While Pollux and his mother, who was much grieved, waited for
Euphorion’s return, and while Papias was ingratiating himself with the
Emperor by pretending still to believe that Hadrian was nothing more
than Claudius Venator, the architect, Aurelius Verus, nicknamed by the
Alexandrians, “the sham Eros” had lived through strange experiences.
In the afternoon he had visited the Empress, in the hope of persuading
her to look on at the gay doings of the people, even if incognito; but
Sabina was out of spirits, declared herself unwell, and was quite sure
that the noise of the rabble would be the death of her. Having, as she
said, so vivacious a reporter as Verus, she might spare herself from
exposing her own person to the dust and smell of the town, and the
uproar of men. As soon as Lucilla begged her husband to remember his
rank and not to mingle with the excited multitude, at any rate after
dark, the Empress strictly enjoined him to see with his own eyes
everything that could be worth notice in the festival, and more
particularly to give attention to everything that was peculiar to
Alexandria and not to be seen in Rome.
After sunset Verus had first gone to visit the veterans of the Twelfth
Legion who had been in the field with him against the Numidians, and
to whom he gave a dinner at an eating-house, as being his old
fellow-soldiers. For above an hour he sat drinking with the brave old
fellows; then, quitting them, he went to look at the Canopic way
by night, as it was but a few paces thither from the scene of his
hospitality. It was brilliantly lighted with tapers, torches, and
lamps, and the large houses behind the colonnades were gaudy with rich
hangings; only the handsomest and stateliest of them all had no kind of
decoration. This was the abode of the Jew Apollodorus.
In former years the finest hangings had decorated his windows, which had
been as gay with flowers and lamps as those of the other Israelites
who dwelt in the Canopic way, and who were wont to keep the festival
in common with their heathen fellow-citizens as jovially as though they
were no less zealous to do homage to Dionysus. Apollodorus had his own
reasons for keeping aloof on this occasion from all that was connected
with the holiday doings of the heathen. Without dreaming that his
withdrawal could involve him in any danger, he was quietly sitting in
his house, which was so splendidly furnished as to seem fitted for some
princely Greek rather than for a Hebrew. This was especially the case
with the men’s living-room, in which Apollodorus sat, for the pictures
on the walls and pavement of this beautiful hall--of which the
roof, which was half open, was supported on columns of the finest
porphyry--represented the loves of Eros and Psyche; while between the
pillars stood busts of the greatest heathen philosophers, and in the
background a fine statue of Plato was conspicuous. Among all the Greeks
and Romans there was the portrait of only one Jew, and this was that of
Philo, whose intellectual and delicate features greatly resembled those
of the most illustrious of his Greek companions.
In this splendid room, lighted by silver lamps, there was no lack
of easy couches, and on one of these Apollodorus was reclining; a
fine-looking man of fifty, with his mild but shrewd eyes fixed on a tall
and aged fellow-Israelite who was pacing up and down in front of him and
talking eagerly; the old man’s hands too were never still, now he used
them in eager gesture, and again stroked his long white beard. On an
easy seat opposite to the master of the house sat a lean young man with
pale and very regular finely-cut features, black hair and a black beard;
he sat with his dark glowing eyes fixed on the ground, tracing lines and
circles on the pavement with the stick he held in his hand, while the
excited old man, his uncle, urgently addressed Apollodorus in a vehement
but fluent torrent of words. Apollodorus, however, shook his head
from time to time at his speech and frequently met him with a brief
contradiction.
It was easy to see that what he was listening to touched him painfully,
and that the two diametrically different men were fighting a battle
which could never lead to any satisfactory issue. For, though they both
used the Greek tongue and confessed the same religion, all they felt and
thought was grounded on views, as widely dissimilar as though the two
men had been born in different spheres. When two opponents of such
different calibre meet, there is a great clatter of arms but no bloody
wounds are dealt and neither rout nor victory can result.
