The Brook Kerith: A Syrian story

by George Moore

Let us sit here, Paul answered, for I would hear thee under this rock in front of this sea; thou shalt tell me how thou earnest into these thoughts. Thou, a shepherd among the Judean hills. Jesus answered him: the things that I taught in Galilee were not vain, but I only knew part of the truth, that which thou knowest, that sacrifices and observances are vain; and when I went to Jerusalem the infamy of the Temple and its priests became clear to me, and I yielded to anger, for I was possessed of a great desire to save the people. The Scribes and Pharisees conspired against me, and I was brought before the High Priest, who rent his garments. We have but little time to spend together, and rather than that story I would hear thee tell of the thoughts that came to thee whilst thou didst lead thy flocks over the hills.

For many years, Paul, there were no thoughts in my mind, or they were kept back, for I was without a belief; but thought returned to my desolate mind as the spring returns to these hills; and the next step in my advancement was when I began to understand that we may not think of God as a man who would punish men for doing things they have never promised not to do, or recompense them for abstinence from things they never promised to abstain from. Soon after I began to comprehend that the beliefs of our forefathers must be abandoned, and that if we would arrive at any reasonable conception of God, we must not put a stint upon him. And as I wandered with my sheep he became in my senses not without but within the universe, part and parcel, not only of the stars and the earth, but of me, yea, even of my sheep on the hillside. All things are God, Paul: thou art God and I am God, but if I were to say thou art man and I am God, I should be the madman that thou believest me to be. That was the second step in my advancement; and the third step, Paul, in my advancement was the knowledge that God did not design us to know him but through our consciousness of good and evil, only thus far may we know him. So thou seest, Paul, he has not written the utmost stint of his power upon us, and this being so, Paul—and who shall say that it is not so—it came to me to understand that all striving was vain, and worse than vain. The pursuit of a corruptible crown as well as the pursuit of an incorruptible crown leads us to sin. If we would reach the sinless state we must relinquish pursuit. What I mean is this, that he who seeks the incorruptible crown starts out with words of love on his lips to persuade men to love God, and finding that men do not heed him he begins to hate them, and hate leads on into persecution. Such is the end of all worship. There is but one thing, Paul, to learn to live for ourselves, and to suffer our fellows to do likewise; all learning comes out of ourselves, and no one may communicate his thought; for his thought was given to him for himself alone. Thou art where I was once, thou hast learnt that sacrifices and observances are vain, that God is in our heart; and it may be that in years to come thy knowledge will be extended, or it may be that thou hast reached the end of thy tether: we are all at tether, Paul.

Wouldst thou have me learn, Jesus, that God is to be put aside? Again, Paul, thou showest me the vanity of words. God forbid that I should say banish God from thy hearts. God cannot be banished, for God is in us. All things proceed from God; all things end in God; God like all the rest is a possession of the mind. He who would be clean must be obedient to God. God has not designed us to know him except through our conscience. Each man's conscience is a glimpse. These are some of the things that I have learnt, Paul, in the wilderness during the last twenty years. But seek not to understand me. Thou canst not understand me and be thyself; but, Paul, I can comprehend thee, for once I was thou. Whither goest thou? Paul cried, looking back. But Jesus made no answer, and Paul, with a flutter of exaltation in his heart, turned towards Cæsarea, knowing now for certain that Jesus would not go to Jerusalem to provoke the Jews against him. Italy would therefore hear of the life and death of our Lord Jesus Christ that had brought salvation for all, and Spain afterwards. Spain, Spain, Spain! he repeated as he walked, filled with visions of salvation. He walked with Spain vaguely in his mind till his reverie was broken by the sound of voices, and he saw people suddenly in a strange garb going towards the hillside on which he had left Jesus; neither Jews nor Greeks were they, and on turning to a shepherd standing by he heard that the strangely garbed people were monks from India, and they are telling the people, the shepherd said, that they must not believe that they have souls, and that they know that they are saved. What can be saved but the spirit? Paul cried, and he asked the shepherd how far he was from the village of Bethennabrio. Not more than half-an-hour, the shepherd answered, and it was upon coming into sight of the village that Paul began to trace a likeness between the doctrines that Jesus had confided to him and the shepherd's story of the doctrines that were being preached by the monks from India. His thoughts were interrupted by the necessity of asking the first passenger coming from the village to direct him to the inn, and it was good tidings to hear that there was one.

