The Epic of Paul

by William Cleaver Wilkinson

Paul's words were not so eloquent as Paul.
He to such conscious noble dignity
Joined such supreme effacement of himself;
Burned with such zeal devoid of eagerness;
A manner of entreaty that was his,
Not for his own, but all for other's sake,
Made such a sweet chastised persuasiveness,
From self-regarding purpose purified;
Meekness of wisdom such clothed on the man
With an investiture of awfulness;
While, fairer yet, a most unworldly light,
A soft celestial radiancy, diffused,
Self-luminous, illuminating all,
The light divine of supernatural love,
Upon him from a sacred source unseen
Flung such a flush, like sunrise on some peak
Of lonely height first to salute the sun;
That Paul, to whoso had beholding eyes,
Shone as a milder new theophany.

Gamaliel had not eyes for all he saw.
He slowly from his leaning posture sank
Relapsed upon the couch, clasping his hands.
Half to himself and half to Paul, he spoke:
"My mind is sore divided with itself.
It is as if the heavenly firmament
Were shifted half way round upon its pole,
And east to west were changed, and west to east;
All things seem opposite to what they were.
Strange, strange, incomprehensible to me!
But strangest, most incomprehensible,
Thou, what thou art to what thou wast, O Saul!
Thou wast, though ever not ungentle, proud
Ever, the proudest of the Pharisees.
I loved thee, I admired thee, for thy pride.
Pride did not seem like arrogance in thee,
But meet assumption of thy proper worth;
Rather, such air in thee, as if thou woredst
A mantle of thy nation's dignity,
Committed by the suffrages of all
Unto the worthiest to be worthily worn.
And now this Saul, our paragon of pride,
Through whom our suffering nation felt herself
Uplifted from the dust of servitude,
In prophecy by example, to her true,
Long-forfeited inheritance, to be
One day restored to her, of regal state—
This Saul I see beside me here a gray
Old man humbling himself, humbling his race,
In abject posture of prostration bowed
Before—whom? Why, nobody in the world!
Before—what? Why, the phantom of a man
Led through low life to malefactor's death!
Impossible transformation, to have passed
Upon that proud high Saul whom once I knew;
Impossible perversion, baffling me!
Impossible, but that with mine own eyes,
But that with mine own ears, I witness it."

In simple helpless wonder and amaze
More than in wroth rejection scorn-inspired,
Gamaliel thus had uttered forth his heart.
Paul had his answer, but he held it back,
Respectfully awaiting further word
Seen ripe and ready on Gamaliel's lips.
A question, still of wonder, soon it came:
"Tell me, what hast thou gained, in all these years
Of thy most strange discipleship, my son?"

A pathos of compassion tuned the tone
With which Gamaliel so appealed to Paul.
Paul, with a pathos of sweet cheerfulness,
In dark and bright of paradox replied:
"Gained? I have gained of many things great store;
Much hatred from my erring countrymen;
Much chance of thankless service for their sake;
Stripes many, manacles, imprisonments,
Beatings with rods, bruisings with stones, shipwrecks,
A night and day of tossing in the deep;
Far homeless wanderings up and down the world;
Perils on perils multiplied, no end,
Perils of water—wave and torrent flood—
Perils by mine own countrymen enraged,
Perils from heathen hands, perils pursued
Upon me, ceasing not, wherever men
In city gather, or in wilderness;
In the waste sea, still perils; perils still
Among false brethren; these, and weariness
With painfulness, long watchings without sleep,
Hunger and thirst endured, oft fastings fierce,
Cold to the marrow, shuddering nakedness.
Such things without, to wear and waste the flesh,
And then beside, the suffering of the spirit
In care that comes upon me day by day
For all the scattered churches of the Lord.
I have not missed good wages duly paid;
Gain has been mine in every kind of loss."

