The Island of the Innocent Page 3

  Onias the Third, the High Priest, and a very devout man, had been ousted the year before when Jason—whose name had been Jeshua or Jesus—offered to the King a part of the temple treasure as a bribe. Antiochus had thereupon made Jason the High Priest, with permission to Jews to build a palestra and to register as citizens of Antioch, the capital of his kingdom. The gymnasium had just been completed and many of the priests were forsaking the altar to participate in the games. Some Jews were trying in one way or another, usually with clumsy methods and ugly results, to remove the signs of their circumcision. Jason had sent gifts to the festival of Hercules at Tyre. Everything seemed to be going well but the pious Jews were gathering their courage and their forces, though whether they intended outright war Reuben did not know.

  “You say this Jason is the brother of the man he ousted?”

  “Yes, good God. Brother is against brother, father against son, mother against daughter.”

  “Are most of the priests on your side?”

  “It’s hard to say. Most of the old and distinguished family of Odura and Phasiron—of whom, let me confess with a blush, I am one—are with us. Our opponents are chiefly the poor, the ignorant, the bigoted—and the learned scribes, so-called, who are learned in nothing but the superstitions of their fathers….Well, we prefer to win without bloodshed but we will win in any way we must.”

  Reuben was silent a few moments and then resumed. “It depends on the King. I’ve heard that he has taken as his divine parents Ares and Aphrodite. That’s all right if he is just playful but he may be serious. For instance, he does the most incredible things. It is said that over in Antioch he slips out of his palace after dark and saunters along with a couple of rogues, in search of trouble. He has been beaten up as a common bum. Or he disguises himself in a toga and appears in the forum; or as a shepherd he struts around blowing a horn or a bagpipe; or sneaks like a common hoodlum into a filthy tavern to lie with a wench; or gives expensive gifts to strangers; or sits in full view in the public baths while slaves almost drown him with the costliest scents….Well, here’s something he did recently. When he was in the public bath a man appeared before him crying, ‘O blessed and mighty King, happy are you that you can bathe in perfumes!’ Without a word the King left the bath and went to his chambers; and the next day he found this man and poured over him enough precious ointments to drown a Roman. Stacte chiefly—if you can imagine it!

  “By the gods we may be dealing with a madman!”

  After Paul came and the three men were reclining and eating, Reuben put to him the question: “Is the King a fool, a lunatic or a prankster?”

  Paul’s delicate face darkened. He did not trust this strange Greek who pretended to have come to Jerusalem looking for a girl.

  “Dip your sop in this broth,” Reuben said to Philemon. “You Greeks guard your subtlest culinary secrets but I extracted this from a lyric by Sappho.”

  Philemon dipped his bread into the dark rich broth. A morsel of saturated bread fell to Philemon’s robe and he looked down at it and sighed. He said:

  “Recalling that Sappho was overwhelmed by love for a slender youth, I wonder if Paul can tell us what wines and seasonings are in this broth.”

  Paul was framing a hot retort when Reuben said hastily: “When you see Paul’s brother Hosah you’ll understand that Paul is entitled to a lot of tolerance—not to speak of his parents, or his sister Hepzibeth who calls herself Angela, the world’s most unmanageable piece of mischief.”

  “And passion,” said Paul, subsiding.

  “Well, yes—if passion can be said to reside in a Jewess who wishes she were a Greek hetera. Paul, tell our friend here what you think of your brother.”

  “Hosah?” asked Paul; though he had no other.

  “Hosah. Hosah would not eat with unclean people like us. Was this roast nebelah or terefah? Did the beast die only of blood effusion? Were its entrails inspected? If Hosah intends to eat a piece of bread the size of an egg he need only wash. If he bites into the bread and finds on it a speck of blood from his gums he must throw it away. If he suspects there may be a drop of blood in his milk he must consult some eminent authority on the Torah, such as himself. Rather than eat meat and milk at the same meal he would cut his hands off—and I shiver to think of the state of his wickedness if he were to taste one of those blood puddings which gave manliness to the Spartans. It’s a wonder such fools don’t starve to death.”

  “Are you familiar with Israel’s laws of purity?”

