Ben-Hur: A tale of the Christ
“The Savior I saw was born of woman, in nature like us, and subject to
all our ills—even death. Let that stand as the first proposition.
Consider next the work set apart to him. Was it not a performance for
which only a man is fitted?—a man wise, firm, discreet—a man, not a
child? To become such he had to grow as we grow. Bethink you now of the
dangers his life was subject to in the interval—the long interval
between childhood and maturity. The existing powers were his enemies;
Herod was his enemy; and what would Rome have been? And as for
Israel—that he should not be accepted by Israel was the motive for
cutting him off. See you now. What better way was there to take care of
his life in the helpless growing time than by passing him into
obscurity? Wherefore I say to myself, and to my listening faith, which
is never moved except by yearning of love—I say he is not dead, but
lost; and, his work remaining undone, he will come again. There you
have the reasons for my belief. Are they not good?”
Ilderim’s small Arab eyes were bright with understanding, and Ben-Hur,
lifted from his dejection, said heartily, “I, at least, may not gainsay
them. What further, pray?”
“Hast thou not enough, my son? Well,” he began, in calmer tone, “seeing
that the reasons were good—more plainly, seeing it was God’s will that
the Child should not be found—I settled my faith into the keeping of
patience, and took to waiting.” He raised his eyes, full of holy trust,
and broke off abstractedly—“I am waiting now. He lives, keeping well
his mighty secret. What though I cannot go to him, or name the hill or
the vale of his abiding-place? He lives—it may be as the fruit in
blossom, it may be as the fruit just ripening; but by the certainty
there is in the promise and reason of God, I know he lives.”
A thrill of awe struck Ben-Hur—a thrill which was but the dying of his
half-formed doubt.
“Where thinkest thou he is?” he asked, in a low voice, and hesitating,
like one who feels upon his lips the pressure of a sacred silence.
Balthasar looked at him kindly, and replied, his mind not entirely
freed from its abstraction,
“In my house on the Nile, so close to the river that the passers-by in
boats see it and its reflection in the water at the same time—in my
house, a few weeks ago, I sat thinking. A man thirty years old, I said
to myself, should have his fields of life all ploughed, and his
planting well done; for after that it is summer-time, with space scarce
enough to ripen his sowing. The Child, I said further, is now
twenty-seven—his time to plant must be at hand. I asked myself, as you
here asked me, my son, and answered by coming hither, as to a good
resting-place close by the land thy fathers had from God. Where else
should he appear, if not in Judea? In what city should he begin his
work, if not in Jerusalem? Who should be first to receive the blessings
he is to bring, if not the children of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; in
love, at least, the children of the Lord? If I were bidden go seek him,
I would search well the hamlets and villages on the slopes of the
mountains of Judea and Galilee falling eastwardly into the valley of
the Jordan. He is there now. Standing in a door or on a hill-top, only
this evening he saw the sun set one day nearer the time when he himself
shall become the light of the world.”
Balthasar ceased, with his hand raised and finger pointing as if at
Judea. All the listeners, even the dull servants outside the divan,
affected by his fervor, were startled as if by a majestic presence
suddenly apparent within the tent. Nor did the sensation die away at
once: of those at the table, each sat awhile thinking. The spell was
finally broken by Ben-Hur.
“I see, good Balthasar,” he said, “that thou hast been much and
strangely favored. I see, also, that thou art a wise man indeed. It is
not in my power to tell how grateful I am for the things thou hast told
me. I am warned of the coming of great events, and borrow somewhat from
thy faith. Complete the obligation, I pray thee, by telling further of
the mission of him for whom thou art waiting, and for whom from this
night I too shall wait as becomes a believing son of Judah. He is to be
a Savior, thou saidst; is he not to be King of the Jews also?”
“My son,” said Balthasar, in his benignant way, “the mission is yet a
purpose in the bosom of God. All I think about it is wrung from the
words of the Voice in connection with the prayer to which they were in
answer. Shall we refer to them again?”
“Thou art the teacher.”
“The cause of my disquiet,” Balthasar began, calmly—“that which made me
a preacher in Alexandria and in the villages of the Nile; that which
drove me at last into the solitude where the Spirit found me—was the
fallen condition of men, occasioned, as I believed, by loss of the
knowledge of God. I sorrowed for the sorrows of my kind—not of one
class, but all of them. So utterly were they fallen it seemed to me
there could be no Redemption unless God himself would make it his work;
and I prayed him to come, and that I might see him. ‘Thy good works
have conquered. The Redemption cometh; thou shalt see the Savior’—thus
the Voice spake; and with the answer I went up to Jerusalem rejoicing.
Now, to whom is the Redemption? To all the world. And how shall it be?
Strengthen thy faith, my son! Men say, I know, that there will be no
happiness until Rome is razed from her hills. That is to say, the ills
of the time are not, as I thought them, from ignorance of God, but from
the misgovernment of rulers. Do we need to be told that human
governments are never for the sake of religion? How many kings have you
heard of who were better than their subjects? Oh no, no! The Redemption
cannot be for a political purpose—to pull down rulers and powers, and
vacate their places merely that others may take and enjoy them. If that
were all of it, the wisdom of God would cease to be surpassing. I tell
you, though it be but the saying of blind to blind, he that comes is to
be a Savior of souls; and the Redemption means God once more on earth,
and righteousness, that his stay here may be tolerable to himself.”
