The Damascus Road

by Jay Parini

  My commentary unnerved a few in the assembly, that much I could observe, but Schemuel liked my talk, and he suggested I meet with other Jews in the city. “I think you have good words,” he said. “It’s a strong message. Your father would be proud.”

  “We didn’t necessarily agree,” I said.

  “That’s as it should be. Fathers and sons. Often troublesome, as the one supplants the other.”

  This struck me, the idea of every son as his father’s executioner.

  Schemuel invited half a dozen leaders of the Jewish community to his house the next day, and Barnabas and I spent the afternoon with them, talking about Jesus and his message of radical love. But the message of Jesus was disruptive, and these intelligent listeners asked the right question, wondering if what I told them went against the Law of Moses and God’s promise to Israel. I said bluntly that Judaism could never be the same again, not from Jesus’s point of entry into the world. This, as it must, gave them pause.

  John Mark offered very little, as was appropriate for a young man. Yet his gift for taking notes added to his value, and I wondered if one day he might not amount to something as a writer—the fluency of his prose struck me at once. We talked at length about the art of rhetoric, which interested him, and I recommended that he study the early Romans and Greeks, who had written shrewdly on this subject.

  To spread the gospel, I knew I must perfect the art of rhetoric, which was as much about persuasion as presentation. I had to lure in the audience by the novelty of my approach. Dazzle them with my focus, my memory of detail. I would overpower them with the inevitability of my arguments, the deft arrangement of points. If I irritated many listeners, I could not help this. The truth is often irritating.

  “You are not consoling in your speech,” Musa had said, “but that isn’t important. Your style is your own. Style is the exaggeration of one’s temperament. You take what God has given, and you burnish it.”

  When I mentioned this to John Mark, he asked, “What has God given to me?”

  “We shall have to wait for that,” I said. “The answer will come.”

  We left the Jews of Salamis in a state of openness to Jesus, with one or two men in place who might lead a gathering of the Way there as we waited for the Lord’s return. I promised to write to them, and—if possible—to join them again. But we felt an urgent wish to press on, as Paphos awaited us, on the southwestern side of the island. It was the seat of government, and because Barnabas had a friend at the palace, the governor himself would greet us in this city that had arisen under the gaze of Aphrodite, the goddess of beauty, described by Sappho as “the enchantress, wily, gleaming,” the lover of “both men and gods.”

  According to legend, Aphrodite rose from the sea near Paphos. That a goddess of fertility and earthly love should dominate this coast made good sense when I thought of Paulus, whose reputation for lechery preceded him. I could foresee a massive challenge.

  “One must never trust rumors,” said Barnabas. “I’ve been surprised on many occasions.”

  It was better not to question Barnabas when he lifted up such empty rhetoric. There was so much less to him than met the eye.

  “Paulus is certainly a man of the flesh,” Barnabas added.

  I had never been one to pursue the flesh. Which is not to say that lust didn’t trouble me at times, even ruin my sleep. It did, repeatedly, and much to my annoyance. It was a wound in my character that no amount of prayer seemed to heal, and yet I wanted badly to liberate myself from this and every form of desire. I think the idea of Paulus and his amorous pursuits upset me more than I realized. But I knew that real freedom lay in wishing for nothing. Only to rest in God, never in the body. So prayer was essential now.

  My life in prayer only increased, and it helped me to temper my worst impulses and calm myself. I knew the psalm tradition well, and could draw from that deep well almost at will, relying on David’s wisdom. And the words of the prophets, too, bolstered my meditations. If only an angel of the Lord had “put a hot coal to my lips to redeem me,” as one read in Isaiah! Like the rest of humanity, I was mostly forced to carry the considerable burden of myself by myself. It felt at times as if God had abandoned me to my passions, the lurid theater of mind where I often lived so unhappily, with its colorful tapestries and florid chambers. In my dreams there were no boundaries.

