Part 7

"For behold your calling, brethren, how that not many wise after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, are called, but God chose the foolish things of the world, that he might put to shame them that are wise; and God chose the weak things of the world, that he might put to shame the things that are strong; and the base things of the world, and the things that are despised, did God choose, yea, and the things that are not, that he might bring to nought the things that are.' Mine eyes followed the words as the roll opened: 'Howbeit we speak wisdom among the perfect; yet a wisdom not of this world, nor of the rulers of this world, which are coming to nought; but we speak God's wisdom in a mystery, even the wisdom that hath been hidden, which God foreordained before the worlds unto our glory; which none of the rulers of this world knoweth; for had they known it they would not have crucified the Lord of glory.' My sight ran heedlessly over the next few lines until they came to these words: 'For I think, God hath set forth us the apostles last of all, as men doomed to death; for we are made a spectacle unto the world, and to angels, and to men. We are fools for Christ's sake, but ye are wise in Christ; we are weak, but ye are strong; ye have glory but we have dishonour. Even unto this present hour we both hunger, and thirst, and are naked, and are buffeted, and have no certain dwelling-place; and we toil, working with our own hands; being reviled, we bless; being persecuted, we endure; being defamed, we entreat; we are made as the filth of the world, the off-scouring of things, even until now.... What will ye, shall I come unto you with a rod, or in love, and a spirit of meekness?'

"I rolled up the scroll, and gave it back to Caius, saying that I should like to read it all, but that at the moment I had not the time; and I suggested that he should lend it to me. He shook his head, murmuring that it was not his property, that it was only deposited in his house for safe keeping, the convenience of those who wished to consult it; but he offered to let me see it, in his house, at any time that I might wish. I said that perhaps I might come again, and went out into the street. I do not think that I had any intention of coming again; but as the women passed me in the moonlit streets, and the beggar children held out their supplicating hands, I seemed to hear the words: 'If I give away in food all my goods, and though I give my body to be burned and have not love, it profiteth me nothing.'

"Yes; I felt it in those streets, where little girls, still children and innocent, aped with a diabolic mimicry the manners and allurements of the women who followed me, followed me with a soft, rippling noise of draperies and odour of cosmetics, like shadows, like ghosts. In the city of the goddess of pleasure, I seemed to learn, for the first time, the secret of pain. But beyond and above that sympathy with this drifting helpless mass that is humanity, I felt a curious desire to learn more of the personality of the writer who could write: 'If any man considereth himself wise among you, let him become a fool that he may be wise, and threaten to come among his disputing disciples with a rod.' His humility seemed to overpass the bounds of pride, his words were whips, his contempt for argument and disputation burned with a superhuman energy. He seemed to say: 'These are but words, empty sounds. I teach you the truth, accept it humbly; have I not suffered for it, and will you, who have but enjoyed it in peace and plenty, attempt to alter it?'

"I came back to my lodgings, and the woman who had followed me turned away with a sigh.

"The next ten days I spent on business; and I went a great deal to the Prefect's palace where the conversation of Gallio and his friends charmed and delighted me. Gallio saw the world and the Empire drifting toward a complete breakdown. Civilisation, according to him, filled man with desires which he can never gratify; it tended to accentuate the difference between the poor and the rich, and the whole question resolved itself for him into a question of politics. The Roman stock was perishing, and its place was being taken by a horde of servile races. The people were only being kept in check by a system of doles, and amused with pageants. The burden of taxation was becoming insufferable.

"It may last our time," he said with a smile; "but the disease is ineradicable. A revolution, or a series of great wars, might carry us forward for a time. We are suffering from a mortal sickness, growth, which inevitably brings decay."

* * * * *

It had been arranged that one of my ships should follow three weeks after my departure from Gades; and on my arrival at lazy Naples, I had intended to wait for it, consequently I had remained there for three weeks and a few days, and the other ship not coming by that time I continued my voyage to Brundusium. There again I waited, anxious for news, and at last reluctantly put out to sea without it. It arrived at Corinth fourteen days after I did, and brought me a letter from my nephew, but none from my wife. In an agony of doubt I opened it, and read that my wife and child had died of a fever which had afflicted them a few days after my departure. First my son had died, a boy little more than three years old; and my wife, after lingering some time, followed him. I had moved into my own house, and was alone. Sending a messenger to my agent I bade him see to all things; and told him that I wished to be left undisturbed. The words of the Master came to me:

"Nam iam non domus accipiet te læta neque uxor Optima, nec dulces occurrent oscula nati Præripere, et tacita pectus dulcedine tangent."