Paul's answer turned Gamaliel's sentiment
Into pure wonder, pity purged away.
Deeper and deeper in perplexity
Sank the old man, the more in thought he strove;
As when the swallow of a quicksand sucks
Downward but faster one who writhes in vain.
Silent he listening lay, and Paul went on:
"I have thus counted as the vain world counts,
Summing the gains of my apostleship.
I myself reckon otherwise than thus.
For, what was gain to me, in that old state
Wherein thou knewest thy disciple Saul,
This count I now but only loss and dross,
Yea, all things count but dross, all things save one,
To know Christ Jesus, and be known of Him.
That knowledge is the one true treasure mine;
True, for eternal; mine, for not the world,
Nor life, nor death, nor present things, nor things
To come, nor height, nor depth, nor aught beside
Created in the universe of God,
Can from me wrest this one true good away.
I have had sorrow, but amid it joy;
Pain has been mine, but hidden in it peace;
Rest, deeper than the weariness, has still
My much-abounding weariness beguiled;
Immortal food my hunger has assuaged,
And drink of everlasting life, my thirst.
I have sung praises in imprisonment,
At midnight, with my feet fast in the stocks,
And my back bleeding raw from Roman rods;
So much the spirit of glory and of power
Prevailed to make me conqueror of ill.
Tossed in whatever sea of bitterness,
Wide as the world, and weltering with waves,
A fountain of sweet water still I find
Fresh as from Elim rising to my lips.
A parable in paradox, sayest thou,
But—"

Stephen here his eyes wide open laid
And looked a look of simple love on Paul.
His sleep had sudden-perfect been, as night
At the equator instantly is dark;
And now, as day at the equator dawns
Full splendor, and no twilight of degrees,
So Stephen was at once and all awake.
He straight, without surprise, remembered all,
Or, needing not remember, recognized.
Paul caught his nephew's upward look of love,
And sheathed it in the light of his own eyes,
Which, downward bent a moment on the boy,
Gave him his gift with usury again.
"Behold," said Paul, "my parable made plain
By parable not dark with paradox.
A sea of bitterness was yesterday
Poured round me in that madding multitude
That tossed me on the shoulders of its waves;
But here is this my loving nephew, Stephen,
A fountain of sweet water in the sea—
Art thou not, Stephen?—whence to drink my fill.
But this is parable of parable;
No more—for what I mean is still to speak.
Know, then, there is no earthly accident
Of evil that has happened me, or can
Happen, nay, and no swelling flood of such,
Of any power at all to touch with harm
The peace that passeth understanding, fixed
By Jesus in my inward firmament;
The sea less vainly might assail the stars."

"If this thou meanest," Gamaliel, groping, said,
"That when the angry people yesterday
Bore thee headlong and menaced death to thee,
Then thou wert calm at heart, feeling no fear—
What else were that than boasting, 'I am brave,'
Which but such vaunt of it could bring in doubt?"

"Nay, master," Paul said, "braggart am I not,
As justly thou hast signified no brave
Man can be; and the peace whereof I speak
Is not the calmness that the brave man drinks
Out of the cup of danger at his lips.
That also I perhaps have sometimes known;
But this is other, and a mystery
Even to myself, who only have, and not
The secret of the having understand—
Save that I know it no virtue, but a gift
Renewed forever from the grace of Christ."

Gamaliel listened deeply, with shut eyes;
He listened, and kept silence, and then sighed,
A long, considerate sigh, and unresolved.
His struggling reason could not right itself;
It staggered like a vessel in the sea
That cuff and buffet of the storm has left
A hulk, dismasted, rudderless, forlorn,
Wedged between waves rocking her to and fro,
And threatening to engulf her in the deep;
So there Gamaliel swayed, with surge on surge
Of thought and passion sweeping over him,
Till now he trembled on the point to sink.
Paul saw the old man's state, and, pitying him,
Knew how to shed a balm upon the waves.
With a low voice, daughter of silence, he
Slowly intoned a soft, melodious psalm:
"'Not haughty is my heart, O God the Lord,
Nor do mine eyes ambitiously aspire;
In great affairs I exercise me not,
And not in things too wonderful for me.
Yea, I have stilled and quieted my soul;
As with its mother a new-weanéd child,
So is my soul a weanéd child with me.
O Israel, hope thou, in Jehovah hope,
From this time forth and even forevermore!'"

The mood, all melting, of that monody—
Less monody, than sound of sobbing ceased—
Its cradling gentle lullaby to pride,
Went, subtly permeant, through Gamaliel's soul,
And mastered it to sympathy of calm.
Paul saw with pleasure this effect, and wished
The too much shaken old man venerable
Might taste the soothing medicine of sleep.
Not pausing, he, with ever softer tone
Verging toward silence, over and over again
Crooned like a cradle melody that psalm;
Till, as that vexing spirit in Saul the king
Once yielded to young David's harping, so
Now even the fluttering of the aged flesh
Owned a strange power reverse to cancel it,
Hid in the vibrant pulsing of Paul's voice,
Its flexures and its cadences, that matched
The meaning with the music; lulled to rest,
Gamaliel lightly, like an infant, slept.