JUCUNDUS PROPOUNDS HIS VIEW OF THE SITUATION.
For thirty-six hours Agellius had been confined in his underground
receptacle, light being almost excluded, a bench and a rug being his means
of repose, and a full measure of bread, wine, and olives being his dole.
The shrieks and yells of the rioters could be distinctly heard in his
prison, as the day of his seizure went on, and they passed by the temple
of Astarte; but what happened at his farm, and how it fared with Cæcilius,
he had no means of conjecturing; nor indeed how it was to fare with
himself, for on the face of the transaction, as was in form the fact, he
was in the hands of the law, and only indulged with the house of a
relative for his prison. On the second night he was released by his
uncle’s confidential slave, who brought him up to a small back closet on
the ground floor, which was lighted from the roof, and next morning, being
the second day after the riot, Jucundus came in to have his confidential
conversation with him.
His uncle began by telling him that he was a government prisoner, but that
he hoped by his influence in high places to get him off and out of Sicca
without any prejudice to his honour. He told him that he had managed it
privately, and if he had treated him with apparent harshness up to the
evening before, it was in order to save appearances with the apparitors
who had attended him. He then went on to inform him that the mob had
visited his cottage, and had caught some man there; he supposed some
accomplice or ally of his nephew’s. They had seized him, and were bringing
him off, but the fellow had been clever enough to effect his escape. He
did not know more than this, but it had happened very fortunately, for the
general belief in the place was, that it was Agellius who had been taken,
and who had managed to give them the slip. Since it could not any longer
be safely denied that he was a Christian, though he (Jucundus) did not
think so himself, he had encouraged or rather had given his confirmation
to the report; and when some persons who had means of knowing had asserted
that the culprit was double the age of his nephew and more, and not at all
of his make or description, but a sort of slave, or rather that he was the
slave of Agellius who had belonged to his father Strabo, Jucundus had
boldly asserted that Agellius, in the emergency, had availed himself of
some of the remarkably powerful charms which Christians were known to
possess, and had made himself seem what he really was not, in order to
escape detection. It had not indeed answered the purpose entirely, for he
had actually been taken; but no blame in the charm, which perhaps, after
all, had enabled him to escape. However, Agellius was gone, he told
people, and a good riddance, and he hoped never to see him again. “But you
see, my dear boy,” he concluded, “this was all talk for the occasion, for
I hope you will live here many years in respectability and credit. I
intend you should close my eyes when my time comes, and inherit whatever I
have to leave you; for as to that fellow Juba, he inspires me with no
confidence in him at all.”
Agellius thanked his uncle with all his heart for his kind and successful
efforts on his behalf; he did not think there was a word he had said, in
the future he had sketched for him, which he could have wished altered.
But he thought Jucundus over-sanguine; much as he should like to live with
him and tend him in his old age, he did not think he should ever be
permitted to return to Sicca. He was a Christian, and must seek some
remote corner of the world, or at least some city where he was unknown.
Every one in Sicca would point at him as the Christian; he would
experience a thousand rubs and collisions, even if the mob did not rise
against him, without corresponding advantage; on the other hand, he would
have no influence. But were he in the midst of a powerful and
widely-extended community of Christians, he might in his place do work,
and might extend the faith as one of a number, unknown himself, and strong
in his brethren. He therefore proposed as soon as possible to sell his
effects and stock, and retire from the sight of men, at least for a time.
“You think this persecution, then, will be soon at an end?” asked
Jucundus.
“I judge by the past,” answered Agellius; “there have been times of trial
and of rest hitherto, and I suppose it will be so again. And one place has
hitherto been exempt from the violence of our enemies, when another has
been the scene of it.”
“A new time is coming, trust me,” said Jucundus, gravely. “Those popular
commotions are all over. What happened two days ago is a sample of what
will come of them; they have received their _coup-de-grâce_. The State is
taking up the matter, Rome itself, thank the gods! a tougher sort of
customer than these villain ratcatchers and offal-eaters, whom you had to
do with two days since. Great Rome is now at length in earnest, my boy,
which she ought to have been a long time back, before you were born; and
then you know,” and he nodded, “you would have had no choice; you wouldn’t
have had the temptation to make a fool of yourself.”
“Well, then,” answered Agellius, “if a new time is really coming, there is
less chance than ever of my continuing here.”
