Lucanus said, “I have traveled in many climes and cities, and have found what you, yourself, have bewailed: Defectors, schismatics dissenters, complacent fools, self-ordained oracles who interpret Our Lord to suit their thought or their position or their vices or their virtues—and often I do not know which is which! As Cicero has said there is nothing so absurd but what some philosopher has said it, and this, alas, is notably true of the members of the Church. There is not a little obscure bishop in some dusty town who cannot tell you exactly what was meant by this parable or that, and smiles superbly when you mention the Jerusalem Community and Peter, who is the bishop of all. Our Lord did not abrogate the law of human nature, which remains as pigheaded and as egotistic as ever, and arrogates to itself the divine prerogative of defining divine law. One conjectures, at times, if these little men do not sometimes lecture God before permitting sleep to overcome them at night, and sternly call to His attention some error which they wish to be corrected at once.”
Lucanus’ expression was so dismal that Saul laughed. He did not know it but he was laughing at almost every remark now and Timothy watched him dubiously, wondering if Lucanus’ pellets were not too efficacious.
“To paraphrase Caligula,” said Saul, “I would that the troublemakers had but one neck.”
“Fortunately,” said Lucanus, “I am a physician, and nothing surprises me overmuch about man. We know that the Church will survive and the gates of hell will not prevail against her—for has not Our Lord so said? But it will not be with the aid of man! But I bring you a letter from your nephew, Amos ben Ezekiel, who is worthy of his uncle, and who is not only a better physician than I but far more eloquent. I was never a man of long-suffering, but Amos is not only patient—he has a sunny nature which wins hearts.”
Saul’s face brightened with pride and affection. “He resembles my father,” he said.
He spoke fondly of his sister, the widow Sephorah, who now had only her children, and one of them an evangelist. “I shall visit her soon,” he said, “for she is lonely and we are young no longer.
Lucanus spoke of his travels and of those he encountered, and the perils he had known, and Saul listened with avid sympathy. The harsh lines of his face melted away. He drank another glass of wine and ate of the cheese and fruit and bread, and listened with all his attention, and Lucanus watched him covertly as he spoke. Saul’s weariness appeared to have been banished. A certain serenity and calm, foreign to his nature, had taken possession of him, a certain loose passiveness of hand and shoulder. He found remarks of Lucanus’ amusing rather than irritating, when the Greek referred frequently to the obduracy and rebellion of the scattered churches, and the resentment of the elders when he, Lucanus, tried to correct them, and the knowing smirks of the deacons.
Then Lucanus, his face darkening, said, “It is very petty and very human, and can be borne. But what cannot be borne is the pompous and noisy pretension to supreme virtue and righteousness in some of our militant brethren in certain places, which arouses the anger of those not converted. If they did not display it overtly, nay, if they did not conspicuously and loudly seek occasions to be publicly overheard, it would not be so dangerous. It is not well for the weak to inspire the wrath of the strong; sweet reason and a gentle tongue are not cowardly, even in the mighty, and they are prudent in the defenseless. Truth should not blow a brassy trumpet nor write graffiti on the temples of others, for such trumpets do not incite admiration nor do such scribblings attract tolerant attention. The Jews learned that long ago, and learned to live in peace with their neighbors. But our little brothers remind me that Our Lord said we should bring the Gospel to all nations, and they are determined to do it immediately, at once, with fanfare, and all by themselves, no matter whose wrath they raise and whose sensibilities they offend.”
“I know,” said Saul, and his tone was not irascible as usual and Timothy stared at him. “Every man a little Moses, screaming from his own tiny Sinai. That is what comes of self-interpretation—a new Tower of Babel. I know it is dangerous, but men have so many religions now and so many temples and gods and so many insistent devotees and priests, that in the confusion it may be that the Christians are not too threatened.”
Timothy was astonished. This was unlike Saul ben Hillel who could roar like a jungle beast at foolish and obstinate and opinionated men. But Saul was actually smiling benignly and leaning back in his chair in an attitude of happy lassitude and physical comfort. His eyes, however, were glazed and strange, and suddenly he yawned widely and shook his head as if in amusement at himself. Then he gave Lucanus a sudden and unfathomable look.
