Saul Of Tarsus Part 66

"Build no hope upon Herod," the Nazarene continued, as if eager to stay Marsyas. "Whatever he promised thee, he knows that Saul standeth high among the Pharisees, whom the king would propitiate! He hath difficulty and prejudice to overcome, this grandson of an execrated grandsire--so build nothing upon the Herod!"

Was it possible that, after all his months of patient work and long-suffering, he had brought up at the point at which he had left off two years before? Was his punishment of Saul to be done, at his own risk, at last? He would see this altered Agrippa and learn for himself!

"I shall see this king and discover!" he declared.

"The king is not in Jerusalem," the Nazarene said. "He hath continued unto Antioch to despatch a pet.i.tion to Caesar!"

The young man's rage changed into dismay, but he made a last appeal.

"I seek my beloved," he said finally, in a helpless way. "She is a Nazarene and pursued by the powers of Rome! Even besides her peril of Saul, she is sought after by the mighty who would destroy her. If thou knowest of her--even where she might be in hiding, I pray thee, tell me, in the name of thy Prophet!"

"Who is she?" the Nazarene asked at once.

"She is Lydia Lysimachus, daughter to the alabarch in Alexandria."

"I turned such a maiden, and her protectors, away from the gates of Jerusalem, seven days ago. They were bidden to go to Damascus."

Marsyas pressed the Nazarene's hand to his lips, because his grat.i.tude would not be expressed otherwise. Safe, then, for the moment, and out of reach of Saul of Tarsus!

"Do ye fare thither? even now?" Marsyas asked, eager to attach himself to the body of apostates, if they led him on to Lydia.

"Nay, we are certain of the faith on watch, lest any ignorant of the peril besetting the brethren should approach the city."

"Ye are close unto the oppressor," Marsyas said seriously.

"We abide in the will of the Lord."

Marsyas sighed. He had seen another, believing in the promise of the Lamb, go down unto death. The recurring thought of Stephen, never wholly forgotten, awakened in him another impulse. He would not go straightway to Damascus, and continue to retreat from Saul. The hand of the Lord had led him unto the Pharisee, and he would do that which lay nearest him.

"And when I come unto Damascus, how shall I find her?" he asked of the Nazarene.

"Go unto Ananias, a brother in the Lord, and tell him thy story. Lo, he is keeper of the Lord's flock, and filled with the Spirit. Thou wilt not ask in vain!"

"Thou hast my thanks, and my blessing!" Marsyas said. "And the forgiveness of the Lord cover you all!"

"Peace, young brother, and the love of Christ be with thee ever more!"

Marsyas went through the amber light of the late afternoon, toward the might of Hippicus and the majesty of the City of David.

He found, by inquiry among the Jews, that Agrippa had not lingered in Judea, having pa.s.sed through Jerusalem to give commands concerning the preparation of his palace, to receive the homage of the people and to propitiate the Pharisees, before he went on to Antioch. It was readily told that the king was despatching messages to Caligula craving the punishment of Flaccus.

"But could not the king have despatched these messages from Jerusalem?"

Marsyas asked.

The Jews smiled and laid fingers alongside their noses.

"He is a Herod, and not ashamed of display. He was ill-treated in Antioch, by the proconsul, there, in the days of adversity. Wherefore, in his purple and gold, with the favor of Caesar behind him, he taketh advantage of an excuse to abash his old insulters!"

It was like Agrippa! But Marsyas was glad, even in the tumult of his sensations, that the Herod was pushing his work against Flaccus! At least, Alexandria should be safe for the alabarch. But to his mission!

It was still night in the City of David and the watcher on the pinnacle of the Temple had long to wait before the morning shone and the sky was lighted even unto Hebron. The greater stars sparkled like jewels in the cold heavens, and there were already many people in the blue-misted streets below. They were of all cla.s.ses, but of one nation, one direction.

Straggling numbers joined the main body from each narrow pa.s.sage which intersected the marble-paved roadway leading toward the splendid Tyropean bridge. It was a host, an army numbering thousands. But, foot planted on the solid masonry that accomplished the ravine by flying arches two hundred feet above the dark abyss, conversation left off. The company pa.s.sed silent, except for the mult.i.tudinous and soft rustlings of garments and the chafing of feet upon rock. Far ahead the foremost were rising, an undulating sea of heads and shoulders, as the cyclopean stairs, a cold bank of white marble, broad and gentle of slope, climbed toward the Royal Porch.

As soon as the Tyropean bridge was pa.s.sed, the Temple was shut off from view by the intervening cornices of the porch; and when the gate was reached, the stream of worshipers entered into the demesnes of the Holy House.

Tunnel-like and drafty, the open gate revealed an immense length of gloom, raftered and roofed with beams and vaults of darkness, upheld by double rows of dim columns of enormous girth. This, the Royal Colonnade, cloistered the Court of the Gentiles, through which the worshipers fared next.

