Dear and Glorious Physician

by Taylor Caldwell (a summary by Pat Evert)  

• Forward

This book has been forty-six years in the writing. The first version was written when I was twelve years old. From my early childhood Lucanus, or Luke, the great Apostle, has obsessed my mind. He was the only Apostle who was not a Jew. He never saw Christ. It should always be remembered that St. Luke was, first of all, a great physician.  

Part One

• Chapter One

Aeneas had gratitude that the gods had freed him. He refilled the wine cup and, with even more reverence, poured out the red liquid slowly and carefully, and said with almost inaudible softness, “To the Unknown God.” Lucanus would watch as if he were witnessing the spilling of divine blood, the offering of an inscrutable Sacrifice. Who was the nameless and Unknown God? It was then that Lucanus was sure he loved his father. Aeneas had once told his son. “He is mighty, omniscient and omnipresent, circumambient yet in every particle that has being, whether tree or stone or mankind. Aeneas, the Greek slave, by the time he was twenty-five he was managing the Roman estates of his master, Priscus. He had also fallen in love with another slave, the young Iris, handmaiden to the wife of Priscus, a beautiful Greek girl. Priscus and Antonia had presided over their wedding, and had given them many gifts, including the priceless one of their freedom. Diodorus, son of Priscus, was assigned to govern Antioch, in Syria, and he took Aeneas and Iris with him. How sorrowful it is when a child suffers, and his child had never been healthy. The child, Rubria, was heart of Diodorus’ heart. He promised to sacrifice a cock to Aesculapius, and a pair of white oxen to Mercury, with golden rings in their noses. Surely he had honored the gods all his life, and they would not take from him his very heartbeat. He renewed his prayers, and added one to Juno, the mother of children. Moving silently, in the gardens Diodorus found a child, who was sitting on the coarse green grass and staring up at Rubria’s window. Diodorus thought, Why, it is the young Lucanus, son of my freedman, Aeneas. “I was praying for Rubria,” he said. Diodorus softened his grating voice. “You are praying for Rubria, boy? Ah, she needs your prayers, the poor little one. To what god are you praying?” asked Diodorus. Lucanus said, “To the Unknown God. My father has taught me that He is everywhere, and in all things. Do you think He is here, and that He hears me?”

• Chapter Two

Diodorus knew all about the Unknown God. Once, in a Greek temple, he had sacrificed to Him, though the Greeks had believed He did not wish sacrifices. The Jews called Him Lord. Lucanus was a Greek, not a Jew. It was possible that the Greeks had heard of the Jewish God, and as they did not know His name they called Him the Unknown. “But the Unknown God is the God of all men,” said Lucanus. “The Unknown God is not inflamed when one of His children calls Him Father. He is pleased. I know He listens gently, and will cure her, for He loves her.” A gentle god. That was absurd. The gods were not gentle. They were jealous of their honor, and they were vengeful and remote and powerful. He remembered what this boy had said: “He loves her.” The gods did not ‘love’ men. They demanded worship and sacrifice from them, but man, as man, was a worthless thing to the gods. “He loves her.” Could it be possible that the Unknown God had as one of His attributes the quality of loving men? The boy was smiling shyly. “Master, will you take that stone to Rubria and lay it on her pillow tonight, for part of the Unknown God is in it.” Lucanus was offering him a small woolen bag. Diodorus took it; from it emanated a wild and intense odor. “It is herbs,” said Lucanus. “I gathered them today in the fields, as if I were told. Master, have a slave steep them in hot wine, and let Rubria drink of it, and it will ease her pain.” “She shall have it at midnight, when she usually awakens,” he promised. Diodorus was thinking. This was no ordinary boy, but a boy of intelligence and fearlessness and thought. What are your desires?” “To find the Unknown God, Master, and to serve Him, and in His Name to serve man,” replied Lucanus. “I can best serve man as a physician, which is my dear desire. I have been to the harbor and I have seen the sick men in the ships, and the dying, and they come from every part of the world. Later in speaking with Lucanus father Diodorus stated. “Well, then, my good Aeneas, he shall be a doctor.” Again he hesitated ruefully, “I shall send him myself to the school of medicine in Alexandria when he is older. In the meantime he shall take lessons with the little Rubria’s tutor.”  

• Chapter Three

The mysterious disease which so afflicted the tender sinews of Rubria’s body had struck at the innocent heart and was strangling it. Diodorus suddenly remembered Lucanus. It was impossible for Keptah to tell this father that the child had the white sickness, which was invariably fatal. The nurse had brought in a silver goblet of hot wine, and Keptah dexterously mixed the herbs in it. The child drank obediently between deep breaths of suffering. Like a red tide, the flush of fever receded from her cheeks and lips, and was replaced by a ghostly pallor. And indeed Rubria slept. 

They were still a priestly people — the Kalü — before they had been called Babylonians by the Jews. The Star stood in the heavens, almost as brilliant as the sun, its sharp rays beaming out steadfastly in the silent blackness around it. As he watched the Star he began to pray humbly. “Oh, Thou for Whom the world has waited so long, blessed am I that it was given to me to see Thy Sign! For the dark places shall now be opened, and the secret places revealed, and the gates of the House of the Lord shall stand ajar to the end of time, and death shall be no more.” Now he could see the delicate profile of the child who was sitting on the bank of the estuary. It is the boy, Lucanus, thought Keptah, with wonder. “It was as if it had called me, and I could not disobey.” I feel it is telling us something. I do not know. But I know, that someday it shall be revealed to me.” But we gave one Abraham to the Jews, who now call him Father Abraham. We first came to the land of Ur from a place unrecorded. And a man named Moses became acquainted with those mysteries through the Kalü who had been commanded to go to Egypt and teach the young Egyptian prince beyond what the priests of Egypt already knew.  

• Chapter Four

Diodorus knew in his heart that he was incapable of being brutal and unjust, just as his virtuous fathers had been so incapable, and had respected the lives and the persons of even the humblest men. No wonder there were now so few sound artisans, merchants, workers, and builders in Rome. The monstrous government sucked in the fruit of their labors in the form of taxes for an idle and screaming and devouring State-supported rabble. Diodorus, sunken in a despondency and hopelessness he had never experienced before. He remembered the ending of his friend’s letter: “The only hope for Rome is a return to religious values …” The ‘Unknown God’ of the Greeks? But who was He, and where was He? He, the Incorruptible, the Father, the Loving One, the Just? Why was He silent, if He existed? Why did He not speak to mankind, and reorder the reeking world and bring peace to the peaceless, hope to the hopeless, love to the loveless, fullness to those starving for righteousness? If He lived, this was the hour when He should manifest Himself, before the world smothered in its own dunghill, or died by its own sword. Then he remembered the wild rumors in Antioch that day. A particularly vivid Star, brighter than the brightest moon, had appeared in the heavens the night before, and had been seen by many. Rubria had made a miraculous improvement. Diodorus ordered Lucanus to remain for dinner. He is as my son, thought Diodorus, and he loved Lucanus’ face, so like the face of Iris, and he marked the nobility of his forehead. The Romans had always conceded the superiorities of the Greeks, including the philosophers. Ah, yes, thought Diodorus, this is the son I should have had. He was sorrowful for a moment. 

• Chapter Five

The boy had a devouring mind; facts and poetry and languages were seized upon, assimilated and made his own. He apparently forgot nothing. Cusa tried to reach Lucanus’ limits by assigning him intricate lessons, far in advance of his age, but Lucanus was always one step ahead, and with ease. Day by day Rubria became more beautiful, more beloved of her playmate. Without Rubria there would be no songs, no delight in the blood, no tenderness, no reason for being. There were times when he mourned and questioned. Did God give only to take away? Did He rob for the purpose alone of taming the human heart to Him? Rubria achieved puberty, and Aurelia rejoiced. 

