Great Lion of God

by Taylor Caldwell

It was then that Lucanus addressed Saul over the body of the dead man, and the head held to his breast, and his voice was clear and passionless in the quiet:

  “Is it permitted that I carry this boy to a place of burial which his kinsmen will designate, among his people?”

  Saul was taken by such an anguish that he thought he would die, and it maddened him, and he flung evil words at the physician in his extremity of suffering:

  “We are not heathen Romans nor Greeks! We do not take vengeance on the dead!”

  He turned to the centurion, whose Roman face was stern and averted, and he summoned the soldier to him. He came, his armor clanking.

  “Do not accompany me to my house,” said Saul. “Place the body of the condemned in your chariot—” He paused. He looked at the kneeling physician. “And permit this—this physician—to accompany the dead man wheresoever he desires to go, and take your men with you.”

  The centurion called to his soldiers, and Lucanus relinquished the body after he had again covered it with the cloak, and the soldiers laid the body in the chariot and Lucanus climbed up into the vehicle and sat down near Stephen ben Tobias. Without a glance at Saul they drove away and the soldiers left with them. The chariot rumbled and churned its way over the stones and gravel and Saul watched them go, that somber entourage of death. To the last he saw Lucanus’ fair head bent over the mangled wreckage at his feet.

  Saul stood for a long time as if in a trance, until he became aware that he was as cold as death and quaking with pain. He also became aware that the desert was swiftly darkening and that a dull moon was rising like a skull from the west, and that none was near him at all, not a single man, not one of the rabble, not even one of the witnesses, and that he was alone, abandoned. He saw the tall distant gates of his city, open for him. With a bent head he turned toward them and, with the step of an old and broken man, he began to walk. Stephen ben Tobias’ blood was a black pool on the desert floor, shimmering feebly under the moon.

  Chapter 33

  “—And at that time there was a great persecution against the Church which was at Jerusalem, and they were all scattered abroad through the regions of Juda and Samaria, except the apostles. As for Saul, he made havoc of the Church, entering into every house and haling men and women committed them to prison. Therefore, they mat were scattered abroad went everywhere preaching the word.” (Acts 8:1-4)

  RABBAN GAMALIEL and Joseph of Arimathaea stood before the smooth white tomb of Stephen ben Tobias and contemplated the flowers laid upon it, as fresh as dew. The tomb stood in the quiet cemetery and in the section devoted to the house of Tobias. Others were there sad-faced men and women in humble raiment. But one or two were clothed richly. A man of some forty years, short and broad and of a great round belly, stood there with his hand on the tomb. He was fat, but did not appear gross; rather, he had an immense air of contained dignity and self-control. He wore a white toga bordered with gold and scarlet, and scarlet shoes like a Senator, and when he breathed the toga fell apart somewhat to reveal a white tunic of the finest silk. He also wore a gilt embroidered cap of the tribe of Dan, and there were marvelous rings on every finger of his fat white hands—the latter carefully plucked of hair—and armlets heavily jeweled, and a golden chain inset with rubies about his neck. Two servants stood respectfully at a little distance from him. He appeared to notice no one. His round pink face, with its several chins, had a disciplined expression, though from all other evidences he had led a lascivious and luxurious life. He had no beard; he exuded an odor of verbena and mint, and his square fingernails were as polished as opals. All proclaimed him to be a satyr or at least a man who enjoyed life and had denied himself nothing, yet his face revealed hearty health and reflection.

  His perfumed hand stroked the tomb, but his expression did not change. He did not even sigh. At length he turned from the tomb and saw the Rabban and Joseph.

  “Greetings,” he said in a rich and assured voice. “Rabban, Joseph.”

  “Shalom,” said Rabban Gamaliel, and his famed voice was deep with pity, “Tobias ben Samuel.”

  The cold hazel eyes dwelt on them as if in examination. Tobias said, “‘Shalom.’ Peace. To whom, my friends? My son who lies in this tomb, murdered by evil men, of whom Saul of Tarshish is the most evil? To my house, to my wife, to my daughters? Who shall restore to me my only son?”

