The Road to Bithynia: A Novel of Luke, the Beloved Physician

by Frank G. Slaughter

  “We have reached a decision, O Sixtus,” the high priest announced.

  Sixtus rose to his feet. “What is your verdict?”

  “The prisoner Stephen is guilty of breaking the laws of Israel and of having blasphemed against the Most High and the temple of the Lord.”

  A hum of approval came from the crowd outside.

  “What is the punishment for these crimes specified by your laws?” Sixtus asked.

  “The punishment is death, by crucifixion or by stoning.”

  The Roman official turned to the prisoner. “You have heard the punishment prescribed by the Sanhedrin, Stephen. Since you are a Roman citizen, you may invoke the authority of Rome and be tried by a Roman court. What is your desire?”

  Stephen’s voice came clearly, without faltering. “I invoke no authority save that of the Most High God and His Son, Jesus Christ, to whom I commend my soul.”

  Sixtus said slowly then, “I declare it the will of the Emperor Tiberius that the prisoner Stephen shall be executed, as prescribed in the laws of the Jewish people, by stoning.”

  Luke suddenly felt a little sick, as he had the first time he saw a woman torn to pieces by lions in the arena at Antioch. Sixtus and his party filed from the room, but when they reached the terrace outside Luke plucked at Silvanus’s sleeve. “When will the execution take place?” he asked.

  “As soon as the crowd can drag him outside the gates. Come along, stripling,” the centurion added kindly. “We could all use a glass of wine.”

  Luke shook his head. “I am going to the execution.”

  “Don’t be a fool,” Silvanus cried. “This is only another religious quarrel between two sects among the Jews. Let them settle their own affairs.”

  But an impulse he did not himself understand told Luke he must see this tragedy through to the end. “I’ve got to go, Silvanus,” he said. “Don’t ask me why.”

  “Be careful, then,” the centurion admonished. “And for Diana’s sake, keep your mouth shut.”

  As the Roman party left the temple, the crowd rushed unimpeded upon Stephen and dragged him from the chamber. Luke followed in the crowd as they surged toward the city gates, struggling to keep his footing in the mass of shoving and cursing men.

  IV

  A small rocky clearing just outside the gates of the city was the customary site for ritual executions by stoning. As Luke worked his way through the crowd to get a clear view, he saw several of the men who had been witnesses drag Stephen’s battered body over to the wall. Slowly the bloody pile of flesh stirred and the prisoner pushed himself painfully to his knees. His eyes were half shut and, his face swollen from the blows of the crowd as he had been dragged through the streets to the place of execution, but he still managed to lift his head and turn his eyes to the sky. Then, oblivious of the crowd, he began to pray.

  Saul was directing the execution, as he had the trial, and now the witnesses began to remove their outer garments and lay them on the rocky ground before him. As was the custom in religious executions, they would cast the first stones. At a nod from Saul, one of them took up a jagged rock from the ground and threw it expertly at the kneeling man.

  The first stone struck Stephen on the shoulder and twisted him about, but he ignored the pain and continued to pray. The second laid open a cut on his forehead, and blood began to drip down across his face and into his eyes. Then a hail of missiles poured upon the kneeling figure as more and more of the crowd joined in the stoning. Cursing and shouting, those at the back tried to push their way to the front to join in the persecution of the helpless prisoner. Although sick with horror at such a display of brutality and blood lust, Luke could not have looked away if he had tried. Soon Stephen’s body lay on the rocky ground, while the hail of stones continued to rain upon it, gradually beating it to a pulp.

  Finally, when Saul shouted a command in Aramaic and held up his hand, the crowd stopped stoning. The prosecutor walked over to the victim and stood looking down at him, then turned back to the crowd. “It is not right to continue stoning this man if he is already dead,” he said. “Is there a physician among you who can tell us whether he still lives?”

  Some impulse made Luke step out from the crowd. “I am a student of medicine,” he volunteered. “I can tell you whether or not he is dead.” He had seen many dead men while studying with the physicians in Antioch, and the signs of death were clearly set down in the writings of Hippocrates.

