Aurelian; or, Rome in the Third Century
and the favor of the gods has been theirs. Aurelian may do more and
better in the same work, seeing his power is greater and his piety more
zealous.'
'These are admitted truths, Fronto, save the last; but whither do they
tend?'
'To this. Because, Aurelian, vice has been in Rome; because even the
priesthood has been corrupt, and the temples themselves the sties you
say they now are--for this, have the gods ever withdrawn their
protection? Has Rome ever been the less prosperous? What is more, can we
conceive that they who made us of their own fiery mould, so prone to
violate the bounds of moderation, would, for yielding to such instincts,
interpose in wrath, as if that had happened which was not foreseen, and
against which, they had made sure provision? Are the heavens to blaze
with the fires of the last day, thunders to roll as if earth were shaken
to her centre, the entrails of dumb beasts to utter forth terrific
prophecy of great and impending wo, because, forsooth, the people of
Rome are by no means patterns of purity--because, perchance, within the
temples themselves, an immorality may have been purposed, or
perpetrated--because, even the priests themselves have not been, or are
not, white and spotless as their robes?'
'There seems some reason in what you say.'
'But, great Emperor, take me not as if I would make myself the shield of
vice, to hide it from the blow that would extirpate or cure it. I see,
and bewail, the corruptions of the age; but, as they seem not fouler
than those of ages which are past, especially than those of Nero and of
Commodus, I cannot think that it is against these the gods have armed
themselves, but, Aurelian, against an evil which has been long growing,
and often assailed and checked, but which has now got to such giant size
and strength, that except it be absolutely hewn down, and the least
roots torn up and burned, both the altars of our gods, and their
capital, called Eternal, and the empire itself, now holding the world in
its wide-spread, peace-giving arms, are vanished, and anarchy, impiety,
atheism, and the rank vices, which in such times would be engendered,
will then reign omnipotent, and fill the very compass of the earth,
Christ being the universal king! It is against this the heavens have
arrayed their power; and to arouse an ungrateful, thoughtless, impious
people, with their sleeping king, that they have spoken in thunder.'
'Fronto, I almost believe you right.'
'Had we, Aurelian, but the eyes of moles, when the purposes of the gods
are to be deciphered in the character of events, we should long since
have seen that the series of disasters which have befallen the empire
since the Gallilean atheism has taken root here, have pointed but to
that--that they have been a chastisement of our supineness and sloth.
When did Rome, almighty Rome, ever before tremble at the name of
barbarian, or fly before their arms? While now, is it not much that we
are able to keep them from the very walls of the Capital? They now swarm
the German forests in multitudes, which no man can count; their hoarse
murmurs can be heard even here, ready, soon as the reins of empire shall
fall into the hands of another Gallienus, to pour themselves upon the
plains of Italy, changing our fertile lands and gorgeous cities into
another Dacia. These things were not so once; and what cause there is in
Rome, so deep, and high, and broad, to resolve for us the reason of this
averted face of heaven, save that of which I speak, I cannot guess.'
'Nor I,' said Aurelian; 'I confess it. It must be so My work is not
three, nor two; but one. I have brought peace to the empire in all its
borders. My legions all rest upon their arms. Not a sword, but is in its
sheath--there, for the present, let it be glued fast. The season, so
propitious for the great work of bringing again the empire into peace
and harmony with the angry gods, seems to have been provided by
themselves. How think you, Nicomachus?'--turning suddenly to me, as if
now, for the first time, aware that I was standing at his side.
I answered, 'that I was slow to receive the judgment of Fronto or of
himself in that matter. That I could not believe that the gods, who
should be examples of the virtues to mankind, would ever ordain such
sufferings for their creatures as must ensue, were the former violences
to be renewed against the Christians. So far from thinking them a
nuisance in the state, I considered them a benefit.'
'The Greek too,' said Fronto, breaking in, 'is then a Christian.'
'I am not a Christian, priest, nor, as I think, shall ever be one; but,
far sooner would I be one, than take my faith from thee, which, however
it might guide me well through the wine vaults of the temple, or to the
best stalls of the market, or to the selectest retreats of the suburra,
would scarce show the way to heaven. I affront but the corruptions of
religion, Aurelian. Sincerity I honor everywhere. Hypocrisy nowhere.' I
thought Fronto would have torn me with his teeth and nails. His white
face grew whiter, but he stood still.
'Say on,' said the Emperor, 'though your bluntness be more even than
Roman.'
'I think,' I continued, 'the Christians a benefit to the state, for this
reason; not that their religion is what they pretend, a heaven-descended
one, but that, by its greater strictness, it serves to rebuke the common
faith and those who hold it, and infuse into it something of its own
spirit. All new systems, as I take it, in their first beginning are
strict and severe. It is thus by this quality they supersede older and
degenerate ones; not because they are truer, but because they are purer.
There is a prejudice among men, that the gods, whoever they may be, and
whatever they may be, love virtue in men, and for that accept them.
