Aurelian; or, Rome in the Third Century
describe to you the events of it, as they have occurred.
It was in the banqueting hall of the imperial palace on the Palatine,
that Probus was directed to appear, and defend his cause before the
Emperor. It is a room of great size, and beautiful in its proportions
and decorations. A row of marble pillars adorns each longer side of the
apartment. Its lofty ceiling presents to the eye in allegory, and in
colors that can never fade, Rome victorious over the world. The great
and good of Rome's earlier days stand around, in marble or brass, upon
pedestals, or in niches, sunk into the substance of the walls. And where
the walls are not thus broken, pictures wrought upon them, set before
the beholder many of the scenes in which the patriots of former days
achieved or suffered for the cause of their country. Into this
apartment, soon as it was thrown open, poured a crowd both of Christians
and Pagans, of Romans and of strangers from every quarter of the world.
There was scarcely a remote province of the empire that had not there
its representative; and from the far East, discernible at once by their
costume, were many present, who seemed interested not less than others
in the great questions to be agitated. Between the two central columns
upon the western side, just beneath the pedestal of a colossal statue of
Vespasian, the great military idol of Aurelian, upon a seat slightly
raised above the floor, having on his right hand Livia and Julia, sat
the Emperor. He was surrounded by his favorite generals and the chief
members of the senate, seated, or else standing against the columns or
statues which were near him. There too, at the side of, or immediately
before, Aurelian, but placed lower, were Porphyrius, Varus, Fronto, and
half the priesthood of Rome. A little way in front of the Emperor, and
nearly in the centre of the room, stood Probus.
If Aurelian sat in his chair of gold, looking the omnipotent master of
all the world, as if no mere mortal force could drive him from the place
he held and filled--Probus, on his part, though he wanted all that air
of pride and self-confidence written upon every line of Aurelian's face
and form, yet seemed like one, who, in the very calmness of an
unfaltering trust in a goodness and power above that of earth, was in
perfect possession of himself, and fearless of all that man might say or
do. His face was pale; but his eye was clear. His air was that of a man
mild and gentle, who would not injure willingly the meanest thing
endowed with life; but of a man too of that energy and inward strength
of purpose, that he would not on the other hand suffer an injury to be
done to another, if any power lodged within him could prevent it. It was
that of a man to be loved, and yet to be feared; whose compassion you
might rely upon; but whose indignation at wrong and injustice might also
be relied upon, whenever the weak or the oppressed should cry out for
help against the strong and the cruel.
No sooner had Aurelian seated himself, and the thronged apartment become
still, than he turned to those who were present and said,
'That the Christians had desired this audience before him and the sacred
senate, and he had therefore granted them their request. And he was now
here, to listen to whatever they might urge in their behalf. But,' said
he, 'I tell them now, as I have told them before, that it can be of no
avail. The acts of former Emperors, from Nero to the present hour, have
sufficiently declared what the light is in which a true Roman should
view the superstition that would supplant the ancient worship of the
gods. It is enough for me, that such is the acknowledged aim, and
asserted tendency and operation of this Jewish doctrine. No merits of
any kind can atone for the least injury it might inflict upon that
venerable order of religious worship which, from the time of Romulus,
has exercised over us its benignant influence, and, doubtless, by the
blessings it has drawn down upon us from the gods, crowned our arms with
a glory the world has never known before--putting under our feet every
civilized kingdom from the remotest East to the farthest West, and
striking terror into the rude barbarians of the German forests.
Nevertheless, they shall be heard; and if it is from thee, Christian,
that we are to know what thy faith is, let us now hear whatever it is in
thy heart to say. There shall no bridle be put upon thee; but thou hast
freest leave to utter what thou wilt. There is nothing of worst
concerning either Rome or her worship, her rulers or her altars, her
priesthood or her gods, but thou mayest pour it forth in such measure as
shall please thee, and no one shall say thee nay. Now say on; the day
and the night are before thee.'
'I shall require, great Emperor,' replied Probus, 'but little of either;
yet I thank thee, and all of our name who are here present thank thee,
for the free range which thou hast offered. I thank thee too, and so do
we all, for the liberty of frank and undisturbed speech, which thou hast
assured to me. Yet shall I not use it to malign either the Romans or
their faith. It is not with anger and fierce denunciation, O Emperor,
that it becomes the advocate, of what he believes to be a religion from
Heaven, to assail the adherents of a religion like this of Rome,
descended to the present generation through so many ages, and which all
who have believed it in times past, and all who believe it now, do hold
to be true and woven into the very life of the state--the origin of its
present greatness, and without which it must fall asunder into final
ruin, the bond that held it together being gone. If the religion of Rome
be false, or really injurious, it is not the generations now living who
are answerable for its existence formerly or now, nor for the
principles, truths, or rites, which constitute it. They have received
it, as they have received a thousand customs which are now among them,
by inheritance from the ancestors who bequeathed them, which they
received at too early an age to judge concerning their fitness or
unfitness, but to which, for the reason of that early reception, they
have become fondly attached, even as to parents, brothers, and sisters,
from whom they have never been divided. It becomes not the Christian,
therefore, to load with reproaches those who are placed where they are,
not by their own will, but by the providence of the Great Ruler. Neither
does it become you of the Roman faith to reproach us for the faith to
which we adhere; because the greater proportion of us also have
inherited our religion, as you yours, from parents and a community who
professed it before us, and all regard it as heaven-descended, and so
proved to be divine, that without inexpiable guilt we may not refuse to
accept it. It must be in the face of reason, then, and justice, in the
face of what is both wise and merciful, if either should judge harshly
of the other.
