by Georg Ebers
CHAPTER V.
While Pollux and his mother, who was much grieved, waited forEuphorion's return, and while Papias was ingratiating himself with theEmperor by pretending still to believe that Hadrian was nothing morethan Claudius Venator, the architect, Aurelius Verus, nicknamed by theAlexandrians, "the sham Eros" had lived through strange experiences.
In the afternoon he had visited the Empress, in the hope of persuadingher to look on at the gay doings of the people, even if incognito; butSabina was out of spirits, declared herself unwell, and was quite surethat the noise of the rabble would be the death of her. Having, as shesaid, so vivacious a reporter as Verus, she might spare herself fromexposing her own person to the dust and smell of the town, and theuproar of men. As soon as Lucilla begged her husband to remember hisrank and not to mingle with the excited multitude, at any rate afterdark, the Empress strictly enjoined him to see with his own eyeseverything that could be worth notice in the festival, and moreparticularly to give attention to everything that was peculiar toAlexandria and not to be seen in Rome.
After sunset Verus had first gone to visit the veterans of the TwelfthLegion who had been in the field with him against the Numidians, andto whom he gave a dinner at an eating-house, as being his oldfellow-soldiers. For above an hour he sat drinking with the brave oldfellows; then, quitting them, he went to look at the Canopic wayby night, as it was but a few paces thither from the scene of hishospitality. It was brilliantly lighted with tapers, torches, andlamps, and the large houses behind the colonnades were gaudy with richhangings; only the handsomest and stateliest of them all had no kind ofdecoration. This was the abode of the Jew Apollodorus.
In former years the finest hangings had decorated his windows, which hadbeen as gay with flowers and lamps as those of the other Israeliteswho dwelt in the Canopic way, and who were wont to keep the festivalin common with their heathen fellow-citizens as jovially as though theywere no less zealous to do homage to Dionysus. Apollodorus had his ownreasons for keeping aloof on this occasion from all that was connectedwith the holiday doings of the heathen. Without dreaming that hiswithdrawal could involve him in any danger, he was quietly sitting inhis house, which was so splendidly furnished as to seem fitted for someprincely Greek rather than for a Hebrew. This was especially the casewith the men's living-room, in which Apollodorus sat, for the pictureson the walls and pavement of this beautiful hall--of which theroof, which was half open, was supported on columns of the finestporphyry--represented the loves of Eros and Psyche; while between thepillars stood busts of the greatest heathen philosophers, and in thebackground a fine statue of Plato was conspicuous. Among all the Greeksand Romans there was the portrait of only one Jew, and this was that ofPhilo, whose intellectual and delicate features greatly resembled thoseof the most illustrious of his Greek companions.
In this splendid room, lighted by silver lamps, there was no lackof easy couches, and on one of these Apollodorus was reclining; afine-looking man of fifty, with his mild but shrewd eyes fixed on a talland aged fellow-Israelite who was pacing up and down in front of him andtalking eagerly; the old man's hands too were never still, now he usedthem in eager gesture, and again stroked his long white beard. On aneasy seat opposite to the master of the house sat a lean young man withpale and very regular finely-cut features, black hair and a black beard;he sat with his dark glowing eyes fixed on the ground, tracing lines andcircles on the pavement with the stick he held in his hand, while theexcited old man, his uncle, urgently addressed Apollodorus in a vehementbut fluent torrent of words. Apollodorus, however, shook his headfrom time to time at his speech and frequently met him with a briefcontradiction.
It was easy to see that what he was listening to touched him painfully,and that the two diametrically different men were fighting a battlewhich could never lead to any satisfactory issue. For, though they bothused the Greek tongue and confessed the same religion, all they felt andthought was grounded on views, as widely dissimilar as though the twomen had been born in different spheres. When two opponents of suchdifferent calibre meet, there is a great clatter of arms but no bloodywounds are dealt and neither rout nor victory can result.
