The Death of the Gods

by Dmitry Merezhkovsky

  “Do not allow the sacrificial priests to frequent the theatre, to drink in taverns, or follow low trades. Respect the obedient, punish the unfaithful. In every town cause guest-houses to be built for pilgrims, who should therein find ample charity. Not only for Hellenist pilgrims, but for all, to whatever profession of faith they may belong. We ordain to be distributed in Galicia thirty thousand measures of wheat, a hundred and twenty thousand gallons of wine. Distribute a fifth part amongst the poor living near the temple, the rest amongst pilgrims and the sick. It is shameful that the Hellenists starve, when the Jews have not a beggar amongst them and the Galileans feed both their own poor and ours. They act like those who entice children with sweetmeats, beginning by hospitality, inviting to feasts of brotherly love. Little by little they finish by fasts, flagellations, madness, deaths of martyrs, and the horror of hell. Such are the customary means of those enemies of the human race who call themselves Christians and brothers. Combat them by charity, given in the name of the eternal Olympian gods. Announce in all cities and villages that such is my heartfelt will. If I learn that you have acted according to my decree, my favour shall be with you. Explain to the citizens that I hold myself in readiness to come to their help at any moment in all circumstances. But if they desire to obtain my favours, let them bow before Dindymene, the great Cybele, mother of the gods, and let them give glory unto her throughout all peoples, throughout all time.”

  He wrote the concluding words with his own hand.

  Breakfast was served—bread, cheese, fresh olives, and a light white wine. Julian ate and drank without ceasing work. But suddenly he turned and pointing to the golden plate of olives, asked his favourite slave, who had been brought by him from Gaul, and invariably served him at table—

  “Why this gold plate? Where is the other in earthenware?”

  “Pardon, sire!... it is broken.”

  “Broken to pieces?”

  “No—at the edge only....”

  “Bring it here.”

  The slave ran to get the plate in question.

  “It can be used for a long time yet,” said Julian.

  He smiled.

  “My friends, I have long observed that the broken outlasts the new. I confess I have a fancy for cracked things. They have the charm of old friends!... I fear novelty and hate change,” and he laughed heartily at himself. “You see what philosophy lies in a broken plate!”

  Julius Mauricus twitched Hekobolis by the sleeve—

  “Did you hear? That’s his character! He keeps his cracked plates and expiring gods; and that is how a world’s destiny is decided!”

  Julian had become completely absorbed in edicts and laws for reform.

  In every city in the Empire it was his wish to found schools, lectureships, debating-halls; special forms of prayer, and philosophic sermons, refuges for the upright, and for those who desired to devote themselves to philanthropic meditation.

  “What?” whispered Mauricus to Hekobolis. “Monasteries in honour of Aphrodite and Apollo? A new horror!”

  “Yes, my friend, with the aid of the gods we shall accomplish it all,” concluded the Emperor. “The Galileans want to convince the world that they have a monopoly of brotherly love, although it belongs to all philosophers, whatever be the gods they revere. My task in the world is to preach a new love; a love free and glad as the very sky of the Olympians!”

  Julian glanced round those present, but on the faces of his dignitaries did not find what he sought. Deputations from the Christian professors of rhetoric and philosophy at this moment entered the hall. An edict forbidding Christian teachers to give instruction in classical eloquence had recently appeared. The Christian grammarians had therefore to renounce their faith or quit their schools.

  Scroll in hand, one of these teachers approached the Emperor. He was a little thin man with a confused manner, bearing a strong likeness to a parrot. Two raw and awkward pupils accompanied him.

  “Beloved of the gods, have pity on us!”

  Julian interrupted—

  “What’s your name?”

  “Papirian, a Roman citizen.”

  “Well, understand, my dear Papirian, I bear no grudge against you ... on the contrary, remain Galilean....”

  The old man fell at the Emperor’s feet and kissed them.

  “Forty years have I been teaching grammar.... I know Homer and Hesiod better than anyone else....”

