Darkness and Dawn; Or, Scenes in the Days of Nero. An Historic Tale

by F. W. Farrar

  CHAPTER XI

  ‘_A FOREIGN SUPERSTITION_’

  ‘Quos, per flagitia invisos, vulgus Christianos appellabat.’ --TACITUS, _Ann._ xv. 44.

  The young son of Claudius, burdened as he was by a sense of wrong,was not only cheered by the kindness of the conqueror of Britain,but had been deeply interested in all that he had heard from hishigh-minded wife. Pomponia had warned him that to mention the subjectof their conversation might needlessly imperil her life, and to noone did he venture to say a word on the subject except to Pudens.It struck him that in the words and bearing of the handsome youngsoldier there was something not unlike the moral sincerity which headmired and loved in Pomponia Græcina.

  ‘Pudens,’ he said to him the next morning, when Titus was absent,‘what do you think of the Christians?’

  Pudens started; but, recovering himself, he said, coldly, ‘TheChristians in Rome are humble and persecuted. Most persons confusethem with the Jews, but many Jews are nobler specimens than thebeggars on the bridges, and many Christians are not Jews at all.’

  ‘Are they such wretches as men say?’

  ‘No, Britannicus, they are not. A man may call himself a Christian,and be a bad man; but it is so perilous to be a Christian thatmost of them are perfectly sincere. They preach innocence, and theypractise it. You know well enough that the air is full of lies, andcertainly not one-tenth part of what is said of the Christians hasin it the least truth.’

  The time had not yet come for Pudens to avow that his Claudia hadbeen secretly baptised by an early missionary in Britain, as Pomponiahad been in Gaul; and that he himself was beginning seriously tostudy the doctrines of the hated sect.

  But the next time Britannicus was able to visit Pomponia, he askedher if there were any Christian books which he might read.

  ‘There are the old Jewish books,’ said Pomponia, ‘which Christiansregard as sacred, and which a few Romans have read out of curiosity,for they were translated into Greek nearly four hundred years ago.But they are rare, and it is not easy to get them. And even if youread them, there is much in them which we Romans cannot understand.’

  ‘But has no Christian written anything?’

  ‘Scarcely anything,’ she said. ‘You know the Christians are mostlyvery poor, and some of them quite illiterate. But there is a greatChristian teacher named Paulus of Tarsus, and many who have heard himpreach in Ephesus and in Philippi, and even in Athens and Corinth,say that his words are like things of life. My friend Sergius Paulus,the late Proconsul of Cyprus, has met him, and spoke of him withenthusiastic reverence. He has written nothing as yet except twoshort letters to the Christians in Thessalonica. They are only casual_letters_, and do not enter into the life of Jesus the Christ, orthe general belief of Christians. But I have them here, and willread parts of them to you if you like.’

  She read to him the opening salutation, and on his expressingastonishment that he could join ‘much affliction’ with ‘joy,’she explained to him that this was the divine paradox of allChristianity, in which sorrow never destroyed joy, but sometimesbrought out a deeper joy, even as there are flowers which pourforth their sweetest perfumes in the midnight.

  Then she read him the exhortations to purity and holiness,[22]and asked him ‘whether that sounded like the teaching of men whopractised the evil deeds of which the Christians were accused bythe popular voice.’

  He sat silent, and she read him the passage about the coming day ofthe Lord, and the sons of light, and the armour of righteousness.[23]Lastly, she read him the concluding part of the Second Letter, withits exhortations to diligence and order.

  ‘I think,’ she said, ‘that in one passage Paulus may perhaps refer ina mysterious way to your father, the late Emperor. He is speaking ofthe coming of some lawless tyrant and enemy of God before the day ofthe Lord; and he adds, “only _he who letteth_ will let, until he betaken away.”’

  ‘The Greek words ? ???????,’ she said, ‘might be rendered in Latin_qui claudit_. The Christians are so surrounded by enemies thatthey are sometimes obliged to express themselves in cryptograms, andLinus tells me that some Christians see in the words _qui claudit_ anallusion to your father, Claudius. If so, Paulus seems to think thatthe day of the Lord’s return is very near.’

  The young prince, though he had but a dim sense of what some of thephrases meant, was struck with what he had heard. There was somethingin the morality more vivid and more searching than anything whichEpictetus had reported, or than Sosibius had read to him out of Zenoand Chrysippus. And besides the high morality there were tones whichcaused a more thrilling chord to vibrate within him than anythingof which he had yet dreamed. The morality seemed to be elevated toa purer region of life and hope, and, in spite of the strange style,to be transfused through and through with a divine emotion.

