Mark heard rumors of his father’s expeditions but he ignored them, for in the barracks he had entered upon another area of argument among Christians, less critical perhaps than the first but of greater ultimate importance to him. In these early years, when Christianity was fighting the outside world to protect its physical existence and its own membership in an effort to achieve a permanent theology, a group of ultra-dedicated men took their guidance from St. Paul, who had preached both poverty and the principle that truly religious men ought to live without women. These devout followers, first by the hundreds and later by the thousands, took vows both of poverty and of chastity, and some, like the great Origen of Caesarea, to whom the Christian world would owe much of its Bible, went so far as to base their lives upon what they thought to be the teaching of Jesus regarding castration: “For there are some eunuchs, which were so born from their mother’s womb: and there are some eunuchs, which were made eunuchs of men: and there be eunuchs, which have made themselves eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven’s sake. He that is able to receive it, let him receive it.” Citing these words of Christ, the great Christian had castrated himself.
“No man can give greater proof of religious faith than that,” an old Byzantine sergeant argued, and one day the grizzled veteran disappeared. He had gone into the Syrian desert, where he joined one of the small monasteries which were then beginning to flourish throughout the east, and it was rumored in Makor that before vanishing he had followed the example of Origen. The workmen spoke of his act with hushed respect, and before long a hawk-faced Egyptian disappeared too.
Mark was surprised when Father Eusebius spoke out sharply against monasticism. Following the general opinion in Constantinople the intellectual Spaniard, who respected art and the comforts of moderate living, preached, “Within the monasteries men obey laws which help them to lead lives of contemplation, and this God probably loves. But other men of equal piety live in the noise of the world, building, rearing children and helping to govern the earth, and this God certainly loves.”
This problem of monasticism fascinated Mark and one evening, when the tensions in Makor were at their greatest and when Father Eusebius awaited momentary notice of the Germans’ arrival in Ptolemais, the young artist sought out his priest and in the austere white-walled room asked him what had motivated men like Origen and the old Byzantine sergeant to castrate themselves in honor of Jesus Christ. “As human beings they were misled,” Eusebius said frankly, “but as devout men trying to subject themselves to God’s law …”
“His law?”
“Yes. All religions must create a law and sensible men must live within that law. It is the glory of Christianity that the law was made simple by Christ our master, who took upon Himself its major burdens.”
“But God’s law remains?” Mark asked.
“Of course,” the Spaniard said. “Origen and the sergeant were wrong in their interpretation of the law, but they were correct in seeking to place themselves within that law.”
“Is there a law that priests like you may not marry?”
“Yes. The law of St. Paul. But for ordinary Christians, like you, marriage is a boon. Even a crown.” The tall Spaniard lowered his chin upon his thumbs and smiled. “My father had eleven children and he was closer to Christ than I will ever be. We lived in Avaro …” He reminisced for some time concerning that lovely town in central Spain and it was his opinion that both the olive oil and the wine of Avaro were superior to Palestine’s. His reflections were broken by the arrival of a messenger from Ptolemais, and when Eusebius read that the Germans had arrived from Antioch and would march eastward in two days, he knew that the time for sentimental recollections of Spain had passed. Directing the messenger to available food, he bade Mark an abrupt good night. “Marry a Christian girl and have eleven children. That’s the pathway to heaven.” And he disappeared to consult with the captain of the local garrison.
Thus in his first weeks as a Christian, Mark found himself engaged in various controversies which would torment his church for centuries; and even though he was confused by the contradictions he was nevertheless able to see the true nature of this church: a vital, stormy meeting place for contrasting cultures and conflicting beliefs, in which an Egyptian could spontaneously crush the head of a Byzantine who mocked the Mother of God, and in which through the centuries one heresy after another would have to be suppressed and schisms healed, but in which Greeks, Romans, Persians and former Jews would be free to battle for an acceptable theology. Mark saw that the struggle to establish the essentials of faith for Christianity was going to prove as difficult as it had been for Judaism; but when the law was finally agreed upon, the church would possess a miracle of wisdom whose structure no one, certainly neither the Rabbi Jesus nor the Apostle Paul, could have foreseen. The difference between Christian law and Jewish would be this: to enforce their law the Jews, who would never be in supreme political control, would be limited to public opinion including such punishments as ostracism, as great minds like Baruch Spinoza would discover; but the Christians, to enforce theirs, would be free, since they would enjoy supreme power, to use strangulation, burning and the extirpation of entire provinces. But the basic problem would remain the same, and it would be in the unraveling of this Christian law that Mark, the son of an illiterate stonecutter, would eventually gain a kind of immortality.
