Great Lion of God Read online

  Hillel, therefore, was anticipating Jerusalem, with its Romans and Greeks and many other races, its teeming cosmopolitan civilization, its many diversities and faces and manners and customs, with a relief he would have believed incredible only a year ago. Saul would be an anachronism in that lively and colorful society, and Hillel was not displeased. He felt a little guilty when he hoped that in some way Saul would not encounter numerous other Pharisees—but it was possible that even Pharisees in Jerusalem had mellowed a little. Saul was young, and the young were susceptible, and Hillel hoped that one day soon the younger Saul would return, eager with life, ready with a jest, boisterous with young laughter, teasing his sister, curious and tireless.

  Saul lifted himself from the rail of the deck and slowly turned and faced his father and sister. “Come join us for wine and fruit, my son,” Hillel said, and made room for Saul on the couch on which he sat. The ship creaked and heeled, and other passengers conversed loudly and there was tramping below and runnings up and down the stairs, and the mighty sails seemed to be attempting to lift the ship into the sky. A group of young Roman legionnaires stood at a distance, drinking, exchanging rollicking and obscene jests and swaggering where they stood and clanking their iron-shod feet, and furtively eying the beautiful Sephorah.

  Saul saw this and he suddenly gave the soldiers a fierce and despising look. They were astonished; they were only lads and they had been admiring a delectable young lady who had not shown any displeasure. Their mouths fell open. They were insulted by this plainly clad and insignificant youth, with the flaring red hair. They clanged their feet harder on the wooden deck. One or two even touched their swords and they frowned forbiddingly. They were Romans. They were masters of the world. How dared a miserable man from Tarsus resent their conversation or their laughter and favor them with a look which consigned them to the status of the market rabble, or slaves?

  Then Saul turned from them and went to his father and sister. Sephorah was half reclining on the soft divan, very conscious of the glances she had evoked from those boys. She wore a chiton of blue silk artfully embroidered in gold and silver and her smooth white arms were bare, as was her throat, and her veil was like a mist over her golden hair, and there were jewels at her neck and on her arms and hands and her feet were shod with scarlet slippers. Her golden eyes glistened and her lips were like wet rubies and her pretty nose was warm ivory and she had assumed an air of worldly languor. Perfume rose from her and Saul was suddenly reminded of the scent of crushed flowers and grass on which he and Dacyl had lain. Torment seized him.

  “You resemble a harlot, my sister,” he said through his teeth. There is kohl about your eyes and a paint-pot on your mouth. Your arms are naked and shameless, and your ankles are exposed. Where is your modesty, your decorum?”

  Never before had he spoken in such a tone and in such words to his once-beloved Sephorah. The girl paled and shrank. The Roman soldiers listened, even more astonished.

  Then Hillel sat upright and for the first time Saul saw his father deeply angered against him, and outraged. The brown eyes became hard and daunting. “Saul,” said Hillel. “Depart from us until you have prepared an apology. We will dine alone.” He still stared harshly at his son. “It is said that he who insults another in public, without provocation, incurs the wrath of God. Meditate on that, while you eat your solitary meal.”

  For the first time in his life Saul did not bow before his father’s rebuke.

  Instead he gazed at his father with so implacable a face and with such cold and formidable eyes that Hillel was horrified and stricken. It was a stranger who confronted him and not his son, and the stranger was not of his spirit.

  Then Saul inclined his head, turned on his heel and left his father. He went down the stairs to the room he shared with Hillel. Hillel watched him go and the sorrow became desolate in his eyes.

  “Father,” said Sephorah, seeing this. “Saul is guiltless of offense. He spoke from some misery in his soul. I have discerned this for over a year. His illness devastated him.”

  Hillel touched her soft little hand. He said, “No. The change appeared before his illness, before your mother’s death, may God rest her soul. He is possessed, but of what he is possessed I do not know, and I have no pathway to his mind and he bars the way.”

