Great Lion of God Read Online Free PDF

prophet though not in one of Aulus’ heroes.”
    “There must have been several thousand infants born on that night in Jerusalem and Bethlehem,” said the guest. “Who is the prophet, or the hero?”
    Hillel stared at his folded hands, which he was resting on the white linen of the dining cloth. “I do not know,” he murmured. “But when I received Hannah’s letter a most mysterious joy seized me, an exaltation, and this I do not understand. It was as if an angel had touched me.”
    The guest chortled rustily and shook his head. “I have heard from your father and your grandfather, Hillel ben Borush, that you were always a mystical boy, and that you implored to be introduced to the hidden wisdom of the Kabalah. It is my opinion that this was a mistake, and I trust you will forgive me. It is only the calm and detached mind which should be introduced to the Kabalah, the cold if thoughtful mind, and perhaps even the skeptical, but of a certainty not the emotional and susceptible.”
    Hillel had been angered at this dryly amused dismissal of his story and so had changed the subject. He had also felt foolish and demeaned. He spoke of it no longer to anyone. But he thought frequently of the star. Some fear, some reticence, had prevented him from writing others in Jerusalem about the star, notably his relatives, for he did not wish to be disillusioned. This also surprised him, for he was a man who deplored illusions in others and had a gentle disdain for them.
    But it had been prophesied ages ago that the Messias, of the House of David, Himself, would be born in Bethlehem. However, if this were so, why had there been no shouting angels, no universal trumpets of the heavens, when that star had appeared, and why had not the world been swept up in rejoicing splendor? The Messias should surely not be born in obscurity, for His throne was on holy Sion, as the prophecies related, and He would not be born as the least of men, the Kings of Kings. Too, several years had passed, and there had been no other sign.
    Still, Hillel could not forget the star, though he often wondered at the convulsion of emotion which had seized his heart on reading Hannah’s letter. Even to this very evening in his garden the surge of mysterious rapture was as fresh and urgent as ever. It may all have been but a delusion, the fantasy of drunken men in a Roman tower who had observed it, or a wife’s ardent desire that her first-born son be duly recorded by Heaven. But still, his stubborn and devoted heart denied all this, and he did not know why. Perhaps, he thought, an illusion which affirms joy is better than a reality which denies it, or perhaps the presence of joy attests to its verity.
    As Hillel stood in his garden tonight he heard a sudden loud cry, and he started. The cry broke the smiling silence like an abrupt command, sharp and authoritative. It was not for a few moments that he realized that it was the voice of his little son, passing in the arms of a nursemaid through the colonnade. Still, he was shaken. The infant’s voice had reminded him of his own father, imperious and uncompromising and firm, even didactic, impervious to doubt, scornful of hesitation. It was absurd, he thought, as the silence was resumed. A mere suckling—and the formidable old man who had ruled his household with the mere power of his appalling voice! For one moment Hillel contemplated the thought that his father had been reincarnated in infant Saul, and then he chuckled. How delightful it would be to smack the buttocks of a soul which had terrorized wife and sons and daughters in its former life! Perhaps, in a measure, that would be justice. He returned to his prayers, and now even the noisy birds were still. He repeated the words of David, with deep longing and reverent joy:
    “Oh God, You are my God! Early will I seek You, my soul thirsts for You, my flesh longs for You in a dry and thirsty land, where no water is. To see Your power and Your glory, as I have seen