“The heat overwhelms me today, and the wine,” he said in apology. “Too, I am young no longer.”
Lucanus said, “Let us retire to our chambers and rest until the cool of the evening.”
“Alas,” said Saul, “I am to meet at the house of a few friends today, and it is already late. Do accompany me, Lucanus, and you also, Timothy. They are men of mind and culture and while they are not Christians as yet I am praying for this culmination, for they have influence in Athens.”
He yawned again, so widely that all his big white teeth were visible, and tears came into his eyes. He shook his head and laughed once more.
“An hour’s rest,” said Lucanus. “Come. I am a physician. Will you not obey me, my dear friend, and grant me this concession?”
He stood up and his face was so earnest and grave and commanding that Saul said, “Very well. But only an hour.” He too stood up, staggered, caught at the table, and forced himself upright. He was aghast. “Can it be I am drunk?” he asked, ashamed.
“No,” said Lucanus, and took his arm, and the others in the dining room grinned and winked at each other. “You are weary. Come. I have something most serious to tell you, dear Saul, and this is not the place. When you are in your bed I will impart some news to you.”
Saul’s eyelids were drooping, and he shook his head over and over. Lucanus dropped a small pile of golden coins on the table, an act Saul was seemingly incapable of observing now. Then Lucanus motioned with his head to the pale, mute Timothy, and the young man took Saul’s other arm and they led him from the room. There was loud laughter behind them, another thing which the sensitive Saul did not heed.
They climbed the dirty gritty stairs to the hot rooms above and Saul’s legs were heavy and his feet seemed to sink into the floor and he said, “I have never been drunk. I did not drink much. Have I become ill? This cannot be! I have no time for illness!”
“You are not ill,” said Lucanus, “but you are very tired, and even the warhorse must drop his head and slumber and listen to no drum until he has slept.”
“The corridor swims,” murmured Saul, as if he had not heard. “The air is afloat with mist. Yet, I feel no sickness, no weakness. I wish only to sleep a little. Of a certainty, I have never been so drowsy before, and the thought of my bed delights me.”
He fell on his bed with a rich sigh of pleasure and a comfortable murmur. But Lucanus drew the one chair in the miserable room to the hardly less miserable bed with its soiled blankets, and sat beside Saul, who looked momentarily surprised in his drowsiness. Timothy, trembling, stood at the foot and clasped his hands hard together. Then, at the motion of Lucanus’ head he drew the ragged woolen curtains across the glare of the high small window, and the chamber was immediately plunged into a hot dusk.
Then Lucanus bent over Saul, laid his hand on the other’s flushed cheek and said, “Open your eyes, Saul, and look into mine, for I must have your attention.”
Lucanus reached to the table on which stood a candle and he held it out to Timothy and said in a peremptory tone, “Go at once, do not delay, and light this candle at the fire in the kitchen, and bring it back with all haste!”
Saul heard this and partly raised his head off the pillow and stared at Lucanus. Lucanus held his hand tightly, as if forcing his own tired strength into Saul. In a moment, the door opened rapidly and the panting Timothy returned with
the lighted candle which blinked in the dimness like a painful red eye.
Lucanus moved the candle slowly back and forth before the dilated eyes of Saul. Saul was still half-raised in his bed. Lucanus murmured, “You will gaze intently at this flame and when I snap my fingers you will sleep. But you will hear all I say in your sleep and will awaken at my signal, and you will be calm, accepting all.”
To his astonishment, Saul struck the candle with the back of his hand and sat upright and looked at his friend with eyes no longer slack and moist. They glowed like blue flame. He said, gently, “My dear Lucanus, I am no fool. I have seen hypnotism before, when Egyptian priest-physicians used it for the benefit of their patients. Though I gave no sign of heeding I have been aware since your arrival that you are burdened with sorrow, and so I know you bring dreadful news. I also saw you drop pellets in my whiskey and wine, and I am grateful for that, for I am weary, and I knew it was to calm me. Am I a child or a man? Am I to be soothed by drugs and hypnotism, for fear I will not be able to bear another burden, another grief, another despair? If you think I am a child, then I will be offended. If you consider me a man, tell me all, and as quickly as possible.”