  He hesitated. He looked at the avid Roman soldiers who had listened. He thought to invite them to partake of his good wine and fruit in compensation, but by this act he would confirm Saul’s unspeakable behavior in their opinion and be shamed by his own son. He sat for a little under the striped awning with his daughter, while she gently stroked his hand in sympathy, and the blinding light of water and sky dazzled their eyes. Finally he rose in silence and followed Saul, finding him in the small spare room they shared together and in which their chests had already been deposited. The sun glared through the little window. They could hear the chanting of the galley slaves below, a mournful and wordless sound Hillel sat near his son, not speaking, and Saul sat on the edge of his narrow couch, his hands dropped between his knees, his head bent, his red hair disordered. Hillel could see nothing of his face but a clenched cheek, unusually pale, and the jutting of his pugnacious brow.

  At last Hillel spoke. “Your insult to your sister, whom you once loved, is unpardonable.”

  Saul said, as if muttering between his teeth, “I spoke out of my conscience.”

  To this, Hillel said, “It is remarked in Deuteronomy that that man is accursed who elevates his conscience above the divine laws of God. He is a heathen. He will have no place in the world hereafter. What crimes have been perpetrated in the name of the individual conscience, what calamities, what injustices, what errors! A man cannot trust his conscience unless it is in perfect accord with God’s commands, blessed be His Name, for, what is man? A creature of dust and pride, of wanton and willful imaginings, of self-deceits, of vanity, of profound ignorance when he believes himself most wise, of illusion, of fantasy. You will recall that Moses was inspired to kill a man, and thus aroused the anger of God. Yet, what he did, of a certainty, was no doubt urged by his ‘conscience.’”

  Saul did not speak for a moment, then, still not lifting his head he muttered, “I spoke, then, out of the teachings of my youth, that women must not disport nor array themselves as harlots and whores, as strange women, and that always they must be of a modest demeanor with bent eyes and a quiet tongue.”

  Hillel studied him. He said, more gently, “My son, it was not Sephorah’s raiment nor her manner which distresses you, for always was she so and I confess that I find it beautiful and innocent. If God had desired to make ugliness the mark of a good woman then He would have created no charming ones to delight the eyes of men and to array our lives with color and enchantment. Do not speak to me of temptations! God tempts no man to evil. No, it was not Sephorah, your dear sister whom you once loved. It is something else that has tormented you for over a year. I am your father. Am I unworthy to hear a son’s confidence?”

  Saul’s hands came together in a hard wringing between his knees and Hillel suffered for him. The bent head fell lower. “I cannot tell you, my father,” said the youth in so stifled a voice that Hillel could hardly hear what he said. “It is beyond forgiveness.”

  For an instant, only Hillel was greatly alarmed and his heart gave a painful throb of fear. Saul continued: “I have violated all the precepts and teachings of my youth, have mortally offended God, have destroyed my place in Israel.”

  Hillel could now control the panic he had felt. He said, “What holy Commandment did you violate, Saul?”

  It seemed absurd to him, and he could even smile now, that his son, hardly sixteen years of age, a student fanatically devout, an obedient son, a lover of his home, an almost immured one, could have violated a Commandment or committed any other sin of any magnitude. He saw that Saul’s brow was wrinkled in concentration. He saw the side of Saul’s throat move in a convulsive swallow, and he thought, “How disastrous are the thoughts of youth, of what
awful and ridiculous exaggeration, and crashing thunders, and fatalities and doom!”

  Saul said, “I cannot confess to you, my father, for if I should I should die of shame, and never would you forgive me.”

  “You are my son, and I begot you, and what you have done, and will do, will be part of my own being, Saul. If you will not confess, if you will not let me console you, remember that God pardons always a repentant sinner. The only unpardonable sin is to presume that God will find nothing unpardonable. I doubt that you are a great sinner; I doubt you have violated the Commandments. Keep your own counsel. But remember, always, that God will not despise a contrite heart.”

  When Saul did not answer or move, Hillel continued, “It is the way of youth to intensify, to throw itself into the depths, to climb the most incredible mountain, to rejoice as a madman rejoices, to mourn as though the end of all being had arrived. I would not have you believe that it is my opinion that youth cannot sin, and even most dreadfully. But it does take a certain amount of knowledge and experience to sin willfully and with the full consent of one’s soul, and to rejoice in the sinning, and to know it was sin from the first moment of temptation. Youth has not had these—advantages.” And Hillel smiled.

