The congregation of Antioch rejoiced to hear that God had taken pity on the Gentiles. “Let’s send Saul and Barnabas to other cities” they said, “to bring the gospel first to the Jews and then to the Gentiles, even as the lord himself commanded.”
Then the leaders of the congregation, Simon Niger, Lucius the Cyrenean, and Manaen, met together to fast and pray for God’s blessing. When they were convinced that it conformed to God’s will, they put their hands on Saul and Barnabas and sent them out.
Saul and Barnabas took John Mark along to serve and assist them. Barnabas’ asked that they make their first call at Cyprus, his homeland, and to this Saul agreed.
The elders accompanied them to the ship, and the messengers sailed down the river to a certain point where they left the ship and made their way on foot to the port of Seleucia.
There may be no other port in the world whose waters are as stormy as at Seleucia. In the center of the city an inland basin has been cut out for the safe anchorage of vessels, and a short canal connects the basin with the open sea. The city itself lies in a hollow, with vast imprisoning walls on three sides. Within the narrow sea corridor enclosed by the cliffs there is eternal warfare between the sea and the rocks. Furious, green-crested waves hurl themselves against the immense cliff that shelters the entrance to the canal and the harbor. The waters, thrown back repeatedly by the granite guard, gather themselves again to roar and renew the assault. No matter how often the sea is repulsed, it does not give up the siege of the powerful beast that stands like a sentinel between it and the port. Again and again the howling waters seek renewed strength in the bosom of the deep, and one wave gathers up the pent force of the wave that went before, adds it to its own, and proceeds again to the eternal assault. Dashed into a million ribbons of foam, it retreats to transfer its energy to the wave that takes up the quarrel behind it. It is never discouraged. Fed by immeasurable will power, the sea continues to shout of certain ultimate victory.
In his heart Saul is thinking, “From this very day my life shall be like that of the assaulting ocean.”
As the ship makes its way to the open sea, and the panorama of the Syrian coast unrolls before them, the messengers see the full outline of the hills enclosing Seleucia and the green forests that crown them. This will be their last glimpse of Syria for a while. Turning around, they can see the open sea, an open path to all the lands of the world, the lands of the Gentiles. They can see the faint outlines of Cyprus. Those fleeing the persecutions in Jerusalem have already taken the gospel to the island, but only to Jews.
The messengers and their servant spend the time huddled together on the deck and repeat from memory verses of the Psalms and Isaiah concerning the promise of Messiah. This astonishes neither the captain nor the sailors for it’s a custom of Jews traveling by sea. Gentile passengers, however, make mocking remarks. The three travelers ignore it. The journey from Seleucia to Cyprus takes just a few hours, and soon the ship scrapes against the salt-encrusted quay of the great Phoenician port of Salamis.
The first thing the travelers do after setting foot in the swarming harbor is to head for the synagogue, for there are many Jews in Salamis. They trade chiefly in salt, oils, and the famous wine of the island. Some export the copper ores of Cyprus to Tyre, Sidon, and Corinth. The messengers hope to arrive before sunset, so that they may repeat the evening Shema there. Barnabas remembers that there is a little hospice for traveling rabbis by the Synagogue of the Cypriots. The messengers enter the hospice and ask whether or not there are people in Cyprus who’ve received baptism in the name of Jesus.
“There are many such here, among our Jewish brothers and among the Gentiles, too,” they’re told. “They all come to the synagogue on the Sabbath. They’re also here on Mondays and Thursdays for the reading of the Torah.”
They decide, then, to wait for the Sabbath.
On the Sabbath, Barnabas preaches the risen Christ at the services. He’s given a patient, friendly hearing. But when Saul mounts the pulpit, an unfriendly murmuring starts up. Even though it’s been eleven years, the people have long memories. They remember the stories they were told about the persecutions and of the martyrdom of Stephen when the gospel was first brought to them. The name “Saul of Tarsus” only evokes contempt and hatred even this far from the Holy Land. As Paul tries to speak, they constantly interrupt him. They were willing to hear the exact same words from Barnabas, quoted and interpreted in the same way, but they won’t accept them from Saul. A tumult builds until the head of the synagogue forbids Saul to speak further.
Saul’s very name is an obstacle to his mission for Christ. Even though his sins have been washed away, people just can’t forget them. They won’t let him become what Christ himself called him to be, a carrier of the gospel. He does have a Gentile name, Paul. But to change names now would be to disown all his past, so that the name Saul would be forever steeped in sin. It’s this name, Saul, that must be cleansed and made acceptable. Saul will make no change until there is some sign from heaven.
And suddenly the sign comes, like a miracle.
There is unrest among the Gentiles of Cyprus, more so among the educated than among the ignorant. The latter at least believe blindly in their idols and succumb to corrupting sexual orgies in the temples. But the educated and the thoughtful understand the depths of moral and physical degradation the priests are dragging them into, and so they seek their refuge in heathen wisdom and intelligence. But the wisdom and intelligence of the heathen are like two withered breasts, from which nothing nourishing can be pressed. Intelligence can be bent to any egotistic purpose by the ingenuities of logic and the acrobatics of the schools, so even with all their intelligence and wisdom they’re held fast in the chains of a helpless fatalism. They struggle against it, calling soothsayers, star-readers, and interpreters of dreams to their aid, but those who deal in demonic powers can do nothing to change the destiny of their clients. They can only predict the evil hour and perhaps enable them to defer it.
Sergius Paulus, Proconsul of Cyprus, is one of those “men of intelligence” who enlist the aid of sorcerers. In moments of indecision, he doesn’t turn to the highly respected wisdom he learned in the schools of the Stoics. Instead, he surrounds himself with sorcerers and soothsayers. To Israel’s shame, his head sorcerer is a Jew named Barjesus, who crowns himself with the title Elymas the Sage. He rejects the Law of Moses, which forbids the practice of sorcery and demands that a sorcerer is to be killed by stoning.
Now because Rome granted the gods of conquered peoples complete local autonomy, Roman officials often acknowledged the god of the people they were sent to rule and adopted their religious customs. This was not considered to be an act of rebellion, but rather a sensible and even honorable precaution. The goddess of Cyprus was Aphrodite, who required every woman of Cyprus, even wives of prominent citizens, to cover herself with a veil, take her place on the temple steps, and make herself available to sailors or merchants at least once in her life. The money of this prostitution was considered a sacred offering to the goddess.
There was nothing in this type of “worship” to actually attract a cultured and philosophical Proconsul, so although he listened to his sorcerers and stargazers in practical matters, the Proconsul stayed awake on many a night to rack his brains with the question, “What is the purpose of the world and of man?”
Sergius Paulus knew of the one living God of the Jews, and he’d recently heard that this God had sent a redeemer to the world, and that his messengers could heal the sick and exorcise the possessed. So when news of the messengers’ arrival reaches him, he sends word for them to cross the island to the capital city, Paphos, so that they might appear before him.
It’s a long walk to cross the hundred-mile long island, but Barnabas, Saul, and Mark begin the trek in the hope that God is preparing a miracle through them, that the Proconsul of the province will accept the faith, and the name of Christ will be sanctified on the island. But they also know that Sergius Paulus believes in sorcerers and keeps a staff of stargazers, so he’ll probably be expecting them to perform miracles.
As they travel, John tells the others the story of the sorcerer of Samaria, Simon Magus, who offered Simon Peter money in exchange, as he put it, “for the secret of bringing down the Holy Spirit on men.” They’d encountered him in the marketplace, a giant of a man, who stood out by his height and bulk from the other people of the city. Large crowds gathered around this man whose face was covered by a forest-like growth of hair.
He always had a certain woman with him, who stood like a stone image, her pale face unmoving, her eyes lusterless. The man performed his magic through the woman. He could transmit thoughts to her without saying a word. He would look into her face with his black, burning eyes and she would fall into a trance. Then she would begin to move through the crowd, stopping before this one and that one, saying their names, revealing acts out of their past, and foretelling their future. She could also raise herself in the air while in the trance, and hover like a bird. Simon Magus persuaded the people that she was the goddess of Thought, the mother of all deeds, and that he himself was God, who directed those thoughts. There were many who believed him.
This Simon Magus had been a great hindrance in the spreading of the faith in Samaria. Simon Peter cursed him, but it seemed the man was able to ward off the curse with his magic. Later, they heard that he’d spread his practices beyond Samaria. He’d taken on the title of Son of God and had persuaded many that they could find salvation by giving themselves to the woman who accompanied him. But he had many disguises and could change his appearance and body at will. Sometimes he appeared as a Samaritan, sometimes as a Syrian healer, and sometimes as a Chaldean mathematician.
After John finishes his story, Saul and Barnabas are certain that the Barjesus before the Proconsul is none other than Simon Magus of Samaria. Now he was assuming the identity of a Jew and had come to the island to prevent the spreading of God’s work.
“Most certainly he is the son of Satan,” says Saul. “God sent His son to earth to rescue mankind, and out of jealousy, Satan has sent his son to hinder the work of rescue.”
It’s clear in Saul’s mind that he’ll have to do battle to the death with the son of Satan in the name of the Son of God.
On the morning he goes to the palace, Saul washes with unusual care, anoints himself, combs his beard, and puts on his scholar’s mantle. The others do so as well, for as Pharisees, they observe the injunction that it’s only proper on formal occasions to appear in formal attire, and today they are to appear before the mighty of the earth.
Sergius Paulus receives them in the audience chamber of the palace. He is seated on the throne, surrounded by leading officers and councilors of the province. The sorcerers and soothsayers stand along the wall. Their leader looks like a little Jew with a hump, and a hooked nose. His clothes are dyed in many colors and adorned with many designs, pictures of the beasts of the constellations, and mystic letters. He wears the high hat of a priest of the Jerusalem Temple. His assistants are around him, some Chaldean mathematicians, a few Syrian healers, and black desert Arabs, carrying cactus roots and other herbs in censers.
Barnabas, as the official head of the delegation, introduces himself and the others to the Proconsul, but indicates that Saul will be the spokesman. Saul comes right to the point.
“My name is Saul, and I’m a citizen of Rome. I come from Tarsus, and I’m a servant of the living God of Israel. I carry the gospel of Christ, who is the salvation of the world.”
This opening statement produces a profound impression on the Proconsul that the startled Barjesus can’t help but notice. Sergius Paulus had expected to see common sorcerers and he was prepared to deal with such. What he sees instead are men of dignified attire and bearing, without any of the hocus pocus of the magicians in their speech or equipment. They speak simply of the living God, and one of them even carries the bronze tablet of Roman citizenship, like himself. What’s more, his Roman name is the same as his own.
Barjesus trembles when he hears the name of the living God. The sound pierces him like a spear. He knows that, as a Jew, he’s liable to the death penalty for practicing sorcery, and he doesn’t relish an open conflict with anyone who speaks in the name of God. Barjesus knows, too, that this is no common test that confronts him, but the decisive one, and he’ll need all his wits and all his tricks to keep his position in the Proconsul’s household. His very life is at stake. So with boldness he lifts his hand, indicating that he wishes to say something. Permission is granted and he approaches Saul with outstretched hand, and a broad smile on his uneasy features.
“Brother Saul, welcome! Peace to you brother. In the name of our common art and of all the spirits, greetings!”
Then, with an acrobatic bow, and an artful gesture of his arm, he turns to the Proconsul.
“Great Proconsul! This man and I went to school together, the school of the prophets, in Jerusalem, the Holy City. We both learned the art of reading the fates, of driving out evil spirits, and of evading disaster from one rabbi. Remember, Saul, the great Rabbi Gamaliel, who was our instructor?”
Saul fixes the full fury of his seeing eye on the little sorcerer. He says to him in Hebrew, “Who are you to speak the name of my holy rabbi with your impure lips? Let your speech be taken from you, son of Satan.”
The words “Son of Satan” almost knock the little sorcerer over. But remembering what’s at stake, he gathers his courage, turns to Sergius on his throne, and says gleefully, “What did I tell you, great Proconsul? I mentioned the name of our great rabbi, and he recognized me right away. He’s a brother Jew, like myself. We learned much together, Saul and I, in the school of the prophets. We can see the future and read the stars like an open book. We know when it’s time to act and when it’s time to rest.
“But brother Saul, we’ve learned even more here. We’ve enriched and strengthened our art with Chaldean lore and Syrian healing principles. We’ve learned from the sages how to grind and mix herbs, and from the wise women of Ashkelon how to avert the evil eye. We’ve become a great academy of sages and soothsayers. The greatest masters are with us. Over here is a great stargazer of Babylon, and over there is an Arabian master of medicine mixers. One swallow of his potion is enough to bring any woman he desires into the arms of our great Proconsul. Let us show you some of our art, brother Saul.”
“Show us, Barjesus!” commands the Proconsul.
Barjesus arranges his assistants around him in a special order. Then, frowning as if in great concentration, he begins to make signs in the air, calling on the names of spirits. Suddenly a cloud rises from the censers, and a table appears loaded with tempting foods, roast fowl and fresh vegetables. The table floats to rest before the Proconsul.
Barjesus turns to the messengers, saying, “Can you do that?”
“No!” answers Saul, in a firm, clear voice.
“Then show us your magic!” commands the Proconsul.
“We perform no magic,” answers Saul, in the same high, clear voice. “Our God is not a God of sorcery, or of sudden apparitions that amaze us today and tomorrow are no more. He’s the God of eternal being and of all creation. His magic and His signs are you, me, and this sinner in Israel, who knows that his heart is filled with evil and deception. The blade of grass, the tiniest blossom, the birds – these are our magic, for they are the creations of God. Bread conjured up by deceptive sleight of hand is not the wonder of God, but the bread that comes from the earth for our nourishment is the wonder of God.
“God sees your corruption and depravity. He sees you deliver yourselves to the lusts of your hearts and the lure of your sins. But He’s taken pity on you and on us, and has sent a helper to take on the likeness of flesh and blood. And he, the Christ, suffered and bled for us. He died as an atonement for our sins, that we might be washed of our impurity and be brought into eternal life. In the name of the one God of Israel, and in the name of the lord Christ, we stand before you here, O Sergius Paulus, and bring the gospel to you and yours, that you may be saved from destruction. These are our words and our magic.”
The Proconsul hears him out patiently and wrinkles his forehead in thought. His chin rests on his fist while he meditates on what this stranger, a Roman citizen, has put before him. No, he does not find his words convincing, for he can’t believe that a redeemer would come down from heaven to suffer with the poorest and most wretched. Suffering is a sign of weakness and helplessness. And yet there is some truth in what the man says. How remarkable that this stranger preaches his God in the name of the natural whole of creation, not the unnatural, as everyone else does. This is something worth meditating.
“Tell me, when will this anointed one bring the Kingdom of Heaven on earth?”
“When he comes on the clouds of heaven, O Sergius Paulus, to judge you, me, and even this one who deceives you,” answers Saul, pointing at the shrinking figure of the sorcerer.
Yes, the great sorcerer, who just performed so notable a miracle, shrinks from the accusing finger. His heart melts at Saul’s words, for he knows full well that his trickery works only on ignorant Gentiles, who worship the work of their own hands. His performances are not just deceptions. They are sacrilege against the Jewish faith. He knows he’ll be pronounced a son of death on the day of reckoning. Even now he should fall at the feet of the Proconsul, and confess that he’s a swindler and a liar, and that all his tricks are childish ingenuities, sleight of hand, and optical illusions.
But what about his livelihood, his security, his very life? No! He can’t follow his heart’s pleading, even knowing of the Day of Judgment. So he holds himself erect with what little strength he has left, and relies on the success of his “miracle.”
“What do you say to this, Barjesus?” asks the Proconsul, breaking in on his terror.
“What do I say?” stammers the sorcerer. “Surely, great Proconsul, brother Saul is right. And if he is right, let him perform a miracle to support his words.”
And suddenly Saul approaches the little Barjesus with slow, confident footsteps. He seems to expand and grow larger until he towers over him like a mountain, and Barjesus feels like a worm at his feet. Saul looks down on him and for a long time says nothing, but to the little sorcerer it feels like a spear is touching the inmost secrets of his heart, a heart that oozes falsehood, impurity, and terror. He feels that it’s laid open for all to see.
And as Saul speaks to him the light of his eyes goes out.
“You are full of all trickery and falseness, you child of Satan!”
Saul lifts his hand and Barjesus sees fingers as of death curving before his eyes.
“The hand of the Lord is upon you! You will be blind!”
A dark wall of night closes in on him. He stretches out his hand toward it, seeking an opening, and sinks to his knees like a smitten reed.
Sergius Paulus, Proconsul of Cyprus, did not accept the Jewish God or the faith of Christ. But the name of God was sanctified that day, and the name of Christ was carried from one end of the island to the other.
Saul alone knew that this sign was the fulfillment of the words he’d heard on the floor of the Temple court. From that day on he assumed the leadership of the group, and he no longer called himself Saul, but Paul, in proof that his sins had been forgiven.
Wednesday, December 30, 2009
Saturday, December 26, 2009
09 - Antioch
It was impossible, of course, for Antioch to consist entirely of idlers who spent their days lounging around the gardens and their nights in drunkenness and fornication. Antioch had to be fed and housed, as well as amused. Food and raw materials were brought into the city from all the provinces of Asia Minor, much of it through the mountain passes by camel or donkey, and some of it by ship.
There was also a lively commerce between the cities of Jerusalem and Antioch, and, as these things normally happen, news of Messiah spread rapidly from one to the other. There was a large Jewish settlement in the Syrian capital and it quickly became the center of the first congregation of Messiah in Syria.
The Jewish community existed as a little island on the right bank of the Orontes, right in the middle of the ocean of sin. It was clustered around the great synagogue, which was famous as the repository of certain holy vessels from the first temple in Jerusalem. All Jews of Antioch, as well as converts, belonged to the synagogue, whether they followed the Law of Moses or believed that Messiah had already come.
The right bank of the river was the workshop of Antioch. From here the coppersmiths, weavers, and sandal makers went daily into the streets and markets of the city. Slaves and freedmen stood in the open air under canopies of woven leaves to carry on their work. Shopkeepers chaffered loudly with customers, and moneychangers clashed their trays to attract attention to their tables.
The crowds were thickest and noisiest on the bank of the river where some of the incoming boats dropped anchor, and long rows of naked men carried the bales and bundles of merchandise to the warehouses like beasts of burden. Here and there little canals extended from the river, allowing other boats to bring their cargoes right into the yards of the warehouses.
One day Saul and Barnabas entered one such yard where they found a crowd of workers gathered around two men, a short, black-bearded Jew with brown skin and glittering Oriental eyes, the other a towering Gentile. Both of them were talking to the workers about the resurrection of Messiah and salvation.
