The Road to Bithynia: A Novel of Luke, the Beloved Physician

by Frank G. Slaughter

  “While I cannot approve of your marrying”—Paul’s voice broke into Luke’s thoughts— “I have thought of a way to please you both and reward you for keeping your bodies inviolate for Christ. When we leave here, we will all go into Bithynia together.”

  “Oh, Paul!” Thecla cried. “How wonderful!” She turned to Luke eagerly. “Your dreams will be realized then, dear.”

  Luke nodded dully, but there was no joy in his heart. Bithynia had first meant a place of peace and withdrawal from the troubles of the world. Lately, however, he had seen a richer and fuller picture, a home where he and Thecla would live a life of their own together, bringing children into the world and watching them grow up, teaching them to revere the past because of its lessons for the present and to think for themselves, and, most important, showing those around them how true happiness comes from living the Way of Jesus.

  But now everything was changed, and even with Thecla beside him there was no lure to Bithynia, because there would be no children, no real home together. Paul would control Thecla by convincing her that the way he described was the way Jesus would want her to be.

  Ironically enough, Luke could understand Paul’s reasoning and the motives behind it and could even sympathize with him. Believing as he did that people should remain in the state in which they had been called to the service of Christ, Paul could not marry, and so his love for Thecla must have tormented him in a bitter conflict between Paul, the man, and Paul, the apostle to the Gentiles. When he saw her betrothed and about to be married to another, his convictions had then come to the rescue of his conscience, for he could logically discourage Luke and Thecla from marrying, feeling that in using his power over the girl he was really serving the best interests of the faith he believed in, while at the same time keeping her inviolate and firmly bound to himself.

  Luke was faced with a hopeless impasse, for if he gave in, Thecla must gradually be drawn closer to Paul and his way of thinking and so would be lost to him. While if he forced it to an issue now, Paul’s influence over Thecla was so great that she might forswear marriage forever and be equally lost to him.

  Suddenly he saw an answer to his problem. It was so simple that he wondered why it had not come to him before. Many of the new converts in Galatia and elsewhere, fired by Paul’s convictions of the hourly coming of Jesus, had taken virgins as their espoused wives, living with them as man and wife but without the physical relations of the married state. Paul had gone on record as approving these odd relationships, and to a girl in such a state of religious ecstasy as the apostle had induced in Thecla, such a mystical union would seem an ideal way of serving God and keeping herself inviolate of any sin. Married under such conditions, Luke could keep Thecla close to him always. And sometime, he was sure, Thecla would come to her senses and realize that such a half marriage, without children or a home of their own, was the mockery which Luke firmly believed it to be.

  Luke turned to Thecla and took her hands in his. Under his calm, loving gaze her eyes lost some of their rapt expression and an answering warmth kindled in them. “You love me, don’t you, Thecla?” he asked tenderly.

  “Oh, I do, Luke,” she said in a rush as the soft color poured into her cheeks. “You know I do. Are we not betrothed?”

  “I want you to be my virgin,” Luke said then. “To live with me as man and wife, except that I promise to hold you inviolate as long as you wish.”

  “Oh, Luke,” she cried, her eyes suddenly glowing. “Could we?” She turned quickly to Paul. “Would that be all right, Paul?”

  Before Paul could answer or object, Luke said. “You have publicly approved such marriages, Paul. All of us have heard you.”

  Luke saw the animation die out in the apostle’s eyes, and in its place came a look almost of hopelessness and defeat, such as had been there after the whipping at Pisidian Antioch. Luke suddenly felt a sense of pity toward Paul, for he wondered if in the same situation he would have had the strength and courage to adhere to his principles and deny himself the woman he loved. Impulsively he put out his hand. “I am sorry, Paul,” he said sincerely. “Really sorry.”

  For a long moment Paul stared at him, and Luke knew that the apostle realized and understood his own thoughts. Then Paul gave him his hand and smiled with something of the old feeling of comradeship which had been theirs. “God bless the both of you,” he said, “and give you strength to keep your vows.”

