoulders under his poor cloak and they caught glimpses of his pallid set face and nose and leonine expressions and afflicted eye and tortured mouth, and to them he was an enigma and often an object of fear.

  “I have served You all my life, Lord, King of the Universe,” he would pray. “I have dreamt that You had turned Your Face to me knowing that I have obeyed all Your Commandments except for one evil day in my youth; I have believed You listening. I would rejoice to die at Your Hand! My Lord and my God—how I adore You! But there is suffering in my heart now, a greater suffering than I have ever known before. There is only silence where I thought there was a Voice. How have I offended You? If I have offended by a single breath—destroy me, for I cannot live in such pain! What is my sin? I do not know. I have imprisoned and flogged Your enemies, those who dared to blaspheme You. I am on my way, my heart one enormous burning, to right the wrongs committed against You. Gaze upon me, Lord, a beggar, a worm at Your blessed Feet, a sparrow beating against the prison of Your Fingers, a dry mouth open in weeping. What am I, that You should notice me? Nevertheless, I have served You with all my spirit and all my heart’s longing. Deign to give me but one radiant flash of Your approval, lest I die in my yearning for You and for Your Word.”

  Out of his exhaustion and his pain and inexplicable sorrow, he would fall briefly asleep near the fire, his face on his bent knees. Sometimes he dreamed of Stephen ben Tobias, and he would cry out to the shining whiteness of that dead face: “I would have saved you, but you refused the saving, and I mourn for you, you youth of beauty and resignation!” On awakening he would say to himself, “Can it be I am being beguiled by a demon? Is that the reason for the blackness and melancholy of my spirit, for surely he was a sinner before the Lord!” But the depression and misery remained.

  On the ninth day they knew they were approaching the fabulous city of Damascus for sometimes at noon, sometimes at sunset, they would see distant caravans on the horizon which were not mirages, and the awful desert air would bring to them faint voices and the petulant complaints of camels. Once at an oasis they saw that only night before an entourage had been there, for the spring was muddied and the pungent herbs trampled. The hot sky was becoming hotter; the young men suffered from rashes and their heads were under their helmets, and they wondered anew at the stamina fortitude of the man of the cities who led them, tireless and silent. The desert floor yellowed, the sky became a flame; shadows were sharp and black. The soldiers yearned for the nearing city and thought of girls and water and perfumes and something more to eat than dried beef and cheese and stale bread and more to drink than the common wine of the country, and fruit on sun-cracked lips and unguents on sun-blackened skin. They had compassion for their horses, whose eyes were starting and reddened and whose hides frothed, and they cared for them at oases before they cared for themselves. They did not observe Saul of Tarshish watching their boyish ministrations. He would think: I did not know that Romans had pity in their hearts for man or beast! And he was ashamed, and he remembered that the Messias would be a Light unto the Gentiles and he marveled that once he had rejected that prophecy, and he was humbled. They are only boys, he commented to himself. They are younger than myself, and I am young also.

  On the morning of the tenth day he said to the officer, “I have been preoccupied with many thoughts of my mission, and so have given thought to nothing else. But in my pouch there are salves, and bottles of good wine I have not drunk, and excellent cheese and dates wrapped in silk. Tonight, you shall have them, for I need them not.”

  The young officer stared at him, incredulous, then exclaimed, “Lord, you are a veritable divinity, in your kindness!” His boyish face was so burned that he was almost as black as a Nubian, and he went off to boast to his men that he had persuaded the rich and incomprehensible Jew to share his wealth with them. Saul overheard this. He had not smiled for a long time, perhaps for years, but now he smiled and the smile was youthful and even gentle. And, as he smiled, some of his anguish lifted.

  On the tenth day he said to the subaltern: “Let us press on, even into the night, for then at dawn we shall be in Damascus, and can rest, weary though we shall be. As you know, Lucius, I am to be the guest of a man named Judas on the large street called Straight, you will go to your military quarters and remain there until send for you.”

  Lucius saluted and agreed that they should press on, even into the night, for now the endurance of his young soldiers was lagging and fatigue was heavy on their limbs. But he again marveled that Paul of Tarsus, as they called him, betrayed little weariness and that his iron-blue eyes were not cloudy nor reddened.

  The soldiers received fresh strength, knowing they were approaching the end of their wretched journey, and that night they celebrated with Saul’s wine and refreshments, then neatly put out their fire and gathered up their belongings and leaped upon their horses again.