  I could see that John Mark also suffered painfully from lust. He had gazed at the young women in the marketplace in Salamis with an intensity that embarrassed me, and I worried that he might lose his footing. I recited the opening of the first great psalm of David for him, hoping to uplift and inform him: Happy is the man who never walks in counsels of the wicked, never shelters in the way of sinners, never sits with those who scoff.

  “I am quite happy, Paul,” he replied, unaware of my intentions.

  Barnabas took me aside one day. “Try not to oppress the boy. There is a heaviness in your expression of concern. This kind of talk unsettles him.”

  “He has yet to waken to the Lord, in the deepest sense.”

  “It’s not your concern.”

  “My brothers are my concern!”

  I could see this journey would soon prove tiresome, even arduous. And we had scarcely begun.

  * * *

  We set off for Paphos early one morning, aided by a donkey that Schemuel had bestowed upon us, making our way along the zigzag coast, as the rocky mountainous interior held us at arm’s length. I would never worry about scrambling over passes, however precipitous, but I could see that John Mark would dislike climbing anything steep or challenging. He complained already about his feet—in his view we had done nothing but walk in the city of Salamis.

  In later years, I relished the stillness of mountain passes, the silence when the air thins, with the wind more like a soft sigh than a moan. I liked snowfields, black lakes, pebble-strewn paths, and long arid stretches of parched grass. But now we kept close to the shore, moving through flowering wild meadows or along ridges that fell off sharply to the sea. The sun lofted over us, golden-faced, and the island dazzled with its profusion of scarlet, orange, and yellow flowers. I found myself muttering praises to God as I walked.

  After several days, the approach to Paphos led into a narrow valley, with stony outcrops pushing through the cinnamon-red dirt of our path. The air stung of brine, growing more intense as we drew near. We saw below what looked like a flotilla of merchant ships offshore, dozens of them, anchored and asleep. And the infamous Temple of Aphrodite rose above the city, a site where any number of prostitutes found refuge and community.

  “It’s a city of whores,” said Barnabas.

  “The young must beware,” I said. “These women will be tempting.”

  “We have no money for whores,” said Barnabas, in a rare moment of levity.

  “I’ve never slept with a whore,” said John Mark.

  “You’ve never slept with anyone,” said Barnabas.

  “But if I should want children…”

  An idiotic exchange, especially as I had explained to John Mark that, with the coming apocalypse, it made no sense for him to think about the prospect of having a wife or children. Families belonged to the past, to history. The cycle of generation must stop. Saying this, I realized he was only eighteen, and it’s not easy to separate a young man from his lust.

  We found lodging in the Jewish quarter of the city. The keeper of the inn was Avital, a woman of seventy with the enviable calm that may accompany age in the right circumstances. I sat with her in her garden late into the night, under the stars, and she told me about the sins of Paphos.

  “It’s the goddess,” she said, saying that Aphrodite had cast her spell.

  Many Jews acknowledged (even worshipped) the pagan gods, especially given the spirit of Roman open-mindedness to all cults. I myself doubted that Claudius, the emperor, believed in any spirit higher t
han himself, and yet most of his subjects thought of him as a divinity as well, one capable of changing the seasons if he wished. Such notions played into the hands of astrologers, sorcerers, and religious fanatics, who fleshed out the marketplace of ideas in a place where the stars and planets held as much sway as the God of Israel.

  Barnabas sent a note to his friend at the palace to announce our arrival, and we were invited to dinner the next evening.

  Avital, her cheeks and forehead scored with crevices, scoffed at the news of this invitation. “You will see for yourself,” she said. “Any self-respecting Jew in Paphos avoids the palace.”

  It was pointless to explain that we had come to Paphos with a message for this particular and rarefied audience. If a man in power—in this case Paulus—would turn to Jesus, there was no limit to what God might do. Nevertheless, we had no idea what lay in store and approached the palace cautiously, intimidated by the armed guards at the gates, who nevertheless let us onto the grounds and inside the palace without interrogation. We had obviously been expected.

