by Randy Singer
Whispered suspicions focused on the emperor himself. He and Tigellinus had been overheard in their drunken stupors the night of Rubria’s attack, talking about the Vestals to other revelers. It was the one sexual barrier nobody had dared cross during the festivities. It would make a fitting capstone for the last night of Saturnalia. Tigellinus had even proposed a toast.
Nobody in the House of Vestal now felt safe. The matron of the house decided that the Vestals would tend the flame in pairs. More guards were stationed all around the property.
Later that afternoon, the Vestals breathed easier when Rubria’s attacker was identified. He turned out to be a servant in the palace, his face bloodied from Rubria’s fingernails. Though he loudly proclaimed his innocence, he was executed before dark.
Rubria still had not moved.
Flavia stayed next to Rubria’s bed for the next two days, praying to the gods that the Vestal would recover. Rubria was the closest thing Flavia would ever have to a daughter. She could still picture Rubria when the girl first came to the House of Vestal, wide-eyed and innocent, enthusiastic and anxious to please. Now she was a beautiful woman, thinner than ever, far more jaded and cynical but still possessing a great love of life.
At least that’s the way she had been a few short days ago.
Flavia watched her friend breathe, in and out, her bony chest rising and falling. A few times Flavia thought she heard Rubria mutter something. She leaned close to her friend and watched her lips. “It’s me, Rubria. Can you hear me?”
But there was no response. Flavia decided she was just imagining things and leaned back and prayed to the gods again.
Flavia slept in short stretches and refused to eat anything. At times she wept bitterly and cursed Nero under her breath. Other times she was too drained to shed even a single tear.
She held Rubria’s hand. She washed the Vestal’s hair. She dipped her finger in water and spread it on Rubria’s lips.
By the end of the second day, the doctors were not hopeful. They had drained plenty of blood, but it didn’t seem to be helping. They couldn’t use their herbal remedies because Rubria couldn’t swallow anything. They checked her pulse, watched her shallow breathing, and shook their heads.
How long could somebody go without water? Flavia wondered.
As evening approached on the second day, Flavia talked to the matron of the Vestals. The women agreed it was time to take Rubria to the temple of Aesculapius. It had worked for others. Certainly the god of healing would show mercy to a Vestal Virgin.
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The servants from the House of Vestal carried Rubria to the temple of Aesculapius and placed her gently on a pile of blankets near the altar, her arms at her sides. She was wearing her Vestal garments. The matron of the house gave her a kiss on the forehead, and everyone except Flavia left the temple.
Flavia knelt next to her friend, said a prayer, and poured the wine on the altar. She placed the bread cakes on the marble floor and looked up at the statue. “Heal her, O god of eternal life.”
Flavia released the snake from the burlap bag and watched as it slithered across Rubria’s body, up one arm and shoulder, across her neck, and down the other side. Flavia knew better than to touch the snake. Like the temple, the snake was now sacred. It could go wherever it wished.
She sat down next to Rubria on the cold stone floor and waited. Perhaps she would have a vision of what needed to be done. Perhaps she would fall asleep and learn in a dream.
She placed a hand on Rubria’s forehead and felt the heat radiating. It was not a good sign. Rubria’s lips were cracked and dehydrated. Her closed eyes sunken. Her body unmoving.
“Heal her, O god of eternal life.”
Just a few short weeks ago, Flavia had met with Rubria and talked about life after the House of Vestal. Four more years and Rubria would have her freedom. She had thanked Flavia for being a model, for demonstrating that you could still have a family after serving the state. Rubria already had a few ideas about who the lucky man might be. As Flavia listened, she flashed back to her early years with Theophilus. The romance before their marriage. The first few months of married life. The joy of learning she was pregnant. The miracle of Mansuetus.
Now Rubria might miss all those things and more.
Flavia yawned, her eyes heavy. She fought to stay awake. She needed to pray. She needed to beseech Aesculapius on behalf of her friend. She needed to be watchful so that when the miracle occurred, she would see it. . . .
