The Tongues of Men or Angels

Thirty-four Years after the Crucifixion

People say that all roads lead to Rome. They don’t: they lead from Jerusalem. But Rome is, nonetheless, where Paul’s road has finished. At least for now, since Rome is where he has spent the past few years. Proclaiming the coming Kingdom of God and teaching the facts about Lord Jesus Christ quite openly and without hindrance.

Paul’s back aches in the early mornings. A low lumber cramp, born from public thrashings or just from the terrible bed pallets of public inns. He pulls off the light gown he sleeps in through Rome’s sweaty summer nights, groaning to himself at the effort. Beneath the wrinkled pig-leather of an old man’s belly hangs his undeniably Jewish cock. What strange tricks God plays, to have set such an importance on thus a thing. To let men believe — to point of death sometimes — that the presence or absence of a flap of foreskin is of any matter. Paul moves over to his chamber pot to let out the near bladder-bursting accumulation that has built up inside him in the night. Though the fullness of liquid is almost painful, he still has to force it free, pushing out with some arcane muscle the piss that in in his youth would have sluiced from him as if from an aqueduct. Growing old is not for the weak. Age berates Paul daily now, like an angry unbeliever. But surely the return of the Lord Jesus is looming; that day could come at any moment, and when it does, Paul will be well again and so will all things.

The tile beneath Paul’s bare feet is pleasant, a constant cool reminder of wealth. Or if not wealth, then of comfort at least, if those are different. He girds himself with a freshly washed loin covering — clean clothes being another gratifying benefit of prosperity — winding it about himself almost without thought. So many times has he performed this same action that his hands hold the memory of how inside themselves. Then he pulls on a robe, a gift from Lydia this one, or another admirer, Paul forgets, but it is cut from a fine fabric. Only when dressed does he call for someone to take his night soil away. As is only right for such a figure in the movement, Paul has a few servants to assist him — as nothing when compared to the wealthy of Rome, whose slave retinues sometimes trail behind them a full street length. But an apostle cannot both baptize and fetch the water.

Paul has trained himself to be able to use the word apostle without feeling that grating inside him. There are those, and they are many, who claim that Paul is not a true apostle. Who say that the apostles are those companions who were chosen by the Christ in His lifetime. But Paul knows that the people who say such things are wrong: Paul was chosen by the Christ after His death and is therefore an apostle of greater importance.

The movement is growing rapidly in Rome, overtaking even the sects of Mithras and Magna Mater, in pace of conversions, if not yet in size. Paul didn’t found the Roman groups: they were established before he arrived. But his presence in the city is largely, if not universally, welcomed by the followers already there. And he talks with such eloquence and passion that many of the leisured potential converts who visit him are swayed in just an afternoon to stand among the company of the sanctified. Even some of Caesar’s household call on Paul and are counted among his supporters.

People will probably come to Paul’s apartments today to listen to him, as they do most days, to hear Paul preach of his resurrected saviour-God; a figure like, but quite unlike, Dionysius, Trophonius or Orpheus, for they are misty deities of an uncertain past. The redeemer Paul talks about is a real man, was a real man, a real God, who walked the earth as a peer of this generation and who will return within it too. Who will descend to judge the quick and the dead inside these warped and crooked days. What listener could fail to be amazed by such apocalyptic urgency, especially when spoken of by a preacher so visibly certain of the truth in his every word? An apostle who can even reveal concealed proofs that all this was foretold in the ancient scriptures of the Israelites — a people renowned as mystical and God-devoted — yet Paul speaks of no age-old creed, already well-travelled with caravan traders and sailors, like the mystery cults of Isis, Cybele, Atargattis and Serapis were when they first arrived. His is a dewy neoteric sect of now, something too compelling to ignore: to think that this present moment exists in the imminence of the coming Kingdom of God, the arrival of which — expectantly pressing upon every fresh dawn — was signified by the risen Christ Jesus, the Messiah for whose sake Paul is currently imprisoned.

Were it not for the soldier who sleeps by the door, it would be hard to tell this is a prison. The building is a prison that some Roman nobles would be glad of. Not a senator, but a country landowner might not mind it for a town house and most merchants certainly wouldn’t scorn to live there. Paul is obliged to pay the wages and upkeep of the soldier — a one-eyed Praetorian guard named Manius — as well as for the apartments, but he has sufficient funds for these expenses.

The whole household breakfasts together, eating fruit and bread spread with fish sauce and honey — Epaphras, Timothy, Silas, Aristarchus, Demas and Luke, as well as Manius and the three servant women. Paul believes strongly that there should be no division between Jew and Greek, slave and free, male and female. Except, of course, where such divisions are necessary. Whether or not there should be separation between Roman citizens and the rest of the world, this is unarguably the situation that exists, and it is entirely thanks to his citizenship that Paul now ‘suffers’ in this imprisonment rather than being dead, so it is a separation for which he is in some sense grateful.

But though Rome is the greatest city on earth it is still a city. A lamp of burning camphor gum struggles to keep the stink of the streets at bay while they eat; and still that stench of overpopulation almost visibly oozes from beneath the outer door.

