The Blood of the Martyrs

by Naomi Mitchison

  ‘I’m sorry if you want me to be sorry,’ said Beric, ‘but he had to be got rid of.’

  ‘You’re pretending to be God,’ Persis said.

  ‘There’s someone who needs to be got rid of much more,’ Beric said low, ‘and that’s Tigellinus. And I’m going to do it. I’m going to deliver you from evil. I’m going to be God’s instrument.’

  ‘Tigellinus …’ said Persis. ‘Oh—not because of her?’

  ‘No,’ said Beric, ‘because of you. All of you. And you’ve got to help me, Persis. You’ve got to be God’s instrument too. You’ve got to let me in when—he’s with her. He won’t be armed then.’

  ‘You’re trying to tempt me,’ said Persis. ‘How can I? You’re wicked, Beric. You mustn’t.’

  ‘But think, Persis, it’s for Lalage and all of them in prison. Manasses. Euphemia. If I do this, then those things at the Games won’t happen. The things you were afraid of. They won’t happen to you.’

  ‘I’d rather they happened than you do this sin—and make me help you—to stop them. If they’re God’s will—’

  ‘Why do you say they are? I think they’re the will of Tigellinus.’

  ‘Then God will strike him.’

  ‘Yes, through me. And you, Persis. If you don’t help me I’ll do it myself, but I’m more likely to be caught.’

  ‘Oh, Beric, you’re twisting me—Argas, help me, it’s getting so difficult!’

  Argas had been listening, trying to sort it out. The difficulty had been that when he first heard Beric say he was going to kill Tigellinus, he had felt a most disconcerting hope and excitement. He had first to fight against this in himself, to think what Manasses would have said, how Manasses would have been able, quite easily, to think of it. Or Lalage. He stood there, fingering the bath towel he had brought at the beginning, praying, thinking over his direct instructions from Jesus who had understood everything—the Way of Life. Sense, it had been. And Persis was pulling at his arm, and Beric, who was at last being friends with him again, was standing there, certain of what he was going to do. Seeing ahead of him. And had got to be stopped.

  ‘Well,’ said Beric, ‘isn’t it sense?’

  He had to answer. ‘No,’ he said, ‘not so much sense in the end as the Way of Life. I’ll try and tell you. Give me a minute, Beric. It’s not too easy. You want to do something good in the end, good for all of us. Right. But to get there you’re going to do something bad. Something directly forbidden. Something that’ll keep you out of the Kingdom.’

  ‘If I could do this for you, it wouldn’t matter me being out of the Kingdom. I’d do that. I’d lose my chance of the Kingdom. I’d go back to where I was. I’d die too; perhaps I’ll have to. Jesus said if you took the sword you’d got to be killed by the sword. I think someone’s got to be that now, and I will be.’

  ‘But it’s not so easy. We can’t let you buy us out that way. If we did we’d be murderers too. You can’t get out of having to be good. Having to look after your own soul. What you’re trying to do is to get behind what’s plain and sense. To say you know best. Better than Jesus and everyone else who’s thought about it. Listen, Beric; if you do this wrong thing it will spoil the good thing it was meant to help. Like your killing Sotion spoiled our forgiving him. You’ll get us all mixed up in it, in our minds I mean, making us feel our Kingdom and our love for one another is happening because of a murder. Because of a sin. Which it can’t be. It’s got to be founded on love and just nothing else. It isn’t like ordinary things that are founded on hate or money or some kind of rule. It’s a different kind of thing. You know. You felt it yourself. It didn’t have anything to do with murder: did it?’

  ‘But Tigellinus is part of the thing,’ said Beric, ‘the thing we’re trying to get rid of so that the Kingdom will be able to come. So that there’ll be the kind of equality that we’ll be able to love one another in!’

