Great Lion of God

by Taylor Caldwell

  He said to Lucanus, on the eve of the Greek’s departure for Philippi: “In Jerusalem many of the earlier Nazarenes were of distinguished family and learning and education and erudition, men of travel and intellectual stature. But in Antioch we draw but the simple and illiterate and the dully obstinate.”

  Lucanus had had much more experience than Saul with the ignorant and humble, and knew, more than did Saul, that once these were given a petty authority they were more arrogant than a man born to great authority. He was also more compassionate, though less inclined to uncritical love. When Saul roared, alone with his friends in their miserable little rooms in a poor inn, Lucanus said, “Speak more gently with more conciliation, my Saul. And more slowly and in less learned terms. The humble mind is easily offended and fragile and inclined to unreasonable rages, and does not follow an intricate and rapid argument. Rather, it resents and derides the speaker because it does not understand him. Speak as if to unlettered children, in simple language and with less haste.”

  It was rumored among the Christians that Saul and Lucanus were men of considerable riches. Why, then, did they live so meagerly? Lucanus was a Greek and a Gentile, and Gentiles were often incomprehensible, but Saul was not only a Jew but a Pharisee. Therefore, he baffled the other Christians. It was known that both men gave lavishly of their money to the young Church and sent tithes to the Church in Israel, which was doubtless exemplary. But the charity of Saul did not excite affection among the Christians nor gratitude. They had a communal society, did they not, where every man shared with his brother, and were not the poor, by the mere fact that they existed, entitled to the treasures of a rich man, earned or unearned? They believed this in all righteousness, though it was contrary to the teachings of some of the elders. They took umbrage when Saul shouted at them, as he had shouted before, “He who does not work neither shall he eat!” (The Christians of Antioch, however, were less inclined to sit and wait for the imminent arrival of the Messias, and were more inclined to earn their bread.)

  As for Lucanus, they were awed by him and his cool and aloof manner, for he was a “stranger.” Many of the Jewish Christians still harbored a conviction that a Gentile was to be treated with restraint and some wariness, even if he was a Christian, too. “Respect but suspect,” their simple forefathers had said of the Gentiles, and those descended of them were inclined to agree, still. The few Greeks and Syrians and other “strangers” among them were, on the other hand, given to wondering if gentle contempt for their fellow Gentile, who was rich yet did not condescend to them, the poor, but gave them of his purse as well as of his skill. They recalled that in Christian love he was impelled to do this, but as they were human as well as Christians it was somewhat incredible to them. The poor shared with the poor, but for a rich man to do so unsettled the simple and naive, and decreased their respect.

  Antioch was not only a city of seemingly unending heat and sun, where the black cobbled streets were as hot as fire at noon, but it was a city of walls in the Oriental manner, and secluded gardens and courtyards, behind those walls, and winding roads and stinking gutters and blazing white skies and dogs and camels and sheep and goats loose even on the streets, accompanied by geese and doves. It was also a city of markets, even more so than Jerusalem, and the rabble here was more turbulent and blasphemous and ribald in a dozen tongues, and impudent beyond endurance. It never slept at night; the night clamored with the flutes and harps and zithers and drums and wild laughter and yells and shrieks and barkings, and the taverns never closed and roisterers roamed the street all night in garments of a score of other nations. Roman guards never walked alone; there were always two or three or four of them at least. The men or Antioch spat at them and cursed them, but cheerfully and in a comradely spirit, and if the Romans smiled indulgently they were often, and immediately, invited to visit the nearest tavern with those who had just insulted them, and. all entered with arms over shoulders. It was also an important port, on its broad river, and ships of many countries were always at anchor there, loading and unloading.

  “You must admit it is a colorful city, even zestful,” said Barnabas, who was somewhat inclined to find mitigating features no matter how deplorable the man, the town or the customs.

  “It stinks,” said Saul.

  “I have heard it does not stink worse than Rome,” said Barnabas.