There was before Lucanus a room size cross. The pearly luminousness that flowed through the temple moved swifter, as if ethereal presences were gathering in greater concentration. The boy was conscious of no fear, only of growing wonderment and love so profound that his body could hardly contain it. He dared to put out his hand and touch it; it was cool to his touch, and yet it vibrated slightly. He wound his arms about the shaft and leaned his cheek against it, and without the slightest conscious knowledge his whole body trembled with adoration and the deepest peace he had ever known. He closed his eyes; he was at the core of the universe. He had the deepest reluctance to leave the Cross; while he lay there he sensed safety and peace and the fulfillment of all desire. “You were truly right. The boy is one of us. But he cannot be admitted to the Brotherhood. There is another way and light for him, through long and arid places, gray and desolate. “He will come to her, and sit at her knees,” he murmured. “She will speak to him of the things she pondered in her heart, and about which she will speak to no other man. Then Lucanus said, “Who were those men? They seemed like kings.” “They are kings,” said Keptah, gently. “They are the Magi.”

• Chapter Six

The searching, pinching and pushing hands of Linus had a monstrous hypnotic effect on the young boy. He felt himself degraded, and helpless to repel the degradation; he felt his humanity insulted, his integrity assaulted. Yet, like a voiceless victim, he had no power to resist. He could only stare sightlessly at Keptah and feel nausea at this incredible betrayal, and the fire of ignominy and furious anger in his breast. Then Keptah spoke quietly. “The boy is not for sale.” “You were shamed, your humanity treated ignominiously, your dignity as a man insulted. You have seen the scars on the hands of your father, who was once a slave, and, like a child, you have accepted them serenely, as a child, and commonplace. Have you ever asked your father what it means to be a slave, to be treated as less than a man, less, even, than a valuable horse or a good dog? “I was a child, and I did not understand. You have taught me.” Keptah smiled sadly. “Learning comes with tears and grief and pain. That is just, for man cannot understand God when he is young and happy and ignorant. He can only know God through sorrow, his own sorrow and the agony and sorrows of others. I exposed you to evil so that you would no longer be defenseless.”

• Chapter Seven

Diodorus Cyrinus awoke to three dismal awarenesses: his brother in law paid him an undesired visit. This was the day of the month when he had to meet with Syrian magistrates in the Hall of Justice, and to hear the complaints of local nobles and landowners and chieftains, tax collectors, whom Diodorus hated more than he hated any other breed of man. To Diodorus a tax collector, though apparently necessary in these degenerate days, was scurvier than the dirtiest jackal, and had something of the jackal’s habits, upon which Diodorus would dwell in a loud voice in the company of the officials. And third, he had a migraine. His anger made his eyes blind for a few moments and his heart beat as if he had been unbearably humiliated. The magistrates expressed their fervent hopes, in low and whispering voices, not only that the tribune would soon descend into hell, but Rome with him. ‘Corrupt citizens breed corrupt rulers, and it is the mob who finally decides when virtue shall die’.” Carvilius felt respect for Diodorus, who could scold Caesar with impunity and receive an apologetic reply. “This rascal, now crowned with oak leaves, and a cold-blooded person, may technically be my Emperor, and I serve him as a soldier, as my father served Gaius Octavius, but I do not have to pretend to adore him and regard him as one of the gods.” Diodorus shifted in his chair wrathfully. “And I want to go to my farm near Rome and forget your accursed mobs, and all your politics and depravity, and be with my family. 

• Chapter Eight

“When did I merit the insult you gave me tonight before my sister’s husband?” This was so unlike the amiable Aurelia, who had a large and diffused affection for everyone, that Diodorus was taken aback. “So. I am not a gentleman,” he observed. “You never were. What is this about a marriage for Calliope? And to whom?” “Lucanus,” said Diodorus, and slapped his knee as if it were all settled. I have decided this myself. Who is he to protest my orders?” Did you know that you are occasionally sinister?” 

• Chapter Nine

Keptah could not bring himself to tell this father that his child would inevitably expire within a few months at the most. “Yes, Lady. And she cannot live. She will die before the autumn. The little Rubria has the white sickness,” said Keptah, and he could not keep the tears from his enigmatic eyes. Aurelia saw them, and she was touched. “She has had a recession for a number of years, far beyond my expectations.” She began to weep, but in silence. She accepted even death with fortitude. “I do not believe it,” said Lucanus, in a strangled voice. Keptah, watching him, saw the fierce hatred and agony in the youth’s eyes. He said, with alarm, “Have you, then, forgotten all you knew, my Lucanus? Have you forgotten the Star, the love, the understanding? Have you lost your devotion to God, and your knowledge of Him?” Lucanus said through dry lips, “I have forgotten. I dreamt as a child. I am now in a man’s world.” “Then, as a man, you must accept. But you have known more than grief. You have known God. In despair and storm you accept Him as simply as you accepted Him in sunshine and laughter!” 

• Chapter Ten

“There are times when bravery is folly, but who shall question loyalty and courage? He could not carry all the books with him, so he remained. But the river surged over the land, over the docks, over the shelter, and took Aeneas with it when it retreated.” To Aeneas the records themselves, were more valuable in the moments of disaster than his very life. They had symbolized, for Aeneas, the reason for his existence; in their neatness was a refutation of his former slavery. To Lucanus his father’s death was a tragedy beyond his mere death. He could only sit and gaze at his mother. Oh, I could not let him believe he was important, though I tried to speak dutifully and in the false accents of respect! To such degradation did I fall. His heart was like a huge stone. He wished to pray for the soul of his father, which was now wandering in some ghostly Elysian field, faintly clamoring and lonely. But he could think, even then, only of Rubria, the bright, the young, the tender and the adorable, who would soon travel that grievous path into the depths of death and be lost to him forever.

• Chapter Eleven

When with her, one was convinced that all existence was good and full of meaning and poetry. Her favorite birds would light on her shoulder to eat of the bread or fruit she held in her lips for them. If she were in pain, none knew it but Keptah. She only smiled as if possessed of some divine secret. Then Lucanus knew, that she would die, and very soon. He closed his eyes and gave himself up to sorrow. She knew; it was possible that she had known a long time. He could not endure it, that one so young and beautiful had known the truth and had accepted it, without natural fear, without regret, and only with sublime courage. The maiden sighed. “Surely He knows what is best. Surely the peace I feel is His mercy and His goodness. The One who will die on the Cross is living in the world with us now, hardly more than a Child.” 

• Chapter Twelve

Iris said to her son. “A desperate father weeps for his child, a brokenhearted mother is inconsolable. You are now a man, and should put aside childish things. Did you think the world all one dream of sweetness and happiness? That is the dream of fools, those who say it should exist. “Oh, you who have been so blessed!” cried Iris. “You have been surrounded by love. You are not a slave. You are a free man, born free. What do you know of the world’s terrible sorrow and agony? You are young, you have been nurtured. “I shall learn to defeat Him,” Lucanus muttered. “I shall snatch His victims from Him.” I shall take away His pain from the helpless. Oh, You who do this evil to men, I despise You! he thought. Would not even the basest of men be more compassionate? “I am a son who came not to hate his father, but to despise him lightly as a man of little learning and of many pretensions. I became arrogant and condescending. I forgot all he had suffered, all he had known. My father lost a son. And now the son has lost his father, and I cannot reach him and ask his forgiveness for cruelty and the pride of youth. It is good so to live that when a loved one dies one has no regrets. But who does not have regrets? 

