Rabban Gamaliel plucked at his bearded lips and regarded Stephen with thoughtful concern. “Still,” he said, “the ages will be plagued by commentators who will interpret in a novel fashion or reinterpret, leading to the confusion of the faithful and causing them to fall away, or to dilution and the uproar of many tongues and many opinions. Every man is a mirror unto himself and reflects himself even in his faith.”
“Truth is so pure and so simple,” said the young Stephen. “The angels have no difficulty accepting it. Only man casts his own shadow upon it.”
“If I remember correctly,” said Joseph, smiling, “there were quite a multitude of angels who did not find truth so simple. You are asking almost too much of man to find it so.”
Stephen laughed. He applied himself with hearty appreciation to the fine viands before him in Rabban Gamaliel’s luxurious hall, and the old men watched him fondly. The young man said, “When I say that truth is simple and pure I do not mean that it is always obvious, for there is nothing so mysterious and sublime as simplicity. A man must indeed be born again of water and the Holy Spirit to comprehend truth, for then his eyes are without film, he hears but one Voice and not disputatious comments, all irrelevant and contentious. He sees things wholly and he sees them clear and in their oneness. It is only error that is intricate and forever open to change. A man who knows the truth is not dogmatic as we know the word, not sealed like one of Solomon’s vessels. He is merely aware of error, but he is far from it, and he advances the truth he knows with dedication of soul and gentleness of mien but with stern resolution. He sees the mountain, rooted in granite and immovable, while those in error say, ‘You declare it to be a mountain, but it may be a mirage or a wall or an illusion. It is a matter of opinion.’”
“Your path, I fear, will not be a sunny one,” said Joseph.
“It has all the brightness of eternity,” said Stephen. His face changed again and he sank into thought. Finally he continued:
“There are some among us, even those who walked with Him, who say that we need no ritualism. But ritual is necessary, desirable, in that it is the visible symbol of the holy invisible Thing it symbolizes. However, when it exists as a formal and complete entity in itself, the Thing it symbolizes and explains forgotten or unheeded, then it is an empty form. With that, I agree. Such ritual can even be dangerous, for the people come to believe that ritual alone is worship. But it is valuable only when, like the shell of a nut, it reminds of and intimates the delectable and life-sustaining Kernel within. The Kernel forgotten or lost, the shell is worthless, however gilded. It contains no life. That is what the Lord meant when He attacked the ritualistic Pharisees who thought form, itself, was enough.”
He drank the fine wine with appreciation, and examined the beautiful and jeweled crystal of the Alexandrine goblet with admiring attentiveness. The Rabban said, “I think I detect a Hellenistic shine upon your words, Stephen.”
“That may be true,” said Stephen, “but then, have not Greece and Greek philosophy always had a deep influence on our faith since the first Greek entered Israel? What is beautiful has verity. And variety. To reject the verity of beauty is to reject a profound mysticism, for God, blessed be His Name, is all beauty and all glory and all joy. I am immediately suspicious and repelled by a man who finds our faith grim and joyless and life-denying, instead of a song of rapture sung in the morning in the sun.”
“Do you encounter these?” asked Joseph with surprise.
“Too many,” said Stephen. “I also encounter the weak who see in the Savior of His people a refuge from their petty adversities, from which they seek to flee, instead of a Temple in whose sacred precincts they can find the strength to endure the world and take up their burden without quailing or complaint. The weak have brought down more temples, and more nations, than we can know, and their self-serving voices have drowned out the very Voice of the Almighty. Life is not a purse from which prayers can draw treasures. It is, as the Greeks say, truly the Great Games, where only courage and strength and faith can win the prize, and fortitude crown the victor.”
“As you have said,” remarked Rabban Gamaliel, “the new Covenant is not for men of timidity and demands and uncertainty. I recall the words of the Prophet: Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and lean not to your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge Him and he shall direct your paths.’” (Proverbs 3:5-6)
“But, there will be arguments,” said Joseph of Arimathaea.
