Great Lion of God Page 6

  “I have told you before,” said Saul, with all the exasperation of a youth of fourteen years. “We are commanded to give alms, and tithes. It is a holy command. It is indeed a duty. What if the object of our charity, our alms, is repulsive, perhaps even detestable? That is not to influence us.”

  “In short,” said Aristo, “you give because it is a command of your God, and not because you feel sorrow for the object of your alms?”

  Saul’s red thick eyebrows drew together in a scowl. Aristo had the vexing ability to drive home a point, like a cunning nettle’s sting. The youth hesitated. “I know my father gives with pity, and Reb Isaac with a blessing. If I feel no response to the beggar, it is my hardness of heart, or my youth which time will repair. In the meanwhile I obey. But that you would not comprehend, my teacher.”

  Aristo considered and slowly shook his head. “It has not occurred to you, of course, that charity can destroy the receiver? If a man knew he could not beg bread and a copper for wine, he would work for it, would he not?”

  “That, too, is of no importance,”

  “You give because it endows you with a feeling of virtue?”

  Saul almost shouted with his exasperation. “You refuse to understand!”

  “I am only interested.” Aristo grinned, his lively lips spreading almost from ear to ear. “You know, of course, that in Rome, in the middle of their abominable Tiber, there is an island with a hospital upon it, for slaves and the very poor who cannot afford a physician. You know, of course, that we Greeks have hostels for the homeless and the sick, and that our great medical university in Alexandria cares for thousands every year. But it is not guilt which inspires us to aid the infirm and the despairing.” He laughed a little.

  “Guilt?” cried Saul.

  “Have you not told me so on many occasions, Saul ben Hillel?”

  “Again you do not understand.” Saul’s eyes were snapping with angry blue fire. “You have the capacity to infuriate me, Aristo, and you do it with calculated deliberateness. Yet I have explained over and over. The guilt refers to our fallen race, to Adam and Eve—”

  Aristo nodded, “We, too, have such a story. But it refers to the Flood, which is an historical event. One perfect couple survived. But they did not breed another race from their own bodies. The gods, taking pity on their lonely state, and listening to their prayers, told them to walk from the remaining little temple and throw stones after them. From those stones were born the Titans, and men. We, their descendants, if you believe the interesting tale, feel no guilt that we were born of stone, and that we are not of the race that perished except for that one perfect couple, whose descendants we are not.”

  Saul waved his hand in rough dismissal of the story. “That is only a myth. I am referring to the fact that humanity is a fallen race, without merit, through our sins, and our disobedience from the beginning. That is our guilt, and only God, blessed be His Name, can erase it and lift us from the pit of it.”

  “A gloomy story,” said Aristo. “Why should a man feel guilt because of the sin of his ancestors, if the story be true, which I doubt? If he is fallen, who awoke him to life, and is not the Awakener guilty if the man is guilty? Does a man ask to be born into this world? Your God seems to me perverse, the Creator of evil—if man is evil—which I deny with some reservations. Your God would seem to me to curse all mankind for a sin committed by others, which would make Him less endowed with mercy than the meanest of His creatures. A vengeful Deity, and I do not approve of Him.”

  Saul said, “‘What is man that Thou art mindful of him, and the son of man that Thou visiteth him?’ We are nothing. God has created us that we may be worthy of His love and His salvation, which He has promised us through the ages by the merits of His Messias, and no merit of our own. We do not understand each other’s semantics, Aristo, because we do not speak from the same frame of reference.”

  “True,” said the Greek. “No man speaks with another man’s semantics, and meanings, for each man’s history is uniquely his alone and he endows words from his own life’s experience, which can be no other man’s. Yet, Socrates asked us to ‘define our terms,’ and much as I revere Socrates I feel he was either jesting or guilty of a stupidity. My terms are not yours, and never can they be.”

  “You deny absolutes.”

  “So does any sensible man. Yes, I know Aristotle spoke of absolutes, but he meant the only absolute, which is God. I have told you of our altars to the Unknown God, above all other Gods. But let us return to the subject of charity, of alms.