  “Examine him, then,” Saul said gruffly. “But expect no pay.”

  Luke knelt beside the bleeding form and felt for the pulse. He did not expect to find it, for he could not see how Stephen could have lived through the horror of the stoning. But to his surprise he felt a faint throbbing under his fingers. Stephen’s lids fluttered open at his touch, and though the doomed man’s eyes were already filmed over by death, they seemed to plead with Luke to understand something, some message he wished to impart before death claimed him.

  “His words . . .” Stephen’s whisper barely reached Luke’s ears. “The scroll . . . in . . . my robe.” Then, as if by magic, all pain was suddenly erased from his face and he smiled. “Lord, lay not this sin to their charge,” he whispered clearly, before his lips grew slack with death.

  “Is he dead?” Saul demanded impatiently.

  “I must listen for the heartbeat to be certain.” Luke needed no further assurance of death, but he knew that somehow he must remove from Stephen’s robe whatever it was that the dying man had wished him to take. It was almost as if Stephen had somehow managed to keep himself alive during those last moments in order to impart his dying message to one who would be sent to hear it, but logic assured Luke that such an assumption was absurd.

  Carefully Luke put his ear to Stephen’s chest, as prescribed by Hippocrates in listening for the heart and the lung sounds. The heart was still, but as his hand fumbled surreptitiously inside Stephen’s robe his fingers touched something hard and cylindrical in shape. He recognized the object immediately as a small scroll and, with a deft movement, slipped it from the dead man’s robe and into his own toga. Then, rising to his feet, he announced loudly, “This man is dead.”

  “Get your garments, then,” Saul told the witnesses curtly, as if he were anxious to get away.

  “Is no one to remove the body?” Luke asked.

  “If he has friends, they can take it,” Saul said coldly. Just then Stephen’s legs gave a convulsive jerk, as the limbs of an animal sometimes do even after the head has been removed. One of the crowd shouted, “The body moved! The Greek lied when he said Stephen is dead.” And as others took up the cry, some of the foremost among them seized a handful of small stones and cast them at Luke, eager for another target upon which to turn their still unsatiated blood lust. One small stone laid open a cut over Luke’s eye, and at the sight of blood the crowd began to bay again in earnest. A shower of stones rained about the youth as he turned desperately and ran toward the gate, seeking to escape their pelting. With the crowd in their present temper, a hail of missiles would have followed and Luke would have been battered to death in a matter of minutes, but Saul’s voice whipped them to a standstill. “Stop, fools!” he shouted. “This man is a Roman; do you want to feel the swords on your necks?”

  The threat of vengeance by the legions checked the crowd for a moment, but some of the more rabid shouted again, “Kill the Roman!” As others took up the cry Luke realized that Saul would not be able to control them alone.

  Over this tense situation a welcome sound reached Luke’s ears, the beat of marching feet. Looking around desperately for a glimpse of the soldiers, he spied the tall form of Apollonius beyond the crowd. “Apollonius!” he shouted desperately. “Help me! Help me!”

  Recognizing the fear in Luke’s voice, Apollonius plowed into the crowd with half a dozen Roman soldiers, knocking struggling bodies unceremoniously aside with the flat of his sword. He took in the d
angerous situation at one quick glance, the threatening looks of the crowd, the dirt on Luke’s tunic and toga where the stones had struck him, and the bleeding cut over his eye. “What is this?” he snapped angrily. “Do you dare attack the son of Theophilus?”

  Cowed by his voice and manner, the crowd shrank back. But it was not so with Saul. “They are angered because he lied and would have let the condemned man live,” the short man said defiantly.

  Apollonius wasted no time in argument. “It is a good thing for you that he is not badly hurt,” he told Saul curtly, and turned to Luke. “Come along, brother. We leave for Joppa at once to meet my ship.”