Stephen laughed gently. “There already are,” he said. “They began even before He was crucified.”
He was so brimming with vitality and youthful certitude that the old men sighed and silently prayed for him, and he guessed this for he regarded them with respectful affection. He said, before he took his leave of them, “I will encounter your Saul of Tarshish yet, and then we shall have our argument, and it will be a marvelous day!”
It was only, thought Joseph of Arimathaea, a sharp autumn night wind on old bones that made him suddenly shiver as at an awful portent.
One day a centurion came to Saul and said, “Lord, there is a Hellenist among the people of great repute whom we have not taken because he is of a notable and wealthy house, and a man of nobility, and his family are friends of the High Priest, Caiphas, and even of the procurator, Pontius Pilate. We have overlooked his inflammatory speeches in the Temple of the Jews, and the synagogues, but now an uproar is among the Jews, and they fight each other and shout and even smite each other, in the purlieus of the Temple, itself.”
Stephen ben Tobias,” said Saul, and his face took on the expression of dark flame. “I have heard of him.”
The centurion nodded, and said, “I have news that at this moment ne is in the synagogue of what is called the Libertines, and Cyrenians, and Alexandrians, and of Cilicians and of Asia, and the people are listening to this Stephen and are disputing furiously with him, or listening and hailing him. There is a crowd without the synagogue which cannot enter as it is overflowing, and struggles and blows and bloodletting is rife among it. Two of my legionnaires attempted to bring order, and they are now bleeding and wounded in our hostel. What shall I do?”
Saul rose from his desk in the fine house which Pilate had given him, and he took up his woolen cloak and fastened, for the first time the sword which he had been given about his waist, and his manner was quietly grim and resolute. His thick red hair flowed unkempt to his shoulders and his eyes glittered in his pale and freckled face. “Bring with us ten legionnaires,” he said to the centurion. “We go to the synagogue.” He paused a moment and his red thick brows wrinkled like the brows of the lion he was growing more and more to resemble. “Send a messenger to the Little Sanhedrin and ask, in my name, that they meet at the house of the High Priest, Caiphas, immediately, to judge a heretic, a blasphemer.”
“And not in the great Court of the Hewn Stones in the Temple?” asked the centurion, who had lived long in Israel and knew that powerful and wealthy malefactors and criminals and celebrated men were usually brought to the Court of Hewn Stones, before the full Sanhedrin, as befitted their station in life, for even judges must defer to rank.
Saul looked at him with his haughty contempt. “Is not that Stephen a Nazarene, a follower of Yeshua ben Joseph of Nazareth, who was himself brought before the Little Sanhedrin in the house of the High Priest? Shall a servant be greater than his master? What was judged sufficient for Yeshua ben Joseph is sufficient for this Stephen ben Tobias, who has lost the respect of praiseworthy and distinguished men, and is not higher than the carpenter he serves.”
The centurion went to seek a messenger and order the extra soldiers and then Saul joined him and his men, who had come to fear him in spite of lewd jests behind his back. It was known that he sought no women, therefore, it was hinted, he sought men, though there was no evidence to support this.
The distance to the synagogue was not far. The centurion rode in his chariot, and Saul stood beside him, his eyes fixed murderously ahead, his white lips a mere li
ne between his flat cheeks. He had endured enough! Thinking of his own aristocratic kinsmen—and fearing for them—he had refrained from confronting this Stephen ben Tobias, as there was nothing more fatal than a precedent in law, as he knew. And Stephen was the only aristocrat among those now called the Nazarenes who mingled openly and incitingly among the common people, or harangued in the Temple or created disturbances. Still, once touch the proud patrician wall and none was safe, and even in his present mood of desperate determination and wild hatred Saul understood this, and he sweated under his cloak for his sister and her husband and their children. Lord, he addressed God in his agony, I am only of human flesh, and I love those of my house, though recalcitrant and blasphemers. Protect them, Lord, and bring them to repentance, lest they die, and I die of grief, for always You must be obeyed!
