ST. PAUL AT PUTEOLI
The Gospel first came to Europe in circumstances similar to those in
which it came into human history. Through poverty, shame, and
suffering--through the manger, the cross, and the sepulchre--did our
Saviour accomplish the salvation of the world; through stripes and
imprisonment, through the gloom of the inner dungeon and the pain and
shame of the stocks, did Paul and Silas declare at Philippi the glad
tidings of salvation. Out of the midnight darkness which enveloped the
apostles of the Cross, as they sang in the prison, came the marvellous
light that was destined to illumine all Europe. Out of the stocks
which held fast the feet that came to the shores of the West shod with
the preparation of the gospel of peace, to proclaim deliverance to the
captives, sprang that glorious liberty which has broken every fetter
that bound the bodies and souls of men throughout Christendom. After
the earthquake that shook the prison walls and released the prisoners
came the still, small voice of power, which overthrew the tyrannies
and superstitions of ages, and remade society from its very
foundations.
Very similar were the circumstances in which the apostle landed at the
quay of Puteoli. A weary, worn-out prisoner, accused by his own
countrymen, on his way to be judged at the tribunal of the Roman
emperor, associated with a troop of malefactors, St. Paul
disembarked, on the 3d of May of the year 59, from the ship _Castor
and Pollux_, after having gone through storm and shipwreck, and first
touched the shore of the wonderful land destined afterwards to be the
scene of the mightiest triumphs of the Gospel, and the most
enlightened centre for its diffusion throughout the world. Like the
birth of Rome itself, whose obscure foundation, according to the
beautiful myth, was laid by the outcast son of a Vestal Virgin, the
kingdom of the despised virgin-born Jesus of Nazareth that cometh not
with observation, stole unawares, amid the meanest circumstances, into
the very heart of the Roman world. Momentous events were taking place
at the time throughout the Roman Empire, attracting all eyes, and
engaging the attention of all minds; but the unnoticed landing at
Puteoli of the humble Jewish prisoner, judging by its marvellous
results, was by far the most important. It marked a new era in the
history of the world. And there was something significant in the
coincidence that St. Paul should have come to the Italian shore in the
ship _Castor and Pollux_, the names not merely of the patrons of
sailors, but also of the saviours of Rome. The mighty empire which
human tyranny had established has crumbled to pieces, and we walk
to-day amid its ruins; but the kingdom of peace and righteousness
which Paul came to inaugurate has spread from that coign of vantage
over all the earth, and in a world of death and change has impressed
upon the minds of men with a new force the idea of the eternal and the
unchangeable.
Earth holds no fairer scene than that which met the apostle's gaze as
he entered the bay of Puteoli. "See Naples, and die," is the cuckoo
cry of the modern tourist who visits this enchanted region; and such a
vision is indeed worthy to be the last imprinted upon a human retina.
It is called by the Italians themselves "Un pezzo di cielo caduto in
terra," a piece of heaven fallen upon earth. Shores that curve in
every line of beauty, holding out arm-like promontories, into whose
embrace the tideless sea runs up; mountain-ranges whose tops in
winter are covered with snow, and whose sides are draped with the
luxuriant vegetation of the South; a large city rising in a series of
semicircular terraces from the deep azure of the sea to the deep azure
of the mountains, whose eastern architecture flushes to a vivid rosy
hue in the afternoon light like some fabled city of the poets; and
dominating the glorious horizon the double peak of Vesuvius forming
the centre in which all the features of landscape loveliness are
focussed--crowned by its pillar of cloud by day and of fire by night.
Such is the picture upon which travellers crowd from the ends of the
earth to gaze.
Nor was the view different in its most important elements in the days
of the apostle. The same great forms of the landscape met the eye; and
the same magic play of light and colour, the same jewel-points
flashing in the waters, the same gleams of purple and crimson
wandering over town, and vineyard, and wood, transfigured the scene
then, which gives it more than half its loveliness now. But its human
elements were different. Swarming with life as are these shores at the
present day, they were even more populous then. Where we now wander
through picturesque ruins and silent solitudes, prosperous towns and
villages stood; and temples, palaces, and summer houses of patrician
magnificence crowded upon each other to such an extent that the sea
itself was invaded, and an older Venice rose from the waters along the
curves of its bays. The shores of Baiæ were the very centre of Roman
splendour. The emperor and his court spent a large part of the year
there; and noble families, that elsewhere had domains miles in extent,
were there satisfied with the smallest space upon which they could
build a house and plant a garden. Pompeii and Herculaneum, in all
their reckless gaiety, lay, unconscious of danger, at the foot of
Vesuvius, then a grassy mountain wooded to the summit with oak and
chestnut, and known from time immemorial as a field of pasture for
flocks and herds. The Bay of Misenum, now so solitary that the scream
of the sea-fowl is almost the only sound that breaks the stillness,
was crowded with the vessels of the Roman fleet, commanded by Pliny;
and its waters were alive with the pleasure-boats of the patrician
youths, filling the air with the music of their laughter and song.