  When Paul had left the room Thecla came into Luke’s arms, and this time there was no reluctance. “See how wrong you were about Paul, darling?” she cried. “He has approved our marriage, and now we can be together always. And if Jesus is coming back soon, it will be better if we”—her cheeks crimsoned suddenly and she hid her face against his breast—“if we stay as we are.”

  “I love you enough to want to be with you on your own terms, Thecla,” he said, holding her close to him. But to himself he added, “If that is the only way.”

  When Probus heard about the arrangement, he was forthright in his condemnation. “You are a fool to let yourself be tricked into any such unnatural relationship,” he told Luke. “Paul would not dare take Thecla for himself; now he has talked you out of having her as your wife.”

  “What else could I do?”

  “Women need to be handled firmly, like children,” Probus said. “You should have told her the truth.”

  “But that would have meant an open break with Paul,” Luke protested.

  “Why not? You cannot go on giving up your whole life for him. You have yourself and your place as a physician to think of.”

  “Peter and Barnabas think my place as a physician is with Paul. Why do you follow him, Probus? Sometimes I believe you hate him.”

  The apothecary smiled wryly. “‘Sometimes I do,” he admitted. “I know I am a fool to be traveling on foot through a barbarous country when I could make a fortune treating bald heads in Antioch. Still, there is something about a man battling the world for a principle he believes in that makes you want to help him. And somehow I always manage to get on the side of the fellow who is sure to lose.”

  Luke smiled. “This time you will not lose, Probus. The Way of Jesus will go down through history as a guide for men to live by.”

  Probus shrugged. “Perhaps. But even if it does, who will remember Luke and Paul and Barnabas and Peter and the rest of you who are giving your lives to it?”

  IX

  Nothing was changed outwardly by the marriage of Luke and Thecla, for they did not live together, except in the same house as they had before. And yet when he heard Thecla singing as she worked, or saw her coming down the street toward his surgery on her way to the marketplace, Luke’s throat filled with pride that she was his wife, even though only in name. If the love that he and Thecla felt for each other could of itself bring such happiness to marriage, Luke sometimes thought, what must be the ecstasy of a bodily union which produced another being? But such thoughts only brought on the old torment that still came when he held Thecla in his arms. And somehow he could not rid himself of the idea that such a relationship as theirs, denying to them as it did the complete fulfillment of their love, was innately sinful.

  So the months passed busily, for churches were springing up in all the towns along the trade route and in the Lycaonian highlands. “It must be nearly time for Mariamne to have her baby,” Luke suggested to Thecla one day. “Theophilus said she and Apollonius wished I could be there when it happens.”

  Thecla’s face lit up. “Why couldn’t we go on to Ephesus and meet Paul later? I heard him telling Silas yesterday that they must be making plans soon to go on to Thyatira and then north into Bithynia.”

  Luke’s heart warmed at the thought of having Thecla to himself for a while, although he hoped for no change in their relationship yet, for she was still under the spell of Paul and his rather mystical beliefs about the coming of Jesus. “We will speak to Paul about it tonight,�
�� he promised. “Mariamne was a favorite of his, so I am sure he would not object.”

  Paul gave his blessing to the trip without objection, and they set out a few days later on the Old Way with Probus, bound for the city of Ephesus.

  “There is a saying that ‘all roads lead to Ephesus,’” Probus told Luke and Thecla when they paused at the top of a hill a week later to look down upon the famous city of the Greeks spread out before them in the shallow basin of the Meander and Cayster rivers, where they joined before emptying into the Aegean Sea. Over the low-lying hills to the east from which they had come an endless file of dromedaries moved along the caravan route from the cities of Asia and beyond, their backs piled high with bales of rare fabric from Mesopotamia, silver and steel from the forges of Damascus, and spices and condiments for the tables of the Romans and rich Greeks.