He thought particularly of his beloved nephew, Amos, so foully deceived and betrayed by those appointed as his natural guardians, and Amos’ brothers, and the beautiful young maid, their sister, who was like a carving in ivory. He ought of his sister, Sephorah, of his twin blood, whom he loved dearly, and his eyes closed on a spasm of anguish.
But above all God must be obeyed and served, even if a man died of it of a broken heart and a tormented spirit. And then in a twinkling Saul’s gorge and hatred reached a height that made him sway and stagger in the chariot: Stephen ben Tobias was the true threat against the house of Shebua ben Abraham, and the children of Sephorah bas Hillel! He, and he alone, had put them in this awful jeopardy, had broken down the gates between the market rabble and the patricians, and had placed the patricians at the mercy of rascals and thieves and yelling and mindless slavers! Stephen ben Tobias was the enemy of those of Saul’s flesh. He had called down the vengeance upon them. Therefore, he must die.
Those of power and influence and blood had a Godly imperative: They must uphold law and courtesy and order against the lustful rage of those who were hardly more than animals. They must lead judiciously and with temperate sanity and reason, for what were the people? Only wild and roaring beasts, such as the Romans confined in cages for the circuses, fang-toothed and milling, red of claw.
Now Saul cast his eyes on the people, who filled the streets, with overpowering detestation and felt an almost uncontrollable desire to ride them down and crush them under the wheels of the chariot. For, were they not destroyers of the holy places, the barbarians, the shriekers and blood-lusters, the hyena-laughers, the jackals, of every city under the sun? Why had God created these? Or, was man solely responsible for their being, or hell, itself? He suddenly thought of what his cousin, Titus Milo Platonius, had said of the rabble who had done Yeshua ben Joseph to death, and a cold finger, as of iron, touched Saul’s inflamed heart, and a cloudy confusion momentarily passed over his eyes. He thought, And Stephen ben Tobias consorts with these!
Jerusalem lay under the late winter sky in a strong but pale light, like silver struck by the sun. The air was clean and fresh and faintly chill, but exhilarating. The winding umber walls were almost colorless in the frank radiance. Many looked after the racing chariot and many there were who recognized the cloaked figure in it, and some faces darkened or glanced away in sorrow, and some merely smiled and raised eyebrows. These Pharisee heresy-hunters! Now they were in full cry after the members of that new cult founded by the Nazarene! Tomorrow they would discover another heresy and go roaring through the city, threatening scourgings and prisons and exile. But some, scenting excitement, halted their business to pursue the clanging vehicle and the men marching fast behind it. When Romans moved like this it was not to attend a dinner.
The chariot reached the synagogue, or rather it forced its horses through gesticulating and shouting mobs, and faces eloquent either with outrage or despair turned upon Saul. Some men sat on the stones, holding broken heads or noses, and here and there scufflings were under way, accompanied by roars and curses. Some vilified the exhorter within; some implored as passionately that he be heard, for who knew through whose lips God, blessed be His Name, would choose to speak? The centurion had to use his whip lavishly to disperse from his path some of the more engrossed in raging controversy, and they screamed imprecations upon him and shook fists in his direction. He laughed. His soldiers made a circle about the chariot and threatened the surging men with their drawn swords.
Not looking at the people Saul jumped from the chariot and went inside the synagogue. It was a large rough building of gray stone, almost circular, and it was smoky from the fire on the altar where several dismayed and bearded priests stood aghast and helpless. The air in the synagogue was hot both from the fire and the thickly crowded men, who stood shoulder to shoulder and elbow to elbow. Here it was quieter, for only one man spoke and he stood before the altar and his fine sonorous voice could be clearly heard in its pure Greek intonations, its wonderful inflections and musical cadences.
Saul halted and looked at the man he now so malignantly hated, the handsome young man who looked like a Greek indeed, though he was a Jew. He wore his prayer shawl. His head was covered with the hat of the Tribe of Dan. But his garments were of coarse gray linen and his cloak was of brown wool and his feet were bare except for plain leather sandals. But nothing could remove from him his aura of authority, sweetness and power, nor dim the sparkle of his open eyes nor diminish his native elegance and patrician surety.