  Saul said, and his voice was the voice of a stranger, “My father, you were always a tolerant man and not always did you adhere to the teachings of the Pharisees, and often jested at a point you considered too rigorous.”

  It is useless, thought Hillel. He rose, but he did not know where he should go.

  He was now too distressed. He only knew he must leave his son. I have lost him, he thought. And then he thought, “But I never had him and I must face this finally.”

  He said, “You are committing a mortal sin. You defy God to forgive you.”

  It was then that Saul seized the red hair of his temples in an agony and pulled his head down upon his knees. Seeing this, Hillel felt deep anguish of his own, and he pondered, his unseen hand outstretched to his son. It was not God entirely, then, which so tortured his son, nor even a misapprehension of God. This was a human guilt that beset him, a human woe. Saul was using his God as a Scapegoat, as the Receiver of his torture. When a man cried, “God will not forgive me!” he often meant “I cannot forgive myself!”

  So Hillel said, “All pain passes, all loss, my son.” His voice was deep and compassionate. “I thought I should die when your mother died, but it was not God’s will, blessed be His Name. I had no desire to live. I longed for the sight of her face, her voice, the rustle of her garments. When I considered that no longer would I see her, no longer caress her, and that she was lost to me, I almost lost my mind. My sorrow is still almost beyond my capacity to bear. But we were born to be men, and not weak beasts, who lie in the dust and tamely give up their lives when it becomes unendurable. What tears your heart has torn the hearts of multitudes before you, and will tear them again, age after age. But hearken to this: You are young. You will survive. Your wound will heal. It will leave a scar, but it will heal.”

  It was as if Saul had not heard him, so Hillel slowly went from the cabin and returned to his daughter. Saul lifted his head. He said aloud, “It will not heal. No, it will never heal.” He began to weep silently, in rage and love and hatred and in passion of spirit, in longing and in loathing, in yearning and in self-disgust.

  Hillel said to his daughter, Sephorah, who was much concerned about his sad face and mournful eyes, “I fear it is as Aristo has said and I dared to laugh in my ignorance when he said it!—that two giants struggle in the soul of my son: The normal young lust for life and joy in living and rejoicing in each morn, and an iron certainty that these are evil and must be smothered and murdered in order that all a man’s thoughts should be centered on God. Saul, then, deprives himself of his youth and his natural young gaiety and the wonder and the beauty and the grandeur of creation, and his expectation of tomorrow and its gifts, considering these worthless and a snare for his soul.

  He would shroud God in crepuscular clouds and terrible lightnings and make of Him, not a loving Father, merciful and full of lovingkindness, but a Judge armed with terror and vengeance, seeking out the smallest sin or error in order to punish it most cruelly, land delighting not in His children but regarding them as an oppressive king regards his people, suspecting them of crimes and rebellions, and preparing for them the most hideous flagellations and death. Surely,” said Hillel, as the full enormity of the thought developed in him, “that is a sin which God, blessed be His Name, must find it hard to forgive!”

  He added, “In one of the Psalms David says, ‘When they said, let us go into the House of the Lord, I was glad.’ But Saul goes to the House of God like a chained criminal, desirous, aye desirous, not only to worship but to be chastised. What secret sin he has committed does not deserve so fearful a fate, my poor son.”

  Saul leaned on the rail of the ship and saw the great port of Joppa rising out of the blood-red sea and standing against a sky as scarlet and as ominous. There was the land of his fathers, the holy land, the sacred soil of the prophets, the mountain filled with fire on which God had thundered, the home of the patriarchs, the cradle of the Messias to come, the matrix in which the Messianic Age would be formed, the little land from which would speak the Voice which would reconcile the nations and bring eternal peace to the world. There rose the blessed Mount of Sion, and the golden Temple and all the wisdom which would enlighten mankind and lift the darkness in which it lay, groveling like a beast.

  The thin silver thread of the new moon lifted itself over the sea and into the direful sky, and one single star, burning large and gold, stood in the zenith.

