But Publius Celer had taken a dislike to me and, to avoid quarreling with him, I at last found a small ship loaded with goddess idols, which would risk the journey to Corinth under the protection of Artemis. We were fortunate enough to miss the northern storms, but several times had to shelter in island harbors on the way.
In Corinth, Hierex Lausius had been mourning me as lost, after hearing nothing from me for so long. He had grown fatter than ever and went about with his chin in the air, talking in a droning voice. He had married his Greek widow and taken two orphan boys into the house to look after their education and property. He proudly showed me his own meat shop which was kept cool in the summer with spring water from the mountain. He had also acquired shares in ships and bought skilled slaves to use in his own bronze foundry.
When I told him about the disturbances in Ephesus, he shook his head knowingly.
“We’ve had trouble here too,” he said. “You remember that Paul went from here to Jerusalem to consult the elders. They considered his teaching too involved and he was not met with complete approval, we gather. No wonder he preaches even more fervently in his vexation. He must have a share of the spirit of Christ, as he has succeeded with faith-healing, but the more moderate Christians prefer to keep away from him.”
“So you’re still a Christian, then?” I said in surprise.
“I think I’m a better Christian than before,” said Hierex. “My soul is at peace, I have a good wife and my affairs are going well. A messenger called Apollus came here to Corinth. He had studied the Jewish scripts in Alexandria and received instruction from Aquila and Prisca in Ephesus. He’s a compelling speaker and soon had many followers. So we have an Apollo sect which holds special meetings, eats together and keeps away from the other Christians. On Prisca’s advice, he was received unnecessarily warmly here, before we had any idea of his ambitions for power. Fortunately we are visited by Cephas, the most important of the disciples of Jesus of Nazareth. He has traveled in many places to calm his mind and intends to go to Rome in the spring to prevent the old quarrels there being repeated when the exiled Jews return. I believe in him more than anyone else, for his teaching comes straight from the mouth of Jesus of Nazareth.”
Hierex spoke so respectfully of Cephas that I decided to seek him out, although I was already heartily sick of both Jews and Christians. This Cephas was originally a Galilean fisherman whom Jesus of Nazareth, about twenty- five years earlier, before I was born, had taught to fish for people. It had no doubt been difficult, for Cephas was an ignorant man of the people and could speak hardly a word of Greek so that he had to have an interpreter with him on his travels. But I thought I had every reason to meet a man who had been able to make Hierex pious, for even Paul with all his Jewish wisdom and faith had not been able to perform such a miracle.
Cephas lived with one of the Jews who recognized Christ, a man who traded in fish preserved in oil and who was by no means wealthy. When I went into his house, to which Hierex had taken me, I had to screw up my nose at the smell of fish and the grating sand which the many visitors had left behind them on the floor. It was a cramped and dimly lit room, and Cephas’ Jewish landlord greeted us uneasily, as if he were afraid my presence would sully his house.
He evidently belonged to the group of Jews who had chosen Christ but still tried to follow the Jewish laws, avoiding contact with un-circumcised Christian Greeks. His position was more difficult than that of the Greeks, for the faithful Jews especially hated him as a deserter, and because of his laws, his conscience was never at rest.
Cephas the Jew wore a cloak with tassels at the corners. He was a big man with a thick growth of hair and gray streaks in his beard, and one could see from his broad hands that he had been used to manual labor in his day. His bearing was calm and unafraid, but I thought I saw a glimpse of some kind of peasant shrewdness in his eyes as he looked at me. He seemed to radiate a sense of security.
I must admit that I do not remember much of our conversation. Hierex did most of the talking, in an ingratiating way, and we were troubled by the interpreter, a slim Jew called Marcus who was considerably younger than Cephas. Cephas spoke labored Aramaic, in short sentences. My childhood memories of Antioch came back to me as I listened to him, and I tried to understand what he was saying before the interpreter translated. This confused me too. And in fact, what Cephas had to say did not strike me as particularly memorable in itself. The best thing about him was the conciliatory warmth he spread around him.