Puteoli, or, as it is now called, Pozzuoli, a dull and stagnant
fourth-rate town, was then the Liverpool of Italy, carrying on an
immense trade in corn between Egypt and the western provinces of the
Roman Empire. It rivalled Delos in magnificence, and was called the
Little Rome. It had a splendid forum and harbour, and was guarded by
fortifications which resisted the repeated attacks of Hannibal. In
this region almost every famous Roman of the later days of the
Republic and the earlier days of the Empire had his sea-side villa to
which he retired from the noise and bustle of the Imperial City. It
was the Brighton or more properly the Bath of Rome; for though it was
frequented during the burning heats of summer for the sake of its
comparative coolness, it was principally chosen as a winter retreat to
escape from the frosts and snows of the north. Lucullus carried here
the gorgeous luxury and extravagance of his city life; here Augustus
and Hadrian had their palaces erected on vast piers thrown out into
the sea, whose waters still murmur over their remains; while Cicero
built here his _Puteolanum_, delightfully situated on the coast, and
surrounded by a shady grove, which he called his Academy, in imitation
of Plato, and where he composed his "Academia" and "De Fato." Hardly
an inch of the soil but is full of fragments of mosaic pavements. The
common stones of the road are often rich marbles, that formed part of
imperial structures; and the very dust on which you tread, if
analysed, would be found to be a powder of gems and precious stones.
But alas! in some of the fairest spots of earth man has been vilest;
and like the ancient Cities of the Plain, which stood in a region of
Edenic loveliness, the shores of the Bay of Naples were inhabited by
a race corrupted with the worst vices of Roman civilisation. Some of
the most dreadful crimes that have disgraced humanity were committed
on that radiant shore. Yonder sleeps in the azure distance the
enchanted isle of Capri, haunted for ever by dreadful memories of the
unnameable atrocities with which the Emperor Tiberius had stained its
peaceful bowers. On the neighbouring heights of Posilipo are traces of
the villa of Vedius, and of the celebrated fish-ponds where he fed his
_murenæ_ with the flesh of his disobedient slaves. On the shore of
Puteoli the apostle might have seen the remains of one of the maddest
freaks of imperial folly--the floating-bridge of Caligula, stretching
across the bay for nearly three miles, and decorated with the finest
mosaic pavements and sculpture. Over this useless bridge the insane
emperor drove in the chariot and armour of Alexander the Great, to
celebrate his triumph over the Parthians; and from it, on his return,
he ordered the crowd of inoffensive spectators to be hurled into the
sea. By withdrawing for the construction of this bridge the ships
employed in the harbour, the importation of corn was put a stop to,
and a grievous famine, felt even in Rome, was the result. And near at
hand was Bauli, where Nero--the very Cæsar to whom it is startling to
remember that St. Paul appealed, and before whom he was going to be
judged,--only two years before attempted the murder of his own mother,
Agrippina, which failed because of her discovery of the plot, but
which was most ruthlessly accomplished very soon afterwards. Here too
Marcellus was poisoned by Livia, that Tiberius might ascend the throne
of Augustus; and Domitian by Nero, that he might enjoy the wealth of
his aunt. Here Hadrian, a few days before his own miserable end,
compelled his beautiful and accomplished wife, Sabina, to put herself
to death, that she might not survive him in such a wretched world. And
in the cities at the foot of Vesuvius have been revealed to us, after
nature had kindly hidden them for eighteen centuries, tokens of a
depravity so utter, that we cannot help looking upon the fiery deluge
from the mountain, that soon after St. Paul's visit swept them out of
existence, as a Divine judgment like that of Sodom and Gomorrha. And
darker even than these monstrosities of wickedness was the divine
worship paid on these shores to the Roman emperors. It was a pitiable
spectacle when the sailors of an Alexandrian ship, coming into the
harbour of Puteoli, gave thanks for their prosperous voyage to the
dying Augustus, whom they met cruising on the waters vainly in search
of health, and offered him divine honours, which the gratified emperor
accepted, and rewarded with gifts. But what shall we think of the
worship of the god Caligula and the god Nero? Surely a people who
could raise altars and offer sacrifices to such unmitigated monsters
must have lost the very conception of religion. Not only virtue, but
the very belief in any source of virtue, must have been utterly
extirpated in them. When Herod spoke, the people said it was the voice
of God; and he was smitten with worms because he gave not God the
glory. And surely the superhuman wickedness of the Cæsars may be
regarded as a punishment, equally significant, of the fearful
blasphemy of the worshipped and the worshippers.