Barnabas told Saul that they were in the warehouse yard of the rich Jewish merchant, Manaen, who’d been brought up in the court of Herod, the Tetrarch of Galilee. Manaen’s conversion had raised the believers’ standing in the eyes of the Jewish community and was the reason that there was little opposition to Jews becoming Christians there. A number of prominent Gentiles also joined the new faith, but for now their conversion was kept secret.
Saul was here to meet two preachers, a Jew named Simeon, who was called “Niger,” and a Gentile convert named Lucius of Cyrene. They were active among both Jews and Gentiles and had won many souls, particularly among the Gentiles who came to the synagogue. They also went into the markets and warehouse yards and preached to the workers during their rest periods. People started calling them “prophets”, a title no longer used by the Jews, but which had come into vogue among the new believers.
The shopkeepers’ booths and stalls had all closed for the evening, and some workers from nearby streets had also come to the warehouse yard. They’d heard that Jewish messengers had arrived from the Holy City this evening, sent by the mother congregation to preach the tidings of Messiah. Some of them had never heard the gospel preached before, but had often heard fellow workers, Jews and non-Jews, talk about “the anointed one.” The gospel had spread into all corners of laboring Antioch among the forges and smithies, the weavers, potters and pack carriers.
So this was the group to whom Paul preached his first sermon in Antioch.
“Come all of you who are weary and heavily burdened. Messiah brings consolation and help to all who suffer. There is no pain, no anguish, and no degree of slavery he didn’t feel on his own body. He took it all on himself freely, so that in suffering he might redeem those who are in bonds. The anointed one himself was tortured on the cross for all who are poor and oppressed, and God raised him up to life on the third day. Now he sits at the right hand of God, the protector of all who suffer.
“When he lived on earth he taught men to love and help each other. And those who make a bond with him are beyond the reach of evil for you can be sure that no matter what happens to you on earth you will be raised up by him into the world beyond. He will raise you from death, and you will find eternal life in the midst of your loved ones.”
“Will he bring me together with my wife Vespa?” called a slave from out of the corner.
“Where is your beloved Vespa, brother?” asked Saul.
“I don’t know. We lived in peace together in a little house by the sea on what my net brought out of the water. One day the government seized us because of a rebellion on the island, and we were put on the slave market. I was purchased by my master and brought to Antioch. I don’t know what happened to her.”
“She too will hear of his name. She’ll turn to him, and pray to him, even as you do, and both of you will unite with Messiah. And no matter how far you are from each other, you’ll be united in him. He’ll bring you together in eternal life when you come before him. Be assured that you will find her. She’ll be waiting for you at his side.”
These were words slaves understood.
After that Saul continued to preach in the synagogues, workshops, and marketplaces, to both Jews and Gentiles. Within a few months the congregation of believers in Antioch was in perfect unity, so that there was no difference between circumcised and uncircumcised.
The faith penetrated to all levels of the population, rich and poor alike. People everywhere heard about the God-man, or Son of God as they began to call him, who had taken all the pains and sorrows of mankind on himself to redeem all human beings from sin. All who believe in him are redeemed from their sins, becoming like newborn children. And though their bodies are still enslaved, their souls are free from sin, and they are bound to him in the highest glory in heaven. When Messiah returns, there will be no more masters and no more slaves, no strong and no weak, no ruler and no ruled. There will only be saved and lost, those who believed and those who did not. All who believe will share an eternal life of peace, glory and everlasting satisfaction, united with those from whom they’d been torn in life. Those who do not believe will be lost forever.
This belief kindled hope that had been extinguished, and brought light where darkness had seemed complete and immovable.
One day, a procession of sober men and women walked along Corso Street. Their eyes were modestly fixed on the ground to avoid looking at the panderers of lust offering their wares along with the stargazers, snake charmers, and dancing Arabian harlots.
These men and women were easily distinguishable from the rest of the population. Their clothes were of sackcloth. They used no dark cosmetics for their eyes or bright cosmetics for their lips and cheeks, and they didn’t drench their bodies in exciting or oppressive perfumes. They took no part in the open games and ceremonies or in any of the city celebrations. They never went to the temples or engaged in the sacrifices and orgies.
The sight of the “faithful” was particularly infuriating to the wicked element of the city, which included many of the wealthy idle young men. On this occasion, one young buck made an obscene gesture, and cried out, “Here come the anointed!”
For some reason this particular word caught the fancy of the bored idlers. A score of them imitated the obscene gesture, and shouted derisively, “Anointed! The anointed!”
The word caught on and became a title of mockery for the believers in Antioch.
When Saul heard of this new fashion, he said, “God Himself put the word in their mouths. For even as our lord was anointed by God to wear the crown of thorns, even so are we anointed to suffer for his name and to live a life of purity and holiness in our faith. Our lord is called the anointed Christ, and we will call ourselves the anointed followers.”
Thus from that time on, they called themselves the anointed Christians.
Saul’s influence through his preaching was great, but the influence of his actions was even greater, for he practiced what he preached. The day after he arrived in Antioch he found employment at his trade and earned enough for his modest needs. It was never his practice to apply to the charity fund of either the believers or of the general Jewish congregation, as other visiting preachers did. This had a double effect. It raised him in the eyes of the congregation, and it confirmed him in his feeling of independence. He was free to speak his mind.
Saul’s personal attitude about Jewish ritual was so correct that even the strictest Pharisees of the Jewish community could find no fault with him. Even though he preached that the discipline of the law should be lightened for the Gentiles, he gave full obedience to the law in his own life. He was scrupulous in the observation of kosher foods, and he preached the sanctity of the Sabbath to Gentiles as well as Jews. In his personal devotions, his prayers were so intense and passionate that he sometimes fell into a faint in the middle of it. He made no resolution, took no new step, without first praying long and earnestly in the privacy of his room. Titus, who shared his room, often woke up in the middle of the night to find Saul stretched out in agonizing prayer calling insistently and passionately on God. He often fell asleep, or perhaps lost consciousness while doing so. Titus would then lift him to the mattress and refresh him with some wine.
For all the hours he spent in agonizing prayer, once a resolution was fixed in his mind, there was no changing him. It was then as if he’d received clear instructions from above, through a divine voice.
One day a wandering prophet named Agabus brought news of an impending famine in Jerusalem and in all Judea. Indeed the fields lay parched in the sun and the latter rain had delayed so long that the grain was withering away. A time of bitter hunger was approaching for all in the Holy Land.
The Jews immediately started to collect money to help the believers in Jerusalem. This was not unusual for they were used to paying taxes, tithes and offerings to the Temple. But the Gentiles were not accustomed to giving to charity or to sharing their bread with the needy. So Saul decided this was a golden opportunity to teach the uncircumcised believers about the virtue especially associated with Abraham, that of compassion. He exhorted Gentile believers, slave and free alike, to spare something from their meager daily rations, earned in the sweat of their brow, for “brothers” they’d never seen, whose existence they’d been unaware of until a little while ago, and who lived in the strange and distant hateful Jewish city of Jerusalem. He told them again how Jesus had submitted to all the sorrows of the world, for strange people he’d never seen, for Jews and Gentiles of all lands, taking them to his heart and binding them to himself in eternal love. And thus all who were united in the faith of Messiah were no longer strangers to each other.
“Though you’ve never seen them,” he pleaded, “they’re your own brothers in the blood Jesus offered for all of us, and in the spirit that binds us to each other. For all of us have died to our sins and are born again in the spirit, in love and faith. So even though they are not your brothers and sisters in blood, they are your brothers and sisters in spirit. By the pity and love you show to them you bind yourselves to them in Jesus.”
And so the Gentiles, side by side with the Jews, took out the last copper coins, their food for tomorrow, and threw them into the common fund. Poor women brought their last cruses of oil to sell. Slaves brought part of their daily ration, the lean cakes that were their only food, and put them at the feet of the messengers. When Saul saw all this, he knew it was a sign that the Gentiles’ offering was acceptable to God and that the compassion that had awakened in their hearts made them children of Abraham.
When the offerings had all been collected, the elders of the congregation, Simon Niger and Lucius and Manaen, chose Saul and Barnabas to carry the gift to the holy ones in Jerusalem.
In Jerusalem Barnabas brought Saul before the elders of the congregation, James, Simon, and John. He told them of the work Saul had done in Antioch and how he drew the hearts of the Gentiles to the God of Israel through Jesus. He explained how Saul had trained them in the virtue of Father Abraham, the virtue of compassion.
Barnabas laid down the bags of money that had been gathered from among the Gentiles, and said, “Here is the proof that for the Gentiles too the gates of salvation have been opened.”
When the elders of the congregation saw this wonder, they rejoiced and agreed God had taken pity on the Gentiles and had given purpose to their life. Nevertheless, they did not put their hands on Saul, and they did not invest him with authority. But they sent Barnabas back to Antioch, with Saul under him. Barnabas also took with him John Mark, his sister’s son, for the boy had now grown into manhood. And the three of them set out for Antioch.
There was also a lively commerce between the cities of Jerusalem and Antioch, and, as these things normally happen, news of Messiah spread rapidly from one to the other. There was a large Jewish settlement in the Syrian capital and it quickly became the center of the first congregation of Messiah in Syria.
The Jewish community existed as a little island on the right bank of the Orontes, right in the middle of the ocean of sin. It was clustered around the great synagogue, which was famous as the repository of certain holy vessels from the first temple in Jerusalem. All Jews of Antioch, as well as converts, belonged to the synagogue, whether they followed the Law of Moses or believed that Messiah had already come.
The right bank of the river was the workshop of Antioch. From here the coppersmiths, weavers, and sandal makers went daily into the streets and markets of the city. Slaves and freedmen stood in the open air under canopies of woven leaves to carry on their work. Shopkeepers chaffered loudly with customers, and moneychangers clashed their trays to attract attention to their tables.
The crowds were thickest and noisiest on the bank of the river where some of the incoming boats dropped anchor, and long rows of naked men carried the bales and bundles of merchandise to the warehouses like beasts of burden. Here and there little canals extended from the river, allowing other boats to bring their cargoes right into the yards of the warehouses.
One day Saul and Barnabas entered one such yard where they found a crowd of workers gathered around two men, a short, black-bearded Jew with brown skin and glittering Oriental eyes, the other a towering Gentile. Both of them were talking to the workers about the resurrection of Messiah and salvation.
Barnabas told Saul that they were in the warehouse yard of the rich Jewish merchant, Manaen, who’d been brought up in the court of Herod, the Tetrarch of Galilee. Manaen’s conversion had raised the believers’ standing in the eyes of the Jewish community and was the reason that there was little opposition to Jews becoming Christians there. A number of prominent Gentiles also joined the new faith, but for now their conversion was kept secret.
Saul was here to meet two preachers, a Jew named Simeon, who was called “Niger,” and a Gentile convert named Lucius of Cyrene. They were active among both Jews and Gentiles and had won many souls, particularly among the Gentiles who came to the synagogue. They also went into the markets and warehouse yards and preached to the workers during their rest periods. People started calling them “prophets”, a title no longer used by the Jews, but which had come into vogue among the new believers.
The shopkeepers’ booths and stalls had all closed for the evening, and some workers from nearby streets had also come to the warehouse yard. They’d heard that Jewish messengers had arrived from the Holy City this evening, sent by the mother congregation to preach the tidings of Messiah. Some of them had never heard the gospel preached before, but had often heard fellow workers, Jews and non-Jews, talk about “the anointed one.” The gospel had spread into all corners of laboring Antioch among the forges and smithies, the weavers, potters and pack carriers.
So this was the group to whom Paul preached his first sermon in Antioch.
“Come all of you who are weary and heavily burdened. Messiah brings consolation and help to all who suffer. There is no pain, no anguish, and no degree of slavery he didn’t feel on his own body. He took it all on himself freely, so that in suffering he might redeem those who are in bonds. The anointed one himself was tortured on the cross for all who are poor and oppressed, and God raised him up to life on the third day. Now he sits at the right hand of God, the protector of all who suffer.
“When he lived on earth he taught men to love and help each other. And those who make a bond with him are beyond the reach of evil for you can be sure that no matter what happens to you on earth you will be raised up by him into the world beyond. He will raise you from death, and you will find eternal life in the midst of your loved ones.”
“Will he bring me together with my wife Vespa?” called a slave from out of the corner.
“Where is your beloved Vespa, brother?” asked Saul.
“I don’t know. We lived in peace together in a little house by the sea on what my net brought out of the water. One day the government seized us because of a rebellion on the island, and we were put on the slave market. I was purchased by my master and brought to Antioch. I don’t know what happened to her.”
“She too will hear of his name. She’ll turn to him, and pray to him, even as you do, and both of you will unite with Messiah. And no matter how far you are from each other, you’ll be united in him. He’ll bring you together in eternal life when you come before him. Be assured that you will find her. She’ll be waiting for you at his side.”
These were words slaves understood.
After that Saul continued to preach in the synagogues, workshops, and marketplaces, to both Jews and Gentiles. Within a few months the congregation of believers in Antioch was in perfect unity, so that there was no difference between circumcised and uncircumcised.
The faith penetrated to all levels of the population, rich and poor alike. People everywhere heard about the God-man, or Son of God as they began to call him, who had taken all the pains and sorrows of mankind on himself to redeem all human beings from sin. All who believe in him are redeemed from their sins, becoming like newborn children. And though their bodies are still enslaved, their souls are free from sin, and they are bound to him in the highest glory in heaven. When Messiah returns, there will be no more masters and no more slaves, no strong and no weak, no ruler and no ruled. There will only be saved and lost, those who believed and those who did not. All who believe will share an eternal life of peace, glory and everlasting satisfaction, united with those from whom they’d been torn in life. Those who do not believe will be lost forever.
This belief kindled hope that had been extinguished, and brought light where darkness had seemed complete and immovable.
One day, a procession of sober men and women walked along Corso Street. Their eyes were modestly fixed on the ground to avoid looking at the panderers of lust offering their wares along with the stargazers, snake charmers, and dancing Arabian harlots.
These men and women were easily distinguishable from the rest of the population. Their clothes were of sackcloth. They used no dark cosmetics for their eyes or bright cosmetics for their lips and cheeks, and they didn’t drench their bodies in exciting or oppressive perfumes. They took no part in the open games and ceremonies or in any of the city celebrations. They never went to the temples or engaged in the sacrifices and orgies.
The sight of the “faithful” was particularly infuriating to the wicked element of the city, which included many of the wealthy idle young men. On this occasion, one young buck made an obscene gesture, and cried out, “Here come the anointed!”
For some reason this particular word caught the fancy of the bored idlers. A score of them imitated the obscene gesture, and shouted derisively, “Anointed! The anointed!”
The word caught on and became a title of mockery for the believers in Antioch.
When Saul heard of this new fashion, he said, “God Himself put the word in their mouths. For even as our lord was anointed by God to wear the crown of thorns, even so are we anointed to suffer for his name and to live a life of purity and holiness in our faith. Our lord is called the anointed Christ, and we will call ourselves the anointed followers.”
Thus from that time on, they called themselves the anointed Christians.
Saul’s influence through his preaching was great, but the influence of his actions was even greater, for he practiced what he preached. The day after he arrived in Antioch he found employment at his trade and earned enough for his modest needs. It was never his practice to apply to the charity fund of either the believers or of the general Jewish congregation, as other visiting preachers did. This had a double effect. It raised him in the eyes of the congregation, and it confirmed him in his feeling of independence. He was free to speak his mind.
Saul’s personal attitude about Jewish ritual was so correct that even the strictest Pharisees of the Jewish community could find no fault with him. Even though he preached that the discipline of the law should be lightened for the Gentiles, he gave full obedience to the law in his own life. He was scrupulous in the observation of kosher foods, and he preached the sanctity of the Sabbath to Gentiles as well as Jews. In his personal devotions, his prayers were so intense and passionate that he sometimes fell into a faint in the middle of it. He made no resolution, took no new step, without first praying long and earnestly in the privacy of his room. Titus, who shared his room, often woke up in the middle of the night to find Saul stretched out in agonizing prayer calling insistently and passionately on God. He often fell asleep, or perhaps lost consciousness while doing so. Titus would then lift him to the mattress and refresh him with some wine.
For all the hours he spent in agonizing prayer, once a resolution was fixed in his mind, there was no changing him. It was then as if he’d received clear instructions from above, through a divine voice.
One day a wandering prophet named Agabus brought news of an impending famine in Jerusalem and in all Judea. Indeed the fields lay parched in the sun and the latter rain had delayed so long that the grain was withering away. A time of bitter hunger was approaching for all in the Holy Land.
The Jews immediately started to collect money to help the believers in Jerusalem. This was not unusual for they were used to paying taxes, tithes and offerings to the Temple. But the Gentiles were not accustomed to giving to charity or to sharing their bread with the needy. So Saul decided this was a golden opportunity to teach the uncircumcised believers about the virtue especially associated with Abraham, that of compassion. He exhorted Gentile believers, slave and free alike, to spare something from their meager daily rations, earned in the sweat of their brow, for “brothers” they’d never seen, whose existence they’d been unaware of until a little while ago, and who lived in the strange and distant hateful Jewish city of Jerusalem. He told them again how Jesus had submitted to all the sorrows of the world, for strange people he’d never seen, for Jews and Gentiles of all lands, taking them to his heart and binding them to himself in eternal love. And thus all who were united in the faith of Messiah were no longer strangers to each other.
“Though you’ve never seen them,” he pleaded, “they’re your own brothers in the blood Jesus offered for all of us, and in the spirit that binds us to each other. For all of us have died to our sins and are born again in the spirit, in love and faith. So even though they are not your brothers and sisters in blood, they are your brothers and sisters in spirit. By the pity and love you show to them you bind yourselves to them in Jesus.”
And so the Gentiles, side by side with the Jews, took out the last copper coins, their food for tomorrow, and threw them into the common fund. Poor women brought their last cruses of oil to sell. Slaves brought part of their daily ration, the lean cakes that were their only food, and put them at the feet of the messengers. When Saul saw all this, he knew it was a sign that the Gentiles’ offering was acceptable to God and that the compassion that had awakened in their hearts made them children of Abraham.
When the offerings had all been collected, the elders of the congregation, Simon Niger and Lucius and Manaen, chose Saul and Barnabas to carry the gift to the holy ones in Jerusalem.
In Jerusalem Barnabas brought Saul before the elders of the congregation, James, Simon, and John. He told them of the work Saul had done in Antioch and how he drew the hearts of the Gentiles to the God of Israel through Jesus. He explained how Saul had trained them in the virtue of Father Abraham, the virtue of compassion.
