why. But that seems to be the only way of saving the old religion; and I
don't know what way you can possibly have of showing that a religion of
yesterday is true, if a religion of a thousand years old is to be made
out false. If religion is good for anything--and I for one think it
is--I think men ought to be compelled to have it and support it, just as
they should be to eat wholesome food, rather than poisonous or hurtful.
The laws won't permit us to carry certain things to market, nor others
in a certain state. If we do, we are fined or imprisoned. Treat a
Christian in the same way, say I. Let them just go thoroughly to work,
and our temples will soon be filled again.'
'But these Christians,' I observed, 'seem to be a harmless people.'
'But they have no religion, that anybody can call such. They have no
gods, nor altars, nor sacrifices; such can never be harmless. To be
sure, as to sacrifices, I think there is such a thing as doing too much.
I am not for human sacrifices. Nor do I see the need of burning up a
dozen fat oxen or heifers, as was done the other day at the Temple of
the Sun. We in Norentum burn nothing but the hoofs and some of the
entrails, and the rest goes to the priest for his support. As I take it,
a sacrifice is just a sign of readiness to do everything and lose
everything for the gods. We are not expected to throw either ourselves,
or our whole substance upon the altar; making the sign is sufficient.
But, as I said, these Christians have no altar and no sacrifice, nor
image of god or goddess. They have, at Norentum, an old ruinous
building--once a market--where they meet for worship; but those who have
been present say, that nothing is to be seen; and nothing heard but
prayers--to what god no one knows--and exhortations of the priests. Some
say, that elsewhere they have what they call an altar, and adorn their
walls with pictures and statues. However all this may be, there seems to
be some charm about them, or their worship, for all the world is running
after them. I long for the news I shall get from Varenus Hirtius. If
these omens have not set the Emperor at work for us, nothing will. Here
we are at the gates, and I turn toward the Claudian market. May the day
go happily with you.'
So we parted; and I bent my way toward the gardens of Sallust.
As I moved slowly along through the streets, my heart was filled with
pity for this people, the Christians; threatened, as it seemed to me,
with a renewal of the calamities that had so many times swept over them
before. They had ever impressed me as a simple-minded, virtuous
community, of notions too subtle for the world ever to receive, but
which, upon themselves, appeared to exert a power altogether beneficial.
Many of this faith I had known well, and they were persons to excite my
highest admiration for the characters which they bore. Need I name more
than the princess Julia, and her husband, the excellent Piso? Others
like them, what wonder if inferior! had also, both in Palmyra, and at
Tibur and Rome--for they were to be found everywhere--drawn largely both
on my respect and my affections. I beheld with sorrow the signs which
now seemed to portend suffering and disaster. And my sympathies were the
more moved seeing that never before had there been upon the throne a man
who, if he were once entered into a war of opposition against them, had
power to do them greater harm, or could have proved a more stern and
cruel enemy. Not even Nero or Domitian were in their time to be so much
dreaded. For if Aurelian should once league him with the state against
them, it would not with him be matter of mere cruel sport, but of
conscience. It would be for the honor of the gods, the protection of
religion, the greatness and glory of the empire, that he would assail
and punish them; and the same fierce and bloody spirit that made him of
all modern conquerors the bloodiest and fiercest, it was plain would
rule him in any encounter with this humble and defenceless tribe. I
could only hope that I was deceived, as well as others, in my
apprehensions, or, if that were not so, pray that the gods would be
pleased to take their great subject to themselves.
Full of such reflections and emotions I arrived at the palace, and was
ushered into the presence of Livia. There was with her the melancholy
Aurelia--for such she always seems--who appeared to have been engaged in
earnest talk with the Empress, if one might judge by tears fast falling
from her eyes. The only words which I caught as I entered were these
from Aurelia, 'but, dear lady, if Mucapor require it not, why should
others think of it so much? Were he fixed, then should I indeed have to
ask strength of God for the trial--' then, seeing me, and only receiving
my salutations, she withdrew.