  “I have heard an old story. A gentle-hearted sage of some substance was riding on his ass to the marketplace, where he would continue his study of mankind. On the road he was accosted by a beggar, who asked for a single coin to buy bread. The sage was much moved by the man’s misery, and so he emptied his whole purse into the beggar’s hand. Whereupon the beggar, recovering from his astonishment, remarked on the warmth of the sage’s cloak. The sage removed it and placed it about the beggar’s shoulders. The beggar then quickened to the subject, perceiving he had come upon either an unworldy man or a fool. He admired the girdle of the sage and its gorgeous Alexandrine dagger, and so he acquired both. Then came the sage’s boots, lined with wool, and he was soon sitting in the dust avidly putting them on his bare legs and feet.

  “Rising, he complained to the sage that he was far from the city and he was desirous of visiting a tavern there where he could spend the alms on food and reviving wine. The sage hesitated then, but recalling that he had a good house in an olive grove and that he was not hungry, and that he had friends in the city who would give him food, dismounted from the ass and with a noble gesture invited the beggar to mount it. The beggar avidly obeyed and sat high on the cushion and took up the whip arrogantly. Then seeing the sage standing in the road and the dust on his bare feet, without a cloak or a drachma in his purse, the beggar gazed at him with contempt. ‘Begone, beggar!’ he cried, and he cut his whip across the sage’s face, and merrily rode away.

  “Now, my Saul, could you guess at the sage’s thoughts?”

  Saul blinked his red lashes. He eyed Aristo suspiciously, knowing that the Greek had him in a trap of words. Then he said, “If he were a sage, then he would console himself with the thought that the beggar now had some comfort and money, and he would be content.”

  “If he thought that idiocy, then he was not a sage,” said Aristo. “Nor was he human. Saul, were you that man, what would be your thoughts?”

  Saul stared at him with his strange eyes. Then his freckled, deeply colored face broke into laughter, loud rollicking laughter. “I, myself, would have pursued the beggar, dragged him from the ass, and would have thrashed him soundly!”

  “Saul, Saul, I have hopes for you,” said Aristo, slapping the youth’s sun-reddened bare arm. “But what would Reb Isaac, have done?”

  Saul laughed again. “He would have judiciously counted out an exact tithe from his purse and given it to the beggar, and so would my father.”

  “You have me,” said the Greek. “Still, it is an interesting story, and illustrates what happens when even virtue can become excessive. A man who gives his all is as stupid as a man who gives nothing. You see, I defer to your burdened sense of guilt. I, myself, would consider I would be doing the beggar an evil by encouraging his beggary.” He paused. “There is another thing which bewilders me. I have heard your father, my master, dispute with Reb Isaac as to whether, indeed, your Moses wrote ten of your David’s Psalms, from the number ninety to one hundred. Of what importance is the author? Your father has recited the Psalms to me, and many of them are beautiful if incomprehensible in part, and beauty is all that is important. There are many who say that Homer, being blind, could not have described the burning of Ilium so magnificently, nor discoursed so tellingly of the countenances of men and women, and therefore he was only author in part of the Iliad and the Odyssey. But we do not argue so passionately on the subject as does your father, and your mentor, Reb Isaac, and of what im
portance is it?”

  “Your Homer was merely telling tales, or the real author was, but we are concerned with the question of truth, Aristo.”

  “Is truth more than beauty? I dispute that. Or, in a more metaphysical way I would declare that they are one. However, is your Moses, from your uninviting heaven, calling on all Jews to defend his authorship, and David also?”

  Saul pursed his wide and sensitive lips and considered. “You still do not understand. To dismiss the question casually is to belittle the Psalms, themselves.”

  You Jews take nothing casually and lightly,” said Aristo, “and therefore you are an irritation to other men. Tell me, do Jews ever enjoy themselves, or is their wailing about Jerusalem their secret pleasure? Must Jews be sorrowful so that they can be happy?”

  Our household is happy,” said Saul, frowning again.

