The Robe

by Lloyd C. Douglas

  A bit bewildered by this statement, Marcellus had inquired:

  ‘What did he mean, Justus, about the importance of saving your own life? He didn’t seem to be much worried about losing his! He could have saved it if he had promised Pilate and the priests that he would go home and say nothing more to the people about his beliefs.’

  ‘Well, sir’—Justus had tried to explain—‘Jesus didn’t mean quite the same thing that you have in mind when he talked about a man’s life. You see—Jesus wasn’t losing his life when they crucified him, but he would have lost it if he had recanted and gone home. Do you understand what I mean, Marcellus?’

  ‘No—I can’t say that I do. To speak that way about life is simply trifling with the accepted definition of the word. I believe that when a man is dead, he has lost his life; perhaps lost it in a good cause; perhaps still living—for a little while—in the memory of those who believed in him and cherished his friendship. But if our human speech is of any use at all, a man who is dead has lost his life.’

  ‘Not necessarily,’ protested Justus. ‘Not if his soul is still alive. Jesus said we need have no fear of the things that kill the body. We should fear only the things that kill the soul.’ And when Marcellus had shrugged impatiently, Justus had continued, ‘The body isn’t very important; just a vehicle; just a kit of tools—to serve the soul.’ He had chuckled over Marcellus’ expression of disgust. ‘You think that sounds crazy; don’t you?’ he added, gently.

  ‘Of course!’ Marcellus had shrugged. ‘And so do you!’

  ‘I admit it’s not easy to believe,’ conceded Justus.

  And then Marcellus had stopped in the road—they were on their way from Sepphoris to Cana—and had delivered what for him was a long speech.

  ‘Justus,’ he began, ‘I must tell you candidly that while I am much interested in the sensible philosophy of your dead friend Jesus, I hope you will not want to report any more statements of that nature. I have a sincere respect for this man’s mind, and I don’t wish to lose it.’

  He had half-expected Justus to be glum over this rebuke, but the big fellow had only grinned and nodded indulgently.

  ‘I didn’t mean to be offensive,’ said Marcellus.

  ‘I am not troubled,’ said Justus, cordially, it was my fault. I was going too fast for you; offering you meat when you should have milk.’

  ***

  He tossed the black robe aside and examined a white shawl with a fringe. He couldn’t imagine his mother wearing it, but the woman who had made it had been proud of her handiwork. He remembered how reluctant she was to see it go out of her little house, down on the Samaritan border somewhere. She should have been permitted to keep the shawl. It meant more to her than it could possibly mean to anyone else. Such things should never be sold; or bought, either. Marcellus recalled the feeling of self-reproach he had often experienced at lavish banquets in Rome where the wines were cooled with ice that had been brought from the northern mountains by relays of runners who sometimes died of exhaustion. No honest man could afford such wine. It had cost too much.

  Well—he would give all of these garments to Miriam. She would put them to good use. But—wouldn’t it be rather ungracious to let Miriam know that these things, fabricated with great care by her own fellow countrymen, weren’t worth carrying away?

  ‘But they are gifts,’ he would say to Miriam. ‘The people who receive them will be advantaged.’

  And then Miriam would have a right to say, though she probably wouldn’t, ‘How can they be gifts, Marcellus, when they are only useless things that you don’t want to be bothered with?’

  And then, assuming that Miriam had said that, he could reply:

  ‘But so far as the people are concerned who get these things, they would be gifts; wouldn’t you say?’

  ‘No,’ he thought she might reply, ‘they would never be gifts. You see, Marcellus—’ And then she would go on to explain again how Jesus had felt about gifts.

  He pitched the heavy white shawl back onto the pile of homespun and glanced up to see a tall, lean, rugged-faced fellow standing at the door of the tent. The visitor grinned amiably and Marcellus invited him to come in. He eased himself down on a camp-stool, crossed his long legs, and said bis name was Hariph.

  ‘Doubtless you came to see Justus,’ said Marcellus, cordially. He is at Reuben’s house. If you call this afternoon, I think he will be here.’

  Hariph nodded, but made no move to go; sat slowly swinging his pendent foot and nursing his elbows on his knee while he candidly surveyed the furniture of the tent, the heap of homespun, and the urbane stranger from Rome.

