You were once with your parents. You ate as much as you liked in the
morning. Well! Were you not hungry again by noon? Certainly. So you
cannot really satisfy yourself by eating! Now I will tell you one thing.
You are a child of the world; you don’t belong here; therefore go in
peace! Eat of the swine’s husks which do not satisfy; but when you are
sick of them, you will be welcome here again. The father’s house always
stands open for the prodigal son.”
The youth did not go, but burst into tears.
“No,” he said, “I cannot return to the world, for I hate it and it hates
me, but here I perish.”
The Abbot rose and embraced him. “Poor child! Such is the world, such is
life; but if it is so, and if you see that it is so, the only thing left
is to live it; and count it a point of honour to live till death comes
and liberates us.”
“No! I want to die now,” sobbed the youth.
“We may not do that, my son”; the words escaped from the old man. “If
you knew ... if you knew....”
But he restrained himself: “What shall we do, then? Go to Father Martin
and have some food, and a glass of wine, but only one; then go and have
a good long sleep. Sleep for a day or two. Then come, that I may see
you. Go now--but wait a minute--you must have a dispensation from me.”
He sat down and wrote something on a page which he had torn out of the
book. Armed with this permission, the youth departed, looking, however,
somewhat hesitatingly and abashed.
The Abbot remained sitting, but did not begin to write again. Instead
of that, he commenced crumbling the bread and strewing the crumbs on
the table. Immediately a little bird came and picked one up; then
there followed several, who settled on the old man’s hand, arms, and
shoulders. A spray of vine hung from the roof of the arbour and swayed
gently in the wind. Its ring-like tendrils felt about in the air for a
support. The Abbot was amused, and placed his finger jestingly into one
of the rings: “Come, little thing! here is your support!”
The tendril seemed to hear him, immediately curled round his finger, and
formed a ring.
“Shall I get the ring?” jested the old man. “Perhaps I shall be a
bishop. God deliver me!”
The Dean appeared in the door of the arbour. “Do I disturb you,
brother?”
“No, not at all! I am only sitting here and playing.”
“Birds and flowers! White lilies too? I have never seen such before.”
“White? Just now they were reddish-yellow! Where do you see them?”
“There!”
The Abbot looked down on the ground where he had poured his milk, and
behold! there were only white lilies, without a single yellow one. He
did not venture to speak about it, for one cannot speak of such things;
but he smiled to himself, and saw a token of grace in it.
“Well, Dean, how goes it in the city?”
“The Tiber is sinking.”
“God be praised; but the whole of Trastevere has been ruined by the
flood. I really wish that a great flood would come and drown us all--the
whole human race--and very likely it will come some day.”
“Still as hopeless as ever!”
“No, not without hope, but for that world, not for this. Christ says it
Himself in the Apocalypse: here is nothing on which one can build; for
the best that we have enjoyed was but trouble and misery.”
“Not so, brother.”
“You can flourish in mud, but that I have never done. And it seems as
though one were compelled to wade in it with both feet. Did I not begin
in my youth to preserve my soul by withdrawing from the world? Then I
was compelled to go out into it, thrust into the confusion by force.
They made me Prefect of the city. I wished to live in the service of the
Lord, and had to distribute eatables for the poor, procure beds for the
hospitals, look after drains and water-pipes. The burden of the day’s
task hindered my thoughts from rising, and I sank in the swamp of
material things--sank so deep that I believed I should never rise
again.”
“But the people blessed you.”
“Hush! And I--I who had never worn a sword--had to collect soldiers and
march to the field. When I was six years old Rome was pillaged by Totila
the Goth, and so ravaged that only five hundred Romans remained. When I
was seven years old, there came Belisarius--when I was twelve, Narses.
Then I was sent as ambassador to Constantinople--I who hated travelling
and publicity. All that I hate, I have been obliged to accept. Now I am
tired, and would like to go to rest. I sit here and wait, for my grave
to open.”
“Do you remember what Virgil says in the _Georgics_ regarding the labour
of the husbandman?”
“No, I hate the heathen.”
“Wait! He says these words of wisdom: ‘If Zeus sends bad weather, mice
and vermin, it is to stimulate the husbandman’s energy, and call forth
his inventive capacity.’ Misfortune comes to help the world forward.”
“The world goes backward towards its overthrow and its damnation. For
five hundred years we have awaited the Redemption, but we have only seen
one wild race come after another, to murder and pillage. Do you see any
reason in all this sowing without reaping?”
