The Damascus Road

by Jay Parini

  * * *

  I surprised Prisca and Aquila with my skills at tent-making and the repair and manufacture of sails, and they invited me to work every day beside them in the shop that they recently opened in Corinth. It felt good to plunge into this task again, reviving old skills. I was able, for instance, to procure hides from local temples, where sacrificial offerings meant an abundance of goatskin, which we dressed with alum—perfect for certain kinds of sails. The demand for our strong sails only increased when it became clear they could withstand heavy weather at sea, and soon we had to employ others in the task of production.

  It delighted me to see Prisca and Aquila so happy with these results.

  “We must put a fair portion of this money aside for the Jerusalem gathering,” I said.

  News of the drought in Palestine had been filtering in for months, with reports of a desperate famine, and I explained to my friends that we should follow the example of Jesus and give as much, even more, than we could afford. Cast your bread upon the waters, and it will after many days return to you, one read in Ecclesiastes. This rang in my heart as the height of ethical wisdom. God would only reward our loving with more love. There was a glorious circle of affection that we could describe.

  It also mattered that we should not lose the confidence of the Pillars, who must regard us as supportive, not peripheral or oppositional. Though we differed on certain matters, we worked in our separate ways to make the world ready for the return of the Christ, helping to realize the Kingdom of God. “Many messengers,” I would say, “but only one message.”

  I never planned to stay in Corinth for nearly two years and longed to return to Macedonia, sensing that the spirit breathed a deep life into the assembly at Philippi, Lydia’s gathering, which could become a base for our movement in the West. Lydia had begun to gather money for the Jerusalem collection after I had written to her about this project, responding as I knew she would. I hoped to return to transport her gift, and those of others, to Judea myself. I would go with Luke and Timothy at my side, and perhaps Silas as well. It would be a kind of triumph for us, for our movement in the West.

  But I worried about Timothy, whom I had sent back into Thessalonica. What had become of him? And what would I tell his mother if I never found him again?

  The question of Timothy preoccupied me as I sat at my table in the shop, surrounded by sails and canvases. I suffered now, filled with a strange and horrible longing I could not quite assuage or understand.

  Aquila said little, which was true to his nature, but Prisca told me countless good stories about the assembly in Rome, where the Way now prospered, and I prodded her for more details. What had Peter said to the circle when he passed through the capital? Did Andrew come as well? The Good News had begun to flood the synagogues at the heart of the empire, and the Way attracted a growing number of Godfearers in the emperor’s court, even within his own family. All of this boded well for us.

  Roman seamen came frequently to our shop with sails to repair, and they added to my fund of stories. As ever, I longed to go to Rome, to see for myself the Forum where Cicero had walked and talked. And the Circus Maximus, which owed its grandeur to Julius Caesar. This great city continued to grow as a destiny in my imagination, and I knew that God called me there. One day I would stand on the Palatine Hill and proclaim the glory of God and the healing energies of his son, Jesus of Nazareth. I would stand at the imperial center.

  Prisca never tired of my questions about her city, and said, “Well, you must go there.”

  “One day,” I said.

  * * *

  Luke and I moved among the synagogues on the Sabbath, expanding our contacts within the community of Corinthian Jews. And we held meetings each week on the First Day in Prisca and Aquila’s house, which Luke and I shared with them, on Corvo Street. Our assembly multiplied week by week, spilling into their garden, where eventually we had as many as three dozen worshippers, mostly Greeks, who saw the love of God expressed in the face of Jesus and labored in the anticipation of his return. We shared the sacred meal, and I would talk afterward about whatever passages in the scriptures had caught my attention in recent days. Luke would sometimes read sayings of Jesus culled from one or another of his collections.

  I would sit in the garden alone with Prisca at twilight, drinking wine, listening to the nightingales and owls, which lifted their songs over the constant thrumming of the cicadas. Thousands of fireflies flashed and failed in the dark, a mirror of my soul, which tingled as we leaned into each other.