When, therefore, a religion fails to recommend and enforce virtue, it
fails to meet the judgment of men concerning the true character and
office of a religion, and so with the exception of such beasts, and such
there always are, who esteem a faith in proportion to its corruptions,
they look with favor upon any new one which promises to be what they
want. It is for this reason that this religion from Judea has made its
way so far and so soon. But, it will, by and by, degenerate from its
high estate, just as others have done, and be succeeded by another that
shall raise still higher expectations. In the meantime, it serves the
state well, both by the virtue which it enjoins upon its own subjects,
and the influence it exerts, by indirection, upon those of the prevalent
faiths, and upon the general manners and morals.'
'What you say,' observed Aurelian musingly, 'has some show of sense. So
much, at least, may be said for this religion.'
'Yet a lie,' said Fronto, 'can be none the less hateful to the gods,
because it sometime plays the part of truth. It is a lie still.'
'Hold,' said Aurelian, 'let us hear the Greek. What else?'
'I little thought,' I replied, 'as I rode toward the city this morning,
that I should at this hour be standing in the presence of the Emperor of
Rome, a defender of the Christians. I am in no manner whatever fitted
for the task. My knowledge is nothing; my opinions, therefore, worth but
little, grounded as they are upon the loose reports which reach my ear
concerning the character and doctrines of this sect, or upon what little
observation I have made upon those whom I have known of that
persuasion. Still, I honor and esteem them, and such aid as I can bring
them in their straits, shall be very gladly theirs. I will, however, add
one thing more to what I have said in answer to Fronto, who represents
the gods as more concerned to destroy the Christians than to reform the
common religion and the public morals. I cannot think that. Am I to
believe that the gods, the supreme directors of human affairs, whose aim
must be man's highest well-being, regard with more abhorrence an error
than a vice?--an error too that acts more beneficently than most truth,
and is the very seed of the purest virtues? I can by no means believe
it. So that if I were interpreter of the late omens, I should rather see
them pointed at the vices which prevail; at the corruptions of the
public morals, which are fouler than aught I had so much as dreamed of
before I was myself a witness of them, and may well be supposed to
startle the gods from their rest, and draw down their hottest
thunderbolts. But I will not say more, when there must be so many able
to do so much better in behalf of what I must still believe to be a good
cause. Let me entreat the Emperor, before he condemns, to hear. There
are those in Rome, of warm hearts, sound heads, and honest souls, from
whom, if from any on earth, truth may be heard, and who will set in its
just light a doctrine too excellent to suffer, as it must, in my hands.'
'They shall be heard, Nicomachus. Not even a Jew or a Christian shall
suffer without that grace; though I see not how it can avail.'
'If it should not avail to plant in your mind so good an opinion of
their way as exists in mine,' I resumed, 'it might yet to soften it, and
dispose it to a more lenient conduct; and so many are the miseries of
life in the natural order of events, that the humane heart must desire
to diminish, not increase them. Has Aurelian ever heard the name of
Probus the Christian?'
The Emperor turned toward Fronto with a look of inquiry.
'Yes,' said the priest, 'you have heard his name. But that of Felix, the
bishop of the Christians, as he is called, is more familiar to you.'
'Felix, Felix, that is the name I have heard most, but Probus too, if I
err not.'
'He has been named to you, I am certain,' added Fronto. 'He is the real
head of the Nazarenes,--the bishop, but a painted one.'
'Probus is he who turned young Piso's head. Is it not so?'
'The very same; and beside his, the lady Julia's.'
'No, that was by another, one Paul of Antioch, also a bishop and a fast
friend of the Queen. The Christians themselves have of late set upon
him, as they were so many blood-hounds, being bent upon expelling him
from Antioch. It is not long since, in accordance with the decree of
some assembled bishops there, I issued a rescript dislodging him from
his post, and planting in his place one Domnus. If our purposes prosper,
the ejected and dishonored priest may find himself at least safer if
humbler. Probus,--I shall remember him. The name leads my thoughts to
Thrace, where our greater Probus waits for me.'
'From Probus the Christian,' I said, 'you will receive,' whenever you
shall admit him to your presence, a true account of the nature of the
Christians' faith and of the actual condition of their community--all
which, can be had only from a member of it.'
But little more was said, when I departed, and took my way again towards
Tibur.
It seemed to me, from the manner of the Emperor more than from what he
said, that he was settled and bound up to the bad work of an assault
upon the Christians. To what extent it was in his mind to go, I could
not judge; for his language was ambiguous, and sometimes contradictory.
But that the darkest designs were harbored by him, over which he was
brooding with a mind naturally superstitious, but now almost in a state
of exasperation, from the late events, was most evident.
LETTER VI.
FROM PISO TO FAUSTA.
Having confined myself, in my last letter, to the affairs of Marcus and
Lucilia, I now, Fausta, turn to those which concern us and Rome.
I found, on my return to the city, that the general anxiety concerning
the designs of Aurelian had greatly increased. Many rumors were current
of dark sayings of his, which, whether founded in truth or not,
contributed to alarm even the most hopeful, and raise serious