  “A few. How many are there?”

  “Hundreds. Paul, how many?”

  Paul shrugged.

  “Well, let’s consider further the sad case of Paul’s brother. From the moment he wakes until he falls asleep his life is governed and regulated by what he calls the holy writings. Before eating anything he must say a formula. Before smelling anything pleasant he must give thanks. And—this will delight your heretical soul—before copulating with his wife he must observe so many rules that it takes him hours to get ready, and then a whole day afterward to purify himself. God! Is it any wonder that all people hate us?…Is it?” Reuben asked, looking at Paul.

  “No,” Paul said.

  “There you have it. That, all that, is what we are fighting against. We’re hated!” cried Reuben with passion. “All around us, north, east, south, west, there’s no people—not one—but despises us. Are we to go on forever in the contempt of scientists and philosophers? Must we always carry this burden of an ancient desert sheikh named Moses? Great God!” he shouted, and his face darkened with fury. “You are the Holy Name and the Holy Name also of our fathers; our King and the King also of our fathers; our Redeemer and the Redeemer also of our fathers; our Rescuer”—

  “Well, that’s the way fools like Hosah pray. In the name of rescuers and redeemers and saviors will we ever stand up like men and be counted? The Lord our God, the Lord is One! Will we persist in this insane notion that in all the universe there is only one god, who belongs exclusively to the Jews? You have chosen us from among all peoples, you have loved us and taken pleasure in us, you have exalted us above all tongues! So it is written. From what I know of our history the God of Israel has not loved or exalted us but has allowed us to be dragged off into slavery again and again. What an obscene notion, that the god of this small and insignificant people, with no art, no science, no philosophy—that this god is the only god—these people the greatest of all people, the chosen, the elite, appointed some day to rule over all people and teach them! Teach them—what? What Anaxagoras said, that nothing can be known with certainty because our senses are limited, our minds weak, our lives short? What Democritus said, that we cannot know ultimate truth, because truth is infinite and our minds are finite? With Pyrrho, that we must suspend judgment and assert nothing, not even that we assert nothing, lest we be ridiculous? Are we going to teach other peoples that an eclipse of the sun or moon is caused by natural laws, or by the whim of Israel’s God? Will we teach them with Miletus that we have all evolved from lower forms of life?—or that Yahweh spoke ten words and everything was?”

  “No!—no! We’ll teach them that they must not work an ox and an ass together or plant different seeds in the same vineyard—because, bless us, we are a people apart—we do not mix things—neither ox and ass, neither barley and lentil, neither linen and wool! We will teach them…”

  Moved by an excess of passion and scorn, Reuben leapt up from the couch and paced back and forth. For a few moments he was silent, pacing and gesturing and arranging his thoughts in patterns. Then suddenly he exploded.

  “Imagine the arrogance and insolence in believing that we are superior to all other people!”

  “The Greeks think they are,” said Paul drily.

  Philemon added: “And the Romans.”

  But Reuben did not hear. He was saying: “Where did we get the notion?—from a cataleptic named Ezekiel? From Ezra? From imbeciles like Hosah! You shall be holy unto me, for I, Yahweh, am holy, and have set you apart from the peoples that you should be mine. So it was said by a desert wanderer named Moses.”

  “That’s not all of it,” said Paul quietly.

  But Reuben went on “In the synagogue men like Hosah say, Love your neighbor as yourself—but neighbor in our language means only Jews, and if Hosah and his despicable tribe have their way it will never mean anything else!”

  “My people,” said Philemon, “think they’re a superior people.”

  Reuben looked at him and considered. “Yes, and when I think of Aristotle, Myron, Euripides, Phidias, Polycletus, Socrates, Aristophanes and a host of others, I think they were a superior people. But they never meant that they were a god-appointed people. They never imagined that they were chosen to rule over all other people. The superiority of any people is a question to be settled by posterity, in the lecture-halls of the nations.”

  In his dry way Paul observed: “Didn’t Plato say it’s disgraceful to drink Pramnian wine sprinkled with barley meal and grated cheese?”

  Reuben fixed Paul with a hard stare, relaxed and smiled and turned to Philemon.