Barnabas laid down the bags of money that had been gathered from among the Gentiles, and said, “Here is the proof that for the Gentiles too the gates of salvation have been opened.”
When the elders of the congregation saw this wonder, they rejoiced and agreed God had taken pity on the Gentiles and had given purpose to their life. Nevertheless, they did not put their hands on Saul, and they did not invest him with authority. But they sent Barnabas back to Antioch, with Saul under him. Barnabas also took with him John Mark, his sister’s son, for the boy had now grown into manhood. And the three of them set out for Antioch.
Thursday, December 24, 2009
08 - Among the Gentiles
Barnabas, Saul, and Titus made the one-day journey by ship from Tarsus to Seleucia. Commerce on this short sea route was heavy and well regulated, for the ships that went from Cyprus to Tarsus called at the port of Seleucia on the way back. From Seleucia they passed through the short canal to the Orontes and the city of Antioch. The Orontes River was considered unclean by the Jews for it was largely a pleasure resort, foul with the abominations and lusts of idolaters. The winding banks were covered with cypress and laurel and set with many gardens dedicated to gods and goddesses whose eunuch priests clashed their cymbals at passing boats, calling on the travelers to descend and worship in the hidden groves.
There was an ancient temple on the riverbank five miles from the city, surrounded by woods containing groves to various idols and included a gigantic image of Apollo. Men, women, and children burned incense on its altars while abandoning themselves to licentious rites. This was the central gathering place for “consecrated women” of both sexes, who lay on the temple steps waiting to sell their bodies to the pilgrims who came to do reverence to the idol. The priests collected the small fee of their sacred prostitution.
When the ship dropped anchor, a large host of pilgrims disembarked on their way to the Temple of Apollo. All of them had come to offer their bodies to the idol. Such Jews as there were on the ship covered their eyes so as not to see the abominations. They covered their ears so as not to hear the cymbals or the tumult of the crowd. And they held their noses so as not to smell the waves of incense. With their senses stopped as best they could, they spat out three times and repeated the formula, “Let the abomination be laid waste!”
Like the other Jews, Saul and Barnabas also repeated the formula, but unlike the other Jews Saul insisted that they go down to witness the abominations. Barnabas had lived so many years in Jerusalem, that he’d forgotten what the Gentiles were like, and Saul wanted him to remember.
The first thing they noticed was the heavy stench of lust and death coming from the idolatrous service. The second thing they noticed was how radiant with sunlight and beauty God’s creation was here. Laurels and cypresses sent out their pure odor. Green meadows were dappled with sunlight and set with refreshing color patches of various bushes and beds, violets, jasmine, and crimson poppies.
But this blossoming paradise had been transformed into a swamp of whoredom and sin. Women with tumbled hair and naked breasts stretched their arms to passersby with the repulsive smile of harlots and offered them their diseased bodies. The rank smell of putrefying flesh and open sores beat from the bodies of many women, mixed with the sickly-sweet perfume of oils. But the sharp odor of aromatics and the bright colors of cosmetics could not conceal the underlying corruption. They were the human cast-offs of human beastliness.
The whole thing sickened Barnabas. He tried to hurry along and not see or hear any of it. But Saul slowed down and forced him to look well on the ways of the heathen, so that he could learn what condition they’d fallen into.
They went to Corso, the main street of Antioch, which stretched across the city from the Golden Gate to the riverbank. There were many pillars along the way filled with the images of kings and gods. Antiochus Seleucus built the avenue and Herod the Great extended and enlarged it. The Corso swarmed with idlers day and night, and the empty tumult of the pleasure seekers echoed through the white shadowed pillars from one end of the city to the other.
Antioch was the third most important city of the empire, but produced nothing. She had neither the energy and industriousness of Tyre and Sidon, nor the commerce and scholarship of Tarsus. The city was built to dominate this part of the world, from Syria to the Babylonian deserts, so there were many officials and soldiers grouped around the Proconsul. Swindlers, magicians, and peddlers of exotic goods dominated the civilian population in search of an easy livelihood. There were also many provincials, some looking for relief from the oppression of local tyrants, and others negotiating concessions, such as collecting taxes or road tolls. There were officials, centurions, and procurators everywhere. Thus the proliferation of inns, places of amusement, and countless prostitutes from all lands and nations.
From the outside, Antioch looked like a place of superb beauty, with its great palaces, its incomparable main street, and its famous hanging gardens on the bridges of the Orontes. But its main attraction was the worship of the goddess Astarte. Her ritual had a special charm for the sexual appetites of the people.
Barnabas and Saul are in the wide alley of columns and statues. A cool breeze brings the scent of evergreens, modest violets, and refreshing jasmine. The shouts of boatmen can be heard in the distance. Lazy bodies are stretched out in the shadows of the alleys. In their laziness, they don’t even smile at the rhymes and antics of the comedians who parade before them, hoping to collect a few copper coins for bread and wine. Nor do they hear the boasting of the snake charmers or the appeals of the soothsayers and stargazers, who sell their prophecies for a measure of boiled lentils. The only sound that stirs them from their lethargy is the clashing of the copper dishes of the wine. But even then it’s rare for a man to lift his head out of the lap of his companion, even if his throat is parched.
Suddenly the subdued sound of drums and the rhythm of marching feet is heard in the distance. As the sound draws nearer and becomes louder, a dreamer here and there wakes and looks around. Then the clashing of cymbals is heard. A wild group of half-naked women is seen leaping and dancing as if possessed, and the slumbering idlers are stirred at last. A little donkey covered with silks is in the midst of the dancers, being led by a band of naked priests whose bodies are smeared with cosmetics of all colors. On the back of the donkey rides the goddess, Apuleus, half woman, half fish. The priests march in two lines in rhythm to the sound of the drums.
Suddenly the tumult ceases as the donkey comes to a halt. The men and women who have been sleeping under the columns are wide-awake now, and all eyes are fixed on the goddess and the eunuchs that surround her. The drums begin to beat again, softly and slowly at first, then louder, faster, and more insistently. As the rhythm changes, the rhythmic movements of the priests change with it. The beating rises to a wild climax, and the dancing of the priests becomes frenzied. One of the priests lifts an arm to his mouth and tears open a vein, so that a stream of blood gushes forth. Another priest follows suit. Others point a sword at their own flesh and drive it in, releasing a fountain of blood. Now the censers begin to smoke around the goddess, so that she is looking out through a cloud. The priests, their bodies gushing blood, dance in and out of the cloud. And then once again there is sudden silence.
“Who among you desires to sacrifice his manhood to the goddess who grants eternal life? Who would unite with the universal mother and bringer of fruitfulness?”
A young man rises to his feet, confused and a little shy. He has the build of an athlete, with a powerful, arched chest. He is considering it. His companions egg him on, “Come! Offer up your manhood to the goddess!”
And the drums begin their rhythm again, slow at first, hesitant, doubtful. They speak to him, and draw him into their wordless, muffled circle. They beat faster, they rise to a fury of thunder, and they call to him louder and louder. A eunuch priest approaches and thrusts his dripping knife into the lad’s hand. And suddenly his belt is ripped open, there is a flash of steel, and the lad flings the flesh of his lost virility at the feet of the goddess.
A rain of copper coins falls into the metal tray. Women tear the ornaments from their necks, noses, fingers, ears, arms and legs and throw them toward the donkey. Some rip the silken veils from around their bodies. Others offer doves, or measures of flour. A young pig is slaughtered, and after it a sheep and a goat. The smell of frying meat, oil, and baking flour goes up. Men snatch at the sacrificial flesh and at the wine flasks. And as the day draws to an end women pass from man to man, and the assembly dissolves into an indistinguishable fury of drunkenness and lust.
This is the city to which Barnabas has called Saul.
“The world is carried away by a flood of abomination!” Saul said to his friend, his lips drawn tight, and his tone a paroxysm of rage and bitterness. “Men have become worse than beasts in their lusts. They squirm like vermin in the filth of their whoredom. This would be the end if God had not taken pity on the world and sent Christ to cleanse it and bring it under the yoke of the Kingdom of Heaven. I hear the voice of the Lord calling, ‘Take pity on these people, and bring them the good news of my coming. Carry the news to the world so that every single person under heaven hears the name of the one living God and of Christ.’”
Barnabas stared at his friend. He recognized the old, passionate zeal. Once it had burned in hatred, but now it burned in love and devotion to the man of sorrow.
There was an ancient temple on the riverbank five miles from the city, surrounded by woods containing groves to various idols and included a gigantic image of Apollo. Men, women, and children burned incense on its altars while abandoning themselves to licentious rites. This was the central gathering place for “consecrated women” of both sexes, who lay on the temple steps waiting to sell their bodies to the pilgrims who came to do reverence to the idol. The priests collected the small fee of their sacred prostitution.
When the ship dropped anchor, a large host of pilgrims disembarked on their way to the Temple of Apollo. All of them had come to offer their bodies to the idol. Such Jews as there were on the ship covered their eyes so as not to see the abominations. They covered their ears so as not to hear the cymbals or the tumult of the crowd. And they held their noses so as not to smell the waves of incense. With their senses stopped as best they could, they spat out three times and repeated the formula, “Let the abomination be laid waste!”
Like the other Jews, Saul and Barnabas also repeated the formula, but unlike the other Jews Saul insisted that they go down to witness the abominations. Barnabas had lived so many years in Jerusalem, that he’d forgotten what the Gentiles were like, and Saul wanted him to remember.
The first thing they noticed was the heavy stench of lust and death coming from the idolatrous service. The second thing they noticed was how radiant with sunlight and beauty God’s creation was here. Laurels and cypresses sent out their pure odor. Green meadows were dappled with sunlight and set with refreshing color patches of various bushes and beds, violets, jasmine, and crimson poppies.
But this blossoming paradise had been transformed into a swamp of whoredom and sin. Women with tumbled hair and naked breasts stretched their arms to passersby with the repulsive smile of harlots and offered them their diseased bodies. The rank smell of putrefying flesh and open sores beat from the bodies of many women, mixed with the sickly-sweet perfume of oils. But the sharp odor of aromatics and the bright colors of cosmetics could not conceal the underlying corruption. They were the human cast-offs of human beastliness.
The whole thing sickened Barnabas. He tried to hurry along and not see or hear any of it. But Saul slowed down and forced him to look well on the ways of the heathen, so that he could learn what condition they’d fallen into.
They went to Corso, the main street of Antioch, which stretched across the city from the Golden Gate to the riverbank. There were many pillars along the way filled with the images of kings and gods. Antiochus Seleucus built the avenue and Herod the Great extended and enlarged it. The Corso swarmed with idlers day and night, and the empty tumult of the pleasure seekers echoed through the white shadowed pillars from one end of the city to the other.
Antioch was the third most important city of the empire, but produced nothing. She had neither the energy and industriousness of Tyre and Sidon, nor the commerce and scholarship of Tarsus. The city was built to dominate this part of the world, from Syria to the Babylonian deserts, so there were many officials and soldiers grouped around the Proconsul. Swindlers, magicians, and peddlers of exotic goods dominated the civilian population in search of an easy livelihood. There were also many provincials, some looking for relief from the oppression of local tyrants, and others negotiating concessions, such as collecting taxes or road tolls. There were officials, centurions, and procurators everywhere. Thus the proliferation of inns, places of amusement, and countless prostitutes from all lands and nations.
From the outside, Antioch looked like a place of superb beauty, with its great palaces, its incomparable main street, and its famous hanging gardens on the bridges of the Orontes. But its main attraction was the worship of the goddess Astarte. Her ritual had a special charm for the sexual appetites of the people.
Barnabas and Saul are in the wide alley of columns and statues. A cool breeze brings the scent of evergreens, modest violets, and refreshing jasmine. The shouts of boatmen can be heard in the distance. Lazy bodies are stretched out in the shadows of the alleys. In their laziness, they don’t even smile at the rhymes and antics of the comedians who parade before them, hoping to collect a few copper coins for bread and wine. Nor do they hear the boasting of the snake charmers or the appeals of the soothsayers and stargazers, who sell their prophecies for a measure of boiled lentils. The only sound that stirs them from their lethargy is the clashing of the copper dishes of the wine. But even then it’s rare for a man to lift his head out of the lap of his companion, even if his throat is parched.
Suddenly the subdued sound of drums and the rhythm of marching feet is heard in the distance. As the sound draws nearer and becomes louder, a dreamer here and there wakes and looks around. Then the clashing of cymbals is heard. A wild group of half-naked women is seen leaping and dancing as if possessed, and the slumbering idlers are stirred at last. A little donkey covered with silks is in the midst of the dancers, being led by a band of naked priests whose bodies are smeared with cosmetics of all colors. On the back of the donkey rides the goddess, Apuleus, half woman, half fish. The priests march in two lines in rhythm to the sound of the drums.
Suddenly the tumult ceases as the donkey comes to a halt. The men and women who have been sleeping under the columns are wide-awake now, and all eyes are fixed on the goddess and the eunuchs that surround her. The drums begin to beat again, softly and slowly at first, then louder, faster, and more insistently. As the rhythm changes, the rhythmic movements of the priests change with it. The beating rises to a wild climax, and the dancing of the priests becomes frenzied. One of the priests lifts an arm to his mouth and tears open a vein, so that a stream of blood gushes forth. Another priest follows suit. Others point a sword at their own flesh and drive it in, releasing a fountain of blood. Now the censers begin to smoke around the goddess, so that she is looking out through a cloud. The priests, their bodies gushing blood, dance in and out of the cloud. And then once again there is sudden silence.
“Who among you desires to sacrifice his manhood to the goddess who grants eternal life? Who would unite with the universal mother and bringer of fruitfulness?”
A young man rises to his feet, confused and a little shy. He has the build of an athlete, with a powerful, arched chest. He is considering it. His companions egg him on, “Come! Offer up your manhood to the goddess!”
And the drums begin their rhythm again, slow at first, hesitant, doubtful. They speak to him, and draw him into their wordless, muffled circle. They beat faster, they rise to a fury of thunder, and they call to him louder and louder. A eunuch priest approaches and thrusts his dripping knife into the lad’s hand. And suddenly his belt is ripped open, there is a flash of steel, and the lad flings the flesh of his lost virility at the feet of the goddess.
A rain of copper coins falls into the metal tray. Women tear the ornaments from their necks, noses, fingers, ears, arms and legs and throw them toward the donkey. Some rip the silken veils from around their bodies. Others offer doves, or measures of flour. A young pig is slaughtered, and after it a sheep and a goat. The smell of frying meat, oil, and baking flour goes up. Men snatch at the sacrificial flesh and at the wine flasks. And as the day draws to an end women pass from man to man, and the assembly dissolves into an indistinguishable fury of drunkenness and lust.
This is the city to which Barnabas has called Saul.
“The world is carried away by a flood of abomination!” Saul said to his friend, his lips drawn tight, and his tone a paroxysm of rage and bitterness. “Men have become worse than beasts in their lusts. They squirm like vermin in the filth of their whoredom. This would be the end if God had not taken pity on the world and sent Christ to cleanse it and bring it under the yoke of the Kingdom of Heaven. I hear the voice of the Lord calling, ‘Take pity on these people, and bring them the good news of my coming. Carry the news to the world so that every single person under heaven hears the name of the one living God and of Christ.’”
Barnabas stared at his friend. He recognized the old, passionate zeal. Once it had burned in hatred, but now it burned in love and devotion to the man of sorrow.
Monday, December 21, 2009
07 - The Call
The little earthen oil lamps cast a melancholy spell in the living room of Saul’s home. In one corner Saul was seated over his “parchments,” and in the opposite corner his mother was drawing threads from her spinning wheel, their giant shadows spreading over the utensils, jars, and mattresses and onto the white washed walls. His mother’s face was unnaturally long. Her eyes were swollen with much crying, and her nose, like his, overshadowed her lower lip, and was even longer than his.
She continued to spin even as her mournful, plaintive voice floated across the room. “A rabbi. That’s what your father and I expected to come back to us. A rabbi with his disciples to brighten our old age. And you come back a lonely and pitiful man. A young blossoming tree came back a withered thorn bush. You were the pride of Israel, the hope of our family, and now look at you. Now you’re the companion of heathens. The congregation calls you unclean behind your back, and you sit like a mourner in your celibacy, waiting, waiting, ever waiting. What are you waiting for, my son?”
Saul swallowed his mother’s reproaches in silence. He understood her longing for some earthly fulfillment through her son, but what could he do? He remembered that Jesus had said, ‘Who is my father, who are my brothers?’ But this wasn’t preaching; this was real. She was his flesh and bone, and his heart overflowed with pity.
From the corner he answered, “Mother, you know full well the reason for these things. I didn’t choose the road to Damascus. It was God who sent me. Can I leave the road that God sent me on, even for your sake?”
“It was an evil dream that visited you on the road to Damascus. An evil spirit took hold of you, and it makes your heart restless.”
“Mother, you speak against God. May he forgive you.”
“I say it again. It’s an evil spirit that lives in you. Return, my son. Place your forehead on the threshold of the synagogue, and ask forgiveness. Think. Your name and the name of your family will be cut off from Israel. You alone remain of your father’s sons. I will find a wife for you. Father children. Raise up your father’s house again in Israel. Why should I be cursed among the mothers in Israel?”
Saul, who was strong in front of others, was still a child in front of his mother. Her sorrow unnerved him. He got up, went over to her, bent down, and said, “I owe you the honor the law requires. My love and obedience are yours, but my life belongs to the lord. I will beg God to open your eyes, so that you can see that the instrument you created is destined for His work. Then your sorrow will turn to joy.”
After wrestling the night in prayer, Saul started the next day in the normal manner. He washed his hands, repeated the morning Shema, and packed his lunch. But he didn’t go to the weaver’s factory. Instead he went to the quayside. It was spring, and the branches were covered with blossoms. There were pilgrims boarding ship for Jerusalem and friends and relatives to see them off. Saul’s heart was burdened, but behind the pain was also a mixture of hope. Every branch on every bush has its time of blossoming, and his time would come too.
There were many ships that sailed between Antioch and Tarsus. A little canal connected the Orontes River from Antioch to the port of Seleucia. From there it was a short distance to Tarsus, a day’s journey in fair weather. Jewish merchants arrived with every boat and Saul often heard news of Antioch, so he knew that the number of believers increased daily. Many Gentiles were converted and joined the new congregation. Similar reports came from Phoenician merchants, Cypriots and others. And messengers also brought good news from Jerusalem. It appeared that Saul was the only one on the outside. Everyone, it seemed, had forgotten him.
Saul did go to work that day, and when he returned home that evening, he found a man waiting for him.
