Saul of Tarsus: A Tale of the Early Christians Read online

  Produced by Al Haines

  [Frontispiece: "The seed of his teaching has spread abroad" _Page 4_]

  SAUL OF TARSUS

  _A TALE OF THE EARLY CHRISTIANS_

  _By_

  ELIZABETH MILLER

  _Author of_ The Yoke

  WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY

  ANDRE CASTAIGNE

  INDIANAPOLIS

  THE BOBBS-MERRILL COMPANY

  PUBLISHERS

  COPYRIGHT 1906

  THE BOBBS-MERRILL COMPANY

  CONTENTS

  Chapter

  I Saul of Tarsus II A Prudent Exception III The First Martyr IV The Bankrupt V Agrippa in Repertoire VI Marsyas Assumes a Charge VII The Bondman of Hate VIII An Alexandrian Characteristic IX "--As an Army With Banners" X Flaccus Works a Complexity XI The House of Defense XII "Scattering the Flock" XIII A Trust Fulfilled XIV For a Woman's Sake XV The False Balance XVI A Matter Handled Wisely XVII A Word in Season XVIII The Ransom XIX The Deliverance XX The Feast of Flora XXI The Fining Fire XXII "In the Cloak of Two Colors" XXIII A Letter and a Loss XXIV The Digged Pit XXV The Speaking of Eutychus XXVI The Arm Made Bare XXVII The Proconsul's Deliberations XXVIII The Strange Woman XXIX In Extremis XXX The Eremite in Scarlet, and the Bankrupt in Purple XXXI The Dregs of the Cup of Trembling XXXII Sanctuary XXXIII The Dregs of the Cup of Fury XXXIV Captives of the Mighty XXXV The Approach of the Day of Visitation XXXVI On the Damascus Road XXXVII In the House of Ananias XXXVIII The Requital

  In Memory of

  My Soldier Brother

  Ralph Miller

  Lieutenant Sixth Cavalry

  U.S.A.

  SAUL OF TARSUS

  CHAPTER I

  SAUL OF TARSUS

  On a certain day in March of the year 36 A.D., a Levite, one of theShoterim or Temple lictors, came down from Moriah, into the vale ofGihon, and entered the portal of the great college, builded inJerusalem for the instruction of rabbis and doctors of Law in Judea.

  With foot as rapid and as noiseless as that of a fox among the tombs,the Levite crossed the threshold into the great gloom of the interior.This way and that he turned his head, watchful, furtive, catching everyobscure corner in the range of his glance.

  He saw that three men sat within, two together, one a little apart fromthe others. From this to that one, the alert gaze slipped until itlighted upon a small, bowed shape in white garments. Then the Levitesmiled, his lips moved and shaped a word of satisfaction, but no soundissued. Silently he flitted into an aisle which would lead him uponthe two, and suddenly appeared before them.

  The small bent figure made a nervous start, but the Levite bowed andrubbed his hands.

  "Greeting, Rabbi Saul; God's peace attend thee. Be greeted, RabbiEleazar; peace to thee!"

  Rabbi Eleazar raised a great head and looked with an unfavorable eye atthe Levite; in it was to be read strong dislike of the Levite'sstealthy manner.

  "Greeting, Joel," he replied in a voice quite in keeping with hissplendid bulk, "peace to thee. Yet take it not amiss if I suggest thatsince there is no warning in thy footfall or thy garments, thoushouldst be belled!"

  The other had dropped back in his seat, and the Levite bowed again tohim.

  "I pray thy pardon, Rabbi Saul, but I came as I was sent--in haste."

  "It is nothing, Joel," Saul answered. "Give us news of the HighPriest's health."

  "He continues in health, God be thanked, but his spirit was sorelytried--" He stopped abruptly to look, as if in question, at the mansitting apart in the shadows.

  "Who is that?" he asked suspiciously.

