The Epic of Paul

by William Cleaver Wilkinson

Paul so replied because his mind indeed
Sank in a sense sincere of impotence;
But partly too because he felt full well
How all-accomplished in the skill of thought,
How subtle, and how deep, the Indian was,
As how by nature and by habit fond
Of allegory and of mystery.
He deemed that he should best his end attain
Of feeding this inquiring spirit fine
With the chief truth, by frankly staggering him,
As the Lord staggered Nicodemus once,
With that which in his doctrine was the highest
And hardest to receive or understand,
Set forth in terms of shadow to perplex,
But also tempt to further curious quest.
Merging the Indian's idiom in his own
And lading it with unwonted sense, Paul said:
"That karma, erst so valued, I escaped
How? by becoming other than I was.
The old man died and a new man was born,
With a new karma given him, of pure grace,
A seamless robe of snow-white righteousness,
Enduement from the hand of One that died
To earn the right of so bestowing it.
Raiment of filthy rags with pride I had worn
Before, not knowing, painful patchwork pieced
Upon me of such works of righteousness
Mine own as cost me dear indeed, yet worth
Nothing to hide my nakedness and shame.
Now I am clad in Jesus' righteousness,
A shining vesture, with nor seam nor stain."

"Proud words, albeit not proudly spoken, thine,"
Said Krishna; "spotlessly enrobed art thou
In righteousness and karma without flaw,
Then thou hast reached the issue of The Way
And art already for nirvâna ripe:
Gautama could not make a bolder claim
When, conquering, he attained the Buddhaship.
Yet meekly thou madest mention of pure grace,
And merit all another's, not thine own.
A paradox indeed, perplexing me,
Such boldness mixed with such humility."
"Yea," Paul said, "the humility it is
That makes the boldness thou hast found in me;
It were defect of right humility
Not boldly to obey when Christ bids do.
Christ bids me take His perfect righteousness;
I can be humble but by taking it—
Boldly? yea, or as if boldly, for here
Humility and boldness twain are one."

"To thee thy teacher Christ," said Krishna, "seems
Something the same as Buddha is to me:
Yet other, more; not teacher simply, Christ
To thee, and master, setter forth of wise
Instructions and commands obeying which
Thou also now, as he once saved himself,
Mayst thyself save through merit hardly earned.
Thy Christ is will, not less than wisdom; power
And help, as well as guidance in the way.
Sovereign creator and imparter, he
Saves thee, thou trustest, through new life bestowed,
Which makes thee other than thou wast before,
And therefore frees thee from the fatal yoke
And bondage of the karma thou hadst won
With labor when thou wast the former man:
The words are easy, but the sense is hard."

"Hard?" Paul said; "nay, outright impossible
To any soul of man that still abides
His old first natural self unchanged to new.
Submit thyself unto the righteousness
Of God, and thou the mystery shalt know
With knowledge deeper than the mind's most deep
Divinings of the things she cannot speak."

"To fate, the universe, and necessity,"
Said Krishna, "I submit, because I must.
But to submit because I will, to any thing,
Much more to any one, that is, give up
My will, which is my self, my very self,
To be another's and no longer mine,
Consent to be another person quite
Than I have been, and am, and wish to be—
This thou proposest to me, if I take
Rightly thy words to mean thou thus hast done,
Becoming what thou art by vital change
From something different that thou wast before.
I frankly tell thee I have not the power
So to commute myself, had I the will."

"'I cannot' is 'I will not' here," said Paul;
"No power is needful of thine own save will:
Will, and thou canst; God then in thee is power.
Consider, it is only to submit."
"I feel my inmost will in me disdain,"
Said Krishna, "this effacement of myself."
"Yea, yea," said Paul, "it is the carnal mind
In thee, the primal unregenerate self
Ever in all at enmity with God,
Which is not subject to the law of God,
Neither indeed can be; to be, were death
To that old self which must resist, to live:
The carnal mind is enmity to God;
When enmity to God ceases in one,
Then ceases in that one the carnal mind,
The original man with his self-righteousness
His karma, if thou please, his good, his ill.
He is no more, and all that appertains
To him is dead and buried out of sight
Forever; but there lives a second self
By resurrection from that sepulcher—
By fresh creation rather from the dead—
A new regenerate man at one with God,
For to the law of God agreed in will,
Replaced the carnal with the spiritual mind,
Warfare and death exchanged for life and peace."

Into Paul's voice, he ceasing with those words,
There slid a cadence as of reverie:
He seemed to muse so deeply what he said
That he less said than felt it; 'life' and 'peace,'
So spoken, no mere sounds upon the tongue,
Were audible pulses of the living heart.
Invasion thence of power seized Krishna's soul,
And, 'Life and peace!' he murmured, 'Life and peace!'
But said aloud: "Strange union, peace with life!
We look for peace only with death, last death,
That death indeed beyond which nothing is,
No further transmigration of the soul,
No soul, no karma, all pure passionless
Non-being; not a state, since state implies
Some subject of a state, and here is none,
To do or suffer or at all to be:
Absolute zero, such the Buddhist's peace."

"'I am come,' Jesus said," so Paul replied,
"'That ye might have life, more abundant life.'
Life, life, deep stream and full, a river of God,
Pours endless, boundless, from the heart of Christ;
'Ho, every one that thirsteth, drink,' said He,
'Lo, drink and live with mine eternal life.'"

"I fear fallacious promises of good,"
Sighed Krishna; "life were good indeed with peace.
But me, I hope not any good save flight,
Save flight and refuge inaccessible
From persecuting and pursuing ill.
Being is misery; I would cease to be;
No hope have I, and no desire, but that.
Hope is for children; I am not a child
To chase the ends of rainbows, seeking gold:
There is no hope that does not make ashamed.
I dare not hope, eagerly, even for death,
Lest that likewise elude my clutch at last.
Despair no less I shun; despair is naught
But hope turned bitter and sour, postponed too long.
I only seek to cease from hope, from fear,
From every passion that can shake my calm.
Calm is my good, and perfect calm is death,
Therefore I wait for death with death-like calm.
Thou wouldst disturb the calm with hope of life,
Fair, but fallacious; let me alone to die."

With soft pathetic deprecation so
Krishna, in form of words, half faltering, begged
From Paul no more, yet added: "I would hear
Something of what he was, thy master; what
He did as well as taught; and whence he came,
And when, and where, and how; and how he lived
And died, having achieved his Buddhaship."