No wonder that the shores of Baiæ now present a picture of the saddest
desolation. Where man sins, there man suffers. The relation between
human crime and the barren wilderness is still as inflexibly
maintained as at the first. Until all recollection of the iniquities
of the place has passed away it is fitting that these silent shores
should remain the desert that they are. We should not wish the old
voluptuous magnificence revived; and these myrtle bowers can never
more regain the charm of virgin solitudes untainted by man. Italy,
like Palestine, has thus an accursed spot in its fairest region--a
visible monument to all ages, of the great truth that the tidal wave
of retribution will inevitably overwhelm every nation that forgets the
eternal distinctions of right and wrong.
St. Paul was a man of keen sensibilities and strong imagination. He
must therefore at Puteoli have been deeply impressed at once with the
loveliness of nature and the wickedness of man. The contrast would
present itself to him in a very painful manner. As at Athens--where
his spirit was moved within him when he saw the city wholly given up
to idolatry--so here he must have had that noble indignation against
the iniquities of the place--the outrages committed on the laws of
God, and the dishonour done to the nature of man made in the Divine
image--to which David and Jeremiah, and all the loftiest spirits of
mankind, have given such stern and yet patriotic utterance. What
others were callous to, filled him with keen shame and sorrow. He who
could have wished that himself were accursed from Christ for his
brethren, his kinsmen according to the flesh, must have had a profound
pity for these wretched victims of profligacy, who were looking in
their ignorance for salvation to a brutal mortal worse than
themselves,--"the son of perdition, sitting in the temple of God,
showing that he was God." And to this feeling of indignation and
sorrow, because of the wickedness of the place, must have been added a
feeling of personal despondency. From the significant circumstance
that the apostle thanked God, and took courage, when he met the
Christian brethren at Apii Forum, we may infer that he had previously
great heaviness of spirit. He would be more or less than human, if on
setting his foot for the first time on the native soil of the
conquerors of his country, and the lords of the whole world, and
seeing on every side, even at this distance from the imperial city,
overwhelming evidences of the luxury and power of the empire, he did
not feel oppressed with a sense of personal insignificance. Evil had
throned itself there on the high places of the earth, and could mock
at the puny efforts of the followers of Jesus to cast it down.
Idolatry had so deeply rooted itself in the interests and passions of
men which were bound up in its continuance, that it seemed a foolish
dream to expect that it would be supplanted by the preaching of the
Cross, which to St. Paul's own people was a stumbling-block and to all
other nations foolishness. And who was he that he should undertake
such a mission--a weak and obscure member of a despised race, a
prisoner chained to a soldier, appealing to Cæsar against the
condemnation of his own countrymen. We can well believe, that
notwithstanding the sustaining grace that was given to him, the heart
of the apostle must have been very heavy when he stood in the midst of
the jostling crowd on the quay of Puteoli, and took the first step
there on Italian soil of his journey to Rome. He felt most keenly all
that a man can feel of the shame and offence of the Cross; but
nevertheless he was not ashamed of the Gospel of Christ. And his
presence there on that Roman quay--a despised prisoner in bonds for
the sake of the Gospel--is a picture, that appeals to every heart, of
the triumph of Divine strength in the midst of human weakness; and a
most striking proof, moreover, that not by might, but by the Spirit of
love, does God bring down the strongholds of sin.
