_Salathiel Confronts the Shade of Antiochus_
[Sidenote: Salathiel’s Discontent]
Let me hasten through some years.[11] The sunshine of life was gone; in
all my desire to conform to the habits of my new career, I found myself
incapable of contentment. But the times, that had long resembled the
stagnation of a lake, were beginning to be shaken. Rome herself, the
prey of conspiracy, gradually held her foreign scepter with a feebler
hand. Gaul and Germany were covered with gathering clouds, and their
flashes were answered from the Asiatic hills. With the relaxation of
the paramount authority, the chain of subordinate oppression, as always
happens, was made tighter. As the master was enfeebled, the menials were
less in awe; and Judea rapidly felt what must be the evils of a military
government without the strictness of military discipline.
[Sidenote: His Painful Recollections]
I protest against being charged with ambition. But I had a painful sense
of the guilt of suffering even such powers as I might possess to waste
away, without use to some part of mankind. I was weary of the utter
unproductiveness of the animal enjoyments, in which I saw the multitude
round me content to linger into old age. I longed for an opportunity
of contributing my mite to the solid possessions by which posterity is
wiser, happier, or purer than the generation before it—some trivial
tribute to that mighty stream of time which ought to go on, continually
bringing richer fertility as it flowed. I was not grieved by the change
which I saw overshadowing the gorgeous empire of Rome. My unspeakable
crime may have thrown a deeper tinge on those contemplations. But by a
singular fatality, and perhaps for the increase of my punishment, I was
left for long periods in each year to the common impressions of life.
The wisdom, which even my great misfortune might have forced upon me,
was withheld; and the being who, in the conviction of his mysterious
destiny, must have looked upon earth and its pursuits as man looks upon
the labors and the life of flies—as atoms in the sunshine—as measureless
emptiness and trifling—was given over to be disturbed by the impulses of
generations on whose dust he was to sit, and to see other generations
rise round him, themselves to sink alike into dust, while he still sat an
image of endurance, torturing, but imperishable.
There was a season in each year when those recollections returned with
overwhelming vividness. If all other knowledge of the approach of the
Passover could have escaped me, there were signs, fearful signs, that
warned me of that hour of my wo. A periodic dread of the sight of man, a
sudden sense of my utter separation from the interests of the transitory
beings around me, wild dreams, days of immovable abstraction, yet
filled with the breathing picture of all that I had done on the day of
my guilt in Jerusalem, rose before me with such intense reality that I
lived again through the scene. The successive progress of my crime—the
swift and stinging consciousness of condemnation—the flash of fearful
knowledge, that showed me futurity—all were felt with the keenness of a
being from whom his fleshly nature has been stripped away and the soul
bared to every visitation of pain. I stood, like a disembodied spirit, in
suffering.
Yet I could not be restrained from following my tribe on their annual
progress to the Holy City. To see from afar the towers of the Temple
was with me like a craving for life—but I never dared to set my foot
within its gates. On some pretense or other, and sometimes through real
powerlessness, arising from the conflict of my heart, I lingered behind,
yet within the distance from which the city could be seen. There among
the precipices I wandered through the day, listening to the various
uproar of the mighty multitude, or wistfully catching some echo of the
hymns in the Temple—sounds that stole from my eye many a tear—till
darkness fell, the city slumbered, and the blast of the Roman trumpets,
as they divided the night, reminded me of the fallen glories of my
country.
