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| Joseph of Arimathea Among the Rocks of Albion |
The prose in the volume of
The Nazarene that I read was quite lofty at times. In the excerpt below Asch in one short paragraph provides a physical description of Joseph of Arimathea, a view to his character, his inquisitive nature and a description of the culture in which Joseph Arimathea lived.
"When I came to know Joseph Arimathea he was no longer young,
for he had passed his fiftieth year. But his body had retained all the
manliness and vigor of its prime. His limbs were firm and muscular; his body
was erect and square, as if cut out of a giant cedar. But the whole was light and
elastic in movement, as became a man who had frequented the gymnasium in his
youth. Even his head was still youthful, despite the streaks of gray in his
curly hair and trimmed beard: and I noted that, in the matter of his beard, he
did not encourage the full growth, as the pietists did, nor, of course, did he
permit a razor to touch his face. He compromised, and the result was the Roman
style. It was strange that he should make this impression of unspoiled pristine
vigor, for his face was a mask of care and thoughtfulness. Only the straight
Roman nose and the long jaws had been rescued from the network of wrinkles. In
the company of the philosophers Joseph was all ears; he took their discussions
perhaps more seriously than they; his eyes were drawn down in the intensity of
his concentration, and he sat on his raised stool like a picture of spiritual
concern. One would have, said that he was not listening to an analysis of
distant themes, but rather to a debate which had a practical life-and-death
significance for him; and the conclusion of the discussion would have for him
the validity of a juridical pronouncement on his own fate. In a sense this was
comprehensible; for the struggle still went on within him and the argumentation
which moved back and forth dragged his soul now to this side, now to that; it
was a battle for the possession of his inmost self. Yet it was more than this;
for he conceived that the dispute over his individual soul was parallel with
that over the possession of the soul of his people; indeed, the soul of the
world. My Rabbi [Nicodemus] was like a seraph armed with a fiery sword,
bursting into the harmonious earthly paradise which the Greek philosopher
Philippus [ Philippus of Gederah]had created for Joseph. Beauty, and the grace
which flows from it, was for the latter the highest conceivable good; the soul
of man was but a note in the wholeness of the harmony of the gods. But the soul
was not entrusted to all men; it was the privilege of those who were blessed
with a superior intelligence. The soul introduced balance into the passions of
man, calmed the fiery outbursts of lust and imparted to his bearing the grace
of the gods. Therefore the wise man followed the golden mean, having refined
his desires and impulses according to the nobility of the soul."
