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

by Frank G. Slaughter

  “I am Nicanor,” he said, bowing. “Welcome to Damascus, Luke. We had word of your coming from Cephas.”

  “Cephas?” The name was not familiar.

  “He is also called Simon Peter. Do you have the scroll?”

  “Peter instructed me to give it only to one who would repeat the last words of Stephen.”

  A spasm of pain crossed Nicanor’s face and Luke saw tears start in his eyes. “Stephen and I were as brothers, Luke,” he said in a choked voice. “Forgive me if I weep for my friend.” Then he put his lips close to Luke’s ear and whispered, “His last words were these, ‘Lord, lay not this sin to their charge.’”

  Luke took the scroll from his tunic then and gave it to Nicanor. As it left his hand he experienced a strange feeling, almost of reluctance to give it up, as if he were losing something precious. Nicanor took the scroll tenderly in his hands and ran his fingers over the stains where Stephen’s blood had seeped into the parchment. “You have earned the undying gratitude of all the members of the Company of the Fish everywhere, Luke,” he said sincerely. “Be sure that the Most High will reward you as you deserve. Will you not stay and break bread with us?”

  “Perhaps another day,” Luke said courteously. “Now I must find quarters for a man who was blinded on the road a few hours ago.”

  “You may leave him with us too,” Nicanor said. “We have been expecting him.”

  “You must be mistaken,” Luke protested. “The accident only happened a few hours ago, and no one passed us on the road to bring you word.”

  “Would you believe we knew of his coming if I told you his name?” Nicanor asked, smiling.

  Luke turned to look through the doorway out into the street. Saul and the guards were not visible from inside the shop, and Nicanor had come from the back of the room, so he could not possibly have seen and recognized Saul. How, then, could he know?

  “No, Luke.” Nicanor’s quiet voice interrupted his thoughts. “I cannot see him in the street, but I can tell you that the blind man is Saul of Tarsus.”

  “H-how did you know?” Luke stammered.

  “There is one to whom nothing is hidden,” Nicanor said gently. “Someday you, too, will know him.” It was almost exactly what Peter had said on the road to Joppa.

  All the way to the palace of the governor Luke puzzled over the strange fact that Nicanor had known of Saul’s coming before they had arrived. By the time he reached the palace he was sure he had a simple answer. Seeking out Silvanus, he told the whole story to the centurion in his quarters while he dressed for the evening meal.

  Luke’s answer to the whole thing was simple. Saul, being active in the Jewish religion, would be known to many Jews in Damascus. One of them must have recognized him when Luke had stopped to ask for the shop of Judas and had run ahead to warn those in the shop. And since Nicanor was known as a leader of the Company of the Fish, word would naturally be brought to him of Saul’s coming.

  “Does it occur to you that you may have turned Saul over to his enemies in Jerusalem?” Silvanus asked when Luke finished. “Nicanor and the rest of the Company of the Fish are the very people Saul was sent to destroy.”

  “I hadn’t thought of that,” Luke admitted. “What will they do with him?”

  Silvanus smiled. “Suppose you go back there in a day or two and see.” But it was obvious to Luke that the centurion did not believe Saul would be harmed.

  “What is your explanation, then?” Luke demanded, a little aggrieved that his explanation had not been accepted.

  “Suppose Jesus is what His followers believe Him to be, the Son of Jehovah,” Silvanus suggested. “Nicanor could have been warned by Jesus of Saul’s coming.”

  “But you really believe a man who has been dead for several years spoke to Saul from the sky, Silvanus? That is absurd.”

  It was a long moment before Silvanus spoke. “You are young, Luke, and far more learned than I am. But someday you will admit that there are things for which we can find no answer, except that there is some sort of divine being watching over us.”

  “How can you believe in something you cannot even understand?” Luke insisted doggedly.

  The centurion smiled. “I heard Jesus speak of that once, Luke. He used a word, faith. Some things we must accept without trying to explain them. In youth, death seems far away. But I am almost sixty years old now. You must not blame me if, toward the end of my days on earth, I cling to something which assures me a life beyond this one.”

