The Brook Kerith: A Syrian story

  CHAP. XXXIV.

  Yesterday the Jews would have thrown me into the Jordan or stoned metogether with Timothy, my son in the faith, who instead of following meround the hill shoulder kept straight on for Caesarea, where I pray thatI may find him. These things you know of me, for three of the brethrenwere on that balcony yesternight when, upheld by the will of God, myfeet were kept fast in the path that runs round this ravine. The Jewshad abandoned their hunt when I arrived at your door, awakening fear inBrother Saddoc's heart that I was a robber or the head of some band ofrobbers. Such thoughts must have disturbed his mind when he saw me, andthey were not driven off when I declared myself a prisoner to theRomans; for he besought me to depart lest my presence should bring allhere within the grip of the Roman power. A hard and ruthless power itmay be, but less bitter than the power which the Jews crave from theRomans to compel all to follow not the law alone, but the traditionsthat have grown about the law. But you brethren who send no fat rams tothe Temple for sacrifice, but worship God out of your own hearts, willhave pity for me who have been persecuted by the Jews of Jerusalem (whoin their own eyes are the only Jews) for no reason but that I preach thedeath and the resurrection from the dead of our Lord Jesus Christ, whoseapostle I am, being so made by himself when he spoke to me out of theclouds on the road to Damascus.

  Of this great wonder you shall hear in good time, but before beginningthe story you have asked me to relate I would before all calm BrotherSaddoc's fears: I am no prisoner as he imagines me to be, but am underthe law to return to Caesarea, having appealed to Caesar as was my rightto do, being a Roman citizen long persecuted by the Jews; and I wouldthank you for the blankets I enjoyed last night and for the bread I havebroken with you. Also for the promise that I have that one of you shallat nightfall put me on the way to Caesarea and accompany me part of theway, so that I may not fall into the hands of my enemies the Jews, ofJerusalem, but shall reach Caesarea to take ship for Rome. None of youneed fear anything; you have my assurances; I am here by the permissionof the noble Festus.

  And now that you have learnt from me the hazard that cast me among you Iwill tell you that I am a Jew like yourselves: one born in Tarsus, agreat city of Cilicia; a Roman citizen as you have heard from me, aprivilege which was not bought by me for a great sum of money, nor byany act of mine, but inherited from my father, a Hebrew like yourselves,and descended from the stock of Abraham like yourselves. And by trade aweaver of that cloth of which tents are made; for my father gave me thattrade, for which I thank him, for by it I have earned my living thesemany years, in various countries and cities. At an early age I was askilful hand at the loom, and at the same time learned in theScriptures, and my father, seeing a Rabbi in me, sent me to Jerusalem,and while I was taught the law I remember hearing of the Baptist, andthe priests of the Temple muttering against him, but they were afraid tosend men against him, for he was in great favour with the people.Afterwards I returned to Tarsus, where I worked daily at my loom untiltidings came to that city that a disciple of John was preaching thedestruction of the law, saying that he could destroy the Temple andbuild it up again in three days. We spoke under our breaths in Tarsus ofthis man, hardly able to believe that anyone could be so blasphemous andreprobate, and when we heard of his death upon a cross we were overjoyedand thought the Pharisees had done well; for we were full of zeal forthe traditions and the ancient glory of our people. We believed thenthat heresy and blasphemy were at an end, and when news came of oneStephen, who had revived all the stories that Jesus told, that the endof the world was nigh and that the Temple could be destroyed and builtup again, I laid my loom aside and started for Jerusalem in great angerto join with those who would root out the Nazarenes: we are now known asChristians, the name given to us at Antioch.

  I was telling that I laid aside my loom in Tarsus and set out forJerusalem to aid in rooting out the sect that I held to be blasphemousand pernicious. Now on the day of my arrival in that city, while comingfrom the Temple I saw three men hurrying by, one whose face was white asthe dead, with a small crowd following; and everyone saying: not here,not here! And as they spoke stones were being gathered, and I knew thatthey were for stoning the man they had with them, one Stephen, theysaid, who had been teaching in the Temple that Jesus was born and diedand raised from the dead, and that since his death the law is of noaccount. So did I gather news and with it abhorrence, and followed themtill they came to an angle, at which they said: this corner will do.Stephen was thrown into it, and stones of all kinds were heaped upon himtill one spattered his brains along the wall, after which the crowdmuttered, we shall have no more of them.

