Thomas B. Costain - The Silver Chalice

They were both so absorbed that they had been paying small attention to Paul. In this respect they were alone, for everyone else in the long dark chamber had fallen under his spell. Paul had gathered the meeting into his thin, ivory-colored hands. Every eye was fixed on his face. Except for the rise and fall of his voice, there was no sound. James and Jude had become no more than spectators.

The great apostle was telling of his stewardship. With graphic words he described his journeys through the Gentile world, the pagan cities of the Greeks, the materialistic dominions of Rome, the hostile desert lands. It was a story of conquest he was telling, a conquest that would prove more complete than what Rome had accomplished with the might of her legions, one that would last forever. He was demonstrating to this most critical of audiences that he had been right, that the teachings of Jesus belonged to the whole human race and not exclusively to the one nation into which He had been born.

Paul had ceased speaking, and for several moments there was silence in the long dark chamber. His words had carried conviction and there could no longer be doubt that the presbyters would approve what he had done. Jude had listened impassively, without even the flicker of an eyelash, but James had responded, in some degree at least, to the eloquent pleading of the man from Tarsus. It was James who broke the silence.

“Brother Saul,” he said, “it is clear to all of us that you have labored long and hard and that much has been accomplished. Those of us who have not seen eye to eye with you in the past still believe that it should be possible to extend the boundaries of the Lord’s influence without deviating one inch from the just laws by which we live. We would prefer to go to the Gentiles with two great gifts in our hands, the teachings of Jesus and the Law of Moses.

“But you, who have been carrying the Word to the Gentiles, say it can only be done your way. It is clear you are sincerely convinced. Reluctantly I am disposed to say: Have it, then, your way, go on teaching in the future as you have done in the past.”

The speaker stopped and glanced down at Jude but received no manner of response. His quick eye then skimmed the circle of presbyters, drawing a response in a general nodding of heads and a deep-toned chorus of “Yea!”

“Paul has won!” whispered Benjie, fairly bouncing on his seat in excitement. “He has talked them over. Okhe! What a victory it has been!”

The victory was not to be a complete one. James, it became clear, had more to say. He looked again with some evidence of uneasiness at the impassive form of Jude and then allowed his eyes to rest for a moment on the dark corner where troublesome counsel sat in the figure of the Mar.

“This must be said.” The slender James had straightened up in his chair and his voice became high and a little shrill. “We have heard ill reports of your personal conduct, Brother Saul. It has been told us again and again that you have ceased to live by the Law of Moses. This is a charge which sits heavily on our minds.”

“I declare it false!” cried Paul. “I declare to you, the elders of the church, that there is no truth in what my ill-wishers charge against me. I have not broken the Law.”

“But you have condoned laxity in others,” declared James. “This has been said of you on the testimony of many witnesses. Here in Jerusalem men are coming to fear you.”

“James, James!” exclaimed the apostle to the Gentiles. “You sit here in a circle as small as the cupping of a child’s hand. Can it be that you are more concerned with the trappings of truth than with truth itself?”

“We find joy in living as our fathers have lived before us,” said James.

“But your fathers knew nothing of the teachings of Jesus.” The voice of the apostle rose again to an oratorical pitch. “Can you not see that everything has been changed by the coming of the Master? The whole world must be taught, even as Jesus commanded. Can we obey that command if we still believe we must allow no deviation in the depth to which we dip our hands in water after eating meat? The salt of Sodom may cling to the date you eat on the desert—but if around you gather those who hunger for the Word, you must not delay in the telling of it until you have plunged your wrists in a tepid cleansing.”

James rose up behind the ivory pulpit. It could be seen that he was thin and wasted from much fasting and that a palsy afflicted the hand he pointed accusingly at the apostle to the Gentiles. “Out of your own mouth you have sustained the charge!” he cried. “I say to you, Paul, that you must acknowledge the error of your ways and cleanse yourself publicly.”

A deep chorus of “Yea!” rose from the circle of presbyters. One of them spoke up to say: “You have brought strangers with you who claim they should be allowed to enter the Temple beyond the Court of the Gentiles. There is profanation even in the wish!”

“I have been a Nazarite all my life,” declared James. This was apparent in the curl of his long white hair and the softness of a beard that had never known the touch of the shears. “You, Paul, who sat at the feet of Gamaliel, know that the Code of the Nazarites calls for purification of body and heart. This, then, is what we demand of you, that you stand in the Dock of Atonement, where all men may see you, for the full number of days set by the Code. That in the end you submit your head to the shears and that your hair be publicly burned so that you may start afresh thereafter, clean of body and of mind.”

Benjie could not keep his feelings under control. “No, no!” he cried aloud. It was so unexpected that his voice seemed to fill the hot chamber.

James was startled and glanced apprehensively toward the source of the interruption. “There must be order,” he said with an air of affronted dignity.

Basil suspended work and waited for the effect of the interruption to pass.

“I have never so forgotten myself before,” whispered Benjie, his face reflecting the shock he felt at his own presumption. “But this would be a fatal mistake. Paul to stand in the Dock of Atonement! The butt of every passer-by—spat upon, reviled, laughed at! What a mark his naked back would offer the daggers of the Zealots! There will be war on the streets of Jerusalem, and that is what Rub Samuel, the leader of the Zealots, wants.”

There was a quick flurry of discussion among the princes of the church. At the end there was a general nodding of heads in assent.

Paul sat with bowed head. He neither glanced up nor sought counsel with his followers as speaker after speaker urged the ceremony of atonement. There was humiliation in the arch of his back, bitterness in the line of his jaw.

“So be it,” he said when the last of the presbyters had spoken. “I have lived by the Law of Moses and I am not conscious of wrongdoing. But if this is necessary to keep peace in my Master’s House, I shall do as you bid. I shall stand in nakedness and shame for sins of which I have not been guilty!”

On the fourth day of Paul’s atonement, Basil arrived early at the Shushan, the Lily Gate of the Temple, having a little work still to do on the bust he was making of the apostle. He was desirous of finishing it before people came to stare at him and make audible and unfriendly comments as they breathed on the back of his neck. The twenty singers, whose duty it was to swing back the huge bronze doors of the gate (it could not be done with fewer hands), were still at work, and he could hear the agonized “Aiy-waay!” of the head porter as he urged them to greater efforts. He joined in the loud approval of the spectators when the task was completed and the doors, screeching and protesting in a metallic agony of unwillingness, fell back finally to each side, allowing a glimpse of the activities of the great outer court.