At first sight it seemed to Saul that he was seeing a vision. For although only seven years had passed, the man was a stranger. There was a mysterious spiritual beauty about him, as though divine glory rested on his face. The trim little beard Saul remembered had been replaced by a great black growth. It wasn’t combed and oiled, but wild, falling like a dark cascade on the black mantle. But in his eyes the day shone. His eyes seemed to have fathomed the meaning and purpose of the world and to have unlocked the riddle of life. To those eyes, everything was simple and straightforward. Belief in God and in His chosen Messiah flooded the eyes of Barnabas with childlike confidence and joy.
Barnabas had quite a different impression. He saw before him a young man who’d suddenly become old. There was nothing left of his thick head of hair but a fringe around a large bald patch. His head was still mighty, but weighted with all the sorrow of the world. His eyes gave forth the hot light of a frustrated longing, and his fallen cheeks spoke of years of patient waiting. Something about the fringe of hair suggested a crown of thorns.
The two men stared at each other speechless. Then suddenly they fell into each other’s arms.
“Saul, my brother!”
“Joseph!”
“I’ve come to take you with me to Antioch. The holy ones in Jerusalem sent me to strengthen the hands of our brothers there. But you’re more fit for the task, for God’s spirit rests on you.”
“Joseph, I knew you’d come. The lord has sustained me till this day.”
The two friends sat up the whole night. Saul was eager for every detail of the congregation’s growth in Jerusalem. He asked in particular about the reaction to Simon’s vision, especially James’, and wanted to know the names of all who opposed him. He wanted to know what had been done to strengthen the hands of the congregations Phillip had founded in Samaria. Barnabas told him that many hadn’t been too happy with Simon when they learned that he’d gone into the homes of the uncircumcised and broke bread with them.
Barnabas went on to tell of the new persecutions brought on the congregation by King Herod Agrippa. Agrippa was a man who lived two lives. In his provincial palace, he lived the heathen life of a proud Roman aristocrat, similar to the way he’d lived in the heyday of his Roman period. He started gladiator combats, and fights between men and beasts. On the other hand, he also remembered the chains he’d worn in prison under Tiberius and the pogrom he’d witnessed in Alexandria. So whenever he came up to Jerusalem he acted like a pious Pharisee, and became a zealot for the faith. Ignorant of its contents, and ignorant of the conditions in Jerusalem, he laid his heavy hand on John’s brother James, the purest of the pure, the disciple who lived in poverty, innocence, and devotion. After having James killed, he took Simon prisoner. But God put a heavy sleep on the prison guards, and an angel led Simon to freedom. Barnabas told the embarrassing story of how they’d been at his sister Mary’s house praying for Simon’s release and then didn’t believe the maid when she told them that Simon was knocking at the door.
Sometime after that Agrippa died a sudden and public death, and the congregation lived in peace. His death was interpreted as a punishment from God.
No one troubled the believers in Jerusalem these days. In fact, the sages, scribes, and Pharisees had made peace with them seeing as how the believers there all kept the commandments of the Law of Moses. Many of the Pharisees entered the faith, and sat at table with James and his brother Jude, and helped direct the congregation in the spirit of the Pharisees. However, this led to internal dissensions, for the new converts from among the Hellenists as well as the Gentiles could not submit to the heavy yoke of the laws the Pharisees placed on the neck of the community. Because of this many Gentiles wouldn’t become believers.
A flicker of bitterness passed across Saul’s face. He asked, “And what does Peter say? How does he stand in the matter?”
“Sometimes he talks one way and sometimes another. When he’s with the Gentile converts and Hellenists, he agrees with them. But when he’s with James, Jude, and Simon the Zealot, he agrees with them.”
“One that carries water on both shoulders,” muttered Saul.
“Well, Saul, I think Peter’s just trying to hold the congregation together. He takes that rock business seriously. Or if you prefer, he’s the fire that fuses the different parts into unity. So sometimes he makes the law easier, and sometimes harder, according to circumstances. He just wants to do what’s best for the congregation. He was compassionate toward the Gentiles and tried to ease their way into the Kingdom of Heaven. But he does insist that they’re bound to the God of Israel, and must observe His laws. And I think God’s blessing is on him.”
Sensing his friends’ natural devotion to Simon, Saul took the hint and said nothing. He knew how to be silent when necessary.
The next morning Saul went to his mother, bowed low, and told her that he was leaving.
“Where will you go, my son?” asked his mother, her eyes fixed on his face.
Saul returned her look, and felt like he was seeing his own future. Her face was nothing but cords and muscles, hillocks and valleys, folds and wrinkles – paths leading by strange detours into remote, unknown places. He felt he could see the coming storms and tribulations he would encounter on the long road ahead.
“I go by the road God has appointed for me,” he answered. “Peace to you, my mother. God grant that this face, which many have shamed, will be honored by many.”
He took the memory of her face out on the road with him.
She continued to spin even as her mournful, plaintive voice floated across the room. “A rabbi. That’s what your father and I expected to come back to us. A rabbi with his disciples to brighten our old age. And you come back a lonely and pitiful man. A young blossoming tree came back a withered thorn bush. You were the pride of Israel, the hope of our family, and now look at you. Now you’re the companion of heathens. The congregation calls you unclean behind your back, and you sit like a mourner in your celibacy, waiting, waiting, ever waiting. What are you waiting for, my son?”
Saul swallowed his mother’s reproaches in silence. He understood her longing for some earthly fulfillment through her son, but what could he do? He remembered that Jesus had said, ‘Who is my father, who are my brothers?’ But this wasn’t preaching; this was real. She was his flesh and bone, and his heart overflowed with pity.
From the corner he answered, “Mother, you know full well the reason for these things. I didn’t choose the road to Damascus. It was God who sent me. Can I leave the road that God sent me on, even for your sake?”
“It was an evil dream that visited you on the road to Damascus. An evil spirit took hold of you, and it makes your heart restless.”
“Mother, you speak against God. May he forgive you.”
“I say it again. It’s an evil spirit that lives in you. Return, my son. Place your forehead on the threshold of the synagogue, and ask forgiveness. Think. Your name and the name of your family will be cut off from Israel. You alone remain of your father’s sons. I will find a wife for you. Father children. Raise up your father’s house again in Israel. Why should I be cursed among the mothers in Israel?”
Saul, who was strong in front of others, was still a child in front of his mother. Her sorrow unnerved him. He got up, went over to her, bent down, and said, “I owe you the honor the law requires. My love and obedience are yours, but my life belongs to the lord. I will beg God to open your eyes, so that you can see that the instrument you created is destined for His work. Then your sorrow will turn to joy.”
After wrestling the night in prayer, Saul started the next day in the normal manner. He washed his hands, repeated the morning Shema, and packed his lunch. But he didn’t go to the weaver’s factory. Instead he went to the quayside. It was spring, and the branches were covered with blossoms. There were pilgrims boarding ship for Jerusalem and friends and relatives to see them off. Saul’s heart was burdened, but behind the pain was also a mixture of hope. Every branch on every bush has its time of blossoming, and his time would come too.
There were many ships that sailed between Antioch and Tarsus. A little canal connected the Orontes River from Antioch to the port of Seleucia. From there it was a short distance to Tarsus, a day’s journey in fair weather. Jewish merchants arrived with every boat and Saul often heard news of Antioch, so he knew that the number of believers increased daily. Many Gentiles were converted and joined the new congregation. Similar reports came from Phoenician merchants, Cypriots and others. And messengers also brought good news from Jerusalem. It appeared that Saul was the only one on the outside. Everyone, it seemed, had forgotten him.
Saul did go to work that day, and when he returned home that evening, he found a man waiting for him.
At first sight it seemed to Saul that he was seeing a vision. For although only seven years had passed, the man was a stranger. There was a mysterious spiritual beauty about him, as though divine glory rested on his face. The trim little beard Saul remembered had been replaced by a great black growth. It wasn’t combed and oiled, but wild, falling like a dark cascade on the black mantle. But in his eyes the day shone. His eyes seemed to have fathomed the meaning and purpose of the world and to have unlocked the riddle of life. To those eyes, everything was simple and straightforward. Belief in God and in His chosen Messiah flooded the eyes of Barnabas with childlike confidence and joy.
Barnabas had quite a different impression. He saw before him a young man who’d suddenly become old. There was nothing left of his thick head of hair but a fringe around a large bald patch. His head was still mighty, but weighted with all the sorrow of the world. His eyes gave forth the hot light of a frustrated longing, and his fallen cheeks spoke of years of patient waiting. Something about the fringe of hair suggested a crown of thorns.
The two men stared at each other speechless. Then suddenly they fell into each other’s arms.
“Saul, my brother!”
“Joseph!”
“I’ve come to take you with me to Antioch. The holy ones in Jerusalem sent me to strengthen the hands of our brothers there. But you’re more fit for the task, for God’s spirit rests on you.”
“Joseph, I knew you’d come. The lord has sustained me till this day.”
The two friends sat up the whole night. Saul was eager for every detail of the congregation’s growth in Jerusalem. He asked in particular about the reaction to Simon’s vision, especially James’, and wanted to know the names of all who opposed him. He wanted to know what had been done to strengthen the hands of the congregations Phillip had founded in Samaria. Barnabas told him that many hadn’t been too happy with Simon when they learned that he’d gone into the homes of the uncircumcised and broke bread with them.
Barnabas went on to tell of the new persecutions brought on the congregation by King Herod Agrippa. Agrippa was a man who lived two lives. In his provincial palace, he lived the heathen life of a proud Roman aristocrat, similar to the way he’d lived in the heyday of his Roman period. He started gladiator combats, and fights between men and beasts. On the other hand, he also remembered the chains he’d worn in prison under Tiberius and the pogrom he’d witnessed in Alexandria. So whenever he came up to Jerusalem he acted like a pious Pharisee, and became a zealot for the faith. Ignorant of its contents, and ignorant of the conditions in Jerusalem, he laid his heavy hand on John’s brother James, the purest of the pure, the disciple who lived in poverty, innocence, and devotion. After having James killed, he took Simon prisoner. But God put a heavy sleep on the prison guards, and an angel led Simon to freedom. Barnabas told the embarrassing story of how they’d been at his sister Mary’s house praying for Simon’s release and then didn’t believe the maid when she told them that Simon was knocking at the door.
Sometime after that Agrippa died a sudden and public death, and the congregation lived in peace. His death was interpreted as a punishment from God.
No one troubled the believers in Jerusalem these days. In fact, the sages, scribes, and Pharisees had made peace with them seeing as how the believers there all kept the commandments of the Law of Moses. Many of the Pharisees entered the faith, and sat at table with James and his brother Jude, and helped direct the congregation in the spirit of the Pharisees. However, this led to internal dissensions, for the new converts from among the Hellenists as well as the Gentiles could not submit to the heavy yoke of the laws the Pharisees placed on the neck of the community. Because of this many Gentiles wouldn’t become believers.
A flicker of bitterness passed across Saul’s face. He asked, “And what does Peter say? How does he stand in the matter?”
“Sometimes he talks one way and sometimes another. When he’s with the Gentile converts and Hellenists, he agrees with them. But when he’s with James, Jude, and Simon the Zealot, he agrees with them.”
“One that carries water on both shoulders,” muttered Saul.
“Well, Saul, I think Peter’s just trying to hold the congregation together. He takes that rock business seriously. Or if you prefer, he’s the fire that fuses the different parts into unity. So sometimes he makes the law easier, and sometimes harder, according to circumstances. He just wants to do what’s best for the congregation. He was compassionate toward the Gentiles and tried to ease their way into the Kingdom of Heaven. But he does insist that they’re bound to the God of Israel, and must observe His laws. And I think God’s blessing is on him.”
Sensing his friends’ natural devotion to Simon, Saul took the hint and said nothing. He knew how to be silent when necessary.
The next morning Saul went to his mother, bowed low, and told her that he was leaving.
“Where will you go, my son?” asked his mother, her eyes fixed on his face.
Saul returned her look, and felt like he was seeing his own future. Her face was nothing but cords and muscles, hillocks and valleys, folds and wrinkles – paths leading by strange detours into remote, unknown places. He felt he could see the coming storms and tribulations he would encounter on the long road ahead.
“I go by the road God has appointed for me,” he answered. “Peace to you, my mother. God grant that this face, which many have shamed, will be honored by many.”
He took the memory of her face out on the road with him.
Thursday, December 17, 2009
06 - Saul Waits
Mount Taurus towers above the city of Tarsus looking like a young athlete frozen in motion, the lower part of his body wreathed in eternal cypress and splashed with the blood-red blossom of oleander. It’s time for the New Year festival of the chief god, Sandan, and the population is out on the streets in celebration. Linen draped wealthy merchants mingle with burlap-covered slaves. Gaily-attired daughters of respectable families are side-by-side with alluring dancing girls clashing cymbals. There are academy students in sober togas and naked youths in the stadium.
Rivers of color run in the streets, robes of brown, violet, and purple, heads crowned with wreaths of laurel and flowers. From the waves of color rise the sounds of flute, cymbal, and drum. Each participant in the vast procession carries the uprooted trunk of a young, blossoming tree. Following ancient ritual, the worshipers replant the trunks around the temple of their god to create a fresh-blooming garden.
When this ceremony is done, a host of young men pours out of the stadium, ready for the athletic contests. The New Year festival depicts Sandan renewing himself in young life, and he must be worshipped in competitive games and sports in the famous Stadium of Tarsus. The assembled athletes are on display, with their rolling chests, indrawn stomachs, hardened buttocks, and massive shoulders, and a joyous cry goes up from ten thousand throats. The air rings with a single cry, “Adonis! Adonis!”
Among those who’ve come out of the city to attend the festival and watch the games is Saul. Saul wants to see and hear everything, unlike most of the Jews of Tarsus, who’ve taken refuge in the closed courtyard of their homes or in the synagogue so as not to accidentally witness the abomination of idol worship. He wants to know everything that the people of his city delight in, and how they worship their local god.
It’s been seven years since he heard the voice of the lord promising to send him to the Gentiles. Seven years he’s waited for a vision that would fulfill those words. But there’s been no vision, no voice, no sign.
Through all this time he’s kept himself ready, prepared at a moment’s notice to begin his mission. He even enrolled in the famous academy of Tarsus, in defiance of the Rabbis, to perfect himself for the work. He made his living by day, weaving mantles and tent coverings of goat’s hair, and studied by night. His teachers at the academy were famous philosophers from Athens. He even joined the company of a number of young Stoics.
Saul had a peculiar gift that attracted the deep and indestructible devotion of younger men. In Jerusalem, of course, he’d had the devotion of Barnabas. Here in Tarsus he developed an eternal bond of devotion from a young Stoic of the academy named Titus.
Young Titus was a Greek by birth, a native of Antioch, who’d come to complete his education at the famous schools in Tarsus. When he first met Saul he was completely devoted to the doctrines of the Stoics. Like them he considered the moral and philosophical system of his teachers to be the privilege of the “chosen” intellectual, completely above the mass of humanity. But inevitably his association with Saul influenced his outlook. Saul talked to him freely about the God of the Jews and His Messiah, and Titus felt the strong pressure of Saul’s dedication to a life of purity, love and faith. He struggled against it, driven as he was by a pagan spirit and a youthful, passionate nature that refused to accept the bonds of the Jewish spirit.
At the moment, the two of them are standing with the crowd waiting the opening of the games. Titus’ dark eyes are aflame with enthusiasm. Saul’s beard has become thinner with the years, and a bald patch shows on his head. Looking at the athletes and hearing the excited shouting of the people, they’re acutely aware of their differences in sentiment, and they can’t help urging their views on each other.
“Look at the perfection of the human body, Saul, the instrument of Eros,” cries Titus. “Look at the beauty of its lines and the harmony of its motions. Why do you say it’s only for a moment and is doomed to fade and disappear? Can’t Eros bring eternal bliss? Eros is all you have, and no one can take him away from you. He’s the only hope of the slave, for even the slave is free in him. And when one body mingles with another in desire, it’s life’s utter perfection. Desire is the one master of life. It swells the flesh and makes it fruitful, washes over it like a storm, and encloses it in the intimacy of fulfillment. Who can put a boundary on that?”
Saul listens patiently to this pagan outburst, and a smile of affection plays about his eyes. Like an elder addressing himself to a wayward child he answers, “Eros is like a blind beggar, dear Titus. He holds a stone in his hand and takes it for bread. If it is bread, it’s only the bread of vile flesh. When the flesh fades, Eros fades. When it dies, he dies.
“But we’re more than flesh and worms. In the body, we’re only here for a moment. We wither away like grass. But in the spirit we’re eternal. That’s why we live according to the spirit, and not according to the flesh. It’s in the spirit that we’re born to eternal life. And the only way to be born of the spirit is faith in the only living God and in His Messiah who brought us salvation. In faith we live eternally, for we live in the spirit.”
Titus looks at Saul puzzled.
“But isn’t my flesh also life? Isn’t my flesh subject to unchangeable laws, and isn’t there an eternal logic in the structure of my body?”
“Your body,” answers Saul, “is subject to the laws of human life, which have the nature of death and destruction in them. And it’s the same with the logic that regulates your life. It’s the logic of death and destruction. But the laws that regulate eternal life are of the logic of the spirit and come only from God. Only Messiah, who triumphed over death and destruction, reveals them. Only through faith and higher logic does our body find communion with the spirit and our life have worth and meaning. Without this spirit there’s nothing but a great emptiness.”
Still Titus looks at his friend without comprehension.
“What proof do you have that this higher logic exists? Can you prove to the senses that such logic is real?”
“I can’t prove it to your sense, for your sense is earthly and part of our base and vile physical being. The higher logic is revealed to a higher sense, and that responds to the voice of God speaking in your heart.”
“I’ve never heard that voice.”
“You will hear it when God has compassion on you.”
“Till then, Saul, let me live by the light of my lower sense, for everytime I hear you speak I begin to lose faith in it.”
Later that day the two friends stopped at one of the food booths erected for the festival along the banks of the river. Much was available, like sheep, lobsters, and young boar’s heads, and Titus ordered his favorite dish, roast pork liver, and a jar of sweet wine.
The people lay at ease under the trees and bushes, and there was laughter, singing, and music all around. Saul and Titus found a quiet eating-place a little apart from the main crowd. Saul still adhered strictly to the Pharisaic laws, so he wouldn’t eat the forbidden meat, but he’d relaxed his orthodoxy enough so that he could sit with his Gentile friends without feeling revulsion at the sight of unclean food. Titus, of course, knew of his friend’s belief, and so tactfully did not offer to share his meal. There was a group of Stoic students nearby under a bamboo shelter, who seemed to be devotees of the wine god Bacchus rather than the stoic Zeno.