It was on account of this old man and his nephew that Apollodorus had
forborne to-day to decorate his house, for the Rabbi Gamaliel, who had
arrived only the day before from Palestine, and had been welcomed by
his Alexandrian relatives, condemned every form of communion with the
gentiles, and would undoubtedly have quitted the residence of his host
if he had ventured to adorn it in honor of the feast-day of the false
gods. Gamaliel’s nephew, Rabbi Ben Jochai, enjoyed a reputation little
inferior to that of his father, Ben Akiba. The elder was the greatest
sage and expounder of the law--the son the most illustrious astronomer
and the most skilled interpreter of the mystical significance of the
position of the heavenly bodies, among the Hebrews.
It redounded greatly to the honor of Apollodorus that he should be
privileged to shelter under his roof the sage Gamaliel and the famous
son of so great a father, and in his hours of leisure he loved to occupy
himself with learned subjects, so he had done his utmost to make their
stay in his house in every way agreeable to them. He had bought, on
purpose for them, a kitchen slave, himself a strict Jew and familiar
with the requirements of the Levitical law as to food, who during their
stay was to preside over the mysteries of the hearth, instead of the
Greek cook who usually served him, so that none but clean meat should be
prepared according to the Jewish ritual. He had forbidden his grown-up
sons to invite any of their Greek friends into the house during the
visit of the illustrious couple or to discuss the festival; they were
also enjoined to avoid using the names of the gods of the heathen in
their conversation--but he himself was the first to sin against this
prohibition.
He, like all the Hebrews of good position in Alexandria, had acquired
Greek culture, felt and thought in Greek modes, and had remained a Jew
only in name; for though they still believed in the one God of their
fathers instead of in a crowd of Olympian deities, the One whom they
worshipped was no longer the almighty and jealous God of their nation,
but the all-pervading plasmic and life-giving Spirit with whom the
Greeks had become familiar through Plato.
Every hour that they had spent in each other’s company had widened
the gulf between Apollodorus and Gamaliel, and the relations of the
Alexandrian to the sage had become almost intolerable, when he learnt
that the old man--who was related to himself--had come to Egypt with his
nephew, in order to demand the daughter of Apollodorus in marriage. But
the fair Ismene was not in the least disposed to listen to this grave
and bigoted suitor. The home of her people was to her a barbarous land,
the young astronomer filled her with alarm, and besides all this her
heart was already engaged; she had given it to the son of Alabarchos,
who was the Superior of all the Israelites in Egypt, and this young
man possessed the finest horse in the whole city, with which he had won
several races in the Hippodrome, and he also had distinguished her above
all the maidens. To him, if to any one, would she give her hand, and she
had explained herself to this effect to her father when he informed her
of Ben Jochai’s suit, and Apollodorus, who had lost his wife several
years before, had neither the wish nor the power to put any pressure on
his pretty darling.
To be sure the temporizing nature of the man rendered it very difficult
to him to give a decided no to his venerable old friend; but it had
to be done sooner or later, and the present evening seemed to him an
appropriate moment for this unpleasant task.
He was alone with his guests. His daughter had gone to the house of a
friend to look on at the gay doings in the street, his three sons were
out, all the slaves had leave to enjoy their holiday till midnight;
nothing was likely to disturb them, and so, after many warm expressions
of his deep respect, he found courage to confess to them that he could
not support Ben Jochai’s pretensions. His child, he said, clung too
fondly to Alexandria to wish to quit it, and his learned young friend
would be but ill suited with a wife who was accustomed to freer manners
and habits, and could hardly feel herself at ease in a home where the
laws of her fathers were strictly observed, and in which therefore no
kind of freedom of life would be tolerated.
Gamaliel let the Alexandrian speak to the end, but then, as his nephew
was beginning to argue against their host’s hesitancy, the old man
abruptly interrupted him. Drawing up his figure, which was a little
bent, to its full height, and passing his hand among the blue veins and
fine wrinkles that marked his high forehead, he began:
“Our house was decimated in our wars against the Romans, and among the
daughters of our race Ben Akiba found not one in Palestine who seemed to
him worthy to marry his son. But the report of the good fortune of
the Alexandrian branch of our family had reached Judea, and Ben Akiba
thought that he would do like our father Abraham, and he sent me, his
Eliezer, into a strange land to win the daughter of a kinsman to wife
for his Isaac. Now, who and what the young man is, and the esteem in
which he and his father are held by men--”
“I know well,” interrupted Apollodorus, “and my house has never been so
highly honored as in your visit.”
