The Damascus Road

by Jay Parini

  He wished simply to get rid of Paul, that much was clear.

  “I want to do more,” Paul said.

  “You don’t listen. Are you so ignorant?”

  Paul realized he would get nowhere with James, an unpleasantly self-righteous man, deeply convinced that he understood better than anyone else what Jesus had intended for his people, the Jews. Those who disagreed with him were at best an annoyance, at worst an enemy of God.

  Having sought out Peter, Paul found the disciple in prayer beneath an olive tree by a house on the street called after the prophet Schmuel. He sat with his palms facing upward, his lips quivering without audible words. His eyelids fluttered but were shut.

  Paul sat opposite him, waiting.

  When Peter opened his eyes, he asked, “Do I know you?”

  “I am Paul of Tarsus.”

  Peter absorbed this information slowly. Then he said, “You’ve had a change of heart, I was told. You spent time with our friend Musa in the desert.”

  “I met our Lord as I traveled to Damascus, three years or more in the past. Jesus has asked me to speak on his behalf.”

  “This is so?”

  Paul nodded.

  “Jesus speaks very well on his own behalf,” Peter said.

  Paul looked at the dirt and said, “Jesus is alive.”

  “I know this.”

  “I hope to speak about him to the Greeks. I’m alive in him, as you are. And lost to myself. I know the Greeks, as I grew up among them.”

  Peter applied his long fingers to his temples and seemed to massage them. I suspect that he had rarely encountered a young man with such coiled energy, with a thrust of being equal to his own. And one who spoke in this urgent manner.

  “I should warn you,” Peter said, “that they recall your violence here. Your name is soiled among us, though stories of what happened in Damascus have reached many ears.” He looked around, as if frightened someone would overhear this conversation. “Is Musa well?”

  “Very well indeed.”

  “Oh, that’s good. We depend on Musa.”

  Paul thanked him for this conversation, and arranged to see him again. But he saw clearly that it would not be easy to join the Way in this city. Not perhaps for some years.

  Later in the day, he went to see Amos.

  “The wastrel returns,” said Amos, with an ironic twang that irritated Paul. “Your father has been furious these past three years. He was in Jerusalem last month, to visit your sister and Joshua, your nephew. He told me you were no longer his son.”

  “I’m sorry to hear this.”

  “Are you going to get more hides?” Amos paused. “I haven’t done so well, not since you left. I don’t know what I’m doing wrong. You had a gift.”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “You’re still a Jew, I hope?”

  “I’m a Jew.”

  “Good. There are rumors,” said Amos. “They say you have become enamored of the Nazarene, the unfortunate magician.”

  “He is our Lord.”

  Amos shook his head, not being an especially devout man, although he kept the Sabbath and celebrated the major feasts. He had a wife in some village outside of the city, and visited her and their three children now and then. He supported them in all the ways a man should support his family, except emotionally. He worked hard, without looking to the left or right. And prayed loudly, but in public.

  “Go back to Tarsus,” said Amos. “I doubt your father will remain hard of heart. He is not an unkind man.” After a considerable pause, he said, “And he loves you. Do you know this?”

  Paul knew only that he must further God’s kingdom, which lay at hand. Exactly how he might go about this business puzzled him. He decided to pray and await direction, although an urgency propelled him.

  “The world will end soon,” he said to Amos.

  “For me, I’m sure. Look at me!”

  “For everyone. Jesus will sweep us into his army.”

  “It’s a battle, then?”

  Paul had misspoken and knew it. “He invited us to give ourselves to him. We do not live in this world.”

  This only confused Amos, who launched into details of the hide business, as if Paul had never been gone. He had a trove of figures in his head and disgorged them. He said that although profits had dwindled since Paul’s departure, opportunities remained. He spoke with animation about their commercial prospects, noting that the Roman legions needed more and more tents, especially as their numbers in Judea and throughout Palestine had increased in recent years, but Paul brushed this aside.