However meagre the food might be, it would be enough, he answered, and while he sat at supper he remembered Jesus again, and while thinking of his doctrines and the likeness they bore to those the Indians were preaching, some words of Jesus returned to him. He had said that he did not think he was going back to the Brook Kerith, and it may well be, Paul muttered, that in saying those words he was a prophet without knowing it. The monks from India will meet him in the valley, and if they speak to him they will soon gather from him that he divined much of their philosophy while watching his flock, and finding him to be of their mind they may ask him to return to India with them and he will preach there.

Sleep began to gather in Paul's eyes and he was soon dozing, thinking in his doze how pleasant it was to lie in a room with no bats above him. A remembrance of the smell kept him awake, but his fatigue was so great that his sleep grew deeper and deeper and many hours passed over, and the people in the inn thought that Paul would never wake again. But this long sleep did not redeem him from the fatigue of his journeys. He could not set out again till late in the afternoon, and it was evening when he passed over the last ridge of hills and saw the yellow sands of Cæsarea before him. The sky was grey, and the rain that Jesus had foreseen was beginning to fall, and it was through shades of evening that he saw the great mole covered with buildings stretching far into the sea. Timothy will be waiting for me at the gate if he has not fallen over a precipice, he said, and a few minutes after he caught sight of Timothy waiting for him. Paul opened his arms to him. Thoughtest that I was lost to thee for ever, Timothy? God whispered in my ears, Timothy answered, that he would bring thee back safely, and the ship is already in offing. It would be well to go on board now, for at daybreak we weigh anchor. Thou'lt sleep better on board. And Paul, who was too weary even to answer, allowed himself to be led. And, too weary to sleep, he lay waking often out of shallow sleeps. He could hear Timothy breathing by his side, and when he raised his eyes he saw the stars that were to guide them along the coasts; but the beauty of the stars could not blot out of his mind the shepherd's face: and Paul's thoughts murmured, he who believed himself the Messiah and still thinks he is Jesus of Nazareth which was raised by his Father from the dead. Yet without his help I should not have reached Cæsarea. It then seemed to Paul that the shepherd was an angel in disguise sent to his aid, or a madman. A madman with a strange light in his eyes, he continued, and fell to thinking if the voice that spoke out of the cloud bore any likeness to the voice that had compelled his attention for so long a term on the hillside. But a bodily voice, he said, cannot resemble a spiritual voice, and it is enough that the Lord Jesus spoke to me, and that his voice has abided in me and become my voice. It is his voice that is now calling me to Rome, and it is his voice that I shall hear when my life is over, saying: Paul, I have long waited for thee; come unto me, faithful servant, and receive in me thy gain and the fruit of all thy labour. He repeated the words so loudly that Timothy awoke, and at the sight of the young man's face the present sank out of sight and he was again in Lystra, and on looking into the young man's eyes he knew that Timothy would remind him always of the woman in Lystra whom he would never see again. Of what art thou thinking, Paul? The voice seemed to come from the ends of the earth, but it came from Timothy's lips. Of Lystra, Timothy, that we shall never see again nor any of the people we have ever known. We are leaving our country and our kindred. But remember, Timothy, that it is God that calls thee Homeward. And they sat talking in the soft starlight of what had befallen them when they separated in the darkness. Timothy told that he remembered the way he had come by sufficiently not to fall far out of it, and that at daybreak he had met shepherds who had directed him. He had walked and he had rested and in that way managed to reach Cæsarea the following evening. A long journey on foot, but a poor adventure. But thou hast been away three days, three days and three nights.... How earnest thou hither? Thy eyes are full of story. A fair adventure, Timothy, and he related his visit to the Essenes and their dwelling among the cliffs above the Brook Kerith. A fair adventure truly, Timothy. Would I'd been with thee to have seen and heard them. Would indeed that we had not been separated—— He was about to tell the shepherd's story but was stopped by some power within himself. But how didst thou come hither? Timothy asked again, and Paul answered, the Essenes sent their shepherd with me. Timothy begged Paul to tell him more about the Essenes, but the sailors begged them to cease talking, and next day the ship touched at Sidon, and Julius, in whose charge Paul had been placed, gave him the liberty to go unto his friends and to refresh himself.