  ‘I think I have heard Justus speak of you,’ said Marcellus, feeling that if Hariph meant to stay awhile some conversation might be appropriate. ‘You are a potter, I believe. You make water-jars—and wine-jars—and things like that.’

  Hariph nodded and the grin widened a little.

  Tell me,’ went on Marcellus, hopefully, ‘is it customary to use the same sort of jar either for wine or water?’

  ‘Oh, yes, sir,’ replied Hariph, with deliberate professional dignity. ‘Many do that. Water or wine—it’s all the same. Oil, too. Same pot.’

  ‘But I suppose that after you’ve had oil in a pot, you wouldn’t want to put wine in it,’ observed Marcellus, sensibly enough, he thought.

  ‘No—that wouldn’t be so good,’ agreed Hariph. ‘The wine would taste of oil.’

  ‘The same thing might be true, I daresay, of water in a jar that had held wine,’ pursued Marcellus. ‘The water might taste like wine.’

  Hariph stopped swinging his foot and gazed squintingly toward the street, the fine lines on his temple deepening. Marcellus surmised that the town gossip was trying to decide whether it would be prudent to discuss the matter. After some delay, he turned to his young host and gratified him by saying:

  ‘Did Justus tell you?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Did you believe it?’ asked Hariph.

  ‘No,’ replied Marcellus, firmly. ‘I should be much interested in hearing what you think about it.’

  “Well, sir,’ rejoined Hariph, ‘we ran out of wine at the wedding of my daughter Anna, and when Jesus came he made wine—out of water. I don’t know how. I just know that he did it.’

  ‘Did you taste it?’

  ‘Yes, sir. I never tasted wine like that—before or since.’

  ‘What was it—a heavy, potent wine?’

  ‘N-no, sir.’ Hariph screwed up his face indecisively, it was of a delicate flavor.’

  ‘Red?’ queried Marcellus.

  “White,’ remembered Hariph.

  ‘White as water?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’ Hariph’s eyes collided briefly with Marcellus’ dry smile, and drifted away. Nothing further was said for a long moment.

  ‘I am told that everyone was very fond of Jesus,’ remarked Marcellus.

  ‘Indeed they were, sir!’ responded Hariph. ‘He came late, that day. You should have seen them when he appeared; the shouts of greeting; many leaving their places to crowd about him. It was so, wherever he went, sir. Nobody had eyes for anyone else.’

  ‘Had you ever kept wine in those jars, Hariph?’ asked Marcellus.

  ‘Yes, sir,’ admitted Hariph.

  Marcellus nodded his head slowly and grinned.

  ‘Well—thank you for telling me,’ he said. ‘I was almost sure there must be an explanation.’ He rose, significantly. ‘I am glad you called, Hariph. Shall I tell Justus you will be back later?’

  Hariph had not risen. His face was perplexed.

  ‘If it was only that one thing, sir,’ he said, quite unaffected by his dismissal—‘if it had been only that one time—’

  Marcellus sat down again and gave respectful attention.

  ‘But—from that day on, sir,’ continued Hariph, deliberately, ‘there were many strange happenings.’

  ‘So I have heard,’ admitted Marcellus. ‘Let me ask you: did you see any of these mysterious things d
one, or did you just learn about them from others? Strange stories always grow in the telling, you know.’

  ‘Has anyone told you,’ asked Hariph, ‘how Jesus fed a crowd of five thousand people when he had nothing but a little basketful of bread and a couple of smoked fish?’

  ‘No,’ said Marcellus, eagerly. Tell me, please.’

  ‘Perhaps Justus will tell you, if you ask him. He was there. He was closer to it—when it happened.’

  ‘Were you there, Hariph?’

  ‘Yes—but I was rather far back in the crowd.’

  ‘Well, tell me what you saw. I shall be much interested in your view of it. Where did all this happen?”

  ‘It wasn’t so very long after our wedding. Jesus had begun going about through the villages, talking with the people, and large crowds were following him.’

  ‘Because of what he said?’ interposed Marcellus.

  ‘Partly—but mostly because of the reports that he was healing all manner of diseases, and giving blind men their sight, and—’

  ‘Do you believe that—about the blind men?’