  "A pupil," was Eleazar's impatient reply. The Levite looked again,but, the twilight thwarting him, he hitched a slant shoulder and,passing to one of the windows, drew aside its heavy hanging.Instantly, a great golden beam shot into the cold chamber andilluminated it gloriously. Saul threw his hand over his eyes to shutout the blinding radiance. But the pupil, helped at his reading by theadmitted light, straightened himself, glanced up a moment, and turnedto his scroll without a word.

  "A stranger," Joel whispered, coming back to the rabbis.

  "What burden of mystery dost thou conceal, Joel?" Eleazar exclaimed."Yonder man is an Essene; look about; the stones will take tongue andbetray thee, sooner than he."

  "Let me be sure, let me be sure!" Joel insisted stubbornly.

  As if obedient to Eleazar, he cast an eye about the chamber.

  The light which came in at the west was straight from the spring sun,moted and warm with benevolence. That which entered at the east wasonly a quivering reflection from the marble walls and golden gates ofthe Temple. The chamber was immense, shadowy and draughty, the floorof stone, the walls of Hermon's rock, relieved by massive arcadessupported on pilasters, and friezes of such images as were hieraticallyapproved. The ceiling was so lost in height and cold dusk that itsstructure could not be defined. At the end opposite the doors was thelectern of ivory and ebony, embellished with symbolical intaglios andinlaid with gold. Beside it stood the reader's chair, across which therug had been dropped as he had put it off his knees. Before thelectern, across and down the great chamber, were ranges of carvenbenches, among which were lamps of bronze, darkened and green about thereliefs and corrugations on the bowls, depending from chains or setabout on tripods.

  But besides the three already noted, the Levite saw and expected to seeno others. Eleazar regarded his ostentatious inspection of the roomwith disgust.

  "Thou hast a burden on thy soul, Joel," Saul urged mildly. "Let usbear it with thee."

  The Levite came close and bent over the rabbis.

  "Question your souls, brethren," he said. "Hath Judea more to losethan it hath lost?" he asked in a lowered tone.

  "Its identity," Eleazar responded shortly.

  But the Levite looked expectantly at Saul.

  "Its faith," Saul suggested quietly.

  The Levite nodded eagerly.

  "Its faith," Saul continued, as if speaking to himself, "and after thatthere is nothing more. Yea, restore unto it its kings and itsdominions, yet withhold the faith and there is no Judea. Desolate ituntil the land is sown in salt and the people bound to the mills of theoppressor, so but the faith abide, Judea is Judea, glorified!"

  "What then, O Rabbi," the Levite persisted, "if the land be sown insalt and the people bound to the mills of the oppressor, if the faithbe abandoned--what then?"

  "God can not perish," Eleazar put in. "Fear not; it can not come topass."

  "Nay, but evil can enter the souls of men and point them after falseprophets so that God is forgotten," the Levite retorted. His leanfigure bent at the hips and he thrust his face forward with triumph ofprophecy on it. Saul looked at him.

  "What hast thou to tell, Joel?" he asked with command in his voice.The Levite accepted the order as he had worked toward it--with energy.

  "Listen, then," he began in a whisper. "Dost thou remember Him whomthey crucified at Golgotha, a Passover, four years ago?"

  Eleazar nodded, but Saul made no sign.

  "Know ye that they killed the plant after it had ripened," the Levitehastened on. "The seed of His teaching hath spread abroad and whereverit lodgeth it hath taken root and multiplied. Wherefore, there is amultitude of offspring from the single stem."

  Saul stood up. He did not gain much in stature by rising, but thetemper of the man towered gigantic over the impatience of Eleazar andthe craft of the Levite.

  "What accusation is this that thou levelest at Judea?" he demand
ed.

  "A truth!" Joel replied.

  "That Israel hath a blasphemer among them, which hath been spared,concealed and not put away?" questioned Saul.

  "Dare ye?" the Levite cried.

  "Dare ye not!" Saul answered sternly. "It is the Law!"