• Chapter Thirteen

Lucanus had only one enormous question: Where is Rubria? All his work was only a means to a vengeful end, and beauty had left the measurement and awareness of his eyes. when a slave died he was inconsolable for days. No hand was gentler or more compassionate than his. If we are not immortal, then why were we born? If only I could believe there is no God! But I believe in Him, and from Him I will have His victims, if not His answer! As the days passed, his wrath and anguish did not decrease. He was like a fire that is endlessly fed; each night when he slept he was burned to ashes; in the morning he rose from those ashes like a phoenix, winged with agony. Keptah was not surprised at these manifestations and the magic power of healing that Lucanus possessed. Aurelia has toxemia of pregnancy, and a lethal thing. He knew instantly that the fierce-eyed, beak-nosed Roman was about to endure the agony of sorrow again, if not for a wife, then again for a child. “What I have given you will induce almost immediate labor, Lady,” said Keptah. “The result is with God only.” “But the child is far from term, less than seven weeks.” Aurelia said to Iris, “All that I have I deliver to you. Do not weep. You have been my friend, and friends are more than birth, more than money, more than station. I beg of you what you will give in any event: devotion and love, and all your heart.” It was over; none of the lives had been saved. Lucanus with cold fury and outrage. Two, again, had been done to death by the savage hand of God. “No!” cried Lucanus, vehemently. “Live!” Lucanus commanded the child. And his strong breath went in and out of the throat of the infant. Keptah ran to Lucanus and exclaimed with awe, “The boy lives! He is not dead!”

• Chapter Fourteen

Lucanus studied much at home now, fleeing from the schoolroom the moment lessons were over to escape the slaves, who persisted on bowing to him, or touching his garments, or falling on their knees before him, imploring for his intercession with the gods. It horrified and repelled him that he, who was so hopelessly estranged from God. He wanted to shout, “I tell you, He hates us! He gives us life so that we may die in darkness; He gives us eyes so we may see the ugliness of death; He gives us love so that He may destroy us! “Shall I tell them what I believe, that God is their Enemy?” 

Iris was the guardian now of, Priscus, the son of Diodorus; never leaving him a moment during the first precarious month of his life. Lucanus winced, for the small face was the face of Rubria, and he could not endure it. His smile was Rubria’s smile, winning and sweet. Here was a child who only six months ago had lain in his arms like a limp puppet, breathless and blue, limp as melting wax. All at once Lucanus was filled with pride and affection. Diodorus announced, “Within four weeks I shall leave for Rome, with all my household. Yes,” said Diodorus, sullenly. “I have had many strange dreams in which the Lady Aurelia has come to me smiling, with love in her eyes. She has urged me to marry Iris, whom she called her ‘sister’. But now I see I can never marry Iris. My conscience will not permit it. Nor will I take her to Rome with me. It is done. Life is over.”

• Chapter Fifteen

“You are sending me away from you, Master — forever! Diodorus,” she said, and her voice was strong and angry. “There is something I must tell you. I am not a mere handmaiden to be dismissed and turned away. I have held a secret for a long time, because it was the wish of your mother, the Lady Antonia, for she thought it would offend you deeply — as a Roman! However, she gave me permission to tell you this secret when I thought it necessary. After your father died, she legally adopted me, but in secret, as her daughter. The praetor so recorded it, in Rome, before you returned from Jerusalem. And in Rome there is much money waiting for me, which I have not yet used. My husband knew nothing of it. You stare at me as if I were lying! You have only to visit the praetor in Rome.” Your mother loved me, as dear as a daughter. Though you do not know it, she did not wish me to marry my poor Aeneas. But I knew you, Diodorus! I knew that you loved me then, and had always loved me, and that you as a Roman, however, would never consider marrying me, a former slave. To end forever your yearning, your internal struggles, I married Aeneas. I would have consented, before that adoption, to be your mistress, to be the lowliest, to carry wood for your bath. But I was now your mother’s daughter, and I could not offend her memory.” “But I have learned that Aurelia knew of my passion for you. I remember what she must have suffered because of that. I am guilty before her. I must do penance.” “Oh, you Roman fool, you dear, beloved fool! Certainly Aurelia knew. She knew the very moment she entered your house. We loved you together, and she was content, for she was a lady of sense, and not a dolt-headed man! Not once was she disturbed. You were her husband, and you were an honorable man. Is your soul so small that you dare to insult the large and kindly soul of Aurelia, my friend? While she was bearing your son she had premonitions of death, and confided in me. And before she died she asked me to remain with you forever, and comfort you, and give you happiness. Yet you now insult her!” “While in Rome, I invented a false lineage for you, so that I could marry you with honor.” She ran to the door and called to the wet nurse who was waiting outside. “Bring in the child!” she exclaimed, and when the child was delivered to her she held him in her arms, and he crowed and nuzzled her. “No,” said Iris, and her rosy face dimpled. “You must kiss him first! 

Part Two

• Chapter Sixteen

Iris wrote to her son in Alexandria, Lucanus:

Your sister, Aurelia, will soon be three years old, and she is the light of our souls, with her golden hair and eyes as brown and soft as the heart of a daisy. There is nothing she can demand, in her infant insistence, from Diodorus, her father, that he will not grant immediately, in spite of my protests. Your brother Priscus is Aurelia’s fondest playmate. Your new brother, Gaius Octavius, named for your father’s old comrade in arms, is almost a year old. 

Now as Lucanus stood in this present twilight, he felt his awful loneliness again, his abandonment, and his endless, unremitting grief, not only for Rubria, who was lost to him forever, but for all that suffered and cried aloud without solace. Never again would God speak to him, for he had shut his ears! He lives alone, in that terrible marble silence of his. He thinks only of Rubria. She is a divinity to him. The city of Alexandria was hot and vehement. It’s prefect could not be certain how many of his men would return at night to their stations; murder was very frequent. Even the Roman legions here could not always maintain order. Tax-gatherers disappeared when not accompanied by soldiers; their bodies were frequently found in the river or when the tides returned to the vast and brilliant-colored harbor. The alleys were full of corpses each dawn, evidence of other conflicts between other races also. Lucanus had never been a merry soul, even when young, except when in the company of the little Rubria. 

• Chapter Seventeen

Convinced of both mortal and spiritual death, he was never without the deepest and most terrible anger against God. Lucanus had long observed that in Alexandria the teachers possessed no arrogance about their individual races, creeds or family backgrounds. The humility, the fraternity, the eager exchange of knowledge among the teachers, the acceptance and their reverence of each other. They were a brotherhood dedicated to truth and enlightenment. Lucanus resisted the idea of specialism. “If the liver be ill,” he would protest, “then the whole man is ill. Cancer is a disease of the whole man, not merely that part which is attacked.” Their sufferings tormented him personally; treating a man with heart disease, he would feel thrills of pain in his own heart. The arthritis which twisted and crippled the joints of a sufferer very frequently twinged his own joints. One man came in with severe head pains and his only illness was that of being enslaved. May God grant that soon all men shall be free, so that they do not think of death as the only escape. “Odilus suffered from no illness of the body or brain,” Lucanus said respectfully to the pragmatic Greeks. “He suffered from an illness of the soul, and he is now cured.”

• Chapter Eighteen

“Lucanus, I believe you could help Elazar ben Solomon, and you alone. He is dying; it is probable you cannot save his life. He is also stricken in his soul, and you could comfort him.” “I!” exclaimed Lucanus, and he smiled wearily. “I, the comfortless, give comfort?” Joseph had no slaves himself, nor had his family; they employed only freedmen, whom they had bought as slaves and then freed. “Elazar ben Solomon is known for his many charities, and his kindness, for he has the greatest heart. He redeems every Jewish slave he finds; you will discover no slaves in this house, or in any of his many houses in many cities. The more he gives, the more God gives to him.” As Elazar is dying he relates how his son of 2 years was kidnapped. Lucanus promised to look for him. Upon Elazar’s death they unitedly said, “The Lord gives and the Lord takes away. Blessed be the name of the Lord.” He glanced at Joseph ben Gamliel with fiercely sparkling eyes. How was it possible for a wise and learned man to praise the Name of the deadly Enemy of all men? Lucanus was disgusted; his head whirled with his furious pain and loathing. He turned on his heel and left the house. 