  Now that the tension was over, Luke’s fear was replaced by a burning anger. Unreasonably—for Saul had saved him from serious injury, whatever his motive—he snapped at the prosecutor, “May your God punish you, Saul, for murdering a good man like Stephen.”

  Saul recoiled, almost as if Luke had struck him, and a strange look came into his eyes. It flashed through Luke’s mind that Saul already felt guilty for the death of Stephen, but just then Apollonius seized him by the arm and drew him away, with the soldiers holding back the crowd at spear point.

  “As usual,” Apollonius said, grinning, “I arrived in time to get you out of a bad mess.”

  “How did you happen to come?” Luke asked.

  “Wherever you are, there is always trouble,” Apollonius said. “You can thank Silvanus for the rescue, though. He’s been fretting ever since we left the temple. As soon as he heard that my ship is in Joppa, he jumped at the chance to send me for you. What stirred up the Jews, anyway?”

  “An argument over whether the man was dead or not. They abhor a corpse, so no one else would touch him.” But he did not tell Apollonius about the scroll safely hidden in his tunic. That had been Stephen’s secret. Until Luke could decide what to do with the scroll, it would be his own as well.

  Now that he was safe, Luke had time to wonder at the strange succession of events which had characterized this day, beginning when he had encountered the tall, majestic man before the fish market on the way to the temple that morning and first heard of the Company of the Fish. Equally strange was the behavior of the scroll seller in the temple and the unfortunate interruption by the priest just when Luke had thought to satisfy his curiosity. Most puzzling of all was the fact that Stephen, although dying, had immediately trusted Luke and given him the scroll, almost as if he thought he had been sent to get it. And yet Luke knew that Stephen had never seen him before that same morning at the trial.

  V

  It was mid-afternoon when the party in which Luke traveled left Jerusalem by the western gate that gave access to the Joppa road, leading to the seaport city through which passed traffic to and from the Jewish capital. Night fell when they were only halfway to Joppa, and they made camp near a spring in a grove of olive trees beside the road. Luke and Apollonius shared a tent, as they had a bedchamber most of their lives in Antioch. But tonight both were saddened by the thought that Apollonius would leave soon for Rome, breaking their companionship for the first time. It would be several years before the taller youth’s training would be completed, and meanwhile Luke himself would soon be leaving for Pergamum, where he was to enter the final phase of his medical training in the famous, Temple of Asklepios. Neither spoke much, for both were saddened by the thought of tomorrow’s parting.

  Apollonius removed his outer garments and hung his sword and harness upon a peg projecting from the center pole of the tent. Then with a husky “Good night,” he wrapped himself in his robe, lay down on his sleeping rug, and began to snore almost immediately. Luke was filled with a strange restlessness and felt no desire to sleep. At home he would have read from the writings of the Greek philosophers, as he often did, until late at night, but his books were in Antioch.

  Then he remembered the scroll he had taken from Stephen’s body. Carefully he took it from the bag containing his clothing and other belongings and unrolled it in the light of the small lamp hanging from the center pole of the tent. The scroll was thin and stained with several dark spots which he recognized as blood. The penmanship was exquisite, and it was written in Greek. The first words told him that this was a collection of the sayings and doings of Jesus of Nazareth, perhaps the very scroll of which the seller had been speaking that morning when the appearance of the rabbi had broken off their talk. Glancing over the parchment, Luke began to read at random:

  And He came down with them, and stood in the plain, and the company of His disciples, and a great multitude of people out of all Judea and Jerusalem, and from the sea coast of Tyre and Sidon, which came to hear Him, and to be healed of their diseases . . .

  Luke’s interest was immediately attracted. Was this Jesus, then, a physician? he wondered, and read on eagerly.

  And He came down with them . . . as well as those who were tormented with unclean spirits. And they were healed.

  And the whole multitude sought to touch Him, for power went out from Him and healed them all.

  No physician cured all who consulted him, Luke knew. Was this, then, a new method of healing, one unknown for ordinary physicians? Had this gentle Teacher made some remarkable discovery, before they nailed Him to the cross, one which enabled Him to cure all disease?