One of the many beggars who hovered thick as flies around the eating-places approached the young revelers. Different beggars used different tactics to get food or coin, and this beggar posed as an interpreter of dreams.
Standing near the drunken students he began to whine, “Oh free son of a free father. By the wrinkles on your forehead I think you had a dream last night that you can’t interpret. Tell me your dream, and I swear by Sandan that in exchange for a slice of roast pork mixed with lobster dipped in oil, and a bit of wine, I will so interpret your dream that your wrinkles will disappear and the daughters of Tarsus, who are ripe with love, will fall into your manly lap. Just yesterday I interpreted a dream for a slave, and today I saw him with the tablet of manumission on his chest.”
The tattered interpreter wasn’t talking to any one particular student, for he was blind and could only guess who was seated before him.
“Don’t you know,” called back one of the young revelers, “that the course of a man’s life is not in the hands of the gods, but is predestined according to the doctrine of the great Epicurus?”
“By your wise speech I can see you’re one of the philosophers of mighty Athenadorus,” replied the beggar. “I’m a colleague, a philosopher of Plato. Brother philosopher, fill my empty stomach which only understands food.”
“Brother beggar, if you’re a philosopher, than surely you know that you can’t find happiness in any condition,” said another student as he sucked lustily at the claw of a lobster. “The pain of hunger is just a condition. You’re in the condition of hunger, and I’m in a satisfied condition. Don’t disturb the harmony of my condition by dragging me into the sphere of your condition.”
A third called out, “What’s in it for me if I give you a dish of succulent pork seasoned with frog-sauce fried in oil, and a cup of wine mixed with honey? Even if I added half of this lobster, whose white flesh still retains the fresh tang of the sea, so that it delights my tongue and freshens my virility as only the fat meat of lobsters can, what do I get out of it? Wouldn’t you still be suffering, and wouldn’t I be guilty of prolonging your suffering?
“If you were a philosopher, you would know I couldn’t very well give you this pheasant the cook just placed before me on a soft bed of egg-cakes and now squats there waiting for me to go throw up so I can make room for it. If I placed this fat, tender bird in your trembling hands, I’d be doing injury to myself. Surely you don’t want to be the cause of my suffering.”
Titus had stopped eating and was staring at them. Suddenly he stood up, went over to the blind beggar and led him away from the mocking group.
“Come,” he said, “sit at my table. You can have your fill of the tender pork and sweet wine you long for.”
The beggar, fearing that this was just a continuation of the game, held back. But when he smelled the good food, he threw himself at it with the fury of a starved beast.
The Stoics were amused by the little comedy and loudly agreed among themselves that this young man must be infected with the queer faith of the Jews, if he’s willing to share his food with the hungry and needy.
“Too many people are defecting from our home gods. An alien faith corrupts our city, and the fathers should do something about it.”
Saul and Titus said nothing, but on the way home Saul asked his friend, “Why’d you do it?”
“Do what?”
“Give your supper to the blind beggar.”
“I’m not sure.”
“Weren’t the Stoics at the other table correct in their logic?”
“Yes, logically, they were correct.”
“But you didn’t act logically. Why?”
“I tell you I don’t know. A passing mood, maybe, or a touch of contrariness.”
“No, brother Titus, it was neither. Your action was true to the higher logic of the spirit I mentioned earlier. Up until now only the Jews have lived this way. But now that Messiah has come the whole world will live in the spirit that says all of us are brothers.”
“Tell me more, Saul. I think I’m beginning to understand,” said Titus.
“No, not to understand, brother, but to live it in your feelings, like in a new birth – a new-born child in the spirit of Jesus.”
* * * * *
No father could have watched over the footsteps of a little son with more tenderness than Saul watched over those of Titus. From that day on he accompanied his friend everywhere. He waited outside the temple door when he went to do service before the idol. He waited outside the door of the gymnasium rubbing chamber where the young men went after their baths. Saul didn’t go into any of these places, of course, but he made no effort to dissuade his friend from doing so. He used no pressure. He just waited, knowing that his young friend was moving step by step toward the new life and the new doctrine.
Saul also gave up many of his own practices for his friend’s sake and put his position in the Jewish community at risk. He was sitting at table with Gentiles, and some even accused him of going into their temples. Saul’s father had passed away, but his mother was heartbroken by the strange turn in her son’s life. She wept for the disaster that had come over Saul. She wept because he hadn’t taken a wife or founded a house in Israel, like all other Jews. She wept because he acted like a sick man, claiming to have seen Messiah in a vision. Meanwhile the years were passing and his life was coming to nothing. The other members of the household considered him a lost cause, and if not for the trade he used to support himself, he would’ve been forced to leave his mother’s home and to hunger among strangers.
But Saul was willing to endure everything because he felt that this young pagan Gentile, Titus, was a test of his belief that Gentiles could accept the faith of Messiah. He figured that if he could win this one, he could win others. No, it was more than that. To Saul, Titus was his child of the spirit, the soul he was bringing into the fold of Messiah.
So Saul spent every moment he could with Titus, even taking time from work. Gently, by degrees, he fed him with the truth as a little child is fed with milk. He nourished the purer instincts in his young friend, playing especially on Titus’ instinct of compassion. Titus hadn’t really been aware of this instinct in himself and then he was puzzled to learn that not everyone had it. Saul developed this in him, teaching him not only to give to charity, but to love his brother, to understand the heart of the stranger, and to be patient and loving even with his enemies. So Titus ripened in the spirit until he was ready to accept Messiah.
Saul taught him about the Jewish patriarchs, and of the covenant God made with Abraham. He told him of the exile in Egypt, and the exodus. He told him of the giving of the law at Sinai, and the promise revealed to the prophets. Finally he came to the fulfillment of the promise in Jesus.
Late one evening, on a green field under the white shadows of birches by the quiet waters of the river, Saul spoke to his young friend of that memorable Friday in Jerusalem. He drew the picture of the Roman soldiers driving Jesus on the road to Golgotha, bent under the weight of the cross, his white robe stained with blood and the sweat of his anguish. Slowly he described the last agonies, the death, and resurrection, and the appearance to the disciples. Then he reached his own part in the story, his persecution of the faithful, and the vision on the road to Damascus.
“He seized me,” said Saul, “as one seizes a pot and shatters it. He shattered me and put me back together again. Now I’m his instrument waiting for his word of command to send me out on my mission, as he promised me in Jerusalem.
“And I’m your servant, Saul. Take me and command me as you will.”
“No, not my servant, but my brother, whom I have won in Jesus the Messiah.”
Rivers of color run in the streets, robes of brown, violet, and purple, heads crowned with wreaths of laurel and flowers. From the waves of color rise the sounds of flute, cymbal, and drum. Each participant in the vast procession carries the uprooted trunk of a young, blossoming tree. Following ancient ritual, the worshipers replant the trunks around the temple of their god to create a fresh-blooming garden.
When this ceremony is done, a host of young men pours out of the stadium, ready for the athletic contests. The New Year festival depicts Sandan renewing himself in young life, and he must be worshipped in competitive games and sports in the famous Stadium of Tarsus. The assembled athletes are on display, with their rolling chests, indrawn stomachs, hardened buttocks, and massive shoulders, and a joyous cry goes up from ten thousand throats. The air rings with a single cry, “Adonis! Adonis!”
Among those who’ve come out of the city to attend the festival and watch the games is Saul. Saul wants to see and hear everything, unlike most of the Jews of Tarsus, who’ve taken refuge in the closed courtyard of their homes or in the synagogue so as not to accidentally witness the abomination of idol worship. He wants to know everything that the people of his city delight in, and how they worship their local god.
It’s been seven years since he heard the voice of the lord promising to send him to the Gentiles. Seven years he’s waited for a vision that would fulfill those words. But there’s been no vision, no voice, no sign.
Through all this time he’s kept himself ready, prepared at a moment’s notice to begin his mission. He even enrolled in the famous academy of Tarsus, in defiance of the Rabbis, to perfect himself for the work. He made his living by day, weaving mantles and tent coverings of goat’s hair, and studied by night. His teachers at the academy were famous philosophers from Athens. He even joined the company of a number of young Stoics.
Saul had a peculiar gift that attracted the deep and indestructible devotion of younger men. In Jerusalem, of course, he’d had the devotion of Barnabas. Here in Tarsus he developed an eternal bond of devotion from a young Stoic of the academy named Titus.
Young Titus was a Greek by birth, a native of Antioch, who’d come to complete his education at the famous schools in Tarsus. When he first met Saul he was completely devoted to the doctrines of the Stoics. Like them he considered the moral and philosophical system of his teachers to be the privilege of the “chosen” intellectual, completely above the mass of humanity. But inevitably his association with Saul influenced his outlook. Saul talked to him freely about the God of the Jews and His Messiah, and Titus felt the strong pressure of Saul’s dedication to a life of purity, love and faith. He struggled against it, driven as he was by a pagan spirit and a youthful, passionate nature that refused to accept the bonds of the Jewish spirit.
At the moment, the two of them are standing with the crowd waiting the opening of the games. Titus’ dark eyes are aflame with enthusiasm. Saul’s beard has become thinner with the years, and a bald patch shows on his head. Looking at the athletes and hearing the excited shouting of the people, they’re acutely aware of their differences in sentiment, and they can’t help urging their views on each other.
“Look at the perfection of the human body, Saul, the instrument of Eros,” cries Titus. “Look at the beauty of its lines and the harmony of its motions. Why do you say it’s only for a moment and is doomed to fade and disappear? Can’t Eros bring eternal bliss? Eros is all you have, and no one can take him away from you. He’s the only hope of the slave, for even the slave is free in him. And when one body mingles with another in desire, it’s life’s utter perfection. Desire is the one master of life. It swells the flesh and makes it fruitful, washes over it like a storm, and encloses it in the intimacy of fulfillment. Who can put a boundary on that?”
Saul listens patiently to this pagan outburst, and a smile of affection plays about his eyes. Like an elder addressing himself to a wayward child he answers, “Eros is like a blind beggar, dear Titus. He holds a stone in his hand and takes it for bread. If it is bread, it’s only the bread of vile flesh. When the flesh fades, Eros fades. When it dies, he dies.
“But we’re more than flesh and worms. In the body, we’re only here for a moment. We wither away like grass. But in the spirit we’re eternal. That’s why we live according to the spirit, and not according to the flesh. It’s in the spirit that we’re born to eternal life. And the only way to be born of the spirit is faith in the only living God and in His Messiah who brought us salvation. In faith we live eternally, for we live in the spirit.”
Titus looks at Saul puzzled.
“But isn’t my flesh also life? Isn’t my flesh subject to unchangeable laws, and isn’t there an eternal logic in the structure of my body?”
“Your body,” answers Saul, “is subject to the laws of human life, which have the nature of death and destruction in them. And it’s the same with the logic that regulates your life. It’s the logic of death and destruction. But the laws that regulate eternal life are of the logic of the spirit and come only from God. Only Messiah, who triumphed over death and destruction, reveals them. Only through faith and higher logic does our body find communion with the spirit and our life have worth and meaning. Without this spirit there’s nothing but a great emptiness.”
Still Titus looks at his friend without comprehension.
“What proof do you have that this higher logic exists? Can you prove to the senses that such logic is real?”
“I can’t prove it to your sense, for your sense is earthly and part of our base and vile physical being. The higher logic is revealed to a higher sense, and that responds to the voice of God speaking in your heart.”
“I’ve never heard that voice.”
“You will hear it when God has compassion on you.”
“Till then, Saul, let me live by the light of my lower sense, for everytime I hear you speak I begin to lose faith in it.”
Later that day the two friends stopped at one of the food booths erected for the festival along the banks of the river. Much was available, like sheep, lobsters, and young boar’s heads, and Titus ordered his favorite dish, roast pork liver, and a jar of sweet wine.
The people lay at ease under the trees and bushes, and there was laughter, singing, and music all around. Saul and Titus found a quiet eating-place a little apart from the main crowd. Saul still adhered strictly to the Pharisaic laws, so he wouldn’t eat the forbidden meat, but he’d relaxed his orthodoxy enough so that he could sit with his Gentile friends without feeling revulsion at the sight of unclean food. Titus, of course, knew of his friend’s belief, and so tactfully did not offer to share his meal. There was a group of Stoic students nearby under a bamboo shelter, who seemed to be devotees of the wine god Bacchus rather than the stoic Zeno.
One of the many beggars who hovered thick as flies around the eating-places approached the young revelers. Different beggars used different tactics to get food or coin, and this beggar posed as an interpreter of dreams.
Standing near the drunken students he began to whine, “Oh free son of a free father. By the wrinkles on your forehead I think you had a dream last night that you can’t interpret. Tell me your dream, and I swear by Sandan that in exchange for a slice of roast pork mixed with lobster dipped in oil, and a bit of wine, I will so interpret your dream that your wrinkles will disappear and the daughters of Tarsus, who are ripe with love, will fall into your manly lap. Just yesterday I interpreted a dream for a slave, and today I saw him with the tablet of manumission on his chest.”
The tattered interpreter wasn’t talking to any one particular student, for he was blind and could only guess who was seated before him.
“Don’t you know,” called back one of the young revelers, “that the course of a man’s life is not in the hands of the gods, but is predestined according to the doctrine of the great Epicurus?”
“By your wise speech I can see you’re one of the philosophers of mighty Athenadorus,” replied the beggar. “I’m a colleague, a philosopher of Plato. Brother philosopher, fill my empty stomach which only understands food.”
“Brother beggar, if you’re a philosopher, than surely you know that you can’t find happiness in any condition,” said another student as he sucked lustily at the claw of a lobster. “The pain of hunger is just a condition. You’re in the condition of hunger, and I’m in a satisfied condition. Don’t disturb the harmony of my condition by dragging me into the sphere of your condition.”
A third called out, “What’s in it for me if I give you a dish of succulent pork seasoned with frog-sauce fried in oil, and a cup of wine mixed with honey? Even if I added half of this lobster, whose white flesh still retains the fresh tang of the sea, so that it delights my tongue and freshens my virility as only the fat meat of lobsters can, what do I get out of it? Wouldn’t you still be suffering, and wouldn’t I be guilty of prolonging your suffering?
“If you were a philosopher, you would know I couldn’t very well give you this pheasant the cook just placed before me on a soft bed of egg-cakes and now squats there waiting for me to go throw up so I can make room for it. If I placed this fat, tender bird in your trembling hands, I’d be doing injury to myself. Surely you don’t want to be the cause of my suffering.”
Titus had stopped eating and was staring at them. Suddenly he stood up, went over to the blind beggar and led him away from the mocking group.
“Come,” he said, “sit at my table. You can have your fill of the tender pork and sweet wine you long for.”
The beggar, fearing that this was just a continuation of the game, held back. But when he smelled the good food, he threw himself at it with the fury of a starved beast.
The Stoics were amused by the little comedy and loudly agreed among themselves that this young man must be infected with the queer faith of the Jews, if he’s willing to share his food with the hungry and needy.
“Too many people are defecting from our home gods. An alien faith corrupts our city, and the fathers should do something about it.”
Saul and Titus said nothing, but on the way home Saul asked his friend, “Why’d you do it?”
“Do what?”
“Give your supper to the blind beggar.”
“I’m not sure.”
“Weren’t the Stoics at the other table correct in their logic?”
“Yes, logically, they were correct.”
“But you didn’t act logically. Why?”
“I tell you I don’t know. A passing mood, maybe, or a touch of contrariness.”
“No, brother Titus, it was neither. Your action was true to the higher logic of the spirit I mentioned earlier. Up until now only the Jews have lived this way. But now that Messiah has come the whole world will live in the spirit that says all of us are brothers.”
“Tell me more, Saul. I think I’m beginning to understand,” said Titus.
“No, not to understand, brother, but to live it in your feelings, like in a new birth – a new-born child in the spirit of Jesus.”
* * * * *
No father could have watched over the footsteps of a little son with more tenderness than Saul watched over those of Titus. From that day on he accompanied his friend everywhere. He waited outside the temple door when he went to do service before the idol. He waited outside the door of the gymnasium rubbing chamber where the young men went after their baths. Saul didn’t go into any of these places, of course, but he made no effort to dissuade his friend from doing so. He used no pressure. He just waited, knowing that his young friend was moving step by step toward the new life and the new doctrine.
Saul also gave up many of his own practices for his friend’s sake and put his position in the Jewish community at risk. He was sitting at table with Gentiles, and some even accused him of going into their temples. Saul’s father had passed away, but his mother was heartbroken by the strange turn in her son’s life. She wept for the disaster that had come over Saul. She wept because he hadn’t taken a wife or founded a house in Israel, like all other Jews. She wept because he acted like a sick man, claiming to have seen Messiah in a vision. Meanwhile the years were passing and his life was coming to nothing. The other members of the household considered him a lost cause, and if not for the trade he used to support himself, he would’ve been forced to leave his mother’s home and to hunger among strangers.
But Saul was willing to endure everything because he felt that this young pagan Gentile, Titus, was a test of his belief that Gentiles could accept the faith of Messiah. He figured that if he could win this one, he could win others. No, it was more than that. To Saul, Titus was his child of the spirit, the soul he was bringing into the fold of Messiah.
So Saul spent every moment he could with Titus, even taking time from work. Gently, by degrees, he fed him with the truth as a little child is fed with milk. He nourished the purer instincts in his young friend, playing especially on Titus’ instinct of compassion. Titus hadn’t really been aware of this instinct in himself and then he was puzzled to learn that not everyone had it. Saul developed this in him, teaching him not only to give to charity, but to love his brother, to understand the heart of the stranger, and to be patient and loving even with his enemies. So Titus ripened in the spirit until he was ready to accept Messiah.
Saul taught him about the Jewish patriarchs, and of the covenant God made with Abraham. He told him of the exile in Egypt, and the exodus. He told him of the giving of the law at Sinai, and the promise revealed to the prophets. Finally he came to the fulfillment of the promise in Jesus.
Late one evening, on a green field under the white shadows of birches by the quiet waters of the river, Saul spoke to his young friend of that memorable Friday in Jerusalem. He drew the picture of the Roman soldiers driving Jesus on the road to Golgotha, bent under the weight of the cross, his white robe stained with blood and the sweat of his anguish. Slowly he described the last agonies, the death, and resurrection, and the appearance to the disciples. Then he reached his own part in the story, his persecution of the faithful, and the vision on the road to Damascus.
“He seized me,” said Saul, “as one seizes a pot and shatters it. He shattered me and put me back together again. Now I’m his instrument waiting for his word of command to send me out on my mission, as he promised me in Jerusalem.
