About dawn of the following day two dark figures were moving along the
Appian Way toward the Campania.
One of them was Nazarius; the other the Apostle Peter, who was leaving
Rome and his martyred co-religionists.
The sky in the east was assuming a light tinge of green, bordered
gradually and more distinctly on the lower edge with saffron color.
Silver-leafed trees, the white marble of villas, and the arches of
aqueducts, stretching through the plain toward the city, were emerging
from shade. The greenness of the sky was clearing gradually, and
becoming permeated with gold. Then the east began to grow rosy and
illuminate the Alban Hills, which seemed marvellously beautiful,
lily-colored, as if formed of rays of light alone.
The light was reflected in trembling leaves of trees, in the dew-drops.
The haze grew thinner, opening wider and wider views on the plain, on
the houses dotting it, on the cemeteries, on the towns, and on groups of
trees, among which stood white columns of temples.
The road was empty. The villagers who took vegetables to the city had
not succeeded yet, evidently, in harnessing beasts to their vehicles.
From the stone blocks with which the road was paved as far as the
mountains, there came a low sound from the bark shoes on the feet of the
two travellers.
Then the sun appeared over the line of hills; but at once a wonderful
vision struck the Apostle’s eyes. It seemed to him that the golden
circle, instead of rising in the sky, moved down from the heights and
was advancing on the road. Peter stopped, and asked,--
“Seest thou that brightness approaching us?”
“I see nothing,” replied Nazarius.
But Peter shaded his eyes with his hand, and said after a while,
“Some figure is coming in the gleam of the sun.” But not the slightest
sound of steps reached their ears. It was perfectly still all around.
Nazarius saw only that the trees were quivering in the distance, as if
some one were shaking them, and the light was spreading more broadly
over the plain. He looked with wonder at the Apostle.
“Rabbi! what ails thee?” cried he, with alarm.
The pilgrim’s staff fell from Peter’s hands to the earth; his eyes
were looking forward, motionless; his mouth was open; on his face were
depicted astonishment, delight, rapture.
Then he threw himself on his knees, his arms stretched forward; and this
cry left his lips,--
“O Christ! O Christ!”
He fell with his face to the earth, as if kissing some one’s feet.
The silence continued long; then were heard the words of the aged man,
broken by sobs,--
“Quo vadis, Domine?”
Nazarius did not hear the answer; but to Peter’s ears came a sad and
sweet voice, which said,--
“If thou desert my people, I am going to Rome to be crucified a second
time.”
The Apostle lay on the ground, his face in the dust, without motion or
speech. It seemed to Nazarius that he had fainted or was dead; but he
rose at last, seized the staff with trembling hands, and turned without
a word toward the seven hills of the city.
The boy, seeing this, repeated as an echo,--
“Quo vadis, Domine?”
“To Rome,” said the Apostle, in a low voice.
And he returned.
Paul, John, Linus, and all the faithful received him with amazement; and
the alarm was the greater, since at daybreak, just after his departure,
pretorians had surrounded Miriam’s house and searched it for the
Apostle. But to every question he answered only with delight and
peace,--
“I have seen the Lord!”
And that same evening he went to the Ostian cemetery to teach and
baptize those who wished to bathe in the water of life.
And thenceforward he went there daily, and after him went increasing
numbers. It seemed that out of every tear of a martyr new confessors
were born, and that every groan on the arena found an echo in thousands
of breasts. Cæsar was swimming in blood, Rome and the whole pagan world
was mad. But those who had had enough of transgression and madness,
those who were trampled upon, those whose lives were misery and
oppression, all the weighed down, all the sad, all the unfortunate, came
to hear the wonderful tidings of God, who out of love for men had given
Himself to be crucified and redeem their sins.
When they found a God whom they could love, they had found that which
the society of the time could not give any one,--happiness and love.
And Peter understood that neither Cæsar nor all his legions could
overcome the living truth,--that they could not overwhelm it with tears
or blood, and that now its victory was beginning. He understood with
equal force why the Lord had turned him back on the road. That city of
pride, crime, wickedness, and power was beginning to be His city, and
the double capital, from which would flow out upon the world government
of souls and bodies.