There is a legend that at the death of Charles V the accusing angel
appeared in heaven with a catalog of deeds which no advocate could
palliate--countries laid desolate, cities sacked and burned, lists of
hundreds of thousands of widows and children brought to misery by the
political ambition of a single man. The evil spirit demanded the
offender's soul, and it seemed as if mercy itself could not refuse him
the award. But at the last moment the Supreme Judge interfered. The
emperor, He said, had been sent into the world at a peculiar time, for
a peculiar purpose, and was not to be tried by the ordinary rules.
Titian has painted the scene: Charles kneeling before the throne, with
the consciousness, as became him, of human infirmities written upon
his countenance, yet neither afraid nor abject, relying in absolute
faith that the Judge of all mankind would do right.
[Footnote 36: From the concluding chapter of "Cæsar--A Sketch."]
Of Cæsar too it may be said that he came into the world at a special
time and for a special object. The old religions were dead, from the
Pillars of Hercules to the Euphrates and the Nile, and the principles
on which human society had been constructed were dead also. There
remained of spiritual conviction only the common and human sense of
justice and morality; and out of this sense some ordered system of
government had to be constructed, under which quiet men could live and
labor and eat the fruit of their industry. Under a rule of this
material kind there can be no enthusiasm, no chivalry, no saintly
aspirations, no patriotism of the heroic type. It was not to last
forever. A new life was about to dawn for mankind. Poetry, and faith,
and devotion were to spring again out of the seeds which were sleeping
in the heart of humanity.
But the life which is to endure, grows slowly; and as the soil must be
prepared before the wheat can be sown, so before the kingdom of heaven
could throw up its shoots there was needed a kingdom of this world
where the nations were neither torn in pieces by violence nor were
rushing after false ideals and spurious ambitions. Such a kingdom was
the empire of the Cæsars--a kingdom where peaceful men could work,
think, and speak as they pleased, and travel freely among provinces
ruled for the most part by Gallios who protected life and property,
and forbade fanatics to tear each other in pieces for their religious
opinions. "It is not lawful for us to put any man to death," was the
complaint of the Jewish priests to the Roman governor. Had Europe and
Asia been covered with independent nations, each with a local religion
represented in its ruling powers, Christianity must have been stifled
in its cradle. If St. Paul had escaped the Sanhedrim at Jerusalem, he
would have been torn to pieces by the silversmiths at Ephesus. The
appeal to Cæsar's judgment-seat was the shield of his mission, and
alone made possible his success.
And this spirit, which confined government to its simple duties, while
it left opinion unfettered, was especially present in Julius Cæsar
himself. From cant of all kinds he was totally free. He was a friend
of the people, but he indulged in no enthusiasm for liberty. He never
dilated on the beauties of virtue, or complimented, as Cicero did, a
Providence in which he did not believe. He was too sincere to stoop to
unreality. He held to the facts of this life and to his own
convictions; and as he found no reason for supposing that there was a
life beyond the grave he did not pretend to expect it. He respected
the religion of the Roman state as an institution established by the
laws. He encouraged or left unmolested the creeds and practises of the
uncounted sects or tribes who were gathered under the eagles. But his
own writings contain nothing to indicate that he himself had any
religious belief at all. He saw no evidence that the gods practically
interfered in human affairs. He never pretended that Jupiter was on
his side. He thanked his soldiers after a victory, but he did not
order Te Deums to be sung for it; and in the absence of these
conventionalisms he perhaps showed more real reverence than he could
have displayed by the freest use of the formulas of pietism.
He fought his battles to establish some tolerable degree of justice in
the government of this world; and he succeeded, tho he was murdered
for doing it.
Strange and startling resemblance between the fate of the founder of
the kingdom of this world and of the Founder of the kingdom not of
this world for which the first was a preparation. Each was denounced
for making himself a king. Each was maligned as the friend of
publicans and sinners; each was betrayed by those whom he had loved
and cared for; each was put to death; and Cæsar also was believed to
have risen again and ascended into heaven and become a divine being.