  ‘Yes, sir!’ declared Hariph. ‘I saw one man who could see as well as you can, sir.’

  ‘Had you known him before?’

  ‘No, sir,' confessed Hariph. ‘But his neighbors said he had been blind for years.’

  ‘Did you know them—his neighbors?’

  ‘No, sir. They were from down around Sychar.’

  ‘That kind of testimony,’ observed Marcellus, judicially, ‘wouldn’t get very far in a court of law; but you must have some good reason for believing it.... Well—go on, please, about the strange feast.’

  ‘Always there were big crowds following him,' continued Hariph, undismayed by the Roman’s incredulity. ‘And sometimes they weren’t easy to handle. Everybody wanted to be close enough to see these wonderful things happen; and you never could tell when it would be. It’s no small matter, sir’—Hariph interrupted himself to comment—‘when one of your own neighbors, as you might say, who had grown up with the other youngsters of his village, and had worked at a carpenter’s bench, takes to talking as nobody else had ever talked; and stopping in the middle of a speech to point his finger at some old man who might be standing in the front row, with his mouth open and both hands cupped behind his ears, trying to hear—and suddenly the old man yells “Ahhhl”—and begins dancing up and down, shouting, “I can hear! I can hear! I can hear!” And Jesus wouldn’t have stopped talking: he would just point at the man—and he could hear!’

  ‘Did you ever see Jesus do that, Hariph?’ demanded Marcellus.

  ‘No, sir—but there were plenty who did; people whose word you could trust, too!’

  ‘Very well,' consented Marcellus, indulgently. ‘Now tell me about the feeding of the five thousand people. You say you saw that?’

  ‘It was this way, sir. It all began over in Capernaum. A lot of strange things had happened, and the news had spread abroad until a great crowd had collected, a disorderly crowd it was; for nobody was trying to keep them from pushing and jostling and tramping on one another.’

  ‘It’s a wonder they didn’t call out the legionaries,’ said Marcellus. There’s a fort at Capernaum.’

  ‘Yes—and many of the soldiers were there; but I don’t think the priests and elders of the city wanted the crowd to be kept in order. They probably hoped something would happen, a bad accident, maybe, so that Jesus could be arrested for disturbing the peace.’

  ‘But didn’t he have a few close friends who might have demanded the people to cease this confusion?’

  ‘Yes, sir—Jesus had many close friends. He named twelve of them to be known as his disciples. But they had no authority to give orders to that big crowd. They were really beside themselves to know what to do. Reuben and I had gone over to Capernaum—like everybody else—to see what was going on. When we arrived, the people were milling about in the central plaza. I never was in such a press, sir! Men and women with sick children in their arms, being pushed roughly in the swaying pack. Blind men. Halfdead people on cots, carried by their friends. There were even lepers in the crowd.’ Hariph chuckled grimly.

  ‘Nobody jostled them!

  ‘It’s a wonder they weren’t arrested,’ put in Marcellus.

  ‘Well, sir,’ drawled Hariph, ‘when a leper is out on his own, not even a legionary is anxious to lay hands on him. And you couldn’t blame the poor lepers, sir. They hoped to be healed, too.’

  ‘Is Jesus supposed to have healed lepers, Hariph?’ Marcellus’ tone was loaded with doubt.

  ‘Yes, sir.... Well, when the crowd became unmanageable, Jesus began retreating down toward the shore. Several of his disciples had run on ahead and engaged a boat. And before the people realized what was happening, Jesus and his twelve closest friends were pulling away from the beach.’

  ‘Wasn’t that a rather heartless thing to do?’ queried Marcellus.

  ‘He had tried to talk to them, sir, but there was too much confusion. You see—the people who crowded in about him hadn’t come to hear him talk, but to witness some strange thing. They wouldn’t even give way to the cripples or the blind or the very sick ones borne on cots. And then, too, Jesus had just received bad news. One of his best friends, whom old Herod Antipas had thrown into prison, had just been beheaded. Word of it came to Jesus while he was trying to deal with that unruly mob. You can’t blame him, sir, for wanting to get away.’