  The Levite came toward him. "Go thou unto the High Priest Jonathan,"he whispered evilly; "he hath work for thee to do!"

  Eleazar doubled his huge hand and whirled his head away. There wastense silence for a moment.

  "Is there a specific transgression discovered?" Saul demanded.

  The Levite weighed his answer before he gave it.

  "Rumor hath it," he began, "that certain of the sect are in the citypreaching--"

  "Rumor!" Saul exclaimed. "Hast rested on the testimony of rumor?"

  "Can ye track pestilence?" he asked craftily.

  "By the sick!" was the retort. "Go on!"

  "It is the High Priest's vow to attack it," Joel declared. "He hath noother thought. It is said that one of the disputants, who yesterdaytroubled them in the Cilician synagogue with an alien doctrine,preached the Nazarene's heresy."

  "In the Cilician--in mine own synagogue!" Saul repeated, in amazement.

  "In thine, in the Libertine, the Cyrenian and the Alexandrian."

  "And they suffered him?" Saul persisted with growing earnestness.

  "They did not understand him, then; he is but a new-comer from Galilee."

  "And I was not there; I was not there!" Saul exclaimed regretfully."What is he called?"

  "Stephen."

  There was a sound from the direction of the silent pupil. They lookedthat way to see that he had dropped his scroll and had sprung to hisfeet. The Levite dropped his head between his shoulders andscrutinized him sharply. But the young man had fixed his eyes uponSaul, as if waiting for his answer.

  "Stephen of Galilee," the Levite added, watching the young man. "AHellenist; and he wrapped his blasphemy so subtly in philosophy thatnone detected it until after much thought."

  The young man turned his face toward the speaker and a glimmer of angershowed in his black eyes.

  "It is bold blasphemy which ventures into a synagogue," Saul said halfto himself.

  "Ah! thou pointest to the sign of peril," the Levite resumed."Boldness is the banner of strength; strength is the fruit of numbers;and numbers of apostates will be the ruin of Judea and the forgettingof God!"

  Saul caught up his scrip which lay beside him, but Eleazar continued togaze at the beam of light penetrating the chamber.

  "Wherefore the High Priest is troubled, and, laying aside all hisprivate ambitions, henceforward he will devote himself to thepreservation of the faith," the Levite continued.

  "Which means," Eleazar interrupted, "the persecution of the apostate."

  The Levite spread out his hands and lifted his shoulders. The RabbiEleazar forged too far ahead.

  "It is our duty, Eleazar," Saul said, "to discover if this Galileanpreaches heresy. Let us go to the synagogue."

  Eleazar arose, a towering man, broad, heavy and slow, but his risingwas as the rising of opposition.

  "I am enlisted in the teaching of the Law, not in the suppression ofheresy," he said bluntly. "Furthermore, my work here is not yetcomplete. Wilt thou excuse me, my brother?"

  "Let me not keep thee from thy duty," Saul answered courteously.

  "Joel! Come with me," Eleazar commanded, and together the twodisappeared into the interior of the college.

  Then the young man who had held his place came out of the shadows intothe broad beam of the sun, which fell now over Saul.

  "Peace to thee, Saul," he said; "peace and greeting." The voice, incontrast to the tones of the men who had lately discussed, was verycalm and level, restrained by cultivation, yet one which is nevercharacteristic of an undecided nature.

  "Thou, Marsyas!" Saul exclaimed in sudden recognition. He extended hishands to meet the other's in a greeting that was more affectionate thanconventional. The young man with sudden impulsiveness raised the handsand pressed them to his breast.

  "Saul! Saul!" he repeated with a quiver of emotion in his voice.

  "And none hath supplanted me in thy loves, Marsyas?" Saul smiled. "Artthou come hither for instruction? Am I to have thee by me now inJerusalem?"

  The glow of warmth in the rabbi's manner did not contribute itsconfidence to the young man. He seemed not less troubled than moved.With searching eyes, he looked down from his superior height intoSaul's face. As the two stood together, physical extremes could nothave been more perfect.