  “Profits mean nothing to me,” he said. “We might gain the whole world but lose our souls, and where would that get us?” He was quoting a line from Jesus that Musa had conveyed to him, and which he would often repeat in years to come.

  Amos didn’t take any of this personally, and considered his younger relative a fanatic who could nevertheless prove useful in the family enterprise. He invited Paul to stay with him as long as he wished and, as he said, “ease your way slowly back into the business.” To assist him, he ordered a servant to provide for Paul whatever he needed, and also gave him a small bag of gold coins.

  Paul’s sister, Esther, soon welcomed her younger brother to her house, and he delighted in the presence of Joshua, his young nephew, though found his brother-in-law, Ezra, wary of him.

  “You must understand,” said Ezra, “that we have no time for the people who follow the Nazarene. Yet another of those fools who trouble our faith. We are the people of Moses, the Jews. Never forget that.”

  “And of Abraham,” Paul said. “More Abraham than Moses.”

  Rabbi Ezra did not like this, but he would not argue with his sister’s impetuous brother, whose dire reputation in Jerusalem dismayed him. It was awkward for him to have this family association, and he worried that the connection would inhibit him as he rose in the Temple hierarchy.

  The following Sabbath, after a period of prayer, Paul entered a synagogue where he had gone often in earlier years, in the Lower City and just inside the Valley Gate. Many in the small, hot room knew him, and they gasped upon seeing him. Could this be Paul of Tarsus? His face had grown thin, his back had begun to curl forward, and he had lost most of his hair. The smooth skin of his youth had dried, wrinkled, and hardened. Could three years have made such a difference?

  Paul wasted no time, striding to the front of the congregation, where a scroll had already been unfurled. He still considered himself a Pharisee and read a few lines about the exile of the Jews in Egypt, then broke off in mid-recitation, saying, “Rabbi Jesus is the fulfillment of the Law. Believe me, friends: He is our king, the promised Christ of Israel, and this is his kingdom.” He thumped his chest with his knuckles. “We have a New Covenant with Jehovah, and must not be chained to old ways. We must—all of us—go beyond this material world by seeking God through the spirit of his prince, our Christ, who is God’s son.”

  The gathering listened with rising anxiety, having never heard such talk in this circle of pious Jews. A young man at the back, no more than twenty, shouted, “He needs a good thrashing!”

  One of the respected elders lifted his voice to concur: “He speaks with a devil’s tongue. This is blasphemy! God is God, and he has no son!”

  Paul knew the punishment for blasphemy only too well, and felt unexpectedly drained of the courage that had propelled him to the front of this room. Backing away carefully, he moved toward a side door. As he had done in Petra, he would slip from the room into the noisy street, and it would not be difficult to lose himself in the familiar byways of Jerusalem. But half a dozen younger men followed on his heels, one of them stepping around him, stopping him.

  “Let me pass,” said Paul.

  “You must die,” said the fellow, who as Paul often recalled had a face like an ax blade. He reco
gnized this rogue as someone who had studied with him under Gamaliel and had joined the Temple Guard.

  “You are Jabin,” said Paul. “Did we not sit together in prayer, many years ago? I recall those days.”

  From the side came a sudden blow as another man’s fist caught Paul sharply below the ear, cracking his jaw. He fell to his knees on the flat stones. Then the world darkened.

  Time blurred as he woke in what he assumed was a prison cell, with a loud banging in his head, a swelling at one side of his jawbone. He had been kicked hard, and a cavernous vault of discomfort opened in his skull. He guessed his nose had been broken, as that hurt even more than his head. Blood caked on his lips, crusted on his chin.

  His jailor sat at the entrance to the cell on a small wool rug. He looked across the room at Paul.

  “I need water,” said Paul, drawing himself up to sit.

  The jailor grunted, then sloshed a pail of water over his head, bringing a cup to his lips. Paul shuddered as he drank.

  “Why am I here?” Paul asked.

  “Under arrest. That’s what it usually means.”

  “By whom?”

  “The authorities!”