  The Christians met in abandoned ruins, on the outskirts of the city in fields, in quarries, in barns, in miserable little houses. When Saul suggested a House of God some of the elders, careful now of his temper, mentioned that the Lord had spoken of “a Temple not built of hands.” That was another source of Saul’s vexation: These people confused metaphor with reality. When the Lord had said that those “who hunger and thirst for justice would be satisfied,” that was the clear reality He had promised in the world hereafter and after His Second Coming. But when He spoke in mysterious parables—however simple they appeared on first hearing—and in metaphor, many were confused and it was only the wise who could interpret to them, sometimes to their mutiny. Saul had less trouble with his fellow Christian Jews, for they were acquainted with the mysteries and the symbols of the Scriptures and the elusive words of the prophets, which required commentators. It was the converted heathen who obstinately clung to the word and not the spirit.

  “The Lord,” Saul would explain over and over, “spoke in Aramaic, not in Greek or Latin or Syrian or Persian or Egyptian or Parthian. It is a subtle tongue, full of inner meanings and versatility and symbols.”

  So, he bought an old inn for the Christians and removed walls and made of it a Temple and with the elders he sanctified it, and set up an altar, and the women made a cloth of coarse white linen for the altar and embroidered it lovingly, and there on the altar Saul set a fine pair of seven branched candelabra, bought from a Jewish merchant who sold good silver, and behind the altar was hung a tall gilt Crucifix. The Christians were at first doubtful, then proud of their temple.

  It had been explained to them, even before Saul, that the consecration of the bread and the wine made them purely the flesh and Wood of the Messias. But many remained doubtful. Some of the eiders argued, “The Lord said, ‘Do this in commemoration of Me!’” They brightened. Ahah! They looked at Saul with triumph, “It is but a symbol!” They swelled with pride; they had this haughty man at last.

  Saul shook his great red head. “You are ready to accept symbols when you decide they are symbols. But this is a reality. The bread and the wine are indeed of the substance of the Lord. When spoken in Aramaic, in which He spoke only, His words do not mean “imitation” or symbol. They mean a repeated truth.”

  “That is true,” said the Jewish Christians, nodding their heads. This immediately provoked a noisy argument between them and their fellow Christians who did not know Aramaic and, deplorably, there was some shaking of upraised fists. Saul found humor in the situation, and watched indulgently. They were good and harmless men. They would not actually strike each other—would they? When one did he banished the man for a period of five days, and the others were ashamed and prayed that he be forgiven.

  While Saul was an organizer and an interpreter and the high priest, Barnabas was the teacher, happy and cheerful, loving and forgiving, gentle and kind. He often averted some transgression from coming to Saul’s fierce attention, and some sinner given a harsh and crushing rebuke. Sometimes, in a mood of despondency, common with him, Saul would confess to Barnabas that the Law of God was perfect, but it was most evident that man is not capable of following it. Consider even me, he would say, who have had the ineffable Grace of a vision, a direct confrontation with the Messias, and have been taught directly by Him, and not through the words of men. I do not understand my own actions. “For I do not do what I want but I do the very thing I hate. I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do. For I delight in the Law of God, in my inmost self, but I see in my members another law at war with the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin which dwells
in my members. Wretched man that I am! What will deliver me from this body of death?” (Rom. 7:15-25)

  “We are all sinners,” said Barnabas, sadly.

  “But we should not be sinners!” cried Saul. “Alas, that I reproach these poor creatures when I am worse than they! For I was mightily blest and saw with my own eyes.”

  “It is the conflict of our spirit with our flesh,” Barnabas urged. “God, blessed be His Name, understands this. Our little victories are not small to Him. They are blessed and great and received with love, for He knows how dearly they have cost us.

  “Baptism removed our inherited sin,” said Barnabas. “We—”

  “We continue to sin merrily,” said Saul, that most unmerry man.

  But the power of his voice, the marvelous eloquence of his teaching, his intuitive understanding, his vast sincerity and passion, and the fact that he was rich and learned, finally overcame the wariness of the Christians, gathered them together in a firm and enlightened body, drove lingering superstitions from them, enhanced their love of God and man, gave them courage and zeal. They never came to give him their confidences—those were reserved for the tender Barnabas-but they trusted Saul as they did no other man and when he urged them to go out among the heathen and bring them to the Messias they felt their spirits uplifted and their resolution exalted.

