Saul Of Tarsus Part 67

"The earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof; the world and they that dwell therein--"

It was the voice of a young enthusiast, with the faith and spiritual uplift of patriarchal years, housed in a frame of youth--the voice of a creature of trance and frenzy, a martyr-elect from birth.

But as he clung to his final syllable in a vibrato of fervor, a second singer, duplicating the note in barytone, took up the second verse, and carried it with the ease and repose of one filled with content, health and the ripeness of years, of one who is the founder of a house, the possessor of goods and a power among his fellow men. And his voice was rich, level as the note of a 'cello, tender because it was strong, persuasive because it was believing:

"For he hath founded it upon the seas and established it upon the floods--"

Wresting the word from him, the tenor again on his alt.i.tudes of ecstasy flung out the inquisition:

"Who shall ascend into the hill of the Lord? or who shall stand in his holy place?--"

He made answer to himself with the barytone, but there was a third now singing, and his voice arose out of their attendance as a great, white, solemn, night-blooming flower might rise out of leaf.a.ge.

"He that hath clean hands and a pure heart; who hath not lifted up his soul unto vanity, nor sworn deceitfully."

The young fanatic might sing with the fervor of his bigotry, the contented man from the comfort in his heart, but this one, making answer, now, sang as one who was experienced and understood as the others could not. It was deep ba.s.s, too deliberate to be flexible, too profound to be hurried, and withal a great bell booming in a dome. And like a bell in travail under each stroke of its hammer, each word, in the full poignancy of its meaning, fell from the lips of him who had been tried by fire.

The voice of the one hundred and fifty on the steps of Nicanor, picked for beauty from a singing nation, burst about the trio, an eruption of great harmony, overwhelming the echoes of the Temple, flooding the purlieus of the Holy Hill, mounting the morning winds to float across the hollow, reverberating ravines, to resound on the bosom of Zion, to penetrate the dark vale of Kedron, and to fail and be one with the reedy rus.h.i.+ng of airs through the cedars of Olivet.

"He that hath clean hands and a pure heart; who hath not lifted up his soul unto vanity nor sworn deceitfully;

"He shall receive the blessing from the Lord, and righteousness from the G.o.d of his salvation!"

Marsyas found himself coming under the influence of the psalm. It seemed that the modifiers, describing the elect, had become lofty, solemn attributes not to be a.s.sumed by a simple claim to them, not to be had after the commission of deeds not specifically interdicted, not to be obtained by the harkening to one's own will; nor yet to be had did one fix himself in a chrysalis of form, wrap his soul in clean linen, and bury it in a remote spot, and keep hourly watch over it to keep it white--white but wizened. He seemed to understand that he had not understood these things in the days of his Essenism, nor in the days of his worldliness. And, remembering the meaning of his presence in the Temple, he felt peculiarly accused in his soul. What right had he, who had brought with him the spirit of murder, in the Holy Hill?

He could not shake off the self-accusation, but his resolution was unweakened. He would depart!

The hand of one who stood beside him dropped upon his shoulder and lingered. He looked and saw beside him a great man, in the garments of an artisan, that covered him, figure, head and face against identification. But Marsyas had known Eleazar under more effective disguise; the rabbi was not concealed from him now.

Perhaps he could learn from Eleazar the whereabouts of Saul of Tarsus, so he dropped his head again, and stayed.

The sun blazed on the spear-points, finis.h.i.+ng the pinnacle of the Temple with glowing embers; the variegated marble of the Court of Gentiles was yellow as the gold of Ophir, and the morning radiance trembled over the City of David, lying in the valley two hundred feet below or rising up the slopes beyond the ravine. The long winding stream of wors.h.i.+pers flowed from the Gate Beautiful, left, through the well of the stairs to the level where entered the Gate of Akra, down the long flight of steps into the vale of Gihon, and, dispersing, lost itself in the crowded pa.s.sages of the Lower City.

Before they were out of the morning shadow of the giant retaining-wall, Marsyas spoke.

"Where is our enemy?"

"He is for a time gone hence, and my soul is escaped as a bird out of a snare of the fowlers. I can come now without much fear unto the Holy House."

"Hence?" Marsyas asked uneasily. "Whither?"

