CHAPTER 93

They left at three in the morning. Mansuetus made it clear to his father that he was not happy. He saw this as running from danger. “How can you read Paul’s words about God’s love and protection like you did last night and then send me off to Greece?” he asked.

But for Theophilus, the matter was not open for discussion. He and Flavia were of the same accord. There were those who were called to stay in Rome and face the wrath of Nero. Others were called to spread the faith to the rest of the empire.

It had been a quiet but tearful farewell when Mansuetus said good-bye to his mother. The two of them had always connected at the heart, and at times Theophilus envied that relationship. He was his son’s teacher and disciplinarian. His job was to mold Mansuetus into a man. But Flavia had always been much closer. She and Mansuetus had a comfortable and jocular relationship —as much friends in the last few years as mother and son.

Mansuetus had held his mother for a long time while she cried quietly on his shoulder. He tousled her hair, kissed her on the forehead, and told her how much he loved her. She pursed her lips and nodded, unable to speak.

Neither Mansuetus nor Theophilus looked back as they rode away. Theophilus knew it was one of the hardest things his son had ever done.

An hour into the ride, Theophilus began to talk about his time in Greece as a boy. The School of Molon had given him confidence and purpose. He told Mansuetus about the strenuous physical training and the voice exercises by the Aegean Sea.

“Until I married your mother, those were the best days of my life.”

For most of the ride, Mansuetus didn’t talk much. It was apparently his way of protesting the decision to send him away. But in the last hour or so, he admitted he was nervous about being on his own. He had never known life outside Rome. More important, he didn’t know what he would do if anything happened to Theophilus and Flavia.

Theophilus kept his chin up, his tone positive. He told Mansuetus how proud he was of the man he had become. Mansuetus had been the first to embrace the faith that now sustained the entire family. God had given him gifts of leadership and intelligence and passion. Those things would be needed for this new movement of faith. But Mansuetus also needed to be trained in rhetoric, and no place could do it better than the School of Molon.

The two of them arrived at the port of Ostia an hour before dawn. Theophilus gave his son a large portion of the money the family had so carefully saved from his wages as an advocate and then a teacher.

Mansuetus appeared shocked by the amount. “What are you and Mother going to do?” he asked.

“There’s more where this came from,” Theophilus said casually. How much more, his son didn’t need to know. Living in Greece and attending the School of Molon was not cheap. Mansuetus would need almost everything the family had saved.

While father and son waited, watching the workers load the ship on which Mansuetus would sail, Theophilus decided it was time for a story. It was something he had heard a few weeks ago as the Jewish believers talked about the Hebrew Scriptures. It was the story of a famous Hebrew prophet named Elijah and his young protégé, Elisha. Before Elijah was to depart and be taken up to heaven, he asked Elisha a question: “What can I do for you before I am taken?”

Elisha’s reply was that he wanted a double portion of Elijah’s spirit. Elijah told his young disciple that if he saw Elijah when the old prophet was taken away, a double portion of Elijah’s spirit would stay with Elisha.

Theophilus explained how Elisha was indeed there when his mentor was taken up to heaven. Elijah left behind his cloak and Elisha picked it up. He then struck the waters of the Jordan, and the waters parted just as they had with Elijah. And that was only the start of the miracles done by Elisha, miracles that were far greater than those of his mentor.

“God has favored me, Mansuetus,” Theophilus said. “He has allowed me to be part of some of the greatest trials in the history of the Roman Empire. But I believe he has greater things in store for you.”

He gazed at his son, his heart swelling with pride. Then he took his sleeveless cloak out of his bag and handed it to Mansuetus.

“It gets cold in Rhodes at night,” Theophilus said.

Mansuetus took the cloak in his hands, his eyes moistening. Theophilus placed his hand on his son’s shoulder and prayed that God would do greater things in his son’s life than God had done in his own life.

When Theophilus finished praying, both of them sat in silence for a few moments, watching as the rising sun at their backs shimmered on the sea before them. Theophilus thought about his own hasty departure from Rome nearly forty years earlier and the adventures that had awaited him in Greece. Mansuetus would take that school by storm.

But before his son boarded the ship, there was one more thing Theophilus wanted him to have. He took out the most precious possessions he owned —the copies of the two manuscripts written by Luke —and put them in Mansuetus’s bag.

“Guard these with your life,” Theophilus said. “And let your life be guarded by the words in these books.”

Mansuetus stared at his father, his jaw set. He nodded, and Theophilus knew the manuscripts couldn’t be in better hands.

“I love you, Father,” Mansuetus said.

“I love you too, Son.”

They embraced and fought back the tears. Theophilus watched his son walk onto the ship and had a horrible feeling he would never see him again. He remembered what Luke had written about the baptism of Jesus, how a voice had filled the air after Jesus came up out of the water. “You are my Son, whom I love; with you I am well pleased.”

That was the way Theophilus felt at that moment. He sat down on a stone and observed the final preparations for the voyage. He watched the ship sail away until it became a dot on the horizon. Then he tied Mansuetus’s riderless horse to his own, mounted his tired animal, and wept as he headed home.