But in the moments when he was first probing these matters other young Jews his age in Kefar Nahum, Tverya and Makor were deciding that the moment had come to throw off the Byzantine yoke, so one night rebellion of a most serious magnitude erupted in all three communities. It was past midnight when Mark was awakened by Abraham, Jael’s husband, who took him to a secret meeting where Jael was speaking. When she saw Mark enter she hesitated, then said to him above the heads of the crowd, “Menahem, will you join us on the eve of victory?”
Her use of his real name struck with curious effect. He felt dizzy, as if a last chance were being offered him to preserve his true existence. “I am a Christian.”
Jael came to him, her pigtails swaying in the flickering light. She was more beautiful than he had remembered, an extraordinary girl who had once kissed him, who had wanted him as her husband. Extending her hands in a gesture of complete acceptance she said, “We are not Jews seeking a synagogue. We’re men and women seeking freedom.” And she pointed to several conspirators who were still pagans worshiping Serapis.
But Mark, son of John, had chosen another path which made it impossible for him to join Jael and her husband. When he refused her invitation to participate in the revolution she ordered two Jews against whom he had fought as a boy to grab his arms. “We can’t let you run away to warn the Byzantines,” she said, and he remained their prisoner as teams fanned out across the town setting fire to many buildings. He stood with his guards as enthusiastic messengers came back with reports of initial successes.
“A skirmish by the church. We killed four soldiers.”
“Abraham was captured, but we freed him.”
Toward morning Abraham appeared, with a gash across his forehead, and later Jael joined him. “We’re driving them from the town,” she cried and then, seeing Mark, she told his guards, “Let him go now. He can do us no harm.”
Through the rubble of dawn Mark went to the room of Father Eusebius, finding it untouched and vacant. The priest had fled to refuge in an improvised Byzantine camp under the olive trees, to which Mark now reported. The Spaniard was relieved to see him and with deep emotion embraced him like a son. “When you didn’t appear to help us,” Eusebius said, “I was afraid you’d reverted to the Jews.”
“They’re not all Jews,” Mark said, “and they’re not fighting you. Only the tax collectors. I was in your room. The church, too. Nothing was touched.”
This honest report reminded the Spaniard of lost opportunities, and he placed his fingertips over his eyebrows as if he was praying, then said, “Now it’s too late. Down that road from Ptolemais the German army is already mar
ching.”
“Can you stop them?” Mark asked.
“I could, but the Jews have asked for war,” the priest said, “and war they must have.” He returned his fingers to his eyes, saying, “It was not planned to end this way. Neither Rabbi Asher nor I wanted this,” and he sat beneath the trees as his Byzantine soldiers took steps to protect the camp; but this was unnecessary, for the rebels were occupied in looting the town.
The Germans, on their route-march east, reached Makor at one that afternoon, and before Father Eusebius could instruct them otherwise, swept into the town, battering down the improvised resistance of the Jews and launching a systematic destruction of all Jewish homes, killing any occupants who did not surrender promptly. With fearful efficiency the soldiers, trained on western battlefields and hired as mercenaries by Byzantine emperors, cleaned out one area after another until they succeeded in pushing the last of the Jewish rebels down the steep northern flank of the town, pursuing them into the deep wadis, where they killed recognizable fighters. It was in this melee, deep in the wadi, that Abraham, son of the dyer Hababli, lost his vain and reckless life. His wife Jael, who tried to defend him against four Germans, fled deeper into the brush.
