the Emperor, which some construe into the expression of unfavorable
sentiments toward us. I allude to the appointment of Fronto, Nigridius
Fronto, to be chief priest of the temple of the Sun, which has these
several years been building, and is now just completed. This man
signalized himself, both under Decius and Valerian, for his bitter
hatred of the Christians, and his untiring zeal in the work of their
destruction. The tales which are told of his ferocious barbarity, would
be incredible, did we not know so well what the hard Roman heart is
capable of. It is reported of him, that he informed against his own
sisters, who had embraced the Christian faith, was with those who hunted
them with blood-hounds from their place of concealment, and stood by, a
witness and an executioner, while they were torn limb from limb, and
devoured. I doubt not the truth of the story. And from that day to this,
has he made it his sole office to see that all the laws that bear hard
upon the sect, and deprive them of privileges and immunities, are not
permitted to become a dead letter. It is this man, drunk with blood,
whom Aurelian has put in chief authority in his new temple, and made
him, in effect, the head of religion in the city. He is however not only
this. He possesses other traits, which with reason might commend him to
the regard of the Emperor. He is an accomplished man, of an ancient
family, and withal no mean scholar. He is a Roman, who for Rome's honor
or greatness, as he would on the one hand sacrifice father, mother,
daughter, so would he also himself. And Rome, he believes, lives but in
her religion; it is the life-blood of the state. It is these traits, I
doubt not, that have recommended him to Aurelian, rather than the
others. He is a person eminently fitted for the post to which he is
exalted; and you well know that it is the circumstance of fitness,
Aurelian alone considers, in appointing his own or the servants of the
state. Probus thinks differently. And although he sees no cause to
apprehend immediate violence, confesses his fears for the future. He
places less reliance than I do upon the generosity or friendship of
Aurelian. It is his conviction that superstition is the reigning power
of his nature, and will sooner or later assert its supremacy. It may be
so. Probus is an acute observer, and occupies a position more favorable
to impartial estimates, and the formation of a dispassionate judgment,
than I.
This reminds me that you asked for news of Probus, my 'Christian
pedagogue,' as you are wont to name him. He is here, adorning, by a life
of severe simplicity and divine benevolence, the doctrine he has
espoused. He is a frequent inmate of our house, and Julia, not less than
myself, ever greets him with affectionate reverence, as both friend and
instructor. He holds the chief place in the hearts of the Roman
Christians; for even those of the sect who differ from him in doctrine
and in life, cannot but acknowledge that never an apostle presented to
the love and imitation of his followers an example of rarer virtue. Yet
he is not, in the outward rank which he holds, at the head of the
Christian body. Their chiefs are, as you know, the bishops, and Felix is
Bishop of Rome, a man every way inferior to Probus. But he has the good
or ill fortune to represent more popular opinions, in matters both of
doctrine and practice than the other, and of course easily rides into
the posts of trust and honor. Ho represents those among the
Christians--for, alas! there are such among them--who, in seeking the
elevation and extension of Christianity, do not hesitate to accommodate
both doctrine and manner to the prejudices and tastes of both Pagan and
Jew. They seek converts, not by raising them to the height of Christian
principle and virtue, but by lowering these to the level of their
grosser conceptions. Thus it is easy to see that in the hands of such
professors, the Christian doctrine is undergoing a rapid process of
deterioration. Probus, and those who are on his part, see this, are
alarmed, and oppose it; but numbers are against them, and consequently
power and authority. Already, strange as it may seem, when you compare
such things with the institution of Christianity, as effected by its
founder, do the bishops, both in Rome and in the provinces, begin to
assume the state and bearing of nobility. Such is the number and wealth
of the Christian community, that the treasuries of the churches are
full; and from this source the pride and ambition of their rulers are
luxuriously fed. If, as you walk through the street which crosses from
the Quirinal to the Arch of Titus, lined with private dwellings of
unusual magnificence, you ask whose is that with a portico, that for
beauty and costliness rather exceeds the rest, you are told, 'That is
the dwelling of Felix, the Bishop of Rome;' and if it chance to be a
Christian who answers the question, it is done with ill-suppressed pride
or shame, according to the party to which he belongs. This Felix is the
very man, through the easiness of his dispositions, and his proneness to
all the arts of self-indulgence, and the imposing graciousness of his
carriage, to keep the favor of the people, and at the same time sink
them, without suspicion on their part, lower and lower toward the
sensual superstitions, from which, through so much suffering and by so
many labors, they have but just escaped, and accomplish an adulterous
and fatal union between Christianity and Paganism; by which indeed
Paganism may be to some extent purified and exalted, but Christianity
defiled and depressed. For Christianity, in its essence, is that which
beckons and urges onward, not to excellence only, but to perfection. Of
course its march is always in advance of the present. By such union with
Paganism then, or Judaism, its essential characteristic will disappear;
Christianity will, in effect, perish. You may suppose, accordingly, that
Probus, and others who with him rate Christianity so differently, look
on with anxiety upon this downward tendency, and with mingled sorrow and
indignation upon those who aid it--oftentimes actuated, as is notorious,
by most corrupt motives.
