Tyrant: Rise of the Beast
Chronicles of the Apocalypse
Book One
By Brian Godawa
Tyrant: Rise of the Beast
Chronicles of the Apocalypse Book One
2nd Edition b
Copyright © 2017, 2021 Brian Godawa
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without prior written permission, except in the case of brief quotations in critical articles and reviews.
Warrior Poet Publishing
www.warriorpoetpublishing.com
ISBN: 9798710868522 (hardcover)
ISBN: 978-1-942858-25-6 (paperback)
Scripture quotations taken from The Holy Bible: English Standard Version. Wheaton: Standard Bible Society, 2001.
Read This Note – It’s Important
Chronicles of the Apocalypse is the conclusive sequel series to my Chronicles of the Nephilim series about the Biblical Cosmic War of the Seed. But one need not read the previous Nephilim series to be able to understand this Apocalypse series, though the literary and theological connections run deep.
This is the story of the apostle John’s writing of the Apocalypse during the time of the Roman Empire, the first major persecution and martyrdom of Christians, and the Jewish revolt of AD 66 that resulted in the destruction of Jerusalem and the temple in AD 70. My hope is that the original context of the ancient world in all its symbolic glory will come alive to the reader as you encounter the imagery in Revelation dramatically unveiled through its Old Testament and first-century literary lens.
Creative License
I have tried to be as accurate as I can with the actual historical events and characters surrounding the Jewish revolt of AD 66-70. However, there are many details that we simply do not know with certainty either because the Bible or other historical sources are silent, or because there is disagreement over the facts. Because of this, I had to take some creative license to fill in the gaps or simplify for easier reading. But I tried to remain true to the spirit of the text if not to the letter.
For example, the New Testament letters, such as John’s Apocalypse, did not have chapter or verse numbers. They were originally letters written to various people and congregations. The chapter and verse numbers were added in the medieval era for closer detailed study of the Scriptures. In Chronicles of the Apocalypse, I broke up the book of Revelation into “fragments” that correspond to our modern chapters for the purpose of making it easy for the modern reader to look up those Bible verses. It was a kind of creative license footnoting within the context of a narrative. I hope the more demanding “Bible scholars” will forgive such petty contrivances for the sake of helpful annotation and storytelling.
Endnotes
I’ve included numbered endnotes for each chapter that provide detailed Biblical and historical substantiation behind the fictional story. As it turns out, half of the text of this book is endnotes. This may be my most heavily researched series of novels yet. Though using endnote numbers in a novel text is considered anathema by many, I chose to use them to provide proof for my fans who want to “fact-check” and dig deeper. This is fiction based on fact. If you question anything I’ve written in a particular paragraph, simply check the closest endnote to that paragraph. You will find that the truth is stranger than fiction! The historical fulfillment is mind-blowing.
Besides, my fans have come to expect such documentation!
Pictures and Research
Some readers prefer to conjure pictures of what characters look like in their own imagination. But for those who would like to see a pictorial cast of characters that I created for this story, see the cool colorful characters page on the Chronicles of the Apocalypse website:
I also have artwork of paintings and illustrations that relate to this story:
I also have free scholarly articles and free books online that provide the reader with more in-depth research of the Book of Revelation:
Brian Godawa
Author, Chronicles of the Apocalypse
Chapter 1
“To the angel of the church in Ephesus write: ‘The words of him who holds the seven stars in his right hand, who walks among the seven golden lampstands. “‘I know your works, your toil and your patient endurance, and how you cannot bear with those who are evil, but have tested those who call themselves apostles and are not, and found them to be false. I know you are enduring patiently and bearing up for my name’s sake, and you have not grown weary. But I have this against you, that you have abandoned the love you had at first. Remember therefore from where you have fallen; repent, and do the works you did at first. If not, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place, unless you repent. Yet this you have: you hate the works of the Nicolaitans, which I also hate. He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To the one who conquers I will grant to eat of the tree of life, which is in the paradise of God.’”
— The Apocalypse of Jesus Christ 2:1-7
Ephesus
On the coast of Asia
AD 64
The dark lord Apollyon roamed unseen through the massive throngs of citizens filling the streets of the city. His city. Well, not entirely. Ever since the Nazarene had accomplished his coup d’état a generation ago, his despicable followers were watched over by a heavenly guardian. Ephesus was no exception. Though the cowardly Angel of Ephesus was nowhere to be seen.