  ‘Quite to the contrary, Hariph!’ declared Marcellus. ‘It’s gratifying to hear that he could be puzzled about something. It was lucky that there was a boat available. Was the crowd enraged?’

  ‘Oh—they behaved each according to his own temper,’ remembered Hariph. ‘Some shook their fists and shouted imprecations. Some shook their heads and turned away. Some wept. Some stood still and said nothing, as they watched the boat growing smaller.’

  ‘And what did you and Reuben do?’

  ‘Well, sir—we decided to go home. And then somebody noticed that the boat was veering toward the north. A great shout went up, and the people began racing toward the beach. It seemed likely that the party in the boat was making for some place up in the neighborhood of Bethsaida.’

  ‘How far was that?’ inquired Marcellus.

  ‘For the boat—about six miles. For the crowd—nearly nine. It was a hot day and rough going. That country up there is mostly desert. But everybody went, or so it seemed. It was a singular sight, sir, that long procession stumbling over the stones and through the dried weeds. It was far past midday when we found them.’

  ‘Did Jesus seem annoyed when the crowd arrived?’

  ‘No—just sorry,’ murmured Hariph. ‘His face was sad. The people were so very tired. They weren’t pushing one another—not after that trip! He laughed a little at the recollection.

  ‘Did he chide them for the way they behaved in Capernaum?’

  ‘No, sir. He didn’t say anything for a long time. The people flung themselves down to rest. Justus told me afterward that Simon urged Jesus to talk to them, but he wanted to wait until all of them had arrived; for some were carrying their sick, and were far behind. He didn’t speak a word until they were all there. And then he stood up and began to talk. He did not reprove us for trailing him to this place, nor did he have aught to say of the people’s rudeness. He talked about all of us being neighbors. We were all one family. Everyone was very quiet. There wasn’t a sound—but the voice of Jesus. And remember, sir; there were five thousand people in that crowd I’ Hariph’s chin twitched involuntarily. He cleared his throat. Marcellus studied his face soberly.

  ‘I am not one to weep easily, sir,’ he went on, huskily. ‘But there was something about those words that brought the tears. There we were—nothing but a great crowd of little children—tired and worn out—and here was a man—the only man there—and all the rest of us nothing but quarrelsome, stingy, greedy, little children. His voice was very calm, but—if you can believe me, sir—his words were as ointment on our wounds. W
hile he talked, I was saying to myself, “I have never lived! I have never known how to live! This man has the words of life!” It was as if God Himself were speaking, sir! Everybody was much moved. Men’s faces were strained and their tears were flowing.’ Hariph wiped his eyes with the backs of his hands.

  ‘After a while,’ he continued, brokenly, ‘Jesus stopped talking and motioned to some who had carried a sick man all that long way, and they brought their burden and put it down at Jesus’ feet. He said something to the sick man. I could not hear what it was. And the sick man got up! And so did everybody else—as if Jesus had suddenly pulled us all to our feet. And everyone drew a gasp of wonder!’ Hariph grinned pensively and faced Marcellus directly with childishly entreating eyes. ‘Do you believe what I am telling you, sir?’

  ‘It is difficult, Hariph,’ said Marcellus, gently. ‘But I think you believe what you are saying. Perhaps there is some explanation.’

  ‘That may be, sir,’ said Hariph, politely. ‘And then there were many, many others who went to Jesus to be healed of their diseases; not jostling to be first, but waiting their turn.’ He hesitated for a moment, embarrassed. “But I shall not weary you with that,’ he went on, ‘seeing you do not believe.’

  ‘You were going to tell me how he fed them,’ prompted Marcellus.

  ‘Yes, sir. It was growing late in the afternoon. I had been so moved by the things I had heard and seen that I had not thought of being hungry. Reuben and I, knowing there would be nothing out there to eat, had stopped at a market-booth in Capernaum and had bought some bread and cured fish. In any other kind of crowd, we would have eaten our luncheon. But now that we had begun to feel hungry, I was ashamed to eat what I had before the faces of the men about me; for, as I have said, Jesus had been talking about us all being of one family, and how we ought to share what we had with one another. I should have been willing to divide with the man next to me; but I didn’t have much more than enough for myself. So—I didn’t eat; nor did Reuben.’