It seemed to me that the peace and tranquillity of my home, the sole aim of my life, having been shrivelled up like unsubstantial things, vanished like dreams, life had thrown me, too, aside and left me stranded, a piece of wreckage, upon this alien shore. For many days I sat alone in my sumptuous house, and the statues of the gods, blithe Greek things, which I had bought to furnish it, and for transhipment to the new home which I had meant to make at Rome, smiled at my unavailing tears. Then one morning my slaves admitted a young boy to my presence.

"Caius bids me tell you that Paul is in Corinth," he said.

"I shall go," I answered.

After he had left me, I repented. Why should I choose to frequent the Jews and miracle-mongers of Corinth, who swarmed there on the way to Rome from every part of the East, astrologers, and sellers of love-potions, poisoners, and go-betweens? But the words rose up in my mind: "God chose the foolish things of the world, that he might put to shame them that are wise:" and I wished to be ashamed. In my weakness and grief my hands went forth and groped in the darkness, seeking the hands of those who had also suffered, seeking for the little familiar, common-place things, that twine themselves round our being and are the mainstays of life. My abandonment of life in my grief had been so complete, that but for the message which came to me from Caius, I might have drifted towards self-destruction, merely because of the sullen inertia, which followed after the force of the blow had been spent. Philosophy, religion, discipline, every vain convention which we imagine may buttress our will in moments of great spiritual weakness, fell away from me like garments, and the only thing remaining was a sense of human sympathy, a craving for human consolation.

Our master, Epicurus, was a lover of children; he knew, no one better, their delicate and insinuating ways, the strange unreal world in which they play, their unconsciousness of time; and he seems to have taken them as patterns and exemplars of the life of pleasure, unsuspicious of the future, and forgetful of the past, but living always with a vivid intensity, in that little, shut-in pleasure-house of the senses, the moment. As I thought of my child, I remembered all his caresses, the soft touch of his flower-like hands upon my face, and the grave eyes that seemed to keep a wisdom older than the world; and beside that image in my dreams stooped another, Drusilla, her hands guiding him to me, she whose whole life was like some attenuated fragrance, difficult of apprehension, but inexpressibly sweet, her quiet brows with neat bands of hair smoothed against the cool flesh; and the love that grew between us, first for what she revealed to me, and then for what she hid. When I thought of these two brief, beautiful creatures, I seemed to see in them the true fragility of life, as if it were no more than wind in the stops of a flute or sweet vibration from the strings of a lyre, aerial, elusive, never to be wholly imprisoned in any one form, but wandering, vocal, through the whole of creation, illuminating it to one exquisite moment, like light upon hill and sea, and then vanishing, fleeing away into darkness, never to be exactly repeated.

So to me, sitting apart and outwardly unmoved, there came that fierce hunger for things departed, that blind, bitter struggle against the unalterable conditions of life.

I hesitated, and delayed to set out on my adventure until well on into the night At last I went. A fresh wind was blowing from the north-west, it stung my face and eyes, and I saw that snow lay lightly upon the summit of Acrocorinth, silvery in the moonlight. As I passed into the Jews' quarter I began to meet little knots and groups of people talking with excited gestures, and I heard rumours of brawls and quarrels; but I reached the house of Caius without incident. The same boy who had brought me the message admitted me. He had fine clear-cut features, distinctive of no particular race, though with evidence of Roman blood somewhere. Caius was the son of a freedman I gathered later, and this boy was the eldest of his two children, the other being a girl. The boy told me that the meeting was over, but that Caius was with Paul and his travelling companions in an upper chamber; he led the way and I followed. I felt cold and suspicious, but curious. The boy drew back the curtain, whispered my name, and I went into the warmly-lighted room. Seated by the brazier was a thick-set, crook-backed man, ugly and mean, with a small head, much too small for his shoulders, a sallow skin and thick beard. As I entered he lifted his face; the eyebrows met above the beaky nose, and he regarded me for a moment in complete silence. The eyes were piercing, as though full of smouldering fires. They seemed to explore the most secret recesses of my soul; then to grow kinder, as if recognising something in it.

"Peace be with you, and light, and understanding," he said; and as he spoke there seemed to me a hesitation and an embarrassment in his manner. I murmured something in reply, at which, perhaps, a slight smile broke about his lips, and he turned away. Caius brought me the manuscript which I had looked at, gave me a chair in a warm corner by a lamp, and went back to the others. I began to read. Four men, besides Caius, and a woman were gathered at a table by Paul. One of the men was holding a pen. Then the voice of Paul broke the silence.

"For the law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death. For what the law could not do in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh. That the ordinance of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the spirit. For they that are after the flesh do mind the things of the flesh; but they that are after the spirit, the things of the spirit. For the mind of the flesh is death; but the mind of the spirit is life and peace.... And if Christ is in you, the body is dead because of sin, but the spirit is life because of righteousness."

