03 - The Gospel Reaches Rome I

No one could remember exactly when the Jews had first settled in Rome. It was known that after the Hasmonean kings signed a pact of eternal peace with the Roman Senate, Jewish merchants suddenly appeared in large numbers to sell their Palestinian figs, spices, and oils. Later there was a flood of Jews from Alexandria, the harbor through which the grains of Asia and Africa passed to Rome. Pompey also brought great numbers of Jewish slaves back to Italy after the siege of Jerusalem, who were sold in the Italian market.

The Jewish congregations of Rome ransomed many of the latter once it became known that they didn’t make good slaves. Their faith interfered with their complete service. In particular, their obstinate observance of the Sabbath and of the food laws prevented them from becoming perfect servants. On the other hand, they were noted for their intelligence, their skill in commerce, and their international relations. As Jewish communities spread throughout the entire empire, they became excellent commercial agents, stewards, and managers. In these capacities they were highly appreciated by the practical Romans. In fact, many Romans manumitted their Jewish slaves and raised them to positions of trust.

The Jews were greatly helped by the fact that the city of politicians, senators, soldiers, slaves and idlers, produced nothing, and the slaves of corrupt overseers had worked the fields of Italy to the point where the fertility of the soil decreased to nothing, and Italy became totally dependent on the provinces.

The fact is that the Jewish slaves Pompey had brought to Rome in chains became so powerful that the great Cicero was afraid to attack them openly, and when he did have occasion to mention them unfavorably, he would lower his voice. The Jews took an active part in the elections and campaigned for their own candidates among the Roman masses. Nor were they specialists in any one field. They were bankers, merchants, actors, and makers of everyday items. Jewish oils became very popular among Roman matrons.

The Jews of Rome had their own quarter on the right bank of the Tiber. It was a densely populated quarter, with tenement houses towering roof to roof above the narrow alleys. Sweet savors of cinnamon, delphinium, and attar of roses hung heavy on the air from smoking tripods. The women poured the oil into little vases, mixed the salves and unguents, and carried them in baskets to the homes of the wealthy Roman matrons. But the Jewesses spread more than cosmetics, shawls, and sandals among their Roman clientele. They spread their belief in the one living God and in the sanctity of the Temple in Jerusalem. More than one Roman matron found herself drawn to the faith, with its strange institution of the Sabbath, its spiritual security, and its unshakeable belief in the after life. More than one Roman matron neglected the services of Jupiter to pay tribute to the strange God in the distant and sacred Temple.


There came a day when no Jewish women appeared with their perfumes in the aristocratic district. No Jewish merchants were to be found anywhere. The wealthy, who had their shops on the Campus Martius, suspended business. They closed the banks, offices, and perfume depots. Looms, braziers, ovens, and pottery wheels were all abandoned. Even Jewish politicians, who were always seen around the Forum, were gone. Every Jew had fled to the Jewish quarter, for it was on that day that they learned that Caligula had ordered the desecration of the Holy of Holies with his image.

A great cry of lamentation and despair went up from the Roman Jews. This was not just another calamity to which Jews of the Diaspora had become accustomed. It was the end of the world. Some of the older immigrants from Jerusalem had ashes in their hair in sign of mourning. A ceaseless wailing could be heard coming from streets and open windows.

By early evening the great synagogue, named in honor of Caesar Augustus, was filled to overflowing. Rich and poor, young and old, all bodies, became one body – the body of the Jewish people in exile.

Philo the philosopher was there, looking like a broken old man. He was pallid, frail, and stooped as if under the weight of a physical burden. His eyes were swollen and his white hair was tinged with yellow. But as he stood in the pulpit to address the Jews, he looked as calm as he had that night in the magistrate’s house when he watched the Alexandrian mob storm the Jewish quarter.

Tonight he had some of the same feelings he’d had then. The Jewish people were one body with many heads. Individuals could be slain, but Israel could not. Though they slay my body, he thought, it will live on in the other bodies, for my blood will be in their veins, the blood of the patriarchs. My faith will be there, my hope and aspiration.

But this decree was different. Individual Jews were not in peril so much as Israel itself. What did it matter if Jews of Alexandria had their rights restored to them? If Israel went on living, the Jews of Alexandria would go on living, with or without rights. But if Caesar were to have his way, then the Jewish community of Alexandria would certainly perish, even if it had its rights restored. This is what he preached to the assembled Jews of Rome.

“Brothers, and men of Israel. What Caesar desires he will never fulfill, for even if we are called on to sacrifice our lives, we will not turn back. Death with honor is better than life with shame. Death is what we can expect because of our opposition. But let it happen. Let us die a glorious death in defense of our laws. Let us rest our hope in God the redeemer. He has protected us in the past. Perhaps he will find us worthy this time also.

“Let us then bear witness for Him, and show the world that Israel alone among all people stood firm in the day of trial and refused to dishonor the name of God by bowing down before a creature of flesh and blood, who lives today and tomorrow is in the grave. Let us trust in the justice of God, for there is no faith without trust. And even if we don’t live to see that justice, let us die trusting that God’s word will triumph, and that the people will remember us as the faithful witnesses of the living God. For then the spirit of God will cover the earth, and the glory of Israel will be manifest to all eyes. People will stream to the hill of God and bow down before him because of our testimony.”

Complete silence followed as Philo walked uncertainly to the Moses seat. When the head of the synagogue asked if any one wished to question the speaker, no voice was heard.

Much was written on their clean-shaven faces though, because even though most of the congregants were clean-shaven like Romans, dressed like Romans, and had Roman names, that didn’t make them Roman. Every one of them was prepared to literally fulfill the admonition of the speaker and die a thousand deaths rather than desecrate their sanctity.

There were certain pious Gentiles who were in the habit of attending Sabbath services, and some of them were in the synagogue that day. These Gentiles trembled at this defiance cast in Caesar’s teeth. Surely these men knew that for this defiance they could be thrown to the wild beasts in the arena, or be nailed to the cross. So the hearts of the Gentiles melted with dread of the God of Israel, who could pour such a power of faith into the veins of His believers.


One Jewish house, located near the Synagogue of the Hebrews, was more agitated than the others. The house looked no different. Windowless and doorless, there were holes that admitted some sunlight and allowed the inhabitants to crawl from room to room. It was really more of a night shelter than a home, for the families spent their days by the city gates, on the bridges, and in the squares selling their perfumes, herbs, and silverware. In the rooms, or rather, holes, there were rolled up mattresses, tripods on which to prepare meals, and a few other light household possessions.

There was no private life in such pent up places. Every woman knew what was cooking in her neighbor’s pot. The most trivial affairs, as well as the most intimate, were public knowledge. There was always incense burning in braziers, and unguents being smeared on bodies because Rome’s underground system of canals did not extend to this area, resulting in a constant fetid smell in the air.

In spite of all this, there was the joy of a common faith that bound all of them together in loving brotherhood.

In this one particular house there lived a certain young couple that’d just recently migrated from Pontus in Asia to Rome. The man’s name was Aquila, and his wife’s name was Priscilla, though her friends called her Prisca. Both were well loved by the people, the wife maybe a little more. Aquila was a weaver of cloths and tents out of fine goat’s hair, a trade that was well established in Asia, but was relatively new in Rome. The peculiar virtue of this material was that, while it was as dense as felt against rain, it was much lighter and more elastic. Because tents and mantles of washed and combed goat’s hair were a novelty in Rome, Aquila was able to establish a small industry in the Jewish quarter with the modest capital he’d brought with him. In addition to his trade, Aquila could interpret Holy Scripture and even quote some of the verses in the original Hebrew. This was enough to give him considerable standing among the Jews. He was elected an elder of the synagogue soon after his arrival, and then promoted to the position of one of its heads.

But his wife Priscilla had the greater influence. She knew the names and personal affairs of everyone who lived in the huge house and of nearly everyone in the quarter. She knew, for instance, that Alexander the sausage maker’s wife had fallen sick and needed rubbing oil. She lay in a little room on the lowest level among heaps of raw, fly-covered meat and the acrid smell of Alexander’s occupation. With her own hands Prisca applied oil to the paralyzed woman’s body. She also saw no evening smoke going up from Justus the mason’s room, which meant that he, his wife and three children were starving. Justus was well on in years and couldn’t find a job at his trade, so before the end of the second day, Priscilla was in the room with a basket of bread and a promise that her husband would take Justus into his factory.

Priscilla went on to found a Sisterhood of Pious Women in the Synagogue, which she named, “Daughters of Jerusalem”. Its special function was to care for poor women in childbirth. During a woman’s confinement, a member of the sisterhood would remain in the house to take care of the new mother, and also to do the washing and the cooking for the family. A second sisterhood created by Priscilla founded an orphanage near the synagogue, and a third was founded for visiting the sick and providing dowries for poor brides. It was soon understood that whenever a needy case arose, the first person to be notified was Priscilla.

More than anything, Priscilla was known for her hospitality at home. It was common practice for large groups to gather there on Sabbaths and festivals to listen to news of the Holy City brought by travelers from Palestine, who would always be guests of Aquila and Priscilla. The elders held their meetings there, funds to be sent to Jerusalem were raised there, and Jewish scholars would assemble there on certain festive days, for learned talk, interpretation of texts, and discussion of the salvation to come. The hostess herself even participated in these discussions. Priscilla was the daughter of a scholar, and had learned much from listening to scholars in her father’s house. She knew many verses from the prophets by heart, and was no stranger to the legends and the laws. Such participation would have been unheard of in Palestine. But among the Jews of the Diaspora, the position of women was closer to equality with men than it was in the homeland.

Priscilla’s learning, as well as her charitable work, earned her the title of Mother of the Synagogue, the equivalent of her husband’s title as a Ruler of the Synagogue. She was privileged to attend the sessions of the elders and rulers, and to take an equal share in the direction of all Jewish affairs.

You couldn’t tell by looking at this woman that she could summon up the physical energy to assume all the obligations required of a synagogue official, a charity organizer, and the mistress of a household that was a hospice for strangers and travelers. She was a bit short, with a delicate face and hair drawn back and knotted. Although there was great power in her eyes, she had small ears, a long, straight nose, small, full lips, and an energetic chin. But what distinguished Prisca from all other women was the magnificent power of her hips, which seemed to be poured of Corinthian bronze and filled with immeasurable energy. All the energy of this otherwise delicate female frame was concentrated in those hips, which were built to support the weight of a Hercules. One would have thought she was destined to bear a mighty generation of sons. But if so, then that destiny had been frustrated, for Prisca was childless. So all the energy that would have been used for bearing sons was diverted into charitable and public activities.

