“Child of heaven, by me restored,
Love thy Saviour, serve thy Lord;
Sealed with that mysterious name,
Bear thy cross, and scorn the shame.”
BOWDLER.
The return of the emperor did not allay the discontent of the public.
His frivolous pursuits, his ridiculous triumphal entry, disgusted all;
and, far from curbing by his own authority the rapacity of his
favourites, his presence gave the signal for renewing those crimes which
had been perpetrated under his name during his absence. Cruelty seemed
born of luxury; whatever could enervate the soul or corrupt the heart
being united with the most unfeeling barbarity. Avarice and prodigality,
forgetting their ancient opposition, appeared to sway the conduct of
Nero and his satellites, whose rapacious gains were dissipated in
voluptuous feasts and sumptuous shows. Till the death of his revered
patron, Adonijah had never been present at any public spectacle or
private entertainment; for Lucius, plain and simple in his manners,
charged all the degeneracy of Rome upon the innovations of luxury: but
Julius was fond of grandeur, and chose to be attended in public by the
Hebrew, whose commanding stature and majestic features greatly added to
the splendour of his retinue. In these scenes of riot and intemperance,
Adonijah again beheld the master of the world. The laurelled brow, the
sceptered hand, the smile, nay, even his wild participation in the
unhallowed revelries in which he delighted, could not disguise Nero
Cæsar from the eye of the slave who had witnessed his agonies of remorse
at Corinth. To him the smile appeared mockery, and the mirth unreal; for
in its very tones he seemed to hear the frantic cry with which he had
fled from the spectral train his conscience had called up. He marked the
guilty glare that shrank affrighted from every shadowy nook, as if he
feared to see his mother rise armed with the scorpion-whip with which
his agonized remorse had armed her hand; and in the gloomy, joyless eye,
the lurking fear that saw the dagger in every hand, the poison lurking
in every bowl, he recognised the imperial wretch who envied even
laborious slavery its slumbers.
Within the circles of the great and gay, Adonijah sometimes saw the
vestal priestesses, whose order Nero had invested with new privileges.
Among them the ardent lover marked the object of his secret passion, and
perceived by her pale cheek and languid eye how heavily her brother’s
death pressed upon her heart. According to the strict rules of her
profession, she wore no mourning, nor was allowed the seclusion to which
other Roman ladies were confined for many months after such bereavement.
Her abstracted manner and downcast look were out of keeping with the
scenes of festivity in which she mingled. Sometimes indeed a light word
or bold look from those around her flushed her fair face with the
crimson glow of wounded modesty, and her eyes sparkled till tears of
shame dimmed them, and again she looked like a sculptured
personification of purity and sorrow. The deep sympathy of Adonijah,
although unexpressed by words or manner, was conveyed by looks whose
language needed no other eloquence. She felt that one being among the
heartless throng regarded her with interest, with compassion, and with
love. From the undisguised admiration of Nymphidius she shrank back with
unrestrained aversion, which only served to inflame his passion. He had
hoped to corrupt her mind by the tainted atmosphere in which his
influence with the emperor compelled her to move, but Lucia remained
unchanged in manner, as pure as within the secluded temple of her
goddess, and he prized her virtue beyond her beauty.
Much as she abhorred the mandates that compelled her attendance on those
public occasions, even the service of the temple had become distasteful
to the young priestess. Strange doubts had arisen in her mind, and those
words of Adonijah often recurred to her remembrance, which affirmed her
worshipped goddess to be a wild chimera, an empty name. Then came those
yearnings after immortality, those conjectures respecting a future
state, which those who lose their dearest kindred ties feel when
bereaved of them, if they never felt them before. Nature, with fond
fidelity clinging to the ashes of the dead, forbade her to think her
Lucius lost to her for ever; but reason, quenched in the night of pagan
darkness, presented no hope to the mourner’s view. She wept in despair,
and, turning wearied and dispirited from the cheerless gloom with which
polytheism invested the grave, recollected that her beloved Lucius had
affirmed himself to be a worshipper of the God of Adonijah with his
latest breath. To him she resolved to apply for information, and,
suddenly overstepping the bounds of prudence, appointed a meeting with
him at the house of her nurse.
Cornelia, the person who stood in this endeared relation to the
priestess, was a freedwoman of Grecian descent and some learning, and
the doubts of her foster-child had been frequently discussed with her
before she agreed to become her assistant in this difficult affair. It
was a question in which her inquiring mind became anxiously interested,
while her prudent foresight took every necessary precaution to preserve
the reputation of her beloved charge from suspicion, and her life from
danger.
