Great Lion of God

by Taylor Caldwell

  “So I have heard, from my noble friend, Hillel ben Borush.”

  “Ah, yes. To be concise about it, it is rumored that that holy rabbi, lately appeared, is the Unknown God.”

  Aristo burst out laughing, and laughed until there were tears in his eyes, and one of the boys, seeing his crimson face and hearing his gasping, refilled his goblet hastily. Aristo drank the wine in one gulp, and it appeared that he was about to choke. Merrily, he looked at his host with a mist over his eyes, and waited for companion laughter. But, to his surprise, Telis was very grave and completely silent, and he was looking down at his clasped hands and appeared to have heard Aristo’s mirth. The newly ruddy cheek swelled and contracted, and to Aristo’s stupefaction a tear dropped upon it.

  “I saw the Unknown God,” said Telis.

  Has he gone mad, himself? asked Aristo inwardly, with dismay.

  “Please bear with me,” said Telis, and now he looked at Aristo with such passion, such emotion, such urgency, that Aristo was freshly astounded, for he had considered Telis a realistic and pragmatic man whose reason controlled him at all times and who had nothing but disgust for the man of vehement and disorderly mind.

  “I have lived in Israel a long time,” said Telis. “I know that very often rabbis appear whose followers claim that they are the Messias of the Jews, for they perform miracles and are blameless men. So there is a law in the Sanhedrin that such rabbis, or teachers, or dwellers in the desert, must be brought before the Court for questioning, and examination, for even the wise and learned men of the Sanhedrin are eager for their Messias. But at no time did the rabbis claim to be the Anointed One, and were sad that their followers so shouted. They wished only to serve their God in peace, they said, and then the Sanhedrin dismissed them. They did not blaspheme, these meek and gentle men. As you know, a blasphemer, among the Jews, deserves death and he usually is visited with it.

  “But, I heard in Caesarea, this new rabbi was not denying that he was the Messias, among the poor people of his province, nor was he rebuking his followers for so claiming. It was nothing to me. It was enough that he was a miracle-worker. I lay in my bed in the house of my friends, and contemplated. I made inquiries. The miracle-worker was in his province of Galilee, in the miserable little town of Capharnaum, on the shores of the Sea of Galilee. My friends, who are superstitious, offered to send a retinue for the Jewish rabbi, and escort him to their house—they are excessively kind. It is a long distance to Capharnaum.

  But that night I had a most mysterious dream. I dreamt that a large white hand, like marble, extended itself to me and a voice—a most beautiful voice—said to me, ‘Come. I await you in Capharnaum.’ So in the morning, though I was still too weak to raise my head, I told my hosts that I would leave for that wretched little town in the blasted hills. They are Greeks, and they were aghast. They called to me a Jewish elder, of much renown in Caesarea, who told me that though the majority of the Jews believe that the Messias will appear in heavenly splendor, so that all nations will know Him instantly, it was also prophesied that few or none would know Him.

  “The elder repeated the words of one of their prophets from the Holy Books: “‘He was despised and rejected by men, a Man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. And, as one from whom men hide their faces, he was despised, and we esteemed him not. Surely, he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows! Yet, we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted. But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities. Upon him was the chastisement that made us whole, and with his stripes we are healed.’

  “I confess,” said Telis, “that I did not understand these words, which meant nothing to me. But the elder did not urge me to desist from going to Capharnaum. I had told him my dream. He covered his head, in the way of Jews, and appeared to pray, and then he raised up his hands upon me and blessed me and asked that I be given strength. After he left me I was indeed given some strength and I prepared for my journey, in accordance with my dream.”

  Aristo could say nothing. It was as if he had suddenly been seized by a spell. He looked at the full and ruddy face of his host, and at the sparkling youthful eyes, and was silent.