“And I’m your servant, Saul. Take me and command me as you will.”
“No, not my servant, but my brother, whom I have won in Jesus the Messiah.”
Monday, December 14, 2009
05 - Peter Breaks the Barrier
Gaius Caligula was killed by a Roman aristocrat, and no one mourned his passing. Bleeding from a hundred wounds, the corpse of Jupiter’s brother lay in the gutter like the carcass of a mad dog. Petronius was fortunate enough that the news of Caligula’s death reached Palestine before the command to commit suicide because of his failure to carry out the royal decree concerning the image and the Jewish Temple.
Caligula’s successor, the timid Claudius, assumed the purple with the direct assistance of the Jewish King Agrippa, who’d been able to carry on an active campaign among the senators and army leaders in favor of his friend through his extensive connections in Rome. Because of these services from his boyhood friend, Claudius treated Agrippa as one of his most trusted councilors. He not only made Agrippa’s title of King formal, but also enlarged his territory and returned all the provinces to him that had belonged to his grandfather, Herod.
Claudius went further. He extended his graciousness to Agrippa’s people, openly declaring himself a friend of the Jews. He restored the privileges of the Alexandrian community and heavily punished those who were responsible for the pogroms there. He reaffirmed all the rights granted the Jews by Julius and Augustus, proclaimed full tolerance for the Jewish faith, and instructed the governors of the various provinces to protect the synagogues against any attempted intrusions.
The effect of all this was a resurgence of the old envies among the Greek peoples of the empire. Louder than ever, many Greeks cried that in refusing to worship the local gods, the Jews were showing that they were aliens. Many of the more pious Gentiles, however, regarded the restoration of Jewish rights as a reward for their devotion to their God. They admired the extraordinary steadfastness of their faith in the days of persecution. The hideous death of the Caesar-god was hailed as a miracle.
So side-by-side with renewed hostility there was a wave of admiration and wonder. Jewish synagogues were now being attended by ever-larger numbers of Gentiles who were attracted by the mysterious bond between this heroic people and its God.
The first person to carry the gospel abroad, and to preach salvation to the Gentiles, was Philip, the head of the Cilician Synagogue. He first went to Samaria, fleeing Saul’s persecution, and when word got back to Jerusalem of the many souls won for Jesus among the Samaritans, the leaders had no objections. On the contrary, they rejoiced that their lost brothers in the faith were returning to the fold of Israel. They argued that, in accepting Messiah, the Samaritans were, by implication, accepting the prophets. They saw the finger of God in this, and the beginning of the unification of all Israel. Simon and John went up to Samaria to lay their hands on the converts and to bring them under the wings of the Holy Spirit.
When Simon saw the power of the spirit in Samaria, and the joy that the converts experienced at the common meals, he decided to branch out into other nearby towns. Some of them were entirely Jewish and others were of mixed population. He went down to the city of Lydda, a completely Jewish town, nestled in the green fields of the Sharon valley. From there he went to the harbor town of Joppa, which had a mixed population of Jews and Greeks and was not far from Caesarea. Simon stayed there with a tanner who was also named Simon. The tanner had been the first person in Joppa to join the new faith, and by the time Simon arrived, there was already a small community of believers, all Jews. Simon spent some time there strengthening their spirit.
The Greeks of both Joppa and Caesarea had been profoundly impressed by the unforgettable demonstration of Jewish faith that had occurred in nearby Akko. In both towns the rumor of a risen Messiah, and of the hopes associated with him, had also become widespread among the non-Jews. A spirit of unrest and awe came on the Gentiles, not only among the townspeople, but among the members of the Roman garrison as well.
One of the latter, a centurion by the name of Cornelius, became a pious, god-fearing Gentile. He did much for the Jews of his city, and they mentioned his name with respect and affection. Simon learned that the Gentiles of both cities greatly desired to enter the congregation of believers, but he also knew that they had a problem with circumcision and the laws of kosher food.
No right-thinking Jew, of course, could sit with Gentiles at the same table or even live under the same roof with them. By law, if a Gentile so much as touched any food, it became unclean and could not be eaten by Jews. On the other hand, the common meals were the most powerful instrument of Simon’s faith. It was at the breaking of bread that he told of the life, death and resurrection of Messiah and that the Holy Spirit came on the believers and they spoke in tongues. So how could Gentiles experience all this if Simon couldn’t even sit at table with them?
One day Simon sat with Simon the tanner, looking out over the waters of the Great Sea. It was toward the evening in summer. Far off, in the faint mist that lay on the sleeping waters, he saw the masts and the different colored sails of ships from different provinces anchored in the harbor of Joppa. Compared to the tiny Sea of Galilee, this was quite a sight. He thought of how these waters led to so many distant places with so many people who’d never heard the name of God and knew nothing about Messiah. They worshipped idols, or were deceived by stargazers and soothsayers. He himself had recently encountered a man known as Simon the Magician, who had offered to purchase the right to distribute the Holy Spirit. This Simon went about with a certain whore by the name of Helena, and he told the poor, credulous Samaritans that she was the mother of all living, even the gods. It stood to reason that all the other cities also had their deceivers and women idols. All these were waiting to be delivered from the bonds of falsehood by the word of the true Messiah.
Simon suddenly remembered the words of the lord when he told them that they should be witnesses for him in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, AND to the ends of the world.
“Could it be,” Simon thought, “that God desires salvation for everyone?”
Aloud he said, “What can I do if the Holy Spirit descends on us only when we sit together and eat the lord’s body and drink the lord’s blood? The Rabbis have forbidden us to sat at table with unclean Gentiles who eat all sorts of unclean things.”
“The Rabbis also forbid eating together with ignorant Jews who don’t observe the law,” answered Simon the tanner. “Yet here you sit with me, a tanner who is so befouled by my trade that my wife has the right to divorce me if I hadn’t told her what trade I followed before we were married. You sit here with me and break bread with me and eat from the same bowl.”
“Well, the lord also sat at table with simple and ignorant people,” answered Simon. “And not just them, but tax collectors and even women of sin, if they repented. There wasn’t a soul in Israel fallen so low that my Rabbi would not sit at table with him. In fact, the lower the man had fallen, the dearer he was to my lord. He never avoided the company of sinners and tax collectors.
“But I never saw him sit at table with Gentiles, or eat anything unclean.”
“Tell me, rabbi,” said his host. “Has not God created the heavens and earth and all that is between them? Can anything God created be unclean? I’m a simple man and unskilled in the scriptures, but I ask myself, Who is the man who can make unclean what God created?”
Simon was confused by the straightforward question. He’d never thought of it like that before. As a Jew, he’d always taken it for granted that there were foods that were allowed and foods that were not allowed. It was in the order of nature.
Simon continued to wrestle with these thoughts. He tried to imagine how the lord would act if he saw all these Gentiles longing for admission to the Kingdom of Heaven and not allowed in because of the law. He thought of the lord Messiah going in to the son of the centurion of Capernaum to bring him out of his sleep of death. He thought of how the lord Messiah had dealt with tax collectors, fallen women, and Canaanites. And he finally decided that the lord would remove the barrier. He’d open wide the gates of the Kingdom to the Gentiles.
But as usual in these situations, Simon did nothing without some sign. For now he would just wait. But while he waited, he won no new souls for the holy congregation. He spent most of his time walking back and forth on the seashore, watching the fishermen cast their nets into the deeps.
One day while doing this, he came on a group of fishermen and looked at the contents of the great net they were hauling in. There were a large variety of creatures in the net, things that swam and things that crawled, the like of which he’d never seen before in all his fisherman’s life. He didn’t even know that the sea was full of so many different creatures. As the net flattened out on the sands he saw fish that were shaped like stars, while others were as black as the darkest night. Some had blown-up bellies and fat oozed out of them. There were also creatures in the form of miniature flying horses and others with huge, overlapping scales, bearded and bewhiskered fish, and fish with sail-like fins. And there were insects like gigantic spiders, with prehensile claws that made him think of tormenting demons in the nether world. There were creatures that in no way resembled living things. They were like dumb, dead growths, covered with gluey feathers. There were creatures the size of a man’s finger, with transparent skins through which could be seen the repulsive workings of their vitals. And there were others that called to mind petrified plants, but the moment they were touched they opened enormous jaws. And this entire hideous conglomeration squirmed and rolled in a slimy thickness.
The men and women of Joppa came out to the shore and bought everything from the fisherman. They split the oysters and the other sea-creatures between two rocks, and brought them to their lips, so that the living ooze ran down their chins. Simon was filled with a retching disgust, and in his heart he gave thanks to God for having made him a Jew and separating him from other people.
He slipped back into his room in the upper chamber of Simon the tanner’s house.
When the time of the afternoon Shema came, Peter lay down on the floor with his face in his hands and prayed long and hard. He prayed for clarity of spirit and illumination of heart. In the midst of his intense supplication, he became aware of the presence of the Holy Spirit. Heaven opened and light poured down. A great table descended from above, and on its radiant cover stood an enormous dish containing four-footed creatures and birds and sea beasts, some of which he knew and many of which he did not know. Crawling things were there, too, like he had seen in the fishermen’s net.
Then he heard a voice, “Rise, Simon! Kill and eat.”
Terror held Simon’s heart like a vise. Was this a dream, or a vision? Was it the Evil One tempting him, or was this a sign from the Lord? He called out, “No, I’ve never eaten anything unholy or impure!”
Then the voice rang out sternly, “What God has made clean, do not make unclean!”
Desperately he repeated, “I’ve never eaten anything unholy or impure!”
And again the voice rang, more sternly, “Arise Simon, and eat! What God has made pure, do not make impure!”
When this happened a third time, Simon was convinced it was a sign from heaven! He stretched out his hand to the now pure food. But as he did so everything vanished.
He continued to lay with his face to the floor for a long time.
Then, when he came down from the upper chamber, he was told that certain men had come, asking after him. They were messengers from the Gentile city of Caesarea. Their message was, “Cornelius the centurion, a just and god-fearing man, whose name is held in esteem by the Jews, was visited by an angel of the Lord, and told to send for you. You are to come to his house so that he may hear your words.”
This was the final proof for Simon.
Simon took some men from Joppa and went up to Caesarea with the messengers. He came into the house of the Gentile Cornelius and told him that God regarded no people as His favorite, but accepted all who feared him and walked in the paths of righteousness.
The Gentiles assembled in the house were filled with joy. Together with the Jews they sat at table and experienced the visitation of the Holy Spirit, and to the amazement of the Jews they spoke, then and there, in tongues.
Seeing this, Simon called out, “Can any man forbid these people from being baptized with water?”
And he directed that the men should be baptized in the name of the lord, even though they hadn’t entered into the covenant of Abraham.
And this was the first time that Gentiles were admitted to share in Messiah without first passing into the Abrahamic covenant.
Caligula’s successor, the timid Claudius, assumed the purple with the direct assistance of the Jewish King Agrippa, who’d been able to carry on an active campaign among the senators and army leaders in favor of his friend through his extensive connections in Rome. Because of these services from his boyhood friend, Claudius treated Agrippa as one of his most trusted councilors. He not only made Agrippa’s title of King formal, but also enlarged his territory and returned all the provinces to him that had belonged to his grandfather, Herod.
Claudius went further. He extended his graciousness to Agrippa’s people, openly declaring himself a friend of the Jews. He restored the privileges of the Alexandrian community and heavily punished those who were responsible for the pogroms there. He reaffirmed all the rights granted the Jews by Julius and Augustus, proclaimed full tolerance for the Jewish faith, and instructed the governors of the various provinces to protect the synagogues against any attempted intrusions.
The effect of all this was a resurgence of the old envies among the Greek peoples of the empire. Louder than ever, many Greeks cried that in refusing to worship the local gods, the Jews were showing that they were aliens. Many of the more pious Gentiles, however, regarded the restoration of Jewish rights as a reward for their devotion to their God. They admired the extraordinary steadfastness of their faith in the days of persecution. The hideous death of the Caesar-god was hailed as a miracle.
So side-by-side with renewed hostility there was a wave of admiration and wonder. Jewish synagogues were now being attended by ever-larger numbers of Gentiles who were attracted by the mysterious bond between this heroic people and its God.
The first person to carry the gospel abroad, and to preach salvation to the Gentiles, was Philip, the head of the Cilician Synagogue. He first went to Samaria, fleeing Saul’s persecution, and when word got back to Jerusalem of the many souls won for Jesus among the Samaritans, the leaders had no objections. On the contrary, they rejoiced that their lost brothers in the faith were returning to the fold of Israel. They argued that, in accepting Messiah, the Samaritans were, by implication, accepting the prophets. They saw the finger of God in this, and the beginning of the unification of all Israel. Simon and John went up to Samaria to lay their hands on the converts and to bring them under the wings of the Holy Spirit.
When Simon saw the power of the spirit in Samaria, and the joy that the converts experienced at the common meals, he decided to branch out into other nearby towns. Some of them were entirely Jewish and others were of mixed population. He went down to the city of Lydda, a completely Jewish town, nestled in the green fields of the Sharon valley. From there he went to the harbor town of Joppa, which had a mixed population of Jews and Greeks and was not far from Caesarea. Simon stayed there with a tanner who was also named Simon. The tanner had been the first person in Joppa to join the new faith, and by the time Simon arrived, there was already a small community of believers, all Jews. Simon spent some time there strengthening their spirit.
The Greeks of both Joppa and Caesarea had been profoundly impressed by the unforgettable demonstration of Jewish faith that had occurred in nearby Akko. In both towns the rumor of a risen Messiah, and of the hopes associated with him, had also become widespread among the non-Jews. A spirit of unrest and awe came on the Gentiles, not only among the townspeople, but among the members of the Roman garrison as well.
One of the latter, a centurion by the name of Cornelius, became a pious, god-fearing Gentile. He did much for the Jews of his city, and they mentioned his name with respect and affection. Simon learned that the Gentiles of both cities greatly desired to enter the congregation of believers, but he also knew that they had a problem with circumcision and the laws of kosher food.
No right-thinking Jew, of course, could sit with Gentiles at the same table or even live under the same roof with them. By law, if a Gentile so much as touched any food, it became unclean and could not be eaten by Jews. On the other hand, the common meals were the most powerful instrument of Simon’s faith. It was at the breaking of bread that he told of the life, death and resurrection of Messiah and that the Holy Spirit came on the believers and they spoke in tongues. So how could Gentiles experience all this if Simon couldn’t even sit at table with them?
One day Simon sat with Simon the tanner, looking out over the waters of the Great Sea. It was toward the evening in summer. Far off, in the faint mist that lay on the sleeping waters, he saw the masts and the different colored sails of ships from different provinces anchored in the harbor of Joppa. Compared to the tiny Sea of Galilee, this was quite a sight. He thought of how these waters led to so many distant places with so many people who’d never heard the name of God and knew nothing about Messiah. They worshipped idols, or were deceived by stargazers and soothsayers. He himself had recently encountered a man known as Simon the Magician, who had offered to purchase the right to distribute the Holy Spirit. This Simon went about with a certain whore by the name of Helena, and he told the poor, credulous Samaritans that she was the mother of all living, even the gods. It stood to reason that all the other cities also had their deceivers and women idols. All these were waiting to be delivered from the bonds of falsehood by the word of the true Messiah.
Simon suddenly remembered the words of the lord when he told them that they should be witnesses for him in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, AND to the ends of the world.
“Could it be,” Simon thought, “that God desires salvation for everyone?”
Aloud he said, “What can I do if the Holy Spirit descends on us only when we sit together and eat the lord’s body and drink the lord’s blood? The Rabbis have forbidden us to sat at table with unclean Gentiles who eat all sorts of unclean things.”
“The Rabbis also forbid eating together with ignorant Jews who don’t observe the law,” answered Simon the tanner. “Yet here you sit with me, a tanner who is so befouled by my trade that my wife has the right to divorce me if I hadn’t told her what trade I followed before we were married. You sit here with me and break bread with me and eat from the same bowl.”
“Well, the lord also sat at table with simple and ignorant people,” answered Simon. “And not just them, but tax collectors and even women of sin, if they repented. There wasn’t a soul in Israel fallen so low that my Rabbi would not sit at table with him. In fact, the lower the man had fallen, the dearer he was to my lord. He never avoided the company of sinners and tax collectors.
“But I never saw him sit at table with Gentiles, or eat anything unclean.”
“Tell me, rabbi,” said his host. “Has not God created the heavens and earth and all that is between them? Can anything God created be unclean? I’m a simple man and unskilled in the scriptures, but I ask myself, Who is the man who can make unclean what God created?”
Simon was confused by the straightforward question. He’d never thought of it like that before. As a Jew, he’d always taken it for granted that there were foods that were allowed and foods that were not allowed. It was in the order of nature.
Simon continued to wrestle with these thoughts. He tried to imagine how the lord would act if he saw all these Gentiles longing for admission to the Kingdom of Heaven and not allowed in because of the law. He thought of the lord Messiah going in to the son of the centurion of Capernaum to bring him out of his sleep of death. He thought of how the lord Messiah had dealt with tax collectors, fallen women, and Canaanites. And he finally decided that the lord would remove the barrier. He’d open wide the gates of the Kingdom to the Gentiles.
But as usual in these situations, Simon did nothing without some sign. For now he would just wait. But while he waited, he won no new souls for the holy congregation. He spent most of his time walking back and forth on the seashore, watching the fishermen cast their nets into the deeps.
One day while doing this, he came on a group of fishermen and looked at the contents of the great net they were hauling in. There were a large variety of creatures in the net, things that swam and things that crawled, the like of which he’d never seen before in all his fisherman’s life. He didn’t even know that the sea was full of so many different creatures. As the net flattened out on the sands he saw fish that were shaped like stars, while others were as black as the darkest night. Some had blown-up bellies and fat oozed out of them. There were also creatures in the form of miniature flying horses and others with huge, overlapping scales, bearded and bewhiskered fish, and fish with sail-like fins. And there were insects like gigantic spiders, with prehensile claws that made him think of tormenting demons in the nether world. There were creatures that in no way resembled living things. They were like dumb, dead growths, covered with gluey feathers. There were creatures the size of a man’s finger, with transparent skins through which could be seen the repulsive workings of their vitals. And there were others that called to mind petrified plants, but the moment they were touched they opened enormous jaws. And this entire hideous conglomeration squirmed and rolled in a slimy thickness.
The men and women of Joppa came out to the shore and bought everything from the fisherman. They split the oysters and the other sea-creatures between two rocks, and brought them to their lips, so that the living ooze ran down their chins. Simon was filled with a retching disgust, and in his heart he gave thanks to God for having made him a Jew and separating him from other people.
