passionate adherent to the laws, and a persecutor of the disciples of Jesus. He had even guarded the clothes of the stoners and in that way taken part in the first illegal execution of a member of the assembly of the poor. He had hunted, bound and dragged to court several followers of the new way and finally at his own request had been given authority to arrest the adherents of Nazareth who had fled from persecution to Damascus.
But on the way to Damascus he had seen such an unearthly light that he had been blinded. Jesus himself had appeared to him, and since then he had changed. In Damascus, a man who had acknowledged Jesus, a certain Ananias, had laid his hands on him and given him back his sight, for Jesus of Nazareth wished to show him how much he must suffer to proclaim the name of Christ.
And suffered he had. Many a time he had been flogged. Once he had been nearly stoned to death. He bore scars of Christ on his body, he said. All this the listeners had heard many times before, but they listened just as attentively and occasionally cried out with joy.
Paul told them to look around and with their own eyes confirm that there were not many wise, powerful or important people among them. This he considered showed that God had chosen what on earth is simple and despised, to shame the wise men. God chose the foolish and the weak instead of the wise men, for he transformed the wisdom of the world into foolishness.
He also spoke on the searching of the spirit and they who run races. And he talked of love, more impressively, I thought, than I have ever heard anyone else speak. Man should love his neighbor as himself, yes, to the extent that whatever he did for the good of another without love was of no benefit to him. He maintained explicitly that even if a person distributed all his possessions for the good of the poor and gave his own body for burning without feeling real love, then he was still nothing.
This pronouncement pierced my mind to the depths. Gallio too had said that wisdom alone did not make man good. I began to brood on this and no longer listened carefully to his words which went over my head like the rustling of a stormy wind. He was undoubtedly talking in a state of ecstasy and went from one subject to another as the spirit put the words into his mouth. But he seemed to know what he was saying. In this he was different from the Christians I had met in Rome where one said one thing and another another. Everything I had heard before was as child’s prattle compared to Paul’s powerful eloquence.
I tried to separate the main points in his teaching and I noted down several matters to dispute with him later in the Greek way. But it was difficult, for he whirled from one thing to another as if home by a wind. Even if within me I disagreed with him, I had to admit he was not an insignificant man.
Finally everyone who was not baptized was dismissed, thus leaving his inner circle. Some people begged Paul to baptize them and lay his hands on their heads, but he refused firmly and told them to be baptized by their own teachers who had been given the gift of grace to do so. When he had first come to Corinth, he had made the mistake of baptizing some people, but had then heard them boasting that they had been baptized in the name of Paul and at the same time had shared in his spirit. Such twisted teaching he had no wish to spread, for he knew himself to be nothing.
Sunk in my thoughts, I walked home and shut myself in my room. Naturally I did not believe what Paul had said. In fact I thought out how I could argue against him. But as a person and a human being, he aroused my interest. I was forced to admit that he must have experienced something inexplicable, as this experience had so completely changed his life.
It was also to his credit that he did not strive for the favors and gifts of important and wealthy people, as the itinerant Isis priests and other visionaries usually did. The lowest slave, even a simple-minded person, seemed to be the same to him, if not more important, than a noble and wise man. Seneca taught that slaves too were human beings, but Seneca had no desire to mix with slaves because of this. He chose other society.
I noticed in the end that whichever way I thought, I tried to find arguments against Paul rather than for him. There was a powerful spirit speaking in him, for I could not stand to one side and think coldly and clearly about his demented superstition and then with a laugh repeat it to Gallio. Reason told me that I could not feel such deep and obvious hostility to Paul’s absolute confidence if his thoughts had not made an impression on me.
I tired of brooding and was again filled with a desire to drink from my mother’s old wooden goblet which my father valued so highly and which I had not touched for so long. I found it in my chest, poured some wine into it and drank. My room was nearly dark, but I lit no lamps. Suddenly it was as if my thoughts had lost all their foundations and all their roots.
The rational philosophy of today denies man all hope. Man can choose a reasonable life of pleasure or a strickly disciplined life aimed at serving the State and the common good. An epidemic, a falling tile, or a hole in the ground can by chance put an end to man’s life. The wise man commits suicide if his life becomes intolerable. Plants, stones, animals and people are nothing but a blind meaningless game of atoms. It is as reasonable to be an evil man as a good one. Gods, sacrifices, omens, are only State-approved superstitions which satisfy women and simple people.
There are of course men like Simon the magician and the Druids who, by developing certain spiritual sources, can put a man into a deathlike sleep or control weaker wills. But that power is within themselves and does not come from without. I am convinced of this, although the Druid himself may believe he has walked in the underworld and seen visions there.
The wise man can with his words and by his own life set an example to others and by a deliberate death show that life and death are but trifles. But I do not think that a life of wisdom of this kind is much to strive for.
As I sat in the darkness, my thoughts lost their foothold and in a strange way I experienced my mother’s merciful presence as I held the smooth goblet in my hand. I thought, too, of my father, who seriously believed that the king of the Jews had risen from the dead after crucifixion and said he had seen him when he and my mother had journeyed together in Galilee. Ever since I was a boy, I had been afraid he would disgrace himself in the company of decent people by expressing these lunatic sentiments.
But what did the views of decent people or superiors matter to me if life was still without meaning? Of course it seems very grand to serve a kingdom whose aim is to create worldwide peace and give the world Roman law and order. But then, are good roads, fine aqueducts, mighty bridges and permanent stone houses an aim in life? Why am I alive, I, Minutus Lausus Manilianus, and why do I exist? I asked myself this and I am still asking this, here at this watering place where they are curing the disease of my blood, and to pass the time I am writing down my life for your sake, my son-you who have just received your man-toga.
The next day I humbled myself and went to find Paul in the tent-makers’ alley to talk to him alone. He was, after all, a Roman citizen and not just a Jew. The elder of the guild knew at once whom I meant and laughed loudly.
“You mean the learned Jew, do you?” he said. “The one who has abandoned his laws and is preaching a new faith, threatening the Jews that blood will come on their heads, and wishing that they’d not only get themselves circumcised but gelded too. A good man and a good craftsman. He doesn’t need much encouragement. He can preach at the loom if he wants to. I’ve had many a good laugh at his expense. His reputation brings us new customers, too. Do you want a new tent or a rainproof cloak?”
As soon as I could get away from him, I went on down the dusty alley strewn with goat-hair and came to an open workshop where, to my surprise, I found the broken-nosed Aquila from Rome sitting beside Paul. His wife Prisca recognized me at once and gave a cry of pleasure, telling Paul my name and how I had once come to the assistance of the Christians in the fighting with the faithful Jews in Rome.
“But that’s all over now,” Prisca went on hurriedly. “We very much regret the blind assurance which made us boast so. Now we’ve learned to turn the other cheek and pray for those who insult us.”
She chattered on as before and her husband was just as silent as before, not even stopping his monotonous work to greet me. I asked them about their flight and how they were managing in Corinth. They could not complain, but Prisca wept at the thought of the dead she had left behind in the ditches on the roadside as they had left Rome.
“But they received the immortal palm,” she said. “And they did not die with a curse on their lips but praised Jesus, who has saved them from their sins.”
I did not answer, for she was but a silly woman who had done great harm to both her kin and the faithful Jews. But I turned respectfully to Paul.
“I heard you preaching yesterday,” I said. “I have to render a thorough account of your way. So I have some