Apollyon gritted his teeth with anger at the thought. But as the Watcher of the Roman Empire, he had too much authority over his stronghold to be worried about an uprising of Yahweh’s minions. Apollyon owned most of the residents of Ephesus. His nemesis would not dare to show his face where the dark lord was now going. And Apollyon would not dare to rush his plan, as he built his forces from the unregenerate inhabitants of the earth. They were kingdoms in conflict and the tension was increasing toward world war. The Nazarene had outfoxed him and achieved atonement for sins through his death, resurrection and ascension to the right hand of Yahweh. Apollyon still boiled with anger over his failure to figure out the plan and stop Messiah. Ever since Eden, he had been at war with the seed of Eve, from Enoch to Noah to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob—and who could forget that treacherous Messiah king, David—all the way to the Son of David.
How could he have missed it?
At Babel, Yahweh had given the nations their inheritance. He confused the tongues, divided mankind and gave those rebellious people over to the Sons of God from his heavenly host. Those divine beings defied Yahweh, accepted idolatrous worship and became the gods of the nations. They were called “Watchers,” because they watched over the territories and lands they had been allotted. Apollyon’s allotment was Rome. But Yahweh’s inheritance would be the people of Jacob, the people of God.
Apollyon’s name in Hebrew was Abaddon, which meant “destroyer.” But he liked the Greek version for its linguistic connection to the sun god Apollo, a personal obsession of his human pet, Nero Caesar. Nero was the earthly ruler of Apollyon’s Rome. The Watcher god had gone by different names throughout the millennia: Nachash the ancient Serpent, Belial the wicked, Helel ben Shachar the Shining One, Mastemah the hostile, Diabolos the devil, Satan the Adversary, and the Dragon. But his plan had always been the same: to destroy the people of God and the seed line of Messiah.
As the legally appointed Adversary in Yahweh’s heavenly court, he had prosecutorial powers to accuse humanity before God’s throne. And accuse them he did. It was easy. Israel was an unfaithful wife to Yahweh. More like a lustful harlot, actually. A harlot seeking to lay under every green tree with every idol of the nations. Ba’al, Asherah, Dagon, Molech. You name the false god, the Israelites fornicated with it. They had violated the covenant with their maker so often, it made Yahweh vomit.
It made Apollyon giggle with a juvenile glee.
But Yahweh remained faithful and even gave his whore of twelve tribes a male heir. When that abominable Nazarene came upon the scene, he fooled everyone. Apollyon and the other Watchers, even Israel herself, thought Messiah was coming as military earthly deliverer to rescue his people. Instead, he played the sacrificial lamb and secured atonement for a remnant of his elect people. Messiah took away Apollyon’s authority to prosecute God’s people in heaven, and cast him down to earth like lightning. The Nazarene then became the firstborn from the dead, legally disinheriting the gods of the nations, and led those principalities and powers, bound and gagged, in a triumphal victory into Tartarus before his ascension to his heavenly throne. Through death, resurrection and ascension, Yahweh undid the territorial allotment of Babel and legally claimed all the nations as his inheritance.
But you didn’t get us all, Nazarene, thought Apollyon. And you left me here as the Watcher of Rome. Now Rome rules the world, making me the god of this world.
The remaining spiritual principalities and powers served Apollyon, who delegated authority based on the stronghold he was able to maintain in each city. Yahweh may have gained legal claim to the nations, but the historical acquisition of those territories would take time and effort. And Apollyon was not going to give them up without a fight.
A cult of Jewish religious fanatics followed the Nazarene and within this short span of thirty years, spread their malignant cancer to the ends of the earth, thus loosening Apollyon’s strangling grip. But the leaders and people of Israel as a whole had rejected their Messiah, which gave the Destroyer power over them. So he had successfully martialled the Jews to persecute the chosen few, now called Christianoi, or Christians. It was a vulgar term of derision meaning servants of Christ as opposed to caeseriani, servants of Caesar.
Apollyon arrived at his intended destination, the top of a hill just north of Ephesus, overlooking the vast metropolis. He looked up at the temple of Artemis, one of the man-made wonders of the world. Like the Parthenon in Athens, its huge stone Corinthian columns towered sixty feet above, giving mortals the sense of Olympus on earth. They called it the Artemisium.
Apollyon called it, “My fortress.”