Flavia jumped, startled by the hand on her shoulder. She scooted quickly back and looked up at the three men standing in the shadows. It took her a few seconds to remember where she was.
Next to her, Rubria was still lying there with her eyes closed, her chest moving up and down.
“I’m sorry to startle you,” one of the men said, his voice soft.
In the shadows Flavia recognized her son. “What are you doing here?”
Mansuetus was standing next to an older man who was mostly bald, his face weathered and angled. He was chained to a Roman soldier. Flavia assumed it was Paul of Tarsus.
“I brought Paul to pray for Rubria,” Mansuetus said. “He has the power to heal her, Mother.”
“Does anybody know you’re here?” Flavia asked sharply, glancing at the door.
“I don’t think so,” Paul said. “If they did, both Sergius and I would pay with our lives.”
He was right, of course. Sergius was risking punishment just as much as Paul.
“I’ll explain it all later,” Mansuetus said, his voice a mixture of nervousness and excitement. “But we don’t have much time. Paul needs to pray and get back to his house.”
In Flavia’s mind, it wasn’t that easy. She stood and thought about the best way to phrase this. They were in the temple of a Roman god. A jealous Roman god with power to heal and power to grant eternal life. They couldn’t insult Aesculapius by praying to the Jewish God, or worse yet, a dead Jewish rabbi.
But Paul was already kneeling, taking Sergius with him. He placed his right hand on Rubria’s forehead.
“I don’t think this is a good idea,” Flavia said.
Paul looked up at her with understanding eyes. “Your friend is very ill,” he said. “Aesculapius has had his chance. What’s your friend’s name?”
Flavia was still waking up and struggling to think clearly. She couldn’t just kick these men out. If she called for help, Mansuetus would be in trouble along with Paul and his guard. But she had never heard of praying to the Jewish God inside a Roman temple.
“Her name?” Paul asked again.
“Rubria.”
That was apparently all he needed. He closed his eyes and began to pray. To Flavia’s surprise, Mansuetus knelt down next to him and placed his own hand on Rubria’s shoulder.
Paul’s voice was sure, his words eloquent. “Heavenly Father, just as you raised Jesus up on the third day, so raise up Rubria, full of life and hope and understanding that she has been raised by your grace. Open the eyes of her heart that she might learn the depth and breadth and height of your love. Strengthen this woman with the power of your Spirit and fill her with all the fullness of God.”
Mansuetus followed with a halting prayer of his own. He asked God to demonstrate his power by healing Rubria. Like Paul, he mentioned the name of Jesus and the resurrection that Luke had written about.
Flavia decided she would have a serious talk with her son later.
When they were done, all three visitors said, “Amen.” Paul thanked God for the miracle he was about to perform. He traced the figure of a cross on Rubria’s forehead and then he stood.
Rubria lay still.
“She will live,” Paul said as if he somehow knew this for a fact. “God will raise her up.”
He thanked Flavia and prepared to leave.
“Be careful,” Flavia said. This was serious; they were violating the laws of Paul’s arrest. “And, Mansuetus, we are going to talk.”
Rubria didn’t move
the entire night. She never sat up. She never moaned or twitched or mumbled even a single word.
But the next day, just before noon, as Flavia was sitting in Rubria’s room again, keeping her vigil next to Rubria’s bed, the most amazing thing happened.
Rubria opened her eyes.
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It took Rubria a few days to regain her strength. At first she was disoriented and had a hard time recognizing people. She couldn’t remember a thing about what had happened to her. Over time she became more lucid and could follow conversations, though she still had a constant headache. She remembered everything up to the night of the assault but could not recall anything about the attack in the temple that had caused her injuries.
She drank lots of water and began eating small pieces of bread, fruit, and cheese, along with a little bit of honey. She gained strength and took short walks with Flavia. The swelling on her face receded.