But God furnished a providential cure for whatever despondency the
apostle may have felt. No sooner did he land than he found himself
surrounded by Christian brethren, who cordially welcomed him, and
persuaded him to remain with them seven days. Such brotherly kindness
must have greatly cheered him; and the week spent among these loyal
followers of the Lord Jesus must have been a time of bodily and
spiritual refreshment opportunely fitting him for the trying
experiences before him. Doubtless these brethren were Jewish converts
to the Christian faith; for that there were Jewish residents at
Puteoli, residing in the Tyrian quarter of the city, we are assured by
Josephus; and this we should have expected from the mercantile
importance of the place and its intimate commercial relations with the
East. How they came under the influence of the Gospel we know not;
they may have been among "the strangers of Rome" who came to Jerusalem
at Pentecost to keep the national feasts in obedience to the Mosaic
Law, and who were then brought to the knowledge of the truth by the
preaching of St. Peter; or perhaps they were converts of St Paul's own
making, in some of the numerous places which he visited on his
missionary tours, and who afterwards came to reside for business
purposes at this port. We see in the presence of the Jewish brethren
at Puteoli one of the most striking illustrations of the providential
pre-arrangements made for the diffusion of the Gospel throughout all
nations. The Jews had a more than ordinary attachment to their native
land. Patriotism in their case was not only a passion, but a part of
their religion; and their love of country was entwined with the
holiest feelings of their nature. In Jerusalem alone could God be
acceptably worshipped. And yet it was divinely ordered that those who
had been for ages the hermits of the human race should become all at
once the most cosmopolitan, when the time for imparting to the world
the benefits of their isolated religious training had come. And the
Jews thus scattered abroad preserved amid their alien circumstances
their national worship and customs, and thus became the natural links
of connection between the missionaries of the Cross and the Gentiles
whom they wished to reach. Through such Jewish channels the Gospel
speedily penetrated into remote localities, which otherwise it would
have taken a long time to reach. We are struck with distinct traces of
the Christian faith in the time of St. Paul in the most unexpected
places. For instance, in the National Museum at Naples I have seen
rings with Christian emblems engraved upon them, which were found at
Pompeii; proving beyond doubt that there had been followers of Jesus
even in that dissolute place, who, unlike Lot and his household, were
overwhelmed in the same destruction with those whose evil deeds must
have daily vexed their righteous souls. The same symbols which we find
in the Roman Catacombs,--the palm branch, the sacred fish the monogram
of Jesus, the dove, are unmistakably represented on these rings. Some
of them are double, indicating that they were used by married persons:
one has the palm branch twice repeated; another exhibits the palm and
anchor; a third has a dove with a twig in its bill; and one ring has
the Greek word _elpis_--hope--inscribed upon it.
St. Paul at Puteoli may be said to have dwelt among his own people.
Not only was he with his own countrymen and fellow-disciples, but he
was in the midst of associations that forcibly recalled his home. The
apostle was a citizen of a Greek city, and the language in which he
spoke was Greek; and here, in the Bay of Naples, he was in the midst
of a Greek colony, where Roman influence had not been able to efface
the deep impression which Greece had made upon the place. The original
name of the splendid expanse of water before him was the Bay of Cumæ;
and Cumæ was absolutely the first Greek settlement in the western
seas. Neapolis or Parthenope was the beautiful Greek name of the city
of Naples, testifying to its Hellenic origin; and Dicæarchia was the
older Greek name of Puteoli, a name used to a late period in
preference to its Latin name, derived from the numerous mineral
springs in the neighbourhood. The whole lower part of Italy was wholly
Greek; its arts, its customs, its literature, were all Hellenic; and
its people belonged to the pure Ionic race whose keen imaginations and
vivid sensuousness seemed to have been created out of the fervid hues
and the pellucid air of their native land. Everywhere the subtle Greek
tongue might be heard; and all, so far as Greek influence was
concerned, was as unchanged in the days of the apostle as when
Pythagoras visited the region, and adopted the inhabitants as the
fittest agents in his great scheme of universal regeneration. St. Paul
therefore, at Puteoli, might have imagined himself standing on the
very soil of classic Hellas, and felt as much at home as in his own
native city of Tarsus. This wide diffusion of the Greek language
throughout the West as well as the East at this time is another of
the remarkable providential pre-arrangements which prepared the way
for the preaching of the Gospel throughout the world. A Gentile
speech, by a series of wonderful events, was thus made ready over all
the world to receive and to communicate the glorious Gospel that was
to be preached to all nations.
The remains of the ancient pier upon which St. Paul landed may still
be seen. Indeed, no Roman harbour has left behind such solid
memorials. No less than thirteen of the buttresses that supported its
arches are left, three lying under water; all constructed of brick
held together by that Roman cement called pozzolana, after the town of
Pozzuoli, whose extraordinary tenacity rivals that of the living rock.