  ‘And these,’ he said, ‘are the men whom they charge with every kindof atrocity! Surely, Pomponia, the world is rife with lies! Wouldit be too dangerous for you to let me see and speak to some of theChristian teachers? You might disguise me; it is quite easy. EvenPudens need not know; he never feels dull,’ he added with a smile,‘if he may talk to Claudia, who is staying with you now.’

  ‘There was an excellent Jewish workman here named Aquila of Pontus,’she said. ‘You might have talked to him, but he left Rome when theJews were banished in your father’s days. He used to mend the awningover the viridarium, and those which kept the sun from blazing toohotly into our Cyzicene room.[24] He sometimes brought with him hisstill more excellent wife, Prisca. They knew Paulus, and said thathe had promised some day to come to Rome. I am obliged to be verycareful; but perhaps you can speak to Linus, who is the Elder of theChristians in Rome.’

  ‘But, Pomponia, the Christians believe, you tell me, in a leadernamed Jesus; is he the same as Christus or Chrestos?’

  ‘He is.’

  ‘Is there any one in Rome who has seen him?’

  ‘He was put to death,’ said Pomponia, bowing her head, ‘more thantwenty years ago, when Tiberius was Emperor. But His disciples, wholived with Him, whom He called Apostles or messengers, were many ofthem young men, and they are living still.’

  ‘Had Paulus of Tarsus ever seen him?’

  ‘In heavenly vision, yes; but not when He was teaching in Palestine.But there was one disciple whom He loved very dearly, and who is nowliving in Jerusalem, though Agrippa I. beheaded his elder brother.Perhaps he may some day come to Rome.’

  ‘But you, Pomponia, must have heard much about Christus. Tell me,then, something about him. How could a Judæan peasant be, as you sayJesus was, divine?’

  ‘Self-sacrifice for the sake of others is always divine,’ saidPomponia. ‘Even in Greek mythology the gods assume the likeness ofmen in order to help and deliver them. Does not the poet tell ushow Apollo once kept, as a slave, the oxen of Admetus? how Herculeswas the servant of Eurystheus? how Jupiter came to visit Baucis andPhilemon? Is it so strange that the God of all should reveal Himselfto man as man? Doubtless you have read with your tutor the grandestplay of Æschylus--the “Prometheus Bound.” Does not the poet theresing that Prometheus, who is the type of humanity, can never bedelivered _until some god descends for him into the black depthsof Tartarus_? And does not Plato say that man will never know Goduntil He has revealed Himself in the guise of suffering man; andthat “when all is on the verge of destruction, God sees the distressof the universe, and, placing himself at the rudder, restoresit to order”?[25] And does not Seneca teach that man cannot savehimself?[26] Seneca even says, “Do you wonder that men go to thegods? God comes to men--yea, even into men.” No one laughs at suchthoughts in the most popular of our philosophers; why should theylaugh at Christians for believing them?’

  ‘But what made his disciples believe that Christus was a Son of God?’he asked.

  Sitting quietly there, she told him, that day, of the Jews as thepeople who had kept alive for centuries the knowledge of the one trueGod; of their age-long hopes of a Deliverer; of their prophecies;and of the
coming of the Baptist. On his next visit she told himof Jesus, and read to him parts of one of the old sketches of Hisministry which were current, in the form of notes and fragments,among Christians who had heard the preaching of Peter or otherApostles. Lastly, she told him some of His miracles, and the storyof His death and resurrection. ‘He spake,’ she said, ‘as never manspake. He did what man never did. Above all, He rose from the deadthe third day. Even the centurion who watched the crucifixionreturned to Jerusalem and said, “Truly this was a Son of God!”’

  Britannicus felt almost stunned by the rush of new emotions. Hismind, like that of most boys of his age at Rome, was almost a blankas regards any belief in the old mythology. In Stoicism he had foundsome half-truths which attracted his Roman nature; but its doctrineswere stern, and proud, and harshly repressive of feelings which hefelt to be natural and not ignoble. Here, at last, in Christianity,he heard truths which, while they elevated the character of maneven to heaven--while they kindled his aspirations and fortified hisendurance--were suited also to soothe, to calm, to console. He hadheard them to the best advantage. They had been told him, not by lipsof untaught slaves and humble workmen, but by the noblest of Romanmatrons. She spoke in Latin worthy of the best days of Cicero, andadorned all she said not only by the sweetness of her voice andthe grace of her language, but also by her broad sympathies and hercultivated intelligence. Most of all, her words came weighty withthe consistency of a life which, in comparison with that of the womenaround her, shone like a star in the darkness. It was this beauty ofholiness which won him first and most. He saw it in Pudens, whom hesuspected of stronger Christian leanings than he had acknowledged.He saw it conspicuously in Claudia,