  “Be just and kind and mild and loving, speak always with honor and truth, stand like a shining pillar in the darkness, be honorable and temperate of speech and manner, be joyful that others may know your joy, avoid open or private sin, pray always, and let your countenances speak of the miracle which Our Lord has wrought in your souls. So you will draw others to you, in wonder, to be enlightened, and to be saved. This is an evil world. He who can point the way to peace and justice and salvation and everlasting joy and love is a messenger of good tidings, a servant of God. For he comes, asking not for money or position or favor himself. He asks only happiness for the souls of others. This alone is a stupendous request, before which all men must stand in amazement and awe, for never was it offered before.”

  So in their labor, and in their leisure, the Christians zealously proselyted as they had not proselyted before, with a fervor and a persistence which pleased even Saul. He thought of them as his children, and he as their father, and he loved them with all his heart:

  Even when they vexed him, which was nearly always. Knowing his own imperfection, he could not endure the imperfections of others. He despised them in himself and in them.

  Chapter 42

  SAUL left his grim little shop where he sold the products of his loom and made his way through the riotous and clamorous city to the house of the famous Egyptian physician, Khefren, who was a friend and colleague of Lucanus. He had met the physician before, a tall and subtle man with a perpetually amused and sardonic expression, and a pale brown skin and mysterious slanted eyes, and thin black hair which appeared painted on his narrow skull. He had long and exotic hands and he colored the palms red and his nails were tinted and he gave the impression of being not only very wise but fastidious and rich, all of which he was. It was not possible to guess his age; he could have been forty and again, in some lights, he appeared old. His beard was short and pointed and sleek with perfumed oil.

  Once Saul had discerned him in company with Lucanus when he, Saul, had preached in the new poor Temple which the Christians regarded so pridefully. He had stood among the sweating crowds and the red sunset light had streamed over his dark face but had revealed nothing except interest in his black eyes. He was dressed richly but quietly in deep crimson and gray robes with a sleeveless vest of intense and brocaded blue and a short coat of white silk embroidered with gold threads. Every finger bore a valuable ring and there was a fringed necklace of delicate gold about his throat and one jeweled earring in his right ear. Though he was an Egyptian he had placed a small turban of crimson, blue and white upon his head, and many were the timid glances, wary and tentative, cast on him by the poor Christians of Antioch gathered together to worship and to partake of the Body and the Blood of their Lord in communal love.

  When the offering basket was passed among the congregation Khefren had carelessly dropped into it a costly jeweled ring and a handful of gold Roman sesterces. Those near him had gasped at this treasure. But he had stood like a preoccupied Pharaoh in their midst, and appeared to muse upon what Saul had said. Then he had disappeared as the communicants had walked humbly and prayerfully to the altar to receive their blessing and the Sacrament.

  Twice later he had appeared, and always he departed with that bemused expression.

  Saul had said to Lucanus, “Your friend, the Egyptian physician, seems impressed by what I say, and the words of Barnabas. Is it possible he will become a Christian?”

  “I think not,” said Lucanus, with that pale cold smile of his which Saul could never understand. “He considers you a magnificent orator. You interest him. He is not only a physician but a student of many religions and the mind of man.”

  There was something in his manner which indicated that he would prefer not to discuss his friend, and Saul did not intrude. However, be heard frequently of Khefren’s genius as a physician, and so tonight he made his way through the seething and noisy throngs to the house of Khefren, which was guarded by yellow stone walls and an iron gate and two men in livery who looked at his poor garb without favor and crossed spears barring him from the gate. The scarlet sunlight splashed on the walls and on the stony street and the air was rank and hot.

  Saul said impatiently, “I know the illustrious physician, your master, and I beg of you to inform him that Saul of Tarsus wishes to consult him.”

  The guards were contemptuous. But one said, “He does not receive patients at this hour and only in the morning. Nor does he receive those who cannot pay.”

