Great Lion of God

  Saul clasped his hands together in a convulsion of rapture and exquisite adoration.

  “What does it matter to me, now that I have seen the Messias?” He paused. He was like a man who had gazed too long at the sun and now saw its aureole, its timeless image, printed on his retina, and yet was not afraid. “I have seen my Life,” he said, and did not see the soldiers. “I have seen the Truth, the Everlasting! I have beheld the Holy One of Israel, and it is enough for me. My long search is over. I have found Him, at last! O, my Lord and my God—at last!”

  He struck his breast with his fists. He cried aloud in his indescribable joy.

  Then, though he could not see he became aware of the disordered breathing of the men about him, and felt their fear, and a deep tenderness touched his heart. He said, “I am blind, but take me to the house of Judas, on the street called Straight, in Damascus.”

  They put him on his horse, shrinking to touch one who had seen what must not be seen, and his flesh was like a vibrating harp. They led him through the rest of the night to the city, in silence.

  Chapter 34

  “There was a certain disciple at Damascus, named Ananias, and to him said the Lord in a vision: ‘Ananias!’ And he said, ‘Behold, I am here, Lord.’

  “And the Lord said to him, ‘Arise, and go into the street which is called Straight, and enquire in the house of Judas for one called Saul of Tarshish, for behold, he prays, and he has seen in a vision a man named Ananias coming in and putting his hand on him, that he might receive his sight.’

  “Then Ananias answered, ‘Lord, I have heard by many of this man, how much evil he has done to Your saints at Jerusalem, and here he has authority from the chief priests to bind all that call on Your Name.’

  “But the Lord said unto him, ‘Go your way, for he is a chosen vessel unto Me, to bear My Name before the Gentiles and kings and the Children of Israel, for I will show him how great things he must suffer for My Name’s sake.’

  “And Ananias went his way—” (Acts 9:10-17)

  JUDAS BEN JONAH was in a dilemma.

  He was a rich and respected resident of the ancient city of Damascus, a man of some forty-eight years, grave, circumspect, dignified and courteous, a banker and a merchant. His family was old and revered, he had married a lady of distinction and piety, and his sons had married similar women. His daughters had not disgraced him in their marriages. He would say, with modesty, that there was not a city of note in the world in which he did not have a devoted friend, and he had round innocent brown eyes that saw everything and underestimated no enemy nor overestimated any acquaintance or even a member of his own house. His beard was rich and brown and carefully tended and only slightly fragrant, and he moved sedately. This was partly a matter of flesh and partly a matter of temperament. His large house on the street called Straight was most comfortable though not luxurious, nor were its appointments ostentatious. He would often say in his soft deep voice that God had been good to him, blessed be His Name, and he was heralded for his alms and the tithes he paid to the Temple and his journeys to Jerusalem on the High Holy Days, and his devotion.

  His whole life had always been in accordance with the Law and the Commandments, and he found no tediousness in it. His counsel was invariably wise, if dull. He would say that a man who considered life precarious and capricious was a man who had not ordered his own life well, and he suspected excitement, enthusiasms and wonder.

  He was a friend not only of Pontius Pilate and Caiphas, the High Priest, but of Shebua ben Abraham. Shebua valued his friendship, and Saul ben Hillel had met him on a few occasions in his grandfather’s house, and if the young man had discovered him to be a man of formal and uninspired convictions he had also come to respect him. So, Saul had announced to Pilate that he would live at the house of Judas ben Jonah while on his mission to Damascus, and Judas had extended him a cordial if prudent invitation, not at first understanding to the full.

  Now he understood. Hence, his dilemma. For Judas ben Jonah had become a follower of Yeshua ben Joseph of Nazareth, not with instant interior acclamation and joy and revelation and delight but only after prolonged and judicious study. It was evident, to his pedestrian mind, that the crucified Nazarene was the Messias, but how he, a discreet and cautious man who took much time to reach even an insignificant conviction, had arrived at his belief was not known even to his wife. “I believe,” he had told her with his usual gravity, and that was sufficient. He was willing to grant that less blessed men did not believe, and he pitied them.