From the first moment she heard the calamitous tidings from Jerusalem, Priscilla never rested. Like a commander she continuously encouraged the men to organize themselves to resist any attempt to bring Caesar’s image into the synagogues. Oddly enough, the number of Gentile visitors to the synagogues actually increased after the command. The non-Jews actually envied the Jews because they alone had dared to stand up against accepting Caligula as a god. Priscilla played on these sentiments of bitterness and envy.

She said to the women in particular, “Do you think you’ll only have to sacrifice to Caesar? He’s declared his sister, Drusilla, a goddess also, and you know full well what their relationship is.”

“That whore!” exclaimed Lucina, the wife of Procopius, the swordsmith.

“And Caesar has other sisters he’s made deities. Whoever he takes to bed becomes a god.”

Many Romans joined the Jews who guarded the synagogues, and when other Romans came near with images of Caesar, they helped them beat off the attacks.

This desperate Jewish obstinacy had a profound impact on the pious Gentiles. They came to the synagogues in ever-larger numbers.

02 - Difficulties of Deity

During the first two years of his reign the Roman mob indulged the emperor Gaius Caligula just as the Roman legions had when he was a child during his father’s wars. His outrageous whims were regarded by the plebes as the charming fancies of a spoiled only child. He’d barely assumed the throne when he began to display his longing for the fantastic and extraordinary. He did everything to attract attention, except venture on the field of battle, and all his “exploits” were confined to Rome. No Caesar ever built a palace like the one Gaius Caligula built for himself on the Palatine hill. The modest residence of his predecessor was completely eclipsed by the vastness of the new Caesar’s edifice. With its endless rotundas, basilicas, arches and windows, it took up a quarter of a mile of frontage on the northern edge of the Palatine. He pulled down the famous homes of distinguished men of the past, such as Cicero and Crassus, and even removed the sacred altars of the Vestal Virgins from his path. He had a bridge built from his palace across to the temple of Jupiter on the Capitoline hill so that he could visit his “brother” god without having to climb down the side of the Palatine and up the side of the Capitoline like some ordinary mortal.

Far from begrudging him these fancies, the masses were delighted by them. They continued to applaud even when he showed obvious signs of lunacy. He once ordered that all grain ships, which normally brought wheat from Asia and Africa, be gathered side by side in the port of Baia, so that they formed a pontoon bridge on the water from Baia to Puteoli, a distance of three and a half miles, so that he could drive his chariot across the sea. The result of this insanity was a famine in the city of Rome, which depended on the provinces for its supplies. But because the Roman mob was at least as hungry for circuses as it was for bread, they came out with their empty bellies to enjoy the remarkable spectacle of a Caesar driving his wild horses over the sea.

By the time the Senators realize what calamities they’d brought on the country by their spineless indulgence of the young prince, it was too late. They couldn’t stop the process they’d set in motion. Thus they went on competing with each other to win the favor of a ruler who was driving Rome and the empire to ruin. Not trusting each other, they continued to worship the “deity”, and to feed him with gifts. The provinces were squeezed dry so that Caligula could fulfill his wild fancies.


Long lines of deputations, consisting of the most prominent citizens and the priestly hierarchy of the various provinces, waited to prostrate themselves before the new god, and to bring him their offerings. It was shortly after the palace was finished. The priests of the Egyptian goddess Isis, in their long, hornlike headgear, and short aprons, had just finished depositing their offerings, and a group of priests from Ephesus had just entered to worship the new deity.

Now Caligula had decided that it would be fun to appear before each deputation in the guise of its god. The actor Appelus was helping the imperial buffoon with the makeup, and Helicon, the drunk Egyptian priest, was teaching him the mysteries of the various deities. They were joined by Apion, the Greek grammarian from Egypt, who’d come to Rome at the head of the delegation bearing complaints against the Jews. So between each deputation, Caligula was changing costumes like a cheap actor in the circus. He wore a golden beard to look like Zeus for a Greek deputation, and he put on the female garments of Isis, for the benefit of the Egyptian delegation.

Now he was being dressed in a stiff costume of hammered silver, transforming him into Artemis of Ephesus. The costume was very uncomfortable. The top consisted of many breasts that swung against his body and bruised his chest. They weren’t soft, like a woman’s flesh. They were metallic globes. His lower half was tightly encased in a narrow silver skirt that pressed on his thighs and hindered motion in his legs, so that he could neither sit down nor bend over. He had to stand there like an image poured into one mass of metal. But Caligula took his duties as a god very seriously. No discomfort was great enough to prevent him from discharging his high obligations.

Of all the costumes Caligula would wear, perhaps this Artemis was the most difficult and exacting. It wasn’t just the costume itself. Artemis was a great goddess of many mysteries and secret words. Her legs were engraved with mysterious signs that only her priests could read, but which Caligula had to learn to properly fulfill the role. Helicon instructed his master-god in the content of the mysterious inscriptions.

“Oh, great god Gaius! Know that when Artemis moves her many mother-breasts, she causes the milk of her divine desire to flow into those who behold and worship her. And if Artemis can move her worshippers to such ecstasies of passion, how much more can you, incomparable god? Fill the breasts of Artemis with your virile strength, and move them mightily. Let those who behold you be driven into madness of lust, for you are both man and woman. You are the giver of passion, like Venus.”

While Helicon taught Caligula the inner secrets of the goddess, Appelus instructed him in the matter of deportment.

“O mighty god, Gaius Caesar, who has come down from heaven to bless us with your glorious form! What goddess can compare to you in graciousness and in the tenderness of your smile? If your divinity will indeed condescend to bestow its presence on the pious pilgrims of Ephesus, you will surely rouse to jealousy the great and proud goddess who waits for them at home. For the pious Ephesians, your smile will be ample reward after the long and painful journey they have made to bow down before you. Smile, god Gaius, hold your hands on your hips, for even as you are mightier in manhood than Zeus and Jupiter, so you are more alluring in womanhood than Venus. For like the supreme gods, you are hermaphroditic. Smile, great god Gaius, smile!”

But Apion outdid both of them in his flattery.

“Who dares to mention Jupiter in the same breath with the god Gaius?” he asked. “The gods lie before you silent, dumb and terrified. I’ve traveled much great god. Nowhere have I seen the image of a god that approaches you in manhood, or of a goddess who approaches you in beauty. Jupiter is gray with envy, and Aphrodite’s head has sunk down on her breast. As soon as the subjects of your provinces see your likeness, they cut off the heads of gods and goddesses and place your image on their shoulders. The women of the empire sleep with the image of your divine body in their arms. The men must disguise themselves in your image when they desire their wives’ favor. Ah, that Homer were alive today, to sing of your deity, of the power of your muscular arms, and the softness and sweetness of your hips! In all the temples of your empire, except one, your statue stands as an ornament. And that one blasphemy is committed by the Jews.”

Suddenly Apion noticed that Gaius’ face had darkened. His narrow forehead was wrinkled, and his eyes had turned into slits. Everyone there seemed disturbed, and the little Greek became fearful.

Apion was a shriveled, undersized figure of a man, resembling a raisin left out in the sun too long. He was a master not only of many languages, but also of the nuances of gestures and grimaces in those languages, and he realized that his calculated accusation had somehow missed its mark. He’d hit a sore spot in Gaius, but he didn’t know where. Surely it couldn’t have been his remark against the Jews. He’d also been careful to start with a long and highly seasoned introduction of flattery. He’d put Gaius above Zeus and Jupiter. What more could he have said? In desperation, he returned to his most beloved subject, the great poet, Homer, lamenting Homer’s absence at this time in history. If the singer of the Odyssey could be reawakened from his slumbers. . . .

Both Helicon and Appelus tried to signal the perspiring little Greek to stop talking about Homer, but before he undersood their signals, the Caesar-god himself burst into speech.

“Hold your tongue, you foul little toad!”

And Gaius’ cold blue eyes seem to Appelus to flash like swords.

“You dare choose that wretched, limping, rhymester they call Homer to sing of my deeds and my divinity, My beloved horse, Incitatus, has more poetry in the music of his neighing, than your Homers and Virgils! Do not mention their names if you would not have the skies darkened with my thunderstorms!”

Apion’s face went gray. His dull little eyes sank deeper into his head, and his heart beat furiously, for he knew he was standing on the brink of the abyss. Instinctively he grasped for something, and, taking his cue from Caesar’s mention of his beloved horse, he said, “O mighty god! What mortal can compare to deity, even when that deity takes on the form of an animal? How wise of you to make your great Incitatus one of your priests, to bring before you the prayers of all horses. How profound is your wisdom, Caesar, in making Incitatus a Senator of Rome. Surely he is entitled to that position, for he represents all horses in the Senate. But he is more than Senator and priest. He is divine, too. Incitatus is the god of horses even as you, great Gaius, are the god of men.”

Soothed by the praise of his beloved horse, Caesar assumed his familiar expression of satisfied pride, the look that covered his inner emptiness. Apion pressed forward, not wanting to lose the advantage, and returned to the purpose of his mission, the punishment of the Jews.

“Mighty god! What joy came on the nations when they learned of your divinity! In Egypt, we put our goddess Isis in second place, to make room for you. No one anywhere questions your deity. None, I say, except the Jews. Oh, who can wipe out the disgrace of their blasphemy and their impiety? Hear, O god, of the desecration they’ve committed against you. When we brought your divine image to their great synagogue of Alexandria along with a he-goat and a slaughtered swine, as an offering for you, the Jewish rabble came out against us and fell on your innocent worshippers. For three days and three nights they rioted and slaughtered. And whom do they prefer above you, great Caesar? Hear me, O god. There is a place in their temple they call the Holy of Holies. No one is allowed to enter it except their High Priest. Do you know that he prays to an ass’s head that hangs on the wall of their Holy of Holies. This they worship! This they prefer to you!”

“An ass’s head?” murmured Caesar in astonishment. “I thought their God was neither to be seen nor heard.”

“It’s just like he says, great Caesar!” declared Helicon, the expert in religious mysteries. “O mighty god, it’s time that you, the elder brother of Jupiter, bestow your deity on the Jews, too. Command them to put an end to their barbarous idolatry. Great Caesar, the God of the Jews envies you. He dreads your deity and has instructed the Jews to ignore you. Show this Jewish God how much mightier you are than He. Command the Jews to place your statue in the Temple of Jerusalem.”

Thus Helicon seconded the petition of Apion. And Caligula, disguised in his Artemis role, sweating under the weight of her robes, and suffering under the impact of the swinging, metallic globes, listened, and was aroused. This was a challenge to his delusions of deity. He issued an order to Petronius, Proconsul of Syria, concerning the Temple in Jerusalem.

