17 - Fool of Messiah

Dusty fig leaves hung over the white walls of the courtyards, while women sat mending clothes and household utensils on flat, level roofs. Two young men, wrapped up to the throat in white cloaks, sprang out of one of the gates toward the Agora, passing a slave in a short shirt leading a lad to school carrying his writing tools, a stylus, and a tablet. A woman threw out her husband because he had come home so late from some nighttime banquet, and there was a crowd of old men and women enjoying the scene. Hungry bystanders, saliva dripping from their mouths, including slaves, idlers and women in tattered mantles, stood around a sausage shop where a tripod stood in the open street, filling the air with the pleasant odor of frying meat, while the heavy smell of vinegar came up from wine cellars.

Farther down the alley, between the olive press and the cheese maker, near some restaurants and cheap inns, Paul found the synagogue of Athens, shut off from the street by a wall.

The synagogue was closed. It wasn’t used during the day by teachers or by the Rabbinic court, as was the custom in other cities. The head of the synagogue was absent, so there was no one around to welcome the visitor. He was in the Agora, selling purple-dyed linens to rich young students for their concubines and dancing girls. The synagogue’s scribe was also in the Agora selling jars. Any visitor from out of town could just wait.

A Jewess living in a nearby house took pity on the waiting stranger, who was obviously a Jew, and invited him in. She placed a wooden bowl containing warm water in front of him so he could wash his hands and feet. She also offered him a cup of goat’s milk and a piece of bread. The stranger thanked her for her kindness, in the name of God.

“In the name of the God of Israel,” added the woman as she wet her fingers in the warm water, so as not to mention the divine name with unwashed hands.

“In the name of the God of Israel and of his holy servant, Jesus the Messiah!” said Paul.

“Jesus the Messiah?” said the woman, her eyes filled with wonder.

“Yes. Have you never heard of him?” asked the messenger, as he ate his small portion of bread.

“No, never. We are far from Jerusalem. Has Messiah come then?”

“Yes, Messiah has come, and I’ve come to tell you about it.”

“When was this? How did it happen? Why haven’t we been told? A rabbi was here from the High Priest just a week ago, and he said nothing about it.”

“They didn’t recognize him.”

“What? They didn’t recognize Messiah? I don’t understand.”

So the stranger told her of wonderful things as she stared at him, bewildered, and slightly suspicious. But she only had one question. Does this mean that the Jews would now have to leave the scattered cities where they lived to gather in Jerusalem?

“That would be a pity,” she said. “My husband just started work with a silversmith in the Agora. He makes ornaments for Athenian women, and it’s a profitable business. There are many rich students in Athens, and they have much money. We’ve been able to buy some new things for the house, like a bronze couch and some cedar wood bowls. Besides, we’re buying this house and have already paid nearly half the price. We’d have to give up all this security and move to Jerusalem if Messiah’s come. And who knows what would happen with so many Jews streaming there from the four corners of the world, all looking for jobs, and snatching the bread out of each other’s mouths. No, I’m not at all happy with this news.”

As she said this she placed a little bowl of olives and a cruse of honey in front of the messenger.

“I’d much rather things stay the way they are. We’re happy to send our taxes to the Temple. Just let me stay right where I am with my family. Other Jews can go, but me and my husband and our two children would much rather remain in Athens, as long as things continue to go well.”


Paul got a similar reception from the head of the synagogue, when the latter returned from his cloth shop on the Agora and found the messenger waiting for him in the synagogue court.

“By Zeus! By Jupiter!” said the head of the synagogue, a little man with a short neck, a round belly, and an asthmatic wheeze. He meant no harm by this exclamation. It was his way of talking to his customers in the Agora.

“We really don’t know what to do with all these messengers from Jerusalem. They don’t give us time to catch our breaths between one and the next. Why, only a week ago a messenger from the High Priest was here and took away seventy-seven drachmas from our little community. And a little while before that a messenger from the Pharisees got fifty silver drachmas out of us. And then there are all the rabbis and preachers that stop by. And now here’s another one. Tell me, what is it you want, and who sent you?”

“The one who sent me,” answered Paul, “didn’t send me to take, but to give. I’ll be no burden to you. I’m a weaver by trade. I weave goat’s-hair cloth for tents and mantles. In fact, I have my tools with me if there’s someone who could hire me while I’m here? And as for what I will give you, I ask no payment for it. For the one who sent me said, ‘You received me for nothing, and you shall give me away for nothing.’”

This was certainly something new. A rabbi sent from Jerusalem, who asked no contribution and who would earn his own bread with his own hands? This was unheard of. True, there were rabbis in Jerusalem who earned their own livelihoods with their own hands and who taught the law with no compensation, but they’d never actually seen such a rabbi. The ones who came from Jerusalem came to collect contributions.