But no one heard him. And no one saw him either. He remained invisible to the humans. If he allowed them to see him, he could appear to them as almost anything. His favorite current identity was a six-foot tall, rail-thin, androgynous being, both male and female, neither male nor female. He liked the chaos and defiance against Yahweh’s created order that the confusion of gender expressed. He wore a toga, sandals, plenty of jewelry to die for, and prided himself on his fabulous makeup.
What a waste, he thought. Maybe I should let these flesh bags see my glory. At least then my glamour will not go unappreciated.
Ephesus was a city of glamour. A large commercial seaport on the west coast of the province of Asia, it became a major center of international trade, and with it, the key to implementing Apollyon’s plans for the Roman Empire.
The enemy saw the city’s strategic value as well. Less than a decade ago, Paul, that meddling Apostle to the Gentiles, had overstayed his welcome here and infected the inhabitants with his malicious messiah myth. Apollyon had enflamed the silversmiths to riot because their idol-making business had been severely undermined by Christian conversions. After that fiasco, Apollyon had labored long and hard to dig his talons back into the city. And now that disgusting old crank, the apostle John bar Zebedee resided here, causing the Watcher much anguish. Apollyon nicknamed him Thunderhead, as a mockery of his reputation as a bold “Son of Thunder.”
Ephesus was also a treasure to Apollyon because it was the banking and financial center of the province. Vast sums of money flowed in to the great temple from devotees all over the continent. And that was why Apollyon was here. He walked up the stairway and entered the huge stone Artemisium.
A tall female divinity adorned in rich oriental garb stood bent over an altar at the far end of the sanctuary, her back to Apollyon as he entered.
“Sister!”
The goddess turned with a twitch of anger at being interrupted. In her hand was the corpse of a goat, its neck ripped to shreds. Blood dripped down the lips of the Great Artemis, Mother Goddess and Queen of the Cosmos. On her head was an elaborate headdress, the Zodiac across her neck, and a chest full of what looked like multiple breasts, but were actually leather pouches of magical sorcery for fertility. She was also a huntress of wild animals, so she was not a goddess to be trifled with.
But she also knew her place in the pecking order. “Apollyon, dear brother and master, to what do I owe this honor?”
According to Greek myth, Artemis and Apollo were twin siblings, the offspring of Zeus.
In reality, Artemis was actually a male disguised as a goddess, since the fallen Sons of God were exclusively male. “She” was simply another demonic servant of Apollyon, one of the surviving principalities and powers left behind after Messiah’s victory over the gods of the nations. A victory that was not complete, for Yahweh had obviously failed to wipe them all out after seating his Son on the throne of David. And now Apollyon was making a comeback, building his forces for what every Watcher god knew was coming.
Apollyon said cryptically, “Behold, the time is near. I must show my servants the things which must shortly take place.”
She gazed at him with curiosity.
“It’s something old Thunderhead is now saying,” he said. “But I, too, have been working on a plan and I need your help to initiate it.”
“Anything, my lord.”
Apollyon pushed her aside and took the neck of the goat in his fangs, imbibing deeply. Ah, blood, he thought as he sucked it dry. Food of the gods. Blood sacrifice connected worshippers with the divine in mystical union. He cast the carcass into the corner and wiped his lips with the back of his hand.
She gestured to the exit. “Walk with me in my garden, my lord. We will have privacy, and you can explain to me how I may be of help.”
A booming voice outside the temple interrupted their agenda. Artemis rolled her eyes and sighed impatiently.
Apollyon knew that voice anywhere. That annoying soul-piercing voice.
“Speak of the enemy,” he said.
They walked out to the entrance of the Artemisium and saw a small man, nearing sixty years of age, with white hair and beard, preaching to passersby at the footsteps of the temple.
The apostle John.
“We should leave,” said Artemis.
“No. I want to hear what old Thunderhead is spewing today.”
John did not see the Watchers up at the top of the steps. He was intently focused on his public sermon, surrounded by a few of his followers. His voice was strong for such an old and weary soul. “For many deceivers have gone out into the world, those who do not confess the coming of Jesus Christ in the flesh. Such a one is the deceiver and the antichrist! By this you know the Spirit of God: every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, and every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the antichrist, which you heard was coming and now is in the world already!”
Artemis grumbled, “That geriatric pissant is undoing everything Cerinthus has achieved.” Cerinthus was a local false teacher who denied the deity of Christ, among other useful heresies.
“Stop complaining,” said Apollyon. “I am trying to hear him.”
