The Tongues of Men or Angels

A Decade after the Crucifixion

From Cyprus the three preachers catch a ship north to the Mediterranean mainland. Saline winds smell of victory: a Roman governor converted and a miracle publicly performed. Final proof, if any should need it, of the apostleship of Paul. A name still glistening, like a cocoon-damp butterfly, veined wafer wings drying in the sun, exhausted from the effort of emergence, but proud of this alien form.

For a second time, Paul is embarking on a mission to a strange land with a letter tucked into his tunic, but on this occasion he is confident of his election and in elation.

John-Mark’s hair is a tangled wild globe, like the head of a thistle, though in his manner he is imperturbable and precise. His eyes have almost no discernible colour around the pupil and look still and black. He is a good person to have along on such a mission as this. Not only because of his faith. Or just because his mother was one of the first Jerusalem followers of The Way; the Three Pillars frequently still meet in her house. But because he is young and he is strong. Roads and boats both are haunts of robbers and worse.

John-Mark, however, is sullen as they trudge lateral to the coast towards the city of Perga, along roads curtained with undulating silver-green grasses.

‘Personally, I would sooner have no dealings with Romans beyond absolute necessity, but if you must preach to them, don’t you think you should have insisted that Sergius Paulus and his household become circumcised?’ John-Mark says finally, revealing the tick that has been biting him. ‘They cannot be committed to The Way yet not be Jews — that makes no sense. And they cannot be Jews and not be circumcised.’

Paul gives a cheery clasp to his back, as one might to a downcast child. ‘Don’t worry. All that is coming to pass is as it should be. That’s all you need to know.’

John-Mark shrugs Paul’s hand from him and strides onward at an increased pace, heels coughing up little mushrooms of dust. Paul and Barnabas share a wary glance.

They pass abundant fields, worked by iron-collared slaves, evidence of a region as rich as Paul had heard. Perga, when they approach it, is a fortified city, walls the off-white of a rock-rose, boosting from the flat coastal landscape. In the safety that Roman domination has bought, tiled villas, some quite imposing, have spilled out beyond the defences.

Barnabas himself had such an estate at one time — he was a wealthy man — but he sold all his possessions and gave the money to James the Just and the poor ones of Jerusalem. Now he travels as emissaries of the Nazarenes are supposed to, like those Yeshua first sent throughout Judaea, with just a staff and a single cloak, no bread, no bag and no money in his belt. Paul carries the purse.

On the Sabbath they go to Perga’s synagogue and preach in turn. John-Mark tells the gathering about The Way, about its founding by John and the baptism practised by him to purify and regenerate. And of his follower Yeshua — or Jesus, as they call him when they speak in Greek — who proved to be greater still. About the necessity of redoubling piety to prepare for the new age shortly to arrive. Barnabas talks about the communal meal, about the fellowship instituted by Jesus, about the last coming first. And Paul? Paul talks about different things entirely.

Afterwards John-Mark comes to him. ‘Where are you getting these ideas?’ John-Mark asks. ‘I have never heard from James or Cephas that praying to Yeshua will cleanse sins. That sounds more like a scoffable pagan tale about Osiris or someone. We shouldn’t even need sins forgiven — we have the Day of Atonement for that — and do we hate ourselves like tormented harbour-side harlots that we think our every action is a sin? Those who worship God faithful to the Torah have no reason to doubt His mercy. As the psalmist says: He does not treat us as our sins deserve, or repay us according to our iniquities.’

‘You needn’t quote scripture at me,’ Paul says. ‘Don’t forget that I have spoken to the Lord Jesus.’

‘That’s another thing. Why have you started adding “Lord” every time you say the name Jesus?’

‘Shouldn’t we respect the Messiah?’

‘Yes, of course. But for those who read the Torah and Prophets in Greek you are using the same word as for God: “Kurios” should not be applied in a synagogue to describe a man, even a king, even the King who will return. Neither should you be telling people to pray to one. You are coming perilously close to declaring that Yeshua is a god. There is only one God, Saul.’

