The Secret of the Kingdom

SIXTH LETTER

MARCUS GREETS TULLIA:

In greeting you, I greet a curious alien past. Even the hot nights of Rome I recall as having happened to someone else rather than to me. One short year divides us, yet that year has been longer than others. These last few days alone have seemed like years to me. I have been carried farther from you, and have changed. I am another Marcus. You wouldn’t understand me now. When I think of you, I see your willful mouth drawn into a mocking smile as I tell you what has happened to me.

You live amongst all that I too used to think important. You pay attention to those who greet you, and the manner of their greeting. You are careful in choosing jewelry to wear at a party, for your friends’ pleasure, your enviers’ indignation and your enemies’ resentment. You swathe the thin silk of your gown closely about your smooth body, and you scrutinize your figure in the polished marble panel in the wall. Then you deliver a pinprick to the slave girl who is clumsy in dressing your hair. Lastly you raise your beaker of wine with a weary smile, pretend to listen to the reading of some philosopher or historian, are charmed by the latest song favorite, let your sandal dangle from your toe so that the man reclining beside you at the table is certain to note the slenderness and whiteness of your little foot. Slim and slight though you are, you have strength and stamina. Your thirst for pleasure can keep you awake night after night in sultry Rome. In company with others you taste, abstractedly and fastidiously, of birds’ tongues, snails and delicacies from the sea, which you would just as soon not eat. But if you have exhausted yourself with your lover you find no difficulty in devouring an underdone steak in the middle of the night, to renew your forces for the tireless game.

Thus I see your shadow, Tullia. No longer full of life but as in polished black stone, and your shadow does not tantalize my senses as it did last winter in Alexandria, when in vain I strove to forget you. Something else now fills my mind, through no act of my own. You would no longer recognize me, Tullia. Perhaps I should not recognize you.

So I believe that it’s rather to myself that I write these letters, even though it is you I greet in them. I write to search into myself and into all that has befallen me, according to the precepts of my good tutor in Rhodes, who used to urge me to write of such things as my own eyes had seen and my ears heard, and not merely of what other men had written in other words. No, I no longer write just to pass the time and dispel my boredom. You are no longer near me as I write; you withdraw ever farther. That does not sadden me, Tullia; I do not feel that I have lost anything. Not even your body binds me any longer; I am too full of other things.

Bearded, in simple sandals and the dyed Jewish mantle, I walked at dusk back to the Fountain Gate. I have not tended my nails, and not even pumice stone would remove the ink from the fingers of my right hand. I who am used to sweating-rooms and hot water have been washing in cold, for when I went to the men’s baths at the gymnasium I was stared at because of my beard. I have not even rubbed depilatory ointment into my armpits. My body is the hairy body of a barbarian; but I don’t mind, and don’t even think it matters. I want to melt into my surroundings, so that men may trust me, even if later I return to the old ways in which I was brought up.

For I do not love this city, whose people have invoked his blood upon their heads. When the women of Jerusalem wept over him as he staggered under the lash to the mount of the cross, he is reported to have said that they would do better to weep for themselves and for their children. And I cannot but feel foreboding when I behold the temple, whose sacred veil was ripped from top to bottom by the earthquake, and where the stairway lost several steps at the second tremor. That is omen enough.

I was thinking of all this on my way to the Fountain Gate. People were still thronging the streets of the bazaar, every language in the world echoed in front of the booths, camel bells jingled and donkeys brayed. I admit that the sacred city of the Jews is as much a capital as any other, but I do not like it here.

Only a couple of beggars remained by the gate, but they didn’t recognize me, and I saw no sign of the blind man. A group of women came in through the archway with water jars on their heads, gossiping with animation. They never troubled to draw a fold of their mantles to their mouths on my account; I was unimportant.

The sky turned dark blue. Dusk deepened. Three stars were already shimmering when the guards trust a torch of pitch into the holder beneath the arch and lit it. I was disappointed, yet prepared for disappointment, prepared to come here day after day until I received a sign. I was already thinking of returning to my lodging, but lingered still. It made no difference where I was.

Then a man with a water pitcher appeared in the gateway. He carried it on his shoulder, steadying it less skillfully than the women, and walked slowly and cautiously so as not to stumble in the half-darkness. Not until he had disappeared into a street that led steeply uphill did I follow him. The steep street turned into a series of shallow steps. I could hear his tread and his labored breathing under the weight of the jar as I walked a few paces behind him.

The way was long. He turned aside into winding alleys but did not increase his pace. We kept climbing up into the upper city, but I noticed that he was not choosing the shortest way to his destination. In a lonely place he set the pitcher down upon the ground, steadied it with his hand and waited. I went up to him and stood beside him without speaking. We stood there by the wall for a long time until he had stopped panting. Then at last he turned to me, greeted me, and asked, “Have you lost your way?”

“And with you be peace,” I said. “There are many ways and many false guides.”

“There are only two ways,” he replied knowingly. “The way to life and the way to death.”

“For me there remains only one,” I rejoined. “I cannot find it of my own strength, but I hope and trust that someone will guide me.”

Without replying he raised the pitcher to his shoulder again and went on. I walked beside him and he did not forbid me. Presently, I suggested, “The steps are steep. May I help you? Else you will get out of breath again.”

He said, “It’s not the weight of the jar that makes me breathless, but fear. I believe no good will come of this.” But he let me take the pitcher on my shoulder. It didn’t seem very heavy. He walked ahead and warned me of uneven places where I might have stumbled, for the alley was dirty and smelt of urine. I soiled my sandals.

But the house we stopped at, after climbing high into the upper city through a gate in the old wall, was large and of the better sort. In the starlight I could discern no more than its outline, but my companion rapped on the door, which was at once opened by a serving-woman. She did not greet me, but took the jar from me without hesitation and showed such evident respect for the man with me that I knew he must be more than a servant.

He led me into a quiet court where trees were growing. There I was met by a youth of about fifteen. “Peace be with you,” he said shyly. “My father and my uncle have retired, but allow me to take you to the upper room. Do you care to wash your hands?”

Without waiting for my answer, the serving-woman poured water copiously over my hands from the very pitcher I had carried, as if to show that after all there was no lack of water here. The boy handed me a linen towel and said, “My name is Mark.”

As I dried my hands he went on eagerly, full of his own importance. “I was with the master the night they came and arrested him. I dashed out of bed in just my tunic and ran to warn him, for I knew he meant to spend the night in the garden of Gethsemane. They grabbed me, too, so that my tunic was torn and remained in their hands. I had to run off naked, with the rest.”

“Don’t talk so much, Mark,” my companion warned him. But he himself was just as full of hidden excitement, now that he was safely in the courtyard and could master his fear. “My name is Nathaniel,” he said. “Why should I make a secret of it? I met him on the road to Emmaus, the day he left his tomb.”

“But you didn’t recognize him at first,” Mark blurted out. Nathaniel laid a hand on the back of Mark’s neck to quiet him. Mark seized my hand trustingly in his hot one, and I could feel that he had never done any manual work to speak of. He led me up some steps to a gallery that ran along the roof, and from there to the upper room of the house.

This was a big room faintly lit by a single lamp, so that the corners lay in darkness. When I stepped in I saw that two men were awaiting me there. They stood hand in hand, quite silent in the half-darkness, and one of them I recognized. It was the handsome John, whom I had seen with the women on the mount of the cross. The other man was older, his brow was furrowed and his eyes were searching and suspicious.

“Peace be with you,” I said.

But they made no reply. At length John turned with a questioning look to the older man, as if urging him to speak. But the man’s eyes remained just as suspicious as he looked me up and down. The silence became oppressive. Then at last Nathaniel said apologetically, “He followed the water jar.”

“I seek the only way,” I assured them, dreading lest they should dismiss me from mistrust.

There were several couches around a large table; the room was obviously the banquet hall of a well-to-do house. When the suspicious man had scrutinized me sufficiently, he waved his hand. “Nathaniel, Mark, you may go,” he said, “but stand guard in the courtyard.”

When they had left he turned the big key in the lock of the door and said, “Peace be with you, stranger. What do you want of us? I fear the way you seek is too narrow for you.”

But John broke in on his words, and reproached him. “Thomas, why must you always begin by doubting everyone and everything?” To me, he said confidingly, “Whoever seeks shall find, and to him who knocks the door shall be opened. We have heard that you’re quiet and humble of heart. You have knocked with devotion; therefore we have opened the door.”

He invited me to sit, and sat down opposite me, looking at me with the spring-clear gaze of a dreamer.

After a moment’s hesitation Thomas sat too, and said, “I am one of the twelve of whom you’ve heard. He chose and called us to be his messengers, and we followed him. John is the youngest of us. I have to curb his rashness.

“You must not reproach us for being overcautious,” he went on. “No doubt you know that the authorities are fabricating charges against us. They say we have conspired together to set fire to the temple as a sign to the people. They say we murdered that one of us who betrayed him. Why should I not admit that we have disputed about you? It was I who warned the others most earnestly against you, except for Peter, who wouldn’t even hear you mentioned because you’re a foreigner. But Mary Magdalene spoke in your favor.”

“I know you,” said John. “I saw you standing by the cross, and noticed that you didn’t listen to those who abused him.”

“I know you too, and have heard of you,” I said. It was hard not to stare at him, for I had never seen so beautiful a face on any young man before. It was as candid as if no evil thought could ever have come near it. Yet this beauty was not lifeless, as in a sculpture; his was a living, burning face, from which emanated serenity and warmth.

“Well, and what is it you want of us?” asked Thomas again, in a surly voice.

His opposition made me wary. It was as if he were jealously trying to guard a secret which the messengers possessed in common, and which did not concern outsiders. “I wanted only to ask you to show me the Way,” I answered humbly.

Thomas looked unwillingly at John and then said, “Before he was arrested he told us that there were many dwelling places in his father’s house. He said that he would go and prepare a place for us there; he must have meant us twelve, although afterwards Judas failed him. And he said, ‘You know the way where I am now going.’”

He rubbed his furrowed forehead and looked perplexed. “I said at the time that we had no idea of where he was going, so how could we know the way? Now you come, foreigner, and ask me the way although I don’t know it myself.”

John reminded him, “Thomas, Thomas, he answered you. He told you that he himself was the Way—that was it—the Way and the Truth. You can’t say you don’t know it.”

But Thomas sprang up in desperation, pounded the flat of his hand with his fist and cried, “But what does that mean? I don’t understand. Explain it.”

John would gladly have explained, as I could see, but dared not because of me. I reflected, and then joined in the conversation, saying, “On the third day he rose from his tomb.”

“Yes, indeed,” said John. “Mary Magdalene came and told us that the stone had been rolled away. We rushed to the place, Peter and I, and saw that the sepulcher was empty.”