  How can I talk about this with moderation? I loved Prisca. And thought about her constantly.

  “Your obsession with her is evident, and it’s unhealthy,” Luke said.

  I didn’t agree. One knows God through people and in people. I felt the love of God in Prisca, in the way her sympathies lit my day. I wanted simply to live in her company. I wanted to know her, more and more, finding out everything about her. The slightest detail from her past interested me, such as what she liked to eat as a child, what stories her father told her before sleeping, how she liked to play a flute in the family garden or walk alone by the river through the great city, dreaming of the vast imperial web of roads and remote outposts she would visit one day.

  She knew the writings of Plato and Heracleitus quite well, and we talked at length about the meaning of Logos. “Everything passes, changes,” said Heracleitus, “but the Logos remains, it’s what we hold in common.” Even before I could articulate the association, she compared the Logos to God and his manifestation in Jesus. It was, she said, “what Jesus had in common with God, the core element of his Christhood.” At times Prisca went a little far, perhaps revealing too much, as when she said, “Aquila and I, let me say…we do enjoy our bodies. We live inside each other. But our souls are conjoined as well, and the spirit exceeds the boundaries of our flesh.”

  I didn’t need to be told this, because I had a room adjacent to their bedroom and had been shaken by their cries in the night. I knew only too well the configurations of their physical love and could imagine their ecstasies. Love among the married was not a sin, of course, unless it was misused. Lust itself was human and necessary, as it drew a man and a woman together, a gift from God, a way of intersecting souls and creating the race. But hadn’t the time for generation ended? Was it not the right moment to cast our thoughts beyond the mortal world?

  I understood their dilemma, of course. I knew as well as they did that lust overwhelms us, as I myself had been overwhelmed.

  I wanted to lie with Prisca, that was true. But I knew I must banish such thoughts, and I prayed fervently, asking God to spare me, to relieve me of the images and feelings that made me weak in her presence. I begged him to pluck me from these flames.

  I began to worry about Timothy now. Had he been killed or imprisoned? There was nowhere to send a letter to him, though I tried to get information about his whereabouts as best I could.

  “You’re mad, Paul,” Luke said, when I revealed my worries. “The young take care of themselves. Timothy and Silas are competent men.” After a pause, he said, “Silas in particular.”

  This gave me no comfort. Having promised Timothy’s mother that I would look after him, what had I done?

  Luke heard rumors that a number of missionaries from Jerusalem had passed through Thessalonica and Galatia as well, and they had severely contradicted the message I had brought from the Pillars. It was even worse. They insisted that James had strongly condemned my teachings, calling me a false prophet, a derogator of the Law of Moses. He claimed that Jesus would not have found anything I said plausible. I was a manifestation of Ha-satan, the Adversary.

  Me!

  I took it upon myself to write sharp letters to the gatherings where these evil things might be believed. It was tedious, the way I must repeat myself. The mysteries must remain mysteries, as we possess only a partial view, and our vision is distorted
; we look through a milky glass. It became clearer to me each day that God addressed the whole world in Jesus, not only the Jews, as James would have it. God was God, of course, and still Jehovah, in love with Israel, but Israel itself would expand to include the whole of the human race. No man or woman in the end would be lost.

  I fear that some of my darker energies got into my reflections, and Prisca upbraided me after one of my weekly talks. “You often lose me, Paul. I can’t follow your thinking,” she said. “Is something wrong?”

  I didn’t really answer her, but I leaned close, eager to smell her breath.

  Luke saw this and said, “You look at Prisca in ways that make me, and probably her, uneasy. You sigh plaintively in her company. Your longing is palpable, and Aquila has noticed this as well. He is restrained but not blind!”

