Great Lion of God

by Taylor Caldwell

  “Are we not all imperfect men?” Peter asked him.

  “Are we not to put on perfection?” demanded Saul.

  Peter sighed. He was a man of quiet humor. “We can but try,” he said, a remark which Saul thought frivolous. John and James listened to this with emotion racing across their darkly active faces, and Saul to his pleasure, saw that they agreed with him and not with Peter. However, they also agreed with Peter that before a Gentile could become a Nazarene he must first become a Jew, be circumcised and learn all the sacred Scriptures. How else could he understand the Messias, who had been prophesied through the ages, and the signs of His coming?

  John said, “When we were in Samaria, and the people therein rejected Our Lord and would not hearken to Him, I implored Him to call down fire on the city and destroy it.”

  “And what did the Lord reply?” asked Saul.

  Peter’s large brown eyes glinted again with humor. “The Lord rebuked John,” he said, in a tone which implied that the rebuke had not been gentle. John flushed and pulled his cloak closer about his shoulders. James lifted his head in a most vigorous movement. It was obvious that they still believed that cities and nations which rejected the Lord deserved hell-fire. For some obscure reason this annoyed Saul. One should feel sorrow for the cities and the nations and seek to enlighten them, but certainly not to devour them in flames. That was hardly a good method of persuasion.

  Their fellow Jews did not reject Peter and John and James with deaf contempt, but granted them the courtesy of listening to them, and thus they made many converts to the new sect. Moreover, they rebuked the docile Nazarenes who would not work but simply awaited the imminent arrival of the Messias. “Who knows but what hour He comes?” asked Peter. “Let Him not find us idle, but engaged in honest toil and in prayer.” And many were ashamed and resumed their labor.

  This baffled Saul. He was rejected, but the other Apostles were given respectful attention. They even made converts among the Romans and the Greeks. But he had no offerings to give the Lord, no flowers to lay on His altar.

  It came to him slowly and disastrously that with the exception of a few now, of his own house, no one spoke to him, all shunned him and averted their eyes, or stood at a distance silently derisive, that even the priests in the Temple had nothing to say to him, no, not even during the High Holy Days. Peter had left Jerusalem, and James and John had gone far away, and no Jew, orthodox or Nazarene, recognized his existence.

  Chapter 37

  TO Saul’s pathetic pleasure, he received an invitation to dine with his old friend, Joseph of Arimathaea, who hinted that he might be happy to meet another guest. Saul, with a new humility consulted his nephew Amos, who advised a long tunic of deep red wool bordered with gold, a gold girdle and ring, and a cloak of dark blue and fine leather boots against the chill of autumn. “How sinful it is to garb one’s person so when there is hunger in the land. The Messias scorned luxury,” said Saul, who nevertheless thought his appearance vastly improved. He still could not grow a beard because his skin, though darkened by the sun, was extremely tender, but the long red curls before his ears were clean and polished and glistening with health and his hair was a shining red mane.

  “All the gold of men in the world would not abolish poverty nor feed all the hungry,” said Amos, who was as practical as his great-grandfather, Shebua ben Abraham. “And He smiled upon Mary of Magdala who bought sweet ointment for His feet, costly and fragrant, and He rebuked those of His disciples who told her that it should have been better had she spent the money on the poor. There is a time for all things,” said the handsome young man glancing with amusement at his uncle, who was surveying himself in a long mirror in Amos’ chamber. “There is a time to be poor and a time to be rich, a time to cut a figure and a time to be inconspicuous. This is your time to be a peacock, Saul.”

  Saul, even in the expensive raiment, was hardly a peacock, with his sun-darkened countenance and arms and hands. Amos had thought of a single jeweled earring, widely affected among young Jews in these days, or armlets of gold and jewels, or gemmed wristlets, or a slight effusion of perfume, but he thought it injudicious to mention these things. He had struggled enough with his uncle over a few matters.

  “Hah,” said Saul.

  “You are a rich man,” said Amos. “You have not touched even the interest on your interest, according to my mother.”

