The Epic of Paul

by William Cleaver Wilkinson

No shudder of terror swept over Felix now,
As when that wave of trembling shook him so
At Cæsarea in the judgment hall.
He recognized an echo in Paul's words
Of what he heard that day from those same lips
And then thought dreadful. 'Strange,' he dully mused,
'How moments of weakness sometimes find out men!
Why should I then have feared, and naught to fear,
Save words, mere words? Solemnly spoken, aye,
And I could not but hearken to the man,
Majestic in his gesture and austere.
Even now I sit and listen to the voice,
But I am fenced and mailed that it hurts not.
Would that I felt but half as safe from Rome!'

So Felix in a half unconscious sort
Heard Paul's words then hollow and meaningless;
Only rebounded from them to the doubt,
The hateful haunting doubt, of what lay hid
Within the horizon of this present world
For him; deaf, since that day of final doom,
To Sinai thundering from the world to come!

Two witnesses had witnessed that which passed
Thus between Paul and Felix: secret one,
Eavesdropper from behind a hanging nigh,
Felix's jealous and suspicious spouse
Drusilla; one in open view, and frank,
Observant while obtrusive not, well-poised
In sense of self-effacing loyalty,
Young Stephen, shadow of his uncle Paul.
He, as of course, fulfilling duty, went
Wherever his illustrious kinsman went,
If aught of peril to him, or need, could there
By watchful love be guessed. Paul now by Stephen
Attended from that alien presence forth,
Drusilla from her hiding burst, and cried:
"A Jewish mother's curse fast cling to Paul,
False, renegade Jew, who has his cursing hand
Folded on little Felix's this day!
Heed Simon, and beware of Paul. O, why,
Why didst thou, couldst thou, think of summoning him,
Hated of all his nation so, to blight
The hope and fortune of our shaken house
With creeping leper's plague upon our boy;
Or perhaps other mischief worse than that!
O, Felix! Felix! O, my lord, my lord!"

Such woman's wailing and upbraiding broke
All the man's force in Felix to withstand.
He joined his imprecations upon Paul
And swore her ready oaths to work him woe.
Then as the pair conspired in vengeful vows
Against him, mutually to each other pledged,
"With that young cub of his too," Felix said,
"Fair-favored as he is, a meddlesome lad,
Following his greybeard uncle round about
With spaniel looks and watch-dog carefulness;
And our friend Sergius Paulus, understood!"

Simon made good his threat of getting well,
And fostered and fomented all he could
The viperous hatch of hatred against Paul.
Stephen reported to his company
The incident and the spirit of the scene
Beheld by him enacted between Paul
And Felix; and all knew full well the dark
Presage of consequence for Paul it bore.

A little more deeply shadowed in their mind,
Pathetically hopeful yet in God,
They met next day again, as had been planned,
In the same spot with the same weather still
Prolonging that winter interlude of spring,
When Mary thus her broken-off tale resumed:
"The wonder of the works that Jesus did,
Wonderful as they were for grace and power,
Was less than of the words that Jesus spake.
'Spirit and life' these were, as Himself said.
Once I remember, near Gennesaret,
On a green grassy mound which swelled so high
That mountain even it meetly might be called,
Sitting Him down as on a natural throne
Of kinglike gentle state, there, with the waves
Of that bright water kneeling at His feet
And the blue cope of sky canopying His head,
He His disciples round about Him drew
And taught us of the coming kingdom of heaven.
'Blesséd the poor in spirit,' He began,
'For unto them belongs the kingdom of heaven;
Blesséd the souls that mourn, for in God's time
They shall be comforted; blesséd the meek,
For theirs the heritage of the earth shall be;
Blesséd the souls ahungered and athirst
For righteousness, for they shall yet be filled;
Blesséd the merciful, for mercy they
In turn shall find; blesséd the pure in heart,
For they God's face shall see; blesséd, who make
Peace among men, for they shall thence be called
Children of God; blesséd, who for the sake
Of righteousness shall persecuted be,
For unto them belongs the kingdom of heaven.'"