Livia, after first inquiring concerning Zenobia and Faustula, returning
to what had just engaged her, said,
'I wish, good Nicomachus, that I had your powers of speech, of which, as
you can remember, I have been witness in former days--those happy days
in Syria--when you used, so successfully, to withstand and subdue my
giddy or headstrong mind. Here have I been for weary hours--not weary
neither, for their aim has, I am sure, been a worthy one--but, here have
I been persuading, with all the reason and eloquence I could bring to
bear, this self-willed girl to renounce these fantastic notions she has
imbibed from the Christians, and their books, were it only for the sake
of domestic peace. Aurelian is growing daily more and more exasperated
against this obscure tribe, and drops, oftener than I love to hear them,
dark hints of what awaits them, not excepting, he says, any of whatever
rank or name. Not that I suppose that either he, or the senate, would
proceed further than imprisonments, banishment, suppression of free
speech, the destruction of books and churches; so much indeed I
understand from him. But even thus far, and we might lose Aurelia--a
thing not to be thought of for a moment. He has talked with her himself,
reasoned with her, threatened her; but in vain. Now he has imposed the
same task upon me--it is equally in vain. I know not what to do.'
'Because,' I replied, 'nothing can be done. Where it is possible to see,
you have eyes within you that can penetrate the thickest darkness as
well as any. But here you fail; but only where none could succeed. A
sincere honest mind, princess, is not to be changed either by persuasion
or force. Its belief is not subject to the will. Aurelia, if I have
heard aright, is a Christian from conviction. Evidence made her a
Christian--stronger evidence on the side of her former faith can alone
unmake her.'
'I cannot reason with her to that extent, Nicomachus,' replied the
Empress. 'I know not the grounds of the common faith, any more than
those of Christianity. I only know that I wish Aurelia was not a
Christian. Will you, Nicomachus, reason with her? I remember your logic
of old.'
'Alas, princess, I can engage in no such task! Where I have no faith
myself, I should in vain attempt to plant it in others. How, either, can
I desire that any mind should remain an hour longer oppressed by the
childish and abominable superstitions which prevail in Rome? I cannot
but congratulate the excellent Aurelia, so far as the question of truth
is concerned, that in the place of the infinite stupidities of the
common religion, she has received the, at least, pure and reasonable
doctrines of the Christians. You cannot surely, princess, desire her
re-conversion?'
'Only for her own sake, for the sake of her safety, comfort, happiness.'
'But in her judgment these are best and only secured where she now is.
How thinks Mucapor?'
'As I believe,' answered Livia, 'he cares not in the matter, save for
her happiness. He will not wish that she should have any faith except
such as she herself wishes. I have urged him to use his power to
constrain her, but he loves liberty himself too dearly, he says, to put
force upon another.'
'That is right and noble,' I said; 'it is what I should have looked for
from Mucapor.'
'In good sooth, Nicomachus, I believe you still take me but for what I
was in Palmyra. Who am I?'
'From a princess you have become an Empress, Empress of Rome, that I
fully understand, and I trust never to be wanting in the demeanor that
best becomes a subject; but you are still Livia, the daughter of
Zenobia, and to her I feel I can never fear to speak with sincerity.'
'How omnipotent, Nicomachus, are simplicity and truth! They subdue me
when I most would not. They have conquered me in Aurelia and now in you.
Well, well, Aurelia then must take the full weight of her uncle's wrath,
which is not light.'
At this moment Aurelian himself entered, accompanied by Fronto. Livia,
at the same time, arose and withdrew, not caring, I thought, to meet the
eyes of that basilisk, who, with the cunning of a priest, she saw to be
usurping a power over Aurelian which belonged of right to her. I was
about also to withdraw, but the Emperor constraining me, as he often
does, I remained, although holding the priest in still greater
abhorrence, I believe, than Livia herself.
'While you have been absent from the city, Fronto,' said Aurelian, 'I
have revolved the subjects upon which we last conversed, and no longer
doubt where lie, for me, both duty, and the truest glory. The judgment
of the colleges, lately rendered, agrees both with yours and mine. So
that the very finger of the god we worship points the way.'
'I am glad,' replied Fronto, 'for myself, for you, for Rome, and for the
world, that truth possesses and is to sway you. It will be a great day
for Rome, greater than when your triumphal array swept through the
streets with the world at your chariot-wheels, when the enemy that had
so long waged successful war within the very gates, shall lie dead as
the multitudes of Palmyra.'