John continued, “This is the last hour, and as I already told you that antichrist is coming, so now many antichrists have come. Therefore we know that it is the last hour! Now the whole world lies in the power of the evil one. But if you believe and abide in Jesus Christ, when he appears you may have confidence and not shrink from him in shame at his coming!”
Apollyon thought to himself, There it is again. The apostolic announcement of being in the last hours before “his coming.” He could feel the storm of war approaching.
Artemis grumbled again, “These Christians and their persecution complex. He thinks they’re victims now. Let us show him what real pain tastes like.”
Apollyon stopped her from descending the steps. He gestured to a figure standing off to the side, also unseen by the human crowd: the Angel of Ephesus, no longer absent. Though angels could alter their appearance in the eyes of others, much like the Watchers could, they seldom did. This angel was a tall heavy-built figure, dressed in a hooded cloak that Apollyon knew covered armor and weapons beneath. Yahweh’s soldiers were quiet and understated, but they were fierce competition for the dark lord and his forces.
The angel stared at Apollyon and Artemis, stiffened with hand on sword.
Apollyon said, “You would not get within yards of the apostle.” He glanced back at the apostle. “Yahweh has something special in store for this blowhard. He is the overseer of the most significant churches in Asia.”
Artemis stared back at the distant glaring Angel of Ephesus. Apollyon was referring to a circuit of seven churches, beginning with Ephesus on the coast and circling inland from Smyrna around to Laodicea.
He said, “Asia was among the first to be colonized by the Christians for a reason. It is the physical center of the empire and therefore a communications hub for exporting their malevolent message to the rest of the world. And that is why I am going to visit those Asian cities to initiate my own plan.”
Artemis asked, “What is that, my lord?”
“I am going to cripple the enemy’s ability to spread his propaganda and disinformation. Cut off the head of the lamb, starting with Ephesus.”
“And how are you going to achieve that?”
Apollyon mused, “When I was the great Adversary in Yahweh’s heavenly court, they called me the ‘accuser of the brethren.’ Well, the Nazarene stripped me of that power and cast me down to this stinking exile of dirt. And now he is drawing all men unto himself.”
“Mount Zion,” grumbled Artemis. Mount Zion was originally the location of the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. But the name became symbolic of the Jewish cosmic mountain of redemption, a spiritual symbol of God’s kingdom in the age of Messiah. Since Messiah had come, that holy mountain was already growing as people from all the nations began streaming to it.
Apollyon nodded. “I have no legal jurisdiction over the children of God. But I do have it over the children of the devil. Yahweh left me as the prince of the power of the air. I no longer have the authority to prosecute. But I do have the ability to persecute.”
Artemis grinned deviously. “We could not destroy the Christ, but we can destroy his people, the body of Christ on earth.”
“Exactly,” said Apollyon. “And I will destroy them all.”
He paused dramatically. He so loved drama. “And when he comes for his people, he won’t have any people left to receive him.”
She said, “But have you not been using the Jews already for that very purpose of persecution?”
“Yes,” he crowed. “But I have not yet used the real power I have. The power of Rome.”
Apollyon pulled Artemis away. “Come, show me this garden of yours.”
The Garden of Ortygia, a grove of terebinth trees, grew just outside the Artemisium. The terebinth was a kind of sacred oak through which the gods communicated to prophets and mystics. This was the legendary birthplace of Artemis, and the location of a sacred tree they now approached, known as the Tree of Life. At least that’s what they called it. Ever since the primeval Garden, the gods sought to construct their own royal parks with gardens and shrines as echoes of Eden, desperate attempts to recreate a paradise lost. The hanging gardens of Babylon had been the most memorable.
Staring at the sacred tree, Apollyon said, “How deep are your roots in this city?”
Artemis said, “Sorcery is stronger than ever with the dispersion of the Ephesian Letters of Magic. Ephesus remains a significant spiritual influence across the empire.”
She stopped as if that was all there was to say. But Apollyon knew it was not. Not all was well in his Ephesus. He glared at her until she confessed, “Unfortunately, the cult of Nicolaitans has been seriously countered by the apostle John, and many have moved to Pergamum.”
“That is too bad,” said Apollyon. The Nicolaitans were a cult of Christian heretics that advocated blending pagan religions with the true faith, sexual immorality and eating food sacrificed to idols. Apollyon made a mental note to visit Pergamum as well.