  “What do you want...” asked Augustus sternly.

  “Sir, I have six children!... Don’t rob me of my last crust!... My pupils like me; ask them if I teach anything harmful!”

  Emotion prevented Papirian from continuing his speech, and he pointed to his pupils, who, not knowing where to put their hands, stood together staring and blushing.

  “No, my friends,” said the Emperor gently but firmly. “The law is just. To my mind it is absurd that Christian teachers, in explaining Homer, should expound away the gods of whom Homer sang. If you believe that our wise men composed mere fables on the subject of our gods, you should go to your churches, and expound Matthew and Luke!... And note, Galileans, all is done in your own interest....”

  One of the rhetoricians muttered—

  “In our interest! We shall starve!”

  “Do you not fear profanation by what is worse than starvation—lying wisdom? You say ‘Blessed are the poor in spirit,’ Be, then, poor in spirit!... Perhaps you imagine that I am ignorant of your teaching? I know it better than you do! I see in the Galilean commandments depths you have never dreamed of!... But let each take his own path. Leave us our frivolous learning and philosophy, our poor literary knowledge. What have these poisoned streams to do with you? Yours is a higher wisdom! We own the earthly kingdom, and you ... the Kingdom of Heaven. That’s no small thing for humble folk like you!... Dialectic and logic leads to freethinking or heresies? Be then, in good sooth, simple as children. The ignorance of the fishermen of Capernaum is above all the Platonic dialogues, is it not? All the wisdom of the Galileans is summed in the word ‘Believe’! Ah, rhetoricians, if you were true Christians you would bless our edict. At this moment, it is not your souls, but your bodies which rebel; your bodies, which find sweetness in sinfulness. That is all I have to say to you, and I hope that you will learn to agree with me, and that you will find that the Roman Emperor is more anxious for your souls’ salvation than you are yourselves!”

  Julian calmly threaded his way through the crowd of unhappy rhetoricians, contented with his speech, but Papirian, still kneeling, tore his hair—

  “Why, Queen of Heaven, dost thou suffer such things to be?” and the two scholars, seeing their master’s distress, with clumsy fists brushed the tears from their eyes.

  * * *

  VI

  Julian remembered the interminable conflicts between Orthodox and Arians under Constantius at the council of Milan, and designing to profit by that animosity, he decided to follow the example of his Christian predecessors and convoke an œcumenical council.

  On one occasion, in a private conversation, he had declared that, instead of persecuting the Galileans, he wished to give them full freedom of faith, and to call back from exile Donatists, Cæcilians, Marcionists, Montanists, and other heretics banished by the councils of Constantine and Constantius. He thought that there was no better means of abolishing Christianity.

  “You will see, my friends, when all the sectaries shall have returned, such strife will be kindled between these brethren, that they will begin to torture each other like birds of prey loosed from their cage into the arena of the circus. They will bring shame upon their Master’s name more quickly and effectually than I could by any persecutions and martyrdoms!”

  And so Julian sent into all parts of the Empire edicts authorising the banished to return. The wisest Galilean teachers were at the same time invited to come to the palace at Constantinople for a religious discussion; but the majority of those invited were unaware of the subject to be discussed, the wording of the letters being ski
lfully vague. Guessing some trick, many, pleading sickness, failed to present themselves.

  The blue morning sky seemed dark against the dazzling whiteness of the double colonnade surrounding the court known as the Atrium of Constantine. White pigeons were fluttering here and there in the sky, with gleeful beating of wings. In the centre of the court stood the statue of Venus Callipyge, in warm and beautiful marble. The monks, passing by her, turned away, hiding their eyes, but the tender temptress remained, for all that, in their midst. Not without purpose had Julian chosen this situation for the Galilean council. The dark robes of the religious appeared blacker still, their starvation-dulled faces more meagre. Each strove to wear an air of indifference and presumption, feigning not to see his enemy at his elbow, yet casting stealthy glances of curiosity and contempt.

