Great Lion of God

by Taylor Caldwell

  Barnabas, who was not an urban man and therefore not a cosmopolitan, was less easy in the atmosphere of Greece than Saul. He was insistent in his belief that all men were the same, and so cultivated the humble of Corinth, the slaves, the peasants, the less prosperous shopkeepers, the laborers in the fields, the wine-pressers, the vineyard tenders, the guardians of flocks, the freedmen. If the men of Greece appeared different to the men of the East, from whence he had come, Barnabas, in his simplicity, accused himself of prejudice and narrowness of mind. But Saul rejoiced in the difference between the men of Greece and the men he had known the greater part of his life, for it proved to him the marvelous variety that God had created in His wisdom and His love for beauty and diversity. Moreover, as a man of active mind and imagination, he was curious and excited by contrary opinions, and he loved debates.

  He was often invited to the pleasant homes of wealthy Greeks and he found himself enjoying excellent dinners if not the resinous wines of Greece. The Jews in Corinth, in the majority merchants and traders and bankers, were urbane also though, recalling Saul’s former persecution of their Nazarene brethren, they were less friendly to him. The rabbis in the synagogue were aware of his presence among them on the Sabbath, and they observed that no man responded more fervently than did Saul of Tarshish nor with more ecstasy and devotion—wearing his cap of the Tribe of Benjamin—but they were suspicious. They were prepared to dispute with him should he rise in the synagogue and attempt to speak to the congregation, for he was not only a—Pharisee but a member of the new Jewish sect, who were called Christians by the Greeks. The rabbis had no objection to the Christians appearing for worship in the synagogue, for was not Israel plagued by many sects? If they were temporarily convinced that Yeshua of Nazareth was the Messias, blessed be His Name, it would pass. But Saul of Tarshish was another matter. He spoke in Corinth of his surety that Yeshua was the Messias, and that men who rejected Him could not be saved nor partake of the world hereafter in the fullest measure for had not God made a new Covenant with Israel? But Saul did not rise to dispute with the rabbis. He merely gazed about him with eyes blazing with fervent love and desire.

  The Jewish Christians were no less suspicious of him, and so he knew, again, that his mission was to the Gentiles, though he confined his personal worship to the synagogue. He left the Jews to Barnabas who did not have his reputation and who was soft of speech and in all manners a true Jew. It was Saul’s deepest desire not to create divisions among the Christian Jews, and he knew that his very presence was a contention.

  In the meantime, another thorn was pricking his flesh, and it was a very large thorn. For he was joined in Corinth by John Mark, one of the Apostles, a man much younger than himself who had seen the Messias close at hand and had followed Him and had slept in the fields with Him, and had broken bread and drunk wine with Him, and had seen His Resurrection. Mark was a tall thin young man with immense soft brown eyes which amazingly could become cold and hard when he gazed at Saul, and his hair and beard were like brown silk and his hands and feet were pale and long and he spoke with a slow deliberation and positive emphasis which annoyed Saul from the very beginning. He was not only shyly suspicious of Saul—which Saul detected at once—for Peter had not had kind words to say of him even after their reconciliation, but suspected his mission to the Gentiles.

  Though Mark, recognizing that the Lord had come to the Gentiles also, was not averse to having potential converts among the Christians in Corinth or any other city, he believed with all his soul that the Jewish Christians were the inner circle of Israel, the Elect, the only ones assigned the Messianic Message, the only true saints, and that in the future it would be these Christian Jews solely who would have the governance of the Kingdom, and not the Gentile converts, who would form only a small and select body. Therefore, he was embittered against Saul who offered the Messianic and mystic inner circle to the Gentiles. He said to Saul, “The Lord warned us not to cast our pearls before swine nor to throw that which is holy to the dogs.

