“I have known Junius Gallio for a long time,” Luke said patiently. “When the Jews demanded that he arrest you, Gallio sent for me to talk about their charges.”
“I was on trial,” Paul said hotly. “I was suffering imprisonment for the sake of Jesus. It was my place to speak to the judge and to the crowd and tell them the truth.”
“Would you have told them that Jesus is coming soon to reign over the Jews and all who believe in Him?”
“Of course,” Paul said sharply. “It is the truth.”
“Then Gallio would have been forced to imprison you and perhaps even to execute you as a traitor to Rome.”
“I would die gladly for Christ’s sake,” Paul said. “My courage has never been questioned.”
“No one questions it now, but I do question your judgment of what is best for the cause of Jesus. How could you help advance His Church when you were shut up in prison? What proof do you have that He is really coming back to earth while you and I, and even generations to follow us, are alive?”
Paul made an impatient gesture. “I have told you before, Luke, that the things are revealed to me from God.”
“But He speaks also to Peter and the others who walked with Him on earth,” Luke reminded Paul. “And He tells them no such thing. Do you hear what God speaks to you, Paul, or what you wish to hear?”
Paul’s color rose and his mouth set angrily. “God singled me out on the road to Damascus, Luke! How many times must I tell you that?”
“Jesus of Nazareth is the Messiah, Paul,” Luke said evenly. “Not you. But I am afraid that in your own mind you have set yourself up as equal to Jesus or only slightly below Him. The decision of Gallio in your favor is far more important than the wound you imagine you have received to your pride, for from now on the Way of Jesus can be preached wherever you go without opposition from Rome. You should get down on your knees and thank God that Gallio sent for me to learn the truth.”
But Paul did not relent; instead his face grew more set. “Who are you to determine what is truth and not truth about Jesus, Luke?” he asked with biting sarcasm.
“I am a physician, an ordinary man,” Luke told him quietly. “God has never spoken directly to me, Paul, but in my heart I am sure that I know the Way of Jesus better than you do. What you preach is not Christ, but Paul. I pray that before it is too late you may see the difference. Good-bye.”
The apostle stared at him as if he did not understand the word. “What do you mean, Luke?” he asked a little hesitantly.
“I stayed here in Corinth because I saw that trouble was coming,” Luke explained. “Now that you are free to preach wherever you please, you need me no longer. Thecla and I are going to Antioch, where we can rear our children and live as Jesus meant us to live. . . . You will always be welcome in our home, Paul, for it was through you that I went to Jerusalem and found Thecla.”
He turned and left the room then, but the picture he left behind was to be engraved forever in his mind: Silas, obviously unhappy, but loyal to Paul; Timothy, his chin working piteously to keep from weeping. And Paul with a look in his eyes which Luke had seen there only a few times before, when he had been whipped at Pisidian Antioch and when he had been stoned at Lystra: a look of utter defeat. And even though they were parting in anger, Luke was genuinely sorry that he had been the one to inflict upon Paul what he was certain was the worst blow the apostle had ever received.
Book Five: The Writing
The former account I made, O Theophilus, of all that Jesus began both to do and teach.
(Acts 1:1)
I
Luke was at work in his old surgery in Iconium when the letter came from Ephesus, carried by one of the caravans which passed through this way station on the Via Augusta almost every day. Thecla brought it to him and they read it together:
To Luke and Thecla, my beloved brother and sister in Christ, from Probus Maximus at Ephesus, greetings:
Theophilus stopped at Ephesus with the lad Apollos Lucanus on his way to Rome and told me of your decision to return to Iconium before going into Bithynia. I have not written you before, trusting that I might be able to pay you a visit ere this. However, conditions here at Ephesus are such that I shall not be able to leave for some time, so I write to tell you some of the things that are troubling me and to ask your advice.