* * * * *

For months the Jewish delegation pleaded in vain to be admitted to Caesar’s presence, lingering at the doors of his palaces, and following him whenever he came out. Finally wearying of their persistency, Caligula admitted them. The meeting took place at the same time that he was meeting with architects, gardeners and other specialists submitting plans to make changes in the layout of his mother’s gardens on the banks of the Tiber. Caligula was often preoccupied with building projects rather than running the government. In fact, his two biggest diversions, his affairs as a deity, and the construction of his many building projects, kept him preoccupied most of the time. On occasion, however, he did mange to squeeze in a little government business.

While Caligula was studying the plans, Philo reminded him that the great Julius Caesar had confirmed their rights, and that both Augustus and Caligula’s predecessor Tiberius had repeated that confirmation. He discussed their contributions to the commerce and industry of Alexandria, and their share in its schools. But Caesar didn’t seem to be listening. He was focused on the plans for a great hanging garden that would be supported on pillars of wood, a garden that would seem to be floating in the air, as was altogether becoming for the Caesar-god.

Suddenly Caligula interrupted the leader of the deputation. “But tell me, why won’t you little Jews eat swine meat?”

“Our laws have forbidden it from the most ancient times. This practice of ours does no harm to anyone – certainly it does none to the swine,” answered Philo.

This was a little too daring. One did not jest with Caesar. Fortunately, he’d paid no attention to the reply. He’d immediately plunged into a discussion of the hanging garden.

Just when it seemed he’d completely forgotten the presence of the delegation, he blurted out another question, this time in the pouting playfulness of a spoiled child, “But tell me, why won’t you little Jews offer me sacrifice?”

Then turning pale with rage, he squealed, “Am I not god enough for you? All the nations recognize my deity, except you!”

Philo decided that his only option was courage. So he answered, “The Alexandrians also worship animals, like the crocodile and the cat. But we’re not like the Egyptians. We received the tradition of the one living God from our fathers. And yet there are three times when we did bring sacrifices on your behalf. When you were proclaimed Caesar, when you were cured of your sickness, and when you returned in triumph from your expeditions to Germany and Britain. On each of these occasions we offered up sacrifices in our Temple for your peace and prosperity.”

“Yes, sacrifices for me, but not sacrifices to me. You offer sacrifices to a God you can neither see nor hear. What has he ever done? Has he conquered the Germans? Or the Britons? Where are his victories? You prefer such a god to me?”

For the moment Caligula forgot his engineers, architects and gardeners. He drew himself up to his full, though not very impressive, height.

“You blasphemers and unbelievers! How long will you continue in your stiff-necked obstinacy against my deity? And to think that Agrippa is my dearest friend, bound to me by many gifts and by the memory of our childhood years. Hear me, you Jews! Do not drive me too far!”

Turning to his own entourage, he said with unexpected pathos, “I still believe these men are not guilty. I pity them, for they are foolish rather than wicked.”

With that he signaled for the withdrawal of the delegation, and the Jews left without having their petition even considered.


A few weeks later Philo and his companions were entering Puteoli hoping for another meeting with Caesar. They were met by a Jew from Palestine, whose bulging eyes seemed about to leave their sockets and whose face was as yellow as ancient parchment. His clothes were stained and tattered, like those of a man who had not yet washed himself after a long journey. He told them he’d just arrived from Palestine, at the head of a delegation of Palestinian Jews. He brought news with him, the like of which had not been heard by any generation of Jews since the beginning of the world. Caligula had dared to do what no other Caesar had even dreamed of. He had ordered his image to be placed in the Holy of Holies in Jerusalem, and he’d commanded the Syrian Proconsul to occupy Acco with an armed force, ready to descend on Jerusalem if they did not obey.

01 - Alexandria

The air of Alexandria, celebrated throughout the empire and praised by many a Roman poet, was at its freshest and clearest on the shore of Lake Mareotis where the water from the Nile came streaming in, bringing the sweet odor of green fields. The house of the wealthy magistrate of the Alexandrian Jews was located here across from the government house and just outside the Jewish quarter. The great arched windows of the house shone with many lamps of glass and earthenware, hanging by silk cords from the capitals of the columns.

A large group of Jewish harbor workers was assembled at the foot of the stairs clashing little cymbals and chanting, “King! King!” for the visitor inside the house was Agrippa, the new Jewish king. There were perfume merchants, potters, weavers, even housewives with their children. All had left their occupations and schools to greet their new king. Wealthier Jews also came from other quarters in their mantles of Sidonian linen and oil glistened hair.

Agrippa himself, who had tried and failed to slip into town unnoticed, was inside the house with members of the Jewish Senate, including the philosopher Philo, the magistrate’s brother. Agrippa, who’d been imprisoned by the emperor Tiberias, was released and exalted by the new emperor Caligula. So instead of prison chains, he now wore the golden chains of kingship. He was on his way to Palestine to replace his brother-in-law, Herod Antipas. He stopped off in Alexandria to visit the magistrate, who had lent him great sums of money during his years of waiting.

Because of the chanting he was forced several times to show himself, but to the crowd’s disappointment, he wasn’t clothed in scarlet. He didn’t even carry a scepter. He came out wearing a Roman toga, his thin, pointed nose twitching in irritation, his eyes hidden under frowning brows. He did permit himself a gracious smile, though his thoughts were centered on his aristocratic origins, his high connections in Rome, and the great sacrifice he was making in leaving the capital of the world, where he was an intimate of Caesar, to take over as ruler of an obscure little kingdom. So he stood there with that wearied look the mighty think becomes them in the presence of the poor of the earth.

The joyous tumult became louder when his wife appeared. She was known for her piety and for the fact that she was the only one who could keep her husband in check and maintain his interest in the Jewish masses. The Jews expected a lot from a king, especially one of their own blood. His anointing made him a symbol of Messiah, so it was hoped that his wife’s influence would be high enough to make him a good king. It was true that he was not the legitimate heir to the throne, not being in the line of direct descent. But since he was descended from the Hasmonians, who were also of the Davidic line, the Jews forgot the Edomite side of his ancestry, and treated him as legitimate.

And so a riot of celebration had broken out in Alexandrian Jewry. The street was packed from end to end and the harbor was deserted. After a while, the magistrate sent his servants out to disperse the people, telling them to get back to their jobs. It was dangerous to arouse the envy of the Greeks and Egyptians by such demonstrations. And indeed, shouting “Hail, King!” did not fill the stomach. So once they realized that Agrippa was not coming out again they finally went back to the harbor, shops, and marketplaces, leaving only the chronic idlers who lived for such occasions.

After meeting with the leading members of the Jewish Senate, Agrippa withdrew to the library with the magistrate. Leading scholars of the Academy of Alexandria, hoping to see some evidence that Agrippa would continue the traditional Herodian attachment to the sciences, joined them. City officials were also there, partly in hope of gifts, and partly in hope that the new king would build some striking edifice in Alexandria. Joined by officials of the world’s greatest library, they were all anxious to hear the latest news from the imperial capital. Agrippa was close to the most important figures of Rome and was considered highly influential. In the eastern territories his views and decisions would be of huge importance.

There was one notable absence from the group. The governor of Alexandria, Caesar’s local representative, Flaccus, was not there. Speculation as to why he wasn’t there ranged from an unwillingness to pay homage to the new king, to the cold relations that existed between him and the magistrate. Or maybe he just had other things on his mind.

It was common knowledge that Flaccus’ days as governor were numbered, as there was no love lost between the new emperor and the governor. So his absence was matter for speculation, but nothing more. They agreed that he was the only one who stood to lose by this piece of tactlessness, and Agrippa felt himself too powerful to take the matter to heart.

In fact, he was rather pleased by the popular reception in spite of his outward indifference. He was surrounded by the leading figures of Alexandria, his friends and family, his son Agrippa and his lovely daughters, Veronica and Antelope. The latter was also the bride of the magistrate’s son.


As the meeting went on, a new and different kind of tumult could be heard coming from the street. Some of the guests went to the windows and saw a crowd gathering in the half darkness. The servants hurried through the courtyard to close the gates and then reported that some Greeks and Egyptians were gathering. Amid rising voices, there were cymbals clashing and flutes wailing.

The guests started to become uneasy. All except the king, of course, who kept his calm bearing and maintained the same look of boredom he had when the Jews were cheering. In the imperial court, the great never betrayed emotion in the presence of the masses, nor even show interest. The magistrate looked at the king, composed himself, and imitated his indifference. The guests, though, couldn’t help but show their concern.

One of the servants reported that Karabas, a famous city buffoon, was there with a prayer-shawl on his shoulders, a scepter in his hand, and a crown of papyrus on his head. The Greeks and Egyptians were dancing around him and shouting in a lusty voice, “Maron! Maron!”

(Now Maron was an ancient Olympian god, who guided the chariot of Dionysus.)

Looking out the window, the magistrate could see the mob surrounding Karabas, gesturing in a grotesque imitation of the Jews, and yelling in a Jewish accent.

The magistrate consulted the captain of the guard about this insult to the new Jewish king, but the captain responded that it would be folly to attempt to disburse the mob. The priest Isidorus was in the crowd egging it on, and messengers had been sent to the governor’s palace to report this rebellion. Meanwhile, the Gentile guests were quietly slipping out of the room, without a formal goodbye. Before long, only the Jews remained.

The yelling of the mob became louder as new masses poured into the square. A tortured screaming was heard. The mob was breaking into Jewish homes and herding men, women and children into the street. Flames began to light up the sky.

Where was the governor, whose duty it was to preserve order in the city? Where were the mighty legions of Rome? Didn’t the governor know that the second largest city in the empire was in revolt?

Aristobulus, the king’s brother, and the only member of the family on speaking terms with the governor, rushed into the room. His face was white. He reported that the governor refused to see him. He simply sent word that the indignation of the Alexandrians was just and he would do nothing. He was still governor, for now, and he would decide what was right and what was wrong.

This, then, was the last desperate act of a governor who knew himself to be condemned to death. If nothing else, the empire was founded on law, and if a Roman governor refused to maintain order, what was there left in the world? Savagery would be the state of man, and the empire would dissolve and melt away. Flaccus knew he was a condemned man, and this was his revenge on the Jews.

Meanwhile, new and frightful reports poured in. Broadswords were being distributed from the arsenal while officials looked the other way, and a massacre had begun in the Jewish quarter. City officials mixed with the mob and said that the governor was in sympathy with the rioters. Jewish women were dragged out of their homes into the theaters and forced to eat swine’s flesh. Something had to be done, but no one had an answer.

“One thing we must not do,” explained the king, “is to set ourselves against the legions. We can’t provide Flaccus with the excuse that he was defending the soldiers of Rome.”

So word was quickly sent out in the name of the king, the magistrate, and the senate, that under no circumstances were the Jews to defend themselves. They must shed no blood, but rely on the clemency of Caesar and the justice of Rome. Caesar would restore their rights and punish the rioters.