Disappointment showed plainly on Ben-Hur’s face—his head drooped; and
if he was not convinced, he yet felt himself incapable that moment of
disputing the opinion of the Egyptian. Not so Ilderim.
“By the splendor of God!” he cried, impulsively, “the judgment does
away with all custom. The ways of the world are fixed, and cannot be
changed. There must be a leader in every community clothed with power,
else there is no reform.”
Balthasar received the burst gravely.
“Thy wisdom, good sheik, is of the world; and thou dost forget that it
is from the ways of the world we are to be redeemed. Man as a subject
is the ambition of a king; the soul of a man for its salvation is the
desire of a God.”
Ilderim, though silenced, shook his head, unwilling to believe. Ben-Hur
took up the argument for him.
“Father—I call thee such by permission,” he said—“for whom wert thou
required to ask at the gates of Jerusalem?”
The sheik threw him a grateful look.
“I was to ask of the people,” said Balthasar, quietly, “‘Where is he
that is born King of the Jews?’”
“And you saw him in the cave by Bethlehem?”
“We saw and worshipped him, and gave him presents—Melchior, gold;
Gaspar, frankincense; and I, myrrh.”
“When thou dost speak of fact, O father, to hear thee is to believe,”
said Ben-Hur; “but in the matter of opinion, I cannot understand the
kind of king thou wouldst make of the Child—I cannot separate the ruler
from his powers and duties.”
“Son,” said Balthasar, “we have the habit of studying closely the
things which chance to lie at our feet, giving but a look at the
greater objects in the distance. Thou seest now but the title—KING OF
THE JEWS; wilt thou lift thine eyes to the mystery beyond it, the
stumbling-block will disappear. Of the title, a word. Thy Israel hath
seen better days—days in which God called thy people endearingly his
people, and dealt with them through prophets. Now, if in those days he
promised them the Savior I saw—promised him as KING OF THE JEWS—the
appearance must be according to the promise, if only for the word’s
sake. Ah, thou seest the reason of my question at the gate!—thou seest,
and I will no more of it, but pass on. It may be, next, thou art
regarding the dignity of the Child; if so, bethink thee—what is it to
be a successor of Herod?—by the world’s standard of honor, what? Could
not God better by his beloved? If thou canst think of the Almighty
Father in want of a title, and stooping to borrow the inventions of
men, why was I not bidden ask for a Cæsar at once? Oh, for the
substance of that whereof we speak, look higher, I pray thee! Ask
rather of what he whom we await shall be king; for I do tell, my son,
that is the key to the mystery, which no man shall understand without
the key.”
Balthasar raised his eyes devoutly.
“There is a kingdom on the earth, though it is not of it—a kingdom of
wider bounds than the earth—wider than the sea and the earth, though
they were rolled together as finest gold and spread by the beating of
hammers. Its existence is a fact as our hearts are facts, and we
journey through it from birth to death without seeing it; nor shall any
man see it until he hath first known his own soul; for the kingdom is
not for him, but for his soul. And in its dominion there is glory such
as hath not entered imagination—original, incomparable, impossible of
increase.”
“What thou sayest, father, is a riddle to me,” said Ben-Hur. “I never
heard of such a kingdom.”
“Nor did I,” said Ilderim.
“And I may not tell more of it,” Balthasar added, humbly dropping his
eyes. “What it is, what it is for, how it may be reached, none can know
until the Child comes to take possession of it as his own. He brings
the key of the viewless gate, which he will open for his beloved, among
whom will be all who love him, for of such only the redeemed will be.”
After that there was a long silence, which Balthasar accepted as the
end of the conversation.
“Good sheik,” he said, in his placid way, “to-morrow or the next day I
will go up to the city for a time. My daughter wishes to see the
preparations for the games. I will speak further about the time of our
going. And, my son, I will see you again. To you both, peace and
good-night.”
They all arose from the table. The sheik and Ben-Hur remained looking
after the Egyptian until he was conducted out of the tent.
“Sheik Ilderim,” said Ben-Hur then, “I have heard strange things
tonight. Give me leave, I pray, to walk by the lake that I may think of
them.”
“Go; and I will come after you.”
They washed their hands again; after which, at a sign from the master,
a servant brought Ben-Hur his shoes, and directly he went out.
CHAPTER XVII
Up a little way from the dower there was a cluster of palms, which
threw its shade half in the water, half on the land. A bulbul sang from
the branches a song of invitation. Ben-Hur stopped beneath to listen.
At any other time the notes of the bird would have driven thought away;
but the story of the Egyptian was a burden of wonder, and he was a
laborer carrying it, and, like other laborers, there was to him no
music in the sweetest music until mind and body were happily attuned by
rest.
The night was quiet. Not a ripple broke upon the shore. The old stars
of the old East were all out, each in its accustomed place; and there
was summer everywhere—on land, on lake, in the sky.
Ben-Hur’s imagination was heated, his feelings aroused, his will all
unsettled.
So the palms, the sky, the air, seemed to him of the far south zone
into which Balthasar had been driven by despair for men; the lake, with