High above the ravine where the spring was lay a level plateau of
moderate extent, and behind it rose a fissured cliff of bare, red-brown
porphyry. A vein of diorite of iron-hardness lay at its foot like a
green ribbon, and below this there opened a small round cavern, hollowed
and arched by the cunning hand of nature. In former times wild beasts,
panthers or wolves, had made it their home; it now served as a dwelling
for young Hermas and his father.
Many similar caves were to be found in the holy Fountain, and other
anchorites had taken possession of the larger ones among them.
That of Stephanus was exceptionally high and deep, and yet the space was
but small which divided the two beds of dried mountain herbs where, on
one, slept the father, and on the other, the son.
It was long past midnight, but neither the younger nor the elder
cave-dweller seemed to be sleeping. Hermas groaned aloud and threw
himself vehemently from one side to the other without any consideration
for the old man who, tormented with pain and weakness, sorely needed
sleep. Stephanus meanwhile denied himself the relief of turning over or
of sighing, when he thought he perceived that his more vigorous son had
found rest.
“What could have robbed him of his rest, the boy who usually slept so
soundly, and was so hard to waken?”
“Whence comes it,” thought Stephanus, “that the young and strong sleep
so soundly and so much, and the old, who need rest, and even the sick,
sleep so lightly and so little. Is it that wakefulness may prolong the
little term of life, of which they dread the end? How is it that man
clings so fondly to this miserable existence, and would fain slink away,
and hide himself when the angel calls and the golden gates open before
him! We are like Saul, the Hebrew, who hid himself when they came to
him with the crown! My wound burns painfully; if only I had a drink of
water. If the poor child were not so sound asleep I might ask him for
the jar.”
Stephanus listened to his son and would not wake him, when he heard his
heavy and regular breathing. He curled himself up shivering under the
sheep-skin which covered only half his body, for the icy night wind
now blew through the opening of the cave, which by day was as hot as an
oven.
Some long minutes wore away; at last he thought he perceived that Hermas
had raised himself. Yes, the sleeper must have wakened, for he began to
speak, and to call on the name of God.
The old man turned to his son and began softly, “Do you hear me, my
boy?”
“I cannot sleep,” answered the youth.
“Then give me something to drink,” asked Stephanus, “my wound burns
intolerably.”
Hermas rose at once, and reached the water-jar to the sufferer.
“Thanks, thanks, my child,” said the old man, feeling for the neck of
the jar. But he could not find it, and exclaimed with surprise: “How
damp and cold it is--this is clay, and our jar was a gourd.”
“I have broken it,” interrupted Hermas, “and Paulus lent me his.”
“Well, well,” said Stephanus anxious for drink; he gave the jar back to
his son, and waited till he had stretched himself again on his couch.
Then he asked anxiously: “You were out a long time this evening, the
gourd is broken, and you groaned in your sleep. Whom did you meet?”
“A demon of hell,” answered Hermas. “And now the fiend pursues me into
our cave, and torments me in a variety of shapes.”
“Drive it out then and pray,” said the old man gravely. “Unclean spirits
flee at the name of God.”
“I have called upon Him,” sighed Hermas, “but in vain; I see women with
ruddy lips and flowing Hair, and white marble figures with rounded limbs
and flashing eyes beckon to me again and again.”
“Then take the scourge,” ordered the father, “and so win peace.”
Hermas once more obediently rose, and went out into the air with the
scourge; the narrow limits of the cave did not admit of his swinging it
with all the strength of his arms.
Very soon Stephanus heard the whistle of the leathern thongs through the
stillness of the night, their hard blows on the springy muscles of the
man and his son’s painful groaning.
At each blow the old man shrank as if it had fallen on himself. At last
he cried as loud as he was able “Enough--that is enough.”
Hermas came back into the cave, his father called him to his couch, and
desired him to join with him in prayer.