  The rabbi was not well-formed, and his frame had a note of feeblenessin its make-up in spite of its youth and flesh. The face was pale, theeyes so deep-set as to appear sunken, the hair, thin, curling andlightly silvered, the beard, short, full and touched with the sameearly frost. Though no recent alien blood ran in his veins, hisfeatures were only moderately characteristic of the sons of Jacob. Hewas not erect, and the stoop in his shoulders was more extreme than themere relaxation from rigidity, yet less pronounced than actualcurvature. The veins on the backs of his hands stood up from therefined whiteness of the flesh, and when his head turned, the greatartery in his throat could be seen irregularly beating. It was thephysique of a man not only weak but sapped by a subtle infirmity.

  He wore the head-dress and the voluminous white robes of a rabbi,girded with the blue and white cord of his calling. But his class as aPharisee was marked by the heavy undulating fringes at the hem of hisgarment, and by the little case of calf-skin framing a parchmentlettered in Hebrew which was bound across his forehead. Herein, byfringe, phylactery and the traditional colors, he published hissubmission to the minutiae of the Law.

  In so much the rabbi could have had twenty counterparts over Judea, buthis aggressive nature stamped him with an individuality which has hadno equal in all time. Over his countenance was a fine assumption ofhumility curiously inconsistent with a consciousness of excellencewhich made an atmosphere about him that could be felt. Yet, holdingfirst place over these conflicting attributes was the stamp oftremendous mental power, and a heart-whole sweetness that wasirresistible. The union of these four characteristics was to produce aman that would hold fast to theory, though all fact arise and shoutedit down; who would maintain form, though the spirit had in horror longsince fled the shape. Thus, inflexibly fixed in his convictions, hewas unlimited in his capacity for maintaining them. In short, he was aleader of men, a zealot, a formalist and an inquisitor--one of greatmentality dogmatized, of great spirit prejudiced, of immensecapabilities perverted.

  Such was Saul of Tarsus.

  But the other was a Jew of blood so pure, of type so pronounced, thatthe man of mixed races before him appeared wholly foreign. His linehad descended from the persistent love of Jacob for Rachel, through thetents of them that slew the Midianitish women in the wilderness,through the households of Esdras and the camps of Judas Maccabaeus.

  He was above average height, and built ruggedly, as were Judah thelion, and Jacob who wrestled with the angel. One of in-door habit, hewas fair on the forehead, under the soft young beard and the shiningblack curls at his temples. But his cheeks were crimson, his eyesintensely black and sparkling, his teeth, glittering ranges of shadedivory. And the bold strength of his profile and the brilliance of hiscolor seemed finished by the deep cleft distinctly discernible.

  On his face was written an attribute common among men of a time ofMessianic hopes and crises. Asceticism with its blank purity of browset him apart from the sordid souls in his walk. Yet about him thereseemed to be an atmosphere surcharged with physical radiations, withhuman electricity that fairly sparkled in its strength.

  Even Saul, his long-time friend, on this occasion of sudden meeting,remarked this equal power of body and spirit. The Pharisee glanced atthe young man's garments,--simple robes without fringes, without gaud,and white as the snows of Hermon.

  "Strange," the Pharisee said after his peculiar manner of talking
withhimself, "strange that thou shouldst elect to be an Essene." A littleproud surprise appeared on Marsyas' face.

  "I can not be anything else," the young man answered.

  "Thou hast not ventured. But, nevertheless, thou wilt be noted in thecollege. The Essenes are very few these days in Jerusalem; En-Gadireceives them all. And thou art a doctor of Laws--a master Essene.How long wilt thou study here?"

  "Five years, Rabbi."

  Yet the young man was at least twenty-five years of age. What courseof instruction was it which carried a man into middle life before itwas finished? What but the tremendous complexities of the Mosaic andthe Oral Law. But these things had been taught the young man in theforecourt of the little synagogue in Nazareth where he was born. So,because his learning extended beyond the reach of the provincialEssenic philosopher who had taught him in his youth, the young man hadquitted the little hill town in Galilee to come to the feet of themaster Essene in the great college of Jerusalem.