'It will, Fronto. But first I have this to say, and, by the gods, I
believe it true, that it is the corruptions of our own religion and its
ministers, that is the offence that smells to heaven, quite as much as
the presumptuous novelties of this of Judea. I perceive you neither
assent to this nor like it. But it is true, I am persuaded, as the gods
themselves. I have long thought so; and, while with one hand, I aim at
the Gallilean atheism, with the other, I shall aim at those who
dishonor, by their vices and hypocrisies, the religion they profess to
serve.'
Fronto was evidently disturbed. His face grew pale as the frown gathered
and darkened on the brow of Aurelian. He answered not, and Aurelian went
on.
'Hellenism, Fronto, is disgraced, and its very life threatened by the
vices of her chief ministers. The gods forgive me! in that, while I have
purged my legions of drunkards and adulterers, I have left them in the
temples. Truly did you say, I have had but one thought in my mind, I
have looked but to one quarter of the heavens. My eyes are now unsealed,
and I see both ways, and every way. How can we look for the favor of the
gods, while their houses of worship, I speak it, Fronto, with sorrow and
indignation, but with the knowledge too of the truth of what I say, are
houses of appointment while the very inner sanctuaries, and the altars
themselves, are little better than the common stews, while the priests
are the great fathers of iniquity, corrupters of innocence, the seducers
of youth, examples themselves, beyond the fear of rivalry, of all the
vice they teach! At their tables, too, who so swollen with meats and
drink as the priests? Who, but they, are a by-word, throughout the city,
for all that is vilest? What word but priest, stands, with all, as an
abbreviation and epitome, of whatever pollutes, and defiles the name of
man? Porphyrius says 'that since Jesus has been worshipped in Rome no
one has found by experience the public assistance of the gods.' I
believe it; and Rome will never again experience it till this black
atheism is rooted out. But it is as true, I doubt not, that since their
ministers have become ministers of demons, and, from teachers of morals,
have turned instructers in vice--for this reason too, as well as for the
other, the justly offended deities of Rome have hid themselves from
their impious worshippers. Here then, Fronto, is a double labor to be
undergone, a double duty to be done, not less than some or all of the
labors of Hercules. We are set for this work, and, not till I have begun
it--if not finished--will I so much as dream of Persia. What say you?'
Fronto looked like one who had kindled a larger flame than he intended,
or knew well how to manage.
'The faults of which you speak, great Emperor, it can be denied by none,
are found in Rome, and can never be other than displeasing to the gods.
But then, I would ask, when was it ever otherwise? In the earlier ages
of the republic, I grant, there was a virtue in the people which we see
not now. But that grew not out of the purer administration of religion,
but was the product of the times in part--times, in comparison with
these, of a primeval simplicity. To live well, was easier then. Where no
temptation is, virtue is easy, is necessary. But then it ceases to be
virtue. It is a quality, not an acquisition--a gift of the gods, an
accident, rather than man's meritorious work.'
'That is very true--well.'
'There may be as much real virtue now, as then. May it not be so?'
'Perhaps--it may. What then?'
'Our complaints of the present, should be softened. But, what chiefly I
would urge is this, that since those ages of early virtue--after all,
perhaps, like all else at the same period, partly fabulous--Rome has
been but what it is, adorned by virtues that have claimed the admiration
of the world, and polluted by vices that have drawn upon her the
reprobation of the good, yet, which are but such as the world shows its
surface over, from the farthest India, to the bleak wastes of Britain.
It is, Aurelian, a thing neither strange nor new that vices thrive in
Rome. And, long since, have there been those, like Nerva and the good
Severus, and the late censor Valerian, who have aimed at their
correction. These, and others who, before and since, have wrought in the
same work, have done well for the empire. Their aim has been a high one,
and the favor of the gods has been theirs. Aurelian may do more and
better in the same work, seeing his power is greater and his piety more
zealous.'
'These are admitted truths, Fronto, save the last; but whither do they
tend?'