  Then Saul fixed them with his terrible blue eyes and coldly repeated his request and one guard scuttled away while the other, vaguely frightened, stood with his spear pointed warningly at Saul’s breast. Then the second guard returned with a confused look, nodded to his companion, and they reluctantly opened the gate and admitted him to a beautiful cool garden with fountains and lanterns newly lighted and to the distant sound of a harp. He walked up the red gravel path to the portico, where the white columns glowed in the sunset, and there a slave awaited him who bent before him in the Eastern manner touching his forehead and then his lips and then his chest, as if Saul were an honored visitor. He conducted him to the wide atrium where a small fountain, exotically perfumed, splashed water like crystal into the air. Here Khefren met him, bowing, then holding out his hands. He smiled and said to Saul in Aramaic, “Shalom. Greetings and welcome to his house, Saul of Tarsus.”

  He clapped his hands and a slave appeared and he ordered wine and refreshments. Saul said, “I come as a patient, Khefren, not as a guest.”

  Khefren smiled. “But I receive you as a guest. Be seated, I pray you.”

  Saul sat in a Roman chair of ebony inlaid with nacre and ivory. He was hot and weary and dusty, and the luxury about him brought to his mind how arduous was his life. He drank of the spiced wine served to him in a silver goblet enameled in blue and gold and red, and ate a few sweetmeats and slowly his exhaustion left him. In the meanwhile Khefren spoke amusingly and lightly of Antioch and the news from Rome, which he found risible. His sardonic expression more and more detached him from the follies and stupidity of mankind and Saul uneasily thought of him as a spectator rather than a participant in life. In comparison with Khefren’s garb his own seemed the miserable garments of a slave or a laborer in the country. Once he thought he saw, somewhat to his vexation, that Khefren was obliquely regarding him with satire.

  “You have said, Saul ben Hillel, that you have come to me as a patient,” said Khefren at last. “Is that not extraordinary? I have heard some of you Christians say that all illnesses are ‘sins,’ and that only evil men are subject to the torments of the body.”

  Saul’s face became irascible. He put do
wn his goblet on a fine lemonwood table. “They will misinterpret!” he exclaimed. “Because Our Lord, when performing a miracle, said to the sick, ‘Rise and sin no more,’ they believe that He meant that physicians were no longer needed and that a good man would not suffer the diseases of the flesh! They do not realize that He had performed a twofold miracle, each separate from the other: Forgiveness of their sins as men, and a cure for their body. Each was a distinct marvel. Only last night a man covered with sores and in pain came to our Temple, and there were many who wished to drive him from the congregation, saying, ‘He is a sinner, and therefore anathema, for otherwise the sores would not have afflicted him!’ Yet I know him for a timid and gentle Syrian who has a blacksmith shop. I rebuked my people, but they glared at him sullenly and later three of the elders accosted me and disputed with me.” Saul reflected. “I am afraid that I hoped that they, too, might be afflicted in some manner as a punishment for their presumption.”

  Khefren laughed lightly, then said, “If this new Jewish sect spreads, then woe to us physicians! We will be degraded to the status of mere servants, and hardly tolerated.”

  Dismayed, Saul contemplated this thought, and his red brows frowned and met over his eyes. He rubbed his chin. “Surely,” he said, “men are not as stupid as that.”

  Khefren said, “My dear Saul. There is no limit to the stupidity of mankind, and to the results of that stupidity. All changes, but the nature of man. That is the great immutable. Nations may fall into rubble but out of the ruins comes man again, cursed or endowed with his ancient faults and character, and he sedulously builds once more to watch, once more, the fall of what he has built. I find that very amusing.”

  “A man’s nature can be changed,” said Saul, who found the conversation disturbing, “but only through the power of Christ Jesus, and the mercy of God, blessed be His Name. In his flesh man is divided from himself and from his brother. This is the spiritual death of which Our Lord spoke, for death is sin and sin is death. God did not intend this so; man willed it for himself, and Our Lord would save him from the corruption, and the tragedy.”