• Chapter Nineteen 

He thought of the child, Arieh, who he was convinced was dead, murdered in malice and hatred, and now, for the first time, Lucanus revolted against the evil in men, against their bloodthirstiness and boundless hardness of heart and their crimes against their fellows. Here was another enemy beside God: man himself. In those frightful moments Lucanus hated both God and man. 

The man is a leper. He was driven from the city into the desert a few months ago. You know it is mandatory death for a leper to return once he has been exiled to live in the caves. Lucanus considered the plight of Sira, who wanted only to glimpse his wife and children again before eternal exile and death. He would have departed as silently as he had returned, back to his living death and suffering in the desert. He must be given that opportunity, though death was better than life as a leper. “Ah, my dearest,” wept the young woman, “if only you, as a physician, had not attempted to cure the lepers! and the frightful disease came to you from the afflicted. Sira groaned. “I did not betray my oath. If the gods have betrayed me, then that is their own crime.” “O You who have so tormented this man who wished only to save Your victims from Your hatred! What have we done to merit Your hate, You who have not the eyes and the limbs and the blood of men, and not their flesh? Do You bleed as a man bleeds? Does Your heart tremble as the heart of a man trembles? Have You loved as a man loves? Have You begotten a son, so that You might mourn for him?” Am I greater than You, more merciful than You? Then Lucanus felt some tremendous virtue leave him like flowing blood, and a mysterious weakness made his body shake. Asah uttered a loud and piercing shriek, then dropped senseless to the stones like one felled by a blow. And Sira stared at his arms and saw that they were whole and clean and without blemish. He put his hands to his cheeks and his brow, and they were as smooth as an infant’s flesh. 

• Chapter Twenty

“I must tell you a story,” said Joseph. “There is only one God. He is the Father of all men. Did you think the Messias will come only to the Jews? Thirteen years ago, Lucanus, I was a teacher of holy law in Jerusalem. My wife gave birth to a son one cold winter night. It was a very strange night, for a great Star had suddenly appeared in the heavens. A rumor spread through the city that in the little town of Bethlehem had been born the King of the Jews.” Lucanus remembered that great Star he had seen as a child in Antioch, and his heart beat with dread. Joseph said simply, “My son was among those murdered by Herod, and my wife’s heart broke, and she died.” Lucanus was immediately filled with compassion, and he was ashamed of his impatience, and more ashamed of the vehement and angry remarks he had addressed to Joseph in the past. Joseph had known death and sorrow and bitter pain, and he, Lucanus, had accused him of not knowing. He regarded Joseph with pity. He said, “How much you must have hated not only Herod, but God, for those senseless deaths!” “Though I was a widower with only one child, a daughter married in Alexandria, I felt my first joy in thirteen years. All at once the curtains parted, and a young boy entered the temple court, a tall young boy of much handsomeness, The boy was obviously a peasant. Later they wondered why they had not immediately bidden the boy to depart. But I, seeing him, thought of my son, who of the same age if he had not been murdered. He was as regal as a king, this young peasant of Galilee with his work-worn hands and his bare feet and his lifted head. In spite of his Galilean accent, he spoke as one with authority and one of profound learning. We became engrossed with him. We asked the most difficult and obscure of questions, and he answered them simply. It was then that the curtain parted in agitation, and a rough bearded man and a beautiful young woman, dressed in peasants’ garb, burst into the court. I shall never forget that young woman, Lucanus. She gave the impression at one and the same time of being as old as Eve and as young as the spring.” Lucanus bit his lip. “You have explained nothing, Joseph ben Gamliel. Who was that boy?” “That you must discover for yourself, Lucanus.”

• Chapter Twenty-One

“You will find my brother, Lucanus,” Sara said in her dulcet voice. “And I will be waiting, in Alexandria or in Jerusalem. Or anywhere.” “Sara. Where I go, no one else can go, no brother, no sister, no mother. No wife. There is much that I must do, and I shall be homeless and a wanderer. There is no room in my life for a personal love, for love to me means loss.” I cannot love again! he would cry in himself. Love is fetters and chains; love is death. 

• Chapter Twenty-Two

“You are a Roman, and you feel and think as a Roman, Gallo. A slave to you is less than a jackal. To me he is a brother. I am a physician, and there is plague aboard. Unless I can check it in the galleys the whole ship will become infected, and perhaps we all shall die. We fly the yellow flag. I need your help, Scipio. There may be a watch at the locked door leading to the galleys. Or the patrolling watch may make his rounds before my wonderful Cusa here picks the lock. I need but an hour or two.” Cusa was thinking, If I had had a less just and good master than Diodorus, I too might be in such a galley, dying, without help and without hope. If it had not been for Lucanus, I would still be a slave. Nothing could ever injure Lucanus, nor those who served him. It was a scene from hell, filled with tortured specters, pervaded with stenches. Blood had been vomited; bloody feces had been expelled on the floor, and tainted urine. The slaves felt Lucanus’ pain for them and his love. “Master, it is as if a god has entered here. I have drunk of your medicine, and new life has come into me, and into the galley slaves.” The men suddenly had acquired hope in this stench-filled and rotting hole. Some of them cried out in song, and after a moment the others joined them. Here were no slaves in this watery pit; they were men. Lucanus continued to administer to the ill, the dead were removed silently. They had been beyond hope. Yet they had lived, they had recovered quickly, they had been restored to health! Something impossible had happened. The captain said,“I have talked with the overseer, and you know how superstitious these animals are. He swore to me that Apollo and one of his attendants, shining like light, entered through the locked door — the locked door! — and ministered to the dying, and they recovered!”

• Chapter Twenty-Three 

Lucanus wrote a letter to Keptah: 

I have come to the conclusion that Rome is not worth the saving, so base has she become these past hundred years, so corrupt and monstrous. Man’s fate is in the hands of God, and God is not notable, according to my observations, for showing mercy or loving His prophets. 

Diodorus rent the tunic on his breast, and the armor clanged on the floor. “Look at my scars, the evidences of my wounds! You senators, you scoundrels, you perfumed liars, look at my wounds! You sleek rascals who bed in silk to the strumming of lyres and the murmurs of prostitutes and dissolute women. Let me move your hearts!” he cried. “It is not yet too late! The course of empire leads only to death. Senators, look at me! Listen with your hearts, and not with your evil minds. 

Tiberius Caesar – “Where are the Romans? They have lost their identity. They have lost their tongues, their minds, their souls, their virility. What have I to do with such a Rome? I am not an honorable man! I am what my people have made me. I am their captive, not their Emperor. There is no escaping the evil of a debased people. You will go at once, Captain, to the estate of the tribune, Diodorus Cyrinus, and you will tell him that his Emperor, his General, has no further use for his services, and that in this event he will obey.” Diodorus was being commanded to fall on his sword. Tiberius said, “I shall issue a decree tomorrow that the wife of Diodorus be the guardian of her children, and their father’s wealth, and that her name, and her false genealogy, be inscribed in the public books of Rome.” Then Tiberius lifted his goblet from the table and threw the contents into the face of the senator. “There,” he said, “is your just reward, my noble Senator.”

• Chapter Twenty-Four

Keptah said, very gently, “It will grieve you to the heart to know that Diodorus is dying. He returned from Rome today and collapsed in this very hall, in my arms. He has been dying for two years. Now he has been stricken with the last mortality, and he will expire before the moon fully rises. His wife and his children are with him now.” Diodorus spoke in a louder voice. “Tell Caesar that Diodorus Cyrinus cannot answer his call, for I have been summoned by One greater than he, into Whose hands I must commend my spirit.” The Senate was stunned with bewildered astonishment when Caesar commanded them all to be present, with full honors and in their senatorial togas. The last stupefying report was that Tiberius himself would deliver the funeral oration, dressed in his military garb and standing in his own military chariot. 

