Callista : a Tale of the Third Century

by John Henry Newman

  Meanwhile, to return to the prisoner herself, what was the consolation,what the occupation of Callista in this waiting time, ere the Proconsulhad sent his answer? Strange to say, and, we suppose, from a sinfulwaywardness in her, she had, up to this moment, neglected to avail herselfof a treasure, which by a rare favour had been put into her possession. Asmall parchment, carefully written, elaborately adorned, lay in her bosom,which might already have been the remedy of many a perplexity, many a woe.It is difficult to say under what feelings she had been reluctant to openthe Holy Gospel, which Caecilius had intrusted to her care. Whether she wasso low and despondent that she could not make the effort, or whether shefeared to convince herself further, or whether she professed to be waitingfor some calmer time, as if that were possible, or whether herunwillingness was that which makes sick people so averse to eating, or toremedies which they know would be useful to them, cannot well bedetermined; but there are many of us who may be able, from parallelinstances of infirmity, to enter into that state of mind, which led her atleast to procrastinate what she might do any minute. However, now leftabsolutely to herself, Aristo gone, and the answer of the government tothe magistracy not having yet come, she recurred to the parchment, and tothe Bishop's words, which ran, "Here you will see who it is we love," orlanguage to that effect. It was tightly lodged under her girdle, and sohad escaped in the confusion of that terrible evening. She opened it atlength and read.

  It was the writing of a provincial Greek; elegant, however, and markedwith that simplicity which was to her taste the elementary idea of aclassic author. It was addressed to one Theophilus, and professed to be acarefully digested and verified account of events which had been alreadyattempted by others. She read a few paragraphs, and became interested, andin no long time she was absorbed in the volume. When she had once taken itup, she did not lay it down. Even at other times she would have prized it,but now, when she was so desolate and lonely, it was simply a gift from anunseen world. It opened a view of a new state and community of beings,which only seemed too beautiful to be possible. But not into a new stateof things alone, but into the presence of One who was simply distinct andremoved from anything that she had, in her most imaginative moments, everdepicted to her mind as ideal perfection. Here was that to which herintellect tended, though that intellect could not frame it. It couldapprove and acknowledge, when set before it, what it could not originate.Here was He who spoke to her in her conscience; whose Voice she heard,whose Person she was seeking for. Here was He who kindled a warmth on thecheek of both Chione and Agellius. That image sank deep into her; she feltit to be a reality. She said to herself, "This is no poet's dream; it isthe delineation of a real individual. There is too much truth and nature,and life and exactness about it, to be anything else." Yet she shrank fromit; it made her feel her own difference from it, and a feeling ofhumiliation came upon her mind, such as she never had had before. Shebegan to despise herself more thoroughly day by day; yet she recollectedvarious passages in the history which reassured her amid herself-abasement, especially that of His tenderness and love for the poorgirl at the feast, who would anoint His feet; and the full tears stood inher eyes, and she fancied she was that sinful child, and that He did notrepel her.

  O what a new world of thought she had entered! it occupied her mind fromits very novelty. Everything looked dull and dim by the side of it; herbrother had ever been dinning into her ears that maxim of the heathen,"Enjoy the present, trust nothing to the future." She indeed could notenjoy the present with that relish which he wished, and she had not anytrust in the future either; but this volume spoke a different doctrine.There she learned the very opposite to what Aristo taught--viz., that thepresent must be sacrificed for the future; that what is seen must give wayto what is believed. Nay, more, she drank in the teaching which at firstseemed so paradoxical, that even present happiness and present greatnesslie in relinquishing what at first sight seems to promise them; that theway to true pleasure is, not through self-indulgence, but throughmortification; that the way to power is weakness, the way to successfailure, the way to wisdom foolishness, the way to glory dishonour. Shesaw that there was a higher beauty than that which the order and harmonyof the natural world revealed, and a deeper peace and calm than that whichthe exercise, whether of the intellect or of the purest human affection,can supply. She now began to understand that strange, unearthly composure,which had struck her in Chione, Agellius, and Caecilius; she understoodthat they were detached from the world, not because they had not thepossession, nor the natural love of its gifts, but because they possesseda higher blessing already, which they loved above everything else. Thus,by degrees, Callista came to walk by a new philosophy; and had ideas, andprinciples, and a sense of relations and aims, and a susceptibility ofarguments, to which before she was an utter stranger. Life and death,action and suffering, fortunes and abilities, all had now a new meaningand application. As the skies speak differently to the philosopher and thepeasant, as a book of poems to the imaginative and to the cold and narrowintellect, so now she saw her being, her history, her present condition,her future, in a new light, which no one else could share with her. Butthe ruling sovereign thought of the whole was He, who exemplified all thiswonderful philosophy in Himself.