Adonijah came; his auditors were attentive and willing; the evidence he
brought appeared to their unsophisticated minds conclusive. The creation
of man, his fall, the calling of Abraham, the patriarchal history, the
law, the divine voice of prophecy, were received with wonder, adoration,
and faith. To these sublime truths the heathen mythology did indeed
appear “idle tales.” He spake of a future state of existence, and Lucia
seized the idea with all the enthusiasm that formed so striking a part
of her character. She wept still for Lucius, but holy hope, like the
rainbow, glistened through her tears.
While thus employed in the daily instruction of his proselyte, Adonijah
forgot the sorrows of captivity, of exile, of loss of kindred, as he
listened to her sweet voice, or gazed upon her fair face now glowing
with the brilliant tints of health, happiness, and love. Together they
prayed—together discoursed on the chosen people of God; while his
disciple hung entranced over the wondrous record of Israel’s triumphs
and Israel’s woes, now weeping with the captivity of Judah, now exulting
with the return of the exiles to the promised land, till the scholar and
preceptor seemed to have one heart, one faith, one soul.
As soon as the light of revelation dawned upon the vestal’s mind, she
felt she dared not continue her daily ministrations at the altar of a
pagan deity. To avow her faith was to doom her beloved preceptor and
herself to a cruel death, but even death she preferred to taking her
sacerdotal part in the approaching festival of Vesta.
The struggle of her soul between her duty to God and regard to her
reputation, by affecting her health, allowed her an opportunity of
returning to her brother’s house till her recovery. An old law in such
cases gave the sick vestal a change of abode, and the privilege of
choosing three of the noblest matrons in Rome for her nurses. Lucia
Claudia named her sister-in-law, and thus gained the asylum she
required. Some weeks had elapsed since she had watched the sacred fire,
upon the preservation of which the Roman people believed that of their
state to depend. The vestal priestesses might quit their profession
after thirty years’ attendance in the temple, and marry; but as Lucia
Claudia was still in the flower of her youth, many years must elapse
before she could be free to leave the altar.
She had been dedicated at seven years to Vesta by her eldest brother, at
an age when she was an irresponsible agent, and had no means of opposing
his will. Her father was dead, but Lucius Claudius as his representative
could legally exercise his absolute rights over his child. She
determined to consult Julius upon the possibility of her leaving her
profession, since to remain in the Vestal College was incompatible with
the faith she had embraced.
In Rome every young man of rank was a pleader, and Julius possessed the
eloquence of the Claudian family, united to a competent knowledge of
law, and was well qualified to advise his sister on a point so delicate
and intricate as that on which she ventured to consult him, though not
without dreading his sarcastic censure.
Julius Claudius neither reproved nor annoyed her; he was delighted at
her resolution, and praised her courage. He had always regretted a
measure that had devoted to joyless celibacy a beautiful and high-born
lady, who might, but for that bar, have been the consort of an emperor.
He entreated Lucia Claudia to intrust her cause to him, promising her a
complete and honourable release from her vows, as the reward of her
confidence in his friendship and talents.
Julius Claudius, who intended to give his sister in marriage to the
favourite minister of Nero, Nymphidius Sabinus, of whose passion he was
the sole confidant, was prepared to exert his eloquence and legal skill
in order to render Lucia an agent in his own aggrandizement. He wished
to be Curule Ædile, and resolved to purchase that office by the
influence of Nymphidius with Nero: Lucia’s hand was to be his bribe to
the enamoured prætorian præfect. From Nero he expected no opposition;
the emperor had no veneration for Vesta, whose priestess Rubria he had
seduced. He was Pontifex Maximus too, and if he did not prosecute Lucia
Claudia, no other person could arraign the ex-vestal. Nymphidius insured
his concurrence, and Julius undertook his sister’s cause as soon as he
knew that the imperial High Priest of Jupiter, the legal guardian of the
Vestal College, would sanction the proceeding with his sacerdotal
authority. Julius Claudius alleged two points against the legality of
his sister’s admission into the feminine priesthood of which she had
been such a distinguished member; one of which was based on truth, the
other on deliberate falsehood. The first stated that she had not been
balloted into the college, but presented against her will by her
brother; the second declared her to have been previously contracted to
Nymphidius Sabinus during her father’s lifetime, and therefore rendered
ineligible for an office which required those who filled it to be free
from matrimonial engagements. The assertion was received with murmurs of
indignation, but Nero pronounced that Lucia Claudia had ceased to be a
vestal, and no member of the sacerdotal colleges dared resist his will.
Even the Maxima Cossutia remained silent; but Cornelia Cossi, the second
in rank, was less cautious. She denied the pre-engagement of Lucia
Claudia, and declared her worthy of the living grave decreed by the laws
of Numa as the fitting punishment of the vestal who violated her vows.
Nero heard her in sullen silence, but Rubria was observed to tremble.