• Chapter Twenty-Five

In the spring is the deep promise of God, and no man can resist it though his heart be as empty as a broken vessel. But our young physician has no concern for civilizations. He thinks only of the oppressed and the despised and the rejected, who are so because their nation is rotten and because they have made it so. “You are certain it was plague on that ship?” “Master Keptah, of a certainty it was. I have described the symptoms over and over to you, and the look of the dead, and the buboes and the bloody vomit.” Keptah nodded. “Even though I know much I cannot tell you, my good Cusa, I am still amazed at what you have told me.” I myself believe him touched with divinity. Sometimes Iris amazed Lucanus by her acceptance of events and the death of her beloved husband. There were times when she had an impenetrable mystery for Lucanus. He said nothing; he had tried, all these months, to hold himself apart from his family for terror of loving them too much. He must leave as soon as possible or these children and their mother would seize his heart and break it with grief in their hands. Is it not wonderful that you have been appointed, through the graciousness of Caesar, to be the Chief Medical Officer in Rome? He said, as gently as possible, “I must tell you, Mother. I cannot accept the appointment of Tiberius. I cannot remain here.” “Yes,” said Iris, “I understand. You are very like Diodorus, and this makes me happy. You have the same sternness and discipline of character, the same dedicated duty, rare things in this debauched world. You are aware, of course, that the path you have laid out for yourself is a sorrowful and lonely one. “Mother, I love a woman who seems to me Rubria reborn. It is in her nature that I have found the resemblance, the same gentleness and soft gaiety, the same pureness of character, the same womanly strength. Her name is Sara bas Elazar. It is not for me,” said Lucanus, with firmness, and his mother saw his face. “I wish to be free,” said Lucanus. “The more wants a man has, the less freedom. I want nothing for myself. I have ordained my life.” Lucanus remembered the deep stirring of his heart when he had seen that Star, the passionate and nameless assurance which had come to him, the intense joy.

• Chapter Twenty-Six

Lucanus was summoned and accompanied to appear before Caesar. Long before they entered the city through the Asinara Gate, Lucanus could see Rome, white and bronze and golden on its Seven Hills, crowding against the cerulean sky. All the wealth of the world was here, all its power, perversions, and evils, all its strange appetites and stranger gods, all its depravities and tongues and customs and lustings, all its beauties and arts and philosophies, all its intrigues and plottings. No wonder, thought Lucanus, that Diodorus had at once loved and hated his city. Rome was seven hundred years old, and old, now, with ancient sin. Lucanus was not afraid of this most fearful man. “Greetings, Lucanus, son of Diodorus Cyrinus,” said Caesar.

• Chapter Twenty-Seven

“I do not understand your letter. I have appointed you Chief Medical Officer in Rome, to the growling of the older physicians, and you have asked me to withdraw the appointment. I am curious to know why.” Lucanus colored. He was not aware that it was not only incredible, but dangerous, to refuse what Caesar offered. It was as if a moth had defied an eagle. He said, gravely, “Rome does not need me. That is what I wrote you, Sire. But the poor and the enslaved have need of my services in the provinces.” “You would give it all up for the purpose of ministering to the worthless poor and beggars and slaves!” Lucanus said, “Yes, for all else is as nothing to me. Because otherwise my life would have no meaning.” Tiberius could feel the inexorable forces about him, the contemptible mobs of Rome, the insatiable, polyglot mobs who looked on their Caesar as a deity equipped with a cornucopia of endless benefits to reward the lazy, the weak, the worthless, the irresponsible, the bottomless bellies who would feed at the expense of industrious neighbors. Soulless beasts! Suddenly Tiberius hated Rome. Lucanus answered with extraordinary vehemence, “I am dedicated to no god!” “You do not believe in the gods?” asked Tiberius. “I believe in God. He is our Enemy. He sentences us to death for being what we are, He who made us what we are.” “Nevertheless,” said Tiberius, “you should honor his memory enough to spend some time in Rome, serving the people. I command you to remain here for six months. If, at the end of that period, you are still convinced that your duty lies elsewhere, I shall relieve you. I wish you attached to this household during that period,” said Tiberius. He smiled tightly. “I may even consult you, personally, on a few matters.” He understood now that he could not protest. “My good Plotius,” said Tiberius, “you will conduct Lucanus to the best of quarters, where he will remain for some time as my honored guest. And you will send a message to his mother that her son is with me.” 

• Chapter Twenty-Eight

A man, and a Greek, had refused Caesar, and had not only left his presence a free man but had been graciously treated as a person of the utmost importance. It seemed ridiculous to Lucanus that he should be in this apartment with slaves to serve him alone. 

• Chapter Twenty-Nine

Rome lay in the center of the world like a bloated satyr, reclining on a couch of crimson silk and gold, his hand grasping a sword, his other hand wearily lifting another goblet of wine to his mouth. It was a covert matriarchy, corrupt, selfish, insistent, and greedy. Among these men and women there was no love for their country, no celebration of freedom, no honor for the mighty dead who had founded their nation and their institutions. At the Augusta’s banquet all burst into friendly laughter, and goblets were lifted to Lucanus. “Welcome, noble Lucanus!” Did a nation decline and decay when women won dominance and when no doors were closed to them, or did the dominance of women merely indicate that a nation was decaying? Lucanus thought of the sweet young Rubria, and the shy and lovely Sara. It suddenly seemed incredible to him that they had existed in this age at all. Lucanus said to himself, unable to move from the hand that now lay against his neck, caressingly, I am not only disgusted and frightened; I am drunk and hot. He forgot to abstain from the wine, and as his goblet was refilled he drank of it thirstily. Julia’s lips were against his throat, and her hand wandered. A powerful urge filled him. Once he asked himself, believing the question the most serious and important in the world: Who am I? He was excessively drunk. Lucanus did not know at exactly what moment he became coldly sober, in mind if not in body, with disgust. Now he could think of Tiberius, the mighty Caesar. He regarded Julia with hatred. He grasped Hyacinth, whirled him around, and flung him violently into Julia’s arms. Then Lucanus ran. 

• Chapter Thirty

Tomorrow, in disguise, you will leave the city, and a vessel will be waiting for you in the harbor. In no event are you to return to your home, or you will bring death there not only to yourself but to those you love. Once you are safe, Julia will be led skillfully to believe that Caesar became angry with you and banished you.” He would soon be far from all he loved, in exile. But had he not wished that? In a letter Sara said, 

“I shall love and cherish you always, my dear Lucanus. I, like Ruth, wish to follow you wherever you go, and be with you eternally. Do not be surprised when you see me, for I shall know where you are. For me there can be no other man. I know that always you will search for my little brother, Arieh, and will find him one day for me.” 

Part Three

• Chapter Thirty-One

Sara’s letter to Lucanus:

Remember the last words of our dear friend, Joseph ben Gamliel, before he died two years ago in the sight of the Temple: ‘One day Lucanus will come here, and he will find Him whom he has been seeking all the days of his life.’ Now seven years since first we met. We last met in Thebes, and though your words were rejecting and sad I saw the light on your face when you saw me. We conversed quietly in the shade of your garden, but what we spoke in our hearts was not the words of our souls. Why can you not forget your bitterness against God? Wherever I go, through all the cities and the ports, I hear your name as a great physician. I know you care nothing for this. Nevertheless, it is a happiness to me to hear you acclaimed by the poor and the abandoned, the slaves and the oppressed. One of these days, in your searchings for my brother, Arieh, you will find him. He is nine years old now.