  ‘We can’t get rid of the thing by killing people who’re in it here and there. We’ve got to put a different kind of force on it. A new kind. So that it’ll alter itself and break itself up. Oh, it’s difficult to show you, Beric, when you’ve got this old way into your head! But we’ve got to do it by living differently ourselves. Thinking different. Acting different. That’s why we’re going to the Arena if we’ve got to: to be witnesses for our new thing. They’ll know it’s real if we die for it. See? But if we start killing our enemies instead of forgiving them, then it’s no different. We’ll be like everybody else. And we’ll be beaten the same as Spartacus was beaten: because he didn’t know the last thing—the thing we do—the love that makes it all different. So if you do this you’ll really be helping to beat us. You’ll be helping the other side, Beric. People won’t think we’ve got anything different, and you’ll spoil our dying for the new way. Our dying won’t do what it’s meant to do. See?’

  ‘If I do it the way I mean,’ Beric said, ‘no one will know who did it.’

  ‘I’d know. It would be my sin. And—you might be caught.’

  Beric answered slowly, ‘But even then people wouldn’t know it was a Christian who killed Tigellinus. If I am that still. They’ll think I did it because of Flavia. Even Persis thought that.’

  ‘But we’d know,’

  ‘If I do it in spite of you telling me not to, then you won’t be to blame. And I won’t be a Christian.’

  ‘Oh, Beric, don’t leave us! You did see once what the Way of Life was about. Why we’re different. Why we just have to be once we’ve got the hang of it. You saw it was sense then. It’s sense still, isn’t it?’

  ‘Yes, it’s sense still. And I want it to be possible for everyone. Not smashed and stopped. As it may be. You know it may, Argas.’

  ‘It couldn’t be,’ said Persis, ‘it would go on in other places.’ And suddenly she thought of her mother and the Church at Philippi going on. Epaphroditus on that old mule of his, helping anyone who asked him. People being happy there. And she’d be able to die for them. She’d be able to die for her mother. Then they’d be together again, as they’d never be now, any other way.

  ‘That’s pride,’ said Argas. ‘You think you know the Will and the Plan, Beric. But you don’t. Nobody can.’

  ‘We’ve got to try and know,’ said Beric. He looked at the two slaves; he wanted desperately to protect them. That was what being a master was for. But if they wouldn’t be protected?

  And then Phaon dodged into the room and whispered to the three of them, ‘Phineas is arrested.’

  ‘Then Eunice must be deacon,’ said Persis quietly. ‘But it’ll be all of us soon.’

  ‘They may leave the slaves,’ said Phaon, ‘for their masters to deal with.’ And he grinned at Beric with a touch of malice. ‘We’re supposed to get our beating-up privately.’

  ‘We oughtn’t all to be here together,’ said Argas, suddenly nervous, ‘in case …’ and broke off, and began hurriedly to fold the towel.

  But this time it was Sannio. He looked a bit shy at Beric and said, ‘I thought—maybe me being here too, sir, it wouldn’t look so awkward, not—not if anyone began to have their suspicions. Like they might. I won’t listen, sir, not to what’s not meant for me.’

  ‘If I’d happened to be a slave,’ said Beric, ‘if the Emperor hadn’t pardoned my father … and all that nonsense … I wish I could be sure I’d have been as decent as some of you.’

  CHAPTER III

  The Individual and the State

  After the litter had come round for Flavia, Crispus sent for Beric; he was very much upset about Gallio, but extremely pleased that his letter had not got into the hands of the police. The next thing to do was to see Gallio if possible, find out if it was a matter of money—or what. Most probably it was official blackmail in some form; but perhaps some other and still less discreet letters, had been intercepted. He was putting enquiries into motion. By the evening he found that Gallio was in the Mamertine prison; the charge appeared to be rather indefinite; very likely it would be just a matter of mon
ey. If possible he would see him the next day. Beric asked if he could come too, adding that he might perhaps take something to one or two of the other prisoners. ‘Manasses is there, you know. Perhaps Gallio will have seen him.’ ‘Dear me, dear me!’ said Crispus, ‘to think of Gallio being in the same prison as these criminals. If you come with me, Beric, you must be careful. They may be in a different part of the prison. I certainly trust so.’

  However, as it turned out, Gallio was not in the decent segregation he might have claimed. Aelius Candidus had received him with every show of politeness and regret for this distressing, this no doubt temporary, misfortune. ‘All a misunderstanding, no doubt, sir,’ he said.

  Gallio grunted, ‘I doubt it. Our friend Tigellinus understands perfectly well what he’s about. Got some light irons, Candidus?’

