Dear and Glorious Physician (4 page)

Diodorus took the stone in his hands, gravely, still squatting on his heels. He could barely see it in the twilight now, but he felt that it was warm, and when he turned it in his fingers it gave off a curious faint glow of many colors, which caught the last light.

It was warm, most probably because it had lain so long in the palms of the child’s hands. But the warmth did not decrease, though the air was cooling rapidly. Rather, it increased. The superstitious Diodorus wanted to drop the stone, but that would be an embarrassing gesture before the child.

“Do you think, Master, that He is here, and that He hears me?” repeated Lucanus. He had a clear and steadfast voice, without servility, the voice of one of patrician birth.

“Eh?” said Diodorus. Again he turned the stone about in his fingers and peered at it.

“The Unknown God,” said Lucanus, patiently.

Diodorus knew all about the Unknown God. Once, in a Greek temple, he had sacrificed to Him, though the Greeks had believed He did not wish sacrifices. Who was this God who had no name? What were His attributes? Of what men was He the Patron? There were no images of Him anywhere. Could He be the God of the Jews, of whom Diodorus had heard much in Jerusalem? But he had known that they, the Jews, sacrificed to Him, doves and lambs, on some festival, the Passover, in the spring of the year. The Jews called Him Lord, and they appeared to know Him very well. In his mind’s eye Diodorus could see the great gold and pale marble temple hanging against the peacock sky of Jerusalem. Lucanus was a Greek, not a Jew. It was possible that the Greeks had heard of the Jewish God, and as they did not know His name they called Him the Unknown.

Diodorus shook his head. A great moon, like a bowl filled with soft fire, was rising behind the palms now. It filled the courtyard with a stream of shifting light, and the shadows of the palms fell sharply on the white stones and the white walls of the house, and crept into the colonnades, which had begun to gleam as if made of yellow marble. The scent of jasmine rose in waves about the man and the boy, and crickets shrilled in the grass and among the colorless flowers. Somewhere, out of sight, a carapaced animal scraped over the stones.

Diodorus remembered a name he heard from a Jewish princeling: Adonoi. He said to Lucanus, “Is His name Adonoi?”

“He has no name, Master, that men know,” replied the boy.

“Anyway, I seem to remember that it just means ‘Lord’,” said Diodorus abstractedly. “He is the God of the Jews.”

“But the Unknown God is the God of all men,” said Lucanus, earnestly. “He is the God not only of the Jews, but of the Romans and the Greeks and the pagans and of slaves and Caesars, and of wild men in the forests and in lands yet unknown.”

“How do you know this, child?” asked Diodorus, with a slight smile.

“I know. I know it in my heart. No one has told me,” said Lucanus, with simplicity.

Diodorus was strangely moved. He remembered that the gods often preferred to give their wisdom to children, whose minds were not distorted and crippled by life.

“Someday,” said Lucanus, “I shall find Him.”

“Where?” asked Diodorus, trying for indulgence.

But Lucanus had lifted his face to the sky, and his profile was flooded with the golden light of the moon. “I do not know where, but I shall find Him. I shall hear His voice, and I shall know Him. He is everywhere, but I shall know Him in particular, and He shall speak to me, not only in the moon and the sun, the flowers and the stones, the birds and the winds, and the dawns and the sunsets. I shall serve Him, and give my heart and my life to Him.”

There was joy in the boy’s voice, and again Diodorus felt a quiver of superstition.

“And you prayed to Him for Rubria?” he said.

Lucanus turned his face to him, and smiled. “Yes, Master.”

“But what do you call Him, child, when you pray?”

Lucanus hesitated. He gazed at Diodorus as if pleading with him. “I call Him Father,” he said, in a low tone.

Diodorus was amazed, and taken aback. No one ever called any of the gods Father. It was ridiculous. It would affront the gods to be addressed so familiarly by insignificant man. If this boy spoke so to the Unknown God, who knew but what, in His godly anger, He might not strike furiously at the object of the prayers? Rubria!

Diodorus said sternly, “No man, not even the sons of the gods, ever dared call a god ‘Father’. It is outrageous. It is true that many of the gods have sons and daughters by mortal men and women, but even so — ”

“Master, you speak angrily,” said Lucanus, not in the voice of fear and servility, but in the remorseful voice of one who has unwittingly offended and begs forgiveness. “The Unknown God is not inflamed when one of His children calls Him Father. He is pleased.”

“But how do you know, boy?”

“I know in my heart. And so, when I call Him Father, and ask Him to cure Rubria, I know He listens gently, and will cure her, for He loves her.”