After the ‘Amen’ he stroked the lad’s abundant hair and said, “Since
you went to Alexandria, you have been quite another being. I would I had
withstood bishop Agapitus, and forbidden you the journey. Soon, I know,
my Saviour will call me to himself, and no one will keep you here; then
the tempter will come to you, and all the splendors of the great city,
which after all only shine like rotten wood, like shining snakes and
poisonous purple-berries--”
“I do not care for them,” interrupted Hermas, “the noisy place
bewildered and frightened me. Never, never will I tread the spot again.”
“So you have always said,” replied Stephanus, “and yet the journey quite
altered you. How often before that I used to think when I heard you
laugh that the sound must surely please our Father in Heaven. And now?
You used to be like a singing bird, and now you go about silent, you
look sour and morose, and evil thoughts trouble your sleep.”
“That is my loss,” answered Hermas. “Pray let go of my hand; the night
will soon be past, and you have the whole live-long day to lecture me
in.” Stephanus sighed, and Hermas returned to his couch.
Sleep avoided them both, and each knew that the other was awake, and
would willingly have spoken to him, but dissatisfaction and defiance
closed the son’s lips, and the father was silent because he could not
find exactly the heart-searching words that he was seeking.
At last it was morning, a twilight glimmer struck through the opening of
the cave, and it grew lighter and lighter in the gloomy vault; the boy
awoke and rose yawning. When he saw his father lying with his eyes open,
he asked indifferently, “Shall I stay here or go to morning worship?”
“Let us pray here together,” begged the father. “Who knows how long it
may yet be granted to us to do so? I am not far from the day that no
evening ever closes. Kneel down here, and let me kiss the image of the
Crucified.”
Hermas did as his father desired him, and as they were ending their song
of praise, a third voice joined in the ‘Amen.’
“Paulus!” cried the old man. “The Lord be praised! pray look to my
wound then. The arrow head seeks to work some way out, and it burns
fearfully.”
“The new comer, an anchorite, who for all clothing wore a shirt-shaped
coat of brown undressed linen, and a sheep-skin, examined the wound
carefully, and laid some herbs on it, murmuring meanwhile some pious
texts.
“That is much easier,” sighed the old man. “The Lord has mercy on me for
your goodness’ sake.”
“My goodness? I am a vessel of wrath,” replied Paulus, with a deep,
rich; sonorous voice, and his peculiarly kind blue eyes were raised to
heaven as if to attest how greatly men were deceived in him. Then he
pushed the bushy grizzled hair, which hung in disorder over his neck and
face, out of his eyes, and said cheerfully: “No man is more than man,
and many men are less. In the ark there were many beasts, but only one
Noah.”
“You are the Noah of our little ark,” replied Stephanus.
“Then this great lout here is the elephant,” laughed Paulus.
“You are no smaller than he,” replied Stephanus.
“It is a pity this stone roof is so low, else we might have measured
ourselves,” said Paulus. “Aye! if Hermas and I were as pious and pure as
we are tall and strong, we should both have the key of paradise in our
pockets. You were scourging yourself this night, boy; I heard the blows.
It is well; if the sinful flesh revolts, thus we may subdue it.”
“He groaned heavily and could not sleep,” said Stephanus.
“Aye, did he indeed!” cried Paulus to the youth, and held his powerful
arms out towards him with clenched fists; but the threatening voice was
loud rather than terrible, and wild as the exceptionally big man looked
in his sheepskin, there was such irresistible kindliness in his gaze
and in his voice, that no one could have believed that his wrath was in
earnest.
“Fiends of hell had met him,” said Stephanus in excuse for his son, “and
I should not have closed an eye even without his groaning; it is the
fifth night.”
“But in the sixth,” said Paulus, “sleep is absolutely necessary. Put on
your sheep-skin, Hermas; you must go down to the oasis to the Senator
Petrus, and fetch a good sleeping-draught for our sick man from him or
from Dame Dorothea, the deaconess. Just look! the youngster has really
thought of his father’s breakfast--one’s own stomach is a good reminder.
Only put the bread and the water down here by the couch; while you are
gone I will fetch some fresh--now, come with me.”