  This was disconcerting. The rowdy Temple Guards felt quite free to take a man into the country and murder him at their pleasure if one of the high priests simply agreed to sign a writ of execution. He guessed that those who brought him here had gone to find one of these priests, who would certainly remember Paul and probably delight in ridding the world of this blaspheming rebel. But surely this was a Roman jail?

  The Jews played a delicate game with the occupier, much as the Way played their cards with the Jews carefully. The Jesus circle had survived in Jerusalem by keeping strictly to the Law, and James had earned the respect of everyone in the Temple, so the priests kept a certain distance from the Way. Followers of the Nazarene, as they called Jesus, were allowed to have their meetings and holy meals, as long as none of this interfered with traditional observances, and as long as they remained invisible to the Romans. As a consequence, Jesus was not loudly proclaimed as the son of God or king of the Jews. Such titles rang of treason.

  The Way now lived a fairly safe if subterranean life at the fringes of Judaism.

  But who had arrested Paul, and why?

  “Eat,” said the guard, pushing a plate of stale bread and green cheese covered with red ants before the dazed prisoner, who slumped on the packed-dirt floor with his back to a wall. The stench of shit and piss suffused the cell, and this did nothing to increase Paul’s appetite. He understood, however, that his jailor was being kind.

  “What will they do to me?”

  “It will be unpleasant.”

  Paul groaned, feeling a jab of pain behind his eyes as he bit into the stale bread. His jaw hurt too much to chew. He felt dizzy and sick, and couldn’t think to think.

  Did he hear a calm voice telling him to have no fear or did he imagine it?

  “I love you, Lord,” he whispered. “Remember me.”

  Some hours later, in confusion, he woke from a muddled, unsatisfying sleep. Something or someone had startled him. He forced open his eyes, where he saw the heavily bearded face of Aryeh, who held Paul’s head in his strong hands.

  Paul tried to smile.

  “They want to kill you,” said Aryeh.

  Paul reached up and touched his old friend’s face. He had come as an angel.

  “Can you possibly stand, Paul? We must go. Quickly!”

  Paul drew a breath, then moved to stand. His legs supported him as he leaned on Aryeh. Those years of walking in the desert had strengthened him, and he benefited now from the residue of hard-won brawn, combined with his natural resilience and pluck.

  Beyond the prison walls, a cart awaited them, with a donkey and driver.

  “Get into the back, and I will cover you. Aaron will take you to Caesarea.”

  Paul kissed Aryeh now. “Thank you, thank you.”

  “Tell no one that I helped you. Do you understand? I would be in very great danger.”

  Paul said, “Your secret will die with me.”

  Aryeh handed him a small bag of coins in a hemp purse. “This will secure passage to Tarsus,” he said.

  “You are such a good friend,” said Paul. He was happy now, even with the pain. “I promise to return, Aryeh.”

  “Not for a long while. The longer, the better. Stay away!”

  “I will think of you every day,” said Paul.

  Aryeh said, “That’s too often.” Putting a hand on Paul’s wrist, he said, “Go!”

  * * *

  Paul sat in the tablinum of his father’s house, absorbed in prayer. He had forgotten that he had grown up in such embarrassing luxury, and it felt peculiar, even unnerving, to sit here in this familiar splendor. On the other hand, the atrium was cool, bright, and pleasant in the late afternoon, with a sea breeze puffing through and feathering the curtains. Mottled lemons sat on a plank table nearby and scented the air and, just beyond, a doorway opened into a garden, with only a veil across it. The wind parted this flimsy curtain to reveal an old tamarind tree. As a boy, Paul had spent hours in study there, his back to the bark of the trunk, reading the Greek version of the Torah. (“Or sometimes Ion,” he would say.)

  Gila, the elderly slave whom Paul had known since childhood, welcomed him home with tears as he awaited the return of his father, not sure how this encounter would unfold.

  “You’ve been gone for too long,” said Gila, who could not stop sobbing. By now she had not a single tooth left in her mouth.