  To be an Essene was to live a celibate under the regime of communitylaws, under a common roof, at a common board; to be bodily andspiritually spotless, to believe in the resurrection of the soul, thebrotherhood of man, and the frailty and the incontinence of women; toaccept no hospitality from one not an Essene and to own no possessionsapart from the common ownership of the order. But to be an Essenicdoctor was to be the most ascetic scholar and the most scholarlyascetic in the world, at that time.

  But Marsyas had no thought on Saul's contemplation of him.

  "I heard the talk of the Levite," he said. "Because it concerns memuch, I could not shut mine ears against it. I, too, have heard thecreed of the Nazarenes."

  "How, Marsyas? Harkened unto the heretics?"

  "I have heard their creed," he persisted in his calm way. "It differslittle from the teachings of mine own order, the Essenes, except thatthey believe in the divinity of Jesus of Nazareth and the receptivenessof the Gentile."

  "And thou callest that a little difference?"

  "Not so great that one going astray after the Nazarenes could not besatisfied with the Essenes, if he were obliged to give up his apostasy.I seek a remedy."

  "Moses supplied the remedy," Saul averred with meaning.

  "The Essenes are not inflicters of punishment," was the even reply.

  The Pharisee made a conciliatory gesture. "It is then only adiscussion of the practices of my class and of thine."

  But Marsyas was not satisfied.

  "Thou knowest Stephen?" he asked after a pause.

  "Stephen of Galilee? Only by report."

  "Perchance, then, thou knowest Galilee," the Essene resumed after ashort pause. "Galilee that sitteth between Phoenicia the menace andSamaria the pollution, and is not soiled; that standeth between theMiddle Sea, the power, and the Jordan, the subject, and is not humbled.She is Israel's brawn, not easily governed of the mind which isenthroned Jerusalem.

  "We are rustics in Galilee, tillers of the soil, mountaineers andfishers, simple rugged folk who live in the present, expectingmiracles, seeing signs, discovering prophets and wonders. We arepatriots, bound and hooped against an alien, but bursting wide withwhatever chanceth to ferment within us. Let there but arise a Galileanwho hath a gift or a grudge or a devil, and proclaim himself anointed,and he can gather unto himself a following that would assail Caesar'sstronghold, did he say the word."

  He paused and seemed to recall what he had said.

  "Yet, we are good Jews," he added hastily, "faithful followers of theLaw and such as Israel might select to die singly for Israel's sake.No Galilean is ashamed of himself except when he permits himself to beled so far into folly that he can not turn back."

  The Pharisee foresaw intuitively the young man's climax.

  "The Law does not remit punishment for blasphemy, even if a soul turnback from its folly," he observed.

  Marsyas' face became grave and he gazed at the place on the wall wherequivered the reflection from the splendors of the Temple.

  "Stephen is my friend," he said earnestly, "a simple soul, generous,fervid, and a true lover of God."

  "If he be such, he is safe," Saul replied.

  The young man fingered the scarf that girded him.

  "The brothers at En-Gadi would receive him," he said.

  "What need of him to retire from the world if he be a good Jew?" Saulpersisted.

  Again the young man hesitated. Saul was driving him into a declarationthat he would have led forth gradually. Then he came to the Phariseeand laid a persuading band on his arm.

  "Go not to the synagogue," he entreated. "Wait a little!"

  "Wait in the Lord's business?" Saul asked mildly.

  "Be not hastier than the chastening of the Lord; if He bears withStephen, so canst thou a little longer. Give love its chance withStephen before vengeance undoes him wholly!"

  "Marsyas," Saul protested in a tone of kindly remonstrance, "thou dostconvict him by thy very concern."