'To this. Because, Aurelian, vice has been in Rome; because even the
priesthood has been corrupt, and the temples themselves the sties you
say they now are--for this, have the gods ever withdrawn their
protection? Has Rome ever been the less prosperous? What is more, can we
conceive that they who made us of their own fiery mould, so prone to
violate the bounds of moderation, would, for yielding to such instincts,
interpose in wrath, as if that had happened which was not foreseen, and
against which, they had made sure provision? Are the heavens to blaze
with the fires of the last day, thunders to roll as if earth were shaken
to her centre, the entrails of dumb beasts to utter forth terrific
prophecy of great and impending wo, because, forsooth, the people of
Rome are by no means patterns of purity--because, perchance, within the
temples themselves, an immorality may have been purposed, or
perpetrated--because, even the priests themselves have not been, or are
not, white and spotless as their robes?'
'There seems some reason in what you say.'
'But, great Emperor, take me not as if I would make myself the shield of
vice, to hide it from the blow that would extirpate or cure it. I see,
and bewail, the corruptions of the age; but, as they seem not fouler
than those of ages which are past, especially than those of Nero and of
Commodus, I cannot think that it is against these the gods have armed
themselves, but, Aurelian, against an evil which has been long growing,
and often assailed and checked, but which has now got to such giant size
and strength, that except it be absolutely hewn down, and the least
roots torn up and burned, both the altars of our gods, and their
capital, called Eternal, and the empire itself, now holding the world in
its wide-spread, peace-giving arms, are vanished, and anarchy, impiety,
atheism, and the rank vices, which in such times would be engendered,
will then reign omnipotent, and fill the very compass of the earth,
Christ being the universal king! It is against this the heavens have
arrayed their power; and to arouse an ungrateful, thoughtless, impious
people, with their sleeping king, that they have spoken in thunder.'
'Fronto, I almost believe you right.'
'Had we, Aurelian, but the eyes of moles, when the purposes of the gods
are to be deciphered in the character of events, we should long since
have seen that the series of disasters which have befallen the empire
since the Gallilean atheism has taken root here, have pointed but to
that--that they have been a chastisement of our supineness and sloth.
When did Rome, almighty Rome, ever before tremble at the name of
barbarian, or fly before their arms? While now, is it not much that we
are able to keep them from the very walls of the Capital? They now swarm
the German forests in multitudes, which no man can count; their hoarse
murmurs can be heard even here, ready, soon as the reins of empire shall
fall into the hands of another Gallienus, to pour themselves upon the
plains of Italy, changing our fertile lands and gorgeous cities into
another Dacia. These things were not so once; and what cause there is in
Rome, so deep, and high, and broad, to resolve for us the reason of this
averted face of heaven, save that of which I speak, I cannot guess.'
'Nor I,' said Aurelian; 'I confess it. It must be so My work is not
three, nor two; but one. I have brought peace to the empire in all its
borders. My legions all rest upon their arms. Not a sword, but is in its
sheath--there, for the present, let it be glued fast. The season, so
propitious for the great work of bringing again the empire into peace
and harmony with the angry gods, seems to have been provided by
themselves. How think you, Nicomachus?'--turning suddenly to me, as if
now, for the first time, aware that I was standing at his side.
I answered, 'that I was slow to receive the judgment of Fronto or of
himself in that matter. That I could not believe that the gods, who
should be examples of the virtues to mankind, would ever ordain such
sufferings for their creatures as must ensue, were the former violences
to be renewed against the Christians. So far from thinking them a
nuisance in the state, I considered them a benefit.'
'The Greek too,' said Fronto, breaking in, 'is then a Christian.'
'I am not a Christian, priest, nor, as I think, shall ever be one; but,
far sooner would I be one, than take my faith from thee, which, however
it might guide me well through the wine vaults of the temple, or to the
best stalls of the market, or to the selectest retreats of the suburra,
would scarce show the way to heaven. I affront but the corruptions of
religion, Aurelian. Sincerity I honor everywhere. Hypocrisy nowhere.' I
thought Fronto would have torn me with his teeth and nails. His white
face grew whiter, but he stood still.
'Say on,' said the Emperor, 'though your bluntness be more even than
Roman.'
'I think,' I continued, 'the Christians a benefit to the state, for this
reason; not that their religion is what they pretend, a heaven-descended
one, but that, by its greater strictness, it serves to rebuke the common
faith and those who hold it, and infuse into it something of its own
spirit. All new systems, as I take it, in their first beginning are
strict and severe. It is thus by this quality they supersede older and
degenerate ones; not because they are truer, but because they are purer.
There is a prejudice among men, that the gods, whoever they may be, and
whatever they may be, love virtue in men, and for that accept them.
