There was only one of his teachers whom Lucanus wished to avoid. But he found Joseph ben Gamliel waiting for him, and the teacher drew him into his library in his stoa. The library was small and cool and austere, the furniture simple. “We shall not meet again,” said the Jewish teacher, sadly, looking at Lucanus with his large and luminous eyes. “Never again shall we meet. This is farewell for us.”
“You do not know,” said Lucanus.
“Ah, but I know.” Joseph ben Gamliel was silent for a moment. He turned his bearded head in profile to Lucanus, and the hot white light glaring through the small window struck that profile, giving it a mysterious radiance, sharpening it and changing it. “I must tell you a story,” said Joseph.
Lucanus smiled impatiently. “I have discovered that the Jews always have a story,” he said. “Everything is in poetry or metaphor, or hypothetical or obscure, or delivered in the form of an involved question. Life is short. Why is it that Jewish scholars treat time as if it did not exist and there was an eternity for discussion?”
“For the reason,” said Joseph, “that time does not exist and there is an eternity for discussion. Do you still believe, my poor Lucanus, that man’s spirit is bound by time or events?” He turned to Lucanus then, and again his face changed, and it was very strange and infinitely mournful, and Lucanus thought of the old prophets of whom he had been taught by the Jews in Antioch and by Joseph in Alexandria.
“You will remember the hope of the Jews in a coming Messias, of which I have told you,” said Joseph. “He will deliver His people, Israel, according to the promise of God. It was Abraham, the father of the Jews, a Babylonian from the ancient city of Ur, who brought those good tidings to us. You have read the prophecies of Isaias concerning Him. He will be called the Prince of Sorrows, according to that prophet, and His Mother shall crush the serpent’s head with her heel, and man shall be delivered from evil and suffering, and death shall be no more. By His wounds shall we be saved.”
“Yes,” said Lucanus, with growing impatience. Joseph gazed at him. “I know the Jewish Scriptures,” said Lucanus. “I know the prophecies concerning your Messias. But of what concern is that to me? All people have their myths and their gods, and what is a Jewish God to others?”
“There is only one God,” said Joseph. “He is the Father of all men. Did you think the Messias will come only to the Jews? They are a people of prophecy, so it is comprehensible why the prophecy was given to them. The Law was delivered into their hands by Moses. By that Law man lives or dies. This the Gentiles must learn, through the rise of their empires and their bloody decline and the vast and moldering dust of the centuries.
“Lucanus, you will remember that the prophecy of the Messias has seeped into all the religions of the world, and not only in the Scriptures of the Jews. God endowed every man everywhere with the dim knowledge of His coming among men. The soul has its knowledge beyond the sterile reasoning of the mind. It has its instincts as the body has its instincts.”
Lucanus did not answer. His impatience was growing wild. He fumbled at the gold chain at his throat, and then remembered that he had removed Keptah’s cross from the bag at the last moment and had hung it about his neck. Now the cross dropped over his tunic, and Joseph saw it, and a great emotion flashed across his face. But he continued to speak quietly.
“Thirteen years ago, Lucanus, I was a teacher of holy law in Jerusalem. My wife gave birth to a son one cold winter night. It was a very strange night, for a great Star had suddenly appeared in the heavens, stood steadfast for a few hours, then moved to the east. Our astronomers were much excited. They called it a Nova, and prophesied that its appearance portended tremendous events. I remember that night well. Herod was our king, and an evil man. A rumor spread through the city that in the little town of Bethlehem had been born the King of the Jews. It was brought to Jerusalem by humble and simple men, among them shepherds who had a most awesome tale to tell. They spoke of the Heavenly Host appearing to them as they tended their sheep on the hills, and giving them tidings of great joy. As kings are suspicious, they have a thousand ears, and so this story reached Herod’s ears, the story of illiterate and nameless shepherds. He immediately, in his fear for his power, ordered that all boy children who had been recently born be killed by the sword.”
Joseph paused. Lucanus listened with unwilling fascination. Then all at once he remembered that great Star he had seen as a child in Antioch, and his heart beat with dread.
Joseph said simply, “My son was among those murdered by Herod, and my wife’s heart broke, and she died.”
Lucanus was immediately filled with compassion, and he was ashamed of his impatience, and more ashamed of the vehement and angry remarks he had addressed to Joseph in the past. Joseph had known death and sorrow and bitter pain, and he, Lucanus, had accused him of not knowing. He regarded Joseph with pity. He said, “How much you must have hated not only Herod, but God, for those senseless deaths!”
Joseph shook his head and smiled faintly. “No. How can an understanding man hate God? That is for children’s passions.”
He was silent for so long a time that Lucanus felt he had forgotten him. Then Joseph, gazing into the distance beyond the window, continued even more quietly.