* * * * *
I am just returned from the shop of the learned Publius, where I met
Probus, and others of many ways of thinking. You will gather from what
occurred, better than from anything else I could say, what occupies the
thoughts of our citizens, and how they stand affected.
I called to Milo to accompany me, and to take with him a basket in which
to bring back books, which it was my intention to purchase.
'I trust, noble master,' said he, 'that I am to bear back no more
Christian books.'
'Why so?'
'Because the priests say that they have magical powers over all who read
them, or so much as handle them; that a curse sticks wherever they are
or have been. I have heard of those who have withered away to a mere
wisp; of others who have suddenly caught on fire, and vanished in flame
and smoke; and of others, whose blood has stood still, frozen, or run
out from all parts of the body, changed to the very color of your shoe,
at their bare touch. Who should doubt that it is so, when the very boys
in the streets have it, and it is taught in the temples? I would rather
Solon, noble master, went in my stead. Mayhap his learning would protect
him.'
I, laughing, bade him come on. 'You are not withered away yet, Milo, nor
has your blood run out; yet you have borne many a package of these
horrible books. Surely the gods befriend you.'
'I were else long since with the Scipios.' After a pause of some length,
he added, as he reluctantly, and with features of increased paleness,
followed in my steps:
'I would, my master, that you might be wrought with to leave these ways.
I sleep not for thinking of your danger. Never, when it was my sad
mischance to depart from the deserted palace of the great Gallienus, did
I look to know one to esteem like him. But it is the truth when I
affirm, that I place Piso before Gallienus, and the lady Julia before
the lady Salonina. Shall I tell you a secret?'
'I will hear it, if it is not to be kept.'
'It is for you to do with it as shall please you. I am the bosom friend,
you may know, of Curio, the favorite slave of Fronto--'
'Must I not publish it?'
'Nay, that is not the matter, though it is somewhat to boast of. There
is not Curio's fellow in all Rome. But that may pass. Curio then, as I
was with him at the new temple, while he was busied in some of the last
offices before the dedication, among other things, said: 'Is not thy
master Piso of these Christians?' 'Yes,' said I, 'he is; and were they
all such as he, there could be no truth in what is said of them.' 'Ah!'
he replied, 'there are few among the accursed tribe like him. He has but
just joined them; that's the reason he is better than the rest. Wait
awhile, and see what he will become. They are all alike in the end,
cursers, and despisers, and disbelievers, of the blessed gods. But lions
have teeth, tigers have claws, knives cut, fire burns, water drowns.'
There he stopped. 'That's wise,' I said, 'who could have known it?'
'Think you,' he rejoined, 'Piso knows it? If not, let him ask Fronto.
Let me advise thee,' he added, in a whisper, though in all the temple
there were none beside us, 'let me advise thee, as thy friend, to avoid
dangerous company. Look to thyself; the Christians are not safe.' 'How
say you,' I replied, 'not safe? What and whom are they to fear?
Gallienus vexed them not. Is Aurelian----' 'Say no more,' he replied,
interrupting me, 'and name not what I have dropped, for your life.
Fronto's ears are more than the eyes of Argus, and his wrath more deadly
than the grave.'