He said to Paul, “There’s a little hospice attached to our synagogue for messengers to lodge in when visiting us. They may also be fed from the treasury of the community. This has always been our practice, and our pious women will see that you lack nothing. And on the Sabbath we will hear what you have to say.”

Paul accepted this temporary hospitality, and for the moment he didn’t look for a job. He didn’t know yet how long he would be in Athens, waiting for Timothy and Silas, with news of what happened in Berea and Thessalonica. Besides, he had a little money left from his job in Thessalonica, although he’d spent most of it paying the fare of the Bereans who’d accompanied him on the sea journey.

* * * * *

On the Sabbath, after the reading of the law, Paul received permission to address the worshippers. In giving him this permission, the head of the synagogue whispered, “Keep it short. We work hard all week, the Sabbath is our day of rest, and we’d like to go home.”

Paul gave his typical sermon. Messiah had come, been unrecognized, was tormented, and put to death for the sins of all men. He quoted the prophets as proof, as well as other passages.

At about this point Paul realized that many of his listeners were practically asleep, and others had simply left the synagogue. As to those still listening, it became quite clear that their interest was confined to what effect the coming of Messiah would have on their personal condition.

“And now, be it known to you all that Messiah was the first to rise from the dead, and that he will soon come to judge the world. And the only salvation on the Day of Judgment will be faith in Messiah. If you recognize him, acknowledge him, and say that God raised him from the dead, then you will be saved. And it’s not just for Jews that Messiah came, but also –“

“By Demeter!” interrupted a tall Jew, “a fine thing it would be for all us, if we had to return to Jerusalem. No, no, not I. Let who wants to go, go. I have my wine business here. I can live like a Jew without Messiah.”

“By Hercules!” exclaimed a second Jew, one with a short, well-tended beard and eyes touched with black. Dressed in a mantle falling over him in graceful folds, he spoke with the accents of an educated Athenian. “I’m of an old Athenian family! My grandfather came here as a messenger of the High Priest Hyrcanos, whose statue stands in the Agora. He chose to stay in this city, the capital of the world, to become a wine importer. The business flourishes. We have our own vineyards, and branch offices in all the principal cities of Greece. I’ve attended the finest academies of Athens and I’m from the school of the Stoics. I have many friends here. My sister is married to a member of the High Council. And now this man comes and tells us Messiah has come? Does this mean I must leave the city of my birth and pack off to Jerusalem? No, such doings are not for me!

“Take our contributions to the Temple or to the Pharisees. That we understand. But leave us alone!”

By this time everyone who wasn’t asleep in the synagogue was talking. Voices were raised. Finally the head of the synagogue got up and tried to pacify the worshippers.

“Good people!” he cried. “Calm down. Don’t you see that this messenger is here from Jerusalem with important news, nothing less than the coming of Messiah? If everything he says is true, then surely we are all duty bound to rise up, just as we are, leave our houses and gardens, our workshops and stalls, and our vineyards and farms, and go up to Jerusalem with song and music, to throw ourselves at Messiah’s feet and say to him, ‘We are come to claim our portion in the inheritance of Israel.’

“But you tell us,” and here he turned to Paul, “that it wasn’t the Sanhedrin that sent you. You have no letter from the High Priest. Some congregation we’ve never heard of sent you. Nay, you say that Messiah himself sent you to carry the gospel to the end of the world. Ok, we’ll accept that too. We’ll listen to your words, and do what you say. But surely you must have some proof that it was Messiah who sent you, and not someone else. Do you have some sign, something to corroborate your words, so that we may indeed know that you spoke with Messiah man to man? Come, now, produce the sign, and show it to us. Open the roof of the synagogue so we can see the fiery chariots bringing Messiah down to us.”

A voice cried, “Don’t you all see this man is a deceiver? What sense does any of this make?”
“Deceiver! Deceiver!”
“No, not a deceiver, but a rebel against the word of God. This man would take us off the path of faith!”
“Out into the street with him!”

The head of the synagogue fell into a panic. “Good people!” he shouted above the tumult. Pointing his finger to his forehead, he said, “This man’s not a deceiver. He’s just touched in his mind.”

A burst of laughter filled the synagogue. The laughter served its purpose, and the anger was forgotten. The threat of physical violence was forgotten with it.


Paul was not a man to shrink from discouragement or be turned from his purpose by mockery, considering what he had already sacrificed for his faith.