There is a knock at that door before they have finished, still too early for Paul’s usual acolytes and admirers. The soldier Manius gets up to see who is there, it being his duty to vet visitors as much as to prevent escape, though he has thus far never barred anyone from entering and Paul has absolutely no intention of escaping.

Without even asking their business, Manius waves the caller in, then lies back down on the cushioned floor to take another quince.

The entrant is well past his twentieth year, but still has the look of a giant boy rather than a man; a big moon-headed lad, somewhat uncomely. He wears a travelling cloak wrapped right up to his chin. His bland face poking out from it is like unadorned pottery, blank and functional. He walks in an oafish way as he crosses the room, almost insolent it looks, his swaying swagger, but Paul is sufficiently astute to realize that it is not. And in any case the caller almost immediately throws himself at Paul’s feet. Prostrates himself like a stretching hound, face to the floor. Trying to kiss Paul’s bare, road- and age-gnarled toes.

‘My lord Paul, master of my master,’ he begs, ‘I plead with you to intercede. I will be killed unless you can help me.’

He must have seen Paul before to go straight to him or at least have had a good description because there are six other men in the room, not including Manius, and no reason to suppose that Paul is their leader, other than his greater age and perhaps his finer robe. But, then, Paul does rather exude being chosen of God; perhaps it is merely that.

‘Look at me, boy,’ Paul says. ‘Do I know you?’

The supplicant raises his head. Tears, droplets that would evaporate in moments in the afternoon’s heat, remain upon the morning-cool tile floor beneath him. ‘I have seen you, sir, at my master Philemon’s villa at Colossae.’

The boy’s cloak has slipped down from his chin with his writhing on the floor and Paul notices for the first time the metal collar riveted about his neck. ‘You’re a slave. And from Colossae! That’s a month’s travel away. What are you doing here?’

‘Seeking you, sir. Begging for intercession. I have committed a wicked crime against my master, and further wronged him by fleeing his judgement and stealing the coins needed to make my way to you. Philemon is a great patron, he owes no one debts. You are the only man I knew who he might listen to. Please help me, Lord Paul.’

The slave glances at the soldier Manius as he speaks, as if fearful of being arrested on the spot. Manius has a scar, deep as the Kidron valley, which runs across his empty left eye socket. But his one good eye shows no interest in the importuning boy: it follows instead the ample rump of the serving girl, who removes the empty bowls, as if nothing unusual is happening.

‘What’s your name?’ Paul asks.

The boy says, ‘Useful,’ choking out the word with hesitance, as though this final divulgence is what will see him condemned.

His fear is understandable, though, whatever his first crime, for running away alone he should face grave punishment. At the least, fugitive slaves are usually whipped near to death and hot-iron branded on the forehead, lest they try to flee again; but they might just as likely be crucified, or burned alive in cloths soaked in pitch, or whatever other exemplary death sentence their master dreams up — being eaten by lampreys was one, sucked and rasped to death by jawless eel-fish. The Roman world does not value the life of a slave. But Paul believes that even a slave can be a brother in the Christ.

‘Come.’ He places his hands on Useful’s chubby shoulders and raises him up, so they stand level, though Paul’s head is more properly level with the metal collar around Useful’s neck. The shackle is inscribed and, almost without thought, Paul murmurs aloud what it says: ‘If I have run away, then catch me. If you take me back to my master Philemon, you’ll be rewarded.’

‘Would that I didn’t wear this collar of shame. Then I too might read it.’ Useful says.

‘But you can read?’

‘Yes, my lord, the master had me taught from a boy, by the same tutor who taught his own children. He thought it might prove me of help in keeping his records and accounts.’

‘So you can write as well? Interesting. You look tired and hungry, Useful.’

Useful nods affirmation.

‘Which ails you more?’

‘Fatigue, sir. I have barely slept since I arrived in Rome a week ago. Terrified by night, searching for you by day.’

‘Then sleep.’ Paul turns to his companions. ‘Aristarchus, find Useful a pallet and a blanket upstairs.’

Useful throws himself to the floor again and kisses Paul’s toes, which are yellowed and scrunched, like the claws of some ancient fowl.

When he wakes, Useful finds Paul beside him in the chamber. He gives Useful bread, spread with thick garum, and a clay beaker of sharp, delicious wine.

‘You were not so useful to your owner, Useful,’ Paul says, ‘but I think you will become so to me.’

‘How, Master? Anything.’

‘I want you to help me unravel a story, a tangle of circumstance and circumcision. I think it would be well to try to get the tale straight and have an idea of how it should be told, not least because a trial at Caesar’s court awaits me. Its arrival is in a future contingent, it is true — in fact I have every expectation that the appointed time of God’s judgment of all mankind will come first and my trial, therefore, not at all. But it would nonetheless be sensible to make some preparation.’

‘Thank you for your confidence, Master. But I am unworthy to pay you this service. Surely, one of your companions …’

‘A couple of them write well enough. But they are also … how can I put it? … encumbered by their experiences. A fresh ear, I think, may be just what is needed. Some of the others were present at certain occasions and might bring too much of themselves to the history, or else they have already heard second-hand accounts, invariably inaccurate. With you I could have, as it were, a tabula rasa. You, Useful, will write my stories. You will tell the world how I am a real apostle because the crucified Christ appeared to me. The risen Jesus spoke to me!’