Great Lion of God

by Taylor Caldwell

  Here in Saul was a man who had, in a single moment, been lifted from persecution to adoration, and who spoke of it in a voice like a passionate and musical bell. It was impossible to doubt that he had seen what he had seen, whether he spoke in truth or in madness. If mad, it was a glorious madness, preferable to sanity. If truth—then the narrow horizon widened infinitely and brightened with the gold of hope and eternity. He cried to them, holding out his hands as if offering gifts, “If Christ be not risen, then our faith is in vain!” And they knew that He had died and had risen, and faith touched their hearts with a hot silver finger and they cried out in exultation, and in answer.

  He appeared to have inexhaustible energy, though none guessed it was the energy of his spirit and not of his weary flesh. Even his afflicted eye possessed power and gave him an inscrutable expression at times when he was most eloquent. If his face was haggard, if the white streaks in his red hair broadened almost visibly from month to month, few saw it, for all were entranced by his commanding tones, his imperial if impatient gestures, and then his sudden wide smile which was at once knowing, satirical, amused, wry and jovial. His laughter to them was a leonine roar of hearty mirth, masculine and strong and as free as the wind. And when he rebuked or condemned, they trembled.

  To the Greeks who said that the life of a Christian appeared dismal and self-denying to them, and not of humanity and of human joy, he would say, “Our faith not only rescues us from a spiritual death, but it gives us a greater joy in our present lives, an ecstasy of internal being not found in worldly delights or sensual experiences. To a man who loves God there is none else, and no greater rapture, for the world both within and without is transformed into glory and radiant color and music.” To the pragmatic Romans who said that Saul’s God did not appear to offer much in tangible gifts, he said, “He who did not spare His own Son but gave Him up for us all, will He not also give us all things with Him?—We are more than conquerors through Him Who loved us.” (Rom. 8:31-39) To a Roman centurion who laughed jocularly and who asked if Saul’s God would give the Romans conquest over the infernal Parthians if they accepted Him, Saul replied, “He is the God of the Parthians also, and loves them,” a reply which mystified the Roman and made him shake his head. Gods were participants in battles. They favored one side or the other, but not both simultaneously. Surely the gods were on the side of the Romans who brought order and law to the barbarians, and defended Rome, and not with the enemy who would destroy it all. “God is no Respecter of persons,” said Saul. “He is concerned only with a man’s heart and soul,” a reply which made the centurion muse and shake his head. He was convinced the Jew was demented. He said to Saul, “You live poorly and miserably, though I have heard you are a rich man. Surely your life is painful, and your death will be wretched.”

  Saul answered that death had not simply been made acceptable but had been destroyed in a fire of Love. “This new life is not our own, but Christ’s, and it is so for we are part of Him.”

  But to the Roman and other Gentiles like him life after death was a poor thing as a shade bereft of human sensuality. Not one seer had reported that the manes of the dead appeared happy, but always gloomy and melancholy, even those allegedly from the Elysian Fields or the Blessed Isles. All longed to be men again. But the Christians gazed at this life not with pleasure and intense concentration, as was normal with men, but with eyes fixed eagerly on an unimaginable heaven. To many of the Gentiles they appeared madmen. Men who repudiated this world of delight could only be against it. So they began to regard the Christians with suspicion, as haters of men. Therefore, the Christians were dangerous. Whispers rose that they worshiped the head of an ass and had obscene rites, offensive to the gods, and that they performed criminal private ceremonies, and blasphemed and that they plotted some mysterious attack on their fellow men through evil incantations.

  Saul heard some of this but with no misgivings until he received a letter from his cousin, Titus Milo Platonius, now General of the Praetorian Guards in Rome, and stationed and living on the Palatine.