The light was uncertain and dull, for the windows were high and narrow, and the floor floated in semi-shadow. Only the crimson light on the altar illuminated the interior, and it flickered on listening faces and on the shut expressions of the priests. They could not silence him. It was Jewish law that any man could enter a synagogue if moved to speak and there be heard in courtesy.
Saul felt that his heart would burst with his mighty rage at this man, this heretic, this blasphemer, this betrayer of his people, this man who threatened the house of Shebua ben Abraham, He moved closer, despite grumbling, to hear .what Stephen was saying and the hand that never knew the lust of a sword before knew it now.
“It has been said by the Messias,” Stephen was saying, “that though the Temple be destroyed, and even the holy city, the truth will not pass away, but will endure forever through the ages and even to the end of the world.”
Saul halted, shaken to the soul, for to a Jew the very thought that the Temple might not endure, and that the holy city of Jerusalem might be known no more, was a mortal blasphemy in itself, for did not God dwell on Sion and in His Temple and in His city, and was it not said that He would never desert them? Numbed, he could not believe that this fellow could speak so and not be thrown to the stones and stamped upon. But the men were listening.
“For the faith is more than stones, more, aye, than the gold that lies in the vaults of the Temple. It is more than a city. What is mortal, what is made with human hands, dies in its time as do all things, but truth is eternal. Moses was given the dimensions of the first Temple, and the elaborations thereof, to the last detail, for it is a good thing that men build the House of the Lord, not only with the best they can bring, but with the treasures they have earned and gathered in their lives, and the best of their own houses. For, who will deny the Lord and keep from Him which is justly His own and which He has only lent to men? All that a man is, in wealth and in blood and in heart and in soul, is a small sacrifice and even a mean one, and it is only the loving kindness of God which prevents Him from spurning that sacrifice. But He accepts what we bring, as a father accepts the pretty little stones and dying worthless flowers which his children bring to him, and with tenderness and love. It is not the valuable which is truly the valuable, but only that given with humility and faith, however valueless, if it is all a man has to offer his God. Did not the Messias say that a widow’s mite—which was all she possessed—was of greater worth than the gold of a rich man?”
The listeners murmured and moved restlessly. So, thought Saul, this wretch deprecates sacrifice, insults Moses, and scorns the gold which lies in the Temple vaults, which assures our precario
us security and supports our faith.
“To teach us these things, that the works of men will not endure, nor the cities he builds, nor his pride nor his science and his art and his strength and his power and his glory, but only the things of the spirit, the Messias chose to be born in a stable, of a poor Maiden of the House of David, and to live obscurely and to learn the trade of a carpenter and to labor at His trade. Is not a man’s soul more than his habitation, the piety of his thoughts more than silken raiment, his eternal destiny more than his treasures? His soul will survive though the earth itself be forgotten and lost in her orbit and changed into dust. This world is not our abiding place, no, not the world we see with our eyes. It has no verity and value in itself, despite its Rome and its Jerusalem and Damascus and Alexandria and Athens, its buildings and temples and thoroughfares, its cities of the sea. Our world is but a charnal house, the cemetery of countless civilizations which waxed and waned and died and left but a heap of stones, forgotten of name, forgotten of heritage and all their pride. And so it shall be in the ages to come. Man boasts to the wind and the wind carries away his voice and it is as if he had never spoken!
“But that which is of the spirit never changes nor dies. It is immutable. Therefore, is not that man a fool who puts his faith in masonry, however sacrosanct it is declared, and in his powers as a mortal, and in his treasures of banks and mind and learning? His destiny is not with them, as the Messias has told us over and over. His destiny is in eternity; his flesh is that of a beast and no more. He lives his life as beasts live their lives, and who can mark the distinction, for man as an animal only is less than a beast, for he does not possess a beast’s loyalty and purity of being and simplicity, nor its singleness of purpose, nor even its value.
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