'Just as he ended these words, a strong beam of red light shot up from
the altar, and threw a horrid glare over the whole dark interior. I
confess I cried out with affright. Curio started at first, but quickly
recovered, saying that it was but the sudden flaming up of the fire that
had been burning on the altar, but which shortly before he had quenched.
'It is,' said he, 'an omen of the flames that are to be kindled
throughout Rome.' This was Curio's communication. Is it not a secret
worth knowing?'
'It tells nothing, Milo, but of the boiling over of the wrath of the
malignant Fronto, which is always boiling over. Doubtless I should fare
ill, were his power equal to his will to harm us. But Aurelian is above
him.'
'That is true; and Aurelian, it is plain, is little like Fronto.'
'Very little.'
'But still I would that, like Gallienus, thou couldst only believe in
the gods. The Christians, so it is reported, worship and believe in but
a man,--a Jew,--who was crucified as a criminal, with thieves and
murderers.' He turned upon me a countenance full of unaffected horror.
'Well, Milo, at another time I will tell you what the truth about it is.
Here we are now, at the shop of Publius.'
The shop of Publius is remarkable for its extent and magnificence, if
such a word may be applied to a place of traffic. Here resort all the
idlers of learning and of leisure, to turn over the books, hear the
news, discuss the times, and trifle with the learned bibliopole. As I
entered, he saluted me in his customary manner, and bade me 'welcome to
his poor apartments, which for a long time,' he said, 'I had not honored
with my presence.'
I replied that two things had kept me away: the civil broils in which
the city had just been involved, and the care of ordering the
appointments of a new dwelling. I had come now to commence some
considerable purchases for my vacant shelves, if it might so happen that
the books I wanted were to be found in his rooms.
'There is not,' he replied, 'a literature, a science, a philosophy, an
art, or a religion, whose principal authors are not to be found upon
the walls of Publius. My agents are in every corner of the empire, of
the east and west, searching out the curious and the rare, the useful
and the necessary, to swell the catalogue of my intellectual riches. I
believe it is established, that in no time before me, as nowhere now,
has there been heard of a private collection like this for value and for
number.'
'I do not doubt what you say, Publius. This is a grand display. Your
ranges of rooms show like those of the Ulpian. Yet you do not quite
equal, I suppose, Trajan's for number?'
'Truly not. But time may bring it to pass. What shall I show you? It
pleases me to give my time to you. I am not slow to guess what it is you
now, noble Piso, chiefly covet. And I think, if you will follow me to
the proper apartment, I can set before you the very things you are in
search of. Here upon these shelves are the Christian writers. Just let
me offer you this copy of Hegesippus, one of your oldest historians, if
I err not. And here are some beautifully executed copies, I have just
ordered to be made, of the Apologies of Justin and Tertullian. Here,
again, are Marcion and Valentinus; but perhaps they are not in esteem
with you. If I have heard aright, you will prefer these tracts of Paul,
or Artemon. But hold, here is a catalogue. Be pleased to inspect it.'
As I looked over the catalogue, I expressed my satisfaction that a
person of his repute was willing to keep on sale works so generally
condemned, and excluded from the shops of most of his craft.
'I aim, my dear friend--most worthy Piso--to steer a midway course among
contending factions. I am myself a worshipper of the gods of my fathers.
But I am content that others should do as they please in the matter, I
am not, however, so much a worshipper--in your ear--as a bookseller.
That is my calling. The Christians are become a most respectable people.
They are not to be overlooked. They are, in my judgment, the most
intelligent part of our community. Wasting none of their time at the
baths and theatres, they have more time for books. And then their
numbers too! They are not fewer than seventy thousand!--known and
counted. But the number, between ourselves, Piso of those who secretly
favor or receive this doctrine, is equal to the other! My books go to
houses, ay, and to palaces, people dream not of.'
'I think your statements a little broad,' said a smooth, silvery voice,
close at our ears. We started, and beheld the Prefect Varus standing at
our side. Publius was for a moment a little disconcerted; but quickly
recovered, saying in his easy way, 'A fair morning to you! I knew not
that it behooved me to be upon my oath, being in the presence of the
Governor of Rome. I repeat, noble Varus, but what I hear. I give what I
say as the current rumor. That is all--that is all. Things may not be
so, or they may; it is not for me to say. I wish well to all; that is my
creed.'