"I cannot," interrupting so herself,
Said Mary, "cannot ever make you know
How like a heavenly-chanted music flowed
The stream of these beatitudes from Him.
The lovely paradox of blessedness
Pronounced upon the persecuted, seemed
So like the purest, simplest reasonableness,
When those unfaltering lips declared it true!
All things seemed easy and certain that He said;
Certain, yet some things awful and austere;
As when in that same speech with altered strain
He sternly spake of judgment and hell-fire;
It was as if the mount whereon He sat,
Verdurous and soft, were into Sinai turned,
And muttered thunder. But when with a change
And cadence indescribable He said:
'Love ye your enemies, and them that curse
You, bless, do good to them that hate you, pray
For them that use you only with despite
And persecute you still, that ye may be
The children of your Father in the heavens,
For He His sun maketh to rise alike
Upon the evil and upon the good,
And without difference sendeth rain upon
The just with the unjust. For if ye love
Them that love you, what have ye for reward?
Do not the oppressive publicans the same?
And if your brethren only ye salute,
What more than others do ye do? Do not
The oppressive publicans likewise? But ye,
Be perfect, as your heavenly Father is:'
And then when, closing, with authority
He said: 'Whoever heareth these sayings of Mine
And doeth them, I will liken him to one
Who wisely built his house upon a rock;
The rain descended then and the floods came
And the winds blew and beat upon that house,
And it fell not, being founded on a rock:
And every one that heareth these sayings of Mine
And doeth them not, he shall be likened to one
Who foolishly his house built on the sand;
The rain descended then and the floods came
And the winds blew and beat upon that house—
It fell, and mighty was the fall thereof;'
When thus, I say, He tempered His discourse,
Sweetness and awfulness were blended so
In His majestic and benignant mien
As never yet I knew them—never until
They met and kissed each other at Calvary.
That," Mary with a look toward Krishna said,
After a pause of reminiscence mute,
"That was when Jesus died upon the cross."
"Tell me of that," said Krishna answering her,
Forgetful for an instant of reserve;
Then added with self-recollection swift:
"But all in order due, or as thou wilt,
For I am debtor to thy courtesy,
And I shall listen fain to what thou sayest,
All, and however thou shalt order it.
I find thy Master's doctrine sweet to hear,
And partly not unlike our Buddha's strain."
"Perhaps our guest, if I may name him such,"
Downcast toward Krishna turning, Mary said—
"Most welcome we all make him, I am sure,
To this our simple hospitality
Of converse or of audience, wherein I
Seem to be bearing here a part too large—
Perhaps," repeated Mary, "now our guest
Will tell us something of his master Buddha"—
She therewith resting, as to yield him room.
"Another day, if I may choose, for that,"
Said Krishna; "pardon me my hasty word,
And pray thee let thine own tale choose its way."

Then Mary: "It were sad to tell the end,
How Jesus died, save that He afterward
Rose gloriously, and that before He died,
In prospect near of dying, He spake words
So gracious and so full of victory!
How well we know it now; but, alas, then
Our hearts were holden and we did not know!
Strange that we did not know, for oft he said,
Oft, and in many ways, remembered since,
That He would die and after rise again.
Yet, at the last, when He of dying spake,
Our hearts were charged with sorrow, and when He died
Our hearts, they broke with sorrow and with no hope.

"O, it was beautiful, most beautiful—
It seems so to the backward-looking eye,
Which sees it now, when all is over and done,
The shame and sharpness of the cross gone by,
And He safe sitting in the glory of God—
Beautiful and pathetic beyond words
(Pathetic still, though all be over and done,
Secure the issue and blesséd), the way in which
Our Savior faced His future welcoming it,
That future with its unescapable cross,
Its mystery of His Father's smile withdrawn!
For truly, though our Lord by faith foreknew
The end beyond the seeming end, the dawn
To be after the shadow of the night—
The dawn, the day, the everlasting day!—
Yet horror possessed His almost-drowning soul
Of that which He must suffer ere the end.
Peter and James and John told us of how,
Alone of all companionship, retired
From them even whom He had chosen to be with Him,
He, in the garden of Gethsemane
At midnight of the night before the cross,
Prayed, and in agony great drops of blood
Shed as in sweat, desiring with desire
To have the cup removed that He must drink.
It could not be, it was not, dread of death,
Though painful and though shameful, shook Him so—"

So Mary, swerved to sudden wonder, said,
And question in her look as if for Paul.
Paul answered: "Nay, oh, nay, not dread of death;
That cup how many, finite like ourselves,
Have taken and quaffed with overcoming joy
In martyrdom for truth! Some mixture worse,
O, unimaginably worse! to Him
Embittered His inevitable cup,
That He, beyond His human brethren brave,
So shrank from drinking it. His was to bear
As Lamb of God in sacrifice, the weight
Of the world's sin. This crushed Him sinless down
Immeasurable abysses into woe,
The woe of feeling forsaken by His God.
Supported by believing in the joy
Far set before Him He endured the cross,
Despising the shame, and is in sequel now,
We know, and love to know, at the right hand
Of God His Father throned forevermore,
There waiting—He, inheritor of the name
Exalted high above whatever name,
The name of King of kings and Lord of lords—
Until His footstool all His foes be made."