  Though the letter was importantly sealed with his own seal, and bound with silken threads, and brought to Saul by a personal messenger, Milo was cautious in his references to the reigning emperor, Tiberius Claudius Nero Germanicus Caesar, nephew of the now dead Tiberius Caesar, for it was Claudius who had such a respect for the Praetorians that he had greatly increased their numbers and had given them a large and rich reward for their fidelity. (But, after all, it was the Praetorians who had elected him, he not being of the Julian gens.) “He is not the fool the Augustales privately declare he is,” wrote Milo, “and has much learning, which cannot be said of many of the Augustales. He has given importance to freedmen, who are haughty and disdainful in the very face of the patricians. I believe that the Emperor enjoys their discomfiture and silent wrath. He is married, for the fourth time, to Agrippina, his own niece, which further inflames the Augustales and some of the old-fashioned Romans, and it is whispered that she is attempting to prevail on him to put aside his own son, Britannicus, in favor of her son by a former marriage, (to Gnaeus Domitius Ahenobarbus) a handsome fair youth called L. Domitius Ahenobarbus whom some refer to as Nero. Whether the Empress will succeed or not is the subject of gossip in Rome, for Britannicus is a youth of remarkable qualities and able leadership and virtues, and Nero, though beguiling and full of charm and of a sweet voice and with a face which even Apollo would envy, is not of the character of Britannicus nor with his fortitude. Ah, well, I suppose you have heard of these matters. As a soldier, I am prudent and serve the Emperor and do not spread scandal. To do otherwise is not to be a soldier, with a soldier’s discipline.

  “My dear cousin, you will remember that my dead Emperor, Tiberius, was not inclined to favor the Eastern religions, and destroyed a temple to Isis—which the present Emperor has rebuilt. However, there lingers in Rome a distrust of Eastern religions. The Jews were once quite zealous in proselyting in Rome, but on discovering Tiberius’ displeasure they desisted in overt attempts at conversion. This was very wise.

  “But now we have many Christians in Rome, poor gentle people in the majority, who live and work in the noisome sections of the Trans Tiber. Most of them are former Jews, though they have gathered about them and converted many barbarians, slaves, miserable freedmen, starveling shopkeepers and laborers and workers in the manufactories. They have lived quietly amid their teachers and the evangelists from Israel, and have been dutiful and meek—and industrious, and, up to very recently they have aroused no antagonism though considerable amusement, and have been accused of worshiping an ass’s head.

  “As a Christian, myself, I have sent them large gifts of money as the majority live in desperate poverty, for even the Christian Jews do not have the vitality and independence and strength of spirit of the ‘old’ Jews. I send them these gifts through a trusted young Praetorian, for it would not be seemly for a Praetorian General to alleviate the sufferings of what are referred to as ‘the Eastern rabble,’ though the present Emperor is indifferent to them.

  “But two weeks ago the Christians aroused great anger in Rome. Devotees of Cybele met at her temple and then carried the goddess through the streets in a gilded chair, arrayed in gold and crimson. Romans believe in no gods, except for the ‘old’ Romans and elderly patriots, but they are afraid of them, and superstitious, and placate all the gods they encounter in processions or when they pass their temples. The procession of Cybele was very impressive, with many devotees in the parade, and all playing on zithers, harps and lutes and flutes and strange Eastern instruments. Multitudes halted to watch in pleasure, if not in reverence.

  “The procession was just approaching the Via Appia when suddenly there was a surge in the crowd and about a hundred men appeared, flaming with righteous anger and with fiery eyes, and they screamed, Woe, woe to the harlot, Rome, and her abominations and her wicked gods and idols! For she is accursed and the wrath of God is about to fall upon her!’ The populace was astonished. The p
rocession stopped short, and the music halted, and there was one vast indrawing or breath in amazement. Even Senators in their litters, on the way to the Senate, commanded that their bearers wait so that they could observe the confusion through their silken curtains.

  “This would have been outrageous enough, but the Christians—for it was they—burst into the procession, seized the image of the goddess, Cybele, and smashed her in the running gutters, screaming the while, ‘Let all idolatry be destroyed, and the Kingdom of God be proclaimed while there is yet time before Rome is leveled to the ground!’ They trampled the gilded chair and the draperies in their gasping violence. Women and children screamed and men roared their fury. It happened in a twinkling. Then the Christians fled and seemingly dissolved into the very walls, and none could be found, though many pursued them with sticks and stones. The devotees of Cybele fell on their faces and their knees and wailed that their goddess would seek revenge for this outrage to her divinity, and that Rome, indeed, was in deadly danger. Thousands listened to them and shivered, and muttered imprecations on the ‘blasphemers.’