  That day I was of the crowd, and the stone that spattered the brains ofStephen along the wall seemed to me to have been well cast; I hatedthose who spoke against the law of our fathers, which I held inreverence, as essential and to be practised for all time; and the mildsteadfastness in their faces, and the great love that shone in theireyes when the name of our Lord Jesus Christ was mentioned, instead ofpersuading me that I might be persecuting saints, exasperated me tofurther misdeeds. I became foremost in these persecutions, and informedby spies of the names of the saints, I made search in their houses atthe head of armed agents and dragged them into the synagogue, compellingthem to renounce the truth that the Messiah had come which had beenpromised in the Scriptures. Nor was I satisfied when the last Nazarenehad been rooted out of Jerusalem, but cast my eyes forward to othertowns, into which the saints might have fled, and, hearing that manywere in Damascus, I got letters from the chief priests and started forthin a fume of rage which I strove to blow up with the threats of what wewould put the saints to when we reached Damascus. But while the threatswere on my lips there was in my heart a mighty questioning, from which Idid not seem to escape, perhaps because I had not thrown a stone butstood by an approving spectator merely. I know not how it was, but as weforded the Jordan the cruelties that I had been guilty of, theinquisitions, the beatings with rods, the imprisonment--all these thingsrose up in my mind, a terrible troop of phantoms. Gentle faces and wordsof forgiveness floated past me one night as we lay encamped in a greatquarry, and I asked myself again if these saints were what they seemedto be; and soon after the thought crossed my mind that if the Nazareneswere the saints that they seemed to be, bearing their flogging andimprisonments with fortitude, without complaint, it was of persecutingGod I was guilty, since all goodness comes from God.

  I had asked for letters from Hanan, the High Priest, that would give methe right to arrest all ill thinkers, and to lead them back in chains toJerusalem, and these letters seemed to take fire in my bosom, and whenwe came in view of the town, and saw the roofs between the trees, Iheard a voice crying to me: Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me? It ishard for thee to kick against the pricks; and trembling I fell forward,my face upon the ground, and the Lord said: I am Jesus whom thoupersecutest. Arise, and go into the city and it shall be told to theewhat thou must do; by these words appointing me his apostle andestablishing my rights above those of Peter or John or James or any ofthe twelve who walked with him whilst he lived as a man in Galilee. Myfollowers, who were merely stricken, but not blinded as I was, took meby the arm and led me into Damascus, where I abode as a blind man tillAnanias laid his hands upon me and the scales fell from my eyes, and Icried out for baptism, and having received baptism, which is spiritualstrength, and taken food, which is bodily, I went up to the synagogue topreach that Jesus is the son of God, and continued till the Jews in thatcity rose up against me and would have killed me if I had not escaped bynight, let down from the wall in a basket.