  Such nonsense, I told him. But I knew what I had done and felt guilty as charged. I slumped into a darkness of the soul, and no depth of prayer relieved me or could take me out of this hole. Perhaps James was right, I thought. I was a pawn of the Adversary, lost in the well of my own black soul. Night after night I lay awake, fearing that the dawn would never come. And then I was afraid it would come, and I would have to walk into the daylight exposed as a fool, adrift. The sun would kill me with its blaze, tear me apart. I prayed, as Jesus had prayed in his worst hour: God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?

  But then, in springtime, everything changed.

  I was sitting by myself in the garden when, unannounced and unexpected, Timothy stepped into the sunlight. I had never seen anyone more radiant.

  Had his hair turned gold?

  I could barely stand. He approached with a sweet shy smile, and I opened my arms and held him without saying a word for such a long time. “My son, you’re here, and safe,” I said at last.

  He brought news of Thessalonica, and the stories were worse than I had feared. The Way had slipped into strange ideas, narrowing their view of what Jesus had said and what his life and sacrifice had meant. Hearing this, I knew I must get back there as soon as possible. It seemed impossible, how we advanced a step or two, then slipped back. Whatever did God have in mind?

  Over Timothy’s shoulder I could see Silas, who had gained weight. His jowls hung loose, his feet splayed, and his toes looked black as dates. I knew I must send him away, although I hated to do this and didn’t know how it might happen. I must pray for guidance, I told myself. God would explain everything and guide me. But he had a lot of explaining to do!

  I didn’t, in fact, know what trouble lay in store in Corinth itself.

  The Jews in the city, unbeknownst to me, resented our accomplishments and regarded me as a threat. A few of them thought I exaggerated the accomplishments of Jesus and wondered if he was the actual Christ promised in the scriptures. “He is Lord and king,” I said in a synagogue one day, though my words were met with hostility, with Abel Ben-Ezra, the most respected rabbi in Corinth, taking me aside.

  “I know you mean well, and that God has touched your heart,” he said. “But you should leave Corinth while it remains possible.” He told me that a new proconsul was making his way from Rome, a man called Gallio, the brother of Seneca, the well-respected philosopher. “He may be hostile to the Way,” he said, adding that he “wants to squash all potential forms of rebellion.” Our popular gathering of the Way in Corinth was “not in any way good for the Jews,” he added. “We live always on the fringe, as you know. We can’t arouse their suspicions.”

  The day after this exchange with Ben-Ezra, which worried me badly, I came upon a crowd that had gathered to see the new leader’s arrival. They stood four and five rows deep along the roadside cheering him as he passed. And I thought of Cicero and his return to Rome from exile in Thessalonica. After a dreadful separation from power, from his family and friends, his homecoming was delirious for him and his multitude of admirers. For miles and miles the masses—Roman workers and slaves, freemen, tradesmen—lined the roadside to catch a glimpse of the great orator, this representative of Reason and Good Sense, who would restore the republic to its democratic origins, bring calm again after years of autocratic misrule and brutality.

  Gallio’s presence delighted the Corinthians, who believed a new broom might sweep the stables clean. This was always the fantasy when new regimes came into power. But this proconsul’s strong presence inspired my enemies, who appealed to him in person at the palace, calling me “a subversive, a traitor to Rome.” They began to harass us at our gatherings, too: shouting from the back of the room, claiming that we taught a twisted version of Judaism, contravened the Law of Moses, made light of circumcision, allowed Jews and Greeks to fornicate, and served meat that had been sacrificed to idols. (They knew that I purchased sacrificial goats from temples for sails and tents and had somehow convinced themselves I would make a meal of these poor creatures before tanning their hides.)

  One morning I was apprehended on my way to the workshop by a gang of young thugs, who bound my hands behind my back with a rough piece of rope. One of them boxed my ears, while another spat at me. They tossed me into the back of a cart and wheeled me to the basilica, where Gallio presided over a once-a-week Court of the People. I was brought before the bald, overly ripe Gallio, whose forehead bulged, inflated with thought and self-importance. His nose was large and soft, with flat nostrils. He sat on a throne of sorts between potted plants and two Roman guards in bronze helmets. A number of menacing lictors flanked these guards, ready to apprehend and flog those whom Gallio considered guilty of breaking the law.

