The Tongues of Men or Angels

Twenty-seven Years after the Crucifixion

‘They know who you are and mean to drown you like a three-legged whelp, once we set sail,’ Timothy says. ‘We must leave the ship tonight.’

And so, feet creaking across the salt-caked planks, beneath the stars and the howl of a Minerva owl, the party disembarks, returning to a terra firma that feels barely safer. Who knows what murderers lurk in the shadows of stacked amphora on the Corinthian dockside? Even still, better that than being cast overboard to flail against the waves. The close confinement of a boat is no place to face foes.

They had booked passage on a ship chartered by Jewish pilgrims heading to Jerusalem. But word about Paul and his views of the Torah had evidently oozed out among the other travellers and a plot was laid against him before the cargo was even fully loaded. All arrangements are aborted by the night-time absconsion, and a good deal of coin wasted too; but, for once, money is not among Paul’s problems.

Over seven years, across seven provinces, Paul’s congregations have been gathering their collection, each member faithfully giving what they could afford on the first day of each week. Copper coins in time being changed up to higher-denomination pieces: bronze; then brass; then silver; before transmuting a last time into easily transportable gold. Finally, the full crop is harvested.

Travelling with such funds would be a dangerous business, even for a man without burgeoning infamy. But Paul has used his skills in leather-working to fashion a variety of coin stashes: a multi-pocketed under-girdle; a bag suspended from his neck and twin thin bandoliers, concealed beneath his clothing; even his robes have gold coins sewn into them, in tight bundles so that they do not chink, or evidently alter the hang of the cloth. His companions, too, have money secreted about them, lesser amounts, but still considerable sums.

Demi-Jew Timothy purses his lips with pride at his discovery of the plotters, whenever the avoided adversity is mentioned. But Paul is visibly unnerved by the experience: if he cannot even sail there safely — encircled by followers — what threats might await him at Jerusalem?

He keeps Silas close by at all times. Silas has a tree-feller’s arms and a chest broad as a boar. And Silas came with Paul from Antioch, the only one from that community who stood by him. If Silas cannot be trusted, there is no trust left on God’s flat earth.

Not that the fidelity of the others is in question — Timothy; Sopater from Berea; Aristarchus and Secundus from Thessalonica; Gaius from Derbe; Tychicus and Trophimus from Asia — they have all proved themselves often enough. All of the group are Gentiles save for Timothy and Paul, if either can still consider themselves Jews by now.

The group heads inland again, then north towards Philippi, where Lydia lives, journeying by wagon, wheels churning in the scars eroded by other wheels; as foot travellers they once trudged in the spaces left between.

The parable is a Pharisee method of teaching, a story to illustrate a point. Paul does not normally use them, though the fleshly Jesus apparently did. But from Paul’s troubled mind a parable surfaces and he tells it to the others as they go.

There was a great flood and the land was all submerged and a pious man, a believer in God, was trapped by the rising waters on the roof of his house. But God spoke to the man, saying that He would save him, so the man was not afraid.

On the first day, a neighbour of the man paddled to him in a small craft and said he would transport him to higher ground. But the man remembered that God had promised to protect him, so he declined the offer and, though the water was still rising, he was not afraid.

On the second day, a warship passed near to the roof, rowed by soldiers of the prefect. They shouted that they could take the man on board, but he told them that the Lord of Hosts had promised to watch over him, so he had no need of their help. The level of the flood reached almost to the roof now, but the man had no fear of it, because he had God’s promise.

On the third day a group of villagers on a raft built of salvaged goods sailed close, but the man said that they should sail on, God would save him.

On the fourth day, as the cold waters swallowed him, as he choked upon the muddy waves, the man cried out against God. Even as he gagged and drowned, the man shouted that God had broken His word.

But God said: I sent a rowing boat, a trireme and a raft for you, and you spurned them all!

‘What does the story mean, Master?’ Trophimus asks later, having pondered the matter for a while along the trail.

‘It means,’ Paul says, ‘that in order for God to help you, you must also help yourself.’

Paul and Silas stay with Lydia in her villa, but the others are sent onwards to the port of Troas, accompanying a slave of Lydia’s, who is experienced in chartering ships.

‘Should we really spend such money on our travel?’ Secundus asks, as they are leaving, ‘Surely it would be better just to take passage on a vessel rather than hire one.’

‘We need to get to Jerusalem safely,’ Paul explains patiently. ‘Our protection is paramount. The money has been collected not only for the poor ones of Jerusalem, but also for the glory of Jesus Christ, and what could be more important to that work than the survival and safety of His apostle?’