He slipped back into his room in the upper chamber of Simon the tanner’s house.
When the time of the afternoon Shema came, Peter lay down on the floor with his face in his hands and prayed long and hard. He prayed for clarity of spirit and illumination of heart. In the midst of his intense supplication, he became aware of the presence of the Holy Spirit. Heaven opened and light poured down. A great table descended from above, and on its radiant cover stood an enormous dish containing four-footed creatures and birds and sea beasts, some of which he knew and many of which he did not know. Crawling things were there, too, like he had seen in the fishermen’s net.
Then he heard a voice, “Rise, Simon! Kill and eat.”
Terror held Simon’s heart like a vise. Was this a dream, or a vision? Was it the Evil One tempting him, or was this a sign from the Lord? He called out, “No, I’ve never eaten anything unholy or impure!”
Then the voice rang out sternly, “What God has made clean, do not make unclean!”
Desperately he repeated, “I’ve never eaten anything unholy or impure!”
And again the voice rang, more sternly, “Arise Simon, and eat! What God has made pure, do not make impure!”
When this happened a third time, Simon was convinced it was a sign from heaven! He stretched out his hand to the now pure food. But as he did so everything vanished.
He continued to lay with his face to the floor for a long time.
Then, when he came down from the upper chamber, he was told that certain men had come, asking after him. They were messengers from the Gentile city of Caesarea. Their message was, “Cornelius the centurion, a just and god-fearing man, whose name is held in esteem by the Jews, was visited by an angel of the Lord, and told to send for you. You are to come to his house so that he may hear your words.”
This was the final proof for Simon.
Simon took some men from Joppa and went up to Caesarea with the messengers. He came into the house of the Gentile Cornelius and told him that God regarded no people as His favorite, but accepted all who feared him and walked in the paths of righteousness.
The Gentiles assembled in the house were filled with joy. Together with the Jews they sat at table and experienced the visitation of the Holy Spirit, and to the amazement of the Jews they spoke, then and there, in tongues.
Seeing this, Simon called out, “Can any man forbid these people from being baptized with water?”
And he directed that the men should be baptized in the name of the lord, even though they hadn’t entered into the covenant of Abraham.
And this was the first time that Gentiles were admitted to share in Messiah without first passing into the Abrahamic covenant.
Saturday, December 12, 2009
04 - Stiff-Necked People
A rather perplexing problem presented itself to the artisans of the Roman Empire. The smiths, metal workers, and sculptors had to figure a way to transform the feeble, effeminate features of Caesar into a mighty image of a Jupiter, fit to be placed in the temples of all the provinces, while at the same time staying as true to the mortal original as possible. Caligula was short with a narrow forehead, tender cheeks, and curved nose. His one outstanding feature, if it could be called that, was his receding chin. This, along with his dangling lower lip and little blinking eyes, reduced the artists of the empire to despair. The sculptors in Sidon had an added complication due to their local style. The statue they finally turned out for the Jerusalem Temple had a typical Asian cast of features. The nose was flat and broad. The head, reared on a thin slender neck, the one detail that was true to Caligula’s picture, produced the effect of a caricature.
Petronius, Proconsul of Syria and a man of classical education, first saw the statue when he arrived with his legions in the harbor of Ptolemaeus. He had an extremely difficult time repressing an explosion of laughter. The hideous face on top of a comical neck rising out of a gigantic Jupiter-body was too much for him. He said nothing, of course, partly because he knew that any disrespectful remark would certainly reach the ear of Caesar, and partly because he had learned from his predecessor in office, Vitellius, of the obstinacy and inflexibility of the Jews. He knew from his own sources that the Jews had abandoned their fields and were streaming en masse toward Akko, along with their scholars and priests, to protest the image’s appearance, and he had no intention of encouraging them in their refusal to admit the statue to their Temple.
His first thought was that somehow they’d heard how grotesque the image was and were coming to protest against having such a monstrosity in their beloved sanctuary. He couldn’t help but be sympathetic to that view, so he was already hatching a compromise solution. Perhaps he could prevail on Caligula’s friend Agrippa to convince Caesar to take away the hideous statue and substitute one of the masterpieces of Phidias or of Praxiteles that Caligula had brought from Athens to Rome. After all, the Temple in Jerusalem was one of the most famous sanctuaries in the Roman world, and obtaining a work of art worthy of their venerable religious tradition would be a good way to win the gratitude of the Jews.
At least ten thousand men, women, and children had already poured into Akko from the Jewish countryside, and still they continued to arrive. They were of all classes and all were in mourning. Some had sprinkled ashes on their heads. They chanted songs of lamentation, filling the air with doleful sound. The Greeks in Akko stared in astonishment. There was an atmosphere of unspoken fury and hidden insecurity filling the little harbor. Many men carried scythes and shepherd’s staves, formidable weapons in the hands of an enraged multitude.
Now Petronius was a skillful Roman administrator with a sense of justice. He was so dedicated to Roman order and peace as to virtually worship them. This sense of justice caused him to seek insight into the local customs and traditions of the people he was sent to govern, and he sincerely wanted to avoid outraging their sensibilities. But he was also, first and foremost, a Roman soldier, and a challenge to the emperor’s edict had to be met squarely.
As he stood there he studied the multitudes. He marveled that they’d dragged themselves through the heat, for there’d been no rain for three months. He knew their intentions were peaceful despite the staves and scythes. They had, after all, brought their women and children. Also, their spokesmen were Aristobulus and Helius, brothers of King Agrippa. They’d also been educated in Rome and were counted friends of Caesar. Nevertheless, he took no chances. He stationed his fully armed legionaries at strategic places around the forum and the marketplaces, strengthening them with bands of mounted German auxiliaries. Only when he felt certain that he had the situation well in hand, and that his men were ready, at a moment’s signal, to hurl themselves on the masses, did he admit the spokesmen to his presence.
He’d already decided they could be placated with an acceptable work of art as a substitute. So he was literally stupefied when the spokesmen told him it wasn’t the unworthiness of the image that offended them. Under no circumstances, they said, would they permit any likeness of any man of flesh and blood to desecrate their sanctuary. Such a proposal was contrary to their faith, and they were prepared to lay down their lives rather than allow it to be carried out. It was for this reason, and no other that they’d left their fields and shops and come in such multitudes to petition the Proconsul.
Petronius was speechless. These men spoke Latin, and they’d been educated in Rome. Aristobulus had played with Caesar’s children in his youth. They wore Roman togas, for goodness sake. And yet this Aristobulus was saying things incomprehensible to a Roman. It was against their law to place an image in the Jewish sanctuary? What sort of law was it that would openly defy Roman law? And what made them so special? There was not a single nation that had not been delighted to place Caesar’s image in their temples and to offer sacrifice to him as a god. Their gods had shown no jealousy. They considered it a compliment to be considered a brother-god to Caesar. It was only the Jewish God who was too jealous to allow another to share his honors.
Petronius now understood that all the fantastic stories told him concerning the inexplicable obstinacy of these eternal troublemakers had been right. He had to call on all the strength that Roman discipline provided him and remind himself of his importance as Rome’s representative, in order to keep from losing his temper.
Quietly and with an ironic smile, he said, “If the statue produced by the Sidonian master is unworthy of your great Temple, I will intercede for you and ask Caesar to send a statue covered with gold and produced by the best Greek artisans. For I’ve heard that your God is a great lover of gold. And with the help of your king Agrippa, perhaps we can persuade Caesar to treat your God with the dignity which you regard as his due.”
“If Caesar were to send us the Capitoline Jupiter, covered with gold from head to foot, or the great Zeus of Athens, we would not admit the image into our Temple.”
The Roman paled, and his blue eyes flashed.
“Am I to take this as a declaration of war on Rome? Is that why you brought multitudes with you?”
“No! We do not desire war with Rome. But we cannot transgress our law, which forbids us to recognize a man of flesh and blood as a god and to place his image in our Temple.”
“I am here to fulfill the decree of Caesar. My commands do not issue from your law. I do not need your permission. I have my legions.”
“The people will oppose them.”
“Then your people will war against Rome?”
“If our people cannot war against Rome, it can at least die for its God and for the law of its God.”
“Hear me! I have been in many lands, and I’ve not seen anyone die for his god or his laws. I’ve seen people die only for Caesar and for the laws of Rome.”
“You will see it here, in Judea.”
“I am here to carry out the Roman law, not the law of Judea.”
With that the interview ended, and Petronius issued his command to a waiting legionary.
The Caesar-image lay on a wooden platform mounted on six wheels, draped in linens, like a mummy. On Petronius’ command, the linens were unwound as the image was slowly lifted into an upright position. The bronze head, covered with gold leaf, flashed in the sun. The Jews closed their eyes, so as not to see the abomination, but when the centurion gave the order to start the platform rolling toward Jerusalem, a terrific cry of lamentation went up from the vast assembly. And suddenly a living wall of flesh pressed forward until it surrounded the platform and the legion that accompanied it. Like sheep huddling against a storm the Jews pressed themselves together in the path of the monster.
The first wave of armed legionaries, headed by the mounted Germans, burst upon the wall of living flesh. It yielded, but it did not break. Wherever an opening was formed, a mass surged forward to close it. In vain did the mounted Germans force their horses against the solid mass of men, women, and children. In vain did the legionaries press forward, slashing wildly. Where one person fell, a dozen took his place. Like a rock in the midst of a raging flood, the wall of flesh and blood withstood the fury of the onslaught. There was no attempt at defense. They fell where they stood. Only a great wailing, a gurgling of pain and desperation, went up.
Petronius stood on the terrace of the government house and looked on. This was sheer madness. In his entire long and varied career, he’d never seen anything like it. It was obvious these people were not here to wage war, or to oppose Rome’s laws as such. No hand was lifted against the legionaries. If they would at least defy Roman law actively by fighting, he would feel justified in giving the command for a general massacre. But this was different. This was something not so easy to cope with. Amazingly, the Jewish representatives had spoken no more than the simple truth. These people would rather suffer annihilation than admit the image to their Temple.
A thought suddenly occurred to him. These fanatics would let themselves be slaughtered to the last man, and the land would be left desolate. What would be the point of dragging the image into an empty and abandoned Temple? No work was being done anywhere in Judea. Any Jews not already here were either on their way, or were assembling in the towns that lay on the road to Jerusalem. At the rate things were going there would be no Jews left to do homage to Gaius the god, or to offer sacrifice to the new divinity. Caligula wanted to be worshipped in a living shrine. To put the image into an abandoned temple in a depopulated land would be the greatest insult of all.
What a baffling situation.
Slowly Petronius came to the decision that the best thing to do was to do nothing. The only way out was to wait until he could advise Caesar of this extraordinary dilemma. Enough damage had been done to the prestige of Rome and the dignity of her law.
Having made that decision, other feelings began to well up in him, feelings akin to admiration. This was devotion to a god! And the wonder was even more incomprehensible when he reflected that the God for whom they offered their naked and defenseless bodies to the swords did not exalt them above their neighbors. On the contrary, their God had abandoned them to the fury of their enemies, and as far as he could tell, the only reward they earned for their faithfulness was misery. They were oppressed by the strong and despised by their neighbors. On top of that they bore a heavy burden of capricious laws. And yet – they were prepared to die for this God! What was the secret of this indestructible bond? What hidden bliss streamed out of the mysterious deity to inspire such fidelity? No other god in the Roman Empire commanded the obedience offered this unknown and invisible God of the Jews. Was it possible they had the answer to the question of what lay beyond death? Petronius was afraid to pursue these thoughts any further.
“Halt the procession!” he suddenly commanded.
And to his astounded entourage he said, “Caesar sent me here to place his image in the Temple so that the Jews might worship him. The dead cannot worship!”
And to the Jews he called out, “Return to your homes and your occupations! I will send a full report to Caesar. I would rather pay with my own life than be responsible for the destruction of so many lives offered up in the name of your God – and mine!”
The officers became paralyzed at such astounding words. The Jewish spokesmen stood silent and open-mouthed.
But from the mass in the square an ecstatic shout went up, “Hosannah! Hosannah!”
And just like that, all bitterness and despair were gone. Joy, exultation, and triumph filled the air, and the masses threw themselves to the ground in hope.
When Petronius turned to the Jewish spokesmen with a bewildered look, they pointed to the sky and said, “Look and see, Petronius, what your pious words have moved the Lord to do.”
Everyone looked up. The sky, which had been blazing blue, had suddenly darkened. The sun was covered by a gigantic mass of leaden, rain-bearing clouds. Slowly they marched across the sky with a little wind, breathing the freshness of hope. As the clouds passed overhead, the first gentle drops fell on the upturned faces, and three months of dearth ended.
“Hosannah! It’s the latter rain!”
It was a miracle and a sign! With the latter rain would come better and happier days.
“God has heard the pious words of a Gentile, and they have found favor with Him!” said the Jews to one another.
Petronius, Proconsul of Syria and a man of classical education, first saw the statue when he arrived with his legions in the harbor of Ptolemaeus. He had an extremely difficult time repressing an explosion of laughter. The hideous face on top of a comical neck rising out of a gigantic Jupiter-body was too much for him. He said nothing, of course, partly because he knew that any disrespectful remark would certainly reach the ear of Caesar, and partly because he had learned from his predecessor in office, Vitellius, of the obstinacy and inflexibility of the Jews. He knew from his own sources that the Jews had abandoned their fields and were streaming en masse toward Akko, along with their scholars and priests, to protest the image’s appearance, and he had no intention of encouraging them in their refusal to admit the statue to their Temple.
His first thought was that somehow they’d heard how grotesque the image was and were coming to protest against having such a monstrosity in their beloved sanctuary. He couldn’t help but be sympathetic to that view, so he was already hatching a compromise solution. Perhaps he could prevail on Caligula’s friend Agrippa to convince Caesar to take away the hideous statue and substitute one of the masterpieces of Phidias or of Praxiteles that Caligula had brought from Athens to Rome. After all, the Temple in Jerusalem was one of the most famous sanctuaries in the Roman world, and obtaining a work of art worthy of their venerable religious tradition would be a good way to win the gratitude of the Jews.
At least ten thousand men, women, and children had already poured into Akko from the Jewish countryside, and still they continued to arrive. They were of all classes and all were in mourning. Some had sprinkled ashes on their heads. They chanted songs of lamentation, filling the air with doleful sound. The Greeks in Akko stared in astonishment. There was an atmosphere of unspoken fury and hidden insecurity filling the little harbor. Many men carried scythes and shepherd’s staves, formidable weapons in the hands of an enraged multitude.
Now Petronius was a skillful Roman administrator with a sense of justice. He was so dedicated to Roman order and peace as to virtually worship them. This sense of justice caused him to seek insight into the local customs and traditions of the people he was sent to govern, and he sincerely wanted to avoid outraging their sensibilities. But he was also, first and foremost, a Roman soldier, and a challenge to the emperor’s edict had to be met squarely.
As he stood there he studied the multitudes. He marveled that they’d dragged themselves through the heat, for there’d been no rain for three months. He knew their intentions were peaceful despite the staves and scythes. They had, after all, brought their women and children. Also, their spokesmen were Aristobulus and Helius, brothers of King Agrippa. They’d also been educated in Rome and were counted friends of Caesar. Nevertheless, he took no chances. He stationed his fully armed legionaries at strategic places around the forum and the marketplaces, strengthening them with bands of mounted German auxiliaries. Only when he felt certain that he had the situation well in hand, and that his men were ready, at a moment’s signal, to hurl themselves on the masses, did he admit the spokesmen to his presence.
He’d already decided they could be placated with an acceptable work of art as a substitute. So he was literally stupefied when the spokesmen told him it wasn’t the unworthiness of the image that offended them. Under no circumstances, they said, would they permit any likeness of any man of flesh and blood to desecrate their sanctuary. Such a proposal was contrary to their faith, and they were prepared to lay down their lives rather than allow it to be carried out. It was for this reason, and no other that they’d left their fields and shops and come in such multitudes to petition the Proconsul.
Petronius was speechless. These men spoke Latin, and they’d been educated in Rome. Aristobulus had played with Caesar’s children in his youth. They wore Roman togas, for goodness sake. And yet this Aristobulus was saying things incomprehensible to a Roman. It was against their law to place an image in the Jewish sanctuary? What sort of law was it that would openly defy Roman law? And what made them so special? There was not a single nation that had not been delighted to place Caesar’s image in their temples and to offer sacrifice to him as a god. Their gods had shown no jealousy. They considered it a compliment to be considered a brother-god to Caesar. It was only the Jewish God who was too jealous to allow another to share his honors.
Petronius now understood that all the fantastic stories told him concerning the inexplicable obstinacy of these eternal troublemakers had been right. He had to call on all the strength that Roman discipline provided him and remind himself of his importance as Rome’s representative, in order to keep from losing his temper.
Quietly and with an ironic smile, he said, “If the statue produced by the Sidonian master is unworthy of your great Temple, I will intercede for you and ask Caesar to send a statue covered with gold and produced by the best Greek artisans. For I’ve heard that your God is a great lover of gold. And with the help of your king Agrippa, perhaps we can persuade Caesar to treat your God with the dignity which you regard as his due.”
“If Caesar were to send us the Capitoline Jupiter, covered with gold from head to foot, or the great Zeus of Athens, we would not admit the image into our Temple.”
The Roman paled, and his blue eyes flashed.
“Am I to take this as a declaration of war on Rome? Is that why you brought multitudes with you?”
“No! We do not desire war with Rome. But we cannot transgress our law, which forbids us to recognize a man of flesh and blood as a god and to place his image in our Temple.”
“I am here to fulfill the decree of Caesar. My commands do not issue from your law. I do not need your permission. I have my legions.”
“The people will oppose them.”
“Then your people will war against Rome?”
“If our people cannot war against Rome, it can at least die for its God and for the law of its God.”
“Hear me! I have been in many lands, and I’ve not seen anyone die for his god or his laws. I’ve seen people die only for Caesar and for the laws of Rome.”
“You will see it here, in Judea.”
“I am here to carry out the Roman law, not the law of Judea.”
With that the interview ended, and Petronius issued his command to a waiting legionary.
The Caesar-image lay on a wooden platform mounted on six wheels, draped in linens, like a mummy. On Petronius’ command, the linens were unwound as the image was slowly lifted into an upright position. The bronze head, covered with gold leaf, flashed in the sun. The Jews closed their eyes, so as not to see the abomination, but when the centurion gave the order to start the platform rolling toward Jerusalem, a terrific cry of lamentation went up from the vast assembly. And suddenly a living wall of flesh pressed forward until it surrounded the platform and the legion that accompanied it. Like sheep huddling against a storm the Jews pressed themselves together in the path of the monster.