Cephas tried, somewhat childishly, to demonstrate his learning by quoting the Jews’ holy scripts. He brushed aside Hierex* flattery and urged him to praise only God, the father of Jesus Christ, who in his mercy had allowed Hierex to be reborn into eternal hope.
Hierex became tearful and admitted honestly that although he had noticed a kind of rebirth in his heart, his body was still subject to selfish demands. Cephas did not judge him, but just looked at him, his eyes both mild and clever at the same time, as if he had seen through all human weakness but at the same time recognized a scrap of true searching for goodness in this wretched slave’s soul.
Hierex eagerly asked Cephas to tell us how he had saved himself from King Herod, and about the miracles he had performed in the name of Jesus Christ. But Cephas had turned to look at me attentively and did not wish to boast of his miracles. Instead he gently made fun of himself by telling me how little he had understood Jesus of Nazareth when he had followed him before the crucifixion. He also described how he had not even been able to keep awake while Jesus was praying on his last night on earth. When Jesus had been captured, he had gone too, and around the fire in the prison yard he had denied knowing Jesus three times, just as Jesus had foretold when Cephas had boasted that he was prepared to share his sufferings.
I sensed that Cephas’ strength lay in this kind of simple story, which he had repeated so often year after year, that he knew them all by heart. In the simple and illiterate way of a fisherman, he well remembered Jesus’ own words and teachings, and with his humility, he tried to set an example to other Christians, who like Hierex could swell like toads in the name of Christ.
No, Cephas was not an unattractive man, but I sensed that he could be frightening should he become angry. He did not make any attempt to convert me either, after looking at me steadily for a while, which offended me slightly.
On our way home, Hierex expounded his own views to me.
“We Christians,” he said, “regard each other as brothers. But as all people are different, so are we Christians different. Thus we have Paul’s side, Apollus’ side, Cephas’ side and then we who simply like Christ and do as we think right. So we are always at each other’s throats because of our internal strife and envy. The newly converted are the worst at squabbling and the first to reproach the quieter ones for their way of life. Since meeting Cephas, I on my part have tried to appear no more excellent or blameless than any other man.”
My enforced delay in Corinth unsettled me and I did not feel at home in my own house. I bought a beautifully carved ivory team of horses as a present for Nero. I remembered his playing with a similar one as a child when his mother would not allow him to go to the races.
The feast of Saturnalia had long since passed when I eventually, after a stormy passage, returned to Rome via Puteoli.
Aunt Laelia was bowed and quarrelsome and reproached me for not writing to her for three whole years. Barbus alone was genuinely pleased to see me and told me that when he had had a bad dream about me, he had paid for the sacrifice of a whole bull to Mithras for my welfare. When he heard about my experiences, he seemed to be convinced that this sacrifice had saved me from my imprisonment in Cilicia.
The first thing I wanted to do was to go to Viminalis to see my father, to whom I felt a stranger. But Aunt Laelia, who had by then calmed down, took me to one side.
“You’d better not go anywhere,” she said, “until you know what has happened in Rome.”
Seething with malicious excitement, she then told me how Emperor Claudius had decided to give the man- toga to Britannicus, despite his youth, and had then in a drunken moment rashly mentioned Agrippina’s lust for power. So Agrippina had given him poisonous mushrooms. This was being spoken of all over Rome quite openly, and Nero knew about it. He was said to have declared that mushroom stew could make a man into a god. Claudius had been proclaimed a god, and
Agrippina was having a temple built for her deceased husband, but few people had applied for the priesthood.
“So Rome is the same old hotbed of gossip as before,” I said bitterly. ‘We’ve known for two years that Claudius suffered from stomach cancer, although he wouldn’t admit it himself. Why do you deliberately try to spoil my happiness? I know Agrippina personally and I am a friend of Nero’s. How can I possibly believe such terrible things of them?”
“Narcissus too was given a push into Hades,” Aunt Laelia went on, without even having heard what I had