  “There is no limitation to the Kingdom of God,” Saul replied, and in the beginning he was patient. “The Messianic Mission is for all, and is not exclusive nor does it bar any man touched with the Finger of God, Jew, heathen or Gentile.” He smiled coldly at Mark. “The Jews require a sign and the Greeks seek after wisdom. But we preach Christ crucified, unto the Jews a stumbling block and unto the Greeks foolishness. But to them which are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God!” (Cor. 1:22-24) He added: “For we are laborers together with God. You are God’s husbandry. You are God’s building.” When Mark did not answer Saul said with his natural wild impatience at such obduracy, “For as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of that one body, being many, are one body, so also is Christ. For by one Spirit are we all baptized into one body, whether we be Jews or Gentiles, bond or free, and have been all made to drink into one Spirit.” (Cor. 12:12-14)

  Mark looked at him with a glaucous veil over his eyes. He said, “But you were a Pharisee—and the Lord denounced the Pharisees— We still fear and suspect them.”

  Saul was infuriated at this non sequitur, and his pride inflamed. He cried, “Whatever anyone dares to boast of I also dare to boast of that! Are they Hebrews? So am I! Are they Israelites? So am I! Are they descendants of Abraham? So am I! Are they servants of Christ? I am a better one—with far greater labors. I have been beaten and have been near death. Once I was stoned. I have been in danger from rivers, danger from robbers, danger from my own people, danger from Gentiles, danger in the city, danger in the wilderness, danger at sea, danger from false brethren; in toil and hardship, through many a sleepless night, in hunger and thirst, often without food, in cold and exposure. And apart from other things there is the daily pressure upon me of my anxiety for all the churches.” (Cor. 11:21-30)

  To this, Mark answered nothing, but left him. Barnabas was distressed. Between the quiet obstinacy of Mark and the haughty pride and certitude of Saul, he felt himself caught between an upper and nether stone. However, his intuition convinced him that Saul was right and just and the younger Mark provincial, for all that he was an Apostle. But Barnabas’ greater distress was that such dissension should arise in the Church, an outcry of protesting tongues. If the Church were so divided then it would be weakened and its mission delayed and distorted. There was always room for discussion, for discussion frequently clarified, but there was no room for war and revolt. When Mark said to him, “The Message should only be given in the synagogues, and not in the heathen marketplaces and in the houses of the Greeks, who are idolaters,” Barnabas tried to explain, but Mark was as convinced as Saul, himself, that he was right.

  “I will have no part of this!” exclaimed Mark, and without taking leave of Saul he left for Jerusalem, there to complain of the arrogant Pharisee to Peter. (It was not for many years that Mark finally knew that Saul was just and admitted, in his Gospel, that the mission was to the Gentiles also, without restriction.) He told Peter that Saul was perverting the Message of the Messias, that he was destroying the holy faith and adulterating it, that, as he was a cosmopolitan, he was admitting alien influences into the Church and condoning strange practices and preaching strange doctrines, to the scandal of the faithful.

  “Let him flaunt what he calls his authority,” said the elders in Jerusalem, while Peter listened in perturbed silence. “He has put aside the Law, he has flouted Jerusalem, he appoints his own elders, he has put himself outside the pale. This Pharisee, this hunter of the innocent and the mild! He says he has been appointed by God and the Messias: Let him continue! God will not be mocked, but will destroy this prideful, boastful man.”

  Mark enlarged on the subject. Barnabas was his uncle. Saul of Tarshish had perverted that gentle uncle’s faith, and had endangered his soul. He was bringing hordes of ill-informed and casual and idolatrous Gentiles into the Church merely to enlarge his authority and impress by numbers. He did not search a man’s soul diligently
and sedulously to be certain that that man had indeed been given the gift of faith. He baptized that man on a mere and hasty profession! He was the new Jeroboam, and no doubt an apostate, if ever he were a Nazarene, which was open to doubt. “He will be our death!” cried Mark, in all sincerity. “He will delay the Coming of the Messias, and plunge us all into darkness and despair! We shall not, because of our tolerance, share in the Kingdom. Woe to us!”

  Others, listening to Mark and nodding in distress, again recalled Saul’s former persecution of the Nazarenes. Was it possible that he had become a Christian only with the intention of destroying the Faith?