“Wait a minute, wait,” cried Stephanus. “Bring a new jar with you from
the town, my son. You lent us yours yesterday, Paulus, and I must--”
“I should soon have forgotten it,” interrupted the other. “I have to
thank the careless fellow, for I have now for the first time discovered
the right way to drink, as long as one is well and able. I would not
have the jar back for a measure of gold; water has no relish unless you
drink it out of the hollow of your hand! The shard is yours. I should be
warring against my own welfare, if I required it back. God be praised!
the craftiest thief can now rob me of nothing save my sheepskin.”
Stephanus would have thanked him, but he took Hermas by the hand, and
led him out into the open air. For some time the two men walked in
silence over the clefts and boulders up the mountain side. When they had
reached a plateau, which lay on the road that led from the sea over the
mountain into the oasis, he turned to the youth, and said:
“If we always considered all the results of our actions there would be
no sins committed.”
Hermas looked at him enquiringly, and Paulus went on, “If it had
occurred to you to think how sorely your poor father needed sleep, you
would have lain still this night.”
“I could not,” said the youth sullenly. “And you know very well that I
scourged myself hard enough.”
“That was quite right, for you deserved a flogging for a misconducted
boy.”
Hermas looked defiantly at his reproving friend, the flaming color
mounted to his cheek: for he remembered the shepherdess’s words that he
might go and complain to his nurse, and he cried out angrily:
“I will not let any one speak to me so; I am no longer a child.”
“Not even your father’s?” asked Paulus, and he looked at the boy with
such an astonished and enquiring air, that Hermas turned away his eyes
in confusion.
“It is not right at any rate to trouble the last remnant of life of that
very man who longs to live for your sake only.”
“I should have been very willing to be still, for I love my father as
well as any one else.”
“You do not beat him,” replied Paulus, “you carry him bread and water,
and do not drink up the wine yourself, which the Bishop sends him home
from the Lord’s supper; that is something certainly, but not enough by a
long way.”
“I am no saint!”
“Nor I neither,” exclaimed Paulus, “I am full of sin and weakness. But
I know what the love is which was taught us by the Saviour, and that you
too may know. He suffered on the cross for you, and for me, and for all
the poor and vile. Love is at once the easiest and the most difficult
of attainments. It requires sacrifice. And you? How long is it now since
you last showed your father a cheerful countenance?”
“I cannot be a hypocrite.”
“Nor need you, but you must love. Certainly it is not by what his hand
does but by what his heart cheerfully offers, and by what he forces
himself to give up that a man proves his love.”
“And is it no sacrifice that I waste all my youth here?” asked the boy.
Paulus stepped back from him a little way, shook his matted head, and
said, “Is that it? You are thinking of Alexandria! Ay! no doubt life
runs away much quicker there than on our solitary mountain. You do not
fancy the tawny shepherd girl, but perhaps some pretty pink and white
Greek maiden down there has looked into your eyes?”
“Let me alone about the women,” answered Hermas, with genuine annoyance.
“There are other things to look at there.”
The youth’s eyes sparkled as he spoke, and Paulus asked, not without
interest, “Indeed?”
“You know Alexandria better than I,” answered Hermas evasively. “You
were born there, and they say you had been a rich young man.”
“Do they say so?” said Paulus. “Perhaps they are right; but you must
know that I am glad that nothing any longer belongs to me of all the
vanities that I possessed, and I thank my Saviour that I can now turn
my back on the turmoil of men. What was it that seemed to you so
particularly tempting in all that whirl?”
Hermas hesitated. He feared to speak, and yet something urged and drove
him to say out all that was stirring his soul. If any one of all those
grave men who despised the world and among whom he had grown up, could
ever understand him, he knew well that it would be Paulus; Paulus whose
rough beard he had pulled when he was little, on whose shoulders he had
often sat, and who had proved to him a thousand times how truly he loved
him. It is true the Alexandrian was the severest of them all, but he was
harsh only to himself. Hermas must once for all unburden his heart, and
with sudden decision he asked the anchorite:
“Did you often visit the baths?”
“Often? I only wonder that I did not melt away and fall to pieces in the
warm water like a wheaten loaf.”