  “My friends were kind,” said Telis. “I left the next morning in their most luxurious car, and covered with fur rugs, and attended by their most solicitous servants. It was a long journey to that area of black basalt hills and earth and desolate mountains and starved little valleys. But it passed like a dream. I slept and rested. I was taken by the most ardent desire to look upon the face of that holy rabbi. My blood still oozed from my mouth. At times I was delirious and fevered and we halted often at various inns. There were even other times when I believed I was already dead, for all was a haze before me in which glittered brilliant threads of light. Often I was not aware at all. Death was at my throat. A heavy languor had my limbs, and I rejected food.

  “You do not know these little Jewish towns, so poor, so driven by the taxgatherer, so despairing, so dejected, so shabby and sad and crowded with wretchedness. They are full of woe and hopelessness. They live in fear, yet they are proud. Capharnaum was typical of them. I was now beyond speech, and the days had heat and the nights were cold, and death grew closer. We found a desolate little inn of much rudeness, and there we spent the night.

  “The next day the kind servants asked about the holy rabbi, and I they were told that he could be found in the streets and addressing I the sorrowful people and bringing them a message of hope in their languish. They loved him. They thronged about him, touching his garments, beseeching him with tears, and he smiled upon them gently and spoke of the mercy of their God. It was said that his words moved them less than his countenance and his manner, for he appeared all love and strength and fortitude and consolation.

  “So the next day I ordered the servants to convey me in a litter through the dreadful little streets of Capharnaum, searching for the holy rabbi. I thought to find a venerable old man with a white beard and a halting step, for there are few young holy men! But we came on him suddenly, as he was speaking near a fountain, and the women and the children and the aged men and the youths and the maidens were crowded about him, in their miserable clothing and with their scarred hands, and they could only gaze upon him, weeping, seeking to touch him. The women carried baskets on their heads, filled with a few wilting vegetables, and some had jugs on their shoulders for water, and their children were almost naked in their poverty, and the old men, too weak with age and hunger, sat on the stones near the rabbi’s feet. It was enough for them that he was there.

  “I raised myself in the litter with an enormous effort and saw him.”

  Telis paused. He could no longer restrain his tears. The slave boys, listening, were moved to tears also. Aristo frowned. All this seemed unworthy of his friend.

  “I tell you,” said Telis, in a hoarse and breaking voice, “that never have I seen a man like this! Ah, he was poor and clad in the roughest garments and he wore sandals with wooden soles and ropes about his ankles, and his cloak was poor and patched. But, he was as a king! He was fair, as are the people of Galilee, who have not mingled with us, and as fair as the Macedonians and the people of Cos, and his hair and beard were golden and he had blue eyes like an Athenian sky. He was young. But he was tall and muscular and virile, and his cheeks and hands were brown with the sun, and he had power and majesty. He was a king in rags.

  “I knew him at once. Do not laugh, my dear friend. I knew him instantly as the Unknown God, and do not ask me how I knew. I do not know it, myself! But a surety came to me, and a joy beyond imagining.

  “About his broad shoulders was the inevitable prayer shawl of the Jews, and he moved the tassels as he spoke to the people in the gentlest accents. I do not know what he said. I was filled with gazing and exultation. I watched him touch cripples, and fondle the little babes in their mothers’ arms, and it was as if a god had condescended to these poor wretches, and their faces glowed with joy.

  “Who was I, I asked m
yself, that the Unknown God should glance at me, or care for me? It was enough that I had seen Him, had known Him. I was prepared to depart, for a deep peace came to me, a surcease of anxiety and pain, and death no longer was of importance to me. I had been blessed, by the mere gazing upon Him. I wanted to sing, to embrace, to laugh, to love, for it was as if I had been renewed, and the blind given sight. What was my illness to me?

  “It was then that He turned His heroic face to my litter, and we gazed at each other across a long space, in silence. Then He smiled. He lifted His hand to me in salutation, as if recognizing a friend who had come a long distance to see Him. I immediately fell into a deep long sleep. I did not awaken for some time, and then we were far from Capharnaum.

  “But, my friend! Strength and health were flowing in me! The oozing of blood had halted. I was furiously hungry. I demanded sustenance. When we reached an inn, I bounded from the litter, and the servants stared after me in amazement. I ate as a starving man eats.”

  Impossible, thought Aristo. Or, he had encountered a sorcerer with spells.