  He had noticed recently that many of his fellow Jews were entering Damascus from the provinces of Israel with stories of persecutions inflicted on them by the High Priest, Caiphas, and Pontius Pilate, because they were adherents of the new cult. He assisted them with his usual quiet prudence, and in secrecy, not out of fear—for he lacked the imagination to fear much—but out of charity. “This, too, will pass,” he said, quoting Solomon. A man needed only to have patience. When some mentioned Saul ben Hillel as one of the most ferocious persecutors he was mildly incredulous, and he welcomed the visit of the young man for he liked visitors and gossip, and he respected Shebua ben Abraham who had been of service to him in the past.

  Two days before Saul had arrived at his large walled house on the street called Straight he had heard the full story, and for the first time in his ordered life he knew acute distress. Then it came to him that God, blessed be His Name, had arranged this in order that he, Judas ben Jonah, could bring the young man to reason and deflect him from his intransigent ways. As a man of good will, himself, he was convinced that most men had instincts of good will; it was only necessary to inspire them. Evil was banal and trivial; good was powerful and invariably triumphant. This was the conviction of Judas ben Jonah, though he did not carry this belief too far in the marketplace, and so enhanced his reputation for astute prudence.

  The street called Straight was not straight, but was even more winding and serpentine than the other fervid streets of Damascus. However, it had a certain decorum and quietude, for all the houses were the houses of rich men who did not flaunt their wealth. Judas had ordered apartments for Saul, whom he remembered as a pugnacious young man with fiery red hair and impatient eyes and an abrupt manner, and a man who was not as respectful to his elders as was seemly.

  He awaited the arrival of Saul as his guest with superbly concealed anxiety and apprehension. But Saul had arrived long after midnight last night, though not expected until the morrow, and he had come in blind mute disarray with Roman soldiers, who had led his horse into the courtyard, and, after delivering Saul to his host, had departed to their barracks. They had told Judas, in their blunt and artless military fashion, that Saul had apparently seen a god on the desert, for he had been instantly deprived of sight and his face had glowed like the moon. Judas observed this, himself and he was failed with the first wild conjectures of his staid and serene life. Had Saul ben Hillel become mad? Judas ordered servants to conduct Saul to his quarters, and commanded water and scented towels and fine soap to wash away the soil of the desert, and unguents, and a nourishing supper. Saul, without protest, and seemingly unaware of all that transpired about him, departed with the servants and Judas sat down in the atrium to consider the matter.

  He did not like the unexpected, the strange. He sat and frowned and stroked his beard and ruminated, and turned the fine rings on his plump fingers. He let some time pass and then went to the chambers he had assigned to Saul, and there he had sat before the young man with his staring blue eyes and the clean coarse garments in which the servants had dressed him. Judas noted that the supper had barely been touched. He became uneasy. There was no sign of injury to the eyes opposite him, which hardly blinked in the light of the pleasant lamps. Saul appeared wrapped in some vision, some profound meditation, which made him unconscious not only of himself and his surroundings but of his host.

  Judas hesitated. It would soon be dawn and he was weary and he was a man who believed it almost sinful not to retire
to his bed at the usual hour. But he was not only anxious; he was curious. He said, in a kind voice, “Are you ill, Saul ben Hillel, and why do you not see?”

  “I have seen all of Life,” said Saul, and these were the first words he had uttered. Suddenly his face shone like lightning and a quickness as of unbearable exaltation flashed into his eyes. “But I must wait.” He paused. He turned his blind eyes in Judas’ direction and said in a less passionate voice, “Forgive me, Judas ben Jonah, for not greeting you and thanking you for your hospitality before this hour, but I am assailed by celestial revelations and must meditate on them all.”

  A pucker appeared between Judas’ big brown eyes. He again considered if Saul had suddenly become mad.

  “I have seen the Messias!” said Saul, and his voice thrilled like a trumpet and he smiled exultantly and pressed his sun-darkened hands convulsively to his breast as if to restrain a leaping heart.

  Judas was more confused. Was this Saul ben Hillel who had been reported to be the most relentless foe of the Nazarene? “When?” he asked, with his usual caution.

  “But a few hours ago,” replied Saul. “In the desert, before we approached the gates of Damascus.” He spoke simply and with a childlike candor, and Judas could not remember such candor in the young man before.