His only delight was in comforting and healing, and in the letters he received from his family and Sara. A terrible restlessness and mournful anxiety and emptiness filled him always. Three years ago he had bought a little house near the outskirts of Athens. And here, as always, Lucanus was a stranger, brewing his potions, lonely, nameless except to the poor and lost, cultivating his garden, in which he grew flowers and herbs, drinking his lonely wine. There was a far possibility that men would become men once more. He was much in demand, not only for his healing powers, but because his fee was so low. He always distributed this fee to the crew on his departure. 

• Chapter Thirty-Two

Lucanus led his new purchase into his house, and Ramus looked about him mutely and indifferently. Ramus began to write, “Call me Ramus, Master, for such is the name the Greeks have given me, and my own name will mean nothing to you. Let me be your servant, whether you free me or not, for my heart told me, on seeing you this morning, that where you go I should go, for you shall lead me to him.” “Who is he to whom I shall lead you?” Ramus smiled brilliantly. He reached for the stylus and tablet, and wrote, “He is he who will deliver my people from the curse laid on Ham, my ancient father, and him I seek, and through you I shall find him, and only through you, whom he has touched.” “Do you think only the sons of Ham are afflicted by the rage and hate of men? No. We are all afflicted by each other.” He spoke with some impatience. “And how is it possible for me, who am angered against God, to lead you to anyone who can help you and your people?” Ramus wrote, “No. Where you go I shall go. Do not ask me to leave you. My heart tells me that I must remain with you, and that all will be well.” Lucanus was touched in spite of his severity. He said, “I have long been lonely. So, if you wish, remain with me and be my friend.” Ramus could brew herbs in strange ways, and he was grateful for Ramus’ understanding of the ill who came to his house. He wondered how he had lived without this august and silent presence. A year went by, and then another, and Lucanus was over thirty before they returned to the house in the suburbs of Athens. 

• Chapter Thirty-Three

He talked to Ramus as he had never talked with another man, not even Keptah or Cusa or Joseph ben Gamliel. Lucanus looked at him with somber marveling; here was one who had endured torments from men, and he was compassionate. 

• Chapter Thirty-Four

Upon returning from a doctor visit he found his home vandalized. Huddled and bleeding, he found Ramus, who was unconscious. He knelt beside Ramus, weeping aloud, for he saw that Ramus had not only been beaten savagely, but that some sharp instrument had been slashed across the upper part of his face, and that blood poured from his eyes, which had been blinded. “They looked for you — they would have murdered you — it was the woman, Gata, who said Ramus had the evil eye — she miscarried, and her husband aroused the people against you . . .” “Run at once, to the house of Turbo, the potter, and tell him that Lucanus, the physician, begs him to send a litter for my friend and give us shelter in his house.” Lucanus examined his eyes, and he wept again. The heart of Lucanus was wrenched and throbbing. The hatred in him was like a yearning pit, waiting to devour the wickedness which was man. “Now I know that You are sternly just, and that we deserve no more than what we have, and even less than that. If You have rejected man, it is because he is not worthy of acceptance. Forgive me for my blasphemies against You? Enlighten me! And do have mercy on this good, dear friend, who has been seeking You and weeping for You, until his voice was lost. Have mercy!” Turbo caught him and held him to his breast. “Do not be distressed, dear Master,” said the potter. “I am here to take you to my house, and your servant also. I am honored!”

• Chapter Thirty-Five 

“Ah,” he murmured, “if I could give you one of my eyes, my dear Ramus! Would I not then pluck it from its socket and deliver it to your own!” Lucanus removed the bandages. The proconsul said, “Eheu! There is nothing wrong with the slave’s eyes! What nonsense is this?” The physician’s eyes flew open. He looked at Ramus, who was smiling radiantly up at him. The large and limpid black eyes were full, shining, and without a mar. Lucanus, trembling. He was incredulous. He could not believe it. He cried to Ramus, “Can you see me? Ramus nodded. “I shall counsel his dismissal after a month in prison, for assaulting the person of the servant of Lucanus, and injuring his house, and inciting a riot,” said the proconsul, and fled. 

• Chapter Thirty-Six

Only when Sara appeared unexpectedly in some port did his face lighten and his blue eyes shine; but he saw Sara only once or twice a year. Lucanus preferred to arrive at his houses at night, for fear of a crowd greeting him, as it had done a few times. When he visited Athens he had to devise means short of lies to avoid partaking of Turbo’s hospitality. Thousands loved him; thousands regarded him as a god. He went home to Rome once a year, and each time he determined that he would remain longer. But invariably, after a few days, a sick restlessness came to him, and he would leave among cries of lamentation and love. There was no passionate anger in him any longer against God, for God was indeed now a terrible weariness to him, not to be discerned. And his sister Aurora was to be married, and he must be present at her marriage. 

• Chapter Thirty-Seven 

“You have been ill of a fever for fourteen days, Master, but now you are recovering. I am the ship’s physician. For many days I did not believe that you would live. But, thanks to the gods, your life has been returned to you.” Ramus left a letter, “Forgive me, Master, for I must leave when the ship docks tonight. I must go to find Him whom I have been seeking and about Whom the centurion told us at twilight. I leave you with prayer and tears, for I loved you more than I loved my father and my brothers, and you have not been master but my friend.”

• Chapter Thirty-Eight 

I want nothing. I can truly say, I want nothing. And that is the terrible trouble. Sara bas Elazar came into the garden and found Lucanus alone. She walked slowly, for she had been ill for several months, and was a guest in this house where all loved her for her gentleness and charity. He sat beside her in silence, her hand in his. Lucanus thought to himself, Why should I not marry her and keep her with me, this dear one I have loved for many years? I have wandered all over the world, for I had no home, and I have always fled away from love. But now I am no longer young. “I am empty because I refused to love, for fear of what love can do to a man. I have been afraid of living, Sara, and I ask you now to live with me as my wife.” No, Lucanus. I cannot marry you, for in marrying you I will keep you from your destiny. 

Sara was gone, and now Lucanus was alone with his family, and the old sick restlessness was upon him again. “I have been hearing rumors on my last campaign [Priscus]. Foolish rumors, perhaps. But the rumor is to the effect that God is manifesting Himself somewhere, and that He will change the world very soon. Yet,” and he paused, “this rumor appears entirely different. A great revelation is at hand, so it says. And the world will be regenerated.” 

• Chapter Thirty-Nine 

At the present time all of Judea rings with the name of a Jewish teacher, one Jesus of Nazareth, who prefers to talk with rabble rather than join the wise men in the city. The priests despise him as a barefoot peasant. He is surrounded by followers as destitute as himself. A miserable, obscure, unlettered Jewish rabbi! 

Priscus laughed slightly. Was he the Unknown God, as the centurion had declared? But this was certainly in accord with the mystical nature of Jews, who saw God everywhere. 

When this reaches your hand, my dear beloved Lucanus, I will have been gathered to my fathers, for I am dying. Do not be grieved; do not weep. Rejoice with me that I have had my call from God, who was never absent from me a moment in my life. Death is not a calamity to him who dies; it is only a calamity to those he leaves behind, for death is deliverance and joy and eternal peace and bliss. Do not sorrow. I will be with you always. 

There were letters from lawyers who were the guardians of the wealth of Sara’s family, which they were keeping for the son of Elazar ben Solomon, who was now about twenty years old. Lucanus wondering why no storm rose in him, why no passion of sorrow, for one he had so dearly loved. Then, as a physician, he knew he was mercifully dulled by shock. He drank, and did not awaken for twenty-four hours. 

Priscus wrote lightly, but it was apparent that he was deeply serious. 

In truth, there was a beggar here whom I knew by sight, who had been blind by birth. At one time I gave him alms. Then one day I found him surrounded by many excitable people, and his eyes were open and seeing! I could not believe it, my dear Lucanus! The man was not a fraud; I swear it, yet he looked at me with open and living eyes, and when I spoke to him he ran to me and cried out, ‘The Son of God opened my eyes when I implored Him!’ It outrages the Pharisees that a man who possesses nothing, can draw multitudes to him at the instant of his appearance. 