‘Paul. I am called Paul now. I am not the man I once was.’

‘No.’ John-Mark looks at him through slits that accentuate the darkness of his eyes. ‘No, you are not.’

John-Mark leaves them that night. He returns to the port to find a ship to take him home to Judaea. Paul shrugs when Barnabas tells him.

The three-become-two continue passing from town to town, speaking in the synagogues, trying to sway these diaspora Jews to The Way. And many do come across — persuaded by Paul’s unfakeable passion — and are baptized in the rinsing waters of city rivers. Most are not convinced, but anyway enjoy the speeches and the debates that follow them, because it is enlivening to listen to diverse voices and original subjects in these Sabbath sessions, and there is no harm in hearing the views of Judaism’s newest sect.

But others take against Paul’s words, more vehemently than John-Mark did. Others eject Paul from their houses of teaching and make threatenings that chase him and Barnabas from their neighbourhoods. These others are fearful, maybe, that the precarious position of out numbered Jews in Empire cities risks unbalance in talk of messiahs. Or perhaps Paul’s words begin to sound less like a fresh sect of Judaism and more like the first bursting fungus of something otherwise and strange.

At the city of Lystra, Paul feels ready to perform another miracle. Upon a lame man, whose eyes gloss with belief as Paul speaks. Who clutches a crutch of carob wood, shaft almost as thick as the thighs of his brittle cripple’s legs. And he walks some steps, when Paul bids him to, more than he has walked in years. Hands floating before him, as though grasping for support that isn’t there, unsteady but advancing nonetheless, like a dark-alley drunk. And he swears, to those who gather round to lift him up again, that within days he will be strolling the town as blithely as any of them.

But those who have taken against Paul begin to cluster. Malevolent scarecrow men afraid of change and enfranchised speech. They follow him and counter him. They attack his words. They shout, ‘Blasphemy!’ And when still he will not cease, they take up rocks.

The weight that crushed Stephen can crush again. Not that these are the same stones: every land has stones of its own. Those of Judaea are lime and pale, while these are grey and dappled; but they would serve just as well, to silence a voice.

Caught unexpectedly and alone, Paul is pelted and bloodied, left for dead. They do not drop the final boulder on his skull. Who knows if this is mercy or thought unnecessary? He did not move or scream for minutes while the stones still came. Consciousness left him with the first blow to the crown, which opened a seam to spread his blood upon the ground. Head wounds bleed heavily. It must be hard for those unaccustomed to murder to be sure when it is accomplished. The attackers flee, leaving Paul dripping blood into the soil, like the flayed god Attis of a Tarsus childhood. That dying and resurrected saviour, hanged from a tree. For without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness, as Hebrews says.

Thoughts reel and tumble on the frontier of concussion and oblivion. Paul, who is Saul, sees Stephen and Jesus and himself in a jumble of faces, all of them red-wet and resurrected, circling like spokes, joined at a hub of blood. And Jesus, who looks like Stephen — goat beard split, hair clotted with black — is in Saul, and God is in them all. And Saul is in his body and out of it. But the body is just a tent, a temporary shelter, or else how can he see it there, broken on the ground, and yet be alive and elsewhere and here and looking at it? And Saul’s blood is smeared on the stones and leaching into the soil. And Jesus is in Saul, who isn’t Saul but Paul. And a man who is them or isn’t, but is in Christ, is taken up to the third Heaven. Whether this is in the body or out of the body he doesn’t know — God knows. But he is taken up to Paradise and hears inexpressible things, things that no one is permitted to tell. The revelation of mysteries hidden for long ages now revealed and made known. Those who knew the Christ in the flesh know Him no longer. But Paul is in Christ and Christ is in him. Whether in the body or apart from the body he doesn’t know, but God knows. And Stephen says, ‘God forgive you,’ with his broken teeth and his mouth bubbling blood. And the consumption of blood is prohibited, but a chalice of wine could serve as surrogate; could just as effectively bless with immortality. And Paul will have his atonement; Paul will have his blood.