A gentle god. That was absurd. The gods were not gentle. They were jealous of their honor, and they were vengeful and remote and powerful. Diodorus stared at Lucanus. His first thought was to reprove the boy, and to make a mental note to request Aeneas to punish his presumptuous son. The words of cold rebuke were already on the lips of Diodorus when the moon struck fully on the face of Lucanus, and it became supernaturally radiant.

Then he remembered what this boy had said: “He loves her.” The gods did not ‘love’ men. They demanded worship and sacrifice from them, but man, as man, was a worthless thing to the gods.

“He loves her.” Could it be possible that the Unknown God had as one of His attributes the quality of loving men? Oh, the absurdity! The presumption! And what was he, Diodorus, doing here in this moonlight talking to a child, the son of a miserable freedman, as a noble man might talk with his equal?

Diodorus stood up abruptly, in one strong and lithe movement. “Come, child, it is late, and I will take you to your parents.”

He was astonished at his own words. What was this child to him, this child of Aeneas? What did it matter whether he found his way home or not, or wandered in the dark until dawn? But this was the son of Iris, and all at once Diodorus longed to see his old playmate. Too, there was danger in the sweet-smelling but menacing distance between the great and lesser houses.

Lucanus rose, and in the moonlight Diodorus could see that the boy was smiling shyly. “Master, will you take that stone to Rubria and lay it on her pillow tonight, for part of the Unknown God is in it.”

The stone, the sentient stone. Was it really pulsing in his, Diodorus’, hand, like a slow and reflective heart full of mystery? All at once Diodorus was no longer afraid of the stone. Sheepishly, he said to himself, It is a pretty and unusual thing, and might amuse the little Rubria, who loves strangenesses. He put the stone in the pouch which hung from his leather girdle. But Lucanus was offering him a small woolen bag. Diodorus took it; from it emanated a wild and intense odor. “It is herbs,” said Lucanus. “I gathered them today in the fields, as if I were told. Master, have a slave steep them in hot wine, and let Rubria drink of it, and it will ease her pain.”

“Herbs!” exclaimed Diodorus. “Child, how do you know that some of them may not be deadly?”

“They are not deadly, Master. To be certain, however, I ate a quantity of them myself, hours ago, and a headache I had disappeared.”

Diodorus was intrigued. He put his hand roughly under the chin of Lucanus and tilted up his face to study it, half laughing. But the boy had spoken with authority; he had said, “as if I were told.” It was possible that Apollo himself, who might possess such a face, such a clear brow, had directed the boy. It could do no harm to do as Lucanus suggested, and Diodorus stuffed the little bag into his pouch. “She shall have it at midnight, when she usually awakens,” he promised.

He took Lucanus’ hand like a father, and together they moved through the golden half-light, keeping carefully to the earthen path for fear of snakes. Diodorus was thinking. This was no ordinary boy, but a boy of intelligence and fearlessness and thought. No doubt he was being prepared by Aeneas to follow in his steps as a bookkeeper. For some reason this annoyed Diodorus. “You are very young, boy,” he said, “but surely you have often thought of yourself as a man. What are your desires?”

“To find the Unknown God, Master, and to serve Him, and in His Name to serve man,” replied Lucanus. “I can best serve man as a physician, which is my dear desire. I have been to the harbor and I have seen the sick men in the ships, and the dying, and they come from every part of the world, and I have prayed that I may help them. I know the philosophers and the physicians of Greece, and I have read their books of remedies for the ills of men, both mental and physical, much of which they had taken from the Egyptians. And I have often visited the houses of the physicians in Antioch, and they have not driven me away, but humored me and explained many matters to me. And I am learning other languages, including Egyptian and Aramaic, so that I may speak to sufferers in their own tongues.”

Diodorus felt a vast astonishment. He pressed Lucanus’ hand, and said, musingly, “There is a great school of medicine in Alexandria, of which I have heard much.”

“There I shall go,” said Lucanus, simply. “I too, Master, have heard of it, for the physicians in Antioch speak of it reverently. It will cost me much money, but God will provide it.”

“So, we have a God, who not only does not possess a name, or understandable attributes, or a face or a form, and who is everywhere simultaneously, but He is also a banker!” said Diodorus with a wry smile. “Do you think He will require interest also, my child?”

“Most certainly.” The boy’s voice was grave and filled with surety. “My whole life, my whole devotion.”