  “Forgive him. Paul thinks he has freed himself. He resents me.”

  “I’ve heard your rantings before.”

  “Ranting, is it? Paul, my fine fellow, I’ll not be surprised some day to find that you have deserted us and gone over to the enemy. Even now,” said Reuben, turning to Philemon, “he won’t participate in the games. Paul, are you ashamed because you’ve lost your prepuce?”

  Paul’s sensitive face flushed. His upper teeth came out and clasped his lower lip. And while he sat, looking at nothing, Reuben stared at him, his face touched with cruelty and malice.

  “Paul, you know,” said Reuben, still gazing at Paul, “is trying to reconcile Hellenism and Judais
m. He has seen Moses ascending the stream of light to the Logos. He’s trying to figure out if Sophia was the mother of Moses.”

  Without looking up, Paul asked in a low voice: “Have you more wine?”

  Reuben went to a stairway and shouted until a servant appeared. He ordered wine. Philemon meanwhile had been watching Paul and wondering about him; and suddenly, with no warning, Paul raised his head and looked full into Philemon’s eyes. Philemon saw so many things there that he caught his breath.

  “When,” Paul asked, “are you going to Alexandria?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “He’s not going,” said Reuben, pouring wine. “He’s going to stay here and help us bring Israel into the fellowship of nations. For look at us,” said Reuben, gesturing and pacing. “We’re surrounded on all sides by people devoted to the culture of the Greeks. Hosah would tell you, his voice shaking with horror, that Dagon is in Azotus, Apollo in Ascalon, Perseus and Andromeda in Joppa. These, he says, must be destroyed. Jews, he says, must multiply until they overwhelm the earth. But on my side we no longer believe it is the duty of a woman to have twelve little sons of Israel. We’re not happy because our staff is full of babies—as the holy books so quaintly put it.”

  “You see,” said Reuben, facing Philemon again, “from Amos on, Israel’s prophets have said that a remnant will be saved if Israel will obey all the commandments—of which there are hundreds, perhaps thousands. Hosah and people like him would save the remnant that way. On my side we would save it by mixing and marrying and accepting all people as our neighbors. Paul, isn’t that our purpose?”

  “That’s what you say,” said Paul.

  “That’s what we all say who are fighting to ameliorate if we can, destroy if we must, the Hosahs and their imbecilities. What did Aristobolus tell me in Alexandria?—that the difference between a Greek and a Jew is this: one is a free citizen, the other the slave of a theocratic despotism.”

  “He also said that salvation will come through the higher gnosis in the Logos.”

  “Logos! I sometimes wonder whether the greatest blight to fall on mankind was Moses or Plato. Or where does this Logos stuff come from?”

  “I wonder,” said Philemon, “how long any of us will be free citizens. The Romans will soon enslave all of us.”

  “Greeks will conquer them with philosophy and art.”

  “And we,” said Paul, “with our higher morality.”

  “The barbarians,” said Philemon, “now shake dice on our most beautiful paintings. They use them as carpets. What a depraved people they are, forcing slaves to fight with the gladius and kill one another!”

  “They’re selling many slaves now,” said Reuben. “A beautiful girl who can play the lyre brings a small fortune.”

  Paul said bitterly: “Our lovely daughters of Israel will fare well if we can only persuade them to take up the arts!”

  “So-so!” said Reuben.

  “Is it true,” asked Philemon, “that these brutes are branding freeborn men with hot irons like oxen and driving them into barracks at night?”

  “No doubt,” said Reuben. “The only thing more brutal than a Roman is a bigger Roman.”

  “Will they destroy Carthage?”

  “Yes, yes—and Corinth and Antioch—yes, even Jerusalem. If you want to see what kind of beasts they are, visit the slave-market on Delos. But slavery is not so bad if the mind is free. No Roman brigand can ever enslave a Greek; and as for Jews, nobody can ever lay chains upon them half as heavy as the chains they have laid on themselves.”

  Reuben came over and embraced Philemon’s face with his hands and kissed his forehead.

  “Philemon, my friend, stay with us. We’ve chains to throw off. We need you.”