Artemis brightened. “But there is good news. Do you remember Hymenaeus and Philetus?”
“Those are the ones who were teaching that the resurrection of the saints already happened. Nothing more than a spiritual symbol.”
“Exactly. They have a strong following now, along with your favorite Gnostic, Cerinthus. And the Jewish community has been quite successful in suppressing the Way.”
Apollyon nodded with approval. The Way was what Christians called their detestable cult.
She continued proudly, “They offer sinners forgiveness upon the condition of repentance. A total rejection of their nation and their gods. But I offer criminals free refuge in my asylum. Thieves, rapists, murderers, are all protected from the law if they can make their way into the sanctum of the temple. Christian atonement is merely spiritual, but mine offers release from earthly consequences as well. Now, who is more loving, I ask you?”
“Who is more enduring?” he challenged.
“These Ephesian Christians have patient endurance,” she said. “I will grant them that. But they have lost their first love. They have become so obsessed with doctrinal perfection, they no longer engage in works of faith. They are stone dead. Their lamp is out.”
He nodded with satisfaction. “Excellent. Well done. I will take care of the apostle soon enough. Right now, I need your financial help. As I travel the circuit of the Asian cities I will stir up strongmen in Laodicea, Philadelphia, Sardis and others. But we need more than our true believers. We need financial incentive to hire protestors, mobs, and bribe traitors. I need to prepare for what is coming.”
She scowled. She knew what was coming. All the principalities and powers knew what was coming: a mighty war in the heavenlies.
Chapter 2
Rome
July 19, AD 64
Afternoon
Alexander Maccabaeus sat exhausted in his medical clinic just outside the city limits. He looked out with tired eyes over the long line of patients waiting for his trained services. They were mostly Jews, poor and sick with various ailments, many elderly, some infants and children with their desperate parents. It broke his heart to see his people suffering. That was why he had dedicated his life to serving them. He was a civilian physician, and a Jew himself, but was often required to help the Legionary Medical Corps after military campaigns and when needed. During times of peace such as this, Alexander had been allowed to use the Praetorian camp as a clinic for the locals. The poor had little access to medical care, so unlike his own Jewish heritage whose divinely revealed law gave many commands for individuals to help the poor, widows and orphans.
The next patient approached Alexander at the behest of his assistant, a young sixteen-year-old named Thelonius Severus, the son of Alexander’s military patron, Lucius Aurelius Severus. The patient was an older man wearing a cloak and hood. He was shivering, and was accompanied by a man and young woman, also both hooded, who helped to hold him up.
Alexander looked dubiously at the secretive trio. “What is wrong?”
The old man said, “I have fevers…and splitting headaches. It comes and goes. And my eyesight has become poor.”
“Let me see your eyes. Pull off your hood.”
The old man hesitated. But he finally pulled his hood back, and Alexander understood the reason for his pause. He was balding, with a pointed nose and a large graying beard. Alexander had seen him just last year here in Rome causing trouble in the Jewish community. He was Paul of Tarsus, the infamous Christian apostle whose fiery religious rhetoric seemed to cause trouble wherever he went. Paul had been a Pharisee before converting to the religious cult, so he knew how to enrage Jews, and he did so with disregard for the social consequences.
Alexander thought it ironic how frail this mighty orator now looked. He was sick, shivering and humble, in need of healing his God evidently had not given him. The woman kept her hood on, obviously afraid of being recognized as an associate. But Alexander saw the face of the other man with him. He was stocky and bearded as well; Simon Peter, another apostle who had recently taken up residence in the city.
Thelonius recognized them both. He hissed at them, “Come to cause trouble again?”
“Thelonius,” scolded Alexander with a stern look. The youth had more to learn about decorum than he did about disease.
“I am on my way to Spain,” Paul said. “I need some medicine for my sickness and I will be on my way.”
Thelonius spit out, “You don’t deserve any medicine. You Christians have caused so much division and problems for this city. You deserve to suffer.”
“Thelonius,” said Alexander, “did you not take the Hippocratic Oath?”
Thelonius remained silently defiant. The oath had included the promise to withhold no help from the sick to their harm.
Unfortunately Thelonius was quite accurate about these troublemakers. The Christians had caused many problems for the Jews all over the empire. They had first begun as a sect of Judaism claiming that the Nazarene Yeshua bar Joseph, Jesus in Greek, was the promised Messiah. He had been crucified a generation ago under Pontius Pilate near the city of Jerusalem. But his followers then fabricated a story about him rising from the dead and ascending into heaven. Their propaganda spread like gangrene throughout the empire.
