“No place could be better calculated to answer all the purposes
of the primitive and persecuted Christians, than the
subterraneous caverns of the Arenaria.”
The measure Lucia Claudia was compelled to adopt was one of necessity
rather than choice. She would willingly have remained in her brother’s
house, if that house had been a safe abode for a virtuous woman. If she
could have kept the retirement of her chamber inviolate, the Christian
would not have considered it an imperative duty to quit the protection
of her natural guardian.
While she still wore the vestal habit, no one dared utter a word to
wound her pure and spotless virtue but when the sacerdotal profession
became inconsistent with her worship of the God of Abraham, and she
abandoned the sacred robes, each sensual guest of Julius Claudius seemed
to forget the deference he once had paid to the vestal sister of his
friend, and openly congratulated her upon her change of life. Atheists
and scoffers had hitherto been unable to disengage their minds from the
chain superstition had woven round their earlier years. Now that
restraint was gone, and, incapable of appreciating the motives that had
influenced Lucia Claudia, even if they had known them, they daringly
imputed them to guilt, and considered her as something more profane and
lost to virtue than themselves. Nymphidius Sabinus alone still regarded
Lucia Claudia as the purest of her sex. At first he had suspected that
she had quitted her lofty position to espouse some favoured patrician,
but he vainly watched for some confirmation of his suspicions. To him
she appeared as icily chaste, as vestal-like, as inaccessible, as when
she wore the consecrated robes of the dedicated virgin. The idea that
she was a Christian suddenly entered his mind. He remembered that
memorable day when she had claimed the privilege of her order to save a
Christian pastor. It was clear to him that the woman he adored was a
secret disciple of Linus, Bishop of Rome. It was strange that he had not
discovered this before. His knowledge of her secret would render him the
master of her destiny. For her creed he cared not, so that she were but
his wife. He communicated his suspicions to Julius Claudius, who seemed
convinced of their truth. It was then agreed between them that a removal
to Tivoli would preclude Lucia Claudia from taking counsel with the sect
whose tenets she had embraced. Nymphidius was to intimidate her into an
acceptance of his suit, in which he was to be seconded by his friend.
The fears of a timid young woman they considered would lead her to a
marriage that she denied to his love. Ignorant of these devices against
her peace, Lucia Claudia had listened in indignant silence, while on the
way to Tivoli, to the artful hints thrown out from time to time by her
brother Julius, who daringly insinuated that a marriage with the son of
the bondwoman, Nymphidius, could alone restore her tarnished reputation.
The feeble-minded Antonia, the wife of Julius, took that opportunity of
repeating all the idle reports in circulation in Rome respecting Lucia
Claudia’s abandonment of her vestal life. Among other things she assured
her that no one was more severe in her judgment upon her conduct than
Cossutia, the Maxima, or Chief Vestal. Lucia knew this was true, and it
pained her deeply, for Cossutia had loved her intensely, and had been
the faithful guardian of her youth. She had vainly endeavoured to see
this lady, that she might clear her fame by avowing the motives that had
influenced her conduct. The Maxima had haughtily declined the interview,
and her displeasure had planted another thorn in the bosom of her former
pupil.
Forsaken by the wise and virtuous among the heathens, and obliged to
associate with dissolute persons of both sexes, who frequented the house
of her brother, exposed to the suit of Nymphidius, and deprived of the
support a noble Roman matron ought to have afforded her, she felt that
the roof of Julius was no suitable abode for her, and that to join the
brethren had become her only choice.
She had indulged the benevolent wish of rearing the lovely scion of her
house, the infant son of Julius and Antonia, in the principles of the
Christian faith. The babe greatly resembled his lamented uncle Lucius,
whose name he bore, and this likeness joined to the winning smiles of
infancy had endeared him to his aunt.
She was compelled to give up this hope, but she left him with deep
regret. Her parting interview with Adonijah greatly unnerved her; nor
did the presence of Nymphidius Sabinus at all revive her spirits. Her
languid appearance seemed to plead for rest, and her early retirement to
her dormitory excited neither surprise nor suspicion.
In the privacy of her own chamber, Lucia Claudia mentally recalled the
trials she had endured since she had abandoned the idolatrous worship of
Vesta. Was not this the literal fulfilment of the command of Jesus,
“Take up the cross and follow me,” and should she repine?
At first her notions of the truth had been indistinct and shadowy. So
dazzled had she been by the full blaze of Gospel day, that her
perceptions resembled those of the blind from birth to whose eyes the
light is first revealed. Cornelia in the beginning of her Christian
course had been the most stedfast, for Lucia had almost shipwrecked her
new-born faith against the precipice of earthly love. She had stumbled,
not to fall, but to become more perfect. Her deep penitence had brought
her to see more clearly that Divine love that had sent forth the Son
from the bosom of the Father, to die for the sins of men, to redeem a
ruined world. Her feelings were far more vivid than those of her nurse.
She had not only been a heathen priestess, not only the blind worshipper
of an element, thereby transferring the worship due to the Creator to
the creature He had formed, but she had taught others to do the same.
Her sin was ever before her eyes, but this consciousness only made her
cleave more closely to the atonement as her refuge. Once the noble Roman
lady had gloried in her spotless reputation and sacerdotal profession,
but this glory had become her shame; for, meek and lowly in her own
eyes, the Christian neophyte no longer minded earthly things. The Spirit
was not given by measure to the Christians of that early day, when His
miraculous gifts were poured out upon the primitive Church, whose
suffering state required such mighty help; for the neophytes were often
called from the waters of baptism to meet the fiery trial of martyrdom,
and, relying upon the Power present with them, “endured the cross,
despising the shame,” like Him whose followers they professed to be.
Comforted with the thoughts of spiritual support, Lucia Claudia and her
faithful nurse quitted the villa of Julius in the dead of night, and
took the road to Rome. They were met upon the way by the freedman
Glaucus and several of the brethren, who safely conducted them to the
subterranean abode of Linus.
In the morning the disappearance of the Lady Lucia Claudia and the
freedwoman Cornelia excited great alarm, and an active search was
instantly set on foot by Julius and Nymphidius. Towards noon these
endeavours to trace the fugitives were suddenly discontinued, to the
manifest surprise of the whole household, both pagan and Christian.