Great Lion of God by Taylor Caldwell

Author:Taylor Caldwell [Caldwell, Taylor]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Doubleday & Company, Inc.
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

But Saul did not return to Jerusalem as he again planned. He castigated himself, reproached himself that he was wasting time, that God was vexed with him. He had not reached the knowledge of the immediacy of God’s presence, of which Rabban Gamaliel had spoken, nor had the divine silence been shattered, nor was the way shown to him yet. He could only serve doggedly, as a faithful but neglected servant serves, out of love and devotion. He had periods of ecstasy, flashes of sudden intuition in which all seemed explained, and his spirit glowed with rapture. But the next moment he could not even recall the sensation of the experience, or what he had understood. He had heard nothing. He had actually seen nothing. Yet the very memory of something he could not remember was a burning in his soul, and he lived for those rare episodes. He no longer cried, “Oh, that I might know where to find Him!” He only prayed that he would be given enlightenment. Often he waited, in his prayers, his heart beating, but there was no answer. He felt no bitterness, no angry impatience. He believed himself still unworthy, that he must undergo more purification of the spirit. At times it occurred to him that God wished him to destroy the Galilean, the blasphemer who permitted his ragged and humble followers to call him the Messias, the man born in obscurity, the man without heavenly splendor, without a crown on his head.

He applied himself to study. He wrote letters. Once, on the plea of a friend of his father’s, he took the case of a man falsely accused of murder and appeared in the court in Tarsus, as the defender, after he had become convinced of the man’s innocence. This exalted him, especially when the man was acquitted and the magistrate had complimented Saul on his lawyer’s eloquence and his dramatic defense of the accused. Saul thought, Does God intend me to be a practicing advocate, defending the innocent and upholding justice?

He was not content, as he waited. He was like a restive horse. But still he did not return to Jerusalem. It was as if he had been forbidden to return until a certain hour. That thought offended his reason. He accused himself of laziness, of loving, too much, the quiet and peace and modest luxury of his father’s house, of taking too much pleasure in the gardens and of spending too much time on the black carved bridge that arched over the pond. Something in him was in abeyance, but it was beyond his capacity to know why, though his mind urged him back to Israel.

He took to wandering on the roads to the city, when it was quiet and the sun was high and the returning throngs did not fill the roads. He could think little; his thoughts seemed too ponderous for the warm serenity of the autumn weather. They wearied him.

One day he saw a young boy about thirteen

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