  The night was peculiarly lucent, the moon full and huge and burning in white fire, the desert floor streaked with black shadows. The sound of the horses, the voices of the men, the occasional laugh or snatch of ribald song, awoke gigantic echoes in the crushing silence, but now the young men did not glance superstitiously over their shoulders nor search for their many amulets. They would sleep in Damascus.

  The moon rose higher. Midnight came and departed. The harness on the horses tinkled like little bells. The soldiers were quiet now. Sometimes they dozed in their creaking saddles, weary again. The hoofs of the horses struck fire on stones.

  It was not possible, thought Saul, that the silence c
an become even more silent! He looked about him. The desert floor was like a still sea of white milk, scarred only by their shadows, and it had an odd shimmering on it, flashing and shifting and sparkling. The moon appeared to enlarge, to advance on the earth. The stars were one shaking mantle of light. Saul gazed about him with a quick sharpening of awe, and he searched his mind for a fitting Psalm to repeat. But nothing came to him. It was as if his mind had been emptied like a cup, a vessel, and naught was within now but a thin and unbearable thrilling. He put his hand to his brow, afraid of fever, but the sweat of the day had dried and his skin was cool. His heart, as if affrighted, began to beat in his throat and ears, and his flesh started.

  It was then that fear struck him, a fear so profound that he became cold as death. It was an enigmatic fear, beyond mortality, overwhelming and nameless. Am I about to have a seizure? he thought with terror, remembering his mission. Am I about to fall from my horse, perhaps even to die on this desert? Lord, have mercy upon Your servant, Lord, have mercy—

  But his mouth did not dry. His tongue did not cleave to his lips. His sight was clear and not distorted by rainbow scintillatings. There was no severe and sudden pain in his head, no tremblings nor preliminary jerking of his limbs. In truth, his sight was keener than ver before, and all his senses were alert like soldiers awakened by shout. He looked about him at the desert and then at the moon and the quaking stars, and his fear deepened until he was afraid he would die of it and his blood chilled. But what he feared he did not know. He glanced behind him at the soldiers. They were quiet now, some yawning, some drowsing. There was no fear in them.

  But the fearsome terror mounted in him. His hand fell to the shoulder of his horse and to his increasing alarm he felt the animal quivering as if it, too, was startled into fear. It shivered, faltered, stared before it. But there was nothing there but the silent milky sea of the desert. Saul searched frantically for a prayer. His mind was as blank as a babe’s, and this affrighted him more, for never had his thoughts betrayed or fled from him. I am weary, weary, he thought in his terror. It is only that, and the enormity of this desert moon, and the lonely places and the ghostly silence, and the suffering I have endured. It will pass.

  He was a tenacious man, and he touched the shoulder of his horse peremptorily. He looked before him, hoping for a glimpse of the city, praying that it would rise like a silver mirage on the endless white desert, that he could see the glinting of its gates. There was nothing there.

  “What is that?” exclaimed the subaltern in a loud and tense voice which shattered the silence, and he reined in his horse and his men halted with him. “I heard a stranger speaking, the sound of a man! Lord,” he said to Saul who was still going on, “did you not hear something, a voice, a command, a question which did not come from one of us?”

  “No,” said Saul, and now he was almost beside himself with his I fear, convinced at last that he was enduring an objective and not imagined horror. He abruptly reined in his horse.

  And then before his eyes there was a vast explosion of ineffable light, palpitating, a boundless cloud of light, filled with drifting sparks of white fire, glowing at its heart with blinding gold, more vivid than the sun.

  And then he saw Him, standing in the center of that golden core, on the desert level.

  He was as Saul remembered Him, in the marketplace, with His Mother, on the street, in his dream, and walking among the dolorous crosses, yet He was glorified, transfigured. He was the mighty Man, the heroic and beautiful Man, with all His monumental grandeur of divinity, majestic of face, possessing the blue power of imperial eyes, stately of kingly beard and head, radiating a stern white purity of brow, an effulgent whiteness of robe, the prayer shawl about His shoulders seemingly inlaid with stripes of rainbow color and fringed with jewels. Still, He was as Saul remembered Him in mortal flesh. Or, had he only dreamed of Him? Had he known Him always from birth, from the instant of being?

  Saul lifted his hands and his mouth opened and he knew, at last for Whom he had been searching, with longing and despair and hope and love—and with vehement denial. His eyes, though filled with that splendor which shone upon him did not blink, did not turn away, did not scorch. A quietude, as immense as the ocean, fell upon him. His heart bulged in his breast, shaking. His flesh quailed. But the ecstasy increased moment by moment, and he tried to speak, to whisper, and finally it was enough for him to see.