  “You mean,” asked Paul, “we shall need physicians?”

  Reuben walked to the edge of the roof and looked down over Jerusalem.

  “Yes,” he said at last, without turning, “we shall need physicians.”

  3

  IT WAS THEIR PLAN, Reuben confided in Philemon, to bribe the King again, get rid of Jason, and put in as High Priest one named Menelaus who would be thoroughly dependable, not because he was enlightened but because he was a scoundrel. Next they would win with persuasion or bribes the Syrian garrison in the Acra, a fortress situated not far from the temple, with its barracks, arsenal, granaries and its own water-system. After winning the garrison they would proceed to Hellenize Jerusalem completely, and after it, Israel.

  Philemon listened to these plans with misgivings. He had come here not to engage in conspiracies but to find Judith; and one day he mentioned her but Reuben put him off. Again Reuben began to abuse Hosah and all his ilk; and after listening to him a while Philemon said:

  “But why do you feel so deeply about Hosah and his superstitions?”

  Reuben looked at him, his face grave and intent. “Why? Well, I’ll not lie about it. I do feel deeply. Come—and I’ll show you why.”

  And Reuben took him to the palestra grounds, saying as they walked: “I want you to see my people trying to be athletes—to see the shame in their faces for their nakedness—to see the way they’ve mutilated themselves, trying to efface the mark of their circumcision—yes, and to see how pathetically eager they are to be like other men.”

  And Philemon observed them in the races, hurling the diskos, wrestling, oiling one another after the bath, sprinkling one another with a yellow earth saturated with the odor of geranium; and while he was watching them Reuben told him that Hosah and the Pious loathed the broad-brimmed hat affected by Greeks because it was a symbol of Hermes, to whom the palestrae and gymnasia were sacred; and even more the supensorium, a sack worn by athletes for the protection of their private parts. And later, drinking wine, Reuben was talking about his people when he said:

  “If it should ever be your misfortune to lie with this Judith—”

  “Misfortune!” Philemon cried. “Why call it that?”

  “My dear man, no good can come from the mixing of Jews and other people.”

  Stung to the quick, Philemon leapt up, his face turning white “Why, you contemptible son of Abraham! Then everything you’ve been saying is dishonest mockery! You say Paul is not free—”

  “Forgive me,” Reuben was saying. He had placed a hand to his brow and was massaging it and muttering. “I’m a fool!” he was saying. “All Jews are fools!”

  “Why did you say such a stinking thing?”

  Reuben took his hand away and looked at his hand. There was despair and self-pity in his eyes.

  “Do you know who hates Jews most of all people? Jews. God curse my father and curse my sons if I’ve not struggled hard—and I’ll not give up! I will be like other people. Why did I say it?” he asked, meeting Philemon’s eyes. “Who know? Is it because I don’t want you to lie with one of my people? If so, I’m contemptible.”

  “Then tell me where Melanie is.”

  “Let me put in this way. You sensed that Paul hates you. You’ve known at times that I’ve hated you. Why? I don’t know. Ask Hosah who hates the peasants because they don’t obey all these rules of purity. A peasant—he may be defiled by a dead body, a graveyard, a seminal issue, an embrace, a menstruous woman—and a thousand other things. Can he afford to run up to Jerusalem every time he becomes unclean?”

  “You’re dodging.”

  “Oh no I’m not. I’m explaining something to you….Here, I’m sorry: Let’s pour wine and drink. For three years we were comrades in Alexandria—glorious Alexandria, city of light and learning, city of wise men! The heathen, Alexandria, will come to your light, and kings to the brightness of your rising—and a few sons of Israel! Yes, God help us, a few Jews also!”

  Most of the passion had left his face. Again he looked a little cynical, but gentle—urbane, but weary—intellectual, but the victim of a deep inner conflict. Looking at him, Philemon recalled an earlier statement, that the core of religion for Jews was the impotence of man as an instrument of God to overcome the grossness and evil in nature. Nature’s assault on history was persistent and dreadful: to overcome nature and subdue it, God had chosen a special people to assist him, who would become the priests to all nations….

  “Do you really wish to find this Judith? Do you want to be with her? But you never could!”