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

by Frank G. Slaughter

  Perhaps an hour later Thecla called urgently to Luke from the room where Mariamne lay. One glance told him what was happening. Mariamne’s head was thrown back until her body seemed to be arched upon head and heels and her limbs were jerking spasmodically. It was the convulsions of childbirth, the most dreaded of all complications and the one most universally fatal!

  The initial convulsion lasted less than a minute, then Mariamne’s racked body fell back on the couch. Apparently unconscious, she breathed stertorously with her eyes closed, but a few seconds later she moaned in her coma and put her hand to her abdomen. When Luke felt for the womb through her abdominal wall he found the muscles hard under his fingers for fully a quarter of a minute. “The pains have begun,” he reported to Thecla and Probus. “There is some hope now.”

  “But how can she stand such spasms?” Thecla asked fearfully. “I thought that one would twist her body in two.” As if to echo her words, Mariamne was racked by another convulsion, one so severe that she was unable to breathe while the muscles were contracted, and her lips and ears turned blue before they finally relaxed and her body fell back inert upon the couch.

  None of them knew Apollonius had come in until they heard his gasp of horror. White as marble, he swayed and would have fallen in a faint had not Probus seized him and led him to a chair. “Is she dying, Luke?” he asked piteously.

  “No,” Luke told him, “but she is gravely ill. We must try to get the baby delivered before the spasms take all of her strength.”

  “But how can you do it?” Thecla asked. “The pains have just begun.”

  “Get me several pitchers of hot water,” Luke directed. “And bring blankets and cloths. Sometimes wrapping in hot cloths makes convulsions less severe.”

  Thecla and the servants returned in a few minutes, bringing basins of hot water and blankets. Together they wrapped Mariamne’s body in a steaming cocoon, but even with the heat another terrible spasm racked her body.

  “If you dared to cut into the womb,” Probus said thoughtfully. “But then she could hardly stand it now.”

  Luke nodded agreement. “There is nothing to do but wait—and hope.”

  Luke and Probus and Thecla worked all through the night giving Mariamne what little help they could by easing her body during the spasms, replacing the hot cloths and blankets, and praying when there was time. But as the hours wore on they could see that the battle was being lost. Slowly at first Mariamne’s pulse grew weaker, then most rapidly as the end approached. Finally there came a time when the bluish color of her lips, ears, and skin no longer lightened between the spasms, and Luke knew that death was only a few minutes away at most. There had been no sign of movement from the baby for the past several hours, and Luke was sure that it had died, poisoned perhaps by the same agent which was killing Mariamne, if indeed it had not been killed by the powerful contractions of the mother’s womb upon its tender body

  Depressed by their inability to help or to comfort Apollonius, they watched death take Mariamne. When at last there was no sign of breath or flutter of the pulse Luke reached down to draw the sheet up over the face of the dead girl. But as his hand passed over her now relaxed abdomen he felt a sudden faint movement, as if something had kicked feebly against his palm. Instantly he realized that the baby was still alive.

  “Probus!” he cried. “My instrument case. The baby still lives.”

  The quick-witted apothecary divined his intention at once and ran for the case of scalpels, tearing it open as he came back and holding one out to Luke.

  “What are you going to do?” Apollonius cried. “Don’t cut her now.”

  But Luke was already tearing the covers away, exposing the dead girl’s body with the tremendously enlarged womb containing the baby inside it. “He is going to open the body and try to save the child before it suffocates,” Probus explained as Luke drew the knife down the rounded eminence of Mariamne’s abdomen, slitting open the skin and the thinned-out muscles beneath in one quick stroke.

  Apollonius started to object, but Probus said quickly, “The Lex Caesaris demands that a physician open the body of the mother to save the child if he thinks it still lives.” Actually, as Probus well knew, there was really no “Law of the Caesars” to that effect on the statue books. But custom dating back into antiquity decreed that the physician attending a woman who died in childbirth should open the body and deliver the still living child if possible.