  “Is it, truly? I have never heard much laughter in it, except in the slaves’ quarters, and even there they mute their mirth in deference to the Master. I have seen no gay drinking. I have seen no real feasting, though you have many days in which you declare you are feasting, and rejoicing.” Aristo rolled up his eyes dolefully. “Your father has his guests and after the meal is over they spread scrolls upon the table and pore over them and dispute until midnight and later over the most meager of obscure meanings of some commentator. Is that gaiety, laughter, joy? I have seen no musicians here or singers. I have observed no dancings. Yet, did you not once tell me that your David advocated music and singing and rejoicings in God?”

  “In a spiritual fashion,” said young Saul.

  Aristo sighed elaborately. “I fear you do even your grim Deity an injustice. Observe the world. Is it not beautiful, intricate, majestic, harmonious? Is not the air sweet and salubrious? Are not the skies an awesome wonder at night? Is not the garden of the world green and blessed with flowers? Do not the birds sing and the animals of the field dance with glee in the spring? Do not men and women love, and is not their love the loveliest thing in creation? Does not sound of music linger entrancingly on the ear, whether it is made by man or the multitude of the voices of nature? Is not all a delight?”

  “The world is but a snare for our enticing,” said Saul, but he looked about the garden and a secret shadow of wild excitement ran over his face. “We are not concerned with the world, of which evil is the master, but with God.”

  “I still say you insult Him. Moreover, I have seen your father, at sunset, on the conclusion of his prayers, looking about him with a pleasure that is sublime in its innocence and happiness. He does not bend all his thoughts on the evil of the world. He sees deliciousness in it also. He sees brightness and glory. The world is charged with the grandeur of God.”

  As Hillel had often intimated such things to Saul in the past, the youth became vexed. “My father is not a man of deep spiritual dedication,” he said, “and I say this without disrespect for I know he would admit it, himself.”

  “I think, my Saul, that he is more spiritual than you, though, frankly, I am not enchanted by the word.” He put his head on one side like an impudent large bird and said, “I have observed that the Jews and the Romans seem disturbingly similar, both concerned humorlessly with the absolute law, though, of course, the Romans for the last two or three centuries have not been too meticulous about it. We Greeks call them a nation of grocers. But I think they are a nation of lawyers, and so they have esteem for the Jews who, alas, are mentally of such a breed also.”

  “I have not told you as yet,” said Saul. “I am to go to the University of Tarsus, and among other things I will study the Roman law. I would be an advocate for my people.”

  “You will make an excellent lawyer. You believe you are invariably right.”

  It was autumn in the garden and very hot, and in the afternoon. The restless palms themselves were still, and the cypresses and the sycamores and the karob trees had taken on themselves a more shining darkness as the year waned, and the sky was a hard and brilliant turquoise against which the distant mountains, scarlet threaded with green, leaned and tumbled in their grotesque shapes. The valley had deepened to the ripeness of the days, the grass a heavier green, the fields bronze with harvest, and Tarsus, the city, spreading on the banks of the waters—now a flashing purple—revealed with clarity the whiteness of its walls, or their rose or blue or yellow, and their red roofs. Birds were already circling like feathered wheels in the sky, preparing for long flight. And the figs were ripe on the trees in Hillel’s gardens and there was a scent of grapes in the humid air and golden dust and water. The year was dying, thought Aristo, but in death, apparently, there was a last affirmation of life. He looked at the gayly striped awnings scattered over the garden, at the cool grottoes, at the shining whiteness of the graceful statues, at the shimmering pond on which circled the black and white swans, preening, and the ludicrous Chinese ducks who took themselves so seriously and were therefore belligerent. The little bridge over the pond was reflected sharply in the motionless water below, and a young girl stood there on the arch looking down. She was clad in a very short tunic as green as the pond and her golden hair blazed in the sun.

  The fountains were scintillating in the too vivid light, and appeared to throw up long streamers like reaching arms or hands, or the tossings of shaking locks. Aristo and Saul sat beneath one of the awnings and they were sweating freely. A plate of fresh fruit stood on a rude rustic table, and Aristo picked up a plum and thoughtfully devoured it. His rough black hair was rougher with patches of gray, now, but his Greek body was still lithe and thin, and his narrow face was dark with the sun, and his nose was sharp and inquisitive and his eyes ever seeking.