Dear and beloved friend! This letter is from Ramus, who prays for you unceasingly. I arrived in Israel, in Nain, a dead man was being carried out, the only son of his mother, who is a widow. The Lord, seeing her, had compassion upon her, He went to the stretcher and gazed at the bearers, who became very still. He lifted His hand and said to the dead son, ‘Young man, I say to you, arise!’ Lucanus, you must believe it, for I have seen it. I declare that he who was dead sat up, and began to speak. Lucanus, I saw it; with these eyes of mine, which you restored to me, I saw it! Later His eyes lighted on me. And then suddenly I felt a trembling on my tongue, and all at once my voice was on my lips, ‘Blessed am I, who have seen the Lord our God!’ I must have fallen in the dust in a faint. 

Must I always rationalize? Lucanus thought suddenly. Must I always rush in a frenzy to explain things in the light of reason? What has my reason brought me but sorrow? Yet anything that is not logical to me is disgusting, childish, even profane. Without knowing why, he began to weep.

• Chapter Forty 

In Athens, all at once, a darkness fell on the face of the earth, swallowing all light, driving it before it like a tide and banishing it. An enormous earthquake occurred at this hour in Nicaea. In the fourth year of the two hundred and second Olympiad, Phlegon wrote that “a great darkness” occurred all over Europe which was inexplicable to the astronomers. Where was the sun? Lucanus stared at the black sky, searching. Everything was very still. No cricket lifted its voice; the birds were silent, though they had been murmurous all morning. He was consumed, not with anxiety for himself, but with a passionate questioning. Shadows paused near him, and he thought he saw the faces of Rubria and Keptah and Sara, smiling dimly. They drifted on like snow, and there, surely! was Diodorus, young and strong and valorous, his hand lifted in greeting. There was Joseph ben Gamliel — oh, this was mad! Now he was no longer physician, philosopher, or scientist. He was a man, and he was overpowered by fear. He stood up and shook, and his teeth rattled. Then the rosy hue parted like a curtain, and the sun leaped into the sky like a warrior with a golden shield. The sun had been lost. But now the terror and the anger had departed, and a sweetness rose from the flowers and the grass. When he slept that night it was as if he had been reprieved, and with that reprieve had come not only pardon, but life and a peace and a tranquility. 

• Chapter Forty-One

Lucanus purchased a slave and removed the branded scar on his forehead. “You are not Samos. That is not your name. Your name is Arieh ben Elazar, and you are a Jew, and I have been searching for you for twenty years!” And Lucanus looked into Arieh’s eyes and saw the eyes of Sara, and burst into smothered weeping. “God is good,” he faltered. “Above all things, God is good!”

• Chapter Forty-Two

“Let us sit down and study again of Moses and how he delivered his people from the Egyptians. I find the story fascinates you. And, as the son of Elazar ben Solomon, you must do better with your Hebrew lessons.” When they stopped at one port a messenger came aboard to deliver a large bag of gold to Arieh, and joyful messages from the lawyers in Jerusalem. “We await the arrival of the son of Elazar ben Solomon,” they had written. Arieh distributed the money among the members of the miserable crew. He went into the galleys and gave several of the slaves enough gold to purchase their freedom. Lucanus told Arieh of the strange Jewish teacher of whom Priscus had written, and whom Ramus had seen. “We will find the Jewish rabbi in Jerusalem,” said Arieh, intensely interested. But it was too late. The Romans had killed Him, had nailed Him on a cross like a criminal. Jesus of Nazareth had been condemned for flouting the Law and causing insurrection against Rome. It was said He was the Messias. “Then He raised His eyes to me and said in a thoughtful tone, ‘You lack one thing: sell all that you have, for you are rich, and give it to the poor, for then you shall have treasures in heaven’.” Hilell raised himself on his cushions and looked at Lucanus imploringly. “Physician! You will understand how incredible that was! Why should He have asked me to beggar myself? He asked me to follow Him, to be one with His homeless followers! I, Hilell ben Hamram! I told myself this was madness. I was asked to do the impossible.” Lucanus sighing said, “I did not know, as you did not know, that He takes only to give, bereaves only to extend His comfort, blinds only that a man can see His light. Who can know the mysteries of God? He surrendered this young man into my hands, after more than twenty years of searching for him, and I know now that when He gave me Arieh it was to deliver me from my hatred and bring me to Him.” 

• Chapter Forty-Three

Lucanus listened with profound attention to the stories of Hilell. And when he was alone late at night he began to write down these stories. He wrote with the pellucid strength and precision of the Greek scholar. It seemed to him that he had witnessed these things with his own eyes; as he wrote he saw the scenes, heard the voices of the people. And so began his Great Gospel, written for all the world of men, for he knew, as Hilell did not, that God had clothed Himself in human flesh not only for Jews but for Gentiles also. In the eyes of the Pharisees, He was debasing God to the level of the lowest, uttering heresies which would destroy the spiritual strength of Israel. When His followers acclaimed Him as the Messias, the Pharisees were enraged, for did they not believe that the Messias would come to the Jews as the mightiest of kings, clothed in glory and fierceness and power, surrounded by an angelic host, and would He not at once drive out the Romans and put them to flight forever? Yet here was a humble Man, a member of the Amuratzem, of Galilee. Here was the Messias, yet He expressed no hatred for Rome; He even condescended to cure some Romans. It was as if Lucanus had never seen before, as if for the first time he had been given sight and ears and understanding. The darkness and the grief had departed from him like a storm. 

“Priscus officiated at the crucifixion of a miserable Jewish rabbi, and it could be that some spell was laid on him. I must tell you that Priscus has changed. On the day of that crucifixion there was a darkness, was there not? I am embarrassed to tell you, my dear friend, for fear of your laughter. He declares it was God, who died on that criminal cross!” 

• Chapter Forty-Four 

“Your brother has cancer of the stomach; the disease has largely invaded his liver also. He may live a month, or perhaps two months, but certainly not for long.” For he was dying, and Lucanus had understood this at once. Priscus could never understand the Jews, their many quarreling sects, their insistence on certain rituals, their constant vehement arguments about the meanings of ancient prophets — even the city rabble would quarrel about these things! 

And then Priscus received his orders to execute the disturbing rabbi with two thieves who had been condemned to death. His was the countenance of a king, majestic and holy, and removed from any fear. A cold horror, which he could not explain, seized Priscus. This was no criminal; this was a man of the highest blood. His garments took on the majesty of purple; the crown of thorns was a crown of gold. The rabbi climbed with feeble motions, his head bent. Yet all his aspect was royal; he was a captive king awaiting execution. Priscus met Mary, His Mother. And then she smiled a little, and he thought again, incoherently, of the compassionate smile of Iris. How was it possible that this poor woman could feel pity for him, the Roman executioner of her Son? Priscus approached the condemned man, and all on the mount fell silent, and the women ceased their weeping. Now Priscus stood before Jesus and looked fully into His face; his voice could not rise in his throat. Priscus thought in awful bewilderment, Who is He? As the nails were driven into His flesh? And then He spoke, in a loud voice: “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they are doing!” Why should any man forgive his enemies, or implore the gods to do so, when he is suffering agonies and death is upon him? It was at that time that I became very sick, and wandering, and the pain began in my stomach. “O You who know the sufferings of men, because You have suffered them! He looked at Arieh and Hilell and cried, “I have heard my brother all this time! And I tell you that he knew God, and saw Him crucified, and he is blessed!”