  The explanation stopped any objection from Apollonius, half crazed as he was, and Luke worked swiftly on, slitting the thin membrane lining the abdomen and exposing the bluish-red mass of the womb. An awkward stroke now might cut through the muscle and plunge the knife into the baby inside the uterus. And yet he must work fast, for only seconds remained to reach the child before it suffocated.

  Stroking carefully, he cut through the muscular wall of the womb and saw the almost black blood ooze from cut vessels. With his sleeve he wiped it away—there was no time to reach for a cloth—and cut again, ever deeper. Suddenly the entire muscle wall parted, weakened as it was from the strain of the convulsions, and a gush of yellow fluid poured out over Mariamne’s body and drenched Luke from the waist down. He could see the baby now, however, and felt it kick feebly against his hand.

  “The baby lives,” he cried exultantly. “We are in time.” Quickly he slipped two fingers into the opening he had made in the womb and, using them to protect the baby, cut down through the wall until a space was opened up through which he could lift the baby from its mother’s body. It was a boy, large and heavy. He held it up by the feet with the head down and slapped the child sharply on the buttock. Its chest jerked convulsively once, twice, then expanded as air rushed in for the first breath. An initial wail of protest was followed by another, and in a few seconds the boy was crying lustily, the blue tint of its lips and skin fading quickly into a healthy pink.

  Apollonius stared at the baby as if unable to believe the miracle he had witnessed, while Thecla sobbed with relief after the almost unbearable tension. “Wonderful Luke,” Probus said admiringly. “I never saw anything like that before.”

  Luke breathed a silent prayer of relief and thanksgiving at having felt the initial kick through Mariamne’s body which had told him the baby was alive. Otherwise, he knew, the child would have died with its mother. Quickly now he tied the gelatinous cord connecting the child to its mother’s body and cut it across. Thecla had gained control of herself now, and when Luke held out the baby to her she wrapped it in a blanket and took it into her arms, cradling it to her breast and crooning softly to it. As if it realized that all danger was over, the child stopped crying. Seeing the glory in Thecla’s eyes, Luke thought that it would indeed be a sin to deny her children of her own, as Paul wished.

  X

  Apollonius was so distraught over the death of Mariamne that Luke and Thecla were forced to take over the entire operation of his household. Thecla gladly assumed the care of the infant, who was given the name Apollos Lucanus. The strapping wife of a Roman soldier was hired as a wet nurse, and the household quickly settled down to the happy sort of existence that surrounds a growing child. Luke gave of his medical skill unstintingly to those who came to consult him, but Ephesus was a busy city of workers, and so a considerable portion of his practice could afford to pay. The fact that he had at one time been military physician to Sergius Paulus, who was highly respected in Roman military circles, also brought him many patients from the governing class.

  The eagerness with which Thecla assumed the care of the baby betrayed her strong maternal instincts and, listening to her crooning to the child, Luke found himself dreading the day when he would have to tear her away from it. Preparations for the sailing of the Ephesian guard for Gaul and Britain went on apace, and the day of Apollonius’s departure drew nearer. A letter had been dispatched to Theophilus in Antioch and to Ananias in Tarsus telling them of the death of Mariamne and the almost miracul
ous birth of the child, but it would be several months at least before Theophilus could come from Antioch for the baby. And even then the child should not make such a long and difficult voyage until he was at least six months old.

  One night as Luke and Thecla stood beside the cradle she said, “Why can’t we stay here until the baby leaves for Antioch, Luke, and go to Bithynia later? After what happened to Mariamne, we owe it to her to see that her baby is well cared for.”

  “Probus has been trying to convince me that we should stay in Ephesus, at least for a while,” Luke admitted. “But what can we do about Paul?”

  “He would understand,” she said. “There must be many places he has not visited in Galatia and here along the coast. Then we could all go to Bithynia later on.”

  “We certainly can’t leave the baby until Theophilus comes,” Luke agreed. “I will ask Probus to meet Paul at Thyatira—he should be there any day now—and explain all this to him. Then if Paul wants to go on anyway, Probus can go with him. He knows everything that I do for Paul when he is sick.”