Diodorus thought that if a man had spoken so he would believe him mad. He, Diodorus, had often heard Jews speaking of the wise men in the gates, who thought of nothing and wrote of nothing but their God. But the Jews were a people no one could ever understand, least of all a Roman, though Caesar Augustus, being a tolerant man and superstitious in addition, had ordered that in Rome the Jewish God should be given some recognition, if only to persuade Him to soften the stiff necks and sullen resentment of His people against the Romans, and thus make the ruling of them less difficult. Diodorus began to laugh softly to himself. He remembered how he, as a young tribune, had offered to put a statue of the Jewish God in the Roman temple in Jerusalem, and how horrified the high priest had been, and how he had raised his hands and shook them violently in the air as if either imploring his God to strike the tribune dead or cursing him silently. Diodorus, bewildered, had gathered that he had made an unpardonable error, but how, or why, he could never understand from the stifled imprecations of the priest. He had tried to reason with the holy man; how could a statue of the Jewish God in a Roman temple affront Him, and why should He despise the honor of Romans? The high priest had merely torn his beard and rent his garments, and he had looked at Diodorus with such terrible eyes that the poor young tribune had hastily taken his leave. He had been confirmed in his hesitant belief that the Jews were madmen, especially their priests.

But Lucanus was a Greek, not a Jew, though he spoke of devoting his life to the Unknown God, as the Jews spoke of so devoting their lives to their own God. Diodorus remembered how, in the streets of Jerusalem, he had seen men called rabbis, followed by humble crowds who listened to their words of wisdom eagerly. There were some reputed to be miracle workers, and this had interested Diodorus, who believed fervently in godly miracles. But he did not believe in these men, for they were often barefoot and shaggy and desperately poor, for all their lambent eyes and strange, incomprehensible words. Diodorus, walking with Lucanus, shook his head. “You should visit the temple of the Jews in Antioch,” he said, with amusement.

Lucanus said serenely, “I do visit it, Master.”

“So!” exclaimed Diodorus, holding aside a thorned bush for the child, as he would have done for his daughter. “And is their God the Unknown God?”

“Yes, Master, I am sure He is.”

“But He does not love all men. He loves only the Jews.”

“He loves all men,” said Lucanus.

“You are wrong, boy. I offered to put a statue of Him in the Roman temple in Jerusalem, and it was refused.” Diodorus laughed. “Do the Jews object to your entering their temples? Ah, I remember now. In Jerusalem the temple had a place they called the Court of the Gentiles. But they could not enter the inner sanctum of the Jews.”

“I worship in the Court of the Gentiles in the synagogue in Antioch,” said Lucanus.

What a peculiar boy! But Diodorus began to think of the school of medicine in Alexandria. He said, “I think the Unknown God has arranged a way for you to study medicine, Lucanus,” and he laughed again, ruefully. He was a just and sometimes charitable man, but, like the ‘old’ Romans, he was prudent with money and believed that two pieces of gold should return to a man accompanied by two more.

They had now reached the clearing before the gardens of the house of Aeneas. Tall palms stretched to the moon; the evening air was full of the scent of flowers. In the midst of them stood the shining white house of the bookkeeper, small, low and compact, streaked with the shadows of the palms. A light glowed from the open door, and as Diodorus and Lucanus approached it the doorway was filled by the shapely form of a young woman, and the light behind her made a cloud of gold of her loosened hair. She was clad in the simple white robe of a woman who spent all of her time in the home, and she called out anxiously.

“Lucanus? Is it you, dear one?”

Lucanus replied, “It is I, Mother.” Iris stepped down onto the grass, then stopped on seeing who was accompanied by her son.

“I greet you, Iris,” said Diodorus, and his voice was thick and low in his throat. He thought of the words of Homer: “Daughter of the gods, divinely tall and most divinely fair.”

“Greetings, noble Diodorus,” replied Iris, uncertainly. He had addressed her so gently, as a man addressed the wife of one of his peers, and yet the gentleness reached out to her eagerly and with an intonation of hope. For some reason Iris’ eyes stung with tears, and she remembered the playmate of her childhood. He had been so candid and courageous a boy, so truthful and kind, so honorable, so filled with affection for her. She had not seen him, except at a distance, for a long time, and since she had married Aeneas he had scarcely noticed her existence.

Aeneas appeared in the doorway, then he too stepped down. Seeing Diodorus, he bowed. “Welcome to our poor home, lord,” he said, in the trembling accents of a man who is overcome.

“It is not a ‘poor’ home,” replied Diodorus, irascibly. “It was the home of the former legate of Antioch, before my house was built for me, and he did not consider it unworthy.”

He pushed Lucanus towards his father, and said in a rough voice, “I have brought your boy home to you. He was in our garden, and he might have been smitten by a snake or a scorpion after sundown.”