Other German units attacked the area in which Rabbi Asher had his groats mill, and the white-bearded old man tried to protect his property, but it was easily set ablaze by the soldiers, who began cuffing him about. John and Mark, having been sent in the wake of the troops by Father Eusebius, witnessed the abuse that the rabbi was taking and the blood that appeared on his beard as he ricocheted from one laughing soldier to the next.
“Stop it!” the big stonecutter cried, pushing the Germans away, but by the time he rescued the rabbi the old man was in pitiful condition, so with one sweep of his arms John lifted him and sought to carry him home. But Rabbi Asher’s home had disappeared with the others, so Mark led the way to Father Eusebius’ study, where the wounded old man was laid on the floor beneath the crucifix.
“Your day is over,” John told him bluntly as he wiped away the blood. “Go back to Tverya and build your law.”
“The law will exist here, too,” the battered old man whispered, but as he reiterated his basic belief the soldiers who had been deprived of their sport began shouting, “Why should Jews who crucified our Lord be allowed a synagogue?” And a mob turned toward the rugged, low building and began tearing it apart.
Father Eusebius, hoping to preserve something of his town, tried to halt the devastation, but the Germans would not recognize his authority and proceeded to rip down the fine slabs of limestone and to tear out the windows. By the time John and Mark reached the scene the structure was doomed and the two new Christians were sickened by what was happening; they had rejected the synagogue but were appalled that strangers should defile it as a building.
“No!” John shouted as he tried to protect what he had created, but now even the townspeople had joined in the riot, and when he ran into the building he saw that a team of Syrians had ripped down a lintel and were rushing with it toward one of the pink stone pillars to see if they could smash the lovely column, and they succeeded. Like a wounded animal, a thing alive and breathing, the precious column tottered, broke in the middle and crashed in pieces. A corner of the roof, set free, began to fall, and as it collapsed the final destruction was at hand.
“You, stand back!” the rioters warned John as he tried to halt their sacrilege, while others with poles and gouges began ripping up the mosaic.
“Death to the Jews!” the men shouted, wrecking in minutes the work it had taken John years to execute. With a frantic thrust he leaped at the men destroying the mosaic, but one saw him coming and jabbed him in the stomach with a pole. The stonecutter fell backward and the rioters left him where he lay.
The destruction could not be halted, for the hatred of the imperial troops was directed against abstract ideas: not Jews but the places where they worshiped, the homes where they lived. After a few hours no Jewish buildings remained in Makor, and it was apparent that henceforth there would be no place in the town for Jews. The Germans made this decision inevitable when, after having been brought under control by Father Eusebius, they trooped solemnly to the old Syrian church for prayers, after which they dragged the local priest to the ruins of the synagogue, where they made him sprinkle holy water about the shattered stones, consecrating the wreckage as a Christian church. They then paraded formally to Father Eusebius and said, “We’ve erased a synagogue and given you a basilica,” after which they stormed down the road to Tverya, where the destruction would be even more complete.
Night fell, and the punished town tried to re-establish itself. In his quiet room Father Eusebius did what he could to revive Rabbi Asher and was relieved when the bearded old man recovered. The Germans had knocked out two of his teeth and cut him about the mouth, but he was able to walk, and after midnight he left Eusebius to assemble and console his Jews. He found only desolation: of his six sons-in-law four were dead; the groats mill was no more, and when he saw the synagogue, only its gaping walls remaining, he felt as if his own life had been destroyed.
There were no homes standing to which the Jews could go, so they gathered in small crowds, looking to their rabbi for guidance, but he was too overwhelmed by the tragedy to tell them anything. But then from the wadi his daughter Jael appeared, accompanied by two of her widowed sisters, and the three girls seemed so heroic in their quiet willingness to proceed with life on whatever terms remained, that he gained courage from them and prayed aloud: “God of Israel, again you have chastised us for our sins, but in the ruins we announce that it is You we love, it is You we serve.” When he ended his lamentations he consulted with the older men of the community, asking their advice as to where the Jews should now move.
