The ship wails, while the waves tear it apart, as if it came alive only in death. And those men still on board aid in their vessel’s destruction, rending from it such pieces as they hope will float. Some jump and some tremulously descend upon ropes. But all take themselves into the swells, grasping at planks and debris.
Paul, Timothy and Aristarchus cling together on a section of cross-shaped flotsam, which once had formed part of the aft, and supported by it the three of them kick their way towards the land. And not only they, but every single man of the ship — bone-cold, bloodied, drenched and starving — staggers up the sand alive.
Through the darkness of the tempest they drifted from Crete more than five hundred miles to Malta. And they will stay wintered on that island, until another vessel carries them onward to Italy.
Over the quarter-century of Paul’s missionary journeys, he travelled perhaps as many as ten thousand miles. But upon arrival he will never leave Rome again.
Thirty-four Years after the Crucifixion
There are white flakes down the crease of Paul’s mouth, where drool in his sleep must have dried. One side of his age-wrinkled cheek is squashed flat from the unyielding pillow of the prison’s stone floor. These days, Paul’s eyes take a long time to focus when he first awakes. He doesn’t recall that this used to be the case. Paul has spent a long lifetime resisting sleep. Always he has been the last to bed and the first to rise. Sleep is sister-son of death, an oblivion once to be feared, before God’s promise. Yet, if denied its release for sufficient time, even strong men break. We might give up almost anything for sleep in the end.
In the near darkness of the cave-gaol, some pray and some cry. They rock and sob. And rats scuttle and couples rut. And you can’t blame them for it and the Christ forgives. Man is born into trouble, as surely as sparks fly upward, and the Christ forgives. The rich take it hardest in here. Those who have always known the quiet violence of poverty adjust to new horrors more easily.
Yesterday, if day it was, Paul told the story of Job, a righteous and prosperous man, who the accuser Satan said was pious only because he was so blessed with wealth and family. So God granted permission for His servant Job to be tested, to prove that his love of God was true. And Job’s oxen and asses were stolen from him. And his sheep were burned and his slaves were murdered. And all his children were struck dead. And Job himself was afflicted with hideous, hurtful boils that covered him from the soles of his feet to the crown of his head. And Job cursed the day he was conceived and wished he had died in the womb, but he did not curse God. Thus God won his wager with Satan.
Paul had meant the story to give them heart, but one of the hearers had softly said, ‘Then this new God you have brought us to is no different from the gods of Rome: they destroy men for diversion.’
The torturers who took Silas’s speech and sight might just as well have killed him. Though Paul does all he can, Silas cannot or will not eat, and he grows weaker every day. His breath stinks even above the putrid prison because of the infected wound where once his tongue was attached and because his body is consuming itself. He seems resolved to death; though emotions are hard to ascertain from a voiceless, eyeless man in a domain of permanent dusk.
Paul thinks back to the assembly of Thessalonica. The despondency that struck them when the first of his converts there died. They had been told they were baptized into eternal life so had not expected death. Perhaps Paul had not wholly expected it himself, though in retrospect it made sense: the dead in Christ will be the first to rise when He returns but, of course, this doesn’t mean that no more will die until that time. Some things are best clarified through looking back on them.
Other things should be forgotten. Past pains cease even to be scars, if allowed to fade from view entirely. Yesterday is what we say it was, as long as it doesn’t return. But all too often it does return. All too often it comes back in the same stony shape.
Many of the Christianoi are praying when the hole in the ceiling is opened. The voices of the women chime and mingle. So often have they said these words that they have fallen into a rhythmic cadence, like song. The men unconsciously harmonize, high and low become one. A hum is produced at the edge of the words, a vibration that murmurs back and throughout the cavern.
The rope is lowered and another prisoner is let down. It is a marvel that the hemp doesn’t snap with the strain because the figure who descends is almost the same size and shape as one of the great rock obelisks Roman road-builders use to sign a parting of the ways.
Even prison is no protection, Paul thinks, but he raises a hand in some sort of greeting and smiles, though the smile is thin and sore as rope burn.
When his bare feet touch the damp rock floor, Cephas warily acknowledges the wave and comes to Paul, with an old man’s slow lumber. Cephas eases himself down and blankets the hand of silent Silas in one of his own, squeezing gently.
‘So do you still say that Caesar is a noble God-appointed ruler now, Paul? Will you say it even as they cut off your head?’ But there is perhaps more tenderness in Cephas’s rheumy old eyes than anything else.
‘Our differences don’t matter now, Peter. The veil is about to be lifted. The truth will be shown soon enough. The axe is at the root of the tree. This is the moment that was always coming.’
‘Yes, the axe is at the root of the tree, where it’s been these thirty-odd years. But if you’ve changed the head with a new blade and changed the haft with a different handle, is it still the same axe? Perhaps it is no longer even an axe. Maybe you now hold a mattock or a hoe.’
‘Well, presently we’ll know. And if this is not yet the end of days, be content that your vision of The Way will be the victor, Peter. My stoutest supporters will try to continue, I don’t doubt it, but without me they can’t stand against the authority of James, the Lord’s brother.’
‘You don’t know, then?’ Cephas says, his voice in pebble waver. ‘I thought the whole world would have heard by now. James the Just is dead, Paul. James is dead.’
Thirty-two Years after the Crucifixion
Last night James stayed in Bethany. At the home of an enduring friend, the same house where his brother was once anointed with costly oil, as all kings must be. Thus James now descends the Mount of Olives as he walks to the Temple. It distils one’s mind, to pass through that place where so much happened. And so much did not happen. Where they prayed in the darkness for all that Zechariah had prophesized and promised. But the earthquakes didn’t come and the Romans did.
There is a leafy smell of plenty in the olive groves. A scent much missed in recent years. And everything cries of the Galilee Sea, strangely, because those Galilee days are far away in distance and time, but the wind rolls in James’s ears, the trees sway like the waves and it’s cool and fresh as the breeze on a boat.
Some of the trees are old as Methuselah, with trunks thicker than the backs of a plough-pulling brace of oxen. How would these ancient olive trees be with wild shoots grafted on to their roots? Would they thrive as they do now or would the struggle to combine kill both parts and whole? James knows the alluring maniac Paul has written that his Gentile communities are just so grafted on to the nourishing sap from the root of Israel, from which he says the Jews themselves are now snapped off. Who knows if Paul really believes such things? Paul’s lips drip honey and his speech is smoother than oil, but James is sure God loves His people. That is life’s one certainty. God covenanted this land to prove it. And presently Yeshua will return to free it.