“And notwithstanding,” continued the Rabbi, “we must return home as we
came; and indeed this will not only suit you best, but us too, and my
brother, whose ambassador I am, for after what I have learnt from you
within this last hour we must in any case withdraw our suit. Do not
interrupt me! Your Ismene scorns to veil her face, and no doubt it is a
very pretty one to look upon--you have trained her mind like that of a
man, and so she seeks to go her own way. That may be all very well for
a Greek woman, but in the house of Ben Akiba the woman must obey her
husband’s will, as the ship obeys the helm, and have no will of her own;
her husband’s will always coincides with what the law commands, which
you yourself learnt to obey.”
“We recognize its excellence,” replied Apolloderus, “but even if all the
laws which Moses received on Sinai were binding on all mortals alike,
the various ordinances which were wisely laid down for the regulation of
the social life of our fathers, are not universally applicable for the
children of our day. And least of all can we observe them here, where,
though true to our ancient faith, we live as Greeks among Greeks.”
“That I perceive,” retorted Gamaliel, “for even the language--that
clothing of our thoughts--the language of our fathers and of the
scriptures, you have abandoned for another, sacrificed to another.”
“You and your nephew also speak Greek.”
“We do it here, because the heathen, because you and yours, no longer
understand the tongue of Moses and the prophets.”
“But wherever the Great Alexander bore his arms Greek is spoken; and
does not the Greek version of the scriptures, translated by the seventy
interpreters under the direct guidance of our God, exactly reproduce the
Hebrew text?”
“And would you exchange the stone engraved by Bryasis that you wear
on your finger, and showed me yesterday with so much pride, for a wax
impression of the gem?”
“The language of Plato is not an inferior thing; it is as noble as the
costliest sapphire.”
“But ours came to us from the lips of the Most High. What would you
think of a child that, disdaining the tongue Of its father listened only
to that of its neighbors and made use of an interpreter to be able to
understand its parents’ commands?”
“You are speaking of parents who have long since left their native land.
The ancestor need not be indignant with his descendants when they use
the language of their new home, so long as they continue to act in
accordance with his spirit.”
“We must live not merely in accordance with the spirit, but by the words
of the Most High, for not a syllable proceeds from His lips in vain. The
more exalted the spirit of a discourse is, the more important is every
word and syllable. One single letter often changes the meaning of whole
sentences.--What a noise the people outside are making! The wild tumult
penetrates even into this room which is so far from the street, and
your sons take delight in the disorders of the heathen! You do not even
withhold them by force from adding to the number of those mad devotees
of pleasure!”
“I was young once myself, and I think it no sin to share in the
universal rejoicing.”
“Say rather the disgraceful idolatry of the worshippers of Dionysus. It
is in name alone that you and your children belong to the elect people
of God, in your hearts you are heathens!”
“No, Father,” exclaimed Apollodorus eagerly. “The reverse is the case.
In our hearts we are Jews but we wear the garments of Greeks.”
“Why your name is Apollodorus--the gift of Apollo.”
“A name chosen only to distinguish me from others. Who would ever
enquire into the meaning of a name if it sounds well.”
“You, everybody who is not devoid of sense,” cried the Rabbi. “You think
to yourself ‘need Zenodotus or Hermogenes, some Greek you meet at the
bath or else where, know at once that the wealthy personage, with whom
he discussed the latest interpretation of the Hellenic myths, is a
Jew?’ And how charming is the man who asks you whether you are not
an Athenian, for your Greek has such a pure Attic accent! And what we
ourselves like, we favor in our children, so we choose names for them
too which flatter our own vanity.”