At dawn there came a flurry of hope. Perhaps it would not be necessary to move after all, for Father Eusebius climbed on a trestle and announced, “As head of the Christian church in Makor I apologize to you for what happened yesterday. Our local soldiers, it is true, helped punish your rebels but they did not destroy your synagogue. My men did not burn your homes. You are welcome to live among us as before, and my workmen will build you a new synagogue.”
All who sought to avoid exile were inspired by this gesture, and an excited Jew cried, “We’ll rebuild the synagogue where it stood.”
“No,” Eusebius had to say quietly. “That site was consecrated as Christian ground. We’ll shift our basilica there, but you are welcome to the land we were going to use.”
“Consecrated?” the Jew asked. He had no home but he was worried about the synagogue.
Another protested, “A bunch of drunken soldiers forced a priest to scatter holy water …”
A Byzantine soldier struck the Jew across the mouth, and Father Eusebius explained, “Once a person or a building has been consecrated …”
“It’s not a building,” the first Jew cried. “It’s a ruin.” Again the soldier slapped him as a blasphemer.
“Ruin or not,” Eusebius said, “it was consecrated. And as I warned you when John and Mark were baptized, once the water has been placed, nothing can remove it.” He was about to speak further when Rabbi Asher, in one of those penetrating visions that sometimes reveal themselves to God’s Men, realized that it had been God’s wish that this synagogue be destroyed. It had been started in the first place only because Asher had misinterpreted the vision in the olive grove, and it had been finished by a profane man who had later turned renegade. It had been too arrogant, too beautiful with graven images to be a synagogue, and God had wiped it out; for the essential religious structure of the Jewish faith would never be an ornate or garish building. It would be the law. If ten Jews assembled in a mud hut and the law was there, then God was also there; and Rabbi Asher saw that if the Germans destroyed Tverya, too, the expositors who were collecting that law would be forced to gather in Babylonia, where the Talmud could be completed. It was not his responsibility to mourn over a lost synagogue, but to get ahead with
the compilation of the law. In his extremity he remembered his own parable about God and Rab Naaman: “One shred of law administered with compassion is worth a hundred towns.”
Therefore he turned his back on Father Eusebius and to the astonishment of his Jews announced, “This day we march to Babylonia.”
Some refused to follow his leadership; they would go into exile through Ptolemais, shipping to Africa and Spain. Others would try to remain in Makor, but they would not be permitted to do so; there would be no synagogue and since they did not wish to accept Christianity, they would drift down the coast to Egypt. A few did convert, but most bundled up what clothes they could borrow from their Christian neighbors and in the afternoon of that mournful day gathered at the slope where the zigzag gate had once stood. A few stopped to weep at the shattered synagogue; a few said farewell to Christians who had befriended them; but most turned their faces resolutely toward the east—to Babylonia, where Jews would still be free to follow the teachings of the Torah.
Among those who assembled to make the long march was Jael, and when Mark saw her about to leave forever he went to her, and in view of all, said, “Jael, don’t go. Stay here with me.”
With contempt she looked at the renegade and drew away from him as if he were contaminated. He repeated his pleas, while Jewish women in small groups moved back so as to avoid contact with him. “Jael, on your wedding day you came to me,” he said. Like a child he pointed toward the ruins of the groats mill, as if to remind her of the exact location of her visit.
She scorned him, turning away with loathing, and her widowed sisters formed a circle about her, as if to provide protection although she needed none. For the third time he appealed to her, and now she spoke: “I would not touch you with my foot. When we needed your help you whined, ‘I am a Christian,’ and you allowed real men to face death alone.” She made a horrible rasping sound in her throat, an animal utterance of complete rejection. The Jews began to spit at him, old women with no teeth and young children with no fathers. With her slender hands, which had once caressed him, leaving their fingerprints on his heart, she bade him leave and he did so, with the jeers of his people echoing in his brain.
The Source: A Novel Page 72