  “Holy Mother of God, what is this? Whither are we fallen?” said the old bishop Eustace, with profound emotion. “Let me pass out, soldiers!”

  “Gently, gently, my friend,” answered the centurion of the lance-bearers, the barbarian Dagalaïf, politely keeping him from the door.

  “I’m choking in this pit of heresy! let me pass!”

  “By the will of Augustus, everybody here has come to the council,” responded Dagalaïf, inflexibly keeping him back.

  “But this is not a council, it is a den of thieves!”

  Among the Galileans some more cheerful persons began to laugh at the provincial manners and the strong Armenian accent of Eustace, who, losing courage, quieted down, and slipped into a corner, muttering—

  “Lord, Lord, how have I offended Thee?”

  Evander of Nicomedia also quickly repented of having come and of having led thither brother Juventinus, a disciple of Didimus, who had but newly arrived at Constantinople.

  Evander was one of the greatest dogmatists of his time; a man of profound and lucid intellect. He had lost his health, and grown prematurely old, over his books; he was almost blind, and his short-sighted eyes worn out with fatigue. Innumerable heresies besieged his brain, leaving him no sleep, or tormenting him in dreams, ever tempting him by their dread subtleties. Evander used to collect heresies, as one might collect jewels or scientific rarities, in an immense manuscript entitled Against Heresy. He hunted for them greedily, imagined those that might be in existence, and the better he refuted the more he was attracted towards them.

  Sometimes he would entreat God to grant him simple faith, and God would refuse him simplicity.

  In ordinary life he was timid, simple, and offenceless as a child. For rascals to deceive Evander was as easy as breathing, and on this score the mockers told a hundred stories against him. Plunged in doctrinal dreams, the bishop continually found himself in awkward situations. In one of these fits of abstraction he had come to this singular council, without thinking why he went thither, but attracted by the hope of lighting on a new heresy. Now his face was twitching with annoyance, and he shaded his weak eyes against the too bright rays of the sun, longing to be back amongst his books in his little twilight chamber.

  Evander kept Juventinus at his side, and warned him against temptation by criticising various heresies. In the centre of the hall a vigorous old man was striding up and down. He had high cheek-bones and thick grey hair. It was the septuagenarian bishop Purpuris, recalled from exile by Julian. Neither Constantine nor Constantius had succeeded in stifling the Donatist heresy. For fifty years past streams of blood had flowed in Africa, by reason of the unjust deposition of a Donatist in favour of a Cæcilian, or of a Cæcilian in favour of a Donatist. Nor could any augury be made as to the final issue of this fratricidal strife.

  Juventinus noticed that the Cæcilian bishop who was passing in front of Purpuris brushed the vestments of the Donatist with the corner of his chasuble. The latter turned fiercely round, with a growl of disgust, and, taking the stuff between two fingers, shook it several times before the eyes of everybody.

  Evander informed Juventinus in a low voice that when a Cæcilian happened to enter a Donatist congregation he was hunted out and the flags touched by his feet were washed with salt water.

  Behind Purpuris, dogging him step by step, walked his faithful bodyguard, an enormous half-savage African, brown-skinned, terrible, flat-nosed, and thick-lipped, the deacon Leona. He was armed with a cudgel, gripped tightly in his nervous hands. He was an Ethiopian peasant, belonging to the self-mutilating sect called Circumcellions. Weapon in hand, these sectaries would run along the high-roads offering money to passers-by, in return for destruction, adding, “Kill us, or we will kill you!” In the name of Christ the Circumcellions mutilated themselves, burned themselves, drowned themselves, but never would hang themselves, because Judas was hanged. They declared that suicide for God’s glory washed all sin from the soul, and the people looked on them as martyrs. Before death, they abandoned themselves to all pleasures; ate, drank, and offered violence to women. A great number refrained from using swords, Christ having forbidden it, but on the other hand they felled heretics and pagans with huge bludgeons, “according to the Scriptures,” and with consciences at ease. While spilling blood they would cry “Glory be to God!”