Alexander recalled the Jewish riots in Rome some fifteen years prior under Claudius Caesar, incited from the heated debates regarding the life and teachings of the Nazarene. The unrest had become so difficult to manage that the emperor banned the Jews from the ancient city. They were eventually allowed to return. But a new division between Jew and Christian had been established.
The Christians were now a mixture of Jews and Gentiles. Most of them lived in the Jewish sectors of Rome, but were ostracized by their own countrymen. Alexander considered this as the Christians’ own fault, since they taught division and hatred of their heritage. Alexander had heard this Paul blaspheme the Mosaic law, deny circumcision, condemn his fellow Jews, and renounce Roman citizenship in favor of “citizenship in heaven.” It’s no wonder the Jews rioted. They were victims who were provoked. The Christians should never have been allowed to spread their hateful message.
In spite of all this, Alexander could not allow his fellow human beings to suffer, no matter how dangerous their beliefs were. He believed that everyone was created in the image of God and human life was sacred. He would care for the bodies of the sick and wounded, no matter who they were, and leave their souls up to God. It was difficult to do so with those who had hurt his people, but all of life was a compromise.
Alexander’s stare into the apostle’s red and puffy eyes finally resulted in a question. “Do you have nausea and diarrhea?”
Paul nodded. “Comes and goes like the rest.”
“You have the bad-air disease. Malaria. It’s a common problem here with our swamps full of noxious fumes. Drink plenty of water, eat extra garlic.” He turned to Thelonius. “Give him a bag of herbs.”
Thelonius stalled. “It’s our last one. You would give it to this Christian?”
Alexander said, “Thelonius, give him the herbs.”
Thelonius grudgingly reached down into a canvas sack and produced a small pouch of herbs they prepared for malaria cases. He handed it to the apostle, who took it and pulled up his hood. “Thank you and may the Lord Jesus Christ bless you.”
“You can thank me,” said Alexander, “by leaving this city as quickly as you promised.”
The woman who was with the two men had been hiding her face looking at the ground the entire time. But as the three of them turned to leave, Alexander caught a glimpse of her glaring at him. He recognized her as Cassandra Laetorius, heiress of a local shipping merchant. He knew her because she was a mature woman near thirty years of age, whose presence he could not forget. With auburn hair and penetrating blue eyes, she mystified men by avoiding marriage and keeping a low profile in society. Now, he had a better understanding why. She was secretly helping the apostle. If it were known, her very livelihood would be jeopardized.
We all have our compromises to survive, he thought.
The next patient stepped forward. He had an arm wound from a work accident in the city. But before Alexander could begin his examination, he heard a familiar voice say, “Alexander, come quickly. It’s an emergency.”
He glanced over to see Prefect Lucius Aurelius Severus looking panicked. That was a first. The prefect of the Cohortes Vigilum was one of the toughest patrons Alexander had ever had the misfortune of serving.
“I have horses ready,” said the prefect. “Bring your tools.”
Thelonius interrupted, “Can I come, Father?”
Severus snapped at him. “No! Stay here and complete your duties.”
“But Father, I need experience, whatever it is.”
“Do as I say,” said Severus.
Alexander could see his patron was unusually troubled. He said to Thelonius, “Close down the clinic and go to the emporium to replenish our medicinal herbs.”
The emporium was the marketplace on the far southern region of the city by the Tiber River. It would take him the rest of the day to accomplish that task. Before he could come up with a new complaint, the two men were gone.
The day was scorching hot. Alexander followed Severus on horseback into the Viminal Hill district. Severus then broke off into an alleyway to enter into the back of an apartment that he rented for his secret indiscretions.
But Alexander knew. He knew more than he wanted to know about the prefect, who had often used him as his personal physician. The military could demand the services of private doctors as needed. And because Severus’ son Thelonius had a strong desire to become an imperial physician, he had chosen Alexander to teach him the science of medicine.
Alexander considered Severus a quintessential Roman soldier—an entitled, arrogant bully. At thirty-eight years old, he had been in the military for over fifteen years and carried a sense of superiority about him. Alexander was his junior by eight years, and he constantly felt condescension from him. But he was a Roman subject whose social status and livelihood depended upon obedience to authority.