  He looked at Saul, and recalled that Deborah bas Shebua considered her son hideous. Aristo shook his head in silent denial. The boy might not be of impressive stature but his body was strong and well sculptured and broad, and even the bowed legs added to that impression of vigorous strength. To Aristo, he was like some primitive fire god, with that raised and crested mane of intensely red hair, with those red eyebrows almost meeting above his eyes, and the virile low forehead and the pointed ears. A young Vulcan, perhaps, thought Aristo, or Heracles, though certainly not a Hermes, for there was no lightness about Saul ben Hillel, no soft grace or elegance, but only an aura of power. Power, above all, was to be reverenced, for it had in it a terrible beauty of its own, reflected the Greek, an appalling magnetism, something which could inspire fear but was also irresistible. Even Saul’s features, the wide thin lips, the great nose, the hard firm chin, spoke of power, though the boy, at this moment, was stuffing his mouth with handfuls of grapes and licking his fingers which ran with winey juices.

  When Saul spoke, one listened even if not desirous of listening, for he had a deep and vigorous voice, with a curious weight and emphasis to the syllables, an emphatic pronunciation and an echoing timbre. One could not call it a. musical voice, but never, even when he was excited, did it resemble a girl’s. Nor had it been a girl’s voice even before it had changed to the deeper sound of a man’s.

  Though Saul, in a very plain tunic of gray linen with no embroidery on it, sat apparently at his ease in his chair and was engrossed in devouring the fruit with gusto, he did not give the appearance of being composed or at peace. All his unruly and impetuous nature asserted itself in the ever-changing contour of his face, in the jerking of his eyebrows, in the quickness of his hands, and the tightness of his shoulder muscles. His hands were browned by the sun, and the nails pale on the short broad fingers—the fingers of a soldier—and his arms were large and muscular and sunburned. He wore the ring his father had given him when he had “become a man” according to the Jewish traditions, and it was set with a ruby as fiery as his hair, and the gold was plain and unornamented. Hillel had known his son, thought Aristo, and had chosen what best expressed him. To the Greek, Saul had a forceful and cogent beauty of his own, which in full maturity might become frightful and intimidating. He set down his strong arched feet with purpose and certainty, and he
could move rapidly.

  Had he height, thought Aristo—who had more affection for his pupil than anyone ever suspected except Hillel—he would be a veritable Titan. Then an odd following thought came to him: Saul of Tarsus was indeed a Titan, though but fourteen as yet, and the superstitious Greek—who denounced all superstition as unworthy of an enlightened man—seemed to glimpse the future when Saul would walk among men with authority and even with terror, hurling that voice of his into the face of multitudes. In what obscure cataract and caves and mountains of heredity had this prodigy wrought and drunk his being? The gentle and handsome Hillel, the lovely Deborah, were very unlikely parents of this man-child, and Deborah was very petulant on the subject even before the youth, himself.

  If he was violent, he was never savage or mean or vengeful. He was disputatious but he was never insulting nor did he gibe at his adversary. He took an idea and elaborated on it, or figuratively mangled and tore it apart, but always objectively, with no malice and no scorn. Ideas of others might exasperate him, but never to denunciations of the other’s intelligence. He was always, he declared, being misunderstood. It seemed to him that it was not too much to ask to be comprehended, even if one disagreed with him. Saul, Saul, thought Aristo the Greek, the world will not edify you nor will it receive you kindly.

  Men like Saul might evoke a holocaust, but they were usually devoured with it. Aristo hoped this would not happen to Saul, though he had his fears. Therefore, he tried to temper that vociferous disposition, to quiet the rushing assaults of speech when they became too bursting, to instill in Saul that golden mien which was the mark of a cultivated man. The world was full of timid men; they did not like boldness in others, for it seemed to threaten them. In particular they hated and feared men who demanded that they pursue an argument logically to its conclusion, and use reason.