[Sidenote: Salathiel Beside the Lake]
In one of those wanderings I had followed the courses of the Kedron,
which, from a brook under the walls of Jerusalem, swells to a river
on its descent to the Dead Sea. The blood of the sacrifices from the
conduits of the altars curdled on its surface and stained the sands
purple. It looked like a wounded vein from the mighty heart above. I
still strayed on, wrapped in sad forebodings of the hour when its stains
might be of more than sacrifice, until I found myself on the edge of the
lake. Who has ever seen that black expanse without a shudder? There were
the engulfed cities. Around it life was extinct—no animal bounded—no bird
hovered. The distant rushing of the Jordan, as it forced its current
through the heavy waters, or the sigh of the wind through the reeds,
alone broke the silence of this mighty grave. Of the melancholy objects
of nature, none is more depressing than a large expanse of stagnant
waters. No gloom of forest or wildness of mountain is so overpowering as
this dreary, unrelieved flatness—the marshy border, the sickly vegetation
of the shore, the leaden color which even the sky above it wears, tinged
by its sepulchral atmosphere. But the waters before me were not left to
the dreams of a saddened fancy—they were a sepulcher. Myriads of human
beings lay beneath them, entombed in sulfurous beds. The wrath of Heaven
had been there! The day of destruction seemed to pass again before my
eyes, as I lay gazing upon those sullen depths. I saw them once more
a plain covered with richness; cities glittering in the morning sun;
multitudes pouring out from their gates to sports and festivals; the
land exulting with life and luxuriance: Then a cloud gathered above. I
heard the thunder: it was answered by the earthquake. Fire burst from
the skies: it was answered by a thousand founts of fire spouting from
the plain. The distant hills blazed and threw volcanic showers over the
cities. Round them was a tide of burning bitumen. The earthquake heaved
again. All sank into the gulf. I heard the roar of the distant waters.
They rushed into the bed of fire; the doom was done; the cities of the
plain were gone down to the blackness of darkness forever!
[Sidenote: A Meeting]
I was idly watching the bursts of suffocating vapor, that shoot up at
intervals from the rising masses of bitumen, when I was startled by
a wild laugh and wilder figure beside me. I sprang to my feet, and
prepared for defense with my poniard. The figure waved its hand, in
sign to sheathe the unnecessary weapon, and said, in a tone strange and
melancholy: “You are in my power, but I do not come to injure you. I
have been contemplating your countenance for some time; I have seen your
disturbed features—your wringing hands—your convulsed form—are you even
as I am?”
The voice was singularly mild; yet I never heard a sound that so keenly
pierced my brain. The speaker was of the tallest stature of man—every
sinew and muscle exhibiting gigantic strength; yet with the symmetry of
a Greek statue. But his countenance was the true wonder—it was of the
finest mold of manly beauty; the contour was Greek, though the hue was
Syrian—yet the dark tinge of country gave way at times to a corpse-like
paleness. I had full leisure for the view, for he stood gazing on me
without a word and I remained fixed on my defense. At length he said:
“Put up that poniard! You could no more hurt me than you could resist me.
Look here!” He wrenched a huge mass of rock from the ground and whirled
it far into the lake, as if it had been a pebble. I gazed with speechless
astonishment. “Yes,” pursued the figure, “they throw me into their
prisons—they lash me—they stretch me on the rack—they burn my flesh.” As
he spoke he flung aside his robe and showed his broad breast covered with
scars. “Short-sighted fools! little they know him who suffers or him who
commands. If it were not my will to endure, I could crush my tormentors
as I crush an insect. They chain me, too,” said he with a laugh of scorn.
He drew out the arm which had been hitherto wrapped in his robe. It was
loaded with heavy links of iron. He grasped one of them in his hand,
twisted it off with scarcely an effort, and flung it up a sightless
distance in the air. “Such are bars and bolts to me! When my time is come
to suffer, I submit to be tortured! When that time is past, I tear away
their fetters, burst their dungeons, and walk forth trampling their armed
men.”
[Sidenote: Salathiel Craves Power]
I sheathed the dagger. “Does this strength amaze you?” said the being;
“look to yonder dust”—and he pointed to a cloud of sand that came flying
along the shore. “I could outstrip that whirlwind; I could plunge unhurt
into the depths of that sea; I could ascend that mountain swifter than
the eagle; I could ride that thunder-cloud.”
As he threw himself back, gazing upon the sky with his grand form buoyant
with vigor and his arm raised, he looked like one to whom height or depth
could offer no obstacle. His mantle flew out along the blast, like the
unfurling of a mighty wing. There was something in his look and voice
that gave irresistible conviction to his words. Conscious mastery was in
all about him. I should not have felt surprise to see him spring up into
the clouds!