  I had heard terrible things about the Corinthian prisons and could not imagine myself in custody there. So fear squeezed me in its tight fist. I should have listened to Ben-Ezra and left while it was still possible.

  “What is the charge against this man?” Gallio asked. He looked rather annoyed by this intrusion on his time, dipping his eyes to one side, as if mesmerized by a tiny green lizard on the floor.

  Susthanes, a leading Jew in Corinth, said, “This man is a Jew, a Pharisee who studied in Jerusalem under a great scholar. But he teaches that the Mosaic Laws don’t apply to him and his associates. He doesn’t care if a Jew and a Greek dine together. He eats the flesh of unclean animals.”

  “Does any of this matter?”

  “It does to us, sir. As you know, Roman law protects us. We have the right to conduct our lives in a manner that accords with Jewish traditions and practices.”

  “Oh, dear,” he said. “Has this been written into law?”

  “I know the emperor agrees.”

  “You and the emperor, I assume, are friends?” There was laughter in the hall, and even the lictors could not suppress their smiles.

  “What I say is commonplace knowledge.”

  “Not to me! Are you saying I don’t know what I’m doing?”

  “I’m asking for justice.”

  “Ah, yes! Justice! Excellently put.” He looked at me directly. “And who are you?”

  “Paul of Tarsus, a Jew in good standing. I studied in Jerusalem under Gamaliel, as this fellow has said. But I mean no harm. I’m a Roman citizen, and I support Roman authority.”

  Gallio sighed, turning to Susthanes. “Has anyone been hurt?” Silence followed. “Has this man stolen anything, broken anything? Has he fomented violence? A riot, perhaps? We do not want riots in Corinth.”

  “He disregards Jewish law.”

  “You don’t seem to realize that I have no power over such things. Jewish laws don’t interest us. Do you not have priests, a tribal council of some kind?”

  “Trouble will follow from his teachings.”

  “The trouble is with you, sir!”

  Gallio caught my eye again. “Go back to where you came from, Paul of Tarsus. I don’t want to hear about you again.” Then he fell upon Susthanes. “You have wasted my time. We have important cases to deal with, not squabbling among Jews over laws that
do not concern anyone beyond your circle.” He stood now, furious. “Take him away from me! That one!”

  He gestured to the lictors, who seized Susthanes.

  From what I later discovered, they beat him badly. But I can’t say that I didn’t believe he deserved this treatment.

  I returned home to inform Prisca and Aquila that we must leave, as soon as possible, and urged them to accompany us. Why not help to spread the Good News abroad? The leather shop would continue without us, as we had employed a dozen others and taught them well.

  I expected resistance, but they agreed to go with us for a time, believing that the end drew near and that the Christ would return soon.

  “Jesus will find us in motion on his behalf,” said Aquila.

  It was one of the finest things he ever said, I told Luke.

  “And one of the only things,” he said.

  Silas, much to my relief, asked to remain in Corinth. He and Crispus had founded a gathering of their own at the western edge of the city, by the Windy Gate, on the steep hill near Lechaeum. In every respect, this solved a problem that had tormented me, and I gave him my blessing.

  “God will stand behind you, Silas,” I said.

  Luke looked at me askance, but I ignored him.

  The following day we secured passage on a merchant vessel bound for Syria with a plan to lay over at Ephesus for a time. From what I already knew of Ephesus, I could only believe that God wanted us there. It was the obvious next point on our journey home.

  Chapter Fifteen

  LUKE

  Under duress, we set off for Antioch by way of Ephesus with Prisca and Aquila. And Timothy. Paul had managed to leave Silas behind. I thought about objecting to this, but in so many ways it helped to abandon Silas. Paul considered him a distraction, which inevitably turned him into one.