  They could not reply out of their deep emotion. “It is said that I had cut him off from me, his father, and his family. It is true that we laughed at his folly. But he was a very young man, of much ardor and given to quick passions and enthusiastic attachments, and we hoped that he would recover, as he had recovered before. That would, without doubt, have come to pass. Gentlemen, of what heinous crime was my son guilty? You would say ‘blasphemy,’ and is not blasphemy a dreadful crime?” Tobias ben Samuel suddenly smiled and it was smile of bitter and ironical disgust. “Have we progressed no more than this, in our boasted age of great civilization, that a youth can be murdered for blasphemy—if indeed he committed blasphemy? If those who killed him loved their God so much, why did they not leave my son in his hands—if he exists? Are they fearful either that he has no verity or is too weak to defend himself—their God? Or, were they fighting their own disbelief and shouting down their own denial?”

  He clasped his plump pink hands before him and continued to regard the others with that cold and derisive smile. “My son. Stoned to death like a murderer, a harlot, a monstrous criminal. What harm had he done in his short life? He had loved girls and wine and song and bacchantes and feasting and laughter and music. He had loved his family and his friends. Never once did he speak evilly or maliciously of another. Never did he do any man an injustice or injury. Foolish he may have been, but he was like sunlight in my house since the day he was born. Alms was not a word to him; it was a vocation. Kindness was not a mere pretension to him, for he was no Scribe! I spoke sternly to him often, to conceal my love for him, and because his jests and his tender gibes sometimes annoyed me. But, in all ways, in his father’s house, he was a joy, and to his friends he was a delight, and to his mother, who lies sleepless and speechless in her bed now, he was the whole world.

  “Who will restore my son to me?”

  Joseph’s eyes filled with tears, and the old Rabban’s face was much moved. He said, “Tobias ben Samuel, there is an old story: A man wept unceasingly for his son and his friends said to him in pity, Why do you weep? Nothing will restore your son to you.’ And he replied, “That is why I weep.’ We have no pietistic words to comfort you, for there are times when men are beyond comforting and their tears lie in their hearts like frozen rain. So, I will not exhort you as Job’s comforters exhorted him, for that would make me a superficial and petty man of no understanding.” He hesitated.

  “‘Who will restore’ your son to you? God. You smile. But I know it to be truth. I do not say I believe it to be truth.’ I repeat that I know rt to be truth, for I, myself, have seen the dead restored to life—”

  “Aha,” said Tobias ben Samuel with a brilliant and mocking look. Restore my son to me, not in some fabulous and mythical future beyond this tomb of his, but to my arms today.”

  “Your son lives, and lives as he never lived in this iniquitous world,” said the Rabban. “You will consider this the illusion and fantasy and childish faith of an old man. But, hearken to me. I dreamed last night of your son. I have seen him but five times in his short lifetime. I have been in your house but thrice, and always when your beloved wife sent for me in an extremity, the illness of one of your children. I have never been in your chamber nor,” said the Rabban, with a sorrowful smile, “have I examined your coffers nor your chests, nor do I have spies in your household.” He paused.

  Tobias ben Samuel became intent on him, though his thick pink lips were still curved in a contemptuous smile. “What is this you are telling me, Rabban?”

  “I have told you. Your son came to me in a dream. His face was like the sun but there were tears on his cheeks. He
said to me, ‘My beloved father has no belief and I would know him when he departs his world, and I do not wish him to sorrow that he denied our God, blessed be His Name. But if you tell him that you dreamt that I live, and more gloriously than ever I could have imagined, he will laugh at you, for all his sadness. Therefore, I give you a message for him, a message only he will understand, so he will know I live.’”

  The face of Tobias became as rosy marble and obdurate and resistant with outrage. But Joseph saw the trembling of his eyelids. Tobias said, “And the message, Rabban Gamaliel, which only I will understand?”

  They seemed to be surrounded by a sunny silence and isolation, and the mourners stared at them from a shy distance.

  The Rabban said, “I did not understand your son, which was what he intended, and that I swear by the beard of my father, may he rest in peace. Therefore, I cannot throw my own interpretation on the words of your son. He said to me, Tell my father to take from the gilded chest which he keeps under his bed that which he showed me on my Bar Mitzvah, and ask him to remember the light things he said, at which we laughed together. And beg of him, in my name, if he loves me, that he will place what is in the bottom of that chest where it belongs, and that he lay in my hand the pretty thing he gave me on my tenth birthday on which is inlaid, in emeralds, the words: “Thou hast the dew of thy youth.” For the pretty thing belonged to his father, then to him, and he gave it to me as a child and said to me, “Keep it for your own son.” The treasure lies in what belongs to me, as both belong to me.’”