  “Look upon me!” cried Telis. “I am in the most perfect health! The physicians are baffled. They can find no fault in my flesh, no cancer! It did not happen day by day. It came in a twinkling, in an instant. The Unknown God cured me by the simple glancing of His compassionate Eye!”

  Aristo cleared his throat. He said, “Then you will become a Jew, in gratitude?”

  Telis looked at him strangely. “We know that Jews proselytize, and seek to bring all men into their own knowledge of God. But He upon Whom I gazed said no word to me. He gave me His holy compassion, as brother to brother. I await His call.”

  “His call!” exclaimed Aristo, with more and more incredulity.

  “Surely it will come,” said Telis. “In the meantime, I will be a more honest man.”

  Aristo reflected. It was said the Jews could cast the most amazing spells. It was obvious that such a spell had been cast upon Telis by a poor and nameless Jewish rabbi. Aristo was happy that his friend had recovered his health. But if he were about to become an honest man that boded ill for Aristo’s own ambitions to learn new secrets of acquiring riches.

  “You will know!” said Telis, in a buoyant voice of absolute conviction. “You also will know!”

  Aristo thought that a depressing prospect. He wished to enjoy life, and one knew that Jews did not enjoy life. The nameless rabbi had been ragged and poor. He could have made his fortune in Greece, and in Rome, where all men are superstitious.

  Telis gleamed with happiness and vitality, and this Aristo could not deny, for the dying had been given strength and youth again. Aristo shook his head in dubious denial.

  Telis said, “You have looked upon my daughter, Ianthe, and she looked upon you with interest and pleasure. Consider her as a wife, Aristo. Let me tell you. I was once a slave, but I had a good Roman master, and he educated me, and left me a legacy and freed me in his will. Therefore, I do not hate all Romans. But—I have been a slave.”

  Aristo was greatly moved. He said, “I, too, Telis. But consider what you have offered me! Your daughter, who shines like the moon. She could have a worthier man.”

  Telis held out his hand to him at the table, and Aristo took it, and it was as if a shock of great power passed from him to Aristo, and Aristo’s heart became light. His head blazed with radiant phantoms, and he knew the first joy since his youth, and the first love for a woman. In this mood he could even overlook the delusions of his dear friend.

  Chapter 20

  SAUL BEN HILLEL said with gloomy contempt, “I am amazed that you give even a semblance of belief to the story of your Greek friend, Telis, who has a lurid reputation in Israel. Not,” added Saul, with a shadow of a smile, “that this is too nefarious, considering that he swindles the Romans, and smuggles richly and has been known to sell the Roman ladies marvelous rare gems which later are revealed as worthless pebbles or polished glass. He has friends among Roman and Jewish officials whom he bribes lavishly to overlook or conceal these rascally things, but I believe there was an interdiction against him for three years in Rome. It appears he sold a Roman lady, alas, a magnificent Egyptian necklace which he alleged was of the purest gold, exquisitely enameled and set with the finest gems. Unfortunately, the Roman lady had a brother who was a Senator, and he had a friend who was a jeweler, and it was discovered, after Telis had neatly taken himself off to lands unknown, that the necklace was not only not worth the twenty-five thousand gold sesterces the lady had paid for it but that it was of gilded brass, the ‘ancient’ enamel was merely cheap paint, and the gems were flawed or imitation. I believe the price was finally determined as being worth five drachmas, or less. And that is the man who told you the strange story about an alleged Messias out of the burning hills and meager valleys of Galilee, and Nazareth!”

  “He says,” said Aristo, “that he has now become an honest man. Or, to quote him directly, ‘a more honest man.’”

  Even the grieving Saul laughed reluctantly. “I see he has not wholly committed himself, which is truly Greek. I am willing to admit that his precious Galilean rabbi may have some healing powers. Many of our poor wandering rabbis do, for they are selfless and truly holy men, in that they serve God rather than man and keep all the Commandments and Judgments and sacred admonitions. You say he had told you that he had a cancer. Did you consult his physicians? Did they swear that he had that disease, and that now he is mystically cured? No. It is possible that he had no cancer, or the physicians were deceived, and it is also possible that he was merely afraid that some of his crimes had been discovered and he was about to be arrested. That would be enough to give such an awesome thief pains and chills and fevers, and perhaps a bloody cough. But when the danger was passed, he recovered. I am giving you the choice of explanations, my Aristo.”