  Interior doors swung open, taking us deeper into the palace, where the opulence amazed us. Gold and silver fixtures blazed in the candlelight, as did the painted tiles and statues of Aphrodite in every niche. The walls had been hung with tapestries, and one had been embroidered with scenes of men and women in embrace, with animals in copulation, and assorted cultic practices. Whores eyed us from doorways as we passed through the chambers, led by a muscular young man in a loincloth, who had obviously been assigned to us.

  “Let me suck you,” one of girls said, tugging at my arm.

  I looked sharply away from her, but it was more difficult for John Mark.

  For his part, Barnabas tuned out their piping voices, taking the lead behind our guide.

  The ill-clad courtier ushered us into a grand reception room, where the governor squatted on a cushion with gold brocade. Palm fronds waved in the air, and the music of a lyre played from the corner of the room, the musician herself perhaps a votary of Sappho: naked, with a necklace of shells, legs crossed with her bare knees spread, the soles of her bare feet touching. Her small breasts held my attention, with their upturned nipples. I took the deepest of breaths.

  This was more difficult than I’d imagined.

  “Welcome, friends!” cried Paulus, coming toward us in a hail of good humor.

  He was a large man, with a wide, monumentally flat head graced by a dense outcrop of short hair in the style of Pompey the Great. He had no perceivable neck, and his nose was blue-veined. His fingers sprouted white hair above and below the knuckles, and on either side of many gold rings.

  He gripped my wrist, and the vehemence of his greeting puzzled me. We were hardly well-known or influential guests, and “friends” didn’t describe us. That Barnabas had a connection to the governor could not have mattered.

  Perhaps God was at work here?

  Sometimes the ground is fertile, ready for seed. Ready for water and sunlight.

  Something was surely afoot.

  As we introduced ourselves, it proved difficult not to look over the governor’s shoulder, where a lean young couple engaged in sexual congress on a low divan by the whitewashed wall. The girl sighed, gasped, and moaned luxuriously as the man—a slave, no doubt—plunged deeply into her from behind. He had a shimmering sword, as I recall.

  John Mark froze in place.

  “We’ve come to talk about Jesus,” I said, putting a hand on John Mark to draw him back among us.

  “Ah, the Christ,” said the governor. “I have heard of him, your Jesus of Nazareth.”

  At which point Bar-Jesus appeared, the magus also known as Elymas.

  “Bar-Jesus!” the governor announced, as if laying down a challenge.

  The sorcerer stood at least a head above the rest of us, with a muddled face and sharp, crooked nose; his fiery upturned eyes had been heightened by charcoal rings. The eyeballs themselves revolved in a yellowy liquid, almost rolling back into his head as he mumbled unintelligibly.

  “He is praying for you,” the governor said. “He told us about you. And said you must come to meet us. Jesus is his Lord.”

  I didn’t think so.

  “I am the son of God,” the magus said.

  Barnabas acquired a puzzled look, wondering what was unfolding before him. It was a claim he had never heard from human lips before.

  John Mark said, “You’re a magus!”

  The governor smiled at him. “Dear boy, he can make serpents sing. He has turned water into wine—a very useful trick in these parts.”

  I had heard tales of Jesus doing this at a wedding feast near Capernaum, although accounts of this miracle varied. It worried me that Bar-Jesus claimed to have done the same thing, as if challenging us. This would soon become a test of powers.

  Slaves appeared at our elbows unbidden, bearing cups of wine in silver goblets. John Mark was only too happy to receive this gift, and I accepted a goblet as well. We were guests and must behave as guests. Wine settles the stomach and opens the mind. And I preferred it to water of unknown origins, which often made me sick.

  The young woman on the divan shrieked, an expression of pleasure strangely akin to agony. I put a hand over my eyes.

  “Pay no attention to them,” said Barnabas to John Mark. “They are rutting goats.”

  “I will summon the spirits,” said Bar-Jesus.

  Any number of cats swirled about our feet, and fresh couples emerged from behind curtains, all naked, with the men in various states of arousal. I could see that the governor enjoyed this continuous demonstration of perfervid lust. Aphrodite was, I saw, alive and well in this city—and much venerated. Her presence blazed from every wall, every orifice, in a wilderness of mirrors.