“Blasphemer! Yes, I see how green harvests are ploughed up to fertilise
the soil.”
“Dragon’s-seed and hell’s harvest. No--now I go into my grave, and
close the door behind me; I have a right to rest after a life so full of
trouble and work.”
“The bell is ringing for prime.”
“Jam moesta quiesce querela.”
* * * * *
The Tiber had overflowed Rome, and destroyed quite a quarter of it, but
spared the convent of St. Andrew. The Abbot sat again one morning in
his garden and wrote, but in such a position that he could see his grave
when he looked up from his work. Deep in his writing, he did not hear
what was happening around him. But he saw that the flowers in the beds
began to shake like reeds, frogs jumped about at his feet, and there was
a smell of dampness that was at the same time mouldy and poisonous.
He continued to write, but his eye, although intent on the passage of
his pen over the paper, noticed something dark that moved on the ground,
spread itself like a black carpet, and came nearer. Suddenly his feet
were wet, and a deathlike chill crept up his legs. Then he awoke and
understood. The Tiber had risen, and he was driven out of his last
refuge. “I will not go,” he cried, as the alarm-bell sounded, and the
monks fled.
He went to his cell in the upper story, firmly resolved not to flee.
He would not go out into the world again, but would die here. The flood
which he had prayed for, had come. But he had a spiritual conflict and
agony of prayer in his cell: “Lord, why dost thou punish the innocent?
Why dost thou chastise Thy friends and let Thy foes flourish? For five
hundred years Thou hast avenged Thyself on Thy children for the misdeeds
of their fathers! If that is not enough, then destroy us all at once!”
The water rose and lapped against the walls; the garden was destroyed,
and the Abbot’s grave filled with water, but he remained where he was.
At one time he sang hymns of praise, then he raged; then he prayed for
pardon, and raged again.
After that he set himself to write at the great work which should make
him immortal,--his “Magna Moralia.” It was now noon, but he felt no
hunger, for by practice he had learned to fast for three days together.
During the afternoon, a noise at the window made him look up from
his book. There lay a boat, and in it sat the novice Augustinus. The
extraordinary, almost comic, aspect of things, elicited a smile from
him, and, remembering his conversation with the youth, he asked
through the open window, “Well, did you get the wine and good food, you
glutton?”
“No, venerable Father; I did not want it when I could have it, and then
the temptation was over. But now I have to speak of something else. The
plague has broken out, and people are dying like flies.”
“The plague too! Oh Lord, how long wilt Thou altogether forget us! The
plague too!”
Then he rose. “Everyone to his post! Let us do our duty! Bless the Lord,
and die!” The Abbot stepped out of his window into the boat, and left
his sinking ship.
* * * * *
The Tiber sank to its level again, but left behind snakes, fishes,
and frogs, which died and infected the air. The people had fled to the
hills; on the Palatine Hill they had made a hospital out of a church.
Here the Abbot of the St. Andrew’s Convent walked about, gave drink
to the sick, and spoke comfort to the dying. “Why do you fear death,
children?” he said. “Fear life, for that is the real death.” He seemed
to be quite in his element here, showed a calm, cheerful temper, and
sought to decipher on the faces of the dead, “whether they were happy on
the other side.”
Death would have nothing to do with him. Often he went to the other
hills, and walked about among the sick and dying, so that the people
began to think that he was an immortal who had come down to comfort
them. The older ones remembered him as Prefect, when he defended
the city against the Goths, Vandals, and Longobards, and his fame
continually grew.
The pestilence raged, and the number of the dead increased, so that
the corpses could no longer be buried. All occupations ceased, and the
peasants brought no more food into the city. There was a famine. The
Abbot of the St. Andrew’s Convent, Gregory, lost courage, and wanted
to abandon all, “I cannot fight against God, and if it be His will that
Rome perish, it is godless to wish to prevent it.” In the midst of
this tribulation, Pelagius II, the Bishop or Pope of Rome, as he was
afterwards called, died. The people with one voice clamoured for the
Abbot Gregory to succeed him. But, like King Saul and the Emperor
Julian, he hid himself. He fled from the town to a hermit’s grotto in
the Sabine Mountains. But the people came, brought him out, and led him
back to Rome, where he was consecrated as Gregory I. For thirteen years
Gregory ruled over the former queen city of the world. He was Governor,
for the Exarch of Ravenna existed no more, having been driven away
by the Longobards. He asked help from the Emperor in Byzantium, but
obtained none. He was thrown upon his own resources, and succeeded by
the power of his eloquence in disarming King Agilulf, who threatened
Rome.
