A Man at Arms

by Steven Pressfield

Recall too that the foundational basis of the Hebrew faith lay in the might and invincibility of their God, the Lord of Hosts, who did not, in their view, look passively upon the affairs of His people but took a fearsome and active part in their protection and defense. Rome the lawless would find herself not merely expelled from the Holy Land but ground to dust beneath the engines of the Almighty, at the hour of His choosing and in a manner that would demonstrate to all the world the majesty of the One God.

Then the Romans built their roads. At once the use of heavy freight wagons became practicable. Of a sudden one encountered these everywhere, not drawn as before across muck and mire at the dreary pace of oxen, but instead rolling in high form pulled by teams of mules or horses along the newly engineered thoroughfares.

But the most revolutionary reordering was neither hewn from stone nor enforced by the sword. It was this: Mail. The daily post.

“What’s in it is easy. Sedition. Where bound? To the Christian underground community at Corinth in Greece. This city is familiar ground to the Apostle. He himself established the Nazarene sect there.” The commander explained that the epistle to Corinth was no brief love note. Its length was three thousand words or more.

From Corinth, the Apostle’s words would be copied and disseminated to a hundred other colonies, fomenting rebellion and insurrection. “Rome cannot permit this. The letter must be stopped.”

“If we cannot believe in things beyond what our senses deliver, then we’re no better than these animals and there is no hope for any of us. That is the difference between a man and a beast: we can perceive that which is not, and strive, if not to bring it forth into reality, then to enter it as spirit. I pity you, brother. You have yourself and nothing more.”