'In the public enumerations of the citizens,' replied the Prefect,
inclining with civility to Publius, 'the Christians have reached at no
time fifty thousand. As for the conjecture touching the number of those
who secretly embrace this injurious superstition, I hold it utterly
baseless. It may serve a dying cause to repeat such statements, but they
accord not with obvious fact.'
'Suspect me not, Varus,' hastily rejoined the agitated Publius, 'of
setting forth such statements with the purpose to advance the cause of
the Christians. I take no part in this matter. Thou knowest that I am a
Roman of the old stamp. Not a Roman in my street is more diligently
attentive to the services of the temple than I. I simply say again, what
I hear as news of my customers. The story which one rehearses, I retail
to another.'
'I thank the gods it is so,' replied the man of power.
'During these few words, I had stood partly concealed by a slender
marble pillar. I now turned, and the usual greetings passed with the
Prefect.
'Ah! Piso! I knew not with certainty my hearer. Perhaps from
you'--smiling as he spoke--'we may learn the truth. Rome speaks loudly
of your late desertion of the religion and worship of your fathers, and
union with the Galileans. I should say, I hoped the report ill founded,
had I not heard it from quarters too authentic to permit a doubt.'
'You have heard rightly, Varus,' I rejoined. 'After searching through
all antiquity after truth, I congratulate myself upon having at last
discovered it, and where I least expected, in a Jew. And the good which
I have found for myself, I am glad to know is enjoyed by so many more of
my fellow-citizens. I should not hesitate to confirm the statement made
by Publius, from whatever authority he may have derived it, rather than
that which has been made by yourself. I have bestowed attention not only
upon the arguments which support Christianity, but upon the actual
condition of the Christian community, here and throughout the empire.
It is prosperous at this hour, beyond all former example. If Pliny could
complain, even in his day, of the desertion of the temples of the gods,
what may we now suppose to be the relative numbers of the two great
parties? Only, Varus, allow the rescript of Gallienus to continue in
force, which merely releases us from oppressions, and we shall see in
what a fair trial of strength between the two religions will issue.'
'That dull profligate and parricide,' replied Varus, 'not content with
killing himself with his vices, and his father by connivance, must needs
destroy his country by his fatuity. I confess, that till that order be
repealed, the superstition will spread.'
'But it only places us upon equal ground.'
'It is precisely there where we never should be placed. Should the
conspirator be put upon the ground of a citizen? Were the late rebels of
the mint to be relieved from all oppression, that they might safely
intrigue and conspire for the throne?'
'Christianity has nothing to do with the empire,' I answered, 'as such.
It is a question of moral, philosophical, religious truth. Is truth to
be exalted or suppressed by edicts?'
'The religion of the state,' replied Varus, 'is a part of the state; and
he who assails it, strikes at the dearest life of the state,
and--forgive me--is to be dealt with--ought to be dealt with--as a
traitor.'
'I trust,' I replied, 'that that time will never again come, but that
reason and justice will continue to bear sway. And it is both reasonable
and just, that persons who yield to none in love of country, and whose
principles of conduct are such as must make good subjects everywhere,
because they first make good men, should be protected in the enjoyment
of rights and privileges common to all others.'
'If the Christians,' he rejoined, 'are virtuous men, it is better for
the state than if they were Christians and corrupt men. But still that
would make no change in my judgment of their offence. They deny the gods
who preside over this nation, and have brought it up to its present
height of power and fame. Their crime were less, I repeat, to deny the
authority of Aurelian. This religion of the Galileans is a sore, eating
into the vitals of an ancient and vigorous constitution, and must be cut
away. The knife of the surgeon is what the evil cries out for and must
have--else come universal rottenness and death. I mourn that from the
ranks of the very fathers of the state, they have received an accession
like this of the house of Piso.'