“By Heracles!”
A faint mocking smile crossed Gamaliel’s lips and interrupting the
Alexandrian he said:
“Is there any particularly worthy man among our Alexandrian
fellow-believers whose name is Heracles?”
“No one” cried the Alexandrian “ever thinks of the son of Alcmene when
he asseverates--it only means ‘really,--truly--’”
“To be sure you are not fastidiously accurate in the choice of your
words and names, and where there is so much to be seen and enjoyed
as there is here one’s thoughts are not always connected. That is
intelligible--quite, peculiarly intelligible! And in this city folks are
so polite that they are fain to wrap truth in some graceful disguise.
May I, a barbarian from Judea, be allowed to set it before you, bare of
clothing, naked and unadorned.”
“Speak, I beg you, speak.”
“You are Jews; but you had rather not be Jews, and you endure your
origin as an inevitable evil. It is only when you feel the mighty hand
of the Most High that you recognize it and claim your right to be one
of His chosen people. In the smooth current of daily life you proudly
number yourselves with his enemies. Do not interrupt me, and answer
honestly what I shall ask you. In what hour of your life did you
feel yourself that you owed the deepest gratitude to the God of your
fathers?”
“Why should I deny it?--In the hour when my lost wife presented me with
my first-born son.”
“And you called him?”
“You know his name is Benjamin.”
“Like the favorite son of our forefather Jacob, for in the hour when you
thus named him you were honestly yourself, you felt thankful that it
had been vouchsafed to you to add another link to the chain of your
race--you were a Jew--you were confident in our God--in your own God.
The birth of your second son touched your soul less deeply and you gave
him the name of Theophilus, and when your third male child was born you
had altogether ceased to remember the God of your fathers, for he is
named after one of the heathen gods, Hephaestion. To put it shortly: You
are Jews when the Lord is most gracious to you, or threatens to try you
most severely but you are heathen whenever your way does not lead you
over the high hills or through the dark abysses of life. I cannot change
your hearts--but the wife of my brother’s son, the daughter of Ben
Akiba, must be a daughter of our people, morning, noon, and night. I
seek a Rebecca for my daughter and not an Ismene.”
“I did not ask you here,” retorted Apollodorus. “But if you quit us
to-morrow, you as will be followed by our reverent regard. Think no
worse of us because we adapt ourselves, more, perhaps, than is fitting,
to the ways and ideas of the people among whom we have grown up, and in
whose midst we have been prosperous, and whose interests are ours. We
know how high our faith is beyond theirs. In our hearts we still are
Jews; but are we not bound to try to open and to cultivate and to
elevate our spirits, which God certainly made of stuff no coarser than
that of other nations, whenever and wherever we may? And in what school
may our minds be trained better or on sounder principles than in ours--I
mean that of the Greek sages? The knowledge of the Most High--”
“That knowledge,” cried the old man, gesticulating vehemently with his
arms. “The knowledge of God Most High and all that the most refined
philosophy can prove, all the sublimest and purest of the thinkers
of whom you speak can only apprehend by the gravest meditation and
heart-searching--all this I say has been bestowed as a free gift of God
on every child of our people. The treasures which your sages painfully
seek out we already possess in our scriptures, our law and our moral
ordinances. We are the chosen people, the first-born of the Lord, and
when Messiah shall rise up in our midst--”
“Then,” interrupted Apollodorus, “that shall be fulfilled which, like
Philo, I hope for, we shall be the priests and prophets for all nations.
Then we shall in truth be a race of priests whose vocation it shall be
to call down the blessing of the Most High on all mankind.”
“For us--for us alone shall the messenger of God appear, to make us the
kings, and not the slaves of the nations.”
Apollodorus looked with surprise into the face of the excited old man,
and asked with an incredulous smile: “The crucified Nazarene was a false
Messiah; but when will the true Messiah appear?”
“When will He appear?” cried the Rabbi. “When? Can I tell when? Only one
thing I do know; the serpent is already sharpening its fangs to sting
the heel of Him who shall tread upon it. Have you heard the name of Bar
Kochba?”
