The Epic of Paul

by William Cleaver Wilkinson

"But then we Easterns are yet otherwise
Different from you; for we remember more.
Because we do not write our records down,
We all the better keep them safe in mind.
Doubtless we mix them much with fantasy:
We are not nice to draw a certain line
Between what we remember and what dream.
All is as dream to us, for we ourselves
Are dream, and oft imagination wakes
Where memory sleeps; but, so the form be full,
Somehow, somewhence, it matters naught to us
Whether from fact it be, remembered right,
Or half from fancy fitted to the fact.
Our Buddha is the fair ideal man,
Exemplar of the human possible.
We cannot dream him fairer than he is,
Or was—for he perhaps is not—and so
We fling the rein down on our fancy's neck
And let her freely take her own wise way.

"I will not warrant you the truth of it,
That is, the insignificant truth of fact,
Mere fact, but if the deeper truth of fit
And fair will answer you, I can relate
The story of one miracle of Buddh,
The sole one of the Sutta Pitaka,
That chiefest treasure of our sacred texts.
This, though to raising of the dead no match,
Yet, to my mind, is meet and memorable,
For that therewith a lovely word is joined
Of tuneful teaching from the master's lips."

"Let us have both, the wonder and the word,"
Said Publius, and the Indian thus complied:
"'The Blesséd to the sacred Ganges came
And found the stream an overflowing flood.
The others looked for boats and rafts to cross,
Or else wove wicker into basket floats;
But he, as quickly as a strong man forth
Would stretch his arm, or his arm being stretched
Would bring it back, so quickly at his wish,
Had changed the hither for the thither side.
There standing, he the wicker-weavers saw,
And thus broke forth in parable and song:
They who traverse the ocean of desire,
Building themselves a causeway firm and good
Across the quaking quagmires, quicksands, pools,
Of ignorance, of delusion, and of lust,
Whilst the vain world its wicker baskets weaves—
These are the wise, and these the saved indeed.'"

A pang of suffering love and loving ruth,
For Buddha himself, long quit of earthly strife,
But more for Buddha's disciple present there,
Shot through the heart of Paul hearing these things.
He sighed in spirit heavily, but said,
When Publius seemed to seek a word from him:
"If I have taken the Buddha's sense aright,
He means that they the happy are and wise
Who find a means of ceasing from desire
And entering into passionless repose,
A state from death itself scarce different.
Contrariwise taught Jesus: 'Blesséd they
That hunger and that thirst;' that fan desire
To all-consuming flame of appetite—
But it must be for righteousness they pant.
Not from desire, but from impure desire,
To cease—that is salvation; and we best
Cease from impure desire when we to flame
The whitest fan desire for all things true,
For all things honorable, and all things just,
For all things pure, and all things lovely, all
Of good report, and worthy human praise.
Passion for these things, being pure passion, burns
The impure passion out: but passion such
Is kindled only at the altar fire
Of the eternal God's white holiness.

"No God find I in all the Buddha's thought—
A ghastly gap of void and nothingness,
O Krishna, to the orphaned human heart
That aches with longing and with loneliness,
A weanling infant left forlorn of God,
And, 'O, that I might find Him!' ceaseless cries
In yearnings that will not be pacified,
Fatherless in a dreadful universe!
I would thy Buddha had felt after God,
And haply found Him, or been found of Him!
I wonder if, not knowing it, he did!
Sadly I wonder when of this I think,
That he who comes to God must needs believe
God is, and a rewarder is of such
As diligently seek Him—such alone.
But may one seek God unawares? With hope
I wonder, when I think again of Him,
The Light that lighteth every soul of man
That anywhere is born into the world.
O Christ, Thou Brightness of the Father's glory,
Immanuel, God with us, the Son of Man,
The Son of God, God Himself manifest
On earth to us, Redeemer, Brother, Lord!"

The strain of such ascription bursting forth
Unbidden, and unboundedly intense
In tone, from the great heart of Paul surcharged
With passion of devotion to his Lord
And with vicarious travailing desire
To save men, wrought in all who heard an awe
Of immanent God. But Krishna to the quick
Was touched with tenderness toward Paul to hear
Paul's tenderness toward Buddha, far removed
Although it were from reverence like his own.