You can plant your feet upon the very stones upon which the apostle
must have stood. And if you happen to be there on the 3d of May you
will see a solemn procession of the inhabitants of the decayed town,
headed by their priests, celebrating the anniversary of this memorable
incident. The first conspicuous object upon which the eye of the
apostle would rest on landing would be the Temple of Neptune, of which
a few pillars are still standing in the midst of the water. Here
Caligula, in his mad passage over his bridge of boats, paused to offer
propitiatory sacrifices. Here, too, Cæsar, before he sailed to Greece
to encounter the forces of Antony at Actium, sacrificed to Neptune;
and here the crew of every ship presented offerings, in order to
secure favouring winds and waves when outward bound, or in gratitude
when returning home from a successful voyage. Beyond this he would see
in all its splendour the famous bathing establishment built over a
thermal spring near the sea, which has since been known as the Temple
of Serapis, an Egyptian deity, whose worship had spread widely in
Italy. Three tall columns of cipollino marble, belonging to the
portico of this building, are still standing, with their bases under
water; and they have acquired a world-wide interest, especially to
geologists, as records of the successive elevations and depressions
of the coast-line during the historical period; these changes being
indicated on their shafts by the different watermarks and the
perforations of marine bivalves or boring-shells well known to be
living in the Mediterranean Sea. In the upper part of the town, on a
commanding height, he would behold the Temple of Augustus, built for
the worship of the deified founder of the Roman Empire. A Christian
cathedral dedicated to St. Proculus, who suffered martyrdom in the
same year with St. Januarius, containing the tomb of Pergolesi, the
celebrated musical composer, now occupies the site of the pagan
shrine, and has six of its Corinthian pillars, that looked down upon
the apostle as he landed, built into its walls. A temple of Diana and
a temple of the Nymphs also adorned the town, from which numerous
columns and sculptures have been recently recovered. On every side the
apostle would see mournful tokens that the city was wholly given up to
idolatry,--to the worship of mortal men and an ignoble crowd of gods
and goddesses borrowed from all nations; and yet he had equally sad
proofs that the idolatry was altogether a hollow and heartless
pretence,--that the superstitious creed publicly maintained by the
city had long ceased to command the respect of its recognised
defenders.
I walked up from the town along the remains of the Via Campana, a
cross-road that led from Puteoli to Capua and there joined the famous
Appian Way. Along this road the apostle passed on his way to Rome; and
it is still paved with the original lava-blocks upon which his feet
had pressed. One of the principal objects on the way is the
amphitheatre of Nero, with its tiers of seats, its arena, and its
subterranean passages, in a wonderful state of preservation, richly
plumed with the delicate fronds of the maiden-hair fern, which drapes
with its living loveliness so many of the ruins of Greece and Italy.
It was here that Nero himself rehearsed the parts in which he wished
to act on the more public stage of Rome. The sands of the arena were
dyed with the blood of St. Januarius, who was thrown to the wild
beasts by order of Diocletian, and whose blood is annually liquefied
by a supposititious miracle in Naples at the present day. Behind the
amphitheatre the apostle would get a glimpse of the famous Phlegræan
Fields so often referred to in the classic poets as the scene of the
wars of the gods and the giants.
This is the Holy Land of Paganism. All the scenery of the eleventh
book of the _Odyssey_ and of the sixth book of the _Æneid_ spreads
beneath the eye. At every step you come upon some spot associated with
the romantic literature of antiquity. From thence the imaginative
shapes of Greek mythology passed into the poetry of Rome. There
everything takes us back far beyond the birth of Roman civilisation,
and reminds us of the legends of the older Hellenic days, which will
exercise an undying spell on the higher minds of the human race down
to the latest ages. It is the land of Virgil, whose own tomb is not
far off; and under the guidance of his genius we visit the ghostly
Cimmerian shores, now bathed in glowing sunshine, and stand on spots
that thrilled the hearts of Hercules and Ulysses with awe. There the
terrible Avernus, to which the descent was so easy, sleeps in its deep
basin, long ago divested by the axe of Agrippa of the impenetrable
gloom and mysterious dread which its dark forests had created; its
steep banks partly covered with natural copsewood bright with a living
mosaic of cyclamens and lilies, and partly formed of cultivated
fields. During my visit the delicious odour of the bean blossom
pervaded the fields, reminding me vividly of familiar rural scenes far
away. Yonder is the subterranean passage called by the common people
the Sibyl's Cave, where Æneas came and plucked the golden bough, and,
led by the melancholy priestess of Apollo, went down to the dreary
world of the dead. It was the general tradition of Pagan nations that
the point of departure from this world, as well as the entrance to the
next, was always in the west. We find the largest number of the
prehistoric relics of the dead on the western shores of our own
country. The cave of Loch Dearg--at first connected with primitive
pagan rites and subsequently the traditional entrance to the Purgatory
of St. Patrick--is situated in the west of Ireland, and corresponds to
the cave of the Sibyl and the Lake of Avernus in Italy. Indeed the
word Avernus itself bears such a close resemblance to the Gaelic word
Ifrinn--the name of the infernal regions, and to the name of Loch
Hourn, the Lake of Hell, on the north-west coast of Scotland--that it
has given rise to the supposition that it was the legacy of a
prehistoric Celtic people who at one time inhabited the Phlegræan
Fields. On the other side of Lake Avernus is the Mare Morto, the Lake
or Sea of the Dead, with its memories of Charon and his ghostly crew,
which now shines in the setting sun like a field of gold sparkling
with jewels; and beyond it are the Elysian Fields, the abodes of the
blessed, the rich life of whose soil breaks out at every pore into a
luxuriant maze of vines and orange trees, and all manner of lovely and
fruitful vegetation. Still farther behind is the Acherusian Marsh of
the poets, now called the Lake of Fusaro, because hemp and flax are
put to steep in it; and the river Styx itself, by which the gods dare
not swear in vain, reduced to an insignificant rill flowing into the
sea. It is most interesting to think of the apostle Paul being
associated with this enchanted region. His presence on the scene is
necessary to complete its charm, and to remind us that the vain dreams
of those blind old seekers after God were all fulfilled in Him who
opened a door for us in heaven, and brought life and immortality to
light in the Gospel.