  ‘A flower of meekness on a stem of grace,’

  before whose beautiful personality the tinsel compliments of her manyadmirers seemed to sink into shamed silence. The precocious maidensof the great consular families hated Claudia because, in her whiteand simple dress, and her long natural fair hair, unadorned by asingle flower or gem, she outshone their elaborate beauty. Yet theysaw, and were astonished to see, that no youth--not even an Otho ora Petronius or any of the most hardened libertines--dared to speaka light word to one who looked as chaste as ‘the consecrated snowon Dian’s lap.’

  Britannicus did not venture to breathe a word to Titus of a secretwhich was not his own; but there was one person from whom he couldhave no secret, and that was the young Empress, his sister Octavia.When he could be secure that no spy was at hand, that no ear waslistening at the door, that no eye was secretly watching him, hewould talk to her with wonder and admiration of all that he hadheard. She was no less impressed than he, and without venturing toembrace the new faith, both sister and brother found a vague sourceof hope and strength in what they had learnt from Pomponia. To themit was like a faint rose of dawn, seen from a dark valley, shiningfar off upon the summit of icy hills. And as they learnt more ofwhat the Gospel meant, and learnt even to pour forth dim prayerinto the unknown, they were able to discover, by certain signs, thatnot a few of the slaves in the household of Cæsar--Patrobas, Eubulus,Philologus, Tryphæna, and others--were secret Christians. The mannerin which they discovered that these slaves were Christians was verysimple. Pomponia, implicitly trusting the young Cæsar, had venturedto teach him the Greek Christian watchword, ?????, ‘fish.’[27] Thebrother and sister found that if, in the presence of several slaves,they brought in this word in any unusual manner, a slave who wasa Christian would at once, if only for a second, glance quickly upat them. When they had thus assured themselves of the religion of afew of their attendants, whom they invariably found to be the mostupright and trustworthy, they would repeat the word again, in a lowervoice and a more marked manner, when they passed them; and if theslave in reply murmured low the word ???????? or _pisciculus_ (i. e.little fish), they no longer felt in doubt. The use which they madeof their knowledge was absolutely innocent. Often they did not saya word more on the subject to their slaves and freedmen. Only theyknew that, among the base instruments of a wicked tyranny by whomthey were on every side surrounded, there was at least a presumptionthat these would be guilty of no treacherous or dishonourable deed.

  And thus, while Agrippina was growing daily more furious anddiscontented; while Seneca and Burrus were plunged into deeper anddeeper anxieties; while Pætus Thrasea, and Musonius, and Cornutusfound it more and more necessary to entrench themselves in the armourof a despairing fortitude; while Nero was sinking lower and lowerinto the slough of vice--Octavia and Britannicus began to draw nearerto the Unknown God, and found that when the sea of calamity does notmingle its bitter waters with the sea of guilt, calamity itself mightbe full of divine alleviations. Agrippina and Nero were provoked bytheir appearance and bearing. The last thing which they would havesuspected was that the Christianity which, in common with all Rome,they regarded as an execrable superstition, should have found itsway into patrician circles--should even have met with favourableacceptance under the roof of the Cæsars. When they saw thedisinherited Britannicus playing ball in the tennis-court, or beatinghis young fellow-pupils in races in the gardens, or wrestling notunsuccessfully with the sturdy and ruddy Titus, they were astonishedto think that a boy who had been robbed of all his rights should bepoor spirited enough to throw himself into enjoyments in which hismerry and musical laugh often rang out louder than that of any ofhis companions. What hope or what consolation could sustain him? Theyjealously fancied that some plot must be afoot; but suspicion wasdisarmed by the boy’s transparent frankness and innocence of manner.And Octavia--they treated her as a nullity; they permitted themselvesto indulge in every sneer and slight which they could devise. Morethan once Nero, fresh from some revel and lost to shame, had seizedher by her long, dark tresses, or struck her with his brutal hand.Yet no passionate murmur had betrayed her resentment. What could bethe secret of a beatitude which no misfortunes seemed wholly able todestroy?