“Yes, yes,” Thomas observed ironically. “Mary Magdalene saw angels and a gardener who was a ghost.”

“A gardener?” I asked with an inward tremor.

“Women’s twaddle,” Thomas went on, without noticing the interruption. “Like Nathaniel and that other one on the road to Emmaus. They didn’t even recognize him.”

John said with conviction, “Here in this very room he revealed himself to us that same evening, when we were sitting behind locked doors and were all afraid. He was here with us and spoke to us, and made us a promise which I hardly dare so much as think of, far less speak of to a stranger. But I can assure you that he was here among us, alive, and that afterwards he disappeared as quickly as he had come. And we believed.”

“Quite so,” Thomas said with a sneer. “You were as bemused as Nathaniel and that other man, to say nothing of Mary. I wasn’t there, and I don’t believe in visions of that sort. I shan’t believe it until I see the nail holes in his hands and put my finger in them. Nothing less than that will make me believe. This is my last word, though I should drop dead this minute.”

The young John was so greatly distressed by his words and doubts that he turned away his head. But he made no protest. It seemed to me that Thomas’s suspicions during the past few days had affected even the faith of the eyewitnesses, so that secretly they too began to doubt what they had all seen together.

A strange joy seized me, and I said resolutely, “I do not need to see to believe. I understand that he has risen again and is still on earth. Why, I do not know, but I am waiting. In these days something has been happening which has never happened before, and we have certainly not seen the end of it.”

But Thomas said derisively, “You’re not even one of the children of Israel, though you seem to have had the tassels of a proselyte stitched to the corners of your cloak. I can’t see why you should persist in spying on us like this. I mistrust your purpose. You needn’t think I don’t know of your having been the Governor’s guest in Antonia. You’re trying to lure us into a trap so that we too may end on the beam of a cross or be stoned in a pit.”

He wrung his gnarled fingers, stared anxiously before him and went on, “I don’t know whether you’ve seen what stoning is like. I have, and I don’t want to experience it myself. At least not now, when he is dead, be his tomb empty or not.”

“Then why do you stay in Jerusalem?” I demanded in his own brusque tone. “Why don’t you leave and go back to your own place quietly, without any fuss? What are you waiting for?”

He lowered his eyes, as if all his days he had been accustomed to bowing to a voice of command. Fingering a fold of his mantle he answered defensively, “I cannot set off alone. But in my opinion, we’re wasting time. The most sensible thing to do would be to go into the desert for a while and then return home, each to his own place. But here we twist and turn, argue irresolutely and can come to no agreement.”

John looked at him with his spring-clear gaze and reminded him, “You have no longer any home, once he has chosen you. You laid down your tools and followed him. He who looks back after setting his hand to the plough is not fit for his kingdom. That’s what he said. No, Thomas, we can’t go back to our former life.”

“What is his kingdom like?” I asked quickly.

But Thomas shook his head with a look of mockery and said, “At least it cannot be as we believed it, stranger.”

Again he struck the palm of his hand with his fist and exclaimed in impotent fury, “Wasn’t I, too, ready to exchange my cloak for a sword and to die with him and for him? God be merciful to us, but he, the son of man, had power and strength to make what he would of the world. Yet he let himself be nailed to the cross, mute as a lamb, leaving us in such a predicament that we don’t know what to believe or where to turn.’”

He resumed, “When a person is stoned, blood runs from his mouth; blood and mucus run from his nose; he screams and weeps and all his filth escapes into his clothes before he yields up his spirit. Why should we incur that fate, now that he has gone and has forsaken us?”

John gently touched his shoulder and said with conviction, “When the hour came we were all as weak as each other. But remember that he promised to send us a defender.”

Thomas gave him an angry nudge, as if he had blurted out some secret, and went on, to put me off the scent. “That’s easy for you to say, John. You know little of life. You were your father’s favorite son and had authority over older men at his fishery. It was for the sake of the laborers and the oppressed that I followed him when he called me. But what pleasure any of the downtrodden could take in his lunatic death is beyond my understanding. All he did was to call down the derision of the Council and the Romans upon himself and us.”

But he failed to lure me from the trail. I asked John curiously, “What was that you said of a defender?”

John gave me a candid look and admitted, “I didn’t understand that myself and still don’t, but I trust in his promise. Something will happen to us, as you said yourself. That is why we linger in Jerusalem.”

They both looked at me, and their faces were as different from each other as any two human faces could be. Yet in them both there was something of the same nature, some similarity, some link, for all Thomas’s bitter words. When they ceased speaking it was as if I had been irrevocably excluded from their fellowship. I thought of what Mary Magdalene had said about these chosen messengers, and understood what she meant. I believe that even I would have been able to distinguish these faces amid a crowd of others. Now that I had met them, I thought I might also recognize those messengers who distrusted me and did not want to meet me.

When they had been silent long enough for me to understand that despite John’s good will I was an outsider, I said awkwardly, “I wish you well. I am not a Jew and thus not circumcised, and I don’t intend to be. But I’ve heard it said that he had compassion even on Samaritans, whom the Jews condemn. He is also said to have healed the servant of a garrison commander in Galilee, because the Roman believed in his strength. I too believe in his power and strength; I believe he lives still and will yet come to us. If it should be so, I beg you not to leave me out in the darkness. Surely I should do him no harm. How could anyone harm a man who has risen from his tomb and who comes and goes through locked doors? I don’t want to harm you either; on the contrary, I will help you if I can. I live in the house of the Syrian trader near the Hasmoneans’ palace. I am well-off and am willing to help you with money too, if need be.”

“Prove that,” said Thomas, holding out his calloused hand.

But John said deprecatingly, “We’re in no need of that sort of help—at least, not for the present. My own family is well-to-do, and Matthew has money, and the master has rich sympathizers who paid for our lodging when we traveled, being unable to follow him in any other way. No, we need neither bread nor clothes, but only such things as he alone can give us. If he returns I will not forget you, but the secrets which he has entrusted to us I naturally cannot reveal to a stranger.”

Thomas said warningly, “I suspect it was a mistake to listen to Mary. This stranger’s curiosity bodes no good.”

Turning to me, he went on threateningly: “You must know that when we walked with him we had power to heal the sick—ay, and even to drive out evil spirits. And though just now our powers may be at their weakest, you would be wise to beware of us. It was we whom he chose to be about him. It was we who admitted certain people to see him, and excluded others as we thought fit. And if one of us twelve could be a betrayer, how deeply then should we not mistrust every stranger!”

“I fear neither you nor your power,” I said. “I never heard of his using his power to strike even his adversary, much less any who patiently seek him.”

“Ah, you know it all, don’t you!” said Thomas. “But he cursed a fig tree once so that it withered away before our eyes, and all because it bore only leaves and he found no fruit on it. It wasn’t even the season for figs.”

But John said, “We never knew quite what he meant by that. It must have been a parable that we didn’t understand.”

“It was to the people he spoke in parables,” Thomas objected. “To us he talked openly. But if we failed to understand then, how should we now? So it would be better to leave here without more delay.”

I was growing weary of his objections and threats. “Be it as you will,” I said. “I am sorry if I have troubled you both at a time when other things weigh so heavily on your minds. As for me, I have come from Alexandria in search of the ruler of the world, whose birth is foretold in many different prophecies. Such prophecies are current among other races besides the Jews. The sign has been noted both in Rome and Greece. And it is in Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified as king of the Jews and whose death I myself witnessed, that I have found the ruler of the world. His kingdom is different from what I expected and different, it seems, from what you expected. But his resurrection has convinced me of its existence.”

Yet when I had said this, my eyes smarted with tears of disappointment; I turned away my head and looked with blurred gaze at the great banquet hall, whose corners were hidden in darkness. For a brief moment I was aware of the same presence as in Lazarus’ guest room. But this was no dream. On the contrary I was wide awake and susceptible to impressions. I was filled with a desire to call upon him and take his name, as when the stone had been turned into cheese in the blind man’s hand. But some dread withheld me from doing so in this room and in the presence of these two men. No, I dared not speak his name. I said humbly, “Peace be with you,” and turned to leave.

Thomas walked a few paces ahead of me to unlock the door, but when he had turned the big wooden key and grasped the handle, the door would not open. He shook it and turned the key once more, but in vain. “This door has warped and jammed,’” he said angrily.

“Don’t force it or you’ll break the lock,” said John, coming up to help him. But John could not work the lock either. They were both surprised and looked at me reprovingly, as if it had been my fault. So I went over to them and tried. I have no great experience of wooden locks and wooden keys, but the key turned obediently and the door was easy to open. Cool night air wafted toward me; above the garden I saw a sky of stars, and one star flew in a golden streak across the heavens, like a sign. The sticking door and the shooting star I took as a token that he himself, their king, would not shut me out of his kingdom as these his messengers wished to do. But they saw no omen. Thomas simply turned and twisted the key in the lock, muttering to himself that he being a poor man was unaccustomed to keys, for he had nothing worth locking up.

They both remained in the room as I went down the steps. In the courtyard young Mark met me and asked considerately, “Can you find your way to your lodging, stranger? The second watch of the night has already begun.”

I said, “Don’t concern yourself about me or my welfare. It’s true that Nathaniel led me here by detours and winding alleys until he was breathless from fear, so that I shouldn’t know where I was; all the same I think I can get back to the city. I go first through the wall and then downhill, and I can take my bearings from the stars. Once I find the theatre and the forum, I know my way.”

But Mark said eagerly, “Father and Uncle asked me to be your host this evening. I offered you no refreshment, because our Lord’s messengers wouldn’t eat with you, since you’re a Roman. But allow me to show hospitality at least by walking back with you to your lodging.”

I protested, smiling. “You’re young, and youth needs sleep. As it is, you’ve had to sit up on my account.”

“On evenings like this one can’t sleep,” said Mark. “Wait; I will fetch my mantle.”

The sleepy serving-woman grumbled at him by the gate, but Mark laughed, patted her cheeks and slipped out through the gateway with me. I saw that he had brought a stick weighted with lead at one end: no very pleasant discovery, even though I had no fear of a half-grown boy.

He guided me confidently straight down the hill, and evidently had no intention of misleading me to prevent my getting home. In dark places he took my hand and led me, lest I should stumble. I believe he wanted very much to talk but did not like to as I was silent.

At length I felt bound to say, “You knew him then, this Jesus of Nazareth?”

Marcus pressed my hand hard and replied, “Yes indeed I knew him. I was there to arrange and serve the meal when he and his messengers ate the paschal lamb a day early, according to the custom of the holy ones of the desert. That was his last evening. But before that I saw him and greeted him as the Son of David when he came riding into Jerusalem on a donkey.”