St. Paul must have noticed--though Scripture, intent only upon the
unfolding of the religious drama, makes no reference to it--the crater
of Solfatara, one of the most wonderful phenomena of this wonderful
region, for it lay directly in his path, and was only about a mile
distant from Puteoli. This was the famous Forum of Vulcan, where the
god fashioned his terrible tools, and shook the earth with the fierce
fires of his forge. On account of its gaseous fumaroles, and the
flames thrown out with a loud roaring noise from one gloomy cavern in
its side, this volcano may still be considered active. Its white
calcined crater is clothed in some places with green shrubs,
particularly with luxuriant sage, myrtle, and white heather; but an
eruption took place in it so late as 1198, during which a lava
current, a rare phenomenon in this district, flowed from its southern
edge to the sea, destroying the ancient cemetery on the Via Puteolana,
and forming the present promontory of Olibano. The ground sounds
hollow beneath a heavy tread, reminding one unpleasantly that but a
thin crust covers the fiery abyss which might break through at any
moment. With the exception of Vesuvius, this is the only surviving
remnant of the fierce elemental forces which have devastated this
coast in every direction. The whole region is one mass of craters of
various sizes and ages, some far older than Vesuvius, and others of
comparatively recent origin. They are all craters of eruption and not
of elevation; and in their formation they have interfered with and in
some cases almost obliterated pre-existing ones. Some of them are
filled with lakes, and others clothed with luxuriant vineyards, and
wild woods fit for the chase, or encircling cultivated fields. To one
looking upon it from a commanding position such as the heights of
Posilipo, the landscape presents a universally blistered appearance.
Hot mineral springs everywhere abound, often associated with the ruins
of old Roman baths; and the soil is a white felspathic ash, disposed
in layers of such fineness and regularity that they look as if they
had been stratified under water, the sea and the shore having
alternately given place to each other. Of the white earth abounding on
every side, which has given to the place the old name of Campi
Leucogæi, and is the result of the metamorphosis of the trachytic tufa
by the chemical action of the gases that rise up through the
fumaroles, a very fine variety of porcelain--known to collectors as
Capo di Monti--used to be made on the hill behind Naples, and it has
been supposed that the china clays of Cornwall and other places have
been produced from the felspars of the granites in a similar way. The
whole of the Solfatara crater has been enclosed for the purpose of
manufacturing alum from its soil. On the hillside to the north there
are several caverns, called _stufe_, from whence gas and hot steam
arise, and these are used by the inhabitants as admirable vapour
baths. So late as the year 1538 a terrible volcanic explosion,
accompanied with violent earthquakes, happened not far from Puteoli,
which threw up from the flat plain on which the village of Tripergola
stood, a mountain called Monte Nuovo, four hundred and forty feet high
and a mile and a half in circumference, consisting entirely of ashes
and cinders, obliterating a large part of the celebrated Leucrine
Lake, elevating the site of the temple of Serapis sixteen feet, and
then depressing it, and generally changing the old features of this
locality. This eruption gave relief to the throes of Lake Avernus,
which henceforth ceased to send forth its exhalations, and became the
cheerful garden scene which we now behold.
Here on a small scale, in the very neighbourhood of man's busiest
haunts, occur the cosmical cataclysms which are usually seen only in
remote solitudes, and which during the unknown ages of geology have
left their indelible records on large portions of the earth's surface.