  “I think of other concerns,” said Saul, with sudden gloom. However, he let Amos persuade him to take one of the family cars and he drove off with a flourish, seated on velvet cushions, with a driver almost as well-clothed as himself. Sephorah had clapped her hands at her brother’s “splendor,” and innocently prayed that this occasion would be the beginning of his return to the house of his family. Saul, holding to the gilded rail, did not know why he felt a sudden hope and ease. After all, he was only dining with a senile old man, and a stranger.

  Joseph met him with embraces in the beautiful atrium of his house and then a young man with a pink and merry face, a gleaming black and curling beard and deep black waves of hair on his head, and wearing a cap of the tribe of Levi, emerged from the shadows, and Saul, with delight and amazement cried, “Barnabas!” He fell into the arms of Barnabas and the young men embraced fervently, for this was Barnabas ben Joshua who had saved his life in Damascus by lowering him over the walls of the city in a basket. It was Barnabas who had told him much of the Messias, for he had been one of His disciples, and he had given letters to Saul to introduce him to Simon Peter and the brothers, John and James ben Zebedee.

  Saul’s weary face glowed and became young and unlined again as he embraced Barnabas over and over in his joy, and then held him off to exclaim, “Is it really you, you rascal?”

  “It is surely I,” said Barnabas. His features were plump and highly colored; he had a mouth like a mischievous boy, and eyes that danced with a black light. Nothing could darken or sadden that cheerful spirit for too long, and Saul had found him a solace during moods of doubt, and a staff to help him over rough boulders of thought, and a companion who loved to eat and drink fine wine and jest to such effect that even Saul had reluctantly found himself bursting into laughter, the old boisterous laughter of his youth.

  To Barnabas the Messias was not terrible, as He sometimes was to Saul, but a joyful and tender Comrade, loving a jest also, and enjoying an excellent meal in the houses of rich Pharisees. When Barnabas repeated some parable, he did not do it solemnly in the way of Peter and John and James, but with a twinkle, and at once Saul could see the Messias smiling and His imperial blue eyes shining with mirth. “Often He implied to us that Heaven is full of laughter and gaiety,” Barnabas would say, “and humor both subtle and broad, and that merriment rings from the battlements, for that which is good is happy and blithe, but that which is evil is somber and dark and laughs not at all. I admit some of us did not regard the thought with pleasure, but you know how gloomy many of us Jews are, alas.”

  Though Saul had sometimes suspected, as he studied the ancient and holy Scriptures, that God would have His joke occasionally, he had thrust the thought aside as impious. But a laughing God now appealed to him, like a refreshment in a smiling garden, and Barnabas had frequently called his attention to the fact that in some creatures there was immense humor, and fantasy and buoyant invention and appearance, and the stormy dark heart of the young Pharisee had been impressed: Until lately, in Jerusalem, where he had found nothing to inspire his humor, not even the acrid humor of his youth.

  Barnabas, too, had encountered the apathetic and sweetly smiling and docile Nazarenes in Damascus, who sat in sloth staring at the sky in hopes of seeing the Messias return immediately in clouds of glory. But he had not despised them as Saul despised them.

  He would say to them, “It is true that the Messias told us not to tear our hearts in fear for the morrow, for today has its own miseries and evils and duties, and that is sufficient for the day, for man lives but one day at a time and the future is mysterious and not yet his o
wn. He also taught us that anxiety is impious, for God our Father knows what we need and desire, and if we labor and are industrious and are prideful of our labor and do the best we can with the hands and minds He has given us, and forget Him never, and seek always His Kingdom, then all else will be added to us.”

  While this did not convince all those who preferred sloth and indigence and charity, it did shame the more intelligent among them and sent them hurrying to resume their labor and rejoin their families. Saul had succeeded not at all, except in inspiring the hatred of the shameless.

  Joseph’s old face was bright with pleasure at the sight of the young friends and he led them into the dining hall, where Barnabas, surveying the rich sauces and fine meats and good wines and the roast fowl and broiled fish, cried, “Ha! This is a feast for angels! Behold those opalescent grapes, with the dew upon them and the delicate frost, and those olives swimming in delicate oil, and those citrons like the sun, and those plums like a girl’s mouth, and that spiced cabbage and beans in a delectable sauce, and that bread whiter than snow, not to mention the cheeses and the sweetmeats and many other things! Joseph, you are a pasha, a veritable Persian pasha!” He laughed with delight, and added, “Ah, if but the Messias were here with us now, as He was before! How He would rejoice in these viands, which even the richest of the Pharisees who invited Him to dine never served!”