The king was certain that the law and order of Rome would prevail. Agrippa felt he knew Gaius well, for they had talked often. The new Caesar had freed him from his chains, right? And Agrippa’s mother, Bernice, was the most intimate friend of the mighty empress. Jewish privilege was a sacred right in the traditions of Rome, ever since the days of Julius. This was just an insane act of a criminal bent on self-destruction, an official who, in desperation, was taking revenge on the people of Agrippa for his impending fall.

So Agrippa showed no signs of vulgar excitement. He patted Veronica’s head and sent the women off to their apartments to lie down and rest as best they could, while he remained in the library with the old philosopher Philo and a few members of the Jewish Senate.

In spite of his outward indifference, the king was far from calm. This spoiled man, whose whole life was a gamble, was accustomed to staking huge sums of money on a single roll of the dice, money he usually borrowed or extorted from his friends. For him life had but one meaning, power. So he couldn’t help but be aware, at this moment, of the insecurity of his position, backed not by the might of Rome, but by the Jews, a futile and impotent people. The only crutch he had to rely on were a few words on a bronze tablet dictated by a Caesar. Tomorrow another Caesar could recall the appointment. In the meantime any higher Roman official could laugh in his face like Flaccus was doing now.

This was the foundation of his kingdom. He thought of the people whose king he’d become and remembered that the Jews had never accepted Rome as the foundation of their strength. They looked to the grace of God, and His promise, as their security. The people were courageous enough to stand up to Rome, for Rome was a human thing, uncertain and deceptive. Not so the Law of God, which the Jews obeyed. No, Rome was not the foundation of the Jews. Jerusalem was. Perhaps his wife was right. Whenever he returned from an audience with Caesar, radiant with joy, she would quote from the sacred books of the Jews, “Put not your trust in princes.”

“Perhaps I would do well to listen to the words of the rabbis in Jerusalem,” he said to himself.

He quickly shook off these thoughts, though, for if he lost his faith in Rome, he was naked indeed. He would not let himself be unsettled by a meaningless riot. Tomorrow the incident would be over, and the day after it would be forgotten.


There was another in the room also deep in thought. The famous scholar and philosopher Philo, the brother of the magistrate, was now past sixty, but he looked even older. He had a permanent stoop from bending over his manuscripts, but his face, for all the evidence of the years, was filled with light. He wasn’t accustomed to being in the company of the great, and in fact, he’d always avoided them. His brother tried to draw him into the conversation several times, but without success. He just stayed in a corner with his thoughts.

Philo was not afraid either for his own life or the life of his companions. He believed they were in the hands of God, and if God decided that their time was up, so be it. If their time was not up, no power could prevail against them. Wickedness itself didn’t frighten him, for evil is transient. Only goodness is eternal, for goodness is the nature of God, not evil. God first created the spiritual world of ideas, and this spirit ruled the world. Evil might overshadow it for a moment, but it was bound to emerge again.

No, what disturbed Philo was quite another matter. He believed that the Jewish law was the highest wisdom and the highest love that God had given to the world. Only this wisdom can bring the peace of God to mankind. But what is God’s love and wisdom worth if these things are entrusted to a weak, persecuted people, to pitiful, insecure human beings who are being swept away in a storm of ignorance, defilement, and depravity?

In such a soul, anchored as it was in God, the incidents of that night would not give rise to feelings of revenge, but rather of pity. What men call evil is really only ignorance and blindness. What good does it do that the Jews are a peculiar people, chosen of God, if the world is evil because of ignorance? God’s wisdom must be made to cover the world; the Torah must become the portion of all mankind. The Logos, or directing spirit, appointed by God as His first Son to rule the world with love and justice for all, must become the redemption of the whole world, not just the peculiar people.

This was Philo’s philosophy, developed over time. The peculiar people, chosen and trained by God, had only been given the idea. The embodiment of the idea would have to emerge in the power of the Logos. The Logos in action, not the Logos in thought, is the wisdom of God. Therefore, the wisdom of God cannot be the privilege of individuals, or even of a peculiar people. It had to become the redemption of all humanity, as only through the Logos in action could love and justice be brought to humanity.

This was the philosophy on which Philo meditated in that night of terror.

* * * * *

There was a history of agitation behind the Alexandrian riots, which the Jews ignored. A man named Apion had written a number of scurrilous insane pamphlets advocating the destruction of the Jews. And the authorities, far from trying to suppress him, actually gave him their implicit backing.

The Jews had ignored these warnings, and in fact, they felt quite secure in their position. Alexander, the city’s founder, who wished to replace Tyre, which he’d destroyed, had brought them there. The Jews had taken the place of the Phoenicians as traders. Jewish merchants owned the ships that dropped anchor in the harbor. The workers in the harbor were all Jews. What would the city be without them?

So who cared if Apion reviled them, and Isidorus, the priest, preached against them? It was common knowledge that Isidorus had turned the temple of Isis into a public brothel and that he collected vast sums from the women who served as prostitutes. And it was also common knowledge that Apion was a common thief, who’d once been sold as a slave for his crimes. So who would listen to them anyway?

So rather than draw more attention to the libels, the Jews had ignored them. But the agitation bore fruit. The riots that began that night lasted for weeks. Agrippa slipped out of the country secretly, but as long as Flaccus remained in power, the mob roamed the streets and did as it pleased. One section after another of the Jewish quarter was attacked. Drunken crowds went from street to street dressed in Jewish clothes they’d stolen. Day after day the most brutal excesses were committed with impunity. Over here was a group of terrified Jews, their clothes having been ripped from their bodies. Over there was a Chaldean stargazer standing in a circle of admirers, a heap of stolen goods at his feet.

Throughout the weeks of rioting the Alexandrian theater was filled with spectators watching things never seen before in the history of the city. Jews were thrown into the arena to become playthings for the tormentors. Their faces were smeared with wine and honey, and lumps of swine meat were forced into their mouths. The crowds roared with glee as men, women, and children fought, screamed and writhed with loathing as the forbidden meat was forced between their teeth.

Members of the Jewish Senate weren’t spared either. In fact, they were subjected to special treatment. They were stripped naked, thrown across benches, and lashed.

In between these brutalities, actors entertained the spectators with obscene parodies of Jewish life. One appeared wearing an ass’s head, supposedly representing the Jewish God. Others, in Jewish costumes, bowed before him. The ceremony of circumcision was enacted several times, much to the delight of the women spectators. And from time to time, “serious” speakers, such as Apion and Isidorus, came in to harangue the Alexandrians on the baseness of the Jews.


Flaccus the governor published an edict withdrawing from the Jews the rights guaranteed them by the Roman Senate, and Philo left his ivory tower to go among the people and exhort and encourage them.

Philo assured his people that the edict was unlawful and would be overturned by Rome. He pleaded with the people to offer no armed resistance. Not only was it useless, it would only lead to more excesses in Alexandria and would compromise their cause in Rome. The important thing, he said, was not the individual Jew, but rather the Jewish people as a whole. The storm will pass, and God’s justice will prevail. Be patient, and endure. Accept the calamities as the will of God, and wait for a better time.


But then the news got worse. Word came from Rome that the wild young Caesar, Gaius, better known as Caligula, had proclaimed himself a god and had ordered all people to place his image in their temples and to offer him sacrifice. All of the people in the empire obeyed – except the Jews.

A great transformation suddenly took place. The people who’d submitted to every cruelty and indignity with the meekness of lambs, suddenly became like lions. Even Philo came out for resistance. He told the Jews to suffer a thousand deaths rather than prostrate themselves in worship before an idol. Such an act would strike at the very root of Israel. Let them slay you, he said, but do not throw even one pinch of incense on the altar fire.

Of course this gave the Greeks of Alexandria a new weapon against the Jews. Apion called them blasphemers and eternal aliens. The Jews were enemies of both the gods and Caesar. But this time Apion did not get his way. When a mob appeared before the great Alexandrian synagogue with an image of Caesar they intended to install there, the Jews, who had suffered the long pogrom without counterattacking, closed the doors of the synagogue, threw themselves on the idolaters, and drove them clear out of the Jewish quarter.


Philo realized that the time for action had come. As old as he was, and a stranger to public affairs, he agreed to head a delegation to Gaius Caligula, the emperor.

A delegation of Alexandrian Greeks also proceeded to the capital, to present their side of the story.

20 - "I Will Send You"

Saul stood under the shadow of a large cypress tree, waiting for someone to come through the gate of Mary the widow’s house, on Mount Scopus, in Jerusalem. His cloak, stained with oil, blackened by the earth, and ripped by the wind, left patches of his stringy body exposed. His sandals had burst their seams, and his knobby anklebones looked like the gnarled roots of olive trees. It was just before dawn in late summer.

In making the journey from Damascus to Jerusalem, he walked all day, and slept wherever he could find a spot, whether between the pillars of some rich house, in some camel drivers’ inn, or out in the open sky. He didn’t take the time to try to earn something at his trade, for he was in a hurry to reach Jerusalem, but there were always good people along the way who had compassion. One had given him a loaf of bread, another a plate of green vegetables, a third a cup of water. It would be unheard of for a stranger to die of hunger among Jews.

Now he stood and waited

With the first glimmer of dawn Barnabas appeared. His bearing was the same as always in spite of the sackcloth covering. He still looked like a king, tall and graceful as a palm tree, just as he had when he dressed in Tyrian linen and flashy rings. Young Mark was with him, and Saul was surprised to see that he was almost as tall as his uncle. He could hear them talking earnestly as they passed him unnoticed.

“Joseph Barnabas! Joseph Barnabas! Noble one!”

Uncle and nephew looked around and saw the stranger in tattered clothing and burst sandals. This was not a new sight for them, for many like this came to the disciples’ home. Barnabas immediately scrounged in his bag to put something into the outstretched hand of the stranger.

This didn’t offend Saul, since he’d already accepted handouts on this trip. But this gift from the friend of his youth did cause a confusion of emotions. There was both pain and a strange sense of sweetness. The humiliation did him good, helping to purify him through shame. So he took it as a teaching experience. His eyes brightened and his heart was filled with joy.

He whispered thanks to the lord for his graciousness.

Then Barnabas looked into the eyes of the man who now held the coin in his hand, and tears suddenly filled his own eyes.

“Saul, my beloved brother!”

“Am I worthy to be your brother, Joseph Barnabas, after what I did to you and yours?”

“But you never stopped being my brother.”

“Not even when I persecuted the faithful?”

“Not even then, for I knew you would come to us. Your footsteps were always on the path back, even when you struggled so hard against it.”

“The lord was stronger. He overcame me.”

“Yes, we heard. Messengers from Damascus told us what happened to you.”