He bragged a little: “Father had got a donkey for him; it was waiting at a certain place for his disciples to find. On that day the people spread their clothes on the road before him, waved palm branches and shouted Hosanna. Father and Uncle let him use the upper room without charge.”

I was curious, and asked, “Who is your father? How could he show sympathy with Jesus without fear of the authorities?”

Mark’s face clouded and he said softly, “Father won’t have his name mentioned in connection with these matters. But he belongs to the quiet ones, although he is rich, and I believe the quiet ones had asked him to protect the king. But Jesus didn’t want to endanger my father or his household by letting himself be arrested at our place, and so he went to Gethsemane for the night. But Judas, the betrayer, knew the room; so they came to us first, with burning torches and clashing weapons, and banged on the door. That was when I jumped out of bed and ran to warn him.”

He explained, “Father can always defend himself before the Council by telling them that he lets the upper room regularly for parties and weddings and such things. And no one has ever molested him, for he has friends among the men in authority. They may know perfectly well that the Galileans are in the habit of gathering in that room after dark, but they don’t want to stir up more trouble and attract attention by trying to stop them. They are oppressed enough already by their guilt in murdering the son of God in so terrible a way.”

“Was he the son of God?” I asked, to test the boy.

Mark answered sincerely, “Of course he was the son of God, and his anointed. Nobody but one sent by God could do what he did. And besides, he has come out of his tomb and is alive, although he was dead. My Uncle Nathaniel has even eaten with him since then. Dead bodies, and spirits without bodies, cannot eat. So of course he is alive.”

In my heart I liked his straightforward boyish faith, yet my reason made me say ironically, “Clearly you are not yet burdened with learning, since you’re so ready to believe all you hear.”

The boy defended himself. “I can read and write Greek and a little Latin besides. Father has business affairs in Cyprus and even as far away as Rome. I am not as ignorant as you think. Remember that I have seen him several times, and heard him speak. Once when he came home to us he laid his hands on my head. For you it must be harder to believe, since you only saw him die, I have heard. But I saw him in the days of his strength and power.”

We had reached the wall that divides the upper city from the lower, and I paused at the gate where I had met Mary of Beret. “I can find my way from here,” I said. But I did not move, nor did Mark seem willing to leave me. Another star fell across the sky, and we both saw it.

“Even the stars are full of unease in these times,” I remarked. “Something is happening. Perhaps the days of his power are only now beginning, but in a way we can’t yet comprehend.”

Mark did not take his leave or turn homeward. Shyly he fingered his mantle and poked at the ground with his stick.

“But,” I said, “I am surprised that Nathaniel didn’t recognize him at once, and Mary Magdalene only when he called her by name.”

“They couldn’t expect to,” returned Mark in their defense. “Even while he was alive he took on many aspects; they changed with his mood. It’s hard to explain. It was as if he had everybody’s face. All who believed in him thought that he resembled someone they had once loved. It was difficult to look him in the face. His gaze was too grave. I often saw old men lower their eyes after meeting his.”

“You may be right,” I said. “I saw his suffering on the cross, knowing nothing about him. But I couldn’t look at him. I should never be able to describe his appearance. True, it was fairly dark. I thought it was out of respect for his agony that I avoided looking at him very closely; yet perhaps I could not have done so even had I wished. And I am not surprised, seeing that he was the son of God. Even his guards acknowledged that, when the earth shook at the moment of his death.

“But,” I continued, giving vent to my bitterness, “however he may have chosen his messengers, they are ignorant men, and it doesn’t seem to me that they have the right to prevent others from seeking their teacher. That is wrong, and ill-done of them. I believe as you do. They exaggerate their fear so as to keep his mystery to themselves. They would hardly be in danger of further persecution even if they left their hiding place.”

Mark pondered, and then said, “I think you’re wrong. They may be ignorant men, yet there’s something about them that other people lack. I believe they dared look him in the face and took no harm. At least John did. It was John he loved most. Don’t be too hard on them, stranger.”

But I heard the smile in his voice as he went on. “Though I must say, they’re not always easy. I believe Father’s tired of them too, because of their quarrels and hot tempers. Peter especially—the biggest of them—is headstrong, and bickers with the women; and yet, it’s they who feed the men and keep them hidden. Big and strong though he is, he’s very childish. In any case, Galileans in general are different from us of Jerusalem. They don’t grasp the subtleties of the scriptures as the masters of Israel do. They’re country folk, and see things in a practical, literal way.”

Presently he added, “It’s true that they’re curt with strangers; not even while he was alive did they let just anyone come to him. Someone else besides you has sought them out, but they refused to see him because they didn’t consider him a child of Israel.”

This made me curious. “Tell me about it,” I said.

“Have you heard how he sank to the ground on the way, when the arm of the cross he had to carry became too heavy for him?” said Mark. “The Romans caught hold of a man coming into the city from the fields, and forced him to carry the cross. They took him for an ordinary laborer, but he is a great landowner and respected in the synagogue of the libertines. At first he was going to complain of such treatment, but then he changed his mind. He knew nothing of what was happening; he is from Cyrene, and avoids having anything to do with politics. But when he found out, and learned whose cross he had been carrying, he was filled with distress and wanted to learn more of Jesus from his disciples. Yet Peter distrusted even him. Besides, it was just at the time that the disciples were most frightened. He never went back to ask them again about the Way. It might be worth your while to find him and talk to him. Jesus may have said something important to him on the road, since he was so troubled afterwards.”

“Where can I find him?” I asked.

“He is called Simon of Cyrene,” said Mark. “Ask in the libertines’ synagogue; they’re sure to know him there.”

“What sort of a synagogue is that?”

“They read the scriptures in Greek,” Mark explained. “It was founded by liberated slaves who returned from Rome as rich men. Immigrants from Alexandria and Cyrene support it too, for as a rule they have so little of the Hebrew in them that they no longer understand the language of our fathers. It’s a wealthy, broad-minded synagogue which doesn’t lay overheavy burdens on its supporters. I think you would be well received there if you should care to hear the scriptures read in Greek some Sabbath.”

This was advice I valued. “I thank you, Mark,” I said. “I was shut out, and bidden to seek the Way by myself. Perhaps this man Simon is seeking it as well. It’s easier for two to search than for one. Peace be with you.”

“And with you too be peace, O friend of the Governor,” he returned meaningly. “If anyone asks, you will be able to tell them that there is no dangerous conspiracy here.”

“I am my own friend, and have no others,” I replied, irritated that this youth should so pointedly convey his suspicion that I might pass on what information I had gleaned to the Romans. “Were anyone to ask me, I could at any rate affirm that the two I met tonight are neither incendiaries nor disturbers of the peace. But I don’t believe anyone will ask me anything. And in any case, Pontius Pilate is the man who above all others wants to forget this whole matter as quickly as possible.”

“Peace be with you,” said Mark again, and we parted, and nothing more befell me that night.

I did not need to go to the synagogue of the libertines to find Simon of Cyrene. My landlord, Karanthes the Syrian, said at once when I asked him about this man, “Give yourself no trouble over this; wait a moment and I’ll tell you all you want to know about him.”

Calling his son to take his place at the counter, he vanished into the alleyway, and I had barely time to quench my thirst, seated there on his threshold, before he was back again. He began, “Yes, well, that man Simon has made money in Cyrene in his day, and when he moved here some years ago he bought a number of fields, vineyards, and olive groves near the city. He has interests in other towns of Judea as well. He lives in the Greek style. They say he even attends the theatre and the gymnasium bathhouse, although he wears a beard; and he’s not regarded as an orthodox Jew. Some declare that he’s not even circumcised, but he’s too rich for anyone to inquire into that. At least he observes the law and keeps the Sabbath holy. He seems to have been involved in a shameful business the other day, when the Romans dragged him out of the crowd to carry the cross of that agitator they crucified. The disgrace of it has so preyed on his mind that he has shut himself up in his house and speaks to no one.”

He explained to me exactly how to find Simon’s place, and then asked with a sly smile, “What do you want of him? Are you thinking of investing in land or raising a loan? If so, I know many better men you could turn to, and I don’t recommend Simon at all; it seems he goes about gathering dry branches for firewood and hardly eats anything but bread and green vegetables.”

His information sounded contradictory to me, and I was curious to meet Simon of Cyrene. But my landlord assailed me with questions as to what I wanted the man for, and I believe he had my interests at heart; so at last I said reluctantly, “I want to meet him on account of that very incident you mentioned, to ask him what he knows of Jesus of Nazareth, since he carried the cross for him.”

Karanthes was much upset, and tugging at my mantle he said warningly, “Don’t talk so loud about unpleasant matters!”

But I said, “You’ve treated me well, and I don’t want to conceal anything from you. I have reason to believe that the Jews’ crucified king was the most remarkable man who has ever lived, and that he was the son of God. I’m as good as convinced that he left his tomb on the third day, and that he’s still alive, although he was dead. Therefore I want to find out all about him, including whatever Simon of Cyrene may know.”

My Syrian landlord answered with tears in his voice, “Alas, and woe upon you! What misfortunes have I brought upon my household and my livelihood by receiving you into my guestroom? If you weren’t a friend of Adenabar the centurion, I would be wise to gather up all your belongings forthwith and throw you out of my house. Things like this are spoken of in whispers within four walls and not in the street, where anyone may hear. In any case one should never put faith in the tales of cranks and the visions of crazy women. Certainly I know and have heard rumors of what you allude to, but believe me, you would do best to keep away from such things or the Jews will soon be hurling stones at your head. You can’t yet have grasped that for the Jews, religion is politics and politics religion, and nothing they do is altogether divorced from their faith; their God is ever-vigilant and keeps watch upon them day and night to see that they conduct themselves as his law prescribes. So in these matters it is best to walk on tiptoe and hold one’s tongue, especially when one is a foreigner.”

“I am a Roman citizen,” I said. “No Jew can harm me. I am not under their jurisdiction. If they were to charge me with anything concerning their religion, not even the Proconsul would dare to sit in judgment over me; I should be sent to Rome to appear before Caesar.”

“But they say that Caesar doesn’t live in Rome anymore; that he is away on an island somewhere,” said Karanthes innocently. “In his place is another who rules; a crafty, rapacious man who handles the bribes.”

Now it was my turn to grab my landlord, clap my hand over his mouth and look about me in a fright lest someone should have heard him.

“Had you said that in Rome,” I told him, “you would have talked the head from your body.”

Calmly Karanthes loosened my hand from his mouth and said, “There, you see? In Rome do as the Romans do, but in Jerusalem as the Jews do. Here the name of the crucified man is just as inflammable and dangerous as the name of that other man in Rome.”