“Now be a sensible fellow, as you are when you choose,” said his uncle;
“look the matter in the face, do. You cannot wrestle with impossibilities,
you cannot make facts to pattern. There are lawful religions, there are
illicit. Christianity is illicit; it is not tolerated; that’s not your
fault; you cannot help it; you would, if you could; you can’t. Now you
have observed your point of honour; you have shown you can stand up like a
man, and suffer for your own fancy. Still Rome does not give way; and you
must make the best of it. You must give in, and you are far too good (I
don’t compliment, I speak my mind), far too amiable, excellent, sweet a
boy for so rascally a superstition.”
“There is something stronger than Rome,” said the nephew almost sternly.
Jucundus cut him short. “Agellius!” he said, “you must not say that in
this house. You shall not use that language under my roof. I’ll not put up
with it, I tell you. Take your treason elsewhere.... This accursed
obstinacy!” he said to himself; “but I must take care what I am doing;”
then aloud, “Well, we both of us have been railing; no good comes of
railing; railing is not argument. But now, I say, do be sensible, if you
can. Is not the imperial government in earnest now? better late than
never, but it is now in earnest. And now mark my words, by this day five
years, five years at the utmost,—I say by this day five years there will
not be a single ragamuffin Christian in the whole Roman world.” And he
looked fierce. “Ye gods! Rome, Rome has swept from the earth by her very
breath conspiracies, confederacies, plots against her, without ever
failing; she will do so now with this contemptible, Jew-begotten foe.”
“In what are we enemies to Rome, Jucundus?” said Agellius; “why will you
always take it for granted?”
“Take it for granted!” answered he, “is it not on the face of the matter?
I suppose _they_ are enemies to a state, whom the state _calls_ its
enemies. Besides, why a pother of words? Swear by the genius of the
emperor, invoke the Dea Roma, sacrifice to Jove; no, not a bit of it, not
a whisper, not a sign, not a grain of incense. You go out of your way to
insult us; and then you come with a grave face, and say you are loyal. You
kick our shins, and you wish us to kiss you on both cheeks for it. A few
harmless ceremonies; we are not entrapping you; we are not using your
words against yourselves; we tell you the meaning beforehand, the whole
meaning of them. It is not as if we tied you to the belief of the nursery:
we don’t say, ‘If you burn incense, you profess to believe that old
Jupiter is shivering atop of Olympus;’ we don’t say, ‘You swear by the
genius of Cæsar, therefore he has a genius, black, or white, or piebald,’
No, we give you the meaning of the act; it is a mere expression of loyalty
to the empire. If then you won’t do it, you confess yourself _ipso facto_
disloyal. It is incomprehensible.” And he had become quite red.
“My dear uncle,” said Agellius, “I give you my solemn word, that the
people whom you so detest do pray for the welfare of the imperial power
continually, as a matter of duty and as a matter of interest.”
“Pray! pray! fudge and nonsense!” cried Jucundus, almost mimicking him in
his indignation; “pray! who thanks you for your prayers? what’s the good
of prayers? Prayers, indeed! ha, ha! A little loyalty is worth all the
praying in the world. I’ll tell you what, Agellius; you are, I am sorry to
say it, but you are hand and glove with a set of traitors, who shall and
will be smoked out like a nest of wasps. _You_ don’t know; _you_ are not
in the secret, nor the wretched slave, poor beast, who was pulled to
pieces yesterday (ah! you don’t know of him) at the Flamen’s, nor a
multitude of other idiots. But, d’ye see,” and he chucked up his head
significantly, “there are puppets, and there are wires. Few know what is
going on. They won’t have done (unless we put them down; but we will) till
they have toppled down the state. But Rome will put them down. Come, be
sensible, listen to reason; now I am going to put facts before my poor,
dear, well-meaning boy. Oh that you saw things as I do! What a trouble you
are to me! Here am I”——
“My dearest uncle, Jucundus,” cried Agellius, “I assure you, it is the
most intense pain to me”——
“Very well, very well,” interrupted the uncle in turn, “I believe it, of
course I believe it; but listen, listen. Every now and then,” he continued
in a more measured and lower tone, “every now and then the secret is
blabbed—blabbed. There was that Tertullianus of Carthage, some fifty years
since. He wrote books; books have done a great deal of harm before now;
but _read_ his books—read and ponder. The fellow has the insolence to tell
the proconsul that he and the whole government, the whole city and
province, the whole Roman world, the emperors, all but the pitiful
_clique_ to which he belongs, are destined, after death, to flames for
ever and ever. There’s loyalty! but the absurdity is greater than the
malevolence. Rightly are the fellows called atheists and men-haters. Our
soldiers, our statesmen, our magistrates, and judges, and senators, and
the whole community, all worshippers of the gods, every one who crowns his
head, every one who loves a joke, and all our great historic names,
heroes, and worthies,—the Scipios, the Decii, Brutus, Cæsar, Cato, Titus,
Trajan, Antoninus,—are inmates, not of the Elysian fields, if Elysian
fields there be, but of Tartarus, and will never find a way out of it.”