But how much more respectfully had the ignorant and uncouth Jews of Thessalonica listened to him than these sophisticated Jews of Athens! Indeed people who had opposed him with all their strength had more true faith than these people. The blows and curses of the simple folk of Iconium were far better than the laughter of these Jews. He felt much closer to the people of Thessalonica, Iconium and Antioch in the common bond of the hope of Israel. Here, in Athens, there was nothing but cynical indifference.

Thus, after that Sabbath, he waited for Timothy and Silas with even more longing than before. Perhaps they would bring him words of comfort from Berea and Thessalonica.

Meanwhile there was nothing he could achieve in Athens. He didn’t even bother to look for work. The handful of coins he had left would suffice. The hard bench in the hospice was good enough for the few hours of sleep he allowed himself. He avoided, as much as he could, even the hospitality of kind people. For indeed there were some kind people there, even among those who had laughed at him. After all, he was a rabbi of Jerusalem so they didn’t forbid him to speak in the synagogue a second time, and they didn’t ignore him when he addressed them privately. So each day he came to the synagogue, and occasionally found someone to preach to. They listened, but they couldn’t help but smile.

“Ah, yes, we hear you! You’re the man who tells us that Messiah has come.”


That night Paul lay on his hard bench in the hospice. The ancient wounds that had drained his life in his youth open again, and he is bathed in torment. Doubt seizes him like a wild beast seizes its prey. For the hundredth time he asks himself the unanswerable question, “Why do the Jews reject my message? Why are my own people, flesh of my flesh, deaf to it? Messiah has sent me with the most important message of all, and when I speak, I don’t see any hope in them at all. Instead there is tumult and mockery, and the highest Jewish blessing is transformed into a curse.”

He remembers all the cities in which he has preached the gospel to the Jews and remembers the riots he was rewarded with. He remembers the sullen faces, the rages and the hostility. But the Gentiles, who are strangers, and know nothing of the hope, they are the ones who respond to the tiniest seed that remains in them from the days of creation. They are the ones who end up longing for Christ.

“God, why have you closed the hearing of my own flesh and blood? Wasn’t I forged in the same fire as they? Didn’t I wait, like them, for Christ, and don’t I know how they think and what the objections of their hearts are? I should be able to reach them because I think like them. Surely it can’t be simply because I tell them that Christ has abrogated the little law that stands between them and the world. Why can’t they see that all the laws and commandments are contained in the one great law of Christ? It is for the hope of Israel that I do away with the lesser law.

“No, no, it’s something else. There’s a mighty wall between my brothers and me, and all my words bounce back from the wall and fall into the sand. My love, my desire, and my innermost longing are thrown back at me. The hearts of my brothers are locked against me, just like they are locked against uncleanness and abomination. What then? Is there something unclean and forbidden in me? Oh yes, these hands have shed innocent blood. I’ve shared in the slaying of the righteous. Have I truly been forgiven and washed clean? If so, shouldn’t my words appeal to my listeners? Or am I still an enemy appearing before them?”

Suddenly he sees hundreds of simple Jewish faces in the darkness, the Josephs, Simons, Judes and Menachems, and their eyes shine with the light of faith. Their bodies are covered with stripes from bloody scourgings. They are all lying on a stoning field, and the angel with the flaming red hair is among them, imbedded in a heap of stones, his arms stretched out. Stephen’s eyes are wide open and his lips parted as if a cry has just been torn out of them. But this isn’t just Stephen’s face. Strangely, it’s also Paul’s face. But wait! He’s also seated near the edge of the pit next to a bundle of clothes. Paul’s own men are throwing stones at the figure of the angel, the Paul-Stephen with the flaming hair. But the seated Paul is white-faced. His eyes are narrow and they sparkle with a hateful joy, his lips contorted in a grimace of delight at the flowing of blood.

A shudder passes through Paul and he whispers, “My God! I’m a murderer! How can they listen to me? God wash me clean of my sin! Help me!”

He closes his eyes, as if he could shut out the vision. It’s not Stephen he can’t bear to look at. It’s himself sitting at the mouth of the pit that fills him with horror. Needles of flame shoot through his tightened eyelids, and all his flesh is wounded.


Those nights in Athens were a time of soul searching for Paul. He was both witness and judge. He reviewed his life, and it was as if he were carding his soul like he carded a bundle of goat’s hair, to cleanse it of impurities. The mornings were better, for each day he felt his confidence returning. So like a donkey resuming his yoke, he returned to his work, for work was his only salvation.

So, in that period, he sank and rose again, and the grace of his faith restored him to his mission as a gospel witness. And he applied the verse to himself that says, “Were it not for Your law, I would be utterly lost in my poverty.”