  Probus departed the next day in a chariot placed at his disposal by Apollonius. They had figured that it would not take more than three or four days for him to drive the fifty-odd miles to Thyatira, talk to Paul and return, but a week passed before the chariot drove into the courtyard of the villa. To his surprise, Luke saw that Paul was with the apothecary.

  Paul was in high spirits, and both Thecla and Luke were glad to see him, so the meeting was a happy one.

  “I would have returned sooner,” Probus explained to Luke, “but when I got to Thyatira, Paul had already gone through to Troas, so I followed him.” Troas, the ancient Troy of the famous Trojan Wars, was some fifty miles northwest of the city of Thyatira, where the road branched northward across the Olympian range to Bithynia.

  Paul took up the account then. “I stopped at Thyatira, Luke, because I had promised you that we would go into Bithynia, but a warning from God told me to go on to Troas instead. And it was here that the call came to Macedonia.”

  “Macedonia? You had not planned to go there, had you?”

  “I had not planned it,” Paul said, “but God had. A man came to me by night in a dream and said, ‘Come over into Macedonia and help us.’ And when I pleaded that there was work to be done in Galatia and Bithynia, he still remained, saying the same words. So I could only conclude that God’s will was being revealed to me.”

  Luke glanced at Probus, but the apothecary only shrugged. Whether it had been Paul’s desire to move to new territories which had brought on the dream, or whether God had really called him to a new field, no one would ever know. But Paul’s eagerness and enthusiasm left no doubt that the suggestion was welcome to him. And it might be a good move, Luke realized. The cities of Macedonia, the province lying northward on the Greek mainland around the upper coast of the Aegean Sea, across from Ephesus and Troas, were largely Greek with a few Jews. For the most part their level of culture and education was higher than that of the rude peasant people of the Galatian highlands, whose shifting moods they all had ample reason to fear. In Grecian cities Paul might not be believed at once, but he would be accorded a courteous hearing, for the Greeks welcomed anyone with a new concept in the field of philosophy.

  “Macedonia is a fertile field,” Luke agreed. And Probus added, “Certainly more so than Galatia. And the teachings of Christ have always appealed to Greek thought.”

  “Exactly what I told Silas and Timothy,” Paul said enthusiastically. “They are as eager to go on as I am.”

  Thecla had gone to the nursery and now she came in, carrying the baby in her arms for Paul to see. A less observant man than Paul could not have failed to see how happy she was in her maternal role. Luke saw the apostle glance at her sharply, and a frown, as if of displeasure, momentarily creased his forehead. He tousled the child’s dark hair for a moment, then turned back to Luke. “Probus tells me you and Thecla would like to stay on in Ephesus for a while, Luke.”

  “At least until Theophilus is able to take the child back to Antioch with him,” Luke explained. “There is no one else to keep him.”

  “Apollonius is worrying about the baby,” Thecla added. “And since he is going so far away, the least that Luke can do is see that Apollos Lucanus is safe.”

  “We can talk more of this later,” Paul said. “I would like to rest awhile now.”

  Probus took Paul to his quarters, leaving Luke and Thecla alone with the baby. “What was wrong with Paul, Luke?” she asked. “Why should he mind our staying in Ephesus with the baby when he is not going to Bithynia after all?”

  “I don’t think it pleased him to see you with the child,” Luke told her.

  “But why, Luke?”

  “Have you looked at yourself when you have him in your arms, darling? Anyone could see that God intended you to have children of your own.”

  Slowly the animation faded from her face. “You think Paul is afraid I might want a child so badly that I would break my vow of—of chastity?”

  “I have always been perfectly honest with you, Thecla,” Luke said. “It seems obvious to me, and Probus agrees, that Paul has loved you for a long time, probably since your conversion in Tarsus. And in the way that I love you, the love of a man for the woman he takes as his wife, to bear his children.”

  “But I am your wife.”

  For a moment Luke did not speak, then he stooped and kissed her. “Are you, dear?” he asked gently. “It is for you to say.”