  The grizzled old soldier had never confided in Luke to this extent and the youth was deeply moved. He tried to laugh and did not succeed very well. “Would you have me bawling like a child?” he demanded. “Let us talk no more of age and death. As for me, I would rather believe there is a place somewhere on earth where men remain forever young, as some of the philosophers have claimed.”

  “There is such a land, Luke,” Silvanus said to his surprise. “I have seen it.”

  “Where?” Luke demanded eagerly. “Where is it?”

  “A long way to the north, on the shores of the Pontus Euxinus, which some call the Black Sea. It is a province called Bithynia.”

  “Bithynia.” The word had a pleasant rhythm, a pleasant taste, and Luke repeated it again. “Do people really stay young there, Silvanus?”

  The centurion shook his head, smiling. “No, Luke. Nor anywhere else in this world, I suspect. But it is a beautiful land surrounded entirely by mountains, except on the shores of the sea. The sands are white and the water is warm and clear. And in the valleys that come down to the sea all manner of fruits and vegetables grow, merely with stirring the soil. The people of Bithynia are forever happy, or so it seems, and those who are contented are always young.”

  “Are you going back?” Luke asked.

  “Yes. If only to die in Bithynia.”

  Impulsively Luke said, “Take me with you when you go, Silvanus.”

  The centurion smiled fondly. “I will send for you when I am ready to go to Bithynia, Luke,” he agreed. “That is a promise. Now don’t forget.” He added briskly, “I want you to go back to the shop of Judas and find out what happens to Saul of Tarsus.”

  That night Luke unrolled his sleeping rug on the balcony outside his chamber, for it was still hot inside. As he lay there under the stars, his thoughts turned to Bithynia. It must indeed be an earthly paradise, he thought, if everyone was truly happy there, for he had seen few signs of real peace and happiness anywhere in his travels. Idly he tried to think who, among all those he knew, were really happy, and suddenly he realized that the only really happy people he had seen all had one thing in common. They were followers of Jesus of Nazareth.

  Peter, who had known imprisonment and whose feet on the night he had visited Luke beside the road to Joppa were raw and bleeding, had still radiated a calm happiness. Stephen had gone to his death with the same look of peace in his eyes, and today it had been in the faces of Nicanor and Judas. These men had found something not possessed by most men, Luke realized, some private kingdom of peace, a place of the mind which must be amazingly like the province of Bithynia that Silvanus had described.

  Luke found himself wishing that he had the scroll again. Perhaps through reading it once more he might find there the secret of their happiness. Presently he drifted off to sleep, only to dream of a fair land beyond the mountains to which he tried to go but was held back by a small man with a large head who seemed to be Saul of Tarsus. And when finally he awakened he was drenched with sweat and shaking in the grip of a terror he could not name.

  X

  There was much to interest a youth of eighteen in Damascus, the oldest city of the world, the long caravans from the mythical lands to the east with their great ungainly beasts of burden; the shops of the metalsmiths where furnaces glowed to a white heat and boys trod madly upon great bellows skins to keep the coals glowing so that shining blades of steel
could be forged by the skilled hammers of the workmen; the magic of strange dark-skinned men who charmed poisonous serpents with little flutes; the loose-robed conjurers making balls appear and disappear with startling ease; the thin-faced Egyptian who worked spells with a glass ball and forced men into a deep sleep in which they did his bidding, so that sometimes the lame walked and the blind saw again. Everything was new and strange, and it was three days before Luke thought again about Saul of Tarsus and returned to the shop of Judas the cobbler.

  When Luke entered the cool gloom of the shop, neither Nicanor nor Judas was working, but one of the apprentices directed him to the garden in the back that gave access to the living quarters. He went on into the garden, and Nicanor came to meet him, hands outstretched, smiling in welcome. “One of the men in the shop told me to come back here,” Luke explained.

  “You are always doubly welcome in this house,” Nicanor said. “For it was you who brought Saul to us.”