It was on account of this old man and his nephew that Apollodorus hadforborne to-day to decorate his house, for the Rabbi Gamaliel, who hadarrived only the day before from Palestine, and had been welcomed byhis Alexandrian relatives, condemned every form of communion with thegentiles, and would undoubtedly have quitted the residence of his hostif he had ventured to adorn it in honor of the feast-day of the falsegods. Gamaliel's nephew, Rabbi Ben Jochai, enjoyed a reputation littleinferior to that of his father, Ben Akiba. The elder was the greatestsage and expounder of the law--the son the most illustrious astronomerand the most skilled interpreter of the mystical significance of theposition of the heavenly bodies, among the Hebrews.
It redounded greatly to the honor of Apollodorus that he should beprivileged to shelter under his roof the sage Gamaliel and the famousson of so great a father, and in his hours of leisure he loved to occupyhimself with learned subjects, so he had done his utmost to make theirstay in his house in every way agreeable to them. He had bought, onpurpose for them, a kitchen slave, himself a strict Jew and familiarwith the requirements of the Levitical law as to food, who during theirstay was to preside over the mysteries of the hearth, instead of theGreek cook who usually served him, so that none but clean meat should beprepared according to the Jewish ritual. He had forbidden his grown-upsons to invite any of their Greek friends into the house during thevisit of the illustrious couple or to discuss the festival; they werealso enjoined to avoid using the names of the gods of the heathen intheir conversation--but he himself was the first to sin against thisprohibition.
He, like all the Hebrews of good position in Alexandria, had acquiredGreek culture, felt and thought in Greek modes, and had remained a Jewonly in name; for though they still believed in the one God of theirfathers instead of in a crowd of Olympian deities, the One whom theyworshipped was no longer the almighty and jealous God of their nation,but the all-pervading plasmic and life-giving Spirit with whom theGreeks had become familiar through Plato.
Every hour that they had spent in each other's company had widenedthe gulf between Apollodorus and Gamaliel, and the relations of theAlexandrian to the sage had become almost intolerable, when he learntthat the old man--who was related to himself--had come to Egypt with hisnephew, in order to demand the daughter of Apollodorus in marriage. Butthe fair Ismene was not in the least disposed to listen to this graveand bigoted suitor. The home of her people was to her a barbarous land,the young astronomer filled her with alarm, and besides all this herheart was already engaged; she had given it to the son of Alabarchos,who was the Superior of all the Israelites in Egypt, and this youngman possessed the finest horse in the whole city, with which he had wonseveral races in the Hippodrome, and he also had distinguished her aboveall the maidens. To him, if to any one, would she give her hand, and shehad explained herself to this effect to her father when he informed herof Ben Jochai's suit, and Apollodorus, who had lost his wife severalyears before, had neither the wish nor the power to put any pressure onhis pretty darling.
To be sure the temporizing nature of the man rendered it very difficultto him to give a decided no to his venerable old friend; but it hadto be done sooner or later, and the present evening seemed to him anappropriate moment for this unpleasant task.
He was alone with his guests. His daughter had gone to the house of afriend to look on at the gay doings in the street, his three sons wereout, all the slaves had leave to enjoy their holiday till midnight;nothing was likely to disturb them, and so, after many warm expressionsof his deep respect, he found courage to confess to them that he couldnot support Ben Jochai's pretensions. His child, he said, clung toofondly to Alexandria to wish to quit it, and his learned young friendwould be but ill suited with a wife who was accustomed to freer mannersand habits, and could hardly feel herself at ease in a home where thelaws of her fathers were strictly
observed, and in which therefore nokind of freedom of life would be tolerated.
