Brenton Howard - Paul

Christ is risen. Christ is risen. Christ is risen. Christ is risen. Christ is risen. Christ is risen.

Christ is risen. Christ is risen. Christ is risen. Christ is risen. Christ is risen. Christ is risen.

Christ is risen. Christ is risen. Christ is risen. Christ is risen. Christ is risen Jesus... A beat.

No! I must not! Must not! No! In Rome, here in this prison? What do I want, my God to come through the wall and rescue me? No, no! A beat. Christ is risen. Christ is risen Jesus show me your face again. No no no no, out of the question to pray for that! Christ is risen. Christ is risen. Christ is risen.

Christ is risen. Christ is risen. Christ is risen. Christ is risen. Christ is risen. Christ is risen.

Christ is risen. Christ is risen. Christ is risen. Christ is risen Jesus, oh my risen Lord, now, tonight, before I die for you, let me see your face once more... no, no. A beat.

Be content with the memory. Yes. I had the revelation of my life. I saw you, thirty years ago, on the road to Damascus. He stands, free of his chains. Scene Two The road to Damascus, AD 36. Scene Two The road to Damascus, AD 36.

Night beneath moon and stars. SAUL, aged 25, is camped with BARNABAS a captain of the Jerusalem Temple Guards and four of his MEN. A fire. SAUL. Eat, sleep. Well wake and move on before dawn.

I want us at the city gates by sunrise. The four GUARDS slope off, not looking at him. (To BARNABAS.) Whats the matter with them? BARNABAS. They dont want to go to Damascus. SAUL. BARNABAS. BARNABAS.

But this time its out of Judea. SAUL smiles. SAUL. When have we Jews been frightened of a raid into a foreign country? BARNABAS. Thats not it. SAUL.

No? So what... BARNABAS. The work begins to sicken them. SAUL. But its Gods work! BARNABAS. Theyre not brutes! Theyre Temple Guards, simple religious men.

Sometimes youre just too... SAUL. Too what? BARNABAS. Too... fierce. SAUL.

We are doing this to save our religion and our country. Surely they... SAUL stops, turns, as if startled by something. BARNABAS starts, concerned. BARNABAS. Saul? SAUL (sharp).

Yes? BARNABAS. What is it? A beat. SAUL. Nothing. Ill speak to them. They are uneasy. They are uneasy.

BARNABAS follows. Listen. A beat. Listen, I know how you struggle with this work. I know how hard it is for you to arrest men and women at night, drag them from their houses to the religious court, stand by when they are stoned to death in the execution pits, with a crowd screaming as if it were sport, not a terrible necessity sanctioned by Gods law. I stood by, holding mens coats.

They were stoning a young man called Stephen. With his last breath he shouted that he would be in Paradise. His fanaticism shocked me to the marrow of my bones. Belief that strong could destroy the Temple itself. So I decided I must do this thing. But I know its not easy.

It can eat into the heart, bring bad dreams, yes? He has touched them. They shift uneasily, hanging on every word. 1ST GUARD. What gets to you, is the atrocities. What the Yeshua people do. 2ND GUARD. 2ND GUARD.

Drink the blood... 3RD GUARD. Drink the blood, eat the flesh of helpless little children. 1ST GUARD. Youre right, Rabbi. 4TH GUARD. 4TH GUARD.

Theyre Jews like us, but what they do, its obscene! BARNABAS. On the other hand, every new cult that appears is accused of eating babies. SAUL. Yes, Barnabas. These atrocities are useful stories to the Temple, but not true. But listen, listen, we must do this work: these are dangerous times.

We Jews have lived under empires over the centuries: Egypt, Babylon, Syria, Greece, now Rome... and we have endured. But under this occupation, under Rome, our religion itself is under attack. But where does the attack come from? Not from pagan, kiddam priests from Rome. From ourselves. Our country is torn apart by fanatics.

In the cities different sects at each others throats, in the countryside whole villages gone heretical, ragged preachers on the roads with their begging bowls; Judea seethes with religious revolt. And Yeshuas not the first fanatic from Nazareth the kiddam have crucified. That particular rural slum does seem to be overrun with religious madmen. 2ND GUARD. They grow Messiahs in the fields. 3RD GUARD.

The only crop: religious lunatics. SAUL. Or its just something in the water. Amusement. 4TH GUARD. 2ND GUARD. 2ND GUARD.

Walking down off a cross? Yeah, some magic trick. The 1ST GUARD is not amused. 1ST GUARD. But blasphemous. The dead will not rise. SAUL.

Oh I believe they will. 1ST GUARD. Rabbi Saul, with respect, thats because your family are Pharisees. Mine are Sadducees, for us we were made of mud and to mud we will return. The religion of Moses is for the living. SAUL.

Youre wrong, youre wrong, but that doesnt divide us. Yes, we Pharisees do believe that when God ends theworld, the dead will rise again. But not just one man! Who is, magically, the son of God! That is chaff, the flimflam of overheated minds. And its not that insane doctrine that makes the Yeshua cult so dangerous to us and to our country. 1ST GUARD. SAUL. SAUL.

Yes yes, you understand: the Yeshua people call for the Kingdom of God. Now. In Judea. And they find an eager audience! The people are feverish for signs and prophecies, anything to end the Roman occupation. They look for a chariot of fire to appear amongst us, theyll listen to any beautiful young man out of the desert, dressed in rags, his eyes shining with the light of a new Israel. A beat. A beat.

They stare at him. BARNABAS is about to move to him... ... be perfect! And the Lord God looked on Moses... and saw... Perfect. 2ND GUARD. 2ND GUARD.

Saw he was perfect. 3RD GUARD. And the Lord looked on Moses and he was perfect. SAUL. That is what we must be in this work. We must struggle to keep the religion of Moses pure.

Or Judea will be drowned, not with the sea, but with Jewish blood. And that is why we are on the Damascus Road, tonight, under the stars. Be pure and we will save Judea.