Flavia told her about the servant of Nero who had been punished for the assault. But she also whispered her own suspicions. “Nero and Tigellinus were heard talking about violating the Vestals during Saturnalia. Nero hasn’t been seen since the last day of the festival, and I think he’s trying to let the scratches heal.”
Rubria took the news in stride. She tried harder to remember the events of that night but would get frustrated, shake her head, and apologize when she couldn’t.
“It’s not your fault,” Flavia said. “It will come back someday.”
Five days after Rubria awoke, her blazing headache finally vanished and her spunkiness returned. Flavia knew it was time for her to leave the House of Vestal. But first she wanted to share one last walk with her friend.
They were in the gardens under the statues when Flavia told Rubria what had happened that night in the temple of Aesculapius.
“Do you think that’s why I was healed?” Rubria asked.
“I don’t know,” Flavia said thoughtfully. “All I know is that when Paul left, I felt different. His faith gave me hope that night. For some reason, it still does. When you opened your eyes, the first thing I thought about was his prayer.”
Rubria furrowed her brow, an expression Flavia had seen hundreds of times before. “Everything seems so confusing,” she said.
“I know,” Flavia said. She reached out and touched her friend’s hand. “I’m just grateful that you were healed.”
For Mansuetus, defending Paul became a personal crusade. My son was certain that Paul had healed Rubria. He was convinced that we had all now witnessed the same type of miracle Luke had written about in his manuscripts. How could anyone not believe?
Flavia eventually began thinking the same way. She found excuses to spend time at Paul’s house, listening to him preach. She became good friends with Procula, who told her about her own experience in the temple of Aesculapius. Flavia started suggesting that we give money to the followers of the Way who were struggling to put food on the table.
Flavia and I had more than a few arguments about how much we could help them. I was already handling Paul’s case without charging a fee. What more could she ask?
I was struck by the similarities between Rubria’s healing and Procula’s. Both had occurred in the temple of Aesculapius when all else had failed. One involved a vision of Jesus; the other involved a prayer to him. In Luke’s manuscript, Jesus had not only healed people but had supposedly raised some from the dead.
But questions still lingered. If Paul had healed Rubria, why didn’t she awake right after his prayer? And if Jesus was so powerful, why hadn’t he saved himself?
For the sake of my client, I tried to remain objective. The man needed an advocate who could convince Nero. To be that person, I would need to regard this new strand of religion with the same skepticism that Nero would bring to the trial. Flavia and Mansuetus could react emotionally. I could not. Not yet.
As I continued to analyze Luke’s manuscripts and the merits of our case, I realized we were going to need a lot of witnesses. To prove that the Way was an outgrowth of Judaism and not some new and dangerous religion, I needed an expert who could talk about the Jewish Messiah. Nicodemus, a member of the Sanhedrin, would be ideal for that.
Luke had also described two centurions who became followers of Jesus. The first was the man whose servant Jesus had healed. The second was Quintus, the centurion in charge of Jesus’ crucifixion. I wanted the first man to testify that Jesus never told him to leave the Roman army. If Paul was on trial for insurrection as a follower of Jesus, that would be strong testimony. With regard to Quintus, whom I knew from my time in Judea, he could testify about the earthquake and darkness that accompanied the crucifixion of Jesus. Even Nero would have to admit that these were strong signs that the gods had sided with the Nazarene.
I also wanted someone who had personally heard Jesus tell the Jews to pay their provincial taxes. Then there was that jailer in Philippi who could talk about the way Paul and his friend Silas had remained in prison even when they had a chance to escape as a result of another earthquake.
Nero loved the Greeks, and I thought it would be great to have Dionysius, a member of the Areopagus, talk about how he became a follower of Jesus after Paul preached in Athens. The city clerk in Ephesus could provide an affidavit describing how Paul’s enemies, not Paul, had stirred up trouble in that city.