He hesitated a moment, looked about him, and then squatted down beside me to whisper in my ear as I sat there on his threshold, wrapped in my dyed Jewish mantle.

“Rumors are rumors,” he whispered, “but only afterwards did we lesser people and foreigners fully realize from how great a disaster we were saved by the swift action of the Jewish Council. You see, at Passover time we were all living on the brink of a volcano without knowing it. The people had already proclaimed him king and son of David, and it’s said that he had secret support from a congregation and conspiracy in the desert, called the quiet ones. It seems they meant to set fire to the temple during the feast, as a sign to the people, overthrow the Council and set up an administration of workpeople and small farmers. As you can imagine, this would have been a really welcome opportunity for the Romans to interfere. The Governor had already mustered a whole legion in readiness, from all the garrisons, and he himself lodged in Antonia; for he dared not stay in Herod’s palace as he usually does. But when the rioters lost their leader, they had to creep back underground again.’”

“I don’t believe you,” I said. “According to all I’ve heard, his kingdom is not of this world at all.”

“Yes, well, rumors are only rumors,” remarked Karanthes placidly. “But there must be something behind such persistent and consistent stories. There’s no smoke without fire. What do you think?”

“I believe that the Council and the priests and the scribes spread that kind of rumor themselves, so as to justify a brutal murder,” I said firmly. “He wasn’t like that. I’ve heard that he told people if they were struck on one cheek to turn the other, and that one should never repay evil with evil. And that I believe is the only way to free oneself from the power of evil, which leads merely to revenge and fresh revenge and revenge again.”

“Then he has only himself to blame,” said Karanthes in a matter-of-fact tone. “Anyone who works here on earth and performs actions and proclaims doctrines must submit to this world’s laws. He may have been exploited by others for their own ends; it’s possible, for no one has heard anything but good of the man himself. But the only possible course for the Jewish Council to take was to draw their conclusions according to the facts, and their political common sense. It is not seemly to heal the sick and raise the dead in order to lead folk astray, or to proclaim that one is the son of their God. So far as we know, their God has no son and can never have one. That is just where he differs from other gods. Such things make for political disturbance. And in a revolt it is always the hotheads who seize power, not the sober ones. I’m sure that my shop would have been in flames and my daughter lying in the gutter with a broken head and spread legs as soon as the disturbance had begun, and before I had even had time to hail the new king.”

I pondered his warning and all I had heard and experienced. Then I said reflectively, “I believe that his revolt begins inside people, not outside them. This is where it differs from all others. But how that is to come about I still don’t know.”

Karanthes raised his hands in resignation and said, “One can see you’re not married. Do as you please, but don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

So I went to the house of Simon of Cyrene. It lay in a narrow alley and was outwardly no different from other houses in the city. But the door was locked although it was the middle of the day. When I had been knocking on it for a time, a serving-woman came, opened it a crack, and quickly covered her head at the sight of me. I greeted her and asked for her master, but she said defensively, “My master is sick and keeps to a darkened room; he does not wish to see anyone.”

I told her my name, mentioned Aristainos the banker as my reference, and said at last, “I am sure your master will see me, for I want to speak with him on the very matter that is weighing upon his mind.”

The servant let me in and went to fetch her master. I noticed that behind its shabby façade the whole house had been rebuilt in the Greek style. The large atrium had an opening in the roof and a rain-water basin in the floor, which was decorated with mosaic figures—flowers, fishes and birds—although Jewish law forbids such images. Along the walls were bronze objects and Greek vases as in any other cultured home. Presently a Greek slave came in, carrying a scroll under his arm. He was dressed in an elegantly pleated linen mantle, and had gray hair. His eyes were red-rimmed, as if from much reading in bad light. He greeted me in the Roman manner and made me sit down and wait.

“What is that you’re reading?” I asked.

Putting the scroll behind his back, he answered, “It’s just a book by a Jewish prophet. I’m tutor to my master’s sons, Rufus and Alexander, though my master is a simple man who doesn’t care for poetry.”

“Allow me to guess what it is,” I said with a smile. “I read the same myself in Alexandria, and recently I have heard some of it recited. Is it not the book of Isaiah the prophet?”

The slave was startled; he glanced at the roll in his hand and then at me, and asked, “Are you a seer or a magician that you know what I’ve been reading to my master?”

“I’m by no means a magician,” I answered. “I know a little of astronomy, thanks to my foster father Manilius. You will hardly have heard of his work Astronomica.”

He said, “I haven’t, but I know that the Romans borrow everything from us Greeks, translate it into their language and publish it as their own.”

The gray-haired slave was evidently tender of his dignity. I asked, “What do you think of the Jewish prophet?”

He answered, “I’m a Greek. These pretentious Jewish obscurities bore me. I read the book aloud to my master, but think my own thoughts meanwhile. The tortoise can beat Achilles, as has been proved. As a slave I have assumed the role of the tortoise. I never attempt to circumvent Aesop and Homer, as do the Jews.”

Simon of Cyrene entered, and I looked at him closely. He had tossed a ragged mantle, gray with age, over his shoulders; his beard was unkempt, and he had the big hands of a tiller of the soil. He was a powerfully built, middle-aged man, and his face was deeply browned by the sun. He sat down on the red-covered master’s chair and waved the slave impatiently away.

Without greeting me he demanded curtly, “What is your business, Roman? What do you want of me?”

I looked about me, fearing eavesdroppers. Then I replied, simply and straightforwardly, “I have heard that you grieve deeply on account of Jesus of Nazareth, and that you have tried to meet his disciples but they rejected you. I too seek the Way. Help me if you can.”

With his head on one side, he stared suspiciously at me under his bushy eyebrows and denied this, saying, “I seek no way. Who told you that? I found my own way many years ago, and so far it has served me well.”

I observed him carefully, and noted that he carried his head like a slave and had a slave’s suspicious look. Involuntarily I glanced at his ankle to find the indelible mark of the shackle, but his eyes followed the direction of mine and he hastily drew his feet in under the marble bench. At the same time he struck a little metal disk with a wooden hammer, to summon his servant.

“You have sharp eyes,” he said reluctantly. “Yes, I was a slave, but received my freedom more than ten years ago, and made my fortune in Cyrene in grain dealing before coming here to Jerusalem, where my great-grandfather once lived. I have two sons, and I want no one to look down at them because of my origins. But I was born a slave, and my father, and my grandfather before him. That sets its mark on a man, even if no one notices it. I have my place in the synagogue and at the theatre, my sons have Greek tutors and I live in a civilized way, as you see. Perhaps one day I shall be able to purchase Roman citizen-ship for my sons.”

The servant entered, bearing a silver tray; he offered me a gold beaker and filled it with dark wine from a dusty jar. On the tray were honey cakes, and beside them a barley loaf gray with ashes. Simon of Cyrene took an earthenware beaker from the tray and was given water. He broke a piece of the bread, blew the ash off it, and drank the water. I can’t deny that this surprised me.

“It may be that I too am weary of honey cakes,” I said. “If you will allow me, I will taste your barley bread. But your wine I won’t despise, since you have broken a seal on my account. Water would have been just as welcome, since from what I see it is water from the spring.”

“I get this from a good spring far from here,” said Simon of Cyrene. “Such a spring as I used to dream of as a boy, when I toiled under the glaring sun in the fields of Africa. I used to dream too of barley bread like this, for our slave bread was made of chaff and shelled corn, peas and African oats. When I grew rich I drank wine for a time, until I discovered that I didn’t like it. I ate honey bread and roast gazelle and spiced sauces, until I found out that pure bread and fresh vegetables were more to my taste and kept my body healthy. I have experienced many things: more than you can guess, Roman.”

Yet he spoke of this in no embittered way, but quite as a matter of course.

“It was a long time before I fully grasped that I was free,” he said, “and could enjoy the things I really like. My bed is still the hard sleeping bench of a slave, for soft down pillows make my back ache. I know very well that people laugh at me when, after having seen to my land and paid my laborers their daily wage, I gather twigs in my mantle and carry them home. I blame no one for wastefulness, but to be wasteful myself affords me no pleasure at all. As a boy I was flogged nearly to death for knowing no better than to collect dung and dry thistles from another man’s land, as fuel for my mother’s fire. For this reason I delight in gathering good fuel on my own land, and carrying it home to my own house in my own mantle.”

He went on to say, “I may be a stern master, for I tolerate no idleness among my workpeople; but I have never forbidden an olive gatherer to climb down from the tree and say his prayers. What I like best is to walk about my estate, gird up my mantle and work among the rest with my own hands.”

It seemed as if he wanted to avoid the subject I had introduced, for he continued, “That is the way I have found for myself. In my slave’s mind I have thought much about human freedom, so I never force my own kind of freedom and my own pleasures on others, but let them live in their own way. Perhaps it was childish of me to move back to Jerusalem, but from the stories my mother and father told me I knew that this is the promised land. They told me of the God of Israel too, or as much of him as they knew, although we slaves had neither synagogue nor teachers. Neither I nor even my father was circumcised as the law requires, so little did we know of the covenant between God and the people of Israel. Of the grain trade I know all there is to know, and would certainly have done well in Rome. But the grain that is shipped here for free distribution is tainted with blood, as the weals on my own back testify. A man yearns for the tales of his fathers, and the God of his fathers, and for a people of his own. I should never have made a Roman, and I see no point in increasing wealth for its own sake. I have enough for myself and for my sons, and I’ve invested my money prudently, duly considering every kind of risk. Now I ask no more than to live rightly, to revere and worship God and obey the commandments, without harming anyone else, and to delight in things that give me delight. The way I have found, you see, is very simple.”

“I respect your way,” I said. “In you there is none of the boasting and insolence that make rich freedmen in Rome so insufferable. They will pay any sum to be invited to a senator’s house or to address a man of title by his first name. Their manner of life excites nothing but ridicule. It’s understandable that you should have followed your tastes and adapted your house to the Greek style, and that you should show me your golden cups. But you’re not the slave of your possessions, as I realize from what you say.”

Simon of Cyrene threw out his hands.

“That’s what I’ve striven for,” he said. “I want to be as free as it is possible for any man to be. Even were I to lose all I possess—for no one can avoid misfortune—I shouldn’t lose much, being content with little. That little gives me more joy than any abundance.”

“Why then,” I asked, “has your encounter with the Nazarene so disturbed you that you hide in a dark room, behind locked doors, and refuse to see anyone?”

Sighing heavily he wiped his forehead with his hand and avoided my eye. “What do you know of him?” he demanded.

“I came here from Alexandria really to pass the time, and to see the holy city of the Jews at the feast of the Passover,” I replied. “I stopped and looked at the crucified man just as the sky darkened. I watched him suffer and die. On the third day after that I saw that his tomb was empty and that he had risen. Since then, I’ve never been rid of him. I heard that you carried his cross for some part of the way, and I can see that you haven’t been rid of him either. Why is this? Did he say anything special to you?”