  Up the shallow channel of the Cayster, dredged to permit small vessels to come right into the city, a few cargo smacks were beating slowly cityward against the wind, and in the distance a galley moved gracefully along, the banked oars flashing in the sunlight as they were lifted dripping from the water. Three miles away the sea itself was visible only as a bluish haze on the horizon to the west. Larger ships, cargo vessels from Alexandria and the Syrian port, and the great triremes with which Rome used to move military forces from place to place did not essay the shallow channel of the Cayster but docked at the fine port of Miletus some thirty miles to the south. A stone-paved highway, built by the Romans, connected busy and prosperous Ephesus with its sea terminal.

  The great Temple of Artemis or Diana, for which Ephesus was famous throughout the world, lay about a mile and a half northeast of the city, and a broad thoroughfare paved in marble, a continuation of one of the main streets of the city, ran to it. Over this marble road thousands passed each year to worship at the shrine of Artemis and to witness the vice-ridden ceremonies honoring this most dissolute of the goddesses. The patrons of divine Artemis were wealthy, and her priests occupied a high place in the life of the city.

  Descending the hill, Luke, Thecla, and Probus turned into the ancient road that ran from Smyrna to Ephesus. Where the road to the Temple of Artemis joined their route they mingled with the vast throng moving into the city from the morning worship at the temple. Many of the faithful carried small silver statues of the goddess or replicas of the famous temple which were sold everywhere. Inside the city itself the shops of the silversmiths were crowded with these emblems rather than the silver plate, engraved fruit baskets, bracelets, earrings, and medallions sold by the workers of silver of other cities.

  “The Ephesians seem devoted to their goddess,” Thecla observed. “Do they know nothing of Jesus?”

  “Ephesus has good reason to be content with Artemis,” Probus explained. “Her temple is one of the seven wonders of the world, and the silversmiths make a fortune from these little idols you see everywhere. Ephesus without Artemis would be like a Roman without his toga.” Then he grinned. “I will make a prophecy. When Ephesus loses faith in Artemis, the silversmiths will starve.”

  Along the broad street they were traveling, marble statues of many gods had been set in niches between the shops. Prominent among them were the Roman emperors who had been declared divine by official order. “It must be a wicked city,” Thecla said, “to worship so many gods.”

  “All cities are wicked,” Probus agreed. “When men leave the fields and move to the cities they lose part of their souls. Let me see. The Roman headquarters should be over on the west side of the city, if I remember correctly.”

  Apollonius engulfed Luke in a massive embrace, then stood back to look at him as if still unable to believe his own eyes. “I thought you were still in Antioch, Luke,” he said. “Mariamne and I have wished for you more than once these last few days.”

  “Is anything wrong?” Luke asked quickly.

  “It is past her time, a week at least, perhaps more. The baby seems to be so large, and Mariamne is so slight.”

  “Women have been having babies safely for thousands of years,” he reassured Apollonius. “Mariamne will come through all right.” These were common fears from expectant fathers, and there were always errors in calculating the date of confinement.

  “That isn’t the only worry I have,” Apollonius said. “My legion has been ordered to leave for Britain in a few weeks. There is a shortage of experienced officers for this expedition, and I see no way of getting out of it.” Then his face brightened. “But I will not worry with you here, little brother.”

  Luke looked at Thecla and knew that her thought was the same as his. Must they give up their cherished plan to go to Bithynia now that they were actually on the way? He took Thecla by the hand and introduced her to his brother as his wife.

  Apollonius’s mouth dropped open with amazement. “I didn’t even know you were married, Luke,” he said, but added gallantly. “You picked a beautiful girl, though.” He took them by the hand. “We must go to Mariamne at once; she will want to know that you are here. And you too, Probus,” he told the apothecary. “I shall not soon forget that you saved my life when we were attacked near the grave of Silvanus.”