“Why do you laugh at that which makes men beautiful?” cried Hermas
hastily. “Why may Christians even visit the baths in Alexandria, while
we up here, you and my father and all anchorites, only use water to
quench our thirst? You compel me to live like one of you, and I do not
like being a dirty beast.”
“None can see us but the Most High,” answered Paulus, “and for him we
cleanse and beautify our souls.”
“But the Lord gave us our body too,” interrupted Hermas. “It is written
that man is the image of God. And we! I appeared to myself as repulsive
as a hideous ape when at the great baths by the Gate of the Sun I saw
the youths and men with beautifully arranged and scented hair and smooth
limbs that shone with cleanliness and purification. And as they went
past, and I looked at my mangy sheepfell, and thought of my wild mane
and my arms and feet, which are no worse formed or weaker than theirs
were, I turned hot and cold, and I felt as if some bitter drink were
choking me. I should have liked to howl out with shame and envy and
vexation. I will not be like a monster!”
Hermas ground his teeth as he spoke the last words, and Paulus looked
uneasily at him as he went on: “My body is God’s as much as my soul is,
and what is allowed to the Christians in the city--”
“That we nevertheless may not do,” Paulus interrupted gravely. “He who
has once devoted himself to Heaven must detach himself wholly from the
charm of life, and break one tie after another that binds him to the
dust. I too once upon a time have anointed this body, and smoothed this
rough hair, and rejoiced sincerely over my mirror; but I say to you,
Hermas--and, by my dear Saviour, I say it only because I feel it, deep
in my heart I feel it--to pray is better than to bathe, and I, a poor
wretch, have been favored with hours in which my spirit has struggled
free, and has been permitted to share as an honored guest in the festal
joys of Heaven!”
While he spoke, his wide open eyes had turned towards Heaven and had
acquired a wondrous brightness. For a short time the two stood opposite
each other silent and motionless; at last the anchorite pushed the hair
from off his brow, which was now for the first time visible. It was
well-formed, though somewhat narrow, and its clear fairness formed a
sharp contrast to his sunburnt face.
“Boy,” he said with a deep breath, “you know not what joys you would
sacrifice for the sake of worthless things. Long ere the Lord, calls
the pious man to Heaven, the pious has brought Heaven down to earth in
himself.”
Hermas well understood what the anchorite meant, for his father often
for hours at a time gazed up into Heaven in prayer, neither seeing nor
hearing what was going on around him, and was wont to relate to his son,
when he awoke from his ecstatic vision, that he had seen the Lord or
heard the angel-choir.
He himself had never succeeded in bringing himself into such a state,
although Stephanus had often compelled him to remain on his knees
praying with him for many interminable hours. It often happened that
the old man’s feeble flame of life had threatened to become altogether
extinct after these deeply soul-stirring exercises, and Hermas would
gladly have forbidden him giving himself up to such hurtful emotions,
for he loved his father; but they were looked upon as special
manifestations of grace, and how should a son dare to express his
aversion to such peculiarly sacred acts? But to Paulus and in his
present mood he found courage to speak out.
“I have sure hope of Paradise,” he said, “but it will be first opened
to us after death. The Christian should be patient; why can you not wait
for Heaven till the Saviour calls you, instead of desiring to enjoy its
pleasures here on earth? This first and that after! Why Should God
have bestowed on us the gifts of the flesh if not that we may use them?
Beauty and strength are not empty trifles, and none but a fool gives
noble gifts to another, only in order to throw them away.”
Paulus gazed in astonishment at the youth, who up to this moment had
always unresistingly obeyed his father and him, and he shook his head as
he answered,
“So think the children of this world who stand far from the Most High.
In the image of God are we made no doubt, but what child would kiss the
image of his father, when the father offers him his own living lips?”
Paulus had meant to say ‘mother’ instead of ‘father,’ but he remembered
in time that Hermas had early lost the happiness of caressing a mother,
and he had hastily amended the phrase. He was one of those to whom it is
so painful to hurt another, that they never touch a wounded soul unless
to heal it, divining the seat of even the most hidden pain.