Lucanus put aside the candle, and his whole ascetic face trembled, and Timothy quaked anew. “It is well,” said Lucanus. “I regret that I thought to spare you, Saul, for indeed you are a man among men and not a weakling whose emotions must be dulled for fear of hysteria and madness. But above all, I am a physician, and the habit of ministration is hard to overcome, and we are often of the opinion that it is best to spare others the sword of sorrow and anguish, and thus we denigrate mankind. We are men—or we are whimpering children.”
He spoke quietly, but his large eyes filled with tears and he bent his head and began to speak in a low voice.
Lucanus had visited the Christian community in Tarsus two months before, which Peter had asked him to do because of defectors and quarrels arising there. An evangelist, too, was needed for the heathen. “The Christian community,” Peter had written, “in Tarsus, has begun to question my authority and they are antagonizing the Gentiles and those not yet converted.” So Lucanus had obeyed.
The Christians were still accepted in the Jewish community, for the majority were former Jews, and they worshiped together in the synagogues, keeping all the Holy Days as in the days of their fathers, and celebrating together. When the deacons and the priests spoke of Yeshua of Nazareth and His Resurrection, the unconvinced Jews listened politely and many finally accepted Him and His Mission, and among them were some rabbis. Those yet unconvinced watched with indulgent tolerance the consecration of the Host, and those who partook of the Sacrament, and when the Christians sang the Psalms of David in their native Aramaic, or even Hebrew, the Jews joined in with deep reverence. To them, still, the Christians were but an aberrant sect in Israel, which would survive or not survive, depending on the truth they proclaimed. Those who came in the Name of the Lord should be respected, even if their message were in error.
Though all was not completely calm between young Jewish hotheads of deeply traditional beliefs and the self-righteousness and equal hotheadedness of Jewish Christians, it was generally admitted that the Christians spoke in love and a desire to save the souls of men and so they should not be despised or attacked. But it was irritating to be told that unless even the most holy and pious of men accepted the proclaimed Messias they were doomed to spend eternity in hell, and that all their faithful forefathers were now burning in that dolorous place, including blameless infants and the prophets and King David, and virtuous maidens and dutiful matrons. All the devotion and faith and love and obedience to God which the Jews had observed over the centuries, they were told, availed them nothing. They were damned; they were still damned; they would continue to be damned. Their love and faith and obedience and devotion might just as well have been given to Devil or to Moloch. To the Jews, this seemed outrageous and an insult to God. But the more wise among the Christian deacons soothed their ire, and so the Christians were still admitted to the synagogues.
The Gentile Christians were another matter. They were excessively zealous, and their zeal was in no wise reduced by the fact that they knew nothing of the Root from which their Faith had sprung. Therefore, they spoke of the words of the Messias as “mysteries” unaware of the Hebraic context in which He had spoken. When He had referred to Elias and Isaias and David and Moses and Solomon and Abraham, they thought these mighty men faintly mythical angels of glorious gods briefly inhabiting the earth to lift up the souls of men, very like their discarded sons of the gods and the goddesses, or their former sylvan deities. In truth, many of them blithely incorporated the beautiful deities in their new religion, and quite a number confused Mary of Nazareth with Artemis or Diana—for were not all these holy virgins? Jesus began to take on the adumbrance of Apollo, the aspects of Zeus. They could not understand the protests of the Jews and the Christian Jews, and were annoyed by them, and when the old gods and goddesses and dryads and nymphs were referred to as “demons” something uneasy stirred in them, born of past memories. Many had been adherents of Isis, and they were bewildered when the Christians refused to give her attributes to the Mother of the Messias.