Did no dire presentiment cross with its ominous shadow the haughty
priestess who then appealed to Nero in his sacerdotal character to
revive a fearful law that long had slept, but was destined to be revived
to condemn and destroy her. That night Cornelia dreamed she was Maxima,
and that Lucia Claudia was buried alive.
The sister of Julius remained at his Tarentan villa while these
proceedings took place in the Vestal College, but the summons of her
brother brought her to Rome, where the sight of a garland suspended over
the portal of his house on the Palatine Mount informed her that her
cause was gained.
Julius, in narrating his legal proceedings, dared not mention the false
pretext he had audaciously devised and urged; indeed, he shrank from
insulting a noble and chaste Roman virgin with the plea that had
virtually compromised her reputation in freeing her from her sacerdotal
vow. He left the odious task to the præfect himself, whose daring mind
might have scrupled to unveil the fact, if he had not imputed Lucia
Claudia’s resignation to motives more in accordance with his views than
he had dared to hope; but even Nymphidius Sabinus was abashed by the
virtuous indignation manifested by the woman he loved, and dared to
claim. Lucia Claudia had expected to meet contempt, reproaches,
derision; but for this dreadful blow she was not prepared. She knew that
even by the good and virtuous she should be censured; but to become
their abhorrence—to be claimed by Nymphidius as his wife—to be
perjured thus in the eyes of all men, was worse than death to her high
spirit.
Young, fair, and noble, admired, venerated, almost deified by those
whose superstitious notions made them regard the vestals as the
guardians of Rome, Lucia Claudia was not insensible to the homage paid
to her charms and virtue. She gloried in her spotless character, and
prized, dearly prized, her popularity. She now experienced the
annihilation of all her earthly hopes, and felt the reverse most
severely; for those whose idol she had lately been, loaded her with
invectives; nay, worse, the dissipated, the vicious, dared to place
themselves upon a level with her purity, and insulted her with their
congratulations. If she sought refuge in the solitude of her own
apartment, Julius Claudius invaded its privacy, either to bring her into
society she detested, or to subject her to the suit of the bold
profligate man who dared to call her his affianced wife. Lucia found her
trial bitterer than death, but she still relied upon the God of Israel,
for whose sake she was suffering shame and reproach.
On the ides of March, the anniversary of that festival when the
priestesses of Vesta rekindle the sacred flame, an unusual gloom
oppressed her mind. The weak spouse of Julius, who had wounded her ear
by repeating the idle gossip and malicious comments circulating at her
expense among the higher circles of Rome, concluded her oration by
advising her to marry Nymphidius, as the only measure likely to restore
her reputation.
Lucia abruptly quitted her sister-in-law, and, stealing out of the
house, attended by Cornelia, entered the gardens of Lucullus, at that
time, she knew, deserted for the temple of Vesta. She was enveloped in
the pallium, or large mantle worn by the Roman lady abroad, her face
covered with a thick veil, and thus disguised from observation threw
herself down by the side of a fountain, under a cypress tree, and,
leaning her head on the bosom of Cornelia, wept bitterly. Feminine and
gentle as she was, Lucia was not devoid of the lofty pride of her
family. A Roman by birth and education, she attached great importance to
general opinion, and valued her reputation beyond her life. Her deep
sighs, her streaming eyes, betrayed the warfare of her soul. Disgrace
and shame hung over her fair fame, and would cleave to it in this world
for ever. Yet she blushed at her weakness even while abandoning herself
to sorrow, and, suddenly falling upon her knees, prayed for strength and
support from that God for whose sake she had given up all earthly
distinctions to suffer contempt and obloquy.
The sound of her voice drew the attention of a venerable man who was
passing through the garden, who, attracted by its tones as with
something familiar, approached the spot, and regarded the kneeling form
of Lucia with the deepest interest and compassion. Her veil, falling
over her face, partly concealed it from his view, but its elegant
outline had left an indelible impression upon his memory. It was that
priestess of Vesta who had delivered him from the rage of his
enemies,—then high in the esteem of all men, happy, admired, beloved,
almost adored; now despised, reviled, forsaken. Full of benevolence and
holy love, Linus mildly addressed his preserver, and, taking her hand
with a paternal air, said, “Weep not, Lucia Claudia, like those who have
no hope. Look unto Jesus Christ, who is strong in salvation, mighty to
save, and be comforted.”
Lucia raised her streaming eyes, and recognised the Christian bishop
whom she had preserved from martyrdom by claiming her privilege as a
vestal priestess, when her womanly heart had led her to pity the
Christians as victims of Nero’s cruelty, though without feeling any
interest in Him for whose sake “they suffered such things,” or even
inquiring into the nature of the doctrines they professed. To her they
had only appeared “setters forth of strange gods;” mystics who led
inoffensive lives, and held secret worship in honour of some deceased
person whom they deified. There was something so compassionate in Linus’
manner, so venerable in his appearance, that, disconsolate and
distressed as she was, commanded Lucia’s attention, and compelled her to
listen to him.