Gamaliel let the Alexandrian speak to the end, but then, as his nephewwas beginning to argue against their host's hesitancy, the old manabruptly interrupted him. Drawing up his figure, which was a littlebent, to its full height, and passing his hand among the blue veins andfine wrinkles that marked his high forehead, he began:
"Our house was decimated in our wars against the Romans, and among thedaughters of our race Ben Akiba found not one in Palestine who seemed tohim worthy to marry his son. But the report of the good fortune ofthe Alexandrian branch of our family had reached Judea, and Ben Akibathought that he would do like our father Abraham, and he sent me, hisEliezer, into a strange land to win the daughter of a kinsman to wifefor his Isaac. Now, who and what the young man is, and the esteem inwhich he and his father are held by men--"
"I know well," interrupted Apollodorus, "and my house has never been sohighly honored as in your visit."
"And notwithstanding," continued the Rabbi, "we must return home as wecame; and indeed this will not only suit you best, but us too, and mybrother, whose ambassador I am, for after what I have learnt from youwithin this last hour we must in any case withdraw our suit. Do notinterrupt me! Your Ismene scorns to veil her face, and no doubt it is avery pretty one to look upon--you have trained her mind like that of aman, and so she seeks to go her own way. That may be all very well fora Greek woman, but in the house of Ben Akiba the woman must obey herhusband's will, as the ship obeys the helm, and have no will of her own;her husband's will always coincides with what the law commands, whichyou yourself learnt to obey."
"We recognize its excellence," replied Apolloderus, "but even if all thelaws which Moses received on Sinai were binding on all mortals alike,the various ordinances which were wisely laid down for the regulation ofthe social life of our fathers, are not universally applicable for thechildren of our day. And least of all can we observe them here, where,though true to our ancient faith, we live as Greeks among Greeks."
"That I perceive," retorted Gamaliel, "for even the language--thatclothing of our thoughts--the language of our fathers and of thescriptures, you have abandoned for another, sacrificed to another."
"You and your nephew also speak Greek."
"We do it here, because the heathen, because you and yours, no longerunderstand the tongue of Moses and the prophets."
"But wherever the Great Alexander bore his arms Greek is spoken; anddoes not the Greek version of the scriptures, translated by the seventyinterpreters under the direct guidance of our God, exactly reproduce theHebrew text?"
"And would you exchange the stone engraved by Bryasis that you wearon your finger, and showed me yesterday with so much pride, for a waximpression of the gem?"
"The language of Plato is not an inferior thing; it is as noble as thecostliest sapphire."
"But ours came to us from the lips of the Most High. What would youthink of a child that, disdaining the tongue Of its father listened onlyto that of its neighbors and made use of an interpreter to be able tounderstand its parents' commands?"
"You are speaking of parents who have long since left their native land.The ancestor need not be indignant with his descendants when they usethe language of their new home, so long as they continue to act inaccordance with his spirit."
"We must live not merely in accordance with the spirit, but by the wordsof the Most High, for not a syllable proceeds from His lips in vain. Themore exalted the spirit of a discourse is, the more important is everyword and syllable. One single letter often changes the meaning of wholesentences.--What a noise the people outside are making! The wild tumultpenetrates even into this room which is so far from the street, andyour sons take delight in the disorders of the heathen! You do not evenwithhold them by force from adding to the number of those mad devoteesof pleasure!"
"I was young once myself, and I think it no sin to share in theuniversal rejoicing."
"Say rather the disgraceful idolatry of the worshippers of Dionysus. Itis in name alone that you and your children belong to the elect peopleof God, in your hearts you are heathens!"
"No, Father," exclaimed Apollodorus eagerly. "The reverse is the case.In our hearts we are Jews but we wear the garments of Greeks."
"Why your name is Apollodorus--the gift of Apollo."
"A name chosen only to distinguish me from others. Who would everenquire into the meaning of a name if it sounds well."
"You, everybody who is not devoid of sense," cried the Rabbi. "You thinkto yourself 'need Zenodotus or Hermogenes, some Greek you meet at thebath or else where, know at once that the wealthy personage, with whomhe discussed the latest interpretation of the Hellenic myths, is aJew?' And how charming is the man who asks you whether you are notan Athenian, for your Greek has such a pure Attic accent! And what weourselves like, we favor in our children, so we choose names for themtoo which flatter our own vanity."