Holding the manuscript on my knees, I listened. The passion of the speaker seized and held me; he was like one so full of speech as to be inarticulate, he seemed to falter through many phrases until he found the right one; he would go on blindly, following the mere impulse of his mind, without thought or reason, until at last, as with pain, words came to him that seemed to touch the heart, to illuminate hidden places, and what had gone before was transfused and crystallised by it into a kind of rude and imperfect unity. Sometimes after one of these magnificent utterances, he would give forth phrase after phrase, that glowed with the heat of his own certainty. "Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? shall tribulation, or anguish, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or the sword?" He dealt with speech as one dealing with iron in the fire, hammering out the words. "Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us. For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus, our Lord."

He was persuaded. Seeing that they had forgotten me, I lifted my eyes and studied him as he spoke. I saw that his health was bad; the carriage of his head seemed epileptic, but bodily health was nothing to him; he seemed worn with travel and hunger, misfortune and persecution, yet the fire of his speech showed the strength of his conviction; even as, in his words, he seemed to thrust the world away from him for the sake of an idea, so, for the sake of an idea he had thrust away his infirmities, and pursued his way heedless of obstacles. "Shall the thing formed say to him that formed it. Why didst thou make me thus? Or, hath not the potter a right over the clay, from the same lump to make one part a vessel unto honour, and another unto dishonour?"

Sometimes Paul moved a little, with nervous half-conscious movements; or while speaking he would stretch his large toil-worn hands over the brazier where the light gleaming through the fingers made them seem more distorted. As a rule he spoke slowly, but when he became dominated by his thought the words hurried, more and more quickly, until the writer paused, perplexed, and, not without a slight gesture of impatience followed by a swifter smile as if of encouragement, Paul would repeat himself; sometimes losing the thread of his discourse. Indeed, from what I learned of his life, it seemed that it was his fate to be thwarted and hindered by material restrictions, of health, of liberty, of speech. No vessel was capable of sustaining the flame that burned in him. I could not understand all that he said, as I knew nothing of what was behind; but here and there his words burnt into my brain.

The man who had been writing stopped, stretched his cramped fingers; and Paul motioned another to his place: "Abhor that which is evil, cleave to that which is good. In love of the brethren be tenderly affectioned one to another.... patient in tribulation, continuing steadfastly in prayer, communicating to the necessities of the saints, given to hospitality. Bless them that persecute you; bless, and curse not. Rejoice with them that rejoice; weep with them that weep.... Be not wise in your own conceits. Render unto no man evil for evil.... Let every soul be in subjection to the higher powers: for there is no power but of God; and the powers that be are ordained of God." I had sat listening to these words of conviction until I felt numbed, yet I was not satisfied.

Paul also seemed to weary for a minute. The word "love" that seemed to contain all their mystical creed fell again from his lips: "Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself; Love worketh no ill to his neighbour; Love therefore is the fulfilment of the law; and this knowing the season, that now it is high time for you to awake out of sleep."

He ceased, rose and walked to the window, drew back the curtain, and leaned out as if to cool his head. The sky was grey with dawn. From the streets below came drunken voices of men and women, singing ribald songs; and presently I heard the tramp of the armed guard. For a moment Paul leaned there.

"The night is far spent," he said, "and the day is at hand; therefore let us cast off the works of darkness and put on the armour of light. Let us walk honestly, as in the day; not in revelling and drunkenness, not in chambering and wantonness, not in strife and jealousy. But put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make not provision for the flesh to fulfil the lusts thereof."

He ceased, drew the curtain to again, and came towards me. Through his incredible ugliness there shone a majesty of power, fascinating, enchanting, wooing me with its strength and flame-like intensity. His hands were cold from the ledge of the window, and as they took mine a thrill ran through me. The other men looked at us quietly, as if they were conscious of some crisis, and of some antagonism between us. Paul looked at the manuscript upon my knees, and smiled.

"What are my words to you?" he asked.

"I have also thought of these things," I answered him.

"Yes; it is not the thinking of them that is strange, but what do they mean to you? What does our law mean to you? What does our mystery mean to you? Nothing. You are given over to vain imaginations, the conceits of the mind. You have no humility, no faith. Your great possessions have turned your mind. Until the blow fell upon you, you had imagined that you were secure through life. You have put your trust in perishable things, and they have fallen through your fingers like water, like dry sand. What have you left sacred in the world? Your wisdom has made a desert about you, a desert where there is no God. What have you to hope?"

It was as if he mocked me, pitied me, understood me. He made me cold toward him; and at the same time my sorrow flooded me.

"What is my trouble to you? I can bear it alone," I said harshly. "The things which you have written I have read in our own philosophers."

"You have found nothing else in me which was not in them?"