  He saw the unhappiness fill her eyes until the tears started and her chin began to quiver. Then with a muffled sob she ran from the room, holding the baby so close against her breast that he set up a wail of protest.

  That night at the evening meal Paul said abruptly, “Luke, I want you to go into Macedonia with me.”

  “Why do you want Luke?” Thecla asked.

  “Luke’s work as a physician creates much goodwill everywhere we go,” Paul explained. “Besides, you must have learned a great deal about the region around the Aegean Sea, Luke, when you were at the Temple of Asklepios in Pergamum.”

  “Yes,” Luke admitted. “We often treated sick from Philippi and Corinth who had not been cured in the temples at Athens and Cos.”

  “Then you can be a great help to me,” Paul said. He turned to Thecla. “It should only be a few months, my dear, and meanwhile I can see how happy it will make you to stay here and look after Luke’s namesake.”

  “What about Bithynia?” Thecla asked. “You told me you would go there with us.”

  “I go where God directs me,” Paul explained. “So I may not ever see Bithynia. But I have another reason for wanting you with me,” he told Luke. “Lately I have had a feeling that my fever may be coming back.”

  “Macedonia is highly populated,” Probus reminded him. “You would always be able to find competent physicians.”

  “None so competent as Luke,” Paul said, smiling. “But I am thinking more of the value of his medical work in fostering goodwill among those we visit than of my own welfare.”

  “Suppose Luke wants to have a life of his own,” Probus argued. “He is well liked here in Ephesus and is doing much good, not only in healing the sick but in showing how to live in Christ. And Thecla is happy here too. Why not leave them alone when they are doing good work?”

  Paul flushed with exasperation. “Must I remind you, Probus,” he said sharply, “that I am the leader of our party, called by God and designated by James and the elders at Jerusalem to carry the gospel of Jesus to the Gentiles? If I feel that Luke can best serve Christ by helping carry the Way to those in Macedonia, it is his duty to obey me unless he wishes to sever his connection with us.”

  Probus stood up. “You are clever, Paul,” he said bitterly. “But you are fighting a losing battle when you use religious teachings to keep Luke and Thecla from being what they rightfully should be, man and wif
e. One day they will come to their senses.” With a snort of disgust the apothecary left the room.

  Paul was not even taken aback by the objections of Probus, and the thought came to Luke that he might even have been expecting some such argument and had prepared himself for it. “I am afraid Probus has not yet experienced the true baptism of the Spirit of Jesus,” Paul said in tones of regret. “Else he would not be so suspicious of those who must do the Lord’s work even at the sacrifice of their own desires.”

  “But Probus is good and kind,” Thecla protested. “Look how he gave up his business in Antioch to work with the poor. And I have heard Luke say he could have been chief minister to Sergius Paulus in Cyprus if he had wished.”

  “Jesus accepts no halfway service,” Paul said a little sternly. “Remember His words, ‘Anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me.’ Will you go into Macedonia with me, Luke?”

  Luke turned to Thecla. “It is for you to decide, dear.” For a moment she did not speak. And then her voice was so low that it was barely a whisper. “We serve Christ, Luke, so we must put His cross on our shoulders daily. You will have to go.”

  “God will reward you both for this sacrifice,” Paul said briskly. “Be sure of that.”

  Later, when Luke was bidding Thecla good night, she clung to him, sobbing. “I do love you, darling,” she whispered, “more than anything else in the world except”—her voice broke— “except Jesus.”

  When Luke told Probus of his decision the apothecary said angrily, “You are a fool, Luke. Paul said nothing about your going to Macedonia when we were returning from Troas. In fact, he was very much interested when I told him of the work you had been doing here in Ephesus. But when he got here and saw what being with the baby is doing to Thecla, he realized he was losing his hold over her. Now he is determined to separate you.”

  It all fitted the facts, Luke realized, and in spite of his desire to be entirely fair to Paul, he was more than halfway sure Probus was right. “It may be better this way, though,” he said. “As it is, Thecla and I can never have children of our own until she realizes what you and I know, that Paul is wrong about the immediate coming of Jesus.”