Simon of Cyrene pressed his fists together and answered, “No, he said nothing at all; that’s what troubles me. He said nothing, he merely looked at me. I know nothing about him.” Simon went on to tell me, “I never meddle in politics, and I obey the commandments of the law as my synagogue prescribes. The other two were robbers, you could see that. I was on my way home from the fields, and I stopped to watch. Just at that moment he fell beneath the weight of his cross, and he couldn’t get up again. By then I was jammed in by the crowd. A merciful woman bent and wiped the blood and sweat from his face with her own sweat cloth; but he couldn’t get to his feet, although the Romans kicked him with their iron-shod boots. The centurion looked about him and pointed to me, in the arbitrary way the Romans have. There must be something of the slave in me still, for I obeyed and they laid the cross upon my back. He looked at me then, and struggled up onto his trembling legs. I made no protest, but carried his cross all the way to the hill. If I had lodged a complaint the centurion would have been severely reprimanded, but I was unwilling to stir up unnecessary trouble with the Romans. I stayed while they stretched him out and forced his arms down with their knees. The provost marshal of the legion drove the nails through his wrists. Then he looked at me again, and I turned away, fled back to the city and shut myself up here.”

He rubbed his face with both hands, shook his matted head and went on. “You could hardly understand. I have seen many men crucified. I have even seen slaves mocking their own companions who’d been nailed up for killing a foreman in anger or setting fire to a field. I would not have thought I could be so strongly affected by the sight of suffering. But he looked at me. I felt dizzy, and so I fled, for I was afraid the earth would give beneath my feet.

“How am I to explain it to you,” he cried in despair, “when I don’t understand it myself? When he was lying there on the ground looking at me, his face swollen from blows and the crown of thorn twigs on his head, nothing was of any value to me anymore. People oughtn’t to look at one like that. I went into a dark room and drew my mantle over my head, and dared not run out into the courtyard even when the ground shook and a wall split. Next day I broke the Sabbath and walked far, and sought out his disciples, but they would not listen to me. Afterwards it was said in the city that the disciples had made the Roman guards drunk and carried his body away by stealth, to deceive the people. But something tells me that this is not true. A man who can look at a person as he looked at me can rise from the tomb by his own strength. You explain to me who he was and what he wants.”

“So far as I’ve understood,” I replied cautiously, “he brought his own kingdom with him on to the earth. His kingdom is still with us. I seek the way to it, and I hoped he might have said something to you which would have guided me.”

“If he only had,” Simon of Cyrene lamented. “He may have thought me unworthy, seeing that I accepted his cross so unwillingly. But now, since he looked at me, even fresh spring water tastes musty, and good bread sticks in my throat. Ay, even my sons have become strangers to me, so that I no longer rejoice when I see them. And strangers they are in any case, for I wanted to give them a different upbringing from my own. Yet formerly I took delight in seeing how well they behaved, and how they could read and debate with their teachers on matters of which I neither have nor desire knowledge, my own experience sufficing me. But in this matter my experience is no help to me. I have been robbed of joy, and might just as well go back to the slaves’ quarters and have a ring forged around my ankle.”

“Have you heard of the quiet ones in the land, who were awaiting him?” I asked at length.

“Why else do you suppose I have the prophet Isaiah’s book read aloud to me?” Simon of Cyrene asked bitterly. “There has been so great a demand for it these last days that I had to pay five times the price for a Greek scroll. But there’s no help for me here. Don’t talk to me of the quiet ones in the land. I know that they recognize one another by greetings and secret signs, but I refuse to get mixed up in politics. I’m a libertine and want no other position.”

“But,” said I, “they can hardly be striving for any political goal. At least not any longer. I think they believe that God has been born on earth in human shape, that he walked among them, and suffered, and that he has risen again to fulfill what was written and in some inconceivable way to open his kingdom to them. But there is still no one who knows how all this is to be explained.”

Simon of Cyrene heaved up his broad shoulders and shook himself, as if to rid himself of an invisible burden. “On these shoulders of mine, then, I have borne God’s cross,” he said, horror in his voice. “I won’t deny it, or contradict you. My heart tells me that you speak the truth. He looked at me twice.”

With agony he went on, “I had heard of a new teacher who had given great offense, but I could never have connected him with that bloodstained man, crowned with thorns, reeling away to be crucified. It wasn’t until we were up on the hill and someone read the inscription to me—for I can’t read—that I realized that this was the same Jesus of whom I’d heard. But I’d never believed more than half of what was told of him. Life has taught me to be incredulous. I didn’t care much about the miracles he did, either; but in Jericho there is a chief tax collector named Zaccheus. This Zaccheus climbed up into a sycamore tree for a better view of the new teacher, and it seems that Jesus called him down and visited him in his house, although he’s a publican. When Jesus had gone, they say, Zaccheus shared out half his possessions among the poor, and paid back fourfold all that he had wrongly extorted. After confessing to his misdemeanors he was charged, but acquitted, on the score of insanity, and removed from office. Now, I can well understand that anyone possessing that power can command a lame man to rise up and walk, but it’s an incomparably greater miracle to make a rich man distribute half his property among the poor. Such things just don’t happen. It’s impossible. Even the judges saw that Zaccheus was out of his head. I should really like to meet him sometime and hear from his own lips what it was that Jesus said to him, and how he could have lost his wits to such a degree.”

If my Roman common sense has helped me in no other way, it has at least made me practical, Greek philosophy notwithstanding.

“You’re right,” I said. “Let’s start for Jericho at once and meet this Zaccheus. He may have learned something from him which is of greater value than all the possessions in the world. Such a secret is well worth searching out. You said yourself he had only to look at you to deprive everything else of its value.”

But Simon of Cyrene demurred. “Jericho is a long day’s journey from here, even if we hurry. Today is the eve of the Sabbath, and in any case I would rather not leave Jerusalem just now. If he really has risen, then his kingdom that you speak of so eagerly is nearest to us here. That’s only common sense.”

I knew he was right. Not even Jesus’ own messengers wanted to leave Jerusalem, but were waiting here for something to happen.

I said, “We have this in common, that we’re both outsiders who by chance have witnessed these events. Yet I no longer believe in chance; I begin to suspect that you and I were specially led to find his Way. In any case, we have both got a thorn in our hearts and shall know no peace until we see daylight in these things.”

Simon of Cyrene answered bitterly, “I had daylight and a way. But I’m no longer free, only struggling like a fish in the net. I never wanted eternal life, such as the Pharisees believe they can obtain by obeying the law to the uttermost letter. I’ve seen far too many slaves breathe their last, to believe in another life. I hold rather with the Sadducees, who have no such hopes. In our synagogue we don’t argue about these things. Our teachers have sat at the feet of the sages of Alexandria. I believe a little in sorcery, both harmful and useful, for I’m bound to believe what I see with my own eyes. By giving alms and obeying the law within reasonable and wholesome limits, I comfort my mind, having seen how full the world is of cruelty and heartlessness. But I do not believe that by good actions I can purchase eternal life. A deceiver can surely not bribe God, though he should have a trumpet blown before him when he distributes alms. I don’t believe there’s any life after death—not even a shadow-existence such as Greeks and Romans imagine—nor that one may be born again as a cock; for in Cyrene they tried to force even that belief upon me. There were dogs there that chased runaway slaves and were fed on slaves’ flesh.”

He plunged among his memories and went on. “People came all the way from Rome to the great farming estates in Africa to learn how economically and practically the labor was organized, how cheaply slaves can be fed, and how they are bred by mating strong slaves with strong women. But of what profit is it to sit and recall old times? It no longer helps me to rejoice in my freedom.”

His strong wine had mounted to my head without my noticing it, and I said smugly, “Simon of Cyrene, I do not despise you, freedman though you are. I am indeed a Roman citizen, and have even the right to wear a gold ring on my thumb; but in Rhodes I learned not to attach importance to the privileges of birth, but rather to distinguish myself by my own achievements. However, I never distinguished myself to any great extent, having cultivated thought rather than action. I have never even considered slaves and the slave system except to reflect that slaves present awkward problems for their owners, and that a prosperous man is never at peace for the menials that swarm about him day and night. In this way a comfort-loving person becomes the slave of his own slaves. But you’ve opened my eyes to the fact that a slave is a human being too, much like myself, even though he be branded on the forehead, and perhaps castrated if his vicious disposition needs curbing. Simon of Cyrene, you are my neighbor, and I would like to love you as myself if I could. That was something that the risen man taught. No doubt I’m better educated than you, but in these new things my learning is of no value. I feel that I’ve been tossed into an entirely new world, where I must learn everything from the beginning. Therefore in all sincerity I would like to be your friend, widely though we differ in rank and standing.”

But my words hurt Simon’s pride, which among freedmen is more sensitive than in others. He thumped his earthenware mug on the arm of his chair so that water from it splashed into my eyes, and exclaimed, “For shame, Roman! Your thumb ring I cast into the gutter, and I make water on your philosophy. Those are but the vanities of idle people, and they grow not a single ear of corn. The same is true of this curiosity of yours: all you want is to have some story to tell which will mark you out from other men. Crafty vanity shows in your sparse beard, and the tassels of your mantle. You’re like an actor who seeks a new part at all costs because he has failed in all the others.”

A few days earlier I would have flung my wine in his face, railed at him and rushed from the house. But his biting words dispelled my tipsiness, so that I fell silent and began pondering what he had said. Could he really be right in thus condemning me? It was from natural curiosity alone that I had started upon this way, but the farther I have followed it, the more clearly do I see that I am vitally concerned in it and am changing with every step I take.

“Forgive my boasting,” I said. I, a citizen, actually stooped to beg the pardon of an uneducated freedman! “As men we are equal in this matter. I’m in no way exceptional. They say that on the last evening he knelt down and washed the feet of his disciples to teach them humility. I’m mad enough to kneel down willingly and wash your feet if you will, Simon of Cyrene.”

“I wash my own feet, and need no servant to do it for me,” Simon snapped. Then he added, more mildly, “Don’t be of-fended by what I say. Since he looked at me he has become a matter of life and death to me.”

As a sign that he regarded me as a friend, Simon touched my forehead, shoulder and breast, and his touch was not distasteful.

“Perhaps you’ve been guided to me at just the right moment,” he said. “The boys’ Greek tutor has been reading the scriptures to me, yawning incessantly; and I myself grasped no more of them than he. I was just thinking of leaving my house in search of a scribe who could interpret the prophecies to me. Probably he would have split every word in two and explained everything first by the letter and then symbolically, and after that compared this scripture with others, and I should have been none the wiser. You see, since he looked at me I know that this teaching is not a written doctrine, but a kind of life.”