  Now Saul could smell the earth, acrid and spicy and lustful, as the galleon swung toward the harbor. This was an hour he had dreamed of all his life, and he had anticipated his joy and excitement. But he felt no joy, but only an anxious dread. He had no right to step on that soil, a corrupt man, except to atone, to pray that one day he might be forgiven.

  He knew that among the many passengers also watching the approach of Joppa stood his father and his sister, Sephorah. He knew his father suffered for him; he knew he had given his father sorrow, and it was an awful pain in him. But how worse a pain, perhaps, if his father guessed the truth! Sometimes a small thought twisted in him that his father might not be so pained, might consider his sin small and trivial and easily forgiven, and might plead his youth and the natural temptations of youth. Perversely, for that very reason Saul could not confide in Hillel. Worse than the thought of his father’s possible pain was the thought that the sin might not pain him at all! He preferred to believe in Hillel’s condemnation.

  As for Sephorah, Saul’s love for his sister was a misery in his heart, but he could not bring himself to admit that he had been too harsh to her. If she were not restrained now in her wanton behavior, were not taught the precepts of the mothers of Israel, then she was doomed in body and in soul. Better it would be for her to die before she had been corrupted, as he had been corrupted. A virgin death was better than a harlot’s life. Yet there was an intangible sickness in Saul’s thoughts, as he contemplated his sister and he dared not explore the reason. She would marry Ezekiel ben David and be subject to his mother, Clodia, rumored to be a just and rigorous and virtuous woman. She would be immured from all the voluptuousness of this present evil world, and all its vices and clamors, its pollutions and its destructions. Saul sought relief in the thought, and when it did not come, he was dismayed.

  Hillel and Sephorah were not avoiding Saul; it was he who was avoiding them. In fact, they had begun to converse amiably with other passengers and the centurion who was the officer of the Roman legionnaires. How was it possible for them to be amiable to the enslavers of their country and their people, the despoilers and blasphemers of their land? Saul had never loved Romans. Now he despised and hated them.

  He glanced sideways along the deck, full of gloom. The vast leavens, the vast sea behind and about them, still glowed as if in Barnes, but the ship’s deck
was dark, the figures on it dark also. The white sails were lashed with scarlet. Joppa rocked nearer over the burning water and Saul now saw that the famous harbor was full of ships, small and large, a forest of denuded masts like the bare branches of winter trees. A hot breath blew from the heated land, resinous, perfumed, somewhat putrid, peppery, dusty, reeking of crowded streets and humanity. Plangent sound came over the water, voices, roars, shouts, hard loud laughter, a sudden ruffle of drums. Now twinkling lights of lanterns appeared on the docks and the crimson flare of torches. And there, rising and fluttering in its hugeness, the banner of Rome, its red color almost lost against the red sky, but Saul knew what was on it: “S.P.Q.R.—Senatus Populusque Romanus—The Senate and People of Rome.”

  Blasphemous, incongruous, shameful, frightful! thought Saul ben Hillel, and he beat his fists heavily on the rail of the ship. He could have wept in his anger and hatred and outrage. Someone touched his arm. Hillel said, “We are coming into the harbor. Calm yourself, my son.” Hillel’s face was pale and shadowy in the light of the celestial conflagration. “It is not to be borne,” said Saul through his teeth. What must be borne must be borne,” said Hillel, and returned to Sephorah and her maidens.

  But the Messias, blessed be His Name, would drive the Romans into the sea as the Egyptians had been drowned, and Rome, that boastful monster of a city, that dragon of a city, foul to the heart of her, dripping with the blood of the conquered, would die in one flash of avenging lightning.

  The galleon was swaying between the crowded ranks of other ships and vessels in the harbor and the crew were ready with ropes and anchors and there was much running on the deck and excited voices from the passengers, and eager laughter. The sailors darted among heaps of chests and coffers and pouches belonging to the passengers, and their hoarse and impatient cries were like the voices of foxes. Vultures, black as death and as silent, were wheeling and circling against the redness of the sky. The galleon docked. Beyond the wharfs was the tumultuous city of Joppa, full of lights and torches, clamorous. All at once darkness fell on the earth, the ominous color was gone except for one long ember on the western horizon in which the last scarlet circle of the sun still burned, a dying eye.