  Peter said, in a low and hesitant voice, “I, too, doubted him for many reasons. But I visited him in Antioch, and found nothing wrong there. The Gentiles he had converted—they astonished and edified me with their faith and their joy. I have told you of this before. He convinced me. I saw the shadow of the light of the Spirit on his countenance. You must believe me. Once I was like you, but I had a vision. Saul has his message; I have mine. Each of us is commissioned to do his part. Let there be no dissension. If Saul is ever in error, Our Lord will correct him, or cast him out. True, he is a proud man and at ease among the Gentiles, but do not those very qualities give him power among them?”

  But one of the elders said, “We Jews stand in a glorified place with the Messias, for we have been taught the Commandments and the Covenant was given to our people. We are a holy nation, indeed. Our Lord was an Israelite and He obeyed the Laws of our fathers, and was circumcised. Therefore, those who would join us must become as He.”

  The old argument continued, Peter observed to himself with a sigh. Would the young Church survive these heated dissensions? He said to the others, “I trust Saul, so you must trust him also. What is not of God will be cast out. Had they not all questioned Saul before, in Jerusalem, and had been convinced by him? True, he had antagonized them with his barely concealed arrogance and impatience at their lack of formal learning. But he had denied the accusation that he was forming a new faith. He was only bringing the Gentiles into Israel, as he had said, himself. Israel was God’s chosen nation; he had acknowledged this to the elders. But the Messianic community included all peoples. Had not the Lord so declared, Himself, and Isaias, and all the prophets? What man dared say to one eager to believe and join the Messianic community: ‘You shall not enter, for you are uncircumcised and unclean?’ That would be an offense to God, who loved all men and would have them join Him in Heaven. Should man arrogate to himself the decision who should be saved and who shall not? That was truly Phariseeism.” At this, Peter smiled gently at the heated elders.

  He said, “If Saul of Tarshish were a man more like ourselves, more obscure, more temperate, more humble, born where we were born, having lived as we have lived, and not a Pharisee of great and “worldly learning, not a man of the cosmopolitan community—in short, a he were of our features and our status and our speech—then we should not so resent him and dispute with him. For he was not born in Israel, and is a Roman citizen and a lawyer of Rome, and was taught by a Greek, so we consider him an upstart and an alien and resent his teachings to our brethren. This is a human error, to suspect the stranger even when he comes to us in good will and sincerity. We prefer our own. But God prefers no man over another.” He added that the prophet Hosea had said that God would number the Gentiles among His people in the latter days. “Look now toward Heaven and tell the stars, if you be able to number them.” (Gen. 15:5-6) So, added Peter, all men were the seed of the Messias.

  The elders subsided, but they did not love Saul though they trusted in the words of Peter, for had not the Lord founded His Church upon him, and could the Church be in error? No. The plan of casting Saul out of the Messianic community was abandoned.

  James rose up and said that in his judgment those among the Gentiles who turned to God were not to be molested or thrown out of the Messianic community and Message, but that henceforth they were to abstain from idols, from adultery and fornication, from eating strangled animals, and from bloodshed. The Gentiles were but to obey the primal laws as given by Moses, and if they wished to adhere to the Law more fervently they would be joyously accepted as part of the Israelite community, and the Elect.

  Saul heard of this meeting, and again he was inflamed. He accepted the judgment of the elders, but he burned in his heart. The Jewish Christians called the Gentile converts “brethren,” but still to them they were only Gentiles. They were not truly Israelites, as the Lord was an Israelite. They were tolerated, only. Saul said to them, “He who accepts the Messias is in the most holy way an Israelite, and he who rejects the Messias is not an Israelite.”

  Having fully established the Church in Corinth Saul was anxious to move on to the wilderness where the Name of the Messias had not yet been proclaimed, and into Christian communities which were still weak. Barnabas, in his gentle fashion, suggested to Saul that Mark be invited to join them. Saul looked at him with angrily sparkling blue eyes.

  “No,” he said. “He has caused me enough trouble, and has raised up dissension in the Church, where all should be harmony.”

  “If he did,” said Barnabas, almost in tears, “he did it out of zeal.