  From Damascus I went into Arabia, and did not go up to Jerusalem forthree years to confer with the apostles, nor was there need that Ishould do so, for had I not received my apostleship by directrevelation? But after three years I went thither, hearing that thepersecutions had ceased, and that some of those whom I had persecutedhad returned. The brother of Jesus, James, had come down from Galileeand as a holy man was a great power in Jerusalem. His prayers werev
alued, and his appearance excited pity and belief that God wouldhearken to him when he knelt, for he was naked but for a coarse clothhanging from his neck to his ankles. Of water and cleanliness he knewnaught, and his beard and hair grew as the weeds grow in the fields.Peter, too, was in Jerusalem, and come into a great girth since the toilof his craft, as a fisher, had been abandoned, as it had to be, for, asye know, it is dry desert about Jerusalem, without lakes or streams. Buthe lived there better than he had ever lived before, by talking of ourLord Jesus Christ, of whom it was no longer a danger to talk, for Jameshad made his brother acceptable in Jerusalem by lopping from him allthat was Jesus, making him according to his own image; with theseChristians he no longer stood up as an opponent of the law, but as onewho believed in it, who had said: I come not to abolish the law but toconfirm it. So did his brother James interpret Jesus to me who had heardJesus speak out of the spirit, and when I answered that he had said toothat he had come to abolish the law, James answered only that hisbrother had said many things and that some were not as wise as others.Peter, who was called upon to testify that Jesus wished the Jews toremain Jews, and that circumcision and all the observances were needed,answered that he did not know which was the truth, Jesus not havingspoken plainly on these matters, and neither one nor the other seemed tounderstand that it was of no avail that Jesus should have been born,should have died and been raised from the dead by his Father if the lawwere to prevail unchanged for evermore. To James and to Peter Jesus wasa prophet, but no more than the prophets, and unable to understandeither Peter or Jesus, I returned to Tarsus broken-hearted, for theredid not seem to be on earth a true Christian but myself, and I knew notwhom to preach to, Gentiles or Jews. Only of one thing was I sure, thatthe Lord Jesus Christ had spoken to me out of the clouds and ordained mehis apostle, but he had not pointed out the way, and I mourned that Ihad gone up to Jerusalem, and abode in Tarsus disheartened, resuming myloom, sitting at it from daylight till dark, waiting for some new signto be given me, for I did not lose hope altogether, but, knowing wellthat the ways of Providence are not immediate, waited in patience or insuch patience as I might possess myself. Barnabas I had forgotten, andhe was forgotten when I said that I had met none in Jerusalem that couldbe said to be a follower of the Master.

  It was Barnabas who brought me to James, the brother of the Lord, and toPeter, and told them that though I had persecuted I was now zealous, andhad preached in many synagogues that Christ Jesus had died and beenraised from the dead. But whether they feared me as a spy, one who wouldbetray them, or whether it was that our minds were divided upon manythings, I know not, but Barnabas could not persuade them, and, as I havesaid, I left Jerusalem and returned to Tarsus, and resumed my trade,until Barnabas, who had been sent to Antioch to meet some disciples,said to them, but there is one at Tarsus who has preached the life anddeath of our Lord Jesus Christ and brought many to believe in him. Sothey said to him: go to Tarsus for this man and bring him hither. Andwhen they had seen and conferred with me and knew what sort of man Iwas, Barnabas said, with your permission and your authority, Paul and Iwill start together for Cyprus, for that is my country, and my friendsthere will believe us when we tell them that Jesus was raised from thedead and was seen by many: first by Martha and Mary, the sisters ofLazarus, and afterwards by Peter and by the apostles and many others. Asthe disciples were willing that we should go to preach the Gospel inCyprus, we went thither furnished with letters, and received a kindlywelcome from everybody, as it had been foretold by Barnabas, and manyheard the Gospel, and if my stay among you Essenes could be prolongedbeyond this evening and for several days I could tell you stories of agreat magician and how he was confuted by me by the grace of God workingthrough me, but as everything cannot be told in the first telling I willpass from Cyprus back to Antioch, where we rested awhile, so that wemight tell the brethren of the great joy with which the faith had beenreceived in Cyprus, of the churches we founded and our promise to theCyprians to return to them.

  And so joyful were the brethren in Antioch at our success that I said toBarnabas: let us not tarry here, but go on into Galatia. We set out,accompanied by John Mark, Barnabas' cousin, but he left us at Perga,being afraid, and for his lack of courage I was unable to forgive him,thereby estranging myself later on from Barnabas, a God-fearing man. Butto tell you what happened at Lystra. We found the people there ready tolisten to the faith, and it was given to me to set a cripple that hadnever walked in his life straight upon his feet, and as sturdily as any.The people cried out at this wonder, the gods have come down to us, andwhen the rumour reached the High Priest that the gods had come to theircity, he drove out two oxen, garlanded, and would have sacrificed themin our honour, but we tore our garments, saying, we are men likeyourselves and have come to preach that you should turn from vanitiesand false gods and worship the one true living God, who created theearth, and all the firmament. The people heard us and promised to abjuretheir idolatries, and would have abjured them for ever if the Jews fromthe neighbouring cities had not heard of our preaching and had notgathered together and denounced us in Lystra, where there were no Jews,or very few. Nor were they content with denouncing us, but on aconvenient occasion dragged Barnabas and myself outside the town, stonedus and left us for dead, for we, knowing that God required us, feigneddeath, thereby deceiving them and escaping death we returned to the townby night and left it next day for Derbe.