  Luke started involuntarily. Could Silvanus have been right, after all, about his turning Saul over to his worst enemies? “Are you happy about his coming?” he asked incredulously.

  “Oh yes. Very happy indeed.”

  “But Saul came here to persecute you.”

  “Jesus has revealed Himself to Saul,” Nicanor explained. “It happened just before you found him on the road. He is one of us now.”

  “And you trust him?” Luke asked, still unable to believe that a man who had persecuted the Company of the Fish so diligently in Jerusalem could change sides so quickly.

  “It is not what a man does before Jesus calls him that counts, Luke,” Nicanor said gently, “but what he does afterward. Come and see for yourself. Saul is praying in the garden here.”

  “Is he still blind?”

  “Yes. But it has been revealed to Saul in a vision that a disciple here in Damascus named Ananias will soon visit him. Ananias has the gift of healing and will restore his sight.”

  “I should like to be here when he heals Saul,” Luke said immediately, hoping for the opportunity to see at first hand one of the acts of healing which rumor had it that some disciples of Jesus possessed the power to accomplish.

  “You may see it. We are waiting for Ananias to come now.”

  “How long since you sent for him?” Luke asked.

  Nicanor smiled. “The Lord sent for him, Luke. He has revealed to Saul that Ananias is coming.”

  Luke followed Nicanor across the shady garden to where Saul was kneeling, his hands held out in supplication, his eyes moving constantly as they had on the road to Damascus. From his lips poured a steady stream of words in Aramaic. Judas knelt beside him, his eyes uplifted, ecstasy shining in his face, as he prayed in the same tongue. Looking at Saul, haggard and supplicant, Luke could hardly believe that this was the strong, confident man who had prosecuted Stephen a few weeks ago before the Sanhedrin in Jerusalem. A great change had indeed come over him.

  There was a stone bench under the spreading fronds of a great palm, and Luke and Nicanor sat there, sipping wine and munching some dates that were on a small table before the bench. The dates were delicious, and Luke had already become quite fond of the sweet wine that was favored by the Jews. “You still do not trust Saul, do you, Luke?” Nicanor asked.

  “He killed Stephen,” Luke said bluntly. Then he added, “But it doesn’t matter now. I don’t think Saul will ever persecute anyone else but himself. He seems quite mad to me.”

  “Others have mistaken the ecstasy that comes from God for madness, Luke. Men older and wiser than either of us.”

  Luke started to reply, but suddenly Nicanor stood up, saying, “Here is Ananias!”

  A short, plump man stood in the doorway leading to the shop, looking about him with an air of uncertainty. When Nicanor hurried over and greeted him, Luke heard the newcomer ask, “Is there one here who is called Saul of Tarsus?”

  “Yes. Saul is here,” Nicanor assured the visitor.

  “I was told in a vision to come here and heal him of his blindness.”

  “We have been expecting you, Ananias.” Nicanor led the healer to where Saul knelt, still praying. Luke was forgotten in the excitement, so he moved closer in order to see what new medicine Ananias might use in curing blindness.

  Nicanor tapped Saul gently upon the shoulder. “Ananias has come to heal you, Saul,” he announced.

  Saul lifted his face and smiled. It was the first time Luke remembered seeing him smile, and even haggard as he was, the blind man’s face lit up so that he seemed a different person. Ananias went over and stood behind him, laying his fingers on Saul’s eyelids. “Brother Saul,” he said, “the Lord, even Jesus, has sent me that you might receive your sight and be filled with the Holy Ghost.”

  Luke found that he was holding his breath, carried away by the tension of the moment, and looked around to see if anyone had noticed his absorption. But every eye was fixed on the scene before him, and he turned his gaze upon Saul once more. Indeed it was a gripping picture, the godlike head of the kneeling man thrown back, his sightless eyes lifted to the sky, and the pudgy figure of Ananias, somehow impressive in spite of his small stature, standing behind Saul, fingertips resting upon his eyes. Suddenly, under Ananias’s fingers, something like scales seemed to fall from Saul’s eyes.

