Roman. But you with my words shall wake that city, and my spirit shall speak to her second dawn.
“My words shall be an invisible army with horses and chariots, and without axe or spear I shall conquer the priests of Jerusalem, and the Caesars.
“I shall not sit upon a throne where slaves have sat and ruled other slaves. Nor will I rebel against the sons of Italy.
“But I shall be a tempest in their sky, and a song in their soul.
“And I shall be remembered.
“They shall call me Jesus the Anointed.”
These things He said outside the walls of Jerusalem before He entered the city.
And His words are graven as with chisels.
Nathaniel
They say that Jesus of Nazareth was humble and meek.
They say that though He was a just man and righteous, He was a weakling, and was often confounded by the strong and the powerful; and that when He stood before men of authority He was but a lamb among lions.
But I say Jesus had authority over men, and that He knew His power and proclaimed it among the hills of Galilee, and in the cities of Judea and Phoenicia.
What man yielding and soft would say: “I am life, and I am the way to truth”?
What man meek and lowly would say: “I am in God, our Father; and our God, the Father, is in me”?
What man unmindful of His own strength would say: “He who believes not in me believes not in this life nor in the life everlasting”?
What man uncertain of tomorrow would proclaim: “Your world shall pass away and be naught but scattered ashes ere my words shall pass away”?
Was He doubtful of Himself when He said to those who would confound Him with a harlot: “He who is without sin, let him cast a stone”?
Did He fear authority when He drove the money-changers from the court of the temple, though they were licensed by the priests?
Were His wings shorn when He cried aloud: “My kingdom is above your earthly kingdoms”?
Was He seeking shelter in words when He repeated again and yet again: “Destroy this temple and I will rebuild it in three days”?
Was it a coward who shook His hand in the face of the authorities and pronounced them “liars, low, filthy, and degenerate”?
Shall a man bold enough to say these things to those who ruled Judea be deemed meek and humble?
Nay. The eagle builds not his nest in the weeping willow. And the lion seeks not his den among the ferns.
I am sickened and the bowels within me stir and rise when I hear the fainthearted call Jesus humble and meek, that they may justify their own faintheartedness; and when the downtrodden, for comfort and companionship, speak of Jesus as a worm shining by their side.
Yea, my heart is sickened by such men. It is the mighty hunter I would preach, and the mountainous spirit unconquerable.
Saba of Antioch
This day I heard Saul of Tarsus preaching the Christ unto the Jews of this city.
He calls himself Paul now, the apostle to the Gentiles.
I knew him in my youth, and in those days he persecuted the friends of the Nazarene. Well do I remember his satisfaction when his fellows stoned the radiant youth called Stephen.
This Paul is indeed a strange man. His soul is not the soul of a free man.
At times he seems like an animal in the forest, hunted and wounded, seeking a cave wherein he would hide his pain from the world.
He speaks not of Jesus, nor does he repeat His words. He preaches the Messiah whom the prophets of old had foretold.
And though he himself is a learned Jew he addresses his fellow Jews in Greek; and his Greek is halting, and he ill chooses his words.
But he is a man of hidden powers and his presence is affirmed by those who gather around him. And at times he assures them of what he himself is not assured.
We who knew Jesus and heard his discourses say that He taught man how to break the chains of his bondage that he might be free from his yesterdays.
But Paul is forging chains for the man of tomorrow. He would strike with his own hammer upon the anvil in the name of one whom he does not know.
The Nazarene would have us live the hour in passion and ecstasy.
The man of Tarsus would have us be mindful of laws recorded in the ancient books.
Jesus gave His breath to the breathless dead. And in my lone nights I believe and I understand.
When He sat at the board, He told stories that gave happiness to the feasters, and spiced with His joy the meat and the wine.
But Paul would prescribe our loaf and our cup.
Suffer me not to turn my eyes the other way.
Salome, to a Woman Friend
He was like poplars shimmering in the sun;
And like a lake among the lonely hills,
Shining in the sun;
And like snow upon the mountain heights,
White, white in the sun.
Yea, He was like unto all these,
And I loved Him.
Yet I feared His presence.
And my feet would not carry my burden of love
That I might girdle His feet with my arms.
I would have said to Him:
“I have slain your friend in an hour of passion.
Will you forgive me my sin?
And will you not in mercy release my youth
From its blind deed,
That it may walk in your light?”
I know He would have forgiven my dancing
For the saintly head of His friend.
I know He would have seen in me
An object of His own teaching.
For there was no valley of hunger He could not bridge,
And no desert of thirst He could not cross.
Yea, He was even as the poplars,
And as the lakes among the hills,
And like snow upon Lebanon.
And I would have cooled my lips in the folds of His garment.
But He was far from me,
And I was ashamed.
And my mother held me back
When the desire