  “I only know that he appeared to be a man on the verge of death, said Aristo. “I have seen many dying man in my lifetime; I am rarely deceived. He had all the aspects. Telis is no fool. He is a cynical man and not superstitious. Yet, he is convinced that a miracle was performed for him.”

  “A miracle performed for a lighthearted and unrepentant and unbelieving infidel?” asked Saul, shrugging. “A thief? A famous criminal? God does not grant miracles for men who are sinners, unless they repent and say, ‘God, forgive me, a sinner.’ But what did your friend do? He merely had a rumor; he merely had a dream. So he hies himself to the miserable rabbi of Nazareth and he is instantly cured of his malady. He is not even a Jew!”

  Aristo bent his head with mock humility. “Yes, I comprehend. Your God disdains all but Jews, and therefore we are presumptuous in hoping, or believing, that He may glance at us kindly at times.”

  Saul laughed again, a little less reluctantly than before. “I am always speaking rudely and roughly, though that it is not my intention. I am no diplomat, alas. You know I did not intend to insult you. I was only exposing your story to the light of day, my dear Aristo, my dear friend and tutor.”

  Aristo was touched, remembering the younger Saul who could blurt and then remorsefully apologize, as this older Saul had done now. “Still,” he said, “the man was dying. I often heard his racking coughs on the ship. I saw him furtively wiping away blood from his mouth. Even if he had not had a cancer, but the consumption of the lungs, it would not have been cured in a twinkling. Verily, the man was dying. And now he lives, and is well and like a youth and full of the joy of life, and health. Why this was done for him I do not know, but have you not always said that God moves in ways that men cannot understand?”

  Saul smiled. “I have given you my own sword, have I not? Well. You also spoke of your thief’s story of the wild man of the desert, who was executed by King Herod. I met him once, in the wilderness. One Jochanan, son of two old Galileans, a lowly priest named Zachary, and his wife, Elizabeth. I was convinced that he was a madman, but he had a wizard’s voice and eloquence, and could deceive even my friend, Joseph of Arimathaea, who took me to see him. I admit h
e had an appearance of a young prophet, a manner of speaking which was overpowering, and that he was not an ignorant man, though a Galilean, and had learning and was familiar with the Pentateuch and all the other Scriptures, and could quote from them.

  “He dazzled me, as he did others, and then he offended me. Or perhaps I misunderstood his rude accent, though Joseph did not speak of that. He implied that the Messias had already been born! ‘Unto us a Child has been born, unto us a Son has been given!’ Now, that is blasphemy. If the Messias had been born Jerusalem would have been lifted to the very heights in a ring of glory and light, and would glitter in the sun. Holiness would abound on the earth; truth, justice, love and immortal life and peace would have established their reign in the instant of a breath. The gates of Jerusalem would have suddenly been set with scintillating jewels, blinding in their intensity. Labor would be no more; the winds and the rains would set the seed and harvest it, and cities would be built in a second, at the mere command of a voice. The Messias would have built His new Temple between one breath and another, and there would have been restored to it, at once, the Ark, heavenly fire on the altars, the Golden Candlestick, and there would have been in that temple the Shechinah, and the Seraphim, for all to see. The nations of the world, hearing of these wonders, having been informed of them, and of the resurrection of the dead—in accordance with the prophecies—would have poured from the four corners of the world into Jerusalem, heralded by angel voices. And Israel would have absorbed the world in one boundless beatitude of love, and there would be no other nations.

  “Has this come to pass?”

  “No,” said Aristo. “And, candidly, it does not appeal to me. I am one who prefers this world, with all its injustice and vagaries and uncertainties. At least, because it is capricious and unpredictable, it is interesting, whereas the world of which you speak would bore me to a longing for death—which you have said would then be unobtainable.”