To begin: you both know how Paul, after Luke left him in Corinth, achieved great success in Macedonia and established strong churches there during a stay of several years. When he came to Ephesus, Paul went into the synagogue and had a discussion with the Jews. They asked him to stay longer, but he would not consent. As he bade them good-bye he promised, “I will come back to you again, if it is God’s will!” Then he set sail from Ephesus and when he reached Caesarea went up to Jerusalem and greeted the Church there.
When Paul returned to Ephesus he went to the synagogue here and for three months spoke courageously, keeping up his discussions and continuing to persuade them about the kingdom of God. But some of them grew harder and harder and refused to believe, actually criticizing the Way before the people, so he withdrew his disciples and continued his discussions in the lecture hall of Tyrannus. This went on for several years, so that everyone living in the province of Asia, Greeks as well as Jews, heard the Lord’s message.
Paul then decided to pass through Macedonia and Greece on his way to Jerusalem, saying, “After I have gone there, I must see Rome too.” So he sent Timothy and several others off to Macedonia while he stayed on for a while in Asia. Now a great commotion had arisen about the Way. As you know from your visits to Ephesus, the silversmiths made a great profit from the statues of Artemis, and in fact it is the first industry of the city. Since Paul had been preaching here, so many have taken up the Way of Christ that the sale of statues has fallen off markedly and some of the workmen in silver have nothing to do.
Because of these happenings I am sorely afraid that an attempt will be made by the silversmiths and others to cause trouble for Paul, in the hope of driving him from Ephesus, as he has been driven from other cities. Paul had planned to go to Macedonia, but now he insists upon remaining here, although I think that much of the difficulty could be resolved if he were to go away for a little while. We should then be able to keep up the work with far less opposition from those who speak against Paul.
When you wrote me of your departure from Antioch for Iconium you mentioned that you hoped yet to go into Bithynia. And I remember that Paul planned to go there many years ago but went to Macedonia instead. If you are planning soon to go to Bithynia and could come by way of Ephesus, it might be that Paul could be persuaded to go in that direction for a little while, at least until the turmoil here subsides. In any event, we would be overjoyed to see you both and perhaps you would be able to reason with Paul. Unless we can manage to quiet the conflict here somehow, I am afraid that it may become serious, for the silversmiths are a very powerful group and dominate the life of Ephesus.
Before he left for Macedonia, Timothy asked me to greet you in Christ for him when next I wrote you. My wife and two sons wish you good health with me, and hope to see you both before much longer,
The blessings of God be upon you,
Probus
Luke put down the letter. “It hardly seems eight years since we saw Probus,” he observed. “The time has passed swiftly.”
“That is because they were good years,” Thecla said, “even with the disappointments.” Luke knew what she meant, for it had been a bitter blow to her that she had not been able to bear him the child they both wished for so deeply. Understanding her thought, he put his arm about her. “No man could want for more than you have given me, darling,” he said. “Since, we have been together I have realized how unfruitful life was without you.”
Thecla smiled and laid her hand upon his cheek. “Why don’t we go on to Bithynia, Luke? It might be the best medicine I could have.”
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“We will talk about it tonight,” he promised. “I must visit some of my patients before dark.”
“And I must stop in the agora for some cooking oil,” Thecla said happily, “or you will have no supper tonight”
Luke finished his work and closed the surgery. When his calls were finished, he turned his steps toward the small building which served the Christians as a place of worship and, entering it, dropped upon his knees in the cool half darkness of that place of quiet and peace.
Kneeling there, Luke’s thoughts went back over the eight years since they had departed from Ephesus for Antioch with Theophilus and the baby, Apollos Lucanus. There had been pleasant years in Antioch, working in the church with Barnabas and the others, serving the poor people in the district beside the river with his medical skill, and teaching the Way as much through the example of their own lives as through words spoken in the church. Thecla had been happy mothering the son of Apollonius and watching him grow from a lusty infant to a sturdy little boy.
