The Roman (30 page)

226

I could not understand them by speaking to them, for they gave Dilly the kind of answers they thought I liked to hear. I should have been content with my life. I had money, a good appearance, a position in the State service, excellent patrons and a healthy body. Most people would not reach the heights I had at my young age in all their lives. And yet I was not happy. Paul and his companions arrived as the evening stars were coming out, but he left his friends outside and came in by himself. As a courtesy to him, I had covered my household gods with a cloth, for I knew idols offended the Jews. I had Hierex light sweet-smelling beeswax candles in honor of my guest. After a simple vegetable course, I offered a meat course, explaining that he need not taste it if his teaching did not permit him to eat meat. Paul took some with a smile and said that he did not want to cause me any offense or even ask me where the meat had been bought. To Greeks he liked to be a Greek, to Jews a Jew. He also drank diluted wine but remarked that he would soon be making a promise for certain reasons. I did not want to trap him with either forbidden foods or artful questions. When we started talking, I tried to formulate my questions as carefully as possible. The most important thing from Gallio�s and Rome�s point of view was to find out what exactly his position was in relation to the Roman State and the common good. He assured me in all honesty that he usually advised everyone to obey the public authorities, to comply with law and order and to avoid causing offense. He did not set slaves against their masters? No. According to him, everyone should be content with his position on earth. A slave should submit to his master�s will and the master treat his servants well and remember that there is a Lord who is Lord of all. Did he mean the Emperor? No. He meant the living God, the creator of heaven and earth, and Jesus Christ, his son, who had promised to return to earth to sit in judgment on the living and the dead. For the time being I skirted around this delicate point and asked him what instructions he gave to those he succeeded in converting. This he had evidently meditated on a great deal, but he contented himself by saying, �Support the afflicted, take care of the weak, show forbearance to everyone. Never avenge evil

227

with evil, but strive to do good to each other. Always be joyful. Pray unceasingly. Give thanks for every moment.� He also said that he told the brothers to lead a quiet life and to work with their hands. It was not their business to reproach the adulterers, revilers, drunkards, extortioners and idol-worshipers. Then they would be forced to leave the world themselves. But if someone who had joined them showed themselves to be an adulterer or reviler or drunkard or extortioner or idol-worshiper, then he must be reproved. If he did not better himself, then one would not associate with him or even eat in his presence. �You don�t judge me then,� I said with a smile, �although I am in your eyes an idol-worshiper, adulterer and drunkard?� �You are outside,� he said. �It is not my business to judge you. We judge only those who are inside. God will judge you.� He said it so seriously, as a definite fact, that I trembled inwardly. Although I had made up my mind not to offend him, I could not resist putting a malicious question to him. �When do we stand before this day of judgment, according to the information you have?� I said. Paul said that it was not his business to prophesy either. The day of the Lord would come like a thief in the night. I saw that he was fairly certain that the coming of the Lord would happen in his lifetime. Paul rose to his feet suddenly. �The Lord will descend from heaven and those who have died in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive will be carried there with them to meet the Lord among the clouds and then we shall all be in the presence of the Lord.� �And the judgment then,� I asked, �of which you talk so much?� �The Lord Jesus will appear in a flame of fire with his celestial angels,� he said, �and avenge himself on those who do not recognize God and do not obey the message of our Lord Jesus. As a punishment they will be afflicted with eternal perdition away from the countenance of our Lord and the light of his power.� I had to admit that he did not attempt to win my favor but starkly said what he meant. His words moved me, for he was nothing if not honest in the fervor of his belief. Without my asking him, he told me about angels and the powers of evil, about his journeys in different countries and the authority he had been given