Alexander helped Severus to understand the nuances and mindset of the Jewish community and their differences from the Christians. Of course, Severus was also using Alexander to understand how to control the Jews, but at least Alexander was able to influence the prefect’s understanding in their favor. Severus was responsible for policing the city at night when trouble brewed in the urban paradise. He was working his way up the ladder of promotion and Alexander had been the key to his peacekeeping strategy in the streets.
Still, Alexander felt divided loyalty in his service to Rome. As a Hellenist Jew, schooled in Greek language and culture, he struggled to maintain his ethnic identity. Some demands of Severus forced him to violate his scruples, like working on the Sabbath or lying on Severus’ behalf to his superiors. But such compromises were the cost of survival, and Alexander had made plenty of them.
As the two men passed through the apartment, Severus explained the situation and Alexander saw he was about to face yet another compromise.
They entered a bedroom with multiple servants and a midwife ministering to a beautiful blonde woman passed out on a blood-soaked bed. Alexander already knew her. Her name was Persephone, a Greek pantomime actress and dancer of the theater, and adulterous lover of Severus. Alexander was well aware of their secret affair, and had wondered when a day like this might arrive. He dreaded what he now had to do, but moved instinctively to the bedside to help the endangered actress.
Alexander noticed the midwife had already begun surgical access, and immediately set about to take over the situation. “Where is she bleeding?” he asked her. “We must stop the flow.”
“Somewhere in the uterus. I don’t know how I punctured her. This has never happened before.”
“I don’t want your excuses. I want you to tell me exactly what you’ve done.” He turned to a maidservant. “Get a hot iron ready.”
The midwife explained, “I gave her a suppository to kill the fetus and help expel it.”
“What were the components?”
“Wormwood and myrrh. But the poison did not work, so I used the infant slayer to kill it.”
He nodded. “Infant slayer” was the nickname of a long copper spike instrument used for just such a purpose.
“I fear I must have slipped and punctured the wall of her womb.”
“How far along is she?” he asked.
“Fourteen weeks.”
“Fourteen weeks?” he exclaimed. There was no time now to ask a reason for this ridiculous choice. It would have to wait. “We have to get the infant out before I can find the perforation. We haven’t much time. Give me the annular blade.”
She grabbed the tool with a blade at the end of it from the table and handed it to him.
He deftly maneuvered it with the competence of an experienced surgeon. He removed the blade and barked, “Forceps!”
The midwife obeyed, handing him the tool.
He then pulled out a small leg, the size of his pinkie finger. It was bloody and the skin was translucent. Alexander felt vomit rise in his throat. He placed the appendage on a towel.
“Make sure I retrieve everything,” he said. He was sweating now, as he labored strenuously to avoid any more complications. He had precious little time to save Persephone’s life. He removed tiny body parts from the womb and placed them on the towel, where the midwife assisted in making sure nothing was left behind that could cause an infection.
What made this tragedy all the more grievous to the doctor was his own situation in contrast with his benefactor. Alexander and his wife, Juliana, were barren. She was only sixteen when they married five years ago, but they soon discovered she could not bear children. They were both deeply in love and deeply distressed at the inability to establish a family legacy with male heirs. It was a family that rooted one in something bigger than oneself, the community of God’s people. Without that connection, they felt lost, insignificant, their love a mere dream of unrealized potential. And now, here he was aiding Severus to destroy the very thing that he and his wife longed for. Why did God allow such travesty?
He felt the sudden desire to go home and hold his wife in his arms and never let her go.
He saw Severus move to the bedside of his unconscious lover and stroke her hair with a gentle fear. Aside from his son, his marriage provided no happiness to his life. Persephone was the only respite from his battle-hardened existence. If Severus lost her, he would lose his love.
Knowing Severus, he would most likely hack the midwife into pieces with his sword after seeing the dismembered body of his son on the towel. The fetus was the size of a fist.
Surely, Severus was telling himself this bloody carnage wasn’t his son. As the Stoics taught, a child was not a human person until it gasped its first breath after birth.
Alexander averted his eyes from the atrocity and tried to think of it as a mere mass of flesh, or better, a hostile cancerous tumor that had threatened to kill the actress.
But Alexander’s conscience did not fare well. He had taken the Hippocratic Oath and had sworn that as a physician and healer, he would do no harm. His challenge to Thelonius earlier hounded him.