  ‘Certainly, certainly,’ said Candidus, seeing to it, ‘a necessary formality, I’m afraid.’ He took him through, showed him his cell, quite a tolerable little room really, and then the exercise yard. ‘Rather a mixed crowd, sir,’ he said. ‘Still, I can have the women removed.’

  ‘Let the poor creatures be,’ Gallio answered, ‘no need to drive ’em back into their cells for me. Getting much gaol fever?’

  ‘An occasional case,’ said Candidus. ‘Some of these wretched Christians come from the worst slums in Rome. They bring it with them.’ He looked at his prisoners with distaste. ‘When I joined the Praetorians, I never supposed I should be promoted to be a menagerie keeper!’

  Gallio looked round too, then nudged Candidus, ‘Who’s that fellow?’

  ‘That? Another of these Christians. This one’s a citizen at least. From Tarsus. However, I think you would be well advised not to speak to any of them, Gallio.’

  ‘Thanks for your advice, Candidus,’ said Gallio coldly, ‘but I’m afraid I shall be bored if I don’t. Can’t stand being bored.’ He turned his back on the Deputy-Governor and shuffled off towards the rest of the prisoners, who had edged away from him at first. He found the irons uncomfortable, but no worse than that. And he thought he remembered the face of this citizen from Tarsus. Though where the devil he could have seen him?

  Aelius Candidus made a note on his tablets. It would interest the authorities to hear that Gallio had actually chosen to mix with the Christians. It would be nice to see Gallio crash. Comforting. To know that not even a great name, honour and education and honest service to the State, could save a man if his luck was out! Some of his prisoners were praying or whatever they did, wriggling about on the ground, turning their eyes up like hens. Disgusting little Jews and Syrians, ugly, half-starved, gutter-smelling—you could believe they’d done anything! Aelius Candidus deliberately walked across the yard in their direction, through them, and got a few kicks in on the ones that didn’t scuttle fast enough. He wore heavy boots.

  But Gallio went up to his fellow citizen from the farthest end of the Empire and said, ‘Morning. I know your face. What’s your name?’

  ‘My name is Paul: Paul of Tarsus. I didn’t remember your face, but now I hear your voice, I know you, sir. You’re Lucius Junius Gallio. You bought some tents from me. I hope they wore well.’

  ‘So you were one of these Christians after all?’

  ‘Certainly. Did I deny it?’

  ‘The other fellows did most of the talking. What are you doing here?’

  ‘I am here on appeal to Caesar from the Governor of Judaea.’

  ‘Didn’t you get justice from him?’

  ‘Yes. But I needed a public trial in Rome.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘To clarify the position. We shall either get leave to preach and teach here, and then we shall be able to go anywhere, unhindered, or else we shall be declared public enemies.’

  ‘Looks like that now.’

  ‘I think not. I believe this is a phase. Not that it really signifies, because we shall certainly win in the end, but it might be quicker if we could do it peacefully. This killing won’t go on beyond the next few weeks. And why? Because the men and women who are killed are all going to be witnesses of the truth of what they are dying for. On a big scale, too.’

  ‘What sentence d’you expect, yourself—frankly?’

  ‘Oh, a death sentence, as things are just now. Obviously.’

  ‘Not worrying, are you?’

  ‘Why should I? It is necessary that some of us should die. One must take the long view, as the farmer does when he buries his corn and knows he won’t see it again until spring. Does what I say shock you, Gallio?’

  ‘A little, a little. But never mind. Better be shocked than bored. And I’m bored mostly. Go on, Paul. What made you take up this Christianity? You were a respectable man, weren’t you?’

