Aurelian; or, Rome in the Third Century
'But knowest thou, Christian, that in saying that, thou hast condemned
thyself to instant death? Was not death the expressed penalty for
violation of that law?'
'Truly it was,' answered Macer; 'and what is death to me?'
'I suppose death to be death,' replied Varus.
'Therein thou showest thyself to be in the same darkness as all the rest
of this idolatrous city. Death to the Christian, Prefect, is life! Crush
me by thy engines, and in the twinkling of an eye is my soul dwelling
with God, and looking down with compassion upon thy stony heart.'
'Verily, Fronto,' said Varus, 'these Christians are an ingenious people.
What a wonderful fancy is this. But, Christian,' turning to Macer, 'it
were a pity surely for thee to die. Thou hast a family as I learn.
Would not thy life be more to them than thy death?'
'Less,' said the Christian, 'a thousand fold! were it not a better
vision to them of me crowned with a victor's wreath and sitting with
Christ, than dwelling here in this new Sodom, and drinking in its
pestilential air? The sight of me there would be to them a spring of
comfort and a source of strength which here I can never be.'
'But,' added the Prefect, 'it is but right that thou shouldst for the
present, if it may be, live here and take care of thy family. They will
want thee.'
'God,' replied Macer, 'who feeds the birds of the air, and through all
their wanderings over the earth from clime to clime still brings them
back to the accustomed home, will watch over those whom I love, and
bring them home. Such, Prefect, are the mercies of Rome toward us who
belong to Christ, that they will not be left long to bewail my loss.'
'Do thy family then hold with thee?' said Varus.
'Blessed be God, they do.'
'That is a pity--' responded the Prefect.
'Say not so, Varus; 'tis a joy and a triumph to me in this hour, and to
them, that they are Christ's.'
'Still,' rejoined the Prefect, 'I would willingly save thee, and make
thee live: and there is one way in which it may be done, and thou mayest
return in joy to thy home.'
'Let me then know it,' said Macer.
'Renounce Christ, Macer, and sacrifice; and thy life is thine, and honor
too.'
Macer's form seemed to dilate to more than its common size, his
countenance seemed bursting with expression as he said,
'Renounce Christ? save life by renouncing Christ? How little, Varus,
dost thou know what a Christian is! Not though I might sit in thy seat
or Aurelian's, or on the throne of a new universe, would I renounce him.
To Christ, Varus, do I owe it that I am not now what I was, when I dwelt
in the caves of the Flavian. To Christ do I owe it that I am not now
what I was when in the ranks of Aurelian. To Christ do I owe it that my
soul, once steeped in sin as thy robe in purple dye, is now by him
cleansed and, as I trust, thoroughly purged. To Christ do I owe it that
once worshipping the dumb idols of Roman superstition, I now bow down to
the only living God--' 'Away with him to the tormentors!' came from an
hundred voices--'to Christ do I owe it, O Prefect, that my heart is not
now as thine, or his who sits beside thee, or as that of these,
hungering and thirsting--never after righteousness--but for the blood of
the innocent. Shall I then renounce Christ? and then worship that
ancient adulterer, Jupiter greatest and best?--' The hall here rang with
the ferocious cries of those who shouted--
'Give him over to us!'--'To the rack with him!'--'Tear out the tongue of
the blaspheming Galilean!'
'Romans,' cried Varus, rising from his chair, 'let not your zeal for the
gods cause you to violate the sanctity of this room of Justice. Fear not
but Varus, who, as you well know, is a lover of the gods, his country,
and the city, will well defend their rights and honors against whoever
shall assail them.'
He then turned to Macer and said,
'I should ill perform my duty to thee, Christian, did I spare any effort
to bring thee to a better mind--ill should I perform it for Rome did I
not use all the means by the State entrusted to me to save her citizens
from errors that, once taking root and growing up to their proper
height, would soon overshadow, and by their poisonous neighborhood kill,
that faith venerable through a thousand years, and of all we now inherit
from our ancestors of greatest and best, the fruitful and divine
spring.'
'There, Romans, spoke a Roman,' exclaimed Fronto.
As Varus ended--at a sign and a word from him, what seemed the solid
wall of the room in which we were, suddenly flew up upon its screaming
pulleys, and revealed another apartment black as night, save here and
there where a dull torch shed just light enough to show its great
extent, and set in horrid array before us, engines of every kind for
tormenting criminals, each attended by its half-naked minister, ready at
a moment's warning to bind the victim, and put in motion the infernal
machinery. At this sight a sudden faintness overspread my limbs, and I
would willingly have rushed from the hall--but it was then made
impossible. And immediately the voice of the Prefect was again heard:
'Again, Christian, with Rome's usual mercy, I freely offer to thee thy
life, simply on the condition, easily fulfilled by thee, for it asks but
one little word from thy lips, that thou do, for thy own sake and for
the sake of Rome, which thou sayest thou lovest, renounce Christ and thy
faith.'
'I have answered thee once, O Prefect; dost thou think so meanly of me
as to suppose that what but now I affirmed, I will now deny, and only
for this show of iron toys and human demons set to play them? It is not
of such stuff Aurelian's men are made, much less the soldiers of the
cross. For the love I bear to Rome and Christ, and even thee, Varus, I
choose to die.'
'Be assured, Christian, I will not spare thee.'
