Victor Serenus: A Story of the Pauline Era

by Henry Wood

At length comparative quiet was restored, and plans were formed for an attack upon the disciples of the New Faith on the morrow. It was known that they assembled in the Upper Chamber every morning at the third hour. It would be easy to gather a rabble to do their bidding if they needed aid. They were just about to separate, when a sudden tremor passed over the frame of Rabbi Abdiel. His features grew rigid, his muscles tense, and he began muttering incoherent words.

“He hath a trance, as he is sometimes wont,” exclaimed Saulus. “Peradventure a lying spirit possesseth his lips, for his prophecy is always evil concerning us.”

All had gathered about the Rabbi, who now began to speak more clearly, and in a loud voice.

“Members of the Urim! Deceivers and deceived! Hypocrites and vipers! Ye are fighting against the God of all the earth and his devoted servants! The cup of your iniquity is overflowing! Your elders and co-work[pg 199]ers have slain the Chosen One,—the most righteous of all the sons of men! His kingdom will increase forever, while yours will soon be shattered! Your Dictator will be his chief apostle, and ye will persecute him from city to city!”

The tumult became so great that nothing more could be heard. Some were almost ready to smite him, but it was plainly evident that he knew not what he had been saying. Another tremor; then his frame relaxed. He was again himself, and astonished to see that all were gathered about him.

“Down with our enemies of the New Faith!” he cried, showing that when himself he was in earnest accord with the spirit of the Inner Circle.

The Rabban Gamaliel was astounded at the action of the Sanhedrin in the case of Stephanos. As the head of the most noted training school in Jerusalem, where Hebrew youth were transformed into teachers and Rabbis, his influence with the chief priests and elders was ordinarily undoubted. But against the wave of fanaticism and persecution which was now surging through the Holy City, he felt himself utterly powerless. While thoroughly loyal to the Chosen People, he, with a few of the more liberal Pharisees, had faithfully striven to stem the tide, calm the fierce and turbulent spirit, and prevent any physical violence toward the members of the New Faith. While he detested their doctrines, believed them to be the victims of delusion, and ridiculed the claims of the Nazarene as put forth by his disciples, he also counselled forbearance, and believed that such su[pg 200]perstition would soon wear itself out, and come to naught if let alone. His advice was entirely unheeded. The worst passions of the Sanhedrin, their followers, and the rabble were aflame, and logic and lore availed nothing. The stoning of Stephanos had been like the scent of fresh blood to a wolf.

The study of great psychological waves which sometimes roll over a community, and even a nation, is most interesting and instructive. A vast pent-up mass of human passion, perhaps long in accumulating, like the lava of a volcano, will occasionally find some outlet, and all pour out in that particular direction. It is thus that riots, mobs, revolutions, and wars originate. Like some strange epidemic they steal in, and gather momentum until they sweep everything before them. War between nations, which often comes from religious prejudice, is simply brute force and animal ferocity exercised on a colossal scale. There is no tiger more cruel than intolerant fanaticism, and the murder of Stephanos was like the unchaining of such a beast. It was the starting-point of a contagion of insanity, and Saulus was the fittest leader in which it found embodiment. Under the general support and sanction of the Sanhedrin, he became for the time commander, and directed its forces.

Early on the second morning after the notable tragedy, the Rabban Gamaliel sat in his private library in a meditative mood. The piles of inscribed parchments, and numerous shelves loaded with rolls of manuscripts rich with Hebrew lore, were undisturbed. The law, psalms, and prophets, the Mishna, Gemra, Hagada, and Halacha, [pg 201]which contained the treasures of Jewish scholasticism, and the archives of ancient polity and literature, had no attraction. It was the problems of the present which were pressing upon the Rabban. Never had he felt so powerless and so unreconciled to events. Not only the Holy City, but his own household, seemed rent in twain. His former impetuous young student and disciple had suddenly blossomed into the Hebrew leader of affairs in Jerusalem, while his own influence had gone into a total eclipse. His beautiful and idolized daughter had bestowed the wealth of her warm youthful affection upon an avowed apostate. Even the thought subtly intruded itself, that it would have been more tolerable if her recent illness had been unto death; and he pictured to himself the possible resignation which would now possess him if her fair form were already sleeping in the quiet sepulchre. He bowed his head in agony as a chaos of conflicting emotions agitated his soul, and groaned aloud, and wept as a child might weep. All the fame, success, and usefulness of his past life was a hollow dream. His vaunted wisdom in the eyes of the Holy City had turned to ashes. Worse than all, it even had become foolishness to his own flesh and blood.

At length he aroused himself as if he had arrived at some important and final decision. Honor, reputation, position, and religion must be maintained, even at the expense of family ties and affection. Shall not a man rule his own house? Putting his emotion under foot, and stifling the softened feeling which had possessed him, his features became hard and unyielding, and his lips tightly closed. He signalled a waiting-maid.