• Chapter Forty-Five 

The Gospel of the Crucifixion was finished. There would be other parts to add, after talking with Mary and the Apostles. When Pontius Pilate met Lucanus he said, “Once Caesar said to me, ‘I have found one just man, uncorrupted, and good, and without guile or greed, and his name is Lucanus, and he is a physician. I remember him in my darkest moments.” He rushed to the bed of Priscus, expecting a corpse, but he saw, to his complete amazement, that Priscus was sitting high on his cushions and enjoying his breakfast. “I did nothing, except pray for him,” stammered Lucanus. He flung the coverlets from his brother’s body and felt over his stomach and liver, and his glands. The ominous tumors had disappeared. 

• Chapter Forty-Six 

“I am desperately weary of their fanaticism, their devotion to their God. They talk of Him, and quarrel about Him; they are full of sects where they preserve their differences of opinion.” “Do you think you will ever have peace until you abandon your persecution of His people and His followers? I tell you, no!” He drew the ring from his finger and pressed it into Pilate’s palm. “Send this to Caesar. Write him that I, Lucanus, have requested that your orders against the Christians be lifted. Tell him I have begged this of you, and that you, presented with his ring, had no right to refuse my request.” He sat up. “I am already relieved! My depression is lifting, and my melancholy. Pilate was now in good spirits. He felt the returning of health and ease in his body, and a quietness in his mind. 

• Chapter Forty-Seven 

Lucanus remained at the house of Pilate until he was assured that his brother was completely recovered. Priscus’ health returned swiftly. On the road to Jerusalem Lucanus met a funeral procession and said, “Awake, Rebecca, for you are not dead, but only sleep!” And she arose. 

“I have wondered why God chose to be born of the Jewish people, and not the Greeks, with their culture, or the Romans with their power. But now I know.” Lucanus thought of the execution grounds near Caesarea where Jews were regularly crucified for ‘inciting against the Empire’. He thought of the myriad and countless crimes man committed against man. Upon arriving a gate was opened, and a Roman trumpet sounded its greeting. They entered the city through rows of soldiers who saluted. It was a besieged city, silently wrathful, proud in its dust. It was without gaiety, laughter, music, hurrying footsteps, and merry voices. In Jerusalem, Lucanus and Arie stayed at the house of Hillel ben Hamram. Hillel said, I have seen Peter, one of the Christ’s Apostles. He reproached me for being a corrupt Jew. I was a familiar of Greeks and Romans and other abominable people. He softened, finally; he remembered me as the rich man who spoke to the Lord. Then he began to weep, and said, ‘Why should I rebuke you, I who denied Him three times and fled when they took Him and crucified Him?’ 

• Chapter Forty-Eight 

Lucanus received an invitation to dine with Pontius Pilate. Herod Antipas and his brother Phillip also attended. “He wishes to speak with you, he is vexed over my lifting the proscription against the sect which calls itself the Christians. He is prepared not to like you. It is impossible that Jesus rose from the dead! His followers took Him away, and healed Him, for He had been taken too hastily from the cross. Look you, Lucanus, I am an educated man, of a noble family. Do you expect me to believe this nonsense about a miserable unlearned rabbi from Galilee? You believe all this?” Pilate asked, in an appalled voice. “Yes. I believe it. I know it.” 

“I am here only to find the truth and to record it,” said Lucanus, with anger. “I have been a Christian since the day of Christ’s birth.” He told them of the Star he had seen as a young child, and its movement east. “I was in Athens on the day of His crucifixion,” said Lucanus, in a low and urgent tone. “The sun disappeared; there were the sounds and groanings of earthquakes. I have heard rumors, in my wanderings, that this happened everywhere in the known world. Do you think it coincidence?” 

• Chapter Forty-Nine 

Lucanus paid a visit to James and John, but was received with suspicion, even though Hillel had previously written a letter of recommendation. Looking at them gravely, he wondered how these, who had walked with God, could be so inhospitable, so without charity for the stranger, so hard and fierce. Whereas others, in speaking of the Christ, talked with love and tender joy, John spoke with rising exaltation and power. Lucanus wrote rapidly with his stylus, so that all would be accurate. He told his story with a furious air of defiance, as if challenging incredulity and ready to smite it. They had been exhorted to perform a gigantic task among the strangers; their spirits dreaded it, yet they must obey. Hillel said to Lucanus, “I have friends in many places in the world. The Jewish Christians are attempting to proselytize in Damascus, and there is much anger there. I have had a letter this morning from my good friend, Saul of Tarsus, a Roman citizen, a member of a noble Jewish house, and a lawyer of much magnitude, and a Roman official. He is going to Damascus to put down the insurrection in the city. Saul is a man of no meager power, and he is stern. I fear for the Christians in Damascus.”

• Chapter Fifty-One 

A personal testimony of one who saw and heard Jesus. “But this Man spoke of God’s mercy and love for His children, of His everlasting watchfulness, of eternal life in bliss, of God’s pity and desire that men come to Him, not merely to praise Him and prostrate themselves before Him in fear, but to rejoice with Him through eternity, partaking of His own happiness.” Aulus sighed. “I was transformed. The world of Rome was not important to me. My anxieties and troubles vanished. I was at peace. I was filled with exultation. The earth was no longer populated with enemies, but with friends. 

• Chapter Fifty-Two 

Lucanus left for Nazareth, seeking for Mary. He longed for her, she who had borne God and had nurtured Him and dandled Him on her knee, had brought Him to teachers and to the Temple. From all that he had heard, Mary would now be forty-eight years old. She was a poor Galilean woman, the widow of a poor carpenter. She held the ages in her still hands; she was a queen among women. She has known grief, but not guilt. She has wept, but not for transgressions of her own. She has loved, and her love was as pure as moonlight. She has walked among terror and sorrow. But there is no shadow on her spirit, nor uncleanness on her hands. “I tell you, Lucanus, that no man is more abhorred than a man who is different from his neighbors. When he is with his community, then he must conform to its ideas and customs. Otherwise he is a pariah dog who has mortally offended the accepted. Indifferent to the accepted, he is an enemy. And yet He was not as the others. We very few did not find Him strange. But the neighbors were offended by Him. He was disturbing to all who observed Him, and men do not like to be disturbed.” Lucanus wrote rapidly, not pausing until he had inscribed Isaac’s story completely. 

• Chapter Fifty-Three 

In a letter from Hillel, 

As a Roman administrator Saul had gone on his lawful duty to Damascus to put down what the Romans called insurrection, but what he declared was blasphemy. He rode with his company of fellow lawyers, and with an entourage of Roman soldiers, full of vengeance and fury. So inflamed was he that he would not pause at an inn for the night, but rode on like the whirlwind to Damascus. And now, as my friend and a guest in my house, he tells me the most marvelous and the strangest of stories. He is full of passion and excitement as he repeats the story, as if I were a disbeliever and he the evangelist who must convince me! In any event, Saul returned to Jerusalem, a changed and uplifted man, full of tears, full of mingled joy and anguish and passionate love. He had seen the Resurrected. ‘He, Our Lord, came not only to the Jews, but to the Gentiles!’ 

• Chapter Fifty-Four 

Mary shared with Lucanus, “We did not speak to Him of His birth and His mission. There was an understanding between all of us. Once He found me weeping, for I dimly comprehended His ultimate fate, from the prophecies and from what old Simeon had told me in the Temple. He came to me and put His arms about me and held me to His boy’s breast, quiet and comforting. He said, ‘You must not weep, My Mother, for I am with you always’. When He left me, after John baptized Him, I understood that I had Him no more, that from henceforth He belonged to God and to the world. As Lucanus left, she stood against the background of the hot and brazen mounts, and it seemed to him that she had grown very tall, and that she was clothed in pure light, and that her face beamed like the moon when it is full. Her aspect was incredibly beautiful and full of peace, and intrepid. She lifted her hand to him in farewell, and in blessing.