Here we are admitted into the very workshop of Nature, and are
privileged to witness her processes of creation. In the neighbourhood
of Rome the volcanoes are long extinct. Nature is dead, and there is
nothing left but her cold gray ashes. But here we see her in all her
vigour, changing and renewing and mingling the ruins of her works in
strange association with those of man--the ashes of her volcanoes with
the fragments of temples and baths and the houses of Roman senators
and poets. The whole region lies over a burning mystery, and one has
a constant feeling of insecurity lest the ground should open suddenly
and precipitate one into the very heart of it. Naples itself, strange
to say, a city of more than five hundred thousand inhabitants, is
built in great part within an old broken-down volcanic crater, and the
proximity of its awful neighbour shows that it stands perilously on
the brink of destruction, and may share at any time the fate of
Pompeii and Herculaneum. Were it not for the safety-valves of Vesuvius
and Solfatara, the whole intermediate region, with its towns and
villages and swarming population, would be blown into the air by the
vehement forces that are struggling beneath. It was this elemental
war--fiercer, we have reason to believe, in classic times than
now--that gave rise to the religious fables of the poets. The gloomy
shades of Avernus, the tremendous battles of the gods, the dark
pictures of Tartarus and the Stygian river, were the supernatural
suggestions of a fiery soil. To the fierce throes of volcanic action
we owe the weird mythology of the ancients, which has imparted such a
profound charm to the region, and also, strange as it may seem, the
surpassing loveliness of Nature herself. The fairest regions of the
earth are ever those where the awful power of fire has been at work,
giving to the landscape that passionate expression which lights up a
human face with its most impressive beauty.
The visit of the apostle to Puteoli served many important purposes. He
who had sent his people Israel into Egypt and Babylon that they might
be benefited by coming into contact with other civilisations, sent St.
Paul to this famous region where Greece and Rome--which,
geographically and historically, were turned back to back, the face of
Greece looking eastward, the face of Italy looking westward--seemed to
meet and to blend into each other, in order that his sympathies might
be expanded by coming into contact with all that man could realise of
earthly glory or conceive of religion. We can trace the overruling
Hand that was shaping the destinies of the Church in the course which
he was led to take from Jerusalem to Damascus, and thence to Asia
Minor, Corinth, Athens, Philippi, Puteoli, and Rome; gathering as he
went along the fruits of all the wide diversity of experience and
culture characterising these places, to equip him more thoroughly for
his work for the Gentiles. And we see also how the doctrines of the
Gospel were becoming more clearly and fully unfolded by this method of
progression; how questions were settled and principles carried out
which have shown to us the exceeding riches of Divine grace in a way
that we could not otherwise have known. Like the lines and marks of
the chrysalis which appear on the body of the butterfly when it first
spreads out its wings to fly--like the folds of the bud which may be
seen in the newly-expanded leaf or flower--so Christianity at first
emerged from its Jewish sheath with the distinctive marks of Judaism
upon it. But as it passed westward from the Holy City, it slowly
extricated itself out of the spirit and the trammels of Judaism into
the self-restraining freedom which Christ gives to His people. The
teaching of the Gospel was fully developed, guarded from all possible
misinterpretation, and practically applied to all representative
circumstances of men, through its coming into contact with the events,
persons, and scenes associated with the wonderful missionary
journeyings of the apostle Paul, which began at Jerusalem and
terminated at Rome. When the Gospel reached the Imperial City, its
relations to Jews and Gentiles, bond and free, were fixed for ever,
its own form was perfected, and the conditions for its diffusion
matured; and its history henceforth, like that of Rome itself, was
synonymous with the history of the world.
_Printed by_ R. & R. CLARK, _Edinburgh_.
WORKS BY THE REV. HUGH MACMILLAN, LL.D., F.R.S.E.
BIBLE TEACHINGS IN NATURE. Fifteenth Edition. Crown 8vo, cloth. 6s.
"Ably and eloquently written. It is a thoughtful book, and one that is
prolific of thought."--_Pall Mall Gazette_.
"Mr. Macmillan writes extremely well, and has produced a book which
may be fitly described as one of the happiest efforts for enlisting
physical science in the direct service of religion. Under his
treatment she becomes the willing handmaid of an instructed and
contemplative devotion."--_The Guardian_.
"We part from Mr. Macmillan with exceeding gratitude. He has made the
world more beautiful to us, and unsealed our ears to voices of praise
and messages of love that might otherwise have been unheard. We
commend the volume not only as a valuable appendix to works of natural
theology, but as a series of prose idylls of unusual merit."--_British
Quarterly Review_.