  Apollonius and Mariamne dwelt near the Roman headquarters in a small but comfortable villa built around a garden. When Luke first saw Mariamne, he was shocked. He remembered her slender loveliness and now her body was grossly distorted far beyond what he would have expected from her pregnancy. Her face was swollen and her ankles puffy and large, until her appearance was almost a caricature of her former beauty. At the sight of them she burst into sobs, and Luke realized it was as much at realizing how she must look as from joy and relief at seeing them. With immediate understanding Thecla went to Mariamne and put her arms about the weeping young woman, comforting her while she led her to a couch. They sat there together while Luke told Apollonius and Mariamne about their experiences since they had seen each other and gave them messages from Theophilus in Antioch and Ananias in Tarsus.

  Apollonius would not hear of their staying anywhere except at the villa. When he returned to Roman headquarters, Probus went with him to look over the city, leaving Luke and Thecla with Mariamne. Luke made a thorough examination of the pregnant girl and when he had finished gave her a draught to quiet her nerves. Thecla came out into the atrium where he was reading a short time later and sat on a cushion, resting her head against his knee. “I am worried about Mariamne, Luke,” she said.

  “She is not well,” he admitted.

  “The baby seems so large.”

  “Much of that is swelling,” he explained. “Did you notice how her ankles and the rest of her body are puffed?”

  She shivered. “Is pregnancy always like this?”

  Luke put his arm about her. “Of course not. Most women have very little trouble, and they forget even that as soon as they see their babies.”

  “Mariamne told me how glad she and Apollonius are that you are here, Luke. Doesn’t it scare you sometimes to have so many people dependent upon you?”

  “That is part of being a physician.”

  “But you are more than just a physician. People seem to trust you the very moment they see you. I—I guess it is because the light of your soul shines in your eyes.”

  “Now you are flattering me,” Luke told her, smiling. “I think everybody would like to be kind and thoughtful of others, but they are afraid of being rebuffed and hurt.”

  “Aren’t you ever afraid of that, Luke?”

  “No, dear. I decided long ago that what anyone says about me or thinks of me cannot hurt me so long as I know I have done right inside myself.”

  “Jesus was that way, so you must be right.” Then soft color stole into her cheeks. “If Paul is wrong about His coming so soon, Luke, do you suppose we could have a baby of our own someday? I would want a boy just like you.”

  “Of course, dear,” he told her. “Whenever you wish. And I would be perfectly
happy with another Thecla.”

  Thecla reached for his hand with a sigh of pleasure. They were closer than they had been at any time since his return to Iconium, Luke realized. Perhaps it might even be best for them both if they stayed here in Ephesus with Mariamne and the baby for a while as Apollonius had suggested, letting Paul go on without them. But he did not believe that Paul would immediately agree to any such arrangement.

  The next morning Mariamne complained of a severe headache, and when Luke examined her again, he saw that the swelling in her body tissues had increased. The baby was in a normal position and apparently healthy, for it kicked strongly as he felt its outlines through the young mother’s abdomen. But there was no sign as yet of the contractions of the womb which would have meant the onset of the birth pains. Something else worried him, too, a strange look about Mariamne’s eyes, with a dulling of their normally clear gaze that he was unable to explain.

  Through the day Mariamne was no better. Luke had never seen a case like this, where the baby seemed to poison the mother, but he had heard of them. All authorities agreed that only an early onset of labor and delivery of the baby could stop the lethal process. Talking the case over with Probus at the evening meal, Luke said, “If there were only some way of removing the baby from the mother’s body.”

  “The ancient Jews claimed to have removed a living baby by cutting through the walls of the body into the womb. It is described in old Jewish scrolls, and I have run across it in the writings of some Persian poets.”

  “But did they ever save both mother and child?”

  “I found no record that they did,” Probus admitted. “And you would hardly want to try such a hazardous procedure when Mariamne will probably get rapidly better after the baby is born.”