“But Joseph, my hands are stained with blood. Can you forgive me for what I’ve done.”

“Who are we to hold you defiled when God has declared you clean.”

“Joseph, my brother,” said Saul, weeping in the arms of Barnabas.

Between them Barnabas and his nephew led Saul into the house.


Saul was washed, rubbed with oil, fed and clothed, while Barnabas pondered what to do with his friend, whose name was still synonymous with terror among the faithful. Saul interrupted these thoughts, asking about Simon Peter. Could he talk to the man who had walked with the lord? Barnabas sent word to Simon cautiously.

He didn’t have to send far, for Simon was living at that time in a little apartment in the courtyard of Mary’s house with his wife and his mother-in-law. The two women tended Mary, the mother of Jesus, and Mary Magdalene, who were both ailing.

Simon had also heard of Saul’s conversion and disappearance into the wilderness, and he received the news of his visit with mixed feelings. Certainly he rejoiced that Saul had seen the error of his ways and turned his heart to the good. No doubt God would use him in a great way. But at the moment, there was need for caution. His presence in Jerusalem would have to be kept secret for now. The memory of his deeds was still fresh in the minds of the congregation, and they wouldn’t trust him. So it was decided to keep Saul in the house for now, and not let him go out.

When Saul saw Simon, he said, “I’ve come to learn from you Simon, for you sat at the feet of our lord when he was here.”

“How wonderful are your works, O Lord,” said Simon. “Blessed be the God of Israel, who has worked a miracle in you, Saul. We heard what happened, and our hearts rejoice. You are now a beloved brother to us.”

And Simon embraced Saul and gave him the kiss of peace.

“You are a witness to the lord, Saul,” continued Simon. “The mouth that cursed him is now filled with blessing. The hand that killed the disciples now heals them. You are chosen of the lord, Saul. Therefore, may we never again speak of your deeds, which have been wiped clean by grace.

“But hear me, Saul. Many believers are still bitter, and their hearts are hot. Stay here until we can prepare them for you. And as the spirit instructs us, so will we do with you.”

“May God reward the congregation doubly for the kindness shown me,” said Saul.

Simon sent for his wife, and said to her, “A brother who was far from us has come home, and is therefore doubly dear. Prepare a bed for him, and set the table. Give him what food we have. Our brother Saul will be with us as long as he stays in Jerusalem.”

For two days Saul listened as Simon told him everything he knew about the lord. Then the pupil suddenly turned teacher. Saul told Simon his own ideas about the nature of the lord, as he’d discovered them during his time in the wilderness. They were the same ideas he’d advocated in Damascus.

The fisherman listened and became confused. Simon was fixed in the Jewish ways he’d been brought up in since childhood, for the lord did not change the ways of Moses or the prophets. He just set them in a new light. They were still the traditional ways of Israel. In his view, the Gentiles could find salvation in Jesus only by accepting the Jewish faith. Messiah’s coming meant that the nations would come to the mount of the Lord and would live in the ways of Jacob. Either that, or they would cease to be. But Saul seemed to be saying that the uncircumcised Gentiles were also children of Abraham merely by their faith. And what were these strange words “Son of God?”

“These are hard things to understand, brother Saul,” he said, perplexed. “When our lord was with us, he said that heaven and earth would pass away before even one jot or tittle of the law.”

“But even though our lord performed miracles,” answered Saul, “and taught the Torah to his disciples, we can’t think of these things as if they were done and taught by some rabbi of flesh and blood. For even in the flesh our lord was spirit, and we can’t judge according to the flesh.”

This was too much for the simple aging fisherman, so Saul didn’t press the issue. The thought occurred to him that perhaps it would be better if he could talk to James, the lord’s brother, who had a reputation for wisdom and piety. James, though, still lived down in the old dwelling in the David wall, with those believers who were Pharisees, so this would have to be discreetly arranged, so as to maintain the secrecy. Barnabas went to advise James of Saul’s arrival and to ask him to come to the house.


It was late at night when James came to visit. He was hardly through the door when Saul began expounding his views on Messiah. Messiah, he said excitedly, is a radiation of deity, the personification of divine redemption. Messiah is the Son of God, with power to bind and loosen not only on earth, but in heaven also. He is the authority delegated by God to order the worlds in justice. By his death he destroyed sin, and likewise the law, which had created sin. James listened closely and was astonished by these strange words.

He answered, “I don’t understand you. Messiah came to fill out God? Only idolaters believe God can be improved. Messiah came to fill out and complete man, and to prepare the world for redemption. God is Who He is. It is written, ‘The beginning of wisdom is the fear of God.’ I don’t hear the fear of God in what you say.”

“This was all true,” answered Saul, “until the coming of the lord. Up until then it was proper to fear God, who expressed Himself in law. But Messiah freed us from fear. He gives us a closer relationship with God. From now on we serve God in love.”

“Those are fine words, Saul, and it is true that God wants us to love him. But love of God is not a sounding cymbal. Love of God is expressed in deeds. For who are we that we can love God? Can we conceive His being? Can we comprehend His nature? Has anyone seen or touched Him? Idolaters love their gods because they’ve molded them with their hands, and they love their own work. But we hold no treasure in our hands. We have only the law given to Moses on Sinai. We can only love God by obeying His will, fulfilling His commandments, and serving him with all our heart. Love of God is not an empty sound, and it’s not the same as the love of man for man. We express our love through the fear that fills us and our obedience to His will.”

“That’s just faith in works,” responded Saul, “which is a stumbling block. Messiah has brought us a new faith, which is love.”

James did not answer. For him the young man Saul no longer existed. He turned to Simon who was seated in a dark corner of the room, trying hard to follow all this, and said, “Saul will not preach these things in the synagogues. It would destroy the peace our congregation has had lately.”

“No, that’s not his intention,” answered Simon. “He’s shown himself to us, and no one else knows he’s here.”

* * * * *

Not being allowed to preach in the synagogues could never deter Saul, of course. He soon went out everywhere proclaiming that Messiah was the Son of God. He argued with the Hellenists in the synagogues whether they were believers or not.

The people he encountered were astonished that this was the same man who had so recently persecuted the faithful, dragging them before the High Priest and putting them to the lash. The rift between the believing and non-believing Hellenists had healed since Saul’s disappearance, and no one was punished for believing in Messiah. It was felt that if Messiah did come back on the clouds, then the truth of the matter would be known for sure. But now Saul’s disputes were dividing the congregation again.

Moreover, the faithful didn’t trust him. This strange “Son of God” business wounded their deep-rooted Jewish feelings, and they thought maybe this was a trick to destroy the congregation. And even those who didn’t question his sincerity mocked him, and a saying arose among the believers, “Saul went out to find asses and found the kingdom.” The fact that the heads of the congregation did not accept Saul made him an outsider, both among the Hellenists and among the others. Once word got out that Saul was forbidden to speak in the synagogues, his words had no effect, except to stir up bitterness, disputes, and even fights.

The resentment got to be so great that his life was in danger. There was even talk of killing him.

This greatly disturbed the disciples, who feared a renewal of the persecutions from the Priesthood. James, in particular, was angered by Saul’s actions, and he said to Simon, “Saul must be sent away from Jerusalem. They won’t listen to a man who only persecuted them yesterday.”

Simon agreed. But how to persuade Saul? He seemed quite determined to get Israel to see the meaning of Jacob’s ladder.

And Israel seemed just as determined to throw it back at him. The House of Israel listened only to those who were recognized and accepted. They were bound with the thongs of the law.

Finally Saul said to himself, “There’s a great world outside Israel, and there are other people waiting for redemption. Is not God the God of the Gentiles, too? And didn’t the lord say to the disciples that they should be his witnesses to Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and to the ends of the world? Yes, to the ends of the world.”


Shortly after this thought, Saul found himself in the Synagogue of the Libertines surrounded by men with fury in their eyes as he talked about “the Son of God”. One of them exclaimed, “Saul of Tarsus, didn’t you drag men away for less than this? Didn’t you stone one, and were we not your helpers?”

Saul looked up, and recognized the witnesses who had carried out the sentence against Stephen.

“Didn’t you say then that the hands of the witnesses should be the first against him? Shouldn’t we execute the same sentence on you?”

And they no doubt would have had not Barnabas appeared, accompanied by a group of believers. After that, Barnabas stayed at Saul’s side for the rest of his stay.


It was a bitter time for Saul and he felt a great burden. He continued to stay in Simon’s house, but he knew it was out of pity, not friendship. Simon didn’t have the heart to turn him out, and he was too stubborn to leave the city without a sign. All he had was his faith in the lord, whom he believed himself to be serving with all his heart.

One day Saul was stretched out in the Temple court praying in his heart, “Holy servant of God, our lord and master, show me your face. Let me hear your voice like on the road to Damascus. Reveal your will to me, for I’m in ignorance.”

A strange joy suddenly came over him. He looked up and saw the Temple shining in the sunlight, surrounded by the children of Israel kneeling in prayer. He looked up toward heaven and saw an intense blue blazing in the blue depths, and out of that core of light someone emerged with slow steps. He heard a voice echoing in the chambers of his heart, “Arise, and hurry away from Jerusalem, for they will not accept your testimony concerning me.”

Saul was not lost in the vision. He stayed clear headed, for he knew the vision was a message, and he must read it right in order to know what was expected of him. He called out, “Lord, you know how I persecuted those who believe in you. You know that when they shed the blood of your witness, Stephen, I was there as one of the killers, for I guarded the clothes of those who killed him.”

Then Saul bowed down again, and hid his face once more in the stone floor of the Temple court.

And the voice spoke again, “Go, Saul, for I will send you far away to the Gentiles.”

* * * * *

And just like that, he had his answer. When the disciples heard that he was willing to leave Jerusalem, they gladly sent him to Caesarea, and his friend Barnabas accompanied him part of the way.

“The words of the lord will be fulfilled,” said Saul. “Until then I will wait in suffering.”

“Until then I will pray to God that the fulfillment comes soon,” answered Barnabas.

The two friends exchanged the kiss of peace. For a long, long time Barnabas watched Saul as he rode away, the dust rising under the quick, quiet steps of the little donkey.

END OF PART ONE

19 - The Foretaste

Outside the little fence in front of Ananias’ house stood a desert dweller, his face burned black by the sun, his naked body half covered by a ragged sheet. Thick tangles of hair fell over his face, and his thin legs seemed barely able to support him. He tapped on the low gate of woven palm branches with the long bamboo stick he carried. No one passing by recognized him, and neither did the master of the house when he stuck his head through the door opening.

When Ananias opened the door the stranger collapsed into his arms. It was only when Ananias looked more closely at the pear shaped head that he knew the apparition to be Saul. Ananias at once grew pale with fear, knowing that the Ethnarch’s men had never given up their search for Saul even after three years. They still poked around now and then to see if he’d come back.