  Now, Essenes, this story that I tell of what happened to us at Lystrahas been told with some care by me, for it is significant of what hashappened to me for twenty years, since the day, as you have heard, whenthe Lord Jesus himself spoke to me out of the clouds and appointed me topreach the Gospel he had given unto me, which, upheld by him, I havepreached faithfully, followed wherever I went by persecution from Jewsdetermined to undo my work. But undeterred by stones and threats, wereturned to Lystra and preached there again, and in Perga and Attalia,from thence we sailed to Antioch, and there were great rejoicings inSaigon Street, as we sat in the doorways telling of the churches that wefounded in Galatia, and how we flung open the door of truth to thepagans, and how many had passed through.

  But some came from Jerusalem preaching that the uncircumcised could nothope for salvation, and that there could be no conversion unless the lawbe observed, and the first observance of the law, they said, iscircumcision. We answered them as is our wont that it is no longer byobservances of the law but by grace, through our Lord Jesus Christ, thatmen may be saved; and we being unable to yield to them or they to us, itwas resolved that Barnabas and Titus, a Gentile that we brought over tothe faith, should go to Jerusalem.

  On the way thither we preached that the Saviour promised to the Jews hadcome, and been raised from the dead, and the Samaritans hearkened andwere converted in great numbers, and the news of these conversionspreceding us the joy among the brethren was very great, for you, whoknow the Scriptures, need not be told that the conversion of theGentiles has been foretold; nor was it till we began to talk about theabrogation of the law that James and the followers of James rose upagainst us. We wondered, and said to each other: were ever two brothersas unlike as these? Though myself had never seen the Lord in the flesh,I knew of him from Peter, and we whispered together with our eyes fixedon the long, lean man whose knees were reported callous from kneeling inthe Temple praying that God might not yet awhile destroy the world. Itwas sufficient, so it was said, for him to hold up his hand to performmiracles, and we came to dislike him and to remember that he had alwayslooked upon Jesus our Lord with suspicion during his lifetime. Why then,we asked, should he come into power derived from his brother's glory?

  He seemed to be less likely than any other Jew to understand the newtruth born into the world. So I turned from him to Peter, in whom Ithought to find an advocate, knowing him to be one with us in this,saying that it were vain to ask the Gentiles to accept a yoke which theHebrews themselves had been unable to bear; but Peter was still thetimid man that he had ever been, and myself being of small wit in largeand vi
olent assemblies said to him: thou and I and James will consulttogether in private at the end of this uproar. But James could not cometo my reason, saying always that the Gentiles must become Jews beforethey became Christians; and remembering very well all the trouble andvexation the demand for the circumcision of Titus had put upon me (towhich I consented, for with a Jew I am a Jew so that I may gain them),and how he had submitted himself lest he should be a stumbling-block, Isaid to Timothy, my own son in the faith, thy mother and grandmotherwere hearers of the law, and he answered, let me be a Jew externally,and myself took and circumcised. A good accommodation Peter thought thisto be, and I said to Peter, henceforth for thee the circumcised and forme the uncircumcised. Against which Peter and James had nothing to say,for it seemed to them that the uncircumcised were one thing in Jerusalemand another thing beyond Jerusalem. But I was glad thus to come to termswith them, thinking thereby to obtain from them the confirmation of myapostleship, though there was no need for any such, as I have alwaysheld, it having teen bestowed upon me by our Lord Jesus Christ himself;and holding it to be of little account that they had known our LordJesus in the flesh, I said to their faces, it were better to have knownhim in the spirit, thereby darkening them. It might have been better tohave held back the words.