  A Messias who had enjoyed the delicious foods of the earth, and had savored the best wines with appreciation, was a new Messias to Saul, But he said to himself, “I am ridiculous. Why should He not have loved the bounty of God, for did He not create them? Why should not He, above all, relish their flavors and admire them?”

  Barnabas might be merry and cheerful and he might rub his hands in anticipation, but he was not obtuse. He saw the new thoughts fluttering over Saul’s tired face like restless moths, and he saw the stern mouth beginning to smile faintly. Ah, Saul, Saul, he thought with deep love, the Messias brought enchantment to us, and not only raptures and faith and hard toil! For, was He not Joy, Itself, the glory and the jubilation? He was Man, as well as God, and had an affection for innocent pleasures, and never rejected a bright face. In truth, He had inveighed against the dolor of the more rigorous Pharisees, who thought that a melancholy countenance and grave and irksome ritual pleased God. They had thought that the lawful pleasures given to man to soothe and rest him were evil, and in that they most surely must have offended Him. Had He not spoken with approval of feasts and wines to the old prophets?

  Seating himself and smiling with wider delight, Barnabas thought, “What patience God must have with us, that we despise His gifts, or interpret Him, the Unknowable, in the terms of our little minds, and bind the Incomprehensible to the measures of our small natures!”

  Joseph was pleased that Saul, the austere, was actually enjoying this meal, goaded as he was by the laughing Barnabas, who was surely one of God’s merriest saints. Saul even remarked on the flavor of the wine. Toward the end of the meal, which was leisurely and full of happy if inconsequential chatter—Barnabas’ desire—Barnabas said to Saul, “I have a message for you.”

  For some reason, Saul’s heart bounded and his soul expanded, and he looked into the black and beaming eyes of his friend, and Barnabas nodded gaily. Immediately Saul began to tremble, and tears came into his eyes, and he bent his head over the jeweled cup he held and drank of it deeply to conceal his emotion, for he knew that Barnabas would tell him when he chose, and would not be pressed, and he also knew that the message was not trivial.

  “It may not please you,” said Barnabas, “but you have no choice. Yet, as you are Saul of Tarshish, it may indeed please you, for the reason you have no choice.”

  He then resumed his jests, and Joseph laughed and Saul forced himself to laugh. They returned to the atrium after dining, and then Joseph turned to Saul with a grave face and said, “You must forgive me but we have another visitor who will be here. He demanded to see you at my house, and as he is an old friend and of many tribulations I could not refuse him.”

  He gazed hesitantly at Saul, as if imploring his pardon, and then the visitor was announced. Saul, to his anguish and shame and sorrow, saw that it was Tobias ben Samuel, and instantly his vision was suffused with moisture and it was as if a sword had struck him. Joseph embraced his friend, who replied absently. His cold and bitter eyes fixed themselves on Saul and he gazed over Joseph’s shoulder, and Saul saw his silent hatred and suffering, and could feel no resentment.

  Tobias did not greet him. He stood before the younger man and looked at him with slow and contemptuous reflection, as if studying and rejecting each feature, each hair, each limb and garment. The haughty Saul felt himself coloring in spite of his own pain, and he thought, I am of a nobler house than his, yet he surveys me as if I were the basest of slaves! Then at once his anguish and sorrow returned, and when Tobias had concluded his inspection Saul fell on his knees before him, clasped his hands and said in a voice shaking with torment, “Forgive me. I knew not what I was doing. My excuse is that I believed I was accomplishing the will of God—”

  Tobias interrupted with such loathing and scorn that Saul winced: “Is it possible that one such as you could believe that God was working His will through you?”

  “I believed. I was in error. But I believed.” Never had Saul so abased himself before, in humiliation and remorse, and Joseph felt a pang for him and made a gesture to Tobias who, however, waved aside that gesture.