Quickly Ananias called to his wife and they carried Saul into the tiny, low-roofed house and laid him on the floor. After refreshing him with a cup of milk, which he barely kept down, they covered him with skins so that any neighbor who might happen to look in wouldn’t see him.

Saul came to a while later and immediately started talking about Jesus, who, he said, was the Son of God.

“We’ll talk about this when you get your strength back,” they said to him. “For now, just rest, and be at peace.”

That evening Ananias went to the synagogue for evening prayer, so as not to arouse any curiosity about his absence. But he said nothing to anyone about his visitor.

They kept Saul hidden for several weeks, nourishing him with milk and vegetables. Ananias treated Saul’s black, cracked skin with unguents, and carefully increased the amount of goat’s milk and ground vegetables he fed him each day.

As soon as he could walk, Saul begged them to take him to the synagogue for Sabbath services.

“I have great news for the House of Israel,” he said. “The spirit was with me in the desert and I saw Jacob’s ladder. I understand the dream now.”

Ananias didn’t understand him, and assumed he was still under delirium.

“You can’t go to the synagogue, or show your face anywhere. Some of the men who came with you to arrest us are still here, and they’ve never really stopped looking for you. Most of the people have pretty much forgotten what happened back then, but if they see you or hear you preaching, they’ll remember all right, and surely kill you.”

Nothing can happen to me,” answered Saul, tranquilly. Remember how the lord told you that he’d chosen me as an instrument to carry his word to the nations and to Israel?”

“Yes, that is what he told me,” answered Ananias.

“So how can anything happen to me before the word of the lord is fulfilled? Who can kill me if I’m the lord’s instrument?”

Ananias looked at Saul in astonishment, for Saul’s face was radiant.

“If your faith is that strong, then go in that power and spirit and fulfill what the spirit has said to you,” answered Ananias. And may God go with you.”

* * * * *

Because of Saul’s unshakeable faith in his mission, not only did Ananias agree that he should appear in the synagogue, but he went ahead of time to negotiate for him. He persuaded the head of the synagogue to allow a young rabbi who had just returned from Mount Sinai and was often visited by the spirit, to preach the next Sabbath. Ananias knew that the situation was fraught with danger. He thought that Saul’s sermon might embitter some of the members of the new sect, and that they wouldn't take his conversion seriously. But he was also under Saul’s spell, so to speak, and on the Sabbath he accompanied him to the synagogue.

The great synagogue of Damascus was not a single building. The Jewish community had grown so rapidly, mostly through the addition of Gentile converts, that they couldn’t build new buildings fast enough. As the congregation grew, the synagogue authorities were forced to add new buildings in a hurry with whatever materials were at hand, whether stone, wood or baked clay. The result was that the original synagogue looked like a mother hen sitting on a brood of chicks.

As usual, the synagogue was jammed with worshippers on this day, who overflowed from the main building into all the other buildings. Some sat so far away that they couldn’t hear the speakers, and so would have to watch the beadles’ signals so they’d know when to give the “Amen” response.

After the reading of the Pentateuch, the head of the synagogue got up and said, “A young rabbi is with us today, who just returned from Mount Sinai, where he fasted and sought the secrets of God’s word. He comes today to give us some words of comfort. Let him now speak as the spirit leads him.”

Saul came forward, wrapped in a prayer shawl.

Most of the congregation knew that a man had come from the High Priest three years earlier with a mission, and had then disappeared. But only a few close friends of Ananias knew what he looked like. When the people saw the pallid, sun-scorched young man, with his high pear-shaped head, their instincts told them that something unusual was about to happen. There was total silence.

The preacher didn’t start his sermon in the usual manner, with a verse from the Pentateuch. Instead he started talking about himself.

“I am a Pharisee of the Pharisees, and I sat at the feet of Rabbi Gamaliel. At that time the jealousy of God rose in me against those who praised Jesus of Nazareth as the King Messiah.”

An astonished buzzing ran through the crowd.

“Saul.”
“It’s Saul, the persecutor.”
“It’s the man who tied up the faithful and dragged them to the slaughter.”
“Shh! Let’s hear what he has to say.”

The young man addressed them in simplicity. He described his reason for coming to Damascus the first time, about his vision of Jesus, his blindness, and his flight. He told them of his wandering in the wilderness, and his meditations at Sinai. He explained his vision of Jacob’s ladder, which he knew to be Jesus, and how this caused him to understand that this Jesus was the Son of God the Father, Who’d sent him for salvation to the world.

A certain tension began to be felt in the room as Saul’s voice became alive with exaltation. He said that though the lord Messiah had been crucified in weakness, he was alive in the power of God. He was the only one who gave meaning and justification to our life, for he was the redemption, the fulfillment of creation, the promise that God had given to the prophets. And he would come to resurrect the dead.

This in itself created no new excitement, for there were many believers in the synagogue, and they’d often heard sermons on Jesus. Many believed that Jesus died for their sins and would soon return on the clouds of heaven. What did create a storm was when Saul drew from this that Jesus of Nazareth was not only Messiah, but that he was the Son of God. This was definitely new. This man went on to say that just as there could be nothing apart from God, so too there could be nothing apart from Jesus, for he was the personification of redemption, the purpose of creation. Therefore, Jesus was not merely a god. He was a second Authority.

Who does this man think he is? Just yesterday he was persecuting believers with all his might, and now he stands there preaching things unheard of in Israel. Not only were the pious Jews offended, but even the brows of the faithful were knit in bewilderment and discontent. This could not be allowed to go on.

No fists were raised, and no hands were laid on the preacher as would have happened in Jerusalem. But there was obvious dismay and discontent.

The head of the synagogue stood up, signaled for silence, and declared, “With the permission and authority of the synagogue court and of the other elders, I bid Saul of Tarsus to be silent, and I withdraw from him the privilege of preaching in the synagogue.”

As the congregation dispersed that morning, their heads were lowered in great sadness. They felt like they’d been present at the worship of the golden calf.

* * * * *

It was time for Saul to leave. He wouldn’t stop talking about his views on Messiah to anyone who would listen. He couldn’t preach in the synagogue, and the elders were even considering whether or not he should be put to the lash, but they didn’t want to draw any more attention to the matter than there already was. So Saul went to little groups or individuals, scholars or ignorant. The congregation was split down the middle for and against him with Jews and Gentiles on both sides.

Ananias was worried, not only about Saul’s safety, but the safety of the small congregation as well. Up till now, no one made any distinction between the believing Jews and the non-believing Jews; they were all part of the same congregation. But Saul was here, there and everywhere. He’d suddenly appear in a little group in the synagogue or the marketplace. Buyers, sellers, weavers, camel drivers, it didn’t matter. He’d argue with anyone. Ananias kept warning Saul about the arguments that kept breaking out, but Saul had only one answer. He belonged to the lord, and as long as the lord needed him here in this life, no evil could come to him. And if he were killed, it would just be proof that the lord needed him in the other life.

Rumors of the disturbances soon reached the ears of the governor of the city. He too remembered what had happened three years earlier, and he ordered that Saul be found and arrested.

But when the guards went out to find him, he was suddenly nowhere to be found. They looked for him everywhere they could possibly think of among the believers and the Jews. But Saul no longer came to the synagogue and he wasn’t seen among the believers or in the marketplace. No one seemed to know who had warned him, but apparently someone had. All anyone knew was that he had vanished.

Now it happened that one of Saul’s former lieutenants, Zebulun, was in Damascus at that time. Saul was so well known to him that no disguise would get by him. Zebulun found other men familiar to Saul and they stationed themselves at the gates of the city. Anyone leaving Damascus was closely scrutinized, sometimes even stripped. In fact, they were so determined to find him that they even examined the women. They were certain that if he attempted to leave, they would catch him.


On its eastern side, the wall of Damascus ran through a little olive grove. At the base of the wall inside the city, there were niches, hollows, and arches where the poor oil-pressers, vegetable dealers and camel drivers lived. The wheels of these poor oil-pressers were turned by donkey or by a blind slave. Outside the city, the oil mills of the wealthy were run by streams that ran like a network through the woods around Damascus. Small farmers brought their sacks of olives to be ground and pressed.

During the day the place was noisy with braying donkeys, neighing camels, bargaining farmers, and chaffing merchants. During the night silence reigned, and the only signs of human habitation were the modest little oil lamps sending up slender spirals of smoke.

There lived among the oil-pressers a young man named Zechariah. All day long he dragged sacks and baskets of olives to the mill, and loaded cruses and skins of pressed oil onto waiting donkeys. His body and clothing were greasy with oil. The hole where he lived, including the vessels and mattress and everything else was saturated with oil. And among the baskets and cruses, covered with a greasy rag, Saul of Tarsus lay all day.

For the first time in his life Saul felt what he’d made so many others feel. He knew now what it was like to be in danger for the sake of Jesus. He wasn’t afraid. He knew no one had any power over him as long as his mission was unfulfilled. But he now felt what it was like to be the hunted instead of the hunter. The experience both humbled and exalted him.

Under the filthy cover Saul felt he’d achieved the privilege of being persecuted for the “love of God who is in the King Messiah.”

One night two powerful arms lifted him out of his hiding place and placed him in a basket filthy with the thick ooze of olive waste. Zechariah also gave him a cake of bread and a gourd of water to sustain him in the desert. He covered the basket over with leaves, so that it looked like a basket of olives about to be carried to the mill. Carrying this heavy load on his shoulders, he made his way along the wall until he reached a lonely grove. Climbing to the top of the wall, he lowered the basket down on the other side with a rope. He told Saul to carry the basket so that if anyone saw him, he could say he was taking a load of olives to be pressed outside the city.

But Saul met no one on the other side of the wall. He stepped out into the deep blue night, and looked up at the stars he knew so well from the desert.

He turned his footsteps in the direction of Mount Hermon, whose majestic white head, illuminated by the stars, was visible in the night. His destination? Why, Jerusalem, of course!

18 - Metamorphosis

The young man Saul plunges on through the world, marching day and night, alone. Heaven stretches above, and oceans of sand beneath. The fiery tongues of the sun have made him a bundle of bones and nerves. His body, half wrapped in a tattered sheet, is scorched, withered and shrunk, skin drawn tightly over ribs. Scraggly legs support thin hips and his belly is worn out by hunger and thirst. His neck is like a twist of cords.

Only his great, pear shaped head has grown bigger. Brown wisps of shaggy hair stick out from under a tattered head covering, and mix with a beard that covers narrow jaws. His face is covered with a layer of sand. It’s in his throat. His pores are thick with it. He is drunk with sand.