To Publius there seemed no fitting thing
For modulation to the mood from Paul,
Save to let Mary now resume the word.
She said: "After the raising from the dead
Of Lazarus, we disciples of the Lord
Ought not to have been astonished or dismayed
At anything that in His wisdom He,
His wisdom and His power, might either do
Or suffer to be done. But we were blind,
And it did seem to us so violent,
So opposite to all that should have been,
When He, that Lord of life and glory, let
The soldiers take him prisoner. At first
Indeed, when He stood forth and said to them,
'Whom seek ye?' and they, ignorant, said to Him,
'Jesus of Nazareth,' and thereupon
He answered, 'I am he,' they, at that word
From Him, majestically spoken more
Than they could bear to hear and stand upright,
Went backward and fell prostrate on the ground.
This, as I think, was not so much against
Those who thus suffered as for us who saw—
To reassure our faith that naught then done
Was done without His sovereign sufferance, who
Such things could, then even, and so easily, work.

"But I have told now what I did not see,
For it was midnight when this came to pass—
Deep in the garden of Gethsemane,
A little paradise of olive trees
Where oft the Master loved to be retired;
A few disciples only were with Him there,
His chosen apostles; and not all of these,
For one of them a little while before
Had gone out from among them—well foreknown
By Jesus wherefore, it was to betray
His Lord and Master to His enemies!
Judas, the name of this one was, and he
Had given it for a sign to those that sought
To lay hands on our Master, 'Whomsoever
I kiss, that same is He; make sure of Him.'
So Judas, as in all sweet loyalty,
Came up to Jesus with his proffered kiss
Of salutation; but the Lord would not
Receive it, till He had first made known to all
His understanding of its treachery:
'Judas,' He said, 'betrayest thou with a kiss
The Son of Man?' When Judas had his sign
Given, he fell back among the band he had brought.
Then was it that the Lord asked them, not yet
Enough assured or haply stunned with fear,
'Whom seek ye?' and declared Himself to them.
So Judas was of those who prostrate fell
Recoiled before the glory of the Lord
Flashing in sudden glimpse from out the shame
Like lightning disimprisoned from a cloud—
Foretasted retribution of his crime!
Thus much not as eye-witness I relate,
But having heard it from eye-witnesses
So many and so close upon the time
That half it seems as if myself had seen it.

"I saw when, with the breaking of the dawn,
After a night to Jesus of such strain
And pain in agony and bloody sweat,
And sorrow of heart for human traitorhood,
And disappointment in his hopes from friends,
And dreadful bodings of the doom so nigh,
And being rudely hustled to and fro
Between one jurisdiction and another,
Everywhere treated with all contumely
Both of accusing and reviling word
And of gross act in blasphemous affront
To the image of God in man—were He but man!—
But He being God, conceive the blasphemy
Of spitting in that heavenly human face
Divine, and smiting Him in mockery,
Blindfolded not to see whence came the blow,
Then bidden prophesy, 'Who struck thee, Christ?'
(The very slaves there smote Him with their hands)—
I say that after such a night to Him
Who condescended to be human, God
Although He was, and felt all human woe,
I saw when, morning having broken, they
Led Jesus last to Pilate in his hall.
There He stood lamblike, so pathetical
In His meek majesty I could have wept
For heart-break in sheer pity of His state,
But that the fountain was dried up in me
Of blesséd tears, and I consumed myself
In anguish that fed on my soul like fire."

The anguish whereof Mary spoke that fed
So like an inward fire upon her soul,
Seemed to surge back on her in memory;
And it was after strong recoil subdued
That she resumed to say: "Ye will not ask
That I tell all again, how shame on shame
Was wreaked upon my Lord, until no more
Was possible from men. Pilate himself
(Now Pilate was the Roman governor)
Pilate himself, I think, was moved to pity,
Though, paltering, he with cruel weakness bade
Scourge that sweet human flesh and temple of God!
Perhaps he thought, 'This will content his foes.'
So having done, he, issuing from his hall,
Brought Jesus forth before the multitude
Wearing upon His brow a crown of thorns
The soldiers had in mockery plaited Him,
And over his bruised form the purple robe.
'Behold the man!' said Pilate to the Jews;
I think he must have had his hope to meet
Relenting on the part of that wild mob
When they saw Jesus in His piteous plight.
Bloodthirsty as they were, perhaps they would,
With the blood streaming from His wounded brows,
They knowing besides how underneath the robe
Mock-kingly that he wore the blood coursed down
The trenches opened by the cutting lash—With
so much blood they might be satisfied.
Nay, so much blood but maddened them for more.