THE PLOT THICKENS.
Isidorus reluctantly accompanied Calphurnius to the tribunal of the
Prefect; and there, partly through intimidation, partly through
cajolery, he gave such information as to his expedition to Ravenna and
Milan as the Prefect chose to ask. This was tortured, by that
unscrupulous officer, into an accusation against the Empress Valeria of
conspiracy with the Chancellor, Adauctus, and others of the Christian
sect, against the worship of the gods of Rome, and so, constructively,
of treason against the State. This indictment--_accusatio_, as it was
technically called was duly formulated, and attested under the seal of
the Prefect's Court. Naso, the Prefect, and Furca, the priest, found a
congenial task in submitting the document to the Emperor Galerius, and
asking his authority to proceed against the accused. They visited the
palace at an hour when it had been arranged that the Emperor's evil
genius, the cruel Fausta, should be with him, to exert her malign
influence in procuring the downfall of the object of her malice--the
Empress Valeria--and the destruction of the Christian sect. "The
insulted gods appeal to your Divine Majesty for protection, and for the
punishment of the atheists who despise their worship and defy their
power," began the high-priest of Cybele, seeking to work upon the
superstition of the Illyrian herdsman, raised to the Imperial purple.
"Well, my worthy friend," replied the Emperor in a bantering tone, "what
is the matter now. Has any one been poaching on your preserves?"
"This is not a matter of private concern, Your Majesty," remarked the
Prefect gravely. "It touches the welfare of the State and the stability
of your throne."
"Yes, and your personal and domestic honour, too," whispered Fausta in
his ear.
"It must be something pretty comprehensive to do all that. Come, out
with it at once," laughed the Emperor.
Thus adjured, Furca began to recount the insults offered to the gods by
the Christians, and, especially, that the Empress no longer attended
their public festivals.
"Oh yes, I understand," said the Emperor, with a yawn, "your craft is in
danger. The offerings at your altars are falling off; and we all know
where _they_ went. The gods are all alike to me; I believe in none of
them."
"But they are necessary, to keep the mob in subjection," said Naso.
"Some are amused with their pageants, and others are awed by menaces of
their wrath."
"Yes, I grant you, they are of some use for that; and that is all they
are good for," replied this ancient Agnostic.
"But the Christians are traitors to the State," continued the Prefect;
"rank sedition-mongers. They are secretly sworn to serve another Lord
than the Cæsars, and they are ceaselessly striving to undermine your
Imperial Majesty's authority."
"You do well," continued the cruel Galerius, a fire of deadly hate
burning in his eyes, "to exterminate that accursed vermin, wherever
found. Burn, crucify, torture, as you will."
"And the estates of the rebels, they escheat to the temples of the
insulted gods?" asked the priest, with hungry eyes.
"Nay, to the State, I think," laughed the Emperor. "Is it not so, good
Naso?"
"Half to the State and half to the _delator_, or accuser," answered that
worthy, learned in the law of pillage.
"Let not the wolves fall out about the prey," said the Emperor, with a
sneer; "only make sure work."
"Be so good then, Your Majesty, as to affix your seal to these decrees
of death. With such high officers as Adauctus and Aurelius my authority
as Prefect is not sufficient."
"And the Empress Valeria; she, too, as traitor to your person and crown,
is included in the decree," insinuated, in a wheedling tone, the crafty
priest.
"Base hound," roared the Emperor, laying his hand upon his sword;
"breathe but the name of the Empress again, and I will pluck thy vile
tongue from thy throat."
"Nay, Your Majesty," said the crafty Fausta, while the abject priest
cowered like a whipped cur; "'tis but his excess of zeal for Your
Majesty's honour, which I fear the Empress betrays."
"Madam," said Galerius, sternly, "I am the guardian of my own honour.
What the Christians are, I neither know nor care. What the Empress is, I
know--the noblest soul that breathes in Rome. Who wags his tongue
against her shall be given to the crows and kites. _Dixi Fiat_--I have
spoken--so let it be," and his terrible frown, as he stalked from the
room, showed that he meant what he said.
The three conspirators, for a moment, stared at each other in
consternation. Then the wily Fausta faltered out, "Said I not, he would
defy both gods and men? We must do by stealth what we cannot do by
force. Juba must ply her most secret and most deadly arts. I have
certain subtle spells myself; and if mortal hate can give them power, I
will make her beauty waste away like a fading flower, and her strength
wane like a dying lamp."
"'Tis a dangerous game," replied Naso. "Be wary how you play it. As for
me, armed with this edict, I will strike at mine ancient foe, for whom I
long have nursed a bitter spite. Curse him! I am tired of hearing him
called Adauctus the Just. He held me to such a strict account that I had
to make a full return of all the fines and mulcts paid in, without
taking the toll which is my right." And he departed to gratify his
double passion of revenge and greed.
It may seem strange that such a truculent monster as Galerius, of whom,
in his later days, his Christian subjects were wont to say that "he
never supped without human blood--_Nec unquam sine cruore humano
coenabat,_"[35]--should be so under the spell of his Christian wife. But
the statement is corroborated by the records of history, and by the
philosophy of the human mind. There is a power in moral goodness that
can awe the rudest natures, a winsome spell that can subdue the hardest
hearts. It was the story of Una and the Lion, of Beauty and the Beast
over again; and one of the severest trials for a Christian wife in those
days of the struggle between Christianity and Paganism for the mastery
of the world, was that of being allied to a pagan husband. Tertullian,
in the third century, thus describes the difficulties which a Christian
woman married to an idolater must encounter in her religious life:
"At the time for worship the husband will appoint the use of the bath;
when a fast is to be observed he will invite company to a feast When she
would bestow alms, both safe and cellar are closed against her. What
heathen will suffer his wife to attend the nightly meetings of the
Church, the slandered Supper of the Lord, to visit the sick even in the
poorest hovels, to kiss the martyrs' chains in prison, to rise in the
night for prayer, to show hospitality to stranger brethren?"[36]
In time of persecution, or in the case of persons of such exalted rank
as that of Valeria, the difficulty of adorning a Christian life, amid
their pagan surroundings, was all the greater. Yet not a word of scandal
has been breathed upon the character of the wife of the arch persecutor
of the Christians; and even the sneering pen of Gibbon has only words of
commendation for the Christian Empress who herself under subsequent
persecution, remained steadfast even unto death.
The beauty and dignity of Christian wedlock in an age of persecution
and strife are nobly expressed by Tertullian in the following passage,
addressed to his own wife: "How can I paint the happiness," he exclaims,
"of a marriage which the Church ratines, the Sacrament confirms, the
benediction seals, angels announce, and our heavenly Father declares
valid! What a union of two believers--one hope, one vow, one discipline,
one worship! They are brother and sister, two fellow-servants, one
spirit and one flesh. They pray together, fast together, exhort and
support one another. They go together to the house of God, and to the
table of the Lord. They share each other's trials, persecutions, and
joys. Neither avoids, nor hides anything from the other. They delight to
visit the sick, succour the needy, and daily to lay their offerings
before the altar without scruple, and without constraint. They do not
need to keep the sign of the cross hidden, nor to express secretly their
Christian joy, nor to receive by stealth the eucharist. They join in
psalms and hymns, and strive who best can praise God. Christ rejoices at
the sight, and sends His peace upon them. Where two are in His name He
also is; and where He is, there evil cannot come."
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FOOTNOTES:
[35] Lactantius, _De Mortibus Persecutorum._
[36] Tertull, _Ad Uzorem_, ii. 8.
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