“At the last Passover I visited my old home in Jerusalem. The city was teeming with pilgrims from Galilee, Samaria, Judea. In an inner court I was conversing with my learned friends and commentators. It was a day of most lovely spring, filled with the scent of blossoms and the rich odors of spice and incense. The sky was a gleaming pearl, and the city was flooded with light and the sounds of song and rejoicing. Never have I seen so beautiful and calm a day, and the people’s hearts were glad in them, and they forgot Caesar and Herod, for God had delivered them again out of the Land of Egypt. The sounds of cymbals and trumpets were everywhere. The city was bright with colored banners, and the Temple hung against the sky like a golden jewel. Though I was a widower with only one child, a daughter married in Alexandria, I felt my first joy in thirteen years, and my heart rose on a wave as of expectation.”
He paused. His quiet hands linked themselves together, and his face lifted, and he smiled dreamily.
“Roman soldiers filled the streets. They too had felt the unusual delight in the spring. They had only one way to express it, for they were aliens in a strange land which hated them. The poor boys. They wished to be part of the general rejoicing, but the Jews ignored them on their holiday. The soldiers became drunk and went through the streets singing. It is a sad thing when any man is rejected by his brothers, and I was compassionate for the Romans.
“We have Temple guards which protect the inner courts from intrusion. Where was the guard of this room that day? I do not know. But all at once the curtains parted, and a young boy entered the court, a tall young boy of much handsomeness, clad in the rough drab robe of the common people. His feet were brown from the sun and bare. His fair skin was browned also by the sun, and his light locks were bleached by it, and fell on his shoulders. His eyes were as blue as summer skies, and he had a stately and majestic air. He smiled at us, not as a boy who has just reached the age of Bar Mitzvah, and therefore still shy in an adult world. His smile was the smile of a man, and he was at ease, like a man among his peers, like a scholar and a wise man among scholars and wise men.
“We were much astonished. Some of us frowned. What was this boy doing in our secluded court, dedicated only to wisdom and discussion? Where was the guard? The boy was obviously a peasant. Later they wondered why they had not immediately bidden the boy to depart. But I, seeing him, thought of my son, who, if he had not been murdered, would have been this boy’s age. I said to him, ‘Child, what are you doing here, and where are your parents?’ And he replied to me, with his serious smile, and in the gross accents of the poor and unlearned in Galilee, ‘I have come to question you, and to answer you, Master’.”
Lucanus’ face and scalp prickled. Then all at once he wished to leave, and he sprang to his feet. But Jo
seph appeared not to see this and continued in his far and dreamlike voice.
“He was as regal as a king, this young peasant of Galilee with his work-worn hands and his bare feet and his lifted head. I think it was this aspect of him that prevented the doctors and scholars from dismissing him angrily. We do not regard the people of Galilee with much respect. They are shepherds and workmen, and their speech is unlettered, and they are humble people. But this boy was as a king.
“He sat among us, and he talked with us, and soon we were amazed at his questions and at his replies, for, in spite of his Galilean accent, he spoke as one with authority and one of profound learning. We became engrossed with him. We asked the most difficult and obscure of questions, and he answered them simply. It was like a light dawning in a dark room crowded with learned books full of involvement. And he had barely emerged from childhood, this young countryman from the stark hot hills of Galilee, where there are no doctors and no wise men.
“And I said to him, ‘Child, who is your teacher?’ And he smiled at me with a smile like the sun and did not answer. It was then that the curtain parted in agitation, and a rough bearded man and a beautiful young woman, dressed in peasants’ garb, burst into the court.”
Again Joseph paused. He smiled, and his smile was infinitely sweet and remote. Lucanus slowly seated himself. He said inwardly, I must not listen! This is obscure nonsense. But he listened, and waited for Joseph to continue.
“I shall never forget that young woman, Lucanus, for her face was the face of an angel, radiant beyond describing. I remember that I was instantly astonished at that face, rising from neck and shoulders clad in cheap dull garments. A blue cloth floated from her head, and I saw her shining hair and her pure brow. How can I describe her? There are no words in any language. She must have been about twenty-seven years old, not a great age even for a woman. She gave the impression at one and the same time of being as old as Eve and as young as the spring. History and the future were blended in one; she was without time and without years. I knew she was the boy’s mother at once, for she had a queenly aspect.
“The bearded peasant said nothing, though it was apparent that he was distressed. He stayed near the curtain, but the woman advanced to the boy, and he turned his head and looked at her. And she said to him, ‘My son, why did you leave us, so that we missed you on our way home, and no one had seen you? We have sought you in great anxiety.’
“The boy did not answer for a moment, and then he said, very gently, ‘Why did you search for me? Do you not know that I must be about my Father’s business?’ And his eyes beamed with tender love at her.”
Joseph fell into silence, and Lucanus waited. But Joseph did not speak again, and Lucanus said impatiently, “Is that all?”
“That is all.”
Lucanus bit his lip. “You have explained nothing, Joseph ben Gamliel. Who was that boy?”
Joseph rose, and Lucanus rose with him. Joseph put his hand on his shoulder and regarded him with deeply penetrating eyes. “That you must discover for yourself, Lucanus.”