But he was also Bishop, and as such had to govern all the churches
of the West. He succeeded in bringing them to abandon Arianism and
to accept a single creed, which became the universal or “catholic”
confession of faith.
To the heathen of England he sent the former novice Augustine, who had
quickly overcome his initiatory difficulties. The little “glutton” ended
as Archbishop of Canterbury.
The former retiring and life-weary Abbot had with great effect developed
the necessary strength for his duties. The high post to which he had
been summoned called out his capacities. He had time for great and small
things alike. He reformed the liturgy, wrote letters, composed books,
arranged church music. His manner of life, however, was as simple as
before. From his cell in the Lateran Palace, he ruled over souls from
the Highlands of Scotland to the Pillars of Hercules. His empire was as
great as the Caesars’, though his legions were only pen and ink. It was
the beginning of the Kingdom of Christ, but it was a spiritual empire,
and Gregory was the ruler.
ISHMAEL
After the death of Gregory the Great, Christianity seemed to have
conquered all Europe which was known at the time, and also Byzantium,
Palestine, Egypt, and the north coast of Africa. The conqueror was
about to betake himself to rest, when a quite new and unexpected event
happened which threatened Christendom with destruction and heralded the
arrival of a new race upon the scene. Ishmael’s descendants, Abraham’s
illegitimate sons, who had wandered in the deserts, seeming to continue
the Israelites’ wandering in the wilderness, began to collect in troops
and seek a Promised Land.
Six years after Gregory’s death, the Prophet Muhammed, then forty years
old, was “awakened.” His armies spread like a conflagration, and a
hundred years later, Christian Europe thought the last day had come. The
countries first conquered by Christianity--Syria, Palestine, Asia Minor,
Egypt, and North Africa--had fallen away and done homage to the new
Antichrist. Byzantium was threatened; Sicily and Sardinia had been
taken, and Italy was in danger.
From the southernmost point of Spain one could see in clear weather the
coast of Africa, where the Saracens dwelt. Spain was a country which,
somewhat remote from Rome, had grown and developed into one of the
richest provinces, after Phoenicians and Carthaginians had laid
the foundations of her civilisation. But when Rome fell into decay,
Barbarians from the Baltic sea belonging to the new German races,
whose advent had been foretold by Tacitus, poured into Spain, founded
a kingdom or two, and now at the beginning of the eighth century,
possessed the important cities Toledo and Seville.
* * * * *
In Seville, on the Guadalquivir, in the beautiful province of Andalusia,
the old Jew Eleazar sat in the shop where he sold weapons, and counted
his day’s takings.
“Many weapons are sold in these days,” was the sudden remark of a
stranger who had stepped up to the counter.
Eleazar looked up, liked the appearance of the well-dressed stranger,
and answered cautiously, “Yes, certainly, many are sold.”
“Are you expecting war?”
“There is always war here--especially verbal warfare.”
“You refer to the twenty Church Councils which have been held here. The
Christians are never united.”
Eleazar did not answer.
“Excuse me,” continued the stranger, “but I forgot who you are, and that
you would rather forget the last Council.”
“No, not at all! why should I?”
“It was directed against your people.”
“And my only son, who was about to marry a Christian maiden, had to give
her up, since marriages with Jews were forbidden....”
“Well! and what was the end of it?”
“He could not survive it, but laid hands on himself, and, as she
followed him in death, the blame was laid on us, and we lost our
property and freedom.”
“Eleazar!” exclaimed the stranger. “Don’t you know me?”
“No.”
“But when I tell you my name, you will know who I am. Julius--Count
Julius....”
“Are you--Count Julius?”
“I am he, whose daughter Florinda was brought up in Toledo, and fell
into the hands of King Roderick, the robber and lecher. Can I see you in
your chamber? We have much to say to each other!”
Eleazar hesitated, although both, as injured fathers of lost children,
had much in common. He was afraid of the Christians, who had begun to
persecute the Jews. The Count understood that, but did not withdraw his
proposal, for he seemed to have a special object in his visit.
“Let me into your chamber, and I will tell you, in three words, a secret
that concerns us both.”
Eleazar did not yield, but began to parley.
“Say one word, a single word to convince me,” he asked.
“Oppas! there is one for you.”