  “Were this but a single incident it would soon be forgotten, but others have occurred if not in so spectacular a fashion. The Roman mob is very excitable, and loves riots and confusions, for their lives, as the conquerors of the world, is very dull. They adore scandal and rumor. Scores have ranged through the Trans Tiber, and on finding Christians they have severely beaten them before the very faces of the guards, who look aside. After all, it is thought, it creates amusement, and diversion, and if Romans have a victim they will not be so rebellious before the taxgatherers.

  “I have secretly talked to many of the elders among the Christians—having them brought to my house on the Palatine at midnight—and have expressed to them my alarm and dismay, and my own anger, for the rioters have endangered their fellow Christians. The elders agreed with me, and deplored the excessive zeal of their flocks and have promised to calm and discipline them. I trust they will be effective.

  “As so many of the Christians are former Jews the Jewish community in Rome is greatly alarmed at these demonstrations, for they know that the Romans will not, if enraged, make any distinction between the ‘old’ Jews and the Christians. I sympathize with their apprehension and fear, and have attempted to soothe them and have talked to them in Aramaic. But unfortunately this has further alarmed them, for am I not a Roman Praetorian, and possibly am I not a spy? As an imaginative people, they see monstrous enemies about them, as in the past, and for a time many of them dared not leave their houses. Even the prominent citizens among them, and their rabbis, tremble with dread. Is it not deplorable that a few heedless zealots can bring calamity to their law-abiding fellows? And, is it not unjust and sorrowful? I fear for both the Christians and the Jews.

  “I long to see you again, my dear cousin. Perhaps you might find it in your heart to visit Rome and calm our fellow Christians, and inspire them to more restraint.”

  Saul read this letter with horror and foreboding. Those who adored the Prince of Peace were proclaiming Him with violence, fury and turbulence! True, it was possible that they were not in the majority but a few could bring disaster on the many and the innocent. (Saul thought of the Zealots and the Essenes in Israel who had brought down slaughter and massacres on their fellow Jews in the streets of Jerusalem, because they lacked control of their emotions and sought to reform a whole world in one act of immoderate ferocity.) Were they deliberately seeking martyrdom? If so, they were mad. Or were they trying to call universal attention to their faith, and their presence among the populace? If so, they were mad, indeed, for an attention which is enraged and bloodthirsty is worse than no attention at all.

  He pondered for a long while, then wrote to the elders and deacons of the Church in Rome, rebuking them that they had lost control over several of their members.

  He wrote:

  “Let every soul be subject to the higher powers. For there is no power but of God: the powers that be are ordained of God. Whosoever, then, resists the power, resists the ordinance of God, and they that resist shall receive to themselves damnation. For rulers are not a terror to good works, but to the evil. Will you then not be afraid of the power? Do that which is good and you shall have praise of the same. For he is the minister of God to you for good, but if you do that which is evil, be afraid, for he bears not a sword in vain. He is the minister of God, a revenger to execute wrath upon him who does evil.

  “Therefore, you must need be subject, not only for wrath, but also for conscience’ sake. For, for this cause pay you tribute also—Render therefore to all their dues, tribute to whom tribute is due, custom to whom custom, fear to whom fear, honor to whom honor.

  “Owe no man any thing, but love one another, for he who loves another has fulfilled the law.—Love works no ill to his neighbor, therefore love is the fulfilling of the Law.—Let us walk honestly, as in the day, not in rioting and drunkenness, not in chambering and wantonness, not in strife—” (Rom. 13:1-13)

  It was not a letter the younger Saul, who had burned with hatred for the Romans and had rejoiced at the exploits of the Essenes and the Zealots, would have written. But now he saw that the evil which lives in man cannot be destroyed by an answering evil, and only by patience, faith, love and endless striving for peace and conciliation. The sword was no substitute for enlightenment and justice. The mission of the Christians was salvation, not violence, God, not secular affairs, spiritual joy, not physical force, an empire of the soul and not of human ordinances. That man who had not first conquered himself and his passions—however righteous he considered them—was a desperate danger to his own soul and the souls of his fellows. This did not mean that a good man should be as milk and water. He should be as fine wine, invigorating, consoling, brightening, thirst-quenching and inducing fellowship. Above all, he should transmit joy, and the love which is the heart of joy.