In the event, Lydia’s man finds them a ship on half-charter at a lesser expense. It has already been rented to sail for the city of Tyrian purple at the behest of an acquaintance of Lydia, another murex dye merchant. So for a share in the costs the apostle’s party is able to direct the voyage to some degree with regard to stops, provided they charge cargo at Tyre and take no goods of their own.

The captain is a Thracian, habitually bare-chested; he has a tattoo of a skeletal hand on his shoulder, as if some daemon is pulling him gently aside.

And Lydia also helps to arrange something else for Paul: a business for which contacts with officialdom are required. Paul shows the bureaucrats his prized letter of recommendation from the proconsul of Cyprus. By now that papyrus scroll is as tired and travel-worn as Paul himself is, but it demonstrates his good standing and his character. And Paul pays five hundred drachma — a sum worth several years’ wages for a labourer — in return for which he receives nothing but twin inscribed bronze tablets, folded together and wax-sealed. But Paul is more than happy with the transaction, which goes at least some little way towards easing his trepidation.

Paul and Silas join the others at the port of Troas, where they pass a week, waiting for the ship to be loaded and then for favourable winds.

As Paul is walking, in a loose formation of followers, along the beach past Troas’s broad-basined harbour, he comes across a shell, large and spined and bright and lying there before him. He picks it up; it is rare to see such a fine example, not already scavenged away. It is shiny and pink on the inside of an alluring slitty opening. But it is also spiked and barbed. Glossy and inviting; but treacherous as well.

On that Damascus road, during his first debilitating ecstasy, Paul received many great gifts of God. And not least of them, in his esteem, his sexual desire was all but extinguished from that moment onwards. Paul is of the view that it would be better if all men were as he is, chaste and celibate, eunuchs for God, but sadly not all are so blessed.

There is a community of Christianoi in Troas, a few converted by Paul himself, when he passed through some years ago. And since he intends to bid the ship to leave the next day, Paul addresses them at their gathering on the first day of the week.

As Paul speaks, for longer even than normal, a young man sitting at the third-storey window drifts into sleep and slowly topples sideways, drops from sight. Paul, who watched it happen, charges down the stairs, still quick on his robust legs for his fifty-six years. And he lifts the lad up in his arms, at first fearing him dead, then exploding into relieved laughter as the youth comes round. A little dazed and bloodied but none the worse bar that. It is the first time Paul’s followers have heard him laugh in weeks. And the whole group breaks bread and worships together, and they all talk with their master until dawn, renewing their bonds of faith. They think perhaps the spell of Paul’s fear has been broken.

But then, the next day, instead of boarding the ship, Paul erratically decides to travel overland to Assos, to foil anyone who might be waiting in ambush at the Troas port, leaving his disciples further unnerved.

The ship, as ships do, though, hugs the shore and hops from port to port and Paul joins it at Assos, and from there they sail to harbours in Mitylene, then Chios, Samos and Trogyllium. Paul refuses to let the Thracian captain make the obvious next stop, at great Ephesus, where Trophimus is from, instead ordering the ship on to Miletus. Paul is nervous of porting in Ephesus because those men who had come from Jerusalem have so turned the congregations against him. But he holds the ship at Miletus, further down the coast, and from there he summons certain members of the Ephesus community, who, Trophimus says he thinks, remain loyal.

They come, to Paul’s relief, but still he cannot conceal his sadness when he sees them. ‘Since I’ve been gone, I know that grievous wolves have come among you and harmed the flock. Some of your own men even arose and distorted the truth in order to lure others into following them. But, despite what they may say, I never desired anyone’s silver, gold or fine clothes. You witnessed how I worked with my own hands to support myself. And now I am on my way to Jerusalem, not knowing what will happen to me there, or what suffering is waiting for me. Though I don’t place any value on my life, I have a great fear that none of you will ever see my face again.’

And all of them cry as they put their arms around Paul and kiss him affectionately and pray with him. They urge Paul to abandon his visit to Jerusalem, but he won’t and he rejoins the ship.

From Miletus they sail to Kos, then Rhodes and on to Patara. The greatest stretch of open water, the distance most to be feared, is where, from Patara, the ship crosses far to the west side of Cyprus to reach Tyre, risking wreck and storm. Most ships take the safer but greatly longer route along the coasts of Cilicia and Syria. But Paul hastens now, hoping to make Jerusalem in time for the Feast of Weeks.

And instead of crashing waves and dark skies, three dolphins accompany the travellers much of the way. As if to show that the Lord of Hosts, His Son and the Spirit that moves are with them. The dolphins leap across the bow and ride in the wake. They dive and circle alone and all as one. They roll and hang and flick their sideways flukes. They shine and smile. And there is such visible intelligence evidenced in the insentient fish that it is clear that Yahweh, whose hand moulded every creature, is at work in these ones this very day; so Paul cannot but take it as a sign that God will keep him safe.