“You don’t judge me then,” I said with a smile, “although I am in your eyes an idol-worshiper, adulterer and drunkard?”
“You are outside,” he said. “It is not my business to judge you. We judge only those who are inside. God will judge you.”
He said it so seriously, as a definite fact, that I trembled inwardly. Although I had made up my mind not to offend him, I could not resist putting a malicious question to him.
“When do we stand before this day of judgment, according to the information you have?” I said.
Paul said that it was not his business to prophesy either. The day of the Lord would come like a thief in the night. I saw that he was fairly certain that the coming of the Lord would happen in his lifetime.
Paul rose to his feet suddenly.
“The Lord will descend from heaven and those who have died in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive will be carried there with them to meet the Lord among the clouds and then we shall all be in the presence of the Lord.”
“And the judgment then,” I asked, “of which you talk so much?”
“The Lord Jesus will appear in a flame of fire with his celestial angels,” he said, “and avenge himself on those who do not recognize God and do not obey the message of our Lord Jesus. As a punishment they will be afflicted with eternal perdition away from the countenance of our Lord and the light of his power.”
I had to admit that he did not attempt to win my’favor but starkly said what he meant. His words moved me, for he was nothing if not honest in the fervor of his belief. Without my asking him, he told me about angels and the powers of evil, about his journeys in different countries and the authority he had been given by the supporters in Jerusalem. More than anything else, I was surprised that he showed no desire to convert me. In the end, I did not listen to him so much as submit myself to the power and assurance which seemed to speak from him.
I could feel his presence quite clearly. I smelled the pleasing scent of candles, good food, incense and clean goat-hair. It was good to be in his company. Nevertheless, in a kind of dream, I tried to separate myself from it. I jerked out of my drowsiness and cried, “How can you think you know everything so much better than other people?”
He spread out his hands and replied with all simplicity, “I am God’s fellow worker.”
And he was not blaspheming when he said it; he was quietly but absolutely convinced of the truth of his words. I rose swiftly with my hand to my forehead and walked up and down the room as if bewitched. If it were really as he said, then here was the opportunity of my life to find the meaning of life.
“I do not understand what you are saying,” I admitted in a trembling voice, “but lay those strong hands of yours on my head, if that is usual among you, so that your spirit shall come to me and I shall understand.”
But he did not touch me. Instead he promised to pray for me so that Jesus should be proclaimed to me and become my Christ, for the time was short and this world already perishing. When he had gone, everything he had said seemed sheer lunacy. I cried out aloud. I reproached myself for gullibility. I kicked the furniture over and smashed the clay bowls on the floor.
Hierex came rushing in. When he saw my condition, he called in the doorkeeper to help. Together they struggled to put me to bed. But I wept loudly and from my mouth came a mad cry which was not my own. It was as if some alien power had shaken my whole body and broken out of me in the form of this terrible scream.
At last I fell asleep from exhaustion. In the morning my head and the whole of my body ached, so I stayed in bed and wearily took the bitter medicine Hierex had mixed.
“Why do you receive that Jewish magician?” he said. “Nothing good comes of the Jews. They have a capacity for confusing sensible people.”
“He’s no magician,” I said. “Either he’s mad or else he’s the most spiritually powerful person I’ve ever met. I’m very much afraid he’s an intimate of an inexplicable god.”
Hierex looked at me in a troubled way.
“I was born and brought up a slave,” he said, “so I’ve learned to judge life from a worm’s point of view. But I’m also older than you, have traveled widely, experienced good and evil, and learned to know people. If you like, I’ll go and listen to your Jew and then tell you honestly what I think of him.”
His loyalty touched me. I thought it would be useful to know what Hierex in his own way thought of Paul.
“Yes, go to them,” I said. “Try to understand them and listen to Paul’s teaching.”
On my part I wrote a short report on Paul to Gallio, making it as formal as I could.
Minutus Lausus Manilianus on Pauclass="underline"
I heard his teaching in his followers’ synagogue. I questioned him alone. He spoke openly. He did not try to gain my favor. He hid nothing.
He is a Jew of Jewish parents. Studied in Tarsus, then in Jerusalem. Formerly persecuted the disciples and followers of Jesus of Nazareth. Experienced a revelation. In Damascus, recognized Jesus as the Jewish Messiah. Stayed in the wilderness. Quarreled in Antioch with Simon the fisherman, Jesus’ chief disciple. Later reconciled. Received the right to proclaim Jesus as Christ to the uncircumcised.
Journeyed in the eastern provinces. Often punished. Tactics: First visits the Jewish synagogues. Proclaims Jesus the Messiah. Is beaten. Converts those listeners who take an interest in the Jewish God. Circumcision is not demantled. The Jewish laws need not be obeyed. He who believes that Jesus is Christ is pardoned and receives eternal life.
No rabble-rouser. Does not encourage slave rebellion. Encourages quiet life. Does not abuse others, only his own people. Powerful personal authority. Affects most those already infected by Judaism.
Note: Convinced that Jesus of Nazareth will one day return to judge the whole world, when God’s wrath will punish all others. So in some ways an enemy of humanity.
Politically quite harmless from Rome’s point of view. Causes splits and quarrels among the Jews. In this way, to Rome’s advantage.
I found nothing reprehensible in this man.’
I went to Gallio with my brief report. After reading it, he stole a glance at me and his chin trembled a little. “You are very laconic,” he said.
“That’s just a pro memoria,” I said, annoyed. “If you like, I can tell you more about the man.”
“What is his divine secret?” asked Gallio wearily., “I don’t know,” I said impetuously.
Then I bowed my head, trembled, and went on: “If I were not a Roman, I would perhaps put aside my tribune’s insignia, leave my post and follow him.”
Gallio gave me a searching look, straightened up and raised his chin. “I made a mistake sending you to find out,” he said curdy. “You’re still too young.”
Then he shook his head dejectedly.
“Yes, exactly,” he said. “The wisdom of the world and the pleasures of life have not yet corroded you. Are you ill that you tremble so? We have excellent plumbing here, but occasionally one drinks bad water. Then one gets a fever called Corinthian fever. I’ve had it myself. But don’t be afraid. I don’t think their Jesus of Nazareth will come to judge mankind in our time.”
Nevertheless, I think supernatural things interested Gallio, for he liked talking about them occasionally. What Roman is wholly free of superstition? But to change the subject, he invited me to drink wine with him, called in his wife to join us and began to read to us a play he had written and worked on in Latin from a Greek original. He also read some Greek verses in comparison to show how well, given the right touch, our language accommodates itself to the Greek rhythms.
The play was about the Trojan war. It should have interested me, for the Trojans, through Aeneas, were the forefathers of the Romans. But after drinking some wine, I happened to say, “Written Greek is beautiful, but today it rings strangely dead in my ears. Paul spoke the living language of the people.”
Gallio looked at me with compassion.