“Noble lady,” continued he, “you preserved my life, and gratitude will
not suffer me to leave you without offering you sympathy and counsel.
Through the grace of God you appear to have ‘cast away the works of
darkness,’ for I hear you, who of late were a heathen priestess, calling
upon Jehovah in prayer; but how is it that you omit to offer it through
His name for whose sake alone it can find acceptance with your Heavenly
Father—even through Jesus Christ, His beloved Son, ‘in whom He is well
pleased’—the Redeemer of a lost and ruined world, ‘who was crucified
for our sins, and rose again for our justification’?”
“Father,” replied Lucia, wiping her eyes, and looking up with an air of
earnest attention, “I know not Him of whom you speak. Convinced of the
vanity and blindness of that idolatry to which I had been dedicated, I
have become a convert to Judaism, and have learned to worship the God of
Israel as the Creator and Preserver of all men; and I look for another
life, after this transitory existence shall have passed away: but of
this Christ, from whom your sect is called, I am ignorant altogether.”
With the dignity and simplicity of truth Linus unfolded the divine
mission of the Saviour to sinners; the necessity of such an atonement,
and the impossibility of coming to God by any other way than through
faith in His blood; declaring that the Messiah, whose coming Lucia had
been already taught to expect, was indeed “this very Jesus whom the Lord
had made both God and Christ.”
The mysterious doctrine of the cross, “to the wisdom of this world
foolishness, and to Israel a rock of offence,” was a saviour of life to
the meek females who now heard it for the first time. Upon their minds
the bright effulgence of “the Sun of Righteousness arose, with healing
on his wings.”
“And did Cæsar slay the Christians for such pure doctrines—for
following such a Saviour as this?” demanded Lucia. “Unhappy Christians!
what tortures did ye not undergo on this very spot!”
“Call them not unhappy, noble lady,” replied the venerable man. “Here
was the scene of their martyrdom, it is true, but it was also the scene
of their triumph. They ‘counted all loss, nay, even their lives were not
dear to them for Christ’s sake.’ Here, invested with the tunic of the
incendiary, they were lighted up as a spectacle to a barbarous and
unbelieving people.” He paused; tears filled his aged eyes as he
recalled the sufferings of his Christian brethren, and Lucia’s now
flowed as fast from sympathy as they had lately done from ‘the sorrow of
this world.’ “This is human weakness,” continued he; “but you did not
see me weep when your compassion saved me from death. For the sake of
the persecuted flock of Christ, I rejoice that my life was prolonged,
but ‘to depart, and be for ever with the Lord,’ is the desire of his
unworthy Servant.”
He then invited his attentive auditors to meet him in the oratory of St.
Peter—a secret chamber on the Ostian Way, where that great Apostle had
been accustomed to preach the Gospel to the Gentiles, and where he
nightly instructed the heathen, and ministered to the Christians. His
flock was rapidly increasing, and included several members of Cæsar’s
household. For though not many noble were called, yet the Christian
Church was composed of persons of every degree, who were prepared to
seal their faith with their blood, should a second persecution expose
them to that trial. He made Lucia Claudia acquainted with the mysterious
sign by which the brethren knew each other in the crowded streets of the
Roman metropolis. He would charge the slaves of her household, who were
members of the Church, to conduct her and her nurse to their oratory,
who would make themselves known to her by crossing themselves in the
fashion he had shown.[9]
Linus then bade his auditors farewell, by giving them, instead of the
usual “Vale,” the apostolical benediction of “Peace be with you.”
A change had passed over both: Lucia Claudia was “almost a Christian,”
while Cornelia was altogether one. Human passions, love and pride, were
not dead in the heart of the young Roman lady; but the freedwoman
embraced the hope set before her, with firmness and constancy. Lucia
Claudia was enthusiastic and imaginative; she would have died rather
than given up the faith whose mysteries Linus had just unfolded to her;
but she was about to be exposed to a trial more difficult to withstand
than death—the martyrdom of the affections. How would Adonijah receive
the intelligence of her conversion to the doctrines he hated and
despised?
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[9] That the sign of the cross was used in this manner is apparent from
the works of Lucian, a heathen satirical writer; and from the Apology of
Tertullian we likewise learn that it was introduced by Christians in
their private devotions in the second century. In the earliest and
purest era of the Church, however, there is no reason to believe that it
was introduced in any other manner than as a private signal expressing
the willingness of the party to suffer for Christ. The Church of
England, in her baptism, appears to give its true use and explanation in
the primitive sense. At the period of which I am writing, superstition
had not mingled error with the simplicity of Christian worship.