  He left Antioch, with Barnabas, for Corinth, feeling that the Church in Antioch was flourishing and prosperous, and needed him no longer.

  Chapter 44

  SAUL, who had been born in a hot and fervid country and had lived and worked in others equally so, found Greece, that green, gold, purple and silvery country astounding not only for beauty but for freshness and climate. The lucent light, the incandescent blue skies, the grace and dignity, charmed him. He had vaguely loved the Greeks because of Aristo. He had suspected their hedonism and their subtly gay and cynical attitude toward life and institutions, and their humor and form and style, but now he remembered their poetry and their tragedians and their ineffable prose, and steeped himself in the grandeur of written and spoken words. Their influence upon the Jews in Israel had been an affront to him and to the other Pharisees. Now he saw that the purity of a faith is enhanced, not diminished, by the quickness of another’s perception, and there was something singularly similar between the conceptual abstraction of the Greeks and the mystical utterances of the prophets in the Scriptures. Religion was not diminished by a new insight, provided it did not deny any proven truth. Rather, it enriched and revitalized it, and made it more poignant.

  He was by nature a urban man, and the urbane Greeks he encountered were men, he thought reluctantly, of his own kind. Barnabas was shyly wary of the Greeks, and Saul said to him with irritation, Our Lord loves the cultured man, of a certainty, as much as He loves the illiterate and the unlearned and the simple! We must not confine our efforts to the market rabble—though God knows they need taming and disciplining!—and to the farmer in his field. If we are to advance, as commanded, we do not appeal solely to the slave and the humble, for the Messias spoke with the power of universal wisdom and out of great learning and subtle abstraction, in symbols far more hidden and abstruse than a Homer or a Virgil or a Horace, or any of the great poets of Greece. Truly, as He said, we must be as wise as the serpent and as harmless as the dove, but we must walk amid the porticoes and on the acropolises and in the edifices of learning and culture, as well as in the gutter and the dust.
I do not recall that the Lord overthrew one statue or denounced one heathen temple, nor offended the Gentiles in any manner with derision or contempt or accusation. Nor must we.”

  As learned Greek gentlemen liked disputations and argument and the Socratic dialogue, Saul soon found himself of interest to these men. They came to his poor inn in Corinth, where they found him, in the evening, sitting in the dying sun and filling his eyes and soul with the resplendent beauty about him. He found himself enjoying his conversations with these men. Unlike the people of Israel and the people of Antioch, they were not surprised that a rich sage should choose to dress roughly. They confided, with a smile, that ostentation and virtue and wisdom were incompatible, though they left Saul with the uneasy surmise that they considered him affected, or eccentric as all “sages” were. In short, he was wearing an approved uniform as a wise man, so he could be distinguished from the ordinary race of men. This irked him, but strangely it also amused him. I am becoming a Greek, he would say to himself. When he tried to impart the intricacies of Greek thought to Barnabas the latter was confused. He said, “We dress humbly because we are humble men,” and Saul said no more.

  The plain of Corinth was very fertile and darkly green, and here was indeed the breadbasket of Greece and her source of fruit and vegetables. The temple on the cypressed acropolis was a miniature jewel formed of silver gilt, its columns glowing all day and becoming scarlet at sunset, its winding gardens bursting with the various living murals of endless flowers, and all under a sky of such dazzling peacock—blueness that it stunned the eye. Corinth, itself, was as white as snow, the small square houses bearing trellises of grapes, the narrow streets clean and rattling with chariots and wagons, the shops tiny and teeming. Saul had seen the royal-purple Aegean Sea and the Ionian Sea, as he had passed over the isthmus, and he had seen, at a distance, the rosy and green isles of Greece in their circles of gold beaches, and he thought to himself that heaven must be so. The aromatic dry heat did not irritate him. It soothed not only his flesh but his spirit, and he recalled that Greece was a favorite winter haven for rich Romans who suffered rheumatism in the dank Italian climate. There was, in the air, not only stimulation but a soothing quality that hinted of timelessness and the gods and meanings beyond the understanding of man.