Some of the Christian Jewish deacons and priests set themselves the laborious task—in love and tenderness—to enlighten the Christian Gentiles about the Faith from which the Messias had sprung, and told how He had declared that He came not to overthrow the Law but to fulfill it. Therefore, the converts must know about the Law or they certainly would never be able to encompass the teachings of the Messias. They must know about Moses and the patriarchs. But some of the new Christians said disdainfully, “That is past and gone. We need only the Messias.” “But if you do not know of what He spoke, then how can you comprehend His words and His mission?” The deacons and the elders did not have notable success, for their words were incomprehensible to the converts who found it all a little tedious and had nothing to do with the immediate Second Coming, and their own glorification and their splendor and their rule over the earth, and the consignment of unbelievers to an eternal hell, which they would contemplate from the battlements of Heaven in happy justification and complacence. This made the priests and deacons shudder.
“But you know all these things. You have encountered them, yourself,” said Lucanus to the intently listening Saul.
“Alas, yes,” said Saul. “I often wonder if Peter were not wiser than I.”
“Perhaps it is enough to accept the Messias as Lord and God and Savior,” said Lucanus. “These poor ignorant people are faithful, at least, and I do recall hearing that not all the ancient Israelites honored the prophets, either,” and he smiled ironically, and Saul smiled in answer.
“Shall only the wise and the cultured inherit Heaven?” asked Saul. “Heaven forbid! For the controversies they would provoke, even in Heaven, would make it a hell. No one is more insistent and intolerant than those who called themselves intellectuals, as I observed, myself, in Israel, among the Sadducees and the Pharisees.”
In spite of his apparent calm, he was beginning to pant and his eyes had fixed themselves with mingled terror and fortitude on Lucanus, awaiting the blow of the sword. He sat upright now in his bed, his arms embracing his knees.
The controversies would have remained in the Christian Tarsus community without danger—except from militants and defectors and self-interpreters and schismatics and dissenters—had it not been for the over zealous who were convinced that they had a mission to destroy every faith they encountered except theirs. They scorned the teachings and the persuasions and the reasonings of the mild and the gentle and the loving. The heathen world must be converted immediately, its idols overthrown, or God would not hold them guiltless. So, as had done their brethren in Rome, they openly attacked religious processions, rushed into temples and overthrew the statues of gods and goddesses, shouted on the street corners that all men were doomed if they continued to honor the ancient inhabitants of Olympus, and that t
hose who did not accept the Messias immediately were accursed and condemned to everlasting torment—when He returned, which would probably be tomorrow—and that the obdurate were unclean, vile, anathema and to be avoided by all good men. Worse still, the laws and the lawgivers of Rome, or any other local authority, were to be disobeyed passively or openly, as a “sign” of the withdrawal of the Christian community from other men. “We are the Witness!” they cried in the marketplaces and the fori and in “heathen” temples. “Believe us, or you must die and writhe forever in the flames of hell! Who is Caesar, that we must obey him? He represents the decadent, the past, the passing, the wickedness, the unjust, licentious, voluptuous, worldly, the depraved, the established evil. We bring to you freedom from Caesar and his monstrousness and his laws! We are another world, ruled by the Messias—who is surely expected even in the days in which we live!”
The Roman military, honoring the greatest of their generals, Augustus Caesar, and having conferred on him the mantle of divinity, raised a temple to him in Tarsus—as they had done in many other cities—and established therein a gigantic and glorified image of their dead Caesar, whom many accounted greater than Julius, himself, who had also been declared a deity. Priests had been appointed to serve him and to receive sacrifices, and retired captains and centurions and soldiers haunted his temple, sighing over these decadent days wherein military prowess was less honored than a mean politician with a snake’s tongue and crafty businessmen and bankers and merchants and stockbrokers. Though many of them, being “old” Romans, did not believe in the divinity of Augustus Caesar, they delighted in honoring a symbol of integrity, arms, pride in Rome, Rome, herself, and the glorious days when Rome had stood among lesser nations like a Colossus of law and honor and order and probity.