“Uncle,” said Ben Jochai, interrupting the old Rabbi’s speech, and
rising from his seat: “Say nothing you might regret.”
“Nay, nay,” answered Gamaliel earnestly. “Our friends here prefer the
human above the divine, but they are not traitors.” Then turning again
to Apollodorus he continued:
“The oppressors in Israel have set up idols in our holy places, and
strive again to force the people to bow down to them; but rather shall
our back be broken than we will bend the knee or submit!”
“You are meditating another revolt?” asked the Alexandrian anxiously.
“Answer me--have you heard the name of Bar Kochba?”
“Yes, as that of the foolhardy leader of an armed troup.”
“He is a hero--perhaps the Redeemer.”
“And it was for him that you charged me to load my next corn vessel to
Joppa with swords, shields and lance-heads?”
“And are none but the Romans to be permitted to use iron?”
“Nay--but I should hesitate to supply a friend with arms if he proposed
to use them against an irresistible antagonist, who will inevitably
annihilate him!”
“The Lord of Hosts is stronger than a thousand legions!”
“Be cautious uncle,” said Ben Jochai again in a warning voice.
Gamaliel turned wrathfully upon his nephew, but before he could retort
on the young man’s protest, he started in alarm, for a wild howling and
the resounding clatter of violent blows on the brazen door of the house
rang through the hall and shook its walls of marble.
“They are attacking my house,” shouted Apollodorus.
“This is the gratitude of those for whom you have broken faith with the
God of your fathers,” said the old man gloomily. Then throwing up his
hands and eyes he cried aloud: “Hear me Adonai! My years are many and I
am ripe for the grave; but spare these, have mercy upon them.”
Ben Jochai followed his uncle’s example and raised his arms in
supplication, while his black eyes sparkled with a lowering glow in his
pale face.
But their prayers were brief, for the tumult came nearer and nearer;
Apollodorus wrung his hands, and struck his fist against his forehead;
his movements were violent--spasmodic. Terror had entirely robbed him
of the elegant, measured demeanor which he had acquired among his Greek
fellow-citizens, and mingling heathen oaths and adjurations with appeals
to the God of his fathers, he flew first one way and then another. He
searched for the key of the subterranean rooms of the house, but he
could not find it, for it was in the charge of his steward, who, with
all the other servants, was taking his pleasure in the streets, or over
a brimming cup in some tavern.
Now the newly-purchased kitchen-slave--the Jew to whom the keeping of
the Dionysian feast was an abomination--rushed into the room shrieking
out, as he plucked at his hair and beard:
“The Philistines are upon us! save us Rabbi, great Rabbi! Cry for us
to the Lord, oh! man of God! They are coming with staves and spears
and they will tread us down as grass and burn us in this house like the
locusts cast into the oven.”
In deadly terror he threw himself at Gamaliel’s feet and clasped them in
his hands, but Apollodorus exclaimed: “Follow me, follow me up on to the
roof.”
“No, no,” howled the slave, “Amalek is making ready the firebrand to
fling among our tents. The heathen leap and rage, the flames they are
flinging will consume us. Rabbi, Rabbi, call upon the Hosts of the Lord!
God of the just! The gate has given way. Lord! Lord! Lord!”
The terrified wretch’s teeth chattered and he covered his eyes with his
hands, groaning and howling.
Ben Jochai had remained perfectly calm, but he was quivering with rage.
His prayer was ended, and turning to Gamaliel he said in deep tones:
“I knew that this would happen, I warned you. Our evil star rose when we
set forth on our wanderings.
“Now we must abide patiently what the Lord hath determined. He will be
our Avenger.”
“Vengeance is His!” echoed the old man, and he covered his head with his
white mantle.
“In the sleeping-room--follow me! we can hide under the beds!” shrieked
Apollodorus; he kicked away the slave who was embracing the Rabbi’s
feet, and seized the old man by the shoulder to drag him away with him.
