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.