228

by the supporters in Jerusalem. More than anything else, I was surprised that he showed no desire to convert me. In the end, I did not listen to him so much as submit myself to the power assurance which seemed to speak from him. I could feel his presence quite clearly. I smelled the pleasing scent of candles, good food, incense and clean goat-hair. It was good to be in his company. Nevertheless, in a kind of dream, I tried to separate myself from it. I jerked out of my drowsiness and cried, �How can you think you know everything so much better than other people?� He spread out his hands and replied with all simplicity, �I am God�s fellow worker.� And he was not blaspheming when he said it; he was quietly but absolutely convinced of the truth of his words. I rose swiftly with my hand to my forehead and walked up and down the room as if bewitched. If it were really as he said, then here was the opportunity of my life to find the meaning of life. �I do not understand what you are saying,� I admitted in a trembling voice, �but lay those strong hands of yours on my head, if that is usual among you, so that your spirit shall come to me and I shall understand.� But he did not touch me. Instead he promised to pray for me so that Jesus should be proclaimed to me and become my Christ, for the time was short and this world already perishing. When he had gone, everything he had said seemed sheer lunacy. I cried out aloud. I reproached myself for gullibility. I kicked the furniture over and smashed the clay bowls on the floor. Hierex came rushing in. When he saw my condition, he called in the doorkeeper to help. Together they struggled to put me to bed. But I wept loudly and from my mouth came a mad cry which was not my own. It was as if some alien power had shaken my whole body and broken out of me in the form of this terrible scream. At last I fell asleep from exhaustion. In the morning my head and the whole of my body ached, so I stayed in bed and wearily took the bitter medicine Hierex had mixed. �Why do you receive that Jewish magician?� he said. �Nothing good comes of the Jews. They have a capacity for confusing sensible people.�

229

�He�s no magician,� I said. �Either he�s mad or else he�s the most spiritually powerful person I�ve ever met. I�m very much afraid he�s an intimate of an inexplicable god.� Hierex looked at me in a troubled way. �I was born and brought up a slave,� he said, �so I�ve learned to judge life from a worm�s point of view. But I�m also older than you, have traveled widely, experienced good and evil, and learned to know people. If you like, I�ll go and listen to your Jew and then tell you honestly what I think of him.� His loyalty touched me. I thought it would be useful to know what Hierex in his own way thought of Paul. �Yes, go to them,� I said. �Try to understand them and listen to Paul�s teaching.� On my part I wrote a short report on Paul to Gallio, making it as formal as I could. Minutus Lausus Manilianus on Paul: I heard his teaching in his followers� synagogue. I questioned him alone. He spoke openly. He did not try to gain my favor. He hid nothing. He is a Jew of Jewish parents. Studied in Tarsus, then in Jerusalem. Formerly persecuted the disciples and followers of Jesus of Nazareth. Experienced a revelation. In Damascus, recognized Jesus as the Jewish Messiah. Stayed in the wilderness. Quarreled in Antioch with Simon the fisherman, Jesus� chief disciple. Later reconciled. Received the right to proclaim Jesus as Christ to the uncircumcised. Journeyed in the eastern provinces. Often punished. Tactics: First visits the Jewish synagogues. Proclaims Jesus the Messiah. Is beaten. Converts those listeners who take an interest in the Jewish God. Circumcision is not demanded. The Jewish laws need not be obeyed. He who believes that Jesus is Christ is pardoned and receives eternal life. No rabble-rouser. Does not encourage slave rebellion. Encourages quiet life. Does not abuse others, only his own people. Powerful personal authority. Affects most those already infected by Judaism. Note: Convinced that Jesus of Nazareth will one day return

230

to judge the whole world, when God�s wrath will punish all others. So in some ways an enemy of humanity. Politically quite harmless from Rome�s point of view. Causes splits and quarrels among the Jews. In this way, to Rome�s advantage. I found nothing reprehensible in this man. I went to Gallio with my brief report. After reading it, he stole a glance at me and his chin trembled a little. �You are very laconic,� he said. �That�s just a pro memoria,� I said, annoyed. �If you like, I can tell you more about the man.� �What is his divine secret?� asked Gallio wearily. �I don�t know,� I said impetuously. Then I bowed my head, trembled, and went on: �If I were not a Roman, I would perhaps put aside my tribune�s insignia, leave my post and follow him.� Gallio gave me a searching look, straightened up and raised his chin. �I made a mistake sending you to find out,� he said curtly. �You�re still too young.� Then he shook his head dejectedly. �Yes, exactly,� he said. �The wisdom of the world and the pleasures of life have not yet corroded you. Are you ill that you tremble so? We have excellent plumbing here, but occasionally one drinks bad water. Then one gets a fever called Corinthian fever. I�ve had it myself. But don�t be afraid. I don�t think their Jesus of Nazareth will come to judge mankind in our time.� Nevertheless, I think supernatural things interested Gallio, for he liked talking about them occasionally. What Roman is wholly free of superstition? But to change the subject, he invited me to drink wine with him, called in his wife to join us and began to read to us a play he had written and worked on in Latin from a Greek original. He also read some Greek verses in comparison to show how well, given the right touch, our language accommodates itself to the Greek rhythms. The play was about the Trojan war. It should have interested me, for the Trojans, through Aeneas, were the forefathers of the Romans. But after drinking some wine, I happened to say, �Written