  “The Messias,” said Judas, as if reflecting.

  “I saw Him!” cried Saul, and he stood up and looked about him with a great and rapturous smile, though he could not see. You must believe me, Judas ben Jonah! I saw Him, He Whom I have been persecuting, and He did not reproach me nor strike me dead! He has given me a mission, and I am filled with revelations which He is bestowing on me, moment after moment! He has chosen me—the most base, the most contemptible, the most loathsome, the one most worthy of the fires of hell and utter destruction. Why do I not expire at the very thought of such magnanimity, such mercy, such love?”

  “I do not know,” murmured Judas, more confused than ever. He had heard of the inspired disciples and Apostles of Yeshua ben Joseph, though he had encountered but one of them, and he convinced and elated if not extravagant. Saul was like a red sun, a red lion, in this pleasant chamber with the flickering lamplight and with the warm wind stirring the damask curtains and bringing into the room a scent of heated stone and flowers. No one more alien to the house of Judas ben Jonah had ever entered here before, and Judas was disturbed by this wildness and vehement joy and unearthly certitude.

  “Why do you not see, then?” asked Judas, in a reasonable tone, as if attempting to bring matters to a rational level. “God does not strike men blind out of love.”

  Saul paced a few steps, then retraced them. His strange excitement was growing. “I have been blinded in order that I may see, fully, for the first time in my existence!” he cried.

  Judas could not comprehend this. It was not sensible. “Perhaps,” he suggested, in a paternal tone, “the sun was too strong on the desert.” He glanced at the carved ivory and ebony bed, with its fragrant linen and silken covers. “Rest, Saul ben Hillel, and if your sight is not restored by morning I will call my physician.”

  Saul’s eloquent face expressed his tremendous impatience, and then he controlled himself and smiled with a gentleness Judas found startling. “I have been told that one will come to me within a few days, and he will baptize me and my sight will be restored, and then I shall embark on the way He has ordained for me, blessed be His Name.”

  It was evident that he believed that he was speaking reasonably and that Judas would understand these plain words without further explanation.

  “Who will come to you, Saul?” he asked.

  “A man named Ananias.” The impatience was returning to Saul’s face.

  Judas knew Ananias, a poor and saintly scholar, who had been instrumental in bringing Judas into the company of the Messias. Before he could ask Saul how he knew this man Saul said, “I have been told of him since I was struck blind, and he will come.”

  Judas rose. He said, “Let me conduct you to your bed, dear friend for you are exhausted and need your rest.”

  For a moment it appeared that Saul would resist, that he did not desire sleep, and that he wished only to sit and to meditate on the ecstatic, incomprehensible thing which had come to him. Then he permitted Judas to lead him to the bed, and he lay down and Judas covered him. The older man then contemplated the strong sunburned face and thick red hair on the silken cushion. “Shalom,” he said at last, and blew out the lamps and went to his own chamber his thoughts most chaotic.

  Though Judas was a banker as well as a merchant he respected scholarship and wisdom and preferred to be known as a wise man rather than a wealthy one. Therefore, he greeted Ananias with grave courtesy when the elderly man came to his door, and welcomed him to his house and ordered refreshments for him. He pretended not to observe the poor clothing of his guest and the patched leather boots and the thin meagerness of his cloak and his lean pouch. Ananias had come a long way through the streets on foot, and his pale and slender face and gray beard wore a patina of golden dust threaded with sweat. Yet, in spite of his quiet manner and evident weariness his expression was bright and youthful and his eyes were the eyes of a boy, lustrous and polished.

  “This house is honored by your presence, Ananias,” said Judas ben Jonah, and himself poured the wine the servant had brought, and as he was a man who appreciated the refinements of life he was pleased by the golden ewer traced with Indu enamel in various colors. But Ananias drank sparingly and with an apparent absence of mind, and there was a troubled line across his forehead. He declined the sweetmeats, though Judas informed him that they had been prepared by the hand of his talented wife.

  “I have a peculiar mission,” said Ananias at last, in the sweetest of voices. “You have a guest, one Saul of Tarshish.” He hesitated. “Judas, we both adore the Messias. We know He sends us commands which we dare not disobey, for has He not given His blessed life for us, and does He not love us? Do not, therefore, ask me questions I cannot answer. I have been sent to your guest.”