"Nothing."

A gloom spread over his face, the light which had illuminated it died out, leaving only the smouldering fires of his eyes, which burned dimly. He dropped my hands. The others turned away their eyes and shifted uneasily.

"There is he in whose name I speak. The love of Christ constrained me."

I sat frowning, without comprehension.

"It is not yet time," he continued sadly. "One must have patience, exceeding patience. You do not understand what we teach concerning Christ, who is the Son of God. Yet you came to us willingly; you, a Roman, came and took the hand of a Jew, whose touch, to your fellows, is contamination; and, in my pride I said: Lo! I have triumphed over the wisdom of the Gentile. It is through God's grace only that I am called to be an apostle to men. It is through his grace alone that you will be saved; for you will come again. Tell me that you will come again."

"I shall come again," I said simply; the curious anxiety of his words troubled me vaguely. I felt a profound pity for this man, to whom even a stranger was a brother. I rose and took my cloak; as I passed out each gave me a salutation, the salutation of peace.

Outside it was dawn. The lupanars were giving up their dead, some sailors and devotees of the great goddess were already congregating in the wine-shops. Muffled as I was in my great coarse cloak they suspected me of being one of the Roman soldiers, and none spoke to me or offered me insult. I did not heed them but passed along the quays, looking at Acrocorinth towering like Eryx, that other home of the sea-born and lure for sailors, into the infinite blue of a cloudless sky. Wreaths of vapour cloaked its lower reaches, and it seemed like a great dome suspended in the air. On the other side laughed the wide sea in multitudinous ripples of light. It all seemed to reflect some childish half-conscious gaiety of my soul. My sorrow still lay there, but comforted with human sympathy, and the two mystical gifts of the Christians, peace and love.

* * * * *

It was only after I had escaped from the enchantment of his presence that I was able to understand the aims and ambitions of Paul, as he showed them in the letter which he had dictated that night, and which was to be copied and sent to all the communities that had come together in Greece, Asia and Italy. His aim was principally to abolish the restrictions which hampered conversion into his faith, rites of the Jews, circumcision, the use of certain meats which they had considered unclean, and the huge body of formulæ and observances, which had grown and developed out of casuistry and the old Hebrew law; but beyond and above that he wished them to propitiate the civil power. When he spoke of the abolition of the law he meant those rites and ceremonies which seemed a profanation of, a bartering with, the divinity. He felt that his mission was not to the Jews alone, but to all the nations of the world. In this he was opposed by the more rigid Christians at Jerusalem, who held that circumcision was necessary, and that only a Jew could be saved. One of the most rigid adherents of this narrower sect was a brother of Christ, who seemed to pass his whole life in the Temple, praying and fasting.

Paul was often bitter against this sect. Yet it was out of that same kind of formalism that he himself had sprung; and he seldom lost traces of it, except in a few isolated moments, when love and indignation burnt him up. I went among these Christians again and again; and each time became more fascinated by their hidden, gentle lives. A very intimate tie bound Caius to Paul, for Paul had initiated him into their mysteries, which were, I imagine, the same as in other religions, a purification and a mystic meal. Caius was a man of considerable power, but of immense reserve, from whom I learnt very little. Paul was a fanatic, impatient of the opposition to his teaching at Jerusalem. Sometimes in anger he would satirise his opponents and the rite of circumcision with a bitter and sardonic humour. He was honey to those he loved, gall to those who withstood him.

The community in Corinth having fallen back during his absence into a moral laxity, almost excusable considering their environment, he withdrew them from all social intercourse with their fellow-citizens. They obeyed because they loved, but more, because they feared him. Before his conversion he had persecuted the Christians to turn them from their faith; afterwards he persecuted them to keep them in it. I learned the story of his conversion. It had its origin in the death of one called Stephen, who had been accused before the Jewish Collegium of blasphemy; a frivolous pretext for the punishment of one's opponents which had obtained everywhere but in Rome.

As you know, the law of the Empire is that no one shall be punished with death except by a Roman court, and only when he has been convicted of specified crimes; for the spirit of Roman usage has always been, in the words of Tiberius, that the injuries of the gods are the gods' affair. Stephen, after an argument with his accusers, suddenly cried out with a loud voice: "Behold, I see the heavens opened, and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God." With one accord his exasperated enemies stripped off their cloaks and laid them at the feet of Paul, who took charge of them; and they stoned Stephen, Paul consenting to his death.

Even at the time, perhaps, standing aside and taking no part in the murder, Paul's conscience may have reproved him. In any case the incident assumed, afterwards, an enormous importance for him. He could not speak of it without emotion. Perhaps also he feared that he might be accused to the Roman authorities for his part in the riot. His mind became abnormally excited.