My mind grew inflamed by his presence. My blood burned with sensations
for which language was no name—a thirst of power—a scorn of earth—a proud
and fiery longing for the command of the hidden mysteries of nature. I
felt as the great ancestor of mankind might have felt when the tempter
told him, “Ye shall be even as gods.”
“Give me your power!” I exclaimed; “the world to me is worthless; with
man all my ties are broken; let me live in the desert, and be even as you
are; give me your power.” “My power?” he repeated, with a ghastly laugh
that was echoed round the wilderness by what seemed voices innumerable
until it died away in a distant groan. “Look on this forehead!”—he threw
back the corner of his mantle. A furrow was drawn round his brow, covered
with gore, and gaping like a fresh wound. “Here,” cried he, “sat the
diadem. I was Epiphanes.”[12]
[Sidenote: Which Antiochus Promises]
“You, Antiochus! the tyrant—the persecutor—the spoiler—the accursed of
Israel!” I bounded backward in sudden horror. I saw before me one of
those spirits of the evil dead who are allowed from time to time to
reappear on earth in the body, whether of the dead or the living. For
some cause that none could unfold, Judea had been, within the last few
years, haunted by those beings more than for centuries. Strange rites,
dangerously borrowed from the idolaters, were resorted to for our relief
from this new terror: the pulling of the mandrake at the eclipse of
the moon—incantations—midnight offerings—the root of Baaras, that was
said to flash flame and kill the animal that drew it from the ground.
Our Sadducees and skeptics, wise in their own conceit, declared that
possession was but a human disease, a wilder insanity. But, with the
range and misery of madness, there were tremendous distinctions, which
raised it beyond all the ravages of the hurt mind or the afflicted
frame—the look, the language, the horror, of the possessed were above
man. They defied human restraint; they lived in wildernesses where the
very serpents died; the fiery sun of the East, the inclemency of the
fiercest winter, had no power to break down their strength. But they
had stronger signs. They spoke of things to which the wisdom of the
wisest was folly; they told of the remotest future, with the force of
prophecy; they gave glimpses of a knowledge brought from realms of being
inaccessible to living man; last and loftiest sign, they did homage
to HIS coming, whom a cloud of darkness, the guilty and impenetrable
darkness of the heart, had veiled from my unhappy nation. But their
worship was terror—they believed and trembled.
“Power,” said the possessed, and his large and unmoving eyes seemed
lighting up with fire from within; “power you shall have, and hate it;
wealth you shall have, and hate it; life you shall have, and hate it; yet
you shall know the heights and depths of man. You shall be the worm among
a nation of worms; you shall be steeped in ruin to the lips; you shall
undergo the bitterness of death, until——” His brow writhed; he gnashed
his teeth, and convulsively sprang from the ground, as if an arrow had
shot through him.
The current of his thoughts suddenly changed. Things above man were not
to be uttered to the ear unopened by the grave. “Come,” said he, “son of
misfortune, emblem of the nation that living shall die, and dying shall
live; that, trampled by all, shall trample upon all; that, bleeding
from a thousand wounds, shall be unhurt; that, beggared, shall wield
the wealth of nations; that, without a name, shall sway the councils
of kings; that, without a city, shall inhabit in all kingdoms; that,
scattered like the dust, shall be bound together like the rock; that,
perishing by the sword, by the chain, by famine, by fire, shall yet be
imperishable, unnumbered, glorious as the stars of heaven.”
[Sidenote: Salathiel Overpowered]
Overwhelmed with sensations, rushing in a flood through my heart, I had
cast myself upon the ground; the flashing of the fiery eye before me
consumed my blood; and, fainting, I lay with my face upon the sand. But
his words were deeply heard; with every sound of his searching voice they
struck into my soul. He grasped me; and I was lifted up like an infant in
his clutch. “Come,” said he, “and see what is reserved for you and for
your people.”
He darted forward with a speed that took away my breath; he ran—he
bounded—he flew. “Now, behold,” he uttered in an accent as composed as if
he had not moved a limb. I looked, and found myself on one of the hills
close to the great southern gate of Jerusalem. Years had passed since I
ventured so nigh. But I now gazed on the city of pomp and beauty with an
involuntary wonder that I could have ever deserted a scene so lovely and
so loved.