  Then He spoke in that great masculine voice which he, Saul, had heard before:

  “Saul! Saul of Tarshish!”

  It rang over the desert, that Voice, and it seemed to Saul that the mountains started and listened and the earth caught her breath. He saw only the vision before him, yet he also seemed to see the whole world, nation upon nation, city upon city, battlement upon battlement, and sea upon sea, and then constellation after constellation and glittering universe after universe, prostrate, adoring.

  The voice, commanding, not to be denied by anything that lived, called again: “Saul, Saul! Saul of Tarshish!”

  Saul did not know that he had slipped harmlessly to the desert floor, and that he now lay there, only a seeing vessel. What he saw was all life and all knowledge and all-encompassing certitude and fulfillment, explanation of mysteries, revelations. He forgot where he was, and even who he was. He forgot the soldiers about him, who were huddled together in fear, hearing a voice but seeing nothing.

  Saul thought he would expire in his transports. His hands moved before him on the rough gravel, groping. He could not look away from the powerful Figure in that dazzling core of gold, a Figure much greater in stature than a man, a Colossus of brilliance, imposing, armed with the authority of divine might, beautiful beyond dreaming, and yet terrible, implicit with virility and with the fire of creative force.

  Again the voice spoke, like approaching thunder: “Saul, Saul of Tarshish! Why do you persecute Me?”

  O overpowering love and bliss to hear that remembered voice, the voice which commanded angels and worlds and suns and all men!

  “Lord,” Saul whispered, creeping closer to Him Who was the center of his life, “Who are you, Lord?” His exaltation heightened. He desired only to touch that divine foot, to lay his tired cheek upon it, to rest in the blessedness of knowing. Oh, joy of man’s desiring!

  Did the voice gentle, as if in pity, lose something of its resolution and severity? It said, “I am Yeshua of Nazareth, Whom you persecute. It is hard for you to kick against the pricks, is it not, Saul of Tarshish?”

  Even if He destroy me in punishment and kill me forever, yet shall I rejoice that He has spoken to me! thought Saul. Let all the world roll over me and crush me into nothing—and I will cry out in my delight, shouting Hosannah! that He remembered me! It is enough that I have known Him, have seen Him with these eyes, as I have yearned all my life.

  “Lord,” Saul murmured, “what is it You would have me do?”

  “Arise,” said the Lord, “and go into the city and it shall be told you what you must do, Saul of Tarshish.” And now He smiled as a father smiles, or a brother, or the dearest friend any man can know, and bliss assailed Saul again and he was transported again and ecstasy again seized him, and eternity was his own.

  The incredible light remained, golden at its heart, storming with flecks of radiance, but the Figure had departed. Saul gazed at the light, longed to hurl himself into it, to suspire in its holy depths, to lave in it, to sleep in it, at rest forever. He dreaded to return to the world of dim shadows and pain and the flesh, to mundane things, to men and wearisome roads and the hungers of the body, and the mirage of cities and the meaninglessness of tongues, and dull breath and humiliations and stone and dust. How could he endure the world, after that vision and that glory? Better to die in the remembrance than to resume life again. All longing that he had ever known was nothing to this craving of the soul, this urgent passion, this anguished yet delighting love.

  The soldiers, almost beside themselves with fear, having heard but a voice though not the words, a
nd having seen nothing, dismounted and ran to the prostrate man. They saw his face, his staring eyes, his parted lips. His countenance was brighter than the moon. It was as if he had beheld a divinity, for he was transfigured. This so frightened them that they started back from him, shivering, for it was dangerous to touch one stricken by the sight of the divine. “Has he seen Jupiter or Apollo or Mercury?” whispered one soldier to his officer. “He has the appearance of one who has approached the gods.”

  The subaltern overcame his fear after a few moments. He had his honor as a Roman to maintain. He touched Saul on his rough woolen shoulder and Saul arose, not wearily, not with a swaying motion, but like a boy, His eyes were still filled with a glory, a reflection of something not of this earth, and again the soldier recoiled and touched his amulets. Saul’s face had become preternaturally elated, changed, drawn like gold, exultant.

  Then he said, as if announcing a wondrous message of such great import that he could hardly speak: “I do not see. Yet I see. Let me not see with these eyes again lest the delight be taken from me!”

  The soldiers glanced at each other in trepidation. Then the officer said timidly, “You have been blinded, lord?”