"I shall tell thee. Know thou, first, that I am here, since several weeks, abiding among the weavers of Bezetha, and laboring with them; for Peter, the usurer of Ptolemais, is dead and his servants scattered abroad. Since Jerusalem hath been purified of the heresy, there is little search after the Nazarenes, so, as the robbed house is more secure than the one as yet unentered by thieves, I am unmolested in Bezetha. Yet, until this morning, I have not dared venture into the Temple."

"But Saul?" Marsyas urged impatiently.

"I am coming unto Saul. Jonathan, the High Priest, exhausted the patience of Vitellius in ten months. The Roman's endurance wore through and snapped on a sudden like an overstrained cord. On a certain day, in the Feast of Tabernacles, Jonathan was High Priest; ere nightfall some respected Jew complained to the legate; the next day, Theophilus, brother to Jonathan, was clothed in the robes of Aaron.

"Saul was brought up for the instant, but thou knowest that he is no cautious weigher of conditions. He did that which hath proven him not the unforeseeing time-server of a bloodthirsty man, but a follower of his own conscience and the servant of his own zeal. He went to the new High Priest while yet the robes retained the shape of Jonathan, and spake unto him: 'O ruler of my people, is the purification of the faith to be given over, seeing that it was the way of thy brother and abhorred of the Roman? Servest thou Vitellius or Jehovah?' It is not told abroad among the people what answer was given, what further asked, except that the chastening of the heretics was continued unabated, until all Judea was cleansed. And yesterday, Saul was given letters to Jews in Syria, permitting him to carry his examinations into Damascus and--"

"Damascus!" Marsyas cried, seizing the rabbi's arm.

"Yes; and to bring the offenders to Jerusalem for trial."

"Is he gone?" Marsyas demanded in a terrible voice.

"He pa.s.sed out of the Damascus Gate at sunset last night."

"Come! Go with me! Let us overtake him! He shall not go on!"

"For revenge, Marsyas?" Eleazar asked mildly, but with reproof in his eyes.

"To cut him off from desolating me wholly!" Marsyas declared.

Eleazar looked away over the hollows and gentler hills covered with houses, toward the summit of Olivet, golden in the sun.

"Then I shall not dissuade thee, Marsyas; but I can not go with thee,"

he said.

"Why?" Marsyas demanded, with a flush of feeling.

"I have suffered from oppression in the name of the Lord; it is the Lord's will. I have changed in the days of my misfortunes."

Marsyas came close to him.

"Art thou a Nazarene, Eleazar?" he asked in a low tone.

"Nay, I am a good Jew, a better Jew, for I have become a Jew, again, through understanding."

But Marsyas was not willing to wait for the rabbi's philosophy; he moved restlessly as he stood, and finally put forth his hand to say farewell, but Eleazar held it.

"Wait, but a moment," he said, "and let me speak. Thou sayest thou wouldst secure thyself from devastation at the Pharisee's hands; since nothing can stop Saul, and nothing stop thee, there is death at the end of thy doing. I do not know what moves thee now; perchance it is more than the vow sworn to avenge Stephen. But thou goest to help thyself; and--to a.s.sist in convincing the heathen that Israel is an oppressor in the name of G.o.d!"

"It is!" Marsyas cried pa.s.sionately.

But the rabbi went on patiently.

"I did not go out after Stephen," he continued. "I was not seen at the crucifixion of his Prophet. I do not urge bloodshed or urge on the work of Saul of Tarsus. So, who is Israel, O son of a shut house and of a hermit brotherhood? Saul, who knoweth no moderation? Certain feeble and forward speakers in the synagogues, whom even an apostate could overthrow in argument? Or the witnesses whom they suborned in revenge? Say, be these Israel, or Gamaliel who discountenanced the persecution? Or the people among whom the minions of the High Priest Jonathan went cautiously to arrest the fathers of the Nazarene faith, lest the people stone the Shoterim? Forget not, brother, that our lofty are the friends of Rome; our lowly, tributaries of Rome; our chief priests, dependent upon Rome--and the greater Israel is the unheard, the unrecorded, the unpampered, the innocent!"

"But is it not just, then, that Saul be overtaken, who hath cast obloquy on Israel, having shed innocent blood and made Judea to be fled by the righteous?"

"Defendest thou the innocent of Israel, Marsyas?"

"By the Lord, the innocent!"

"Wouldst trouble thyself, had the doom fallen on others, instead of thine own, Marsyas?"

The young man frowned and made no answer.