It was a great quadrangle, paved with sun-colored marbles, open to the sky and having about it the characteristic exhilarating airs which inhabit the heights. Herod the Great spent princely sums upon this portion allotted to the Gentiles, for the simple purpose of flattering the pagan. Perhaps for no other reason than an expression of their displeasure did the Jews commit the sacrilege of commercialism in this spot. Here the money-changer, vender of sacrificial beasts, birds and wines made a busy market daily, for the indignation of the Nazarene Rabbi had driven them away for only so long as He watched. They returned when He had vanished, like flies to a honey-pot.

Here also awaited the Temple servitors to receive the unblemished offerings, the Shoterim to preserve order, the Levites of the gates and perchance the priests of the killing-pens and of the wood-chambers.

Through the throng of attendants or venders, the worshipers continued, an uninterrupted stream of pilgrims, souls in distress, Pharisees and souls under vows, and all the cla.s.s and kind that would be diligent for the Lord in the restful hours before daybreak. And the number was not large, in comparison to the host of Israel, for the Temple was builded to contain the voice of two hundred and ten thousand.

North of the center of the Court of Gentiles, the Temple stood. A rail set it off austerely from contact with the uncirc.u.mcised. Its relentless command of exclusion and its threat were set forth on stone, forbidding the admission of a Gentile on pain of death. But beyond, in mockery, rose the black bulk of Roman Antonia, the majesty of masonry upreared and prost.i.tuted to eavesdropping and espionage. Yet none who visited the Temple was instantly to be led away from its glory to meditate on its humiliation.

The worshipers pa.s.sed around the angle of the structure to the east where the Gate Beautiful was hung.

There was a momentary slackening in the movement, for the gate was yet to be opened. But, preceding the foremost, twenty Levites pa.s.sed up the flight of steps, and under the direction of a captain, laid shoulder to the valves and threw all their strength against them.

There was a flash as the light of the coming dawn, concentrated and intensified, shifted across the Corinthian bra.s.s, and the Gate Beautiful swung inward.

At the head of the column a young man, in ample robes, with his kerchief skirts hanging close about his face, stepped aside from the line of advance. The crowd took up motion and went on.

Marsyas had washed himself in obedience to the Law; he had brought in his hand his trespa.s.s offering, and in his soul he was a Jew. But he stood now, and watched the fours of people climb the steps abreast, with no mood in his heart that a man should carry into a sanctuary.

Series after series pa.s.sed under his sharp scrutiny--extremes of rank, of reputation, of calling and of kind. Minute after minute the long, silent procession tramped by him and was swallowed up in the gigantic gloom within. Ever the alert gaze, bright even under the obscuring shadow of the kerchief, slipped from rank to rank, and never once lingered in doubt. No one looked at him; every eye was down, for though, since the eighth day after his birth, no man in the long stream of worshipers had been ignorant of the Temple, it never failed to be a place of awe, half-love, half-terror.

The hindmost appeared at the angle of the Temple, moved in turn after their fellows, climbed the steps and disappeared.

Stragglers followed, in groups and singly, and finally Marsyas turned up the steps and followed the last within.

Saul of Tarsus, a Pharisee, would have been among the earliest to arrive. Perhaps by special dispensation he had entered before the mult.i.tude and by another gate.

The keeper at the Gate Beautiful glanced at the young man's snow-white Essenic garments and at the stamp of Jewish blood on his face, and pa.s.sed him without a word.

The Temple from the city had been a great glittering unit. But on approaching its details, they became bewildering.

Within was a tremendous inclosure, floored with agate, galleried with immense chambers which were screened with grills of beaten bra.s.s. The army of worshipers was reduced, in comparison to the s.p.a.ce they entered, to a mere handful of pygmy, indistinct shapes, prostrate, kneeling, upright, silent, infinitesimal, moveless. At the extreme inner end of the men's court was a flight of fifteen semicircular steps which led up to the Gate Nicanor, now wide. It was hung in the middle of an open arcade--an altar screen no less a grace to the Temple because it might have embattled a fortress. Beyond it as the eye pierced the holy gloom, was a second tier of courts, less s.p.a.cious than the first, but no less magnificent; after it, yet a third, and then a ma.s.sive pile of ancient bra.s.s, stained and smoked, arose above all else before it. A tongue of clean blue unilluminating flame wavered in the center of its summit.

Beyond that, Marsyas' gaze did not travel.

Spiritual subjection surrounded him; from behind the lattice which screened the women's court in the lofty galleries, there came no sound.

The twilight of early morning and the hush of a sanct.i.ty were supreme.

He crossed his hands upon his breast and let his head fall as the elders had taught him.

Others came to stand beside him, the order of worship proceeded, and the singing Levites ranged themselves on the steps before Nicanor, but he was plunged in his spiritual difficulty and oppressed by the care for himself and his own.

Finally there came a long, rich trumpet note above middle register; the voice of a brazen tongue singing through a horn of silver. It was not sudden. Beginning as the sound of wind on a fine wire, it ripened in tone as it grew in volume till it achieved the color, the shape of harmony, the very fragrance of music. As it diminished, those who listened caught the sound of a second note--the voice of a twin trumpet, save that the tones issued in the molds of enunciation. It was one singing among the Levites, as impossible to discover as to pick out the inspirited pipe in an organ.