_SEQUEL TO "BIBLE TEACHINGS IN NATURE."_
THE SABBATH OF THE FIELDS. Fifth Edition. Globe 8vo. 6s.
"This book is a worthy sequel to Mr. Macmillan's admirable 'Bible
Teachings in Nature.' In it there is the same intimate communion with
nature and the same kind of spiritual instruction as in its
predecessor."--_Standard_.
"This volume, like all Dr. Macmillan's productions, is very delightful
reading, and of a special kind. Imagination, natural science, and
religious instruction are blended together in a very charming
way."--_British Quarterly Review_.
OUR LORD'S THREE RAISINGS FROM THE DEAD. Globe 8vo. 6s.
"His narrative style is pleasant, and his reflections
sensible."--_Westminster Review_.
THE MINISTRY OF NATURE. Seventh Edition. Globe 8vo. 6s.
"The author exhibits throughout his writings the happiest
characteristics of a God-fearing, and, withal, essentially liberal and
unprejudiced mind. Of the Essays themselves we cannot speak in terms
of too warm admiration."--_Standard_.
"We can give unqualified praise to this most charming and suggestive
volume. As studies of nature they are new and striking in information,
beautiful in description, rich in spiritual thought, and especially
helpful and instructive to all religious teachers. If a preacher
desires to see how he can give freshness to his ministry, how he can
clothe old and familiar truths in new forms, and so invest them with
new attractions, how he can secure real beauty and interest without
straining after effect, he could not do better than study this
book."--_Nonconformist_.
THE TRUE VINE; OR, THE ANALOGIES OF OUR LORD'S ALLEGORY. Fifth
Edition. Globe 8vo. 6s.
"The volume strikes us as being especially well suited for a book of
devotional reading."--_Spectator_.
"Mr. Macmillan has thrown beautiful light upon many points of natural
symbolism. Readers and preachers who are unscientific will find many
of his illustrations as valuable as they are beautiful."--_British
Quarterly Review_.
"It abounds in exquisite bits of description, and in striking facts
clearly stated."--_Nonconformist_.
FIRST FORMS OF VEGETATION. Second Edition. Corrected and Enlarged.
With Coloured Frontispiece and numerous Illustrations. Globe 8vo. 6s.
The first edition of this book was published under the name of
"Footnotes from the Page of Nature; or, First Forms of Vegetation."
Upwards of a hundred pages of new matter have been added to this new
edition, and eleven new illustrations.
"Probably the best popular guide to the practical study of mosses,
lichens, and fungi ever written. Its practical value as a help to the
student and collector cannot be exaggerated, and it will be no less
useful in calling the attention of others to the wonders of nature in
the most modern products of the vegetable world."--_Manchester
Examiner_.
HOLIDAYS ON HIGH LANDS; OR, RAMBLES AND INCIDENTS IN SEARCH OF ALPINE
PLANTS. Second Edition. Revised and Enlarged. Globe 8vo. 6s.
"A series of delightful lectures on the botany of some of the best
known mountain regions."--_Guardian_.
"Mr. Macmillan's glowing pictures of Scandinavian nature are enough to
kindle in every tourist the desire to take the same interesting high
lands for the scenes of his own autumn holidays."--_Saturday Review_.
TWO WORLDS ARE OURS. Third Edition. Globe 8vo. 6s.
"Any one of the chapters may be taken up separately and read with
pleasure and profit by those whose hours for helpful reading are
limited. The ease and grace of style common to all Dr. Macmillan's
writings are palpable in this volume. The miracles of the Old
Testament, as well as the teachings of nature, have interesting
elucidations in it, and readers have the benefit of scriptural studies
and extensive researches in nature and science, made by the author, to
add to their information and sustain their interest."--_The
Theological Quarterly_.
THE MARRIAGE IN CANA OF GALILEE. Globe 8vo. 6s.
"Dr. Macmillan expounds the circumstances of this miracle with much
care, with a good sense and a sound judgment that are but rarely at
fault, and with some happy illustrations supplied by his knowledge of
natural precept."--_The Spectator_.
THE OLIVE LEAF. Globe 8vo. 6s.
"Distinguished by felicity of style, delicate insight, and apt
application of the phenomena of nature to spiritual truths that have
rendered the author's previous writings popular. These fresh studies
of forest trees, foliage, and wild flowers are very pleasant
reading."--_Saturday Review_.
MACMILLAN AND CO., LONDON.