Джеймс Миченер - The Source

He had barely uttered this blasphemy when an Egyptian struck him with a rock. He fell, and before Father Eusebius could halt the riot other defenders of Mary hurled additional rocks, so that when the Spaniard did get to the fallen man the Byzantine was already dead and the triumphant Egyptians were chanting, “Mary, the Mother of God! Mary, the Mother of God!”

Father Eusebius suspended work for two days while he tried to end the theological warfare, and during this truce Mark had an opportunity to watch how each side refused to consider the arguments of the other and he caught a foretaste of the bitterness that would in time split his new church. Even when grudging peace was established, with both parties promising Father Eusebius to brawl no more, adherents of each persuasion continued to visit Mark, whispering, “Be one of us. You know that Christ must be as we say.” It was his Jewish monotheism that determined his choice, for in the end he cast his lot with the men of Constantinople, for in spite of Father Eusebius’ logic he found it impossible to believe that Jesus Christ had been an ordinary man and at the same time the coequal of God.

While Mark thus took his first plunge into those theological speculations on which he would spend the greater part of his life, his father devoted his evenings to the problem which more than any other accounted for his conversion to Christianity, and one night after work he washed carefully, put on his best clothes, pared his fingernails and combed his graying hair. As he left his quarters on a mission which frightened him he was much different from the man who, a quarter of a century before, had fought with Rabbi Asher. He was still a round-shouldered, apelike man, more powerful than most, but the aggressiveness which had marked him then was gone. The defeats of life had chastened him and he no longer thought that he could, force decisions; furthermore, the placid creative work in which he had been engaged at the synagogue had left its mark, for as he walked through the cool evening his face showed a kind of rocklike beauty, the rugged, scarred dignity of a quarry when the overlying earth has been scraped away and the stones laid bare. Perspiring like a nervous schoolboy he went to the home of the wine merchant whose shop faced the old church. There he sat uncomfortably as the Greek poured him a welcoming glass, and after he had gulped it down, said, “Gregorio, I’ve come to ask for your daughter’s hand. For my son Mark.” Before the Greek could interrupt he added quickly, “He’s got a good job. I have a bag of drachmas. I’ll build him a home. He’s a fine boy, Gregorio.”

The answer came straight and simple: “I’d never let Maria marry a Jew.”

“But now he’s a Christian.”

“Yes, a Jewish Christian.” And there the discussion ended.

The words hurt John more than he could have explained, but he did not bluster. Nor did he threaten to solve things in his own way, but like a dumb beast went home, laid aside his good clothes and stared at the wall. On succeeding nights he washed, fixed his nails and combed his hair, approaching three different Christian homes with marriageable daughters. In each he was received honorably, offered wine, extended the pleasantries common in a small town like Makor, and then rebuffed as a Jew.

After the fourth such humiliation he returned to his room and folded away his good clothes. Once he said to himself in a stumbling unreal voice, “I think I’ll take the boy to Antioch. They’re always building there. It’ll be easy to find him a job and a wife …”He stopped and buried his face in his hands, like an animal that has been wounded from an unknown quarter, and he knew then that he would never be free to leave Makor, since he was now as firmly bound to the basilica as he had been to the synagogue, for when a man builds a place of worship he walls himself inside.

Mark heard rumors of his father’s expeditions but he ignored them, for in the barracks he had entered upon another area of argument among Christians, less critical perhaps than the first but of greater ultimate importance to him. In these early years, when Christianity was fighting the outside world to protect its physical existence and its own membership in an effort to achieve a permanent theology, a group of ultra-dedicated men took their guidance from St. Paul, who had preached both poverty and the principle that truly religious men ought to live without women. These devout followers, first by the hundreds and later by the thousands, took vows both of poverty and of chastity, and some, like the great Origen of Caesarea, to whom the Christian world would owe much of its Bible, went so far as to base their lives upon what they thought to be the teaching of Jesus regarding castration: “For there are some eunuchs, which were so born from their mother’s womb: and there are some eunuchs, which were made eunuchs of men: and there be eunuchs, which have made themselves eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven’s sake. He that is able to receive it, let him receive it.” Citing these words of Christ, the great Christian had castrated himself.

“No man can give greater proof of religious faith than that,” an old Byzantine sergeant argued, and one day the grizzled veteran disappeared. He had gone into the Syrian desert, where he joined one of the small monasteries which were then beginning to flourish throughout the east, and it was rumored in Makor that before vanishing he had followed the example of Origen. The workmen spoke of his act with hushed respect, and before long a hawk-faced Egyptian disappeared too.

Mark was surprised when Father Eusebius spoke out sharply against monasticism. Following the general opinion in Constantinople the intellectual Spaniard, who respected art and the comforts of moderate living, preached, “Within the monasteries men obey laws which help them to lead lives of contemplation, and this God probably loves. But other men of equal piety live in the noise of the world, building, rearing children and helping to govern the earth, and this God certainly loves.”

This problem of monasticism fascinated Mark and one evening, when the tensions in Makor were at their greatest and when Father Eusebius awaited momentary notice of the Germans’ arrival in Ptolemais, the young artist sought out his priest and in the austere white-walled room asked him what had motivated men like Origen and the old Byzantine sergeant to castrate themselves in honor of Jesus Christ. “As human beings they were misled,” Eusebius said frankly, “but as devout men trying to subject themselves to God’s law …”

“His law?”

“Yes. All religions must create a law and sensible men must live within that law. It is the glory of Christianity that the law was made simple by Christ our master, who took upon Himself its major burdens.”

“But God’s law remains?” Mark asked.

“Of course,” the Spaniard said. “Origen and the sergeant were wrong in their interpretation of the law, but they were correct in seeking to place themselves within that law.”

“Is there a law that priests like you may not marry?”

“Yes, The law of St. Paul. But for ordinary Christians, like you, marriage is a boon. Even a crown.” The tall Spaniard lowered his chin upon his thumbs and smiled. “My father had eleven children and he was closer to Christ than I will ever be. We lived in Avaro …”He reminisced for some time concerning that lovely town in central Spain and it was his opinion that both the olive oil and the wine of Avaro were superior to Palestine’s. His reflections were broken by the arrival of a messenger from Ptolemais, and when Eusebius read that the Germans had arrived from Antioch and would march eastward in two days, he knew that the time for sentimental recollections of Spain had passed. Directing the messenger to available food, he bade Mark an abrupt good night. “Marry a Christian girl and have eleven children. That’s the pathway to heaven.” And he disappeared to consult with the captain of the local garrison.