“That man, Tertullianus, is nothing to us, uncle,” answered Agellius; “a
man of great ability, but he quarrelled with us, and left us.”
“_I_ can’t draw nice distinctions,” said Jucundus. “Your people have
quarrelled among themselves perhaps on an understanding; we can’t split
hairs. It’s the same with your present hierophant at Carthage, Cyprianus.
Nothing can exaggerate, I am told, the foulness of his attack upon the
gods of Rome, upon Romulus, the Augurs, the Ancilia, the consuls, and
whatever a Roman is proud of. As to the imperial city itself, there’s
hardly one of their high priests that has not died under the hands of the
executioner, as a convict. The precious fellows take the title of Pontifex
Maximus; bless their impudence! Well, my boy, this is what I say; be, if
you will, so preternaturally sour and morose as to misconceive and mislike
the innocent, graceful, humanising, time-honoured usages of society; be
so, for what I care, if this is all; but it isn’t all. Such misanthropy is
wisdom, absolute wisdom, compared with the Titanic presumption and
audacity of challenging to single combat the sovereign of the world. Go
and kick down Mount Atlas first.”
“You have it all your own way, Jucundus,” answered his nephew, “and so you
must move in your own circle, round and round. There is no touching you,
if you first assume your premisses, and then prove them by means of your
conclusion.”
“My dear Agellius,” said his uncle, giving his head a very solemn shake,
“take the advice of an old man. When you are older than you are, you will
see better who is right and who is wrong. You’ll be sorry you despised me,
a true, a prudent, an experienced friend; you will. Shake yourself, come
do. Why should you link your fortunes, in the morning of life, with
desperate men, only because your father, in his last feeble days, was
entrapped into doing so? I really will not believe that you are going to
throw away hope and life on so bad a bargain. Can’t you speak a word? Here
you’ve let me speak, and won’t say one syllable for yourself. I don’t
think it kind of you.”
Thus adjured, Agellius began. “Well,” he said, “it’s a long history; you
see, we start, my dear uncle, from different points. How am I possibly to
join issue with you? I can only tell you my conclusion. Hope and life, you
say. Why, my only hope, my only life, my only joy, desire, consolation,
and treasure is that I am a Christian.”
“Hope and life!” interrupted Jucundus, “immortal gods! life and hope in
being a Christian! do I hear aright? Why, man, a prison brings despair,
not hope; and the sword brings death, not life. By Esculapius! life and
hope! you choke me, Agellius. Life and hope! you are beyond three
Anticyras. Life and hope! if you were old, if you were diseased, if you
were given over, and had but one puff of life left in you, then you might
be what you would, for me; but your hair is black, your cheek is round,
your limbs are strong, your voice is full; and you are going to make all
these a sacrifice to Hecate! has your good genius fed that plump frame,
ripened those goods looks, nerved your arm, bestowed that breadth of
chest, that strength of loins, that straightness of spine, that vigour of
step, only that you may feed the crows? or to be torn on the rack,
scorched in the flame, or hung on the gibbet? is this your gratitude to
nature? What has been your price? for what have you sold yourself? Speak,
man, speak. Are you dumb as well as dement? Are you dumb, I say, are you
dumb?”
“O Jucundus,” cried Agellius, irritated at his own inability to express
himself or hold an argument, “if you did but know what it was to have the
Truth! The Christian has found the Truth, the eternal Truth, in a world of
error. That is his bargain, that is his hire; can there be a greater? Can
I give up the Truth? But all this is Punic or Barbar to you.”