It was the twilight of a summer evening. Tower and wall lay bathed in a
sea of purple; the Temple rose from its center like an island of light;
the host of heaven came riding up the blue fields above; the sounds of
day died in harmony. All was the sweetness, calmness, and splendor of a
vision painted in the clouds.
“There,” said the possessed, “I was once master, conqueror, avenger; yet
I was but the instrument to punish your furious dissensions—your guilty
abandonment of the law of your leader—your more than Gentile apostasy
from the worship of Him who is to be worshiped with more than the blood
of bulls and goats. A power hidden from my idolatrous eyes went before me
and broke down the courage of your people. I marched through your gates
on the neck of the godless warrior; I plundered the wealth of your rich
men, made worldly by their wealth; I slew your priesthood, already the
betrayers of their altar; I overthrew your places of worship, already
defiled; I covered the ruins with the blood of swine; I raised idols in
the sanctuary; I bore away the golden vessels of the Temple, and gave
them to the insult of the Syrian; I slew your males, I made captives
of your women; I abolished your sacrifices, and pronounced in my hour
of blasphemy that within the walls of Jerusalem the flame should never
again be kindled to the Supreme. The deed was mine, but the cause was the
iniquity of your people.”
The history of devastation roused in me those feelings native to the Jew
by which I had been taught to look with abhorrence on the devastator.
“Let me be gone,” I exclaimed, struggling from his grasp. “Strange and
terrible being, let me hear no more this outrage on God and man. I am
guilty, too guilty, in having listened to you for a moment.”
He laid his hand upon my brow, and I felt my strength dissolve at the
touch.
[Sidenote: A Prophecy of the Future]
“Go,” said he, “but first be a witness of the future. A fiercer destroyer
than Epiphanes shall come, to punish a darker crime than ever stained
your forefathers. A destruction shall come to which the past was the
sport of children. Tower and wall, citadel and temple, shall be dust.
The sword shall do its work—the chain shall do its work—the flame shall
do its work. Bad spirits shall rejoice; good spirits shall weep; Israel
shall be clothed in sackcloth and ashes for a time, impenetrable by a
created eye. The world shall exult, trample, scorn, and slay. Blindness,
madness, and misery shall be the portion of the people. Now, behold!”
He stood, with his arm stretched out toward the Temple. All before me
was tranquillity itself; night had suddenly fallen deeper than usual;
the stars had been wrapped in clouds, that yet gathered without a wind;
a faint tinge of light from the summit of Mount Moriah, the gleam of the
never-extinguished altar of the daily sacrifice, alone marked the central
court of the Temple. I turned from the almost death-like stillness of the
scene, with a look of involuntary disbelief, to the face of my fearful
guide; even in the deep darkness every feature of it was strangely
visible.
[Sidenote: The Beginning of Evil]
A low murmur from the city caught my ear; it rapidly grew loud, various,
wild; it was soon intermingled with the clash of arms. Trumpets now rang;
I recognized the charging shout of the Romans; I heard the tumultuous
roar of my countrymen in return. The darkness was converted into light;
torches blazed along the battlements; the Tower of Antonia, the Roman
citadel, with its massy bulwarks and immense altitude, rose from a
tossing expanse of flame below like a colossal funeral-pile; I could
see on its summit the alarm, the rapid signals, the hasty snatching up
of spear and shield, the confusion of the garrison which that night’s
vengeance was to offer up on the pile. The roar of battle rose, it
deepened into cries of agony, it swelled again into furious exultation——
I thought of my countrymen butchered by some new caprice of power; of my
kinsmen, perhaps at that instant involved in the massacre; of the city,
every stone and beam of which was dear to my embittered heart, given up
to the vengeance of the idolater! The prediction of its ruin was in my
ears, and I longed to perish with my tribe. I panted with every shout of
the battle; every new sheet of flame that rolled upward from the burning
houses fevered me; I longed to rush into the uproar with the speed of the
whirlwind. But the terrible hand was still upon my forehead, and I was
feeble as a broken reed. “Behold,” said the possessed, “those are but the
beginnings of evil.” I felt a sudden return of my strength; I looked up;
he was gone!