  “Sit, please,” the governor said.

  Slaves drew cushions in a circle, and we reclined, as platters heaped with delicious fruit—melons, pomegranates, oranges, figs, and dates—appeared. I realized that, to my surprise, I was hungry. Insanely hungry.

  So was John Mark, who moved greedily to devour a handful of sticky dates.

  Bar-Jesus flushed and swayed before us with feeling, in a stupor of ecstasy, chanting in a language I could not recognize.

  “He has summoned the dead for us,” said Paulus. “My own lost brother, he came to speak to us only yesterday. Quite remarkable! He stood before us. And spoke at length.”

  This caught John Mark’s attention. “Your dead brother?”

  “This was nothing for Bar-Jesus. He taps the underworld,” said the governor. “He’s truly a god.”

  Bar-Jesus smiled; he was missing several teeth, and those remaining were rusty nails driven into his gums. Dressed with a purple silk pallium over his tunic, he rocked, now chanting in what I decided was some dialect of Latin, hieratic to a fault. His feet were bare—the large toes were as purple as radishes.

  “I will speak to my father, the Almighty Lord,” he said.

  I inclined an ear.

  “Jesus, Jesus, Jesus,” he said. I could not tell if he referred to himself or my own Lord and master. “Almighty One! Father in heaven!”

  We waited patiently, but it took some time for him to gather his thoughts. A slave girl offered to refill my cup, but I waved her away.

  “What do you ask of Jesus?” I said, drawing out the magus.

  “He is the son of Aphrodite.”

  “Not so!” Barnabas said.

  I put a hand on his arm to silence him. We must let Bar-Jesus condemn himself by his own words.

  He raised his arms, saying, “Aphrodite, goddess, we acknowledge you are the holy mother of fertility. You inhabited Mary, mother of the world. You are my own dear mother!” This vaguely comprehensible sequence of statements dribbled into incoherence, as he began to speak in tongues, trilling his consonants.

  The young couple by the
wall continued to writhe and exhale with pleasure, and the mere mention of the goddess quickened the pace of their copulation.

  John Mark sat with a hand on his crotch.

  Bar-Jesus drew a smile like a tight bow, the tip of some invisible but poisonous arrow aimed toward us. “God invites us to love,” he said. “It is the freedom of love he preaches. Love everywhere. Love everlasting.”

  “But not copulation!” Barnabas exclaimed.

  “Copulation is the essential posture of man and beast,” said Bar-Jesus.

  The governor smacked his lips, delighted by his perverse teacher, whom he had doubtless encouraged by his patronage.

  I saw I must step in aggressively or lose my position altogether.

  “My Jesus has not preached physical love, although he allows it,” I said. “It is a sacred rite of marriage.”

  “And everywhere as well, Lord have mercy. We marry each time we mate,” said Bar-Jesus. He stuttered: jug jug jug…

  The Holy Spirit seized me, and I had no control over my movements. I felt my hand rise, my right finger extending toward Bar-Jesus. A bolt of lightning leapt from the tip of my finger and blinded him.

  Bar-Jesus gasped, his head on fire. The eyes sparked and sizzled in his skull.

  “What have you done?” the governor asked.

  “God has blinded him. I was only his vessel.”

  “But why?”

  “He doesn’t tell the truth about our God, or the Christ who lives in Jesus of Nazareth!”

  The governor motioned to a slave, who stepped forward to lead Bar-Jesus in all his misery and muttering from the room. Paulus understood that God had empowered me to blind Bar-Jesus in this ghastly way.

  With a sharp clap, Paulus sent the young copulating couple from the room, then sat cross-legged, asking me to tell him more about my Jesus. Questions tumbled from him. What had Jesus—the real Jesus—actually taught? Where had he lived? What were the circumstances surrounding his fabled execution? Did I know him? Had he truly been raised from the dead?