It wasn’t a crime in Roman culture. Plato’s and Aristotle’s ethics took care of that. The empire took precedence over all individual concerns, thus justifying abortion and infanticide as necessary or compulsory in cases of overpopulation or physical deformity. The polis, or ideal city, could only be built upon “the most desirable form of human life.”
But it was a crime to God. And as a Jew, he had covenanted with Yahweh who commanded, “Thou shall not murder,” and even gave laws protecting the value and dignity of all human life, from the small to the great, with special concern for the weakest and most vulnerable.
Technically, Alexander did not actually kill the child, because it had already been poisoned before he got there. He was here to save the life of the mother. But the gruesome task he had just performed burdened him with a guilt he could not shake. He still felt like an accessory.
His thoughts were interrupted by Severus’ worrisome voice. “Can you stop the bleeding, Alexander? Will she be all right?”
Before he could answer, Alexander felt something in the womb that the midwife had missed. He knew instantly what had happened. “She will be all right, Severus. The extra blood was not caused by a puncture of the uterine wall. It was from another infant in the womb. A twin.”
“Thank, Zeus,” said Severus, as if thinking only of Persephone’s safety.
Alexander decided against the previous procedure for this second infant. Instead he used forceps to crush the skull of the fetus in the womb and pull it out whole.
He felt sick again. It was another male.
He consoled himself with the fact that the perpetrators and victim in this case were all Gentiles, not his fellow Jews. And that Gentile Roman nation was oppressing his people in a cosmos of idolatrous rule, defying the one true God. So, in a sense, killing their own offspring was a means of committing cultural suicide. Give them a few generations, he thought, and the noble gentry will abort their way into extinction.
“She needs rest,” said Alexander to the midwife. “Give her plenty of water as soon as she awakens, and avoid all bloodletting. She’s lost enough blood already.” He looked to Severus. “It may be several days before she can return home.” He could see Severus trying to figure out how they could keep this incident a secret. He hoped he would not be asked to lie for him again.
Alexander felt disgusted with himself for aiding the secrecy of such immorality. Severus and his lover were adulterers who, if they lived in a just society ruled by God’s law, would be stoned to death for their criminal deeds. Violating the marriage covenant was the deepest betrayal of the very foundation of civilization.
Alexander felt the guilt of his compromise. As a Hellenist Jew, he had assimilated the Greek language and culture. He had tried to accept the good and reject the bad. But he felt the corrupting influence of survival upon the good intentions of his soul. His own wife Juliana had also committed adultery. Just how different was he from this master he served? But the reason Alexander didn’t blame her was because he had driven her to it. He had responded to their devastating news of infertility by throwing himself into his work as if it were his own lover. He felt like a cliché in an Aristophanes play. How predictable and stupid. By the time he realized the damage he had done, Juliana was already embroiled in an affair with a wealthy patrician.
He thanked God that was behind them now. He had taken responsibility and forgave her for her part. It had been a long road of recovery, but they had learned their lesson and were in the process of healing their marriage. Yes, he would return home tonight as soon as possible and hold his wife in his arms and never let go.
The two men rode back to the Praetorian barracks.
“What in the world was she doing, waiting so long?” Alexander had the freedom to express some anger, but only because it was a medical issue. In all other interactions he had to be submissive to Severus.
Severus said, “At first, she was going to claim to her husband that it was his child. But they haven’t had relations in months. It would be too easy for him to spot the lie. And vanity overcame her. She reconsidered the effect of the pregnancy on her beauty and her prospects in the world. A child would be a further inconvenience as a dependent parasite.”
“I am sure Persephone’s husband would have preferred to adopt the child out than to have his wife die from such a high-risk procedure.”
“She had considered infant exposure,” Severus offered.
Alexander shot him a horrified look. Infant exposure was the practice of leaving unwanted newborns to the elements. The child would be left alone in a forest or desert at night, where wild animals would take them away—but not to raise them, like their myths and legends fancied.
Severus retorted, “It’s legal and common enough. But the problem is, those cursed Nazarenes are notorious for rescuing the infants and adopting them into their pernicious households.” According to his imperial Roman mind, it was better to kill his offspring than allow them to be adopted by the dreaded Christianoi.
Severus placed his hand on Alexander’s shoulder. “Thank you, Alexander. You have rescued me yet again from disastrous consequences.”
“You are not out of the woods yet. She has lost too much blood to return home to her husband tonight.”
Severus smirked. “Her husband is away on a trip. Go home to your wife, Alexander. You deserve a rest.”