  And the peaceful inhabitants lived more in terror of this religious cry than of war-trumpets or the roarings of a lion. The Donatists considered the Circumcellions as their guardians, and these Ethiopian peasants finding theological controversies hard to understand, the Donatists would point out beforehand those whom they were to strike according to the Scriptures.

  Evander directed the attention of Juventinus on a handsome youth, whose tender and ingenuous expression seemed almost that of a young girl. He was a Caïnite.

  “Blessed be our tameless brothers, Cain, Shem, the inhabitants of Sodom and Gomorrah!” preached the Caïnites. “They are seeds of high wisdom, of reason divine!... Come to us, all ye hunted, reprobate, revolted! Blessed be Judas! he alone among the apostles was initiated in the higher knowledge!... He betrayed Christ that He might die and rise again, because he knew the death of Christ would save the world! He who is initiated in our wisdom can transgress all limits, daring all, despising matter, trampling all fear under foot; and giving himself up to all sins and delight of the sense, attain that disgust for matter which is the final purity of the soul!”

  “Look, Juventinus, there is a man who believes himself above archangels and seraphim,” said Evander, waving his hand towards a young and sprightly Egyptian, who held himself aloof from everyone, an ironic smile on his lips, which were painted, like those of a courtesan. He was dressed in the latest Byzantine vogue, his white hands loaded with rings. His name was Cassiodorus, and he was a Valentinian. “In the Christians,” affirmed the arrogant Valentinians, “there is a soul, as in animals; but there is no mind, as in us. We alone are initiated into the mysteries of the Gnosis and of the divine Plenum. It follows, therefore, that we alone are worthy to call ourselves human. All others are, as it were, pigs and dogs.”

  Cassiodorus would say to his disciples: “You should know everyone, but no one should understand you. Before the profane, deny the Gnosis, be dumb, and despise evidences of the gospel. Despise professions of faith and martyrdoms; love silence and mystery. Be for your enemy as invisible, elusive, inviolable, as the immaterial forces. Ordinary Christians need good actions for their salvation; but those who possess the highest knowledge of God, the Gnosis, need not perform these actions. We are the sons of light, they the sons of darkness. We fear not sin, because we know that sin is needful to the material body, and even to the immaterial soul. We are placed so high that, let our faults be what they will, we cannot err. Our heart remains chaste in the delights of matter, as pure gold keeps its brightness in the mud.”

  Elsewhere Juventinus saw an old man, with a hang-dog expression and a squint, the Adamite Prodick, explaining his teaching in a loud voice. He believed in restoring the innocence of the first Adam. The Adamites performed their mysteries in a church warmed like a bath and called the “Eden.” Like our first ancestors, they evinced no shame in th
e absence of clothes, and assevered that among themselves all men and women were noted for lofty modesty, although the innocence of these paradisiac assemblies had sometimes been questioned.

  At the elbow of the Adamite Prodick a woman—pale-faced, grey-haired, and proud, her eyes half-shut with fatigue—was sitting on the ground. She wore episcopal garb. She was the prophetess of the Montanists. Yellow-skinned Copts were tending her devotedly, gazing on her with solicitude, and calling her “Heavenly Dove.” Consuming themselves for years in ecstasies of impossible love, they preached the duty of bringing humanity to an end, through the practice of continence. Scattered in numerous bands on the burning hills of Phrygia, near the ruins of Papusa, these pallid dreamers would remain sitting motionless, day after day, their eyes fixed on the horizon, on which the Saviour was to appear. On foggy evenings, above the grey plain, in the clouds, in rays of melting gold they would catch visions of the glory of God—the new Zion descending upon earth. Year after year they would wait, dying at last in the hope that the celestial kingdom was just about to descend upon the ruins of Papusa. Sometimes lifting her wearied eyelids, and with troubled gaze fixed in the distance, the prophetess was murmuring in Syriac—

  “Maran Atha“—"The Lord is coming!”

  And her Coptic servants bowed towards her, the better to hear.