"By Heracles!"
A faint mocking smile crossed Gamaliel's lips and interrupting theAlexandrian he said:
"Is there any particularly worthy man among our Alexandrianfellow-believers whose name is Heracles?"
"No one" cried the Alexandrian "ever thinks of the son of Alcmene whenhe asseverates--it only means 'really,--truly--'"
"To be sure you are not fastidiously accurate in the choice of yourwords and names, and where there is so much to be seen and enjoyedas there is here one's thoughts are not always connected. That isintelligible--quite, peculiarly intelligible! And in this city folks areso polite that they are fain to wrap truth in some graceful disguise.May I, a barbarian from Judea, be allowed to set it before you, bare ofclothing, naked and unadorned."
"Speak, I beg you, speak."
"You are Jews; but you had rather not be Jews, and you endure yourorigin as an inevitable evil. It is only when you feel the mighty handof the Most High that you recognize it and claim your right to be oneof His chosen people. In the smooth current of daily life you proudlynumber yourselves with his enemies. Do not interrupt me, and answerhonestly what I shall ask you. In what hour of your life did youfeel yourself that you owed the deepest gratitude to the God of yourfathers?"
"Why should I deny it?--In the hour when my lost wife presented me withmy first-born son."
"And you called him?"
"You know his name is Benjamin."
"Like the favorite son of our forefather Jacob, for in the hour when youthus named him you were honestly yourself, you felt thankful that ithad been vouchsafed to you to add another link to the chain of yourrace--you were a Jew--you were confident in our God--in your own God.The birth of your second son touched your soul less deeply and you gavehim the name of Theophilus, and when your third male child was born youhad altogether ceased to remember the God of your fathers, for he isnamed after one of the heathen gods, Hephaestion. To put it shortly: Youare Jews when the Lord is most gracious to you, or threatens to try youmost severely but you are heathen whenever your way does not lead youover the high hills or through the dark abysses of life. I cannot changeyour hearts--but the wife of my brother's son, the daughter of BenAkiba, must be a daughter of our people, morning, noon, and night. Iseek a Rebecca for my daughter and not an Ismene."
"I did not ask you here," retorted Apollodorus. "But if you quit usto-morrow, you as will be followed by our reverent regard. Think noworse of us because we adapt ourselves, more, perhaps, than is fitting,to the ways and ideas of the people among whom we have grown up, and inwhose midst we have been prosperous, and whose interests are ours. Weknow how high our faith is beyond theirs. In our hearts we still areJews; but are we not bound to try to open and to cultivate and toelevate our spirits, which God certainly made of stuff no coarser thanthat of other nations, whenever and wherever we may? And in what schoolmay our minds be trained better or on sounder principles than in ours--Imean that of the Greek sages? The knowledge of the Most High--"
"That knowledge," cried the old man, gesticulating vehemently with hisarms. "Th
e knowledge of God Most High and all that the most refinedphilosophy can prove, all the sublimest and purest of the thinkersof whom you speak can only apprehend by the gravest meditation andheart-searching--all this I say has been bestowed as a free gift of Godon every child of our people. The treasures which your sages painfullyseek out we already possess in our scriptures, our law and our moralordinances. We are the chosen people, the first-born of the Lord, andwhen Messiah shall rise up in our midst--"
"Then," interrupted Apollodorus, "that shall be fulfilled which, likePhilo, I hope for, we shall be the priests and prophets for all nations.Then we shall in truth be a race of priests whose vocation it shall beto call down the blessing of the Most High on all mankind."
"For us--for us alone shall the messenger of God appear, to make us thekings, and not the slaves of the nations."
Apollodorus looked with surprise into the face of the excited old man,and asked with an incredulous smile: "The crucified Nazarene was a falseMessiah; but when will the true Messiah appear?"
"When will He appear?" cried the Rabbi. "When? Can I tell when? Only onething I do know; the serpent is already sharpening its fangs to stingthe heel of Him who shall tread upon it. Have you heard the name of BarKochba?"