He was accustomed to speak but little, but now he went on eagerly:
“By so much as God is far above our miserable selves, by so much is
the contemplation of Him worthier of the Christian than that of his own
person. Oh! who is indeed so happy as to have wholly lost that self and
to be perfectly absorbed in God! But it pursues us, and when the soul
fondly thinks itself already blended in union with the Most High it
cries out ‘Here am I!’ and drags our nobler part down again into the
dust. It is bad enough that we must hinder the flight of the soul, and
are forced to nourish and strengthen the perishable part of our being
with bread and water and slothful sleep to the injury of the immortal
part, however much we may fast and watch. And shall we indulge the
flesh, to the detriment of the spirit, by granting it any of its demands
that can easily be denied? Only he who despises and sacrifices his
wretched self can, when he has lost his baser self by the Redeemer’s
grace, find himself again in God.”
Hermas had listened patiently to the anchorite, but he now shook his
head, and said: “I cannot under stand either you or my father. So long
as I walk on this earth, I am I and no other. After death, no doubt, but
not till then, will a new and eternal life begin.”
“Not so,” cried Paulus hastily, interrupting him. “That other and higher
life of which you speak, does not begin only after death for him who
while still living does not cease from dying, from mortifying the flesh,
and from subduing its lusts, from casting from him the world and his
baser self, and from seeking the Lord. It has been vouchsafed to many
even in the midst of life to be born again to a higher existence. Look
at me, the basest of the base. I am not two but one, and yet am I in the
sight of the Lord as certainly another man than I was before grace found
me, as this young shoot, which has grown from the roots of an overthrown
palmtree is another tree than the rotten trunk. I was a heathen and
enjoyed every pleasure of the earth to the utmost; then I became a
Christian; the grace of the Lord fell upon me, and I was born again, and
became a child again; but this time--the Redeemer be praised!--the child
of the Lord. In the midst of life I died, I rose again, I found the joys
of Heaven. I had been Menander, and like unto Saul, I became Paulus. All
that Menander loved--baths, feasts, theatres, horses and chariots, games
in the arena, anointed limbs, roses and garlands, purple-garments, wine
and the love of women--lie behind me like some foul bog out of which
a traveller has struggled with difficulty. Not a vein of the old man
survives in the new, and a new life has begun for me, mid-way to the
grave; nor for me only, but for all pious men. For you too the hour will
sound, in which you will die to--”
“If only I, like you, had been a Menander,” cried Hermas, sharply
interrupting the speaker: “How is it possible to cast away that which I
never possessed? In order to die one first must live. This wretched life
seems to me contemptible, and I am weary of running after you like a
calf after a cow. I am free-born, and of noble race, my father himself
has told me so, and I am certainly no feebler in body than the
citizens’ sons in the town with whom I went from the baths to the
wrestling-school.”
“Did you go to the Palaestra?” asked Paulus in surprise.
“To the wrestling-school of Timagetus,” cried Hermas, coloring. “From
outside the gate I watched the games of the youths as they wrestled, and
threw heavy disks at a mark. My eyes almost sprang out of my head at
the sight, and I could have cried out aloud with envy and vexation,
at having to stand there in my ragged sheep-skin excluded from all
competition. If Pachomius had not just then come up, by the Lord I must
have sprung into the arena, and have challenged the strongest of them
all to wrestle with me, and I could have thrown the disk much farther
than the scented puppy who won the victory and was crowned.”
“You may thank, Pachomius,” said Paulus laughing, “for having hindered
you, for you would have earned nothing in the arena but mockery
and disgrace. You are strong enough, certainly, but the art of the
discobolus must be learned like any other. Hercules himself would be
beaten at that game without practice, and if he did not know the right
way to handle the disk.”
“It would not have been the first time I had thrown one,” cried the boy.
“See, what I can do!” With these words he stooped and raised one of the
flat stones, which lay piled up to secure the pathway; extending his arm
with all his strength, he flung the granite disk over the precipice away
into the abyss.