  Myself and Barnabas and Titus returned to Antioch and it was some daysafter that I said to Barnabas: let us go again into the cities in whichwe have preached and see if the brethren abide in our teaching and howthey do with it. But Barnabas would bring John Mark with him, he who hadleft us before in Perga from cowardice of soul. Therefore I chose Silasand departed. He was our warrant that we were one with the Church ofJerusalem, which was true inasmuch as we were willing to yield all butessential things so that everybody, Jews and Gentiles, might be broughtinto communion with Jesus Christ.

  We went together to Lystra and Mysia, preaching in all these towns, andthe brethren were confirmed in their faith in us, and leaving them wewere about to set out for Bithynia and would have gone thither had wenot been warned one night by the Holy Breath to go back, and instead wewent to Troas, where one night a vision came to me in my sleep: a manstood before me at the foot of my bed, a Macedonian I knew him to be, byhis dress and speech, for he spoke not the broken Greek that I speak,but pure Greek, the Greek that Mathias speaks, and he told me that wewere to go over into Macedonia.

  To tell of all the countries we visited and the towns in which wepreached, and the many that were received into the faith, would be astory that would carry us through the night and into the next day, forit would be the story of my life, and every life is long when it is putinto words; nor would the story be profitable unto you in any greatmeasure, though it be full of various incidents. But I am behoven totell that wherever we went the persecution that began in Lystra followedus. As soon as the Jews heard of our conversions they assembled eitherto assault us or to lay complaints before the Roman magistrates, as theydid at Philippi, the chief city of Macedonia. Among my miracles was theconversion of a slave, a pythonist, a teller of fortunes, a caster ofhoroscopes, who brought her master good money by her divinations, andseeing that he would profit thereby no longer, he drew myself and Silasinto the market-place and calling for help of others had us broughtbefore the rulers, and the pleading of the man was, and he was supportedby others, that we taught many things that it was not lawful of them,being Jews, to hearken to, and the magistrates, wishing to please themultitude, commanded us to be beaten, and when many stripes had beenlaid on us we were cast into prison, and the jailer being charged tokeep us in safety thrust our feet into the stocks.

  Myself and Silas prayed and sang praises unto God despite our wounds,and as if in response there was a great earthquake, and the prison wasshaken and all the doors opened, on seeing which the keeper of theprison drew his sword and would have fallen upon it, believing that theprisoners had fled, if I had not cried to him in a loud voice: there isno reason to kill thyself, for thy charges are here. What may I do to besaved? he said, being greatly astonished at the miracle, and weanswered: believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. Thereupon he invited us intohis house and set food before us, and he was baptized and bidden to haveno fear, for we confided to him that we were Romans, and that themagistrates would tremble when they heard that they had ordered acitizen of Rome to be beaten and him uncondemned. Why, he asked, did yenot declare yourselves to be Romans? Because, we answered, we wereminded to suffer for our Lord Jesus Christ's son, at which he wonderedand gave thanks. He was baptized by us, and when he had carried the newsof their mistake to the ears of the magistrates they sent sergeantssaying that we were to be allowed to go. But we refused to leave theprison, saying, we are Romans and have been beaten uncondemned. Let themagistrates come to fetch us. Which message being taken to them theycame beseeching us to go, and not to injure them, for they had donewrong unwittingly, and taking pity of them for the sake of our LordJesus Christ we passed into Thessalonica, where I preached in thesynagogues for three Sabbaths and reasoned with the Jews, showing thempassages in the Scriptures confirming all that we said to them about theChrist that had suffered and been raised from the dead. Some believed,and others assaulted the house of Jason, in which we were living, andthe Romans were perplexed to know how to keep order, for wherever wewent there were stirs and quarrels among the Jews, the fault being withthem and not with us. In Corinth too the Jews pleaded against us beforethe Roman magistrates and----