The sea of Cilicia was beautifully calm, and they sailed on, hearing all the sailors, who were Greek, telling their country's legends of the wars of Troy, and of Venus whose great temple was in Cyprus. After passing Cyprus they came to Myra, a city of Cilicia, and were fortunate enough to find a ship there bound for Alexandria, sailing from thence to Italy. Julius put them all on board it; but the wind was unfavourable, and as soon as they came within sight of the Cnidus the wind blew against them and they sailed to Crete and by Salome till they came to a coast known as the Fair Havens by the city of Lasea, where much time was spent to the great danger of the ship, and also to the lives of the passengers and the crew as Paul fully warned them, the season, he said, being too advanced for them to expect fair sailings. I have fared much by land and sea, he said, and know the danger and perils of this season. He was not listened to, but the Haven being not safe in winter they loosed for Phoenice; and the wind blew softly, and they mocked Paul, but not long, for a dangerous wind arose known as euroclydon, against which the ship could not bear up, and so the crew let her drive before it till in great fear of quicksands they unloaded the ship of some cargo. And next day, the wind rising still higher, they threw overboard all they could lay hands upon, and for several days and nights the wrack was so thick and black overhead that they were driven on and on through unknown wastes of water, Paul exhorting all to be of good cheer, for an angel of God had exhorted him that night, telling that none should drown.

And when the fourteenth day was spent it seemed to the sailors that they were close upon land. Upon sounding they found fifteen fathoms, and afraid they were upon rocks, they cast out anchors. But the anchors did not hold, and the danger of drowning became so great as the night advanced that the sailors would have launched a boat, but Paul besought them to remain upon the ship; and when it was day they discovered a certain creek in which they thought they might beach the ship, which they did, and none too soon, for the ship began to break to pieces soon after. But shall our prisoners be supposed to swim ashore? the soldiers asked, and they would have killed the prisoners, but the centurion restrained them, for he was minded to save Paul's life, and all reached the shore either by swimming or clinging to wreckage which the waves cast up upon the shore.

They were then upon the island of Melita, where Paul was mistaken for a murderer because a viper springing out of a bundle of sticks fastened on his hand. But he shook off the beast into the fire and felt no harm, and the barbarians waited for him to swell and fall down suddenly, but when he showed no sign of sickness they mistook him for a god, and in fear that they would offer sacrifices in his honour, as the priests of Lystra wished to do when he bade the cripple stand straight upon his feet, he told them that he was a man like themselves; he consented, however, that they should bring him to Publius, the chief man of the island, who lay sick with fever and a flux of blood, and he rose up healed as soon as Paul imposed his hand upon him. And many other people coming, all of whom were healed, the barbarians brought him presents.

After three months' stay they went on board a ship from Alexandria, whose sign was Castor and Pollux, and a fair wind took them to Syracuse, where they tarried three days; a south wind arose at Rhegium and carried them next into Puteoli, where Paul found the brethren, who begged the centurion Julius to allow him to remain with them for a few days, and on account of his great friendship and admiration of Paul he allowed him to tarry for seven days.

From Puteoli Paul and Timothy and Aristarchus went forward towards Rome with the centurion, and the news of their journey having preceded them the brethren came to meet them as far as The Three Taverns.... With great rejoicing they all went on to Rome together, and when they arrived in Rome the centurion delivered the prisoners to the Captain of the Guard, but Paul was permitted to live by himself with a soldier on guard over him, and he enjoyed the right to see whom he pleased and to teach his doctrine, which he did, calling as soon as he was rested the chiefs of the Jews together, and when they were come together he related to them the story of the persecutions he had endured from the Jews from the beginning, and that he had appealed to Cæsar in order to escape from them. He expounded and testified the Kingdom of God, persuading them on all matters concerning Jesus, his birth, his death and his resurrection, enjoining them to look into the Scriptures and to accept the testification of five hundred, many of whom were still alive, while some were sleeping. He spoke from morning to evening.