  Then He lifted up His eyes toward His disciples, and said: Blessed are you poor,

  For yours is the kingdom of God.

  Blessed are you who hunger now, for you shall be filled. Blessed are you who weep now, for you shall laugh.

  Blessed are you when men hate you . . . and cast out your name as evil, for the Son of Man’s sake. Rejoice in that day and leap for joy! For indeed your reward is great in heaven, for in like manner their fathers did to the prophets.

  The picture of Stephen before the Sanhedrin came into Luke’s mind, for the doomed man had said something very much like this to the judges. Now Luke could begin to understand how Stephen’s belief in this doctrine could carry him through the ordeal of stoning and death, trusting in the promises made by Jesus of greater rewards.

  What proof was there, Luke’s logical mind asked, that this Teacher had the power to give the things He promised, unless He were, as His followers believed, the Son of Jehovah? And that was impossible, Luke assured himself, for if no gods existed, how could there be a son of a god? Turning to the scroll, Luke read on, for he wanted to learn whatever he could about this new method of healing.

  But woe to you who are rich, for you have received your consolation.

  Woe to you who are full, for you shall hunger. Woe to you who laugh now, for you shall mourn and weep.

  Woe to you when all men speak well of you, for so did their fathers to the false prophets.

  Such teachings would appeal to the great multitudes who were constantly in hunger and want, since they promised that the rich would suffer in the future while the poor would be comforted. But the merchants and money-changers such as Luke had seen cheating pilgrims in the temple, and the well-fed priests who were obviously paid to let them sell and exchange there, would naturally hate Jesus and His followers and wish to destroy them.

  All at once Luke realized that he was not alone in the tent and started up, chilled by a sudden fear. Stumbling over his rolled-up sleeping rug, he reached instinctively for Apollonius’s sword hanging in its scabbard from the center pole. Then his hand dropped, for he recognized the visitor as the same man who had figured in the episode of the fish that morning. Something told him that this giant of a man standing just inside the tent came in peace.

  “H-how did you get in?” Luke stammered, his heart pounding from the shock of finding another in the tent.

  “You were reading and did not see when I opened the flap.” The big man glanced down at Apollonius. Luke realized with a start that his foster brother’s rasping snore had stopped, and his breathing was as deep and even now as that of a baby. “He will not awaken until after I have gon
e,” the guest said with calm certainty. “May I sit down? I am very weary.”

  “Forgive me my discourtesy.” Luke unfolded his sleeping rug. “This is all I have.”

  “No one can give his brother more,” the visitor said with a smile. He lowered his body to the rug and stretched his legs with a sigh of deep weariness. The soles of his sandals were worn through and his feet were raw and bleeding.

  “Your feet,” Luke cried with immediate concern. “What happened to them?”

  “It is a long walk from Jerusalem.”

  “But that is impossible. Unless you left before we did.”

  “It was three hours before sunset when I left the city.”

  Luke stared at the big man dumbfounded, for their party had left Jerusalem fully three hours before him and had traveled rapidly. “I have long legs,” the visitor explained with a smile. “Besides, nothing is impossible to those who trust Him.”

  “Him . . .?”

  “Jesus of Nazareth. I see that you are reading the scroll of His words.”

  Luke put his hand to the scroll, as if to protect it, although some instinct told him that this man had no designs against it. That morning when he had held up the fish for Stephen to see, it had been evident to Luke that the two were friends. And the shopkeeper had identified the tall stranger as a member of the Company of the Fish, to which Stephen also must have belonged, for it was apparently a designation used to distinguish the followers of Jesus.

  “You need have no fear, Luke,” his visitor said reassuringly. “I am Simon, who is called Peter.”

  The name meant nothing to Luke, but somehow he felt as if he had known this majestic, kindly man a long time and that he was a friend. “You knew I had it, then?” Luke asked.

  “Why else would I have walked from Jerusalem to find you?”

  “But no one saw Stephen give it to me,” Luke protested. “How could you know?”