  Suddenly Saul shouted, “I see! I see! Thanks be to God, I see!” He staggered to his feet and, throwing his arms about Ananias, wept upon the healer’s shoulder. The others were embracing each other and weeping. Luke knew that if he remained he would soon be blubbering himself, so he slipped through the deserted shop into the street outside.

  He did not leave the vicinity, however, for he wanted to talk to Ananias when he came out. Apparently the healer had used no medicine, but Luke was sure that there must be some explanation for such an immediate cure. When the chubby form of the healer emerged from the shop and started along the street, Luke fell into step beside him. “My name is Luke,” he said in explanation. “I am a student of medicine. May I talk to you as you walk along?”

  “Certainly, Luke,” Ananias said graciously. “You were in the garden of Judas. Why did you leave?”

  “I—I am not a Jew,” Luke explained. “I felt out of place.”

  “Are you of the Company of the Fish?”

  “No. I am a Greek and worship no gods.”

  Ananias smiled. “Yet Nicanor tells me that you ministered to Stephen as he lay dying and guarded the scroll containing the sayings of Jesus. And that you cared for Saul when he was stricken blind on the road.”

  “I am going to be a physician,” Luke explained. “Naturally my first duty is to care for the sick and wounded.”

  “Would that all physicians were like you, Luke. What is it you wish of me?”

  “I would learn the secret of how you were able to give Saul his sight. Or purchase it, if you will sell it.”

  Ananias looked at him quizzically. “I have nothing to sell, Luke. There is no secret.”

  “But you seemed to know exactly what do to.”

  “I only did as the Lord instructed me in a vision,” Ananias explained patiently. Then, seeing the disappointment in the younger man’s face, he added, “I know nothing about the power by which I am sometimes able to heal disease, Luke. But you are already more learned in medicine than I, and perhaps you may discover it for yourself. Come and we will break bread together, then I will take you with me on my visits to the sick.”

  XI

  Ananias was a weaver by trade, and his shop, located on a side street under the very walls of the city, was filled with the pungent smell of cloth and dyes, the clash of scissors blades, and the clicking of looms. In a corner was a stack of large wicker baskets, almost as long as a man was tall, in which weavers placed their goods to protect them on the long trips by mule or camel caravan to markets in other cities. They tarried only a moment in the shop while Ananias inspe
cted a strip of fine cloth which had just come from the looms, then entered the garden around which the living quarters of the house were arranged on two sides, the third being the shop, and the fourth the wall of the city itself.

  It was the most pleasant house Luke had seen in his journey, more attractive by far, he thought, than the ornate palaces of Tiberias. Ananias had told him as they walked through the city that the house and shop had once belonged to a smuggler who had become rich by hauling goods over the adjacent city wall with ropes, thus evading the usual customs charges collected at the gates, and he could see now that it was admirably suited for the purpose. A fountain bubbled in a small pool beside the wall, and around it vines and ferns grew thickly, with flowering vines climbing trellises halfway up the walls of the building. A great cedar stood in the center of the garden, its out-flung branches shading the entire area from the heat of the sun, but letting enough of its rays through to dapple the green carpet of grass with a stippling of gold. The song of birds here was as pleasing to the ear as the flowers were to the eye, and everywhere was the fresh, enticing smell of growing things.

  A girl was sitting on a bench beside the fountain. When they approached, she put down the scroll she had been reading and stood up, smiling. She was slight in stature and young, about fifteen, and her features were almost as pure Greek as a classic statue. Her hair was jet black and confined only by a bandeau of white silk falling unhindered to caress her shoulders in rich, soft waves. She wore a robe of white tasseled cord, and sandals were upon her tiny feet. She was, Luke thought as he stared at her with open-mouthed admiration, like a perfect figurine carved from marble by loving hands. But this was living marble, glowing and breathing with a healthy, unstudied beauty.

  Ananias went over and kissed the girl on the forehead; then turning with his arm about her waist, he said, “This is Luke, my dear. A fine young man and a student of medicine. My daughter, Mariamne, Luke.”