He smiled at Lucanus with sudden sadness. “It is said in our Scriptures that God will not always strive against the spirits of men.” He hesitated. “When God strives against the spirit of a man it is for a most holy and mysterious purpose, and that purpose sometimes remains hidden from the man to the day of his death. In your case, Lucanus, I do not believe it will always remain hidden from you.” He lifted his hands in blessing. “Go in peace, my pupil, you dear and most beloved physician.”
Chapter Twenty-One
It was only when he stood on the deck of the ship in the harbor of Alexandria and looked at the gaudy and vociferous city crowded against the ardent blue sky that Lucanus was startled to feel a pang of nostalgia. He let his eyes rove over the city, and all at once he wondered where the years had gone and why he had never felt any fondness before for his companions and his teachers, and why time had been as a dark dream to him. He had presented excellent gifts to his teachers at his farewells, but he knew now that they had been given without feeling, and he was ashamed of himself. It was too late to go to the masters and say what he felt in his heart, “I loved you and reverenced you, for teachers are the noblest of men and labor for little and only from the fullness of their unselfish souls. In your name, and in my memory of you, I will do the best I can, and remember you always.”
The big galleon heaved sluggishly at anchor. Smaller craft with sails of red and blue and white and yellow and scarlet darted as if in mischief around its greater bulk like dragonflies, hurling their reflections vividly on the still and purple water. They were filled with half-naked fishermen, their brown bodies glistening in the hot white sun, their red mouths open to emit curses, jeers, laughter, and song. As they fled by the Roman galleon they looked far up at Lucanus and greeted him or joked obscenely in their hoarse voices, or called up for alms. Smiling as he had not smiled in many years, he opened his purse and tossed the coins to them, and the coins seized the sun and glittered in gold or silver. The men caught them deftly, and as they were gay rascals they kissed the coins, bowed ironically, and made lewd comments, then darted off again. The water lapped placidly at the ship. It was still being loaded from the pier; black Nubian or Scythian slaves rolled heavy barrels of oil and honey and wine up the ramp or carried bales of cloth or kegs of olives or baskets of coconuts. Others brought up bags and wooden boxes loaded with spices and other produce of the East. Then a sound of wailing rose from the crowded pier, and a number of chained slaves, men and women, black from the desert, were whipped up the ramp, and Lucanus, watching them, no longer smiled. He turned and gazed at the desperate and weeping faces, and something rose up in him in a passionate anger. Some of the women carried infants; here and there a little child ran beside a father or mother, crying. The slaves were herded below, where the lamentations were more subdued and yet more insistent.
Two Roman centurions who had been assigned to guard him during the journey appeared at his elbow, and he looked at their sunburned and youthful faces with aversion. “Master,” one of them said, “we are at your service.” They were delighted to be returning home, even though in attendance on a Greek, which they thought demeaning. Therefore they were grateful to Lucanus. “I need nothing,” he said, curtly. One of them took off his helmet and said, “Whew!” and wiped his sweating face. “A scurvy city,” he said, nodding towards Alexandria. “I broil under my armor like meat under flame.”
“Why do you not remove it then?” asked Lucanus. The two young soldiers were shocked at this impropriety, and withdrew to a distance. Lucanus smiled faintly. It was not the fault of these boys that the slaves had been driven to the ship, and he had been illogical in displaying his dislike. He glanced at the soldiers who stood and watched the docks and the loading of wares, their thumbs in their leather belts and their backs even straighter than usual, as if rebuking him. He looked about for Cusa, who was fussily supervising the purple awning over a section of the rear of the ship, a section which was to be reserved for Lucanus. He called Cusa, “Attention!”
Cusa looked at him irritably, then issuing renewed warnings and threats to the perspiring seamen who were struggling with ropes and fabric, he swaggered importantly to Lucanus, clad in a very rich tunic of Egyptian cotton, bright red with an intricately embroidered border of yellow silk. His thin beard had been anointed with perfumed oil, and his hair also, and he carried a slim Alexandrian dagger in a silver sheath at his belt. “You smell,” said Lucanus, “like a harlot.”
“Hah!” replied Cusa, with a lascivious grin. “How would you know that?”
“Never mind,” said Lucanus. He indicated the offended young soldiers with a nod of his head. “Bring up a jug of our best wine. If we have a best wine.”
“For them?” asked Cusa, incredulously.
“For them.”
“But, Master, the wine of the country is good enough. Is that not of which the Romans brag, that, as cosmopolitans, what the country produces is palatable to
them no matter what it is?”
“I said,” remarked Lucanus sternly, but with a twinkle in his eyes that had never appeared there since he had been very young, “the best wine we have.”
Cusa considered. Then he regarded Lucanus with an open candor that did not deceive the young man. “Master, you know we never have any best wine. Without disrespect to you, I must admit that you have no palate.”
“Thief,” said Lucanus. “You always take care that the best is on your own table. Did I not catch a glimpse only a short time ago of several crusted and webbed bottles being tenderly carried aboard by you, cradled in your arms like a cherished infant? Bring one to me, and three goblets. I myself am curious to taste such nectar.”
Cusa bridled. “Master Lucanus, I bought those bottles out of my own purse, from the generous stipend paid to me by Diodorus Cyrinus.”
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