Three years have passed since the day of the vision, but his loneliness has aged him three decades. If not for his one good flaming eye, the youthful twitch of his tightened lips and the strange radiance of his wide forehead, his face would look like that of an old man. Long, pitifully thin hands, lean on a bamboo staff, while his feet sink into the pathless sands at every step. His stooping back inclines almost toward a hump, showing the full weight of what he has taken on himself.

And what’s he been doing these three years? When he left Damascus, he was wrapped up in his vision. His eyes could see again, but his mind was dazed. He had just one desire, to find himself. He had no plan; he just fled aimlessly, asking only to be free from thought and will.


It chanced that the road he took led to Petra in Arabia, the capital of king Artos. When he arrived, he decided that since he knew no one there, he would find a Jew for whom he could work. He told no one who he was. He was careful to follow all the Jewish laws, and on the Sabbaths he went to the synagogue.

Petra was an unclean city, like Sodom. There were a mixture of Moabites, Edomites, Midianites and Amalekites living there, and they all worshipped Dionysus, a god of fruitfulness and joy. There was a never-ending series of festivals going on, including the most abominable forms of sexual deviance. Oil lamps were made in the shape of sexual organs, and revolting perversions were engraved on all the sacred utensils. Every dish, seat, and wall was covered with representations of Sodomite rites.

In this city of unbridled, savage appetites, Saul lived alone in the little Jewish community, worked his trade, and kept to himself.

But when he recovered his strength, the full force of what had happened began to make him afraid. He felt empty and naked. There was no doubt about the reality of the vision, but he knew that if, or since, it was true, then the whole rest of his life was one big sin. So young, and yet he’d committed so much evil, shed so much blood, and brought so much anguish on the world.

So while the vision was the only thing he had to hold onto, it offered him no peace.

At one point, Saul was in danger of sinking into despair, as if the demons were making one last effort to win his soul. His guilty conscience almost caused him to lose what little sanity he held onto.

“If I’ve done so much evil up till now in the name of good,” he said over and over, “who’s to say that tomorrow I won’t find something else that’ll make what I do today seem just as evil? What man can ever think he knows the final truth? We’re all sinners, and everything about us, our thoughts, our deeds, and even our truths, are all foul and putrid. So why not just live like the heathen? Why not quench every lust we have? I’m just a stinking pot that’ll soon be broken.”


One evening Saul somehow got caught up in a procession of riotous men and women carrying palm branches and torches, dancing half-naked to the music of flutes and clashing cymbals, and singing loudly on their way to the temple. A lithe, dark-eyed, brown-skinned Arab girl darted toward Saul and pulled him into the line of dancers. That night he ate sheep and goat flesh from the altars of the idol, and gave himself to the dancing and the music and the drunkenness of the ceremony. In the morning he awoke on the temple steps with his head in the lap of the idolatress, and was immediately tormented with the question of whether he had defiled his body before the god.

He remembered the words of warning from his teacher Rabbi Gamaliel, “I fear for you, Saul. I will pray God for your soul. You’ve chosen a path that is narrow and perilous.”

Saul now understood how easily those words could come true.

But it wasn’t in Saul to yield to such temptation. What it did do was wake him up to the fact that he needed to restore order in his life. But order must be preceded by unification, and that wasn’t possible while his life was divided into before the vision and after the vision. He vowed to sacrifice the former, for he knew that his only salvation was his faith in the new life, the second life.

His old life was one mass of sin, but it had been done in ignorance. The idolaters of Petra were not really guilty of idol worship, for their innermost desire was to worship the true God and their sacrifices were offered in ignorance. Therefore they were sinless. And so it was also with Saul. By abandoning the old life and clinging to the new, it was as if the old life never existed.

The lord had told him to go into Damascus for instructions, and there he’d been told that he was God’s chosen instrument for great things. God had chosen him, the greatest of all sinners, as His instrument.

Thus the old life was gone. His sins were washed clean and he was now as a newborn child. He’d been born again in Damascus.

And so he continued to wait.

Weeks and months went by with no sign and no direction. Such is the tragedy that faith does not contain its own security. The road to Damascus had been illuminated. The road from Damascus he had to build for himself.

He thought about taking a wife and raising a family like all men do, but he realized that he only thought this because of his reluctance to take the yoke that was being prepared for him. For the second part of the message was that “Saul will suffer much for my name.” Once he accepted that, he left for the wilderness of Sinai, the mountain where God had revealed himself to Moses.


Sinai had always drawn the religious souls who hungered for the divine spirit. Tradition declared it to be the purest of all mountains, the center of divine inspiration. It was said that the divine spirit hovered over it because it had never been made unclean with idol worship like other mountains. It had been protected from false gods and reserved and sanctified for the God of Israel. The Essenes were drawn to its penchant for inspiring visions. The disciples of John were drawn to it as well.

And so Saul resolved to live in its divine shadow as a Nazarite, so that the spirit might visit him. He traveled with a caravan of a rich Arab merchant who was taking a cargo of spices from Arabia to a port on the Red Sea. He left the caravan when they reached the sandy plateau where the foothills of Sinai begin.

As he traveled up the roadless slopes, Saul saw here and there withered, half-dead, cave dwelling Nazarites, Essenes, disciples of John the Baptist, and members of a brotherhood of Damascus called the Sons of Moses, who also believed the Messiah had come and who were sanctifying and preparing themselves for his imminent return. They were all just shadows of men, hollowed out by the hot winds and cold storms that alternately raged there. The black tatters on their bodies barely covered their shame, and their hair and beards were wildly matted. They sometimes passed whole weeks without food, and when they did eat, it was either cactus roots, dried pressed dates, or parched wheat grains. They drank the dew, which they collected painfully, drop by drop, in cruses. They passed the days in prayer and meditation, and at night they stared up into the heavens, reading the stars for their destiny. Wailing and howling could often be heard from the black caves in which they lived.

Saul stayed there for several months, fasting and praying in a vain attempt to bring down the Holy Spirit by the strength of his will. But there was no sign, no hint, no revelation. As his body weakened, so did his spirit. He stopped thinking and analyzing, lost control of himself, and started babbling like the others. He hated that for he saw nothing useful in it. The center of his world was his conscious being, not mystical abstractions. If he couldn’t think it through, he wanted no part of it.

Paul’s emphasis on the rational mind was so strong that even in his vision, his first question had been, “Who are you, lord?” He insisted on knowing with whom he was dealing and to what authority he was asked to bow. He remembered a lesson taught by Rabbi Gamaliel that Hillel’s opponents had once argued with him saying that they had heard voices from heaven supporting their viewpoint. Hillel replied that the Torah had been given to men, not angels, and therefore it was he, Hillel, who would decide what was right or wrong, not the angels.

Saul realized that these people at Sinai were all visionaries, trying to hear heavenly voices and achieve a “higher self.” But the Holy Spirit was not here. For that he needed an alert mind, for the Holy Spirit worked through the instrumentality of his brain.

So he left.

Carrying a gourd of water, his staff, and a bundle of dried dates, he went down to the foot of the plateau and joined a caravan bound for Damascus. While traveling with them, he didn’t engage in conversation, but lost himself in thoughts of a long ago generation that had traveled through these same sands. Their skeletons were buried here, the first generation of the liberation from Egypt. Saul felt like he could hear their lamentations over having been left there by Moses and Aaron.

Eventually they came to a place that looked like God had thought about making it into an oasis, but never finished. Perhaps there had been water here at one time, but now there were just crippled shapes of cactus and dwarf palms. He said his evening Shema, drank his little remaining water, and ate the last of his pressed figs. He praised God, and then he slept.

When he awoke his thoughts were clear and fresh. He went through his experience once more. He’d had a vision and an unimaginable, incomprehensible Messiah had revealed himself to him. This Messiah had been with God before creation, and would come on the clouds, surrounded by heavenly hosts, to judge the world. Saul had seen his form and heard his voice, and he now belonged to him eternally.

Now what was he trying to say when he answered that he was Jesus, “whom you persecute,” rather than “Jesus, the Messiah?” This must mean that the persecuted Jesus must come before the Messiah Jesus. So the Jesus who will come on the clouds lived among us first, and we didn’t know him. He taught us, performed good deeds, and died on a cross. So this earthly Jesus was just as important a part of the faith as the Jesus who will come on the clouds of heaven.

So this much was clear. The unknowable and incomprehensible Messiah was also known and comprehensible. We saw him, we heard him, and he walked among us.

But beyond that, who is this one who is like us and yet is also Messiah? He can’t be merely created, as we are, or as the stars are. Creation is comprehensible; it’s bound by natural law. Everything is ordered in its motions according to a system. This system is the wisdom of God that directs the motion of all creation. It’s the nature of God, the radiation of God, and nothing can exist without it.

All is in order. Messiah is the redemption, the lifting of creation to its highest perfection, the ultimate purpose for which God conceived it. It is the fulfillment of the task that was in the mind of God in the act of creation. And for this alone creation took place. Messiah is this part of the divinity in creation. His purpose is perfection, redemption, the highest level of salvation.

Thus Messiah is the higher will of God. He is higher than wisdom, for wisdom is but the present condition of creation. Messiah is the supreme objective of creation, the striving for perfection, for liberation from the earthly nature. He’s not bound in wisdom, which can only be achieved by laws and commandments, by arrangement and system, but in the nature of God, which is possible only through redemption. Messiah is the supreme effort of the universe. Without him creation has neither sense nor purpose. He is the reward and the final achievement, the thread that binds all creation to divinity.

And thus if follows that Messiah is the Son of God, and not, like wisdom, only the daughter of heaven touched with God’s nature. He is the Son who liberates us from nature and unites us with God. Through him we become like the angels. Through him we arise to eternal life. Through him we are redeemed from our imperfection and we achieve highest perfection.

Therefore, Jesus, the persecuted one, he who came from the tiny little town of Nazareth and lived among us, who preached in the Temple court and was not recognized, who was struck and shamed and bore the anguish of the cross, he is Messiah. He is the highest radiation of divinity, God’s redemption for the universe. Only through him do man and the universe acquire the meaning of their existence.

This was the revelation for which Saul had been waiting. And it did not come to him from without, but from within, with the voice of the Holy Spirit.

In the starry night Saul imagined Jesus of Nazareth stretched out like the ladder in Jacob’s dream. It was on a night just like this that Jacob saw the ladder stretched from earth to heaven with angels ascending and descending on it. Jesus is the ladder and it is on him that we mount up to heaven.

Saul resolved to bring the gospel of Jesus of Nazareth to all men.

He looked down to see his own black, withered body, and a verse came to mind. “He gave his body to the smiters.”

Saul of Tarsus knew what his body would have to endure for the sake of the gospel.

“I will consecrate my body to Jesus of Nazareth, even as I have consecrated my soul to him.”