231

Greek is beautiful, but today it rings strangely dead in my ears. Paul spoke the living language of the people.� Gallio looked at me with compassion. �One can only write the crudest kind of satire in the people�s language,� he said, �and then the language itself has a comic effect. Just as the Ostian actors in Rome use the language of the marketplace. Philosophy in spoken language! You must be out of your mind, Minutus.� Suddenly he turned scarlet in the face and firmly rolled up his manuscript. �It�s time those Jewish fumes were blown out of your head,� he said. �You�ve not been to Athens yet. There�s a border dispute in Delphi which needs someone on the spot. And there�s trouble in Olympia over the program for the Games. You can go here and now. My lecturer at the chancery will give you all the information you need and also a letter of attorney.� The lovely Helvia stroked Gallio�s forehead and fat cheek with the tips of her fingers and intervened. �Why do you send such a talented youth on such a strenuous journey?� she said. �The Greeks will bring their disputes to you in time. This is Corinth. Friendship with a mature woman would develop the boy more than riding unnecessarily all over the place.� She looked past Gallio at me with smiling eyes and pulled up her mantle, which had slipped down from her white shoulder. Had I been more experienced, I could have described the artistic folds of her mantle, her elaborate hair style and the rare Indian jewelry she was wearing. I did not stop to stare but leaped to my feet, stood to attention and replied, �As you command, Proconsul.� In this way, Paul sowed dissension between me and Gallio, too. I left my house in Hierex�s hands and rode from Corinth with a few soldiers from the cohort and a Greek guide. There are far too many excellent descriptions of Delphi, Olympia and Athens for there to be any need for me to go into their incomparable sights. Not even Rome had hitherto succeeded in plundering them of more than a fraction of their art treasures, though it must be admitted that we have done our best ever since Sulla to enrich Rome at the expense of Greek treasures. But however much I strained my body by looking at all the sights, the beauty I saw seemed to mean nothing to me. Neither

232

the painted marble, nor the ivories, nor the gold in the loveliest sculpture in existence seemed to touch my heart. found out all about the boundary dispute in Delphi. For reasons of justice, I accepted invitations from both sides. In Delphi, I was able to see Pythia in her delirium with my own eyes. Her priests made out from her incomprehensible words one or two flattering personal predictions for me. I cannot even repeat them here. Near Olympia lie some votive lands, and a temple which Commander Xenophon more than four hundred years ago dedicated to Artemis. A tenth of the harvest from the area was once used for the inhabitants� harvest festival. Anyone who cared to could pick fruit from the ancient groves of fruit trees. But over the years, many landmarks had gone and the temple was sadly decayed. In the time of the Pompeians, even the goddess statue itself was taken back to Rome. The people who lived there were complaining that the man who had taken the votive lands into his possession no longer fulfilled the conditions demanded. They had carefully kept a stone carving on which one could still read:

This place is dedicated to Artemis. He who enjoys possession of it must every year offer a tenth. From the residue, the maintenance of the temple must be found. Should anyone neglect this, the goddess will remember it.

At the meeting of the people, some old men told of their memories from times gone by, when wine, flour and sweetmeats were distributed at the Artemis feast. Everyone had the hunting rights on the sacred land. I let them speak to a finish. The owner of the land finally promised that he would preserve the custom of the harvest festival but the maintenance of the temple was beyond his capacity. So I pronounced my judgment. �This is not for Rome to decide,� I said. �This you must settle with the goddess, as it is written here on this stone tablet.� The verdict pleased no one. While I was in Olympia, I heard that the owner had fallen down a crevasse while deer hunting, so