  “I have no patience with zealots,” said Saul, that most zealous man. He despised Mark that he had attempted to interfere with him. Had not Mark’s quiet contentions brought about seizures in Saul, which enfeebled him? He who enfeebled a messenger flouted God. Barnabas argued, but in vain. Saul was adamantly opposed to Mark, not only out of conviction but out of human incompatibility.

  So when Mark arrived Saul refused to see him, remembering offenses. Barnabas, torn between the love he had for his nephew, and the love he had for Saul, his friend, finally departed with Mark for Cyprus. Saul, proud and unyielding as always, eager to give love yet seemingly rejecting it, made other plans.

  His first emotion against Barnabas was that his friend had deserted him, had abandoned him for his nephew, considering Saul of less moment. But as Saul was a rational man in spite of his temper and his harsh speech he finally said to himself: I drive away what I would embrace. I stir anger in what I would love. I lie down with rage when I would desire to consummate my greatest passions. I would tolerate stupidity if it were not so authoritative! Alas, I am a venal man.

  He sorely missed Barnabas, that soft voice of temperance and kindness and charity. He missed the concerned brown eyes, the touch of the consoling hand. But he could not ask Barnabas to return as yet. One day he would beg that return, though not as yet, he told himself. In the meantime, in a gesture of reconciliation, he agreed to certain terms of the Jerusalem community, advanced to him by Peter who was growing in his esteem.

  Now his desire was to advance into Europe after a visit to Athens, and to Athens he journeyed, that seat of Western wisdom and poesy and profound philosophy, that throne of beauty, that crown of ethics and subtle reasoning.

  Chapter 45

  THE silvery dust and silvery hills of Athens entranced Saul. All was iridescent in the rays of the most ardent sun and under that deep blue and incredibly brilliant sky. He would walk through the Agora, scanning the shops, the merchants. He would pause before the temple of music to listen to the musicians practicing. He visited academies and law courts, where the disputations of lawyers excited and amused him and the wry magistrates made him laugh in sympathy. He visited libraries, established by Marcus Tullius Cicero long ago, and paused to glance through books. He would stand upon a hill to look at the purple water of the port of Pireus and watch the ships at anchor. Here, in this light, this vivacity, this humorous and sparkling atmosphere even the Romans seemed to him more amiable and enlightened Above all, the Acropolis fascinated him and the giant statue of Athena Parthenos before the Parthenon, and he climbed to the ton to wander the marble floors between temples and fountains and colonnades and to look down on the white city below. He marveled and was reverent. For the first time he thought, “How noble the mind and soul of man when delivered of grossne
ss and materialism and expediency! How fateful, how portentous, his very shadow on marble when he surmounts his nature! Here beauty has set her monumental foot on stone, and the beauty was evoked from man’s own spirit. I have often considered him mean and filthy, malicious and cruel, foul and deceitful, wicked and lustful, traitorous and vicious, and in truth he is all these things. But I know also—and how deeply I know—that he is also divine in the Divinity of God and that immortality echoes in the chambers of his brain, and that nothing can be denied him if he surrenders to the Most Holy and becomes one with Him. Only God can set man free to be himself, if he desires that freedom, for captivity is self-ordained and all its ugliness and vileness.”

  The statues on the Acropolis did not vex him as once they might have done; he delighted in their loveliness, was entranced by the unbelievable majesty and detail of them. They were like gods to him, and he could understand how it was that men often worshiped what they had made with their own hands, recognizing in the mysterious dark and mystic places in them that what they had created had been inspired in them and was not wholly their own. The God of Light and Beauty had smiled on this steep hill and Phidias had been His tongue in stone to speak to that in man which craves, unendingly, perfection and excellence. Socrates who spoke only in words was less than Phidias, who doubtless had had angels at his elbow and as architects. Worship struck at Saul’s vulnerable heart. He stood and looked through the immense white colonnades at the passionate blue of the sky, and at the flaming air, and he thought that not even in the Temple of Jerusalem had he felt such reverence, such awe, such overwhelming joy, such ecstatic comprehension.