Eleazar opened his eyes, but asked for yet another one.
“Zijad’s son.”
“Still better!” said Eleazar, “but now the last!”
“Bar-coch-ba.”
Eleazar reached him his hand. “Come under my roof, eat of my bread, and
drink of the sacred wine.” In a moment the shop was closed, and the two
elderly men sat at supper in the room behind it. They conversed eagerly.
“There are some hundreds of thousands of us Hebrews here in Spain, for
when the Emperor Hadrian had destroyed Jerusalem for the last time, he
sent some fifty thousand Hebrews here. That is six hundred years ago,
and we have naturally increased--yes, to such a number, that ninety
thousand of us could be compulsorily baptized. I, too, have been
baptized, but, though they poured water on me, I have held fast the
faith of my fathers, and how could I do otherwise? The Christians have
not one faith, but many. The Synod held in Toledo in 589 A.D. taught,
for example, that the Holy Spirit did not only proceed from the Father,
but from the Son also. But the Synod of 675 A.D. declared that the
Son was not only sent by the Father but by the Holy Spirit. That is
nonsense, and therefore they fall away from their own doctrine.
“But instead of falling back on the Old Testament, which is the mother
of the New, they plunge into unbelief and heathenism. That is the case
with Archbishop Oppas himself in Toledo, who calls himself a hater of
Christ, and would rather acknowledge Islam than Catholicism.”
“Do you know Oppas?”
“He is our man.”
“You mentioned Islam; what do you think of its teaching?”
“It is our own holy faith; a single God, the Only and True One. And the
Prophet is Abraham’s seed, who has inherited the promise. It is true
Ishmael was the son of a bond-woman, but still he was Abraham’s seed!”
“But Muhammed expelled the Jews from Arabia.”
“Yes, he did that; he was not perfect; but things have altered for the
better. Muhammed received his first impressions from his cousin Waraka,
who was of Jewish descent. At first he was friendly towards Israel; he
told his followers to turn in prayer not towards the Kaaba, but towards
Jerusalem. There is also a tradition that the prophet was a Jew, which
may mean that he was an Arab or Ishmaelite, which is the same thing.”
“You would, then, rather serve under the Half-Moon than under the
Cross?”
“Certainly.”
“And Simon, whom you call Bar-coch-ba, is negotiating with the
Archbishop Oppas in order to overthrow Roderick?”
“That is true.”
“Good! Then I am one with you. But listen carefully to what I
say:--Since our common aim is the overthrow of the West Gothic King, I
have, as Governor of Ceuta on the African coast, inquired of Emir Mussa
al Nazir and his principal officer, Tarik, the son of Zijad, whether
they will perhaps help us in case of a claim for damages made by Ceuta
and its neighbourhood. Do you think we can let the storm loose?”
Eleazar gnawed his beard. “Is it not already loose?” he asked drily.
“Have you gone further than I know?”
“What do you know?”
“You are so far as that, then? Well! It is all over with my beautiful
Spain!”
“Nothing comes to an end; it only changes when its time is over. Spain
had its time when it gave Emperors to Rome--Trajan, Hadrian, Antonius,
Marcus Aurelius, Theodosius, who may just as likely have been Iberians
and Phoenicians. Spain gave Rome learned men and poets, Seneca, Lucan,
Martial, Quintilian, Pomponius, Mela, Columella. That is now five
hundred years ago, and now we have had barbarism introduced by
the Christian Norsemen from the Baltic. Now we might use something
Oriental!”
“Do you believe on the future of Islam?”
“Yes, certainly. Mussa has sworn that he will march by Hannibal’s route
through Gaul and Germany to Rome, in order to turn the ‘heathen and
women-worshippers’ to the one true God.”
“You know that! Then there is no turning back.”
“No! It is too late. On the 19th of July the half-moon rises over Spain,
and it will continue to wax through its phases to the full moon.
What follows then we know not, and have nothing to do with, for One
rules--the Lord Zebaoth.”
* * * * *
On the 17th of July, 711 A.D., when it had become dark, fire was kindled
on the southernmost point of Spain, Punta de Europa. On the African
coast, two miles distant, this was answered by a similar signal. A
west wind blew from the Atlantic, and brought across the fleet of the
Saracens, with five thousand men and horses.