  While the Rabban had been speaking the face of the bereaved and cynical father had begun to change violently. The color left his cheeks and his lips; his mouth fell open, his cold hazel eyes widened and stretched as at a vision, and there was a trembling through all his flesh. But he gazed at the Rabban with enormous intensity, and his gaze did not leave the old man for several moments after he had ceased to speak. And it seemed to Joseph that the unfortunate father was pleading, most desperately, in his silence, that he was not being deceived out of mercy.

  “Do these words of your living son mean aught to you, Tobias ben Samuel,” asked the ancient Rabban with gentleness, “or have I merely dreamed?”

  Tobias said, the bitter skeptic and cynic, “Do they mean aught to you, Rabban Gamaliel?”

  “Nothing, and again I swear to this by the beard of my father, and even if we stood before the Holy of Holies I would repeat these words to you, Tobias ben Samuel.”

  Tobias cast his eyes on the ground. He was as pale as death. The Rabban said, “This is the second visit you have paid to this tomb, Tobias ben Samuel, and those lilies there are from your garden, and you came on an impulse but an hour ago, saying to yourself, ‘He is not there, and it is vain to visit the dead, for they are deaf and blind and my son is no more.’”

  Tobias lifted his eyes and now his whole face was shivering. Suddenly he put out his hand and caught the gray sleeve of the Rabban in his fingers and he pulled himself closer to the old man. His eyes were glittering; there was a throbbing in one of his cheeks.

  “Do you wish to know what my son desired to convey, and what it means?” His voice was hoarse.

  “Not unless you desire me to know, Tobias.”

  Tobias bent his head. “In that chest, at the bottom, forgotten until this moment, lies the prayer shawl given to my father by your father, Rabban Gamaliel, before I was born. He treasured it, for all he was a skeptic like all my house. There is also a blue sash embroidered with gold. My father respected tradition, though he had no faith, and on the High Holy Days he would place that shawl over his shoulders and tie that sash about his waist. I did, indeed, show both to my son, Stephen, when he made Bar Mitzvah, and asked him if he desired to wear them, and he—he looked in my face and saw my mirth, and out of his love for me he shook his head, and we laughed together, speaking of superstition.”

  Tobias gave a groaning sigh. “And wrapped in them, put away with childish other things, is a ball of shining gold, a lovely plaything and inscribed as you have repeated. I—I had forgotten it, but when I laid it away I thought, ‘His son will possess it and love it, as I did and my father before me, and as Stephen did.’ I have not opened that chest for many years.”

  “Blessed be the Name of the Lord, the Holy One of Israel,” said the Rabban, “for He will forsake not those who love Him, and He will wipe away all tears.”

  “My son,” said Tobias ben Samuel, and he turned and looked at the tomb and there were sudden hard tears of both anguish and relief on his face. “I will have the prayer shawl of your grandfather placed about your neck, as you desired, and your plaything laid in your hand, and I know you live.”

  He turned again and regarded the Rabban as a distraught man gazes at a rescuing angel. He said, when he could control the heaving of his breast, “My son was not given to delusions, though to enthusiasms, and if he was willing to die for that—for Yeshua of Nazareth—then surely that Yeshua had embraced his soul. I do not know what you believe, Rabban Gamaliel, nor you, Joseph of Arimathaea, but I pray that you send to me one who can tell me something concerning Yeshua ben Joseph, and I will listen, for I know that my son desires this.”

  “I will,” said the Rabban.

  Tobias ben Samuel was not a man to be lost in emotions. He brought control again to himself, as it was before, though his eyes were limpid with tears.

  “I will, however, bring to justice those wicked men who helped to destroy my son, for all they have dined in my house. I have written to my dear friend, Vitellius, Legate of Syria, and have asked him to punish Pontius Pilate and the High Priest, Caiphas, for they did my son to death with their proclamations. Before this season has passed Pilate will be recalled and Caiphas will lose his power.”

  He raised a clenched fist briefly. “As for Saul ben Hillel, whose family I honor, I swear I will bring him down, as I have brought down the others.”