  It had been nearly four years since his trip to Damascus, and his father would not be easy with his wayward son. Adriel had a prickly and self-important way about him, and disloyalty of any kind made him furious, even irrational. His reaction at seeing Paul again could not be predicted, and yet Paul knew he must accept his father’s response.

  Adriel came into the house as the evening sun turned red in the sky and changed the colors on the interior walls and tapestries. The tile floor gleamed. Paul heard the tapping of the old man’s stick and the familiar cough as his father approached. He seemed to be talking to himself.

  As the only son of a widower of means, Paul had led a privileged existence, with tutors and slaves, nursemaids and miscellaneous attendants. He had never lacked for attention but had not known his father especially well. Adriel rarely talked with him, although his reticence came naturally, part of a temperamental strain that played a large part in his reserve. But he was a patriarch, sure-footed in his world, eager to conform to whatever laws, secular or religious, obtained. He would consider his son’s rejection of Jewish traditions irritating if not blasphemous. That Paul had become hostile to the Temple must have seemed unimaginable, especially as he was a Pharisee and student of Gamaliel. Adriel had been so proud of that.

  Amos had written to “explain” Paul’s unlikely turn a few years earlier, basing his information on the rumors that flooded Jerusalem. Of course this letter had clarified nothing. Amos had no real sense of what had driven Paul into the Arabian desert. And Paul’s letters, only two of them in so many years, had made everything worse, such as when he offered a long critique of Jewish legalisms dear to his father and argued that his great new master—the untutored son of a mason from a remote village in Galilee—had created a New Covenant that swept away what Moses had sealed with God for the people of Israel.

  “My son is an imbecile,” Adriel had written to Amos, asking about this rabbi who had deprived Paul of his senses.

  “What I know about this teacher from Nazareth isn’t much,” Amos had replied to Adriel. “There are too many rabbis with opinions.”

  Failing to get much from Amos, Adriel asked friends in Tarsus for information about Jesus, and it surprised him to learn that this Nazarene had acquired an ardent following, however few in number. That Jesus had written n
o commentaries on the scriptures did nothing to ease his mind. A collection of sayings—supposedly by Jesus—came into his possession, and they upset him badly. “Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on this earth,” this insolent and impoverished rabbi had said. Elsewhere, he suggested that one should sell all one’s possessions, giving the money to the poor. Could Paul imagine doing such a thing? Was it not his father’s money he would be forfeiting in this case? Where was the gratitude for everything that Adriel had given to his son? Was there no loyalty?

  Questions multiplied and hung in the air.

  Paul felt his father’s presence before he saw him, an odor of persimmon, manly but oddly distinct, as if aged in the cask of the old man’s body.

  Adriel saw Paul as he turned in to the room.

  “You!”

  “Me, father.”

  Adriel didn’t touch him but sat on a plump mauve cushion, unable to stop looking at his son. Could he trust this vision? Was it really Paul or had some rascal spirits conjured this phantom?

  “I had no time to write,” said Paul. “I should have given a warning. It must be shocking to see me.”

  It was an arrival that Paul had not planned, and he could probably not have outpaced a letter. The removal from Jerusalem to Caesarea, and the voyage out, had been swift, dizzying, unexpected.

  He looked at his father, hungry to see how time had fallen on the narrow bony shoulders, weighed them down, distorted them. Adriel was thinner, and his head lurched forward. The curve in his spine had deepened, and a large hump protruded between his shoulder blades. His legs had dark purple veins that branched from his ankles to parts of his calves. His nose, too, had grown oddly bulbous and become a lobe of magenta-tinted flesh. The elderly lips looked dry and flaky, and his cheeks recalled a desert mudflat, parched and spidery with cracks. A deep horizontal fissure had opened in his brow, a crevice above his untamed expressive white eyebrows.

  It remained an interesting face, however, a text Paul had once memorized and which, upon rereading, revealed fresh contours, added significance; it was familiar and weirdly calming.