It certainly did pose Jucundus for half a minute, as if he was trying to
take in, not so much the sense, as the words of his nephew’s speech. He
looked bewildered, and though he began to answer him at once, it took
several sentences to bring him into his usual flow of language. After one
or two exclamations, “The truth!” he cried, “_this_ is what I understand
you to say,—the truth. The _truth_ is your bargain; I think I’m right, the
truth; Hm; what is truth? What in heaven and earth do you mean by truth?
where did you get that cant? What oriental tomfoolery is bamboozling you?
The truth!” he cried, staring at him with eyes, half of triumph, half of
impatience, “the truth! Jove help the boy!—the truth! can truth pour me
out a cup of melilotus? can truth crown me with flowers? can it sing to
me? can it bring Glyceris to me? drop gold into my girdle? or cool my
brows when fever visits me? Can truth give me a handsome suburban with
some five hundred slaves, or raise me to the duumvirate? Let it do this,
and I will worship it; it shall be my god; it shall be more to me than
Fortune, Fate, Rome, or any other goddess on the list. But _I_ like to
see, and touch, and feel, and handle, and weigh, and measure what is
promised me. I wish to have a sample and an instalment. I am too old for
chaff. Eat, drink, and be merry, that’s my philosophy, that’s my religion;
and I know no better. To-day is ours, to-morrow is our children’s.”
After a pause, he added, bitterly, “If truth could get Callista out of
prison, instead of getting her into it, I should have something to say to
truth.”
“Callista in prison!” cried Agellius with surprise and distress, “what do
you mean, Jucundus?”
“Yes, it’s a fact; Callista _is_ in prison,” answered he, “and on
suspicion of Christianity.”
“Callista! Christianity!” said Agellius, bewildered, “do I hear aright?
She a Christian! oh, impossible, uncle! you don’t mean to say that she is
in prison. Tell me, tell me, my dear, dear Jucundus, what this wonderful
news means.”
“You ought to know more about it than I,” answered he, “if there is any
meaning in it. But if you want my opinion, here it is. I don’t believe she
is more a Christian than I am; but I think she is over head and ears in
love with you, and she has some notion that she is paying you a
compliment, or interesting you in her, or sharing your fate—(_I_ can’t
pretend to unravel the vagaries and tantarums of the female mind)—by
saying that she is what she is _not_. If not, perhaps she has done it out
of spite and contradiction. You can never answer for a woman.”
“Whom should she spite? whom contradict?” cried Agellius, thrown for the
moment off his balance. “O Callista! Callista in prison for Christianity!
Oh if it’s true that she is a Christian! but what if she is not?” he added
with great terror, “what if she’s not, and yet in prison, as if she were?
How are we to get her out, uncle? Impossible! no, she’s not a
Christian—she is not at all. She ought not to be there! Yet how
wonderful!”
“Well, I am sure of it, too,” said Jucundus; “I’d stake the best image in
my shop that she’s not a Christian; but what if she is perverse enough to
say she _is_? and such things are not uncommon. Then, I say, what in the
world is to be done? If she says she is, why she is. There you are; and
what can you do?”
“You don’t mean to say,” exclaimed Agellius, “that that sweet delicate
child is in that horrible hole; impossible!” and he nearly shrieked at the
thought. “What is the meaning of it all? dear, dear uncle, do tell me
something more about it. Why did you not tell me before? What _can_ be
done?”
Jucundus thought he now had him in his hand. “Why, it’s plain,” he
answered, “what can be _done_. She’s no Christian, we both agree. It’s
certain, too, that she chooses to say she is, or something like it.
There’s just one person who has influence with her, to make her tell the
truth.”
“Ha!” cried Agellius, starting as if an asp had bitten him.
Jucundus kept silence, and let the poison of the said asp work awhile in
his nephew’s blood.
Agellius put his hands before his eyes; and with his elbows on his knees,
began moving to and fro, as if in intense pain.
“I repeat what I have said,” Jucundus observed at length; “I do really
think that she imagines a certain young gentleman is likely to be in
trouble, and that she is determined to share the trouble with him.”
“But it isn’t true,” cried Agellius with great vehemence; “it’s not
true.... If she really is not a Christian, O my dear Lord, surely they
won’t put her to death as if she was?”
“But if she has made up her mind to be in the same boat with you, and
_will_ be a Christian while you are a Christian, what on earth can we do,
Agellius?” asked Jucundus. “You have the whole matter in a nutshell.”