The first wave of armed legionaries, headed by the mounted Germans, burst upon the wall of living flesh. It yielded, but it did not break. Wherever an opening was formed, a mass surged forward to close it. In vain did the mounted Germans force their horses against the solid mass of men, women, and children. In vain did the legionaries press forward, slashing wildly. Where one person fell, a dozen took his place. Like a rock in the midst of a raging flood, the wall of flesh and blood withstood the fury of the onslaught. There was no attempt at defense. They fell where they stood. Only a great wailing, a gurgling of pain and desperation, went up.
Petronius stood on the terrace of the government house and looked on. This was sheer madness. In his entire long and varied career, he’d never seen anything like it. It was obvious these people were not here to wage war, or to oppose Rome’s laws as such. No hand was lifted against the legionaries. If they would at least defy Roman law actively by fighting, he would feel justified in giving the command for a general massacre. But this was different. This was something not so easy to cope with. Amazingly, the Jewish representatives had spoken no more than the simple truth. These people would rather suffer annihilation than admit the image to their Temple.
A thought suddenly occurred to him. These fanatics would let themselves be slaughtered to the last man, and the land would be left desolate. What would be the point of dragging the image into an empty and abandoned Temple? No work was being done anywhere in Judea. Any Jews not already here were either on their way, or were assembling in the towns that lay on the road to Jerusalem. At the rate things were going there would be no Jews left to do homage to Gaius the god, or to offer sacrifice to the new divinity. Caligula wanted to be worshipped in a living shrine. To put the image into an abandoned temple in a depopulated land would be the greatest insult of all.
What a baffling situation.
Slowly Petronius came to the decision that the best thing to do was to do nothing. The only way out was to wait until he could advise Caesar of this extraordinary dilemma. Enough damage had been done to the prestige of Rome and the dignity of her law.
Having made that decision, other feelings began to well up in him, feelings akin to admiration. This was devotion to a god! And the wonder was even more incomprehensible when he reflected that the God for whom they offered their naked and defenseless bodies to the swords did not exalt them above their neighbors. On the contrary, their God had abandoned them to the fury of their enemies, and as far as he could tell, the only reward they earned for their faithfulness was misery. They were oppressed by the strong and despised by their neighbors. On top of that they bore a heavy burden of capricious laws. And yet – they were prepared to die for this God! What was the secret of this indestructible bond? What hidden bliss streamed out of the mysterious deity to inspire such fidelity? No other god in the Roman Empire commanded the obedience offered this unknown and invisible God of the Jews. Was it possible they had the answer to the question of what lay beyond death? Petronius was afraid to pursue these thoughts any further.
“Halt the procession!” he suddenly commanded.
And to his astounded entourage he said, “Caesar sent me here to place his image in the Temple so that the Jews might worship him. The dead cannot worship!”
And to the Jews he called out, “Return to your homes and your occupations! I will send a full report to Caesar. I would rather pay with my own life than be responsible for the destruction of so many lives offered up in the name of your God – and mine!”
The officers became paralyzed at such astounding words. The Jewish spokesmen stood silent and open-mouthed.
But from the mass in the square an ecstatic shout went up, “Hosannah! Hosannah!”
And just like that, all bitterness and despair were gone. Joy, exultation, and triumph filled the air, and the masses threw themselves to the ground in hope.
When Petronius turned to the Jewish spokesmen with a bewildered look, they pointed to the sky and said, “Look and see, Petronius, what your pious words have moved the Lord to do.”
Everyone looked up. The sky, which had been blazing blue, had suddenly darkened. The sun was covered by a gigantic mass of leaden, rain-bearing clouds. Slowly they marched across the sky with a little wind, breathing the freshness of hope. As the clouds passed overhead, the first gentle drops fell on the upturned faces, and three months of dearth ended.
“Hosannah! It’s the latter rain!”
It was a miracle and a sign! With the latter rain would come better and happier days.
“God has heard the pious words of a Gentile, and they have found favor with Him!” said the Jews to one another.
Wednesday, December 9, 2009
03 - The Gospel Reaches Rome II
The Jews stopped work on the afternoon of the sixth day each and every week, and streamed homeward into the Jewish quarter from every part of the city. This was true of all, free-born Roman Jews, old inhabitants of the city, the half-free, and the slaves. No power had been able to break them of this habit for it was on this day that they stretched out their hands to each other to show their union as branches of the great tree of Israel. The rich brought baskets of tuna fish, caught in the Tiber. The poor brought baskets of vegetables, or little salted fish, which they fried in a coating of dough. The odor of onions and garlic wafted from Jewish homes and, although Gentiles made fun of the Jewish taste for these vegetables, they were attracted by the appetizing smell.
The Gentiles couldn’t understand how men could waste one day in seven, doing no work, but passing the hours in prayer and communion with their God, but every Friday afternoon they could hear the tumult of Sabbath preparations, the mingled noises of cooking and washing. When evening fell, tiny candles starred the darkness, and all Rome knew that the Jews had begun the celebration of their Sabbath.
One Friday, Priscilla prepared for an unusually large gathering. Besides the workers in her husband’s factory, she invited nearly half the membership of the synagogue, for a traveler had arrived from the Holy City with some very strange news.
This visitor had presented himself to the synagogue rulers with the fantastic story that Messiah had revealed himself, and the redemption had begun. The man said that he’d been baptized in Messiah’s name, and was fulfilling the commandments of Messiah by coming here. He was living in the hourly hope that the Kingdom of Heaven was about to begin.
Word spread with lightning speed, and a thrill of hope went through the community. Priscilla and Aquila immediately invited the man to be a guest in their home, and this was the reason for the special preparations and large invitation.
The Jews of Rome used the eating habits of the homeland, sitting on mattresses on the floor rather than half reclining on low couches like the Romans. The oldest and most honored ate from a low table. The others stood around the walls. A clean, white sheet was spread on the table, and light from the oil lamps placed on the sheet was reflected in the jar of Roman glass that held the red date wine. The table was loaded with vegetables, fried fish, and rolled cakes. The master of the house made the Sabbath benediction, after which the assembly ate the common meal. This was followed by the singing of certain verses from the Psalms. Finally the visitor, who sat at the head of the table next to the father of the synagogue, began to deliver his news of Messiah.
The man’s name was Andronicus, and though his name and language were Greek, his features showed that he was definitely a Jerusalem Jew. He was one of the oldest members of the congregation, and had personally heard Messiah himself preach in Jerusalem.
“Brothers in Israel,” he began, “I’m here to tell you that the holy Messiah of the God of Jacob came to us, but because of our many sins, we were not worthy and did not know him. Therefore he was delivered into the hands of the Gentiles, who tortured him beyond imagination. This was just as the prophets said, ‘He turned his cheek to the smiters and stretched out his body to be beaten.’
“He died for our sins. All of this was ordained by heaven, for our sakes, that he might atone for our sins, and that through his sufferings we might be raised from death, and win redemption. He took death on himself willingly, so that he might be a pure offering for all of us.
“But know this too, that he lives with God in the heavens, even as it is also written. He showed himself to his disciples; they saw him, just as we see each other here. And he sent them to carry the news of his coming to the world, and to prepare the world for him. For salvation will come suddenly like lightning at midday. Therefore we must be prepared. All that we go through today is the warning of his approach.
“The evil one grows stronger and rages against us in the form of Caesar, who would exalt himself above the Lord of the world and wipe out the name of God from the earth. That’s why he commanded that his image be placed in the Holy of Holies. I say that these are just birth pangs, and that redemption stands at the door, knocking and pleading for admission, even as the wisest of all men has sung, ‘The voice of my beloved calls, open my sister, my bride.’
“These words were written of Messiah, who knocks on our doors. Therefore we must be prepared for the day when Messiah comes on the clouds of heaven with the legions of the Lord of Hosts. He will ascend the judgment seat to judge the living and the dead. He will call together his flock, and the dead will rise from their graves, even as Daniel prophesied, ‘some to eternal life, some to eternal death.’”
The assembly shuddered in awe at this news.
“What must we do to be worthy of admission into the Kingdom of Heaven?” asked Zadoc, one of the fathers of the synagogue.
“You’ve heard that John came baptizing and preaching repentance,” resumed Adronicus. “John was Elijah the prophet, who fulfilled the prophecy, ‘A voice shall be heard crying in the wilderness.’ After him came the pure and holy Messiah of the God of Jacob, Jesus of Nazareth, who, though born of a women, was yet the messenger of the Lord. Therefore let everyone who desires to be saved and to enter into the kingdom of heaven be baptized in the name of Messiah, and let him believe with perfect faith that Jesus of Nazareth, who died for our sins and rose from the dead, is that Messiah.
“We must be a holy people, who love our enemies and forgive those who do us evil. We must purify our hearts, removing all sin and uncleanness. We must cling to him, and be made one with him. For his disciples teach that when they feasted together at the Passover, just before he sacrificed himself, he broke bread and gave them all to eat, saying, ‘This is my body.’ And he took a goblet, made the benediction, and gave them to drink, saying, ‘Drink, this is my blood.’ What else can this mean, but that all who believe in Messiah must become a part of him, must live in purity and holiness, even as he lived. This is what the disciples teach, and they learned it at the holy source.”
Andronicus went on to talk about the things Messiah taught, the deeds and wonders he performed, and the prayers he composed. He also told them more about his death and resurrection and of the martyrs in Jerusalem. One could have heard a pin drop as he told of Simon and John and of James, the lord’s brother, and of all the other holy ones. He told of the persecutions they’d had to endure and of the death of the martyr Stephen, who had died with the name of Messiah on his lips.
“And all those who believe in Messiah must be prepared to offer up their lives as testimony, and to suffer even as he suffered.”
Included in the story of persecutions was that of a certain young man named Saul, who persecuted the faithful in Jerusalem. He told them how Saul had gone to Damascus for the same purpose, and how Messiah had appeared to him on the road.
He told them further of the marvelous things God had done with the Gentiles, in opening their hearts to the word of God. Them too Messiah had taken into the Kingdom of Heaven. And now the news of Messiah was spreading out to the remotest corners of the world, as he’d told his disciples to do, and would soon cover the earth as the waters cover the sea.
During the hours that this was going on, word passed through the various dwellings in the house about the words being spoken in the home of Aquila and Priscilla. Groups of Jews left their own Sabbath feasts, and were stealing in quietly. Soon the place was jam packed with Jews. All eyes were trained on the speaker, some dark and flashing and others damp with tears of hope. Some faces showed tender smiles of belief and others bore a hovering shadow of doubt. And other faces there were, that showed neither belief nor doubt, but a silent, far-off longing.
All night long Andronicus sat with the Jews in Priscilla’s house, and before the Sabbath dawned, the first congregation of Messiah had been founded in Rome.
Since baptism could not be performed on the Sabbath, the ceremony was delayed until the day after.
And so it was early on Sunday morning when a company of young Roman aristocrats, returning from a banquet and staggering with drink, saw a strange spectacle at the Pontus aqueduct. A group of men and women, dressed in white, stood shoulder deep in the water. A man with a long gray beard was baptizing the males, while a woman leader was baptizing the females. It was a damp, wintry morning.
“Look at that!” cried one of the revelers, pointing to the men and women steeped in the waters of the aqueduct. “Rome is filled with alien and sinister faiths. Jews!”
Another answered, “Our Roman matrons have taken a fancy to the God the Jewish women sell them along with their Oriental cosmetics. Let me tell you, the conquered will soon be masters of the conquerors. Before you know it, we’ll be spending every seventh day in idleness and turning up our noses at a savory piece of pork.”
“It’s high time something was done about it,” returned the first. “Come! Let us sacrifice a suckling pig to the god Gaius.”
The Gentiles couldn’t understand how men could waste one day in seven, doing no work, but passing the hours in prayer and communion with their God, but every Friday afternoon they could hear the tumult of Sabbath preparations, the mingled noises of cooking and washing. When evening fell, tiny candles starred the darkness, and all Rome knew that the Jews had begun the celebration of their Sabbath.
One Friday, Priscilla prepared for an unusually large gathering. Besides the workers in her husband’s factory, she invited nearly half the membership of the synagogue, for a traveler had arrived from the Holy City with some very strange news.
This visitor had presented himself to the synagogue rulers with the fantastic story that Messiah had revealed himself, and the redemption had begun. The man said that he’d been baptized in Messiah’s name, and was fulfilling the commandments of Messiah by coming here. He was living in the hourly hope that the Kingdom of Heaven was about to begin.
Word spread with lightning speed, and a thrill of hope went through the community. Priscilla and Aquila immediately invited the man to be a guest in their home, and this was the reason for the special preparations and large invitation.
The Jews of Rome used the eating habits of the homeland, sitting on mattresses on the floor rather than half reclining on low couches like the Romans. The oldest and most honored ate from a low table. The others stood around the walls. A clean, white sheet was spread on the table, and light from the oil lamps placed on the sheet was reflected in the jar of Roman glass that held the red date wine. The table was loaded with vegetables, fried fish, and rolled cakes. The master of the house made the Sabbath benediction, after which the assembly ate the common meal. This was followed by the singing of certain verses from the Psalms. Finally the visitor, who sat at the head of the table next to the father of the synagogue, began to deliver his news of Messiah.
The man’s name was Andronicus, and though his name and language were Greek, his features showed that he was definitely a Jerusalem Jew. He was one of the oldest members of the congregation, and had personally heard Messiah himself preach in Jerusalem.
“Brothers in Israel,” he began, “I’m here to tell you that the holy Messiah of the God of Jacob came to us, but because of our many sins, we were not worthy and did not know him. Therefore he was delivered into the hands of the Gentiles, who tortured him beyond imagination. This was just as the prophets said, ‘He turned his cheek to the smiters and stretched out his body to be beaten.’
“He died for our sins. All of this was ordained by heaven, for our sakes, that he might atone for our sins, and that through his sufferings we might be raised from death, and win redemption. He took death on himself willingly, so that he might be a pure offering for all of us.
“But know this too, that he lives with God in the heavens, even as it is also written. He showed himself to his disciples; they saw him, just as we see each other here. And he sent them to carry the news of his coming to the world, and to prepare the world for him. For salvation will come suddenly like lightning at midday. Therefore we must be prepared. All that we go through today is the warning of his approach.
“The evil one grows stronger and rages against us in the form of Caesar, who would exalt himself above the Lord of the world and wipe out the name of God from the earth. That’s why he commanded that his image be placed in the Holy of Holies. I say that these are just birth pangs, and that redemption stands at the door, knocking and pleading for admission, even as the wisest of all men has sung, ‘The voice of my beloved calls, open my sister, my bride.’
“These words were written of Messiah, who knocks on our doors. Therefore we must be prepared for the day when Messiah comes on the clouds of heaven with the legions of the Lord of Hosts. He will ascend the judgment seat to judge the living and the dead. He will call together his flock, and the dead will rise from their graves, even as Daniel prophesied, ‘some to eternal life, some to eternal death.’”
The assembly shuddered in awe at this news.
“What must we do to be worthy of admission into the Kingdom of Heaven?” asked Zadoc, one of the fathers of the synagogue.
“You’ve heard that John came baptizing and preaching repentance,” resumed Adronicus. “John was Elijah the prophet, who fulfilled the prophecy, ‘A voice shall be heard crying in the wilderness.’ After him came the pure and holy Messiah of the God of Jacob, Jesus of Nazareth, who, though born of a women, was yet the messenger of the Lord. Therefore let everyone who desires to be saved and to enter into the kingdom of heaven be baptized in the name of Messiah, and let him believe with perfect faith that Jesus of Nazareth, who died for our sins and rose from the dead, is that Messiah.
“We must be a holy people, who love our enemies and forgive those who do us evil. We must purify our hearts, removing all sin and uncleanness. We must cling to him, and be made one with him. For his disciples teach that when they feasted together at the Passover, just before he sacrificed himself, he broke bread and gave them all to eat, saying, ‘This is my body.’ And he took a goblet, made the benediction, and gave them to drink, saying, ‘Drink, this is my blood.’ What else can this mean, but that all who believe in Messiah must become a part of him, must live in purity and holiness, even as he lived. This is what the disciples teach, and they learned it at the holy source.”
Andronicus went on to talk about the things Messiah taught, the deeds and wonders he performed, and the prayers he composed. He also told them more about his death and resurrection and of the martyrs in Jerusalem. One could have heard a pin drop as he told of Simon and John and of James, the lord’s brother, and of all the other holy ones. He told of the persecutions they’d had to endure and of the death of the martyr Stephen, who had died with the name of Messiah on his lips.
“And all those who believe in Messiah must be prepared to offer up their lives as testimony, and to suffer even as he suffered.”
Included in the story of persecutions was that of a certain young man named Saul, who persecuted the faithful in Jerusalem. He told them how Saul had gone to Damascus for the same purpose, and how Messiah had appeared to him on the road.
He told them further of the marvelous things God had done with the Gentiles, in opening their hearts to the word of God. Them too Messiah had taken into the Kingdom of Heaven. And now the news of Messiah was spreading out to the remotest corners of the world, as he’d told his disciples to do, and would soon cover the earth as the waters cover the sea.
During the hours that this was going on, word passed through the various dwellings in the house about the words being spoken in the home of Aquila and Priscilla. Groups of Jews left their own Sabbath feasts, and were stealing in quietly. Soon the place was jam packed with Jews. All eyes were trained on the speaker, some dark and flashing and others damp with tears of hope. Some faces showed tender smiles of belief and others bore a hovering shadow of doubt. And other faces there were, that showed neither belief nor doubt, but a silent, far-off longing.
All night long Andronicus sat with the Jews in Priscilla’s house, and before the Sabbath dawned, the first congregation of Messiah had been founded in Rome.
Since baptism could not be performed on the Sabbath, the ceremony was delayed until the day after.
And so it was early on Sunday morning when a company of young Roman aristocrats, returning from a banquet and staggering with drink, saw a strange spectacle at the Pontus aqueduct. A group of men and women, dressed in white, stood shoulder deep in the water. A man with a long gray beard was baptizing the males, while a woman leader was baptizing the females. It was a damp, wintry morning.
“Look at that!” cried one of the revelers, pointing to the men and women steeped in the waters of the aqueduct. “Rome is filled with alien and sinister faiths. Jews!”
Another answered, “Our Roman matrons have taken a fancy to the God the Jewish women sell them along with their Oriental cosmetics. Let me tell you, the conquered will soon be masters of the conquerors. Before you know it, we’ll be spending every seventh day in idleness and turning up our noses at a savory piece of pork.”
“It’s high time something was done about it,” returned the first. “Come! Let us sacrifice a suckling pig to the god Gaius.”
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