'I ask it not, Prefect--do thy worst--and the worst is but death, which
is life.'
'Pangs that shall keep thee hours dying,' cried the Prefect--'thy body
racked and rent--torn piecemeal one part from another--this is worse
than death. Bethink thee well. Do not believe that Varus will relent.'
'That were the last thing to find faith with one who knows him as well
as Macer does,' replied the Christian.
A flush of passion passed over the face of Varus. But he proceeded in
the same even tone,
'Is thy election made, Macer?'
'It is made.'
'Slaves,' cried the Prefect, 'away with him to the rack, and ply it
well.'
'Yes,' repeated Pronto, springing with eager haste from his seat, that
he might lose nothing of what was to be seen or heard, 'away with him to
the rack, and ply it well.'
Unmoved and unresisting, his face neither pale nor his limbs trembling,
did Macer surrender himself into the hands of those horrid ministers of
a cruel and bloody faith, who then hastily approached him, and seizing
him dragged him toward their worse than hell. Accomplished in their art,
for every day is it put to use, Macer was in a moment thrown down and
lashed to the iron bars; when, each demon having completed the
preparation, he stood leaning upon his wheel for a last sign from the
Prefect. It was instantly given, and while the breath even of every
being in the vast hall was suspended, through an intense interest in the
scene, the creating of the engine, as it began to turn, sounded upon the
brain like thunder. Not a groan nor a sigh was heard from the sufferer.
The engine turned till it seemed as if any body or substance laid upon
it must have been wrenched asunder. Then it stopt. And the minutes
counted to me like hours or ages ere the word was given, and the wheels
unrestrained flew back again to their places. Macer was then unbound. He
at first lay where he was thrown upon the pavement. But his life was yet
strong within his iron frame. He rose at length upon his feet, and was
again led to the presence of his judges. His eye had lost nothing of its
wild fire, nor his air any thing of its lofty independence.
Varus again addressed him.
'Christian, you have felt what there is in Roman justice. Reject not
again what Roman mercy again offers thee--life freely, honor too, and
office, if thou wilt return once more to the bosom of the fond mother
who reared thee.'
'Yes,' said Fronto, 'thy mother who reared thee! Die not with the double
guilt of apostacy and ingratitude upon thy soul.'
'Varus,' said Macer, 'art thou a fool, a very fool, to deem that thy
word can weigh more with me than Christ? Make not thyself a
laughingstock to me and such Christians as may be here. The torments of
thy importunity are worse to me than those of thy engines.'
'I wish thee well, Macer; 'tis that which makes me thus a fool,'
'So, Varus, does Satan wish his victim well, to whom he offers his
luscious baits. But what is it when the bait is swallowed, and hell is
all that has been gained? What should I gain, but to live with thee, O
greater fool?'
'Think, Macer, of thy wife and children.'
At those names, Macer bent his head and folded his hands upon his
breast, and tears rolled down his cheeks. Till then there had been, as
it seemed, a blessed forgetfulness of all but himself and the scene
before him. Varus, misinterpreting this his silence, and taking it for
the first sign of repentance, hastily cried out,
'There is the altar, Macer.--Slave! hold to him the sacred libation; he
will now pour it out.'
Instantly a slave held out to him a silver ladle filled with wine.
Macer at the same instant struck it with his sinewy arm and sent it
whirling to the ceiling.
'Bind him again to the rack,' cried the Prefect, leaping from his seat;
'and let him have it till the nerves break.'
Macer was again seized and stretched upon the iron bed--this time upon
another, of different construction, and greater power. Again the
infernal machine was worked by the naked slaves, and, as it was wound
up, inflicting all that it was capable of doing without absolutely
destroying life, groans and screams of fierce agony broke from the
suffering Christian. How long our ears were assailed by those terrific
cries, I cannot say. They presently died away, as I doubted not, only
because Macer himself had expired under the torment. When they had
wholly ceased, the engine was reversed and Macer again unbound. He fell
lifeless upon the floor. Varus, who had sat the while conversing with
Fronto, now said,
'Revive him, and return him hither.'
Water was then thrown upon him, and powerful drinks were forced down his
throat. They produced in a little while their intended effect, and Macer
gave signs of returning life. He presently gazed wildly around him, and
came gradually to a consciousness of where and what he was. His limbs
refused their office, and he was supported and partly lifted to the
presence of Varus.
'Now, Galilean,' cried Varus, 'again, how is it with thee?'
'Better than with thee, I trust in God.'
'Wilt thou now sacrifice?'
'I am myself, O Varus, this moment a sacrifice, well pleasing and
acceptable to the God whom I worship, and the Master whom I serve.'
'Why, Varus,' said Fronto, 'do we bear longer his insults and impieties?
Let me strike him dead.' And he moved his hand as if to grasp a
concealed weapon, with which to do it.
'Nay, nay, hold, Fronto! let naught be done in haste or passion, nor in
violation of the law, but all calmly and in order. We act for those who
are not present as well as for ourselves.'
A voice from a dark extremity of the room shouted out,
'It is Macer, O Prefect, who acts for us.'
The face of Macer brightened up, as if he had suddenly been encompassed
by a legion of friends. It was the first token he had received, that so
much as one heart in the whole assembly was beating with his. He looked
instantly to the quarter whence the voice came, and then, turning to the