Simon looked about him and asked, “What has happened? I feel a great relief, and am free of my fear.”

It was as if a cloud had glided away above the open roof of the atrium, for all at once everything brightened. At that moment a tall man came in and walked, wrapped in his mantle, across the room toward the inner part of the house as if he had not noticed us at all. Simon of Cyrene called after him, “Is that you, Eleazar? Has anything happened out in the fields?”

He stood up and said, “That is my bailiff, Eleazar. I expect someone has broken his arm, or a donkey has fallen down the well, and I am needed.”

He followed the man, while I stayed seated, wondering where I could have seen the stranger before; for there was something familiar about him. I couldn’t help laughing when it struck me that he reminded me most of my old teacher in Rhodes. It seemed to me that he was slightly bald in just the same way, and had he been dressed in the Greek fashion the likeness would have been quite striking. But I knew that my teacher had been dead for many years, and I was saddened, as I reflected on how receptive and open to good I had been at that time.

Presently Simon of Cyrene returned and said with annoyance, “I don’t know where Eleazar can have got to. Perhaps he went out through the courtyard when he didn’t find me in my room.” He struck the metal disk with the hammer, and when the servant appeared he said, “Go and fetch me Eleazar. He passed through this room just now, but never saw me because I was sitting in shadow.”

The servant said in surprise, “I haven’t seen Eleazar today.” But he went to look for him, then came back to say, “No, no, you must have been mistaken. Eleazar isn’t here and the gate is locked.”

Simon of Cyrene went to see for himself. I heard him talking angrily to a serving-woman, walking from room to room, and shoving things aside. It was a long time before he returned and said, “There’s no one here. The servant swears she hasn’t opened the gate since you came, and no one in the house has seen Eleazar.”

I said in amusement, “Well, I thought he was my late teacher from Rhodes. Lucky that he has left tracks on the stone floor, or we should both believe that we’d seen a ghost.”

I pointed to the prints of bare feet on the polished floor. Simon of Cyrene bent to look at them, and said absently, “Eleazar seems to have hurt his foot.”

He touched a footprint with his finger and picked up a speck of blood on it. I fell on my knees and stared at the marks. A cold shudder ran through me from head to foot as I raised my eyes to his and stammered, “Now I see why his disciples didn’t immediately recognize him.”

But Simon of Cyrene didn’t understand; he snapped irascibly, “My house is ill-guarded indeed if people can run in and out here when the gate’s shut.”

“Did you really not recognize him?” I asked.

Simon of Cyrene insisted stubbornly, “That was Eleazar, my bailiff.”

Raising my hands I exclaimed, “No, no; these footprints are holy ones and your house is blessed. He who has risen has passed by and allowed us to see him because we seek his Way so eagerly.”

Simon’s brown face turned gray, but he protested with vehemence, “That was Eleazar; I saw him and recognized him. I won’t have you frightening me like this.”

“Believe what you like,” I returned. “I know what I think. There was something about him that was familiar to both of us, since we have both seen him. But how could we have known at once that it was he? Mary Magdalene didn’t recognize him either until he spoke her name.”

“What is it you’re trying to make me swallow?” demanded Simon of Cyrene suspiciously. “I’ve seen a sorcerer call up spirits, but his spirits were images on illuminated smoke, and they moved with the smoke. No spirit leaves footprints on the floor.”

“He’s not just a spirit,” I said. “Do you still not understand? He came out of his tomb and still lives among us, coming and going as he chooses. Even through locked doors.”

But Simon’s slave-reasoning would not yield, “I can believe that he rose again, because of the way he looked at me,” he said. “But I can’t see why he should show himself to you and me. We’re not his disciples; we never knew him in his lifetime. You’re an uncircumcised Roman and I’m an ex-slave. Why should the king show himself to us?”

“His kingdom was close to us before he showed himself,” I said. “Didn’t you notice how light it grew just before he came? You felt a sense of relief, you told me, and so did I. I still feel in a cheerful mood. Why should we marvel at his purposes, though we are outsiders? By showing himself to us he must surely have meant that we too have the right to seek his way as best we can.”

“If that was he I will hand over my property to my sons and follow him wherever he chooses,” Simon said, “but it was not; it was Eleazar.” Nevertheless he began bitterly bewailing his fate, clenching his great fists and sighing, “Why should this happen to me? Could he have found no younger man to gather into his net? This is just how misfortune comes upon a man, suddenly, when he least expects it. What ill-luck brought me into his Way just when I was hoping to spend my days in contentment with what I have?”

From this I saw that he did believe, albeit against his will. I said cheeringly, “Simon, my brother, be sure that he can give you incomparably more than you’ve had hitherto. But if the Way seems to you too hard, don’t follow him; stay as you are. I don’t believe he would force anyone to follow him who in his innermost heart had not already prepared himself for the Way.”

At that moment there came a violent knocking at the gate, and we both started. We heard the squeal of the lock and the opening of the gate, and then the voice of the servant woman, arguing. Past her and into the room rushed a short man with a large head, wringing his hands and crying, “Where is he? Where have you hidden him? When I saw him come in here I tethered my donkey to the ring in the wall and waited patiently, but he has not yet come out. I want to see him.”

“Of whom do you speak, stranger?” asked Simon. “There is no one here but my guest, and we have been conversing together for a long time.”

The comical little man came over and peered short-sightedly up at me, and then said, “This is not the man I’m looking for.” He was expensively and elaborately dressed for a Jew, and if I am not mistaken he wore a mantle of Milesian wool.

“Whom do you seek, then?” asked Simon again. “And why do you force your way so shamelessly into my house?”

“It matters not to you whom I seek,” the little man retorted mysteriously. “It was a man who passed me on the road. I didn’t recognize him until he was some way ahead, but he didn’t stop or hear me when I called. And although I urged on my donkey as hard as I could he reached the city before me, and I saw him come in here.”

At that moment there was another knock at the door, and in walked a countryman with a frank, sunburnt face. Simon of Cyrene sighed with relief at the sight of him and exclaimed, “There you are, Eleazar! Why did you pass through here just now without a word, and where did you go?”

But Eleazar answered in surprise, “I’ve not been here at all; I come now straight from the fields to hear what troubles you, master, for you have not been out there yourself for many days. The footsteps of the master refresh the soil, and I know not which way to turn without you there to direct me. Surely you are not sick?”

I was staring at his feet. They were bare, and seemed to me red with blood. Pointing to them, I said, “Have you hurt your feet?”

Eleazar glanced at them in embarrassment and replied, “No. That is the dye we use to mark the sacrificial lambs, and I haven’t washed, for I came with all speed to my master so that he may tell me how things are done in Cyrene, and bellow in my ear. For unless he does so, I cannot order the tasks to please him.”

The little man looked from one to another of us, and losing his temper he shouted, crimson in the face, “Are you making a fool of me? Why do you talk of fields and lambs when I ask you quietly and calmly where you have hidden him?”

I said in reproof, “You fly at us like a fighting cock, little man. My name is Marcus and I’m a Roman citizen; our host is Simon of Cyrene and this man is his bailiff, Eleazar. Who may you be, and how dare you burst into a strange house as if you’d lost your wits?”

Haughtily he replied, “I am Zaccheus of Jericho, once chief among the publicans. Don’t mock my stature, for I’m no contemptible man in my own city—at least, not in Roman eyes.”

I clapped my hands in astonishment, and Simon of Cyrene exclaimed, “I have heard of you, Zaccheus. We were speaking of you but now. What wind has blown you hither? Were it not the Sabbath tomorrow we would have journeyed to Jericho to find you.”

Zaccheus glowered at us suspiciously, but I added my own assurance: “That is true. You then are the man who at the command of Jesus of Nazareth gave half your property to the poor, and made fourfold restitution to those you had fleeced.”

Zaccheus said, “It was no command. Of my own free will I distributed what I had wrongfully acquired. But what do you, a Roman, know of him?”

Eleazar rubbed his foot on the floor uncomfortably and said, “My master seems in good health, and I do not wish to listen to things that addle the brain and sicken the stomach.”

“Don’t be afraid,” I said. “But explain to us why you, a poor man, should fear to hear the Nazarene’s name.”

Eleazar shifted his feet, stared at the floor and said, “His burden would have been light and his yoke pleasant to bear. He promised us peace if we would come to him. But anyone who promises good things—things that are better than before—laborers, herdsmen and ploughmen, is brought before the judges. So they crucified him too, and I want to hear no more of him.”

“No, no!” cried Zaccheus eagerly. “You quite mistake his teaching. He came to find those who had gone astray, and he called even me a child of Abraham, although he knew me for a greedy, merciless man. Nor did he make a mock of my appearance but called me by name and bade me come down from the tree which I had climbed so as to see him, and he was then my guest.”

“And his kingdom is not of this world,” I put in as my contribution.

“But when he spoke we believed that his kingdom would soon be revealed,” said Zaccheus. “I did not go to Jerusalem with the others for the Passover, since I am a sinner and no gift of mine is accepted in the temple. It was only from those who returned after the feast that I learned in what a terrible way he had been murdered, and now I no longer know what to think or believe. I was filled with restlessness, and at last I mounted my donkey to ride to Jerusalem and gain particular information as to everything that has happened. But on the highway near Jerusalem he passed me.”

“Who?” demanded Simon of Cyrene.

Zaccheus reddened again, looked at the floor and twisted his hands. “He himself passed me,” he whispered. “Don’t you tell me that I’m out of my wits. I was just weary from my journey, being far from robust; my donkey was going slowly too, with drooping head. Only when he had gone on ahead of me did I feel that a force had passed by, and when I looked attentively at him I recognized him.”

“Did you really see him enter my house?” asked Simon sharply.

“He could have vanished nowhere else,” Zaccheus assured him. “I had heard it said in Jericho that he had risen from the dead, but that I didn’t believe, for such a thing has never happened before. But when I realized that it was he, I dared not shout aloud after him, nor did I want to attract attention by knocking immediately, for fear of exposing him to some danger. But now, be merciful and admit me to him, so that I may bow down before him and hail him as Messiah.”

When Eleazar heard the word Messiah, he swore coarsely and cried, “Don’t speak that word! He healed the sick and raised the dead, he rode like a king into Jerusalem, and with a scourge he cleansed the sanctuary. But his strength was not enough to crush the Council, though many a man had shod his staff with iron, and we were only waiting for a sign to follow him. Well and good; we have had our sign and we believe it; he was crucified between two thieves, and let no one talk to me of a Messiah again as long as I live. I believe of my own free will and shall not be misled again. My children shall know that there is no Messiah and never will be.”