  ‘Yes, I was respectable once. A good Jew. I thought these Nazarenes were as dangerous to us and our established rules as you Romans think they are to yours. It hurt me to hear them talk! I thought they could be got rid of, as Nero thinks now. I tried to do it myself with my own hands. I helped to kill one of them. Stoning him. Filled with blind, screaming hate against him—as one must be to kill an unarmed man. And you see, Gallio, he met that hatred and mad rage with something else. You could see it in his eyes up to the last. Till they were blind with blood. It was love he was fighting us with. Love. I went on to Damascus, feeding my hate and rage with words, the way one does. I had to find others to hurt and kill; as I killed them I would also be convincing myself that they had been wicked! But somehow I could never get that man Stephen out of my mind, nor what he had said about his Master. There was sand and dust and rocks, and sometimes a few scraggy, dark palm trees, and the jogging of the mules under the hot sun. And I could never stop thinking about Stephen. I kept on seeing him, half smashed by the stones, his back broken, lifting himself on his elbows and crawling a little like an animal. I kept on smelling his blood. You see, it was not as though I had ever killed before; I had always been interested in things of the mind, indoor things; even when I was a child I had never thrown stones at the dogs in the street. And now I had done this thing to another person, and this other person had loved me. He had died to show me his love. And suddenly I saw that this was the whole truth about everything, the light in the heart of the Universe! Love and blood. Have I made myself plain, Gallio?’

  ‘Not in the very least, I’m afraid. But never mind. Probably my stupidity. All this blood. Got on your nerves, no doubt. Gives me the feeling of a sacrifice, somehow.’

  ‘Exactly. The sacrifice of the victim who gives himself out of his great love. Who sheds his own blood for all of us. That was the mystery that I saw.’

  ‘H’m. And that’s something to do with this Christianity?’

  ‘It is Christianity.’

  ‘Odd. If that was all, it would be no more dangerous than all the rest of these Eastern religions. Saw a lot of them when I was Governor. What’s different about yours?’

  Paul looked at him suspiciously, frowning, then said, ‘Jesus died for me. And for every man or woman who has the will to accept Him, singly and separately. His love passes to them as Stephen’s passed first to me. We believe in the value of the individual human being, his right to be bought by the blood, his right to choose for himself, his right to be in brotherhood. We cannot give consent, even formal consent, to any principle which denies this.’

  ‘Ah,’ said Gallio, ‘I begin to see. If you believe in human beings, in the importance of the individual person, whoever he may be, then sooner or later that is an attack on the State which is bound to claim a super-authority and a super-value. That right, Paul?’

  ‘We allow the human authority of the State,’ said Paul definitely.

  ‘Yes, hair-splitter, coming here to appeal to Caesar! All of a piece, you Jewish intellectuals. Pretty penny it must have cost you, too. You may think you can allow the State’s authority. Don’t know if you’ll go on doing that; not if you’re logical. Perhaps you aren’t though. But you can’t allow the State’s value. Now, I’ll tell you. What you’re up against is t
he State shaping the lives of these individuals of yours any way it pleases. Making them part of a thing, so to speak. Using them for its own ends.’

  ‘We must be against that. Persons are ends in themselves. Under God.’

  ‘So that’s what this atheism charge is. You won’t assent to the worship of the State or the State gods.’

  ‘Or the State’s Emperor.’

  Gallio gave an abrupt laugh. ‘I see your point. So even if they wanted you to make a formal admission of the supreme value of the State and its claim over those who live under it, you would refuse to do so?’

  ‘That is so, Gallio.’

  ‘You wouldn’t even drop a pinch of incense on the altar flame?’

  ‘Certainly not, Gallio.’

  ‘Die sooner than do it?’

  ‘Naturally.’

  ‘Doesn’t that seem to you a bit silly? Bit exaggerated?’

  ‘No. It is a point on which there can be no compromise. It has not arisen yet in the form that you suggest, but it may do so.’

  ‘Very probably. Well, well, I’ve always believed in compromise myself. Up to a point. No doubt all of us stick somewhere. And you say all these’—he looked round at the yard full of queer-looking creatures, undersized, dirty, scarred, obviously uneducated and without taste, dressed in odds and ends of rag—‘all these are really valuable as human beings—that it matters what happens to them?’

  ‘Jesus gave His life for each of them,’ said Paul, ‘and so would I.’

  A tall woman, with a cloak pinned over a very torn dress, came across the yard. Again Gallio seemed to think he knew the face: really, all this might be quite interesting. Quite a change. The woman spoke to Paul, ‘My friend Sophrosyne has the fever and I don’t think she will live very much longer. She’s old and not strong; they knocked her about rather at the first examination. Would you mind coming and giving her a blessing, Paul, while she’s still conscious?’