"Uncle," said Ben Jochai, interrupting the old Rabbi's speech, andrising from his seat: "Say nothing you might regret."
"Nay, nay," answered Gamaliel earnestly. "Our friends here prefer thehuman above the divine, but they are not traitors." Then turning againto Apollodorus he continued:
"The oppressors in Israel have set up idols in our holy places, andstrive again to force the people to bow down to them; but rather shallour back be broken than we will bend the knee or submit!"
"You are meditating another revolt?" asked the Alexandrian anxiously.
"Answer me--have you heard the name of Bar Kochba?"
"Yes, as that of the foolhardy leader of an armed troup."
"He is a hero--perhaps the Redeemer."
"And it was for him that you charged me to load my next corn vessel toJoppa with swords, shields and lance-heads?"
"And are none but the Romans to be permitted to use iron?"
"Nay--but I should hesitate to supply a friend with arms if he proposedto use them against an irresistible antagonist, who will inevitablyannihilate him!"
"The Lord of Hosts is stronger than a thousand legions!"
"Be cautious uncle," said Ben Jochai again in a warning voice.
Gamaliel turned wrathfully upon his nephew, but before he could retorton the young man's protest, he started in alarm, for a wild howling andthe resounding clatter of violent blows on the brazen door of the houserang through the hall and shook its walls of marble.
"They are attacking my house," shouted Apollodorus.
"This is the gratitude of those for whom you have broken faith with theGod of your fathers," said the old man gloomily. Then throwing up hishands and eyes he cried aloud: "Hear me Adonai! My years are many and Iam ripe for the grave; but spare these, have mercy upon them."
Ben Jochai followed his uncle's example and raised his arms insupplication, while his black eyes sparkled with a lowering glow in hispale face.
But their prayers were brief, for the tumult came nearer and nearer;Apollodorus wrung his hands, and struck his fist against his forehead;his movements were violent--spasmodic. Terror had entirely robbed himof the elegant, measured demeanor which he had acquired among his Greekfellow-citizens, and mingling heathen oaths and adjurations with appealsto the God of his fathers, he flew first one way and then another. Hesearched for the key of the subterranean rooms of the house, but hecould not find it, for it was in the charge of his steward, who, withall the other servants, was taking his pleasure in the streets, or overa brimming cup in some tavern.
Now the newly-purchased kitchen-slave--the Jew to whom the keeping ofthe Dionysian feast was an abomination--rushed into the room shriekingout, as he plucked at his hair and beard:
"The Philistines are upon us! save us Rabbi, great Rabbi! Cry for usto the Lord, oh! man of God! They are coming with staves and spearsand they will tread us down as grass and burn us in this house like thelocusts cast into the oven."
In deadly terror he threw himself at Gamaliel's feet and clasped them inhis hands, but Apollodorus exclaimed: "Follow me, follow me up on to theroof."
"No, no," howled the slave, "Amalek is making ready the firebrand tofling among our tents. The heathen leap and rage, the flames they areflinging will consume us. Rabbi, Rabbi, call upon the Hosts of the Lord!God of the just! The gate has given way. Lord! Lord! Lord!"
The terrified wretch's teeth chattered and he covered his eyes with hishands, groaning and howling.
Ben Jochai had remained perfectly calm, but he was quivering with rage.His prayer was ended, and turning to Gamaliel he said in deep tones:
"I knew that this would happen, I warned you. Our evil star rose when weset forth on our wanderings.
"Now we must abide patiently what the Lord hath determined. He will beour Avenger."
"Vengeance is His!" echoed the old man, and he covered his head with hiswhite mantle.
"In the sleeping-room--follow me! we can hide under the beds!" shriekedApollodorus; he kicked away the slave who was embracing the Rabbi'sfeet, and seized the old man by the shoulder to drag him away with him.But it was too late, for the door of the antechamber had burst open andthey could hear the clatter of weapons. "Lost, lost, all is lost!" criedApollodorus.