  “You believed,” said Tobias to the kneeling man whose head was bent over his clasped hands, “that you were just in murdering my son, my only son, my beautiful and beloved son, my gentle and devoted son? You believed that God desired that innocent blood? You believed He was as monstrous as you, Saul of Tarshish?”

  Saul raised his proud red head but did not rise from his knees. He looked Tobias in his face, and controlled his voice. “Tobias ben Samuel, you know the ancient penalty for heresy. I believed Stephen was a heretic; I believed it with all my soul. I was wrong. I have wept and prayed for forgiveness. I would have spared your son; I attempted to spare him. No matter. I have spent years in the desert, contemplating the Messias and learning of Him, the Messias your son so loved, and for Whom he died—at my hand, yes. And now I know that God has forgiven me, for I did not do what I did in malice, but only what I thought was ordained in law. That is my only plea: That I believed I was an instrument of God—”

  “And so you, in fervent pursuit of your wicked error, also bound and imprisoned and caused the death of others of the innocent, Saul of Tarshish?” Tobias’ voice was so full of contempt that it was heavy and weighted.

  “I did not believe it an error. I would that I had a thousand lives, that I might give up each one in torture to atone! God has accepted my penitence—”

  “And, who informed you of that, Saul of Tarshish?” Tobias stepped back from him as if he carried a fetid contagion.

  “I saw Him, on the desert floor, on the way to Damascus. If He had not forgiven me, if He had not known that what I had done I had done in honest and fervid error, and not in wantonness and cruelty, He would not have shown Himself to me.”

  Tobias regarded him for a long and bitter moment. Then he said, “It is my opinion that you are mad, Saul of Tarshish. You had no revelation. You did not see Yeshua ben Joseph, except, perhaps, in His lifetime. Your dream was your own demented conscience calling to you! That is, of a certainty, if you possess a conscience, which I believe you do not.”

  “I saw Him,” said Saul, and struck his breast with his clenched fists, and his face became brilliant with both pain and ecstasy. “I saw Him! None can take that from me! And I have heard His voice, calling unto me, and it was not a voice of wrath!”

  “Then surely you dream, for otherwise He would have struck you dead for your crimes against my son, and the other Nazarenes!” Tobias pointed his finger almost into Saul’s face. “Do you know what you have done? I have tried to believe as my son believed. I have talked with many Nazare
nes. But I cannot become one of them, for my son’s murderer remains unpunished, and surely if Yeshua of Nazareth were the Messias He would not permit you to profane His Name, and claim that He had appeared unto you! The fact that you exist, and live, is proof to me that Yeshua ben Joseph was not the Messias!”

  Saul’s eyes became stricken and filled with tears and Tobias nodded with satisfaction. “So hundreds of others believed. You are anathema both to the Jews who do not believe in the Messias, and those who do. You are a calamity in this city, Saul ben Hillel. You bring doubt to those of the old Faith, and those of the New, for they say, ‘Is this not the merciless persecutor of the innocent, and is he not a spy, who would destroy us? Even if he is sincere, then he is mad, for a man does not persecute one day and lift up and embrace the next. And who but the mad would listen to the mad?’”

  Barnabas had been listening to all this also, at a little distance, and he felt deep sorrow both for the embittered and bereaved father, and for Saul, and he prayed that both might be comforted.

  Tobias continued, “I believe that my son lives, for I have been offered proof, and none can deny that proof. But when I dream of him his eyes are tearful, though he smiles. He does not speak. I think he remembers how he was murdered, and would have me avenge him.”

  “Ah, no!” cried old Joseph. “Once you believed that he would have you join him in faith, and accept, and would have you know that he was happy in the company of the Messias!”

  Tobias’ pink lips thickened and paled with venom as he looked at Saul, though he replied to Joseph: “I know only that I hate this man, and will have no peace so long as he is in this city. And so I have paid scores of taunters, and have had them whisper among the people, and he will make no converts—or victims—here! He stands alone. Neither Nazarene or old Jew will hearken to him, no, not even a priest even in charity. He is without arms or armor. He is despised and rejected. His name is accursed, and it is a noble name and as a man of a noble house I am ashamed for him. Saul of Tarshish! Shake the dust of Jerusalem from your feet and leave the city of your people, for you are less than a rat in the gutter to us, and lesser than a jackal!”