I put together a long list of witnesses who could certify the truth of the events recorded in Luke’s manuscripts. I wanted as many witnesses as possible who had seen Jesus walking the earth in the days after his crucifixion.
Three months before trial, we met at Paul’s house. I had gone over my list with Paul, and he had called in every favor he could to make it happen. His house was packed that night with men who had been part of his ministry or had become followers of Jesus under Paul’s preaching in Rome. These men had already agreed to go wherever it took to bring the witnesses back to Rome. There was no time to waste.
We sent Tychicus to Ephesus, Crescens to Galatia, and Titus to Dalmatia. I met John Mark for the first time that night. He was young and healthy, and we sent him to Jerusalem to find witnesses who had seen the risen Christ. Aristarchus was dispatched to Greece and told to look for Dionysius.
It was an amazing sight, each of these men willing to pack up and leave on a moment’s notice for the sake of Paul and the cause of the man they called Christus. Paul prayed for each of them before he sent them out.
After they left, the house seemed quiet and deserted. Luke stayed behind because I needed him to verify the manuscripts. Procula, Mansuetus, Flavia, and I were there as well. Sergius, who had switched places with another soldier so he could be there that night, had tears in his eyes.
I thought about how different this was from the maiestas trials. Even a good man like Apronius had been abandoned by his colleagues. When the wrath of Caesar came down on someone, his friends ran for the hills.
Not so with Paul. The men who had gone out that night were standing with him, willing to put themselves in harm’s way for the sake of the apostle.
“How many do you think will return?” I asked.
“All of them,” Paul said.
The little man had no doubt. And nobody in the room would have expected him to say anything different.
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Nobody came back.
Even though Paul prayed for a safe and speedy return for his friends, those prayers apparently went unheeded. We received word from John Mark that he was having difficulty persuading witnesses to make the journey with him. He asked if we could delay the trial. We never heard from Crescens, Tychicus, Aristarchus, or Titus.
The day before trial, even Paul conceded that the witnesses were not going to show. “My friends deserted me,” he said. It was the only time I saw the dark clouds of doubt color Paul’s countenance.
By the next day, any hint of self-pity was gone. Always a bundle of energy, Paul was more upbeat than ever.
He prayed before we left his house. “Lord, give me strength to shar
e the gospel boldly, as I ought to share. Let Nero hear and repent. Today, let your glory shine in the judgment hall of Caesar!”
He finished his prayer and stood. Sergius, still chained to his wrist, rose with him.
“You don’t think you should pray that we win?”
I was half-joking, but Paul took the comment seriously. He looked at me with those intense brown eyes, sheltered by his bushy eyebrows. “When I was arrested in Jerusalem, the Lord appeared to me to encourage me. He told me that just as I had been a witness in Jerusalem, I would also preach the Good News in Rome. That was my mission from the very start. To preach the Good News to the Jews and the Gentiles and their kings. What greater earthly king is there than Caesar?”
This was the running debate Paul and I had been having for the last few months, and I knew there would be no point in rehashing it now. Paul saw his trial as an opportunity to preach the gospel in the highest court in the world. But I wanted to win. I tried to convince Paul that he could preach until he died of old age once we gained his freedom. But his reply was always the same. “God is in control. If God gives me a chance to preach to Nero, how can I not take it?”
We had a two-mile walk from Paul’s rented house to Caesar’s palace, and the apostle spent most of the time leading our small troop in songs of praise. Luke sang along, obliterating the tune. Mansuetus chimed in as well. He only knew about half the songs and even fewer of the notes, but that didn’t stop him. Even Sergius sang a little under his breath, and I found it impossible not to be buoyed by the spirit of this small gang, though I was too sophisticated to join in the singing.
We drew a few strange looks along the way, but Paul ignored them. I grinned at the irony of it all. Paul, an incessant singer of praise songs, a man who never met a tune he couldn’t butcher, was about to be tried by a man who cared more than anything else about how well he sounded on the lyre.