  "No!" the young Essene declared, pressing upon the Pharisee inpassionate earnestness. "I am only troubled for him. Let me go firstand understand him, for it seems that there is doubt in the hearts ofhis accusers, and after that--"

  "Thine eye shall not pity him," Saul repeated in warning.

  "Saul! Saul! He is my beloved friend!"

  "Moses prepared us for such a sorrow as apostasy among those whom welove. What says the Lawgiver--'thy friend, which is as thine own soul,thy hand shall be the first upon him to put him to death!'"

  The lifted hands of the young Essene dropped as if they had been struckdown.

  "Death!" he repeated, retreating a step. "Wilt thou kill him?"

  "I am more thy friend, Marsyas," the Pharisee went on, "because I amzealous for the Law. The heresy is infectious and thou art no moresafe from it than any other man. And I would rather sit in judgmentover Stephen, whom I do not know, than over thee, who art dear to me asa brother."

  The young man drew near again.

  "Dear as a brother!" he said. "Stephen is that to me. Even now didstthou ask if any had supplanted thee in my loves. No; yet my loves havebroadened, so that I can take another into my heart. The Lord God bemerciful unto me, that I may not be driven to choose one, for defenseagainst the other! Even as ye both love me, love one another! Saul!Thou wast my earlier friend! I can no more endure Stephen's peril thanI can uproot thee from my heart!"

  Saul flinched before the concealed intimation in the words. A wave ofpallor succeeded by hardness swept over his face, and Marsyas,observing the change, seized the Tarsian's hands between his own.

  "Wait until I have seen him," he besought, "and if there be any taintin his fidelity to the faith, I shall stop at no sacrifice to save him.He is, if at all, only momentarily drawn aside, and as the Lord Goddaily forgives us our sins, let us forgive a brother--"

  Saul tried to draw away, but the young Essene's imploring hands heldhis in a desperate clasp.

  "I will give up mine instruction," he swept on. "I will retire intoEn-Gadi and take him with me! I will give over everything and becomeone of their husbandmen; I will have no aim for myself, but forStephen! And if I fail I will take sentence with him! Wait! Wait!Let me return to Nazareth and get my patrimony! I will come then andtake him at once to En-Gadi! Saul!"

  But Saul threw off the beseeching hands and stepped back from the youngman. The two gazed at each other, the Pharisee to discover a crisis inthe Essene's look; the Essene to see immovability in the Pharisee.

  Then the distress in Marsyas' face changed swiftly, and an ember burnedin his black eyes. He straightened himself and stretched out a hand.

  "I have spoken!" he said. Turning purposefully away, he went back tohis place and took up his scroll. For a moment he held it, his eyes onthe pavement. Slowly his fingers unclosed and the scrolldropped--dropped as if he had done with it.

  Catching up his white mantle, he walked swiftly out of the chamber andSaul looked after him, yearning, wistful and sad.

  Jo
el came out of the interior of the building.

  "I will go with thee to the synagogue," he offered.

  The Pharisee looked at him with cold dislike in his eyes, and,inclining his head, led the way out.

  At the threshold of the porch he halted. In the street opposite twoyoung men were walking slowly. One was slight, young, graceful andsimply clad in a Jewish smock. The other was Marsyas, the Essene, whowent with an arm over the shoulders of the first, and, bending, seemedto speak with passionate earnestness to his companion. The faces ofthe two young men thus side by side showed the same spiritual mode ofliving, and youthful purity of heart. But the expression of theslighter one was less ascetic than happy, less rigorous than confident.

  As Marsyas spoke, the other smiled; and his smile was an illumination,not entirely earthly.

  Joel seized Saul's arm, and held it while the two approached,unconscious of the watchers in the shadow of the porch.

  "That is he," he whispered avidly. "That is he! Stephen, theapostate!"

  Stephen turned his head casually, and, catching the Pharisee's eye,returned the gaze with a little friendly questioning; then he raisedhis face to Marsyas and so they passed.

  The pallor on Saul's face deepened.