  “He awaits you,” said Judas. “I confess I understand little of this. His words frighten me, when he deigns to answer my questions. HIS manner has about it something of madness. He has sat these three days in my house wrapped in a dream, and he murmurs under his breath and prays without ceasing, and he is as another Jacob, absorbed in visions, or a young Moses, gazing with blind eyes upon the Promised Land. Sometimes, though he cannot see, he paces his chamber, uttering great cries and sobs and clapping his hands together, and sometimes he weeps aloud or laughs in exultation as if a teacher had taught him an absorbing lesson and he had come to a mighty conclusion of his own. He does not eat. He drinks little. If he sleeps, I do not know it. He is like one consumed. He appears like one in a fever, restless, transfigured, staring, burning of eye, dry of lip. I have offered to conduct him into my gardens for the sun and the air, but he refuses to leave his chamber. Insistence brings on a fit of terrible impatience, for which he immediately apologizes and begs forgiveness. He has said to me, I must be alone, so that I may learn and observe that what I saw in obscurity and murk, and as through a glass darkly, has been shining in color and light from all eternity—and I was blind! I once said with Job, “Oh, that I might know where to find Him!” and behold, He was at my right hand always and I did not see Him, for I refused to see! But now I see, and cannot have enough of the seeing, and I await His call.’”

  Ananias looked with compassion on his troubled host and said, “I comprehend his words, Judas ben Jonah. At first I was dismayed, for is this not Saul of Tarshish, whom the Romans call Paul of Tarsus, the fearful enemy of our people? There is an old Lybian saying, ‘That once an eagle, stricken with an arrow, said, when he saw the fashion of the shaft, “With our own feathers, not by others’ hand, are we now smitten.”’ The people of Saul ben Hillel have been smitten by him, but not in malice, not in deliberate cruelty or rage, but in ignorance.”

  “No matter the reason for smiting,” said Judas,
with a wry expression, “the wound is just as painful.”

  “True,” said Ananias, rising. “But now I pray you to lead me to your guest.”

  They went in silence to the chamber of Saul. They found him sitting on his rich bed, his hands clasped on his knees, straining to hear. Ananias paused on the threshold to contemplate this man of terror, who had come to destroy the faithful, and who had had a vision on the road to Damascus. He was a young man with hair like the Sun at sunset, disheveled and uncombed, and his face was ghastly sleeplessness, yet trembling with exaltation, and his eyes, one drooping in affliction, shone with an unusual blue light like metal and he had the powerful aspect of a young lion held by a chain, and straining, and overcome with eagerness for the arena. He leaned forward, craning toward the door, for beyond it he had heard footsteps and so vivid were his eyes that Ananias could hardly believe that he did not see.

  The old man said softly, “Shalom. May the joy of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob be with you, my son, Saul ben Hillel, and may the peace of God, blessed be His Name, attend you always.”

  Saul sprang to his feet. He moved two steps in the direction of Ananias. He cried, “Ananias!”

  “It is I,” said Ananias. “I know all that you would tell me for I, too, have seen a vision.” Now for the first time he felt pity for this young man, this passionate man, this most vehement and resolute man, and saw much in an instant of time. He sighed. At the sound Saul came forward again, wildly smiling, and now there were tears on his darkened cheeks. He fell to his knees before Ananias and clasped his hands and bowed his head.

  Ananias glanced beseechingly at Judas, and the other man, who was agape with curiosity, left the chamber and closed the door behind him. Ananias laid his hands on Saul’s rough head, and sighed again, He knew, without knowing how he knew, that all Saul’s life had been one agonized search, in suffering, in despair, in occasional rapture, in confusion, in hope and in yearning. He had found what he had sought, but Ananias knew with a preternatural knowing what fate lay before this young man. Saul would not fall aside. He would never falter. He would know pain as he had never known it before, but he would accept it, not meekly as quieter and more composed men accepted it, but with a furious joy. Yet, he had far to go, and the light would not always lie on his path, and he would grope and straggle and fight in a far vaster wilderness than any he had experienced in his short lifetime. He was a warrior, one or God’s heroes, and he would not lay down his sword and his armor until his last breath.