'I shall think my time and talent well employed,' I replied, 'in doing
what I may to set the question of Christianity in its true light before
the city. It is this very institution, Varus, which it needs to preserve
it. Christianize Rome, and you impart the very principle of endurance,
of immortality. Under its present corruptions, it cannot but sink. Is it
possible that a community of men can long hold together as vicious as
this of Rome?--whose people are either disbelievers of all divine
existences, or else ground to the earth by the most degrading
superstitions? A nation, either on the one hand governed by
superstition, or, on the other, atheistical, contains within itself the
disease which sooner or later will destroy it. You yourself, it is
notorious, have never been within the walls of a temple, nor are Lares
or Penates to be found within your doors.'
'I deny it not,' rejoined the Prefect. 'Most who rise to any
intelligence, must renounce, if they ever harbored it, all faith in the
absurdities and nonsense of the Roman religion. But what then? These
very absurdities, as we deem them, are holy truth to the multitude, and
do more than all bolts, bars, axes, and gibbets, to keep them in
subjection. The intelligent are good citizens by reflection; the
multitude, through instincts of birth, and the power of superstition. My
idea is, as you perceive, Piso, but one. Religion is the state, and for
reasons of state must be preserved in the very form in which it has so
long upheld the empire.'
'An idea more degrading than yours, to our species,' I replied, 'can
hardly be conceived. I cannot but look upon man as something more than a
part of the state. He is, first of all, a man, and is to be cared for as
such. To legislate for the state, to the ruin of the man, is to pamper
the body, and kill the soul. It is to invert the true process. The
individual is more than the abstraction which we term the state. If
governments cannot exist, nor empires hold their sway, but by the
destruction of the human being, why let them fall. The lesser must yield
to the greater. As a Christian, my concern is for man as man. This is
the essence of the religion of Christ. It is philanthropy. It sees in
every human soul a being of more value than empires, and its purpose is,
by furnishing it with truths and motives, equal to its wants, to exalt
it, purify it, and perfect it. If, in achieving this work, existing
religions or governments are necessarily overturned or annihilated,
Christianity cares not, so long as man is the gainer. And is it not
certain, that no government could really be injured, although it might
apparently, and for a season, by its subjects being raised in all
intelligence and all virtue? My work therefore, Varus, will be to sow
truth in the heart of the people, which shall make that heart fertile
and productive. I do not believe that in doing this Rome will suffer
injury, but on the contrary receive benefit. Its religion, or rather its
degrading superstitions, may fall, but a principle of almighty energy
and divine purity will insensibly be substituted in their room. I labor
for man--not for the state.'
'And never, accordingly, most noble Piso, did man, in so unequivocal
words, denounce himself traitor.'
'Patriot! friend! benefactor! rather;' cried a voice at my side, which I
instantly recognized as that of Probus. Several beside himself had drawn
near, listening with interest to what was going on.
'That only shows, my good friend,' said Varus, in his same smiling way,
and which seems the very contradiction of all that is harsh and cruel,
'how differently we estimate things. Your palate esteems that to be
wholesome and nutritious food, which mine rejects as ashes to the taste,
and poison to the blood. I behold Rome torn and bleeding, prostrate and
dying, by reason of innovations upon faith and manners, which to you
appear the very means of growth, strength, and life. How shall we
resolve the doubt--how reconcile the contradiction? Who shall prescribe
for the patient? I am happy in the belief, that the Roman people have
long since decided for themselves, and confirm their decision every day
as it passes, by new acts and declarations.'
'If you mean,' said Probus, 'to say that numbers and the general voice
are still against the Christians, I grant it so. But I am happy too in
my belief, that the scale is trembling on the beam. There are more and
better than you wot of, who hail with eager minds and glad hearts, the
truths which it is our glory, as servants of Christ, to propound. Within
many a palace upon the seven hills, do prayers go up in his name; and
what is more, thousands upon thousands of the humbler ranks, of those
who but yesterday were without honor in their own eyes, or
others'--without faith--at war with themselves and the world--fit tools
for and foe of the state to work with--are to-day reverers of
themselves, worshippers of God, lovers of mankind, patriots who love
their country better than ever before, because they now behold in every
citizen not only a citizen, but a brother and an immortal. The doctrine
of Christianity, as a lover of man, so commends itself, Varus, to the
hearts of the people, that in a few more years of prosperity, and the
face of the Roman world will glow with a new beauty; love and humanity
will shine forth in all its features.