“So you knew him too, Eleazar,” said Simon of Cyrene reproachfully. “Why did you never tell me about him while there was yet time?”

By now Eleazar was exasperated, and without weighing his words he exclaimed, “You were the last person I could tell; you, a rich man, and so miserly that you gather firewood from the ground so that widows and the fatherless can find none for themselves. The rich would have had no place in his kingdom; they were the ones we should have swept from his path first of all, and then shared out fields and vineyards and olive groves among the people. It is true that some said one thing of him and some another, but I believe that the children of light would have returned to Jerusalem to lead us. But John the Baptist was beheaded and Jesus of Nazareth was nailed to the cross. The rich and powerful and those learned in the law have in all ages murdered the prophets of our people. And now I can no longer endure the gall in me, but spew it up on your floor, master. You know how things are done in Cyrene, but I have learned through bitter experience how they are done in Jerusalem and Judea.”

When he had finished speaking, Simon of Cyrene said in a faint voice, “If I have offended against you so grossly, and have really deprived widows and fatherless of their dry twigs, then strike me. I deserve it.”

But Eleazar did not strike him. On the contrary, he repented of his spitefulness and hung his head and declared, “No, no, my words were unjust. You’re a good master—the best master one could find nowadays. On the contrary, you take care of widows and the fatherless, and you never keep too close and petty a reckoning of your sheaves and olive baskets. Many live solely on the crumbs that fall from your table. It is just that I am bitter and my heart black on Jesus of Nazareth’s account. He showed his power and promised so much, but he left us with empty hands.”

“They are not empty,” I said, “for he has given us something greater and stronger than anything that has ever been known in the world before.”

I pointed to the footprints, which had so faded that one could barely discern them in the sunlight. Simon of Cyrene now told the others what had happened to us and of the figure we had seen. At last he suggested, “Zaccheus, go, and take Eleazar with you, since you still don’t believe me and suspect that we have hidden him. Search all the rooms and corners in my house, look in the cellars and sheds and on the roof, leave no place unexamined, and so remove all shadow of doubt that he has vanished from my house in the same manner as he entered it. Then come back, that we may discuss the matter and decide what to do.”

The doubtful expression in Zaccheus’ eyes showed that he did not altogether believe Simon of Cyrene. But he agreed to the proposal and said, “It was not for nothing that I was promoted to be chief among the publicans. If I had a customs officer’s crowbar I should be sure to find all the secret places in your house. If I can’t find him, no one else can, and then I shall half believe that he is no longer here.”

Impatiently Simon bade him ask the servants for all the crowbars he needed. Followed by Eleazar, Zaccheus went into the inner part of the house with the jerky gait of a crippled man, and began a thorough search. Simon and I were silent for a long time, in an atmosphere of constraint.

At last I said, “As we talked of Zaccheus, he came. That may be a sign.”

Simon had no time to answer, for just at that moment we heard a great clamor and noise from the street outside, and once more we heard the servant open the door and begin wrangling with a crowd of people. Then in perplexity she came to Simon, sighed and said, “I know not what to be at, or what’s happening in your house. There is a mob of beggars out there, all excited and saying they have heard that you, Simon of Cyrene, are this day going to distribute food and drink to all the poor and wretched folk of Jerusalem.”

Simon clutched his head in both hands and cried, “Do I dream or wake? There’s no gathering of guests in my house today.” Turning to me, he said reproachfully, “What a sorcerer—what a malignant sorcerer you must be! This is all your doing, and I haven’t a clear thought left in my head.”

He hurried to the door and I went with him, and when he opened it we saw that the narrow alley outside was crammed with maimed, wounded, possessed people; with emaciated, withered women and children who with their eyes swarming with flies held out their leather-dry hands to Simon. They all shouted flattery and praise, and blessed him in the name of the God of Israel. Vainly Simon attempted to discover the source of the rumor that he was to give a banquet; but none of the beggars could give a plain answer to that question, and at each end of the alley one could see more of the wretches, limping or crawling and making all the haste they could toward his house.

Then Simon of Cyrene gave in, and summoning his servants he said to them, “Admit all these poor creatures to my courtyard, but keep them in order and see that they steal nothing. Bake bread and carry out to them everything eatable in the house, and distribute it so that each one gets a share. Mix wine for them too, from the great jars. But admit only those who got here first, no more. The courtyard will hold no more, in any case.”

To me he said, “I can but thank him who created heaven and earth that my two boys Alexander and Rufus are on a visit to my farm in Kiriath and will stay there over the Sabbath, for these unhappy folk might infect them with their diseases and their dirt, though for myself I care naught.”

He went to make sure that the servants were obeying him and bringing out all there was to eat in the house, without stinting oil, flour, honey or dried fruit; and that they also opened the jars of salt fish and served the sharp sauces. When he saw that over seventy beggars had crawled into the courtyard and sat down, he realized that his stores would not suffice to feed them all, and sent out servants to buy bread and grain.

When the beggars were let into the courtyard they looked timidly about at the Greek columns and kept silence, so as to give no offense. Zaccheus now returned, after searching every room and cellar, poking into every sack and rummaging in the charcoal store. He was dusty, floury and sooty from head to foot; he panted violently, wiped his face with his sweat cloth, which made him dirtier than ever, and said to Simon in an accusing tone, “You’re a cunning fellow. So this is how you’ve cheated me. Among all these it was easy enough for the man you were hiding to get away unobserved.”

Simon sighed. “If you who knew him do not believe me, who then could put faith in what we have to tell and what we ourselves have seen? He showed himself to you on the road, and to us in my house. God be merciful to me! After all that has befallen me today, I truly believe that he is risen to disturb the world as he has disturbed my house. Therefore I beg you to tell us about him and about what he taught, so that we may understand what it is he requires of us.”

With his own hands he fetched water, and as he placated Zaccheus I washed his head and Eleazar his feet, and Simon fetched him a clean mantle.

When Zaccheus saw how eagerly we all three waited upon him so as to hear the word of eternal life, he grew calmer and said soberly, “He confided no secrets to me, if that’s what you think; what he said in my home he said for all to hear. When he came to Jericho he restored the sight of a blind man who believed him to be the son of David. But to me he said, ‘The son of man has come to find and save the lost.’ He said also that in his kingdom there is more joy over a sinner who repents than over ninety-nine good people who need no repentance.”

Simon of Cyrene said at once, “That is unfair. What joy is there for a person who does his best to live rightly, if his lord passes by without even wanting to speak to him? How can a sinner be more pleasing to him than a good man?”

But Zaccheus raised his hands warningly and continued, “He called me by name and was a guest in my house, although I am a sinful and despised man. When he called, all my bitterness left me, though throughout my life it had been a prison to me because of my dropsical head and my maimed body, so that I never thought good of anyone, only evil. If he could accept me—he, the king of Israel and the son of David—and forgive me my sins, then I no longer needed the approval and favor of men. This was so great a deliverance that for pure joy I shared out half my estate among the poor; but I suppose neither of you can understand that.”

Simon of Cyrene admitted, “No, that’s not easy for us to understand, but no doubt your injustice and evil dealings were already so great that you feared that the day of discovery might be near. So then you reformed and atoned for your actions in the best way you could, so as to preserve at least part of your property.”

But Zaccheus answered cheerfully, “You don’t hurt my feelings by that; on the contrary, I admire your good sense. I myself have learned to be equally suspicious of people’s motives and actions. I know what happened to me in his presence. But at home in my house he told a puzzling story which I don’t fully understand even yet. It was about an eminent man who journeyed to a far country to receive the dignity of a king, but was to return home again afterwards. Before leaving he summoned his ten servants and entrusted ten minae to their care, bidding them do business with them on his behalf while he was away. But his countrymen hated him and sent word to him that they would not have him for their king. When he had become king and returned home, he called the servants and ordered them to give account of what each of them had earned for him. The first servant told him proudly that his mina had brought in ten minae. The king said, ‘Well done, good servant; since you have been faithful in the smallest thing you may choose ten cities to govern.’”

I could not help breaking in, so disappointed was I, to ask, “Was he really only speaking of money? I thought you might know something of eternal life.”

Zaccheus said, “I was only a tax collector. He must have thought that I would most easily understand a parable about money.”

Simon of Cyerene concurred: “We Jews best understand everything to do with money—better than you, a Roman trained by a Greek philosopher. Ten minae is really a large sum, though they may have been only of silver, not of gold. And much depends upon how long their master was away. No one could honestly increase one mina to ten in a short time; luck and cunning would be necessary as well.”

Zaccheus inquired, “Am I to go on with my story or not? Another servant had increased his mina fivefold, and he was given five cities to rule over. But the last servant had with him the mina he had been given, and he had knotted it up in a cloth, fearing that he might lose the money somehow if he began to do business with it. To excuse himself, he said, ‘I was afraid of you, for you are a stern man, and take what you haven’t gathered and reap where you haven’t sown’ Then the king said, ‘I judge you from your own words, you bad servant. You knew that I am a stern man and take what I haven’t gathered and reap where I haven’t sown. Why did you not give my money to a trustworthy banker to handle, if your dared not act on my behalf yourself? Then at least I would have had my mina back with interest.’ He ordered the others to take the one mina away from the servant and give it to the one who had ten. But the others said, ‘He has ten minae already.’”

I put my hand over my mouth so as not to say what I thought of this long and boring story, but Zaccheus, looking at us triumphantly, raised his hand and said, “Listen carefully to this, and remember it, for this is what he taught. The king replied: ‘I tell you that to every man that has shall be given, but from him that has not, what little he has shall be taken away’; and finally he commanded his enemies to be brought before him—those who would not have him as king—and had them put to death.”

Both Simon of Cyrene and I pondered this mysterious story. At length I said dejectedly, “I don’t understand the meaning of it, but it is wrong and unjust.”

Zaccheus admitted: “Nor do I understand it, but it has disturbed me ever since I heard that he was dead. Now I can only think that he compared himself to the man whom his countrymen hated and who journeyed to his own kingdom which is not of this world, to receive the dignity of king. Surely he means to return one day and require account of all to whom he entrusted a mina, to see what each of us has made of it.”

I asked, “Are you sure you remember the story accurately, just as he told it?”

Zaccheus declared, “At least I believe I remember the pith of it. Many others heard it and can bear me out. Some say he spoke of talents and some say there were only three servants, but what he taught they all remember in the same way, just because it was so startling and unexpected and unfair.”

He reflected, and then said, “I don’t believe that it was money he meant; it must have been something else. He himself warned people against collecting goods which moth and rust consume, and said it was better to lay up treasures in his kingdom.”