17 - Road to Damascus

The messengers of the High Priest, along with Saul, are on the road to Damascus. Samuel, the commander of the Temple guards rides on a camel while the guards ride on donkeys. Although Saul was offered a camel, he and his men, Judah, Zebulun, and Zadok, prefer to walk. A wax tablet hangs by a purple thread around Saul’s neck, engraved with his letter of authorization.

“Be it known to all, that Saul, son of Baruch, of Tarsus in Cilicia, who is also called Paul, has been appointed by the High Priest, and is authorized to arrest, bind, and deliver to the men of the High Priest any Hellenistic Jew who fails to fulfill or who actively opposes the Law of Moses, so that they may be brought to trial in Jerusalem.”

The tablet is stamped with the High Priest’s seal and is signed by both him and the Chief Officer of the Temple.


As the young man Saul marches forward, his eyes are red from the dust of the road and from three sleepless nights. After crossing the Sea of Galilee from Tiberias to the heathen soil of Gadara, he traveled through the ten Gentile cities that the wicked Pompey had taken from the Jews and settled with Greek idolaters. The men ate flat cakes, dried cheese, figs and other fruits that they’d brought with them, for they wouldn’t eat the impure food served in the inns of the Gentiles. Other than Caesarea Philippi, he avoided all cities and villages and slept in the open, or in the cleft of some rock, on bamboo mattresses to avoid the pollution of idolaters’ tents.

By the fourth day when they entered the hot lowland that lies between Mount Hermon and the oasis-like thickly covered landscape of Damascus, they began to reel like drunkards. They were breathing more dust than air, and their mouths and noses were filled with sand. It was in every pore of their faces, beards and ears, and even got into their throats and lungs. Their mantles offered no protection. The worst was in the deepest part of the lowland where the rays of the sun beat down on them like bundles of spears and they felt like they were in a cauldron. There was no tree, no bush, no shadow. Though it was still early in the morning, the sun seemed to fill the air with tongues of flame.

On and on they stumble. They see an oasis ahead like a chimera, appearing then disappearing. They see the springs, so close they can almost hear the sound of murmuring waters in the thick groves. But their feet seem cemented to the ground. The closer the vision, the more it seems they’ll never get there. The water skins they’d brought were long since emptied and the camel with the large load seems ready to fall under his burden. Mechanically, they move on.

As they march, Saul feels the emptiness in his heart growing rather than diminishing as he’d hoped. He is filled with the thought that the same faces that haunted him in Jerusalem will continue to haunt him here. He knows that no matter how harsh he is, only a few of the believers will deny their Messiah. They won’t cry out or defend themselves. They will look at him with eyes of forgiveness, thus turning the tortures back on him.

For the hundredth time, he asks himself, “Who is this man they called the ‘Son of God?’” It’s the Jewish people as a whole who are called this. How can it be applied to a single individual, especially someone who was tortured like a slave and hammered to a cross?

But what if they are right? What if the one who took on himself the basest sufferings is the highest fulfillment?

The mad question shakes him like a storm. No! No! No! He is here to prove the opposite is true!

He steadies himself and his footsteps become more defiant. But not for long. Again he sees the face of Stephen and of all his victims. He hears their voices crying out, “Saul, Saul, you are one of us; why do you persecute us?”

“What am I doing?” he cries. “Why did God choose me to be the instrument of doom and punishment? What if I’m the evil one? Oh God, help me!”

The other men are dumbstruck with astonishment, for Saul hasn’t noticed that they’ve crossed the line between desert and town, and are now among trees, bushes and vineyards. Saul’s men have already thrown themselves down on the banks of the rivulets and washed their throats with loud spitting gurgles. They’ve washed their beards and eyebrows and are now plunging their hands and legs into the water to renew themselves in its coolness and sweetness.

The road nearby is filled with travelers. There are camels and donkeys loaded with merchandise. They carry skins of honey wine, earthen jars and woven stuffs. They carry cedar beams, incense and spices. Traders from Tyre and Sidon are here as well as Arab Bedouins with their household possessions towering high up between the humps of their camels. There are lords and slaves and heralds. Caravans and individual travelers pour in from the various roads headed to the gate of the city on to Straight Street.

But Saul is in a fog. In the middle of an oasis, he feels a great weariness taking hold of him. His limbs become soft and some other will seems to take over.

Suddenly the world is quiet. The leaves and branches of the trees stop rustling and are motionless as if they were dead images rather than blossoming things. A thick black cloud, no bigger than a man’s hand, appears high above. And suddenly the colors of the world change and become fixed with new radiance. The plants look greener than ever before and their shape is otherworldly.

This is a normal occurrence near the end of summer here, when the rains are about to begin. The small cloud expands with terrifying swiftness until it covers the whole sky. What should happen next is that the winds will be unloosed, and a million storm demons take hold of the four corners of the world. The heads of trees will clash together, and the river waters will heave against their banks. Animals are scattered, and the tinkle of smashed vessels is heard. Bales of wool will tumble on cruses of oil, and donkeys and men flung together. Everyone will grab onto any kind of hold and try to seek shelter. Rocks will come plunging down on the road from the hills. Some men will call on their gods, and others will lift their hands to heaven, for it is the terror of God on earth.

But today, it doesn’t happen this way. Instead, the eerie silence remains. Shafts of light begin to break up the gigantic cloud, multiplying into bundles to become slanting pillars of solid light. Eyes are dazzled and a new fear seizes the earth. Donkeys break away and scatter and camels sink to the ground. Men kneel as the bundles of light coalesce into one burst of light that floods the world from end to end.

Saul lies at the edge of the road as though a mighty hand had thrown him down. His face is turned up to the open sky and his eyes are open. His companions stand paralyzed with amazement, for they hear him speaking with someone. They catch a few words. They know he is seeing a vision and they are terrified to be witnesses.

A man stands before Saul, a man who is both spirit and flesh. He’s not a giant but he seems taller than any man Saul has ever seen. He looks like an ordinary rabbi in a prayer shawl. His eyes are mournful yet radiant, filled with faith and love. Saul has seen these eyes before among the disciples. Since man was created in God’s image, Saul thinks this could be a spirit of the Lord. But the man stretches out his hands to Saul and the sorrow on his face is a human sorrow. His eyes are filled with tears, and his lips are distorted in pain, as if all the anguish of the world had passed into him. His voice is that of a simple man who suffers as Saul has seen so many suffer.

“Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?”

In that voice Saul hears the silent protest of everyone he has persecuted.

The men standing nearby hear Saul ask, “Who are you, lord?”

“Saul hears the reply, “I am Jesus of Nazareth, whom you persecute.”

The men standing nearby hear Saul ask, “Lord, what shall I do?”

Saul hears the reply, “Arise and go to Damascus. There you will be told what you have to do.”

Suddenly the vision is gone. In fact, everything is gone; the whole world has disappeared from Saul’s sight. His companions ask him what he saw; he doesn’t answer. He sits there, silent, helpless, and blind.

His companions tell him that they too were blinded by the light, and assure him that their sight has returned and his will too when his strength returns. Saul hears, but doesn’t answer.

With Zadok on one side and Samuel on the other, they lead blind Saul into Damascus.

On Straight Street they find an inn run by a Jew. They enter the courtyard to the sounds and smells of donkeys and camel dung as well as the heavy odor of damp wool. They hire a little room on the upper floor where they lay the blind Saul down onto a bamboo mattress.

For three days Saul lies there, surrounded by eternal night. The world around him is like the abyss of hell into which he is forever falling with no hope of ever reaching bottom. But there is a point in his heart that is sending out rays of light. He must lie in darkness now, and these rays of light will be his hope.

His companions are impatient, for they want to report to the heads of the synagogue what happened to the messenger who carries the authority of the High Priest. But Saul doesn’t let them. He wants to wait for the sign promised him on the road. Then he will report to the heads of the synagogue.

Meanwhile his companions try to help their blind leader. They bring exorcists, healers, men who cure blindness or drive out evil spirits. Nothing helps.

Then an old man arrives and introduces himself as Ananias. Saul knows the name. He knows that this man is a pious and god fearing Jew who observes the law in all its details. He also knows that this man is one of the leaders of the congregation of believers, and he had planned on making him his first prisoner. But Ananias also knows who Saul is, and he is afraid. He is here only because he also had a vision that told him to come here.

“Leave me alone with him,” Ananias says to Saul’s companions. “I have something to say to him.”

They leave the room and the old man is alone with Saul. He sits on the floor and takes Saul’s hand in his. Saul's heart beats fast, and he trembles. Could this be the sign he is looking for? He can’t see the old man’s face, but warmth and love and understanding stream into him from the hand that encloses his. If not for the vision, this hand would now be loaded with chains, twisted and bound, until the blood gushed forth. And with this thought comes all the beaten bodies with their welt-covered backs and bleeding faces. Saul can see nothing else.

He has an overwhelming urge to just lie there, neither eating nor drinking, until he withers away. But there was that second half of the vision, the promise. In his agony, he is suddenly overwhelmed by repentance and regret.

“How did this blindness come on you, Saul, my brother?” he hears the old man ask.

“I had a vision on the road.”

“A vision, brother Saul?”

“Yes.”

“And what did you see in the vision?”

Saul stares around the room as if he can see, as though he wants to make sure he is alone with the old man.

“There is no one here but you and I?”

Saul sits up on the mattress. His eyes are wide open, and it seems to him that they are blind only to this world of ours. He can see what no one else can.

“I saw Jesus of Nazareth, the one you call lord!” he cries out, falling back on the mattress.

“I know it, brother Saul,” says Ananias.

“You know it?”

He sits up again, feels with his hands for the old man’s knees, and buries his blind face into them.

“Yes, I know it, just like I know that you came here to take the faithful prisoner, just as you did in Jerusalem. The lord showed himself to you on the road.”

Saul lifts his head up. The passion of repentance descends on him like a storm and shakes him from head to foot.

“Ananias! Do you believe there is forgiveness for my sins and salvation for my soul?” he cries.

“Saul, do you not understand that the God of our fathers has chosen you, that you might know his will, and hear his voice? From now on you will be a witness and will testify to all men about what you saw and heard. So why delay? Arise and be baptized and call on the name of the Lord.”

And old Ananias places his warm loving hands on Saul’s eyes.

A violent trembling comes over Saul and in that moment the scales fall from his eyes. A hot flood of tears breaks through the stoniness of his heart and washes away his blindness. He stares around him and sees that everything is joyous and sun-drenched. And beside him stands old Ananias, his face shining with grace and forgiveness.


Saul was baptized that very day. Then, with the letters of the High Priest still in his possession, he stole out of the city secretly, and set out all alone on the road to the wilderness.