But as the years passed, Luke had seen that Thecla’s health was undergoing a gradual decline. At first he thought the change might be due to her disappointment at not bearing him a child, but later he was forced to admit that more serious forces were at work. One winter she was seriously ill for months with a cough and fever and a pain on breathing which only subsided when the warm summer sun returned to the mouth of the Orontes.
Glaucus had died of phthisis, the wasting disease of the lungs which sometimes dragged on for many years. Luke also knew that the families of phthisis victims often developed the same symptom. Soon there was no longer any question that Thecla was suffering from the same disease which had killed her father, and with that knowledge Luke could understand why they had not been able to have a child. Women with phthisis were frequently childless, perhaps as a protection sent from God, Luke thought, for with pregnancy the disease often flared up and quickly became fatal.
Then, a little more than a year before, Theophilus had been called to preside over the law courts of Rome, a signal honor and recognition of his reputation as a jurist. Apollonius, too, had returned to Rome from Britain at about the same time, so it was natural that Theophilus should take the boy to Rome. Luke had been thinking for several months that he should take Thecla away from the low swampy region of the coast, known to be unfavorable to phthisis sufferers perhaps going to the highlands of her own country of Galatia, where the crisp air was much more health-giving. Thecla had seized joyously upon the suggestion that they return to Iconium when Theophilus left Antioch, and it had proved a good move, for she had improved markedly. She had gained weight, her color was better, and she rarely complained of being tired anymore.
With Thecla’s seeming recovery the question had come up again of their going to Bithynia, taking up the plans which had been interrupted eight years ago when they had gone to Ephesus and found Mariamne in the terminal weeks of the pregnancy which had cost her life. Remembering the peaceful land of Bithynia, the tall mountains and the green and fertile valleys, the white sands of the shore which Silvanus had described, and the healthful climate, Luke felt again as he knelt in the church the tug which the memory always brought to his heart and the longing for the peace which it represented. But he was troubled by the thought that such a move might not be best for Thecla. It was this question for which he had come to seek an answer from above here in the cool shadows of the church.
He said no prayer but let his troubled thoughts speak themselves. And as he knelt there he felt a calmness come over him, a sense of certainty and purpose as reassuring as if God had actually spoken to him. When finally he got to his feet, it was with the conviction that the path of God’s purpose upon which he had set his feet so many years ago in Jerusalem still lay ahead, toward Ephesus, certainly, and perhaps to Bithynia, although something warned him that the road was still far longer than that shown on any map.
The evening meal was finished and Luke and Thecla were sitting upon their favorite bench in the garden beside the pool which burbled with the flow of water from the Roman aqueduct. Around them the hushed voices of the night brought the quiet contentment which they loved so well. He put his arms about Thecla, and she rested against him as she loved to do here in the garden in the evening when they talked together or merely shared unspoken thoughts in the sweet communion that comes to those who are sure of their love.
“I went to the church to pray this afternoon,” Luke said, “to ask God if we should go on to Ephesus or stay here.”
“What did He tell you, Luke?”
“I am sure now it is God’s will that we should go to Ephesus.”
“And to Bithynia?”
Luke smiled. “Probus once said that Bithynia is a place of the mind more than of the world. I think I reached Bithynia years ago, darling, when I first held you in my arms in the garden of James at Jerusalem. It would be selfish for any man to wish for more.”
Thecla put her fingers to his cheek in a loving gesture. “And my Bithynia is here with you, Luke,” she said. “But I have known for a long time that this is just an interlude before you must go on with whatever purpose it is that God has set for you. Sometimes I think I have almost grasped what it is that you are to do, Luke, but then it slips away and I cannot lay hold upon it. I am sure, though, that we will know the truth soon.”
Luke remembered the odd feeling of certainty and purpose which had come over him that afternoon while he was praying in the church. And his thoughts went back to that day in Antioch when a strange restlessness had assailed him and sent him to the theater where he had seen the Christians torn by the lions and had first met Barnabas. He had experienced much the same feeling when he had stumbled from the theater into the bright sunshine that afternoon, as if he had wandered away from a road for a while but had found it once again.