On the Punta de Europa, afterwards called Gibraltar, high above the
precipitous cliff stood long-bearded citizens, and fanned the fire and
threw fuel on it. In the morning the first troops landed at the foot of
the cliff, and the conquest of Spain by the Moors began. Mussa ibn Nazir
came on the following day with the chief body. The King of the West
Goths assembled as rapidly as possible a hundred thousand men, and,
believing himself invincible, marched thither to view the victory.
Clothed in silk and gold, like a Byzantine Emperor, he lay in a chariot
of ivory drawn by two white mules, and followed by his attendants and
the women of his harem.
For three days all went well, but on the fourth day, something
unexpected happened.
Shut in between the mountains and rivers of Andalusia, his troops could
hardly move, and the King had encamped on the bank of the Guadalete.
Then he saw his people pouring down like a stream from the heights--one
division under Archbishop Oppas, the other under Count Julius.
Roderick, who believed that they were fleeing from the enemy, broke up
his camp. He could not, however, turn round, but was forced into the
stream. He tried to reach the other side by swimming, but there he was
met by archers. An Amazon came galloping along the bank on a red roan,
and directed her bow against the drowning man in the middle of the
stream. On the one bank he saw his troops, who had halted, signal with
white flags as a sign of peace to the enemy on the opposite bank. When
he saw that he was betrayed, he sank, and with him the whole kingdom of
the West Goths. Mussa marched at once to Toledo, before a new king could
be chosen. Thereby Islam became domiciled in Spain, and remained there
till 1492. The Jews, who had especially helped the Moors, were at once
emancipated, and in every town of Spain a Jew was appointed governor.
EGINHARD TO EMMA
EASTER, A.D. 843,
The Benedictine Convent in Seligenstadt on the Main.
To my dear wife and present sister in Christ,
Emma, from Eginhard, formerly secretary to Charles the Great, now a monk
in Seligenstadt on the Main:
Passion-week is at an end, and the Resurrection days are here; spring
has melted the frost; mind and memory have woken, and the past rises up
again.
Yesterday, on Easter Eve, I walked in the convent garden, and thought of
my vanished five and seventy years. I thought of the fine things which
were said in the learned circle or academy of the Great Unforgettable,
when we played with words and thoughts, like chess-players with their
pieces.
“What is man?” asked our teacher, our wisest, Alcuin, whom we called
Flaccus.
Angilbert, the Emperor’s son-in-law, the husband of the beautiful
Bertha, answered, “Man is the slave of death, a flying traveller, a
guest in his own dwelling.”
“Yes, truly,” I said to myself, “a guest; and soon I will pack my
knapsack, pay my account, and journey on.”
I went along the river-bank and thought, “The same river, always the
same river, but always new water; the same water never runs twice
past. Such is life, such is the river of time, the heroes and events of
history--the panorama of time, the years and the glory of them, all pass
and perish.”
I then wished to pluck the first Easter lilies to send to you, who were
once my wife, and went to the gardener down by the carp-pond. Whom did I
meet on the path under the ivy, this plant of eternity, which only knows
of death and birth, but not the changes of the seasons? I met the last
survivor of the great days, of the Emperor’s Round Table, Thiodolf the
Goth, now Bishop of Orleans. I cannot describe to you my joy at meeting
him again, nor depict my feelings when I read in the face of the old man
the whole history of our life.
It was six o’clock in the evening, and after we had sung Vespers, our
fast was at an end. I had a large round table placed in the refectory,
only for us two, but with twelve chairs and twelve places laid. From the
Bishop’s guest-room I had the largest armchair brought, and decorated it
with leaves and flowers; it was that of the Emperor of blessed memory,
who now rests in the cathedral at Aachen, the cathedral which I had the
favour and honour of building. The other chairs I assigned to absent
friends, first Alcuin, then the poet Angilbert-Homerus, the Irishman
Clement, the Bavarian Leidrade, and others whom you knew, but have
forgotten.
What an evening, what a night, we passed by the open garden window!
We spoke naturally of the Great Unforgettable, and lived his rich
and varied life again in our thoughts. We followed him against the
Longobards and Saracens, against the Hungarians and other Slavs. But we
did not like to linger over his thirty years’ war against the Saxons,
chiefly out of reverence for his memory, for he ought to have used only
spiritual weapons in his campaign of conversion. Remember the Frankish
King who sent our friend Anschar to the wild Swedes. He had no armed
men, but only God’s Holy Word. Certainly he was robbed by thieves like
St. Paul, but when once he had arrived he won the King and the nobles of
the country by his gentle bearing and preaching.