“There, you see,” cried Paulus, who had watched the throw carefully and
not without some anxious excitement. “However strong your arm may be,
any novice could throw farther than you if only he knew the art of
holding the discus. It is not so--not so; it must cut through the air
like a knife with its sharp edge. Look how you hold your hand, you throw
like a woman! The wrist straight, and now your left foot behind, and
your knee bent! see, how clumsy you are! Here, give me the stone. You
take the discus so, then you bend your body, and press down your knees
like the arc of a bow, so that every sinew in your body helps to speed
the shot when you let go. Aye--that is better, but it is not quite right
yet. First heave the discus with your arm stretched out, then fix your
eye on the mark; now swing it out high behind you--stop! once more! your
arm must be more strongly strained before you throw. That might pass,
but you ought to be able to hit the palm-tree yonder. Give me
your discus, and that stone. There; the unequal corners hinder its
flight--now pay attention!” Paulus spoke with growing eagerness, and now
he grasped the flat stone, as he might have done many years since when
no youth in Alexandria had been his match in throwing the discus.
He bent his knees, stretched out his body, gave play to his wrist,
extended his arm to the utmost and hurled the stone into space, while
the clenched toes of his right foot deeply dinted the soil.
But it fell to the ground before reaching which Paulus had indicated as
the mark.
“Wait!” cried Hermas. “Let me try now to hit the tree.”
His stone whistled through the air, but it did not even reach the mound,
into which the palm-tree had struck root.
Paulus shook his head disapprovingly, and in his, turn seized a flat
stone; and now an eager contest began. At every throw Hermas’ stone flew
farther, for he copied his teacher’s action and grasp with increasing
skill, while the older man’s arm began to tire. At last Hermas for the
second time hit the palm-tree, while Paulus had failed to reach even the
mound with his last fling.
The pleasure of the contest took stronger possession of the anchorite;
he flung his raiment from him, and seizing another stone he cried
out--as though he were standing once more in the wrestling school among
his old companions; all shining with their anointment.
“By the silver-bowed Apollo, and the arrow-speeding Artemis, I will hit
the palm-tree.”
The missile sang through the air, his body sprang back, and he stretched
out his left arm to save his tottering balance; there was a crash, the
tree quivered under the blow, and Hermas shouted joyfully: “Wonderful!
wonderful! that was indeed a throw. The old Menander is not dead!
Farewell--to-morrow we will try again.”
With these words Hermas quitted the anchorite, and hastened with wide
leaps down the hill in the oasis. Paulus started at the words like a
sleep-walker who is suddenly wakened by hearing his name called. He
looked about him in bewilderment, as if he had to find his way in some
strange world. Drops of sweat stood on his brow, and with sudden shame
he snatched up his garments that were lying on the ground, and covered
his naked limbs.
For some time he stood gazing after Hermas, then he clasped his brow in
deep anguish and large tears ran down upon his beard.
“What have I said?” he muttered to himself; “That every vein of the old
man in me was extirpated? Fool! vain madman that I am. They named me
Paulus, and I am in truth Saul, aye, and worse than Saul!”
With these words he threw himself on his knees, pressing his forehead
against the hard rock, and began to pray. He felt as if he had been
flung from a height on to spears and lances, as if his heart and soul
were bleeding, and while he remained there, dissolved in grief and
prayer, accusing and condemning himself, he felt not the burning of the
sun as it mounted in the sky, heeded not the flight of time, nor heard
the approach of a party of pilgrims, who, under the guidance of bishop
Agapitus, were visiting the Holy Places. The palmers saw him at prayer,
heard his sobs, and, marvelling at his piety, at a sign from their
pastor they knelt down behind him.
When Paulus at last arose, he perceived with surprise and alarm the
witnesses of his devotions, and approached Agapitus to kiss his robe.
But the bishop said: “Not so; he that is most pious is the greatest
among us. My friends, let us bow down before this saintly man!”
The pilgrims obeyed his command. Paulus hid his face in his hands and
sobbed out: “Wretch, wretch that I am!”
And the pilgrims lauded his humility, and followed their leader who left
the spot.