He had not been in Jerusalem long before he learnt much of the new teaching. He had secured for his mother, close to the Fortress Antonio, where he himself lodged, a small house belonging to a widow who, since her husband's death, had fallen into comparative poverty. The Lady Aglais, attended still by her old freedwoman, Melena, was allowed the best and coolest part of this house entirely to herself, with a staircase of their own leading to the flat roof. There they passed much of their evenings after the sun had set, looking at the thickly-built opposite hills, the mansions on Zion, or down into the Tyropæon from which the hum of a great multitude came, mellowed by the distance, and disposing the mind to contemplation. Many wonderful things, from time to time, they heard of him who was now teaching—things some of which, nay, the greater part of which, as one of the sacred writers expressly declares, never were recorded, and the whole of which could not be contained in the libraries of the world. It may well, then, be imagined in what a situation Paulus and his mother were—having no interest in disbelieving, no chair of Moses to abdicate, no doctorial authority or pharisaic prestige inciting them to impugn the known truth—in what a situation they were, for accepting or declining what was then offered.
After twenty years of separation, a trace of Esther had been recovered by Paulus. One evening, his mother was on the flat roof of her residence awaiting his customary visit, when her son appeared and alarmed her by his pallor. He had seen Esther on foot in a group of women at the Gate of Gennath, going forth into the country, as he was entering the city on horseback. Aglais smiled sadly, saying: "Alas! dear son, is that all? I long since knew that she still lived; but I would not disturb your mind by the useless intelligence."
"Scarcely altered," murmured Paulus abstractedly, "while I am quite old. Yes, she must now be past thirty; yes, near thirty-five."
"As to that," said the mother, "you are thirty-eight, and scarcely seem twenty-nine. Old Rebecca, the mistress of this house, who lives still in the ground-story, as you are aware, has told me much about Esther."
"She is married, I suppose," said Paulus, with a look of anxiety.
"No," replied Aglais. "She has had innumerable offers (spite of her comparative poverty), and has declined them all."
"But what boots it?" exclaimed Paulus.
"Old Josiah Maccabeus is dead," said Aglais. And here mother and son dropped the subject by mutual consent.
The dreadful days, closed by the most awful day the world has known—closed by the ever-memorable and tremendous Friday—came and went. On the Saturday, Paulus met Longinus, who said he had been on Mount Calvary that afternoon, and that he, Longinus, was now and ever henceforth a disciple of him who had been crucified. The Sunday came, and brought with it a prodigious rumor, which, instead of dying out, found additional believers every day. The disciples, most of whom had shown themselves as timid as they were known to be ignorant, now seemed transformed into new characters, who loudly affirmed that their Master had risen from the dead by his own power; and they were ready to face every torment and all terrors calmly in the maintenance of this fact, which they predicted would be received and acknowledged by the whole world. And, indeed, it was no longer a rumor, but a truth, attested by the only witnesses who could by possibility know anything about it, either for or against; and whose earthly interests it would have been to deny it, even while they knew it to be true—witnesses who, if they knew it to be false—and they certainly knew whether it were true or false (this much was granted, and is still granted, by all their opponents)—could have had no motive, either earthly or unearthly, for feigning that they believed it.