“She does not love me,” cried Agellius; “no, she has given me no reason to
think so. I am sure she does not. She’s nothing to me. That cannot be the
reason of her conduct. _I_ have no power over her; _I_ could not persuade
her. What, what _does_ all this mean? and I shut up here?” and he began
walking about the little room, as if such locomotion tended to bring him
out of it.
“Well,” answered Jucundus, “it is easy to ascertain. I suppose you _could_
be let out to see her.”
But he was going on too fast; Agellius did not attend to him. “Poor, sweet
Callista,” he exclaimed, “she’s innocent, she’s innocent; I mean she’s not
a Christian. Ah!” he screamed out in great agony, as the whole state of
the case unrolled itself to his apprehension, “she will die though not a
Christian; she will die without faith, without love; she will die in her
sins. She will die, done to death by false report of accepting that, by
which alone she could be carried safely through death unto life. O my
Lord, spare me!” and he sank upon the ground in a collapse of misery.
Jucundus was touched, and still more alarmed. “Come, come, my boy,” he
said, “you will rouse the whole neighbourhood. Give over; be a man; all
will be right. If she’s not a Christian (and she’s not), she shall not die
a Christian’s death; something will turn up. She’s not in any hole at all,
but in a decent lodging. And you shall see her, and console her, and all
will be right.”
“Yes, I will see her,” said Agellius, in a sort of musing manner; “she is
either a Christian, or she is not. If she is a Christian ...” and his
voice faltered; “but if she is not, she shall live till she is.”
“Well said!” answered Jucundus, “_till_ she is. She shall live _till_ she
is. Yes, I can get you to see her. You shall bring her out of prison; a
smile, a whisper from you, and all her fretfulness and ill-humour will
vanish, like a mist before the powerful burning sun. And we shall all be
as happy as the immortal gods.”
“O my uncle!” said Agellius, gravely. The language of Jucundus had shocked
him, and brought him to a better mind. He turned away from Jucundus, and
leant his face against the wall. Then he turned round again, and said, “If
she _is_ a Christian, I ought to rejoice, and I do rejoice; God be
praised. If she is not a Christian, I ought at once to make her one. If
she has already the penalty of a Christian, she is surely destined for the
privilege. And how should I go,” he said, half speaking to himself, “how
should I go to tell her that she is not yet a Christian, and bid her swear
by Jupiter, because that is her god, in order that she may escape
imprisonment and death? Am I to do the part of a heathen priest or infidel
sophist? O Cæcilius, how am I forgetting your lessons! No; I will go on no
such errand. Go, I will, if I may, Jucundus, but I will go on no
conditions of yours. I go on no promise to try to get her out of prison
anyhow, poor child. I will not go to make her sacrifice to a false god; I
go to persuade her to stay in prison, by deserving to stay. Perhaps I am
not the best person to go; but if I go, I go free. I go willing to die
myself for my Lord; glad to make her die for Him.”
Agellius said this in so determined a way, so calmly, with such a grasp of
the existing posture of affairs, and of the whole circumstances of the
case, that it was now Jucundus’s turn to feel surprise and annoyance. For
a time he did not take in what Agellius meant, nor could he to the last
follow his train of feeling. When he saw what may be called the upshot of
the matter, he became very angry, and spoke with great violence. By
degrees he calmed; and then the strong feeling came on him again that it
was impossible, if a meeting took place between the two, that it could end
in any way but one. He defied any two young people who loved each other,
to come to any but one conclusion. Agellius’s mood was too excited, too
tragic to last. The sight of Callista in that dreadful prison, perhaps in
chains, waiting, in order to be free, for ability to say the words, “I am
not a Christian;” and that ability waiting for the same words from
himself, would bring the affair to a very speedy issue. As if he could
love a fancy better than he loved Callista! Agellius, too, had already
expressed a misgiving himself on that head; so far they were agreed. And,
to tell the truth, it was a very difficult transaction for a young man;
and giving our poor Agellius all credit for pure intention and firm
resolve, we really should have been very sorry to see him involved in a
trial, which would have demanded of him a most heroic faith and the
detachment of a saint. We, therefore, are not sorry that in matter of fact
he gained the merit of so virtuous a determination, without being called
on to execute it. For it so happened, that a most unexpected event
occurred to him not many hours afterwards, which will oblige us to take up
here rather abruptly the history of one of our other personages.