"Adonai! help us Adonai!" murmured the old man and he clung more closelyto his nephew, who overtopped him by a head and who held him clasped inhis right arm as if to protect him.
The danger which threatened Apollodorus and his guests was indeedimminent, and it had been provoked solely by the indignation of theexcited mob at seeing the wealthy Israelite's house unadorned for thefeast.
A thousand times had it occurred that a single word had provedsufficient to inflame the hot blood of the Alexandrians to prompt themto break the laws and seize the sword. Bloody frays between the heatheninhabitants and the Jews, who were equally numerous in the city, werequite the order of the day, and one party was as often to blame as theother for disturbing the peace and having recourse to the sword. Sincethe Israelites had risen in several provinces--particularly in Cyrenaicaand Cyprus--and had fallen with cruel fury on their fellow-inhabitantswho were their oppressors, the suspicion and aversion of theAlexandrians of other beliefs had grown more intense than in formertimes. Besides this, the prosperous circumstances of many Jews, and theenormous riches of a few, had filled the less wealthy heathen with envyand roused the wish to snatch the possessions of those who, it cannot bedenied, had not unfrequently treated their gods with open contumely.
It happened that just within a few days the disputes regarding thefestival that was to be held in honor of the Imperial visit had addedbitterness to the old grudge, and thus it came to pass that Apollodorus'unlighted house in the Canopic way had excited the populace to attackthis palatial residence. And here again one single speech had sufficedto excite their fury.
In the first instance Melampus, the tanner, a drunken swaggerer, whohad failed in business, had marched up the street at the head of a tipsycrew, and pointing with his thyrsus to the dark, undecorated house, hadshouted:
"Look at that dismal barrack! All that the Jew used to spend ondecorating the street, he is saving up now in his money chest!" Thewords were like a spark among tinder and others followed.
"The niggard is robbing our father Dionysus," cried a second citizen,and a third, flourishing his torch on high, croaked out:
"Let us get at the drachmae he grudges the god; we can find a use forthem." Graukus, the sausage maker, snatched from his neighbor's hand thebunch of tow soaked in pitch, and bellowed out, "I advise that we shouldburn the house over their heads!"
"Stay, stay," cried a cobbler who worked for Apollodorus' slaves, as heplaced himself in the butcher's way. "Perhaps they are mourning forsome one in there. The Jew has always de
corated his house on formeroccasions."
"Not they," replied a flute-player in a loud hoarse voice. "We metthe old miser's son on the Bruchiom with some riotous comrades andmisconducted hussies, with his purple mantle fluttering far behind him."
"Let us see which is reddest, the Tyrian stuff or the blaze we shallmake if we set the old wretch's house on fire," shouted a hungry-lookingtailor, looking round to see the effects of his wit.
"Ay! let us try!" rose from one man, and then, from a number of others:
"Let us get into the house!"
"The mean churl shall remember this day!"
"Fetch him out!"
"Drag him into the street!"
Such shouts as these rose here and there from the crowd, which grewdenser every instant as it was increased by fresh tributaries attractedby the riot.
"Drag him out!" again shrieked an Egyptian slavedriver, and a womanshrieked an echo of his words. She snatched the deer-skin from hershoulders, flourished it round and round in the air above her tangledblack hair, and bellowed furiously:
"Tear him in pieces!"
"In pieces, with your teeth!" roared a drunken Maenad who, like most ofthe mob that had collected, knew nothing whatever of the popular grudgeagainst Apollodorus and his house.
But words had already begun to be followed by deeds. Feet, fists, andcudgels stamped, drubbed, and thumped against the firmly-bolted brazendoor of the darkened house, and a ship's boy of fourteen sprang onthe shoulders of a tall black slave and tried to climb the roof of thecolonnade, and to fling the torch which the sausage-maker handed up tohim into the open forecourt of the imperilled house.