But it was too late, for the door of the antechamber had burst open and
they could hear the clatter of weapons. “Lost, lost, all is lost!” cried
Apollodorus.
“Adonai! help us Adonai!” murmured the old man and he clung more closely
to his nephew, who overtopped him by a head and who held him clasped in
his right arm as if to protect him.
The danger which threatened Apollodorus and his guests was indeed
imminent, and it had been provoked solely by the indignation of the
excited mob at seeing the wealthy Israelite’s house unadorned for the
feast.
A thousand times had it occurred that a single word had proved
sufficient to inflame the hot blood of the Alexandrians to prompt them
to break the laws and seize the sword. Bloody frays between the heathen
inhabitants and the Jews, who were equally numerous in the city, were
quite the order of the day, and one party was as often to blame as the
other for disturbing the peace and having recourse to the sword. Since
the Israelites had risen in several provinces--particularly in Cyrenaica
and Cyprus--and had fallen with cruel fury on their fellow-inhabitants
who were their oppressors, the suspicion and aversion of the
Alexandrians of other beliefs had grown more intense than in former
times. Besides this, the prosperous circumstances of many Jews, and the
enormous riches of a few, had filled the less wealthy heathen with envy
and roused the wish to snatch the possessions of those who, it cannot be
denied, had not unfrequently treated their gods with open contumely.
It happened that just within a few days the disputes regarding the
festival that was to be held in honor of the Imperial visit had added
bitterness to the old grudge, and thus it came to pass that Apollodorus’
unlighted house in the Canopic way had excited the populace to attack
this palatial residence. And here again one single speech had sufficed
to excite their fury.
In the first instance Melampus, the tanner, a drunken swaggerer, who
had failed in business, had marched up the street at the head of a tipsy
crew, and pointing with his thyrsus to the dark, undecorated house, had
shouted:
“Look at that dismal barrack! All that the Jew used to spend on
decorating the street, he is saving up now in his money chest!” The
words were like a spark among tinder and others followed.
“The niggard is robbing our father Dionysus,” cried a second citizen,
and a third, flourishing his torch on high, croaked out:
“Let us get at the drachmae he grudges the god; we can find a use for
them.” Graukus, the sausage maker, snatched from his neighbor’s hand the
bunch of tow soaked in pitch, and bellowed out, “I advise that we should
burn the house over their heads!”
“Stay, stay,” cried a cobbler who worked for Apollodorus’ slaves, as he
placed himself in the butcher’s way. “Perhaps they are mourning for
some one in there. The Jew has always decorated his house on former
occasions.”
“Not they,” replied a flute-player in a loud hoarse voice. “We met
the old miser’s son on the Bruchiom with some riotous comrades and
misconducted hussies, with his purple mantle fluttering far behind him.”
“Let us see which is reddest, the Tyrian stuff or the blaze we shall
make if we set the old wretch’s house on fire,” shouted a hungry-looking
tailor, looking round to see the effects of his wit.
“Ay! let us try!” rose from one man, and then, from a number of others:
“Let us get into the house!”
“The mean churl shall remember this day!”
“Fetch him out!”
“Drag him into the street!”
Such shouts as these rose here and there from the crowd, which grew
denser every instant as it was increased by fresh tributaries attracted
by the riot.
“Drag him out!” again shrieked an Egyptian slavedriver, and a woman
shrieked an echo of his words. She snatched the deer-skin from her
shoulders, flourished it round and round in the air above her tangled
black hair, and bellowed furiously:
“Tear him in pieces!”
“In pieces, with your teeth!” roared a drunken Maenad who, like most of
the mob that had collected, knew nothing whatever of the popular grudge
against Apollodorus and his house.
But words had already begun to be followed by deeds. Feet, fists, and
cudgels stamped, drubbed, and thumped against the firmly-bolted brazen
door of the darkened house, and a ship’s boy of fourteen sprang on
the shoulders of a tall black slave and tried to climb the roof of the
colonnade, and to fling the torch which the sausage-maker handed up to
him into the open forecourt of the imperilled house.