'Besides, what do I behold in this wide devotion of the Roman people to
the religion of their ancestors, but a testimony, beautiful for the
witness it bears, to the universality of that principle or feeling,
which binds the human heart to some god or gods, in love and worship?
The worship may be wrong, or greatly imperfect, and sometimes injurious;
the god or gods may be so conceived of, as to act with hurtful
influences upon human character and life; still it is religion; it is a
sentiment that raises the thoughts of the humble and toilworn from the
earthly and the perishing, to the heavenly and the eternal. And this,
though accompanied by some or many rites shocking to humanity, and
revolting to reason, is better than that men were, in this regard, no
higher nor other than brutes; but received their being as they do
theirs, they know not whence, and when they lose it, depart like them,
they know not and care not whither. In the religious character of the
Roman people--for religious in the earlier ages of this empire they
eminently were, and they are religious now, though in less degree--I
behold and acknowledge the providence of God, who has so framed us that
our minds tend by resistless force to himself; satisfied at first with
low and crude conceptions, but ever aspiring after those that shall be
worthier and worthier.
'And now, O Emperor, for the same reason that we believe God the
creator did implant in us all, of all tribes and tongues, this deep
desire to know, worship, and enjoy him, so that no people have ever been
wholly ignorant of him, do we believe that he has, in these latter
years, declared himself to mankind more plainly than he did in the
origin of things, or than he does through our own reason, so that men
may, by such better knowledge of himself and of all necessary truth
which he has imparted, be raised to a higher virtue on earth, and made
fit for a more exalted life in heaven. We believe that he has thus
declared himself by him whom you have heard named as the Master and Lord
of the Christian, and after whom they are called, Jesus Christ. Him, God
the creator, we believe, sent into the world to teach a better religion
than the world had; and to break down and forever destroy, through the
operation of his truth, a thousand injurious forms of false belief. It
is this religion which we would extend, and impart to those who will
open their minds to consider its claims, and their hearts to embrace its
truths, when they have once been seen to be divine. This has been our
task and our duty in Rome, to beseech you not blindly to receive, but
strictly to examine, and, if found to be true, then humbly and
gratefully to adopt this new message from above--'
'By the gods, Aurelian,' exclaimed Porphyrius, 'these Christians are
kindly disposed! their benevolence and their philosophy are alike. We
are obliged to them--'
'Not now, Porphyrius,' said Aurelian. 'Disturb not the Christian. Say
on, Probus.'
'We hope,' continued Probus, nothing daunted by the scornful jeers of
the philosopher, 'that we are sincerely desirous of your welfare, and so
pray that in the lapse of years all may, as some have done, take at our
hands the good we proffer them; for, sure we are, that would all so
receive it, Rome would tower upwards with a glory and a beauty that
should make her a thousand-fold more honored and beloved than now, and
her roots would strike down, and so fasten themselves in the very centre
of the earth, that well might she then be called the Eternal City. Yet,
O Emperor, though such is our aim and purpose; though we would propagate
a religion from God, and, in doing so, are willing to labor our lives
long, and, if need be, die in the sacred cause, yet are we charged as
atheists. The name by which we are known, as much as by that of
Christian, is atheist--'
'Such, I have surely believed you,' said Porphyrius, again breaking in,
'and, at this moment, do.'
'But it is a name, Aurelian, fixed upon us ignorantly or slanderously;
ignorantly, I am willing to believe. We believe in a God, O Emperor; it
is to him we live, and to him we die. The charge of atheism I thus
publicly deny, as do all Christians who are here, as would all
throughout the world with one acclaim, were they also here, and would
all seal their testimony, if need were, with their blood. We believe in
God; not in many gods, some greater and some lesser, as with you, and
whose forms are known and can be set forth in images and statues--but in
one, one God, the sole monarch of the universe; whom no man, be he never
so cunning, can represent in wood, or brass, or stone; whom, so to
represent in any imaginary shape, our faith denounces as unlawful and
impious. Hence it is, O Emperor, because the vulgar, when they enter our
churches or our houses, see there no image of god or goddess, that they