Then he bent his head and kissed Thecla gently. “Few men ever come to understand the will of God, dearest,” he said. “But whatever it is that I am to do, these years with you have been an important part of the preparation of it.”
“Have I changed you much?” she asked. “I don’t see that I have, for you were always kind and gentle and good—like Jesus.”
“Your love has made me richer than I ever hoped to be,” Luke told her. “Timothy and I once talked of immortality and decided that love might be the only thing that is really immortal.”
“Then my love for you will live through eternity. It is a beautiful fancy, Luke.”
“It may be more than fancy, dear,” he said. “Whatever I am, whatever I do, will be increased beyond measure by the love you have given me. And whatever it is that God wishes me to give to the world will be more important because a part of both of us and the people who loved us—yes, even Jesus—will go with it.”
Thecla sighed deeply. “Then the souls of those who die may even be nourished by the love of the ones they leave behind?”
“Yes, I think they may,” he agreed.
For a long moment she did not speak, then she said, “If Jesus does take me before your work is finished, Luke, can I wait for you in Bithynia?”
He held her tightly then, and it was on his lips to protest that she must go with him now, as soon as they could set foot upon the road to Thyatira and then northward across the towering Olympian range to the shores of the Pontus Euxinus. But with the thought came the memory of that dream upon the mountain when he and Probus had been hurrying to Caesarea, where Thecla was to be thrown to the wild beasts. As vividly as he had seen it that night came the picture of himself and Thecla walking gaily down the mountain road from the highlands to the plain of Bithynia, and the sudden crumbling of the road which had sent her body plummeting to the rocks below, leaving him alone. A sudden stark fear gripped him then, and he could only hold her tightly in his arms as if afraid she would be torn from him, for the constriction in his throat would not let him speak.
II
Luke and Thecla were familiar with the residence of Probus from the time when they, too, had lived in Ephesus, before Luke had gone with Paul to Macedonia. Anna, the apothecary’s plump Greek wife, bustled out to meet them with her two strong boys, but since it was only the middle of the afternoon and they had not been expected, Probus was still at his shop. While Thecla lay down to rest, Luke went through the city to where the apothecary shop was located in one of the busier sections, close to the agora.
It was hardly a week before the Feast of Artemision, as the spring games in honor of the Ephesian Diana were called, and the streets were already beginning to be crowded with people. May was renamed Artemision in the cities where her worship predominated, and in the first days of the month people poured into Ephesus from all parts of Asia for the games and celebrations which occupied most of the month, as well as the revelry which always characterized the worship of this most dissolute of goddesses. In order that riots and conflict should be kept at a minimum, it was the custom to elect wealthy men from each district of the province to supervise the games and aid in the entertainment of the crowds, giving them the title of Asiarchs, or, more colloquially, “Chiefs of Asia.”
Normally the shops of the silversmiths would be crowded with statues of the many-breasted Artemis and replicas in silver of her temple, ready for the crowds which would be thronging the city. But now as Luke walked along the colonnaded street below the agora where the shops predominated he saw that many were closed; their forges were cold and the tapping of the tiny hammers of the artisans had been stilled. Even in the agora trading seemed to be dull for such a season.
The shop which Probus and his father-in-law operated in partnership was impressive in appearance as befitted one who compounded medicines for the wealthy. Probus was at the back, dispensing medicines to the sick poor who came to him, as usual without any fee. The two friends embraced each other fervently, and Luke helped treat the patients who waited. Afterward Probus showed him through the complete apothecary shop. “I suppose some would think it odd that I compound medicines for the rich in the front of the shop and treat the poor in the back,” he said. “Paul and some of the others here have criticized me for it.”
The Road to Bithynia: A Novel of Luke, the Beloved Physician Page 37