Simon of Cyrene suddenly remembered something, and gave an order: “Go at once to the sheds and storehouses, gather together what you find there of wool and linen, and distribute it among the poor people now eating in my courtyard.” Then once more he stared somberly before him.

Eleazar hesitated, rubbed his feet on the floor and said, “You can do what you will with your own belongings, master, but surely I may first take a new mantle and body garment for myself; I would be glad of something for the children too, and for my wife.”

Simon thrust his hands between his knees, rocked himself to and fro where he sat, and said, “Do as you like, and the rest of you may take what you want as well. Plunder me—seize all that I have gathered together during my life. Take this ragged mantle off me too, if it is of service to anyone.”

Zaccheus, disconcerted, said, “Don’t go to extremes, Simon. Moderation is needful both in taking and giving. Otherwise you are acting rightly, for he said: ‘What you do to these least and smallest, you do to me.’ This is the Way.”

Suddenly he became uneasy, and springing up he said, “How is it with my donkey, I wonder, which I tied to your wall? The street was packed with beggars, and someone may have untethered the beast in the hurly-burly and taken it away.”

Then he calmed himself, sat down again and said, “Never mind; I’ll do no less than you in what concerns the kingdom, Simon. If anyone has stolen the donkey, it’s because he needs it more than I do, and I’ve no intention of running after him and bringing him to trial. Let him keep it.”

Simon went on breathing heavily and rocking to and fro, but then he began to smile, saying, “All this has taken a great deal out of me. It’s as if someone were nipping piece after piece off me with pincers when I hear those insolent beggars guzzling and squabbling among themselves for the best bits. I’m sure they are trampling bread and salt fish underfoot in their greed. But I must just get used to it, if it is what he wants.”

“Do you really believe,” I asked in amazement, “that having vanished from your house he wanted to test you, and revealed himself to some beggar to tell him that you were giving a feast?”

“I believe what I believe,” retorted Simon angrily. “But if he is fooling me I shall fool him, and we shall see which of us laughs best.”

He led the way into the courtyard. There we saw the beggars squatting in orderly fashion on the ground, dividing the food amongst themselves. They were not squabbling at all; on the contrary, they offered one another the best pieces, just as if they were indeed guests at a banquet. Food was put into the hands of the blind, and handed around to all those who could not reach the dishes.

Meanwhile Eleazar brought armfuls of woolen blankets and linen cloths and placed them between the pillars. From the glowing charcoal rose the aroma of roast meat, and the servants baked barley bread and wheaten rolls and caraway-spiced oil cakes as fast as they could. But the woman doorkeeper wept aloud, and the boys’ Greek tutor fled to the roof and refused to come down.

The joy and good order among the beggars so irritated Simon of Cyrene that he yelled, “Eat and drink till you burst your bellies, and take away with you whatever is left over. But know that I, Simon of Cyrene, do not offer you a single crumb of it. The host of this banquet is Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified by your Council. May he bless your food, that it may bring you life and not death. I cannot force myself to bless it, for the gall rises in my throat with a bitter taste.”

The beggars thought he was joking and looked at him innocently, and some tried to laugh. This annoyed Simon of Cyrene more than ever, and he yelled even louder, “Jesus of Nazareth, the son of God, invites you to accept all these things, for he has risen from the dead and his Kingdom remains with us so long as he walks among us, coming and going as he pleases—even through locked doors if need be.”

The beggars were frightened now and glanced at one another, but the boldest of them laughed loud and shouted, “Blessed be you, Simon of Cyrene, among all the men of Israel. But why do you give us only sour wine, when from your talk we can hear you have been reveling in sweet wine with your distinguished guests?”

Beside himself with rage, Simon of Cyrene called to the servants, “Open the small jars too, and mix that wine in the largest mixing vessel so they may believe that Jesus of Nazareth, the son of God, performs miracles even after death.”

The servants did as he ordered, but to save what could be saved they began to vie with the beggars in drinking, and Eleazar drank too. Meanwhile Simon of Cyrene fetched a pot of costly spikenard ointment, knocked the neck off it and shouted, “All this filth, and the putrid stench and the flies in your eyes and on your sores offend me. I know that smell all too well. It’s like lying in the dark in a slave’s hovel again, with a chain round my leg. Anoint your heads and faces with this, for it has a fragrance which princes might envy you.”

And indeed a delicious fragrance overspread the whole courtyard when he opened the little pot. He wandered about smearing the ointment on the beggars’ hair with his thumb, and altogether behaving as if he had taken leave of his senses, now roaring with laughter, now swearing frightful oaths. But when he reached a certain boy, who was eating ravenously, he dropped the pot, knelt down beside him and in a perfectly sane voice ordered, “Fetch me my fine-tooth comb so that I may comb the lice from the hair of this child.”

When he had been given the comb he actually began to comb out the lice from the grimy boy’s matted hair, and kill them, and did it as deftly as if this revolting task had been his all his life. The boy’s head was scabby with the bites of the vermin and he cried out when Simon combed it, but he was in such a hurry to fill his belly that he had no time to resist.

The beggars became nervous, and whispered to one another, “Simon of Cyrene has gone out of his mind over Jesus of Nazareth. And no wonder, after the way the Romans insulted him by forcing him to carry the cross of the blasphemer. We would do well to eat and drink quickly and accept what he gives us and then go, before he begins to demand it all back again.”

Their elders said, “Rich men have been known to let uninvited beggars come to their feasts, when heated with wine, and then turn angry and trample upon them to make them render back what they have eaten and drunk. Let us therefore make haste.”

They looked askance and in fear at Simon of Cyrene, but he was so deeply engrossed in cleansing the lad’s head from vermin that he heard nothing of what they said. When he had combed it thoroughly, he dragged the child over to the pool, tore his rags off him and washed him all over, impervious to his screams. The rest of the ointment he used on the boy’s head, breast and feet, and then chose from among his son’s clothes a body garment, mantle and red sandals, dressed him in them and said, “Now you smell and are clad like the son of a prince. May he punch me on the nose if you are not grand enough for his kingdom.”

The beggars grabbed the clothes which Eleazar was distributing among them and began warily stealing toward the gate, watching for a chance to snatch the lad away from the clutches of the raving Simon. But Simon saw their purpose and cried, “Don’t go yet, O guests of Jesus of Nazareth! Each one of you must have a gift from him.”

He called to me and Zaccheus, and we helped him to unfasten the many locks of an iron-bound chest. Out of this he took a sealed leather bag, then ran back to the courtyard, broke the seal and began to distribute silver coins among the beggars, who all stretched forth their hands. To some he gave one drachma and to some four, while others received a ten-drachma piece; for he dealt the money out at random, without looking to see what each man received.

The beggars began grumbling and saying, “Why did he get so much and I so little?”

But Simon of Cyrene said, “Blame Jesus of Nazareth for that. He takes what he has not gathered and reaps what he has not sown.” And again he grasped the bag, and gave even more to those whom he had given most; but when he started taking back money from those who had received the smallest coins, the beggars considered the time had come to leave and they fled through the gate, taking the boy with them.

Simon of Cyrene wiped the sweat from his face, jingled the moneybag in wonder and said, “Such a thing has never happened to me before. Should I take this as a sign and a precept? For I still have half of it left in the bag, although I was ready and willing to give it all away.”

I urged him, “Put the money back in the chest while you may, and lock it. Next comb your beard lest lice should have got into it, and bid the servants clear up. I don’t know whether you’ve been foolish or clever in what you have done, but at least I’m sure the beggars will be content, and that they’re hardly likely to bother you again for a long time.”

Zaccheus was sitting beside Eleazar on the edge of the great mixing vessel; he laughed gaily and called, “Roman, come here! Bring a cup and dip up some wine for yourself. There’s plenty left at the bottom, and so dear a wine must not be allowed to stand and spoil.”

He drank and cried, “Blessed be the vine harvest in the name of him who died and rose again to make ready a kingdom for us all. All three of us have seen him, and you, Eleazar, have at least seen his footprints on the stone floor, so you are bound to believe us who are more than you, a mere ploughman and herdsman.”

Tenderly he wound his arm around Eleazar’s neck, kissed him, and explained, “Take no offense, for it is only in this world that I’m your superior; in his kingdom it may be you who will take precedence. He said that there the first shall be last and the last first.”

Eleazar struggled and broke free and said reproachfully, “You’re all in a ravishment, my master Simon most of all. But I too am enraptured after receiving new clothes and distributing so many costly things among folk who are destitute. At any rate the wine has gone to my head, for I am unused to strong wine.”

But Simon of Cyrene felt his own head and said, “Peace be with you all. I am weary unto death and shall now retire to my darkened room and lie down. For many nights I have been unable to sleep, and have lain awake worrying over Jesus of Nazareth. Now I feel that I have found peace, and I believe I shall sleep all through the Sabbath.”

Unsteadily he walked away to his room and we did not follow him, for both Zaccheus and I realized that sleep was the best thing for him in his present state. Yet he remembered the claims of hospitality, for turning he looked back at us with tousled hair, blinked and said, “I hope that all this is only a bad dream; I shall be sure of that when I wake and see you no more. But you, my dream-Zaccheus, stay the night here in my guest room if you will. Eleazar shall sleep himself sober and then go home and keep the Sabbath before three stars appear. But to you, Roman, I know not what to say, for you must certainly be a dream and I shall not be seeing you again.”

Eleazar obeyed; he went over into the shadow of the colonnade, lay down on the ground and wrapped his mantle around his head. Zaccheus and I remained standing where we were and scrutinized each other closely. No longer did his face seem to me that of a repulsive dwarf; his eyes shone and his cheeks were flushed with wine, just like those of an ordinary man.

He asked me whether I knew anything of the disciples whom Jesus had chosen as his messengers. I told him what I knew and what Mary Magdalene had seen and how Jesus had revealed himself, through locked doors, to some of the disciples in the upper room. I told him that I had met Thomas and John, and confessed frankly that they had not trusted me or been willing to receive me. At last I said, “My heart burns within me. If I went and told them of this they would never believe me, but you they might believe, for they know you. They might then more readily trust us and confide their secret to us, for they must know more than we do and be acquainted also with his mysteries, although they refuse to reveal them to outsiders.”

Zaccheus said confidently, “I will visit them. Matthew at any rate trusts me, for he too is an ex-publican. He and I understand each other, and he may be able to put in a word for me with the rest.”

“Do that,” I replied. “I have no longer any wish to go there, and anyway I cannot force myself upon them.” I described the room where I had met Thomas and John. He thought he knew the house and its owner, but would not mention his name to me.

“Go in peace to your dwelling and await word from me,” said Zaccheus.

Thus we parted, and I went to my room marveling greatly at all that had befallen me at the house of Simon of Cyrene.