  “Your son does not desire vengeance, for there is no room in his heart for it,” said the Rabban, with considerable alarm. “I do not plead for either Pilate nor Caiphas, for they are evil men, though I would not lift a hand to punish them. As for Saul ben Hillel—he has a destiny which none can disturb, for it is in the Hands of God, and have known this for many years.”

  The ironical smile returned to Tobias’ mouth. “You say this, and he destroys those who believe as my son believes?”

  “He is destroying himself. But God will hold his hand,” said the Rabban.

  Tobias considered. His emotions seethed in him. He sighed shortly. “You speak in riddles, dear friend. But now I hasten to my wife to console her with your words.”

  He turned away. Then he hesitated. Slowly he faced the two men again. He touched his brow, his lips then his breast, and now there was no mockery in him. “Shalom,” he said. He went on, in a lower voice, “Hear, O Israel! The Lord our God, the Lord is One! The Lord gives and the Lord takes away. Blessed be the Name of the Lord!”

  “—Saul, yet breathing out threatenings and slaughter against the disciples of the Lord, went to the High Priest and desired of him letters to Damascus to the synagogues, that if he found any of this way, whether they were men or women, he might bring them bound to Jerusalem. And, as he journeyed, he came near Damascus—” (Acts 9:1-3)

  “He sickens,” said a Roman legionnaire, leaning from his horse to speak in a whisper to his nearest companion.

  “He is mad,” said the companion. “They say he has the divine disease.”

  “The Jews say he has a devil,” said the first rider, and laughed.

  But the second soldier said, “The Furies have him by the hair, and Medusa has turned his face to stone.”

  “I would that I were in Rome,” said the first, wiping his sweltering face with the back of his hand, and cursing. “What a wilderness is this! It is as if Phaeton were driving his father’s chariot too close to the earth, and it has seared up all life and water and plant and man and beast. Regard those black vultures swinging against the sky! They
are waiting to pick our bones.”

  If not the vultures, then the Jews,” said the other Roman sourly. Nowhere are we hated as we are here.”

  “Even their God hates us,” said the first soldier, and they both laughed though their eyes were uneasy, for the hatred of gods is a fearful thing. As they were very young and superstitious, they both furtively touched the region of their amulets under their armor.

  They had left Jerusalem six days before, crossing the green Jordan narrow but full and in spate in the early season of the spring, her banks bursting with almond flowers and rue and mint and thyme and wild blossoms and the feathery gold of young trees, the fresh leaves on the oaks shimmering in rising light, the infant vines, gnarled and small but sturdy, and black, grasping the steaming soil, and all about them the intense emerald of fecund meadows and bright water leaping from stone and distant mounts growing round and soft with verdure and olive trees thrusting forth new silver and grazing cattle and little lambs bounding about their mothers. They saw little white houses standing shyly among sycamores and pomegranate trees, and flowering palms, and geese running indignantly before their horses, and children wading in pools and women milking goats.

  The young soldiers were delighted by all this laughter and joy of the earth, as they passed through the Damascus Gate and crossed the river. They saw distant Jericho, her tall brown houses sullenly meshed together. But on the second day the earth was no longer exuberant with life and greenness. The wilderness was about them, stark and terrible and blasted, the sky white with heat, the desert floor gray and olive and rough with gravel, dust and stones and boulders, the far mounts like brass. Here lived silence and thorns and brambles and jackals and vultures, and springs were far and scarce, and strange mirages palpitated on the horizon—unearthly cities and oases and lakes and trembling purple shadows and columned temples and even the shores of a nameless sea.

  They camped at night under monster stars both vivid and icy cold, and the desert wind bit through their leather armor and even their blankets, and they slept armed for fear of the robbers who roamed the wilderness searching for caravans. They slept about fires to keep away the beasts of the desert and often they saw yellow eyes glaring at them in the red light, and fearsome howls tore the appalling stillness of this abandoned land. They ate together, the young soldiers and their subaltern, but one sat apart, wrapped in his brown cloak, his eyes fixed on the fire, seeming never to sleep, rarely eating, drinking but a little, his face hidden in the shadow of his hood, his chin on his bent knees. And the soldiers would whisper together and shrug and wonder at his strength by day on his horse, and his sleeplessness at night, for never did he lie down and when he spoke they were startled, forgetting the infrequent sound of his authoritative voice.