you will receive the punishment laid down in the book of Deuteronomy. A flogging. Forty strokes less one.'
'Ye mean,' Thomas said, 'thirty-nine? Why not say what ye mean?' The other disciples made noises of rejoicing not well understood by the holy assembly. Jonathan said:
'We'll hear less of your alleluias when they bring out the whips, my friends.'
'You've played into the Lord's hands, bless you,' Peter called. 'Now we share in what you did to him.' And, without waiting for a word of dismissal, he led his eleven towards the enclosed punishment yard near the lishkath ha-gazith.
'Weakness,' Saul said to his master. 'You see the weakness. And you, rabban, abet the weakness.'
'I hear the harshness of authority in your voice, Saul. You seem to be outgrowing your studentship.'
'Oh, I respect and honour you as ever, rabban. But I must be permitted to make my own judgments.'
'Read more. Judge less.'
'The whole of Israel,' Saul said, 'is imperilled by false doctrine. And they're to be given a lick of the whip and told to go.'
'Look, Saul, I find little fault in these men. I was not uttering mere rhetoric.'
'They subvert truth. They preach a known Messiah, rejected by the high priests who are the voice of Israel.'
'Read your scriptures, Saul. We were promised a Messiah. It's wrong to accept without further evidence, true, but it would be foolish wholeheartedly to reject. They do no evil. They do nothing but good. You've seen it.'
'Sheer cunning. They buy followers with good works. They cram the poor first with bread and then with false doctrine. You must speak against them.'
'Must, Saul? Must?'
'I'm going to see the flogging. I want to hear them howl.'
'A moment, Saul.' Gamaliel pulled at his party beard, troubled. 'I'm interested in you. Not in your devotion to the faith but in the strength of vindictive feeling you bring to those whom you consider are its opponents. The feeling is excessive, obsessed. You snarl. You frown as if you had a perpetual headache. Are you well?'
'Well enough. The epilepsia has left me alone these eighteen months and more. God keeps me well.'
'You have a powerful persecutory instinct in you. Remember that the desire to persecute is negative. It promotes fear. It promotes it even in myself. You make me wish to search my conscience for smuts of heresy or unpurposed blasphemies. This, dear Saul, has little to do with religion.'
'But,' Saul said, 'the undoing of centuries of endeavour. To come out of the desert at last and set up the Temple. The Temple is our home and our stability. And this man sneered at it. The human body is the true Temple. Destroy it and it can be rebuilt in three days. You ought to shudder as I shudder.'
'These days,' Gamaliel said, 'I shudder only with the cold. Well, the Temple may be our home and our stability and it may house the Holy of Holies, but it's still a work of human hands. The body is God's work and very wonderfully made. Old as I am, I glory in my flesh and anticipate, as you do, resurrection in it. That belief makes us Pharisees what we are. Now I see you really shudder. Most unpharisaic. Do you dislike the human body?'
'A tent,' Saul said, 'for housing the spirit.'
Gamaliel forbore to say something about the tentpole: Saul deserved to be shocked, but not perhaps with an unprepared obscenity. Instead he said: 'What is your view of a text we have never considered in class, I mean the Song that is Solomon's?'
'A well-made epithalamion. Somewhat vulgar. He strips his beloved and shows her flesh to the world. Like a slave market. The flesh is best kept hidden.'
'Except, of course, for flogging.'
Saul had no capacity for blushing. But he did not go
'Ye mean,' Thomas said, 'thirty-nine? Why not say what ye mean?' The other disciples made noises of rejoicing not well understood by the holy assembly. Jonathan said:
'We'll hear less of your alleluias when they bring out the whips, my friends.'
'You've played into the Lord's hands, bless you,' Peter called. 'Now we share in what you did to him.' And, without waiting for a word of dismissal, he led his eleven towards the enclosed punishment yard near the lishkath ha-gazith.
'Weakness,' Saul said to his master. 'You see the weakness. And you, rabban, abet the weakness.'
'I hear the harshness of authority in your voice, Saul. You seem to be outgrowing your studentship.'
'Oh, I respect and honour you as ever, rabban. But I must be permitted to make my own judgments.'
'Read more. Judge less.'
'The whole of Israel,' Saul said, 'is imperilled by false doctrine. And they're to be given a lick of the whip and told to go.'
'Look, Saul, I find little fault in these men. I was not uttering mere rhetoric.'
'They subvert truth. They preach a known Messiah, rejected by the high priests who are the voice of Israel.'
'Read your scriptures, Saul. We were promised a Messiah. It's wrong to accept without further evidence, true, but it would be foolish wholeheartedly to reject. They do no evil. They do nothing but good. You've seen it.'
'Sheer cunning. They buy followers with good works. They cram the poor first with bread and then with false doctrine. You must speak against them.'
'Must, Saul? Must?'
'I'm going to see the flogging. I want to hear them howl.'
'A moment, Saul.' Gamaliel pulled at his party beard, troubled. 'I'm interested in you. Not in your devotion to the faith but in the strength of vindictive feeling you bring to those whom you consider are its opponents. The feeling is excessive, obsessed. You snarl. You frown as if you had a perpetual headache. Are you well?'
'Well enough. The epilepsia has left me alone these eighteen months and more. God keeps me well.'
'You have a powerful persecutory instinct in you. Remember that the desire to persecute is negative. It promotes fear. It promotes it even in myself. You make me wish to search my conscience for smuts of heresy or unpurposed blasphemies. This, dear Saul, has little to do with religion.'
'But,' Saul said, 'the undoing of centuries of endeavour. To come out of the desert at last and set up the Temple. The Temple is our home and our stability. And this man sneered at it. The human body is the true Temple. Destroy it and it can be rebuilt in three days. You ought to shudder as I shudder.'
'These days,' Gamaliel said, 'I shudder only with the cold. Well, the Temple may be our home and our stability and it may house the Holy of Holies, but it's still a work of human hands. The body is God's work and very wonderfully made. Old as I am, I glory in my flesh and anticipate, as you do, resurrection in it. That belief makes us Pharisees what we are. Now I see you really shudder. Most unpharisaic. Do you dislike the human body?'
'A tent,' Saul said, 'for housing the spirit.'
Gamaliel forbore to say something about the tentpole: Saul deserved to be shocked, but not perhaps with an unprepared obscenity. Instead he said: 'What is your view of a text we have never considered in class, I mean the Song that is Solomon's?'
'A well-made epithalamion. Somewhat vulgar. He strips his beloved and shows her flesh to the world. Like a slave market. The flesh is best kept hidden.'
'Except, of course, for flogging.'
Saul had no capacity for blushing. But he did not go
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