When, therefore, a religion fails to recommend and enforce virtue, it
fails to meet the judgment of men concerning the true character and
office of a religion, and so with the exception of such beasts, and such
there always are, who esteem a faith in proportion to its corruptions,
they look with favor upon any new one which promises to be what they
want. It is for this reason that this religion from Judea has made its
way so far and so soon. But, it will, by and by, degenerate from its
high estate, just as others have done, and be succeeded by another that
shall raise still higher expectations. In the meantime, it serves the
state well, both by the virtue which it enjoins upon its own subjects,
and the influence it exerts, by indirection, upon those of the prevalent
faiths, and upon the general manners and morals.'
'What you say,' observed Aurelian musingly, 'has some show of sense. So
much, at least, may be said for this religion.'
'Yet a lie,' said Fronto, 'can be none the less hateful to the gods,
because it sometime plays the part of truth. It is a lie still.'
'Hold,' said Aurelian, 'let us hear the Greek. What else?'
'I little thought,' I replied, 'as I rode toward the city this morning,
that I should at this hour be standing in the presence of the Emperor of
Rome, a defender of the Christians. I am in no manner whatever fitted
for the task. My knowledge is nothing; my opinions, therefore, worth but
little, grounded as they are upon the loose reports which reach my ear
concerning the character and doctrines of this sect, or upon what little
observation I have made upon those whom I have known of that
persuasion. Still, I honor and esteem them, and such aid as I can bring
them in their straits, shall be very gladly theirs. I will, however, add
one thing more to what I have said in answer to Fronto, who represents
the gods as more concerned to destroy the Christians than to reform the
common religion and the public morals. I cannot think that. Am I to
believe that the gods, the supreme directors of human affairs, whose aim
must be man's highest well-being, regard with more abhorrence an error
than a vice?--an error too that acts more beneficently than most truth,
and is the very seed of the purest virtues? I can by no means believe
it. So that if I were interpreter of the late omens, I should rather see
them pointed at the vices which prevail; at the corruptions of the
public morals, which are fouler than aught I had so much as dreamed of
before I was myself a witness of them, and may well be supposed to
startle the gods from their rest, and draw down their hottest
thunderbolts. But I will not say more, when there must be so many able
to do so much better in behalf of what I must still believe to be a good
cause. Let me entreat the Emperor, before he condemns, to hear. There
are those in Rome, of warm hearts, sound heads, and honest souls, from
whom, if from any on earth, truth may be heard, and who will set in its
just light a doctrine too excellent to suffer, as it must, in my hands.'
'They shall be heard, Nicomachus. Not even a Jew or a Christian shall
suffer without that grace; though I see not how it can avail.'
'If it should not avail to plant in your mind so good an opinion of
their way as exists in mine,' I resumed, 'it might yet to soften it, and
dispose it to a more lenient conduct; and so many are the miseries of
life in the natural order of events, that the humane heart must desire
to diminish, not increase them. Has Aurelian ever heard the name of
Probus the Christian?'
The Emperor turned toward Fronto with a look of inquiry.
'Yes,' said the priest, 'you have heard his name. But that of Felix, the
bishop of the Christians, as he is called, is more familiar to you.'
'Felix, Felix, that is the name I have heard most, but Probus too, if I
err not.'
'He has been named to you, I am certain,' added Fronto. 'He is the real
head of the Nazarenes,--the bishop, but a painted one.'
'Probus is he who turned young Piso's head. Is it not so?'
'The very same; and beside his, the lady Julia's.'
'No, that was by another, one Paul of Antioch, also a bishop and a fast
friend of the Queen. The Christians themselves have of late set upon
him, as they were so many blood-hounds, being bent upon expelling him
from Antioch. It is not long since, in accordance with the decree of
some assembled bishops there, I issued a rescript dislodging him from
his post, and planting in his place one Domnus. If our purposes prosper,
the ejected and dishonored priest may find himself at least safer if
humbler. Probus,--I shall remember him. The name leads my thoughts to
Thrace, where our greater Probus waits for me.'
'From Probus the Christian,' I said, 'you will receive,' whenever you
shall admit him to your presence, a true account of the nature of the
Christians' faith and of the actual condition of their community--all
which, can be had only from a member of it.'